#like you always hear about how deeply ingrained some things are

[reverie-starlight]

one of my best friends is coming to visit tmr so I’ve been doing a deep clean of my house all day and I’m STRESSING bc it’s sm to do for just one person????? how do people do this all the time ??????????

[plussizefantasia]

Don't Cry over Spilled Lemonade pt.2

Pairing: Anthony Bridgerton x f!reader

Word Count: ~2k

Warnings: A little bit of dread on the reader's part but mostly it's fluff and yearning, just the way I like it.

A/N: hahaha I finally finished it!!!! Thanks for all the love on part one it really made me so happy to see so many people liking the little story that I wrote half asleep <3

Anthony wrestled with his thoughts for the rest of the evening. He hated himself deeply for hurting you and even more for not remembering it. Knowing himself though, he knew that his actions were probably fueled by a desire to leave the gathering and visit Siena, she had been his refuge in the years before and during Daphne’s debut. 

He would never forgive himself if the reason you would not ever stand to be in the same room with him was his naive infatuation with the opera singer. Especially given the fact that as soon as he met you all thoughts of her flew from his eyes and he never thought of her in that way again. Deep down he knew that his heart now belonged to you although that thought was much too terrifying to dwell on for more than a minute.

You on the other hand were reeling with the new information. You had vowed to hate Anthony Bridgerton until your dying day but his pleas for forgiveness had shaken your will. You still held a deep anger towards him, one that you didn’t think would go away any time soon. But it was becoming harder and harder for you to find the detestation in yours that had once been bubbling at the surface.

You didn't know what to expect from the Viscount anymore, you had always had a pretty clear picture of the man in your mind, and in one fell swoop he had shattered it like glass. Seeing him playing with his younger siblings in the park the day after your conversation in the hallway certainly didn’t help settle your mind.

If there was one thing you knew about Anthony Bridgerton it was that he loved his family. Sometimes he goes about it in the wrong way but you could tell that he does everything he does for them, even getting grass stains on his trousers because Hyancithy and Gregory are insistent that he plays tag with them in the great park.

It is their laughter that draws your attention first followed shortly by a sharp shout and even more giggles. You are fortunate enough to catch sight of the Viscount tripping and landing on his backside, his hands falling to the side of him and right into what looks to be some freshly planted flower beds. His head hangs and he takes a heaving sigh before pushing himself back up. You can’t help but laugh at the sight.

Anthony would be able to recognize your laugh anywhere, he hears it flowing through the halls of his home enough that it’s become ingrained in his mind. His head turns to where you are and your eyes meet. He is taken aback by the warmth he finds in them. How long has it been since you’ve looked at home with anything but detached coldness?

It is Hyancinth who bridged the gap between the two of you, with a shout of your name she comes bounding across the green and practically leaps into your open arms. 

“Hello sweet girl, having fun are we?” Your hand runs down the back of her head and you smile down at her.

“We were playing a game of tag, would you like to join us.” Sometimes you forget how innocent the young girl is. Her smile is contagious as it spreads across your own face.

“On any other day my darling but I’ve only cut through the park on my way to visit with Lady Danbury and you know how she is about punctuality.”

“Oh.” Her face falls and your heart follows.

“How about this? Once I am done calling upon her ladyship I shall stop by and you can finally show me the new dresses you got for dolly Molly okay?”

Her smile returns full force and she squeezes you a little tighter before conjuring up a mask of faux indifference.

“I suppose I can accept that.” 

“You’re starting to sound like Viscount grumpypants over there.” You tickle at her side.

“I heard that,” Anthony calls from a ways away, Greg held under his arm.

“I was not trying to keep quiet my Lord.” Your eyes meet his once again and Anthony cannot help the little bubbling of hope that builds inside his chest when he sees the lightheartedness contained in your gaze.

“That’s Lord Grumpypants to you.” He shoots back and delights in the way your smile widens. 

“Very well Lord Grumpypants, I must be off but I’ll see you all later.” You say the last words down at the young lady still wrapped up in your arms. You give her one final squeeze before releasing her and bowing your head slightly at her older brother. You try not to dwell too much on how much you enjoy the viscount’s smile.

Anthony takes the day in the park as a sign, one that shows him all hope is not lost. All he needs to do is fix his mistake. He craved you, that much he knew. He craved your smile and your laugh, he yearned for your kind eyes and the way you seemed to float when you walked. He has never considered himself a particularly creative man but the images his mind conjures of the two of you make him second-guess himself.

He did not have time to imagine for very long, however, as Colin was due to return today for the start of the season and Eloise seemed to need constant supervision lest she run away the first chance she got. The Danbury ball could not come soon enough.

The Danbury ball was one of legend, the older woman’s opening ball was not one to be missed as it set the tone for the rest of the season. Young women not lucky enough to gain the Queen’s favor had a second chance at the Danbury ball, a chance to show themselves off to the ton once more in the hopes of catching the eye of an eligible young man. 

You were no different than those young ladies, primping and preening all day long with the hopes that you would be able to secure a match this season before you become too old to do so. Your mother was adamant that this season had to be spectacular, you had to look and act your best always. She was weary and weeping, moaning about how you’d be letting down the family if you were unable to secure a match.

It was interesting you thought, how quickly she changed her tune. During your debut season, she had spoken dreamingly about a love match and finding happiness and now you were sure that she would shove you off to whoever if it meant that you would be married. It seemed your Mama’s greatest fear was you becoming a spinster. 

You obliged her whims, after all, you did wish to find a match. You had always dreamed of a love match. With every year that passed by the candle of hope held within your heart flickered, it was small now, but you had to admit that it still burned. You still soothed your restless nights with dreams of a husband and children, a loving home full of laughter and joy. That is the future you want, that is the future you will fight for.

Tonight you aim to make an entrance, any attention at this point is better than being snubbed. You wore a gown of deep red, with golden lace around the bodice and black and gold beading around the waistline and down the back. Your maid pulled and twisted your hair, piling it upon your head and creating a bold and dramatic look. You were going to pull attention, you had to.

And pull attention you did, from the moment you entered the ballroom all eyes were on you. Ladies whispered and hid behind their fans. Men stood in circles with their peers but you caught the glance of more than one bachelor. And yet, nobody had approached you. You were beginning to feel the flash in your cheeks. Perhaps this was too much, such boldness was offputting and you should have stuck to the known. Dressed in soft pinks and whites, proclaiming purity and softness. 

Anthony was beside himself. You were the most ethereal creature he had ever had the privilege of laying his gaze on and he wished to spend the whole night by your side; catching up on all the lost time. He knew though, that you would never allow that, and he would rather die than hurt you again. 

So he watched and watched and watched. As time ticked on those cowards kept you waiting. Dances began and ended, people arrived and left and all the while you were stood, bathed in candlelight and alone. 

The sun had long since set and you were done. No longer would you endure this embarrassment. You had followed your gut and put yourself out there and it had failed. You were destined to be alone you suppose.

Just as you were getting ready to turn away and retreat back to the safety of your family home a hand entered your sight. Palm up and inviting, your eyes traced slowly up the arm and towards the face of the gentleman who had finally put you out of your misery.

Anthony Bridgerton stood before you, arm outstretched and a small smile on his face. “A lady as beautiful as yourself does not deserve to spend the whole night without a single dance.” 

“Are you offering?” You looked him in the eye and raised a brow. This was the first time since your conversation in the hallways that Anthony had approached you without one of his siblings present to be a buffer.

“I’m giving you an opportunity.”

“And what might that be?” You tilted your head to the side and watched as a smirk slowly spread across his face.

“You have a choice, right here and right now. Either grasp my hand and we dance the rest of the night away, opinions be damned. Or you snub me, snub me like I snubbed you that night, and get your revenge.”

You exhale a laugh and look at him. His face held a smile but also a certain seriousness that belayed his intention. This was him making it up to you. He would accept rejection if that is what you wanted. 

Here he was, the man who had hurt you and who you still held a flame for offering himself up to like a lamb to slaughter. 

You must’ve been taking a long time to answer because the Viscount began shifting on his feet. He looked around the room at the other couples who began to take to the dancefloor.

“I do not mean to rush you my lady, but the dance will be starting soon.”

“Anthony you must promise me.”

“Anything, name it and it’s yours.” 

“Promise me that you will never hurt me again, I don’t think my heart could take it.” You took his hand. And let your lips curve into a gentle smile.

He pulled your hand wrapped within his own close to his heart, and vowed, “I will do everything in my power to protect you for the rest of my days, even if the one I am protecting you from is myself.”

“I don’t need protection Anthony,” you looked deeply into his eyes, “I just need your love, honest and true.”

“Then you shall have it.” 

Anthony pulled you to the dancefloor and led you in far too many dances to be appropriate that night. And every night for the rest of the season. And neither of you cared about what the rest of the ton had to say. You had each other, finally, and neither of you was letting go anytime soon. 

taglist: @ilikestuffs-stuff @cat-lockwood @wolf-phoenix-lover

@tenshis-cake @bridkesby @divergentalwaysandforever-blog @lillysfrogsandbogs @unholyhuntress

[anthurak]

Okay so rewatching The Full Moon with the context of Apology Tour made me realize something VERY interesting about how Stolitz could actually be different from all the other relationships Blitzo has been in and burned down.

Consider what we hear from Verosika in Apology Tour: that she told Blitzo that she loved him, and this confession was what prompted Blitzo to completely nuke their relationship, to 'send a message in the shittiest way possible' as Versoika put it.

And you know that does actually line up with what we see in The Full Moon, ie; Stolas ALSO confessing his love for Blitzo. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if what we saw in that scene, specifically Stolas' confession and Blitzo's initial reaction to it, is how many if not most of Blitzo's breakups have played out. Certainly the really BAD ones: Blitzo's partner makes some admission or confession of genuine affection and love, only for Blitzo to believe they can't possibly be serious and proceeds to mock and belittle their feelings, just like we saw him do with Stolas.

But here's the thing: A lot of people have pointed out that Stolas handled Blitzo's response to his confession in kind of the worst way possible; immediately assuming that Blitzo really didn't care and shutting him out entirely without trying to clarify things to Blitzo or otherwise give him time to process.

So, what if Verosika and really most if not all of Blitzo's other ex's actually handled things better than Stolas? What if she/they actually DID try to explain their feelings and make it clear they really DO care?

Well, given what we've seen, it probably did NOT end well. As in, Blitzo's self-loathing and belief that no one could possibly love him are so DEEPLY ingrained and internalized that the more someone tries to convince him they really DO care has likely only caused him to double, triple, quadruple and QUINTUPLE down until he's trashing his partner's hotel room, stealing her care, maxing her credits cards and whatever else Blitzo has done to the DOZENS of people who tried to convince him that they cared.

Until Stolas.

Have you noticed the twist yet? :D

Stolas DIDN'T try to convince Blitzo he really did care. Instead, he took Blitzo's response as proof that Blitzo didn't care and proceeded to shut things down and walk away.

(Part of) What makes Stolas so different is that he unwittingly BEAT BLITZO TO THE PUNCH. He effectively nuked their relationship BEFORE Blitzo could.

And for Blitzo, this has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.

HE'S always been the one to walk away first. HE'S always been the one to end things. Every relationship he's been in has ended on HIS terms.

Until now.

For the first time, Blitzo just happened to be with someone who is JUST as shitty at relationships as HE is XD

[lexikamics]

Luka Character Analysis

While all the characters in alien stage deal with some theme of control given the fact that they are literally pets I wanna explore how Luka deals with this theme specifically.

This is all my opinion and I would love to hear if u disagree or have anything to add cause I loveeee talking about this stuff. I’m probably just restating a bunch of stuff other ppl have said but I think I got some new stuff here… hopefully.

Main points

1) he’s a designer baby

2) his branding location

3) his heart

4) his age

5) his training

6) how this control leads to him manipulating others

7) other things

Luka is THE designer baby

Luka’s biology is not even something he can control. Even his genetics were designed by aliens showing how not even his nature and bodily functions is not something he has autonomy over.

Luka has surgery scars possibly from treatments done to benefit the aliens.

(From Luka’s bday post) Luka looks towards possible attempts to create him or recreate him IN HIS BIRTHDAY POST. This image always has an affect on me omg..

“Luka was born this way because I created him” (the guardian interview thing)

Luka’s Branding

All of the other main characters in alien stage have their brand either on their arms, neck, or shoulder area. This is why it’s odd that Luka’s branding is on his hip. This could mean a lot of things and probably does but my ongoing analysis is this. Brands are meant to be seen, they exist so people can look at them. Lukas is the only one with a brand in a place that stays hidden.

To me this is because the aliens like Luka because he appears to want to participate in Alien stage. He appears to enjoy being on stage and barely even wears a collar. In the same vain his brand is hidden as Heperu, his alien, doesn’t want other aliens to see Luka’s reluctance. He places his brand in a place inconspicuous so that the aliens can pretend Luka has control over himself. This is aided by the extent of Heperu’s control as it is so ingrained in Luka that even if it isn’t acknowledged Luka has no other choice but to obey. The fact that Luka can appear so willing is proof of just how much agency he lacks.

Another advantage of his branding placement is that while it remains hidden to other people it is obvious to Luka. It is very easy to see something on your hip when compared to you neck. The brand is to remind Luka he is under control while not reminding anyone else.

(Guys I couldn’t find the bigger version) when getting branded Luka lifts up his shirt while others seem unconscious or constrained. Showing just how deeply Luka is controlled that he willingly helps getting branded in order to give himself the illusion of a choice.

His Heart

Luka has immense control of his heartrate like his first song is literally called “ruler of my heart”. (For this section I assume the amount of purple on his finger correlates with the pumping of his heart.)

Luka was trained since birth to control his heart rate and fear. This reflects how even his most basic and unconscious actions are manipulated in order to benefit Heperu. It shows how collar or not he is under Heperu’s control.

An aspect of this can be seen in the flashbacks from All In when after the incident with Hyun Woo his finger tips turn purple. Whether Luka is surprised by this because it shows he was able to change his own heart-rate for the first time or because his heart-rate changed without him allowing it is ambiguous. Regardless it shows how even during important emotional situations Luka is always striving for more control over his heart just as Heperu had intended.

(Both images from the interview w Luka)

His Age

Luka is 30 years old. All the other competitors are in their early twenties, a time in your life when you are still not completely independent. Many people their age are in higher education and may still live with their parents. While other competitors should definitely have much more independence then they do they still are children in a way. Overall compared to the other contestants Luka is supposed to be in a stage of his life with much more autonomy. This further reflects his lack of control as he is at an age when he should be in control of himself and still has less freedom than a toddler.

Training

Growing up Luka has been under much more training than most. Heperu often trained him or outreached doctors and specialists to help make him into Heperu’s image. Heperu himself even notes it more extreme than what most aliens do showing how even compared to other humans Luka has very little agency as most other aliens simply enroll their humans into Anakt Garden.

(guardian interview)

(Interview with Luka)

Luka’s diet being monitored also shows how Heperu controls all aspects of Luka and how this harms Luka.

How this leads to Luka being manipulative.

This affects the way he interacts with the stage. I’ve seen many people say he manipulates his fellow competitors to survive and while I think this is in part the reason, given how his popularity already protects him I don’t think it’s the main one.

Luka controls his heart rate not only because he was so thoroughly taught to but because he wants to himself. Being able to have complete control over his body and actions brings him comfort as he has usually has none. His heart rate is something that only he can change which leads him to control it heavily and this pattern continues outside of his heart as well.

