#real talk here i feel like this is going to be an insanely rushed ending

[allpromarlo]

i just woke up what the fuck gege

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 10: Nobody Likes You, Everyone Left You]

A/N: I sincerely apologize for the delay, but Maggie Sundays are back, besties!!! And we have a new poll! Be sure to check it out AFTER you finish Chapter 10 🥰

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes.

Series title and chapter title are lyrics from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.8k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

Here’s how it happens.

Let’s say you’re on a subway, or at a bus stop, or walking in or out of a grocery store, maybe fumbling with your purse or corralling small children, or talking on the phone, or wondering how you’re going to make rent, or trying not to drop one of your shopping bags, and out of nowhere some stranger lurches over and grabs you. They are filthy and noxious and moaning, and you assume they are insane, or on hard drugs, or maybe both. Your fellow upstanding citizens rush to your aid and the assailant is apprehended and carted off, unbeknownst to you surely to infect many more blithely unaware victims.

Maybe you notice that you were bitten, even just barely, even just a scrape of the teeth hard enough to scratch the skin; maybe you don’t. If you do notice and you seek medical attention, the best a doctor will offer you is disinfectant and antibiotics, maybe a rabies shot if they’re extra ambitions. Perhaps you have too much on your plate already without a detour to the doctor’s office (or perhaps you don’t have medical insurance), and you opt for at-home remedies, a vigorous scrub with hydrogen peroxide and a large rectangular Band-Aid slapped on top. Of course, none of this will do you any good. It was over the moment a drop of zombie saliva slipped painlessly into your bloodstream and began to replicate there like an invasive species, like an insurgent force. It only takes once.

You go home, and maybe when you start to feel really bad you call an ambulance and go to the hospital, and when you turn you bite anyone you can get your claws on there. Maybe you die at home and then attack your partner, your children, your parents, your roommates; maybe this new version of yourself ends up chewing bits of gristle off the bones of your dog or cat or ferret. And if any of your victims manage to escape once you’ve gotten a taste of them—no matter how fleetingly, no matter how trivially—they are sure to die in agony and reanimate too, and to pass along this plague you’ve gifted them, the bloodiest game of telephone.

Now millions are getting sick, fevers, headaches, purging, bleeding, but where do people go when they need a doctor? The hospitals are overrun, the clinics are swarmed, and doctors and nurses are falling ill too. There are unimaginable reports of the carnage. There is censorship to smother the panic. There are public figures vanishing from sight. There are zombies-in-progress boarding planes, checking into hotels, tottering onto cruise ships with armfuls of luggage, sweating through their bedsheets in crowded military barracks, silently ticking timebombs as the world as everyone knows it hurtles towards its end.

You would be amazed what people can refuse to believe. Once you believe something, that makes it real.

~~~~~~~~~~

There are no shovels, so Cregan tills the earth with his axe and then you dig with your hands. There are no headstones, so Rhaena finds a large sand-colored rock and writes on it with a jagged piece of slate: Baela and Briar, Summer 2024. Then she hesitates, the slate hovering in afternoon air, amber sunlight and eighty degrees, dust thick in the wind. She wants to say more. There needs to be more. How can two lives end with five words? At last Rhaena adds: Mother and child who perished en route to California. They were loved. They mattered.

“That’s good, Rhaena,” Luke tells her, voice gentle, hands on her shoulders. She stares at the grave for a while, and you don’t have time to waste; the bear could return, there might be wolves or mountain lions, eventually the sun will set and you will be stranded in an infinite darkness like the ocean at night. But Aemond waits until Rhaena is ready. She tucks the shard of shale into her backpack, and then you are fleeing once again: from this day, from this world.

You hike back to I-80 and walk west towards the next ranch. All of you are here in south-central Wyoming, and yet none of you are: you are in the earth with Baela, you are back in Nebraska where Jace died, you are in Ohio where he was swept away by a river, you are in Pennsylvania where you and Rio climbed down from a transmission tower, you are in your lives before the world ended: Saratoga Springs, Boston, cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a part of Kentucky called the Wildlands. Aegon is limping along on his own and shoving Rio away each time he tries to pick him up.

“Stop,” Aegon says, wincing and exhausted, his bandages coated with dust.

“Come on, Honey Bun. You’re going to rip your foot open—”

“Stop it!” Aegon demands. “I’m not going to slow you down anymore! I’m not going to be a burden!”

There is a sound you don’t immediately recognize: a rumbling, a squealing. A car is pulling up alongside you. Instinctively, you unholster one of your M9s and raise it as you turn.

“No, no, no, we’re cool!” a woman says, showing you both of her hands. She is around fifty and driving a Subaru Outback; there is a man in the passenger’s seat, perhaps her husband, and two wide-eyed, hoodie-swathed teenagers in the backseat. “Are you…are you guys okay?”

All of you stare blankly at her: shellshocked, distraught, covered in dirt and blood. “Yeah,” Daeron says eventually.

The woman peers around, east, west. “Do you have a car or something?”

“We have a Tahoe,” Cregan says. “It’s out of gas.”

“We have a few cans in the trunk,” the Subaru woman replies. “I can give you one, five gallons. That will get you to Rock Springs, and you should be able to find more supplies there. We came through that way, it wasn’t too bad.” And then, before anybody can ask if she’s serious, the woman steps out of the car and opens the hatchback. She lifts out a red can and hands it to Rio, who is standing the closest.

“Thank you, lady,” he says, astonished.

“I’m sorry about that,” you tell the woman, meaning the fact that you were prepared to shoot her.

Rhaena adds: “We’ve had some…bad experiences.”

The Subaru woman smiles. “Haven’t we all. Where are you headed?”

“West Coast,” Aemond answers quickly: vague, guarded, inviting no further disclosures.

She nods; she can’t trust you, and you can’t trust her, and everyone agrees, an unspoken acknowledgement of what the world is like now. “Well, you don’t want to go anywhere near Salt Lake City.”

“But that’s the only direct route,” Aegon says, crestfallen.

“I know.” The Subaru woman is sympathetic. “And it’s going to burn a hell of a lot of gas and time to drive all the way around, but you have to. There are tens of thousands of zombies, and a lot of people are trapped there without fuel. I’m telling you, if someone sees you driving by in a working vehicle, they’ll try to put a bullet in your head so they can take it. So don’t give them the opportunity.”

“Okay,” Aegon says glumly, already pulling his map out of the pocket of his khaki shorts to plot a new course.

“Stay far away from Chicago,” Rio offers the Subaru woman in return. “And any nuclear power plants.”

“We’re headed south,” she says, then grins. “I’ve got a sister in eastern Tennessee. We’re going to learn how to fish and cook moonshine and make clothes out of deer hide, and live up in the mountains where nobody will ever bother us.”

People glance at you, the resident Appalachian; and you remember the crackling of woodstoves, flecks of ice in the creek, kicking up snow as you ran through the woods, following tracks of deer and opossums and raccoons. “It’s a beautiful place. I think you’ll like it.”

Rhaena asks the Subaru woman: “Is there anything we can do for you? To thank you for the gas?”

“Oh, I couldn’t take from a bunch of bloodied people who are stranded on the side of the interstate.” But her eyes catch on the pistol in your hand and stay there, envious, longing. You have another, so you give it to her.

“The safety is on. There are only nine bullets left, unfortunately.”

“That’s nine more than I had before,” the Subaru woman says as she takes the U.S. Navy’s standard-issue Beretta. Then she says to everyone: “Good luck.”

“Same to you, ma’am,” Cregan replies. The Subaru woman gets back into her car and disappears eastbound with her family. The nine of you that are left—ten, if you count Ice—trek back to the Tahoe, where Rio pours five gallons of combustible liquid gold into the gas tank.

Rhaena climbs into the driver’s seat and turns the key in the ignition. The rust-red Tahoe growls to life, the engine idling. Then she rests her arms on the steering wheel and breaks down sobbing. In the passenger’s seat, Aegon looks up from his map—which he is annotating with a glittery green gel pen—to gaze at her with shining, wounded eyes. After some hesitation, he extends a hand to hold one of hers. From the seat behind Rhaena, Luke is rubbing her shoulders and murmuring words you can’t hear.

Aemond says softly: “Rhaena, you can take some time if you need it.”

“No,” she insists, her voice quivering but determined. “We can’t wait. We have to get as far as we can before dark.” She shifts the Tahoe into drive, guides it onto I-80, and speeds west towards Rock Springs and the Utah border.

Rio is saying something to you, but at first you can’t grasp it. Helaena is scratching Ice’s ears as the massive grey wolfdog lies sprawled across her lap. Daeron is sniffling and wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his orange t-shirt. Cregan is talking to Aemond about needing to find an auto shop so he can get supplies to change the Tahoe’s oil and filter. One of Aegon’s mixtapes whirls in the CD player:

“My face above the water

My feet can’t touch the ground, touch the ground

And it feels like I can see the sands on the horizon

Every time you are not around…”

You are watching Aemond, your heartbeat growing loud in your ears. He won’t look at you at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

As the sun begins to set, you find a vacant house on the outskirts of Coalville, Utah overlooking the Echo Reservoir. You wash away the remnants of Wyoming in the cool blue water, dried blood and caked-on dirt, hopes eclipsed by horror. Dinner is soup spooned out of cans from the pantry—Dinty Moore beef stew, Campbell’s condensed chicken noodle—and caffeine-free sodas, Sprite and Fanta and Seagram’s Ginger Ale. Then Rhaena and Luke go straight to bed, and Helaena scuttles through the house with a flashlight to search for clothes, making each person a separate pile on the dining room table: large flannel shirts for Cregan, pastel-colored polos for Aegon. Aemond and Cregan are outside on the front porch, Daeron is carving sticks into arrows on the kitchen floor, Aegon has been passed out in one of the children’s bedrooms since Aemond debrided his burns again and dosed him with the last of the Vicodin. Fortunately, Helaena found a translucent orange prescription bottle of Tramadol in the upstairs bathroom, so Aegon won’t have to suffer too much tomorrow.

Rio tosses and turns on the living room couch. You know what’s wrong, but you have to wait for him to say it. You stay with him, kneeling on the beige carpet in the murky artificial luminance of Rio’s Moonbeam flashlight, threading your fingertips through his dark curls. And then at last Rio asks something that you know must have crossed his mind a thousand times since you left Saratoga Springs, but he’s never voiced aloud: “What if Sophie and the baby are dead?”

“They’re not.”

“But you don’t know, nobody knows—”

“Bryan, they’re not dead,” you say, and he is listening.

“I joined the Navy for Sophie.” And of course, you’ve heard this before. “I was just a stupid kid who couldn’t commit to anything, not work, not school, not a future with her, so she dumped me. And I decided I was going to get her back by proving I could make commitments after all. I could sign my life away for five years, and come out of it as someone who would be a good husband and father. And now…what if by enlisting and being so far away when everything happened, I abandoned her? What if…what if she’s gone, and she died terrified and in pain and alone, and I’m the reason why?”

“Sophie and the baby are waiting for you in Odessa. You have to believe that until we get there.”

“Because if they’re not, my life is over?” he asks bitterly, this man you have never known to be wrathful, defeated, weak, hopeless. But these are beasts that live inside all of us, waiting to be shaken awake by the perfect string of calamities.

“I believe they’re still alive.”

And Rio looks at you, wanting desperately to be convinced. “Why?”

You’ve never believed that you are someone who knows the right things to say; but you have to try. “If your parents’ community in Odessa is like you’ve always described it to me, I can’t think of a better place for someone to hide from all the disorder and the violence. It’s remote, but there’s support from other families who are living the same way. People have gardens, cows, goats, pigs, chickens, enough canned food to live on for years, homemade clothes and systems to collect rainwater. There are women who’ve had five homebirths and men who’ve built houses with their own hands. And the people in Odessa have guns and know how to use them. I think when you told Sophie to go there, you saved her life. And now she and the baby are both waiting for you to come home.”

“We’ve crossed this country by raiding dead people’s homes.”

“Yes. And we’ve seen plenty of living ones too.”

Rio takes a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling; and now he is calmer. “Okay,” he says, grabbing your hand where it rests on his head and smacking a noisy kiss onto your knuckles. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I think I’m done freaking out for tonight.”

“You good?”

“I’m good.”

“Try to sleep.”

Obediently, Rio closes his eyes, and within five minutes he’s snoring.

You rise and open the door to the front porch, thinking of what you’re going to tell Aemond when he is low, distracted, wary: You did everything you could, Aemond. It’s not your fault. It’s this world, it’s poison, it’s cursed, and you can’t turn back the clock to when it wasn’t. You’re just one man. But you can try to save the people who are left.

Yet Aemond does not speak to you, doesn’t even notice you; when you peek outside you are on his blind side, and he is deep in conversation with Cregan as they keep watch in the moonlight.

“I mean, yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too, man,” Cregan is saying. “A mansion by the ocean sounds nice and all, don’t get me wrong, but that ain’t me. I don’t see myself somewhere like that forever. Hell, I’ve never even seen the ocean, and to be honest I never really cared to. But a community of folks who are living off the land out in the woods? Those are my kind of people, that’s a place I could be useful…”

You retreat back inside the house, flashlights and shadows, doubts and fears. You stand there in the quiet for a while, then go to Aegon’s bedroom, where he is awake now and snuggling with Ice in a child’s bed shaped like a red racecar, listening to his pink Sony Walkman—Ava, the gleaming rhinestones proclaim—through one earbud.

Aegon coos as he ruffles the dog’s shaggy grey coat: “You’re so sweet, Blue Raspberry Icee. You were always my favorite flavor. Do you miss 7-Elevens too? Wrinkled old hot dogs and taquitos on rollers, drenching tortilla chips with the nacho cheese and chili dispenser? Did you guys even have 7-Elevens in Iowa? No offense, but your home state kind of sucks. It’s just fields and barns and whatever. You would have loved Boston. You could have fetched my golf balls when they rolled into ponds.”

Then he sings along to the song he’s listening to, effortlessly melodic but so softly you can barely hear him:

“You really had me going, wishing on a star

But the black holes that surround you are heavier by far

I believed in your confusion, you were so completely torn…”

Aegon spots you in the doorway. He smiles, then turns serious when he gets a good look at your face. “You okay, Mint Chocolate Chip?”

He feels like the only person you can say this to. You confess in a weak, hoarse whisper: “I hate this world.”

Aegon offers you the other earbud. “Then let’s go somewhere else.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Come on,” you say to Rhaena as Rio and Luke rummage around inside the Shell gas station for food, drinks, batteries, medicine. You know they’re fine; you’ve already cleared the store, and you can hear them in there laughing. Rio is telling Luke about the bizarre Thanksgiving dinner you once had in Chinhae, South Korea: duck instead of turkey, fried rice with pears and squash instead of stuffing, candied sweet potatoes for dessert, a choir of solemn schoolchildren brought in to sing—for reasons you will never understand—Africa by Toto. You take your remaining M9 out of its holster. “Target practice.”

“Really?” Rhaena asks excitedly. She volunteered to stay back at the little blue mobile home with Aegon, Daeron, and Helaena—only a mile away—but you knew she needed a distraction. Truthfully, you do too. Aemond is in the Tahoe somewhere searching for gas with Cregan, a strange new alliance. He still hasn’t really spoken to you. You are trying to give him what he needs, but you don’t understand what that is.

It took all of yesterday to navigate around Salt Lake City, stopping every few hours to scrounge for gas, gallons siphoned piecemeal from cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats on trailers, four-wheelers left forgotten in garages and backyards. It was after nightfall when you rolled into Battle Mountain, Nevada, a gold mining town in what is known as the Cowboy Corridor, beginning at West Wendover just over the Utah border and ending in Reno. Today supplies must be replenished; tomorrow I-80 will take you to Winnemucca, where U.S. Route 95 branches off north towards Oregon while remaining on I-80 leads southwest through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and into the Bay Area of California. A decision needs to be made, which means Aemond will have to talk to you tonight. You’re relieved. You don’t want to have to be nervous and watchful with him, studying every inflection of his voice, reading some dire premonition in each line that creases his face. You’ve spent enough of your life that way already.

Battle Mountain is cloudless and hot and sandy, dry shrubs and gnarled mesquite trees, flat secretless earth. Staggering towards the Shell are three zombies, all dressed in faded blue uniforms like a mechanic’s or a miner’s. You hand Rhaena your M9.

“How many bullets do you have left?” she says, still a bit giddy.

“Fifteen. And you can have five of them.”

She raises the pistol and closes one eye. “I’m going to miss.”

“Well you’re not going to hit anything if you don’t turn off the safety.”

Rhaena giggles. “Oh, right. Whoops.” She clicks the tiny lever, then takes aim again.

“Line up your sights. Front looks like an I, back looks like a U. Put the I in the center of the U, and keep looking at that front sight. That’s where your bullet is going. Don’t blink when you fire. Don’t be scared of the recoil, that’s not your problem, your priority is getting the shot. Your arms are a little stiff…yeah, perfect, nice and limber. The recoil won’t hurt so much that way. Don’t try to fight it, just accept that it’s going to happen. If you’re all tensed up because you’re anxious about the recoil, it’ll throw off your aim, so forget about it.”

“Okay,” Rhaena says. “I am actively attempting to forget.”

“Remember, try not to blink.”

“Don’t tense up. Don’t blink.” A few seconds pass, and she pulls the trigger. There is a spray of dark curdled blood from one of the zombie’s collarbone, but it’s still stumbling towards the Shell. “Damn,” Rhaena says defeatedly, then tries to pass the M9 back to you.

“What are you doing? You have four more shots.”

“But I’m going to miss. I’m going to waste them.”

“Practice isn’t wasteful. You have to know how to do this in case something happens to me.”

“You do it,” Rhaena insists. “I’m terrible.”

“Is it alright if I help you?”

“Yeah,” she says, her doe-like eyes brightening. “Okay. Totally.”

“Go ahead and aim.”

She raises the pistol and peers through the sights. You stand behind Rhaena, place your hands lightly over hers, adjust her angle just barely. When she fires—she’s still tensing up just before she pulls the trigger, a common mistake—you hold the M9 steady. The bullet explodes through the same zombie’s rot-soft skull and the corpse tumbles facedown into the dust.

Rhaena gasps, exhilarated, triumphant.

“No celebrating yet. There are two more.”

“Right.” Very businesslike, she lines up the next shot. You provide your slight adjustments; a second zombie receives a lethal dose of lead.

“Want to do the last one on your own?” The third zombie is quite close now, maybe ten yards. It should be an easy kill.

“Okay…but if I miss, you have to save me.”

“Obviously.”

All on her own, Rhaena aims and pulls the trigger. She hits the zombie near the top of its head; an inch higher, and it would be functionally unharmed. But the corpse’s skull snaps back and its blood and brains spill out onto the asphalt of the parking lot, and it is of no further danger to anyone. It is carrion for the scavengers: raccoons, foxes, condors, vultures, crows.

