#loneliness of piers

[tanyaluca]

The Loneliness of Poets…

Tanya Luca

[rqlaji2]

Ive been too tired to be depressed since I got home but I got some rest this morning and Yeah

[tearsucry]

I love it! Like EVERYTHING!

Can I request angst? I love Agatha

— °˖ ⊹ ꒰ 🌑 ꒱ we wave goodbye at moons shine. — agatha harkness

content warning;          angst content mdni, young! agatha harkness, kissing, agatha is saying goodbye but reader doesn't realize, established relationship, hinted time accurate homophobia | 1.07k words

a/n.                                       okay this might be lame as angst, but honestly, THIS KIDN OF THING HURTS ME THE MOST, LEAVING STUFF. so i hope it's good, nice and acceptable for you nice readers <3 thank you for reading

the moon hung low in teh sky, casting long shadows across the village outskirts as agatha made her way to the old fishing cottage next to the pond, not far from the village. her heart was a heavy stone in her chest, each step weighing more than the last. she couldn't let her falter.

not tonight.

you were waiting, just as agatha had known you would be. you kneeled on the plank pier, beneath the towering branches of an old oak tree, your soft silhouette bathed in silver light, as if the moon itself grieved for what neither of you knew was coming.

you didn't know, but agatha did- this was the last time the two of you would see each other. her mother and coven probably figured it out by now that she was reading into books she wasn't supposed to, that she had dabbled in dark magic despite her coven's rules not to. it was only a matter of time before they would capture her and put her on a real trial.

agatha paused for a moment, watching you, etching this scene into her memory. she would need to carry it with her when she left- something to hold onto when the loneliness crept in.

"agatha," you called softly, your voice a balm to agatha's wounded soul. she stepped closer, a soft smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, but there was a question in her eyes. "I have missed you."

agatha swallowed hard and forced a smile in return. "I'm here now."

she wanted to say more. she wanted to pour her heart out, to tell you that she had missed you too, that she had spent every waking moment these past few days wrestling with what she had to do.

but she couldn't.

there were no secrets between the two of you, a poor human like you who was foolishly and madly in love with a witch would never tattle on her, and agatha also trusted you enough to not keep such a part of her hidden, despite her coven's instructions. but not this, the truth would have to stay buried, like so many other secrets that had kept you both safe in this cursed village.

you stepped closer, your hand reaching out, brushing against agatha's. "you have been distant lately. is something wrong?"

agatha shook her head. she couldn't let you see her fear, couldn't let you guess at the storm brewing just beyond the village's borders. if you knew- if you even suspected- everything would unravel and you'd be in danger of being prosecuted.

"i have had this headache," agatha started, her voice steady, though it felt like a lie. "there's been a lot on my mind."

you frowned, unconvinced. you stepped even closer now, so close that agatha could feel the warmth of your breath in the cool night air. "whatever it is," you smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and simultaneously pulling the hood of her cloak down. "I'm here to listen to all your trouble."

the young witch's chest tightened. she wanted so desperately to tell you, to share this unbearable burden. but if she told you the truth, she would only be placing you in danger and she also couldn't risk you wanting to follow her, afraid of what might the coven do if they ever found out about someone who could affirm their suspicion about her use of the darkest of magic.

agatha shook her head, trying to keep her voice steady. "there is nothing to worry about," she lied. "I just needed to see you."

she couldn't keep risking losing her composure, and without thinking, agatha leaned in, pressing her lips to yours. it was soft at first, tentative, but it deepened as the unspoken words between the two of you surged to the surface. agatha kissed you as if this moment was all she had left- as if, through the kiss, she could somehow tell you everything she was forbidden to say.

her love.

her fear.

her goodbye.

you responded in kind, your hands slipping around agatha's waist, pulling her closer. the kiss was full of longing, a silent promise, though neither of you spoke a word.

when you finally broke apart, agatha kept her forehead resting against yours, her eyes closed as she tried to hold back the tears threatening to spill. this was goodbye, even if you didn't know it.

"i should go," agatha whispered, her voice barely audible in the quiet night.

your grip tightened around her waist, unwilling to let go just yet. "stay a little longer," you pleaded softly, your breath warm against agatha's lips.

agatha's heart ached at the request. she wanted to stay, to hold you and pretend you had all the time in the world. but every moment she lingered made it harder to leave, harder to walk away for the slim hope of seeing you ever again.

"the burning should be over by now," she whispers, pulling back slightly, her hand brushing over your cheek. "but we'll see each other soon."

you smiled faintly, though there was sadness in your eyes- no matter how much time the two of you spent together, it always felt like just a few minutes. "promise?"

agatha nodded, lying through her teeth and smile. "promise."

the two of you kiss once again, but this one is much slower and longer. it lasts until your fingers are cold, until your lungs burn for air, until the stars shine brighter above you, shining just as brightly as you shone below. agatha pulls away, her hand still lingering on the curve of your jaw. she has to tear herself away. she can't stay any longer.

and so she took a step back, feeling the cold rush in between you where warmth had once been. you stood still, your arms slowly falling to your sides, the space between you now more than just physical.

with one last glance, agatha turned and began walking away, but not without waving you goodbye like she always did, her steps slow, deliberate. after that, she couldn't look back, because if she did, she knew she might never find the strength to leave.

in the clearing, the young witch's goodbye lingered, carried by the wind to you and though you didn't know it yet, your last kiss was already a memory.

[roseglazedlens]

hehe hi i saw that your requests were open and idk if this is like too much or anything but sobbing head in hands head canons about reader having a dog that just does not get along with their s/o (any character of your choosing), like perhaps not like barking at them, but the dog is definitely playfully biting their toes every time they see them

⦑ 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐒/𝐎’𝐬 𝐃𝐨𝐠𝐬 ⦒

characters: chris redfield, leon kennedy, claire redfield, piers nivans & jill valentine. a/n: thank you so much for requesting lovely! i don't have any furbabies myself, but one day!!! once again, i apologise for getting carried away with these headcanons, i just love all characters! content: SFW

CHRIS REDFIELD

He has a German Shepherd at home!! Dog person all his life!

Had considered being a professional dog trainer in his younger years, and did some courses on it, but ultimately did not pursue it.

Gets along with your dog almost instantly - your dog respects Chris.

Would teach your dog all kinds of tricks - honestly helps you out a lot!

Would be annoying and give you unsolicited advice about your dog's diet and training (which you shut him up with a kiss)

Has a YouTube channel about educational dog content with only three videos of him just talking to the camera, that is all posted 7 years ago.

LEON KENNEDY

Leon doesn't mind dogs, but he prefers cats more.

So when Leon visits you, he isn't used to the shower of affection your dog gives.

If your dog were to not get along with him, Leon would put his hands up to show he doesn't mean harm.

Eventually earning your dog's mercy after playing fetch with them!

It's a little tiring for Leon, who is only used to the company of cats.

But he knows your dog is your family and wants to make sure he gets along with them.

Would try to convince you that a cat would be a good addition to your family (so his cat can have a playmate).

CLAIRE REDFIELD

There was only Claire and her brother in the Redfield household, so Chris surprised Claire with a dog for her birthday one time to help with the loneliness. And that cheered Claire up greatly, and made her love dogs!.

No. 1 chihuahua defender - Always trying to break the stereotype that chihuahuas are aggressive, and rants on about how so many people don't know how to respect their boundaries.

Volunteers at a dog shelter!

It is no surprised she would get along with yours, with how big dogs has become in her life.

If she gets bitten playfully, Claire would play dead. And then come back to life when your dog paws at her cheeks. (She can't stop smiling from the cuteness)

Would scream "doggo!" everytime she passed by one.

PIERS NIVANS

He loooves dogs!! And dogs love him!

Piers just radiates 'dog owner energy' - random dogs, including yours, will sniff him and try to be friends if he passes by.

Dogs are just naturally drawn to Piers, and he's not complaining.

Meets your dog once, and your dog already loves him more. You're a little salty about it, but glad that they get along.

Best belly rubs giver!

His dog is friends with Chris' dog, so they go on a walk together every Sunday morning.

JILL VALENTINE

Jill is a dog person, even if I can see her being a cat person too.

I see Jill being super affectionate to her dog, always giving kisses and hugs the moment she returns from an op.

After Arklay Mountains, I can see her dog being concerned at Jill's attitude change. Whining a little to show that they're here for Jill.

When she meets your dog, her expression warms at the sight. I see Jill getting attached to your dog easily, and they get along together well after playing fetch a few times.

thanks for reading! come check out my other works. ––yours truly, rose. tags: @valsthea @custard0nut © roseglazedlens - please do not repost, plagiarise, or feed to ai.

[twomiddlefingersforthehaters]

• Naruto

Naruto on a swing with his head down. That swing... it is the same swing he used to sit on outside the academy, watching other kids chatting happily with their families. There was no one to call Naruto... Before he knew it Naruto was "disappearing'' from the swing. You don't care or notice if he's around and you don't care or notice if he's gone. Maybe the empty swing swaying in the wind was Naruto's "empty" presence, no one could ``see'' him or no one tried to "look" at him.

It must be painful to go out and see happy families playing with their children, buying candies and visiting them at their academy. However... Back then Naruto often went out of the house instead of being cooped up at home. When he goes out, he sees happy families and receives cold stares... and yet he goes out.

Even though Naruto knew it would be painful, he wasn't about to give up. He was looking for an opportunity to connect with others. He didn't care if others scolded him...he just wanted others to notice that he existed. No matter what the situation, Naruto is the one trying to find a connection with others on his own...that hasn't changed.

Because of his "loneliness'' he doesn't want to feel "lonely'' and he tirelessly tries his best to interact with others...and that's what Naruto is.

• Sasuke

The dishes piled up and covered with spider webs are a reminder that a considerable amount of time has passed since ``that day". But no matter how much time has passed, Sasuke's "time" is still standing still... the four people's chopsticks are still there and Sasuke doesn't even touch them. "On that day", time stood still.

In the flashback in volume 25, when Sasuke returned home alone after the incident... there was water dripping from the kitchen faucet in the empty house. There is a depiction of the echoing sound of dripping, but it gives the impression of a "terrifying silence". Sasuke's "empty heart" is beautifully depicted.

After that, Sasuke probably didn't go out and often stayed home alone. Even when he goes out, he doesn't seem to meet anyone.

Lying alone in a house that was too big for him to live in alone... We don't know if his eyes were closed or if he was staring at the ceiling, but Sasuke's eyes weren't looking at anything. He was looking at the past. He said, ``My dreams only lies the past", Sasuke was living in the ``past'' back then.

Back then, when he fight with Naruto in the academy to do 'sign of reconciliation', Sasuke's eyes seemed to be looking at Naruto, but not at him. Even back then, Sasuke's eyes were only focused on the past. Sasuke has always been in the past...

It is difficult for Sasuke to accept the "present (reality)" of loneliness when there is no one around, and he tries to cut off all connections with the outside world that make him feel the "present''. Sasuke often stays alone in his house, stuck in the ``past.'' Because he is lonely, he pushes himself even more into loneliness in order not to feel ``lonely.'' And that's what Sasuke is.

Naruto and Sasuke, their own ``loneliness''... the loneliness of being alone from the beginning, the loneliness of being alone after losing everything. Being alone, Naruto looked for a connection outside...Sasuke, who was lonely, didn't try to find a connection outside. Young Sasuke, who was ``trying to connect with his family inside the house,'' and young Naruto was trying to find a ``connection'' outside.

Both of them walk through their own loneliness, but in the end they connect with each other.

Naruto, who is walking alone, sees Sasuke sitting alone by the Lake. they noticed each other presence and turn their heads away, but then they catches a glimpse of their happy face and smile.

He has many memories in this lake pier and it was here that for the first time he received his father's acknowledgement. This place turns out to be the place where he got his bond for the first time. It turns out to be the most precious day of both of their lives.This is the first time Sasuke's eyes begin to look from the past to the present. And it is Naruto's presence brings him back from his loneliness. It was here that both acknowledged their loneliness, existence and presence. From that moment on, the two of them shared a sense of "loneliness" and understood each other's feelings.

[spookyscarydemonbabe]

Near Death

A/N- Merry Christmas Eve to those of you that celebrate 🖤 i feel like i’m definitely posting this too late but it’s the first fic i’ve finished in a WHILE and i miss writing so much 😭

Summary- Eddie’s been trying all summer to get your attention, and he’s planning on getting it by any means necessary. Even if that means putting himself in danger.

Genre- Hurt/comfort (i think?), fluff

Warnings- mentions of drowning, CPR, giving mouth to mouth

Tag List- @thatsthewaythechrissycrumbles @munsonology @esme-viridian @gvf23 @wheels-of-despair

Word Count- 3.9k

“You can’t be serious…” Jeff said to Eddie, a shocked expression on his and the other boys faces as they approached the lake.

“Oh, i’m serious,” Eddie smirked as they started to hear the shouts and laughter as they saw the edge of the sand, “and it’ll work.”

“Yeah, but the only downside is that you could die.” Gareth laughed.

“That’s a sacrifice i’m willing to make.”

Over the summer, Eddie and the boys decided they might as well put their free time to good use over summer break and volunteer to help out at the local summer camp. Not because they wanted to, but because it was basically the only place that would let them to as little work as possible and still have all of them on the same off days. Not to mention, Eddie got to see a lot more of you there.

He didn’t think girls like you were interested in volunteering at summer camps, but that first day he saw you down by the lake, sitting at the end of the pier, lathering sunscreen on your body in your little red bathing suit keeping watch over the campers and counselors as they jumped and splashed in the water.

He wanted you so bad. If only he could get your attention.

You’d smile and wave at him in passing just like you did with all the others at camp, but Eddie always let his gaze linger on you just a little longer afterwards. He didn’t know what it was, but something about you just made him so eager to break open your quiet shell and see the real you.

You weren’t the type of girl to be rude to any of the other counselors, for the most part everyone liked you quite a bit. You were just quiet, kept to yourself, but you were confident in your loneliness. You were never seen with any of the other cliques of counselors, and you liked it that way.

Eddie and the boys found a small area to place their towels and clothes on the sand, of course with the perfect view of you at the end of the pier.

“So let me get this straight,” Grant started as him and the boys stripped down to their swim trunks, “you’re going to pretend to drown so that (y/n) can ‘save you’ and do the whole mouth-to-mouth thing? You’re going to kill yourself for a kiss that isn’t even a kiss?”

Eddie shrugged as he pulled his hair back,

“Yep, pretty much.”

“I think this is the dumbest idea you’ve ever had…” Jeff smirked.

“Fine. But when it works, you can all go fuck yourselves.” Eddie said with a smile, rolling his eyes as he separated himself from the group.

