#she and my mom are the only blood family i have left and my stepdad is the only other living family i have

[larryrickard]

trauma from performing cpr

i don't even know if i want to post this here, but whatever. i'm trying to talk about it to bring awareness and to process shit. i'm finding surprisingly little about this. it's also been a hell of a fucking week and i'm worried for my own health tbh. i've written shorter versions of this on fb & ig but i should probably get ALL of it out and well hello tumblr, you have the room for it and are technically a blogging site. so here we go. if you read all of this, bless.

thursday 07/11, my stepdad (R) feels unwell and my mom, as symptoms begin to stack up, suspects a heart attack and takes him to the hospital. he is indeed having a heart attack. he never lost consciousness. he's transferred to another hospital and has two stents placed.

sunday, 07/14, he comes home.

friday evening, 07/19, one of the stents fails (we won't know this until later). he immediately lost consciousness. i overhear my mom ask if he's ok, if it hurts, and "i'm calling 911". she yells for me. i go downstairs to hear her telling 911 that he's not breathing properly, she can't tell if he has a pulse, and that he's turning purple. my brain immediately goes into overdrive. all i can think about is how we need to perform cpr (my mom panicked and hadn't even thought of that and this upset her. i pointed out that it's understandable, and the 911 operator would have gotten her there, i probably only just beat them to it). i run to unlock the door for emergency services and when i come back, we manage to get him out of his chair and i start cpr (more about that later). my mom eventually had to take over. thankfully shortly after that, EMTs/fire arrive. at one point my mom counted nine of them, plus the two cops who showed up. they work on him for what i initially thought was like 30 minutes but was more like an hour. they finally get him stable enough to be able to transport him to the nearest hospital with a cath lab and availability.

between here at the house and at the hospital, they'd shocked him at least eight times. he was very unwell. i stayed behind, as did three EMTs. i figured they'd just collect sharps/biohazard stuff and be on their way. i was fully expecting to clean the rest up myself, and to put back all the furniture we'd moved (getting him out of his chair, moving stuff out of the way so it was easier to get him out on the stretcher). but no, they grabbed everything they could, and put the furniture back. i knew, if i were them, i'd have done the same thing and not thought anything of it. but it was just such a small gesture that really got to me and meant so much.

i'd called his sister (N) and my mom's sister (B). so my mom at least had B, N and her husband (R2), and one of their daughters (N2), who is a nurse. (wildly, my mom's niece (B2) is also a nurse and they attempted to call her in to help but she said no, that was her uncle, and obviously was immediately disqualified from the rotation.) he's so unwell that N tells my mom that if she wants to take R off life support, it's her decision and N fully supports her. shortly after, one of the doctors comes out and says R has improved slightly and said he was following instructions. we (doctors + family) had been worried the lack of consistent blood/oxygen flow would have left him with severe brain damage and/or damaged organs/extremities.

my mom (and N2?) go to see him. she talked to him, and he would try to pull out his ETT (breathing) tube. my mom would gently guide his hand down, and tell him no, that it's okay, just try to breathe normally, don't fight it. at that point he got tears in his eyes. eventually, B, N & R2, and N2 made my mom go home to try and get some sort of rest.

saturday, 07/20 at 3:30am, the doctor calls to say R is stable but obviously in v critical condition. they have some sort of pump on him to help his heart, but it's too small for his height/weight, so they want to put a larger one on him. they're going to transfer him to another hospital who has one.

my mom and i manage to get a few hours of sleep. my mom and i talk some in the AM. we have no idea if he's going to get any better. and if he does, we have no idea who he is going to be if he does. i ask if he has a living will, and my mom didn't think so. we talk about how, knowing him, he probably wouldn't want to be kept alive if there'd be no good quality of life. she was thinking she'd tell the doctors not to save him if he codes again. out of curiosity, she goes looking for his will and finds he has a living will (that's like 15 years old so no wonder she forgot), which confirms what we were thinking. that removes any doubt my mom might have had should she do those things. she later felt bad that she'd allowed him to be saved at all at the hospital (the heart pump thing) and i told her what did she think R would have done if it was her. or any other pair of loved ones. immediately go looking for a living will, or follow them to the hospital and ask that they be saved? of course it's going to be the latter.

a doctor calls and talks about wanting to try to get R onto ecmo, so that his heart can have a rest. the right side of his heart was now damaged as well, and the doctor was hoping that if they could do this procedure for at least 3-5 days, his heart might get precious rest and it'll profuse blood through all his body instead of the smaller pump that couldn't fully do that. it would also give them an opportunity to see if there was any organ damage. they might even know sooner than that.

they had to sedate him because he kept trying to pull out the tubes again. given that he was still following instructions and seemed to have heard her the day before, my mom had a hard time trying to decide whether or not to do the procedure and how best to honor his wishes. we decided to go ahead and give this a try. it'll give us answers, and we can go from there. we'd only be keeping him to see if there really is anything TO be kept. my mom tells the doctors if he codes again to withhold life-saving measures.

my mom and B go to see him. i didn't want to see him like that. especially after having to see him like i did the day before, and the trauma i'd experienced (again, more on that later).

my mom and B come home around 3:30pm. obviously, this is not a good sign. i know it has to mean he's gone. they confirm he is. that they tried to get him onto ecmo, but his heart started going crazy. the doctors believed so much that ecmo could help, that they performed some cpr to try and get him onto the machine. after several minutes, they stopped.

as with many deaths, it didn't feel real. he was feeling fine. there were no symptoms that something was wrong. he was just... out, and then there was a sliver of a sliver of hope that i was doing my very best to not think about (though i did have the thought of telling him he owed me, for the cpr, as a joke).

before he died, one of the doctors told my mom that we saved his life. if we hadn't performed cpr, EMTs would have had nothing to work with. that even if he didn't survive this, we gave him the chance TO survive it. this took a huge weight off my shoulders. i literally felt lighter. various people i talked to about it called me amazing. brave. badass. someone even said i was "heroic". that's not how i feel. i'm fucking traumatised. even over a week later. thankfully, i knew, going into cpr, that breaking ribs was a big probability. i'm glad my brain reminded me of that beforehand and not as i did it. i've also since learned usually it's more like separating cartilage from the sternum, but going by the sounds, and the feeling... at least one rib was broken. most likely multiple. also possibly just reinjuring one. it was horrible. i obviously kept going because i know a sore chest is better than being dead. he occasionally gasped for breath, which in the moment was comforting because it meant i was doing it right. but the whole thing will not leave my mind.

cpr is as exhausting as they say it is, but thankfully adrenaline helps with that. i had to stop and let my mom step in. i literally fell over and almost fainted, i was so woozy. i hadn't been paying attention to my own breathing. probably not enough and probably breathing too quickly. i was sore as fuck for about two days.

i called a crisis line that night in order to get help until i could see my psychiatrist. i needed something to help me with the thoughts. immediately after EMTs/fire arrived and took over CPR i literally thought "i hope i don't get ptsd from this" lol.

(i will say, i did get to see a lucas device in action. these are amazing machines that perform chest compressions for the EMTs to free them up to do other important life-saving techniques, as well as save them from the exhaustion. it's also more accurate than a human. seriously, look them up.)

the crisis line gave me the advice of: let the thoughts happen. they're obviously going to. it's me and my brain's way of processing everything. but, to then let them go. i asked what did they mean by this. they said think of something else, distract myself. don't focus on the thoughts or let myself spiral. easier said than done, obviously, but it did give me some sense of control. i couldn't control those thoughts, but i could do my very best to control the next one.

the day R collapsed, five hours before that i'd had a regular appt with my psychiatrist and told her what had happened and that he was doing fine. lol. thankfully, i was able to see her on monday 07/22. then...

that night, around 9:30 my mom called me downstairs to tell me she was feeling dizzy and that her blood pressure kept going up. she'd taken baby aspirin. she had me get her blood pressure medication so she could take it a few hours early. i made her drink some water because she hadn't had very much, and had coffee that morning (which dehydrates you), and figured she was just dehydrated but what with everything that R had gone through, we were both hyper-aware of possible signs, and wanted to be sure. so i took her to the hospital. her EKG came back fine but they did blood work, and some protein or enzyme or whatever that the heart releases when it's stressed (such as in a heart attack) was elevated so they had her hang out in a room for a bit. they tested her for stroke just in case, as well as took her for a CT. her echocardiogram was fine. they decided to admit her, bc while that protein/enzyme was coming down, it was too high for their liking. they scheduled an MRI for the morning. i went home around 1am.

tuesday, 07/23, about 2am she called to tell me they were transferring her to another hospital that had better capabilities in terms of heart health. again, her EKGs came back fine, they did an angiogram and there's no blockages whatsoever. they suspected a slight heart attack from all the stress, but in the end (and after another echocardiogram), they declared her to be fine. broken heart syndrome. the heart was stressed and therefore tight, so they've given her meds to help relax the heart muscles so it can rest. she came home wendesday 07/24.

needless to say, i'm stressed as fuck. my psychiatrist sent in an rx for anxiety meds i hadn't needed in like 7 years. i was doing better until the whole thing with my mom. how the fuck it's been a week since R died i have no idea. thankfully i could take bereavement from work this week, and my boss is giving me monday off as well just to give me an extra day bc the added shit with my mom. i've also asked if i could be assigned to one of our service desks where it's easier to step away than the other two (unless the one has two of us at a time, which doesn't always happen). she's got that set up for me. i also have a follow-up with my psychiatrist on thursday. i was going to ask for leave long enough to meet via telehealth as usual but i forgot there's a staff meeting that day so my shift is scheduled earlier. she's booked our meeting room for me to use, and made sure the desk i'm on has someone else schedule on it at the same time so i can make sure i'm not late.

i'm worried about my own heart. even though my HR has come down while medicated, it was at/over 100bpm for about two days, then around 90 with meds, and then back to 100 with my mom. finally came back down to 90s, and with meds it's been around 80bpm which is at least close to normal. thankfully, when i'm asleep it's in the 60s like it should be. saturday evening it was more around 70s which is so much better. but i am also overweight. my cholesterol is occasionally slightly high, but not high enough for them to be worried at all, and my LDL is generally pretty good. i just worry that my heart is doing the same thing my mom's did. and, of course, worrying about all that does not help my HR.

anyway. i didn't have high opinions of the man, as he was ultraconservative (at least he hated trump...), which is why i've never been able to be out to my parents as queer (not-straight and nonbinary). but he has been in my life since i was 8 (i'm 41 now). i obviously had some love for the man. and i feel bad bc while it hit me that he was probably going to die, now that he's gone it's still just more of a disbelief that he's not going to be around anymore. that he's just. not here anymore.

and, all of that being said, do not let my trauma dissuade you from performing cpr. it's one of the most important life-saving techniques we have. get trained, even if just once. refresh yourself occasionally, keep up with any updates to it. for example, hands-only CPR is trained more now than including mouth to mouth. my two(?) trainings didn't prepare me for the broken ribs thing, they never mentioned it. thankfully, from what people are telling me, it is included in the training now. some training covers the guilt people might have if (when) that happens. but i just wish there was mention that you might need help afterward, especially if you have to perform cpr on someone you know. (the AHA finally recognised this ONLY TWO YEARS AGO.) maybe share some resources to help you. apparently some larger hospitals have support groups for this. also, to talk about it. even if you don't have a professional, just talking about it to people helps. and reduces the chances of ptsd. that these feelings do happen. unless you're in the medical field, your chances of having to perform cpr are very slim. actually saving a life is, unfortunately, even rarer (1 in 10 apparently). but YOU could be that person. you could save someone. you could give someone the opportunity to survive, the possibility of a second chance at life.

while this is a less-than-once-in-a-lifetime situation for a layperson, and i wouldn't wish performing cpr on anyone, PLEASE, attend training at least once and regularly refresh yourself. if you're employed or in school, you might be able to attend a training for free.

trauma aside for a moment. it's fucking wild knowing i saved a life, even though it didn't work out in the end. it's a strange feeling. i've been told i should be proud of myself. maybe i'll get there some day. idk.

[finanmoghra]

Cruel Summer

damn seasons part 1

pairing modern!Eadith x ofc

summary This could be a sweet friends to lovers story, if only the summer wasn't so cruel.

warnings angst/fluff, slight mention of aggression, implied smut/suggestive

word count 5.4k

a/n i used some stefanie's pics on the moodboard where she is blonde, but eadith still being a redhair right. this story takes place in no specific country or city. also, there's no blood feud between families in this, kjartan is tove and sihtric's father but he does not take place in the story, they actually live with their mom and stepdad, its not important at all, just the backstory i had created.

Eadith is her best friend. Tove have met her when she was 15, Eadith has just moved into her town and she started to study with her brother, Sihtric, and his band of friends, who are also Tove's friends despite being 2 years older than her. It was naturally, the boys —that includes Aethelflaed, 'there is nothing ladylike in the way she throws a punch' as Uhtred says — brought her to their circle of friends and as she was closer in age with Tove, their friendship just happened.

Since the first day it has been them, Sihtric, her big brother, is friend with Uhtred and Finan since they were babies, and when Tove was born, the boys were enchanted with their little princess — as Sihtric said, and later swore they will always protect her at all costs. The years went by and nothing changed, it was Sihtric, Finan, Uhtred and Tove, the princess in danger who they, the fearless warriors, need to rescue, as they always play. Until new faces were showing up, Aethelflaed, and her half-brother, Osferth joined the band when they were about 11, 10 years old. They were inseparable, and their families being close contributed to it.

When she first met Eadith, Tove felt something different about her, but she couldn't know what, so she let it go, she kept to herself this unfamiliar feeling everytime she was on Eadith's presence, in order to forget about it. Until her second year at uni.

Tove was studying ASNC - anglo-saxon, norse and celtic -, a subject she was always interested as her family has a big norse inheritance, and because of that she planned to do her master program in Denmark. In some way Tove could handle the studying life with their nights out, at a pub, a club or a party.

It was at one of those parties that everything happened. Tove was way too drunk, trying to find her way to a bathroom and she found one at upstairs of the house. What she didn't know was that Eadith was following her, trying to look after her, so when she opened to go out and found Eadith leaning on the doorway, waiting for her, Tove couldn't contain her surprise.

— Eadith! Hey, what you're doing here? — Tove asked leaning on the doorway as well.

— Tonight is my turn to keep an eye on you. — Eadith said, with a playfull tone, but she was serious. They all have this kind of agreement that at least one of them won't get too drunk for emergencies, it's their way to look after each other.

— I'm not even that drunk! — Tove's voice was disagreeing with her. — You can go and have some fun.

— I am not on the mood for party at all, I'm good here.

With a courage coming from nowhere - all the alcohol she consumed - she came closer to Eadith. — Well, then let's have some fun the two of us.

Before Eadith could say anything, Tove's lips were crashing hers. At first she didn't stop, because she's been wanting this for so long and Tove's soft lips against hers was definitely the kind of fun she was needing. But then she remembered Tove was drunk and broke the kiss.

— Okay, lady, I think it is time for you to go home, come. — Eadith said, still close to her, fixing her hair.

Tove didn't protested and Eadith took her to Sihtric, and they both agree to go home and left the party.

When the next day came up, it was like nothing had happened. Eadith didn't touch the topic and Tove didn't remember, yet. It took her a day or two to realise that it wasn't a dream, - c'mon, she had dreamt of this too many times to realise it had truly happened - she had kissed Eadith. And she wanted to do again.

However, she couldn't. Eadith is her best friend, she couldn't risk ending up their friendship for something silly like this. So she let it go, again.

The realization came several months later. Tove was one month away from finishing her degree and started to organize her life to her Master program. She and Eadith still being friends and very closer, Eadith thinking that she forgot about what happened that night, and Tove pretending she actually forgot.

One day Tove was walking on campus towards the library when she saw Eadith talking with a guy, he was obviously flirting with her and she was smiling to him. Tove got angry, she rushed to the library, and let the tears fall silenty. She didn't like this feeling, she didn't like what this feeling means. So she masked it as stress coming from the exams.

Tove was miserable for days, and everyone noticed, including Eadith, but she got nothing from her.

Sihtric started to get worried about his little sister, he knew something was hurting her. It was a normal thursday, Sihtric was at home, so he found it strange when Tove showed up at noon when she was supposed to be in her lecture.

As soon as she arrived home, Tove rushed to her bedroom and lock herself there. Of course Sihtric followed her.

— Tove, open the door, talk to me. — he asked at the door, for the third time.

— I don't want to talk, Sihtric, leave. — she said and he could notice by her voice that she was crying.

— C'mon, at least let me be with you, you don't need to say anything now.

No answer came immediately, but after some time he could hear that she unlocked the door. When he enters in her bedroom, she's already back at her bed and he lays down besides her, giving her a tight hug and she cried more.

— You say you're fine, but I know it isn't true. Don't tell me it's the exams, I know there's something more. You don't need to tell me anything, just don't lie. — Sihtric gives her a kiss on her temple — But if someone did anything to you, that you need to tell me. — he said on his protective brother tone.

Tove let out a little laugh. She has the best brother in the world.

— It's Eadith. — she says after she calmed down — She's going out with that guy.

— And what's the problem?

— The problem is that I love her! — she exclaimed — Not like you do, I love her.

Sihtric didn't know what to say, he only knew that advising her to talk about it with Eadith wouldn't happen. Tove is a stubborn bastard, just like him.

He just said to her that if it's meant to be, it'll be. Sooner or later. And Tove cried at that, 'cause she know it won't.

Her final exams have passed, as Eadith's and Osferth's. —The three of them were the only ones that still at uni, as the others had graduated a year before.— And that was a reason to party, they said.

So there is Tove, at a friday night getting ready to go to some club they chose. She picked out a little black dress, one of the milions she has and was finishing her makeup when Sihtric knocked on her door.

— Are you ready to go?

— Yep — she answered after applying her lipstick. — You’re lucky I'm on the mood for party tonight, or I'd make it the worst night ever.

— You don't think I know? That's why I suggested we'd go tonight, I see you're in a good mood.

— So we should stop wasting time and go.

Well, she was on a good mood, really. But  not anymore.

Tove was all happy and excited, and suddenly her feelings got all blue after Eadith arrived with Bresal, the guy she is going out with. It made her blood boil seeing him holding Eadith's hand, it should be her instead.

Sihtric looked at her, worried, as Eadith started to introduce Bresal to the others, he saw Tove giving her best to look strong as she greeted them, and as soon as they turned their back, he saw how she ran away.

He waited a few minutes to go after Tove, trying to keep up appearances, he saw that some of them noticed Tove vanishing but no one said nothing. Sihtric soon found her at the bar, asking for another drink.

— Tove, we can go home if you want, you don't need to stay. — he tried, approaching her.

— And you don't need to leave just because I'm in this pathetic situation. — she finally says after a moment in silence.

— I won't leave you alone, you're my little sister, I'll ne-

— I'm leaving! — she cuts him.

— What? When? To where?

Before saying anything else, Tove led Sihtric to a more quiet place, so they could talk.

— I wasn't planning to tell you this now, but I was accepted into a master program in Denmark, and I don't know yet when I'm leaving. — she cuts Sihtric again as he tried to say something — Please, don't tell anyone yet.

— It's okay, it isn't my place to tell 'em. And I'll support you in anything you choose. — Sihtric hugs tightly — I'm gonna miss you, you know it, right?

— Of course you will, — she laughs as he pinched her side. — I'm gonna miss you too, but now let's go back before they noticed and before I start to cry.

They came back and acted like nothing had happened, just like the ones who noticed something was wrong. Tove tried not to think so much about anything at all, they went out to club and have a great time, so she will try to do so.

She gave her best trying to keep in the partying mood, but at the moment she left the bar and entered the cab to go home, Tove couldn't hold her tears anymore.

The next weeks was a complete mess, Tove's time was consumed by things related to her master program, she had to plan her moving, check her documents and so many more. Fortunately she had her family to help her, as they're the only ones who knows she is moving. She had planned leaving in the middle of summer, but she had to change her plans due to her friends announcement after her graduation ceremony, that they're travelling this summer to the beach. And this isn't the kind of event she can refuse to go.

So she got her things packed, both for their trip and for her moving, and just as she finished, Tove heard the bell ring. She wasn't expecting no one to show up, so she was really surprised to see Eadith at the other side of the door, and even more to see the tears in her eyes.

— Oh! Eadith, what happened? — Tove asked worried, and before she could get some answer Eadith throw herself in Tove's arms. And Tove could never deny a safe place to her.

She could feel Eadith grabing her shirt to keep her closer, and the absence of an answer made her even more worried, if it was possible.

— Hey, love, it's alright, — Tove whispered while caressing her hair, trying to make her calm. — Please, come in so you can tell me what happened.

Eadith noded and stepped back to follow Tove into her house. She led her to the couch and brought her to sit close to her. Eadith didn't say nothing on the first moment, but after a time playing with Tove's wristband, she started,

— I, I had an argument with Bresal, — Tove could feel her blood boil by only hearing his name — He got too hostile over me, and.. and he bruised me.

She motions to her wrist and Tove could see the bruise there, she had to control herself to not scare Eadith with the anger she's feeling now.

— I didn't know what do or where to go, I could only think of you so I came here.

— Eadith, you're ok now, right? I'm glad you came to me, you will always find a safe place with me, you know it? — Tove only felt Eadith noded while hugging her. — I swear if I see that turd he'll regret everything he has done in his life. No one dares to raise a finger to my pumpkin.

Eadith laughed at the silly nickname Tove had gave her years ago, when they met. —Your hair reminds me of pumpkin pies, so it's fair for you to be my pumpkin. — she said.

