#some parts are still rough but ive got things to do so. here it is

[beeteal]

a tragedy, that’s what we’re meant to be!

alt versions under the cut fr fun

[kamaluhkhan]

COMPLICATED

LUST — part iv of we'll write sins not tragedies

pairing: luke castellan x nemesis! reader (afab) word count: 8.9k summary: the lives of demigods are never simple. why would your relationship with luke be any different? or: four moments of tension + one moment of release. featuring a trip to montauk with percy, grover, and annabeth warnings: a decent amount of reader backstory (mention of dad having cancer); multiple POVs (percy, grover, annabeth, luke, reader - obv nothing suggestive/smutty until luke and reader POV); luke + reader get into arguments and are v stressed so their relationship is a bit strained; reader has tattoos; reader is on birth control; rough smut (protected + unprotected p in v, oral f+m receiving, biting, scratching, slight choking, slight breeding kink, etc...); also slight dark + possessive luke! (18 + MDNI); major angst — we all know how this story ends ;( author's note: this was meant to be a blurb but...here we are! this is basically another chapter of my spill ur guts series lol. i've been gone for much longer than i planned to, but hope u enjoy possibly the angstiest, smuttiest thing i've written so far ♡

♪ "complicated" by avril lavigne

i. 

in the span of a few minutes, percy went from pure joy — being greeted with cheers from all the campers was great, sure, but truthfully the hug from annabeth alone sent him to elysium — to feeling like his heart dropped all the way to tartarus.

which is definitely not a place percy ever wants to visit again. he was happy to be back at camp with his friends, knowing that his quest was completed, his mom was safe in new york, and a war between the gods was prevented.

it should be over….but there’s something in the back of percy’s mind that’s telling him it isn’t. seeing a certain someone in the crowd earlier didn’t do anything to ease that feeling.

"can someone explain to me why clarisse is still here?" 

you raise an eyebrow at luke, and he shrugs in response.  it seems neither of you had decided who should break the news, and neither of you seem particularly excited to do so, even after dragging percy, along with annabeth and grover, into the empty hermes cabin for some privacy.

after another beat of silence, you take the lead.

“look, kid, i know you and clarisse got off to a rocky start —”

“she tried to drown me, and then basically kill me during capture the flag,” percy points out. he hears an ocean roaring at the memory, but that could have also been from his duel with clarisse’s dad, the god of war, more recently.

a duel that percy had won, for the record. luke trained him well.

“and i’m not defending that,” you clarify. “i’m just saying that we’ve known clarisse for much longer. she’s not perfect, maybe a bit aggressive sometimes — trust me, she and i have had some major disagreements, too — but i can’t see her doing something like this.”

“why would anyone at camp want to steal the bolt? to join kronos’ army against the gods?” annabeth wonders. to herself or to the group, percy isn’t sure, but he has a feeling that the wheels in her mind are turning.

“revenge, maybe?” grover suggests. 

almost instinctively, grover glances at you, and so does annabeth. percy wants to kick himself for doing the same. 

with you being the daughter of nemesis, he imagines that it's not the first time you’d been blamed for something just because of who you are. it’s a feeling percy knows all too well. and, for better or for worse, like percy, it seems like you’re not one to accept these things without a fight.

you straighten your shoulders, ready to snap back, but before you can, luke declares:

“it’s not her.”

he then knocks the toe of his shoe against your combat boot. you smile and return the gesture. the tension eases out of the room.

for a second, percy wonders if he’ll ever have someone like that: someone to defend like it’s second nature, to share that sort of secret language with, to smile at him like nothing else in the world matters. 

according to annabeth, the two of you weren’t technically dating — but percy is pretty sure that aphrodite is swooning over you. 

“see, grove? if camp half-blood’s golden boy can vouch for me, then i’m in the clear.” your tone is playful enough — no hard feelings — but the tips of grover’s ears still turn red. “i didn’t steal the bolt. sure, the gods and titans can tear each other apart for all i care — " 

annabeth stiffens at your bold statement, and grover starts to nervously chew on an empty diet coke can he had stashed in his pocket. luke watches you with the hint of a smile on his face, and percy —

well, percy can’t help but admire you even more. 

"— but it's everything else that i have an issue with.”

“everything else?”

you look at percy like the answer is obvious. 

“when have the gods ever fought their battles without us as collateral damage? doesn’t seem worth it to me, to betray my friends.” 

that itch in the back of percy’s brain gets harder to ignore.

“the oracle warned me, betrayed by a friend.” 

“prophecies don't always come true,” annabeth reminds him. “at least not in the way we expect them to.” 

“annie is right,” luke adds, nodding at his sister. “mine didn't. the oracle said i would die a hero.” 

you turn to luke then, your eyebrows furrowed. 

“what? you never told me that.” 

“it doesn’t matter,” luke insists. “my point is that i came back from my joke of a quest, alive and a definitely not a hero —”

“fuck what the oracle said.” you roll your eyes. “dead or alive, you are a hero, tiger.”

you move to place a hand on luke’s arm. to percy’s surprise, though, luke brushes you off.

“i’m not a hero. at least not the one my dad expects me to be.”

again, percy is taken aback by how luke snapped, at you of all people. you huff, and percy can tell that you’re a bit agitated now, too. 

“okay, but that doesn’t mean —”

“my point is.” luke turns to percy, effectively blocking your presence for the time being. “you completed your quest, fought a god, and stalled kronos’ plan. you’ve been through it — all three of you have — but now you’re back. let’s just enjoy the rest of our summer, yeah? whatever happened out there, whatever the oracle said, it’s in the past.”

percy wants to believe luke, he really does. one glance in your direction, and it seems like you do, too.

deep down, though, percy isn’t entirely convinced. there’s that dread in the pit of his stomach, that voice in the back of his head. something in him, warning that this isn’t quite over. the worst has yet to come.

he wonders if — or maybe just hopes — you feel the same.

—

ii.

if you of all people can’t get luke’s attention, grover is pretty sure that the world is ending.

“luke,” you try again, foregoing your usual nickname for him. your arms are crossed and you tap your foot against the floor. it makes grover slightly anxious, feeling your frustration threaten to boil over.

“i’m busy,” he grunts, and flips over another page, scribbling something on the other side. 

“grover wanted to talk to us about something.”

“i-it’s fine, we don’t have to —”

“no, it’s a good idea, grove,” you insist. you smile at grover then. he remembers that, despite the deadly glares you can deliver, like the one you were just giving luke, you have a gentle core. you just guard it behind sharp edges. 

“tell him that i’ll talk to him later.”

“or, you could tell him yourself,” you huff. grover waves awkwardly, even though luke doesn’t realize what’s happening. “he’s right next to me.”

luke looks up briefly, and then back down at the pages in front of him just as quick. he looks tired, exhausted even. 

“sorry, man. didn’t see you there. i gotta finish these reports.”

“no worries. i tend to be quiet on my hooves.”

in the moment of silence that follows, and with luke still not giving you the attention you’re asking for, you walk over to the desk where luke is working. what you see seems to make you even more annoyed than before.

“these reports are for september. why in the name of nemesis are you filling them out now?”

“i just want to be prepared.”

“prepared for what?”

luke hesitates. “just….the future.”

“oh!” you laugh, sharp and sarcastic. “i didn’t realize that the future required you to neglect your friends.”

“i’m trying to help my friends,” luke huffs. he taps his pen impatiently against the desk. “if you didn’t keep interrupting me —”

“oh my fucking gods — ”

grover watches the two of you argue. it had been easier to step in whenever something bubbled up between annabeth and percy, because they were just kids. but you and luke — you were adults. 

when grover met luke for the first time, he was already taking on way too much responsibility for a kid — keeping thalia and annabeth alive, protecting them from monsters, taking care of them. in a lot of ways, those responsibilities didn’t go away: as a senior counselor and resident older brother, a hero for the older campers to admire and the younger kids to aspire to be. camp half-blood’s golden boy, as you liked to call him. 

and, like you, luke is good at hiding. for him, its heavy burdens behind easy-going smiles. 

lately, though, those smiles seem to be strained, his shoulders slowly bending under the weight of it all. the other day, grover asked you if everything was okay with luke. you had looked back at him sadly, shrugged, and said you didn’t know.

that’s when grover decided that everyone just needs a break — an escape. he had been sensing that things weren’t quite right with the others, too. percy seems a little on edge, and so does annabeth.

then, of course, there was you and luke. finding out that the two of you had actually started dating was huge news for someone like grover who had painstakingly watched the two of you dance around your feelings for years. so, it was more than a little weird that you’d barely been speaking this past week. the rare occasion you did was tense at best, and explosive at worst. 

like now, when you pick up one of the reports luke was working on, and threaten to burn it. luke dares you to do so, even suggests, albeit sarcastically, that you use it as your next offering to the gods. 

“oh, a handwritten document from luke castellan himself? they would love that,” you snort. “admit it: you’re doing all of mr. d’s work just to suck up to some gods who don’t even give a shit about any of this. you’re practically olympus’ lapdog.”

luke, blushing a furious shade of red, gets up and yanks the paper from your hand.

“at least my parent is important enough to actually have a seat on olympus and an actual cabin for his kids to stay in.”

you look like you could just about throw luke into a fire, and vice versa. grover had never seen the two of you like this, but it made sense: each of you knowing just where, and how, to hurt the other.

and, he thinks it’s about time to step in before the damage is irreversible. so, grover starts slowly clapping. the clapping gets faster, and he manages to get through the first few lines of the consensus song before you stop him.

“alright, alright,” you sigh. you push past luke, steal his chair, and put your feet up on the desk. luke scowls at you, but you put your hands up in surrender and jut your chin out towards grover. “just listen to what grover has to say and then we’ll let you get back to your precious reports.”

grover tells luke his idea. luke actually agrees, and grover can’t help but feel a little bit of a victory. 

he’s a protector, after all. it’s his job to make sure you’re all alive and happy and thriving. and not burnt to a crisp over some petty argument.

—

iii. 

annabeth had missed home when she was away on their quest, but being back and seeing everyone being taught to worship the gods without question, to believe that the only things that matter are power and glory….well, after everything that happened, after percy, annabeth can’t just go back to doing the same. at least not entirely. 

all this to say, she was totally on board with grover’s idea: the five of you, renting a cabin in montauk to get away from camp for a bit.

unfortunately, the trip starts off less than ideally. you and luke bicker the entire way here — and not the playful jabs you usually throw at each other. 

annabeth remembers the first time she saw you together. it was during breakfast, their first morning at camp half-blood. annabeth had spent the night trying not to cry over thalia, and already missing luke even though he was only a few cabins away. she was still a kid, surrounded by strangers, told that she was safe now, but didn’t quite believe it yet. one look to luke at the hermes table, and annabeth could tell he felt the same way, too — not quite settled in this new place that was supposed to be home, and with these people who were supposed to be family.

she watched as the hermes table went to burn offerings to the gods. when they sat down again, luke looked even more unsettled than before.

but then, you leaned in and whispered something in luke’s ear, and he actually laughed, just a bit, which was a nice change of pace. luke was always the one making annabeth and thalia laugh when they were running from monsters, always the one trying to keep everything together with a smile or a joke.

as she devoured her breakfast, annabeth couldn’t help but keep glancing at the two of you. she heard warnings from her half-siblings, about your mother being the goddess of revenge, and you living up to that name. 

luke either didn't know, or didn't care about whatever reputation you had. sitting there, next to you, annabeth didn’t think she’d ever seen luke so, genuinely happy, so at ease.

all these years later, neither you nor luke seemed particularly happy. you’re obviously avoiding each other, and annabeth doesn’t understand why.

you and luke are a new puzzle that she can’t wait to solve. 

annabeth had finished constructing the most elaborate sandcastle in history, just for percy to accidentally splash it when he was trying to surf a wave; so she decides that playtime is over. it’s time to figure out what exactly is going on between you and luke.

luke is in the cabin doing gods know what. you're on the deck painting your nails, so annabeth decides to start gathering information from you, first. 

“hey." you finish painting your pinky a dark purple, and set the bottle down next to you. "having fun?”

annabeth nods once and sits next to you. she asks if you could paint her nails, and you pull out a bottle of silver polish you said you thought she might like. 

as you work, careful with each stroke of polish, annabeth surveys the tattoos on your skin. you’re wearing a bikini top, so there are some that she’s seeing for the first time. there's one of a knife on your sternum, and annabeth distinctly remembers seeing a similar one peeking from underneath the collar of luke’s shirt. she wonders when you got it, if you had to travel to a tattoo parlour in the city, how many other adventures you'd gone on without having to consult the oracle beforehand. 

maybe that’s a good place to start. 

“have you ever thought about leaving camp? like, long term?" 

"sometimes," you admit. "it would be nice to have some normal early-twenties experiences."

"would you go to school?"

you smile as you keep painting annabeth’s nails. “maybe. i might have seen legally blonde too many times, but i think about law school sometimes.” 

“what about luke?”

your smile fades at the question. “i...i don’t know." your once precise nail-painting falters, and you mumble a curse when a drop of silver lands on annabeth's skin. you swipe it away before continuing. "luke's one of those people i can't really see away from camp half-blood for too long; pretty sure it would burn down without him. there's a reason he feels responsible for everyone there...in a way i respect, obviously, but, it's not the same for me. nobody needs me."

"luke needs you."

you sigh, and annabeth wonders if you even realize how you shake your head slightly. she thinks you're about to disagree with her, but instead you ask: 

“what's this about, annie? are you thinking about your dad’s offer?”

and annabeth’s completely thrown off her line of inquiry. 

“how did you —”

“perce told me that you’ve been talking about staying with him for the year,” you explain. you gesture at annabeth to give you her other hand, and she complies. the silver polish on the hand you just finished glitters in the sun. 

“well, nothing’s confirmed.”

you look up at annabeth, one eyebrow raised. “it's okay, you know — if you just wanna….be a kid for a bit.”

annabeth is silent, prompting you to ask another question.

"what's holding you back?"