They all shook their heads in disbelief, not sure wether they should laugh or be worried about this idiotic scheme. Either way, it was going to be awful fun to watch.

Eddie slowly approached the pier, making sure to keep out of the way of the campers running to jump off the side into the designated deep end. Everyone knew that past the pier was a drop off, going down almost 20 feet with god knows what resting at the bottom of the lake. He knew that if he wasn’t careful with his plan, he’d be stuck down there too.

He could feel his palms get sweaty as he got closer and closer to you, hearing your giggle as you watched the kids do their weird stunts to get your attention as they jumped off the pier.

You were laid back, your legs dangling off the end with your toes in the water as your arms ere outstretched behind you to keep you held up, hair down, sunglasses over your face. You could feel his presence behind you and smiled to him as he approached closer,

“Hi Eddie.” You said to him with a smile.

“Hey (y/n).” He smiled back, looking down at you and hoping your sunglasses could hide your eyes well enough not to see the pink on his cheeks, “How are you?”

“Good.” You said with a giggle, taking little glances back and forth between him and the kids splashing in the water, “You?”

“Good.” He smiled, obviously a bit nervous, though even he wasn’t sure if it was because he was with you or because he knew he would be faking his own death within the next 10 minutes. “Do you mind if i sit with you?”

You shook your head and moved to the side, giving him a little more room to sit at the edge of the pier with you,

“I don’t mind. Scared of the deep end?” You joked, giggling as he took his seat next to you, his feet in the water next to yours.

“‘Deep end’, what, it’s maybe 6 feet?” He watched another kid run and jump into the water next to him, a few drops of water landing onto your legs.

“Just about.” You turned your head, looking at the water past the rope blocking off the drop off, “It gets really deep over there though, i think close to 20 feet.”

“Damn, really?” Eddie slowly stood back up and stepped carefully over to the end of the pier, nervous, but ready to put his plan into action.

“Be careful!” You told him sternly, “It drops off almost as soon as the pier ends.”

“Really?” Eddie slowly leaned over, peeking over the edge with a smirk on his lips, “Doesn’t look that deep-“ Eddie cut himself off with a shout, not expecting his plan to go awry.

He had planned everything out from start to finish. Sitting next to you at the pier, having a little chat, falling into the deep end and having you dive in and rescue him, pulling him back onto shore and giving him the kiss of life. He didn’t expect a kid to slip up on the pier behind him and push him into the lake.

The fall caught him off guard, and as soon as he hit the water it was like every thought he’d ever had about swimming had completely left him.

You gasped as you watched Eddie disappear beneath the murky water, quickly consoling the kid that ran into him, assuring him that you knew it was an accident before yelling for all the other kids lined up to do their jumps to get off of the pier. The other counselors on shore called the kids back into their groups to do a head count.

You stood at the end of the pier and tossed off your sunglasses, jumping into the water after Eddie.

It was cold, murky, and you knew it was bad for your eyes to keep them open underwater but you didn’t care. All you needed to do was get him back up safely. Thank god he wore the trunks with the yellow flowers on them.

You quickly swam down to him, grabbing his arm and keeping a tight grip on it as you swam back up towards the surface.

As soon as you broke the surface of the water you swam to the end of the pier, doing your best to lift him up onto the end with the help of the few counselors that came to your aid,

“Pull him up,” You said as you caught your breath, climbing back up as they lay Eddie out onto your towel, “lay him on his back.” You crawled over beside Eddie, pushing back the counselors to give you some room.

A wave of anxiety rushed through your veins as you looked down at Eddie. No movement, no motion. It was terrifying.

You didn’t want to lose someone like him.

“Eddie?” You spoke softly to him as you knelt at his side, “Eddie can you hear me?”

No response.

You reached your hand out to his neck, feeling for his pulse for a moment, but there was nothing.

Your instincts moved you quickly, both hands clasped together on his chest, pushing back and forth, up and down at a constant and quick rhythm. With every 30 pulses you would put your ear to his chest, listening for a heartbeat, but after the third round you knew that it wasn’t helping much. He needed to breathe.

You moved quickly, tilting his head back and moving your hands to keep him stable, one hand holding beneath his chin to keep his mouth open while the other held his nose shut. Everyone was crowded at the beach as they watched you work, eerily quiet. You couldn’t imagine how Eddie would feel after it was all over.

You took a few quick breaths before leaning down to him, your mouth over his, trying so hard to break that barrier and push the air back into his lungs, swapping back to chest compressions after each breath, hoping and praying that one of them would be the one to bring him back to consciousness.

It was agonizing, and though you couldn’t tell how much time had gone by since you started, it was like time stood still. You weren’t stopping until you knew Eddie was back, until you knew he was safe.

With one final breath, you leaned down and pushed the air into his lungs, thankfully for the last time.

You felt his body jerk beneath yours and turned him onto his side, and you’d never been so relieved to see him coughing up the water that was held in his lungs.

He was gasping for air, taking deep breaths as he slowly moved onto his back, and you could hear the crowd of campers and their respective counselors applauding as a few of them rushed to quickly move Eddie back off of the pier and down to the first aid cabin. At least he’d be safe there.

You stood up with him as two of the counselors slung his arms over their shoulders, propping him up and walking him carefully back to camp. Your hand never left his the whole way back, and though he still wasn’t strong enough to speak, you could feel him gently squeeze your hand in his. Almost as if he was trying to say ‘thank you’.

You stayed by his side the whole walk to the first aid cabin, but Eddie stayed silent. You couldn’t tell if he was still in shock, embarrassed, or scared of the whole ordeal. And you wouldn’t blame him if he was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been a few hours since the incident, and by this point everyone had nearly forgotten about the ordeal from earlier.

The kids were playing their last few games outside before getting ready for bed, their counselors were either keeping an eye on them or getting the cabins ready, but you and the boys had been worried sick about Eddie.

He hadn’t spoken a word since the pier earlier, at least not to you, and it scared you to death not knowing how he was. All the camp nurse said was that he needed rest, he didn’t have any brain damage from the lack of oxygen but he would have some chest pains from the constant compressions, other than that he would be completely fine within the next day or so. Still, you worried for him.

The boys were nice enough to keep watch over him to let you head back to your cabin and change out of your bathing suit, and you were more than grateful to finally be back in your ugly camp uniform.

As for right now, you each were sitting quietly outside the first aid cabin, just waiting for any word from the nurse that it would be alright for you to go in and see him again. You knew he needed rest, you just didn’t expect him to nap for this long.

“You think he’s just not able to talk or something?” Jeff asked no one in particular.

“Maybe?” You said back, “He could still be in shock from the whole thing.”

“From over 5 hours ago?” Grant chimed in.

“I don’t know… I just hope he’s alright.”

You fidgeted with the ends of your shorts, just needing to keep yourself occupied while you waited for the nurse to tell you he was talking again. It’s what you were all waiting for. And it was like agony to not know how Eddie was.

You never would’ve considered you to be close with one another, you weren’t necessarily friends per se, you usually saw him with his group of campers like all the other counselors and you showed him the same kindness you show to everyone else. You’d heard of his reputation from a few of the other girls, but he didn’t seem anything like how others would describe him.

Eddie and his friends were just normal teenagers. They were great with the kids, they goofed off on their off days, they did all the same things that every other teenager did and you could see through that tough exterior that they were all just big kids too. And you admired that about them.

As soon as you heard the door creak open, your heads shot up, seeing the nurse peering out from it,

“He’s feeling a bit better, you can come in and see him if you like.”

Without any hesitation, the four of you stood up from your chairs and rushed to get in to see him, and though Eddie was definitely looking better, he was definitely still a little shaken up from the incident. The boys huddled at the sides of the little bed Eddie was laying on and you took the empty chair next to the bed, looking down at him with a little smile, but you could see that his eyes were still slightly shut.

“Hey man, how you feeling?” Grant asked.

“A little sore in the chest, and it hurts a little to talk and breathe but the nurse said that i should be fine in a day or two.” Eddie shrugged, giving you all a slight smile to show that he was alright.

It was a small gesture, but it definitely made you all feel better about his condition.

“Are they gonna send you home?” Gareth asked.

“They said it was all up to me. The nurse said i wasn’t out long enough to cause any brain damage, and i don’t feel like there’s any damage up there, so i’m going to stick around.”

“Did they call Wayne and tell him what happened?” Jeff chimed in.

“Yeah, they called him as soon as an ambulance got here. The paramedics talked to him on the phone for a bit to explain it all, and i’d prefer them explain it to him rather than me telling him about it, he’d kill me…”

You looked over and saw the boys snickering at the end of the bed, and you furrowed your brows in confusion, knowing that you were clearly missing some piece of this puzzle.

“What do you mean?” You asked him, and as he turned to you, you could see his face go white.

“We’ll give you some space and let you talk it out.” Gareth said, him and the other two slowly making their way out of the first aid cabin, but you could see Eddie making eyes at them just begging to stay.

You looked to him as soon as the door closed,

“Why were they laughing? What happened that i don’t know about?”

Eddie was silent, and his gaze moved from yours to down into his lap, a look of shame on his face followed it.

“Eddie, you could’ve died, this is serious. What happened?”

He groaned to himself, knowing that he had to tell you at some point. And he’d rather have him tell you than one of the guys.

“You have to promise you won’t be mad…”

A little smile came to your lips hearing the familiar line said to you by so many campers after sneaking a bucket of frogs into their cabin or trying to sneak off to the lake for a swim,

“I won’t promise you anything, but if you tell me the truth i won’t be as mad. Depending on what it is you did.”

Eddie took a deep breath, his hands wiping over his face to knock him back into reality.

“Ok, um…” You could hear his voice trembling, and carefully reached out to hold his hand as it lay back at his side.

“Just tell me Eddie, please.”

He looked up into your eyes, and though he was terrified to tell you the truth, he knew he needed to.

“I like you (y/n). i like you a lot… And i had this stupid plan where i thought it would be a good idea to pretend to drown so you could save me and i’d get the chance to kiss you. It was the dumbest thing i could think of and i didn’t think it could go wrong but… I didn’t think of how scary it would be if something did go wrong.”

Your eyes widened, but no words could come to mind for describing how you felt. You sat back in the chair and your hand slowly slipped from his as you stared at the wall in front of you, and you could tell that your reaction wasn’t one he was expecting, but it wasn’t one you were expecting either.

He had the best intentions, you knew that for a fact, but the fact that he decided to do something as idiotic as pretending to drown just for a little bit of affection from you took you back. You weren’t angry, you were upset, but angry wasn’t the word for it. But it did hurt your feelings that he felt his best course of action was to pull a stunt like this just to get something as small as a kiss from you.

“You know…” You started, your eyes slowly moving to look down at your hands in your lap, “I think that’s the dumbest thing any guy has ever done to get my attention.”

Eddie pursed his lips and looked down in shame.

“But, i will say,” You sighed and looked up to him with a small, reassuring smile, “i don’t think you meant for it to go this way. I know you had good intentions Eddie, but it was a stupid idea, what made you think you had to do something like pretend to drown to get my attention?”

Eddie shrugged, eyes still down in his lap, unsure of what to say.

Scratch that.

He knew exactly what to say. He just didn’t want to make it any worse for himself. The one thing he wouldn’t want to do was end the day with not only a near death experience, but with you hating him too.

“I don’t know… And i’m sorry. I think it was just my boy brain convincing me that in order to grab people’s attention i have to pull these idiotic stunts, without thinking about what could go wrong… I’m sorry for putting you through that, and i understand if you hate me, but i do like you (y/n). I think the rejection scared me so much i put everything else in the back of my mind just to be able to talk to you without being scared to…”

His boy brain was definitely to blame for this.

And it was unfortunate that you wanted so badly to be mad at him, you would’ve been just as angry had anyone else pulled a stunt like this, but you just couldn’t find that anger.

Something inside you was trying so hard to bring up that anger, but seeing how guilty he felt somehow pushed it back down.

His apologetic puppy dog eyes, his pursed lips keeping him from saying anything else to keep his position from getting any worse, the boy nearly died and yet he was still profusely apologizing for what he did. His guilt somehow made it better.

But you couldn’t stand to see him so shaken up and not offer him any kind of comfort.

You slowly leaned forward, one arm wrapping around his shoulders as the other draped over his chest, your head resting on top of his in a soft embrace. His hands carefully moved up from his lap, gently holding onto the arm over his chest. You couldn’t see his face, but you could tell there was a smile tugging at his lips.

“Don’t let this hug fool you, i’m still angry at you.” You loosened your arms around him, lifting your head and carefully looking down to him.

“I know.” Eddie said as he looked up to you, “You have every right to be.”

You smiled down to him, reassuring him that though you were angry now, there was definitely going to be an opportunity for him to make it up to you.

“I’m just glad you’re ok.” You slowly leaned your head down, placing a gentle kiss onto his forehead. You could’ve sworn you felt him tense up as soon as your lips touched him.

It was quiet for a moment between both of you, but it was a comfortable silence. Eddie wanted to say something, anything, but he felt that for now he would enjoy the silence with you.

He could ruin your moment with his big mouth another time.

You both heard a gentle knock on the door to the little room you were in, and you both looked up to it to see the boys once more.

“Alright if we come in?” Grant asked, peeking his head in through the door.

“Yeah, go right ahead.” You said with a smile, slowly standing from the chair you were sitting in and straightening out the little gym shorts you had on, “I was going to head out and check on my kids, see how they’re doing after all that.”

The boys made their way back into the room, and you could see a few snacks hidden in their hands and some cans of pop from the vending machines hidden not all that well in their pockets. And you couldn’t tell which one of them it was, but you could definitely recognize the smell of weed on one of them as they walked past. You smiled to yourself. Eddie definitely needed something to help calm his nerves after that, and weed sounded like the perfect remedy.

“I’ll see you guys later. I hope you feel better soon Eddie.” You smiled to them and gave them a polite wave goodbye, shutting the door behind you. Though you could hear them talking as soon as you heard the door click.

You couldn’t exactly make out who was saying what but you could definitely hear them talking about you. And you figured it the perfect moment to finally make the situation about you.

You peeked your head in through the door and the boys all turned to you,

“And Eddie? If you wanted to kiss me so badly, you could’ve just asked.”

You gave him one last smile and figured it was right time for his friends to see him red faced.

You were certain that for the rest of the summer, the two of you would be the talk of camp. But it didn’t bother you much.

What’s so bad about having a rumor about yourself and a hot guy?

You were just hoping he wouldn’t pull anymore dumb stunts to get your attention. All he needed was to be himself.

It’s the only thing you’ve ever wanted.

(this was written for my summer camp AU event, if you’d like to request a fic or HCs for it please let me know! 🖤)

[least-carpet]

'replacing jc in someone's affection' I am crying! wwx doesn't do it once but twice! It's fascinating! Also, this makes me understand why some people, reading the novel, come to the conclusion that wwx doesn't care anymore about jc. Yeah, it's a valid interpretation!

