#so that means the bit when he looked to be stabling Twice in the face was actually just to kill the clone coming off Twice

[problemswithbooks]

Gonna be honest. It doesn't even feel like the manga wants me to think Hawks made a bad choice. Even now. Its just feels like a cliffhanger about the destruction that would have happened back then if Hawks didn't make the hardest choice. And then the heroes would have been utterly crushed.

Oh, yeah, I can totally see this interpretation of those scenes with Hawks and AfO, but I think that shows the poor writing of the story in and of itself. There are stories where the point is that it can have multiple interpretations, but the way bnha is set up that doesn't feel like Hori's intention (and if it is, he's not doing a good job writing it that way).

Part of the reason I saw it as the more Hawks Critical way was because of how other fans were talking about it--clearly a lot of people see it as Hawks past coming back to bite him in the butt. All I saw were people cheering it on and happy that he was getting his punishment for killing Twice, and of course ignoring how poor the writing was for this set up.

Because, yes, your interpretation is more plausible given how Hori wrote past events. Hawks killing Twice didn't do anything but save a a lot of people during the first war. The villains might have still retreated but Twice would have continued to fight for his friends and given the lack of care any of the LoV show for Shigaraki's condition and still blindly follow AfO, it's easy to assume Twice would be 100% fine with taking orders for him. This would have lead to a Sad Man's Parade anyway, and perhaps and even worse one that included cloned nomu and AfO's.

If Hori wanted Hawks to be wrong and this be his comeuppance for his actions there were one of two things he should done to pull this off at least moderately well.

Have Hawks actually straight up murder Twice. For all that people say Hawks killed Twice on orders and acted due to giving into his brainwashing from the HPSC, that's just not true. Hori went out of his way to show that Hawks only killed Twice after he had lost most of his feathers to Dabi and Twice was escaping in order to use his Quirk. Hori even had Twice kill a Hero in order to save Toga, proving his intentions were violent. If he wanted Hawks to be wrong and following orders similar to how Nagant did, all he had to do was have Hawks stab Twice in the back without even a second thought, or trying to talk him down at all.

Show Twice being unsure/ concerned about the PLA's plans and the part they want him to play in it. Something that Hori absolutely refuses to let any of his villains have is doubt or remorse for their actions. If we'd been given a few panels of Hawks and Twice bonding where Jin voices that he has some reservations about the plan. He joined the LoV for the feeling of family and he still feels that, but with the added MLA members he's worried that things are changing. He wants his freinds to be happy but isn't sure if trusting the MLA is a good choice. Plus, he doesn;t trust the doctor and is worried for Shigaraki, who he thinks the doctor might be tricking or hurting in someway. At the end he just fiuguires he's not a smart guy and he should trust his freinds, but it's clear the idea of using his Quirk to possibly level Japan still weighs on him.

Either of these would have helped show Hawks as wrong. The first one has Hawks do something actually morally wrong. Even if Twice his fine with the plan as he is in canon and as seen by Deika he's still willing to level cities for the LoV, it'd still be wrong for Hawks to just stab him in the back without even trying to arrest or talk him down as he does in the manga.

The second has Hawks knowing Twice is having conflicted feelings, giving him something to try and change Twice's mind about using his Quirk, and bring in doubt that Twice would 100% act like he did in Deika City and help the PLF destroy all of Japan and kill innocents lives just because his friends say so. It also could be used to foreshadow AfO's take over of Shigaraki and how the LoV feel about it. It makes Hawks wrong for killing Twice because there's a chance he might not use his Quirk to deadly effect, yet Hawks kills him anyway. It also means that Sad Man's Parade being used against the Heroes is his fault because now Twice/Toga is using it for revenge. There was a chance Jin would have changed his mind, but Hawks betrayal makes sure Jin uses his Quirk for revenge.

Using both together would be even better.

But as it is Hawks wasn't wrong for taking out Twice, and if Hori plays it off as if he was, it's not going to work very well. He made the villains way to remorseless and over the top violent, showcasing multiple times how much Twice was willing to do for his friends. On top of that if Twice's Quirk does turn the tides, it only proves more how right Hawks was to kill him during that first war. Because it's 100% certain that Jin would have used his Quirk had he lived, that Heroes losing major ground to it or people getting killed by it, only shows how the first war would have been a loss had Twice lived.

[pedrospatch]

jealous

Jackson! Joel Miller x Female Reader

summary: You aren't together, but Joel doesn't want to see you with anyone else.

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. asshole Joel, jealous Joel, he softens up a bit though. established dynamic, Joel and reader have known each other for a decade.

word count: 2k

a/n: highkey i recycled this idea from myself b/c jealous Joel is like...so hot to me. i love this trope, my favorite variant is when he gets aggressively possessive however i don't think i can top some of the amazing fics out there that have gone that direction so i took a softer, fluffier approach to it. also, happy tlou finale day everyone, we'll get through it all together 💗

Jackson, Wyoming

Winter 2024

“Before you head out for patrol, I just wanted to say that I had a great time with you last night.”

Joel’s blood boiled hot in each and every single vein in his entire body as he watched the scene that was unfolding before him just outside of the horse stables. It was late in the evening, and Tommy’s group was gearing up to head out for tonight’s patrol.

You had just finished saddling up your borrowed horse, Daisy, when Owen had sauntered up to you. Joel didn’t know the man, aside from his name. He had been placed in Owen’s patrol group once or twice in the past several months since returning to Jackson, but for the most part, he’d never spoken more than two words to him, and even when he had, it was only when he really didn’t have a choice. Though he didn’t know Owen, one thing was for damn fucking sure—he didn’t like the way that he was looking at you.

And he definitely didn’t like the way that you were looking at him, either.

In the decade that he’d known you, Joel had never seen you lay your eyes on another man before, not until this very moment.

And it was bothering the fucking shit out of him.

“Yeah, I had a really nice time too,” You replied, flashing him a warm and friendly smile. It was in your nature to be sweet and kind to just about anyone you felt you could trust, that was nothing out of the ordinary, but seeing you interact so effortlessly with him only made Joel’s anger bubble even hotter.

Owen reached out to take your hand in his and Joel angrily clenched his fists the moment he touched you. “We should do it again sometime. Maybe on a night when you’re not stuck with patrol duty?” he suggested.

You nodded, smiling once again. “Sure, I’d really like that.”

Joel couldn’t fucking take it anymore.

He was mere seconds away from losing his goddamn mind. Though he had every desire to go up to Owen, snatched his hand away from yours and give him a piece of his mind, Joel had to remind himself that the last thing he needed to do was cause any kind of trouble in the settlement—Maria wouldn’t have any of that in her community, even if he was her husband’s brother.

After taking a minute to somewhat calm himself enough to a point where he knew he wouldn’t throw a punch, he stiffly walked towards the two of you, calling your name. “Hate to interrupt,” he practically sneered, “But we’re startin’ to lose our time. Tommy’s waitin’ for us at the gate.”

Owen grinned sheepishly, squeezing your hand. “Sorry about that, Miller. I didn’t mean to keep your patrol partner, here.”

Ignoring him, Joel narrowed his dark brown eyes at you. “Get on the horse and let’s fuckin’ go. Now.”

Your smile faded, your mouth falling open slightly in shock at his tone.

Though you knew Joel had always been rough around the edges with other people, he’d never spoken to you like that before. For a brief moment, it almost felt like he’d just slapped you across the face.

Without waiting for your response, he whirled around on the heel of his leather boot in the snow and stalked off towards his waiting stallion, his rifle hanging over his shoulder.

Owen frowned, letting go of your hand. “Jeez. What’s his deal?”

“I don’t know.” Your voice wavered slightly. “But I’m certainly going to find out.”

After bidding a quick goodbye to Owen, you quickly walked over to Joel just before he could climb up into the saddle of his horse.

“Excuse me, but what the fucking hell was that?” You asked fiercely as you approached him. 

With his back still to you, he rigidly replied, “What was what?”

“Get on the horse and let’s fucking go. Now,” You mimicked him, crossing your arms over your chest. “How dare you fucking talk to me like that! What’s your fucking problem?”

He remained silent.

“Joel?” You waited for a moment, but still, he said nothing. “Hello? Joel, I’m talking to you! Answer me!”

Slowly, he turned around to face you. His eyes had gone stone cold.

You’d seen him give those eyes to others before, but he had never given them to you.

“In case you’ve forgotten, we have a lot of work to do around here. Tommy and Maria expect both of us to pull our fuckin’ weight if we want to stay here. You understand that?”

“But Joel—”

“We don’t have time for you to stand around flirtin’ with your little boyfriend over there and wastin’ time.”

Despite being angry, you could have laughed—you almost did.

Not wanting to add fuel to the fire, you managed to hold it back.

“First of all, we’re not fucking teenagers, Joel, so cut that shit out,” You said, letting your arms drop back down to your sides. “I hardly know Owen. We met at the Tipsy Bison last night, we had a few drinks and we were just telling each other that we had a good time, that’s all.”

Joel snorted, rolling his eyes. “Well, ain’t that fuckin’ sweet.”

You raised your eyebrows at him, taken aback by his behavior.

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, Joel Miller, I would say that you were jealous or something,” You accused him. You felt a shiver go up and down the length of your spine. It was hard to tell if it was because of the frigid, negative degree temperatures outside—or was it due to the fact that there was actually a possibility that the man you had been helplessly in love with for almost ten years now was bothered by the idea of you being with someone else?

He scoffed in response. “Don’t fuckin’ flatter yourself, sweetheart. I ain’t jealous.”

“Then why the hell are you so upset?”

“I ain’t upset, either.”

“Okay, then why else would you be acting like such a damn asshole towards me?” You challenged him, causing his jaw to clench tightly. “If you’re not jealous, then why do you look like you’re fucking ready to murder Owen with your bare hands?”

Joel groaned out of frustration. “Jesus, can you just fuckin’ drop it? We have to leave before Tommy—”

You reached out and grabbed his arm. “We’re not going anywhere until we talk this out, Joel. I need to know what’s going on with you. Please. Just fucking talk to me.”

He snatched his arm out of your grasp and took a step back. “What the fuck do you want me to say? That you’re absolutely right? That I’m fuckin’ jealous? That the second I saw that prick take your hand, it took every single ounce of strength I had inside me not to walk over and knock his fuckin’ head off his shoulders?”

You exhaled the shaky breath you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding back. “Joel, you have no fucking right to be jealous. You know how I feel about you, you have always known how I fucking feel about you. But you were the one who told me that we couldn’t be together, that we could never be together.” Your voice began to tremble, and you paused for a brief moment, trying to collect yourself. “You’re the one who said that we’d never be anything more than smuggling partners. Even after everything that’s happened with us, what we’ve been through with Ellie—you still keep me at arm’s length, now more than ever before.”

“So you finally found somebody else,” he stated, bitterly. “That it? You tryin’ to move on from me?”

“Yes. No.” You let out a small groan, knowing that if there was one thing you could not do, it was lie to Joel. “Yes, okay? I’ve been trying to fucking move on from you.”

Joel’s stomach sank at your admission. “And he’s the guy, huh?”

“Owen is a nice guy. And I really liked spending time with him—” You looked up at him, seeing the hurt flash in his eyes. “I’ve been so fucking lonely, alright?” You continued quickly before he could say anything. “You’ve been avoiding me for months now, Joel. Ever since we came back to Jackson, things have changed. Do you think I haven’t noticed that we only ever talk when we’re sent out on patrol together? That we don’t eat our meals together anymore like we used to? That whenever I even try and approach you, you make up some excuse to leave, even when we’re in our own fucking house?” Hot, frustrated tears blurred your vision. Not wanting to cry, you furiously blinked them back. “Ellie asked me the other day if something was wrong with us. Even she notices the way you’ve been treating me these last few months, Joel. How you avoid me like I’m the fucking plague.”

Joel opened his mouth to speak, but then clamped it shut, not knowing what to say.

“You can’t be upset with me for trying to move on, not when you’re the one who’s been pushing me away—and I don’t just mean here in Jackson. For ten fucking years you’ve been pushing me away, Joel.” Your voice cracked, and a tear finally gave way and slipped down the side of your face.

His expression suddenly softened. “I had to push you away, darlin’.”

You subconsciously stepped closer to him. “But why?”

“Because, what I felt—what I’ve been feelin’ for you, it’s somethin’ that I didn’t think I could feel for someone ever again. It’s so strong and runs so fuckin’ deep that it scares the shit out of me,” Joel confessed, a trembling edge to his tone. “Before Wyoming, it was so fuckin’ easy not to think about it. We were too busy fightin’ to survive, to protect Ellie—now that we’re here and every goddamn day isn’t a fight for survival, things changed, alright? What I feel for you runs through my mind all fuckin’ day. There ain’t no avoidin’ it.”

“Joel—”

He cut you off. “I never meant to hurt you. When we got here, I thought it’d be best to put some distance between us. I thought that maybe if I spent less time with you, what I feel would just go away somehow. But I was wrong. Wrong and stupid to think that what I’ve been feelin’ for ten fuckin’ years would just disappear.”

“What do you feel for me, Joel?” You whispered, looking up at him.

Your eyes widened in a slight surprise as Joel reached up and gently cupped your cheek in the palm of his gloved hand. He put his other hand on your hip and pulled you as close as he possibly could to him. He looked deeply into your eyes as your arms wrapped themselves tightly around his neck. Joel leaned down into you, and the both of you stood absolutely still, each waiting for the other to make the final move. 

Finally, it was Joel who closed the remaining distance between you and him.

He softly pressed his lips to yours. Any and all hesitation that he might have had before vanished completely as you parted your lips, allowing him to deepen the kiss. 

“That,” he said breathlessly once he’d pulled away, “Is what I feel for you.”

“Never thought I’d see the fucking day,” You murmured against his lips, a tiny, joking smile tugging at the corners of your mouth.

Joel leaned his forehead against yours and sighed, his warm breath tickling your nose. “Look darlin’, m’real sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. It’s just that seein’ you with that prick, the thought of you with him, or with any other man that ain’t me, I just couldn’t fuckin’ handle it.” He paused briefly, taking a look around. Part of him hoped Owen was still around and watching his every move. “I’m gonna have to find a way to make sure every man in Jackson knows you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” You assured him, gently. “Believe me. You are the only man that I could ever want. I’m all yours, Joel.”

[xzaddyzanakinx]

Not That Kind of Guy

Part Seventeen: Stalker!Anakin Skywalker × femme reader series

Warnings: stalking, weirdo behavior, psychotic/delusional behavior, possessive/protective, sexism/misogyny, sexual content/fantasizing, pervy behavior, panty/scent kink, mask kink(Ghostface), gaslighting/manipulation, public/semi-public, spitting, cumplay, nude vids/pics, masturbation, oral, PIV, dick piercing, forced orgasm, bondage/blindfolds, biting/slapping/spanking/cutting, rape kink, NONCON/DUBCON/CNC, Somno, blood, knife, GEN. SMUT [All possible tags listed, all may not apply] warning: suicidal ideation no smut this chapter sorryyyy

Info: the boy is going through it. [diary entries from Ani {dates are odd but I promise it’ll make sense later}] extremely not proofread. MDNI 18+

September 9th, 11:53 pm

Anakin immediately reacted to your sudden, startled jolt. The gasp you’d inhaled had him momentarily concerned you may have hurt yourself in some way, it sounded pained and although he wasn’t sure what it could’ve been, that didn’t mean he could dismiss the idea entirely.

”You okay babydoll? What happened?” He asked, setting aside his Xbox controller to give you his full attention.

”Yeah!” You squeaked, nodding your head quickly, though your movements were perceived as slow by you. “Yeah, just uh, one of those weird ‘almost asleep but suddenly I’m falling’ things.”

”Oh…” He nodded, relaxing a little bit. “Do you need me to get you some water or something? That kind of thing is stress induced you know.”

”Yes.” You swallowed hard, fighting a lump in your throat that just refused to diminish. “I know, uh I think maybe I’ll just go to the bathroom.”

“Well, alright.” He said, giving you a critical once-over before waving you off and returning to his game.

Scurrying off to the bathroom in the most awkward way you possibly could, you shut the door with a bit more strength than anticipated, causing Anakin to call out and check on you. One forced ‘all good’ later, you were sitting on the closed toilet lid with your head in your hands. The initial panic was beginning to fade now that you’d removed yourself from the situation, making room for fear to frost over your skin and halt your critical thinking.

Ghost could be anyone, logically you know that. So there is no reason to fly off the handle and accuse someone you care deeply about of committing many, many crimes. There isn’t any way for you to peacefully have such a conversation without it feeling like an attack. In the event you are wrong, such an assumption would no doubt spell the end of the one and only stable, loving relationship you’ve ever had.

If you’re right… well.

But you’re not. Of course you’re not, how could Anakin be capable of some of the things, any of the things Ghost has done? He’s a gentle giant, the guy who would rather scoop up spider in his bare hands to set it outside instead of squashing it. He makes you feel special and adored, your moments with him are calm and caring. He’s practically the polar opposite of Ghost.

Ghost has his moments, few and far between, where he is more than the mask. The moments when he’s less grey and more moral. Less animal and more man. He’s what you’d expect a jar of licorice would be like personified. The candy no one likes, the one that gets over looked and outright hated on. But the people who actually like licorice, they defend it until their dying breath and it seems like you’ve become quite fond of the bitter sweetness and the tough to chew exterior. Once you get past it, it’s really not so bad. Just like Ghost.

you shook yourself out of the stupor you were in, standing up to turn on the sink and splash cold water on your face, hoping to startle some sense back into yourself. After patting the sensitive skin dry, you pulled out your phone and promptly brought up your own contact info, dialing the number to call Ghost. It rang, once, twice, three times before disconnecting. He had hung up on you.

He had never hung up on you before this moment. While you knew he had every right to ignore you, perhaps never even speak to you again… you couldn’t let this go. So you tried again and again and-

‘What do you want?’ The text chimed through just before you could hit the call button one last time.

‘I think we should talk soon.’

’Why the fuck do you want that? You’re calling me this late for that? You should be groveling for forgiveness.’

‘This is me groveling?’ You audibly huffed at his response, waiting for him to send a follow up or not.

‘You can do better than that. I’ve seen you beg for cock, you know how to grovel.’ He responded.

‘Does it matter?’

’yes.’ Was the simple reply, short and sweet and read in his voice he uses when he snaps at you.

‘Nevermind.’

’fuck off.’

’Really?’ Outwardly scoffing at the text when it popped up on your screen.

‘Oh no, did I hurt the baby’s feelings?’

‘I should be meaner.’

‘But I won’t.’

Three texts in a row, three texts all containing completely different tones. Sarcastic, irritated, and ‘pissed but i still love you’. You thought about replying, started typing out a message but erased it, only to do it again. Finally you decided against replying at all, turning off your sound and putting the phone back into your pocket, flushing the toilet for appearances sake and running the water again.

You planned to head back to the living room, but saw that Anakin was cleaning up… sloppily, but still. He was straightening out the throw pillows and blankets, returning his controller to its spot beside the tv and pushing all the stuff on the coffee to one side, then calling it finished.

“Anakin. Are you alright?” You asked, standing in the entryway to the very short hall.

“Yes.” The word short and clipped.

“You sure?” Your voice was meek, timid, as you fiddled with the hem of your shirt. “I don’t want to sound… nit-picky or anything; it’s just that your cleaning habits seem to have changed and I know how you are about having a clean space.”

“The first thing you say to me after coming back from the worlds longest piss is ‘hey why’s your house messy?’ Really?” He scoffed, his eyes flickering down to your hands, your pockets.

“I don’t mean it like that.” You frowned, your eyebrows pinching together in a show of frustration. “I’m just worried that’s all, you never leave stuff like this, especially before bed.”

“No, no.” Anakin waved your half-apology off like he didn’t care to hear anymore from you. “Don’t you worry, I’ll get right on it.”

“Hey, it’s late. Don’t-“

“Shut up alright? Just… just go to bed.” Anakin snapped, shooting a glare over his shoulder at you.

“Did you just tell me to shut up?” You asked quietly, your face morphing into something resembling disappointment. He’d said that to you jokingly plenty of times, but this time, you knew without a doubt he meant it. The way it was delivered spoke volumes to how he was feeling.

Anakin sighed, turning around to run both hands through his hair and ruffle it up frustratedly. His arms crossing over his chest tightly, clenching his fists with his jaw set firmly, the muscle rolling beneath the skin when he gritted his teeth.

“I am sorry.” He said enunciated every syllable, almost looking through you rather than at you.

“Is it because of the pill?” You asked, meaning only to understand the situation better, though causing it to worsen.

“What an astute observation baby!” Anakin sneered, throwing his hands up frustratedly. “Wow. Now if only you could poke your cute little head a bit farther out of your ass. Yeah?”

“What do you mean?” Questioning him didn’t seem like the best option currently, but what else were you supposed to do?

“It… it really doesn’t matter.” He grumbled, spinning away from you to walk toward his kitchenette. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ll feel better if I clean up. I’ve just been so stressed.” He hissed the last word, glancing over his shoulder at you.

“Can- will you let me help at least? It’ll get done quicker.” You offered, trying to be helpful might distract him and you from everything else.

“No.” He sighed, his hands laced behind his head, his shirt riding up just a bit as he leaned backward to stretch. “No, I want to do it. Just go to bed. Please?”

“Kisses?” You asked quietly, clasping your hands in front of you awkwardly.

“Yeah, yes of course.” Anakin softened, coming toward you with open arms and an odd expression on his face.

Pretty, clear, sapphire eyes rake over your visibly anxious body. He seemed stuck between barreling past you to lock himself in the bedroom, scooping you up to hold and console you, maybe even smacking you if you spoke a few more tart words.

He did none of those. Instead he gingerly touched your face and leaned down to press a gentle kiss to your lips, his expression unchanging in an uncomfortable way. His gaze piercing straight through you, burning upon entry and icing over at the exit. The muscles all relaxed save for the few pulling the corners of his mouth downward in a subtle frown. You hated it when he went blank like this, his emotions were completely unreadable, his skin taking on the properties of stone to stay cemented in place. A physical example of someone taking brick and mortar to their heart and mind.

“C’mon. I’ll put you to bed.” He said softly, nodding toward the closed bedroom door.

Turning the handle and pushing the door open, he led you into the cozy space that you were so hesitant to enter earlier. You braced yourself to have your fear confirmed, thinking you may find a hair band that didn’t belong to you, a false eyelash, the scent of someone new on your pillowcase. But as you walked to your side of the bed, stepping over a few stray clothes in the floor, you surveyed the nightstands, his was uncharacteristically crowded with cups and a collection of gum wrappers, yours was just the way you left it.

Technically, your ‘nightstand’ was really just half of his dresser. What wasn’t occupied by his large and ever growing hoard of shiny chains and oversized jewelry, rings, belts, wrist cuffs and the like; was home to a few of your things. It was mostly just for convenience sake, you did live just across the hall. All you really needed here was a little pink basket with your name sharpied on it that he’d bought for you containing all your ‘girlish possessions’.

