#so I really hope that sort of theme is explored

[lilacxquartz]

Can you PLEASE write a Mr crawling pegging fanfic, maybe the Mc has a biting kink too🙏🙏 I don't really have anything too specific in mind, I just want him to get pegged🙏

-👻 anon

such a needy thing;

mr. crawling x f!reader

plot: mr. crawling was often on his knees but tonight he was arching his back for you — themes: pegging, needy/clingy mr. crawling, limited dialogue, dominant!reader, anal (giving) — a/n: finished this up late night, hope this is okay! i couldn’t work biting into the position, but this might be revisited again! — w.c: ~ 1.3k • masterlist • ao3

From the moment you had both discovered each other’s bodies, Mr. Crawling had been awoken with a different sort of hunger that only you could feed. Over and over, he desperately craved the touch of your skin on his, along with all of the soft feelings that came after.

For the most part though? All he wanted to do was to be as close as possible to you, no matter what it took. Perhaps it was natural for your mind to react in such a particular way then, for you to adopt an almost dominant streak when it come to him.

And when such a time arrived, after a long while of explaining (or attempting to), he seemed excited at the prospect, trembling at the thought in anticipation. You tried to explain to him that this was through an object, not through you, but he didn’t care nor have a single protest. He seemed to be happy that you were exploring with him—with only him—ready to melt beneath you in all sorts of ways.

Mr. Crawling’s body quivered as you approached him, goosebumps forming alongside his ashen skin. His lips hinted at excitement, just barely visible behind his cascading long black hair. As you bridged the distance between you both, he whimpered at the thought of what was soon to come.

“Need… you,” he said, branching out his hand to touch against yours. Need. That was a word you had both come to understand; always repeated like a swirling mantra in the back of your head. He needed you always—constantly—just as you needed him too.

You nodded to confirm that this was in fact happening, murmuring out a faint “need you,” back, letting the implication linger in the air, watching as his skin grew somehow clammy and rosy as a flustered state overwhelmed him, his arousal becoming very apparent in between his legs.

Taking the strap from a drawer nearby, you fitted the belt around your hips, adjusting the toy to ensure that it could be secured around you perfectly well. You made sure to find one in a size similar to his own so that the feeling that you gave him could be equal to the one he similar to the one he gave you back.

“I… feel… good?” he asked, taking note of the contraption. How he saw without eyes was an eternal mystery to you.

You nodded again, guiding him over to the bed, gently pushing his body down to the mattress, all the while he regarded you with an almost awestruck stare; his cheeks bleeding crimson as his breath shuddered in jagged gasps.

Letting your eyes wander over to his throbbing need, you snaked down a hand just beneath the fabric he wore, letting his sensitive length fill out your palm. His own hands in turn, balled into fists from the sensation of your skin on his, feeling his cock grow almost impossibly hard. Slowly, you broke through the tension by stroking up and down the shaft, feeling rightfully powerful as he trembled and whined the entire time—completely under your mercy—like melting putty in your hands.

“Do you like this?” you asked, tilting your head off to the side as you studied his reaction intently.

Mr. Crawling nodded eagerly, his voice sounding excited as he replied to you, “I like! I like!”

Seeming pleased with him, you then took a step back, gently turning him over so that the front of his body kissed against the mattress. His palms pressed up against the soft fabric, clawing at the material. He was already so excited and you hadn’t even started yet. How endearing.

Steadily, you lifted his hips closer to your own, lining up the lubricated tip of the strap-on against his tight, awaiting ask. You rubbed the head of the toy against his entrance, enjoying the sounds of his needy whimpers, involuntarily begging for you to enter.

Slowly, you began to push forward, not quite feeling the tightness of his insides swallow around the thick girth, but feeling the resistance of his core as you settled deep into him. Mr. Crawling’s body tensed and trembled, but he didn’t seem to be in pain. You were careful, after all. You wanted him to feel good.

And just as you thought that, he confirmed it for you. “Feel good. Feel good.”

Continuing, you eased the strap fully into him, watching with building delight as his back arched inwards in a display of pleasure, all the while you sank the toy as deep as you could go before letting it sit in him, allowing him to memorise the feel of it for a beat before pulling out ever so slightly—slowly fucking him into an impatient, flustered mess.

As you got into the rhythm, you maintained something initially slow for his sake, leaning ever so slightly forward and reaching your hand to meet with his arousal once more. In the heat of the moment, you wrapped your fingers clean around his cock, taking note of just how desperately he bucked into your touch and soon moving his body to milk at the pleasure however much he could.

Soon enough, he descended into a building crescendo of fluttering murmurs that were barely uttered with just how breathless he was. His hips worked to push back against the strap, inviting you to take him even deeper—feeling so loved yet overwhelmed from the sensation of you slamming into the hilt of his ass. He panted heavily with his hair parting with the sweat that clung against it and as he lost himself, he found himself drooling onto the sheets.

Of course, you kept it up for him as you felt around his body, feeling with your own two hands with how he quickly came undone, just barely containing the burning—almost scalding need for his pent-up release. Rutting at a brisker pace that time, you slid in again into his form, hitting all of the right spots all the while his cock began to leak in combination with the act of you dominating him as well as the stroking touch.

His end was close—you could feel it.

As such, you couldn’t help but smile, doubling your efforts in the process and pounding into him with such force that it almost left you feeling just as breathless as he was. Soon enough, his vocalisations became all the less coherent, muttering out a whole slurry of words that you couldn’t understand until finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.

Mr. Crawling gasped—or rather—choked out a desperate moan, seizing up his body as his orgasm had finally taken him over, possessing him for a moment. His cock pulsed and twitched in your hand, spurting thick, white ropes out and ruining the sheets, before finally collapsing face down into the bed.

Seeming perfectly pleased, you slowly pulled out of him and took the belt off after a moment of silence, watching him surrender beneath you. Feeling your heart melt at the sight, too, you couldn’t help but lay down next to him, pulling him in as close as you possibly could.

Now, Mr. Crawling was a lot taller than you and usually, this sort of experienced would be flipped, but you could feel just how vulnerable felt in your arms for a change. He fit against your cuddling form perfectly with his slightly damp hair sticking against your skin, not that you minded at all.

And as he recovered within your shadow, you stroked along his body with a delicate hand as a familiar word emerged between you both. Something that you had both come to learn and appreciate—something a little more tender than love.

“Yours,” he whispered out right before falling silent, completely and utterly spent and in need of recovery. Your hand rested on his heart as you felt him drift off, before settling even further into the back crook of his neck, feeling so lucky to have someone like him, forever eternally close.

You whispered it back after a moment, feeling yourself follow him off to sleep, “Yours.”

[hellspawnmotel]

I’m genuinely wondering here, but you’re not like, wholly obsessed just with the weird route and all the creepy, forced on romance stuff right? I say this as someone who’s known that you’ve done a lot of analysis on the weird route and such, from reposts mostly of your art, and I just wanted to ask that cause honestly, you never know if someone who talks extensively about vile things that happened to children in media are people who want to just analyze how media handles such grave and sensitive topics or just genuine creeps.

I know that sounds deranged and maybe pearl clutchingly puritan, but sadly it isn’t like it’s completely unheard. Like, some creator of Fnaf fan game for example, dormitabus or whatever, made the purple guy a child rapist and then it turns out the creator was a groomer themself. So I hope you understand why some people are always going to have their guards up when it comes to media that explores horrific things such Child sexual assault, suicide, murder and so on and even just discussions about that, in case some seem to be a little to off-puttingly obsessed with it.

I understand your apprehension, I've been on the internet (and in the world) long enough that I've seen plenty of examples of what you're talking about. it's often really hard to tell the difference between somebody who genuinely wants to talk about and analyze darker topics in a compassionate way, and somebody who's just being a pervert about it, especially when the phrase "I explore darker topics" has unfortunately become something of a red flag on its own. there are lots of creeps out there, and they can be really good at pretending theyre not (so they can keep being creeps easier). which is all to say, I don't blame you for worrying.

I don't know how comforting this is going to be for you, but the truth is that I AM more interested in the weird route than the normal route, generally. I've always been drawn to stories about people going through really horrible shit, especially the ones that do that using a lot of symbolism and metaphors (i.e. alluding to real-world issues using absurd or fantastical circumstances). I've liked that sort of thing since I was six years old watching digimon tamers on fox kids and acting out my toys dramatically killing each other. I like irreversible tragedy and trauma and seeing characters cope in the aftermath, but portrayed through the lens of fantasy so it feels safer to engage with. so of course that's something I want to also explore in my own work.

I will say though, that the weird route's forced romance stuff in specific isn't what draws me to it. it's the fact that it combines a lot of different concepts and themes I'm interested in- genre deconstruction, fantasy tropes, metanarrative, gender, autonomy, doing a "this comfortable and familiar story but Fucked Up" thing, I could go on. I would probably still be crazy about it without the weird divorcecore angle. it's just like, catnip for me lol. but my main goal is always to use the things I love to enrich the lives of other people and cause as little harm as possible while doing that.

but really I can't convince you of anything. the choice as to whether or not you're comfortable with my work and how I express these feelings, is not up to me. that's entirely your decision and I don't expect everybody who looks at what I make to want to keep looking at it. that's the risk you take when making art of any kind. I can tell you sincerely that when I discuss or portray "darker topics" I always try to do it with empathy and understanding, and without exploiting the situation or people involved, but it's entirely up to you whether or not you trust that I'm coming from a decent place with that, and whether or not I'm doing it successfully is going to change based on personal opinion too. but even though it's your decision, when you DO choose to put your trust in somebody like that, and that trust is broken, it's not at all your fault. we NEED trust in order to function socially, and somebody betraying that is never the responsibility of the person being betrayed. the burden shouldn't be on you to sniff out when a relationship, even the relationship between writer and reader, is being exploited or misused.

if you decide to trust that I'm being truthful and I have good intentions, and trying my hardest to be respectful, that's a massive compliment to me and I wear it as a badge of honor. if not, I won't take offense and I'll keep trying to do right by these subjects when I create anyway. ✌️

[pointyfruit]

Happy (late) Valentine's Day @miwachan2 💖💞

HheheheHAHAHA

I want to say right off the bat (Get it?) that your designs are peak and I knew I was going to have fun drawing them since the very beginning. Your DCAs are so prettyy!!

I didn't know anything about the story so I kind of just winged it (Okay, I'll stop). My thought process was, "Hmm vampire.. vampire..... vampire like blood mmm.. vampire give real beating heart? Nooo too gore! hmmm.. vampire fancyyy.. vampire CASTLE!!! COURTYARD!!"

I started with this ⤵️

I chose Moon first because I'm a Moon lober. He's my shine. It's my rock. It's my wife. I love himb.

The idea was for Moon and y/n to have a chat (or rather, y/n yaps and moon listens) while walking through a courtyard in the flower garden. The camera was placed so only the viewer can see Moon's face. He has softened for them quite a bit.

Your y/n looks like the oblivious type, so they are unaware of this. They look studious and like some sort of investigator/explorer, so they're yapping about something they learned or something new they found.

It is mid-day. I don't know what his situation is but the fact that it's a vampire and, well, it's Moon, I figured the light wouldn't feel so good. I gave him a maAaAgicAlll umbrella with a veil to proctect him from the sun and any other light. Fancy how Moon went out of it's way to spend time with y/n in such a condition. He can get hurt. He could've been safe and comfortable in the dark but he chose not to.. Hmm...

Unfortunately, it was discarded because I couldn't get the perspective to look right. Trying to fix it felt unnatural so I decided to start a new one.

However, I did decide the keep the fancy castle theme. You got all this.. c a s t l e . . . with all this space. Surely, there is a ballroom in there. Naturally, as you do, someone would dance in them. Make the vampire. Dance. With y/n... Yes.

I started with this ⤵️

I chose to use Eclipse this time. The OOOs and AWWEs as I looked across the ref sheet peaked when I got to them. They're just so GRAND! I love the stars and shape of their cape and- I really wanted to do something with them.

I wanted it to be dramatic, so I looked through ballroom references for inspiration. I started off by drawing everything in black and white so I could work on my values. ⤵️

Honestly, I wish I wasn't shy about making things dark and gloomy. If I could change anything, I would make some values darker and others lighter. More contrasting stuff.

I added a new layer and changed it to some sort of overlay so I could color in the original instead of making a new one. ⤵️

Lineart felt unnatural that day so I had to do the classic old "throw a blob of color on the canvas and refine it until it looks like the Mona Lisa" ...or painting.. is the more popular term for it...⤵️

I don't have a proper screenshot but you can probably see. Eclipse and y/n are just refined blobs of color. Lineart was an afterthought.

I wish I could say it's just my style, but I gave Clippy little spirals in their cape purely for my enrichment. I like shapes.

Thank you again for being so patient with me. I was worried and the milk and cookie helped a lot! I hope you have a nice day and good food comes your way! 💖💞

[flufftober]

🍀🍂 Hello and welcome to Flufftober's (first) Fluff Bingo 🍀🍂

In our poll, nearly 50% of you voted for a handful of bingo cards to fill the other half of the year with more fluff before we jump right back into the excitement that is Flufftober - and of course, we're here to deliver 😊

Find all the important info, more cards, and all the prompts in writing below the cut.

We hope you like this event and our prompts, and now

Happy Creating 🥳

🍀 Pick your card - we offer:

🍂 one card with 5x5 prompts (as seen at the top)

🍂 two cards with 3x3 prompts:

🍂 three themed cards with 1x5 prompts:

🍂 and as a bonus, a 3x3 card with tasks instead of prompts:

🍀 How does this work?

🍂 our standard blog rules apply and you'll find answers to most questions on our FAQ post

🍂 aside from that, you can go wild: fill these cards however you like, as quick or as slow as you like, as often as you like, and use as many of them as you like. We just want you to have fun 😊

🍂 if there are prompts on the bigger cards you don't like, feel free to use the 1x5 cards as alternate prompts and switch them out

🍂 download the cards and tick them off once you've finished a square; make a post for every square or only once you have a bingo or even a blackout - it's all up to you!

🍂 as with all our events, this one will never close, you can always use these cards. If you need a timeframe/deadline because (like me) you'll never finish otherwise, consider these loose goals:

finish until July 1st when we release the new Flufftober list

finish during October, maybe by combining some of these with the Flufftober prompts

finish until the end of the year so you're ready for whatever event we plan for next spring

🍀 What about tumblr reblogs and ao3?

🍂 tumblr reblogs will still happen but not daily as you're used to during Flufftober. It will strongly depend on how many posts there happen to be at a time and how the modmin team will have time. But as long as you mention us and/or use the tag (and follow the rules, obviously), reblogs will happen

🍂 please use the tag #fluffbingo

🍂 feel free to also add the general #flufftober tag

🍂 please make sure to clearly show the fandom, either in the first few tags or noticeably in the post

🍂 contrary to how we do it during Flufftober, we will only use four tags during reblogs this time: #fluffbingo #fluffreblog #[fandom] #[your user name] - that means we will not tag any ships, characters, or which prompt you're covering

🍂 on ao3, our collection for this event is Flufftober Fluff Bingo

Prompts

We're going left to right, top to bottom!

🍂 5x5 card

Fresh Start

To-Do List

Craft Fair

Creature AU

“This was a bad idea.”

Exploring Together

Plushie

Secret Signal

“You’ll love it.”

Late Night

Hidden (...)

“It’s just so much.”

Free Space

Fake Dating

Carnival

“You’re the best!”

Royal AU

Missing the Other

Never ever, ever

Rainbow

Hanahaki

Pep Talk

“I really mean it.”

Hoodie

Movie AU

🍂 3x3 card I

“Where do I start?”

Famous AU

Traveling the World Together

Enjoying a Lazy Day

Task: Write in a tense you usually don’t write/write less than another tense

“You said you had it handled!” - “Yeah, well, I lied.”

Birthday

“Hey, wait, that’s mine.”

Direction

🍂 3x3 card II

“You’re late!”

Hospital AU

Grocery Shopping Together

Going for a Walk

Task: Write from a POV you usually don’t write/write less than another POV

“Could you not do that, please?” - “Spoilsport.”

Sunshine

“I don’t know, you decide.”

Concert

🍂 1x5 card - Smiles

Secret Smile

Relieved Smile

Honest Smile

Devious Smile

Teary Smile

🍂 1x5 card - Hugs

Soothing Hug

Hug in Celebration

Sleepy Hug

Hug from behind

Desperate Hug

🍂 1x5 card - Kisses

Kiss on the Hand

Kiss to distract

Goodbye Kiss

Forhead Kiss

Kiss on the Cheek

🍂 3x3 card - Tasks

Finish your WIP

Sort all your Ideas and/or WIPs

Edit an entire Chapter or Oneshot

Outline a Story

Work on that hard Scene that is giving you so much trouble it is holding you back

Finish the next Chapter of your WIP

Join in a Writing Event (this card doesn’t count 😉 but the others do!)

Finish a Oneshot

Dig out an old Draft and work on it

Have Fun and Go Wild 🥳

[hotnbloodied]

Hiiii can I request popular yandere classmate x oblivious reader, oh and can it be smut pleassee?

Thanks for your ask! I started randomly naming all my yanderes even if they are all one shots, I don't know if I want to keep it though. We'll see. This one almost fucking tore me to shreds, I might need a break after this. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

-˚ʚ♡ɞ˚HB˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Yan!Popular Boy X Oblivious Reader (!!SMUT!!)

!Warning! This post contains yandere themes and topics that may be uncomfortable to people who are sensitive to the topic, read at your own discretion.

CW: not proof read, yous/yours used, gn reader, there is SEX, sloppy lewd writing, yandere tendencies, reader is kind of silly here. (LMK if I'm missing anything.)

!!READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION!! MINORS DNI!!

It was the first group project of the year! You and three other people were going to be randomly assigned together to work on a research project about something or another. The first two seemed like nice people but the third was Atticus, your friends have talked about him before. Wasn’t he popular or something? When the group met face to face you finally understood why, he was funny, charismatic and quite the looker. Your group decided to meet up in the library and you thanked your lucky stars that it seemed everyone was working well with each other. The other two in the group knew each other and were friends so when one of them had to leave later on in the day the other one did so as well leaving you and Atticus the only ones in the group still in the library.

Without the other two here, people were more inclined to come by to say hi to Atticus causing him to get distracted, you didn’t care much honestly, you had work to do after all. You overheard a couple of the people who came to talk to Atticus talk about some sort of group karaoke and that he should join them. “Sorry guys, I’m still with my group partner,” he apologized. You looked up, “it’s all good, this is just the first day after all.” Atticus looked at you incredulously. “See? Even your groupmate thinks it’s fine. Join us, Atticus, the girls are asking for you.” Internally he was annoyed, he already said no and the least his groupmate could do was back him up. Were you really that stupid? Eventually though, he was able to convince them to leave him alone. But when he turned expecting to see you still sitting there you were gone. Your stuff was still here so he assumed you went to get more material to research.

Scanning over the library he spots you eventually, struggling to reach for a book on a higher shelf. He sighs and starts walking over to assist but it turns into a run when he notices that you’re about to get toppled by said books. He covers you from getting hurt and curses at himself because having books fall on him fucking hurts. “What are you doing?” He says sternly, “if you can’t reach something ask for help.” He gasps, some of his true self leaked out, his image of a prince type is over. “Dang I’m sorry, you’re right. No sense in getting myself hurt, thanks! By the way, are you okay?” Suddenly, his heart raced, he didn’t know why. It might have been the way you looked under him currently, or it might have been the way you accept his rough tone with you, but either way he was going to explore it, explore you.

The project goes by smoothly, you still hang out with Atticus since the two of you exchanged numbers due to the project. You found it really weird though, each time you hung out with him and his friends, his friends were never able to make it. You hope you’re not scaring them away. Little did you know that if anyone is scaring people away it’s Atticus. The more time he spent with you was like heaven but also hell. He loved spending time and learning new things about you but, fuck, why were you not picking up any of the hints and flirty signs he was giving you?! Like today when it was just the two of you again, you two were at the movies and he tried to get an arm over your shoulder. “Oh my! Are you cold? Here, you can have my jacket.” And wrapped him up in your jacket! Sure, being able to smell your scent was nice but that’s not what he wanted! To rub salt on the wound too, after the movies his friends spotted him and invited you two to join them and you ACCEPTED! “Oh sorry, were you guys on a date?” One of his friends asked. “Oh no, we’re just chilling! We’d love to join you!” You responded. He almost choked up blood.

He went to his last resort and feigned sickness. Worry etched your face and you apologized as you helped carry him away. He convinced you to go to his place since it was nearby and was a bit hurt that you agreed so readily, you were going to be in a private space with him after all. Arriving at his place you helped him inside, all the way to his room. As you wished him better and got up to leave he tugged your arm. “Wait a minute,” he says. “Hm? What’s up, need something?” He hugs you, “I… I need you.” Not sure what he meant, but feeling like he needed this, you hugged him and both of you stayed like that for a while. That was, until his lower half decided to act up. “Do you, uh, need help with that?” You ask, almost too innocently. His face flushed, “help with this…?” “Of course, a boner is a natural part of your body, you know. Though I also heard that boners don’t happen just because someone is horny though…are you horny?” Atticus felt the blood rush to his head, all he could do was meekly nod.

You were sucking on his member, he could tell that you’ve done something like this before but maybe not too often due to the slight hesitation you exhibited. Regardless though he never imagined you would have been so willing to do this for him, should he have asked sooner? The sight of your mouth wrapped so prettily around his cock, he wasn’t the type that was quick to cum but just because it was you doing this act on him he felt close. He couldn’t have that, so he grabbed your shoulder and urged you on to his bed. “Take off your clothes,” he instructs. You did as he told, he gulped, he wanted this for how long now? It felt surreal that this was real. He couldn’t help but use his hands to explore your body, groping, touching, feeling your warmth. Your breathing quickened, you weren’t sure why he was taking so long, his exploration of your body started making you feel needy. You were close to telling him to hurry but let out a yelp when he started to suck and lick on your chest. He worked his way down to your lower area.

“What are you doing? Is all this necessary?” You ask him. “Please,” he begged, “I just need this, won’t you let me?” You whimpered, this is good and all but all this teasing is something you aren’t used to. He sucked and tongue prodded you for a while, you said that you would let him do what he wanted but you wanted to release soon and his tongue wasn’t doing that for you. “Hey, uh– hnn!!” Before you could say anything more he inserted a finger then two into you, rhythmically finger fucking you. Making sure to brush against your g spot each time. You were so close and Atticus knew it, so he stopped making you whine even louder. “Why did you stop?” “Grind on my dick,” he ordered. Sluggishly you got up and did as he was told. “Don’t even try to insert before I allow you to.” So you rubbed your sensitive area against him, slow at first but even you can grow impatient and you’ve been that for a while. Your wetness making a mess and with your bodies grinding against each other a squelching sound reverberated through the room along with the heavy panting and moaning. “Soon please?” You begged. Atticus needed you badly as well so he pushed you down on the bed again and aligned himself before pushing in causing you to scream out from the intrusion. He jackhammered you silly, “fuck, fuck, fuck, please. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” he chanted like a mantra, “I need you so bad.” What followed was one of the hardest orgasms you ever had. He unsheathed from you and quickly went to your face marking your face all over with his seed.

After a couple of beats you asked, “hey, uh, can I have some napkins?” “S-sorry,” he scrambled to his drawer and took out a box of tissues. After you cleaned yourself up you asked, “I’d like to borrow your bathroom.” He told you that it was down the hall. You took your clothes and left his room, when you came back you thanked him. “Well that was fun! I’m going to head home now. I’ll see you later alright?” And left. He was shocked, how fucking clueless can you be?? He was going to make sure you understood that you were his now and he was going to move heaven and hell to make sure that happens, his darling.