Listen, I just rotated, and rotated, and rotated this scenario (—because, like, both child and adult Wei Wuxian are sincerely in need of support and affection, but I think receiving it as a child while it was withheld from someone he loved, what might have seemed like taking it away from someone who also needed it, also contributed to his boundary problems and self-sacrificial tendencies and eventual resentment—like he needs it but it hurts someone he loves deeply when he gets it but he still needs it, how can he reconcile these conflicting truths?? OK I will stop now—) and, uh, have a tiny little sketch of that zhanchengxian fic concept below, with which I will exorcise my sad past chengxian/past zhancheng/current wangxian thoughts.

It was going to be a perfect triple triple drabble but I needed 80 more words in the centre section to describe Jiang Cheng's tears. You know how it is.

Pursued by Lesser Ghosts

At first he was busy and grateful for it.

Then, Jin Ling settled, elders cowed, sect in order, Jiang Cheng was forced to returned to Lotus Pier. Empty, now.

His sect ran as it always did. He slept poorly. He dreamed often. He walked up and down the pier at night, pursued by lesser ghosts, echoes of people who were alive, just gone. His own life closed around him as tight as any noose, one long merciless sequence of work, sleep, work.

He had a minor qi deviation.

“Go back to dual cultivation,” said the doctor.

“That’s no longer possible,” he said.

The doctor looked up. When Jiang Cheng didn’t say anything else, she said, “Well. Come here for acupuncture once a week. Consider visiting Jin Ling.”

Relax, she didn’t bother to say.

Jiang Ping, his one surviving cousin, took tea with him, and said: “I know things have been stressful. Perhaps you would consider marriage now?”

“I didn’t think marriage was relaxing,” said Jiang Cheng, drily.

“It can be. After everything, well… it’s nice to have someone there.” Jiang Ping looked up, thinking. “Having someone there and working a lot. I don’t think it’s possible for Sect Leader to work harder, so you’ll have to try the other thing.”

Jiang Cheng let out a snort despite himself. Jiang Ping grinned at him.

He could get married, he supposed. What was there to prevent him?

He didn’t call for a matchmaker. He worked harder, kept himself so busy he could hardly think, but at night, laying in his bed, he ached with loneliness before sleep. And in sleep, he saw them, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian both, invariably walking away from him, hand in hand.

Sometimes he was silent; sometimes he called to them. It didn’t matter. They never turned around.

-

In Wei Wuxian’s dream, it was high summer, air as thick as syrup, and he was lying under the trees along the riverbank with his head in Jiang Cheng’s lap.

Above him, Jiang Cheng was eating tanghulu. Playfully, Wei Wuxian opened his mouth like a baby bird, and Jiang Cheng, rolling his eyes, took a piece of fruit and fed it to him, red and almost glowing. His index finger brushed against Wei Wuxian’s mouth.

Sometimes, he dreamed and he didn’t know whether it was just a dream or a fragment of a memory. He thought this might have happened—he faintly remembered begging Jiang Cheng to let him rest his head in his lap, across his narrow, muscled thighs.

Suddenly it was night, and Jiang Cheng was gone.

“Jiang Cheng?” called Wei Wuxian, and found his voice was a child’s voice, high-pitched and nervous. “Jiang Cheng?”

He rushed through Lotus Pier, now dark and empty, towards Jiang Cheng’s room. Then, in the way of dreams, Jiang Cheng was in front of him, a child again, too, face swollen with tears as he wept alone on the pier.

Wei Wuxian froze, panicked.

Someone picked him up; Uncle Jiang had appeared. But instead of saying anything, he turned and walked away. “Uncle Jiang,” Wei Wuxian whispered, but Jiang Fengmian didn’t respond.

All Wei Wuxian could do was look over Uncle Jiang’s shoulder at Jiang Cheng, at his crumpled, sobbing face. You don’t understand, he thought, suddenly, I love you but I need this, I need it, I need it.

That face changed again, blurred into Jiang Cheng's adult face, still weeping as he knelt on the pier. And then the strong arms around him weren’t Uncle Jiang’s but Lan Zhan’s, holding him tight in a bridal carry, taking him away as he squirmed to look back, to not look away from Jiang Cheng’s face, they had been so happy only a moment ago—

Wei Wuxian woke late, his face wet. Went to look for a handkerchief. Opened a drawer he hadn’t looked in before to find: two purple hair ribbons. An open jar of salve, carved with the insignia of a well-known Yunmeng herbalist. And a lavender handkerchief, embroidered with a little frog. Wei Wuxian traced it gently with his thumb.

-

The day was a little crisp, but bright and beautiful. Lan Wangji had risen at the appointed time, eaten breakfast serenely with the sect, and taught some advanced guqin lessons. Lan Sizhui was coming along beautifully, playing more delicate and precise every day, a delight to teach.

Everything was just as it should be in the Cloud Recesses, but Lan Wangji was still somehow uneasy.

He had gained everything he had dreamed of as a teenager, in one bewildering fell swoop. His life had been overturned, but for the better, the man he had wanted for so long delivered to him on a silver platter. He was unbelievably lucky.

Of course, he grieved what had happened to his brother. Lan Xichen deserved only good things. It was bitter to find out someone you had loved so deeply had deceived you—had failed you—had abandoned you.

But with the exception of that dark spot, the suffering and absence of his brother, his life was everything he had ever asked for, wasn’t it? A pristine life, on the surface.

If there was a dark shadow underneath, the ripple of something passing through a lake on a sunny day—something slipping out of an incautious hand, lost to the water—that too was life, wasn’t it?

He had never been so happy in his life. He had never before been so happy in his life, as he had once imagined it.

He averted his eyes from that shadow.

Until, one day, he returned home, and found Wei Ying, sitting at the room’s low table, holding a handkerchief in one hand. Remnants of a different life that had collected in his home. No—that he had kept. Gripped tightly.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying said, brightly, face stretched in a brittle smile. “What’s this?”

[tma-reader-inserts]

Gerard Keay x Lonely Avatar! Reader

Tw: suicidal thoughts; mentioned character death

XXX

You missed Michael. You missed him so much you ached. You missed his breezy laugh and fun sweaters and how he always made tea for the two of you every morning. You missed your best friend, and his absence weighed on you like a stone.

You never worked together exactly; but you were an assistant to Elias, and you took the same route home every day and he was just so friendly it was hard not spend time with the sweet and sensitive man.

You didn’t have many friends. Hardly any except for Michael. And by extension, you were on friendly terms with Gerard Keay, who worked closely with Micheal and Miss Robinson on several statement cases. You were… intrigued by Gerard. Michael had encouraged you several times to “go for it”, to suck down your cowardice and just asked the attractive book-burner out for drinks; but you were so, so awkward; even more bumbling than Blackwood.

It felt like a miracle Elias hasn’t fired you yet. You assume it’s because you’ve memorized his coffee order and know exactly where to buy the biscuits he enjoys so much. You really didn’t do much in the was of assisting. You help take names and numbers of potential statement givers, arranged for them to meet an archivist or archivist assistance, fetch coffee and teas, and mostly just sit at the desk in front of Elias’s office and look busy. Whatever papers Elias gives you usually are meant for someone else and all you do is have the building’s mail system bring them to the specific person, so you don’t really do any actual filing.

Well, it’s a living.

A small reprieve from the hum drum of your boring work life was Michael and his fun stories.

Now you don’t even have that.

You wore all black for three weeks in mourning when you realized Michael wasn’t coming back. He wasn’t the first assistant to disappear, but it was the first that affected you. Elias and Gertrude said nothing about the change of your attire and attitude.

You also haven’t seen Gerard in ages. You had seen him once in passing as he exited the building while you were walking up to the stairs, smoking heavily with a dark look on his face. You have to assume he knows of Michael, you couldn’t imagine telling him, and Gerard always seems to know about everything that happens in the Institute. He eyed you briefly, in your dark clothes and somber expression, and he gave you a pitying look before walking in the opposite direction.

Not a word was exchanged, and you had felt so utterly and horribly alone since.

The loneliness creeps into your chest cavity, hollows it out and curls in there like a fog on a pier. Michael was gone, Gerard hasn’t been back in so long, and you were so alone.

Elias briefly checks up on you, asks about your morning walk and compliments your new shoes, wishes you a peaceful weekend and lends you an umbrella when it’s storming. But he’s no friend, and you are under no delusions that you are replaceable to him if needed.

You had no family to turn to. No more friends. Even the stray cat you were feeding regrettably was hit by a car. You felt so desolate and solitary.

You used to cry about it frequently. Every night even, especially after Micheal’s disappearance. But now you can’t even bring yourself to shed tears, they dried long ago; now all you have is the cold knowledge that you have nothing, and that nobody wants you.

When Gerard comes to the Institute again, you don’t even see him at first. You used to jump at the chance to even look upon the handsome man with his badly dyed hair and plethora of tattoos, but now when you hear the other people in the office tittering over his arrival, you just… acknowledge he’s there in the building. You don’t feel excitement or dread or anything. You meant nothing to Gerard, why would he visit you? You don’t even leave your desk to see him.

You felt it again, the loneliness. The heavy fog settling in your brain where you just stare ahead and register nothing going on around you, not processing anything, just barely existing.

Maybe you’ll kill your self today, your thoughts muse in the back of your mind. Death must be nice. To not have to worry about anything; not about friends dying or abandoning you, about poor strays on the street, about perfectly distant bosses and co workers…

It’d be easy; people kill themselves all the time. The Institute was a rather tall building. A drop from there would surely end you; and you know where all the key copies were to get access to the roof.

You had to cross a bridge over a river to get to work; on your way home you could easily crawl over the railing if you wanted.

You were suddenly acutely aware of the sleeping pills in your apartment, ones you bought months ago to aid with your insomnia. It’d be like taking a long rest, like going to bed.

Someone was shaking your shoulders, someone was saying your name with a rising pitch of desperateness. You felt your office chair swivel to face a dark mass and warm warm hands cupped your face.

Rough thumbs wiped away at the hot tears settling on your face. When your vision focused, you saw Gerard. Black lipstick, teased hair, tattoos and dark, wide, worried eyes.

He says your name again and it sound like it aches in his throat to say it.

Several long moments were in silence as the book-burner wiped your face with his finger and smoothed your hair down, eyes darting around your figure as if to search for an injury.

Finally, your voice croaked. “Hi…”

A sigh of relief escapes him, he visibly sags. Hands rest on your shoulders heavily. “Hey. You were crying, did something happen?”

A part of you wants to be enraged. Of course something happened. Micheal is probably dead. The cat that sleeps in your apartment all winter is dead. You want to be dead. You want to carve out your insides so your body reflects how you feel and this whole time he wasn’t there-

But you can’t even feel the anger within you anymore. The burning spite inside you is snuffed out by the chill of your indifference of the situation.

“… I’m fine…” you eventually mutter, looking to your desk. The files on the surface were meant to be sent out ages ago, you should really get on that.

Don’t want to leave your replacement a messy desk after all.

You see Gerard flinch in your peripheral. “Listen- I’ve been meaning to talk to you…”

He smells like cigarettes and sweat, and you briefly realized you will miss that smell when you kill yourself. He flinched again.

“It’s really kind of important, um, can we talk about it over drinks? Right after you get off?”

This stalls your brain. Sure, suicide was a sudden desire, but it felt like the right decision to make. Drinks would just put off the inevitable.

Gerard’s hands came back up to your face again, warm and solid. “Please?”

… you’ve never heard Gerard Keay say please before. At least not earnestly. Usually it was sarcastic and in annoyance. The sincerity of the word casts off whatever dregs of the fog were left, and now you were hyper aware of yourself and your surroundings.

Your cheeks were wet; when did you start to cry? And your hands were balled up into fists so tight your knuckles changed colors. Your mouth was incredibly dry and your jaw aches which how tightly you were clenching your teeth.

Gerard’s presence was warm, comforting. It almost make you choke a sob, and you felt very suddenly the desire to spill every thought about your plans to kill yourself to him, and the only thing that stopped you was social graces and the idea that Elias was right behind the door beside you both and could probably hear you.

“Drinks?” You inquire, blinking away the swell of cold tears in your eyes “um, it’s Tuesday, though-“

He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about that. Just-just say you’ll come. I’ll walk with you after work.”

It sounded more like a plan for himself but you were always so weak willed you didn’t have it in yourself to contest him. So you nodded. Gerard smiles and breathes out a long breath, like he was holding it in. “Good.” He concludes, rising up from his crouching position and removing his hand from your face. “Good. I’ll see you at five.”

He almost turns to leave, before staring hard at Elias’s door. Thick rubber soles squeaked slightly as he steps even closer to you. He looks down at you, eyes wide and searching. One of his black painted finer nails prodded at your fist until it was pulled apart and relaxed by his ministrations.

“Hey…” he sighs, “I’m… I am sorry for not coming back to you sooner.”

A small frown pulls at your mouth. You never meant to make Gerard feel guilty. “It’s fine.” You assure, voice soft.

His eyes alight with sadness. “It’s not. It’s not okay, you need to know that.” He stresses, before finally turning and leaving.

As soon as the door to the hallway close, Elias’s door opens.

He says something about a meeting he has tomorrow with a Board member, a Mr. Lukas, and he asks you to be sure to brew strong coffee for the gentleman when he arrives tomorrow.

You nod, and plan on maybe killing yourself later in the week; to make it easier on everyone.

—

Five pm rolls around at a snails pace, but surely and dutifully, Gerard is there at the door to the exit, waiting for you.

He looks… not stressed, just anxious. Like he’s itching to leave the building as soon as you’re within reach. And that’s exactly what he does. The second he saw you his face erupts into a smile and one of his pale, tattooed hands reached out and gently grabs your elbow, pulling through the front door and down the steps to the road as he sings praises about the bar the two of you were going to; nothing too stuffy but not overtly casual, and he promises that the cocktails are unique and the music they play is a far better selection than most.

You knew from his description he was probably taking you to a goth bar; you didn’t really mind. The idea of strong drinks and black painted walls and sad music almost seemed like a comfort to you.

The hand on your elbow migrates down to your wrist, and finally your hand. His grip was sturdy, and he never let your digits go, squeezing slightly whenever he thought the two of you might get separated.

Gerard was always affectionate with you before. Casually playing with your hair whenever he passed by you in the hallway, placing a hand on your shoulder as you laugh along with Michael over the latest office mishaps, even a few times bringing his lips to your knuckles when you handed him a well appreciated cup of tea whenever he was staying late at the Institute. The touching was not foreign territory, but it felt like forever since you’ve been there, like walking through your childhood house after having been moved out for decades.

