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rainbowmoonstonestories · 1 year ago

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Let Your Dreams Be Your Wings | Chapter 7

Chapters: 7/? Fandom: The Sandman (Netflix 2022, minor content from the Comics) Rating: Explicit Relationships Dream of the Endless/Morpheus x F!Reader Characters: Dream of the Endless/Morpheus, Lucienne, Matthew the Raven, Mervyn Pumpkinhead, Hob Gadling, Death, Rose Walker, The Corinthian, other minor Sandman characters, Original Characters. Warnings: 18+ content (minors DNI), explicit sexual content, POV switching, very long chapters to read. Summary: You always dreamed of becoming a successful Fashion Designer, sharing your creations with the world and making your father proud. But with him being very ill and so many costs solely weighting on your shoulders, things didn’t go as planned and you had to take a different path instead. An interesting offer led you to the elder Alex Burgess and you were hired as a new housemaid for a very good pay. However, your kindness and outstanding empathy convinced the man to give you an additional task for a doubled compensation; gaining the trust of Dream Of the Endless, held captive into the basement for over a century. Despite the shock of finding such an ethereal entity stripped of all his clothes and contained into a confined space, you had to accept for the sake of your father. But the more you got to speak to the mysterious anthropomorphic personification who didn't utter a single word, the more you were lost into his eyes that, conversely, seemed to contain the entire universe. A deep connection formed between the two of you, separated only by a thick layer of glass.

Little did you know, what started like a simple housemaid job was about to change your life forever.

Credits: The moon dividers were made by firefly-graphics

Note: I included a couple of sentences from the show in a dialogue to better explain what the Dreaming is about and how i tworks.

It was finally time for you to learn more about Morpheus. He allowed you to walk beside him into the Dreaming and learn about his family.

Chapter 7

You sit there in complete shock, staring at the bird in front of you with an unblinking expression. For a moment, you felt like a female version of Doctor Dolittle, understanding the language of animals that nobody else could hear beyond the noises they originally produced.

You had met the God-like entity that you had admired as a child, someone you thought only belonged to a bedtime fairytale. Encountering a talking bird was just as unexpected, and yet there it was, staring at you with its black eyes while its shiny feathers reflected the colors of the sunset.

All the things you thought never existed were manifesting before your very eyes.

And so you asked, "Who are you?"

The raven opened its wings in reverance. "I am Matthew. At your service."

After a moment of disorientation, and with your chest still burning from the coughing fit, you smiled wholeheartedly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Matthew. Though I don't understand what is even going on here.”

Matthew nodded. "I mean, a talking bird like me is not something you see happening every day, is it?”

“No,” you chuckled. “Not at all.”

"Sorry for the jumpscare. Are you feeling better now?”

Not only did he sound human, he was even considerate with you.

"Apart from my throat on fire, it's all good.”

He sighed. "I should have considered the consequences when the boss sent me here.”

You immediately sit up straight, fully attentive. “Your boss? Are you talking about Morpheus, by any chance?”

"Well, that didn't take long to figure out.”

Knowing that Morpheus didn't actually disappear immediately put you at ease. "It’s not like I have other options to pick,” you said with a wide grin. “I don't know anyone else who would send me a raven, of all things.”

“Fair point.”

You looked at Matthew, and the memories of the other bird lying motionless in a pool of blood on the basement floor came back to you like a stab. In your book, there was a phrase that evidently justified his presence by Morpheus's side:

"Observe, child: Dream of The Endless has a longtime ally and trusted companion, a raven that travels between realms as The Sandman's faithful messenger.”

You asked yourself if a new raven automatically took over once the previous one was gone.

Matthew tilted his head to the side and asked, "Are you sure you're okay?"

You snapped out of your pensive state. "I am, sorry. I was lost in thought."

"I suppose this is quite confusing for you.”

"It is. Not in a bad way, I promise. May I ask why he sent you here, Matthew?”

The raven took a step closer, looking up at you. "Actually, I don't know much about it myself. The boss told me to look out for you and report back that nothing is out of the ordinary." He clicked his tongue. "Sometimes I can feel him on the back of my head, you know, watching through me.”

You raised an eyebrow. "Is he watching right now?”

A part of you wished he was.

"Not at this time."

Oh, well.

The thought of him checking on you during his absence made your heart flutter once again. As time went on, you began to realize that your idealized vision of the perfect relationship was not a realistic expectation. You accepted that a man could go radio silent for days or weeks, shamefully cheat on you with a random woman, or simply show interest only when his testosterone was driving him crazy.

Despite that awful acceptance, you found yourself in a new situation with Morpheus - not even a mortal man, someone you barely knew and couldn't yet define. He sent a raven all the way to the human world so that he could observe you, leaving you with a mixture of emotions: happiness and wholeness, but also uncertainty and confusion.

You were left wondering how to categorize Morpheus in your life. Was he your boyfriend now? Would you get the chance to be intimate with him again, or was it a one-time occurrence that he had no intention of repeating? The way he made you feel the previous night was indescribable. You still shook in excitement whenever you remembered how his lips felt against yours, the way he touched your skin and pleasured your senses, making you drawing out your deepest desires. Your body was still tingling and your mind was consumed with thoughts of him all day. If you closed your eyes, you could breathe in his lingering scent of sand, of the sea, of a forest in winter, of a sweet incense.

Morpheus was literally a dream come to life.

You smiled at Matthew as you laid comfortably against the soft pillow of the chair. “I haven’t introduced myself to you, have I?”

You could see the top of his folded wings raise and lower, almost as if he were shrugging. “I already know who you are, Y/N.”

The question that popped into your head immediately escaped your lips. "Did he say anything about me?”

"It seemed like he preferred to keep it all to himself. So, no, not really. Just… uhhh…. bits, here and there.” he replied.

“But why send you here? What is it that shouldn’t look out of the ordinary?”

“He didn’t say. Something was clearly on his mind though. He seemed... worried.”

Although you couldn't discern what was troubling him so deeply, his care and concern were more than welcome. The fact that he still cared for you, even from afar, and offered some form of companionship while being away was enough to make you feel gratified.

And so, you decided to satisfy some of your growing curiosity. "How long have you been with him?”

"Only for a few days. Lucienne sort of 'hired' me for the job," he explained.

"Lucienne..." you trailed off, thinking about the woman you had spoken to in your dream.

“You know her?”

You pondered over what answer to give before saying, "Vaguely. I met her once, but my memories of the Dreaming are still a little fuzzy.”

Matthew hummed in thought, turning his little head to the setting sun. "You know, I used to like this time of day when I was human," he said, reminiscing.

"You were human?!" you asked, seeking clarification.

"Oh, I was. Just maybe not the best one," he replied with a hint of sadness.

“How did you-”

“-End up becoming a raven? That’s a good question, which I unfortunately can’t answer. Magic? All I know is that I was in my bed, then all of a sudden, poof! I had wings and feathers and a sharp beak in place of a mouth,” he explained with humor in his voice.

"In other words, you died?”

“Seems like it.”

“That's quite mind-blowing."

"Tell me about it. So now I am a messenger working for Dream of The Endless, whether he likes it or not."

You took hold of your mug again, despite the tea having gone completely cold. You drank the last drops of it in order to not let it go to waste. "Why, is he against the idea of having you by his side?”

"Let's just say he's not over Jessamy yet.”

“Who’s Jessamy?”

“Oh… she was the other raven. You know, the one before me.”

‘So her name was Jessamy…’

"But he sent you here," you pointed out, "You must be rather important if he asked you to find me.”

"That's the perk of being a raven, I guess," he said. "I can easily travel between realms without using any sand or crossing portals. But enough about me. How are you doing? Is your human life proceeding well? Anything weird or scary to report?”

"Not really. I'm doing quite well over here, better than ever, in fact."

You were pretty sure that you saw Matthew smile.

"You know, I don’t think I have any food suitable for a bird, but... would you like to come in?"

"No worries, I don't need to eat. But I accept your invitation. I've got nothing else to do right now, anyway,”

You stood from the chair, keeping the empty mug in one hand and opening the window to let him in. Matthew jumped off the table, walked in front of you and took a look inside.

"Nice house," he remarked.

You laughed to yourself. The scene could definitely look comical with you warmly welcoming a bird into your home and gesturing to it like it was a human guest.

Watching Matthew fly over the couch to test its comfortable cushions was odd, but his company was already bringing you joy. Maybe it was the fact that he sounded like a comedian, providing comfort with his reassuring voice.

Or maybe it was due to Morpheus's hidden presence within him, which you could somehow feel all around you as you walked into the kitchen.

When Morpheus decided to find you in the Waking World, he didn't plan to get carried away in such a manner. He had finally retrieved the tools that were stolen after his capture, but the quest had turned out to be slightly more complicated than he had foreseen. He felt satisfied and more powerful than ever before now that the Dreaming was almost fully restored, but the Endless was also left with a sense of emptiness. After a century of holding a grudge and wanting nothing more than freedom and revenge, he found himself with nothing else to strive for.

However, there was just one thing he still needed to do: establish a proper conversation with you without holding back anymore. Morpheus was prideful, but the affection he felt for you was incredibly genuine. It started as a curiosity he wanted to satisfy, and he didn't think too much of it until he noticed how persistent you were in wanting to see him. The way you spoke and gestured conveyed all your kindness and sincerity, a rarity among humans that he wasn't accustomed to.

The connection that developed between the two of you didn't go unnoticed. Morpheus could feel it to the bone in a way that even he, as an Endless, found difficult to describe. He couldn't stop thinking about your smile, the sound of your voice, the light that sparked in your eyes whenever you visited him. At that point, he knew he should have pushed you away for your sake and his own, pretended that you were nothing more than a mere burden, allowing you to follow your own path without giving his fate too much thought. But the more he saw you in the basement, the more his need for you thrived. The moments he listened to you in silence were the only times he could forget about being sealed away from his realm and contained in a cage like a miserable insect.

He wished he could talk to you, touch you. The indirect connections he established with you through the glass were potent enough to make him explore your depth and feel you in his core, but it only resulted in a devastating eagerness he didn't know how to control or fulfill.

Morpheus knew the rules. A relationship between a human and an Endless was strictly forbidden, and he had witnessed the terrible consequences of such a mistake firsthand. His love and obsession for the girl he once fell for had mattered more to him than the tragedies she was forced to endure because of their choices. His selfishness had led to her complete downfall and his inevitable heartbreak.

For this reason alone, he had no intention of crossing that line again and causing you the same harm.

Morpheus found you through your dream, smelling the salt in the air and hearing the sound of the ocean moving peacefully back and forth with gentle waves. You were as beautiful as an angel, with the breeze blowing through your hair and your dress flowing around your body. He wanted to call your name, to let you know that he was free and right by your side, but he was so mesmerized by the way you walked to the shore that he wanted to imprint such a piece of art into his memory for eternity.

When your eyes met, Morpheus realized that even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to escape from your grasp. He had been in love so many times he lost count, but none of those feelings could compare to the spiritual link he had formed with you. It was different, it was new, it was unique.

He wondered why you were so special, how a simple human could be as gentle and compassionate as a Goddess. Morpheus asked himself over and over again why he couldn't let you be, forgetting about ever meeting you, as his realm needed to be rebuilt in the process.

No, he had absolutely no intention of touching you the way he did, kissing you, caressing you, and pleasuring your body over and over again through the night. However, his resistance crumbled when he felt the warmth of your body pressing against him, inebriated by the sweetness of your loving strokes along his face. He needed to reward you and a simple kiss would be enough for him. Just a quick, small, innocent kiss before taking his leave of you.

But then he wanted more. More than he could ever offer anyone else, more than he could ever ask to receive. Your boldness caught him off guard as you crashed your lips against his the moment he reluctantly released you, invading his mouth in search of his tongue and desperately seeking his closeness. Morpheus always wanted to be in control, but with you, he felt like he could let you do anything you wanted, and he would be the happiest living creature in the entire universe.

Morpheus wasn't one to have sex without being emotionally involved, so the physical intimacy he shared with you left a permanent mark on his heart. The fact that you wanted to see him again, not only in your dreams but also in the Waking World, was a big red flag he knew he couldn't just avoid. He needed to keep you safe, and the only way to grant you a good life would be to get out of it.

Unfortunately, just like in the past, he failed to find the will to do so.

As soon as he sent Matthew your way, Morpheus almost expected to find your dead body lying on the ground. He could barely contain the relief that washed over him when he saw you sitting on that bench, more radiant than ever, with the most beautiful smile he could witness. He stared at your image carved perfectly by the galactic spiral onto the starry ceiling above him, every curve of your body beautifully shaped.

You were a dream, his dream, one he didn't want to ever lose. So he had instructed Matthew to follow you in the Waking World, to observe everything around you and keep him informed of the slightest change when he couldn't take a look himself. Maybe it was too soon for the consequences of his mistake to befall on you, or maybe, after 10,000 years, the universe had finally decided to put that clause aside.

Didn't he deserve to be happy at least for once in his eternal existence? Couldn't he be free to fall in love without bringing death and sorrow to the one he cared about?

Something told him that things with you were about to take a different turn, one he had never seen before. Was he brave enough to risk it again, when the solution to the problem would be just so easy? All it took was an action, one that he didn't really want to take, and that would shatter two hearts at the same time.

Morpheus walked back to the throne room with that thought in mind as the images from your night together continuously played before his eyes. The King of Dreams and Nightmares was literally daydreaming about the human he had fallen in love with, fighting the rising urge to bring you to his castle and ravage your delicious body again without any inhibition left.

He watched you from afar as you moved about the kitchen, gathering the mugs and dishes together from the table. Your voice echoed in the room, distant but clear, and your melodic laugh brought a tiny smile to his pouty expression. The nebula followed your movements, highlighting your contours whenever you stopped and occasionally turned towards him - Matthew - to let him catch a glimpse of the mundane yet stunning display.

Morpheus couldn't help but feel a sense of longing as he watched you, and for a moment, he forgot about the responsibilities that came with his position. He wanted nothing more than to be by your side, to see your smile up close and to hear your laughter fill the air.

"My Lord," Lucienne called for Morpheus' attention as she entered the room.

"What is it, Lucienne?" He asked, turning to the librarian.

"It is about the woman, sir. The human you are watching."

"What about her?"

He could spot the hesitation in her eyes. "There is something you should know. Something I haven't told you before."

Morpheus felt the uneasiness forming in his stomach. "Go on,” he urged her.

Lucienne raised her hands and gestured as she spoke. "She was here. I found her in this room not long ago, when you were still imprisoned."

"What?" Morpheus exclaimed in shock. "How is that possible?”

"I do not know, my Lord," Lucienne replied, looking troubled. "But I saw her with my own eyes. She was standing right where you are now.”

Morpheus felt a chill run down his spine. He already knew that you had established a sudden connection with his realm as you struggled to remember the things you had witnessed in your newly discovered dreams. But how could you even reach his castle uninvited, with the Dreaming completely torn apart without his lead?

"I must warn you. There is something about her that seems... different.”

"Different?" Morpheus repeated, his curiosity piqued. "How?"

"I am not sure, sir," Lucienne admitted. "But her presence here felt almost otherworldly. Not dangerously so, just unlike any other human I have ever seen in this realm."

Morpheus fell silent, lost in thought. He shifted his gaze back to your image in the galaxy and couldn't shake the feeling that there was indeed more to you than met the eye.

It seemed like he had found something out of the ordinary in the end, and that something was you; an intricate mystery that he intended to investigate.

You didn't even realize how quickly time was passing. The hours flew by as you laughed, talked, and enjoyed yourself without a care in the world. Matthew left at night, fluttering his wings before leaping from the dining table to the open window. You watched him fly into the clouds until he was nothing more than a distant dot fading away.

As your eyes started to droop, you suppressed a yawn and began to clean out the kitchen, stretching your legs to get some blood flowing. Finally, when your back hit the mattress of your bed, exhaustion made its way through your body. That day you had walked for so long that the soft, welcoming covers felt amazing under your feet.

You rubbed your wrist with slow circles, pressing your thumb over the nerves that no longer hurt as much as before, but still made you flinch after a wrong movement. When you massaged your upper arms in a soothing manner, you could feel the skin around the healed cuts lightly scraping your palms. The three months you had spent working at Fawney Rig now felt like a distant memory, as if it had happened in another life.

You breathed in and out slowly, relaxing your senses and listening to the chatterings outside, the cars moving, the doors in your building opening and closing with people coming and going.

And then, those common, urban noises molded into something else, as the familiar sound of waves hitting the shore started to fill your ears.

When you opened your eyes, you were standing on the same beach you had dreamed about the previous night, looking exactly as you remembered it. You could even spot the crystallized shell a few feet away, sparkling and calling out to you, umoved.

And so you reached it again, brushing your fingers over the hard surface, sliding over each little crystal and strong ridge. A part of you wished you could keep it, placing it on your bedside table to admire it before going to sleep and waking up in the morning. At that moment, the colors transitioned in a gradient loop from pink to purple to light blue, resembling the color scheme of an LED lamp, except that the natural masterpiece in your hands held no artificiality.

You admired it one last time and placed it back into the sand. Your gaze then shifted to the calm ocean and the sky above, which blended into a carpet of stars and nebulas. It was as if the sun was setting behind the sea line, yet the time of day remained frozen in a permanent spectacle, combining day and night into one.

(Image generated with leonardo.ai)

As you stood up, you sensed someone approaching, and a pair of black shoes advanced into the golden grains. Your own boots partially sank into the ground with every step, and the new gown you were wearing danced around your legs with the wind blowing through the fabric.

The beach seemed to come alive at his arrival, the sand parting and forming a path for him to walk on. You watched in awe as Morpheus stopped in front of you, confident and proud, his eyes never leaving yours. He had a little smile on his lips, his presence commanding and powerful.

You looked up at him, feeling small and insignificant in his shadow, but at the same time, you felt a sense of comfort and familiarity.

"Hey stranger," you said fondly, bringing a hand over his chest and curling your fingers around the soft material of his coat. It was a repeated gesture that made you feel even more connected to his heart.

As he leaned close to you, his eyes sparkled in the starlight. "Hello," he answered, his voice shaking you in excitement like the first time you heard him speak.

"This place is so beautiful. There's still so much I don't know about the Dreaming or dreams themselves.”

Morpheus looked around, taking in the sights and sounds of the land. "Sleep brings you here to find freedom and adventure. My kingdom is a world of imagination, with dreams and nightmares that I create.”

“It all feels so real.”

"It is. There is another life which awaits you when you close your eyes and enter my realm.”

"I want to see more," you declared. "I've been wondering what dreaming felt like my entire life, now I don't want to miss any of it.”

You yearned to explore, experience and be inspired, to discover what laid beyond the corner of paradise you had found for yourself - a quiet place that seemed to be reserved just for you.

