#other horrors in this world... I just... I haven't gone back and looked at the past enough; I'm not informed enough

[medicinemane]

I don't know... what's happening in Ukraine is honestly just so deeply depressing (I mean, could it be anything else?)

I'm not really someone who cries, just not something that tends to happen even when I feel like it... and a lot of the time I read the news coming out of Ukraine (out of the world, but I follow Ukraine more closely) and... I'm just kinda numb

More innocent people dead, another hospital hit, another apartment hit, more dead, more dead, more dead... and I realize I can't even process it

Then you get nights like tonight where it clicks just what it means and it leaves me feeling like I want to cry, if I did cry I think I would

I don't think I have words for how stupid and sick it all is

And you know, I am war fatigued when it comes to Ukraine, but what that means for me is that I don't follow the front lines anymore because I just can't keep up with fighting for meters of ground, day after day, this endless slow churn... so I keep up with the big picture instead

(Whose fault do you think the slow advances for Ukraine are? Cause I'll tell you it's the western allies failing to deliver proper amounts of equipment soon enough)

The big picture is horrible, not in a Ukraine is losing kind of way, but in the sheer fucking needless death of random people just sitting at home when a drone hits and kills them

(And that's not even touching on Avdiivka where thousands of russian soldiers are going into the meat grinder, which I can think about and realize is a colossal loss of human life... but I can't even spare much sympathy or humanity towards attacking soldiers when Ukrainian civilians are dying)

And I mean, I'm half a world away. My home's not gonna get shelled ever, the only people I know in danger are people I've bumped into on here. I'm not the one suffering, hearing the sirens, losing people I care about

But it's just... you know, it's just basic human decency to think this is wrong. It could end in an instant if russia just left, but instead... I don't know if a single day has gone by where I haven't seen new news about 3 dead, 9 dead, 50 dead cause a missile hit a funeral, kid dead, family dead when a drone hit their apartment

...I think some people might say I need a break, but you'd be missing the point. I really don't, like most days I'm just numb and keeping informed, but some days it hits me and I wouldn't want to never be hit again with feeling a fraction of just how horrible this really is

The nights when it stops being numbers of senseless murders and it really hits home that each and everyone one of those people was a real person just living their life and now they're gone

...I don't think I'd get through my day if I could process that fact every second of every day, but I wouldn't have any humanity if I didn't sit with that fact some of the time. If this didn't hurt to understand when I really sit with it, something would be deeply wrong

I don't have words for it

Everyday I hope for a miracle, every day I get ready to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, till every inch territory is returned (and beyond, I like Ukraine, no reason not to support them in peace as well)

[pomefioredove]

Can we have more of snuggles for hire please?! > <

YES always. I need more cuddle content

part one (leona, tweels, vil)

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ snuggles for hire (encore)

summary: first years try helping you out with your touch-starved problem type of post: blurbs characters: rook, idia, silver additional info: romantic or platonic, reader is gender neutral, reader is yuu, rook is rook as usual

"Really? That's it?" Ace scoffs.

"So, they haven't been hugged in a while. Okay? Neither has Deuce,"

Deuce glares. It's almost menacing. "That's not true, and you know it! I get lots of hugs every time I visit home!"

"I do, too. But that's just the thing, though, ain't it?" Epel says. "They don't have no home to get hugs from."

The huddle of first years goes quiet. Some days, you become such a part of their world, they forget you're really not from it.

"...Okay, point taken," Ace sighs. "But they have Grim! And he only stinks like, half the time!"

"If memory serves, Grim usually sleeps on the floor..." Epel says. "Poor prefect, all lonely. Now even their sleep is suffering 'cause of it!"

Jack rubs the back of his neck. "It must be tough, not having anything to look forward to,"

Another melancholy silence. Finally, Ace stands, hands on his hips.

"Well, let's do something about it, then. There are tons of boys at this school- one of them should be willing to help,"

You were slouched over your desk, dozing off over an essay you hadn't even started yet, when your door flies open.

"Prefect!" Epel shouts, his eyes wide with panic. Immediately, dread sets in. Had someone else overblotted? Was Grim in trouble?

"I'm sorry! I was looking for Vil, but he found me first!"

Huh? "What do you mean b-"

"Oh, Trickster~!"

That question answers itself. In a blink, Epel is gone, bolting before he could get dragged into this. Rook lets himself in, smiling as if he'd just won a million thaumarks.

"Ah, there you are~! I have been waiting for your call!"

You blink. "...Hi, Rook. What?"

He slides his hands under your arms, and lifts you like a cat. You remind yourself that he's much stronger than he looks.

"How my heart ached, watching you suffer! But I had to be patient- I had to wait for your call, Trickster! And when I heard Monsieur Pommette was looking for someone to come to your aid... I knew it had to be me!"

Rook sits you in his lap, squeezing you as if you were a small, cute animal. Which, to him, you sort of were. "Now, rest. I will comfort you!"

"Rook," you say, smothered in his arms, "This really isn't necessary."

"For your health, it is," he boops your nose. "Bonne nuit, mon ange."

With the way he's cooing and cuddling you so closely to him, you know there's no getting out of this.

...Not that you're complaining. He's right, after all. And you're really just grateful that he decided to break in while you were awake.

You're still going to have to kick Epel's butt for it, anyway.

"I already told you, I don't have a problem,"

Ortho Shroud beeps at you. "Incorrect. Your hormonal levels and kinesics indicate you've been sleeping poorly," he says. "...And the other first years were talking about it."

Of course, you sigh. Ace and Deuce. "It's not that bad,"

"Then perhaps you would be interested in solving another problem?"

He brings you down a long, cold hallway, and stops at a door. You hadn't been inside Ignihyde before, but with all the tech stuff, you figure there's some kind of freaky sleep machine in there.

You raise an eyebrow. "I dunno. The technology here is pretty weird,"

"Not that kind of problem!" Ortho opens the door with a giggle. "Idia, look who's here!"

To your surprise (horror? delight?) there's no sleep machine. Just one wide-eyed, blushing, terrified Idia Shroud.

By the look on his face, you can tell he knows just as much about this as you do. He and Ortho exchange glances, having an entire silent conversation while you awkwardly stand in the doorway.

Finally, Ortho looks at you: "Idy has been having similar troubles with sleeping,"

"Ortho-"

"I thought you might be able to help each other!"

Idia looks about ready to crawl under his bed and hide. You look between the two.

"Is he okay?"

"Oh, don't worry! He always gets nervous around pretty people!"

He makes a noise like a deflating balloon. Ortho giggles. "I'll see you later!"

He leaves, and a whir and a thump follow him. You stare. "He took the door knob,"

Despite all the awkward staring and blushing and groaning, you end up in the same bed, anyway, lost in a tangle of limbs that is somehow both awkward and comfortable. Idia is a lot warmer than he looks. And a very, very clingy sleeper.

You'll both lament about how terrible it was to Ortho in the morning, and you'll both leave out the fact that if it really were so terrible, one of you could've just slept on the floor.

But... you didn't. And you won't tomorrow night, either.

When you told your friends you'd been summoned to Diasomnia, they looked at you as if you'd just said your exact time and place of death.

Ace and Deuce whisper-shouted something about "not telling him", but you didn't ask. You weren't worried about Malleus, after all.

...Except that the person waiting for you in the lounge isn't Malleus.

"Oh... hey, Silver. Did you...?"

You hold up the summons, and he nods. The way he's avoiding your eyes is almost... shy. Bashful.

"Sebek came back from class yesterday yelling about you... he made it sound like you were dying," Silver says, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

"...But if it's just insomnia, I can help."

You blink. "Oh... I appreciate it, but..."

...You can't bring yourself to finish that sentence. He just looks... tense. This isn't exactly an offer he makes to most, after all.

You're just special.

And you need that.

You sit beside him in comfortable silence. The lights in the Diasomnia lounge are already dim, and it's as quiet and solemn as ever. Silver guides you into a soft position against him, your head on his shoulder, his head on yours, his arm around you, and he falls asleep.

Maybe it's just the exhaustion finally catching up to you, but it's surprisingly easy to follow his lead and fall asleep against him.

You dream of him that night.

[sen-ya]

Life After Info Post

[Click here to access the Life After Digital Comic Book]

Summary: Two years ago, a viral outbreak rose the dead. Considering how his life had gone up to this point, surgeon Trafalgar Law figured this might as well happen too. When a supply run into the nearby city gets intercepted by a seemingly reckless and impulsive former patient, the dependable routine Law had settled into in this new life shatters. He finds himself exposed — his body out in the infected landscape, his conscious clawing to define what he believes is right, his heart begrudgingly deciding to find a new home on his sleeve. Maybe there’s more than a virus roaming the new world that can bring a dead man back to life.

Content Warnings: Canon typical violence, zombies/body horror (but lbr I am not good at making scary things look scary)

Relationships: Luffy x Law

Update Schedule: New page every Monday/Wednesday/Friday

Page Count: [37 posted | 55 drawn]

Latest Update: [7/21/24] WOWEE did I get myself carried away this morning. I just spent 5 hours organizing my comics and creating the digital comic book pages. I could have spent that time drawing or idk not doing what I do for my job, but I cannot be stopped. Anyway I blocked out 30 pages of this comic last week and they include the most intense action sequence I've ever done in my gotdang life. Wish me luck because I am nervous about tying down all my drawings lmao.

OLD UPDATES:

[6/29/24] HULLO! I'm doing so bad at keeping my masterposts updated lately I am sorry. All pages of life after are tagged life after if you're ever looking between masterpost updates! Also exciting update, I finally have figured out all the different plot points i'm gonna be hitting (yay!). I got hung up on something for awhile that made me not wanna work on this project, but I'm back at it. I think we'll end up with 6-7 parts! I have probably another 80-100 pages to draw lol. Also i got the app Magic Poser and it's AWESOME and I immediately used it to block out sets cuz MAN I hate backgrounds.

[6/10/24] HELLO. I'm sorry I've been shit at updating my masterposts lately. It's easiest to do from my computer, which I rarely use, and life has been happening. I also can't believe I bungled the queue and posted pg19 before pg18 i am very sorry 🤦 Eventually I'll have to turn this into an airtable base I'm sure, but until that day comes where I have like 100 pages of this comic we're stickin to the regular post lmao

[5/26/23] I got real caught up in doing summer of lawlu comics this week and this is the first week since the first week of April I haven't drawn new Life After pages and it feels weird 🙊

[5/19/24] More Luffy backstory comin' this week! :^)

[5/12/24] Updating now so get myself on schedule to update on Sundays like I had been with my other comic master post!

[5/8/24] Thank you to everyone who's liked/reblogged/comment on the first few pages!! It means the world to me that anyone's reading my silly little comics.

[4/28/24] HULLO. It’s happeninnng. I’ve spent the last few weeks working on this comic, and I gotta make this post so I can start queuing pages & link this in them! This is the most like….legit? Comic endeavor I’ve undertaken perhaps….ever. I’m very nervous about committing to how long it will need to be lol. This story is dear to my heart — zombie content is kind of my very favorite. I’ve always found it to be a great backdrop for exploring themes like grief, coping with change, community, and learning to live again. It’ll be a long haul but I hope you’ll ride it out with me!! Tomorrow I’ll be posting the first two pages. After that a page will post every Monday/Wednesday/Friday. As of this post I’ve completed over 20 pages so that I have a good lead on what’s posting and continuing to write, so I’m hopeful that’s a cadence I’ll be able to maintain. I’ll update this post weekly to include the most recent pages the way I do with my main comics master post. All pages will be tagged 'Life After' and I'll tag any pages with zombies in them with 'zombie' for blacklisting etc.

[quitealotofsodapop]

"Uh, Monkey King?" MK asked, ducking as a rather expensive pensive looking cloth flew ive this head, "What are you doing?"

"Packing." Sun Wukong grunted, eyeing what appeared to be a ceremonial robe of sorts with a critical eye. MK felt apprehension build in him, remembering what happened the last time he found his master packing.

"Are you... going somewhere?" MK swallowed his anxiety, hoping beyond all hope the answer was no. The gods, however, did not grant his wish.

"Yeah." Wukong sighed, running his hand through his fur, "I got some business that requires me to be gone for about a week. I'll try to keep you updated."

"A week!?" MK parrots back in horror, "But what about my training!?"

Wukong paused, tail flicking, before turning back to MK as if shocked he'd even ask that.

"MK, after everything that happened, do you really think a short break in training would be that big of an impact!?" Wukong asked, legitimately confused by MK's worry, "'Sides, you knot definitely are far enough in your training some self-guided study would be a benefit. If you want i can give you some tasks to do while I'm gone, too."

"But where are you going!?" MK asked, "And don't lie about going on vacation like you did with the whole Lady Bone Demon thing! Wait... is this like the lady Bone Demon? Are you having me behind again!?"

"Uh, no." Wukong grunted, pushing MK out of his face. "I just have some kingly duties to fulfill that require me to take a trip. I'm not going to be gone more than a week, maybe two at most. And Macaque is keeping an eye on the island so if anything happens, he can send a message to me."

MK froze at that, confusion written in his face. He tilted his head as he looked at the other monkey,

"Kingly duties? I thought being the Monkey King meant fighting bad guys and taking naps whenever you want!"

"No." Wukong chuckles, choosing to be amused by his apprentice' backwards comment than offended, "Being the Monkey Kid means fighting bad guys and saving the world. Being the Monkey King is a biiiit more complicated than that."

"...Say what now?"

"Alright, let's just say... I've been kinda keeping a lot of what goes into being my successor a secret." Wukong's paw came up to rub the back of his neck, "With so many major threats popping up all over the place, I'd focused entirely on your training as a warrior, but there's a side I haven't even began to touch. I wanted to make sure you were the best warrior you could be before either tried to add the ksot political and administrative side of being my heir into the fold."

"Politics!?" MK spat out incredulously, staring straight his mentor in disbelief.

"I am the Monkey King, MK. That means I have a whole kingdom to run." Wukong continued, "Any and all of the free time i get is dedicated to training you on top of that! The Counsel of the Great Demon Kings happens every hundred years or so. I hadn't gone to the last four, but since I've made a public reappearance, and with an apprentice at that, I'm expected to go and can't wiggle out of it this time! Believe me, I've tried."

"So like... Are you just up and leaving without me?" MK now looked heartbroken, putting all the puppy dog eyes on full blast, "You promised not to leave me again though!"

Wukong groaned, catching on to what MK was trying to do.

"Kid... you don't want to come with me. It's not going to be fun or exciting at all. You'll be forced to wear uncomfortable ceremonial robes that weigh a ton and have to be quiet and well-behaved." Wukong explained, trying to dissuade MK from his train of thought, "And everyone there is mean! They are dying to sniff out a scandal or two to take advantage of!"

"So? You said yourself you neglected to teach me how to handle politics. This is the perfect opportunity to start!" MK grinned, "I'm sure Tang can lend me one of his robes too."

"First of all, you will NEVER go to one of these events with a stuffy old scholar's robe. I'd lend you one of mine if that EVER happened." Wukong pointed out, eye twitching, "Second, NO! This is a final test sort of deal, NOT a tutorial type of thing!"

hehe! We discussed in the dms about poor Wukong having to attend a political summit for demon kings, and MK getting "homework" for the week.

Pigsy is approving of the homework idea. He's raised MK long enough to know his son needs goals to fulfil or he starts getting into trouble.

[actually-well-written]

modern AU Luffy x reader. pregnancy when you broke up. Pure Fluff

Inspired: season 8 episode 24 of FRIENDS; @portgasbru

trigger warning: swearing and description of birth 

I know Luffy's a little of out character, but I thought that in the modern world he would be a little less childish and a bit of a burnt out adult. A person that was a very energetic and silly kid, but grow up in a not so free feeling world. Unlike his anime. 

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

"Deep breaths. Deep breaths." Luffy repeats, soothing her back and rubbing her forearm.

"MY BREATHS CAN'T GET ANY DEEPER!!!" She shouts out despite being out of breath. "Help me out of bed, I need to walk." She demands, holding out her hand for him to grab.

He springs out of the bed and helps her feet onto the floor. Grabbing into her side and her arm, they start pacing around the hospital room, Luffy holding her close.

Her pants and groans of pain, die down just a little bit as they both rub her swollen belly and take slow steps.

"Oh good Lord!" She whines out, the sweat on her forehead causing her hair to stick to her face. "Luffy, I swear to fucking God, I hate you so much!"

"What did I do?!" He asks, dewildered.

"You did this to me!!"

"Well, it was really a team effort." He jokes, rubbing his neck for self comfort.

She stops in her tracks and glares at him, taking a deep breath as her contraction stops for the moment.

Luffy holds (y/n) by her waist and looks over her stomach, he sighs anxiously, "this baby sure is takin' its time."

"No kidding."

Near the end of last year, Luffy and (y/n) broke up, and as fate would have it, about three days after, (y/n) found out she was pregnant.

Despite all that happened, she told Luffy, he is the father, it was in his right for him to know. (Y/n) Of course made it clear she didn't want him to do anything he didn't want to or become a part of something so sudden with hardly any preparation, but he wanted to be in the baby's life and she did always wanted children.

Thus, they agreed to have the baby, and share custody. Nothing more, nothing less. They could be parents and not have to be forced to date again.

Nine months later and after some preparations, her water broke and they rushed to the hospital. Now waiting for her to fully dilate in a semi private room, at the moment, no other person was in the room.

Luffy sets himself next to (y/n) and carefully wraps his arms around her, placing loving hand on her belly and laying his head on a pillow.

"...Luffy? Can I tell you something?" She whispers.

"Yeah?"

"I'm really scared right now."

"Scared?" He repeats, raising an eyebrow.

"Everyone and their mom's been telling me horror stories of deliveries gone wrong and yeah, I know pain was always gonna happen, but now that it's actually happening, im-im scared."

Luffy glances to the side, licking his lips as if the confession wasn't shocking at all. "It's ok, bab-(y/n). Everythin's gonna be fine."

"You don't know that." She whispers, crossing her arms in a self hug.

"Yes I do. Everythin' will be fine. This baby will be happy and healthy-well. Maybe not happy, babies come out crying right? Healthy then. Definitely healthy." He reassures, getting a little sidetracked.

