#ive never used felt as a patch before but it was very fun!

[theartofmadeline]

“hell is real” felt patch sewn onto an upcycled flannel. inspired by the ohio billboard

[mueritos]

Hey! I’m getting my top surgery soon (it got moved back, so I have more time to worry about it) and I was wondering how your in-hospital experience was, since that’s what I’m most worried about.

Hi!! In the hospital I am referred to as Matteo in the system, though my legal name is there too. There was a lil mix up when the first nurse brought me into the prep room and she used my birthname, but when she was looking for my name in the system, i had to correct her because she was looking for my birthname. She apologized and said she should have checked on the file, but also on my wristband “Matteo” didnt fit entirely on it, so it’s cut off lmao. Overall I had no issues, everyone called me Matteo and he and it all felt very nice. You get changed into a gown and you have to wipe yourself down. The worst part was them getting an IV in, that shit is GHASTLY and PAINFUL AS FUUUCK. never again do I want a needle digging into my VEIN that shit sucked so bad I almost passed out LMFAO so prep yourself for that shit. Your surgeon might draw on you while youre awake but there was a nurse in the room while that happened. It felt kinda cool to watch him draw on my boobs lol. You’ll also meet your anesthesiologist before going under, snd they’ll explain the process and whether you have side effects. Here you should ask for anti naseau medicine or patch if you get very sick like me. Also you’re probably going to get the iv in pretty early because they’ll need fluids for you to PISS because they make u take a pregnancy test. Its just something we have to do as people with uteruses and before going under general anesthesia. If you need to pee before surgery, consider holding it so you dont have to struggle for an hour and a half like me getting an iv in and pissing like four ml into a cup LMAO

They’ll either wheel you or walk you into the surgery room and tje whole time i was crackin jokes. Kinda helps me calm down maybe itll do the same for u. You’ll meet the team, like the assistant to the anesthesiologist and the other nurses/surgeons. You get onto the surgery table and lay down (you’ll be naked under your gown btw). They will strap you in for safety around the waist and arms, snd you’ll be in a t pose position laying down. They’ll get an oxygen mask onto you. I was told that they were gonna give me something to sedate me snd calm me down, and i felt the coldness of that fluid in my iv and veins. After that my body felt heavy, the anesthesiologist came in and let me know she was gonna put me under. I said thanks guys have fun and then knocked out to Radio Gaga (the assistant anesthesiologist was playing Queen). I woke up to my first nurse giving me ice chips lol. You’ll be woken up either in your recovery room or the recovery area. I was in the recovery area and once I was awake, they wheeled me back to the room i was prepped in. Apparently I was there for a lil over an hour before being coherent enough to be wheeled out and go home. You will likely be told to try drinking something, and I did try, and I threw up a couple times. The relief after I vommed was DOPE, so if you get sick after anesthesia, all i gotta say is to just let yourself throw up. You will feel much better after.

After that you are home! I tried to explain what I could and I hope that its enough to give you an idea of what to expect when you go in. Good luck in your own surgery!

[ot3]

i do think people are overreacting with the '3 years of updates' thing because that is not what was said, it was one line in an interview where someone said "i hope that fans will continue to play for the next 2-3 years and find new things in the game" which is completely feasible for someone who is not time travelling and not playing multiple hours every day. not that those are bad things of course, i do both of those things! but there is already a lot of content in animal crossing, it was all given for free except for a dlc that was originally a different game, and honestly as someone who has played 600 hours, a lot of mileage to get out of a game and more time than i've been able to put into any other games, i can say with confidence that i feel animal crossing was a complete game on release, and while the updates have added a lot of great content, i was enjoying myself just fine with the base game.

with something like pokemon, another which is clearly putting devs under pressure and releasing games like sword and shield which i finished in 30 hours including post game, even after spending plenty of time in the wild areas and not like. rushing through it. when previous pokemon games have typically taken me about 50-60 hours and felt very easy to spend more time in afterwards. i feel like the complaints are easy to make especially after 2 paid dlcs were added. but idk animal crossing definitely didnt feel like that to me personally.

you're completely misunderstanding what my problem with animal crossing was. i want the EXACT OPPOSITE of continuing major updates. i think updating it for 2-3 years after it launches is a bad thing. i think if you pay $60 for a product you should get the product fully realized as intended. the only reason that's not what we're getting is because big companies have realized they can use the goodwill of a dedicated consumer base to construct predatory development models that churn out games before they're finished and patch in the content, and fans will act like they're being done a favor.

as someone who literally never time traveled at all and played the game 100% as intended, i did not feel like it was a complete game at all personally. the furniture selection was so limited that decorating was barely any fun and there wasn't much else to do but that. like, it's great that you were enjoying yourself with the base game but that doesn't change the fact that I definitely wasn't. the fact that there has been this much free DLC, dlc which i might add contains stuff that (i believe based on what ive heard, i haven't played them) other games had at launch, i think proves the point that nintendo believes they were obligated to deliver beyond the initial experience in order to match the price point. multibillion dollar corporations do not give things away for free for no reason.

i'm not even opposed to the concept of paid dlc on principle if it really adds some; for example i bought botw and had a dope time with the base game which really felt like a complete and worthwhile game, but i also bought the dlc because i think it genuinely added worthwhile stuff and fun new ways to play that were not necessary for the base game to be good.

I can't compare it to the pokemon games because i also haven't played any pokemon games either, but I don't think saying "this game is fine because other games are worse" is a great argument. general consensus around people who love the older gen pokemon games is that these new ones suck ass so I think it's an unfairly low bar to use as comparison. nintendo is once again one fo the largest video game companies on the planet and a multibillion dollar entity. i don't feel bad holding them to high standards for their games.

[tinogiehd]

NO LITERALLY im going to sound a little insane for a second. but george in florida has never seemed like a real tangible thing to me bc ive only srs florida truthed and genuinely thought something was Happening like once and outside of that ive always just had fun with it and remained skeptical. but its like Real and Tangible and Soon and it has never felt like a real thing that was eventually gonna happen before it was just a distant future that was hard to imagine becoming real. but now it does and does anyone else feel a little dizzy and like everything is moving really fast all of a sudden and like they arent going to survive the month of september. like dnf meetup. we're gonna know what dream looks like. george meeting patches. the meetup vlog dropping and us probably seeing dnf hug as they meet for the first time. george's first stream from florida where he looks. so happy. and is literally just beaming brighter than the sun. owbiuebwghelbgiuergn my scrunklies i am so happy for them but im not ready

anon i resonate with you on a deep and spiritual level, i’ve liked to speculate on time frames but i never really truthed bc i trust dream to tell us when. it sort of became like preparing for a power outage during a storm; you know it could happen- it’s very likely to happen- but you don’t really believe it until you see it. we’re just before that stage, and the wind is picking up and it’s thundering and shit and it’s like oh my god this is inevitable now but everything is still disconnected because it hasn’t happened yet. but it’s also coming so quickly that i feel under prepared even though we’ve had a year of preparation and another month to go like i seriously am dizzy and crazy and oh my god they’re going to meet and we’re going to see it and george is going to be glowing just like he was when he met quackity and sapnap except it’ll be different because it’ll be forever this time around. and then we’ll see dream for the first time on one of the happiest days of his life and everything will fall into place and i’mseriously going to be inconsolable

[theheartsmistakes]

The Last Night Part XXI

A/N at the End:

Parts I-XIX:

Here is Part I

Here is Part II

Here is Part III

Here is Part IV

Here is Part V

Here is Part VI

Here is Part VII

Here is Part VIII

Here is Part IX

Here is Part X

Here is Part XI

Here is Part XII

Part XIII

Part XIV

Part XV

Part XVI

Part XVII

Part XVIII

Part XIX

Part XX

.XXI.

The cluster of ewes kept a respectful distance on their side of the fence, heads lifted now and then to watch the pair walking along the empty country road. Cordelia avoided a rather large puddle, filled over with dark murky water, and resumed her step with James on the other side. They were losing the light, and the setting sun had tinged the clouds a golden rose that glowed against the cold flat blue of the dusk.

James, tucked his hands into his pockets and resumed his guided tour. “I’m terribly sorry about having to abandon the carriage. It’s never clear how the wheels are going to weather the roads after a storm.”

“Another added to perk to Algernon,” said Cordelia.

“I’ll pretend you never said that and that you didn’t just use its given name. Matthew needs no further encouragement” said James and nudged her with his shoulder. “You know, Magnus owns this whole estate?”

“Really?” Cordelia looked across the narrow, feudal fields of rich red earth and verdant pasture sloping gently down from either side to form the shallow valley of the village, thinking how furious her father would have been to know that a Downworlder owned all of this. He hated the concept of massive estates. “That’s quite impressive.”

“He inherited it apparently. He owns everything— the pastures, the village, everything. Has done for nearly two centuries. Although he’s sold a lot of it in the past century or given it away, but he insists that the architecture be kept the same. That’s why some of the houses look sprung up from the colonies. Neo-Natalian, they call it, that flat-topped design. And that small cottage with the blue smoke coming out of the shoot”— he pointed down into the valley— “that’s his. Not too far to go. Are you alright?”

Cordelia tucked her hands into her coat pockets. “A little walking never bothered me. I would wonder around all over Tehran when I was a child. Alastair would grovel while I dragged him through the streets from one street merchant to the next.”

Squinting a little, Cordelia studied the westernmost end of the road, mentally comparing the earthy tones of England to the desert warmth of her homeland.

“I imagine it was beautiful,” said James.

“It was,” she said with a nod. “Though a different kind of beautiful than I imagine you’re accustomed to. The beauty lies inside of the city, with the people, the culture. It’s like every sense you have comes to life and you come to life. The air is so filled with spices and burning incense that you can taste it in your mouth. The language being spoken by neighbors sounded more like water trickling in a brook then the clumsy verbiage of English. Some streets were covered in rugs being woven and silks being beaded. It is its own piece of the world and could never be replicated.”

“You miss it.”

It wasn’t a question, but she answered as if it were. “Almost everyday.”

“Almost?”

Cordelia carefully avoided another puddle. “As I’ve told you before,” she started as they merged back together. “I grew up very much alone. I didn’t speak the language well— English being my first language, and the children often poked fun at my clothes or the way that I spoke. I had Alastair, but well, we both know how he can be.”

They began the slow descent now into the valley, not more than ten yards distant from the small cottage with the blue smoke chimney. If she was going to have this conversation with James, then she needed to start it now. She cleared her throat. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about what happened the other night. You have to understand that, there was once a time when Alastair and I— we were all each had in the world. And in that time, he protected me from a lot more than I realized and I don’t think he ever learned how to stop.”

“You don’t need to apologize for him, Cordelia,” said James. “As a brother myself, I understand perfectly well what he was doing and if a man had treated my sister the way that I treated you—even unknowingly— I would have flattened him to the gravel before he had a chance to speak. At least Alastair gave me a chance to explain myself before threatening to brazen me.”

Cordelia smiled. “He’ll probably never like you.”

James laughed and Cordelia’s heart responded to the sound. They’d come to the edge of the cottage’s property now, and the cottage seemed to be waiting for them.

“Then it’s a fine thing that it’s not his approval I seek,” said James, an eyebrow arched. “But I know he means a great deal to you.”

“He does,” she answered quietly.

She felt small in the shadow of the old cottage. The stone walls rose covered in a thin veil of moss and bright colored mushrooms. It was a narrow structure, hard and angular, save for the turret-like structure at one corner that probably sheltered a stairwell inside.

Reaching out, Cordelia ran her hand caressingly over the cold stones as they walked past. “Should we knock?” She asked, unsure how to approach the home of a high warlock— much less one with Magnus Bane’s social standing in the Shadowhunter community.

“Yes, I think so. He left specific instructions not to step on his azaleas,” said James, giving a flower bed full of the illusive purple flowers a wide berth.

He walked ahead of her towards the door tucked into the shadows of the wide porch. Cordelia’s trailing fingers snagged on something sharp, and she pulled her hand back, breaking contact with the stone wall.

“Curious,” said Cordelia, examining her finger tip where a small bead of blood now bloomed. “How does he get azaleas to grow this time of year.”

“I plant the bulbs in early winter,” said a voice from the porch, followed by a curl of smoke that drifted away into the air in the shape of a small white rabbit. “They freeze in the earth, then thaw in the summer, just in time for the rains to make everything moist. They’ll bloom until January.”

Magnus Bane emerged, resting his patched elbows on the porch banister. His eyes flickered, cat-like between the two shadow hunters on his lawn, and as a feline grin changed his face. “Come in,” he said, “it’s getting cold. And these hills are notorious gossips.”

Cordelia stepped through the front door, through the white-painted foray with the checkerboard floor. It smelled sharply of cut wood and coal dust and damp quarry tile.

“When I sent the letter, I expected to be invited back to your flat in London,” said James as he started unbuttoning his coat. “I hadn’t expected to be invited to the cottage. I haven’t been here since New Years of 99’ when you hosted that party.”

Magnus chuckled. “Yes, I faintly remember you and Matthew getting merry on spiced rum. One of you fell asleep in the antlers of my stag wall ornament.”

James blushed. “I have no recollection of that.”

“You wouldn’t, would you?” said Magnus. “It was very good spiced rum.”

James cleared his throat and quickly went to help Cordelia with her coat.

“Speaking of drinks, can I offer either of you something?” asked Magnus, lifting his hands towards the arched passageway into the kitchen. “I have fresh coffee, tea, biscuits, or a plate of chutney if you’re feeling peckish.”

Cordelia shrugged off her coat, and handed it off to James to hang beside his own. “I’ll take tea, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Magnus’s eyes flickered. “It’s not too much trouble at all.” Faint blue smoke curled from his fingertips as he snapped them. Cordelia heard the shuffling of glassware in the kitchen, but could not see who might be inside. “Follow me, we can sit in the front room with the fire so you can warm yourself.”

They followed the warlock through the arched walkway into the adjacent room. The large fireplace stacked with a glowing wood pile that crackled but didn’t seem to burn stood center against the forest green papered wall. A mural of Magnus sitting on a sofa with his ankles crossed and a gray cat in his lap hung over the gold painted mantle lined with fresh garland. Cordelia felt the texture of the floor change under her boots and looked down to notice the grand Persian rug underneath her feet. The style and design must have been over a hundred years old. She wanted to place her hands on it, to smell it, and see if there was anything left of its original home left on it, but resisted the strange urge by taking her seat in one of the wingback chairs that faced the fire.

James took his seat in the couple of her chair.

Magnus chose to stand beside the fireplace. “Your choice in correspondence has left me quite intrigued. It’s not often that one of your kind asks my permission before showing up at my doorstep. You either don’t want anyone to know you’re here or one of you has been raised with manners.”

“When have I ever just shown up at your doorstep?” asked James.

“Who said I was referring to you?” said Magnus, his eyes flickered to James’s wrist. “Aw, broken free from the manacle, I see. How did you manage it? Is that what this is about then?”

James gripped his wrist with his other hand. He glanced to Cordelia, probably weighing her reaction, and then back to Magnus. “We’re not here for me. It’s Cordelia.”

Magnus crossed his arms over his chest. “Aw, the young miss Carstairs. You look much better since I last saw you. You seem to have recovered nicely since your rendezvous with the prince of hell.”

“I wouldn’t call it a rendezvous as much as an unsuccessful kidnapping,” said Cordelia and allowed the comfort of Cortana strapped to her back to fight off the memory of being held against her will. Perhaps it was best that she didn’t remember any of it. What if he’d done something unspeakable to her.

“Tell me what ails you and I will see if I can help,” said Magnus.

“When I woke from my coma,” said Cordelia, taking a deep breath, “its seems that I have forgotten everything after the moment I got into the carriage with my brother to go to Alicante. I don’t remember being attacked, I don’t remember Belial, and I don’t remember how I got back except for what Lucie and James have told me. We were hoping that you would be able to gain access to my memories to hopefully learn what we can about Belial and his plan.”

“Curious.” Magnus tipped his head and thought for a moment, seeking a reply. “But you did hit your head rather hard in the attack, did you not? It could just be that your brain became scrambled just a bit and you’ve only temporarily forgotten.”

Cordelia and James glanced at each other. “That might be so,” said James, “but if Belial disclosed any information about his plan on how to capture me as his host to Cordelia and erased her memories as she was escaping, then perhaps her memories are key to his defeat.”

“Perhaps.” He looked between the two of them. “Unfortunately for you, your very concerned parents have requested that if you were to come to me, I not assist you.”

Cordelia and James both dropped their shoulders in dejection.

“Fortunately for them,” started Magnus, “in assisting you, I am actually assisting them, which they also asked me to do.” He examined some dust on the mantle. “This is a tough decision.”

A silver tray topped with a simple white teapot and three cups drifted into the room and gently bumped into Magnus’s shoulder. Without looking, he waved it away. “None for me, thank you.”

Cordelia watched as the tray floated over to the elegant wooden table and sank down with a delicate rattle.

“Cream or sugar?” Magnus asked.

“Just cream,” requested Cordelia.

The pot and the milk jar lifted and poured simultaneously into an awaiting tea cup. Cordelia’s mouth gaped as she watched.

“You never fail to dazzle,” said James.

“I invented the word, boy,” grinned Magnus as the tea and cup soared to Cordelia’s awaiting hands. “And don’t you forget it. But, now, back to our predicament. No one else has tried to access these lost memories?”

Cordelia swallowed a mouthful of hot earl grey tea. “The Silent Brothers refused as my mind was still healing from the trauma. They fear it might cause irreversible damage.”

Magnus frowned. “They’re right. Playing with magic in someone’s mind is incredibly dangerous. Especially when it comes to memories. Just the slightest wrong touch and you could forget entirely who you are.”

The teacup rattled on the saucer in Cordelia’s hand. James reached over and placed a hand on her knee.

“You needn’t go through with it, Cordelia,” he said gently. “We’ll wait for the memories to return.”

“What if they don’t?” She reached forward to set her tea back on the table lest she spill it all over Magnus’s gorgeous rug or plush velvet arm chair. “Can you do it? Do you think you can access them without—“

Magnus studied his polished fingernails. “I can try, but despite what some might believe, there are no guarantees when it comes to magic.”

Cordelia glanced over at James beside her. He was already studying her face; his expression was gentle and considering. They’d come all this way and they’d gone through all of the trouble to lie to everyone and she had promised to help in any way that she could to defeat Belial. Still, she knew that if she decided she didn’t want to go through with it, he’d leave this cottage with her and they’d find another way.

But there was always a trust in everyone’s voices when they talked about the infamous Magnus Bane. She’d heard stories of his camaraderie and bravery with the Shadowhunter community for years. The other thing that could possibly match his style and class would be his power.  

“Let’s try,” she said with as much confidence as she could bear to muster.

“Cordelia,” James started. “Are you absolutely certain?”

“No,” said Cordelia, “but you trust him, do you not?”

“With my life,” said James.

Magnus grinned down at his suede boots, pretending not to be listening, or at least not to have any interest in the exchange.

“Then I trust him too. Besides,” she said as she leaned forward to pick up her teacup. “His magic makes a delicious cup of tea and if that’s any indication of his abilities, then I feel completely safe.”

Magnus snapped his fingers and the tray of tea disappeared from the table. He pointed to James next. “James, you lay that blanket over the table. Cordelia, lay on top.”

They did as they were instructed. James removed the tightly knit afghan from the back of the chair and over the coffee table with it. Cordelia sat and swung her legs over until she could recline back in a position that made her feel entirely too vulnerable.

Magnus rolled up his sleeves to his elbows and rubbed his hands together creating sparks between his palms. He came around the table and kneeled down behind Cordelia’s head.

James knelt beside her and offered her his hand. “Perhaps you’d rather wait in the library? This could take some time and may not be pleasant.”

James brushed a strand of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. “I don’t have to go anywhere if you’d prefer me here.”

“Actually, it might be better if you left the room,” said Magnus. “It will give Cordelia a chance to speak more freely and I don’t need the concerned significant other hovering over my shoulder while I am trying to work in the delicate details of the human consciousness.”

Cordelia took his hand and squeezed it. “He’s right.”

James leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I won’t be far.”

She nodded and reluctantly let his hand go as he stood.

Once James left the room, Cordelia felt the cool press of Magnus’s fingertips against her temple. “When you’re comfortable, close your eyes for me, Cordelia.”

After several deep breaths, Cordelia let her eyes close and focused her attention on the gentle rush of Magnus’s breath through his nose and the crackling of the fire wood.

“What’s the first thing that you remember from that night?”

Cordelia let the memories rush past her strangely warped and out of order. The first thing that came to mind was standing before James. “I said goodbye to James. I’d broken our engagement and was leaving London for Alicante with my brother.”

The warmth of the tears on her cheeks, the weight in her chest, the ache in her throat, she recalled all of it as if it were happening again. “I remember leaving James. I climbed into the carriage with Alastair. We started arguing. I told him of my plans to join the Iron Sisters when we returned to Alicante. He was so angry with me. He forbade me from doing it. He nearly turned the carriage around when we felt a jolt, as if we lost a wheel, and the carriage stopped.”

The picture in her mind started to become disfigured. Alastair stood in the darkness, a spear in his hands as he yelled something out to her.

“What was that?” Cordelia asked, pushing herself up to her knees.

“I’m not sure.” Alastair reached for the door. “Stay here. I’ll see what’s going on.”

“I’m coming with you.”

The memory started rippling apart like a stone thrown into still waters.

“Hold onto it, Cordelia,” said Magnus. “There’s a block on your memories, but fight through it.”

“Cyril!”

“Run, Miss Carstairs, run.”

The memory shuddered again.

Alastair stood in front of her with a spear in his right hand, held out in front of them ready to empale whatever or whomever came near. At some point, he had abandoned his waist coat and tie. His eyes danced sharply around them. “Draw Cortana, I believe we’re under—“

Then, there was blood everywhere, more blood than she thought she’d ever seen in her life. Head wounds bleed the worst, she told herself. It was fine. He would be fine.

“Cordelia.” More blood seeped from between Alastair’s lips, staining his teeth. “You— It wants—“

A sharp pain lanced through her ribcage, stealing her breath.

“It’s not real, Cordelia,” said Magnus. “It’s just a memory. Keep going.”

It was dark, that much Cordelia could tell, and it was cold. So cold the tips of her fingers ached. She was flat on her stomach, laying on something hard- stone possibly— that chilled her to her core. A dull, but intensifying pain, ached on the right side of her ribcage with every breath that she took. It was also the only part of her that felt inflamed with heat. Her lungs felt too full, the air scratched against the back of her throat as though she’d inhaled a mouth full of soot. She tried to cough, but nearly cried out from the pain in her ribcage.

Laughter echoed around her as she walked forward through the hazy dream. A figure stood in the distance. He was dressed much the same as the last time she’d seen him, in an all white tailored suit complete with black buttons that glistened like eyes- perhaps they were eyes. His pale gray hair swept across his face; in much the same way as James’s, but she would not allow herself to think about that.

Belial.

“What is it that you want from me?” asked Cordelia, the words shook on her lips.

Belial chucked, it echoed around them. “Nothing from you.”

“James.”

No. No that wasn’t right.

The memory focused on her Lucie, standing before her grandfather in full fighting gear.

Belial’s smile glowed in her memory.

Cordelia’s eyes flew open and she blinked up at Magnus and James starting down above her.

“Lucie,” said Cordelia as fresh tears spilled from her eyes. “He wants Lucie.”

A/N: Thanks for waiting on the updates. I hope you guys enjoy this update. Magnus has always (and will always) be one of my favorite characters. I always have so much fun writing him. I hope I did him justice. Sorry if the ending feels a bit rushed (it was), but it was a lot of things we already know and Cordelia is just relearning. Leave me a comment, a like, and please reblog if you’re so inclined. Also, follow along for the next update coming on December 6. Stay safe and stay healthy!