[asmogorna]

Ok so for the last couple days ive been ill in the head about The Black Parade as mcr's alter ego/characters and i wanted to share some thoughts i had so far :3

It doesnt align with the canon lore that we have (i didnt really use it for reference at least) so it can be viewed as some sort of an au

I dont know if im gonna give them new names that just sound similar to the names of mcr themselves, so for now i will be referring to them by the names of the band members

So far I've been thinking about the typical "chosen by fate" scenario, where the characters lives lead them through a path for a specific cause

So

Post WW2 England

5 kids under their own circumstances witness a big parade (I will be doing some research and see if it could be some kind of victory celebration parade? It's just that I'm not sure if England had those. Not that I'm aiming for historical accuracy atp it's simple curiosity)

The kids get heavily impacted by that event and carry on (ha) that memory throughout their life

Now to the specifics of the characters cus by God they all gave me a headache

Heads up: they're all british orphans lol

Frank and Bob are students/residents in a Christian orphan school, and later on in life are priests in the town church

The reason why is that they both have badges on their uniform with crosses that could be associated with christianity

(I couldn't find any info about what exactly certain design details could be referencing, so ig it's up to interpretation)

The military theme in Gerard and Mikey's costumes will be explored on later (Mikey's medal could be either The Victoria Cross or The Distinguished Flying Cross, and the symbol on Gerard's shoulder is most likely the Order Of The Garter star)

And I couldn't figure out what to do w Ray, because I'm not sure if his uniform design details reference anything specific 🤷🏾🤷🏾🤷🏾

Now, Gerard and Mikey lost their father to war, and their mother passed away when they were both very young

And after that they ended up in the same orphanage as Ray, befriending him and finding out about their shared passion for music

This doodle was made abt that specifically <3

Later on in early adulthood they decide to start a cabaret band, in which Frank and Bob both join them later, deciding to leave their priest lives behind (partially because iirc both of them kinda fanboyed their way into the band irl lol)

After receiving little recognition, the band decides to take a train to America, to try their luck there. With a lot of hope and determination

That, sadly, doesn't last for long, for the train crushes with no survivors on board

The group crawls out of the collapsed train in their no longer physical forms. Yet, even after their death, they still have a desire to move forward. And that desire, though thoughtlessly, forces them to go forward. The souls of all the other people who lost their lives to the train accident follow them, through the landscape that no longer feels like earth

They then reach the end

Walking in one by one people disappear, finding their own peace and meeting their own finish line

After it's done, The Black Parade now have officially made themselves into what they're supposed to be. Gaining a new purpose and a new sort of life

I got too poetic for my own good here I fear .. anyway

Their job now is to lead the lost and the forgotten to the afterlife

They could be referred to as some kind of a grim reaper, I guess

I'm still thinking about adding more to the story, and maybe I will change some things, but so far this is all I can share really !! I hope if you've read this far you found this entertaining .. this is all for the satisfaction of my urges so I might or might not have too much fun w it in the future :3

The story was mainly inspired by this specific post from Gerard himself, because i liked the concept a lot ..

Also

She's gonna be here as a separate character too probably...... Cus I'm self indulgent and I love the ideas bubbling in my brain

[walkingstackofbooks]

Thinking about the fact that Julian lived for seventeen years without telling anyone about his biggest secret and worse fear.

I don't think I've ever stopped to really consider what that must have felt like. Every single time he had a bad day because of it, every single time he got fucked up thinking too hard about it, he had to handle completely alone. For 17 years. More than half his life.

Gah, my words are insufficient. It's not like I've never thought about his secret haunting his life before - I've written a small amount and read an abundance on the theme - but the idea has just hit me different and I don't know how to explain it. Maybe it's less about how he feels, and more about the fact that he can't tell anyone how he's feeling, why he's feeling? The mundanity of every day having a secret burning a hole in the back of your head and itching for the relief of someone knowing and knowing you have to avoid scratching it if you don't want to ruin your life and this being ordinary.

Idk. The big things that I've kept secret at times in my life - crushes on girls, my asexuality, losing my faith, to name a few... God, I can't imagine having kept them completely quiet for the whole of my life until now, and that would 'only' have been 13, 10, 6 years. And when they were secret, I remeber how they used to eat away at me, how I could barely even have a conversation at times without thinking about it and about telling someone every few minutes. Every few seconds, even.

I just... I dunno. I guess it feels like it's a fact that's so easy to gloss over - or not quite 'gloss over', I guess, because it is mentioned. But more, like, it's a fact that's normalised, perhaps? Of course Julian's kept this secret since he was fifteen, of course that fucked him up, that's an essential part of his character that we all love exploring, you know?

But seventeen fucking years without being able to access any sort of community, without being able to ever put your feelings into words (apart from shouting at your parents, perhaps, which is a whole 'nother world of feelings), without even being able to send an anonymous question into some stranger's inbox in the hopes that in a couple of days you'll see their reply and know you're not completely alone. We know he kept at least one version of a diary that was so clean of his secrets that he had no qualms about asking Jadzia to read them pre-reveal. Did he keep another, more discardable diary to write down any enhancement-based feelings? Or did he just completely censor himself, even in private? My money would be on the latter.

Secrets are fucking painful things, and in my experience at least, only get more painful over time. Seventeen years, and not a single hug, a single comforting word. Seventeen years of supression and repression and redirection of your own thoughts and not even being able to dream of telling anyone how much you hurt because you're far too aware that your world would crumble around you if that eevr happened.

God. It's so much, and I can't imagine how he did it. Seventeen years! Seventeen!

[natalyarose]

𝓛𝓾𝓷𝓪𝓻 𝓝𝓪𝓴𝓼𝓱𝓪𝓽𝓻𝓪𝓼 - 𝔀𝓲𝓵𝓭 𝓯𝓮𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓶𝔂𝓼𝓽𝓲𝓺𝓾𝓮 🌙

Originally, I was going to do a short write-up on one character who's Nakshatras made sense to me, but this turned into an extensive piece on the mystical, mysterious nature of Moon ruled Nakshatras lol. I hope this is enjoyed & without further ado, ima delve into this. 💕

Now to put it plainly, Moon ruled Nakshatras are lunatics. I'm allowed to say it lol, but seriously. Lu-na-tics. but that's okay! In fact, it's great; a bit of lunacy is an asset in art & anything that requires outside of the box thinking. The Moon is often associated with purity; but in a sense to be pure is to welcome any and all whims & emotions without judgement.

Running into the wild ocean at 3am solely because you felt like it? Okay! (my Shravana stellium mum lol), frolicking in the woods with no rhyme or reason? Sure! Making daisy chains and thinking about chai lattes lol (Moon = milk, lunar people often love milk drinks) instead of focusing on your assignment? Yup. Dating some guy who's known to be trouble because you 'feel there's something more to him'? Mm..

The Moon rules over all that is mystical, whereas Mercury rules over the cerebral realm. This is why Ashlesha tends to be a very mystical Nakshatra- it's placed within Cancer (Moon ruled) but is a Mercurial Lunar Mansion. In Ashlesha, there is a union between unexplainable intuition & sharp intellect. It is said that Ashlesha natives if they apply their focus correctly, would be the first to uncover the secrets of our world.

The Moon is a blank canvas; readily available for anybody to project their energy onto. Moon seldom clings to an identity or persona, it just 'is'.

in Rohini, there is this sense of 'nakedness' & a lot of vulnerability. Themes of unbridled imagination, sensitivity, pleasure seeking & creativity come through, and there is a lack of boundaries being lunar yet co-ruled by Venus; a planet pertaining to relationships. Rohini really needs some form of external structure, but at the same time thrives on lunar fluctuation and instability. It is why the creativity in Rohini is so immense and there is constant growth.

In Hasta, we see the co-rulership of Mercury, being in Sidereal Virgo. Hasta is where the Moon realises that it is not always safe to be completely receptive and vulnerable, therefore becomes shrewd and learns to be a little more pragmatic & purposeful in the way they express themselves. For this reason, you'll find Hasta slightly less represented in this 'wild feminine' archetype exploration, though some Hasta natives still very much embody this energy. Hasta; similarly to Ashlesha focuses on being conservative & logical in the face of internal lunar fluctuation.

In Shravana, we see lunar energy matured- the co-rulership of Saturn provides the structure, discipline and boundaries the Moon needs to thrive. I find that while Rohini is very maternal & associated with motherhood, I tend to see Shravana as THE mother. The stability Saturn provides makes for this ability to nurture & listen but still instil some sort of routine or restriction, which is necessary in motherhood. A friend of mine noticed that Saturn Nakshatras (think of Pushya, the other Moon-Saturn Nakshatra) are strongly represented in themes of motherhood due to the fact that children thrive when there is (gentle) but definitive limitation. Rohini's style of nurturing is very free form and full of sweetness & virtually zero judgement.

The beauty of lunar people really shows in how comfortable they are with change. I've noticed Moon ruled people retain their youth and tend to age very beautifully partially because they are so in tune with feminine cycles and are not as resistant to change. This isn't surprising as Moon is connected to the face & traditionally holds associations with fertility and youth. Moon Nakshatras embrace flow, embrace change, so they move into every phase of life with grace.

Random note: I've always suspected this but I just saw this on TikTok the other night to confirm- research shows that people who have a lot of pimples or oily skin, tend to age much better due to that extra oil. As mentioned, Moon rules the face & also relates to water- I've noticed & it has been written that people with prominent Moon influence will be more susceptible to acne & weight fluctuations due to the water/fluid connection. A lot of people who age remarkably well tend to have a Moon Nakshatra somewhere (and people who look older even from a young age are often Saturnian; Saturn Nakshatras falling opposite to Moon).

A lot of people mistake lunar individuals for being 'dumb' and ditzy, but there is a certain wisdom in the madness as you will find in the examples I'm using today :)

𝒜𝓃𝒶𝓁𝓎𝓈𝒾𝓈 𝑜𝓃 𝒜𝓊𝓃𝓉 𝐸𝓁𝒾𝓏𝒶𝒷𝑒𝓉𝒽, '𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒢𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓉' - 𝑅𝑜𝒽𝒾𝓃𝒾 𝒮𝓊𝓃, 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒𝓁𝓎 𝐻𝒶𝓈𝓉𝒶 𝑀𝑜𝑜𝓃

I watched 'The Great' a while back and I couldn't get over how strongly the actress; Belinda Bromilow portrayed Rohini energy! I looked up her chart after watching, & as per Galactic Center mid-mula ayanamsa she is indeed a Rohini Sun native, likely with Hasta Moon; only amplifying the lunar influence.

There are many reasons, but what really tipped me off was how as a character, despite being an 'older woman' she really comes across so youthful and full of this magical, fanciful zest for life. I also find her gorgeous!!

I ADORE her character, she is so funny & light without deviating from the overall intensity of the show.

In 'The Great', Aunt Elizabeth is this 'strange', mystical, offbeat woman with a lot of unconventional wisdom. She's a woman who talks to butterflies and other creatures, has all of these 'wacky' witch-esque remedies that work, and has no shortage of odd, seemingly random one liners that often veil deep metaphors.

She often would be seen in the show comforting the main characters & acting as a trusted, empathetic maternal figure/guide. Simultaneously, she was viewed as somewhat insane & often used that perception to her advantage (her Hasta Moon reflecting the calculated side of Moon). Her character is extremely loving, able to look past the faults of others and show softness and compassion to people considered 'unlovable'. One of her notable roles as a character being Peter's (the barbaric Emperor who reigns with cruelty's) aunt who was really more of a maternal figure to him than his real mother, who was cruel much like himself.

She's in a sense, everyone's comfort, the woman in everyone's ear (very Serpent yoni too).

Aunt Elizabeth doesn't condone or necessarily agree with Peter's evil actions, but she has this beautiful way of seeing the little boy in him and nurturing him no matter what (Rohini's combination of Moon & Venus creates a person who is capable of seeing the beauty in everything & everyone).

There is another strong plot point pertaining to her child who sadly drowned. I've noticed in media, Moon women tend to have strong plots related to their love for other people (children, spouses, etc.) not because they don't stand strong on their own, but because Moon women naturally devote to their loved ones.

Throughout the show, Aunt Elizabeth has this gentle persuasion that subtly influences the characters in profound ways. I've seen talk recently of Moon Nakshatras being manipulative, and in a way they most definitely are (for better or worse). The same way the Moon pulls on the tides & pulls the attention of humans & animals alike.

Hasta's more shrewd nature shows in Elizabeth's surprising ability to scheme and commit dark acts in order to achieve a bigger goal- even though the Rohini energy gives her this energy of being very kooky, 'off with the fairies' character.

Moon's manipulation can be very much this subtle, almost subliminal feminine influence. It reminds me of the saying, 'behind every powerful man is a woman'; meaning that a man who is powerful never stands alone. He never got there without the love, or at least the influence of a woman. Behind him there is a woman who nurtures him (be it his mother in childhood or his wife), subtly influences him, lifts his spirits, etc. Even if not, the fact of him even incarnating and being born in the first place is the work of a woman.

A memorable moment from the series that strikes me as very indicative of Moon Nakshatras tendency towards intense emotions & strong sensitivity is when Elizabeth is sitting in the carriage after witnessing the gruesome affects of the war in their region. She is eerily quiet on the trip home, until suddenly she calmly requests for the carriage to stop. She proceeds to get out of the carriage, and scream & thrash around intensely as catharsis for the pain & anger she felt for the horror she'd just witnessed. :(

More on Elizabeth, there is also this aspect of the story where she is a sort of nymphomaniac lol, having many lovers of any age/gender (Rohini doesn't discriminate lmao) and is forever tragically in love with her deceased lover Peter the Great (Peter's father). Peter the Great was a womaniser, but in a sense Elizabeth was his 'true love' which reminds me of Rohini's mythology being 'the favourite wife of the Moon'. He had many lovers and a great deal of power, but Elizabeth was the closest he had to a true love.

Elizabeth was shown multiple times to be very psychic- an example of this being her 'feeling it' & having a vision the moment Peter died.

In summary, this character is just such a glaring example of what an abundance of lunar energy manifests like (for better and for worse since she is a very multifaceted character). Speaking of which, the word 'multifaceted' in itself always makes me think of the Moon. The Moon has many faces/phases.

𝑀𝑜𝑜𝓃 𝒩𝒶𝓀𝓈𝒽𝒶𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒲𝒾𝓉𝒸𝒽𝓎, 𝑀𝓎𝓈𝓉𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓁 𝑜𝓇 '𝒮𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓃𝑔𝑒'

A lot of public figures who have a pronounced reputation for being 'witchy', strange or mysterious/disconcerting/charmingly bizarre will have a prominent Moon ruled Nakshatra in their chart. Lunar people can really embody the archetype of being 'insane' or random. but lovable all in the same.

Kate Bush, Shravana Moon (Ashlesha Sun) I may do an independent post on Kate Bush's placements, but she is such a staple example of Moon Nakshatras & the 'wild feminine' witchy, strange but beautiful energy. Her music & music videos are full of symbolism, often pulling inspiration from obscure ideas and stories. Some people find her a bit 'weird', especially men but just as many women and men alike adore her. Very mleccah (outcaste) Nakshatra vibes. People are either inexplicably drawn to her and enchanted, or find her 'creepy'. ~I'll note that Kate is extremely Mercury influenced too, hence the much rounder face than the examples you'll see. Moon people tend to have rounded faces, but they are typically a bit longer than Mercury and have very prominent cheekbones.

Stevie Nicks, Rohini Sun Stevie Nicks is always remarked to be a witch. She never explicitly said this, but upon the release of Fleetwood Mac's 'Rhiannon', (a very witch-y song about the Celtic Goddess herself) the witch allegations began lol. Other than that, Stevie Nicks & Fleetwood Mac have always been associated with the hippy/spiritual/witchy crowd.

Helena Bonham Carter, Rohini Sun Helena has been known to often play 'bizarre', witchy or macabre characters, known to work alongside Tim Burton (also a Rohini native) often. Some of these roles to note are her as the Queen of Hearts and Bellatrix Lestrange; but there are countless that speak to the lunar wild feminine archetype. Beyond that, Helena is known to have a very eccentric dress sense off screen, people often remarking that she has all this money yet chooses to still be herself and a little strange.

Alica Keys, Hasta Moon, Shravana Sun I can't think of any overtly 'witchy' or 'bizarre' associations for Alicia Keys, but I wanted to include her because I feel like her sweet emotive face and gorgeous flowing hair is very reflective of her Moon dominance. She has the 'vibe'. She's also mentioned that she has a spiritual practice in her everyday life & references the divine feminine.

James Marsden, Rohini Moon admittedly, I only know him in two movies, but in both he is playing this kinda bizarre, theatrical, childlike character very indicative of Rohini energy. In 'Enchanted' he is the dramatic, vibrant and endlessly cheerful fairytale prince who breaks into song whenever he gets the chance. In 'Hop' he is this uninspired guy who lives with his parents and can't seem to get a job or find purpose. That is until he meets the easter bunny who'd run away from 'Easter Island' and didn't want to be the easter bunny anymore. He then proceeded to become the easter bunny himself- lmao. If you know about Rohini's relationship with sweets & children (not to mention Rohini natives typically having prominent front teeth like a bunny) this movie is very on the nose.

Kylie Minogue, Rohini Sun & Pushya Asc an Aussie legend I say. Kylie is another one who always embodied this very lunar feminine mystique, she actually sort of reminds me of Marilyn Monroe (Rohini Sun) in some photos of her in her youth. The witchy, eerie, 'haunting' vibe Moon people can radiate really shines through in her enchanting murder ballad 'Where the Wild Roses Grow' with Nick Cave (a Magha native of course). A personal favourite of mine.

Teal Swan, Shravana Moon Teal Swan is a famous spiritual 'guru' who is known to have extrasensory abilities. She is a controversial figure due to strange behaviour in her past & questionable things in her personal life. Some disregard her as a narcissistic cult leader for these reasons, but in my opinion even if that were the case, two things can be true- someone can have ill intent with the knowledge they possess yet still genuinely possess that knowledge. I find a lot of her content incredibly helpful and intuitive. Credit to @makingspiritualityreal for my learning about this- you'll notice that a lot of individuals with strong Lunar influence in their chart will have very light, translucent looking eyes indicative of their receptive, psychic nature. Even if the eyes are brown, they still will have a notably 'light', reflective, soft, crystal-esque quality. We see this with all of these examples, but Teal especially.

Amber Heard, Hasta Moon I was struggling to think of Hasta examples that fit this archetype since as I mentioned earlier, Hasta places a huge emphasis on gaining control over their own lunar nature. In Hasta there is less of a tendency to be 'wild and free' the way we see in Rohini & Shravana. However, I still see in Amber Heard's infamy a different expression of the lunar witchy lunacy. A lot of people regard her nature as 'insane', overemotional, very manipulative, bewitching people with her beauty, etc. This being said, I know I've definitely seen witchy-ish Hasta natives, I just can't think of any as readily as I can the other Moon Nakshatras.

Alanis Morrisette, Rohini Sun Just another woman in music who radiates that lunar, wild feminine, raw emotional energy. If you listen to her song 'You Oughta Know' and see the emotionally chaotic, passionate music video, you'll absolutely see what I mean!

Tori Amos, Hasta Moon another witch-esque phenomenal alternative artist. I just remembered to include her!! She's perfect for this list. Listen to 'Cornflake Girl'. and once again you'll see the lunar, feminine energy. Shania Twain & Kate Winslet are two more Hasta natives I thought of who embody this energy, but I can't add anymore pics to the post :(

It's worth noting that Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Alanis Morissette and some other artists are often piled together and referred to as being similar in 'vibe'. Mysterious, feminine, emotional, mystical, etc. I'd venture to guess that other artists in the same sort of creative realm have Moon ruled Nakshatras.

I just thought of Bjork, another artist who is compared to ones mentioned. She is Swati Moon, with Rahu in Rohini as the lord of her Moon!

One last thing I want to mention, is I've noticed that Moon women can sometimes be viewed as 'anti feminist' by other women despite the fact that a lot of the time, healthy Moon women are extreme symbols of feminine strength and courage to be womanly & emotionally vulnerable. It's kinda like some people see the beauty, the softness, the emotion and picture a girl flouncing around in frilly dresses catering to men. Needless to say, a shallow and ironically anti-feminist conclusion. That being said, lunar receptivity can definitely make Moon influenced women prone to doing a lot to cater to men, but I think it's a mistake to miss the wisdom in the 'frilliness' and fanciful nature of lunar natives.

Anyway as always, I could write forever, this one was super fun to do :) noticing and dissecting these patterns is such a magical thing.

I hope this was interesting to someone, lots of love! 💞💞💞

[hwangjoanna]

‘The Collector’

Haunted House AU | Dark Romance | Hyunjin/Dominant Immortal X Reader/Willing Human | Gothic Horror | Slow-burn Possession | Cursed Immortality | Soft Obsession | Erotic Ruin

When Y/N inherits a crumbling old estate from a great-aunt she barely knew, she discovers dozens of portraits in the attic. Each depicting the same impossibly beautiful man. As she begins to uncover her aunt’s obsession, Y/N starts to dream of him too. Whispered words. Eyes in mirrors. The sensation of being watched.

Hyunjin is everything the paintings promised. Elegant, possessive, devastating. He’s not a ghost. Not quite human. He’s something else. Something that feeds not on blood, but on devotion. Surrender.

As Y/N falls deeper under his spell, the house becomes a trap. The paintings breathe. Time unravels and love begins to taste like ruin.

Word count - 13k (both parts)

Warnings - MDNI 18+, Horror themes, Mentions of death, Nightmares, Dreams, Smut, Mean Dom Hyunjin/Sub Reader, Power dynamics, Orgasm denial, Petnames - darling, little thing, Hyunjin is mean, possessive but also loving, Reader is an absolute simp, Hyunjin likes reader to say ‘she belongs to him’ repetitively.

A/N - This is my apology for how long it’s taking me to write my squid game au fic, I appreciate all of your patience. This idea popped into my head a few days ago and I just had to write it. Don’t worry the next chapter of ‘Red Light, Green Light’ is almost ready! I know this isn’t on my teaser list but the idea came so I ran with it. The other fics in the teasers are also in the works, plus I have some surprise fics on their way too. ;) I hope you enjoy this little one shot about our lovely Hyunjin. For this fic I wanted Y/n to be extremely receptive to him, not anything like she is in my other fic. So apologies if you’re not a fan of a simp y/n.

^ The song above is the song that plays in the house and the one the reader sings to herself. Just imagine it a little slower, played on a vintage phonograph.

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

September 1995

The key sticks in the lock as you turn it, your fingers trembling from the cold. The door finally groans open, revealing the dim interior of the old house your great-aunt left you. Dust coats every surface, thick as frost. The air is musty, tinged with something sweet and decaying, like old roses rotting beneath floorboards.

The house is a Victorian mansion just north of Maine, it towers over a small town in the hills and the forests.

You don’t remember her. No one really does. Your great aunt, Elena. They said she’d been strange, a recluse who spoke to paintings and locked her doors, mail left in the mailbox for weeks on end. But now her house is yours, she’d given it to you in her will, randomly so you thought. Every creaking wall and faded floorboard. You tell yourself it’s just a place. That you’ll stay long enough to sort through her things, sell what you can, and leave.

You spend your first day trying to sort out some form of internet, maybe get the electrics going and unpacking the groceries you’d bought to tide you over for the month. You liked to be prepared, even if it seemed over the top.

After calling an electrician, you soon found that the house would ultimately need to be rewired. Something you hadn’t really factored in but you accepted it nonetheless. They couldn’t book it in for you until January, and it was currently September. Great. You enquired at a few places but all said the same thing. ‘It’s a small town, we can’t do everything at the same time.’

You admit defeat, you can always check into a local hotel if it gets too much. You continue to explore the house, the peeling damask wallpaper, the loose floorboards and you find your aunts' old diaries scattered in random cabinets and drawers. You make a mental note to give them a read later, you’d need some entertainment, with no TV or any of your true crime books.

But then you find the attic.

It’s behind a narrow door at the end of the hallway, hidden behind an old armoire you push aside on instinct. Dust explodes into the air. The moment you touch the attic handle, your skin prickles, as if someone were watching. As if something were waiting.

You open it anyway. Using your full side profile with a push to get into it, the hinges are stiff and rusted. The door finally swings and you step inside. The attic is vast, the roof slanted and beams exposed. Covered furniture sits like forgotten monuments under yellowed sheets. But it’s the far wall that draws your attention. Portraits. Dozens of them.

All of the same man.

Different poses, different styles some oil, watercolour, charcoal but always him. His face is elegant, hauntingly beautiful. Long dark hair. A sculpted mouth. Eyes that seem to look through the canvas, through time. Even when painted in abstract, his features are unmistakable. There’s something intimate about them, something… wrong.

You don’t know why your chest tightens.

One painting in particular pulls you closer. It’s larger than the rest, nearly life-sized. He’s lying back on a velvet chaise, white shirt half-unbuttoned, gaze directed outward but it’s the expression that gets to you, amusement laced with sorrow. Like he knows something you don’t. Like he’s waiting.

You reach out. Your fingertips hover just above the surface.

And that’s when you hear it.

A whisper.