She giggles, rubbing a circle on her stomach, "yeah?"

"Yeah. I promise."

The two smile and stare at each other. (Y/n) Awkwardly giggles and looks away.

"...you know what we haven't done?" She asks, changing the subject. "Agree on a name."

Luffy's expression immediately drops and he crosses his arms, turning away from her, "I'm telling you, Solo is an amazin' name."

"We are not naming our-could-be son after Han Solo!!"

"HE'S SO AMAZING!!" He raises his arms to his side in protest. "And we are not namin' our-could-be daughter Persephone."

"I don't like Persephone anymore." She confesses, placing a soothing hand on one of her swollen ankles.

"Good!"

"I was thinking, if it's a girl, Céleste?"

"Céleste...." He repeats in a whisper. "Yeah, I'm good with that."

"And if it's a boyyyy...." She trials off tilting her head to the side as if it follows her sentence. "Ace."

Luffy snaps his head around and raises his eyebrows in an annoyed expression, "that's not funny."

She laughs softly, running a hand through her hair. Her sweat wetting her palm. "It's a little funny."

He doesn't reply, but leans against the headboard, "Arie." He deadpans, staring down at the foot of the bed. "If it's a boy, Arie."

"....Arie," she repeats, smiling to herself, "ok, Arie it is."

"Welp, that took us longer than it should have." He chuckles, combing his hat hair with his fingers.

She takes notice, biting a nail, a habit she hopes doesn't pass onto her baby. "Luffy? Why did you take off your hat?"

"Huh?"

"Your hat." She points to his signature straw hat sitting on the beige night stand next to the bed.

"Oh, um-"

"You don't like taking it off. You wore it to our first date. Hell, you wore it when we were conceiving this thing." She chuckles, gesturing to her belly.

"Hehe, yeah, that thing's seen a lot." He whispers, a light blush on his cheeks.

"Why'd you take it off?"

Luffy pauses, and scratches his neck for the possible millionth time now, and glances around the room to not meet her eyes.

"Uh, the doctor looked at me kinda funny when she saw me wearin' it."

"So? I've seen you wear that thing with a full fancy suit."

"Well, I..I need to mature a little, don't you think?"

"What?! No! Where is this coming from? Who are you?! Luffy wouldn't say that!"

"I'm gonna be a father now, (y/n), I need to start actin' my age-"

"Don't ever say that again." She pouts, glancing down at his shirt to avoid eye contact, "I like that you're immature, you've always made me laugh and it's admirable how you're never afraid to be yourself in any situation. Why would you want to change that?"

He pauses, taking his head off the headboard and putting his arms between his legs, his elbows resting on his knees.

"Please, put it back on." She tucks a hair behind her ear, "It makes me anxious when you take it off."

"Huh? Why?" He raises his head a little.

"Because! It makes you look serious, especially when you're frowning. How am I supposed to be less scared, if you look like your getting ready for something bad?"

Luffy sighs, seeing her worried expression. Without saying anything, he reaches towards the nightstand and places his hat back on his head, not bothering to adjust the string.

(Y/n) Also stays silent, laying her head right under his shoulder, her fingers gently adjusting the string to tighten perfectly around Luffy's jawline.

He let's her, not speaking or moving, not even watching, instead focusing on the outside world, right through the room window. Watching as the people walk by, probably none of them having to deal with an accidental pregnancy or the complicated feelings it brings.

"Can you....talk?" She asks, softly, lowering her hands from the string and placing them on her lap.

"What?" He snaps his focus back to her, forcing his gaze away from the couple below sitting in a park bench as they drink coffee together. A bittersweet nostalgia feeling eating at his heart.

She frowns softly, her eyes feeling with a bit of anxiousness. "Talk. About...anything really. I love hearing you talk." She whispers, remembering all the times she used to ask him to talk in order to fall asleep.

"Anything?" He snorts, "don't get me started." He crosses his arms and titles his head, thinking of something to say that would help her forget about basically pushing out a nine pound bowling ball.

"I saw the trailer for a movie, but I don't remember what the movie was called. So I made Zoro drive me to the movie theater, to see if I could recognize it by the poster. Turns out it wasn't a movie, it was an ad for car insurance."

She laughs and grabs his arm, "how do you mix that up?"

"Ads are becoming movie level, (y/n). Don't judge me!" He giggles, playfully scolding her. "Anyways, I bought popcorn and then me and Zoro went to go see Oppenheimer instead."

"Is it good? I haven't watched it yet."

"Yeah, it was. Really loud though." He explains, rubbing his ears as if he can still hear it perfectly.

"I wanna see sonic three!" She states, bouncing her feet on the bed slightly.

"Oooh, me too!" His eyes lights up in excitement, the exact way she likes them. "Let's go see it when it comes out!"

"Uh, when it does, we'll have a seven month old."

"We'll take 'em with us!"

" I don't think the other people there would appreciate that." She giggles.

"Oh, right. Fuck." He exclaims, scratching his leg while thinking of a new solution.

She smiles brightly at him, reaching towards his hat and fixing it to balance better on his head. The action causes Luffy to pause and watch her as her eyes glance at him more times than actually needed.

She puts her hand on the bed, in the space between the two. He clears his throat and rubs his cheek.

"I've...I've been thinking." He starts, placing his arm across her back, rubbing his leg nervously.

"You can think?" She jokes, Luffy only ignoring it.

".....I think-"

The door opens, causing (y/n) and Luffy to turn. The doctor walks in, putting on clean new gloves. "Nineteen hours." She exclaims, stopping right at the foot of the bed, "How you doing?"

"Like if this baby doesn't come out now, I'm gonna cut my stomach open and make 'em." She deadpans, causing Luffy to widen his eyes.

The doctor nods in understanding, checking her dilation, an action (y/n) unfortunately became used too. "Welp, you're in luck."

"I'm sorry?" Luffy asks, getting off the bed in shock. The contraption pain forgotten for (y/n).

"You're fully dilated. Let's go have this baby." She proudly announces, calling in nurses to help move the bed.

"Wait-wait. No-what? What. What!?" She panics, as they roll her away into the hallways, Luffy right next to her, holding her hand. "I'm not ready for this!"

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

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!!" (y/n) Sobs out, inhaling rapidly.

"Ok, we stop in five seconds." The doctor announces. "Five.......four-"

"Threetwoone!" (Y/n) Whines out, immediately stopping and laying her head on the angled bed. Panting and crying.

"You're doing great, (y/n)." Luffy praises, moving the hair from her face. Her sweat sticking to his finger. His other hand wrapped around her leg, helping her keep them open.

"Take a break, alright? breathe and we start again in ten minutes." The doctor explains, pushing her chair away slightly.

"No. No. No. I can't. I can't push anymore." She whimpers, covering her face with a hand as she cries.

"Yes, yes you can, (y/n). You're the strongest woman I know." Luffy reassures, adjusting his grip.

"Talk. Talk. Talk. Please. Luffy, please." She pants. Grabbing onto the sheets and she pushes herself up more.

"Uh-um. I-I don't know what to say." He awkwardly laughs, whipping the sweat from his palms on one of the pillows.

"What were you gonna tell me? Back in the room, you were gonna tell me something."

"Oh. That, um. Can that wait-"

"Please. Please. Please. I-I need a distraction." She begs, closing her eyes tightly.

"I ... I was just gonna say that.... I think we should try again."

"Try what?" She asks, turning her head to look at him.

"Us." He exclaims, "when-when we broke up. I-I actually died. Like my chest hurt and I couldn't get out of bed. Then when you told me you were pregnant, I immediately thought that we should get back together." He confesses. "But you know, you told me you didn't want that, and I wanted to respect it, but after all these months, I kept missing you. You were right there, but I couldn't call you mine anymore and I missed it."

He glances at the floor and gulps, "I-I think we should try again. We have a kid now, we should be a family. I want to be a family. And I think you do too." He pauses, "I know I didn't say it enough when we were together, but I love you. I love you a lot and I don't think it can ever go away, because it can barely even fit in my body."

(Y/n) Stays silent, looking up at him with a wide eyed expression, her sobs causing her body to shake a bit and her tears still spill out of her eyes.

Luffy glances around the room, and clears his throat, "can you say something?" He whispers.

"...I don't know what to say." She confesses.

".... Say you still love me too."

"I do still love you." She breathed, "and honestly? When I found out I was pregnant, I hoped that it meant we got to try again, but I was scared, because what happens if we get hurt again and our baby gets in the mix."

"We won't get hurt again." He insisted, "I know I'm an idiot and pretty dumb, and I don't make good decisions, but it's okay, because you're amazing and perfect and i would learn calculus for you. I know with all my being we'll do it right this time. You deserve it, I deserve it. They deserve it."

They both pause and stare at each other in full love and tenderness. Leaning in, they smash their lips together in a passionate kiss. The hat sliding backwards a little and he places his hand on her cheek, they continue the kiss for a few more seconds.

The doctor places her hand on her heart and cooes. "I'm gonna call my baby daddy after this." One of the nurses whispers. The other three nod in understanding.

"Ok, if you guys are ready let's finish this up." The doctor pushed her chair closer, placing her hands on the bed.

The two pull away and turn back towards the doctor, "yes, please." (Y/n) Exclaims, the pain intensifying as another contraption starts. Luffy wraps his arm around her leg again and hold her hand with his other.

"Ok, now. Push."

She continues to push and cry, repeating the action for the next hour, when finally. The room is filled with baby cries.

(Y/n) Screams and sobs for the last time as she watches Luffy cut the umbilical cord. The nurse holds up the baby in front of them. "It's a boy." She says softly, before taking him away.

(Y/n) And Luffy smile at each other, he wipes away her tears, and she traced the scar on his cheek, a small action she didn't know she missed doing.

The nurse gives back the baby, now wrapped in a blue blanket. (Y/n) Takes him and places him perfectly in her arms. Luffy kisses him in his forehead as (y/n) admires him.

"Do we have a name?" A nurse asks, her hands on her hips, admiring the baby as well.

"Arie." Luffy and (y/n) reply in union, before glancing back at each other. They smile brightly, before sharing another kiss, the hat falling off this time, the string tugging on Luffy's neck a bit.

[yeyinde]

infinity in the palm of your hand (eternity in an hour) | reincarnation AU

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish (OG) x Reader | Johnny "Soap" MacTavish (Remake) x Reader

You're grieving for something, someone—a man with kind eyes and a soft smile like the valley in spring: fresh rain over the boscage in bloom—that you've never met before.

And then you find him.

MATURE | 18+ —TAGS: AU, canon divergence: reincarnation; fluff; tagging as fem!Reader due to usage of "bonnie" (not a name—Reader is not named), and mentions of a dress but no other descriptive imagery is used —WARNINGS: grief, loss, unhealthy coping mechanisms, existential crisis, allusions to smut; cosmic horror (but??? it's a romance????) —WORD COUNT: 11,9K —NOTES: I like the idea of fated pairs, soul mates, but I can't write this concept without somehow diving into the cosmic horror of something, someone, controlling you from behind the scenes. So. Um. Idk what to call this abomination. It leaks horror but is meant to be quite fluffy. It's romance. It's a love story. But it's also kinda eldritch. Oops.  This was also originally a request I got back in November (I'm so sorry!). I have since lost the request, but Reincarnation Anon, this is for you!!! 🖤

In Greek, there are two words for time: 

Kronos—chronological, the clock: fixed—measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. The world runs on Kronos. On its merciless rigidity, it's apathetic, unending trek forward. It is cruel, sometimes, but it cares little for you, or anyone else who exists inside its unforgiving realm. Time is linear. A steady March. 

And then there is Kairos. In its essence, and in utter simplicity: timelessness. 

It's often found in grief when the world around you shatters and implodes. When it lapses into pain and agony. Into how and why and—

Nothing makes sense. Nothing matters. 

You've never experienced any such loss. Gran, grandad, friends, family—all alive and well. And yet—

You're grieving for something, someone—a man with kind eyes and a soft smile like the valley in spring: fresh rain over the boscage in bloom—that you've never met before. 

And then you find him.

Or, rather, he finds you. 

(Over and over and over again—)

It starts in university. 

Start, of course, is an operative word. It's an incipient event: a slow burn in the back of your head that gets hotter and hotter, but you can't quite discern why. You just feel wrong. Shaken. The foundation in which you walk wobbles. Crumbles. 

There is an unseen precipice under your feet covered by cobblestone. You know it's there—are aware of the yawning chasm that wants to swallow you whole, but you don't know where it is. 

And then—

There is no phone call, no blunt condolences for any particular loss, just—

A knock on your door. It's just your flatmate, but the rhythm cuts through your head, right down the middle. 

Agony. The world around you flips, topples off its axis, and just keeps spinning, spinning, spinning—

It hits you with the force of a tsunami. A deluge of biblical proportions that uprooted everything you'd ever know, casting you out into a frothing abyss, ravaged by mountain-tall waves that left you asunder. Awash in a tumultuous sea.

It would make sense, you suppose, had you lost someone, but you haven't. 

The most you've lost was a pet. 

And yet—

You sob, scream, and claw at your chest until your skin is torn and shredded, trying futilely to get to where it hurts the most. It's agonising. Brutal. They sedate you—no choice is given when you're so frantic, so desperate. The world slips away. The pain abated. 

But it doesn't stop it. 

They call it grief, and you don't know why. You haven't lost anyone. Mum, dad, gran, grandad. All alive and well. All there, standing clustered around your hospital bed (admitted when you wouldn't stop screaming) looking quite bewildered by you. By the things you say—missing something, someone, gone, just gone—and the way you're acting. 

And it scares you just as much as it does them, but you can't just push it aside, let it go. There is a gaping hole in your chest, one punched straight through your sternum. It's gangrenous, and rotting; the stench makes you dizzy, makes your head spin. Your heart is necrotising between your ribs and spine, but no one knows why. No one understands the agony you feel because everyone is alive. 

They all say the same: we don't know. Depression, perhaps. You just need time. 

Time does nothing to heal the wound. You can't run from the hurt—it's never-ending—but you get better at hiding it, at dealing with pulpy remains of your still-beating heart that slugs on despite the mouldering wound ripped open in the centre. 

They tell you it's Thursday, now. 

Before you'd throw something, thrash, and scream yourself hoarse because what does it matter when your heart is dying, decaying inside of your chest. 

Now, you just nod. Thursday, is it? 

Time doesn't exist to you anymore. It's just an endless stream of days and nights that get easier to withstand as the foreign clock on the wall ticks down the seconds you don't feel. 

The world is a murky haze of confusion and pain. You move on only because you have to. 

Things—

Well. They don't get better, but they get bearable, and you suppose that's the same thing, isn't it? 

And then you dream. 

They come in flashes. Snippets. Little moments of a place and time that doesn't exist, that isn't real. This life was not one you lived. The taste of elderberry has never graced your lips, but you think of the sweet, tartness like it's an old comfort. 

It makes you ache. 

Simplicity bleeds into familiarity into love into—

—you should… you should sit for this—

Crushing heartache. It carries the flavour of gunpowder, and is soaked in charcoal; the soot stains the tips of your fingers when you reach out, curling them in the rough lapels of a gunmetal grey jacket still carrying the scent of ichor, and loss. 

—i… i can't promise you forever, but i can promise you now—

You dream of a man. Of hands on your body. Eyes gazing at you—an alluvial fan in hazel, green, and gold; the shadows cast in the shallow valleys make you yearn for something. 

Something, something—

You wake up, hand to your splitting chest as the agony rips it into pieces. Heartache, grief. It drapes itself over you like a storm cloud. Looming there, ever-present, and ready to chisel open a deluge of pain so visceral you weep. And weep. And—

Your pillow is wet. Nose stuffed, eyes gritty. You've been crying, sobbing, in your sleep again. 

It's a cycle. Memories flood your head until it's splitting apart at the seams, making room for that life it wants to force you to remember, acknowledge, and pretend exists, and one you're in now. 

It breaks something inside of you. Cracks the levee. In the midst of crumbling concrete, and a roaring deluge, you hear a voice. 

(You stare at the bottles lining the shelves in your vanity, and tell no one.)

—excuse me? You dropped this—

HERE

There is a tavern on High Street. 

It's nothing special on its own. Just a building, just a pub. You pass it twice a day on your commute to work, and it should be background noise. A blur of scenery and objects as you stroll through the streets. A melding of the world around you, an inconsequential smear of cobblestone and brick. 

And yet—

Your eyes keep finding it, seeking it out. It's involuntary. Automatic. You pass the grocer and the pharmacy, head angled down toward the grey stone below, and then, like an unignorable force, a gravitational pull, your head lifts. The fairy lights are strewn around the outside coruscate in the gloom. You nearly trip. 

It's strange. Odd. 

It's just a building. Just a tavern. 

—got some of the best brews in town—

But you remember it. Are familiar with it in a way that makes absolutely no sense. You've never gone inside, never heard anyone speak about it. It's a building on a street of many. Ordinary. Plain. Nothing about this place should stand out to you. It isn't eye-catching or garish. It's—

—cosy little spot—

It's an anomaly. Much like—

Well. Much like everything in your life. 

There is a gnawing in the pit of your stomach, one that's so achingly familiar that your head swims from deja vu that shouldn't exist. It fits inside like an augur. A portant. 

How can the unknown be a comfort to you? How can it blister your heart with such ferocity that you find yourself pawing at your face to stem the deluge of tears that cascade down your cheeks in rivets? 

Whatever it is, it's calamitous and entirely unignorable. 

Your life is asunder, in shambles because of it yet each hiss in your ear addles your thoughts until you become overwhelmed by it all. Until the echoes that tell you to wander down a random side street, sign a lease for an apartment you can't afford, to leave the safety of your home country, and—

On a whim, you packed your things up on the behest of that strange, Eldridge feeling eating you alive that made you cut ties with your old, peaceful life, and book the first plane ticket to Elgin. No plan, no money. 

(You'd call it an afflatus had it not been so drenched in the unknown.)

It's paradoxical: you cry when you see that stupid church in the distance, your feet drag you to places you've never been before, and now. 

Now: 

You can't stop staring at a nondescript pub in a sea of many. 

