#laugh anyways. aren't we still going to live. life keeps moving on.

[darknight3904]

Every Breath You Take

Chapter Three- Strangers

Tommy Miller x Fem!Reader, Slowburn!Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

Summary: Living at the end of the world is never easy, and a simple trip for basic essentials can mean life or death.

Warnings for this part: Canon typical violence, language, gore, and horror. Period products make another appearance. Reader and Tommy being the apocalypse's cutest couple. Check the Series Masterlist for expanded warnings.

Previous Part / Series Masterlist / The Last of Us Masterlist

Word Count: 3.4k

March 2004, Somewhere in the Southeastern half of the US

The bright blue letters on the sign seemed like a juxtaposition to you. The entire parking lot was trashed, overturned cars, dead bodies, and old trash littered the ground as you stared up at the shiny blue letters on the building. 

“Remind me what we need,” Tommy says from the driver's seat 

“Well, basically everything.” You hum, staring at the list in your lap, “You and I are grabbing toiletries and clothes, Joel is on food and camping shit. Oh, we also need oil for the truck.” 

The three of you sit in the truck, unmoving and silent. No one wanted to be the first to leave the safety of the vehicle, entering a fucking Walmart might be the death of you afterall. 

As usual, Joel is the one to lead; he pushes his door open, mumbling about staying quiet and being quick. 

The brothers pry the doors open, and you click your flashlight on. The inside of the store is like every other place, trashed. Overturned carts sit on their sides, contents of whatever people were trying to buy spilling onto the dirty floor. 

As for life forms, infected or not, the store seems relatively empty. A few dead infected lay every few aisles as you stick behind Tommy, Joel turning off to go find what's left of the canned goods and cereal aisles. 

“It’s empty.” You observe as you carefully step around an overturned display of baby diapers. 

“Yeah,” Tommy leers, “Don’t like it, stay alert.” 

Tommy keeps watch as you grab a cart and begin filling it, you clear the toothpaste shelf; there wasn’t much left anyway, maybe twenty tubes at best, before turning and reaching for a big bag of handheld flossers. The next aisle over is nearly picked clean, you sigh and begin grabbing what bottles of shampoo and body wash aren't already crushed and spilling out onto the concrete floor. 

“Not that one.” Tommy directs 

You glance down at what you hold, a men’s three-in-one body wash from Dove, sitting in your hands. It advertises an extra deep clean through the use of charcoal and clay. You look up at Tommy wordlessly, questioning why he’s turning down a full bottle of soap.

“It makes my ass itch.” He whispers 

A snort escapes your lips, and you slap a hand over your mouth, doing nothing to hide your amusement. 

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, one day it’ll happen to you.” Tommy sighs, grabbing the body wash and putting it back on the shelf.

“What? My ass itching or finding a body wash I hate?” You tease 

“Just…grab that bar soap and get moving, we still need your shit and then we gotta find Joel.” Tommy shakes his head 

You push the cart into the feminine hygiene section, to your delight, whoever came through here last left some products behind. Three boxes of tampons and even a big pack of the huge overnight pads are now in your possession.

“What the fuck is this?” Tommy asks suddenly 

You spin around to see him holding a cardboard box labeled DivaCup in his hands. You lean over his shoulders, equally confused. Turning the box over, you skim the instructions and diagram. 

“Oh, I saw a commercial for this once.” You say, “It's an alternative to tampons, it's this silicone cup that you fold up and y’know…” 

Tommy looks over at you, “You mean…you shove this up there?” 

“Yeah, put it in the cart, I might need it one day.” You say you’ve never used one, but if you ran out of everything else, it might be your only option.

The cup falls into the car with a small thunk as Tommy shakes his head, “Glad I wasn’t born a girl.” 

“Yeah, well, Mr. My Ass Itches, you’re only here cuz of girls and their periods.” 

“I know, I know, just glad I don’t gotta-” 

The sound of something big falling over has both of you shutting your mouths. Tommy’s gun raises slowly, and the joking demeanor he had just moments ago gone. He motions for you to stay quiet and then waves his hand to follow him. 

The cart squeaks as you slowly push it, your hands gripping the handles so tight your knuckles are white with fear. Another thud sounds and you nearly jump out of your skin when something turns the corner, nearly colliding with you and Tommy. 

A young man, maybe your age is staring at both of you. He’s covered in dirt and his clothes are torn. 

“Please don’t shoot. I just…I saw you guys push the doors open and followed you in…I just needed some supplies, didn’t mean to get in your way I just got scared.” 

Your eyes flick to the man's bare feet which are bleeding, most likely from the glass that was shattered from the cars in the parking lot. Tommy’s gun slowly lowers as he takes in the stranger before you. 

“Stay away from us, you can have whatever shit you want.” Tommy says slowly 

The guy nods before fixing his gaze on the gun, “I-Is the store clear? I don’t have any weapons and infected are-” 

“What the fuck is this?” 

Joel. 

You turn around to face the bright light of Joel’s flashlight, it wasn’t working a few days ago, he must’ve found some batteries. Batteries meant that the radio you found a week ago will work, you might be able to get some news of what the fucks going on. The sound of Joel’s revolver clicking into place has you snapping out of your haze.

“W-Wait!” The guy stammers, his arms raised 

“Joel, he’s harmless.” You vouch for him, “He doesn’t even have a pair of shoes.” 

“Can’t be too sure, might be part of a larger group gunning to kill us.” Joel says 

“I’m not, I just need supplies.” The guy pleads

“Yeah if that's true why didn’t you just come in here yourself. I heard you, you said you followed us in.” 

“I couldn’t get the doors open. I’ve been waiting days for someone to come buy and pull them open for me!” 

“Could’ve broken the glass on the doors.” Joel points out 

“And let the infected follow me in? I'm not that stupid.” 

Joel scoffs and you glance at Tommy, hoping he’d help your case. The loud bang of something outside has all of you turning towards the exit. 

“What was that?” You ask, it sounded similar to a gunshot or small explosion 

“S’ a car, backfiring.” Tommy says 

You follow Joel and Tommy who are already sprinting back to the parking lot. Three other people sit in the truck Joel had taken back in Austin, you had been lucky to find the keys sitting in the ignition and before you knew it you were sitting in the back while Tommy and Joel bickered about what direction to go. Now, you watched as a woman and a man were arguing, cables from the dashboard in their hands. 

“Shut the fuck up, Perry, I know what I’m doing! We need the car going so when Isaac gets back we can-” 

You watch as Joel yanks the woman by the back of her shirt out of the driver's seat. She lands on her ass in the dirt as Joel shouts at Perry and the other guy to get out. 

You turn to the stranger whom you now know as Isaac, 

“You were setting us up.” You accuse 

“No! I don’t even know them!” He lies 

You fumble with the hunting knife Tommy had given to you weeks ago, holding it out infront of you as to stare at Isaac, “Don’t fucking move.” 

A gunshot rings out, followed by loud wailing. The woman kneels over Perry, or what was Perry, since Joel has blown his brains across the Walmart parking lot. 

“You fucking-” The third man who was sititing in the backseat when you ran out lunges at Joel but is stopped when Tommy fires a bullet into his upper thigh, reducing him to a sniveling pile of blood and tears. 

Joel lets two more shots fly, and the man and woman fall to the ground. Your eyes widen as you turn to watch the pool of blood form around them. You had seen Joel kill before, or well heard it at least, Tommy was careful to keep you away from Joel whenever you had all encountered other people on the open road, always telling you to turn away or go sit in the truck. 

A heavy weight from behind rests on your shoulders as Isaac grabs you, one arm secured around your neck, the other hand rips the knife from your hand, pressing it to the soft skin of your throat. 

“Hey!” Isaac shouts 

A choking sound fills your ears as you register that it comes out of your mouth. You stumble as Isaac drags you backward, fear filling your system when a prick of pain follows after he presses the knife down harder. 

“Let her go,” Tommy says, his gun up and focused on Isaac, behind him, Joel stands his own gun raised 

“Give me the keys to the truck, and I'll let her go.” Isaac bargains 

“You can let her go, and I won’t put a bullet between your eyes,” Joel says 

“The keys.” Isaac shouts, “Or I cut her pretty throat open.” 

Isaac shifts, pushing you slightly away from him, his scratchy voice whispering something only you can hear as he pulls you back a few more paces. 

“How much are you worth to them? You must be something else if they’re both pointing their guns at me, tell me do you fuck them both at once, or it is it trading situation? You can tell me all about it tonight after I-” 

Warm, wet metallic splatters across your face as Isaac falls to the ground. Your ears ring as you try to wipe the red out of your vision. Tommy rushes up to you, his hands cradling your face as you blearily try to focus on what he’s saying. 

“You alright? I didn’t graze ya or anything?” 

You shake your head and fall into his warm arms, a small whimper escaping you as he hugs you. He runs a hand through your hair as he says something about you being safe again. 

Joel and Tommy work to load the truck up, you lie in the backseat, wrapped in Tommy’s flannel as the brothers toss what you had found in Walmart into the bed of the truck. 

“Is she alright?” Joel asks quietly 

“She’ll be fine, just shaken up, I think.” Tommy says back 

A beat of silence followed by the sound of one of them tossing another something into the bags you kept in the truck bed. 

“We can’t trust strangers. You see that now, right?” Joel points out 

“I know…It’s just…they’re people too. Probably used to work some 9-5 and went drinking on the weekends…” Tommy sighs 

You can practically hear the malice in Joel’s voice when he speaks again, “Yeah, well, not anymore.”

Joel miraculously finds a farmhouse a few hours later. He’d been driving aimlessly, just trying to get away from the main roads, when the sign for “Twin Maple Farm” came up. The farmhouse has seen better days. Someone had already come through and looted it and one of the doors has a sign pinned on it that said don’t open in simple cursive. You had pushed it open anyway and nearly puke at the sight. A half-decomposed man sits upright in bed. He was probably only dead a month or so, his skin bloated and half ripped open by god only knows what. The window by the bed is half open, bringing fresh air in but the scent still has you gagging as you slam the door shut. 

Don’t open was the understatement of the century. 

“What's wrong?” Tommy asks when you reappear to help them unload some of the bags in the truck. 

“There's a body upstairs, half rotted away.” You explain quietly 

That night, in the glow of a lantern, Tommy sits with you at the kitchen table, a couple of baby wipes sit in his hands as he tries to rid your face and hair of Isaac’s blood. 

“Tomorrow, we can see if the shower works. I checked it out, the shower head is rusty, but I think Joel and I can get it going.” 

The idea of a shower, even a cold one, nearly has you crying. You brush the tears out of your waterline as Tommy chuckles. 

“I know, I wanna get clean too.” 

“Yeah, you totally stink.” You mumble 

He laughs harder and runs a thumb across your cheek, “Yknow who stinks more though?” 

“Joel.” The two of you deadpan in unison.

Joel listens to the laughter and hushed whispers that flood down the hall to the living room. Here he was busting his ass, dragging a mattress down the steps and his brother was telling jokes to his girlfriend for fun. Typical Tommy, even at the end of the world he was chatting the pretty girl up instead of doing anything useful. 

Joel sits down on the mattress he’d dragged down the steps, it was a small full size, if the fool upstairs hadn’t blown his brains out, they’d have access to a queen size as well, but no, he was upstairs, rotting away on a perfectly good mattress that Joel could’ve slept on. 

Joel stares at the bags of food and other necessities they’d been able to take from Walmart. All in all, it was a pretty good haul. At least 50 cans of assorted soups and a good twenty bags of pasta, Joel had even managed to snag a few boxes of Pop-Tarts and even a family-size box of Fruit Loops.  He sighs and looks over what toiletries you and Tommy had found, from the looks of it you and his brother had done even better than he had. Many boxes of toothpaste and six bottles of assorted body wash stared at him as he combed through the duffle. One box said DivaCup; Joel had no idea what that was, but hey, if you needed it, it wasn’t his business. 

Thumping footsteps have him glancing up, you and Tommy reappear, hand in hand, as the two of you plop down on the couch across from him. 

“Not bad, huh?” Tommy asks 

“Yeah, would’ve been nice to have some meds though, you two didn’t see any Advil or Tylenol?” Joel asks 

“The pharmacy section was picked clean.” You shake your head 

Figures. Of course, the end of the world happened, and the drugs were the first thing that people swiped off the shelves. 

“I’m sleepin’ first tonight, one of you can take the first watch,” Joel says, eager to be the first one to lie on this mattress, no matter how small it is. 

Joel continues to count the canned goods and other supplies while you and Tommy disappear into the kitchen again, this time to warm up a few cans of chicken noodle soup. 

He doesn’t know what you and his brother have become. Sometimes he catches the two of you making out in the dead of night when you both should be sleeping. Other times he watches Tommy pick a few wildflowers before presenting them to you as a sad pass for a bouquet. In some people’s minds it might be endearing, a budding romance while the world has literally come crashing down. Instead, it has him filled with a feeling that he can only describe as bitterness. Bitterness for the world and the hand it's dealt him. Why should his brother get to be so happy with some girl while Joel sits, haunted by his daughter every time he closes his damn eyes.

 It’s not fucking fair. 

Tommy watches as you dump the cans of soup into a pot, the gas stove already going after he got it going with a match. God, you look pretty like this, barely illuminated by a shitty camping lantern and the blue flame of the stove. Tommy feels his heart squeeze as you give him a small smile. He didn’t think he’d ever really get a chance with you, always presumed you’d written him off as a weirdo and that you’d eventually move off to college and shack up with some Chad in a pastel polo shirt who worked in finance. Guess the apocalypse has its perks. 

“Is there something on my face?” You ask, “You’re staring.” 

“What? Oh, no.” He says, “Just admiring.” 

You scoff and go back to stirring the soup, “Admiring what?” 

“The pretty girl in front of me.” Tommy grins, flashing a smile that usually got him what he wanted. 

He can practically hear your eye roll as you pull a few bowls from the cupboard. He shifts, taking a few small steps to rest his head on your shoulder, his hands circling your waist, gently squeezing the soft flesh there. 

“I think I was wrong, Joel might not be the smelliest one here.” He teases, his nose crinkling as he sniffs you

You shove him off you a laugh escaping your lips, “You’re a dick.” 

The three of you wolf down your bowls of soup. The past week had been rough; you’d been running on nothing but granola bars and stale potato chips. Now, your stomach felt like it might burst as you lounged on the porch with Tommy. He had insisted that he could keep watch alone, but you didn’t think you could sleep anyway, so here you were sitting beside him on a porch swing, your legs kicked up, resting in his lap.

Your thoughts swirl as you stare up at the night sky. You think about what happened today, how Joel had killed those people, how Isaac’s scratchy voice still rang in your head even now. You pick at your fingers, trying to not imagine what would’ve happened if he had gotten the truck and stolen you away from Tommy and Joel. 

“You alright?” Tommy asks 

“M’fine.” You mumble shallowly 

“Now I know we’re kinda a new thing, but I can tell when a girl is lyin’. What’s going on?” He asks again 

You sigh and stare at him, trying to hide the shake in your voice as you speak, “I’m safe here, right? With you and Joel?” 