[random-imagines-blog]

Get Hurt {Dean Winchester x Reader}

Requested by:  @fandomofyourchoice-89​ Wordcount: 3973 Summary: Arguing with Dean is never fun. Getting into an accident after you leave said argument is even worse. But such things can have a silver lining. Notes: Some swearing.

You might have offered a lot of things to Dean Winchester, but your freedom was not one of those things. A bit of flesh here, a bit of blood there was one thing, but letting him dictate who you am allowed to talk to - and when? That was asking too much of you. When you woke up to a good morning text from the bartender you were chatting with the night before, you had been feeling pretty on top of the world. It was nice to have a little bit of positive attention, even if it wasn’t exactly from the person you were hoping to have it from. Dean may know monsters, but he couldn’t pick up on your feelings, even from a foot away. He snatched the phone out of your hand to see who the text was from, joking that it was probably from your mom, but when he saw the unfamiliar number, he went from teasing to overprotective. That was not the Dean that you liked to see. He was treating you like you were his car, when someone else was trying to get in the driver’s seat.

“I don’t need to justify myself to you of all people!” You said, wrinkling your nose as you pulled on your sweater for the day. The weather outside wasn’t at the point of frightful, but it was still chilly for the early fall. It helped you to feel less exposed to Dean’s eyes as well, which was good with how sharp they were being today.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dean shot back. You looked over at Sam, hoping for some sort of aid, but there was nothing there. The tall moose of a man just disappeared into the small bathroom, closing the door behind him. On one hand, that was a smart move. Your fights with Dean were known to be explosive, though they didn’t happen very often. It was usually just sarcastic comments. But no amount of sass was enough to express your anger today. You were not in the mood to deal with this shit. Not today, and not ever. On the other, it was annoying. You could really use the back up.

“It means that you don’t get to lecture me about a single text message, when you’re the one who always goes home with the bartenders, the single moms, who even knows anymore. Any woman gives you a pretty smile and you swoon off into the sunset, leaving Sam and I behind. And you’re giving me hell over a single text? Really?”

“I don’t sleep with every girl, and it shouldn’t matter! I work hard, I deserve to have a little fun.”

“The fact that you don’t think I work hard enough to exchange numbers with one guy is insulting, Winchester. Downright insulting. You threw your coat on over your sweater, given the weather - and you just wanted to have as much of your clothes on as possible. And there was good reason for that. “You know that vacation that I’ve been talking about taking? I’m leaving today. Right now, actually. Goodbye to your storm cloud, hello sunny California.”

“You don’t get to walk away like this,” Dean said, going to the door that lead to the outside world, and folded his arms. “We have a lot of work to do in this area, Bobby said-”

“Then you better get to it then, shouldn’t you? No time to waste. Not for Dean, the hard working man! And since I hardly do anything, according to you, I should leave. I wouldn’t want to be a hindrance to your greatness!”

In response to this, all that you got was silence. You threw your bag over your shoulder, and put your helmet under your arm, ready to leave. Your bike was calling you, and you were looking forward to the dust blowing under your tires back out on the open road. The problem was that Dean still wasn’t moving.

“Get out of my way, Winchester,” You said, reverting to last names. That tended to be how you reacted when angry at him.

“No,” He said, his biceps flexing beneath the flannel shirt that was keeping him warm. “You know that we need you-”

“And I need away from you!” You shouted, exasperated. “Either you are going to move from that door, or so help me, I’m going to call the police on your credit card scams.”

It was one of the few threats that you had under your belt. Sure, he and Sam would get booked and it would take a couple of hours for Bobby to talk them out of it, but that was a couple of hours horribly wasted.

“Fine, leave, just walk away,” Dean’s deep voice seemed to go even deeper as he moved away from the door.

“Fuck you,” You said, giving him the finger as you walked out of the motel room. It felt good to leave that negativity behind. That overbearing feeling that made you feel as if Dean only saw you as a little sister, rather than as the capable woman that you knew you were. Actually, it was like he didn’t see you as a woman at all, which was hurtful. You’ve loved him so long and-

And you were going to leave that behind, just for a little while. You would come back eventually. The Winchester charm always got to you, the same way that it did for every other woman that Dean talked to. It was the shy, stoic nature behind those green eyes. The way that he quietly seemed to look into your soul, and never had a complaint about what was found.

Think of the palm trees that you were going to see. Think of the beaches, the waves rolling on the sand. Think of being able to lay out and feel the sun on your skin. You could order fruity alcohol drinks from hot waiters wearing only their bathing suits. Maybe you’ll even spot a Kardashian, which you could rub into Dean’s face. You could roll over and say, “Ha, Dean, I spotted her first!”

Except for the fact that Dean wouldn’t be there. It was just as much a break from him as it was a break from the hunt.

You got onto your bike, put the helmet atop your head, and backed away from the black impala as quickly as you could. You refused to look back. That would just be giving Dean satisfaction that you were having second thoughts.

You turned out of the motel and ended up on a long stretch of road that lead west. That was exactly the way that you wanted to go. There weren’t many people about, considering this wasn’t one of the big highways though that would be coming soon.

You slowed down as you saw a shadow dart out across the road, coming from one of the patches of trees. It startled you enough that you lost your balance on the bike, and it started to wobble beneath you. You braced yourself for the crash as the bike finally decided which side it was going to fall on, and you skidded off of the concrete onto the brush by the side of the road. All you can remember is trying to make sure the bike didn’t land too hard on your leg, for it could easily break it.

-

When you came to, you were hearing arguing. The familiar sound of Dean’s voice. “Leave Sammy alone,” You groaned, before opening your eyes. Instead of the expected scene of a motel room, you were surprised to see that you were in a hospital bed. And instead of Dean arguing with his brother, it was a small woman in scrubs that was giving Dean hell.

You remembered everything in that instant, and reached up to touch your head, expecting the worst case scenario. You were anticipating blood or bruises or waking up with a huge bulging eye like Quasimodo in the Disney film. Your chin was a bit tender, since that part hadn’t been entirely covered by the helmet, but the rest of your face felt fine. Dean was watching over you with those stern eyes of his, and suddenly you wished that you were ugly. Then he wouldn’t give you shit for leaving because you already suffered the consequences.

“Don’t start,” You said, looking at him before turning your attention to the Doctor. Or nurse, you couldn’t quite tell. “I definitely feel the effects of the painkillers so I don’t really know what’s wrong.”

The doctor went into professional mode, coming to your side and checking the IV bag that was giving you fluids. “I’m Dr. Williams, you’re in the Kansas Medical Center, and you’re going to be just fine, first and foremost. You did break two of your ribs, but neither ended up piercing any organs. You did fracture your femur and patella, though with some physiotherapy once the cast is off, you should be back to normal, unless you were running marathons.”

“Not quite,” You said, breathing out in relief. Though that did make you well aware of the odd feeling in your chest. Those pesky broken ribs, no doubt.

The doctor left the room after giving you another sweep, and an idea of how long you may have to be in the hospital for. Another night of observation, then she wanted to have you come in for physiotherapy. You said you would, though no doubt you would be back on the road before then, and doing your own exercises. This wasn’t the first time that you’ve broken a bone, though it was the first time it happened outside of a hunt. You figured you knew enough to take care of it on your own.

“What, because I left you had to argue with the Doctor too? Your temper knows no bounds, Winchester,” You said to Dean once Sam stepped out to get some coffee. Dean looked far from amused at that. “Did our insurance scam not go through?”

“This isn’t a joke,” Dean said, closing the door to your private room. That alone told you that the insurance went through. There’s no way that they would put you in a room like this unless they were getting the big bucks. American Medical Care at it’s finest. “You were an inch away from puncturing a lung. If the farmer didn’t see you wipe out-”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure that being friends with angels had a hand in that,” You leaned back against the pillow rather than attempted to sit up. Dean came to stand at the end of the bed, and clenched his fists around the bars at the end of it. “Look, I don’t know how they got a hold of you, or what you think you’re doing, but I’m still taking off to California. Just ... bring my bike to Bobby’s and I’ll fix it when I get back. I’ll just fly, or bus as soon as I can sit up properly.”

“The hell you are,” He raised his voice at you. He hadn’t straight up yelled at you like that in quite some time, even while he was angry. It was startling. “We are all sticking around here, and you are going to listen to the Doctor’s orders.”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” You muttered. No Winchester was good at following orders, not even from a well-meaning Doctor. And because of how much time you’ve spent around them, you might as well have been one.

“Excuse me?” He asked, quick to hear your words.

“You’re not well known for following anyone’s orders, Winchester. You just like giving them out, even when completely unwarranted. Like right now,” You glared at him. “Did you just come here to tell me more about what I should and shouldn’t do? To gloat? Just tell me what you want from me, so that we can move on, honestly. This is getting old.”

“I want you to be safe!” He said, his hands tightening around the rails, the knuckles turning white. “I don’t want you off with some random guy, and I don’t want you alone in California and I don’t want you to crash your stupid damn bike on a country road!”

“Why do you think that I can’t take care of myself? We’ve been hunting together for years now!”

The look in his eye after I said this made me sink a little into myself. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And the hurt that he was feeling made me understand that he was leaving no bit of road unpaved.

“You ended up in the hospital because you ran away,” Dean said, leaning down low, hanging his head so that you could no longer see his expression. That didn’t mean that the pain was invisible, though. “And I’m the one that made you do that.”

“And if I died, you would blame yourself,” You sighed, catching his line of thinking. “But I’m okay. I’m always okay.” You would have gone to the other end of the bed and touched his hand if you could. You could feel the anger and the guilt radiating off of him, like black lines in an anime show. But the discomfort, and pain which was starting to come through despite the meds, was making you stay where you were. “Alright, I have an idea.”

He lifted his head slightly at that, his eyes wide and glistening like a Disney princess. The great Dean Winchester, crying?

“Buy me a burger, bring it back here and we’ll have a dinner and talk - actually talk, not yell at each other this time, okay?”

-

After you were released from the hospital, limping on a cast that was a huge hindrance, things began to change. You couldn’t tell if it was from guilt or because Dean actually wanted to take care of you. But you let him do whatever it was that he wanted to do, because it was the only way for him to cope with what had happened. You and Sam had talked about it late one night when Dean was out to get you your favorite burger, and both agreed that it was best to let this run it’s course, unless he got entirely overbearing again. It was bound to happen sooner or later though. He had already offered to carry you to Baby on more than one occasion rather than let you hobble.

“Dean,” You groaned for the second time that day, though you were definitely blushing more this time. It was a good thing that he couldn’t see through the bathroom door. He was just on the other side of it, so he could hear you, though. “I can bathe by myself. You’re just getting perverted now.”

“I just want to help,” He said, being able to hear that stupid damn smirk on his face. God, he was irresistible. Even you had to admit that it had  been nice to have him pamper you. But now he was wanting to help you wash in the bath while your cast had to be raised up on the edge of the tub. It had been a little difficult to get in and out of lately.

You wrapped the robe tighter around your body. “If I agree...” You said, coyly, biting on your lip, fingers against the lock. “Do you promise that you won’t look.”

“Depends,” He said, and you saw the door physically move, like he was leaning against it. “Are there going to be bubbles to help cover you up?”

You looked behind you at the bathtub that was about half full. You had a small pile of bathbombs that you bought online to at least try to make the experience a little better. It took a lot longer to get in and out of the bath, so you might as well make it as pretty as possible. “There might be a few bubbles, but the water will be colored,” You admitted. It would hide some parts of your body pretty well. But others would be sticking out.  

“I promise I’ll try my best,” was all that Dean had to offer.

“Okay just umm - just give me a second, alright?” You unlocked the door to the bathroom, then attempted to take a step backwards, but pushed a little too roughly on your casted foot. A sharp pain went through your leg and you cursed yourself for being so stupid.

“Are you alright?” Dean asked, his ears catching onto that.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just a minute, alright?”  You called out. You took off the robe, and grabbed the towel instead. You wrapped it around your body in a way that it would be easy to take off once you were ready to sink down into the water. What you really needed help with was keeping your balance as you went down, since you had to keep one leg up. Even then, you had it wrapped in cellophane so it wasn’t as likely to get wet. You definitely regretted taking off the way that you did.

You put your good foot into the water, then crouched down, attempting to go on your own as far as you could, but you felt yourself wobbling. You had to put your casted leg on the ground outside of the tub again. You didn’t trust yourself not to fall. Holding the towel tightly against your chest, you finally said, “Okay, I need help. But don’t look, okay?”

The door slowly opened and Dean came inside, one hand covering his eyes and the other reaching out to try to grab a hold of something. He himself nearly tripped on the small carpet and you had to hold your hand out to steady him. You sighed, wondering if he was being this bad on purpose. “Alright, just hold my hand and help me get down, yeah?”

Dean could at least do this. As you got closer to the water, you slid your towel off with the hand that Dean wasn’t holding, and tossed it outside of the tub.

“What was that?” He questioned right away.

“My towel,” You admitted to him. “So keep your damn eyes closed.”

“Eyes closed. Scout’s honor.”

“As if you were a scout.”

You balanced your bad leg on top of the lip of the bathtub so it was jutting out. It was a bit awkward but once you were sitting in the tub, and leaned back, it was a lot better. You sighed contently, then realized that Dean was still holding onto your hand. You quickly snatched it out of his grip then closed the shower curtain on him so he couldn’t see anything anyway. “I’m all sorted, thanks.”

“No problem,” He said from the other side of the curtain. You waited for him to leave but you didn’t hear any footsteps, nor the bathroom door open and close. But what you did see was one side of the curtain moving slightly, as if it were being pulled ever so slowly.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Can’t blame a man for trying,” He chuckled, the curtain falling back into position. “I never ... really apologized for making you run away. And causing all of this.”

“You could never make me do anything. And you didn’t cause this. The stupid farmer who didn’t mind his chickens did,” You wrinkled your nose, thinking about how tempted you were to sue that guy. “Though I will accept your apology about being a jerk. And a bitch.”

“Hey,” He said. You heard the toilet cover flip down, and Dean had the audacity to sit on it. The nerve! Although ... it was actually really sweet that he was in here, making sure that you didn’t have to bathe alone. “I might have been being stubborn, but I had a point. That bartender was a jerk. He was giving his number to everyone with a pulse.”

“So what if he was? It’s not your job to tell me who I can and can’t see. And if I do end up getting hurt, then it’s on him, and it shouldn’t be me that you get mad at.”a

“I wasn’t mad at you,” He said, and you could hear him tensing. The water was moving in small ripples around your body, and it was the only thing causing sound. “I was mad at myself for not telling you sooner.”

“Telling me what?”

“That I care about you.”

This was getting to be a  bit too much for you handle. You put your hands on either side of the tub, took in a deep breath, then lowered yourself into the purple-colored water. It smelled strongly of lavender with jasmine, and the scent had filled your nose just as you slipped under the water. You didn’t open your eyes, you just went under to cool the feeling of your cheeks burning. Even the warm water was cooler than that. When  you rose yourself up, you saw to your dismay that Dean was peeking around the side of the curtain. But at least his eyes were on yours, rather than on any part of your body. And that everything you didn’t want him to see was covered by the colored water and the bubbles that came with it.

“What are you doing?” You said, moving your hands to cover yourself up further.

“You didn’t reply.”

“Did I have to? I would think that my actions over the last few months in particular spoke enough for me.”

Dean stepped back, the curtain moving into it’s usual position, but you still didn’t relax. “It’s really hard to have this conversation when you’re naked.”

“Shouldn’t have started it then,” You grumbled, but you couldn’t even find yourself getting mad. Dean cared about you. That was something that he didn’t say to many people. If he did express that - holy shit, were you ever in. Neither of you spoke for the next ten minutes. Instead, you just focused on yourself, washing your body and your hair. As far as you could tell, Dean didn’t peek again, but remained on his seat on the porcelain throne. “I’m going to need some help up, if that’s alright,” You said, once you’ve finished.

“Yeah,” He said. “Eyes are covered.”

You pulled the plug on the bath, and watched as Dean’s strong arm came through the curtain, holding his hand down low to grasp yours. You took it, and slowly, with the help of his sturdiness, got back onto your good foot, the other still being supported by the side of the bathtub. “Do you think you could...” You were about to ask him for your towel but he took  his hand away from you before you could finish your sentence. Instead of getting handed a towel, the curtain opened and revealed Dean holding open your robe. He no longer had his hand over his eyes like a child, but he was facing the opposite way, eyes closed. You smiled, thinking about how sweet he was being.

And hoping it would last after you healed up properly.

[samwrights]

When You Wake

I literally cannot believe I wrote this. This was originally started to celebrate Yaku’s birthday (happy belated, my love), and to satisfy the requests for a Noya/Yaku threesome. Uh, don’t come for me. I couldn’t find inspiration in the normal hq world, so we’re making it weird. If y’all thought Between the Lines was long, this monstrosity is 13.2k words. 13,200 words, with a shameful, side amount that is smut. Literally, this is all just plot.

ear candy list is, surprisingly, on the smaller side. 

⤞ Revenga - System of A Down ⤞ Violent Pornography - System of A Down ⤞ Question! - System of A Down

pairing: Yaku/Reader/Noya

w a r n i n g s//TW: rape, murder, blood consumption, mentions of getting roofied, gore, blood from wounds, supernatural AU, revenge, temporarily mute reader, reader is converted to a vampire without consent, dubcon, death, spitroasting, dirty talk, senpai kink. PLEASE read through these warnings over and over until it is clear to you that this is not going to be an easy read. The reader literally goes on a revenge spree. ⤞ THIS. IS NOT. AN EASY. READ.

Now that you have been thoroughly warned, enjoy.

The way media and films and television glorified and romanticized college parties never could have prepared you for the fateful encounter in the alleyway on a muggy August evening. Primarily, college parties were depicted as fun—drunk nights on the weekends with your girlfriends, maybe hook up with that cute boy from chemistry that somehow ended up with you grinding on him on the dance floor. Though, in some genres, college parties end up with the protagonist roofied and raped and follows how the heroine spirals and recovers. But it only was supposed to happen in the movies, right?

It wasn’t supposed to end with you halfway to death, knocking on Hell’s door with blood pooling around your lifeless body in a barely lit, bleak alleyway. It wasn’t supposed to end with warbles of light fading in and out of your vision as cars passed you by, unknowing there was someone in the alleyway between a closed down butcher shop and a florist who had already gone home for the evening. You were only in your early twenties with only two more years of university to compete—it wasn’t supposed to end yet.

“We can’t just leave her here.”

“I think she’s too far gone, Yaku. We were too late.”

The voices swirling around you were unfamiliar, or at least from what you could gather. In your condition, it was impossible to discern them in the first place—were they even real voices? They sounded entirely too angelic from what you could process in your catatonic state. Maybe they weren’t; maybe death had taken you without your knowledge and the jury that decided whether or not your soul would ascend to heaven was passing their judgment on you.

“I can save her, Noya.” One of the voices, presumably this Yaku character snarls back with urgency. It is the last thing you hear before your limp body is pulled from the concrete. The movement, regardless of how delicate, causing more blood to rush from your open wounds and draining any ounce of consciousness from your mind. “You mind trying to collect the fallout?”

Nishinoya, though shaking his head, gives a subtle grin that cannot be seen in the dead of the night. He pulls out a large mason jar from the satchel he’s carrying and places the mouth of the jar where blood is pouring out profusely from a knife wound. The man collecting the blood knew entirely too well that once his mate sets his mind to something, there was no changing it. Not that it served as a recurring issue; if anything, Noya was grateful for Yaku’s stubbornness considering it was that exact trait of his that had given the former his second chance at life.

The two of them move swiftly, trying to make it back to their hidden mansion, that was quite a distance away, in secret. Yaku is doing all that he can to make sure not to disturb your body so as not to open any wounds further that could force you to bleed out and meet the grim reaper. He wasn’t a very pleasant creature, but that was a story for another day. At the same time, Nishinoya is almost fighting to keep the same steadfast pace while simultaneously holding the now half full mason jar just under the knife wound. The blood was beginning to thicken, turning from bright red to a deep crimson as it oxidizes.

The moment they enter their private garden, Nishinoya busts down the door to their home with expertise, alerting the other members of their clan. “Akaashi!” He screeches, his voice bellowing out in decibels that should not be used unless trying to project a voice in an amphitheater with no microphone. Thank omniscient beings for noise cancelling enchantments. “We need you!” An almost timid, young looking man enters the foyer where Noya is still collecting blood and Yaku is holding your limp body in his arms.

“So that’s where you two have been,” Akaashi deadpans, unfazed by the steadily decaying girl. “Bring her to my room. You can store what blood you’ve gathered there while I remove the knife and get her patched up.” Though calm, the three of them move at breakneck speeds, laying you face down on an operating table while Akaashi suits up. From what he can tell, this was going to be a real mess, considering how deep the knife is. The three of them knew what was to come and what their designated roles in this moment were—Nishinoya was to separate the blood he had gathered from your body and ration them into IV bags, while Yaku was provide suction in case of a bleed out.

“We can save her, can’t we?” Yaku asks quietly, tools in hand.

“That will depend on her will to fight,” Akaashi says quietly, half due to concentration, half because he genuinely does not have a valid answer. “You’ve done this time and time again, Yaku. If anyone is going to save her, it’s going to be you.”

Upon coming to, the only muscles in your body that can move are your eyelids. Peeling them back as much as you can muster, you notice the only light filtering into whatever room you are currently residing in is coming from the blaring moonlight through an open window. The shadows around you make up areas and shapes that you are entirely unfamiliar with, causing you to sit up impulsively to make sense of your surroundings. A mistake on your part, as you are immediately met with a searing pain in your ribs. With further inspection from your droopy eyes, you learn that your torso is entirely bare, save for the copious amounts of medical grade bandages and gauze around your breasts and stomach. Blood pooled somewhere along your left shoulder blade where the pain felt the worst.

“You shouldn’t try to sit up right now.” The same voice you faintly remember from the alley, the one that didn’t want to leave you, before blacking out calls out from across the bedroom. The room is quite large from what you could tell and his smooth voice seems to be leagues away. “Lay back down before you bleed out again—I’ll change your bandages.” From the shadows, a man whom you presume to be Yaku emerges before you, perfect pale skin and sandy brown locks nearly reflecting in the moonlight as he approaches. His face, while incredibly handsome, is blank and is strictly business as he saunters near. Even as he is gingerly tearing off the tight bindings around you with next to no effort, his face remains nonplussed. Even as he washes the dried, crusty blackened blood off your bare chest, nothing. “Do you remember anything?” Yaku’s voice is quiet and somber as he asks his question. He takes your silence as a no.

Your mind is a hazy smog, trying to recall any type of memory at all. Rather than actual imagery, you see a white light when you close your eyes—you see colors you don’t remember seeing before, you hear crying. You hear your name. Not just your first name or a nickname either, you hear your entire given name along with your birthday, even the time of birth.

Any attempt to recall memories is interrupted by a sharp pain. You suck in a breath as Yaku tries to lift your arm to wrap the fresh bandages around your torso, causing him to grimace ever so slightly. This task was a bit easier for him when you were still unconscious, but nonetheless he is glad you’re awake. When the pain subsides, you peel your eyelids back once again, staring at the man sitting at the edge of the bed in wonder. Why was he tending to your wounds? How did he fit into the story? “You needn’t worry about that right now, [name],” he murmurs quietly, reintroducing the same delicate tone you heard before blacking out in the alley. Yaku can tell you’re wondering how he knew what to respond with and how he knew your name but, after a small deliberation, he decides it’s best not to overwhelm you right now. “Get some rest, little one,” he speaks again, “I’ll be here when you wake.” Before you know it, you’re out like a light once again.

Yaku exits his and Noya’s shared bedroom to dispose of the sullied bandages, only to be greeted to the sight of his mate leaning against the bannister closest to their room. “How’s she doing?” Yaku’s lips tighten, the seam becoming a hard line as his grimace deepens.

“She doesn’t remember anything but when I asked her if she did...”

“What?” Noya presses, perturbed at the silence. Very few things in their lives rendered Yaku speechless.