“And with one of your allocated bullets to spare,” you say with a smile, accepting the M9 when Rhaena surrenders it. “Good progress.”

“That felt great,” she admits, perhaps a little dazed.

You know what she means. “It’s nice to have some control over what happens in your life.”

Luke is saying to Rio as they reappear from inside the Shell: “Maybe those Korean children were singing Africa because they knew your unit had been in Djibouti. Maybe they thought you were homesick for it or something.”

“Oh my God, you know what, kid? You might be right. I never even thought of that.”

“Find anything?” you ask.

Rio shrugs, adjusting the straps of his backpack. “A few bags of trail mix, a box of Band-Aids, some Life Savers, cans of Arizona tea. Oh, and Marlboro Golds for Honey Bun.”

“You shouldn’t be encouraging Aegon to smoke. It’s bad for him.”

“Give him a break, he’s sad and crispy.”

You can’t think of a rebuttal. The four of you walk back to the mobile home.

In the small patch of parched dirt that serves as the driveway, Cregan is—with great difficulty—shimmying out from beneath the Tahoe. Then he reaches back under to grab a pan of old motor oil. “Just about done here,” he announces. “Gotta put the fresh oil in and then we’re set for another 5,000 miles.”

You glance around. Ice is panting in the narrow aisle of shade of a mesquite tree. Aegon is napping on the tiny front porch, sprawled on his back and snoring, his plastic neon green sunglasses shielding his eyes; Helaena is surrounded by a jumble of empty cans and stirring a pot of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs as she heats it over a fire. She begins dishing out bowlfuls of it. Rio, Rhaena, and Luke all graciously accept their dinner.

“Did you guys find gas?” you say to Cregan.

“Not much. A few gallons.”

“Where’s Aemond?”

“Said he’d be back soon.”

“What?” You are incredulous. “You left him? He can’t be alone out there, Cregan. Someone has to watch his blind side.”

“He ain’t alone. He took Daeron.”

“What’s Aemond looking for?”

“He didn’t say. I didn’t ask.” Now Cregan is pouring a bottle of Pennzoil into the Tahoe, and Rio is prodding you with a bowl of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs, and Aegon is waking up and yawning loudly.

“What’d you bring me?” he says, lazy and grinning; and when he receives his pack of Marlboro Golds, he immediately sticks one between his teeth and lights it. Luke goes to sit by a shrub and then jumps up when he hears a rattling noise. Almost too swiftly for you to process it, a streak of red-gold scales slithers across the earth and vanishes into the desert.

“Western diamondback rattlesnake,” Helaena notes. “Venomous. Potentially fatal.”

“Great,” Luke says, carrying his bowl towards the front door of the mobile home. “I think I’ll eat inside.”

Aemond and Daeron don’t return until shortly before dusk, the sky turning to rust, lavender, gold, fire, blood. When they walk in, Rhaena is curled up on the floral couch—shredded in spots by a cat, though there are no signs of it now—and reading Mockingjay. Luke is sitting with her and keeping watch with periodic peeks out the window. Ice is resting with her muzzle propped on her large front paws. You, Rio, Cregan, Helaena, and Aegon are playing Uno on the floor.

“What color?” Aegon asks Helaena when she puts down a wild card.

“Blue.”

He groans. “How do you always know what I don’t have?!”

“Rhaena,” Aemond says, and then tosses something to her that glints in the artificial, sickly yellow radiance of the flashlights. She catches them in midair: a set of keys. She is mystified.

“What are these for?”

“The Ford Expedition that’s parked outside.”

“What?!” Luke says, twisting around in his seat to snatch the curtain aside and peer through the window. “Oh wow. Yeah, it’s out there.”

Rhaena is staring confoundedly at Aemond. “Why do we need a Ford Expedition?”

“Because that’s what you’ll be driving tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong with the Tahoe?”

“They will be driving the Tahoe to Oregon,” Aemond says, pointing to you, Rio, and Cregan. “We are taking Expedition to California.”

Everyone is too stunned to speak at first; even Daeron looks at Aemond doubtfully, as if this is the first time he’s learning of it. Aegon’s hand hovers frozen in the air above the draw pile of Uno cards. Ice whimpers.

Rio chuckles uncertainly. “You’re…you’re joking, right?”

“No, I’m not,” Aemond says. “When we leave Battle Mountain tomorrow, you’ll take I-80 to Winnemucca. We’ll take Route 305 south to Austin and then head west so we can get off the interstate and avoid the Reno area.”

Your voice comes out dark and poisonous. You can feel your eyes glaring, searing; Aemond won’t look at you. “What are you talking about?”

“We can’t stay together?” Luke asks.

“No,” Aemond says again, and now he’s getting impatient. “We have two different destinations. That’s been the situation since the day we met, and now it’s time to split up.”

“Why can’t we all travel to one place and then the other?” Rhaena says. “We could drive to the Bay Area, see what’s going on at the beach house, and after—”

“I can’t wait,” Rio interrupts. “My wife and baby are in Oregon, I’m going straight there even if no one else is.” As distracted as you are, you touch your palm to one of his broad shoulders. You’re going too. You promised.

“So we’ll drive to Oregon first,” Aegon says agreeably. “Right? We could do that. Go north and then swing by the Bay Area later.”

Aemond shakes his head. “It’s almost impossible to find gas now. There is just enough in the Tahoe to last it until Winnemucca, and just enough in the Expedition to get it down to Austin. There is no guarantee we’ll be able to find more. Every day there’s less gas and food and bullets, because there are less places that haven’t already been looted. There are 400 miles between where we are right now and either Odessa or San Franscisco. There are another 400 miles that separate those two destinations from each other. So let’s say we drive all the way to Oregon and then can’t find any gas to go south to the Bay. How long do you think we’d last like this on foot? A month? Because that’s how long it would take us, assuming not a single rest day. So if we travel to one location together, there’s a good possibility we’ll all be trapped there.”

“Maybe I’m okay with getting trapped in Oregon,” Aegon mumbles.

Aemond lashes out fiercely. “Are you serious? What about Criston, what about Mom?!”

“Maybe there are some things about home that I don’t miss!”

“Then go the fuck to Oregon!”

“You know I have to stay with you!”

Aemond scoffs. “Because you’re so capable of protecting anyone.”

Aegon rubs his sunburned face with both hands. He murmurs softly, miserably: “I’m trying, Aemond.”

“So that’s it?” Rhaena says, staring at you and Rio and Cregan, stunned and mournful. “We’ll just never see each other again?”

Aemond shrugs and averts his gaze. He doesn’t have an answer; maybe he doesn’t care.

Aegon turns to Cregan accusingly. “You helped plan this?”

“Nah,” Cregan says, avoidant and downcast, which is unusual for him. “I mean…I said I didn’t really see myself spending the rest of my life with a bunch of millionaires in a California mansion on the seashore, and that’s still true. I’d rather live in Oregon with people who are more like me. But that’s different than wanting to split up forever. I could always try to find y’all later for a visit, I guess…”

“Sure,” Aemond replies briskly. “Whatever you decide to do afterwards isn’t my problem. But you get them to Odessa first.”

Rhaena bursts out with sudden urgency: “This feels wrong. Don’t you see how this is wrong?! We’ve been through so much together, and now we’re just going to wave goodbye and disappear? Leave them to fend for themselves?”

“You want to add 400 miles to our trip?” Aemond asks her, and Rhaena falls silent.

“You know,” Luke begins. “We…we’ve already lost people. Maybe Aemond’s right. Maybe we’re forgetting how dangerous the world is now. It would be great if we could stay in contact, but the most important thing is to get everyone safely to where they need to be.”

“Exactly,” Aemond says, and something jolts awake in you as you remember what he told you in Nebraska, and in Wyoming, and in so many quiet moments that you’ve shared since you met, each an oasis in the desert. He said we would figure it out. He said he wasn’t going anywhere.

“So you were lying when you pretended not to know what we were going to do when we got to Nevada.”

Aemond nods towards the front door. “Can I talk to you outside for a minute?”

You stand up; Rio watches you apprehensively, wondering if he should follow. Your eyes flick to his. I’m fine. He relents, redirecting his attention. Aegon is slumped and despondent; Helaena is starting to cry, and Cregan tries to console her. She’s saying that something bad is going to happen, but she doesn’t know what.

On the porch of the mobile home, beneath a lilac sky pierced with stars, Aemond does not attempt to hold your hands or kiss you goodbye or give any other indication that you have ever been someone who mattered to him. “This isn’t personal. This is what gives everyone the best chance of survival.”

“You’re afraid of making a mistake and getting hurt,” you tell him. “And I understand, I know what that feels like, but Aemond…with the way the world is now…you can’t afford to wait for things to happen or cut them loose to see if they’ll come back to you. You might not get another chance.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Aemond says flatly. “Your route is safer than ours. Less cities, less zombies.”

“You’re honestly going to act like you are completely unbothered by the thought of never seeing me again?”

“I don’t know what you expected. I’m just some guy who helped get you off a transmission tower back in Pennsylvania.”

“Really? That’s all you are?”

And then Aemond smirks to himself, a cynical, mocking twist of his lips, something so dismissive and so cruel you almost believe for a razor-thin second that you could hate him. “Look, I’m not the one for you. Go to Oregon. Fuck Cregan.”

“There is nothing romantic between me and Cregan!”

Now Aemond seems annoyed. “Well, you two seem exceptionally suited for each other.”

“Because we both grew up shopping at Dollar General and know what it’s like to have an alcoholic parent?! That makes us soulmates, that’s the end of the calculation?!”

“Then find a man like him!” Aemond flares. “That’s what you really wanted, right? That’s what you were after this whole time. Some hero to convince you he’s worth it. Someone to break you in.”

You are seething, thunderstruck. “And you just said that in the most hurtful way possible to…what, prove how little you care about me?”

“I didn’t say I don’t care about you.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“We were never going to end up in the same place.”

“Except we were, you told me that, you told me we’d figure something out, I mean, you…you…you said you’d be there if I wanted kids someday, what was that if not some kind of commitment?!”

“You don’t trust me,” Aemond says, so sharply and so abruptly it startles you.

“I do,” you object softly.

“No, you don’t. And I don’t blame you. But there’s nowhere for us to go from here.”

You can feel yourself becoming young and powerless and desperately afraid. “Please don’t do this, Aemond. It won’t bring Jace or Baela back. If we don’t have a plan before we split up, this is over. We’ll never find each other again. We’ll never have another chance.”

And he shakes his head like this was such a needless mistake. “I knew you’d fall in love with me.”

He’s leaving, you think, hazy and omnipotent like a nightmare, the present inseparable from the past and the future. I left my family and now my family is leaving me. “I’m not in love with you,” you reply as ruthlessly as you can. “I think you’re right. Cregan is a better man.”

“Yeah,” Aemond snaps.

“And I need someone like him.”

“Yeah,” Aemond says again, staring into the west where the last rays of the sun are sinking below the horizon, you erased as you stand where his left eye would once have seen you.

“And you need someone who’s going to fuck with your head so much you can’t possibly mistake it for something real.”

You walk back inside the mobile home and leave him speechless in the dying light.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I drew this for you,” Aegon says, handing Rio a folded piece of paper torn from Helaena’s spider notebook. It’s a map, illustrated in forest green gel pen ink. “Your route is actually really straightforward, it’s impossible to get lost. You’ll follow I-80 northwest to Winnemucca, then Route 95 north until it intersects with Route 140, and you stay on 140 all the way to Odessa. The only real city you’ll go near is Klamath Falls in Oregon, and I’ve marked that. Route 140 mostly stays along the outside, but you can cut it wider if things look dicey. The whole trip is just a couple days by car, assuming you don’t have to spend too long hunting for gas. But listen…” He points to the green dot labelled Winnemucca. “Between here and Denio Junction up by the Oregon border, there’s 100 miles of nothing, just desert. So make sure you have more than enough supplies to last you in case something happens. Then from Denio Junction to Adel is another 85 miles with no towns in between. So just…be careful, okay? You’re not back east anymore. Things are a lot farther apart, and it’s harder to find everything. If you run out of gas or bust a tire, you can’t just call AAA to come pick you up.”

“We got it,” Rio says, touched but trying not to dissolve into too much sentimentality. The three of you are standing in the short dirt driveway the next morning, Aegon putting most of his weight on his good leg. Cregan is waiting behind the wheel of the Chevy Tahoe that once belonged to his parents. Ice is peering out at you through one of the rolled-down windows. “Thank you, Honey Bun.”

“No problem. Now flip it over.”

Rio does; on the back of the first map is another, this one from Odessa south to the Bay Area, a place just north of San Francisco called Bolinas.

“Go all the way to the coast and follow it down,” Aegon says. “You don’t want to bump into Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, San Jose, any of those places. Too many people.” Then he smiles, kind and warm. “I’m going to see you guys again, one way or the other. But first I have to make sure Aemond is safe. And Rio has to meet baby Otter.”

Rio laughs. “Man, don’t even joke about it. I’m seriously concerned that’s my firstborn’s name.”

“If you end up not staying in Odessa, leave me a note carved into a tree trunk or something so I can track you down.”

“You do the same at the beach mansion.”

“Totally.” Then Aegon turns to you; and although he’s still smiling, his eyes—those pools of murky, melancholy blue that remind you of the Gulf of Tadjoura, Corpus Christi Bay, the East China Sea, the Indian Ocean—are catastrophically sad. “Tortilla Chip, it’s been real. Don’t forget about me.”

“I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”

He pats your backpack and winks, and you don’t understand why until ten hours later when you’re lying on the rooftop of an abandoned RV in Winnemucca, Nevada, gazing up at the stars as Rio and Cregan swap stories to weave affinity until it’s thick like a braid: Rio hiding a dead lemon shark in the Jeep of an officer he hated when you were stationed at Key West, Cregan’s fiancé leaving him after she got a field hockey scholarship to the University of Iowa. You haven’t found any gas for the Tahoe yet. You’ll have to search again tomorrow. You reach into your backpack for a pack of Life Savers and instead are surprised to discover Aegon’s pink Sony Walkman. The rhinestones spelling out a doomed little girl’s name glint in the moonlight.

You slip in both earbuds and press play. Aegon left it paused at an Enrique Iglesias song; you assume he must have been thinking of Rio.

“You look at me and, girl, you take me to another place

Got me feelin’ like I’m flyin’, like I’m out of space

Something ‘bout your body says, come and take me

Got me begging, got me hoping that the night don’t stop…”

You try to see constellations in the night sky instead of random, indifferent distant suns. You try not to remember the way Aemond was when you thought his mark on you was permanent.

“Girl, I like the way you move, come and show me what to do

You can tell me that you want me, girl, you got nothing to lose

I can’t wait no more

I can’t wait no more…”

You spot a glimmer of light among the stars and choose to believe it is a comet rather than a fighter jet, or a forgotten satellite, or the refracted remnants of a solar storm, or something you only imagined and that never existed at all.

[81norris]

so eager - lando norris x reader

pairing : lando norris x fem!reader warnings : nwfs, smut, p.in.v, unprotected sex, dirty talk word count : 1,5k summary : lando is bored at the party and knows a way to make the night more interesting for both of you... a/n : i was DYING to write about lando and finally did! i hope you'll enjoy and feedback is always appreciated! also a huge thanks for all the love on my first writing, it's very appreciated <3 xoxo bunny

it wasn't even that late but lando was already waiting to get home. you and him had come to this party threw by one of your friends, you both had dressed up pretty nicely, you in your black silk dress and him in his black shirt.

at first enthusiastic about going to the party, he was now impatient, sitting in one of the chairs in the living room, his leg bouncing. lando was usually pretty patient, never really in a rush, but tonight he could have sweared he had never been more impatient in his life.

why you may wonder ? well because of you.

the way you laughed, the way your dress kept riding up your thighs despite you pulling it down again and again. the way you danced, the way you smiled... you were the hottest thing he had ever seen, everything about you seemed to make him insane.

he wanted you, no matter where he could. he wanted to kiss you, touch you, feel you. but you both weren't home and you hadn't gone out in a while and lando didn't want to ruin your fun.

but he could barely hide it anymore, acting like you weren't making him harder by the second was something lando could not do. he suddenly stood up and made his way to you. you were talking to one of the guests near the bar but he didn't mind interrupting you. having you right now was more than a want, it was a need.

you saw your boyfriend coming your way and smiled at him before seeing the look in his eyes : a mix of lust and determination. a look you were no stranger to.

"can we talk quickly?" lando said as he grabbed your waist, ignoring the person your were talking to. "sure, something's wrong?" he didn't answer you and just took you by the hand.

you followed him and knew damn well what your boyfriend wanted to talk to you about, and it made you laugh internally. infact it made you laugh so much that you decided you would play dumb and make it hard for lando to get what he wanted.

you arrived in a hallway, "so, is anything wrong lando?". he let go of your hand and got closer to you, dangerously closer. "let's get out of here", he had gotten so close that both your bodies had reached the wall and the sexual tension between you two could be cut with a knife at this point.

"why? aren't you having fun?" you said, your hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. "oh yes, sooo much fun" he answered in his usual sarcastic tone, "but i have funnier activities in mind sweetie".

he had you hooked and you couldn't deny that you wanted him too but you didn't want to give up this fast. "well.. you'll have to wait then i guess cause i am certainly having fun". his hand reached your waist and his mouth went next to your ear, "c'mon y/n, let me show you some real fun".

he backed off, took you by the hand again and opened the door right next to you before getting both of you into the room. the room happened to be a bathroom. "lucky bastard" you thought as he gently pushed you against the sink, his mouth going straight to your neck.

"i’ve been thinking about that all night" lando said as he pulled your dress up your ass, his hands groping and malaxing your ass cheeks.

"well hurry up then, i ain’t got all night". he chuckled against your neck before turning you around, your ass ending up right against his crotch and you could tell he really had been thinking about this moment all night.

"you want me to hurry up? don’t worry i will" he said with a smirk. you then heard him undo his belt and quickly unzip his pants. he grabbed you by your waist and with his left hand easily pushed aside your panties.

he was breathing heavily against your neck and you arched your back when you felt his cock tease your entrance, going back in forth with his tip between your lips to coat himself in your juices.

"ready love?" he asked while giving little pecks to your shoulders and you nodded. he then finally got inside you, slowly but surely. him being on the thicker side always drove you crazy but could also be a bit scary, especially in those moments where he was so eager to be inside of you that you thought he would just get inside you in one quick movement.

but lando didn’t and it reassured you, even in the heat of the moment he was always taking it slow and safe with you, hurting you was the last thing he’d want to do. after a few slow thrusts you were used to him, his length and thickness so he started thrusting deeper but also faster.

your hands were gripping for god’s sake on the sink, moans falling off your mouth like prayers. his right hand was firmly placed on your hips to guide you back to his own every time he pulled out of you. his left hand was holding you by your neck, not too hard, just enough to handle you.