Tommy straightens up at this, his hand coming to rest on your knee, “Course you are…Do you not feel safe with us?’ 

“No, I do…it’s just, earlier today that guy said some stuff that's been stuck in my head.” You shudder, “It’s just making me think about how I guess some guys are probably using the end of the world to y’know…” 

Tommy nods, he gets it, and you breathe a sigh of relief that he understands you. 

“Don’t know what he said, you don’t gotta tell me if you don’t wanna, but if you ever feel unsafe with me or Joel, you can tell us, but I promise we wouldn’t ever hurt a woman like that, and we definitely wouldn't do that to you.”

You nod, shifting to tuck yourself into his side, sighing when his warm body touches yours. Sometimes you just crave the heat of another person. 

“Joel scares me…He didn’t before, but some of the stuff today, it just freaks me out.” You admit, hoping Tommy won’t be mad, after all, he killed a man today as well, Joel had just looked scarier to you. Besides, Tommy didn’t exactly have a choice when Isaac was standing with you like that, right?

Tommy is silent for a moment, the only sounds being the squeaking of the porch swing as it rocks back and forth. His thumb draws circles on your shoulder as his arm rests over you. 

“He scares me sometimes, too. Sometimes I look at him and I don’t even recognize him, it’s like he’s some…hollow shell. I know why he’s like that, it’s just…I dunno…” 

“Strange.” You finish for him 

“Yeah, something like that…It’s just, he worries me, always quiet and sulking off in a corner. Fuck I mean of course he’s like that, everything with Sarah…it makes sense, I just, M’worried for his mental health y’know?” 

You snuggle closer to Tommy, like the fabric of his shirt will be enough to protect you from the horrors of the outside world, pressing a soft kiss to the tip of his shoulder, sighing as you speak, 

“I know.” 

Next Part

I can't find Tommy's official age anywhere. We know Joel is 36 on outbreak day, so in this fic I've written Tommy to be about 29/30 on outbreak day, reader is about 20 and a half at this point.

I came to a realization that not everyone might know what the southeastern half of the US is. Here is a diagram for those who don’t know. I picture the trio in the Kentucky/Virginia area (The states that are the lighter red towards the top of the map)

Comment to be added to the tag list. This tag list is not chapter by chapter; I carry the tags over to each part.

Tags:

@freythecrazyfae @rae-gar-targaryen @keseqna @eniepascal

[harunayuuka2060]

MC: ...

Leona: *has been "subtly" observing them*

MC: ...

Falena's wife: ...

Falena's wife: Back to our discussion.

MC: Yes. You're hoping that I would be of help to His Majesty now that his health is deteriorating.

Falena's wife: Yes. Would it be possible for you to extend his life?

MC: There are factors that we need to consider. Does he still want to rule this country?

Falena's wife: No. He wants to live longer so he would be able to witness Cheka and Liora grow up into fine princes, and your second child to be born.

MC: Hmm. I could strengthen his heart, however... He likes to eat things that aren't good for him.

Falena's wife: *chuckles* We could just instruct Kifaj to be strict on him.

MC: In that case, I will start on the treatment.

MC: How are you feeling, Your Majesty?

The king: I'm feeling great. *chuckles* I think I could yell better on Kifaj now.

Kifaj: And I will do better to ignore you if needed.

The king: Anyway, is it true there will be a second-born?

MC: It will not until two years, Your Majesty.

The king: Oh. It takes that long?

MC: Yes.

The king: Oh. I see. How come? Isn't pregnancy supposed to be nine months?

MC: It's different with transcendentals, Your Majesty.

The king: *sigh* Well then, I guess I have to wait that long.

The king: I wish it's a girl this time so the Kingscholar will have their little princess.

MC: ...

MC: A princess it is.

The king and Kifaj: ...

The king: That's wonderful! Kifaj! Buy everything that will suit our baby princess!

Kifaj: Yes, Your Majesty!

MC: Again, the baby will not be born until two years.

The king: That is fine! Knowing that it will be a princess is enough!

Leona: *staring sternly at them from behind*

MC: *carrying Liora*

Baby Liora: *seems curious why his father is staring*

MC: What is it, Leona?

Leona: *walks and moves in front of them* The request you've been trying to delay.

MC: ...

MC: Sharing your mana to me is out of the question.

Leona: Tch. But I want to help you and I don't want to see not waking up for days again.

MC: ...

MC: How long will you try to insist on this?

Leona: I don't know. Maybe until you give me an alternative?

MC: ...

MC: I could give you one, but it would cost you a great inconvenience.

Leona: What is it?

MC: Cater our daughter for me.

Leona: ...

Leona: How?

MC: Like how I catered Liora. I will transfer the seed in your heart.

MC: You must keep your emotions stable.

Leona: Alright. I can do that.

MC: ...

MC: Alright. Come closer.

Leona: Yes- Mmp!

MC: *pulls themselves away* Give her back to me after two years. The same way that I did just now.

Leona: *blushing* That's a kiss you-

MC: I wouldn't call it as such. Now leave and stop bothering me for today.

Baby Liora: *waves at his father*

Leona: ...

Ruggie: *almost got choked on his food*

Ruggie: *then laughs*

Leona: *frowns at him*

Ruggie: That's a lot of trust, man. To think that MC allowed you to take care of your daughter.

Leona: Yes. But in the end, they're still the one who's going to birth it.

Ruggie: Though, are you sure you're up for the job? Two years is quite a long time, you know?

Leona: Yes. What do you take me for?

Ruggie: Impatient, easily annoyed-

Leona: *glares at him*

Ruggie: That. That's what I'm talking about. MC has always been cool-headed that's why Prince Liora has no complications and they carried him for three and a half-years.

Ruggie: I wonder how you are going to manage that.

Leona: It's my future daughter we're talking about here, Ruggie. I will do everything for her.

Ruggie: Okay. Why don't we start first by you eating vegetables?

Leona: *scowls*

Ruggie: It's for the baby princess. *amused by his expression*

Falena: I'm glad you have entrusted the development process to Leona.

MC: He wanted to help so I let him.

Falena: *happy sigh* I could already imagine what my niece would be like. *chuckles* *is imagining a snobbish baby and will frown at the sight of anyone*

MC: *knows what he's thinking and couldn't agree more*

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Doctor Who, but Chronologically: 51

So! After the glory of Silver Nemesis and the realisation that Nardole has definitely been Cybermanned to death off-screen, we jump forward to 1989. And it's one of the best episodes they ever made! We're watching the God Complex.

We open with a police officer in a hotel, opening doors to things like clowns and birthday party photographers and that. She says everyone has a room that's theirs. Hers contains a man in a fake gorilla suit, which she finds inexplicably terrifying, and then quickly writes some notes in her little police book.

It finishes with her saying "Praise him," and then... well, it's unclear. Being Monstered. She seems happy about it.

And so we begin! Matt Smith arrives with Amy and Rory, and I must stress that while I am forever underwhelmed by Amy and normally in a state of permanent irritation at how blank-yet-toxic Rory is, in this particular episode, Rory is actually great and Amy is still underwhelming. One out of two ain't bad. But Arthur Darville gets to do some genuinely charismatic acting, even if he technically doesn't actually do much, and at one point he and Karen Gillen interact without seeming allergic to each other.

Anyway: it's a hotel. An 80s looking hotel, which promptly turns out to be a labyrinth with moving walls and no external doors, and three extra people - Rita the incredible Muslim should-be-companion, Howie the conspiracy theorist dweeb, and Gibbis the cowardly alien played by a sex pest with a super injunction. They've been trapped in the hotel for days, trying to find a way out. They have a fourth member, Joe, but Joe "found his room", so he's now tied up in a room full of creepy ventriloquist dummies.

"He's going to come and eat me!" beams Joe.

"I think you should come with us," says the Doctor.

They all head off. Amy finds the policewoman's notes from the start. Howie tells Rory that it's all a conspiracy - the US has secret cities in Norway for rich people, so that must be where they all are. Rory, in the strange position of not being the sad toxic nerd for once, tells him he's an idiot, a point further underscored when Howie then finds his room and it's full of laughing girls.

But then! The minotaur monster comes after them to eat Joe, and so everyone decides to hide in the rooms. Rory sees one of the rooms as though it's a fire exit, but when he looks back, it's a hotel room. Most of the gang run into a room containing weeping angels! It's almost a great scene, except it sort of hinges around Amy going "Don't blink" as she stares at them in terror, and actually, Karen Gillen visibly blinks twice during it. They aren't real angels, though, so that's alright.

However, Rita and Joe accidentally find Rita's room, which contains her angry dad. This is devastating, because Rita is clever and charismatic and charming and even the text of the episode wants her to be the next companion when the Doctor says out loud with his physical mouth "Amy you're fired", and frankly I am still bitter a decade and change later that she wasn't ANYWAY

Joe dies. So they go back to his room to barricade in and use the kettle. Rory is useful, because he sets about wedging tables in front of the doors. Amy tries to comfort Gibbis about him being a useless coward played by a sex pest with a super injunction. She tells him that she has faith the Doctor will save them - she thought he'd abandoned her as a child, but he came back.

WHICH! We know this one!!! We've seen Amy and Rory's ending, at the end of the Angels Take Manhattan - her farewell letter said he should go and tell child!her to keep waiting. This very sensible watch order is helping tremendously.

Meanwhile, Rita continues to be GREAT. She theorises this is Jahannam, but she's okay because she has faith she lived a good life, and will be alright.

And then, of course, Howie succumbs and starts yelling "Praise him"; Gibbis wants to sacrifice him because he comes from a coward race, and the Doctor gets a really great lil speech about what a creep he is, which... well, given the actor, you know. Good. Howie tells them that the monster will only come for them once they're "ready", though, and the Doctor reasons that the minotaur is feeding on fear. They must all dig deep to avoid being afraid - cling to their faith.

Anyway they decide to trap the monster in the hotel spa. Pleasingly for the classicists among us, it is called the Pasiphae Spa. Oh, how I chortled. There's also a great moment where Amy and Rita have to hide in a hotel room, and it contains the sad clown from the beginning.

RITA: Anything to do with you? AMY: No RITA: How's it going? AMY: Don't talk to the clown.

Anyway, naturally this all goes wrong because they decided to leave Gibbis, the guy who wanted to sacrifice Howie, in charge of guarding Howie, the guy who wants to be sacrificed. So the Doctor gets as far as learning that the hotel is a prison, the minotaur is a warden, and it's also an ancient being that doesn't want to be doing all this killing and that anymore before Howie turns up screaming for rapture and the minotaur breaks out and kills him.

And then both Amy and the Doctor find their doors. It's a bit fun, actually - Amy won't admit what's in hers, and the Doctor's isn't shown. But he opens the door to the sound of the TARDIS cloister bell ringing, and says, "Of course. Who else?"

Back in the hotel lobby, we get a great Rory moment. "Howie had been in speech therapy," he says quietly. "He'd just got over this massive stammer. What an achievement. I mean, can you imagine? I'd forgotten not all victories are about saving the universe."

It's so lovely, actually. It's well-delivered, and it's the humanising touch you want, both for Howie - who was otherwise played off a bit as a sad virgin - and for Rory, who never gets to be the Companion Who Cares, but it really implies that he spent time talking to the guy.

The Doctor suddenly sees there are CCTV cameras, and goes for the CCTV room. Unfortunately, Rita was showing Amy up too much as a companion, so she is hastily written out by leaving to draw the monster away as she feels her sanity slipping. The Doctor tells her to cling to her faith, but she dies. It is a heart-breaking moment, which is then weirdly undermined by a shot through the CCTV of Gibbis eating a goldfish in the kitchen.

AND THEN

The Doctor has an epiphany! It's not fear the minotaur feeds on, it's faith! Howie believed in conspiracies, Joe believed in luck, Rita was religious.

"But Doctor," says Rory. "Why are we here?"

He blatantly means this like "Why did the TARDIS bring the three of us here?", but for some reason, the Doctor takes this moment to just fucking roast Rory into oblivion.

"It actually doesn't want you personally, the man known as Rory Williams, because you don't believe in anything lmao. That's why it showed you a fire exit," says the Doctor.

Fucking. Uncalled for.

"Amy believes in me, though, so that's why we're here," the Doctor finishes helpfully.

Anyway, Amy relapses so they run away and end up in her room. It contains child!Amy on a suitcase! The Doctor realises he has to break her faith in him. Actually, this has been done before by Sylvester McCoy and Ace, albeit better, but ah well. He says he can't save her, he stole her childhood knowing it would kill her. "I wanted to be adored," he says.

Somehow, this immediately works. My god, but Ace took more convincing that this. Also, the Doctor apologised to Ace for that and told her he was lying in the moment, whereas Matt Smith does not bother doing so with Amy, because he apparently meant it lol. Anyway she loses her faith, and the minotaur dies and the hotel prison is destroyed.

The episode finishes with the Doctor buying Amy and Rory a house and a sports car in Roath or wherever the fuck it's pretending to be, and then... well. Leaving them? Interesting! We know he doesn't leave them, we've seen their ending when they died in New York. Before he goes, Amy says it feels wrong that he's just. Going.

"What's the alternative?" he says. "Me standing over your grave? Your broken body, Rory's broken body?"

Lol, he will literally stand over their graves. A call-back! If watched in this order.

Okay! So, questions questions:

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (Suspects: River, Missy, Me, Clara)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest. The Thijarian planet was destroyed by some sort of impact). Is this the Flux?

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up  (Nope: she is definitely not blown up)

The TARDIS has blown up  (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again. NOPE, back to not working.)

The universe appears to have ended  (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? He used to be blue, and could apparently go back to it??? He’s some sort of helplessly criminal con-artist??? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window? (She’s with the Silents, but we don’t know why Amy saw her)

Why is Amy’s pregnancy inconclusive? (Maybe because the baby had Time Lord DNA?) She’s deffo pregnant and the baby becomes River, but why inconclusive?

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

What happened with the Other Cyber War? Were either of these Cyber wars affected by the Doctor blowing them up with Nemesis?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri (Not anymore, somehow)

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War? Did this destroy the Doctor’s planet and/or family?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf? Gwyneth saw “the Big Bad Wolf” in Rose’s mind, and it was on a 1987 poster as graffiti

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Why has Amy forgotten Rory? How did she forget a Dalek invasion?

Is Rory plastic or not? Yeah, must be, he couldn’t possibly remember being plastic otherwise

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras? A psychic midwife says she’s just normal human

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven? Is this because she’s now dead?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch? Is it actually just a pager?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill’s puddle girlfriend Heather? This is presumably the star-eyed water faerie

How did Nardole die?

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor’s name? Missy says it’s “Who”

When did Yaz talk to Dan about fancying the Doctor?

When did Dan talk to the Doctor about fancying Yaz?

What’s happening with the bees?