So faint, it might be the house settling. Or wind against the roof. But it sounds like your name.

“…Y/N…”

You snatch your hand back, pulse thudding.

You’re alone.

A beat of silence.

Then a soft creak, wood shifting under weight.m but the attic is still. You turn, eyes searching the corners, breath caught halfway between fear and something else. Curiosity. Something more dangerous.

You look back at the painting.

The man’s eyes are different now.

Wider.

Focused.

On you.

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

You don’t sleep in the bedroom upstairs. Not yet, the bed is dusty and old. You haven’t bothered to put your new bedding on there yet. Staring at all the paintings earlier you had lost track of time and suddenly night fell.

You settle instead on the worn velvet sofa in the sitting room. It smells like mothballs and fire ash, but at least it feels less haunted than the rest of the house. You light a single candle, since there’s no electricity yet and the flame flickers violently, like it resents being brought here.

Outside, the wind claws at the single-glazed windows, and the trees cast shifting shadows across the faded wallpaper.

You should feel tired, but your body refuses to rest. The house is too quiet. Not peaceful. Watchful.

You reach onto the coffee table where the stack of your aunts' journals sits and pull the old leather-bound book and place it on your lap, You still can’t stop thinking about the paintings. The journal, with your great-aunt’s name scrawled on the first page in ornate, spidery ink. You flip past yellowing pages until one entry catches your eye.

October 17th, 1989

He was in my dream again. The same eyes. The same mouth, painted in oil and silk and hunger. I awoke with the weight of him still on my chest, as though he had been there watching. Waiting.

I locked the attic but I still hear the frame creak when I sleep. I still feel the warmth in the paint.

He is beautiful. Terribly so.

You pause. A chill runs down your spine, not from the cold.

There’s another entry, dated two weeks later:

October 30th, 1989

I found the new canvas had moved. It was not where I left it. The brushstrokes on his lips have changed. More smirk than smile. The man is constant, but he is not still.

I should burn it but I cannot bear to.

You close the book and something groans above you.

The attic again.

You grip the blanket tighter around your shoulders. You tell yourself it’s just the wind… until you hear it again. A creak, deliberate. One slow footstep.

Your throat dries.

You glance toward the hallway. It’s swallowed by shadows.

Nothing moves and yet you see a flutter in your peripheral vision. Like something just stepped out of frame. You spin toward it. Just the bookshelf but when you cast your eyes down, a book has fallen to the floor.

You didn’t hear it fall and when you kneel to pick it up, your candle flickers violently once more and then, goes out.

You sit in the darkness for what feels like hours. Listening. The whisper never comes again but you feel it now.

That you’re not alone in the house.

You never were.

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

You slept very little that night. If you slept at all.

By morning, the candle you relit is nothing but a puddle of wax, the journal is still open beside you. The entries haunt you more than the creaking floorboards or the way your breath fogs in certain corners of the house but not others. You blame your imagination. The cold. Your exhaustion.

You tell yourself you’ll spend the day cleaning.

Get a routine. A rhythm. Make the house feel more like yours.

So you begin in the hallway. The wallpaper there is stained and peeling at the corners, curling like old petals. You set to work stripping it away, humming softly to fill the silence. A song you’ve never heard but fills your head anyway. Beneath the paper, the walls are marked by time, water damage and faint cracks.

But then, you pause. Narrow your eyes.

There’s something carved into the plaster underneath. It’s deep, rough etchings in jagged lines. You pull more of the paper down, heart slowly sinking.

There it is, a name. Hyunjin.

You freeze.

It’s not written once. Not twice. It’s scratched into the wall over and over again, some deeper than others, some nearly illegible, as if whoever carved it kept repeating it until their fingers bled.

Hyunjin. Hyunjin. Hyunjin.

The name dances across the wall like a ritual, a plea, a curse.

You don’t know why, but your hands tremble as you touch one of the carvings. The edges are sharp. Still fresh, somehow.

You whisper the name out loud before you can stop yourself.

“Hyunjin.”

A gust of wind slams against the window down the hall. The floor creaks.

You spin around, but nothing’s there. It’s like the air shifts. Like someone just walked through the room. It’s breath on your neck. You back away from the wall slowly, the hairs rising on your arms. Your eyes catch something just before you turn fully.

Another mark.

A date, 1994 scratched in smaller letters below one of the names. Your stomach turns. Your aunt died in 1993.

You go back upstairs. You don’t want to, but you do. Like it’s calling to you.

The attic door is closed, but not locked. You open it again, candle in hand this time. The paintings are where you left them, except one.

The large portrait. The one you couldn’t stop looking at. It’s still there but something is different. There’s a new painting propped beside it, one you don’t remember seeing before.

It’s unfinished. The brushstrokes are broad, urgent, and messy.

It’s… a woman.

You.

Your face.

Painted in the corner of the canvas, as if just beginning to emerge from shadow. Your eyes are wide mirroring your own. Frightened and beside you, only half visible, him.

Long hair. A bare throat. That same gaze.

He’s reaching for you.

You don’t remember deciding to touch it.

One moment, you’re staring at the new, unfinished portrait. Your own half-formed face staring back at you in pale, ghostly brushstrokes and the next, your hands are gripping the heavy wooden frame of the larger painting. Your favourite.

The original one. Him.

The weight surprises you, solid and cold like stone. You manage to lift it, arms trembling slightly as you descend the attic stairs. The old wood groans beneath your steps, like it disapproves.

You bring him into the sitting room.

Place him gently above the fireplace, where a cracked mirror used to hang. The dustless patch on the wall is still there, like a ghost of what used to be. You prop the frame up, stepping back to examine your own absurdity.

He stares at you from the canvas.

The same expression. That faint smirk. That devastating gaze. You tell yourself it’s just a painting. Oil on canvas. You need it to be just that but the room feels warmer now. Not cosy, it’s something subtler. Like breath. Like body heat. The kind of warmth that fogs glass when you exhale against it.

You sit back on the couch, eyes never leaving his. The silence settles differently now, less empty. More attentive. You feel watched. You feel… kept.

“Hyunjin,” you whisper. Like you already know that’s his name. The ones carved into the wall.

The candle beside you flickers. You don’t sleep that night, either. You lie curled on the couch under a heavy blanket, staring at the fireless hearth beneath his portrait. Every time your eyelids grow heavy, a noise snaps them open, whispers behind the walls, footsteps upstairs, the soft drag of something across the floor. You think you hear your name. Once. Maybe twice.

By 3 a.m., you’re shivering, but your skin is damp. When you finally do fall asleep, it’s shallow, strange. You feel groggy. You dream of velvet and a white silk shirt. Of long fingers. Of a voice you almost recognise whispering in your ear.

“You brought me closer.”

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

When you wake, the fire’s still dead, but the room feels too warm again. Sweat clings to your back, your skin flushed as though touched in sleep. Your dream evaporates too quickly to recall but his name lingers on your tongue.

Hyunjin.

You sit up slowly. The blanket you fell asleep under has been pulled up neatly around your shoulders. Tucked in. You don’t remember ending up sleeping with a blanket last night. You had been too hot.

Your eyes flick to the painting above the fireplace. His face hasn’t changed. Not obviously. But there’s something new in it. The smirk a little more knowing. The gaze a little lower.

No longer looking out. Now looking at you. Your thighs press together and your pussy clenches around nothing. You don’t know what it is about the man in the painting that makes you so aroused.

You try to shake it off. You go about your morning in silence, making tea on the old stove, watching the steam curl up like breath from unseen lips. You talk out loud to yourself, just to fill the air but the silence answers you anyway.

A creak above your head.

A soft whisper. Like the beginning of a song, just out of reach.

You freeze.

The cup trembles slightly in your hand. You glance toward the staircase, but there’s nothing there. Just shadows coiled at the top of the landing like smoke. You set the cup down. Decide to clean again. The hallway feels tighter today, the corners darker. As you pass the spot where the name Hyunjin is carved into the wall, your eyes catch something new.

A handprint. It’s faint but it’s there.

Just below the letters, as if someone had pressed their palm there while scratching out the name. You reach to touch it. The plaster is ice cold. You shiver and turn away quickly but you can feel it now.

That thing they never taught you how to name, the feeling of being watched, not with malice… but with intent. Like you’re no longer a guest in the house.

You’re the prize.

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

By late afternoon, you return to the attic again.

You don’t know why, but you’re longing to be near them. The paintings.

The unfinished portrait is still there. Still of you but it’s different now. The brushstrokes are sharper, the shadows deeper. Your eyes in the painting are more complete. Wide, startled like you’ve just realised something and next to you, in the shadows, the faintest outline of a hand now emerges from the dark space near your shoulder. Long lithe fingers. Just reaching.

You didn’t paint this and you haven’t let anyone else inside.

You back away slowly, heart pounding, and as you turn to leave, the old phonograph in the corner creaks to life without warning. The record spins. No one touched it. The needle drags.

Then the music begins soft, slow, haunting. Like a waltz half-remembered from childhood dreams. It’s the song. That song. The one you were humming to yourself.

You freeze on the spot and a gasp falls from your lips. In that moment. There’s no electricity, how is it playing? In the dusty reflection of a mirror propped in the corner, you swear you see him. Only a glimpse. Standing just behind you. Not quite smiling. Before the mirror goes still again.

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

After the mirror incident, you don’t return to the attic for the rest of the day. You crave it but you resist.

You spend the evening with every candle you can light, even though only half of them stay lit. The static from upstairs still plays. The windows stay shut. You don’t eat. Your appetite drowned in the echo of that phantom music.

Instead, you return to the leather-bound journal. The same one you found in the cabinet.

You flip to the middle, where pages curl like dried leaves. Some have stains on them, water? Ink? You can’t tell. But the handwriting is shakier now. More urgent.

You land on an entry marked,

November 6th, 1989

I heard him again last night.

No…

I felt him.

The bed dipped as though someone sat beside me and then… the air moved against my throat like a sigh. Not cold. Not warm either. Just there.

I said his name out loud. Only once. I didn’t mean to but it made the silence pulse. Like the house held its breath.

I asked him to show me. Just once. I begged. I don’t know why I did it. Or maybe I do.

I want him to look at me like he does in the paintings. I want to know if I still exist when he sees me. If I am anything more than dust to him.

He answered me but not with words.

The candle by my bed burned out the moment I closed my eyes and I saw him. In the dark behind my eyelids. That long face. That mouth was made for both cruelty and worship. Plump and pink.

He said my name but it was my voice that spoke it.

You read the entry three times.

Your fingers tighten around the page until it crinkles. You can’t help but look up, slowly, toward the sitting room fireplace where his portrait still hangs.

He hasn’t moved.

Of course, he hasn’t.

You feel something in the room has changed. The air has that same tension you feel before lightning splits the sky. A pressure, subtle but deep, like you’re being pulled forward by a string threaded through your chest.

Your gaze lingers on the painted man’s eyes. You whisper it, just like she did.

“Hyunjin…”

The candles flicker and you swear, just barely, that you hear it again.

A voice. Yours.

“Come to me.”

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

You fall asleep with the journal open across your chest, a single candle still burning on the mantel.

The flame dances for hours.

Then stills.

You’re dreaming.

The room is the same, your same blanket draped over your legs, the same armchair in the corner, the same low hum of silence wrapped around you like a second skin but the painting above the fireplace is missing.

In its place is a velvet curtain. Deep crimson. Heavy.

Then, you hear it.

Music again. That same song from the attic phonograph, slower now, like a heartbeat underwater.

You rise, barefoot, drawn forward by something warm pulsing behind the curtain. The room smells like candle wax and cedarwood. Like skin.

When you pull back the velvet drape, he’s there. Not painted. Alive.

Standing in the centre of the room like he’s always belonged to it. The same face you’ve memorised from canvas after canvas, only now he’s moving, breathing.

His dark hair falls in loose waves over his cheekbones in a half-up up half-down ponytail. His pillowy lips are parted, just barely. His cat-like eyes. God, his eyes are molten shadow, thick with knowing. With hunger. He wears a soft white shirt, half-unbuttoned, exposing the smooth line of his collarbones, the delicate notch of his throat.

You know it’s a dream.

You know it.

When he steps toward you, slow and sure, you forget your name.

He says yours.

Not out loud. Not exactly. You feel it inside you, like a thought someone else whispered into your skull. “Y/N.” You shudder. He walks closer. Doesn’t touch you, he just studies you. Like you’re the art now.

“I’ve waited so long,” he says. His voice is velvet soaked in wine, deep and patient, with something trembling beneath it. It’s the most gorgeous sound you’ve ever heard. “I watched them all. But you… You came to me willingly.”

You part your lips, but no sound comes out. You’re not afraid. Or maybe you are. But it’s beautiful and that makes it worse.

“Do you know what it means,” he murmurs, “to bring the portrait down from the attic?” His eyes hold yours, unwavering. “It means you want to be seen.” He raises a hand slowly. You don’t move away.

His Fingertips trail just above your cheek, not touching, but close enough to make your skin burn.

“You dream of me because I dream of you too, darling.”

The candlelight flickers violently behind him and then the room begins to peel away. The dream collapsing in on itself like silk slipping from skin.

He leans in, his breath ghosting over your mouth, and in the final moment before waking, he whispers.

“Soon.”

You wake with a gasp.

The candle is out. Your neck is damp with sweat.

In your lap, the journal has been turned to a new page. One that wasn’t there before. The ink is still drying and it reads:

You brought me closer once. Will you let me in now?

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

You avoid mirrors that morning.

You catch yourself doing it.

Not deliberately, at first, just a feeling. A tug behind your ribs. An awareness. As if your reflection might not behave. As if you’d look up and he’d be there, standing just over your shoulder, still and watching.

You shower with the curtain half-drawn, wipe the steamed mirror without meeting your own gaze. You get dressed slowly, distractedly. Your hands tremble when you button your blouse. The fabric brushes your skin and feels… too much. Too heavy.

Every sensation has been louder since the dream. You keep touching the spot on your neck where you felt him breathe. It lingers like perfume, like ghostfire.

You make tea to keep your hands busy but you don’t drink it. You wander through the house instead, pretending to organise, dusting shelves that don’t need dusting. Moving books. Not looking at the reflection in the hallway frame. Not looking at the portrait over the fireplace.

It’s there, that feeling. He is there.

Always watching, always waiting and you feel it. More than ever before.

Not just in the painting. Not just in the attic. He’s… everywhere now. Like he’s under your skin, in your blood. In the groan of the floorboards. In the hush of the house when you walk by. In the faint brush of wind against the back of your thigh when no window is open.

You see movement in your periphery at least three times before noon.

Once in the reflection of the cracked hallway glass. Just a silhouette, long and dark, gliding behind you like a shadow with intention.

The second time in the kitchen window. He’s standing in the garden for less than a heartbeat before he’s gone but you definitely saw him. Didn’t you? Pale skin. Bare, delicate throat. Hair pushed back like in the painting’s earliest strokes.

The third time, you see him more clearly and you don’t look away. His smile curves into a maniacal grin like he knows he’s winning.

Later you’re in the drawing room, picking through old boxes, pretending the pounding in your chest is just exertion. The window beside you is fogged by the rain outside. You don’t remember it starting.

Lightning flashes once, briefly illuminating the garden.

This time he doesn’t vanish. He’s standing just beyond the window.

Hyunjin.

You freeze.

He’s not moving. He isn’t trying to come closer. His head is slightly tilted, like he’s studying you, the same way he did in the dream. Like you’re the portrait now. His masterpiece.

You raise your hand, fingers lifting as if drawn on strings but before you can touch the glass, He smiles again.

Just slightly. Just enough to make your stomach twist. You hear him through the glass like his lips are pressed against your ear. “If you knew what I dream of doing to you, you’d run. Or maybe… you’d crawl.”

Then, the thunder rolls in, and when the light flickers again, he’s gone.

You don’t run. You don’t scream. You don’t even cry but your heart is pounding under your blouse, your blood pumping incessantly. Instead, you walk to the sitting room. To the fireplace.

To him.

The portrait.

You sink down onto your knees in front of it. The fire beneath has long since turned to embers, the room cold enough to make your breath mist but you’re sweating, trembling.

You reach up, pressing your palm gently to the frame. The wood is warm. Not from heat.

From presence.

Your eyes trace his features again, and again, and again. The way the line of his collarbones disappears into the shadow of the canvas. The tilt of his mouth. That expression, curious, smug, indulgent.

You exhale shakily. “You’re real, aren’t you?” You whisper to him.

You expect silence. Instead, a soft gust of air moves across your face, as though the painting has exhaled too. Your breath catches.

“I see you,” you say, quietly. “Even when I tell myself I shouldn’t.” Your fingers trail lower, brushing the bottom of the frame. You bite your lip. “I should be afraid of you. I think I was, at first.” The candle beside the portrait flickers. “But now…” You swallow. “Now I think I want you to look at me the way you did in that dream.”

Silence. Then something shifts in the room. The scent changes.

Gone is the must of the old house and in its place, a soft sweetness, rich and heady, like amber and something warmer. Skin warmed by candlelight. Silk clinging to damp flesh. The smell of night, and want. You close your eyes.“Did you make them fall in love with you?” you ask, your voice just above a whisper. “All of them? Did they all go mad for you?” Your voice is shaking now, but it doesn’t matter. No one’s listening. Except for him. “Is that what’s happening to me?” You open your eyes.

The portrait is the same and yet… his lips. They’re parted now. Only slightly. Like he’s going to respond.

You lean in, breath brushing the paint.

“What would you do to me,” you whisper, “if I said I didn’t want to run anymore?”

The silence holds you like arms and in the stillness, you hear it. Not out loud.

But inside you.

A voice like a promise, velvet and ruin.

“Then come to me, little thing. I’ll show you what it means to belong.”

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

That night, you lit every candle in the house.

You open the windows to let in the wind and then close them again because it smells like him. Because it makes your breath catch, like fingers grazing your spine. Like silk draped over bare skin. You tell yourself it’s foolish.

You leave the painting uncovered.

You stare at him until your eyes burn. Until you feel that soft tug behind your breastbone again, that thread connecting you to something deeper, older, unknowable.

You curl up on the sofa with the blanket and this time, you ask for him.

You close your eyes and say his name aloud like a prayer. “Hyunjin. Come to me.” And the world tilts.

The dream begins in darkness.

Then candlelight flickers, thousands of tiny flames floating midair. No walls. No floor. Just velvet shadows beneath your feet and golden heat pressed against your skin.

You’re dressed differently here.

Something soft and sheer, a slip of fabric barely covering you. Your bare legs, your collarbone, the delicate curve of your shoulder, all visible. You know it’s a dream, but you feel exposed.

Wanted.

Then, you feel it.

Him.

A presence before the voice.

“Darling,” he murmurs behind you. “You keep calling for me. Do you even know what you’re asking for?”

You turn and there he is. Hyunjin. Closer than before. Closer than you’ve ever seen him. Not a painting. Not a phantom. Real and breathtaking.

His skin glows in the candlelight, the pale gold sheen of it like something carved from marble and silk. His hair falls loose around his face, strands grazing his lips. His eyes, black fire, endless, wanting.

He steps toward you.

You don’t move.

He lifts a hand, delicate, ringed fingers and brushes them down your arm. You shiver. It’s not cold. It’s too warm. Like his touch seeps under your skin.

“You brought me down from the attic,” he says softly. “That was your invitation.”

You swallow, lips parting. “I didn’t mean-”

He cuts you off with a smile. A beautiful, devastating smile.

“You did.” He says.

His fingers trail to your wrist, holding it gently against your pulse point.

“I’ve watched you since the moment you stepped into my house. Do you know how long I’ve waited to be looked at the way you look at me?” He says against your neck.

You try to speak but you can’t.

“You dream of me,” he whispers, leaning closer, voice velvet and threat and reverence all at once. “But I was dreaming of you first. I asked for you, waited for you.”

You feel him, everywhere.

His other hand slides to your waist, pulling you against him. The slip of fabric you wear clings to your skin. His chest is warm against yours. You feel the curve of his mouth near your ear.

“Do you want to know what I’ll do to you?” His words come out through gritted teeth, like it’s taking every effort for him to hold back.

You nod before you can stop yourself. You ache. You burn.

“I’ll ruin you slowly,” he breathes. “I’ll make you forget your name, beautiful. You’ll sleep with my voice in your throat and my hands burned into your skin. You’ll beg me to stay even as you break for me.”

He brushes his lips over your jaw. Doesn’t kiss you. Just brands you with the promise of it.

“But you’ll be mine, darling. You already are.”

You gasp as his hand tightens around your wrist, his grip firm now, commanding.

“Say it,” he hisses. “Say you’re mine.”

“I’m-” Your voice catches when you attempt to speak.

He squeezes harder. Your breath shakes.

“Say it, little thing.” His voice comes out harshly. So much that it shakes you.

“I’m yours, Hyunjin.” You whimper.

The moment you say it, the candles flare so brightly they blind you.

He grips your hip and then…

You wake.

You sit up on the couch, heart hammering, throat dry as your hands claw at it, like something is inside you. The fire is out again. The house is quiet.

Too quiet, then you feel it.

A throb in your skin, on your wrist.

You pull back the sleeve of your blouse, trembling fingers fumbling at the cuff. Your breath hitches. On your pale skin, a perfect outline of a hand. Long fingers. Splayed.

Pressed too hard. Bruised.

Exactly where he held you in the dream. You stare at it, chest rising and falling too fast. Tears start to fall down your cheeks and a small sob escapes your mouth.

It’s real. It’s impossible. He’s real.

You bring the wrist to your chest, hold it like a wound, like a gift. Like something sacred.

Slowly, shamefully, your thighs press together. You can feel your arousal soaking through the delicate fabric of your panties. You’re aching for someone who doesn’t exist.

Except… he does and he left his mark on you.

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

You stop answering the door to the postman or neighbours. The outside world dulls in your mind. It feels irrelevant. You leave unopened mail that’s now overloading the post box at the front of the house. The electrician knocks but you don’t answer. You ignore the calendar, ignore the window, ignore the time of day.

Your life narrows down to candlelight, silence, and him. Hyunjin.

You say his name out loud now, without shame. You whisper it when you pass his portrait. When you lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. When your hands are shaking and your skin burns with the memory of his dream-touch.

The bruise on your wrist has darkened into deep indigo and yellowed at the edges.

You run your thumb over it every few hours, pressing until it hurts, until your eyes flutter shut with the ghost of pleasure.

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

Three days pass like this.

Maybe more.

On the fourth, if it even is the fourth, you go into the attic again. Something compels you. Something soft and undeniable. You climb the steps barefoot, your nightgown whispering around your ankles, hair unbrushed and loose.

You pass the unfinished painting of yourself without looking at it.

You know he’s in it now, you can feel his eyes on you. You carry a new canvas under your arm.

You set it down in the centre of the attic floor. Light spills through the stained-glass window at the far end, painting the space in muted red and gold, like the inside of a wound.

You kneel and begin. You don’t know why you paint. You’ve never been trained. Never done more than sketch absentmindedly in notebooks during meetings but your hand moves like it remembers something your body forgot. Like it belongs to someone else.

The first stroke is his jawline.

Then his mouth, plump and smirking, as always.

You dip your fingers into the paint instead of using a brush. The way the oil clings to your skin feels like sin. Like blood.

You paint until your shoulders ache and your knees are sore against the wooden floor. You paint until the candle beside you burns low, until the red light from the window fades into black.

By the time you stop, his face is there.

Not perfect but it’s close.

Too close.

Later, you wake up on the attic floor.

You don’t remember falling asleep. Your fingers are stained with paint, red, black, a strange bruised plum. It’s dried under your nails, in the crease of your knuckles, like something living.

The painting stares back at you and he’s beautiful.

He looks younger in this one. Softer, perhaps. His lips slightly parted. His throat is bare again under the collar of his white shirt. One side of his mouth lifted in a secret smile, the kind lovers share when no one else is watching.

You realise what you’ve done.

His chest is exposed. Smooth, pale, ethereal. You painted him how he looked in your dream.

Worshipful. You painted desire. Then, you carry it downstairs. This time, you hang it in your bedroom. Opposite the bed. You’ve started sleeping in there now.

You stare at it for a long time, standing in your nightgown, arms wrapped around yourself. You feel flushed. Like you’ve been caught naked by someone who sees everything.

Your breath shallows. “Is this what you wanted?” you ask quietly. “Me like this?” The painting doesn’t move but it’s like the room shifts. The temperature climbs. The air thickens. Your nipples harden under the cotton fabric. You squeeze your thighs together without thinking.