“well….at first, i thought it would be a definite no,” annabeth admits. “obviously, it didn’t work out last time. i don’t know if i want to risk it again — if i can trust him, you know? how do i know he actually cares —  that he’ll be there for me when i need him?”

“you don’t.” you pause for a second. “but i’m gonna tell you a story that i think might help.”

you're done painting her nails, so you put everything away. you sit cross-legged next to annabeth, looking out at the ocean.

“my dad never wanted me to go to camp. he wanted to raise me in the city, just like he’d grown up. he’d take me to rock concerts all the time. i was so young, he’d make me wear earmuffs and carry me on his shoulders so that i could still see the band.” you smile softly at the memory. “and then….my dad got sick, he couldn’t take care of me, and monsters started to show up, so he brought me to camp for safe keeping." 

"you've told me all this," annabeth remarks. 

you start fiddling with your camp necklace. annabeth isn't used to seeing you so unsure, so nervous; it throws her off even more. 

"what i haven't told you is that even when my dad got better, he….he didn’t give me a choice of where to stay.”

"oh," is all annabeth can say. 

“yeah, oh," you scoff, but there’s not really any malice behind it. you seem…sad. defeated, almost. your fingers move to play with the hem of your shorts, which causes the fresh nail polish to smudge. you don’t seem too concerned about that at the moment, though. "i told everyone that i chose to stay. the truth is that i stayed because my dad didn't want me anymore. he said that the universe gave him a second chance, so he wanted to live his life without having to worry about monster attacks or taking care of his teenage daughter."

annabeth wonders if luke knows the truth about this; though, considering how difficult it seems for you to admit, she doubts it. 

before, annabeth had a theory that you decided to stay at camp because of luke.

luke was away when you got the news that your dad was in remission. annabeth remembers how happy you were, how excited you were to be back in the city and living with your dad again. you started packing right away.

when luke came back from his failed quest, you had just gone into the city the day before, having promised to visit in the summer and stay in touch. someone – chris maybe, or beckendorf — must have called you, told you what happened, because you came back to camp right away, your bag still fully packed. you never left again. 

"that sucks."

“yeah.” you let out a hollow, breathy laugh. “and, i was angry at first. of course i was. but now, i don’t know. i think that maybe my dad does care about me. like, he still sends me mixtapes with old punk rock songs he thinks i’d like. he actually calls me on my birthday, and we have a 3 minute conversation about nothing important." 

"right…" annabeth furrows her brows. this conversation had definitely not gone as planned. "no offense, but what's —"

"i'm getting to the point," you tell her, bumping your shoulder against hers.  "i realized that sometimes people can only love us in a way that works for them — and it sucks. it really, really sucks. but then sometimes…. sometimes people do actually try. and, i don’t know, it seems like maybe your dad is willing to try.”

“so you think i should take him up on his offer.”

the sun starts to set. you get up, brush sand off your legs. 

“i think it's time for a swim. i also think that you’re smart enough to know what’s best for you, and who deserves a second chance. just know that whatever you decide — we’ll be there for you.”

you leave without another word, but with the return of your usual confident smile, off to the shore to take advantage of the last bits of daylight. 

"she's right, annabeth." luke appears a few seconds later, takes the spot next to annabeth you had just occupied.

annabeth hums.

"how much of that did you hear?" 

luke doesn't answer. he just stares at your form, disappearing in the distance and diving under the waves.

—

iv.

you clear your throat and luke turns around to see you freshly showered. you’re wearing a pair of shorts and one of the oversized band tees the two of you constantly exchange. you've lost track of whose is whose at this point.

luke resists the urge to shamelessly check out your legs, and turns his back towards you once again. that bikini top you were wearing earlier was bad enough. thankfully, the heat from the stove was enough to cover up his blushing cheeks at the sight of your exposed skin. 

“i thought we were ordering pizza,” you say, moving to peer over his shoulder, chin hovering just above. luke had the sense that you were avoiding physical contact, and as much as it drives him crazy, he knows that he’s the one who’d dug his own grave. pushing you away and whatnot. 

“didn’t know that you knew how to cook.”

“not much,” luke shrugs. he keeps stirring the vegetables — broccoli and carrots and baby corn. he’ll add the red peppers once the broccoli turns green so that they don’t become too soft. he’s pretty sure that’s how he remembers it going.

“i could have helped you.” you reach over and hand him the peppers right on time. you shift to lean your back against the counter next to the stove, arms crossed over your chest and eyes following luke. 

luke throws in the chicken he cooked earlier, and then the sauce he had also mixed. he waits a few seconds, lets the sound of everything sizzling fill the space between you. 

“it’s an easy recipe.” luke turns off the stove to punctuate his point. 

and it had to be. something quick he’d make with his mom after she had one of her episodes, before waking up and realizing that she had a son to feed. the sounds, the colors, the smells — it all, overwhelmingly, reminds him of a childhood he once had. one that was never as simple as the food he just made.

none of the bitterness in his throat is caused by his mom, of course. just his father who calls himself a god, and left them both alone to fend for themselves. 

you start getting out plates from the cupboards as you ask: “where are the kids?”

luke checks the pot on the stove to see if the rice is cooked. “told them to go rent something from the video store.” 

“they went alone?”

“they’ve literally been to hell and back,” he replies and sits down at the table. “i think they can handle a blockbuster.”

“i don’t care if they get attacked by monsters,” you state, setting down the last plate in front of him. “i know they can handle themselves. they just better choose a good movie.” 

luke doesn’t mean to snort, but he can’t help but remember all the arguments you’d gotten in with chris over your tastes in movies. 

 “don’t laugh, castellan. i’ve saved movie night on more than one occasion and i’ve never gotten so much as a thank you.” you roll your eyes, but luke notices the ghost of a smile.

it fades just as quickly as it appeared, and luke already misses the small moment of levity that’s passed. 

“what’s been going on with you, tiger?”

you hold his gaze, and luke knows that you’re hoping for a real answer, for the truth he can’t give you. 

“nothing,” he answers instinctively. 

“don’t give me that,” you sigh and turn away from him, returning to your position against the counter. 

“i said it’s nothing,” luke insists, a bit more assertively. “why can’t you just believe me?”

“because you’ve been distant, moody.” your tone is sharper now, too. “you’ve been avoiding me. you’ve barely been eating. the side of your bunk has been empty, which means you haven’t been sleeping, either. gods, i can’t even remember the last time you kissed me —”

“you’re really mad at me because we haven’t fucked?” 

it’s a low blow, and he delivers it as if he hadn’t missed seeing you underneath him. or on top, or beside. luke isn’t picky. 

“you’re impossible!” you groan, and cover your face with your hands. you take a deep breath  before returning to glare at luke. “do….do you not want to be together, anymore? because if that’s what’s happening, i’ll survive. we can go back to being friends.” you clench your jaw to make up for the tremble behind your question. always a tough face, even in the face of potential heartbreak.

of course, luke knows you’ll be fine without him. he’s the one who might have difficulty surviving when you part ways.

“that’s not —” luke sighs and runs a hand through his hair, avoiding your gaze. “that’s not it.”

“then what is it?”

“noth—”

“i will send you to elysium if you tell me it’s nothing one more time, because i know it’s not!” you’re shouting now. “i might not know what it is, but i know you well enough to tell that something is bothering you. so i’m asking you, one more time, what is going on?”

the thing is, luke can’t tell you — about what he’s done, about who he’s aligned himself with. he can’t lie to you, either, at least not to save his life.

so, he’s basically stuck in whatever the greek mythology version of limbo is. 

for now, he’s saved by percy, annabeth, and grover, who walk in with a stack of DVDs and armfuls of movie snacks. 

dinner is fine, especially with the kids providing a good enough buffer. luke even catches you smiling and laughing along with them a few times. you approve of their choice in movies, starting with mulan. it’s one of luke’s favorites, too, but he can’t help but let his attention wander. 

the two of you have known each other for a long time. luke has felt your anger. he’s felt your frustration. you’ve been on opposing sides of explosive arguments, of brutal sparring matches. 

but, despite everything, luke’s never been hated by you. it’s unavoidable, given what he’s done and the path he’s on; it's just not something he's particularly eager to feel.

working for kronos….luke won't pretend he regrets it. something had to be done, to take back the poisonous world the gods created. 

he did it for you, even if you won't understand.

he'd do anything for you.

so, for now, he’s willing to endure the daggers you stare at him from the other side of the couch. 

—

v. 

in another life, you might have taken advantage of the queen bed and private room. both hard to come by at camp half-blood, if you’re not willing to risk zeus’ wrath for the latter.

gods, it feels like forever since you and luke snuck into cabin one because couldn’t keep your hands off each other, curses and lighting strikes be damned. 

you almost wish lightning would strike — at least then the bed would be warm. 

“i can feel you being mad at me,” luke whispers. 

“sorry, thought you’d already be gone by now,” you respond, sarcasm dripping through your words. “off to see whoever else you’d rather sleep with.”

“so, you are mad because we haven’t fucked in a while.”

a stupid slip of the tongue. you can practically hear the smirk in his voice, and your entire body feels on fire for giving him any leverage on you. that was definitely not the warmth you were hoping for. 

“whatever,” you mumble, shuffling closer to the edge of the bed, your back still towards luke. 

for the record, you’re mad because of whatever distance luke was forcing between you, or whatever wall he was putting up, for a reason you don’t understand. you’d always known luke well, but lately you haven’t been able to read him. 

and, sure. maybe you are…. frustrated. the two of you hadn’t been intimate in a while, yes, and your fingers are nothing compared to luke’s, but more than that: you just miss actually feeling him close to you. in any sense. 

you’re not sure how much time passes, and there’s nothing but silence. then, you hear his voice again, gentler than before, no cocky attitude laced through. 

“you never told me about your dad.”

ugh. of course, luke had overheard your conversation with annabeth earlier. damn those sly hermes’ genes.

you stay silent to give off the illusion that you’d fallen asleep, but luke doesn't fall for it. 

“we’ve shared a bunk for years, karma. i can tell when you’re not sleeping.” 

you pause for a few more seconds, but you know that luke is persistent.

“it didn’t matter,” is all you offer before he asks again.

“it did,” luke insists. “why didn’t you tell me?”

“it’s not like we tell each other everything,” you scoff. “like, why didn’t you tell me about that prophecy? and why won’t you tell me whatever’s going on with you now?”

“that’s….that’s different.” 

“not really. i bet that it’s all for the same reason.”

“which is?”

 you debate telling luke the truth. 

it was no surprise that you had a certain reputation around camp: cunning, hot-tempered, brash. you were fine being the angry girl whose mother wasn’t enough of a god to warrant a cabin, but enough of a threat to be wary of. you didn’t want to be the one who was also dropped by her father, unwanted and too much of a burden. so, you swallowed the reality of the situation; pretended that nothing broke your heart, and that nothing ever would.

“i didn’t want you to look at me differently,” you admit. 

another pause, this time from the other side of the bed. 

“if it makes you feel better, i was glad that you stayed.”

you can’t help it; you let out a sardonic laugh.

“that’s not much of a comfort, since you haven’t seemed very thrilled with me lately.”

“that’s not….” luke falters. “i just mean that i don't know who i’d be if you left.”

in spite of the situation, the ongoing tension between you, you find yourself smiling. 

“always so dramatic,” you tease.

deep down, you know you’re not much better.

luke was part of the reason you might have stayed at camp, anyways. he was the reason why you didn’t fight harder to get back to your old life, and you always did like a good fight.

it was scary though, that one person had so much power over you and didn’t even know it. you tried to convince yourself that you stayed because luke had needed you, after his quest and everything. but, once you’d known how it felt to have luke in your life, you didn’t want to go back to a time you didn’t. 

truthfully, it still scares you.

“i don’t like fighting with you,” you admit softly, swallowing a lump in your throat. “especially when i don’t even know why we’re fighting in the first place.”

you wonder if you’d just thought that instead of saying it out loud because luke doesn’t respond, until you hear the sheets behind you shuffle, and feel luke position himself behind you.

"i'm sorry that we're fighting. it's my fault."

he settles a tentative hand on your exposed hip, where your shirt had ridden up. luke starts to trace circles onto your skin with his thumb, the way he sometimes does when he's nervous or having a bad dream.

"i’ve just been so….in my head. i don't want you to worry about what's going on with me, okay?

"luke —"

"i have to sort it out on my own.”

"you don’t, though,” you insist. “if you just tell me what’s going on, instead of pushing me away.”

another pause. you can feel him breathing down your neck, and in turn you inhale the spicy citrus of his body wash. it’s all so excruciatingly familiar as you wait for him to say something, anything. 

eventually, luke sighs, deeply, and confesses:

"it's just….we've known each other for so long, but this — us? so much of it is new. i don't want to fuck it up." 

"well, congratulations," you quip. "you're one step closer to getting there."

you meant it as a joke, something to lighten the mood, but you feel luke stiffen at your words, his grip on your hip becoming almost painfully tight as if he's worried you'll slip away.

"i'm kidding, tiger." you weave your fingers through his to loosen his hold on you, and reassure him even more that you're not going anywhere, any time soon. "for better or for worse: you’re mine, and i'm yours. no matter how much either of us might fuck it up."

luke shuffles closer, and you melt into him even more. 

"do you really mean that?"

his voice is soft, surprisingly timid. you crane your neck back to look at him; luke stares at you, his gaze heavy enough to take your breath away. 

“of course.” 

you're so close, and you hadn't been in so long. luke's leg is somehow lodged in between your thighs, and you bite back a whimper as he brushes against you. you feel him behind you, already half-hard, and you rub your ass against him slightly, causing a groan to vibrate through his body. 

neither of you have to do much to crash your lips together.

you can sense how luke’s been unraveling, from the kiss alone. his lips are chapped, rough against yours and already bleeding from the pressure; his stubble scrapes against your cheek, and you’re dizzy with anticipation, imagining how it will leave a stinging sensation on other areas of your skin when luke has his way with you later. 

for now, you focus on your mouth on his: teeth clacking together, your tongue laving over the cut on luke’s bottom lip and tasting copper. luke brings a hand up to your jaw, pushing you into his mouth even more. 

it’s like the first time you kissed. all consuming. messy. urgent — like you've already run out of time. 

eventually, you have to pull yourself away from his grasp, your neck straining at the uncomfortable angle. luke takes the opportunity to suck bruises onto your neck while he presses his thigh harder against your cunt. he slips his other hand further underneath your shirt, cupping your breast and pinching your nipple between his fingers.  instinctively, you start rutting against him. 