On the stage Luka does the same thing. He manipulates the performance and his performance mate for the sake of simply being able to. It’s clear his owner has no control over his performance. He seems shocked when Luka is beat up by Mizi while Luka clearly had pushed her to do so. The stage is the only place Luka is given autonomy and as such he wants control to the fullest extent pushing him to control every aspect of the stage, including others.

This is seen when Luka frowns as soon as Till notices Mizi as suddenly the round is out of Luka’s control.

In a way it’s a self fulfilling prophecy as his whole life Luka has been controlled to benefit Heperu and now the only way he can achieve any sort of control is by doing exactly what heperu wants. To gain control of his heart he has to give into his training. To gain control of the stage he has to win. Even the control Luka does have has little power. He can do what he wants but it changes none of the effects.

(Lukas interview) shows Luka is less focused on survival on stage and instead performance and control.

The whole comic where Hyuna describes singing as the one place she has control over herself to Luka describes this rlly well. Especially as when she does this the text is placed over Luka singing showing how he himself uses singing as his only pathway to freedom. This is even further explored in the last panel where Luka says that Hyuna is his. While interpreted as something sweet by Hyuna it definitely could have darker undertones when considering Luka’s tendencies to control anyone he can, or even foreshadow what happened to Hyun Woo.

Other stuff

Theory:

Now we’re getting into theory territory. The resistance has attempted twice to rescue someone. Both happen to be on Luka’s matches. Luka specifically led to Mizi’s ability to be rescued, directly pushing her to fight him which led to Hyuna having the chance to take her. It is possible Luka could be working with Hyuna.

With this theory you could also explain the moment where Luka gets upset when Till notices Mizi. If Luka is aware of Hyuna’s plan and Mizi being in the crowd ruined it, then it would be reasonable that he would accidentally break his mask by showing his distress at this.

This is definitely a reach of some sort but I think the concept could still be interesting as it implies Luka could’ve escaped with Hyuna but instead chose to stay to help others escape, or due to brainwashing. Possibly leading to Hyuna’s complicated feelings towards Luka. Overall though Hyuna and Luka’s relationship needs to explored a lot more before any of this could be close to true.

Character profile

Luka is the only character whose profile shows neither his likes nor dislikes, this could represent how due to the extreme control Heperu has over him he has been unable to form his own identity or express any of his opinions.

The end

Anyway that’s my rambling. Definitely missed some stuff but hoped you liked it. Thank you for reading this. All this is my opinion and I would love to hear critiques and other opinions please anything if it means more content.

[gretavanlace]

Sugar II (part 6)

Jake Kiszka x reader

18+ only! Minors do not interact!

Warnings: graphic sexual content, illusions to cheating, illusions to oral sex (f rec), language, dirty talk, mutual masturbation, phone sex, etc

Your phone is lying on your chest when it begins to vibrate. Pretend you weren’t waiting for it all you want, your self-deception is laughable even to you. But isn’t that what you’ve become? A miserable joke who spurns the truth with a smile on her face and untruths in her heart.

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others, Dostoevsky once said. Wise and brilliant, he was. He also loved someone he shouldn’t have too deeply to let them go.

He is beside you, arm draped across your middle, forehead tucked against your shoulder…so placid and secure in his place next to your wandering mind. So blissfully unaware and peaceful as he dreams of things you don’t care enough to wonder about. But hasn’t he always been? Unaware, that is? He has lived in the dark, oblivious to the fact that he has never truly cradled your heart in his hands.

You are a wicked, black-souled creature, and no one knows that better than yourself. He doesn’t deserve this, and he never did.

Maybe you shouldn’t answer. Maybe. But you will, and you do.

Slipping out of bed like a phantom, you move through the house on silent toes, creeping along until you’re folded into the chair in the far corner of the living room.

“What took you so long?’ His voice drifts out, lazy and quiet, “Hiding from Mr. Wonderful again, are we?”

“You have to stop calling me like this.” You’re quiet, but not like him. Your quiet stems from deceit, and some inexplicable fear of what? Getting caught on the phone? And that’s all this is, right? Just a conversation with an old friend? There’s that self-deception again.

“Stop answering, then.” He counters coolly. Unbothered and wholly aware that that won’t be happening.

“How was the show?” You ask, rather than comment on the ridiculous confidence laced through his tone like sex on his tongue.

“Good.” He sighs, and you can picture his flippant, nearly shy shrug so clearly it grips your heart tightly for a breath. “I may have had a whiskey or three too many. May have tripped. May have fallen. May not have been very rock and roll.”

Your soft giggle tightens his heart just the same, but he doesn’t tell you that. “Did you play through?”

“Of course I played through,” He scoffs with feigned offense. “Who’re you talkin’ to?”

“Then I think that’s very rock and roll, Jake.” The smile won’t leave your voice. “Besides, you misjudged those stairs, don’t blame the whiskey. You should wear your fucking glasses.”

“Oh!” Now he sounds incredibly pleased with himself, dragging the word out like the cat who ate the canary, “Sounds like my sugar caught the show…”

“I may have popped in to peek at a livestream.” You concede, curling down into the chair to get comfy.

“Groupie.”

Pulling the throw off the back, you sling it over your bare legs and shake your head at his nonsense “Miss my Sammy, that’s all.”

“Fuck you.” He laughs.

“Fuck you, too.” You toss right back, but you both hear the love hidden behind those terrible words.

“You miss my stupid kid brother so much, why don’t you come and see him? I could have you on a plane tonight. How long would it take you to get to the airport?” There’s a sincerity in his offer that makes you long to pack a bag and go.

“Jake…”

“Should I send a car, or do you think Mr. Wonderful would mind driving my girl?”

Little shit.

“Stop calling him that.” You scold with little conviction.

“What should I call him then, baby? Since you won’t tell me his name…”

Fighting to sound steadfast, you square your shoulders and issue a warning you don’t feel a drop of in your bones “I’m gonna hang up.”

“Liar.” There’s that gentle laugh of his that echoes through your mind all hours of your lonely days. “What did you do today, sugar? Tell me.”

“Um,” you pick at the blanket absently and search back through the monotony. “I had a work thing. Then I went to the supermarket. Saw a movie. I smuggled a bottle of water inside in my purse like a criminal.”

“I should alert the authorities, but they’ve probably already got your wires tapped.” He’s teasing, but he suddenly sounds so sad. “Did you go to the movies with him?”

You hesitate, which tells him everything without a word.

“Damn,” he’s so quiet now. “I hate that, sweetheart. I hate that so fucking much.”

It makes no sense, he knows you’ve just crawled out of the bed you share with him, he knows that a ring rests on your finger right now - he knows. So why does he sound so broken-hearted? Why this?

“You just go around doing stuff with him, you know?” He clarifies as though he’s heard your unasked question. “Simple little things. The movies. The market. Dinner with your friends. Bookstores. We never really got to do those things together.”

It surprises you, though you aren’t sure why…he’s always been this way, soft and romantic about the strangest things. “You’d want to go to the grocery store with me?”

He laughs as you verbally poke at him to lighten the mood. “I’d go anywhere with you.”

“That’s good. Because I loathe going to the gynecologists alone. Care to attend my Pap smear, Jakey?”

He laughs again, but this time, it’s halting and loud… your favorite of all his laughs, “Absolutely, I do. I’ll steal the stirrups and take them home to use later. The doctor will see you now, sugar.”

You’re laughing now too, likely a bit too loudly “You’re so fucking weird. I feel like I’m talking to Josh.”

“Spending too damn much time with him lately.” He offers by way of excuse, “his shit is rubbing off on me. The other day I briefly considered a perm.”

Your laughter trails off with matching sighs, “I should go.” You say it, but you don’t want it.

“No, you shouldn’t.” He argues quietly, and with a strange tone…he’s fighting something.

“What is it?” You press delicately.

“I just,” he pauses, collecting his thoughts before pouring them out to you. “I just thought you’d be back by now…but you’re still there, with him. And I’m still here.”

“Jake,”

He doesn’t allow for you to finish whatever it was you were about to say that he doesn’t care to hear. “Hush, baby…I know. Do you miss me?”

“Yeah,” you secret into the phone, stealing a glance down the hall. “I miss you very much.”

“Good.” He has quieted to match your whisper. “How much do you miss me? More than Sam?”

“Yeah, I miss you more than Sam,” you see? This is why you’re a bad fucking person. “But like I said, I should go.”

“Why?” There’s that terrible, beautiful rasp again, the one that fails to belie how hard for you he likely already is. “Because you’re afraid you’re going to slide your hands into your pretty panties for me just like you did last night, and the night before, and the night before that?”

It’s a knee jerk reaction that you can’t explain when your finger jabs at your phone to end the call.

He calls back right away, and right away, you answer.

“That wasn’t very nice.” He taunts into the phone with a grin dripping from his accusation. “Don’t you dare hang up on me. Have you forgotten your manners, little girl?”

“Can’t we ever just talk?” You’re struggling to remain on solid ground, but for what? You want nothing more than to sink into him. “Do you ever think about anything else?”

“Other than what?” He counters. “Other than fucking you? Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I think about loving you, and lying beside you like that fuck gets to do. Taking care of you, making you laugh, cooking for you, and drawing you baths, and going to the goddamn movies to watch you smuggle in bottles of water, but you won’t let me have any of that, will you, sugar?”

“I—“ you’re shocked into silence.

“Right.” He agrees, as if you’ve said something poignant. “So forgive me if I indulge where you see fit to allow.”

“Jake, this isn’t right…” oh, don’t you sound righteous? “It has to stop.”

“Isn’t right for who?” He is rife with condescension, “For him? Ask me if I give a fuck about him. Not to ruin the surprise, pretty girl, but I don’t. And maybe you do a little, maybe you do even more than that. Maybe you care more than I’d ever want to know, but you’ll never care enough for it to matter more than you and I.”

No one has ever seen you like Jake sees you…and it is both intoxicating and frightening.

“You want to hang up? Hang up. I won’t call you back tonight.” There’s an edge to his promise, but you know better than to believe it, and you’re thankful it's a lie.

“I don’t want to hang up.” You should want to…but you can’t imagine giving him up right now.

“I love you, sugar.” He breathes, and it’s the loveliest song you’ve ever heard. You want to close your eyes and drift away into it like a symphony. There are cellos and violins in those words, magic and pain more beautiful than anything else you’ve ever known.

“I love you, Jake.” You want him to feel those same things living and breathing inside your own words, but they feel so lacking.

“Do you know what I did this morning?” He questions. You can picture his face so perfectly, and you long to touch it, to simply run the back of your hand down his cheek.

“Hmm?” You hum, still lost in the daydream of being near enough to touch him, to soak in the warmth of his skin.

“I tuned the piano in our front room.”

You know right away that he means the house he visits in the corners of his mind, the place he keeps just for you.

Your gaze has drifted out the window. If you look hard enough, you can almost see the house in the distance, windows glowing golden with light and love “You did?”

“I did. You’re teaching the girls now. I wanted it to be perfect for the four of you.”

“I don’t know how to play the piano, Jakey.” You tease, staring harder still at the mirage of your make believe home.

“Yes, you do. I taught you. You took to it right away, and now you’re better than Sammy, even. You play like an angel. And sometimes, when the girls are asleep, we make love on it and scatter notes around the room in the night.”

Your hand finds its way into your panties all on its own, but it’s innocent somehow, gentle. “We make love on the piano?”

“We make love everywhere, sugar.” He hushes, “I’ve slipped inside of you against the maple tree in the backyard in the Autumn while it drops its leaves at our feet. I’ve nestled my face between your thighs on the porch because you like to watch in the moonlight. Bent you over the kitchen sink so you’ll forget about the dishes, in a closet or two when the girls were too busy to notice, in the dirt in the garden, everywhere.”

A soft moan you attempt to swallow escapes you as your fingers sweep, wet and warm, across your clit.

“What was that, sweetheart?” The smugness in his query is so loving you forget to be annoyed with it, “Are you touching yourself imagining all the places I’ve made you mine? All the places I’ve taken you and made you shake, over and over and over?”

“Tell me,” you beg, slipping your leg over the arm of the chair, opening yourself up for him, offering something he isn’t here to take. “Talk to me. Tell me.”

“That’s my girl,” are you imagining the sound of his zipper through his praise? “What do you want to hear? I’ll talk to you all night, sugar…talk to you forever. Until my voice gives out.”

“The porch,” Another brush against your aching clit, another airy moan you fail to quiet, “Tell me about on the porch.”

“Yeah? You want to hear all about how I lick your pretty pussy on the front porch until you’re dripping down my chin? Want me to tell you about how good you taste, and how sweet you sound when you whine and rock against my mouth?” His voice is like sandpaper smoothing out the frayed edges of your heart. And you most definitely heard his zipper.

“Jake, please…” you would give nearly anything for him to materialize in the room. To listen to his boots clip across the hardwood as he moves, closing in on you until you’re trembling with anticipation.

“Shh, sugar…” he clicks his tongue in mock sympathy, “We wouldn’t want to wake Mr. Wonderful. He doesn’t belong on this porch with us, does he?”

“Tell me.” Your demand falls short through another shaky sigh.

“It’s late, baby,” you can hear it now, the rhythmic, slick slide of his fist along his cock, “and we really should go inside and go to bed, but I can’t take my eyes off of you, you look so fucking stunning in the starlight. You’re curled up next to me in the thinnest, whitest nightie, and I can see the tops of your thighs. So soft and smooth. And I only want to kiss them, but the second I’m on my knees you’re spread open for me like you’ve been waiting for my mouth.”

You’re so wet you can almost pretend your fingers are his tongue drawing tight circles exactly where you need it “And then?”

“Then I slip your panties off, and you give me a little shit about it just for show, but you shut up quick when I start licking along the insides of your thighs. You smell so fucking good, and you taste like heaven, and my cock is so fucking hard for you, but I don’t care about that, all I care about is getting my mouth on you.”

“Do I really taste that good, Jakey?” You pant, arching away from the back of the chair as you slip inside your warmth and fish for compliments.

“You do, baby.” His breath drags in and out of his lungs hard and fast. “You taste so sweet…prettiest, pinkest pussy I’ve ever kissed, you taste like home, you taste like my sugar.”

“Fuck, I’m—“

“Slow down.” He interrupts, sounding gentle in a way he seldom does when he’s hard and throbbing for you. “You just go real slow for me and listen.”

You nod, and though he can’t see you, he seems to feel it all the same.

“I’m on my knees against the porch you helped me strip and sand, and you’re spread open for me on the swing. It creaks every time you move. Your hands are in my hair, but you’re being such a gentle girl, fucking your lovely cunt up into my mouth, begging me softly to suck your spoiled little clit, begging me to make you cum.”

With your fingers fluttering light as air, you can almost imagine it all to be real, and you’re close…so close.

With a choked gasp of your name he pauses, but recovers in a blink, “You’re whining for my fingers, but I want to get you there just like this. I don’t want anything in the way when you finally let go on my tongue. I want to drink you down, baby…every drop. It’s all mine, and I want it. And you let me have you that way, don’t you?”

“Yes,” you nod frantically, writhing in the chair until the blanket falls away, forgotten.

“And you’re going to be such a good girl for me, huh?” That, leading, teasing tone has joined the party, and your stomach is twisting and turning, wringing the lust out of your very soul, “You’re going to be the sweetest little sweetheart and cum right in my mouth because I’m just so fucking thirsty, aren’t you?”

“Oh fuck, Jake…” you’ve hardly made a sound, your constricted throat won’t allow for much more, “Say it again.”