The candle on your bedside table flickers violently, then steadies. Your heart pounds. You know what’s happening. You know this is madness but, it’s a madness that feels like coming home.

You lie down on your bed, the sheets cool against your overheated skin. You turn your head toward the painting.

Hyunjin looks down at you.

Not the way a man looks at a stranger but the way a man looks at someone he’s already claimed.

You reach down slowly, one hand drifting beneath the blanket, under the hem of your nightgown.

Your eyes stay on his as your fingers slide lower.

You shouldn’t but your body hums with need, and there’s no one to stop you now.

No one to save you from him and worst of all, you don’t want to be saved.

Your fingers trace your folds lightly, as you imagine his would. Your slick coating them, you circle your clit lazily, moaning under your breath. Your under hand joins and you pull apart your pussy, like you’re displaying it. For him.

You pull the sheets away, now fully exposed towards the painting where you meet his lustful gaze through the canvas.

Your lips part and you sigh, pushing two of your fingers into your tight opening. Your cunt clenches around them at the thought of your indecency. You curl your fingers upwards finding your g-spot, your hips rock to meet them and you whimper his name like a curse. Like you’re begging. You know he sees you and you want him to.

You come quickly then, imagining his palm against your throat and his fingers buried inside you. His voice whispering, “Darling.” Your pussy pulsating as you climax.

By the time you drift into sleep, you feel warm, spent, glowing. Your hand rests loosely on your chest, rising and falling with each soft breath but before your eyes flutter closed, just for a moment, you think you see the painting blink.

The candle burns out while you sleep.

The room is quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that waits.

You dream again.

This time, there is no gentle darkness, no soft invitation. The space is harsh and shadowed, the air sharp as bitten lips. The candles that usually float like stars now flicker erratically, angry. The air hums with static, with fury.

He’s there before you can turn. Hyunjin, but he’s not like before.

His beauty is the same, still impossible, still so lovely it hurts, but his expression is different. Not amused. Not worshipful.

He looks betrayed. His jaw clenched and his eyes are black with fire.

You blink, your breath already catching in your throat. You try to speak, but he’s already closing the space between you. His steps are slow, deliberate.

He’s furious and yet, you ache for him.

“Do you think this is a game?” he asks, voice low and sharp like a blade, you wince at his harsh tone. “Do you think I don’t see you?”

He circles you, the air thick with him. The scent of spice and storm.

“Touching yourself,” he hisses, just behind your ear. “Under my gaze.”

You flush. “I-”

“Without asking.” He’s in front of you again, gaze burning. His lip curls. There’s hurt beneath the anger. Real, wounded.

“You think you can use me like a mirror,” he murmurs. “Look at me and take what you want, and leave me wanting?”

Your chest rises and falls too quickly. Shame curls hot in your belly and underneath it, something worse. Desire.

“It wasn’t like that,” you whisper. A tear falls and his thumb presses against it, holding it on your skin like he wants to keep it there. Make you feel it. The wet. The shame.

He tilts his head. “No?” He steps closer.

You try to move back, but the room shifts with you, keeping you trapped in his orbit. Your shoulder brushes a floating candle, and the flame licks your skin without burning.

“You think this is about lust?” he breathes. “You think I wanted to watch you fall apart while I stood here with nothing?”

Your throat dries.

“You begged for me,” he says. “You called me to you. You painted me. You spoke to me. You offered yourself and now you act like I’m not the one who decides how this goes?”

You can’t answer. Your hands are shaking and he notices. His voice softens, just slightly, and that’s what makes it worse. “I would’ve touched you,” he says, low and raw. “If you’d waited. If you’d asked me.”

You close your eyes.

“I would’ve undone you slowly,” he murmurs, stepping closer again. “Kissed your thighs. Worshipped you, made that ache you can still feel between your legs go away.” He pauses, his mouth so close to yours. “But only if you were mine.”

You open your eyes. “I am,” you breathe.

“Say it again.” He demands, his hand on your cheek now bruising.

“I’m yours.” You sob.

His expression flickers, something cracks. Something breaks open. He moves and grabs your chin, tilting your head up. Not rough, but not gentle either.

His thumb brushes your lower lip.

“No more touching yourself without permission,” he says, voice thick. “You want release? You ask. You wait. You earn it.”

You nod slowly, lips parting. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

His jaw tenses.

“I think you did.” He spits. He leans in, so close you can feel the heat of his breath.

“But I forgive you,” he whispers, so softly, so gently, like his anger flipped like a light switch. “Because you’re my little thing. Because I’ll teach you better.”

Your knees nearly give.

He leans forward like he’s going to kiss you. But he stops, just an inch away. His voice lowers to a growl. “And next time you touch yourself without my permission…” he pauses. “I won’t be so merciful.”

The dream begins to unravel around you like smoke but his hand stays on your jaw, holding you in place. His lips against the corner of your mouth teasing with a faux kiss.

“Now wake up.”

You jolt awake in the dark. You’re sweating and the sheets are tangled between your legs. Your lips feel kissed, but they weren’t. Your core throbs with unspent ache. Your hands are empty. Your wrists are bare but your skin still tingles where he held you and you know now, for sure. He’s not just a ghost in the walls.

He’s real.

He’s watching and next time, you ask.

You’ll beg.

━━━━━━━━━━☽༓☾━━━━━━━━━━━━

You’re interrupted by a knock, sharp and repeated three times. It echoes down the hallway like a sound not meant to be here. You flinch, nearly dropping the brush in your hand. You’d been painting again, your fifth attempt this week, all them of him. Each more beautiful, each more wrong. None of them is enough.

You haven’t had a visitor in days. Weeks, maybe.

No one should be knocking.

You hesitate, brush still dripping crimson onto the floorboards. Another knock. Firmer. More human than anything you’ve felt in days.

You finally peel yourself away from the bedroom and pad toward the front door, vision slightly blurred from hours of staring at the canvas. When you open it, blinking into the afternoon light as you gaze upon a man.

Not Hyunjin.

Someone else.

He’s handsome in a way that feels solid, real. Like a person who eats hot meals and lifts heavy things and doesn’t whisper through walls. Tan skin, strong arms crossed over a thick jacket, concern in his eyes before you even say hello.

“Y/N?” His voice is deep, grounding.

“Sorry to just show up. I’m Changbin, uh, your neighbour, sort of. Down by the hill.” He pauses. “Your aunt used to talk about you. I helped her around the place, fixed the shutters after that storm years back. I didn’t know she’d passed until recently as I hadn’t heard from her for a while.”

You open your mouth. No sound comes. Then, he looks at you, really looks and his expression changes. “You look like you haven’t been sleeping.” He steps forward instinctively, hand brushing your arm. His touch is warm. Earthly. Unwelcome.

The second he touches you, the house responds.

A deep, guttural groan rolls through the floorboards like an animal rousing from its den. The overhead light flickers. A sudden draft snakes up from beneath the door to the basement. The air grows heavy.

Changbin steps back. “Shit,” he mutters. “It’s still here.”

You blink. “What?”

He looks at you then, serious. No flirtation. No pretence. “You shouldn’t be here alone.”

“I’m fine.” You say, a bit too bluntly.

“No, you’re not. I know this house. I know what it does.” He whispers as if he knows it hears him.

You laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because it’s too late. “You have no idea-”

“He lives in the paint,” Changbin interrupts you.

Your blood runs cold at his words. “What did you say?” You ask, in disbelief.

He stares at you.

“Don’t say his name. Don’t let him in and for God’s sake, don’t paint him.” He says, breathless. His eyes glazed over in what seemed like fear.

The air thickens like molasses.

“I already did,” you whisper.

Changbin’s face pales.

“You need to leave. Now. Pack what you can. Go to a hotel. Call someone.” He says, he’s shaking now but you don’t move.

Because the hallway behind you is darker now than it was a minute ago. Because the door to the sitting room has slowly creaked shut on its own and because you can feel eyes on the back of your neck.

“He won’t let me,” you say.

Changbin grips your shoulders. “Listen to me. You’re not possessed. Not yet but you’re under his influence. This house, it makes you love him. Makes you want to stay.”

“I do want to stay.” You answer, too quickly.

He shakes his head. “No. That’s not you talking.”

Something crashes behind you.

A framed photo drops from the wall and shatters on the floor, glass exploding outward, like something pushed it. Changbin flinches and looks up at the ceiling.

“You’re scaring him,” you say, voice strange and hollow.

“Good.” He says, but it doesn’t come out confidently.

Changbin looks at you again, gentler this time and for a moment, just a second, you feel like someone’s reaching a hand through the fog. “I can help you, Y/N. You don’t have to do this alone.” He says, gently.

Then, all the candles blow out at once. The air howls. The hallway stretches unnaturally long behind you and a voice you recognise, too close, too deep, curls into your ear from nowhere.

“Mine.”

You gasp and stumble, nearly falling into Changbin.

He catches you.

The house roars again, louder this time. A low, guttural thrum that vibrates the floorboards, makes the windows tremble in their frames. A wind slams against the door from inside the house.

Changbin’s jaw tightens. He pulls you toward him.

“He’s stronger now. Feeding off you. Off what you’ve done. Every stroke of paint, every time you said his name, it gave him form.” He speaks through small gasps of breath.

“I didn’t know-” you start.

“You do now.” He says.

Changbin observes you, his gaze pleading “Don’t let him take the rest.”

You’re shaking. “He already has.”

He leaves you with his home number. He writes it on your palm, presses your fingers closed over it. “If he manifests, really manifests, don’t speak to him. Don’t touch him. Don’t look him in the eyes. Do you understand?” He pleads.

You nod but you’re lying because later that night, you go to your bedroom.

You shut the door and you stand before the painting again. You trace his collarbones with your fingertip. “I missed you.” You whisper, with eyes glazed over with longing.

The house sighs around you. Pleased. Purring.

You look at Hyunjin’s features in the canvas and they’re darker than before.

Alive.

You feel him before you see him. A soft shift in the air. The flicker of candlelight is slowing.

He steps from the shadows. Not from a doorway. Not from behind you. From nowhere. From the space between breath and silence. From the place you painted him into.

Hyunjin.

He’s real, solid. Undeniable.

The same face you’ve seen in dreams of oil paints and smoke, now with skin that gleams in the candlelight. His chest was rising and falling. Bare feet soundless against the floor. Hair falling in dark sheets around his face and his eyes. They’re the first thing you try not to look at but they pull. They always pull.

You look anyway. You can’t not. They’re furious.

“He touched you.” His voice is colder than you’ve ever heard it. “That… man.”

You part your lips, try to speak, make an excuse but no sound comes.

“You let him put his hands on you.” He says. You shake your head. “I didn’t want him to-”

He’s across the room before you can finish, towering over you at the foot of the bed. His presence makes the candlelight shiver.

“You should’ve stopped him.” He curses, jaw clenched. The muscles in his neck shift. He looks almost… wounded and then something flickers in his expression.

A softness. A restraint pulled tight. “But you didn’t go with him.” He says, gently. Like he’s speaking to an innocent child.

You nod, slowly.

“You stayed,” he says, quieter now. “You stayed with me.” He kneels in front of you.

Your breath catches.

He lifts your hands in his, pale, cool fingers ghosting over your knuckles, your wrists. His touch is reverent. Gentle. Possessive. His thumb brushes the inside of your palm.

The place where Changbin’s number is still written. He looks down at it, then up at you. “Open it, give me your hand.” He says. You hesitate, then you do.

He leans forward and presses a kiss to your palm. Then he wipes the number away with his thumb. The ink smears and disappears.

“There,” he whispers. “That’s better.” He looks up at you again and this time you try to look away. You turn your head, breathing shallow, remembering what Changbin said. ‘Don’t look him in the eyes’ but Hyunjin’s fingers claim your jaw and they tighten. “No,” he says gently. “Don’t deny me now.”

You squeeze your eyes shut.

His voice dips, low and velvet-smooth. “You already gave me everything. I watched you in the dark, desperate, wet and shaking just from my name.”

You shiver. Goosebumps trail your skin.

“You paint me with trembling hands. You sleep beneath me. You whisper to me like I’m your god.” His grip tilts your face back toward him.

“Open your eyes, darling.” He says.

You can’t, so he leans in, mouth brushing your cheek. “Look at me.” His voice, startling. It echoes off the walls.

You obey and you fall.

It’s not just his gaze, it’s gravity. It’s a void wrapped in beauty. His eyes are endless, sharp and soft all at once. They strip you bare. They know you.

“Good girl,” he murmurs.

A whimper catches in your throat.

“You disobeyed me,” he says. “You touched yourself without asking but today, you stayed and for that…” He trails his hands up your thighs, barely grazing fabric, like a promise you haven’t earned yet. “You deserve to be rewarded.” He says, his pupils are blown. Smirk on his lips like he knows you’re already aching for him.

You tremble under his touch, under his eyes. There’s fear there but deeper still, there’s hunger. For him. For the darkness in him. For the way he sees you.

“You belong to me now, darling,” he says.

“I know.” You reply, almost on instinct.

“Say it.” He growls.

“I belong to you.” You whimper and at that, he smiles and this time it’s not cruel. It’s possessive. Triumphant.

“Then come here, little thing,” he whispers. “Let me show you what devotion earns.”

Hyunjin doesn’t rush. He never does.

You sit on the edge of the bed, barely breathing, trembling under the weight of his gaze. His hands cool, beautiful, steady, slide up your thighs, parting them with the patience of someone who already knows he’ll be obeyed.

You’ve never felt so bare. Not just physically, utterly stripped but also seen in a way that should shame you. Instead, it sets your nerves alight.

“Lie back for me, darling,” he says softly.

You obey without hesitation, sinking into the sheets, breath hitching. Your nightgown rides up your hips, and he doesn’t fix it. He just watches you.

“You’ve been so good,” Hyunjin murmurs, running a single finger up the inside of your thigh. “Even after your little disobedience.”

You whimper as he presses your legs wider.

“You stayed for me,” he continues, as if in reverence. “You looked at me when I asked. You let me in.” His lips brush your knee and your hips lift instinctively, needing him closer.

He chuckles against your skin. “Hungry little thing…” He kisses higher. Each press of his mouth was deliberate, claiming. His hands pin your thighs open. You can feel your slickness against the air now, humiliating in how ready you are.

“Look at you,” he purrs. “Already ruined, and I haven’t even touched you where you need me.”

Your voice is gone. You can’t form words.

Only shallow gasps.

Then his mouth finds you. The moment his tongue touches your clit, your hips buck violently.

Hyunjin groans against you, satisfied. “That’s it, sweet girl,” he murmurs, breath warm against your folds. “Let me taste how much you need me.” he says and then he devours you. There’s no other word for it. It isn’t slow or romantic, it’s worshipful in hunger, the way a starving god would claim an offering. His mouth is firm and sure and relentless, tongue flicking and curling with obscene skill, dragging whimpers and moans from you so raw they embarrass you.

He loves it.

You can feel the satisfaction radiating off him, feel his pride in the way your body responds, trembling, gasping for more.

You try to reach down, try to grab his hair, something, but he growls against your cunt. “No.” He pins your hands to the mattress with one strong palm. Bringing his face up to yours, his teeth are bared in an animalistic manner. “You don’t get to touch. You just take what I give you.” Your walls clench around nothing, the ache growing unbearable.

He releases your wrists but you keep them there, fearing he’ll stop if you move. His mouth presses to your wet cunt and he laps at you, lazily now, dragging it out. Teasing. Controlling.

“You’re so wet, darling.” he groans. “I could drink from you.” You cry out, legs quaking. You’re so close. So close but just before the wave crashes, just before you break… he stops.

You sob, lifting your hips, but he holds you down firmly. “No,” he says again, gaze dark and serious now. “Not yet.”

“Hyunjin… please-” Your voice is wrecked. You’re crying.

He rises from between your legs, lips and chin glistening with your arousal, the candlelight casting him in a gold and soft glow. His hair falls around his face like ink.

He doesn’t kiss your mouth and doesn’t hold you. Just watches you, flushed and gasping, undone. “This was your reward,” he says quietly. “For being mine. For staying but I never said anything about your punishment, for your disobedience.” He growls the last word.

Your body shakes from need. You don’t understand why he’s leaving but you know better than to beg again.

“Next time,” he murmurs, brushing a knuckle down your throat, licking at his lips. Tasting your arousal. “If you’re very good… maybe I’ll let you come.”

You choke on a soft moan, pressing your thighs together as your hips grind into the empty air.

He steps back into the shadows. His form begins to blur. The candlelight dims but before he vanishes entirely, you hear his voice one last time. Right against your ear.

“I’ll be watching.”

You’re left trembling. Empty and marked with his mouth. You know it’s too late to leave now. You don’t want to. You want him to finish what he started but Hyunjin never gives you what you want. Only what he thinks you deserve.

The house is quiet after he disappears. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that rings in your ears.

You lie in bed for a long time, legs sticky with your own arousal, heart still thudding like it hasn’t caught up to the fact that he’s gone. You stare at the ceiling and imagine his weight still on top of you. His lips are still between your thighs. His breath still claims the air you breathe but he’s not there. He left you aching. Again.

Part 2

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Tumblr wouldn’t let me post it all as a one shot so the link to part 2 is above.

Disclaimer - Stray Kids are not owned by me and are just used as inspiration for fiction. This story does not represent them or Hyunjin in real life. Images in the header are not owned by me.

Feel free to like, comment and reblog.

Do not repost, translate or copy my work.

Taglist - @fairylix @hoes4minho @lilileen25 @akindaflora @tirena1 @stayjinnie @jehhskz

@alittlebitofeverything04 @chloe-elise-2000

[joequiinn]

It Goes Away | b.r. x reader

Summary | Therapists always warned against befriending other addicts. Yet, no one else in the world could understand quite like those who had lived the same shit as you.

Warnings, Tropes, Themes | fem reader, hurt/comfort, mentions of past addiction and recovery, group therapy, Bob and reader being awkward, Bob continues to trauma bond with others, spoilers for Thunderbolts*

Author's Note | I've edited this fic nonstop the past week and a half and my brain is totally fried, so bone apple tea lol. I hope I did Bob's characterization justice, and that this idea makes sense to anyone else; I was really compelled to explore more of Bob's grief, so here we are. I've only seen the movie once so far, so I'm going purely off memory here. (Song title and lyrics from the band Atta Boy 😉)

WC | 14.3k (whoops this was supposed to be short)

!!! MINOR DNI !!!

Looking for a pot of gold / Or just some good advice Halls and stairs, you've never seen / True paradise You wake, your hands are numb / It must have been a dream Her heart beats harmlessly / Despite how it may seem

Group therapy wasn’t so bad once you got used to it. Sure, spilling your guts to a bunch of strangers felt like its own brand of torture when you first started attending, but you came to appreciate the camaraderie, the connections forged amongst people struggling with life much like you. Misery enjoys company, or however the hell that saying goes.

The group was a good bunch, and its familiarity gave your weeks a stability you hadn’t realized you needed before. Along your own journey full of stumbles and blocks, you’d found a sense of direction thanks to these therapy sessions; you secretly hoped that, with enough time and practice, you could maybe be a sponsor for other recovering addicts eventually. You weren’t sure if you personally had the means to do more than that, but you discovered in these past couple years that the feeling of helping others was something you’d come to crave. Maybe that was your way of dealing with all the trouble you’d caused through the years, as if you were making amends by being of service.

Some people came and went from your group, but more often than not you saw the same faces over and over, two or three times a week. So, when newcomers appeared, it always piqued your interest - would they join your rag-tag bunch, or would they ditch after only a single meeting? Were they just looking for a safe place to admit all their secrets, or were they seeking some kind of connection?

This usual string of questions began swirling in your mind when the door opened five minutes past the meeting’s start time - an awkward though sweet looking man cringed sheepishly at the attention he drew thanks to his interruption. Everyone stared, though the tension was quickly dispelled once the therapist waved the new arrival in, introducing herself and offering him an open seat in the circle.

He was hesitant while stepping into the room, moving stiffly, an apologetic look in his eyes, like he felt he was taking up too much time and attention. It was obvious how out of place he felt, his arms crossed in front of him like a shield, eyes cast down as if to make himself appear smaller. For the most part, the group quickly returned their attention to the person who had been talking prior to the disruption; but you let your gaze linger on the newbie, studying him while trying not to be too obvious.

The tension in his body was palpable; it was like he wasn’t comfortable in his own skin, like he wanted to crawl right out of it, second-guessing his decision to come to this therapy session at all. There was an aura of sadness about him, too, a heavy weight upon his shoulders. But, really, that’s how half the group usually appeared - everyone here was dealing with their own personal brand of pain and regret, and that sort of shit always physically manifested in ways that you learned to recognize. Nonetheless, you were curious what brought him here, what compelled him to take that leap and try something in the hopes that it would help.

Detecting someone staring at him, the man looked around with anxious worry. You tried to divert your gaze quickly, but not before the two of you met eyes for a brief, uncertain moment. Shit, you shouldn’t have been so blatant, the last thing anyone here needed was to be made to feel even more uncomfortable than they surely already were. That was one more thing you had to work on if you ever wanted to be of help to anyone.

From that point, the group carried on as usual - people talked and cried, the therapist gave apt anecdotes, you scoffed at the idea of sharing any of your own stories when prompted. Ironic that you wanted to help others but weren’t all that eager to share in front of everyone, but you much preferred your one-on-one sessions with the therapist instead. You still liked group therapy, you still appreciated it, but you felt as if you didn’t require quite as much attention as some of the other group members right now.

And these past few weeks, it seemed like damn near everyone was in desperate need of some venting. The “black out,” as you’d all taken to calling it, really did a number on the city, especially those of you that were already dealing with some heavy shit.

No one knew what had happened to New York City a month ago. One minute everything was fine, and the next people disappeared into some fucked up nightmare world. The mayor nor any government officials would disclose information about the event, which caused mass upset and panic, considering that some people thought this could possibly be a repeat of the Blip from nearly a decade ago. The only thing anyone knew was that the supposed “New Avengers” saved the day, and everyone was expected to just be cool about it. Color you paranoid, but you didn’t trust what was going on, considering how closed lip everyone was being.

A long-time member of the group was divulging how desperately the black out made him want to toss his sobriety to the wayside when your gaze drifted back towards the newbie.

He looked as if he was trying to make himself as discreet as a shadow, as if this subject was too much for him; you wondered what he saw in that black out, and if he was reliving it somewhere behind those sad eyes. Your brows turned down as you studied the pain in his expression, the irritation in his body language - whatever happened must’ve really gotten to him. Briefly, you recalled your own experience in there - the yelling, the arguing, the anguish, all fresh again like an open wound. Your jaw tightened as you tried to shake yourself free of the memory.

And in that same moment, the new guy met your eyes again, an uneasiness in his expression, as if he knew what you were thinking. This time, you were frozen under his stare, the both of you unblinking as you watched one another. Though you didn’t speak a word, there was a mutual agony between you; not everyone in the group was quite so keenly aware of others’ emotions in the way that this man seemed to be, and all it took was a simple glance between you.

As another person chimed in with their own difficulties during the black out, the newbie redirected his attention, listening intently, though painfully, to the new story as if his life depended on it. You decided to give him reprieve from your watchful gaze, casting your eyes down as you, too, listened to everyone’s stories.

When eventually the group dispersed, you were one of the first out; not because you were in a rush or anything, but you were desperate for a cigarette. Since the black out, you’d been smoking a lot more, as if filling your lungs with toxic air could keep your demons at bay.

You sat out on the front steps of the community center, bidding good night to anyone that acknowledged you as they passed. A few others lingered outside, some chit-chatting over cigarettes of their own, others buying time so they wouldn’t have to go home just yet; you always wondered what some of them had to return to, if anything.

The therapist paused to speak with you for a few moments, reminding you to set aside some time in the week so that the two of you could have a session; you nodded agreeably, knowing that you needed it, before she left for the evening.

You hadn’t seen the new guy come out yet. Not that you were looking for him or anything… It was just an observation. You weren’t really sure what about him made you so curious. Maybe it was the fact that he tried to hide from attention all session, maybe it was the utter air of sadness that hung about him; maybe there was something you saw that reminded you of yourself. As you snuffed out your cigarette, you were of two minds while considering the stranger - one part of you tried to simply forget him, while the other wanted to know more.

So, you stood, dusting off your rear before heading back into the community center, wondering if he was still around or if he had snuck out. You passed other rooms still occupied by book clubs or scout troops, eyes bouncing around observantly; your own meeting room still appeared to have a light on, and you’d be lying if you denied the fact that your steps grew a little faster once you noticed.