the mixed sounds of skin slapping and of your moans were getting him closer and closer to his orgasm. you looked at him through the mirror and the sight was simply delicious : a few curls were falling on his sweaty forehead, his shirt half unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

he was glowing and his moans were becoming nearly as loud as yours. the deeper he got inside of you and the more he hit close to your sweet spot, he got you wrapped around his fingers, knowing exactly how to get you on the edge.

"funnier than talking to this random guy right" he said, almost out of breath. even tho it seemed like a question it definitively got out more as a tease, lando sometimes couldn’t help himself but act (or at least sound) a little jealous but deep down he knew you were his and only his.

"you look so fucking good darling, my cock fits so well inside of you" he kept talking but you never answered, or you couldn’t. everything was rushing in your mind and you were physically unable to form a sentence, even if you really tried.

"who’s my good girl uh?" he asked, giving your ass a slap to make you understand that this time he wanted an answer. "oi, i asked you a question" he said before grabbing your neck and pulling you against his chest, gluing your body to his.

"it’s me, i’m the good girl" you finally answered him, making it as comprehensive as you could. "MY good girl, mine only" he snapped at you while tightening the grip around your neck.

he felt your walls getting tighter and tighter around his cock, alarming him that you were about to come. "you’re gonna come for me aight?", his thrusts also got sloppier and messier as he was also very close to coming.

"yes.. please lando make me come", you had told him exactly what he loved to hear and a loud whine got out of him. "fuck baby, i’m coming too"

with one deep thrust he made you come on his cock, your back arching more than you thought it was physically possible. his name left your mouth between curses, lando slowed down but was still chasing his own orgasm as much as he could.

"come on lando.. come inside me", and it didn’t take more than this for him to spill it all inside of you. he held you close to him, both his arms holding you in a tight embrace while he was still -very slowly- thrusting in and out of you, making both of you come down from your highs.

"fuck.. that was fantastic", he whispered in your ear as he slide out of you and then got down on one knee to admire his cum spill out of your cunt. he then got back up and crashed his lips against yours, his hands sweetly tracing circles on the sides of your body.

"d’you think they heard us?" you asked him, your head momentarily resting on his shoulder, your breathing still a bit shaky after such a big orgasm.

"i sure hope they did, you sounded so exquisite", you slapped his arm and he laughed out loud at your reaction, a laugh that you adored more than anything.

he kissed your forehead before grabbing a random towel in the room to clean both of you up, "no one will know" he said before throwing it in the laundry bin and giving you a wink, making you laugh as well.

you put your panties and dress back on correctly while he zipped his pants up before putting his belt back on.

"ok but let’s really get back home now, i’m tired" he told you while grabbing your hand as you got out of the bathroom, intertwining his hand with yours. "and who’s fault is that?" you threw in his face with a cheeky smile. "don’t you dare act like you didn’t enjoy every bit of this" he said, landing a kiss on your forehead.

yes, you did enjoy every bit of this even tho you wouldn’t admit it. but lando knew you didn’t need to, he knew you did and your loud moans were loud enough to prove his point to himself.

[morganski-19]

Chills Right to the Marrow Part 19

part 1, prev part

Dustin’s crying when Wayne walks into the room. Rushing to wipe away the tears when he realizes Wayne’s presence. His hand gripped in Eddie’s while he sleeps. Wayne almost feels like he’s intruding.

“I can go if you need a minute,” he says. Halfway stepping out the door.

Dustin shakes his head, hand releasing Eddie’s to wipe away the rest of the tears. “No, it’s fine.”

Wayne hesitates before sitting down. Debating whether or not the kid is lying for his benefit. But it’s better to let the kid decide for himself than Wayne to decide for him. So he sits in the same chair he always does. Waiting for Dustin to ready himself.

“He was a wake a few minutes ago, you missed it.”

“I’m sorry if he said anything,” Wayne says on instinct. Ready to apologize for the things that Eddie can’t control. “He’s so confused right now that he can’t tell here nor there. Don’t take anything too personally-.”

“He remembered me,” Dustin interrupts. Awe vibrating through his voice.

Wayne’s brain recalibrates. “What?”

Dustin turns toward Wayne. A hope that Wayne has never seen from him gracing his face. “My name. He said my name. He remembered me.”

A smile so unfamiliar at this point cracks on Wayne’s face. The muscles in his face having to remember how to form it. “He did?”

“Yeah.” Dustin smiles. A real bright smile that could light an entire room. “I was reading to him and finished the book. He opened his eyes and was listening, like he has been. And then he started talking, apologized for yesterday, and I think for what happened before. Then he said my name.”

“That’s,” Wayne’s struggling to find words. Anything to express what he’s feeling. “That’s really good, kid.”

There’s that bubbling sort of hope starting up again in Wayne’s chest. The feeling like there’s a chance his boy will wake up again and actually remember him. Say something other than cheap swears meant to hurt and nothing else. Finally, be able to heal. Maybe in a place outside of the blank hospital walls. In a place that feels like home.

If Wayne can find a place by then.

It’s not without a lack of trying, it’s with a lack of funds. His paychecks being tugged in different directions. Most of it going into savings to pay for what is about to be an astronomically high medical bill, the rest going to the money pit of his motel room. Leaving Wayne to use pennies to take care of himself.

Wayne doesn’t know how he’s going to pull himself out of this debt. Having a feeling that it’s going to haunt him for a long time. Hoping that it’s going to be a burden that only he has to have. Not one that he will have to pass down to the person he’s doing all of this for.

“You said you finished the book,” Wayne starts conversation. A dual effort to cheer the kid up and get himself out of this thought train. “You got me all invested and couldn’t even wait for me to finish it. Best you can do is tell me how it ends.”

There’s a certain light that brights people’s eyes when talking about the things they love. Makes the people that notice a bit happier when it does. Knowing that there’s something someone loves so much that it makes time a little brighter for a while. Instead of the suffocating darkness that it can be.

It’s the same light that clicks on when Dustin starts to relay the last few chapters of the book. Talking like someone who’s read it a million times, wanting to interject with their own thoughts of the events. Intertwining information learned in later books and materials when they aren’t necessary for the summary. Often pausing and going back on his words after getting ahead of himself.

Wayne sees so much of Eddie in this kid. It’s insane how two people couldn’t be more related when sharing no blood at all. How mannerisms imprint from simply spending time with each other. And how sharing the same interests can form a bond so special that he hopes it never breaks.

What he said to Steve was true, it was no problem looking out for this kid. It was no problem at all. Mainly because helping this kid was helping a part of him too.

It reminded him that there was at least one person out there that cared for Eddie enough to come and sit by him when Wayne couldn’t. That someone else believed in Eddie’s innocence from the beginning and took the time to try and help him. And, while he wouldn’t wish it on anyone, someone that shares his pain.

Dustin was one of the reasons that Wayne remains as hopeful as he is. It’s harder to lose hope completely when that means breaking it for someone else. Easier for it to remain when there’s a person smiling at every step forward, instead of getting weighed down by the steps back.

And somewhere along the small conversations to try and get their minds off the subject at hand, Wayne started getting invested. Started paying more attention to how Dustin’s doing in school, at home. Checking in a making sure he was taking care of himself, and not stretching himself too thin.

It was easy to start caring about him.

“Oh shit, I almost forgot.” Dustin pulls a take out container out of his lunchbox and hands it to Wayne. “It’s from my mom, she wanted to give it to you. Please don’t refuse it, she gives out food to literally everyone.”

Wayne takes the container, seeing some sort of pasta dish under the clear lid. “Tell her I said thank you.”

Dustin zips up his bag and stands, saying goodbye to Wayne before leaving. Just him and Eddie left in the room.

Despite what people may think about Eddie, about his friends, they’re good kids. All of them. They were some of the kindest people Wayne’s ever met.

next part

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[courtingchaos]

Nectarine

Eddie Munson x Fem Reader

Warnings: Talk of body parts in a sexy way. Comparison of the female body to fruit, implied white/light-skinned reader due to analogy/prose. I had this very particular phrase stuck in my head and it comes across as that. Uh, I just really like how it reads so that’s why I’m putting a warning here because I didn’t want to take it out.

A/N: I’ve hung on to this for like two months now because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to post it but I was rereading it tonight and I forgot how much I like writing from Eddie’s perspective. So also have this thing too.

18+ NSFW No Minors

He’s never been jealous of fruit before.

Never had the urge to rip a nectarine out of someone’s hand and huck it right into the pool for making him feel like this. He hasn’t taken his eyes off the spectacle since you bit into it, that first bite crunching through the mottled white and red flesh. You’d come out from the kitchen of Steve’s house with it already wedged between your teeth while you balanced pizzas in your hands and he’d shot right up to help. You’d laughed around the mouthful and when he’d taken the boxes you pulled the fruit away from your lips, the sound of you sucking up the spit that had dribbled against them making him almost burst.

There’s something suggestive in the way the colors meld on the skin. The deep red giving under your teeth to reveal the pale flesh, juices rushing your fingers and down your chin. He watches you laugh and jump when some of it drips down onto your chest and he watches you try to wipe it away while keeping your top in place.

He’d been stock still, leaned over the pizzas and it’s Dustin elbowing him that makes him realize he was for real staring, mouth agape and fingers clenched around greasy cardboard. You’ve been too busy laughing it up with Robin to notice him going absolutely insane.

“Dude get the fuck out of the way.” Dustin says under his breath and Eddie just slaps the back of his head.

“Language, asshole.” The ensuing shove and slap fight makes Eddie forget for a brief moment the erotic fruit imagery happening on one of Steve’s parents matching loungers. He lets Dustin win when he goes for Eddie’s hair and gets to run off with his pizza instead.

Eddie can hear the light edge of your laughter and another crunch when you bite through another not-so-ripe part of the nectarine and it sends him right into the pool. He knows he can hover by the edge and keep his interest hidden but also still remain conversational so he does a soft somersault into the deep end. Swims for the side you’re seated on and breaches the water as you decide to lean forward to dig through your big pool bag. Cleavage stares him down and he furiously rubs at his eyes and bitches about the chlorine content to cover the tears he’s sure are streaming down his face. There’s a rivulet of shine along the top of one breast, dipping right down the middle and he imagines running his tongue along it. Chasing that line of sweetness to the inside of your swim top to make you giggle like Robin does with her dumb jokes.

Another bite, more red disappearing to reveal pale pale pale. He wants to peel back that stupid coverup you have wrapped around your waist to reveal your pale thighs. He could rip it back with his teeth too, pull it clean off your body so he could revel in the softness of them. They’d give under his teeth and he’d be so careful leaving only the most perfect love bites.

“Eddie?”

His attention snaps to Robin where she stares at him with concern on her brow. “What?”

“I asked if you ate?”

“I will!” He whines at her and she catches his quick glance at you. Her mouth falls open slightly and he gives her a death glare, a warning to back off he’ll do it himself.

“Dustin’s gonna eat that whole pizza if you aren’t careful.” Robin sings at him and she gets up, tossing a wink his way.

“Not hungry?” You ask him through another bite and he catches a hint of deep pink under the pale. His thoughts race towards the unreachable, the warm pink hidden between your thighs and he wonders if the color is the same.

“Uh” his toes barely graze the bottom of the pool, his arms keeping him clutched to the side and floating “not for Pizza, no.”

Your giggle makes your nose scrunch under your big sunglasses and you hold your hand out, offending fruit held out at eye level for him. “Want a bite?”

The ever suffering sigh he suppresses rivals the eye roll he stops in its tracks. Of course he wants a bite. He wants to fit his teeth in the grooves you left there, taste your spit with the nectar and-

There’s no recovering from the show he’d give everyone if he got out of the water now so he just pulls himself even closer to the tiles. Squeezes his eyes shut tightly, tilts his head and shakes it quick. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Can I get you anything? Steve’s got a bunch of stuff in the house.” You scoot forward and that wrap inches up your legs and splits open to reveal one long calf.

“Could you get me another beer?” He says it a little too quick.

“Totally!”

He watches your hips sway the thin fabric around when you walk up towards the house and maybe he doesn’t hate it so much when it clings to your clammy skin. The swell of your hip holds the door open for Nancy and Eddie wishes it was his head pressed into your side.

He begins to wonder if it’s possible to be too horny.

There’s a jet of water at the back of his head suddenly and he turns to see Lucas holding a water gun.

“Quit sulking.” He jokes and Robin elbows him like she’s gotten him in on a secret.

You’ve obviously gotten distracted inside and he’s fine with that. Gave him time to calm down and roll his tongue back into his mouth after he obliterated Lucas and Robin in the water gun battle. He floats on his back under the midday sun, arms hooked over a float, positive he’s burning but too comfortable to care. The laughter at the other end of the pool is his white noise to drift off to until he feels a shift in the water and he��s being spun ever so slowly to face the steps in the shallow end.

“Sorry, I was talking to Max.” You come into view slowly, a smirk directed down at him while he blinks under his sunglasses.

“Thought you got lost in the mansion.”

You scoff and hold his beer up so he can see it. He lets out a small ‘oh!’ and holds out a hand for it. “Thank you.” He’s still spinning with lazy momentum so he only catches the tail end of your gaze before he takes a sip and almost gives himself a nosebleed. The rim of the bottle is sweet like a stone fruit and when he thrashes around to stand up in the water you’ve already made your way back to dry land.

The sky is painted in purples and blues and when the lightning bugs come out everyone wants the fire pit lit. Steve obliges, ever the host, and the ‘adults’ are left to yell at the ‘kids’ about not wasting all the marshmallows by throwing them at each other.

This close to fall the nights get cooler and you still haven’t put on anymore clothes. Eddie has been watching from his side of the pool, his safety barrier that Robin commented on.

“You’ll never get her from all the way over here, amigo.”

“I’m trying to not embarrass myself, hombre.”

From his post by the deep end he can see you shiver and try to wrap your thin coverup over your shoulders to no avail. Nancy offers her sweater and you roll your eyes and laugh, an obvious gesture between the two of you where you point out her tiny frame. Steve is in the middle of suggesting a blanket when Eddie jumps up from his lounge and yells about a flannel in his van.

“You don’t have to go all the way out front for me!” You holler after him and he waves you off. When he comes back he’s in his own hoodie, his old button up slung over his arm.

“See? No big deal.” He hands it over to you. “I needed my ho-oodie anyways.” He stutters hard when you stand to push your arms through and he can see your nipples pushing against your frankly too small swim top. The swell of your breast disappear from sight, along with the most important thing he’s seen all day when you tuck the flannel around you.

“Thank you so much, can’t believe I forgot real clothes.” You laugh and Eddie laughs and from behind him he can hear Robin laugh and his sandal covered foot reaches back and connects with her shin. You take the stack of graham crackers that Mike offers you before you pause and bury your nose into the crook of the elbow of his shirt. “Did you wear this recently?”

“M-me? Uh, I don’t-I mean-”

“It smells really good.”

Eddie laughs again and Robin yanks the back of his hoodie until he sits hard next to her in one of the plastic chairs.

“You sound like a moron.” She mimics his laugh while spearing a marshmallow.

“I don’t sound like that at all.” Eddie mirrors her movements. “I told you I didn’t want to embarrass myself.”

“Well you’re doing a stellar job.” She gives him a sarcastic thumbs up and Eddie decides to just sit and listen. He roasts his marshmallow to a crisp, the s’mores he makes turning into a runny mess that he shoves in his mouth too fast. He can see Robin and Steve share a look and before he can reach over to give Robin a shove, your gentle hand is in his face.

“You got a little….” Your index finger runs along the side of his cheek, puffed out with half chewed s’mores, to wipe off the smear of chocolate there. “There you go.” A smile while you hold your finger in front of him and surely you don’t expect him to lick your finger.

His eyes glance nervously between your face and your proffered finger and never once do you waver. Is that a hint of a dare he catches in your look? Could he inch his tongue out to lap at the pad of your finger? One long lick and he could suck the whole thing into his mouth and really cause a scene out here in the encroaching dark.

A yelp makes both of you jump, a tussle breaking out between the boys and Eddie breathes a sigh of relief knowing every eye was not on him taking the longest pause of his life. You wipe your finger off on a towel and he mourns the loss of an opportunity to taste you again. That brief flavor that lingered on his beer still branded into his mind, the idea of you stealing a sip on the way out to him to deliver it making him grin. Payment in the form of a kiss to glass, at least that’s how he was looking at it.

From his side he can feel two pairs of eyes burning into his skull but he refuses to look at the Wonder Twins and their big dopey eyes they’re probably giving him. Instead he grabs another handful of marshmallows and sets to roasting them, loftily avoiding any questions that might get directed his way.

The night ends late and it ends with the only other available ride being asleep on his couch, face smooshed into Robins shoulder.

“You can see if you can squeeze in with Nancy? But she’s got all the kids.” She whispers at you while Eddie lingers by the door. He’s already said his goodbyes but stopped when he heard you ask about a lift home.

“Uh, well…”

“You can see if you can still catch Eddie.” Robin’s voice sparkles with the ‘sudden’ idea. “I didn’t hear his van yet so he’s probably still out front.” There’s a light snore from Steve that you both giggle at and Eddie tries to open the door as quietly possible.

“Do you think he’d mind?”

“Who Eddie? No, he’d love to. Always trying to help out.”

Eddie rolls his eyes when he gets out in the front step. Could she lay it on thicker? He’s grateful for her slight meddling though when he hears the door open again and your quiet “oh!”

“You haven’t left yet!” You jog to his van where he’s just unlocked the door to lean in on his seat so he can act like he didn’t just hear your predicament.

“No, what’s up?”

“Would you mind dropping me off? I’m a little out of the way but I can pay you for gas.” You start to dig around in your big tote bag and he reaches over to still your hand.

“Don’t worry about it, I got you.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.” He hops in so he can reach over and unlock your door, and you run around the front of his van.

“I really appreciate it Eddie.” Your movement inside brushes up the smell of woodsmoke off of his borrowed flannel and your sunscreen and he hopes the scent stays in his van long after you leave.

“It’s really not a big deal.” He tries to be smooth with his exit, one hand on the back of your seat while he reverses into the road. “More than happy to help.” He flashes you a smile and his grip almost slips on his steering wheel when he catches the heavy stare aimed at him. He swallows thickly and averts his eyes to the road, the silence settling between you two not uncomfortable but certainly weighted.

“Eddie?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you gonna keep ignoring me now that I’m in your car?”

He’s happy there’s a red light he was already stopping for because he almost jams his foot through the firewall. “What?!”

Your laugh glitters in the dark cab and he can’t tear his eyes off you.

“You’ve been avoiding me all day.”

“No I haven’t. I helped you with the pizzas and I was talking to you in the pool.” He shakes his head at you. “You got me a beer!”

“Yeah and when I first showed you made a beeline for the kitchen.”

“I was…busy.”

“I’m sure.” Your smile is conspiratorial and he wishes he knew what you were thinking. “Do you know I went shopping for this bathing suit with Robin?” You tap his knee and point at the now green light before the cars behind him start honking.