“She started seeing memories of her birth.” The two shorter leaders of the clan meander their way down the grandiose staircase in silence, each step accompanied by the dramatic chimes of a grand piano coming from the foyer. The music stops when they reach the bottom of the staircase, Sugawara pausing his fingers and quirking a brow at the couple. It was a rare occurrence to see both of them, or Nishinoya in the very least, look so morose.

“What’s got you guys looking so down? You look like someone just died.” The musician muses. Sugawara Koushi always did have the most twisted sense of humor—that was partially the reason that Yaku had kept him around. The other primary reason was solely for bragging rights and an inside joke between the clan because no matter how many times Sugawara introduced himself as Beethoven or Bach, people assumed that they all just meant he was talented. Not that it was literal and Sugawara was just a name he’d adopted when he earned another century of life.

“Ha ha,” Nishinoya drawls satirically, for both himself and for Yaku. The latter excuses himself, parting ways because he knows he can’t handle conversation right now. “Come on, Suga, that’s not funny. Yaku’s already taking this really hard and if we lose her...”

“Humans die all the time, Nishi. A conversion isn’t a guaranteed shot at a second life and Yaku knows that so why is he—“

“Because she was found just like I was. Wrong place at the wrong time and it ended with...” the shorter of the two can no longer find the words to speak. It didn’t matter how many centuries old everyone in the clan was, it didn’t matter that they had watched plagues take countless lives or even bared witness to some of Jack the Ripper’s victims—it was a different monster entirely to genuinely watch a person become prey to another human. “I hope she makes it through, if only to rip out the guys throat that stabbed her.”

Three months had passed since you had first woken up. Strength is returning to you little by little, though not enough for you to hold consciousness for more than a few minutes a day. Regardless, Yaku is relieved to see you making some form of progress, to see that you’re somewhat handling the conversion well. The head of the clan was almost always present when you did awake, though there were instances in which his partner, Nishinoya, had been the one to greet you.

Nishinoya was much more boisterous than his other half—much more talkative and, considering you haven’t found the strength to speak quite yet, that was entirely okay with you. You learned that Yaku and Nishinoya had been together a very long time and Yaku had saved his life ages ago, as the latter phrased it. In admiration, Noya mentions his partner’s abundance of patience—a skill that he himself lacked—and determination to see justice being served had swayed the younger of the two to continuously stand alongside him. Through these little vignettes of their life, however, Noya makes it a point to acknowledge the fact that he was once almost too overbearing for his senior, often intimidating him with just how open and blunt he was. “Nishi, are you boring her with details of our mundane life?” Yaku asks bemusedly as he enters the room you’d been resting in.

“Hey, we aren’t boring. I’m not boring you, am I?” Noya looks to your face, your expression not giving much away save for the light in your barely live eyes. It was far from mundane—if anything, hearing the stories made you so curious considering from just barely glancing with the two, they seemed to be a strange couple.

“We are,” Yaku confirms, though as to what, you aren’t sure. You were certain you hadn’t said anything aloud, considering you practically can’t. “Let’s just say I can hear your thoughts. It’s how we’ve been communicating with you.” The head of clan saunters over casually, sitting at the edge of the mattress opposite to his partner. Both of their rich, golden irises are gazing at you, gauging a reaction from you as he shares this bit of information. Weird, was the only way for you to describe it. Though Yaku didn’t need to read your mind to know that; the slightly panicked look on your face gave away your thoughts.

“Don’t think we don’t know about those vivid wet dreams you have of us—“

“Yū, you weren’t supposed to tell her that!”

“What? We’re all adults here—“

“Nishi, get out,” Yaku covers his face in utter horror, even more so as his partner exits the room laughing as he does so. Shameless Noya. The door closes, leaving you and Yaku alone—were he able to go red out of embarrassment, he probably would have. “I-I am so sorry about him.” Testing out the information that the man beside you supplied moments ago, you reassure him that it’s fine—that you have no control over your dreams and that he probably doesn’t have a way to turn off this strange ability. For a moment, he’s relieved because you seem to be accepting everything with grace thus far; maybe telling you the truth wasn’t going to be the worst case scenario.

But the thought of the truth makes Yaku hesitate—there was no way you were ready to handle the entirety of the truth. At the moment, you could barely handle your weekly check-ups with Akaashi—the household doctor. After a formal introduction, you learned that Akaashi was the one who patched up your wounds when you were first brought to the little mansion. From what you gathered, he was quiet and direct, kind even, but you hated the weekly visits. Not only was Yaku carrying you rather painful, as you’re still recovering from your injuries, but Akaashi had to do regular blood transfusions because, according to the young doctor that you swore could not have already completed medical school and residency, you had lost a lot of blood during the incident.

An incident in which you still can’t recall.

“It’ll come to you,” Yaku says morosely, probably responding in accordance to your thought. The man beside you gets up from the bed, holding his arms open to you, silently asking for permission to pick you up. “Sorry, I’ll try to be more gentle.” His arms are cold as he lifts you up, but all you can focus on is the throbbing in your back as he moves you. A sharp intake of breath leaves your lungs as Yaku supports you physically, adding gentle words of encouragement because he can almost feel how much pain you’re in. Every step down the steep staircase adds another metaphorical bruise to your tender skin, a small groan leaving your throat each time. And while you’re not uncomfortable with the idea of being in Yaku’s arms, you’re grateful when you’re laid down in Akaashi’s office along the leather exam seat.

“How are you feeling today, [name]?” The young doctor asks as he preps you for your blood transfusion. Much to your surprise, you feel hungry—ravenous, even—like you hadn’t eaten a meal in months. Maybe you hadn’t; it wouldn’t be that ridiculous to consider since your memory was a little shoddy.

“You’ll feel better after the transfusion,” Yaku reassures from the chair he’s sitting in beside the exam bed, “we’ll get some food in your system before we start your physical therapy.” There’s an interesting intonation in the way he speaks this, you notice. Like there’s an underlying joke or hidden agenda that you don’t quite understand, but at the same time, the strange phrasing doesn’t trigger your fight-or-flight system in any capacity. If anything, it just seems that Yaku wants to help you regain strength as best you can.

Though, that was currently proving to be a challenge as well. While you weren’t entirely sure how long ago your injuries occurred, you knew a decent amount of time had to have passed. One of your first check-up appointments with Akaashi led to the explanation of the muscle atrophy in your legs from lack of use. Once you slowly became acclimated to being awake for more than just a few minutes a day, Daichi was introduced to you as your physical therapist. He was another enigma—entirely too young to be as experienced as he was in his field, but you decided against questioning it—temporarily mute or not.

Being mute was another issue that was taking much longer than you liked. You hated only being able to communicate through Yaku’s inexplicable talent of being able to read your mind. There were many occasions in which you wanted to ask Akaashi about your condition and how bad of a state you had been brought to him in; how you wanted to ask Sugawara how he’d learned to play such a vast variety of melodies so expertly; how you wanted to tell Nishinoya that every time he tried to feed you a soup or something, it tasted foul and metallic no matter how fresh it was.

You’d have to wait until you found your voice again.

After your check-in with Akaashi, Yaku brings you to Daichi’s office just down the hallway. “Hey, there’s our little fighter.” Daichi was probably the kindest out of everyone in the household. He had a warmth to him that seemed to contrast his icy fingers when he’d hold and guide you for your therapy sessions—a little uncanny that everyone in this mansion had freezing finger tips. Maybe everyone had poor blood circulation?

From the opposite end of the room, Yaku stifles a laugh by biting his cheek. Glad to know that your deconstructed concept of time hadn’t waned on your sense of humor. Meanwhile, Daichi lays you gingerly on a mat on the ground with you back flat as he wraps a resistance band around one of his ankles, as well as your own. “Alright, [name], I’m gonna help you get your leg up and I want to see you pull your leg up as high as you can go, understood?” Five didn’t seem like a very large number, but for now it was the goal. If you could at least lift your legs five times, it was progress considering the severe muscle atrophy in your legs.

Some days, it was difficult for Yaku to sit with you through therapy. He can see the way you wince in pain because you’re trying to relearn and rebuild your muscle groups; other times he just wanted someone, anyone, to blurt out the truth about the situation and hope that it inspires you to push yourself to heal. Some days, it was difficult because Yaku found himself just wanting to hold you in his bed that you’d taken over while the two of you plot out the revenge you didn’t even know you needed. But it wasn’t always bad. There were days, like today, where the progress on your therapy was going much better than anyone in the clan anticipated. There were days where Yaku would ask what you remembered about...anything, and you would have some form of answer for him.

On those days, Yaku began to realize that your memories were coming in chronological order. From the first time you sat up or crawled, to your first word even. In fact, Yaku’s favorite moment that he’s witnessed thus far was watching your father teach you to take your very first steps—it seemed to recur during your therapy sessions, as if subconsciously encouraging you to try to walk again. Maybe that’s why today, you were able to provide Daichi with double the repetitions that he asked for—a sure sign that strength and muscle were returning to your legs. But even with what progress you’ve made so far, Yaku makes it a point to carry you back to your room and lay you back in bed to rest. As always, Yaku tucked you in as he spoke, “get some sleep, little one. I’ll be here when you wake,”

For weeks on end, dreams stop becoming dreams. Per usual, Yaku awaits in the corner opposite of the bed where you rest, allowing your memories-turned-dreams to flood his mind. Each night, they’re progressively becoming more and more clear—you’re able to recall outfits that you’d worn twenty years ago with perfect detail, scars and scrapes that your friends had, even when that one sock was in the corner of your closet from when you were seven. But the clearer these chronological dreams became, the less frequently you were waking up and it was beginning to worry the head of the clan. While you were still obtaining your weekly blood transfusions to help sustain your life, it seemed to be that they were no longer providing you with enough energy to move past your current stage of recovery. “Yaku, she needs to start feeding,” Akaashi had instructed him during a consultation.

“I still haven’t told her—“

“Come on, man, it’s been almost eight months,” the house doctor groans. There was no reason to coddle you anymore as your life-threatening wounds had already healed for the most part. Sure, there was still discomfort from your broken ribs but even those had almost entirely healed over; your physical therapy sessions and rehabilitation with Daichi were going rather well but, at this point, if you didn’t start getting more substance in your body, this would be the end of the line for you. Akaashi had advised him this for weeks now, but Yaku still hesitated. “We’ve got to tell her.”

“I know, I know. I just—“ the sandy brunette ruffles his claws through his mussed locks in frustration, “I think her power is developing. And I’m afraid if we drop the bomb on her now, it’s going to halt or hinder that progress.”

“Either tell her or feed her,” Akaashi bites, “if you don’t, she’s not going to have any power because she’s going to starve to death.” With that, Akaashi walks away because he has nothing left to argue at this point. While he may be the youngest of the brood, this made Akaashi the most volatile of the group. More often than not, he was relatively kind and patient, timid even, as he was in his human life, but also very stern and strict—all of it coming from a place of love. And Yaku, knowing the tremendous amounts of emotional pain that the former had received, the leader of the clan dare not disrespect him.

Rather than making it an argument, Yaku roams around the lodge to grab a couple bags of O negative out of storage before heading back to his room. Much to his surprise, Nishinoya is sitting at the edge of the bed already, a slight look of panic washing over his features. “Yaku, I think something is wrong.” Without another word, the creature in question hands the bags of blood to his mate before resting his forehead against yours—a sure fire way to make sure that the mental images he picked up from you were pristine and uninterrupted as you dreamed—ignoring the cold sweat beading on your forehead.

You were at the Pike house. It was the first week of the new college semester and your roommates had convinced you to tag along to a frat party they were invited to. The night was going along exactly like a corny romantic comedy—you had locked eyes with a man from across the dance floor. He was sweet—much kinder than others you had met that night. He grabbed you drink after drink, but your memory begins to go fuzzy after that despite being able to recall memories of your own birth or the stupid girl that picked on you when you were twelve and even the small pimple on her temple that you figured was probably making her insecure. So if you were able to recall these memories, dreams, whatever they were, with such perfect clarity, why could you not remember leaving that party? Did that mean he had been drugging your drinks? It was entirely possible, considering Pike wasn’t exactly known for their hospitality. You vaguely remember the man holding your hand firmly as the two of you weave and bob around people and being met with the sweltering humidity of a muggy August night and your roommates, Yukie and Kaori, were nowhere to be found.

You were dragged into a dimly lit alleyway, stumbling with every step that the man had nearly carried you by your wrist alone, reeking of trash that had been long overdue for pick up and maybe even rotting carcasses. It was difficult to tell considering the drugs you assume that had been placed in your system and it was even more difficult to recall the memories. Bits and pieces of your memory were coming back in patches—though the face of the man that had brought you there was not one of them. Nor were any of his friends that had joined in, appearing at the opening of the alleyway. You remember the sound of tearing fabric, salacious laughter of the group of men surrounding your body. You remember feeling searing pain as one held a knife to your throat, warning you that he would slit your throat if you tried to scream.

The threat was replaced in the form of one of the frat boys ramming a half-hard cock down your throat, knife still in place along the jugular vein, while every orifice and inch of your skin had been violated. Vaguely, you remember trying to bite down on the cock in your mouth and run away. The one that threatened to kill you had missed your throat when you ran and threw the knife into your back instead. Foul screeches of demeaning slander left their mouths as they kicked your ribs in at full force, as if the knife deep in your back wasn’t bad enough.

You remember them leaving your bare, naked body in the alley for death to take you.

You remember their faces.

Awakening with a start, you sit up abruptly, only to fall back into the pillow with a resonant clacking noise followed by a dull throb to your forehead. Yaku recoils, mostly out of shock rather than pain—maybe laying his head on yours wasn’t his finest moment. “You remember,” he balks after he’s recovered from the impact. You’re trying to scream, no sound leaving your lungs while tears barreled out from your eyes. Remember? Why was that a memory? Why did it have to be a memory?

Nishinoya acts hastily, tearing open one of the O negative packs and draining half the contents into his mouth and holding it there as he shoves Yaku out of the way. The smaller of the two slats his lips over your silently screaming mouth, puncturing a small wound to the inside of your lip with his teeth and letting the blood trickle in the hole. It feels like pudding trying to push through a sieve, the flavor of copper and iron tampered out by an earthy, meat flavor—maybe venison? The desire to scream fades away as well, rather being over taken to have whatever nourishment Noya is giving you to enter you more and more. Out of necessity, you mold your lips over his, sucking hard on his lip while wrapping your arms around him because it just didn’t seem that he could get close enough in this moment. Despite the fingers you have threaded in Nishinoya’s gelled locks, he pulls away with a shit-eating grin, his tongue swiping away at the trail of red liquid dripping from the seam of his lips. “Careful, might make a guy a fall in love with that kinda kiss.”

“M-more,” you croak out, deflecting the younger one’s flirty comment all together. Yaku and Noya’s eyes go wide upon hearing your voice for the first time. The former acts on instinct, downing the remaining contents of the bag in his partner’s hand before reenacting the same gesture as the latter. Yaku’s lips are much softer than his partners—or maybe it’s the quelling of whatever hunger that hadn’t been satiated that eased the desire. With Yaku, his tongue laves against the wound that Noya had made, coaxing the fluid to enter at a much more steadfast, intimate pace. Even well after he was done feeding you, Yaku sucked on your tongue, encouraging you to reciprocate, so as to get every drop. “W-What was t-that?” You pant out brokenly as soon as the two of you break apart. The question startles the two sitting at the edge of the bed—now that you had your voice somewhat back, Yaku no longer needed to communicate for you. That also meant he couldn’t control the flow of responses to not overwhelm you.

“I think it’s time you finally got your answers,” Noya mumbles, treading carefully as he looks at his partner. It was a silent reassurance that, no matter how this scenario proceeded, he would be here to support Yaku. To make you more comfortable, he adjusts the pillows behind you so that your back can rest properly along the headboard.

“M-my d-d-dreams?” Having just rediscovered your voice, it still came out in sharp, staccato-like whimpers, but the boys weren’t going to discourage you from speaking. Much like everything else Yaku had done in his life, he had done with patience and your recovery and rehabilitation were no different. But your throat was still raw and it still hurt to speak—thankfully with your mind rushing like a bullet train, Yaku was able to grasp the entirety of your question.

“I think they’re more memories than dreams.” His words come out like a condemning nail in a coffin—like a doctor telling you you only have a few months left to live—because that means everything you recalled from Pike house, the drinks, the party, the alley, all of it was real. “Noya and I found you that night barely clinging to life. Naked, soaked in blood and semen. You died that night, [name].” As he speaks, his cold finger tips traced along your breast until you feel the throbbing mound of flesh—a scar of where the knife had been thrown into you from the back and exited out the front. “The knife had gone through your aorta. Akaashi spent a long time trying to repair it but was unable to.”

Your body begins to tremble as silent sobs wrack through your body. You died? “S-so how ‘mi h-here?” Yaku looks over at Noya in discernible worry—not because the head was afraid of telling the truth, no. He was afraid how you would react to the truth. His partner looks at him poignantly, mentally reminding him that this was eerily similar to how Noya had reacted when he had learned the truth as well. Yaku’s head bobs in agreement, swallowing his hesitance before speaking again.

“I made you like me. Like the rest of us.” Your brows furrowed in confusion, suspicion even, because there’s no way that he’s saying what you think he’s saying. But rather than offering a verbal response, Yaku holds his hand out towards Noya, in which he places the other bag of O Negative in his palm. While the original plan was to just feed you once again, the second Yaku tears open the bag, the hunger you thought had eased returned at full force. You rip the bag out of his cold hands, elongated claws scratched at you as you do so, before you down the contents like a shotgunned beer before you could realize what you were doing.

“T-This is a joke, right?” You balk, voice clear as day due to the strength returning to your body once again from freshly consumed sustenance. But the tensions have gone down significantly, to the point where Noya feels relief and excuses himself to feed, leaving you in Yaku’s solitary care. Once the two of you are left alone, Yaku can only shake his head as he continues to press on with the truth. This had to be a cruel, sick joke. But it wasn’t funny and you certainly weren’t laughing. Yet Yaku had no reason to lie to you and the snack you had just consumed moments ago was meant to serve as a final nail in the metaphorical coffin to make you understand that he was telling the truth.

“We have been alive for centuries—storytellers dubbing our kind as vampires—but originally, we were simply called the Damned.” Yaku proceeds to go through the history, much like he had with all the others before you, because he feels the need to share the truth, needs to tell you that your death isn’t the end of your life but rather the beginning like it had for all those in clan. The most recent addition to the family was Akaashi. He was less than a century old, compared to the others. Akaashi had been tied to a tree and shot repeatedly, only to watch his lover drown to death, who had been tossed into the ocean before shortly before with a thirty pound weight attached to his ankle with his last few breaths. Yaku and Sugawara were the ones to set his nearly lifeless body free with the head of the clan performing Akashi’s conversion. This lead to the newborn to coming back to slaughter the community that decided to his partner needed to die for being a man in love.

Each of their stories was nearly identical. Sugawara, who apparently has been every major known classical musician in history hiding under the guise of his shapeshifter ability, and Daichi were hanged together for being a homosexual couple after their village had carved unsavory words on their bodies to remind their reincarnations of their sins. Yaku and Noya had saved each of them respectively, and allowed the two of them to go on a rampage to annihilate their executioners.

Lastly, or rather firstly, was Nishinoya himself. As Yaku goes into detail about transforming his partner, he tears up ever so slightly. And as you listen actively with no interruptions, no questions even, as he tells you about how Nishi was wrongly imprisoned for theft and how the other prisoners constantly violated and sodomized his body because he was smaller than the rest; how he ended his own life by ingesting whatever toxic chemicals he could find and how Yaku broke him out of prison to start a new life together. “Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” the aforementioned prisoner re-enters the room, a fragile smile on his thin lips as he takes a seat beside his partner. “So you finally told her?”

“B-but why m-me? Why not just let me die?”

“Do you not want revenge against the assholes that killed you a year ago, [ name ]?” Noya bit before Yaku could jump in. “They’re still alive after what they did to you—how is that fair?!”

A year?

You had died a year ago. How did your family take the news? Your roommates and best friends? Nishi was right—it wasn’t fair at all. Yaku raises a hand towards his partner in attempts to get him to calm down before he got too riled up about the situation and before he could get out the most important question. “I have to know, [ name ], if you want to continue on with this lifestyle or not before we proceed with the real rehabilitation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You tilt your head to your newfound savior. He said it so nonchalantly, as if learning how to walk or learning that your diet was blood wasn’t rehabilitation.

“Well, we have to teach you how to feed properly so your strength gets back up—unless you just want us to feed you for the rest of your eternal life.” Noya jokes, waggling his eyebrows suggestively in what you’ve come to understand is his typical, joking demeanor.

“I mean, I wouldn’t complain.”

“Noya, can you maybe save the flirting for later?” Yaku grits out—once again slightly mortified. It brings laughter to the man in question; it was like rewatching his own life all over again, seeing him get flustered at the smallest amounts of forward affection. It was endearing, if anything.

“Sure. Let’s get [ name ] healthy first then.”

After coming to terms with your transformation and feeding more regularly, still off of a supply stock that the mansion carried, you were able to attend therapy sessions with Daichi more frequently. And while you hadn’t entirely regained muscle or use of your legs, you were able to at least stay awake more often than not. Rather than being cooped up in the bedroom, you found yourself lounging near the entryway where Sugawara would entertain you with the countless pieces he had written over the years. It was soothing and peaceful and Sugawara’s jovial personality kept you from spiraling into a deeper hole knowing that you died. It was still an insane concept, but the five men in your new home had worked hard to keep you sane. “Ready for your session?” Yaku asks gently as he takes a seat beside you on the luxurious sofa. He’s not as uptight as he was now that you knew the truth, though he still did get flustered when you would openly show affection. Even if it was something as simple as leaning your head on his shoulder like you were now.

“I think so,” doing what you could, you scooted and clambered onto Yaku’s lap, wrapping your arms around his neck firmly while your weakened lower limbs splayed across his lap. He tucks one arm under your knees while the other supports your back, effectively scooping you up and brings you to the kitchen where the blood stock is kept. You quirk a brow at the creature carrying you, knowing you’ve already had at least three bags since you woke up.

“Gotta get your strength up so you can recover faster,” is all he responds with before he sets you down on a bar stool. Yaku tears open the bag of O Negative and, much to your shock, he drinks half the contents without swallowing before his lips are on yours. One of his fangs finds purchase on the inside of your lip, sinking down and creating an opening for the blood to flow in for quicker delivery. Usually, Yaku would only have to feed you like this when you were in a weaker state, so it felt a bit out of place for him to be doing it right now, but it certainly wasn’t unwelcome. While the blood trickles into the wound, Yaku’s tongue swirls with yours intimately, coating the cavern with the liquid and he doesn’t stop until every ounce is clear from both of your mouths.

“Not complaining,” you say slowly, “but is there a particular reason you wanted to feed me instead of just letting my chug the bag?” As you ask your question, Yaku is draining the rest of the contents of the bag into his mouth before pulling you towards him in another kiss. The question is repeating over and over in your head, he can hear it loud and clear, but the other thoughts are spurring him on further. The thoughts of how Yaku’s touch makes you crave more, makes you want to feel his lips along your skin and his large hands gripping your thighs tightly. Sometimes he’s unsure whether or not you conveniently forget that he can read your mind, sometimes he wonders if you let your salacious thoughts run wild on purpose. His chest is heaving, deep intakes of breath are plunging through his nostrils despite the blood being long gone. He doesn’t want to stop but centuries of control are begging him to.

“We’re going somewhere today, after your PT,” Yaku pants out after he pulls away, tilting his head down because he can’t look at you right now—he’s afraid to. He needs to try to dampen whatever feral thoughts are running through your brain so that his own self-control doesn’t just get tossed out the window. “Noya and I are taking you out for your first hunt.”

