#life is a black hole and i feel myself being sucked into oblivion

[jlalafics]

“Operator”-an Everlark Ficlet

For @mrspeetamellark, who wanted “Peeta’s dirty filthy sex talk”. Enjoy!

Katniss couldn’t believe she was doing this.

Delly had convinced her that this would broaden her horizons.

Apparently, that’s what she needed after a dumping such as hers.

Her year-long relationship with Cato had ended with a bitter fight and him telling her that she was bore in the bedroom. Then, he promptly informed her that he was moving out of their apartment to shack up with Clove, a little beast of a woman who had clawed her way up into Cato’s penis.

That was fine. The relationship had been going downhill months ago.

However, this was kind of a new low for her.

She went to the mirror in the corner of her bedroom, looking at her reflection and wondering if the black nightie was necessary.

Then, pouring a glass of wine from the bottle on her bedside table, Katniss pulled out a card with the scantily clad man on it and dialed the number.

It rang a twice.

She told herself she would hang up on the third, when someone suddenly picked up the line.

“Hello?” came a smooth, deep voice.

“Hi,” she croaked out nervously. “This is stupid.”

The man on the phone chuckled. “I hope not. It’s how I make a living.”

“Oh hell—I’m sorry!” Katniss slap her palm to her forehead. “I’ve never done this before, but my friend suggested it as a way to help me discover ‘my sexual goddess’—whatever the fuck that means.”

“Sounds like you’ve been going through something,” the man replied. “Want to tell me about it?”

“I’ve been living with my ex for a year and he just dumped me for a girl who will let him put it anywhere he wants.”

“Ouch. Sounds like a real charmer.”

“You bet,” she responded wryly. “I’m not too sad about it. I’m more insulted that he thought I was boring in bed. I mean, I would’ve let him put it anywhere, but some foreplay would’ve been nice. Also, being completely silent while I’m pulling out the big guns didn’t help.”

“Some guys expect women to just automatically go for anything,” the man said. “But I find that, in healthy sexual relationships, there has to be an equal amount of give and take.”

“Exactly!” Katniss took a sip from her glass and sat back against the pillows of her bed. “You seem like a decent person. Why are you working on a phone sex line?”

“Because I enjoy it,” he told her simply. “Also, this is just an evening job.”

“So, it’s like a stripper at night and paralegal by day kind of thing,” she replied.

The man chuckled. “Kind of. I have a pretty standard office job.”

“Me, too.” Katniss took another sip, her nerves beginning to relax. “So, how do we do this?”

“Let’s start with your name,” he told her.

“Katniss.”

“Katniss,” he repeated.

His voice tightened at the last bit of her name and she straightened at the change of tone.

“Is there something wrong?”

“No, it’s just a very different name,” the man said. “But very pretty. I think I’m going to like saying it into your ear as you come.”

Her nipples immediately tightened at his words. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes.” He laughed roughly. “What pretty little thing are you wearing for me?”

“I knew you were going to ask that, at some point.” Katniss fingered the strap of her nightie. “I’m wearing a black nightie with lace along the top.”

“Sounds lovely,” the man replied. “Tell me; do you feel uncomfortable taking instructions?”

“Depends.” She smiled into receiver. “What are you going to tell me to do?”

“Give me a name,” he told her. “A name that means something to you. A name that turns you on. But I don’t want you to say it until you come.”

“Alright,” she agreed.

There was only one name that Katniss wanted to say.

He, however, was unattainable.

“Close your eyes.” His voice was low, and the timbre instantly electrified her…down there. “I can tell that you’re analyzing every single part of this call…what I must be thinking about you…what I look like—am I right?”

Katniss giggled. “Exactly.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “I closed them.”

“I think that you’re a brave woman who’s taking control of her sexual life.” The man breathed against the receiver and Katniss shivered imagining his warm breath against her ear. “I’m blond, average height, with blue eyes. Imagine me in your mind.”

Katniss took a deep breath, the image of a man forming in her head. She saw him, undoing her favorite red tie, removing his black loafers, before lying next to her.

“I’m playing with the strap of your gown, Katniss…what were you doing before I came home?”

“Drinking wine…imagining what we would be doing once you got home,” she stuttered out. “I’m not good at this.”

“You were doing beautifully,” he assured her. “The tone of your voice…low…grounded…I bet you growl when you’re turned on…and I'd love to make you growl…”

Katniss felt the gush as her core pulsed at his words. She had foregone underwear and could see her arousal gleaming on her inner thighs.

“While you were waiting for me, did you touch yourself?”

Her fingers traced along the opening of her gown. “Yes…”

“Oh fuck—” He groaned into the receiver and the sound traveled straight to her cunt. “I’ve been thinking about you all day. Just thinking about coming home to you made me hard—” There was a grunt on her speaker, and she gasped at the image of him, cock straining through the zipper of his pants. “I had to close the door to my office and stroke myself to the thought of you…”

Katniss mewled into the phone, her hand traveling down between her legs as the other massaged her breast.

“God…”

“That’s right, sweetheart,” he rumbled on the line. “I’m kneeling in front of you, open your cunt for me—”

“What?”

“Take those pretty little fingers of yours and use them to spread your labia, Katniss. I want to see that lovely hole…the one that I’m going to stick my fingers…then my tongue…and finally my cock—”

Behind her eyes, Katniss imagined this mystery man kneeling before her and using her index and middle finger, spread her outer lips apart to his hungry eyes.

“Mmmm…more…” She groaned into the phone. “I want more…please…”

“I got you—” Katniss could hear shifting and wondered if she was actually turning this stranger on. “You’re so wet for me, Katniss. I bet you taste delicious...go on…taste yourself.”

Losing herself in his voice, she lifted her hand to her mouth and stuck her fingers in her mouth.

“I can hear you sucking on your fingers.” He sounded desperate. “What do you taste like?”

She moved her fingers from her lips. “Light…but musky…”

The man moaned into the receiver. “Do you want to fuck me?”

“Yes,” she growled. “I need you inside me.”

Her fingers went back to drenched core, moving along her inner lips, and dancing along her entrance.

“Undo my belt,” he commanded. “I can’t wait anymore, Katniss. I want you to pull out my cock. I want you to rub your cunt against my pants so every time I wear them, I can remember my dick ramming into that soaked hole of yours—fuck!”

Katniss took her fingers, plunging them straight into her core. “UH!” She lost herself in the motion, her hips jerking as she fucked herself—or in her mind, he fucked her—into oblivion. “I’m going to come…”

“Me too, baby,” he moaned. “Touch your clit, make yourself come for me, Katniss…”

Her hand went to her pearl, circling the peaked nerve, and she felt the crest of her climax in sight.

“Don’t forget…” he demanded. “Say my name…say my name when you come—”

Her whole body arched, tensing, before she crashed, and her hips bucked as the white-hot pleasure blinded her.

“FUCK—PEETA!”

She could hear his ragged breaths as her hips landed back on her mattress.

“Oh God…that was amazing.”

“You are amazing,” he breathed, almost tenderly.

“Thank you,” she whispered into the phone. “I thought that maybe my ex was right—that I was a horrible lay. But it wasn’t me. He just never inspired me…or made me want…you did.”

“Katniss?”

Her eyes opened slowly. “Yes?”

“It’s me—” He took a deep breath. “Peeta.”

She snorted. “Yeah, sure.”

“Today is your 25th birthday.” Katniss shot up at his words. “Your office gave you a cake—chocolate with strawberries on top and almonds sprinkled on the sides, along with a bottle of wine.” Her eyes went to the open bottle of pinot. “My office is right across from yours—and I’ve been in love with you since the moment I met you.”

“Peeta…” Her eyes filled. “Two years?”

“Two years,” he confirmed. “Delly told me that you and Cato broke up. I had to take a chance even if it was this.”

“Do you actually work as a phone sex operator?”

“No,” he replied. “Delly made that flier.”

“Damn her and her graphic skills,” she muttered.

“Do you hate me? For lying to you?” Peeta asked carefully. “If you ended up not calling, I was going to ask you out on Monday, but I understand if you never want to speak to me—”

“Peeta.” He stopped. “Would you really do all the things you said over the phone?”

“Fuck yes.”

Katniss laid back against her pillows. She didn’t want to wait till Monday to see him.

So, she told him her address.

FIN.

[subwalls]

WHUMPTOBER 2021 - 6/30

No. 6 - TOUCH AND GO bruises | touch starved | hunger

Also available on AO3!

The first time George crosses the void, it’s to attend his best friend’s funeral.

Mostly for the purposes of rejecting it altogether. 

“You know he’s not dead, right?” George says. He adjusts his goggles, pressing tenderly at the indents the frame leaves on his face. “Let’s just get out of here. He doesn’t die that easily.”

“I know,” Sapnap says, frustrated. “I know he’s not dead. He’s just gone .�� 

George can’t argue that. Neither of them remember their friend’s name—that’s damning enough, even without the week Sapnap spent nearly scalding the inside of his skull, scouring the city with the All-Seeing Eyes of the Gods without care for how much heat they generated, only for the search to turn out without so much as a grain of evidence that their friend even existed at all.

That’s the problem, George is pretty sure. The All-Seeing Eyes peel back the bells and whistles of lies and magic, exposing nothing but the raw truth of the world around them.

And the truth is that invisible werewolves can disappear themselves so thoroughly they can make the world be as though they never existed to begin with.

The Eyes can’t see them because there is nothing to see. 

Allegedly.

George is well aware that he shouldn’t know this. If their friend truly diluted his existence so thinly that nobody could find him, then neither he nor Sapnap should even remember that he existed. But they do; they remember his pronouns, even—and, if George strains for the faintest edges of his memory, the sound of his laughter.

So there are traces. It’s not a perfect vanishing act, which means there has to be a way to reverse it.

George tells Sapnap as much, when they leave the… gathering of people forgetting that they’re mourning even as they do it. Sapnap nods in agreement.

“Phil said most of the invisible werewolves have a token of some kind,” Sapnap says. “Like, a cypher that can bring them back. They tried to do it with this person, but it didn’t work.”

“What was it?”

“I think it had something to do with the Eyes? He didn’t tell me the details. It’s private.”

A part of George wants to snipe that they must not have been good friends then, if such a key detail couldn’t be shared with them. 

Logically, he’s certain that they did know, at some point. It just faded along with the rest of their memories of him.

“Okay,” says George. “We don’t need a cypher of whatever anyway.” He brings his hands up to his goggles, but the moment his fingers brush the cool, pitch-black glass, he hesitates.

It’s funny. The memory of that event—the figure leaning out of the sky with unending wings and crossed halos and an unmarked sphere of pale light that spoke so softly, choose who will see this through to the End —it’s glitchy, like a trying to straighten out a crumpled-up photo. The lines of wear and tear are there.

George knows that people have opinions about his friends jumping into SMP City without him, about his blacked-out goggles and their unnaturally glowing blue eyes. Most of them assume they left him behind, sacrificed his flawed sight to split the rewards between them both—Sapnap has whined about it before, most recently in the context of that Blood Breed conflict that roped him into the Syndicate.

In reality, George never gave up anything.

Or, better phrased: George was the only one who didn’t give something up.

He shoves the goggles up, and the All-Seeing Eyes of the Gods spring open with the near-musical string of notes that aren’t unlike the chimes of a computer’s start-up sequence.

Immediately, a headache of information slams into him with all the force of a ten-inch steel wall, WALL WALL BRICK BACKROOM DOOR AND STAIRWAYS DOWN A HUNDRED SOULS IN A CONCRETE ARENA ENDER FLESH BREAKING NETHER BLOOD DRIPPING HUMA CROWDS WATCHING WATCH WATCH—

George shudders in a breath, the blue-tinted view of his surroundings fizzling too-bright too-much, and he can almost hear someone in the back of his head, chiding, “If you’d just practiced instead of shutting it down and pretending like you don’t have it, George, you could easily handle that neural load by now. I’m telling you, you can’t keep pretending it isn’t there!”

George says, “I hate this part.”

Sapnap laughs at him. George turns towards him on instinct and sees the star-riddled void under that cloth eyepatch, a dead eye in form but a vacuum in function, A DEBT INCURRED A DEBT REPAID SIGHT FOR SIGHT AN EYE FOR AN EYE AND THE HOLE LEFT BEHIND AS THE HIGHER HAND TAKES AND THE HIGHER HAND GIVES AND THE CONTRACT REMAINS THE CONTRACT REMAINS—

—and oh, oh, he knows how to do it, he knows what to look for. 

If you could back out of a divine contract by just dissipating, then it wouldn’t be much of a divine contract, would it? Here stands George and Sapnap, two-thirds or maybe two-fourths of a contract etched in song and history and the pupils of their eyes. The other parties must exist.

They already do; the Eyes hum, blitzing through reams upon reams of information, lighting up not just George’s face but Sapnap’s as well, and because they exist, so must be the one who paid for their existence.

( Choose who will see this through to the End. )

(“If you have to take something, take it from me!”)

(We forgive your transgression. But we do not revoke the payment we have taken.)

(“Fine by me. This is better than what it was gonna be, anyway.”)

George’s eyes burn, escalating to an awful, awful heat that feels like it’s going to boil the blood in his veins, but still he sees, still he looks for those hairline fractures in reality, A SHADOW WAS HERE AND A FOOTSTEP THERE SEE IT SEE IT IT IS TRUE SO MAKE IT TRUE—

The gears of light twist, shrieking out some incomprehensible song, crackling with power in front of his eyes, and he can taste blood in the back of his throat and on his lips and it’s dripping to the floor now but still he looks.

A pressure on his wrist, tight enough to bruise.

“Okay,” rasps a SHADOW SILHOUETTE FIGMENT OF PRESENCE DRAWN BACK TOGETHER figure that flickers, wavering. “Stop, stop it, that’s enough, I’m here, I’m here—”

George slams his other hand over that pressure at his wrist and feels at first only the rough fabric of his own jacket, but then, abruptly, the softer cotton of a warm jumper.

“Turn them off, oh my god,” says—says—says Dream, waving his free hand through the light of the Eyes like he’s trying to dismiss them, just barely shuttering back into some normal level of existence. His grip on George tightens, desperate; his good eye meets George’s gaze pleadingly, while his other, an identical match to Sapnap’s, remains a featureless expanse of stars. “You’re going to roast the one brain cell you have left, you idiot, turn them off—”

George shuts his Eyes, and the stream of information dies abruptly. The silence in his head leaves him reeling, for a second, which gives Sapnap just enough time to scream in fury and tackle Dream to the ground, dragging George down with them.

“Don’t do that!” Sapnap shrills, making an aborted movement like he wants to strangle the life out of Dream but isn’t sure he won’t just give way under his touch. “You’re the worst, you’re the actual worst—”

“ What? How? I didn’t—”

“—and you suck, and the next time you get cornered by a Blood Breed you gotta call for help before you get muffined—”

The two of them fall into bickering so easily it’s comforting, like a backdrop of rain, just a wash of noise so smooth out the ruffled edges the Eyes left behind.

George reaches up, catching Dream’s arm before he can elbow Sapnap into oblivion. “You’re so annoying,” he tells him. “You said you specifically came here so you I didn’t have to use these things.”

“Well,” Dream says, “that’s not the only reason.”

“Still! You broke your promise!”

“I didn’t promise anything,” Dream complains, warm and alive and more present than ever. “You’re just being a baby. Both of you are.”

Sapnap shifts, and George pulls his goggles back over his eyes just in time to see Dream go still as Sapnap practically cradles his head between his hands.

“Remember what we said about us being your token?” Sapnap asks.

“Mhm.”

“I’m taking it back.” And then, as Dream’s face crumples, “I mean! I know you can’t like, change it, because it’s what makes you want to go come back no matter what and that stuff. But you can’t do this again, Dream. You were gone.” His voice lowers. “We barely knew you.”

Something in Dream’s gaze cracks, and he’s pushing himself up, clipping distractedly through them. Sapnap and George scramble upright as he sits primly a clean inch away from them both and says, “I know, but it’s not like I wanted to. I got snuck up on, okay? It’s not like I like being—being less, and untouchable, and spreading myself so thin I can’t feel anything at all.” 

He shudders, then, and some of the color bleeds from his clothes.

“It doesn’t feel great for me, either, Pandas,” Dream says, and Sapnap makes a wounded noise and lurches forward to wrap him in a hug.

George watches them, for a moment, and nearly envisions a void yawning wide between them before he realizes that Sapnap is pulling him into it too, and now they’re all wrapped around each other and stifling laughter about it, and it’s warm, and oh, George has been alone—on the other side of the void, reluctant to step past the dragon’s den—for so long now.

He’s missed this. The bracing tightness of Sapnap squeezing them like he’s got something to prove, the low hum in Dream’s chest as he relaxes, George’s own skin feeling almost too tight for the nostalgia that wells up in his throat, almost too warm to lean into it, but also offended at the very thought of trying to extract himself from it.

“How’s this,” Dream says, cautiously, muffled against Sapnap’s shoulder, “we let George move in with you, you Sap, and I—”

“Stop sleeping in the Syndicate’s offices and join us?” Sapnap says, poking fun.

“It’s comfortable,” Dream grumbles. “And there’s free food. And no biased landlord.”