Ignore it. Leave it. You take another route, head down, hands shoved deep in the pockets of your jacket to keep them from trembling. It'll pass. It'll go away. 

It doesn't. 

It pools in the pit of your stomach, noxious and rotten, until you wake up drenched in sweat, hands grasping for a phantom who no longer exists—

—wanna come with me?—

You break on Saturday. 

—i like when you wear that dress—

You wear it, and hate yourself a little bit for it. It's stupid, and out of place, but you do it, anyway. 

—booth in the back is where i always sit, want to come join me—

The inside of the tavern is just the same as you remembered it—

No. No. 

You've never been here before. 

You smell malt in the air; the same amber that spumes in your veins. You dance in circles between the tables, giggling at the people who smear by in a haze of gold and red. 

A hand reaches, snags your waist. "Where are you going, pretty thing? Wanna come sit with us?"

It makes you laugh, and laugh, and—

"There a problem?" Heat against your bare back. Ironclad arms around your middle. His voice is a rumble. A thunderclap. "She's with me. Go on now. Get."

You pull away from him, smirking, and—

The air is punched from your lungs. Longing sits in your throat, heavy and thick. It aches. God, it aches. A phantom pain that never quite dissipates. A raw wound left to fester; exposed and open to the elements. It never heals. Never scabs. It oozes grief and headache into your bloodstream and makes you feel lost. Dazed. Confused. 

It's silly. 

Stupid. 

The warm blends of burnt umber and gold make you tremble. Everything inside is—familiar, in all the ways it shouldn't be. 

You can't be here. Can't—

Something quivers inside of you. The sting of a guitar being plunked by indelicate hands. It snaps, breaks. You turn, eyes wild, wide—

—hey, where are you—

"...goin'—?"

A chest. Warm. Familiar. 

Your neck aches when you jerk your chin up, hands beaded against the hard, firm flesh of a stranger who feels all too familiar, too—

Hazel. A boscage in spring. Warm milk—

"Honey…"

It's out before you can stop it. 

Green and golden widen until they're drowning in a sea of arsenic white. An island of bloom, spring, carved in the middle of a barren, icy land. Lids fall, lashes dust across the shadows of the valley smeared beneath the red seal of his lower lash line. 

Your breath catches when they slide open, a slow crawl over a varicoloured plume of witch elm and wheat. 

—dark eyes, a furrowed brow, long nose, a dusting of charcoal stubble along his cheeks and jaw, and full pink lips—

No. No. 

It's different. This isn't the man who haunts your dreams and whispers sweet nothings into your ear. This is not the cut of a man who once curled his fingers over your hips, lips glued to your pulse as he spent himself inside of you—

Heat sears your cheeks. 

His mouth opens, and closes. Opens again. No words spill out. His confusion is an oppressive silence. 

You swallow down the bitter tang of panic that pools on your tongue, nails digging into the soft fabric of his shirt. 

This isn't that man. 

He just—

"Sorry," you think you say, but it's all a blur. There was a blue ravine in his eyes, one with shallow shores, and crystalline waves that rippled with the breeze. You're sinking in those waters, now. Dragged down to the murky depths of blue, blue, blue that once made you see samsara with just the brush of his lips. Everything sounds distorted. Hollow. 

—you make me crazy. make me want things i shouldn't. Riley thinks i'm whipped. kinda agree with him, but i can't let you go. i can't get you outta my head, and i don't want to—

"Sorry—," you choke, the words a crumpled piece of paper lodged in your throat. Papier-mache seals over your trachea. 

You push away from him, stumbling out of this paroxysm. Flames lick at your heels, carrying you further from the laps of blue that flicker over beige. 

He chases after you. A warm hand around your wrist stops you on the corner outside of a pharmacy. The streets are dusted in white. It trickles from the sky in a thick hail of cosmic dust. 

His breath plumes in front of him when he breathes, pure white tendrils ghosting into the midnight blue silk that covers the town. 

"Hey, you alright? Can I—call someone for you, or—"

"No." You gasp, shaking your head so fast, you're nearly sick with it. 

"Hey, hey." His hand moves, perches itself against your cheek, eyes brimming in the flushed lamp overhead. His brow is drenched with concern. With confusion. And anger. Anger—why, why—

"Did someone drug you? Did you drink anythin'?" 

It rips a bark of laughter from your chest. "Drugs? No. I'm just—"

Spiralling. 

You make a vague motion with your wrist, and hope it's enough to convey the absolute travesty of your life. It meets the mark. 

The divot in his forehead softens, eyes creasing in the corners. Full pink lips knot to the side. Something passes his expression that looks a little too much like understanding to ever sit well in the pit of your stomach. 

You swallow down the acrid residuum of panic, and nod. Why—who knows. It just feels appropriate. 

"I need to go—"

"—I like your dress."

The words tumble over each other, barely coherent amid the amalgamated syllables, but ring with distinct clarity in your head. Your dress. Your brows knot, eyes dropping to the stupid little thing you'd picked out in a shop you had no business being inside. Led by the nose. A puppet on strings. 

You scoff. "I hate it."

You don't. You'd have picked it out yourself if you had that funny little thing called freewill; that precious little something you'd left behind in a dorm on a university campus you haven't thought of in years. 

"It's, ahh—," he rubs the back of his neck, eyes skirting toward the bar you fled from. "It's pretty."

Pretty. 

"Oh…," you say, quite intelligently. "You can have it if you want." 

It's only when his brows buoy to his hairline do you realise the innuendo within that. 

The fire inside dies. Doused with the waters of Acheron.

"Sorry—"

"—'dunno if it'd look as good on me as it does you, bonnie."

Bonnie. Your veins crackle with ice. Bonnie. 

"What—what did you call me—?"

He blinks. "Oh, it's not—," his hand slides away from his neck, scrubbing over the stubble on his jaw. He looks bashful, almost. The man in your dreams is—

Reserved. Cool waters. A rock. 

"It's just a nickname, it's not—it's not anythin' weird, I promise."

A nickname. You should have known that, you suppose; but like many things, it slips, silken and liquid, through the cracks wrought by paradox. 

"Right." Your nails dig into your palms, cutting the flesh until your fingers puddle with something warm, wet. Tacky. The breath you suck in between clenched teeth is a sharp hiss. "I should go."

"Ah, yeah," his brows tighten again, jaw ticking. He looks uncomfortable, unsure. Concerned. His arms come up, folding over his broad chest. And that—

That is familiar. 

You swallow down mildew and honeysuckle. Heart lurching in your chest, a painful crescendo that echoes to the whispered beat of soft words in your head. 

—you should stay, bonnie. stay with me—

"Can I at least make sure you get home safe?"

You can't. You can't—

There is a tavern on High Street that you've been to before in a dream, where you are taken to by a man with a distance in the crook of his smile; a degree of separation that makes you yearn. It pulled you in, gravity and magnetism and that primal something that they often talk about in wordy biology papers you can't understand. 

Maybe it's the chemical slurry in your head—dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin—all mixing together, and polluting your rationale, but it made a shade of roseate fall over your eyes; veiled like a Magellanic cloud. Through the startling nebulae and cosmic radiation, he loomed. Your fingers reached out, latching on to him, and you pulled him into your orbit. 

The reservations slipped, dulled by the way you fit against him. A missing piece. A complimentary artefact. His edges softened until he looked at you with nothing but warmth, affection. 

And then—

Then:

Three knocks in halted succession. Military precision. Boom, boom, boom. 

A man stood before you, achingly familiar in his mutton chops and hat. The gleam of his metals—chest candy—caught in the setting sun. Ochre, gold. You think of him, and you smile. Was smiling when you peeled back the curtain to greet him. 

It wavers. Your heart aches for that person standing in the doorway; you from a dream. 

It drags in slow motion. He takes his hat off, and cups it on his chest. 

—look, i don't… i don't know how to tell you this—

Then—

"—don't." The word startles you as much as they do him. You baulk. "Just… no thank you."

Something rings in the cognitive dissonance that shrouds you. 

It's your turn to walk away.

And so, you do. 

(He doesn't follow. You don't know why you expected him to.)

—be patient with me, Bonnie. my job is my life. my everything, but you–you're my—

It doesn't rain—a rarity in Elgin—but the scent of wet soil, petrichor, clings to the air. 

It isn't raining, but it feels like it should.

You don't expect to see him again. 

And why would you? There are so many people in Elgin, so many men. The chances of finding him again—shaggy mohawk; kind, amber eyes—were nearly impossible. Infinitesimal, really. 

So, you push him to the far reaches of your mind, and try not to dwell on the stranger that smells so strongly of coumarin that your head still feels dizzy from the scent of golden wheat fields in the spring and sycamore when you breathe in some mornings.

Out of sight, out of mind. 

A familiar stranger in a foreign land.

But you should have known better than to expect anything in this strange purgatory you’ve slipped inside where dreams are sometimes a reality, and you can’t stop comparing a hazy figure in your mind, someone you might have loved in a distant life you have no memory of, to a stranger who slots himself into your path like he was meant to be there all along. 

It starts three days later. 

You tuck a book under your arm, and walk the unfamiliar path to a small cafe you’ve never dreamed of, have no lingering sense of recognition in the small building. 

Safe, you think. 

And then—

Blooming honeysuckle. The heady scent of coumarin. Salt, amber. 

He crashes into your life again, and again, always with the same expression of happy surprise when recognition bleeds into wheat-tinged eyes. 

He offers a wide smile, a little wave, and seems unbothered by a dizzying sense of unease that sweeps through each uncanny meeting, each strange divergence of paths always, always, leading to each other. 

In the produce section of the grocery store halfway across town, he holds an unripened apricot and grins at you over the yellow sign above (30% off!). The colourful anchor in Cooper Park, where he stands with his hands in his pockets, eyes listing toward the swans in the background, drifting idly over the dark water. At the counter in a Turkish restaurant, laughing at something the waiter says as he takes his bag of takeout. 

You turn down a random sidestreet, trying to navigate the tight, claustrophobic streets of Elgin, and he's there, suddenly, at the end. Legs thrown over the seat of a sleek motorcycle, fingers toying with the clasp of his helmet. Wander into a shop, and he's already sat at the table. Reach for a carton of eggs in Tesco's and his hand bumps against yours as he tries to grasp the same. 

You hear his voice crackling through the concrete. A whisper in the back of your head. The grit, the cadence, is so different from the man you dreamed about, the hazy spectre who haunts you, that you know, instantly, that it's him. The man whose only resemblance to the ghost latching onto you is his eyes, the hairstyle. The scent. The familiarity blooms in his proximity. Two strangers sharing the same essence of a soul. 

He drives past you on his motorcycle, wanders down the same alleyway, boards the same train, and gets off at the same station. 

A living phantom. 

It's always the same, too. His eyes always shift, somehow catching yours. Easily, effortlessly, finding you even in the midst of a crowded shop, a bustling park, or a loud eatery. 

Each time, you run. And keep running. 

And then once, you catch him. 

He leans with his forearm resting on the railing of a mezzanine at dusk. His wrist resting on the iron, fingers gripping the nozzle of a lagger that dangles over the edge. 

Behind him, music spills out from inside the flat. French doors spread wide open, leaking the whisper of a party into the warm air. 

No one joins him. He doesn't look back. 

His chin is pointed up toward the varicoloured sky streaked with lavender and pink and blood orange. Eyes glowing brightly in the darkness. A field of wheat against the midnight blue gloom of an approaching storm. 

It's mesmerising. 

Despite the urge to run, you stop. Can't help yourself, really. Not when your heart cracks at the expression on his face, eyes drawn tight, brows pinched. Full of—

Longing. 

Like a magnet, then, his gaze drops to the ground where you stand, clutching your book so hard, your joints ache. 

His hand lifts, fingers still curled in a loose fist, and he gives you a lazy wave from above, lips pulling back into that same wide, infectious, grin. Happy—for some inexplicable reason—to see you, his own little poltergeist. 

You hesitate for a moment, burning the image of him in your retinas where he'll stay, a permanent scar, in the black puddles for you to see again when you close your eyes, or look into a mirror. Another ghost. 

And then you turn. Run. 

(He doesn't try to stop you. He never does.)

It is almost clockwork.

The same soft hazel eyes creased lightly in the corners. Broad shoulders are hunched as he gazes down at his phone resting on the countertop. His brows are furrowed today. Irritation bleeds in the crevasse. 

Your fingers itch. You want to smooth it out. 

(It doesn't surprise you that you can feel the phantom warmth of his finger under your flesh.)

It's strange. All of this is. Paradoxical, really. 

You know him. You don't. You've never met him before. You know he'd taste of honeysuckle. 

There is a war in your mind. A long, drawn-out battle. 

(No victor in the carnage.)

You should walk away, leave, like all the times before when you'd spotted him, and ran, but:

Frozen. Paralysed. 

You can't move. Can't—

—maybe, you're just tired of running—

—maybe, i'm just waiting for you to catch up—

His head lifts, and he catches sight of you before you can run. Hazel flashes in recognition. Spotted, you think; but it doesn't matter, it doesn't. 

He isn't waiting for you—

His chin lifts, a smile crooking on the corner of his mouth. 

—you'll be waiting a long time, Bonnie—

You want to run, but you can't. Can't. All you can do is watch as he slides out of the booth, hands shoved into his pockets, and makes his way to you. Tucked into the corner near the counter, away from everyone, everything, but he still spotted you. Still noticed. Still—

"Hi," he greets, low and cautious, like he's trying his best not to startle you. His eyes crinkle. "Didn't expect t'see you again."

You shouldn't be here. "Yeah," you say, instead, huffing. "I, uh… life is pretty funny that way, isn't it?" 

His brow furrows together at your words, eyes darkening with something you can't place. An unknowable emotion, hidden from your prying eyes. You think of him, then, and see the similarities you tried so desperately to ignore each time you saw him. Each time you ran. 

"Aye, it does." 

You should leave him here. Turn around, flee. Forget this place, this microcosm that blooms, and spreads over parts of Elgin you know so intimately; sure, somehow, that you'll find your fingerprints smeared across the ruins despite never having been there before.

Little pieces of yourself. Shedded skin, hope, dismay, peace. Longing. Laughter. It echoes through the tight webs of cobblestone buildings, bouncing playfully off of the pilasters and balustrades, the wrought iron fences, the fanlights, forever embedded in the grout. 

If you go there now, in that beautiful divisional line between new Georgian and old Baronial, you'll hear it whispering through the alcoves, a tantalising sound that rents the air in two. 

But it shouldn't. Can't. 

You've never been there, or here, or anywhere else that wasn't the winding path from your rented flat to the tavern, and the place you eked out from stone to support the vagary of moving to a whole new place for a dream. A feeling. 

And yet—

You taste malt in the air. Smell the barley, the sickly sweet scent of wet dirt on the slick pavement. 

It's familiar in your olfactory senses. Petrichor. Loam. Humus. It congeals in the slick mortar, clinging to the moss that weaves over the old concrete. 

If you looked down, you'd find a little weed growing through a crack beneath your feet, and so, you fix your eyes up, ahead, and try not to weep when the swooping sense of deja vu nearly knocks you off your feet.

But the only thing ahead of you is him. Expectant, curious. He looks at you like he knows you, like he can peel back the skittish layers that cling to your skin until you're shiny and new again. 

It's too much. Intense. Hazel. 

Your gaze drops, fixed on the rounded points of your shoes. There is no pavement beneath your feet—just scuffed linoleum. 

"Do I, uh, know you from somewhere?" 

His voice carries that same heft, that same weight, as the look in his eyes. A strange approximation of wariness and steeled scepticism, blanketed together by intrigue. Curiosity. Concern. 

"No." 

It sounds uncertain. A white lie that crackles in the air between you, nestled amid the sound of chatter muted in the background, as if someone turned the radio on in a different room. Everything seems to contort, and shift around you when he's near. 

A little microcosm eked out inside a cafe you've never been to but know, innately, what you'd order, and what you would recommend. 

"Well," he dips his head like he's trying to catch your eye, and when you lift your chin, the flash of teeth nearly makes your knees buckle. He's softer when he smiles. "How 'bout lettin' me get t'know you then?" 

It's a bad idea etched into the cold marble of a headstone.  

Your mouth opens, but the word that chews through your teeth isn't no, but yes. 

And fuck—

Something in his gaze shifts. Noctilucent eyes widen, staring down at you like he somehow didn't expect a yes at all, and was bracing for the harsh impact of no. 

"Well—" he starts, but the words fall into ash when you duck your head to avoid the crevasse of hazel washed out in flushed gold. "What's your number? I'll call you when m'free next, and we can—"

"Sure," you cut in, hand sliding into your pocket. The cold metal of your phone burns the tips of your fingers when you pull it out. It feels a little bit like a mistake when you hand it over, but he says nothing about the way your hand shakes when he takes it from you. 

His brows draw together in a childish concentration as he taps away at the screen. The artificial light, dimmed as low as possible, brightens the craggy ravines that cut across an emerald tinged boscage; sunlight splitting a lush valley of yellow and green. His puckered lips, the flash of a deep red tongue swiping across his sun-chapped mouth, seems designed to appeal to your baser desires. The one that knows how he'd taste if you pressed you let your tongue grace the tip of his, and can feel the weight of his hands on your flesh. 

He'd hold your hips like he was anchoring you to the earth: tight, warm, and a little bit desperate as he devoured you whole. 

You shiver, and try to ignore the way his pupils bloom into pits of black eclipsing lightened hazel when his gaze settles, hot and heavy, at the brief brush of skin when you reach for your phone. 

"I'll call you," he says, low and strained, like he was choking on the words he wanted to say. "I'll call you as soon as I can, bonnie." 

You nod. It's all you can offer with your heart scrambling up your throat, pulsing furiously against your trachea. 

His nails scrape the skin of your palm when he curls his fingers into a fist, and pulls away. 

"I'll see you around." 

It's not a choice, you want to say. You nod instead. Choke out an equally strained, yeah, and fight the urge to follow him when he finally pulls away. 

"Are you ready to order?" 

The world bursts back into sound, colour. You blink rapidly against the light that seems harsher now than that it did when he was blocking out the sun. 

"Uh, yeah—"

The taste of freshly poured coffee blooms on your tastebuds. 

You order tea instead. 