When you finally make it to the bar, which was in fact a hole in the wall goth bar, Gerard lead you to the darken back corner, and huddled up next to you comfortably, as if you’ve done this a thousand times before, like it was a regular thing. His arm was heavy and warm around your shoulders and he handed you a cocktail menu.

True to his word, they all had fairly spooky names and sounded tasty. You didn’t even really know which to pick, but Gerry points to one that seems like it’ll suit your taste just fine. You almost titter at how well he knows you, before swallowing down your excitement. You could just be an easy read.

You don’t even order for yourself; as soon as the waitress, decked in black and spiked black hair, came over, Gerard ordered for himself and you, his voice lilting and he seemed utterly uninterested in even looking at the woman, rather eyeing you as he moves some hair out of your face as he spoke.

While the drinks were being made, he fusses over you, asking small conversational questions like, “How is Elias treating you?” and, “You’ve been sleeping well, I hope?”

After weeks of no one even asking after your health you flush under the attention, answering each question softly and as briefly as you can surmise, shy and bashful as Gerard’s dark eyes roam your face and observes your mouth every time you opened your lips to answer. He nods along and occasionally his hand rubs your shoulder.

You feel like he’s avoiding the obvious. Avoiding Michael. Maybe the loss was felt as keenly for him as you felt it. Maybe he was just as wrecked by the blond’s disappearance and is trying to find solace and common ground in you.

When the drinks do come, the goth man removes his arm from your shoulders and sets a napkin in front of you, moving your cocktail onto it without prompt. A tense moment of silence settles now that you’re alone again, and Gerard heaves a heavy sigh.

“I never should have left you alone for so long after he left.” He chokes out, eyes searching your face for your reactions to his words. When not a muscle twitches in your expression, Gerard continues. “I was… hurting. I was angry, and it had nothing to do with you but I was acting ugly and I didn’t want you to see that side of me.”

You nod, ready to let forgiveness slip past your lips when he cuts you off.

“It wasn’t okay of me, it’s not alright. I should have never, ever, let you go through that alone.” He looks so regretful, so sorrowful, it made your heart ache; it was one of the strongest emotions you’ve felt in a while. “I- I don’t even know how to make it up to you, for abandoning you like that.”

The earnestness in his voice makes you stall. You’re not the kind of person people seek forgiveness from. You just got walked over and forgotten and you were used to it. To have anyone, especially someone as high up and composed as Gerard, beseech you for amnesty, seemed to fully pull you from whatever slump you’ve been in these past few weeks.

Your face finally emoted; you frowned and your eyebrows drew together in sympathy, and you shouldered the darkly dressed man. “Drinks is a good start, but I don’t want you beating yourself up over it. You’re here now.” You tried really hard to show that all was forgiven. “Just… try not and leave me again for so long?”

It felt silly to even ask, like a child begging their parent to return safely from a business trip.

Gerard looked at you very seriously, one of his hands coming to yours that were clasped in your lap. “Not as long as I live.”

—

The night was a blur, your drinks were consumed and you’re not entirely sure when you kissed Gerard on the cheek in gratitude or when he kissed your shoulder in fondness but somehow the two you ended up just… kissing in the dark alley next to the bar.

Gerard was all consuming; the way he leaned into you, how his thumb ran over the pulse in your wrist with one hand and his other thumb pressed into your jugular. He smelled like cigarettes and old books up close, he felt warm and heavy against you, how he sighed and moaned when you grabbed onto the lapels of his leather duster to pull him in closer. Every time you opened your eyes all you saw was his dark and brooding set gaze at you from behind heavy lids and the sight was too much for your heart to handle so you close them again, Gerard pulling you closer.

Any closer and you’d become one.

Maybe you wouldn’t be so lonely then.

His head ducks down, nosing your neck and the hand the occupied your throat drops down to your waist. A hot tongue licks your pulse and you gasp, eyes rolling in the back of your head. A black jean clad leg slips between yours, and you’re effectively pinned against the brick wall.

“Missed you…” he moaned, teeth scraping against your skin. “Missed seeing you, being around you, talking to you…” a hand snaked around and pulled you closer by the small of your back. “Fuck me for leaving.”

You gasp and groan, and come to the realisation. That Gerard was a talker, and that you were easily swayed by words. You didn’t even realise that Gerard even liked you this way until about twenty minutes ago. How long has he harboured a crush on you? Had he thought of kissing you often? As often as you thought of kissing him?

He said other things, salacious things, directly in you ear as his hands moved up and down your body, hot breath puffing against the shell of your ear as he occasionally dipped down to kiss you or give you love bites along your neck.

You desperately wanted to do something besides just being there, allowing yourself to be kissed and bitten and wooed. You wanted to move, kiss back, make Gerard as flustered as you were; but the skin to skin contact, the affection, the confirmation of attraction overwhelmed you so much you almost choked up.

In fact you did.

A small sob crashed through your lips as tears welled in your eyes.

The sound causes Gerard to straighten up, and he quickly took in the sight of you crying and stepped away from you, concern of his face.

“Shit- I’m sorry.” He rushes out. “Fuck I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry!”

The separation makes you feel cold and lonely again and your stomach swoops in dread because Gerard, beautiful, wonderful Gerard, is now looking at you like some fragile breakable thing and you just can’t stand the idea that you’ve ruined all the ground you covered in the last hour, and that after this he’ll never want to talk to you again. Boys don’t like people who cry when you kiss them.

Fog begins to seep into the alley, coming off from the street and the dead end a few yards away from you. You don’t try to comprehend how fog just manifested from no where, you just sob again because Gerard was going to shun you out for being too damn weird and unapproachable.

You babbled apologies, heart clenching, trying to verbalise that you were fine, that he didn’t do anything wrong, just that you were fucked up about everything and he should probably just ignore you forever after this.

The fog became thicker and you shiver at the coldness it brings. You sob again, hiding your face in your hands so you can stop looking at the man’s beautiful and worried face.

God, you wished that the wall would swallow you up entirely; you wished you could just disappear and stop being such a nuisance; you should’ve just gone home and killed yourself.

So a brief second, the sound of the air about you had changed. The music leaking through the wall stopped, cars were no longer passing by the mouth of the alley, you didn’t hear the wind shake the plastic lid to the dumpster, you even stopped hearing Gerard’s breath in front of you. The silence was deafening, frightening. For that second, you felt utterly, terribly alone. Like you were the only person in the entire world.

And just as soon as the sounds of the world were gone, they were back. Cars hitting the puddle on the road, early aught goth music seeping through the brick, and Gerard saying your name with desperation.

Warm warm hands clasp your shoulders and you finally peer through your fingers to see the man, lipstick smudged and hair frizzy from the fog. He eyes looked wild, fearful, and he gripped your person so tightly like a life line, like you’d runaway if he let go.

Gerard says your name very lowly. And your sobbing ceased at his tone. Oh god, he was going to yell at you or something, you were certain. He was going to call you a freak and that he never should have even bothered with you in the first place-

“You need to breathe.” He commands. “Look at me, and breathe; be here with me right now, get out of your head.”

Your eyes dart wildly around the alley, not wanting to meet his gaze. God, why couldn’t just be normal for once-

A small pang of pain snapped across your brow, right between your eyes.

You look ludicrously to Gerard, eyes moist from tear and voice shaking from crying. “Did you just flick me?” You warbled.

“Yes.” He admits readily. “Now, calm down.”

His word sounded normal but felt… staticky in your ears. Like tv fuzz was playing just under his voice.

Almost instantly your breathing evened out and you no longer felt the desire to cry; your mind wasn’t filled with self-hateful thought but now just focused on Gerard, who was watching you carefully.

Reaching into the pocket of his duster, he pulls out handkerchief, and wipes at your face, sighing. He looked expressionless, and you feared the worse.

“I’m… I’m not great at this.” He says softly, stowing the cloth back into his coat. “I always go too fast, I’m told, It’s just-“ he screws his lips together as he thinks. “I- I feel like if I left you alone for too long, you’d forget about me, and I just wanted to make sure you didn’t think I’ve lost interest in you, I didn’t even think that I’d, well, overwhelm you like I did.”

You swallow thickly, considering his words.

“I never knew you were interested in me.” Was all you can say.

Gerard sighs. “Yeah, I’m piecing that together now.” He winces. “I had it in my head that this was a long time coming for both of us, I never stop to think that I might be surprising you with my sudden infatuation. I’m sorry.”

Your mouth is already opening to forgive him when he silences you with a cool look.

“I… must’ve freaked you out pretty badly, huh?” He questions, moving closer to you, but refraining from touching you again.

“It’s not that you freaked me out,” you’re quick to answer, “it’s just… yeah, it came out of nowhere to me.” He looks down casted and you wait a moment before speaking again. “I like you so much, Gerry.” You confess, voice creaking with emotion. “I’ve just been so lonely, and it’s hard for me to think that you’d like me too.”

He looks to you, sympathetic. And he nods to himself before extending one hand to yours, gently grasping your fingers.

“How about we do this a little more properly?” He suggests. “Would you like to go to dinner with me?”

You almost laugh at how hopeful he looks, like you would say no.

The idea of dinner was nice, but the thought of going back to your empty apartment scares you now. Being alone again scares you; the idea of someone not watching you scares you because what if you get lost in your own head again and this time the silence wouldn’t disappear after a second.

“Tonight?” You ask, stomach twisting. It’s wasn’t exactly early evening any more, by all rights he could deny you.

He nods, decisively and eagerly. “My place?” He suggests.

A smile fights its way across your face. “Scary movies too?”

Highly amused, Gerard smiles, and pretends to think for a moment. “Well, if we do that, you might be too scared to go home by yourself.” He reasons.

“Sounds like I’ll need to sleep over, then.”

“Brilliant.”

[chickenparm]

almighty chickenparm are you cooking up any hsr stuff by any chance.....we are starving

i'm so-very-slowly working on an aventurine(x reader ofc) fic, but i don't know when it will be done because big parm has little motivation these days. but here's the first bit of it, go crazy, brother

---

The first time the app is suggested to him between rounds of digital slots on his phone, Aventurine thinks it’s a joke. He can’t help but laugh at the simplistic nature of the advertisement, with simple adornments that clearly lay out what the app is for. Not to mention it’s based in Penacony, and that’s a long ways off from where he’s lounging in Pier Point. 

And it doesn’t cross his mind until a few weeks on, when he’s between assignments once more and passing the time with a few rounds of online blackjack. The stakes are low, practically nonexistent, so he lets his mind wander a little after the advertisement shows up again.

What a ridiculous concept, he thinks as his heel taps against the floor and his knee bounces. Professional cuddling - how silly. The only people who would solicit such services would be those who are incredibly lonely and desperate. On the screen, his score changes, showing he has a neat twenty. His thumb hovers over the button as he contemplates the risk of taking it further. 

Aventurine’s turn ticks down, and the player to his right at the virtual table hits twenty-one. The jingle of the advertisement echoes faintly in his ears as he loses.

A handful of months trickle by, a few assignments, a few wins, some losses. It’s after one of these narrow wins that he counts his luck and tucks his phone against his ear with his shoulder as he listens to Topaz get dressed down by their superiors. 

Topaz dodges his invitation to assist with the Penacony job, a bit more brusque than he was expecting. It’s not like they were friends, but he at least expected her to be a bit more open to it all. Her loss, he thinks as she abruptly hangs up on him and he’s left staring at the wall with his phone falling silent. 

Something nags at him - it always has. But up until now, there’s been little point in picking that apart and examining what he’s so quietly caught up on. Unfortunately, as of late, it’s been crawling up his back and whispering in his ear in ways that can’t be ignored further. 

Aventurine is well traveled. The IPC sends him far and wide to suit their needs. A backwater planet comes to mind, some place with a low grade and a high debt. The hotel he’d stayed at was the best he could find, built of bricks and covered with ivy that crept close enough to his window that opening it would disturb the vines. 

The owner of the hotel had workers trimming back the plant, and he’d overheard him griping to said workers that the ivy was a nuisance and grew back thicker each year, no matter how often it was pruned. 

Loneliness is like that, he thinks.

[familyabolisher]

Tennessee falls in love a lot too. “I have a funny heart. Sometimes it seems to thrive on punishment,” he admits. What other memoir has “loneliness” listed in the index? Provincetown, Massachusetts, that beautiful beach town on the very tip of Cape Cod, seemed to bring out the best in him romantically. Not only did he meet two of his best boyfriends there (and Tallulah Bankhead), he wrote the line “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” while holed up in a cabin before the summer season began. I felt the same way about Provincetown. I hitchhiked there in 1964 just because somebody told me, “It’s a weird place,” and boy, were they right. A very gay place too, but a different kind of gay. “I may be queer, but I AM this,” I remember thinking. I’ve gone back to Provincetown for forty-three summers and every time I pass by Capt’n Jack’s or the “little bar” at The A House, two places Tennessee got lucky in love, I mentally genuflect in respect.

[...]

I never met Tennessee Williams, but I saw him once at The Pier House restaurant in Key West, surrounded by admirers, looking a little woozy, and decided maybe this wasn’t the time for us to be introduced. But reading Memoirs is the next best thing—it’s like having a few stiff drinks with Tennessee on one of his good nights as he tells you juicy stories that were once off the record. Listening could save your life too.

John Waters on Tennessee Williams, 2006

[pitch-pearl-void]

Leaves

The nighttime fights didn't bother Phantom at all, but he could hear in the humans' voices how tired they were getting, even through the speakers of the Fenton Earphones. He didn't interrupt as they made plans to call it a night. Patrolling was easier and much more fun when there were others to help him, but he could handle it. His friendship with the three humans who he had first met on the other side of the portal was still nebulous and strange, too fragile for him to risk losing over something like loneliness.

Instead, he found the calmest of the humans, the one who Phantom's spirit most resembled and the one who best understood the hunters' technology.

The one most afraid of Phantom.

As always, the human, Danny, tensed as Phantom approached, fear flashing through his aura, in his eyes. It wasn't as strong as before and he no longer flinched or fled, three months of carefully constructed friendship building a bulwark against instinct, but the fear was still there and Phantom felt a responding wariness settle into the pit of his stomach.

He slowly landed on the pavement in front of Danny, trying to keep from making any sharp movements that would spook him into flight. He met Danny's eyes, noting the way the light of the full moon desaturated the blue of his irises but highlighted the liquid so that his eyes almost had a dim glow. Like a ghost's.

"One ghost at the pier," Phantom explained as he slipped the Fenton Thermos off his shoulder, "and two in the forest–er, in the...park?" Nerves rioting at the messup, Phantom shifted on his feet, fighting against the urge to levitate. "Plus the five earlier today, it's probably full. Can you empty it when you get home?"