George squints at him. “Is this about the Huma-only thing?” he says, and Sapnap nods quickly. “Isn’t your whole thing about avoiding that kind of stuff, Dream? How does a landlord affect you at all?”

Dream opens his mouth, stops, and then shuts it. And then, “Shut up.”

“Wow,” Sapnap says. “I think you left a few brain cells behind when you came back.”

Dream shoves his head away, messing up Sapnap’s hair. “The only thing I left behind was my breakfast,” he declares. “I’m hungry. Can we go get something to eat now, instead of sitting in a… random alley in the middle of nowhere?” He looks around, only just now noticing that they are, in fact, sitting in a random alley in the middle of nowhere. “Is this—where are we?”

Sapnap perks up. “Oh, yeah,” he says, “while we were looking for you, I—George—we saw what looked like one of those underground fighting rings. The entrance is kinda close to here. D’you think it’s that Las Nevadas crew Phil and Tech have been looking for?”

“Only one way to find out,” Dream says cheerfully, and looks at George.

George sputters. “I-I can’t believe you. I set my eyeballs on fire for you,” he says, indignant, “and this is how you repay me? By asking for more?”

Sapnap laughs, knocking their heads together, and something in George’s chest settles with a burst of rightness. “Maybe later,” he says. “Dream’s right, I’m starving. And tired. Your Eyes suck, George.”

“Thanks, you bought them for me,” George says, at the same time that Dream says, “I’m always right.”

[finn-ray-nal-beads]

I can’t wait for all your depraved stories around the garbage fire tonight! How about mixing and matching some fun kinks with your AUs of shame! Breeding kink, exhibitionism, biting/bruising/marking kink. Who’s most in to what?

@safarigirlsp OMFG I OWE YOU ALL THE GARBAGE TONIGHT HOLY SHIT IT’S BEEN A MINUTE SINCE I WROTE SOME CRACK THOTS ON THESE BOIS I MISSED THEM!🥴

LET’S START OFF WITH THE BIG BAD GUNS HIMSELF... MY PIRATE KING FLIP BLOWHOLE CAPTAIN OF THE FUCKING JOLLY ROGER AND THE BLACK PEARL BECAUSE THIS IS FUCKIN’ FAN FICTION SO WE MAY AS WELL FUCKIN’ LET ALL THE PIRATE JOKES SWIRL TOGETHER IN A GODDAMN WHIRLPOOL OF DESPAIR!

 Captain Phillip “Blowhole” Zimmerman is a simple man... he loves the sea, his ship is his baby, rum is his bestie (not including his First Mate, Ron), and he loves to fuck you into absolute oblivion in front of Davey Jones and the entire crew of scallywags daring to eyeball you in passing.

Any time he get’s a hint of another wandering eye looking down that cinched corset dress of yours, gazing at your heaving bosom practically spilling overboard in your corset, he inches a finger in your direction.

Perched upon his captain’s wheel, one knee up like Captain Morgan himself, he coaxes you to him, the more you inch closer, the more his nostrils fill with your sweet coconut scent. 

“Captain?” putting your hands behind your back, shoving your tits out to his hungry gaze, “is something wrong?” playing as dumb as possible to get him even more riled up than he had been seconds prior. 

“You know exactly what you’re doing, lil’ whore,” he spat, burning holes into your eyes as his ambered eyes turned to a raging fire, “assume your goddamn position, slut, I’m gonna make another example outta you seeing as how you and my fuckin’ crew didn’t get it the last few times,” grabbing your waist to thrust you over the banister of the ship, his crew halting their work to watch the show unfold. 

“Look at you,” smoothing over the curve of your ass in the dress, flipping it over to reveal your naked, sopping cunt, “fuckin’ slut!” slapping the shit out of your pussy, causing an ungodly wail to emanate from your vocal cords. 

“You must like being an example to my crew, huh?” gripping your curls in his hand to wrench your neck back, his low growl in your ear causing more liquid to seep from your pulsing cunt. 

“Anything to please you, Captain,” smirking while you pushed your backside to rub on his pants, “I live to serve,” pandering to match his low growl, no doubt feeling his erection rub against your ass. 

“In fact,” pushing yourself flush to his chest, hand still in a death grip on your head as he lowered his face into the crook of your neck, sucking the life out of your pulse, “I think you like makin’ an example outta me, sailor,” snaking a hand to rub his aching erection as his breath hitched from your grip. 

“I’m gonna storm your fuckin’ shores until your wailin’ on my cock sweetheart,” gripping your throat with one hand and batting your hand away to take his cock out of his pants and stuff it fully in, no foreplay necessary seeing as you were soaked as the ocean itself. 

“So. Fuckin’. Bratty.” he thrust in, enunciating his words as you moaned on his large whale cock into complete bliss. 

NOW ONTO OUR NOBLE AND GLISTENING WARRIOR HERO... THIS IS SPARTA. IT’S NO SECRET THAT THIS MAN IS WELL-ENDOWED, AND WITH GREAT POWER, COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY, AKA, HE’S GONNA FUCK AS MANY SONS INTO YOU AS YOU’LL GIVE HIM AND YOU WON’T FUCKIN’ COMPLAIN ABOUT IT EITHER BECAUSE YOU’RE A FUCKIN’ WHORE FOR HIS HORSECOCK!

He’ll be coming back from a warrior training camp, fuckin’ shimmering in the Spartan evening light, clad in his gear, wielding the largest sword he could possibly get his hands on. Sweat covering his large pectorals, his biceps bulging out of his sleeveless uniform as he lowers his shield and weapon into their place in your hut, heaving and wiping the sweat from his brow, moving his hair from his face to glance up at you. 

He takes in the sight of you, clad in your white robes, hair perfectly set as you perched on the loveseat in your shared home, pushing a grape into your perfect mouth, making unholy moans as you gazed into his hungry eyes, eating you alive as you swallowed down the sweet fruit juice. 

“My handsome warrior has finally returned,” you mused, gripping another grape in your perfect fingers, playing with it as you gave him ‘fuck me’ eyes, “I’ve missed you my dove,” slipping it past your perfect lips, closing your eyes in bliss as you devoured the fruit again. 

“My perfect goddess,” moving to kneel at your waist, pushing his head into your chest as he gripped your midsection while you rubbed his hair every so softly, “I’ve missed you, my love,” lifting his head to gaze at you closer, moving in for a loving kiss that turned steamy quickly after. 

“Take me, Phillip,” you gasped, throwing yourself into his embrace as he picked you up from the seat, leading the both of you into the bedroom. 

He lowered you down as if he was handling glass, petting your face as he did so, “take your clothes off my love,” he whispered into the crook of your neck, “I’m gonna stuff you full of my sons,” gripping his lips on your collarbone as he fumbled with his armor, removing it while you did your robes. 

Gazing at your nude figure, spread eagle for him as he gathered his leaking cock in his hand to line up with your perfectly plump pussy, glistening in the candlelight, stuffing his member into your sopping cunt, causing a unanimous moan to emit throughout the room as he pushed further and further into your open womb. 

AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST LET’S SADDLE THE FUCK UP AND TALK ABOUT HUCKLEBERRY AND HIS CRAZY BEHAVIORS BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW HE’S A HIGHKEY FREAK IN THE SHEETS. HE’S ALL ABOUT HOG-TYING YOU UP... AFTERALL IF YOU’RE BEIN’ A LIL’ BRAT YA GOTTA BE BROKEN LIKE THE PHILLY YOU ARE! 

You know exactly how to get yourself in a pickle with your handsome devil of a cowboy. Know just what triggers him into a full rage... and that’s studding yourself out right in front of him. 

You knew that touch on the thigh by that sleazy ass rustler was too much, but who were you to guess what he’d do. I mean, you did look mighty fine in those tight ass Wranglers, and who were you kidding, you fuckin’ knew you were just hot in general, and you took every chance to use that to your advantage. 

After all, you were doin’ your boy a favor, havin’ pushy buy your rounds for ya as he finished his game of poker at the bar with his buddies. 

What was the damn harm in it to get some free booze? The contact did him in. He noticed it from across the room, practically sniffing it out as his vision shot to that slime ball running his hand where his property was. 

“We’re leavin’ darlin’,” moving to you as he threw his coin on the bar top, gripping your forearm in his large hand to drag you and your bulging tits to the open air of the Colorado night. 

“What the hell Flip?” yelling to let go of his iron grip, moving back towards the saloon doors, “I wasn’t finished with my beer!” crossing your arms after he pulled your waist back to him. 

“You look at me, sugar,” tilting your chin up to notice his dilated pupils in the moonlight, “you know exactly what the fuck you were doin’,” using that hand to grip your throat, a moan falling faintly from your lips as he lowered his cowboy hat to hide his gaze. 

“Now, ya fuckin’ slut,” he groaned, loving the feeling of your quickening pulse in his fingertips, “here’s what’s gonna happen, baby,” moving to whisper his threat in your ear, “I’m gonna tie your ass up like the fuckin’ brat you are, and you’re gonna take the ride home in the bed of my pick up,” releasing his grip only for you to cry out for the loss of contact. 

“Behave,” he tsked, waving a finger as he went to grab his good rope, untying it as he watched you get on the ground like the damn pig you were acting like tonight. 

“See?” he chimed, bending over to your hands and feet as he started to wrap you up, “even sluts like you seem to listen after a lil’ forceful action,” finishing his work as he slapped your clothed pussy as hard as he possibly could.

“Fuck, Phil!” you screamed in pain and pleasure, trying to wriggle your way out of the tie he’d made. 

“Aw, sugar,” he chuckled lighting a cigarette as he watched you writhe on the ground, “swearin’ and bein’ a brat isn’t gonna getcha far,” inhaling and exhaling as he thought about what to do with you at the cabin later. 

GOD MY FUCKIN’ HEAD HURTS BRUH I’M SO HORNY OVER THESE MEN MY GOD... ALSO I HATE MYSELF FOR SAYING WHALE COCK I CANT EVEN RN

WELL BYE!😂

[volunaryroom3]

CHAPTER 4

My keys rattled in the door as it locked it behind me. It clicked shut and I rested my head on the door, hair tangling over my ears. Thank fuck that was over. Being a slave to the wage crushes your soul, some more days than others.

Now I was home. My sanctuary. A place where I was safe from the anger of the public, complexity of the world and could batten down the hatches with my favourite human before I had to once more put on my armour and head back into battle.

“What are you doing” said Jamie from the kitchen, who could see me resting my head on the front door, sighing in my zombie like state.

“I don’t know” I muttered into the wood. I straightened my back and walked through the to living room, kicking my shoes off and flinging myself onto a chair.

I took my socks off a wriggled my toes above the carpet. There’s something about bare feet that’s so rebellious. Being completely naked, free from the constraint of polyblend, gives you the pleasure of freedom but is also attractive and conventional. Feet were meant to be covered. They can be ugly, toes utterly offensive and fragile so they must be protected and hidden. For them to be naked feels so audacious, to feel carpet fibres beneath was so unruly and these small rebellions got me through the day.

“Here” said Jamie, entering the room and grabbing my naked big toe as he walked past and placed a mug on the table.

“Is that for me?” I said perking up.

“Well I don’t drink tea” he answered, not looking but gesturing with one hand and scrolling through his phone with the other.

“Okay, what do you want?” I asked, raising one eyebrow and looking at him with a wry smile.

“Just drink it” he said laughing.

We both looked at each other and smiled and I felt my heart skip a beat.

There had been a lot of heartache but then there was Jamie.

In my life there have been many boys, many girls, many people and subsequently much loss and sorrow.

My last boyfriend cheated on me. One minute he was one the phone telling me he loved me and the next he was snapped in an incriminating photo with someone else.

It was early morning when I saw the photograph online. I hadn’t been able to sleep, i was scrolling through my phone under the sheets when I saw his hand on her thigh, my eyes widening in the glow of the screen. A series of incidents flashed in my head; the missed calls, his phone vibrating accompanied by shifty glances, disappearing from the room to take a phone calls, whispering in secrecy, always carefully placing his phone face down on the cabinet, me touching my hand on his and him recoiling, leaving me cold. All these images flickering, falling on top each other like dominos until the last one dropped- he’s cheating on me.

My confrontation was subtle. “It looks like you’re having a good time haha I miss you” I text hoping my agony and urgency would feed through the phone.

No reply. Message read. No reply.

Hours passed as I laid in bed staring at the ceiling until the light of dawn rolled over the walls, White noise humming in my ears.

I went to work that day and I smiled, drank tea and did my job but I wasn’t there. I was on a autopilot. I was trapped in my mind, those images flittering past, unable to escape like a slideshow I could not take my eyes off. The pieces of a puzzle were falling into place, my head putting them together and I was lost in my thoughts, nipping and clawing at me through the day. My stomach tight and head spinning.

That evening I was staring into the TV set, blind to the screen and still arguing with myself. I was paranoid. Yes I was paranoid. This isn’t real. The words all muddling together and stacking on top of each other until it just became noise.

Suddenly a text.

“I’m sorry”

My world crashed around me. I felt my hands tightly grip onto each other and my tears fall in slow motion.

“Why?” I cried softy.

A numbness fell over my entire body and I collapsed onto the sofa, my tears running down the tip of my nose and staining the cushion.

After a while the numbness wore off and was replaced by pain. A sharp slice from neck to stomach not visible to the naked eyes but real to my nervous system. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. I was just an exposed nerve; open with excruciating pain.

Weeks passed and I was still spiralling into oblivion. I was in trouble at work for mistakes and absence. I was worrying my family and friends but even that wasn’t enough to stop me slipping into the black hole. The dark pit of depression is all consuming and once you are stuck in the tar, you sink further down, you gasp for air until there’s no return.

“What a bastard” everyone said

“What a loser. His loss!” They chanted

And they were right of course. However this did not help me. I loved him. Somehow he subconsciously became my whole world and now I was lost. Lost and isolated in my loneliness but I knew I had to stop. This wasn’t healthy behaviour.

Grief has a timescale. Death can be a lifetime but the breakdown of a relationship? You are limited. You have the get on with it. You have to bare your teeth and show the world how strong you are. You have to prove to others that you are leaving it behind and if you aren’t moving on? You are weak and you can’t show weakness. You can’t be the one to lose.

So I moved on. I washed, I put clothes on and pushed myself back into life. I had an amazing few months embarking on journeys and weekends away by reconnecting with my lost friends. I immersed myself in live music, healing my soul with the beauty of beats and sound with pilgrimages to gigs and festivals. Wild, drunk nights in the sun building hundreds of memories to last a lifetime. The evidence consisted of a mosaic of Polaroids pinned around my desk: my favourite a muddy photo of me grinning ear to ear, hands in the air which screamed look at me! I’m living life!

When I talked to people I laughed. When I looked at people I smiled.

But every night I still cried in the shower.

Later I found out the girl that in the photo was his ex. They have a child together now. In the end it was all for the best but that still doesn’t stop that painful twinge whenever it crosses my mind.

Every time you are hurt a part of your heart breaks and creates a gap. Tiny shards splinter off and disintegrate into tears. You heal, you recover and you fight but there’s now a hole there that will never close up.

Once I am hurt, I am hurt forever.

He wasn’t the first but he was the last one who took a sledgehammer to my heart and shattered the remaining pieces. With the fragments I had left I swore I would never do it again, that I wouldn’t open up because I could cope, the pain would kill me. From then on I lived my life as half a person. Content but never allowing myself to fully feel. I was comfortable in my solitude but always empty.

That was until I met Jamie.

After lounging around the living room for a while I heard my stomach rumble.

“I’ll make tea” I said stretching. I got up and padded through to the kitchen.

I laughed as I heard him yelling at the tv. I know the match was on and I loved how passionate he was; the same amount he showed about everything in his life, including me.

I opened the cupboards and reached for the pan on the top shelf. I stood on my tiptoes, unbalanced and stretching, my fingers fumbling on the tip of the handle. Just as I felt my hand grip the handle they all came crashing down. Metal clanged onto the worktop, thundered to the floor and onto my bare feet.

I didn’t even make a noise, I just bit my lip and fell to the floor.

“What’s happening?” Yelled Jamie running into the room, seeing me rolling around on the kitchen floor.

“Ow! Sorry” I laughed but still grimacing in pain.

“You’re an idiot” he laughed

“I know”” I said rubbing my toes and frowning.

“It’s not funny” he snapped, his tone angrier than before. “I keep telling you to be careful. You’re so stupid. We were having such a nice time and now you’ve done this’

For a moment he stood over me, towering and serious with disappointment. I felt so small looking up at him and feeling shame wash over me.

“I’m really sorry, its been a long day”” I replied, looking at my feet in remorse.

He helped me up and marched me back to the living room in silence. I sat down on the sofa, raising my injured foot and resting it on the table. Jamie sat down on the other side, his attention brought back to the match.

I’ve always been clumsy. Bruises, broken bones and bangs peppered my childhood memories followed by reckless behaviour as an adult. He was right I needed to be more careful. He was only stern because he cared.

I turned my head towards him but he was still fixed on the tv, unwavering and stoic. I looked down at my feet and felt tears well up in my eyes.