(It tastes like defeat.)

You only stop running when you can't anymore. When the murmuration in your head turns into screams, and the white-hot agony of grief, of yearning, threatens to make your knees buckle and your bruised heart give. 

You stop, letting him finally catch up. 

(Somehow, somehow, you feel lost and found at the same time.)

His name is Johnny MacTavish. He tells you this over dinner at some upscale restaurant that feels out of place on the old side of Elgin where the walls bleed history, and stink of old bones, and funeral dirt. 

Over a steaming dish of shrimp scampi and burgundy wine that makes your head spin and belly churn, you wonder why it doesn't feel new to you when he murmurs it. 

(A bit late, you find, since you've been texting rather infrequently since you gave him your number three days ago.)

Names never mentioned. Somehow, they didn't have to be. Until now. Until there was emptiness at the end of his question when he posed it, hazel eyes bright and blooming under the hushed yellow glare of the coruscating chandelier hanging above your heads. 

It feels a touch too late when you share your names over dinner despite already knowing he's in the military—opinions clenched between aching teeth and a strained smile that doesn't reach your eyes—and that he normally adorns a Mohawk when he's on missions, but grows it out, rather haphazardly, when he's home. 

Everything between you and him seems to happen in reverse: fears, wants, and worries are known before his given name; the touch of his skin on yours, the taste of his lips, the brush of his tongue, the weight of his palms holding your hips as he buries himself as deep as he can go in a haunting sequence of memories that bare their teeth at the starkness of reality holding them at bay. All of this before you've ever even touched him with your bare hands. 

There's a strange listlessness that envelopes you—a tangled web that spools around you, trapping you in this realm of hypnagogia. The lines between reality and dream blur until they're indistinguishable from each other. Knotted threads married together. Parallel. Concurrent. Where one begins and the other ends is as lost to you as the unfathomable uncertainty of the unknown universe. 

It's not meant to be this way, you think, watching as he feigns not knowing the name that slips between your numbed lips in the same manner you had only moments ago. Traps surprise in the tilt of his chin, but the display is largely done out of some unspoken agreement that this paradox does exist, and the emotion is fleeting. Temporal. He cloves it down the middle, and discards the excess as soon as you look away. 

(Your name fits in his mouth better than it ever did your own, like it was made for his mouth, preordained to play with the soft coil of his tongue.)

He knows more than he lets on, but you don't begrudge him his secrets—not when you have to turn your gaze back to the curled shrimp on your plate to avoid reminding him he prefers fish over crustaceans when he makes a face at the steamed scallops, and should have ordered the Maple Crusted Salmon instead. 

Like he didn't before, in a life you've never lived. In a place that mirrors this world. 

(It isn't something you should know, but you do. You do.)

You know more than that, too: whispers late at night when he couldn't sleep—internal clock still stuck halfway around the world—and urges you into playing a dangerous game of asking questions of each other when pieces of truth buoy in the dark like bobbing for poisoned apples in a barrel. 

You have to erase the words when you type them out, preemptively answering questions he'd never asked yet, and filling in the blanks to ones you posed yourself. 

Odd, you think. Strange, and weird, and macabre in that way that only deja vu gnarling between the broken crevasse of your grey matter can imbue. 

People don't just—

Know each other. 

And yet—

"They call me—"

"Soap." 

Your eyes snap up. A misstep. A grievous one. You've both been content to ignore this paradoxical magnetism that draws you together like eager poles, unable to stay away (not by choice or freewill, but some design that has no place in rigid structures of reality), and you broke it. Trampled over the unspoken rule left to linger in the foreground while you navigated around it like some misshapen elephant in the way. 

He tries to hide the suspicion, the surprise, but it falls between the empty space of his plate (food he only ordered because he's never been here before despite the familiarity that bleeds from the walls like condensation in June) and the ledge. A proverbial precipice that you leaped down; the steep incline filled with detritus and broken shale sharp enough to carve skin, muscles, from shattered bone. 

You want to swallow the words down, but they sit—innocuous and damning—between the salt and pepper shakers where his hand twitches, curls into a tight fist, knuckles bleaching under the strain of reeling himself in. Joints, cartilage, bulging through translucent skin. Reddened around the angry peaks of distrust and wariness; a summit you're not sure how to descend from now that you've crossed the arching tops. 

(Stuck, forever, at the peak.)

"How—" his voice is gravel, lavascape. Jagged rocks. Lakes of sulphuric acid. "How did you know that?" 

His accent thickens when he's angry. You wonder if he knows that. 

"I—" 

Excuses float like moots in front of you. You reach out, grasping for one, but it dances away in the turbulent wake you leave behind. You bite your tongue until it tastes of oxidised pennies, and then shrug. Nonchalant. Indifferent. Fear curls in your gut. Military, right. You wonder what you'll say if they arrest you for treachery. That you dreamed about him? Stupid. Stupid.  

"You told me," you murmur, eyes downcast and heavy, fixed on the bloody cup of wine you don't like, and trying to find solace in your downfall. "I think. I just remembered it from somewhere." 

It makes no sense, and the weak explanation would crumple like damp papier-mâché if he pressed, even just slightly, against it. A single touch, and the house of cards you built from the ground up on nonsensical lies will come crashing down around you. 

He shouldn't entertain it. Shouldn't let it go. 

"Yeah." But he does. "I must'a, huh?"

When you look up, you catch keen hazel eyes, sharp and pointed like the curved talons of a hawk. Johnny MacTavish is many things, you learn, but stupid, guileful, naïve is none of them. 

"Yeah," you echo hollowly, and give another shrug. "Guess so. It's, ah, an interesting nickname."

The clumsy barb seems to break the surmounting tension, and the pieces fall around you like poisoned raindrops, staining your skin. 

A reminder, then, when it crawls down your throat, that this balancing act can't last forever. That, eventually, your excuses will run dry. Empty. They'll be picked at and poked until they burst like a waterlogged, bloated corpse drifting aimlessly down the Nile. 

"Not the only thing that's interesting about me, bonnie," he says in a way that bleeds boyish charm, but his grin is wide, wild, and untamed. White teeth, sharp canines. You think of a wily fox on the prowl, and reach, reflexively, for the glass of wine, swallowing it down like a lifeline. "But I'm beginnin' t'think y'know that already, don't ye?"

It's a threat. A warning. 

You stare down in the half-empty glass of burgundy, the same colour red as the papercut on your index finger, and try to read the beads of crimson that run down the glass in a bloodied rivulet as if the answer could be found somewhere in the liquid. 

(Crystal Ball. Crystal glass. It's all the same, isn't it?)

"Not really," is what you eventually settle for, hedging through the murk that swims before you, an unsettling fen of unknowns and praeternatural happenings that you no longer than chalk up to happenstance. 

Kismet. 

Horror. 

Some cosmic merging of the two. 

It's all—

Absurd. 

And when you politely whisper to him that he should have gotten the salmon, you can't help but notice the ravines in his eyes widen slightly, the chasm growing and gaping, and taking on new shapes in the boscage that blooms like a familiar friend. 

(Kismet, indeed.)

He tries to pretend he doesn't know what the maple salmon tastes like, but slips up when the waiter passes by, and says it was good the last time. 

You fight the urge to chew on your glass like rock candies between your teeth. 

He stands with his hands in his pocket, rocking back and forth. The uncertainty in his brow is swallowed by the tendrils of pleased excitement that knot over his expression, unable to hide his glee when the hazel of his eyes glow brighter than the sun. 

Isn't this strange, you ache to say, words painted with the aftertaste of brine—sea, salt, and sand that are so uniquely him—but they, too, are swallowed down. 

The urge to lacerate the bubbles of complacency, feigned normalcy, are eclipsed by the raw shock of seeing him happy. Of wanting to make him happy. This stranger in a strange land. 

So, you offer some facsimile of a smile when he asks, words pushed out through a wide grin; infectious, if you had a good time. 

"Yeah," you say, and know that this word, this blase affirmative is quickly becoming your faultline through this mess. The thread keeping you sane, keeping you steady. 

It's at the curve of the word when everything else in the world is devoured by the shadow cast under his magnetic glow. The bright yawn of the sun in shades of white teeth catching on some ephemeral magic still dancing within the aether. Atoms spark. 

You try to run from it, ignore it, but your core teeters on the edge of instability. You think of neurons. Protons. Criticality. Something inside of you heats to almost half of the degree of the sun, sweltering and unrelenting. Pulsing, blue-hot. 

"That's good," he husks, eyes lidded and heavy. "I did, too. Whaddya think about doin' it again w'me?" 

It blooms. A great, scorching mushroom cloud plumes in midnight black in the milky white of your eyes.

You shuffle through the darkness, the artificial, comic night, and try to pat at the walls until you find something familiar in terror, the gnawing sense of loss that permeates through your pericardium, thrumming like a mourning toll. 

Sightless, you nod. "I'd love to."

And you mean it, too.

(Damn you. Damn you—)

Despite that tangled web that snakes around your jugular, twinning threads between the two of you, Johnny MacTavish is relentless in his pursuit. 

Where someone else might have shivered at the ghosts that brim in the tenebrous of your pupils, lurking in the untouched corners where your fingerprints stain the sediment, he lingers. Stays. Fixes himself in your path, and refuses to acquiesce to the whims of the world that keep stringing you along like reluctant puppets to some unseen, unknown marionette. 

It's almost charming in its own right, and really—when has a man fought so hard just to simply coexist in the space you deign yours? When has he torn nails from their beds, clawing at the walls that stand tall and proud, a protective tower of ashlar and dread around you until it starts to give. Until the stone crumbles away under his bloodied fingers. 

But as potent as his statement is, it gnarls inside your stomach like a poisoned seed. 

Bending to the demands of whatever this paradoxical realm goes against every fibre of your common sense that you recoil, almost, for just allowing him the scant space he occupies in your proximity. 

It's a deranged pantomime with some unseen force at the helm, conducting the madness with fingers drenched in whimsy and fate. Notched between its knuckles is the mockery of freewill and choice as it pulls you around a soundstage set in a place you've never been. It makes you dance. Amused god, eldritch horror. It takes pleasure in your discomfort, and glee in your fickle humanity. Weaving webs of tangled kismet until the silken threads are pulled taut and there is no more room, not a single atom, between your body and his. 

A nameless, faceless playwright with you as its shining star. 

Hapless leads stuck in an unending beat, a cantastoria, waiting for the shoe, the curtain, or anagnorisis to drop. 

You want to run again, but your feet are glued to the floor. Tangled in webs, threads of abstract concepts your mind threatens to come undone at the mere thought of. A cosmic sense of surrealism: crushing helplessness. 

This is horrific and terrific in equal measure, but the ache, the agony, of distance hurts more. And so, you stay. Watch as the curtain shudders over his eyes. As the etchings of complacency seem to gnarl in the tussock that line the expansive valley. He looks at you and doesn't see the awful truth nestled in the scant distance between your flesh, unable to be apart for too long. He sees you, somehow, and for him, that's enough. Enough. 

Johnny smiles at you, seemingly unbothered by the precariousness of this dance you're caught inside. In this strange equinox where you can answer questions he hasn't asked, and know things he hasn't said. Where you catch yourself leaning closer, starved for a touch you haven't forgotten despite never experiencing yourself. 

He's content, then, chasing the whims of a ghost, reaching for a fantastical dream in the head of another. 

But as content as he is, Johnny MacTavish is a hard man to catch, you think, noting the distance in his eyes, the arm's length of space he keeps between the version of him not haunted by the wants of ghosts, but such an easy man to love. To fall for. 

He balms the panic—that world-ending sense of uncertainty that nips at your heels—and makes you forget, sometimes, that there is more to him, and more to you, than anyone else could ever know. 

He's kind. Charming. 

A little space inside of your head is eked out just for him, and you find yourself hating that person for falling for some version of him first. Loathe them just a little bit more with each effortless grin he sends your way for tainting the experience of knowing him yourself. 

But you wonder, when he turns away, hiding the shadows in his eyes, and the pinch in his brow, if you really, truly know him. 

Or if the face he's wearing belongs to a phantom.

The dance continues. 

Your feet move to a soundless beat, steps preordained in a sequence lived world's ago. Nothing can feel surprising when you know a man so intimately without more than a touch, when you feel the burn of winter's chill in the middle of summer, and long so desperately for someone you just met. 

Nothing is new, and yet everything is novice. A paradox awakening with each gravitational pull to him, this man who looks only vaguely like the phantom who lives in your head, and tastes of longevity between your teeth. 

An arranged romance. Possession by ghosts who want to drive your bodies until they can live again, and love in tandem, vicariously through your living flesh. 

It makes sense to you, then, to call for an exorcism. 

(It just surprises you that Johnny does it first.)

Johnny has his secrets, just like you have yours. A small morsel of agency after autonomy has been stripped from the bone. 

You see the shadows of those hidden things etched in the topography of his valley-filled gaze, crevasses and canyons that pitch themselves in the tenebrous, uncrossable to even you. 

He reaches for you through the murk, fingers threading through your own, hands trembling with the shock, the electric current that sizzles through your blood at the brush of bare skin against quivering flesh. His hands are rough—worker's hands—and chock full of callouses and cuts, multitudes of scar tissue packed tight on top of each other, a thick layer of a life you will never know. Don't want to know. 

He seems settled when you touch, finally, thumb brushing your skittish pulse point as if he could somehow calm the acrid panic in your chest. 

(And damn him, damn this, he does. He does—)

Magnets fixed together, locked tight. You feel like a conduit to his frenzy, his hidden mania, and feed your own through the line, the red string that ensnares you both in a tangled web, until it's buzzing with shared panic and serenity and joy and helplessness. A feedback loop of emotions too extreme, too flighty, to catch. They run in droves along the lines, weaving into your skin, your chest, your head, and then pulling away to do the same to him. 

His eyes are heavier than steel when he gazes at you, expression caught between relief and longing and fear and—

Something, something. You can't pick it apart. Can't undo the tight knot until it spools, open and known, in the palm of your hands. Some unseen distance. It feels like standing at the highest peak of the valley and trying to make sense of the men in the tussock who look like mere ants from this high above. 

Is it happiness, you wonder. 

(Or maybe it's the same reluctance that wraps it's boney, gnarled fingers around your neck—)

It becomes too much. Too soon, too sudden. In the back of your head, you see images and flashes of a life not yet lived, a world still taking shape. You see him and you and a clock above some blue, broken bed. You see his smile, wide and elated, caught on the dawning sun spilling from the open curtains before it disappears under the covers, taking your laughter with it, stuck between his teeth. 

You see the past, the present. 

And your future. 

Cold. Barren. Three sharp knocks echo in the emptiness of your head. A man, a familiar stranger. You don't know him. You'd die for him. He rents the air in two. Your world in cloves. They fall to the ground, leaving you stranded and alone in the middle.

Future. There's no future. 

Your chest twists. You let go of his hand and find bloody crescent moons embedded in a ring along his flesh, knuckles whitening under your harsh grip. He said nothing about the pain. The flicker of worry across his face is genuine, you think. Real. Current. 

You smell funeral dirt in your nose. The mud is called under your nails. 

You pull away. He lets you go. 

"I, uh," he breaks off into a soft huff, injured hand lifting to scratch at the back of his shorn nape. His eyes slide away from yours, listing seaward. Avoidance undercuts the arch in his brow, the sheepishness in his mien. It's his turn to run, you realise. 

"Glad I met you," he says instead, and it's a confession and a curse. 

A bonfire burns in the river that runs through the valleys in his eyes. It's pitched on the sandy shore: an ochre flicker in the cobalt hue that saturates the land. You see the dark peaks of the rolling hills in the distance, black shapes in draped blue. 

The river is calm. The fire burns a smear of orange across the tranquil surface, meeting the milky white glow of the moon. 

It makes you think of those nights in the zenith of summer, the ones that feel neverending. Timeless. A piece of your history etched in balmy melancholy. Alone in the great expanse with nothing but the trill of cicadas, and the echoing chirp of the crickets hidden in the lush grass below. 

The sky shifts. His eyes plume with lavender-tinged stratocumulus. 

"I really like you, bonnie." It's whispered in your ear, and you wish, oh, how you wish, you couldn't hear it. That you could block the words, and the world, out so that it never reaches you again. 

Sweet longing. Beautiful agony. 

Your heart races, and you wonder how an empty space can beat at all. Can feel anything when it's just a hollow chasm. 

A heat blooms under your skin, desperate and aching. This, this, is everything you've been looking for since your heart split free from its fleshy prison, and ran away to find him, tucking itself in the boscage that glows in the flame on the shores. It's hidden somewhere. The palpitations sound like a song. You could follow it, you think, and find its lovelorn shell nestled amongst the grass that sways to its beat, and tuck it back into your empty chest where it belongs. 

(But it belongs to him, now.)

And you—

You hesitate. 

The words well on your tongue, but you think of fate, of choice, and swallow them down. 

The flames in the distance flicker, growing dimmer and darker as the moments stretch on, unbroken and barren until it's snuffed out. Gone. 

What can you say? What could you say? 

Instead, you say nothing at all. 

Johnny leaves a piece of himself on the table when he walks away. 

(You don't pick it up.)

Johnny doesn't say anything at all when he brings you home, when he stands outside of the archway to your flat, eyes lidded and pensive. A smile snakes across his face, but it's brittle and full of uncertainty, and your fingers ache to smooth the rugged lines in his brow, in the stress in his shoulders. You push it down. Smile for him instead. 

"I'll see you later," you say, and wish the ghosts wailing in your head would drop dead. 

The valley is drenched in ink when he nods, catching your gaze. 

All black, black, black. 

No sounds escape. 

"Sure, bonnie." 

You dream, and when you dream, it's of him. 

He stands at the top of a hill, and when he smiles it's full of starlight so bright it could eclipse the sun. 

In his hand, you see a pair of shears. Your mouth opens, but no sound escapes.  

He says just one word—your name—and then he lifts his hand, and cuts the rope. The sutures knit your bodies together, the string that holds him to this mortal plane, falls in swaths of golden thread to the ground where they're devoured by the earth, dissolved into nothing. Gone, forever. 

There's distance now, and separation. Nothing ties you to him except space. 