Tove felt relieved to achieve her goal, Eadith now is more calm and hearing that laugh made her heart warm. She could spend a lifetime hearing that laugh, seeing her girl happy makes her the happiest person. Her girl. Stop it, you fool, she's not your girl. Tove thought and regretted at the same moment.

Eadith got way more calm after spending some time with Tove, so she insisted to her to stay for the night. Eadith couldn't say no.

And when Sihtric went to talk with his sister after arriving at home and found the two cuddling while Eadith was already asleep, he didn't say anything, just smiled at Tove.

On the next day, they were all meeting to head to the airport, Tove and Osferth checking everyones documents and necessary items, as they always do before their trips, when they saw that turd, Bresal, passing by with a black eye and Eadith could only see a glimpse of a smirk on Tove's face while she continues to do her things, pretending she didn't see it.

The flight wasn't so long, and soon they arrived at their destination. The house they're staying was beautiful, close to the beach, it was perfect, except for having only a few rooms so they will all share. It wasn't a problem at all, Uhtred and Sihtric with their girlfriends got a room each, Finan and Osferth was sharing another, Tove and Eadith would also share the room and Aethelflaed was the only one to get a room only for herself. — I rented the house, so I get the room for myself. — she said.

It was okay for Tove to share a room with Eadith, nothing that they haven't done before. The real problem was that the room have just one bed. So Tove will have to share a bed with Eadith for three weeks, and she doesn't know how strong she can be, having to sleep so close to the woman she aches for. It will be a cruel summer with her.

The first nights were a bit awkward, but no one said nothing until they got used to it. A couple days have passed since they arrived, they had spent most of their days at the beach, and wandering around the small city they're staying at. Now it's evening and her friends are getting ready to go out for dinner, Tove have already decided she wasn't going with them tonight, and someone have asked her to check if Eadith is going with them.

So that's what Tove was going to do when she entered their room at the same time Eadith was leaving the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, looking for her clothes. Tove's mind was getting far from what she was supposed to do it, she could only think how she wanted to touch her pale skin, and trace her fingers the same path as water drops. She was so lost in her own mind that she didn't noticed Eadith calling her.

— Tove, everything's alright?

— Oh, yeah yeah, — she could feel her cheeks getting warm after being caught — I just came to ask if you're going out for dinner or if you're gonna stay?

— I'm gonna skip it today, I need to get a rest, 'm still too tired from the beach.

If I could do everything that I want, the last thing you would get is a rest. Tove thought. Gods, I need to stop thinking about this.

She only nodded and left, heading downstairs to tell her friends they're staying. After getting herself a quick snack, Tove went back to her room and found Eadith brushing her hair.

— Oh god, you scared the shit out of me! What are you doing here? — she asked exasperated, making Tove let out a laugh.

— I'm sorry, bae. — Tove got closer and left a kiss on the top of her head, — I didn't want to go out neither. — she said while looking for some comfortable clothes to sleep.

After a while, they were both lying in bed, Tove was trying to read but couldn't focus on other thing than Eadith turning from side to side. She left her book at the bedside table before turning to Eadith.

— Can't sleep?

— No. — she pouted her lips and Tove couldn't think of anything cuter than this.

— Come here, then. — Tove opened her arms and Eadith accepted her embrace. She felt her body tensed but as she started caressing her hair, she could felt Eadith's body relaxing.

The silence remained for a while, Tove thinking that Eadith had already slept but suddenly felt her body tensing again.

— Tove? — she asked with a low, muffled voice, as her face was pressed against Tove's neck, which made her feel shivers.

— Hmm, yeah?

— Do you remember that last party at Erik's? — now it's time for Tove's body tenses.

— I, I.. Yes, I remember.. Wh-what about?

— When you.. when you kissed me, — she moved to look at Tove's eyes. — Did you really meant to do that, or.. you were just drunk acting?

— Eadith...

— No, tell me, I need to know Tove, please.

Tove hesitated a bit before answering, — I did mean to do it.

— Then why did you pretend you didn't remember? — Eadith frowned her eyebrows.

— 'Cause.. I wanted to do it again! It was easier to pretend I didn't remember and didn't want to do it again. It was easier to try to forget than bring this up and ruin our friend-

Her words were cut off by Eadith's lips crashing against hers. Tove was too surprised to react at first, but she didn't miss a second after realizing what was happening. She had Eadith's lips against her owns again. And this time was better than the first.

Tove didn't waste more time, guiding her hands through Eadith's body until it reaches her waist, pulling her even closer. She let out a soft moan when Eadith pulled her hair, making her smile against Tove's lips, happy to cause that reaction on her.

Tove's hands found the way under Eadith's shirt, the contrast between her cold fingers and the warm skin made the ginger gasp, which opened the way for her tongue between Eadith's lips, deepening the kiss even more. Tove could die on her lips and she wouldn't care, she desire this for so long.

She grasps all flesh she can reach, not wanting to let it go, she wants to live this forever, nothing seems to be enough. She can't get enough of Eadith. It was all so new, the shape of her body. Making out with a woman it was definitely better than she imagined. She needs to have her at least once in her lifetime, before she goes.

— Love, you don't need to rush, we have the whole summer, hmm. — Eadith says after breaking the kiss, her fingers now caressing Tove's face.

And Tove didn't have the courage to tell Eadith they didn't. She didn't have the courage to end what had started now.

So she just muttered in agree, letting go.

The next day, Tove is awakened by the sunlight hitting her face, making her grumble. She misses the feeling of Eadith's body pressed against hers so she quickly get up, which cause Eadith to laugh from the other side of the room.

— Calm down, love, I didn't go anywhere, — she says climbing one the bed coming closer to Tove, giving her a soft kiss. — Good morning. — she whisper to her, putting her hair behind her ear.

Tove turns her face to kiss Eadith's hand, — Morning.. — she muttered against her palm. — I missed you next to me, it was sooo comfortable. — Tove's voice was a bit hoarse from the sleep, and that made Eadith feel something, definitely.

— I wish we could stay like this but you need to get up, Finan came to say we're going to another beach today, which is far so we need to leave earlier.

— Just more five minutes, please.. — she asks, snuggling in Eadith.

— It's tempting, you know, but we really need to get ready. — she says and leaves the bed again. — And if you don't get up, you won't be sleeping with me tonight.

It was comical the way Tove got up so quickly.

They didn't tell anyone what was happening between them. They use to be this close since always, so it wasn't awkward to see Tove and Eadith holding hands, cuddling, living in their own world. But Sihtric noticed it was something more, and he was sure something was happening when he saw the love bites. And Sihtric knows his sister well enough to know she didn't said anything about leaving.

One night they were all at the house deck, chatting, drinking, playing some card games until it was very late and one by one started to retire to their rooms, only lefting Eadith, Tove and Sihtric. The ginger one whispered to Tove she'll be waiting her and said good night to Sihtric before leaving. Tove blew a kiss to her and was smiling at the direction she went, until she heard Sihtric calling her.

— So, what's up between you two?

— Hm, what d'you mean?

— C'mon, I'm not blind, are you two finally together? How did that happened?

Tove sighed, knowing she couldn't hide anything from her brother even if she tried.

— It just happened. We didn't talk about what we are, we just enjoying each other, it's summer after all.

— So, you did tell her you're leaving, right?

— I didn't..

— Tove, you- — Sihtric started but Tove cut him off.

— Don't say it, I know I'm being stupid, but I can't tell her, I cannot not have this with her, at least for now. — Sihtric was trying to say something, and Tove didn't let him. — I'm a coward, I know and I don't need you saying this and how wrong I am. — Tove didn't noticed the tears coming to her eyes and starting to fall. — I just.. I have longed this so much, I need to have this with her even if it's going to end soon, but I can't leave without it.

Sihtric came closer and held her, wiping her tears. He waited until she calm down to say something.

— I won't say what you want to hear, because I care for you and I want you to do the right thing. And I also care for Eadith, so I can't let you carry on with this and not tell you to talk with her. I know you won't gave up moving, it's your dream after all, and she would never ask you to do so. So please, tell her, I know she will understand. Tell her before it's too late and you hurt both of you.

Tove didn't tell her.

She couldn't tell her when she entered the room and saw Eadith in a tiny purple matching underwear, waiting for her in their bed.

The only things to leave Tove's lips that night was praisings and soft moans.

She was longing for Eadith, but she wasn't rough on her. Tove loved her on the most pure and passionate way, lustful though. She needed to let Eadith know how much she loves her through her acts.

Every single touch, kiss, bite, was full of Tove's passion for her. Tove could only hope Eadith would get it everytime Tove looks up grinning like a devil after bringing her to the edge, she hoped Eadith would get how much she worshiped her.

Time just flew by and the last week came. They're a few days away from going home so Tove decided to spend more time with Eadith alone. The redhead was almost sleeping after returning from the beach when Tove called her, telling to get ready.

Half an hour later, they're finally arriving at their destination.

— It's a date then, uh? — Eadith said after many times trying to know where they're going.

— Oh, shut up! — Tove said playfully, intertwining their hands again to lead her on the rocky way.

— It's so cliche of you taking me to a date on a secret place, you know that, right?

Tove stopped and turned back to her, her hands now cupping Eadith cheeks, which turned red after Tove looks at her with such intensity, she leaned on her, their lips now brushing against each other. — I know.. — she whispered and gave in, kissing Eadith deep. Tove will miss that so much.

They only broke the kiss when breathing was needed, the two girls panting heavily after an intense kiss. If Eadith's cheeks were already red, now they're even more.

It was only then that Eadith noticed where Tove had take her. They were at a viewpoint at the rocks of the beach, the sun was now setting and they had a privilege view of it, which made the place even prettier. But still, for Tove, the most beautiful thing to see there is Eadith. Her hair and skin were glowing against the sunlight, her eyes shining, completly enchanted by the view, and Tove completely enchanted by her.

— I found it earlier this morning when I went out, I thought you'd like to see. — Tove said only loud enough for Eadith to hear, not wanting to break the atmosphere.

— Oh, I loved it, It's so pretty. — Eadith answered, still focused on the view.

— Yes, so pretty... — Tove let out a little laugh, taking Eadith's hand in hers again, bringing it to her lips and leaving soft kisses all over it.

Tove led her to a bench there, bringing Eadith to sat on her lap, rounding her waist and resting on the crook of her neck. They just sat there for a moment, the quietness only being broke by the sound of the waves and the gasps and soft moans as they kiss. After breaking the kiss, they just stayed there in silence, their foreheads resting against each other, their breaths becoming just one.

— Tove, I think I- — The brunette shut her up by kissing her. She knew what Eadith was about to say, and she couldn't let her do it.

— There's no need of words, babe. — she whispered and Eadith just nodded and kissed her again.

Tove wish she could say it, and hear Eadith saying it, but she just couldn't. Not when she's about to leave.

When the day came, Tove gave her best to hold the tears when she look at their room and the beach for the last time. She was too quiet on the way to the airport and Eadith noticed it, and tried to cheer her up, — The summer is not over yet. — she said. But it is over to Tove, the moment she gets off that plane it is over.

While in the flight back to home, Tove decided to enjoy these last hours with Eadith, with too many kisses and sweet words, which made Finan change seats with Osferth, saying he couldn't stand one more minute with 'these two love birds', making them laugh.

And too soon, the time has come. As soon as they landed, they took their baggages and headed to the arrival gate to meet Ragnar and Brida, who were to be their ride to home, but they were all surprised when they met not only Ragnar and Brida, but also Tove and Sihtric's parents.

They all greeted each other and was talking about how the flight was, until Aethelflaed noticed the amount of baggage next to Tove's parents.

— Wait, are you going to travel again? — she asked looking between Tove and Sihtric.

— No, not them. I am, actually. — Tove answered starting to feeling nervous.

— What? To where? — Finan asked confused.

Tove could feel her hands shaking before she answer. — A University in Denmark accepted me in a master program, so.. I'm moving.

— Why you didn't tell us such good news? — It was time for Osferth to ask and he came to give her a hug, congratulating her.

— Yeah, and why didn't you tell us you were going today? — Uhtred questioned.

— I didn't want to ruin the trip mood making it a farewell trip. I know you will miss me, but don't worry, I'll be back and you won't even notice I was gone. — Everyone laughed at her coment and they all started to say goodbye, wishing her good luck on this new journey.

The only one who didn't make a move was Eadith, she was still shocked at the news, not even knowing how to act. She waited everyone talk with Tove before approaching her.

— Tove, hmm, can we talk? In private? — she asked with a low voice, uncertain of what to say.

— Oh.. Sure, yeah, let's.. Let's get a coffee. — Tove felt like she was freaking out. She was regretting so much not telling her she was leaving.

When they left, Tove could feel the gaze of all her friends, the atmosphere was now heavy and they sensed it.

They went to one of the millions cafeterias at the airport, Tove got a black coffee for her and Eadith's favourite tea before they went to a table.

Tove was about to say something when Eadith started, — So that's it, you're leaving?

— I have to.

— After all these weeks, you didn't think about telling me that it would be over as soon as we came back?

— Look, Eadith- — Tove's words were cut off by Eadith.

— No, after all these nights we spent together and now you're just leaving? Did I mean nothing to you? Did that night mean nothing to you? I gave myself to you and now what?

— Babe, please, hear me. — Tove took Eadith's hands in hers but she pulled it back.

— Don't call me that.. — Tove's heart broke even more after hearing that, she could feel how Eadith was broken because of her.

— I'm sorry, I know I should have told you, look, I tried to but I couldn't. You mean everything to me, every night we spent together mean everything to me. But I just couldn't leave without knowing what it is to be with you. I know I'm stupid and a coward, I swear I know, — Tove had to stop to breath and she noticed the tears were falling down her face, — Believe me, I hate myself for hurting you, but after having a glimpse of what it is to be with you, I couldn't stop, 'cause I'm so fucking in love with you that I wouldn't stand leave without have even kissed you again.

— I was afraid of telling you because I was afraid of loosing you. I need to go but I also need you, and this isn't the kind of thing I can choose between. Now I see I chose the worst way to go and not only lose you, I hurt you, so I'm sorry.

— I would never ask you to leave your dreams behind, Tove, you know that. I wouldn't want to choose me over your dream, you didn't need to choose between one or another, you could have it all. — She got up from her seat and approached Tove. — But I'm afraid you can't have it anymore. Farewell, love, enjoy your time there, I know you'll do your best. — Eadith left a last kiss on her forehead before she walked away.

And Tove? She stayed there for a while, tears still falling, too many eyes on her, before she decided it was time to go. So she left, she said goodbye to her friends and family one more time and boarded to Denmark.

[silverloreley]

I don't know if you're interested in hearing this but anyways:

What do you think of my original characters from my original story: Princess and The Demon?

Princess and the Demon

Cast of characters

Yuri: The terminally ill princess who was abused and harassed(by a eunuch) in her own home. She was glad that she was kidnapped by Kai.

Date of birth: December 16.

Blood type: A

Kai: the purple demon who is very conflicted of saving his mom and saving Yuri. In turn, Kai fell deeply in love with Yuri and vows to protect Yuri from her demonic sister, but in the end, Kai failed.

Date of birth: January 29

Blood type: O

Jun: the skillful demon assassin, but has one one the worst past. His mother was brutally murdered while 3 or 4 months pregnant infront of Jun's eyes by his father after they ran away from their abusive home. Jun's father squeezed his throat when he was 3 years old till the child become mute or can't talk due to the voice box was badly damaged. After his mother's death, he wandered around in the woods until he lost consciousness due to the lack of food. A kind nun found Jun and took him to a small orphanage. There most kids tease and ridicule him that he most of the time he get in trouble.

Date of birth: October 29

Blood type: O

Nozomi: the prostitute who was willingly sold her body to help her family. Nozomi thinks of herself as unclean, dirty, impure, and awful because of her family(except Jun and her adoptive kids) was very disappointed in her. Funny that her name means 'pure'.

Date of birth: April 22

Blood type: A

Yun: a prince from a different kingdom who joins the 4 siblings to kill demons in order to save his bride(later his cousin) and fell in love with Jun. Jun's siblings thought that Yun way very gay for Jun.

Date of birth: March 27

Blood type: B

Mio: the medicine girl who was completely covered in black, only thing you can see on her is her eyes. She was abandoned as a newborn because of her condition and was left to die, but her mom prayed to the heavens that someone will protect her.

Date of birth: August 17

Blood type: B

Aoi: the blind girl who was nearly molested by her stepdad a month after her mother's death when she was a toddler.

Date of birth: April 15

Blood type: A

Nix: arguably the best girl of Princess and the Demon story. Started as a carefree and klutzy also boisterous to a strong mother figure to Nozomi's adoptive children.

Date of birth: June 25

Blood type: AB

Ryu: Nix's twin brother. Ryu hated his twin sister because of her disappointment towards their family. Slowly, he started to soften up and eventually told his sister that he never hated her, but disliked her behavior. Before his death, Ryu told his sister that he will always love her. (Ryu was killed by demon)

Date of birth: June 25

Blood type: AB

I had this story idea since 2018 and I continued to build on it and sometimes I lost faith in it because I sometimes worry how this story going to be interesting to the audience and I kind of abandoned it for a while.

From the looks of it, you have some good ideas about how the characters interact with each other, and the trauma they have (honestly, it's a few too many traumatized people in a single cast for my taste, but you do you). I never understood the need to precise birthdays and blood types and not more relevant things like age/profession/alignment/other stuff that says a lot more about a character, but that's a personal pet peeve. You probably know about it all, and it's better that you keep it for yourself if you ever plan to make it a book and sell it, because the more you leak on the net, the more someone else could steal the idea and make the same thing you want to, quicker than you, and then you'll be labeled as a copycat at best, a plagiarist at worst. So keep your cards closer to your chest when it's not fanfiction, okay? Those asks, once I answer, are public: everyone can see what you wrote, this is not a good thing for an original story. Careful there.

Here's a thing: most of us writers have that one story stashed in the back of our minds that we have too much material for but never seem to put together in a satisfactory way because we care too much, it's simply who we are. In my case, it started when I was 11, the characters and worldbuilding changed a lot with time (along with my view of the world and experience, all of it grew with me) and I changed format four times, and still, I can't find the right way to convey it all. I'm simply not ready for that story to get out and that's okay. Other stories, fanfictions, and minor projects, bring happiness too and are a great terrain to improve skills with peer review and so forth.

So don't be let down and give yourself time to grow as a writer, you need to learn to walk the proper way before you can run a marathon, hone your skills first and in time you will be able to write your story the way you want to.

[variasuitgirl]

I pay quite a lot of rent to live in a shitty bedroom full of someone else's belongings and absolutely no privacy, so I would hope that I wouldn't be threatened with homelessness constantly. All I wanted to do today was go to the gym and wash my bike, so that I could have something physically active and even just the bare minimum of an accomplishment to feel proud of.

The only interaction I had today was to ask why my chain cleaner was cracked, and this spawned the hugest of tantrums out of my stepdad. He threw away the meal I was having, the groceries I just bought and put in the fridge, and just screamed at me for ruining his house and not doing anything with my life. I work, I save, I pay my rent, and I feed myself while I strive for a better life everyday. I'm sick of everyone taking their anger and shitty life out on me. I'm always scapegoated and bullied. This delusion that I'm the cause of everything going downhill is what made him threaten me with eviction this time. It happens a lot at this point, and I don't know when it's real, or just his blood sugar, because I have slept on the streets covered in torn bloody clothes because clearly I had it coming.

Usually it's my mom's violent mood swings that makes me homeless. And I'd love it to be as easy as moving out again, because I have escaped this numerous times, but either from pressure on my roommates, or my mom's failing health, she forces me back into this turbulent relationship. I have no family on my side because I'm the only queer non-Republican.

I was so close to pulling the trigger today. I'm not well. I'm fighting for my life. My friends all abandoned me because they were sick of what were clearly warning signs and cries for help, because they didn't like being treated that way. I'm running out of anything tethering me to this earth. I have nothing. I'm living off of hope that doesn't exist, because why the fuck would someone ever want me in their life even after five years? I'm scared I wouldn't last that long anyway between my heart condition and my severe depression from my family, home life, and gender dysphoria. I have tried to ask for help and I've basically been told that other people have it worse my whole life and I just need to toughen up, but I can't anymore.

Chiricocuvie was my closest friend, and I pushed her away when I was in a very dire spot, where I was absolutely sure I was going to die, and I did not want that on her conscience after the way she would bully me. I said some absolutely fucked up shit to her, and experienced a complete disconnect with reality that she absolutely did not deserve to deal with. She abandoned me after experiencing a list of warning signs in a way they suggest you not do to someone going through this. Regardless, she was the best friend I ever had. I'm so alone now.

I don't know what more I can do. I'm doing everything my therapist suggested, and everything from my handbook. DBT was working very well, but I just kept getting pushed and there's a limit to how well I can utilize these skills under these constant conditions. I don't want to die, but I don't know what other options I have left. I'm fighting as hard as I can, but I don't know how many more tomorrows I'm going to make it to.

[tinyredpoppies]

my grandma is in the hospital with covid 😭😭

[bookns]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PERCY

here’s a birthday fic to celebrate his 29th birthday

Growing up, Annabeth thought she knew love. She saw the love that her dad had for his stepmom, for her younger brothers. The type of love for the family she wasn't allowed to have. She saw love in Thalia and Luke's eyes. The love only a sister and brother can share. She saw the love Chiron had for the children of Camp Half-Blood. The type of only a man old and as wise he was could show. She saw the love Sally Jackson had for her son. The type that only a mother could possess. But after falling in love with Percy Jackson, she realized she hadn't known love.