He knows what you want, and like always, he gives it to you without question or thought. “Want you to cum in my mouth right here on the porch, you beautiful fucking filthy girl. I want you, sugar…c’mon and make a mess on my tongue.”

“I’m gonna cum,” you’re spread wide and thrusting into your own touch, but it’s Jake you feel…he’s everywhere, all around you, you’re drenched in him.

“Of course you are, sweetheart,” he soothes, sounding near the end himself, “Because you know how badly I want it, and you’re my girl.”

“I’m your girl,” you whimper, desperate for more more more… “I’m your fucking girl, Jakey. I love you…”

“Love you too, sugar,” a growl rumbles out of him low and menacing. “Love you so fucking much. Come on, baby, c’mon…”

With a fist drawn to your mouth and your teeth dug in deeply, you let it happen. Welcoming that sparking, searing, electric bliss only he seems to be capable of gracing you with, no matter how near or far he happens to be.

You’re quiet somehow, but he doesn’t seem to need anything more than your muted gasps to get there with you. Though on his end, he sounds feral and violent…like the beautiful, seedy underbelly of something you shouldn’t want. Pornographic and obscene. Improper. Dirty. Wrong. Perfect.

With the calm of the afterglow, comes the shame. The guilt. The self-hatred. He knows it all too well already, and rather than drawing attention to what has just happened, he shifts focus to help you through.

“I might order room service. If you were here right now, what would you want? That’s what I’ll get.”

“Hmm,” you think it over, kicking the blanket up from the floor to recover a bit of modesty, “Soup sounds good. Broccoli cheddar if they have it.”

“Soup?” There’s that wide open laugh of his again.

“Yes.” You pretend-pout. “And don’t laugh at me. It sounds divine.”

“Soup it is, sugar.” He sounds soft and a little unlike himself. “We’ve got a small break coming up. It’s only a couple of days, but what if I came to see you?”

“Jake,” you’re preparing to wage a loving war, though you want to see him more than you want the air you breathe to quench your lungs.

“I just want to take you to the movies, that’s all,” he holds up his metaphorical hands innocently. “Will you go see a flick with me? No illegal bottles of water necessary.”

“You want to go to the movies?” You laugh at the idea of it all. So PG in a manner so… not Jake.

“Yep.” He sounds positively delighted at the mirth in your response. “Bring Mr. Wonderful, we’ll have a great time.”

You roll your eyes, stretching out your limbs, which have been tense and contorted for far too long, “Oh, don’t be silly, Jacob, like I would ever share you with Mr. Wonderful.”

Taglist: @gretasintrees @greta-van-chaos @celestialfauna @s0livagant @groggyvanfleet @kiszkathecook @brokenbellz @llightmyllovee @doodle417 @seventieswhore @jake-kiszkas-smirk @weightofdreams-gvf @imdepressedaf1996 @alisonwonderland29 @gretavanfleas @gretavangroove @jakesgrapejuice @sparrowofthedawn @xserenax-13 @tbagggvf @obetrolncocktails @tripthelightfandomtastic @tripthelight-fanfic @jakeslovehandles @poofyloofy @70sgroupielovr @heatmyfleet @age-of-nyahh @sammiboo162 @gretasmokerising @spicedandicedtea @jakekiszkasleftnutsack @saoirsemaeve @mywickeddivinity @thelvnternskeeper @paintmyhouse @mckenna4 @sarakay-gvf @theweightofjake @thewritingbeforesunrise @joshsmama @sammysvanfeet @rhythm-of-space @highladyofasgard @jordie-gvf-admin @calumspretty @sad1lynn @demolitionndann @gvfpal @starcatcher-jake

[vermont-writes-fanfic]

Kinda curious on how you would rate the escapeability of yandere Alucard, Anderson, Enrico Maxwell and captain from hellsing

Hi Anon! I’m so sorry I just saw this but it’s a great ask!

The scale will go like this: 0= Inescapable 10= Complete Escape

Slight warning as ya know…yandere…

How escapable are they? PT.1

Alucard:

Escapability Rating: 1/10

"Is this a new game, little lamb?"

Okay so he doesn’t get a zero and for the single reason that I feel there is a small chance that you could pull it off. How long you’d escape him? Not very, however it *is* possible! He holds the firm belief that only humans can beat him in anything or best him, and I believe that extends to this. Even if you managed to escape him, you have to realise that to keep their little lapdog he has to be happy, so Sir Integra will likely waste no effort helping this man find you if it means that Alu with behave. Best to just learn to love him I guess~

Father Anderson

Escapability Rating: 0/10

"And where do you think you, are going?"

Father Alxander is nothing if not a man determined. There are too many of those vile creatures for you to be out and about without his protection, and since he is so busy keeping those monsters away from you and the orphanage you'll just have to stay put. Besides, the children love you there and he is always in a much more charitable mood when his darling is around to keep him satisfied. He's not above punishing you though, to think you could escape him is so silly of you. You belong to him.

Enrico Maxwell

Escabaility Rating: 5/10

"My precious Angel, where could you be~?"

This one really had me stumped for a minute, but ultimately this depends on how he sees you. He's a deeply religous man after all, if he sees you as a god send them you aren't going anywhere. He will have you buy his side for every visit, every meal, even his prayers he will have you by his side. The only time you have to escape is the window where he is a deep prayer or in a meeting with his subordinate Father Anderson discussing the business of the Vatican's Iscariot Association. He has zero eyes on you during this time and expects you to be a good little angel and stay in his room until he is done. He has too much faith in you, but has his spoiling his little angel convinced you to stay?

The Captain

"...Stay."

Escabability Rating: 4/10

Hear me out okay? He is the only one who sees you more as a lover than just some pretty little thing to keep locked up. However, he's extremely protective of you and has your scent ingrained in his memory like his life depends on it. If you did escape, which would be pretty easy under the right circumstances, he'd be on the hunt for you Immediatley, and only the sharp order of his superiors would be able to sway him, that and the taste of his own blood. He would never stop searching for you and even when you are far away you can hear his howling, he's never far from finding his prescious mate and you'll end up in his arms again if you aren't careful. But is that really so bad?

A/N:Thank you so much for your ask and I'd love to get some more!

[wintaerbaer]

things we don't say: part 6 (TEASER) (kth)

banner credit: @itaeewon

summary: Three years after graduating college, everything seems to be falling into place for you: stable job, cozy apartment, and a long-term boyfriend with a ring box hidden in his desk drawer. But when a mutual friend makes a remark that your best friend of nearly two decades is clearly in love with you, you realize that life may not be as simple as it seems.

pairing: Taehyung x Reader (with some VERY brief Seokjin x Reader and Yoongi x Reader)

rating: 18+ (MINORS DNI)

genres: best friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, slooooow burn, angst, fluff

word count: 1.2k

teaser warnings: a very sad boy, references to sexual situations, brief mentions of child abuse, vomiting, someone has a wet dream, guilt, shame, a haircut

a/n: sincerest apologies that this series has gone so long without an update. i was struggling with some aggressive writer's block these past few months, but i think we're back in business! <3

PREVIOUS // SERIES MASTERLIST

To say he falls into a state of depression may be an understatement.

He barely eats, barely sleeps, and while Taehyung has always considered you to be the center of his universe—his entire being oriented to you like a star—you’ve begun to haunt him in ways that you never have before. Reminders of you creeping into every minute of his days.

It’s passing your favorite ramen place on his way home from a photoshoot. Or finding a can of your favorite sparkling water buried in the back of his fridge. Or flipping past the cooking show you used to watch together or stumbling upon one of your sweatshirts in his closet or the fact that he still has that damn photo of you hanging up behind his desk.

You’re everywhere—your being so deeply ingrained into his life that he couldn’t erase you even if he wanted to.

And he certainly doesn’t want to erase you; he’s too selfish for that. Even now, even after he’s fucked up to catastrophic degrees by forcing his feelings on you, he still can’t bear to face you directly. Because he knows it would be the end of him for you to reject and abandon him too, even if he can’t blame you for it.

It keeps him up at night, thinking about what he could’ve done differently. How he somehow lost his handle on the control which he has always internally prided himself on (sans a drunken conversation with Namjoon last year where he spilled his guts as was met with a lack of surprise on his friend’s part). He’s always promised himself that he would never burden you, that his love for you was not your responsibility but something for him to manage on his own.

And yet, with you sitting so close on the hotel bed—looking absolutely beautiful in your simple PJs even after he spent the day with you all dressed up—his defenses had crumbled the second you pressed into his side and asked him the final question of your fateful game.

How could he not kiss you then? How could he not give you what you asked of him when he wouldn’t hesitate to lay down his very life if you required it?

But still, he spends hours each night staring at the white expanse of his ceiling wishing he had held back like he always did. Years spent training himself to resist the way his blood calls out for you reduced to naught the second he got his first taste of your lips. And now you likely hate him.

And as if it’s not enough for his brain to put him through this nightly torture, the guilt eating him alive, when he finally does manage to scrounge up a few hours of sleep, there’s the matter of the dreams.

He revisits the hotel room every night. Can taste you again, hear your moans, feel your mouth on him and your warm skin underneath his hands as his mind drags him back through every minute detail on a loop. It’s agony, having to both wrangle with the knowledge of how it felt to be with you as well as face his sins every time he closes his eyes. Realize just how badly he fucked up when he wakes to once again find the other half of his bed empty.

Because in spite of him spending years convincing himself that you were never meant to be, there’s still a small part of Taehyung’s subconscious that’s always carved out space for you in his life. It’s the part that stocks your favorite drinks in his fridge, keeps that photo of you pinned behind his computer, leaves a side of the bed open for you because he became so damn accustomed to sleeping next to you in high school.

He’d found that the bruises from his father didn’t hurt as much when you were sitting next to him making him laugh in your bedroom. That his brain would quiet enough from the terrors to allow him to sleep if you were there lying next to him. That he didn’t feel the dull pain, only the gentle touches of your fingers, as you carefully applied makeup onto the dark patches of skin before school.

It had been easy, then, to dedicate himself to providing you with the same support and care you had shown him in any way he could. To wish for your happiness above all else—his guardian angel through and through.

At least, that is, until he lost control in that hotel room.

One night, after a particularly vivid dream involving your body under his, he awakes to sheets that are soaked around his middle. He blanches at the evidence of his body’s desire for you even now, the horror at the audacity of his unconscious mind causing bile to churn and rise in his throat.

He bolts for the bathroom, barely making it there before he empties the contents of his stomach into the toilet. His body shakes as he retches above the porcelain, guilt rattling his bones until he can hardly keep himself upright.

When the waves of nausea stop, when he can finally pull himself up to lean his elbows against the sink, he stares hard at the mirror and man he sees there.

He looks haggard, dark splotches sitting under his eyes and hair hanging limp around his face and over his forehead. The pale skin of his cheeks and lips is surely due, in part, to the vomiting, but there’s no denying that he’s a shell of his former self. A ghost just going through the motions of a past life.

And it’s there, peering through the darkness at his own reflection, that Taehyung decides he hates himself.

He’s not sure if it’s the raw disgust or the unrelenting shame that has him reaching for the hair clippers, but as his sable tresses begin to fall in chunks over the bathroom counter and floor, Taehyung thinks he deserves this.

He deserves the torment of his dreams. That disturbing combination of his wildest fantasies and nightmares rolled into one.

He deserves to wake up alone. To be reminded of his transgressions at the break of each day.

And he deserves to lose you.

Hell, he never deserved to have you.

The silence that follows the buzz of the trimmer seems at odds with the roaring in his head. Still, he manages to scoop the mess of hair into the trash before dragging himself back to the tangle of his sheets.

He finds himself right back in that cursed hotel room.

When he shuffles into the living room the next morning, still fighting the lingering tastes of bile and your lips, Jungkook and Jimin are already awake at the kitchen bar drinking coffee. They freeze at the sight of him; the pastry that Jimin was halfway to putting in his mouth hits the ground with a thud as Jungkook lets out a low whistle and simply shakes his head.

“That bad, huh?”

a/n: may or may not go back and revise this again for the final draft. in the meantime, a reminder that my ask box is always open! <3

[caeslxys]

the salt and the skin

Hi! I have been deeply beset by a disease that can only be cured by writing about Imogen Temult’s intensely ingrained mental illnesses. Yeah it’s contagious. Honestly this fic should probably be labeled as some type of biohazard.

Also on Ao3!

The first time Imogen told Laudna about the storm it was, appropriately, storming.

Laudna’s eyes had been swallowed by a blackness darker than that of the night surrounding them, catching and reflecting even the most minuscule scatterings of light in a way that made her gaze look full with shooting stars. She had taken her leather-shielded hand to hold in both of hers as she listened. It was the first time she could remember someone taking her hand simply to hold.

She said, here is what she knows of the storm: it is unrelenting, it is violent, it is hers.

After—as they lay for the first time in a shared space, hands locked together in a promise at their sides—Laudna fell asleep before her, eyes wide open. Imogen had spent minutes watching light shows reflect in them, enchanted utterly. She thought, without really considering the weight of it then: beautiful.

When she finally fell back asleep, she did so with the comfort of knowing she was never out of Laudna’s lightspun gaze.

———

In the time that has passed since that night the same things that have changed about the storm have changed for her and Laudna—which is to say, nothing at all.

(Which is to say, absolutely everything.

In the time that has passed since that night Imogen has become familiar with the difference between the chill that follows Laudna’s skin and the chill that follows a corpse with her face. In the time that has passed since that night Imogen has learned the difference between running from and running to. In the time that has passed since that night Imogen has learned the difference between losing and being left.

Here is what she knows of grief: it is unrelenting, it is violent, it is hers.

It does not escape her that the first time she heard her mother’s voice was in a storm.)

———

On the twenty-seventh day of Quen’Pillar, as the falling leaves and spines begin to create a shoreline on the bordering forest in a glaze of varying orange and brown shades, Gelvaan celebrates the Hazel Festival.

This, like all other celebrations in Gelvaan, is celebrated with hastily put-up stands and stages and games, the best and biggest cattle and produce hauled in on freshly cleaned wagons—some sporting their previously won ribbons as intimidating trophies—and various flowery dedications to various different gods.

The Hazel Festival, as her father explained it, is a celebration of love and divine intention—the concept and promise of soul mates. As the superstition goes, if there exists another half of you, then you would find them here. People would arrive with bouquets of freshly picked flowers, hand-written letters or hand-crafted food, wandering the small stream of Gelvaan townsfolk with the belief that they were about to stumble upon the great love of their life.

It always seemed so silly to her, which means it was something many of the people in that town held very close to their hearts.

Her father told her that they met there. He and her mother. Maybe that’s why it seemed so silly.

But here, in the dark and with the taste of honesty staining her lips, she has the passing thought that she’d like to take Laudna one day. Maybe not to the one in Gelvaan; somewhere new, somewhere that feels syrupy sweet and slow and that sticks to your skin like a joyful glaze when it's over. Somewhere that stains. She wants Laudna to have to lick her fingers clean. She wants to bring her a bouquet of flowers.

But, for now, she is in a chasm that might as well be endless telling Laudna things that she deserved to hear in any other way. She should have told her about how she feels about Delilah’s presence in their room, holding her hand, holding her lips to the skin of her throat in a threat and a promise.

She should have told Laudna she loves her at the Hazel Festival.

Instead she says “I love Laudna,” with the same tense hesitance you would feel pulling a trigger and follows it with a “but” that bursts from her chest like a bullet that precedes “I’m disgusted at the idea of Delilah looking at us all the time.” that leaves her smoking mouth like an accusation. She watches her careless aim land true in Laudna’s chest, sees the conflicted hitch and stutter of her breath from even the short distance separating them.