What happened with Donna’s ex and a giant spider?

What war wiped out the Daleks, and is it one of the ones already mentioned?

What did the Doctor mean when he said “The (Daleks) always live, while I lose everything?”

If Dalek Caan is the last Dalek left why are there more now?

How did the rest of the Time Lords die?

How and why did Amy melt?

What’s the question that will make silence fall?

Why do the Silents… want silence to fall?

How and why are Silents at war with the Doctor when he… hasn’t even heard of them?

How does Hitler get out of the cupboard?

What’s the significance of fish fingers and custard?

Why does the Doctor feel guilt about Rose, Martha and Donna?

What happened with the space whale?

When does Rory defend Amy for 2000 years? Since Roman times, it seems

How does the Doctor survive River? He doesn’t, apparently

How does he erase himself from history

Did Captain Jack lose his memories to the same people as the Doctor? What did he lose?

When did the Doctor send the Daleks into a void to save the universe?

What’s with the weird crack in the wall and is it affecting memories?

Why do Amy and Rory think the Doctor is dead? Is it because of River as an astronaut?

Is Matt Smith’s Doctor a tree racist?

Why is the beautiful geode woman stealing people into a Passenger form?

River says she’ll die one day when the Doctor doesn’t remember her, let’s hope she doesn’t mean it

Why doesn’t the TARDIS like Clara?

When was the Master Prime Minister?

When will the Doctor go and rescue Nardole and the colonists? NEW INFO: From last episode, but I forgot to include it. But he will not! They are dead of Cybermen

How do Amy and Rory rejoin the Doctor given that they haven't died yet in 1950s Manhattan?

[skulkiee]

Hiii! I wrote a thing. After like a week. I hadn't written in so long it wasn't okay anymore. Im sorry if anyone was waiting for the next bit of the story about the Gods im writing i have not made any progress because the show i was in was brilliant but now i am dead✨

Anyways yah. I wrote a thing. About Eurylochus and Polites and that one cut song that gets me every time.

"Eury?"

Eurylochus really doesn't want to talk to Polites right now. He loves the guy, he really does, but he just doesn't want to talk to anyone.

"Hey, Albatross, you hiding?" Polites does find him, as Eurylochus expects him to. The old nickname puts a little smile on his face, though.

"No." Eurylochus answers. Whilst sat in a shadowy corner behind several crates in the bottom of the ship. Noooo- He would never be hiding! What does he have to hide from?

Polites looks down at him from where he's leaning over the nearest crate, "Ok, well, all the rocking of the ship really isn't good for my legs you know, specially with all those injuries I got from the cyclops-" Eurylochus thinks he looks perfectly fine, "-so would you let me sit beside you?"

(He still remembers the utter terror when the club hit Polites, when the cave fell silent and he saw the person who means the most to him in this life and the next lying broken and battered in a growing pool of blood, reaching out for him, rasping out a pained "Eury-" before the club came down again, barely missing him, barely-)

He pulls himself out of his thoughts.

Eurylochus really should call his partner out on his lie, but he's always been bad at saying no to Polites, and company right now wouldn't be all bad, he guesses. Polites doesn't wait for him to answer, instead sitting down next to Eurylochus and placing his staff at his side, that small half smile-half frown that he does on his face.

"Why are you here?" Eurylochus asks eventually, "Why do you care so much?"

Polites blinks, still doing that funny expression and not quite looking at Eurylochus, "Because I love you, Albatross, and you aren't gonna believe this, but what just happened wasn't your fault. Neither was the cyclops, or Aeolus' game."

"Yes it was." Eurylochus offers a little grin and a broken laugh, "It's all my-"

Polites just rolls his eyes, "Shut up, idiot." He says it fondly, turning to look at Eurylochus, "What happened in that cave was the Lotus-eaters fault and the cyclops' fault-"

"Yes but I let you and Odysseus go to that island alone, not knowing what that island could hold-" Eurylochus scrambles for an argument, "You got hurt."

"But I'm ok." Polites doesn't seem to quite grasp how much he really does mean to the crew, to Eurylochus, and it is always most obvious at times like this.

"I thought you were dead." Eurylochus hisses, "I can't- you can't- I wouldn't have known what to do if you were dead."

"Keep on living." Polites smiles that crooked smile of his.

Eurylochus frowns at him, "You say that like it's easy, Songbird, like I could just brush you off like dust on my shoulders and move on. You-"

"Well I didn't die."

"But you could have died to- to Posidon! Or the winions-"

"You really think-" Polites laughs, "That the winions would have killed me?"

"They were an unknown factor!" Eurylochus protests, "They could have been dangerous, we all know Aeolus was!"

"Aeolus wasn't your fault either." Polites continues on, "You warned the captain against going to speak to them, you told him the gods are dangerous, and he didn't listen. Gods, he really should have."

Eurylochus watches the way he starts to shake slightly, his dark eyes turned down and his voice cracking.

And well, it goes like this: they'd all seen how Odysseus had reacted to Posidon killing their crew- their king, their captain, had fallen apart, yelling and cursing the gods and all their parents, tears on his face.

Eurylochus and Polites… They'd- they'd held themselves together for the crew, they'd smiled and comforted the crew in the days after, while their king hid away in his room.

But they'd suffered just as much as Odysseus, if not more so, they were just both better at acting than their friend, in a way where they had no reason to act but did it anyway, slowly crafting armour around themselves with their words and eyes and actions, armour that only a select few were allowed to see beneath. People expected Odysseus to be the one lying and hiding behind masks, not them.

Whilst Odysseus had been the captain, he had a duty to protect the crew, but they were still just his subjects, servants and people under his rule. Eurylochus and Polites knew each of them, their worries and fears and nightmares and how to make them laugh and smile, they knew each family member that would never see them again. That was their job, to know the crew. So it hurt so much more, for they lost friends, family, and Odysseus only lost nameless faces and subjects.

And this was why they had their armour. They'd both lost everything when they were young, and then they'd found each other. When you live a life of uncertainty, one where your fortune can change as easily as the wind, with only one constant, you learn to keep your armour on, you learn to protect the thing close to you and your heart.

It still haunts them, the screams and the nightmares and the fears of too many men that aren't them, and the families of men who are dead, unknowingly waiting in Ithaca.

Eurylochus just sighs, pulling Polites into a tight hug, "We just gotta keep everyone else alive, that's all."

Polites laughs slightly, "Yeah. No pressure. Then we can go home."

"What was that song you always used to sing?" Eurylochus asks after a moment.

"Hmm?" Polites lifts his head off of his shoulder, looking up at Eurylochus, "This life is amazing..?"

"No the other one," Eurylochus can't quite remember how it went, "From before we met Odysseus and Elpenor and Perimedes. That one."

Polites smiles, "I remember." He pauses, "Gods, I was so happy to have a friend to run through the streets and climb the trees with back then."

"When it was just as simple as when our next meal would be and where we should wait out the rain and who we should avoid." Eurylochus laughs slightly, "I do rather miss causing problems in the market square with you, Songbird."

Polites joins in his laughter at that, "We only got worse when we met Perimedes and Elpenor, and then only a few years later the four of us met Ctimene and Odysseus and then it was even more simple and suddenly so complicated at the same time."

"Do you ever regret befriending Odysseus and Ctimene?" Eurylochus asks quietly.

Polites lets out a little humming noise, "I feel like." He pauses, choosing his words carefully, "Our lives would be a whole lot more easy, you know? But also what would we have ended up doing if we lived out our lives on the streets of Ithaca?"

"We wouldn't have the level of control over our lives that we have now." Eurylochus says. He's always needed that- that- level of control, as he phrased it, over the situation he is in. He panics otherwise, he hates being unable to keep the people around him safe, to not put his own opinions into a discussion.

It's why he hated the war, hated the kings all sat above them in their gold and jewels and fancy armour that didn't have a single scratch or dent, playing with their lives like pieces on a board, why he hated the whole situation with the cyclops, something bigger and stronger and more dangerous than him was hurting his friends, almost killed his partner, and Eurylochus couldn't do a damn thing about it.

It's why he hates how Odysseus plays with forces bigger than him, gods, monsters, wars. It's why he keeps getting angry at Odysseus, Odysseus who keeps putting everyone in danger, once again playing with them like toys, except this time they don't have the protection of a huge army around them, this time they're not facing simple men that they can fight, this time Odysseus is pitting them against monsters, and blaming everyone else when it goes wrong.

"Oh, I know the world’s not always pretty, and there's days that seem to last for way too long." Polites' voice breaks him out of his thoughts, quiet and full of emotions as he sings the lines of that old childhood song, "Oh, I know the world can get real lonely, and there are times you feel too hopeless to go on."

He smiles at Eurylochus again, and he can see that wild little kid that he befriended all those years ago, with the too-big glasses and uncut hair, grinning through the scars and sorrows of war and adult life.

"But hey there Eury, don’t you know, look deep inside and there you go! Hanging in your heart I’m always there!" Polites laughs slightly at the lyrics five year old him made up.

Eurylochus' smile widens, "And hey there 'Tes, can’t you see: no matter what, you still have me! So when you need a friend, or when you’re scared, just let me be your light!" He remembers that part at least, the memories are easier to dig up now that Polites has started singing.

"Let me be the stars you see at night," Polites waves a hand absentmindedly up at the ceiling of the room they're in, "Let me be the arms that hold you tight! When life gets hard or when you're lost in the dark let me be your light!"

Eurylochus laughs properly at Polites' vague gesture at the wooden planks above them, "Let me be your light." He echoes, ruffling the other's hair.

Polites yelps at the action, ducking out from under Eurylochus' arm and grabbing his hand in both of his, a bright smile on his face, "Do you remember when we would run through the market, looking for the best people to mess with?"

Eurylochus meets his gaze, "Oh, I remember the thrill and the fun!" He laughs. Maybe, just maybe, in this dark, hidden corner of the ship, they can just be Eurylochus and Polites, the kids who have no responsibilities holding them down, rather than Eurylochus and Polites, the king of Ithaca's best friends and second and third in command of the Ithacan army.

"Past me was smart." Polites grins.

Eurylochus pulls him back into a tight, playful hug, "Are we thinking about the same boy?" He asks, "The boy i fell in love with was rather clumsy and full of bad ideas, if I remember correctly! And he still is."

"Hey!" Polites is still laughing though, wriggling in Eurylochus' hold, "You can't say much, and I meant the song!"

Eurylochus is laughing too when they end up on the floor, "You were good at emotions." He concedes.

"And i was right!" Polites decides not to sit up, and instead stays lying on top of Eurylochus, "Don’t forget that even when the sun has set, hanging in your heart, I’m always there! And hey there Eury-" he taps Eurylochus' chest when he says 'heart', which Eurylochus thinks is absolutely adorable. If anyone ever says Polites is not just the sweetest, they can fight him.

Eurylochus joins in with the song, he's not the best at singing, but he always has enjoyed singing with Polites.

"Can’t you see no matter what, it’s you and me! So when you need a hand or when you’re scared, just let me be your light!"

They sing that line together before they both realise how this would probably look if one of the crew found them now, and they sit up. Eurylochus doesn't hesitate to ruffle Polites' hair again, earning him another affronted yelp.

"Let me be the stars you see at night." Eurylochus grins when he helps Polites to his feet, the other grabbing his staff.

"Let me be the arms that hold you tight!" Polites laughs, his dark eyes bright.

"When life gets hard or when you’re lost in the dark, let me be your light!" Their voices don't go all that well together either, but Eurylochus doesn't think either of them could care less about that, he certainly doesn't.

Maybe he's a little bit more ready to face the world. To face Odysseus and his twisting, manipulating words, to face whatever gods and monsters are thrown his way.

Eurylochus wears a smile when he steps out into the sunlight on the deck of the ship with Polites, and his eyes catch on a lush-looking, green island ahead of them, the first land they've seen since they saw Ithaca on the horison just before Eurylochus opened the bag after the persuasion and pressure from the crew and the voices in the wind.

Bring it on, he thinks, a grin on his face. Eurylochus has his little makeshift family, and what remains of the crew he needs to protect, and his sword, and Polites at his side. They're gonna be okay.

They're gonna be okay.

It's what he repeats when he steps onto the island and sees, really sees, how off it is, how bright the flowers are and how tame the animals seem to be.

We're gonna be okay.

It's what he chants in his head when he sees the palace in the little valley, when he watches the witch turns half their crew into pigs.

We have to be okay.

Hello again! If your still here! And yes i promise the nicknames have reasoning other than i have a condition where any character i ever like gets a nickname related to either birds or flowers! Am i gonna tell you? Not right now. I will at a future date when i shouldnt be sleeping and i can formulate thoughts properly! Probably!

Okayyyy byeeee :D have a nice week everyone i cant tell you when ill be back sooo HAVE NICE DAYS BE HAPPY YOU GUYSSS✨

[hitmewithsomebooks]

@jegulus-microfic Jan 30 - uneven

1012 words (same as the 1st one holy cow this was not on purpose)

Cowboy James

NSFW for suggestive language/contact, not explicit

First part

~

The moment Regulus stood up, he already felt less confident. As though James could sense it, he took Regulus's hand, drawing him in closer.

"Don't worry, darlin', ah won't letcha fall." The cowboy said with a wink, before dragging him out onto the dance floor.

James began swaying easily, his hips smooth and his movements sure. Regulus, however, was uneasy, despite his drunken state. His movements were jagged and uneven, unable to match the beat. James could see this, obviously, a deep chuckle escaping his throat. He stepped closer, still swaying his hips.

"Can ah show you somethin', sweetheart?" James asked, and these nicknames were going to be the death of him. Regulus nodded, and James's hands reached forward to land on his hips.

"This okay?" He murmured, and god, he asked permission too?? Who was this man? Regulus nodded again, meeting the taller man's eyes. The hands on his hips led him, guiding them until the two were moving in sync, Regulus's hips rolling with James's. James grinned at him, and Regulus couldn't help but smile back. Finally, he fell into the rhythm, feeling more natural. Even so, James didn't let go, and Regulus didn't ask him to. Instead, he shuffled closer, wrapping his arms around James's neck, whose eyes darkened.

"Gettin' bolder, are ya?" James teased, and Regulus hit him on the chest. But he was, really; nearly drunk on alcohol and James's body heat, and holding quite a weakness for hot, smooth-talking men who called him fancy and sugar. So, he moved closer, letting his hips roll against James's. The man groaned softly, hips meeting Regulus's,  which were becoming increasingly forceful.

"You're gettin' a little naughty there, fancy." James rumbled into his ear, and Regulus hummed.

"Want me to stop?" He asked, and he felt the man's large hands tighten on his hips.

"Don't you dare."

Regulus chuckled, nosing at the man's neck. He smelled like hay and whiskey and sandalwood, and it was fucking intoxicating. Regulus could live with his nose buried there forever. Or his lips, as he found out when he kissed James's pulse point and the man groaned. Regulus did it again, trailing up to right below his ear, where he flicked his tongue. James pulled Regulus flush against him.