At least, not love quite like theirs.

I. 

At the beginning of their relationship, Percy and Annabeth were never big on public displays of affection. But after not seeing each other for weeks, only through iris messages, Annabeth missed him dearly.

Annabeth saw Sally's car pull up at the Camp entrance. She immediately left Chiron and Mr. D and her deck of pinochle cards. He was hugging his mom and stepdad, Paul. He turned to see her, and it was like time stopped. She was running to him, and he scooped her up, not caring if his mom or stepdad could see.

"I missed you, 'beth."

He said muffled into her hair.

"I miss you too, seaweed brain."

They separated but Percy never let go of her hand.

II.

When they were younger, Annabeth and Percy always watched the stars on a quest. There wasn't much to do when you were too busy running for your lives but watching the stars gave them something to do.

Percy had just arrived at camp the previous morning, and she has yet to catch him alone. Since this was their last summer at camp before New Rome, everyone wanted to see Percy Jackson.

Having not seen Percy all day, Annabeth was ecstatic to find him sitting alone by the beach. It was almost curfew, but she figured that she could spend 10 minutes with him.

"Hey, Perce."

"Hey, Beth."

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, I was hoping for a certain blonde to join me so we can watch the stars together."

"Damn, should I tell Nico that Will is cheating on him?"

Percy shoved her into the sand, and she shrieked.

"you are so annoying."

"you are the one dating me."

"Unfortunately"

Percy stuck his tongue out at her, but she didn't care.

She hasn't seen him all day, she was allowed to be missing him.

Percy must've noticed her lack of a response.

"Hey, Beth. You ok?"

"I just missed you. I'm glad that everyone knows how you saved the world, but sometimes I wish it was just me and you."

He kissed her head and looked up at the sky.

"Well, it's just me and you now."

She looked at him gratefully and snuggled closer to his side. The night seemed to be clear enough for them to see the constellations in the sky. She silently thanked Artemis for the midnight stars.

"Do you see Zoe?"

"She doesn't usually come out at this time of the year"

"Geez Perce, do you normally keep track of all constellations"

"No. Just her."

III.

Percy was never big on jealousy. He thought it was irrational, especially in a relationship like his and Annabeth's. They were built on years of trusting each other with their lives. But when he walked in Annabeth talking to a guy that looked to be their age, he couldn't help but eavesdrop.

"Come on, honey. I'm sure your friend won't care if you are a little late. I just want to buy you a coffee, maybe get to know the person behind those gorgeous gray eyes."

The man brushed a piece of her hair that was hanging by her eyes, and Percy snarled.

Annabeth glared at the man and swatted him away.

"I told you already, I'm meeting my boyfriend here. And I would like it if you leave me alone."

"What if I don't want to leave you alone? What if I want to get to know you, sweetheart? What if your imaginary boyfriend never shows up, and you and I spend the entire night talking? What's the harm in that?"

"How about you leave her alone."

Really, Percy knew it was dumb and he knew Annabeth was handling herself but he couldn't help.

"Who are you."

The guy seemed to be seizing in Percy's hateful eyes and his crossed-armed status.

"I'm the imaginary boyfriend that you were encouraging her to leave."

Annabeth gave him her exasperated 'you really had to look. He receives that look a lot.  

"Between you and me, I think she rather likes to hang out with me."

The man shoved his arm around Annabeth's neck.

'Big mistake,' Percy thought.

Annabeth grabbed the man's hand and twists it.

"Oh fuck, you bitch. I think you broke my hand."

The man got up, swore at Annabeth again, and ran.

Percy sat down in the seat the man was sitting in and grabbed the menu.

"So, what do you want to eat."

V.

Annabeth hated her curls. Back when she was young and naive about her future, her dad used to keep it ridiculously short. He was too busy to detangle it every night. When he remarried her stepmom, she thought she finally have a mother figure to teach her ways of being a girl. But she was shunned by the cruel woman, and her hair continued to resemble the dark twisted way of her life. Thalia had tried her best to be a motherlike figure when they were on the run. But she was too young, and the world was too scary, even 7-year-old Annabeth knew that much. Thalia had kept both her hair and Annabeth's hair short, having cut it with her knife.

Now that she was older, Annabeth's hair had turned into some monster of its own. When she was walking through literal hell, her hair was the least of her worries but now that she is back on the Argo II, it was bothering her tremendously.

She had taken the best shower of her life and was set on tackling her curls. But with each pull of her brush, her tears threatened to spill. She grunted in pain and annoyance. She half wondered if she could go ask Piper for scissors, but a knock distracted her from it.

"Hey, babe. Leo wants to meet in the dining ro- are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just trying to detangle my hair."

"Do you need help? I used to help mom with her curls when she broke her arm."

A part of her seemed to heal when he said this.

"Can you, please."

He had her sit on the floor of her bed as he brushed every curl. He was incredibly gentle. With every wince she made, he kissed her forehead and apologized.

He soon switched from brushing her hair, to simply braiding her hair. She felt her eyes close in the comfort of his motions.

Having dozed off for mere minutes, he woke her up gently.

'Hey, go to sleep, okay? I'm going to tell the rest of the crew to leave you alone. You deserve some rest."

He kissed her head and tucked her in bed, closing the door and turning off the light.

VI.

It wasn't often Percy and Annabeth fought. It was usually something minor like who is Estelle's favorite or what they should have for breakfast. But this fight was much more than that.

"You said you would go to bed an hour ago, Beth."

"I know Percy. I just need to finish this one thing."

Percy closed her laptop.

"That one thing can wait, Beth. You need sleep. You won't be able to function on less than a few hours of sleep."

Protesting, Annabeth opened her laptop again.

"Perce, I need to finish this for Olympus. My mom is not going to like it if it's unfinished. I have a meeting with her in two days. I need to work on it today, cause tomorrow I need to review for my Stats test."

"Annabeth, you know you could always tell her that you need more time. I don't want to see you exhausting yourself over something that you can always talk to your mom about."

"You don't get it, Percy. I can't ask her for extra time. It's just going to make her even more disappointed in me. Ever since she elected me as the architect of Olympus, I need to prove I'm good enough for her. I know you don't know what it's like to not have a parent that is disappointed in you, but Percy, that's all I ever knew. I need her to know that this was not a decision."

"Beth, you are doing that just fine. Your mom knows you work hard. I know she does, and I know you think that I don't know what a disappointed parent feels like. But I do. Do you think my mom wasn't disappointed when I got kicked out of yet another school? You think she loved the fact that her kid was known as a troublemaker. Do you think she enjoyed the fact that I nearly killed myself with the fact that I felt to prove myself to my deadbeat dad? I know Annabeth."

"Yeah I get that, Perce but I know you and I know your mom and I know she never let you know how she felt. I was always labeled a troubled kid too, you know. I ran away at fucking seven because my dad didn't care about me. I always tried to prove myself to him, and my mom. And, yeah it was fucked up and it still is because I never changed. I never had someone wipe my tears when I got hurt. You got that. I never had someone bake me fresh cookies after a long day. You got that. I got yelling about how he never wanted me. I got my stepmom's look of complete hate. I got my dad rushing my brothers and stepmom away from a monster, that he thought I could handle. It was a fucking cyclops. I was fucking five years old. I never got love from anyone. Anyone, I knew that loved, they fucking left me. I need to prove to my mom that making me an architect wasn't a mistake. I need to prove to my dad that me being born wasn't a fucking mistake. I need to prove to anyone willing to listen that I am not a fucking mistake."

Percy came up from behind her and hugged her. 

"I promise you, Beth. You are not a fucking mistake. You do not need to prove yourself to anyone. Anyone who truly loves you knows that I promise."

+1

"Happy anniversary, Annabeth."

Annabeth blinked, trying to shake the sleepiness from her eyes.

Percy smiled at his sleepy wife. He was holding a tray of two warm coffee and a bowl of fresh fruits alongside a tower of pancakes.

"Happy anniversary, Percy. And happy birthday."

[goldenpixel]

The scene with Wilbur in Quackity’s latest lore stream made me Think some Thoughts, and I wanted to get all of my SBI family headcanons together in one place, so here’s this post

First thing, this is their age order:

Philza -> Techno/Wilbur -> Tubbo -> Ranboo -> Tommy

- Techno and Wilbur were born on the same day, so most of the family refers to them as “the twins” but they are not blood related

- Philza did not know how old Techno was when they were ruling the Antarctic Empire, he thought that Techno was around 21 when he was actually around 14-16

- this is a fact that haunts Phil to this day, because he committed a massive amount of war crimes with an actual child, and also for reasons that will soon become very clear

Philza and Techno

- they’re married

- they got married with them each thinking that the other was close to their own age (Phil thought Techno was in his early 20’s, Techno thought Phil was in his late teens)

- for more on their marriage, check out this post

- despite Techno and Wilbur being the same age, Techno is mentally much older due to his past and his general status as the Blood God

- Phil did most of the work raising the older kids, but Techno did his fair share, and you can definitely see his influence when you look at the kid’s behaviors

- both of them are immortal

- Techno is a new immortal, the Blood God has only just come into existence, but he isn't leaving anytime soon

- Philza is an old immortal, he was there when the world was born, and he'll be there when it dies

Wilbur

- Wilbur and Philza are the only blood relatives in the whole family

- as much as he loves him, Wilbur has always been a bit bitter towards Techno, because when they were teenagers, Techno was off ruling and adventuring and having fun with Phil during the AE, and Wil was left home with a young Tommy to look after

- Wilbur’s hair is naturally blond, just like Phil and Tommy’s

- no one knows who Wilbur’s mom is (unfortunately mpreg is the norm on this server, so Phil carried him, and he’s got some ideas on who Wil’s mom is, but he honestly doesn’t care enough to look into it)

- Wilbur has wings

- they’re much smaller than Phil’s, he can barely fly with them, but they’re the same color and shape as Phil’s

- because of how fragile his wings are, Wilbur should not technically be able to fly, but he literally sheer force of will-ed it and threw himself off the roof of their house so many times that he can glide when he jumps from high places, and if it’s a really high place, he can get in a few good flaps of his wings to get him some extra distance

- Phil doesn’t learn that Wilbur can semi-fly/glide until one day they’re off adventuring together and Wil is being dramatic and theatrical and walking backwards while he talks, and he falls off a cliff

Tommy

- Tommy has been with them since he was a few days old

- because of his light features, most people assume that he is Phil’s son by blood, and he just didn’t inherit the wings

- (at ages 10 and 16, Tommy and Wilbur did the blood-brothers handshake where they cut their palms and then shook hands, so if you ask them, they’re blood brothers through and through)

- Techno taught Tommy how to sew

- Tommy is a young god, but he hasn’t grown into most of his powers yet

- Tommy is a god of death, the future Death himself, Kristen is his mother

- (this is how Phil comes into possession of him. Phil, being the Angel of Death, was really the only reasonable choice when it came to Death herself finding someone to raise her son)

- Tommy has light features, even though Mumza has dark features, because she purposefully made him out of the light, she wanted him to be good and kind, so she created him from the literal light that you see when you're dying

- because he was born from the actual moment of death, despite Tommy's eyes being blue, they hold the void itself in them

- if you look too closely into Tommy's eyes, it can be easy to lose yourself and fall right in

- sometimes Mumza comes to visit, these are very bittersweet moments for Tommy

- he loves his mom, and he loves seeing her and seeing Phil happy to see her, and she usually takes him along on her next trip, ever so slowly teaching him how to be Death, but he also hates that that is his future

- he doesn't want to be the next Death, he doesn't want to outlive all of his friends and his brother, he just wants to be normal

- because of this, Tommy represses pretty much all of his godly powers, trying to seem as normal as possible, the one he represses the most is his automatic healing, when he gets hurt, he wants to stay hurt

- he represses everything so well that its years before Tubbo finds out that his best friend is a god

Ranboo

- Techno raised Ranboo more than Phil did

- (because of this, he’s the only kid who actually views Techno as his father. Despite him literally being their stepdad, the others see Techno as more of a brother or an uncle)

- Techno found Ranboo when he was around 12 years old on the edge of a warped forest in the nether (if you want some more nether-boys hc’s, check out this post)

- at that age, Ranboo hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet due to malnutrition, so he was much smaller than the average human 12 year old, and everyone thought he was around 8-10 (because of his memory issues, Ranboo thought the same thing until Tommy kept pestering him about when his birthday was and he remembered the year)

- Ranboo is brought into the family when he’s 12, Tommy is 11, and Wilbur and Techno are 17

- as I said before, Techno may have been 17 when he took in Ranboo, but he was definitely a father to this anxious amnesiac preteen

- because of his height, Ranboo is constantly slouching to fit through doorways, inside houses, and to make himself appear smaller, so he grows to need a cane

Tubbo (and Dream)

- street cat

- they fed him once and he just kept coming back

- sometimes he’ll disappear for a few weeks, but he always turns up eventually

- boy’s got some family issues, some real bad family issues

- his dad is Schlatt, who left him and big brother Dream to fend for themselves when he and Dream were 6 and 11

- luckily Dream has an excellent sense of direction and memory, and got them to Aunt Puffy’s current port before she pushed off on her next adventure (but not before getting briefly separated and making some friends)

- (the few weeks they spend separated are when Tubbo first gets found by Wilbur and Tommy and forcibly adopted by Phil, and Bad lures Dream home with food and he meets Sapnap)

- both boys have ram features - floppy ears, horns, etc., Dream also inherited their Aunt Puffy's rainbow hair (he dyes it blonde semi-regularly. It's dyed when he meets sbi, and Wilbur and Techno have the exact same reaction to it when they finally see his natural hair: relentless teasing. Like father like son amiright?)

- Tubbo and Dream are half brothers (same dad, different moms), Tubbo is 1/2 ram and 1/2 human, Dream is 1/2 human, 1/4 ram, and 1/4 what he and Sapnap think is demon (basically Dream had a human-ram hybrid dad, and a human-demon(?) hybrid mom)

- when Tubbo introduces Dream to his new brother-in-law, Dream feels a bit of a kindred spirit, but he quickly brushes it off

- Dream spends most of his time either with Bad, Skeppy, and Sapnap, or on the sea with Puffy, so Tubbo mostly fends for himself

- Tubbo is more than happy to fend for himself, he actually prefers it most of the time. He doesn't like people fussing over him and sheltering him, so whenever his mood switches and he decides that he does, actually, want some family time, he just appears on sbi’s front porch

- Tubbo first meets Ranboo when he comes to visit after a few months away. No one told him that Tommy was with Mumza for the weekend, so when he arrived at 3am, 2 days before he told Phil he’d be there, he just let himself in and threw himself on top of the sleeping figure in Tommy’s bed, only to be met with a startled enderman screech that woke the whole house

- (Ranboo was in Tommy’s bed because he might not be a part of the official Clingy Duo, but the boy is as clingy as they come. He regularly sleeps in his family’s beds, both when they’re home and when they’re away, because his sense of smell is heightened as an enderman and he needs to be surrounded in their scent when he misses them or when he’s feeling sad (especially because these are the only scents he knows, he doesn’t remember any of the scents from before Techno found him))

Big brothers being friends

- one day, after Tubbo’s near-constant raving about how great the Minecraft family is, Dream agrees to visit with him

- this visit happens to fall during the AE, so the only ones home are Wilbur and Tommy

- Dream and Wilbur take one look at each other and their similar situations in raising their chaotic, problem-child little brothers, and never let go

- the four of them live together for a good 5-6 months before Dream gets a letter and he and Tubbo need to leave

- after this visit, Dream and Wilbur stay in contact, and they visit each other even without their brothers around to drag them along

- I know I said that Wilbur makes fun of Dream for dying his hair, but that’s only in public

- in private, Wilbur confesses to Dream that he also dyes his hair, that his hair is naturally blond and he dyes it darker. After this, Dream and Wilbur start dying their hair together, it becomes something scheduled that they both look forward to immensely each month

- the next time Dream and Tubbo visit together, Wilbur is off with a water spirit who stole his heart (I refuse to write about fish Sally, fight me), and Phil is showing Ranboo some cool builds in his current hardcore world, so it's Techno and Tommy who welcome them in

- Techno starts out pretty hesitant of Dream, but Dream almost instantly is like

- "I'm gonna annoy the blood god into being my best friend"

- and whatever Dream sets his mind to, he achieves

- so the visit sort of ends with Dream and Techno making Tommy and Tubbo promise not to burn the house down, and leaving them home alone to go off to cause some chaos together

Father/son relationships

- As I said earlier, Phil primarily raised Wilbur and Tommy, and Techno primarily raised Ranboo, with Tubbo coming in and out like a feral cat

- to Wilbur and Tommy, Techno is more of a cool uncle who brings them valuable trinkets from his adventures, and they want to be like him one day

- Ranboo and Phil’s relationship is almost exactly the same as Wilbur and Tommy’s relationship with Techno

- when Techno brought Ranboo home, Phil pretty much decided that he had his hands full enough with raising his two chaotic boys, and he declared that it was finders-keepers, Techno found Ranboo, so he gets to raise him

- after L’Manburg, Ghostbur and Phil learn sign language, because the explosion blew out Phil’s hearing in his left ear, and Ghostbur’s so soft-spoken that it’s sometimes really difficult for him to hear his son speaking

For more random hc’s I have about these characters and the characters of the smp in general, check out this post

Some quick tags for people who commented on my post asking who wants this post, thanks for the support guys :’) @anotherweirdohere @haveadayasgreatasyou @jupiterjordan

[cocobutnochanel]

The Kims | 18+

Genre: smut, angst, romance, au, drama

Main Characters: Kim Minseok, Kim Junmyeon, Kim Jongdae x Reader (oc: female)

Warnings: swearing, sex scenes, slavery(not literally iguess), mentions of death, mentions of abuse, abandonment

Summary: When you thought life wasn't a fairytale and you were no Cinderella, truth slaps you in the face when you become an orphan overnight and your step-family sells you off to the richest family in town.

Word Count: 2.6k+ words

Part 1

(Part 2, Part 3)

‘Live, baby. Live your life to the fullest.’

You can still hear your eomma's last words to you before she passed away. It kept replaying in your head ever since she was announced dead.

She was the only family member left. You were an only child whose father was also dead. Life may have not been in your favor exactly but you came from a rich family. At least, that made up for it.

You feel hot tears run down your face when you see your mother's face inside a coffin. Sadness, anger and longing wash over you. You knew your mother's health was getting bad but you weren't expecting her to leave you just like that.

"Y/N! Get your stuff sorted!" You hear your stepbrother, Oh Sehun, scream from the second floor of your house. You were suspicious as to why he was in your room and touching your things but you shrugged it off. Your stepfather would kill you if you said something bad about his sons.

You ignored the the strangeness of the situation and immediately climbed upstairs. "Coming!" You called, wiping your tears away. You hear Chanyeol, your other stepbrother, chuckle at the sight of you crying. You just sigh and make your way to Sehun who wouldn't stop shouting your name now.

You knew it was strange that he was in your room but what surprised you was him stuffing your things inside a suitcase.

"Oppa! What are you doing?" You exclaimed, running to your room that became a mess after what he did. Your hands were trembling as your eyes scanned your things that were half-ruined now because of your stepbrother. You quickly get on your knees to see your belongings now scattered on the floor.

You look up to him, looking for some sort of explanation but his eyes were dead and he refused to say anything. God, this frustrated you so much. 

You feel another presence in the room so you whip your head around and see Chanyeol leaning on the doorframe. "Appa's getting rid of you finally." His icy deep voice was enough to scare you, the idea of moving out made you want to faint.

You tried to control your breathing as you see Chanyeol smiling at your state. "Please don't." You begged shamelessly and that earned another chuckle from Chanyeol. You bit your lip so hard, you tasted blood in your mouth.

Moving out? Getting rid? The hot tears you wiped off your face earlier came back in a split second. The Ohs weren't exactly nice to you but they were all you had after your mother passed away. No relatives, no family friends, no anything. This house was the only roof you could go under. Fuck, the world outside was meaner than the Ohs could ever be. It terrified you beyond belief.

"I'm sorry." An emotionless apology from Sehun didn't make it any better. You spent almost eight years with them ever since your eomma married your stepfather when you were barely eleven. "Appa was struggling with the funds when your mom was sick. He had no choice but to borrow money and now, he couldn't return it. The only way to pay it was to send you there." Your eyes widen at his reason. It was absolute bullshit.

"B-But my trust fund! It could pay the debt, right? Shouldn’t we call the family lawyer first?" You try to find another reason to stay but Chanyeol cut your thoughts off with his voice. "Pack it up, Cinderella, you don't have all day." With that, he walked out of the room. 

With slumped shoulders, you fall to the floor. You were defeated in all aspects. You lost your mother and now, you had to lose your home and only family too.

"I don't understand it at all. I had a trust fund. That would be enough to pay off eomma's hospital bills." You whispered as your heart ached. You tried to look at Sehun again but his eyes were emotionless. You knew he was the kinder brother to you despite being whiney but what you couldn't believe was him lying to you right now. Your trust fund was more than enough. Also, your mother’s company wasn’t going bankrupt for your family to reach this measure.

"You really need to pack up, Y/N. Appa would be fuming if he went home and you're still here.." Sehun said, pushing your suitcase nearer to you. It might hurt that these people you consider family are sending you to some stranger they borrowed money from but Sehun made a point. "You know it'd be bad to anger Appa." He retaliated.

That woke you up. Your stepfather may have not laid a finger on you before but he spat so many hurtful words. He had the shortest temper and you weren't sure that he wouldn't hurt you physically now that your mother was dead. 