“Uh, am I ready for that?” Shit, you can’t even walk in your own yet. Yaku laughs, grateful for the reprieve from your sexually charged thoughts when you point out the setback.

“That’s why the extra feeding tonight. I needed to make sure it was in your bloodstream so that you had enough strength for PT and the hunt,” Yaku adjusts you from barstool, scooping you into his arms once again to bring you to the mansion’s back garden. Daichi is standing a short distance away adorning a tight muscle tee and joggers, while Noya and Akaashi are sitting at the small table with cigars in hand. Yaku steadies you in front of Daichi, the latter holding onto your hands to make sure you don’t fall, before the former joins the rest the clan at the table. Sugawara emerges from inside the mansion as well, passing off a cigar to Yaku while lighting his own. It was uncomfortable in some capacity to have everybody watching—you couldn’t help but feel as if you were being critiqued on your performance.

“I’m going to be one step ahead of you, and I won’t let go, okay?” Daichi holds his arms out to give you space to take your first step. You take in a sharp breath, the scent of scent of cigars and pine trees overwhelming your nasal cavity. When did you sense of smell become that strong? With trembling limbs, you cling onto Daichi’s muscular forearms, praying to god you didn’t fall as you took a step forward.

“Hey, look!” Noya cheers from a distance, nudging Yaku in the stomach. “She took a step!” The excitement in his voice was evident because, after months of constant aid, Noya has come to have a soft spot for you almost as much as Yaku does. The two of them are watching, utterly enthralled with the way you’re only moving mere millimeters—but millimeters is better than nothing considering the muscle decay and atrophy that had taken place over the last year.

After the first few steps and curling your toes in blades of grass, your feet begin to relax as you tremble forward. Gripping Daichi with all the strength in your hands, you pick your right foot off the ground and place it forward. “That’s good, [ name ]! Gimme one more,” Daichi, a therapist in more ways than one, encourages you to continue moving, wanting to make sure both legs were receiving equal treatment. You repeat the motion with your left leg, taking two full steps. While not perfect, you kept moving forward with his guidance until his calves hit the stone wall of the garden fountain. Considering where you started, twenty five feet was a tremendous distance to cover. “You did amazing, [ name ].” The vampire holding onto you smiles big, pride swelling in chest like a father praising his daughter for taking first in a beauty pageant.

Yaku and Noya are by your side immediately in celebration, the latter much more overt with it as he’s hugging you and holding you up. “What do you think, Daichi? Is she strong enough to at least witness a hunt?” The former asks. Mentioning the “H” word again perks your ears up because a part of you almost wishes to not have to engage with whatever a hunt entails, but part of you also knows that this is your life now. Everything you thought you knew was no longer valid—this was your rebirth, your awakening.

“I think she’ll be okay if one of you carries her for it—“

“Ooh, I’ll do it!” Noya cheers almost too loudly in your ear as he’s still holding you. Without so much as a chance to offer a rebuttal, you’re swept up into his arms as he stands at full height before glancing at his mate. “Ready to go?” Yaku gives a nod, gripping tightly at the satchel over his shoulder before the three of you are off at breakneck speeds. They’re silent as they travel—perhaps because were they to open their mouths at this speed and velocity, they would be catching a whole lot of bugs in their mouths. To your surprise, the three of you end up outside ten-foot-tall brick walls and a chain link fence.

“This is a...”

“A prison,” Yaku answers simply, as if he were answering with what his favorite color was rather than his favorite meal, “considering our diet, we choose to collect our sustenance from those who do not deserve redemption.” There’s a malignant, dark twist in the headman’s words.

“Personally, I prefer going after the rapists and child molestors. Those bastards deserve to be drained of every ounce of blood.” Noya snarls—you could tell it was personal for him. But how could he tell? Surely it wasn’t just written on placards outside of prison cells.

“Easy. Walk in, ask them what they’re serving time for, and their minds fill in the blanks.” The foreboding you sensed from Yaku deepened even further; deepened to the point where it felt like a magnet drawing your eyes towards your savior. But he looked anything but. Yaku stood merely a few inches taller, his claws sharpening and turning black while red overtook the once golden hues of his irises. You look up at Noya curiously, wondering if he’ll undergo the same sort of transformation, but before you could even question it, the gold in his own eyes had already molded into crimson rings.

The three of you enter the building with ease, aiming for the top floor because, according to Nishi, that was where they kept the worst criminals. It played out exactly as Yaku said it would—ask them what they were imprisoned for and, if they were in captivity under the basis of rape, first or second degree murder, sexual assault, or anything involving a minor, he would sink his fangs into their jugular vein and drain them dry. Though he announces his satisfaction, he remains in this strange form that he has presented you with as Nishinoya passes you off into his arms.

The smaller of the two repeats the same process, taking down two prisoners of his own before taking the satchel off of his partner’s shoulder. Noya continues questioning prisoners, letting Yaku’s power of mind reading acting as the judgment call, before pulling out a small, sharp knife from the satchel and slitting each victim’s throat while holding them downcast like a gavel banging down the rule. As blood fountains from their necks, Nishinoya holds fresh IV bags over the openings to collect whatever comes out like rain. Was this how they ended up getting blood for you to feed over the past year. “Yes,” Yaku answers evenly, looking down at you with his crimson eyes, “but we were hoping to actually teach you how to feed tonight. Are you up for it?” Every nerve in your body seemed to scream no, like you shouldn’t be witnessing these events let alone doing it.

But your guts are telling you yes, yes this is now your way of survival. These men were horrid, their victims needed justice. You needed justice. Giving Yaku a small nod, he gives you instructions while the three of you search for your very first meal. Considering neither your fangs nor claws had grown in, as you were very much still a baby by all intents and purposes, Noya would have to incapacitate your prey for you while you bit the inside of your lip, reopening the same puncture wounds from earlier, to allow easier access for the nutrients to enter your body. Once they were out, Noya would puncture the jugular vein for you, while Yaku dipped you down far enough to feed.

Your lips latched on to the raw skin, hooking your own canines for leverage as you draw the blood from your dinner and the moment the warmth seeped into the opening, all doubts about what you were doing had flown out the window. You adjusted the way you’re sitting on your victim, your hands finding purchase on his shoulders as you continuously sucked every drop of life from him. “Did she just—“ Noya questions, not missing the fact that you had just moved your atrophied legs. And while Yaku is very aware of his mate’s balking, he can only focus on the way your lips mold against your meal’s neck or the muted slurping noises bubbling from your lungs like a woman starved. In a sense, that was quite literal. Noya looks over at his partner—silence wasn’t typical of Yaku when asked a question—but words are lost on him when he sees the way Yaku’s eyes are hungrily staring at your form and he’s unsure if its due to hunger or hunger. The moan that leaves your tongue when you finally pull away from the now empty body confirms the shorter one’s suspicions. “Not that seeing you turned on doesn’t turn me on, but you might wanna put that away, Morisuke.” Noya teases before walking towards you, the call of his given name causing Yaku to snap out of his stupor. Well fuck, he snarls bitterly in his head. He was gonna have to feed again, considering all the blood he had just consumed went straight to his cock.

You feel alive—more alive than you felt in ages. And despite your attempt being incredibly shaky, you managed to stand on your own two feet, using the wall to brace yourself. Noya rushes over to your side to try to hold you steady, asking if you’re alright. “I’m more than alright, Nishi, holy shit.” He has an arm under you, carefully bringing you back towards Yaku, though for the most part, you’re walking entirely on your own.

“So what, have you guys just been giving me snacks this whole time?” You sneer teasingly, though Yaku looks away because your accusation because it isn’t entirely wrong. The blood packs were indeed “snacks” but were usually only used to stave off hunts, that way they didn’t just decimate the prison on an every other day basis, but were also used as post coitus replenishments.

“One more?” Yaku coughs out, as if choking on his own spit. “We can do this one together, if you like.” He’s trying to be polite, despite the feral look in his eyes while also trying to calm down the lust and adrenaline running rampant in his system.

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” As opposed to carrying you this time, Yaku flanks to your empty side, helping you walk between him and Noya until you came upon your next victim. This one was larger than the last few—stocky and skin marred with stories of a brutal past. No matter which way you looked at him, he looked bitter, and after asking him what he was in for, you figure he was a perfect candidate. After all, intentionally murdering his wife and three children was heinous by definition. Yaku approaches the much taller man, crouching ever so slightly in the event your meal tried to escape; not that he could even if he wanted to. The leader of the Damned was behind him in seconds, snapping his neck to disarm the threat that was his build.

To everyone’s surprise, you made your way over slowly to the now lifeless, six-foot-three prisoner while Yaku punctured holes on both sides of the victim’s neck, allowing the both of you to feed. It was oddly intimate, being so close to someone while sucking the literal life out of somebody. The lapping, sucking noises brought back salacious thoughts to the man beside you, and he’s doing all that he can just to avoid trading sustenance for an erection again. Meanwhile, Noya is watching both of you in amusement. Does his partner realize that he’s gingerly scraping his claws along your spine? Is it out of encouragement, or interest? Yu can’t quite tell, but he finds it entertaining nonetheless. Even more so when Yaku squirms at the throaty moan leaving your lungs when you pull away, lips plump with a bead of leftovers dripping from the seam of you mouth.

Either way, Nishinoya knows it won’t be long now until Yaku cracks. Despite the great amount of self-control he tends to exercise, Yaku is but a simple creature that cannot stave off his desires and Noya is no different. They were going to give way to their desires sooner rather than later, but they made a vow eons ago that revenge must always come first.

One year, three months, one week, and four days. That was how long it had been since you died in the alleyway. Today was the day those boys were going to die for what they did.

By now, you were fully functioning; walking on your own, feeding on your own. The only difference between you and the others was that you still slept, though not very much anymore, and according to Akaashi, it would be a trait that you would grow out of maybe two decades after your first century. That was actually the sole reason there was even a bed in the house—Nishinoya still slept merely because he enjoyed it. He wasn’t like the others who had found a passion project that kept him up around the clock, so more often than not, he would join you in bed. After all, it was originally his bed.

And more often than not, Yaku would sit in the spacious window sill while Noya wrapped his arms around you protectively in your shared slumber, as if to abide by the repeated mantra he had said over the last year—he’ll be there when you wake.

Your dreams are no longer memories, as you’ve got caught up to current events thanks to the playback speed that they paced themselves at. Now, you’re able to recall on every single event of your life that you’ve witnessed thus far with perfect detail—including the faces of your five murderers. Each of them belonged to your university Pike fraternity; two of them were a year older than you, two the same age, and the one who had the knife to your neck was a freshman not yet old enough to drink legally, but apparently old enough to to pull the metaphorical trigger and throw the knife that had gone through your entire body, severing your aorta in your heart.

After researching in the form of disguise, you learned that tonight Pi Kappa Epsilon would be holding their annual holiday gala; fancy words for a giant frat party for those who chose not to return to their hometowns for Christmas. Knowing how these events tend to function—it was relatively easy to sneak in, even with Nishinoya and Yaku flanking your sides. You flashed the doorman a crisp fifty, knowing males always had to pay a fee for entry while women always got in for free. The bouncer grins upon seeing you in a tight, red body-con dress, but the grin is immediately displaced when his eyes land on the two men beside you. Giving your best, most flirtatious smile, you grab both of their wrists before heading inside. “Don’t lose me, okay?” You yell over the pounding music.

“We won’t,” they say in unison. Noya gives you a reassuring smile, hand pressed against Yaku’s back gently, while the latter purses his lips together in discomfort. “Just keep talking to me through here,” he adds, pressing his cold lips to your forehead chastely, “and I’ll find you.” You give him a confident nod before you throw yourself into the throng of people to find your targets. It proved a bit of a challenge, considering the strobe lighting and the myriad of people—all of the men looked the same on top of that. But once your eyes narrowed in on the man you first lured you, it was game over.

Like a tiger ready to pounce, you sauntered over to him, pushing aside whomever he was with at the moment before wrapping your arms lewdly around his neck. He looks down at you skeptically, but otherwise pleased with the bold actions. From a short distance away, Yaku and Noya are hiding like wallflowers, listening to the resounding chant happening in your head that screamed to kill him. “You know,” Noya chimes in lowly, distracting Yaku from the way your hips are grinding and gyrating against the strange man’s, “we could just kill the entire fraternity.” Yaku shakes his head—Noya was always fond of the idea of revenge against all who were guilty by association. While the others in the clan gave into his persuasion, Yaku never found it amusing.

“What if they had no idea that their brother killed someone?”

“They probably bragged about it,” Noya grumbles. From his own experience, the shorter of the two liked to think that he knew how these people tended to operate.

“It’s go time.” Yaku says abruptly, eyes locked onto your retreating form as you pull one of your rapists by the tie and lead him out the frat house. The two Damned maneuver their way towards the quietest space, hunting for a window they can exit out of to follow you without garnering too much attention towards the situation. When they end up on the sidewalk outside of the Pike house, they see you parading—brokenly, complete with fake stumbles to allude to you being drugged again—the man by the tie until he shoves you into the same alleyway.

Close behind were four others, all built and stocky as they traveled in their pack and making their way towards the alley. You were cornered amongst trash and dead rats, the five of them trying to zero in on you, yet you showed no fear. Instead, you stood at full height with the addition of your stilettos, as your body transitioned into it’s more predatory form. “Remember me?” You ask sweetly, cracking your knuckles nonchalantly. Your hair that’s covering the ugly mound of flesh scarred over from your injury is swept over the opposite shoulder, giving them full view as your short, blackened claws graze over the skin. “Over a year ago, the five of you brought a woman to this alley, raped her and you,” a feral snarl leaves your lips as you point to the youngest fraternity brother, “threw a knife into her back that went all the way through her heart and killed her.”

The five of them begin looking over at each other, wondering who ratted out who considering they had never spoken of the night since it occurred. It was easy to avoid, considering the body was never found. There was never any evidence. “W-who are you?” The youngest one squawks out.

“Don’t remember?” Your head snaps in the direction to one of the older members. “I should have bit your dick off when I had the chance.” There’s no more room for talking, no room for rebuttal. Instead, you grab the same man you lured into the alley by the tie, bringing him close enough to snap his neck. When he was neither moving nor breathing, the remaining four began to back up.

“Yo, this bitch is crazy, let’s get out of here—“

“You think you’re just gonna get away?” Noya laughs dryly as it crescendoed into full volume, shaking the walls and mimicking an earthquake that did not expand beyond the walls of the alley. The remaining four fall to the ground, not prepared for such loud noises let alone a trembling earth to accompany the sound. Yaku shakes his head in utter disgust before the crimson ring in his eyes locks with the prey.

“Done eating, love?” He calls out, causing the four other frat boys to look over in horror at the “e” word. Once again, you’re standing at full height, the back of your hand wiping away the blood that had escaped from your mouth from your feeding.

“Not quite yet,” With every step you took, they trembled back, only to be met with your two saviors blocking their only exit. The youngest one is hiding all the way in the back, trepidation causing his bones to rattle within his skin as his back hits Yaku’s calf. “I’m still hungry.” Noya lets out a snort at this—he truly did love your sense of humor.

“You’re next.” Yaku looks down at the young boy, only nineteen-years-old, who had been your executioner. That same boy looks at the leader of the clan in horror, eyes wide because he never in a million years saw this as his end. Effortlessly, Yaku picks him up by the collar of his shirt before tossing him in your direction. Rather than catching him, you gathered your claws together to form a single point, driving the makeshift lance through the stomach of the one who had ended your life. Without verbalizing it, you gave the boys permission to feed on the other two—so long as it wasn’t the one that you had tried to bite down on when he rammed his cock in your mouth.

You had plans for him.

In the mean time, you pull the now lifeless body off of your bloodied hand, drinking down whatever was dripping down your arm before tossing him off to the side; you had one more pressing matter to deal with. The last of the boys—the dessert to your meal was pressed against the wall as he tried to run from this situation, watching in mortification as Yaku and Noya beheaded the other two brothers with their bare hands, feasting on their prey. “Like I said,” you sneered as you approached the last one, ripping off his pants and boxers much like he had when he violated your mouth. “I should have bit your dick off when I had the chance.”

And so you did.

“Remind me to never get on your bad side,” Yaku muses, having finished his meal, gawking at the way you had just left the last one along the wall with his penis bitten off all the way down to the base while you returned to the youngest member again, draining your murderer for all he was worth.

“I dunno, it’s kinda hot, babe.” Noya jokes, watching in amusement as well.

“I’m actually kinda full,” You shrug, having drained the stabber entirely—that put your body count to two full bodies. “D’you guys wanna have the last one? I got all I wanted from him.” At sound of your permission, Yaku approaches the last one with a predatory glare, not daring to break eye contact as he asked you one more question.

“[ name ], do you feel that justice been served?” With a nonplussed grimace, you gave a shrug.

“If anything, these assholes got the short end of the stick. They murder a girl they raped so she comes back from the dead and kills them all with two beautiful men by her side? Yeah, I’m happy with that.”

By the time you returned home, you were an entirely different creature. You felt...free. Like there was nothing else anchoring your dead heart, like you no longer had a tether to this world. Like you had no purpose.

So now what?

Silently you meander back to your shared bedroom to further contemplate your existence, the boys you left behind glancing at each other in concern. “Want me to talk to her? I might be able to better sympathize.” Noya asks quietly so that your now heightened hearing can’t quite pick up on the conversation. Regardless, Yaku shakes his head. He knows exactly what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling and not just because of his ability to read minds.

“I’ve got a few things I want to say to her anyway.” Noya presses a tender kiss to his mates cheek before he flits away to hang out with Daichi as he normally does when he’s not with Yaku, while the head of the clan makes his way to the room. You’re lying in bed already, the dress and stilettos shed and traded for bare feet and a slip. Despite your back turned towards him, you feel the bed dip as he lays beside you, something atypical of Yaku. “How do you feel?” His voice is merely a whisper as he cautiously wraps an arm around your waist.

“Shouldn’t you know the answer?” You retort, but Yaku doesn’t recoil because he knows. He knows the sort of limbo you feel you’re placed in now that your postmortem mission had been carried out. What were you supposed to do for the rest of eternity besides act as an impromptu executioner, feeding off of the worst criminals within a hundred mile radius?

“Is that all you see us as?”

“No,” You say quietly. These Damned men had accomplished great things, from what you knew of them, in their lifetimes. Sugawara has continued composing even well after his other alias’ deaths, Akaashi has been working on a research piece for decades regarding cancer in the form of preventative measures rather than a cure, in addition to a cure. Daichi had participated in the Olympics a number of times, Yaku was once a politician in multiple countries and Nishinoya had worked closely with electronic developers over the years including Microsoft and Linux. “You guys have accomplished so much in your lifetimes, I just don’t want to be some sort of disappointment—“

“[ name ], we never knew were going to do those things. We just kept pushing on, finding out things we were passionate about and since we have unlimited time, we’ve had time to hone and perfect those skills.”

“What if I never do anything that great?” Yaku lets out a sigh, turning your now fully restored body around to face him and pressing his face into your neck. Over the duration of your rehabilitation process, he’d become so over protective of you, wanting what’s best for you in any capacity yet never fully being honest with himself.

“You have time to figure it out,” he mumbles into your own icy skin, lips tickling your veins. “Until then, just stay? With me?”

“Yaku...” he had never fully outright asked you to stay—only alluding to it in the past with talks of the future.

“I-I want you,” he whispers almost uncharacteristically. Being a diplomat, stuttering was not a thing that Yaku did very often. “To stay with us forever. To stay with me forever.” This is it, he figures. It’s now or never. Yaku can’t stand the idea of you leaving the clan, leaving him when he hadn’t yet had a taste of you, had you in any other form than a few mere kisses for feeding or in fantasies. Pulling away, Yaku shifts once again so that his arms are holding his weight above you, his lips ghosting intimately over yours.

Both of you are overly aware of the attraction that’s there—you knew of the daydreams you’d had of him throughout the year and with his ability, he was unwillingly subjected to them. Reaching up slightly, your lips press against his hungrily, your tongue immediately dancing along the seam of his lips, begging for permission to enter. Yaku doesn’t waste a second dropping the support from his arms in favor to press his body fully into yours because he’s been waiting for this moment. It’s evident in his fervent kiss, it’s evident in his ever present erection. A mewl warbles in your throat as you feel him grind against you.

Why the hell had you waited so long for this? Why did he wait so long for this?

There was no more waiting.

Breaking a part for a moment, you pull the slip off your torso hastily while Yaku unbuckles his belt and frees his lower half. Impatience floods you as you tear off the thin Henley he’s wearing, leaving the two of you entirely bare in front of each other. The large scar on your bosom that had made you self conscious for months suddenly felt dull in comparison as you’re met with the varying marks that marred Yaku’s skin. From what you could tell, they looked like whiplashes. “I need you now,” he pleads, ignoring your wandering thoughts as he hungrily pulls you in for another kiss. Though rather short lived, your overwhelmed with warmth and pulsing in your core as his fangs run along your neck before sucking lovingly at your collarbone.

“O-oh,” you moan out wantonly, clutching at his shoulders to keep yourself steady. With no preparation, not that you needed any, Yaku slowly sheaths his member inside of you, the girth stretching you deliciously. For a moment, the two of you remain still to bask in the reprieve you both felt, unaware of the third party member watching pleased in the lounge chair across from the bed. “Fuck,” you hiss out between your teeth as he’s pushing in inch after inch.

“You’re doing so good, princess,” for a moment, he’s impressed—taking eleven inches with little to no preparation can be torturous, and he knew that from experience. “Come on, baby take the last of it—oh fuck yeah,” Yaku groans out as soon as he’s balls deep within you. The two of you are still, enjoying the moment of togetherness before he bottoms out entirely in your sweet little hole. His hips move almost languidly so as not to hurt you but good lord for all that is unholy, is he holding back.

Soft whimpers leave your lungs each time his hips snap back into yours—why the hell hadn’t you fucked Yaku sooner?! A throaty chuckle grumbles in his chest at the thought. Even with him slamming his cock in you at half-force, his mind is intertwined with yours to the point where your thoughts feel like his own. “I had to take care of you princess, wanted to make sure you could handle me fucking you.”

“Then fuck me harder, ass-hat.”

“He likes it better when you call him senpai.” Nishinoya calls out from the opposite corner of the room, as if he wasn’t just leisurely watching his partner ream himself into your core. You let out a scream and at this point, you aren’t sure if it’s because Yaku have a particularly hard thrust with the head of his dick meeting with the edge of your womb or if Nishinoya’s presence surprised you. Even more so to see that he was stark naked, stroking his cock that he’s presenting to your mouth.

“Suck off your senpai, princess.” Yaku whispers devilishly in your ear, holding his cock still within you as he does so. Tentatively, you give a kitten lick to the head before you, testing out Nishinoya’s reaction to the motion before deeming him worthy. A soft grunt escapes him, his body more than welcoming of the sensation—but it just wasn’t enough for you.

“I need a better reaction than that, Nishi,” You joke.

A poor plan on your part.

The shorter of the two looks down at you curiously, a wicked twist of his lip displayed for you as he briefly tosses an amused look towards Yaku, to which the latter lets out a chuckle in addition to the shake of his head before he starts to withdraw his cock from within you. “How’s this for reaction?” Noya chirps before deftly wrapping his claws in your hair, slamming his engorged member down your throat while Yaku simultaneously thrusts back inside you. The carnal desires that had run rampant through your mind on occasion had built to this moment, built up the needy desire that the boys finally had the chance to release with you. “Yeah, you take that cock in your throat, baby. Show us how much you’ve wanted us from the start.”