Gingerly, Danny reached for the Thermos, carefully gripping the cylinder so that their fingers didn't brush. "Uh, s-sure." His eyes were no longer looking back into Phantom's–not unusual for Danny–but instead of looking down, he was looking up. And he sounded distracted.

Phantom swallowed. Had he done something wrong? "What is it?"

"You have leaves in your hair."

"What?"

Phantom reached for his hair. His fingers encountered something dry and rough. It scratched against the sensitive skin of his bare hand and crinkled at his touch. He flushed, feeling his cheeks tingle as ectoplasm rushed to his face. The dried husks crinkled and popped as his fingers closed over them, the sound making his skin crawl. Quickly, he grabbed at the leaves and started ripping them from his hair.

Danny watched, frowning as he slid the strap of the Fenton Thermos over his shoulder. "You're breaking them," he warned.

"So? They're already dead." Phantom thought he'd pulled all the leaves out–there couldn't be that many, right?–but when he brushed his fingers over his hair again, he found smaller versions of the same leaves littering his hair. He swore.

"Stop, okay? Look." Despite Danny's commanding tone, Phantom would have continued trying to rid his hair of the leaves had he not seen Danny's hands pass in front of his face. He froze. "I can get them for you, just hold still."

Phantom did, not even daring to move his hands away from his hair, afraid any movement on his part would startle the human into running.

Phantom didn't feel Danny's fingers against his skin, but he felt the slight tug on his hair as Danny grabbed and slid the first fragmented leaf free. It tickled and Phantom almost flinched back. Were it Sam or Tucker, he might have, but Danny was so frightened of him, and Phantom had worked so hard to gain his trust, every sense, thought, and movement was hyperfocused on not scaring him.

It was like finally earning the acceptance of a wild creature. Like a stray cat daring to accept a scratch. Phantom would have sooner eaten the leaves than ruin what was happening.

Whatever was happening.

Something was, he just wasn't sure what. His core was pulsing rapidly for all that there were no ghosts to fight, no danger to him or Danny. Danny stood so close Phantom could feel the body heat radiating from him, teasing Phantom's skin.

A light tug on Phantom's hair as another fragment was pulled free.

Phantom stared into Danny's eyes, enchanted by the concentration therein, the minuate flickers of movement as Danny searched for the leaf fragments. Phantom closed his eyes and slowly–so very slowly–lowered his hands.

Danny continued pulling the fragments free, tickling Phantom's scalp and sending shivers down his spine. The heat of him, the gentle ministrations...Phantom swayed forward, his chest aching.

He could have stood there another hour, soaking in the heat and attention, but then Danny's fingers brushed through Phantom's hair. It was so unlike the careful preening of before, more caress than something like a cleaning motion. It felt good, and Phantom leaned into it before he forced his eyes open.

Danny stared back. Caught in the act of watching Phantom's face instead of his hair, the human's face flushed red. He jerked his hand back, and Phantom startled in turn. They stared at each other, and, slowly Phantom gained the same blush as Danny, the emotions of before leaving him flustered now that the moment was gone. He levitated off the ground, and Danny, ever afraid of ghosts and their powers, stepped back.

"I, uh," Phantom stuttered, "thanks. For the leaves. I, um–"

He could have just turned intangible.

Phantom choked. More ectoplasm surged to Phantom's face and he squeaked out a hasty good night before flying away at top speed.

[preciouslandmermaid]

quiet fury in your head [ix]

Dream of the Endless x AFAB!Reader!Goddess / Sandman Fanfiction

Note: I was working on the playlist I have for this story and it inspired me to get this chapter out. Truthfully, I had about 80% of the chapter already written AGES ago, and so all I had to do was add the beginning scene/tweak a few things lol

No use of Y/N. See part 1 for all the tags tbh.

Warnings: self-harm in a ritualistic way + blood/injury + angst

Rating: 18+

(Read on AO3)    ||   (masterpost for other chapters)  

The wind gently tugs at your cloak as you stand on the pier. It is wholly unnecessary to be here on the pier, but this is how Dream leaves for his Odyssey, and you’ve always enjoyed the cyclical rhythm of repetition. You were once a trio. There’s power in rituals and repetition. You won’t leave the Dreaming through the waters, but you’ll leave while standing on this pier, the same way Dream does.

“No fanfare or farewell,” Lucienne’s voice floats to your ears. “I’m glad I caught you before you left.”

“Are you?” You glance over your shoulder and your eyebrows tick upward. Lucienne is not alone. Of the Dreaming inhabitants, you bonded with Lucienne and Dima, but there had been other passing connections throughout the centuries. You had not felt them significant at the time, but the presence of Abel, Cain, and the Corinthian proves differently. I have touched their lives even if they have not touched mine. You turn and face the small gathering. The brothers, Abel and Cain, were less of a surprise than the Corinthian who stood with his hands in his pockets and the light reflecting off his sunglasses.

“I wished to give you this,” Lucienne says while passing a leather-bound book to your hands. Instinctively, you open to see the language written within, but blank pages flutter before you like a flurry of white moths, a storm of white sheets.

A fist squeezes inside your throat. “Your kindness is witnessed, Lucienne,” you respond stiffly. This is not an offering like the times of old. This is a gift. Lucienne, loyal to Dream and his Realm, took the time to give you something to remember her by.

“I admit I will miss your presence in the library,” she says, “and our lessons.”

“I will return to the Dreaming someday,” you inform her and her gentle, melancholy smile brightens and reaches her dark, intelligent eyes. Lucienne steps back, nods her head and, the brothers rush into the space she once occupied.

“Lady,” Abel bows, “my brother and I will miss your visits.”

Cain says, “We will miss your stories, especially.”

Throughout the centuries, there had been a handful of times when boredom and loneliness brought you to the brother’s home. You enjoyed watching their endless story – the death and rebirth – the tragedy and anger. It reminded you of your sisters. They’ve always allowed you to stay the for the evening if you agreed to share a story of your people—be it the other Gods or creatures of folktale.

“And your company,” Abel says with a sharp glance at Cain.

“I already said that,” Cain replies hotly. This is their destiny, the wind tugs at the hem of your dark cloak, and I cannot stay to watch it play out once more. You have your future to write. Sisters to bury. A friend to find. A new Godhood to shape.

“Be well,” you cut in before they can continue to argue, “and I will return with new stories.”

It may be a millennium before you return, but time has no bearing on a dream. The brothers bicker quietly as they shuffle back toward the shore. You draw your breath into your lungs and briefly hold it. The Corinthian’s golden head cocks to the side and is studying you when he approaches. You taste the memory of saltwater and bright storms. You will not be bowed by a Nightmare. You exhale and push your shoulders back.

“Have you come to claim your favor?” you ask softly. You feel Lucienne’s eyes on you and imagine how the sight may appear—Corinthian and yourself standing close and speaking in low, intimate tones, as the waters of Odyssey gently lap and wave beneath the dark pier.

His lips quirk. “No. Although, I’m happy to hear you haven’t forgotten it.”

“Of course not. I do not offer promises and favors lightly,” the haughtiness in your tone reminds you of your Old Self – the Goddess of Rage, the Lady Nemain of the Three Sisters. If he has nothing to offer and no farewells to give then I will be on my way. I cannot – I do not wish to delay any longer. I have waited long enough.

You say, “Farewell, Corinthian,” and a shroud of raven feathers encircles you as you vanish from the Dreaming.

************

You stand alone in a scorched grove of ash and blackened soil. The mountains in the distance are haloed by rings of gray smoke and rivers of luminous, orange lava spilled into the valley, inflaming dry brush and shrubs, and boiling once beautiful lakes into sulfur. The sky overhead flashes with lightning, and the air tastes of eroded stone and thunder, of smoldering wood and lonely, empty grief. Your fists clench at your sides.

The Otherworld was a place of verdant, wild fertility, and blue skies. Surely, it could not all be lost, could it? Something must have grown from the ashes. Your hope burns inside your chest.

“I am proud of you, pet,” Desire says, wearing Dream’s face. Their arrival is merely mildly surprising, though not wholly unexpected. You keep shifting through the black soil, pushing dirt with a stick and kicking aside rocks.

“I haven’t buried their tokens yet,” you reply.

“You will and perhaps...in doing so…” Desire trails off, smirking coyly.

You stop and cross your arms. It’s strange to see Dream wearing an expression like this one. It looks wrong and unnatural, yet your stomach clenches as if it is him. A low stirring of desire coils and you tamper it away. This is not your Dream. It is not Morpheus.

“What?” You prod against Desire’s continued silence.

“There’s still magic here,” they say with a wink before vanishing.

“Your secrets no longer tempt me,” you mutter, though Desire has long since vanished. There is nothing Desire can offer you. They cannot revive your sisters and would offer you only impostors. They would look, and perhaps act as Badb and Macha, but it would not be them. You are here to see the destruction for yourself and bury your sisters. Nothing more and nothing less.

All of the beautiful oak Dagda’s trees have been chopped and reduced to low stumps. Some were torn asunder from the earth and cast aside, their roots gnarled and twisted, or blackened into white-gray charcoal. Dagda. your Chieftain God had a white beard that twisted like tree roots and wise, ebony eyes—a face that you will always remember, but are destined to never see again. You swallow past the lump inside your throat.

It takes minutes or hours before you find the Heart Tree—Dagda’s magnificent oak. The symbol of his power and his standing with the Gods.

Or, rather, you find what remains of it.

The massive stump could fit an entire village within its rings. You drag your fingers across the rough, dark bark of its sprawling roots and then dig your fingertips into the divots and cracks with a strenuous exhale. The hem of your bloody dress catches on the jagged surface and you tugged it free, tearing it.

You ignore the rip and continue to climb.

You claw your way to the edge and pull yourself onto the flat, spiral-marked surface of Dagda’s Heart Tree. You do not stop crawling until you reach its center and collapse, face first, into the soft and sweet-smelling oak. Your fingertips are scarlet, blood seeping into your nail beds, and your hands are chaffed raw.

A raven lands near your forearm, “Lady Morrigan?”

“I am alright.” You lie, knowing her connection to Morpheus, and hating that he might see your sorrow and shame. The destruction is real. The death is real. There is nothing left of the Otherworld.

If only you had defeated Lugh, you might have saved your sisters and saved your home. Your nose squishes against the wood, and you breathe deep and seek an impression of Dagda’s magic within the layered bark.

Please, you beg the impassive wood, please, I do not wish to be alone forever.

The raven nudges her beak into your elbow. You sense that she is attempting to comfort you and wish you had any energy to smile or offer gratitude.

************

Dream sits on his throne, and holds your feather between his forefinger and thumb, and watches the play of light on the glossy, obsidian surface.

You have not moved from your fetal position on the large, forgotten tree stump. He watches through his raven – Myrtle—and his chest aches at the marks of grief shadowed beneath your eyes. He wishes to spare you from suffering.

Again and again, he considers summoning you to the Dreaming, using this feather like a sigil, and returning you to your rightful place beside him. But he resists the temptation. He has released you and you promised you would return.

He contemplates whether or not he made the correct choice. However, as long as Myrtle remains, he could take an odyssey into the Otherworld if you need him. He twirls the feather between his fingers and sighs. A sense of melancholy and regret found a home inside his chest. I should have followed. But I cannot abandon my responsibilities within the Dreaming for the sake of a whim.

************

Your weary bones ache as you walk. The feasting hall stands against the ashen backdrop like a skeletal, black behemoth. You pluck a piece of charcoal from the shifting ash and gravel and draw your old tattoos onto your skin. They had faded over time as your followers diminished and the rest of your pantheon died.

It’s time to mourn your sisters. It’s time to lay their tokens beneath the Heart Tree as Desire instructed.

You are the last remaining Goddess of a forgotten and abandoned worship. You are the last of your kind. And you owe it – to yourself, to the mortal you once were, to your sisters – to continue to live and find a way to rebuild what you lost.

You find the homestead that you shared and it is remarkably unburnt. A collection of small animal skulls hangs on red threads from the ceiling in Badb’s room and its rich, perfumed scent of dried flowers lingers in the smoky air.

You gasp and stubbornly wipe away the tears clinging to your eyes.

Macha’s room glows with warmth, swaths of carnelian and crimson fabrics are draped over the wooden beams, and elaborate woven rugs cover the floor. You snip a crow’s skull from its thread and collect Macha’s hairbrush made of horsehair. These tokens, you think, will suffice.

Lastly, you approach your room and behold the sight of a lifetime eons ago. The walls are covered with your favorite offerings—bronze spears that glimmer when the sun cuts through the open window. You break the tip of a spear and stand at the center of your sparse room with a rueful smile. Dream’s raven lands on the windowsill and caws.

You bow your head in silent appreciation. You had sensed her vigil. You know her presence meant Morpheus is watching over you as well, but that particular knowledge is harder to stomach.

You do not want him to be privy to this ritual. Your grief is choking your lungs.

It is not a long walk to return to the Heart Tree, though it feels as if it takes centuries. Your mind fills with a certain blackly-clad dressed individual in a starry cloak and unfathomable eyes. Oh, Morpheus. Your time in the Dreaming has softened you to him. You recall how he stood on the beach framed by cobalt waves with his hands clasped behind his back. You had watched his subjects and their subdued and hidden adoration of their Maker, and how even the blades of grass turned toward him.

He is an isolated, dark star in a kaleidoscope of wonder and radiance.

You wonder if it meant something that he offered you mercy, that he warranted you an exploration of the Otherworld because he felt some type of kinship to you. Could he see me as an equal now? You shake your head. These musings are useless. They serve little purpose but to make your chest ache with ruinous desire. You set aside all thoughts of Morpheus and his inscrutable sentiments.

The bronze spear tip is warm in your palm. You were once the Queen of Raven’s, weren’t you? You nudge against the raven’s mind, feeling Morpheus there, and learn the raven’s name is Myrtle.

You meet her dark eyes and see Morpheus in them, “I’m sorry,” You say earnestly, abandoning your sense of pride for this one, single precious moment. With a firm mental hand, you push his essence from Myrtle, and she flies– startled – into the air.

The soil is waiting.

You press the gilded point to your vulnerable inner wrist. A God should not be able to bleed. However, your weakened powers are heightened within the Otherworld, even if it is a shadow of itself. You bleed if you will it. A pinprick of deep crimson wells at the slight pressure of your hand.

“Farewell, sisters.”

You drag the point upward toward your inner elbow and rivulets of blood pour onto Badb’s and Macha’s tokens. You speak the poems of remembrance and farewell in a pleading and undulating tone that is reminiscent of your followers chanting beneath full moons. Your skin burns. The ash and dirt stir at your feet.