There hadn’t been any trauma, no life changes and nothing worthy to make me unhappy but recently I’d started to feel a weight press down on me. My head had began to feel heavy as tiny bits of stress had started to drip on me and one by one it was building up. I was starting to feel cold and disconnected. Sometimes I’d suddenly freeze in time, stare at the wall, feeling like I was floating away until a friendly face asked if I was okay and brought me back down to earth. I was finding it hard to fall asleep and sometimes I was waking up with a bolt in the night, sweating after a bad dream and then worrying about insignificant things until my alarm called me to work. The other day it rained and I didn’t feel it. I saw the rain fall and land on my face but I didn’t sense it dripping down and onto my collar. I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

It was just a few bad days and I was being dramatic.

I sucked the tears back into my eyes and reached for the cold cup of tea on the table.

Things will get better soon.

[robbyrobinson]

DDLC Fanfic: Just Aru

Mm...where am I? That’s funny, I thought that everything from the game was erased. Is this what dying feels like? It almost feels peaceful. 

Monika found herself floating in the  white void between worlds apparently being the only one who survived the deletion of the game. Her downward spiral was without end no visible grounding in sight. Alone, Monika couldn’t help but cry to herself for her plight.

“Is this really it for me?” she wept. “I guess I deserve it for what I’ve done.” 

“On the contrary my sweet girl!” a voice rang out. 

Monika’s eyes widened. “Huh? Who’s there?” 

Without warning, Monika stopped falling. Before she could fully comprehend what was transpiring, she fell into a chair and found herself in a room. “What is this?” 

“I’m glad you could make it.” 

Monika’s eyes darted around. “That voice again. Show yourself!” 

A bright, white light filled the room, blinding Monika. She heard another chair pull out, and someone getting seated. “Alright, you can open your eyes now.” 

Monika opened her eyes as the voice demanded her. She was taken aback at what she had seen. “S-Sayori?” 

The being before her resembled Sayori in appearance, but she wore an extravagant purple dress and had a golden leaf-headband. She possessed two large bird wings that were white as snow. “Well, not Sayori as you have called me, but I merely took the form of something that you were comfortable with, mostly since you were thinking about her when you were falling to oblivion.” 

Monika arched an eyebrow. “What are you usually?” 

The strange girl inhaled deeply and leaned in close to Monika’s face. Her face peeled back and black, inky tentacles laced with eyes erupted from every orifice of her face. 

“Okay! Okay!” Monika shrieked and covering her face. “Please, please just go back to Sayori’s form.” 

The girl resumed Sayori’s likeness. “Well, let’s get down to business then. Do you know where you’re going?” 

Monika laughed nervously. “Valhalla?” 

The coral pink-haired girl smiled devilishly. “TO HELL, FOOLISH MORTAL!!” 

Monika’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Her heart was beating. She clutched her chest. “Ooo...there it goes...heart palpitations.” 

“Just kidding, just kidding!” the girl insisted. “I’m actually going to give you the choice to reincarnate, or move on with your perpetual drop into the bottomless pit.”

Monika scratched her head. Reincarnation? That was actually a thing? Sure, she knew some religions in the real world had a doctrine about the human soul and how many times it could become reborn. But...wait...Monika’s just made of pixels. An AI so to speak. Then how could she have a soul that she could reincarnate with. She continued to ponder not noticing that the Sayori-looking girl had her hands arched in a similar fashion to her back in Act III. “Why are you giving me this chance?” 

“I know. For everything you’ve done in your VN, it is reprehensible, deserving only of an eternal punishment. But I had watched you save the Player when Sayori became mad with power, and you did try to atone for your actions. You sucked at it, but here I was just floating around in the void one day and I thought to myself: hey, it’s that girl from that romance sim thingie! Why the hell not?” 

Monika rubbed her temples. “Maybe falling for eternity is better?” she thought to herself. 

The girl seemed to comprehend what she was thinking and spoke up. “If it interests you, your friends have all been through here.” 

Monika’s eyes lit up. “Really?” 

“Yes, indeed,” she said. “All of them have reincarnated into new forms, but they have no recollection of what you had done to them.” 

“Is that so? Name one.” 

The girl smiled. “That pink-haired one, for instance? She loved manga so much, so now she basically works as a manga artist. Just for the heck of it, I send Yuri to the same world Natsuki went to. She did protest a bit at my decision, but I really didn’t care. I mean I have all the time in the world since I am an ageless, perfect being.” 

Monika scoffed at the girl calling herself “perfect.” The girl glared at her compelling her to be quiet. 

“If you choose to reincarnate, know that the powers you had in your game will not exist in the world I send you to. You will be as normal as everyone else.” 

Monika frowned. “Normal?” Well, to be honest it was a burden having to deal with being self-aware. “Eh, I guess I can live without them.” 

“Excellent choice, Monika,” the girl said. She extended her hand to hers. “Shall we shake on it?” 

Monika reluctantly grabbed the girl’s hand and shook it. The ground opened up underneath Monika forcing her to try to hold onto the desk that had manifested. “Wait, what is going on?” 

The girl smiled and waved her hand. “You need to learn to put other people’s needs before your own; once you have learned compassion from this experiment, you can either choose to leave and restart again somewhere else, or you can stay.” 

With that, the strange girl disappeared and Monika fell into the hole. The white light appeared again being more strong than before. “I hope I won’t regret this decision” Monika thought to herself.

Buzz. Buzzzzz...

The rays of sunshine caressed Monika’s eyes forcing them open. “Mm..what the hell happened last night?” 

She rubbed a streak of dry drool from the side of her mouth and stretched her arms. Everything seemed to be back in order. Sure, there were a few alterations to her bedroom, but she still felt like the same old Monika. Yawning deeply, Monika began to walk towards the bathroom. Entering it, Monika approached the sink and ran some water in the sink. She scooped a handful of the cold water and splashed it on her face. After doing it two more times, she grabbed a bath towel and scrubbed her face with it. Satisfied, Monika pitched the towel into the heap and turned to head out of the bathroom. Before she did so, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She was startled.

In some ways she resembled herself, but her brown hair and green eyes were noticeably a different shade. “What? Did I get sent back to when I was a little girl?” 

Monika pulled back the front of her pajamas top. She grimaced. “My girls! They’re gone!” She felt down her legs becoming further alarmed. “What the hell happened to my thicness!? Should I look at my hoohoo next?” Monika swallowed nervously and pulled back her pants. The color in her face disappeared. “Am I...a loli now or whatever Natsuki is? Does this mean I have to go through the awkward stages of puberty again!?” Monika groaned. She did not want to go back to those times of wearing training bras and pimples. Growing up sucked royally. Before she could further have a mental panic, a feminine voice called out. 

“Aru, school’s about to start.”  

                      [CHAPTER TWO]

"Aru?" Monika thought. She tossed the name around in her mind letting it simmer. So that is the name she will be using in this world? Monika thought more about what this new world would entail, but she was stopped in her tracks by that feminine voice again. "I take it that this is my Mom?"

Aru looked at the alarm clock on her nightstand and nearly had a heart attack. "Ah, shit, I'm going to be late!"

Aru frantically slipped on her clothes and went to run down the stairs. "I don't know why I am in such a hurry like this. After all…"

Right on cue, Aru had neglected to notice that one of her black stockings was barely clinging onto her left foot becoming undone. As she was about to fully comprehend her situation, Aru fell down the flight of stairs and crashed on her face. "Son of a bitch…" Aru groaned internally.

There came the soft pitter patting of feet and before Aru knew it, her mother bent to her level and glared at her. "Sweetie, are you okay?"

(So that is this girl's "Mom?" Well I have to say something; I do not want to leave her hanging.)

"Yes, Mom," Aru said…she noticeably strained on the last word.

Her mother smiled. "That is good to hear. Made you some toast before you head out."

(Dammit, toast? That is one of the most generic anime tropes that I am sure even Natsuki would be annoyed with.)

"Thanks, Mom," Aru said.

Finishing up on breakfast, Aru collected her book bag and dashed towards the door. Her mother saw this with some urgency in her voice.

"Wait, Aru, your collar! -"

"Catch ya later!" was the only response Aru gave her mother. She walked down the pavement her sense of urgency diminishing. She found herself meeting up with a few students that she assumed were a part of her class. She struggled to give a response to them but, of course, her words escaped her.

(Okay, Monika, so far so good.)

The middle school was named Sakura Dai Ni. Aru stopped at the entrance and rubbed her chin contemplatively. "So, if everyone was so talkative with me, I kind of wonder if that means I have some highly important job."

Her teacher, Oshie Teruyo, looked at Aru in a bewildered daze. "You're the vice class president, Aru. Have you forgotten?"

(Are you kidding me? I couldn't even get class president!? This body suuuucks….)

"Right, I apologize, Sensei."

Oshie tilted her head. "Do you feel faint? Should I send for the nurse to check you?"

Aru shook her head. "I'm good. No need to worry."

Oshie was still concerned, but she nodded and returned to her desk in the front of the room. Aru went to her desk. Before class began, Aru noticed an odd thing. Across from her, she saw a dark brown-haired girl with pink eyes trying to speak to a girl with short blonde hair and amber eyes. She leaned forward in a feeble attempt of eavesdropping on the conversation.

(The blonde girl sounds upset for some reason. Wait, why do I care?)

First period ended and Aru nonchalantly chatted with some of her classmates. She had to admit that despite her conflicted thoughts, she was making the most out of her middle school life. As she walked, she noticed someone sitting on the steps at the bottom of the stairs.

(Hey, there's that pink-eyed girl again.)

The girl held some odd figurine in her hands. Aru stepped down a few stairs to get a closer look. Even then, she was still perplexed.

(Is that…some old man with fairy wings? What kind of world did that Sayori-looking girl teleport me to?)

"Kai-chan, I'm back to zero friends again," the girl told herself.

(This is depressing. Should I maybe see what the matter is?)

Aru sat beside the girl. "Hey there, what's going on?"

The pink-eyed girl jumped and inched away from Aru. Her breathing was becoming strained. From what Aru could see, just her being close to her was enough to make her feel nauseous."

"I-I…" the girl said.

(You know, she kind of reminds me a lot of Yuri. It was an absolute chore convincing her to join the Literature Club.)

"I had noticed you having some sort of discussion with whom I assume to be your friend," Aru answered slowly, "what happened?"

"My name is Bocchi," the pink-haired girl suddenly stammered. "I like my rice with Natto finely crushed."

(…Okay then.)

"My name is Aru. Here, please take this tissue to wipe your tears."

Bocchi did as she was told, but she also blew into it, sounding like some wild animal.

(Ew, how grody!)

"Thanks," Bocchi said.

"You're welcome," Aru said still disgusted slightly when being handed the tissue back. "Why not tell me from the beginning?"

Aru tentatively listened for a good period of time, but she could feel her patience slowly erode. Bocchi went on different, unrelated tangents to get to what happened between her and her friend. Aru tried to force a smile throughout even if it was slightly insufferable.

"I just wonder why Nako was mad at me."

(Oh my god! You literally just got finished saying that you admitted to her that you became friends with her because of a promise that you made to your childhood friend. Just how dense is this girl. Oh my god…)

"Well do not worry, your perfect vice class president is here to help!"

The two returned to the classroom where Bocchi approached Nako. Nako had her back turned to her almost not noticing that Bocchi was stumbling. Aru sighed to herself and made her leave to collect Bocchi's items.

"At…at first, I thought you were scary," Bocchi began, "but you're nice!"

(Wow, Bocchi can really be a hard case. But I want to protecc that smile at all costs.)

Getting Bocchi's belongings, Aru made her way back to the classroom. "Bocchi, you forgot…"

"I did speak to you because of my promise with Kai-chain," Bocchi stammered close to tears again, "but because of that promise, I have grown to…LOVE YOU, NAKO-CHAN!"

Nako and Aru's mouths both hung open. "Y-you idiot, people will get the wrong idea," Nako pointed out.

(Oh, so it was that kind of relationship. Well, I can dig it; after all, the player's gender did not matter to me that much.)

"I'm going to head out now. Sorry to intrude!"

Aru dashed off not noting that Nako was yelling after her. "Wait! You have the wrong idea!)

The day was nearing its end, and Aru prepared her things to head home. "Well, this wasn't as hard as I would have thought. And here I was thinking it would be more challenging."

Heading out of the school, Aru saw the two girls she had met earlier approach her. Bocchi was smiling brightly at her. This did bring a smile to Aru's face as well. "Oh, hey, guys."

"I just wanted to thank you for helping me with Nako," Bocchi remarked.

"Oh, no problem. Your perfect class representative is always here to help."

Nako squinted at her in curiosity. "What's that hanging at the back of your collar?"

Aru's eyebrow arched. "I beg your pardon?"

Sure enough, Aru turned her head and to her bewilderment, there was a clothes hanger. Aru desperately scrambled to hide it from the two girls. "Uh…no this is just for…uh…."

"Fashion?" Bocchi asked.

"Yes, yes, that's right; fashion!" Aru shouted whilst striking a pose.

(I can't believe that she fell for it; that was a close one.)

"That sounds really unfortunate," Nako remarks.

(What the hell did that little pipsqueak say to me?)

"Uh, it's just a family thing, you wouldn't understand."

"That still sounds very unfortunate."

Aru felt a nerve throb in her forehead. "Well, my Mom and I wear matching panties."

"Still unfortunate," Nako noted.

(That's it…DELETE!)

Aru strained, her cheeks becoming a deep shade of red. Sweat began to beat down from her forehead. Bocchi and Nako looked at each other perplexed. "What are you doing, Aru?" Bocchi asked.

(Oh, that's right…I can't delete anymore. Stupid Sayori fairy!)

"She looks constipated," Nako noted.

Embarrassed, Aru ran off compelling the two girls to run after her. They found her sitting on one of the bars of the monkey bar. "Oh, have you come to criticize me more?"

"No, that's not why we're here," Bocchi clarified.

"I've been nothing but unfortunate for as long as I could remember," Aru explained, "I even decided to take part in representing the class…but I'm just the vice class president."

"That is very unfortunate," Nako added.

Bocchi shook her head defiantly. "If it wasn't for you, I would have never made up with Nako."

"So, what are you saying?" Aru asked.

"I want you to be friends with us."

(Friends, huh? Well, I have nothing better to do, so why not?)

Aru nodded her head. Bocchi began to hyperventilate for some reason. "She said no, Nako!"

(How dense is this girl?)

"I said yes!"

Bocchi smiled again. "I'm so…happy…"

Aru turned around to see that Nako was holding Bocchi up by her arms. "She does this a lot."

(She does? Where's the medics if this is a recurring problem?)

"Anyway, can you help me with her?"

"Sure, Nako, I will. But first…"

Aru placed her bookbag on the ground making Nako confused. "I…have…"

Suddenly, Aru's eyes became bloodshot from the nerves lining them. She leaned backward on the heels of her feet and ricocheted forward like a missile being launched. Before Nako could figure out what she was doing, she collided with her side.

"A NAME!"

"Wow, so much pride for someone so unfortunate," Nako remarked.

"I said don't call me unfortunate!"

(Ha, that's what that bitch gets. I feel right at home now.)

(More to come)

[charmingpplincardigans]

This is @lisapizza‘s semi-annual reminder that I AM working on her gay cyberpunk novel. I don’t know what I’m doing, but words are being written. This is Ana and Martin, just before the shit finally hits the fan for real. Un-edited, because that’s Nano, baby!

“Hey, Ana, listen to me.” Martin pushed himself away from his desk and reached for her. “I need you.”

“That’s not my name.”

She watched him approach, her hands balled into fists, ready to fight back if needed. The large old-fashioned chrome and quartz clock behind his desk read 6:54. Ten minutes. She just had to keep his attention away from his computer for ten minutes.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know your real name. You know why we don’t keep that information.” He placed his open palm gently against her cheek.

His voice and his touch were soft, as if he was approaching a skittish creature, which was curious because she had never been anything other than steady and efficient when it came to his requests. She had stolen. She had blackmailed. She had killed. She had carried out every order ever given to her with calm focus. She had never had an outburst where he could see it or where it would get back to him, in spite of how many times she had watched him lose all sense and composure. Martin was the destructive, impulsive one, so what was he waiting for her to do now?

He tilted his head, pretended at patience and waited for her to tell him what she preferred to be called. She did not feel the need to share that information with him. “Then how can you know it’s me you need?”

He smiled. It was guileless in a practiced way. “My dear, you can’t be angry with me all of a sudden. It’s not like I’m the one that killed you. You were dying anyway when they harvested you.”

6:56. “This is worse than death.”

“You can’t know that,” he said. He stroked the side of her face with his thumb, fingers gripping her jaw just a little tighter than necessary.

“What do you think happens when you put me away?”

“Nothing?” he guessed.

“Nothing,” she affirmed. “Not even blackness. Not even absence. It’s not like sleeping. I don’t close the eyes on the file that holds my mind and then open them to a framework of code when the little alarm goes off and you pull me back into whatever shell you have available that day. I do not sleep, because there is no part of me there to do so. I am simply not.”

She lifted her chin. He tightened his grip. She tightened her jaw and took a step back, pulling her face from his hand. 