With his anger management issues and hugeass body, he could kill you with his bare hands. That urged you to stand and start stuffing your suitcase with as much clothes as you could.

Your tears eventually dried and Sehun left your room. Your knees and hands were trembling like they were earlier but that didn't stop you from packing your things. The imagery of your angry stepfather's huge figure made you go on. It was fear that made you want to live even if your whole life was as trashy as it was already. After all, this was all your mother wanted before she died. For you to live.

After putting all the stuff you needed inside your bags, you quickly scurry off to the entrance of your house. You had no idea where you would be going but staying in this house also meant you'd die. You had to try your chances that the people your stepfather is indebted to is somehow less cruel and would not kill me. Wherever it was, you tried to assure yourself it'd be better than staying here.

"Hey, Cindy! A carriage is waiting outside for you." You hated the new nickname Chanyeol gave you but you knew you'd never see him again in your life. You guessed. These people would never let you go without paying the debt and you know your stepfather would never do that. That thought dismissed all the anger in your head for him.

You drag your luggage outside and see a black car. This must be the carriage Chanyeol was referring to. It looked very expensive and it was also heavily tinted. Whoever your stepfather was indebted to, they were filthy rich.

You hesitated as it approached you. Was this right? Your mother's dead body was lying in your living room right now. You should be weeping instead of running away. You haven't even had the chance to grieve yet here you are, being kicked out of the house you grew up in. The house you made memories with. The only home that you ever knew.

The hesitations quickly evaporated as you heard your stepfather's Range Rover approaching. You knew that engine sound all too well. You have hurried off to your room a lot when you were younger whenever you got in trouble with your stepdad. So instinctively, you ran to the black car's door, never looking back at the home you once had.

Your hands stopped shaking and you finally started to breathe properly as the black car pulled out of your home's driveway. Your stepfather’s Range Rover was already out of earshot and you knew you were safe. For now.

Doubts and overthinking clouded your mind. You wanted to be afraid and scared at what might await me. But also, you couldn’t go back home. Your head hurt after so much thinking, you dozed off inside the car as the worries now left your troubled mind.

You felt a nudge on your shoulder, pulling you to consciousness. Your eyes slowly flutter open as you try to sit up properly. "We're here.." You heard the driver say. He was a white-haired guy my age. He also gave me a smile and tried to help me up.

"Where are we, sir?" Your voice was hoarse and the car door flew open beside you. It revealed a grand mansion in front of you and it earned a gasp from you.

You see a man walking by the entrance of the huge manor. His tall stature demanded attention and you automatically assumed he was the owner. With that classy tuxedo and refined posture, you knew nothing about him was cheap.

He suddenly turned around and your eyes widened at that. As if his money wasn't enough to make him intimidating, he had a perfect face. It may have a permanent scowl but you couldn't deny his face was truly perfect. Tanned complexion, defined jaw, plump lips and thick eyebrows. He was definitely handsome.

"Who are you to look at me straight in the eye?" His voice was deep and authoritative and loud enough to snap you out of your thoughts, it surprised you. His scowl even grew which made you bow your head and quickly apologize. "I'm sorry." You mumbled, the fear of death immediately taking over your senses. 

"Be nicer." Another voice interrupted that made you look up. A man with a child on his arm went out of the house, standing by the door. He wore a similar suit to the man who was scowling. Another handsome man, you thought. He looked older but no less handsome. He also looked friendlier as a little girl bounced in his arms.

This man was definitely kinder, you could safely assume. His eyes were soft despite his features being sharp and his thin lips had a pressed smile.

The scowling man passed by him and went inside the huge house. You could only look at his leaving back, hoping you didn't piss him enough to get yourself killed. You couldn't possibly die the first day you're here.

"Hey, get inside. I'm sorry for that. My brother's just wired that way." He offered a smile as the little girl in his arms looked at him adoringly. You nodded at what he said, trying to take in the information. His kind smile was nothing compared to the previous man’s scowl. Their air was too different. "Let her inside, Baek. We’ll be at the study." He nodded at the driver before going back inside his room.

The driver who was named Baek started carrying my bags. "No, it's okay." You try to take it away from him but he insists. He carried your luggage inside the house to the large living room. 

The house was so large, it was nothing compared to your home before. Marble walls made everything stand out in elegance as the paintings that graced it made it warmer to the eyes. The furniture was obviously expensive despite its basic structures. The grand staircase that led to another floor also made it seem like it’s a palace.

Baek snapped you out of your awe by entering with your bags. He set it down by a sofa. "I'm Baekhyun and I'm the errand boy here." He gave you a toothy grin which made you smile back at him. "It's hard to find a friend here but I assure you, I can be your friend." You nodded like a seal at what he said. You knew you needed help and an offer like this isn't something you can pass up.

"I'll find time to talk to you and all but the bosses need you at the study right now. They'll decide whether what to use you for." You look at him in confusion. He immediately gets the message and tries to clear up the confusion. "Your family is in a debt and now, this family owns you. The Kims. You have to be of use to them. We’re considered as slaves here but it doesn’t really sound that bad. It’s just working without pay but with absolute loyalty." You were surprised at what he said. How could he know? You didn't tell him anything. Also, the fact that you were called slaves sounded wrong to you. It seemed inhumane despite what Baek tried to explain.

He looked at me as if he was sorry. “It’s okay. I know cause it happened to me and all the others too. I will explain soon since I’m always the one hanging around here but right now, you have to go to the study. They will decide how to use you before they let you settle in. Now, go, okay? You don’t want to anger the youngest Kim.�� He was talking while he dragged you at the end of the first floor’s hall. The information was too much to take in and before you knew it, you had to face your new bosses now. Or owners. You have no idea how to refer to them.

Baek turns the doorknob swiftly as he stands straighter than he did when you two were alone. He looks back at you once last time and assures you with a look as he entered the quiet room. "Young masters, the new girl is about to get in." You hear someone say to bring you in and Baek immediately ushers you inside.

The room they called study was large and carpeted. It was filled with books and tables. The air inside was also warmer than it was in the hallways. 

Baekhyun pointed to the center and I immediately got the signal. Baek left as you finally got to where he wanted you to stand. You stood there, in front of four men in suits. Their eyes were examining every inch of you and it made your skin crawl. The black dress you were still wearing for your mother's funeral wasn't exactly pretty. The thought of showing your makeup-less and swollen face to four dashing men who were supposed to be your new bosses didn't make it any better.

"Jun-hyung, what do you think?" The guy with a baby girl earlier spoke up first and asked a man in an all-black suit. You wanted to keep your eyes on the floor but they were too handsome to peel your sight off them.

This man called Jun looked angelic yet his face was stoic. He had a gentle aura but something about him warned your gut that you should be extra careful around this man. Nonetheless, it amazed you how four extremely good-looking men could be in one room. You suddenly recall Baekhyun’s words and they were the Kims. Must be a family. Amazing genes, you couldn’t help but think

"She has no special talents mentioned in her file." You wince at that Jun guy's comment, quickly waking you up from the daydream you just had about these gorgous men. You realize you were just an average human which is basically why your stepfamily didn't want to keep you. You weren't talented, intelligent or creative. 

You were also surprised that you had a file already with them. But then, it was your stepfather we were talking about. He would go to hell and back just to get rid of you

"She's pretty. I want her. Can I keep her, Jun?" You looked up at the person who spoke. It was a man who gave a different vibe. He looked very playful with his exotic face features but something told you he was just as dangerous as the other two. The man with a baby in his arms didn’t really scare you as much as the scowling man did. The other similarity he had with the rest was the expensive suit he was wearing.

He takes a good look at you before speaking. "Jun, I want her. You know we need a new plaything." He spoke with finality, smiling at you. You didn't know what he meant and your puzzled face gave off what you were thinking. "He wants to fuck you, dummy." The scowling man glared at you with so much intensity as he solved the confusion in your head.

Fuck me? Plaything? These words resonated in your head. You didn't know how to react. How was somebody supposed to react to someone wanting to fuck them?

"We don't do that anymore, Minseok-hyung." The Jun guy sighed, his eyes filled with pity as he stared at you. He really does look angelic, you thought. You snapped out of it again and bit your lip as you put your head down, not knowing what to say.

"We can if we get her consent." The guy with exotic features who seems to be named Minseok shrugged. He looks at you with so much determination once again. "Hey, what's your name, again?" He speaks again and you widen your eyes at his question.

"U-Um.. Y/N." You stuttered with so much fear. You really didn't want to die at all. You know you had to do whatever they wanted just to stay alive. Living was so meaningless like this but you didn't want your mother to be disappointed in you for just giving up. If these men returned you home, your stepfather would kill you. 

"So, Y/N, is it okay if we have sex with you from time to time? We really need the stress reliever." This Minseok guy smirked again. His directness shocked you to the core. You had to say yes, right? If you didn't, they'd kill you? Or torture you? Or return you home? None sounds appealing to you.

You really have no choice...

"I-I'd like t-to be of help to you with a-anything." You fiddled with your fingers as you said this. You were nervous as hell and hearing the scowling man's chuckle made it worse. 

"See, she's okay with this, Jun!" Minseok exclaimed with a huge grin on his face, eyeing you up and down. He patted Jun’s back and smirked at the scowling man. You weren't really opposed to what they wanted. They were handsome and you wanted to be alive, nothing more or less. You weren’t usually this shallow and easy but your eomma’s words keep ringing in your ears. You had to be alive.

"I guess it's settled then." The man with a baby girl earlier gave you an apologetic smile and stood up. You were about to walk out but the Jun guy spoke once again. "Tell Baekhyun to show you the available room on the fifth floor." He nodded at you. You were about to walk again but then something interrupted.

You heard the scowling man beside him laugh, stopping your tracks again. "Jun, you're really treating your whores right." He smirked and looked at you as if he was belittling you. You shuddered under his sight. He was truly intimidating, he had a different air to the other men. He was blunt and he never hesitated.

"You should leave now. Never mind his foul mouth." The guy with a baby waved off to you. Once again, this man has made your arrival here warmer. You nodded at them with finality and got out of the room as you heard Jun scold the other guys. “Jongdae, thank you for being nice today but treat slaves as they should be treated. Jongin, stop being mean. You’re being irrational.” He authoritatively announced to the two boys, making you assume he was the leader or something.

You close the door behind you with a final thud. You see Baekhyun leaning at the wall beside the study. He immediately went up to you.

"So, how did it go?" You didn't really know how to answer this question. How would you explain to someone that you agreed to fucking people? 

"U-Uh.. That guy named Jun told me to tell you to show me the room on the fifth floor?" You said with so much uncertainty, chewing on your bottom lip. His eyes were as large as saucers and his jaw dropped the moment you say this aloud. He couldn’t believe himself either.

Baekhyun shook his head in disbelief and tried to be as calm as he could. "What the hell did you agree to?! They never let slaves like us in the fifth floor! What more live there?" He asked in a hushed yet raised tone. He briskly dragged me to an elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor.

"Well, the Minseok guy asked me if I could help them sexually? I guess?" What you just said earned a loud gasp from Baekhyun. Your cheeks heated at the mention of this. "Holy shit..." You heard him mutter a curse and honestly, you couldn't help but agree. Non-survival you would never agree to anything like this but this is the new you. You had to survive. For your mother’s wishes and for your own good too. This time, Baekhyun looks at you with so much amusement.

"You're in for a fucking ride."

[dastardlydandelion]

So...what kind of horror movie would you write featuring the Hargrove/ Mayfield family? (That you haven't written already lol)

oh boy, u may regret asking me this bc i am indecisive af and i can’t pick just one!

two that i'm actually writing are max as (g is for) ghostface killer in the abcs of neil’s death and also the max + tory nichols werewolf movie fic outlined here. also some more misc gorror junk bc i’m a demon and esp horny for susan wearing blood splatter. but more ideas commence below:

horror movie #1: another creature feature! awhile back @lucdarling sent me an ask abt max + billy hiding smth from susan and her like, playing along, pretending she doesn't know, and one of the scenarios that popped in my head was them keeping a baby bat as a pet. max finds it and she’s only like six or seven, and she thinks it’s going to turn into a vampire. so here is that scenario except horror edition: baby bat is actually a vampire type creature. not rly a vampire like, what’s prolly popping into ur head, like an undead human like dracula or smth, but like a bat monster that sucks blood.

billy being a lil older doesn’t actually think the bat is going to turn into a vampire. he makes fun of max for believing this, but he helps her take care of it anyway bc he thinks it’s cool. susan, like in the non-horror version, knows abt the bat but plays dumb bc she’s feeling a lot of guilt abt max’s difficulty adjusting to the blended fam (as of rn tho, neil has yet to reveal his abusive nature. the red flags are not yet red, more of a brownish maroon, and he is on his best behavior almost all the time, showering susan + max with affection and keeping the swears out of his mouth when he scolds billy in front of them) and knows the lil furry baby makes her happy. she tacitly cleans up after the bat whenever the kids miss a spot (bats poop a lot, dude) and distracts neil, deterring him from discovering it whenever he gets close.

baby bat gets rly big rly fast. and the older it gets, the more it starts to look monstrous. it still has bat features but it’s just like, different. its fangs grow suspiciously long, its hooks grow suspiciously long. its feet are elongated. a dorsal ridge emerges from its spine, spikes at first just flesh but soft fur rather like peach fuzz eventually sprouting. billy catches on that smth is strange abt this animal when it's as long as his forearm after two wks and still growing. he nearly shits a brick when the bat is clinging to his sweater one day and he steps in front of a mirror and only his reflection looks back at him— no bat.

max laughs at him all like, “stupid brother, ofc there’s no reflection. nosferatu is a vampire, vampires don’t have reflections.” 😂

susan catches a glimpse of the thing when nosferatu crawls out of the home max built it in her closet the same wk billy realizes it doesn’t have a reflection, and also almost shits a brick. she doesn’t know what it is, but it’s NOT a fucking bat. not a normal one, anyway! cue a comedy scene where she’s chasing it around the house with a butterfly net and it’s always one flap *ba dum tss* ahead of her, flying just out of reach. she suddenly regrets not getting rid of it sooner, scolding herself for ever allowing her daughter to keep a wild animal.

she can’t catch it. max comes home, susan tells her she needs to get rid of it. max cries, flips her the bird, refuses. billy tho…billy has mixed feelings. he loves nosferatu but he’s worried it’s going to get dangerous. he loves his dad and his dad is dangerous too. he’s stressed out enough, always on edge, knowing that one way or the other, neil is going to hurt him again. he’s already waiting for his dad to hurt him, he doesn’t need the added stress of waiting for nosferatu to hurt him too. and while max is 100% nosferatu’s favorite, it likes billy too. billy’s been handling it since it could fit in the palm of his hand, it trusts him much more than it trusts susan and doesn’t know any different when billy takes it out of the closet when max isn’t around.

billy frees nosferatu at an abandoned farm. there are always bats flying out of the old silo adjacent to the dilapidated barn. while he knows nosferatu isn’t a *normal* bat, it’s still bat like enough that he thinks it might make friends and be happy here…

yeah, that doesn’t stick. before long, nosferatu is feasting on that colony. leeches the blood out of a couple bats nightly. the number of bats increases with nosferatu’s size. meanwhile, max mourns her missing friend. she’s sullen af and won’t speak to susan at all. she thinks susan is the one who got rid of nosferatu. billy never fesses up and susan doesn’t contradict max’s assumption bc she wants the step-siblings to get along.

neil, meanwhile, is getting more comfortable. those maroon flags are slowly but surely brightening to scarlet. he starts sabotaging susan’s plans with her friends, trying to keep her around the house more and more, quietly but steadily eroding her relationships with other people. he’s getting more visibly aggressive when he disciplines billy. he curses him out with a virulent venom that dunks susan’s stomach in ice water and scares max so badly, she runs to susan and hides behind her even though she’s still so mad that susan got rid of her beloved baby vampire.

nosferatu’s appetite surpasses what the bat colony can offer. it’s like the size of a ten yr old human child now. fucker’s big. it doesn’t just have fangs on top, but tusks on bottom. it can’t go out in the sunlight anymore, the sun sears its flesh. it misses max a lot and before, it wasn’t strong enough to fly back to her house. but now it is. it’s extremely strong, actually.

so bc it's hungry, nosferatu grabs a snack along the way. some nameless rando, it swoops down and sucks dry. nourished and much happier, nosferatu makes its way back home. patiently waits outside of max’s bedroom in the moonlight, tapping its hook against the window until she wakes up. initially max is a lil startled— nosferatu looks so different, there’s a beat before she recognizes it— him?? yk, ig it’s male, the og nosferatu was a guy. sure, why not, nosferatu is a boy now.

once she realizes who it is, she is so! happy! max opens the window and embraces her friend. she isn’t freaked out by the blood on its fangs. she’s always known nosferatu is a vampire, albeit, she was thinking he’d look more like dracula than this bat-monster-thingy.

nosferatu moves back into max’s closet. it hangs upside-down from her rod by its weird, elongated feet. we get more shots of nosferatu sucking rando ppl dry at night, tho he remains gentle with max. when max drags billy in to show her he came back, nosferatu is less friendly with him. he’s not aggressive with billy, but he is standoffish. nosferatu’s thought process is somewhere between human and animal. he doesn’t quite cognitively understand that billy took him to the farm with the intent of getting rid of him, but he does understand that the last time he clung to billy, billy left him alone and never came back. max puts two and two together, and realizes it was billy who “stole” her friend. she yells at him a lot, he yells back, she then ices him out.

billy acts out bc he’s upset. runs away, thinks he’s going to find his mom…the cops find him first and call neil. neil is rly embarrassed and pissed abt the whole thing. he breaks down and beats billy in front of the mayfields for the first time. nosferatu smells the blood and it’s time for the main event! we love dead!neil, yes, we do.

nosferatu flies out the closet and right into the living room where billy’s bleeding and teary but biting his lip so they don’t actually fall. susan’s covering max’s eyes but so shocked and tbh, FRIGHTENED, she doesn’t move a muscle beyond that. neil’s got the belt raised, preparing to bring it down again, and nosferatu smashes right into him. neil stumbles, turns back to see this freaky monster looking thing. proceeds to whip the belt at nosferatu. tries to fight him off with the belt and it doesn’t accomplish much beyond pissing him off more— nosferatu, like most classic vampire types, has a healing factor!

max rips her mom’s hands off her face in time to see her pet sink its fangs into her stepdad’s throat. nosferatu sucks neil dry. billy’s a little dazed, not quite frightened. susan is just dead ass frozen, too scared to scream, even. nosferatu crawls over to billy and nudges at him, making sure he’s in once piece and forgiving him in the same go. max darts over and that snaps susan out of her stupor, but she isn’t as fast as our blood-sucking bat monster.

nosferatu stretches his wings out and with a truly impressive wingspan, hugs both of the kids. <3

horror movie #2: a haunting! this one opens with a bang. it’s a tragic horror, beware. we’re in hawkins post s3. billy died at starcourt mall. neil’s obvi had a longstanding abusive mindset and abusive behavior, but he rly takes his grief out on susan and max. mostly susan. she does her best to protect max however she can, whether that means shielding her w her body, sending her out of the house, getting neil’s goat to inspire his ire in max’s place, etc. but sue simply isn’t around all the time and when she isn’t, but max is, well. yk.

one day neil comes home early (bc he lost his job for a violent outburst, tbh) and discovers susan packing a suitcase.

sue fights hard. she rly does. but neil is bigger, heavier, crueler, and to boot, he caught her completely unawares. he kills her. and no, no it’s not some accidental thing where neil makes one bad move rage-blind. he strangles her with his belt. she’s clawing at his arms and making these horrible choked, trapped animal noises. thrashes and twists her body with everything she has trying to get him off but he’s so strong, his grip is unrelenting, and she's growing weaker, lightheaded with the lack of oxygen. strangulation can induce incontinence and when susan blacks out, her piss streams to the hardwood— neil hears that as much as he felt the clawing and heard the noises, even now he could stop, but he doesn’t. he just. doesn’t think his wife has the right to leave him, esp not after his son just did.

neil burns the body and the suitcase in the woods while max is at school. max has been spending as much time as she can (and often with sue’s prompting) outside of the house, so it actually takes her about two days to realize her mother isn’t around. neil tells a pretty convincing story about how susan abandoned them, voice saturated with apology and sorrow. he takes her out for a fancy dinner and promises he’s going to be a better father-- that being a better father is the least he can do now that her mother abandoned her and they are alone in their grief.

max doesn’t know what to think. she’s been preoccupied with her own grief and pain. she finds it hard to believe her mother would just leave her to neil’s wrath. she has a lot of hangups with susan and anger toward her for marrying neil and not getting them out sooner, but she’s also old enough to realize there would be risks involved with that. it’s hard to reconcile the memory of her mother just last wk pinning max to the wall to protect her from neil’s blows with her own bod just abruptly taking off without a word in the middle of the night. but hey, maybe that’s why susan left. maybe she got sick of protecting her, maybe the pain got to be too much and she turned tail.

but also…it’s early october now, abt three months after billy’s death but still fairly warm outside. yet neil is wearing long sleeves. neil never used to button his collared shirts all the way up, and yet. every collar is buttoned. also, mom’s car is still here. why would mom leave without her car?

that ceramic pelican she loved so much is still here too, on the mantle in the living room. it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing she would leave behind, she's had it since max was a baby.

max almost wants to believe neil because she’d rather her mother abandoned her than be dead somewhere, rotting in a storage locker or a hole in the ground. under the earth with the worms, just like billy. max has the worst feeling low in the pit of her gut. she thinks she knows the truth. she thinks abt going to hopper and hesitates bc she’s not sure she could handle it if he actually found smth. or what would happen to her if he did, where she would be sent, who she would end up with.

this movie would be more on the ambiguous end of things. an arthouse horror, if u will.

the days turn into wks and neil is crawling in his skin. the viewer isn’t sure if the shadows he’s seeing, always, always susan-shaped shadows, are of a ghostly nature or if he’s just hallucinating out of guilt. but the signs gradually point to the former— that smth paranormal is indeed going on. bc those scratches and bite marks susan left in his skin?

they do not heal. they do not get infected. they do not become necrotic. but they do not heal, either. days turn into wks and the wounds still look fresh, like she just left them moments ago. neil can’t wear light colors anymore because his wounds weep red into the fabric. he isn’t just seeing susan’s shadows either, he’s smelling her.

he washes his sheets and pillowcases a dozen times and the scent of her shampoo, her lotion, it’s like it’s woven into the fibers. he walks into the hallway and chokes on the aroma of susan’s perfume. he wonders if max is screwing with him, if max figured it out and she’s trying to torture him into a confession. one day he stomps off to max's bedroom, furious, adamant on confronting her. he grabs her doorknob, prepared to yank it open and then lets out a yelp, jerking his hand back with a sudden sharp pain.

it feels like a bee sting (which would be esp bad for this fucker in anything i write, bc i headcanon him as being allergic). but there’s no stinger. no injury. nothing. neil is freaked out enough that he backs down.

max, on the other hand, is getting gentler signs. when she turns the radio dial in the camaro, it’s somehow always her mom’s favorite songs that come thru the speakers. when she goes to pull clothes out of her drawers in the morning, she discovers that the things she’d just shoved inside in wrinkled balls are perfectly folded, neat as a pin, exactly like how susan always folded. susan was always fond of cardinals and suddenly max is seeing cardinals, pretty red cardinals, in just abt erry tree and shrub.

neil wakes up one night to his wife’s voice whispering “boo” right in his ear. he throws the covers off and discovers ashes in the bed. he doesn’t smell susan’s shampoo or lotion anymore, he smells the kerosine he’d poured all over her body.

his wounds still won’t heal. whenever he looks in the mirror, he catches a glimpse of susan walking past behind him, peering at him from her peripheral. he whips around, heart hammering, but there’s never any tangible person there.

max is almost certain her mother is dead at this point. neil’s been so bizarrely nice to her lately. she never believed in ghosts but her experiences with the upside-down broadened her perception of reality. she doesn’t know how else to explain the songs, the cardinals, the folded clothes. the way that these days, whenever she does feel fear toward neil, it just fades away. her fear melts like popsicles in the sun, immediately replaced by the sensation of a warm, maternal hug, as if arms she can’t see are trying to reassure her she truly doesn’t need to be afraid of him anymore.

in fact, max feels so unafraid of neil and brave, that one night she calls him out on it. he’s grizzled and unshaven in his recliner, beer in hand. she steps in front of the television he’s vacantly fixated on and folds her arms across her chest.

