#shrivels into dust and floats away

[gio-cosmo]

Jin may have lost the persona championship but he’s the winner in my heart 😞 I love him oh so dearly

[mj-iza-writer]

Whumptober Day 14

Left for dead - Hunting Gear - Blackmail - "Cause I want you to know what it feels like to be haunted" (tiLLie, kooL aiD mAn)

Warning: delves into hurricane evacuation. This is not to make light of what is going on in South East, USA. Praying for all of you down there.

Whumpee timidly watched as Whumper packed their essentials.

"What should I take?", Whumpee asked, realizing they didn't have any belongings to pack.

"Take?", Whumper paused, "where are you going?"

"The um hurricane is coming. We're evacuating, right?", Whumpee whispered.

Whumper laughed, "I'm evacuating, but you will be remaining here. I can't chance you getting away during this or finding help. If you die... you die. No loss to me. When it's safe, I'll come back to see if you made it."

"What? But, they are saying this is unsurvivable. You can't leave me here.... please don't leave me here", Whumpee began to cry, "you know I'm afraid of storms", they sobbed.

"Sucks to suck, but you are not going", Whumper smirked, "my decision has been made."

Whumpee fought Whumper all the way down the stairs.

"Stop fighting me", Whumper yelled angrily, "you're wasting my time."

"You're leaving me here to die", Whumpee cried angrily, "I don't want to die."

Whumper reared back and punched Whumpee causing them to fall to the floor and gasp.

"I am leaving you here. Whether you die or not, we will see", Whumper grinned as they pulled out some rope, "let's see how well you do."

"Please you don't even have to take me. Just let me try to outrun the storm. Get to higher ground", Whumpee winced.

"No", Whumper used this time to bind Whumpee with the rope, "you'll find help, then I'm screwed."

Whumpee watched as they were tied tightly.

"You're not even trying to give me a fighting chance", Whumpee frowned.

Whumper chuckled as they tied off the rope to a metal pipe.

"Well, goodluck Whumpee", Whumper sighed, "I wish you the best of luck. Really I do. I will miss you. So try not to die."

"Please I'm begging of you. I'm scared to death right now. Please just let me go with you. I'll let you do whatever you want to me... please", Whumpee pleaded, as they tried to pull their arms from being tied above their head.

Whumper turned and started for the stairs.

"For the last time... no."

Whumpee tried to remain calm. The wind continued to get louder and louder. Water splashed against the windows above them.

The power had gone out a while ago now. It was pitch black in the basement.

Whumpee's arms had fallen asleep from being tied above their head.

They sobbed as the loud storm crashed all around them. They had a giant fear of storms... Whumper knew this and held it against them.

The sound of the house creaking made the darkness even more eerie.

Something crashed.

Whumpee looked up fearfully as the sound of the storm grew louder. As though it was now inside with them.

They started to feel water pouring in on them.

"No no NO", Whumpee yelled, "PLEASE SAVE ME ..... PLEASE HELP."

Whumpee was sitting in a pool of water, about waste deep.

All kinds of debree floated around them.

They could see sunlight trickling in on them. It had been days. They were freezing from the night before. They felt so so weak and so so tired.

They looked up and saw how white knuckled and shriveled their hands looked. That mixed with how raw and red their wrist were from the ropes.

They suddenly heard someone nearby talking.

"HELP ME.... PLEASE HELP ME", Whumpee yelled as loudly as their hoarse voice could go.

"Is someone down their?", they heard two people above them.

"Yes, I'm tied up down here in the basement", Whumpee yelled, "the owner of the house evacuated and left me here. Please help me."

"Okay, hold on", their rescuers called down, "there is a lot piled on top of you. We will be right back."

After a few moments of silence Whumpee heard a heavy truck coming close.

Dust and more debris fell onto them. A heavy piece of metal splashed over their leg cut down into their shin.

"Ouch", Whumpee cried loudly, "wait wait please."

A hole opened above them.

"What happened?", a concerned familiar voice called down.

"Something metal just hit me. I-I'm m bleeding", Whumpee shook.

"Okay we have an ambulance waiting for you", the voice sounded sympathetic, "a United States soldier is coming down to cut you free. You are currently being photographed and recorded for documentation and investigation. Do you understand?"

"Yes", Whumpee spoke weakly, "I don't feel good."

Whumpee watched as a rope fell through the hole and someone descending on it.

Their vision became cloudy... "My head is heavy" they whispered.

"Stay with me", the person commanded.

Whumpee jumped at the sound of a knife being unsheathed.

They felt arms wrap around them.

Their body went limp as they were pulled out of the water.

Distant beeping became more and more prominent as Whumpee started to come too.

They squinted in the bright light of the room.

"What's happening?", Whumpee looked around as more things became clear.

"Hey, are you with me", Whumpee felt someone squeeze their hand.

"Am I dead?", Whumpee whispered.

"No, you are alive. Thank goodness you are alive", the person leaned closer so Whumpee could see them.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know you" Whumpee frowned.

"That's alright, I am one of the people who heard you calling for help. I couldn't leave your side", they leaned and kissed Whumpee's hand, "I'm so grateful you are alive."

"I'm grateful you heard me", Whumpee smiled weakly.

"Me too", they smiled.

"So, you are in the hospital safe and sound. They are pumping meds into you. They were worried about you being in the water for so long. Who knows what germs were swimming with you. Especially with that big cut on your leg", they leaned back in the chair, "I'm certain a detective will be in here soon to figure out why you were tied up in the basement. They are also working to find the homeowner."

"Whumpee nodded. They didn't tell we they were evacuating to. I thought they were taking me with them", Whumpee frowned.

"I'm sorry that happened to you", the person sighed, "you are safe now though. That's all that matters."

Whumpee nodded.

"Well, I need to get back out there to find more people. I'll check in on you again", they stood.

"Okay", Whumpee nodded again, "thankyou so much for helping me. Be careful out there."

"You're welcome. I will be", they nodded with a smile, "I'll see you later."

Rain splattered on the window of Whumpee's hospital room.

The nurse was in helping them eat dinner.

"You've had a very long few days. Today was also long with all of your visitors and detectives", the nurse smiled.

Whumpee nodded and looked out the window at the rain.

"I cam close the curtain if you like", the nurse started to stand.

"I-its okay, I'm just worried about the others out there and the rescuers", Whumpee explained, "I'm sorry if I'm sad to be around."

"Sweetie you have every reason to be sad. Don't apologize for that. We are worried about the rescuers too", the nurse smiled. "That one that was in here earlier with you. They have been constantly checking in on you."

There was a moment of silence while Whumpee chewed.

"They are hoping to find the person who did that to you soon. They found the name amongst some mail that was still inside of the house. They are watching for any location updates. They will be located as soon as they use their card or even their phone."

"Thankyou for telling me that... I was wondering. I'm also wondering what's going to happen to me", Whumpee looked at the nurse curiously and fearfully, "after I heal."

"You have a while before that is a concern", the nurse smiled, "would you like some pudding?"

"Yes please", Whumpee nodded.

Days went by slowly. Visits became less and less until it was the rescuer who saved Whumpee.

"I've got news", they said one day smiling ear to ear as they say down, "well, two pieces of news... both good."

"Oh", Whumpee studied them.

"Yes, they found Whumper. They were attempting to stay at a hotel a few states up. The police have them in custody", the rescuer looked at Whumpee for any excitement.

"Calm down", they joked when Whumpee didn't react, "the second bit of news is that you are coming home with me."

"Ho-home with you?", Whumpee studied them.

"Yes, I'm getting the house ready right now. You will be so comfortable there", the rescuers grin somehow got bigger.

"Really, you want me?", Whumpee questioned nervously, "are you sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure", the rescuer nodded, "you were left for dead... and I found you. I couldn't imagine going on with life after parting ways with you. I think I'd go mad with wanting to protect you."

Whumpee grinned.

"So... are you interested?", the rescuer looked at them quizetively.

"Yes, I'm interested", Whumpee nodded, "just still a little surprised thats all."

"I'm sure, but it's all true. You won't have to go through another storm by yourself again. I promise", the rescuer held Whumpee's hands close, "I'll protect you."

Whumpee felt tears come to their eyes. They nodded eagerly.

"Thankyou", Whumpee whimpered as they tried not to cry loudly.

"You're so welcome my dear", the rescuer grinned, "you're so welcome."

Taglist. As always please let me know if you want to be added or taken off of the list. It's not a problem at all.

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[storiesbyrhi]

Witch!Reader x Bat/Vampire!Eddie Munson Series Masterlist The Grimoire The Timeline

Warnings: canon typical violence, horror genre typical violence, swearing, animal death, no beta, warnings updated each chapter.

Synopsis: No witch has stepped foot in Hawkins since 1845, but when Vecna opens the ground and poisons the town, a voice begins to call to you. Have you been brought back to this cursed place to heal the townspeople’s wounds, to save a hexed bat that always finds its way to you, or to redefine your history with a reunion 150 years in the making?

Chapter Summary: Death is here. 3051 words.

Notes: As per canon, Max is in the hospital. Argyle left Hawkins once he dropped Jonathan, Will, and Mike off, at the urging of Jonathan – who did not want his friend to be hurt. Maybe headcanon that he went back to Suzie’s place in case they needed her expertise and also because, ya know, Eden.

1843

Left in the sunlight, a vampire would not explode nor turn to ash and float away in the breeze. They would burn, blister, and shrivel until their body lay twitching and immobile. This provided a very brief window of respite from their evil; as soon as night came or shade was provided, the vampire would begin to heal.

Whatever damage, they could heal. Sunlight’s scorch. Blessed blades’ cuts. Holy water’s burn. Nothing could kill a vampire. A witch could curse a vampire to trap them in places, times, and forms; but ultimately, it had always come down to a fight.

At the beginning of the 18th century, a witch from a Romanian coven wrote a spell. It would allow a conjurer to summon a ball of sunlight to wound the vampires. The wounds would linger, fester, and scar their marble skin. Ripples in an otherwise perfect complexion. The Romanian witch had to offer her life in exchange for the gift of the spell to bless all of her kind.

And so, “lux solis urere hic malum,” became the witchfire war cry.

By 1843, the vampires had been hunting the humans your coven protected for seven years. The sunlight spell helped, but it was no longer enough. Your coven’s strongest wordsmith, Penelope, had been at work, spending days… months… years… on end hunched over her alter and communing with The Witches Who Came Before.

It was a bitter morning when Penelope’s magic worked for the final time. Frost bit at the tips of leaves and even the most hardened farmers took an extra minute to get out of bed, while she worked to ensure not only the protection of humankind, but the freedom of all witches.

Through bloodletting, she poured herself into a bucket, a witch’s sacrifice the last ingredient in a potion so strong, a single drop was death to an entire colony. Your aunt painstakingly soaked paper in the potion, let the sheets dry, then ground them up into a matte powder. She went into the night, her fist full of dust, and blew into the face of the undead.

The vampire had forgotten what it was like to breathe, but as quick as the feeling returned, it was taken away, and he clawed at his throat for air. He screeched until he shredded his own throat deep enough to sever his vocal cords. Then, not by God nor sword but by a magic woman’s hand, he was no more.

…

1986

Little witch echoed in your head.

You tore your gaze away from Eddie and blinked off the haziness that had overcome you. Change the subject, change the subject.

“So…” you started, but lost your intended sentence.

“So,” Eddie repeated.

“I don’t… I don’t know what we’re meant to do now…”

He rolled his shoulders back and considered his options. There was an urge to run, to abandon you and leave the doomed Hawkins. Go to the cities, feed, make more vampires. It was his first thought, primal and defining.

Eddie didn’t know if was all those years in bat form or if he had been patient in his forgotten life, but he was willing and able to wait on his primage urges. While his memories weren’t returning, his personality was, and he personally found it very amusing that a witch had knowingly brought vampires back from extinction.

That’s what he was telling himself. That he was not moving from your couch because he was entertained. That it wasn’t the feeling he got calling you ‘little witch.’ That it wasn’t a familiarity he couldn’t place. That it wasn’t your smile or smell.

You wondered what he was thinking. It occurred to you then, that he was probably sizing you up. “Do you remember what it feels like?” you asked. Eddie’s eyebrows rose. “The witchfire?”

His naked body had been in front of you enough for you to know the witchfire scars run along parts of his torso, and it covered his arms. Part of his neck, jaw, and cheek had been marked too.

“No,” he answered, holding a hand out and examining it. “Remind me?”

Hesitating, you thought about it. The burning smell. “Um… It would burn, like the sun. But concentrated. You couldn’t heal from it fast. Couldn’t wash it away with darkness,”

“It disturbs you,”

“No… Not… Not the vampire part. It’s the rest. Everything that happened around the vampire part.”

Eddie nodded. “Show me.” Your puzzled expression made him grin, fangs and all. “Witchfire. Show me,”

“You might not remember the pain, but assure you it definitely hurts,”

“Then hurt me,” he replied.

“I liked you better as the bat.”

Eddie laughed. “You spoke of witchfire first. You want to show me you are not weak. So, show me.”

Huffing, you crossed your arms over your chest. It only made him happier. You tried to pretend you weren’t loving it by standing up and walking a few steps away.

“Come on, little witch. You did not go to all that trouble to get me here, just to not play with me now.”

You knew you shouldn’t.

Muttering the spell under your breath, “Lux solis urere hic malum,” you held your hand out, palm side up, and let a ball burn into existence. Without nurturing it, it remained the size of a tennis ball, floating just above your skin. As you turned and walked back to the couch, you watched the witchfire reflect in his dark eyes, getting brighter the closer you got.

When you sat, Eddie moved closer still. He looked at the orb in awe rather than fear. “Your magic is…” He shook his head softly. “Remarkable.” He slowly held a finger up to the fire, you pulled your hand back, extinguishing it.

“It will burn.”

Eddie didn’t move. His sly smile did not falter. He waited.

“Fine…” And you repeated the spell and brought the fireball back to him.

Eddie’s eyes grew wider as he got closer, then as the tip of his finger touched the flames, he hissed and flung himself back so hard he rolled off the side of the couch.

Cackling with laughter, you clapped your hands together to kill the fire.

His face popped up over the armrest glaring at you, then in a literal blink, half his body was over the side coming towards you. He froze, timing his movements with your blinking. You didn’t see him change positions. It was terrifying. His arm looked twisted somehow, or maybe it was the sharp angles he was holding himself in. Spiderlike.  Murderous.

You held your breath and tried to wait it out, but the trailer’s air wasn’t clean enough to let you stare for long. When you blinked, he was instantly halfway across the couch.

Terrifying, but exhilarating.

It would take one more. Less than half a second. A single blink. He’d be on you.

Eddie’s pupils were wide, dark, void of emotion. His lips were in a twisted smile that let his sharp teeth show just enough. Nails clawed into the plush of the couch. A monster, no doubt, but somehow still so profoundly beautiful that you couldn’t bear to look away.

Through his complete stillness, Eddie listened to how quickly your heart rate began to race. You were breathing through your mouth, audible and shaky. Like his, your pupils were blown. Although he couldn’t recall when or where or to whom, Eddie knew he’d played this game before. It wasn’t like this though.

You closed your eyes with purpose. He was silent, but you felt the weight of him as he climbed over you.

Eddie waited for you to open your eyes, or push him away, or conjure witchfire, or any number of predictable things. Instead, you short-circuited his brain when you giggled. A happy sound. Carefree. Unafraid. Then, with your eyes still closed, you slowly laid back.

One of your legs hung off the side of the couch, while Eddie straddled your other. He held himself above it but you could still feel him there. His hands were still clawed into the fabric, one on the backrest, the other next to your head. As you laid yourself back, he followed you down, letting his weight distribute on his knees.

When your eyes opened, you were looking up into a soften expression. You could see the chocolate brown of his eyes. The ghost of freckles he earnt as a human and couldn’t shake as a vampire. His expression – a gooey combination of confusion, curiosity, and something else.

“I told you it would burn,” you whispered, turning your head and taking the hand next to your head. A mortal man would have collapsed, unable to maintain the position, but his nimbleness prevailed and he remained still. Eddie watched you study the finger he’d held the flame. It was a raw wound, but it would heal.

Without thinking it through, you kissed it. He let you. As your lips touched his skin, the hunger roared through him. Suddenly, he was at the door of the trailer. You scrambled, standing up.

“I must go,” he said.

“I can’t let you-”

“I will return,”

“You-”

“I won’t,” he assured you as if he was reading your mind.

“Promise me,” you demanded. “Say it,”

“I’ll return to you,” Eddie swore. “I won’t harm any of your humans.”

You hugged yourself and frowned.

Eddie said your name softly. “I will return to you.”

The trailer door slammed and he was gone.

…

Steve Harrington died in pain. There were no memories flashing before his eyes. No warm bright light to follow. Just agony. The feeling of his bones snapping through his skin. His eyeballs squelching inwards just before it all stopped. Then, he was gone.

There was no time to hold Steve or to carry his body to a safe place. Nancy Wheeler screamed and thrashed against everyone as they tried to pull her back. It took the brawn of Jim Hopper to hold her tight and carry her to the car. The group sped away, reeling from another loss.