It ricochets; it strikes her, too.

———

During the trial of trust, when Laudna says she loves her, Imogen’s response is: “I think you’re a doppelganger right now?”

Which is silly. They’ll laugh about it later. It also makes her want to die as soon as it leaves her lips.

Because, the thing is, she knows Laudna. She knows Laudna and she would be able to tell if it wasn’t Laudna if she had been blinded or deafened or made senseless altogether. Her tether, her anchor. She would know. She should have known.

In the same way she should have known the moment they landed in Wildemount that Laudna was in Issylra. In the same way she should have known the moment she fled that Laudna was in the Parchwood. In the same way she should have known twenty years ago that Laudna was coming to her.

Not that any of it matters. She didn’t know. She didn’t know that she was in Issylra—the Parchwood—The Hellcatch—in front of her. It feels as close to sacreligious as Imogen has ever truly felt. Heretical. Like she should be punished or brought down altogether. And, really, maybe she should be. The exercise was to trust one another.

What kind of trust was it, to instinctually keep trying to reach into her friend’s minds? To summon a hound to stand between them all as they stood at the very precipice in case? If she’s honest, she doesn’t truthfully feel like any of them deserved to be called victorious.

She wonders, briefly, if the other side is lacking here, too. Ludinus, Otohan. Her mother. Is it trust that binds them? Is it faith?

The brief thought of it, that her mother has found her own version of the Hells—maybe her own version of Laudna—drives into her chest like a fist.

But none of that compares to—Laudna’s face, fumbling into disbelief at the accusation; Laudna’s grasping, empty hands; Laudna’s nervous, darting eyes. Laudna’s screams, cutting through the night off the bow of the Silver Sun. Laudna’s bleeding fingers, dripping black onto shattered, pink stone.

If it was sacrilegious of her to doubt Laudna’s intention, it is damnation she feels take root in her ribs as a hound aparrates at her side. It bursts forth with a growling howl, its decaying hackles raised, its bright green eyes trained on her, sharp and dutiful. For her to doubt Laudna—for her to make Laudna doubt her—

Well. She supposes it’s fair.

She glances at it, her Cerberus. She says, “Hi, baby boy.”

It calms. Across the fountain, face blocked by the angle of her own extended hand, Laudna calms, too. “Yes.” Laudna utters, “Good boy.”

She closes her eyes as she, Orym, and Chetney breach the barrier surrounding the fountain and drop their ivory sticks into its grasp. She reaches for Laudna’s mind one final, unsuccessful time, the plea for her not to lunge dying unheard in the folds of her mind.

(In the moment, as Morri applauds their upward failure of a success, she doesn’t register the way her now red-scarred fingers come up to brush against the now-bare skin of her temple. She should have known.

Next time, she will.)

———

When Fearne finally makes up her mind and readies herself for taking the shard, Imogen’s eyes are on Laudna and how a line of tension shoots up her spine and draws her shoulders together like folding, skeletal wings. How, as Chetney reaches into the bag of holding, she silently steps away.

Imogen hasn’t been wearing her circlet, has lowered herself once again into the rapid waters of her too-open mind for hours now, but she doesn’t need to be in Laudna’s mind to know what is passing through it.

It makes her sick, the thought of that vile woman in Laudna’s mind or soul or presence. It makes her more sick to think of Laudna spending even a moment around her influence alone.

(When Laudna had come back—when they found her, out at the tree line of the Parchwood—she had run. She had taken a moment to meet Imogen’s exhausted-elated-terrified eyes and sprinted in the opposite direction. She ran for fear of what she was capable of doing, of who she was capable of hurting, of both her lack of control and abundance of power.

She thinks of Laudna running from her and from her and from herself and, briefly, envisions a storm in the place where once she stood.)

She doesn’t really register that she has moved until Laudna is already in her arms.

“You can put your head in my shoulder. Til’ it’s over.” She whispers, one hand burying itself in Laudna’s hair and the other wrapping possessively around her waist, “I can tell you what’s happening, if you want?”

Laudna doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and then, into her neck: “You’re warm.”

She feels the barely-there press of lips to her carotid and tries valiantly not to let the shiver it sparks pass through her. Instead, she takes the hand in her hair and presses lightly, moves so that every point of their bodies that could be connected are. She says, voice silk-soft, lips brushing a metal-armored cropped ear, “So are you.”

For a moment it feels—well, intimate in a way she’s slightly embarrassed about displaying in front of the others. Slightly.

But then Laudna is murmuring “shut up, shut up, shut up,” into the skin of her shoulder and—she can’t help it—she smiles. She giggles. It is pure pride. Her brain in three parts: loving Laudna, hating Delilah, wanting to tell Laudna it’s okay to bite her shoulder to drown out the voice if it’s too loud.

She does not do that, and instead whispers the incantation she has all but ingrained on her tongue from countless back-and-forth trips on too shaky gondolas and grief insurmountable—she says, in some dead language or a command—calm.

She thinks, as the spell leaves her and Laudna’s tense body melts completely—as Fearne’s body rises into the air, encompassed in flame—as Chetney’s grip on the tools he has taken out to hold for comfort, and then on FCG’s raging body, turns white-knuckled—as Ashton flinches and almost doubles over from another shock of pain that passes through them and then as healing energy into Fearne—as Orym bounces anxiously on his heels like a flea or a warrior looking to strike—as FCG’s eyes flicker red and his tiny healing-hands become something violent—as her mother says her name through the roaring of a storm—I’m not running anymore. I won’t run.

She imagines, as Laudna pulls back when things have settled and her taloned grip releases Imogen, that her skin has formed new scars in the shape of Laudna’s hands. She holds the idea in her mind in place of an oath.

———

That night, she gives in.

It’s inevitable, really, no matter which way you look at it she and the storm and the moon have always been meant to collide. To swallow each other whole. It’s better that she does it on her terms.

Laudna agrees. It’s good that Laudna agrees. The best, actually, because she was hoping that she’d say no. She was hoping that she’d say no because she doesn’t actually want to be swallowed whole by the storm or the moon or the concept of a mother. What she wants is for Laudna to say no, and to take her hand and walk her out of the room—the house—the feywild—this entire situation—and into whatever is next. Because the truth of it is, no matter how many people go into her dreams with her, she still feels alone.

In the end, she tells herself as red bleeds into the nothing behind her eyelids, the future she has been fighting for has never been her own. The hope she holds like water in her hands was never meant for herself. Her last fight. Her last hope. She stows them away like weapons. She thinks, They’ll owe me. She thinks, They’ll free her.

Except, when she gives in—when her friends fall away, as they always do, and she is left alone and cradled and warm with the echo of her desperate mother’s voice ringing in her mind—it’s everything. It’s twenty years of nightmares and ten of minds on minds on minds and months of grief and love and wrath all wrapped up in a bow and labeled “purpose”.

She feels like a child. Or what she imagines most children felt like. Weightless. Like if she’s simply good enough there will be someone who loves her there to wrap her in a hug or a blanket and tell her she did well. Who will carry her tiny half-asleep form to her room and tuck her in and kiss her forehead and say “good night.” Like she could close her eyes and let the darkness swallow her and know someone left a light on.

It’s everything. So when she wakes to her friends hovering, groggy faces she is only guilty for a moment at the spike of disappointment that shoots through her at the sight of them. And only guilty for a second longer when her eyes land on Laudna who is still, also, endlessly, everything.

It’s not—she’s not really there for the next few seconds—minutes—hours. All of their voices come through as if she is submerged in something thick that pulls every time she tries to break for air. Or maybe a lack of air altogether. There are still stars behind her eyelids every time she blinks.

At some point in their conversation two things finally register in about the same amount of time. One: her mother had called for her. Her mother had been there. Her mother had sounded like she was crying. And two: Laudna is holding her hand.

Laudna has been holding her hand, maybe. For a few moments and a few years. It's this, her tether, that finally brings her back to—well—Exandria.

The others are—asleep? No, they’ve—that is, she and Laudna—have moved. To their room. They had a room? Have they spent a night here already? If time is a soup then she has made quite the mess.

Regardless, Laudna is holding her hand. It’s everything.

Then there is shifting, slow and slight.

“Imogen.” She hears her whisper, voice dropping to that low husk that her choked, only lightly decayed vocal cords must reach to achieve a tone so soft. She doesn’t ever mention it, but Imogen knows how sometimes kindness exists like a war in Laudna’s body. In the way her throat rebels against the scratchy dip of her voice, in the way her bones ache when embraced. It hurts her to be so soft. For Imogen, she does it anyway. “Imogen. Would you like to lie down?”

She doesn’t respond—she doesn’t think she responds—just squeezes Laudna’s cool hand in her warm one and laces their fingers together in lukewarm knots.

She feels Laudna’s hands take and cradle her close—holds there, chests rising and falling against each other like lapping waves for an amount of time Imogen doesn't bother to count—and then she twists and shifts and lays her down like a sleepy child on their shared pillows. She tucks her in. She stands.

“I’ll be back.” Laudna husks somewhere above her. “Rest, darling. I won’t be but a few minutes. I’m sure Nana has a pitcher of water somewhere around here that I won’t have to—I don’t know—make a deal for, or something.”

She thinks she feels the tiniest beginnings of a grin pinning her lips up as Laudna's steps slow near the door, hesitate—begin to close—and then open the door long enough to peek in and say: “Pâté is with you, okay, I’ll be right back. I’ll try not to bargain what remains of my soul for water, but—you know—as they say—what must be done and all—okay, bye” punctuated by the croaking sound of their door pinching shut.

Definitely a grin, then. “Pâté,” she says, dream-drunk, “Your mom is the best.”

She feels Pâté land on her chest with a soft, somewhat wet flop. His tiny feet pitter like he’s excited or dancing. He says, “I know. She’s the whole package.” And then, after letting loose a rattling sound that could be considered a yawn, he asks, “Can I get cozy, then? While we wait for mum?”

Imogen, eyes still blissfully closed, let's loose a breathless laugh. Her hand blindly makes its way to the ball of fur and viscera and bone and love on her chest and scritches, “‘Course, Pâté. We’ll wait together.”

He hums. She feels him turn in one, two, three circles on her chest before finally curling up and settling in on her skin. He makes another rattling noise that could be a yawn or maybe a purr and says, “You’re warm.”

She is undeniably smiling when she responds, “So are you, buddy.”

———

When Laudna comes back minutes or hours later, Pâté is fast asleep on her chest.

His little body rattles with what she assumes are snores, softly vibrating against her collar. She holds a finger to her lips as Laudna goes to shut the door behind her. Laudna makes a face like she’s about to burst into tears.

She doesn’t. She instead turns to—softly—shut and lock the door, and then turns soundlessly again in her direction. She takes a breath. She smiles, “I’m not going to lie, I was kind of hoping you’d be asleep when I got back.”

She hums, low in her chest. “Why?”

Laudna looks at her in that somewhat blank way she does when she thinks the answer to something is quite obvious. She says, “Because you need the rest.”

She hums again. Laudna treks the distance between them and sits softly beside her, her sharp hip just barely pressing against the bend of her waist. Her bony hand catches Imogen’s cheek—or, maybe, Imogen’s cheek willingly falls into her hand—regardless, suddenly she finds herself held. A thumb brushes under her eye with the barely there gentleness one uses when full with fear for something breaking in their grasp.

She leans forward and over her, dark hair falling around them like a curtain of ink, blanketing them in shadow, encompassing her entire vision. She asks, breath falling upon her lips like a torrent or a phantom kiss, “Are you alright, darling?”

Imogen lifts up the barely there distance to press their lips together, sighing into her mouth. “Careful with Pâté,” she whispers when she falls back, a hand splaying on Laudna’s chest to keep her from fully settling in atop her, “he needs the rest, too.”

Laudna opens her eyes as if from a good dream—and then rolls them. She lifts a hand to wave in the air as if swatting at something. “He’s dead.” She says, like it’s an obvious thing—which, it is. But. “Besides, if he dies from exhaustion or something else ridiculous then I’ll just bring him back.”

Imogen frowns. “I don’t think he’s dead. Not, like, dead-dead, anyway. ‘Sides, he’s comfy. I’d feel bad if we woke him.”

Laudna hums, then. “Yes, he is. Comfy. And also dead.”

Her turn to roll her eyes. “Where’s his house?”

Laudna sighs like the world is ending—which, well—and leans down for one more soft kiss and then back and up and off of her entirely. Imogen tries—valiantly, she might add—not to openly wince at the loss.

She watches Laudna brace her nonexistent weight against the bed in a way that would cause the mattress to dip if it were anyone else, and instead just presses with the barely there imprint of her palms into the silk. She reaches for Imogen’s chest, cups Pâté’s tiny form in her hands; Imogen brings her hands together overtop them both. When Laudna looks at her, her eyes are full of shooting stars.

“Can I?” she asks, “Please?”

Laudna stares at her for a few slow heartbeats more, a little like she is stunned. Eventually, she leans down over their joined hands and kisses her fingers. Again. Moves her thumb to run over her knuckles like she is wiping away a stain. “Of course.”

Her body still feels a little gone, a little floaty, as she brings her hands to catch Pâté’s tiny body in their joint grasp, lifts herself up against the headboard, and then swings her legs over the side of the mattress. She sways to her feet slowly, slightly wobbly, eyes never leaving from the curled-up ball of fur in her hands and on her chest. Laudna’s hands have moved and are pressing into her biceps from somewhere behind her, steadying.

She lifts her head long enough to find where Laudna had placed Pâté's little home across the room, its golden-brown wood resting silently atop the possibly skin-covered drawer by the archway that opens into a vine-wrapped, flower-lined balcony.

She half-shambles, half-stumbles her way over with Laudna on her bleary-eyed heels. It feels infinitely important—it’s always felt important, but—that she is gentle. That Laudna sees her be gentle. It is more important than she has words to describe that Laudna could leave or fall asleep or be elsewhere and feel and know that Pâté would be put softly, lovingly to bed. That he would be tucked in. That Imogen would leave a little light on for him if he asked. She looks down at Laudna’s most special little gift and drops a tiny, feather-light kiss against his skeletal head. “G’night, buddy.”

He mumbles out a gargled sounding, “G’night, ‘mogen.”

She smiles, pulls apart the tiny curtains that act as a privacy sheet to his home, tucks him in as well as she can, runs one last soft finger down the length of his beak and just like that—she can’t help it—she starts to think of her mother.

She wonders how gently Liliana held her, when she was so small and helpless and vulnerable. She wonders if Liliana ever sang to her, ever held her little hands and kissed her stubby fingers. That memory—the one that Otohan conjured or summoned or triggered—her mother had caught her as her toddler legs had stumbled; she had smiled and wiped her tear-stained cheeks and lifted her into her arms and held.

The phantom memory of a mother and the phantom memory of Ruidus begin to overlap—how long had it been, before Laudna, that she was shown gentleness? Before Laudna, two decades into her life, was it her mother? Before her mother, before she was ever given a name, was it the moon?

How was she meant to—how was it fair to expect her to—is it so evil of her, to wish? She won’t—she won’t—because she knows that it’s wrong no matter how desperately it feels right. But the—the venom she catches pooling in the depths of Orym’s gaze, sometimes, when he talks about the moon and the vanguard and she—she gets it—of course she gets it, of course she understands—but it’s not like she’s ever genuinely entertained the thought of joining the vanguard—of joining Otohan—but the moon, Ruidus, Predathos—she won’t—the silence, the comfort—her body, radiant even among the stars—running, tripping into her mother’s arms—she won’t—

“Imogen?”