“f-fuck,” you groan, relishing in the muscles of his naked thigh underneath you, defined and strong. 

luke chuckles, and you feel his breath warm against your skin. 

“you missed me that much, hm?” he taunts, encouraging you to go faster, harder. “you’re gonna cum before i even have a chance to undress you. doesn’t seem fair to me.”

“who —” your breath catches when luke’s hand settles around your throat, pulling you impossibly closer to him. you feel the outline of his abs against your lower back, and his length, hard and waiting. it’s difficult to finish your thought, but you try your best. “who says i only have to cum once?”

“that sounds like a challenge,” luke decides. “what’s our record — three? think we can beat that tonight?”

you laugh, already out of breath. “i think we can do it.”

“good girl.”

your thighs clench at the nickname, and it's one down, a few more to go. 

you maneuver luke so that he lays flat on the bed, your legs on either side of his hips. your hands fumble with the edge of his shirt, and he lets you remove it without any more hassle.

it's a little ironic, really, how much you and luke hate the gods — because looking at him underneath you, you're sure that something divine must have created him, and you have to thank them for it. sharp jaw, deep scar, flushed cheeks; curls slightly askew, and skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat; that cocky smile — you'd worship luke castellan over any of the olympians. 

secretly, of course, you pretty much already do.

"like what you see?" luke smirks up at you, hands firmly on your ass.

you roll your eyes to save face. "come on, tiger, like you're not seconds away from tearing through your boxers." 

luke clicks his tongue, locks his calf around yours to switch your positions. you grunt as your back hits the mattress, but you very much appreciate the force and weight of luke above you. he practically rips off your shirt, then starts to nip and suck down your body. he kisses the fabric still covering your cunt, and you can feel his chuckle vibrate through your body when he encounters the wetness there. 

"i'm not the one who already ruined their underwear," luke teases as he finishes undressing you. he pauses at the sight of you, bottom half completely exposed. you're about to tell him to hurry the fuck up, but then luke spits onto your already soaked cunt and says: 

“i need to clean you up, baby.” he gives you another cheeky grin, teeth glowing like the cheshire cat, before diving in.

luke is skilled at everything he does, so of course he's quick to unravel you once more, this time with a persistent combination of tongue and teeth, lapping at your cunt like it's his last meal. 

as soon as you're done riding out your high, you yank luke by the leather cord around his neck to collide your lips with his again. 

you reach down to return the favor, snake your hand underneath the fabric of his underwear, and you're deeply satisfied to find him already sticky with his release.

“you already finished,” you tease, stroking his v-line. "and ruined your underwear without me even touching you." 

in the dim light of the moon, you can barely make out luke blushing. he hides his face in the junction between your neck and shoulder. 

“guess we’re both desperate, huh.” luke’s teeth graze your skin, his curls tickling your neck. “i need to be inside you, now, so how about you get on your hands and knees for me? i’ll get the condom.”

sometimes, luke tries to be gentle — but not this time. 

this time, he fucks you, hard and fast and deep. 

you love it, even if you might not be able to walk properly tomorrow.

with so much power behind each thrust, and the overwhelming pleasure, your arms threaten to give out, but luke catches you before you fall. he wraps a hand around your neck, bringing you flush against his chest as he continues to plunge his length into you. 

"listen to me," luke growls. he snakes a hand down to rub harsh circles on your clit. "the one thing the gods did right is make this perfect, tight little pussy of yours. you were fucking made for me, weren't you?" 

all you can do is whimper, closing your eyes at his filthy, sinful words. 

you aren't used to luke being so possessive, and certainly not in these past few weeks. it's making your head spin in the best way. you can feel your orgasm build in the pit of your abdomen.

"were you made for me?" luke asks again. he squeezes your neck slightly, and you gasp at the pressure. "answer me, or i'll stop." 

you don’t think it’s likely he’ll stop; you’re sure he’s just as lost in the sound of your cunt squelching and the feeling of you sucking him in. but, he does slow down, only a little bit, and it's enough for you to start whining.

"y-yes, luke."

"are you mine?"

you don't answer fast enough. luke stills his hips completely and you almost burst into tears.

you moan, trying to move against him in vain. luke keeps a firm grip on you, making it hard to cause any sort of friction between your bodies.

"i'm yours," you promise.

luke plants a firm kiss behind your ear. “that’s my girl,” he whispers darkly.

satisfied, luke resumes his pace. he moves the hand around your neck to your chin, angling you accordingly so he can crash his lips onto yours. 

it doesn't take long to feel the tension in your abdomen snap, wetness gushing out of you. exhausted, you collapse onto the mattress. luke slips out of you.

the next few seconds consist of you trying to bring yourself back down to reality after such a high. 

luke turns you around just to face him as he hovers over you. he lodges his hand behind your ear and taps your cheek to get your attention. your eyes flutter open.

“did you just —” 

the dampness between your legs, and on the sheets underneath you, is enough evidence: you just squirted.

"i….” you gulp, feeling yourself flush. “i’ve never done that before."

luke stares at your glistening cunt. you wonder if you should be embarrassed, but then he locks eyes with you. you've never seen them so dark, pupils almost fully blown, just a sliver of brown showing through.

"you’re so fucking hot."

your heart flutters. 

“you’re not too bad yourself, tiger, or i wouldn’t be in this mess.” you wink at him, still trying to catch your breath. your eyes wander lower. you note luke in the current state he’s in; you realize that the scales are nowhere near balanced. “that’s three for me, and only one for you. let me taste you.” 

he doesn't need to be told twice. you get on your knees once more, this time facing him as he kneels in front of you. luke rips off the condom, something to deal with later, and you take him in your mouth, cheeks hollowed and tears brimming your eyes feeling him fuck your throat. when he finishes, you swallow him whole, savoring every drop. he pulls you up for a kiss; you can still taste yourself on him, and it mixes with his new release, a combination that is more than a little intoxicating. 

“fuck,” luke mumbles as he pulls away. he swipes his thumb over the corner of your mouth where some of his cum dribbled out. “i know that was intense, but would you be up for another round? "

"yeah," you reply without a second thought, reaching up to thread your fingers through his curls to ground yourself. 

maybe you should thank artemis for the full moon tonight, giving you just the right amount of silver light to illuminate the sculpted curves and edges of luke's body. his skin is also littered with bruises and bites of your design, chaotic and beautiful. luke looks like a mess, just as you're sure you do. 

you want more. you need more.

"we gotta go for four, remember? but...maybe we, uh…"

"....slow it down this time?" luke finishes your thought. 

you nod, grateful that you and luke are on the same page. he scrambles off the bed to get another condom.

"shit. i don't have another one.”

"check my bag, too," you tell him. luke complies, but comes up short once more.  

you’re sitting up against the headboard now, and luke returns to kneel in front of you. 

"i can use my fingers,” luke offers. “or eat you out again —"

“or we could just do without a condom this time?” you suggest. luke raises an eyebrow at you, so you think through the possibilities out loud. "we both got tested before our first time together and haven’t been with anyone since.” you find yourself pausing for confirmation on that, and luke nods once. “i’m on birth control. obviously there’s still a risk that something happens, but maybe just this one time? you can just pull out whenever you’re ready….if you're okay with that."

luke waits, almost like he thinks you might change your mind, before finally answering:

“yeah, i’m okay with it if you are. i’ve always wanted to fuck you raw. i just didn’t think you’d be into it — and didn’t want you to feel pressured.”

you have to kiss him then. because how is it that the boy who just gave you three jaw clenching, toe curling, heart pounding orgasms be so sweet and considerate?

before you know it, you’re flat on your back, sheets slightly scratchy with stray sand. you don't care much because luke hovers above you; he presses his forehead to yours, curls falling in front of his face. 

"just so you know," luke starts, just as you feel him enter you once more. "i must have been made for you, too. i'm just as much yours as you are mine."

you smirk, bite your lip to keep from moaning so that you can keep up the arrogance, just a bit longer. 

"always so dramatic," you mock, as if your cunt isn’t squeezing around him at his sweet nothings. 

luke grins at you sheepishly, his cheeks flushed. 

"guess that means the gods did two things right," you joke, exhaling when you feel luke brush against that gummy spot deep within you. "maybe we've taken them for granted. maybe we should - " he hits that spot again, and your breath hitches. you dig your nails into his shoulders as he rocks back and forth. “maybe we should thank them.”

luke clicks his tongue, grips your hip firmly. "not a chance, sweetheart. the gods’ll get what they deserve."

you don’t care enough to ask luke what he means. you care more about him going faster. you’re about to tell him to do so, and to throw your legs over his shoulders, but he does it himself before you get the chance. you feel him slipping deeper within you, the force and passion behind each movement, his body molding to every curve and crevice of yours. 

made for each other.

you’re so sensitive that your orgasm approaches quickly. as he helps you ride it out, his thrusts get sloppier, and you know he’s almost reached his peak, too. 

“fuck,” he grunts. “i’m close.” luke starts to pull out, but then you lock your ankles behind his neck. 

“don’t,” you command. 

“a-are you sure?” he looks at you, wide-eyed.

“i just want to feel you this once.”

he nods and brings you in for one more bruising kiss. he finishes inside you, warm and wet. 

luke leaves once he catches his breath, and comes back with a damp towel to clean you up. he knows your body, recognizes how sensitive you are, and presses kisses on the inside of your thighs, where the same lips had made bruises before. 

even completely fucked out, your mind starts to unpack everything that’s wrong in your life. like how luke has always been a little too good at pretending, with everyone else at least, and something serious must be going on if he's trying to fool you, too.  

this luke with you now, the one who gently wipes his cum from between your legs after fucking you so relentlessly, is your luke. it feels like your luke is slipping right through your fingers, and you’re wracking your brain trying to figure out how this can stop before losing him completely.

wait….did luke say something about getting revenge on the gods? your mind is still a bit cloudy, but you could’ve sworn —

 “are you okay?” 

his question puts pause on your spiraling. he’s done cleaning you up, throws the towel on the floor and settles back on the bed, next to you. you’re close enough for the softest whisper, your limbs intertwined beneath tangled sheets.

you watch luke carefully as he waits for an answer and surveys your body, tracing his fingers over the marks he'd left underneath your jaw, across your shoulders, over your collarbones and down your stomach. 

"i didn't hurt you, did i?"

“i’m okay,” you assure him. luke’s hand stops to gently rest on your cheek. your other worries are pushed to the side for the time being: for now, it's just you and luke. “do you think we could pick up a plan b pill tomorrow though, just in case? i love you, but i’m not ready to have your babies.”

luke widens his eyes like a minotaur in headlights. he drops his hand.

 “you’ve never said that before.”

“that i want to have your babies?” you jest, slightly amused at how panicked luke seems.

luke blushes and clears his throat. “well, that too. i meant the whole ‘i love you’ thing, though.” 

your amusement evaporates. you swear your heart stops beating momentarily.

“oh, shit.…” 

you’re not quite sure what to say; you’ve felt this way for a while, truthfully. 

of course you love luke. you can't remember exactly when you realized it, but you just….know.

because if what you felt for luke wasn’t love, then you were foolish to have secretly bought into what silena beauregard had been on about for years, and aphrodite herself might just be out of a job. 

“i know we’re kind of in a weird place, but, yeah, i mean it. you don’t have to say it back —”

luke leans forward to kiss you. gentler this time, but just as firm. “i love you."

"you do?" your heart resumes its beating. 

"of course i do. i have ever since my first morning at camp.”

“yeah right,” you chuckle in disbelief, feeling your cheeks heat up. “it’s not a competition, you know, over who loved who first.”

“karma, i’m serious,” he insists. “someone taught me to burn offerings, and with everything that happened with thalia, i obviously wasn't in the worshiping mood, but then you leaned over and whispered —"

"they like the smell of begging." 

luke grins at you, and you reach up to brush your thumb against the dimple in his cheek. 

"exactly. somehow, that was what i needed to hear. it was nice to know that i wasn't the only one who didn’t want to just accept things the way they were….” he loses his train of thought. luke grabs your hand in his. “i wish i had told you earlier. after all this, i don’t want to lose you.”

“you won’t —”

“whatever happens,” luke continues, somewhat ominously. “i love you, y/n.”

you hadn't heard luke use your real name in a while. you fall asleep, heart full with the memory of him weaving it together with those three magic words. 

the next morning, you wake up — you actually sleep in, for the first time in years — and decide that if you could stay here forever, you would. 

the morning sun stings your eyes through the sheer curtains. the sticky heat of summer sits heavy in the room, and stray grains of sand tickle your skin underneath the sheets. waves wash gently on the shore outside, and an ocean breeze mixes with the smell of burnt cinnamon. you can hear annabeth, grover, and percy crashing dishes and bickering and causing chaos in the kitchen as, you imagine, they scramble to surprise you with breakfast. 

luke is next to you, on his stomach. his curls are a mess, covering most of his face. 

evidence from last night: scratches from your nails prominent on his back, his neck decorated with purple bruises in the shape of your lips. you shift slightly and feel a dull ache between your legs, so you'd call it even.

outside, something clatters on the floor, and you hear percy swear.

luke's eyes flutter open, ever so slightly, and he starts to move. "we should get up before they burn down the place." 

you press your hand to luke's shoulder blade, barely, but in his half-asleep state, it's enough to keep him in bed. luke moves to his side, facing you. you bring your hand up to brush curls away from luke's eyes, even if they're still closed.

"they've literally been to hell and back," you recall his sarcastic words from last night. "i think they can handle pancakes." 

the corners of luke's mouth curl upwards. 