Steve made three. Murray Bauman and Dmitri ‘Ezno’ Antonov died a week prior, on the Party’s second ill-fated attempt at taking Vecna down.

Nancy and Robin held onto each other in grief-stricken desperation in the back of the truck. El Hopper, not a witch but magic nonetheless, blamed herself.

“What are we gonna do…?” Joyce Byers’ small and scared voice asked from the front. “How are we going to keep them safe?”

Nobody answered.

The ride to where the Party was held up was void of conversation. They’d taken up in the empty lakeside house of one of Hawkins’ currently incarcerated drug dealers. Hopper, assumed dead but still a cop, knew Reefer Rick wasn’t going to come home anytime soon.

Inside the house, Dustin Henderson was the first to notice Steve’s absence.

While the children cried, Hopper and Joyce huddled in the corner. They were both pale with shock. Joyce shook her head. “We can’t keep doing this,”

“We’re getting them out of here. Sue and Charles were right to take Lucas and Erica. I’ll drag Henderson to his mom. Get them out of Hawkins. Mike too,”

“You think he’ll leave El?”

“Won’t give him a choice.”

Nancy, forcing herself into stoic resolve appeared. “I’m not leaving,” she asserted.

“Nancy,”

“No. We have to end this. For Will. And El. For Steve. For everyone. We have to end this.”

Within hours, half the Party was on route to evacuation, leaving Joyce and her sons – Will and Jonathan, Hopper and El, Nancy, and Robin. Like Nancy, Robin refused to abandon ship; vengeance was on the minds of the teenage girls.

“He’s getting stronger,” Will said. They were all sitting around Reefer Rick’s kitchen table. Will’s skin was tinged a sickly blue. His connection to Vecna and the Upside Down had never truly been severed.

“We cannot fight him there,” El added.

“So, we need a hometown advantage? How do we get him up here?” Hopper posed.

There were no suggestions or solutions at first. Then, Nancy thought out loud, “We need help. Maybe if we go back to Victor, to his dad…”

“Help!” Robin yelled suddenly. “We need help!”

Everyone watched her. “Erica. Erica’s leg should not have healed that quick. And it wasn’t just a sprained ankle. That was… that was Vecna magic poison shit, right? So, so, the girl that helped. Erica said she was weird. What if she’s like…” Robin gestured at El. “You know, superpowers weird? What if she can help?”

“Where would we even find her?” Joyce asked.

“Yeah, I don’t know, seems like a-” but before Nancy could finish, Robin interrupted.

“A shot in the dark?!”

…

When a knock on your door woke you up, you tripped over your feet to get there. It was as you opened it you realised Eddie wouldn’t have knocked. You’d learnt the hard way vampires did not need an invitation; they’d carefully cultivated that myth themselves.

Standing on your doorstep was a group of people. Although you recognised them, it was only Robin who recognised you.

“I told you we shouldn’t have all come,” one of them mumbled. Jonathan.

“We need your help,” Robin said. “We know you have superpowers. We know you did something to Erica. You have to help us,”

“She means ‘please.’ Please help us,” Nancy corrected.

Pure desperation.

Utter grief.

Abject misery.

“Come in.”

They told you the story, beginning in 1947 when Henry Creel was born. The Lab. Papa. Eleven. Will Byers going missing. The Upside Down. Barb. Demogorgon. Dr Sam. Demodogs. Bob. The Mind Flyer. Kali. Billy’s possession. Russian invasions. Starcourt. Hopper’s not-death. More Russians. Vecna. Demobats. Kate Bush. Max Mayfield lying in a hospital bed. Murray. Enzo. Steve.

“So, now it’s your turn. What’s, ah, what’s your deal?” Robin was pacing, nearly manic. Only Steve had ever been able to focus her energies, now he was gone and she was lost at sea.

“You’re not like me,” El said. She was sat between Hopper and Joyce on the couch. Will sat at his mother’s feet. Nancy perched herself on the barstool while Jonathan stood against the kitchen bench next to her.

You blocked Robin from taking another step, taking one of her hands and holding it tight. Her eyes welled up with tears. “When this is done and if we survive, I will help you talk to him. You are owed a farewell.” You turned to the group. “You of all are.”

Robin dropped to the floor and folded in on herself, wrapping her arms around her legs and rocking. You let her self-soothe.

“The first thing you need to understand is that involving myself in this could make it worse. Vecna is a parasite. He has his own power, but he feeds off others’ too. The other world, the Upside Down, he draws power from there. From you, Eleven. Even you, Will,”

“But he’s just a boy,” Joyce said sadly.

“I don’t think he is… You’re something else. But… nothing that can help us now. My point is that if gets a hold of me, he doesn’t just get my magic. He’ll find a doorway to all witches. That’s… Well, it’s almost endless power. He will not be stopped. He will take this plane of existence. And, he might find ways to the others.”

There was a stunned and pensive silence.

“So… It’s, it’s a gamble,” Nancy concluded.

“And we’re betting… literally the entire world…”  Jonathan said, looking at her. She nodded.

“What if he already knows about you?” Will asked, voice quiet.

You sat down on the carpet on the opposite side of the coffee table. Eye level with Will, you studied his face. “You feel him…” Will nodded. “And he feels me?”

“No,” Will replied. “He saw Erica, after you healed her,”

“Are you sure?” Joyce asked him.

Will shook his head. “No… But… he might.”

Cutting through the tension like a chainsaw through salted butter, the phone rang. Nobody was spared from the jolt of fear.

You jumped up to answer it, knowing the few people who had your number. “Hello?”

“You need to get out of Hawkins,”

“It’s fine,”

“No. It’s not,”

“Kelsey, whatever the news is saying-”

“You don’t understand. It’s not on the news. As far as the humans know, the clean up of Hawkins is going well and there hasn’t been any more casualties – injured or dead.” There was something worse than panic in Kelsey’s voice that you hadn’t heard in decades.

“What’s going on?” you asked, skipping over the obvious ‘that’s not what’s happening’ and rhetorical ‘how do you know about what happened?’

“The Witches Who Came Before. They’ve given a warning to the coven.”

Your blood ran cold, so cold it felt like ice, like all the red had frozen solid in your veins. Kelsey didn’t continue, maybe too afraid to tell you, maybe wanting to give you a chance to bail from the conversation if you wanted to go entirely rogue.

“Karhu. What’s the warning?”

Kelsey hadn’t heard her first, her ancient name, for centuries; she wanted to sob. She remained stoic and delivered the mystic caution. “He knows. He knows you’re close. He doesn’t know what you are. He can’t find you like he can find the humans. But it’s only a matter of time.”

Divine timing.

“And the coven? What are they going to do?

“Ah, well, they-they’re gonna set up a border. Around Hawkins. He-he shouldn’t be able to cross it. And his power shouldn’t be able to, you know, get through. But, um…” Kelsey was nervous, stuttering as she anxiously reported.

“But what?”

“They haven’t worked out if… If it’s better that you… Uh…”

She didn’t have to say it. “If it’s better that I’m trapped in here with him. Right? ‘Cause if I run, he’ll come after me,”

“Yeah,” Kelsey whispered. “I’m sorry… I tried-”

“Don’t. Don’t say you’re sorry. You haven’t done anything. And don’t try to… Don’t fight the coven on my behalf, okay?”

Kelsey was crying.

You looked back at the terrified faces watching you intently.

“He’s powerful, but he’s just another monster. Just another leech. We have outlived famine and demons and war and witch hunts. Henry Creel is no match for a witch.”

End Note: I personally feel like the 1843 section of this chapter slaps so hard. Grimoire updated to include witchfire, and the timeline has been updated too.

You know the drill. Tell me your thoughts and feelings! I need them! xo Rhi

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[everynya]

bright ideas and brighter futures🪽

Indigo Rosario X Gojo Satoru

(a wedding fic for @bunbunsheart / @bunbunsheart2 ! after coaxing you to do this…the time has come, please enjoy this lil thing! it is not exactly a wedding fic per say but erm indigojo yay)

Indigo’s fingers slowly typed a final message for the night to his brother, an exasperated breath escaping him as he feels the weight of life itself cave in on his very being. The dark hours of Japan were brutal, with a cold that made your skin shrivel and small sounds that kept you on your toes. Being out so late at night, he needed to let his older sibling know he’d be making it home safe. It always warmed him inside when he got the quick response that told him he needed to be safe or he would face consequences, a warmth that he wished would grace his body.

He turned his head up away from his phone, the light fog formed on his glasses not hindering his vision too much. The stars remained vibrant despite this, a glow that shone through the sky as he headed home. They almost guided him, a familiar sight Indigo could never get tired of.

The device in his hands began to ring, the contact he saw calling him was a sight he sometimes could get tired of.

“Hey there, babe! Now what’s taking you so long to get home? Caught yourself some trouble without me?”

The familiar voice of Gojo loudly blared through the speaker, making the sorcerer flinch. Even years later, he couldn’t get used to the other mans overbearing personality. Despite it, that same personality warmed itself inside him and had become the highlight of his tired days of teaching.

“Satoru, I’m right down the block,” He mumbled back, eyes falling on the building nearby which he resided in with his confident coworker, “You don’t need to call me, a text is fine.”

He was met with a laugh, the kind of laugh that always told him that Gojo was up to something. The man always showed amusement in a way that was open for all to see, a display of joy that one could never really read into what it meant. That was to everyone except himself, who always could tell what he was up to.

“Oh, I know. I can see you through the window, silly.”

Of course he could.

Indigo looked to the building as he walked closer, pinpointing their residence at the sight of that familiar grin looking back at him from the window. All he could do was awkwardly wave to him, which earned him a wave back as the white haired man walked away from his sights now. He heard a quick goodbye on the phone and the beep of the hangup, which really raised his suspicions that something was going on.

All of his thoughts began to circulate the possibilities of Gojo’s ploy, quietly heading up the steps and getting his set of keys from his bag. His brown eyes flickered to the bunny keychain that stuck out from the set, relieving him that maybe whatever was waiting for him inside wouldn’t be so bad.

He was met with a faint darkness inside the home, as if no one resided there. Movements slow and careful, he removed his coat and placed his things down. His trudges through the apartment were wary of his surroundings, like a mouse fearing a cat would jump at it in any given moment.

A small, orange glow finally caught his attention, making him stop in his tracks and move his path down to the kitchen. Indigo felt like the world around him was winding down, his footsteps was all he could hear through the silence.

At the sight he was met with, his fears became reduced to fickle dust floating through space itself. Gojo’s mere presence alone could do that, able to give him the certainty that everything was going to be okay.

A large grin adorned his lovers face, sat down at the kitchen island in the middle of the room with a presence that was nothing but warm and inviting. He seemed thrilled to see Indigo, like he was containing to get up and hug him tight as he usually did. Placed at the table in front of him was a small cake, with candles that were the only thing lighting up the room with life. The dessert looked delectable, with small strawberries and drops of sprinkles that gave it color and a hue of light baby blue that felt just right. It was cute, the surprise gave him his own smile that he returned. He looked down at the cake and what seemed to be text written on it, stepping closer as his heart raced in his chest and made him thrilled at the prospect of getting to enjoy a treat after such a long and difficult day.

‘Carmen Tea Amigo?’

His smile dropped instantaneously.

The words were read back to the strong sorcerer, thinking that maybe Gojo had gone crazy and not read exactly what was laid bare to him in his face. With a raised brow and a tilted head, he looked back at the unshaken smirk that looked back at him.

“Uh, what does this say?” Indigo questioned, feeling like maybe something at this moment was going over his head.

The person in question blinked slowly, blue eyes looking down at the cake as well and back at him. He remained calm, with a voice that exuded confidence and almost a bit of a tease to it. “I don’t know, what does it say?”

He was left stumped, trying to decipher the strange message presented to him on a baked good. Everything about the renowned sorcerer was a mystery at times, one that made him remember they come from very different worlds. Although he has been able to glimpse and truly see into the depths of who Gojo is, sometimes he was still left speechless.

Gojo cut the silence with the sound of his chair moving, getting up and standing beside the shorter man as he wrapped an arm over his shoulder. He pointed his finger at the cake, gesturing in a way to emphasize the letters scribbled in red frosting over the top.

“Look, it’s spelt like this,” He began to read off each letter, but as he did so his tone became more quiet and his smile shifted into the remaining bits of a lopsided and faltered grin, “Hmm, that doesn’t sound right.”

He could only watch as his boyfriend repeated the letters again, going on the message over and over with a desperation that hoped to finally get it jotted down just the way it was supposed to be. In the process, his eyes lingered on it as well and tried to click in his brain what it could say. Something about this in itself felt strange, when did someone like Gojo give something small and intimate? If he wanted to give him a cake, usually he would be inviting all of their students and colleagues.

That was when it started to process in his mind, the concept itself could only happen under specific circumstances. Ones that Indigo didn’t exactly expect could happen as he looked up expectantly at Gojo.

“Satoru, are you asking me to…marry you? In spanish?”, the words slipped before he could even think of the commitment. Once he laid it on the table, he couldn’t take it away, “‘Casate conmigo?’”

The look he received in return was…playful? A wide grin doned the white haired males lips. He felt the arm on his shoulder pull him closer, holding him tightly the same clingy way he was often held right at his side. Each letter on the cake began to almost blur, the reality that he was right settling into the depths of his system and making him feel like he was in highschool all over again. The same hold began turning into the tight squeeze of a hug, one that made it hard to breath.

“Oh, Indigo, you’re asking me to marry you in your native tongue?! How romantic!” Gojo batted his lashes, his arms wrapped around Indigo in a way where he wouldn’t let him go. A vice grip and a wide smile, Indigo could see that big sparkle in those blue eyes as deep as the ocean of beaches he longed to visit again, eyes like gemstones and jewels that the wealthy wore to find a sense of importance. Eyes that, upon closer inspection, held something off.

He found himself returning the embrace slowly, his hands running down the others back in almost a comforting manner that he hoped was soothing.

“…You messed it up on purpose to get me to say it, right?” He chuckled, finding the entire thing absurd to begin with.

In return he was met with that damned laugh again, the one he was right to think it had been plotting a little scheme.

“What are you saying? It was your idea! I mean, you’re the one with the ring in your pocket.”

Indigo froze like a statue at that, a strange reality seeping into the crevices of his mind. It made him rummage inside his pants, feeling around until he eventually did lay his hands on a small box that he was certain had not been there before.

“C’mon, sweetheart, don’t you know how proposals go? You planned a simple thing that makes sense for you to do, got a small cake and decided to pop the question.” The words came out more tranquil, as if he were coaxing the idea in itself to him and planting it as his. It was true, the extroverted man wouldn’t have done something like this. The word ‘simple’ echoed in his mind, and it seemed to make sense.

He mumbled quietly to himself, taking the box out and popping it open. The contents of it were as expected, a ring.

It carried an elegance, minimalistic yet fancy, in a way where it was maybe something Indigo would have decided on himself if he had the money. The silver band wrapped around itself in small twists, with what was a white jewel perched at the very top cut into a circle with blue gems trailed at its sides. The whole thing looked a bit on the expensive side, with details that couldn’t even be captured entirely at a first glance.

His hands trembled now, getting nervous that this was actually something being presented to him. Nerve racking was an understatement, with his lip quivering and his legs locking in place as he kept staring intensely at the rich diamond.

“Well, you’re the one proposing, so it’s all on your terms if you want to or not.” The words butted in pretty quickly, almost a hitch of nerves hidden deep between them that Indigo could sense. Gojo was right, and it shocked him.

Someone like him to put that kind of decision up to the anxious sorcerer, pushing his pride and his desire to show off aside for the idea of Indigo taking the steps at his pace. It really was at his control, like a kind of trust that was being placed upon him. In a way, he was conscious of what answer he would be receiving now that it was exposed to him. Yet, he was even more conscious of how much this was probably taking the other to do as well.

He didn’t want to let him down.

As he carefully and shakily grasped Gojo’s hand in his own, he could feel a small squeeze on his fingers of reassurance sent his way. Would he marry this bastard? A man who tricked him into proposing? A man who made his worries fall away and who mended his heart after bestowing him summers he would never forget? Love he would always cherish? Care unlike any other?

Gojo Satoru was like a rubix cube, with its fun colors that caught the eye of any and such a simple view to him that almost coaxed others to believe he was just a laid back guy. Yet, as you began to move those shapes and change their order, you’d start to see there is nothing simple about him. It was the kind of puzzle that made itself more difficult the more you played it, one that would start to shake in your grasps until you realized you couldn’t do it.

He’d spent years trying to solve that puzzle, and he thinks he really has in the way that Gojo stared at him expectantly.

With a faint smile, Indigo presented his own innerworkings of a heart that resembled a puzzle. Pieces would go missing and hide away, yet as you found them and put them together they would not disappear ever again. As one finishes that puzzle, they come to realize that the image that looked back at them was a reflection of themselves. Cracking down at him made those look deeply within themselves and their own doubts and fears, but the truth revealed would bless with nothing but a assurance that those things meant nothing.

Two puzzles that were left on a shelf for years, puzzles that solved each other and found a light within. No kind of strength could have pried them open, only the laughter they shared and the comfort they relished in within their days that breezed by as they lived life. Every tragedy and melancholy, despite creeping behind them, felt minuscule when their arms wrapped together and their hearts beat as one. They trusted each other to live on, that was the most one could say.