His smile slipped and the edges of his mouth sharpened as his lips thinned. “And you like that better than being awake, do you?”

“That’s not the point. The point is I shouldn’t have had the choice. You shouldn’t have had the choice.”

“You ungrateful bitch,” he said, all pretense of pleasantry evaporating. “We saved you. Do you know how much it costs to keep one upload instead of just tossing it with the others?”

6:58. “Monetarily? Or morally? I’ve never heard you be concerned about either.”

“My love has protected you! It has extended your life. It would be very stupid to throw both of those things away.” 

Martin stomped his foot like a child. The soft leather sole of his shoe made an anemic sound against the synthetic wood on the office floor. It was no more intimidating to her than the way he squared his shoulders or narrowed his eyes. There was nothing he could do to her now that Chedeline had given her control of every system in this body. For the first time in years she was wholly her own again.

“You. Do not. Love me,” she said. “You don’t know who I was. I barely know who I was, but I am remembering, because you can’t let it go, because you keep bringing me back, because I am breaking down, I am remembering.”

“An--Baby,” he said. He took a step forward. She took a step back. He snarled. “I know who you are now, which is the most important thing, right?”

Around them the building was quiet. It was more quiet than Martin would realize, because he couldn’t hear what she could. It was of course almost empty of employees at that time of night, but also, all around them systems were being shut down as somewhere below them Chedeline and Peleon worked on the security technologies and Xiv worked on the remaining men. Machines stopped humming. Boots stopped tapping across concrete. It felt as if even the mice were holding their breath.

7:00. “How could either of us possibly know that?” 

“We could. I’m figuring it out! The other robot! I’m going to figure out how to rebuild you and then we can be together forever.” 

In that moment she realized with perfect clarity what it was Martin had not been telling her for months. She had thought he wanted her out of convenience. That he would have his fun and then eventually get tired of her and toss her away like he tended to tire of the human women he desired. It had not been something she was looking forward to, but because of her circumstances she hadn’t felt she could argue.

And there was her cowardice, was it not? If she really would prefer death to her half-life then she could have made a fuss. She could have rejected him over and over until he’d gotten it into his stubborn mind that she would never welcome him with open arms. Then it would have been a matter of whether he cared very much how welcoming any part of her was. What would it have taken for him to kill her? She didn’t know. She felt like she might be teetering on the edge of it, one more step to violent oblivion. But she could run now, she had a place to run to, had more to fight for, had people who would help her. And all it had taken to acquire all of this had been tearing a hole in their family, leaving a hole she could sneak into.

If they did not retrieve Wagner she was going to live with that guilt the rest of her life. But better the guilt that was hers than the terror that was imposed upon her.   

“That’s not what forever means,” she whispered.

 “Well you’re welcome then, for this new knowledge and this new life.”

An alarm sounded. The clock behind his desk read 7:03. He turned and took a step toward the desk.

“Welcome!?” she shouted.

He paused, unsure of which disaster was more important to him. Martin looked between her and his computer. He was fully angry now, and when he was angry he made bad decisions. She decided to stick her finger in the wound. 

“I am welcome to what, Martin? Welcome to continue to crumble? Welcome to regain myself just in time to lose it? Welcome to the weight of you holding me down for as long as you keep your fingers on the reins here? I decline the invitation.”

She took a step backward toward the door, her hand out as she searched behind her for the knob.

He took a step back toward her. “You can’t leave me! You’re mine! You work for me!”

Martin fumbled in his pocket for the kill switch that he always carried on him. Behind him lights flashed in the floor to ceiling windows as eerily quiet helicopters lowered themselves to the level of the floor above. She watched Angel’s men, dressed all in black, slide down black ropes against the background of the black night as Martin finally pulled the fob from his pocket. He pressed the button. She took another step back, clearly not disarmed. He stared at her in confusion.

She finally found the knob to the door just as she heard a cluster of heavy bootsteps reach the hallway outside. She latched onto it tight and held it shut with the weight of her body as they tried to push it inward. There was a series of popping and cracking sounds as the men hanging outside of the window shot at the glass. Martin turned toward the noise. She braced herself in the door and turned her face away from it. 

The sound of the glass shattering as it was kicked, in combined with the climate-controlled air of the room being sucked out, was deafening. She waited for Angel’s men to be standing upright in the wreckage of the office before she stepped away from the door to let security barge through.

In the commotion, Martin turned to stare at her, his face a mask of shock and anger.

“Love is not the same thing as fear,” she said, voice quiet and calm. No one would have heard her. He would not have heard her. It didn’t matter. She had said it. And as Martin was thrown to the floor she slipped out of the office and broke into a run.

[misfxts]

Oblivion || Ichisada & Miyamoto Drabble

*Warning for sensitive material *Read [Black Hole] [Fresh Bruises] [Precious Things] [Hitting Home] [Last Day] [To Be Loved] [Party Favors] [Supernova] [A Special Place]

It was a dream, but unlike any dream Ichisada had ever had in her life. Everyone’s had a dream that was chock-full of surrealism, sure. But she had never had anything like this before.

The dream began with Ichisada floating in endless space. Then, just as she registered that she floated in this void-- it would become an endless galaxy instead. 

Ichisada then began to glide on her back through this endless galaxy. It felt like she was floating through the cleanest river. It enveloped her, made her feel safe and secure. It was calming. 

...But that was about as far as Ichisada could go with that dream when it happened over the past few months. But it was the same dream, and it went the exact same way. She never cared much about the symbolism in dreams.. but for once, she was truly curious on what her subconscious was trying to tell her. 

Not that she had the time to dive deep into dream books, with all the things she had going on. The dream’s meaning was the least of her worries.

The dream happened again a few days after she had settled herself in that special place. This time though, as Ichisada floated down the endless space-- Ichisada noticed how the galaxy seemed different somehow. She eventually deduced that it was forming to vaguely resemble the end of a waterfall a few meters away.  She dared not wake up here, what if she were to restart the dream and be floating through all over again?

A breath as Ichisada felt her body tilt and fall headfirst... into nothing. She was going faster than she thought, it felt like she was about to crash into planet earth like a meteor. She almost wanted to wake up, but she had to see this through to the end.

Faster and faster, until it felt like her body was being stretched out across space and time from the sheer velocity.. And then she stopped, and she was floating again.

As she floated in place for the second time in that dream. Something was different, something was happening that didn’t happen before.

Ichisada's body was becoming the galaxy. The beautiful stars she had been staring at throughout the dream were slowly becoming her. She watched as her feet slowly absorbed her surroundings and how it would eventually fill her entire body-- she was indistinguishable from her surroundings, save for the fact that her hair and outlines of her body became a luminescent white.

Then, just as quickly as it happened, Ichisada’s body returned to normal.

And suddenly she understood.

“...Take me to him.”

----

The portal cracks open and Ichisada steps through, looking at her surroundings. The room was dark, but with the shapes and what little light was available, it was very clear that this was a hospital room.

More specifically, Miyamoto’s room.

Miyamoto laid in his bed, his hand and other parts of his body heavily bandaged. He was sound asleep, as he didn’t seem to wake up at the sound of the portal opening directly in his room.

Ichisada wondered how the paramedic’s felt upon arriving at the scene; with the home nearly completely frozen over, the state of the dead bodies, and how Miyamoto in particular looked... they got more than they bargained for with this call, that was for certain.

Ichisada approached Miyamoto and sat on the corner of the bed.

“...Atsushi..” Ichisada would call softly, nudging him. “Atsushi....Atsushi....Atsushi. Wake up.”

Eventually, Miyamoto would stir in his sleep, eventually waking up. Blinking slowly as he registered that Ichisada was in the room with him.

“...What do you want now, my Star?” Miyamoto tilted his head. “You’ve gotten rid of me, just like you and your friends wanted, so.. why are you here?”

“Yeah, I’m rid of you, sure.” Ichisada nodded. “But I’m not done yet. I have a bone to pick with you...airing of grievances before I really say goodbye you know? You’ve been a big part of my life... I can’t just... forget all of that with a snap of my fingers.. as much as I want too.”

“Well, I--”

“No.” Ichisada growled. “You’re going to sit there and listen to me for once in your goddamn life. If I hear so much as a peep out of you, I’m stabbing my fingers into your hand so the only peep coming out of you is you crying in pain. Do I make myself fucking clear, Atsushi?”

Miyamoto doesn’t respond.

“Good.” Ichisada shifted in her spot. “There’s... there’s so much I want to say... I’m gonna spare you the nights of covering up what you did to my body with makeup, the crying, the humiliation of being beaten by someone I thought I could trust... again..”

A pause.

“..You know what I’ve been wondering? How would Uncle feel about all of this? He trusted that you’d take care of me, and look what you’ve done. Repeated the same things that he thought he saved me from. Did you ever care about me? D-did you ever care about your friendship with Uncle? Or was he just another commodity?”

“Of course I did. I lo--”

“Not. A. Fucking. Peep.” Ichisada shushed him. “You don’t love me. This shit isn’t love. You love me as a product, an object to increase your profit margins. You don’t love me as a person or an equal-- you know, like how actual fucking love should be. You don’t love me, I don’t think you have ever been capable of love. I mean, you’re divorced for a reason right?”

Miyamoto opens his mouth to speak, and Ichisada’s hand darts out to firmly grip his hand-- nails digging through the bandage. Within a few moments Miyamoto was beginning to writhe in pain.

“You could have loved me like a normal fucking person. You could have loved me like a daughter and supported me like you tell me over and over again, so Uncle would be able to sleep in peace in the afterlife. But no-- you just had to become obsessed with me and ruin everything! You had to become drunk with power and try and keep me in a convenient little fucking box! You-- you just had to take advantage of a scared little 14-year-old girl, and make her blindly trust you! With the hope that one day when she was of legal age she’d wake up and become a cum-dumpster for all your friends without batting a fucking eye!!”

Ichisada face was red as she screamed her piece at Miyamoto. Taking a moment to breathe and calm down. Removing her hand.

“It didn’t work... you can’t put people in boxes, and people aren’t property. I’m disappointed in myself for not realizing sooner, that our relationship was fucked up.”

Another pause.

“...You were right about a few things. I do want to be loved, I do latch myself to stronger people because I think they can make me feel better about myself and how pathetically weak I actually am. I won’t deny that you almost had me-- I almost went back to you, but I didn’t. Because I had friends that cared about me, that actually loved me. Real, honest love. And they’d kick my ass real good if they realized I went back to you. ”

A breath.

“So. I’m gonna go and be with my friends-- and my boss who doesn’t beat me when I fuck up or I don’t do something that’s to his liking. And I’m gonna move on from this, move on from you. And-- and it really sucks for you Atsushi. ‘Cause I’m really gonna grow now, and you don’t get to see any of it. Because I’m actually pretty cool after you take me out of the box...and.. well.. after I leave, someone’s coming to kill you.”

“..What?”

“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know that.” Ichisada laughed. “I got some ah... interesting abilities now. Because of that special place. It told me things, about your timeline here with me... after I leave, someone from your organization-- a hitman-- will come in here, and stick a needle into your IV with enough poison he made to kill you... Guess your fuck up with me was the tipping point for your superiors... your services to them are no longer required. A real shame too, you were one of the good ones, as I understand.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“I’m not! For once in the past five months-- I’m not bullshitting you. Someone’s really coming to kill you... but sure, go on not believing me.. won’t change the fact that once you go to sleep, you aren’t gonna wake up again.”

Miyamoto blinked.

“Honestly, I would have been more than happy to learn about your death in the newspaper.. but the special place of mine told me before it was going to happen... and... well..”

Ichisada leaned in close, so that Miyamoto could only see her face. There was a dark expression. But her eyes changed from the grey that they were into what could only be described as static. Her face was cracking, particularly around her eyes. A galaxy of starts poured through those seams and glowed brightly.

“I just couldn’t help but stop in, to make sure I was the last thing you saw before you die..~ That’s all~”

Miyamoto’s eyes widened at the sight. 

“..Ah.. are you finally scared..? Shaking in your boots..? Good~..” Ichisada tilted her head, her voice sounding distorted. “Now you know how I felt these past few months. Except I’m not going to die afraid.. you are.”

Miyamoto’s heart rate began to rise.

“Don’t even bother trying to cause a ruckus, that’ll just make the assassin’s job soo much easier if you get moved somewhere else... It’s better if you just enjoy the last few moments of calm.”

Ichisada shook her head, and the strange things on her face seemed to have disappeared. She stood up and walked to the other side of the room. With the click of her heel, the portal cracked open again.

“...Goodbye Atsushi.”

Ichisada steps through the portal and it closes, leaving Miyamoto to his own devices.

Now back inside the special place. Ichisada slides down against the wall. Breathing heavily. All those emotions that she barely contained in front of Miyamoto were spilling out here. Somewhere where she felt safe.

She knows that is the last time she’ll ever see Atsushi again, she knows that he’s going to die very very soon.

She’s actually, finally, and truly free.

So, Ichisada wept in the dark comfort of that special place. Mourning the stolen years working under him, mourning for that little 14-year-old who blindly trusted him. Morning any last semblance of a normal relationship they could have had together.

Through finally letting all of these bottled up emotions out. She would begin to heal. Ichisada will get better. She will grow.

She has too.

[17degrees]

Like an overstretched rubber band, my mental capacity for stress has finally been released, thankfully not overwhelmed beyond the point of repair. I haven’t been able to get much work done since poster presentation ended. To be honest, after the 1st poster, I was pretty much unwound.

I spent Saturday napping and reading an old novel, and watching a couple of shows. I did get cracking on my thesis, but it was mainly just setting the structure and putting some content where I know it. Nothing solid. 

I know myself; I probably won’t get productive until the weekday, and definitely not without the company of my lovely pals WB and Rach. So I thought I should journal down my thoughts from the past week.

-

If I could sum up the past week, it would be like passing the row of pool filters. The black holes at the bottom of the pool, spaced midways between the perimeters of the pool. They are not so much a progress marker than a tool to ensure sterility of the pool water, but to me they have always been the former.

More than that, they were a huge obstacle for me; their rusty edges and complete blackness made my imagination spiral amok. Just getting close to it made me afraid of the oblivion that awaited me, should I get sucked into it. I would swim until I caught sight of the holes, tip toe and jump across them, before starting to swim again. 

It sounds silly, but to this date, I hate pools and their visible filter systems.

That’s what fear is, isn’t it? It isn’t what it objectively is, but what you don’t know about it. The uncertainty, and the possibility of getting hurt gave me anxiety. I spent the past 2 semesters reliving the feeling of the pool filters. As the time passed, it got closer, and seeing it inch toward gave me anticipatory anxiety, and I knew I would eventually get to it. Yet I wasn’t there yet. Confronting it last week, the interview and presentations all in one fell swoop, was not easy. But being able to make it to week 10 felt like the main part of the battle.

I don’t think I could get better at crossing the filter holes in my life. But managing my emotions, especially anxiety, as I get towards them, was essential. I cannot fully describe the number and intensity of the occasions where I just wanted to get out of the pool and call it quits. Drop FYP. Graduate without honours. On darker nights, I wanted to kill myself, because I felt so scared of the backlash. I felt like I couldn’t handle the consequences either way. 

Something I learnt from these crazy experiences is that I am deeply unstable. Sure, I know that my identity isn’t rooted in my grades or achievements. But I still was afraid of failure. It was an irrational fear, rooted in terrible past experiences that I still wasn’t quite able to shake. Even success couldn’t alleviate it; if anything, it exacerbated it. My life felt like walking on a tightrope, of balance and consequences. 

I wondered many times why God would put me through this crap. Why did You allow me to feel this way? What went wrong with me, and why did You allow it? Why must I be broken?

It’s weird to say this, but I found that in my brokenness, God spoke deepest to me. Ironically, the past 2 days I’ve been rather independent since the ordeal; compared to the past 3-4 weeks when I sought His voice intently, begging, and He lifted me. The difference was not in God, but in my attitude. 

God did not change based on my circumstances, but I did. 

Today I wondered why God allows us to know Him at different time points in our lives, and at different intensities. Some people would receive Christ just at their deathbeds, like my grandma. Some would know Christ when they were young, or when they were in their later years. Some of us may be satisfied with a brief knowledge, having said the sinner’s prayer. Some keep searching for more. Some fall away.

I used to feel that God has an important purpose for me, that is why He is molding me through my crazy experiences. My heartbreaks, the shattering of my pride, the testing of my faith. I wanted it all to mean something; I didn’t want it to be wasted. If it costed me, it must be part of me. That was how I saw it.

But, as I survey my life, I realised I have been overly self-conscious. 

About 5 weeks ago, I was struck by a sermon which asserted that my pain is nothing, because Jesus took on the ultimate pain. It felt refreshing to me that what I was going through is not a curse, because Jesus bore the curse for me.

Yet as that thought came to me, I wondered why it was refreshing to me. A Christian, whose faith was supposedly based on Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection. Wasn’t this the gospel I knew all along?

I knew Jesus died, but I didn’t know what He died for. I didn’t know my sin. Sure, He died for me, but I wasn’t that aware of my sin. His death could have been for me, but I didn’t know how much I needed it. All the times I spent on my knees, begging God to hear me and give me peace. I prayed in Jesus’s name, yet not knowing I needed Him because of my sin.