A chilled hand on her shoulder, gentle, gentle, gentle.

Breath enters her empty lungs in a shock-sharp inhale. Light enters the world again—natural, silver-white moonlight like a stripe of paint from the open balcony; warm, flickering orange from the candle by the bed—and the temperature goes from freezing to scalding to cool as she collapses back into her body like debris flung from orbit. Laudna’s hand on her skin; she crash-lands back home.

On impact, she whispers, “Laudna.”

A moment of hesitance and then a soft, cool pair of lips against the curve of her neck and shoulder. Her hands circle to wrap around Imogen’s waist. She asks, again, voice feather-fall soft, “Are you alright?”

A moment of hesitance and then her traitorous mouth, her traitorous heart: “I don’t know anymore.”

Laudna presses another, more lingering kiss to the space below her ear, then moves to run her nose along the curve of her jaw. She whispers there, in a way that she feels the words press against her skin, “That’s okay.”

Imogen finds her hands against her belly and twines them together as tightly as she can—tether, anchor, home. Her breath trembles.

They don’t say anything, holding each other in the space and the silence. Laudna presses gentle, gentle kisses to anywhere on Imogen that she can reach—neck, shoulder, ear, jaw—until Imogen turns to meet her there, barely capturing Laudna’s bottom lip between hers and then moving in again, more insistent. She feels Laudna’s lips pull into a smile against hers. Imogen notes that she’s becoming familiar with the feeling. The thought pulls her own smile forth.

But they haven’t kissed like this before, at this angle, in this room. There are so many other perfect kisses they have yet to discover.

It doesn’t make sense that she only kissed her a little over a week ago. She should have kissed her a month ago, the moment she came back on the floor in Whitestone, the moment they arrived in Jrusar, two years ago in Gelvaan. She should have kissed her a hundred more times than she did the day that she first gathered the courage to kiss her in the first place and then kissed her some more. She should’ve bought lipstick so she could leave a stain.

Laudna pulls back first, half-laughing and half-sighing at Imogen’s attempt to give chase. She leans back in to press a quick kiss to her nose—new, perfect—and then dips down, seals their foreheads together, looks up at her. She asks, “Would you like to talk about it?”

No, not really. “I think I’d need another week to even begin to process what’s happened to us in the last three days, to be honest.”

Laudna nods. “Yes, understandable. It’s been a lot.” She pauses, as if to see if Imogen will respond, and then says, “Still, I’d like to listen.”

She’s perfect. That’s it, really.

Imogen finds her hand and brings it up to her lips, kissing each finger once and then each knuckle. She whispers, “I’m not sure I know how to.”

Laudna kisses her cheek. “That’s okay, too.”

When she pulls back she also pulls forward, taking Imogen’s hand in her own and guiding her. She twines their fingers together, and then they are on the balcony.

Catha shines more brightly here than she is used to in the Material Plane. There is no bloody red or pink shine of Ruidus to speak of after their work at the key. It is navy-dark, struck through with silver cuts from Sehanine’s light. There are moving, shifting vines wrapped around the stone-skinwork railing of their little alcove, purple and yellow and orange and bright, vibrant green dancing and swirling and alive around them.

Laudna gasps, her lips forming a perfect, excited “O” when she notices the little movements. “Hello, there,” she says to the vine, “Sorry to disturb you. Would it be impolite to talk to my girlfriend out here, for a minute?” and then, her hands coming up like claws and her voice deepening to the tone she uses for her most important and dramatic of questions, “Is this, like, your domain?”

The vines shake back and forth as if to say knock yourself out or maybe well I can’t stop you.

Laudna grins, “Oh, perfect. Excellent. You're much less ferocious than your feywild-forest-flower friends.” Her brows furrow, a single finger coming up to tap nervously against her lips. “Hm. I hope that wasn’t insulting.”

Before Imogen can stop her she reaches forward and lightly taps the vine with two fingers, sharp teeth exposed in a smile, “You’re perfectly ferocious as well.”

The vines shutter as if to say fuck off and then pull back and vanish, leaving clean stonework behind.

Laudna pouts. Imogen takes and tangles their hands together. “Maybe next time.”

She sighs, all dramatics, “I’m beginning to believe plants hate me as much as people do.”

Imogen knocks their shoulders together. “People don’t hate you.”

“Objectively untrue. Regardless,” she says, waving Imogen’s immediate attempt at a counter aside, “Are you ready? For tomorrow.”

For the key? For Ruidus? For her mother?

She shrugs, “As I’ll ever be. You?”

”Oh, I think so.” She leans her bony hip against the balcony wall. “It’s been a long road. To get here. I never doubted you would.”

Imogen scoffs. She leans against the wall, too. “A long road is certainly one way to describe it. A shitty road, would be another.”

Laudna tilts her head at her, raven-like. A rope of black hair falls into her face. Imogen clenches her fingers around her arms in an effort not to reach across the space and brush it behind her ear. She says, with the upward tilting, insecure cadence of a question, “It hasn’t all been shitty, though?”

Imogen heaves a heavy breath. “No,” she says, fingers still digging into her own skin, “No. Not all of it.”

Laudna hums. There is still hair in front of her eyes. “But quite a bit of it.”

”Quite a bit, yeah.”

Quiet. Some likely incredibly fucked-up feywild bird flutters its incredibly fucked-up feywild wings and takes off into the moonlit night. Imogen turns and balances her weight on her elbows, leaning over the wall. The vines from earlier are just over the edge, as if eavesdropping. She says, “But not all of it, Laudna.”

”I know,” Laudna whispers, “I agree.”

”About not all of it sucking absolute ass or about it sucking absolute ass in general?”

”Yes.”

“Awesome.” Imogen chuckles, “I’m glad we agree that everything sucks.”

”But not everything-everything.”

”But not everything-everything.”

”This is getting pretty circular,” Laudna steps closer, “How do we make it suck less?”

Kiss me, Imogen thinks. “I have no idea.” Imogen says.

“Because, you know,” Laudna continues as if Imogen hadn’t spoken at all, “I think you’re…so capable. Truly. And I really haven’t ever doubted that you’d make it here—“

”—to the moon?—”

”—from the moment it became apparent it was possible, yes—but, really, even then—anyway. I just…I want to protect you. On the moon, but also here,” She lifts one dainty hand and presses her finger against Imogen’s forehead, “I know the dream was a lot.”

Imogen grasps Laudna’s wrist where it is in front of her face, leans forward to press a kiss against the veins there and then again at the tip of that same finger. “It was.”

Laudna shifts closer, still, leaning over her just slightly. “Do you feel any different?”

Imogen finally, finally allows herself the gift of brushing those stray hairs back, lets her fingers linger against Laudna’s gaunt cheek. “Yes and no.” she admits, eyes on the silk-soft hair tangled in her fingers to the side of Laudna’s face, “I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“That’s alright. Maybe I can help you find the words. You just—well, I…don’t want to, you know, but. You’ve just seemed a little—“

”Out of sorts.”

She sees Laudna’s breath stutter and then release. “Yes, I…I didn’t want to pressure you, or anything. It’s been a lot, so much. And you don’t have to—I trust you. I do. But if you…if you need or want help, then I would like to offer it. Is all.”

Imogen swallows. “I meant it, earlier,” bursts from her chest, her heart, “When I—That I love you. That I’m—in love with you. In case that wasn’t, um, clear.”

Laudna, for her part, looks genuinely surprised. Which is itself surprising. Not in the least because she had said she loved her, too; but, also that Imogen realizes that she very simply is not super good at hiding it.

Quietly, softly, Laudna’s lips part. Her eyes go a bit glassy. She shifts forward slightly, leaning into her palm still on her cheek. She says—whispers, really— “I know.”

Imogen inhales. Exhales. “You—well, that's good. That’s great.”

Laudna smiles against her skin. “You’re warm.” she whispers. She presses a kiss there, to the crease of her palm. “I love you, too.”

Imogen inhales. Exhales. “Well. That’s good. That’s great.”

”Mhm.”

”I don’t—“ she licks her dry lips, “I don’t know what to do now.”

Laudna hums. “Yes you do.”

”Right.” she says, “Okay.” and then she’s kissing her again.

”I’m going to ask you—“ a pause, another kiss, “I’m going to ask you about the dream again, when—“

Imogen pulls back. Laudna’s lips are kiss-swollen and shiny. It makes her want to break something. She asks, “When?”

Laudna sighs. Her eyes open to find her slowly, and then stop half-way, hanging over her iris’ heavily. Her eyes are dark. Hungry. She says, “When I’m done.”

Imogen’s eyes fall back to her lips. “Right.” She whispers, “Okay—“ and then the rest of her sentence and the rest of her breath and the rest of her thoughts are stolen from her.

———

“Now, then.” Laudna starts. She wipes the back of her hand across her uptilt lips. “What’s different? Do you have gills? Webbed fingers? Though, I supposed I’d have noticed that much by now—”

”Laudna—“ she heaves a laugh, lungs still desperate, voice a little hoarse, “God, let me catch my breath first.”

Laudna’s tongue runs lightly between her lips. She is above her, still, grey-ish arms bracketing either side of her. There is hair in her face again, sweat-stuck to her skin. Imogen is too mesmerized by the way that it splits her into like running ink and catches the nearby moonglow in a contrasting showcase of light to bother to want to brush it away. Chiaroscuro personified.

She tilts her head, bird-like and uncanny. Her eyes, shooting stars. It makes Imogen want to pull her back in. “Shit, Laudna,” she whisper-giggles, “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful.”

Laudna stutters and then grins, all too-sharp teeth. She says, teasingly, ”It’s nice to not be the breathless one for a change.”

Imogen’s laugh leaves her like a strike to the chest, “Oh, that’s a good one.”

”I thought so.”

Laudna leans down, kisses her again. Imogen sighs into her.

This—the intimacy of it—is still so new and beautiful and exciting and—well—frankly, they've both discovered that they’re ravenous. For each other and for love and for touch. That first night—at Zhudanna’s, her body still thrumming hours later with the electric echo of their first kiss—Imogen had taken Laudna’s hand after they passed the threshold of their little makeshift and borrowed home and led her to their windowless room, their small bed. She had asked: Can I kiss you again?

It was indescribably wonderful, and took approximately two lung-heaving, feather-light minutes in the aftermath to discover that Laudna was starving. Voraciously hungry. Thirty years of nothing and then—suddenly—this. Suddenly them. Imogen could hardly stand the handful of weeks apart.

Which is to say, Laudna has a tendency to lose herself in her, a little bit. It has quickly become one of her greatest prides.

Except—well.

Imogen falls back, separating them. “Sorry,” she whispers, “What were—what were you sayin’?”

Laudna pouts. ”Asking.” She corrects, “Well—maybe theorizing, but mostly asking. You said—earlier—it feels different?”

Imogen nods. She reaches up to brush her fingers over Laudna’s cheek. “Yeah.”

”Is it…good different? Or bad different?”

Imogen nods. “Yeah.”

Laudna nods, too. Imogen watches something like self-consciousness settle on her shoulders. She isn’t sure what to do about it.

Laudna braces to press a kiss to her cheek and then rolls over. When her skin hits the light it makes her look made of marble. Like a statue. A work of art.

She bends across the space and tugs the blanket up and around them both, reaching around Imogen to make sure she is covered completely. Imogen uses the opportunity to press her lips to the skin of her bicep in passing thanks.

She settles back against the sheets. “I love you.” She says. Somehow, it sounds like a plea. “And I’ll support whatever it is you decide you want to do.”

Imogen turns on her side to mirror her. “Even if—if it’s giving in completely?”

Laudna's eyes are dark. Hungry. “Whatever you decide, Imogen.”

Imogen swallows. She feels like she’s choking. Something is rising in her, clawing at her chest and stomach and ripping its way into the world. Laudna’s eyes are so dark. There is a hound in her chest. Imogen swears she hears the echo of its howl, somehow, in her own chest. In the breaths between heartbeats, something is growling.

The howl, her eyes; it rends her completely. With blood in her teeth, she says, “My mom was there.”

It leaves her like a strike of lightning, seeking the quickest way to earth, splitting and bursting apart her ribcage as it rips from her lungs. Or like a hound, pent-up and caged, let loose to hunt and sprinting, snarling to the nearest indicator of meat. Or like sickness, like bile, burning.

That’s the bursting, bleeding, burning truth of it: her mother was there. On Ruidus, at the key, in her dreams for as long as she has had them. Guiding her or warning her. In the end, isn’t that a form of love? Isn’t that what a mother would do? She felt so held, there at the center of Ruidus, in the eye of the storm, in Predathos’ hand or maybe its jaws. Her mother had screamed for her. Her mother had cried for her.

And she can’t remember the feeling of her mother’s warmth, but she can remember the sound of her voice: Run. Imogen.

Does Predathos have a voice? Would it mourn her? Would it leave?

“What did she do?” Laudna—like a thunderclap, or a resonating howl, or a hand on her heaving back—takes and wraps their bodies together like twisting vines. She presses their foreheads together. Her eyes are still dark. “Imogen. What did she say?”

Laudna would. Laudna would mourn her. Laudna would tuck her corpse into bed before leaving her.

”I don’t—she just—called for me. My name. She said no. Laudna.” Laudna’s hands on either side of her clenched jaw, Laudna’s lips centimeters from her own, Laudna’s hand in hers in the middle of the storm. “She sounded like she was crying.”

She feels the well in her eyes overflow, cutting down her cheeks. Laudna makes some gasping sound and leans in, pressing her lips to the skin and the salt. “Imogen. Imogen, I’m sorry. Imogen.” She pulls back. The dark in her eyes is gone. “Darling, what can I do?”

Imogen shakes her head. They’re close enough that each passing arc causes their noses to bump. “I don’t know.” She says, voice tight. “I don’t know. What if I fucked up? What if she left to protect me and I wasted it? I don’t know anymore, Laudna.”

Laudna kisses her, lightly, a barely there press of their lips and then gone. Like she isn’t sure how else to respond. “What happened? When you gave in? What did it feel like?”

Imogen trembles. “I—you all—left. Were pulled away. It brought me in and then—my mama—but it—“ here, she sobs, “it was warm.”

Laudna’s body stiffens around her, arms locking like rigor mortis around her waist. She doesn’t exhale for a long, long time. When she does, it passes over her lips like a torrent.

“My mother taught me to sew.” she starts. “Did I ever tell you that? We didn’t often have enough money to go get new clothes so we made our own. Anyway, the first time it was because I ripped a hole in one of my shirts out in the woods—I was digging for worms—and when I came back I was all in a huff, expecting to be in so much trouble and felt so terrible for ruining clothes I knew she made for me.”

She pauses to press a kiss to Imogen’s hairline, “She took the ruined thing out of my hands and taught me how to fix it.”

She inhales. There’s the tiniest stutter in her chest that makes Imogen want to level another city block. “I used to think about her quite often. Everytime I found myself trying to sleep on the floor of some cold, abandoned cabin, all alone, I remember wishing she were there to teach me how to fix it.”

Their eyes find each other again, snapping together like magnets or puzzle pieces. Laudna’s eyes are full of shooting stars again. “I just—I’m just sorry, Imogen. I’m sorry I don’t know how to fix this. I’m sorry she doesn’t.”

No longer the snapping wolf, no longer the lightning strike or the thunderclap or the bile or the hand; Imogen breaks.