Hair bands, bobbi pins, a scrunchie and a large hair clip tucked away in a small, clear plastic case that lay at the bottom of the basket. He even got your brand of mascara, concealer, foundation, blush and lipgloss in a cute heart shaped makeup bag. Among the other items he’d gotten for you were a hair brush, perfume, deodorant, a phone charger, your very own reusable water bottle (so you’d stop crawling over him and chugging his water at 2:00am), and a pink shark plushie that only slept in his bed when you were there.

You’d added your own items of course, your favorite shirt of his, some clean underwear and a pair of shorts and socks. Sometimes you just can’t be bothered to walk across the hall for such trivial things. It’d be nice to have a drawer like he has at your place, but the poor boy has so many clothes the things hardly close at all. So your basket serves you just fine.

After grabbing the charger and scrunchie you climbed in bed, already in pajamas. Already in pajamas. You moved from the mattress like you’d been burned, searing, scorching guilt licking at your palms to make them sweat. Anakin had been to distracted by picking up his dirty clothes and tossing them in the laundry basket tucked inside his closet to notice your knee-jerk reaction to the reminder that you were still in the clothes, still in the panties, that Ghost had lovingly peeled off your lustful flesh.

The panties that still had a little wet spot in the crotch, the ones he’d taken off just before your confession. The ones he threw at you in grieving anguish as he left you behind for the night. Thank the gods for those extra clothes, you grabbed them and swiftly went across the hall, passing a befuddled Anakin who watched you as you walked with purpose to the bathroom.

You couldn’t sleep next to him in that sinned in fabric. Even if he was being a complete ass, he didn’t deserve that kind of disrespect. So you freshened up and changed clothes, rolling the dirty ones into a tight ball as if it’d squeeze out some of the shame before you tossed it in his laundry basket. Tying up your hair loosely to keep it out of your face, you brushed your teeth and then returned to the bedroom, opening the closet and dropping the clothes into the laundry basket without a second glance.

Anakin was laying face down across the foot of the bed with his arms limp at his sides, lifting his head to rest his chin on the blankets when he felt your weight subtly pushing down against the soft memory foam. His eyes flickered a shade lighter than before at the sight of you, though they quickly returned to the flat, unfeeling eyes you rarely saw.

“Why’d you change?” He asked, his voice rumbling tiredly in his chest.

“Just… wanted to feel clean before bed I guess.” You answered, looking down at your lap where your hands rested palms up.

“Clean.” He scoffed, nodding his head. “Okay.”

“What?” You snapped at him, irritated by his tone or perhaps feeling a bit agitated by being questioned on such a sensitive topic.

“Nothin’ sweetheart.” He sighed, giving you a lopsided, half-hearted smile. “Let’s get you to sleep.”

You didn’t verbally respond, not pleased with his response or the way it was delivered. Simply pulling up the covers to your chin while Anakin situated himself atop the blankets with an arm tossed over you, groaning because he realized the lamp was still on. So he rolled to his side of the bed, reaching out with his right arm to pull the chain. He audibly hissed as though the movement hurt him, turning your head to watch as he rolled back over with a scowl on his face. Not one of anger, but one of swallowed pain.

“You okay?” You asked softly, shifting to face him as his left hand snuck under the blanket to lace his fingers with yours. There was just enough light filtering through the open bedroom door for you to see the annoyance flash over his features.

“I’m sore.” His tone flat again. “Pulled a muscle or something I think.”

“I can rub your back if you want?” You offered quietly, reaching out to gently feather your fingers over the fabric of his tshirt.

“Appreciate the thought darlin’ but I don’t think it’d help. It hurts to touch.” He said, a genuine appreciation in his voice. It was nice to hear some real emotion from him, it relaxed you, knowing he might be coming out of whatever emotional episode he’d fell into.

“I’ve been putting Arnica on it.” He added, scrunching and wiggling his nose like it itched.

“Arnica? Like the stuff for bruises?” You asked confusedly.

“No.” He said sharply, rolling his eyes. “I mean, yes but no. It helps with swelling too.”

“Oh,” You nodded, taking his word for it to avoid anymore upset. “I’m sorry, I wish I could help.”

“Well, you can’t.” He said. You didn’t take it as a jab, although the words fell hard from his lips, you knew he probably just meant it as a matter of fact statement, so you nodded in acceptance.

“Are you coming to bed soon?” You asked, trailing your fingertips over his forearm.

“Once I get everything picked up.” He nodded, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Listen… today has been a train wreck, I have been a train wreck. I really am sorry.” He whispered, true emotion finally shining through in both his words and his expression.

“It’s okay. It’s just a bad day. Everyone has bad days.” You said softly, looking at him with sympathy. “I haven’t helped the situation I know.”

“I could’ve handled it better.” He sighed.

You shrugged. “Let’s not play the blame game. No one wins that one.”

“True.” He gave you a small but meaningful smile accompanied by a squeeze of your hand.

“Will you wake me when you come back?” You asked, your eyelids getting heavy after Anakin’s release of emotion, it calmed you, knowing he wouldn’t be going to bed upset.

“Sure, why?” His eyebrows knitted together as he smoothed out a loop in your loose ponytail.

“Just cause.” You said quietly, looking at him with half-lidded eyes. “I want to know you’re here.”

“Cute.” His voice affectionate as he let out a little chuckle. “I love you too.” He whispered.

“I know.” You nodded, still unable to say it.

You just couldn’t. You couldn’t before, you definitely can’t now. You’d already confessed it to someone else, someone who you probably should’ve ran from, got a restraining order against and begged until they locked him away. But that’s just love isn’t it? It makes you do crazy things.

Crazy things like betraying your dutiful and loyal partner with lustful trysts that should’ve never happened. Wild things like getting railed more times than a two dollar whore in the span of 24 hours by two separate men, one of whom being completely anonymous. Your sister would be appalled if she ever discovered that you were fucked with so little respect that you’d been sliced open and loved every second of it. In actuality, you wouldn’t mind doing it again.

All the things love tricked you into doing, you continued to allow and you would do so until the idolatry buried you alive.

Insanely deranged things like killing a man. Your panicked shooting indirectly causing another’s death by your lover’s hands. Perplexing things like the remorse fading in less than a day, the grief of extracting a human’s soul like that should’ve haunted you for life. But if it weren’t for your fear of being caught, you might’ve forgotten it by now.

Even if you could let those words slip through your soldered lips, you’re not sure that the barbs on your tongue would stop you from confessing more than just your love.

Or is it even that?

What if it’s not love and simply security and a devotion to the stability Anakin provides? What if you’re taking advantage of his kindness and trust in you, using him for the best of his qualities and his unwavering faith in you? Could you be so cruel and callous, is it possible you may feel indebted to him in some way and your heart is misinterpreting that for love?

Maybe it’s your subconscious, your self-preservation trying to crack through the deliberately placed cage in your mind. The dank corner of your mind where you squirrel away unmentionables, undesirables and guilessly horrid thoughts and memories. These days it’s getting fuller and fuller, the barrage of incoming files seemed never ending. The curator inside must be struggling, grasping at the iron bars in hopes to come out with only a few paper cuts. If just one of those bars bend, a flood may come running out and you’re positive that sort of unloading might turn you toward madness.

Diary Entry: September 9th

You’re finally asleep. God I wish I knew about your sleeping pills. Then I could’ve just popped one between those soft lips and you’d have went to sleep so much faster but you haven’t told Anakin you take them. I felt like I had to wait for hours, staring at your pretty face. I loved the view of course, however I didn’t love the way your lip kept twitching like you were upset as you were falling asleep. You’re still upset.

You’re just going to have to get over it. I won’t do it again. It was a moment of weakness and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t take it back anymore than I can’t make the memory of it go away. One pill. That’s all. Forget it.

I cleaned everything up. I even scrubbed the kitchen floor just to get some tension out. I’ve ruined my scrub brush, the bristles are all bent out of shape now.

When I went to check the bathroom and see if anything needed tidied up, I noticed my drawer hadn’t been closed properly, I know I didn’t open it. So it must’ve been you. Nosy bitch.

Well. I need a new hiding spot. Or maybe it’s just time to let that shit go. It’s not like I need twelve pair of panties and the other little trinkets I’ve stolen from you. I can take things and not have to hide it anymore.

——————————————————————————

Diary Entry: September 9th continued

I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I never knew what i was doing but now i just feel like I’m paddling through shit creek with my bare hands and a wooden barrel for a boat.

My world is falling apart and I have no one to pray to because my goddess is just as rudderless as I am. How did i fuck up so badly and how the hell am I supposed to fix it when I just keep making it worse? I feel like I’m losing it, actually, truly losing it. I need guidance and the one person who has always been able to give me that is more lost than I am. I’m not meant to be a leader.

How can I bring you back from the dark when you are my light?

Is it even possible to atone for the things I’ve done or should I do worse and hope it cancels it out? Obviously I won’t try that because you can’t really get much worse than what I’ve done without doing some truly heinous things. See? I am capable of listening to the voice of reasoning I so often ignore.

You ignore yours too. I know you do or else we never would’ve made it this far. I used to think it was because you’re just a fucking idiot. I’ve come to the understanding that you are willfully ignorant.

I can’t even blame you. I can’t, not when I’m the one who set us up for this. It’s my fault and I’m just waiting for the window of your soul to chop me in half like a guillotine the next time I try to crawl through. You gave me such a slim opening and I was barely able to wrench myself away in time to only lose a few metaphorical fingers. The me inside my mind has yet to staunch the flow from the loss.

I know now why you won’t say it. Because you did say it. Just not to me, not to the me I made for you. I don’t know how to feel… relieved maybe, but I can’t help imagine it’s a bit unhealthy. For you I mean. I’m perfectly fine being the way I am, though I never meant to share the worst parts of me with you. Despite knowing, witnessing, participating in such a thing; you still chose to tell Ghost you loved him before you told Anakin.

I don’t know what to do with that information.

Then, you went and confused me even farther and denied me the only organic opportunity to tell you who I am. I’ve already shown you. That was the whole point of continuing all this. I could’ve stopped when we started dating but I didn’t because I didn’t want to. I realize now, you didn’t want me to either. You’ve seen the me I curated and molded into perfection. The me that you deserve. You’ve always had the option to take him and leave the rest behind but you still haven’t and I can’t foresee a future where you will.

Do you love Ghost because he is real? Is he real? Am I?

Have I always been him and never Anakin? Sometimes I think yes. Others I wholeheartedly believe I made them both just for you. Deep down i know its not true, I know who I am. I am an undeserving man. It doesn’t matter what way you spin it,. It doesn’t matter how many me’s I create, I will never be good enough for you. You know that, don’t you?

Can you tell that it’s a half-truth? Is that why you can’t tell me you love me? You know there’s something missing, it’s an incomplete file. Whether you want to admit it or not, you’ve known all along that I’m a fraud. You’re the only one. Other than my mother of course and don’t you dare make some sort of Freudian joke, that’s just clichè.

You are the only person I haven’t been able to fool. Further proof you are who I believe you to be. A goddess. They have some sort of ‘all knowing’ ability, yes? I’ve compared you to the Greek’s Artemis and her sister-goddess Diana from Rome, Goddess of the hunt. And hunt you have, even on those wobbly legs of a fawn. You hunted, hungry to learn and grow until you’ve turned into the beautiful, powerful doe I knew you were destined to be. My Doe. My Goddess.

You wanted to see me and you did. So why wouldn’t you let me tell you?

Are you afraid? I am.

I’m so afraid I tried to numb myself. Though like the savior you’ve become so good at being, you saved me from myself again. How is it that you can appear at just the right moment? I would’ve taken that second pill had you not come out to stop me. I might’ve even taken all your sleeping pills. Because I am afraid, and what do cowards do when they are afraid? They take the coward’s way out, it’s called that for a reason.

Diary Entry: September 10th

I hate lying to you. I hate hiding things from you.

I hate myself for doing that. I know I didn’t have to but I felt like I did.

I hate myself.

Diary Entry: September 13th

God I’m so fucking frustrated. Why are you being like this!? I don’t deserve this. You tell me you love me, you stop me from showing you my face, and I got pissed so I left. I gave myself blue balls but I’m going to blame you for it because it’s your fault after all.

We’ve kissed, we’ve touched, you’ve straddled my hips and rubbed your warm, wet panties all over my boxers but you won’t let me fuck you. You won’t let me make love to you. You won’t even let me get a finger beneath those pretty panties that I paid for.

There’s only so much my hand is capable of.

What are you afraid of? Telling me you love me? Probably. Last time you fucked someone it slipped right out. What a shame it would be for you to say it to me again.

Date

September 15th

You scrubbed at yourself in the shower, contemplating the man troubles that have plagued you ever since that night you finally made up with Anakin. He’s been grumpy, overly asshole-ish and so unbearably stubborn for the past few days that he’s on thin ice, holding a heat gun over the weak spot. Nothing you say seems to help but it also doesn’t seem to hurt, so you’ve been in a perpetual game of hot potato. As long as you keep going around the circle you won’t get burned.

Ghost hasn’t spoken to you in over a week and you’re beginning to think he may never make an appearance again. He hasn’t left a message, a note, a gift. He hasn’t even been inside your apartment. Ghost had never ever been so neglectful. It’s to the point that you might call and report him missing if you were certain of who he was.

The cameras in your home had been so well hidden that you didn’t think you’d ever find them, turns out they’re pretty easy to spot when theyre low on battery and the damn thing flashes red while you’re trying to sleep. You had always assumed he had a camera in your room, but to have it confirmed and see that it’s directly above your bed… was one of the more uncomfortable aspects of the odd relationship between you.

It was so tiny you couldn’t believe that it actually functioned as a camera. You plucked it from the hiding spot on your ceiling fan and put it in your jewelry box along with all the other things that Ghost had left for you. It was kind of entertaining, like a weird game of eye-spy to see if you could find the others now that you knew what to expect. You hadn’t found them yet, but you knew it wouldn’t take long for the rest of them to need charging too.

Oddly enough, it made you a little sad to think that he might’ve stopped watching. You always imagined that when or if Ghost ever left your life that you’d be relieved. If you would’ve told the terrified mouse who’d woken up to a stranger with a knife all those months ago… that she’d be sitting in the shower floor mourning the loss, well, she’d send you to the fifth floor without hesitation.

You’d wracked your brain over and over again, grasping at any idea that seemed remotely plausible in hopes that you’d conjure up some elaborate plan to fix everything. No grand scheme had revealed itself yet, aside from faking your death and moving out of the country, but Luke would hold a grudge against your faux corpse. You had promised that he would be allowed to die first because he couldn’t bare the idea he might outlive you.

Luke.

Maybe it was time to tell Luke. You wouldn’t have to share all of it, you could even lie a little, make it less rapey and more romantic. Sans murder and add a dash of sweetness. It’s not like you’ve lived a single day of your life for the past few months without telling a handful of lies a day. What’s a few more?

Maybe you should threaten warn Ghost first. As a courtesy of course. He should know if you’re planning on spilling your guts to your best friend, it’s only fair. What’s Ghost going to do? Roll up to Luke’s apartment and duct tape your mouth shut? No.

You sighed, stepping out of the shower, half expecting to see Ghost sitting on the sink again, unfortunately he was not. Unfortunately.

You didn’t have time for this. You didn’t have time to mope about, you’re a girl with a job that you neglected for days on end and they were kind enough not to fire you. So long as you were okay with being on probation; you were of course. Finding another stable job in a city like this on such short notice would be nightmarish. Thank the gods you’re their best waitress.

Ever since you returned to work, Sara has forced you to wear a ‘trainee’ badge and all your regulars have bullied you endlessly for it. Those little old men may seem sweet and harmless but the moment they find something to poke fun at they turn into a pack of jackals. Today you’d be back to serving them coffee sans the trainee badge of shame. Unless of course you are late.

Hurriedly dressing in your uniform and fixing yourself up enough to be presentable, you sprinted out the door and down the steps, quick walking to your car. You’d be late if you leisurely walked to The Bluebird like you normally did. You’d made a habit of parking right next to Anakin’s vehicle, so you had to walk past it everytime you climbed in to yours. You’ve not used your car since you returned from your weekend getaway and Anakin’s car hadn’t been there when you arrived.

You hardly glanced at it anymore, being so used to seeing it there. It always looked the same. He always parked it the same, always backing it in to the spot. So you weren’t expecting anything different when you bent down to pick up the quarter next to his driver side door. It must’ve fallen out of the overflowing change cup he kept in the door pocket.

You smiled, seeing it was face up, taking it as a good luck sign. You needed some good luck, so you picked it up. Out of the corner of your eye you noticed something different about Anakin’s car. The tire.

Dirt. Real dirt. Not the city street gunk or the sand and gravel mixture in the back parking lot of The Cerulean. It was dark earth and grass, trapped in the grooves of the rubber. Where had he gone that he might’ve needed to drive over actual dirt?

——————————————————————————

“Hey doll.” Anakin’s deep voice appeared suddenly to your left, his hand on your back as he walked past you to take a seat at the counter while you finished up taking your table’s order.

You gave him a smile and trudged off to the kitchen, clipping the order slip to the line above the stovetop. As you came back out of the kitchen, you shoved your pad and pen back into your apron pocket, surveying your tables to make sure everything was as it should be before you stopped to talk with Anakin.

“What’s up Ani?” You asked, leaning on your elbows against the counter.

“Huh?” He raised his eyebrows, tonguing his labret piercing distractedly while he picked at his nail polish. “Oh, uh I just wanted to come say ‘hi’ before I had to go to work.” He said, giving you a little smile, his eyes not quite meeting yours.

“What’ve you been up to today?” You asked, turning around to get him a Pepsi, watching the liquid pour out and bubble up in the cup.

“What’ve you been doing?” He countered, taking the glass from you hesitantly, looking you over like he was searching for something.

“Just been at home and here.” You frowned, unwrapping a straw and popping it in his drink for him.

“Got plans or anything after work?” He asked, taking a sip through the straw.

“No? Sh-should I? Did I forget something?” You asked worriedly.

“Mm-mm.” He shook his head, eyes flicking down to his drink and back up to you. “No I just want you to stay at my place tonight.” He said quietly.

“But you work tonight.” You said, furrowing your eyebrows in confusion.

“I’m aware.” He said with a snort, looking at you with a flat affect.

“I- I mean I’ll definitely stay.” You nodded. “I just guess I’m surprised.”

“Why?” He asked, curling up his top lip.

“I don’t think I’ve ever stayed at your place when you’ve been at work before.” You said, tilting your head to the side.

“You haven’t.” He confirmed, unfolding a napkin in front of him and laying it flat, ripping off tiny pieces.

“Well, first time for everything then huh?” You smiled, hoping to break him from the reeking attitude he was carrying around with him.

“Come out to my car with me.” Anakin wasn’t asking, not even instructing. He was demanding.

“Oh-okay just a second.” You nodded, walking toward the kitchen doorway. “Vigo! Anakin is here, I’m gonna take a break.”

“Yeah sure.” Vigo waved you off, tossing a towel over his shoulder before he flipped on the tap and began washing his hands.

You turned on your heel and expected to see Anakin sitting at the counter where you left him. Though as you untied your apron and tossed it under the counter, you scanned the diner and saw him nowhere. Instead, he was already heading out to his car, the ‘Open’ sign on the glass door of the restaurant swinging back and forth just proved he pulled it open with more force than necessary.

Peering through the glass as you approached the door, hand out to push it open, you spotted him leaned against his car with his arms crossed. His head down, staring at the blacktop beneath him until he jerked to the side, sensing your presence growing nearer.

“Get in.” Anakin opened the drivers side back door for you and gently ushered you inside. A big contrast to the gruff tone he spoke with.

“Yes sir.” You rolled your eyes, speaking sarcastically. It didn’t seem like Anakin thought it was just a good natured jab. Rather, he reacted like it was a personal attack.

He firmly grabbed a handful of your hair and yanked it as he climbed into the back seat behind you. He let go just as quickly as he gripped it, wordlessly splaying his fingers across your scalp to apologetically massage your scalp.

“What the hell was that for?” You scowled, batting his hand away from your head.

“We haven’t fucked since you came back,” he said, ignoring your question. “I want you to fuck me.”

Your jaw dropped through the floorboard of the car and shattered on the pavement beneath. Watching him unbutton and unzip his jeans, more comfortably spreading his legs and leaning back, his hands laced behind his head with a grunt. He let out a sigh and closed his eyes, waiting expectantly for you to make your move, but you were simply speechless, frozen in place.

“Hello?” He snapped his fingers in front of your face to get your attention. “If you’re gonna sit there with your mouth open at least put it to work.” He scoffed, grabbing the back of your neck with one hand, pulling out his already hard cock with the other.

There was a split second of hesitation on his part, pausing like he realized what he was doing, suddenly coming back to consciousness after being possessed.

“Princess… I’m so sorry, y-you don’t have to do anything.” He turned his head to you revealing his paling cheeks as he quickly released the back of your neck from his rough hold, only to be shocked by the lustful gaze staring back into his worried eyes.

“Th-that was hot.” You squeaked out, melting into submission.

“Wait- really?” He asked, eyebrows pinching together in shameful hope. His hand hovering over the nape of your neck as if waiting for permission.

“Y-yeah, yes.” Swallowing thickly, cautiously sliding off the backseat and onto the carpeted floor to kneel in front of him.

“Sweetheart, no.” He shook his head, a mask of remorse passing over his features. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to. I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I did that.”

“Anakin.” You said quietly, “please shut up.”

“O-okay.” He nodded quickly, suddenly timid, so unlike that man from just seconds earlier.

You lowered your head without another glance up at him, moving to swirl your tongue and suck on the silver ball of his jewelry to slight push and pull the metal through the piercing before taking his cockhead between your lips.

You were too busy to notice the absolutely wicked, deriding, straight up unsettlingly evil grin eat away at the faux timidity he’d painted on his pretty face.

Diary Entry: September 17th

Is there a word for when you kind of feel bad about something because you know that you should, but you don’t actually feel bad about it? If there is one I’d like to know it. It’d be perfect for this. It’s exactly how I feel.

I don’t think I’m obligated to actually feel any sort of ‘remorse’ in this situation though because it’s not really my fault. Even if it is… it’s only indirectly. After all the excitement life has finally slowed down enough for me to notice I’m out of my meds. Have been like for a few days.

So, apologies for being a total jerk, but also no I’m not apologizing because I don’t believe you mind it. I think you just don’t like it. You don’t like facing what you already know to be true. Kind of like when you rearrange the magnets on the fridge. You get so used to seeing it one way that you hardly pay attention. But the moment you move ‘em around its like you’re looking at a brand new fridge every time you walk past it. It just jumps out at you.

Same fridge, same magnets. Same me, more Ghost, less Anakin.

Diary Entry: September 20th

Why does life have to kick me in the ass, why won’t it just pucker up and kiss it? I have a nice ass. You’ve said so.