“No.”

“Yeah, I went with her because we’d been talking you see.”

“As you girls are wont to do.”

“Hush, I’m not done. Anyways, we went shopping and she told me the funniest little thing. Really a coincidence.” The playful tone of your voice makes him vibrate with anticipation. “I’d already told her about my stupid little crush and she’s not very good a keeping secrets, not like that anyways.” He can see you leaning over to rifle through your bag, a scrap piece of paper and a pen held in your lap a moment later. “Really I thought she’d spill to you first but it seems I caught her on a good day.” You reach over and tuck the now folded piece of paper into his hoodie pocket and stay leaned in, face inches from his own. “But I picked it out for you. Did you like it?”

Did he like it.

Does he breathe? Does he blink? You’ve just uttered the words he’s been longing to hear for weeks now. For you. He wasn’t crazy and all of Robin and Steve’s elbowing was just bullying on their part. He tries to keep his breathing under control and spots your street sign in time to use as a distraction. “Uh, yeah it looks great.” He turns into your neighborhood and dials his music down and still can’t look over at your indulgent grin.

“Is that why you were hiding in the pool?”

“…maybe.”

“Oh that’s cute.” You’ve got a curl of his wrapped around your index finger, slowly spiraling it up till you brush his ear and he’s going to crumble to dust. Somehow he makes the turn onto your street while you’re breath tinted with beer and something sweet sweeps over his cheek. “Eddie?” Sugar could drip off of your words and he’d stick his tongue out for every last drop.

“Yeah?”

“I think you should look in your pocket.”

He jams his hand into his hoodie and pulls out the note now crumpled in his sweaty fist just as he pulls up to the front of your house. You don’t move while he unfolds it, his hair slowly unraveling from your finger. It’s your number and a little heart at the end, an ‘X O’ just under that.

“You wanna ask me out?”

It’s gum he realizes, that sweetness that floods his senses. So fruit and beer and gum and spit is what’ll kill him.

“Yeah I-I really do.” Later he’ll kick himself for how pathetic he sounds here but for now the deep smile you give him is all that matters. You let his hair go and grab your stuff to hop out of his van and he watches you walk around the front like it’s his own personal show.

“How’s Friday night sound? I get off work at 7.” When you lean on his rolled down window he gets a clear shot of cleavage between his flannel (that’s now yours, he’s never taking that back). His mouth waters and his eyes shoot back up to your face that tells him he’s been caught.

“I can do that.” He could also climb out of his window and maul you too if you wanted that.

“Cool.”

“I can pick you up at 8?”

You nod as you walk backwards towards the front steps of your house. “I’ll be ready.” The light flicks from the inside, someone keen to get you in. “You figure out dinner, I’ll just bring the legs again, deal?” You lift one behind you when you cross over the threshold, one last smile shot at him and it’s a bullseye right through his frontal lobe.

[vintagemulti]

shards and splinters

parings: marc spector x reader , steven grant x reader

desc: apparently what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. now you’ve died and returned alive, perhaps it’s time to test that theory; or risk losing your life once and for all.

warnings: blood, angst, swearing, fighting, guns and gun violence, death descriptions, long as fuck, sex mentions i guess(? if you squint), hurt/comfort, gory i guess (jake🤷🏻‍♀️) writers note: idk how accurate these are bc i’ve been writing this on and off for years but cover all bases i guess xx

a/n: psa to pls reblog anyway she’s BAAAAAACKKK did you miss me ?? i missed youse … if there’s even a moonknight fandom anymore 🫣 i’m so sorry for the 2 years gone from the face of tumblr, i’ve quite honestly had two years from hell and insane writers block so. can anyone even remember this series?? idk maybe you should all reread the first parts 👀👀 anyways. there’ll be one more part to this (will it come this year? next? 2026? who knows…) bc i HATED my original ending and just had to change it. also sorry if this feels rushed or like it jumps around a lot, it’s been written over YEARS, but i’ve tried my best for continuity. also, i know there’s a lot missing in like fight scenes but they are BORING and i hate writing em so i’m not doing it. tried, got half way thru then didn’t touch this for 7 months so.. it’s no fight scene or no part at all. but my last part is pretty much done so hopefully it’ll be posted soon! ill let youse savour this for a while tho lol. on a real note thank you all SO much for all the love, even two years later. it means the world. all my love, all the time x

series masterlist

masterlist

the air felt different now. it was funny; you and marc had been apart hundreds, if not thousands of times, but he had never felt your absence. not like this. no, never like this. it was different now because he knew he could look for you everywhere and you would still be in that room, not breathing, not living.

he could see it all so clearly now. all of what? all of it. everything; life, your life, his life, where everything went wrong, what he should have done, should have said, how he could have saved you.

there was nothing you could have done, marc.

“that’s easy for you to say.” he mumbled, looking down at his hands. “you’re not the one who was halfway through a fucking argument when harrow took her. and if you can remember, harrow took her because of me.”

steven sighed, and went quiet.

“i should’ve died on that fucking alter.”

marc said it over and over, like a prayer, to go back in time and pull the trigger. he was fuck knows where, it looked like the middle of the desert but marc didn’t care enough to question it.

he had walked out of that pyramid and kept on walking - for hours. the hot egyptian sun had began to set, casting a rosy hue on everything. the humidity make marc’s head ache.

steven had gone silent - a small hum of anger in the back of marc’s head. it usually would have surprised marc, for steven to be the angry one. but he wasn’t sure he would never feel surprised again.

are you going to wallow here forever?

marc looked up, low sun glinting in his eyes, making him squint. but he could tell exactly who it was - crescent staff in his peripheral.

“fuck off.”

khonshu laughed. that’s one way to talk to a god.

“fuck off.” he repeated.

and why should i, mortal? why should i listen to you?

“you did this.” it was stiff, cold, a definite statement. “you did this to us.”

khonshu groaned, moving to block the sun from marc’s eyes so he could see him properly. aren’t you going to question how i am here?

“no.”

perhaps you should.

marc could never cope with khonshu’s riddles. they had always infuriated him - never getting a straight answer. but this one, he could tolerate.

“fuck does that mean?” he was looking directly into khonshu’s eyes now - something he had readily avoided for years. “and don’t give me any of your goddamn riddles.”

if you must be so blunt, it would seem like osiris has taken a liking to your poor lady wife. hathor isn’t half fond of her, either. maybe you ought to go back to the pyramid, something tells me your needed.

and he was gone. disappeared with a gust of wind, leaving marc alone in the saharan sunset, shaking and still covered in his wife’s blood.

she’s alive?

“i-” marc looked around. “i don’t-”

his eyes slipped into the back of his head.

steven took a deep breath, swallowing hard. he set off in a run - towards the pyramid.

-

“this feels so fucking weird.”

you were pressed flat against the wall, peeking around every few seconds to make sure one of harrow’s followers wasn’t coming your way.

i must admit, it’s been a while since i’ve had an avatar.

you let out a breathy laugh. was that your first ever laugh since being revived? you supposed it must be. oh, you wished it was one of steven’s jokes you were laughing at instead.

you didn’t think you’d ever find one of his jokes unfunny again.

“where is he?”

it’s hard to tell. i can’t check, unless i’d like ammit to spot me.

humming, you looked around the corner once again, breath hitching when you saw a shadow come closer.

what made your breath stop completely, however, was the slow, melodic tapping of a cane, following every footstep the person took.

harrow was less than two feet away from you.

swallowing hard, you pushed yourself against the wall even harder, back cold against the concrete. you hoped - prayed with your newfound faith in osiris and his mercy - that harrow would turn back the other way, not hearing your thumping heart.

but your luck had ran out for this lifetime.

the tapping of the cane became louder, until you could see the tip of it in your peripheral, crunching glass finally becoming audible. he was about to come around the corner, and see you. you would be impossible to miss, even the bright red of your new outfit making you stand out.

it seemed like it was impossible to escape harrow, and the tapping of his cane. he had killed you once, what would stop him from doing it again?

apparently, a guardian angel. someone spoke, making harrow turn to look behind him.

this was your chance - to slip away and turn the opposite corner, escape harrow in your new life as you couldn’t in your last.

his voice made you flinch. cool, charming, low. like a snake - exactly like a snake, now you thought about it. the way he slid through life, from the bar all those years ago, to now, awakening a centuries old god, aiming to destroy the world.

you could slither away too, though.

still holding your breath, you sidestepped along the wall, making sure to watch your step over any lose stones, until the wall fell away behind you and led you into another corridor.

as soon as the light from the hall had faded, you let out your breath, hands coming to your forehead and rubbing your eyes.

we have to keep moving. ammit is almost ready to begin.

nodding - although it felt like your brain was rattling around your skull - you looked back up and saw hathor, still looking as beautiful as ever.

this hallway was much dimmer than the last. colder, too. it was like all the light had been blocked, the only thing keeping your vision was the small, fading candles lining the walls every meter or so.

perhaps it was your natural instinct, or a new given sense as an avatar, but you could tell - something wasn’t right. something in the air had shifted, on top of the hot, sticky, egyptian heat, there was something sinister.

your years as a mercenary had taught you to recognise something - blood in the air. and there was certainly blood in the air around you.

“what is harrow’s plan?”

he wants to judge people. through ammit, he believes he can rid the world of everyone bad, even if they aren’t already bad.

“so he’s playing god?” the corridor seemed to go on forever.

he would never admit it, but yes. and ammit is the perfect enabler for him, she’ll know exactly what he’s up to, but because he can give her her power back, she’ll play along.

you scoffed lightly. “harrow isn’t stupid either. he’ll know what she thinks.”

hathor shrugged, a few paces in front of you. only time will tell, my dear.

for a few minutes, the walk along the corridor was silent. the tap of your shoes echoed down the hall, breeze from your passing flickering the candles on the wall.

why did you marry him?

it stopped you in your tracks, hathor stopping too.

“what?”

marc. why did you marry him?

you stuttered for a moment, looking around as if someone would come and help you.

i don’t mean it in a rude way. i’m the goddess of love, it’s natural for me to want to know.

“well,” you paused for a moment and began walking again, slower this time. “we were young when we met, i was coming up for 18 and he was 19.”

and?

“and i knew what i had done to him.” you swallowed. “i felt fucking awful, i thought, maybe if i get to know the guy, and he’s not as much of an ass as everyone makes him out to be, it’ll make it easier for me to forgive myself.”

the corridor kept on, as if it were never ending.

“as you can tell, it didn’t work.”

he wasn’t as much of an asshole as everyone thought?

“no, he was,” you gave a dry smile. “it just so happened that assholes are my type, and i think he worked it out pretty quickly. so after only about two months of knowing each other, he asked me on a date. a real date. it was my first ever date too, god knows anton never took me out. but god, he was such a gentleman.

he picked me up, gave me flowers, wore a fucking tie. and he payed for everything, too. dinner at a four star restaurant, a movie, then out to a bar for drinks.

i knew i had fucked up when he kissed me that night.”

you regret it?

“not for a day. and that’s my mistake- i mean, i was supposed to hate him. i told myself i would hate him. so i wouldn’t feel bad about telling someone to kill him. i didn’t even know how he got out alive- he didn’t tell me about the khonshu shit until after we got married.

oh, our wedding,” you smiled again, a real one. “it was perfect. i was twenty one, marc was twenty three. we were so young. it was a small wedding, just some friends, neither of us invited our family. it was the best night of my life.

it was the night i met steven, too. i think the stress of the day must have triggered it. and that was it- there was marc, and there was steven.”

didn’t it take a while to get used to?

the corridor began to open up, getting slightly wider by the meter. still - there was no end to it in sight.

“it did and it didn’t. i knew for a while there was something happening to him, he would disappear, look confused all the time. i knew it was a matter of time until something changed. and then came steven, perfect steven.

he changed so much- it was like dating all over again. he was even more perfect than marc, stupid english accent included. but, naturally, abuthing that’s perfect must come to an end.”

hathor sighed. and it gave you the impression, just for a moment, that she already knew the whole story. that she was humouring you by letting you tell it. her sigh, sad and resigned, almost confirmed that she knew what was coming.

“the-” you stopped. your voice had broken, and your feet no longer moved. hathor continued for a few paces before looking back at you.

i understand, but if there’s any time you need to tell this, it’s now.

“you know?” you voiced your suspicions.

take into account which god i am, my dear. there is no one else i could chose, but you.

you swallowed. “what’s the point of talking about it if you already know?”

you have been born again. revived. would you like to carry this, this horrible vendetta against someone who has done nothing but love you, for the rest of your new life?

“no.”

then voice it. i can take this pain from you, if you only ask me too. i can help you.

you bit your tongue, looking down at your feet and kicking around a few of the loose rocks. hathor waited.

“the baby was supposed to be born just after my twenty-third birthday.”

a beat. hathor didn’t reply.

“but he didn’t live past twelve weeks.”

you looked back up at hathor, anxious for a reply. she didn’t give you one, only nodding.

“i don’t- i don’t know what i did. i was waiting until i could get a scan, tell marc, have it done properly, you know? but when i went to my appointment, i knew. she didn’t say anything, she just looked. then she left, got the doctor to come in.

he said that the baby had died, that they weren’t sure of the cause, but it was a boy. that my baby boy had died.”

tears threatened your eyes. never - never - had you spoken about this before. not even with marc.

“i went home, with a hatred in my heart. the next few days were the worst. i was grieving a child no one knew i even had. the blood was horrible, it hurt so badly. i told marc i was on my period. fuck, for all he knew i was.

and then my baby was gone. and i hated marc.”

why did you hate him?

you shrugged. “i have no idea. i needed someone to blame and marc was the easiest. that’s when it all went downhill, you know? i wanted him to be there for me, for something he didn’t even know happened. and when he wasn’t, i blew up at him. and he blew up at me.

and that was it, for three years. this horrible hatred towards each other, me hating marc for something he knew nothing about, and marc hating me for every other reason.

he hated me the most for making him stay a mercenary. he wanted out, he wanted a normal life in the suburbs with a dog and a big house and maybe, one day, a child.

but i can’t have that. i don’t want that kind of normal - not when i was so close to it and lost it. so i pushed him into this world. i made him take jobs and work himself to death, even when i found out about khonshu. i made him do it.

and that’s why we’re here. because i told him to follow khonshu here. and now look what i’ve done.”

hathor took two, wide steps towards you, and cradled your face in her hands.

you have done nothing that makes you inhumane. none of this mess is you fault. khonshu would have gotten marc here one way or another. anyone in your shoes would be the same.

her hands were warm. you felt a tear fall, running underneath her fingers. “but i’ve been so horrible. i’m a monster - if not for this, for everything else.”

hathor shook her head. you are a human being.

there was silence as you cried and hathor wiped your tears. at least two minutes passed - but it didn’t matter to you. harrow could come running around the corner and you wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

hathor took a deep breath, looking to her left along the corridor. she opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, another figure appeared.

is now a bad time, human?

you flinched at the rough edge in khonshu’s voice. “what do you want?”

what do i want? there’s a long list.

even through your tears, your patience thinned. “seriously?”

hathor took her hands from your face, turning to look at khonshu. enough of your riddles. just tell her.

the unmistakable sound of footsteps, running, drew your attention. they were getting closer.

i don’t think i have to say a word, actually.

just as khonshu had finished, a figure appeared, coming around the twists and turns of the corridor.

your heart stopped.

marc looked around in a daze, eyes falling first on khonshu, then on hathor, then…

“y/n!”

just as he had stopped running, he started again, coming towards you like a lion out of his cage, wrapping his arms around you and lifting you off of your feet.

“oh baby,” he mumbled into your neck.

you had just reached - wrapping your arms around him in equal tightness, hands flying into his hair. oh, god. his hair - his curls, his skin - you’d never take it for granted again.

he pulled back, hands on your cheeks in a mirror image to hathor. his eyes locked into yours, brown irises melting into his pupils, filling with tears.

marc stuttered, trying to get several sentences out at once, before you hushed him.

“please, marc, we don’t have much time. harrow is gonna-”

“i know,” he nodded, eyes still not breaking from yours. “i know- baby, i know. please- please, just give me a minute. i never- i thought i’d never- oh, baby.”

he leaned in, moving his hands out of the way to rest his forehead against yours. he was hot - sticky with sweat and dirt and, although you didnt want to think about it, your blood.

“i know,” you whispered, closing your eyes. “marc, i know.”

barely having finished your sentence, he leaned in and kissed you.

it was like the first kiss all over again, and you supposed it was. hot, needy, passionate, desperate. you could live in this moment.

but the unmistakable sound of khonshu clearing his throat broke your kiss.

if you wouldn’t mind, harrow is about to release ammit. i’m sure your couples catch-up can wait another hour.

“yeah,” you nodded, breaking away, but marc was far more hesitant to let go.

“i can’t-” he looked around, paranoid. “i can’t do this, y/n. i just lost you, i can’t run the risk of losing you again, i’ve never- y/n, i can’t let you go, you’re everything to me, and if harrow- oh god, what did harrow do to you? i swear to god, the minute i see him, i’m gonna-”

he blinked. a beat.

“paranoid git never did know when to be quiet, did he?”

“oh, steven,” you threw your arms around him again. “fucking hell.”

steven, unlike marc, seemed far more willing to let you go. “love, i know, but if we don’t go now, we’re all gonna end up dead. please, we can do this all after, yeah?”

he took your hands in his, stilling your shaking fingers. he was so warm - always so warm.

“okay,” you nodded, looking between him and the gods beside you. “okay.”

-

you had severely underestimated how far harrow was willing to go. it had been what felt like hours, an unrelenting fight. you weren’t even sure when layla showed up, hoping to help you in any way she could.

but her attempts were futile; ammit was huge. really - huge, bigger than the pyramid behind her. khonshu had, as usual, gotten involved too, so that meant he was the same size, almost trampling you with every step he took.

you had tried. really, you had. you’d tried to use your new found avatar abilities to at least land something on harrow, but truth be told, you were failing. he’d hit you far more times that you’d even aimed for him, you were covered in cuts and rapidly forming bruises, you were sure your shoulder was dislocated.

but worst of all? your head wasn’t right. you weren’t sure what was wrong with it - it seemed fine every time you focused on identifying the issue, but every time you weren’t paying attention, it was there again. dizzy, a ringing in your eyes, everything a second or two behind; your vision lagging and cloudy. but just as you’d notice it, it was gone.

it was getting worse, too. you could see marc out of the corner of your eye; he was one to one with harrow. it would have made you anxious if you could properly focus on what was going on. but you couldn’t - your thought were scattered, a ringing back tenfold in your ears, the world had gone distant and hazy.

the doctors told you it was a concussion the next morning. layla had actually came in very handy, able to translate the man’s arabic into english for you.