"If you keep that up, sweetheart, this 's gonna escalate real fast." He warned, and his voice was deep and thick as molasses. Regulus felt the vibrations where he was pressed to the man's broad chest.

Regulus's leaned up on his toes, so his lips were right at James's ear.

"That's the idea." He whispered, and the man shuddered.

"Please, let me take you home, so ah can fuck you proper." James growled into his ear. Regulus was so tempted to give in right then and there. But he had to play with him.

"Awful full of yourself, aren't you?" He cooed. "Who said I'd let you fuck me?"

James huffed out a laugh into Regulus's neck.

"I can assure you it'll be the best of your life." The cowboy told him, and Regulus scoffed. "Certainly better than Barty." Regulus pulled back, surprised.

"How do you know his name?"

"Ah might’ve asked your brother." James answered, grinning, not the slightest bit sheepish.

"Jealous, are we?" Regulus teased, but James, of course, didn't act cagey or embarrassed.

"Yes." He growled, placing a hand on Regulus's arse and pulling him impossibly closer. "Any chance this Barty fellow lives in the United States?" He questioned, and Regulus had a good idea of why.

"And why do you want to know?" He asked anyways, unable to keep the mirth out of his voice.

"So ah can knock his lights out, darlin'." James replied, and that was way hotter than it should've been.

"Mmm... why don't you just fuck my lights out instead?" He asked, and it was James's turn to pull back and look him in the eye, a smirk on his lips.

"Thought you didn' want me t' fuck you?"

"Never said that." Regulus replied, brushing his lips against the taller man's. "Just had to see how much you wanted it." James shuddered, eyes closing.

"You've no fucking idea how much, sweetheart." James murmured, opening his eyes again to meet Regulus's. Regulus leaned forward, lips brushing again. And finally, they reached James's breaking point. A finger and a thumb came up to grab Regulus's chin, then James's lip were on his own.

It wasn't a sweet, nice kiss. This was filthy. This was James setting a bruising pace and already licking at Regulus's lips. And when the younger man eagerly opened them, James plunged into his mouth like his life depended on it, like a starving man and Regulus was food.

After at least a full minute, Regulus pulled back, panting into James's mouth.

"You going to take me home, or just fuck me right here?" He murmured, and James shot him a wolfish grin.

"Ah mean, ah wouldn' be opposed, but ah don' think your brother over there would appreciate it much." James pointed out, and Regulus followed his eyes to the bar. Thankfully, Sirius had been too busy to notice their little display, though other people hadn't based on the stares they were getting. James, of course, gave them a cheeky little wave. Regulus leaned forward and gave James another deep kiss, just to piss them off further.

"Speaking of my brother..." Regulus mentioned, running his finger along James's lips, "Are you still going to get that phone back for me?" He prodded, and James huffed out a laugh against him.

“Darlin’, at this point, ah’ll get you whatev’r you want.” The taller man replied, seemingly still catching his breath from the last searing kiss. Regulus smiled, pleased.

“Get me that phone, and then you can take me home, nosy.” Regulus purred into the man’s ear, and James stood up straighter.

“Yeah?” He wondered, mouthing along jaw. “I git that phone, an’ ah get t’ take you home n’ fuck you?” Regulus repressed shiver.

“Yes.” He murmured, voice rough.

“Well that’s a deal, sugar.”

~

Next part

[ghost-run-free]

i am nothing

but an observer. i see what's being posted on here under this tag and while i am a hopeful and optimistic person, i am more inclined to dismiss these blind items. that is, by no means am i completely dismissing the wonderful relationship these two have managed to create while filming Queer.

i get a headache just thinking about the myriad of questions i have surrounding actors. the relationship that these very real people have on set is one that is so incredibly unique and one that has an impending, scheduled time limit. it has always been a subject of particular interest, personally. recently i've been listening to clairo's newest album, Charm, and how in the song 'sexy to someone' she sang about not getting a part for a movie or not getting the job for a tv show. this gave me sort of a weird (made up) context for the album. basically, i listened to the album from the perspective of a struggling actor. the song pier 4 in particular, really made me ponder about actors' relationships on set (i understand the dangers of going too deep into that, re: the harmful rumors that have ruined relationships between actors for centuries being the very result of mere speculations. but i still can't help looking at it from a distance and thinking... they're people at the end of the day. they contain multitudes just like me and as complex as their emotions can be, they're only somewhat a variation of my own. i can't help but wanting to humanize them even more and to find their flaws) as i feel the lyrics to this song paints a perfect picture of it.

'What's the cost of it, of being loved?'

'Where's your line, when do you draw? When close is not close enough'

'Where's the fun in it? And now I'm too tough. From Close being just too much'

i don't know. i might just be talking out of my ass.

to circle back to these two, i find their relationship so wonderful. as i observe them further, i even feel like the immense closeness we see between daniel and drew goes past the need of there being any speculations or blind items.

i love how daniel always used the word 'kind' to describe drew in interviews. 'a kind, wonderful human being' he once said. 'i liked drew the moment i met him' and 'a beautiful actor to work with'. tsk tsk tsk, actors... actors... it's also them saying that they practiced their choreography for 6 straight weeks, and by the time they're on set to film the sex scenes, they're already 'very familiar with each other's smells and the feel of each other's skin', in luca's own words. it's a marvel, really. 'i've never moved my body in that way before' drew said in one interview, cue daniel looking at the camera knowingly and laughing cheekily. i love being able to witness how great these two got along despite the 25 years gap between them. it was never even mentioned. instead they talked about how 'we shared some strange and funny stories with each other' that aren't allowed to be shared in front of the camera. smh. drew saying that daniel is punk and counterculture is a true testament that he really got to know that man. daniel endlessly bullying and teasing drew's lack of public speaking abilities and zero knack for answering questions in general... the ENDLESS stories of them laughing and (basically) having the time of their lives shooting the sex scenes. drew saying that daniel 'really kept him going' on set and he likely 'would have exploded' if it weren't for daniel keeping things moving and holding the fort strong enough for the both of them. god. the dynamic in their relationship is truly so beautiful (and complex). and as someone who's been obsessed with actors and relationship between actors all their life, theirs was a special one to observe. i think that's due to their unapologetic attitude towards showing how much they enjoy each other's company (and existence). (and how in love they truly are with each other)

anyway that's my rant. i love actors. i love drewniel.

[winterrrnight]

okay girlboss i know as we discussed you have lotssss of WIP's but i come to you with a request anyways;

rafe x pogue!reader based on "want you back" by maisie peters. here are some lyrics from that song that make me absolutely need this fic and i know you're gonna agree:

"so i know, that you did bad, but if one more person says it i might go mad." (like HELLO THIS IS SO RAFE CODED ARE YOU KIDDING)

"and what was cheap to you, to me was all i had" (ALSO THIS ONE YUPPPP)

bonus: "til' you caught a teacher's daughter with a dangerous text, i read it like a bible and i wore it like a bulletproof vest" (bc this is so cute)

thank you for your time and consideration bestieeee

thank you for the request bff! It definitely took me some time but here we gooo we finally have it! I hope you enjoy and it's up to your expectations <3

want you back

PAIRING: soft!rafe cameron x pogue!gn!eader

SUMMARY: Rafe finally gets to reunite with the one who made him feel happy and loved after their heartbreaking time away from each other.

WARNINGS: starts off angsty but ends fluffy, swearing, alcohol, drugs, anxiety, kissing, OBX spoilers + ignore any small grammatical/spelling mistakes!

EDITH SPEAKS: I LOVE a good angst moment! Its like venting out all the emotions that bother me. Why go to therapy when you can write angsty fics?

Some canon events of Rafe are referred to in this fic, but we still get soft Rafe as we move on in the fic :) live laugh love soft Rafe 🤭🤭

Please like and/or reblog to show your support! Feedback is highly appreciated 🌼

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You let out a little scream when you suddenly feel Rafe's arms around your waist, lifting you up from the ground. You grasp onto his neck tightly, and just keep on laughing as Rafe runs with you in his arms.

He comes to a stop just before the sand ends and the water starts. He sets you down on the ground, and both of you sit down, the water washing up to your feet occasionally.

It's midnight, the moon is out, the water is rippling softly, and you're sitting next to the person who makes you smile as bright as the stars.

Life can't get more perfect.

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

"So what, you're just going to leave me now? Whatever we had, it doesn't matter to you anymore?" You yell, tears brimming in your eyes.

"It's not like we were really together you know, you didn't exactly tell people I'm your boyfriend!" Rafe says back, his eyes as teary as yours.

He's right, what you had was more of a situationship. You never labelled him as your boyfriend, heck, you were always confused on what to call him each time you introduced him to people. What you had was too deep to be labelled as 'friendship', but in the back of your mind you were always scared on how things might change if you asked him to be your boyfriend.

"Whatever it may be Rafe! Didn't you feel happy with me? I know I was the happiest with you around." You take a step closer to him, but he takes one back, keeping the distance the same between you two. "You're gonna just leave me because you think me, a pogue, can't date you, a kook? When will we grow past this? Why are you letting a stupid class label decide if you and me should be together or not?"

Tears are now streaming down your face, staining your cheeks as the went down. Your eyes are bloodshot, and your head is pounding with a headache. But you ignore it all. You just want Rafe.

"I'm, I'm sorry," Rafe whispers, as he opens the door of your house and leaves. You want to run after him, stop him from leaving you, but your feet are glued to the ground. Why aren't you moving? Why aren't you on your knees begging him to stay? You hear the engine of his car revving, and from the open door, you see him drive to the horizon.

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

Since Rafe left you that night, you haven't seen him even once. It's been around two months, and you returned to your regular pogue lifestyle with your best friends: nothing to lose, everything to gain.

The biggest problem you have at hand is to find El Dorado before Singh does. It's been the only thing everyone has been able to talk about, especially after the return of Big John. You've been extremely devoted to this hunt, but every now and then, your mind slips back to you and Rafe.

You aren't sure with whom you can open up about this entire situation with. You've only been digging your emotions deeper and deeper in you, and you're afraid one day you'll just pop with all your pent up emotions.

All of you are sitting around a bonfire, and JJ comes and passes all of you some drinks. You really feel like drinking today, to not feel something and set your heart free for just a while.

But how were you supposed to know that with the alcohol buzzing in your system you will feel every emotion exponentially?

You had downed a number of cups of alcohol, a lot more than everyone else. Everyone except JJ was extremely concerned for you; all JJ did was just peg you on because you don't consume alcohol very often.

"I just miss him so much!" You say, wailing. Alcohol has spread all throughout your body, and you just have this urge to let out every single emotion.

You had popped.

"It's okay," Kiara says, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and trying her best to comfort you.

"It's not Kie!" You remove her arm from you and get up from you position on the sand. You just want him right now, you want him to wrap his arms around you, kiss your forehead and whisper the sweetest nothings in your ears.

"Why do you even miss him so much?" John B says. "He just ruined everything for us. Especially when he stole the cross from Pope. And he left you because he thinks you aren't the right class. Do you not see how messed up this is?"

"Can you stop saying shit about him?" You snap. "I know what he did okay? But I was the one who got to see the vulnerable side of him. The side of him which only cared for the two of us. We could've been something, you know? But this ridiculous treasure hunt of yours just got in the way."

John B starts to get riled up at your words. He knows you wouldn't say half these things if it isn't for the alcohol in your body, but he cannot help but feel angry on how you are blaming him for everything that happened.

"Oh so now it's my fault? Rafe was never supposed to stick his nose in this! The cross is Pope's family history, and it belongs to him. Rafe's just a greedy person who only cares about the money. We wanted to preserve Pope's heritage." John B snaps back at you. Sarah comes in between the two of you, fearing any more traction.

"John B, leave this matter alone okay?" She whispers to him, and tries to get him aside. Sarah looks at you sympathetically, she knows you'll regret everything you've just said when you'll get sober. She now walks up to you.

"We need to get you to bed right now okay?" She tried to look at you in your eyes, but you dodge them. Sarah motions to JJ and Pope towards you, and they both come up, taking one each of your arms and to lead you to your place.

When you three reach your house and JJ lays you down in bed, you feel tears forming in your eyes. "I really miss him J," you sniffle, wiping your tears with the back of your hand. He looks at you with a sorrowful look on his face. JJ hates Rafe's guts, especially after how horribly he treated you, but he hates to see his best friend in this situation even more.

"You'll be fine," he says softly. "You're the strongest person I know, and you'll be okay." You let his words sink in you, as your mind starts to slowly drift off to sleep.

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

Rafe is nervously pacing around his room, his teeth chewing away on his nails. The anxiety is spreading around like plague in his mind, and he just cannot get to stop thinking about it.

A deal he made with someone to sell some of the melted gold of the cross headed towards a direction he was not expecting. He's tried to think out a way out of this, but nothing seems to be the right solution.

Oh, only if you were there with him. You would softly run your fingers through his head and massage his scalp. "It's all going to be okay," you would mumble to him. And each time you told him that, everything did turn out to be okay. But right now you aren't there with him. And he craves you right now more than anything.

With a sudden impulsiveness, he gets his phone and finds your contact. His finger hovers over your name, does he take the risk of calling you or just forgets about it all?

He knows no one will approve of it. After all, you're a pogue. You have no place with all the kooks with their big mansions and their Maseratis in their backyards. But he longed you, he longed for your touch.

The last thing that Rafe cared about was you being a pogue. It didn't matter to him, all he wanted was you. But everyone else got to his head and made him believe you just don't belong with him.

"Are you sure you want to be with that filthy Pogue? After all, you may end up losing all your money." They would say, referring to how you're only with him because you care about the money he has.

"You don't belong with a pogue, Rafe. Come on man you're better than this." They would say, connecting a string of bad words with your name.

"What would everyone say? Did you even think about your reputation? You are a Cameron for god's sake." They would say, deeming you unworthy.

He shakes the thoughts out of his head. He knows he needs you more than anything else right now. Letting his spontaneity take over, he clicks on your contact.

His heart beats fast as he hears the ringing through the phone. And it almost stops when you pick up.

"Hello?" You say, groggily. You were just taking a nap and getting a call right in between wasn't what you wanted. You didn't even see who called you, you just accepted the call with your eyes almost closed.

"Uh, hey," Rafe says. You immediately sit up in bed. Why is Rafe calling you?

"Rafe?" You say. At this point, Rafe almost feels like melting. He hasn't heard your voice in months, and the sweetness of your voice is something he missed a lot. Everything starts to feel so much to him, and tears start to stream their way down as he sniffles silently.

"Rafe, are you crying? Are you okay?" You're now completely awake, ready to jump off the couch if he wants you there with him.

"Yeah, uh, I'm okay." He says, wiping off his tears. But that's pretty much useless, he just keeps on melting more and more on hearing you. Oh how he missed your voice.

There is a silence between you two, and you can hear each other's soft breathing. You missed him, you missed him a lot. You hated hearing everyone say he's a horrible person; you saw a side of him he never shows anyone. He made you feel so special, and now you feel like digging yourself in a hole, because you wish you weren't so afraid to ask him to be something more when you had the chance.