I can list a hundred things that I would rather be doing this week, a thousand if I tried really hard. I would prefer to shove my hand in a manual meat grinder than go back to that stupid fucking doctor.

My mother makes her weekly FaceTime call and turns it into a game of twenty questions.

I know exactly what she was trying to do, fishing for information, trying to see how much I knew. She did the same thing when that murder on campus happened. It wasn’t me. The guy who did it was caught and locked up, it was a senseless crime. The poor kid didn’t do anything but stand in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Just because I live near the campus, doesn’t mean I’m involved. Except for this time.

I don’t do senseless crime. I’m not stupid.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a call from your doctor honey. Did you take me off the information release? You know you can’t do that Anakin, it’s mandatory.’

‘Your prescription hasn’t been filled, you haven’t taken it in over a week! Don’t lie to me!’

Fucking fine. Alright. I love the woman but Christ alive she gets on my goddamn nerves. Now I have to go back to the shrink because I didn’t call and request my meds to be refilled and I didn’t try to pick them up when they were ready. Apparently if you’re three days late to the CVS pharmacy they put your crazy pills back and hold them hostage. Some policy shit about controlled substances.

My mom watched the news and thought to herself ‘hmm, it’s been alittle while since I’ve questioned my son’s sanity.’

Have I not done enough to prove I’m capable of being a functioning member of society? The state says I have. Why can’t she do the same? Officials have signed off on my ability to be normal and surprise! I have ‘maintained mental stability’ and ‘reintegrated into society’.

They’re over it. Why can’t she be?

I mean for fucks sake, she was used to it. Those doctors and nurses who loved to sedate me while I was in that state school weren’t and they forgave me a million times quicker than mom did. I would’ve gotten grounded for months if she had been the one to find out I was stealing meds and reselling them. It’s not my fault they padlocked it with a big clunky thing from the 90’s. A toddler could’ve picked that lock with a spoon, but they trusted a school of delinquents not to capitalize on it? All they did was give me a time out in the bad boy box for a week. It was like a vacation, no classes, no people, no gym.

They expected me to be upset about that? Please.

The only thing I didn’t think I was going to get away with there was the whole therapy-chicken fiasco. My refusal to apologize definitely didn’t help. But when you live in the suburbs majority of your life you aren’t exactly accustomed to a fucking rooster thinking the sun is coming up at 4:00 am. I already had to deal with sharing a room with a chronic masturbator who snored and grease-trap McGee who thought axe body spray could substitute for a shower.

Adding chickens into a coop directly outside my window was the tipping point. A state official who believed caring for animals could be therapeutic almost cost me my graduation. Out of all the animals they could’ve chosen, they picked chickens.

They only lasted a week before I got fed up and wrung their necks like a washcloth.

But I’m an adult now. I’m a big boy, making big boy choices and one of those choices was to stop seeing my doctor. I would’ve kept up with my pills, however, I was busy following my girlfriend to the lake when I got the ‘prescription ready for pickup’ text.

I probably don’t even need them anymore anyway. I’m fine. But now if I don’t get my ass in there for an appointment with Dr. Bullshit I’ll have to get reevaluated through the court and have to see that little bitch ass man-boy I hit with a table. I can’t have that. Not when everything is perfect in my life.

Except for the stuff that’s really horribly terrible.

Appointment: date: September 28th 3:30pm

September 15th 8:23pm

Seconds after unlocking your front door, you flopped down face first onto the couch. Dropping your belongings onto the floor below you with a thud, you had no intention of moving until absolutely necessary. You just wanted to rot. Not because you wanted to die per say… its just that you wouldn’t mind feigning dead for a while and if you just so happened to perish while playing the part of a corpse; well it wouldn’t be so bad. It’d be way easier than living the life that you’ve found yourself in.

Everything had been so undeniably awful lately that the joy had been sucked out of even the smallest things that made you happy before. Like the nice old lady who gets coffee and a slice of cake for lunch, she’s so cute and small and she always leaves a peppermint as part of your tip. It always made you smile, always gave you a warm feeling in your chest, but today was different. Today the gesture made you feel hollow.

Since he left, it’s all you can think of.

——————————————————————————

9:52pm

After peeling yourself away from the comfort of your couch, you showered and ate a dinner fit for royalty: microwave stir fry rice. Then you dragged yourself across the hallway to Anakin’s. For reasons yet to be revealed you were dreading your time inside his place alone. The air felt heavy and stale as you walked through the space, into his living room. It was always like this when he was gone, like the apartment never fully ‘wakes up’ until he steps inside.

It’s odd, feeling like the room you’re in is in a state of dormancy. Yet, it’s not the cause of your hesitancy to stay here tonight, while he’s away. No, you’re hesitant because Ghost he usually visits on nights Anakin is at work. What if he shows up and you’re not there? Will he make an appearance here? Will he think it’s your way of saying you don’t care if you see him or not?

Worse still, could the hesitancy stem from that little voice trapped deep in the recesses of your mind? The one you’ve ignored every time it’s been able to rip the gag from it’s mouth?

The rope of dread wraps tighter and tighter around your neck each moment you’re here alone. No amount of distraction has been able to cure the itch, the burning, nagging itch to get up and search. Is that what he wants? What if he’s been here?

Are there cameras here too? That’s something you’ve never even considered before and the thought makes you feel ill. It’s one thing to have your own privacy breached, but Anakin’s… that’s unfair to him and it’s already gone past ‘innocent’ watching. The camera in your bedroom has surely caught things no one else should’ve seen and that knowledge has begun to haunt you.

He’d been watching you have sex. With him. With Anakin. He had hours of footage, a thousand thoughts crossed your mind at the realization. But only a few were significant enough to take note of. If he’s been monitoring your bedroom activity… why was he only upset about the time you and Anakin had sex in the living room? He was so angry about it, so angry he wanted to roleplay stabbing you. He cut you while he pounded you from behind.

Why hadn’t he been that jealous about every other time? Probably to spare you the embarrassment of knowing the camera was right over your bed. It would be stupid of him to reveal that sort of information, then he wouldn’t have all those videos, perfect for blackmail, presumably great amateur porn. He wouldn’t… would he? He killed a man.

Men?

So it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he might’ve been saving all that up in case he needed it. He did say he’d send those pictures to Anakin if you didn’t behave. That’s blackmail. That’s a threat.

Or maybe, he’d done something even worse. Ghost… could he have…? No. He’s too possessive. He wouldn’t try to make money off of you like that. Would he? Despite laughing off the thought, your phone suddenly appeared in your hand, thumbs working of their own accord to check any and every explicit website you could find using the tags ‘ghostface’ ‘masks’ ‘hidden camera’ ‘blindfold’ ‘gagged’ ‘knife’ and anything else you thought it might’ve been labeled under. Scroll after scroll you squinted your way through countless video thumbnails, all the big sites were clean as far as you could tell.

OnlyFans? Maybe. He’d make way more on a site like that than he would on a larger porn site. Right? Wouldn’t it be considered… niche content? So you searched there, preview and profile pictures of so many people popped up. Maybe it’s not as niche as you thought. The idea that others may be interested in something like that was slightly comforting and only a tad infuriating.

These people might not be your Ghost; but they shared his face. And, they had hundreds if not thousands of people watching them.

It shouldn’t bother you as badly as it does, but you can’t help it. Maybe his own possessiveness has started to rub off on you, because the thought of someone else watching a man in the same mask as Ghost… almost felt like cheating.

Realistically, he could be any of these men.

You could be looking at him right now along with whoever else is online and you’d never even know it unless you saw yourself pop up on the page. But then you’d have to subscribe to **every single one** of these profiles. You might waste your time scrolling through videos and never finding what you were looking for.

Because… realistically he probably isn’t one of these men.

“Enough.” You groaned, fisting your hair on both sides of your head, then pressing the heels of your palms into your eyes.

Finally you got up and made popcorn, sitting yourself in front of the living room tv for a bit of a wind-down before bed. It would be hours before Anakin got home, X-Files was calling and you just had to answer. So you restarted it and settled in for a binge. The familiar theme washing over you in a nostalgic sort of way, late nights passing by on the projector of your memories.

Luke and you in his twin bed, comforter bundled around you as you sat huddled together, crosslegged in the soft glow of the tv and his small spaceship nightlight. Too old for ‘kid shows’ and too young for horror movies, so you found the next best thing: Goosebumps for grown ups.

His parents were fancy enough to have a DVR to record shows, allowing the two of you to rewatch your favorite episodes whenever you pleased. So long as his father didn’t record over them to catch the newest episode of American Idol.

Isn’t it odd how we so often return to the comfort of childhood in times of uncertainty? Clinging onto the old things that were stable even in the forever changing world you grew up in. Every night without fail, re-run after re-run of X-Files would play on channel 72. All night long.

Now you didn’t have to wait until 8:30pm. You could watch it whenever you wanted, or needed. The latter was true in this case. You want to believe. Just like Mulder. But, Scully is reasonable and you needed to be reasonable. An inkling isn’t proof, a feeling isn’t fact. Cold, hard evidence doesn’t lie. But your mind, your heart, your eyes and ears… are not as trustworthy as you might like to think.

You only got through two episodes before you stood up and sat your bowl of neglected popcorn aside.

“Skeptics are often the best detectives.” You mumbled to yourself, a very paraphrased quote from the show.

You’d come here to snoop once already and had found nothing. No evidence. But now you wondered if you may have been searching for the wrong things, in the wrong places.

“What would Scully do?” You thought.

You found yourself slipping into the role you once loved to play alongside Luke. You’d be the voice of reason to his fantasy world of the paranormal, when he’d come up with ‘cases’ for the two of you to solve. Only this time you would be playing both parts.

You’d started off toward Anakin’s bedroom when your phone buzzed, pausing just before passing the threshold into the space, you pulled your phone from your pocket and saw a text waiting to be read.

‘Do you miss me that bad?’

Ghost.

Unsure of whether to answer or not you freeze in place, staring down at the screen. He’d ignored you for what felt like eternity, now he was returning with a snarky comment about your internet searches. He can monitor your search history but he can’t say ‘hello’ for a week?

Your thumbs poised over the keyboard, a million jumbled words fighting for their chance to make an appearance in your quick witted, equally snarky, sarcastic-

‘Yes.’

‘Liar.’ The response came through the very second your phone showed that your message had delivered.

Your face heated up, how dare he call you a liar? After everything you would’ve thought he might know better. You chose not to entertain the comment, knowing it would only make Ghost think he’d successfully gotten under your skin. Even though he had, he wasn’t entitled to that information.

‘Your cameras are dying.’

‘I don’t need them anymore.’ The text finally appeared after several bouts of typing, erasing and retyping occurred on Ghost’s side of the conversation.

He doesn’t need them. At least he didn’t say he didn’t want them anymore, because that would imply that he didn’t want you anymore. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but you hoped it meant he had something else planned, not simply that he had lost interest in watching your day to day activities.

It was a sobering concept; the idea that you may be losing his attention. Is it worth it to even try to find out? Will the answer just hurt you more than the not knowing? You suspect it might.

So you turned off your phone. No more googling, no more texting. Just searching. With X-Files to keep you company, you walked around the living room to carefully lift every item in the room. Each little trinket inspected and every backing to his picture frames removed, the couch cushions lifted, unzipped and felt up. Scooting every piece of moveable furniture away from the walls and pushing it carefully back into place. Anakin was peculiar about his things, if you misplaced something by even a centimeter, he would notice.

If you weren’t so angry at Ghost, you might’ve thanked him for the ‘take a reference picture’ before moving someone else’s things trick. It was no wonder you didn’t notice him being inside your house for so long. He really was good at what he did.

But you were angry. Angry at him, at yourself, at Anakin. But you were furious at the invisible wall that kept you from searching Anakin’s room. Every time you approached it, your mind thought up some excuse for why you weren’t finished looking elsewhere. There’s only so many logical hiding places and you were suddenly determined to find them all before moving open to the more… illogical ones.

Cereal boxes. Ice cube tray. Dishwasher and the dishwasher pac container. The fabric along the bottom of the couch. Behind the mounted tv. In the trash cans beneath the trash bag. The water tank of the coffee pot. His shoes.

You even re-checked the bathroom after remembering you never found out what was keeping that drawer from being fully opened. Turns out Anakin beat you to it and got it out of the way, so when you opened it, you removed the drawer completely to find that there was nothing there and never had been. If there’s nothing there, there must be nothing in his room either.

And suddenly, that invisible barrier dissolved.

“Oh you’ve gotta be fuckin’ joking.” Anakin laughed humorlessly, seeing his text deliver green. He tossed his phone onto the crate beside him, annoyedly pulling the cigarette from between his lips with pinched fingers and flicking the ash on the ground.

”What?” Trevor asked, pressing his back to the brick wall, enjoying a slow sip of whiskey.

“Ah, it’s nothing.” Anakin grumbled, raking a hand through his hair.

“Oh come on now don’t give me that shit.” Trevor scoffed, scuffing his shoe against Anakin’s. “I’d like to think I know you well enough to know when you’re royally ticked off.”

”Trev. You don’t ever wanna see me royally ticked off.” He chuckled, deep and gravely from the back of his throat. “I’m just… irritated.”

”You’ve been barreling around the bar for the last week like a bull in a china shop.” Trevor said pointedly, taking a gulp of his whiskey. “I didn’t think anyone would ever beat April’s broken glass record but you’ve fuckin’ smashed it.” Trevor snickered at his own joke, clearing his throat anxiously when Anakin didn’t laugh along with him.

”Seriously man, I’ll help you out if I can. Just say the word.” Trevor shrugged, feeling an awkward silence that he hadn’t shared with Anakin in quite some time.

”This isn’t something you can help with.” Anakin sighed, shoving his phone back in his pocket and rubbing his palms over his jeans, smacking his knees before standing up and tossing his cigarette butt into the designated coffee can.

”Girl trouble?” Trevor guessed putting both his hand palm up in front of him.

”When isn’t it girl trouble?” Anakin groaned, rubbing his face. “My girl, my mom, the fucking cat. Even the damn cat is being weird with me.”

“Well, what’d you do?” Trevor asked curiously, not trying to pry to hard.

”Oh you know.” Anakin shrugged, a smirk on his lips. “Went on a murderous rampage, girlfriend caught me snorting some special K, didn’t give the cat a treat, told my mom off over the phone.”

”Shit, anything else?” Trevor laughed, standing up as well to follow Anakin inside.

”Beat up a middle aged man, mugged a gas station attendant, robbed said gas station, stole a motorcycle, spray painted a few buildings, busted up a change jar, fucked your mom.” Anakin listed off on his hand, turning around with a grin on his face after the last ‘transgression’ left his lips.

”I should’ve seen that one coming.” Trevor huffed shaking his head. “Tell your mother I said ‘nice tits’.”

”Oh fuck right the hell off.” Anakin snorted, shoulder checking Trevor into the wall as they re-entered the bar.

”Yessir,” Trevor tipped his imaginary hat and spun on his heel. “Next time i see you, I’ll be calling you son.”

”Just don’t ask me to call you daddy.” Anakin shook his head, faking a right and smacking his left cheek lightly before running off behind the bar.

——————————————————————————

September 16th 3:13am

Anakin left the bar after his shift that night, feeling a little bit lighter. His mind a little less foggy and a little more organized. He jogged up the steps to his apartment and almost walked in, his hand on the door knob in preparation to unlock it.

It was as if the other side of the hall was calling to him in a way he hadn’t experienced in a while. That same strong urge that had lured him into your life in the first place, he knew you were waiting for him, but it couldn’t hurt to make you wait just a tad longer, right?

Slowly he turned and switched keys, unlocking your door and stepping inside he flipped on the light switch and went about collecting the rest of the cameras he had so painstakingly set up all that time ago. Lining them up on the dresser in front of your bed just before taking all the little things he’d left, all the notes, and lining them up in chronological order from one edge of the dresser to the next, ending the sequence by taking off his centipede ring and placing the bullet he’d carved for you in the center of it.

He carefully plucked your hairpin from the jewelry box and held it for a moment in the palm of his hand, tracing over the delicately carved lines. He’d looked for so long, searched everywhere just to find it and you’d never worn it. He understood of course, he could understand the reasoning behind not wearing it. But keeping it tucked away in your jewelry box seemed like a waste of it’s beauty, a waste of what it represented for him. So, just like he stole it from that antique shop, he stole it back from you.

Anakin stood back as he slipped the hair pin into his pocket, looking down at his handiwork. It was satisfying to see it all laid out like that in front of him. Like a nice little history exhibit of your time together. It brought a small smile to his lips, a happy one, one that was real and genuine, proud.

He hadn’t planned this, he used to plan everything so carefully, so far in advance. He’d been running on instinct and the free feeling he got when he decided something on the spot for a while now. It felt nice to break from the mold he’d created for himself when it came to you, not so much when it involved murder. Anakin wasn’t a man who would admit to be scared about just any old thing. Scared of losing you? Absolutely he would admit to that. But scared of prison? No, he’s too tough for that.

Which is why he was blaming his tears on you and you alone. Despite his happy smile, he sniffed back salty droplets that graced his cheeks, unaware he was even crying until he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the dresser.

He was well aware that he’d been sloppy. There were so many things that didn’t make sense at that crime scene and he was hoping that the police were stupid enough to believe it was all due to that poor kid’s hysteria. Anakin was smart enough to know that the police wouldn’t share any information that was valuable, if they had suspicions anyone else was involved. They’d wait and bide their time, gathering evidence and luring the suspect into a false sense of security.

He was paranoid, so, so, paranoid. Rightfully so.

None of the boys he’d left alive turned up that way, which in all reality made it a little easier for him. There’d be no witnesses and no one to point the finger at a real life Ghostface. Two of the boys had bled out, the other died from a stress induced seizure and choked on his own tongue. Anakin supposed that might be a reasonable reaction to being zip tied to two dead guys that had fallen over on top of you. He knew he should feel bad, he did, just not for what he knew he was supposed to.

He felt bad for himself.

——————————————————————————

September 16th 3:46am

You were on your hands and knees, using your phone flashlight to search under all the furniture in Anakin’s room. You even lifted the mattress, took out all the drawers in the dressers and nightstand, even checked the pockets of the clothes hanging in his closet. The suitcase at the top of his closet and the shoes at the bottom.

You gave up searching after you picked up a candle and turned it over, why in the world would you be checking a candle for anything suspicious? You were beginning to believe you were just horribly paranoid, rightfully so, you’d just aided and abetted and murdered not too long ago.

So you cozied up in Anakin’s bed and started watching the X-Files that you’d switched over into his room’s tv for background noise. Now Scully and Mulder had your full attention.

It was a good episode, a string of strange unsolved murders. Mulder had a theory that would connect these murders to ones that had happened several decades before. He was convinced they were committed by the same man despite the time passed between them. He even found matching finger prints to prove his theory, yet Scully was still unconvinced. That was until the culprit came after her, breaching her home’s defenses by squeezing through the air vents.

You jolted upright so quickly it made your brain feel as though it spun on an axis. With your phone in hand you went about the apartment, checking each air vent. It would be a perfect hiding place for anything really. You would’ve never even considered it had it not been for the X-Files. Your palms sweat with anxious anticipation, each one you checked meant you were one closer to finding, or not finding whatever it was the Anakin may or may not be hiding.

You saved the one in Anakin’s room for last, assuming if he were to have hidden anything it would probably be there. You were just about to shine your light through the slats of the vent when you heard the front door open, in a moment of panic you shot upright to your feet, your phone gripped tightly in your fingers. Your face the picture of guilt as Anakin rounded the corner, his face twisting from surprise to confusion.

”What’re you still doing up doll?” He asked, looking at his watch, “It’s almost four.”

”I couldn’t sleep.” You said quickly, realizing the phone flashlight was still on, you tapped the button the turn it off but your fingers were so sweaty you had to wipe them on your shirt before you could properly use the touchscreen.

“What are you doing?” Anakin asked, walking forward as he watched you struggle, “Looking for something?”

”No! Why- what makes you think that?” You asked, your eyebrows knitted in concern.

”Uh,” He pointed to the phone in your hand and watched as you tried and failed to feign a gasp of realization.

”Oh! Right, I could’ve sworn I heard a mouse in here, I was just about to look.” You said, gesturing to the air vent. Anakin took the phone from your hand and flicked the flashlight back on. Kneeling on the ground to look for you.

”Are you that afraid of mice?” He asked with a slight laugh, looking over his shoulder at your pink cheeks.

”No, not really.” You shook your head, “I- you just startled me when you came in I think.”

”Well I’m sorry sweetheart, I didn’t mean to. I thought you’d be asleep.” He said, coming up off the ground and handling you your phone back. “If there was a mouse, he’s gone now.”

“Oh well that’s good then.” You sighed, nodding as you looked down at the vent again. He would’ve acted strangely if he had something down there… wouldn’t he have?

“Whatcha watching?” He asked, nodding toward the tv where a new episode had begun.

“Oh, it’s the X-Files.” You said with a slight smile, crawling back up into the bed. “You’ve never watched it?”

“Yeah I have, It’s been a long time though.” He said, leaning on the door frame and looking you over, taking his time as though he were looking for something. He was giving you a smile that seemed almost wistful, like he was sad about something.

“C’Mere babydoll. I don’t wanna get bar germs in the bed.” He pushed off the door frame with his foot, sauntering over to you, placing his hands on the side of the bed. Waiting patiently for you to come closer, his eyes seemingly soaking up every square inch of skin on your body. He smiled softly, cupping your cheeks in his hands to hold your face lightly and gaze down at you before moving in for a slow and loving kiss.

When he pulled away, he scratched the top of your head with his large hands, raking his fingertips through your hair. Guiding your closer again by the back of your head so that he could place a kiss to your forehead and pat your cheek.

”I’m gonna get clean.” He said, walking to his closet and stripping himself bare, tossing his clothes in his laundry basket. He turned to wink at you, biting the tip of his tongue with a big grin.

It made you blush, seeing him standing there so confidently and so comfortable in front of you. But the thing that made you bite your lip was the way his cock twitched, growing harder right before your eyes just because he was naked in front of you. He could see the lust, the admiration for him and he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t an ego boost. He’d also be lying if he denied how much it flattened his heart when you looked away, not shyly. Purposefully. Anakin hid his small frown well, looking down to the side and ruffling up his hair with a tight lipped expression as he turned two the dresser to get a clean pair of boxers.

”Oh my god!” You gasped loudly, the sheets and blankets rustling as you made your way over to Anakin from where you sat on the bed. He nearly jumped out of his skin at your exclamation, turning around with wide eyes.

”What?” He asked looking around and down at himself in search of whatever had made you react so strongly.

”What the hell is this?” You asked, roughly grabbing him by his upper arm to spin him around and inspect his shoulder and back. He’d told you he had hurt himself, but he never let on like it was this bad. This was absolutely no pulled muscle.

“God this looks awful Ani!” You ran your fingers over the tender and multi-colored bruise on his right shoulder. “What happened?”