Your bloody fingers are freckled with dirt as you dig and bury Badb’s skull and Macha’s hairbrush beneath the Heart Tree’s roots. There. I have finished my task for Desire. I am free. I am free to live at last.

Your eyes snap backward into your skull. You see stars. You see your sisters. A rush of cold air whips around your face. You see Lugh’s laughing face. You see the glorious battlefields. The ground trembles. You see, through Myrtle’s eyes, that one of the volcanoes has erupted.

The Otherworld thickens with soot, memory, and supplication.

Morpheus’ face appears before you.

“You said you wished to see the Otherworld. Not that you wished to revive your sisters.” He clutches your bleeding wrist with wild, bright, and burning eyes. His voice is as impassive as stone.

Is that what I was doing? You wonder, though your dry lips cannot form the words. An icy panic latches itself onto your heart. The Otherworld is crumbling – it is dying. You feel it. A part of you, the part of you that is Badb, abruptly understands that the Otherworld has been waiting for your return. This is your fate and your doom.

Desire wanted me to come here...they said magic remained...did they know? Morpheus squeezes your bloody wrist. But your broken skin stubbornly refuses to heal. Did they believe I could revive my sisters in the end?

The Otherworld opens its arms to you. You are its doom and its epilogue. It wanted all its children home before it imploded like a dying star. You are a stream returning to the ocean. You are a plant wilting and rotting to compost. The Otherworld cracks.

“This is how it ends. You – Morpheus – were destined to be my undoing – my ruin.” Your voice sounds like Badb’s, raspy and weary and older than the stars themselves.

“You’re lying,” he seethes and his rage is cold. You taste his fear in the wind. I do not wish to leave you either, Morpheus. His eyes harden like black ice. If he does not believe you, well, it does not matter because the End is coming for you. Everything ends. Even Gods.

Something hot trickles down your cheeks.

“My fate is yours, Dream,” you shout over the cacophony of the tempest and volcanic earthquakes, “it has always been yours.”

Finally, you understand the prophecy. Nemain of the Three Sisters, The Banshee Queen, is meant to die in the arms of Dream the Endless. This is how your story goes:

He will always save you from Lugh’s poison. You will always venture into the Dreaming and marvel at its splendor.

Desire will always find you. Dream will always release you from the Dreaming’s prison...and protection.

You will always return to the Otherworld and bury your sister’s tokens.

And he will always lose you.

You will always be dead, worse off than a shade, with your name forgotten and history buried. You have already done this and will do it all again. This is what it means to be a God. A story. A written ending cannot be changed.

Perhaps the act of burying your sister’s tokens will be enough to return your sisters to the collective consciousness. Desire said there is magic here. You don’t need the whole tree. A small acorn of magic will be enough.

Let the stories sing of the magnificent Morrigan. Let her be courageous and devious, wicked, and wise. Let her contain all the fractured angles of a glistening gemstone. And let your name, Nemain, fall into dusted obscurity among the annuals of history. It will be enough. If you can change the narrative, in this small, wonderful way, then all of it—your loneliness, guilt, despair, grief, and longing—it’ll be worth it. You mentally sing your wish to the winds.

“No.” His anger thaws. “No.” He must’ve seen the resignation and sincerity in your face. “You promised you would return.”

You hold Dream’s face between your hands. You realize the wetness gliding over your face isn’t sweat or blood, but tears and you blink them away. Gods do not cry. And, more selfishly, you don’t want your final moments to be blurred.

“It would seem I am unable to honor my promise. I hope you will not hate me for it, though I will not fault you if you do.”

“I do not,” he says fiercely, his pale hands are marred with your blood, and they grip your face in desperation as the Otherworld collapses.

A faint, white light shines and sparkles through the fissures. A flicker of frustration etches across Dream’s usually calm, proud face.

“Come to the Dreaming.”

Even at the end of all things, you will not obey his orders. He would do well to understand that.

“I do not belong there,” you say with some difficulty, “you said so upon our first meeting and it was the truth. I am neither dream, nor nightmare, nor memory.”

“And what of my memories?” He pins you beneath his weighted gaze. “I do not forget so easily.”

You surge forward and kiss him with a tumultuous, wounded heart. Dream is motionless. You groan against his stubborn mouth, wishing for reciprocation, and hating the way your heart shatters at his stoicism. It is an odd feeling to let the tears fall.

You are not a creature of tears and sorrow. You are a herald of death and blood lust. Or you were. You were.

Dream slants his mouth over yours, adjusting, and you shudder, mollified.

You will fracture into oblivion and obscurity, yes, but at least you have this moment. In an era of solitude and bereavement, you will not face death alone. The dirt shimmers with light. You pull away from him with the solemn decision to face your death with your eyes open.

Morpheus’ intense expression steals the breath from your lungs. You burn alive like a sacrificial lamb in the light of his eyes.

“The Morrigan,” he whispers your name in reverence, “Queen of Nightmares.”

************ After the Otherworld shattered in brilliant light, his sister did not come and claim the Morrigan’s soul. This fact offers a paltry balm to his wounded heart. You might still yet live. Somewhere. Though Dream doesn’t know how to find you.

You do not dream, so he cannot find you within the Dreaming. And although your raven father no longer vibrates with echoes of your magic, he carries it with him, trapped in a desperate and melancholy hope within his breast pocket.

He cannot undo destiny. If it was your fate to become ‘undone’ – as you put it – then that was your fate. There is no bargain to be made, no trick to reveal, and no nightmare to banish. He considers calling upon his brother, Destiny, but what purpose would that serve? He knows how the story ends. He was there.

He focuses on his duties, his realm, and his creations.

It rains often.

He creates a Nightmare with black, feathered wings and sharp fangs, but struggles to complete the Nightmare’s eyes. He can only think of your eyes—deep, electrifying, the amount of swirling stars within them varying based on your mood—and he cannot get it right.

The Nightmare remains unfinished.

He doesn’t lament over the unfairness of losing you. He is Endless. This is the way things are, the way they were always meant to be, and it would be unproductive to whinge over it.

He has found himself at the stormy cliffside more often than expected. He stands with his hands clasped behind his back and focuses on remembrance—he’ll recall the sublime shape of your spine, the arch of your neck exposed to him with an up-do hairstyle, the play of your emotions across your face, fierce and breathtaking, even when sharpened with malice. He recalls the way your eyes looked on that final, fateful day. The galaxies within your irises had imploded, creating a field of black holes, and streaks of warping and bulbous light consumed the darkness before cannibalizing itself.

Another day, he returns to the mountainside where he secretly witnessed your first and only smile. He lifts his palm and lets the snowflakes settle on his skin with iced, tiny kisses.

He recalls your tearful expression, accepting his scorn, his denial, in light of everything you’d done. Your instinctive selfishness and desire for survival, luminous anger, and gilded conceit.

He doesn’t offer forgiveness or mercy for his creations. His realm requires ancient laws and stalwart order. That is how it functions. But he offered those gifts to you because you were not of his realm.

You were an outsider, who effortlessly wove yourself into the tapestry of the Dreaming – into him. He felt your touch, rich like blood, delicate as spring’s bloom, in the whispered nightmares you left behind.

Your final gift to him had been a kiss that seared his soul and bound him forever.

To him, none can compare, and he aches like a man starved for food at a banquet.

He has sensed Lucienne’s worry for him. However, she’s loyal and smart enough to not broach the topic.

He knows when others are speaking of you because they hush when he enters a room. Save for Corinthian. In the days after your annihilation, your death, Corinthian approached him and petitioned himself to search the living, waking world to try and find you.

He saw it for what it was. A poor, thinly veiled attempt to escape the Dreaming. He denied him.

Under the full, blue-gray moonlight, Dream stands in a field of pink camellias, pale red carnations, and purple heliotropes dappled with fresh rainwater. He pulls your feather from his coat and slides it across his lips – a poor substitution to your touch – but it’s all he has.

****

A/N: Flower meanings: pink camellias symbolize longing, pale red carnations symbolize an aching heart, while heliotropes symbolize eternal love/devotion.

[undiscovered-horizon]

Imagine being the one who releases Morpheus. - Part 2

[Part 1] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [ENDING] [ALT. ENDING] || A/N: I spilt the beans regarding my blog's name/title || Sandman-inspired playlist

For him, it's been mere hours but for you long years had passed where you had to learn life anew, without the comforts of privilege that your surname once provided you. Ever since Morpheus returned to his domain, his unkempt thoughts would slip away and slither back to the memory of your kind words and gentle eyes. After all, you had no reason to work against your father and set him free. You knew there was a real probability that Morpheus would kill you - a judge, jury and executioner in a world he didn't belong to - and yet you took that chance, believing in his assumed mercy. It was fairly foolish, even you knew that but it was also very human and that was an affliction you couldn't simply reason your way out of. That curious complexity Morpheus wasn't entirely capable of comprehending occupied a portion of his mind while he was busy rebuilding his kingdom.

When his realm was stable enough for the king himself to leave its grounds and venture into the Waking World once more, Morpheus followed your dreams and found himself in a small town by the sea. Looking around in search of your familiar face, he noticed someone sitting at the end of a long pier. They looked ethereal in their loneliness as people walking by the boulevard were either oblivious to their existence or consciously ignored them; the world of humans kept spinning in its usual rhythm and yet there was someone, a hermit by the endless waters, who existed next to it as if they were part of this world but the world wasn't exactly part of them.

Morpheus followed the pier, old and rotting planks creaking underneath his feet. As the sound of cars, people and dogs grew silent with every step he took towards the forgotten individual, it seemed as if he was crossing some invisible threshold between two parallel but not equal worlds. He was entering their seclusion as they once entered his.

You listened to the rhythm of his steps until they abruptly stopped close behind you. Looking over your shoulder, you saw exactly the same brooding man you helped escape a few years ago. There was something unnerving and yet comforting in the way nothing about him seemed to have changed. In some poetic way, you freed him from your father's malice entire years ago but he left that cold basement no earlier than yesterday.

"You haven't aged a day," you spoke up.

Not a shadow of any emotion passed by his features. "You did."

"Come on, sit." You patted the planks next to you.

"This is not a social call," he warned in a cold tone.

"Maybe not but I sure could use one."

Morpheus did not answer. Reluctantly, he approached the edge of the pier where you sat and only then did he notice a raft of mallards swimming around you. In your hands, you were holding a bag with cracked corn, oats and nuts. With an experienced flick of your wrist, you threw a handful of the mixed dry food to the ducks in the cold water below you. Pushing one another, each of the birds tried to eat as much as they possibly could.

"Where are we?" he asked. It was somewhat surprising to you that he had found you and yet did not know where exactly he did so. Maybe instead of following roads and signs, like people do, the King of Dreams relied upon a sense he was created with but one you could never relate to.

"Southend-on-sea, England. Right outside of London."

"Why here?"

His question had an interesting hidden suggestion that you had willingly chosen this place specifically to meet with him again when in fact you were never sure you would see Morpheus even one more time.

"Shh," you whispered as you raised your finger in a meaningful manner. "Just listen."

Surprisingly enough, Morpheus complied. At the tip of his tongue, he had a reprimand, reminding you that he was in no way your equal and you should never treat him as such but something made him discard that expression of his ego. The sound of waves crashing against the shore filled his ears. It was a rhythmic sough, one that brought tranquillity into the hearts of those hearing it despite its loudness. Seagulls were flying over his head, screaming their frustrations and hopes into the aether. With each breath, he smelt salt and algal bloom. In the presence of an otherworldly monarch, Mother Nature remained unmoved in her might, unimpressed with the oniric thaumaturge.

Being the King of Dreams, he had seen things more breathtaking and wonderful in their strangeness that the sight before him. Maybe in this fascination with nature's simplicity, he could find the key to your exceptionalism that he so desired to understand.

Listening to nature, a soft smile entered your face as you let out a tired sigh. "It's so peaceful in here. When you've grown up in a burning house, you simply assume the whole world is on fire. But it's not... It's not." Morpheus noticed how your voice was dripping with hope.

Watching you feed the ducks with corn, oats and seeds, Dream noticed something about your skin: there was a long scar on the back of your hand as if a beast of malice once dared to raise its horrible hand against you. The blemish was white in colour, a sign that the wound it was before was caused quite a long time ago; surely it wasn't a recent hurt. It did cross his mind that he was the reason for that scar - that fateful day when he broke free he paid for your kindness with a deep wound. Truthfully, it wasn't very king-like of him but at the same time he refused to take the blame for it: after all, he never did ask you to break open his prison.

"I never assumed I'd see you again, dear stranger," you interrupted the reflective silence.

"I was busy rebuilding my kingdom."

"So, Dream of the Endless, to what do I owe the pleasure of our reunion?" It was clear to you that an entity of his class wasn't one for welfare checks or anything like that. Wherever he appears, he had business to tend to there.

"I admit that it is knowledge I desire." Morpheus made a pause. "Why did you do it?"

For a moment, you simply watched his expressionless face. It felt almost funny that you could provide knowledge to someone who was probably as old as humanity if not even older. Whether either of you knew it at the moment - it didn't matter, not quite but Morpheus in his mundane lack of understanding of your motives, seemed no less humane than the pedestrians walking along the boulevard far behind you. The cold sea breeze tugged at your coat.

"The school I attended had a beautiful relief of lions and vines over the entrance with inscribed Seneca's quote: Dum iter homines sumus, colamus humanitatem. As long as we are human, let us be humane. That fateful day I did only that: I was humane."

"You are Rodrick's child. I could have killed you." Morpheus seemed to not quite be ready to let go of the notion that you, possibly, had an ulterior motive that you had discarded only upon basking in the might and glory of the King of Dreams.

"And it would have been your responsibility." What caught Dream's attention was your seeming lack of fear in the face of even hypothetical death. In his experience, people both craved and dreaded that fated moment. "What is kindness if not bravery in the face of cowardice and cruelty?"

"Had you no fear of your father's anger?" he changed the course of the conversation.

To you, it seemed nearly as if Morpheus came to you with a list of questions he wished to ask - like he was conducting research more than checking up on a past partner in crime if you could be called so.

"Oh, I did," you answered in a sad voice. Absentmindedly you rubbed the left side of your chest where Magus had burned a sacrilegious mark. It stopped hurting after you moved to the seaside, something about the humidity and salt bringing relief to the acute pain. "That day he disowned and cursed me, although what hex lies on me I do not know. In a way, I doubt I wish to ever know. The responsibility of such knowledge I might not withstand."

He had no doubts that you were strikingly different from humanity as a whole. You asked for nothing, you desired no power nor riches; you were strangely content not knowing. But that observation did not satiate his curiosity for Morpheus still did not comprehend why it was that way. The secret of your exceptionalism was still elusive to him. But, perhaps, he already had been given the exact answer he'd been seeking for the past years but something about him, some expectation he wasn't entirely aware of, prevented him from seeing it. Maybe he refused to accept that behind such dilemma and complexity stood a simple, very mundane and human, explanation.