Nishinoya is absolutely relentless as he repeatedly withdraws and replaces his erection in your mouth, pulling so far back as to have his tip tease and smear pre-cum along your lips, all the while chanting praise and how much he loves you; how much he’s dreamed of having you between him and Yaku. The latter can’t help the stuttering motion of his hips as he unabashedly strokes his member along your walls, the tip of dick all but moving into your womb. “Yeah, princess, take your senpais cocks so fucking good, yeah? You want us to fill all your holes with our fucking cum, don’t you?” You can only wail out around Nishinoya in your mouth in response, clenching and squeezing your pussy tightly around Yaku inside you. The clan head lets out a very audible groan at the abrupt friction. “Oh, fuck yeah. Fuck yeah, senpai’s gonna cum so fucking hard inside you, yeah yeah yeah.” Yaku is absolutely wrecking and ravaging your lower half while all the foul, salacious words leaving him were only serving to turn on his partner even more until the both of them hold still to empty their first loads inside you.

After a momentary reprieve, the two of them withdraw from you, the smallest whine leaving your lips at the distinct emptiness. Between pants, both of the males look to each other before letting out a laugh. “Princess,” Noya calls out from your left, golden eyes light and airy as they gaze at you, “did you think we were going to let you cum?”

“Y-yes?” Why wouldn’t they? Wasn’t that just normal, sex etiquette between partners?

“Oh no, love,” Yaku adds, “We’re gonna show you just how much we love you, gotta coat every inch of your skin in our fluids before you can even think about cumming.” Before you can blink, the boys are up again with Nishinoya taking his position with the tip of his still hardened member teasing the outer lips of your pussy. Meanwhile, Yaku makes it a point to slap your cheek with his own erection, making sure to keep your attention and focus on him. Simultaneously, they thrust into their respective orifices that they’ve traded—Yaku treating you much more delicately versus Noya who shoves his entire mast inside your depths.

“Oh damn, babe, you’re so fucking tight!” The latter howls, throwing his head back in ecstasy. Despite having identical lengths, Nishinoya was much more rough and rigid, your walls acclimating to every vein out of necessity before relentlessly pounding away at your insides. At his pace, your pussy doesn’t even have a chance to miss the feeling of fullness. Your voice is no longer coming out in moans or screams due to the damning pace—only in a broken staccato of warbles from the speed that Noya’s fucking you. “Yeah, baby? Gonna stay here with us forever and get dicked down every night? You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

But with the almost tender, loving way Yaku is holding your throat while repeatedly sliding his cock in from tip to base, there is no actual way you can reply. Instead, you let out grunts and cries of affirmation because you would stupid not to welcome the way these two were screwing you. It’s also more than just that.

These two, as well as the rest of the brood, had taken you in being inches from death, presented you with another opportunity for life that served as an opportunity for you to seek revenge, while caring for you and almost...loving you.

“We do,” Yaku bites, withdrawing his cock from your lips offended at the thought of almost, “love you, that is.” The hand that is cupping your throat moves to brush the backs of his claws along your jaw before pulling your chin and torso up so that Yaku can kiss you fully. There is no lust or wanton desire in this kiss—it’s love through and through that is simultaneously cold yet warm.

“You’ve been dreaming about us for a long time, princess,” Noya grits out, his peak approaching all too quickly with the way you’re clenching around him with no relief. He’s panting heavily, no longer caring about his need to assert his dominance in any capacity; all he can think about is cumming deep inside you while you cum around his thick cock. “We want to make your dreams come true.”

Yaku pulls away from the kiss in time to hear your cries—a delicacy he had never had the pleasure of knowing in a past life—as you cum with Noya. The latter is holding still for a brief moment before withdrawing, his spent body collapsing beside you. You’re sensitive, you realize, as Yaku slides back in to reclaim his space. Your walls are still trembling in the aftermath of your orgasm, but Yaku is much more gentle this time around. Pressing his body flush against yours, he wraps both his arms around you with one cradling your head, the other around your lower back to pull you as close as possible. His shallow moving thrusts in accompaniment to his pulsing girth are enough to trigger yet another orgasm in direct succession, and coercing his own orgasm. “Please stay, [ name ].” He mumbles into your hair as he feels his seed spurting within you. Though you supply no answer due to trying to catch your breath, you only nod in response. Yaku remains still inside you, so as if to seal both his and his partner’s emission within you with his own softening cock, smiling at the simple fact that you had nodded in response. “Get some rest, little one,” He adds, adjusting so that he’s on the opposite side of you and a now sleeping Noya. “We’ll be here when you wake.”

[enragedbisexual]

this is 4 all u stevetony &/or cherik stans who also love taylor swift !!! 

first of all folklore is a masterpiece & there r so many songs that r totally anthems 4 these pairings so here’s a wildly long lyric post 2 make u cry

from the 1:

“you know the greatest films of all time were never made // i guess you never know, never know // and if you wanted me you really should’ve showed”

“in my defense i have none // for never leaving well enough alone // but it would’ve been fun // if you would’ve been the one”

“you know the greatest loves of all time are over now // i guess you never know, never know // and it’s another day waking up alone // but we were something, don’t you think so?”

“persist and resist the temptation to ask you // if one thing had been different // would everything be different today // we were something, don’t you think so?”

from cardigan:

“you drew stars around my scars // but now im bleeding // ‘cause i knew you // stepping on the last train // marked me like a bloodstain, i // i knew you // tried to change the ending // peter losing wendy”

“and when i felt like i was an old cardigan // under someone’s bed // you put me on and said // i was your favorite”

“but i knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss // i knew you’d haunt all of my what ifs”

“i knew i’d curse you for the longest time // chasing shadows in the grocery line // i knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired // and you’d be standing in my front porch light // and i knew you’d come back to me”

from exile:

“i think ive seen this film before // and i didn’t like the ending // you’re not my homeland anymore // so what am i defending now // you were my town // now im in exile seeing you out”

“im not your problem anymore // so who am i offending now // you were my crown // now im in exile seeing you out”

“so im leaving out the side door // so step right out // there is no amount // of crying i can do for you // all this time // we always walked a very thin line // you didn’t even hear me out (you didn't even hear me out) // you never gave a warning sign (i gave so many signs)”

“all this time // i never learned to read your mind (never learned to read my mind) // i couldn't turn things around (you never turned things around)”

from my tears ricochet:

“and if im on fire // you’ll be made of ashes too // even on my worst day // did i deserve babe // all the hell you gave me?”

“’cause i loved you // i swear i loved you // till my dying day // i didn't have it in myself to go with grace // and you’re the hero flying around saving face // and if im dead to you why are you at the wake // cursing my name // wishing i stayed // look at how my tears ricochet”

“and i can go anywhere i want // anywhere i want // just not home // and you can aim for my heart, go for blood // but you would still miss me in your bones // and i still talk to you // when im screaming at the sky // and when you can’t sleep at night // you hear my stolen lullabies”

“i didn't have it in myself to go with grace // and so the battleships will sink beneath the waves // you had to kill me but it killed you just the same // cursing my name // wishing i stayed // you turned into your worst fears // and you’re tossing out blame // drunk on this pain // crossing out the good years”

from mirrorball:

“ive never been a natural // all i do is try try try // im still on that trapeze // im still trying everything // to keep you looking at me”

from august:

“i remember thinking i had you // but i can see us // lost in the memory // august slipped away into a moment in time // ‘cause it was never mine // and i can see us // twisted in bedsheets // august sipped away like a bottle of wine // ‘cause you were never mine”

“back when we were still changing for the better // wanting was enough // for me, it was enough // to live for the hope of it all”

from this is me trying:

“i didn't know if you’d care if i came back // i have a lot of regrets about that // pulled the car off the road to the lookout // could’ve followed my fears all the way down // and maybe i don't quite know what to say // but im here in your doorway // i just wanted you to know // that this is me trying”

“and my words shoot to kill when im mad // i have a lot of regrets about that”

“ and it’s hard to be at a party // when i feel like an open wound // it’s hard to be anywhere these days // when all i want is you”

from illicit affairs:

“and that’s the thing about illicit affairs // and clandestine meetings // and longing stares // it’s born from just one single glance // but it dies and it dies and it dies // a million little times”

“and you wanna scream // don't call me kid, don't call me baby // look at this godforsaken mess that you made me // you showed me colors you know i can’t see with anyone else”

“don’t call me kid // don’t call me baby // look at this idiotic fool that you made me // you taught me a secret language i can't speak with anyone else // and you know damn well // for you i would ruin myself // a million little times

from invisible string:

“and isn't it just so pretty to think // all along there was some invisible string // tying you to me?”

“something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire // chains around my demons // wool to brave the seasons // one single thread of gold tied me to you”

“hell was the journey but it brought me heaven // time, wondrous time // gave me the blues and then purple pink skies”

from betty:

“but if i just showed up at your party // would you have me // would you want me // would you tell me to go fuck myself // or lead me to the garden?”

“if you kiss me // will it be just like i dreamed it // will it patch your broken wings?”

from peace:

“no, i could never give you peace // but im a fire and i’ll keep your brittle heart warm // if your cascade ocean wave blues come // all these people think love’s for show // but i would die for you in secret”

“would it be enough // if i could never give you peace // your integrity makes me seem small // you paint dreamscapes on the wall // i talk shit with my friends // it’s like im wasting your honor”

“and you know that i’d swing with you for the fences // sit with you in the trenches // give you my wild // give you a child // give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other”

“i'd give you my sunshine // give you my best // but the rain is always gonna come // if you're standing with me”

from hoax:

“stood on the cliffside // screaming give me a reason // your faithless love’s the only hoax i believe in // don’t want no other shade of blue but you // no other sadness in the world will do”

“you knew the hero died // so what’s the movie for // you knew it still hurts underneath my scars // from when they pulled me apart // you knew the password so i let you in the door // you knew you won so what’s the point of keeping score?”

“you knew it still hurts underneath my scars // from when they pulled me apart // but what you did was just as dark // darling, this was just as hard // as when they pulled me apart // my only one // my kingdom come undone // my broken drum // you have beaten my heart

[angelicmichael]

Imminient Annihilation Sounds so Dope, Chapter Seven

Michael Langdon x reader

Summary: Reader confesses to Mallory that she met Michael and they go have a night out, execpt they run into a certain someone ;)

Words: 6.1k+

Warnings; Mentions of alcohol poisoning, and someone gets VERY drunk (not saying who cause I don’t wanna spoil it). For the sake of the fic pretend that all characters including the reader are of legal drinking age: please and thank you lol

A/N: Sorry for not updating this in so long 😶 I will be back to add a ‘read more’ line and add it to my master list in a couple days. Idk why all my chapters and fics are so fucking long I’m sorry 😂 this chapter was originally even longer but I cut it down believe it or not. I feel like the chapter is the ‘peak’ moment for the tension between Michael and Reader for sure. The tension and the dynamic between them is just so fun to write honestly haha. Reblog or like this if you enjoyed ♥️ also if u wanna be on the tag list let me know!! ALSOO this is readers POV and takes place about a day after the last chapter!

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You felt tense. That was the best way to describe how you felt but it also wasn’t. You felt a constant swirling storm inside of you since you met Michael. That storm made you feel different flavors and elements of being anxious and angry but being tense was the most prominent emotion of them all.

You made the difficult choice to lay low about your new powers, but that only seemed the make the crazed whirlwind of emotions you felt even worse.

You knew you were making the best decision by not telling the coven, it would only breed more chaos and make everything more complicated if you did decide to come clean about your powers. You hated to admit it but lying to Cordelia was too fucking easy.

Telling little white lies to Cordelia was easy anyway, however, pretending that you only had two powers everyday was not so easy. You could feel your new powers growing and itching to be used. It was almost like you had all of this pent up energy inside of you but no outlet. It seemed to burn at your fingertips and the fact that you couldn’t be your true authentic self in front of your sisters was slowly killing you and sending you into some kind of depression. You weren’t sure what was worse, going insane or letting the depression slowly eat away at you.

However hiding your new powers from your best friend was what was really proving to be the most difficult of all. You were normally a open book with Mallory, she knew everything that there was to know about you.. execpt for this. She didn’t know that you were now supposed to be the next supreme, and she certainly didn’t know that your powers were so strong that you were even stronger than the actual antichrist himself. And it was killing you not to tell her, and it was showing.

You had been drawing back and becoming reserved around Mallory over the past couple days, and it would be naive to say she didn’t notice. You knew she noticed but you two were just avoiding the topic.

Today was starting out as another typical morning for you. You and Mallory both got up, got dressed and were prepping to go downstairs to have another boring, dull day. Even though you had been distancing yourself from her you still waited to walk downstairs with her, and make small talk atleast. You atleast owed her that much.

You watched Mallory come out of the bathroom that was connected to your room, and shut the door. You stood up and approached your bedroom door; getting ready to leave but you felt a small hand touch your shoulder instead and stop you.

“(y/n), wait”.

You turned around and met Mallory’s sad honey colored eyes. It wasn’t just her eyes that seemed sad though, you could even hear it her voice. Something was wrong.

“Can we talk”?

She asked and you immeaditly nodded as you two both sat down on her bed. You couldn’t help but remember how last time you two sat on her bed to talk it was to discuss how you found out Micheal was your soulmate.. it seemed like only bad news was revealed on this bed.

“Yeah of course”.

You replied and took a deep breath and continued to keep talking instead of letting her talk.

“But it’s not fair to you Mallory that you have to be the one to initiate this conversation.. I.. Ive been hiding something”.

You spoke softly as you bit your lip. You could feel a pit in your stomach start to form as you did not want to continue to have this conversation with her but you knew you had too. You really shouldn’t have been keeping this information from her for so long in the first place. You noticed Mallory started to sit up a bit straighter as her eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion. Her mouth opened like she was about to start talking when you cut her off once again.

“I hurt Madison”.

Your words came out shakily, and you made sure to utter them out as a whisper so that none of your sisters could hear. The only thing you really became conscious of was your breathing and your heart beating in your chest. Everything else in the world seemed completely silent and irrelevant. It was as if the world had paused for a couple of seconds until Mallory chose to speak again.

“Madison? How? Why-“

She looked awfully confused as she spoke, and the words seemed to come out quickly. As if she thought the faster she spoke the faster you would give her an answer.

“I didn’t mean too but Micheal wasn’t there at all at first, it was Madison and it was my only option - she would’ve killed me”.

“So it was self defense”?

Mallory asked, the confused expression she wore ealier melted away and now was replaced with a much more stoic and cold look. However, it still held a touch of softness. She had to know deep down that you wouldn’t do something like this unless it was absolutely necessary.. right?

“Yes! I would never hurt her otherwise and you should know that! I wouldn’t hurt a fly”.

You replied and this was when Mallory gave you a small smile and rubbed your shoulder gently with her hand.

“I know (y/n) it’s just I don’t want you to get in trouble. Maybe we should tell Cordelia”?

Mallory offered as she drew her hand back from you.

“There’s no way I could tell Cordelia, Mallory. You know that this whole situation would just stress her out even more than she already is. I feel like she already thinks that I can’t pull the whole ‘seduce Michael’ scheme off. This would just add fuel to the fire, you know”?

You asked her, biting your lip in frustration.

“No, your right. I’m sorry, I just- this whole thing is so complicated. It would just be nice to have a easy solution to all of this”.

Mallory replied with a giggle and a small smile. She looked at you and looked at the floor as if she was deep in thought, and when you got a look in her eyes - you saw a glimmer of adventure and playfulness in her eyes. It was the same glimmer that was in her eyes when you first met her - it was what drew you to her initially. Mallory turned her head back up to look at you and this time she was grinning.

“So your telling me that your powers are stronger than Madison’s? Because you look unscathed”.

She continued and you took a deep breath.

“I- yeah. That’s another thing.. I think seeing Micheal for the first time set something off inside of me because I have these crazy powers, Mallory. I- I stopped Michael from hurting me. I dont know exactly how but I did. Each day my powers seem to be growing and I don’t want to burden anyone else with this information so.. I just feel helpless”.

You ranted. You felt incredibly guilty as you spoke, you knew you were implying that you would be the next supreme but that’s not what you wanted. You didn’t want to be supreme. You didn’t want to take that away from Mallory, your best friend.

“I know your meant to be the next supreme and I would never want to take that away from you-“

You continued to talk but Mallory hugged you and before you realized it you stopped talking. You sat there on the bed speechless. You looked at the patch of sunlight that was in the room since the light was turned off and the curtains were drawn. You supposed noticing this ray of sun was a sign - a sign that things would finally get better and that Mallory would drag you out of this weird funk you’ve found yourself in the past couple days. Then Mallory started to speak,

“Don’t ever think that your taking something away from me. I never really wanted to be supreme anyway I mean, that’s a lot of responsibility and.. I don’t know (y/n) but maybe your not supreme. If your powers are really growing at the rate you said they were then wouldn’t Cordelia’s powers be dying out? And Cordelia’s powers haven’t been affected that I’ve noticed”.

By the time she was finished talking, Mallory stopped hugging you and was looking at you dead in the eyes. The patch of sunlight seemed to hit her and highlighted her dark brown eyes, making them look golden and honey brown. They were beautiful. She was beautiful.

But now was not the time to ogle at Mallory’s beauty; you knew she had a point. Cordelia was constantly teaching and preforming her powers, it would be obvious if her powers started to deplete.

“Yeah but what would that even mean? Would that mean I’m like some other entity like Micheal is? I mean, damn maybe I’m not even a witch at all”.

You were thinking outloud at this point. You crossed your arms gently as you started to get deep in thought. What the fuck would that even mean if you weren’t a witch? How many entities were there that even had ‘magical’ powers? And how would that even really make sense anyway? Your powers really only advanced so rapidly once you met Michael, before that you were just like any other witch. If you really were a entity or something, wouldn’t your powers manifested immeaditly? Plus, you think you would’ve noticed if you really were a demon or some shit.

“Well don’t jump to conclusions I mean, if you really want to know if your a witch you should talk to Cordelia. She would know. Taking the seven wonders wouldn’t be a horrible idea either”.

“Yeah.. maybe after this whole ordeal with Micheal is over though”.

It was nearly as if a lightbulb was turned on in Mallory, she suddenly lit up when you mentioned Micheals name and her mouth even dropped open slightly.

“I totally forgot about Micheal! What happened with Micheal when you met him? How did he not hurt you”?

She questioned and you licked your lips before you continued.

“Take a guess”.

You said with a smirk. It was as if she read your mind because she seemed to know immeaditly what you were talking about. She knew that you were implying that your powers were stronger than Michaels.

“No way! We need to tell Cordelia”!

Mallory’s face continued to light up but you simply shook your head.

“I cant, Mallory. I really can’t”.

You replied softly, trying to stifle a laugh. It made you happy to know that Mallory didn’t reject you or the idea that you might possibly be supreme. However the idea that you perhaps weren’t even fucking human at all overwhelmed you - to say the very least. For now, you were trying to ignore that little detail though.

“Well if your stronger than Micheal than there’s no reason to stay cooped up then, is there”?

“But the coven and Cordelia still need to think that nothing changed. They don’t even know that I met Micheal-“

“We’re going out tonight whether you like it or not. It’s a Friday, and no one will notice if we sneak out.. we deserve a nice night out stress free”.

She replied and you couldn’t help but agree to it. She had a point, it felt purely stupid now to hide away in Robichaux’s when you really had nothing to fear.. even if Micheal did show up, you were stronger than him.. when it came to him hurting you though. Who knows if you would be able to stop his powers if he tried to hurt someone else, like god forbid, Mallory. The odds of Micheal actually showing up tonight in Lousiana were slim to none though. Most likely the fucker was cooped up in his crazy expensive penthouse back in L.A.

But after all you deserved to have a nice night out. You deserved this.

~

It wasn’t hard to find a house party to go to on a Friday night in Lousiana.. it was nearly laughable at how easy it truly was. It was getting close to midnight and you and Mallory had just arrived, parking the black SUV about a block away from the party you two planned on ‘crashing’.

The house was huge, and college students decorated the yard and flooded the house - making the once spacious area seem cramped and tiny as you walked through the yard and then into the house with Mallory. Mallory led the way as she held your hand as to not get lost as you two had to push through people to find drinks.

It was difficult to be completely certain but with the limited decor you noticed on the walls, the house seemed to be a frat house which explained why all the boys looked like jocks and why all the females seemed to be dressed in minimal clothing. You and Mallory both sported black dresses, hers was long and flowy and fell to about her knees while your dress hugged your body a lot more and ended mid thigh.

You two looked like you belonged here, like you were a part of the party scene but you really weren’t. This was the first time you and Mallory had ever been to be a place like this... from what you heard - this seemed to be more of Madison’s scene. You know she frequently visited frat houses - probably even this one atleast once.

Thinking about Madison put a bad taste in your mouth - it made you incredibly sad. The image of how Madison’s body looked when you threw her against the wall played in your mind but you were quickly brought out of your thoughts when Mallory handed you a cup. You took a sniff of it and sure enough, whatever the substance was DEFINITELY had alcohol in it. You tried not to think to hard about what the substance exactly was before you completly chugged it. Mallory merely gawked at you.

“Your gonna get sick if you keep drinking that fast”!

Mallory yelled at you, you could barely hear her through the blasting music and all of the people talking. You simply giggled at her before replying.

“I’ll be right back”!

You yelled as you turned around, on a mission to find where the rest of the booze was. Of course you didn’t see where Mallory got your booze from in the first place, and it was fucking impossible to see where the kitchen was when you were literally shoulder to shoulder with strangers from how packed this house was.

You swear you could already feel the effects of the alcohol because you knew normally you would be gagging at the smell the house reeked of. It could be best described as pure sweat and maybe unwashed underwear?

You were pleasantly surprised to find that when you next opened your mouth, it was words that came out and not vomit. You didn’t even look to see who was next to you when you spoke; there were so many people in this god damn house - someone was bound to hear you. You had wandered off from Mallory as well, you couldn’t see her anymore but you really weren’t worried at the moment.

“Excuse me, do you know where there keeping the alcohol”?

You tapped the person who was next to you on the shoulder lightly.

The person had their back turned to you and as soon as you actually had time to look at them - you felt as if you had been stabbed square in the chest with fear.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The person you tapped wore a full black outfit with hands crossed behind their back, and their fingers were adorned with several expensive looking rings. Their hair was a curly, beautiful, golden blonde that seemed to rest around their head like a nest or halo of some sort. You just knew that all of these features seemed to hauntingly familiar to you. Too familiar.

Your mouth fell open as you tried to back up but you ended up stepping on someone’s foot, you were trapped. This time, if it really was him, you didn’t have the luxury of running away like you did on the previous meeting. You didn’t know if it was worse to be alone with him or to be stuck with him in a room full of people. Hopefully you were just over reacting and this was just a doppelgänger at best.

The person (who you were hoping wasn’t Micheal) finally sauntered around to face you, you couldn’t help but continue to gawk at them with your mouth wide open. You knew if you continued to keep your mouth open you would surely attract flies so you managed to close your mouth.

You realized this person was wearing a light black cape with two golden claspes on each side with a golden chain running between the two claspes. You couldn’t help but briefly think how expensive those claspes probably were - fuck. All it took was for you to look up and meet his icy blue eyes. Fuck, those eyes. Once you pulled yourself out of the trance his eyes seemed to put you in, you then realized who you were staring at... oh no.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck fuck!!

“I don’t, I was actually just looking for the drinks myself. Care to search with me”?

You stood there as he spoke, completly fucking baffled. You forgot you had even talked to him at all ealier, but he sure didn’t seem surprised to see you. Weird. It was almost as if he knew you were going to be here, but how was that even possible? He wore a smug smirk on his face while your thoughts started to race at one hundred miles per hour.

You tried to make it look less apparent that you were so shocked; it looked like he was getting off on the fact that you looked caught off guard. You didn’t know too much about him but you knew he had a thing for control and manipulation; and you weren’t about to let Langdon control you anymore than he already had.

“Wait.. What? What the fuck are you even doing here”?

You asked and threw your hands up in the air in frustration. The sheer hatred and anger you held in your voice got the attention of a few people who stood close to you but they quickly lost interest.. thank god.

You went to this party with the intention of finally letting go of fear and being able to be free and yet you ran into the person that you were dreading would be there. You felt incredibly angry that he took this night away from you, a night where you could just let go and have fun but now that was fucking gone.