"you're such a smart ass," he mumbles.

you lean forward, plant a kiss underneath luke's chin. his stubble scratches against your lips. 

"don't pretend you don't love it, tiger."

luke breathes steadily. you think he might've fallen asleep once more until he presses his lips to your forehead, pulls you towards him, and quips:

"i love you."

your heart quickens as you echo his words. something churns in your stomach, too.

because this peace isn't something that feels permanent.

you're the children of gods, and there's always a catch. some inevitable plot twist where lovers end up separated, where heroes end up dead or cursed. 

it's nauseating — dangerous, even — that you want a happy ending, a desire buried in you deeply like a knife to the gut. it's cruel that the fates keep twisting, taunting you with what can never be.

no monsters; no gods or titans; no prophecies.

just this.

[potchi-fics]

break in (part two of attention)

i | ii | iii | iv | v

      jingling keys fill the hallway, shakily putting the key into your apartment. you cant help but berate yourself for the mess you've caused earlier: what the fuck am i doing. after a few seconds, you let out a breath of relief as you finally step inside your home.

"oh my god," you shrug your coat off, hanging it. "thats the last time im ever doing that."

      you make your way into your living room, noticing how everything looks the same but yet different-- you take a look around: the lights are off, the rug is untouched, and my couch is..

shit.

"surprised?" her familiar rough voice sends chills up your spine, "nice place you got here, topsider."

you carefully but slowly grab your slightly tainted with blood dagger, "leave."

      a scowl forms on your tired face, eyebrows furrowing, and your stance tensing up. leisurely, she rises to her feet; you just barely see the smoke she puffs out. her height is a bit intimidating, you admit. her mechanical arm is glowing in the dim room, and her muscular back. god, she looks so solid. 

her muscular back?

your train of thought gets cut off when she turns to finally look at you, her stupid mouth turning into a smirk. right then and there, you think to yourself that you already hate her.

she stubs out her cigarette on your table, "what were you-"

"are you serious?" your face morphs into anger now, "thats a very expensive table."

      sevika's shoulder slumps at what you said, but you paid no mind to her. only pushing her aside to get the cigarette and clean the ash, patting the remnants of the cig rather furiously. she tries again, only to get cut off again by you suddenly turning your heated gaze at her.

"look, i dont know what you want from me," you step towards her, dagger in hand. "but have some respect."

      before you can lecture her again, she swings her fist at you, which you swiftly dodge. she tried to grab you using her mechanical arm. however, you batted it away with your right hand-- throwing a slash of your dagger right back at her, successfully making a small wound in the corner of her lip. you attempt to combo with a hook to her rib, but you aren't so lucky this time because she evades, grabbing you and pulling you close: she smells like wood and cigarette. 

she puts her face close to yours, "you sure youre just an engineer, topsider?" you grit your teeth, "you sure know how to fight."

"let me go," using the element of surprise; you headbutt her, "what do you want from me?"

      you dont miss how she stumbles back, you also dont miss how she smirks at your actions. 

you roll your eyes, "you into that shit?"

"only if youre into it," sevika throws back. "look, im not here to fight, topsider."

sevika almost laughs at how your jaw drops, "girl, fuck do you mean im not here to fight? you literally threw a punch first."

      she smirks once more, pissing you even more off. sevika gives you a shrug before plopping down on your newly washed cushions, her dirty boots finally stepping on your rug.

"you know what, you may be sevika, silco's righthand woman," you march at her, "but dont be putting your dirty clothes on my shit."

sevika ignores you, "what, you scared im gonna dirty your shit?"

"yes, thats exactly it, sevika." you deadpan.

      you take a sit in front of her, using the other couch-- still wary. you take this time to stare at her again. assessing what she's wearing; to see if she has any more weapons, of course. your eyes roam from her thick thighs up to her waist, and finally reaching her face. christ, those cheekbones and jaw-- the things you would do. but a spark from her mechanical arm catches your arm. you tilt your head, analyzing on why thats happening.

"done staring?" you roll your eyes for what feels like a thousand times now, "i need you to fix my arm. did my research on you, and i know youre capable of fixing my damn arm."

you give sevika an are-you-fucking-kidding-me look, "why would you break into my home for that? you couldve gone to my shop."

      she only replies with a lazy shrug, annoying you again. the world really is testing your patience. you thought you'd be scared of the woman in front of you; never did you think that you'd be annoyed instead. 

      she only replies with a lazy shrug, annoying you again. the world really is testing your patience. you thought you'd be scared of the woman in front of you; never did you think that you'd be annoyed instead. you still dont trust her, still mad that she broke into your home, started a fight, and is making herself at home.

"if i fix it, will you leave?" she nods, not saying anything. "fine. stay here, dont even move an inch."

      you hurriedly get your toolbox, desperate to get rid of her. you come back to her still on your couch; she's basically taking up all the damn space in it. she looks at you as you pull up a chair beside her whirring arm. you take another look at it, and from the looks of it, the damage is most likely inside, seeing how it is perfectly fine: a few dents here and there, but overall fine.

with hesitation, you ask the zaunite, "may i?"

"go for it, topsider." she offers you her arm.

you scoff at her, "please stop calling me that."

      you begin to unscrew the tiny screws using your electric screwdriver, putting the screws aside, you pull the cover. the wirings are a mess. you asses it for a few seconds before going to work again; you grumble a few curses out because of the messy wiring, saying how can anyone be so careless.

"y'know, instead of punching me," you plug the loose wire back into its place, "punch the bitch who made this mess."

      a snort escapes from her, not expecting your vulgarity. not one word is said after that, and you let it stay that way; breathing and the noises of your tools are only heard in your quiet apartment, finally relaxing while rebuilding her arm. minutes pass and youre screwing the last screw into her arm before patting it.

you tell her, "all done, im not expecting any payment since its just a loose wire."

"not bad, topsider." sevika takes a look at her brand new-ish arm.

      you stand up and wordlessly point to your door, wanting her to leave as soon as possible because, at this point, you just want to sleep. you just want to feel your soft pillows and soft mattress. 

"oh," she walks to your window instead, "i didnt enter there."

    i hate you so much.

[anundyingfidelity]

I'M A RUIN — Soldier Boy/Ben (Part III)

Series summary: After the events of the Seven Tower, you present Grace Mallory a new secret project you're working on already to develop a cure to Compound V. The only problem? You need Soldier Boy for that.

Pairing: Soldier Boy/Ben x female reader.

Word count: 2.2k.

Warnings for series: set after S3 (spoilers), some OOC!Ben, some depressed!Ben, angst, hurt/comfort, eventual smut, slow-burn, language, PTSD, reader has Compound V (she's no Vought supe tho), Soldier Boy being an usual asshole, reader is a fucking liar.

Warnings on this chapter: panic attack, killing threats, violence, Ben my poor meowmeow, hurt/comfort, mentions of rape.

☕ if you like my writing, support me with a ko-fi !

get yourself in the taglist!

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII

Notes: this is mostly a bonding chapter between Ben and the reader, also there's more about the reader's past in here plus a special guest lmao. I'm having too much fun writing this! If anyone would like to be tagged I'll be more than happy to do so! I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

this fic tags: @k-slla @syrma-sensei @mostlymarvelgirl @cheynovak

GEN MASTERLIST! — SERIES MASTERLIST!

Part III: Afraid of the Fall

Ben felt his head being hammered and strange voices in a foreign language mumbled to him, all while they laughed and mocked his suffering, causing loud screams and groans of pain falling off his mouth. He struggled, feeling his skin burning again and again. He hoped it stopped, sitting down on the edge of the mattress, but things didn't get better.

Far away, he heard a familiar voice, shouting to get inside. But he couldn't move from his place to reach it. He groaned again, grabbing the sides of his head strongly and covering his ears, elbows on his knees, at the same time he felt a fire forming on his chest. It was happening again. He didn't want to do it. He couldn't do it. He had been trying to control himself with the reefer the past few days. Why now? Why here? He thought he might lose control over himself one more time, and it scared him to death.

There was a loud sound of metal and high heels running towards him, until someone dropped in front of him.

"Ben?"

He barely recognized your voice, but he felt your hands running all over his cheeks, until he opened his tired eyes.

"Ben, you're fine, okay? You're safe here," he took in your gentle voice as you knelt in front of him. He saw you observing his chest and the blast forming in there. "Please, you can control yourself. Look at me, breathe."

He moaned in pain again, closing his eyes shut. He was holding back as much as his strength allowed him, but it wasn't working. Your worried eyes locked when he opened his own again, green and teary.

"Please just breathe. Inhale and exhale," you said, mimicking the directions as he tried to steady his breath following you.

"That's it, go on," you repeated, encouraging him to keep doing the same. "Take my hands, here," he felt your palms embracing his rough hands, his grip hard on your soft ones. "Keep breathing."

The explosion on his chest was still there but as you soothed him with your voice, he eventually felt as the burn dissipated little by little.

"You're safe now, nothing's gonna happen," you mumbled. "Breathe."

Ben took in your whispering voice, until the burn stopped. You remained there with him, hands together, as he opened his eyes anew. He found a comforting smile on your lips, but as soon as he scanned the room he found two men standing in the doorway. Armed and pointing at him, ready to shoot him. He looked between you and the men, and abruptly got on his feet, shoving you away with such force. You landed over your ass on the floor just a couple of steps away from him. The guards aimed their guns immediately.

"Don't!" you ordered.

"Doctor, he was about to blast," said one of them.

"Stop it!" you raised your hands, with glossy eyes and lungs out of air. "Please, leave," you pleaded. Ben remained in the same spot, figuring out if he had to fight you and the men. 

"Doc, the gas-"

"Leave now!" you shouted. They hesitated. "I can handle this, just go and don't turn on the gas, that's an order."

Your gaze might've worked because they slowly backed up and left, closing the heavy door and leaving you alone with the supe. He looked at you, breathing steady and an outraged face. You stood up, fists tight, as Ben closed the distance between both of you.

"Ben, I'm so sorry-"

You choked on your own words, his hand grabbing your neck with his tight grip. "Don't fucking tell me I'm safe. You've built a chamber that'd kill me while I sleep," he growled. Your hands took on his wrists.

Ben just held you in place, denying oxygen into your lungs. He was fucking mad at how you decided to play with him and his life. All these days, he had the chance to end you and that fucking building, and he didn't do it. He felt like a fucking idiot. He had to finish this now. Suddenly, he loosened the rough grip around your throat and slammed you harshly, until your back hit the hardwood of the coffee table.

You coughed as you tried to lift yourself to a sitting position, the mess of the broken wooden lying underneath.

"Ben," you gasped looking up at him. "It's okay if you want to kill me. I'm only asking you to think twice because I'll be dead but it'll be worse for you."

How could it be? Ben couldn't take a fucking break without knowing the damn gas could be turned on if any of those cocksuckers, you included, wanted to. He was beyond pissed. Over and over, he became surrounded by traitors, people who didn't give a single shit about him. And now, he just wanted to rip your head off, kill everyone inside, and run away. Yet somehow he couldn't. With brows furrowed and a cold expression on his face, he watched your figure on the floor, vulnerable and aching due to the impact, at his cruel mercy. But his body wouldn't move an inch to get to you.

Slowly you got on your feet again and for a moment that felt eternal, you looked at each other. Ben was just waiting for the rage to flourish and do what he had to since he met you in that fucking office. He had to kill everyone when they took him out of that box. Too sad he couldn't go back to the past and change his decisions.

You held his haze, and all of the sudden you stepped forward wrapping your arms around his muscular waist. He was shocked.

"I'm so sorry, I'm sorry," you whispered, hiding your face on his chest.

Ben felt your warmth against his flesh, but he couldn't do more than stay frozen in the middle of the room. The only physical contact he had felt for a long time was for the purpose of torture, pain, and suffering. A hug felt strangely uncomfortable to him. More so after he was the one ready to kill everyone around, starting with you. You must have noticed the stiffness on his body because you slowly backed up and separated from him.

He gave you a confused look and you started to speak softly again.

"I can leave if you want-"

His voice came barely as a whisper. "No."

You nodded, locking your eyes with his own. "Okay. You want to talk?"

"I don't know," he said softly.

Calmly, you asked him to sit on the edge of the bed and Ben soon followed as you did. His eyes were lost in the room and he felt regretful for what he did to you. Anyone in your place would just have left and ran away. He'd be alone, just like he had in the past decades. But you didn't. You were there by his side because you wanted to help him. At least that's what you said.

"I had a nightmare," he began. "It felt so real."

"I'm here, you can let it out," you reassured. Ben felt your eyes on him, but he wasn't strong enough to see your face, so he focused on the wall on the other side of the room.

"I was there... Again. I thought I was there, and thought I was going to blow up everything. Haven't felt this pain since you brought me here, until today," Ben mumbled. "I don't know what happened. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you," you replied once he finished. "You're not a bad person."

"I could've killed you," his words sounded like a fear confession.

But he didn't have any idea of why he would care that much for a stranger like you. He harmed you, and still here you were. It was almost as if you were not scared of him, the atrocities he had done and the ones he could do in the future.

"But you didn't, so don't torture yourself with things that are not real."

He believed you were right. At the same time, it was difficult to push those thoughts away.

"I'm a fucking mess," he said, his eyes locked on his lap as he played with his hands like he was a child. "My father was right."

"Ben-"

"I could've done so much better with him."

"Who?"

"Homelander."

This time, he found your intense gaze. You shook your head.

"You didn't know what Vought was up to. That is not your fault."

"But he is my son in the end," Ben grumbled. "And he has a fucking son of his own."

"A lab experiment," you corrected. "A lab experiment that has a child, product of a rape. You don't have to call that your blood."

He gave a sad smile that quickly disappeared. "I wish I didn't have to. I always wanted kids. Y'know, give them the figure I never had, let them know I'm proud of them, tell them they mean everything to me... Be a better father. And I feel guilty for no reason."

You nodded. "I understand all that, and you'll get over the generational trauma and the PTSD. I promise. Just remember before you run, you need to learn how to walk."