He hadn’t even noticed he had slid the ring into the others finger, not until he felt careful yet happy lips tracing down his face and tears slipping down his own eyes.

Man, maybe he did want to marry this guy.

“Don’t cry, Indigo, you’re going to ruin my special moment that I always dreamed of as a little girl…” Gojo muttered, a dreamy look on his face as he stared at his now fiancé with a smile that was as ridiculous as his words yet twisted his insides.

Well, not any time too soon.

As the two began to share the small cake and converse, a familiar bubbling feeling set in Indigo’s stomach. He had felt this before, many and many years ago when the sun would rise and cascade upon his skin and his friends were at his side every time. It was those glowing days of summer that at times haunted him. Yet, for now, he’d bask in the similar feeling that was pretty up there with those memories he knew Satoru shared too. He hoped that he also shared those feelings right now, as they ate cake and he was put through his teasings laced with sweet words between that showed how genuine this moment really was.

He hopes to replay this memory again in his mind, just like that summer, over and over again. Shining brightly within him as the same man who sat next to him with a ring wrapped around his finger.

[sun-and-moon-mushroom]

Day 3: Alt Prompt — Immortality

AO3 link

(note: based on the ‘original draft’ version of LBH who ended up completely alone, taken to it’s logical conclusion)

(cw: suicidal thoughts)

What is there left after you’ve done everything? After you’ve seen all the world has to offer, after you’ve conquered any challenge you’ve faced, what else is there to do? Where do you take the fight when you’ve become the undisputed ruler of the world?

What do you do when you finally come across a problem that you can’t solve, in the form of your own reckless actions from centuries ago? When the realms you fused together start to shrivel and die, and no matter how hard you look, you can’t find a way to undo it. What do you do as the empire you’ve built begins to fall apart, as the masses claw at the gates of your palaces, begging for the food you stopped eating decades ago?

What do you do when you sit on your throne, as alone as you’ve ever been, and slowly hear the world around you become quiet? What do you do when, years later, you finally step outside, only to find a desert where great forests once lay?

What do you do, as you search those deserts and wastelands, each sign of life holding on something rare and valuable? What do you do when the sun burns even your skin, and the small plants you’ve found and nurtured begin to wither away?

The sun is dead now, long gone, along with it’s sister, the moon. Those craggy landscapes you wandered are now cold and dark, the only light the distant glimmer of stars. Are there less of them now? It’s hard for you to tell. You remember, faintly, being taught the constellations as a child, but you can’t remember them, can’t remember much from that far back. There’s a few faces and names that float around in your mind occasionally — an old woman, who taught you how to cook, a young girl, who smiled at you and shyly held your hand, a cold master, who took you in anyway. You don’t remember how they died (you don’t want to).

You stand in a dying world, and hold out your sword. Long shattered by a fit of your own rage, and then reforged to fit a new purpose, you choose to use it once more, even after swearing it off once before. At the end of the world, what else is there to do? Maybe it’ll even manage to kill you?

You can feel it’s grip on you tightening as you blast through the rocks around you, and cut the tips off mountains. The energy swells, and swells, and then overflows —

And suddenly, you’re somewhere else. Somewhere warm, and bright, and oddly familiar. You pull yourself up off the floor — polished wood, freshly dirtied by the dust of your robes — and look up into your own face. He looks weak and foolish to your older eyes, a woman hanging off his arm as if he actually cares about her — you know that you only ever married for political reasons, and you have no reason to doubt he is the same.

This is a chance, perhaps, to fix your own mistakes, to teach yourself so that he won’t face the loneliness you did. You meet his eyes, as a smile stretches it’s way across your face, straining muscles that haven’t been used in many years.

“Hello, little brother”.

[idle-soliloquy]

burn and stimulate

Jegulus microfic - prompt: burn and stimulate (august 6th and 7th), 3589 words, @jegulus-microfic

CW: explicit, cheating, dubious morality (Reg's a little shit), gaslighting

Part 6 of soul: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

James places the phone under the pillow, the screen facing down, and leaves the bedroom silently. The shower is still running when he shuts the door and heads for the kitchen. 

He bumps into the wall, disoriented, trying to blink away the haze. His hands are shaking, so violently he has to hold onto the hem of his shirt. Cold sweat streams down his back. There’s an ache in his bones that makes them feel fragile and brittle. He’s feverish; if it wasn’t for what he’s just seen, he’d think a sickness has settled in. 

Regulus is sickness, and James fears there’s no antidote, not for him at least. 

He can’t breathe. Spots dance in front of his eyes, and he tries to blink them away, focusing on the kitchen counter, the scattered utensils and dirty plates from last night’s dinner. The empty coffee pot and Regulus’ mug he must have used after he came back from the gym.

A wave of gruelling pain hits him like a freight train. Did he actually go to the gym? 

The espresso maker sits on the ring, so he takes it off and cleans out last morning’s coffee grains. The cold water from the tap splashes on his hands and it burns - he’s running hot, his skin flushed, prickling with sickly warmth that spreads from his stomach and spikes through his limbs. 

His back is turned when Regulus walks in, bare feet tapping on the tiled floor. The smell of James’ soap wafts over and he closes his eyes, tries to keep himself in check but his breath hitches, and he’s choking on the smell, on the air itself. 

He loves it when Regulus smells like him - when he comes out of the shower, squeaky clean and smelling like vanilla and chocolate. James fantasises he’s rubbed himself raw all over his body, permeating the skin, settling comfortably in his cells to blend the two of them together, possessively and eternally. 

Such folly. Blatant lies. He’s a fool, doltish and gullible. Blind and blindsided so severely he feels like his eyes have been gouged out with a spoon. A perfect swindle, with genius execution - he should hate Regulus for it, but he’s sickened with himself instead. He’s gagging on it, the inanity of his blind devotion, the absurdity of his blind trust. The illusion of his belonging. Regulus was never his to begin with. He’s no one’s. He belongs to himself and does as he pleases.  And James has so recklessly fallen, fast and heedless, in love, never second guessing himself. 

Why would he? Regulus was sweet, so sweet, like honey, sticky and addictive.

Why would he? James is trust personified, and no one’s every made him doubt the integrity of his naive beliefs. 

Maybe Regulus is doing him a favour, really. Time to grow up. Realise nothing is eternal. 

James fills up the espresso maker with freshly ground beans and puts it back on the ring. He watches the water boil, eyes wide, hypnotised. It’s easier to switch his brain off like this, stare and dissociate. Conveniently float away to a place where Regulus is not, so he can scream his lungs out, maybe punch a wall, and fall to his knees. 

Regulus' presence is stifling. He’s circling from behind, and James can feel him even though he can’t see him. His bare feet tap closer, and James holds his breath and jolts in shock when a pair of long arms wrap around his waist and squeeze lovingly, Regulus’ face pressed snugly against his back. He hums and it reverberates in James’ lungs, between his ribs, his brittle bones threatening to disintegrate, grind into dust.  

He can’t breathe. The air is not getting past his mouth, fluttering behind his clamped lips. He’s suffocating, and Reg’s tight grip makes his lungs compress and shrivel. He’s feeling faint.  

“James?” Reg murmurs, face pressed between his shoulder blades. “You all right, baby? You’re so tense. Are you sore after yesterday?” 

James snorts, blinking rapidly. He’s losing sight of what he’s doing, his mind skittering from one thought to another. Something clinks to his right. The air smells of burnt coffee. Ah, coffee. He’s making coffee. The water’s boiling. He can’t breathe, and his lungs burn - someone’s poured a corrosive substance down his throat that eats away at the fragile tissue. Maybe that’s why he can’t breathe. It’s eating away at him. 

Regulus is eating him alive. 

The betrayal clings to him like a cat, demanding attention, purring into his skin. He can feel the warmth of his breath, the dampness of his shirt where Regulus kisses alongside his spine, mouthing at his skin through the fabric. 

“James?” he repeats, his arms tensing around his waist, voice laced with apprehension. 

James wants to laugh, hysterically and desperately. Reg’s a gifted actor, an even greater liar. A top-notch performer. He’s trying to reconcile the cheater and the vicious liar with the Regulus he knows, the one that slipped into their bed late last night and fucked him fast but tender, lips grazing the back of his neck, teeth out, tasting him with reverence and praising him for how good, how delicious, how sweet he was.  

They’re one and the same — the Regulus that clings to his back now, his scheming exposed, and the Regulus who made him come last night, pouring promises of eternal love into his ear and fucking into him with an urgency and appetite of a starving man.  

He thinks of Regulus coming inside him, teeth sunken deep into his neck, when his hand reaches for the coffee maker. He’s mindlessly searching for the handle, but his eyes are misted over, so he misses. 

James yelps in pain, his fingertips seared from the scorch of the hot metal. 

“Fuck,” he gasps and recoils, dislodging himself from Regulus’ embrace. 

Regulus takes a step back and turns him around, concerned. He’s small and slim, but with a presence so imposing that he effortlessly crowds James against the counter, clutching his burned fingers to blow cool air at them. 

“Oh, baby,” he says, wincing, and examines the damage.

James wants to cry, but can’t utter a single sound. Words lodge in his throat. 

He can’t breathe. 

“Breathe, baby,” Regulus encourages, leading him to the sink and dunking his hand under a stream of ice-cold water. “It’s fine, it’s not too bad. The burn is superficial, see? Keep it here for a while.” 

“Stop,” James whispers, trying to retract his hand and slip it from his tight grip. Regulus holds him in place, unnervingly calm and determined.

“Stop wriggling,” he fusses, brow furrowed. James freezes, staring at an empty space above Regulus’ head, and then at the angered, red skin on his fingertips. It’s blurred and James doesn’t know if it’s the stream of water or his tears that distort his vision. 

“Jamie.” Regulus turns the tap off, and gently, so gently, turns James around, pressing into him, pushing his hips against the counter. James lets him, eyes glued to his hand. The burnt skin pulsates, beats out a rhythm in tandem with his thundering heart. “What’s wrong?” 

“I-” he stammers. Stops and starts again. Opens his mouth only to clamp his lips back together. 

Regulus gets impatient, eyes narrowed, a vein popping on his temple. He’s fidgeting, burrowing closer, his nose brushing over James’ palm in a mockery of fondness. He mouths on his knuckles, tongue darting out. He purrs, eyes gleaming wickedly, as if a new, genius idea popped into his pretty head, and he leans over, taking James’ burnt fingers into his mouth, sucking on them gingerly and dragging the flat of his tongue over seared skin. 

“Fuck, that hurts,” James gasps, flinching away, but Regulus only slackens his mouth and lets the saliva pool in, cooling the burn and the pain. “What are you doing?” 

“I don’t know,” Regulus lets his fingers slide out of his mouth. A streak of saliva runs down his chin. His lips are glistening, wet and violently red. He’s biting on the skin there, pulling and taunting. 

James trembles in his grip, his injured hand curling into a fist. He’s hurting himself, raw skin rubbing on the inside of his palm. He clenches harder. The pain is negligible. Cannot equal the constant, debilitating anguish that shoots through his skull and stomps on his chest, crushing organs into pulp.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Regulus commands. His voice drips with poise, with strength and authority. Sangfroid. 

James should throw it all in his face, smash his composure into splinters and see how he fares without it, but something is stopping him. The fear of loss, of a clear-cut ending? As if he’s not lost him already, or lost a piece of himself that unequivocally belongs to Regulus anyway - it’s like shooting yourself in the foot. Breaking your own heart. Brandishing a knife, and plunging it between your own ribs. He has an inkling, a cruel premonition, that Regulus won’t falter, won’t even flinch when James takes the bloodied blade and turns it on him instead. Somehow, he’ll take it in stride and it’s James who will see his entrails being ripped from his stomach, his blood splattered at their feet. Regulus' cool composure will snap James’ neck like a noose, and his assuredness will tug on the rope for the sheer pleasure of it. 

The walk up the scaffold is excruciating. James wants to hang already.

The clock on the wall ticks away the time but he’s frozen, unable to move, or even flinch. The stool is right there, waiting for him to climb, but he’s stalling. 

Regulus doesn’t bother to ask again. Doesn’t spare a warning and sinks to his knees instead. 

James is not ready - he stumbles over the stairs of the scaffold, slipping on the fresh blood that’s there, while the rope swings in front of his face, awaiting patiently. It’s all happening too fast and too soon; he can’t let this go on. Regulus is thumbing over his hip and tugging at the hem of his boxers, staring at him imploringly through his obnoxiously long eyelashes. 

Stop it, James wants to scream but words, yet again, get lodged deep in his throat. He thinks they don’t really want to come out. 

Regulus drags James’ boxers to his mid-thigh in one sweep motion, and James feels so violently exposed and vulnerable, so viciously owned. Regulus licks alongside his length, tongue damp and warm and James stuffs his fist into his mouth. His burnt fingers protest, shooting sparks of pain down the length of his arm and to his elbow. His cock twitches in Regulus’ mouth, the pain somehow stimulating. 

“Stop,” James mumbles around his fist, able to find his lost words that cannot be formed into an accusation but don’t mind it if he uses them to beg. 

Maybe that’s what he needs to do, beg for mercy, before Regulus kicks the stool from under his feet and he swings on the rope like a puppet. That’s what Regulus must see him as - a mindless puppet that he can play with to fulfil his heart's desires and put back on the shelf when he gets bored or distracted, or aches for a different kind of pleasure. A puppet that will sit idly and wait, face split by an unwavering, drawn-on smile, while its owner peruses other toys. 

It must have been so eminently easy, with James sitting there, waiting patiently for Regulus to come back each time, unaware he’s a part of an intricate game. A toy doesn’t know it’s being played with. It doesn't know it’s a toy in the first place. 

He must not have been enough, or there’s something he can’t give Regulus that Barty can. James just wishes he was told, so he could try harder. It might be true Regulus comes back to him when the thrill of toying with others expires, but James doesn’t want him to walk away in the first place. 

“Fuck my mouth,” Regulus pleads, or rather, commands, the tip of James’ cock resting on his bottom lip, a sheen of saliva coating the head. Regulus licks him clean, gathering precum on his tongue, sucking it out of him greedily. His pupils are shot with black, and Regulus loves the taste, savours it - it’s so plain for everyone to see. For James to see, cause no one else is here to witness his unravelling. 

“I can’t move,” James chokes out, muscles lax, the only force that holds him up being the solid bulk of the counter behind him. 

Regulus hums around him, the vibrations so featherlight they should not make his stomach knot and churn, and his cock strain against his tongue. 

“That’s all right, baby,” Regulus pulls off him with a pop to say, “I’ll do the work. You deserve it. You’ve been so good to me last night. Good boy.” 

“Stop.” James feels his teeth chatter. His tongue is tingling. 

Regulus looks up at him darkly. “No,” he simply says. “Use the safe word if you truly mean it.” 

He takes him in, hungrily, devours him to the base, and James wonders where it all goes, tight and deep, obscured by his supple throat. He’s unhealthily fixated on coming inside Regulus’ mouth. His come leaking down his gullet and dripping into his stomach to be consumed and digested, and then absorbed. That’s all I need, James thinks deliriously. All he needs is to know that Regulus is strutting around with his come planted irrevocably inside him, soaking into the stomach lining. 

He briefly wonders if Barty’s come was there too, and he mocks himself secretly, in the safe confines of his scrambled mind - of course it was, very likely at the same time he was there, both of them staking a claim, unwittingly melding together. 

James doesn’t move, fused to the counter, and Regulus does all the work, sinking down on him, sucking and puffing his cheeks out, teeth hidden, letting saliva gather in his mouth in such quantities he’s leaking all over the place, on the floor and down James’ cock. 

Regulus comes off with another loud pop, places a hand at the base and starts stroking, while swirling his tongue around the head, and James’ knees buckle. He thinks he’s going to stumble and fall but Regulus’ other hand holds him firmly in place, trapped against the counter and his unrelenting mouth. 

Between Regulus’ hand and his mouth, James doesn’t stand a chance, and comes with a pained whine, all over his tongue and lips and chin, and Regulus drinks it up and licks him clean right after with such fervour that for an infinitesimal moment James forgets. While the strength of his orgasm washes over him, his brain comes to a screeching halt, and his heart beats out a rapid rhythm, then stops. Freezes like a lake in winter, and there are cracks in it, the icing deceptively thin. The post-orgasm haze feels like mourning. James is grieving the last time he’s ever going to come all over Regulus’ eager face. 

“Are you feeling better, baby?” Regulus asks, voice innocent and laced with honey, dripping with it, so sickly sweet it makes James want to throw up all over him. 

“No,” he simply says. 

Regulus looks slightly miffed, unimpressed with his attitude, as if James was being purposefully difficult. What else do you want, Regulus’ eyes seem to be asking. James doesn’t know the answer. 

Regulus gets off his knees gracefully, yanking his boxers back on over his thighs. James trembles when the fabric rubs over the sensitive head. Regulus pats him on the hip soothingly, whipping his face with the back of his hand. There’s come at the corner of his mouth, pearly white and taunting James to lick it off, or smear it alongside his cheek. 