“you killed my mom, didn’t you?”

quick as a flash, neil leaps to his feet. he brings his arm back like he’s going to strike her and susan’s ceramic pelican on the mantle explodes into shards. the lights flicker, the television program cuts to snow with a static roar. every other knickknack on the mantle rattles and framed photos tumble off the wall.

neil very wisely lowers his hand. he slumps, boneless. he doesn’t say a word. max sees the answer in his eyes. it’s the dead of night and she snatches the camaro keys off the hook, marching out of the house, slamming the door behind her. it’s the dead of night and she doesn’t care. she’s going to blow past every stop sign and pound on the chief’s door until he opens up. and fuck, i just realized if this is post s3 he’s supposed to be in russia. shit. i don’t watch this show, but i know abt russia bc i DID watch the clips of that demogorgon that i rly hope isn’t stuck in captivity!! okay, but let’s pretend that didn’t happen?

it’s an au?? i mean, errything i write is always technically an au anyway, bc when i write stuff susan has an actual personality and billy isn’t *completely* abhorrent. okay, so it’s an au and mr. hopper didn’t blow up and un-blow up in russia. he’s still here. so max drives to his house.

she pounds on the door so hard this guy snaps outta bed, thinking someone’s trying to bust it down. she tells him neil confessed to killing her mom. it isn’t true, exactly, but he didn’t have to. so it’s a helluva grim drive back to cherry lane, this time in the cop car.

but when they go inside, chief prepared to arrest neil, no need. neil’s hanging from the belt he strangled susan with, shirtless for the first time since that night, erry seemingly fresh furrow and bite mark on full display. below his dangling feet is a map, the area he burned susan’s corpse in circled in red marker. did he kill himself or did the ghost do it?

up to u, we soundlessly cut to credits without a concrete answer to that question.

horror movie #3: crossover special! stranger things meets the chilling adventures of sabrina. sequel to that fic i wrote where susan makes out with lilith, queen of hell, and lilith kills neil for her. sue officially joins the church of lilith. bc in this ‘verse the church of lilith actually happens after caos s2 instead of the nonsense that was s3 and the inconceivably godawful migraine-inducing shit-fest that was s4.

killing neil was lilith’s only freebee. susan isn’t a witch, she’s a mortal, so in order to reap the other rewards of worshipping the one and only mother of demons, she has to fornicate with the witches and participate in the sacrifices!!!

this is, uh, well. it’s p much a porno, dude, sorry. 😅

this is just an excuse for susan to have sex with lilith, zelda, marie, hilda, big witch orgies + susan. witches bathing in the blood of their sacrifices, susan so nervous and timid but unable to deny her desire. the witch’s dressing her in their gothic garb.

how does the rest of the fam get it on this?

max joins the church too. she has more age-appropriate conduct with sabrina and the weird sisters, and what have you. just smooches and over-the-clothes groping, and whatnot, even tho the weird sisters, at least, would be interested in going further if given the opportunity.

billy dies in starcourt again, so he gets revived in the cain pit! hilda is the one who goes to him after bc she’s been in the cain pit many a time (i am still BIG side-eyeing zelda for repeatedly murdering her sister since childhood). hilda understands how jarring it can be to come back. suddenly alive!billy is freaking tf out but she brings him inside the mortuary, wraps him up in a big blanket burrito and they have a talk. hilda explains that he’s going to be okay and rubs his back while he tentatively sips the hot chocolate she made.

after billy’s calmed down, she brings max and susan in. max and susan can’t do as much magic as the caos witches— they’re mortals, after all, it’s not in their nature —but they’ve gained some abilities thru being in the church, following the rituals, and being carnally involved with the immortal witches. max happily shows him some of her new magic tricks.

horror movie #4: another crossover with caos. heavily inspired by creepshow episode s2e1, model kid (which i already v blatantly referenced in the last axe snafu update and i’m not ashamed, bc it’s a good series i love v much).

billy picks max up from the byers’ place rly late one night. it’s dark and the weather is bad and okay, yeh, he might be a little high. and a little concussed. he pissed neil off pretty bad the other day and okay, actually he’s defo concussed bc he doesn’t even remember what he did wrong!

needless to say, they take a wrong turn somewhere. they end up in greendale. at first max is pissed. she yells at him a lot! yells so loud hilda can hear them thru the walls of dr. cerberus’s comic shop/diner. she goes outside to see what all the fuss is abt, hilda never rly ignores youth in need. we love hilda, she deserved so much better…i’m getting distracted, okay, back to the story.

hilda ushers them inside. max is like, “ooh, comics? horror junk and comics? nvm, i’m not mad anymore.” she pats billy’s arm and wanders away to go check stuff out! hilda makes billy sit down. caos canon established that she’s psychic, at least when she wants to be. she smells the weed but she also sees his life, his trauma. billy doesn’t remember what he did to piss neil off or the abuse that followed, but hilda sees it clear as day.

he’s rude and cranky w her when she probes a little too much for his liking. hilda gently but firmly reprimands him and gets him a milkshake on this house. then she goes to check on max. she steers max to a v particular section of the shop, the one that sells model kits. now, max isn’t *huge* into model kits BUT they are p neat and she enjoys them well enough. more so when the weather is nasty and she can’t go outside. or when she needs smth to do with her hands (a trait she shares w susan) to distract herself and ease some of the anxiety when she hears her brother being beaten or her mother being shouted at.

max is actually rly impressed by the array of models. vintage ones and newer ones. monsters, slashers, final girls, tiny accessories like knives and bloodied heads. but when she gets to the paint-your-own shelf, her jaw drops to the floor.

there’s one that looks just like neil. unpainted, plain gray vinyl, but undoubtedly her stepdad. the expression on the five inch figurine is one frozen in fear.

“i think that one’s calling to you,” hilda prompts her, with the softest smile.

max blinks away her bewilderment altho she still can’t speak. she turns to hilda and turns her empty pockets inside out. hilda just waves her hand. she tells her it’s on the house. that it wouldn’t be fair if she gave billy smth on the house, but not max.

speaking of billy, when he finishes his milkshake, he’s suddenly totally sober and healed!! no more high buzzing in his blood. no more pounding headache or concussion fogging his mind. he doesn’t feel his bruises anymore, rolls his sleeve up, and realizes they simply aren’t there anymore. like they dissolved off his skin.

albeit it’s muttered under his breath, but billy does thank hilda. then he and max are on their way. max shows him the suspiciously familiar figurine in the box. this night cannot get weirder.

max knows what to do with the model kit. she does. she isn’t sure how she knows, but she does. she grapples with it for a long time. neil’s the closest thing she has to a dad these days. and things aren’t bad all the time, ofc.

sometimes neil gives max a ride when mom and billy aren’t available. sometimes he brings her ice cream entirely unprompted. neil’s the one who picks max up off the sidewalk when she wipes out super bad on her skateboard, carries her inside and then later to the car when her cut doesn’t stop bleeding and she ends up needing stitches.

but most of the time he sucks. she can’t rly be herself around him. he's indifferent to her interest at best, scornful at worst. he would hate all her friends. he scares the shit out of her when he’s angry. he doesn’t have a problem belittling her mother in front of her, tearing susan to shreds and making her out like she’s lower than dirt, the most worthless person on the planet. doesn’t have a problem beating billy in front of her or glaring at her with the promise that she’ll be next if she dares to voice her dissent.

max doesn’t always want to do what she knows she’s meant to do with the model. bc she's kind at heart and bc on the good days, she genuinely does have mixed feelings toward neil. never enough to hope he'll be better, he's proven he won't...but maybe enough to hope he won't get worse, either.

then comes the night neil breaks ribs. bad, like we’re talking, a-sharp-spear-of-broken-rib-punctures-billy’s-lung-and-he’s-coughing-up-blood-bad. that’s a trip to the emergency room. in the days that follow, at her next dnd meeting w the party, max places the fully and attentively painted model of her stepdad on the table. normally her pals would protest her derailing the intended game, but they can sense it, yk, that smth is different.

max takes over as dungeon master to the protest of no one, all other mouths sealed as if bewitched and spellbound. she narrators a scene where the demogorgon devours neil and uses the demogorgon piece and the model for demonstration.

when max returns home, neil is strewn across the house in gory chunks and torn wallpaper curls around massive claw marks.

[falcqns]

Free Fall

Pairing: Henry Cavill x reader (first person pov)

Chapter Summary: You and Henry have a good talk about your future, and Henry propositions you.

Warnings: swearing, mentions of mental illness (ppd, insomnia, anxiety), mention of stepparent, mention of deadbeat father.

A/N: this one is very personal to me. i understand that not everyone’s father has left, and that not everyone has an amazing stepdad like i do, but i thought i’d worked with the plot. i hope you enjoyed! I also apologize for these chapters being so short, i’m battling PPD, and trying to kill time before my daughter wakes up lol

chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four |

chapter four

It was 4:30 am and you were awoken by the sound of your daughter crying out for you. But, as you moved to get up, Henry placed his hand on your shoulder to keep her in place.

“I’ll get her, you stay,” He whispered, and pressed a kiss to your temple. You sat up just in time to see Henry lifting your daughter out of her bassinet. You looked over at Henry and noticed he was only wearing underpants, which made you blush. You had never seen him this bare before. You had seen him without a shirt on, but not without pants.

“Good morning!” He cooed at her, and placed her against his chest. “Did you have a good sleep?”

Lavender smiled and waved her arms around on Henry’s chest. He smiled and brought her over to you so you could feed her. You pulled your daughter into your arms, and got her attached to your breast, before settling back against the headboard.

Henry got back into bed, and placed a hand on your leg under the covers, his thumb rubbing back and forth.

You noticed that every once in a while he would glance down at Lavender and then back up at you with a smile on his face, the biggest one you had ever seen on him.

“What?” You questioned him with a giggle.

He shrugged. “You’re beautiful like this. With her in your arms. She’s beautiful. And it’s hard to believe that you went through your pregnancy all alone, and gave birth alone-,” He said, but you interjected before he could finish.

“I didn’t go through labour alone. I had my mom and cousin in the room with me,”

Henry tilted his head to the side, with a knowing look on his face. “You know what I mean,” He said, and lifted his hand from your thigh to the hairs on Lavenders head. “You didn’t have her dad, or someone like that there for you. And you’re still so happy about being a mom, and in general.”

You scoffed. “I am definitely not happy all the time.”

Henry narrowed his eyes at you, his hand not moving from Lavenders hair.

“What do you mean?” He asked, slightly afraid of the answer.

“I have post partum depression. It’s not fun in any way. It means I get intense mood swings, I cry over nothing, I have intense anxiety and anxiety attacks, and I can barely sleep at night. I barely have enough energy after filming on top of it too.” You whispered, and Henry immediately sat up.

“Y/N, baby, I hate that you have to go through that, especially alone. I want to help you. Help take some of the stress of off you.” He said, as he wrapped an arm around you, and slid his thumb that still sat on Lavenders head, down her nose, like he had done yesterday. She unlatched momentarily to smile at Henry, before returning to her meal.

“Are - are you sure? I don’t want to force you into something you’re not ready for,” You whispered, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “We’re a lot of work.” You joked. He chuckled, and leant down to press a kiss to Lavenders head.

“I’d want nothing more. I know she’s biologically not my child, and I literally have only known her less than 24 hours, but I want to get to know her, and raise her with you.” He said, his gaze not leaving Lavender.

You sniffles, but nodded, and pressed a kiss to Henry’s soft lips. “We’re all yours. But, can you promise me something?” You asked apprehensively.

“Of course,” He said, pressing another kiss to your head, and Lav’s.

“C-can we not tell her that she’s not yours? Atleast until she’s a grown up?” You asked. Immediately Henry smiled.

“Of course, angel. Can I ask why?” He questioned, and you nodded.

“I just- my father left before I was born, much like hers did. I have an amazing stepdad, who you’d know as my dad.” Henry nodded, remembering when he met him. “He always assures me I’m his daughter and nothing will change that, but growing up and knowing that I wasn’t truly his always bothered me. Especially when my siblings were born. It didn’t bother me majorly, just once in a while. I don’t want her to go through that.”

You heard Henry left out a breath. “I would do anything for you and her. I’ll adopt her. I’ll raise her like my own. Because we may not be family by blood, but we’re family by heart, and both you and I know that that’s all that matters. The people that you love, that’s your family, baby.”

You were full out crying now, and Henry pulled you closer. “Thank you,” You whispered.

“You’re welcome my love.” Henry answered, as Lavender finished her meal, and moved away from your nipple.

“Do you wanna hold your daughter again?” You whispered with a smile on your face. Henry nodded, tears brimming in his eyes.

He took her from your arms, bent his knees, and laid her little body against it.

“Hi, baby girl, I’m your daddy,” He whispered.

The three of you spent the rest of the morning in bed together before venturing to the kitchen. Henry hadn’t let go of Lavender since he took her out of your arms earlier that morning. He also kept pressing kisses to her head, which melted your heart.

You finally managed to convince him to put her in the high chair so he could make his coffee. He laid her down, and gave her lots of kisses before venturing away.

Neither of your felt like cooking, so you settled on cereal for breakfast. Lavenders eyes drifted over to you two every once in a while.

“Do you have to go and take care of Kal?” You mentioned.

He looked at his watch. “Oh shit yeah. Why don’t you two come with me? It pretty warm, we could take her swimming in my pool. We won’t be able to do that in a few weeks when we leave to go film in Europe.” He suggested.

You smiled. “I agree.”

The two of you finished your meals, and you packed the diaper bag while Henry distracted the baby.

Once everything was ready, Henry strapped the baby into her car seat. He put the pack and play, along with the diaper bag into his car. While you were digging around for the spare base you had for her car seat, he was making her smile with her stuffed Winnie The Pooh.

Finally, you found it, and showed Henry how to install it in his car, and how the car seat worked with it, then you guys were off to his house.

You had been there before many times, but you always forgot how big it was. He pulled into his garage, and immediately went to the back door to get his daughter out.

‘his daughter.’

That thought blew your mind. Just a few days ago, you were a single mom, struggling with post partum depression, with a baby only a handful of people knew about. Today, you had amazing co stars who immediately accepted your daughter and you even though you hid her from them, and most importantly, you had Henry. He was your boyfriend, the father of your child, your best friend, and your support system. It blew your mind how everything was falling together.

[danurso]

I'm not sure if i'm going to keep writting

I'm the type of guy who likes to work in my stuff at my own lazy pace, which is why most of my stories take awhile to go out, but i loved to write them so i kelt working on them despite knowing how it's hard for me to keep a storyline going, but right now, i don't know if i can keep writting.

Recently i've lost my cat, which is something i know a lot of people go through, they lose their pets, suffer for a while and then move on, but my cat wasn't just a pet to me, he was my best friend and seemed to be smarter than a lot of the people that "care" about me.

On the last decade i saw family members die, my grandmother found out sye has cancer and my biological dad got covid, and yet, i couldn't bring myself to feel anything thanks to a tendency to build barriers to keep everyone out, the only ones i don't have barries with are my mother and my cat, which is why when i woke up a few days back with my mother crying saying he was dying i was devastated, i kneeled next to him watching him barelly being able to breathe and crying for i have no idea how long. Last time i felt like this was more than a decade ago when i lost my grandfather and my stepdad, my two father figues who raised me.

And of course, we have the irony as well, because my life is apoarently a very funny joke to someone. I've always dreamed of having a gaming PC when i was a kid and spend a lot of free time researching and planning how i would build my own when i had the chance, and a few weeks back i got that chance and bought everything i needed to build it. I was over the moon about it, could barelly sleep because of how excited i was, and then an hour after he dies, while i'm still crying and feeling worse than shit, the parts arrive for me to make my dream come true........are you fucking serious?

Not to mention the complete and utter slap on the face that my mother gave me, I don't blame her, she saw her usually cold son suffering like she hadn't seen in years, so she left and came back with a fucking new cat. I know she was panicked and just wanted me to feel better, but the moment i put my eyes on it my blood started to boil, i wanted to scream at her and ask what the fuck she was thinking, but since i'm not a braindead snowflake who thinks my feelings matter more than those of the poeple around me, i just took a deep breath and went to my room.

She brings the cat to me sometimes and gushes about how cute he is, but every time i look at it all i can feel is a slap on my face and a voice screaming on my head "HE'S FUCKING DEAD!!" My mom even told me the 'tragic' story of the cat, about how he's been on the adotpion home for a year now and nobody wanted him, how he went straight to my mom and how the lady said that "he was just waiting for her to come pick him up" which was nauseating for me to hear, she at the end said he was not the cat i lost but asked if i could love him as well, i've always been on a messed up emotional state, even more now than ever, but i've always been honest to her so i told her i wouldn't love it, She then started to cry and got angry at me, repeating his story and saying that now she would give it back to the adoption home, it once more pissed me off how she was angry because i didn't care about a new cat that she brought home a few hours after i lost the cat i saw being born and loved more than anything on this world. She was bluffing of course and the cat is still there, i don't get close to it but it seems to like my room so i usually keep it closed, and if it gets in i'll just gently pick him up and leave him on the corridor, i also usually give him food and water even thought i don't like him since again, i'm not a braindead snowflake, i might hate him but i'm not gonna watch him starve or treat him baddly, he's not at fault here so i treat him well while keeping the most distance i possibly can.

So yeah, i still feel like shit, i cry from time to time, i don't feel like getting up or eating, i have now a built PC but don't feel like playing on it, just got an heirloom on apex (because why the hell wouldn't i in this wonderful week?) And am not playing very much, and above all, i hadn't wrote a single word ever since i lost him, and i don't even know if i will keep on the writting.

Writting has been one of my biggest passions for years now, i've wrote enough stuff on private to fill almost three entire bibles, not counting the promots i post here, so i do want to keep writting, but every single day it gets harder to do anything i like, i haven't wrote a thing for any of my sotries and even for my OC's that i enjoy writting every now and then, so yeah, i wanna keep going but if you never see me posting again you already know why.

Sorry if this was a long post but i needed to get this off my chest, i feel like posts like these are stupid coming from me, but i at least wanted to clarify things in case i stop writting completely, i wanna try and keep going, once i get my head in place again i'll sit down and try to get some stories done, i love writting and i don't wanna stop, but in case i can't do it, i just want you guys to know you're all awesome, thank you for all the support and nice messages you left in my stories, they always make me smile when i'm feeling down. I hope i can make more stories you can enjoy in the future.