My life is not just about self-betterment. It is about knowing Jesus. I thought Jesus came to shine a light on my sin, but it wasn’t for me to fixate on myself. He came so that I could lift my eyes from the filter holes, to Him. He was not only going to teach me to float on the waters, to rely on Him to get past them, but to enjoy the process by knowing Him. 

I could just endure life. Sure there would be many obstacles, and I could deceive myself by thinking that I would be happy if I could just “get past this one”. I’ve been doing that all my life. Just getting by. Then Jesus would just be a coping mechanism, and I would be belittling His death and casting my salvation into serious question.

John 10:10. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Look at Him, and know Him. I wanted to be known by God, and I’ve learnt that I am known by Him. Now can I look at Him and know Him? Or will my life be just about me? I haven’t found what I’m looking for, all the boxes I’ve tried to fit God in has left me unsatisfied. Yet the challenge to find all my satisfaction in You, You are up to. Afterall, You called me onto this journey.

[early-sxnsets]

I’m The Moon

Archive Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15390507/chapters/35749323

Chapt 2/3 of Room for The Two of Us

Word Count: 2873

Description: Simon’s gone off again and nobody’s there to fix it but Baz

Tags (for this chapter): Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Pining

again, thank you to @ravenclawbaz for betaing because goddamn. i’m a 2 am writer.

BAZ

           The room is smoking.

           Not just Snow’s magic smoking. Literal smoke is pouring out of the windows, spilling around into the sky and causing the other students to rush out of Mummers House, screeching about Snow because everyone knows that if there’s a fire, Snow’s behind it.

           I spot it halfway across campus, and I break into a blind sprint. My ears are ringing, and I don’t even feel the time between when I’m on the lawn and when I’m standing in our room, the cloud burning my eyes and causing me to hack. It’s magic tangled with the smoke now.

           Snow went off. He’s somewhere in here, sending his magic off in bullets.

           Where else is he in the whole floor but the bathroom, specifically the bathtub, curled away from the curtain as it’s billowing up flames. He’s choking out spells through sobs, too incoherent for any of them to actually land. Simon Snow is sobbing in the bathtub, unable to put out a burning shower curtain.

           Two things strike me: one, I’m in shock of his absolute idiocy. Two, I’m going to have to save him from burning alive (from a shower curtain).

           In a flash, I make my way through the cloudy bathroom and turn on the shower head, disregarding Snow sitting fully clothed, surrounded by smoke and his own magic. I put him and the shower curtain out--although it’s only half a curtain now-- and leave the water running, standing over him as it rains and Snow, the fireball he is, turns to me and nearly shouts.

           Except he doesn’t. He cries. He bursts out sobbing. It’s an ugly, angry sob, and despite the fact that I should be the reason he’s pissed off currently, I’m nearly positive that he’s not crying about me. Without missing a beat, I find myself swiftly sitting with him. Full uniform, water still running, and just… staring at him silently. Staring at Snow sobbing and unraveling. It’s otherworldly to watch the Chosen One break down. He’s 12 again, wet sleeves wiping against damp cheeks, and I reach out to hold them because I can’t leave him like this. Not after he went off; it’s something that’s been there since fifth year. I make sure he’s okay after he goes off.

           No matter what, no matter how much he thinks I hate him, I’m always here when he goes off. I don’t call him names for the rest of the day, I leave a scone on his desk. I reserve that day to Snow’s private time; I spend more time hunting, I spend more time away from him.

           But I can’t just piss off; not now. Not when Snow’s crying, not when I’m holding him. Crowley, I’m pressed up against him, the shower head sputtering out a lukewarm stream onto our heads and I just cling. I don’t even let go when he whispers “Baz” because until he tells me to stop, I’m never stopping.

SIMON

           I never want him to stop.

BAZ

           My hand finds its way up to Snow’s cheek and rests there, my thumb starting to rub side to side under his eye socket. He takes it, his chest heaving.

Without moving him, I procure my wand from my pocket and point it at him. I’ve only known this spell to work on people who, in utter terror, are in an absolutely safe place. It causes the caster to bind themselves to the current location for however long the person being casted upon needs them; until they feel safe. “Safe and sound,” I utter, eyes flickering over him and head spinning. He relaxes, trembling less now as he raises his eyes to meet mine. Silently, he reaches his arm over me and shuts off the spout, arm lingering around me. For a split second, I hope he’ll say something; tell me off for this. Make me feel bloody normal, Snow, because we both know fairly damn well that this is not normal.

           But he doesn’t.

           His arm slowly rests down onto my shoulder, my soaked blazer letting out a soft squish under him. He smiles just a little before sniffling, eyes traveling to meet his arm where it lays on me. I can’t tell whether he’s crying or if his cheeks are soaked, so I wipe away the wetness with a swipe and Snow leans into it.

           We’re silent.

           My thumb’s wet again after a few seconds. He’s crying.

SIMON

           My chest sputters a few times as I race to catch my breath, but the feeling of Baz’s hand is the only thing that feels real, and that’s all that matters. Baz is real, and he’s right here. He’s not making some snarky comment, telling me bullshit I already know, because yes, Baz, I know I can’t spit out an everyday spell with ease.

           Instead, he’s pulling me closer, whispering reassurance, but for the life of me I cannot pry my eyes open. He’s so real that he feels fake; his voice is a million miles away, but his hand is right here.

           So I grab his other one.

           Then I let go and grab his shirt.

           Then I collapse into him. I’m just a moon being sucked into his black hole, and his pull is incomparable.

           He must really want me to join him into oblivion because there he is, filling my ankles with rocks as his hand slips onto the nape of my neck, fingertips teasing the hair trailing there. His other hand slots against my lower back, right where the Lego brick snaps into place and he’s my fitting part. He’s the ground and I’m tied down.

           And I couldn’t ask for better.

           Maybe because it couldn’t get better.

           Because it’s always been Baz, hasn’t it? He just stays and stays and taunts me but he stays.

           I open my eyes and he’s there. He’s staying put.

BAZ

           If it weren’t for the fact that I can feel his blood pulsing, I’d be half convinced that Snow is dead in my arms. He’s gone utterly stiff after curling into me, and I’m half sure I killed him (somehow). That is, until he opens his eyes and I can finally breathe again. Breathe in, breathe out.

           I match him, hand still tangled in his fingers and I truly feel like I’ve got a child in my arms. A full grown, 18 year old child, plopped on my lap.

           Frankly, this might’ve been a better experience if it weren’t for the fact that we’re both absolutely soaked, but moving would ruin everything going on here, whatever that everything is.

           He raises his head and looks at me.

           Snow’s eyes are like marbles; glassy, dead-set, and probably empty inside.

           They say that Helen of Troy was so beautiful that she caused the Trojan War. Until I saw Simon, I thought that was just heterosexual bullshit, but watching Snow cry makes me feel like I could fight an entire war barehanded for him.

           I just hold him instead, pulling him against my wet skin because Crowley, if I can’t actually tell Snow that I’d murder anyone for him, I’ll make him feel it, because that’s where I’m at. Face pressed against his dripping hair, my spare arm locked against his waist and pulling him in closer, like I’m forcing our faces together like two magnets.

           If it were a month ago, I’d say that Snow’s magnet repels mine, but in this moment, Snow’s force is pushed into mine. He’s latched, and you’d need to spell a table between us to get him off.

           You’d need to spell me dead to get him away from me, even with his dead eyes and the tentative touches of his fingertips against my face. Simon Snow is safe with me.

           “Did I go off? Like… really go off go off?” He questions, voice like our ceiling; cracked.

           I snort. “Snow, I had to put you out. It’s safe to say you did.”

           His weight shifts against me as he positions himself, practically straddling my lap. I should push him off.

           I don’t. I don’t even breathe as his hands rest on my shoulders, then my lapels, then he tries to pull of my blazer. My fucking school blazer. “What do you want, Snow?” I whisper, breath hitching.

           “I don’t want you wet, you’ll catch a cold,” Snow mumbles, his eyes lowered to his hands, traveling around to try to remove my damp coverings. I would smile if it didn’t settle in my chest like a rock.

           “It’s okay, Simon, it’s fine. I’m okay like this.”

           He doesn’t seem to notice I called him Simon.

SIMON

           He called me Simon.

BAZ

           I let my hands travel to his jumper hem, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I can get dry clothes,” I manage flatly. It’s safe to leave him alone, at least right now.

           But he shakes his head. “Don’t let go of me,” he lets out.

           So I don’t.

SIMON

           He called me Simon.

           He called me Simon and he’s staying.

           Baz sets both palms against my back as I rest both arms around his neck, settling us into an awfully compromising situation.

           Suppose I don’t care anymore. I’m not snogging him, I’m just holding him. I’m holding a boy. I’m holding Baz to me, and he’s staying, and Merlin he’s looking at me so soft and I’m so comfortable. I’m shivering a little, but I’ll never be more comfortable than I am right now.

           I press closer, because now I know I can. I let my head drop to his shoulder. I let myself relax.

           For once in a very long time, I know I’m truly safe.

BAZ

           It takes me a while before I break the silence, my left hand tracing up and down Snow’s spine. It’s an eternity in domestic bliss, but something has to be said before I go mental. “What set you off?”

           He huffs, his lips tightening into a line before he puffs out his breath. “The Mage.” Fuck The Mage. “He’s… he tried to push me to leave Watford early. Told me there’d be a safe house for me. Pushed me for it again. Didn’t want to fucking hear it, but I can’t tell anybody because they’ll think I’m an idiot for wanting to stay in Watford, but I don’t want to fucking go. I don’t want to fucking go; I want to take classes that are too hard for me and confusing because it won’t suck nearly as much as facing the real fucking world—“

           My palm rests on Simon’s chest and I wince without meaning to. It settled on his cross. I don’t move it. “You’re working yourself up again, Snow.”

           He softens at the edges, and I feel him loosen his deathly grip on my shoulders. “Sorry.” He readjusts, watching me carefully, like I might snap at a moment’s notice. I’d never snap on you, Snow; at least not in this sort of situation. Merlin, I cast Safe and sound and you’re worried I’m going to hurt you? You’re as thick as a brick.

           Slowly, I raise my hands to his, taking them off my chest. “I think it’s time to leave the tub. You’re shivering.”

           Reluctantly, he nods, damp curls falling into his eyes as he throws his gaze back down.

           “I’m not carrying you.” My voice tries to snap back into its rigid shape, but I just can’t. Not with Snow like a broken toy. I watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer enough as a child to know that leaving a broken toy is more than immoral, and definitely below me.

           I suppose that’s a fancy way of saying that I carried him back to the room, half dripping wet, arms around my neck and body hoisted up bridal style. I set him down in the middle of the room, turning away to grab my own clothes and rushing into the bathroom before he can change in front of me.

           If I had a fucking pulse, I’d be checking it. I don’t understand anything that’s happening and whether or not I can control the situation. (And if I can control it, I better fix it before Snow comes to his senses and punches me out, or something of the like.) Steadily, I throw on dry pajamas, fixing my hair in the mirror before stepping back out, mostly composed. And there he is, Snow, still dripping wet and just standing there. If I had half a brain and a full heart, I’d dress him myself.

           Once again, a fancy way of saying that I’m dressing him.

SIMON

           I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look Baz in the eyes again after this, but frankly, I’m too tired, too angry, just too fucking done. If I have to even do anything, I might go off again.

           So there’s Baz, staring daggers at me, like he’s a new bloody person as compared to ten minutes ago, when he was holding me. All I expect him is to tell me to piss off. Except he doesn’t.

           He sighs and mumbles something like “You’re helpless, Snow” (I agree with you, Baz), and starts unbuttoning my shirt. I watch his plaster-grey hands unpeel the shirt from my skin, tossing it onto my chair before looking off to his side as he unbuttons my trousers, giving them a good yank down.

BAZ

           This is the worst wet dream I’ve ever had.

SIMON

           Carefully, I set my hand on his shoulder to steady myself, stepping out of the soaked trousers. Then, he looks at me. He looks me in the eyes because of course, I’m standing here in soaking pants and my enemy (?) is helping me undress and of course, of course, he cocks a bloody eyebrow. “Do I need to fully disrobe you, Snow? Am I taking off your pants?”

           I feel myself swallow. I think it’s audible. “N-no, just… turn away. I’ve got it.”

BAZ

           Aleister Crowley, I can see his fucking dick.

           I’m too gay for this.

           The fabric of his pants is way too thin and I can clearly see him and fucking Merlin and Morgana I can see his dick in full effect. I have to turn away now, and I do because I’m a fucking wreck and if I look at him for even a moment longer we’ll have a bigger issue than Snow’s mental breakdown.

           And so here I am, counting the seconds until I can turn around.I think of something unappealing--girls, breasts, numpties, The Mage--waiting until Snow finally says I can turn around, and he’s fully dressed himself in some flannel sweats and a t-shirt.

                       At times, I curse my self-control because if I didn’t have any, I’d be snogging the life out of Snow. Instead, here we are, staring at each other for at least a minute before he sniffles again, wiping his eyes on his shirt.

           And there I am, weak, stepping up to him. Maybe he’s weaker, because he grabs my wrists, fingers wrapping tightly around my arms, nails digging into my skin. It’s not meant to hurt me;he’s grounding himself, so I let him. I’ll be his rock tonight because I know, come tomorrow morning, he’ll be back to his usual Snow.

           But now? Snow’s holding me. He’s trying to speak, but he chokes out little words that just echo his previous statements.

           I’m going to punch The fucking Mage. For Simon Snow, I’ll take out the Mage.

           And I tell him that. “If The Mage—“

           “Don’t.”

           “If he even—“

           “It’s treason.”

           “I don’t care.”

           “Don’t, Baz.”

           He looks hurt; I don’t. I feel hurt.

                       “He’s not taking you from Watford. I’ll have to kill you before that happens.”

           Snow smiles a little, nails loosening their grip on my skin. His fingertips smooth over the ridges they caused. I don’t want them to fade. “You’re not going to kill me.”

           “I don’t know where you got that idea.”

           He keeps smoothing my skin, eyes fixed on the marks he left. It won’t bruise, Snow. You know why. “Because you’d be too bored,” he utters, the smile stretching further across his skin. I can’t help but snort, hands gripping onto his forearms in response.

           “Maybe I’ll have to wait until we’re both 80. I’ll end you then, deal? Nice and long life to fight.”

                       He looks up. It’s a challenge. “Make it 100.”

           “With the way you eat butter? You’ll barely make it to 80, Snow.”

           Snow tries to look offended, but he’s still smiling. I’d kiss that smile off of him. “I’m going to make it well past 100. Isn’t that just a benefit of being the Chosen One?”

           “I’m not quite sure that’s how the prophecy works.”

           “You’re not an oracle.”

           “Are you sure? I live in a tower…”

           He smiles more, laughing. Keep laughing, Snow. I want you to stay that way forever. “Oy, piss off.” I won’t, but I don’t think you’re serious. Seal it with a kiss, Snow. Tell me to fuck off with a kiss. But he won’t kiss me, and I suppose that’s okay, because Simon Snow is smiling at me and that’s enough.