“I feel like I’ve exhausted my abilities to get it out of you. What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. I obviously cannot suck it out of you through your dick, so you’re going to have to use your words and spell it out for me.” 

James lifts his head. Their eyes meet, and it’s like a kick to the gut. 

“What’s wrong?” Regulus asks, unrelenting. “Are you sick?”

“No,” James whispers. 

For a fleeting moment, Regulus looks conflicted. A flicker of something foreign, worry or doubt, flashes over his face. A flush creeps up his neck and cheeks, or maybe it’s been there since he sank down to his knees. The drop of James’ come is still lodged in the corner of his mouth. 

“Well, what can I do to make it better? Anything? Please, Jamie?” 

“You could,” James’ throat is dry and it’s a miracle he’s able to form words into sentences that don’t come out as an incoherent babble, “not fuck other people.” 

“What?” Regulus’ breath hitches, and James feels a spark of virulent pleasure shoot down his spine  - he has him by the throat, even if it doesn’t last. Regulus is caught off guard and the unflappable veneer of poise drops. 

“What did you say?” Regulus asks again, after a moment of stifling silence. 

“You heard me.” 

“Where is this coming from?” Regulus asks calmly. He’s back to his usual composed self and James hates him for it.

“I picked up your phone this morning. Saw the messages.” Inexplicably, James is able to rig another bunch of words together. Force Regulus to look him in the eye and accept that, this time, he has the upper hand. Just this once. Please, let me have it, just this once, so I don’t feel like an utter fool for eternity, which you will not be a part of. I’m still mourning. 

“You were snooping through my phone?” 

James grits his teeth. “Is this what you’re worried about now? Me being nosy?”

Regulus shrugs and isn’t it the most heartbreaking thing James has ever witnessed? “If you weren’t, we wouldn’t be in this situation.” 

James can’t breathe. “You-” he stammers, throat constricting again. His own body is trying to bring him down. Regulus owns that body, no wonder it fights for its master. “You’re so fucking cruel, you know? How can you say this?! Are you not-”

“James,” Regulus raises his hand, speaking slowly and enunciating clearly, as if he’s scolding a child. “Let’s be reasonable. Let’s sit down, drink some coffee, and talk it over.” 

“No,” James growls, pushing himself off the counter. He sways on his feet and Regulus grabs him by the elbow, steadying him. His skin burns to the touch. James thinks it will scar, same as his fingertips. 

“Don’t touch me,” he begs. 

“You’re being unreasonable, James. Let’s talk.” 

“I said don’t touch me.” 

“I don’t think you really mean it.” 

“Red,” James whispers, and Regulus retracts his hand as if he got burned in return. James smirks triumphantly. He’s pleasantly surprised his lips remember how to curl upwards. 

“That’s low,” Regulus says menacingly, but James only shakes his head.

“I can’t look at you right now.” 

“But you had no problem with me sucking your dick five minutes ago?” 

“You cornered me,” James snaps, vibrating with anger. His stomach flips and knots again. The smell of burnt coffee is wafting over from the kitchen ring and it’s making him queasy. 

“You should have told me first thing in the morning, James.” 

“So it’s my fault?” James lets out a mirthless laugh. 

“You know what, I changed my mind. You’re not in the right state of mind to talk about this right now,” Regulus states, eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a thin line. 

James gapes at him. His heart is hammering so fast it’s bound to bruise itself on his ribs. “Stop it, stop fucking with my head!” 

“I’m not doing anything.” 

“Just stop it, stop telling me I’m not fit to talk about it. I know what I saw and what it means!”

Regulus sighs, shaking his head and looking at him with pity, and it’s so audacious it makes James want to shove him, make him stumble. Make him break the facade. Feel remorse. Anything is better than this. 

“Jamie, just breathe, all right?” Regulus says, and it’s almost gentle, almost caring. On the cusp of it. 

“I can’t look at you right now, it makes me sick.” 

“That’s fine.” Regulus nods pensively. “I think I should leave.” 

“What?” Now James wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake, elicit some response that’s not this infuriating assuredness. “You’re making me feel fucking insane!” 

“That’s why I should leave. We can talk it over later. I can explain.” 

“Don’t-” 

“James, just breathe.” 

“I can’t, it fucking hurts,” James whines pathetically. 

Regulus takes a step back, pulling his phone from the front pocket of his hoodie and sneaking a quick glance at the screen. James wants to rip it from his hand and chuck it against the wall, smashing it to pieces. 

“Don’t talk to him,” James begs and this must be what it feels like to hit rock bottom. “Don’t fucking talk to him, ever.” 

Regulus looks at him again, eyes brimming with sadness. “Oh, baby.” 

“Don’t call me that!” 

“I can’t be here right now,” Regulus states, and now his eyes are hollow. The change is volatile, knocking James off his feet. “I’m leaving. Give me a call when you calm down.” 

He’s out the door before James can beg him to stay, and leaves him with the realisation that, given enough time, he indubitably would. 

[ashen-crest]

this isn't wbw but can I hear more about stray spirit bc the concept of temporary spirits that will kill u if they possess u is SO cool 👀👀👀

def!!

In the world of The Stray Spirit, spirits are formed over time. ~Something underground which we learn about in book 2~ periodically releases spirit energy, which energy latches onto nature and slowly forms a spirit. That's how we get forest spirits, river spirits, etc.

However, every now and then, this energy gets released too quickly. This event is called a surge. It's real fun- there's earthquakes, there's sparkly energy in the air, latching onto living things and hurting them. Good times!

One side-effect of these surges is the formation of remnants: bundles of spirit energy that kind of glob together and form too quickly. They're half-spirits- they're almost there, but they didn't form right, and they're desperate for something to latch onto to survive. Unfortunately, latching onto a living thing kills both them and the host, so...it's a short-lived existence.

Because these things look kind of like moving spiderwebs, some people call them forest ghosts. Each area has its own local folklore surrounding them and their origins (since technically no one knows how the spirit energy works yet!), but one common superstition is to touch a piece of wood and invoke the protection of the goddess Hara whenever one is seen or mentioned.

Here's an excerpt from The Stray Spirit where our main trio sees one for the first time:

Next to [Emry], Cal leaned forward to inspect the landscape.  “What’s that?” Emry followed her gaze over the mossy wall.  He didn’t see them at first—they were barely visible in the sunlight, like spiderwebs floating in the breeze. But when his eyes did focus on them, it was difficult to look away. Two concentrations of silvery mist twisted in the air, sliding up against tree trunks, then melting off. Occasionally, they would form a tendril in the shape of a wing or a claw, dragging it along the earth before morphing back into a shapeless form. As they stretched in a slow desperation over the ground, the moss and foliage beneath them shriveled and darkened. “Remnants?” Emry whispered. As he spoke, one of the claw shapes reached lazily in their direction. He shivered and touched the wooden lute on instinct. “I don’t like them.” Aspen started quiet, then grew more insistent. “I don’t like them at all. We need to leave.” “Everything’s fine, Aspen.” Cal set a hesitant hand on the lute. “They don’t seem to be doing anything—” A squirrel skittered down one of the dead trees toward the nearest remnant, its tail dusted with charcoal. It regarded the floating mist with a tilt of its head, then turned to hop off—but the remnant was too quick. It dove straight into the creature, the mist siphoning into its fur in a blink. The squirrel flashed white once, then fell unmoving into the leaves. Cal swallowed and took the lute from Emry. “Yes, good idea. Time to leave.”

I realize this makes it sound like The Stray Spirit is a particuarly ~spooky~ book, but I promise it's not! The remnants are about as spooky as the book gets. It's technically a higher-stakes cozy fantasy with a second-chance romance subplot.

[marsixm]

side note that same coworker and i were talking about instagram being boring and shes like “yeah its not cool anymore like when i first got it in the third grade” and i felt myself shrivel into dust and float away

[elladescent449-artspace]

Water

I initially wrote this as a standalone chapter but decided to make it a full chapter fic. This is for the stranded au, with Leonarado figuring out water and food to survive in the prison dimension. Once I start working on the fic and get the chapters going I'll probably delete this or at least edit it to have the chapter number and fic title.

Krang was leaving him alone lately. 

    He was laying in a comfortably shaped divot in the hull of one of the hundreds of ships that floated around. He was still healing from the big beatdown he had had with Krang a few weeks — had it been weeks — A week? — ago but he could probably thank his mutation or something for the quick healing. He would have to send Drax a thank you letter, or maybe a postcard. 

He chuckled at the thought.

Leonardo had woken up some time ago — that’s all time was at this point, seeing as how the lack of sun rotations was throwing off his inner clock. When his stomach growled he ignored it until the gnawing sensation started to become unbearable. It must be because he didn’t eat before he laid down to sleep. He had just been so tired lately. Leonardo made it half way up before he collapsed back into the dust. With a grunt he forced himself up into a sitting position, and then he stood, choosing to ignore the subtle sensation of pins and needles in his hands and feet.He crossed his arms to stretch them, and then straightened with a groan. 

“Good morning!” he shouted to himself with a smile. “The weather today is~” he announces, pausing for effect as he rotates a full 360 looking at the sky, “gray! There is no breeze, medium light, and a whole bunch of nothing!” His voice bounced into echoes as it traveled off and away into the gray void, leaving him in silence once more.

“Well, time for breakfast,” he muttered sourly, and he lept off of the platform. Gravity quickly fell away and he free-floated… fell? Fell through open space until he came into contact with some ruble. He propelled off of it towards a gargantuan Krang body, landing on a dusty white tooth the size of a taxi.

    Gravity was weird in the prison dimension, which is why he was able to walk into its mouth, still technically being straight up. It was like space moved around him. The mouth was cavernous, the tongue a bristled carpet like a shriveled cat-tongue, and multiple rows of teeth pointing inward on the cheeks and roof of the mouth. Leonardo had guessed that at some point it might have smelled bad, but now it just smelled like dust. In the back of the mouth, blocking the throat in bulbouse, smooth masses was breakfast. Sepia colored orbs varying from the size of pencil erasers to softballs. Leo grabbed onto one a bit smaller than his fist, he found that the taste of these were a bit more bearable.

    Back on earth there was a spoken rule about never eating an unidentified mushroom and the rule was probably the same here. He only learned these were edible when Krang shoved them down his throat to keep him from dying.

    “Man, I miss pizza.” Leo mumbled before crunching down on the ball. Like always, it immediately turned to coarse powder in his mouth, sending a stinging, rotten vegetable taste over his taste buds. Leonardo held it in his mouth for a moment before bracing and swallowing the chalk-like substance down his throat. It hit his stomach like a rock and he gagged,  “I miss pizza so much!”

    Leonardo sat down and slowly ate his chosen fungus. He didn’t gag as much as he used to, but it was still bad. A few months ago — months? — he’d be having breakfast by now. If it was Saturday Mikey would make pancakes, mini waffles, or those crepes that everyone liked, with fruit or whipped cream. If April was over she’d be the one to drag Donatello from his lab, otherwise it would be Raph. Dad would be up and make Leo his favorite tea, they always did like the same types of tea. He and his family would all sit down together and eat, talking about silly things, or what they wanted to do that day. They might hang out at home and watch tv or play video games in the arcade, they’d wait until evening and head to the boardwalk and take the ferris wheel to watch the sunset while they ate funnel cake. Raph used to be so scared of heights when he was little, so when Leo would ride with him he'd hold his hand as they reached the top.

    The memory was swallowed down with the last bit of mushroom. While his stomach was technically “full,” the shrooms always left his feeling dry and gross on the inside, like there was a thick film coating his intestines.

    He sat inside the mouth for a moment, loosely hugging his knees as he stared out into murky dead space. If this wasn’t a gruesome prison he might have actually found some sort of “macabre beauty” in it. Leonardo chuckled, that’s what Mikey would have called it. He would have said it in his silly professional art critic voice.

    ‘Eh, not really my type of art.’ Mind-Mikey sat next to him, holding his legs the same way as Leo and looking past him out of the mouth and into the gray. With Leo’s attention he stuck out his tongue mockingly. ‘Never really flowed with me.’

    Leo had a habit of imagining Mind-Mikey and his other Mind-brothers in their older, colored outfits. The mind version of Mikey wore his old colored knee and elbow pads, a call for older times as Dr. Feelings might call it.

    The mental image of Michelangelo nodded, and then he was wearing a sweater with the rounded prescription glasses. ‘What’s on the agenda today?’ 

    “Nothing.” Leo said flatly.

    ‘Well, you have to do something.’

    “No I don’t,” Leo looked away from him, choosing instead to stare back into the gray as he rested his head on his knees. “I don’t have to do anything anymore.”

    ‘I don't think I have to educate you on the importance of doing enriching activities. You need some form of mental stimulation in order to live a full, happy life.’

    “A full and happy life, huh?” Leo laughed dryly. 

    ‘Well, as happy as you can get.’

    There was no point. Leonardo didn’t want to do anything. He did what he was supposed to and he did what he needed too. His family was safe. The world was safe. There was no point in enrichment, there was no point in continuing this.

    ‘C’mon, get up.’ Mind-Mikey stood.

    Leo turned his head to look at him. Mind-Dr. Feelings was standing over him, expectantly but patiently staring down at Leo as he waited for him to follow. Leo groaned but still stood up.

    ‘Let’s do something.’ Mind-Mikey smiled.

    “There’s literally nothing to do, this prison dimension has nothing.”

    ‘Have you looked around?’

    “Everyday I wake up and have to open my eyes to this place.”

    ‘Yeah but have you looked?’

    Leonardo rolled his eyes, but with the patient stare of Dr. Feelings, he buckled. Leonardo sighed, “alright, hermano, i’ll look.”

    ‘That’s the spirit!’ Mind Mikey leapt out of the mouth and Leo followed.

    Leo didn’t even humor the first ship. It was small in comparison to the others, the size of a small apartment building. He obediently followed the vivid hallucination of Dr. Feelings, not taking in any of his surroundings. They walked through together for maybe an hour, and at the end they hopped out of the front of a broken cockpit.

    The second ship was larger, and with the weirdness of gravity they explored it with everything upside down. Leonardo took more interest, as it was comparatively clean, with more unbroken glass that you could use to look outside. It’s not like Leo took any notes or anything, but he definitely felt less bored after walking through.

    It was at the third ship they were walking through. This one was almost the size of the technodrome, with dark hallways that sucked up the light. Leonardo stepped carefully over the body of a Krang that had long-since fused into the wall in the process of its decay. Something cold touched him and he flinched away. He rubbed his shoulder and came away with… water. Leonardo’s eyes widened. He put the trail of liquid in his mouth, yup, definitely water. Above where he stood was a tiny crack in the ceiling, the water grew, reflecting what little light there was in the room and falling into his hand. He looked to Mind Michelangelo and walked ahead of him, beginning to jog. He passed through corridors and jumped over gaps where the floor was missing.

    And then there was a door.

    As far as he had seen, Krang ships didn’t have doors besides the immediate entrance. He put his hand to the lumpy surface. It was ice cold. There wasn’t a switch, or a door knob, but next to the door on the wall was a panel, full of decaying, slimy masses.

    “Any ideas on how to get it open?” Leo looked to Dr. Feelings.

‘Perhaps you just need to… hm,’ Mind Mikey hummed, ‘I’m afraid that this is out of my skill set.’

    “Mind Mikey, can you maybe get Mind Donnie, please?”

    A purple clad hand physically shoved Mind Mikey out of the way and an illusory vision of Donnie came into the view with a bright smile. ‘I was wondering when you would call upon my intellectual talents!’

    “Yeah, so this panel has got some weird gooey stuff and I want to get inside past this door.”

    Mind Donnie hummed as he scanned the door. ‘Well, ignoring the fact that Krang vessels don’t usually have doors and that definitely possibly  means that whatever is inside was sealed away for the safety of a mutated monstrosity crew designed to be extremely physically resilient: put your hand in the panel.’

    “What?!”

    ‘Don’t worry, I've done this before!’     “Yeah, but I didn’t exactly get details on how you did that!”

    ‘Oh, pish-posh I need to get a feel for it.’

    “You mean I need to get a feel for it,” Leo mumbled but he obediently put his hand to the panel. His hand broke through the cold and slimy surface and he felt a bundle of thick slimy tube-like organs. He shivered from the feeling but pushed deeper, feeling around for anything that might indicate a switch or a pulley. Leonardo came into something a bit harder than the rest of whatever he had his hand in. It was more metallic in texture, and had less of a give to it than the rest of the mass he had his hand in.

    ‘Hm~ interesting.’ Mind Donnie hummed, narrowing his eyes in concentration. ‘You feel that thing under your fingers?’

    “Yeah,” Leo choked out.

    ‘Rip it out.’

    Leonardo gripped it and pulled. It came out and snapped immediately.

    The door flung open and a cold temperature washed over Leonardo. 

    The room was huge. The ceiling reached five stories up, with large, claw-like gashes cut through the ceiling bleeding starlight into the room. Leonardo stood on a crumbling platform that sloped downwards to the left but dropped straight off in front of him. Hanging from the ceiling by meaty gray wires was a large Krang organ covered in white ice. Below it was a pool of water, and something glowed at the bottom.