Peering through the small window in the door, you sighed upon seeing the man sitting in his chair, gaze far away and expression downcast. He still looked so small and guarded, even as he sat alone; his shoulders were hunched as he slumped forward, hands fisted in front of his mouth. You lingered on the other side of the door, considering whether or not it was appropriate for you to intrude - you understood that sometimes one just wanted to be left alone with their sadness. Yet, some part of you yearned to offer him understanding, again feeling an odd pull towards the stranger. Chalk it up to that desire of yours to help, maybe, and not any other sort of desire within you.

You let yourself into the room before you could second guess the decision, footfall so light that he almost didn’t hear you; you’d always been good at creeping around, whether you meant to or not. It was the door closing behind you that alerted the man to your arrival, the sound causing him to straighten with a start, eyes widening as he quickly wiped at his cheeks for any residual evidence of his sadness. You held up your hands like you were approaching a skittish animal, apology written across your face.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” You started simply, waiting a few moments before you approached, “I, uh… well, I saw that the light was still on, just wanted to see who was here.”

Okay, so that was a lie, but you weren’t sure how to tell this guy that you were looking for him without sounding like a bit of a creep. He stared briefly as if he wasn’t quite sure what to say, though in the next breath he put up a false smile, pretending that everything was fine; it was the kind of look that you had often used on others, too.

“Just me,” he answered, attempting an air of levity that was clearly put on. You nodded noncommittally, and he pointed awkwardly around the room, “Sorry, am I not allowed to stay or…?”

“Oh, no, you can stay, I don’t make the rules,” You scratched at your arm nervously, biting the inside of your cheek in consideration. You weren’t good at small talk, but neither were you good at heart-to-hearts, despite your best efforts. Didn’t exactly bode well for helping others, but that was just something for you to work on. So, throwing caution to the wind, you furrowed your brow decidedly, trying the first thing that came to mind, “You, uh… look like you could use someone to talk to?”

He laughed weakly, uncomfortably, a faux look of surprise on his face, “Who, me? No, I’m totally… fine. Just thought I’d check out the group.”

You nodded with a disbelieving hum, looking around again while deciding to play along for the time being, “Well, I hope our therapy wasn’t too boring for you… What’s your name?”

He looked nearly surprised that you cared enough to ask; or maybe that was trepidation, as if he didn’t trust why you were asking, “Um… Bob.”

“Bob.” You repeated before giving your own name, settling on a new conversation tactic, “Well, Bob… if it isn’t asking too much, I could really use someone to talk to. It’s always kinda difficult being vulnerable in a room full of people. Mind if I sit?”

You weren’t sure whether or not this approach would work, but to be fair, you also weren’t sure what you were trying to accomplish in the first place. Yeah, you were thinking that maybe you could get him to open up a little if you showed some vulnerability first, but considering that this wasn’t an effort you usually made, it felt strange to be doing so at all.

He gave a slow nod, as if still taken aback by your attention, and so you pulled one of the chairs a little closer and plopped down beside him.

“You know, I’ve been coming to this group for nearly two years, but it's still so daunting to even think about sharing,” You started, allowing yourself to simply chatter and see where that would lead you, “I mean, yeah, I’ve talked about some of my problems before, but it doesn’t really get easier when fifteen people are staring back at you. Or maybe I’m just a chicken, some of them come and spill their entire life story without even batting an eye.”

You glanced at Bob, who appeared to be considering how to respond. You continued instead, “I started here because it was either therapy or, uh… time. I used to think this was all pretty stupid, talking about feelings, but it’s really grown on me. Guess talking through problems isn’t as bad as I thought it was.”

Bob’s jaw flexed briefly, eyes bouncing around as if in search of something before he looked you up and down, “‘Time?’ Like jail time? What’d you do?”

You smiled guardedly, shaking your head; couldn’t spill all your secrets yet, “Something I try not to think about. It’s in the past… the black out made that wound pretty fresh again, though.”

He flinched faintly at the mention of it, making you once more wonder at the torment in his reaction. Bob glanced at you from the corner of his eye like he wasn’t sure about looking at you straight on. There was something like sheepishness in the glance, or maybe guilt. You felt your own expression soften, studying him patiently.

“It was pretty bad, wasn’t it?” He asked, hands flexing nervously, “The way everyone talks about it on the news and here…”

“Yeah, pretty bad.” You echoed, brows casting down sympathetically, “Were you in the city when it happened?”

Bob nodded, his eyes getting that far away sheen again as he sucked in his lips thoughtfully, although he still tried to appear unfazed, “Thing is, I don’t really remember. It’s this hazy gap; happens sometimes, I just don’t remember things. But hearing everyone’s stories, the stuff they all had to relive… makes me feel guilty.”

You gave him a faint understanding smile, “Ah, guilt - the biggest bitch of all emotions, right? Always popping up even if it's unwarranted.”

Bob’s expression hardened as he stared at the floor, as if maybe he disagreed with something you said but wasn’t nearly bold enough to say so. He contemplated something for a few long, tense moments, brow furrowing once he met your eyes again, “Was it bad for you?”

You weren’t quite open to sharing details about what you experienced in the black out, but you nodded nonetheless, “Probably not as traumatic as some of the stuff that others saw, though it still keeps me up at night. To be fair, I’ve been dealing with insomnia for a while, though.”

“I can’t seem to sleep either. That’s why I came here. Or, in part, it is. I thought maybe hearing about other people’s problems might help. Now, I’m thinking that might just make it worse. I don’t know if I can… carry all of it; everyone’s trauma, my guilt.”

A worried look flashed across your features at his admission, your tone firm, “You don’t have to carry anyone else’s shit. Not like the black out was your fault.”

The look that Bob leveled you with nearly made you shiver. He stared at you as if he’d lived a hundred lifetimes, harboring some deep, cruel secret that he couldn’t risk letting out. It made you nervous in some way that you couldn’t place, your heart stuttering as he wrenched his eyes away in agitation. The silence between you became tense.

Despite that strange beat in conversation, an idea came to you, so you began fumbling around in your cluttered bag, “Look, I’m not a professional or anything, and maybe I’ve just been annoying as shit, but if you ever want to talk to someone on those nights you can’t sleep…”

You finally found a pen, extracting it and reaching for Bob’s hand without a second thought. He clenched his fist as if nervous to be touched - something you should have been more mindful of, considering the guardedness of so many people in your group - but he allowed you to scribble your name and number on the back of his hand.

You tried not to notice the warmth of him, the softness of his palm, though you nonetheless smiled kindly as the two of you lingered there. You could feel Bob’s body relaxing a little as he took a deep breath, looking between your face and the string of digits written on his skin. Absentmindedly, your thumb brushed gently along his arm as you studied him--

And then your sister was shouting, though you couldn’t quite hear the words on her lips, her eyes blazing with a cruelty unlike anything you’d known. She shoved you back, as if disgusted by you, shoved you again because you simply lingered, frozen and in shock. Your head swam from your lack of sobriety, eyes glossy and confused as you looked around your sister’s living room, strewn with baby toys and creature comforts, the TV blaring something behind you--

You came back to, and Bob’s hand was no longer in yours. Blinking rapidly, your expression furrowed and then widened as you pressed a palm to your forehead as if you were suddenly struggling with a migraine.

Bob looked between your eyes with worry, with something akin to fear; you opened your mouth to speak, but paused, realizing you weren’t quite sure what to say or what exactly happened. Sure, you’d thought about that night countless times, but you never had vivid flashbacks like that; was it a side effect from the black out? Maybe you’d have to ask if anyone else was experiencing them, because it was too strange, even for you.

Taking a deep breath, you looked away from Bob, trying to slow the confused beating of your heart. What did he think of you now, you wondered. Had you just frozen suddenly, going off somewhere in the recesses of your memory as he watched, horrified that the person he spoke to was crazier than she let on? Or maybe it was so quick that he barely noticed, maybe he just assumed it was a weird quirk?

Composing yourself, you sat up a little straighter, looking back at Bob with a straightforwardness as you ignored whatever the hell that was, “I mean it, Bob; you can call me any time, any day. Promise I won’t zone out like that again, that doesn’t normally happen.”

Bob looked between your eyes and his hand a few times; you wondered if it was out of surprise or trepidation or fear, or some other thing that you couldn’t place. To reassure him, you smiled as if that could dissolve any problems.

“Promise.” You repeated, scooping your bag up onto your shoulder as you stood, “I gotta catch my train… hope I hear from you.”

You gave Bob an optimistic look, and although there was still something lingering in his eyes, he managed to smile back, a genuinely pleasant look that made you feel a little giddy, “Yeah, I'll give you a call sometime. Promise.”

You stared at each other for a moment longer as you felt a flutter in your chest. Your smile grew a touch bashful as you started for the door, pausing to glance back at Bob, who was watching your retreat thoughtfully.

Bob wasn’t at the next therapy meeting, nor the one after that. You tried not to get your hopes up, though you couldn’t help the quiet disappointment that you felt. No one was obligated to show up each and every time, but you’d really been optimistic that he’d be there. It’s not that you’d been hoping to make a new friend, but… okay, maybe that’s exactly what you were hoping for, actually.

You hadn’t had any of those hallucinations again since that night - you weren’t sure if there was a better term for what had occurred, because you loathed that description for it, but you were grateful, at least, that they weren’t becoming some routine thing. Your nightmares got bad again after that, though, leading to mostly sleepless nights of tossing and turning and dreading the day ahead. On those occasions, you silently hoped that your phone would ring and that Bob would be on the other end, which almost made you feel pathetic because it reminded you that you didn’t really have anyone these days.

Between the whirlwind of your arrest, court case, rehab, and therapy, you’d slowly lost all of your friends, each and everyone one of the connections from your past life. Many of those you lost for the better, as they’d enabled your bad habits more than anything, but others had simply grown tired of your shit. Like your sister.

But you couldn’t let yourself think about her too hard.

You had made some acquaintances through work and therapy, but closer relationships had yet to pan out from any of those. Sometimes that was their choosing, sometimes it was yours. The closest thing you had to a friend right now was a woman in therapy named Emily, whom you’d gone out with a few times to get coffee, and she seemed to like you even after getting to know you, so that was a minor victory in your book.

It was after a second group session without Bob’s presence that she pulled you aside curiously, which you initially assumed meant she was going to ask you for another coffee date soon. But she determinedly scrolled through her phone in search of something, and so you waited curiously for whatever she had to show you. When finally she spun it around, you were greeted by a screenshot from the coverage of the new Avengers from a little over a month ago; she zoomed in on the far right of the screen, her brow furrowed inquisitively.

“Tell me that isn’t the guy who was here last week.”

Bob. You wished that you weren’t certain of it, but you recognized him immediately, without even a moment’s pause despite the fact that you only met him once. Emily didn’t know you’d stayed behind to chat with him after everyone left, which was fortunate, because otherwise you had a feeling she’d pester you more about it.

But, what the hell was he doing there?

For whatever reason, you hesitated to confirm her suspicion. It felt like you were privy to some secret that no one else should know, and although you were a lot of things, you weren’t a snitch. So, you twisted up your face in an exaggerated show of consideration, pretending to thoughtfully study the photo until you finally ‘decided’ that no, that wasn’t the same guy, just looked a bit like him.

Again, you found yourself wishing that Bob would call you or show up again.

A few nights later, you were wide awake at two in the morning, searching the internet for all possible videos and articles about this new Avengers team. This isn’t what you had intended to do - no, you really hoped that you’d actually sleep tonight - but after hours of restlessness, you ended up down the rabbit hole thanks to a blog post crossing your feed about ex-Congressman Barnes’ return to superheroing.

That could only lead you to one path, of course, so you scoured all the sources you could find for even a hint of information about or reference to Bob. Was he just a random citizen who happened to be in close proximity once the cameras were on, was he working for the woman who claimed to have put the team together? He couldn’t have been part of their team, you decided based upon how lost he looked in the short clips and pictures, but it was pretty damn weird for him to be photographed alongside them.

Unfortunately, the internet had nothing helpful to offer you. You personally suspected that the government was still keeping a lid on all the dirty details about what actually happened, because you encountered more than one broken link and deleted post in your research efforts. Considering that there was nothing official regarding the Avengers as of yet, you supposed there wouldn’t be anything useful out there until further notice.

Was three am too early for coffee? You knew you were out of luck getting any rest tonight, though getting up now may make you exhausted at work later.

Fuck it. You rolled out of bed and quickly padded down the hall to the bathroom. The beauty of living in a halfway house was that everyone kept weird schedules, so you never stressed about your own strange hours like you used to when you were couch surfing or living with roommates. Hell, you’d even miss this place whenever you eventually moved onto your next, hopefully more permanent, residence.

After a quick shower, you left, making the short trek to the 24-hour corner store with a coffee bar that always suited your high caffeine needs.

It was as you stepped outside that your phone rang, causing your heart to skip with far too much anticipation. Considering that no one ever reached out to you anymore, you figured it could only be one person calling you before the sun was up. Again, you tried to avoid thinking about why you were so intrigued by Bob, and why you cared so much.

“Yeah?” You greeted quickly, trying not to sound too eager as you balanced the phone between your shoulder and ear. The line was quiet for a long moment.

“Um, hi… it’s Bob.”

“I hoped so.” You blurted out with a faint smile, though your eyes widened as you realized what you said. Awkwardly, you coughed, quickly redirecting so that he hopefully wouldn’t linger on it, “You having trouble sleeping?”

Bob paused for a second, “Yeah. You?”

“Can’t sleep a wink.”

You weren’t sure why you were so happy to hear from him. You barely knew each other, and your struggles with insomnia were hardly something to bond over. And yet, you were… flattered, for lack of a better word, that Bob actually called like he said he would, that he must have liked or trusted you enough to not just forget your number and move on. God, have you really been growing this lonely in recent months?

Although he was silent, you got the impression that Bob was thinking hard about something. You took a long sip of your coffee, wandering aimlessly along the sidewalk as your gaze bounced around; maybe you could find something interesting to draw, you always preferred having something to keep your hands busy.

“Do you want to talk about anything, or should I?” You asked, though instantly you realized that may have made things awkward. You were reminded briefly of one time in a past therapy session when someone mentioned that a lot of people can’t stand lulls in conversation, so they’ll find a way of filling it; guess you were that type of person who wasn’t so good with gaps of silence.

“I know I’m the one who called you, but I… don’t really know how to talk about it.” You refrained from asking what ‘it’ was, assuming that Bob would find his own way to fill in the blank, “I never really learned how to express myself. I have friends that have been trying to help me with some stuff - well, we’ve all kinda been helping each other - but it just feels really unnatural.”

You huffed out a laugh, juggling everything so you could dig out your cigarettes, “You have friends, but you still decided to call me? I’m flattered.”

You could almost hear the flustered expression on his face as he tripped over himself, “Well, I mean, I’m not trying to assume, but I was under the impression there are some things you might understand better than they will.”

“Insomnia and nightmares?”

“Cravings.” You paused, not prepared for the simple yet honest answer. You nodded in contemplation despite the fact that Bob couldn’t see you, knowing all the things implied by those two simple words.

Therapists always warned against befriending other addicts - it risked the progress of all parties involved. Yet, at the same time, no one else in the world could understand certain struggles quite like those who have lived through the same type of shit as you. So, Bob had clocked you the same way you did him; maybe that meant something.

“Where are you, Bob? Do you need to meet up in case you… do something you’ll regret?” You asked nervously; you didn’t want to offend him, but you also didn’t know what mental spot he was in right now. For all you knew, he could’ve desperately needed someone’s help right now, so at the very least you felt like it was your responsibility to be available for him.

“I’m okay. I’m okay.” You weren’t sure if he repeated it for you or for himself, though you nonetheless appreciated that he did so, “They don’t really know the feeling. They have their own problems, but that one’s my own.”

“Trust me, I get it.” You decided to find a seat, settling on the steps of a closed business and pulling out your sketchbook, “Has it been worse since the black out?”

You could picture the way Bob probably cringed at that; if you gathered anything from your one meeting, it was that the black out seemed to be a particularly sore subject for him. You started doodling absentmindedly, the pen in your hand an instant relief.

“Everything’s been really different since then. I was pretty lost before it happened, and I was fine for a little bit, but now I’m just… not sure about anything.”

“You could always come back to the group - like I said, it helps.” Though he didn’t respond, you felt his hesitation, “Sometimes it makes the bad shit feel less suffocating. Adds a lot of stability to my life, personally.”

“Stability sounds nice.” Bob mused, “Right now there’s so much going on that I don’t know where to start, it’s suffocating. It’s nice talking to someone who isn’t caught up in the middle of it.”

Your brow furrowed as you considered that, wondering, again, what exactly Bob meant, “Not trying to pry or anything, but you’re a bit cryptic, you know that?”

“I don’t like to be.” It sounded like he actually meant it, too, “There’s just a lot I’m not really… able to talk about right now.”

“Is it part of a rehab process or something?” Your brow furrowed, scribbling aimlessly. That didn’t sound like a treatment tactic you’d ever heard of before, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

“No, it’s not that. It’s more… work related.”

In that moment, you remembered the new Avengers, your futile research, all your queries surrounding why Bob was seen alongside them. You kept yourself from asking any thoughtless questions, wishing you had a little more information to work with. If the government was trying to keep things on the down low, it would explain his vagueness and guarded nature - if he was, in fact, connected to this Avengers shit like you were guessing, but even still that seemed like a long shot.

“Well, what can you tell me?” That sounded rude, didn’t it? Maybe not the best way to make friends.

“Um… I’m trying to keep my head above water despite everything reminding me of the bad things I’ve done. My friends and I are all basically sworn to secrecy right now, which sucks because getting a girl’s number has been the first shred of normalcy I’ve had in a while, so I really don’t want to mess that up. But I think I might mess it up because I can’t say anything.”

You paused, coffee, cigarette, and doodles momentarily forgotten following the admission. In spite of yourself, you felt your cheeks warm a little, a smile creeping across your lips. You weren’t quite sure how to interpret what he said, but it made you feel… fuzzy inside.

“I don’t think anyone’s considered me ‘normal’ before.” You giggled smally, as if everything else he said went in one ear and out the other.

“Sorry, was that the wrong thing to say? Promise I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” Bob asked, but you could hear the kind smile in his voice, the delight in his tone.

“I believe you.” You grinned, wishing that you could see his face right now, “It’s nice talking with you, Bob. If I haven’t scared you away yet, I’d like if we could talk more often.”

“Scare me away?” Bob huffed out a small laugh, “I’m more worried about scaring you, to be honest.”

You, too, laughed, “I guess being worried about the same thing sorta cancels it out. Or I hope it does. I can’t imagine you could scare me off that easily, though, usually I’m the one that’s more troublesome.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Is that a challenge?” You teased, “Because, just to warn you, I don’t back down from challenges all that easily.”

Bob hummed in amusement, “I’m sure you don’t.”

Was that supposed to sound… flirty? Maybe you just wanted it to, but damn, that felt a little coy to you. The heat rose in your cheeks again, your pencil continuing to swirl random shapes onto paper; like a teenager, you felt the impulse to draw a stupid little heart, but refrained. You wished that you had something clever to say, something equally as flirtatious just to see if that was Bob’s intention, but he managed to make you a little nervous with that last one. So, like a fool, you bit your lip to hold in any giggles.

Bob coughed, perhaps also aware of the effect of his words, “I like talking to you, too. And now you have my number, so maybe… you’ll call me sometime?”

“I think I can manage that.” You smiled to yourself. As another idea crossed you, you tried not to cringe awkwardly at how silly you felt asking, “Maybe we can even grab coffee sometime or something?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’d like that.” It sounded like maybe Bob was as nervous as you, though that could have been wishful thinking.

Although you still had a dozen question marks surrounding Bob, you suddenly weren’t all that concerned with them - this was the talking stage, after all, no one knew that much about another person after a couple of conversations. You must have been getting rusty or something, because this was obviously no different from getting to know anyone else. Surely any questions you had would be answered with enough time, with enough conversations, just like you’d answer whatever questions Bob might have for you.

And you really hoped there would be a lot more conversation to come.

Since your phone call with Bob last week, your nights had still been just as restless as usual; tossing and turning and wondering and overthinking. It was so normal for you that you didn’t think anything of it, though now your evenings were also tinged with the curiosity of whether or not he may call you again, or if you should call him. The both of you admitted to struggling with sleep most nights, so who better than to keep you company than a fellow insomniac?

And yet, neither of you was quite willing enough to pick up that phone again.

Miraculously, though, you had actually managed to drift off at a decent hour for the first time in days, your sleep calm and dreamless, which was something of a godsend. Maybe the utter lack of sleep finally caught up to you, body and mind finally fatigued enough to give in; if only it didn’t take so much to get some damn sleep.

You weren’t sure how many minutes or hours of shut eye you managed to squeeze in before your phone started buzzing from your bedside table, piercing its way into your subconscious like a bullet. You stopped being a heavy sleeper once you got sober, waking at any and every sound, which was a burden in a city as loud as New York. On more than one occasion, you told yourself that you’d get some ear plugs, but you never followed through.

You jolted up, blinking groggily as your phone vibrated against the wood surface, your body aching from whatever uncomfortable position you’d fallen asleep in. Once you felt situated enough following your rapid waking, you reached for the phone without even glancing at the caller ID, already knowing exactly who would be calling you in the middle of the night.

“Hey,” You greeted gently, your throat a little hoarse.

“I woke you, didn’t I?” Bob asked guiltily, as if he counted how many rings it took you to answer or could hear the exhaustion in your voice. His tone gave you the impression that he thought waking you was the greatest offense in the world.

“No.” You lied seamlessly, glad that he couldn’t see you yawning into the crook of your elbow, even if you assumed he wouldn’t believe you, “Are you okay?”

There was a long, hesitant pause, and with each passing second worry began to bubble in your chest; although you tried not to fret, you couldn’t help yourself, because something seemed off.

Eventually, Bob sighed shakily, which sounded desperate to your ears, “I’ve been better.”

Your expression dropped as you drew your knees under your chin, staring into the dark of your room, enough light seeping through your blinds that it created strange shadows and shapes along the wall, “What’s wrong, Bob?”

There was another beat of silence, “I just… sobriety’s really getting to me right now. My head is so clear, I can’t stop thinking about everything I’ve done, all the bad stuff. Whenever I’d get like this before, I’d know I was too sober and take whatever I could get, or I could at least count on having enough gaps in my memory that nothing could get to me. I’ve done a lot of bad things since then, though, and it's eating at me. Those gaps are starting to fill and I’m not sure if it’s all real or imaginary.”

Worry washed over you like a cold rush of water, and suddenly you feared that you wouldn’t be able to help Bob in the way that he needed. You tossed your bedsheets away, wondering if you should get dressed and figure out where he is, “Bob, I promise you, whatever you’re feeling isn’t worth touching shit, you got it? I know it sucks, but I need you to listen to me. Don’t think about taking anything. Do you need me to come to you?”

You heard him breath roughly again; you closed your eyes, trying to picture him in your mind, imagining the worst, “No, you don’t have to do that… Can you just talk to me right now? I want to listen to your voice.”

A warmth lit your cheeks, though you felt it was inappropriate given the circumstances. You took a deep breath, trying to calm your worries, “What do you want me to talk about?”

“You,” Bob urged, “Your life, anything. I want to know you… How you cope when things get like this?”

“Well, I smoke a lot of cigarettes.” You jested halfheartedly, hoping that it might help to put him at ease, “And I draw. Used to talk to my sister when things got bad. Sometimes I just talk to the empty room so the words get out of me; it’s like it… releases the bad thoughts.”

“What do you draw?” Bob’s voice sounded rough, as if he was working hard to keep himself together.

Your heart drummed with concern as you continued, “Anything; I just draw a lot. As a kid I was convinced I’d go to art school or something; even my parents thought so because I’d just doodle on anything I could get my hands on. I was such a perfectionist, though, always getting myself worked up because I had to be the best, you know. I’d worry so damn much about lines on paper, it was ridiculous. Never did get into art school… Maybe that’s a good thing, because now I can draw again without worrying that nothing’s good enough.

“If you’re up for it, maybe I can draw you sometime; I’m trying to do more with people and not just things. I’d like to draw you.” Your eyes widened, realizing how it may have sounded to admit that you wanted to draw Bob; you preemptively cringed at whatever awkwardness may come next.