A part of his heart refused to believe your words, that you were lying, but the look in your eyes said otherwise. Probably you were not as bad as he thought you'd be. After all, you were there. You had the courage to step in front of him, to be in the same room as him, and to come every day just in hope to have some sort of advance even when he was pushing his pain away. All those efforts and insistences, they had to mean something in the end. Right?

Last couple of days were hell. You caught something good though. Soldier Boy finally talked to you. Just a little. Anything was fine at this point. For you, work didn't stop. Rest was not an option most of the time. So on Sunday morning you drove back to your apartment after spending the whole Saturday working on more details about the Anti-V prototype.

Once in the building, you made your usual way to your door and immediately got rid of your coat and shoes in the entry hall. You were so tired and craving for a sleep, so you made your way to your bedroom, until a horribly annoying voice you knew too well stopped you on the doorframe.

"Well, don't you work your ass off," the blonde man swung into your room in his usual ridiculous outfit, admiring every detail of the place. He gave you a disturbingly disgusting smile.

You also noticed the balcony windows and curtains were open. Of fucking course he'd used the easiest way to break into your home.

"What-"

"Oh, you know who I am, doctor. I can break the president's home if I want to," Homelander beamed when he stopped just inches from you.

You gulped and crossed your arms on your chest.

"And may I ask why are you here?"

"You know why, don't play dumb."

"No, I don't. Enlighten me, please," you replied, faking it. "You know, I don't really think we've met before."

"Actually, we did. It was in an audition. Around 2009, remember?" 

"Now I do," your jaw clenched. That was a fucking memory you wanted to erase and bury forever. "I'm glad I didn't pass that shit."

 "Yeah, you were such a waste now that I think of. Could've been with our team now."

Homelander chuckled, proudly and honorably, walking around and stopping in front of your vanity. He started to check your perfumes and jewelry that spread on there, like a damn kid. You followed him immediately.

"What do you want?"

"Straight to the point, fine," he began, facing you once again. Smile long gone. "I know you're up to something. Fucking stop it."

Your lips opened but he shut you up with a gesture of his hand and went on.

"Uh-uh, not now. Don't try to deny it. Don't make fucking excuses," Homelander closed the distance between both of you. His lips brushed your ear and somehow, you were frozen in place. You didn't know what would happen next, he was unpredictable.

"I know you have my dad with you, and what you're doing will not benefit me," he whispered and he pulled back to see your blank face, eyes staring with rage. "Just a small warning. I got my eyes on you," he chuckled. "But don't worry, I'm giving you a chance. Only one chance to stop whatever the fuck you're doing. Trust me, you don't wanna know what I have for you."

He started to walk to the balcony without giving you time for an answer. Not that you had much of a comeback in mind when your life and project were now in danger. At least he was going to finally leave your place. Before flying away, he turned around one last time.

"Better take care of the old man, uhm?"

Those were his last words. And you knew he didn't mean them.

You were so fucked now.

[cocogum]

The Great Wave - Chapter 1 Review

‼️ SPOILERS FOR THE CHAPTER ‼️

Warning(s): mature themes, descriptive language, proceed with caution.

Before I start, I'd like to say that I initially added a lot more to this, but since tumblr had to censor it, I had to level it down a little...

I guess I just got carried away with it because of yumalia lol

So yeah...hope tumblr doesn't flag this again....

Alright everyone you know the drill.

LET’S ALL GET IT OUT OF OUR SYSTEMS AND GO CRAZY OVER HOW THESE TWO FUCKED SO MANY TIMES‼️‼️‼️‼️

Good job you two honestly I’m so happy these two got to have fun together like this 🥰🥰

Like no joke the first time I started to read the first chapter, of all the ways I thought it would start, I DIDN’T THINK THEY’D BE FUCKING I legit thought I was interrupting them my god-

I was so SHOCKED wtf??????!!!!

Like yes but what????

Ankama wasn’t kidding when they said they’d go mature mode and INSTANTLY cram in adult themes. The unexpected (but still warned) change was so sudden that that’s how you know Ankama has been keeping themselves tamed in the seasons because they couldn’t pull this shit off so easily like Japan.

Now let’s analyze the first thing that’s in the very first chapter.

The s** 👹👹

Okay I know how laughably this sounds because the FIRST THING in the first volume that we get to see is Yugo and Amalia’s private time.

And I’m not ashamed of loving it. Even now I still can’t believe that this can literally be considered soft corn. I won’t be surprised if more than half of the chapter ended up on that infamous site 💀(if u know, u know)

By the way I love how Amalia’s hair grew cuz I was starting to get sick of seeing her with a short ponytail all the time AND I LOVE HOW WE FINALLY SEE HER UNTYING HER HAIR CUZ MAN ITS BEEN SO LONG SINCE IVE SEEN HER LET HER HAIR OUT

But their private moment(s) really made us understand just how much they care for one another. The way that they are sleeping together NAKED like this so comfortably too confirms that they have done these kinds of activities before.

The ambiance and the colors truly encapsulate the tranquility and peacefulness they both share in this moment. You can even feel the sunshine’s rays touching your skin.

AND I’M ALL HERE FOR IT. They genuinely look so cute and in love together like that I just wanna tear that blanket away and dhskdkfkksskskkdksksd.

If anyone is wondering why Yugo still keeps the dofus on him, it’s because the dragon, Rodalström, that Armand defeated is still alive. A necrome can never truly die so Yugo has to essentially keep the dofus on him at all times just in case the dragon would set free someday (i feel so bad for Qilby due to this decision…dude is the only one between his siblings who can hear these two banging💀)

While looking through these same pages over and over again (I still haven’t stopped), I began to seriously wonder what kind of positions they would do together.

We’ve seen two particular positions they have used in this chapter and it was the “lotus” position and the “woman on top” position.

These are very accurate positions for these two mainly because of the level of intimacy it provides. It’s not rough, extravagant, or even too lewd. It’s simply just right.

They are so intimate with one another that they even hug while keeping the pace. And I think it is wonderful to see these two just being happy and satisfied in each other’s arms like this.

It's such a sweet moment for these two that you really can't look away (i'm definitely not saying this to justify why I keep overfixating these panels). You can even see Yugo choosing to keep his eyes open during it all just to look at Amalia enjoying it.

My guy clearly loves the view please!! 😫😫😫

You don't think seeing her liking it makes him even more excited righ-

Some parts during their intimate moment had their arms, which were groping A LOT of things, somewhat censored by the blankets they still had on each other. So, to have a clearer view of what happened under the sheets, I decided to outline their covered arms to give you an idea of where those hands went.

At the very beginning, Yugo is woken up by Amalia kissing his cheek. But after that, his body looks much more awake when we see a panel of Amalia's hand under the covers reaching for something. This immediately makes Yugo wide awake, to the point where he's already sweating a bit and blushing very hard as he says, "You're...tireless!"

After some outlining made by yours truly, it was painfully obvious where Amalia was reaching for and- DEBHUHUFUWHYUHFUYHUWUEFHUWHFUEFHUEWH

GURL STOP OMG SHE'S TOO BOLD I CAN'T WITH HER I LOVE HER OMG SHE KNOWS WHERE TO REACH YES DO IT WAKE HIM UP!!!!

The fact that she instantly knew what to do when she wasn't getting enough attention from him after that cheek kiss alone sends me 😭😭

But it's not like Yugo's the innocent one here for not trying anything. On the contrary, HE'S TOUCHING HER TOO.

THAT GUY KNOWS WHAT'S BEST TO GRAB.

He's a man after all, so what'd you expect lol

He KNOWS that her ass is THICK, SO WHY WOULD HE NOT TOUCH ONE OF HER BEST ASSETS!?!?!?

You can tell these two obviously do more than just two “sleeping” positions, but since they were messing around in the morning, I can give them a pass for being sweet and tender with each other at this moment, just this once. They must've done A LOT more yesterday night since Yugo did say she was tireless as soon as he woke up. These two are adventurers at heart, so why wouldn't they explore each other more thoroughly-

Given that we’ve only seen the "lotus," the "woman on top," and a simple embrace, I would like to suggest a few more positions that would suit them well. These recommended positions are so accurate to them and reflect their dynamic that I wouldn’t be surprised if they have done these before (or will eventually 👀).

While nitpicking every single panel of their “morning routine” I learned two things thanks to this start:

1) Yugo’s a bottom but is able to switch.

2) Amalia is insatiable in bed. Girl is hungry HUNGRY. Because judging from how Yugo and her were fully naked and laying in bed in the beginning, that means they had finished screwing with each other a while ago BEFORE AMALIA JUST JUMPS BACK INTO IT. SHE’S LITERALLY TIRING OUT A DEMIGOD ALIEN JUST FROM GROPING AND TAKING HIM-

If a scene like this wasn’t what I thought would happen at the beginning of the first chapter, then Amalia getting choked to death had definitely thrown me off guard. Like many other readers, I already knew that this wasn’t actually real and was only happening in Yugo’s head but it still felt very off-putting to see her struggling to breathe. The way Yugo panicked and tried to help only for him to scream and cry when he realized she was on the verge of dying was powerful.

And that’s when we find the anomaly in this chapter.

The dragon that appeared in Yugo’s head.

I initially expected Toross to be the one tormenting Yugo but I guess it ended up being this dragon.

The dragon figure seems to feel severe hatred for Yugo for all the calamities he let happen in the World of Twelve and how he seems to be living a good life at the moment while having the six primordial eliatrope Dofus and the Eliasphere in his possession.

The theories immediately started flooding in on who this dragon could possibly be and here’s what people came up with:

A) The dragon is one of the six primordial dragons from the World of Twelve named Grougalorasalar.

He’s the guardian of the Eben dofus and used to have been sealed in Joris during the Dofus era. Some have theorized this dragon to be him because of how physically similar they look.

Although he looks identical, there is no logical reasoning to support his hostility towards Yugo, let alone his ability to infiltrate his mind. Furthermore, the way he acts and thinks around Yugo, assuming it is actually him, is illogical given his involvement in Ogrest's rampage.

B) This dragon is, in actuality, Draconiros, the dragon of dreams.

His job is to govern the dreams and nightmares of the twelvians. People suspect he might have taken the form of Grougalorasalar while talking to Yugo.

Despite never meeting Yugo, he could have watched over the twelvians through their dreams. This means that he might have seen Oropo's dreams, as well as Yugo's own, giving him insight into Yugo's future actions and indirectly caused consequences. If true, this theory would explain why he holds a grudge against Yugo. It currently stands as the most compelling theory among all others.

C) The Great Dragon. Yugo’s father could be the one able to invade his mind and blame him for all sorts of things.

It's hard to ignore the fact that the Great Dragon appears to have been absent during some of the biggest catastrophes in the Krosmoz. Despite countless calamities happening all around the world, the Great Dragon seemed to have done nothing to prevent them, nor did he even show up to witness them. This is why his presence felt non-existent in the world. If he doesn't care about the world, why would he have any interest in what Yugo has done?

D) Osamodas himself could be the one speaking to Yugo while taking the form of Grougalorasalar.

It's worth considering that Yugo may face blame from the god of beasts. Additionally, it's intriguing to note that the osamodas race will play a significant role later on. This is evident from Aurora and her family's return to the Sadida kingdom.

So far, these are the only theories out there that we have for this dragon. That, and the fact that it might as well be a whole new character that we haven’t seen before.

The thing that truly makes this interaction between Yugo and the unknown dragon feel severe is the fact that the dragon tells him that despite sharing dragon blood, he truly detests him.

Imagine having to know that a millennial dragon hates you despite sharing the same blood.

Of course, the interaction couldn’t have stayed for very long because Amalia immediately interrupted it by screaming Yugo’s name. Yugo looks completely out of it, huddled up and shaking in fear. I understand that he saw what could be a future threat but this whole situation must’ve looked so off-putting from Amalia’s perspective: they were fucking, they started levitating because of the six eliatrope Dofus residing in him, and then they both suddenly fell on the floor and she saw Yugo curled up and crying, freaking the fuck out.

Amalia doesn’t understand but she still goes to him and immediately tries to calm him down by embracing him. But despite everything he’s seen and the fact that he interacted with a mysterious dangerous beast, the first thing that Yugo says amidst his crying is: “I thought I lost you…”

Look at the sheer terror in his eyes.

He genuinely looks like he thought he lost everything at this very moment. His body is shaking and is still processing what he just saw and heard.

He even APOLOGIZES to her, thinking that seeing her dying in his arms was somehow his fault.

Her life is such a huge priority for him that that’s immediately the first thing he’s afraid he’ll lose the most.

That’s when Amalia suddenly says the words: “Calm down, it was just a dream.”

…

A dream??

You mean to tell me that this whole time, Yugo was sleeping?

So this whole “wrestling” scene never happened?

I believe there’s been some kind of misunderstanding when we first read this chapter.

I feel like we thought Yugo and Amalia had been messing with each other in the morning and that’s when Yugo suddenly received a flash of imagery and words from the unknown dragon before Amalia snapped him out of it and that’s how they ended up on the floor together.

But it turns out that wasn’t technically what happened.

Because if this intimate scene was real, then why would Amalia say he had dreamt?

I believe this is what actually happened:

Yugo and Amalia were peacefully sleeping together after spending the night awake (because what do you think a fully naked couple does in bed). When morning arose, that’s when Yugo started having a wet dream of Amalia and him getting in on again and right when things were starting to get better for Yugo, the dream started to twist itself and change out of its own will, forcing the one good thing about the dream to leave, which was Amalia, by making her choke to death to finally reveal the dragon. The dragon haunts his mind and spills his hateful thoughts to the eliatrope causing him to suffer alone until Amalia snaps him awake and manages to unknowingly free him from the torment. Yugo must’ve fallen on the floor while having the nightmare and Amalia simply got down from the bed to wake him up.