"I miss you," you blurt, not expecting it to happen. Rafe, on the other end, hears those words with widened eyes.

You miss him? He thought you probably hate his guts for the way he left you.

But you couldn't hate him. How can you hate the only person who made you feel complete?

"I miss you more," Rafe whispers. The tears don't stop, they keep on coming down like two waterfalls. He doesn't want them to stop either. He's finally feeling something. It had been way too long of being numb, not knowing what feeling is striking him.

You have had enough. You get up from your couch and start to make your way out of your house. "Rafe, are you at your home?"

Rafe gets confused on those words. "Yeah, why?"

You get out of your house and close the door behind you.

"I'm coming over."

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

You reach outside Tannyhill, and take in its view. You haven't seen it in so long, and you'd almost forgotten how big it is. You step up onto the porch, your heart beating very fast. Before you can ring the bell, the door opens and you see Rafe.

The world stops spinning. Rafe has buzzed all his hair off, but when you look in his eyes, all you see is emptiness. They've lost the charm which made you fall for him in the first place.

Rafe looks at you with utter shock. You've gone so pale; all the color is drained from your face. There are eyebags under your eyes, and you look extremely tired.

Without thinking anything, you run into his arms. His gentle touch, his soothing words, his relaxed breathing, all remind you of one thing: home. He's everything home is. His familiar scent immediately calms you down, and you start to sob, which becomes more and more violent with each passing second.

You drop down on your knees with Rafe still holding you. You can't believe you had almost started living a life without him in it. You had almost lost the one person who understood you without you having to say anything.

Rafe finds himself breaking inside on seeing you in this condition. He's the cause of it, if he wouldn't have given into the peer pressure of leaving you so easily, he would never have to see this day.

"I'm so so sorry bubs," he says, hugging you so tightly, his head resting in the crook of your neck. "I'm so very sorry. This happened all because of me."

"Sweets-" you start, but he cuts you off.

"Listen to me first, please." He pleads. "I never intended to do that to you. I hate to say this, but I was pressured to leave you. Everyone put this thought in my head that I don't belong with you solely because you're a pogue. They got to my head. That's the biggest fucking mistake of my life. I don't care you're a pogue. I wanted to make you mine, but before I can do that I left you, ghosted you completely. I'm so sorry, I promise to never leave you again."

You look at him with your red, rheumy eyes. The side which made you fall in love with him; his vulnerable side, is showing again and you are just breaking apart from the inside. Oh, how you missed the way he held you so close to him.

You softly hold his face in your hands and press your lips against his. You trace his lips with yours as you move closer to him, his arms snaked around your waist so tightly; he won't let you go again.

You missed the feeling of his lips on your own, the slight taste of the cigarettes he smokes lying on them. You missed your skin against his, the warmth radiating from his body to yours and making you all fuzzy on the inside.

Rafe will never leave you again. He will kill the one who says you don't deserve to be his, because no one in the world deserves you more than he does.

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

TAGLIST: @runningfrom2am @ragingsammie @maybankslover

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[fangirlwriting-stories]

Downward Spiral

Summary: No One Knows AU Part 7, Managing work-life balance as a superhero is hard in the best of times.

These are not the best of times.

Author's Note: So turns out, this didn't take nearly as long as I expected and there also aren't nearly as many chapters as I expected there to be (just three), so uh, here's the first chapter! Have fun with it like Danny won't!

...

At an actually decent suggestion from Jazz, Danny starts going home before going on patrol, just because too often if he tries to patrol first, he misses his much earlier much stricter curfew, and he really can’t afford to do that right now.

Jazz comes with him a lot of the time.  She brings a thermos or strategies in regards to the ghosts they’re most likely to find.  She catches the ghost sometimes, and Danny always feels grateful that her aim has gotten better.  Ghost fighting is more than a little easier with backup.

Tonight, however, nothing much helps, as there’s so many ghosts out and about it doesn’t matter how efficient or well-planned they are, they still get home after midnight.  Danny phases them both through the walls and up to his bedroom, and then collapses onto his bed and changes back without moving.

“That’s it,” he groans.  “I’m sleeping for a week.”

“Unfortunately we still have school tomorrow,” Jazz says, but he can tell she’s exhausted too.  She flops down on the bed next to Danny, but doesn’t bother looking at him as she keeps talking.  “At least it’s almost Friday.”

Danny manages a weak laugh.  “Never thought I’d live to see the day you’d be excited to see the weekend,” he says.

“I’m excited to be well rested,” Jazz mutters, and Danny looks over to find her eyes are already shut and she seems half asleep already.  He doesn’t want to make her move when they’re both this tired, but he doesn’t know if he has the strength to walk to her bedroom either.  So instead, they both end up falling asleep sideways on the bed, with Danny having just enough time to shove the thermos under his pillow to deal with in the morning before he passes out too.

…

A knock on his door wakes them both, but there’s barely any pause before it opens and Mom walks quickly in, looking nervous about something.

“Danny have you seen— oh, Jazz, you’re in here!”

Danny blinks blearily, trying to push himself upwards.

“Sorry Mom,” Jazz says, already awake and two steps ahead like usual.  “I was helping Danny study last night, and we both just kind of fell asleep.”

“Oh no worries, sweetie, I just didn’t know where you were,” Mom says.  And Danny expects that to be the end of it, but instead Jazz stands up and walks across the room, then gives Mom a quick hug.

Danny blinks in surprise, but Mom hugs Jazz tightly back for a second before giving her a smile and heading back out, with a call that she’d see them downstairs for breakfast.

“Uh, you guys good?” Danny asks, and Jazz turns to face him, blinking a couple times.  Maybe she’s not as awake as he thought she was.

“Oh, Mom and Dad just get more nervous when they don’t know where we are now,” Jazz says.  “That’s why I suggested coming home before patrol.  It’s not your fault, but we shouldn’t get in trouble for it.”

Danny narrows his eyes in concern.  “That’s why you suggested coming home before patrol?”

“Well, that and it’s generally easier to patrol if we’ve already had dinner,” Jazz says.  “It’s really okay, Danny.  Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“I wasn’t,” Danny says, sitting upwards and stretching his arms above his head in an effort to wake himself up.  “Meet you downstairs for breakfast.”

“Sure thing,” Jazz says, heading out to her own room.

Danny still isn’t quite awake when he does make it downstairs, but he sort of feels like he can make it through the day while feeling only slightly like a zombie.  As long as nothing happens, anyway, like Dash getting on his case or some large assignment being given or another ghost attack.

Oh who is he kidding, he’s doomed.

Someone nudges him in the shoulder, and Danny turns to see Jazz approaching from his side.  “I can drive you to school today if you want,” she says.  “Just so you don’t have to rush quite as much.”

“Yes please,” Danny says.  “You’re a lifesaver.”  He grabs one of the pieces of toast sitting on the plate in the center of the table, then takes a bite without bothering to put any butter or jam on it.

He manages to get ready with just a little time to spare, which gives him time to grab the thermos and head down to the lab.  Danny manages to send the ghosts stuffed into the thermos through the portal back into the ghost zone, where they’ll hopefully be for a while.

He’s about to turn around and head back upstairs when he hears the lab door open, and he freezes.

“Danny?” Mom asks, as she walks down the steps.  “What are you doing in the lab, don’t you need to be getting ready for school.”

“Uh, I think I left a pencil down here when I was cleaning,” Danny says, turning to the nearby cluttered lab table as an excuse, and starting to shift through papers.

Mom looks around with a raised eyebrow, lingering on the messy tables and scattered papers and beakers.  “Maybe you should take another crack at the cleaning part,” she says.

“Uh, totally,” Danny says, grabbing the first pencil he lands on and heading back upstairs.  “You got it Mom!  Sorry, I was just super busy with studying.”

“No, that’s alright, hun, studies come first.  Just make sure you make some time to do your chores too, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Danny calls as he runs back up the stairs.  He waits until he’s out of earshot to mutter to himself, “I’ll add it to the list of priorities, right under the ghost fighting.”

He shakes it off and moves to grab his bag, then heads out front to meet Jazz, who’s already waiting in the car.

“Ghosts taken care of?” she asks as Danny shuts the door.

“Yep,” Danny says as she pulls away.  “Thanks for the ride.  I don’t think I would have had time otherwise.”

“No problem.  I love it when there isn’t a thermos full of malicious entities stuck under your pillow all day.”

“It is one of my favorite decorative habits,” Danny says, giving an admittedly still exhausted smirk.

Apparently a little more exhausted than he thought, because he ends up falling asleep on the way to school, and Jazz shakes him awake when they get there.

“You sure you’re up for this?” she asks as Danny drags himself and his bag from the car.

“So up for this,” Danny says, waving her off.  “I’m gonna take a nap in homeroom and probably during lunch.  I’ll be fine.”

“Alright,” Jazz says.  “If you’re sure.”

“I’m definitely not.  How are you so awake by the way, that’s not even fair.”

“I wasn’t the one that did all of the actual fighting last night,” Jazz says as they start towards the school.  “And I also have a good sleep schedule the rest of the time.”

“Good sleep schedules are for chumps.”

“Yeah see, that’s probably part of your problem.”

“Bah.”

They split up as Danny reaches homeroom, where he does in fact put his head on his desk and sleep until the bell rings again.

He really can’t afford to sleep through his algebra class, though.  That one had taken the biggest hit while he’d been off doing crimes for Freakshow, and algebra has never been his strong suit.  He’s managed to get his grade back up to a somewhat decent C-, but it’s a shaky C-, one he can’t afford to slack on.  So in passing period, he splashes some water on his face, smacks himself in the face a couple of times, and then heads in to force himself to focus on numbers.

He sits near the window next to Tucker, who has algebra the same time as him, and who looks significantly less exhausted than he does, which is probably why he feels okay with whispering to him as class starts.

“Hey, did you get the homework done?”

Danny’s head snaps over to him.  “What?”

There isn’t homework due today, is there?  How did he forget that?

Oh, what does it matter?  He wouldn’t have had time to do it last night anyway, between getting slammed into concrete walls, or through store windows, or into other ghosts.

Tucker, next to him, holds up an entire packet of quadratic equations, all of which he’s done, and all of which look complicated.

Danny slams his head down on his desk.  “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Sorry dude,” Tucker says with a sympathetic frown.

Danny looks hopefully towards him.  “Could you help me make it up after school?”

Tucker winces, which doesn’t seem to bode well for his chances.

“Uh, sorry,” he says, looking away.  “Sam wants to, uh, do a thing.”

“A thing?”

“Yeah, at the park.  And you’re still grounded, so…”

Danny sighs, looking back at his desk.  “Right, yeah.  Thanks anyway.”

Tucker doesn’t say anything, and then the bell rings, and the teacher up front calls for everyone to pass in their homework.

There’s a two day late policy which doesn’t make exceptions for the weekend, meaning Danny’s gonna have to figure out some way to get it done today so he can turn it in tomorrow.  Maybe he actually will be up late to study that night.  Ghost fighting comes before homework, but homework tends to find a way to come before sleep.

And if he doesn’t want to piss off his mom, he’s gotta fit cleaning the lab in there somewhere.

Whatever, he can sleep all day Saturday.  It’ll be fine.  He’s grounded anyway.

…

Lunch seems to take forever to get there, and by the time Danny finally makes it to their usual table, Sam and Tucker are already there and talking.  Danny sets his tray down, then drops his backpack down on the table next to it and buries his head in it.

“Late night?” Sam asks.

Danny makes a grumbled noise of agreement.

“I thought you caught up on all your homework from being gone.”

“That does not stop me from forgetting about new homework, apparently,” Danny says, managing to pull his head up.

“Yikes,” Sam says.  “Good luck with that.”

“I’m gonna need it,” Danny mutters.  He grabs the apple from his tray and takes a bite a split second before he remembers why he doesn’t eat the terrible mealy school apples and spits it back out onto the tray.

“Geez Danny, you think you could try being a functional human today?” Sam asks, pulling her tray back towards her.

“Apparently not,” Danny says, giving a short laugh.  He covers the bite of the apple with a napkin to throw away when he finishes the rest of it.  “Sorry Sam, I didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

“I can tell,” Sam says with a roll of her eyes.  There was a short pause before Sam says, “You’re not alone in that, though.  There were ghosts fighting all night, they kept waking me up.”

Danny winces.  “Sorry, Sam.  That sucks,” he says.

“I bet it was Invis-o-bill again,” Sam says, turning to look at Tucker, probably trying to include him in the conversation, since he’s been pretty quiet through most of lunch, looking down at his PDA.  “Did you guys see how much damage he caused last night?  He needs to pay more attention.”  She nudges Tucker.  “He woke you up too, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Tucker says, looking down and tapping something on his PDA.

Danny doesn’t say anything, and instead takes a drink of his chocolate milk.  He probably should have paid more attention last night.  He and Jazz have been trying to cut down on the property damage as a way to help his image a bit.  The only problem being last night he was still out fighting at 11PM and he was achy and exhausted.  He’s still achy and exhausted.

Still, if Sam’s noticed that’s a problem.  The main point for all of this is to show her Phantom in a new light.  If that’s not working, then he needs to be doing something he’s not.

“I’m just saying,” Sam says to Tucker, apparently taking his agreement as more than it seemed to Danny.  “I’m getting a little tired of not getting enough sleep just because of a bunch of stupid ghosts.”

Danny snorts, taking another sip of milk to cover it as a cough.  That makes two of them.

Sam drops the ghost fighting after that, but Danny has trouble shaking off the sour tinge it adds to his mood for the rest of lunch.  He tries to reason his way out of feeling crummy about it while walking to his next class.

Of course Sam’s irritated she didn’t sleep well.  Danny’s irritated he didn’t sleep well too.  And of course she blamed it on Phantom.  That’s nothing new for her.  He’s just not in a great mood because he’s tired, and things will be more bearable tomorrow.

...

Chapter Two

[theratandcatshow]

Episode 10: Tragedy

The end of an adventurer. The end of a life. The end of a story.

All we can do is live as we endure loss.

---

This is it — the final chapter of this story. No long speeches. Just... thank you for reading.

wc: 4.6k

---

"Your order will be initiated immediately with a focus on achieving the target."

The words repeat in your mind, circling like a mantra, ugly, precise, empty. Over and over again.

A cool wind blows through the remains of your tattered clothes, tearing at your skin as if to remind you that you are still alive - against all logic.

You run. You no longer know how. Your legs no longer carry you; they only move because you tell them to. Your arms, your tail - everything is numb. Only your brain is still functioning, as if it had retreated into a final survival bubble.

You feel nothing, or rather: you deny it. The pain is too great, too incomprehensible for you to really admit it.

Your ears are ringing, a beeping, infinite sound hangs over everything. Every step is like a hammer blow against your rib cage, through which a web of broken ribs runs.