Morpheus interlaced his fingers with your hand, while it still clung onto his coat. He looked into your eyes, observing the anticipation growing on your face.

You waited for him to lead you, to guide you through his realm. The King of Dreams and Nightmares removed your hand from his chest, firmly enclosing it within his grasp.

"Follow me," he said.

"Where to?"

“Anywhere you wish to go."

In that moment, you realized that Morpheus was granting you the freedom to choose, allowing your imagination and desires to run wild.

You had barely begun to test the limits of your subconscious mind when the wind picked up and the world around you started to shift, reshaping your surroundings into something else.

What you saw was even better than the image that had crossed your mind. You were standing in a forest with the tallest trees you had ever seen in the Waking World, the green color of the leaves and bushes was incredibly beautiful, creating a vivid tone that went from dark to light. Sun rays passed through them and touched your faces gently, highlighting the contours of Morpheus’s jaw and giving his eyes an ethereal glow.

As you beheld the Endless being in front of you, you were struck silent, completely lost in his perfection. Hesitating momentarily, Morpheus gently brushed his fingers over the strand of hair that had fallen on your cheek, moving it out of the way to have a clear view of your features.

It felt like a scene straight out of a movie, and the urge to kiss him was building up inside you. Although you knew you were asleep, the dream felt way more realistic than any other fantasy you could remember. Despite a distant sense of confusion that threatened to cloud your mind, you managed to stay focused on the man you loved and chased it away, maintaining full control over a dream that would otherwise spiral into strange and confusing events.

You wanted to embrace him, to press your lips against his and relax in his arms, but the fear of being too clingy prevented you from taking the initiative. Since your relationship with Morpheus was yet to be defined, you didn't want to complicate things and ruin the moment with awkwardness. Instead, you held his hand tightly, savoring the warmth and comfort it brought you.

For a moment, you had the impression that the flowers at your feet were talking, whispering and giggling at the romantic display they were spectating, like an echo in the wind.

Reluctantly, you released his hand and took a step back, inspecting your new surroundings with curiosity. A massive, shiny rock was emerging from the ground next to you, with a few ivory white Moonstone crystals mounted on its surface. Each gemstone was a different size, with a magical blue flash of light that was twirling around in harmony. As you moved your fingers over the rock and followed the edges of the Moonstones, like you did with the shell, you felt their coldness beneath your touch.The energy they contained was so strong that you could feel the tingles on the back of your neck just by grazing their rough material. It was as if they held a secret, a powerful force that could unlock something from deep within you.

And so, you found yourself thinking out loud, "If someone had told me this was possible just a few months ago, I would have found it hard to believe.”

Morpheus came to your side, and as he did, the magical glow of the Moonstones immediately intensified, illuminating the surrounding area with a soft blue light.

"You were always connected to this place," he stated. "But without my guidance, the Dreaming stopped flourishing a century ago.”

His words hit you like a ton of bricks, and you looked at him with guilt for what he had to endure.

"That's horrible. To think that something so beautiful has been shattered to pieces by humanity’s greed. History never taught us a damn thing," you blurted out in frustration.

Morpheus looked down, concealing the affliction of his captivity. “Mortals need this realm to face their fears and fantasies,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I agree, but that doesn’t excuse their actions. Roderick Burgess was a terrible person even before your imprisonment. He showed no mercy or compassion, not even to his own son. He only brought more corruption to a world that has been stained with arrogance and ignorance for as long as I can remember.”

Despite all the advancements that humans had made, there was still so much cruelty and injustice. Morpheus's misadventure with them was a reminder of that, and it made you question whether progress was even possible when the same mistakes were made time and time again.

Maybe humans truly needed a place to confront their deepest fears and desires, a space where they could learn from their blunders and strive towards a better future. Unfortunately, history books may have taught you otherwise, portraying the world as an unforgiving place with people that were inherently flawed.

"Perhaps," he replied. "But not all of you are Roderick Burgess.”

You let out a sigh. "There are still far too many like him out there, though. I do wonder what their dreams even look like.”

“They are haunted by their sins, trapped by their fear, and tormented by the nightmares that dwell within the blackest reaches of their hearts. Their dreams are filled with torment, with the twisted imaginings of twisted minds.”

Despite the somber subject matter, his eloquent explanation brought an unexpected smile to your face. As you gazed at him, you couldn't help but think that there was something undeniably attractive about the way he spoke. His voice was deep and resonant, with a hint of gravel that shook you from head to toe. It was a voice that commanded attention, that drew you in and held you captive.

"It was a rhetorical question, but I like the way you tell things.”

Morpheus smiled slightly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It is rare for mortals to come to me seeking knowledge, rather than mere amusement. And it is indeed a most welcome change.”

“It’s not only knowledge that I am seeking. Like I said last night, I genuinely want to know more about you.”

Morpheus regarded you for a moment, his expression inscrutable. "There is much that I could tell you," he said at last. "But I fear that some of it might be beyond mortal comprehension.”

“I don't expect to understand all of it, but I want to at least learn what I can.”

Morpheus smiled again, this time with a hint of warmth. "Very well," he said. "Ask your first question.”

Your mind was brimming with questions, forming more and more the closer you got to him and farther into his realm. You wanted to choose them carefully because, no matter how intimate you might have grown, he remained a powerful being deserving of respect.

When you finally did, you formulated one. “I want to know what makes you who you are and what drives you forward.”

"What makes me who I am is a question that has troubled even the wisest of mortals. I am a being of many faces, many forms, and as you know, many names.” He paused, his gaze turning inward. "As for what drives me forward, it is my duty as the King of Dreams and Nightmares. The responsibility to maintain the delicate balance between the Waking World and the realm of dreams.”

"That sounds like a heavy burden."

Morpheus nodded, his expression somber. "It is one that I have carried for eons, and I will continue to bear it for as long as I am needed,” he replied.

"Have you been around for that long?"

"Yes. I have existed since the dawn of time, since the first stars shone in the night sky. I was there at the beginning of all things, and I shall be there at the end. I am a timeless force, a manifestation of the universe's infinite mysteries, a guardian of all that is, and all that may be."

It was indeed hard to comprehend the vastness of his existence and the scope of his power.

"I have seen the rise and fall of countless civilizations, the ebb and flow of time itself. And yet, there is always more to learn, more to discover,” Morpheus said.

You leaned forward. "Can you give me an example?”

"The mysteries of the human mind. But beyond that, I have also learned that even the most powerful beings are not immune to pain and suffering. As guardians of the universe, it is our duty to ease that suffering wherever we can.”

In that poignant moment, the tidal wave of understanding washed over you. The torment he went through for an entire century was something he had never experienced before, something that had left him completely destroyed, empty, and drained of all he was.

The memory of the desperation you had seen etched on his face that first night at Fawney Rig was still fresh in your mind. You would never forget it.

"You deserved better than that," you said softly, your heart breaking at the memory. You reached out to take his hand again, offering what little comfort you could give him. Your touch was gentle, like that of a butterfly's wings, but it carried with it a weight of empathy that only comes from knowing the depths of another's suffering. “You deserve everything.”

Morpheus swallowed heavily, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he tried to find the words to respond. His eyes glistened in the blue glow that pulsed from the Moonstones.

He moved another stray hair away from your eyes, lowering his forehead over yours with disarming tenderness. "I am Dream of The Endless, Y/N. I already have the universe."

You chuckled, feeling his breath on your skin. "Then you deserve something even greater, how about that," you said, your voice filled with conviction.

Morpheus smiled at your exclamation. "Your words honor and humble me.”

“I mean it.”

Morpheus bent his head down, and his lips gently brushed against yours in a kiss that neither of you could resist sharing. As soon as your mouths touched, the Moonstones reacted with an explosion of light, illuminating the space around you in a dazzling array of colors. Another rush of wind pushed you even closer to his chest, as if the Dreaming was trying to keep you united, granting you its blessing.

Time seemed to stand still. The only thing that mattered was the feel of his soft lips on yours, the warmth of his embrace and the beat of your hearts.

When the kiss ended, you struggled to restrain yourself from moving things forward a second time, wanting to stay lost in the moment with Morpheus forever. You allowed him to detach from you without trying to stop him, and with your hand still linked to his, he resumed the previous conversation naturally. "Ask your second question," his voice calm and steady.

You took a deep breath, trying to focus your mind on something other than the intensity of your connection with the Endless. “‘It is our duty as guardians’, you said. You’re not the only Endless being, are you?”

"No,” he confirmed. “I have siblings, each of them with a kingdom of their own and a role to fulfill.”

“Can you tell me more?”

He nodded. "There is Death, my sister. She is the one who greets the souls of the departed and guides them on their journey to The Sunless Lands. There is Desire, who shapes the passions and deepest needs of mortals. There is Delirium, who embodies the wild, unpredictable nature of madness. There is Destiny, who holds the Book of Fate and knows the path that every living being will take. There is Despair, who feeds on the pain and suffering of others. And then there is me, Dream of the Endless, ruler of the Dreaming.”

You listened with lit up interest as Morpheus spoke of his family, a group of eternal and immortal beings with immense power and influence. Each one was unique, with their own personalities and domains to control.

But there was something off about such family story that made you feel unsure and extremely bewildered.

"Wait. Why didn't any of your siblings ever come to your rescue, then?" you asked.

As Morpheus pondered your question, you could see a flicker of disappointment in his eyes. "We do not leave our kingdoms unattended unless it is strictly necessary," he explained.

“You were imprisoned. That is strictly necessary to me.”

His discomfort became more apparent. Nevertheless, he continued to speak. "It was not their burden to take. It was mine alone.”

Although the family of the Endless was not as typical as a human group, it was difficult to understand how a sibling could abandon any of them like they did with Morpheus. Despite knowing very little about the Endless, it was clear that their lack of intervention had left him feeling lonely and afflicted.

You were not looking forward to seeing him upset. You wanted him to smile, to feel loved, supported and appreciated for what he did. You had no intention of rubbing salt into a fresh wound.

And so, you felt the need to express your utmost apology. "I'm really sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Please, do not apologize. Your concern flatters me,” he replied. “My siblings and I… we have not always seen eye to eye. But I have learned to accept their ways, as I do have mine.”

You pressed your lips together, savoring his taste that lingered on your mouth. Your hand slipped away, sweetly closing around two of his cold fingers.

"Okay. I might have a third question. Will you answer it?"

He responded without any hesitation. "Yes.”

"How does it work when I dream? Do I just come up with a visualization, and it automatically materializes itself?"

"Dreams are a complex creation of the subconscious mind, and they can take on various forms and meanings. While some humans may have the capability of shaping their dreams as they please, maintaining this level of control requires a certain power that only I possess.”

You grinned. "So if I think about something, can you create it for me?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Creating dreams and nightmares is my calling. What is it that you wish to receive?”

Although you were an adult now, the inner child within you still sparkled, perpetually tied to a creative imagination that had kept you safe during the hardest times of your life.

You thought that what you were about to say might be seen as ridiculous, something that even he could consider futile and nonsensical. But the moment that thought formed perfectly in your head, Morpheus smiled proudly and lifted his gaze to the sky, without needing your verbal explanation.

A gust of wind burst around you, and you turned on your heels to check the source of such a brutal force. You were left speechless as you stared at the giant figure landing on the ground, spreading its wide wings and almost darkening the sky above. The scales were a mix of green and gold, refracting the sunlight and shimmering like precious jewels. The neck was long, and the head looked as big as half of your body.

You were in shock, slowly walking towards the dragon, carefully placing one foot in front of the other to test its reaction. The creature didn't seem to have bad intentions. If anything, it bowed its head as if it was kneeling in your presence.

You continued to advance until you got close enough to feel its hot breath against you, carefully lifting one hand to touch its muzzle. The skin felt incredibly warm and much softer than you had anticipated. The dragon closed its golden eyes at the contact, which gave you a very content smile.

You looked at Morpheus, who was standing with his hands crossed in front of him a few steps away. The little curve of his lips betrayed satisfaction for a job well done.

"Now you're flexing," you stated with a smirk. He only responded with a chuckle through his nose.

As you kept moving your hand on the dragon’s head, you could feel your heart beating ever faster from the amount of wonder shaking your entire form. It was something that exceeded the simple fantasy of a child coming true, an old dream that you once had with open eyes.

No, it was far more than that. It was the realization of Dream's power, the things he did for humanity despite how unkind your race had been in his presence.

Waking up feeling like something was amiss, facing darkness whenever you closed your eyes at night, a world without dreams was a condemnation you had gone through first-hand. You never lost your sense of justice and the kindness your father had taught you, but it still plagued the unlucky ones and continued to spread through generations for over 100 years.

Standing there before a dragon that you could touch and physically perceive, you let your emotions flow all at once: happiness, relief and completion.

Morpheus came to your side, and as soon as you moved away from the creature, the majestic animal took flight again, lifting up into the vastness of the dream world with a booming roar.

When you faced the Endless once more, you were overcome by that familiar, strong impulse that forced you onto your toes. You planted a kiss on his cheek and curled into him, wrapping your arms strongly around his neck, as if you were afraid to see him disappear.

“Thank you,” you whispered in his ear. “Thank you for existing, Morpheus.”

Those moments with him were fleeting, and soon you would be back in the Waking World all by yourself. You didn't want to let him go.

Morpheus didn't speak, but after a moment of surprise and indecision, he brought his hands to your waist and held you gently.

The words 'I love you' were on the tip of your tongue and you wanted him to hear them. "What am I to you?" you wished you could ask. "What are we?”

In the end, you chose not to reveal your true feelings just yet. Although he may have already known, you needed it to unfold without turning the gears in a way that could simply backfire.

His touch on you was shy, fingers drawing little patterns on the fabric of your dress without even moving from their position. The subtle movement of his fingertips against your covered skin was enough to send new electric shocks along your form.

And then you let your arms fall down as your hands followed the line of his shoulders and traveled along his biceps. There was something incredibly soothing in the way he seemed to relax as you touched him.

However, that didn’t last.

"Y/N."

"Mh?"

"Lucienne informed me about your visit to my castle.”

The way his voice sounded was so suddenly serious that for a moment, you thought he wasn't happy about it. Did he feel like you invaded his space, which was even reduced to a pile of crumbles at the time? The magical sparks between you started to dissipate, and the mere idea of him being resentful with you had your stomach twisting into a tight knot.

"About that. I still don't know how I did it.”

Morpheus considered your answer, but when he said nothing, the need to justify yourself painfully nagged at you. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to intrude. I couldn’t even tell where I was until she told me.”

“You misunderstand me. I am not accusing you of such a thing.”

Morpheus's statement was like a soothing balm, relieving your worries and easing your nervousness. You released a deep sigh, and in response, you managed a timid "Oh.”

“I suspect that our… indisputable connection might have granted you access to places that are normally out of reach for most mortals.”

Your mind went back to the basement when your hands indirectly touched through the glass for the first time. Your dreams had started after that specific moment, leaving you with distant fragments that could barely be remembered upon waking up, until he was finally released.

“I suppose that makes sense,” you replied.

“Yes. And I believe that Lucienne is not the only subject you have encountered.”

You nodded in agreement. “Able and Cain.”

“Correct.”

“Does it bother you? That I have explored parts of your realm when I was not supposed to?”

You tried to decipher Morpheus's expression, but after a moment of consideration, he shook his head slightly. "It is not ideal for mortals to roam the Dreaming in my absence. But, I do not hold it against you.”

"I would never want to disrespect you," you said softly, offering him a small smile.

(Gif from Tumblr, found via Pinterest. If you happen to be the owner, or you know who made it, please notify me.)

Morpheus returned it, his eyes warm and reassuring. "It is my duty to guide and protect you in the Dreaming, and I will continue to do so to the best of my abilities."

While you knew that others could also enter Morpheus's realm and see him appear in a dream, you couldn't help but feel possessive when he spoke to you with such a glint in his eyes. You also understood that you could not keep him all to yourself, as all of humanity was under his care from the beginning of time. His touch made you feel special and grounded, but you were aware that Morpheus had influenced countless minds throughout the ages, and you certainly wouldn't be his last conquest.

Even though it may sound selfish and immature, you found it a little difficult to accept.

You gently took one of his hands from your waist, bringing it up to your lips to kiss his cool knuckles. As you released him from your grasp and resisted the urge to cling to him, you lifted your dress from the ground to walk more easily. "Would you care to take a stroll with me, Your Majesty?"

Morpheus’s smile grew wider than ever before. "It would be my pleasure," he answered, extending his arm out for you to take.

As you accepted his offer, he led you through the wonders of the dreamworld, passing through the vastness and magic of its many pathways. You saw the most unique flowers and creatures you could ever imagine in your waking life, as well as trees with all kinds of shapes and shades. You walked for so long that you couldn't tell how much time had passed since you fell asleep in your bed, but the longer you stayed in the Dreaming, the more you felt like you belonged.

Morpheus had told you different stories about his adventures, and you couldn't hide your surprise when you found out that William Shakespeare himself became the greatest playwright in history solely because of the inspiration he received from the King of Dreams. You were passionate about his tales and eager for more, wondering how many important individuals he had come across before you were even born.

Eventually, you asked him about Matthew, specifically avoiding mentioning Jessamy for the sake of his mood. He appeared to be quite reluctant to tell you the reason behind the raven’s appearance in the Waking World, only mentioning that it would be a story for another night. His reaction seemed strange to you, but you decided not to pry and dropped the subject altogether. You were learning to know him just as you wanted, and it was easy for you to declare that Morpheus was the most enigmatic man (well, creature) you had ever set your eyes upon.

It didn't really bother you. In fact, his mysterious demeanor only served to add to his allure and attracted you more and more with each passing moment. In the presence of Morpheus, you didn't feel unsure or doubtful about what was to come, but the battle between your gut instincts and your restless heart was keeping you on edge.

You couldn't help but wonder what secrets Morpheus was keeping from you, but for the time being, you were content to bask in the thrill of the unknown and his presence by your side.

The sky began to shift to a darker color until the light of the sun gave way to a sea of stars and northern lights. You walked along a bridge large enough for the two of you to walk side by side, while the surrounding waters enchanted you with the sound of calm waves rolling back and forth.

The stars above shone like diamonds in the night sky, while the lights roiled around in a mesmerizing display of colors. But despite the enchanting scenery you were stepping in, your attention was still drawn to Morpheus and the way he moved with otherworldly grace. You studied him closely, taking note of every detail - the way his hair caught the light, how his eyes sparkled with an inner fire, and how his voice carried a hint of magic.

As the bridge came to an end, Morpheus paused, gazing out at the infinite expanse of water before you. You unlinked your arm from his, taking a few steps forward to watch the distance. A thick layer of fog obscured whatever was lying ahead, leaving you feeling excited and apprehensive.