”Fuck.” He sighed, rubbing his eyes with the pointer finger and thumb of one hand. “It wasn’t a pulled muscle.”

”No shit? Really? I had no idea.” You said sarcastically, gesturing to the obviously painful bruise.

”Don’t.” He turned around, finger pointed at your face while his eyes stared down at you with darkened eyes that sent a shiver down your spine. He took a breath, closing his eyes again and when he opened them, a little bit of the light you’d grown accustomed to seeing shown through once more.

”I got in a fight.” He said simply, swallowing hard as his adam’s apple bobbed. “Just a scuffle at the bar, trying to break up an arguement. Just didn’t want to worry you princess.”

”I don’t appreciate being lied to over something so minuscule.” You scowled.

”You don’t? Oh, I had no idea.” He sneered, his voice sharp and clipped. “Sorry for trying to be mindful of you and your feelings. I didn’t think it would help our situation any, you know because you locked yourself away for a few days?”

You stepped back, the scowl fading slightly into something more sensitive. It was obvious you’d upset him, abundantly clear actually. The way he responded not only made you feel guilty for not considering the reasoning behind his lie, but also dredged up the guilt from the irony of your own words.

“I’m sorry.” You said quietly. “I should’ve reacted better, I was just- it worried me.” You admitted, walking over to pull him in for a comforting hug.

”It… It’s alright.” He sighed softly, nuzzling the top of your head to inhale your scent. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

”I understand.” You nodded, even though you didn’t really. He’d been acting so unpredictably as of late that it was starting to worry you in more ways than one.

“Do you?” He asked, the tone of his voice making it sound less like a question and more like a tease, though his eyes suggested it was serious.

”I think maybe you’re just really stressed or… or maybe something’s bothering you?” You ventured carefully not wanting to upset him again. “You’ve been acting different.”

”You haven’t spoken to my mom. Have you?” He asked, his eyebrow shooting up as he spoken.

”What?” You asked with a bit of a confused laugh. “No, I haven’t.”

He studied your face, searching for deception hidden beneath you confident denial and he was pleased to find none. He monitored your phone, he could hear you conversations, but you were aware of that and he was worried you might’ve found a way to bypass all his precautions.

”Okay.” He nodded. “Sweetheart, I’ve got- I need to… you know what? I think we should probably have this conversation after I put some pants on.” He said stepping back and giving you a smirk at the blush on your cheeks.

”R-right, I forgot.” You said, biting your bottom lip and allowing him to leave the room to shower. The second he closed the bathroom door you moved so quickly to the vent along the baseboard of the wall that you thought you might’ve given yourself rug burn on your knees when you dropped down to check it for yourself.

Empty.

Part Eighteen

Tag-List:

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THE TAGS LIST IS FULL! But if you want to be tagged I will comment ur username for you. Love you all so many.

[leonw4nter]

Hockeyplayer!RE2R!Leon drabbles

Hockeyplayer!Leon who started out in high school and got the position of starting goalie. Around senior year, right before college, he made sure to do a lot better so recruits could take an interest in him and offer him a sports scholarship. Besides practicing his skills on the ice, he made sure that he did twice as well in terms of academics; he avoided going to parties and studied as much as he could, nose-deep in a text book or his notes.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who is so shy, usually stays quiet and keeps to himself in the locker rooms before a game. He occasionally butts in with a corny ass joke but he only tells Chris, the team captain who is also someone he’s grown close with. Chris encourages him to have a life outside of academics but Leon politely refuses, repeating that he has a scholarship to vie for.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who graduated at the top of his class and got accepted into his dream university, taking up aerospace engineering. Between classes and hockey, he’s having a slightly hard time juggling all his activities but he’s holding up well for someone taking a course that would make anyone want to rip their hair out. Because of his scholarship quotas he doesn’t have time for parties or to visit Chris, which he feels guilty for but Chris is understanding about it.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who was one of the Dean’s listers one time, which felt rewarding after several nights of zero sleep and a concerning reliance on Snickers and energy drinks to stay awake. He decides to take a breather for a bit and comes along with Chris to a party, where he meets hockey recruits (for some reason) )and they take interest in his abilities. He leaves that party signed under them, his future stable under a nice hockey career and a promising team. Chris teased that he’d be the nerd of the group, being the only engineering student in a room full of guys who took up sports courses but he feels relieved when Chris tells him that he’s signed up with them too (though he’s still going to be the only nerd).

Hockeyplayer!Leon who now doesn’t feel that anxious about his future outside of college but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t slack off though, still studying hard and smart. A lot of girls take interest in them and he does find them attractive but his gut tells him that they’re not the one, so he doesn’t mind. He feels a little sad with his lack of romantic experience but Chris tells him that it’ll come in its own time.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who is absolutely adored by the entire team– they come to him for help regarding math and he goes to them to proof-read his papers.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who just finished up practice with his team, sweaty and pink-faced, blond hair sticking to his forehead with strands sticking together. He takes his gear off, now only in his jersey and skates while he sits at the bleachers and hydrates. The other guys are talking but he’s keeping to himself, taking this opportunity to catch his breath and do a quick recall of everything but he hears a yelp, a feminine yelp. He looks around and sees one of the ice skaters in the rink skate over to the side, she probably tripped.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who doesn’t hesitate to get up and apologize, asking if she’s okay. She turns around and he’s met with the most beautiful woman ever, stopping him in his tracks; she had soft curves with some muscle, her hair tied into a ponytail. All of a sudden, he goes shy and forgets basic communication.

“Sorry for uh– the ice,” he apologizes. You turn around and the first thing your gaze falls on is a pair of irises that are a hue of a midwinter sky. “I’m apologizing on behalf of my team. Do you, um… need any help…?,” he shyly asks. He swears that his hummingbird heart is beating so strong and loud, the pretty skater in front of him might hear it.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who accepted it when he left the rink, acknowledging that he’ll never see you again– but that doesn’t mean he was kind of sad. He was disappointed that his low confidence and shyness got the better of him and prevented him from asking for your number, or name at least. All self-loathing goes out the window when he sees you again and you actually approach him. His cheeks and the tips of his ears turn rosy when you ask for his number, giving it to you though he has the urge to kick himself for stuttering so many times.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who soon sees you for more than your physical attractiveness; you aren't just beautiful, you make the space around you beautiful too, you affect others and bring their beauty out of them. And you do it with ease. Having a bit of muscle goes a long long way in sexual attraction. Yet she was beautiful from her heart and soul.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who gets teased about his crush, the entire team giving him knowing looks whenever you sit next to him and talk about whatever. He’s still shy but he notices himself stuttering less, much more comfortable than he previously was. His attraction is evident to everyone but you and he doesn’t want to confess because he thinks you won’t feel the same way.

“C’mon, Leon. Confess already! I’m so tired of seeing this tension fizzle out into nothing! She’s clearly into you!”

“She’s just nice, Carlos. She’s nice to everyone and that doesn’t mean she likes me, y’know.”

“She’s the nicest when it comes to you!”

“What if she feels bad for me…”

“Why would she feel bad for you? You’re awesome, man!”

“I’m quiet, a nerd, and I don’t talk much. She probably thought I’m a loner or something…”

“Not with this negative self-talk, Leon! I need you to man up and do something about this crush. I’ll help you– Chris too.”

Hockeyplayer!Leon who invited you to meals as his way of flirting, with the help of Carlos and Chris. He swears his eyes nearly popped out of his pretty head every time you agree to go on these little meal runs with him. With plenty of pep talk and encouragement from the guys, he gets you a small bouquet of flowers for the first time. His clumsy ass didn’t notice those itchy ass caterpillars crawling into his hand so for the whole time, he had to hide the redness and irritation on the back of his hand but he’s thankful you’re not the one who got an allergic reaction.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who tried to make a move and kiss you but chickened out midway for many, many times. He lies awake in his bed at night, staring into the ceiling as he recalls all the times he messed up before groaning and screaming into his pillow. You’re in his head more often than he’d like but he doesn’t mind.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who you asked out to be your plus one to your coach’s birthday celebration. He ran up to Chris and Carlos, jumping and giggling, which confused them. He ran back to his room and took his phone, showing them the text that you sent.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Y/N

“My coach is having a birthday party this Saturday and I got invited. We can bring plus ones soo… can you be my plus one? Dw it’s fine if you got practice on Saturday and can’t come along :)))”

“Sure. I actually don’t have practice this Saturday so I’m totally free :)) What’s the dress code?”

“Smart semi-formal or business casual. Alsoo what time r you gon pick me up?? Or do you want me to be the one to pick u up-”

“I’ll pick you up an hour before the party starts, I’ll just come over to your place. Is that good?”

“YEEAHHHHH :)))) TYSMMMM”

“No problem ;) See you there”

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────

“Smooth bro, real smooth,” Carlos compliments. Chris is busy jumping around for Leon, pulling him in for a bone-crushing hug.

“Let us take you out on some shopping, little bro. I’m going to make sure you look dapper, fine, handsome, sexy, drippy.” Chris beams.

“Please don’t say ‘drippy’ ever again to describe how I’m going to look,” Leon sighed.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who arrives at your place 15 minutes before he’s supposed to with another bouquet of dainty flowers. Chris and Carlos asked the entire team for help to style him and they all came together visiting the shops for clothes. After several fittings and visits to many different stores, they all decided to dress him in a cream turtleneck that hugged his figure well and well-fitting navy blue trousers along with black dress shoes. They also decided to try out new hairstyles for him but none looked great so they all decided to settle on Leon’s default hairstyle. Leon felt handsome in his outfit but his insecurity was slowly seeping in but thanks to his teammates and friends, he managed to keep that feeling at bay.

Hockeyplayer!Leon whose jaw drops and world freezes when he sees you open up your door. Space and time halts in reverence for the heavenly beauty standing in front of him; whatever words were waiting at the bottom of his throat are now a jumble of letters, his mouth slightly agape with no words coming out.

“You look stunning,” he softly whispers. He doesn’t even notice the way his hands are clenched tightly around the bottom of the bouquet, his knuckles going pale.

“Very stunning.”

He ends up blushing even more when you compliment him, shimmery eyes glazing over his body and suddenly everything feels a lot more warm. His lip quivers when he puts on a smile for you when you decide to take a picture with him and you can’t stop gushing about how his clothes fit him, making a mental note to wear something like these more often before sending his thanks to the team group chat.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who has more fun than he thought he would, enjoying your company and good food. He feels some eyes on him, sizing him up and probably whispering about the plus one that a figure skater brought along but for once he doesn’t feel self-conscious because he doesn’t have attention to spare for them when you got all of it from him. When he sent you back home that day, he was so sure that he was going to kiss you but his nerves got the better of him again. Instead, he told you how much he had fun at the party and how you were good company to him before bidding you good night.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who looks good with your first kiss after you made the move and pulled him in for one on an outdoor ice skating rink as the first snowfall gently fluttered down, tiny snowflakes landing on your coats and hair. He is practically glowing with it and you swear you see your future in the twin pools of his sapphire lakes.

Hockeyplayer!Leon who was your boyfriend of three years, is now your fiancé. He got down on one knee and asked a question that would ultimately define both of your futures during the first snowfall inside your shared home. He couldn’t stop staring at the ring on your hand, proud that he managed to get it this far. Who would’ve known that someone as timid and nervous as him, who literally struggled to find the golden opportunity to kiss you would be able to do something as defining as this. He swears to stay by your side forever and in every universe and timeline; he’ll be a star in whatever constellation you’re in, the sun to your moon, he’ll be the boundless ocean that reflects the vast beauty of the sky.

NOTE - Hi guys sorry for the inactivity lately, I've been making Valentine's Special fics for diff versions of Leon and there's about 8 of them so I don't exactly have time to post. I decided to write drabbles of RE2R!Leon based on my first fic in here so yeah :) My mom and brother also found a 4-5 week old kitten that kinda looks like a rat and we're not sure of the kitten's gender so ig I'll just update on this too (if you're interested) 😭😭. I haven't come up with names yet but I'm planning to name the kitten after video game characters. My grades for the second quarter release tomorrow and I'm so scared rn bro like I literally did NAWT do that well during the first quarter so let's hope I somehow did better in the second 😭😭😭 Anyways, thanks for reading my fics coz I rlly appreciate ittt!!!!!!!! <3333333333

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

These are some of my favorite panels ever.

Aside from Tomura's rook being full of trash and totally ignoring AFO's words, there is something about the body language of the LOV here that calls to me...

Kurogiri looks like he wants to reach for Tomura, but Tomura is shutting them out. He is hugging the hands he uses around him, he has his hood on, hair covering his face, half turned away from them. He looks so tiny, so young in there. He is so like the Tenko that sat alone under a bridge 'cause no one would save him.

The League is bundled in his room after their loss.

Magne is sitting on his desk, facing him on. Next to her, Spinner is sitting on the ground with his back to Tomura. You can notice that no one dares to use Tomura's chair, even when it's right there.

Twice is sitting on a table, body half turned to Tomura. Mr. Compress looks like he is suggesting to wait outside. He must know that Tomura needs space to recover, that he doesn't want to show his vulnerable side. Toga looks at Compress like she's the one who's actually listening to him. If I had to guess, Compress is talking to Kurogiri here and not Tomura, since Tomura is unresponsive.

Dabi is behind Spinner, next to the PC. He stands there unlike Magne and Twice who openly face Tomura and wait to see what happens, unlike Spinner who seems to be processing their defeat and maybe even giving Tomura more privacy— or maybe he doesn't care that much at this point about Tomura and he's more worried about what they're going to do now. Kurogiri and Compress are trying to do something about their situation (talk to Tomura, take the decision to wait outside), but Dabi is way more like Toga here.

Dabi and Toga look a bit lost. Toga has that face she makes when she doesn't know what to make of what's happening in front of her. Meanwhile Dabi has a hand behind his neck, you know that gesture he does when he's thinking/considering how he ended up mixed in a total mess...

There's an intimate quality to it. They all can read what AFO being captured did to Tomura, so why are they hiding in Tomura's room like that? Did AFO send them there with his quirk? They don't look recently landed, which means they chose to sit around and see if Tomura needed them or if he had orders, sure.

They are confused after their first time meeting AFO. They are drained after fighting. They must be thinking really hard about all the information they got in one night, right?

Were they waiting for an explanation? Were they looking at their boss for guidance? The first thing Giran said to Toga and Dabi is that Tomura was young and inexperienced, even childish. It could be a surprise to see him so down, but not a big one when Tomura stormed off after meeting Toga and Dabi.

I can only believe that a part of them decided to stay to see if Tomura needed some comfort. To not leave him alone when he heard the way he screamed that he was not ready yet. When he is there in a corner of his room, when they can see the evidence of the neglect and the obsession, newspapers taped to the walls, investigations all over, books, junk.

Most of them had a stable childhood in a home. Maybe not the best of childhoods, but they can compare. After all they heard and saw...

Idk. It makes me think of how they'd continue to share a room for the rest of their existence, all the time awkwardly sitting next to each other. No one told them they should do that. They just did.

[bokettochild]

Hello! This doesn't really align with the format, but for day 14 can you please do something with those tile enemies (the ones in that comic with Legend thinking about the worst thing he's faced)? I can't really decide if it would be better to torment the heroes unfamiliar with that enemy or to go with the ones that have dealt with them before, or a combination...

So, this did end up with less whump and more sort of...crack vibes? it was fun to write anyways, and I hope you enjoy!

Rating: General

Wordcount: 3,443

Summary: While Legend and Wind are getting their asses beat by a gleeok (see Day 12) the rest of the chain are trying to find them, which leads to a lot of fun realizing just how awful a floor can really be. Wild's pretty sure he hates dungeons, Warriors is torn, Hyrule is resorting to the worst humor ever, and Four would just like out now, please.

(Warning for copious amounts of bad humor and some movie quotes.)

-

  They should never have let Legend and Wind go on ahead. 

  Not that the skill of either of the two boys is in any doubt, but the skill of those left behind is somewhat lacking. While Hyrule manages just fine, Time is apparently much older now than he was the last time he took on a dungeon, and Warriors and Wild are not familiar with them at all. Sky lacks stamina, Twilight lacks speed, and Four lacks nothing, but he keeps getting stuck at the back of the group. It’s not fun, and it’s not very fair either, considering he’s pretty sure he could handle this if they’d just let him try. It’s just a path after all. Just floor tiles that flee from beneath their feet, but even so, that’s not the worst thing someone can find in a dungeon! 

  “Is there a way to skip this room?” Sky groans, not the first one to wonder, but the first to ask. 

  Hyrule puffs on a bit of hair falling over his eyes. “You wanna be the one to go back and look?” 

  The skyloftian does not and doesn’t suggest anyone else do it either. 

  Crushed beneath them, Four has half a mind to go himself, but he’s pretty sure that’s not even a possibility. No, because they’ve been taking the path two at a time like Wind and Legend, but rather than take off after the other two and risk getting split up, they’re waiting until everyone has converged on the islands of stable flooring in the room before moving on, and it means they’re continuously piling on top of each other to do so. So, at this very moment, he’s somehow managed to get trapped crouching beneath the captain and skyloftian as they wait for Time to bring up the rear of their party. It’s not ideal and it’s not pleasant and he’d really much rather be just about anywhere else. Again though, he can’t exactly go anywhere at the moment. 

  We’ll be last to get to go, Blue reasons, we should just dart on past the others and to the next island. 

  Blue. 

  It would work! 

  Except that we’ll still get crushed under everyone when they catch up again, so it’ll be pointless. Vio points out, which of course has the more aggressive aspect huffing, but there’s not really anything that anyone can say to deny that logic. 

  Aloud, Four groans. “How far off is the old man?” 

  “Not far,” Warriors assures, rolling his shoulders. “And since the path takes two minutes to reform, we won’t have to stay much longer after this.” 

  Murmurs, thanking various deity’s and spirits, rise from the group of them, and Four shuffles slightly, trying to relieve the weight on his arms while he waits until, at last, the old man’s feet touch stone and the last of the floor falls away. Then, they just have to wait two minutes (two minutes and fourteen seconds, as their leader helpfully observes) and then everyone else is moving off in pairs along the path. 

  Once or twice, hook-shots must be used to cover the remaining distance on time. No one wants to risk falling into the blackness below and none of them want to know what happens if you do. Legend had warned that it would probably take them back to the beginning of the dungeon, and there’s no desire for such a fate. They've finally all dried out again after dropping into the wetness that was that first room, and going back there and wandering through all the rooms again doesn’t sound pleasant, even if there won’t be any monsters left that they’d have to face to get through (hopefully). Personally, just the time it would take sounds miserable, and they want out. It was fun doing the dungeon with Legend doing the hard work and the rest of them free to mess around, especially since Legend seemed to be enjoying it so much and his own excitement was surprisingly infectious. Now though, Warriors’ wonder is beginning to fade and Legend’s not here to be strangely excited about death traps and pushing heavy things around and the like. Now it’s just them trying to catch up to the other two, who are probably still enjoying themselves while the rest of them suffer. 

  Earlier, every so often, they’d see a light go off in the depths of the room. It served the purpose of helping them realize just how much there was of the room, but also letting them know where the vet and sailor were. Not that the laughter and talking wasn’t something they could hear, but it echoed awfully, distorted and confusing, and they’d been unable to guess off sound alone where the two boys had gone off too. The lights have stopped coming on though, and the ones that were lit have already flickered out. 

  Warriors, with the use of a fire rod, has been lighting the sconces as they come to them, but the light only lasts a few precious minutes before fading, and he keeps having to relight it every time it goes out, up until it’s his turn to race along to the next stone island where the rest of them wait. Still, it’s not a lot of light, and Four is beginning to miss the actual light. He wants daylight, not magic, not fire, but sunshine that is just beginning to fade over the world, painting the sky in a dozen rich colors, all bleeding and swimming into each other so he can’t tell where one ends and another begins. He likes sunsets for that very reason; they remind him of himself. 

  They won’t be seeing the sun for a bit though, and he’s left sitting until nearly all the others have darted off, waiting for his turn, and then taking it as quickly as his shorter legs will carry him. He has to employ his Pegasus boots to keep up with Sky, which earns teasing, but the man really is fast, even if his stamina is shit.  

  “Anyone see an end ahead?” Time asks, groaning as he attempts to keep ahold of two of the younger heroes and keep them toppling over the edge of the platform. There isn’t nearly enough room on these things to support them all. 

  Hyrule, one of said younger heroes, takes advantage of their leader’s grip on him to lean out slightly, peering into the darkness. His eyesight is, surprisingly, the best, even in the dark, and while Four’s isn’t half bad either, he doesn’t pipe up. The traveler is more familiar with all this anyway, and he can’t provide much help himself, so he’ll leave it to ‘Rule. “I see a wall up on our right, and maybe a door?” 

  “Thank Ordonia,” the rancher groans. “Does the path lead up to it?” 

  “One more stop.” 

  There are a few more groans, but with an end in sight, they’re all quite eager as well. 

  “You’d think they’d wait up for us,” Warriors muses as they wait for Sky and Hyrule to dart off along the path towards the door, now that the path has reformed. “Or at least signal where they are.” 

  A few of the heroes glance at each other in the dancing light of the fire they’re gathered around, but Four is the one who answers their captain’s worry. “Maybe they got caught up in something?” 

  “No,” perfect brows furrow, “this is Legend, he doesn’t like splitting the group. Even if Wind didn’t, he’d have left some sign of where they went.” 

  “So maybe they didn’t find this door,” he shrugs, “they probably found another one. Dungeon rooms usually aren’t linear, captain, we’ll reach them with time.” 

  It’s some assurance to the man, and Wild too, who looks extremely uncomfortable at the moment and has since they entered the dungeon. The champion's been in awe of the place for the most part, but that was when there was light, and he looks a bit perturbed by the idea of such illy lit spaces. Four wonders why, but he doesn’t ask. He knows that many in their group aren’t keen on the dark, and considering their line of work, they have grounds. Had he gone through the same sorts of adventures they have, he’s sure he’d be wary too. As is though, it’s more just an annoyance than a thing to spark fear within him, and as they slowly move their way from floating stone to the doorway, he tries to be understanding about the wariness the others show upon reaching it. 

  “Vet usually peeks in first, right?” Wild asks, staring at the door like it’s a maw rather than simply an entrance.  

 The more dungeon savvy in their group exchange looks before Sky elects to answer. “Does it matter? Everyone has a different way of doing things.” 

  “’s dark in there any’ays, cub,” the rancher sighs, “ain’t nothing to see even if we did.” 

  “Let’s get it over with then.” Blue is definitely tired of sitting around and doing nothing, and Four blames his actions on the more aggressive aspect of himself as he snatches Warriors’ flame rod and darts through the door, brandishing the weapon in preparation for any attack that comes at him. 

  The room is empty. 

 It’s totally empty, and he can say that for sure, because the lights come on once he’s properly inside and reeal nothing more than torches and a stone floor, although there’s a door on the far side of the room, just as he’d hoped.  