he had told you that you’d sustained a massive head injury - you figured it would have been investigated, if you hadn’t been one of the people there last night.

‘there’ was all people could talk about. first the sky had gone backwards (you’d missed that part, thanks to being dead), then, out of nowhere, two ancient egyptian gods had appeared, destroying all the buildings in their wake, pyramids too.

it wasn’t that you couldn’t remember it. you could - it was clear in every aspect. it just didn’t feel like you’d been there at all. even the build up to it, every moment from when you’d stepped out of that pyramid, hand in hand with steven, hot air hitting your face;

it wasn’t you.

well, obviously it was you. but it wasn’t the same you. everything felt different, you didn’t have the same emotions you did before. the same key ones, yes, like how you felt about marc, and steven, and who you are as a person, but basic thing, like fear, and compassion? it was gone.

you’d have voiced this to a doctor if you could put ‘i died and got brought back to like by an ancient god, but not the same one who destroyed half of your city last night, sorry about that, by the way’ into layman’s terms.

trauma induced dissociation was enough of a label for you. it fit - everything just felt a little hazy, was all. not that you’d asked your doctor, a google search (excluding the resurrection part) had taken you to pages and pages about dissociation and how it’s normal to feel it after a traumatic event. you were pretty sure dying was a traumatic event.

and yes, you could bring it up to your doctor, he was payed to help you, after all. but there was a strange gnawing in the back of your head: that if you voiced this feeling, it would only get worse, and the happy ending you and your husband currently had would be shred in two because you couldn’t feel properly.

so instead, you listened to his professional diagnosis; a severe concussion, fractured rib, dislocated shoulder, several cosmetic wounds, and mental trauma that would be discovered at a later point, if you ever got around to voicing it to a doctor.

what a lovely shopping list, you thought.

-

it was three days before they let you out, and marc wasn’t getting out for another two after that. you’d had to beg him to even go to the hospital in the first place, but now he was getting the medical attention he’d needed for years, he seemed content in his hospital bed. not that he’d ever admit it.

with two days to yourself (not nights, you’d go back to the hospital and stay with marc), you decided to have the egyptian holiday you had come for.

the first stop was obvious; buy clothes. all of the ones you had were either covered in blood or halfway shredded. once you’d achieved this, in a new white linen sundress (cut below the knees to hide the still raw scars), you felt just slightly lost.

of course, you weren’t lost, you were always quick to get your bearings in new places - mercenary years had left you with a few skills, after all - and you kept yourself in a fairly small area, close to the hospital in case you got an emergency call.

no - the feeling of being lost came from deep down. ever since you’d come back to life it was the same, a strange longing for something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. something you felt you just had to have, maybe not right now, but in the near future. the hazy feeling had already begun to pass, you were sure google had served you well. but it left behind this in its wake, a new, even stranger feeling.

a breeze blew your hair lightly as you looked down the street in front of you. it was picturesque, all kinds of small shops and cafes as far as you could see. you could hear kids playing somewhere, a baby crying in the distance.

the lost-longing feeling piqued at this.

“oh.” you breathed. “oh.”

beside you, hathor, dressed in a golden, floor length dress and looking beautiful as ever, laughed.

oh, indeed. did you forget which god i am?

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

Fall into the sky

Written for @astrangersummer, week 5 (shhhh, we're not talking about how this is super fucking late, it's fine!)

Prompt: Constellations

Words: 1,527 (also on AO3)

Rated: T

Relationship: Steve/Eddie

Tags: Magic AU; Thief Eddie; Guard Steve; Forbidden love; Jailbreak

Notes: Part of my Phantom Thief mini series (Previous part | Part 1)

The world is sound. The crackle of fire and the rush of wind and the thunder of crumbling stone. 

The world is color. The brilliant kaleidoscope of the sunset, stars emerging from the purple and pink backdrop of the sky. 

The world is touch. Hands in his hair and fingers on his face and warm breath tickling his skin as he is scooped into a pair of trembling arms. 

It crashes into Steve’s senses all at once, overwhelming and terrifying after the eternal white and the never-ending silence of his prison. It's too much. It's too beautiful. It can’t be real.

He's going insane.

He's been waiting to go insane for so long. 

Because if insanity is sound and color and touch and a name on his lips that he thought he'd never hear again, if this is all in his head, he never wants to leave. 

“Yes, sweetheart, it's me,” The vision murmurs, cradling his face in both hands. The gesture is comforting and soothing, and Steve realizes he's been babbling the name on repeat, an endless loop of Eddie Eddie Eddie. “I'm sorry it took so long, but I'm getting you outta here.” 

Steve laughs, high-pitched and hysterical. 

“You're-” he starts to say. His voice cracks. When he licks his lips, they taste like saltwater. “You're not really here. I've lost my mind, I'm imagining things.” 

“Don't think you are,” Eddie hums. He's covered in soot and bleeding from a hundred tiny cuts, but his smile is bright and brilliant as always. “Wouldn’t be able to do this if I wasn't real, would I?” 

His lips taste like ashes and magic. The ground shakes underneath them, and something crashes. Steve thinks that if the world broke apart around them right now, he'd happily stay in this kiss forever. 

“Don’t,” he pleads when Eddie pulls away. “Don't stop.” 

Eddie smiles, full of that grim determination that makes Steve’s stomach flutter. 

“I won't,” he says, and the constellations in the sky glint in those impossibly dark eyes of his. Another crash pierces the air, so loud that Steve can feel it in his bones. “I swear it, honey. I'll get you back down and to safety, where they can't ever find us. And then I'll never stop kissing you, for as long as we both live.” 

*

The world below the floating island is basked in dusk. Steve can see the shadows of clouds moving over the land, the sparkling bands of rivers weaving between forests and hills and cities. The ocean and the curve of the earth, far in the distance. He didn't see it when they brought him here. The view was obstructed by the giant tornado that surrounded this place, ready to tear everyone who dared approach it to shreds. 

There's no tornado now. 

Just like there are no griffins guarding the arched entryway of the fortress, no manticores prowling at the jagged edge of the island. 

“What did you do?” Steve breathes as they skid to a halt, inches from the abyss. Behind them, the pillars of the entryway crumble and collapse. “How did you-” 

“You know how they stay in power?” Eddie asks. He's ducked behind another pillar to retrieve a bundle of fabric and string, hidden out of sight. “Your family and their friends?” 

Steve blinks, floundering and disoriented by the question and the barrage of noise and colors. Eddie straightens up, strapping what looks like a giant backpack decked in wires and ropes to his back. 

“Magic,” he declares, throwing his arms out in an all-encompassing gesture. “This place, their splendid city, their fucking underwater prison, they all run on magic. Beautiful, isn't it? If it weren't for one tiny problem.” 

He pauses dramatically, like he's waiting for Steve to catch on. When he fails to do so, he throws back his head and cackles, dark curls whipping around him in a chaotic tangle.

“There’s not enough natural magic in the world to keep it all going. So what did they do, like the greedy little morons they are? They amplified it!” 

He laughs again, like it’s the best fucking joke in the entire world, grabbing Steve by the shoulders and pulling him in for a big, noisy smack on the mouth.

“Amulets and talismans and trinkets, Stevie! Dozens of them, all in the hands of the high and mighty, used to magnify their power. But take them away, and it all goes poof!” 

He throws his hands up in the air, miming an explosion, just in time for another thunderous boom to shake the island. The ground tilts, just a bit. 

“Do you know where they kept the most powerful one?” Eddie asks. This time, he doesn't wait for a reply. “Right here, Stevie. What better place than the big-ass, impenetrable, fucking sky vault to keep their biggest treasure, huh? They didn't think anyone would ever be insane enough to try and breach it. And you know what? I wouldn't have. They could've kept it, for all I fucking care, but they do not-” 

The ground trembles again, little fissures erupting from the rock under their feet like spiderwebs. Eddie pauses and swallows, and his eyes are like fire in the dusk.  

“They do not get to keep you.” 

His voice is pure, unbridled rage. Steve knows the feeling all too well. The powerless rage of knowing exactly where they have taken the man you love, and having to be patient. Having to wait for days and weeks and months until your plan finally falls into place, knowing all the while that every hour, every second in that wretched place is too much. The all-consuming want to tear through all the walls, all the chains, all the barriers they’ve put in place to keep you apart, to destroy all that might ever stand in your way again. 

Understanding comes slowly, but when it does, it punches the breath from his lungs with a hoarse wheeze. He is dizzy and his stomach swoops, but he isn't sure if it is from what he just realized or from the island breaking apart under their feet. 

“You destroyed it,” he whispers. “Eddie, you- … what did you do?” 

Eddie doesn’t answer. Instead, he pulls Steve closer, slipping a leather-and-rope harness over his shoulders to tether them both together. 

“This little baby is all mechanics,” he says, not looking up from his task. His face is nothing but grim concentration as he makes sure every buckle and every rope sits correctly. “I'd have been here sooner, but it took a while to put this together and make sure it would actually work, so-” 

“What about your magic?” Steve blurts. 

“Don't worry, it'll come back once the natural equilibrium is restored.” Eddie shrugs, walking them both to the ledge. “Some of it at least. I think.”

Steve gapes at him. Eddie looks up from where he's been securing the last of the straps, sees his dumbstruck face and smiles. 

“Stevie,” he says. He's too beautiful to be real. Beautiful and wild and untamed like the wind ripping at their clothes, like the sky stretching all around them. If they jumped now, they'd fall straight into its stars and constellations and never ever touch ground again. “It doesn't matter. There's no treasure in the world I wouldn't give up for you.” 

Steve opens his mouth to argue, but another tremor interrupts him. Large chunks of rock come loose from below their feet, tumbling into the depths. 

“Do you trust me?” Eddie asks. Steve doesn’t even think about it. It's like asking if water is wet. Eddie sees him nod and beams, delighted and a little smug. “Then let's get outta here.” 

He wraps an arm around Steve’s waist, claiming his lips again. And then, without breaking the kiss, he steps over the ledge and they plummet. 

The wind rips Steve’s scream straight from his mouth. His guts twist and his limbs go light with terror, but Eddie laughs. He yanks on one of the ropes, and something unfurls from his backpack in a ripple of cloth and wire. It snaps open somewhere over their heads, and Steve’s stomach lurches, and then, suddenly, they're no longer falling. 

They're gliding. 

Above them stretches what looks like a giant sail, stitched together from dozens and dozens colorful scraps of fabric. It carries them like a bird's wings, taking them away from the crumpling island, away from walls and chains and barriers, away from all that kept them apart. 

Eddie whoops into the night sky, loud and unrestrained. It takes Steve a second or two to recognize the voice that joins in as his own. His stomach is still light, like it's filled with a million beating wings, but he realizes that it's not from vertigo.

It's happiness. 

The sheer, overwhelming exhilaration of knowing Eddie made it, that they're both free and together and never parting again. Of knowing this is real. 

They soar through the clouds, with the constellations close enough to touch, the earth spanning far below them like something from a dream. And if they never touch ground again? Steve thinks he wouldn’t mind one tiny bit. 

To be continued ...

Tag list:

@sourw0lfs @bananahoneycomb @firefly-party @whoneedscanon @steddie-island

@sidekick-hero @theheadlessphilosopher @extra-transitional @penny00dreadful @medusapelagia

@mugloversonly @0happyeverafter0 @stevesbipanic @acingthecounts @sweetheartprincess28

@starryeyedjanai @sailing-through-hawkins @original-cypher @tinyplanet95 @n0-1-important

[bengiyo]

Love Sea Ep 3 Stray Thoughts

Last week, Tongrak and Mut started to have sex on the beach, but then Rak rushed them back to the hotel so he could write his thoughts out for his novel. Mut was understandably frustrated and went to take a shower, which of course ended in sex (but Fort showed ass!). Rak became possessive of Mut, and once again tried to use his money to lock Mut down. We had a great moment of Rak checking in about how out they can be, and the two shared insights into their histories. We learned that Rak sees his work as an outlet to express himself, and that Mut has worked his ass off to earn his place in this community as a respected leader. We ended on some trauma flashbacks underwater for Rak involving his father who abandoned them, and a friend who may have been pregnant. Meanwhile, Vie had Mook come over to clean up her house and eat with her in a flirting ritual that seemed to work for both of them.

Aya is really pretty.

This weird issue with the italicized subtitles not displaying on the TV apps is driving me insane. Why do I have to pull up the episode in two places now??

It rains a lot in Thailand, so I like when they incorporate it into the shows.

Chapter 3: Where the Sky Touches the Sea

It's nice to see that Rak is able to talk nicely with a friend. He and Vie feel like they've known each other for a while, and know what each is going through. I'm curious how deep we'll get into this tabloid drama Vie is facing.

Is Kwan Rak's sister? What's going on with their dad that they're scared about him showing up around the granddaughter? I thought he was out of the picture?

Wondering what Mut must be feeling after not seeing Rak for a few days now after that incident.

Mm, Rak reverting to be as rude as possible like it'll scare Mut away.

At least he apologized after relaxing for a little bit. I hope he opens up about what's got him so stressed.

Oh fuck yeah give me the lore. Rak's messed up because his mom poured all her money into a man who didn't love her back, and his and his sister's names are messages to him.

Let's bond over family problems.

Oh, I'm kinda into this "Try it while you're on the island" proposal.

Are they trying to mirror that with this fake girlfriend proposal?

I'm not keen on playing in the sea at night, but they do kiss well.

Why is he in that bed with a towel on?

Mut baiting Rak into being the big spoon is sending me.

Unsurprised that Mut is a conservationist.

I like that Mut acknowledged Rak getting up early to see the community meeting.

Oh they have Ja playing an actor who shoves his costar away immediately. How fun.

This joke about the length of novel titles feels like they're alluding to people missing the point of the novel because title is too cumbersome.

"I'm not bi." She and Lom should meet.

Mut seemed real nervous about Rak seeing how modest his home is.

Wow, Mut's dad sounds cruel.

Okay but Rak was even more turned on by the idea that the neighbors would hear them.

The timeline is a bit vague here.

I feel like we got here a little fast, but I kinda like the way Mut is chasing this feeling with Rak he wasn't expecting to feel.

I really like Mook.

I'm looking forward to seeing how both of these guys' issues with their families play out. I feel like.we.mkssed some things this week that didn't translate into the adaptation smoothly, but I like the idea of Mut reaching for something he didn't think he could have, and a cynic like Rak being taken by that earnestness. Also amused by Mook likely having a crush on Vie while missing that Vie has been flirting this whole time. I wonder what our Mut Exposition Fairy will do next week.

[shiftingwithmars]

Eighth Horcruxe-Mattheo Riddle

A/N: Hey sillies!! So this fanfic is gonna be a little different from my others. This is basically just my headcanons about Mattheo. He’s my little crybaby and I love him, okay? Also trigger warning for this one.

Summary: There’s more to Mattheo Riddle than meets the eye.

Warnings: Possible mentions of abuse, mentions of smoking and alcohol, death and reincarnation. Please read at your own discretion!🙏

Mattheo Riddle was not a force to be reckoned with. Everyone was already scared of him, due to him being the son of the most evil wizard of this generation. His temper didn’t help. When he wasn’t picking fights with another student, he was drowning his sorrows in firewhiskey and cigarettes. He had the kind of aura that sent people running the other way. And his laugh? Bitter as nightshade. There was this constant negative energy to him, like a shield spell that was made of darkness.

But that was just how other people saw him. Although some of it was true, no doubt. There were things about Mattheo that he didn’t even know himself. He didn’t know what happened when he was child. He didn’t know the mistake that his father made. Or the real reason behind the scar on his left eye. He didn’t know the real reason on why everything around him descended into chaos.

The rumors were never ending. The stares and whispers he tried hard to ignore. He’d heard it all before. “Run, here comes Riddle.” “He’s just like his father.” “Who would wanna date him?” Those constantly repeated words that were the same reason he cried at night.

And the nightmares. The nightmares that woke him up in the middle of the night, constantly haunting him. Nightmares filled with pain, his screams echoing around Malfoy Manor. Aunt Narcissa rushing into the room, her face filled with horror. “What have you done?” She’d ask, pulling eleven-year-old Mattheo into her lap, cradling him against her. His father’s expression dropping. His insane mother actually looking concerned for once in her life, although the expression quickly shifted to a cold smile.

At 15, he was diagnosed with ADHD and Bipolar disorder. That definitely explained some things about him, but there was still something else. That feeling of negativity everyone got around him. He never understood it. He always blamed himself, always though HE was the problem.

It wasn’t until sixth year that he finally figured out what was wrong with him. He had been out past curfew, heading towards the Astronomy tower for a smoke. That’s when he stumbled across the golden trio talking about horcruxes. That’s when it all made sense. Those horrible nightmares, the scar on his left eye. The reason why nothing in his life seemed to go right.

He never told anyone. That was, until he got a little too drunk and blabbed to his best friend Theodore Nott. When the time came for all the horcruxes to be destroyed, he has Theo destroy the eighth one, aka him. Of course, he survived, but the part of his father that was inside him was finally destroyed.

His luck began to change after that. Things finally started looking up for him. He got a good job, and he got married to y/n, the girl he’d been dating since sixth year. She was the only one besides Theo who seemed to truly understand him. And maybe, just maybe, Mattheo would get his happy ending.

[possiblylando]

An 'Early' Analysis of Chainsaw Man Chapter 138

Woah hey I'm back, I didn't feel like talking about the past few chapters cause I didn't feel like I had anything to add since they all seemed pretty straight forward. That being said this chapter gives me alot of talk about. So we get a name for Sex Offender Girl. Boy this woman only gets worse the more we learn about her. Mifune is quite literally a government plant in denji's high school.

It's refreshingly disgusting the type of shit these girls will put denji through. It's like Fujimoto keeps trying to one up himself each time he introduces a new "love interest" (Mifune is not a love interest she is a sexual predator let's keep this 100% clear). Maki was a groomer, Mifune is just a straight up Pedophile. She is going to have such a satisfying death I can feel it. This chapter goes on to confirm a few things. First off, Yoshida is apart of Public Safety. Which sorta debunks a previous thought I had of him being apart of another group. I am interested to learn 1. What Divison 7 does 2. Which Division Yoshida is in Given we know 4 was the rejects and 5 are hybrids. My best guess is that Division 7 is a sort of Espionage/Intel Division. Yoshida likely also belongs to Division 7 unless he's got some silliness going on, Which is very likely. Actually- I just now realized something. She calls it "Special Division 7" not Division 7. Looking through the list of Division members on the Wiki, That Special Prefix is very important. The Special Divisions are all full of freaks and monsters. This Sex Offender is more than likely a monster all to her own if she's apart of a Division we've never even heard of.

Public Safety is just as fucked up as actual governments. It's great.

I hate that she's winning me over. I want this woman dead stop making me think she's silly. Fujimoto is really good at humanizing horrible people. It mirrors real life monsters who tend to blend in with society and even seem charming on the surface. Moving on from this fucking Sex Offender. Asa continues to be the realest character in the series.