    ‘This must be the ship's reactor!’ Mind Donnie was giddy with excitement. ‘It must have an endothermic decay property to it, causing the crystallization of water in the atmosphere and allowing it to naturally form ice!’

    Leonardo immediately unclipped his belt and dived into the water before Mind Donnie could protest. Cold — Freezing cold water flooded his senses and he squeezed his eyes shut. For a few seconds his skin  burned with how cold it felt. He blew out a jet of bubbles that coated his face and he slowly opened his eyes. The water was so pure it was like he was floating in the air. The pool was so much deeper than he had first thought, maybe… the depth of the original turtle's lair. Before shredder. There were the remnants of a tall platform in the water, starting at the top in a thin disk right beneath the reactor, with poles attached to it reaching all the way to the bottom, with two other disk platforms of the same size evenly spaced between the first platform and the floor. At the bottom of the pool, floating gently, were clusters of… something reaching up past the second platform. Cautiously, he swam closer. They were arctic blue collections of tiny cells, held together by a jelly-like membrane — similar to frog eggs. Leonardo poked it and it bounced away. He gripped it and ripped away a big chunk. Was this… edible?

    ‘Maybe don’t eat that-’

    ‘Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!’ Mind-Raph jumps into the picture, shoving Mind Donnie to the side

    Leonardo immediately bit into it. It was soft, breaking between his teeth like a soft gummy. He groaned, this tasted so much better than the mushrooms. It was sweet, like licorice, with something pleasantly spicy like ginger underneath. Under the water Leo grabbed handfuls, greedily eating fist fulls of the stuff, only bothering to chew once between each swallow.

    ‘Oh-me-gosh stop you don’t even know what it is!’ Mind Donnie pushed back into the picture, yelling as he fought Mind-Raph for a voice in his head.

    Leo only muttered in protest under the water, swallowing an oversized bite down his throat. He felt the need for oxygen and he swam up, sucking in a large lung full of air. He floated on his back, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling, finally feeling full — in a good way for a change.

Leonardo covered his mouth as he burped. “What do you think it is?”

‘Probably something you shouldn’t have eaten six handfuls of.’ Mind Donnie glared at him, but after a moment, they sighed, ‘maybe it's some alien algae? This is strictly a hypothesis, but the microbes could have been picked up in another planet's atmosphere and then once there was a suitable place to grow, aka light and water — did so.’

    Leonardo turned in the water, still on his back and kicked, allowing himself to slowly float under the Krang organ. If it wasn’t a literal giant intestine Leo might have called it beautiful, if still only in a morbid way. The crystals were almost transparent, softly reflecting the bleeding light from the ceiling across his face and body. As he floated under it he felt a thin stream of water dripping onto his shoulder and down his body as he floated away.

    ‘I guess the moisture in the air freezes when it comes into contact with it, and then melts from the natural temperature of the space.’ Comedically, Leo had now imagined Mind Donnie to be the size of his hand, sitting with his knees to his chest on Leo’s stomach.

 “Yup.”

  ‘You know we’re coming for you, right?’

  Leo didn’t answer.

‘I bet that I’m — well, the real me is working on a portal as we speak. We’ve been to prison dimensions before, like, with the shredder, and we have Draxum and the key, so it can’t be that hard.’

They would never be dumb enough to open up the portal again, no matter how much it hurt. The thought made his heart ache, and he tried his best to not think, but Mind-Donnie kept talking.

    ‘Raph is probably the leader again, and he’s training really hard to be strong enough. And Mikey’s probably… well, I don’t know what he’d be doing but he’s definitely doing it.’

    “He’s probably beat my pizza box stacking record.” Leonardo lightly laughed. “What’s April doing?” She was probably back at school by now. Being awesome and continuing her pursuit in journalism like she always wanted, even when they were kids.

    ‘Do you remember that class she was excited to take?’

    “Digital Photographic Imaging.”

    ‘I bet she passed that, she knows me and I am a - as the kids say - whiz at anything digital.’

    “Has it been that long?”

    ‘Leo, it's been months.’

    “You don’t know that,” Leonardo whispers.

    Mind Donnie didn’t say anything else. Perhaps this was his way of not arguing with him, or at least not arguing with himself.

    There are too many days where Leo thinks too much, and the illusory avatars of his brothers are a symptom of it. He doesn’t mind too much when the visions show up though, it makes this more bearable. The cracks in the ceiling let him stare into the dark void, and for a moment he allows himself to imagine that there are constellations for him to marvel at. Leonardo closes his eyes, allowing himself to draw a mental blank, to not think of anything anymore. He didn’t want to keep thinking.

    “You need to get out of the water.” Mind Donnie broke the silence.

    Leonardo ignored him.

    “Leo, the water’s too cold, you need to get out.”

    “Just another minute.” He didn’t want to get out of the water, this was the best thing he had felt in, according to Mind Donnie, months. After so long his skin didn’t feel dirty, and he finally had something in him that didn’t taste like an oil spill. 

    “Get out of the water Leo.” Mind Donnie’s voice began to rise.

    “I don’t want to.” Leonardo rolled over, submerging his face to let the cold feeling wash over his front. 

    “Please.” Donatello whispered, fully in his head.

    Leonardo opened his eyes again to stare at the bottom of the pool. He opened his mouth and let the water in, taking a few swallows. He breathed out.

He didn’t expect to stagger with his first step out. He fell to the ground on his face, feeling even colder than he did in the water.

    ‘Your experiencing early symptoms of hypothermia,’ Mind-Donnie said flatly.

    “You don’t say.” Leo laughed dryly.

    ‘Get your body moving, there isn’t another heat source so you’ll have to rely on yourself.’

    Groaning, Leo mutters out “yeah, I know.” Leonardo shakes his upper body, waking himself up a little before staggering into a standing position.

    He was only in the water for about twenty minutes and he was already so cold. It wasn’t going to get any warmer here, so if he was going to come back and swim some more — which he most definitely was — he would have to cut the time down significantly.    He had water. Finally he had water. And food that didn’t taste like poisoned chalk. It felt small, but it was something that he was finally looking forward to.

Note: Thank you Rott on Discord for beta-reading

[dyrewrites]

Weald and Wen - dream made flesh

The Napyr's body jerked next and its eyes bulged before its glaring red pupils faded to soft pinks and the black pools beneath drained to whites, revealing glossy black irises. Cavernous wails echoed from its throat as the pale branches along its arms and legs sucked into the deep grooves of its bark. Its curled antlers remained atop its narrowing head, though shrunken and branched as a mane of white vines, stretched and speckled with red leaves, erupted between them. The whole of its bulky form thinned, lengthened and shriveled with each ragged moan...and then it quieted, sudden and still. Its chest rose and fell with even breaths but it did not move, did not speak. 

A different creature laid before them then, its features delicate and elegant, more like the stories Faerai remembered. And wandering closer, she tilted her head, opening her mouth with a silent gasp as she soaked in the sight of her dream made flesh.

”Oh...Bitey a him,” Mitra creaked. 

Absently, Faerai’s eyes followed the little light's down the new figure of the Napyr–for it could be nothing else–and settled on the area just above its slender thighs.

A blossom grew there, like the ones that adorned some of the gorebark trees, only wider and fuller. Its deep purple petals were near as broad as the digits of Faerai’s own front paws and the vine protruding from its center, bright pink and coated in fuzzy purple hairs, hinted of the ones that hung from many of the Weald’s trees—often swarming with trapped critters.

And again she tilted her head, and again she stared, as she tried to place it. Her father told her once that other species had different anatomy than Fyrni. That they used parts of that anatomy for reproduction, something the Fyrni did not do, and the strange images he painted still haunted her latelights. But the sight of the blossom before her, and the vine hung so easily from it, was stranger still…and captivating.

Faerai fell, sudden and hard, into the moist grass and gaped at the little light. Who snickered, glowing bright and pink.

“Little light pushed us!” Faerai accused.

Mitra giggled, “I holds no covers for him. Yous need keep holds of yous own eyes.”

Embarrassed heat found Faerai’s cheeks and she shifted focus to her shadow as it wriggled. Scowling at the both, she stood and brushed the dust from her trousers and, just as Mitra's giggles turned to crackling laughter, a groan yanked them both back to the naked figure of the Napyr, who had begun to stir.

Mitra kept close to the withered tree-beast, her curious eyes locked on him as he groaned and writhed but Faerai leapt a stride back, that embarrassed heat cooling to dread. 

Ozma, strengthened by the purpling dim of latelight, took a larger four-legged form and shielded its charge as the Napyr woke...

Delgrij rolled onto his stomach and coughed into the grass before rising to sit on his knees. Unable to gather the memories of his wyld lights he blinked at the blackened ichor in the grass and wondered, how long have I slept? How much was lost to the ravenous desires of my beast? But there would be no answers in the grass, or the mottled blues and purples of latelight that dappled it. Within the silence between his own labored breaths he heard the din of whisps returning to the small clearing and his bark tingled with the sensation of eyes upon it.

Burnt ichor choked his nostrils and, as he moved to wipe away that muck, he saw it; a shadowy creature nearly as tall as he. On four powerful legs in stood, a stride away, somehow shimmering in the darkening light and fear snapped then. To weak legs it snapped him up and he staggered into something new, something hard and small that dug pins into his back…steadying him. Delgrij spun round to confront what senses insisted was an attack and flinched at the bright glow he met there. 

A whisp, larger than any he had known—near the size of his head—hovered closer than any whisp ever had. Its glow dimmed as it floated back and the stiffness of his bark creaked as he gawked. There was a figure in that glow; stocky, but delicate and glittering in wavering pinks too much like the Heart at midlight. And he leaned toward it, and it dipped to allow him, as he angled for a better view of what held it aloft. It had wings on its back, clinking slivers of the same crystal that held its light.

When Delgrij looked again at its noseless face, the whisp spread its slit of a mouth into a toothy grin and twirled in the air. It slapped his face with hard, vine-like bits of white crystal that let loose a tinkling cry as they gathered again to hang behind and below it. Iridescent, those tendrils, and the sight of them shivered through him with memories he could not catch.

This was no whisp...

A Myr? He wondered, but a Myr without its stonecover would be far too delicate to flit about so freely.

“Shiny?” the not a whisp asked, its voice the sound of pebbles tossed in glass. “Is bitey tree shiny?”

It poked a pointed finger into his cheek then and Delgrij twitched. Definitely a myr, he thought, dismissing the shiny thing to return his attention to the shadow creature.

A creature that was not the horror he assumed, not the impossible darkness that stole his brood, but something else. Something far too docile and...present in its surroundings. Something that studied him as surely as he studied it, with its head cocked to the side and its yellow eyes alert. And it was not alone, a furry head peeked around it, long ears drooped low along a youth-rounded face.

A lone fawn, this far from the Wen, Delgrij wondered, leaning to try and see the whole of the fawn. But the not-a-whisp beat him to it, flitting to the fawn. They spoke then, in low voices as Delgrij stood bewildered. What world did I wake to? 

As the whispered conversation continued, the shadow shrank to a quarter of its previous size, revealing the fawn in full but kept its defensive posture. All eyes locked on Delgrij, and a tinge of guilt burned in his chest as the fawn stared in the way he once stared at his Broodmother; with fear and reverence. 

Not an Auru, he decided at the sight of her eyes, eyes that sang as he read them. And their song, so familiar, so sweet, swelled in his seed and threatened to drop him. They told him—as all eyes told him, with their color and their connection to the ichor—what she thought of herself. They whispered, in nebulous voices, without detail but flush with emotion and he listened as he studied her.

Though she was covered in long fur, with high-set ears and a small snout—as many Auru he had met—the fawn before him bore colors too strange to be one of the Rim-born creatures he knew. Auru fur tended toward blondes, browns and reds, warm shades and hues. But the creature captivating him then was grayish blue, near as vibrant as the light around her, ears and tail tipped yellow. Dyeing was not impossible, of course, and surely she could be an Auru too young to have antlers...but, even as she looked away, as she spoke hurriedly with the odd whisp and even to the shadow beside her, Delgrij followed her eyes.

Auru had bright eyes with pale pupils, verdant greens or yellows, even a few with gentle blues but hers. Hers were beyond blue, so vibrant they glowed and their pupils burned in a yellow he had seen but once before.

Piercing, his thoughts sang, the fur may not be the same, and this one bears no antlers...but those eyes. He gasped, it was slight, unnoticed, but still he gasped at the memories of eyes so bright, so blue. Did he survive, does…does someone I care for yet breathe? Delgrij continued to stare, unable to pull his eyes from the sprout—for Auru or not, it had to be a young thing, whatever it was. Even as the odd whisp creaked between them, even as his ichor threatened to spill from his eyes, he could not look away.

“Bitey tree, little beastie!” The not-a-whisp cracked, sudden and shrill as she broke his gaze and motioned from Delgrij to the sprout. Then she flit to hover in the wide space between them and, motioning from the sprout to Delgrij, cracked again, “Little beastie, bitey tree!”

“F–Faerai...” The sprout muttered, twisting braided tails between sizeable paws, “Faerai Aneini.” The sound of her full name drew a hurt squeak and sharp look from the not a whisp, but she ignored it and motioned to her shadow, “And this is Ozma.”

The shadow glowered, its bright eyes flickering, but it did not move.

Delgrij stared too long at the eyes of the shadow before smiling at the lilting timbre of the sprout's voice, all too familiar to his ears. “I am branded Delgrij,” He offered her and, placing his branched fingers to his chest, bowed, “Delgrij Ru'nai Nuemnin, in full.” 

His voice rode the air like a cool breeze on a hot midlight to caress Faerai’s ears and she shuddered with it, smiling all too easily. 

And Mitra squeaked, narrowing her eyes at each of them. “Is tricks, little beastie,” she creaked, locking accusing eyes on Delgrij. “Bitey trees words is twisty, cracks yous ears ans dulls yous thoughts.”

A pained expression deepened the grooves of Delgrij’s carved face before he looked at the grass. “The odd whisp speaks true,” He said, then lifted his eyes to glare at Mitra, his voice sharpening, “The ‘trick’ is not by intention, hunger yet plagues me, sapping my control. I mean no harm.”

“We safe, D–del…g–gree, not hurt,” Faerai said, her step forward stuttering as his name tangled her tongue but Delgrij smiled at the effort, burning her cheeks before she could look away. The wave to the little light came too quickly after, the words spilled too freely, “And–and whisp name of Mitra...but not a whisp.”

Mitra flared, “Makes is my shine! Ans I lend no shinies to cracked trees.”

“Lent or not,” Delgrij said, words dripping as he turned his bright pink eyes on her, “A brand reveals much, what eyes alone might muddle, and yours tells me all I need know...Myr.”

Mitra’s core fluttered with itching shame, a shame not her own, a shame she fought. And a shame she could not beat as she turned from the twisted lips that birthed it. Touched by a disgust not her own, Faerai looked to her shadow but it only tilted its head, sharing her confusion.

“Myr means ‘of Lady’,” She said to Mitra, “Why Delgrij curse little light this way?

“Tree words nots oldwords,” Mitra began to explain.

But Delgrij cut in, “Blight, to my brood it means ‘blight'.” His tone dripped venom, spitting his distaste as he continued, “It is a brand we have bestowed upon those similar to...it. Pebbles with wings that brand themselves by the material they break from. They haunt our colonies, filch our belongings, chew on our nests and trick our kin into running headlong into burning midlight.”

Mitra burned darker and set her hands on her hips, “I's nots one whats chomps trees.”

“So you admit to all else?” Delgrij asked, a sharp grin on his lips.

She flared and zipped too close to his eyes while her voice cooled, “I's old, stump, older than alls yous cracked broods. What yous holds of me is silt inna rockslide.”

Delgrij kept his grin and spread it thickly along his words, “Mitra, said the sprout? Fancy yourself carved from the Shell, do you? Tall claim for a Myr, I hazard the numbers claiming such are thin, impossible, even.”

Mitra said no more but her core continued to burn as gathered whisps filled the clearing with a mournful cacophony.

[unboundtravels]

SHORT TRIPS; UNBOUNDNOVEMBER 19/23: PHYSICIAN HEAL THYSELF

Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed, And eats you when you're sleeping. The Doctor confronts a god of anti-time that is using his companion as a host.

He's going as fast as he can. His hands race across controls, the TARDIS chasing after a smoke trail that's threatening to rip her apart. The TARDIS and its engines groaned, wheezing, screaming. Sparks and flames pop off the console. The Doctor, worry painted across his face— finally begins landing the TARDIS. It was difficult to follow this trail, like a smoke screen that was fading quickly. Once she landed, though, The Doctor yanked one of the monitors in front of him, The Doctor stared at what the exterior was showing him. The TARDIS creaked in a manner that made The Doctor hush it quietly. 

"I know old girl... But we've gotta push the line. I've got to try and talk to her." 

He saw on the screens, a woman standing amidst the centerpiece of her nation, her home. In the harbor, she stood, her hands outstretched as green energy ripped apart the buildings and the marketplace stands. Aging them to dust, causing them to fall and crumble. Her hair floats upward as if she's underwater. Bright, emerald green eyes glowing, with cracked skin around them— more energy shining through them. Her teeth are sharp, and he sees even from behind... this is not his orchid. It is Zagreus... an ancient god of anti-time, a threat locked away by Rassilon herself, for she feared it would grow too unstable. He has to get out there and talk to it.