It was odd how he wasn’t scared to confront you when he knew you were stronger than he is. It’s as if he got off on having control over you and your life, and even how you felt.. And you were so fucking over it. It was so fucking sick.

“I could easily ask you the same, couldn’t I”?

Micheal responded. Instead of yelling to talk to you, you noticed that he kept moving in closer and closer to talk to you and you were still trapped. You could feel your palms starting to itch with inticipation, waiting for the right moment to use your powers to attack - if it came to that but that was the absolute last resort. You were surrounded by way too many people to just use your powers freely like in the abandoned house you two had met in previously.

“You don’t own me Micheal. I’m sick of feeling like you control me, I feel like I’m not even in charge of my own emotions or actions anymore. And now when I finally try to have a night to forget about you, you fucking show up. So let me ask you again, what are you fucking doing here”?

You hissed. You kept your voice a little low, still yelling but not quite at the volume that would catch other people’s attention. You made sure to look right into Micheals eyes as you spoke, you wanted to show him you weren’t scared. There was no reason to cower from him anymore.

Micheal smirked as he glanced over his shoulder, as if he was making sure no one was picking up on your conversation. There was so many fucking people here, it was really hard to tell if any of them were purposely listening in or not. And even if they were listening, it probably just sounded like you two were exes that happened to run into eachother at a party.

“I’m here for the same reason you are. To forget about all of the bullshit that’s happened within this past week. So, C’Mon lets go take shots”.

Micheal said and actually grabbed your hand. Your mouth dropped once again as soon as he touched you, your not sure if it was from pure surprise or disgust.. maybe both? Your first instinct was to take back your hand and you tried to - you really did but the fucker seemed to have cat like reflexes and he caught your hand before you could yank it away too far.

You thought the first time you would touch your soulmate you feel sparks or fireworks and maybe even butterflies but when Micheal touched you, and was even leading you through the crowd now - you felt nothing of the sort.

You felt regret, nausea, and if anything it felt like you had almost been electrocuted when he touched you. And not in a good way.

He was moving through the crowd pretty damn fast, and he wasn’t really holding your hand - more so grabbing onto your wrist as if you were a kid who was about to be punished. You tried to slide your wrist out of his grip but he wouldn’t fucking let go, and it was really starting to hurt. You stumbled behind him and he continued lugging you through the crowd and to the kitchen; where there was definetly still a crowd but it was more dispersed and there was actually room to breathe. It was a little bit quieter here too, the music a little bit distant and the crowd was more sparse. It wasn’t nessacary to scream here to talk but you chose to anyway for your next sentence because you wanted to make sure he fucking heard you.

“Micheal let go”!

You yelled, you still couldn’t work your wrist free so you took your other hand to pry Micheals hand free off of you.

You noticed people were staring at you two - you didn’t look to see but you could feel their eyes on you. Micheal must’ve sensed that you two were getting attention because he finally let go of your fucking wrist. Ow. He might’ve let go because you were also digging your nails into his skin as well.

You rubbed your wrist which was now red as you frowned deeply. Even though your wrist was really just irritated and not actually injured; you still chose to put your other hand over your wrist and heal it. It’s not like anyone would notice, you doubted even Michael noticed what you were doing. However, What you really wanted to do was to continue to yell at Micheal but you knew you couldn’t do that now, espically since you just got people to stop staring. You cleared your throat.

“What the hell is this all about Micheal? Are you out of your mind”?

You hissed, glaring daggers at him as you spoke. You hurt Madison, why was he not furious with you? It made no fucking sense. And he wanted to take shots with you?? What??

You don’t know what exactly you were so mad about honestly, because this point it was fucking everything. You don’t know if it was the fact that he was trying to pretend everything was okay when it obviously fucking wasn’t, or the fact he was expecting you to just forget all of the bad blood that was between you too? Who knew at this point.

You waited for him to talk but instead he moved toward the counter to pour shots, you assumed since he was so hellbent on you two drinking together. You wouldn’t be surprised if he poisoned your drink honestly but something about Michael today seemed desperate, and sad. He really seemed like he was trying to get on your good side; maybe you were just reading him wrong but you felt like you could trust him tonight.

Michael didn’t even bother to turn around to reply to you; he kept his focus on the alcohol and not even making eye contact as he spoke.

“I told you, I’m done fighting”.

He said. He nearly slammed the alcohol bottle down onto the counter and he turned to look at you as he kept speaking. He first handed you your shot which happened to be clear in a tiny red plastic cup. You stared at the fluid in the cup suspiciously, and then you looked back up at Michael. You figured you would watch him drink his shot first before you had yours.

“The more I try to distance myself from you, the more I just end up getting fucking nowhere so I’m done trying to run away from you. Whenever I try to push you away someone ends up getting hurt, so It’s not worth it.. bottoms up”.

Micheal took his shot and downed it within seconds and slammed it back down on the counter. You noticed he was already reaching for the bottle to fill up his glass again. You continued to keep holding onto your cup absentmindedly as you watched Michael pour himself another glass. You couldn’t help but to notice how whenever he spoke tonight there seemed to be a desperation in his voice, it was as if he had given up. It almost made you feel bad for him.. almost.

You had to remind yourself who he was, and what his ultimate goals were. The only reason he was sad and angsty tonight was because he couldn’t manipulate you or use his powers against you, it wasn’t because he cared or felt any kind of empathy for you. It stung and hurt for you to acknowledge that but you knew you couldn’t let his charm cloud your judgement.

You already had a drink ealier but you figured this tiny shot wouldn’t hurt, being tipsy around Micheal couldn’t be TOO risky.. After all Michael seemed to be pretty cozy with drinking around you. You downed your shot and pull your small plastic cup back onto the table; assuming Micheal would fill it for you since he was still holding the bottle of alcohol.

You were about to speak but instead you heard someone else speak up and talk to Micheal instead.

“Why are you even taking shots? You might as well just drink the whole bottle at this point”.

It was an all too familiar voice, you whipped your head around and you saw Mallory. You exhaled and grinned, you were never happier to see another human being in your fucking life.

It’s not like you were alone with Micheal, you were surrounded by people but you felt alone. Micheal could do whatever he wanted to you here because you couldn’t use your powers. You felt isolated and alone but now with Mallory here? You were getting the fuck out. Nothing could stop you now.

You were surprised Mallory made such a snide remark to the damn antichrist of all people.. I mean she knew who he was.. right?

Micheal at first smirked, and then he full on laughed - it was like he was trying to hold it in at first. He was defintly feeling the alcohol you could only assume. You’d never seen him laugh before... you couldn’t decipher whether it was a true laugh or a sarcastic one from being challenged.

“Your right. I guess I will”.

Micheal announced, he placed his shot glass on the table and even slid it across. Your not sure if it slid naturally or if he used a bit of his magic - a quick glance around told you that no one seemed to notice or care execpt you.

He started to chug the bottle which happened to be a pretty big fucking bottle of Absolute Vodka. You watched his throat as his Adam’s apple continued to bob as he swallowed.. and swallowed and swallowed. You and Mallory’s mouth both dropped open, you didn’t know what the fuck to do. You both looked at eachother in shock as you watched the amount of liquid in the bottle start to grow smaller and smaller.

He was defintly going to get sick at this rate, and be drunk off his fucking ass. Yes, you hated him and wanted him dead but not like this. Choking on his own vomit and dying drunk and alone would be a fucking awful death; even for the antichrist. And lucky for him you actually gave a shit about people and their feelings.

You knew Cordelia’s ideal end game would be to have Micheal dead as soon as possible but if you could help it Micheal wasn’t going to die tonight. You would rather it be a quick and painless death if he had to die; dying by being drunk would not quick and painless. And on the other hand, Mallory didn’t even know this was Micheal yet. You assumed she probably thought this was just some guy you stumbled across - which wasn’t a totally wrong assumption. You brought your attention back to the man in front of you; who was still fucking drinking, the bottle was nearly empty.

“Hey! Stop”!

You hissed at Micheal. You gripped the end of the bottle and yanked it away from him - he had a damn good grip didn’t he?

The bottle was at least three quarters empty, fuck. You noticed Mallory gave you a weird look when you yelled at Micheal but you only did so cause you didn’t want to randomly name drop him, you figured they could have a (semi) proper introduction.

You still held onto the bottle as you shifted glances between Mallory and Micheal. You pointed at each of them with the bottle you held as you said their names.

“Mallory, this is Micheal. Micheal, this is Mallory”.

Mallory, who was staring at you before, instantly snapped her head toward Michael as her eyes grew wide. It was as if she was trying to convince herself that what you had just said wasn’t true. She looked completly panicked, in fact you could nearly feel the anxiety radiating off of her like how you would feel the heat rising off of a hot stove.

“This is Micheal”?!

Mallory asked in a panicked whisper. You merely nodded quickly. Micheal on the other hand looked purely amused, and swayed in place dangerously. If he wasn’t drunk before, he definitely was now. you had no doubt in your mind that he was reading and taking in all her thoughts right now, if he wasn’t too drunk to use his powers anyway. You weren’t drunk, maybe just a little tipsy at most but you could still feel the strength of your powers swirling inside you. Being intoxicated definitely had no effect on the strength of your powers - that was good to know. Michaels blue eyes flickered from watching Mallory to meeting your gaze.

You knew no one else execpt maybe Mallory was staring at you but you felt under the spotlight under Micheals gaze, almost like how a bug would feel right before being squashed. You started to sweat and shift uncomfterably in place. You felt even more uncomfterable as he spoke.

“Is this your new normal now? Do you always keep a posey of witches around you wherever you go? How about you just introduce me to rest”.

Micheal mused, you nearly screeched when he said the word ‘witches’ outloud. Even though he looked obviously drunk, his words came out smoother than silk - not stumbling on his words once. You found it odd Michael didn’t even bother addressing Mallory, not even respecting her enough to look her in the eyes. You assumed he knew she was a witch from reading her thoughts, or maybe he could just sense it. This seemed to piss you off any more of that was even possible. He could at least pretend to be civil.

“Micheal, What is your problem? Im not scared of you”.

You snarled, you stepped closer to him, just a foot away from his face as you stared him in the eyes. Even though you felt insanely nervous doing this, you knew Micheal couldn’t hurt you. You just needed to show him that you were in control for once. Not him.

You felt Mallory’s soft hand on your bicep, very gently pulling your arm back. You knew she was scared that you or Michael would start fighting.

“(y/n), we need to go”.

You heard her say. Micheal still had a smug smile on his lips and you wanted nothing more than to wipe it clean off.

You backed off though, you took a couple steps back and turned to Mallory; your back now to Michael. As you spoke, you felt Micheal tug on the bottom of the bottle you still held - trying to take it back - but you gently tugged it back. He was already drunk out of his mind, no fucking way he was having more.

“I can’t leave him like this, he’s going to get himself killed”.

You explained to Mallory, frowning. It’s not like you wanted to spend tonight babysitting Micheal but you couldn’t trust him to be by himself.. even if he was acting like a asshole and purposefully trying to piss you off. You could tell Mallory was about to protest by the look on her face but you spoke instead.

“Don’t worry about me I’ll be fine. Go home, I’m gonna stay with him”.

“There’s no way I’m going to let you do that, what if he hurts you”?!

“I’m not worried, I’m stronger than him. Plus he’s drunk, the only one he’s in danger of hurting right now is himself”.

You said with a giggle. Mallory quickly took a couple steps toward you and bear hugged you. You hugged her back and you could barely make out the words,

“Be careful. I’m gonna head back”.

You gave Mallory a somber smile as you watched her melt back into the sea of people as she left the kitchen. You turned your attention back to the drunk bafoon you had the pleasure of babysitting tonight.

You caught him dancing embarrassingly bad and trying to lip sync to whatever hip hop song was playing.. you could only laugh as you walked over to him.

After pick pocketing his phone from his back pocket of his jeans, you quickly got you two a Uber to wherever the hell Michael was staying this time.

You could only hope it was another nice penthouse like how his one in L.A. was.

While holding his phone; you didn’t mean to snoop or go through anything execpt the Uber app (which you downloaded) but.. a message notification popped up.

A quick glance at Michael told you that he wasn’t paying attention, the dumbass was too drunk to even notice you took his phone in the first place.

You looked over back at his phone and first noticed the message was from Madison, and then you noticed what the message even was.. a photo. It looked to be a photo of.. oh my god.

Was that Madison? Was that a fucking nude? Your mouth opened and your shut his screen off, you immeaditly handed his phone back over to him which he reluctantly took with a confused puppy look.

By how Michael was talking ealier you thought that maybe he wanted to make mends but if he still had this kind of relationship with Madison, what did it even mean? What did any of this mean? You saw first hand though how in love he was with her. He wasn’t just going to break up with her, you should’ve known that.

You shook your head, atleast you knew you had a lot to think about tonight.

Taglist: @mindlesschicca @mina672 @guiltyfiend @michaellangdonstanaccount @9layerdevilsfoodcake

[rachelalghul]

Damirae request part 2

Part 1

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Dick was going through his emails in the living room with a mild hot coffee next to him, sat on a coaster on the glassy top of the coffee table. His left hand held the hand of the mug and brought it to his lips to slowly sip the black liquid. He almost choked on his coffee when Damian suddenly burst into the room from the elevator with Raven in his arms, rushing to the left wing of the building; which was medical room was at.

He quickly put down his mug and followed them, eyes on a passed-out Raven. His voice raised as he asked, “What happened?”

“Can you please treat her first before asking questions?” Damian shot a glare at him and he was taken aback by that.

Damian had never showed any worry he felt about Raven before or rather, he was never worried about her at all. Even when she was once in a one-week coma after she had lost control of her power, Damian never once stepped foot inside the medical room to give her a visit.

“Okay, take her to the bed,” Dick nodded, opening the door to the room and let Damian entered.

He watched as Damian gently put Raven down on the bed, and his eyes were quick to notice the soft yet quick movement of Damian’s hand swiping her hair away from her face. When Damian backed away, he pulled a monitor toward her bed and stick on patches of wires onto her chest. His mind was blank when his hand moved inside her shirt to place them on. He pulled his hand away and turned on the machine. The screen showed all the readings he needed to know about her condition at the moment.

“Her vitals are normal,” he said, standing up from sitting on the bed. “But she’s low on nutrients, I’ll put her on IV,”

After Dick had properly put her on the IV drip, he read the monitor again. Her heart rate was normal, and he noticed how her own powers were starting to surround her, slowly healing her.

“She’ll wake up in a few hours if there’s nothing serious happen within the time,” Dick said, walking up to wash his hands. “Now tell me, what happened? This was supposed to be a quiet patrol,”

“You know you shouldn’t expect every patrol to go smoothly,” Damian sat down on the chair next to the bed, his emerald eyes moved from the monitor to her, “I don’t exactly know what happened, but I think she took in my pain when she healed me,”

Dick turned around with a question look on his face, his hands using napkin to dry, “She healed you?”

“Yeah,” he took off his mask and lift his suit up, “I was stabbed,”

“What?” Dick quickly rushed to him to examine him but Damian moved away.

“Like I told you, she healed me, there’s nothing here,”

Dick’s eyes examined the skin Damian showed to him. Indeed, there was nothing there, not even a scar was left behind. If it wasn’t for blood on his suit, he wouldn’t have believed that Damian was stabbed and Raven had healed him.

He moved back and crossed his arms, “I see. Go wash up, I’ll watch her here,”

Damian was quiet for a while, his gaze on her, as if he was in thoughts. Then he stood up from his seat and walked away from the bed. But Dick wasn’t going to let him go just yet.

He smirked, watching him from under his brunette locks that fell into his eye, “I thought you weren’t going to help her like I do,”

And he only received a groan as a response.

-

There was a gala held at the Wayne Manor for annual charity and Bruce had asked his sons to invite their friends to come. Dick obviously sent invitation card to his teammates in Titans, hence, even Raven was invited.

After healing Damian, Raven was out for twelve hours and for the first time since forever, Damian set foot into the medical room to check up on her. That time, Kori was looking after Raven. She did not hide her surprised look when she noticed Damian entering and sitting beside the bed, watching Raven. After a few minutes, he got up and leave, and never came back again.

Tonight, everything was classical, as usual. Alfred would never allow anything to disturb the peace of the party. Planning for a gala had always been his favorite as he gets to watch all his Masters gather in one house enjoying fine wines and lush foods. And of course, getting to see them with dates would be a plus.

Alfred was placing crab cakes onto a silver platter when he noticed Damian entering the kitchen with a huff. He watched the boy sitting down next to him at the island with a bored expression.

“What’s wrong, Master Damian?”

“It’s just so boring, all the rich people keep talking about how many boats they have,” he rolled his eyes with a sigh. His hand moved to take one of the crab cakes but Alfred hit his hand with a sharp tap, causing him to pull his hand in a haste.

“Don’t you bring a date with you? Perhaps it might help you to feel less bored if you have company,” Alfred continued placing the crab cakes gracefully on the platter, his eyes never leaving the food in front of him.

“Who would I bring? There’s literally no one, Alfred,” Damian placed his chin in his palm, laze green eyes watched Alfred doing work.

“I don’t know, one of your teammates at least?” After putting the last crab cake, Alfred lifted his face up slightly to stare into Damian’s eyes, “Don’t you have anyone to bring at all?”

The first thought that came across his mind was Raven and Damian quickly shook it off. Ignoring Alfred’s last question, he stood up from the stool and grabbed a glass of champagne from a tray in front of him. Alfred stopped him from drinking the liquor, taking the glass away and lightly pushed the tray of champagnes further.

“You know you still can’t drink alcohols, Master Damian,”

“I’m sixteen, Alfred, I can handle alcohol,”

Alfred shook his head firmly, “I’m afraid I have to stop you, an underage from drinking, Master Damian,”

Damian knew he shouldn’t disobey Alfred after the second warning and so he didn’t. His face was in a tight grimace as he murmured a ‘Fine’ and walked out of the kitchen. He had no other choice but to enter the party he despised so much; unwillingly, he entered the room again, filled with men in their finest tailored suits, women in their designers’ dresses along with their most expensive jewelries. His emerald eyes scanned around the room, just for the fun of it. He spotted Dick dancing with Kori in the middle of the dance floor, his hand dangerously close to her ass. Ugh. Damian rolled his eyes in disgust and crossed his arms, leaning onto the pillar next to him. He grabbed one of the desserts from the walking tray and looked around, observing the guests; he saw Jason, as usual, flirting around with girls his age with his charming words. Tim, as intellectual as ever, having conversation with men that would be at least seven years older than him.

He popped the last bit of the dessert into his mouth and looked around again, taking in the suits, the dresses, the champagnes, the foods, the dancing, the music playing from front by a group of orchestra musicians. Until his eyes fell on a particular someone standing in the corner of the room. He recognized that pitch dark purple almost black hair, that pale milky skin, that petite figure of hers, he knew it all so well.

He watched her eyes darting around in the huge room, as if looking for a specific person. He wondered who she was looking for. Could it be him?

His eyes swept down the length of her in that black long dress that pooled around her heels, he noticed that she was also wearing a little bit of makeup, though it was very mild and soft, he knew that was lipstick on her lips. Her lips. Her pinkish, soft lips. Her teeth bit down her lower lip and he watched all that movement as if it was thee most interesting thing in his life to watch. When she let go of her lip, he stared at how her lip reddened a little.

An accidental push from a walking waiter was what brought him out of the reverie. He didn’t even acknowledge the waiter’s apology before turning his head again to catch her, making sure he hadn’t lost sight of her. And she was still there. Except, her eyes were focused solely on something…or someone.

Slowly, he followed her gaze to see who she was looking with such sadness filled in the brim of her violet eyes. Dick.

Damian wasn’t sure if what he felt was true, but he felt something tugged on his heart, and it hurt. He looked up again to see what Raven was seeing; Dick kissing Kori. His gaze turned back to her again and the soft pained look on her face made him feel it again. The tug on his heart. And it hurt a little more than the first time.

Of course, she would be looking for his brother and not him. Why would she be looking for him? After months of verbal abuse on her, why did he think that just because she saved him it would mean that she felt something for him? Man, he was such a fool to even hope that she would see him.

He lifted his face to see that she was no longer in the corner of the room. His panicky eyes dart around to find her and almost didn’t catch her black dress moving out of the room out to the balcony. Damian didn’t think at all when he began walking towards the balcony. There were two doors that led to the balcony, and he took the right one, a bit further from the one she used. He slowly stepped his foot onto the bricks floor. He saw her.

Raven was sitting on the edge of the stoned rail, silently staring at her feet. She heard footsteps nearing and instantly lifting her head up to see her intruder. Her dark gaze was met with a shocked green eyes.

Damian’s steps halted when she suddenly looked into his eyes. He didn’t know what to do, should he proceed to walk to her? Or pretend to not know that she was there and walked away?

“Damian,” Raven hopped off the rail and headed towards him with her clinking heels.

Oh? OK, act cool.

He stood straight and slipped his right hand into his pocket, staring right into her face when she came near. With her heels, she was able to reach his eyes easily.

“How’s your stabbed wound? Is it perfectly healed?”

Right. He had been avoiding her ever since she woke up.

He cleared his throat and slipped another hand into his pocket, “Yeah, it’s fine. No scar,”

Her eyes widened mildly, “No scar? Can I see?”

“What? No!” He stepped away from her with a bewildered stare.

“Why are you so jumpy? I just wanted to see if my powers are actually working good now,” she looked at him in confusion.

Damian swallowed a lump before pressing the bridge of his nose, “I’m not lifting my shirt up in public where cameras are everywhere for you to see nothing on my skin,”

“There’s really no scar? Even a faded one?” Her eyes brimmed with suprise and curiousity.

He bit his lip watching her doubting her own powers. A sigh left him as he answered her question, “Yes, there is no scar. Even Dick saw it,”

“Wow...” Raven raised her hands and stared at them with profound surprise along with a smile that showed she was proud with her progress.

A pregnant of silent hovered around them after that and Damian cleared his throat promptly before asking the question he definitely knew the answer to already, “What are you doing out here? It’s winter and the party is inside,”

He watched her eyes glanced to her right briefly, where the entrance was at, before settling gaze on him. “I don’t really know what to do in there,”

It was a half-truth of an answer. He knew. Raven wasn’t the kind of the girl who could openly socialize with strangers. If she had been, she wouldn’t let him talk shit to her.

“Hm,” Damian hummed, his gaze was tight on her. He didn’t really know what he was doing. He shouldn’t be here, out in the balcony with Raven. He shouldn’t even stare at her out of curiosity and followed her when she disappeared.

“What about you?” Her question almost passed through his thoughtful mind if he hadn’t been looking at her face and noticed her lips moving.

He let the question hang in the air while his brain processed what was the question she had asked. He had never been like this; mind stuttering and not functioning well enough for his quick verbal responses.

“I just wanted to get some fresh air,” the best answer he could muster under the tension of her dark eyes staring daringly into him, waiting.

Raven nodded a little at him, eyes moving away from his too deep green eyes that seemed to be pulling her in. Should she walk away now?

Again, silence hovered above them, but, instead of feeling the awkwardness began to kick in between them, they felt...at peace. It was never this peaceful between them at the Tower. There, he would always find time and ways to torture her just to get her to break so that she eventually leaves the team. Now that he had been thinking, he was so harsh with her.

Right at this moment, under the soft glow of the moonlight touching her milky skin gracefully, she looked so...soft. She looked almost like a tiny bean with her short height, small figure, and her eyes never stopped glancing from places to places under a second. Her hair, which she had always put up in a half-ass ponytail, with tendrils popping out framing her face, tonight she had let it all go. He realized her hair length only reached her collarbone. Her shiny, dark purple hair touching her bare shoulders.

Her fingers smoothly pulled some of her hair to the back of her ear; a movement of awkward nerves he noticed she always did around Dick. Right. Dick. He had forgotten all about him the second he stepped foot out in the balcony.

Dick Wayne Grayson.