  “Did- did the lights just come on by themselves?” When he turns, it’s to see the captain standing in the doorway, blinking against the sudden light and with one hand raised to shield his eyes. Even with that though, he can see the bright sparkle in royal blue, curiosity quickly overtaking ire once again as the captain looks about. If Four had to bet, he’d say their soldier would probably be a whizz at puzzles and dungeons too if he’d ever been given the chance, and though he’s easily surprised by the workings, he’d probably love to toy with them and learn how they do what they do, or at least watch them react to his actions. It’s sort of a shame the goddesses robbed him of the chance by giving the clever man a war to fight instead of a quest to undertake like the rest of them. 

  “Puzzle gods,” Four repeats. He means it as a joke, he does. He’s relatively certain there is no such deity in the hylian pantheon, although he’s heard some other kingdoms believe in trickster gods of various sorts, or so the books in Legend and Twilight’s eras say. Still, it’s funny to watch his brothers accept the explanation and even murmur it to each other whenever something starts being confusing. He’s certain he’s heard Time curse the supposed ‘puzzle gods’ a few times by now, especially when he’d had to use his hook-shot to avoid taking a dive when the floor went out from beneath him earlier. 

  Now though, the others all just sort of snort at his comment as they wander into the room, and it’s only once they’re all in that the true foe of the chamber reveals itself. 

  The floor. Again. 

  He’s just looking about, letting Vio and Blue take the lead as they look for patterns or words or anything to hint at the way forwards.  Honestly, he’s sort of shocked Legend hardly even has to look anymore, and no doubt the vet would already have answers for them if he was here, scoffing or chuckling as he pointed out what, in hindsight, would feel painfully obvious to the less experienced heroes as they’d follow his lead. He’s not here though, and so far, they’ve yet to find any sign of where he and the sailor went. It’s a bit worrying, and that’s where his brain is focusing when all of a sudden, he feels the floor sway beneath his feet. 

  Like any normal person, he darts away. They just came out of a room where the floor fell away as you stepped on it, and he has no interest in collapsing through this one too. Once he’s back to the others though, he learns that that is hardly the worst risk at the moment. 

  No, because the floor isn’t falling down. It’s flying up. 

  “What the-” they have no time to say much more because that’s about when the lifted tile suddenly launches at them, spinning and all sharp edges. 

  “What is this?” Twilight yelps, throwing himself to the floor and narrowly avoiding the tile as it crashes into the wall, just behind where his head was but a moment before. 

  No answers come. Both because they’re all too busy running from the tiles that are flying, fast and sharp and spinning at all of them, and also because how does one explain floor tiles trying to kill you? Four’s seen them, yes, but not often enough to suspect them the moment he sees an empty room, and by the looks on the faces of most of his brothers, they haven’t a clue what’s going on anymore than Twilight does. 

  Avoiding the awful things is a nightmare. He’s darting and throwing himself down, but the tiles ricochet off of walls and mirror shields, and despite all attempts, there’s really too many tiles and too many other people to avoid being hit by anything. The only advantage is that the things seem locked on his much taller companions, so Four has at least some chance of avoiding being hit. 

  The same is not true of Hyrule, who’s struck first and goes down with a bitten off cry. The fact that he’s made any noise at all though is a bad sign. The traveler never makes noise when he’s hurt unless it’s very bad or very unexpected. It’s a danger, he’s said, to be loud when injured, because the smell of your blood and your own injury endangers you enough; drawing further attention to your location is never a good thing. Luckily for him, lying on the floor and gripping his arm seems to be out of the target zone for the tiles, and they fly most pointedly at the adults in the group instead. 

  Sky, with a hiss, has drawn the master sword and, quite shockingly, is throwing himself in the path of the blasted things, swinging till they shatter and then moving for another. 

  It takes maybe ten minutes for the attack to die down altogether, and when it does, everyone but the chosen hero has collapsed against the wall, panting and catching their breath and their runaway hearts from the start of it all. 

  “Whoever designed this place is a monster,” Time groans. “Why would you have two floor focused rooms right after each other. Just, why?” 

  Warriors snorts, half laughing, half something else, something strained. “Keep us on our toes?” 

  Their leader grabs for a bit of fallen tile and chucks it. Hitting the wall right beside no longer coiffed locks with a growl. “Not funny.” 

  From the floor, Hyrule gives a strangled giggle. “I thought it was.” 

  “Hyrule thought it was,” Warriors states, pointedly, pulling himself to his feet and looking just a bit like a spider with the motion (the man is seriously all limbs) before moving to the side of their fallen brother. “How bad?” 

  “I fear I’m dying,” the traveler responds, staring up at the captain with a wince. “Promise to burn my body, will you?” 

  The captain’s face washes over with severity. “I swear it will be done.” 

  “What?” The speed with which Wild flies to his feet is frankly quite impressive, but the strained laughter of the traveler is apparently enough reassurance to stop him running to his brother’s side to inspect the damamge for himself. 

  Warriors looks apologetic as he takes the traveler’s arm in his hands, gentle but firm, eyes warm though as they flicker up to the champion. “We jest, Wild. ‘Tis but a flesh wound. He’ll live.” 

  “You mock my pain,” Hyrule giggles through a wince, clearly trying to lighten the mood, at least for the captain, or maybe just trying to distract himself from the sting of the rather nasty looking gash on his arm. 

  Time snorts, staring on, but not moving. They can’t help anyways so there’s no point in any of them rising for the time being, and giving the traveler and their medic some space is in everyone’s best interest. “Life is pain. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.” 

  “Pessimistic much?” Sky observes. 

  “Well read, I should think,” the captain corrects, already starting to mind the injury of their brother. “I believe that one was from a book. As was my own, if anyone was wondering.” 

  Time nods. “I’m surprised Wind hasn’t called us on-” and then he trails off. Wind isn’t here. Wind is with Legend. 

  “We need to catch up to them,” Four reminds. Not that he’s particularly nervous about what they’re getting up too, but he doesn’t know how much longer they can progress through a dungeon with the group split and no idea where and when they’ll come across the others. “Can Wolfie track them?”  

  “You can jist ask me now, Four,” their shifter reminds, “ain’t a secret no more.” 

  “Anymore,” Warriors murmurs under his breath. 

  “No more,” Twilight hisses back, grinning. 

  Four ignores both of them, even as a few of the others start rolling their eyes at the grammar battle. If left unchecked, this will go on forever. “Use your nose to find them then, if you don’t mind.” 

  “If you can,” Sky adds, glancing warily at the rancher. 

  Twilight agrees, and while black magic washes over the rancher, Four takes it on himself to peek through the now opened doorway on the other side of the room. All that lies within is a chest, no doubt containing the map they’re so in need of, or some other such tool he’s shocked they’ve made it this far without.  

  There aren’t any monsters in here. 

  It’s a chest room! Monsters aren’t in chest rooms. 

  Most of the time. Vio corrects. 

  Most of the time. Red agrees, and then, We should open it! 

  Green? 

  Yeah, no harm. Let’s move quickly though, Twilight should catch their trail soon. 

  So, he does. He darts across the room and, sure enough, the chest contains the map they needed hours ago. Honestly, he’s kind of shocked they’ve done so well without it, but looking it over doesn’t reveal much more than what they’ve already seen. They’ve worked themselves through all three floors already, and the only rooms they haven’t been to appear to be on the right of the falling floor room. Unfortunately, there’s no guide on how to cross the floor anywhere on the map. 

 Coming back, the others are staring and Twilight is absent. He holds up the map, nodding back to the room. “Our prize! It’s useless by the way, we already knocked out everything except the boss chamber.” 

  “Boss chamber?” Warriors, again, although Wild also looks confused. 

  “Dungeons tend to end with a fight with a larger monster in order to reach the end and gather whatever treasure is there.” Their leader groans his words, pulling himself up again and creaking worse than an old door as he does so. “During my adventures, that treasure was usually a tool or information, although rupees and other baubles aren’t uncommon either.” 

  “Bet you Legend’s already collected it by now,” Sky grins. 

  “Means they’ve already fought the boss,” the traveler points out. “And I know they’re capable, but-” 

  The skyloftian nods, “you don’t like the idea of them taking it on alone when we should be with them.” 

  “Yeah.” 

  “Well,” he rolls up the map, tucking it into his own bag and trying for a smile to his brothers. “We’ll find them, just give Wolfie a moment more and-” 

  As if on cue, their shifter companion darts back in through the door, barking once to catch their attention and then moving out. The motion is repeated again, and all take the cue to rise and follow. Warriors is finished with the traveler’s arm and they’ve mostly caught their breath. Now just to face the floor a third time and reach where the other two are likely waiting for them.  

  Four just hopes the floor won’t do anything else crazy when they get there. Legend's talked about boss monsters that are the floor itself, and if that’s what awaits them, Four’s going to start climbing the walls. Literally. 

[mischievouslittlecreature]

Part 21: The Shadow of the Abattoir

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x OC

Summary: Lucy offers Tommy a break from all the work and stress he's been dealing with lately. 

Word Count: 5,241

Notes: I decided to give these two a cute little moment because I've been very mean to them lately. Warnings for depictions of smut.

Previous Chapter • Series • Fic • Next Chapter

Chapter 7: Respite

“Tommy?”

He didn’t notice Lucy where she was standing in the doorway to his office, nor did he hear her when she gently called his name twice. He was too hyper-focused on the small mountain of papers in front of him, battling back a headache from both stress and eyestrain. 

He did take notice, however, when she promptly pushed his chair back from his desk and plopped down definitively in his lap, her arms around his neck.

“Wha-”

“Thomas,” she said, with a sternness that was greatly undercut by the fond amusement dancing in her eyes. “You’re ignoring me.”

His hands settled on her waist of their own accord. “Sorry,” blinking, his eyes darted to the door that she’d left ajar, brow furrowing at the realization that the betting shop was empty and mostly dark. They were the only people still there.

Fucking hell, where had the time gone?

Lucy’s fingertips trailed up and down the nape of his neck to draw his attention back to her, red-painted lips quirking into a tiny smile.

“Did you need something?” he asked. She raised an eyebrow, leaning back to pluck up the paper he’d been looking over. 

“These aren’t due until next week,” she commented.

“Yes, but, I figured I ought to get a head start–”

“They can keep ‘til tomorrow,” she set it down at the top of the stack of paperwork. “It’s late,” she gave him a look, green eyes sharpening. “And I know you haven’t eaten yet.”

“Love…”

“C’mon,” she hopped up off of his lap, grabbing his hand and giving him a tug. “Otherwise we’re going to miss it.”

“Miss what?”

She shot him an amused, mischievous look. Like she knew some big secret that he didn’t. She gave him another tug.

“C’mon.”

He looked over the work still piled on his desk conflictingly, the stubborn part of his brain tempted to just insist on staying until the stack of papers had been reduced.

“Tommy,” Lucy said, a little more assertively. He looked at her apologetically.

“These need to get done, love…”

“And they will. Tomorrow. I’ll help you, alright?” she took a step towards him, cupping both his cheeks and tilting his head up. She widened her already enormous green eyes a little, pouting in that way that they both knew would get him to do just about anything that she asked of him. “Please, Tommy? I put a lot of work into this, and if you spoil it, I will be very cross with you.”

He could feel a fond smile threatening to pull at his lips despite his workaholic tendencies urging him to stay at the desk. Raising an eyebrow, he wrapped his arms around her waist, interest piqued. “Well, we can’t have that, now can we?”

She smiled, shaking her head, sliding his glasses gingerly off of his face, folding and placing them onto his desk. This time, when she took a step back and tugged on his hand, he let her pull him from his chair. 

She guided him to the green double doors, only slightly ajar, faint, flickering light bleeding in through the other side. One of the doors pushed open with a creak when Lucy nudged it, and he was greeted with the kitchen, lit only by the dim, twitching lights of dozens of lit candles. A vase of blooming red roses was set upon the counter. In the center of the stable, surrounded by little plates and bowels piled high with bits of bread, apples, carrots, shrimp, and roasted potatoes, was a steaming fondue pot filled with melted cheese. Lucy let go of his hand, bustling over to it and giving the cheese a gentle stir. Tommy stared at her with wide eyes, lips partially parted. She looked over her shoulder at him and smirked at what he assumed was a rather gobsmacked look on his face. 

“When…”

“You were so sucked into your work, you didn’t even notice when I burned the first batch,” she cringed lightly. “This thing is kind of finicky.” 

“I didn’t even know we had a fondue pot.”

“We don’t. I traded with Ada for it.”

“Traded what?”

“I let her take Charlie for the evening.”

“You traded our child for a bowl of melted cheese?” he chuckled, even as he let her herd him into a seat. 

“Just for the night! Besides, she missed him.”

He hummed. Ada had gotten close to Charlie when she’d come to live at Arrow House to help with him right after Grace had died. 

Lucy sat down in the seat next to him, dividing out the fondue forks between them while Tommy took in the spread before him. She had to have put some effort into this. 

“Lucy…” he said, baffled as to what could possibly have precipitated her to do something like this. “Why…”

She shot him a mischievous look from over where she was skewering a bit of bread onto her fork. Like she knew some big secret that he didn’t. “You’re not the only one who can be spontaneously romantic, you know.”

He snorted, still sensing that she wasn’t entirely telling him everything, but decided to let it go, at least for the moment. 

“You didn’t have to do all of this,” he said, fiddling with a slice of apple before stabbing it with his fondue fork, dipping it carefully into the fondue, rotating it to make sure it was covered as much as possible in the melted cheese. Lucy shrugged. 

“I figured that we deserved something nice. After all the shit lately.”

He blew on the apple before popping it into his mouth. The cheese was warm and gooey, a sharpness in it that mixed well with the sweetness from the apple. He skewered a piece of potato next. 

“It’s good,” he complimented, and Lucy looked down at her plate bashfully. She was a decent cook. Nothing too fancy, but so long as she had a recipe to follow or was making one of the dishes her mother had taught her to make, she could do a damn good job. “Thank you,” he rubbed at his face, shooting her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I know that it’s all a madhouse at the moment…”

“You don’t have to apologize. We’re fine. Don’t worry.”

He rubbed his hand up and down her arm, leaning forward to kiss her once softly on the lips, tilting his head up to peck her forehead. Lucy leaned into him with a happy little sound, and he had no choice really but to kiss her again, adding the slow stroke of his tongue into the mix this time. 

Lucy laughed against his lips, pulling back with her smile pulling at her cheeks. “Don’t think you’re getting out of eating more than a few bites, Shelby,” she narrowed her eyes at his innocent expression. “I know your tricks. And if you make me finish this whole spread by myself, I will be sick for a week.”

Wetting his lips with a mischievous grin, he turned his head, and promptly ate the carrot dripping with cheese from her fondue fork.

“Oi!”

“What?” he asked, still innocent as a newborn deer, wiping cheese from his lip. “You said that you wanted me to eat.”

“Mm, bastard,” she said with a fond shake of her head. Scooting his chair closer to hers so he could wrap and arm around her shoulders, he dipped a piece of bread into the fondue pot. Twirling it to break off the strings cheese attempting to cling to it, he held it out to her. Lucy bit it off of the fork ravenously, and he tried very hard to ignore the way she left a small streak of bright red lipstick against the gleaming silver of the fork. Definitely not thinking about how she would leave traces of lipstick on other things that she could have in her mouth. 

He swiped a stray bit of melted cheese from the corner of her lips, smiling softly to himself, and kissed her again. 

In the soft, flicking candlelight, they fed each other food from one other’s forks, laughing softly when warm cheese dripped onto chins, talking about everything and nothing in equal measure. They finished off dinner by feeding each other chocolate covered strawberries, and when he kissed her again, her lips were sweet with the lingering juice of them, and he was half tempted to just pick her up then and there and carry her upstairs to bed, leaving the clean up for the morning.

Some of the tension he’d been carrying in his neck and shoulders had dissipated, and he felt lighter; more relaxed and at ease. Perhaps he’d needed a respite from everything more than he’d actually thought. 

Between the two of them, it didn’t take all that long to clean up. Lucy kept glancing at the clock, as if expecting something. It was almost midnight.  

Tommy found himself greatly wishing that they had a working gramophone somewhere in the house. 

Fuck it, he decided, watching her wipe her damp hands on a rag. She laughed when he pulled her into his arms, entwining their fingers with one hand while the other rested on her waist.

“Tommy! I’ll step on your toes…” she warned, even as she giggled and let him sway her. 

“Don’t care,” he mumbled, dropping his lips to her forehead. “Thank you for this,” he murmured into her skin. Lucy leaned back, giving him a fond, mildly amused look. 

With a giggle, she wrapped her arms around his neck, gently pulling his head down until it was closer to hers, their foreheads touching and breaths mingling. “You really don’t remember what day it is, do you?”

He froze, immediate panic washed over him, mind spinning into overdrive, trying to remember any important dates. Her birthday? No, that was at the end of April. Their anniversary? No…

There was a minor ruckus going on outside, people on the streets hooting and hollering in celebration of something. 

Lucy chuckled, pulling him down before he could continue panicking over what important event he’d forgotten about, pressing their mouths firmly against one another. 

He kissed her back, hand cradling the back of her head to his. Her hand slid up, cupping the side of his face while her lips parted against his, allowing his tongue to stroke across hers. She hummed softly against his mouth, smiling into the kiss when he pulled her closer, flush against him. The soft press of the swell of her breasts against his chest, and the warm curve of her hip under one of his hands, had him stirring in his trousers.  

She broke the kiss with a smile, both hands cradling his face, their foreheads touching. Her huge, forest green eyes gazed up at him affectionately. Filled with so much love it almost bowled him over. 

“Happy New Year’s, Tommy.”

He blinked, once, processing. Then, “oh.”

She laughed, kissing him again before he could respond.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the second they had parted. “I didn’t–”

“Oh, shush,” Lucy just giggled. “I almost forgot about it too. I wouldn’t have remembered if Ada didn’t remind me,” she looped both arms around his neck, biting her lip. “You’re cute when you’re flustered.”

He buried his face–cheeks already warming–into her neck. “Shut up.”

She just laughed again, squeezing him tighter to her. “For the record, I would have done this whether it was New Year’s or not. We needed the break.”

Tommy hummed in agreement, heart fluttering at her thoughtfulness. She was always so good to him. Far better than he ever deserved. 

With his face pressed into her neck, the intoxicating scent of the rose perfume she almost always wore filled his senses. His hands smoothed down her sides before wrapping around her waist, mouth angling to start pressing kisses into the soft skin of her neck. Lucy shivered, arms pulling him closer, head tilting back to give him better access.   

“Happy New Year’s,” he mumbled, once he’d worked his way up to her ear, and though he could not see it, he knew that she was smiling, fingers stroking at the nape of his neck. Raising his head, he kissed her again, taking firm hold of her waist and lifting her up onto his hips. She wrapped her legs around him immediately, this a familiar routine between them. 

Tommy groaned when she nipped playfully at his bottom lip, fingers smoothing through his hair and pleasantly scratching against his scalp.

He carried her over to the couch in the front room, her hands busying themselves pulling open the buttons on her shirt, letting it flutter in a pool of white fabric to the floor. Her bra soon followed, and then he was laying her down on the old, worn sofa, crawling on top of her with his arms braced on either side of her head while they kissed.    

“Let’s ring in the new year, eh?” he husked, taking great pleasure in the way her pupils dilated at the sound of his voice. He kissed her hungrily again, groaning into her mouth at the feel of her bare breasts pressing against his chest. He helped her to devest himself of his upper layers, tossing them to the floor. His cock throbbed in his trousers, growing harder with each passing moment, with each press of their lips or caress of her small hands across his newly revealed skin. 

He needed her more than air; more than anything in the entire fucking world. 

Her thighs were already parted for him, spread wide with his body slotted between them. Cradling the side of her head with one hand, he ran the other up her body, cupping one of her full breasts. Lucy hummed, back arching into his hand when he ran his thumb across her nipple before giving it a light pinch, feeling the bud grow harder. Her fingers raked through his hair, down his back, likely leaving very light red scratches in their wake. Then she was squeezing at his biceps, before dropping both hands to run down his chest. Tommy broke their kiss, pulling back just enough to look at her, their foreheads still touching while their breaths mingled. 

Her dark red hair was fanned out across the arm of the couch, curls tousled into a fiery halo around her head. Her fair, freckled cheeks were flushed an adorable rosy pink, full lips parted, swollen and red from his kisses. Big green eyes, the shade of dark moss, stared up at him, pupils dilated so that there was but a sliver of green encircling them.

Tommy stroked her cheek tenderly, fingers brushing along the shape of her cheekbone. She was breathtaking.

Movements slow and deliberate, he kissed her cheek, then her jaw, then down her neck. She sighed, a sweet, heartbeat-skipping sound, and tangled her fingers into his hair. Tommy worked his way along her shoulder, stopping at where the first scar marked her chest, paying specific attention to caressing his lips across it. 

He’d kissed each and every one of her scars, faded in the years that had passed since they’d first been imprinted onto her body, more times than he could count. And he’d do it again and again.

He felt Lucy shiver at the sensation of his mouth on the sensitive flesh, and his arms coiled around her in response, hugging her tighter to him, taking note of her reactions to ensure that she wasn’t growing anxious. Sometimes it happened, bad memories springing up outside of her control. But tonight, she remained relaxed in his arms.

His face shifted lower, lips working their way up the swell of one of her breasts, tongue darting out to circle her nipple when he finally made his way to the apex. His hand continued to tease the other one, and Lucy’s fingers squeezed in his hair in encouragement when he wrapped his lips around her hardened pink nipple and began to suck. 

Her reaction was delicious; a soft moan leaving her lips while her back arched, pushing her chest even more into his face. Her head tipped back, eyes closing, and her legs, strong from years of horseback riding and patrolling the streets of Birmingham, cinched around him. Tommy mused to himself that, if he had to pick a way to die, it would be like this: clutched tight between Lucy Winters’s legs, watching her face contort with pleasure. 

He sucked a moment more on her nipple, particularly enjoying the shudder that went through her whole body when he scraped his teeth against it, then switched sides. Didn’t want the other breast to feel left out, after all. 

Between his legs, his cock throbbed with impatience, growing a little uncomfortable where it was still trapped in the confines of his underwear and trousers. And while he chose to ignore it for the moment, he did resume his descent down her body, mindful to kiss the scars on her stomach as he went. 

Her belt jangled a little as he undid it, loosening it just enough so that he could get at the fastening of her trousers and pull them, along with her knickers, down her legs. She kicked them off, and he caught both her thighs in his palms, hooking them over his shoulders. Licking his lips, he lowered his face to between her legs, smirking at her when he caught her propping herself up onto her elbows to watch him. His nose trailed delicately through the coarse red hair between her legs, inhaling the intoxicating scent of her musk before moving lower.   

Using two fingers, he parted her labia, and licked a stripe up from the bottom of her slit up to her clit. Lucy moaned, thighs twitching a little, and he smirked again, this time just to himself.