[wh6res]

“𝑰’𝑴 𝒀𝑶𝑼𝑹 𝑳𝑰𝑮𝑯𝑻, 𝒀𝑶𝑼𝑹 𝑶𝑵𝑳𝒀 𝑺𝑨𝑽𝑰𝑶𝑼𝑹.”

part of the 21 ways to kill your lover collab hosted by the lovely miss solange @du0tine

pairing. entity! xdj & f! reader | word count. 5.4k

synopsis. he wasn’t a god, he wasn’t a devil, and fuck, he’s surely not an angel, but he will be your saviour and your light ‘till kingdome come.

warnings. tread with caution. yandere/possesive themes, religious themes, violence, mentions of gore, swearing, mentions of ptsd, mentions of physical abuse, a lot of character deaths, manipulation, stalking, and implications of suicide

disclaimer. i do not condone whatever tf i wrote in this nor does it reflect my beliefs or values or morals and such. it is all pure fiction and i also dont think xiaojun from wayv would act like this in real life.

a soul’s vulnerability gives him strength. he has scourged far and wide and has yet to encounter a soul as interesting as yours. he never thought a heart filled with hatred and a fragile mentality can be such a sweet combination. xiaojun would be stupid not to latch his greedy talons onto you.

he hides in the darkest corners of your room at night, unseen and unheard, just watching over you like a predator to his poor unsuspecting gazelle before diving into the anticipated chase. 

he moves in with you into the cheap apartment you got for yourself here in the big city—which he thinks is an awful move because of how lonely it’ll be. but hey, it wasn’t anyone’s fault that you got chased out of your own home by your stepdad, your very own biological mom too scared to say a peep of defense to your name. 

your downfalls became xiaojun’s highlights. 

he would’ve felt sorry for you after finding out about that abusive old man. ugh, he scowls. your stepdad makes the entity’s blood boil and he doesn’t even have blood to begin with. the same man who holds the bible in his left hand when he preaches sermons for the people, is the same hand he uses to hit you across the face. 

the same hand he uses to pull at your hair. the same hand he uses to punch your gut. the same hand he uses to shove your mom down when she tries interfering. 

xiaojun may hate men of god but above all, he absolutely detests the kind your old man is—a faker, who thinks he can get away with the shit mess he’s making. xiaojun would never take that preacher’s murky soul even if he offered it to the entity voluntarily. fake. fake. fake. fake. fake. xiaojun should’ve killed him. xiaojun should’ve slit his throat. xiaojun should’ve torn his eyes out—

ah, ah, ah.

he can’t afford to make you any less vulnerable than you already are, now, can he? after all, he can be anything you want but he’s no angel. 

so he watched from the sidelines. 

watched you cry. watched you bleed. watched your scars form. watched the hate and resentment you have for your own family fester in your heart until it grew to a size you can’t hide within yourself anymore. 

and then you left home. 

xiaojun has to admit, for a second, maybe leaving home will make your soul unworthy, will break the mold he’s already had of you and will completely spoil his well-thought out plans.

so really, he can only scoff when he watches you walk around the apartment wearing that pretty dress on a sunday morning, darting around with calculated steps to shove everything inside your bag to go to church. the dress hangs nicely against your skin but he’d rather you stay and wear nothing. 

maybe you’d finally find contentment and happiness in this place, in this city, on your own. soaring high without a cage, without someone to hold you back—these things fill his thoughts like a plague until you come barging back into the door 30 minutes later. 

he’s been watching you long enough to know church service wouldn’t end for another 30 minutes or so. xiaojun’s eyebrows quirk up. why would his fragile little gazelle come back oh so early? but his question is immediately answered when he detects your shaky breaths and the unshed tears in your glistening eyes

you’re suffering the post-traumatic effects your shit stepdad has caused. seeing another preacher must’ve been a trigger, he thinks, eyeing you with a look on his face. xiaojun felt a little stupid. of course, swimming to the surface will be tough with all that trauma anchoring you down.

it’ll be tough, indeed… so why not sink you even deeper?

it didn’t take much energy for him to start manipulating your dreams. every nap, every deep sleep, he’d replay all the horrible things your stepdad has done to you and he realizes how dreams depicted from his perspective took a larger toll on you versus the ones from your own point of view—witnessing for yourself how weak and helpless you had been seemed to chip away bigger parts of you, he notices. your terrified screams when waking up in cold sweat getting louder and louder with every passing nightmare.

he pushed, and pushed, and pushed until you were standing right at the edge of sanity. until you start questioning your own self-worth and judgment, the invisible chains of the trauma too strong to break. until your radiant skin looked deathly, with gaunt cheeks and white lips. until you developed a fear of sleeping because no, you don’t want to witness those horrors again. no. no. no. no, please don’t hit me—

xiaojun can’t help but admire his handiwork but no, he doesn’t have time for that! 

the next time you fell asleep you had been desperately holding onto your 5th bottle of gatorade like it was a torch breaking through the darkness. you’ve intake so much of the energy drink that your body has grown used to it. you would’ve switched to caffeine, but from how much you drank it prior to the energy drinks, your blood is practically coffee at this point. 

“you’re living in my house now, young lady! i’d like to see some respect from your or i’ll fucking beat it into you!”

“stop! please. hit me instead, hit me!” 

“this is all your fault, bitch! how can you raise one daughter wrong? no wonder your husband left you!”

murky and black, you can’t even see the bottom at this point. it keeps pulling you down, and down, and down, until you couldn’t breathe. until your head feels light. until your heart beats erratically within your ribcage as you fought to the surface. 

with all the negative emotions surging through you in thunderous waves, it’s a wonder how no other lonesome, starving entity has latched onto you like xiaojun. although realistically, he was here first, as if he’ll let any other being like him go near you.

it took a greater amount of energy to twist and manipulate the plotline of certain events in a dream. if xiaojun hadn’t grown strong from all your negativity, he’d never be able to do it. 

he can never forget the day he first appeared to you in a dream. to have you cling onto him as you willingly took his hand—not that he was caught by surprise, anyway. every second of every hour of every day xiaojun spent plotting your demise has led to this fruitful day of “meeting” you for the first time. 

“i’m right here,” he said, shaking fingers tracing over your cheeks. a soft caress you have never experienced. 

the man in your dreams is someone you’ve never met before—you’re positive that you haven’t because you’d never forget a face as handsome as his. he appears like an angel casted over divine light, with a soft smile that can cure the plague as he offers his hands for you to take. it was beautiful, how your nightmares turned into dreams the moment the mysterious man arrived. 

how’d you ever know, that the hand you grabbed is the wolf in sheep’s clothing?

it’s sad really, how you’ve only managed to escape one horror only to jump into the next but xiaojun can’t find it in himself to feel bad. well, maybe a little, it’s a fleeting thought. something that disappeared as quickly as it had passed by.

it was only after a few weeks of constantly appearing in your dreams did his plan start to backfire. the change in your behavior isn’t subtle, either, and it angered him all the more. he didn’t see this coming, not even from lightyears away.

simple to say you’ve grown a little more… how can xiaojun put this into words? well, a little more outgoing. adventurous. meeting new people and going to new places and experiencing new things. he can see everything as clear as day—you were healing from your past, leaving the dark chapters in your life to write newer and brighter ones that revolved on having actual healthy relationships for once. 

his seething anger of his failed plans had made all the windows in your apartment burst into thousand little pieces. if you had fine china dishes displayed on your kitchen cabinets he would’ve broken those too. how can you go against him like this? look at you all happy and smiley even as the room turned ice cold because of xiaojun’s suffocating presence. you never even thought once about it—how naive. 

tormenting you through dreams isn’t working anymore. xiaojun has to up his game if he wants to break you down and revert you back to that paranoid, sensitive, and frail self that couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and couldn’t talk to any other human being without feeling the ghost of your abusive step-father’s hands against your skin. 

who says he can only control you through mind games alone? after he’s done what needs to be done, grief and self-pity will go hand in hand. a combination so cruel and heavy on your shoulders that xiaojun can already savor the metallic tangy taste of victory. 

“no! yeji—!”

xiaojun watches unblinking when he makes one of your new friends walk out the sidewalk and right into an overspeeding car. 

tires skidding across the pavement, the breaks not working, glass shattering, bones cracking against the force of the hit—dead, right on the fucking spot.

he’s never heard you scream that loud and he shudders in pleasure as the vibrations of your shrill voice courses through his veins. 

he missed this, your complete and utter misery. 

but he wasn’t done yet. 

“don’t you think it’s a ‘lil chilly in here?” ryujin asks, looking over to your side before drinking the hot chocolate she prepared for both of you. 

grieving together with a friend can be good, hence why you’re now in her apartment a month later after yeji’s funeral. 

you answer after taking a sip. “no, not really.” 

xiaojun grins, giddy and a skip in his step while making his way towards you as he side-eyes your friend, who religiously drank her hot chocolate all the while bundling up next to you so you both can watch the movie together playing on the laptop. 

this one, well, he particularly doesn’t like this one. 

if your other friend was meant to be a casualty, a death borne from not one smidge of personal vendetta, this one, this ryujin is different. heck, he even remembers her fucking name.

no, no, no. xiaojun can feel his skin crawl as ryujin cuddles intimately closer as she stares at you from her peripheral, feeling out whether you’d react or not as she sneaks an arm around your waist. his anger turns a fever pitch, seeing you with someone else driving him up the wall. you were meant to be his sad and hopeless little gazelle and his alone.

xiaojun hoped the poison travels fast or so help him he’ll fucking rip her off of you—and he would’ve, when he saw you and ryujin slowly leaning into one another, head angled and obviously going in for a kiss. he would’ve, when one of ryujin’s hands come up to cup your face. he would’ve… until the poison reached its destination in her body, right when your lips were about to touch. 

ryujin’s lungs seized, breathing becoming an agent to her demise as the oxygen from her lungs disappear into nothingness. the last thing she saw is your horrified face, tears streaming. she swore you were shouting something, probably her name, but it’s overpowered by the incessant ring in her ears.

when her mouth foamed and she laid limp on the couch right next to you, you knew ryujin would never wake again to give you that kiss. 

xiaojun steps back to admire the havoc he wreaked. two of your friends dead, that should be enough to incapacitate you—whether it be permanent or not, he just wants to see you drown in misery. 

and as he slowly dissipates into the void, there’s a little smile on his face as he stares you down, burning the image of your histeria in his head, the echoes of your woeful cries music to his ears. 

you never dared step foot out of your apartment. 

groceries were delivered to your door, trash is slowly but surely building up, and the place was a whole mess. the entity haunting you has never seen you this… shattered, even when you left home. it was like your brain has stopped working and your body turned into nothing more but a cusp of who you used to be. 

it’s scary looking in the mirror and not recognizing the reflection—so, you painted all of them black. it was an in the heat of a moment kind of thing that took place the moment you came home from the police station, on the exact day she passed away before your eyes. 

xiaojun just has to “misplace” a few pints of paint you had used from when you renovated the apartment in the past, putting the cans where you can easily see them and think that the idea belonged to you when in reality, it’s the entity that put the idea in your head. 

there was a blanket over your shoulder when you came back from the station. it wasn’t yours, they gave it to you while you sat opposite to a stoic detective in a cold interrogation room, yet you made no move to shrug it off even after arriving at your apartment, fingers clutching the fabric like a lifeline and refusing to believe whatever that had transpired in ryujin’s apartment. 

eyes unseeing, stumbling with your steps, back hunched with the curse of the universe weighing down on your back—xiaojun couldn’t’ve been more proud of what he had done.

you were spiraling out of control. a self-destructive cycle you cannot seem to fight your way out of as your nightmares came back to haunt you. the tall waves of anxiety and paranoia drowning and pushing you under the surface. 

for once you don’t fight the current, you just let it pull you under. 

every time you close your eyes, you can hear the deafening screech of rubber tires against concrete before the car hits yeji. can vividly see the foams of the poison coming out of ryujin’s mouth as if it was caught on tape and is now playing on loop. 

your other friends have donned you as bad luck, cursed to have a fucked up life and will fuck up other people’s lives too if they get even as close as an arm length to you. too scared to lose any more people, you decided to completely push everyone away and had completely shut yourself out from the world beyond the four corners of your apartment. 

it’s like your trauma from before has come crawling back to you, only now, he brings himself a little friend called guilt. 

what are the odds that your two friends died after the other when the person they’ve each last spent time with was you? even the police found it too much a coincidence. if it wasn’t for the cctv cams in the corners of ryujin’s apartment, you’d be facing trial for a murder you didn’t commit. 

you eye the usb stuck in one of your laptop’s ports. it’s black, with an srj poisoning case written in red ink on the small patch of masking tape pasted onto the back of the plastic. 

after being stuck in an interrogation room for the last two hours, you had sneakily swiped it out of the detective's desk on your way out of the station. you remembered it was the usb with a copy of ryujin’s cctv cams, some underling busting into the interrogation room while in the middle of your questioning, holding the tiny usb between his fingers. 

your stomach churned when the detective looked at you spitefully, as if he couldn’t fucking care less of the evidence presented to him in a silver platter and would thoroughly take pleasure in throwing you in jail himself, guilty or not. the last look he shot you still sends shivers down your spine, the sharpness in his gaze as he regarded you. “you killed them. i know you did.”

a week of self-induced isolation later and you start to believe in it yourself. 

in the middle of screaming your lungs out and cursing the gods above for your sorry excuse of a life, you had thrown the usb somewhere in the apartment. not that you bothered to look for it right after, you were too busy wallowing in self pity before passing out on the living room floor. when you wake up, you’ve forgotten all about it. 

so it was interesting, seeing the usb again after days and days of wallowing in grief. you had fallen off the couch while in the middle of a slumber and you spotted the small piece of tech lying underneath it with the other empty coke cans. 

eyeing the laptop on the coffee table, you remember you haven’t taken a look at the evidence yourself—the detective had given you the stink eye when you tried shuffling closer to peep a look. carelessly, you shove all other objects off the table to pull the laptop closer. you plant yourself on the ground cross-legged, not batting an eyelash even when you feel the crumbs of chips against your skin. 

you boot the laptop on, thankful you’ve yet to forget its password, and plugged the usb in again. it was simple to navigate, to say the least, the folder popping up in a matter of seconds. you thought it stored a whole collection of her cctv footages but alas, it didn’t, saving you the time and energy scourging through unwanted boring files. 

hands shaking, you clicked on the video. 

and it was as if you’re thrown back into that event in your life that has now become a distant memory. the hug ryujin gave you when she opened the door, her words of comfort when you opened up about your deteriorating mental health after your friend passed away, and finally, the warm feel of the mug against the palm of your hand. 

wait a minute. 

you perk up from your seat, groaning aloud when your knee hits the underside of the coffee table at your haste, fingers darting around to press the back 10 seconds button. the sweat starts forming in your forehead and palms, making your hand feel clammy and disgusting but it was the last of your worries. 

did you see that correctly?

the quality is a bit low and the camera angle isn’t optimal. you can only see ryujin’s side profile but her glassy eyes are unmistakable and her actions look robotic at best. 

this is after she made your hot cocoa and had delivered it to your shivering, sniffling form on the couch, all bundled up snug and cozy in the blanket she provided. you remember ryujin winking as she walked back towards her kitchen after you thanked her. 

the way she poured poison in her own mug ruled her case as suicice. the evidence is right there in your face but the unease still sits heavy on your stomach and confusion clouds your brain like cannabis. 

this doesn’t make any sense. 

you knew her, ryujin. she’s never one to succumb to her negative emotions, always facing her problems with head held high. her overall mindset, in general, made her the last person you’d think would ever commit suicide. you’ve replayed the video a thousand times by now, still unable to wrap your head around the fact that she killed herself. 

having the sudden urge for another bottle of gatorade, you pressed the pause button as you try hauling yourself up with your arms. 

you pause. pushing your face closer to the laptop screen, rubbing at your eyes incredulously as you eye the corner of her kitchen. 

ryujin’s apartment isn’t that luxurious, nor is it too rundown, but there can be little exceptions here and there. 

like the cheap LED bulbs attached rather messily onto her ceiling, one of the six sources of light flickering on and off. you remember how many times you’ve told her to get it fixed yet she never really paid you any heed.

with shaking fingers, you replayed it one more time, hoping on everything you believe in that it wasn’t what it looks like. this can’t be it—how is that possible—

it’s him, the man who has appeared like an angel in your dream to sweep you away from evil. but standing in the corner, under the flickering lights of your friend’s kitchen, he looked anything but an angelic. 

your mind is going haywire, your body shook in confusion, and sweat started dribbling down your neck. you would’ve thought you made a mistake because how is this even possible? the angelic man in your dreams isn’t real—he can’t be real, he can’t appear like this when you aren’t even sleeping because he’s not real!

he can’t… right?

he doesn’t look too harmless, what with his hands crossed and leisurely leaning against the wall. but one look at his eyes and you know you’re wrong. even through the shit quality of the cctv footage you can still feel the fury and the absolute hate his eyes held as he stared her down menacingly, unblinking.

stared her down as she made her own cocoa, as she hunches down to open the sink cabinets to get that pesky rat poison, as she poured it on her mug, as she swirls the spoon around to mix the deadly concoction all together in a hauntingly robotic way that looked too much like ryujin was being told what to do.

and as you let the video play the rest of its content and felt like the tragedy was unfolding right before your very eyes again—you couldn’t breathe, panic gripping onto you like a vice, the sharp talons of fear sinking deep under your skin. 

you don’t register the coffee table toppling over in your haste to stand up. desperately putting a distance between you and the laptop as you turned and stumbled towards the hallway leading to your bedroom. 

you stop, pathetically landing on your knees before the open archway. if you hadn’t been shaking in fear before, then you surely were now. 

he’s here—can you even call it a he?

the man stands at the end of the hallway. in that similar, non-threatening stature with his arms crossed and body leaning against the wall. 

but the mischief in his eyes is enough of a warning. 

he’s come for you. 

he’s come to finish the job. 

“finally figured it out?”

you screamed, throwing the closest thing you can at him as you shuffle someplace else in your apartment. his laugh sounded pleasant in the ear when you were off in dreamland, but now? it sounded like nails grating against a chalkboard. 

your legs eventually led you to the front door. appearances be damned. you weren’t even wearing a bra and you haven’t showered for days but fuck no you’re not going to stay here with that—that—that monster!

“baby, don’t leave! the fun hasn’t even started yet!”

you grab the doorknob and twist, practically throwing yourself out into the hallway, eyes frantic as you stumble and land face first against—

sticky. the floor’s sticky and there was a smell you can’t seem to pinpoint. it’s tangy, metallic, and you can almost taste the scent yourself in your tongue and when you look down—you want to throw up. 

lying next to each other in pools of their own blood, lies yeji and ryujin side by side, faces towards each other. their eyes hauntingly empty and unseeing as they stared up at you. 

you shrieked, voice scratching against your dry throat as you threw yourself back into your apartment, the door slamming shut in itself. you didn’t care if there’s now a huge mess of blood staining the carpets on the foyer. you curl in on yourself, hair sticking to your face as you covered your ears and shut your eyes. 

“oh, my love…”

you felt his presence before you can hear him. 

a flashback plays in your head—hot chocolate, soft blankets, and a friend who you loved with all your heart. “don’t you think it’s a little chilly in here?"

you answered. “no, not really?”

the tears start streaming like waterfalls, mixing with the blood and sweat already caked in your face. ryujin knew, she felt it back at her apartment yet you disregarded her completely.

“it’s not your fault,” the entity’s hands are ice cold when he gently pulls at your wrist. “everything is as it should be. now, open your eyes. there’s nothing to be afraid of. i’m not going to hurt you.”

stubbornly, you shook your head as you squeezed your lids even tighter, refusing to look at the monster dead in the eye.

“don’t be like that, my love. if i wanted to hurt you, i would’ve done it a long time ago.”

you don’t listen, hunching and curling your knees even more against your torso as you try to block out his voice. it’s unfair how gentle it sounded but your blood ran cold when you realize this is how he got ryujin to poison herself, this is how he got yeji to walk in front of a speeding car—

“hail mary, full—full of grace,” you pray under your breath, shaking like a leaf. “the lord… the lord is with thee. blessed art thou among women…”

“you’re praying?” there’s an underlying mocking to e in his voice. “this is fucking hilarious!”

your incessant mumbling partnered with how you rocked your body back and forth, made something snap within xiaojun. he already stated he won’t hurt you! did he break you so much that now you’re unable to hear stuff properly, too?

“holy mary, mo—mother of god, pray for us sinners, now and—and at the hour of our death, amen. hail mary, full of grace…”

“stop.” his body twitches, having the sudden urge to pull all his hair out and burn this fucking building to the ground.

yet you continue. “the lord is with thee, blessed art thou among—among women and blessed is the… the fruit of thy womb, jesus…”

“i said stop, [name]. don’t fucking test me.”

“holy mary, mother of god—pray—pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our—”

you screeched in pain as your forehead comes in contact with a mirror, the sound of it shattering is deafening to the ears. his icy fingers let go of your nape, letting you fall hard to the ground. your ears perk up at the sound of streaming water. 

you weren’t in the foyer anymore, you feel cold tiles instead of the rough texture of the dirty carpet underneath you. eyes fluttering, you slowly pry them open, and the first thing you see is the faulty pipes found underneath your bathroom’s sink. patches of your clothes start getting wet. 

“you think a prayer of all things can stop me? i’m insulted!” you hiss when he grabs your face, hands so cold that it feels like you’re skin is burning off. “i was going to play nice.”

he pulls you towards him, hand encased around your throat. he shoves the open hair dryer into the half-filled bath tub as you feel him vibrate against you. “you don’t know how long i waited, how much energy i needed to appear to you like this.”

it’s with dread you realize that he’s actually giggling.

you whine, eyes feeling like it’ll pop out of their sockets when he squeezed your neck tighter. with a sudden rush of adrenaline, you anchor your wrists against his arm but it proves to be useless when he’s too strong. 