You wake up with the ghost of a scream on your lips, and the feeling of silken threads dragging over your flesh. You reach for them, and catch nothing but air. 

Palm pressed to your chest, you feel the rapid pulse under your fingertips, and know that it's back. Back where it belongs. 

Belongs, but doesn't want to be. 

You think of Johnny. 

And you weep. 

He sends a text message, and for the first time since you've met him, it surprises you. Nothing should shock you with him, anymore. You know everything, anything, about him. 

Gonna be away for a bit. Should talk when I get back. 

You reach for answers but they slide like mercury out of your hands. 

You don't dance, and you don't dream. 

You wander down the streets of Elgin, and for the first time since you woke up screaming in your bed with ghosts wailing in agony inside of your head, you get lost. 

Johnny comes back a week later, eyes heavier than you'd ever seen them, and shoulders drawn tight together as he asks you why—

"Why'd'ya keep runnin'?" He asks, words pitched and heavy with something lour and aching, a phantom pain you know all too well. There's desperation in his eyes, a low keen settling in the depth of his throat, echoing with the clamour of his despair. "If you don't want this—;" don't want me: "—then just say so, bonnie, 'cause I ain't forcin' ya t'be w'me, I ain't gonna make you stay. You wanna leave, you can just go—"

Can't. Can't. 

"Johnny—"

"No, none o'that, now. You make up your mind, 'cause I ain't makin' it for ya. I ain't makin' ya do somethin' you don't want to, and I ain't—"

He's pleading, you think. Begging—

For this, this strange thing. This awful, broken calamity, this abomination in the face of free will and autonomy. Despite the rage that hums in your veins at the idea of being controlled, manipulated, he finds something worth chasing. Worth running for. 

Why?

And what?

And—

It comes in flashes, snippets. Fragmented pieces of bright eyes—brighter, maybe, than the sun—and warmth, one hot enough to burn but it doesn't, it won't, it soothes instead. Eases coiled muscles, and absorbs the lactic acid that leaks from shredded, knotted fibres. Hands on your body, on your skin: the press of rough fingertips over prickling flesh. A whisper of curiosity, the slow descent into affection, adoration. Plush lips pillowing sharp teeth, too reverent to ever leave a mark behind—part in fear of marring fragile skin, and—

Letting the ghost of permanence fester, take root, inside his chest where his heart beats—

Jus' f'r you, bonnie. Jus' you.

For once, the phantom touching your body isn't a dream, a half-lived fantasy in another world where a man-made you whole and then ripped you into pieces, letting the scattered fragments blow with the sharp winds howling through the highlands. You know the touch, remember it. Felt it. New, and tangible. A touch that never lingered, too afraid of letting something, something, stick. 

For once—

The snaps flashing, blindingly, through your synapses are not made of dream dust and kismet. 

And—

All at once, it shatters.

—you know, i never thought i'd say this before, but i—

(You were lost in Elgin, but when you see his face, you feel found—)

THERE—

There is a lot to be said about Johnny MacTavish. 

Good things—kind, dedicated, driven—and bad things—bold, stoic, dogmatic—but one thing neither have in common is tardiness. Broken promises. 

So, when Johnny calls you in some distant land you've never heard of, and says: 

Things got bad. I might not—I might not be coming home.

You believe him. 

But the thing is: there's a difference between believing the words being said to you, and understanding their meaning. Your mind is not equipped to latch onto devastating blows with the same swiftness you do ignorant bliss. 

So, when you hear I might not be coming home, you think, instead, of tardiness. Of a missed anniversary dinner. 

(Of all the ones that came before it, and will come after it.)

And you smile. Smile into the receiver with your heart drifting down Lethe. 

"Okay, Johnny," you say, and those words will come back to haunt you three days from now, when John Price shows up at your goddamn door, stupid bucket hat tucked tight to his chest, and rips your heart into pieces. 

But for as much as you are blissfully ignorant, your mind still understands nuance. They used to call it foresight, a sixth sense; hindsight. 

You add, softer than you've ever said the words: "I love you." 

His breath stutters through the line in response. A brief pause. And then—

"If anything happens—" you hate him a little for even saying it; you really do: "just know that I love you, too. And that I hope—ah, Christ, bonnie, you got me all stupid, now—but, fuck, I hope we meet in another life."

It knocks something loose inside of you. Some primaeval thing that nestled in the safety of your ribs, moulting along your moon-white bones and glueing to the soft tissue that pulsed around it. It's shaken. Dislodged. 

It feels a little bit like your soul is being scraped off of bone. 

"Johnny—"

"—gotta go. We haven't heard from Roach or Riley in a while. I probably won't call tonight. So, don't wait for me, bonnie." 

The line clicks before the words I've been waiting for you forever fall from your wobbling lips.

You hate Johnny a little bit for this. For digging his roots deep into the soft chambers of your heart where it gnarled around your pericardium. A perfect little knot. A bow tied nice and pretty just for him. 

It makes it so much harder to bare when John fucking Price knocks on your door, stupid fucking bucket hat tucked tight against his chest, ghosts in his eyes, blood on his hands, and rips your heart into pieces until nothing but the rotten, dying roots remain. 

"I hate you so much right now," you hiss at the tombstone—the only thing you have left of him. "I hate you and I miss you and I wish you were here so I could—"

John finds you with your forehead pressed against the brass plaque, cheeks raw from the rivulets of tears that feel endless—a baptism in grief; in your tear ducts, Noah battles the biblical flood, and loses. 

Eyes that can't see past a shimmering hinterland of death and abject dismay are fixed, broken, against speckled granite. 

It's agony. The kind that makes it feel as if the marrow in your bones turned into a corrosive liquid, molten and devastating, and burst through brittle, hollow bone. 

Price, you've come to realise, seems to know things beyond what you tell him. Always picking up the shedded skin that falls from the people around him. Little pieces of them that he shoves in his pocket to ruminate on when he's trying to put together the puzzle of who they are. 

Words won't penetrate through the haze in your head. It filters in like water through a rhyne, back out to the open sea. 

(He knows this, of course, because you've been shedding pieces of yourself around him for years.)

It doesn't surprise you, then, when he says nothing. When he just falls to his aching knees in the soft humus, resting beside you as your world crumbles into ash and heartache. 

You sit in numbed silence until the sun is swallowed by the dusk that creeps across the sky. The moon itself seems to mourn along with you, hiding her eyes behind a nebulous veil of gunmetal. 

Price, without a word, helps you stand when the gravekeeper comes and ushers you out. He shepherds you into his Jeep and brings you back to the place that reeks of loneliness and dinners for one. A place that still carries the ghost of his presence around every corner, tucked away in each alcove and nook.

He might be gone, but his shadow still lives and breathes the dank, funeral air that clings to your sallow skin. A miasma of loss that tangles itself in every atom around you. 

Price seems hesitant to step inside, but you'd rather sleep on the patio with the chirping crickets and the weeping moon than be inside where the echo of his voice whispers through the halls, and he knows this, because he knows you, and so he brings you in before you can entomb yourself in grief, lost to the elements. He sets you down gingerly on the couch, body now more fragile than fine china, brushing your tangled hair from your forehead. It catches on his weathered hands. You barely feel the pull. 

He looks at you like you're a battle that can't be won. 

"Take care'a yourself, yeah? It's what—" he chokes, then, and you feel the hiccup like a white-hot knife to your gut. "It's what he would've wanted."

What he wanted is gone, and it's dead—just like him.

You don't say these words, but you wonder if he knows them, hears them, anyway. He must, you think, watching as the ashy, smoked cedar of his beard twitches. His mouth gnarls to the side in grief, uncertainty. 

He says your name. You know this because you know the shape it makes of his mouth, but don't you hear it. All it sounds like is a nail scraping over waterlogged, mossy wood. 

Price leaves.

A part of you goes with him.

You rest your forehead against his pillow, the one that smells of him still—warm milk, honeysuckle—and you wish so hard on broken promises, unfilled dreams, to see him again, to hold his face in the plinth of your palms, that your heart feels like it might burst—

—break. 

But it's already broken. There's nothing left to shatter. The pulpy mess he left behind beats not because you want it to, but because it has to. A biological failsafe that does not care about your human emotions even as it quivers and shakes at the loss that tipped your world upside down. A gaping hole sits in the middle in the shape of his smile, and your stubborn heart pulses around the wound. 

Sometimes you think it would be easier to feel nothing at all. To shed the agony like a rotting limb, cutting it as close to the bone as you can, and watching it fall, blackened with decay, and postulating with infectious spores that bud, devouring unblemished, unhurt, flesh until you're a pristine corpse. 

Grief twists you into the living dead. Breaks your head in two, cloved clean down the middle of unrelenting panic and anger—anguish so severe, you can easily convince yourself nothing at all is real. 

But it is. 

And then there is only denial and abject horror at that unimaginable nothingness that looms, blooming in your insides until they turn into a gaping, festering maw. One that makes you feel like you could swallow the whole world and still feel empty. 

No longer a human on the inside but a chasm. The person you were before died the moment his heart stopped beating. Irrevocably changed with three, stark knocks against the door he painted yellow because it reminded him of the way you looked standing in a field of sunflowers. Gone. Gone—

A barren void with its insides scraped out. Hollow. Wind rattles through your chilled bones. It sounds like his voice when it ghosts over your ribcage. 

You chase the sound. 

Running, running, running. Going so fast, it barely feels like your feet touch the ground. A wingless bird soaring across the valleys that gleaned in his hazel eyes. 

Running, running—

Your feet slide against marshy peat. A hidden bog gurgles beneath your soles. 

You don't scream when you sink. 

(The bubbles sound just like him—)

You smile.

—NOW

Eldritch machinations, some fanciful god playing a chaotic game of matchmaker, a dizzying sense of folie a deux—you haven't quite determined what the reason for this is, who or what might be behind it, but one thing you do know is this:

Something might be aligning your paths until all trails lead to him, but when you wander down those Wonderland roads, your heart beats for him. 

A second heart pulses under your skin. One slipped inside when you cupped his cheeks in your palm, and told him when you looked, you saw only him.

It might not be a choice you've made in this lifetime, but it's certainly one you can't bring yourself to regret. 

You run, but this time, it isn't away from him, but to him. 

He tastes of coumarin when you press your lips to his, a kiss met in the middle. 

You're lost, now, in the swell that gusts across the boscage. A breeze dances over your ears. A thousand starlings coo in the clear blue aether above. You feel the tickle of barley against your knees. Rasping tussock sedge curls over your ankle, weaving together until you're tied to the ground. Anchored against the stalks of wheat that shiver in the wind. 

His hands are warm, solid, on your skin. One hand braced on the small of your back, keeping you pressed firmly against him. The other cups your chin like you're made of fine china, polished crystal full of precious gems and rare metals. He holds tight as if he's afraid you'll drift away when he lets go. 

Your head is blooming full of sunflowers. They germinate in your thoughts until the petals burst through, lifting high to the heavens where the sun burns half as hot as his body angling against yours. 

His atoms sing, calling to yours. A buzz, a hum. You feel them stretch, shifting from the prison of you until equilibrium is reached when they merge, tangling together. A new being, a new entity is born from the collision—a person made of two with lungs and hearts that breathe and beat in the same cadence as it's ghosts. Woven together with marionette strings. 

It feels like coming home and getting lost all at once. 

Etched in the delicate flesh of your heart sits a kairos moment. A brief period of nothing that runs as deadly and tumultuous as the Swillies. An upheaval. 

Time is tenuous. Broken. Fragmented. 

An arm stretches out, anchoring across your waist. His mouth presses a kiss to your bare shoulder, eyes glossy in the mid-morning sun. 

"Wha' time's it?" He slurs out, words thick with sleep. 

Your eyes cut to the alarm clock on the end table. A slow, languid smile curls across your kiss-bruised mouth. 

"Eleven-fifteen," you breathe, eyes fixed on the red lines. Your heart stutters when it flickers. "Eleven-sixteen."

"S'too early," he moans, lips rubbing over your flesh. "Stay in bed with me." 

You peel your gaze away from the clock ticking down the seconds (minutes, hours, days, months, years), and turn to him. Hazel in bloom. A boscage in spring. Your eyes mist a little from the morning dew. 

"I love you, Johnny." 

His breath ghosts over your skin. You hear the hitch in his voice when he speaks. 

"Been waitin' a long time t'hear you say that, bonnie."

"Sorry to keep you waiting." 

—don't wait for me, Bonnie. i'll come find you—

—THEN

"Excuse me? You dropped this."

It's raining. Pouring, really. The droplets are the size of pennies and pelt the top of your umbrella with an unforgiving force. It sounds like the clatter of a mourning bell, and drowns everything else out. 

But it catches. Clear. Low. 

You turn, blinking through the thick fog that congeals around High Street in a dense, white blanket. 

"Sorry?" 

A man. He's towering above you, cut off at the chest by the fine points of your umbrella. You lift it, and—

Your wallet is the first thing you see. Wet, covered in grit from the cobblestone. It's clenched between a thick thumb and forefinger, held delicately together. You baulk. 

"Oh, shit—," it's snatched out of his hand, and pulled into the sanctuary of cover. You can feel it already. The mess inside. Still. You hope—

The leather peels back. Mush. 

You groan. The meagre bills you'd pulled from the machine are now wet, sticking together in a papier-mache square. Useless. No one is going to accept sopping wet bills. 

"Alright?" 

"No, I—," you glance up at him, irritation cutting across your brow. No, you're not alright. You're shit out of luck, and stranded here, now. And—

And—

Hazel. It's the first thing you see. Mountains of brown slope into a lush green valley. A cool blue lake cuts through, splitting off into a ravine. 

Your breath catches. 

"Sorry, umm. Yes. I'm—"

Attractive is the first word that springs to your mind when you stare at him—dark eyes, furrowed brow, long nose, a dusting of charcoal stubble along his cheeks and jaw, and full pink lips. Kissable is the second one. 

And then—

Oh, God. 

"Sorry," you murmur again, cheeks heating despite the chill. "I'm fine. Thank you, I'm—"

"You're not," he says, and it's uttered so assuredly that you can't find it in yourself to lie. As if he is somehow able to chisel into your head, and rifle through your problems with ease. "It's all wet, isn't it? Were you heading home, or—?"

It's cliche. Stupid. Your belly rumbles.

Mortifying. Absolutely—

His lips quirk up. A soft, almost secretive smile. Reserved. "Well, I know this place around the back. I could use the company, if you wouldn't mind."

You should say no. No, thank you—because you were raised proper. But all you can think about is the deep, brassy tone that tickles your ears when he speaks. The distant, almost careful way he regards you, as if he's putting himself at arm's length so you aren't scared off by his brawn. 

Hazel is dusted in gold. You want to bask in his warmth for just a moment longer—

"I'll pay you back, I promise."

His brows raise. Hazel framed in white. A soft huff leaves his full mouth before his lips pull up in a slow, genuine smile. 

"Y'alright, bonnie. I'll hold you to it."

(And so, it begins.)

[ninja-muse]

At last, a month where I feel like I read enough! The trick, clearly, was to pick up graphic novels and other very short things. Will this trend continue in November? Almost certainly not.

Followers might have seen my review for The Dollmakers by Lynn Buchanan last week but that's not actually my top read of the month. That honour goes to Jane Austen's Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney, which I got as an ARC from work, told myself I wouldn't read just yet, then promptly picked up after The Dollmakers and all but burned through. It's about the female authors we know Austen read and why they were bestsellers in their day but are barely known now, with all sorts of publishing and book industry history thrown in, along with a dose of memoir. Needless to say, I was the target audience and I've added a good handful of classics to my TBR. (It's out in February, in case you're interested.)

The rest of my top reads are there for just being solidly good. The Disappearing Spoon gave me all the fun science history I wanted. The Angel of Indian Lake gave me a good horror trilogy ending. The Tropic of Serpents gave me more Lady Trent adventures. And so on. I only really had two misses: The Aeronaut's Windlass, which felt very by-the-books epic fantasy without pushing boundaries, and Wordhunter, which I'm actively recommending people don't read. It was utterly average and kind of trying too hard to be edgy, and then it needlessly introduced sexual violence against women and children and handled both badly. How a book that lets a pedophile off with a warning got published in 2024, I will never understand.

In happier news, my book haul! Two books this month: Sorcery and Small Magics, sent by the publisher, and another volume of The Unwritten, meaning I only need to find one and I've got the full run. Hurray! (If you ever spot Vol. 9, folks, lemme know.)

All that reading means that I haven't done much writing. I need to get back to that, but at least I know what was blocking me and am working to rectify the situation. I am, however, starting to get seriously envious of authors who were able to write during the pandemic and are now getting those novels published. I stopped writing entirely for a year and a half, for various reasons, and now I feel like I've fallen behind.

Someday I might return to the Not-Quite-Urban Fantasy but I'm still too raw to handle the edits even now.

Oh, the worlds of might-have-been!

And now I've gone and left this on a down note. There'll be more positivity next month, I promise. In the meantime, here’s my list of everything I read this month, in the rough order of how glad I was to have read them.

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf - Rebecca Romney

A rare book dealer explores the literary histories of Austen’s favourite female authors, and how they didn’t make the English canon the way Austen did. Out in February.

8/10

reading copy

The Disappearing Spoon - Sam Kean

An entertaining history of chemistry, atomic physics, and the elements of the periodic table.

8/10

library ebook

The Tropic of Serpents - Marie Brennan

Isabella Camherst travels south to Bayembe to study savannah dragons, but finds herself caught in politics and sent on a mission to the swamp of Mouleen.

7.5/10

African-coded secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (asexual)

library book

The Dollmakers - Lynn Buchanan

When Shean of Pearl receives, and refuses, an artisan dollmaker license, she sets off for a remote village to prove she and her dolls have what it takes to be guards against the Shod. If this means luring the monsters in, so be it.

7.5/10

reading copy

The Angel of Indian Lake - Stephen Graham Jones

Jade Daniels, now Proofrock’s history teacher, has put slasher cycles behind her. Except it’s looking like another one’s started anyway.