She was already good and wet for him, sweet as the strawberries they had eaten earlier. He lapped at her hungrily, eager for everything she had to give him. He let her hand in his hair help steer him as she pleased, guiding the pace and location of his touches. 

When he slowly slipped a finger inside of her, he swallowed hard at the tight squeeze of her walls around him, cock twitching with the hope that it would soon be replacing his finger within her. All it took was a few pumps of his finger and swipes of his tongue on her clit to have her relaxing even more, opening up wider for him with a fresh gush of arousal. Her moans were soft, hips shifting to push closer to his mouth, and he thought that he could listen to her make those pretty sounds forever. 

He added another finger, crooking them slightly so the pads of his fingertips were stroking along the spot inside her that he knew made her voice raise in pitch. And was rewarded with just that, plus a light tremble in the hand still curled in his hair, pushing his face deeper into her pussy. 

Fucking hell, if she suffocated him there, he would die happy.     

Tommy doubled his efforts, purring at how she tightened around him, how her voice broke on a cry of his name, begging him not to stop. 

As if he would ever want to. 

That he still had her, after everything, that she had stayed…it amazed him. She could have just about anyone she wanted, and yet she was still with him. Loyal to a fault. Loving him with every beat of her huge heart. Tommy could not even begin to fathom why she was still with him at all. But he was grateful that she was.

So fucking grateful. 

Lucy came around his fingers with a cry of his name, hips grinding against his mouth, babbling out praises that made his cock throb painfully in his trousers as he drank up all she had to offer, tongue darting out to taste the sweetness rushing from around his fingers. She slumped back against the couch, and when he looked up, he was met with quite the sight: her chest heaving, a light sheen of sweat coating her skin, green eyes staring down at him dazedly. 

With a small smile, he returned to cleaning her up with gentle kitten licks, easily her down carefully from her high, cleaning off his fingers after he gingerly pulled them from her opening. 

“Tommy,” Lucy croaked, the hand that a moment ago had been clenched in his hair stroking the top of his hair, the other reaching out to him. “Tommy, come here.”

He let her draw him back on top of her, bracing his weight on his elbows to avoid crushing her. Despite her constant assurances, he never had been able to entirely shake the fear that he would accidentally hurt her. She was so tiny; it wouldn’t be hard to do so. 

Her cool fingertips caressed his face, and he couldn’t help but lean into her touch, a sound like a purr rumbling unconsciously from his chest. She always had that effect on him; turning him into practical mushy goo under her hands.

Angling her head up, she kissed him softly. He parted his lips to hers, letting her set the pace as her tongue dipped into his mouth. His cock was throbbing desperately, and the simple action of lightly rubbing his bulge against her was enough to have him gasping into her mouth. 

“More?” he asked, needing to check before pushing things any further. He could always just finish off with his hand if she was too tired to keep going. 

But Lucy nodded vigorously, pulling his mouth back down to hers, hands running down his chest, trailing through the line of hair leading from his navel to dip beneath the waistband of his trousers. 

“Yes.”

He moaned as she cupped him in her hand through the fabric, hips pushing into her hand. It took some fumbling and shifting of his hips to get his belt loosened and shimmy out of his trousers and boxers, and then he was bare against her, Lucy’s small hand immediately wrapping around his swollen erection, his hips thrusting into her palm.  

He was positively aching, cock heavy and thick between his legs. The gentle rub of her hand only soothed the throb of desire a little, his throat suddenly very dry, a shudder running along his spine when she smeared the oozing precum from the tip with her thumb, letting it help slicken her movements. She angled her face to kiss him again, legs hitching up around his waist, and he let her pull him in closer. 

He would have let her absorb him into her entire being, had it been possible.

He stared into her face as she guided him to her entrance, not even bothering to try to hide his desperation for her. He’d never needed to hide what he actually thought or felt when it came to Lucy. Never needed to perform. For some unfathomable reason, she loved him just the way he was. 

“Tom,” she whispered, hand going to his shoulder as the tip of his cock penetrated her. He grunted at the tight wetness, warmth surrounding him as he slowly sheathed himself inside of her. The uneven, shaky gasp she let out once he was seated in her fully had his eyes–he hadn’t even realized he’d closed them–opening to fix on her and check to make sure that she was alright. 

She looked back at him with heavy-lidded eyes in which he saw nothing but desire, pleasure, and love. Her lips were parted with her breaths, and she reached out to cup the side of his face, thumb gently stroking. That, combined with the arm she had wrapped around his shoulder, and her thoughtful actions from earlier in the evening, had his heart suddenly growing tight in his chest, a lump forming in his throat. 

His Lucy always made him feel so loved. Even when he didn’t deserve it.

As if reading his mind, she cocked her head a little, kissing him fully on the lips quickly, then between his brows. 

“Okay?” she asked, thumb still stroking his cheek. Tommy wetted his lips, raising one hand to cover hers where it rested on his face. 

“Yeah,” it came out as a hoarse whisper. She kissed him again, and when they parted, this time, she smiled at him tenderly. 

“I love you,” she murmured, and he almost burst into tears right there in her arms. His heart felt like it might burst with the scope of his love and affection for her.

She really was his favorite person in the world.

“I love you too,” it didn’t feel like enough, when it came to expressing the depth of his feelings for her. They were entangled; one being split into two bodies. He was not sure if he really believed in soulmates; but he did know that she was the love of his life.

Lucy swept a few tendrils of dark hair that had flopped forward out of his eyes, the smile on her face telling him that she knew everything he wanted to say without him needing to utter a word. He kissed her again, this time soft and deep, and started to move slowly within her. 

She moaned sweetly into his mouth, hand squeezing his shoulder as he drew out until only the tip remained inside her, then pushed back in until his balls slapped audibly against her skin.  

He set a steady pace, Lucy’s hips raising to meet his on every thrust. He continued to kiss her, open mouthed and hungry, eagerly consuming each of her lovely sounds while gifting her his own. Aiming himself purposefully, he ensured that each long stroke of his cock was rubbing right against her g-spot, pubic bone gliding against her clit. Lucy’s fingers tightened against his shoulder, likely leaving little crescent marks in their wake. The thought made him groan deeply; the idea of her marking him had always done it for him. 

With one hand, he cupped her breast, teasing and lightly pinching her nipple, and she gasped out, walls tightening around him, and he felt the pleasure shooting through his cock intensify. 

She was soft and sweet under his hands, and when he broke from kissing her for a moment to just look down into her face, his breath caught at the sight of those giant green orbs staring back at him, half lidded with lust, but glimmering affectionately. Her legs tightened around his waist, as if trying to bring him in even closer to her somehow. As if they weren’t already as physically close as it was possible for two people to be. 

Her face shifted on a particularly deep thrust, head tipping back slightly and a sigh leaving her lips. He could feel her walls pulsing around him, clutching around his cock like a vice. And she was so warm and wet, it was making his head feel fuzzy. 

“Close, Tommy,” she warned, even though she didn’t have to; he could read her body like a goddamn book. 

He doubled his efforts, letting go of her breast to reach down and circle his thumb around her clit, just in the way that he knew she liked it. Slow and lazy. She whined, eyes scrunching closed as her face started to be overtaken by pleasure, and he had no choice really but to kiss her.

He felt her walls clamp down around him hard, and then she was coming around him hotly, legs spasming around him, moans coming from somewhere low in her chest. 

Tommy groaned. Few things were as good to him as making Lucy come. Her entire body responded to it, back arching, eyes closing, hands scrabbling for purchase on his back or shoulders, legs tightening and jerking around his hips, cunt squeezing him so tight it felt like she was trying to pull his very soul from him.

He continued to fuck her through it, prolonging her high while chasing his own. He was intimately aware of just how heavy and full his balls felt, aching to spill inside of her. A twitch went through his cock, and they tightened. Tommy groaned, pace picking up. 

Lucy broke their kiss, peppering her lips across his cheekbone and finding his ear. He shivered at the brush of them against the lobe. 

“Are you going to come for me, Tommy?” she asked sweetly, and his eyes widened. Normally he was the one with more of a proclivity for whispering dirty things into her ear.

“Always so good to me; always take such good care of me,” she continued to croon, voice an octave lower than normal, and he groaned weakly, a tingling starting at the base of his spine. “You feel so good. So big.”

“Ah…” he grunted, body jerking, cock twitching hard at that, then swelling.

“I love you so much…”

He cried out; it might’ve been a curse, might’ve been her name, it was impossible for him to know. Any higher functioning he’d been capable of flew right out of his head, jaw going lax and hips sheathing himself all the way in and stilling as the first pulse of his orgasm rocketed through him. 

His balls tightened with each large load of seed, cock throbbing as it pushed it out of him and into her. He groaned weakly, emptying himself deep inside of her.  

Fucking hell, she always made him come so hard. 

When it was over, he slumped down on top of her, still being mindful to not put the entirety of his weight on her. His arms went around Lucy’s waist, head pillowing itself on her chest, still rising and falling with her heavy breaths. She was stroking at his hair while hugging him to her, a few kisses pressed into the crown of his head. 

Neither of them said anything for a long while. They didn’t need to. Instead, they just basked in the afterglow, warm and comfortable wrapped up in one another. 

Finally, once his eyelids started to grow heavy, Tommy raised himself up slightly. It would do no good to fall asleep here, both for the sake of their backs, and because the likelihood of a family member waltzing in through the front door in the morning and finding them naked on the couch was not out of the realm of possibility. 

Lucy blinked up at him, cheeks still a little rosy, expression sleepy and satisfied. “What?” she asked with a quiet laugh, when he just stared at her.  

“You’re so beautiful,” he said softly, touching her cheek, which flared red under his hand. Her eyes darted down, bashful.

“No…”

“Oi,” he scolded lightly, hooking his fingers under her chin and angling her head up until she looked at him. “You are,” he insisted, leaving no room for argument in his voice, kissing her forehead. “You are.”

“You’re a softy.”

“Mm,” he hummed in mild agreement, pecking her lips. “Don’t tell anyone.”

She just laughed, then shrieked lightly in surprise and joy when he pulled out of her and stood up, bending and scooping her up into his arms bridal style and carrying her towards the stairs and to bed. 

For a moment, nothing outside of the two of them existed. Not the vendetta. Not his family. Not even Birmingham. It was just them. Happy. 

But nothing lasts forever. 

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[xiament3]

[𝐒ummary : Pete’s dreams finally come true, now earned everything he’s truly ever wanted.]

[𝐑𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭] [no, but I would love to be sent you’re requests]

[𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 1.32k 9 minutes read time]

⟣-----------------------❀------------------⟢

It wasn’t a secret that Pete wanted to have children, he had very publicly talked about it several times and I’m many interviews.

Still the idea was somewhat foreign to him but he knew what he wanted and he wanted kids with you.

“Hey babe” Pete started pausing the movie the two of you chose to watch for date night you both made it a point to have a date nice twice a month every month indefinitely.

When picking those dates you both took turns planning them last time you choose going to a museum, due to history being your favorite subject and you loved learning about thing and telling random fun facts.

Pete had chosen to stay in wanting to have you in his arms close at all times, so here you were watching the little mermaid on the couch with his arms wrapped, around your waists him laying on you’re belly and you’re back against the couch.

“Yeah, what’s wrong?” You said turning your full attention to the tall man on your stomach.

He gazed up at you grabbing hold of your hands playing with them showing his eyes gleaming nervously at you’re hands, his eyes bouncing before your hands and then at you.

“Well I don’t think it’s wrong but I’m not sure where you stand on it I mean I know but I don’t know if that was just talk or futuristic.” He rambled.

“Baby what is it?” You said cutting to the point but still finding his rambling abordable.

“Iwanttohavebabywithyousoonbutnow” he sputtered out quickly making you felt like your head was spinning at his pace.

“Okay say it slower, taking that fast you can’t possibly think I’d understand you.” You said reaching to give him a sip of you’re water, before he sat once again on you’re facing each other hands in hand.

“Okay?” You asked making him nod his head and sigh. “Now what did you say?” You asked him again turning you’re attention to him.

“Yeah, I want to have a baby with you and I feel like now would be a great time we’ve been married for a little bit we moved into this house and we have this extra space and backyard for kids and I’m directing mostly now so I’ll be able to be with you and not have to travel as much and…” he ranted deciding to let him finish his baby fever fueled rant.

“Yes,” you said stopping his rant right there quickly focusing on your face.

“Yes?” He repeated confused

“Yes, I would love to have a baby with you were both stable and healthy we do have the space. This would be the perfect time.” You agreed looking at him and not even a half of a second pasted before he was showering your face in kisses before picking you up kissing you all the way.

“Baby making time.” He said taking you up stairs to bed, bursting through your bedroom closing the door behind him before turning his attention to you on the bed.

Pouncing on you again he kissed all over your face.

“Baby, wait wait.” You related begin cut off by a kiss with each word.

Instantly Pete stopped sitting up

“I want to have a baby but I still need to make an appointment to get my IUD removed and it might take a little bit for my body to adjust.” You warned

“I know as long as I get to enjoy the process of the journey with you I’m okay.” He said kissing you rapidly this time with no interruptions.

The following Thursday you found yourself in a doctors appointment with a very excited Peter getting your birth control removed.

And then eight almost nine months later you found yourself in the early morning.

Suddenly feeling extremely sick rushing and pulling the covers off you waking Peter up in the process.

Emptying out your body in the toilet having Pete hold your hair back and rubbing your back comforting you best he could.

You didn’t want to assume immediately you were pregnant, twice before you had a false alarm and now you wanted to be sure before getting excited about the morning sickness.

After a doctors appointment it was confirmed.

“Mrs. Davidson you are in fact six weeks pregnant.” The doctor said dragging the Doppler across your jellied stomach.

She filled the screen around and there was your baby it was the size of a cherry seed but I brought tears to both of your eyes.

“I love you so much.” He said looking deeply into your eyes as he wiped the jelly off your belly and helped you stand up.

Ever since then Pete has been on cloud nine.

HIS POV

ever since I found out, you were making me a father I tried my best to make it as easy as possible.

I thought it would be hard having your body change constantly adapting to take care of our baby.

I wanted needed to do anything and everything to take the much off you as I can.

Crack of dawn cravings? Got it

Can’t fine anything to wear you feel comfortable in? I’ll buy you new clothes or you can have mine

Anything hurts? Feet, back, boobs I’ll massage it

Anything, as your due date was approaching and before you couldn’t travel I wanted to take you on a babymoon.

Settling on Punta Cana’s blue water beaches booking a beach villa, with you laying next to me sound asleep tried from the day and our daughter.

I can’t help but stare down at you and your belly holding the child I always wanted but never thought I’d get.

You’ve given me everything I could ask for marriage, love, understanding, support and now a baby girl to be named Aniline Amy Davidson.

Thanking nobody but you for making all of this a reality.

I drift off to sleep your back to my chest, my hands to your belly, and your hands together with mine.

⟣

Turning over away from the window, the sun blinding me trying to force me out of my sleep.

Feeling the bed for you only to come up empty, jumping up sleep long forgotten my eyes frantically darting around the room.

The bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, the living room and no sign of you. My eyes still darting around seeing the sliding glass door open running standing in the doorframe.

I saw you in a floral dress blowing through the breeze. Playing and swaying in the water.

Drawing closer behind you wrapping my arms around your belly swaying with you and the waves.

“Are you okay your heats racing I can feel it?” You asked me stare locked on me.

“I couldn’t find you this morning when I woke up I got scared and started running around trying to find y’all.” I confessed

Normally I probably would’ve gotten embarrassed about jumping that far off the bat but, with you I didn’t feel like I needed to hide or be embarrassed about anything.

“We’re right here this morning she wouldn’t stop kicking and I didn’t want to wake you up so I came out here, she stopped kicking when I told her about this place and how much it means to us.” You told me sitting down at you best ability to sit criss cross.

“Yeah, this all feels like a dream to me.” I told you sitting with you hearing and feeling the waves clash softly against our bodies.

“It’s real Peter I’m real, our daughter is, our marriage everything is real.” You smiled at me holding my hands your wedding ring glowing in the sunlight.

“I remember when I asked you to marry me, I remember when we were at the alter here, when you told me you were pregnant after our honeymoon and now soon you’ll give birth to our daughter soon. We’re here together you’re 32 weeks pregnant this is all I’ve ever wanted ever.” I told you feeling my eyes water.

“This is what I never thought I’d have thank you for everything being my wife, the mother to our daughter, and my support and heart.” I thanked her rubbing your belly.

Kissing your face enjoying this ocean and life with you.

[xxklut-jaycunt]

Other side of the game-Matt sturniolo

Upcomingdad!!matt regrets,stress,selfcare,handjob,tits fucking,tits sucking,eating out(yup he ate yo girl out)-ETC

18+ minors do not disturb

Let’s summon this shit up: I got this inspiration from Erykah Badu from her song other side of the game, which means that in the song, it’s about being a girl (young lady in particular)and it’s about the weighing of morality of the situation as she expecting child with a man ,which him and her has no ideas what they’re going to do,all while she trying to keep a stable relationship with the man for the upcoming child.

“Matt the food is ready”as you yelled while caressing your 4 month old pregnant baby bump,while putting all the food on the plate ,while Erykah Badu on&on played in the background ,you put a lid over it to hold its heat onto the plate patiently waiting for him to come down.”god damn Matt hurry up as you yelled again frustrated ,you knew it been hard on him since the start when you found out you was pregnant and on top of that you was also scared to tell him at that time ,you was going through it,begging on your knees ,pleading and crying to Jesus himself to strike you down for getting caught up like that ,but eventually you told him, and it’s been hard him for his last four months .

Cold hands wrap around your body,rubbing your baby bump and you lean back to see his face expression,you got the same look as always ,Matt lost that little sparkle in his eyes ever since you got pregnant,he’s been stress trying save more money for the baby and keep us in a nice environment,fans tryna track us down and shit,yeah it’s been hard for him.”mhm damn baby what you cookin - from wrapping cold hands around your baby bumps went to cold hands leaving the baby bump to a loud hard smack on the ass making you yelp a lil in pain from how aggressive that was to you, “Matt back the fuck up ,yo ass coming over here and just fucking shit up and I yelled for ass twice ,you must can’t hear and stop hitting my ass,Damn”~ Matt chuckle while leaning back to see your ass ,smiling liking at how he got a mean mug aggression out of you ,Matt went back to wrapping his arms around your baby bump while sighing ,all while he’s rubbing your baby bump ,the sudden thoughts of him being a father scared him a little bit and that the fact that it’s his seed,his blood,his sweat,his tears,his baby,his future daughter or son freaked him out a lil bit,he knew his wasn’t even there mentally or physically for his-self so how could he be there mentally physically for a child or even you when you go thru it.

“What’s wrong” as you looked back while he went from sighing to humming into your neck exhaling your vanilla perfume.”I’m just thinking about so much shit ,right now ,I mean I gotta film even though I don’t want to,we got fans tryna look in the back ground and hear voices and shit to see or hear if they see or hear you to start up some rumors,tsk,it ju-“ .Matt removed his hand from your bump and slouch down on the chair with his head into his palm sighing . “Matt don’t start u finna make me have a headache again and make me test the life of waters ..ok if u don’t stop. ..,baby I know it’s hard but-“. You sighed while cutting your own sentence off reheating Matt food into the microwave,trying to put on a happy face and escape for reality and from Matt negative ass thoughts about all this shit yall got on yall plate .you looked at Matt whom was still rubbing his head stressed about thinking about everything he has to own up too and step up too.”you right baby and you know I just feel like as your man ,I feel like I really have to step up to you and the baby and I know u probably don’t wanna hear this but ,to be honest it kills me that I even got u pregnant”.

A gasps came from your lips as you heard his words , you couldn’t put your finger on it on why he would say such a thing and why it sounded so negative in your head, it sounded so intimate, but also so much of sorrows and regret within his words those words picked at my heart like a tattoo machine needle bad,but good, from gasping from his words, you took the food out the microwave, turning back slowly to look at his face. His face stared at you looking at you intensely wanting to scan your reaction on How you feel about it.”what does that supposed to mean?” ~as you organize the plate trying to make it pretty for him,looking down while thinking what the fuck he meant by that.”I feel guilty,I mean baby if u look at it ,it can go south really fast baby and I know that shit gonna hurt and I know that somebody can die during this and I feel guilty as fuck,it’s not a regrets I just can shake off the feeling of losing you or the baby in the process ,I’m sorry,I’m just fucking stress and wanted to say that baby ,I’ll shut up after this I know u get stress hearing me yap about negative shit,I’m sorry baby. Matt got up and kiss your forehead and peck your lips while quickly kissing your baby bump as well ,all while as he left from the position at the kissing all of the spots that made you happy he went back to his seat, waiting for you to serve his food as you in shocked with upcoming tears filling your waterline.” here’s your food baby .

For a moment, neither of you says anything, the silence thick between you. You can feel his eyes on you, waiting, watching for how you’ll respond, but you don’t look at him just yet. You take a deep breath, steadying yourself.

Finally, you speak, your voice soft but firm. “Matt… I get it. I know you’re scared. Hell, I’m scared too. But… I need you to understand something. Yes, things can go wrong. Yes, there’s a risk. But that’s with anything in life. We can’t let fear rule us.”You pause, gathering your thoughts. “I need you to be strong with me. Because I can’t do this alone. I need you to believe that we can make it through this together, without letting the ‘what ifs’ tear us apart.”His eyes soften at your words, and he reaches out, taking your hand. “I’m sorry, baby,” he says again, quieter this time, but you can hear the sincerity in his voice. “I’ll be here, I promise.”

You give him a small smile, leaning in to press a soft kiss to his lips, lingering just enough for him to feel the reassurance in it. “I get baby ,I really get it ..and it’s ok -I’m going to take a shower baby eat your food ,” you whisper, pulling back slightly, your thumb brushing gently over his knuckles. “I just need a minute .”Matt nods, understanding, his grip on your hand loosening as you stand up. The soft sounds of Erykah Badu’s “Next Lifetime” float through the room, the soulful melody wrapping around you both, creating a moment of calm after the intense convo. You step into the shower, letting the warm water cascade over your body, the steam rising around you as the soft echo of Erykah Badu’s “Next Lifetime” plays faintly in the background, the notes reverberating off the tiled walls. As you run your hands through your hair, massaging the water into your scalp, you can feel it—that subtle, familiar sensation of being watched. You don’t bother turning around. You know it’s Matt. His eyes are on you, just as they’ve been every time you move, like he’s been starved for your touch, your body. You can feel the weight of his gaze, even through the steam and the sound of water splashing against the shower floor. It’s not uncomfortable, just… different. You know why he’s looking at you like that—four months without sex. Four months since everything shifted. Matt used to touch you with so much hunger, so much need. Sex was always a way to reconnect, to ease the stress when the world outside got too heavy. You’d fight, argue, or just be caught up in life’s chaos, but you knew one thing for sure—he’d always find his way back to you in bed. That was your sanctuary.