His brother.

His team leader.

His mentor.

Her crush.

“Fuck,” he muttered so softly under his breath. Why had that thought painfully stabbed his heart in a quick swift moment?

“What?” Raven asked, a frown was on her face at his sudden curse.

“Noth—“

“Raven! There you are!” Just in time.

Damian watched his brother walking onto the balcony with a smile he had always shared with Raven. The kind of smile where he seemed proud and also adoring her.

Heh, no wonder.

His brother’s blue eyes widened slightly at the sight of him outside with Raven. “Damian?”

“I’m just here for the fresh air, you know I don’t do parties,” he said, walking away to the rail stone and leaned onto it. He took his phone as his distraction. But really, the real distraction was her suddenly frozen in front of his brother while his brother was complimenting her dress and saying how beautiful she looked tonight.

Indeed, she did look beautiful tonight.

God. Why was he out here thinking sappy thoughts about her?

He pressed the button on his phone and unlocked it using his thumb. His hand doing all the movement, but his eyes never really left Raven.

He observed how her left hand, that she hid behind her dress, mildly shaking. It could be due to the cold of the winter night. Who knew? He could be lucky with that cheap guess.

Of course it wasn’t because of the cold air.

He continued his observation under the disguise of him checking his phone; her mouth gape open and her eyes never really settled on the eyes of her crush. She looked everywhere but him. She thought she was being sly when she looked at him directly into his brother’s eyes, and all the while she looked into his eyes, her hand was in a tight fist and he noticed her chest moved quite rapidly, as if she was breathless.

Dick suddenly offered his hand in front of her and she was taken aback, eyes wide with a surprised look on her face. He watched the slow yet quick movement of her throat going down and up before placing her hand onto Dick’s bigger palm.

His eyes were trained on the contact of their hands, he took in how small Raven’s hand was and how he so badly wanted to be the one touching that hand. Fuck. He was sappy again.

Mentally groaning at his weird self, he continued watching the two entering the party again side by side. He saw the nervous pretty smile of hers when Dick had look away to guide their path. He saw the adoration softly pooling in her violet eyes as she stared up at his brother. He saw the happy trails of her lips quirking up into that soft small smile.

That smile. That soft small smile. The one smile that she had given to him. The one smile that started it all.

He had fallen deep into a place he knew would be difficult to climb out.

His bottom fell onto the railing and his hand holding his phone fell limb next to him, his head down. A crazed smile crept on his face as the realisation began to sink in; his lips muttering soft curses under his breath.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He looked up again and to his unfortunate luck, he felt that painful stab to his heart again. She was dancing with his brother. An obvious adoring happy smile lit up her already pretty face. Her eyes staring deeply into that damn blue eyes with such adore and romantic feelings.

He sighed loudly, tilting his head up to face the full moon above him, “The hell am I supposed to do with this feeling?”

- end -

Oh goddddd i finally finished it !!!! I am soooo sorry it took so so so long 😭😭

I’m having troubles to write now but I try my best to meet your expectations @ravenfan1242 and i hope it did! Although it’s a bit different than what you wanted, but I hope you like it

[thewebcomicsreview]

hussie said a thing abt the epilogues reddit. com/r/homestuck/comments/cuywff/the_homestuck_epilogues_bridges_and_offramps_new/

I also think many of the negative feelings the story creates isn’t just an urgent prompt for the reader to imagine different ideas, or ways to resolve the new narrative dilemmas. It’s also an opportunity for people to discuss any of the difficult content critically, and for fandom in general to continue developing the tools for processing the negative emotions art can generate. Sorting that out has to be a communal experience, and it’s an important part of the cycle between creating and criticizing art. I think not only can creators develop their skills to create better things by practicing and taking certain risks, fandom is something which can develop better skills as well. Skills like critical discussion, dealing constructively with negative feelings resulting from the media they consume, interacting with each other in more meaningful ways, and trying to understand different points of view outside of the factions within fandom that can become very hardened over time. Fandoms everywhere tend to get bad reputations for various reasons, maybe justifiably. But I don’t see why it can’t be an objective to try to improve fandom, just as creators can improve their work. And I think this can only happen if now and then fandoms are seriously challenged, by being encouraged to think about complex ideas, and made to feel difficult emotions. I believe when art creates certain kinds of negative feelings in people, it can lead to some of the most transformative experiences art has to offer. But it helps to be receptive to this idea for these experiences to have a positive net effect on your life, and your relationship with art.

Christ, he’s gone full Lennon. Imagine a good ending. I wonder if you can.

So, I’ve mentioned this a few times, but the most transformative art has ever been for me was a comic that actually started on the Homestuck forums

Prequel - Or - Making The Cat Cry: The Adventure - is a comic written by Kazared loosely based on the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It’s about a Khajiit girl named Katia who moves to OblivionLand to make a new life for herself, and the comic spent years building Katia up to bigger and bigger heights so that every time she crashed she crashed harder than ever before. The second time she relapses into alcoholism is where a lot of readers give up on the comic for being misery porn.

There’s a point where she she’s solved all her problems and even gets to join the mages guild - her lifelong dream - only for the woman running the Kvatch mage guild to mild control her into giving up all her stuff, including the stuff important to Katia’s only friend.  Katia is left naked on the streets literally digging through trash in the vain hope of trying to find a solution to at least one of her problems. And what she finds is a bottle of beer.

Twice already in this comic Katia hit a really bad patch and started drinking again. The comic has twice made us root for Katia to succeed, only to jump cut to her waking up in a stranger’s bed with no memory of what happened.��

She wanders into an empty church (OBVIOUS SYMBOLISM ALERT), and alternates between trying to find some supplies and fantasizing about everything magically getting fixed, which slowly morphs into fantasizing about drinking while getting increasingly furious at barrels for not having clothes in them.

One thing. You wanted one thing and you were too much of a fucking idiot to realize it was hopeless and pointless and bound to ruin everything. Stuck on some childish idea that you could be anything, do anything, and just be some selfish bitch that’s never happy with what she has. Fuck, you don’t even know what you’re mad at anymore, you just hate yourself and everything you ever ruined for yourself and everyone and want to stop thinking about what a worthless mindless thoughtless imbecile you are. You just want to stop fucking thinking about it.

You drop onto the chapel floor and just cry. You cry and cry because you’re stupid and easy and can’t fix anything no matter how hard you try. You cry because your best is worse than everyone else’s average. You cry because your parents never loved you and you’re a disappointment to everyone, even yourself. You cry because all you wanted was to be someone and that’s never going to happen. And when that’s done, you cry a little more because you’re ashamed of being such a crybaby.

You try to get all the emotions out, try to clear your mind and maybe, just maybe feel ready to tackle the night ahead of you, feel as though this is the time you finally turn things around. But no matter how hard you try, how hard you weep and bawl and try to get it all out, you’re still just a fuckup. No matter what you try, that knowledge is still there, gripping onto your every thought and reminding you that things are never going to change.

You’re not strong. You’re not a hero. You’re not even worthy of the name Katia Managan. You’re sad and angry and nothing makes sense, but you know this is probably the clearest your head is going to get.

Someday, things are going to get better. Someday, you are going to fight and persevere and everything will feel great. You think.But for now, you know what you have to do.

And at the very least, there is no way you could possibly make yourself feel any worse.

Katia, for the first time, manages to avoid drowning drinking. She overcomes her issues. And you know what happens next?

She accidentally sets the church on fire, because this is still Prequel. She passes out from smoke inhalation, and then there’s….

this, and then she wakes up and reflects on her managing to stay on the wagon.

Honestly, you just feel… kind of numb.

You fucked up. You lost everything you earned, were discarded by the people you looked up to most, gave away the package you were supposed to be delivering to pay your friend back, completely lost control of your powers, and after passing out naked in a church have probably ruined any chance you might have had at a good reputation in Kvatch. You were a wreck last night when this was all happening, but now… you guess it just feels like you’ve run out of sad. You’re just confused.

Personally, I think this stuff is way darker than anything that happens in the Homestuck Epilogues, which is mostly just over-the-top Warhammer 40k grimderp. This shit got to me, man. And around the time this is happening in the comic, I lost my job. And as the storyline continued past this point, I kept applying for jobs and getting turned down, and it started to really wear on me, I felt I had no useful skills, since my old job was supporting software that only that company used because they made it. Much like Katia got into great positions only to fail, I walked out of interviews thinking I’d aced it only to get turned down, while Katia kept making two-steps-forward-one-step-back advances and not really getting any closer to solving any of her issues. And one day, about six weeks into joblessless and starting to get into serious depression over it, I got two “Thanks but no thanks” calls from places I was feeling good about back to back, and I was just done. 10am and I was going to go into my room and lie down on the floor all day but first Prequel updated so I guess I’ll check it real quick oh hey a flash

This puzzle took me like 20 tries, I’m no good at them. Aggy ran out of inspiring dialogue and started looping. And if you’re not in the right mindset, in the right place, this probably doesn’t seem like much. But right there, a month and a half into unemployment, doing that stupid fucking jumping jumpy peg thing while a ghost cheered me on was life-changing. I was so fucking jazzed when I got it, I was fired up! I was so fired up I tabled my “lie on the floor all day in despair” plan, and started applying for a bunch of jobs. A few of those jobs called me back. One hired me. I still work there now. I always liked webcomics but Aggy Extrapolate is the reason I make them. Because good art is powerful. Good art changes lives, maybe even saves them. And it doesn’t need to be happy to do it, Katia still hasn’t succeeded at her goals (in part because Prequel updates at a rate Dresden Codak would make fun of).

What the hell did the Homestuck Epilogues do, by comparison? What’s the positive net effect on my life, or my interaction with art? “Sometimes things you like are bad”? Shit, man, I already knew that, I’m into wrestling. How is “John recognizes Terezi’s jizz on his dad’s car” supposed to make me a better person, exactly? Do you really think the problem with fandoms is that they’re not angry enough? Are you high, Andrew Hussie? 

[aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoldretired]

alrighty! im gonna talk about my two new dr!ocs and some updates on sheon’s whole thing. remember they don’t have names yet adkaljasdkfa

SURVIVOR: the ultimate jazz singer. 

as mentioned, she’s the ultimate jazz singer. pretty subdued personality, but she’s the type of jazz singer who would just. scream into a microphone a la screamin jay hawkins. she is pretty neutral/friendly but disconnected in the prologue/first chapter/second chapter. she gets more jittery as the interactions go on. but once you get to the post-fte section of chapter two, that night she actually tries to kill the protag. at this point its revealed her big Angsty Backstory is she got involved with drugs through the music scene and is currently suffering withdrawal symptoms and is Super desperate (something ive seen a lot with my co-musicians and its not good) big breakdown, really delirious, will eventually be talked off the ledge and calmed down. kind of like if sayaka was actually calmed down in thh chap 1

just so happens that during the night whoopsy someone else was killed. so you two have an alibi but to reveal it means you tell everyone about her issues. either there might be a lying feature like in drv3 to cover, or you tell the truth and end up isolating her. for chapter three and most of four she will keep her distance from the protag bc she’s uncomfortable but will eventually reach out to be friends again after chap 4 execution. 

is generally pretty useful during trials, tends to be a person who tries to help calm down more emotional students and look at things logically. is good at trying to calm down the blackened once the protag catches their bluff bc she understands what its like to be desperate. she does, however, cry during/after every punishment. tells others not to speak poorly of their executed classmates. 

she compulsively chews gum, and one of her favorite gifts would be gum. jokes about having an oral fixation. during school mode she might joke about singing love songs but being so awkward about it in real life. really likes dogs, has a dog plushie in her room. 

a first two fte will focus on her health/wellbeing. the third she’ll ask to not talk about that anymore and the next three are just about general stuff. the final one she’ll basically go a little further into detail but the moral of her story is like, she’s not a bad person for doing what she did, no one is. she’s just a person. and it cn happen to anymore.

dresses in clothes more inspired by late mod/early 70s fashion. hoestly im seeing like a turtleneck/pantsuit combo. short curly hair. big heavy under eyelashes. 

MASTERMIND: the ultimate drag racer (ultimate cruiser)

ok but I LOVE him. personality wise he’s the story’s anxious character, think closer in personality to chap 1 shuichi. quiet, skittish, easily flustered, sometimes cracks jokes that fall flat. he’s framed for the chap 1 murder (someone died in a go kart accident, its assumed he sabotaged the other car, his argument is why would he kill someone in a race in front of all his classmates?) the protag obviously works hard to prove he’s innocent. after the execution he makes a promise to the protag that he owes him one big time, and while it seems innocent at the time, the wording should have like. a slight suspicious undertone. 

he’ll investigate weirder areas of the school instead of practical (sometimes he has clues sometimes not) and if there’s ever a mechanical question for a trial, you’ll generally ask him for clarification. he’s not very trusting of others and is often the one to accuse others/bring the information learned in trials back into the real world and make a big deal out of it. for example, he’ll make a big deal about the attempted murder in chap 2, and he’s the one who’s constantly accusing sheon of being a traitor

at first he seems like he’s just anxious, but obviously, he’s the mastermind, and he’s trying to tear the group apart. 

his fte he’s awkward the first few times but he opens up slowly, showing actual comfort/joy around the protag. wants to be close friends. offers to take protag go karting. while their personality is pretty awkward most of the time, there are flashes of an adrenaline junky every now and then especially when talking about cars, where he seems so full of life and drive it’s almost scary. very competitive during these times, his determination almost taking a sadistic glee when talking about beating others. of course he explains it as his cutthroat sport, but ya know...mastermind. instead of saying we’re going to survive he says we’re going to win. friendly towards the others but doesn’t really care about them focused on protag. is consciously trying to seperate protag from sheon.

for a mastermind he’s actually quite the empath and grows attached to his classmates, which he actually takes pleasure in the amount of despair he feels after each of their executions. reason behind the game is the adrenaline rush he feels, never has felt more alive than on despair. he discovered the rush the first time he got in a car accident, and the moments before his crash where like pure bliss. he wanted to let everyone else feel his feverish joy, and talks about how everyone has enjoyed this, deep down. they’re all getting their sick kicks. breaks the fourth wall and alludes to the fact that the protag (through the player) is having the most fun of all. 

final trial where it’s revealed, he’s still v attached to the protag in like an almost yandere way and wants to follow up on the favor he owes from chap 1. he offers a deal to the protag where if they’re welcome to be their accomplice in all this and get out of the game. protag should push to bargain that everyone can give up their morals, sacrifice themselves to despair, and live as the mastermind’s accomplice in exchange for ending the killing game. 

eventually, he’ll agree, but only if the group decides one life among them to sacrifice for no other reason than to kill an innocent friend. the way to get to the correct ending is to choose yourself which will like invalidate the deal. protag ends up dying and everyone else lives. leaves the mastermind in a despair, but for the first time, he does not derive any pleasure. 

takes a LOT OF GLEE in admitting he convinced everyone else sheon was the traitor when she was not, everyone else is horrified.

anyways. his school mode/love mode events show his more likeable side, he can actually be a really cute partner if it weren’t for the part he’s evil but uh. soft sometimes. 

really likes energy drinks. talks about sponsorships. color scheme is like. a black racing suit but his jacket is tied around his waist and he’s wearing a wife beater. tons of accents of neon all over his outfit from like patches and brand deals. backwards hat. blushes easily. has a mullet. i love him. 

“TRAITOR” : SHEON FUKUDA (the ultimate film maker) 

ok so. still antagonistic. but more in the way of pushing your buttons and pointing out your flaws in a trial. like somewhere between antagonist and kirigiri. super chill personality, cracks a lot of jokes, is hardcore struggling with the games and will be open about her mental illness. her fatal flaw is still her martyr complex

is first framed after chap 2 bc of accused of having the ability to direct and oversee a production like this, and from that moment forward no one can trust her and she’s SUPER alienated. she’s still awkwardly trying to be friends/friendly but people act like she’s going to betray them all. tries to prove innocence multiple times going as far as to beginning of chap 3 announce to the group if they need to kill anyone, let it be her so no one else gets hurt and is super transparent about who she is. but this transparency makes people more suspicious. as she goes on she gets more desperate/gallows humor. last convo bfore chap 5 begins she has a vague conversation about with protag about if they fear death. chap 5 would end up being either a suicide or double murder (they killed each other one in attack the other while being defended against) so there’s no execution but monokuma still wants something. its also in this trial that the ultimate drag racer plants evidence taht makes it look like she’s the traitor and is addressed head on. 

a common motif for her is ‘playing the role assigned’ and knowing who she is and who she isn’t. she’s pretty comfortable knowing who she is but expresses unhappiness about being painted a villain. maybe like, three times through the story to this point it’s established as a motif/quirk of fitting a role she’s assigned bc if the protag asks her a question about herself/past/the overall story, she asks the protag a question like well, what do you want 1) 2) and you choose and she’s like. ok. then its _______. same thing here. as she’s finally excused she stares at the protag and is like do you really believe im the traitor? (yes) stares long and hard, somethng sad and defeated in her eyes. ok then. i am.

the trial doesn’t have a punishment originally planned bc the blackened are not alive. but she chooses not to vote and willingly chooses to be punished because everyone else has decided she’s the traitor and she chooses to play along so they can get closure. her last conversation should be about choosing the act of resistance, no matter how convoluted it can be. she doesn’t fear death. the pain sure, but not death. this was her choice to be punished, not the masterminds, and she hopes they lose any glee they take in her suffering because its a sacrifice for hope instead of a death in despair. last request is that she asks for the protag to make sure the manuscripts she wrote during her time are published, the last great work of sheon fukuda.

EXECUTION: CULTURE SHOCK so she wakes up on a soundstage to blinding light. she’s attached with electrodes. monokuma is sitting on a director’s chair with a director’s hat. basically the premise is as the ultimate film maker, she has to recreate different iconic movie scenes and every time she makes a mistake she gets shocked. she keeps on getting thrown into new scenes into the middle of old ones, throwing her off. after a sequence of costume changes/farces she finally collapses in the soundstage. 

beat. she looks up. above the soundstage is a sign that says “congratulations” or something. everyone gasps. she believes she beat it. a single light comes on in center stage prompting her to take a bow. she stumbles over, stands up, and looks into the shadows in the general direction of her classmates. a teleprompter prompts her classmates to clap. she takes glee, soaking in her win, and bows. as she comes up she smiles for a second before a short rings out. she’s shot through the heart. culture shock!

fte are mostly talking about directors/film references and what its like to be a film maker. real dry humor, sometimes talks about deeper stuff. her backstory is that her dad was working for an american embassy so she grew up in america going to art shool, and she feels out of place, despite being a japanese student with the same basic culture as everyone else. sometimes talks about slimeball directors, sometimes talks about missing certain food, loves takling about movies. as a filmmaker she specializes in dark comedy/farce which makes her suspicious of how someone can enjoy writing somethng so twisted

views are very intersectional, a little new agey, but still well put together. clearly a free spirit, very quirky from working in cinema, super dry sense of humor. likes philosophy

really likes blueberry jam. favorite item is somthing blueberry.

after chap 1 trial she expresses to the protag how she can never be the blackened, not just because of murdering one student, but to get away with it, everyone else would be punished instead, and she can’t deal with the blood on her hands. 

is open about her struggles with mental illness and how she was getting help and showing improvement bfore coming here but now she feels herself spiraling and hates it.

values everyone here as good friends, and while she tries to play it off she hates how they’re painting her as a villain. takes every death very personally. 

color scheme is very pastel, and she wears sweat pants and a collared shirt with a light blue robe. you can’t tell if those are pajamas or an outfit. wears rose-colored glasses. all about the aesthetic, just lean so far into film culture with her. personality/feelings towards style are very influenced by the fact she went to an american arts school instead of a japanese school like her peers so every part of her is slightly off/quirky/out-of-touch

she’ll mostly wear the glasses over her eyes, sometimes pushing them down on her nose for emphasis to make eye contact. only her anger sprite (point) shows her taking them off. 

during her execution she pushes them onto her forehead before taking her bow, almost to meet eye to eye. after she’s shot the last frame is them landing on the ground, cracking. 

i love sheon so much

[patrocool]

i.

It was early morning in Financial District. Commuters bustled around the siblings as they exited the subway station onto William Street. The pair stopped abruptly in front of the shop just outside of the station, much to the dismay of a woman behind them, who nearly ran into them with a curse.

Sarah Jacobs had worked hard to get to this point. And damn it, she was proud of herself. Sure, it didnt look like a lot right now- a tiny little hole in the wall right next to the entrance to the A and C train that was probably about the size of her bedroom in her tiny Manhattan apartment- but it was hers and she was proud to own the place.

Davey held up the key with a soft smile. "Planning on going in any time soon?" He asked lightly. She grinned as she took the key from his fingers and unlocked the door, stepping in. It was musty, dusty, dirty, and a bit stuffy, but none of that mattered. What mattered was what it was going to look tomorrow, and then the next day, and the day after that.

She clapped her hands together and set down her bag of cleaning supplies. "We've got a lot of work to do, Davey!"

ii.

Davey carefully placed the finishing touches on the flowers in stock, making them look nice in their holders. He stepped back, hands on his hips, and smiled. He turned to watch his sister as she carefully wrote the last few things on her chalkboard behind the counter.

The store looked perfect. Picturesque, to the point where Davey wouldnt be surprised if photographers came in looking for the perfect picture. Sarah set down her chalk and brushed her fingers off on her apron. She turned, nervously brushing stray hairs behind her ears, and straightening her light blue blouse. "Hows it look, David?"

He gave her two thumbs up. "It looks like a hipster's wet dream," he promised her teasingly.

She laughed and threw a rag at him. "You're such an ass, get out of my store with your gross face! You're gonna be late for class."

He snickered and leaned over the counter to grab his bag. "I'll turn on the open sign and unlock the door on my way out. If I dont, you probably never will."

As he left, he saw a young woman hesitating outside, looking curious. He held the door open. "Going in?" He asked.

She shook her head and hurried away down the street. He shrugged and headed to class. Sarah would have customers soon enough.

iii.

After the fourth day of trying to peek in the flower shop to and from class, Katherine Plumber finally gave in and slipped inside. A soft ring of the bell alerted the quiet shop, and she looked around in awe. Exposed brick on one wall, plants in baskets hung from the ceiling, fairy lights strung across the walls. Beautiful displays of potted plants and cut flowers alike. A chalkboard hung behind the counter listed prices and deals and specials, and then the most beautiful woman Katherine had ever laid eyes on came out of the back room, smiling brightly at the sight of a customer.

Dark hair in loose curls that reached her ribs, brown eyes that seemed to sparkle in the light, circle frame glasses perched on her nose. She wore a yellow turtleneck and high waisted mom jeans with scuffed converse, and a well worn apron. On her apron, someone stitched in the name "Sarah" with blue thread.

"Can I help you with anything?" The shopkeeper asked her cheerfully, and Katherine never felt more out of place.

"Just- just looking," she stammered awkwardly. She tugged at the sleeves of her leather jacket, glancing down at the pins and patches adorning it and hoping there wasnt anything that the sweet shopkeeper would take the wrong way. Usually, she didnt care if other people didnt like her opinions, but damn it, the girl was pretty as all get out, and her big ass "punch nazis in the face" patch on her back didnt really fit with the whole soft flower shop vibe.

She bit her lip, looking at the plants and trying not to stare at the girl. She focused on the many different colors of roses instead.

"'Fuck Cops'- now that's a sentiment I can get behind," the girl said, but she was so much closer this time, and Katherine jumped at the sudden noise.

Katherine blinked slowly. "Oh, uh. Yeah," she said, and laughed a little, internally cringing. God, she sounded like an idiot.

She giggled. "Sorry, I'm just excited to see a customer. I havent had a lot so far, I just opened a couple days ago."

"I know," Katherine said quickly, and quickly winced when the girl cocked a brow. "Sorry, no, I meant, I know you opened a couple days ago, I take the A train to school every day, so."