Blood drips rhythmically from your side and your head like a broken clock, your back burns and your left lung seems to have collapsed long ago - but none of that matters anymore. You are running.

You are going to die.

In maybe thirty minutes, probably less, your body will be finished. Your heart will give up, your breathing will stop, your brain will shut down. And why?

Because you weren't good enough.

You were not born. You were made. For a goal, for a purpose, for a task: to stop the Smiling Critters. Keep them in this fake world, analyze them, observe them, control them.

You did not manage that.

Then came the second task: kill. You or someone else. Execute the system. The black card. Stay functional, don't go beyond your limits.

You did not manage that either.

And then when the truth came - your human life, your past, your brother, your guilt, the reason you're in this state in the first place - when you thought you finally had something you could save... you were wrong again.

You killed the staff, yes. You ripped one's arm off, sliced open his neck and impaled his skull with your tail. And what did it achieve?

A few seconds of triumph. And a fatal countdown.

Your life was not prolonged but destroyed. The blows, the shots, the wounds - every single second you're still alive is a crime against the logic of biology.

Was it really worth it?

You get no answer. Only the wind, which continues to sweep through the trees as if it were laughing at you. You hear nothing. No breathing. No pulse. No sense.

Just the repetition of a sentence that stands over you like a tombstone:

"Your order will be initiated immediately with a focus on achieving the target."

But in the end, the target was only you.

In choosing both, you're losing both, right?

The thought is not particularly loud. No inner scream, no angry voice - rather a quiet echo that pushes through your pain-fogged mind.

You're walking, stumbling rather, your legs aren't carrying you, but you force them to anyway. You just want to keep going. You can no longer feel the ground beneath you, the damp grass, the cold wind - none of it reaches you anymore.

Your arms, your legs, your tail: dead.

Your left arm is heavy, your right is shaking, and your field of vision is a broken screen. Black dots flicker, red spots run through your field of vision, and no image has come out of your left eye for a long time.

It feels like your skull is going to burst, like your brain is pressing against a crumbling bone cage, with every step, every breath more like a choke.

You have lost. That's it.

You didn't stop the Critters' escape. You didn't even survive - you're going to die. If not by a bullet, then by your injuries. If not from blood loss, then from exhaustion.

If not today, then in a few minutes. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty. You don't know, and your mind doesn't even try to calculate anymore.

What was the point of all this?

You were created, designed, trained - a tool of observation, a spy in a game full of toys.

Your mission was simple: to observe, manipulate and control the Smiling Critters. But you accomplished none of it. No report, no victim, no escape prevented.

Even when you thought you had a goal - rebel against them, take back control, kill, rebel - even then you were too late, too weak, too wounded. Even revenge got you nowhere.

And now you run. With open wounds, broken ribs, maybe a collapsed lung. You no longer have control over your breathing, no strength in your limbs. You are only carried by fear.

The fear that you will never be more than that: a mistake.

Blood drips from your chin, seeps into your gloves, into the grass. And as you look down - with your only remaining eye - you see how red the green is.

And a thought crosses your mind, clearer than any other:

I'm going to die. And no one will know why I was here.

But just as this thought settles like a dark veil over your mind, the image in front of you dispels it - not through violence, not through pain, but through beauty. An absurd, almost outrageous beauty.

A stream, so clear that you can see the ground beneath the surface of the water, runs through the landscape.

It is wide, but calm. The current is gentle, barely audible. The sun's rays refract in it, as if someone were playing with light. Directly in front of it is a piece of land covered in soft, bright green grass that gently bobs in the wind.

And behind it - the sky. Blue, soft, with a few wispy clouds, as if someone had painted this world for a child who should never experience anything bad.

It doesn't look wrong. It looks perfect.

And for a moment - a brief, elusive moment - you no longer understand why the Smiling Critters wanted to escape in the first place. Why would you leave this world, this idyll, this false beauty, just to go back to what destroyed you all? The real world.

You slowly take a few more steps. Your legs are heavy, your body sways, and your vision flickers. Every single step feels like you're wading through thick, invisible water. But you reach the grass. The soft, cool, green grass.

You sink into it, not even on purpose. You just sit down, ignoring the burning pain in your side, the throbbing wound in your head, the numbness in your arm. Your ribs crack, or maybe it's just in your head. You don't know.

You sit on the ground. And you look at the water.

It moves - not quickly, not noticeably. It simply exists. Calmly. And you ask yourself when was the last time you saw something that was just there, without intention, without purpose, without lie.

This world is fake. Fake. Assembled like a dream. And yet... it looks more beautiful than anything you remember from the real world.

Maybe... that was the mistake.

Not that you failed.

It's that you thought there was a reason to fight at all.

"This is the last time that you'll be able to come within two meters of me... Come near me again and I'll rip you apart."

The threat echoes in your skull like a hallucination, and with it the last timer comes on - there may be twelve minutes left, maybe ten, maybe eight.

Your mind roars: Pull yourself together! But the rest of you is already lying in the grass, broken and empty, while the stream flows on in front of you as if the misery around you is none of its business.

The last shred of sanity, that arrogant, analyzing, man-hating rat inside you, tries to take another run at it...

Come on, get up, take the chance, kill, flee, report - do SOMETHING.

But the truth is: you're too tired.

Your voice wavers in your head, your statements in this Fake World.

"But that's understandable, after all, this world isn't real and only exists for the Smiling Critters."

"Wait... what am I?"

"Ah... I'm one of those experiments now."

"Do I really have to fight one of them at some point?"

Your left eye has long since capitulated; blood is slowly seeping down your cheek, dripping onto your pants, and you stare at the dark red drops, lost in thought.

"Who am I really?"

The sentence sounds almost casual, but it swallows up everything else.

You feel sunlight moving across the water, refracted into liquid gold; your only functioning eye follows the glide without seeing any purpose in it.

Shadows creep in from the edges of your field of vision, your breathing becomes erratic, and the boundary between the outside world and your inner fog dissolves.

"Habits can't be fixed... just like fate."

"I won't dress it up. At their base, humans are no different from a flock of pigeons..."

No one will win; no pigeon will fly anywhere here - not even you.

What remains? A list of unanswered questions, loose ends that will never be tied up:

Where is CatNap?

What is the prototype really?

What are the men in the white coats planning?

Is Kickin still alive, or does he now bear scars as deep as yours?

Did I know the Critters before I was stuffed here?

Every question dies as soon as it's formulated.

You raise your left hand automatically, pressing it against the bursting head wound; when you pull it back, it's almost shiny black with blood, but between the streaks clear water - no, tears.

I didn't even know I could still cry.

The stream rushes on unperturbed, the grass waves in the wrong wind, and above it all glides the immaculate sky of this plastic-blue world, in which even dying looks like a beautiful painting.

But I don't want to die...

Everyone knows that they will die at some point. It's only logical. Whoever is born will die.

For something to be beautiful... it has to become a memory.

But I don't want to become a memory.

I don't want to be the bland aftertaste of a failed project, not the note in some report labeled "Failed “. Eliminate."

What would happen if I died right now, right here? If I stopped taking these few minutes out and just stopped breathing?

It would make no difference. Nothing. No one would notice. No one would care.

Your body would stay right here on the shore, slumped between the fake grass and the artificially created current. The rain would come and cover you, maybe eventually an algorithm would report your state of decay, but never anyone with real thoughts, real questions.

You are nothing. A victim. A disgrace. A murderer. A traitor. A spy. And worse: you were once a child.

Why were you even born?

You have a human being on your conscience - your brother. An innocent man. One who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because of a goddamn rat.

And instead of learning, you just kept going. Killed some more. Kept watching. Continued to manipulate.

The tears kept flowing, you hardly noticed. No wonder your father hated you. No wonder no one stood by you anymore. You were the mistake. You are the reason.

"God... you took the wrong son..."

Yes, he was right.

You really are scum. A disappointment.

If you were to write a story with you in the lead role, it would certainly be...

A Tragedy.

And in a few minutes, you'll be-

"There he is!"

The words hit you like a lightning strike, snapping you back to a reality that is no longer a reality. Voices. Somewhere behind you. Quickly. Close.

Authenticity flickers into your consciousness, as if there were a thin thread still holding you. But you don't know if this is salvation - or just the last chapter.

Your eye opens just a little, tired, and sluggish. No more pain, but no real vision either. Everything blurs into one another, as if the world itself were just a painting that has been exposed to the rain for too long.

You see a piece of green, pointed ears, and then the clacking of metal in the sunlight: Hoppy. Of course it's her. Of course it's her.

She's standing right in front of you, not even half a meter away, and the gun she hit you with earlier is still pointing at you. It's almost as if she never put it away. As if this moment will just repeat itself forever.

You've already shot me. What else are you going to do?

But there's nothing. Not a word, not a sound, just the circling of the wind, the soft gurgling of the stream and your breathing, which is no longer even.

"Hoppy! God damn it!" The voice is distant, distorted, and you don't know who is speaking. Your ear only recognizes static. Your eye stays on her. On the hand that trembles. On the finger that doesn't pull the trigger.

"Oh my..."

"Shit..."

More voices. More silhouettes. You hear footsteps, walking through the grass that bends to the side under each step. Shadows in front of you. Two of them are already standing right on the shore, where the water glistened before your blood turned it red.

You want to look at them, want to do something, but your gaze only falls back down to the grass below you - grass that is almost black and red, wet with the mixture of blood and fake dew. It feels like a grave. Your grave.

"Where's CatNap?"

You want to laugh. Honestly. You really want to laugh, loudly, resoundingly, so loudly that they finally fall silent, that they understand how ridiculous this is - how often you've heard it before. But you can't. Your mouth is numb, your tongue heavy.

And if you had the strength to kill yourself right now, you would. Just so you wouldn't have to hear that damn question one more time.

"Hey!" Someone grabs your head, abruptly, perhaps hoping to get you to talk.

But the hand immediately moves back again. As if you've reached into a carcass, blood, and perhaps more sticks to the other person's skin. A shock goes through the group, but no one says anything.

You just sit there. In the grass. In the midst of blood. In the midst of the Smiling Critters. Without facial expression, without reaction, with open eyes that no longer want to see anything. You are no longer here. Not really. And yet... you're still here.

"Why did you try to kill Kickin?" - Someone shouts. You don't have to look to know who it is. DogDay.

"Why did you try to kill Kickin?!" He repeats louder this time, almost pleading. His voice cracks, his breathing is unsteady.

"Who are you really?!" - Another voice. You're not sure who. Maybe Bubba. Maybe it's Crafty. Maybe... it doesn't matter at all.

"Why were you spying on us! What was that all about! What are you?!"

You don't answer.

You don't have to answer.

Despite your gaping wounds, despite the throbbing sound in your head that feels like the echo of a dying engine, despite the blood slowly filling your lungs, you are... glad.

Glad that you don't have to speak. Glad that you can leave them in this state - full of questions, full of uncertainty, full of guilt. They think they deserve answers. But you don't owe them anything. Not after everything.

Your gaze wanders slowly over the scene. The sun is low, touching the end of the sky as if to say goodbye. The grass flickers slightly under the movement of the false wind, the air is still but heavy.

You feel every single movement, every breath, every trembling word around you, but you let it flow through you like water through a broken pipe.

"Answer us!" Picky screams, her voice breaking and tears flowing.

"What did you do?!" shouts Bobby, upset, besides herself, on the verge of tears.

"You know something. You know everything. Tell us!" Bubba is barely recognizable, his look a mixture of anger and fear, tears flowing at the same time.

You don't move. You look at them all in turn - not appraisingly, not judgmentally. You just look. As if you were meeting them all for the first and last time.

As if this wasn't the end, but the beginning of something. And in a way, maybe it is.

You feel nothing. No guilt, no anger, no remorse. Just this last, fleeting hint of peace - not because you have understood why it all happened, but because it no longer matters.

You have lost. You are going to die. And yet, in all the defeat, in all the failure, there is something... Pure.

Something that even the truth can no longer reach. Because now that you are finally allowed to be silent, now that you no longer have to fight, there is only one thing left:

Silence.

"Please..." A voice breaks through. For a moment, your mind switches back on, the blood continues to run out of your mouth, drips down your chin, your neck, your chest, but one last bit of concentration allows you to perceive the words.

"Can you tell us... where CatNap has disappeared to?" It's DogDay. He's kneeling in front of you, and his voice is nothing more than a brittle, whimpering sob.

He shakes, bends lower and starts crying for real. Not the kind of crying where you try to show strength - no, it's the ugly, honest, shameful weeping of a being who has to admit to himself that he has failed.

His arms tremble, his paws dig into the grass as he mumbles the same thing over and over again. "It's my fault... I should have stopped all this... I should never have let it get this far..."

You look at him, or rather: your eyes wander briefly in his direction, but you can hardly see anything anymore. Everything is blurred.

The others start to cry alongside him. Bubba, who is sobbing so loudly that he almost chokes.

Bobby, her head down and her shoulders cramped with pain.

Picky, just standing there with her paws pressed to her face.

Crafty, crying quietly because she doesn't want the others to hear.

And then there's Hoppy.

"I didn't mean to!" She almost screams, her voice shaking, breaking in the middle. "I didn't mean to shoot you down... but when I saw your face, when you were standing over Kickin in the rain - the way you were choking him - I just couldn't do it anymore... I couldn't stop myself!"

Her voice cracks, her ears twitch, tears stream down her cheeks, she clutches the gun like a frightened animal that doesn't even know why it's still alive.

You look at her. Or at least to where you think she is. Your vision is so red, so dark, so tired that you can hardly tell if it's light or shadow that you're still seeing.

DogDay keeps talking like a broken record, his "I'm sorry" mingling with the drops of blood you can feel running down your cheek.

"We just wanted to escape... just escape..." he repeats, and you realize how much these words are tearing him apart.

It gets quieter for a moment. Then he asks again, in a scratchy, barely audible voice: "Do you know... anything? Anything about CatNap? About... the outside world? What they're up to...?"

You're barely breathing, but somehow you work your way through this last fog, diving into the last fragments of your mind.

You remember. Of CatNap. Of the prototype. Of this meeting. Of how CatNap said he didn't want to endanger the others with an open rebellion. That he would rather disappear than put them in danger.

And you remember DogDay and the others, how they refused to run away with CatNap because they were afraid. Afraid of losing control and their plan. Afraid of losing CatNap.

"We should have gone with them then..." DogDay says softly, and though his voice is little more than a breath, it cuts into your skull like a nail. "I was too much of a coward... I left him alone..."

But you no longer care.

You just stare into space. You can feel the blood in your mouth. You can feel that you don't have long left. Your fingers barely tremble because they're too weak. Your body has long since given up and even your mind wavers between consciousness and giving up.

Then there's Bubba.

His voice is overflowing with desperation, with genuine, bottomless panic. "Please... you're the only one who might still know something... You're our last chance, the last connection to anything real... If you die now, we'll have nothing! Nothing! Please! Tell us... something!"

Silence.