“Okay.” It was one simple, breathy word, yet you could nonetheless feel the interest and warmth in his tone, causing your worried expression to soften, “I might not be the best subject, but… that sounds nice.”

“You’d make a great subject.” You smiled sweetly despite the fact that he couldn’t see your face, “You’re a-- well, I just think--”

What you were about to say was that Bob was good looking, but you caught yourself before the words slipped out, already a little too self-conscious over the last thing you said to admit such a thing yet. You heard a huff of amusement through the phone, which made your shoulders relax a little; maybe you were helping after all, even if you were embarrassing yourself in the process.

“I’d love to see your stuff, if you want to show me.” Bob added, as if he knew what you’d been trying to say and decided to help you save face. He was the one that called you, he shouldn’t have to worry about you like this; that was supposed to be your job right now.

“Maybe next time you’re at group.” You appreciated his effort, nervously scratching at your arm as you recovered from your near-blunder, “My sketch book is full of all kinds of things, it’s a bit much, I think.”

“Well, you're an artist; I’d expect it to have a lot going on.” Was he trying to make you nervous, because it was working.

You pondered said book for a moment, thinking about all the images within it, specifically some of the work from before things got really messy. You gulped, deciding to trust Bob with more of your story, since all your talking seemed to be good for him so far, “I used to sketch my sister and her family a lot. I idolized her as a kid, she was so… perfect to me. There’s a bit of a gap between us, so I thought she was really grown up when I was a kid. And she totally is, she’s got her life so put together that I can’t believe we’re related sometimes. She helped me a lot when I got into some bad spots.”

“What happened?” Bob asked with hesitation and sympathy, “I mean, you’re talking about her like she’s gone, is she…?”

You bit your lip while breathing deeply, “She decided she couldn’t help me anymore. I fucked up one too many times. But I think it was supposed to happen that way - forced me to get my act together.”

“You miss her, though?”

“All the damn time. I lost my best friend because of my bullshit. Yeah, it sucks, some days more than others, but I can’t hold it against her.”

“You seem so… like you got it all together. Like you don’t need anyone’s help.”

You barked out a disbelieving laugh, “Oh, I don’t have it together. I’m a wreck half the time, I just keep it all in; it’s no one else’s problem but mine.”

“How do you do it?” Again, you found yourself wishing Bob was here in front of you so you could look into his eyes, at his body language; so you could squeeze his hand with the assurance that he needed. So you could make sure he was okay.

“Honestly, I don’t know, but what other choice do I have? Either I sink beneath it all or I float. I’d rather float.” There was a long stretch of silence between you two as you waited for him to speak again. You wondered if you were still helping, or if he was just putting up fronts to make you feel better; your worry kicked back in again, “Bob, how are you doing right now? This very moment?”

“Not great.” You sighed, “But… I’d rather float.”

A surprised giggle escaped you, an uncertain smile on your lips because you couldn’t be sure if his answer was a good thing or just for show, “God, that was really cheesy, wasn’t it?”

“Made you sound like a real motivational speaker.” Bob laughed faintly, too, a genuine sound that was a relief to your ears; maybe he was doing a bit better than he was before, “It helped. I like talking to you - something about you just keeps me grounded, I guess.”

“I make you feel ‘normal?’” You teased, recalling what he’d said the last time you spoke.

“Well… yes?” His tone managed to sound good despite how he’d felt all night; maybe it was the truth when he said you helped him. Easing up a little, you smiled fondly to yourself.

“I… like being your normal.” You admitted bashfully, biting your lip with fear at how he may interpret and respond to that. Bob was quiet for a beat, which dared to make you think that maybe you said too much.

“I like it, too.” He answered in a soft voice, content, a comfortable silence passing between you, “But I should let you go back to sleep; I don’t want to keep you up all night.”

“I wasn’t--”

“I know you were sleeping; last time, you answered after only two rings.” He interrupted with a pleasant laugh, and you were taken aback by the fact that he actually did count the rings both tonight and last time you spoke, just like you assumed, “Thank you for tonight.”

You were disappointed and nervous to let him go - you could stay up all night talking if he only asked, and a part of you really wished he would, “You sure you’re going to be okay? You’re not gonna hang up and do something rash? We can stay on the phone.”

“No, I promise. I think I’ll be okay.”

You mulled it over for a few moments, “If that changes, you call me, sleep be damned. And if you don’t call, we’ll talk soon?”

“Promise.” Bob repeated himself, and you realized briefly that the two of you seemed to use that word a lot considering that your friendship - if this could be called such a thing - was still blooming. You could only hope that you both meant it each and every time, “Next time, under better circumstances.”

“I’m happy to talk to you under any circumstances.” You blurted out thoughtlessly, feeling your cheeks warm with some embarrassment, “I mean--”

“I know.” Bob interrupted sweetly; you tried to picture the smile that must have been on his lips right now. There was a pause, giving you the impression that he had more to say but hesitated. Finally, he took another breath, “Sleep well.”

You bid him good night, and Bob hung up almost too quickly, leaving you feeling a lot lonelier than you were before.

Wide awake now, you glanced towards your window, staring mindlessly at the sliver of brick wall that you could see through the gap in the blinds. Should you have kept him on the phone longer, should you have been more assertive in making sure he was okay? For all you knew, Bob was still in a bad spot but didn’t want to burden you any further with it. It made you wish you knew anyone that could give you more insight into him, that there was someone you could call and ask to check in on him.

But whatever was going on with you and Bob was like an island, separate from anyone and anything else, a thing all your own. Despite your worries, it made warmth swell in your chest to think about him like that; you kind of liked that it felt like it was just the two of you. That no one else knew about your friendship, that when you talked nothing else could really penetrate the little bubble you created. It made you feel… special.

Shit, you hoped he felt the same way.

You hesitated to be the one to call Bob first, silly as that may sound. You couldn’t stand the idea of potentially bogging him down with your shit when you knew he was dealing with his own problems, so you refrained from picking up the phone no matter how much you wanted to. Sure, whenever you thought about calling him it was simply because you missed the idea of him, but you got so damn nervous each time you opened his contact in your phone that you always talked yourself out of it. Stupid.

The two of you hadn’t talked again since the phone call a few days ago. He also hadn’t returned to group therapy like you suggested and hoped for - guess that made both of you nervous cowards. You couldn’t blame him because it probably still stressed him out to think about attending a second time, but you were still hopeful that eventually he’d show his face again. Or that maybe he’d call you for that coffee date you talked about.

You understood that it was probably way too soon to consider him a friend or anything more; you were just two recovering addicts who found kinship in one another. You didn’t know each other at all, and you shouldn’t get your hopes up, but there was just something about Bob…

Shit, there’s no way he just walked through the door as you were thinking about him.

You had to do a double-take, because you almost couldn’t believe that Bob entered the community room in the last ten minutes of therapy as if you’d manifested him from thin air.

But there he was, looking as awkward and apologetic as he had the first time. Your heart skipped as a giddy little smile tugged at your lips, Bob tripping over an explanation that he tried to get here on time but something held him up; all the while, he kept stealing looks at you from the corner of his eye. The therapist assured him it was fine, but would appreciate it if his sporadic disruptions weren’t to become a routine thing.

For those last few minutes of the session, you didn’t listen to a single word anyone said. You were a little too absorbed in studying Bob to catch the rest of the discussion, the both of you watching one another as if worried the other would disappear should you blink.

As everyone began clearing out of the room, you hesitated briefly, unsure if you could just approach him normally or if you should hang back. For a beat, you stole a glance over at Emily, wondering if she was still hung up on that image of the new Avengers, but she was preoccupied without a single regard for Bob’s presence.

When you looked back, he was watching you with an expression that you couldn’t place, though his jaw clenched with nerves once you met eyes; you could’ve kicked yourself for the way it made your heart skip. You gave him a kind grin while crossing towards him, feeling a little nervous to finally be face-to-face again.

“Didn’t think I’d see you again any time soon.” You greeted, receiving a sheepish smile in response.

“I’ve wanted to come, I just… well, you know, all the secrets I can’t tell you.” You hummed in understanding. The two of you stared at one another for a long moment before Bob cleared his throat, “You have time? I could go for some normalcy right now.”

You nodded softly, your smile bashful before you waved your hand in a ‘follow me’ motion, “I’ve got as much time as you need.”

Bob followed at your heels as you walked through the door, guiding him outside while you rifled in your bag, knowing your cigarettes were buried somewhere in there. You looked around in search of a place for the two of you to sit that wasn’t the front steps of the community center. You glanced back at Bob inquisitively.

“Up for a bit of a walk? There’s a park a couple blocks from here. Or there’s a coffee shop just around the corner.”

He looked at you curiously, but then smiled sweetly, “Lead the way - your choice.”

Box of cigarettes in hand, you slid one free as you walked together, lighting it quickly and thoughtlessly. But then, you realized that it was rude of you to do so without even considering Bob, so you looked over at him apologetically.

“Shit, sorry, I should’ve asked. Is this okay? I can put it out if it's not.” You were more than ready to toss aside the cigarette should Bob protest, but he gave a quick shake of his head.

“It helps, right? Keeps you from wanting something worse.” He answered in understanding; the fact that he remembered you mentioning your need for the habit made you feel warm, and the stress you hadn’t realized you were holding onto disappeared.

“I wanna kick the habit eventually, but…”

You two walked a block or so and crossed towards the park, where you idly wandered for a couple minutes before you found a bench. As you sat, Bob lowered down on the opposite side as if trying to keep as much space between you as possible, which seemed odd. For another few moments, you studied him thoughtfully, taking in his features as if you hoped to memorize them. Really, you’d stared at his image captured alongside the Avengers more times than you could count, so you already felt familiar with his face by this point, as embarrassing as that was.

“What finally brought you back?” You asked simply, trying to be subtle as you slid a tad closer to him.

Bob looked away from you while considering his answer, a nervous color tinting his cheeks, “Would you believe me if I said I wanted to see you?”

Again, your heart skipped, brows jumping up in pleasant surprise. Last time, he wanted to hear your voice, and this time he wanted to see you? Anyone showing interest in you wasn’t exactly something you were accustomed to; no, usually people were more inclined to wanting nothing to do with you. Which was fair, considering your track record.

But Bob, this person you barely knew, wanted to… spend time with you? It almost felt undeserved.

Bashfully, you looked down, “No, but I think that’s more a reflection on me than you.”

Bob studied your expression, understanding you far too well, as if he’d felt the same thing before, “I mean it. Nice to have some kind of relationship that’s just… mine, if that makes sense.”

God, that made perfect sense; it was a thought that you yourself had following your last conversation. It also made you all the more curious, considering just how little Bob’s told you about himself and his life.

You gave him a teasing look, though your question was genuine, “Are you… monitored all the time? Not to be rude, but you make it sound like someone else is in charge of your life. Is it because of that work thing you mentioned?”

“Yeah…” Bob answered as if he loathed to admit it, taking a deep breath, “I’m afraid that telling you about it would change things.”

You considered that before shrugging nonchalantly, “Well, it would. But that’s kinda the point, right?”

Thinking back on your last phone call, you gave Bob some information about yourself, though really it wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things. Just enough to show him who you were and give him an out before it was too late. And clearly he didn’t take that out, so you figured that meant something good.

You took a deep inhale of smoke while straightening your shoulders, “I can tell you more about me, if that makes you feel better. I’d like to know something about you.”

Your offer made an uncertain expression cross Bob’s face. You gave him a soft smile of encouragement, which he reciprocated with a nod, “Yeah, I’d like that. Just… I’ll try to tell you what I can.”

You nodded in understanding, hoping that whatever Bob was holding onto he had a good reason behind, “My drug problem started when I was sixteen. I’ve been clean for two years now, but not before I managed to ruin every relationship I had. I told you about my sister… I got sober after she called the cops on me during one of the stints I was sleeping on her couch. I haven’t talked to any of my family since; they don’t really want anything to do with me.”

Bob looked between your eyes as he mulled over your brief summary of the shit you had going on - you could spare him all the details for now, give him more of them with time. Dropping your cigarette on the ground, you squashed it under the toe of your shoe, looking back at him patiently, hopefully.

“Can I see your drawings?” He asked apprehensively, huffing out a faint laugh, “I, uh… okay, I’m avoiding talking for a bit longer.”

You couldn’t help but smile at Bob’s honesty, giving a quick, reassuring nod while digging into your bag, “Just don’t judge me too harshly.”

“I won’t judge you at all.” His answer was so genuine, causing that pesky fluttering in your chest yet again. Pulling out your sketchbook, you bit your lip nervously as you flipped through, not sure what works to show him.

“I guess just start here,” You said while offering a specific page to him, “Don’t look at anything before that, it’s all old and embarrassing.”

Smiling sweetly, Bob accepted the book, studying the first page of scribbles and scratches before silently moving onto the next. Some pages he lingered on a little longer than others, some he commented on with encouragement, making it known that he was impressed, which made your cheeks warm.

And then you remembered a recent page of drawings you’d been working on throughout this past week; it was a dozen or so faces, all drawn to varying degrees of quality, some from memory, most from photos. You inhaled sharply, because you realized too late that Bob might notice his own face crudely drawn amongst them. You really had stared at that image of him with the Avengers a lot, you thought with utter mortification, silently praying that he simply wouldn’t recognize himself there.

You practically held your breath as he continued flipping through, getting closer to the end - should you tell him to just ignore the last few pages? Would that just entice him to look at them even more? Maybe if you don’t mention it, he won’t notice?

As you thought it over, Bob turned to the page that you were dreading, and you self-consciously looked away as if that would save you from the torment, waiting with baited breath. After a long few moments, you dared to glance at him from the corner of your eye, wondering if he noticed and what he was thinking.

“Is that…?” Shit, he noticed. With a sheepish furrow, you looked back at Bob trepidatiously; the awe in his face made you cringe even harder, “Do you have a photographic memory?”

You nervously chewed the inside of your cheek, debating how to answer the question. But the last thing you wanted to do was lie to Bob, as much as you hated the actual answer, so you took a deep breath while you tried to compose yourself, “Not exactly. I, uh… well, someone in the group recognized you and showed me a photo and I just… looked at it a lot…”

Seeing the apprehension in Bob’s face, you quickly tripped over yourself to explain further, “God, I knew I’d sound like a creep. All that Avengers stuff? Yeah, she recognized you from the press clips and showed me, but I didn’t want to mention it to you because it felt wrong and I just… drew you based on that.”

Bob continued to stare at you, dismay in his eyes. It took him a few moments before he finally spoke, tone guarded, “So… you know?”

“I don’t know anything, Bob. I literally don’t know why you were there or if you were even supposed to be there or anything. I promise.” Anxiety washed over you, because what if you totally just messed this up? What if this relationship was ruined before you even had the chance to start it? You just had to make a dumb mistake, like you always seemed to, “I figured maybe you worked for that woman or that maybe you were just there coincidentally? I’m sorry, I probably should’ve told you, I just--”

“Slow down.” Bob interrupted, looking back down at your drawings in consideration, his expression somewhat tense. After a minute, he let out a long sigh, before sliding his gaze back towards you thoughtfully, “I don’t know if that makes this easier or harder.”

“Makes what…?”

Bob hummed uncertainly, jaw clenching, “Telling you anything. I didn’t know where to start, but I guess you kinda already got some of it covered.”

You stared at Bob with total surprise - was he really just cool with that? Was he really okay with you ogling a single picture of him, knowing something you maybe shouldn’t have? He made it seem so insignificant, like he wasn’t particularly bothered by the secret you were unintentionally harboring, like he didn’t care that you never mentioned it before. You really didn’t deserve that kind of acceptance, of that you were certain.

“Don’t be sorry.” Bob insisted, like he knew what you were thinking. He looked between your eyes as if he was searching for something in them. When a reassuring smile spread carefully across his lips, your brow furrowed, “So stop looking so nervous.”

Well, that’s not what you were expecting from him of all people, the King of Nerves, “I just… thought maybe you’d be more upset?”

Bob laughed smally in his throat with a shake of his head before realizing that this was the anxiety he could help you with, much like you’d helped him before, “I mean, did you do anything wrong? I don’t think so. I'm more surprised that you were willing to look at my face long enough to draw it.”

You couldn’t help the edgy laugh that leapt out of you, shrugging while scratching awkwardly at your arm, “Well, it’s like I told you - you’d make a great subject.”

He huffed, though the little twinkle in his eyes was reassuring. Your shoulders began to relax, your body slowly releasing its stress as you accepted that you weren’t in trouble for anything, though it lingered on the periphery of your emotions, just waiting for any evidence that something was still wrong. The two of you stared at one another before Bob glanced back down at your sketches.

“You made me look half decent.” He jested, causing another faint laugh to escape you.

“Well, I just… drew what I saw.” You answered, looking between his face and the drawing. A charged silence fell over the two of you; not necessarily uncomfortable or difficult, though it was different, to say the least.

Bob cleared his throat after a long beat, jaw clenched as he thought for a moment, “My home life wasn’t good growing up.” Realizing that he was finally sharing - trying to be vulnerable with you - you perked up attentively, “I dropped out of high school and got into a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have… I heard about this medical trial a while back and joined because I had nothing going for me, nothing to lose. I got sober thanks to it, not that that’s what I was going for. Technically, I think I work for the government, but… that’s kinda all up in the air right now.”

You considered everything, the last part in particular, because it had to have some correlation to his presence alongside the Avengers, “So, government? Guess that means there’s hope for druggies everywhere.”

The two of you shared a grin while Bob shook his head, “I wouldn’t cite myself as an example to anyone.”

“Too hard on yourself,” you reached over to give his hand a well-meaning pat, though you felt him tense at the contact. With a furrow of your brow, you took your hand back quickly, “Sorry. You don’t like to be touched, do you? And here I am just giving no regard to your personal space.”

“No, it’s nice, it really is. I just worry.” Bob looked unsure of his own words, glancing at you from the corner of his eye, “I don’t… dislike it; just makes me nervous sometimes.”

You gave him a faint smile while slowly reaching out again, tentative as you set your hand atop his, giving a small, reassuring squeeze. Though he seemed hesitant, Bob allowed your fingers to lace a little, causing a swell of excitement in your chest like static throughout your entire body--

Behind your sister, her husband held their toddler protectively in one arm, phone pressed to his ear as he spoke rapidly with the 9-1-1 operator on the other end of the line. Again, your sister was grabbing and shoving you, expression fierce and tortured as you struggled to grasp the severity of the situation. You shook your head, trying to talk to her, to apologize for whatever you did, but she simply yelled louder, demanding that you leave, that she never wanted to see you again--

And you came back to reality with a start, eyes wide as you looked about, only to realize that Bob had already leapt to his feet, putting distance between you with a look of regret. You took a confused gasp of air, looking between him and your shaky hand; how could this have happened again? You got a single flashback once a couple of weeks ago, and now it’s happening again, but only when Bob was around? Only when you touched Bob’s hand--

A terrible realization dawned on you, one that you wouldn’t have believed if the world you lived in wasn’t already so damn strange, and apparently always getting stranger.

“It’s… you?” You asked in disbelief, ogling your hand as if it were stained in the blood of your past.

Returning your attention to Bob, he looked like a terrified child standing before you, a certain dread in his eyes as he shrunk in on himself; it made your chest ache for him. You thought that last time this happened had been some post-traumatic hallucination following the black out, but… somehow he caused it…

Had the black out been his doing, too?

“I’m sorry.” Shit, his voice was small and full of such grief, eyes so fearful that it was gut wrenching, “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

Before you even had the chance to say anything else, Bob turned from you, long strides carrying him away quickly. For a moment, you were frozen in shock before you, too, shot up to your feet, chasing without a second thought, still not even sure how he managed to do that.

“Bob, wait!” You called after him. You didn’t know yet what you thought or felt, considering that you didn’t really know what the hell was going on to begin with, but you didn’t want him to disappear. Not after he just shared with you, not after you both came to an understanding, not after he made you feel some kind of way about him.

As you gained on him, Bob picked up his pace, lighting a desperation inside you as you took even larger strides to catch him. You reached out and managed to grab hold of his elbow, digging in your heels as he put up no resistance, coming to a halt. Catching your breath, you rounded Bob so you could look him in the face, keeping your hand on his arm in what you hoped was a reassuring gesture and not a threatening one. He kept his head down, shoulders sagging as you leaned forward, trying to meet his eyes.

“You don’t have to run from me,” you practically whispered, still trying to understand what was going on right now; between your emotions, his, and whatever the hell that was, things were a bit of a blur.

But somehow, Bob caused you to have those flashbacks; and, if your logic was anything to go on, somehow he was also the cause of the black out that had hurt so much of this city. How and why didn’t matter to you - you couldn’t hold that against him, not when he looked like a wounded puppy fearful of whatever was to come next. You didn’t hold it against him, because you could tell from his body language that he hadn’t lied when he said he didn’t mean for anything bad to happen.

You knew the kind of hurt one dealt others, intentional or not, when they themselves were struggling - you weren’t about to be the reason Bob felt any worse than he clearly already did. After all, far stranger things have happened in this world than that black out.

He stole a glance up at you, but quickly looked away, that childlike fear in his face again. You weren’t even remotely concerned about any more potential glimpses into your past as you gently held his elbow, brushing your thumb in small, soothing circles as you were determined not to back down. Bob watched the gentle gesture of your hand with trepidation, his body tense as if he was afraid of what he might accidentally show you. When nothing happened for a few long moments, you reached out slowly with your other hand, gingerly cupping his jaw and tilting his head so he’d look at you again.

“Talk to me.” You urged, thankful that you weren’t having any more flashbacks, “Nothing’s happening, see? You’re okay. We’re both okay.”

You stepped in closer, and perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but you thought you could feel some of the tension leaving his body. A deep breath puffed up in his chest before he exhaled slowly, his gaze sad upon your face.

“It was the medical trial; made me… different.” Bob finally said, voice straining as if he was fighting hard to keep it together, “I still don’t know all the things I can do because of it. I thought I could control it; sometimes I can. I… call it the Void; the black out was it controlling me, though.” He laughed weakly, without humor, “I’m not right - in the head, I mean. If I were normal, I think things would be different. We - the team - were able to stop it before things got too bad, but now I just don’t know. I’m afraid to try anything again.”

You considered what he said; despite all the new questions now stirring up, you refrained from asking them. Now really wasn’t the time to grill him on all the ins-and-outs of something that not even he entirely understood yet.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” You assured firmly, “You have more control than you give yourself credit for. Nothing’s happening now, right?”

Bob looked between your eyes with a furrowed brow, jaw clenched as if he were in pain, “I’m concentrating really hard. I can’t let myself do that to you again.”

You sighed, readjusting so that both hands cupped his jaw, your touch still ginger so as not to worry or overwhelm him, “Thank you. You’re doing great.”

He nodded, trying to accept what you said. You gently brushed your thumbs along his cheeks, which prompted him to slowly, shakily, reach up to rest his hands atop yours, as if still testing the waters to see if he could keep it under control.

“I meant it when I said I don’t remember that day. It’s not fair that I hurt this whole city, but I don’t have to suffer the consequences of that. I get to just conveniently forget, meanwhile everyone else is in turmoil? That’s not right.”

You considered his words, how he said nearly the same thing before; now, having more context hurt your heart as you realized how much guilt Bob was truly harboring, a pain settling heavy inside you, “Is that the real reason you came to our therapy… you were making amends punishing yourself with our stories?”

Bob looked away again, eyes glossy with discomfort. A deep sigh escaped you, and without a second thought you wrapped your arms warmly around his neck, pressing him into a tight hug. His body was hot against yours, shoulders tense, arms hanging at his sides with uncertainty. You squeezed him gently to make a point--

The handcuffs were uncomfortable on your wrists, a rough hand guiding you towards the squad car--

Your eyes clenched tightly as you tried to resist the images.

Looking around yourself, you felt like you were in a daze. The lights of the cruiser flashed against walls, reflecting off window panes, blinding and disorienting--

“No.” You spoke firmly against the images behind your eyes, pressing yourself against Bob determinedly, “You can control it.”

You could feel the furrow of his brow, the clench of his jaw against your cheek, “I’m trying.”

“It’s okay.” You whispered along the shell of his ear, one hand twisting limply into the hair at the nape of his neck, “I promise, it’s okay.”

And finally, Bob accepted it, his arms wrapping tightly around your middle and pressing you even closer like two pieces that fit together. You exhaled the breath you were holding, comfortable as you melted against him with total ease. You clung to one another like your life depended on it, desperate for this connection between you, for it to calm whatever chaos and anxiety was inside. You could feel Bob’s deep breaths in your hair, the pressure of his fingertips flexing against your back; you felt safe in his arms, unconcerned for the danger he worried was still present.