“God, Laudna. It feels like—like I'm mourning her.” She sobs. The words loose from her throat like an arrow held taut for too long, aimless. “But, Laudna, she isn't—she was never gone."

It is an ugly, sharp, irrational thing, her grief; she feels it drive like icicles into Laudna’s already chilled skin and dig rot-guilt up from under the warmth of her own when the weight of it tugs her over and into Laudna further. She wishes, fleetingly, that she could wear her grief as prettily as she thinks Laudna does. Laudna slips into hers like an old coat or an old blanket—scratchy, filled with holes, utterly familiar in a way that settles onto her shoulders in some poor facsimile of comfort.

Imogen’s is always, always this: an implosion. An excavation of the self. Her body nothing more than a dig-site of scars with histories older than she is.

“She’s my mama, Laudna.” It is a pathetic plea, it drops with the weight of a stone into water from her lips, “She was always with me. I never knew her. I love her and I loved her. She was dead. I have to kill her. I have mourned so why am I still mourning?”

The last word rips out of her in two tones, caught in the hiccup-choke of a sob into Laudna’s shoulder.

"Oh, darling." Laudna whispers, her lips against Imogen’s temple petal-soft in a way that makes the guilt dig deeper, sugar and salt. For a moment she only holds her. Presses kisses to the side of her head. And then Imogen feels air fill her chest, hears her lungs expand with the accompanying sound of bones like a creaking ship at sea or a growling hound. She says, with all the wisdom of someone who has lived and died and lived again, "Mourning is just…love in a transitive state.”

She shifts, catching the wet guilt dripping from Imogen’s face and forming lakes of grief at her collar, rivers of it down her chest. It makes Imogen’s breath catch, watches the moonlight catch in the momentary proof of her on Laudna. She continues, more softly, “It is…an adjustment to distance. Not gone—just far."

At this, Imogen glances away from the stain of her to meet Laudna’s eyes. She hesitates, breath a pathetic stutter in her lungs. She asks, “Are we still talking about my mother?”

Laudna watches her. And watches her. And then, voice like a bleeding wound or creaking branches or whining rope: “Death could not take me from you.”

“Don’t—“ she begs, “Do not—Laudna—“

”It can’t, Imogen. She can’t.”

Imogen sobs, reaches up desperately to cradle Laudna’s face in her hands. “I don’t want you to be another voice in my storm, Laudna. I can’t. I won’t.”

Laudna's gentle, cool hands gather her own callous, warm ones together at their collar. She asks, "Can I tell you something you don't want to hear?"

A laugh breaks out of Imogen’s lungs, desperate and sad. “You already are.”

Her grip on Laudna's hands is not gentle, it is clinging. Clawing. She imagines that when Laudna pulls away, her wrists will bear the bruise of her.

She says, in that same creaking branches voice, "You would have been fine without me."

She pulls away—tries to—hears her voice from outside her body saying, "No—No, I—" but then Laudna's fingers are entangled in hers like roots and Imogen is—she's—clinging, too.

"Don't say that." She cries. There is thunder in her voice. A precursor and warning. "I love you. Don’t say that.”

Laudna’s hands release hers to wrap around and claw at the skin of her hip, dragging them close again. Her eyes are swimming. “You’re so strong, so capable, and you are going to live. Your storm won’t take you. You will outgrow it.”

”You are, too.” Imogen demands. Because it is a demand, of herself and of the world. “You’re going to live, too.”

Laudna says nothing. Imogen continues, “I won’t let her have you, Laudna. If I can outgrow my storm, you can outgrow her.”

Laudna’s face is choked up in grief, now, in a way that Imogen has never really seen. “I just mean—“ she starts, chokes, starts again, “I just mean���my mother taught me to sew. And I did. And I think maybe your mother taught you to run. And you did. And I don’t think it’s…it’s understandable, that you wish she had taught you how to sew instead.”

Something in her, some roaring thing—the storm, maybe—cracks her skin at the words. She thinks if she were to look at her hands right now there would be new scars.

Laudna takes her ruined hands into her own; she tries to fix them. “But I can teach you how to sew, Imogen. I can—and then when I'm—gone. You can still sew. Or cook or—or paint or—whatever it is, Imogen. Imogen.”

Imogen rushes in; she kisses her. What else is there to say? What do you say when I love you isn’t big enough anymore? How do you say I don’t want you to teach me how to sew, I want you to teach me how to hunt?

Maybe there aren’t enough words to encompass them. Maybe they’ve created their own expanse of love and devotion here, between them. Maybe they’ve spent two years carving a space for the other in the ether of the world.

Everything they’ve found, all of the information they've picked up on the Gods and what makes or breaks or conjures them in these past months—faith. Both the call and the creator, the word around which divinity molds itself. And her faith, her divine call into the dark—her unanswered pleas on her knees in Gelvaan, on her knees at the altar of the Dawnfather Temple in Whitestone—if they can pick and choose whose faith they deem truthful, then what does it mean to be truly faithful?

The confidence in the callous hands of a blacksmith as he brings the hammer down, striking metal into shape. The gentle hands of a gardener digging into the soil, preparing it for life, removing that which would otherwise ruin and rot. The small hands of a child held in the soft, guiding hands of their mother. Are these not examples of divine faith?

Would the Dawnfather's hands hold her face so gently? Would the Wildmother's lips press so softly to her brow? Would the Changebringer's fingers dig just so into the skin of her shoulders, sweaty and heaving in the aftermath of her storm?

What could the gods offer her that Laudna hasn't? What would they ask in return for what Laudna freely gives? What faith of hers have they earned?

If faith is the ultimate test of love and passion and trust—than whose altar but Laudna's would she kneel to?

If godhood, then, is as simple as a state of faith and belief then maybe she alone can love her to the point of divinity. Immortality. Imogen could make a God of her. Maybe, she thinks with Laudna’s bottom lip caught between her teeth, maybe one more kiss will do the trick. Maybe one more. One more.

Eventually a sob—Imogen’s, of course—breaks them apart. Her head falls into Laudna’s neck. Laudna’s arms cross behind her back and press her close. She runs her taloned fingers over the bare skin at Imogen’s shoulder blades, the base of her neck, down every popping vertebrae. She is breathing at the normal human rate—for her it is heaving. She kisses Imogen’s temple.

“No one can take away the love for the mother you wanted. Not even the mother you have." She says into her hair, and then pulls away and down—kisses her. Keeps kissing her. When she separates to speak it is by centimeters, “And no one can take me away from you. Not Delilah. Not Otohan. Not Predathos or The Matron.”

And then, into her trembling mouth, “If we are apart, then I am within.”

Imogen lets out a wrecked—choking—dying sound, “Yeah—Yes. Laudna, I—“ desperate and clumsy and broken, she brings her shaking hand up to Laudna’s face and presses her finger to Laudna’s forehead, “Here. As long as you’re here.”

Laudna nods, brings her own talons up to Imogen’s face in a mirror-gesture, “Here. As long as you’re here.” And what is left for Imogen to do besides to rush up and in and in and in. Again and again and again.

Here, in Jrusar, in their room at Zhudanna’s, in Zephrah, in the Feywild, in Bassuras, on the moon, in the storm. In the evening, in the morning, in the middle of the day, in the depths of the night. Crying, laughing, bloody, triumphant. Again and again and again and again.

Better halves, Imogen thinks—into Laudna’s head and then, endlessly, into her own, Better wholes. I love you. I love you.

“I love you.” Laudna gasps aloud, ripping away and then rushing back in, “Imogen. Imogen. As long as you’re here. I love you.”

Imogen nods, gasps, and then neither of them say much at all.

———

In the end, Imogen doesn’t say: I lied. When I promised to move on. I lied to you. Nor does she say: I’m sorry. I’m not disgusted by you. I could never be. I love you so deeply that every time I look at you I am remade. She doesn’t say: I sundered her once. I’ll sunder her again. If you’ll let me, I’d plant a new sun tree in your mind. One that makes you think of picnics and not nooses. One that makes you think of the view and not the fall.

She does not say: I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can kill her. Will you do it? Can we trade?

She tucks these confessions away in the divots of her mind right alongside her circlet. She hopes the weight of them, the promise of them, will help to keep her runaway feet firmly rooted.

———

(After, Laudna falls asleep before her, eyes wide open.

Imogen lays next to her, one hand softly running up and down Laudna’s exposed navel, the other curled under her own head as she allows herself to trace the profile of her face.

It is late enough—or, early enough, maybe—that Catha’s light cannot breach the shared darkness of their space. Or maybe it does, and is swallowed entirely by the pitch of Laudna’s eyes.

Laudna’s eyes—the empty, dark swirl of them—Imogen remembers her gaze full with stars—captures her attention. The shadows in the room paint Laudna an even deeper dark, cutting her features into shapes that catch the barely there impression of light that Imogen’s weak, mortal eyes require to capture form.

With no light, with nothing to reflect in her sky-locked, sleep-awake stare; Laudna appears hungry. Like even in sleep, she is hunting. In the dark, she takes the form of a predator.

Watching her, Imogen thinks of Ruidus and of the storm there and of the one in her mind and of the one that takes the shape of her mother—reaching and watching and waiting for her, the entirety of her life—like an animal, like something waiting in the grass for her to make a mistake or lose her footing—waiting on the opportunity to close in on her—to consume her or to change her—

She reaches across the space.

Gently, mournfully, she closes Laudna’s eyes.)

[a-libra-writes]

do you have any romantic headcanons for rocky rickaby from lackadaisy? 👀

sweats ...yeah uhh yeah i got a whole lot so this may be long-winded and not particularly organized.....

Shout out to @pomegranate-pen and @lackadaisy-headcanon-supply-unit for also doing Rocky posts that gave me more food for thought and helped me solidify some thoughts 🤔 i def recommend their blogs as well

Firstly, this is a whole-ass crush-at-first-sight. Infatuation, even, because "crush" feels too light a word. The feelings just hit Rocky and he starts wanting to talk to this person more, or at least see them. This has happened many times in his life and the people almost always tell him off or just avoid him. He's aware of how he can ... be, so being brushed aside and outright rejected isn't new. But this person is talking back! And seems to want to?

In that case, he really can't help himself. He wants to be in their good graces, and learn more about them, and impress them! Oh, he'll do so much for you. Anthing, really, he'll run himself ragged, especially if it's something you really need done. You won't even realize how much he went through, you'd puzzle it together based off his beat up appearance and the state of the car and Freckle grumbling about something as he tries to hide the blood on his coat. Don't let him go so far, and make sure he rests.

Once the relationship is more official, Rocky may still feel the need to keep doing so many things for you, to make himself "useful" to you even if he already "has" you. It's a bad habit of his that's deeply ingrained and rooted in insecurity that you'll be tired of him or realize how burdensome he is and be done with him. It's better to channel his energy into helping with simple things, like fixing your car or getting some groceries or just keeping you company while you finish up work. Still, given his exuberant energy and clumsiness, even those simple things can get a little ... much. But perhaps that's part of the charm. He really is trying.

But hey, there will be endless poems and songs for you. Some spur of the moment, some words and phrases he's turned over and over in his head for a week and they all just spill out as soon as he sees you. Rocky probably isn't aware how sweet and romantic it is unless you spell it out, and that only encourages him further. He hums and taps out little melodies that remind him of you, then grab his violin and string them together. If you like theater, even better, he'll recite romantic lines and stanzas until the sun comes up. More than once you two have had an impromptu reenactment of the Balcony Scene, much to the Lackadaisy crew's annoyance.

Oh, and the pet names, they are endless. There's fairly normal ones like "angel" and "sweetheart" then some that are just ... A long string of poetic references to your eyes and smile and general being. "Don't run out of adjectives, dear," You've said more than once.

He's so disgustingly in love, it drives them a little batty, however at least you sort-of-kind-of keep him out of trouble? Or at least, you ground him a bit ... Okay, not really, but you patch him up afterward and he's more likely to take his nervous energy to you, not the bar. But if they have to hear about how the light sparkles in your eyes one more time --

(Mitzi really hates to get you involved with the business, but if you've got a steady head and can handle a gun, well ... I mean, if you can handle Rocky, maybe you're a good person to keep around ...)

And on the topic of patching up, good lord have you had to do it many times. If you weren't experienced in first aid before, you learn it quick. The black and purple bruises are the least of it, there's cuts and abrasions and don't even get started on the concussion. Sometimes, he's still surprised how upset and angry you get when he staggers up to the door and looks like he was put through a wringer. He'll try to be more careful for your sake, but ... well, he tries.

And tries and tries ... Are you noticing a pattern? When it comes to dates and nice things, Rocky really isn't experienced, but he wants to try, because it's for you! He'll get all sorts of advice from Ivy and Mitzi (he asked Viktor but ran off before he got the response) and does his best with it. It's tough if you're clearly from a well-off family, or used to the finer things ... But in the end, you both have the most fun with simple things. Going out for a fast drive in the country, or playing music together, or just chatting endlessly about everything until the sun comes up. He really, really can't remember the last time he was with someone for so long and so happy - except, maybe when he was staying with his aunt and Freckle? But there wasn't nearly this much talking and laughter. It's like a dream, or being drunk, or being endlessly inspired, or -- aaaand he's off waxing poetic again.

It's not just all the music and poetry, it's all the affection! Rocky soaks it up like he'll die without it, and, well ... He really went so long without such company and affection, perhaps that's true. He wants to be held, he wants to lean on you, he wants you to take his arm, he wants kisses and attention! It's just so affirming and reassuring and comforting, if you two have to go a while without seeing each other, he finds himself getting antsy and lonely. He travelled along railroads for years by himself, and suddenly being away from you for a few days is hurting this badly?

If you're someone who dislikes or is uncomfortable with physical affection, it'll be very tough, because he wants it so badly and he just does it without thinking. He'll rush at you for a big hug instead of saying "hi", or brush shoulders and lightly entwine your tail with his while he pests you about what you're working on. He wants to be considerate of your personal space, of course, so it'll take time and a lot of reminding him what is and isn't appropriate for you. Sleeping next to him means you will get cuddled and it's tough to peel him off once you wake up. At least he's a bit better about it in public, and at the bar, because Viktor can peel him off.

(An important caveat is if you're male or present as such, he's obviously far more careful in public, even if he's obviously on pins and needles for when it's safe to hold you again).

Another thing is the co-habitation, this being the 1920's and dependent on your family situation or upbringing. This may already be a "line" you both have crossed, since Rocky often shows up at your doorstep battered and ends up crashing on your couch, or you just say screw it and let him crash there after going on a run together. Actually sleeping in your room or, even more shockingly, moving in is something he has a hard time with. It's almost nerve-wracking. On one hand, isn't this what he wanted? Doesn't this prove you really, really want him around? But on the other hand, actually having that is somehow scary. Having a proper roof and a warm bed and food right in the fridge is .... a bit of a change from the living arrangements he's had for the past 5+ years. It takes some adjusting and easing into it.

Long story short, he is just a bundle of affection and adoration and quite a bit of insecurity and a little mania. Just ... a bit. Don't worry about it.

[queerfables]

On my post about what Aziraphale meant by "I forgive you", @rebloggyssia replied:

I love this interpretation! It was a really sad moment to witness so I had problems to analyze the scene. But after reading your post I did rewatch it and Azi was really angry for a moment like you said. So my question is: why? Was he upset about Crowley not sharing is point of view, their miscommunication or something else?

I touched on this briefly in one of the many reblog threads of this post, but I have some more to say (don't I always?)

Earlier, I said that I think Aziraphale is angry that Crowley loves him, but not enough to follow him. That's the proximal reason.