I doubt I even need to say anything about how real she is. Asa is a deeply disturbed and neglected person who's shut off from the world despite her own need to validation and recognition. She and Denji are different sides of the same coin. While she tries not to show it, The fulfillment she receives from praise seeps through. This scene specifically resonated with me a ton.

I wish we got a better look into Denji's thoughts in this scene. I can't even really get a grasp on what he must be thinking through all of this. In the last few days he's lost a major part of himself and has been replaced in face by a fraud and in action by a girl who he was forced to dump by his sister. There was a moment here before the reveal on this very page where I was thinking Swords was someone else. It was clearly someone from Part 1. He had a hoodie so maybe it was Violence? But that couldn't be real Violence was killed by Darkness. WAIT- BEAM? No I couldn't be beam he's been dead aswell. The Chapter is called Swordman so then maybe it's Katana man's return? No he wouldn't be on speaking terms with Denji after his testicles got mashed. So then-

Turns out it's the Longsword Hybrid from the end of Part 1. Yeah turns out he's alive. Which as many people have pointed out, Means the rest of the Hybrids are alive. So is Reze alive? Certain fans seem to think she is. At this point she seems to be the only match for Denji who isn't a complete psycho. But she still tried to kill him. But then Denji was still willing to run away with her at the end of the fight. If she does come back I hope she and Denji don't rush into a relationship, Let them chill for a bit before getting into anything serious Fujimoto please. If Reze really is alive I'll talk about her more in depth when she shows back up. But I need to say my peace.

The Whip Hybrid is going to be insane popular and so many of them are going to be just as Horny as Anime-Only Makima fans. I hope Swords ends up being chill with Denji and not another dickhead who tries to kill him. Denji needs another Male friend who doesn't treat him like shit. His only known ""friend"" in part 2 is yoshida and we all know yoshida has not been treating him well.

[hella1975]

HELLA HOW DID YOU LIKE UNREAL UNEARTH?? FAVORITES??

finally finally FINALLY listening to this album im literally sat here laptop open finger on the play button genius page up ready to just spew out any thought i have in real time. let's go!

de selby pt1 - i forgot how much i fucking love hozier's lyricism. he just gets it. he's a master at his craft it's truly an honour to exist in the same time as him. this song is so calm but in a haunting way, like the stillness of fog on a lake in the morning. your reflection cant offer a word to the bliss of not knowing yourself. okay!!! OMG THE IRISH!! absolutely adore how vocal hozier is about his culture and even just how much his accent comes through on this album compared to earlier tracks. also love how the intensity builds in this part of the song this whole thing is stunning

de selby pt2 - THE WAY IT SLIDES RIGHT INTO PART 2! LOVE LOVE LOVE! very different vibe but it works. i love how there's always so many layers to hozier songs. like de selby alone has the actual song meaning AND the references to the third policeman AND its relevance to the circles of hell that we keep throughout the album. as far as media consumption goes hozier has never once failed to deliver an entire banquet. also love the whole 'becoming each other' of it all with de selby. ouroboros love. hannah have u seen this

first time - this feels like he's singing in a pub somewhere u love to see it. the liffey would have been softer on my stomach all the same! unearth without a name! some part of me must have died the first time you called me baby! this is v classic hozier imo just the most gorgeous love song u ever heard. also i love the themes of light/dark he's weaving into all these songs. girls when there are themes and symbolism <333

francesca - YEAHHHHHH i could talk about this song for HOURS there's so much going on it is so far my fave of the album ID TELL THEM PUT ME BACK IN IT! insanity. if a man sang about me this way id throw up blood

i, carrion (icarian) - insane song name. hello. what the fuck. is this about icarus. did hozier himself actually write a song about icarus. one sec. OH MY GOD HE DID WHAT THE FUCKKKK. "this song has tried to imagine that he was so enamored and so breathless and so ecstatic in the moment that he felt the air rushing by him, that he never knew he died" THEY HIT THE FUCKING PENTAGON. beautiful gorgeous im inconsolable cheers for that

eat your young - LETS GOOOOOO. cuntism off the charts. i listen to this at least once a day

damage gets done - circle of greed time! 'we had nowhere to go and every desire for going there' 'being blamed for a world we had no power in' god :')) the HARMONIES!!!! this is exactlyyy what being young is like good and bad. this is such a car song

who we are - I JUST HELD IT TIGHT SO SOMEONE WITH YOUR EYES MIGHT COME IN TIME TO HOLD ME LIKE WATER OR CHRIST HOLD ME LIKE A KNIFE WHAT THE FUCKKKKKK NO ONE FUCKING TALK TO ME. the uncertainty of growing up that he tackles in this, finding purpose, grappling with the fact there isn't always one. the last verse going soft and gentle. what was the NEED for this

son of nyx - another mythology reference! im crawling up the wall. ohhh it's instrumental! just looked at the meaning behind this and wow. this is beautiful

all things end - ADORE this song and the message of it. literally if there was anyone to ever get through this life with their heart still intact they didn't do it right!!!!!! and all things end!! and we begin again!!!! i just know zukka nation is going to go crazy with the parenthesis titles after this one

to someone from a warm climate - this is such a cool idea for a love song. like being from somewhere cold so you know how to stay warm, and saying to someone from a warm climate that it's okay if they don't know those things because you'll do it for them. the domestic, casual affection of that. it's not a bold declaration it's just confirmation that i'll keep the bed warm for you. that's all there is. that's all there needs to be

butchered tongue - ive already read some stuff about this one and ive been really itching to listen to it. the way he alternates between singing about the violence of the english against the irish (particularly the wexford rebellion) and the loss of culture there to how it relates to violence and loss of culture experienced by natives of countries on the complete other side of the world, how he's able to identify with that while still acknowledging that his language at least has a written history that can be recovered, while many native cultures dont even have that. there's no translator left to sound a butchered tongue still singing here above the ground. this whole thing is just. haunting and the fact such a big singer like hozier is taking so much time and care to talk about and spread awareness about ireland is very very cool to see

anything but - VIBE CHANGE! THIS MAKES ME WANT TO DANCE OMG! more water themes too omg i love this 'if i had his job you'd live forever' DAMN 😭 me personally i wouldnt have that. also the repetition of all the things he wants to be sooo true that's the human condition baby!

abstract (psychopomp) - ive been thinking about making a post for TIME about like. the desensitisation to death that you get from growing up in a rural area so listening to this is sooooo. like yeah. you remember the first animal you saw die don't you. you know the smell. the look in its eyes. see how it shines. see how it shines. this is an insane thing to write a song about. and to tie it to love? humanity? and the ongoing undercurrent of the circles of hell? CRAZYYYYY. this song is religious. to me. it's also very coldplay sounding actually? which is only ever a good thing

unknown/nth - HELLOOOOOO YOU KNOW THE DISTANCE NEVER MADE A DIFFERENCE TO ME!!!!!!! DO YOU KNOW I COULD BREAK BENEATH THE WEIGHT OF THE GOODNESS LOVE I STILL CARRY FOR YOU???? THAT ID WALK SO FAR JUST TO TAKE THE INJURY OF FINALLY KNOWING YOU?????? lyrics of all time. caving my own skull. top 3 songs on the album

first light - light themes again!!! dante surfacing from hell!!! the end of a journey quite literally!!! he can't keep getting away with this!! i love how... heavy? this gets in places. like it's got all the instruments and backing vocals all going at once with his voice overarching everything it's amazing. this is a perfect end song <3

[nevereverthem]

Imagine after sending Ms. Cuddles away that Bonnie developed insomnia which eventually led to Kai becoming Mr. Cuddles 🥰

TVD :

Given the moment this happens, I couldn't get myself to make her lose sleep and end up in Kai's arms as if they didn't mutually stabbed each other not so long ago. Since I kind of try to stick to how the character was written.... before the merge, he doesn't show much empathetic pretty feelings.

So here's my version, with a little twist.

PS : I intended it to be quite short but got carried away. I ended up talking about numerous things before getting to the point, but I hope you'll still enjoy the story.

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

May 10th 1994, prison world.

An eclipse. Kai Parker. Bonnie Bennett.

She was chanting a spell that would bring them back to their world.... It stopped abruptly. She's lost her magic. In fact, she's just put her magic in her beloved Miss Cuddles, sending the teddy bear to the 2010's.

Kai's cry resonated through the cave. He walk-rushed right to Bonnie.

_ Where's the stupid bear ?

_ Oh, it's gone. I guess we're stuck here. Forever.

She holds his gaze, whispering.

_ Sorry.

He inhales loudly, an incredulous laugh escaping his mouth.

_ Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie.... You'll regret this.

His psycho smile's been replaced by a menacing expression.

_ I don't think so.

She seems confident, despite being aware of the fact she's locked herself up with a killer. She couldn't let him out of this prison, in the present, murdering more members of his family.

_ You lost your powers. You've doomed us to be stuck here for damn eternity ! You think you had it bad during four months ? Try eighteen years. Alone. 'Cause, I suppose you don't fancy a truce with the enemy around a nice diner.

_ I'd rather die starved and dehydrated under the burning sun than spend one more day with you around.

He huffs in response.

_ Right.... You'll want me back. Somehow. When you've gone insane from the loneliness. No sounds at all, except from yours. Tired of your own voice, you'd rather punch your face than to hear one more syllable come out of your mouth. When you're on the verge of suicide, with no escape from your own mind.... When all of your being craves the only thing left, human company....

He slides a hand in his pocket, pulling out his pager.

_ Beep me ! 555hikai. I'll come and watch the show.

The last thing Bonnie sees is Kai's sadistic grin growing on his face. Then she turns her back, determined to get as far away from him as possible.

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

The witch spends several more months in this prison world, going through the routine she had with Damon, now on her own. It seems like Kai didn't bother following her to haunt her days. She's stopped being useful to him after all.

At first she's holding on, hoping Damon got the teddy bear. Her friends will find a way, they'll come and get her out of here. She's counting on them, as they counted on her so many times. She concentrates her thoughts on happy memories with her friends. She counts the days to keep tract of the real time. When supposed-Christmas season comes, she even decorates a tree with garlands and christmas bulbs. Shortly after, she's hit by a wave of angry desperation and burns the tree. Who does she fake happiness for ?

A few more months later, it all becomes unbearable. It's her birthday. She's still in that hellhole. Alone. She's read every book she could find, searched every mystical object. Nothing. No way out. She's been stuck in this place for nearly a year now and she's had enough.

In a last celebration, she finally decides to open the bottle of bourbon Damon and her had made a pact on. After drinking three quarter of the bottle, she walks to the garage, closing the outside door. She starts the car so the carbon monoxide begins filling the room. Then, she slumps down the floor, back against the vehicle.

A camera in hands, she presses the recording button and starts talking.

_ I'm Bonnie Bennett, locked in a time loop in 1994. Elena, Damon, whoever.... Hi. If you find that video, it means you've managed your way in. It means you didnt give up on me....

Tears start gathering in her eyes.

_ I miss you. I miss you so much.... I miss saying hi to strangers, ordering diner in a restaurant, laughing with my friends. Every day with no one to talk to. Going weeks without speaking. The loneliness....

She bumps her head onto the car behind, crying....

_ I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.... I can't.... I promise I tried....

Her sobbing turns into a cough.

_ You know, Kai told me I wouldn't last long. I almost miss him.

She chuckles at her own statement, tears running down her cheeks.

_ You hear that Damon ? I miss that sociopathic murderer. Not that I'd ever forgive his manipulation, the arrow shoot, the chasing, the manhandling.... but I'd settle for a talk. He's the only human left here, wherever he might be. It'd be a hell of a last talk but...

She pauses a second, pondering.

_ I can't let him win. I'm stronger. I know I am.

She immediately stops the video, forcing her body to rise. She stumbles. The gaz has filled her lungs, making her weak. She can't stop coughing, vision blurred. She falls to the floor, desperate to crawl outside....

Suddenly, she hears a door slam open, someone walking in her direction.... Kai !

She makes an effort to look up at him.

He's standing right beside the switch of the garage's door, holding an oxygen mask before his face. He seems.... pained ?

_ You didn't beep me.

Right before she falls into unconsciousness, the door opens, filling the room with fresh air. The last thing she sees is an arm lifting her up the floor and an oxygen mask crashing on her face.

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

It's strange in here. All's kinda blurry, green-ish. She doesn't recognise the place she's in.

Two children appear in front of her, coming in her direction. Before she can realise, they both pass through her body before running away.

She's a ghost. Great ! She exhales in exasperation.

She hears knocking behind her. Turning around, she sees a woman opening a door.

_ Malachai ?

Mala.... Kai ?

Bonnie urges to the room. Nobody can see her anyway. She's faced with an unexpected picture.

A little boy's sitting on his bed, brow furrowed, a sad expression on his face.

_ You hate me !

_ No, no my love, I don't hate you.

That's his mother.

_ I already told you. It's safer that way.

_ I just wanna play with my sister.

_ You can't. We don't want you to harm her.

She's stern but soft at the same time. The boy's pleading.

_ I won't ! Please !

_ Malachai, no.

He starts sobbing, tears threatening to run down his face.

He extends his arms, reaching for a hug. The woman cries in pain. It's only a second, but it's enough to hurt her. The moment he hears her pain, young Kai removes his hands, horrified.

_ Mom ?

_ It's okay.

It's faint, but she smiles at him.

Loud stomps are heard in the stairs, the face of a man appearing in the door frame. His father.

The man doesn't say anything. He comes inside the room, wraps his arms around his wife, and carries her outside.

Just before he leaves, he glares at his son, a warning look on his face. Then, he closes the door, the lock clicks. The boy's alone.

He freezes a moment, holding back his tears.

Bonnie stays there, observing him. She can't recognise the emotionless murderer she knows in that little boy standing here, petrified from his own action.

Her train of thoughts is interrupted by shouting coming from downstairs. Little Kai slowly walks to the door, putting his head on the wood, an attempt at eavesdropping. The witch imitates him.

_ See what he did to you ?

_ He didn't mean to.

_ Of course ! Like he didn't mean to siphon his sister last week !

_ He just wanted to play....

_ We almost lost her ! That power, that thing, it kills people ! It's an abomination !

_ I know !.... But he's still our son.

The boy can't hold back anymore, he breaks down, falling to his knees by the door. A flow of tears escapes his eyes, running down to his neck, staining his shirt.

_ Kai....

Bonnie raises a hand, reaching for his cheek. Her hand disappears the moment she touches his skin, sinking through his body. She can't touch anything. Despite facing the man he became, manipulative and vengeful, she can't help but want to wipe away the tears of his younger self....

All of a sudden, the image of the boy fades. It's replaced by short fragments of discussions, people....

She sees it all pass before her eyes. The family reject, locked in his room countless times. The accidental siphonings. The pain. The addiction. The help he never get, learning by himself. Hurt turning into rage. Emotions buried away. Finally d-day. Merge refused. The snap. The killings. The banishment. Flashes of his months trying to find a way out of the prison world. His desperation. The moments he broke everything around him, punching his reflection in the mirror.... Then, all his attempted suicides. As she had just tried. The thing is, he succeeded. He actually did die. Each time. Coming back to life. Each time. Trying to kill himself for years. She saw all those times, all the suicides. Stabbing himself with a knife, throwing himself off a cliff, painkillers overdose, numerous unknown needle injections, shooting an arrow at himself, cutting his arms open with a kitchen knife, car crash, real guillotine in a museum.... She felt them all. She felt them in her body. Excruciating pain, vengeance desire, hurt, rage, fellings, despair.... Then nothing. Void. Just that feeling. They're going to suffer as much as I did.

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

Bonnie snaps awake, gasping, jerking in a sitting position. She's panting, trying to catch her own breath.

She looks around. It's the Salvatore house. She's sitting on the couch next to the fireplace. She's actually sitting across someone's lap....

_ Kai !

Eyes wide, she abruptly pushes herself off of him, hands on his chest. Parts of the nightmare she just had make their way through her mind. She freezes, still too stunned to move away. Kai has an arm lazily rested around her waist, a blanket covering them both.

The man hears someone calling his name through his sleep. His eyelids open, watery from a troubled nap. He notices the eyes piercing through his own.

_ Hi ! Awake ?

The witch seems disoriented, wearing a traumatized look on her face. Kai's voice sounds too casual for the position they're in.

_ Oh, yeah, hum.... When I carried you out of the garage and took you here, you started to get all sweaty and cold. The fire and the blanket didn't help. So I figured.... the whole 'body heat' thing.... Well.

Bonnie doesn't respond. She doesn't move either. Kai waves a hand before her face. She doesn't even flinch. Given her lack of responsiveness, the man extends a leg in an attempt at walking away.

She stops him. A hand on his shoulder.

_ That was yours, right ?

The man gives her a confused look.

_ What ?

_ The nightmare... It was yours.

Now, that's his mouth whose's shut.

_ Kai ? Is this all true ? Or did you manage to feed me false visions ?

His expression's petrified, angry-sad-ish ?

_ How ? You don't have your magic back. I would have felt it. How did you-

_ I take that as a yes.

She doesn't know how it happened, how it's even possible. She must have felt him in her sleep and got into his head. She's not supposed to have her magic back. She's doesn't. But she somehow was able to get through him. All of him.

It surely doesn't feel like he's down to have that conversation. And she clearly needs time to process all she's just witnessed in her sleep. But there's one thing bugging her now. It just popped in her head. She was able to get inside his mind because she's here, alive, thanks to him....

_ How did you know I was in the garage ?

The question is enough to get the man out of his thoughts. He's expression's back to 'normal'.

_ I was watching over you.

_ You were... how ? There's nothing here you can get magic from.

A guilty smile grows on his face.

_ Hiding in a house doesn't require a cloaking spell.

The witch's dumbfounded, her mouth opening in an 'o'. She's also kind of impressed by his discreteness, and a tiny bit scared.

_ Stalker much ?

He fake-gasps, being falsy offended.

_ That stalker just saved your life !

_ Why ? You couldn't just 'enjoy the show' ?

Her quoting him after all these months sort of gives him an ego boost.

_ First, you didn't beep me, meaning you didn't know I was there, so that's no fun. Secondly, dying on your birthday ? Even I know it's pathetic. And exhaust poisoning.... Seriously ?

_ You tried it too. I saw it.

How does she.... Right, 'the nightmare'.

_ For the record, it wasn't on my first attempt.

They suddenly both fall silent. His smile fades, her expression darkens. Even though they're discussing the situation, the touchy subject of suicide affects them both too much to keep arguing.

Also, Kai doesn't know how much she saw and he's certainly not letting himself be vulnerable by slipping out information she doesn't already have.

Despite being physically close at this moment and having an oddly casual conversation with him, Bonnie is far from feeling safe. She wraps her arms around herself.