Morpheus's eyes met yours. By the soft, understanding stare you gave him, he knew you had realized exactly what piece of knowledge he was seeking - the reason why he found you in the first place. He neither asked nor begged for he was a king. And yet you decided to answer his silent plea:

"Sometimes I think that it could be a truly revolutionary thought in its simplicity." To his utmost surprise, you grabbed Dream's hand. Your skin felt hot against his cold palm as if he was a corpse brought back to life by your burning touch. Firmly and yet gently, you held his hand as you poured some of the birdfeed into his palm. "That all it takes to make the world a little better, a little warmer, is just a little bit of tenderness."

You let go of his hand and suddenly the sea breeze felt a lot more freezing than Morpheus previously thought. Had he not known the pleasant warmth of your skin, the cold weather wouldn't be so severe to him then. The same chilly air shook him awake and Dream raised his hand above the raft of mallards and opened his fingers to let the birdfeed freely fall into the murky water.

Only then, when the seeds, oats and corn spilt from his open hand and into the water to be gobbled by hungered mallards, did Morpheus experience a truly human enlightenment: those birds owed him nothing and neither did he to them. They had no means of feeling gratefulness or of rewarding his good deed. The secret of human morality and its inborn complexity was revealed to him in all of its simplicity. The King of Dreams finally understood that you helped because you could. Because you wanted to. No other reason was needed for the love you spread wherever life guided you.

He thought back to your warm touch and how it burned his cold skin. In its absence, everything felt unbearably cold to the point of undermining his peace of mind. Was that... tenderness?

Tagging people who were interested in a follow-up: @rosaren2498 @jessiboobdbdb @chantzmar @lexi-anastasia @bisexualunicronrunningloose

[camille-lachenille]

Star-daughter 1/?

Part1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

* When Elwing jumps, she knows it isn’t only her own life she is taking, but what other choice is there? If it makes her a kinslayer she doesn’t care. Not really.

* Being changed hurts. It splits her bones, stretches her skin and reshapes her insides. But she lives, and so does the little spark in her.

* Eärendil cries when she tells him of the sack of Sirion; he weeps for their sons and she weeps along him. Then Elwing tells him of the life they can still save, and this time Eärendil’s tears are of happiness.

* The choice isn’t really a choice. It is a new beginning offered to her, a chance to once more rebuild a life for her and Eärendil, and maybe this time they will see their child grow up together.

* Elwing cries in her tower at the edge of the world, looking up at her husband’s ship sailing the skies. She cannot fly to him by now, her body too changed to risk another change. Each night, she climbs the stairs up to the top of her tower, a hand supporting her heavy belly, and looks at the Silmaril’s light until her eyes hurt.

* She is not fully alone for, one day, a golden-haired Elflord and a giant hound came to her door, arms full of presents and brimming with friendship. Elwing let them in and they made themselves at home.

* Huan hunts and Finrod cooks; dishes she has never heard of, dishes from Doriath and the folk of Bëor from lands that no longer exist.

* Elwing hurts, in body and soul, but her new friends soothe the pain and loneliness. She sleeps curled against Huan’s warm and furry side, his snout protectively resting on her belly. Her child won’t be alone.

* She gives birth the night after Eärendil left again after a too brief reprieve from his doom, and names her daughter Elrodel, star-princess.

* The babe is her father’s portrait, all golden locks, blue eyes and dimpled smile. Each night, Elwing climbs up the stairs and shows her daughter the course of Vingilot.

* Finrod is besotted with Elrodel, telling her a thousand stories and more, giving her more gifts Elwing knows what to do with. Elrodel is likely taken by Finrod and wails whenever he is gone for too long.

* Huan looks over Elrodel too, let her ride on his back and teaching her all there is to know about the local wildlife.

* Elrodel’s first word is mama, and Elwing smiles not to burst into tears. Then Elrodel turns to Finrod with her beaming, dimpled smile and says “Da!”

* Elwing flees the room. She runs up up up the stairs, to the last level of her tower. There she collapses amidst the birds and sobs until her eyes burn and her throat aches. A gull pecks at her hair.

* When she comes down, Elrodel is babbling in that language of hers, showing her toys to Huan. Finrod nods gently at Elwing; his eyes are red rimmed despite his smile. “She will learn to call me uncle, eventually,” he says. Elwing nods in return and picks her daughter up, retiring early for the day.

* Elrodel is one year old when Eärendil is granted another reprieve. Elwing waits for him on the pier leading to the edge of the world, their daughter securely held in her arms. Finrod went to stay with his family south, in Alqualondë, and Huan is roaming the wild hills.

* Eärendil is changed. He is thinner and almost shimmers in certain lights. Elrodel shies away from his calloused hands and prickly cheeks, and it takes Elwing everything she has not to think about how her sons would react in a similar manner when Eärendil returned to Sirion after one of his journeys.

* They make an odd family, the three of them in this lonely tower. The tired star-mariner, his sad wife who speaks with birds and their bright daughter who runs on the beach and plays with otters and seals. Elrodel never saw another child, never met someone else outside of her strange little family. Her best friend is a dog and her uncle once ripped a wolf’s throat with his bare teeth.

* It could be worse, Elwing muses as she watches her daughter warm up to Eärendil. She rides on his shoulders as they walk down the beach, pointing at seals swimming in the bay, at hidden puffin nests on the cliff and shiny shells half-buried in the sand.

* Eärendil has sand in his hair and a twinkle in his eyes that night, and Elwing is reminded with a pang of their walks on the shore with their boys. But this is lost forever, and she must focus on the present or fade from grief. For better or for worse, she is one of the Eldar, and she will fight every single day for this life she choose.

* Finrod returns with relatives in tow, a golden haired couple that can only be Eärendil’s parents, Idril and Tuor. There are many tears as they reunite, and much cooing at Elrodel.

* Elwing smiles and chats, serves tea and accepts the gifts from her inlaws, but her heart bleeds. She hates the part of herself who is jealous of her husband for having a family when she has none.

* Too soon, Eärendil has to leave again, and the tower feels colder and lonelier than ever. Even Elrodel’s laughter cannot warm Elwing fully.

* Time passes, and the news Finrod brings from the wide world are darker by the day. Eärendil doesn’t come ashore for many years as war rages back home, in Beleriand. Elrodel grows, wild and joyful, blissfully unaware of her parent’s grief.

* She has forgotten Eärendil, Elwing realises. Her daughter doesn’t know she has a father.

* It is her fault, for speaking of Eärendil is so painful she prefers to lock her memories of him away in her heart, with her two little boys. Elrodel never heard of them either, her brothers slain before she even came into the world.

* Idril and Tuor come to stay in the tower. They tell Elrodel stories of her family. Of Eärendil and Sirion, and Gondolin before that. Elwing takes refuge with her birds and listens to their chatter and gossips. She misses being a gull.

* The war is won, Beleriand is no more. Elwing weeps for the loss of her homeland.

* Eärendil docks down at last, wan and tired and the shadow of the man she loves. Her husband, the dragon-slayer, the Star of Hope. Elwing runs down the pier and throw herself at him with all her love and despair. His embrace is cold and unfamiliar and he weeps in her hair.

* Elrodel is taller than her father now, a grown woman with too bright eyes who walks barefoot on the sharp cliffs. She speaks to birds and sea beasts more often than to Elves.

* She looks at Eärendil and she is a little girl once again, shying away from him yet stealing glances at this stranger from behind her mother.

* They stay up long in the night, talking of this or that, Elrodel recounting her latest exploration of the hills with Huan. Elwing sits close to Eärendil, never let him out of her sight. She feels he will disappear of she closes her eyes even for a moment.

* It is much later, once they are alone in her - their - bed, that Eärendil speaks of what he saw. Not everything, Elwing can hear the untold horrors in the pauses of his speech, but enough for her to have an idea of what happened to her beloved homeland. At long least, he closes his eyes, red from crying and staring at the Silmaril for all these years, and he says: “They live, our boys. I saw them both from above, managed to send a letter to them.”

* Elwing grips Eärendil’s hand with all her strength, the air stolen from her lungs. Her boys live. Her two little stars. Elrond and Elros. She cries against his shoulder as Eärendil tells her of Elros’ valour and Elrond’s wisdom.

* The next day, Elwing takes Elrodel for a walk on the beach and, for the first time since that fateful day where she jumped to her supposed death, she speaks aloud of Elrond and Elros. She speaks until her voice gives out and tears stream down her cheeks, and then she sobs and wails for all the years she has lost, kneeling in the sand. When she comes to herself, Elrodel is nowhere to be seen.

* Elwing tries not to fret, for she knows learning she has two older brothers she will never meet must be a hard blow to her daughter. She recalls well enough her own reaction when she learned of the fate of Elúred and Elúrin. Still, Elwing paces her tower and the beach, listens to the birds and tries to find what comfort she can in the tales of their sons Eärendil tells her.

* It takes Elrodel two full weeks to come home, dirty and tired but with Huan walking in her steps. She hugs Elwing hard, then Eärendil, and wordlessly walks to her room. She doesn’t come down for supper but there is a letter for Elwing on the kitchen table the next morning.

* Mum, father, I will be staying with uncle Finrod for the foreseeable future. I hope I can forgive you in time for hiding my brothers from me, but I think I can start to see your reasons. I love you, Elrodel.

* Elwing is alone but for the warm mass of Huan beside her to see Eärendil away again. He spent nearly two months on land, and she knows not when she will see him next. His task now is of uttermost importance and she wishes she could go with him, to guide their son to his new homeland.

* Elrodel sends letters, news of Tol Eressëa, Alqualondë, then Tirion, Valimar and the Woods of Oromë. She never mentions her brothers nor when she plans to return home but each letter eases a little of Elwing’s grief. Her daughter is seeing the world, what she is allowed to see at any rate, she meets people and makes friends. Eleing feels a little guilty for keeping her secreted away in their tower at the edge of the world for so long.

* It takes Elrodel twenty years to come back home, and she is not alone. Finrod is with her, a familiar face, and a young Teler who looks at Elrodel like she hung the moon and sun in the sky.

* “Mum, meet Ciuran, my husband,“ is the first thing Elrodel says. Elwing can only smile and welcome her new son-in-law into her house as a tempest of feelings rages silently behind her smile.

* Elrodel is with child, and she wants to give birth and raise them in the place she spent the happiest years of her life. Ciuran is a good man for her, smoothing her sharp edges with his kindness but not taming her wild spirit. He is of the Teleri, after all, and knows that the sea cannot be tamed or contained.

* Elrodel is much like the sea indeed, Elwing muses as she reacquaint herself with her daughter. She is brash and loud and unstoppable, but also full of life and warmth. They are much more alike in temper than Elwing ever imagined, she realises after these long years of separation.

* Huan is as protective of Elrodel as he was of Elwing when she was pregnant, and it is an amusing image to see the tall woman walk on the beach, preceded by her large belly and trailed by the huge hound, Ciuran at her side.

* Elwing rips the seeds of jealousy from her heart and nurtures the joy to see her daughter so well loved and supported. At night she lays awake in her too large bed and curses at the stars above.

* Eärendil doesn’t come home for another three decades. When he finally sets foot on solid land Elwing nearly runs away from this ghost of her husband, but she puts on her brave smile and leads him to the tower by the hand. Eärendil is haggard and almost translucent around the edges. His voice is raspy and low from disuse and his eyes nearly burned by the light of the Silmaril.

* Elwing helps him bathe and into fresh clothes before hugging him firmly. “I missed you,” she says. Then, after a pause where she can count Eärendil’s heartbeat through his too this chest, she adds. “I love you.”

* Eärendil is changed but his warmth remains, and he laughs as loud as he is able now, which is not very, at his grandchildren’s antics. Elrodel introduced her sons, twins of course, and her young daughter to Eärendil without a moment of hesitation.

* Her children know everything there is to know about their grandfather, from his great deeds as a dragon slayer to his favourite sweet (honey cakes), and they are overjoyed to meet him at last. The boys try to act grown and impress Eärendil, but they quickly join their little sister, still a toddler, in listening to his tales. Huan curls around the children and listen as attentively as them, his tail wagging.

* Elwing sits with Elrodel and smiles at the picture before her. For the first time in what feels like forever, she can say she is truly happy.

[iamyoursonly]

The Morning of the New Year (01/01/2024)

happy new year guys!! wish the best for 2024 <33

New year new me, we always say. As the New Years symbolises the fresh start of a new year after a period of remembrance of the passing year, and every year, there’ll be fireworks showcased by the sea. The variety of colours painting the sky, red, blue, green, yellow… they were everywhere. The light blinding as they fly up to the sky and a big sound of ‘boom’ right after its release. While all of the audience were either watching such a spectacular sight at home on television, or at the pier in person. No matter where they were, the moment of countdown was always very, and I mean very overwhelming. People cheer and jump up when the countdown finally hits 1, celebrating the joy of the beginning of the year, and it influenced everyone. And it was like this every year.

This year, I don’t think the joy they’re giving off influenced me. I was at the pier, holding a cigarette and a can of beer, leaning on the bar near the pier. It was 1 AM, everyone has left after all the hype the countdown has given them. Just an hour ago, everyone was surrounding me and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, all that happiness and the feeling of bliss, I couldn’t relate to it at all. Cameras flashing and the shouting were too much for me to bear, I didn’t even know how I made it through all that noise. The quietness surrounding me right now is much better, the noise and the hype belongs to another world which does not include me. I breathe out a mouthful of smoke, feeling the right amount of tar, carbon monoxide and nicotine hitting my lungs beforehand as I let out a sigh of relief.

“TEN!” The crowd roared, with the announcer hyping them up.

“NINE!” More people joining this moment.

“EIGHT!” Even more people feeling the hype.

“SEVEN!” The announcer screamed, and they followed.

“SIX!” As if this was a moment to celebrate, they cheered.

“FIVE!” I puffed on my cigarette.

“FOUR!” They screamed with even more excitement.

“THREE!” The children joined in.

“TWO!” Everyone looked happy.

“ONE!” They look ready to jump up.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!” I exhaled the smoke as everyone jump up, congratulating each other about this new year.

Then the fireworks began, as the vibrant colours burst across the night sky, illuminating the darkness with their radiant splendour, I stood amidst the crowd, watching the mesmerising firework display that welcomed the arrival of a new year.

As the fireworks soared higher and exploded in a symphony of light and sound, each dazzling moment seemed to accentuate my own feelings of sadness and loneliness. As the fireworks painted the sky with brilliant hues, tears welled up in my eyes, blending with the vibrant display. Each shimmering cascade seemed to echo the emotions swirling within them: the explosive bursts mirrored my suppressed pain, the fleeting beauty mirrored my fleeting moments of happiness, and the fading trails of light mirrored the fading hopes I carried.