He's got to get out there.

When The Doctor steps out of The TARDIS, it's about a block away from where she is, her hands still outstretched. Green energy spins around her forearms as claw-like hands grip the air. The entity is wearing her body like it's a summertime dress and she's having a night out on the town. The Doctor knows though, that if it wears Yelan's body for any longer, it'll kill her. It's killing her now. Zagreus mumbles under her breath as she rips apart the home her host cherishes.

Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed, And eats you when you're sleeping.

Guards rush her with their spears. Without even looking, she reaches out. The energy seeping from her hands wraps around the lead guard. It forces him to his knees, skin beginning to shrivel into nothingness as Zagreus drinks his years like a fountain of water. Her glowing green eyes blasting him into dust once he's nothing but a skeleton. The rest of the guards drop their weapons, fleeing fore their lives as the entity turns back towards the city. More emerald flames unwind the city into nothingness. No one can stop Zagreus. It's eternal. Forever. It will never die. 

Zagreus at the end of days, Zagreus lies all other ways, Zagreus comes when time's a maze, And all of history is weeping.

Finally, he stepped forward. Pushing past the cyclone of energy manifesting around Zagreus, The Doctor shouts out. "Listen to me!!" He tried to get its attention, but it did not listen. Forever did it mutter it's own poem. It swept its arm aside, The Doctor being blasted back off of his feet and tumbling across the ground. With a loud groan, he got back up to his feet and pushed back toward the entity. "Listen! Listen— You have to stop this." He tried to plead with the entity, but Zagreus spoke in a language that The Doctor could not understand and with words and riddles from a childhood that had long since been ruined and forgotten. Here he was, confronting a nightmare from his childhood, out of his depth... unsure of what to do or what to say. He stepped back onto his instincts. To plead, to reach out. Zagreus ignored those instincts.

Zagreus taking time apart, Zagreus fears the hero heart, Zagreus seeks the final part, The reward that he is reaping.

"That body is dying!" The Doctor pushed, regardless. Did the ancient being care about that, however? Not really. What they saw, what they were witnessing, was an opportunity to take control, to take the energy of the imaginary tree and the leylines running deep underneath the ground of Teyvat. There was a higher power rooted deep within the soil, pulsating strongly and they were searching for the source. The source that was higher than any of the mere archons, than simple gnosises, or Celestia. Stronger than The Timelords and their ancient secrets. It was They were hungry for more. Hungry for everything that the atom had to offer, and more. For the fabric of the universe itself, she wished to soak her teeth against it.

This body was fragile, but it was powerful. The Orchid had a strong mind that took more effort than Zagreus had shown before, and more than a long time to corrupt and put to sleep. Locked up, put away, and silenced. She was asleep in her own mind. The energy that glowed through the crack of human skin was stronger, now --- they were getting frustrated. Eagerly, she kept searching. The Timelord persisted. She tuned him out quietly, the destruction increasing as it focused on trying to expand its field of anti-time, to rewind the planet into nothing and consume the leftover residue of what had been prior.

Zagreus sings when all is lost, Zagreus takes all those he's crossed, Zagreus wins and all that it cost, The hero's hearts she's keeping.

The Doctor could see it, that frustration. The quickened speech patterns. The clenched fingers. Her head rolled back, and he stepped forward. "That body is dying and you know it, don't you?" He stepped closer, as close as he could. Zagreus turned, fingers tightening around The Doctor and forcing him down to his knees. Like the guard, she began to steal his life energy. The Doctor hissed in pain, watching his hands begin to wither and age. He saw wrinkles, and any outsider would see his raven hair beginning to turn silver. Still, The Doctor persisted through a withered and weak voice. "That's ... why you're frustrated. You're running out of time and no one's giving you the attention you crave." 

  The small iota of simplistic sentience that inhabited Zagreus would've been thoroughly entertained to watch this timelord being forced to take the life of his own beloved. It would've been the most child-play to survive despite the body being destroyed, after all. Though it would've been more enjoyable to see The Last Timelord breaking himself again. The way he gazed at her possessed form as though there was nothing they could do. Zagreus was like a parasite, eating up her life force bit by bit.

Zagreus seeks the hero's home, Zagreus needs the web to rip, Zagreus sucks time at a drip, And life aside, he's sweeping.

So when the other spoke, it twitched slightly in frustration. They could feel parts of the vessel's mind reactivating, attempting to overpower it. Sickly green hues glowed brighter, and a hiss could be heard from the back of their throat. Running out of time? No, even as the body is done, they could find a new one later. but they do want a higher source of power. They need to focus on ripping apart this world, as its energy could not only save this body but amplify Zagreus' own tenfold. It continued to drink The Doctor's life force, forcing his physical body to rise from where it had been, in its mid-thirties, into its seventies.

Zagreus waits at the end of the world, For Zagreus is the end of the world.

 The Doctor knows he has no other options here. He has nowhere to send Zagreus. No magic box to lock it away in, nothing to fight it with. With his age still rapidly increasing, he makes a wild gamble. Standing up despite Zagreus' powers beating him down. The entity's gaze narrows for a moment, the green energy sweeping through him as he takes another step forward. He passes the threshold that would push his physical body into the eighties, just at the moment that he grabs Zagreus' wrist. Passing the threshold into an age that causes him to look like he's reached his nineties, The Doctor looks into Zagreus' eyes—

"Take mine." Even at this physical age, there's still so much Zagreus could feed on. If it gave the lifeforce back that it'd already stolen, it could get a temporary power boost that it could use to finish ravaging the rest of Teyvat. He was glad Yelan was asleep inside that mind of hers because she wouldn't like what she'd be seeing. 

She would have told him what others already did, to put her down. That it was hopeless. There was nothing to could do. She would have told him to let her life be lost along with the entity itself. That was the sacrifice she was willing to make...

But it wasn't a sacrifice he was willing to make.

The entity quivered with excitement. Zagreus' hunger for power became more apparent the more the timelord was speaking. The extended hand, the offer, the temptation that rose with all the energy they could feel from this one.

A perfect vessel did a timelord make. The darkness that lurked at the corner of this one's mind like his, the broken gaze, the smell of blood tainting his hands. The way he was responsible for the many deaths of his own kind. The memory --- another hiss came from its throat. The way their very being was consuming Yelan's lifeforce was slowing down as the glow of green energy began to extend and merge with the tar, black aura that circled around the informant's frame. It formed a shadow, a large, towering one that almost split the air itself.

"URK--!!" It was like some kind of virus, slipping into his frame and consuming him whole. Ingesting itself into him and soaking him. Like oil being consumed by a flame, he could feel the entity eating at him like a hyena to raw meat. It was feral, primal-- and it hurt. Zagreus wound The Doctor's clock back, reverting his physical body's age back to the state it had been before it had stolen his life force. His eyes filled with that green, and he screamed out, turning away from the informant, that collapsed on the ground.

Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees from the stars, And SAVES YOU FROM THE MONSTERS.

Zagreus' fingers taint, and the green energy begins to pollute into a golden color. It stepped onto it's feet, walking toward the ocean as the green energy it had released began to seep back into the host body. Damage that had been done to the city began to rewind as Zagreus' hand waved back, golden energy repairing all that had been lost... returning those who had been drained back to when they had been. Anti-time converted back to real-time. 

Zagreus at the end of days, Zagreus lies all other ways, Zagreus goes when THE DOCTOR COMES, And ALL THE WELL'S BEEN POISONED.

Zagreus screams out as The Doctor brings his hands over his face, golden energy totally engulfing him as rejuvenating flames ate at the green, like antibodies fighting the virus, something was flushing the entity out of his system. A self-defense mechanism that the entity had unknowingly activated: He's sacrificed himself, for her... in more ways than one. Deeply inhaling and ripping his head back, green energy extends out of him... before flushing to golden... and rippling through the sky like a spring miss that deteriorates... The Doctor fell to his palms and exhaled.

He moved to sit up softly, palms resting over his knees as the timelord chuckled. "I am getting too old for this kind of stuff." He sat up, seeing how people came from their homes, to see what had happened, unaware of the last few seconds that had transpired. 

He turns, immediately stumbling onto his feet with a soft whimper and a pained groan before he exhales... allowing himself a few seconds for the pain to wash away before he looks down at the unconscious orchid. It's like beauty sleep. He tucks an indigo lock behind her ear before he swings an arm under her leg and back and picks her up. It hurts. To hold her... but he'll bear it all for her. That's his duty, after all. He carries her back to The Police Box, the TARDIS taking off soon after... disappearing before anyone can confront him on the things that had happened. 

On the floor of The TARDIS, the informant's eyes fluttered open. Sitting up, she held her aching head and looked toward the console. There, by the flight panel, stood The Doctor. He was hunched over the console, as if deep in focus as he piloted his ship. It took her about five seconds to realize she actually felt rather rejuvenated, as if something had been yanked out from her, but replaced with something better. She moved to stand.

"Ugh..." her head was heavy, and her thoughts clouded as though there was a fog settled within. "What ... happened ... ?" She let out another pained groan, feeling around her and felt ... warmth. Again. That same enveloping warmth she had associated with home. The TARDIS ... they were back in the TARDIS? Somehow, she couldn't think properly. Had the TARDIS woken her up...?

Her vision was still slightly blurry, but once she registered that she was within the TARDIS, there was only one name that left her lips.

"Doctor...?" "You took your time. Snoozing like a kid after the amusement park." 

She watched him stick his tongue out at her. It was unusual how cheerful he was right now, perpetually smiling. It was unnerving. She looked around, "What happened to... The Master? To Zagreus?" She tried to remember the last few events. Something releasing from slumber? Passing... The Knave? Or was she The Master? Those details were fuzzy to her, still. 

"I don't blame you for forgetting. Bit uneventful, all things considered." A thought he mused aloud, a summary of events and of what had occurred throughout their adventure following the entity. The Doctor couldn't help but smile at his own joke. Quietly, he stared, like he was painting some kind of picture with his eyes... taking a mental photograph. Eventually, he looked away from her. She inspected all his subtle facial motions. Uneventful?

"But—" "Did you know there's a planet where the ground is made entirely out of diamonds?"

He changed the subject so quickly, and Yelan had a hard time just accepting that. She stared at her hands, both her hands, flexing them as though they weren't even hers. Even though she felt totally healed, the agony of what her body experienced hadn't disappeared completely. The residue of it had totally abandoned her, and she struggled to figure out why. 

Her eyes flicked up to him silently.

"What did you—"

And that's when it happens. For just a moment, a cascade of golden energy flickers across his skin and features. His hands coil into his stomach and his head leans downward. He almost falls. However, he has to pick himself up when he hears her coming upward in response to the flash of light and the hiss of pain he lets out. His voice is cautious, not angry-- just... cautious-- but nonetheless... he makes this next point clear. She moves, instinctively, to rush at him—

"STAY BACK!!!"

If it weren't his voice that halted her movement in place, then that flash of golden energy would've done so in his place. His voice ... she had never heard him speak like that to her before. She had never seen him this way before.

It was terrifying. it was terrifying. They had been together for so long, long enough for her to know him inside and out. He saw this, and he calmed down... immediately. He moved to straighten himself up a bit, leaning on the console slightly. His hands held his stomach and his head lulled to one side, as if he was having a hard time standing. He referred earlier to how he'd tried to change the subject.

"I guess I'm not very entertaining today. Maybe It's time to close my set." He mused, chuckling. "What's happening?" She was stern. He needed to stop playing around.

He looked toward her, inhaling very deeply and preparing himself for the explanation. "Zagreus was using you as a host. Nobody's meant to have that much anti-time in them... it's a pollutant. It kills the cells..." He heaved, exhaling. He wasn't going to shift blame or make excuses. He looked her dead in the eyes, "I snatched it out of you... by the skin of your teeth too." He chuckled before his face straightened. Here comes the hard part.

"I'm dying." He said suddenly. "I took the creature on and flushed it out... but it ravaged every cell in my body." He watched every word drive a knife into her deeper and deeper. The revelation made her blood turn cold. She couldn't get to him even when he was curling into himself, and it hurt. The word... dying... rang in her ears, so loudly that her fingers started to tremble. Her eyes started to tremble, too, irises quivering and pupils dilated.

He watched her go through the few stages of shock that could manifest in her. A woman who felt no fear, seemingly fearing for his life. 

"You ... — You can't ... !! you — " Her words came out in a stuttered choke. They were spilling down her cheeks and she was trying to feel any other emotion than rage or sorrow. "What did I say!? What did I tell you—" She shouted before she cupped a hand over her mouth.

Never sacrifice yourself for me. I'd never forgive you if you did.

She tried to get words out, to speak. She couldn't. She didn't sound like herself, she didn't think she would recognize those words and voice as hers, either. The bottom of her eyes was burning when the realization dawned on her. That sacrifice. dying. Why? Why do people keep --- her fingers curled into fists and she stared at him through shaking aquatic gaze, demanding answers.

"There must be something ... — something you could do ... ! Do something ... Doctor!!" "Yeah!!" He exclaimed at her as if he'd been waiting for her to finish, "I'm doing it right now!"

He saw confusion befall her face, he couldn't help but chuckle wistfully. His palms briefly radiate with a golden light. His veins briefly flush with a white energy. It's calming him. He speaks slowly now, calmly. It eases her panic, and she can't exactly figure out why. He looked at her very deeply, the woman who made him whole again. His wife. She had such an arduous challenge- fixing him. She managed to put every piece back together the way it should be. He'll worship her forever, for that. 

"Timelords have this... neat little trick, a way of skimping the ferryman." He chuckles weakly before stabilizing himself, trying to stand up straight and look her dead in the eyes. He has a hard time still not curling into himself. His smile fades though, "It..." He has to figure out the easiest way to say this. "It means I'm going to change." He says very firmly as if it's unavoidable. 

The way he found a way to diffuse the stressful, anxious tension had always been something that could yank her back to reality and pull her out of any state of panic. Even through the swirling thoughts and fear that was going through her mind, she heard him. It proved effective once again as her aquamarine hues to meet his crimson ones. her gaze was still quivering, it was shaking even more when she looked at him. However, his words halted her. Change? What did that mean? Change? 

"Change ...? What—" "And before I go—"

Focus on me. His tone says, and that softened gaze hits her again, smiling softly at his lips as he tilts his head. He's going to be fine, he knows it... but if she's not fine, then he won't be fine, either. He knows it. He can feel it. She sees his face twitch, but he continues smiling softly. He exhales, blinking softly at her before exhaling. "I just want to say one thing." he shrugs. Maybe a couple of things, actually, he thinks to himself. He exhales bitterly, feeling the warmth beginning to run up his body. She starts to see the glow on his hands grow more powerful... and so he hides his other hand over the brightest one... He eventually suppresses it.

"Yelan."

Already he could see that she hated this. He was right. She could remember exactly the last time she was forced to face this kind of situation. Though it wasn't the same, the informant remembered the feeling of dread and helplessness. She didn't like it, and she knew that The Doctor her husband recognized the same fear appearing in her eyes. That was why he wanted her to focus on him. To not think about what was going to happen, to not dread the inevitable. He was telling her to look at him, to focus on him, to remember him.

Her heart throbbed as she burned the sight of him through her teary gaze. She remembered well the last time she shed tears, and she remembered the way she vowed to herself to never cry for the same reason again. For the sacrifice that someone else made for her survival. She didn't want that. She didn't want to be the one who lived.

Then he continues speaking. The effort he's expending just to speak to her... It clearly hurts him to speak. He powered through it. He made sure he was standing tall enough to be able to tell her this. It was hard, but he needed to say this all, really— as clearly as he could. "I just want to say, Yelan that..." He exhaled. Could he really fit all the things he had to say about how wonderful she was into such a few short moments? He found a way to convey his feelings.

"I did what I did because you are wonderful, Yelan." Shamelessly. "And I would've made the same choice every time." Pridefully. "And... well, you know that it's..." Awkwardly.

He looks down at the ground. Her brows furrow. She thinks he knows what he's going to say, and that makes her heart stop dead in her chest. Not now. Don't choose this moment now, to say it. He finally looks her dead in the eyes. Ruby meeting aquamarine. She sees finally, now, just how tired he looks. He's ready for a very long sleep. She could see... the weight he was carrying. That weight she'd asked him about. He was letting it go and with that... he was choosing now to confess it to her. He looked up...

 "...You know why I did it." At the very last second... as the glow intensifies. Her eyes widen. Of course. Of course, he'd do something like that. Even at the end, he won't be the first one to say it. She approaches him now, the heat of his body stopping her halfway as she reaches her hand out to him. "No!! No, no!"

She looks at him, tears spilling out. She knew why he did it, she wished that it didn't have to end this way, however. She wished it would end differently. She wished it wouldn't end. Her hand reached out despite knowing she couldn't reach him. Tears she cannot control spilling her face.

"... Please don't change." She begs. Don't leave me.

His glow is intensifying. Hand, face. He's beginning to pant. She reaches for him, and he thinks about reaching out. He moves to unlock his hands, to uncurl from himself. He moves to begin to reach out to her...

"Listen—"

BOOM.