Your gaze is empty. The colors blur, the water next to you rushes on as if there were nothing. And maybe there is nothing. Maybe it was from the beginning.

You feel your lips open ever so slightly. Every muscle in your face trembles. You breathe in slowly; the pain is like fire in your chest. The others stare at you, freeze, every single one of them.

Then you form the words, in a voice tortured from a broken larynx:

"Shut... the fuck up... and let me die in peace."

The glances that meet you are countless, blurred, and difficult to interpret due to the blood that has collected in your still-functioning eye, but you recognize their colors.

Disappointment. Confusion. And then this horrible, naked sadness.

"I can see the outcome. And trust me... it's not pretty."

You have failed. And still... still they stand there, with glazed eyes and shaky voices, expecting, after everything that has happened - after the death, the blood, the truth - that you will really still help them.

That you, the rat, the spy, the murderer, the good-for-nothing with a body that could stop functioning at any moment, will deliver some goddamn meaning now.

You're going to die anyway.

So why should you bother?

"The reason the horse jumped like that then... the reason it panicked and buried Nicholas underneath it... was the rat."

Your eye opens as wide as it can. And something is there. In your shattered, perforated, desperate mind. No memory. Not a thought. More like... a remnant.

I'll kill you. Kickin!

Your mouth is moving. Again. The blood runs out of your teeth like warm syrup and spoils the beautiful, artificial grass under your chin.

The critters look - silently - and you finally speak, for the first time not as an observer, not as an enemy, not as a shadow in the trees, but as someone on the verge of losing everything.

"Smiling Critters... do you ever think it was all in vain?"

Silence.

One moment. Two. And then it hits them directly. They understand. Not everyone at once, not loudly, not immediately, but slowly - in the way a child understands that it can never go back.

That the game is over. That the place where they stood is now only a shadow of what they thought it was.

There is no accusation. No contempt in your words. You have no strength left for hate. You ask it honestly. More honest than anything you've ever said.

The others start to cry. Different than before. No shock. Not fear. But that one kind of crying you have when you realize you're too late. When you know you've lied - to yourself, to others - and that there's nothing you can do now to make up for it.

They talk to each other. Tearing each other apart with guilt and self-hatred. Some shout at each other, others curl up like wounded animals.

Because that's what they are - small, artificial beings in a world that was never real, but still feels damn real when you're about to lose everything.

And then there's DogDay. Still in front of you, still with trembling paws that can't decide whether to hold you or let you go. His voice breaks. Again. And again.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." He's shaking like a child with a fever; his words coming in fits and starts. "I never wanted this... I never wanted anyone to have this fate... not you... not CatNap... not us..."

But you hardly hear him anymore. Because you are getting ready. For the last thing you're going to say. Your final statement. No big speech, no revelation, no heroic deed.

You could say so much...

You could tell them about the prototype. About how everything is connected, how CatNap met him.

You could tell them about the other worlds. The other versions of themselves. And about you.

You could tell them about the people out there. About the scientists. About Sawyer. About the decision-makers.

But you don't.

Because it doesn't matter anymore. Because they might find out for themselves one day. Or never. And because your story - like every story - would have no meaning without an ending.

A life, a lie, a mistake, a joke. Everything becomes more bearable if there is at least an ending.

And so, you raise your right arm. Slowly, shakily.

You can't feel him. You know it's still there just because you can see it in your remaining eye. You bring it to the corner of your mouth, slowly, almost tenderly, and form a smile with the last remnants of your willpower. A real one.

Blood drips from your mouth. Thick, dark red, heavy. And with a broken voice, broken lungs, broken soul, you whisper:

"Smilling Critters...If I told you I just wanted to live a normal life..."

Your smile remains. The blood continues to run. And one last time you straighten up inside - as someone who just wanted to live.

"You'd laugh, wouldn't you?"

You say nothing.

Not a word.

Just tears. Just this silent, merciless realization that they never understood who you were - because you never had the chance to find out for yourself.

And as they stand still, staring, holding each other, the image they had of you shatters inside them.

They realize: You were never the enemy. You were just... lost. Like them. Maybe even more.

You see the look on her face. Picky, with tears she won't wipe away. Hoppy, her shoulders shrugging as if she's forbidding herself to breathe. Bubba, silent because for the first time he doesn't know what's right. DogDay, with a broken voice, broken posture, broken guilt.

And all the others, in a circle, as if they don't want to lose you, even if you're long out of reach.

And then you do it.

Slowly, you raise your right arm. The movement is nothing more than a tremor, a gesture without strength, but it's there.

You are showing.

Not with words, not with screams, but with this broken, outstretched arm. Everyone turns in the direction marked by your trembling fingers. And they see nothing but trees. The dark forest. The empty, dense nothingness between light and shadow.

They don't know what you mean. But they know that you are showing them.

You show them the way.

The path you have taken all these days. The place where you have filed your reports, day after day, in the hope that someone is listening. The narrow gap between this world and the other. The exit. Or the end.

Nobody asks anything. It would be pointless. You won't tell them anything more, and they know it.

Bubba takes a step back, pulls a tattered notebook from behind his back and writes down the directions. No questions. No comments. He knows this moment must not be disturbed.

And for a long, painful moment, everything is silent. No voice. No wind. No rustling. Just the soft dripping of your blood on the soft grass that will eventually no longer bear life.

If the critters ever made it out of here...

Whether they will find CatNap again or meet the prototype...

Whether they will ever understand who you really were... you will probably never know.

Because this is your end.

The End.

---

Wow. Really—wow. What can I even say?

Let me start quietly: this story has been an adventure.

Even if it's the one with the fewest views or kudos, I hope it finds the readers it was meant for—those who can see it for what it truly is: a tragedy.

The rat, you, were destined to die from the very beginning. Even back in Chapter One, I knew that rebirth as a rat would end in death. But a short, meaningless story wouldn’t do. I wanted something more: interactions with other creatures, the prototype, and a main character who learns to navigate a world where survival is uncertain.

Writing from the perspective of a true underdog—someone always hiding, watching—was both a challenge and a joy. And still, in those rare moments of action, he always managed to stand tall… until the very end.

Honestly, I’m not sure how to keep writing after this. The story is over. And I loved every part of it. I'd write something like this again in a heartbeat—if I weren’t already tangled in other stories and ideas.

The rat is, to me, one of the most tragic characters I’ve written. A cruel human life ending in the murder of his own brother. A father who hated him. And then, reborn as a rat, only to face the same fate all over again.

I thought about writing a character analysis, but I won’t. Everything this story means is now in your hands. Interpret it however you like.

I’ll respond to every comment—and if you have questions about the story, feel free to ask.

Thank you for reading.

– Unreal144

[nyerus]

Hello, I saw your blog as a place to know about TGCF. Do you mind if I ask something as a new of TGCG? So if Lan Ying is Jun Wu in disguise does it mean from the start of the story, it's Jun Wu all along? Also, if He Xuan already fulfill his retribution to Shi Wu Du, how come he is still on earth and not moving on? Sorry for my silly ask, @nyerus ....

Hi there! I don't mind answering at all! Welcome to the fandom!

Lang Ying was not Jun Wu in disguise! Jun Wu used him to recuperate his "clone" of Bai Wuxiang (it's not very clear as to what's going on there). But the child Lang Ying who stayed with Xie Lian in Puqi for a short while was originally the nephew of the King Lang Ying -- the man who Xie Lian helped in Book 2 (not volume 2, but the actual arc), but who then betrayed him and ended up becoming the King of Yong'An. The nephew at some point contracted Human Face Disease and ran away before he was killed by the others, only to apparently succumb anyway. (It's implied he also saw Xie Lian in the throne room in Book/Arc 4 when Xie Lian confronted King Lang Ying.) We aren't ever told what happened between the boy and Jun Wu, but by some method, Jun Wu convinced him to agree to harbor Bai Wuxiang on his person to leech from.

The question about Shi Wudu and He Xuan is a bit complicated and leaves room for a little bit of interpretation. But to keep it short and give you the jist of it: it's because He Xuan's retribution was unsatisfying. He killed Shi Wudu, but Shi Wudu basically went out the victor in the scenario. He died laughing that he and his brother lived lavishly at the expense of He Xuan for centuries, while He Xuan toiled away instead. Shi Wudu was not remorseful in the slightest, did not beg for mercy or forgiveness, nothing. What meaning does He Xuan's revenge have, then? Basically nothing. And though Shi Qingxuan too benefitted from He Xuan's fate, he was unknowing of it, and though he chose his brother in the end, it is difficult to blame him for that. Though, He Xuan very much thought of Shi Qingxuan failing the impossible test he set out for him. It's hypocritical because He Xuan took the fate/life of an innocent person (real Ming Yi, though He Xuan is not the one who killed the man -- just you know, imprisoned and impersonated him for ages) just as Shi Wudu had, for the sake of his own family. There were no victors in that situation: only losers! Naturally, He Xuan would feel his grudge to be rather unfulfilled. But eventually, he'd probably just fade away without much of anything to keep tying him to the mortal plane as the years go by.

I hope these answered helped shed some clarity! They're definitely two of the most confusing aspects of the novel haha!

[bunbeeplays]

Xander wakes up to Marshmallow eating garbage.

Xander: No, bad kitty! You don't get to act out because Mommy isn't here today.

He proceeds to hypocritically dig through the trash looking for upgrade parts before tossing the rest.

Marshmallow: father you are ruining my feast

Ophelia's out for the day, and Xander has plans of his own. He and Hilary need to sort things regarding their parents' will. Now that Hilary is divorced, she's been staying in the Pappas manor. He never got to talk to his parents about moving out, but his sister will do.

It's been rough for Greta. Not only did her grandparents die, but her dad is an unfaithful jerk? And he's having a baby with someone other than her mom?

She's staying in her mom's teen bedroom. It's a little… bright for her liking, but it's better than being with her dad.

Jace has been trying his best to be optimistic. So much of this has been confusing, but he knows his mom and dad aren't together anymore, and Dad is having a baby with that Tiff lady.

At least he gets to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's old house. They have monkey bars AND a pool!

Hilary is… adjusting. Suddenly inheriting your parents' restaurant right before going through a divorce is a lot to handle. She still hasn't registered her new position with the Ministry of Labor but she does so quickly as she hears Xander come through the front door.

Xander might be a goofball, but he has been absolutely amazing the past several days. Hilary's not sure she could have gotten through all this without his support. Their parents would be so proud of him, and she makes sure to tell him so every chance she gets.

Xander: So today's the day we duke it out for Mom and Dad's money?

Hilary: Very funny, Alexander. There are a few things we'll need to discuss, given the… current circumstances.

Hilary and Xander proceed to have a very boring, but important conversation. The house is in both of their names but there's no interest in selling. Hilary and the kids will move into the Pappas manor with Xander. Y'know, even though he barely lives there anymore. Speaking of…

Xander: Not that I don't love you guys, and I know there's tons of room here, but would it be crazy to move in with Ophelia?

Hilary: Of course not! That's wonderful. What a big step!

Xander: It's not that big, I basically live there now anyway.

Xander: I bet Greta would love my space up in the attic! She can put some planters out on the balcony and work on her gardening.

Hilary: I'm sure she would love that. She's trying to pretend she's fine but I can tell she's hurting. Anything to make her feel more at home.

Xander: I've still got to talk to Ophelia about it but I have a hunch she'll say yes.

Hilary: I'm not a betting woman but I'd put money on it. Mom and Dad left you a decent chunk of money if you want to save for something bigger, for the future? Like… if you start a family?

Xander: Subtle.

Hilary: Oh, hush! Even when you were with that horrid Jules, you had never even considered moving in together. Face it, little brother, you've met the Sim you're going to spend the rest of your life with.

Xander: It's not like it's a secret to me either, Hil.

Xander: Ophelia's the one, I know it. She laughs at my lame jokes, she lifts me up when I'm down, she helps me shave my back hair. I know we're going to get married and have like a kajillion little blonde babies someday, but we don't have to talk about my love life right now.

Hilary: Just because my love life's in the gutter doesn't mean I can't be happy for yours going well! I'm just saying, once the dust settles, you'd better put a ring on that girl!

Xander: Are you meddling in my relationship so we don't have to keep talking about the will?

Hilary: Well, I do have something important to talk to you about. Before they passed, Mom and Dad were telling me about an idea for business venture they had.

Xander: They already have a food monopoly in Tartosa.

Hilary: Yes, but they never had a bar.

Hilary: I would have always inherited the restaurant, because I'm a chef. But they wanted you to pursue your dream as well.

Xander: I am though?

Hilary: That bar area at the restaurant is too small. Mom and Dad wanted you to have your own place for your passion, like they did.

Xander: Mom and Dad wanted me to put me in charge of a bar?

Hilary: They always loved your passion for mixology. They put the money aside dedicated to starting a bar here in Tartosa. They even picked out a plot of land.

Xander: This is a lot, sis.

Hilary: If you don't think you're ready, we can always wait. But just know, I'll be there to help you. I've got plenty of business experience from my years shadowing Mom and Dad. I've got your back, whatever decision you make.

Xander: Wow. Thank you, Hilary.

Whatever the future holds for Xander's career, he knows Hilary will always be in his corner.

Hilary's life as a Laurent may be over, but it feels good to be a Pappas again.

Hilary has to go to the restaurant and Xander doesn't exactly have much else going on (I really need to get him some kind of hobby besides mixology), so he makes some falafel for the kids and listens to Greta vent. The divorce is rough enough, but some random half-sibling? Ew.

Jace joins them and Greta changes up her attitude real quick.

Jace: Are you guys talking about the baby?

Greta: Oh, uh, yeah. How you feelin' about it, twerp? Excited to be a big brother?

Jace: I guess. It's weird Mom isn't the mom though.

Greta: Being a big sibling is fun! You can make them do your bidding!

Jace: Does that mean I can hog the bathroom every morning like you?

Greta: Brutal! You've already got that big sib teasing down!

Greta's always looking out for her little brother. She's so much like her mom.

Before heading back to Ophelia's he decides to make a treat for his Lemon Cake: a lemon cake!

Look how proud he is. His mom would be so happy to know he's been getting into cooking and baking more.

Xander beats Ophelia home, but only by a little bit.

Xander: There you are! Where did you go?

Ophelia: Omari suggested going on mental health walks, and I ended up in another save somehow. I dunno, it was nice being somewhere Hector doesn't exist. But hey, I made a new friend!

Xander: Well you're not allowed to go to another save file permanently. Not without me.

Ophelia: Wouldn't dream of it. We're a package deal. That's what I told Marcie! How'd things go with Hilary?

Xander: Great. In fact, we talked about something I wanted to talk to you about.

Xander: Greta's going to take my room.

Ophelia: The one you've barely slept in the past few weeks?

Xander: Yeah. I was thinking we should make our current living arrangement permanent.

Ophelia: I'll have to talk to Marshmallow, but I for one definitely agree.

Xander pulls Ophelia in for a kiss outside the front door of her home, the place that they initiated their first night together. Now it's their home.