"Where are we?" you asked him, kneeling on the wooden planks and carefully touching the water surface with your fingertips. To your surprise, you felt the water respond, moving around your hand and seeming to enjoy the contact.

"This place is yet another aspect of the Dreaming," he replied cryptically. "It exists between your world and mine, where the boundaries of dreams and reality are blurred.”

As you looked into the waters, you could see a few distant images playing in sequence, like another world set in motion at the other side of a mirror. It was both beautiful and eerie.

"Those are dreams of other mortals," Morpheus explained. "We are at a crossroad.”

Suddenly, a fuzzy feeling began to creep into your mind, intensifying as you tried to shake it off. You knew very well what it was, and you didn’t like it one bit.

"You are waking up," Morpheus stated matter-of-factly.

You stood back on your feet, your hand instantly drying. "I don't want to leave just yet.”

"Do not resist, Y/N. I will see you again.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

As he lightly pushed you to the front of the bridge, the waters in front of it parted like the Red Sea with Moses, forming a flight of stairs that he started to descend. Seeing your uncertainty, Morpheus reassured you with a light squeeze around your shoulder. "Fear not, you are safe with me.”

After a moment of disorientation, you nodded your head and followed him down the dark road that had formed. The freshness of the water around you sent chills down your back, but at the same time, it felt invigorating against your skin. As you reached the bottom, Morpheus stopped next to you, turning you around to meet your eyes one last time. You had so much you wanted to tell him, but you felt yourself fading away the more you tried to talk, and the waters started to close around you. You could barely register his lips brushing against your cheek before he moved his hand in front of you, waving it slowly from your right to your left.

"This dream is over.”

The morning sun hit your face with its warmth and brightness. You squinted and covered your face with the back of your arm, breathing in and out a few times to steady yourself and fully recover from your sleepiness. A deep yawn escaped you, and you shifted around a few times, enjoying the softness of the mattress and pillows beneath you.

You let your mind wander back to the dream world, to every single detail of what you had experienced with Morpheus, the things he showed you, and what you had learned about him and his family. To you, it seemed like you had been away for a long time, and returning to your regular life was almost unnatural. Dreams were complex and ever-changing things, offering a window into the subconscious and a gateway to escape. The Dreaming was a place where time had no meaning, and in which those lost in sleep could find peace and salvation from their waking nightmares through infinite possibilities.

You stretched your limbs and pushed up into a sitting position. You massaged your neck, eyelids, temples, and lower back to soothe the aching of stiff muscles, your eyes finally adjusting to the light.

You noticed something unusual on your nightstand — a big, sparkling object that surely wasn't there before. When you turned to take a better look at it, your breath caught in your throat at what you saw. You blinked a few times, and in disbelief, you pinched yourself to ensure that you weren't still asleep.

The shell from your dream was right there, glittering under the sun's rays, as if it had always been a part of your home decor. For a closer inspection, you took it between your hands and felt its weight, the coldness of the surface as real as ever against your palms.

You turned it around, just like you did on the dream seashore, outlining each detail with fascination and astonishment. You had believed that everything encountered in a dream would remain just that, unable to cross between the worlds. But now that Morpheus was becoming less of a mystery and more of a certainty, you could tell that with the ruler of the Dreaming, anything impossible could become possible.

You laughed to yourself in utter delight, placing the shell back onto the nightstand and staring at it for a long time before getting out of bed. As you prepared a quick breakfast, turned on the radio, and resumed your morning routine, you didn't realize that something equally remarkable had happened the moment you woke up. It took you about an hour to notice that something about you had changed, and the moment you looked at your own image in the bathroom mirror, your eyes widened in shock at what it was reflecting back at you.

The scars on your arms had completely disappeared.

You had to look down at your skin, touching it a few times, to understand that it wasn't just your mind playing tricks on you. You reached for your upper back and moved your fingers where the glass piece had previously pierced you, but even there, your body was immaculate.

And then you rotated your wrist, once, twice, over and over again, bending and pulling it to test its resistance. Nothing. No pain, no tingling sensation, no funny feeling. Just a completely healed, perfectly healthy wrist.

A part of you wanted to cry for how absolutely incredible you felt about it all. Morpheus had given you so many gifts that you didn't know how you could even repay him. As a human, you didn't really have much to offer him. An endless being who owned the entire universe could never ask for anything, but there was still a hint of loneliness in him that you desperately wanted to alleviate.

You loved him, but you weren't sure if he felt the same way about you. He was an eternal being with countless ages ahead, and the time spent with you would just be a tiny fragment in the vast expanse of his infinite existence.

And yet, a voice in your head kept telling you to persist, to be there for him because he needed you more than anything else. Relationships had never worked out in your favor, but maybe that was for a reason. Perhaps you were meant for something greater, for someone better. A man who could offer you more than an entire world and treat you like a queen in two different dimensions.

You felt a little ashamed thinking about it. How could you expect a literal God, the King of Dreams, to choose a mere mortal from the Waking World, when he could easily pick any Goddess of equal power?

You told that to yourself as your heart betrayed you, whispering from the depths of your soul and pleading for you to stop. Coincidentally, the next song that played on the radio as you put on your makeup and prepared for the day was "Que Sera, Sera" by Doris Day. They say that the universe may speak to you through subliminal messages or hints that you need to interpret. Whatever it was trying to tell you in that moment, you decided to accept the advice and put your overthinking aside, allowing the natural course of things to continue without any interference.

You smiled at your reflection with that thought in mind, grabbed your bag, and turned the key into the door's lock.

Visiting the Dreaming served to raise the bar of your inspiration even higher. It was hard to tell whether it was Morpheus's influence or the dreamworld alone that was responsible. But as you sat at the New Inn, you let your hand move uninterrupted on your sketchbook.

You had invited Hob out for brunch, but he was completely swamped with work and had to politely decline. At that point, the owner knew you so well that nobody paid any mind to you occupying a table indefinitely. As a regular customer, you always made sure to order something every now and then during your stay, and the workers there had started showing interest in your drawings, which only served to boost your confidence. You had been building your portfolio like a madwoman, always using every bit of free time to complete new projects and bring your ideas to life, no matter if it meant breaking away from the original consistency. You had decided to overcome your boundaries and allowed your creativity to spring free.

In the afternoon, you left the inn to visit your father a few blocks away, relieved to be able to walk there instead of taking a cab and traveling for miles.

Your pace increased as you stared at your wristwatch and crossed the various sidewalks. The streets were particularly lively with the sunny weather, so you had to carefully avoid bumping into the many passersby along the way.

Unfortunately, you didn’t notice the man that was pacing in your direction and appeared in front of you, crashing against his chest and stumbling backward as your bag flew to the ground. The closed zipper prevented it from spilling out all the contents inside, but you had to pray that the screen of your phone didn't crack.

A hand pressed on your lower back, steadying you the moment you faltered on your feet. When you looked up, you noticed a pair of round and black eyeglasses covering the man’s eyes, with the thickest lenses you had ever seen anyone carrying around. His hair was blond, much shorter on the sides and perfectly combed to the back on top. He wore a light grey jacket, a white button-up shirt with a high collar, and a pair of black trousers matched with dark polished shoes.

His expression was blank, difficult to decipher. But then his lips curved into a mischievous smile, one that paralyzed you on the spot.

"I'm sorry," you said nervously. "I should pay more attention to where I’m walking.”

One could say that a man like him was the apotheosis of sexiness, with such a striking elegance and a smile to die for. But to you, things felt suddenly out of place, and you could sense that there was an uncommon aura emanating from him.

"It's alright," he answered, helping you to your feet and removing his hand so slowly that you had the impression he was trying to feel you. "The important thing is that you are okay. You didn't get hurt, did you?”

His voice was coarse and slightly deep with a note of allure. At the same time, it served to make you even more anxious in his presence.

“I’m fine,” you replied. “Are you?”

The corners of his lips raised up even more, and you could see his perfectly white teeth gleaming under the sunlight.

“I am,” he nodded. “But please, let me help you.”

The man bent down to grab your bag from the asphalt, blowing some dirt off of it and carefully brushing the leather with the back of his hand. There was a strange sense of familiarity, as the same energy that generally came from Morpheus was spreading in the air around you. But it was a lot darker and way more negative, making you feel extremely cold inside.

When he was done, he gave you the bag back, scrutinizing your face from behind his glasses.

"Thank you," you said, taking your bag and hastily securing it over your shoulder. "And again, I'm really sorry for bumping into you, sir."

Casting your eyes to the ground, you stepped forward and past him without waiting for his reply. However, to your dismay, his strong hand stopped you before you could cross the street. He kept you in place by the arm, his breath on your hair.

Was he actually smelling you, or were you imagining things…?

"No need to rush away," he told you, his grip on your arm loosening. "After all, I am the one who should apologize. Allow me to make up for it with a drink. Do you like Whisky?”

There was definitely something off about that man, but you were unsure if he was being nastily flirty or if there was something much worse going on that couldn't be spotted by the naked eye.

You forced a smile, trying to get out of that awkward situation in the most peaceful and polite way possible.

“I appreciate the gesture, but I’m really in a rush right now,” you said.

You hoped that would be enough to convince him, but instead, he brought his face even closer to yours. “I insist,” he murmured in your ear.

Irritation and impatience started to build up inside of you. "Look, I don't want to be rude, but I am expected in a few minutes. So, if you'll excuse me.”

While you couldn't see his eyes, which somehow you were afraid to look at, you held the stare as he processed your rejection. You could see that he wasn't pleased, breathing in through his nose and pressing his lips together. Finally, he let go of your arm completely, took a step back, and raised his hands in surrender. "Don't let me keep you, then. Maybe another time.”

The man stayed there, but you didn't want to wait for his next move. With a final, very tight smile, you turned on your heels and went down your path, crossing the street as fast as you could and disappearing into the crowd on the other side.

You didn't see the Nightmare biting his lower lip, smirking in satisfaction, and nodding his head in silence.

Author's notes:

• I generally do not stand for AI generators, as they take away the work from real artists (either with the generations themselves that take bits from existing artworks, or people selling AI art without any efforts). However, I think it can be useful for personal purposes and I like to play around with it to make quick concepts that might help me better showcase what I'm writing about.

• The importance of the phrase "You are not all Roderick Burgess" is there to capture the development that Morpheus is already going through in this initial phase. As we all know, in episode 3 he was about to leave Rachel to her consumption, to a slow suffering and upcoming death. He decided to help her because Johanna reminded him of his intention to save humanity, and that means he should also be a little more compassionate since his own sand put the girl into that state. When Morpheus told Johanna "You are not Roderick Burgess", he clearly wanted to let her know that he learned the lesson and that he shouldn't consider all humans the same. For this reason, I wanted Morpheus to tell this to the Reader as well, also as a reminder to himself.

• Morpheus has a lot of secrets, and right now Reader doesn't know half of the things he's done and went through. In the next chapter she will definitely learn about Nada, but most likely, he will also confess what happened with Calliope and Orpheus. One way or another, every single lover has left him, so let's see if Reader will be an exception... 👀

• In the comics, the Corinthian is 100% homosexual. In the TV show, Gaiman apparently stated that the character is pansexual, although it is clear that he still has a preference for men. At the end of this chapter, he wasn't really trying to get laid with the Reader, but he is known to use his charm and sex appeal to draw his victims in to get what he wants (he just seems rather flirty by nature; even with The Good Doctor, he always had that charming attitude and he tried to use the same tricks with Miss Rubio to locate Jed). Also, I see him smelling Reader's hair as a way to taste her fear. He's a nightmare after all, one that likes to toy with his victims. However, he may have found quite a challenging human this time around. Oops, sorry Cory.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 (currently reading) Go to Chapter 8 ->

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#the sandman #the sandman morpheus #dream of the endless #morpheus x reader #the sandman morpheus x reader #dream of the endless x reader #story: let your dreams be your wings #the sandman fic

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moonstrider9904 · 1 year ago

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Chapter Seven of Half-Moon Glow

Pairing: Crosshair x Female OC (Aurora Dawn)

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Summary: After Aurora and the Batch’s encounter with Sobeck and the 104th division on Christophsis, Aurora and Crosshair enjoy a night alone on Coruscant.

Tags/warnings: Explicit (18+, minors begone). Soft smut oral and vaginal sex, and overall just a dreamy, romantic date night chapter. Some PTSD. Hurt/comfort. Brief alcohol consumption.

A/N: My loves… I know I’ve said “I’m back” like four times this year. It has been over one year since I last updated this fic, and a huge reason for that is having moved out of my childhood home where writing just comes naturally. I am writing this as I have returned for Christmas, and being able to write a softer, light-hearted chapter in my current Crosshair fic seems so fitting that a part of me feels it has to be fate. Thank you to everyone who’s remained even while I’ve been away. This blog and writing are a form of a home I can always come back to. I really hope I still got it and that this chapter lives up to what my writing has been in the past.

Also, not me projecting my dream date in some far-fetched fantasy world lol

Word count: 5.3k

No new assignments had come in.

In the rare peace that came with nothingness—no missions, no wounds to clean, no running for her life—Aurora lay on her bed contemplating the dim gray ceiling above her in silence. She let the sounds of steps and chatter outside her room come and go like the thoughts forming in her mind, basking in the mix of relaxation and tension.

The longest she could go without thinking back to Christophsis was just under five minutes, as she confirmed by tearing her eyes from the ceiling to the clock at her bedside as a way to distract her from the memories. Aurora wanted more than anything else to simply not think of that anymore, and even focusing on Crosshair’s heroic rescue of her didn’t put balm over the wounds. She’d been held hostage while facing heartbreak and her own demise, hurt when she was the one supposed to do the healing.

She’d never felt weaker than she had at that moment.

Aurora sat up on her bed, knowing that lying down wasn’t doing her or her spiraling mind any favors. With a heavy sigh, she tried grounding herself; her hands clenched the bed’s comforter underneath her, the fabric fuzzy and soft against her cold fingertips, and when she let go of the fabric, it didn’t go back to its original state. Her gaze focused on a point between the line where the door met the floor, separating her bedroom from the hallway, and she took a deep breath in while closing her eyes.

It’s okay to still get memories. It’s okay to feel sad at what happened because it was a terrible thing to go through. From being taken hostage to getting a blast wound on her thigh, to believing she wouldn’t see the man she loved ever again, a man who at that point she was convinced she had broken up with for good regardless of whether they saw one another again, all of that had made up the cloud that still loomed in her mind. But I’m not on Christophsis anymore, I’m on Coruscant. I’m healing. I’m safe. I’m wearing part of Crosshair’s armor.

Aurora looked down at her forearm, covered by the gray and black piece of armor he’d given her, and the corner of her lip curved up.

He wants me here.

With her next exhale, Aurora felt tears pooling in her eyes, tears she didn’t bother holding back. After taking that moment to reflect, she felt a weight being lifted off her shoulders, and the hole in her chest seemed to lighten up as well. The point she was staring at seemed to materialize in front of her as she finally returned to the real world, to the safe walls of her temporary room at Coruscant, escaping the cell she was held at on Christophsis. When the tears stopped coming, Aurora wiped her cheek dry and stood up from the bed.

Perfectly timed, her wrist comm began to beep.

“Come in,” Aurora answered.

“You sound more like yourself,” Hunter said from the other end of the comm—he’d be the only one able to pick up on the most subtle signs Aurora could give in regards to her emotions. “Got any plans tonight?”

“I… I think?” She raised a brow, doubtful. “Your brother left me a message earlier to meet him.”

“Are you sure you want to go with him?” Hunter sounded like he was teasing. “You could always bail on him and I’ll make sure to annoy the shit outta him.”

Aurora chuckled. “No, I think he’s apologized enough.”

“So you’re not mad at him anymore?”

“Crosshair’s one of those men you’re always mad at,” Aurora replied.

Hunter laughed heartily on the other end of the comm. “Good answer.”

When Hunter quieted down, Aurora felt her features soften.

“I think…” she began. “I think he really does want me to be here.”

“For the record, we all want you here with us,” Hunter replied. “But you’re right.”

Aurora smiled into the comm. She was confident that Hunter knew his brothers better than anyone else did, and hearing that coming from him warmed her heart.

“So where are you meeting him?”

“He’s actually going to come here—”

“So it’s that kind of date,” Hunter interrupted her; she could hear the wink in his voice.

“To pick me up, and then we’re going out,” Aurora finished as she held in her laughter. “He hasn’t given me more details. You know him.”

“Oh, I see,” Hunter dragged the words out, teasing her.

“You know all about it, don’t you?” Aurora raised a brow.

Hunter chuckled. “Have fun.”

And then the line went silent. As she became aware of the smile that had formed on her lips, Aurora realized it had been a while since she’d had such a sweet comm call. Her attention was eventually drawn to the present moment when a golden ray of sun reflected off a distant building outside, making the warm light land on the walls of her room. The sun was going down, and it was about time she got out of her uniform and into something worthy of a night out.

The nights were getting colder on Coruscant, and with that in mind, Aurora picked out a long-sleeved A-line black dress; its skirt reached halfway down her thighs and flowed gracefully over her hips. The top had a round neckline that went deep enough for the start of her sternum tattoo to be visible, and she had adorned her neck and collar with a dainty chain with a moon pendant. Her legs were covered by black tights thick enough to keep her from freezing—the tights and the skirt fully concealed the fact that her thigh was wounded, but her brief limp while walking would still give her away—and she finished her outfit with a pair of dark brown boots with a small, manageable heel.

Aurora put her lavender hair in a messy bun, perfectly balancing elegance with softness. For her eyes, she coated her lashes with mascara just to give them a subtle lift and added some shadow to her crease for more depth, and her lips were tainted with a berry-wine colored lipstick that made a striking contrast with her blue skin and the golden marks along her cheekbones. And when she looked at herself in the mirror, not only did she feel pleased at how beautiful she looked, but it dawned on her that the last time she’d gotten that dolled-up was on Naboo.

An urge to change the past hit her suddenly. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to change the way things had happened. If she and Crosshair hadn’t fought during Naboo, maybe Christophsis wouldn’t have turned out so terrible.

Or perhaps you should stop burdening yourself with that, Aurora thought.

She took another moment to look at herself in the mirror hoping with all her heart that despite the events of the previous days, that night would be wonderful. With a sigh of resolve, Aurora walked away from the mirror and went to fold her uniform neatly over her bed. The pile of folded clothing was crowned by Crosshair’s forearm pad on top of it, a place where it would safely wait for her until duty called again. She then looked out the window to a dark sky with more city lights shining than stars.

Aurora sat on her bed and waited as she continued to stare at the city scenery, until at last a knock came at the door of her bedroom. Her chest fluttered, suddenly nervous at the first real date she’d have with a man who’d spent so long driving her crazy in more ways than one, and nevertheless, she felt heat rushing to her cheeks and her full lips becoming a smile. Aurora got up from the bed and went to open her door, and there stood the definition of tall, dark, and handsome, dressed in a black suit and holding a single pink peony out before his chest.