But to be honest, I'm not even sure if he's really angry with Crowley. I think more than anything he's just fucking furious about this whole unbearable, hopeless, endless situation they're in. It's been six thousand years. They survived the end of the world. They're as free and together as they've ever been and they still can't talk about it. Whatever changed after Armageddon, it wasn't enough, and here they are again fighting for their lives. They can't go on like this.

So he offers a solution that he hopes will protect them both and Crowley rejects it out of hand. And like, of course he's angry about that, but I still maintain that whatever miscommunication is going on between them, fundamentally they know each other. Maybe better than two beings on Earth or anywhere else ever have. Deep down, I think he knew Crowley would never do this. And so he's angry, too, that he has this offer Crowley can't accept, and it's an offer he can't turn down.

That's the whole problem, isn't it? Angel and demon are sides in a war, they're deeply ingrained identities, but they're also choices. It's a bad choice between ruthlessly enforced control with the illusion of peace and unpredictable violence with the illusion of freedom, but it's the choice they have. Pick your poison.

The fact that Aziraphale and Crowley have never had this conversation - what if we could be on the same side? - says pretty plainly that they know where they stand. Arguably, Crowley returning to Heaven never felt like an actual possibility and so Aziraphale always assumed that if he could, he would. I think this is really one of those places where Aziraphale's cognitive dissonance is working overtime to accommodate his conflicting beliefs. Heaven is Good and there's something fundamentally wrong with anyone who would reject it. Crowley is the best person Aziraphale kows, and he rejects Heaven. Aziraphale reconciles this by doubting Crowley's rejection is genuine, but he also never has to test it if it isn't really on the table. He never asks Crowley and it isn't because he takes it for granted. It's because he doesn't want to hear that he's wrong.

So Aziraphale doesn't know what to do with Crowley's refusal, and maybe he really is surprised by it. Crowley usually does cave in the end. But I think he realised this would be a hard sell. If we're taking the fight at face value, that's how I would explain his anxious behaviour when he starts the conversation. He's making a proposition he knows Crowley is going to hate. He's nervous about Crowley's reaction, and his performance of excitement is his own version of a temptation: see how happy we can be, if you'll only say yes?

Aziraphale has thousands of years worth of repressed doubt and longing and Heaven is offering him the chance to set right all the things he knows to be wrong. He wouldn't have to live with this schism in his heart between faith and love. Whatever mistakes Heaven made are mistakes he can fix. And then Crowley says: no, angel, you can't fix this.

This is the brilliance of the Metatron's manipulation. For thousands of years, Aziraphale has been torn between Heaven and Crowley. I'm being unforgivably reductive about the ideals Aziraphale is struggling to reconcile, but on some level, it really is that simple. Aziraphale loves Heaven, Aziraphale loves Crowley, and he cannot have both. Heaven shows Aziraphale over and over that he can't have both. Meanwhile Crowley swans around giving Aziraphale excuses to flip Heaven off behind the archangels' backs, working beside him to do the good that Heaven won't, and never, ever making him choose. Crowley might have Opinions about Heaven's priorities and Aziraphale might privately agree but Crowley will never make him say it. He'll never ask Aziraphale to reject Heaven as Heaven demands he reject Crowley. Heaven gives black and white ultimatums and Crowley shows him how to live in the grey.

And then Heaven says he can have both. Aziraphale doesn't have to choose, he can have Heaven, and Crowley, and the power to fix the problems he always railed against besides. It's the perfect move, because if Heaven says yes, it forces Crowley to be the one to say no. And to make sure he does, Heaven includes a condition that Aziraphale can live with and Crowley absolutely cannot.

This is why Aziraphale is angry. All of it. It's a 6000 year running clusterfuck of impossible choices and every time he thinks he sees a way out it gets snatched away. He's had four years of freedom with Crowley and it still wasn't enough for them to even talk about what's really between them, and now Heaven is back knocking on their door. He's repressed all of his anger towards Heaven because it was never safe to express it, and then Heaven pulls a neat little trick to make all of it Crowley's fault instead, and dangles everything he wants right in front of him while knowing it'll stay out of reach. Even if he sees right through that, he's completely powerless to change it. So he's angry with Crowley, and Heaven, and himself, and for this one intense moment, anger he couldn't show becomes anger he can't hold back.

[thenotsoholyspirit]

Holding (Pt 4/5)

Matt Murdock x reader (angst)

(Here for part 1, 2 , 3)

AU: Hey, I know it's been a while since I've posted on this series but writers block has been a real deal for me these past days. Although, I still have a lot of ideas and a whole other series to end so stay tuned 💙 (and yes that includes the Foggy fic :3)

Summary: A conversation in the roof may offer a change in the situation. After all, sometimes all you need is faith.

I've never been quite the best catholic. 

From making a fuss in my baptism, to refuse ever to marry, I was quite the shame in a family of faithful believers. 

“Sometimes you have to believe without seeing” 

I always hated that idea, blind faith. And yet in spite of everything I still accompanied my mother every Sunday to our city's chapel. Soon after I moved out, that routine was still ingrained in me, and despite not having a logical answer to it, I kept going to mass. 

That’s how I met him. The one that would soon become both my salvation and my perdition. The one I was risking it all for in spite of everything. 

“He can’t be that far, please he can’t be that far

As the day progresses, I feel a sense of desperation crawl on me, noticing how the streets get busier and I haven't yet found any clue to His whereabouts.

Not a sight of him close to his old apartment or even old hangout spots.

He had indeed erased every trace he could have left

As I feel the day progress, I sigh. Maybe these extreme circumstances also required extreme decisions. I decide to head down to the Presidential Hotel.

————-——

When I arrive, I immediately notice the multitude of police cars and security guards surrounding the building. It couldn’t be more obvious that someone important was brought to this place

Sneaking up, I try to see if there’s any entry, but it’s obviously closed up to the public.

“Well I may need to broaden my definition of entry then”

As my attention catches  some fire escape stairs attached to a building not far behind, I can’t help but let out a small grin. After spending so much time with him, knowing Matt’s way of thinking had become almost a second nature.

It was probably too early, as I will surely need to wait for him hidden on some rooftop, but to simply think about the vertigo was enough to make my stomach turn.

“C'mon (y/n) remember just have faith.”

I start then to awkwardly climb up the ladder making sure not to startle the whole neighbourhood.

For a moment, I feel comfortable, pacing my steps and taking deep breaths, until I hear the crackling sound of a metal piece falling from the wall.

I gulp

“For God sake I'm a vet not a gymnast”

Yet the top doesn’t seem too far now and the idea of returning was worse. I decide to keep climbing.

Suddenly, I lose my equilibrium, feeling the void as I fall from my back until I feel the grip of a hand on my arm, saving me from a surely fatal fall.

“(Y/n) ?”

I look up, noticing a man dressed completely in black with only a beanie covering his face, and some cords attached to his wrists. He seems genuinely surprised to find me here. 

“Matt”

“I…” I’m short of words as he pulls me into the safety of the rooftop. I fall down the floor deeply breathing, “How did you know I was here”

“Well.. He tries to give me a small smile ,  “You were lucky I could basically hear your heartbeat explode streets away” 

“.. I must sound like a cacophony in your ears… but I’m sure there are also thousands of New-Yorkers being deeply worried at this very moment”

“ I guess.. I just became good picking up yours in particular”

I cannot help but to slightly blush as he tells me this. There is a tense silence now between us, too many things that should be said or should’ve.

“Don’t go” 

My tone is grave, letting him know I know his reasons for coming down here.  He slightly clenches his teeth, as I feel an anger I haven’t seen yet in him.

Something had happened.

Something felt broken

“I need to do it (y/n)” 

His tone was direct. Cold. He turns his back from me towards the Hotel. I imagine him trying to analyze the best way to get in, reading into each heartbeat , each voice, each movement…. But I wasn’t going to give up that easily.

“You aren't saving anyone by doing this..please..” 

Matt immediately snaps, turning again towards me. I was still on the floor and the bare light coming from the light poles made him appear even more intimidating.

“You don’t understand”…

“True… it’s true I don’t, I’m not you… “, I sigh, accepting it, “I’ll never fully understand this vigilante double life you live.. but I do see the man behind it”

I now stand up, letting us face to face as I continue to talk.

“I and see him and care enough about him that I’m not letting him commit a mistake he’ll forever regret” 

I see Matt keep his facade, but I notice the way his hands now slightly tremble holding his billy club. When he talks again, his voice is weaker.

“He has hurt so many people… and I’'m not meant to simply go and enjoy this life after all that has happened”, He takes his beanie off as I now see  his eyes “After hurting so many others... me.”´

I shake my head. I couldn’t lie, or deny the hurt of past decisions, but it didn't mean I could simply let him go.

“I'm not denying that it’s not easy but.. I’m here tonight for a reason… “ 

I look up to him, hoping he could sense the sincerity of my words

“I can’t let you do this.. this city needs its hero.. and well.. I do still need you”

I let these last words settle as I’m now a bit shy. I see Matt is about to reply, when we’re suddenly interrupted by some police sirens demanding civilians to clear up the space. His face drops.

“He can't be here already….”

I’m now a bit confused.

“Who ?”

Matt sighs, he seems tired but tries to explain to me the best he can. 

“I’m not the only one in this city holding a grudge against Fisk..” Matt leans again his attention towards the building “ There is a dangerous man looking for him” 

I notice the way his body tenses up, the same way it has always done when he senses a danger nearby. His grip becomes stronger, his face almost scarily stern, yet the voice he uses to catch my attention seems softer than usual.

“That night I.. I was sure I had lost you forever.. and who could blame you..” He gives me a sad smile, trying his best to hold his emotions. “I had to live with the fact that I had hurt you.. forced you to pull away from me..this loneliness.. it was my crux to bear”

I shake my head at his words, trying to be as direct as I could knowing time was running out.

“Matthew… I love you.. I still do..” I slowly approach him , caressing his cheek with my hand as I clean away some tears  “I just need to be sure you do as well” 

Almost as a reflex, I go grab his arm, feeling my own insecurities resurface as the fear of being abandoned twists my heart. He seems to pick up on this as he pulls me closer. I can feel the breeze on his words.

“ I swear.. “ Me murmurs against my ear, his voice now taking a more protective tone “That I’ll never let go of you again… “

I’m now the one letting my own tears stream down my face 

“You promise ?” 

My voice was so small, barely a whisper , as I use the tone I knew only Matt could ever hear

“I won’t stop even if you never forgive me”

I can’t retain myself any longer.

I dive in, pulling him into the deepest of kisses as I feel my whole body give in. The desire that has already been pleading for him could not no longer keep on waiting. 

Matt seems slightly surprised at the beginning, almost nervous at my reaction, but once he notices my unwillingness to let him go, he puts his hands around my waist our foreheads now touching. I need to hang on to him. 

“I’ve missed it so much” , he murmurs for just a moment, forgetting the world around us. I give him a little smile, slightly curious at his choice of words as he continues, “ I mean the feeling of you… your heartbeat, your smell…you've always been my safest place…I thought I’d never get to sense you from so close again” 

As I’m about to respond, the noise of police sirens shakes us up as we hear  the sound of gunshots down the building. Of course, Matt has more insight as he clenches his teeth and steps back.

“Go,” I look at him with a knowing look “I know you have a job to do”

I come a bit closer for a moment.

“Just promise me you will come back home tonight” 

I keep holding his hand for a second, sensing his flow of thoughts coming against him. He mutters again. 

“All this anger..”

“I know.. but you don't have to be alone anymore Matt” I take deep breaths as I try to send him some peace too, “I’ll be here”

He walks to the edge of the ceiling, pulling his mask back on. I give him a last reassuring look.

“I’ll leave the living room window open.. in case you come in late” , my tone is slightly hesitant “Of course if you want to come by I-“

I notice the corners of his lips curl into a little smirk.

“I will… and don’t worry”, he slightly tosses his head as he smiles, letting me admire his toned collar bone for even just a second., … “I promise I won’t take too long sweetheart” 

Before I can even protest his cocky words, he jumps off the next building, leaving me alone again, but now completely blushing. I may have also missed that pet name and his way of flirting.   

Some things really don't change after all.

[misscammiedawn]

I wanted to say thanks for that write up on the depiction of DID and Mr. Robot! You said everything that's been burning in my head for years now after watching. Hearing another system's thoughts on it was something we've been looking for.

Part of our inner world is also part of the NHM in London lol.

Truly and sincerely thank you.

First off, I am delighted to know that we're not alone in having the Natural History Museum as host to a segment of inner world. Would love to know which exhibit/area you see when you visit, though no obligation to respond. We know that these things can be deeply personal.

The show may not strike with every system but no two plural folx are going to have the same connections and attachments and comforts and that's 100% okay. For those who share our affection for Mr. Robot I am glad you get to enjoy the show and our ramblings on it.

Wishing you and your system well and thank you again for the ask. You've no idea how much feedback comforts and encourages.

Asks are always open.

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Post the asker is referring to in the question, btw:

Also... have some random rambles about Mr. Robot in a readmore, because I feel like typing a bunch.

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Also, because it gives us an opening to talk about it. Have some random Robot thoughts:

Mr. Robot is and remains my favorite show. I had started typing "our" favorite and got a sharp rejection so shall use singular pronouns. It has its issues, the use of the term "real" for instance, but with good faith a lot of it can vanish. Not all. But most.

I've been thinking about things a lot more since writing the essay and there are things I wish I had spent longer discussing. For instance during the portion where I wrote about how Coney Island represents a safety in nostalgia, a fortress for the Alderson siblings to hide in their treasured childhood memories; I didn't mention that both Trenton and Mobley use their own nostalgia as their hacker aliases with Trenton being where she lived when young and DJ Mobley clearly being someone Mobley found joy in at a younger age.

Similarly Hot Carla's name is selected because of a hair dresser who validated her gender identity and sheltered her when her parents were abusive. Whiterose's hacker alias is the last moment her life could have been the "good future" that she envisioned and worked so hard to force into reality.

I do like that pretty much every character who has an alias picks their alias as an identity forged in positive memories. Elliot clearly did with Mr. Robot being the store where he and his dad were friends and his other alias (The Gentleman) is a reference to The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie, a movie he and Darlene watched every year that became the entire iconography for the fsociety movement.

If I were to ever do another Mr. Robot essay I think it would be on the way each character insists on living in the past in order to escape their present and how that relates to the way trauma invades the present. Not going to promise that, though. We're already snowed under with our Loop and Beatrice essays.

I think that can be one of the big failings of the show, actually, especially for those watching it as it aired. The show is deeply ingrained in the perspectives of characters who have critically distorted beliefs on reality and the show doesn't really start laying down objective reality until late season 3 after the cyber bombings.

Someone watching the show for the first time can watch Elliot's edgelord rants about "Fuck Society" and think that the show believes these things rather than its main character and we do not get the show delivering the message that it's small minded and childish (which, given that Elliot is stuck in trauma time and perpetually reliving a horrifically abusive childhood he cannot fully understand because he won't allow himself to remember clearly, is exactly what he is) until Irving and Price each spell it out to Mr. Robot in S3E7/9 or Whiterose outright calls Elliot on it in their final confrontation.

I adore the show for its patience and how it tells such an emotional and complicated story over its 45 hour runtime but I do understand people watching the first hour, getting the wrong idea about where the journey is going and opting out.

Hell I understand a system going in for DID representation and not having the patience to stick around the show's Fight Club pastiche era before starting to get to the meat of things.