_ Are you here to kill me ?

Kai chuckles, brows furrowed, mocking her.

_ After I stopped you from doing it yourself ? That would be so evil !.... I like the way you think.

His amused grin reappear on his face. The familiarity of his expression nears reassurance. He adds.

_ I'm not here to kill you. I weirdly got used to 'not harming you'.

She huffs in response, eyeing him incredulously.

_ That's progress.

He can look as sincere as he wants, the witch isn't fooled by his words.

_ You wanted to stay close in case I ever happen to find a way out, am I right ?

_ Guilty ! But I got myself useful. I stopped you from.... You know.

Here we go again... She shakes her head, pushing the thought away.

_ Why ? We have no way out. I'm not getting my magic back.

He shrugs, terrifyingly soft in his words.

_ I still want the company.

_ The company ?

Now she's mad.

_ You shot me with and arrow !

_ You killed me with a pickaxe.

_ You murdered your siblings !

_ You....

He stops. He doesn't feel any remorse, he believes they deserved it. But he can't deny what he's done, nor can he form any excuse she would accept.

_ You know you wouldn't have popped out again like me, right ?

Change of subject ? She wants to argue and force him to explain himself, somehow. That's when she remembers the dream, the memories.... She gives in, answering the question.

_ That was the whole point....

_ Don't do that again. Please.

_ You're concerned about me now ?

He exhales, a stupid look back on his face.

_ Look, I was kinda hoping you would get up and walk out by yourself. You were about to, but then you tripped and that was it.... I couldn't let you die. I mean, if I can't get out of here, I'd rather not lose my main entertainment.

She rolls her eyes at the ceiling. That sounds more like him.

After so much unusual conversation, the witch's mouth feels dry, eyes tired, a crushing headache making its appearance. She closes her eyes, hand on her forehead. Kai notices her discomfort.

_ Hangover ?

_ Ya think ?

He nods in understanding.

_ You drank more than half the bottle of bourbon. By the way, what's their thing with bourbon ? That's, ugh !

He wears a disgusted expression, making a giggle escape from the witch's lips.

_ At least, that knocked me out. I haven't had a good night's sleep for ages.

_ I know.

His statement came out a bit too fast. He's nowhere near shy of a person but the lack of restraint in his talk leaves him with an apologetic look.

_ Did you watch me sleep ?

The accusing tone in her voice is flagrant.

_ Oh, no. Please !.... Okay once ! I was intrigued.

He is unbelievable. She's not surprised, but she'd hopped to have a little intimacy. She doesn't want to think about what else he might have seen. She's not going to ask. Ever.

She blinks a couple of times, trying to block any invasive thought about a certain man spying on a naked Bennett witch....

_ Miss Cuddles.

_ What ?

_ I've had trouble sleeping since I don't have her with me....

_ Whose fault is that ?

He's the one accusing this time.

_ I had my reasons.

Silence. He doesn't bother. The witch's mouth opens wide, letting out a loud yawn.

_ Tired ?

She only nods, slowly shifting towards the man, putting her head back on his chest.

Kai flinches at her movements.

_ What are you doing ?

_ Getting back to sleep.

_ On me ?

_ Yep.

Direct answer, as if there was no problem with that. The man frowns in confusion.

_ I may be a sociopathic murderer, Bon....

She notices him quoting what she's said recording her video a few hours ago.

_ ....but I'm clever enough to know I'm the last person you'd like to willingly cuddle with.

She steps back, looking straight in his eyes.

_ You're right. You're a bad person craving for touch, and I'm desperate. Win-win.

Her blunt logic hits something inside of him.

_ You think that low of me ?

_ Didn't show me much better.

_ Fair enough.

In a silent agreement, she places her head back on his chest, Kai's arms wrapped around her waist in a shy embrace.

_ And from what I've seen, I'm not the only one who could use a hug.

He wants to argue, but then remembers.... She knows. She saw him. Little Kai. 'Right where it hurts', he thinks.

_ Does that mean I've become your new teddy bear ? Am I the brand new Mister Cuddles ?

His voice sounds so excited it's endearing. Bonnie looks up at him. He winks, offering her a stupid grin, which hides much more. She has proof now.

_ Shut up.

She lowers her head, eyes closed.

_ If you promise not to invade my head again.

_ I'll try.

It may be a mistake, a bold move, a dumb experience, call this what you want, but she needs it. Wether it'd be a friend, a complete stranger, or an enemy.... She needs it. Human touch. She's got no magic to be sucked. It's 'safe'. For now....

A few minutes later, she's already fallen asleep.

Kai's watching her, sleeping in his arms, chest heaving at each intake of breath. He thinks about planting a kiss on top of her head, but it's not worth the risk. He doesn't remember the last time he got to hold someone, or the last time someone volunteered to hold him. He's thrown his feelings away a long time ago, but he would be lying if he'd say this didn't make his heart beat faster....

The End.

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

Words : 3k ~ how on earth ? When I said I got carried away. 🙄

That took fricking long to write !!

I don't even know if it actually respects the request. >< Sorry ?

Next time, say it if you want me to change Kai's personality a bit. If you want him to have more feelings than in the actual TV show, especially before the merge.

Don't hesitate to tell me your impressions.

✨❤️💀❤️✨

The Vampire Diaries Masterlist

[vendoramachine]

we’re through.

veneer x male reader

i had to feed my veneer gentlemen too! angst makes me ill, so writing this one was REAL tough.

notes : angst, breakup, argument, everything is just depressing as fuck.

veneer and i were hanging out in their dressing room before the show and a knock on the door interrupted our conversation.

“knock, knock! showtime, you two!” someone called out to velvet and veneer. my boyfriend and i got up from the couch, and i planted a kiss on his cheek.

“good luck, handsome. you’re gonna be great.” he let out a dumb giggle like a lovesick idiot. “i’ll be out in a sec, i’m gonna go to the bathroom.” i announced before rushing to veneer’s private bathroom. while i washed my hands, i heard a muffled conversation between my boyfriend and his sister. i really couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the conversation soon ended and was replaced by the eruption of cheers from the crowd.

feeling in my pockets, i realized that i had left my phone on the couch in their dressing room. before taking my vip seat in the crowd, i was snagged up my phone and was going to head out, until i heard a voice.

“y-y/n!” someone called out. the voice was faint and weak, so i wasn’t sure if i was hearing things. i looked around the room, scanning for someone who might’ve said my name.

“y/n, over here!” on the floor, there was a diamond perfume bottle. what the hell? i crouched down to pick it up and look at what was inside.

“…hi? who are you?”

“i’m f-floyd. listen to me, y/n! velvet and veneer- they’re insane! they kidnapped me and trapped me here to steal my talent.”

“what? dude, i…” every bit of my heart begged to not believe him, but why else would he be here?

“you’ve gotta help me get outta here. they want to kidnap my brothers too! i’m literally dying, man. i don’t know how much more they can take from me before it’s too late. please. help me.”

thoughts spun around my head. is floyd telling the truth? why else would he be here? but velvet and veneer wouldn’t hurt innocent creatures… right?

“i know you love veneer, and i know it may sound hard to believe, but i don’t want to die like this, y/n. once i’m gone-“

“i’m gonna help you, floyd. veneer and i need to have a serious talk. they have one more show tomorrow, do you think you’ll make it till then?” floyd nodded, and i set the bottle down right where i found it.

“i promise i’m gonna get you out of there.” i refused to let my eyes water before heading out into the audience. despite being deafening with cheers and applause for the pop star duo, everything felt silent. all i could hear was the sound of my boyfriend’s voice. charming and perfect, but also knowing that it wasn’t true. i sat down in my seat, bouncing my knee up and down for the rest of the show.

after what felt like eternity, they said their goodbyes to the audience, which was my cue to join them again backstage. my fists clenched and my teeth gritted against each other as i walked through their dressing room door. i prayed with every ounce of myself that what floyd told me wasn’t true.

“veneer?” my eyes darted to where floyd was earlier, and i realized that he was no longer there. they must’ve hidden him.

“babe! hey, are you alright? i was watching you in the crowd and you seemed kinda out of it. is everything okay?” veneer ran over to be face to face. i can’t believe he’s acting so oblivious. if i had been committing a crime like this, i’d always be paranoid that someone found out.

“…no. not really. we need to talk.” the seriousness in my tone put veneer off. he looked uneasy, but tried to play it off by sitting on the couch and patting the spot beside him, indicating for me to sit down as well. i stayed standing right in front of him.

“uh, yeah, sure! what’s up?”

“how long have you been lying, veneer?” silence followed, but i could hear veneer choking on his own words.

“w-what do you mean, babe?”

“you know exactly what i mean, veneer. how long have you been torturing innocent creatures? and for what? for fame? popularity? and not only did you lie right to my face, but you lied to all of mount rageous.” i refused to let tears fall, but i could feel them stinging my eyes.

veneer stared at me, looking shocked. guilty. he really doesn’t have a good explanation. well, of course. what could possibly justify something as shitty as this?

“they love you, ven. i love you, but…” fuck. i was doing so good, being direct and non-emotional. then this lump in my throat decides that it wants to screw me over emotionally. fuck you, feelings.

“i-i’m… i’m sorry, y/n. please, i…” he stood up, trying to wrap my into his arms. all i wanted was to feel him, but i took a step back. “…i never wanted to hurt anyone.”

“but you hurt everyone. even me. you should’ve told me before i had to find out.” tears were streaming down his face at this point, and i could see his knees trembling.

“y/n, please just listen to me…” veneer placed his hand on my shoulder, and the other cupped me cheek. not even a knife to my throat would get me to admit how much i needed his touch in this moment. “…i really never meant it to get this far. this was all velvet’s idea, and i still don’t feel comfortable with doing it. you know my sister. she would never let me let him go.” he looked to his right, presumably where floyd was being kept hidden. i blinked away tears, swatting his hand off of me.

“maybe, but ven, this is a crime and you’re risking getting caught every second you keep that poor troll here.”

“i want to let him go, but-“

“but you need him, don’t you? for the money? for the fame? you need him in order to make sure the world never finds out that you can’t sing, ven.”

“y/n, you aren’t listening to me! this isn’t about the fame, it’s about my sister. if i let him go, velvet would kill me. if i refused to use him, velvet would dig my grave. if i even just suggested that we let him go, velvet would-“

“god, veneer, you can’t pin all of this on velvet! i know her, and i know what you’re saying is true, but think about this! you’re putting a life at risk because you’re scared of your own sister! doesn’t that sound like maybe you two have something to work out?”

“don’t tell me how my relationship with my sister should be like.”

the shift in his tone made my stomach turn. it sounded nothing like him. veneer took notice of my expression change, and his eyes softened, like he knew he should watch his tone.

“listen to me, y/n. i love my sister, and i’m doing this for her.” he took both my hands, staring down at them. his own trembled as his tears dripped onto my skin. god, why does he have to make this so fucking difficult? i feel horrible. i know veneer knows this is wrong. but in the end, i have to come to terms with the fact that he’s still using floyd. he’s still sucking the life out of an innocent troll just so he can keep the taste of fame on his tongue.

he’s my boyfriend and i love him so goddamn much, but this… this is horrible. i can’t stand the thought of staying with someone who can walk onto a stage and lie to the world. someone who is preying on a defenseless creature to gain popularity, money, fame, and power. hesitantly, i slipped my hands out his grasp, the warmth of his skin fading away. finally, for the first time during this conversation, tears streamed from my eyes.

“we’re through, veneer.”

there was a long silence. every second was torture.

“you don’t mean that, y/n… i don’t want to lose you, i…”

“i’m sorry, ven. i just… can’t.”

i raced out, not able to handle the sight of hurt on my boyfriend’s face.

days later, after sobbing myself to sleep every night since we broke up, i realized it was the night that velvet and veneer would receive the lifer award. reluctantly, i watched the live broadcasting through tears. though my vision was blurred with the purest form of heartbreak, i could see veneer’s face. his expression was of pride, like he was completely unbothered. he broke my heart, murdering an innocent creature, and all at the expense of fame. yet, he didn’t seem troubled. at all.

i had soon realized that in my wallow of depression, i forgot to let floyd go. fuck. barely any time passed before velvet and veneer were dragged away in handcuffs.

we really are through.

[danvillecheese]

why do u think act ur age is fucked

[cracks knuckles] alright. essay time. you asked for it.

I’ve done a similar response to this before here and mentioned something else about it here but I’ll go over it again since those posts are both from a while ago. also bear in mind I haven’t seen aya recently bc I don’t like it. okay let’s get into it

[also im gonna preface this saying maybe i sound very pessimistic but im ranting and its just gonna sound like im complaining because i am. i mean no real malice by the way. im simply a person with a blog.]

first off. they don’t use the show don’t tell as well as they could. in the what might have been montage, sure, they showed potential scenarios and how phineas felt (very briefly) when isa stopped visiting his backyard but it just feels so rushed. I get that they only had like 11 minutes to show it but idk there has to be another way to write it. or just not have it at all idk its just from a writing point of view the whole episode feels rushed and out of place from everything else continuity-wise. why not use little easter eggs planted in the show beforehand? operation crumbcake? pharmacists? meapless in seattle? god theres so many episodes with evidence that phineas liked her back even if he didnt know. just. continuity!!!!

second. why did their friends not try something sooner. it’s not like they didn’t know. like phineas seems to be okay with saying “i wish! i am so in the friend zone there” in front of his friends (that quote alone makes me lose my shit but that’s a whole other point) so clearly they knew about phineas. and isabella also wasn’t quiet about it (source: pnf s1-4). they had like four years of high school to do something and they planned it the day isa left for college? nah its just the least realistic thing ever for me. also them being 18 is like yeah okay maybe the slow burn was worth it and theyre way more grown up (i love a good slowburn) but ohhhhhh my god SURELY their friends were getting sick of them dancing around each other. just me?

third. and I’m sorry to ash simpson but oh my god I hate the character designs like They Would Not Fucking Look Like That. it almost feels like it completely disregards their arcs during the original summer. like yeah child chub disappears over ur teen years but sometimes it stays a little longer! make phineas less twiggy!! make isa look more like her mother! (am i about to redesign them again? whoops)

four. and i know this is no fault of dan and swampy but the show was about to end anyways and yet the entire friend group was paired off into hetero ships?? get fucking real. none of those kids are straight. realistically, i know it was a different time and gay marriage wasnt even legal in the us yet so it wasnt all that common to have queer romance on screen let alone on disney channel but like i said, the show was about to end. what were the disney channel execs gonna do? cancel it? lmao

five. "I am so in the friend zone there." "we are guys. we do not talk about our feelings." WHAT!!! i cant believe this shit is real. these lines of dialogue are canon. what the hell. what kind of message does that even send to younger, impressionable viewers? if ur a 10 year old boy watching that (ok fine maybe that isnt gonna stick with you forever but listen) and you go 'oh its okay to just bottle everything up and not tell my friends about my feelings about anything ever' that is insane! thats not how things should go!! like i get the whole "im so in the friend zone" and yes, this also has to do with the era but like if they wanted to be a more progressive cartoon that kids look up to and enjoy maybe they just. shouldn't have put that whole conversation in.

i barely have any problems with the b plot. in fact id watch the episode just for the kazoo solo. because that plot lines up with the continuity. i can totally see heinz having bowling night with perry and carl and monogram every week! i can totally see perry and monogram retired! and carl running owca and getting payed for it! that all checks out! that one makes sense and works with the canon! if they got that plot so right how did they get the a plot so wrong?

i can answer this question: fanservice. its an awful word, i know. act your age is a fanservicey episode which is why i think it crashed and burned. mml season 2 is rooted in the same issue: doof is very present and takes away from the original plot of the show. like, the one he wasnt even in until the last episode of s1. slightly getting off topic but it is the crux of the issue. fanservice doesnt make for good storytelling. even if it brings in the big bucks. at its core, telling the story the way it should be told is the best one. even if it pisses people off. a good portion of the viewers will still appreciate whatever ending the creators come up with. and no, im not saying phinbella shouldn't have become canon, in fact i really like the ship and all their dynamics, i just think they went about it the wrong way.

as someone who's written and published fic about them getting together in different universes (granted, they were from when i was younger so its mildly terrible. take them with a grain of salt) there are a lot of other ways to tell that story canonically. honestly, i think the best way of doing it was to keep it ambiguous. dont tell that story. let the viewers pick their own ending for phineas and isabella. maybe they dont get together after all. who knows!

thanks for the ask! hope you had fun getting lectured <3

[brimbrimbrimbrim]

The Bear and The Baker: Chapter Two - SEPARATE (NSFW)

Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five

Summary: She’s relatable and willing to help him figure out how to stop spiraling down a dark hole of anxiety, but she’s pretty and sweet and knows what to say and do… and Carmy just can’t help himself.

Tags: friends to lovers, UST, RST, pining, wet dreams, masturbation, lots of food talk, reader used to be a pastry chef, mental health, panic attacks, anxiety, meditation, oral sex, cunnilingus, premature ejaculation, handjob, desk sex, first times, virginity, mild dom/sub undertones, kitchen sex, love confessions

Words: 3.5k

TW: panic attacks

“Yeah, but is she hot? Now that's the real fuckin' question. The million-dollar question." Cousin asks at the counter, stuffing a handful of fries in his mouth. Always the subtle asshole, Carmy thinks as Sydney turns the lock on the door and flips the closed sign to face.

"Who's hot?" She asks with a side smirk that has Carmy wanting to leave them all to scrape the floors by themselves.

Cousin laughs, mouth full, "This fucking new age broad Carmy's got some hot date with. Or did. Feminist type or some shit. Can you fucking believe it?!"

"It's not like that, Cousin," he mutters, logging out on the tablet and into the admin account. In truth, he’s barely paying any attention to Richie, not since he knocked over Tina’s potatoes while chasing Flek down the line, something he’d been repeatedly told not to fucking do.

"Even if she is hot, which, I'll believe it when I see it, bitches like that go fuckin' insane. My last date-"

"Oh," Sydney crosses her arms at the door, baring her teeth in a vicious smile, "Because of course you, Richie, would have something against women that actually think for themselves, right?"

"Hey! Don't put fucking words in my mouth, Syd. Not today, baby."

“Don’t say baby,” Carmy mutters, trying to figure out the checkout system after the newest update. It’s giving him a fucking headache on top of the two standing around him.

"What?” Syd balks at Richie. “Did you have a hard day? Doing… what exactly? Hitting on college girls during the lunch rush?!"

"Yo! I'll have you know she was hitting on me, and furthermore-"

Carmy lets it all go to static, just like chatter from pots and pans. It's the end of the day, quarter past nine already. Dinner was chaotic for a Saturday, and everyone's tightly wound and eager to get rocked—fucked up. All he can think about is tallies and new systems and this fucking tablet that's making him nauseated, not to mention the fact he had to cancel with her tonight.