7.5/10

Blackfoot protagonist, 🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (sapphic), Black secondary characters

warning: blood, gore, death, murder

reading copy

Reluctant Immortals - Gwendolyn Kiste

Lucy Westrena and Bee Rochester are trying to get through the days in 1967 LA when their exes return in San Fransisco.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (sapphic), Jamaican-British secondary character

warning: abusive relationships

reading copy

Bury Your Gays - Chuck Tingle

After Misha refuses to kill off his queer leads for the season finale, he finds himself stalked by horror villains he created.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (gay), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (bi, aroace), 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: death, murder, torture, homophobia, child abuse

library book

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 7 - G. Willow Wilson with Mirka Andolfo (Illustrator), Takeshi Miyazawa (Illustrator)

Kamala Khan faces two difficult foes: gerrymandering and a sentient computer virus.

6.5/10

Pakistani-American protagonist, Muslim protagonist, Pakistani-American secondary characters, Muslim secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (sapphic), Black secondary character, secondary character with limb damage and a cane, Muslim author

warning: outing

off my TBR

Paladin’s Grace - T. Kingfisher

Stephen is a paladin whose god has died. Grace is a perfumer trying to keep her past buried. Witnesses to a failed assassination, they now must work together to navigate a world of intrigue, poisoners, and zealots. It’s a good thing they like each other.

6.5/10

off my TBR/ebook

Plain Jane and the Mermaid - Vera Brosgol

When Jane’s potential fiancé is kidnapped by a mermaid, she descends into the depths to rescue him even though she can never hope to compete with true waifish beauty.

7.5/10

warning: body shaming

library book

Sorcery and Small Magics - Maiga Doocy

Leovander Loveage and Sebastian Grimm get along like oil and water—which makes it all the worse when Leo's hit with an illegal curse and they must work together to break it.

6.8/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (achillean), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (achillean), 🏳️‍🌈 minor character (ungendered), minor character with dark skin, minor character who uses a cane

gifted by publisher

Dictionary of Fine Distinctions - Eli Bernstein

Illuminating and illustrated definitions of commonly confused words.

7/10

library book

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop - Satoshi Yagisawa

When Takako finds herself adrift in life, she accepts a room in her estranged uncle’s bookshop.

7/10

Japanese cast, Japanese author

library book

Wordhunter - Stella Sands

A spiky forensic linguistics student is tapped by her local PD to help find a kidnapped teen, but that brings up a missing person’s case from her own past. Too close, too soon.

2/10

Black secondary character

warning: drug use, alcohol abuse, rape and an odd attitude towards its aftermath, pedophiles given a pass

library book

Picture books

All the Books - Hayley Rocco

Piper loves books so much she takes her whole collection everywhere, but when her wagons tip over in the rain she discovers … the library!

9/10

DNF

The Aeronaut’s Windlass - Jim Butcher

The cold war between Spires Albion and Aurora is heating up, and something uncanny is showing itself. Caught in it all are Captain Grimm, late of the Predator, a handful of trainee guards, and a prince of cats.

library ebook

Currently reading

The Price of the Stars - Debra Doyle and James D. MacDonald

When Beka’s politician mother is assassinated, her father gives her his warship in exchange for her tracking the assassins down. But when someone has it in for your family, sometimes one must take drastic measures.

off my TBR

The Empress Letters - Linda Rogers

A mother in the 1920s writes her life story in a series of letters to the daughter she’s searching for in China.

🇨🇦, Chinese secondary characters

warning: fetal remains, anti-Chinese racism

off my TBR

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle Victorian detective stories

disabled POV character (limb injury), occasional Indian secondary characters

warning: racism, colonialism

Monthly total: 14 + 1 Yearly total: 106 Queer books: 3 Authors of colour: 2 Books by women: 9 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 0 Classics: 0 Off the TBR shelves: 3 Books hauled: 2 ARCs acquired: 3 ARCs unhauled: 4 DNFs: 1

January February March April May June July August September

[slibbyjibby7000]

A token for the Loony Bin

A FIC IDEA FOR THE HANNIGRAM FIC GODS!!!

Considering that I haven't contributed very few posts for the Loony Bin, and I mean by my own hand, this proposal for a fic would be a fitting quencher for the undying hunger for new and unique ideas. I always intend to write my ideas but I just thought it'd be nice to throw it to the world if it'd never reach paper so... here ya go. So, I have been giving very serious thought and much of my sanity to this fic idea set in the supernatural, maybe horror theme: Hannibal and Will survive post-fall, yes, all that you all would expect, fic continues as a typical post-fall, budding romance and drama fic seen through Will's perspective. Things feel off to Will, much like deja vu or the Mandela effect. The plot continues its path but Will increasingly feels out of place or, rather, uncomplimented. Hannibal seems undisturbed, right as rain, and looks and acts as Will knows him to be. But he also seems to have "forgotten" or "misplaced" certain details of their lives and people. He's always close, always smiling at Will with his almost unblinking, enamored gaze. Always longing. Grieving. Mourning. This goes on for months until Hannibal is away (albeit reluctantly and always for a short amount of time) and Will is alone to himself for an hour or two. He walks, he tends to the house, and the tickling sensation of being watched hasn't left him since Hannibal left. Will invites the stalker--however, you may interpret that-- and waits. Hannibal meets him, rugged and disheveled, unlike Will has ever seen him, and not in the same clothes he left in. His scars aren't even the same. Will, reasonably so, is extremely confused. Hannibal doesn't say anything, just approaches Will with the desperation of a starving man--a man unmoored and without his charge. Will accepts this in his haze of confusion and the growing discomfort in his gut as another Hannibal, his Hannibal, meets them. The Hannibal in his arm fiercely pins Will to him, seething with hatred for his doppelganger, and holds Will as a hostage. Hannibal, who Will thought was his, begins to react in Hannibal-like fashion but with a visibly uncharacteristic breakdown, telling the two that he only wanted his Will back, that he wasn't meant to be here, and that he just wanted a life with Will even if he wasn't his and he had to take him or do whatever it took to have him. (This doesn't have to be extremely detailed and explained in the fic, it can simply be implied. The man before them WAS Hannibal but a Hannibal disjointed from time and space, a man from a parallel universe that got lost in the 'fall' event, so much so that he woke up in another world just like his own without his other half to follow him, unfamiliar and uncomplimented. The fate of the other Will can be up to you.)

The final part can be left to interpretation and personal favor but, in my mind, they all get into an altercation which ends with the original Murder Husband pair together and the Other Hannibal gone by his own means.

[wordsarelife]

DAY 8: UNDERNEATH THE TREE

pairing: tasm!peter parker x gn!reader

summary: you and peter both struggle to find the perfect gift and end up proving why you belong together

warnings: reader is risking her health and safety

notes: this is a bit ridiculous, but it's christmas time, so whatever huh?

"what about a cd?" gwen pointed at the stand to your right. the shop was filled with multiple things you could gift someone, just not peter. you wanted your gift to be meaningful and you just couldn't get it right.

"no" you shook your head "he probably owns every cd in the world already"

"what about a sweater?" gwen asked. you knew she wouldn't just give up like that. she had made it her mission to get the perfect gift for you. she thought if she would just name various things she knew peter liked, it would make eventually click.

you shook your head once again and gwen sighed. "you know he isn't the president, right?" she raised her brows at you "he will certainly like anything you get for him"

"i know" you said "but i don't just want him to like it, i want to make him speechless at how perfect it is"

"i don't think such a gift exists" gwen noted "why don't you just draw something or make your own mixtape?" she suggested

"peter is far better at drawing than i am" you shrugged "and i cannot deal with computers, you know that"

"okay" gwen nodded "then think about something that connects the both of you. perhaps something only you guys even know about?"

"ugh" you threw your head back, trying to think of anything "there is nothing, my mind is literally just blank"

"okay" gwen took you by your arm and walked you out of the shop "we're not getting anywhere with this"

"where are we going?"

"central park" she answered simply "where you guys met, maybe that'll help you"

"sure" you shrugged your shoulder "might be worth a try"

the way was shorter than you had anticipated and a few minutes later you were standing at the exact spot you and peter had run into each other.

"and..?" gwen wondered

"give me a minute" you turned around yourself, looking at everything like you had done that day.

there were memories quickly flashing through your mind, a boy with a skateboard, a book flying in the air, a wheel falling off a board.

"the wheels" you exclaimed suddenly

"huh" gwen looked up from her fingernails with raised brows "the what?"

"the wheels" you repeated even more excited "when peter and i ran into each other, meaning literally ran into each other, one of the wheels of his skateboard losened and fell off. we didn't find it, so i bought him a new one"

"so what's the plan?" gwen asked crossing her arms, looking at you suspiciously after she saw your face light up. "no" she shook her head

"come on!" you pleaded "that would be the most romantic gift ever!"

"you really think that wheel would still be here a year later?"

"maybe" you shrugged in a sing song. "where's the romantic in you, gwen?"

"i am romantic" gwen exclaimed offended "just not hopeless, like you are"

"you go look there, i'll search here" you directed and gwen gave in with an eye roll.

it took you about three hours to give up. there wasn't anything close to a wheel laying around in that park.

"what did i tell you?" gwen asked when you guys had sat down on a bench "it's gone"

"well" you pushed your hair out of your face "there is still one place we haven't checked" your eyes darted to the little pond next to you

"no, y/n" gwen said "it's december!"

you took off your scarf and mittens, putting them down on the bench "it's romance!" you argued.

gwen watched in horror as you got out of your jacket. "no, this is madness! you're going to freeze to death"

"i don't care" you got rid of your sweater too. the last piece of clothing you were willing to remove in public. "your apartment isn't too far from here, i'll be fine"

"y/n" gwen shook her head once again "please don't make me tell peter that you died"

"i won't" you assured, before you slowly walked into the water. "ooh!" you bellowed "yeah, this is cold"

"i told you!"

"too late now, anyway" you muttered and with one last look in gwen's direction, you quickly immersed into the water, diving through it and searching for a hint of the lost wheel. you had almost shrieked from happiness, when you really did make it out, right beneath you.

you jumped up from the surface, the treasure right in your hand "i got it!" you called and gwen looked up in surprise as you climbed out of the water.

the adrenaline rush was gone as quickly as it had come and you were shivering. "it's so cold" you stuttered.

gwen quickly pulled the jacket over your shaking form, while she was holding her phone to her ear. "she is shaking, so much. i don't know what to do" she spoked into it.

"who are you talking to?" you asked, while you felt like icicles were growing on your whole body

gwen didn't answer you. she just watched you worriedly, while she gently made you sit on the bench. then she took off her jacket and put it over yours.

"what are you doing?" you once again went unanswered.

"when are you going to be here?" gwen asked into the phone.

"now" a voice behind you said, which prompted both you and gwen to turn around.

"peter" you exclaimed in surprise.

"y/n" peter was by your side in a second "what were you thinking?" he seemed to be more asumed than angry, which was a relief to you.

"i wanted to surprise you"

"well, you did just that" he pointed to his backpack "i brought fresh clothes and the suit, come on" he took your hand. "are you getting home?" he asked gwen, who nodded and waved you both goodbye.

peter walked you to a toilet nearby so you could change, when you came out, spiderman was already waiting for you. he swung you both through new york, until you arrived at his place.

after you had showered and changed into your pyjamas, peter was ready for you to explain what had been going on earlier.

"i'm sorry you had to come and get me" you apologized "i was stupid"

"it's no problem" peter assured "by why the hell did you decide to go swimming at the end of december?"

"because of you" you smiled. you could almost see the question marks popping up beside peter's head, so you opened your bag, taking out the wheel and holding it in his direction.

"a skateboard wheel?"

"the skateboard wheel you lost when we ran into each other"

"it was still there?"

"yup" you smiled "just at the bottom of the pond"

"you're an idiot" peter shook his head "you risked your own health to get me this?"

"of course" you shrugged "you would've done the same for me"

peter smiled and got up from the bed. the next second he was holding a book in your direction.

"the book-"

"- i ruined when we met, yeah" peter nodded "it's even signed, i got it off ebay"

you laughed "this is so much better than my stupid idea"

"well" peter said shrugging "i might not have nearly died while getting this, but i'd say your gift is pretty amazing too. thank you, even if you are an idiot"

you laughed "luckily you came and saved me"

"i'd always save you"

taglist: @twistedhistory @bakingintheshire @mqstermindswift @taygrls @athenalikethegoddess

[takibikaen]

Gifts Exchanged, One Sternritter to Another

Author’s Notes: Merry Christmas guys, I wrote up this little Bleach Christmas one-shot last year and thought it would be fitting to post it this time of the year. While watching the TYBW anime, many Quincy characters had quirks and traits I was invested and wanted to explore in a non-battle setting, thus a Christmas gift exchange!

Ao3 link - The fic is also on Ao3 and has a list of references from TYBW that I enjoyed adding to the story!

-------------------------------------------

Bambietta Basterbine peeked through the window of the ice-covered Quincy-building in apprehension. "Is he gone?" She asked hopefully to Askin Nakk Le Vaar who was looking through his binoculars nonchalantly without a care in the world.

"Seems so, Bambi-chan."

"Good, that damn Grandmaster ruined my hopes of getting a bonus last year for the New Year. This year, this Christmas party we're doing will make up for it!" Bambietta huffed sourly.

"What were you even going to spend the bonus on?" Askin's mouth contorted into a lazy smirk, his stylized eyebrows raised in a mildly curious manner.

"Hmph, I haven't really thought of what to buy, but that bonus would still have been nice considering how all we do is training or fighting with each other in the Wandenreich."

Sitting on a chair with the other Femritter, Giselle giggled loudly while wearing a red-white Christmas hat instead of her Sternritter cap. "Bambi-chan can be so dumb sometimes hehe."

That earned the annoyance of the self-proclaimed leader of the Femritter as she started firing back insults at the Zombie Sternritter.

Askin took a sip of his cafe au lait, wondering why he even went along with this semi-entertaining idea in the first place. It had been a breather from the repetitive training and fighting with the other colorful personalties of his fellow Sternritter, yet considering how the Wandenreich Quincy's only goal was to fight for his Majesty and completely decimate the Soul Society....this Christmas party was just unfit for their lot.

A tap on Askin's shoulder shook him out of his desolate thoughts. A giant mouth was in front of him, looking hungry. "Liltotto-chan, that appetite of yours never ceases to amuse me." chuckled the easy-going Quincy sardonically. He handed over a cup of his cafe au lait to Sternritter G, watching the short blond Quincy consume the steamed liquid.

"Their bickering was making me hungry....anyways, the gift exchange is about to start. I'm heading for Gremmy's cell, you guys can waste your time with this holiday idiocy." Liltotto said apathetically.

"What a shame, you didn't put your name in the gift exchange name bowl? Your friends will be so disappointed." Askin remarked, despite inwardly agreeing with her on the pointlessness of it all.

Besides that, mentioning that monster Gremmy filled Askin with a fatal sensation, more effective than whatever mental horrors As Nodt could conceive. "Still, it's none of my business concerning Liltotto and what she sees in Gremmy to ever spend time with him willingly."

Then, Bazz-B walked in as he held a white-green box in his hands softly, before seeing what was going on. "Oi, oi, oi! What's with this ugly red-green shit all over Silbern? Even the Soldat are wearing this crap!" He shouted, looking bewildered and annoyed with the sudden change to the Wandenreich's bland look.

"They're doing a Christmas party, rooster head. Exchanging gifts and other human customs." snarked Liltotto as she left the room before Bazz-B could shoot a fire blast at her.

"Jugo really signed off on this crap? Also, are you mocking my awesome mohawk, bitch?!"

Meninas wrapped up her gift before answering. "He doesn't know about what we're doing. There's some sort of Quincy ritual involving his Majesty so his successor left with him."

"Hmph, bastard always follows his Majesty..."

A gloved hand gripped Bazz-B's shoulder with a tight grip, earning the fiery-mannered Quincy's ire before seeing who gripped his shoulder.

"An irritating, garden-variety gnat like you should learn a valuable lesson from his Majesty's successor." Sternritter X, known as Lille Barro calmly stated heavily, accompanied by his overwhelming Reiatsu that effectively made Bazz-B back down and leave the room with his green-white box.

"Quite the harsh words to say to our inferiors, eh Barro? Your commitment to his Majesty is endless even towards these little children like them!" guffawed Sternritter M, known as Gerald Valkyrie boisterously, the volume of the massive Schutzstaffel member's voice made the nearby Sternritter wince in annoyance.

Their hooded comrade of the Schutzstaffel, Sternritter C, named Pernida Parnkgjas made a sound of incoherence.

"Agreed, Pernida. We only have a year left until his Majesty is back to full strength. Getting these Sternritter prepared for their duties towards his Majesty's dream is what's expected of us." nodded Barro stoically.

While those three were secluded from the other Sternritter, Bambietta pinched her forehead in frustration and checked with Meninas, Candice, and Askin to make sure things went smoothly. In the background, Giselle kept trying to convince Mask De Masculine's #1 fan, James, to be part of her zombie entourage.

"PePe is still incapacitated by your death-dealing, Nakk Le Vaar?"

Askin yawned as he nodded, it was a simple increasing the lethal amount of oxygen in Sternritter L's respiratory system to the point of being unable to move.

"Driscoll and Quilge are still entangled in a super-long fight ordered by his Majesty?"

Candice rolled her eyes at how serious Bambietta was taking this whole thing, yet still gave the confirmation that she tricked the two Sternritter into a fight outside of the Wandenreich buildings. It was easy to arrange, involving Quilge's stringent, orderly demeanor and Driscoll's bloodthirsty, violent personality.

"Sternritter Q and Sternritter R...I don't bother to know their names but they're taken care of?"

Meninas didn't remember their names either, although it was grating to everyone's ears whenever Sternritter Q started questioning everything, leading to her knocking him out for their semi-sane peace of mind. She had also challenged Sternritter R to an arm-wrestling contest, knocking him out too after she won before he could pull off a mind-scrambling roar.

"Good, most of the problematic idiots and weirdos can't ruin this party now." sighed Bambietta in relief.

"Talk about a lack of self-awareness. Still, I preferably don't want to be on the receiving end of her explosions." To call Bambietta out on her compulsive behavior of killing numerous soldiers she slept with, was begging for retribution, Askin always had a fatal feeling from her despite how intriguing he found her compared to the other Sternritter.