Crosshair’s brown eyes glided over her figure before they finally met hers, and in that gaze was a flood of emotions he’d never dream of speaking out loud.

“Hey,” was all he managed to say.

Aurora gave a soft chuckle. “Hi.”

The sly, snarky sniper found himself at a loss for words. For Aurora, it was her first real date with him. For Crosshair, it was his first real date, and he found himself in uncharted territory where he couldn’t rely on the scope of his rifle to get a better visual of.

“I…” his voice was husky. “I brought you this.”

Aurora looked at the peony and took it from him, her fingers delicately brushing his as she grabbed the flower. She held it up to her nose and took in its scent, and she met eyes with him on her exhale.

“It’s perfect,” she said. “Thank you, Crosshair.”

Her words allowed most of the tension to leave Crosshair, and he felt the muscles of his body relaxing as Aurora went to place the flower neatly on her nightstand. She then turned around and stared silently at Crosshair, her big eyes widening with expectation.

“What is it?” She asked him.

Crosshair smirked. “You look incredible.”

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Aurora replied. “Now where is this sharp-dressed sharpshooter taking me tonight?”

Crosshair chuckled and he held out his bent arm for her to link her arm in it. “This way.”

With a smile, Aurora turned off the lights of her room and walked up to him, taking his arm as he’d offered. As Crosshair began leading her out of the room, closing the door behind him, and into the hallway, he noticed the way she still had to limp between her steps.

His heart sank. Aurora felt his gaze hardening and looked up at him, her gaze soft and reassuring.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Really.”

“Are you sure you can walk?” Crosshair asked.

“I’ll be fine as long as you don’t let go of me,” Aurora smiled.

She’d meant those words literally, but seeing the result of the blast wound on her thigh reignited feelings of regret and of fear within Crosshair. He stopped walking and looked at her, and he used his spare hand to gently lift up her chin and leaned down to kiss her lips.

“I won’t ever let you go again,” he whispered.

Aurora’s cheeks gained a purple tint as she smiled up at him, and she perked up to give him another soft peck before resting her weight on his stable figure again.

“Aurora, I meant what I said when I told you how sorry I was,” Crosshair said. “I fucked up harder than I ever have—”

She cupped his cheek, her eyes softening with the remnants of her sadness.

“Crosshair,” she spoke his name with unimaginable kindness. “If I was still angry with you, I wouldn’t be going on this date with you now. My leg will heal eventually, and as horrible as Christophsis was, it’s already happened.”

He grabbed her waist and pulled her closer. “You and I both know war memories stick.”

“It’s a part of the way we live,” she answered. “And yes, memories of that day do flood me frequently, but I’d rather be here with you now than keep succumbing to them.”

“You make it sound easy,” he smirked.

“It’s easier with you here.”

Crosshair smiled at her response and rested his forehead on hers for a moment before he continued to lead her down the hall and into the elevator that would take them down. When they emerged, they were at the main level of headquarters, and Crosshair walked Aurora over to the transports. As they walked, Aurora began asking herself what Crosshair could have planned for her date, what Hunter could have been so excited about that he had to call and tease.

The first question regarding the date was answered when Aurora spotted Wrecker standing in front of a compact, four-passenger speeder, suited up and holding up a board that read Ms. Dawn.

“Wrecker?” Aurora giggled.

“I do not know of whom you speak,” Wrecker answered eloquently. “I am the driver taking my unknown clients to their destination.”

Aurora laughed as Crosshair gestured for her to step into the vehicle, helping her so that she wouldn’t feel any pain while she did, and then he got in after her.

“Does the plan stand, my good sir?” Driver Wrecker asked Crosshair.

“It does,” Crosshair replied, giving a subtle yet playful roll of his eyes.

“Off we go then,” Wrecker stepped in the pilot’s seat. “No making out in my speeder.”

Wrecker drove off with the couple on the rear seats, and as soon as the speeder got in movement, the city lights caught Aurora’s attention. She watched them as they glided past her gaze and enjoyed the breeze on her cheeks—despite being in the middle of the biggest city in the galaxy, the air felt fresh and even clean. She would barely blink, eyes wide with wonder, and as she stared at the scenery, Crosshair’s ever watchful eyes would only focus on her.

Looking at her that way, Crosshair couldn’t decide if Aurora looked more stunning or endearing.

Slowly, Crosshair reached out for her hand. Aurora looked away from the city landscape the moment she felt his skin come in contact with hers, and with a tender smile, she locked her fingers with his. They didn’t say anything, though Crosshair was about to tell her to turn back to watching the city lights, which he now knew she loved so much. Before any words left him, however, Aurora carefully scooted closer to him, her body pressing to his side, and she leaned on him as she continued to bask in the city’s nightlife.

The ride was shorter than Aurora had expected, and before long, the vehicle came to a stop. Wrecker remained in his chauffeur character and gallantly opened the door for her and Crosshair, only breaking his role to remind his youngest brother to “send food to his loyal driver before he took off”. Crosshair nudged his brother before walking off with Aurora by his side, and he led her into the building.

Aurora couldn’t help but feel out of place. Though they weren’t in the building yet, Aurora recognized the part of the city they were at, one of the most high-end zones of the Coruscant capital. Around them, people of all races dressed in luxurious clothing and adorned with heavy accessories went about their night, some alone, some in couples, some in groups—it made sense why she’d received prior instruction to use her best outfit that night. It was the opposite of being in a war zone or even in GAR headquarters. Heck, the war didn’t even exist in that place.

But a night away from the war and anything to do with it was all Aurora wanted.

They approached the building that towered before them, tall and covered in glass panes that made it appear star-studded in the middle of the city skyline. At the top of the entrance, the word Passacaille was written in large, golden letters beaming with warm light to make them stand out in the night setting.

They were about to enter one of the fanciest hotels on the planet, possibly in the galaxy.

“Cross…” Aurora said, breathless. “Is this for real?”

“Yes,” he answered bluntly.

She let out a chuckle. “You didn’t have to go overboard—how can you even afford this? The restaurant, the speeder, what’s next? Are you going to take me to another planet?”

Crosshair chuckled. “We’re not leaving Coruscant’s atmosphere tonight. As for how I could afford this, call it a mix of my own Sabacc savings and a couple of returned favors.”

“I knew you were good at gambling, but… Returned favors?” Aurora raised a brow.

“Our squad takes on some unforeseen missions, some of them not entirely backed by the GAR,” Crosshair said. “Not exactly dirty work, but we’ve gotten enough members of the high-society and fellow clone squads out of a number of problems to earn their respect.”

The revelation paired with Crosshair in a full black suit and tie made Aurora’s blood flow to hidden corners. She snapped out of how much of a turn-on she found that to be when they reached past the building’s lobby and to the entrance of the restaurant, and Crosshair was greeted by the host to claim his reservation.

“This way, sir,” said the host, and he guided Crosshair and Aurora to a table near the center of the restaurant, placed right under an opulent chandelier that appeared, at least to the untrained eye, to be made of diamonds. Crosshair pulled out a chair for Aurora to sit, and then he took the seat in front of her. The host handed each one a menu and gave a faint bow before leaving them to it, and as hungry as Aurora was, she couldn’t help but gawk at the restaurant itself while listening to the soft piano music in the background and the faint chatter and clanking of dishes and glasses of the people around them.

Even the table where they were sitting was high-end. Made of a dark wood and covered by a dark red cloth, it was adorned at the center by a cylindrical container made of thin glass, filled with beads that looked like precious stones, with enough space inside it to hold two small candles. On top of each placemat, there was a cloth napkin folded into what Aurora felt resembled the peony Crosshair had given her earlier, and there was a set of more cutlery than Aurora could deduce use for.

She knew she’d use the wrong spoon for whatever she ate that night eventually.

“What do you think?” Crosshair broke the silence.

Aurora finally met his eyes again and couldn’t help but let out another breathless laugh. “This is wonderful, Crosshair…” Her chest heaved up and down before she forced herself to keep her feet on the ground. “I don’t want you thinking you always have to spend this much—”

“Enough of that,” he said. “Enjoy yourself.”

“Well, that I can do,” she smiled as she opened the menu and looked at everything the place had to offer. “Do you think they sell choccy blue milk here?”

Crosshair chuckled. “Come on, darling, that’s a joke Wrecker would make.”

“I had to,” she giggled.

Putting jokes aside, Aurora had to hold in a gasp at how delicious everything on the menu looked. It would be hard to only choose one thing, but by the time the waiter came around to take their order, she had decided on the plate of dumplings bathed in a five-cheese and herbs sauce. Crosshair went for a similar choice, except his plate had a spicy sauce. Once their order was taken, the waiter left them a bottle of white wine to enjoy in the meantime.

With their glasses full, Crosshair and Aurora clinked their glasses together and talked. Though they told stories of battles, it didn’t feel like they were talking about the war, and before Aurora even realized, her cheeks were sore from all the smiling. Soon, the subject morphed from wartime tales to Crosshair retelling his many Sabacc victores, which he eloquently disclosed as his foot rubbed Aurora’s calf under the table.

Soon, the plates were empty and the wine was gone. Crosshair paid for the dinner while Aurora watched him, her cheek resting on the palm of her hand with glistening eyes. Had she been less discreet, a dreamy sigh would have escaped her. She managed to hold it in, but not without its difficulties—the sight of Crosshair being a complete gentleman was all she didn’t know she needed.

After a lovely dinner, Crosshair got up from his chair and helped Aurora up from hers. He led her out of the restaurant and across the Passacaille’s lobby, and though Aurora was still mesmerized by the decor, her concentration broke when she realized Crosshair was not leading her to the exit.

“Where are we going?” Aurora asked. “Wrecker must be waiting for us by now.”

“Our chauffeur is long gone, darlin’,” Crosshair answered and made a gesture towards the elevators.

Aurora blushed. “Oh…”

“Is everything okay?” Crosshair asked.

“Yes!” Aurora blurted. “Oh, stars, yes, I just didn’t expect to be spending the night here as well.”

“Believe it,” Crosshair purred, pulling Aurora closer. “Come.”

They got into an empty elevator; Crosshair pressed the button for the penthouse and closed the door before anyone else could get in. As soon as the door closed and the elevator began moving up, Aurora pressed her body to Crosshair’s and wrapped her arms around his upper back. He kissed her without hesitation and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her gently so as to not hurt her. Time seemed to disappear as they sank into one another, hidden from the world and the war and from prying eyes. Their hardships were irrelevant if only for that moment. All that mattered was what they felt for one another, whether they spoke it aloud or not.

The couple felt the pull of gravity as the elevator came to a stop, and with a delicate ding! the doors opened to reveal a small, warmly lit hallway. Crosshair regained composure and walked Aurora out of the elevator and up to the single green door that was framed by glass panes, allowing for a tease of the penthouse behind it. He got the door open and Aurora couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her.

The walls were made of glass, and the edges were all lined with plants, from flowers to herbs, even succulents from different arid planets. Entwined in the plants were a series of warm fairy lights, adding a touch of coziness to the luxurious penthouse. On one of the corners there was a small fountain made of rock—water sprouted from the middle of a spherical black stone and fell onto a bowl of grayish marble, and the sound of spluttering water contrasted with the crackling of the fireplace on the opposite side of the room. There were two long couches made of black velvet in front of the fireplace, and behind them was an embroidered carpet made of black and silver threads. Beside the fountain was a nightstand, a large bed covered in a black fluffy comforter, and another nightstand, above which was a small lamp along with the controls to the rest of the lighting of the penthouse, including the artificial fireplace.

“I…” Aurora tried to recover her breath. “I feel like a princess.”

Crosshair gave a low chuckle as he closed and locked the door behind them. “So you like this place?”

“What a question,” Aurora smiled as she walked deeper into the room, examining every detail. She walked past the couches, brushing her fingers over the velvet, and felt a typhoon of emotions forming within her. As she took them all in, she turned to look at Crosshair again, who was already staring at her every move.

“What is it?” He asked her.

Aurora felt the blast wound on her hamstring begin to tingle. “Just a few days ago, I thought it would be over.”

“Hey,” Crosshair removed his coat and set it on the rack beside the door, walking towards her with his hands ready to take hers in them. “You’re here now, with me. In this place. You deserve no less than to feel at home in a room like this.”

“I’m sorry,” Aurora took his hands, her voice breaking. “I’m sorry, this is absolutely beautiful, Crosshair. More than I ever could have imagined. I don’t want to ruin it with my laments.”

“You aren’t ruining it,” he said, taking hold of her waist.

She looked at him with twinkling purple eyes and then gazed out the glass walls of the penthouse at the Coruscant skyline. Slowly, she unwrapped herself from Crosshair’s grip and walked over to the edge to better take in the sight, and Crosshair followed, positioning himself beside her.

“It’s like the war doesn’t exist here,” Aurora said. “And yet…”

“And yet, you and I just had the shittiest mission we can think of,” Crosshair completed for her.

Aurora gulped. “Yeah, that… that about sums it up.”

He turned to face her. “Aurora.”

She looked up at him, his features hardening the way they would when he would struggle to get words out.

“I…” he began. “I really thought I was going to lose you. I was willing to do anything to keep that from happening, but there were moments when…”

“I know,” Aurora said. “Believe me, I know.”

“I never want to feel that way again,” Crosshair admitted. “I had never been more afraid of anything in my life, and that scares me.”

“Cross…” Aurora sighed.

“Do you have any idea the hold you have on me?” He asked her.

“I can only imagine it’s the same as the one you have on me,” Aurora took his hands. “The war scares me too. Losing you scares me too. Losing you to anything, it’s unthinkable.”

Silence fell between them, and Crosshair cupped her warm cheek, tilting her face up to meet her gaze as he pulled her close.

“I wish we could stay here,” Aurora whispered. “I wish we didn’t have to go back in the morning.”

Crosshair acknowledged her words, but then he was the one to look at the city landscape.

“I want what you want,” Crosshair said. “But… don’t get me wrong, but war is my purpose.”

“It was your first one,” Aurora agreed. “But you could find another one.”

Crosshair met her gaze again, and her purple eyes gleamed with hope.

“Right?” She whispered.

His lips curved into a hint of a smile before he took his hands up to the back of her head, undoing the bun her lavender hair had been tied into. Once her hair fell in graceful waves down her shoulders, Crosshair found himself leaning down to kiss her. As she kissed him back, Aurora ran her hands up and down his back feeling the fabric of his black shirt. Crosshair began to lead her towards the bed, stumbling, refusing to break the kiss for longer than was necessary. When they reached the bed, he reached up her back and undid the button and zipper of her dress, and before undressing her, he swept her off her feet to place her gently on the bed—he relished in the soft whimper she made when he did that.

Crosshair climbed on the bed after undoing and removing his tie, as well as his shoes. He kissed her lips again as his right hand reached for the room’s controls, dimming the lights and making the glass walls opaque to conceal them from the world outside. Crosshair broke the kiss to remove the clothing on her, item by item. Her shoes, her tights, with more care than he ever thought he could muster as he gently revealed the bandage on her thigh, her dress. She was left in a black lace bra and panties, and basking in the sight of her, he removed his shirt.

Aurora couldn’t help but moan at the sight of him taking off his shirt and revealing his torso, marked by tattoos and battle scars. The light of the fireplace behind him seemed to make him glow, but the thought escaped Aurora when he leaned back down to kiss her again. Her breathing became heavier and a gentle moan left her as she entwined her fingers delicately through his silver hair.

Crosshair then made his way down to kiss her neck and her collarbone, obliviously bringing a fingertip to brush over the necklace she wore. He made his way farther down, and the lower he went, the more Aurora’s chest heaved. She felt his touch over her skin, shivers dancing wherever his fingers went. Sensations covered her belly, her hips, her inner thighs, and finally he was down between her legs wrapping his fingers around the black lace of her panties and pulling them down.

He didn’t beat around the bush. Aurora gasped and moaned the moment she felt his tongue over her clit, and she couldn’t help her eyes rolling back—he was just that good with her. As Crosshair kept eating her out, one of his hands snaked up Aurora’s body up to her belly, where her hand met his. She moaned deeper and deeper the more he flicked and sucked on her delicate skin, and she was so aroused that it took her no time to fall into bliss. Throwing her head back, Aurora squeezed Crosshair’s hand, her body squirming at wave after wave of pleasure, hearing Crosshair moan as her legs inevitably clenched towards him.

“Please,” Aurora whimpered. “I need you inside me now.”

Crosshair emerged from between her legs and crawled up to be at eye level with her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” she said, mindful of the bandage around her thigh. “I trust you.”

Crosshair was already struggling to hold into more control, but as his dark gaze looked into Aurora’s blissful eyes, he couldn’t keep holding back. He removed his trousers and his boxers and positioned himself above her once more, looking deep into her eyes.

“If it starts to hurt, let me know,” he said.

Aurora nodded frantically, biting her lower lip.

“I need you to promise,” he added.

“I promise,” Aurora replied, pulling up to kiss his lips.

Crosshair eventually settled his weight down and kissed her with more fervor as he inserted himself into her walls, shuddering at how tight and warm she felt around him. Aurora moaned at the fullness inside her, with a hint of relief escaping her voice. Crosshair’s pace began slow, luscious, always careful not to add too much pressure onto her legs. He didn’t need to go any faster—they were already so lost in one another that they were already in heaven with each other. Aurora moaned into Crosshair’s kisses, holding him tighter with every thrust he gave.

Her moans became high-pitched whimpers, and Crosshair increased his pace ever so slightly, enough to send her over the edge. He delighted in the rich moaning that came from her, and he felt the way that she tightened around him as her silhouette squirmed beneath him. He grunted at the tightness, dangerously close to the edge himself, until one last tug of her hand at his silver curls ended him and he spilled thick, white ropes of cum inside her.

Moaning in unison, the two collapsed onto the bed under them and caught their breath, merely enjoying the presence of one another after some long awaited, much deserved loving. Crosshair moved up to meet her gaze, inquiring with his gaze if she had felt any pain, any discomfort.

Aurora smiled in response. “I told you, you wouldn’t hurt me.”

Crosshair kissed her forehead. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Never again.”

She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, but with the strength he had, Crosshair picked her up again and carried her over to the couch in front of the fireplace on the other side of the room. He gathered the bed’s comforter and went to sit next to her, placing her body leaning on his before covering them both in the tick, fuzzy blanket, softly kissing her temple when they were finally settled.

“Thank you for tonight,” Aurora said.

Under the blanket, Crosshair’s hand found hers and interlaced fingers. “I’m glad you like it.”

They looked at each other and perked up for another brief kiss before settling on the couch and letting the fireplace lull them to slumber.