She snorted and nodded. "I see, a bit less creepy when you put it like that," she said teasingly. She held out a hand to shake. "I'm Sarah. Welcome to Newspaper Row Flowers."

"Katherine," she replied, shaking her hand. She smiled a bit. "You know Newspaper Row was actually over on Park Row, right? Next to City Hall?"

Sarah laughed, cheeks pink. "Oh, I know. It's because my great grandmother used to own a flower shop over next to the old Tribune building on Park Row, and that's what she called it. She lost her shop in the Depression though, and died when I was young, and it was my mom's dream to open a flower shop in her honor. She never managed to, and uh. Well, she died too, a couple years ago, so I did it."

Katherine's heart felt like it was melting in her chest. God, how could she already have so much affection for this girl she only just met? "I'm sorry for your loss. But you've really created something wonderful here, and I'm sure they would both be proud."

Sarah beamed, and Katherine would do anything to make her smile like that again.

iv.

"And so Davey's like 'what the fuck', and Les is like 'who is this guy' and Jack is straddling the windowsill, looking at us like he expects my dad to get a gun, and finally, Dad is like 'hes not Catholic, is he?' And poor Davey is like 'no, pa', and for some godforsaken reason, Mom assumes that means hes Jewish. And knowing he doesnt have a family, immediately invites- and by invites, I mean loosely intimidated- Jack to come celebrate all holidays with us. And so now, instead of breaking it to Mom that Jack isnt religious, Davey just let's them believe it. Cause I mean, they're pretty fine with the whole gay thing, but god forbid we be romantically involved with someone who isnt Jewish." Sarah finished explaining with a laugh and roll of her eyes. "So yeah, that's why Jack is here fucking around with a dreidel even though Hanukkah has passed. Hes convinced that theres a secret trick to it that he has to master by next year."

Jack looked up and pouted sourly in her direction. "We all know Davey cant be that good based on luck alone!" He said for the thousandth time.

Katherine laughed, elbows on the counter. Her red curls were pulled back in a ponytail and she had her signature leather jacket on. "Sounds like your family is a real fun bunch. Ironically, my dad is the exact opposite, he doesn't care if I dont marry into a Jewish family, but he very much cares if I marry a girl."

Sarah made a face. "Gross. He sounds like such an ass whenever you talk about him."

Katherine nodded. "Probably because he is," she said very seriously. And then the two erupted into giggles.

"Ew, go get a room," Jack complained.

"You're in my shop, Kelly!"

V.

"Sarah, I need your help with something." Katherine came in looking nervous, an expression Sarah rarely saw on her friend.

"Of course, anything, what do you need?" Sarah said immediately, abandoning the flowers she was making out of newspapers.

Katherine swallowed, pausing. Her fingers fidgeted with the necklace around her neck. "Um. Well. There's uh... there's this girl I really like. And she... she's just amazing, and I want to tell her that I really like her. And she loves flowers, so..."

Sarah smiled and cooed, even though her chest hurt an awful lot. "That's so-" heartbreaking? Disappointing? Sad? "-cute! Flowers are such a good way to express feelings. Do you want to do it through flower language or do you have specific flowers you want to do it with?"

Katherine bit her lip. "Well, I was hoping a bit of both, but I'm not sure what kind of flowers she likes, so I was hoping you'd help with that."

Sarah nodded. "Of course! Let's get to work, hm?"

In the end, the bouquet consisted of red carnations (admiration), gardenias ("you're lovely"), mistletoe ("kiss me"), and white violets ("let's take a chance on happiness"). Sarah very gently wrapped the stems in newspaper and tied it with some twine while Katherine wrote something on a card.

Katherine paid and took the bouquet from Sarah, carefully fixing the card in it. She stayed after the transaction, simply standing there and staring at the flowers in her arms.

"What are you waiting for? Go get your girl!" Sarah chastized with a laugh. She needed Katherine to leave so she could take an early lunch and cry a little.

"You're right," Katherine said. She took in a big breath and let it out slowly before jutting her arms out, offering the bouquet. "Here."

"What?" Sarah asked, eyebrows furrowed. "Did you change your mind or-"

"They're for you," Katherine said, staring at the wall. "Just- read the card?"

Sarah blinked slowly and took the bouquet carefully, and opened the card.

In it was written simply:

"I like you, Sarah. Have since I first came into your shop. And I'd like you even more if you went to dinner with me?"

Sarah very gently put the bouquet down on the counter. And then she kissed Katherine.

+1

A year and a half later, Sarah come home to find a bundle of myrtle at her place on the table. Instead of a string, there was a ring. Myrtle, the Hebrew emblem of marriage.

Katherine cleared her throat, smiling softly. "Your parents will have at least one kid who marries into a Jewish family. If-if you say yes, that is."

Sarah's eyes filled with tears. "How could I not?"

[dementedgnomicwizard]

i preplanned those tunnel tweets + made a list of specifically what pictures i wanted and finished making the worms earlier this morning so like i wasnt Winging It at all but it sure felt like it! bc weve only ever gone to the tunnels as a group before, but today the only time i could go was in the 25 minutes before my evening class and no one else was free then so i was like whatever ill just go get my pictures and then to class and it’s fine. so i put my little sandwich baggie full of worms in my pocket and went over to the machinery building, which is where the tunnel entrance is, but the entrance is in the basement and there’s two ways to get into the basement both of which are almost always locked so i was like well i’ll just check and see if either of them are open. and it turned out the freight elevator was allowing trips to the basement so i got in and went down

the freight elevator spits you out in like this really cluttered and fucked-up looking storage basement basically which is where the tunnel entrance is and while the tunnel is dark the basement itself is usually lit by these shitty fluorescents HOWEVER! today when the elevator doors opened it was absolutely completely dark in the entire enormous basement. but at that point i was like i made it over here, i have my worms, i have my photo list, i have time before class, and what are the odds the elevator will be working again, ill just use my flashlight who cares. so i turned my flashlight on and started picking my way through to the tunnel entrance, except i stopped and made a detour to take pics in that little office room because i thought it would sorta look like the room where they found gertrude’s body and i could make a fun joke about it  ANYWAY as i’m coming out of the office room i notice that the stairway door directly across from me is open, which is weird because they’re Never open because they don’t want us to go down there. so i was like, shit, maintenance and/or security are down here and my only way out is the super obvious elevator so ill just wait them out so i like turned my flashlight off and crouched behind a bunch of shit

anyway i just sort of huddled in the dark for a while and soon enough it became clear that no one was actually coming so i took advantage of my proximity to the ground to scatter some worms and take that first worm pic where im pointing. and then i was like okay, might as well get the tunnel bit over with. so the area of the basement where the mouth of the tunnel is is closed off with this big metal fence and there’s like a wire-mesh on the front with a huge padlock only years and years of horrible college students have managed to sort of beat the bottom half of the gate a few inches outwards + compromise its integrity enough that its easy to pull far enough open for someone else to slip through. however my problems today were 1) like i said ive only ever gone with a group before, meaning i’d always had someone to hold the gate open for me, and i had never attempted to get through without assistance before let alone back out and 2) the gate is RIGHT next to the stairs that i mentioned earlier were open when they usually never are. so i stood there for a minute like... okay, say i DO try to get through myself, and i get stuck. OR, say that happens and THEN whoever was working down here comes back and im stuck so i get caught and in trouble.

and then i was like actually fuck it we ball so i like. sort of just got down fully on the ground (which was gross btw do not recommend) and like rolled and twisted and pushed myself around until i wiggled through. that was the moment when i sort of started to accept just how much tunnel dirt i was gonna be covered in by the end but it was so far past too late to back out so i headed into the tunnel entrance. it gets TRULY dark like really really soon after you walk in also like i thought the basement outside was dark because the lights were off but the tunnels are like....  DARK. anyway i stopped halfway down the entry tunnel to try and set up the like “worm door outline” thing from after MAG39 and like initially i had thought that i could figure out an okay way to at least temporarily get them on the wall bc theyre made of latex and super light but it was quickly apparent that that would not be the case so i found a patch of the floor that looked smooth enough to be a wall and set it up on there instead. so i’m like. squatting on the floor in this very dark and kind of gross tunnel, and i have my phone laying on the ground next to me flashlight-side-up so i can see as well as use both hands to dig cold little latex worms out of a sandwich baggie and arrange them in a pattern on the ground and the flashlight was lighting up the tunnel in the most fucked up way and it was dead silent and the WHOLE time i was like, and this is the moment when like a maintenance worker turns the corner and finds me and is just like, hello??? theres some clown playing with worms in the tunnel????

anyway that did not happen and instead i got my little doorway set up and then it was time to take the first pic (of the worm door by itself without me in it) which was when i realized that when i open my camera app my phone forcibly turns the flashlight off so every time i wanted to take a picture in the tunnels i was gonna have to turn my light off and just like chill alone in the pitch dark in a tiny tunnel for however long it took me to take each photo and i was like hm okay wig i guess so i took the door pic and then it took me like four tries to get myself positioned right for the cringe ass fail worms one because, surprisingly, it is difficult to position yourself directly in the center of an archway of worms that you cannot see, and while i was doing all those failed tries i got to spend a lot of time laying splayed out on my back in the dark on the tunnel floor anyway i got it finally so i just sort of kicked the worms to the sides and kept going in further. to get to the pit you have to turn left at the first fork and then take a right and then theres this weird like step? thing? in the middle of the tunnel and if youre me you have to do a super awkward crabwalk limbo step thing to get over it because the pipes on the ceiling above it are hot and the step comes up to like 6 inches below the pipe but also i dont like to touch the top of the step because its gross. so its always a production. this time i think they had worked on that pipe recently or something because it was leaking so the step was wet and the pipe dripped hot water onto my neck while i was crawling under it LMAO

anyway from there its a straight shot and it opens out into this like larger room near the entrance to the engine room and the pit is right at the edge of where the dirt of the tunnel turns into the concrete of the room floor. and theyve like half-covered the top of it in wooden planks but theyre not held down so when you have to step on them just for a second to get out of the tunnel its so nervewracking. theres overhead lights in that room though so that was nice idk if i couldve managed the flashlight-camera-transition in the dark AND one-handed. so i took my from-above tunnel pic and then i was like (checks my photos list) “well...... i did say id get two from inside the pit.” i had actually never been in the pit before because the other two times i’ve gone to the tunnels i’ve been with other people and they would barely even let me get near it let alone get on the ladder. so i was like well i guess there is a first time for everything so i put my phone in my back pocket and ducked under the little yellow chain they have up and started going down the ladder and i got like 8? maybe 10? feet down before i thought to look down again and let me just say..... all the times we had looked into that pit from above we had never guessed anywhere CLOSE to how deep it actually was. thats all. so i was like.... um i was expecting to be able to like, stand on solid ground while i take this pit selfie, but that was clearly not going to be an option, but also i had committed this far already to getting these pics from the pit so i was like ugh i guess and hooked my one arm over the ladder so i could get my phone out w the other hand and take the pics from in there. and then i climbed back out. the ladder rungs made my hands SO gross and dirty with rust i was like eugh eugh.

but after that the only picture left to take was the one w my pen and the only way for me to go was back out towards the entrance so i was like its fine im almost done. so i went back out until i got to the tunnel after the first fork and i was like cool here’s a good a place as any so i got my pen ready + went to get my camera out, and literally RIGHT as the flashlight went out and the camera app opened i was like SO sure i saw something move vaguely in the darkness to my right like REALLY close to me shoulder height so i was like uhhh no and took a flash photo more out of reflex than anything and i didnt see anything but also the flash lit up for like,  one second and then it was dark again so i like switched back to the flashlight really quick and obviously it was just a normal tunnel and i was the only one there so i opened the camera app again to try to take the pic again and literally just like the first time right as the flashlight turned off i was soooo sure something moved right next to me like so close but i was like “nell. youre being insane.” so i didnt do anything and i just took like three more possible variations on the pic i wanted and then i turned my flashlight back on and once again obviously nothing was amiss so i was like epic win and went back out the tunnel entrance. and then i was like............. oh god i have to do the gate squirm again. but there was no other way so i just did it really fast before i could really get worked up about it lol and then i went back over to the freight elevator only when i pressed the button it would light up and then immediately go dark when i unpressed it and i was like oh fuck because 90% of the time when you get in on the ground floor this elevator literally refuses to take you to the basement and i was like oh no it re-locked while i was down here and now i can’t get up this way so im just like in this basement for the foreseeable future but then of course as i was going down that tangent the elevator doors opened and i stepped into the fluorescent light and looked down and was like wow i am just so thoroughly, completely, orangely covered in dirt. but i made it home with like 5 minutes to wash up a bit before my evening class so that was a win! i did learn however that i should never take my evening dose of adderall directly after a bit of minor breaking&entering while the adrenaline is still there because when i got to class i almost jackhammered a hole through the floor with my shakyleg

[ultraguardians]

Happy Birthday Luke!

—

Here’s a list of everyone on this drawing:

Top two behind, left to right: radicole + ctarhne

Middle, left to right: lotsofdreamboatz, cc, kaestiell, ultraguardians, lyssyloops, shutupsprinkles, cheapsushii

bottom two, left to right: sparkiemcfly + dragonessgem

—

BUT, before you go, make sure to read our messages :D!

“Happy birthday, bro! You’re a huge inspiration to me and frankly I cant thank you enough. I used to watch your content all the time when I was younger, rediscovering your content and joining your streams has been one of the best decisions ive ever decided to make. To make a long story short, my mental health has been in a rough spot for a long while but the first stream of yours’ I attended had me smiling all night for the first time in genuine years. Your music is just incredible, Ive used it to cheer myself up, get me inspired and to pump me up on many occasions, I seriously cant get enough of it and im not a good enough of a wordsmith to be able to describe how much your stuff has helped me and sadly I dont think there’s ever a way I could possibly repay you for all the rad stuff you’ve given to all of us. Keep being awesome, keep giving those good vibes! Happy birthday and all the best.“ -Lyssyloops

—-

“uhh hey mr town, happy birthday dude!! im very much a lurker im trying to sort of get out of that hole but. ive been a fan for. a long ass time now and ive always really appreciated your music and the few streams ive caught and just you.. existing, man. thanks for being you, happy removal day :kicc: (click here to see what :kicc: is!) -CC”

—- “hey luke! i’m way too shy to talk on streams sometimes, but i just want to say that you’re a huge inspiration to me and your music really helped me through a bit of a rough patch in 2018. keep being awesome, and happy birthday!”                 - from cheapsushii

—-

“YOOOO Put sprinkles on your birthday cake man!” -shutupsprinkles

—-

“luke, i sincerely just want to say thank you. thank you for everything you have done. all the music you’ve made, and all the videos as well on your channel. through your channel, i have met the most WONDERFUL people I could have ever met. each and almost every twitch stream, i get to meet more and more new friends each time. i always thought I was the lonely one out of the bunch, but now, all I see are friends all around me. now I see you all are here for me, and that’s such a cozy feeling, getting to talk to those on the stream and anywhere else. luke, just know this. you have made this summer the best summer I could have ever asked for- and i really REALLY mean that. thank you. sincerely. i hope you know how much of an impact you’ve made on all of our lives. happy birthday, luke. from all of us. - kae/kaestiell

—- ”(read each word out loud) hey mr luke it’s herobrine. thank you for teaching me the overwatch sir… remember kids education is important like a victory royale. anyway i believe i must admit mr sizemore, your cover of fireflies by owl city and heart-felt confession of wanting cocaine, which means crack truly moved me. dig up diamonds and craft those diamonds and make some armor, get it, go and forge that like you so MLG pro, godspeed, mr sizemore. uwu i howope youwu have a gweat biwthday….. i remember the first day i hopped in this stream and i thought, “uwu, whats dis?” it was magical. the absolute glee and giddy i find bubbling in my chest whenever I see the notification of your presence on my twitch is unrivaled. you have brought me those epic positive vibes and i respect you immensely.  for that, i wish upon you epic kills and minecraft cake. hit it fergie, godspeed - dream/lotsofdreamboatz (click here for free food)”

—- “Hey Luke! Hope you are having a good day! I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you. I’ve only really been on your streams for about 3 months but those months have been an absolute blast. You are such an awesome creator and even if I only am able to stop by for a little bit I always leave your streams with a smile. You always have such positive, wholesome vibes and I really appreciate it. You are also incredibly talented and you inspire me to work hard to do the things I love. I hope that you achieve everything you could ever want to, you really deserve it. Honestly, just thank you for existing. You make the world a little brighter every day. Happy birthday! Never stop being awesome -Dragonessgem

 —- 

hi mister luke yungtown sizemore; have a happy very good very nice amazing birthday,,, you are a legend thank you for blessing me, mister seth ctarhne (and everyone else) with beautiful amazing content. get that bread bro :D if you don’t have a good birthday I might just have to come out of my hidey hole and i will put a good curse??? spell?? magic,, thing,,, on you so you can have a good day because you deserve it >:) 

 👁👃👁 

     👄 

—- I'm a little late but Happy birthday Luke!! I can't express how much I friggen love you. You brought back my love for rapping and I even plan on doing the Triforce rap for my talent show! (If I can find an instrumental version) You're kind and sweet and love what you do I respect that. You deserve so much! You're better than any modern rapper out there, Eminem included. I love you so much I named a stuffed animal of my favorite animal (penquin) after you! Have the best birthday possible!! ~Yellow Daisy AKA TRGFan101

 ----

“Hello mr town it is I. A cryptid. Twitch is the worst and won’t let me verify my account but I wish you the best birthday wishes possible and also the world, considering I have Asagao to thank for many friends of mine. Keep doing your funky thing sir. Happy birthday.”-Hawky, the one who’s mentioned by people but never shows up

—-

“Happy birthday, Luke. I’m glad I was able to find your twitch. Your content is down to earth and engaging, making it feel really personal and rewarding to interact with and watch your streams. You have continually been an incredibly respectful and genuine person, and that’s everything someone could want from a content creator, or just a friend in general. You’ve made yourself a friend to so many people, even making some friends around me genuinely light up when twitch notifications appear on their phone or laptop. I couldn’t thank you more for helping the people around me. I’ve only just started watching, but I’m here to stay. Have a phenominal year. - Crime/lordcrime”

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and last but not least, me, the one who put this all together :D!

“hewwo luke. I hope you have a great birthday my dude!! I tried my best to draw the apricot nectar cake, since you seemed so happy when you talked about it. But besides that, I hope you’re the happiest that you can be on this day and that your smile outshines the sun. Just know we all love you, dude, you’re fun, chill, happy and bring everyone’s spirits up, and the chat is always fun to talk in. Having come across your twitch streams over 6 months ago was the best thing that has happened this year, because, man, you have made a great community and I’m so glad man. Here’s hoping for more years with you and the yungfam. Again, happy birthday you mad lad. -eon/ultraguardians.”

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[jewpacabruhs]

thoughts on heiman?

i got this like two weeks ago sorry for the late reply

ok so i wasnt big on the s20 and s21 heiman kyman kydi love triangle bullshit but it def was a big deal, because it told us a lot about kyman’s current dynamic, & how cartman might act in a relationship, & how kyle would react to his being in one - lotta good shit. i won’t talk about kyman tho, i’ll stick to heiman. keep in mind i havent seen these eps since they aired but i jus reread summaries so i could recall & answer. so from my recollection, and from meta conversations ive had with my kyman buddies about what the whole heiman plot meant - let’s get started.

first off cartman has a singular basic need, and it’s attention. he’ll try to get it in various ways, and usually the easiest way is to act like an asshole. he gets negative attention that way, but it’s something. and the main four aren’t the healthiest bunch to each other, but they consistently hang out with cartman and pay attention to him, because they are friends, after all - and that’s generally enough for him. i think kyle’s the most important piece there, as he never can disengage like kenny or stan do - and it’s canon that arguing with kyle is cartman’s raison d'etre. so when the whole skankhunt deal happened and cartman got abandoned by everyone, all the people who provided him consistent attention, he went into a weird place, because for the first time he was alone with himself and alone with his thoughts. and for someone like cartman, that’s not fucking good. for anyone who has Bad Thoughts in their noggins, staying distracted is the most important thing in the world. and cartman no longer had anything to keep him busy - no social media and no friends.

but then he met heidi, and he went “huh. so this is what positive attention feels like?” and then all the lovey-dovey shit - i think cartman struggles with being genuine, so he emulates media with a lot of shit, including his desire to be antagonistic and badass. and while i think he might be cuddly with a future boyfriend (kyle), with heidi it jus felt performative and false. it felt like him 1) trying to show off to everyone and make a scene, and 2) trying to do the things he saw others doing, to the point of excess, to prove it was “real”. cartman always has something to prove. and why heidi went along with it, they don’t really tell us, but the assumption is she just likes romance or whatever & was like “aw this is sweet i like this”... simple as that yanno.

but then it got too much for cartman, and he sabotaged it. i think for certain personality types, too much of a good thing really gets to a person. it can get overwhelming, frustrating, annoying, boring. i say this because i think cartman and heidi’s relationship was too soft. that’s why he started to get awful again; it wasn’t stimulating enough for him, and he started lashing out to try to generate something. he craves relationships (platonic or not) where he can fight with someone - even if you don’t ship kyman, it’s clearly why he likes kyle so much; cartman feeds off of tension. so lacking tension with heidi caused him to be disillusioned - so he started to act the way anyone acts when they’re with someone who irritates them and aren’t good at hiding it. i don’t think he meant to mold her into something he could handle - i think she did that on her own. some people adapt in dangerous ways (ie losing themselves) to please their partners or friends. heidi’s apparently one of those people.

so on heidi’s end, she suddenly didn’t know what was causing cartman to seemingly dislike her, but she didn’t want to give up what they had, she was invested and liked him a lot - likely felt they had a genuine connection. so she enabled his behavior, and deteriorated into someone as unhealthy as cartman in an attempt to please him. i don’t think cartman’s toxic as a whole, but he could easily be in certain situations, because he’s the type who attracts passive insecure types (heidi & butters, namely) & causes them to pick up his traits in order to appeal to him more, or to handle his company better, really. that’s why he needs someone like kyle or wendy, who aren’t as malleable and are significantly more self-assured. he needs to be put in his place, and to be held on a tight leash. when he’s given control of situations, everyone suffers. 

now i don’t remember how kyle fit into things & i’m extremely sick rn so i don’t have the energy to rewatch like i oughta before writing smth like this, so i won’t get into that. but yeah … heidi and cartman only worked when cartman was faking. maybe if he was healthier as a whole they might’ve worked, but as of now cartman’s got too many unchecked issues - honestly, no one deserves to be with him in his current mind state. he’s too destructive, and he drags others down with him if they’re, frankly, dumb enough to get emotionally invested. he needs constant stimulation, man. he collapses in on himself without it. and that wouldn’t change even if he got better - he’s just, hah, high maintenance. so i don’t think him and heidi would ever work in any circumstances. they’re simply not compatible. sometimes opposites attract, but other times, they fucking,,,, eat each other broh. metaphorically and such. heidi needs someone who will let her love them unconditionally, and cartman needs someone who will give him tough love.

also, at the end of the day, i think cartman’s very gay and i hc heidi as a lesbian, lol. so within fanon i like them patching things up in ms/hs & becoming bffs - i think they’d get on well as friends, just not lovers. in a platonic setting, heidi might be a calming positive presence for cartman (and a nice reprieve from the guys, who r prone to teasing each other), to keep him out of trouble but not in a sharp or stern way, just in a “not worth it, eric” way, and cartman is fun and wild and might be a nice change from heidi’s more,,, composed & judgey girl friends. he also wouldnt let her dwell or get too involved in stuff that might hurt her, i could see him bein like “nah do this with me instead”; cartman’s not very intuitive, i just think he would always wanna do what he wants instead of what someone else wants, but that might be good sometimes, might keep someone prone to getting overly invested in smth from getting in too deep. like he’s a bit shallower but i think that might be good for somebody emotional like heidi to be around. yuh. that’s all i got.