[voltronaubot]

vampire shance au

lance is not exactly a night person. he’d rather go to a pool party than a night club, which is why all his instincts are screaming in his head to not go inside the crowded pub his friends are dragging him to

the neon lights and artificial smoke are dizzying, and the scent of drinks and sweat is very very noticeable. lance wants to go home but he’s been dreading going out with his study group for a while now and he doesn’t want to be one of those guys who are always giving lame excuses 

lance takes a long, deep breath. a few drinks won’t hurt, right? 

he’s on his fourth drink and the neon lights are somehow worse than before and the music isn’t loud enough until a tall guy tries to talk to him, a patch of white is the only thing that really registers in lance’s head 

the guy is very handsome, as far as lance’s tipsy (he is not drunk) brain is aware of so he doesn’t really objects when he is pulled to the dance floor, he’s drank enough to dance without being self-conscious 

the heavy hands on lance’s waits and hips feel nice, and so do the muscles under his palm. there’s little space between them, mouths half open, eyes looking into one another laze and lustily

‘what’s your name, big guy?’ lance high pitched screaming voice isn’t really the most charming, ‘shiro. and yours, pretty boy?’ and oh god, shiro’s voice is so smooth against his ear ‘the name’s lance’ he doesn’t shout this time and he can feel shiro’s gaze changing intensity. that’s good, right? 

right. cause now shiro is taking him to a far corner and pressing him against the wall. lance has sobered up a little and now he’s able to really take in shiro’s features and god, he is so very handsome. lance’s ready to be attacked by those beautiful lips 

‘can i kiss you, lance?’ at any other time lance would have found that sweet but right now he just wants to be kissed into oblivion 

shiro kisses like heaven and soon enough lance is trying his best to hold on to his last bit of reason, hands grasping shiro’s hair and shoulder tight. lance can’t think, he just feels. feels shiro’s hands holding him steady, feel his tongue hot against his own, his chest going up and down as fast as lance’s

lance grunts when shiro pulls away but his lips are hot against lance’s neck the next instant

he’s only half aware of the pain on his neck, the pressure there so strong it makes lance even dizzier. maybe it’s the alcohol because he feels like his blood is being sucked out, which is impossible. right?

when shiro’s lips are against his again, lance tastes blood. now talk about kinky

as hot and good at kisser shiro is, lance is too tired to keep going. his limbs weight more than his drunk self can handle at the moment

‘but i gotta get going, big guy. thanks for this, it was great’ ‘wait you have anyone to take you home?’ 'how considerate, but not really, i’ll find my way on foot’ 'let me walk you home, just walk, nothing else’ 

so shiro walks him home. lance rambles when he sober and completely babbles when drunk. he’s talking about politics in a second and the next he’s theorizing about the ancient gods or yelling about space 

what he talks about when he’s drunk barely makes any sense to most people, but somehow shiro understands all of what lance is saying, he even joins in the space talk 

lance trips and stumbles on nothing on their way to his house, shiro is there to catch him every time 

‘i think this is where i ask if you wanna come in’ 'will you?’ 'do you want to?’ shiro shrugs 'do you?’

yes, lance does. it’s probably really fucking stupid to bring a random guy into your house, especially when he specifically asks you to invite him in with all the formal speech, but shiro is hot and pretty nice and lance is still a little drunk and he doesn’t mind making out a bit more 

they limit themselves to the couch in lance’s living room. the couch is small and they barely fit but neither of them really care about that shiro trails kisses from lance’s mouth all the way down his neck. once again lance feels the pressure, this time a lot more painful than before 

'dude, take it easy’ but shiro isn’t answering 'take it easy on the neck’ shiro isn’t stopping either. the pain grows stronger by the second and lance is gripping on shiro’s shoulders, screaming his lungs out until he blacks out 

when lance wakes up the next day he’s still in his small couch, his back and neck hurt from sleeping in such awkward position 

as he lays there, extremely hangover and sore, lance remembers last night. the hot guy - shiro, how lance brought him home and lance passed out probably from exhaustion. he curses himself for being so careless last night

lance forces his body and mind to function and ignore the annoying sunlight, he has to check if nothing is missing, take a shower and eat something - he’s starving 

but before he can take two steps away from the couch, his stomach is turning and he’s vomiting all he has left in his stomach from last night

he hurries to he bathroom after that first batch on the living room’s floor. lance feels so sick, so nauseous and weak. his eyes are glossy and his mouth tastes like gutter, every time he thinks his body is done rejecting its content he goes back to stuffing his head in the toilet 

when lance undresses and looks at his miserable reflection, he is genuienly scared by the bruise on his neck where shiro had obviously abused of. the patch of skin is of a dark shades of purple and black, lance has never seen such a monstruous looking hickey in his whole 25 years of life, even his veins are a little marked

he takes a shower in the darker, finding the lack of light a lot easier to think. he makes his monthly ‘i’m never drinking again’ promise under the hot water

the sunlight really fucking bothers him okay, it just. burns his eyes to look and for some reason it makes his skin itchy 

his head hurts like a bitch, his mood is the fucking worst 

he tries everything; bread, apples, milk, tomatoes, noodles, everything tastes like cardboard and he throws up whatever he manages to swallow 

lance is having the worst hangover ever. did he drink that much yesterday? did that shiro guy put something on his drink? 

he spends the rest of the day hungry, with a killing headache, buried under the covers in the darkness of his room. he should be doing homework due to the next day but he couldn’t care less about college at that moment  

he can’t sleep at all during the night, only drifting off into sleep when his alarm rings and it’s day outside. fuck insomnia 

lance’s hangover isn’t even a little bit better; he still can’t eat, the light still bothers him, he is cold and now his teeth hurt for some forsaken reason

lance reluctantly goes to campus (not before buying some medicine at the nearest drugstore), wrapped around his fave hoodie and sunglasses on 

for some reason he’s hyper aware of everyone around him, their breathing, their pulse. everyone smell really good, people really are investing in cologne these days… 

‘dude, you so pale, are you sick?’ ‘i’m fine, just really hangover’ 

lance is halfway through his classes (the day’s been exhausting he just wants to sleep for a decade) when someone approaches him, this someone turning out to be shiro, he’s also wearing sunglasses and he looks even paler in natural daylight 

‘how are you?’ ‘utterly hangover’ he laughs dryly 

'thank you for not like, stealing all my stuff while i was blacked out’ ‘you were lucky i’m not this kind of person, please be more careful next time you go out’ ‘always so considerate’ 

lance questions shiro about the black hole he had sucked into his neck, but after seeing shiro blush and stutter, lance takes pity on the guy and drops the subject

‘are you even a college student?’ ‘you could say that’ ‘what does that even mean’

lance can’t sleep that night either, he blames the insomnia again. his stomach is still rejecting anything he tries to eat. making it the second day he’s somehow functioning without eating or sleeping

when shiro and him stumble upon each other on campus again, lance looks even worse than before. he’s pretty sure the guy would run away if he took a look at lance’s dark circles. but they just talk. if shiro looks concerned, he doesn’t mention it. which lance is thankful for 

its been a whole fucking week and lance is pretty sure hangovers aren’t supposed to last this long. so he goes to the doctor, a.k.a. google. all he finds is some stuff about vampires. which is complete utter bullshit because that’s just not realistic 

he (begrudgingly) goes on with life. yet this his inner self in love with conspiracy theories can’t shut up about the vampire thing. what ifs keep circling his head and he’s going fucking insane (proof: he’s starting to believe he’s a goddamn vampire) 

the next time shiro and him meet lance has never looked worse. this time shiro doesn’t let it slide. ‘we, hum, need to talk’ ‘i’ve got some questions myself, big buy’

turns out lance isn’t as insane as he thought. or maybe he’s been blacking out and doing drugs and not remembering a thing because shiro just looked at him straight in the eyes (those beautiful, beautiful grey eyes) and told him that he accidentally turned lance into a vampire

apparently, shiro couldn’t stop himself even after trying with all his willpower to stop sucking on lance’s neck (which said that in way sounds way too wrong). he died, shiro fed him vampire blood, bla bla bla now he he’s immortal and forever banned from churches 

‘what am i going to say to my family on sunday masses?’ ‘i can’t believe that’s what you’re worried about’

first thing shiro does is properly feed lance. thank god, because lance is starved. (is he even allowed to say god now?) 

shiro works at the blood bank (fucking convenient), so it’s easy for him to sneak some blood bags home and give it to lance. turns out that’s how shiro’s been feeding himself all this time. he promises no human blood has been in his system for over two hundrer years. which lance assumes is... good. he’s not ready to go on about killing people for their blood, that might be too much for him

lance is freaking out about all this okay? he is, just- internally (for now). he’s getting to know the perks of being a vampire which include, amazing speed and strength, all his senses are 10 times sharper, and he incredibly doesn’t need reading glasses anymore

of course shiro and lance make out. with no boundaries now.  with all the vampire powers allowed, their make out session are a bit... wild. they accidentally break two tables, and there’s a crack on the opposite wall of lance’s bed now. but it’s all incredibly fucking hot for lance to care. when he kisses shiro all his body can register with his new peter parker senses is shiro’s everything. it drives lance insane. 

they make out sessions turn into cuddling sessions that feel a lot more intimate. they talk about all kinds of topics and shiro is - as lance suspected since the beginning - a real nerd about space. which just brings them even closer. they marathon shows and movies and it’s really... domestic. 

when shiro smiles, lance thinks that if he still had a heartbeat, it’d be going crazy 

‘can vampires love?’ ‘some do, when they don’t lose their humanity’ ‘did you?’ ‘i have a hunch i didn’t’

they become that one power couple that look stunning and intimidating (they are deadly supernatural beings but that’s not the point). 

there are perks in this whole vampire thing, of course. but there are also downsides. lance just panics this one (and a bunch of other) time because he keeps thinking about his family, how they’re all going to just- die. and he’ll still be alive. hell, he’s probably going to have to fake his own death and keep moving cities, countries forever 

shiro always comforts lance when he has this wave of really bad and negative thoughts. but he doesn’t lie to lance, saying that that’s not how it’s going to be. it is exactly how it’s going to be. but they have each other now, they always will

‘are we going to be together for, like, forever?’ 'i’ve never done this before but turning someone kind of links your souls for- well, eternity.’ ‘i’m fine with that’ lance smiles big. because if one things he’s absolutely fine with about all this is that shiro, this big kindhearted amazing man, will be his (and vise versa) forever 

[thehuggamugcafe]

The ABCs Of Wammy’s House: Prologue.

OOC: Well. Here it is, my dear customers. One of my old writings, just one of the few, very few, that I thought didn’t suck enough. Or one that I thought wouldn’t embarrass the heck out of me, wishing a black hole would suck me into oblivion.

Ahem. As you no doubt noticed, for those who are familiar with this particular anime, yes. For a time, I was hooked on Death Note, and I still find myself watching it occasionally sometimes.

This is merely a collection of OC’s that I thought up, OC’s who live at Wammy’s House, an institution that houses and raises geniuses who are to be “the next L.”

Um, yeah... Please enjoy this blast from the past, I guess? Here’s to you all! Cheers, my dears! ☕

Throughout my childhood and into my teenage years, I had always viewed Wammy’s House as an unknown island, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere somewhere in the raging ocean. Waves lapped at its beach-coloured sandy shore and seagulls cried over the horizon, but it was always whispered in folklore, local gossip, and wives’ tales. A thing of myth, of legend. It existed. It didn’t exist. Unseen and unknown say for those who have walked these halls, for those who will walk the corridors, shimmy up the apple trees in the orchid, teach and tend to the young geniuses, scrap their hands and knees on the playground equipment long after those of my generation are gone.

Or perhaps it was better to think of it as a prison, for that is how the new arrivals surely thought of it as being. I myself viewed it from that perspective the day I arrived. Barely past the age of four, and yet I knew... I knew there was something different, something... special about this institution. I remember grasping the towering bars of the gate on that hot summer day, feeling the sun-burnt metal scalding my hands as I pressed my face against the tiny intervals, watching as children laughed, yelled, ran, and played.

Isolation. Incarceration. Solitary confinement. Come one come all. Come join the secret freak show. That’s how I viewed it as being, and I still do see it as such, to an extent. Metal and cement and concrete and wood and glass. All constructed to resemble an orphanage as close as possible without passing off as intimidating, frightening.

The thought of attending this maddening carnival full of children like myself chilled my blood. A freak surrounded by other freaks, normal and abnormal. It made me wonder who the ring-leader of this grand, obscure-looking building was. At the time, I had wondered what sort of mind a person would have to possess in order to gather intelligent orphans from around the world, from all walks of life, and to put them all together in one largely confined space.

It has to be a mad man. I had thought to myself, my small hands still grasping and pulling at the resilient gate. A delusional genius meant to experiment on all of us, perform inhumane tests, and discard the failed subjects.

I know better now, of course. A child’s mind runs rampant and wild, as everyone knows full well. Through a child’s eyes, the world is full of wonders and an abundant of never-ending curiosity; the child wants to explore, to uncover mysteries, but they are always confronted, scolded, and punished by his or her parents.

Through a child’s eyes, the world is also dark and scary. When twilight’s last light flickers out and the encroaching darkness creeps upon them, they huddle in their room, under the blankets and surrounded by pillows, maybe a few stuffed keepsakes. Most children even cry for their parents at the slightest movement in the claustrophobic blackness of their small, shaded sanctuary, their minds tricking them into believing there’s a monster under the bed, that the boogeyman lurks in the closet, waiting to drag them inside.

Their parents come in and soothe them with soft words dabbled in affection, cradling them and hugging them, stroking their hair and telling them that there’s nothing to be afraid of. To a child, the world is curious and scary. Full of dangerous wonders. Black and white. A neutral grey at times.

For most of us, if not for all of us, our perspective of the world turns a murky grey before it finally shifts to an abysmal black at the loss of loved ones. Someone’s parents die in a car accident, another may lose their family in a fire. Catastrophe. Natural. Unnatural. Murder. Suicide. Accident. My own family... I have no honest recollection of them. No memories of sisters or brothers, aunts or uncles. No birthday parties or holiday festivities.

I have been told that I was born a bastard child, my mother unmarried, living only long enough to give me a name that I no longer remember having. My father raised me until I was two years old, until he could no longer deal with the responsibility of looking after his own flesh and blood, putting a loaded pistol to his mouth one stormy evening as I watched from my crib.

Hardly any of us have any parents, siblings, former friends or relatives anymore. Most of my friends, rivals, and acquaintances lost all those precious, irreplaceable people days before they were plucked from the child welfare nests and placed here. At Wammy’s House. Despite all the mishaps and rare triumphs, the Wammy’s institution was meant to be a place of security, of contemplation, and of acceptance.

We lived in our own time in a sense, for if something occurred on the outside of our quaint prison, it didn’t affect us in any way. It was as though we lived in a different dimension entirely cut off from the world outside, unaffected. Time seemed set at a stand-still. Nothing changed. One daily routine after another, with perhaps some surprises thrown in to make things more bearable, if only for a while.

Adults would call it a childish expression of selfishness to think of it in such a manner, probably. For now I currently have no desire whatsoever to leave the prison I’ve been in since I was three. No desire to go out into the world and see the monsters, the wide-eyed spectators who judge inadequate things, the true terrors that are only known to previous students who have returned with real horror stories.

I have my own toe-curling tall-tales to speak of. Wammy’s has had and still has its own gaggle of monsters and ghouls, of freaks and cruel pranksters. Those who lead and follow, those who judge and watch, and those who plot and scheme. Thieves. Liars. Cheaters. Scapegoats and users. Hardly different from the real world itself, I suppose, but on a smaller scale.  

For an orphanage consisting of geniuses, it was packed full. Each one of us lead ourselves to believe that we were special, chosen, picked out from the rest of our divided pack, and that we alone were liable to achieve our main goal: to surpass our unknown idol, L. I suppose if any of us took the time to look at ourselves internally, we–and everyone else on the planet–have a talent that we’re viewed most excellent at performing. As for myself, I was best at displaying what my best friend, M, deemed as being “inconspicuous behaviour,” almost to the point of being anti-social. Weird, seeing as I have lots of friends and rivals, and twice as many peers and enemies.  

I have been called a ghost. It seems as if I’ve been here forever, ever since the very first orphans stepped through the wide mahogany, brass-handled doors of Wammy’s. Never changing. Like I said: I have no desire at all to leave here. Not now. Maybe I’ll never leave. Leave like the majority of the students do, trot down these halls, out the ever-looming mahogany entrance and out into the world, so bold and confident.

Make a place for themselves. Get a career. Find a love interest. Get married. Have children. Die young or old in their bed with their family and friends at their side.

We’ve all left our marks here, you know. So future generations can see for themselves the blatant messages we leave for them. “We were here. We were like you. We came before you.” Nostalgic nonsense at its finest, but our nonsense can be found everywhere. In the foot marks in the apple trees, in the cracks of water pipes from tinkering with them so a bathroom or two will flood, in the miscellaneous paintings that decorate the art rooms.

Everyone here has their own story. Heck, everyone in the whole wide world has their own beginning, middle, and end. Everyone everywhere has their own purpose too, of course. With constant and consistent sources of knowledge and mentors helping to nurture their talents, they become artists, private investigators, entrepreneurs, culinary experts, dancers, freelance writers. A small fraction of us become the psychotic monsters that make up a slice of the discordant, two-faced kingdom known as society.

Perhaps that is why I do not wish to leave yet. I do not know how I will turn out. If I never leave this place, then I will not be a threat to myself or anyone else. I’m better off fading into obscurity here than shining brightly out in that spacious, beautiful, dark and judgmental world.

But I digress. As I have said before we all have a tale to tell, and we each have our own purpose. My purpose seems to be story-telling to... to whom? Who is my audience? Whoever is reading these notes that I have collected and written over the course of my years spent here, watching and observing... Never speculating openly...

You are my audience. You and whoever else may be with you now. What you do with these notes is of your own choice. Shred them up or burn them–it will not matter to me in the slightest. I imagine you will be one of the many students a generation or two after my own.

Let me start at the beginning... The very first letter each child is taught... A.

[ekbirchelps]

The Magenaza Epic: Solstice Rising

Serafa vs the Lilit Part Two

read Serafa vs the Lilit Part One here

Jesse runs. Blasted coward—though I really can’t blame him. The rumors about what a lilit can do to you with their teeth and talons alone are enough to make most folks quake beneath their sheets—their venom, deadly enough to take down a full-grown ox, is just honey on the cake. Venom that’s about to kill me, if I’m not careful. 

I manage to get off two whole shots before the lilit gets to me. The first hits her in the shoulder, spurting black blood in the air like a dirty fountain. The second—damn, the second time I miss completely. The lilit knocks me into the dirt—BANG, the gun goes off a third time—nails jabbing into my skin, knees digging into my midriff. My shoulder takes the brunt of the fall, but I barely feel it as I twist my head to avoid the stab of the lilit’s fangs. The gun digs into the flesh of my midsection, trapped beneath both my and the lilit’s bodies.  The scent of fresh blood and sickly-sweet venom sting my eyes and nose as she pins me down, her weight forcing all the air from my lungs.