{Next chapter} {Back to series masterlist}

Taglist: @nunanuggets @redheadgirl @zoeykallus @rain-on-kamino @arctrooper69 @ceapa-mica @sageislostinspring @wildmoonflower @dangerousstrawberrypie @whore4rex @misogirl828 @salaminus @ladykatakuri @seriowan @prozacspice @eyecandyeoz {Let me know if you want to be tagged. I promise to update my taglists soon}

Thank you so much for reading!

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duckprintspress · 2 years ago

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June 2023 Releases: 6 All-New Titles from Duck Prints Press Just in Time for Pride Month!

Happy Release Day, Everyone! We publish new short stories and novelettes for our General Imprint on the fourth Thursday of the month, and here we are with five new short stories and a novelette!

June 22nd Releases:

Title: Of Loops and Weaves Author: Catherine E. Green

F/F, Getting Together, Maximum Fluff

Robin loves to sit in the local coffee shop, crocheting a sweater for her friend Dee, who she hopes will become more than a friend.

She doesn’t expect to need to frog a chunk of project.

And she really doesn’t expect Dee to walk in on her doing so…

Title: Solarpunks: Viva la Revolución (a story in the Solarpunks ‘verse) Author: J. D. Harlock

Found Family, Utopian Future, the Very Teenage Urge to Rebel Against Authority

The future is perfect, with strong community ties, collective ownership, plenty for all, and an ideal balance of private life and public life.

In such a setting, what’s a group of bored teenagers to do to shake up the order of things?

Sami, Ros, and Amara aren’t sure…but Sami has a plan.

Title: Seal Island Author: K. B. Vimes

M/M, Queerplatonic Relationship, Ace Trans Main Character, Selkies

Michael has always known he was a boy, and always known he didn’t fit in with either the boys or girls around him in the quiet fishing community where he grows up. To escape the insistence of his friends and family that he become a “proper young lady,” he seeks refuge on the island in the bay where the seals sun themselves during the summer.

It’s not until he’s 18 that he realizes he might be able to make the island a more permanent home. Will the seals welcome the young man who’s never felt like he’s belonged?

Title: More Than We Deserve Author: Nicola Kapron

M/M, Finding a Slice of Hope Amidst Dystopia, Trans Main Character, Spies and Super Soldiers

Every year, the employees of The Winterborne Group have to fill out Form 301-A, checking off boxes related to gender and sexuality to enhance the megacorp’s diversity numbers.

This year, Dice uses this opportunity to finally, after years of passing, tell the company he’s trans.

That’s not the problem.

The problem is that Grey, Dice’s favorite company-owned Horizon super soldier, has asked for Dice’s help completing his Form 301-A.

Title: Live Like There’s No Tomorrow (a short prequel story in the Welcome to PHU ‘verse) Author: Tris Lawrence

Family Feels, Surviving Cancer, Finding Hope Through Everyday Struggles

Middle-school student Jackson is not particularly upset about his cancer; the doctor’s assure him he’ll recover, and his biggest concern is that his friends will be a grade or more above him by the time he’s able to get back to school.

Well, that and that he’s sure that his mother is keeping a secret from him, but he can’t figure out what that secret is and she’s not talking about it.

Title: Moongatherer Author: Willa Blythe

F/F, PTSD, Recovery From Trauma, Bonding While on a Quest Together

The Summer Solstice is approaching, the day when the sunlight lasts the longest and the dangers of being out in the world, exposed to the harsh rays, is greatest. As is their way, Clan Firefox has once again chosen two representatives to travel to Moon’s Rest and make an offering to the Goddess to bring the moonlight back.

No one is surprised that Pomegranate will be making the journey.

But everyone is shocked when Honeycomb is selected, and no one more so than Honeycomb herself.

And, as they set out on their journey, all Honeycomb can see is the memory of harsh solar rays and burning fires…

Maybe during this journey, these two young women can find more than they ever thought to seek…

Think they all sound amazing? Well, you should, because they are. And we’ve got you covered – you can buy ALL SIX of these new titles in one awesome bundle – and save 20% off the list price for buying each story individually!

Come on over to the Duck Prints Press webstore and find your new favorite short story! And, while you’re at it, don’t forget to check out the anthology we’re Kickstarting!

Want more stories, and to support our awesome, queer-owned, fandom-based small business indie Press? We rely on your backing on Patreon to keep our prices low and maximize the royalties we pay to authors! Support us, and get free stories every month – the higher your backer level, the more you get!

#duck prints press #new release #our titles #short story #novelette #queer short story #queer novelette #queer publishing #catherine e. green #j. d. harlock #k. b. vimes #nicola kapron #tris lawrence #willa blythe

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hyrtwynwrites · 11 months ago

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Yensday #2 - 7 February 2024

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Yensday! Today ought to be a shorter one unfortunately, but I hope still fun to read!

<><><> Tidbits & Errata <><><>

So! Last night, I started to post the official timeline (link here!). It's been interesting to actually put all of that down - especially since I didn't create a timeline internally until late last year! A lot of early Gridanian Prelude, even with the rewrites, was written very much off the cuff. Keeping in mind dates is something I probably should have done from the beginning, but it always felt like a tertiary concern. Because of that, though, I had to keep doing mental math of exactly how long Yen was in Gridania!

LF1 remains probably one of the longest books I will ever write, both in word count (just shy of 80,000 words) and in the amount of time covered. Beginning on the 18th Sun of the 2nd Umbral Moon (or 18 April here on Earth), the book ends on the 32nd Sun of the 3rd Astral Moon (31 May) - 46 days! An Eorzean week, to the best of my memory, is ten days long, meaning that the story covers just shy of five of them, with some amount of time skipping included.

As a final little note, Yen's birthday is the 23rd Sun of the 1st Umbral Moon - 23 February. This isn't a random date, but actually the day she was created in 2022! It felt fitting to preserve that in stone like this.

Thank you all for stopping by another Yensday! I hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to hearing from you all next week!

Until then, may you ever walk in the light of the Crystal!

-H

#ffxiv #ffxiv fanfiction #update #light's falle #yenifer falle #yensday

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ihaveatheoryonthat · 1 year ago

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An incomplete list of songs I associate with Memory, Heavy in My Heart.

Chapters 1-15:

youtube

Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In - Will Wood & The Tapeworms

So I'll bookmark my DSM, 'cause I need to remember my place. This is not enough. This is not enough to prove it yet, no I need to hit the bottom. [...] Gotta get to the bottom of this.

Looking up, we see the point of entry between where we are and we've been; looking up, I could say heaven sent me, hand me my shovel, I'm going in.

Admittedly, this didn't come across very well in the final draft, and part of that is down to the framing and variety I wanted to give it. I was initially going to give Ingo a more frenetic energy as he was trying to complete the pokedex, which lessened as he got to know the Pokemon and people in Hisui-- and then picked back up once he realized he was getting distracted. The second portion would actually correspond to chapter 33, and is fairly self explanatory.

Chapter 16:

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Cosmic Love - Florence + the Machine

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out. You left me in the dark. No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight in the shadow of your heart.

I took the stars from my eyes and then I made a map. I knew that somehow, I could find my way back.

A little dramatic, but it fit the feeling of being stranded and abandoned in a way I really liked. The second portion was also relevant for later... and another piece is relevant to something else that I'm not going to spoil yet.

Chapter 17:

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Ghost (Fred Falke Remix) - Mystery Skulls

No particular lines to highlight for this one, though I suppose 3:43-4:10 would fit. It was more the tone of it, and, to be honest, my own personal associations with this version of Ghost.

Chapters 18-25:

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Hidden Highlands - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky

The word 'highlands' is purely coincidental. I had this on a character playlist, and it stuck out to me for this project, too. It just has a heaviness to it that I really liked for day to day life with the rift and then the red sky hanging overhead.

Chapters 25-26:

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Close Encounters - No Delivery

It's just got a weirdness factor to it that I like for the trek across the Highlands, building up to the primary conflict at the Temple of Sinnoh. Unfortunately, I don't think I can really describe it better than that. Sorry!

Chapter 27:

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Origin Form Palkia & Dialga - Pokemon Legends Arceus

Sticking with vanilla on this, both because I think it still fits, and it's a really nice track imo. I wasn't initially going to add it here, since that seems redundant, but it felt like leaving a conspicuous empty spot at the story's climax.

Chapter 29:

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Jowd ~ A Captive of Fate - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

I liked this one for being a little more upbeat without being a happy song; it strikes me as having a sense of 'let's see this through' in some parts, which I think works very well as we're warming up to the final arc. While I don't think it fits this chapter's content perfectly, I did realize in hindsight that it plays during a coat-related scene in Ghost Trick, and I subconsciously connected the dots.

Chapters 30-32:

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Crossing a Line - Mike Shinoda

You're not gonna like where this goes. They'll tell you I don't care anymore, and I hope you'll know that's a lie, 'cause I've found what I have been waiting for, but to get there means crossing a line. So I'm crossing a line.

It's not about status, we know it never was, 'cause what good is the kingdom when you're missing the love? This is not a goodbye now, I'm not going away. No, I don't have the answers, but I do have the faith.

This is probably one of my favorites to apply to this story, because I can see it working from at least two different perspectives. For one, I would put it firmly in this range of chapters just based on who/what we're dealing with. For the second (which is the POV that the second stanza would also be relevant to) I would also add 33 to that range. I feel like one POV is obvious, but the other might be a little more out in the weeds.

Chapter 33:

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The Suffering Game: Arms Outstretched - Griffin McElroy

This one was baked in from the early chapters. I knew the call on the mountaintop was going to happen basically from the beginning, and felt like this encompassed the range of emotions really well. Maybe it doesn't match up perfectly with the final product, but it's still inextricably linked in my mind. xD It's also something of a bridge in and of itself, but we'll save that for later.

#not writing #mhimh #submas

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darkyuffie-blog · 1 year ago

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18+ One Shot. Billy Hargrove (stranger Things) X OC Rubie. Minors do not read, k thanks. CHEERS TO US Rubie normally wasn't one for parties, but she had just caught her boyfriend cheating on her last week and needed something interesting to take her mind off the bullshit of a wasted two-year relationship. She walked in dressed in a above the knee blue and black plaid skirt, black fishnets, her black and white doc marten boots, and a tight fitting Metalica T-shirt. Her eyes were a lovely grey blue color, a smokey black eyeshadow and some mascara was the only makeup she wore. Her long black hair was pulled into a ponytail with a strand lose on each side to frame her pale face. She had a small blue metallic hoop in her lower lip right in the center and a tattoo on her thigh of a crescent moon with a black raven standing on it. A nod to Edgar Allan Poe who she had always been fond of reading.

She quickly found her a spot out of the way in the dining room. She leaned up against the wall by the back door, beer in hand sipping at it as she watched the other people around her mingle. Some girls were dancing in front of the entrance to the dining area, lewdly grinding on one another, drinks in hand, with some guys watching on in dumb struck awe. She rolled her eyes and slipping out the back door sitting on a soft lawn chair and pulling a book out of her bag. A collection of some of Edgar's best works, by the condition of the spine of the book, it was well loved. When she was done with her beer a guy came out and handed her another with a wink like he knew she needed the alcohol. She looked up at him and knew who he was though they never really spoke, had one class together in College this semester. She knew he was a bit older than her. Billy…that was his name. She nodded and mumbled a thank you before cracking it open drinking down half of it then went back to her book. "Need another come find me and let me know baby girl." She nodded and Billy went back inside.

She remembers him having anger issues back in high school but again, she never really spoke to him then either being a grade under him. She finished the beer he had brought her bringing her total to four now. She felt a little better, thoughts of her cheat of an ex Tyler completely fading from memory. She leaned her head back against the cool brick of the house and sighed. She heard someone sit in the chair beside her, assuming Billy had come back out to find her. Her eyes stayed closed as she talked. "Come to bring me more alcohol stud?" The laugh in response had her eyes popping open. That was NOT his laugh. She felt a warm hand against her thigh and shot daggers into the man beside her. Carver… smug bastard was one of Tyler's friends from basketball. "What do you want Carver…" he squeezed her thigh with a dark smile. "Well, Ty told me his goth bitch of a woman dumped him. Something about you catching him with Carol? Surprised ya didn't catch him sooner. He was cheating on you for an entire year babe. Ya know, I could take your mind off of him."

"The drinks are doing plenty to take my mind off him. You being here only makes it worse actually because you knew he was stepping out on me Carver." She rolled her eyes at the man beside her. His hand slid beneath her skirt and she jumped up slapping him across his face with a loud SMACK. "You have a girl Jason! Chrissy is a good chick and deserves better than your dirt bag ass!" She stomped away to go inside but he yanked her back with a tight grip on her wrist and an angry scowl. She looked at him realizing she had cut his chick with one of her black painted nails. "shit…" He grinned down at her darkly. "Yeah shit! You fucking made me bleed cunt… no one makes me bleed without consequences." He rose up a fist to hit her but then there was a crack to the side of his head and he went down with a loud groan. Rubie swung around seeing a rage filled Billy Hargrove standing there. He shoved her behind himself to block her from Jason. "Best for you to stay on the fucking concrete if you know what's good for you Carver. I will break your fucking face…"

Jason spit blood on Bill's boot and went to stand up, unsuccessful as Billy kicked him in his chest making him fall back over with a grunt and a gasp for air. Rubie pulled on Billy's arm and he turned to her his rage filled blue grey eyes looking down on her, they softened when he looked at her grey eyes seeing her sadness there. "Billy…can we just…get out of here please. I don't want to be here anymore." He looked back at Jason on the ground and nodded once he saw he wasn't going to cause more issues. He took Rubie's hand and led her back through the house and the crowd of people and then out the front door and down the block to his Camaro. "Him or one of those other cocks ever give you issues again…you come fucking get me. Got it." She nodded and he continued to look at her expectantly. "Y…yes sir, come get you, understood." He smiled and leaned down kissing her cheek. "Good girl. Now get in the car. I'm getting you the fuck away from here." She nodded and slid into the passenger seat when he opened her door. He shut it behind her and she buckled in, putting her book back into her purse and setting it in the floor.

Once he was settled in he turned on the radio "Rock You Like A Hurricane" by the Scorpions came through it. He drummed his fingers on his steering wheel to the beat of the music. His other hand rested on her thigh unless he was shifting gears. She looked over to him, he was smiling to himself and she blushed a bit. He looked even more perfect when he smiled. His blonde curls framed his face perfect and he had a dagger shaped earring hanging down from his ear. He looked like a damned model. How can one man look so damn flawless. The small scar through his brow somehow just added to his looks. She knew enough about Billy to know that he knew he looked good to. In high school he had a different girl hanging off his arm every week. She bit her lower lip a bit, teeth clicking against her lip ring. He smirked to her and gave her a wink flashing her his gorgeous teeth then turned his focus back to the road.

A lake came into view, Lover's Lake to be precise. She hadn't been here since her first date with fucking Tyler where he got handsy with her in his truck. The night ended in nothing for her and him cumming in her mouth, ugh… he never focused on her during sexual encounters now that she thought about it. Which made her even more pissed now because when she had walked in on him and Carol she had been sitting on his face. Fucker. She balled a hand in a fist and huffed as Billy parked in between three rather large tress and killed the engine. "Hey, you are here with me baby girl, not fucking Tyler. You deserve better than that anyway. Don't bother thinking on him anymore. He threw away something really good for a whore who has slept with most of Hawkins at this point. She isn't shit in bed either."

"Well they are fucking perfect for each other then because neither is he. Never was good in bed at least not with me. Holding the good shit out for her I fucking guess." She rolled her eyes and winced as she felt something wet in her palm. "Shit…" She mumbled. Billy took her hand in his forcing her hand to lay out flat pulling her fingers away from her palm seeing the blood dripping from two small nail cuts. He leaned down and licked slowly up her palm chuckling when she gasped. "Didn't think you were the type of guy into blood play there Hargrove?" He looked up at her. licking the blood off his lower lip. "I'm not generally but, I found I kinda liked the taste after getting my ass kicked so many times growing up. Yours is better than my own though." He smirked at her wide-eyed look at him. "Wanna get in the back baby girl?" He gestured to the back seat with his chin and she nodded as she quickly climbed over the center console into the back seat gasping when she felt a hard smack against her left ass cheek hearing Billy chuckle behind her.

He got back in the back with her and pulled her into his lap. "Fuck you're so pretty. Goth chicks are always so damn hot." She looked into his blue eyes seeing a cloud of lust behind them. "Oh yeah Hargrove? My type get your rocks off huh? Never seen you with anything but preppy bitches." He grabbed her ass with both hands. "Yeah I looked at you all the time in school though. I got with them because they were easy baby. You though, you are that sweet treat I have been aiming for. For years in fact." Billy pressed his lips against hers roughly making her moan a bit into it, him grinding his hips into her in response with a low growl. She bit his lower lip almost hard enough to bring blood but not quite. He leaned down pushing her hair off her shoulder and tilted her chin up with his thumb to expose her neck to him. He bit in with a growl the mix of pain and pleasure made her whimper and grind down against him. He chuckled at her again flashing those gorgeous whites at her. "What is it baby girl? Am I getting you needy? I have pictured you in this position on my lap more times than I can fucking count Rubie." She squeaked in response unable to form words. Instead she just roughly pressed her lips against his again and shoved her black painted nails into his hair pulling at those perfect blonde curls softly. He groaned into the kiss and bucked his hips lightly against her.

He shifted their positions putting her on her back and lifting her skirt. Putting one leg over each of his broad shoulders. He quickly undid the buttons of his silky red button up exposing his chest to her. He looked down at her fishnets with a devilish grin and made intense eye contact with her as he tore them open with barely any effort at all. He hooked a finger on the edge of her panties and yanked them to the side swiftly. "My my, look at you baby girl. Already glistening with excitement for me huh?" She nodded and bit her lower lip again sucking in a gasp of air as he shoved his index finger knuckle deep inside of her and started to thrust it in and out, curling it just right to hit the spongy g-spot inside her. She arched her back and moaned out for him. "Fuck you sound so pretty making those noises for me baby. Tell me, how longs it been since a man made you cum huh?"

"There is a first for everything right? Always h…fuck…had to get myself off with my exs." She groaned as he shoved in his middle finger now as well thrusting and curling both fingers inside of her, wet noises of her excitement ringing out in the small space around them. "Fucking shame. Well, that won't ever be a fucking problem again baby girl cause I am going to make this pussy mine. Anytime we fuck I am gonna take really good care of ya."

He leaned in and ran his tongue through her folds finding her clit quickly. He started tracing numbers and letters over her clit making her moan out his name and grab a fistful of his hair. He scissored his fingers inside her to stretch her a bit to ready her for him knowing she had never had a guy his size before if they couldn't even be bothered to make her cum. He captured her clit between his lips sucking roughly at the bundle of nerves. "F..fuck! B…Billy so good.. oh god!" He chuckled and looked up at her as he worked his fingers in and out of her. "Oh baby girl, God isn't here and if he is we are going straight to hell. When I am done you will be calling me your god sweet thing." He captured the bundle of nerves again and sucked harshly at it making her buck her hips against his lips more. "D…Don't stop Billy I am so so c…close oh shit!"