As the final firework illuminated the sky, showering the world with a resplendent glow, everyone clapped. With a bittersweet smile, I turn around to leave the venue, only to find myself there again after everyone left.

“What is a pretty lady like you doing here?”

A man said, I did not even notice his presence until he was only a few inches away from me. I could feel his breath on my neck when he talked to me. The alcohol and the cigarette must’ve been getting to my head since I couldn’t make myself push him away. Was it because I had an empty void I needed to fill in my heart? Or was it just because I wanted someone to be with me?

I turned around to face him, he was gorgeous. Had the prettiest eyes you could ever imagine, ocean blue like they reflect all the emotion he’s feeling, I feel like I could look at them forever. His hair stood out so much too, white and smooth, like you can run his fingers through his hair all night when you lay down in bed with him. And his face, he was even more beautiful than Brad Pitt, and no one is prettier than him. Oh he’s so tall too… In just that instant, all the delusions that I have kept hidden in my head has come out just from this man. My cheeks flushed a pink hue, I didn’t even know if it was the alcohol or if it was how pretty he was.

“Uh… I’m just here to enjoy the midnight breeze.”

He looked at the cigarette between my index finger and my middle finger, and the can of beer in my other hand. “With a can of beer and a cigarette? I doubt that.” He laughed, then he continued, “Mind if I take a sip from your beer?”

I hand him the can, and he gladly takes it. He takes a generous sip from the can and gave it back to me. “Thanks, I needed that.” I smiled, and took a sip from the can too.

“So, why are you here? To enjoy the midnight breeze too?” I asked him, he chuckled.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he leaned on the bar that I was leaning on, just with his back facing the sea and looking up at the sky. As if I could suddenly feel the misery radiating off of him, it’s like he could cry any second if he stops laughing and pretending to be happy, I grabbed him into an embrace. I could feel his body jolt from the shock, I totally understand, since who’d willingly hug a stranger… But he slowly responded to my embrace and hugged me back. He choked a few sobs into my shoulders as I tried to comfort him amidst his intoxicating scent. He smells like candy and bubblegum, it does fit his bubbly character, making him seem mature but not that much.

“How’re you feeling?” I whisper to him, trying to make my voice appear as soft as possible. He looked into my eyes after standing up straight again, I noticed the red stains around his eyes though he was trying his best to keep his cheerful character. “Never better.” I put my forehead on his chest, and I smiled without him seeing. “I’m glad to hear that.”

In the moment, I feel as if ‘Lover’ by Taylor Swift was playing in the background. Our souls were connected suddenly, his warmth radiating as he took the beer from me and drank from it. We didn’t speak at all, the silence was really pleasant. In the midst of a chaotic world, it was like we were in a gentle refuge that embraces the weary soul, offering respite from the ceaseless clamour of daily life. In the arms of silence, he takes a puff from his newly lit cigarette after wrapping his arms around me. The companionship he brings me makes me feel comfortable, it felt like my mother embracing me at night, asking me to tell her what happened to me after I came home crying.

I stand up straight after leaning on him for as long as I remembered. I take a big puff on my cigarette, and exhale towards the sea though the breeze blew the smoke right back into my face. He does the same. “I was here because the world seems too much for me.” I look at him, and he continued while remaining a faint smile on his face, “Lost a real friend last year.” I could feel my heart drop when he told me that, I didn’t know what I would feel about that if I were in his shoes. I choked out, “What?” And he looked back at me as I stared at him attentively. “Yeah.”

I want to give him a big hug again, though it may be inappropriate since we just met an hour ago. The moon seems even brighter it was as if all our worries were lifted up and we were the only people still at the pier, “Can I hug you?” he asked softly. I eagerly jump into his embrace, giving him the biggest hug he can even get. Feeling his warmth against mine and hoping that he’s feeling comforted right now, we stay like that for a moment.

As soon as he let go of me, I tell him my situation too. “You know I think we might be on the same boat, I lost my mother just a while ago, cancer took her from me. Grew up without my dad because he left for another woman. My mom raised me and treated me like a princess. My dad didn’t even come to the funeral…” I puff on my cigarette as I feel his eyes on me, it felt like he was going to pull me into his arms to comfort me. But he didn’t. Instead he puffed on his cigarette, then he exhaled the smoke and started talking, “I think we’re meant to meet, I’m glad I came to talk to you. My friend, he was killed. In fact, I killed him. Job issues you know? He was a murderer, but before that he was a kind man. The best I ever knew…” He didn’t speak anymore, but the emotions radiating off of him was a lot, so it was only appropriate for me to let him be, and respect his right to have his moment of silence. Though I don’t know if it was sympathy that I was looking at him with, or if it was just that I can relate to him.

“So much happened this year, not only did I lose my mom, I lost the person I trust the most too,” I spoke among the silence, “My boyfriend died in a car crash, he was such a brilliant man. We met by the pier too, just like you and me right now.” I let out a chuckle, he continued to look at me, “We started dating in the middle of April. It was like we were destined to be as Spring symbolises the resurgence of life after the inevitable challenges of winter. It was like he’s that rising energy that helped me feel more optimistic and driven to make the most out of our days. We were happy most of the time. But then we got into an argument in October, I thought he had another woman over at his house so I threw a tantrum at him though he kept saying it was only his sister staying over because of her divorce. Didn’t trust him enough so I left. He drove to my house to apologise but then got into an accident, then he died.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I leaned on him again. He wiped the tears from my cheeks and pressed a soft kiss on my forehead, as if he was trying his best to make me feel the comfort my boyfriend gave me. Then he looked at his watch — 3AM. The breeze at the pier felt even cooler and stronger than before. “Shall I take you home?” He gestured towards me, “I drove here.”

I gave him a smile, “Yeah, thanks.”

He walked me over to his car after we left our cigarettes on the nearest bin. As I take the seat next to him, he holds my hand while he starts the car. “You know, I think we make a good match, we should be friends. I feel like I can tell you everything when I’m just in your presence. Is this what soulmates feel like?”

The whole destined thing didn’t go well with me, after all everything that had happened with my boyfriend is still affecting me. But I sat in silence while he chooses the song to lift our drunken spirits. “Is One Direction of your taste?” He breaks the silence. I nod right after I turn to his direction. The car smells like him, the scent intoxicating.

As soon as he starts driving, as if on purpose, One Direction starts blasting on the speakers he had in his car. The whole ‘lift up our spirits’ thing is starting to work as he drives on the highway. I grab on his hand tight, because I didn’t want to lose such a good friend to the road again. The boyfriend flashbacks are getting to be again, but the One Direction songs keep distracting me from it, well thank goodness it did. I use my other hand to grab my phone to show him my address. He just simply put my phone on the phone stand he had attached on the car and starts driving towards my house.

The car ride seemed so long, and the One Direction seemed to get to my head. The strong beats hitting the correct spots in my head, making me slowly vibe to the music. “Thanks for being here for me today.” He says, with his cheeky grin back and he rubbed circles on my hand with his thumb. “Thank you too.” I respond, leaning my head on the car seat. The city lights painted vibrant strokes across the canvas of the night, creating a backdrop of urban enchantment when they finally got off the highway. As we gazed out at the starry expanse above, his grasp on my hand was even tighter. And as the car glided through the night, slowly arriving at its destination — my house.

“We’re here.” He spoke after he paused the music. And hands me my phone after putting his number in. “Call me, please.”

I thank him, for the drive, and for the time that he has spent with me today.

“See you soon, Satoru Gojo.”

masterlist

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

Flesh and bone (the sky above the earth below)

This doubles as both a gift for @yuzanrath (happy early birthday!) and the fic title chosen in this poll.

Trigger warnings for: body horror, horror in general to be honest, sentient Burial Mounds, and overall creepy and unsettling vibes

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Darkness, Wei Wuxian has come to realize, is not all the same – nor does it look, sound or feel the same. He has never been afraid of the dark – neither when he slept alone in the street as a child, with moonlight and hunger to keep him awake enough to fend off savage dogs, nor when he shared a quiet, (far too quiet) room with Jiang Cheng in Lotus Pier, unable to shake off the feeling of being unwanted.

The dark never scared him as he slipped in and out of consciousness in the Xuanwu Cave, a distant song lulling him awake whenever his mind strayed too far, and his heart never faltered even as the enemy hid in the night during the first days of war. Wei Wuxian had never feared the dark, not even as his vision faded into nothingness with the pain of having his core ripped out of him.

But this darkness is different. The darkness at the bottom of the Burial Mounds is different – it is not a result of the natural succession of day and night, nor is it caused by light being unable to penetrate into a space dug too far into the ground, into rock, into mountains.

The darkness in the Burial Mounds is alive in a way that is almost organic, moving, feeling, craving. It slithers like formless snakes, coiling like the appendages of a mythical beast around any living prey that steps into its territory – everywhere and nowhere at all, suffocating yet elusive.

It is hard to say whether it is one being or many beings fused together – perhaps it is both, or something else entirely, something beyond human understanding, perhaps even something defiant of the laws of nature itself.

Whatever it is, it is the one kind of darkness Wei Wuxian is terrified of. Be it midday or midnight, it roams the Burial Mounds freely, unbothered by daylight or fire, floating like heavy, putrid smoke when it rests, and attacking like sharp, obsidian blades when it hunts.

And Wei Wuxian has come to realize neither when it is dormant, nor when it is hungry is the beast merciful.

The first time he fell into the abyss, the Darkness caught him – but it did not make his landing any softer. Instead, the impact with the dry, rotten earth had been punctuated by large, formless limbs tearing at his flesh as he stared upwards and screamed, unable to move. His body, fractured in more ways than it could have been possible for him to be alive to witness, could only serve as the Darkness’ meal, perhaps its toy, even.

And though Wei Wuxian had screamed and screamed for help, for mercy, for death, the heavens remained unimpressed, as did the Darkness, prodding at him only to heal him again and hurt someplace else. There had been a point when the pain had been so great, lashing at his subconscious like an unforgiving whip, that Wei Wuxian’s brain lit up with adrenaline at the thought of ending his own suffering.

But the Darkness had not let him, breaking his arms until he had none left – and so he had once again laid onto the ground, flesh and bone, pain with a voice screaming out its soul.

However, Wei Wuxian came to realize, death was a merciful end the Burial Mounds rarely granted. The Darkness hated loneliness, and company had always been scarce – so, it could not have destroyed its own source of entertainment.

It is hard to say whether the Darkness has consciousness or thought. It talks, it screams in thousands of senseless voices, clarity a rare treat – but one thing is for certain, even as it screams in Wei Wuxian’s brain like it is trying to split it open: it is capable of attachment. Love. Obsession.

And Wei Wuxian knows this from his own experience.

Surely, to be tortured, torn into until nothing but blood and echoes of broken cries are left, only to be magically put back together at the brink of death – is not proof of any semblance of feelings, at least not in the healthy, human understanding of the concept.

But Wei Wuxian had often awoken alive when he should have been dead, his body rebuilt though he’d watched it be destroyed, with dead, featherless birds and tainted water left by his side like an offering. He had been enveloped into a thick blanket of Darkness when the nights became too cold and the creatures haunting the Burial Mounds too bloodthirsty – protecting him from harm.

And the many times he lived and died – he did not remember them in detail, the Darkness erasing and blurring the trauma until it felt like a dissociative dream.

But now, as he walks the Burial Mounds freely, the Darkness writhing by his feet like a wanting lover pulling at the ends of their beloved robes, Wei Wuxian realizes he has not been the only one the Darkness has loved obsessed over.

It has built a shrine.

In a tall, large cave, much like a temple, moonlight manifests brightly, bathing the place in haunting, silvery white.

There is no opening for the moon to shine through, and it is the middle of the day. But the light still casts a ghostly glow over the place, the rock glittering like crystal.

Along the walls, lined like the statues of forgotten, ancient gods in a lost temple, the Darkness works at persevering an endless row of bodies, ashen, shriveled complexions and sunken, half-lidded eyes staring emptily ahead, eyeballs broken like glass marbles. The colors of their robes have long washed away, vague stains of yellow, purple, red, blue and green barely still visible, more like impressions rather than pigment.

Men and women, some young, others old, held to a glittering wall by an unseen force, like butterflies pinned on a wooden board, a collection of beautiful corpses.

“Is this where you’ll keep me?” Wei Wuxian asks, his voice level, as the Darkness gathers around him, enveloping him like it is embracing him.

You are not like them, Wei Wuxian. The Darkness replies in a sweet, purring voice, You are our beloved. They are not.

“What are they, then? Trophies?”

Memories.

Wei Wuxian stares at the wall, at the corpses that almost seem to stare back at him. Their blank expressions, their thinning robes, the shriveled skin of their hands. He sees himself held above them like a master, in mockery of his status as a servant’s son, above them in nothing more than placement in a morbid collection of a monstruous creature.

A memory. A memento.

Dread raises on his skin, slithering up his spine to bloom into goosebumps all over his body – and his eyes glint red, summoning enough resentment not to feel defenseless. He thinks he almost hears them, the people displayed on the cave wall – scream.

Just like he has.

He lifts a hand, green fire manifesting at his fingertips as he stares at the row of bodies before him. People that have lived in the Burial Mounds, just like he has. People that have tried to survive, just like he has.

People that have died.

But he will not.

Not yet, not like this. He will not be the Darkness’ prize, its morbid souvenir. When he dies, he will leave nothing of himself to pin.

The Darkness writhes around him, anxious, as if sensing his intentions, but it does not fight him. Instead, it covers him gently, the smoke taking the shape of human limbs, a human body made of wisps of smoke.

The cave is soon enveloped in ghostly fire, burning without heat. Wei Wuxian bows in respect to the corpses, their bodies dissipating into the phantom moonlight like lanterns ascending to the sky.

How cruel of you, to deny even our memories… A saccharine voice says against Wei Wuxian’s ear. It sounds almost familiar, like afternoons in the library and running over rooftops, like a song he cannot name and feelings he cannot understand.

“Those were people. Not your memories. And not your trophies.” He replies, voice harsh, reprimanding. The Darkness does not fear him, he knows as much – but he also knows it will not be insolent or daring. Not with Chenqing at his fingertips, the leash he has used to tame the formless beast.

Will you be, Wei Ying?

“A trophy?”

Of course not. The voice replies, its lilt low and seductive, the human form taking now a distinct appearance, Not a trophy. Will you be Ours?

It whispers against his ear, convincing enough for his heart to spasm painfully against his ribcage. The almost-human hands trace over his neck, enticing but dangerous, tempting, l’appel du vide over a tall abyss.

Will you be mine, Wei Ying?