But now… now things are different. You’re pregnant, and even though you can feel his desire, you know he’s been holding back. Maybe it’s the stress of it all—his mind is occupied with the baby, with work, with trying to make sure everything’s perfect for the future. But that doesn’t change the fact that you miss him. You miss the closeness, the way he used to worship your body when you needed him the most. As you rinse off the last of the soap, you can’t help but think about how things might’ve been different tonight. In the past, this kind of tension—this stress—would’ve led to make-up sex, to him pulling you close and reminding you just how much he needed you. But tonight, there’s only silence… and his eyes. You shut off the water, stepping out of the shower ,grabbing your towel drying off slowly as you catch a glimpse of your reflection in the mirror. You know he’s still out there, still watching, and you wonder if tonight will be the night he finally stops holding back.you let the towel fall as you started to putting up your two pieces sleep clothes which was pink.

 Matt is there, sitting on the edge of the bed, his gaze meeting yours immediately. His eyes darken, following the way the fabric clings to your curves, lingering on your baby bump, and then tracing the rest of your body. He’s been waiting, holding back for months, but tonight, something feels different.

He stands up slowly, his movements deliberate, and crosses the room toward you. The music is still playing faintly in the background, but all you can focus on is him—the way his presence fills the space, the way he looks at you with an intensity you haven’t felt in a while.“Come here,” he says, his voice low and rough, sending a shiver down your spine. He reaches out, his fingers grazing your arm as he pulls you closer to him. The warmth of his hands is comforting, but there’s something more behind it tonight. Something urgent. Something hungry.you look up at him , He smirks, but there’s no humor behind it—just a raw need. His hands slide down your sides, resting on your hips, his thumbs brushing against your skin through the thin fabric. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he murmurs, his voice thick with desire. “About us.”You bite your lip, feeling the heat rise between you. “Yeah?”

He nods, his lips hovering near your ear, his breath warm against your skin. “Four months, baby… Four months since I’ve touched you like this.” His voice is a little more serious now, the playful tone gone. “I’ve been trying to be patient, to give you space with the baby and everything, but…”

His hands slide lower, gently pulling you closer until your body is pressed against his. You feel the firmness of his chest, the way his heart beats just a little faster against yours. “But I miss you,” he says softly, his lips grazing the side of your neck. “I miss us. I miss making love to you.”

Your breath hitches as his lips press softly against your neck, trailing down to your collarbone, slow and deliberate. “Matt…” you whisper, but he doesn’t stop. His hands tighten slightly around your waist, holding you close as his lips explore your skin.”I know you’ve been tired and stressed out and I know everything’s different now,” he whispers against your skin. “But I can’t stop thinking about how much I want you. How much I need you.”He pulls back slightly, looking into your eyes, his face serious but full of desire. “I don’t want to hold back anymore, baby. I want you tonight. Only if you’re ready.”

Matt gently wrapped his arms around you from behind as you walked towards the bedroom, his warmth pressing against your back. The soft hum of Erykah Badu’s “Otherside of the Game” filled the room, the familiar melody mixing with the tension of the moment. He had been patient, waiting these past four months, and now, with you nestled comfortably in his embrace, he softly asked for the answer he’d been longing to hear.”I’m been waiting for you Matt but I kinda shy because I’m pregnant and all so I don’t kno-“

Matt cut off your words making shocked at little bit while laying on your back, “I want to make you feel good, to show you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done,” he whispered, his voice warm and reassuring. He leaned in to kiss you, his lips soft and tender, his hands continuing to explore with a deep sense of respect,as he pulled your pink pj pants off and taking off your shirt as you laid back down on the bed letting the moment sink in ,you didn’t even know where to start so you just let him take control.

His gentle touches and tender kisses continued to traverse your body, his hands caressing every curve and line.He paid special attention to your breasts, cupping and squeezing them with reverence before trailing his fingers down your stomach, slowly parting your thighs. Matt looked up at you with devotion as he settled between your parted thighs,which u didn’t wear underwear or a bra. "You deserve to be worshipped, especially now. Let me make it up to you." His hands tenderly caressed your swollen belly,you gasp as your felt cold air hitting you wet cunt , Matt's tongue started to extended, delicately licking through your folds, gathering your arousal before pressing against your clit. He began to lap at your sensitive nub, his tongue swirling and flicking against it as he inhaled your sweet scent. His hands held your thighs apart, keeping you open for his hungry mouth.”you like that ,ma”. As he grunted while your legs tried to close him in ,he pushed them wide open locking you in position to take it.”yes ..d-daddy..ah”~as you gripped the sheets your legs wanting to push him off from the way he lick your sensitive wet cunt . "Fuck, you taste so good, baby," Matt growled against your pussy, his grunts and slurping sounds filling the room as he devours your sensitive flesh. He pushes your legs apart even wider, locking your ankles together to keep them spread, giving him unrestricted access to your dripping wet cunt.”ah..fuck Matt”,as you gripped his hair pushing his head deeper into your soon to be overstimulating wet pu$$y which made his high top model nose rub against you clit nub rough,your legs begin to shake from the pleasure ,the wet slurping noises turn you on ,which made your nipples hard as fuck .Matt's face is buried between your thighs, his nose pressed firmly against your sensitive clit as you grip his hair and push his head deeper.He sucks your clit into his mouth, his tongue lashing at it as he eats you out aggressively, his nose rubbing against your pu$$y lips,side to side ,up and down,all around.

Matt knows just how to push your buttons, and he's determined to make you cum quickly. He doubles his efforts, his tongue fucking your clit as his nose continues to rub against your pussy. He sucks hard on your clit, his mouth making a loud slurping sound as he brings you rapidly towards your climax.”ah..fuck m-Matt,you gone make me cu-“. As you winced

Matt lifts his head, his face shiny with your cum as you convulse beneath him. "Mmm, see,you did good ,baby ," he purrs, cleaning his lips with his thumb before sucking it into his mouth. Matt doesn't give you a chance to catch your breath before he's attacking your tits . He pushes you down onto the bed and starts sucking your tits, one after the other, his mouth making sloppy sounds as he sucks hard on your nipples. “Damn ,Matt I mhm”as you hummed shaking you head side to side .”I know baby ,I know baby ,just take it baby,just let me make you feel good”as he mumbled against your tits going to the other nibbled on the next one flickering fast trying all fast trick to make you cum again.

Matt continues to feast on your tits, his hands roaming over your body as he enjoys the taste of your skin. He lets out a low growl when your hands reach for his belt, but eventually relents, allowing you to unbuckle it and pull down his pants.”what chu tryna do ma,i got you baby”.

“I -I-i wanna please you too baby,I wanna heal you too”.as you whined ,yearning for him ,Matt's eyes flutter closed as you quickly wrap your hand around his thick, hard length and begin to stroke it slowly along with his precum basing it on his tip . "Ma, you don't have to..." he trails off, his words lost as you lean down and take him into your warm, wet mouth. "Oh god, baby..."Matt's whimpers of pleasure fill the air as you spit in your hand and begin to stroke him,leaving your position of blowing him off to a handjob,your hand gliding smoothly up and down his length. He buries his face between your breasts drooling ,licking your tits here and there,muffling his whines as you tighten your grip and pump him faster.”I-i love you baby.you know I fucking love you”as dragging his words into your tits .

You find yourself in so much pleasure,throwing your head back ,rolling your hips as Matt hand went back to your clit as he licked your tits,all while u gave him the best wet handjob.Matt legs begin to shake and so was yours ,it was too much tension the sound of grunts ,groans,moans,whimpering,slurping,suckin,skin slapping filled the air very intensely.you found your self stroking his length faster then every precum mixed with your spit ,stroking fast as Matt was in work with your body as well.”come on baby,I know you wanna cum,let’s cum together,I know can baby,I know”.

Matt's body tenses up as he nears his climax, his hand working your clit furiously as he continues to suck on your tits. The room is filled with the sounds of your pleasure, and Matt's legs shake beneath your touch. "I'm gonna... I'm gonna cum, Ma..."

“Fuck Matt..shit..fuck me”. Matt throws his head back, a deep groan escaping his lips as he finds his release. His body stiffens, his hand pausing on your clit as he has your hot seed onto his hand,he feels your body tense up as you find your own release once more. He pulls away from your chest, watching as you milk him for every last drop.”I love you baby”as Matt peck your lips laying back in the bed breathing heavy.

“Damn how long that erykah badu song was playing”as Matt look at your confused sweaty smiling pulling the hair at your face

“Babe this is the last of the song in my playlist …oh wait nah it’s the ending of the song “as I chuckled loving his embrace

As the Erykah badu -otherside of the game played into the back ground as I hummed the song into Matt neck as he rubbed my belly while laying out.

🎶🎵Oh, go on, go on, go on, yeah

See I ain't tryin' to bind your life

But I want you to do what's right, and yeah

I'm your wife

Peace out to revolution

I know there's confusion

You gonna do what you gotta do now🎶🎵🎶-Otherside of the Game

Song by Erykah Badu

Bye yall me after writing that long ass fic:

[bitchfitch]

The town called Starfall looked exactly like every other Tago had passed through since escaping and that made his scales chafe. A sandy main road lined with businesses preying on the ranch hands of the surrounding lands. A sky that never held clouds. An energy of everyone distrusting the outsider amongst them even as they smiled and welcomed him to open his wallet in this boot shop or that inn.

It was to be his home for however long it took for him to be chased out again. Coco, his dear mare, deserved a stable to call her own after all she'd been through getting him here.

There'd been a stranger in town for a week now and no one thought to warn Whiskey about it. That had them getting short with every patron that they knew had met the new snake in their midst. Whiskey may not be elected like the mayor or sheriff, but there was no denying that Starfall was Their town. They were who it was named after, if anyone cares.

Sure, people didn't Usually need to tell them when a stranger was passing through, but the snake had hidden himself so fully it wasn't until their daddy sent him to drop off a cart of new stock that they even knew he existed.

He was tall. Whiskey didn't like that. What's a man need to be that tall for? Scaled with eyes like a cottonmouth, snake inside and out this one. And he wore a thick rag tied around the lower half of his face and another over the top of his head, his hat holding it in place and making it look like long hair from a distance. Whiskey didn't like that either. What's he hiding?

He's hiding a lot that is. Whiskey could tell you every little thought that happened in this town, but this snake? Not a single hint as to what was going on in that bald head. They could feel the outline of his mind like coils wrapped around a rat so they knew he Had one. They just didn't get to see it.

It didn't help one bit that the snake stared. The entire time Whiskey was counting over the stock of bottles and jars to make sure this "Tago" fellow didn't pocket anything he just stared at them. Kept his head down so his eyes were in the shade.

"Uh, my apologies. I was only told one of y'all's name..." he finally drawled out. He had a nice voice, Whiskey didn't like that.

"It's Whiskey, Whiskey Rivers," they responded using both of their mouths. He should know they were only one person even if they weren't connected. If he weren't guarded against them he wouldn't have even had to ask such an awkward question.

"Both of you- uh- I uh, I've never met twins with the same name," he scratched the back of his neck, "Tis nice name. I get why your folks would use it twice?"

""We" aren't twins. I'm Whiskey. That's me too," they pointed to themselves dismissively. "Whatcha take from this?"

"Nothing Ma'am- I mean Sir I mean-"

"Just Whiskey is fine."

"Nothing Whiskey. I'm real grateful to your father for giving me work, I'm not stealing anything from you all."

They eyed him up. They didn't like not being able to see in his head one bit.

"What's wrong with you?"

"What-"

"I asked, what's wrong with you? There's something going on no hiding it. I can tell you aren't right. Anyone else? I can see inside their head no problem, but You? It's like youve got nothing. I can't tell if you're lying or telling the truth."

Tago wilted the entire time they spoke. his polite and straight posture curling and getting tense as he finally looked away.

"Nothing I did. Promise. I don't know what would cause it. My adopted mother, she was a witch. Must've done something to me," he rambled. "I got to go, just let me unhitch Coco and I'll be out your hair."

"Mhh -hmm. Get," Whiskey kept an eye on him the entire time he got his horse free from their daddy's cart. He moved quick and it made his jacket ride up just enough to flash the handle of the shiny revolver he had tucked in his pants.

"What a man like you need a gun like that for?"

"Uh-" his hand went to pull his jacket back over it, "It was a gift. I'm a good shot. I promise I don't mean to start any trouble in your town."

"Let me guess. You don't mean to start nothing but trouble finds you anyway?"

"Yeah, something like that..."

The next time Whiskey saw that Tago fellow he was being true to his word, at least.

It wasn't that trouble had a tendency to find Tago, more so it was that trouble is hunting him down to collect on a bounty no amount of begging for his life could match.

Today trouble looked like two of the ranch owners spotting him while he was walking down to the Starfall Saloon to drop off a gift for Whiskey on behalf of their daddy.

The two men didn't make their approach subtle. Tago could have pulled Missy out of where he kept her holstered and ended the encounter before it began, but he was liking his life here too damn much. Maybe he was mishearing them. maybe he wasn't the snake faced motherfucker they were looking for. Maybe he could make it to the saloon before they worked up their courage.

He walked faster, kept his shoulders straight. The soft blue painted doors were in his sight. No fighting on the saloon, Whiskey may not like him, but they seemed the sort to not let their rules be crossed.

Rapid steps behind him and then a shock of pain through his jaw as he was tackled through the saloon doors. Tago managed to stop his fall, but the impact with the floor sent a knife of agony up his bad arm. He twisted in the grip around him. Instinct more than active thought driving him to snap at the face of his assailant. His fangs closed around nothing but his own face cover. The rancher having pulled back in time to avoid a lethal bite. Tago's head wrang as the brute knocked his head back against the wood boards with a mighty strike. His knuckles bruising the skin under Tago's scales.

"What do you lot think you're doing!?" Whiskey was there. Both of their halves grabbing the brave rancher by the back of his shirt and hauling him off Tago like he weighed nothing. "What's my one rule Steve? It's no fighting in my damn saloon."

They shoved him back, Tago couldn't pick his head up to watch. The room was spinning bad enough to make him feel like he was back in his home river getting whipped along by hidden currents.

"There's a bounty on that one worth a 100 head herd-"

"And do that mean you get to break my rule? No. Out! Stevenson you too, I want to see none of either of you until you learn your damn manners."

One half of them, the one Tago had mistaken for a man, comes to bend over him, their nighttime black eyes squinted as they tried to decide what to do with him while the lady half dealt with the ranchers.

Tago's head was too fuzzy to put two thoughts together, but he'd come here for a reason dammit. He reached into his jacket to pull the small, slightly crushed, parcel he'd been sent to deliver. Holding it up to them as his vision started to go grey.

"Y-your d-daddy sends h-his regards."

[triforceangel13]

A Service to the King Ch. 21 (A SidLink Omegaverse Story)

Chapter 21: Protective

Link woke with a soft yawn, sitting up slowly with a grunt. Hay was not the best place to fall asleep but at least now he was much more rested. He could see the sun setting nearby and he let out a sigh. He hated that he was changing his sleep schedule but he just couldn't help it.

And honestly he was sure he could sleep again. But this time in a bed or something.

Epona was right near him eating her hay once more. She lifted her head to look at him and let out a soft knicker at him.

“Hey girl,” he said to her, rising up and stretched letting out a grunt at the feel of his sore back and body. He yawned a bit and let out a sigh.

“You've got the right idea. I need some food,” he said, scratching his stomach, heading for the gate to let himself out. Maybe someone was cooking at the fire pit outside.

He heard movement behind him and he turned to see her trying to come with him.

“No, you need to stay here,” Link said. She let out a snort, nudging him and tried again.

Link sighed.

“Alright, fine,” he said with a roll of his eyes.

He attatched a lead to her halter and he then gently guided her out of the stall towards the outside of the stables.

He knew that she was being very protective and wanted to keep an eye on him. Sort of like a mother keeping an eye on her child.

It was cute and it made Link feel a little more comforted after everything going on.

Thankfully there was an older man cooking something in the pot. Seeing Link he smiled, gesturing for him to take a seat. Link moved to sit on the small stool, letting go of Epona's lead.

“Don't wander too far,” Link said to her as he unclipped it. She let out a knicker and nudged him with her nose before going to find some grass to munch.

He payfully rolled his eyes and he turned to the pot of food. He leaned in, inhaling lowly at the smell of it.

“Wow, that smells amazing,” Link said to him. “What are we having?”

“Some beef stew,” the man said. “Simple but filling. I have to say that the champion of hyrule wants to eat my food is such a blessing. And the future prince of the zora domain as well.”

The smile that was on Link's face fell and he paled a bit.

“Whatever do you mean?” he asked, swallowing a bit as he reached for the necklace around his neck. He flicked it open, taking in a small bit of Sidon's scent before closing it again.

He let out a sigh. He had to remain clam.

“It's going all around Hyrule right now that you and the king of the zoras were seen being a little close,” an old woman said as she approached the two of them, taking the other vacant stool. “I for one think it's cute.”

“It's none of our business of who you are with young man,” the man said and looked around. “Though I'm surprised that you are not with him right now.”

“It's...complicated,” Link said with a sigh. He suddenly didn't feel so hungry. He just wanted to curl up in Epona's stall again and just forget about this whole conversation.

The couple stared at one another and then the woman reached over with some warm bread she had in a basket. Link took a piece, thanking her softly.

Despite that he didn't feel like eating just something in him told him that he needed to eat. That he needed to take care of himself.

He wondered what that was about.

“Whatever is going on I'm sure you will figure it out,” the woman urged. “You defeated evil twice for all of us.”

“Relationships are different,” Link said softly.

“Oh young one it's hard I know expericning all these emotions with a little one growing within you. I'm sure whatever it is was a misunderstanding,” said the woman.

“Yeah I suppose...wait....what did you say?” Link said with his eyes widening.

“That it might just be all a misunderstanding,” the woman tried again but Link was shaking his head. There was no way. How was that possible? He hadn't been in heat or anything like that.

Then again when was the last time he had one...

Was Sidon that...potent? He had been the only one he had been with in years.

“No that other thing. That I'm growing....”

“A little one. A small pup. I wonder, do you think that the child will be a zora or a hylian?” the woman asked her husband.

“Probably Zora, tha alpha genes are usually more dominant,” the old man said.

But Link wasn't listening. He was still in shock. His hand shakily rest on his stomach. Pregnant. A baby.

And he hadn't been taking care of himself as always, ready to run, ready to jump into battle if necessary.

And he had done it all the while prgnant and putting his pup in danger.

No. Not just his pup. Sidon's pup. The heir to the zoran throne. By technical terms he was committing treason to the domain.

He had to return.

“Goodness, you had no idea did you,” she said to him. “That scent of yours has a slight scent of milk and honey to it. That's usually a sign.”

“I don't normally pay attentiong to it,” Link said with a small sigh and watched as the old man spooned a bunch of stew into a bowl and passed it to him.

He thanked the old man and tucked into the bowl of soup. Despite that he wasn't feeling hungry with this information he felt the urge to need to protect his child.

He had to do better. He had to take care of them. And he had to go back to the domain. He could figure out his life after the child was born. But so many thoughts went through his head. Had there ever been a hylian and zora offsping before? Zelda would know but she...

No. He had to put his difference aside to protect himself and think for the future of his child. For now he had to return to the domain and talk to the father of his child.

And maybe then once they figured out how to properly take care of himself and the baby would he talk about what he had seen in the hallway.

“Oh my poor boy you have been through so much,” the old woman said, handing him a hankerchief. He thanked her, taking it and was confused at first until he felt the wetness on his cheeks. He had been crying again.

“If you want my advice, being around your alpha does help with the emotion,” she urged. “I think you should find him.”

“I will,” Link said, wiping his eyes and looked over as Epona came to his side again, nudging his head with her own. He pat her snout with one hand and leaned into her.

“Ready for another trip? This time I'll take you with me,” he said. She nudged him again and he smiled softly. He turned back to his food, dipping some bread into the soup. He needed his strength and make sure he made the trip back safely.

He would need to prepared Epona as well as buy some weapons or something to use just in case he ran into any rouge monster or bandits on the road.

“And then we'll talk to the king,” Link said.

Epona's ears lay flat and Link snorted.

*

Link stopped at the bridge of the Domain.He had traveled first thing in the morning to get back to the Domain. And it was in chaos.

He looked around confused, sliding off the back of his horse and taking her reigns. She was a little apprehensive about stepping on the marble floor but she followed Link regardless.

This was his home after all.

“What in Hylia's name is going on here,” he mumbled to himself, watching as another group of Zora carried baskets of food. He reached out to one, concern on his face.

She let out a gasp, her eyes wide and a smile broke out across her face, but the panic was still in her eyes.

“Link, you've returned!” she said with relief, but one quick glance around him had her not so relaxed any longer. “You are by yourself?”

“Yes....I came back on my own,” Link said. “Where is Si-King Sidon?”

The Zora swallowed. “Out looking for you with the princess of Hyrule. He left shortly after we saw you leave.”

Link paled a bit. Sidon was out looking for him.

“I see...I'll need to do something about that,” Link said and looked around at the panic look. “What's going on? Why is everyone so upset?”

“Haven't you heard? Death Mountain is at a risk of going off and all areas around it are at risk. Even us which means it's going to be bad. We're all getting ready to relocate to a safer location,” she explained. “I suggest you do the same.”

Link paled at that and swallowed. He had to get them out of there. Even Lanayru was in danger if the mountain went off.

And what if Sidon and Zelda came back before it was safe to do so?

“Thank you. Please go and get ready, I will do the same and try to find Sidon,” he said. He had to go get his things and leave. He tied Epona to one of the railings, petting her head.

“You stay here,” he said. “I'll be back. And we're going to have to fast travel. I know you'd hate it but we have to.”

She let out a noise of disapporiving but stayed put as he went to go get his essentials.

*

Link went to his home he had built once more, panting softly as he set the bags down. He had brought everything of importance to him and even Sidon and Zelda's things as well.

As he had thought Epona had nearly thrown him off of her back when he had fast traveled but a few corrections and gentle pats she had calmed down.

They were much farther now. Who knew if they had to move again but right now they were far away. Most of the Zoras had gone into the caves below the lake. Link hoped they would all be alright. He had heard stories of those getting trapped in places.

There was only one thing left to do now. He had to contact Sidon and Zelda somehow to make sure that they knew he...and the pup were safe.

He guided Epona into her stall, pulling off her saddle and then pulled out the Purah pad. Epona nudged his shoulder and he pet her nose gently.

It was as if asking if this was a good idea. Honestly he had no other ideas.

With a sigh he pushed the button for a homing beacon to be put on where he was. It was a newer set up Purah had put into it that way the two could find one another if seperated.

Hopefully she would find it.

Before it was too late.

*

In the depths of Faron Zelda jumped when the pad on her hip went off. Sidon glanced at her as she wiped sweat from her forehead and pulled it up, her eyes widening.