As the great and wise poet Bo Burnham once said, look at where they came from, look at them now.

[didyouswallowastarr]

I've word vomited on the internet my entire life.

when I was younger, I was so lost & hurt all the time. I didn't want to be in a world that never understood me. when I was younger, I wasn't much understood either, but I understood myself. teacher's pet, constantly following my teachers around to babble about books, my ideas, concepts, my dreams. teacher's pet lead to silence when I'd quite literally have to tone down how much I enjoyed reading when I'd get the eye roll when I surpassed the amount of minutes spent reading every month. little did everyone know I was toning that down too to stop being seen as a 'try hard'. I read for hours every single night to escape. in middle school I was writing an email, a girl came up to me & questioned why. "I'm already done with all of my homework," staring idly at the email, checking for grammatical errors to an unsent message to my pen pal. "Do mine." I made a face, what do you mean? do YOUR homework? "No," I scoffed, & then she bit me. which made me laugh, I thought to myself... was this the excitement of MY story? so we became bestfriends. my mom always concerned about the dirt I was getting on a dress I didn't mind getting dirty, I was along for the ride at that point. leaving the bedroom with a canopy bed, & tall bookcases filled to the brim. in my mind, though we moved every year, that is where my soul resided all along. was I sheltered or running the streets like a little kid again? where was I anyway? my story isn't a pretty one, but I often romanticize it to work through the trauma. I'd write about people in their best moments, & bury the horrific traumas so deep within, that it was much to unpack as an adult. I wanted to scrub away the dirt so badly, I wanted to pretend that none of it ever happened to me. I wanted to be the heroine that could save everyone else, but ultimately always lost myself in that. I've lived a life I'm surprised I even have the time left to tell. I've escaped death so many times, & when I finally wanted to live for my future, it was so bad I didn't know how. there are no villains in my life story, nor heroes, just human beings. some did vile, horrendous, unspeakable things, but I was trapped in a whirlwind, a train, & it was bound to crash & split wide open. have I said & done things I regret? hasn't everyone? do you think I wouldn't admit my wrong-doings? most people aren't capable. I'm exhausted of spinning narratives that paint people in the best light, & leaving myself with no paint. others paint me as someone incapable of change, incapable of remorse, or simply just a liar before I could even live to tell the tale. so many stones cast at a woman because she word vomited about her trauma. I chose silence once again so everyone would stay away, left the entire state. to a place I called my castle of isolation, where I met other lost souls, & ultimately fell again. chasing a love that simply did not exist, chasing a bottle with nothing but a breath. chasing acceptance from people who'd discard me in a second. I was given a chance to show my growth in that regard & I simply didn't want to play that game either. I hurt someone I truly cared for, & he truly cared for me, but there was a lot of pain there too. & in the end, I was running from the only person I ever dare dreamt to have an actual calm steady 'boring' life with... because I've been chronically ill my whole life & I had squandered it. because dreaming with him I thought maybe I hadn't. maybe I could still be who I am with all the wounds, & I don't mean my arms. scars on my soul, which he saw & still called beautiful. I no longer cared for what I looked like, I just wanted to be seen for who I truly am. he wasn't perfect either, many scars in those eyes. but the intent was always there, he wanted me to keep growing. do you know how hard that was to let go? with an ultimate savior complex, I begged God to take me instead, because I truly believed he wouldn't get everything he ever wanted in this lifetime, in a state of fear. I truly believed I couldn't go on, that my chronic illness' had won, & sometimes they do.

being scathed by the reaper isn't anything new to me, but I will say, the only enemies I have now are the stairs, the shower, my schedules, & time itself. I won't get into politics here, not everyone is meant to change the world, certainly not someone who can barely get out of bed some days. maybe in my past writings for a book never published I did fight for that. I've become so frustrated with my computer & the internet, the constant buzzing... that a phone call to program support is too overwhelming right now. I'm frightened when I go to appointments, & get unexpected calls. my nervous system needs a break, so I cut myself some slack. I don't sit here & pretend anymore, & I have no battles to uphold when I no longer pay it mind. I've made amends on my own time, & I continue. but who do I owe the most time to? myself & those I love. how could a bleeding heart, a bleeding soul, do anything but bleed? they create, even if that creation is just a breath. do I love him? always. but I had never been in love before, though I'd loved people that ended in destruction, I'd never been in love. not with a person. so maybe the key was always inside of me, in the past, in my dreams, in the rivers, streams, oceans, fields, mountains, skies, maybe I wasn't a bird screaming anymore, a weeping willow, a wildflower that caught fire, who knows? maybe I was a spider who grew wings.

maybe the journey was always back to my own heart, & the love I needed to pour back into my own reality, the people around me, & my own art, my own wings.

-Sataija Starr Aroz

(I think I should start signing these, right?)

P.S. are we expected to inhale word vomit? because trust me, I've learned the weight of my words by now, & its exhausting replaying it all. I have too much on my plate to keep eating it. or rather not enough food on my plate to keep eating regret.

[radicalshelbs]

I really thought we could make it.

I really really wanted us to make it.

I sit in my living room, staring at the phone in my hands. My chest is hot and so are the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes.

My cat rubs his face along my legs, oblivious to the fact that my world has caved in and I am being berated with debris.

The clock says 6:13am.

I want to scream, I want to sob, I want to fall apart completely and become a mound of rubble but I have to open the theater today.

I stand and hobble to the bathroom.

I turn the cold nozzle in the shower and proceed to sit down.

I sit and silently scream, tears pouring down my face, as not to wake my parents or neighbors this early.

The light of my life has just been extinguished and I have to pop popcorn at 10am.

I hear my alarm going off and then from there and getting to the theater is a blur.

I pop the popcorn, I do the theater checks, soft sobs escaping my mouth.

I smile and laugh with my staff.

They don't know.

I sit at box, breathing, trying to keep myself together.

C walks in and I don't greet him.

He notices but doesn't press.

I go to leave and run into D.

D notices. He does press.

D knows.

Somehow, someone knowing makes it too real.

I try to keep it in but tears escape.

D hugs me.

He hates hugs.

But he hugs me anyway.

I hurry to my car.

I scream in my car, driving home with tears blinding me.

I sob in my car then try to compose myself.

I walk inside and my mom is by the door already.

What's wrong?

I say work was rough and she believes it.

She didn't know.

She doesn't want to know.

I go to my room.

I text F.

I cave and text C too.

F is busy but C answers.

I try to break the news lightly.

You aren't the only single manager anymore, haha.

C is typing.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

Me too.

I stare at the ceiling.

I finally saw them after 5 years of being away.

In the span of a few minutes, I lost them.

I burned the bridge myself.

I burned the bridge and now there's ash smudged at the tip of my fingers where I held the match.

Maybe if I wash the ash off my hands, I can fix it.

Do I want to fix it?

Do I want to settle?

Do I excuse the hurt?

Did I make a mistake?

I get up and throw my phone down and rush to the pool.

I jump in and once I'm at the bottom, I scream.

I come back up for air and go back down to drown out my agony.

I float for what feels like hours and walk home.

Did you have a good swim, Shelbs?

Yeah mom.

The days start to warp together.

I can't tell when time has passed, everything is moving yet still.

I wake up in the mornings and throw up.

I spend the days trying to keep my mind busy, talking and forcing laughs and smiles.

I feel guilty for trying to keep the conversations going for as long as I can.

They're tired.

They have lives.

They are sick of hearing about it.

They are sick of me too.

At the end of the night, everyone leaves.

The silence is deafening.

I can't catch my breath.

My mistakes materialize in my room, dancing with the shadows.

Whenever I feel alone, I would just send a message.

I would send an invite to a game.

I would hit Facetime.

I would Snap.

I can't do that anymore.

My hands go numb as I pick up my phone.

I can't do that anymore.

I throw up again.

How did this happen?

All these years.

How did this happen?

Was I in the wrong?

I should just learn that I do not deserve love.

I should have just accepted my fate.

I should have taken the abuse.

I would have been wounded but I would not have been lonely.

I would at least have them sometimes.

The sun comes up.

I look at my phone.

The clock says 6:13am.

I want to scream, I want to sob, I want to fall apart completely and become a mound of rubble but I have to open the theater today.

I stand and hobble to the bathroom.

I turn the cold nozzle in the shower and proceed to sit down.

I sit and silently scream, tears pouring down my face, as not to wake my parents or neighbors this early.

The light of my life has just been extinguished and I have to pop popcorn at 10am.

[nightcall99]

Dreams from 14.11.23

Dream 1: I was at work with SM and AL and then out of the blue, SL shows up to start his shift. I haven't seen him in a long time and he hasn't worked for the company for many years. It's good to see him. He goes into the corner office to put away his things and I follow him in there. We don't say anything, just look at each other in mutual incredulousness toward life. The feeling is like, 'what are we even doing anymore?'.

As we are working, SL and I start talking about a class that we need to attend really soon. It doesn't have to do with our current jobs. We both had recently completed different courses to get our foot in the door of another career/industry. But after finishing our respective courses, they were calling us back to do one last class. A random add-on day. It felt like we'd both decided to move on from pharmacy but were still here, evidently, for some reason. Even though we did different courses, it seemed that we had chosen the same training provider/college. He asked me which campus I was going to do the extra class at. I said the one that was closest to my house, since that was where I took my original classes at anyway. I said, 'Aren't you going to attend the class there too?'. He said no, since he is returning back to Queensland (interstate), and will have to attend the class back there. He is only here for a short while.

SL and SM don't really acknowledge each other, I think they're kind of silently fighting each other for my attention. I seem to be secretly enjoying this. A male customer arrives at the counter and he says he left his sunglasses here for safe-keeping a long time ago. SM goes out of his way to touch me on my back when I am trying to look for them. It's not vey smooth and I start to kind of laugh. I think to myself, wow isn’t this what I wanted? I had wanted someone to appear to up the ante, and now SM is acting all possessive. And this happens just like I wanted but I thought it’d be because of someone new, not someone I already knew. I'm slightly embarrassed of my own pettiness/vanity, even though no one will ever know, I just wanted a fun way to pass the time.

We can't seem to find the sunglasses, but I know they are here somewhere because I saw them just before. Then it hit me that we are searching in the wrong area, so I go to the shelf where I remember they were hidden in amongst some clutter. I don’t know why we were storing the customer's sunglasses in the first place.

Dream 2: I am a high school student, standing around awkwardly in the courtyard and waiting to leave after classes had finished. I needed to use the bathroom but I couldn’t find one nearby and for some reason I didn't want to walk too far to find one. I wandered into an area where there were a bunch of classrooms that had been turned into accommodation for students. I could see bedrooms which were decorated with personal touches. I could have used their bathroom since it was right there, and nobody was 'home', but I didn't want to invade other people's personal living spaces so I left.

There were a lot of other students who were also just waiting around after school. I feel very uncomfortable standing there on my own. I don’t know why I don’t just go home, it’s like I’m waiting to be dismissed or something.

[ackermental]

That's because Disney Star Wars isn't happening long time ago in a Galaxy far far away (im not even sure when was the last time I've seen this Introduction). No, instead its happening in modern day America. So people's behavior is very twenty first century and western oriented.

Im repeating myself but oh well, ill say it again: we were never supposed to see ourselves in Jedi. And Sith as well, unless a person watching is a total psychopath (which maybe is a problem with Disney nowadays, huh). Jedi weren't thinking like a modern person. Not just because of their moral code that seems so strict, but because those people could literally bring a warship from the orbit back to earth with a twist of their hand and not break a sweat.

Obviously with this amount of power, which is unbelieveble to us, their way of living will be bizarre for the audience. Its part of the fun. The worldbuilding, you know? Something that fantasy and sci-fi is all about.

Although a point of view also matters, for example ill never not laugh at westernies being incapable of understanding that Jedi don't fuck. You're doing wonderful, sweeties, one day you'll get it.

Anyway, what im saying is that you shouldn't be trying to insert yourself as a Jedi, because you will fail every time. And that's a good thing, because if you succeed, it means the writers aren't doing their job. You think Han and Leia were written just for kicks and giggles? Think again. Even ordinary people that exist in that Universe can never actually understand Jedi. That's why they are so 'legendary' even in their own Galaxy. That is also why Sith are so terrifying. No ordinary bitch dictator can hold a candle next to an actual Sith lord, those guys would eat them for breakfast.

And shit I've been hearing about grayness hurr durr in the interviews for this shit show. Yeah? Jedi were never fucking around. Jedi ain't Aang from Avatar, worrying if killing a bad guy is morally justified.

If they decide that some shit must be stopped? Heads are going to be rolling down. That's what made them so bad ass back in the day. No second thoughts and no remorse after the deed is done. Because in real Star Wars normal people are playing in politics, they are cheating, they are balancing between good and evil to move things forward, they are playing with 'sometimes to do good, you have to do something a little bad'.

Jedi though are concerned with bigger issues. Jedi are there keeping in check the forces that literally create and destroy life in that Universe. Of course their rules aren't gonna be the same as ours. It doesn't mean that they are not the personification of Goodness. Because they are and always have been, even in the prequels. Its so strange that prequels are often brought up as an example of Jedi not being perfect. Yeah? Sure they weren't? The first trilogy tells us that they've failed. Still it doesn't mean that they were corrupted. If anything prequels should teach you what the Galaxy would look like without Jedi in it. An entire war was organized in hope of killing as many of them as possible before the coup. Jedi were literally the only thing standing between ordinary people and catastrophy. Because mundane bitches with their morality and rules have nothing on Siths in the long run. We could watch in full view what the Order was always fighting against all this time: a pure evil force, just as powerful, but more cunning and ruthless.

Ohhh Jedi never did anything, they just be sitting around in their pretty temple, when slavery still exists in the outer rim!!!

Bitch, they are literally spending their whole lives trying to keep all of the people alive. They are plenty busy and still are sometimes getting involved in other peoples business. You know, as a side quest to saving some nation this Friday, that's just how they roll.

Actually, they are already doing more just by existing than any politician ever could.

That's just how it works in a Galaxy far far away, and I wish that Disney's weird jediphobia would pass. They obviously don't understand them, and some directors stright out hate them, which, you know, tells me all I have to know about them and their products. Because I refuse to call it art.

Surprising no one, the acolyte seems to go for a "the Jedi are a domineering force upon the galaxy" take

Now even setting aside how this ignores that the Jedi are Diplomat-Peacekeepers, how ridiculous it is that an organization that has only ever numbered in the thousands would be able to do so, or that such is entirely contrary to everything we know of the Jedi morally (oh how ironic it is, the show and director is clearly trying to go for a "this is how the Jedi used to be before they got bad and became the prequels', but they're actually making these high republic Jedi seem worse)

This also doesn't gel with the fundamental fact that the Jedi are servant-protectors of the democratic Republic, and that they answer to the senate-its representative body of the people

How exactly is a peaceful organization which serves under a democratic institution a force of domination?

[t1erradelfuego]

homecoming king (2017) you will always be famous