“I mean, who meets chicks at therapy? All I'm saying!”

“For your information, some people take their mental health seriously instead of repressing it into some fickle macho bullshit that barely fools anyone.”

“Uncalled for. Hurtful. Fuckin' hateful is what that is. You hearing this shit, Cousin?!”

Richie slaps him on the back, and Carmy tenses, shaking him off. He thumbs the greasy screen and taps the print button to send the day's sales to his office, rapping the counter with his other hand, knuckles raw on the surface.

Carmy didn't wanna do it—blow her off, but there's a roiling boil of stomach acid in his gut that nine TUMS hasn’t fixed and this simmering anger in his chest he didn't wanna subject her to. He's been better these days at keeping his blood pressure down, mostly, but today was a fuckin' mess, and they're closed Sundays now, which means he's gotta watch everyone like a hawk so they don't clock out too early before cleaning up Saturday night's shitshow.

“Deflect all you want, Richie, but you're fucking terrified of women. Just admit it.”

“Fuck you…”

Carmy feels a vein in his temple bulge. "Both of you, shut the fuck up! We're cleaning. Unless you both wanna be here until midnight!"

"Yes, Chef," Sydney says through her teeth and stomps to the kitchen while Richie lingers, huffing and puffing.

Carmy turns off the tablet and leans over the counter on his forearms, his mind immediately returning to canceling the evening with his… Well, whatever she is. Her texts seemed unphased when he asked for a rain check, but… people either came across fine or pissed through text. Carmy can’t imagine her ever being pissed off… not like the rest of them, especially not like him, though it’s been eating at him for the past few hours now.

Plus, he’s not a pretty sight.

He runs his nails against his scalp, wincing at the sweat-sticky pomade, reeking of sharp labor and anxiety. There's no fucking way this chick could be into him—no way he wants to see her without a hot shower and some cologne. Richie's just full of shit…

'She's probably just after some sad dick. These girls get to a certain age, and something about a baby bitch like you gets them going. Fuckin' ridiculous.'

"Hey," another slap on the back, this time softer, "you okay, Cous?"

"Fine."

Richie scoffs, "Look, man, just… fucking forget what I said before, alright. Just hard to picture you getting laid, is all. I mean, you never were good with the ladies."

"She's hot," Carmy admits, palm-cupping his forehead. He nods into his hand and squeezes his eyes shut, remembering her sitting across from him at the coffee spot down the block from the chapel, a cup of tea resting against her lower lip as the steam made her eyes misty and her cheeks color. So fuckin' soft all swallowed up in hand-knit sweaters and the lofty smell of apples and freshly milled flour wafting off her.

"How hot we talkin?" Richie asks, curious and cautious.

"… really hot."

Richie chuffs a humorless laugh and shifts on his sneakers, "Well, don't bring her 'round here then."

"She's nice too," Carmy continues, sorta lost in the exhaustion of the day, "and-and been through shit, ya know. Used to be a fuckin’ pastry chef. And it just-it feels nice just talking to her. She knows what to say."

He shakes his head into his sweaty palm and sighs, full-bodied and so fucking tired. "I dunno. I’m not good at this fuckin' shit."

"Yeah," Cousin agrees, quiet, "… me neither."

Carmy bites his tongue, not willing or able to admit anything too personal. Usually, they're good at reading one another's tone and body language, but Richie's none the wiser when Carmy quietly straightens up the front before heading into the kitchen…

… and by the time he's done cleaning—fingers pruned and sweat running off his nose—he feels far too soiled to do more than shower, eat a PB&J, and pass out on the sofa.

His phone buzzes on the coffee table, leaking into nightmares about today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

Somewhere between the sizzle of burning butter and ear-whispered threats of useless talent, he feels flesh grilling under his fists. That violent contact goes soft, smooth… like buttercream, and then creamed as he licks into a hot neck, fingering something soaked and tight.

The kitchen is on fire as he grinds his hips up, replacing digits with cock, drinking down her sobs that look bad—painful and sad—but Carmy knows they're really fucking good cause his are good too… just, fucking her against the counter, her naked skin dusted with flour, while Richie and Syd argue about the new menu.

'Carmy…' she says like she's cuddling him on a park bench, but they're bucking and slamming... feeling each other up with each thrust. Skin starts to spank like soaked meat; the slap of beef on a chopping block.

He's gonna cum…

His phone chimes and Carmy's awake with a sharp inhale, drenched in sweat, fingers already snapping under his waistband, shoving a hand over sweat-matted curls to wrap around his stiff cock. When was the last time he's been this hard? Fucking high school… fuck…

It was just a dirty fantasy, but… Carmy hisses at the sleepy pleasure, going from faded to sharp, then hot, almost as hot as her pussy in his dream. Slippery precum lubes his fist up—a drop of molten syrup—and he wastes zero fucking time in beating off under the loose cotton sweats heavy with terror sweat.

A few strokes in—all muscle memory and instinct with the panic interlaced by lust—he throws his head back. "F'ffffuuuuuck!"

Carmy feels it build in a second, spilling over in another, and then he's gripping the back of the sofa, hips jarring up as he cums… cums real slow… and fuckin' hard into his navel, whining brokenly into the dark living room like it's been months since he came…

… and it might as well be for the way it lingers long after he's milked the last dribble into the puddle staining his stomach.

Ding. Ding.

Carmy freezes, sticky palm still cradling his soft cock, fluids going tacky between his fingers, and looks at the phone faceup on the coffee table. The apple (red delicious) he took a picture of at the restaurant glows in the dark, and it's so fucking red.

Still hazy—loose, and sleep-weak—he tugs off his shirt. Shaken and stirred, he wipes up the strings of semen stuck around his limp dick, trapped in the damp curls at the base, before swinging his feet over to pick up his phone, shirtless and locked with tension.

His lips twitch at the apple and her message.

'I know it's late, but crap woke me up, so I made this.'

There's a picture of blueberry scones with reduced berry syrup sprinkled in confectioners’ sugar; her thumb’s up is in the foreground. Carmy smiles softly despite the dream, practically smelling the vanilla warmth of butter and sugar.

His thumbs hover over the keys, coming up blissfully blank from jerking off only minutes ago, then swallows cold nerves as three dots appear above the keyboard. Fuck.

Blip.

Another message makes his heart flip-flop. The orgasmic euphoria quickly settles down as the laissez-faire mood from his flashing, blood-pumping nightmare of a wet dream goes a little shy when she sends another photo: a selfie of her biting into a piping hot scone, some flour streaks over her nose and cheek. Covered in flour… just like his dream…

Blip.

'Kinda left them in too long, but they’re okay.'

Carmy remembers her telling him, over coffee, how she still bakes to calm her nerves, even if she has no one to share it with these days.

Blip.

'Hope you’re having nice dreams, Carmy.'

Fuck. Fuck. Carmy feels caught red-handed… lighter but dirty, not just from the orgasm, but by some relaxed, cozy emotion he can only recall from being young, cooking food, and staying up past curfew. That last day of school feeling… all improperly mixed with this sexual desire that's not precise… no order. Just a big fucking mess.

His head's clear now, though. Sorta.

Carmy contemplates texting her back, scratching at his chin and rubbing over his mouth, only to smell the odor of cum and feel a stirring in his sweats again. Like some stupid fucking teenager, he thinks, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling and chewing on his lower lip.

With a swallow, he sinks back into the sofa cushions and taps over his screen: 'Looks delicious, Chef. I'm awake. Trouble sleeping. You gonna eat all those by yourself?'

Minutes pass in shrouded silence, and he's about to sit up, move to the bed, and hope for more sleep, but his phone blips again, and his face heats up.

'Was thinking about giving them to the neighbors, but I could bring you a few if you want some company? Or are you going back to sleep?'

He sinks further into the cushions, heart fluttering.

'No. No, I'm up. Hard going back to sleep after nightmares.'

'Heard, Chef.'

Carmy smirks at the lingo—the joke?—a witty retort, maybe. She's funny, pretty, smart… caring, and…

'So, are you up to meeting for coffee again, or should I stop by your place?'

He pauses, rubbing the sides of the phone, and feels like…

… are they flirting?

Without thinking, his thumbs pass over letters, speaking from someplace where that dream had been before he came to.

'My place. You bring dessert, and I’ll make dinner.' Carmy isn't sure who the fuck he is. It sounds slick and smooth and natural, nothing like the stuttering loser he tries so hard to hide an apron behind. He blames the abrupt orgasm he woke up to, which no doubt fueled that ballsy text…

Three more dots.

Blip.

'I think technically this would qualify as breakfast. What's in your fridge? I could get some take-out and save you the hassle.'

'My treat. How about spaghetti? Homemade.'

'Sold.'

And that's how Carmy finds himself cooking Michael's sauce at four-thirty in the morning with a candle burning, and the window cracked, hoping the smell of good food and 'clean linen' will eliminate the smell of sex and cigarettes that hangs under his nose. He cleaned up a few things while the garlic caramelized, not used to having company, mostly never. But something told him she wouldn't appreciate the overflowing ashtrays and empty soda cans. He threw his dirty work clothes in the hamper, made the bed, and changed clothes… even took a washcloth to his cum-dried cock and the musky stain beneath his navel. Not that there was much chance of anything happening…

Carmy glances at the cracked bedroom door from the stove, adds the fresh herbs, and gives the pan a toss. His head fills with images of laying next to her under the covers—wrapping a hand around the front of her throat while hollowing her out from behind, fingers over her clit—kissing her neck while palming her breasts… just… there’s too much he wants to touch and grope and lick…

"Fucking Christ. Get it together…"

The water is boiling, and the sauce is simmering when his phone goes off in his pocket. He tugs it out while unboxing the pasta and sniffs up nerves as he stares at the screen.

'I'm outside. Didn't wanna knock and wake anyone else up.'

She's way too fucking considerate. Way too nice for some uptight asshole like him.

Carmy lowers the temp on the sauce and wipes his hands clean before unlocking the door to the object of his most recent wet dream. Immediately his cheeks heat up, lips slacking at the sight of her—nothing special, no makeup, nothing fancy… just some leggings and a baggy sweater, a little bleary-eyed from lack of sleep but beautiful. Plus, she’s holding a paper bag with butter stains on the bottom.

"Mornin' or umm… night," he gets out, sniffing loudly through the blush on his face, his pulse jumping. "You, uh, you look good and smell good—I mean, those smell good." He nods at the bag.

Her laugh is quiet and molasses thick. "For a sleepy mess, sure. Thanks." She smiles and adds quietly, "So do you, by the way."

Carmy swallows hard and thumbs his chin, trying to draw sensation from his flushing face while her eyes skim his cheeks, and her smile widens in his doorway.

"Took a cab, right?" He asks, looking down the hallway outside his apartment as if he was gonna find some fucker tailing her.

"No, I walked here." Her eyes shine, and he's lost for a second before realizing she's joking.

"Right. That's a-uh, that's a good one. Real funny. Uh, well… come-come on in," Carmy stutters, holding the door open as she steps inside. "It's not much, but it's, ya know… home, I guess."

"Fuck, Carmy. It smells amazing in here. And it's cozy, just like you-or, like I pictured you to… live in. Like, I imagined your space would be comfortable. Not that I think about your apartment often or… Jesus…”

Her nose scrunches up, making his stomach twist.

"Sorry, I'm not used to talking to people at this hour. I usually just lay in bed until the sun comes up or… bake… sometimes read if I’m feeling spicy."

"What're you readin' lately?"

Carmy watches her set her phone and the bag on his small countertop bar, spinning in a half circle to take in the cramped living room and tiny open kitchen. "All kinds of stuff. Fantasy, space odysseys, self-help crap… I like horror, or I used to. These days I've been reading happier stuff. Not by choice, though."

He locks the door and deadbolts it, noticing how she just grins at him as he does, with none of that nervous energy she usually exudes. Her attention follows him to the stove, where he breaks the pasta and adds a drizzle of olive oil before covering up the sauce and the water. It's not often he cooks like this for himself, and rarely ever… least not for anyone outside of work.

When he turns around, she’s pulling four scones out from the bag and resting them on some napkins equally stained in butter. The smell overpowers the sauce, almost. His mouth salivates on instinct, catching the notes of buttercream and lemon zest.

"So, what's your favorite book then?" He asks as she slides a scone across the bar, breaking off a corner of her own with a hum before popping it in her mouth.

"Hmm," she intones again, swallows, then presses her lips tight, gaze wandering to the side. Cute. Full. Fuckin' adorable. "I guess 'Leaves of Grass.' It's by Walt Whitman. Lots of prose—a lot of lascivious stuff for the time period. Guy was a free-loving hippy before that was even a thing."

Free loving? Carmy tries not to shrink in on himself at the idea, feeling wholly outside his element. His eyes drop to the blueberry scone in front of him. Suddenly, he’s worried it’ll be amateur and he’ll have to hold his tongue, but as soon as he picks it up and lets the lingering heat soak into his fingers—feels the weight—smells it perfuming his nose—he knows how it’s gonna taste…

… and it’s outstanding. Complex flavors settle into a silky buttery layer of lemons that only amplifies the subtle sweetness. Might not be something a New York bakery would sell, but Carmy finds it on par with Marcus’ meticulously crafted jelly donut.

“Don’t judge me too harshly.”

Carmy shakes his head as he swallows and takes another bite, then another, finishing it off in three big mouthfuls before pressing his thumb and forefinger together.

Once he lets it all hit his tastebuds, he swallows and exhales to really take in all the flavors. “I think you’d put my pâtissier to shame with eight hours of sleep. Drizzle is nice, real bright. Not too sweet.”

“… really?” Her voice wobbles.

Carmy wipes a crumb off his mouth with his thumb and locks eyes with her. She’s blushing, wide-eyed. Her lips look wet like she just licked them. It’s supposed to be innocent looking—just friendly appreciation—but he’s watched porn before, read nudie mags as a teen, and even earmarked a couple of books on how to get women to cum… but he’s never seen a woman look quite like this...

"-and it smells amazing, by the way," she whispers, all hot and sticky.

"Huh?" He blinks, roused from his inspirational thoughts, to watch her color under the fluorescent bulb over the bar. Even in pale blue lighting, she's-

"The spaghetti. It smells delicious. I can't remember the last time anyone cooked for me…"

"It's, uh, a family recipe. Old school."

"Then I'm doubly flattered."

She leans in on her elbows, all smiles, and sleepy eyes. "So, how is the whole clearing your mind going?"

Carmy half-laughs, rubbing one side of his face, cupping his scratchy cheek. "It's been… hard."

He thinks about his dick when he woke up, a hand already around it on the mother fucking edge, and rubs his palm over the resulting blush. "But I tried it out again yesterday. Smoke break. Outside. Just focused on the traffic. I was pissed off—the lunch rush was a mess. Blew up at my sous and Cousin… but when I went back inside, I felt a little less fucked."

She's quiet, just listening. Carmy clears his throat and continues, "Rest of the day was just as fucked, but I felt… I guess, pretty chill? Chill enough, I didn't yell."

Carmy smirks and half-nods into the heel of his hand. "Well, didn't yell as loud as I usually do."

"… that's a start. Also," she says slowly, so soft and sweet. Carmy lifts his gaze and drowns in her eyes. "Your water is boiling over."

"Wh-ah, shit! Fucking shit!"

AO3 Link HERE

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

Withdrawal

Part 3

Part 2

Part 1

He stares at the wall for what feels like hours. The medicine is making him tired and loopy, he sees senseless shapes dancing on the drywall and finds patterns where there aren't any.

He refuses to go to sleep. He refuses to move. He refuses to exist.

He's still and quiet, but his tears have never stopped falling. He regrets - he regrets going to the doctor, he regrets taking the medicine, he regrets not having kissed Wei Ying more.

So what if he was hallucinating? So what if it was all in his head? He was so much happier with Wei Ying around. He wasn't lonely anymore, he had someone waiting for him at home, he had someone to talk to - even if Wei Ying did most of the talking in the end.

He felt loved in a way he had never been, and he unwittingly fell in love too, how could he have not? His mind had created Wei Ying for this express purpose. The doctor told him that - that Lan Zhan was so lonely and disconnected that his mind created a partner for him so his need for attachment would be fulfilled somehow.

Lan Zhan's eyes move towards the night stand again. He tries so hard to imagine Wei Ying there, to re-live his touch, to feel his lips again.

Pointless.

He picks up the medicine bottle and throws it at the wall in a fit of unbridled rage. The container shatters under the force of impact, and the pills scatter everywhere, white dots on his carpet.

He is so angry, so impossibly angry, he feels like he has to destroy something, to let all of that rage out or he's really going to go insane this time.

His bathroom is the closest room and he wants to wreck everything there. He tears open the doors to his mirror cabinets and throws everything out, bottles turning into glass shards. Everything reminds him of Wei Ying, of how he'd laugh and tease and - suddenly Lan Zhan catches sight of himself in the mirror.

He's disfigured with rage, red in the face, still crying, a light sheen of sweat from the effort.

And he doesn't want to see this. He doesn't want to see himself, doesn't want to turn his anger inwards yet.

He raises his fist to hit the glass and he can almost feel the impact, painful against his skin.

It never happens.

Someone's holding his arm back.

When he turns his head, Wei Ying is there, crying. Lan Zhan can feel Wei Ying's grasp, the warmth of his hand, the force he's exerting.

"Lan Zhan, stop, please, you're hurting yourself, why are you-"

Relief fills Lan Zhan's entire body immediately, the rush of it making his knees buckle and suddenly he's in Wei Ying's arms on the floor, sobbing his heart out.

"I love you... I love you more than anything, I never want you to go away..."

Wei Ying kisses the top of his head and his arms tighten around him. "Never, I promise."

"Even if you're not - I don't care if you're real or not, I love you too much to ever be without you again."

"I am real, Lan Zhan. I didn't disappear because the medicine worked. It's all just... a long and complicated story you're probably not going to believe."

"Doesn't matter. As long as you're here, as long as you'll return, I'll believe anything."

This time, they kiss until they've both had enough of it and more.

(Turns out, Wei Ying had dimension-travelled... kind of. While working on a new talisman in the Burial Mounds, he accidentally sent part of his soul into a different reality.

He retained some measure of physicality - hence why Lan Zhan could later... interact with him, to put it in decent terms. However, the connection sometimes phased out, which was why Wei Ying disappeared every now and then. As for the reason why he specifically stuck to that other dimension's Lan Zhan... perhaps soulmates' bonds went beyond time and space.

For a while, Lan Zhan only got his Wei Ying temporarily. Then, one day, the figment of soul that had crossed dimensions to be with him never disappeared again.

Turns out, death only takes the parts of soul it finds in one reality.

Lan Zhan could only hope the version of him in that dimension would be just as lucky as he was and get his own Wei Ying back somehow.

Soulmates do defy the laws of nature after all. )