After a minute, you sighed in relief, “See? Everything’s okay.”

You pulled back just far enough to meet his eyes again, searching them for his fears and trepidations. He stared back at you with disbelief, arms still tight around your waist as if he now worried about letting go. 

“Everything’s okay…” Bob repeated in a low whisper, nodding as if trying to convince himself. His gaze bounced around your face, taking in your features as he breathed deeply; maybe you were grounding him, like he’d mentioned before. The thought made your heart flutter, and you couldn’t help but bite your lip while sheepishly looking down. Now really wasn’t the time to feel the things you were feeling, “Thank you.”

That drew your attention up to his face again; Bob was smiling gently, as if he was still trying to calm his nerves and keep himself from breaking. You grinned back, hands shifting to rest along his jaw again.

“When you’re ready, I’d like if you told me about everything.” You started, hoping that didn’t come across as demanding or rude. Bob gave you a reassuring nod, breathing deeply.

“I think I can do that…” Your eyes gently flit about his face, from his faint, sad smile down his neck and chest then back up, enjoying the opportunity to simply take him in. There was a disappointed flash in his gaze as he stared back at you, “I wish it was easier. Everything’s been a mess since that day - my head, my life, all of it. I don’t really know who I am anymore; I went to sleep as the disappointing druggie I always was and woke up like some kind of… supercharged Captain America.”

Your brows shot up in surprise, “A what?”

You weren’t quite sure about the look that Bob gave you, something that seemed amused by and smitten with your reaction, but it made your heart skip, especially when his eyes trailed down to your lips, studying your face as closely as you had his. He grinned, and for a split second, you felt his body shift, thinking you caught him leaning in just a little.

“Yeah, uh…” he laughed, the sound vibrating from his chest to yours, “I can do a lot.”

“Huh…” you said dumbly, nearly at a loss for words. ‘Supercharged Captain America’ was a pretty bold claim, after all, “You’ll explain it all eventually?”

“Promise.” The two of you stared at each other for a long beat, and again you thought that maybe you felt Bob shifting closer to you. He clenched his jaw while looking down shyly, “Can I, uh… ask a potentially embarrassing question?”

You huffed out a small laugh, using your hold on his cheeks to tilt his gaze back to you, “Something more embarrassing than the fact that I’ve stared at a picture of you so often that I drew it? I don’t think you can top that.”

Bob smiled at your attempted levity, though he still appeared nervous, which in turn made a course of anxious energy pass through you, “Well, I think asking to kiss you after my little episode might take the cake, so…”

Your heart skipped before it began to drum wildly, mouth gaping in surprise as you looked between his eyes. Did you somehow mishear him? As the question crossed your mind, you already knew you sure as shit didn’t, though that did nothing to stop the jittering you felt in your limbs.

Bob stared down at you timidly, as if preparing himself for rejection. A charmed smile slowly broke out across your lips as you composed yourself, taking a deep, shaky breath; your hands grew a touch more firm as you continued to hold his jaw tenderly.

Your voice came out more shy than you had expected, gaze dropping down for a timid beat, “You don’t even have to ask.”

Bob looked both surprised and gratified, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of your answer, if you were, in fact, giving him permission to kiss you. Your grin grew even larger at how sweet his expression was, your hands trailing from his jaw to the back of his neck again, pulling him in close. He gasped nervously, breath warm against your lips as you lingered there for a moment, your noses ever so gently brushing together.

“That was a yes, Bob.” You whispered sweetly, hearing a faint, anxious ringing in your ear. His grip on you became more solid, one hand pressed steadily to the small of your back as the other snaked up between you to gently cup your cheek, fingertips soft along your jaw as you leaned into the touch. For a moment, the two of you lingered there, waiting for the other to move first or change their mind, your nerves on high. 

And then, after a final beat of anticipation, Bob’s lips were on yours, gentle and hesitant, far sweeter than any kiss you’d ever experienced before. You took a sharp breath through your nose as you felt a spark shoot up your body, fingers twisting lightly in his hair as you pressed closer, eager yet trepidatious as you kissed him back.

To your surprise, though, Bob’s lips broke from yours in the very next second, as if he was only permitted that brief moment; it caused your brow to furrow as a yearning sigh escaped you. Your eyes fluttered open in confusion as you met his gaze, unable to restrain the teasing in your expression as you noticed the uncertainty still in his face.

Despite the excitable stuttering of your heartbeat, you quipped softly, “Don’t tell me that’s it.”

Bob looked taken aback and nervous as you kept him close, your breaths mingling together, heat coursing between your bodies, “I didn’t want to be--”

“Bob, kiss me.” You affirmed, drawing his lips back down to yours with renewed confidence, as if his own hesitation bolstered your bravery.

This time, the two of you were less coordinated as your lips crashed together again, sloppy and wanton as your heart beat loudly, excitably. Bob’s hand flexed on your back as if he longed for the feel of you, a needy sound rising in his throat that caused your toes to curl. It was like a fire suddenly lit beneath you, the kiss starved and desperate as you pressed firmly against him, restraining the desire to moan into his mouth.

The hand that Bob pressed to your cheek made a fast, hot trail down your body to wrap around you, molding you together in a seamless, solid embrace. The current of energy between you was feverish and yet tender, like static electricity daring to work its way out. Your lips were urgent against one another’s as you gave Bob’s hair a gentle tug, hearing another sound of pleasure in his throat as you clung tighter to him, feeling your knees go weak.

Your tongue hungrily swiped along his lower lip, your nails scratching pleasantly at the base of his skull; you could feel the deep inhale in his chest, his fingers clenching tightly against your back. When he opened his mouth, you let out a satisfied sigh, arms winding even tighter around his neck. God, he tasted so right, like something you didn’t realize you were missing; you could stay here forever if he’d let you, breathing him in like fresh air.

And suddenly you heard a wolf whistle, though you paid it no mind; Bob, however, abruptly pulled his lips from yours with a gasp of air, gaze looking around with the cutest look of surprised confusion that you’d ever seen. Through hooded eyes, you stared up at his face while trying to catch your breath, chest heaving against his. Despite knowing that someone had taken notice of you two sucking face, you couldn’t help the charmed smile that broke out across your lips, a rush of heat rising in your cheeks.

You followed Bob’s line of sight, but whoever was the culprit behind the wolf whistle was already gone, causing you to laugh with content delight. You brought your hand to his cheek again, turning his face back to yours so you could look between his eyes fondly.

“Guess that’s our cue?” You teased, causing Bob’s expression to mirror yours. He looked between your eyes and lips for a moment, his hand mindlessly caressing up and down your spine; it almost made you shiver.

“Guess so…” He nearly sounded disappointed, causing your smile to grow wider. His brow furrowed thoughtfully as he leaned in a little, your foreheads pressing together gently; you let out a small sigh, “Maybe we don’t have to call it a night just yet?”

Bob’s hopeful, innocent tone was so sweet that it made your heart swell. You bit your lip as his lashes fluttered against yours before he pulled back to meet your eyes, hopeful that you'd say yes, that you two could spend even a little more time together.

“Your super secret government babysitters aren’t gonna miss you if you’re gone too long?” You joked, a cheeky little smile plastered across your face, causing Bob to laugh with a conspiratory look.

“Not to make it weird, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were already keeping an eye on us.”

“Yeesh,” you gave an exaggerated cringe, “no sense of privacy, huh? Might as well just invite them along next time if they're gonna be that nosy.”

Bob shook his head with a grin, looking down for a moment, “I’m sure that’ll go over real well.”

“I don't know about you, but I think I can make it work.” You continued to tease. When Bob met your eyes again, you leaned in close, lips just a breath away from his, “Walk me to the subway stop, at least. Maybe ride to my stop if that isn’t out of the way for you? I’ll give you a call soon… we can plan a real date or something?”

“Oh, so you do know that the phone works both ways?” Bob taunted, causing you to roll your eyes, though your cheeks grew hot as you grinned, “Here I thought I was just bothering you.”

“You never bothered me; I was the one that gave you my number, remember? I just… got nervous each time I thought about calling you first.” You explained, embarrassed by the admission, though it caused Bob’s expression to brighten even more, as if he was charmed by your hesitation in the same way that you were charmed by his.

“Call me next time you can’t sleep.” He offered sweetly, “Promise?”

You hummed pleasantly, quickly nodding your head as Bob leaned in close. With his lips brushing against yours, you whispered back simply, “Promise.”

.

.

addt. a.n: I've already got an idea or two cooking for more Bob fics in the future, including one that would continue this narrative! Thank you for reading 🖤

[sundayeleith]

It's time I post my opinion on the other changes of the demo ! I'll try and make it sort since I want to make another post about Leander's route in particular >:)

Tldr : I liked it and I can't wait to see how everything will go plot wise in the full game 👀

/!\ Spoilers for TS demo update ! /!\

So let's adress the tiny bits first : the origin change, and the minor dialogue/scenario changes. Love it. Yes I like the new origin I think the idea is cool, what I didn't like was the change itself (but that's not the topic). Firstly, it gives us a big info : there IS several languages in the world of TS ! WOOO let's go if that's not a win for bilingual/multilingual MCs idk what it is

The minor changes I notices are mainly a few differences in Kuras and Ais' segments which are very welcome, and more depth added to Mhin's and Vere's segment. First of all thank RSS for shutting up dense people by stating why MC wears bandages rather than gloves. I mean, most of us figured it out a while back by rubbing two braincells together, but it's nice to see it mentionned ! It was seemlessly added to Kuras' segment too, really nice. Then expending the Iris segment was good (also confirmed the NPC telling us abut Ais is Iris, or well, what's left of her anyways)

The new sprites and expression are all super good. Special mention for Vere's smile, truly the highlisht of that category. That and Leander's puppy eyes expression-

Onto Vere and Mhin, I really appreciated being able to explore more choices. Mhin is so cute and what a nerd I LOVE THEM. Also Vere... I know what you are and you have a type 🫵 (he is a freak /pos)

Now let's talk about the bigger changes and also the man of the hour (who's also my wife /j) LEANDER YEEEEEEAH BABYYYYYY. So other's have already pointed out the changes and explained very well the symbolism behind it. They got rid of the dog imagery to get a snake one, which is very clever. Also on the addertsone, a magic item also associated with snakes (or adders) and poison ? Wonderful. Leander in terms of theme and design is already sourrounded by a lot of poison symbolism (notably his color palette, he is dripping in green and has a shade or green that once was made with arsenic) so the changes ties perfectly with it. One thing that was removed which I think should have stayed is the green cloaks on Leander's followers. Not only it would reinforce the cult-ish vibe but go very-well with the snake imagery of the Adders and would even elevate it. That said, maybe it'll be added later or will be noticeable on future NPC sprites. The green cloaks aside if they don't keep it, I hope the Adders will all have a sign of distinction no matter what that could be (bonus if it's very subtle or hidden)

Then for the rest of the changes, they not only changed the Bloodhound into the Adderstone but changed Leader's characterisation. As a Leander simp, to be fair the change isn't drastic, only the presentation is. If anything, they didn't change Leander's character and take another path, but cranked it up to eleven. And I absolutely loved it. He is more charismatic, more assertive, and is very obviously more manipulative and calculated. He isn't outwardly hostile to MC, far from it, but let's me tell you something. After the tavern segment, if you chose Leander's route. When he closes the door and locks it, with his front facing sprite. I was terrifed (/pos) the dev's nailed it and they know what they are doing with him and leaned into that aspect of him more and honestly thank you RSS for catering to us freaks rather than the "but I want Leander to be a normal guy" crowd (I will forever judge them it's a gothic horror game for the love of god). I need him more than before. Oh my god. My only complain tho is I thought Leander would go full scary creeping and stab MC in their room and it didn't happen so I was a bit disappointed BUT. I smell like it's because they are keeping the sauce for the full game. That was a mere sample, a teaser of Leander depravity and my body is READY for it.

I will revisit my Leander analysis doc I never posted and expend on it and make an updated version to match the Demo 2.0 update, but you can be sure I'll post it once I have time to put it together sihfoqhf

Be prepared I have a theory about what's his deal and I can't believe I've never thought about it while it was so obvious 🫵

[mrs-stans]

INTERVIEW: Sebastian Stan on Curiosity, Confrontation, and His Oscar Contenders

Sebastian Stan has had a wild twelve months that I strangely found myself a small part of.

Stan received critical acclaim and awards attention for two films: A Different Man, where he played an actor with a facial disfigurement, and The Apprentice, where he played a young Donald Trump. Both performances are intricately detailed and precise, evading stereotypes and caricatures amidst shifting themes and tones. They also encapsulate a common theme in his work that I first noticed in Fresh: exploring characters’ darker impulses that others either miss or deliberately ignore. Despite their acclaim, both films struggled with distribution and promotion, with The Apprentice facing lawsuit threats and industry hesitance to engage with the film. He went viral after revealing that he couldn’t participate in Variety’s Actors on Actors series because other actors’ publicists didn’t want them discussing the newly-elected president. (My tweet describing the situation as reprehensible went viral, too.) Despite the blowback, Stan remained upfront and outspoken, fashioning himself as a fearless, principled artist during a fraught political and cultural moment.

Stan’s unique position and detailed approach to his work were reinforced in my interview with him for AwardsWatch, conducted days after he won the Golden Globe for A Different Man and before his Oscar nomination for The Apprentice. It was a full circle moment of sorts for me, after advocating for A Different Man since seeing it in April, interviewing Matia Bakalova for The Apprentice, and meeting director Aaron Schimberg following a screening in New York. During our conversation, I sensed that he wanted to meet his moment in time responsibly, emphasizing how important curiosity and empathy were to the human condition. Given his challenges in releasing and promoting his films, I also sensed, through our few interactions, how genuinely moved he was by the support and recognition he’s received. (Case in point: he was incredibly generous with his time when he didn’t have to be.) It’s near-impossible not to be thrilled for him and the acknowledgment of his talent and thoughtfulness.

My goal in publishing this interview in full is for others to sense what I have about Sebastian Stan over these past twelve months by giving him the space to share his journey, in this awards season and in the larger context of his complex career.

[NOTE: This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.]

It’s an embarrassment of riches to say you are in two awards-contending films, The Apprentice and A Different Man. What has the experience been like for you this season?

It’s been very surreal. You never really know the outcomes of any film when you go and make them. You’re always just hoping they turn out well, especially if they’re shot under crazy circumstances, which both of these films were. A Different Man was 24 days, still in COVID, in New York, and it was just running and gunning to try and make the day, every day. And [Aaron] was trying to shoot it on film, and he had these beautiful one-take shots, which required everybody in the crew to be on the same page. And then The Apprentice, I’ve been trying to get going since 2019, and every time we got close, it fell apart. [So] you hope people will watch it. And when you get into this wild time that is the fall, where you’ve got so many films coming out and major studios contending like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple, and everyone’s got their horses in the race, so to speak, you don’t know if your movie will cut through.

A Different Man had an interesting journey. It’s amazing because Aaron and I kept saying, “Look, somehow we’re at the Gothams, and then the Gotham thing happened.” Or, “Wow, we’re at the Globes,” or, “Wow, we got to Berlin.” There were all these signs that this film was connecting with people, but it felt like we always had to be the cheerleaders to A24 about it [and say], “Let’s keep going.”

With The Apprentice, it had no marketing. When we finally got the movie from, basically, not being almost censored, we had two and a half months of trying to get the film out with any marketing, like billboards on Sunset Boulevard or anything like that. So when you get to the Globes, and I’m sitting there, and I’m going, “Wow, this actually happened with both of these films,” you can’t help but feel grateful because this is the win. This is probably as good as it’s going to get. And then, obviously, anything that happens after that is an amazing moment, but in terms of getting both films seen, it helps to have those moments.

How do you feel after winning the Globe? I’m sure there’s probably some vindication or celebration of the fact that this film you championed was recognized in the first major event of the season.

It was incredibly gratifying for many reasons. One, for the film and getting more attention to it. Two, for the film’s subject matter. It’s not an easy, simple film. It’s beautiful, complex, funny, and tragic and speaks to such big questions and themes. When you look at films like that, there aren’t a lot out there. You want to encourage people like Aaron Schimberg to keep working and making them, for people to keep looking at Adam Pearson as an actor first and not as somebody with a disfigurement, and to envision him in [other] ways. I think that’s what this movie does so brilliantly; for that purpose, it’s amazing.

For me, at 42 years old, having been around and doing this for 20-somewhat years, you’re always hoping that you’re going to be up there someday and thank some of these people. I could’ve been up there for an hour, you know? So many people have contributed to my life, and you just want to highlight everybody. But it was a nice moment for my mom and the close people in my life.

But then it was scary because…we woke up the next day, and 24 hours later, these fires were happening, and suddenly, we were in a different world, and we’ve been in a different world since. It’s been hard to look back at that because it’s been crazy watching so many people lose their homes, people that I know.

Hopefully, everything’s been okay for you.

Yeah, everything’s okay. Fortunately, everyone’s okay, but there are friends and people we know who have lost their homes and everything…or just the entire neighborhood, especially in the Palisades area. It’s really difficult to wrap your mind around it. Mother Nature…I don’t know if there’s anything more humbling than that, right? We all end up being put in the backseat, and none of it really matters at that point. We’re all in the same boat, you know? But hopefully, we’ll get a little bit better today.

I really hope so. Now, getting into your career and these films, do you see any similarities between the two roles of Edward/Guy and Donald Trump?

I do because, to me, I feel like they are two different forms of narcissism, two different forms of extreme narcissism. When I think of narcissism, I think of denying and suppressing who we really are and inventing another person. If you want to look at psychological terms, you call it the super-ego. When the distance between your true self and this other invented version you’re putting forward continues to grow because you’re constantly suppressing and lying about yourself, you have to create a bigger and bigger lie. It starts to have consequences that affect you and the people around you.

Edward is a singular person in his own world, [while Trump] happens to be a political figure who is meant to be a leader and an authoritative figure, meant to be an example to other people. His reach and how he inspires certain people goes much, much further. I’ve always seen both films as a denial of reality and a loss of humanity. That’s what the Trump story is to me. It’s what happens when you completely abandon empathy and morals and are only trying to fuel and feed this one particular need, and you have no regard for consequences that affect other people. Everything’s transactional as long as he can keep his lie alive.

What I see in Trump is a very broken, pained, paranoid, insecure little boy. I don’t say that to simply go, “Yes, he’s human, and you should feel bad for him.” I also say that to highlight the flaws that might get in the way of this person having power, moral authority, and so on. I don’t know if that’s the person I would necessarily trust, you know? Even in these horrific fires, instead of offering solutions, he’s sitting there and using what’s happening in California to serve his story and narrative, point fingers, and assign blame. It’s horrific to me.

With Edward, he feels that he’s made a mistake denying or suppressing himself, but he’s not connecting with that, and, as a result, he ends up becoming kind of a monster himself. Everything revolves around what has been taken from him, but he never assumes responsibility for the fact that he surrendered rather than someone having taken it from him. There are these complex themes that I think are relatable and interesting, and I don’t know if people connect that with those two movies, but I was able to speak about them for the last few months.

What I find fascinating about your career, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that I think you’ve selected characters who have some form of inner darkness beneath the “Sebastian Stan of it all.” I think you’ve done a great job communicating that darkness and how it manifests and festers in different ways. Sometimes it’s loud and funny and exciting, like in Pam and Tommy, and sometimes it can be dark and insidious, like in The Apprentice, Sharper and Destroyer. Is that something you’ve been actively seeking?

I think I have been curious about gravitating towards things that feel complex or I don’t quite understand right away because I find that’s how people are. I think sometimes, when we have discomfort with certain films, the pity of that discomfort can translate into ignoring something altogether because “I don’t want to go there.” Sometimes, it’s something we haven’t confronted yet or don’t want to confront. To me, one of those is that we are not perfect people. People are flawed and are all susceptible to going in very different ways.

I think we all walk around with some version of an angel and a devil on each shoulder. Every day is a decision we make to go out in the world and either hurt or try to help somebody, even in a small way. Like, you go and get a cup of coffee, and maybe you smile at the person, or you don’t even look at them. We’re conscious of things; we’re not conscious of things.

I’m always trying to learn more about myself. I don’t think of any roles as particularly reflective of me, necessarily, but I like surprising myself. I think that’s what I’m supposed to do as an actor: keep exploring humanity and its diversity. I love when there are these roles that feel closer to the truth, that it’s not always black and white, that it’s not always just a good guy and a bad guy. It’s complex. Unfortunately, there are very good people in the world who don’t have the tools and sometimes end up hurting others. There are also sometimes psychopaths that can reflect one good quality, and you wonder if somebody in their life had supported that quality more, would it have been different? I think that’s what’s interesting to me: just how big the scope is in terms of being a human.

Digging into the films themselves, we can start with The Apprentice; I spoke with Maria Bakalova last month, and she told me — and I was blown away by this — that the scene where Donald breaks down after Fred Junior’s death was largely improvised. I’d love to know how you conceived that moment.

I think that was an experience that’s so reflective of my process and how I approach this work. You can go home at night and do all this preparation. You prepare for months before and hope you get there, and you surrender to the director, the other actors, the moment, the scene. You envision things sometimes going a certain way, but almost nine out of 10 times, they don’t go that way. There’s something else happening, and it’s always about staying open to that.

In the script, there was always this moment with Donald being alone in the bathroom and breaking down, and then Ivana walks in and finds him and he quickly cleans himself up and says, “Nothing happened.” We shot it a couple of times, and there were takes where that happened. Then there was another take where, in the moment, I froze, and that was the truth of the scene. Maria walked in, and I knew we weren’t shooting the scene we were supposed to. But we still stayed in it and explored what happened. Fortunately, as was the process with the whole movie, Ali kept rolling, and thankfully, it carried us into the bedroom. We got into bed, and she put her hand on my hand. And then suddenly, all that [emotion] started to happen in that moment. Then I jumped and punched the wall, which didn’t make it into the film, but you had this moment before, which did.

That’s the beauty of this work, what I love about it. If you stay open, there’s a way it can go where you didn’t see it going that ends up being closer to the truth. And you want it always to be as close to the truth as possible.

What aspect of Donald Trump were you most excited and scared to explore?

It’s a really great question; thank you for asking that. I feel actors have to stay curious. I think the creative language is more powerful than any language we have on this earth. No matter where we come from, what we believe, how we were raised, or what language we speak, it’s the one thing that I feel, human to human, we can get to if we can allow ourselves to stay curious.

For me, I thought, “I really want to let me try and find out who this person is.” Going back in time and looking at some of the early footage [of him], I saw a vulnerability and insecurity there that I didn’t know existed, that seemed to be buried down deep underneath this pile of bravado, this carefully curated, Clint Eastwood-like, Zoolander stare down that we’re getting. There was a real person there at one point. I wanted to know more about that and how he became what he became.

I think what scared me the most was, knowing that he’s so well-known and in our faces everywhere, that I felt it was almost near-impossible to get anyone even to spend two hours trying to figure out who this guy was. He’s been done so many times. There are so many caricatures and impressions of him, and these mannerisms that he has now, the way he speaks, the lips, everything… I had to pick and choose how to filter that out through two hours so that people could connect with and believe in the reality and not be disconnected because of what they know.

What helped was that, when he was younger, he was less. There was a lot less of what you see now, those things that have built over time. His voice didn’t sound like he does now; his mannerisms weren’t as specific. That was the challenge and fear, just knowing that if I do a little too much too soon, I’m going to lose everybody. I’m just going to be thrown in there as just another kind of impression.

You’ve spoken about growing up in Romania during the collapse of the Soviet Union, experiencing political unrest and dissent. Did any of those personal experiences shape your performance of Trump or how you approached the film overall?

Yeah, totally. I think this idea about the American Dream that I, my parents, and everybody else in Romania at the time were dreaming and talking about was what I was trying to explore with [the film]. It’s about Trump and Roy Cohn, but it’s also about this ideology. What does it really do to a person? I think we see this over time. There are plenty of examples… if you look at Elon Musk… he keeps growing stronger and bigger, and there’s this idea of power corrupting absolutely. You can make your own thoughts about what he’s become, but there’s something about this American Dream.