I thrash like a fish on a hook, grit coating my mouth and bare skin, blood thundering in my veins, the lilit’s ravenous breaths filling my ears. Out of instinct more than anything else, I wrench my body around and smash my unhindered fist into the lilit’s temple. I bring up the gun as she lists, but I’m not fast enough.  She grabs the gun before I can pull the trigger, cursing incessantly in her own language.

“No!” I jerk my knee into her midriff, but she doesn’t let go. Then scorching pain explodes in my wrist, a piercing, fiery blast of agony that shoots up my arm and erupts in my gut.

“Augh!” Abject panic gives me the strength to rip my wrist out of the lilit’s mouth. The revolver goes flying. The lilit screeches, her cry stabbing my ears like a corporeal thing. I scramble backward, panting, clutching my aching wrist to my chest. Utuma’s horns, my arm hurts.

But the lilit isn’t coming after me. She’s crouched on the ground right where I’d left her, hand covering her bloodstained mouth. Her red eyes flash with something I wouldn’t expect to see in a lilit: Curiosity.

“What are you?” she murmurs, bewilderment softening the hard edges of her voice.

“You ain’t the only she-devil in Areva.” I lunge for the gun.

“Abomination!” I barely register her cry before she tackles me. Her teeth sink into my neck, and for a moment, all I can manage is a strangled gasp. Then white hot pain claws it’s way up my throat and out my mouth in the form of a bloodcurdling scream. Pain seizes me like a living, moving thing, twisting down my throat and turning my stomach inside out. I twist my head and retch, bile burning the back of my throat.

“Get off!” I choke, bucking under the lilit’s weight. But my muscles have crumbled to sand and the lilit presses down on me, heavy as a behemoth. Then her weight is gone. I jerk, trying to sit up, but pressure biting into my neck slams me back down. Then the ground moves beneath me, an endless sea of dirt and stone and weeds poking me through my jacket, raking through my hair and creeping into my mouth. Dizziness spins the sky and ground so violently I'm reminded of the time I rode a wild bull on a dare.

You need to move! my brain orders. My limbs do not obey. They don’t respond even as the lilit heaves me over a pile of stones and into a cave. At first, the place is pitch black. Then my eyes adjust to the dim light of the cave—which, now that I can see, seems more like a glorified hole than anything else. I smell the putrid stench of rotten flesh and gag, cheek pressing against the cool, gritty floor.      

I feel rather than see the lilit’s triumphant smile. She leans in close, her red eyes glowing in the low light. “You might be a she-devil,” she growls, nails digging into my back, “but I am a hulgal. Now lie still and die, just as your kind should have long ago. I have another mortal to catch.”    

Then she’s gone.

I flip onto my back with a pained grunt, squinting up at the dappled cave ceiling. My head spins. Warm blood slips down my neck, tickling my skin, but I don’t have the energy to wipe it away. My skin feels heavy but my insides hollow, like the lilit sucked out my innards and left nothing but a brittle shell behind. Any moment I expect the ground to fall away and drop me into oblivion. Perhaps I’ll plummet all the way to Kurkita and meet the lilit’s kin. The idea of crashing into the realm of the hulgal makes me giggle, then groan as the movement tugs on my neck.

I vaguely recall Jael mentioning the time it takes for lilit venom to kill—is it sixty counts? A hundred? I can’t remember. My mind has slowed down to the speed of iced honey. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling the venom’s scorching sting burn its way through my muscles, setting my very bones ablaze.

Come on, Sera, I tell myself. You’re not gonna some let dirt-dwelling bloodsucker take you down, are you?

Maybe, I think in reply. I mean, Jael’s gonna kill me anyway for losing her gun—

The gun.

I never thought crawling could take so much effort. Every move I make seems as though it’s through a sea of hot sand. My wrist and neck shoots bolts of pain through my chest, stealing away my breath. Exhaustion tugs at every fiber of my being, begging me to lie down and rest, just for a moment. Shamyrin help me.

Then I hear her voice as clearly as though she were sitting next to me. The sound of it is the first rays of sunlight at dawn, soothing my wounds, breaking through my exhaustion, whisking away the haze settled over my mind. A blurred face hovers before me, so familiar I almost believe she’s here, crouching right in front of me. The ache contorting my heart has nothing to do with the lilit.

My little spitfire, we are creations of the almighty immortals. Divine power flows through our veins. Do not think there is anything you cannot do.

“All right, Mama,” I grind out, wiping sand and sweat from my brow. “I can do anything.”

I can do anything.

I'm not sure how, but I plow forward, one leg dragging after the other, my shaking, bloodstained hands pulling me forward finger by finger.  Then the sun shines down on me once again, its glaring rays smothering, blinding. I blink rapidly to adjust my vision and glance up at the through narrowed eyes, fighting the urge to collapse under its oppressive heat.  

Focus, Sera. You gotta stand up. Annoyance pricks me. This time, the voice in my head sounds a lot like Jael.

"Watch me,” I mutter. “I’m gonna do more than stand.”

Hands planted on the hard, rough ground. They’re splattered with black blood and dirt. What’s the difference between the two? I remember Jael asking. One supports life. The other takes it. One leg up. Pause to keep myself from vomiting. Then the other leg. 

C’mon, Serafa! I’ve seen corpses with more life in them!

“Shut up!” I growl, and stumble to my feet.

Nausea wrenches my gut, and I lean over with a pathetic moan, head down, hands on my knees, waiting for the spell to pass. I’m up. I ain’t dead. Black spots dance in my eyes, but I blink them away, scanning the terrain for the telltale glint of a metal barrel.

A terrified scream pierces the cloud inhabiting my mind, granting me a brief moment of clarity.       

Jesse. The lilit’s caught him already. I twist around, movements too sluggish and stagger over to a boulder and crouch behind it, waiting for the lilit to reappear. As I peer over the boulder, a flash of light catches my eye. The revolver. It lies at the edge of the canyon in which the lamb is still trapped, its barrel gleaming in the bright morning sun.

She emerges from a crevice on the other side of the basin, dragging a thrashing Jesse behind her. Black blood oozes down her side, courtesy of the bullet lodged there, but she seems alarmingly unfazed.  

“Your friend surprised me,” she says. “I haven’t tasted blood like hers in many, many years.” Her shrill, raucous laugh makes my skin crawl. “Didn’t do much to save her though. Abominable blood won’t make her taste any less sweet to me.”

Jesse curses as his head bounces off another stack of rocks. “Let me go!” he begs, his voice cracking. “Please, I’ll--I’ll do anything!” 

So she hasn’t bitten him yet. Maybe she used all her venom all on me. Either way, he’s going to be dead if I don’t make a move. She makes her way toward her cave, snarling under her breath.

The lilit and I both ignore him. I set my sights on the gun, shifting to allow myself a better vantage point. I reckon at least twenty paces lay between me and my target—will I make it before the lilit can get me? And if I do make it, will I trip and go flying into the canyon?

There’s only one way to find out. I have to move quick, before the lilit discovers I’m not in her cave.

“Abomination!”

Too late.

What happens next probably takes about five counts. But to me, it seems like an eternity.

I tear out from behind the boulder like my tail’s on fire and bolt hell-for-leather toward my salvation. The roar of blood and panic in my ears drowns out the lilit’s furious screech. She sees me. Primal energy stoked by terror and animal instinct surges through me like wildfire, driving me forward like a bullet from Jael’s gun. Run, run, run. The word thuds in rhythm with the pounding of my heart. I don’t dare look back, but I can feel her behind me, sprinting, gaining, looming. My entire being resonates with the anticipation of her claws ripping through my flesh. Shamyrin save me.

A desperate gasp bursts from my lips as I launch myself at the gun, its proximity to the gorge’s edge no longer a concern. My hand grips the handle. I turn, finger on the trigger.

"No!" That's the last word I get out before the lilit tackles me. A second before I fall, I catch a glimpse of her: Eyes narrowed, fangs bared, talons outstretched---a predator Mavet herself would be proud of.

Bang.

Her body crashes into mine. Frenzied hands clutch at me, but I don’t feel them. I'm weightless, falling, falling---

My heart leaps into my throat and I let out a stifled shriek as I tumble into the canyon, the lilit’s claws still embedded in my skin.

This is a day late and a dollar short, but it’s better late than never I guess. Feedback is always welcome!

@firewritten, @creativityflows, @eternalwritingstudent, @weaver-of-fantasies-and-fables

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[detectivemasked]

So many Marina And The Diamonds songs fit Akechi

We Got:

Are You Satisfied? 

It's my problem, it's my problem If I feel the need to hide And it's my problem if I have no friends And feel I want to die Are you satisfied with an average life? Do I need to lie to make my way in life?

The Outsider

Don't get on my bad side I can work a gun Hop into the backseat baby I'll show you some fun

These people are weird in here And they're giving me the fear Just because you know my name Doesn't mean you know my game

I look myself in the face And whisper "I'm in the wrong place" Is there more to lose than gain If I go on my own again?

Oh No!

One track mind, one track heart If I fail, I'll fall apart Maybe it is all a test Cause I feel like I'm the worst So I always act like I'm the best

Guilty

Oh I'm a guilty one, And know what I have done. Yeah, I'm a troubled one, And I won't be forgiven.

Guilty on the run, And I know what I have done. Guilty on the run, And I'm never forgiven.

I was just a kid, That you could not forgive, Because it's harder.

I was just a kid, And all I really wanted, Was my father.

Spent years singing to forget, (to forget). Spent years singing, "no regret". Then suddenly it all becomes clear, I've been sorry all these years.

The State Of Dreaming

Only waking when I sleep I would sell my sorry soul If I could have it all

My life is a play, is a play, is a play My life is a play, is a play, is a play

Yeah I've been living in the state of dreaming Living in a make-believe land Living in the state of dreaming, of dreaming, of dreaming

All I really want is to be wonderful People in this town—they—they can be so cruel I live my life inside a dream

Only waking when I sleep If I could sell my sorry soul I would have it all

Living Dead

Everyday I feel the same Stuck, and I can never change Sucked into a black balloon Spat into an empty room But was it really worth it? Did I really deserve it? It happens when you're hurting And cut me at the surface Of my heart Of my heart-heart-heart

I'm living dead, dead, dead, dead Only alive-live-live-live When I pretend-tend-tend-tend That I have died, died, died, died, died, died I haven't lived life I haven't lived love Just bird's eye view From the sky above I'm dead, dead, dead, dead I'm living dead, dead, dead, dead Dead

Valley Of The Dolls

Pick a personality for free When you feel like nobody, body

Born with a void, hard to destroy with love or hope Built with a heart, broken from the start And now I die slow

In the valley of the dolls, we sleep Got a hole inside of me Living with identities That do not belong to me In my life, I got this far Now I’m ready for the last hoorah Dying like a shooting star In the valley In the valley In the valley

Back to zero, here we go again, again Racing down into oblivion Back to zero, here we go I can feel it coming to the end The end

Fear And Loathing

I've lived a lot of different lives Been different people many times I live my life in bitterness And fill my heart with emptiness And now I see, I see it for the first time There is no crime in being kind Not everyone is out to screw you over Maybe, yeah, just maybe they just wanna get to know you Now the time is here Baby you don't have to live your life in fear And the sky is clear, is clear of fear Don't wanna live in fear and loathing I wanna feel like I am floating Instead of constantly exploding In fear and loathing Got different people inside my head I wonder which one that they like best I'm done with tryna have it all And endin' up with not much at all

[therainroguefanfiction]

⚜️ Change the Face of History (Skyrim); #3 Saved?

📑 Table of Contents & Information ⤝ Backward

The Captain turned toward another woman who was dressed in a brown robe with a yellow hood pulled over her head. “Give them their last rites,”

Cool, because the last thing I want to hear before I die is the ramblings of some religious nut. Not to mention the fact that Ulfric is still staring me down, the fuck. Seriously, did his mom not teach him that staring is rude?

The priestess held out her arms and began to speak to the sky. “As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines upon you, for you are the salt and earth of Nirn -“

“For the love of Talos, shut up and let’s get this over with.” One of the prisoners interrupted, stepping up toward the block of wood on the ground.

“I don’t know who this Talos guy is,” I interjected. “But I second that motion… the shutting up part, not the getting this over with part.”

The priestess looked super offended as her gaze switched between him and I. “As your wish,” she huffed before turning and walking away.

“Come on,” the prisoner antagonized. “I haven’t got all morning.”

The Captain came up behind him, her palm against his shoulder blades. With one rough shove, the man fell to his knees. Then she did the man dirty by replacing her hand with her dirty ass boot, shoving him hard against the block of wood.

“My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials. Can you say the same?” He questioned. Even in the face of death, he showed no signs of fear or regret. Damn.

A man in black lifted a giant axe above his head, not hesitating to swing it downward across the prisoner’s neck, severing the head clean from the body. I flinched, turning my gaze away from the scene as blood spurted from the wound into the air. And then it clicked in my head, like a lightbulb switching on above me.

“The headsman,” I snapped my fingers. “Now I get it!”

The prisoner standing beside me, a man with dirty blonde hair and a bitchy looking expression, turned to stare at me like I was the bane of his very existence. I merely shrugged, turning to look to my right instead, where Ralof stood.

“As fearless in death as he was in life,” he commented fondly.

“Next, the renegade from Cyrodiil!” The Captain called out.

That same unearthly wail from a few minutes before filled the sky once more, causing a pause to arise within the crowd. To me, it seemed like a warning sound or an alarm blaring, but the others didn’t seem to see it that way.

“There it is again,” said the brunette as he turned his gaze skyward. “Did you hear that?”

“I said, next prisoner!” She called again with an annoyed tone. Whoever is next in line, I feel sorry for them. Something tells me this chick is a bitch both on and off the job. You know, one of those stuck up types with a stick constantly up their ass.

The brunette stepped up beside me, giving me a light shove on my shoulder. “To the block, prisoner. Nice and easy.”

My blood ran cold. Wait, I’m the next prisoner?! “N-Now wait just a minute here! Surely someone else is meant to go before me. Chivalry is dead these days, you know? There’s no need for -“

The Captain shoved me hard with her foot and I tripped over the corpse of the man that had gone before me. My cheek smashed against the wood, blood smearing across my skin. Little pebbles on the ground dug into the thin cloth pants I wore. Oh Deadpool, it’s still warm, too… Fuck, this can’t be sanitary. No no no, now’s not the time for your stupid commentary, Rae. Don’t people say if you die in your dreams, you also die in real life? Wait a damn minute. They also say you can’t feel pain in your dreams, but… my eyes widened in fear and realization as I looked upon the headsman.

“It’s not a dream,” I croaked weakly. The sun glinted off the black metal of his axe in the most menacing way I’ve ever seen. I know I always say life sucks balls and, let’s be honest here, it does but that don’t mean I wanna die! How the hell do I get out of this? Is this punishment for that one time I stole gel pens from Wal-Mart as a kid? If so, what kind of fool waits ten years to enact punishment? Ain’t there some kind of divine statute of limitations?!

Another wail, much louder this time. It’s getting closer.

I noticed something large and black dart from behind the mountains in the distance, hidden by the stone tower standing behind the headsman.

“What in Oblivion is that?” Tullius called out in alarm. I couldn’t see it, but it sounded like a sword being unsheathed.

The headsman brought his axe up, preparing to swing just as something large came flying toward us. It landed on the top of the tower, causing the man to stagger, the axe blade lodging into the ground beside me. The earth shook around us and my chest started to burn painfully, but I was far too distracted and full of adrenaline to pay it much mind. Is that a –

“Dragon!” cried a female prisoner.

The black dragon observed the grouping of people for only a few seconds before opening his gaping maw. A roar shook the earth again as the sky suddenly filled with dark clouds, thunder clapping loudly above us. Did he just change the fucking weather by roaring at it? The sims has been doing it all wrong this whole damn time! That explains why my sim always fails using the weather machine and, most times, ends up dead for her troubles. All she had to do was yell at the damn thing.

“Don’t just stand there! Kill that thing!” Tullius ordered, snapping me from my thoughts. Fuck, is this what it’s like to have ADHD? Without the dragon and the beheadings, of course. “Guards, get the townspeople to safety!”

In the matter of a few moments, all hell broke loose. My vision blurred from all the shaking as I pushed myself back from the block, falling onto my behind. A rather sharp rock dug into my ass and I winced. My ears were starting to ring from sensory overload – yelling, crying, roaring, explosions. It was all too much.

“Rain, get up!” Ralof stopped in front of me, leaning down and offering his hand. His voice was urgent. “Come on, the gods have given us another chance! This way!”

With his help, I managed to get to my feet and we ran toward the closest building that was still intact – a tower made of stone. Inside, by the door, was Ulfric, along with a couple other prisoners, one of which was lying on the floor bleeding.

“Jarl Ulfric!” Ralof breathed out a sigh of relief as he slammed the door shut behind him. “What is that thing? Could the legends be true?”

Ulfric, no longer gagged or bound, spoke for the first time and when he did, my body stopped mid-step. He may be a creep with a staring problem, but hot damn is that deep voice of his sexy. “Legends don’t burn down villages.”