Snapping backward suddenly, a mass of light appears in the TARDIS. Like Rocket engines, golden energy pours out from The Doctor's hands and head. Energy consumes the entirety of The TARDIS. It gets so bright, suddenly. Any visible part of the skin has essentially become a source of light, and light rays spill out from exposed areas of clothing. Even from where Yelan is, she can feel a heat irradiating from where The Doctor stands... until it eventually totally envelops him.

Something begins to happen... almost like some kind of... shrinking? Yelan has a hard time making the details out. The Doctor seems to be shrinking. His face and hands are getting... brighter. His hair is getting fluffier? Brighter— 

FWASH.

The light suddenly evaporates, as if all of the energy pouring out of The Doctor just stops. Like a faucet. Someone else is standing there, now. The young man stumbles forward. He's a little... innocent-looking, and he has big... fluffy brown hair that spikes out as if it's been freshly ruffled. His skin is sunkissed, and there are freckles dotted all across his skin. Big brown eyes blink out underneath distinct eyebrows while pursed lips accentuate confused features. Those new eyes look out everywhere as if they're taking in old sights for the first time. He wobbles a bit, as if he doesn't know how to use his legs.

The spy's expression was stuck at that frozen one, stuck in the in-between of grief and shock, still freshly experiencing that loss while burning the reality of everything into her mind. a blink, as she took a step forward. her aquamarine hues trained on the other. was he still in pain? what is—

He's wearing The Doctor's clothes, but they look like they're meant for someone one size bigger than the size he's wearing. They don't slip off just yet... but his hands are smaller, so a metallic clang echoes against the floor, unheard by the pair. The individual standing before Yelan simply stares wide-eyed at her. He winces suddenly...

"...Doctor..?"

He suddenly takes a huge inhale, leaning back against The TARDIS. The Informant lurches back a bit at the reaction to this. He suddenly speaks, and his voice is higher. It's different. He's wearing the clothes of The Doctor and yet this man is totally different, and he—

"I FORGOT HOW TO BREATHE!!" He suddenly moves to suddenly backpedal. She realizes now that he looks very drunk. He circles his hand through the air, "B—Because..." He stops, patting his chest. "Do... Do all lungs look like that? That's such a weird shape." He suddenly points out.

The TARDIS suddenly lurches forward, aggressively. The young man slams against it, looking down at it in confusion before he suddenly starts flicking at the controls. Yelan leans forward. He seems to know what he's doing, for the most part. She shouts again as The TARDIS starts rocking, and spinning. "What's happening!?" The Spy calls out, and the stranger's tongue pokes out of his mouth suddenly, as if he's in focus.

"Er— Everything's... It's all fine! I just—" He suddenly looks at her, brown meeting aquamarine. Yelan waits, in impatient anxiety, as he tries to force his question out.

"Do you know how to fly this thing..?"

...Great. Just great.

[butchpeabody]

everytime someone is mean to hope from fortnite i shed a single tear and if i cry enough tears my body will lose all of its liquid content and i will shrivel into dust and float away in the wind. preferably into the mouths of people who are mean to hope from fortnite

[7r0773r]

The Love of Singular Men by Victor Heringer, translated by James Young

1

In the beginning, our planet was hot, sickly yellow and stank of stale beer. The ground was black with boiling, clinging mud.

The outer suburbs of Rio de Janeiro were the first things to come into this world, even before the volcanoes and the sperm whales, before Portugal invaded, before President Getúlio Vargas ordered the construction of social housing. Queim, where I was born and grew up, is one of those suburbs. Tucked between Engenho Novo and Andaraí, it was made from that primordial sludge, which coagulated into various shapes: stray dogs, flies and steep hills, a train station, almond trees and shacks and houses, neighborhood bars and arsenals of war, haberdasheries and jogo do bicho lottery stands and an enormous swathe of land reserved for the cemetery. But it was all still empty: there were no people.

They didn't take long. The streets collected so much dust that man had no choice but to come into being to sweep them. And in the late afternoons, to sit on the porch and moan about poverty, bad-mouth others and gaze out at the pavements stained by the sun, the buses coming back from work coating the world with dirt again.

2

I read in one of my schoolbooks that, near the hottest parts of the earth, there existed a race of people that despised the sun. * The men hurled insults in its direction five times a day and prayed joyfully when night fell. At the first glimpse of its rays, the women covered their heads and eyes with plain muslin, just as they did when they buried their dead, and only uncovered themselves at dusk. Because of the sun, these people were black and their continent was called Africa.

Though I'm so white I'm almost green, I am a child of this people. I've hated the sun since I was a kid, but all my life it's been licking me like a puppy. I've learned to tolerate its presence, occasionally even believed I loved it, but it's no good: I hate the sun. I mutter obscenities at it five times a day.

In the school holidays of 1976, I was thirteen. The summer hadn't even really begun and my skin was already peeling for the third time. My arms and shoulders, inflamed with tiny blisters, soon shed strips of dead tissue. My nose had a new layer of charred skin. I couldn't brush my hair because of my toasted scalp, nor sleep because of my back. It was almost noon already.

We'd been in the pool since morning. Joana, my younger sister, dived, floated and giggled, wearing only her bikini bottoms, despite her already swollen nipples. I couldn't swim, so I had to sit on the edge of the pool, with my feet in the water and my thighs on the hot granite, watching the sun slowly nibble away at the patches of shade. Sitting on the second-floor balcony, Maria Aína kept an eye on us while Paulina, the maid, took care of lunch, and the dust.

By my childish calculations, Maria Aína must have been around 279 years old. She lived in the neighborhood and looked after us whenever Mama asked. (I don't know if she got paid.) She was born right here in Queim, died here and lived here, in a shack that had been around since the days when the neighborhood was a farm. She'd never been outside Rio—the furthest she'd ever traveled was Jurema, where the spirits of the Indians dwell.

She gave long whistles as she breathed, like an old animal, and had witnessed the birth of every living person, including my dad. Thin, the daughter of slaves, she spoke the tongue of her great-great-grandparents when she didn't want to be understood. When she looked at green fruit it would ripen. She'd make pumpkin compote on the Day of Saints Cosmas and Damian, and bring it to us still warm. I've never forgotten the taste, or how the crunchy shell would break to reveal the gritty, pulpy cream. We were the first to eat it, after the spirits: she'd leave a bowlful in the woods for them. The pumpkin would shrivel up and vanish. That's how spirits eat.

Maria Aína liked me because I'd been born with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck, just like her. "Anyone born that way will always be on the edge of trouble, ossí Camilo," she told me, years later, only days before she died. (pp. 11-13)

***

We had no idea of the problems that had plagued our parents' marriage in recent months. We didn't even know who ran the country. We lived under the weird dictatorship of childhood: we looked but didn't see, listened but understood nothing, spoke and were largely ignored. But we were happy under that regime. Like a thick shroud, the fabric of our young lives shielded us completely. (pp. 14-15)

***

How tedious, people. The artists on TV, in the sci-fi films and mystery dramas, the little Napoleons, the bridge jumpers and the sad poets ... They're all just the negatives of the same tedium, the other side of a coin that was always dull, stick it up your ass! the life of one person is exactly like the life of another, all that changes is the address. And there aren't that many elements in the universe, all of them classifiable. From a shell to the shelling of Gaza there's not much difference. Listen to this, ocean and explosion both sound like waves. Between a man and a rat, there are only three hundred genes of difference. (pp. 86-87)

***

Every idyll ends in a storm, and from storm to flood only takes a couple of hours. Everyone knows how terrible our sewage system is, the underground pipes and tunnels, mayors come, mayors go ... The flood soon becomes a deluge, and the deluge, an ocean. And then the mourning begins, which is slow and quiet on the surface of the water, but fertile in the depths: the plankton soon appears, corals form, fish and algae and octopuses and schools of dolphins are born and whales spit water upward and at some point the bereaved revive. I stayed. My Cosme disappeared and I stayed, like an amputated octopus tentacle, which stays alive even after it's cut off, and roams around looking for food. When it finds some, it takes the food and makes the gesture of bringing it to its mouth, as if it were still connected to the body. I learned that in the documentary on marine life I watched with Renatinho.

Even now I'm living out the grief of the octopus, or in fact the grief of a piece of the octopus, a ridiculous piece, because octopus tentacles regenerate, just like a lizard's tail. (pp. 93-94)

***

The murder weapon disappeared. The killer fled. May the worms that tenderly lick your bones never give you rest, Adriano of surname unknown, great-grandson of all the stenches and great-grandfather of the everlasting effluents. Pustule of smallpox on the face of the Aztec emperor! May souls exist and may yours drink only sour milk, devil of the world, candidiasis of the world! Killer! Imagine God's tiredness on the eighth day, right after inventing this race of seed spillers, this race of conquistadors and record breakers, of Himalayan mountaineers, men and women who build the biggest houses of cards, pull trucks with their ears, construct the tallest buildings and start the biggest snowball fights in history and then they die. Then they die, the morons! And they spent their whole lives stuck in traffic, complaining of sleepiness and hunger and of not being loved. Every now and then they have sex with a stranger they met on the bus and sleep snuggled together at the motel, because they're always so sleepy. And they wake up thinking that all life's exclamations are fizzing in their blood, and it's time to photocopy their flesh onto other flesh. The son is born and the father runs off and the mother says this one will be called Adriano, when he could just as well be called José, Luis das Côrtes or Maria Odete. It's the perpetration of the species, the hairy species of those who know they're going to die, but study to finally get that mediocre job at the courthouse and their crooked teeth fixed and their own home and an ungrateful kid and then they die, the morons! The kids will be born with crooked teeth too, the morons. May your soul turn gray and snuff out the sun * and may the sun snuff out the living for the last time, and torture them too, including me, who can't stand myself, dead pig burning in my guts! Heard of Boskop Man? He was a relative of ours who lived around ten thousand years ago in Africa. He was more intelligent than us, his brain was bigger, his teeth were smaller. Boskop Man was the man of the future. We killed Boskop Man. Homo sapiens killed Boskop Man. Ten thousand years ago, we killed the man of the future. Because? Because we did! May the planet be left to other races, other races require no solace. We're exhausted. Only a tired species invents the armored car, telemarketing and nose jobs. And it's too late to die gracefully. May the king vulture assume the throne of the president of this republic and take us all to the grave. The congressmen and their brothers-in-law and the lawyers and the doctors and the police and the thieves. And the miracle workers of Cinelândia and of the temples. And the writers who insist on writing books for adults who shit themselves over having their income tax audited. And those who are tax-exempt. And the chocoholics. And the cinephiles. And all the great composers of great music and the inventors of the airplane. And those who don't sully their hands with money. And the old women who look like wax figures. And the skinny girls who drink coffee with sweetener. And the dead slaves, what would they say if they knew today's diets condemn the sugar they grew? And the museum workers, who insist on remembering. And the secondhand-store owners, and the secondhand-store customers. And everyone who looks back fondly. And everyone who thinks it matters. And the gravediggers. Our destiny is to be geology and there's nobody left in the world who knows what geology is. Adriano, this is the last revelation before oblivion. There's my neighbor listening to the same Nelson Cavaquinho record: "The sun ... shall shine once again. The light ... shall reach our hearts ..." It's beautiful. * (pp. 111-112)

***

Where love begins no one remembers. The triggers of hate are all easy: the moment she says you're a piece of shit, the stone that strikes the kosher restaurant, the bomb in the house of an aunt in Rafah, the day after the day you weren't invited. One day Camilo asked if he liked condensed-milk biscuits and the boy laughed. He laughed for twenty seconds and said yes, then laughed for another thirty. Laughed at him. Pointed at his face. Why? What are you laughing at? And he laughed more. That's when the hate could have started, but it didn't. It could have started when the kid yelled that he wasn't his father because he wasn't allowed to go outside at eight o'clock at night. But it didn't start.

And that's how Camilo knows he loves his son.

Hate never starts when it might. (pp. 146-47)

[lipstickmarks]

Clockwork

Summary: El rewinds time and saves all of Vecna’s victims, including Eddie and Chrissy

Pairings: Eddie Munson x Chrissy Cunningham, Eleven (Jane) Hopper x Respect and Decency, Karen Wheeler x Girlbossing, Stranger Things Characters x Happiness

Word Count: 2.2K 

Warnings: gore, gun violence, slut shaming, STRANGER THINGS 4 VOL 2 SPOILERS! 

When El is overpowering Vecna, she is using her powers with anger. When she overpowers him the second time, she is using her powers with love.

After Vecna gets the upper hand, he searches for El’s memories to lure her into a depressed state and “Vecna” her. But she remembers all the good times, specifically when she and Max had their sleepover and she realizes what her favorite song is (it becomes a full circle moment from when Max taught her to like things that she liked. Not Hopper. Not Mike. You.)

She plays her favorite song from her own mind while a montage of her favorite things flash through her mind: Eggos, her favorite clothes, spring flowers in Hawkins, things that remind her of her.

Not only does El overpower Vecna but she Turns. Back. Time.

All of the grandfather clocks stop, then they start to chime backwards. And then the hands start spinning out of control until the glass shatters. You hear a dissonant chime from all the clocks at once, it’s a loud cacophony of unpleasant noise and it almost shatters everyone’s eardrums.

Everything in the Upside Down starts moving backwards. Specifically, everything that Vecna controlled.

The vines unwind and free Steve, Nancy, and Robin, retreating into the walls and shrinking to the size of seaweed. The bruises on their necks fade away and their breathing evens out quite easily.

The demobats start moving in the opposite direction. Eddie’s blood starts retreating back into his body. The flesh they had bitten is reconnected and he can breathe easily. The bats fall to the ground all at once, crumpling into little tiny balls until they burst into a pathetic small patch of dust that could threaten to do no more harm than a simple cough.

Max’s bones unbreak and her vision clears up. She wakes up in Lucas’ arms and Lucas feels like he can finally breathe now that Max is alright.

On Vecna’s trees, Chrissy and Fred both start to unsnap. Their bones crack back into place and their eyes are back in their sockets. (Their corpses in Hawkins are just body doubles so their actual physical bodies are in the Upside Down.) The trees holding them slowly shrink down into the ground, releasing their grip on the former victims. Chrissy and Fred are placed gently on the ground and they’re overwhelmed with relief. They also have a working knowledge of what’s going on because of their psychic link with Vecna.

El essentially reverses all the damage done by Vecna and kills all his minions throughout Hawkins - vines, demobats, demogorgons, demogogs, everything shrivels up into nothingness, including Vecna. She destroys him, absolutely decimates atom by atom. As far as El is concerned, she is the one who created Frankensteins’s monster, so she’s going to be the one who kills him.

She summons everyone (including the California gang) out of the Upside Down and to one central location in Hawkins - town hall. She chooses it because there is a huge garden of the spring flowers she loves. Coincidentally, all the parents are heading in that direction because they were looking for their kids and they saw the red lightning hovering over the center of the town.

The parents watched El and a gaggle of kids float down from the sky.

Everyone's a little disoriented from what just happened. Having time turned backwards on you and being moved across dimensions sure can make your stomach turn.

The crowd can’t believe their eyes. Everyone with guns is too stunned to shoot. The first person to move or even speak is Karen Wheeler. She runs up to her children and scoops them up in the biggest hugs of their lives.

“Oh my God! Michael, Nancy, are you alright?” She’s crying, she’s pushing their hair back and fussing over them. She has no idea how on Earth Mike got back or why Nancy has guns but she’s just relieved they’re okay.

“Steve, did you look after my daughter?” Karen asked Steve with a pointed look.

“Actually, Mrs. Wheeler, your daughter looked after us.” Steve confirmed.

“Oh yeah, we’d be completely and utterly useless without Nance. Oh- I’m Robin, by the way. Robin Buckley. I’m Nancy’s…” Robin trailed off and looked to Nancy for approval.

“Friend.” Nancy filled in with a warm smile. “Robin’s my friend.”

There were a few tearful reunions. The Wheelers. The Sinclairs. Lucas and Max.Even unlikely-friend-duo Nancy and Fred.

Dustin, probably the most relieved of all, was clutching onto Eddie’s middle and sobbing happily into his vest. Eddie had his arms wrapped around Dustin and was holding onto him tight.

“That’s alright, Henderson. Let it out. Let it all out.”

“Eddie?” A voice spoke up.

Eddie turned his head to see Chrissy, alive and well. Living, breathing, and completely unscathed.

“Chrissy. Holy shit.”

Eddie was stunned. How was Chrissy here? When he left her, when he ran away, she was… Eddie held down the thought before the image of Chrissy’s mangled body could float to the forefront of his brain. But she wasn’t mangled. Her bones weren’t broken. Her bright, shining blue eyes were right where they should be. The girl he’d had a crush on since 7th grade, the girl who came to him for help, the girl he tried so desperately to put at ease, was alright.

Chrissy couldn’t believe Eddie was standing right in front of her. He was a little dirty and wearing some tattered tactical gear but this wasn’t a Vecna-induced hallucination. It wasn’t a trick or a twisted misdirect. He was real and he was looking into the whites of her eyes.

Despite not knowing each other outside of a middle school memory and a connection in the woods, the pair felt an inexplicable pull toward one another. They had each endured trauma that ran parallel to one another. Their shared experience would likely bound them together forever, even though their connection goes back years.