For the gift exchange, most of them placed their names randomly in a Reishi bowl and had gotten a partner to get a gift for.

"Gigi, you're one of the most irritating Quincy I ever met, considering how much you mock me and Candi. Always whining to us about how you don't have enough zombies, therefore I got you these so you can shut up for once." stated Bambietta as Giselle unwrapped a bag full of dead corpses of guys Bambietta slept with.

"Awww, Bambi-chan!! You do care about me, only you could give me a perfect gift! I'll put off turning you into a zombie for later!"

The violet-haired Sternritter blinked in confusion at Giselle's foreboding words, only to be enraged at her subordinate suddenly leaving the party to go 'play' with her new playtoys. "Wait, you're supposed to give me a gift as well, Gigi! You didn't bother to get me one?!"

Next, it was Meninas and Candice's turn to exchange gifts that were normal this time, to the relief of the two Sternritter ladies.

".....What is this exactly?" Candice held a device that had a cord, while reading the packaging.

"You get up before everyone to do your hair and get mad when it gets ruined. I decided to get you this hair styling tool from the human world. You can power it with your electricity....I think" Meninas explained simply.

"Thanks Meni, this is gonna save me a lot of grief and time! I also got you something from the human world! Your ridiculous Volstandig gave me the inspiration for your gift." Candice's words piqued the pink-haired Sternritter as she took out a dumb-bell set weighing hundreds of pounds.

Near the two, BG9 observed them through his sensors, being confused about the usefulness of the gifts given. "Quite senseless....how would these items given benefit them in combat, Sternritter P's calculated physical strength from her last fight greatly exceeds the combined weight in that dumb-bell set."

Cang Du stoically handed a martial arts book to the android Quincy. "Don't waste your time trying to understand them. Here. This book has detailed breakdowns of the various marital arts that would likely be used by that Squad 2 shinigami captain, her Bankai won't be her only asset."

"Sternritter I, this information will prove very useful to me in the coming battle. It'll absolutely be utilized to the fullest extent. In return, I procured this skin ointment for you to assist with your uncomfortableness with your Schrift's effect-"

A Reishi claw was placed near BG9's throat to make it clear about stoping that sentence. "I told you not to mention it near the other Sternritter. They'll doubt my combat ability against the Shinigami." Cang Du reminded while he grabbed the ointment, desiring to hide the unsettling sensation of cold iron whenever he used his Schrift to coat his body in iron.

The pairs of Sternritter exchanging gifts with one another, whether they were of utility, enjoyment, or indicative of what could pass off as camaraderie. To the experienced eyes of Sternritter N, known as Robert Accutrone, it was the frivolous use of the precious time they had left before Yhwach deem the majority of them fuel for the Auswählen.

"Aren't they having a joyous time?" spoke Askin who noticed Robert's grim demeanor beneath his usual stoic composure.

"Hmph, the fact that this is being done instead of training or anything productive is quite defiant of his Majesty's wishes." Robert's words contradicted the gift picnic basket that was given to Askin.

"Yet you still decided to get me this picnic basket as a gift. Our upcoming invasion of the Soul Society will provide an ample opportunity for me to make use of it."

Robert clicked his tongue in disapproval, showing how he currently felt, even if it looked like Askin's words had caused that reaction. "Geez, this spectacled old man is tough and fun-hating as he looks. Too bad he isn't easy to set off or distract with jokes like the others are...."Askin then cut to what was bothering Robert.

"I say you do care about us in some less-than enthusiastic way, old man. Especially the newbies who recently joined. Most of them won't be chosen, but at least they served his Majesty well considering how devoted you are to the guy."

A long silence followed with no signs of Robert change his mind or discussing the matter further

Askin gave up on trying to continue the conversation, finding it tedious and simply handed Robert a bottle of glasses cleaning fluid. A good marksman needed a clear vision in order to get they wanted after all.

*In Gremmy's cell under the Wandenreich*

"I'm hungry....Bambi and the others kept pestering me to help out with their Christmas party setup that I only got to have some of Nakk Le Vaar's drink before I came down here."

Sternritter V's tranquil voice rang out throughout his heavily confined and fortified cell. "You're always hungry just as I always imagine you to be whenever you come here."

Liltotto wondered if Gremmy was being honest about his claims in accordance to what he imagines. Yhwach's Reika Garasu cell (Soul-Made Glass) had incantations to limit the effect of Gremmy's power, also depriving Gremmy of any freedom for an unknown amount of years.

"How about you imagine some more cookies and a Popsicle for me? You're the Strongest Quincy, aren't you?"

The treats appeared on command in Liltotto's hands to her satisfaction, making sure to share some with Gremmy. Even if these creations of Gremmy’s restrained imagination would stop existing after some time, the two Quincy still found them to be a respite from the bleakness of their world in the shadows of the Soul Society.

"You said the other Sternritter were doing a gift exchange with each other.....I can't really imagine what you would give me if I was freed and took part in it. It would just be a product of my own will, not yours." Gremmy said with a tone of pride yet it sounded like it wasn't something he could truly enjoy.

Liltotto shrugged, not giving any notions that she could fathom a gift for the Sternritter who commanded Imagination like it was a toy.

"Still....what we're doing right now....that you decided to spend time with me and continue to do so.....it makes me feel something I have a hard time....imagining."

The two blond child-like Quincy continued chatting like this until Liltotto brought up the plans for their invasion of the Soul Society.

"I don't know how shinigami taste like but it'll probably be gross either way with how much fighting and the zombies that Giselle will gain from that..."

"Perhaps, your favorite foods can make it more bearable for you when you're at the Soul Society?" To the diminutive girl's surprise, Gremmy created a whole variety of snacks and treats ranging from burgers, cookies, popcorn, cookies, and bread. “These will last a lot longer than the previous ones I imagined.”

"Are your powers getting stronger or....the cell you're in...the security measures on it must be getting weak." Liltotto then deduced "Thus, allowing your power of imagination to last longer with it's creations, even when you're locked up.....well you won't be locked up anymore once the invasion plan starts being executed."

"I see....you don't plan on telling his Majesty . I'm glad I imagined....someone like you for someone like me to know."

*As the gift exchange neared it's end*

"You missed out on a lot of stuff, Lil." scowled Bambietta as she saw Liltotto return to the main room.

"Huh, the room isn't wrecked or completely destroyed. Guess you and the others really pulled it off....who grew new brain cells for this? I already know it wouldn't be you."

Bambietta grunted in frustration, having enough of the disrespect by her own subordinates and going to her room to drag some unfortunate Quincy soldier to a sensual, but fatal end.

In the middle of the room, Liltotto saw Sternritter W, known as Nianzol Weizol licking a tub of ice cream with his two tongues. Next to him was Sternritter U, known as NaNaNa Najahkoop who was playing around some new bracelets on his wrists.

"Huh....that ice cream looks good, if I ignore the saliva and drool all over it...."

Her thoughts were interrupted by Mask De Masculine's exuberant shouts of zealous urging towards As Nodt to accept his gift. "Why won't you take a superstar's present?! How will you be a hero against the villainous shinigami without it?" Mask's little helper, James, also cheered on Mask in this pointless endeavor.

"I don't require anything, especially a purposeless luchador mask from a thoughtless oaf. Go read the copy of his Majesty's Daten I sent you unless you prefer to be introduced to your true fear as a present." As Nodt's raspy voice sent chills down everyone's spines, refusal to change his spiked mask for one of Mask's.

All of these clashes of personalities made Liltotto sigh as she helped take down the Christmas decorations of the room by eating them even with the taste of them. "Whatever the Wandenreich is with these morons and freaks, it's unsuited for this."

"Agreed. Probably, the most mundane gift exchange of all was the Lloyd brothers giving each other the same book. Still....even his Majesty's Royal Guard were participating in this. The big Nordic one was fulfilling our desires randomly while the mute, hooded figure had compressed any stains into nothing on the huge rifle belonging to his Majesty's most ardent devotee." Askin narrated this to no end which made Liltotto narrow her bright yellow eyes at what Askin was getting at.

"Why are you telling me all of this? A recap of what transpired here isn't what I'm interested in." This made the eccentric Sternritter shake his head in disappointment.

"Out of all of the Bambis, you're the smartest one, Liltotto but then again, intelligence often brings about a bland streak of realism in one's demeanor. Quite pessimistic." Liltotto scoffed at that as she ate a popsicle.

She brought up how he wasn't one to talk with how wary he was with most of the Sternritter and accepted his current position of where they stood. What Askin said next made her current emotions come to a halt.

"The world that his Majesty Yhwach wants to make is supposed to be a better world than what we currently have. I'm interested to see what he'll create. " Askin alluded to their ultimate goal before chasing his tone to a more curious inflection. "Whatever happened here today....perhaps a miracle or rare desire for these guys to act like comrades outside of fighting for his Majesty. Usually, I feel it's fatal to do these things considering what we signed up for, why go through the heartbreak? Is it so valuable they did this outside what his Majesty wishes for?"

".....and now he walks away after saying that treasonous crap....what a misfit in this group. First, he goes along with what Bambi wants cowardly and then says that?....Today's events don't change anything at all or our goals." Liltotto shook off the seeds of what Askin implied, making plans for training with the other Bambis.

*In Bazz-B's quarters*

Squinting his green eyes at the white-light green box that he found this morning in his room, Bazz-B scowled deeply, feeling mixed emotions that he tried to push away. "Jugo...you...of all the Sternritter...after all this time that I kept goading and taunting you."

He decided to get it over with and opened the gift from Jugram.

It was a pair of black armbands with skull and crossbones designs on them.

*"The Great Bazz needs the final touch to show all of the other Quincies whose the Ultimate Quincy! I need something that shows how dangerous and subtlely awesome I am!" exclaimed a young Bazz-B as he put on his helmet and gloves while he and Jugram were hunting near Bazz's village 1000 years ago.*

*"Maybe.....I could find an accessory that you like....would it really make that happy, Bazz?" A young Jugram unsurely asked as he wrapped up the rabbit they hunted. Bazz-B's cheeks had a tint of red at hearing that.*

*"I-I don't need it that badly! It's just those stupid grown-ups are blind to my prodigious awesomeness, sometimes what we have on the outside is what matters usually....Jugo, just focus on what you have to do alright?" *

Bazz-B grabbed the black armbands with the imposing design, and wore them around his biceps. "You bastard...damnit....you still remember that crap...you won't fight me no matter what but instead you do this?”

[persephonememes]

* (  STICK SEASON FOREVER BY NOAH KAHAN /  SENTENCE PROMPTS.

These may have been edited for clarity or length or to better apply for roleplaying.

" how you been? "

" what does it mean? "

" i am stuck between my anger and the blame that i can't face "

" i miss the way you laugh "

" but you know how it gets out here "

" you got all my love "

" if you need me dear, i'm the same as i was "

" it's all okay, there ain't a drop of bad blood "

" i just hope that your scars heal "

" i was scared to death "

" i'll never let you go "

" i don't get much sleep most nights "

" i'm seeing you in every dream "

" i'll love you when the oceans dry "

" i'll love you when the rivers freeze "

" don't you know there's a coffin buried under the garden "

" i'm in the process of clearing out cobwebs "

" someday i'm gonna be somebody people want "

" it's been a long year "

" would we survive in a horror movie? "

" i wanna love you 'till we're food for the worms to eat "

" i know every route in this county "

" i'll tell you where not to speed "

" honey, come over "

" no one will tempt you, we know you got sober "

" it's yours if you want it "

" i've been ready for you to come home "

" i didn't think to ask you where you'd gone "

" why'd you go? "

" i haven't drank in six months on the dot "

" don't you find it strange that you just went ahead and carried on? "

" the last time i drank i was face down passed out there on your lawn "

" are we all just pulling you down? "

" remember telling me that you thought you were cursed? "

" love is fast asleep on a dirt road with your head on my shoulder "

" those things I miss but know are never coming back "

" if i was empty space and you were formless shape we'd fit "

" i'm still angry at my parents for what their parents did to them "

" i know there are worse ways to stay alive "

" why is pain so damn impatient? "

" the last that i heard you were down in new orleans "

" i worry for you. you worry for me. "

" it's fine if we know we won't change "

" i'm leaving this town "

" i know that you're fearing the end "

" i only tell truth when I'm sure that I'm lying "

" how have you been and are you bored yet? "

" time moves so damn slow "

" i stopped caring about a month ago since then it's been smooth sailing "

" i would leave if only i could find a reason "

" i got dreams but i can't make myself believe them "

" i don't want to say goodbye "

" i'm still here with you "

" for a minute the world seems so simple "

" who was i to watch you wilt? "

" i promise to be there this time "

" i'm naming the stars in the sky after you "

" i'm remembering i promised to forget you now "

" it's all the same, anyways "

" i ain't proud of all the punches that i've thrown "

" i gave your name as my emergency phone call "

" i'd die for you "

" why do you do this to yourself? "

" this place had a heartbeat in its day "

" it just ain't that simple, it never was "

" we'll drink to new year's "

" i'm not ready to let go yet "

" now the weight of the world ain't so bad "

" i saw the end, it looks just like the middle "

" who am I to complain? "

" now the pain's different. it still exists, it just escapes different. "

" don't you cancel any plans "

" all lights turned off can be turned on "

" i'll drive all night "

" don't be discouraged "

" i've been exactly where you are "

" if you could see yourself like this, you'd have never tried it "

" won't you stay with me? "

" i even gave up driving after nightfall "

" i'm ain't angry at you, love "

" i'll be waiting for you "

" we spent so long just getting by "

" i'm not a city girl "

" it still has a lot of meaning to me because i grew up there "

" it's a small community of people that really look out for each other "

" last time i was in the back of a cop car, i fell in love "

" it's all the same anyway "

" let's drive for no reason "

" honey, it's starting to storm "

" i won't be alone for the rest of my life "

" i broke a bone that never healed in my hand "

" so when i hold you close, i might loosen my grip. but i won't ever let you go. "

" but i won't ever let you go "

" remember when we called the cops 'cause you got too high and you got scared? "

" could you imagine that? "

" i'm running out of tears to cry "

" maybe something's changing me "

" you love me and i don't know why "

" i only call you once a week "

" does it bite at your edges? "

" do you lie awake restless? "

" this town's the same as you left it "

" your page was blank, but i read it "

" i stare out that hallowed ocean as if to pick a fight "

" for the dreams my old man dreamt for me, lay on the other side "

" we're overdue for a revival "

" we spent so long just getting by "

" who the hell likes living just to die? "

[xxnashiraxx]

24, 37, 53, 56 and 63 for the writer ask game! 🥰❣️

Thank you for asking, lovely friend! You can find the original post here!

24. Worst Writing Advice Anyone Ever Gave You? I don't have too many instances where I'd specifically reached out and asked, honestly I was trying to hide it as much as possible, haha. But I think the one that sticks out the most, through no particular source, would be to write all the time, constantly. That doesn't help you, it drains you and takes a horrible mental toll on you if you don't regulate yourself and take a break from time to time. I struggle with feeling like I should always be doing something, always be productive, but trust me- taking a nice step back from time to time can actually help waaaay more. 🖤🖤

37. How Do You Choose Where to End a Chapter? This is such a good question- I like to make a slight impact with my chapter endings and I guess, though it really isn't this complicated in my head when I'm doing it, is to play on an emotion. For romance, I could end on angst or longing, for complicated feelings and emotions I like to end on a realization or the struggle of further confusion and its resulting aggravation. I also like to pepper in little crumbs regarding an ongoing plot that hasn't been fully unraveled yet, mostly so the readers feel like they're wrapping their heads around the mysteries along with me. It's fun! But not always super clear cut. 💕

53. How Do You Spend Your Time When it Comes to Fanfiction? Are You Primarily a Fic Reader, Writer, or a Perfect 50/50 Split of Both?

I have alternated and balanced this ratio out as time has gone on! Back when I first started in high school, I was primarily 50/50. Over the years I kind of lost my muse, or I'd write for myself very sparingly (maybe once a year or so, and less than 10k during that period) with things that I found interesting, but I didn't really delve back into the hobby until last July. I was a reader, consuming literally everything Nalu (Fairy Tail) until resuming a long fic I'd planned out 4 years ago and never finished. Unfortunately, or in other words, fortunately for me, I discovered Baldur's Gate, and after Astarion, there was no going back (rip my Alvarez Arc rewrite, may she rest in peace). Now I tend to lean more towards the writer portion since I'm writing my current long fic (With Stars to Fill My Dream) and doing some Astarion Kinktober prompts, but once this month ends and I'm on my longer post schedule, I am hoping to catch up on all the fics I haven't been able to read that are sitting in my browser (I have 30+ tabs open, it's ridiculous...)

56. What's Something About Your Writing That You Pride Yourself On?

Oh boy... I don't say this as a fish for compliments, but I'm not really sure I do anything too different from other people! I have heard a kind of general consensus on my horror aspects, and while I personally think they're extremely tame for my own standards and I know I'm my worst critic and think they can always be improved upon, that's something that really sticks with me. I have never published in the excess that I have now, and it literally means the world to me when anyone comments on anything they think sticks out when they read my fics. If I had to go with anything else, I'd say that my little details have really improved during the time I've been a writer. I've done many little links back to earlier conversations and imagery with callbacks in WSTFMD that I'm very proud of. I just hope it's not too obscure that people miss it!

63. Something You Hate to See in Smut.

Look, I'm really open-minded, and if anything isn't my cup of tea of course I wouldn't seek it out. That should always be established. Glaringly obvious things would be anything illegal, but going into the real bones, I'd probably have to say some "terms" for "areas" on the body being overused or out of place kind of bother me. I really don't have too many crazy ones here, I'm guilty of using some anatomically incorrect situations simply for the sake that it pleases me and I find it hot- nothing more, lol. It doesn't have to be 100% factual, it's fun and that's all that really matters! Unless you're hurting someone or doing something shitty, I really don't have a lot of issues. 😊

Again, tysm!!! 💖💖💖

[sentenceme-leni]

Tuesday. Minimum 2 sentences.

---

Belle supposed that she should be afraid. Anyone in their right mind would be, deep in the lair of the Dark One. Rumpelstiltskin's face had been a mask of horror, the moment he saw the magic cloud envelop her.