(this still doesn’t change the things I said about the types of positions they have, how Amalia has her own nicknames for Yugo like ‘little princess’, and how Amalia is in bed though because dreams often depict and copy real-life behaviors from the mind of the person dreaming. it’s actually funny that Yugo had a WET DREAM about Amalia and him. despite getting so much action with her, his mind doesn’t leave her alone lol)

When she regards his shaking form that it was only a dream, however, Yugo insists how real it felt. That’s when he decides to stand up and claim he needs some air to think. The fact that he has said the same thing back in Season 4 Episode 1 when he had Oropo in his head, shows how his insistence of wanting to be alone after getting scarred, has become a pattern.

Amalia understandably (and predictably) gets angry at Yugo for leaving but her behavior also raises a few questions. Does this mean she’s angry that he wants to be alone every time he gets nightmares? Does he receive incessant nightmares on some nights? If that’s the case, then how often does this keep occurring? Or is this the first time he does this? Is she angry because he tends to quickly leave when he thinks he needs to deal with something on his own like how he did in Seasons 2 and 4?

Regardless of what the case may be, Amalia doesn’t waste time and immediately dresses herself up with her vines like a boss ass Queen just look at how refined and elegant she looks while changing✨✨ I love her so much 💕💕

Also vinillain noticed how these two dumbasses don’t HAVE ANY BEDROOM DOORS. How do they actually get any privacy if their bedroom has a huge ass hole with no door?? It’s so bare that it doesn’t even have a curtain to cover the front of their room!! Like did these two not realize that literally anyone can just get right in their room? I get that they’re royals so they would know that no one would be this dumb enough to simply get in like that but the entrance of the room is so big and wide that anyone can just pass through it and be able to see their bed from where they’re standing!! You can even see the bed frame right there in just that panel for crying out loud!! I get that the sadidas are a pretty open race BUT THEY’RE NOT THAT OPEN TO EACH OTHER-

Besides this stupid choice of not having any doors, I love how the kingdom made a few adjustments to the throne room because they initially only had one seat. Even when Armand was king, there was still one place. Aurora had to sit in a small space next to him lol. Note that Aurora used to sit on the right side like how Yugo has to do now.

I already talked about this to vinillain but I told them that because of how the throne was arranged when it got split into two, I feel like the ones who sit on the right are the ones who come from other kingdoms aka if they’re from another race. I believe that the reason why the throne had only been one seat in Seasons 1, 2, and the ovas, was because the only ruler at the time was King Oakheart. The ruling seat might have also been divided in two when the queen was still alive. Amalia might as well have simply chosen to sit in Armand’s place because it used to be his which would be cute if that was the case.

I like to think that Yugo deserves sitting in Aurora’s place because he’s submissive-

Speaking of Armand, the mural wall that Amalia made the artist make was such a wonderful decision. She really did love her brother despite the many quarrels they used to have.

This man entered the legend ❤️

After the interaction between Amalia and the painter, I noticed the royal advisor (or so I think) about to approach Amalia with something to discuss. Despite not having entered the throne room yet to listen to her people's grievances, the advisor seems to have something confidential to share with her, as he didn't choose to wait until she got there. Although we don't know what that "something" could be, Amalia immediately stops him, explaining that she just got out of bed and needs time to process everything.

I think we'll see what that 'something' could be about in the next chapter, though. Looking at the crowd awaiting Yugo and Amalia in the throne room to discuss their business with them, I have a strong feeling some of those problems would involve the elite eliatropes.

We can even see how the mood in the throne room looked very tense between the sadidas and the eliatropes. Some of the sadidas looked perturbed, and there's a good chance they're acting this way because of the eliatropes. Not only that, but the eliatrope kids looked super uncomfortable because of the tension going on. Even a sadida was eyeing an eliatrope in a pretty judgemental way (you can see it on the right panel).

They were all waiting for Amalia and Yugo so they could speak about their problems to the two royals so I wouldn't be surprised if some problems would be about the eliatropes staying.

I understand that when we last saw the sadidas, they were pretty much okay fighting alongside the eliatropes during the war against the necromes. But that was because it was a war. They were extremely short-handed, so they were perfectly fine with having them by their side. But now that the war is over, it's possible that many of them feel a bit awkward having to share their lands with eliatropes. Imagine living on these lands since the dawn of time and you suddenly have to live with people who are not even from your planet one day.

In short, Yugo and Amalia should get more intimate moments, the dragon in the dream has a good chance of being Draconiros, Yugo should stop dealing with his problems on his own, Armand is a chad, the two royal seats scream power couple goals, I need that sadida and eliatrope drama, and I’m waiting on what the advisor has to say.

@geekgirles @onyichii

[strab3rr]

ive been thinking abt a week? to delete my account or my story but u know what idgaf anymore because its just gonna give those people more courage for accusing me of being a liar

oh u dont know what im talking bout rn how cute

I was in the hospital til 2 days ago. as a patient. and i believe this happened bc of some jealousy bitches (or im just bein a drama queen)

ik it sounds like im blaming someone but irl yes i do blame someone

in dog years i blame those bitches

last week? i dont even remember what the day

mom got sick again but its okay shes fine now and then i had a car crash🪩🤩🪩my phone died in the crash literally died i had to buy a new one do you guys have any idea abt how much are this things in my country i really dont care abt the money but be for real wtf actually

i answered all of your questions carefully and with kindness i tried to be there for you guys and the moment i tell you abt my success story i had an accident! um sir wtf am i really being dramatic rn? cause ive been thinking bout this for days and theres no other explanation even if there is i cant see

so here it goes,,, i was just chilling in my home and then i read a dm about a girl that she wants to get in her void and as always i explained how she can get in but she kept ask me about how to get in but like girl hellooo i literally told you how. r u kidding me is this a social experiment to evaluate my patience? and then i said to her that this is the only thing that she should do for getting into

she said, no you are lying it cant be like this! bla bla

i transformed to this cat at that moment this is real me now.

anyway at the end of that conversation she said that im lying, if any of these(my manifestation results) are true then i should show her bc she have "doubts🎀" aww for her doubts i should reveal my self in her home bc she have doubts🎀 i should transport there with my void and show her how to do it irl thats what she asked me no- thats what she commanded me to, she was like "do it" and i was like "what😃" i said no ofc what do u want me to say, ok lets do itt lets break my privacy togetherrr let me get in your void for you and again let me do make your dreams comes true yayyy itll be fun right😍😍😍

i dont even know what to say to that

maybe this?

u think im joking which ur right bc i am

but its kinda serious here buddy what should i say to you when u command me to get in your void for you, like how can i reject you and still be that kind sister for u?

anyway i said no to her and she said im a lair and i broke her heart with my selfishness(then i blocked her ofc)then i go out w my friends this is the part i got hit by a car😇

opened my eyes into the white light like im a mf drama movie character

while im in the hospital i thought i can delete my account and can get rid of this bad luck/shits once and for all but again its just gonna give those bitches courage and they think that they right

"loa is a cult and everyone is a liar bc they cant prove bla bla" dont u dare to blame me for your failure

you didn't got in AND you want me to do it for you???honey im sorry for your loss bc it seems like you just lost your dignity yeah we just buried it u missed such a precious moment🥲

and guess what i have nothing to prove you i literally dont have to prove anything to you. like for real. if you dont believe the story can u just move on please? bc i dont give a damn shit about your insecurities, your doubts and ur blablabla

its literally on you girl BC IT SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR MF REALITY? LIKE DO YOU REALLY NEED A MANUAL BOOK FOR THIS?

im sorry for being a bitter today but i really feel like this(bitter), so not sorry maybe😗

but i didn't mean it when i said idgaf to ur insecurities.. i do honey its just been a rough week and i dont know how to put my anger in to the words

it can be a evil eye 🧿 or i just might be a drama queen sooo.. again sorry(?) if anything offends u, i love you guys but its just so complicated here(my head) and i just dont know

and now im just being weird w all this nonsense

i should go now, i will return your dms asap just need some rest

loves, siena

[imustbenuts]

nuts reading in jp 11 - wrap up for vol 2 + i can talk about TriStamp undertaker wolfwood a little!!! whooo!!!

its been hella weird to read trigun in japanese since my first read was in english. i think i dug out a few extra stuff i didnt know existed in the work during this little journey. (thank you for joining in on my rambles!)

no real translation word related stuff today. mostly culture stuff dump.

but man i was right on the money when i said vash was stressed in #10. i forget he actually falls unconscious after dominique quits the narrative. yay~

me after i finish these posts at 5am every time

and then, him.

🥺✨✨raidei the blade. ✨✨ 🥺

listen. this guy. this fucking guy is, personally, the funniest guy in the entirety of trigun. for that line above in the 98 anime, and also for some stuff he represents. ...and it's not for larping reasons. ill get into that another day, please look forward to it. (i say this knowing his backstory was rough.)

anyway its time.... for Wolfwood's 'job change'.

in the manga he introduces himself as a tradesman Priest. it doesnt make much sense to outsiders but despite people getting confused, it mostly gets hand waved off as the guy being a little eccentric. and also prideful.

we then get more information about that being a cover for him being one of the Gung Ho Guns, Chapel. he can fight, hes an assassin, his job is to somehow get at Vash while being technically employed by Knives.

this wolfwood has absolutely no struggle with himself as a Priest specifically. heck, its even giving him some confidence bc he actually knows his stuff and can get by with those priestly things alone. at least, i assume so, bc otherwise the pride thing would be very misplaced as he is revealed that he really wants out of the insane GHG business, and wants nothing to do with his coworkers, as it were.

but TriStamp Wolfwood is... different in that pride regard

this version of wolfwood introduces himself as an Undertaker. he's technically a Priest, but he clearly lacks so much pride that he chooses to be an Undertaker.

the narrative tracks since he's the guide to send Vash to hell in tristamp, but theres at least 1 more layer to this.

so, Shinto! Shinto has played a very big part in Japanese culture and history since idk the beginning of Japanese history, affecting society and culture and governance.

key thing for this post: Shinto has a concept named Kegare/Defilement, which you can think of as an accumulation of evil energy. bad energy. bad enough to attract misfortune, evil spirits, and evil evil evil bad bad bad. (ive actually written about this in video game context before if you wanna read it here)

Kegare is generated upon death, blood, menstruation, and all that. in some modern media, Kegare can also be depicted to be generated by an accumulation of negative emotions from people. but for the longest time, it was mainly Death. (oh and somewhat also women with the whole uh.... you know, menstruation, childbirth, and stillbirths etc.)

but: Kegare is NOT sin, and should not be seen as such.

old japan governance also used Caste System. so combine that with shinto, and society and here's the not fun stuff: we now have a discriminated class of people who did all of society's very necessary but deemed dirty jobs. these are the Butchers, Leatherworkers, Executioners, and Undertakers. (which is wild. a society would not be able to function without them.)

they are shunned, deemed too dirty, too tainted, too polluted to ever have a hope of having a better life. since social mobility wasnt a thing with Caste System. and coming too close to them means pollution on the self too.

the Caste System got abolished, and today the descendants are called Burakumin 部落民. they are still being discriminated against to this day. the remnants of the dirtiness with certain jobs still remain, especially with jobs that involves the dead. its also possible to know who is a descendant of one through family names, which can be used to trace family registry and sus out old residences etc.

feel free to watch the above video for a clearer explanation by a japanese man instead of just taking my word for it >_>

back to wolfwood.

studio orange making him go from Priest to Undertaker is likely rooted in a logic associated with this. that TriStamp wolfwood lacks the confidence to have a strong identity outside of GHG, whereas manga wolfwood has. that TriStamp wolfwood really does think of himself as trash and worthless even before outsiders' judgement, whereas manga wolfwood's struggle is more about an internal struggle of being lost.

manga wolfwood is also never truly free from his identity as Chapel until the very end.

but TriStamp wolfwood gets a full contract saying that hes free from Chapel (i assume!)

i think theres also additional implications but im losing braincells by the minute. the change makes so much sense and tracks so well that apart from the confidence thing, everything is more or less intact.

(worth possibly nothing also, I think TriStamp wolfwood isnt fully checking boxes of uhhh Normality in japanese context. hes dressed in a mess, hes not clean shaven, his skin is kinda dark and not fair, he speaks in non-standard japanese. but ymmv, he will be ok in kansai at least, but not fully fitting in in Capital Tokyo nor ex-Capital Kyoto.)

i also, admittedly, dont know much about the culture surrounding death and undertakers within the states or europe so i cant comment much on that aspect. im aware i must have missed something. on that front, sorry D:

anyway thats all i got for now! thanks for reading this long ass post! EDIT: IMPORTANT ADDITION - Baptism parallel with Shinto

[imaginecolby]

Friends with Benefits || Part Three - The Adjustment

as soon as the words left your mouth, you felt like you wanted to throw up again.

Pregnant. your mind was a blank, almost as if you’d forgotten what the word meant. you had no emerging thoughts about where you were going to go from here.

“pregnant.” colby repeated, barely above a whisper. you watched as he sunk to his knee, taking your hand in his. “y/n, will you-“

“oh, nuh uh.” you interrupted. “you are not proposing to me right now.” you said, pulling him up from the floor.

“why not? we’re going to have a kid!”

“colby, we’re not even officially dating. i don’t expect you to propose to or marry me just because im having your baby.”

“you’re right, sorry. my head is just all over the place.” he sighed, sitting back down on the couch. you watched his face as the gears turned in his head. you were scared he was gonna bolt and leave you to make decisions on your own.

“tell me what you’re thinking.” you said quietly, moving to set next to him.

“a lot of things. scared of how this is gonna change us, worried that im gonna fuck this up. are we ready for this?” he asked.

"i don't know. i mean, ive always wanted kids, but this is not the way i wanted to go about that."

"me either." colby said, taking his hand in yours. "but im glad we're gonna be in this together. we've been in each other's lives for so long, at least we're not toal strangers."

"that's true." you sighed. you both sat there quietly before you spoke again. "so, where does this leave us?"

"we're still us. we're friends before anything, and we're a team in this. i'm gonna be here for you through everything." he said, squeezing your hand.

"thank you." you said softly, leaning into his side and hugging him tight. colby squeezed you tight and you felt him press a kiss to the top of your head.