“please,” you wheezed. “i did… i did nothing wrong. let go—please.”

in the corner of your eyes, you stare at him from the mirror, stomach twisting in discomfort when you see him throwing his head back, eyes rolling up after taking a long whiff of your hair. “this—this fear you have, my love, only makes me stronger.”

“nothing… i did nothing wrong—please! please… let, let me go…” you’re starting to feel lightheaded, black spots floating around your vision. 

“nothing? are you sure about that?” 

you cringe when he licks up the tears in your face, toes curling at the sheer disgust you feel. but the words he spews next is far worse than the hand he’s wrapped around your throat. 

“didn’t you left your mom alone with that abusive asshole? didn’t you make yeji walk into that incoming car? didn’t you make ryujin drink that poison?”

he whispers them so softly, so gently that you almost mistook them as proclamations of love. 

“no…” your voice breaks. 

“yes. yes, you did,” he knew you like the back of his hand, knew what to say and how to say them for you to break in his arms. “you killed them, my love. you’re a murderer. you don’t even deserve to be alive after all of the things you’ve done.”

it’s almost pathetic how you shake your head, eyes closed, refusing to acknowledge the truth. 

“that’s… that’s not true…”

“you’re a curse to the people you love, the embodiment of they're suffering. don’t you see it?”

“stop lying!—”

“am i?” he retorts, maneuvering you around to face the mirror. you swore you covered the whole thing with black paint. “just look at yourself.”

oh, how badly he wants to shove your face against the mirror but he mustn't get ahead of himself. 

“did any of your friends even visit you to see how you’re doing?” no, they never did. he smiles like he knows what you’re thinking. “the answer is all before you now, my love. you need to see through the haze and accept it for what it really is. no one loves you. even the god you’re praying to didn’t answer. there’s nothing, no one, left.”

and for the first time since he has you in his tight hold, you stopped fighting. sobs wracking through your body as your shoulders slump and accept defeat. 

xiaojun automatically lets you go, cooing like a lover in your ear as he tucks you into his embrace. “you want this all to stop, don’t you? someone to save you?”

you nodded, unable to look at him as his hand came up to wipe away your tears. no one has ever done that for you in months ever since yeji and ryujin died.

“i’m here,” xiaojun says, running fingers through your hair comfortingly. “i’m your light, your only saviour. you want that, right, my love?” choice is a mere illusion but he likes keeping up with formalities. 

you fail to notice the steps he took towards the now overflowing bathtub, too lost in the new highs and lows of emotions you feel. 

“yes.”

it only took seconds to push you into the tub. its water buzzing with a live electric current brought by the hair dryer he dropped only minutes ago.

the effect is instantaneous. he watches your muscle spasm, your skin growing darker as the live water fries your body alive. quickly, xiaojun reaches down to lift your head out the water, not wanting to ruin your pretty face.

the last thing you feel is xiaojun’s cold lips pressing against your own, the gentle caress as he wiped your tears away… and the electricity finally passing through your heart. 

when the entity pulls away from your dead body, he only whispers three things—“mine, at last.”

[silverechosandblankmasks]

Decided to talk about my headcanons for Relations on the DSMP! With included family tree at the bottom :D Note, Mumza isn't canon here, Philza is a single father. Im personally uncomfortable with including irl people and backstories into the lore of the SMP and other stuff, even if we have permission. This means Drista and Tubbo's sister and any others arnt in my headcanons and lore. Philza has three sons, all adopted-Wilbur, Techno, and Tommy. He found Techno first and has been with him the longest, but Wilbur is older. (Wilbur still considers Techno the oldest.) He found Techno in the Nether (thrown out of the piglin horde for being a hybrid), Wilbur at a village (orphan crime boy tried to lift his money off him), and Tommy was dragged home by Wilbur (Phil still has no clue how they met) and Philza and Techno got attached when he lowkey refused to leave XD

Tommy met Tubbo at roughly age 13 or so when Tubbo was a street kid and brought him home. He's not considered Philza son nor Wilbur and Techno's brother (by his own choice mind you)(so basically he's not the SBI's family but he's Tommy's if that makes sense). He's lived with them a few times but Tubbo goes through periods where he straight up disappears for a few months and just wanders his own way.

Wilbur met 'Sally' when he was 18, and I mean newly baby adult Wilbur (he's been traveling for while but hasn't permanently left the world the sbi lives in yet like Techno has. Tommy is kinda doing the same but stays home more often). He found a injured and women floating in a river he stopped by and saved her, stitching her up and helping her. She said she didn't have a name he could understand so he nicknamed her Sally, for her Salmon red hair. Turns out Sally was a nature spirit and gave him a 'gift' for her thanks. That gift was Fundy becuase 'humans love babies!'. Wilbur is unaware that Sally used some of his blood to make Fundy, and thus is technically is Fundy’s bio-dad.

Fundy was raised by a couple who where friends of Philza and didn't mind the fact he was a hybrid fox who aged oddly. (I cant work out the specs but he ages fast for a few years, before gradually slowing down) They died when he was around 16 and he's been traveling ever since, electing not to go and find Wilbur until he ran into him on accident later. (he could of gone to Philza but he only met the man a few times and by then most of Philza's kids have left so he's ended up going to a new world) Niki is Eret's half sibling. Niki was raised by her mom and her stepdad. She always knew she might of had siblings but her family had no luck in trying track them or her birth dad down. She met Eret on the DSMP.

Eret is Niki's sibling. They are half siblings through their dad and didn't know they where related until they met on the DSMP. Both knew they potentially had a sibling/siblings out there. He is the oldest sibling as far as they know. Eret adopts Fundy after Wilbur died, wanting to make up for many things and genuinely wanting to see Fundy be happy. Eret adopts Ranboo, who is an orphan and their other half brother, and becomes his legal guardian. 

Ranboo is Niki and Eret's half sibling as well, the youngest and only other sibling as far as they can tell. They managed to track him down using some connections and found him in an Orphanage and brought him to Dream smp. He doesn't know his exact birthdate, but he knows its between 16 and 17 probably. He doesn't actually know if he's older then Tommy but he decided just to say so and ran with it lol. He's an endermen Hybrid and is officially adopted by Eret. 

Note- Their father was human as far as they know but Eret's eyes and some other small things didn't come from their mothers sides of the families so its assumed he had some sort of magic or something in his bloodline. Dream is an pretty much an orphan. He left home at a super young age, being a restless soul from birth, and hasn't tried to returned back once. His dad died before he left and he has a mom and maybe siblings but has no desire to ever seek them out. He considers his best friends his family and that's all that matters. He might be related to Tubbo, either through adopting a lil brother or though his parent(s) but who knows. (I only included him becuase I sometimes make him related to Tubbo lol) Bonus Tubbo Fam! (He basically adopted people rather then the other way around lol)

Captain Sparklez is Tubbos adoptive Dad. He was Tubbo's hero growing up and when Tubbo found out he was in MCC at the same time as Jorden, he sought him out before the event to talk to him. The Captain found he liked Tubbo a lot and they started running into each other outside of MCC as well. Soon Tubbo was visiting and following him around worlds for fun and Sparklez decided he was really attached to him. It wasn't until after the first Among Us Game was held (A kinda simulation meets mafia game where people have to pretend to be a murderer and the others need to figure it out) and they played together, did he really realize Tubbo was kinda like a son to him. An accident later (Tubbo nearly died, Jorden had a heart attack, it was fun) that Jorden asked to adopt Tubbo.

Note, Tubbo is like Dream in the sense he has a restlessness to him. He's always out and exploring and going to new places and worlds, but in a different way. He always feels like he's waiting and searching for something and he follows his heart and instincts when the mood strikes. Its how he found Tommy, its how he found the SMP, its how he found dad and kinda brother.

5up (or 5cup) is Tubbo's kinda adopted brother. Tubbo had been invited to a more high end Among Us actual Tournament after getting quite good at it, and met 5up who was like... why is there a Teenager? Oh he's quite good, omg why is he alone stop being assholes to him please, hey he's funny. 5up invited him to come play with them sometimes and they hit it off. (The nickname is becuase Tubbo is dyslexic and at their first game read 5's nametag wrong and it made 5up laugh so hard he let Tubbo keep doing it.) Tubbo started jokingly calling him brother and 5up started doing it back. 5up's kinda inwardly horrified at how nonchalant Tubbo is about his life and the war and his friends. He about had a heart attack when Tubbo told him was president now and might be facing another war. Jorden is no help becuase his definition of bad is also skewed, he's been though...a lot. But he doesn't like all the pain and drama he's been going though, Tubbo's his son and he knows the teen can handle himself but... he doesn't know what to do sometimes, ya know?

Captain Sparklez and 5up only know of each other for now, but Family of Family is still family. Please don't attack or come at me becuase you don't agree with my headcanons, this was just for fun XD

[bethhxrmon]

passed down like folksongs, chapter fifteen- steve x reader

[gif credit to @flyingrichardgrayson​]

chapter fifteen- time, mystical time, cutting me open and healing me fine

series summary: Living in Hawkins was never easy for anyone. However, it becomes ten times more difficult than usual when you catch feelings for one Steve Harrington. What should be a simple schoolgirl crush ends up being complicated by your step-brother, Tommy Hagan, and the mysterious goings on in the town of Hawkins. [masterlist]

pairing: steve harrington x female! hagan! reader

chapter summary: With all of the events of the Upside Down behind them, Steve finally finds it in himself to open up about the past.

warnings: swearing, hurt/comfort, fluff

word count: 3.5k

a/n: Wooo!!! Technically what I would consider the last chapter!!! Because of that, I will be uploading the epilogue tomorrow, so hopefully one of those will get to go in the steeb tag (also bc classes started up again and I don’t wanna upload in the middle of a school day okay)

~*~*~*~

It was towards the end of July when the official funeral for your step-dad was held. There had been a service for all those who were killed in the fire a week before. One you ended up getting dragged into. Not that it was bad, Steve went with you. Though, it was clear he was just as keen to be there as you were.

Though, being at an actual funeral felt somehow worse. Steve kind of felt he had been to the worst one already when he went to Billy Hargrove’s a couple of days ago. He specifically told you that you shouldn't go. That he was mostly there to watch out for the kids. It was understandable. You remembered that Hargrove had a step-sister and if Steve felt like he could be helpful, you didn’t want to intrude. Especially when you wouldn’t have known anyone all that well.

Steve also insisted on going to your step-dad’s funeral when the time came as well. Not because he thought you needed him the way you needed someone at Barb’s funeral, but because he didn’t want you to be there alone. While you would have had your mom, she was so busy dealing with all the serious arrangements that you wouldn’t have wanted to give her any stress.

The only thing she let you handle were the flower arrangements. Most of which was dark red, almost black roses and assortments of white flowers. You never knew what sorts of things he liked. In all fairness, he never bothered to tell you much.

You tried to ask Tommy, just to see if grief changed him any. It only made him angrier. Your working theory was that he was convinced his dad left everything to your mom instead of him. Which was a possibility, but you knew that he’d turn out fine. He was leaving for college and with his dad gone, you were pretty sure that you were never going to see him much again after the funeral. That only made you look forward to it that much more.

All you wanted was for him to no longer be in your life. After all the things he did and comments he made and how much he came in between you and all the things you wanted to say and do, you probably should have wanted more. Maybe it would have made sense for you to have wished he had been the one to die in the fire, but you didn’t. He was so close to being gone and you could only be glad for that.

After all, had he not gotten his dad to vouch for him, you were pretty sure he would have been staying in Hawkins like Steve. Though, you were glad Steve was staying for a while. It meant there was time for both of you. No, you were never going to get him walking up to you at your locker or have him hold your hand as he walked you to class, but that was okay. What mattered was that you had him now and it made all the difference in the world to you.

With how nice it was outside, the actual burial was taking a long time as people talked to each other, trying to console your mom for her loss. It made you want to roll your eyes out of your head.

“You know, like, a month ago all these people were still calling my mom a cheating slut behind her back,” you said, leaning up against a tree.

Steve nodded, “Yeah, I know.”

“What, were your parents saying that?”

“Uh, yeah, they did… not that I really hear them talk much,” he sighed, “But, my mom always worries that my old man’s gonna divorce her for some younger woman like Tommy’s dad did.”

You nodded, “That makes sense… I just wish people wouldn’t be so damn nice about it now. It’s so fake and patronizing. And all for some guy who wasn’t even that great anyway.”

“Do you wanna get out of here for a bit?”

“Steve, I should at least stay-”

“Not out, out. Just maybe to someone else’s grave?” he took your hand, “Come on, I think you could use a few minutes somewhere else.”

You were pretty sure you knew where he was going with this, so you went ahead and followed Steve through the cemetery. It was pretty this time of year with many trees giving shade. Families still left all sorts of flowers on graves and the grass was well-kept.

Sure enough, Steve led you right to where Barb’s headstone was. The grave was relatively well-kept, though the Hollands ended up moving to the next town over. Enough for a fresh start, but also close to where their daughter was.

“I really hope ghosts are real,” you said softly.

Steve nodded, “I’m sure they are.”

“Well, if they are… I really hope Barb’s doing okay. I- I still think about her a lot. The things I said and the things I wish I’d said instead had I known I was never gonna see her again,” you took a shaky breath, “I don’t think I’m ever going to feel like I’m actually over it.”

He wrapped an arm around you, “I know what you mean.”

“How? Sorry, I- I just… I never really thought you missed her all that much.”

“I guess it’s not that I miss her. Well, not in the same way you do. It’s more in the way I really wish I didn’t have that party. And how I miss being able to look at my pool and just see a pool. Instead, all I think about is her and whatever she must’ve gone through.”

You leaned into Steve, “Did she disappear there?”

“Probably… no one really knows how it all happened.”

Every day it felt like Steve was getting closer and closer to telling you what happened. He would let odd and end details in. Though, none of it was enough for you to figure out what happened. It was enough at this point that you were pretty sure it was worse than whatever chemical leak the lab got accused of.

Still, no matter how curious you got or how badly you wanted to know everything, you weren’t going to make Steve say anything that he didn’t want to. It was enough that you knew he was going to tell you. Or that if he never told you, it wasn’t because he was trying to dupe you. It was because he simply couldn’t bring himself to talk about every awful thing that had ever happened within the last couple of years.

“Oh, um, I think I forgot to leave this at your stepdad’s grave,” Steve said, pulling out a white chrysanthemum from the inside of his suit jacket.

You felt him press it into your hands, “Oh, did you want me to leave it here?”

“Whatever you want. You could put it in my hair if you’d like,” he suggested, grinning.

You rolled your eyes, though you couldn’t help but chuckle a bit as you knelt down and set the flower at Barb’s grave. Hopefully, she somehow knew that you still cared about her after all this time. That while it didn’t sting to the same degree, you knew that most of the damage could never be fixed. Not really.

“Is it okay if I tell you what happened to Barb?” Steve asked, sitting down on the grass.

You moved over to sit next to him, “Of course, if- if you’re ready, I wanna know.”

“Okay, well, I just don’t want you to get mad at me for not telling you when I knew. ��Cause I’ve known a lot longer than you have and I’ve beaten myself up over it every day, but I really thought that telling you the truth was going to get you hurt,” he ran a hand through his hair, “I- I know it’s stupid, but I was told I couldn’t tell you. Technically, I’m still not supposed to, but you saw what happened at the mall and… it’s all connected and you deserve to know.”

You held his hand, “Well, you’re telling me now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, you’re right, I am. Um, do you remember how Will Byers disappeared around the same time?” Steve asked.

He explained everything that he knew about the Demogorgon. At least, that was the name the kids gave it. How it went between dimensions and hunted people. It was attracted to blood and Barb had just the luck of cutting herself at his party. Something that he never thought would have been a big deal. He never even invited her, Nancy just insisted she come. In hindsight, Steve still didn’t get it, but it didn’t matter because she ended up getting killed either way.

No one knew if she died due to exposure to the other dimension or if she was eaten. Well, if anyone knew, they never told Steve about it. In all fairness, at the time he only cared about not getting into trouble for that said stupid party. He hadn’t realized how bad things truly had been.

Steve even tried to explain why he had cut you off so many times at that time. Right when you needed someone the most, he knew he couldn’t be around you when you were that hurt by what happened to Barb. It would have only made him more guilty.

“I know I shouldn’t have said those things, and you were smart for not wanting anything to do with me at the time,” Steve said.

You frowned, “You were grieving too. I never thought about that… I mean, you were still a total asshole, but I thought you were just doing it because you could. Because you wanted to just hurt me even more. I- I’m so glad that I was wrong about all of that.”

“I’m still so sorry that I said those things. That I told you she wasn’t going to come back. I knew she was dead and- well, hearing you talk about her like she just went on a road trip was hard to hear.”

You nodded slowly, “Yeah, I never really thought about that.”

“Of course you didn’t. I’d be surprised if you put all the clues together on your own. I- I wanted to tell you, just so you know. I felt awful about never telling you what happened. Like, when I saw you biking all the way out-”

“Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“Well, I um… I didn’t think you’d believe me,” he said, shrugging, “Plus, if I didn’t let you do some sort of digging, I figured you’d just try the whole thing again and- I couldn’t leave you on the side of the road like that in the first place.”

“I mean, I guess you’re right,” you admitted, squeezing his hand.

In all fairness, you wouldn’t have believed almost anything that Steve told you. Though, it made a lot more sense. That entire first year after Barb went missing made sense. How Nancy and Jonathan seemed to both be aware of something completely unknown to you, that wasn’t you going crazy. You noticed all those weird things because there were weird things happening around you.

You took a look at the watch Steve wore, “We should probably get back, or I should anyways.”

“I’ll go with,” he replied as he got up, helping you off the grass, “I heard there was supposed to be some really good food after all this funeral stuff.”

You laughed as you got up and walked back to where everyone else was. No one seemed to notice that the two of you had been gone for a while. It seemed like people really had been shaken by this happening to someone they knew. Though, most of the town was in that boat. Around thirty people had been killed by whatever happened that night. You just knew it was a lot more complicated than some fire.

The funeral eventually ended and time continued to press onward. It was getting to be August once more and it was a lot better than the first time you tried to be with Steve. He was a lot more open, even if he didn’t explain himself completely. That wasn’t what you wanted. What you wanted was for him to know that he could trust you and that you cared about him.

Some nights, the strange monster would haunt your dreams and it would force you awake in the middle of the night. Steve wasn’t always there when you woke up, but he was always ready to answer the phone. Then, he would sneak up into your room and hold you close until you officially calmed down.

While you didn’t mention it, you thought it was stupid of you to be so hung up over something you saw. Something that didn’t even feel real. Steve was the one who dealt with all that. It made sense for him to be so shaken up about it. Though, you knew he would have insisted that you had every right to be scared of that thing. You would have been an idiot to not be scared of that sort of thing.

One morning, you were in the garden, watering some red tulips when Steve came in. He tended to pop in whenever. While the summer was nearing an end, you saw a lot more of him than you had before. Sometimes it was with the kids or with Robin, but he was getting paid rather nicely after losing his job since the place burned to the ground.

You two got plenty of time alone, but you were used to that. What you weren’t used to was him holding your hands in front of the kids he watched while Dustin would make some comment about it. While it was a quick way to make your face heat up and look at the floor, it also meant that Steve cared about you enough to show you to other people. That was more than you ever expected in the past.

“So… before everything at the mall, did you ever see anything weird that you couldn’t explain?” he asked, leaning on one of the tables inside your greenhouse.

You shrugged, “I don’t know, what constitutes weird?”

“Uh, let’s say something you saw once and then never again. Something you always had questions about but never got an answer that made sense, those types of things.”

You stood there and looked around, trying to think of something. The last couple of years had been so odd and you never expected to get a serious answer to your questions. Yet Steve was right there, always more than happy to offer an explanation at this point.

“Oh! I got it, back around last Halloween, when all the farmers lost their crops, everything I had planted in the ground just went rotten. Our new tree died and it was from some weird, slimy fungus. I think it was from some slugs I caught on a couple of plants, but they were really odd slugs too.”

Steve  looked at you, “Wait, you saw actual slugs? Were they normal and you just didn’t recognize them or… what?”

“Well, I don’t know, they didn’t have the right coloring and they were hiding in some of the shadiest, darkest parts of the greenhouse which made it so hard to find them and throw them out,” you explained, “Wait, why do you ask?”

Steve took a deep breath, “You’ll wanna sit down for this one. I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

You went out of the greenhouse and sat on the lawn. Steve sat next to you and began to explain what happened all those months ago.

While you were busy wondering what could have been if Steve had decided to get back with you before that point, he had been learning about how those slugs were actually monsters. That the rot in the ground was from that other dimension. You had been a mere few feet away from tunnels that ran throughout the entirety of Hawkins.

Every time you picked up a slug and threw it out into the lawn, those things were going to molt into things similar to the Demogorgon creature that Steve described at the funeral. You had been so close to such a terrible fate this entire time and you never would have guessed it.

“So… you’re saying I’m really lucky to be alive right now?” you asked.

Steve nodded slowly, “Yeah, uh, I guess I am. I- I guess I knew about the whole thing with your plants, but I didn’t really connect it all until now.”

“Makes sense why you were with all those kids now,” you said.

At least, you were able to understand why Steve would be the one watching all those kids while Will was possessed by something from that different dimension. You just could barely believe that it happened twice. Well, technically three times, but you didn’t know much about the events of that summer.