She hoped he called for help before coming for her.

She also hoped it took the rescue party another hour before they arrived.

Unlike the rest of the world, she had lived with the Dark One for years. She could read the moods behind those yellow eyes with even more accuracy than she could the man she had married in Storybrooke.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He sneered.

Belle let out a frustrated sigh. This was a familiar battle, yet ever so tiring to climb up the same hill over and over again - and this time with two different versions of the same man! "You are cranky," she told him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Go on, Rumple. You know how this goes. You can keep your problems to yourself, or you can share them with me and we can---"

"We can?" He snickered. "Don't try to deceive me, dearie. You want no part of this," he declared with a hiss, essaying a grand wave at himself.

Belle felt like kicking something. Preferably that thrice-damned spell which had divided Rumpelstiltskin in these two stubborn personalities. She already has this discussion with the human version!

"As I already told you," she didn't bother to explain she meant the Rumpelstiltskin who had stayed in their home. He was smart. He could figure it out. "It could hardly be True Love if I only wanted parts of you."

He gave her a condescending look, but she noticed his claws curl nervously at his sides.

He was so tempted by the idea of a true love. He wanted to believe her. Rumpelstiltskin always wanted to believe he could be loved.

The fool still gave her a nasty smirk. "Oh, but I'm the evil parts, don't you know?" He leaned into her personal space with a leer. "Still eager to claim me?"

Belle leaned forward, maintaining eye contact until he blinked first. "Your counterpart just chased off two families from their apartments," she informed him "They refused to pay rent now that he doesn't have magic."

He snorted. "What does magic have to do with a contract?"

They were echoes of each other, down to the incredulous intonation.

"Exactly."

Taking advantage of his good humor, Belle shot out her hand to grasp his. He expectedly opened his mouth with surprise, but said nothing once he looked at her determined expression.

"Oh no," he said warily. Indulgently. Lovingly. Of course he knew her moods as well. "You have an idea."

"I do." She smiled. For all the chaos of the last three days, unlike every other idiot affected by the spell, Rumpelstiltskin had enough of an innate survival instinct that they hadn't gone at each other's throats. A truly soulless Dark One would have already razed the land, so the reprieve had been the springboard to Belle's theory. "I believe you've been happy to build yourself this castle and terrorize everyone with dire threats. I also believe your other half has been making everyone in Storybrooke fear the power of a signature with only Dove and his friends as back up." She shrugged. "You're no more evil than he is, and he is no more patient than you are. If anything, you're raw magic and he is all stubbornness. Power and Will, maybe."

"That sounds like too good a wish, sweetheart."

"I haven't worked out the details," she admitted. "But all the same-" she tugged on his coat "-you are all mine."

The End

16/04/24

[number-one-shadisper-shipper]

The Sonic franchise did not have to go so hard exploring dynamics and types of alternate/evil versions of characters BUT THEY DID

Like some media will give you an evil version of a character and be like, "Yeah he's from a mirror dimension so he's evil *le gasp*" and that's fun and all, but there's no depth or intrigue.

And then we have Sonic.

The Sonic franchise has alternate versions of Sonic, Shadow, and other characters. We have freaking SONIC PRIME who's whole premise is exploring alternate versions of characters (beyond just Sonic) and it is absolutely AMAZING. I'm not going to go into Prime right now cuz that's another post or twenty, and I just wanna focus on how each alternate version of Sonic has their own dynamic, personality, and relationship with Sonic. I've never seen another franchise that does THIS MUCH with alternate versions.

(Long ramble and some spoilers under the cut)

To start with, we have the big one, Metal Sonic. Made by Eggman to be able to defeat Sonic. They could've just gone with a basic, "Oh look a robot version of the Main Character now they fight" and not given him any depth, but he hits HARD (without even having a voice box or mouth to show emotions or anything). The fact that he's programed TO SEE HIMSELF AS THE REAL SONIC and has to deal with that, him slowly discovering that he's not, but not being able to break free from his programming so he can create his own destiny, his father/son dynamic with Eggman but also being nothing more than a weapon to him is just MMMMMM YEESSSSSS. And the whole "Strange, isn't it?" and "There is only one Sonic" thing from the OVA is INSANE!!!!

And there's Mecha Sonic, whose backstory I don't really know a lot about, but his arc in the Scrapnik Island miniseries is EPIC and he's showing the potential arc that Metal Sonic could have. After getting thrown away by Eggman, he finally has the chance to start over and has an epic moment that parallels the OVA lava scene.

And then there's Shadow. He's not actually an "alternate" Sonic, he came first and has no actual connection to him. But the fact that when he shows up the first thing Sonic does is call him a faker, and his identity issues won't let him let that go. Because he has to prove he's not a fake, but is he? His memories are real, aren't they? But he remembers "dying" and he sees his own robot versions and a god of darkness taking his form and Infinite creating a fake army of hims, and he can't be a fake himself, right? He has to be the real Shadow. Cuz that name, that identity is all he has. But what is that identity? Ultimately, he is all of him. But even with all of that he still wrestles with who he is and he has to keep calling Sonic "faker" because no matter what the world still sees him as "the edgy version of Sonic," but he's not, he's so much more than that. He has his own arcs and growth and potential.

And there's Scourge, who's the typical "evil Sonic from another dimension", who I know absolutely nothing about since I haven't really read the Archie comics yet, but I saw this panel:

And like I don't care if he has zero other depth besides that because that IS INSANE. Sonic having to wrestle with his own potential for evil, but at the same time, Scourge's potential for good, and and it's literally just the matter of a few choices. This is the battle we all have to face within ourselves every day, even if we don't realize it.

And speaking of Sonic's potential for evil, DARK SONIC??? THE OPPOSITE OF SUPER SONIC? WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU LET THE CHAOS ENERGY FEED ON YOUR DARKNESS RATHER THAN YOUR LIGHT??? and I know it's only one scene but oh my goodness!!! Cuz yes, your best traits can become your greatest weakness, and loving your friends can turn into doing unspeakable horrors if someone hurts them, and maybe the person that has to bring you back to yourself is your arch-enemy, because they of all people know who you really are and that if you fighting from righteous motives is undefeatable, you fighting from RAGE is noting short of terrifying.

And Surge from IDW, whose arc is literally called IMPOSTER SYNDROME??? Again, created to be the Anti-Sonic, to be the one who can finally take him down. And she knows she's not the real Sonic and doesn't want to be, and she knows the only reason she hates Sonic is because her abuser gaslit and hypnotized her into hating him, but she can't escape that programming any more than Metal can. And maybe she doesn't have a reason to hate Sonic but she'll create one because she literally has to have a reason, and maybe she's not the real Sonic but he's the only reason she exists, and he's the only reason she went through all the suffering she went through. And no I can't reach for your hand pulling me to safety because that would be admitting that I don't really have a reason hate you, that I can't escape without your help, that your philosophy of giving villains a second chance is valid.

Anyways that was a lot of rambling but UGH it all just so good and intense and the depth and effort in this franchise is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

[sugolara]

At stake

ft. K.B x S.T x I.M x fem! reader

Synopsis: After a deadly virus leaks all over the world, every country is forced to close down it's borders and airports to prevent anyone from coming in and out. Though, it's to late for some people. The dead has rose and is looking for revenge. Cw: gore, quirkless! au, apocalypse! au, zombie! au, weapons, death, angst, lots and lots of blood, cannibalism, suicidal thoughts, slow burn

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On the other side, the blonde moved the bags of gun in front of him, "Can't we just have one day where everythings is fucking peaceful."

"Can you be quiet?" Izuku whispered as he was right next to him, "They're coming."

Biting his tongue, he watched as the rotters with broken bones passed by. A way to tell a rotter from a human apart was their walk. While all of them walked in a zig-zag line, the one he was staring at was walking in a perfectly straight line. As disturbing as it was, he figured it had just turned as he had never seen a human turn before. But the feeling could not be shaken off.

When the coast was clear, they slid away from the vehicle, staying in a crouched position as the horde could still be seen walking away, "I don't know, but I don't think we should stay on this road."

Katsuki eyes the freckle male, brow raised, "Why?"

"Something feels off." Izuku whispered, eyes on the dead, "Yesterday, wasn't it weird that we haven't run into one of them? Not even a drop of blood could be seen and one of the cars looked way too clean to be left abandoned. Besides, one of the deads had stayed still for a moment—a long moment and I've never seen that."

"And we were so fucking close." Katsuki muttered out, annoyed at the fact that they had to take off. taking an even much longer route. However, he suddenly realized something, "You don't think we're being watched, right? 'Cause that's some horror type of shit that I do not want to play."

At that, the freckled male turned to face, expression concerned, "Hopefully, not. We've been here for a quite a while so the chances are...we are."

Hearing footsteps approaching, they averted their attention only for a grossed expression to be displayed at the sight of F/n holding a rotting head, "Look."

"Look at what? The head you're fucking holding without any gloves?" Katsuki stood up, "Do not get anywhere near me."

"Relax, Mr. Clean." She positioned her arm, showing him the cloth around her hands.

"What's wrong about it?" Izuku asked, eyeing her and Shoto.

"That." Shoto pointed at the words.

"The hell is that supposed to mean?" Katsuki asked, squinting at the words to get a better look.

"That we should stay off this road." Shoto said, nose twitching when she dropped the head, the fleshy sound having his skin crawl, "Either someone had already claimed it and we're being watched, or whoever did this might turn back here."

"Deku said the same thing." Izuku nodded at that, speaking when the two in front him questionably looked at him, "Just, something doesn't feel right about this. We should have left when we spotted no sign of any dead from the beginning."

Shoto sighed, "If we continue on this path we'll arrive faster to Sorston, but if we take a different path there's no saying when we'll get there."

"We've got supplies." The blonde shrugged, leaning on a car with arms crossed, "We can look for food on the way."

"Such a drag," F/n scratched her nape, "I was really looking forward to things going easy."

"That's life." Izuku said, letting out a disheartened sigh, "With the map Kacchan has, we'll figure out where to go."

"I haven't been down this road." Katsuki said as he and F/n eyed the map, having Izuku and Shoto look for food to feed their empty stomachs, "Actually, I haven't even gone this far from Musutafu."

She hummed, her finger touching the paper, trailing along a line, "Going this way is faster than any other, but the problem is the city. There might be a road we can take instead of going in there, but I don't know about that. Damn, this whole thing is frustrating."

"Tell me about it." He softly scoffed, "By the time we get there we won't even be excited about it. Why the hell couldn't they have placed a community closer?"

"They probably did, we just didn't know about it." She shrugged, "So, are we taking this one?"

"Unless you feel like taking the one where on and meeting someone, then yes." He rolled the map and placed it in his bag, "We're probably being watched as we speak."

"Man, let hope not." She said, glancing around, especially the set of trees right next to them.

"Anything?" Shoto asked as he stood by Izuku who closed the trunk of a car with a sigh. "No, just the usual. And you?"

"Same." The bi-colored male said, though his eyes glanced at him, "Have you two made up?"

Izuku shook his head, approaching another car, "No.."

"When are you?" He cautiously eyed him, "Not that it's any of my business, but I just don't want for anything to get in the way, you know?"

"Yep." The freckle male popped his word, "Don't worry about it, Shoto, it'll take time, but I got this. Just...do what you always do."

"Observe?" He crossed his arms, "It gets boring after a while."

"I bet it does." He said as he closed the door, "You know, I'm actually surprised you and F/n are getting along. For a second, I thought it would take a long while until you two were on the same page."

His mismatched eyes stared at the green-haired male, mind whirring before he spoke, looking away, "Like I said, it gets boring."

A content chuckle escaped Izuku's throat. Hearing F/n calling for them, they headed for her and the blonde. Finally, with a new plan set in mind they gathered all their belongings. Although the route would be longer it was better than entering into territory they didn't know. Among the hundred of abandoned vehicles could be people that none of them are ready for—including F/n. Even though a small message was enough to spook them out, in this world everything could mean anything and it can change the course of their future. 

[riderofblackdragons]

Day 29: Used as Bait

Ok, I had 2 ways for this to go: another entry in Let Me Stay, exploring what happened to Elijah's sireline, or going into a new supernatural AU, which I have talked about with a couple people but haven't posted anything about.

And so, after long deliberation, and sitting at the keyboard for a while not writing anything, I eventually decided to go with the Let Me Stay AU.

It's actually a funny thing, I think this is my first tvdu fic that contains absolutely none of the Mikaelsons at all. It does mention Elijah, but he'd very much not there.

Warning: This contains body horror, and if anyone else has any warnings they think I should mention, please tell me!

Hope you enjoy!

Tristan didn’t really know why he’d come here. Perhaps it was out of curiosity? He didn’t know what happened to his sire, so maybe it was because of that. He felt a general sense of unease, however, as he walked further in. Which was stupid, really. Right?

There was nothingthat could go against him – he was as old as the Original family of vampires! He was just as powerful! And deep down, he knew that they wouldn’t be scared. Not of a little cave like this.

Inside, he would swear that something was calling him. It wasn’t with words, none that he could hear, at least, but he was drawn to it. To the darkness inside, no matter how his instincts were screaming at him to leave. Tristan took the first few steps in, and as he moved further inside, a grin started spreading across his face.

A month later, The Strix received a letter from their missing leader, beckoning them to come and join him. He’d found news, amongst other thing, he said. And, well, not even Aya, his second in command, was as old as Tristan. And he surely wouldn’t appreciate her overruling his instructions, no matter that it was what they’d done to their sire before his own disappearance.

They would go, Aya decided. If there were any in the Strix that weren’t curious about their Original sire’s disappearance, they didn’t dare say it near her, at least.

And if Tristan had news, finally, after the half-century they’d spent looking since they’d lost track of Elijah Mikaelson, then it would be worth their while. Sure, they weren’t quite sure what would happen to them if Elijah were to go, but Aya at least had a pretty good idea of it.

Death, for sure. It didn’t happen with any of the younger lines, but Aya wasn’t Tristan. She wasn’t so arrogant as to think that she was so similar to the Original family that Elijah’s death wouldn’t do anything to her. In a way, it was comforting to her, to know that her ex-lover was still alive, by the virtue of herself being alive.

He may have been her ex, and yes, Aya may have helped to overhrow his rule of the Strix, but it wasn’t as though she didn’t still care for Elijah. He’d still taken her from a lonely, intelligent woman, to a borderline ruler of the world, after all.

Her thought on him occupied her as she made her way to where Tristan had instructed, accompanied by most of the Strix. At least if Tristan had decided to betray them and destroy the Strix, they wouldn’t all die. Their purpose would be remembered, and carried on, by the remaining few who hadn’t come.

It was a dismal meeting point, if Aya was to be honest. The cave before her, no matter how drawn she felt towards it, was dark and dreary, and Aya felt disgust at it. It was horrible, and Tristan’s standards had really gone down since he’d left them, if this was his idea of a good spot.

Movement came from inside the cave, and she turned to looktowards it. Her vampiric sight made it easier to see in, but it got too dark less than a metre in, which was strange. Aya frowned, blinking a bit, trying to see further, but it didn’t work. It was as though something was blocking her.

Tristan stepped out of the darkness, towards her, and his face broke in a grin as he saw her, which made Aya take an instinctual step back. She’d never seen him like that, and as he staggered forward, as though a puppet on its strings, she found that she didn’t want to.

Especially not with how his eyes were, she discovered when he got closer. Tristan’s eyes didn’t match the expression on his face, all glassy and filled with fear. It was a stark contrast to the wide grin on his face that, when examined closer, was more forced than it had first appeared.

Something was wrong here, Aya realised. She turned, starting to walk away, and started running when she heard Tristan trying to get closer to her.

She couldn’t speed away like she wanted to. Panic began to set in when Aya realised it. She was running at the speed of a regular human, not the centuries-old vampire she was. Worse, Aya could feel her chest tightening with every breath, as though she really was a human, and needed breath to continue running. She hadn’t felt this in over a century, and it frightened her.

What kind of a creature was that, that thing? How could it remove her vampirism like this?

She refused to call it a he. It may once have been her leader, arguably her friend, and she’d definitely held respect for Tristan. But now, either that wasn’t him, or he’d been hiding something deep within himself that had come out now.

Whatever had happened now, Aya knew it had been a trap. She and the rest of the Strix had entered it willingly, lambs to the slaughter, believing it to have a fair face, and friendly thoughts, when it was really the wolf, coming to eat them. She ran, downthe mountains, away from her comrades in the Strix, to the few that hadn’t joined them. She urged them to pack up, to start leaving again, to flee this place, but they weren’t listening.

And then, one of them turned his head, and asked her, in a voice Aya could not recognise, “What was it that gave me away?”

The woman was terrified, unable to move her limbs no matter how she screamed at them to obey her. The situation she was in was dawning on her, and Aya realised that she had not even questioned how, even with her vampirism supposedly removed, she was able to flee to the remnants of the Strix so fast.

They hadn’t come up as fast as she’d fled, and they’d been vampires, with all the benefits it entailed. She should not have been able to go that fast.

Aya’s eyesburst open, seeing nothing but darkness surrounding her. Well, almost nothing. She could see the little cracks, and as her eyes adjusted, she saw a figure, floating in the dark. Held up by nothing, as far as Aya’s sight told her.

It was Tristan, and Aya’s eyes unwittingly teared up, in fear of what was happening. There was humming around them, and it only served to put her further on edge, even as she couldn’t look away from her once-leader’s body.

He was strung up, silvery threads keeping him afloat. Aya could see the unnaturally twisted bones, and the way the threads twirled around his wrists and ankles. They were numerous, twisting around his body, even attached to his jaw, and Aya could not tell how he was even alive.

If he even was alive. They were vampires, but it didn’t mean anything in this case. Aya didn’t even know how she had gotten into this position, when she’d gone from wakefulness to sleeping. It had seemed so lifelike, until she’d reached the remainders of the Strix.

Maybe not even the remainders, now. After all, she’d led this thing straight to them. Aya could be confident that they were dead by now. Or, if not confident, she could at least be hopeful. She wasn’t much for hope, but in this case… She hoped they were dead, for Tristan had proven that dead was the best thing they could be now.

Outside of her view, Aya suddenly heard the humming stop.