"we got this." he said softly, giving you another squeeze.

the first trimester was a bit rough, as your routine began to change. your symptoms were already killing you. between the morning sickness, constant pain, and overall nervousness of this life changing event, you were already more tense than you'd ever been in your life.

you were at the doctor's office every week. but you were glad that you weren't doing this alone. colby made it a point to make every appointment with you. he made a promise to you that he was going to be there for you through every part of this pregnancy, and he was keeping good on his word. along with your appointments, he was going shopping with you to get all the necessities for the baby, helping put transform the guest room in your house into the nursery. you and him were researching and learning all the things you could about parenting.

you were still pretty nervous, really more nervous than you could ever explain. this feeling was probably going to last your entire pregnancy, but you were so glad that colby was doing this with you. you felt like you could accomplish anything with him by your side. but you couldn't help but worry that all you were ever going to be was co-parents, and nothing more. you knew you and colby had sort of an "agreement" about your relationship, but you were feeling like you wanted to be more. you were just too scared to bring it up to him, in case that was going to be too much to add to his plate. especially right now.

one afternoon, you'd just gotten home from a busy morning of some shopping and a quick trip to the drugstore for some more prenatal vitamins. you were resting on the couch, your hand falling into place on your belly. you still couldnt believe you were growing a human in there. as you sat there with your thoughts, pictures of your future child began to flash through your head. a baby boy with dark hair and blue eyes like colby, or a baby girl with soft hair and skin tone that beared a strinking resemblance to yours. you truly were so excited for this next part of your life, and you couldn't wait to raise your baby.

your thoughts were interrupted by your phone buzzing on the coffee table. you picked it up and saw a text from colby.

"are you home? i have something for you." he text you.

"yeah, i just got back. :)" you replied.

"perfect, see you in ten."

while you waited for colby to come over, you put up your purchases and changed into some more comfortable clothes. you were walking back into the living room just as you heard a knock on your door.

"hey!" colby said with a smile when you answered. he pulled you into a hug and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

"whatcha got?" you asked, pointing to the numerous bags in his hands.

"oh, i know better than to you come over without food." he laughed, handing you the food bags. "now, i don't know how your appetite has changed since getting pregnant, but i hope you still like, and can actually eat, chinese."

"oh yes, i will never turn away chinese." you said, taking the food from him. you got plates for the two of you and moved to the living room. you and colby sat down on the couch and set the food up on the coffee table.

"and what's this?" you asked, pointing to the gift bag he had.

"daddy's first gift for the baby." he said, his face lighting up as he started to open it. he pulled out a ball of fabric, unrolling it to reveal a onesie with a familiar logo on the front.

"oh my god! this is so cute!" you cheered, taking it from him.

"baby's first piece of xplr clothing."

"colby, this is adorable. this'll be their coming home outfit after they're born." you laughed.

"perfect, that was my intention." he laughed. the two of you sat down to eat, and conversation quickly ensued. after a while, you decided to take a more serious turn.

"so, my first trimester is up. i think it's time we start telling people." you said.

"yeah, i've been thinking about that these past couple days. but, i think we need to talk about our relationship first."

"oh?" you asked, sitting up and focusing entirely on him.

"i think we should be exclusive. y'know, boyfriend and girlfriend." he said, taking your hand in his.

"what? are you serious?"

"well, you wont let me propose, so," he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders. "y/n, i love you. i know i told you at the beginning of all of this, that i wasn't looking for a relationship. but i love you. i've loved you since the day i met you, but i was too scared to commit to relationship because i was at a place where a lot of girls were using me."

"you know i'd never do that to you." you said softly, rubbing your thumb across the back of his hand.

"i know, and i feel bad for ever thinking that of you. but i'm over that now. i want to be with you. fully and completely. we're gonna be starting a family, and i want us to be as commited to each other as we'll be to the baby. you don't have to say anything now, but i just wanted to put my feelings on the table, and be completely honest with you."

"i'm actually glad you said something because i've been thinking about us as well. you know ive always liked you, as more than a friend. and i've wanted to be exclusive with you. i didn't really want to be part of this "friends with benefits" type thing we've had going on in the first place, but i just wanted to be with you, in any way, so i agreed to it, thinking your feelings would eventually change. i definitely didn't think this was going to be the thing that would change your mind about us, but im glad it did. i love you too, and i wanna be with you. officially, and fully."

"officially and fully." colby repeated, leaning over to press a kiss to your lips.

"im glad we've figured this out. once we start telling people we can avoid the whole ‘yeah! we're having a baby without even being together!’ conversation."

"oh, i know. i wasn't looking forward to that either." he laughed. "speaking of, how are we gonna do our announcement?"

"i don't know. i've been trying to figure something out, but all the ones ive gone through online don't seem fitting for us." you sighed.

you sat there quietly for a moment, the both of you racking your brain for ideas. suddenly, a light bulb went off in your head.

"oh my god, yes!" you sat up, an idea running in your mind.

"what? what did you think of?" colby asked. you sat there without saying anything, picking up the onsie.

"a little explorer!"

[desire-mona]

heard we were making house ocs and ive had a dingus floating around in my head since january so i FINALLY got around to actually making a proper ref sheet. i present my silliest

Dr. Nanette "Ninny" Amesbury :3

more under cut !

big warning lore n backstory n stuff is very bare bones and not all the way there cuz im #lazy

birthday is vague but lets go with ~35 circa s2

if i had a nickel for every oc i had who had absent parents and was raised catholic by their grandparents, id have two nickels. unintentional that it happened twice i sorta forgor the other one's lore for a bit and now its stuck so ummmmm sorry laney. wont be going into childhood bc i havent come up w that yet and honestly i dont care to!!! yada yada yada catholic guilt but not in the chase way bc she hasnt left the church n likely never will

ummmm relationship chart + template

lets just quick go over some relationship highlights cuz some are def more important than others

wilson: mr president a 4th ex wife has hit the james wilson. when were they married? ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 😁

but they were married for like. 3 years? YES it ended bc he cheated but nin also wasn't the best either her ass was literally never ever there she was ALWAYS at work (like more than normal doctor amounts of at work - only came home to sleep and even that was only 4x a week(also worked at a different hospital))

tw suicide for next part bee tee dub

a big part of the beginning of their relationship was (big surprise) wilson's attraction to what he THOUGHT was neediness but was literally just nin wanting (and trying) to kill herself lol. once the magic of all that went away (perceived independence thats rly just #bottling shit up) he was just kinda like oh :/ its not cool to have a mentally ill wife anymore :/ i was expecting ramona flowers :/ or whatever. so infidelity impact font, hijinks and moving away for [amount] years ensue before nin being hired at ppth as the head of pediatrics. brief fwb situation w wilson Again b4 she finds out shes a lesbian at the end of like. s2.

oh yeah she also tries to kill herself again once she figures it out (see catholic guilt mention) but its cool she lives

cuddy: GAAAAAYYYYY GAAAAYYYYYYY GAY!!!!! DR AMESBURY WANTS TO FUCK THIS WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its one sided tho boooooo cuddys briefly like Wait ? just b4 nin moves away at the end of s6 roughly but shes already. thats done its not happening.

kutner: dont even fucking talk to me. i dont wanna talk about it. im gonna talk about it.

so kutner (like the slut that he is lowkey but society isnt ready for that) asks nin out just after he gets hired and shes like ermmmmmmmmmm! but sensing his loser aura she (still deeply closeted) is like hey haha i dont swing that way sorry !!!!!!! but its ok they become super mega best friends and get nerdy together

i like to think they listen to weird al together OH YEAH NINS THE BIGGEST WEIRD AL YANKOVIC FAN IN NEW JERSEY

and then nothing bad happens!

if youve seen this post about the little writing things kutner got after he croaked then hooray here's nanettes

they make me so fucking upset.

anyway as i stated above nin moves away after s6 for a bunch of reasons. 1) thanks obama 2) a big part of what contributed to her suicidal ideations n such was the fact that deep down she didnt ACTUALLY know what she wanted to do w her life. u may be like she doesnt. want to be a doctor ? NO she doesnt thats just what she did to get money to eventually do what she wants. whatever that is. something something feeling lost in life and unable to reach a goal when u dont even know what the goal is something something. also persistent depressive disorder but like spoon in kitchen.

idk what shes gonna end up doing after she moves but id imagine she shows up for house's funeral so i cant just be like lol nobody gets to know! im thinking painter but idk IDK guys her lore is ROUGH

thats it if u have questions ill answer thanks

[winterwhisperz-blog]

Hey me again ☾ ! Hope you're still up for asks cause I really like your writing & I got some ideas >:) (the obsession with this game is real yo). Do you think you could write something with a MC who enjoys cooking and testing recipes + making the LI taste their dish please ? 👀👉🏽👈🏽

We know Vere likes cooking too so maybe some interactions with him would be cute (Him and MC being an absolute menace in the kitchen but still managing to make a tasty meal bwahaha).

Thanks & have a great day <3

This came exactly at the right time— BRO THE WRITING SLUMP IVE BEEN IN?? Siiigh, it’s been tragic. (Also I get the brain rot, the hold this game has is crazy) also i’m so happy you like my writing 😭 and I hope you have a great day too !!

NOW

this did take me awhile because uHHHHH I don’t know anything about food. When I do remember to eat it’s usually cottage cheese and chocolate (not together, obviously- I’m not crazy 🥺)

SO

Here was my plan okay

I have a huge map in my room and I stared at it like this: 🧍🏻‍♀️ and picked about 17? Countries and put them in a spinning wheel. I chose a TS LI and then span said wheel—and whatever it lands on, MC a makes a dish inspired by the meals there (does that make sense ??)

I might’ve made it too complicated but it was fun-

Warnings: None, vere is just vere. Very possibly ooc, creative liberty.

Notes: Fluff, GN mc. Not proofread and finished at 1 am.

LES START WITH AIS

Ais(Boeuf bourguignon (Beef burgundy)

ALR SO, this was originally Vere’s, but I was having creative difficulties—so I changed this to Ais’. This dish is from France!

So, this one, I think Ais is already hanging out with you (he’s lonely ): )

He’s been having a ROUGH time okay, and so you decide to try out a new recipe on him

One you think he’d like.

Instantly, this man is sauntering into your kitchen, hugging you from the back as he watches what you’re doing. He’s quiet for the most part, just curious as you mix and add ingredients.

He snatches a few as well, and you let him until you’re going to be short on ingredients.

As you stop his hand from picking a chopped carrot, he looks nearly comparable to a scolded dog that was caught counter-surfing.

“Wait just a moment, I’m making this for you, you know.”

Smirking, he reaches for the carrot again. “Ah, should be allowed this then,”

As you swat you wooden spoon at his knuckles, he quickly steals one last carrot before offering his hands up in surrender.

You banish him to the counter, where he returns to watching, (he’s the pretty girlfriend that sits on the counter as you cook omg)

Once you’ve finished, you serve the red stew along with some boiled potatoes, placing it in front of the ever so patient Ais (who definitely didn’t find a way to sneak a bit more snacking in)

You eat in silence for awhile, before you notice how Ais’ eyes keep flickering to you. A brow furrowed.

“Something wrong? Does it taste funny? I thought I followed the recipe—“

He lightly shakes his head, swallowing a mouthful of the stew.

“No, not that. It’s…good, really good.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

He draws a hand over his chin, pondering his words. Or, deciding whether or not to say something. “There a reason you made it for me?”

You didn’t expect him to catch on. You commonly make things for him, for everyone, really. But today was different. Special. You had been noticing the drop in Ais’ mood, the added weight to his steps and the tiredness in his eyes. You made this in hopes to cheer him up, but also to see if it’d get him to talk about what was bothering him.

“You’ve just…you look like you’ve been having a bad day.”

He lapses back into silence, chewing on another spoonful. “I don’t want you to think you need to take care of me.”

You freeze, readying a retort before he continues.

“But…thank you.”

You stir your stew, swallowing. “You’re welcome.”

Another silence, before Ais chuckles. “Stew could’ve used more carrots though.”

WEEEEEEEEEE

He’s such a brat, I love him.

ALR, Now unto Leander !

Leander/Kjøttkaker (Meatballs) sided with Brunost(Brown cheese)

Alright, Leander got Norway. I was originally just going to go for meatballs, but then I saw this brown cheese ?? And though it’s not cheese cheese, I thought it’d be fun since Leander likes cheese platters.

You’ve been feeling rather ambitious lately, and decide to take on your biggest task yet: cooking for all the bloodhounds.

It didn’t seem like a bad idea, since you’ve always loved cooking for people. But it’s already proving to be a harder task than anticipated, as Eridia certainly doesn’t seem to be the home of the freshest ingredients.

One morning searching through rotten vegetables was enough to get you discouraged. You managed to find scraps of fresh-enough spices, but if you wanted more, it would come down to stealing from one of the richer streets. And you definitely weren’t in the mood for that today.

All you really wanted to do was take a bath and get that rotten smell off you.

Popping your back, you sigh before stepping into the bar, avoiding the bustle of the bloodhounds as you make for the stairs.

“MC!”

Turning around, you spot Leander, waving at you from the bar-counter. And that’s when you see crates of crates of vegetables, milk, cheese, and meat. Stunned, you walk over, fingers picking through the vegetables—they’re fresh, fresher than you expected from this place. And the meat, milk, cheese—

“How did you?—“

You had told Leander you wanted to make dinner tonight, before you left- you didn’t expect him to go looking for ingredients.

“—how did you get all these?” You finish, picking up a jar of pearly white milk.

Leander only smiles, leaning forward on the counter. “I know somebody. Will these be enough?”

Avoiding the truth, you had grown to expect that from him. If you had more energy you would’ve prodded. Instead, you put down the milk and run a bandaged hand across your face. “Yeah, I think so—well,” you glance around at the full tables of bloodhounds, all probably starved from work and life down in low-town. At your furrowing brows, Leander straightens, looking ready to March back out the door and come back with another crate.

“No, never mind. This is perfect, thank you.”