To try and make up for such a jarring conversation, Steve got you lunch at the diner you liked so much. It just felt so surreal that you could have ended up exactly like Barb. Only, you weren’t so sure you would’ve had as many people out looking for you. Steve probably would have tried to do something, but he probably would’ve figured out what happened to you.

At least you wouldn’t have had some poor girl on a wild goose chase that she set up for herself just to try and find you. There was something mildly assuring about that. Though, if nothing else, hearing that finally got you to feel like you truly were lucky to still be around.

Time continued to pass by and you stayed with Steve. He was so good to you and you did everything you could to make him happy. School started and he was starting to look for another job with Robin as it became clear he wasn’t going to be getting whatever severance pay he had gotten for forever.

All the finances that dealt with your step-dad’s passing were still being sorted out. Though, it seemed more and more like everything was going to go to your mom. He never had a will in place, no matter how hard Tommy tried to insist they keep looking. At this point, you were sure he was just trying to delay the inevitable. Not that you thought your mom was going to cut him off. Though, you mainly hoped that just because it would keep him out of Hawkins.

The leaves on the trees were starting to turn orange, red, and gold in the park that you walked through with Steve. You had just gotten out of school and you wanted to see him. It had only been a day, but you had spent a lot of that day seeing other dumb couples getting to see each other the whole time.

“Hey, I think it’s about time I told you why I was so late to your party,” Steve said as he pulled you over to a park bench.

You nodded, “Okay. Is this the last thing of all the stuff that I’m technically not supposed to know?”

“Yeah, I think this is it. And if anything else happens, I swear I’ll tell you the first moment I think anything is going on,” he squeezed your hand, “It’s funny, because I was actually really close to telling you about this one before any of the crazy stuff happened.”

Steve finally explained everything with the Russian code that Dustin found that summer. How it all led to the Russian Base in the mall that had been spoken about on the news. The reason you didn’t see him at work was because he had been stuck down there, getting tortured by Russians. All the while the Mind Flayer that pulled the strings a year ago came back for more.

Your step-dad had both been killed by the monster and was the monster all at once. It made a lot more sense once Steve explained what happened in full, but it did make you feel sorry for him. Mostly because you couldn't imagine what being killed like that must have felt like. 

“So, that thing I saw that night, that was a bunch of melted up people?” you asked, furrowing your brow.

Steve nodded, “Yeah, it’s pretty gross to think about, but that’s how it happened. It’s all over this time, though. At least, I think so.”

“Hey, I’m sure it is. Whatever gate existed before is closed now and no American or Russian is gonna be able to change that again. It’s over,” you insisted.

At least, you hoped it was. You couldn’t blame Steve for being skeptical about it after the same thing happened three times. Still, you had been around through all of that one way or another. You weren’t planning on leaving now that you knew the full story.

taglist: @flyingrichardgrayson​ @stonersteve​ @scooprtroopr​ @insideafictionaluniverse​ @l0ve-0f-my-life​

[project-rosewood-476]

Chapter 2 part 1 Of Every Rose Has Its Thorns is out now! the AU and some of the ideas and characters belong to @creepypasta-shtick and Maplehood Creek, Rosewood, and Tabby Anderson belong to me.

TW: character death, mentions of blood and gore

Tabby was always an early bird due to her stepdad getting her up at 5 in the morning. Also with Rosewood starting at 7:45 am. But she slept through until 7-8 in the morning. Tabby woke up and stretched and winced at her bruises. She slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes confused. This wasn't her house. This wasn't her room...then last nights events came rushing back to her

"So it wasn't a dream after all... and I'm alive...I survived my first night in this strange new world. One day down and another one to go" she said in thought. she grinned as the new reality set in.

"I'm free...of my stepdad, Rosewood, and Horacio!" She said in thought also she let out a quiet giggle to herself.

She got out of the bed and put her knives on the nightstand for now. She took a good look at herself in the mirror. Her red-brown hair turned into a messy low ponytail with a couple of wavy strands that were out. That was due to the tossing and turning in her sleep. She still had dark circles under her eyes and they still appeared to be sunken back slightly. But they had that spark of life back in them again. But you can never catch up on lost sleep. She fell asleep in her clothes from yesterday but she'll change today. She really had no use for PJs she only used them on occasion. Her older bruises were almost completely faded away and her new ones started the healing process. Pretty soon all there would be was the scars from her old life and new bruises and cuts from training and missions and stuff. Hopefully less than what she has now.

She quickly got dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and blue jeans to cover up the scars and bruises. She was more clear-minded than she was last night. No one else needed to see her bruises and scars and think that she's weak and sickly. She put on her shoes and went out of her bedroom and into the kitchen.

Toby has done a lot for her in one night. It was only fair to return the favor. The least she could do is cook him breakfast. She looked in the fridge and saw some eggs. She took out the carton and put it on the counter. She saw some bread laying about too and saw a toaster.

"Perfect!" She thought to herself.

She looked around for a frying pan, plates, and utensils. It took her a while to find the stuff in the kitchen but she made her way around and made very little noise as possible. And was humming a song that she knew to herself. She put the two pieces of bread in the toaster and started making the eggs for herself first.

Toby was still kind of groggy but he pulled himself up and yawned. It took him a little while to get used to being awake so he waited for a bit before turning off his radio. He went up to go to the bathroom. He had several wounds he needed to make sure stayed clean after all. After cleaning himself up, he figured he should go out and get the newspaper or something. He knew that after a couple of weeks he would have a huge mission that would involve putting on a fake identity and infiltrating a school, which he was not looking forward to. He was incredibly anxious about it. From the bathroom, he could hear a knock on the front door. Oh right. He had locked it. It was probably Jane and she had probably finished Tabby's mask that night.

Tabby put her eggs and toast on a plate and went to answer the front door. She unlocked it and opened the door a little bit. warily and cautiously.

Jane had left the box on the front door. It was a nice-looking box. It could be easily opened. She had stayed up all night doing the mask.

Tabby opened the door wider and cautiously picked up the box. She eyed it suspiciously. She decided to leave it on the table and decided to wait for Toby to come out so she wouldn't be alone while opening it just in case it could be a trap.

Tabby began to eat her breakfast. She kept eyeing the box in a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. She wanted to open it badly but decided that she knew better than to open it by herself as Jane's words echoed through her head from last night.

'Don't trust gifts that are given to you even if they're given by people you know, there are a lot of backstabbers here'.

She continued to wait patiently.

Toby came outside the bathroom and headed towards the kitchen. He saw Tabby and the box.

"Oh. That looks like the box Jane uses to deliver masks." He stared plainly.

He went to the fridge and began rifling through it. Jane's boxes always looked distinct to show that they carried masks that she had made her own.

"Oh you don't have to rummage through the fridge," she said in between bites "I was going to make you some eggs as a sort of a thank you. But then I realized that I don't know how you like your eggs...or even if you like eggs...I also didn't know if you were like me in needing to watch your food being made to make sure it's not poisoned. So I waited before I did anything."

"But if you do like eggs how do you like them? I could make you some..." she said a little shyly as she looked down and went to open the box.

She opened the box slowly and warily. She took out the mask and inspected it. It was a pretty teal with golden spirals branching out from one another and at some angles, the gold glittered in the light. She checked the inside of the mask and smiled to herself when she saw the names of the people she lost engraved inside. She put it on and looked at Toby.

"Oh, it's okay. I'm the type of person who likes taking care of myself." Toby explained.

He had needed to make his own breakfast since he was 8, and a change from routine would just feel somewhat alien. He thanked her for her offer though. He turned when he felt the air somewhat shift and saw that she had put on her mask.

"Oh, that looks great. Does it feel okay? Natural?" He asked. He got out some leftover breakfast from the day before and went to heat it up.

"Fair enough," she said.

She understood not wanting to rely on others since she has been neglected since she was 4 so she had to learn how to do the basics of taking care of herself.

"It feels weird at first but I'll get used to it" she put the mask in her box and went to pick up the eggs and put them back in the fridge.

She finished up the last bit of her egg sandwich that she made and went to do up her little bit of dishes. She unwrapped her left hand so the bandages can stay clean and dry. You could see the surgical incisions that were made to get the glass out. The scars were in that in-between stage of old and fresh. Her hand was healed but you can tell that the doctors didn't set it right as it looked out of place.

Toby nodded.

"It will feel weird at first but soon you'll freak out seeing yourself without it."

He wanted to make the transition into this new life as painless as possible. He remembered being incredibly freaked out at the beginning. He noticed her hand. Oh, man. EJ would lose his shit 'seeing' the work done on that hand. Toby thanked her for doing her dishes.

"By the way, you said you wanted to go to the library today?" Toby said. "While we're out, I could sort of show you around if you want. A lot of your first missions will be fetch and deliver, so it's nice to know where to go." He was finishing up his breakfast.

"Yeah I did say that and it would be nice to know my way around. I mean I'm going to be on my own at some point so yeah"

She dried off her hands and notice that he was looking at her damaged hand.

"Yeah I know it's not a pretty picture. Reason number 1025 of why I hate and don't trust doctors. They can't do their damn jobs right" she gave him a bitter smile.

"So your mission was fairly riskless huh?" She raised an eyebrow as she nodded towards his injuries "I do hope you took care of them properly" she gently re-wrapped her hand in the bandages.

Toby nodded.

"Yeah, you will be. Once you finish training, the boss will give you a new place." He said. "I'll show you around, introduce you to a few people." He said.

"I understand the sentiment about doctors though, but for me it's therapists. My therapist knew I was abused and, as a mandated reporter, didn't call CPS for me." He said.

He knew there were competent doctors and therapists, but that didn't change his experiences.

At her comment, he nodded. "They're just small cuts and bruises. Come from running through the woods." He said.

"Same. I hated therapists too. I've been through 7 psychiatrists. My parents believed that I was delusional and paranoid because they didn't believe me about my horror stories at Rosewood. My therapists didn't believe anything I said about Rosewood or about how my stepdad abused me but left the rest of my family out of it" she gave him the finger guns and another bitter smile but she looked like she just wanted to die.

Toby nodded. "I got a therapist after my sister died. I still remember her. She was this older woman, about the same age as my mom and she always had this fake, vacant smile. It used to piss me off." He said.

He understood.

"They used my mental illness to totally discredit what I saw and what I said happened to me. She tried to have me involuntarily committed."

Toby shrugged a bit while clearing his dishes.

"I've thought about killing her, honestly, but I figured it wasn't really worth it." He said, starting the water

"But they did manage to diagnose me correctly on OCD, Anxiety, PTSD, and Paranoia which all had to do with Rosewood and my stepdad but not for the reasons that they thought. We're probably missing a few others since they can't diagnose me fully correctly", stated Tabby.

"I understand," Toby said.

He finished cleaning up his dishes. He already was dressed for the day and was still wearing his mouth guard and goggles. He put on his gloves.

"You ready to go in a bit?" He asked.

"Honestly they're just doing it to get paid and not caring how they do it" "I've thought about killing my stepdad and I would have if it was just my mom and not...someone else involved...", she trailed off and looked away.

"Well, I killed my dad," Toby said with a shrug.

"And I let my mom find the body." He put his dishes away.

"I feel like my life would be so much different if I had actually had a decent therapist. I know they're out there and I'm just so pissed that I got a shitty one. If I had one that actually cared, I probably would still be human."

"Lucky you. I would have done the same but I never had the luxury to be selfish. This is the first time I actually put myself first"

She knew that wasn't entirely true either. She would have gladly let masky and hoodie kill her. She wouldn't even have had to put up a fight. But toby was the one who spared her life and he did it for a reason. She promised herself that she would stay alive for him so his efforts wouldn't go in vain. It wouldn't be fair to him if she died. On top of her promises to kill Horacio and avenge her friends. But he doesn't need to know that.

"Yeah I'll be ready to go in a few minutes I just need to brush my hair and teeth real quick." She said not ignoring his previous statement.

Tabby went to her room to get her things and went into the bathroom to do her thing. She came out with a neater-looking ponytail. She grabbed the box and headed back to her room to put her things away. She then came back out wearing her thick red plaid jacket that she always wore with her gray hood up and put her new mask on.

"I'm ready to go"

Toby nodded. "Alright. Let's go." He said. He was in his usual attire. It was worn, but clean.

"Do you want to go to the library first, or would you like me to show you around first?"

"I would like to go to the library first please if that's okay. Afterward, it will give us time for you to show me around and meet a few people", said Tabby.

"Okay, that works. There are some things that you'll want to know about the library through." Toby explained.

Tabby paused for a minute "Which are?" She trailed off.

"Well, the librarians are all disgraced proxies and monsters as well as retired proxies," Toby said.

"And usually you're not supposed to talk to the librarians unless it's for something strictly about the library. However, the librarians are very smart and have very large comprehensive knowledge over things."

Tabby nodded slowly in understanding "okay I got it. I don't usually talk to anyone in general"

"If you get on their good side, they'll defend you though," Toby said. "A lot of stuff can go down at the library."

She snorted "doesn't surprise me"

She had a mini flashback to the library at Rosewood. She was a bookworm and the library was the least sinister place in the school. Even though it too carried its own dark secrets of Rosewood. Libraries were considered sacred and neutral ground at Rosewood.

Toby knew of a proxy who had gotten beaten to death in the library. The library was usually quiet but sometimes could get very messy. He held the door for her. It was good practice to say goodbye to the desk lady before they left.

"Is that all?" She asked.

"Yeah, pretty much. Would you like me to stay there with you?", he asked.

"Yes, please. Two is better than one right?"

She mentally cursed herself for saying yes. She had to prove to him at some point that she could take care of herself and hold her own. But she didn't want to be left in this strange new world that was day 2 for her. Especially around strangers who wouldn't hesitate to kill her if given the chance. If she had someone with her the chances of that happening would be slim to none. And she was taught from a young age that you never go anywhere alone. Especially in Maplehood unless you had to.

"Survival reasons", she told him to justify herself, "I'm fresh meat as it is and curiosity about the new girl is inevitable. I'm crippled and small and I would be alone which means it would be easy for someone to kill me without a second thought. I'm young, not stupid so it's better to go with someone and only go alone if I absolutely have to".

She babbled on her reasoning to him and she was getting defensive about it because she didn't want him to think that she was a little bitch that can't take care of herself.

Toby understood. She didn't need to justify herself to him, he understood.

"Hey, it really is okay. I'll just sit nearby and maybe chat to a few people." Toby was decently popular.

"Okay… can we go now?" She asked.

"Yeah," Toby said. He moved to let her out of the apartment.

[multifanficss]

Emergency Room (BTS X READER)-14

A/N: Thank you for the love and support!!<3 Sorry for the long chapter, I still hope you like it!!

Trigger warning: some mentions of fighting, falling, blood, and other hospital terminologies.

Y/N's POV:

"She..." "What?" I said. "She's in deep debt and getting more ill. She sold y-your family home just to keep up with the restaurant and medical bills. She is living with your sept sister, Lilly( if that's your name I'm sorry), but she and your stepdad want to kick her out. ....By next Monday, wait what day is it?" "It's Thursday," "She didn't... want to tell you so I had to come without telling her. I asked her to move in with me and my family but she declined and your stepfather wouldn't even let me see her. I am so sorry y/n..." She said. "It's okay... I know you tried thank you. For now, just rest, and I will figure something out," I said and wiped my tears. She nodded and closed her eyes again.

I sat there and looked at the blank ceiling. I decided to go and walk around in the cafeteria patio. I left and began to make my way there. Once I got there, I got an iced coffee and went out to the patio to walk around. I looked around at the people and saw Taehyung, Jungkook, Hana, Yoongi, and Namjoon all sitting at a table. Hana noticed me and I smiled, waved, and decided to walk in the opposite direction to clear my head.

End of Y/N's POV

Third-person POV:

As y/n walked in the opposite direction, Hana and the rest of the group became confused. "Why did she walk away, she usually would come and sit with us?" she said. "I'm not sure,...I haven't talked to her since this morning," Taehyung said. "Well, as soon as I left, Her best friend said something about her mom but I couldn't hear much," said a voice that startled everyone. It was Hoseok. After hearing the mention of 'mom', made Yoongi stand up and walk quickly in Y/n's direction. It left everyone even more confused. "What?" Hoseok said as he sat down and began to eat. The rest of lunch was a bit awkward but worrisome since they had no clue what was going on.

End of third-person POV

Y/N POV:

I was walking in the garden when I heard some footsteps near me. I turned and saw Yoongi. "Hello Yoongi," I said. "Hey Y/n, How are you doing?" he asked as he walked next to me. "I'm fine, how are you" she asked looking away. "I'm good," he said. "Is there something bothering you?" he asked. "..No," I said. "Are you sure, I promise not to tell anyone," he said. "I'm fine Yoongi... I am sorry I have to go." I said as I was being paged. Yoongi stood there clueless and worried. I smiled at him and walked away. He semi-smiled since he clearly knew something wasn't right. I ran to where I was being paged and it was the emergency room. It was the nurse who had paged me, which happened to be Janet. "I am so sorry to page you but Dr. Kim Taehyung has not been answering the pages," she said. "It's alright, Janet, what can I do?" I said. "We have two people coming in soon, Both were out fishing and it turned really ugly afterward. One is a 32-year-old male and the other is a 30-year-old male. We weren't told what happened, they just said be prepared." she said. "Okey thank you, Janet," I said and she nodded. I decided to page Jackson and mina. They both came pretty quick. I told them what was happening and both were up to help and we went out to wait. Soon we heard the sirens. I took a deep breath and decided to focus on my work. Though I am personal issues, I have to push them aside and take care of the patient as best as I can. I opened the ambulance door to help and soon I saw the paramedic. "30, year-old male, High blood pressure and has a fishing hook stuck on the right side of his chest.  We also have a 32-year-old male, and is currently stable thought seems to have suffered head injuries, he is being brought now," she said and that's when the other ambulance arrived. "Someone quickly page Dr. Jung Hoseok and Dr.Min Yoongi ASAP! Mina takes The 30-year-old to trauma room 2 and Jackson takes the 32-year-old to trauma room one" I said loudly and they did as they were told I walked quickly to Trauma Room 2. Soon I saw Dr.Min and Dr. Jung run quickly to the room, "Dr. Jung you are needed here, Dr. Min in Trauma room 1." I said and quickly we began to get to work.

After several hours, Dr.Jung and I were able to remove the fishing hook and help the 30-year-old. However, The 32-year-old had suffered through multiple skull injuries which caused a severe brain bleed. He didn't make it through the surgery. I stood outside the room of the 30-year-old and felt someone standing next to me, "What happened?" Namjoon said which somewhat startled me. "He said him and his best friend were standing over the bridge and fishing but he brought something up and so they both began to fight. He then fell over the bridge which was like a 7 ft drop. The 30-year-old tried to get him before he fell but he also tried and the fishing hook got stuck in his chest about 3 inches deep." I said. "Wow," he said. "I have to go now, My best friend must be waiting for me," I said. While I was walking on my back I thought of a way to help my mom and decided to run quickly to B/F/N' s room.

I got to her room and saw that she was talking to Taehyung. I knocked before going in, "Hey, Y/N," he said. "Hey, Taehyung, can I talk to b/f/n real quick," I said. He nodded, "By the way, I am sorry I didn't answer my page I was helping someone outside of the hospital, and by the time I got there, both of the patients were in the O.R.," he said. "It's okay, Thank you," I said and he walked out. However, I didn't know he was still listening.  I sat down, "So I came up with a plan, I will get a second job here or get more hours here in the hospital, I will pay off most of the debt with my money now and I will bring my mother to live with me here in Seoul. I'll also sell my father's restaurant." I said. "Are you crazy?!" she said "Your mother will not like the idea of you getting a second job or selling your father's restaurant," she said. " I don’t want to either ,But I have to, I don't want my mom in this situation," I said. "Well how are you going to do it?" she asked. "I will leave tomorrow night, and bring her back by Sunday morning, I'll ask chief and hope he says yes," I said. She looked at me and shook her head. "Well, what about me," she asked. "You can stay with me," a voice said.

It happened to be Seokjin. Taehyung and him walked in at the same time. "What I don't even know you?" she said. "Don't worry, you will be fine," I said. "Plus, I live with Namjoon. He's a great doctor and my best friend," he said. "I promise you will be in great hands plus I will only be gone for two days," I said. "What about you, I don't want anything to happen to you," she said. "Jungkook and I will go with her," Taehyung said as Jungkook walked somehow knowing what was going on. "Alright, but you better take care of her, " she said and glared at both of them. "We have to go to chief to ask him if it would be okay," I said and the three of us left.

We got to the chief's office and I explained my situation. He nodded and took a deep breath and said, "I will allow you to go Dr. L/N but neither jungkook nor Taehyung can go with you." he said. "Why not?" said Taehyung. "Because you both are the only ones in your department. Now Ms. L/N, if you would like to take someone, I would recommend, Park Jimin," he said. "NO!" both Jungkook and Taehyung said at the same time. Which made the room go silent. That's when Park Jimin happened to walk in, "You paged?" he said to the chief. "Yes, you will go with y/n to (your country), she will attend her personal business and you will only make sure she is safe." he said "Ms. L/N, I will have my assistant get you plane tickets for tomorrow night, I expect you both to be back by Sunday afternoon. If you fail to there will be consequences, especially for you Dr. L/N. Understood?" He said. "Understood. Thank you," I said, shook his hand. He smiled and we excused ourselves. I ran back to my best friend's room to tell her the good news.

end of Y/N pov

Third-person POV:

As Y/N ran, the other three stood back. "Why do you get to go?" Jungkook said to Jimin. "I should've  been the one to go with her...." Taehyung said out loud and left without saying anything else.

End of 14