He started thrusting his fingers in and curling them more in a punishing pace as he suckled and licked at her clit even giving a few nibbles to it that made her make the most gorgeous pornographic noises he had ever heard. One more thrust and a curl of his fingers pressing on her G-spot and she was done for. She arched her back her core snapping and bursting with heat as her orgasm ripped through her. "Billy! fuckfuckfuck!" She screamed out as she roughly pulled his hair. He fingered her through the harsh waves of her orgasm and finally stopped when she shoved at his hand nearly crying from over stimulation. "How was that baby girl? Good for you?"

"Oh gods yes Billy… fuck I have never came like that before in my fucking life." She laughed still feeling the after effects of it all. He sucked her cum from his fingers and released them from his mouth with a pop. "Need….ugh….Billy." He smirked at her and licked her thigh. "Need what baby girl? You're gonna have to tell me or you won't get what ya want." She whimpered and looked up at him with a pout. "You Billy, need you! Deep inside me. Cumming inside me. Filling me up. Need all of you pleaseplease." He chuckled and nodded as he undid his belt, zipper, and button of his jeans yanking them and his boxers down releasing his hardened cock with a slap as it landed against his stomach. "Oh fuck Billy you're gonne break me in half…" She gasped as she looked at him. Her mouthwatering at the sight. He smirked down at her. "Don't worry baby you will love it, promise." He lined himself up with her. "Sure you don't want me to get a condom babe?"

She nodded. "No condom. Wanna feel all of you. I have never fucked without a rubber before but I don't want anything keeping me from the full experience of this Billy." She blushed and that was all the approval he needed as he pushed his drooling cock head into her, stretching her around him. It stung and she hissed a breath out wincing as he shoved a bit deeper. "Gonna put the rest in now baby, ready?" She nodded and he shoved in sinking his full length into her. Stopping for her to adjust to him. It stung in the best way possible for her. Tears stung her eyes as she breathed and adjusted. A couple of minutes passed and she nodded. "Okay y..you can move now I can take it." He smiled and pulled out almost completely and then slammed back into her. He started slow at first then pushed her legs up, holding them in place with his hands with a grip that was sure to leave some beautiful bruises on her thighs tomorrow. He started slamming in at a punishing pace after a few more slow thrusts. The change from sort of gentle to rough made her scream out for him. "FUCK Billy! Oh gods Baby yes!" He growled and leaned down biting her breast leaving teeth marks. "Taking me so well baby girl. Sooo fucking well." She clenched more around him nearing her second orgasm now.

"Hmmm that's it baby girl. Ohh sweet girl, need you to cum with me baby." He whispered into her ear as he fucked her so hard the car rocked heavily. Leaving nothing to the imagination of any unfortunate passerby. A mix of skin slapping together, and moans and low growls filled the inside of the car. He continued to slam his cock deep into her. Hitting all the right places. He shoved his hand between them rubbing at her sensitive bundle of nerves making her scream out. "That's it baby, let go, cum with me." His words sent her hurdling over her edge. The snap happened again as her orgasm flooded through her even harder than the last making her see fucking stars. "Fuck Billy!!! oh god fuckfuck!" He moaned out for her as his own orgasm shot through him, painting her inner walls with his thick ropes of cum. "Fuck yes Rubie! Fuck been wanting to fill you up like this for so long!"

He collapses ontop of her both of them breathing hard panting breaths as they came down from their sexual highs together. After awhile he grabbed some tissues from the center console and cleaned her up as best he could discarding the cum coated pieces of cloth into an empty bag he had in his back seat floor. She fixed her clothes and opted to just take off her torn apart fishnets. They were a lost cause. "I will uh… buy you some new ones baby. Sorry bout that." She chuckled and kissed his cheek. "No worries baby, I am sure we are gonna have a heavy hit to our wallets over fishnets if I wear them more."

"Eh, I can afford it baby. No big deal." He kissed her again then pulled two shot glasses and a small bottle of vodka from his center console. Pouring them both a shot handing her a purple shot glass holding his own black one. "Seal the deal with a toast baby. You're my girl now. Tyler n Carol can eat their fucking hearts out when they see you on my fucking arm come Monday at college." She chuckled and kissed him softly. "Your girl. Yeah I like how that sounds. Billy Hargrove and Rubie Matthews. What a fucking pair." She grinned and clinked her shot glass to his. "Well, Cheers to us!" She said excitedly as they both threw back their shots before heading back to her apartment that was right next to Tylers for round two.

#stranger things #billy hargrove smut #billy hargrove #billy hargrove x oc #vellas fanfic dabbles #billy hargrove oneshot #one shot #billy hargrove fanfiction

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turnpage · 3 years ago

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send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by

feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.

❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜  ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness. ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives? ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control. ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly. ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ��399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope — It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together. ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase. ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord. ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you. ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory. ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are. ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences. ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise. ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table? ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place? ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death? ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable. ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you. ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner. ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ �� It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away. ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

#sentence starters #generate sentence prompts #rp meme #roleplay prompt #roleplay meme #prompt for writing #rp prompt #send emoji meme #long tw

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firefly-in-darkness · 4 years ago

Text

Lost and Found.

Pairing → Geralt of Rivia x Reader

Characters → Ciri, Jaskier, Priscilla, Yennefer (mentioned)

Summary → Geralt left with Yennefer for months.

Word Count → 5k

AFG Square Fill → Geralt @anyfandomgoesbingo

Warnings → 18+. Angst, heartache, jealousy, swearing, happy ending

Betas → @wonder-cole // all mistakes are my own.

A/N → Well this ended up being a longer story than I expected… I’ve only written for Geralt / The Witcher fandom once before and will have used content from the series, the books and the games as I have watched, read and played everything based on our ashen haired babe

The tavern was full of locals that had escaped from the cold night air. Farmworkers caked in mud with a distinct stench of sweat, merchants drowned their sorrows or celebrated their successes. A shadowy corner for the gamblers prayed for their Gwent decks to fare better than their opponents. There were even some families gathered by the large fire with bowls of broth and torn pieces of bread.

You had taken a seat at an empty table, slightly out of sight from the group you were meant to be with. You weren’t ready to be confronted with that situation until you had at least two tankards worth of ale in your system. In all fairness, you had debated about coming here in the first place, but it was Cirilla’s twenty-first birthday, and you would have felt awful if you hadn’t shown your face, even for the briefest of moments to wish her well.

It had absolutely nothing to do with avoiding a certain witcher, nothing at all.

A few years ago, Ciri marched into a small school on the outskirts of Rochdale, a quaint town in Velen, and stated that she wanted to continue her studies. Even if it was only for a few days a month. When her family visited. The matron was sceptical at first, not knowing who this child was or where she had come from but when Ciri produced a large coin purse, there were no qualms of fitting her into the roster of students.

You took Ciri under your wing the moment she’d stepped into your classroom. Ciri’s love for history and mythology strengthened the bond between you. Many evenings were spent talking about the world and all its wonder. And particularly, the monsters that lurked in the darkness.

In the space of a few weeks, you learnt a lot about Ciri and her adoptive parent. She confided in you about her hardships of trying to find Geralt. He was someone that her grandmother had told her to go to when Cintra fell to the Nilfgaardians. Your heart had clenched at the thought of such a sweet young girl wandering this world alone, with no family and in search of someone that she did not truly know existed.

It was one evening when Ciri unravelled the rope attached to her horse outside the school, waiting for Geralt to arrive, that you first met him. While you loaded the saddlebags with books, the sound of hoofs on the cobblestones caught your attention, and a majestic mare appeared from the side of the stone wall with a man astride her. He silently nodded to Ciri, no further expression or acknowledgement was made.

It looked as if there were no more than fifteen years between Geralt and Ciri, and he was not what you had expected. You had envisioned an older man, a farmer or merchant perhaps, with a family of his own. Not this handsome man, in a black cape, luscious white hair that curled over his shoulders.

He had caught you off guard, enamoured as you watched him dismount the horse. Your bodies almost touched in the tight space between you both. You stared at his chest, the wolf head medallion indicating his occupation. A Witcher. He towered over you; amber eyes glared down as you froze to the spot. Your legs felt like lead as you were held in his gaze. He should have frightened you, a slayer of monsters but, regardless of his stoic appearance, his presence provided a sense of calm.

The first grunt that he expelled went unheard, you snapped out of it when he did it a second time and shifted from his path so he could collect the books from Ciri. You could have sworn that, even though he seemed gruff, a small smirk twitched at your flustered state.

“See you next week Miss,” Ciri called after you as you lifted yourself into the saddle and gave her a small wave.

The awkwardness heated your cheeks and your mind spiralled at the way you’d reacted to Geralt. You had never frozen in front of a parent or guardian before. A cough brought you to your senses and a groan rumbled through you unexpectedly as you turned to him, eyes wide with embarrassment and a wish for the ground to swallow you whole.

You waited for Geralt to say something, but no words followed, and he seemed to be in just a flustered state as yourself, but you tried to shake that thought. There was no way a man like him would ever think of a teacher in any way other than a guardian should.

Ciri popped from around Geralt’s horse, a mischievous look on her face, “He’s trying to ask you if you’d like to join us for dinner or would like company back to your lodgings.”

You smiled to yourself at the fond memory, the sound of music and laughter lifted your spirit in the small tavern. Until you glanced to the side; the seat beside you was empty, and its presence was a reminder of what you had lost.

What had happened between you and Geralt was a friendship that had developed into secret sparks of lust. But your burning flame of love was extinguished the moment you saw him with Yennefer. After two years of tiptoeing around friendship and the late night trysts, you’d lost him to the most beautiful and powerful woman of the continent.

Your heart ached when you caught several glimpses of Geralt throughout the evening; either talking to the innkeeper or with Ciri and Jaskier as they attempted to get him to dance. He hadn’t seen you yet, you were sure of it, and you hadn’t made your presence known to anyone either. As much as you wanted to keep it that way, you would have to see Ciri at some point and that time came sooner than you expected as your eyes met across the tavern and she ran towards you.

In a flash of light, she teleported to your table and wrapped her arms around you. You would never get used to that. You returned the hug, clinging onto her as tightly as you could because it was likely this would be the last time, you would see her.

Nobody knew about your job offer at Oxenfurt Academy, that you were strongly considering the move to Redania, bags packed and ready at the door. It was what you needed, a fresh start. Plus, you knew that the matron was going to start looking at reducing the staff numbers after the drop in births in the town so you might as well get out before you were penniless.

You let Ciri go and caught another arrival to your side; Jaskier. His beaming smile was infectious, and he made you giggle as he dramatically bowed to you. Geralt was behind him, no expression on his face and not that you dared to look at him properly in fear for how much it would hurt you to do so.

Completely unaware of the awkward tension that was filling the space between you and your former secret lover, Jaskier instantly took a seat opposite you and tipped his tankard upside down, “Oh Geralt, it looks like it’s your round!”

Geralt grunted and left the three of you on your own. You relaxed ever so slightly as you watched him walk away and turned your attention to the birthday girl, woman.

“Oh, Y/N, it has been a while, three months at least!” Ciri said as she clasped your hands in hers.

“It has indeed, I heard from many merchants about your birthday celebrations, and I had to make sure at once that I was here to join in!” You beamed at her and shuffled along the wooden bench for her to join, “How long are you staying in town for this time?”

“I’m not sure, it depends on Geralt as always.” Ciri shrugged.

Priscilla, a beautiful blonde bard that caught Jaskier’s attention many moons ago in Novigrad, appeared at this side and pulled him away to perform a duet on the makeshift stage. In her excitement, Ciri jumped out and followed them. Even though they didn’t notice you had stayed behind, you didn’t mind and chuckled at their antics as they coaxed the patrons to gather around.

“Guess this is for you then.” Geralt slid into the seat opposite and gestured to the tankard, the foam spilling over the edge as you took it from him.

You were sure he could hear your heart thumping in your chest, choosing to give a small smile and a nod as you sipped the ale. The bittersweet melody filled the room, and it took you back to another time. To one where Geralt held you in his arms and filled you with so much hope for a future together.

It was your first visit to the Skellige Isles, and you loved every second that you spent with Crach an Craite and his clan, celebrating his daughter, Cerys, becoming Queen. You had been surprised when Geralt had asked you to accompany him, thinking that he’d ask Yennefer or Ciri to join him, but you didn’t let the moment pass you by; it was the first time you’d been on a ship and travelled the seas, let alone attended a coronation.

The banquet hall was full to the brim of Jarls and their clans from the many islands that formed Skellige. Enormous amounts of food were laid out on the tables and wine was on a never-ending supply. The revelry continued long into the night, you and Geralt clapping and laughing along to the guests dancing the Cèilidh.

You brought the goblet to your lips, now stained red from the wine, and sipped slowly as you felt the alcohol taking effect. Warmth filled your cheeks and you felt like you were floating with Geralt at your side, his arm securely around your waist.

“Drink up, because we are going up there any minute.” Geralt whispered in your ear.

Once more, Geralt had surprised you, thinking he’d never do such a thing and proving you wrong in an instant. Or, just, maybe, you shouldn’t believe everything that Yennefer tells you. He whisked you up into his arms and you skipped into the throng of bouncing and twirling dancers.

After a few stumbles and the odd miss turn, you found the rhythm and began to enjoy yourself. It was like you were in your own little world with Geralt. Your heart was beating so fast you thought it might burst from your chest. Together, you rounded the dance floor, twirling between other people and joining them for the group segments of the dance before returning to Geralt to skip through a human archway.

The music hit its end, you and Geralt both collapsing onto a bench, still giggling through the pain of being out of breath. He leant forward, his hand firmly on the nape of your neck, and pressed his lips to yours. You kissed him back with no inhibitions.

Your fingertips skimmed along your bottom lip, the memory of Geralt’s kiss still lingering there. After all this time, the memory had you brimming with hope and desire, or maybe it was the ale that was clouding your judgement. Without a second thought, you turned towards Geralt to find that he was looking straight at you, and he was too slow to hide his staring. You choked out a laugh as his eyes went wide and his cheeks tinged pink. Never in a million years did you think you’d see the witcher blush.

“I’m sorry but your face.” You giggled into your palm, swaying from side to side and clutching your belly. “So-sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” He tried to sound angry, but his smirk betrayed him.

Your fit of laughter tapered off and allowed you to regain your composure. The awkward silence filling the space between you once more as you resigned to not pursuing the conversation. A wave across the room caught your eye, Ciri beckoning you over but as you turned to stand, Geralt placed his hand atop yours on the table.

He hardly touched you, and you were staring at his hand, uncertain as to what he was doing. You lifted your head to find his softened gaze and immediately dropped back into your seat, nodding for him to say whatever it was that was on his mind.

“What were you thinking?” He whispered.

“When?” Your brow furrowed, the weight of Geralt’s hand growing as he relaxed.

“Just now. It looked like you were daydreaming.” He asked.

Your heart raced; you were silly to think he wouldn’t notice. He notices everything, and you couldn’t lie to him, he would catch you out, even if you were good at it. Stalling for time, you picked up your empty tankard and tried to catch the remaining droplets for some courage.

“If you really must know,” You paused, waiting for him to shut the conversation down but he didn’t and you felt the heat rising up your neck, “Erm, well, I was thinking about when we danced at Cerys’ ascension.”

Geralt smiled, a full beaming one, one that was like the moment he pulled away from your kiss all those years ago. It hit you with a force, and you couldn’t hold back all the feelings that you had packed away when he left with Yennefer not even a few months ago.

He didn’t say anything, just smiled and then sipped his ale. You weren’t sure what was happening and why he was looking at you like that. As if he was happy that you still thought of him fondly. Before you could question him, Ciri was at your side and tugging at your arm to join her, exclaiming that there would be dancing. You unfurled her hand from its grip and shook your head.

“I’m sorry Ciri, but I have to go now.” You gave her a sad smile as you stepped out from the table and pressed a light kiss to her cheek, “I hope you enjoy the rest of your celebrations little sparrow.”

Ciri’s face softened at the old nickname, “Thank you, do you need someone to walk you home.”

You chose to ignore the glare that Ciri was giving Geralt as you pulled the cloak around your shoulders. Geralt wouldn’t fall for her tricks but she was stubborn and from the huff and scrape of the chair, you knew she had gotten her way.

“Ready?” Geralt asked and you nodded, following him through the door into the night.

It was freezing, the air bit into the exposed skin of your cheeks and neck. Suddenly Geralt was in front of you, pulling the hood over your head and bringing it tighter around you.

“There’s a storm coming, you don’t want to catch a cold.” He explained.

You were dumbfounded at his care and the way he weaved an arm across your shoulders, guiding you back to your cottage. Unable to do or say anything more than put one foot in front of the other, or thereabouts, in your slightly merry state.

Geralt was warm, and smelt of ale, sandalwood, and leather. You were unable to stop yourself from sinking further into his hold, relishing the moment. Even if it meant that your heart would shatter once you reached your home, and the loss of his warmth would bring tears.

Silence remained between you, yet this time it was comfortable. It was as if this is where you were meant to be; walking side by side in a small town, surrounded by the multitude of stars and nothing but the beating of your hearts.

The cobbled path wound around various shops and cottages, culminating in the town square. It was empty, a distinct comparison to when you visited earlier in the morning to see if the visiting merchants had anything new or different to sell.

“Would you have liked to dance?” Geralt whispered, if the square was alive with the traders and merchants, you wouldn’t have heard him, but it was clear in the open air.

“I’m sorry?” You uncurled from his hold and stood in front of him, looking up at his glowing eyes.

“Back there, did I stop you?” He asked with a neutral expression that you had long ago realised was a mask to hide his true feelings.

“No,” you shook your head and wrapped your arms around yourself, “I did think it was time to leave though.”

“Because you were daydreaming about me?” Geralt asked, a lopsided smile on his lips as you continued down the path.

“Yes, because I was getting caught up in our past.” You ducked away from his sight, “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“I was thinking about the same thing, well more specifically what happened afterwards.” Geralt stopped at the gate to your cottage, “And I think you were too.”

You looked up at him, knowing you couldn’t lie, with a sad smile “You know I was Geralt. Don’t play games with your thinking. Thank you for walking me home.”

Geralt’s words rushed out, “Can I come in?”

Once again, Geralt was full of surprises, he’d never invited himself round and usually, he would just enter without question. Then you thought of how different things were now that you had gone your separate ways. When he chose to be with her.

“What would Yennefer think?” You asked, the jealousy not missing from your tone no matter how hard you tried to be nonchalant.