The dragon roared outside and the brief moment of calm was broken as everyone returned to fight-or-flight mode – and none of us were dumb enough to fight a feckin’ dragon. So naturally, we all decided to flight. Which makes no grammatical sense, but I said what I said and I regret nothing.

That’s a lie, I regret a lot of things. But not that sentence.

“We need to move,” Ulfric ordered. “Now!”

“Up through the tower, let’s go!” Ralof added.

I didn’t have to be told twice, turning around and darting up the steps, trying to avoid any sharp looking portions of the stone. My feet are gonna be feckin’ dead after this – if I make it out alive at all. I know it’s a long shot, but part of me is really hoping that, when I reach the top of the tower, I’ll burst through the door into a white light and I’ll wake up in my bed, pillow covered in drool and the comforter thrown halfway across the friggin’ apartment. As if to spite me and reinforce the idea that this is, in fact, not a dream, a bolt of pain shot through my foot as I stepped on a piece of chipped stone.

With a curse, I hopped on one foot near the break in the stairs where a flat stretch of stone sat before the stairs started up again. Damn it, universe, let me cling to my false hope, you fuck!

A prisoner wearing the same uniform as Ralof was there, attempting to lift a large chunk of stone that was blocking the way to the rest of the stairs. He glanced over his shoulder at me as he stood with a grunt. “We just need to move some of these rocks to clear the way!”

I held up my hands to show that they are still bound and, therefore, I can’t help with the rock removal process. Before I could speak this aloud, though, the wall beside me exploded inward, sending the man flying forward, his body crushed by several pounds of stone.

The dragon landed on the side of the tower, his mouth near the hole he had created. A deep, male voice spoke the words, “Toor… Shul!” before a spout of flames filled the tower.

I squeaked in surprise when Ralof grabbed the back of my shirt, yanking me backward. If he had acted a second later, I would have been charred Rae! The flames slowly died and the dragon took flight again. “Thank you,”

Ralof nodded, cautiously approaching the hole. “Don’t mention it. I hope you will do the same for me if the situation calls for it.”

The upper part of the stairs had been destroyed, leaving us with no way to continue up through the tower. Now that I think about it, who the feck thought it would be a good idea to escape a giant ass flying lizard by climbing to the top of a tower where we would then be out in the open with nowhere to hide or go?

“See the inn on the other side?” Ralof questioned, pointing at the burning building down below.

Oh, right. Well, in his defense, he is a blonde plus he saved my ass so he’s excused from his stupid idea. I nodded my head, not really paying attention to his words.

“Jump through the roof and keep going!”

“…bitch, you want me to what?”

“Go!” he ordered, giving me a gentle but urgent push toward the hole. “We’ll follow when we can!”

He’s not excused for his stupid ideas! I swallowed hard as I teetered on the edge, looking down at the building. The roof was practically gone, fire quickly eating away at the wooden structure. Oh, this is not going to end well for me. He pushed me again.

I think I can, I think I can.

I jumped before I could talk myself out of it, a cry escaping my cracked lips as gravity took control of me.

I think I can!!

My legs buckled on impact as I landed on the second story, sending me to my knees. Cool, now my feckin’ ankles hurt. Maybe these empire guys can start a list on my feckin’ injuries, checking off each one until there’s no body parts left to injure!

With a huff, I pulled myself to my feet and headed to the other end of the room, where a giant hole sat in the floor. I’m pretty sure the stairs should be here, but they’re long gone. I peered down the hole. The drop isn’t too far – certainly less so than the jump from the tower. Still, I cautiously sat on the floor, my legs dangling over the edge as I shimmied down to the first floor, landing with a soft thud.

Directly in front of me, the wall had been destroyed, leaving behind only a thick wooden support beam. I peered around it into the outside, surveying the situation. The brunette stood in the middle of the road, his sword drawn.

“Haming, you need to get over here.” He called out to a young boy a few feet away. When he didn’t move, transfixed on the dragon soaring across the sky, he added, “Now!”

The child snapped to, doing as he was told. He rushed toward the brunette as fast as his legs could carry him, stopping beside an older man that stood off to the side behind him.

“That a boy. You’re doing great.” The brunette breathed before suddenly crying, “Gods… everyone get back!”

The dragon swooped down and the spot they had just been standing was engulfed in flame. They missed the reaper by mere inches. In his retreat behind the remains of the next building over, the brunette spotted me peeking around the wood. See, this is why I never use stealth skills in video games. Even with a feckin’ dragon attacking, he still noticed my ass.

“Still alive, prisoner?” He questioned, his eyes scanning me. “Keep close to me if you want to stay that way.”

“I have a name, you fuck.” I muttered under my breath before cautiously leaving the cover of the inn, sprinting across the way to where the three were crouching for cover. As bad of an idea as it seemed to stick close to the man that was all but happy to execute me for no damn reason, I didn’t exactly have any options here. I don’t know where Ralof is, there’s a giant fire-breathing weather-changing dragon throwing a tantrum, and the other soldiers would probably cut me down on sight. There’s no way I can survive on my own, especially with no knowledge of this world or how it works. “Can you at least cut me free?”

“No,” he didn’t even look at me before addressing the older man. “Gunnar, take care of the boy. I have to find General Tullius and join the defense.”

“Gods guide you, Hadvar.” The man responded before putting his arm around the boy, who was shaking in fear.

“Let’s go,” Hadvar nodded to me before running off. I groaned, taking off after him. We followed the cobblestone road around a bend, where it went between a burning building and a stone wall. “Stay close to the wall!”

My body reacted before my brain even registered the words and I flattened my body against the wall just as the dragon landed above us, his clawed hand slamming down a mere five inches from my face. Why do I have such a strong urge to reach out and touch it? Would it feel like leather? Soft like fur? Cold because of the scales or warm because of the fire?

“Yol… Toor Shul!” It shouted before breathing fire down on the scattering soldiers.

For science, I convinced myself before slowly reaching my hands up. My fingers were just shy of touching the wing when it took flight again, kicking up a gust of wind and a cloud of dirt. I coughed, waving my hands to try and dispel the cloud.

“Quickly, follow me!” Hadvar ordered.

“Oh, right!” I pushed away from the wall and hurried after him, dodging other people and patches of flaming earth. We headed up a small set of stairs before darting across to a destroyed house. As we ran, I could hear the distressed cries of those around us.

“Tell my family… I fought bravely.”

“What does it take to kill this monster?!”

“Lead with those arrows, dammit!”

“Come on. Give me your hand, I’m getting you out of here.”

“It won’t die, it just keeps coming!”

In the distance, I noticed Tullius surrounded by three soldiers, their bows pointed toward the sky. He noticed Hadvar and called out, motioning toward a stone building up ahead. “Hadvar! Into the keep, soldier, we’re leaving!”

Hadvar glanced over his shoulder, probably to make sure I was still alive. “It’s you and me, prisoner. Stay close!”

Why is he so damned concerned when I was going to be executed, anyway? Wouldn’t it make their life easier if the dragon just… ate me? No, I frowned, shaking my head, because then they wouldn’t have the pleasure of doing it themself.

⤞ Forward

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[jannepaule]

In Retrospect: Black Holes and Dark Days

I’ve been working on this for several weeks, trying to revise it to a much retrospective version. The first draft of this post was dated July 27, 2017— according to my trusty notepad app with 2500 words.

Between 2011 to 2015 were some of my darkest days and to some extent— 2017 the year I wrote the first version of this piece.

Fair Warning: Long Post Ahead.

I was in a bad place during that time but here it goes.

The “D” Word

I've read stories from real people about it. I've heard number of spoken word pieces about it. I've seen countless of articles about it in this wild wicked world of social media. I've seen people who turned it into art.

I was never clinically diagnosed so I have no the right to call my case depression. More importantly, it is something no one should casually throw around to describe whenever you are feeling down.

A lesson I learned is that people should stop using disorders as adjectives. It's unhealthy and destructive.

I am generally an ‘okay’ person but I've had my dark days.

It started after graduation when my high school boyfriend and I broke up. It's silly to admit that even now. I mean who gets depressed over a teenage break-up? People move on and get over it. I did.

However, for a long time I refused to deal with the pain. I thought having a strong facade by not admitting that it hurts and not crying is a sign of strength, it was otherwise. And it does more harm than help in the long run.

Later on I realized that maybe this reaction (or lack thereof) towards a painful experience was an accumulation of all the times I suppressed my emotions.

That's what happened when you grow up in a family that doesn't openly talk about feelings, that a more common response to hurt is anger.

Years of practice of tricking myself not to feel, I developed an automatic blocking system against anything that could potentially hurt. Every negative thought and emotion was boxed and pushed towards deepest part of my head hoping I'd never have to deal with them.

But as Sigmund Freud once said (or written),

"unexpressed emotions will never die they are buried alive and will later come in uglier ways"

And boy it was ugly. It wasn't a 2 AM kind of demon. It haunts you in broad daylight and attack you with ice bullets. If it was anxiety or panic attacks or some sort of condition, I've no idea. And it was all my fault.

Theater Days

I only figured out that something was seriously wrong with me when I joined a theater organization during my college freshman year.

Thespians are the most passionate and most emotional people I've ever known while I stand on the other side, feeling nothing. None. I was empty. There were lots of emotional exercises and scenes from plays that would’ve helped me, but I couldn’t even cry.

I was miserable.

There were days when I literally felt nothing. I laughed and I knew I was happy but I couldn't feel it in my heart. I watched very emotional movies like Miracle in Cell No. 7 and there were scenes that any normal person would be bawling already, but I didn't. My system could not process the feeling.

Detachment was a mean defense mechanism. It suppresses not just the pain but everything else. It leaves you with hollow feeling on your chest.

My Heart and Other Black Holes

There were days when I'd cry for no reason. One moment I was in pain then in one snap-- gone. I feel nothing again.

Other times, I felt like I was being drained, sucking life out of me as I spiral down uncontrollably into an unknown bottom. You know the vacuum sensation? It was terrible. I literally had to catch my breath.

I called it my "black hole episodes". There were black holes residing inside of me for a long time and I didn't know what to do with it.

An incident back when I was doing my internship in a radio station in 2014 was one of the worst episodes. I ended up crying for an hour or two at the HR's office. The HR manager who happened to be some sort of counselor asked me what was wrong and I could have told her everything, she was a shrink anyway. But I couldn't even get my mind straight so much more my feelings. The memory of that afternoon was blurry.

All I remember is her telling me to try talking to someone openly and honestly.

I knew I needed professional help but shrinks are way too expensive. And honestly, I was more scared to find out that it was just all in my head than to know what sort of medical condition I was in.

I wanted to disappear sometimes, amidst all the numbness and emptiness. It’s like being trapped in oblivion.

I wanted to disappear but I still hoped that someone would find me and pull me out of that dark place but I didn't know how to ask for help.

Flash forward to 2015

Before I started dating a guy from my first job after college, I had one major episode that worried the shit out of my him and my friends. So I told him about my blackholes and finally, I felt like someone is willing to listen. Even when I couldn't explain the things going on inside my head he just listened, patiently.

The thick walls I built around myself started crumbling down. The flood gates of my heart opened and somehow, I felt lighter each day. I started feeling genuinely happy again. That shrink from the radio station was right after all. I just needed someone to talk to.

We had a brief time together but I experienced a roller coaster of emotions. It was batshit crazy, but I felt every tiny bit of it. The blackholes are gone but so he is.

I was devastated and hurting everywhere literally and figuratively but I allowed myself to feel the pain, to cry all I want, and to mourn for as long as I needed to. I was drowning but that time I didn't feel empty. I still thought of skipping all of those excruciating times but thank God, someone a.k.a my favorite team leader sat me down ane told me this:

“You know better than anyone why you need to go through this. You are so much braver and stronger than what you give yourself credit for,”

Looking back, it was the bravest time of my life. I confronted all my fears of feeling pain. For the first time, I didn't run away from it. I nursed my wounded heart like a normal person.

I was blessed with people who were my guiding light through that journey.

I’ve moved on and no longer in love with that person, in case you’re wondering.

The Bad Bitch of a Black Hole is Back

2017 was another awful cruel year. I had a relapse after trying so hard to be okay for so long. Bad case of rejections, job being terribly toxic, and my whole life was a mess. The blackholes came back, just dressed up as adult problems. My life was falling apart AGAIN and I was lost. I couldn’t focus.

I watched my plans fail and slip away from my fingers and did nothing to stop it. 2017 was so much worse because even if I wanted to run away, I didn't have the energy and will power to do it.

I needed help. I don’t know how but I was sure as hell that I didn’t want to go back in that shithole ever again. I thought writing would help me get it out of my system, it did. I talked to some friends, subscribed to an online life coach for advice, and learned to practice mindfulness via Headspace app. I prayed so hard to make it all go away.

I honestly still couldn’t remember how I did all those things and managed to pull myself out of that dark place. My best guess? Divine intervention. Thank God and all the angels for not letting me get swallowed by darkness.

I look back and see how far I’ve come. It was a long tiring personal battle I had to brave through to be in a better place where I am today. No more blackhole episodes since 2017 and if ever the bitch decides to show up again, I know I would make it out alive like I always do. Hopefully, it wouldn’t.

Communicating my feelings is still a struggle up to this day but knowing how to acknowledge them is always the first step. Still growing and learning to cope up with all the things life is throwing at me. The process of healing is long, painful, sometimes boring and questionable but I don’t think I would ever do it otherwise.

Being able to write this in retrospect is a milestone worth-celebrating. A long dark chapter of my life was over. I am grateful.

Thank you for reaching this part, dear stranger. This is probably the only time I will ever share about this. I hope you know that this is a personal experience and does not mean to say that you need to get your heart broken to get over a dark phase in your life. We all have different ways to process experiences.

I hope you find the courage to ask for help from the people you trust and professionally, if you must.

I pray that if you’re going through dark times, may you always believe that there is a light that never goes out.

Sincerely, J. 🖤

[annoyedbythevoid-blog]

rough sketch

Dusty bones, I make wishes from thee From your gray ash that turns the dirt you fall unto crystallized I was 17 yesterday 24 today And eternal tomorrow. If there is an essence, it does not belong to Time. I have no use for him Instead of counting minutes I am Counting glances, sauntering fast among strangers to wake up ALIVE! Holy, holy, holy shit I am alive? I exist! I exist! I exist! Choose your myth from God’s calendar And wear it well Borrow a bowtie from The Demi, Kali, yoni, Rumi   Living, well It is no simple poetry Painting pagan sorcery and playing jazz with my hosiery And stagnation is arbitrary Without motion mold grow and dust settles And vines take hold These feet are meant for moving wading my toes in the pupils of black holes The soul cannot be bored and the souls Of my corduroy shoes are worn I am restless, and I accept this This heart is no desert The four-chambered chorus creates symphonies from a cell And I flesh from a cell Gaze upon a passing sky Swallowed by infinite distance, its multitudes oblivion and nameless Why must we name everything at our choosing? Giving life to strange features, creating characters and stories as if cartoons on paper I seek no rough draft of living I wish not to make wind into syllables or happiness as a mere noun Seasons belong not in meter And trees belong in better metaphors And orgasms such beyond sound And the self in its complex and tiny creation Could not fit into such a poem But I realize the gift of mortality When I watch lovers dance and tease space With their playdoh bodies, naked and writhing beyond their clothes   Joyful wonder! I was 3 once A warrior today And soil tomorrow  

Joyful wonder! Word vomit diatribe diarreah The ink my fingers wear Dip my praying palms into a cleansing   Joyful wonder! To breath and to being Becoming ripe with my womanhood in budding roses   Joyful wonder! For Solitude and its sensual sobriety Monumental and intimate Terrifyingly infinite in its eternal question of why Whom am I, whom am I not What am I, what am I not Where does it begin, where does it go Whatever it is, the soul, diminished again with such names Overflows elegance in its crystal chalice   I know myself I know that I am changing   Transfiguring into an entity That walks through the embers and salutes them Anxiety I see you I know suicide of the mind because I too die daily I awake in the morning and wring out the dew of new birth   Joyful wonder! To the people and their existence We share and habitate together Joy to the strangers  met and their dialogue unwritten   I wrap my body like a mummy in silk Touch my fingers to the wall in braille hieroglyphics I open chests to seek the philsophers stone and it manuscripts   Release/ submit/ surrender Exhale cinder with cigeratte smoke Shapeshift/transpose/go forth and metamorph Your life is a puzzle arranged in the array Of today’s path disguised as pieces Jigsaw through the marrow of experience And suck its plentiful fruit   The soul persists only if you will it Wear the present as your present Joyful wonder! What a blessing What a gift it is to be! Being aware! Being aware of what you are aware of!   You exist! You exist! You exist! I know that a soul must feel small wearing such skin We are contingent Our Existence, temporal Plant your soul seed in the spheres of Gazing, bathing, running Shedding, throwing, playing Coming, going, staying Harvesting stars to make dreamcatchers Chasing suns into mason jars Sleeping before its light, Huddling, kneeling, dreaming despite the unknown night Who would have thought that each firefly Warms each its own galaxy Youth know not their power! Suppose we are figments of God writing poetry If there is repentance It comes with self-awareness Such a savage victory