When I came to America, my mom said, “We’re here now, and I’ve sacrificed my life, and you have to make something of yourself because you’re going to have this opportunity that so many kids are not going to have. You’re lucky that we got this far.” This is something that 100% helped me, but it’s complicated. I hear that; it drives me, but I also feel this burden of responsibility and this pressure of, “What if I fail? What if it doesn’t happen? How do I deal with this?”

I find that many people in this business, and Silicon Valley and Wall Street, you see people getting more money, accumulating more things or more awards, or they get there, and it’s never enough. There’s always something else, so they have to get another thing. If you’re nominated once for one Oscar and don’t get nominated for another 10 years, then you’re in the “one-time-only club.”

This is, to me, part of the story of The Apprentice. When is it enough, and what does it do to a person? So I think my journey through Vienna and coming here and trying to understand what it means to be an American, growing up in America, 100% influenced me with that part, and probably also drove me to do it.

Moving to A Different Man, the first thing that struck me was how you retain Edward’s physicality while playing Guy while also performing what Guy imagines being a person who never had a physical disability or disfigurement is like. Could you walk me through that process?

On a technical, scientific level, our muscles hold memory. It’s why, sometimes, people talk about improving posture and how standing up straight and walking into a room can influence mood, and there’s a lot of research into that. So, even though you’re dying your hair, losing weight, going to the gym, or [doing] whatever else to feel like you belong more, it doesn’t necessarily change the muscle memory that you carry. There are certain things and traumas over time that will always be there. You may still react to something the same way years later, depending on how much work you’ve done.

For me, [there was] trauma that came from the prosthetics and walking around the city. When I was walking around, I was so self-conscious. I felt people walk by me. Some would look, some would ignore me, but everything in my body was telling me to go in. All I wanted to do was go into myself, get through that street, and get to my destination as quickly as possible. So, as a result, I was walking a certain way, and I felt powerlessness, and I realized that was not going away for Edward.

Edward changes his physical appearance, but he’s never confronted any of the things he feels most in pain about on an internal level, so those things will continue. He might get better and go, “Oh, wait, people don’t look at me that way anymore, so I can actually be this guy.” But when he’s not conscious of it, he’s just falling right into who he was because there was no growth there for him.

It was also important for me to keep certain things about him that were recognizable from an audience standpoint that they’ll see later. I love what you said because I don’t think many people have picked up on Edward as Guy is Edward’s idea of what he should be like as an “able-bodied person.”

The other piece that helped me was speaking with this amazing woman, Elna Baker, who wrote a book about losing nearly 100 pounds. She lost all this weight, and suddenly, she was walking down the street and noticing men and women looking at her. She was finally the person she envisioned herself to be or felt she was. Over time, she started to miss her old self, to the point where she was missing people gawking at her and how heavy she used to be. I thought it was so interesting that this transformation for her didn’t ultimately pay off as she had hoped, that the inner peace, calm, and self-acceptance were not there. She talked about how there were things that she could do that she had never done before, but they weren’t fulfilling her in any way.

In a similar way, I think Guy ends up going down this path that he thinks will supply him with all these things that he’s watched other people have for years, but it’s actually made his life quite boring.

For me, one of the year’s best scenes is when Guy watches Oswald do karaoke and then watches the audience react to Oswald in a way that Guy doesn’t expect. I’d love to know what you were thinking at that moment because it was gorgeously acted, and you were communicating rank devastation through your eyes.

I appreciate that. I never really thought at that moment about how much that scene would ultimately mean. But I think it’s the first time Edward is confronted with this reality and denial of self in a very real way. A lot is happening there. I think he’s fascinated and curious. I think he’s looking for validation. I think he’s hoping that other people will judge Oswald the way he’s judging Oswald in that moment because judging Oswald helps keep his own lie alive.

At one point, he sees these two girls laughing and feels, “Oh, they’re laughing. Okay, good. I made the right choice. They’re laughing as they should because they would laugh at me.” But actually, you don’t even know if they’re laughing at Oswald. So I think it’s a lot of fear and fascination, and he can no longer run from what he’s been denying, which is, “Oh, this could’ve been me. I could’ve owned myself, and perhaps I would’ve been fine.” I think he’s dealing with that, and from that point on, it starts to grow until the end of the movie, when he murders the physical therapist. It keeps growing because of the desperation of trying to maintain the lie of, “No, no, no, I did the right thing,” and it continues to spiral out of control.

That scene is about somebody who’s in total ownership of themselves, which, by the way, I feel Adam is like in life, which is incredible. And then you have somebody who unfortunately realizes they’ve made the biggest mistake of their life.

I’m glad you brought up Adam because his performance is extraordinary, and I wish it were being recognized more this season. But you did thank Adam in your Golden Globe speech for “his trust.” How do you two work together to establish that trust, and how did it manifest on screen?

I think with anybody you’re about to go into the trenches with, we met before, and kind of sussed each other out a little bit, and I just felt, “This is going to be great. This is going to work out.” We were both on the same page about what we wanted here. With Adam and A Different Man, I really felt that he was going to be this lighthouse for me, in terms of trying to understand how to approach this and how I should, in a way, best represent him. I was really in service to him and Aaron.

There was a lot of conversation around how he grew up, his childhood, and his experiences, what he encounters daily online. When we go back again to what we said at the beginning about the loss of humanity, sensitivity, and empathy that’s transpiring online between people, how we attack other people anonymously. It’s like, where do we get that from? Maybe people in power are giving permission to do that, you know? So, the fact that Adam can go out there every day and outwit any of these people and that he’s had to do that for so much of his life is very inspiring and shows how brave he is.

I wanted to understand how one gets to that point. I knew that [Adam] was very different from Edward, but it was also about creating Edward’s past and background. Unlike Adam, who fortunately had a really strong support system with his mother and his family, all we know is that Edward’s mom had passed, and we don’t really know what else transpired. There are many cases that I found researching online of people with disfigurement or different kinds of disabilities who had been abandoned, orphaned, or never had that support system from their families. So, it was interesting, but I felt that whatever I was going to do would always have to be in step with Adam and, of course, Aaron.

One last question to wrap up: what do you want people to take away from these two films?

I still feel, and I was saying this on Sunday night, that there is discomfort around these subject matters that confront us on a level we’re afraid to go to. I think both films do that, and I hope people don’t turn the other way. I don’t believe it’s always ill-intentioned towards disability and disfigurement. I think sometimes people are curious, but they’re afraid of being curious, and they’d rather just look the other way and not confront anything. I’m saying this as someone who’s learned that from Adam. Curiosity is okay. It’s okay to be interested. That’s why I had a little kid come up to me when I was in the prosthetics and was very okay and engaging because that was pure curiosity. There was no judgment yet.

At the same time…there were times when Adam and I were trying to do press together, and we couldn’t… they’d rather only have me. There were things like that that are still not ill-intentioned, but they didn’t want to go there because they didn’t quite know how to deal with [the situation]. As a result, nothing happens.

With The Apprentice, obviously, there’s fatigue and a lot of emotions, and none of that is wrong, but we have to be conscious of that part that leads to fear and indifference. I’ll hear people go, “I’ll watch this after the election.” Well, the world might be very different by that point. It feels a little bit like kicking the can down the road and not confronting reality.

I think this is a unique situation because… we’re confronting something as it’s happening. We’re not waiting 5-10 years after we’ve digested everything. We can look back at the mistakes we made and [whether] that was the right call, and I think that’s what put people in the hot seat. But as I referred to the creative language, it’s about staying curious and open to keep us informed, human to human.

There’s a lot that both of these films are talking about: narcissism, empathy, the loss of self, and acceptance. You’re not necessarily going to get these things from Wikipedia, your email, a news channel, or somebody else telling you on TikTok. You’re going to get that from experiences with other people. When you’re having kids growing up, especially now, with phones and laptops that they’re basically chaining us to, human-to-human connection and empathy are something we have to keep protecting and nourishing. We can do that through movies, books, and art. Not AI algorithms that feed a certain kind of “selective free speech,” but things that reflect how complex [life] is so that we can have an experience. That’s valuable.

I was lucky enough to be in two complicated films that I think were confronting people in certain ways. We’ve been seeing that some people got it, and others aren’t ready for that yet, but I’d rather be on that side than the safe side.

[redthunderstorm]

i think it’s time to share my zakuro thoughts…before you read HERE IS A DISCLAIMER!

⚠️These are interpretations/hcs! not the actual canon, do not take what i say as truth!! i am playing with my toys i like having fun.

with that said i don’t expect anyone to agree with me!! we all have different ideas for our favorite characters and that’s what makes the world go round. i hope u enjoy the read and maybe understand what i’m going for!

what really intrigued me is that every numa has some sort of personal problem with themselves or each other, and if they aren’t outright shown there’s certainly something you can dig for. i’ve noticed zakuro is a bit underrated when it comes to this. i’m here to prove to you that she can be as complex as every other character if you look in the right angle. hold my hand, let’s create meaning out of nothing!

i assume zakuro’s clones are canonically hinted as a hive-mind. i personally like to interpret it the opposite! zakuro’s clones are direct copies of her, yes, but they are capable of having their own thoughts and memories. so every zakuro are unique internally. no zakuro will have the same interaction or react the same way as the other, but that doesn't make her any less zakuro! it is simply the many versions of her emotions and personality shining through. like how one talks to themselves in their mind, i imagine zakuro and her clones are the personified equivalent of that. it’s the simplest way i can explain it! i feel with this interpretation, it has room to make her a more emotionally compelling character! without completely erasing her canon-self. a lot of internal and external problems can come out of this immortality of hers that she has been gifted.

let’s agree she had this ability all her life, as time goes on perhaps it has the potential to evolve. this could be a pro and a con! sure she can have more stable control, her clones becoming more sentient and soon direct copies of her. but it evolving is also something that’s out of her control, her body changes! looking more monster-like compared to her peers. almost like her body is returning to it's “roots.” mimicking what's around her. they are not human after all… they are monsters. internally, she could feel more alienated from her friends.

did she ever felt like she's littering the world with her copies? so many of her, that she became an afterthought to her friends?

even though past MO games aren’t canon anymore, her friend’s reactions to her got me thinking... i can’t help but latch onto these ideas, even if they're jokes! perhaps deep down it bothers her. something has been wrong from the start! zakuro and her friends are a little more considerate in mo4. i’d say it’s a time in her life where she has accepted her fate and deals with it now. she loves herself! no doubt!

she enjoys her role in the end. but can you blame her when she wants to try to be a part of something more?

tl;dr i hc that the cloning ability is her external / internal problem! it prevents her from reaching out for deeper connections and it slowly erases her sense of self.

this is not all i have.. there's so many ideas i've explored. like how she seems to copy her friend’s behaviors / life, death, and willing sacrifice could be a common theme for her / is the original zakuro still alive? and so forth.

maybe those will be their own posts! maybe not! i feel it’ll ruin the fun if i kept on rambling though. this is simply me reaching my hand out inviting you to think about her more dramatically with me... cause it's fun!

art is the answer. let’s stay curious! one of the few numas with immortality? yes! much to think about 💭

[inuiiwonderland]

Twisted captivity

Chapter 1

Twst third years x fem reader

A/n: here is the first chapter of my new series “twisted captivity” !! Again this is a yandere series so it will have some dark themes! Also, the first couple chapters will be more on the short side since It has been a while since I wrote anything and also because of my major writers block and motivation for writing. So I’m taking baby steps rn lol. But I genuinely wanna write this since it’s been on my mind for MONTHS! So enough about my rambling I really hope you guys enjoy this!

Words:766

-

You walked down the long hallway as Crowley explained to you the rules and things you would be in charge of.

“Since your father told me you’re a researcher, you will be in charge of writing down every detail and interaction you have with the mers and also help us understand more about them and their biology!”

You simply nodded, still not believing that he has REAL mermaids and mermen’s in his care.

“You will also be in charge of feeding them, cleaning and taking care of their tanks! Though do be careful, some of them can be very wary and may attack when they feel threatened!”

“Ah that’s…good to know”

“Great! Now it’s time for you to come meet them so follow me” You followed him as he led you down a long hallway before walking through a double door which led you to a giant lab. In there you can see a big window as people rush in all sorts of directions.

“This is our lab! Here we run all our experiments and test” Your eyes grow wide as you see a couple of people roll in a big cart with an equally large tank which has a mermaid inside.

The poor thing was thrashing around in the tank as she clawed on the glass. The tank must have been made with really strong glass since it didn’t crack or break by how hard the poor thing was banging on it. The cart was rolled to another room, which you did NOT want to know about.

“Don’t worry she’ll be fine”

Something tells you she wouldn’t….

“Come follow me! I’ll show you the less aggressive ones first”

Okay now you were slowly starting to regret this

Maybe you should’ve stayed home and made yourself a good meal as you watched your favorite show. But no, you decided to show up instead.

What if this is all illegal? What if the government or whoever doesn’t even know such a thing exists?! Or maybe Crowley is working for the government?!

As you begin to panic, you accidentally bump into said man as he comes to a stop.

“Sor-“

“We’re here!” You step aside and you stare in awe as you are met with a beautiful sight.

The place looked absolutely gorgeous. It definitely didn’t look like it belonged in a research facility.

The place had a huge waterfall along with some beautiful trees and huge rocks and caves. You noticed a bridge in the center of it all and it had beautiful long vines surrounding it.

This definitely looked like it came from a fairy tale

“Welcome to the heartslabyul enclosure!” He says with a big smile.

“This place is so…”

“Amazing right? I’m glad you think so because I spent millions on this place!”

“Hey Crowley!” You both turned around to see a man with black and white hair. The man looked annoyed as he glared down at Crowley.

“Ah! Crewel! Nice seeing you here today, say why are you here?” The man scowled.

“I work here you idiot”

“Hey now that’s not a good way to talk to your boss! I have a new worker here with me and you can’t make it seem like calling me an idiot is okay!” Crowley says as crewel turns to look at you.

“You should still run while you have the chance” He says which causes Crowley to gasp.

You just awkwardly laugh as crewel and Crowley continue to bicker back and forth. You step away from the two as you decide to explore the area a bit more.

You walk down the bridge and to a small path that leads you to another beautiful part of the area. As you continued exploring, you didn’t notice the pair of eyes that peeked from under one of the lily pads.

Red eyes followed you as you continued to walk down the path.

Weird….never seen her around before

He watches you like a hawk before quickly ducking down as you turn around.

You eye the water curiously

“Weird….could’ve sworn I heard something” As you were about to walk a little closer towards the water, the sound of your name being called made you stop. You look up to see Crowley waving at you from the bridge.

“Come! I have more things to discuss with you in my office!” You just nodded but before you left, you looked back at the water one last time before walking away and to where crowley was.

As you leave, the boy slowly comes back up with curious eyes.

She looks nice….

-

Again sorry for such a short chapter😓 but as I said, baby steps!

Taglist: @ruisann @roseapov @0ffth3rec0rd @anunholyabomination

Ask if you wanna be put on the taglist!

Also! Reader will have more like a mother/older sister relationship with the 1st and 2nd years! I will explain more as the story goes:)

[catelyngrant]

In your own pov, how do you imagine Ava and Deborah's dynamic going to be like in S5?

Generally, what I think is likely overlaps a lot with what I want to see, but could play out in a lot of different ways! Looking at this as a likely last season, there are a few things that I want/expect to see explored in some capacity:

Deborah reckoning with Ava's place in her life, and accepting that Ava values/cares for her not just as Deborah Vance, her creative partner that she benefits from working with, but simply as Deborah—a person she herself doesn't know very well.

Deborah reckoning with her own legacy, and Ava considering her own future and career beyond Deborah (which will, of course, be Deborah's legacy in so many ways).

I think/hope we'll see a full circle return to season one in many ways! It feels like they're setting the stage to return to Vegas, and possibly partner Deborah and Marcus again to "dirty Vegas up" again as touched on in 4x10, and seeing Deborah return to the place where she reigned for so long and do so again on her own terms and on her own power would be very gratifying. From a show perspective overall, it would be great to return to the roots and zero back in on the season one cast.

Others have said this far more eloquently than I, but my primary takeaway from 4x10 was that the Ava/Deborah dynamic is as solid as it's ever been and that the boat scene where Deborah reverts actually solidifies that rather than serving primarily as a "two steps back" moment; Deborah pulls her punches, lashing out to protect herself but not going for the jugular the way she easily could (and has in the past), while Ava simply accepts it and de-escalates as she realizes that she can't help Deborah at this stage. That's growth! And, crucially, Deborah has never expressed regret at the decisions she's made, even as she's suffered and lost herself as a result. In her lowest moments, one of the darkest times of her life, she kept Ava near her and even when she was lashing out, it was with more genuine bafflement than anger. She doesn't know why Ava is there. She doesn't know why Ava has chosen her over everything and everyone else, every time, and Deborah hasn't truly done the work of understanding why she chose Ava, and keeps choosing her. I think that will be a good chunk of Deborah's s5 character arc. But fundamentally, I think they'll be on really solid ground through most of the season, and I don't expect a major break in their dynamic.

Where this leads, though...I think that all of this feels important because it will be building to the end of the show, and where that leaves their relationship. Honestly, I can see two very possible scenarios for how they may end the series, and one of them would make me very very happy and the other one would make me sad but still feel very narratively appropriate, and both feel like natural conclusions to the themes and arcs outlined above!

Given that I do think a lot of Ava's s5 arc will be about who she is apart from Deborah, what her career goals and dreams are, and how that may play into Deborah's legacy, I can see an ending that leaves Deborah thriving in Vegas(?) while Ava's career expands and offers her opportunities elsewhere; an ending that isn't a break-up, but the end of an era, so to speak. This show has been about them helping each other grow into the best versions of themselves, and I can see an ending that recognizes that those versions of themselves have come to a fork in the road. I think that would be incredibly melancholy but, done right, quite appropriate.

I can also, of course, see the ending we all want: Ava and Deborah as something very close to the best versions of themselves, but a little too obsessed with each other and codependent and absolutely nauseating to everyone around them to meaningfully part ways. What that looks like for them in terms of what they're working on, what sort of projects they may collaborate on, etc., could go in a lot of different directions. Again, if done right, super satisfying. (In this scenario, I'd probably want to see something Grace & Frankie-style where there is some sort of actual acknowledgement of their commitment to each other in whatever strange capacity they exist in.)

In either of the scenarios outlined above, the key for me is that the decision of what happens next is made together and they're on the same page about it. It's not something that happens to them, that Deborah forces on Ava, that is driven by something Ava's done—it would be them choosing each other, and what's best for each other, and what's best for themselves, whether they remain together or go in different directions for the time being.

(And like...obviously the story could go somewhere totally different and there's a good chance it will, so to address two of the most extreme ends of the shock value spectrum: if Deborah dies at any point, even in a time jump, I'll be very sad and probably very mad but objectively can acknowledge that it could be executed in a way that works really well narratively; and if Ava Daniels actually fucks that old lady on my TV screen, it's been an honor and a privilege to share tumblr dot com with you all for the last [redacted] years, you will not be seeing or hearing from me again.)

[necrotic-nephilim]

bro come back we need your commentary more than ever. Jayhelena canon event

AHAHAHA I'VE BEEN LOSING MY MIND FOR DAYS ANON HOW'D YOU KNOW. perfect moment to show off the shitty meme i made based off a random message i sent in a discord server a couple of weeks ago.

jokes aside: i do have a LOT of thoughts on all of this, and even more thoughts on the reaction to it so ty for giving me the chance to rant.

as far as the comic itself goes: i am? cautiously optimistic, personally? hopes are high but expectations are grounded. Gretchen Felker-Martin is a *fantastic* trans horror writer (i highly rec her novel, Manhunt) but she's pretty new to the comics scene. she's written a single issue with Jason, a Beast World story that's pretty polarizing. most fans i know dislike it, my personal opinions on it are... it's a bit lackluster? i think some parts of it miss the mark on Jason's psyche, but the overall theme it's trying to convey about cycles of violence enacted on victims like Jason and police brutality are interesting. while it's not a great start for GFM with Jason, the Beast World event was so shit overall, and the whole concept of all these characters being "not themselves" mentally, i'm willing to overlook it. (idk if there are any good BW stories but all the ones i've read are shite... Helena's BW story has her literally being beaten by Cass using a laser pointer on her so... i will take *anything* over that personally lmao at least GFM seems genuinely interested in exploring Jason's inner workings, yk) it could go really well, or really poorly. i don't think we have enough info on GFM's writing to know how she'll handle an ongoing with these two, but my fingers are desperately crossed.

the main concerns i have about the comic are firstly the plot itself: which is described as Jason tracking down a cop-killer, and how that could so easily become copaganda. however, the Beast World issue GFM wrote was incredibly anti-cop. (and she even said on her bluesky that ppl shouldn't be worried about this run being pro-cop) so, i do think there's hope there. my other worry is the history of these characters GFM can't control- this story is happening right after H2SH which is frankly, a fucking disaster for Jason. and Helena's biggest Rebirth feature was Batgirl & the Birds of Prey, which was an even bigger disaster for her mythos. neither of these characters are standing on great foundations, and i haven't cared for either of their current characterizations for the past decade or so. it's an uphill battle for even a fantastic writer to try to meld good characterization with the current state of these two, and i could see it screwing GFM over, which rlly sucks she's not getting as fair of a shot as she could be.

all that said, the aesthetics look fantastic (tho, i'm not personally the biggest fan of either suit redesign) and i do love getting Helena and Jason out of Gotham, bc it means we won't have the everlooming Bat presence hanging over their actions. and as for the romance? i'm CACKLING. i've *always* suspected that if we ever were lucky enough for a Jason/Helena team-up, they were bound to end up fucking, and i'm DELIGHTED to be vindicated. this ship is one i do adore in concept (mostly as a hatefuck sort of thing) but could see go horribly. i trust GFM to write women, so i don't think Helena's going to get sidelined as a one-dimensional love interest, which is the biggest fear i've seen expressed. it's not *entirely* unlikely she'll be OOC (i don't think we know enough to comment either way atp, given GFM has never written her) but i do think she's going to be dynamic in this run. and honestly? with the shit content Jason has been getting recently (Robin Lives, the current fuckass Jaybin comic) and Helena having her backstory mutiliated and getting sidelined to hell as current comics don't seem to know what to do with her, i want this to go well *so* badly. i'm rlly hoping it will! and i do think the romance can absolutely work in a fun and interesting way. wouldn't be my top canon pick for either character, but i love the intrigue of it and how these two could (and hopefully are going to) challenge each other and find solidarity in their respective victimhoods.

that said, i certainly don't begrudge Helena fans for being pessimistic about this comic, or disliking the concept in principle. i'd far prefer Helena be getting a solo than be a supporting cast/love interest for a man's run. that said, i think calling this run a "power fantasy" and "wank content" (takes i have seen) is absolutely asinine. we don't have it in our hands yet, we literally can't say until it's out. (and tbfh- these takes are transphobic against GFM, even if unintentionally.) but at this point, i think anything is something for Helena, and i am not going to insult the concept until i've seen the story. if Helena fans don't want to read this bc they don't like Jason or just don't want to see her sidelined, i get that entirely.

beyond that, the take i am *not* a fan of is that this is bad bc Helena has been Dick's love interest. anyone who says *that* loses all validity to their argument for me. Helena has been a dynamic character long before she met Dick and to *only* view her as an extension of Dick and thus define every future relationship she has through Dick is the most ass backwards misogyny i've seen. also. it's comics, man. everyone's going to team up with everyone and fuck everyone. it's just the nature of these characters getting used over and over and over. it's so wildly degrading to Helena to pretend you're protecting her dignity and honor by not wanting her around Jason, or by treating her as just "Dick's love interest". (when she and Dick never properly even *dated* and have never been right for each other. that was sort of the whole point. but i digress.) i also think some takes from Helena stans about Jason are made in incredibly bad faith, just because some Helena stans find some sort of superiority complex in liking her and hating him. it has always read incredibly performative to me.

in summary: i have been deserpate for *years* for these two to interact, and i'm genuinely looking forward to reading this comic. i have reasons to be a little doubtful of some issues that *might* come up, but GFM is a great novelist and i hope that translates to her ability to write a great ongoing. did i ever *actually* want this ship to go canon? no, but under a queer woman whose pretty solid at exploring intersectionality and leftist politics in her works, i'm willing to hear it out.

and just so we're clear: the *second* this comic is out i'm putting the Robles variant cover where Jason and Helena are almost kissing straight on my wall. even if the comic is shit. i'm forever immortalizing it as a giant win for me personally, one of the few ppl capable of liking Jason Todd and Helena Bertinelli at the same time and being cool with the idea of them kissing, lol.