“Yennefer is not my master.” He grunted, “Why are we even talking about her?”

“Because you left with her. That day.” You bit down on your lip in a hope of tears not making an appearance. “I didn’t realise you had feelings for her until Jaskier mentioned the djinn and the wish you granted.”

“That fuckin’ bard.” He growled, “I do not have feelings for Yennefer, my wish was about you, but it didn’t work. You didn’t want me near you.”

You recoiled at his tone, “excuse me? You’re the one that left in a carriage to god knows where for months without a single word.”

“I left a letter.” Geralt pushed through the cottage door and gestured his hands towards the candles dotted around the cottage, causing a flame to ignite at their wicks.

You followed him into your bedroom and watched as he pulled at the drawer that you’d put aside for him many moons ago, and atop his tunics was a piece of folded paper. You stared at the letter, now in Geralt’s hand.

It had been too painful to open the drawer, you hadn’t been in it since he left. It had taunted you enough just by being there, a reminder of you welcoming him into your home. Let alone being able to feel the fabric or take in his scent, it would have filled your heart with more pain.

“As it’s still in the drawer, I’m guessing you didn’t find it.” Geralt sighed, placing it down on the furniture and leaning back against, folding his arms. “And that explains why you didn’t turn up the other night.”

“I didn’t, why would I have gone in there?” You whispered as you began preparing the fireplace, anything to keep you busy.

He mumbled, “Because you sleep in my tunics when I’m away.”

“Okay, and what about the other night?” You questioned as the flames caught on the logs, “Where was I supposed to meet you?

At the lack of response, you turned to look at Geralt and he was scowling at something behind you, the trunk at the door and a collection of bags. You watched him taking in the rest of your home. There were no ornaments or trinkets on the walls, no books on the shelves or stacks of parchment dotted around. It was all packed away, ready for you to leave.

“Are you going somewhere?” He asked, the neutral appearance back on his features.

“Yes.” you nodded.

“For how long?” His arms dropped from their hold on his chest.

“For as long as I have a job.” You stated.

“Where?” Geralt was quiet and looking down at the floor.

“Oxenfurt Academy.”

His head snapped up, amber eyes glinting in the dim light of your cottage, “Why are you going to Redania?”

“Because I have nothing else here.” You shrugged as a tear fell from your cheek, you knew that not saying goodbye was hard, but this seemed a lot harder.

“What about Ciri? Or Jaskier? Priscilla?” Geralt asked, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he waited for your answer.

“I’m sure I’ll see them again. Ciri and I will likely cross paths if she pursues her education, and I’m sure she’d track me down the second she finds out about me leaving. I already made a promise to Jaskier that I’d see Priscilla’s shows wherever I am.” Before Geralt interrupted, you sat on the edge of your bed and continued, “He doesn’t know, it was an old promise, and you know what I’m like when it comes to those.”

Geralt silently moved across the room and sat beside you, taking your hand in his, “What about me?”

You shook your head, “I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Geralt looked at you, a softness in his eyes, “So, Oxenfurt Academy?”

You were unable to look at him, ashamed of deciding to leave in haste and without talking to him about it at least once, “Yes, I leave in a couple of weeks.”

“I’ll follow you anywhere.” He promised and before you could counter him, he continued, “I asked you to meet me at the docks because I wanted to give you this.”

Geralt opened a pouch attached to his hip and pulled out a delicate silver chain. He held it out so you could see the side profile of a wolf’s head with an amber gem for the eye. You weren’t sure what to say as you marvelled at the beautiful gift, lifting your hair away from your neck for Geralt to clip it in place.

“Thank you, it’s beautiful.” You whispered.

Your fingers glided along the chain and you held the wolf away from your chest, twisting it in the glow of the candles. A stray tear fell down your cheek but Geralt caught it with the pad of his thumb. You leant into his warm touch, his calloused palm a welcome feeling that you had long missed. Geralt lifted your face and pressed his forehead to yours before he softly kissed you.

The kiss was tentative at first, light pecks making way for harder pushes and pulls, swipes of tongue until your arms were wrapped around Geralt’s neck. You adjusted until you were straddling his lap. Geralt pulled at the lacing of your tunic until it loosened around your shoulders and exposed more of your chest.

He brought his lips to yours again, the kiss was more heated than before. Tongues swiped and teeth nibbled along each other’s lips with him pulling your body into a tight hold, his erection hardening and pushing against your core.

At the spark of pleasure, you pulled away in shock and lifted your body from him. You held the tunic in place and backed away, sitting further down the bed from him, his head hanging down as you tried to make sense of why you pulled away and were still protecting yourself when it was clear that he wanted you.

“I’m sorry Geralt, I- for the longest time, I thought you were with Yennefer, I-” You sobbed, hand cupping your mouth as you let the emotions flow freely.

You felt the bed dip and you turned to find Geralt laying back against the pillows, an arm open in waiting. You scooted up the bed and curled into his side, sinking into his warmth, and being soothed by the fingertips that swirled up and down your arm in nonsensical patterns.

“As I said before, I will follow you anywhere that you go.” He murmured and pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

With the tears no longer falling, you tipped your head up to look at Geralt to find his eyes closed. You rested your head onto his shoulder and began to trace the shape of the medallion on his chest, sleep finally taking you to the world of dreams as raindrops began to patter on the roof.

A new home: it was on a quiet street quite close to Oxenfurt academy, only a twenty-minute stroll until you were in the hustle and bustle of the city. It was a lot busier than you had prepared for, especially compared to your small town of Rochdale.

Your colleagues had told you that you’d been lucky to find the lodgings in the area and for such a good rental rate too. The ground floor consisted of a kitchen and seating area and the upstairs hosted two bedrooms. It was just the right size for you, but you hadn’t fully unpacked yet. Satchels half-emptied and trunks open but still full to the brim with trinkets and books.

You were settled in the chair by the fireplace, the warm embers glowing as you read the book in your lap. It wasn’t late but your eyes were feeling heavy after the most hectic month of moving to the city and settling into your new role at the academy.

A knock at the door made you jump; the book fell to the floor with a thud. Tentatively, you approached the entrance to your home and glanced through the frosted pane in the wooden door but could only make out two figures. Ciri and Geralt stood before you, your mouth dropped agape as their arrival was unexpected and you weren’t sure what to say.

“Surprise! I’ve enrolled at Oxenfurt Academy.” Ciri laughed and wrapped her arms around you.

You held her close and rested your chin on her shoulder, looking over at Geralt, shock and happiness coursing through you. In the dim light of the torches that lined the street, his mouth twitched into a smirk. Your heart fluttered and you couldn’t wait to have his arms wrapped around you once more.

“I cannot believe it; I wish you’d let me know beforehand so I could have prepared for your visit.” You beckoned them into the warmth of your new lodgings, picked up the fallen book and attempted to tidy away the pots and pans on the table.

“Oh, come on Y/N, it’s only us, I’ll start making a pot of tea.” Ciri headed over to the stove and filled the kettle.

Geralt entered your home, he filled the space with his height and broad shoulders, the atmosphere was tense, and you weren’t sure what to do. It had been a while since you last spoke to him; the morning after he returned and discovered you were moving away.

“Hello,” you squeaked, unable to keep the excitement from your tone, “erm- how long are you staying? Where are you staying?”

“Ciri mentioned you had spare beds.” Geralt murmured. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Yes, of course, right this way.” The steps creaked underfoot as you both ascended the staircase, and your nerves began to bubble as you felt his eyes on your back. You opened the first door to the spare room with two single frames and a small chest of drawers, “sorry it’s not much. My bedroom is just down the hall and there is a bath in there.”

Geralt placed a couple of satchels on the bed and removed his armoured plate. You couldn’t help the way you stared at him in the tunic and the dark hair across the exposed part of his chest. He pulled out a small bag from a satchel pocket and turned back to you with a small smile.

“I-We brought your favourite biscuits from Rochdale.”

The stutter did not go unnoticed, but you did not react to it, instead offered a smile and a whispered thank you as Geralt placed the bag into your outstretched hand. Instantly, you opened it and raised it to your face to inhale the sweet scent of the treat.

“This will go lovely with the tea, we should-.” You gestured back to the stairs and spun on your heel.

“Wait,” Geralt huffed and caught the crook of your arm to turn you to face him, “I should have done something else when you answered the door.”

A frown etched on your features until his hand cupped your cheek and you caught the way his amber eyes glowed as they flicked down to your lips. Your mouth parted and your eyes fluttered closed as you slowly edged towards one another, meeting in the middle in a soft kiss.

Your body tingled in Geralt’s hold, as your lips melted into his chapped ones. Knees grew weak as he invaded all your senses. It was as if he knew and wrapped an arm around your waist, holding you flush to his hard chest.

Both of you pulled away for air, his fiery gaze drank you in and sent a wave of pleasure through your body. He claimed your mouth once more with hunger, your hands carded through his ashen locks, and you tugged him closer still. Geralt lifted you into his arms and carried you to your bedroom.

Too consumed in your reunion and that Geralt had kept his promise to follow you anywhere, neither of you heard the door close behind Ciri’s hasty exit.

The tea and biscuits were long forgotten.

Everything Tag List: @kitkatd7 / @fandomfic-galore / @writerwrites / @thefridgeismybestie / @wedonttalkaboutitenough / @courtneychicken / @persephonesinfernos / @miraclesoflove / @lizzarooni / @queenoftheunderdark

#Geralt x Reader #Geralt of Rivia x Reader #Geralt #Geralt Fic #Geralt of Rivia #Geralt of Rivia Fic #Geralt Fanfic #Geralt Fanfiction #The Witcher #The Witcher Fic #The Witcher Fanfic #The Witcher Fanfiction

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byuntrash101 · 4 years ago

Text

Incubus: Coming of Age (Part 2)

Pairing: Incubus!Baekhyun x You

Genre: fantasy, smut 🖤

Tags: plot (typical me), demon boy (incubus), monstrous cock (like ya ain't ready), breeding kink, oral (f & m), overstimulation, breath play, dirrrty talk and more~

Raiting: 18+ (21+ it's even steamier than the 1st one 🙈)

Word count: 5.7k (the bock got me inspired haha)

Summary: Baekhyun left an indelible mark on you that one night. But the thing is it was a year ago! and that damn demon never came back... Maybe you should just forget about him... Well only maybe of course ;)

Part 1

General Masterlist

Hey guys this is the final part of this very steamy two shot ^^ I hope you guys will also like it. Please tell me what you think ^^

Tag list @lovebuginlove @ohh-baekhyun @bobohumyonlyboo @smolbeanmika @making-me-blush @wooya1224 @yixing-jaehyun @baekklove @lalalala-lav @deligxt @xofanfics @byunsugar @dixnysustae @to-all-the-stories-i-love @artisticcgroove

...To a Man

How am I supposed to go back to a normal life after that?

Well in fact... you didn't. It was over a year later and Baekhyun never came back. Every night you were hoping that somehow, he would come visit you again. But every night you laid in your bed disappointed, actually, even worse: frustrated.

Because after that fateful night you never touched yourself to your handsome boss Doctor Park Chanyeol again. Actually, you completely lost interest in him. Sure, he was still very handsome and gentlemanly but you just... didn't care anymore.

To be completely exact you didn't touch yourself to Chanyeol, but you still did have intimate sessions with yourself... Well, you tried at least. Because nothing, NOTHING... came close to what you felt when Baekhyun took care of you that night. Actually, you knew no human being, no simple mortal could possibly fuck you that way. It's not something a being of flesh and blood can do... It's something only an unholy creature could do, something only a demon could make you feel.

So, every time you succumbed to the urge of relieving yourself by letting your fingers play with your folds it ended in either, a complete failure where you couldn't even drive yourself to your peak or a lukewarm, disappointing and frustrating orgasm...

A whole year...

A whole year spent fantasizing about a teenage demon that only used you to pass a stupid exam then vanished from your reality without failing to completely shatter your whole world...

So yeah... it sucked...

You sighed to yourself, staring at the same old ceiling of your room. It was one of those nights where the tension was just too much, but you didn't feel like going through the hassle of actually pleasuring yourself knowing damn well it was going to be temporary and frankly dissatisfying.

You turned to your side, determined to chase off the frustration by getting some good sleep. Exhausted you drifted pretty quickly into a deep slumber.

But the sleep was anything but good... You found yourself covered in sweat, wrestling in your sheets, engrossed in a fever dream. Not much of it made sense but you felt like hands were roaming your body, like an usually warm embrace was enveloping your form, you felt like rugged flesh was lapping at your ear. You heard like jerky breaths, lowly grunts, like an unnaturally deep voice talking to you...

Missed me... Kitten?

"Baekhyun?!" you shouted as you sat up in your bed, eyes snapping open.

You looked around in a slight panic, your night gown clamped to your sweaty skin and your chest heaving up and down.

"Fuck" you cursed yourself under your breath, disappointed when you realized your mind played tricks on you again... You're just here alone in your room, soaked in frustration... and arousal.

"God damn it" your curse again as you slip your night gown over your head and kick the covers off your heated skin. You are left naked on top of your bed. Immediately the cold air sends goosebumps on your humid skin, hardening your nipples.

You let you fingers slip to the crux of the problem. You know there's only one way to finally be able to chase away the memory of Baekhyun, even if it's only for tonight.

The cold fingers on your drenched heat draw a sharp breath off your lips. You're so excited about this stupid fever dream, so excited about him that only a few rubs already have you with your toes curled up in pleasure. You fist your sheets tightly.

"Aaaah... Baekhyun" you softly moan his name. With eyes closed shut, you try to recall the way he felt inside you, the way his eyes glowed red, the way his low voice sent shivers down your spine...

Oh... Kittennn~...

It was like you could hear him... you gave no rest to your sensitive and throbbing nub...

"Baekhyun I'm gonna cum" you whisper to yourself. Pleasure slowly taking over your entire body. You slip a finger inside your drenched heat to aid yourself to your peak a little quicker. Then another one. You aim directly for your sensitive spot and you feel yourself tightly clenching around your fingers. You're so close... so soclose.

"Aren't you going to wait for me?"

This time...There's no doubt.

Your eyes snap open again as you stop what you were doing and you are met with Baekhyun staring you down at the foot of the bed, licking his lips, eyes already wavering with a tint of red.

But for a second you doubt. Is it really him? You can't help but to ask yourself. He looks so different. Sure, the spare shaped black tail still loosely dangles behind him but other than that his whole aura changed. The boyish features are completely gone. Instead, he looks broader, like more muscular. His plain black tee is tightly hugging his fit and toned body, making it easy for you to see abs peaking from underneath the constrictive fabric, abs you can't recall from the previous visit. His matching jeans let you see through their rips his smooth silky skin and generous thighs... But the most noticeable change is definitely his horns. The cute 10 cm (4in) tall skin-colored horns were replaced by huge 30cm (1ft) long ones. They were directly sprouting in a spiral from his forehead and stood proud on top of his head. Their base was black but as they went up it faded to a dark and deep blood red.

Overall, he looks so much more mature...

He isn't a boy anymore... he's a man.

"Baekhyun?" you start hesitantly as the demon already slips beside you in bed. "Is that really you?" you can't help but to ask.

"Yes... Kitten... It's me" he whispers in the low voice you missed so much. Bringing his lips close to your ear and you feel his rough tongue lap at your sweet spot, the familiar sensation draws a shaky breath out of you. For a minute you don't say anything you're just there, under his spell as he plays with you. In the midst of all this you didn't even notice you were stark naked, or maybe you just didn't care. You don't want to protest quite frankly, you let him do, you let him gently nibble at your bare collarbones and plant gentle kisses on your neck. You let him because... that's what you've been waiting for... For a whole fuckingyear.

But then you shake your head, snapping out of it... You leave his side taking the sheets to wrap around your naked body and get up, knowing that his soft kisses keep you from thinking rationally.

"Baekhyun..." you turned your eyes back to him "you changed so much". He chuckled and the red glow faded to slowly disappear as he gets up.

"Yes... I know, a lot can change in 12 years..." he casually says while stepping closer to you.

Wait... What?!?!

"What 12 years? No, it was just last year" you correct him, and he takes your hands in his slender black stained fingers.

"Maybe to you... but not to me" You suddenly recall the demonic blood moon years... Maybe that's what he meant... "I'll be turning 30 this May."

Your jaw drops... how was that even possible?! But then again, here you are questioning the passing of time for an.... Incubus... so what's crazier really?

"You remember what I told you about breeding?" Baekhyun's voice pulls you out of your thoughts.

"Yes... that it is an incubus sole purpose, right?" you say absent mindedly, still dazed at the situation. But you're brought back to the present moment when Baekhyun squeezes your hands tightly and dives in your gaze with his piercing dark brown orbs.

"Yes, I came back for that..." he leans in and you instinctively lean your head back giving him unconditional access to your neck. Baekhyun's voice goes down an octave again, lips only millimeters away from your ear. "I came back for you..." he whispers before he licks around your sweet spot, making your heart loudly thump in your chest and your toes curls on the cold wooden floor of your bedroom. You bite your lip trying to restrain your voice.

"I'm going to breed you" his voice is hypnotizing, "You will bare my children and bring them into the world" You can't even wrap your mind around what he's saying, "I chose you, y/n. I only want you" His voice his putting a spell on you. "I can fuck any women I want but..." his hand is now wrapped around your nape, and the other one gently pulls on the sheets that you let fall to the ground without resistance.

"Baekhyun what do you mean?" you ask in a jerky whisper, only focusing on his hot breath on your ear. He ignores your question.

"I need your approval to breed you, y/n..." His blunt nails grazed against the naked skin of your lower back, you start to softly moan, you're completely wrapped around his fingers. "So, say yes, y/n... Say yes Kitten" he says before his large palms grope your butt cheeks closing in the last centimeters that were left between his clothed body and your naked one, sending radiating heat from your core to your entire body.

What are you supposed to reply? Are you supposed to say no? How could you do such a thing after waiting for him for a whole year, everyday growing a little more desperate, a little more frustrated... How could you possibly say no, when his hands were roam your body like they have always known you. When he whispers with that voice in your ear. When minutes ago, you would have given anything to have another night with him...

You... just...

Can't.

"Okay..." you whispered ever so quietly, barely audible even for your own ears.

You feel Baekhyun's cheek lift against yours as he smiles. When he pulls back, you can see his pointy teeth glistening under the full moon, like they did a year ago, he's wearing the same evil smirk that you know so well, or maybe this time he's even more devious...

Fuck...

Right there something snaps, something changes. When Baekhyun looks back the red glow in his eyes is more intense than ever, his expression is wicked. Lust dancing in his dark orbs as he licks his lips with appetite.