“He set off a beacon,” she said. “I know where he is.”

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[maylorscardigan]

What if I Told You None of This Was Accidental?

The Style Music Video Analysis

This was really interesting for me to do. It’s something that caught me off guard completely.

First, basic things - Taylor is standing in the middle of the woods looking almost like a ghost. This gives the impression that not only is Dominic (Dom) haunted by the ghost of her but she is haunted by the memories as well.

I’m not doing a total and complete analysis of every part of the video but I wanted to point that part out as the haunted thing is a common theme in the video as a whole.

Forts. The fact the sheets are moving around a bit while they sleep give the idea that she is in a Fort with her lover. I’ll elaborate on this after.

Broken glass / mirror. Another important part of the imagery and part of what helped me notice something.

The smoke. Like forts and mirrors, smoke is a common theme in Taylor’s lyrics but the way it’s portrayed in this video seems like it’s too consuming. Also suffocating. The fact the smoke is moving through her suggests that something about her may have been too much to handle.

In this part of the video - the smoke surrounding Dominic is coming from fire but not all consuming. This indicates that this connection was smouldering and the smoke from it suggests it’s not one that will smoulder for long. Staying with the breakup theme. For the entire part of this particular scene - they eyes… the one in the right side is more hidden while the other is more visible. This will be explained later.

The way the broken glass manipulates her image is a way of showing the different versions of Taylor. Some are more broken then others.

He’s coming forward. She’s turning away from him. Runner. Seeker.

Now this is where it gets really interesting.

As we come into the bridge - the smoke is replaced by lighting. An electric charge.

Then we have Dom. Notice how the lightning is moving up the right side of the face which was different from the smoke when the focus was the left. But here - in this particular image you see Dom’s eyes. They’re blue on one side. Brown on the other.

It was this very shot that made me go OH MY GOD.

Dominic has the long hair, slicked back and a white T-shirt and a bit of a James Dean look in a baby face sort of way. But it’s the eyes that take focus.

Dominic doesn’t represent one person. But two. Harry Styles and Matty Healy. I know Harry’s eyes are green but Dom has blue and brown so they made do lol

I’ve always seen Harry as a good boy version of how Matty was back then. But Matty in that time frame…

Well…. Interesting huh?

So where am I going with this? In these two frames… in one Dom is holding the mirror over his brown eye and while it covers the brown eye it reflects her back in it. The mirror version of himself. Twin flame. In the other image… Taylor is covering just the right side of her face - the same side Dom covers up and his face replaces the image. Giving the illusion of their faces being one and again - twin flames.

——

Taylor once described the song being like someone who’s narration with you is never truly over. That they always come in and out of your life and it’s easy to think about how this may be about Harry but by the release of the song and video… Matty and Taylor had been in and out of each others lives at least twice despite being no stable relationship to each other.

She loved Harry but she always had feelings for this other guy and she is trying to convince herself that he alone is the inspiration to the song but she knows the truth. She knows the connection she has with the other is powerful but she won’t admit it to herself. But as much as she tries to cover him up - she sees herself reflected in him.

The song - as I said previously, was likely originally inspired by Harry but as she wrote it… someone else came to her mind and the song took on the meaning for two men. Remember the subconscious I mentioned in an early post? Yeah.

That’s what those specific things mean.

Forts for those who don’t know is something that Matty loves doing to escape the real world.

As it is 3am and I need some sleep - I will leave this here for now but I will work on a second part to if all.

[rosenbergamot]

What about the word: mistake

YIPPEE ok i found this old silly fic i was writing ab vampire mumbo and nobody knowing or believing that hes a vampire. its just like little snippets until the big reveal and i think im gonna pick it back up bc it was fun and silly and i enjoyed it. heres a small scene from it!!

There’s someone approaching; he hears him clunking down the stairs. Judging by the scent (all warm wet moss and Etho’s deodorant) it’s absolutely Bdubs. He turns to see him, wiping a trail of blood off of his mouth with his suit jacket-- he’d gotten a little aggressive while feeding, made a little mistake, killed a villager, all that. 

“Hi Mumbo-- oh my gosh!” He trips on the last step as he sees the blood. Smells very much like Etho. They must have just stopped hanging out. Why on Earth is he here, then? “W-What the heck? Are you okay?! My god, he’s bleeding everywhere! I don’t know first aid! What should I do?”

His friend frantically runs around, searching for a first aid kit or a potion or anything. It’s quite silly of him. There isn’t even a visible wound. He looks perfectly fine.

“BdoubleO, I’m perfectly fine! Calm down, man!”

He stops so quickly it should leave an indent in the stone. “Then why the heck is there so much blood everywhere, Mumbo? Huh?”

“Just doing my daily feeding is all.” 

“You eat blood?!” He cries out, face paling. The allay part of him makes a distressed chiming sound before he slaps a hand over his mouth, clearly embarrassed. “Is that a thing humans do? I need to ask Iskall next time I see them…” 

What.

“No, it’s a vampire thing, mate… like the first thing people think of when you say vampire.” 

“Oh, Mumbo, you’re such a prankster!” He slaps his knee. “You set this whole thing up just to make a vampire joke? That’s freakin’ rich, man. Do you not have anything else to do?”

His eyes narrow. “No, BdoubleO, I suppose I don’t have anything else to do.” 

“You should probably get a hobby! Just saying!” He chirps very helpfully. The villagers have started to recuperate. Their ire has been forgotten as he turns to stare at them. He hopes his eyes communicate the ‘what the absolute hell?’ sort of vibe he’s going for. They seem just as puzzled as he does, twin puncture wounds on each of their necks. 

He sucks a bit of stray blood off his fang. “You know what, Bdubs? I think you’re right. Maybe my new hobby will be convincing people I’m a vampire.” 

“You’re gonna have to get more convincing than this,” Bdubs gestures to all the blood. “I mean, I thought you were injured or something! Thank goodness you’re not-- though I do know how to take care of it. Licensed first aid and all that.”

He just nods and tries to look very convinced. “I’m sure you do. Now why are you in my trading hall…?” 

Bdubs launches into a rant about how he ran out of building materials halfway through constructing his stable, but all Mumbo can think about is how strange it is that this has happened twice. Do people… really not know?

[dankovskaya]

This part of the hypothetical narrative is pretty stable so I want to share a bit 😇 The first time Kiana and Jason meet face to face is when they’re both coincidentally breaking into the same building on the same night which is. Like a research center for a biotech/gene therapy company that popped up alarming fast right around Kiana’s neighborhood which also happens to be Red Hood territory. (According to him.)

So like. Kiana is extremely extremely out of her element (needed help from some of Waylon’s people to figure out how to even get inside cause she’s never done that sort of thing 😭) and possibly going to have a heart attack but she couldn’t stop herself from going through with it because the stupid glowing logo on the building that she can see from her damn apartment window is SO frustratingly familiar to her but she could not figure out why by any conventional means (and neither could Waylon) so she got desperate. Jason of course knows exactly what he’s doing and has more substantial grounded reasons for taking a look but finding HER there is a surprise so he just kind of watches her from afar for a while until it’s completely obvious that she has no idea what she’s doing and then nearly gives her the heart attack she is at risk of having. Neither of them will reveal what they’re doing there to each other of course but it’s not until he gets in her face that he recognizes who she is and then assumes she’s doing something for Waylon and provokes her in that regard. But yeah no budging and they’re both kind of annoyed.

Jason of course is still planning on going though with his own investigation and is not willing to let her run around like a dummy and ruin his shit by triggering something or alerting security so he is very clearly intending to like. Tie her up and lock her in a closet until he’s done or something along those lines but thankfully the information that Bruce kept on her (which is what he remembers her from) was barely anything considering she was only a person of interest like, once, when she was about 13 and Jason wasn’t even Robin yet. So he fails to remember that she is a biter and as soon as he tries to grab her and she sees some bare skin under his sleeve it’s OVER and in less than a minute he is down for the count. But now she’s just freaking out twice as bad and also keeps gagging because whatever the FUCK is in his body does not taste like any blood she’s ever had in her mouth so exactly as he fears she ends up sounding an alarm and she manages to hide but of course. Jason is just out in the open on the ground. So HE gets caught while she watches him getting dragged away with ominous intentions (while. to be clear. he is fully conscious he just can’t move.) and then gets the fuck out of there the way she came and attempts to pretend none of that ever happened.

[sofiadragon]

I've been digging in my WIPs again

Look, I stepped away from the Harry Potter fandom online for a long time before coming back after the MCU phase 4 sent me back to re-read my old books but I kept writing for myself. I've got backlogged fic that, because I never intended to publish it, is all kinds of messy unedited snips of things that I had to pour out of my brain in order to make room for other stuff.

I have a bit of a time travel story. Mix of the Master of Death do-overs and an amnesia plot with a LOT of 'authoritarian governments are evil, actually' hovering over the whole thing. Harry Potter gets blasted back in time and is picked up by the Department of Mysteries.

This is the beginning:

“Someone wanted you gone quite badly,” a rough male voice said. He blinked himself awake from a light doze at the sound, taking stock of where he was and how he felt as quickly as he could with a potential threat so close. He was sore all over, and his head had a feeling like being stuffed with cotton that sometimes happened when he slept in too late. Everything was blurry, but he had the impression both that this was wrong and that it made sense. The man sitting at his bedside wore a hooded cloak, but was otherwise an unremarkable man of indeterminate age with brown enough hair and a rather boring and forgettable face. The room was small and through the blur of poor vision it was all rather mauve and brown, but clearly intended for medical care given the bed had railings and there was a sharp antiseptic scent over everything. The stiff white sheets fit the overall impression of a medical facility.

“This is the third time you’ve woken up enough for me to try talking to you, so stop me if any of this sounds familiar. You may call me Master Elmwood, as I am a Master of Charms in the employ of the Department of Mysteries as an unspeakable. You appeared quite suddenly during a storm of magic on August the thirty-first that caused quite a lot of temporal flux. Everything about it is now classified, and when you are stable enough you will be taking an oath to protect any and all knowledge of what happened to you.” The man paused, his nose scrunching in distaste as he said the next bit in a hurry.

“There was some consideration for putting you out of your misery, but it was determined that getting you well enough to talk to would likely provide us a lot of answers about how you came to be blasted through the weave of the world as you were. Morally, it would be repugnant to end your life now that you are no longer suffering so severely, especially since we have determined you are an actual child, the effects of the temporal magic aside. The muttering in your sleep that you’ve been doing as well as the divination we have done over your person has made it clear you are no friend of the forces currently attacking the Ministry of Magic. Because of this, my department had decided to provide you with the means to continue your life as best that you can once we have sorted all of this out.” The man stopped there, looking expectantly at him.

“I… I’m not sure,” the boy on the bed tried to say, but it came out in a painful croak. Master Elmwood offered him a cup of water, and instinctively the boy sniffed it twice and let some dribble on his hand and the sheet before he took a drink. Hospital sheets were charmed to react to most potions, or was that just to non-neutral acidity? He couldn’t quite remember, but he didn’t feel any magic in the water and the sheets stayed white so it was probably safe. “Everything’s a bit jumbled. I remember I was fighting, not just once but over and over again for so long, and I… I think I gave up. Just, I remember I walked to where he was and just let him… I let him.” “There was a lot of blood on you that wasn’t yours,” Master Elmwood said, very matter of fact.

“I watched him die. I… I can’t remember his name, and it was all so complicated and I can’t… I don’t understand, but he kept me safe and then he died in so much pain. He bled on me, and he begged me with his last breath, and there wasn’t anything I could do, and then I gave up and let… let Tom kill me,” the boy said, feeling a bit frantic at not being able to remember his own name let alone untangle the mess that were hsi most recent memories. Had there been some kind of contest, or a night at a bar? None of the pieces fit together easily. The person he watched die shifted from an older man with a severe face to a pretty blond boy as he thought about it.

“Unspeakables are sworn not to reveal anything about our work outside the department, so you can tell me anything and it will remain secret,” Master Elmwood soothed. “Take your time, you’ve been through a lot and temporal magic is especially confusing.”

“The names, I, I just can’t, I don’t know my own name, but I know Tom. Tom Marvelo Riddle wanted me dead, and then I went to let him do it after… I think Hogwarts fell. He always wanted me dead, from when I was first born,” the boy said.

“You’ve spoken quite a lot in parseltongue while you were delirious, and we believe you thought you were talking to Tom. By that we mean Tom Riddle, the self-proclaimed Dark Lord that is currently threatening all of Albion.” The boy on the bed nodded. “He has gone to great lengths to destroy all of his family members in one way or another, not that we know his motivations for doing so. It makes sense that a, and forgive me if this isn’t correct, but that a bastard child of his would soon find death or destruction at his wand.” The older man waited for any reaction, but the boy on the bed merely turned the words around in his head silently, trying to fit them into the fragmented shards of who he used to be that flashed and twirled in his mind.

“I suppose I’ll need to jog your memory. We’ve done a number of tests to try and piece together who you are and where you are from. You are of the Peverell line of pure-blood wizards and inherited parseltongue through your mother’s genetics, but we can’t be more specific than that. Perhaps your mother’s blood is not yet registered in a way we can cross-reference, meaning she is a muggle or muggle-born squib descendant, as it would take a couple generations to muddle our scrying. New blood is most commonly registered when marriages are submitted to the ministry, so that may or may not say a great deal about who you are and where you came from. Else, you have been altered somehow through blood magic so we can’t determine which branch of that family tree you hail from. Tom is from one branch of the Peverell tree, but there are others who may have sired you and we are sure it is your mother’s magic that is intertwined with parseltongue.” Master Elmwood refilled the water cup from a pitcher nearby, and the boy tested it again before drinking.

“Blood is a constantly changing potion that tells us much, but mostly about your current condition and not your history. Your scars and bones, however, tell many tales of your past. Additionally, when we found you your body was stuck in a loop aging to about twenty years and then reverting back to infancy in what must have been a traumatic and painful twist of magic. We observed the wounds you experienced through your life in this way, and the… the emaciated state you were in prior to age five. There were fluctuations in weight and health that indicate periodic bouts of child neglect and abuse. You have settled down at age fourteen now that you are free of that curse. Your birthday is July the thirty-first, the current year is nineteen-seventy-four, and it is the seventh of October. You will have a lot of healing to do before you can return to anything resembling a normal life.”

“I was… I was a student at Hogwarts. I had friends,” the boy said. “Are my friends alright? I… a red head boy and… and a girl with curly brown hair, I think?”

“If they are alive, and given the hostility of the attack on you that is unlikely if they were with you at the time you were cursed, then they will not remember you,” the man said, his voice gentle and low. He leaned forward, as if weighed down by the bad news he had to deliver. “The curse you suffered was meant to rip you out of reality itself, to undo your existence as if you had never been born in a destruction so total none would know it even happened. Whoever you were before, we can find no trace. There is no missing person report that matches your case in the last hundred years. There was no attack that had a similar surge of energy to match your appearance, nor was there any trace in the place we found you to indicate you lived nearby as far back as we can tell. We very carefully interviewed and collected the memories of the muggles who saw you in the temporal loop, and none had any idea who you could be.” Master Elmwood shifted in his chair, taking a breath before continuing.

“As far as anyone can tell, the dark magic curse aimed at you was partially successful. You were unmade enough that you were forgotten by all, but the caster was likely also effected and either waited too long to strike a killing blow or lost control of the spell somehow before you could be fully clipped out of the flow of real time. Once your enemy forgot you and stopped casting, the spell started to unravel and left you in that deplorable unstable state. There is a chance you are from the future, but we find it unlikely that you would go back further than your own birth for a spell of that kind. No magical child was born at or around the time you appeared.”

“So, I’m just, from nowhere?”

“Essentially, yes, as far as we can tell. You are fully detached from the flow of causality. That is good for you. If you have come back in time, you won’t cause a dangerous paradox that would necessitate the Department of Mysteries to list you as a threat to life and magic. Since you are a child, we hope we can re-insert you into society without too much trouble.” Master Elmwood smiled, but his words were chilling. The boy in the bed could have been executed twice by these people. First just to end his miserable suffering, and then again in case he was a time-traveler that would cause problems. “Well, I suppose that’s a good thing. I… I really can’t remember much clearly. I’m trying, but I just get little bits of stuff. A face or some words, but nothing that makes sense,” the boy said. “I know I walked to greet my own death, but beyond that it’s just ideas not memories. I like to fly, treacle tart, and owls. I had a snowy owl, and a few friends who helped me with… things. Bullies, maybe, I hate bullies.”

“Don’t force it, not yet. You have a long road of recovery, and the Masters of Thought will certainly want to examine you. Now, for the rules. There is no point in trying to lie to any of us, these rooms have spells to detect lies and we can’t help you unless you cooperate. You are, essentially, an experiment for most of my colleagues. We aren’t without morals, but you are in a secure part of the ministry reserved for the great mysteries of the world. You will be examined, healed, and eventually re-integrated into the outside world. We can’t help you without accurate information, and the possibility of such dark magic as what has been cast on you ever existing must never spread to more devious minds. The very idea of what was done to you is dangerous, and when you leave here we will take that knowledge from you so you will believe whatever life story is devised for you. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” the boy said. “I… I don’t think I could do anything about it.”

“No, you can’t. Compliance is, unfortunately, not a choice we can offer you in this case. You will have plenty of input in the story we’ll give you when you are well enough to be released. It has to be believable and fit well with what you can remember of your old life before it was erased, so your mind never rebells against it as false. You do understand why even the thought that what has been done to you could be possible is a dangerous thing to let out into the world, don’t you?”

“Yes. I… I can’t remember, but there was something. A quest to destroy some magic thing. Not this spell, but another evil magic we were keeping secret. We couldn’t tell anyone what we were doing because nobody could know they existed. For the greater good.” “For the Greater Good,” Master Elmwood parroted, leaning forward, a hint of alarm quickly hidden behind curiosity. “Tell me more about that.”

“The greater good is… it is… death for the sake of others. Sacrifice. So many died, while we were hunting for the way to stop Tom, but we didn’t know what we were doing. Lost in the woods, struggling to survive. The ministry fell, I think. I wasn’t supposed to live through it at the end, but I did,” the boy took a deep breath. “It’s easier to think of the broad strokes rather than the details.”

“That’s expected. Take your time. Anything you can tell us, so long as it is honest, will count in your favor.” Master Elmwood leaned back, looking pleased. After an hour some food was brought for the boy, some simple broth and bread to not tax his system. They spoke of many topics, testing the boy’s knowledge and feeling out what kind of person he was until exhaustion drug him back into sleep.

I would like feedback on if this is an interesting idea or not.

Later on in this draft Snape and Harry are singing along to Queen on the radio, and it has a lot of very old headcanon about Snape from right after HBP was published, some of which was deeply Jossed when the 7th book came out (I said they were old WIPs didn't I?) It's a bit of 'adults are competent' and 'best possible timeline' in that the Department of Mysteries gets to know that Voldemort is making Horcruxes in the 70's and do the responsible adult thing of working to take care of that instead of asking kids to do it. Our hero does fight Death Eaters, but mostly it's him putting together a life without unearned notoriety and fame. If Harry is back in time from the accident that broke all the time turners in the DoM battle, if he came back from the train station near-death experience, or if someone tried to erase him from time intentionally at some point after the year 1999 is all... well, it's all in these notes as alternate ideas. I typed up the above from paper journals and it was more a collection of free-writing than a constructed narrative.

Getting this to the point of being able to post it will require a full rewrite. Not just because most of it was written before book seven (this first scene was obviously written later than most of the rest of it) but also because it's a bit shit and was more about processing the trauma of watching the twin towers fall right after I signed up to join the National Guard (I was medically rejected due to a heart condition I didn't know I had, the path of my life would have been so different otherwise.) So, there are whole sections that are just... teenaged crap that needs fixing very badly.

[teohcndricks]

QUICK STATS ;

Name: Mateo Hendricks

Nicknames: Teo

Age: 38

Gender & pronouns: Male & he/him

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Time in Wilmington: From the age of 28

Occupation: Mechanic

Neighbourhood: South Hills

Relationship status: Single

Face claim: Clayton Cardenas

Trigger warnings: adoption, teen pregnancy, imprisonment, murder mention, drug addiction

Please read below for his introduction !!

Teo's mom was a teenager when she fell pregnant with him so she gave him up for adoption. He was originally born in Wilmington but then was adopted by a couple who lived in Miami, where he lived until he was 28

His adoptive parents had previously adopted an older boy, and so Teo grew up with an older brother. His brother was very troublesome and Teo soon followed in his footsteps. They were quite the devilish duo and got into lots of trouble together. It was his brother who first introduced him to the life of crime, and during his teens he would spend a couple months in a juvenile detention centre

Tbh his brother was an awful influence and Teo was never really on the straight and narrow. With his brother, they would commit a lot of crimes. Mostly petty crimes but dabbled in drugs and car theft

Teo had always known he had been adopted, and in his mid twenties he reached out to his birth mom who was more than happy to reconnect. This was when he discovered he also had two younger sisters (Camila and Corrine)

One night Teo went on a simple B&E with his brother, with Teo being the getaway driver. But in his gut he knew something wasn't right, like it was a setup, and fled. He soon came to learn that his brother had been jumped that night and had fought back, and was faced with murder charges

Engulfed with guilt, Teo fled again to Wilmington, wiping his hands of Miami. With his new family and his new home, he tried so hard to not expose his true self to Camila and Corrine but it wasn't long until he went back to his old ways, stealing cars and selling them for parts

During his time in Wilmington, he would go to prison a further two times. He was introduced to contraband drugs during his second stint, and they were concoctions of awful substances and grew addicted with one hit

He was released from prison at the beginning of 2024 and has sworn that he will get himself better, and has sworn he won't go back to his life of crime

Current update: He lives in a small apartment in South Hills with his rottweiler. He works as mechanic, working on motorcycles and cars (not stealing them, thank u). He attends regular NA meetings and has three children - the oldest is 17 and living in Miami, the second oldest is 8 and the youngest is 6, both of which living in Wilmington. He will headbutt you if you look at him the wrong way.

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

FRIENDS: He's been living in Wilmington for 10 years now so he'll have some pretty sturdy friendships at this point tbh. His besties need to be people who are willing to put up with his shit. He swears a lot, has very little patience, and can't seem to get his shit together BUT homeboy is loyal

SPONSOR/SUPPORT CIRCLE: The person/people he can go to at 3am when he's struggling with his addiction and needs to call them so he doesn't relapse. These the people are REAL with him

FRIENDS OF HIS SISTERS: His lil sisters are his damn LIIIIFE so anyone who knows Camila or Corrine will naturally know Teo too

EXES: I will at some point be looking for his baby mama who he co-parents with BUT he will have definitely attempted dating once or twice in the 10 years he's been in town

FWBs: He for suuuuure does not want a committed relationship until he's stable and can give the best to someone, but that doesn't mean he isn't sleeping around a lil bit. He's a rascal

There are tons of other connections we can do but these are just the basics <3