But hey. I gave the show a shot and can't go back now. I love it too darned much.

Also because I don't want to start another thread on it, I do want to say that the show is truly frustrating in how it depicts economic collapse for society and yet none of the characters are ever impacted by it.

Darlene is homeless throughout the show, spare her stint living in an FBI safe house and she has no job through the show's run. She is never hurting for money, even when the banking system of the world collapses. She likely is stealing but it's frustrating that we only hear about the financial ruin in the periphery. We learn of the eviction of Elliot's neighbors spare for the kind older man who takes care of Flipper but Elliot himself can buy entire new computers on a whim and go months between jobs or spend a season in prison and not be impacted.

Like the show depicts the world going into a major decline during the economic crisis and it's clear by Season 4 that the show is venting frustration that when the banking system failed in 2008 the ones responsible were not harmed at all and it was the public who suffered and things just went back to how it was in time; it's just... every character is living comfortably in New York and Darlene is the closest we have to a "poor" character.

But that's a rant we have on every show. Poverty doesn't really exist in television. You watch a show like Ted Lasso and everyone is a millionaire. Even the Kit Manager (Nate, not Will) has parents who own a home, sent him to higher education and gave him private violin lessons. Kit Manager salary is about £25-50 per year, even for a Premier League Team.

...but my discomfort with how poverty is never represented on TV is just a random rant and I'm going way off topic.

I'll stop rambling now.

[dujour13]

UHM for the types of love ask game … I would like U to pick 2 questions you wanna answer the Most .. im trying so hard to not ask repeats I am saying dealers choice rn

AAHHH thank you! 💕💕 Hehe dealer's choice it is....

A last one for my version of Woljif from my fic.

Storge 1

Did your OC's parents love them unconditionally? If so then has this helped them feel confident as an adult? If not then how has this affected them? What were the conditions their family attached to their relationship?

The unconditional rejection Woljif has always suffered is unfortunately deeply ingrained in his insecurities. Yet at the same time, he knows on a gut level it’s unfair, and that sense of injustice is what makes acceptance his main goal in life. The unjust rejection lights a fire in him. He wants to show people his worth: to sit on a throne, to be rich and well-dressed and important. (And/or to have a family who accept and love him, but don't tell.) There’s an unquenchable hope in him, whether on his human or demon path, that to me and my azata bard is his most charming trait.

Pragma 5

What importance or value does your OC attach to marriage? Do they believe that it is important to make a public statement of commitment to another person (or persons)? Or are they more concerned about inheritance rights and security for their family? Or do they not see marriage as a necessary signifier of commitment and loyalty?

I chose this one because I went through some thought processes on it throughout writing my fics and I wasn’t expecting the outcome. Both Woljif's and Siavash’s response to a drunken Seelah asking when they’re going to make it official is “Priests and contracts? Way to kill the mood.” My chaotic boys need their freedom, and they know that freedom is what keeps the spark alive. But there’s another side to Woljif in my hc. He likes things to be bonafide. Official. Like having the certificate to prove a diamond is authentic. Once he’s in a relationship with Siavash he’s terrified of saying the L-word himself but desperate to hear it, because he feels like that’ll make it real. When Seelah springs that awkward question on them, he has a moment of fear “like a puppy about to catch the cat he’d been chasing” and almost—just almost—hopes Siavash will ask. So at the end of my sequel to the game story, Wandering Stars, due to some scary stuff happening and both of them feeling they’re coming unmoored for certain endgame-spoiler-related reasons, Siavash changes his mind about it—on impulse, because it’s him, but also becoming more sure after thinking it through. In the sequel to that fic (yes I’m obsessed) Woljif finds that making it official gives him an added sense of security and belonging that’s deeply precious to him. He has an actual family and an actual home and the papers to prove it.

[beardedmrbean]

Weird question what is the importance of Jerusalem for Christians and Jews? Was Jerusalem the capital of ancient Israel and why Christians like the Templars wanted to retake it?

I got long, I'm gonna TL:DR; at the end ____________________

Jerusalem was the capital of the united kingdom of Israel, well after Saul at least David moved it there and Solomon built the temple there on the piece of land that is called "the temple mount" in English at least which is the single holiest site in Judaism, which if you speak to the remaining Samaritans you will hear different since they claim to be the ones following the true way and their capital was Samaria and their temple was on Mount Gerizim that was after the split of united Israel after the death of Solomon got Judea and Samaria.

Babylonians came in and destroyed and looted the first temple Solomon's Temple in in 587 BC, Assyrians had gotten Samaria and scattered it's people to the wing the best they could getting us The Ten Lost Tribes.

Eventually the Persian empire, (guys from the battle of Thermopylae aka 300 Spartan thing) KO'd the Babylonian empire and they were a lot nicer and also understood the politics of not getting in the way of local faiths because that's one of those things people will die for.

So Cyrus the Great gave his cup-bearer Nehemiah permission to go home and rebuild his city and its temple, so construction on the Second Temple started in 516 BC. (there's lots of extrabiblical stuff to back this up btw, in case you wondered it's not all just stuff from the Torah, names may be different that's fine tho) Ezekiel came in and rededicated it and began teaching "The Law ™" and over time it was expanded and eventually Herod the Great (same one from the Christmas story that killed all the babies looking for Jesus) got it all done and if we look at the timeline and that little bit of info about Herod we can see why Christians are so attached to the place too.

The Temple held the Holy of Holies, which is where the Ark of the Covenant (from Indiana Jones, lol) was kept had the original 10 commandment tablets a jar of mana and Aaron's staff in it and the actual location was considered the conduit between this world and the other, inelegant way to put it but still. It's where the high priest could go once a year and offer a sacrifice for the people, on Yom Kippur the holiest day in both Judaism and Samaratinsim (they agree mazel tov) I remember something about a rope being tied to their leg and they had to wear bells just in case they were "smited" and needed to be "removed" not sure how real that is.

With all of that it should be fairly simple to figure out why Jewish people are so attached to it, and the Jesus connection what with the whole bit about the money changers and flipping tables taking place in the courtyard of that temple, the whole last bit of each of the gospels starting well before the triumphal entrance on what Christians call Palm Sunday all the way through the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension that was all in and around Jerusalem.

Jews were ending their Passover Seder with L'Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim (Next year in Jerusalem) starting somewhere in the 1400's from what I can see as a wish to be able to go home and worship and fellowship in their own homeland among other reasons.

So here we have the previously mentioned Temple Mount

That bit where it says "Western Wall" is a remnant from the 2nd temple, Jesus touched that and may have taught while using it to shade himself it's all happened there.

The city is in the DNA of every Jewish person and by extension Christians though not as deeply ingrained.

Then we get to Islam, as you see in the image up there they built a mosque on top of the location for the Jewish Temple, it's how history works may have been some middle finger flipping when it happened but as history goes that's how a invading conquering force does thing, always have.

Dome of the rock there on the inside looks like this

The exposed bit there is goes by several names, "Foundation Stone" is one, it's believed by (some) Jews that this is the location where the Holy of Holies was/is and for Muslims it's where Muhammad ascended went on his "night journey" spoke directly to both Moses and Allah to get the law for Muslims some of it at least.

Spot under that rock is the "well of souls" bet you can guess what significance that has.

So bringing it all together and hitting the TL:DR at the same time. _____________________________-

TL:DR; all 3 Abrahamic faiths are very attached to the city of Jerusalem and its surrounding area because it plays a central part in the stories of them.

Jews were there first so they get the strongest claim imho but as it sits it is a holy and revered site for all 3 faiths because it's deeply connected to them all both physically and spiritually.

Slightly less holy to Muslims since their temple mount buildings are just the third most sacred place in Islam, but still dreadfully sacred. ______________

Sorry this was really long, hope it was slightly interesting at least if you read it, it's as accurate as I could make it without spending a lot more time fact checking myself too.

[odinsblog]

This stinks to high heaven, or Jannah, or Valhalla, or whatever makes you happy

My big sister is gay. I was the first person she came out to when we were kids, not quite 20 yet. I care deeply about her. And as I matured + unlearned much of my ingrained adolescent homophobia, with my sister’s help, I have come to care deeply about the LGBTQ community. Even the white ones, and all the other non-Black ones too

I’m trying really hard to imagine hearing about something like the Pulse nightclub shooting and somehow not caring about some of the non-Black victims because they might not have shared my exact political beliefs. I can’t. I can’t imagine not caring. Not caring because of something so trivial by comparison of being murdered by a crazy person in cold blood.

Look, I guess at some point either you care about people or you don’t. And if you’re able to turn off who you feel sorrow for based on their race, religion or ideology, then I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know how to relate to you.

I’ve been trying not to post too TOO much about some specifics of what’s happening in Palestine and Israel, but I’m sorry: I feel bad for the innocent children and civilians who were murdered in cold blood in Israel. I know that the “any means” tankies crowd wants everyone to ignore their deaths (or worse celebrate their deaths), but I guess I’m not built that way.

Some of those people murdered at the concert, for example, were not only innocent civilians, but they were also pro-Palestinian activists who spent their time working for peace. I shed tears hearing their family members talking about them. Hamas murdered Holocaust survivors, ffs.

I absolutely can understand Jewish people feeling uneasy right now. They lost a ton of noncombatant civilians —not to mention children. And oh yeah, antisemitism has been at an all time high, unfortunately, just like Islamophobia is about to be. Again.

I might be wrong, but I honestly just do not think that Hamas did Palestinians any favors.

Yes, yes, I dO understand that violence is always a necessary part of freedom and decolonization.

“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” —Assata Shakur

So I’m a big podcast listener (helps occupy my mind whenever I’m working on long tedious projects), and I was listening to one where they interviewed a Jewish soldier who was recently activated, but he was out of Israel and had to fly back. He said something like, “If they had only attacked military targets, then I would get it. We got caught with our pants down, and all is fair in love and war, right? But the mass slaughter of civilian families, women and children is the reason I’m going back.”

I wanted to reach through my phone and ask him about Israel preparing to do exactly the same thing to Palestinians in retaliation, but alas I guess I just sounded like a crazy person yelling to himself in my office.

And yeah, before you read too much further, please understand that I dO support the fuck outta Palestine. Let me be unequivocal here: Israel is in the wrong. Israel has oppressed Palestinians for decades. For actual generations.

Remember when Israel literally bulldozed over a woman to build more houses in Gaza?

Yeah, seriously heinous shit, right?

And we don’t actually have a solid count for all the innocent murdered Palestinian civilians who were living in apartment buildings that Israel has been bombing to smithereens for the past few days. I understand that Israel and the West would have us believe that everyone in Gaza is a terrorist and nobody is an innocent civilian, but hopefully, if you’re reading this, YOU know better than that.

But that said ….. I cannot get with tankies—who, safe and sound in their homes, not being perpetually bombed—want to sound “hard” on social media, and make no distinctions with the people who were just minding their own fucking business at a goddamn concert. I think about all of the mass shootings in America (movie theaters, grocery stores, night clubs, concerts, schools, office buildings, etc) and I just cannot imagine justifying or excusing ANY of them because of the shooter’s “ideology.” I know it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it’s close enough.

“If they were on colonized land then they deserved to die” is one hell of a fucked up take. The slippery slope is that if any of our loved ones are gunned down by “freedom fighters,” then we should just be happy for “the cause” and not shed any tears, because ALL of us deserve to die in America and other Western countries, because we’re all living on colonized land.

I cannot even begin to explain how flawed and fucked up that so-called reasoning is.

You have to have some fucking lines and boundaries.

We don’t just do a shoulder shrug when children are murdered in cold blood—and no, I’m not talking about the 40 babies allegedly beheaded, I’m just talking about the little toddlers who were shot through walls and died, and the elderly and disabled who were shown being dragged away. Yeah, I feel sorry for them too. And I won’t apologize for that.

Rape is wrong. All the time. Under all circumstances. Even when it’s happening to people who you don’t like.

Murdering children is wrong. All the time. Under all circumstances. Even when it’s the children of people who you don’t like.

Do I really need to spell this shit out? JFC.

If you don’t care about any of this because you’re “down for the cause,” then you. are. lost. Like really and truly lost. You aren’t a radical. You’re a fanatic. And hopefully you won’t be in a position to ever receive the fanatical Karma that you’re asking for.

Anyway…

I am on the side of Palestine in all of this. They never deserved to be oppressed by Israel or anyone.

Innocent Palestinian women and children are dying as you’re reading this. I’m shedding tears for them too. They’ve been going through this for way too long. That fact alone is beyond being a tragedy.

Palestine has already suffered and will suffer 10 times more than all of the civilians and noncombatants who were tragically murdered in Kfar Aza.

As always, my usual reminders:

The Holocaust happened

Antisemitism is real

Hamas ≠ Palestine

Israel is an apartheid state

Collective punishment is a war crime

Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal

You can support Palestine without being antisemitic

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[petitelepus]

Hey if youre still up for it, Id like a KNY match up? Yes Ibknow Ive been here before, long time fan. Im a pretty relaxed person nowadays, who prefers to 'saunter' and take my time. If you have ever seen a husky taking on an agililty course, my energy is akin to that. While I used to have the nervous energy of a constantly stressed prey animal, I now have since mellowed out and do my best to just exist. I also have recently realized I am good at herding kids. While not over the top about it, I have a deeply ingrained skill for ensuring theyre safe while out and about while not being a jerk or overcontrolling.

So ultimately, while i have my anxieties that dont always go away, i find I am a much more relaxed and self assured person than I used to be. Im also short as hell (4'11.5", who the hell decided to leave it at point 5 smh) and pretty sturdy in terms of strength and weight.

I match you with Hotaru Haganezuka!

It wasn't probably love at first sight due to the Hyottoko mask hiding his face and identity, and even not after learning how temperamental Haganezuka could be... But it was honestly way too funny to watch him lose his cool and chase some poor soul with his knives.

Haganezuka might be a little annoyed by your laid-back nature, but your relaxed attitude actually manages to even calm him down a little bit and he doesn't get as angry as he used to after getting to know you.

Also, as a Pisces, you're extremely emphatic, paying attention to those around you and their well-being. People know they can rely on you and trust you to help them.

Despite Haganezuka being reluctant about sharing you, his partner's attention, you do a great job helping others while still paying the most attention to him.

Do you like laughing? I think you do and if you do, then laughter is one way to win you over. You know what they say, "Laughter is the best medicine".

If Haganezuka really gets out of control, you go for his sides and tickle him, making the man laugh out loud and go limb. Honestly, he has such cute laughter, you love hearing it and then petting his hair when he goes limb.

There aren't many kids in Swordsmith Village so you immediately take young Kotetsu under your care and do your best to be there for him.

You can't help but spoil the young boy rotten and let him get away with the trouble he might cause. While Haganezuka may not be so fond of Kotetsu's blunt and sharp tongue, he does appreciate it that you are there for the young boy.

This doesn't stop Kotetsu from teasing or being blunt around Haganezuka and you do get a good laugh out of it while trying to save Kotetsu from Haganezuka's wrath.

Kanamori thinks you are a great influence on both Haganezuka and young Kotetsu. He also enjoys talking with you and listening to you talk about your interests. He is happy for Haganezuka for having you and to have you around and let Kanamori call you his friend.

Haganezuka might be a little rash, and it might take a second for him to realize it when you get anxious, but when he sees you frowning or biting your lip, he calms down and asks if you would like to enjoy some tea and Mitarashi Dango with him.

Depending on what you like, he will talk to you or listen to you talk, whichever calms you down the most. He is passionate about things he loves and cares for, and this goes to swords and you.