You don't even notice the red glow around your naked form before you feel your feet being lifted from the ground. Baekhyun smirks at the confusion plastered on your face. His magic makes you levitate and harshly throws you on the bed, almost smashing your heard on the headboard. You should be stunned but the scene taking place right before your eyes keeps you conscious and focused.

The red glow now circles Baekhyun and in a fraction of second his clothes are gone. Not dropped to the floor, just gone. They completely vanished. And he stands right before you in all his glory. You can't help but to let your eyes trail his body.

His sharp jawline, long narrow neck, his collarbones. The muscles of his pecs and arms moving and mesmerizing you. The dangling black tail. The toned abs already lightly sparkling with sweat.

Then your eyes finally go below the waist band.

You do remember the enormous… thingBaekhyun fucked you with last time. How could you forget? You could never. That's why you know for a fact that this thing right there in front of you, rock hard, lightly twitching and oozing precum at the slit, is actually bigger.

Your jaw drops to the floor. The veiny and pulsing monstrous cock is as lengthy as your thigh and as thick as a soda can. When you look closely it seems like the sides are beaded. Your heart jumps in your chest. Because you know that huge ass cock is made for pleasure. Tingles start to bubble in the pit of your stomach, and you unconsciously press your thighs together.

Baekhyun can't help but to smirk when he notices fear and anticipation swim in your confused eyes.

He steps closer to you.

"Oh Kitten" he starts as he crawls in bed to you. The wicked smirk still dancing on his lips, red glowing eyes fixed on you. "We're going to have so much fun."

Then with the familiar flick of his wrist your legs fly open at his will. You gasp in surprise. And Baekhyun's smirk goes wider when he notices how your folds glisten with juices.

"Kitten look at you..." He says gesturing his chin towards your most private part. "You're always so wet for me" his low voice send shivers down your spine as embarrassment rush to your cheeks. But the spell maintains your legs nice and spread out for him.

Baekhyun leans in closer to your drenched heat teeth and tongue out.

You gasp loudly arching your back when you feel his rugged tongue aiming directly for your clit. Still very sensitive from almost cumming a few minutes ago.

"Mmmmh... Kitten you taste even better than last time" he purrs, lips pressed to your core, the vibrations sending electricity in your body.

Baekhyun takes his sweet time gently lapping at and around your nub to tease you, while cascades of juices flow out of your impatient center. You can't endure the teasing anymore, not after all this time, not after a whole year. You unconsciously buck your hips up, grinding your pussy on his tongue while a tiny pleading whimper escapes your lips.

Baekhyun stops in his track. You're taken aback when glowing red eyes look back up at you and he shakes his head fainting disappointment. But the smirk is quick to comeback.

"Baby" his warm breath fans your delicate parts. "Don't be so fucking greedy" he says before sinking his pointy white teeth in the sensitive little bud. The sting pulls a scream out of you while you grip the sheets. Immediately after Baekhyun's tongue plunges inside your hungry little hole, reaching the deepest part right away. At an alluring speed, his long tongue comes in and out of you, each time poking your sweet spot. Your loud moans echo through the empty night, the familiar knot, quick to tighten again after this much teasing.

"Baekhyun don't stop" you plead, feeling your release coming. Baekhyun's red orbs sill fixed in yours while his tail lazily dangles behind him.

The incessant stimulation of your g-spot got you clenching around his long and rugged tongue while you finally cum, letting go of the knot. You scream in absolute bliss.

That's it... this feeling... The sensation you've been craving.

"Fuckkkk" You cry out.

Baekhyun parts himself from your throbbing center for a moment, allowing you to ride out your high at your own pace. Your chest is heaving up and down, sweat is pearling between your breasts.

"Baby, don't think it's over just yet" he says smirking again. "I have so much more in store for you..."

Right then, you still haven't fully recovered and Baekhyun dives down to your soaked folds again, but this time his hot and wet tongue only focusses on you swollen nub. You scream out in surprise and pleasure. Immediately your back arches again.

His tongue somehow feels like vibrations, the feeling is intense and suffocating, and you know you won't be slow be thrown into another strong orgasm again. Your hand instinctively flies to Baekhyun's hair, resting in between his two horns, fingers harshly pulling at his luscious raven black locks.

"Is Kitten cumming again?" he says with a mouthful.

You can't even process an answer as the crushing orgasm washes over you again, excessive amounts of your arousal coating your tights and linking your center to the sheets. You moan out with no restrain, making no effort whatsoever to keep your voice down.

When he's done Baekhyun sits back up on the bed. You don't even notice how he strokes his huge monstrous pole in his fist.

"Kitten, I hope you're not tired yet..." you jumped when you felt is unnaturally hot tip glide against your folds. "Because it’s my turn now"

He shimmied his way to your parted thighs. Like last time he rested his cock on your stomach to measure it up to you. Now there's no doubt the thing is much much bigger than last time. A year ago, it reached to your midriff, now the red tip is comfortably placed between your boobs. In a sort of trance, you wrap your hands around it, the both of them can barely circle the girth of his dick. It's huge... Abnormally long and terrifyingly thick... but you can't wait to feel the thing inside you.

Baekhyun smirks when he notices you eyeing his member with burning desire. He pulls his hips back and aligns himself at your entrance. His tip teases you as you bite your lip, gathering your wetness for a smooth crossing.

"Look at me Kitten" your eyes shoot back to Baekhyun's glowing orbs. "Look at me while I make you take my cock" You let a tiny whimper out when you feel him pushing himself inside you. The tip gently and slowly parting you. Baekhyun grunts in your ear.

"Fuck Kitten, you're so tight for me baby" he breaths out in his low voice.

With every centimeter it gets better and better, you feel no pain at all only divine pleasure. You feel each one of the beads along his shaft, each one more pleasing than the last. Last time just that one slow stroke made you cum. And you know, history won't fail to repeat itself.

"I'm gonna cum" you whisper in a strangled breath, your eyes still locked with Baekhyun's. His smirk goes wider at your frowned brows and trembling lip. But he keeps on steadily pushing his cock inside you, spreading you further and further.

"I know" he whispers before violently pushing the last few centimeters in. The unexpected and overwhelming pleasure washes over you as you sink your head back in the pillows, a long string of moan falling of your lips while your cunt twitches uncontrollably around Baekhyun, a satisfied grin playing on his lips.

"Kitten" he says while pulling back slowly as you are still high from your climax. "I don't think you're ready for me" You difficulty open one eye to look at him and nod to contradict him. Baekhyun chuckles. "You think?" he asks popping his dick out of you while your walls desperately clench around nothing.

"Yes" you whisper, squirming, craving for him to fill you up again. "Yes, I missed you so much" the words roll of your tongue before you even realize it. Baekhyun lifts an eyebrow.

"Really Kitten? You missed me?" you nod again. "Well... you only waited for a year" you gasp as his hot tip circles your aching little nub before going back to your entrance. "I waited for 12 years" he says in an unnaturally low grunt.

He slams his hips into yours in one powerful and shattering thrust which sends you right back to screaming again. His movements are fast and precise each time he sends his big cock smashing against your g-spot. The pleasurable feeling is unbearable.

"Baekhyun... Aaaahh..." you moan his name, as you get dangerously close to the edge again.

"Yes, moan for me Kitten" he says through greeted teeth. "Aren't I a lot better than last time?" he pants out.

You can't believe it but it's true. You didn't think it was possible but yes. He got incredibly better at fucking you to the point that you're ready to pledge your pussy to him for eternity. For him only. You'd do anything to be fucked like this every day until your body eventually gives out from exhaustion.

"Yesss.... Aaaaah... fuck" You shout closing your eyes under the pleasure. Your loud and unrestrained moans make Baekhyun smirk.

"You're mine" he growls continuing to fuck you deep and hard. "Fucking look at me I told you" He plants his nails at the side of your face, making you wince and also open your eyes. The red glow is brighter than ever. "Say that you're mine" he commands.

"I'm yours" you whine locking eyes with him as the clenching of your cunt warns Baekhyun of how close you are.

"Kitten, are you gonna cum again?" he chuckles eyes locked into yours, furiously pumping his abnormally large cock inside your now shapeless hole.

"I'm gonna make you mine Kitten. I'm gonna pump you full of cum. Do you want that Kitten?"

"Yes please" You beg in a short breath, your release getting dangerously close.

"Good girl" He grunts getting close to your ear, his rugged tongued licking the shell of it. "Now cum. Cum around my big cock while I fill you up to the brink with hot cum."

The low whispers are enough to rocket you over the edge. You scream in absolute bliss, twitching around his huge cock as you feel the hot sticky liquid rushing into you and overflowing out. Just like last time the quantity is insane, testifying of Baekhyun’s demonic nature.

When Baekhyun finally slips out of you, you feel your heat meekly clench around nothing, already missing Baekhyun's monstrous cock.

You are left completely dazed, lying on the bed, eyes still rolled back in your head, focusing on the fading sensation of your peak.

You don't even notice when Baekhyun stands by the bed and you also don't notice how, contrary to last time, cumming has not calm him down. The "thing" is still alive and lively. In other words... he's far from done with you.

"Kitten I'm gonna fuck your face now"

You don't have time to process the meaning of those words that you are pulled by your arm. Your body is lying across the bed while your head is resting upside down on the edge of the mattress.

"Open wide Kitten" Baekhyun's hot and wet tip brushes against your lips. Almost out of instinct you open your mouth.

Baekhyun presses himself inside your narrow mouth. The stretch is excruciating, the thing is too big. Way too big for your tiny mouth and you barely manage to take the head of his dick inside your crowded mouth. Baekhyun grunts loudly, indulging in the feeling of stretching your cute little mouth to his convenience.

"Fuckkkk... y/n"

When he reaches the back of your throat he starts to slowly pull out, taking his cock completely out. You cease the opportunity to take a deep breath. Good call! Because the next second, Baekhyun goes back inside you but with much less care. He places both of his hands on your cheeks gripping your face tightly to facilitate the penetration.

He has no mercy for your poor sore throat, his powerful thrust silencing you except for the wet and sloppy sounds that your mouth makes.

"How does your cum and mine taste Kitten?" he grunts again.

His voice sends shivers across your skin, your eyes roll back as your pained pried open jaw gradually goes numb. You want to scream yes but you can't. You want more, more of this intoxicating taste taking over your mouth and clouding your mind.

"Fuckkkk... Kitten... You're gonna make me cum" He whispers, his voice conveys the feeling of his high getting closer. "I'm gonna cum in your mouth baby. You want that Kitten?" You only produce a gargled moan but Baekhyun knows how eager you are to taste more of him.

He fucks your face a little more before whispering

"Such a good girl for me"

Only instants after you feel the stream shoot to the back of your throat, instantly filling your mouth. So many squirts crash on the inside of your cheeks and on your tongue, some even go through your nose. The bitter taste invades you and your entire body, making your head dizzy.

When Baekhyun pulls out you hurriedly swallow a big mouthful of thick and hot cum before drawing a sharp -and much needed- breath.

Baekhyun gently strokes your cheeks.

"You're such a good girl for me Kitten" he says before laying back on the bed. His back is settled against the headboard. And your eyes go wide with stupor when you notice that...Still... The monster has not... calmed down.

You feel exhausted and drained out by all the orgasms you failed to count. You can't even move a muscle... even if you tried.

But you don't have to because once again your body is enveloped by a red glowing light. With that you are lifted in the air. Baekhyun's magic spread your legs into an impressive split, suspended above him while he patiently waits for you with his hands behind his head.

Beads of sweat formed on his chest and rolled down his toned abs. Sweat also sticking his bangs to his forehead and his horns. He's absolutely gorgeous, he has the kind of looks that nobody would ever be able to turn down... and especially not you.

But he looks everything but tired.

Slowly his magic lowers you down. You gasp when his hot tip brushes against your drenched folds.

"I just need more of you Kitten. Can you handle me?"

You want to respond but already the steady descent as you stretched out around his girthy cock. Making you whimper as a response. Slowly but surely Baekhyun makes you go down, cunt perfectly angled with his huge dick. Each centimeter, each bead going inside you, feeling like agonizing pleasure.

When you are halfway through the red light around your body goes off and he drops you to take the rest of him in one go. And it’s too much for you. The way his cock smashes into your sensitive sweet spot while Baekhyun has his glowing red orbs fixed on the place your bodies meet sends you into the abyss again. This time the pleasure is so intense that not only your needy cunt absolutely crushes Baekhyun's cock with uncontrollable spams but also gushes of your juices come out of you in powerful streams, drenching Baekhyun's muscular torso. Baekhyun smirks as he clicks his tongue and shake his head.

"Kitten... You came again with the very first stroke" he says fainting disappointment, taking pleasure in seeing you struggling, shaking uncontrollably, eyes rolled back, jaw hanging open and toes curled up.

Then you feel yourself getting lifted again the red glow comes back around your figure. You whimper as you feel Baekhyun slide out of you. But right before the tip pops out, he smashes you back onto him. You arch your back as a delighted long string of moans escape your lips.

"Damn Kitten you're so tight" Baekhyun says through greeted teeth.

You can't even reply anything as he's already lifting you up with his magic. Each time he increases the pace until he has you jumping up and down his girthy length. The familiar knot tightens again.

"How good does my cock feel baby?" Baekhyun asks his red eyes fixed on you as he makes your boobs bounce.

"It's the best.... Baekhyun it's the best thing ever. I wanna be fucked like this every day" you answer in a delighted scream. It's visibly what Baekhyun wanted to hear as the evil twinkle in his eye intensifies.

"Yeah Kitten? You want that?" he grunts in the low voice you love so much, sending swarms of butterflies fly in your stomach. He goes faster again. The wet sounds of skin clashing bounce off the walls punctually interrupted by Baekhyun's grunts and your moans.

"I'm gonna c-" You want to announce but Baekhyun interrupts you.

"Not yet Kitten, this time you'll cum with me and when I tell you to" He makes you hover over his dick. Still, just above him. You squirm only wanting to be filled again.

"Say what you want Kitten"

"I want your cock Baekhyun" he raises in eyebrow. "Please" your pleads make Baekhyun smirk again.

"Yeah baby? Is that what you want?" he says as he slips the tip inside, the beaded shaft make you scream in bliss as Baekhyun slowly lowers you on his cock, legs spread wide, offering him the best view on your swollen and twitching cunt.

"Yes!!!" you scream while tears well up in the corner of your eyes.

But then Baekhyun's spade shaped tail swiftly wraps around your neck, the slick scales gliding on your skin send goosebumps in the nape of your neck. When the tail has made a full circle around your neck, Baekhyun suddenly tightens the grip.

"Then fucking take it" he smashes you onto his huge cock.

You open your mouth to scream but not a sound comes out. You are completely silenced. Only the wet and lewd sounds of your pussy can be heard as Baekhyun's tip touches the deepest part of you, forming a visible bulge inside your stomach. Tears of pure joy roll down your heated cheeks.

Baekhyun then goes back to his insane rhythm. Every time angling you just right to smash your sensitive spot. Gradually your mind goes blank as he fucks you furiously, your jaw hangs open and your eyes rolls back into their orbit.

"Look at me" Baekhyun whispers in his demonic low voice. Your eyes snap to him. "I'm gonna cum inside you" he continuous to whisper. You nod vigorously, cause you know it means he'll finally let you cum too. "With this one I'll make you mine. I'll impregnate you. I'll make your belly swell with my children" You nod again, streams of tears wetting your cheeks. The restriction of blood to your brain makes you see stars as the pleasure rises again to an unbearable level.

"Now cum. Cum for me Kitten" Baekhyun grunts.

You feel his cum flow into you, this last thing sends you over the edge into the most intense orgasm you ever felt, that's including the ones Baekhyun gave you in the past. This one is different. This one is too much. His big fat cock smashing into you, his drenched chest glistening, the dirty talk, the pet name, the commanding tone, the demonic voice, the tail around your neck, the thick and hot cum filling you up.

Your spread-out legs shake uncontrollably as Baekhyun leads you to completion. Just as you are on the verge of losing consciousness due to the air restriction but also the heavenly stimulation of your orgasm, Baekhyun loosens his tail around your narrow neck. A strangled scream escapes free of your sore throat as you are finally able to vocally express the immense pleasure you feel.

"Yes, that's it baby" Baekhyun purrs as he keeps you going up and down his length.

You cry out a long moan as your head is thrown back and your tongue hangs lose out of your mouth. Baekhyun slowly decreases the pace until it comes to a stop. He lifts you out one last time, as soon as his big member pops out of you, gallons of his cum flow out of you. Baekhyun lays you down gently next to him. Before linking his lips with yours and shoving his long and rugged tongue inside your mouth and you don't even notice the red glow marking you in the lower stomach region.

You lay there for you don't know how long, trying to gather your thoughts. You are completely drained, fucked beyond repair...

After a while Baekhyun stands back up.

"In three weeks, the children will be born" you difficulty open your eyes back to look at him. "I'll be back to take them... and you."

What?!?

"Wait... me? Also babies??? Plural?" so many questions shoot through your mind.

"Yes" Baekhyun says as he wipes himself with a piece of cloth he found. "I marked you as mine" It's only now that you notice the small drawing Baekhyun tattooed on you with his demonic magic. It's a language you can't comprehend.

"What is this?" you asked pointing to the tattoo.

"It means you are to be my wife". Your eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets.

"WHAT?" You yell, flabbergasted.

"Yes, you know what a succubus is right, female incubus? " you nod unable to speak one more word.

"Well, no succubus are born. Succubus are only made. They are human women chosen by incubus to become their wife and bring their heirs to the world."

You want to say something, but you only stutter nonsense.

"Over the next three weeks you will kiss your humanity goodbye. Horns will sprout out your forehead and you will grow a tail. Your magic energy will increase, and you will slowly be able to use different magic spells. In three weeks, I'll bring you to the magic realm where you will live with me. And serve me with your body..." Baekhyun marks a silence "and heart."

"But... you... I-" Baekhyun sits next to you on the bed and cups your cheeks to make your troubled eyes meet his.

"Wasn't that what you asked for?" He asked in the most honey toned voice, his darks orbs fixed into your unsure gaze. He brushes his thumb over your bottom lip "Right Kitten?"

"Yes..." you whisper, hypnotized by his intense stare.

"Over the past year, your feelings for me bloomed, didn't they?" You felt blood rushing to your cheeks as Baekhyun's eyes were unwavering.

You didn't answer anything, but you didn't have to... Baekhyun knew exactly how to read you. Maybe because he felt the same way...

He got back up and with magic popped his clothes back on. Red smoke started to appear at his feet, gradually growing around him.

"I'll be back in three weeks... Wait for me Kitten, okay?" He said with that adorable boyish smile you haven't seen in a year, he winked at you before disappearing in the red smoke.

You rubbed your belly, where life had taken its domain. This time, you wouldn't have to try to go back to a normal life.

It was impossible anyway... and frankly you didn't want to.

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