The combination of adrenaline, fear, and relief culminated in the two of them crashing into each other in a fierce bear hug. Eddie held Chrissy tight to his chest while Chrissy’s arms went around his neck. Her hand rested on the back of his head. She didn’t mind that his hair was dirty and matted. It was actually softer than she thought– Eddie was softer than she thought.

Eddie’s arms tightened around Chrissy’s frame. He was afraid he might have hurt her but she gave no indication of discomfort. In fact, she tightened her grip on him as well. The relief washing over him was almost too intense. Not only would no longer be hunted for her murder, but Chrissy was actually alive. Her future won’t be ripped away by cruel forces. The Queen of Hawkins High gets to rule her kingdom. She gets to live. She gets to be happy.

Their tender embrace was cut short by a force aggressively shoving Chrissy to the ground.

“Ah!”

She screamed and when she saw what pushed her, she saw… Jason?

At least, he looked like Jason. But his combed back hair was messy and tangled. His eyes were bloodshot and he was pointing a gun at her face.

“What the hell are you!?”

“Jason…” Chrissy’s voice filled with terror as she stared down the barrell of the gun. Why was Jason doing this? Wouldn’t he have been thrilled to see her? Wouldn’t he have been relieved?

“Jason, put the goddamn gun down!” Eddie shouted.

Jason shook his head. He was seething, almost growling and staring at Chrissy like she had two heads.

“No, I don’t know what kind of Satanic voodoo Munson pulled but you’re not Chris. She’s dead. He killed her!” Jason turned his head to stare Eddie down, but his weapon stayed aimed at Chrissy. “You killed her. You think you can just pull some bullshit light show and dress up one of your cult followers as my Chris so you won’t go to prison?”

He looked back at Chrissy and sneered.

“You don’t even fuckin’ look like her. What did he do huh? Pay you? You’re some kind of actor? One of Munson’s roadies? He just keeps you around for sex and passes you around to his cult members?”

Chrissy couldn’t help the tears filling her eyes. How could Jason say these things about her? The guy she knew wouldn’t have called her these horrible things.

“Jason, it’s me…” Chrissy whimpered.

“Put the gun down, man before you kill someone.” Eddie said through gritted teeth. Chrissy saw Eddie’s grip tighten on his spear from the corner of her eye. Even if Eddie did go on the offensive, Jason was standing too close to her. He had too clean a shot. She was done for.

Jason was staring at Chrissy, right through her. She could see the insanity in his eyes, the pure hatred. That’s what was going to kill her. She survived an interdimensional demon feeding on her worst pain but she was going to die at the hand of someone she had once cared for.

“Please…” She whispered. One last desperate plea.

Chrissy closed her eyes and awaited death, just as she had done when Vecna attacked her. She heard Jason click the safety off. She waited for a loud bang…

and nothing.

She didn’t dare to open her eyes until she heard a scream. The gun had fallen to the ground with all of the bullets somehow laying on the concrete beside it. Chrissy looked up at Jason, whose hand was twisted as if he had sprained it.

Behind them, El was holding her hand out. She had broken Jason’s hand, moved the bullets and, just for good measure,  made the gun and bullets disintegrate.

Then all hell broke loose.

Jason fell to his knees in agony. Eddie tackled Jason and they rolled down the steps of town hall to the sidewalk. He started landing blow after blow.

“Son of a bitch!” Eddie screamed. Steve ran down the stairs and pulled Eddie off Jason. Eddie was still trying to break Jason’s nose but Steve clamped an aggressive hand down on Eddie’s shoulder and gave him a pointed look.

“Dude.” He whispered. “You just got given the ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card of a lifetime. Don’t waste it!”

Eddie was still seething but he heeded Steve’s advice. He hurried back up the steps where Dustin was helping Chrissy to her feet. He helped her as well and Chrissy gripped onto Eddie’s forearm like he was her lifeline. She started sobbing and Eddie enveloped her in his arms once more.

Steve looked down at Jason and gave him a swift kick to the ribs, making him cry out.

“Steve!” Robin scolded from the top of the steps.

“What? I’m not wanted for murder!”

Then, the cops showed up along with half of Hawkins. Chief Powell and Officer Calahan hurried toward Jason.

“Who did this to you, son?” Powell asked.

Officer Callahan helped Jason stand up. Jason spit out some blood onto the concrete.

“Eddie Munson.”

“Bullshit.” A voice said.

Karen Wheeler marched determinedly toward the officers. She pointed an accusatory finger at Jason.

“I watched this crazy asshole point a gun at his girlfriend and nearly kill her! You are lucky that Eddie Munson was there to save her.”

Officer Powell furrowed his eyebrows together.

“Mrs. Wheeler, you know as well as I do that Jason’s girlfriend is dead.”

“No I’m not.”

Chrissy left Eddie’s embrace to walk down the stairs of town hall, right next to Karen Wheeler. Neither officer could believe their eyes. They saw Chrissy’s dead body. They saw her autopsy. They notified her parents of her death.

“I almost died when Jason pointed a gun at me.” Chrissy told them. “The other night when I was…” Chrissy searched for the right word. “Taken. Eddie tried to save me. And he saved me again today when–” Tears filled Chrissy’s eyes and her voice caught in her throat. “When Jason nearly shot me.” She admitted in a shaky voice.

Mrs. Wheeler placed a comforting hand on Chrissy’s arm.

“It’s alright, honey, you’re safe now.” She turned to the officers. “I saw Jason Carver try to shoot her. I also saw Eddie Munson save her. If you’d like to try and deny my eyewitness account along with–” Karen turned around and counted the people behind her. “Twenty others, that’s fine.” She flashed them a humorless smile. “Although, my husband will likely reconsider his yearly donation to Hawkins PD. And, as a mother, I’d hate to know there was a crazed teenage boy going around killing young girls.”

Karen turned around and called to the other moms.

“Sue! Claudia! Would you want to know if there was a crazy teenage boy going around killing young girls?”

Sue Sinclaire and Claudia Henderson agreed full-heartedly.

“So, if I really wanted to go public with this information, which I do– I’m sure the Hawkins Post would answer my phone call.”

Calahan and Powell exchanged a look.

Wordlessly, Calahan cuffed Jason and started loading him into the back of the cop car. He yelled and protested the entire time, promising to get out and put an end to Eddie’s satanic cult.

“Drive Jason back to the station and wait for me.” Powell told Calahan. “I’ve got…” He looked out at the sea of people, including two who were supposed to be dead. “About twenty statements to take.”

[ruiniel]

Whither you go

Fandom: The Silmarillion

Characters: Aegnor, Andreth

Relationship: Aegnor/Andreth

Rating: T

Count: 1.2k

Additional tags: Spirits, Halls of Mandos, Oneshot, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Implied Relationships, Drama, Past Relationship, Canonical Character Death, Cosmic horror elements if you squint, Ghost story of a kind, Personal interpretation of Mandos inspired by canon, There is no fluff here

Also on AO3

Summary:

'Whither you go may you find light. Await us there, my brother - and me.'

- from Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, J.R.R. Tolkien

Months and months ago, tried a short ghost story about souls meeting again in a time out of time. Featuring the saddest OTP. The AU is on me (apologies).

The nightwinds are kind. They lift her above foreign lands, over sleepy forests and serpentine rivers, above hopes and dreams and old woes. The stars gleam, too bright, ancient watchers dripping light in the maw of the world, and higher still, she rises; wandering gusts lap softly at her bareness. Frostbitten and faraway the kindled ones once seemed, now so close she brushes past them, past remnants of divine luster and the touch of hallowed fingers that sewed them to barren skies.

A part of her wonders if this is a dream, but no fancy of the mind ever brought such freedom, nor such peace; like a floundering bird on swift, restless wings, she crosses paths unknown with no end in sight. There is no weariness or hunger, only depths of loneliness as the past weakens its grasp, peeling away in chipped layers that fastly shrivel like paper to flame. She could clutch at them, tuck them close and so she tries, only to find all desires void of meaning, all wishes laid to rest.

Should I be afraid?

Like a falling star, the thought dies, for the very concept of fear is unraveling and falling from her like leaves with the seasons.

Other memories emerge, flowering, wilting in rapid succession: some cherished, some best forgotten. A pull stronger than her will leads her forward, and unhoused she drifts as drowning in the thrashing waves of a cosmic river. Her frail, wayward light is cupped by great, gentle hands, like a grain of sand carried across the outer oceans.

Alone.

She stands beneath the looming arches of vast, endless chambers.

Heavy, leaden silence presses its solemn fists into stark grandeur. Fine silver dust shimmers on smooth black floors, disturbed by her wavering steps. The tall columns of jet soar into hidden heights, draped with grey vapors that float like gossamer, fluttering with no wind to stir them. Andreth sees etchings that sway and curl across their limpid surface, ever moving, ever changing. She looks closer, but for all her past knowledge, cannot place meaning to the script.

What is this place?

Stillness; no answer but the faint echo of her own voice, roiling like flickering motes inside her head. She walks on, stalked by a sudden, pressing weight of bereavement, and despair is on her heels.

Who... am I?

She knew this; she knew. She has to remember, can never forget, fighting the torpor that pools around her like a dark rippling lake, urging rest and forgetfulness.

I was a child of the earth.

I lived, I learned.

I loved.

She looks at her hands; grey and translucent. She ought to feel awe or terror, but now there is nothing.

I lost.

“Where am I?” her words arrow blindly, swallowed by quietude, trapped in the strangest of dreams. “Someone…?” Andreth sinks to her knees, curling like a shell, her forehead pressed to icy floors. “Anyone... please…”

“Saelind?”

It comes as a faraway keening, but she hears it. The word sears, stoking the flame of remembrance. Slowly she rises and stares at the figure a distance away, tall and golden amid shadows.

Saelind.

Aye, I was known by that name once. She must remember.

Andreth gains her feet and draws near, eyes widening as his features become clearer, sharper, familiar.

“You…”

The dead of winter. Snow is in her hair, melting on her burning cheek, her lashes. A firm grip rights her balance; an apology served with smiles like curved blades.

Bleeding sunsets fringe the memory detailing a cold evening, a freezing night. Her blood is hot and the stars are cold, and her face sways in the mirrorblack. Her veins sing beneath her youthful skin, craving coarse, sword-wielding fingers.

“Aegnor!” she cries, unable to believe it. She dares not speak, fearing he will disappear, that he will leave again, but he merely stands before her like a stab of regret. “How… but you left!” Andreth stumbles in her flight to reach him. “North away, long ago, to the swords, and the siege…”

He gives no answer; lowers his head.

His deep voice she remembers, soothing and warm like the hearth she curled up to on bitter nights, dwelling on what might have been. Andreth would throw her arms around him, weep and weep until the mountains crumbled, until the seas dried and the world was turned. She takes another step and another. She cares not how or why, but he is here now, with her.

Her hand reaches for his face, finding empty air. Frowning, she tries again and his eyes, once as kind as they were eager, are dark with grief, his lips a seal of misery as he says, “We cannot mingle here.”

“What is your meaning?” Andreth asks, frantic, yet trying to reach for him in vain, her hands delving through him. “Where is here?”

The Elf raises an arm, gesturing to a long corridor leading to a chilling, unworldly light. It dazes her, thrumming around them like a heartbeat, beckoning, calling. She knows.

“The Halls of Awaiting,” Andreth murmurs. “But that means I am…” she looks to her hands again, struck by the diaphanous glow of her bodiless form. “You are…” Gone. Ousted from the physical realm, come to the final circle.

She does not want to leave; does not want this gift.

Aegnor glances at a tapestry streaked with crimson, depicting lands drowning in dragon fire. “The war has ended for me.”

“You fell...” she sighs, looking up at him. Once, she would rest her forehead on the cold plate armor of his chest; his hands would twine in her hair. “So… so soon...” the truth bites with savage teeth. For all the time allotted to him on Arda, he’d gone before her. “Are you… are you alone here?”

The wraith shakes his head. “There are others.”

She does not see them. There is no one else but they, and now, at last, she is afraid. Andreth stares at his form, swaying like the lorn branches of trees caught in the storm. He is made of crumbling visions, golden and distorted, and fading. “But...” she tries, “...how?”

The spirit watches her, features breaking in dismay, and meanings flit across his face. Pain, longing, regret; acceptance. “I was allowed to see you, before...” his brows furrow, and he looks away, as though gathering courage long overdue; too late.

Andreth shivers. She remembers. Now, in this plane of thought where they are no more than whispers and sighs and broken light, she finally understands his choice without bitterness.

“Saelind, please, listen. I will—”

He struggles to speak, his hollow eyes plead meaning, but fragments of thought flutter between them like grey moths and she no longer understands him. The fleeting words rush through her like fireflies, and he flickers like a spent candle. The halls are deathly cold, but terrible and bright, blinding her vision of him. Desperate, Andreth shuns the rising command from beyond, tucking away every trait, every detail, all the memories. She faces the imperious light, “Let me linger a moment longer, no more!”

The Elf is mere gleaming outlines, his features bled away like inked parchment in the rain. Hardly Andreth fights the finger-like threads coiling as burning whips around her, and she herself is dwindling, fracturing to splintered colors. Her hands reach for him, craving his words, needing to know. Luminous waves spin like a maelstrom as the call swells unbearably loud, and her cries are lost.

Silence falls, heavy-handed. The halls are dimmed. The lone fëa lingers amid the tapestries of fate, wordless and formless, fading to a dull, mournful grey as the soft dust of Mandos falls upon him.

[alicehattera03]

Here I am standing at the buffet overwhelmed by options: yandere Ijekiel...yandere Athy...yandere Claude...so many flavours to pick from what shall I choose?...this one is a bit of a challenge, do think you can make Felix a yandere? for Claude? He is too nice. But he has the name knight of crimson blood for a reason, that means he must have a ruthless side. He fought valiantly by Claude's side during the dynastic revolution and killed many people. What if he was the one to manipulate Claude into becoming the cruel tyrant he is now who only cares about himself and keeps no one but his loyal knight by his side? Felix thinks he is in the right too when he is making Claude paranoid of others. He grew up watching Claude's family mistreat him and got convinced that everyone was their enemy. Claude needed him and no one else. When Ana proves himself to be rotten to the core he' decides to be the one who would become Claude's knight in shining armor. He'll be his hero.

OMG I actually have dark! Felix saved somewhere in my drafts fjhslfkd linking brain cells is so fun ehe anyways, let's get into it~!

Felix grows up by Claude's side because of his mother, but after getting rid of his unhappiness of his mother taking care of another child besides himself, he devotes his entirety to Claude.

His selfishness that is.

He catches glimpses of Claude being tormented by the maids because his mother was lesser than the Empress, and when their backs are turned, he kicks the back of their knees and makes them kneel. His eyes, colder than the North's winter snow.

The maids don't dare to try anything in front of him anymore, to which was an improvement. But Felix keeps making adjustments away from Claude's bright eyes, and makes sure none of the people working in the palace disrespect the prince.

Claude was more open when he was younger, more innocent of the world to accept the medicine the crown prince gave him when he was sick.

But Felix narrows his eyes at the herbs floating in the bowl of murky liquid, taking it from Claude's hands and replacing the cloth on his head with a warm smile before turning away and sending for the Robane's doctor.

Someone with heavy lips and talent that was worth the exorbitant price they charged.

Felix brings in a plant the next day, its leaves all dark and withered, its roots black and shriveled to dust and proclaims, "I poured the medicine from yesterday into the dirt and found it like this in the morning, your highness."

Claude wriggles under the covers and pipes out in a wretched voice, "Felix...I can't trust anyone anymore..what do I do?"

Claude's frightened eyes burn into Felix's mind and he tosses the plant away before sitting on the bed. "Not to worry, your highness. I will always be by your side."

And he was.

The famous Knight of crimson blood hacked away at the foe's soldiers as red sprayed from either direction, the sword feeling light in his hands as the moon's light reflects off his armor.

He finds himself staring a little further up the hall and sees Claude swinging a sword almost the size of himself, gold mana sparking at the edges just like his hair.

Felix smiles, undeterred by the blood splattering onto his cape as he makes his way to Claude who stands over the body of his elder brother, and levels a hidden sneer down at the person who turned for the worse as he grew older.

He had to watch Claude return back to his chambers the night after witnessing Penelope in bed with the crown prince, been invited to tumble with them. Making Claude feel inferior and unworthy- how dare they all.

Stealing away Claude's fianceé, stealing away the limelight, stealing away his mother, his chance at love.

Everything.

So Felix would give that everything back to Claude. The one he had chosen to rule over all else, and be the Emperor he would serve.

Felix pulls off the crown and Claude trails over the bloodied carpet to balance himself on the throne, but with a hesitant glance at Felix, he sits more comfortably before Felix places the crown over Claude's head, crowning him emperor.

"...Thank you, Felix." Claude looks up at him, the crown glinting, the perfect accessory to his perfection. "For being always being there for me. Through all this."

Felix kneels, the burn of pride in his chest as he feels the sword tap onto his shoulders, looking up with a wide smile.

"Of course, your majesty. For you? Everything."

Darkness smoldered in his heart, for he really did mean: everything.