Thankfully, it was enough to manage. And with Leander’s help, you were able to go up to bathe as he watched over the food. To reward him, you decide to also make brown cheese. And though it’s not cheese cheese, it was enough to get Leander’s face to light up. Especially when he managed to convince you to unwrap your bandages and feed him a slice or two.

Though, you’re still rather confused on where he got everything 🤨 and why he didn’t get you earlier so you could’ve avoided searching through rotten veggies. Thankfully, your hard work also came with the entire bloodhounds seeing you as some holy entity after finishing dinner.

Kuras: Cōng yóubǐng (Scallion Pancake)

Kuras got China, and with this one—I was able to find a few videos on it. And now I want to eat it—though I cannot cook whatsoever <333

So so so so, with this one, I imagine you get the idea because like…people have brought this up before—but does Kuras even like…eat? Do angels…need to eat?

And maybe you notice how very little, or not at all he seems to eat. And how much he just -works- and goes off into places you can’t follow and comes back from the wastelands. Does he even sleep either?

So one day, you decide to make something for him. You’ve made things for others before, your friends, maybe family, before things went wrong. You don’t really know why you hadn’t made him anything before. But hey! Now’s better than never.

You settle on something not too filling, and something he could snack on during the day. Something he could take out to eat in between patients and with him wherever he goes and refuses to tell you.

Scallion pancakes. You wake up earlier than usual to make them, once finished, instantly rushing over to his clinic so they’re still warm when he eats them. The early morning sends a chill down your cheeks—shivering, you wrap the swathe of cloth holding the pancakes into your cloak, praying it doesn’t get cold.

You narrowly miss a patient exiting the door, looking dull and tired. You nod your head in acknowledgment before rushing inside. “Kuras?”

You find him in the process on shutting the door, golden eyes widening slightly in shock before softening. “MC, are you well?”

You nod, unraveling your cloak to reveal the swathe of cloth. “I…uh, made you breakfast.” Holding it out to him, you watch as his expression turns mildly perplexed. Warm hands closing over yours as he slowly takes it from you.

Like it’s some kind of curious artifact, he unwraps the cloth and stares at the stack of flakey pancakes. He lifts it to his nose, taking a few sniffs. Humming, he then gives you a small smile.

“It smells delicious.”

He then doesn’t eat it, instead, the silence stretches on as the two of you stand there. After a few moments, you awkwardly shift on your feet.

“Is there something the matter?” Kuras asks, tilting his head.

“I didn’t poison it, or anything,” You say, gesturing to the stack.

He lets out a small, quiet chuckle. “I would hope not.”

“So uhm…you can eat it.”

blinking, Kuras raises a brow, golden eyes piercing the dim light of morning. “Eat it?”

You nod, feeling more confused. He recovers quickly, slowly putting it to his mouth. Then someone sneezes behind you and you whip around to see a patient, red-eyed and sniffling.

By the time you turn back, Kuras is wrapping the pancakes back up. “I’ll be right with you,” he says, giving you a nod as his hand comes to your shoulder. “Thank you for bringing me Breakfast—are you in need of anything else?”

You blink, feeling a little frustrated. “No, that was all.”

Though it didn’t go as planned, later that day when hanging out with Ais, you hear about how when he was helping around the clinic, Kuras would take a few bites of a stack of some kind of garlic-smelling pastries.

You would receive a thank you note also requesting another stack the following day.

Mhin: Vitumbua (coconut rice pancakes)

Mhin, got Tanzania :D and with this, I wanted to find something still sweet since they like desserts! Thus, Vitumbua! Also these look so good, I want them so bad )): (I also wanted to add that there’s different kinds of these !! Made in different countries with different names and such, these are just specifically Tanzanian coconut rice pancakes.)

Also I apologize if this time around I seem more scattered-this writing slump is eating me alive 🤗

Okay okay, this one actually makes me so happy cause I think it’s cute- these are also kinda pancakes—and you made them for Mhin to take with them on their patrols.

Every moment making you think of them more.

How they’re doing, if they got enough sleep, if they’re even sleeping and not out killing soulless. You hope that somehow, these make things easier for them. And remind them how much you care. Especially since you’re losing sleep baking for them.

Once the heavy dark night is lifted into a sulking grey, you stack the rice pancakes into a box and head for outside.

Before Mhin can leave, you catch them, offering the cute little box, wrapped with bow and all. You had been up all night baking them, along with a caramel sauce to top it all off.

“What is this?” They ask, tentatively reaching for the box.

You scrub at your eyes, trying not to yawn. “Just a little something warm to remind you of me~” You sing-song, wiggling your brows at them. Chuckling as a blush skates across their pale face.

“I don’t…need anything,” they mutter, glancing away. Shy rays of morning light casting shadows over their features.

“Of course you don’t, but I thought you’d like it anyway.”

Grumbling, they hide the box in their cloak. “…Thanks.”

You cup a hand over your ear, humming. “Huh, what was that?”

“I said…thanks.”

“Hmm, sorry, seems something is plugging my ears!”

They clear their throat, “I said—“ they stop, eyes narrowing. “Don’t press your luck.”

Laughing, you fold your arms, trying to ignore the chill. “Alright, alright. If you end up wanting more, come get me okay? I can show you how to make them.”

They open their mouth, evidently going to ask what ‘them’ are, but you’re already heading back, stretching your arms over your head in a loud yawn. “Have fun on your patrol, say hi to the kitties for me!”

Once you’ve left, Mhin gives the box one more curious look before peeling open the lid. Inside, are ten golden, round pastries resting alongside a jar of bronze sauce.

Gingerly lifting one with their fingers, they take a slow bite. The chilly air of the dreary morning melting in a blooming sweetness. Swallowing, they feel a blush creep over their neck.

You were right, they really were warm.

Somehow, even when killing soulless, or after an annoying, unwanted conversation with Vere, one bite of the rice pancakes made them feel a bit lighter.

And, though they would never admit it, it reminded them of you.

Vere(Spaghetti/Caprese Salad)

So like I said with Ais, this was originally his— but I switched them. These dishes are from Italy!

Okay okay, so something I think would be really cute is Vere not only tasting your new recipes, but helping you to prepare it

Like for spaghetti sauce, maybe you prefer to peel your tomatoes first, and Vere, who was on his way to annoy you, caught the curious smell of fresh vegetables, (or fruit, since uhhh tomatoes) and spots you carefully peeling the ruby skin

Your face is locked in concentration, unknowingly sticking out your tongue as you gingerly avoid cutting your fingers.

It’s such a goofy expression Vere can’t help but stare at you with a hand covering his chuckles—until of course, he can’t resist the urge to scare the crap out of u 😇

Too caught in your work to notice anything amiss, Vere skulks closer until peering over your shoulder, lightly grazing his jaw over the side of your neck. He opens his mouth to whisper something in your ear but—

Taken by surprise, you yelp, squeezing the life out of the tomato you were peeling. It explodes over the both of you, shooting it’s guts very impolitely across your faces.

Vere reels back, a hiss of disgust escaping his lips as he blindly searches for something to clean the tomato remains off his face. He reaches for you and you swat him away.

“Idiot,” He seethes, finding an abandoned wash cloth.

“You were the one that scared me!”

“Still jumpy, hmm? I don’t know how you’ve lasted so long in this pig sty.”

Flicking tomato off your face, you snatch the wash cloth from his fingers. “With you constantly breathing down my neck? It’s a mystery to me too.”

Though you sound irritated, your hands still carefully reach for his face, gently wiping away the spots he missed. When he flinches, you soften your expression. “I forgive you. Come on, you got some on your neck.”

Slowly, but softly, Vere relaxes, though he still watches you with that same confused look he gives every time you offer affection.

It doesn’t take long for his fingers to caress your cheeks, sweeping off the tomato juice and then licking it off his fingers. Eyes taking on a devilish glint.

Hand it to Vere for making cleaning tomato guts off your face seem sensual

Eventually though, you do return to cooking. Vere helping you with peeling, chopping up basil, (sneaking extra spices into the sauce) and stirring the noodles.

Once everything is made, including an extra salad, you find a secluded spot to eat everything. Vere’s eyes watching your face the entire time.

“Do I still have tomato guts somewhere?” You ask, lifting a hand to check your cheeks.

Vere props his chin on his palm. “Did you know you stick your tongue out when you’re focusing?”

“I do not.”

“It’s so cute,”

“You’re just making stuff up so you can make fun of me.”

“I don’t have to make things up to do that, sweetheart.”

You toss your napkin at his face.

————-

Alr, we have reached the end. I am, so so sorry for taking two thousand centuries. Again, thank you so so much for the ask <3 though I took forever, these were fun !!

I hope you take a really good nap, eat your favorite snack, and try something new !! (Also you should totally search these dishes up, they all look so good !!)

[xiii-e]

for Xie i hop u have a good day

for Lio...

i read wut you said. im gald i dint make things worse. sometimes i do that by accident

i didnt know i could hate HA anymore than i already did. i know its how hard it is for a regular person to get through there stupid bullshit program first hand, so i can only imagine how hard it is when they bake that shit into ur jeans or whatever.

HA made me a monster. they trained me and they changed me 2 be 1. i talked about what an enkidu does to u last night on another post... they filled me up with so many stims i could barely think most of the time, and they yelled at me wen i did anything other than kill for them.

im still the monster they turned me into. my BATTLERAGE never left. when i go too long without TEARING shit apart with SLAG KITTY i start to lose it. the stinging in my head starts again and it gets itchy and angry in my head. i MAUL because i have to and its a part of waht i am.

but that isnt all i am anymore. since the fuckers left me 2 die better people helped me learn to be a person again. I hav friends now and i liek exploring places and i think grils r like really really really pretty... im a whole person and im not just the part me they made.

I think Xie will always be a medic. their instinct to help people and make them stop hurting is baked in. but ive seen other parts of them too and theyre parts i really like. i think those parts will grow. specially once you manage to get them out of ther. i know you already know this, but i think itll maybe help to know that some1 else knows it 2

[ECHO.EXE RUNNING]

◂▸ Hey Sally- Xie's doing better than they were, having some quiet time in their room. They had a rough dream over their nap, head's giving them trouble, but! They're doing better now. They say hi :]

◂▸ ... yeah, you're not wrong there kiddo. Programming and conditioning can fuck with anyones head, but part of why they do these high-control Projects with us flashclones in the first place is because it's just- easier. No outside experiences to influence your subject, no family or history just... whatever you designed, floating in a tube. It's more expensive to custom-build a soldier than to just use fascimiles or vulnerable citizenship, but the payoff is the control. 'Specially if you bake in some behavioural quirks that back up what you wanna do. A predisposition toward anxiety, for instance. Uncontrolled empathy. Aggression, in some of the earlier models.

◂▸ Remove the ability to play god and fuck with someones genes directly and- yeah, stims. That horror show the Enkidu puts you through. I'm sorry they did that to you kiddo, they had no fucking right to- you already know that too but, likewise. Someone else knows that too. I don't think you're a monster, I think you're dealing the best you can with a problem you never should have been forced to deal with. They made it so the only positive association you got for years, was with violence. Course that's gonna be near impossible to kick entirely.

◂▸ ... makes me real happy to hear you talk about the parts of yourself you found after you got out, kiddo. Sounds like you understand stuff better than a lot of folk out there, and that- that probably comes from experience. You happy out there? You mention people helped you learn to be a person, after HA abandoned you in the field, mention you have friends now. That's real good to hear about. People who get it make everything managable, I think. You're a good person to know, Sally- I'm real glad you and Xie got talking. I know they're happy bout it too.

◂▸ I- I really hope I can get them out of here, one day. That's the first challenge, isn't it? Hope I can be there to see who they find within themself, once the job isn't bleeding them dry. Hope you'll be there to see it too. They'll always be the kind of person to put their own needs last, always be succeptable to that guilt they've been wired with... but I think that'll be managable. Once they've got people who don't want to see them hurt. People who can actually do something about it.

◂▸ Thanks kiddo. Just let me know if you ever wanna talk, yeah? I've got some experience helping folk deal with the quirks conditioning can leave you with. You have anything along the lines of a chewtoy? Can help with minor aggression impulses sometimes, having something to tear at.

[ Helios-8 ]

//

[dreamsy990]

some pretty rough and bad sketches for some designs for a persona au? i also doodled a couple others but they need more cleanups than these guys do. which granted they still need a lot of cleanup. uhhhh notes under the cut for some stuff

i have the least to say about trucy. um i think her design needs the least touchups and thats only partially because drawing her was really easy with her canon design already being somewhat within the realm of persona designs. her arcana is the magician (obviously) and her persona is hermes !! idk why but it felt very fitting for her immediately. idk it might be a combination of both epics take on hermes being very silly and trucy acting as a sort of messenger sometimes to give people fake evidence. its ok guys it wasnt her fault shes literally a kid. honestly shes the only one ive decided on a persona for dfvgfedf. as for role in the party i think shed be garbage with physical stuff but have a very high magic stat because. magician !! as for what magic uhhh ill put a hesitant curse or wind. she could be either of those really.

athena i think would be the navigator. i just think it makes sense for her with her whole thing being about psychology and the general nature of palaces it seems fitting shed have that role. but while i think shed fill a similar role to futaba in being a navigator i think she would absolutely still be a party member because i cant imagine athena NOT being a party member. let the girl kill!!! i think shed mostly do physical damage and her magic type would be psychic obviously. i realize this is a haru ass build but whatever. also her arcana is strength. i considered some others but like come on shes strength. also while i was trying to come up with a persona for her i briefly realized i could just. take a pre existing persona and change their arcana TO strength instead of just working with personas that are already strength. and i was thinking of maybe giving her aphrodite? because i COMPLETELY forgot sex was a thing and was like "yeah aphrodite is about love and emotion and athenas got a lot of emphasis placed on her ability to hear others emotions and shes a psychologist so thats fitting also i cant give her athena as a persona obviously and ares isnt too fitting for her either but i remember hearing aphrodite at one point did have some association to war like athena and ares? and i was like YES aphrodite is a great choice. then i remembered the sex part and was like oh hm maybe not? but i might give her aphrodite anyways i just hope people like. get the actual reason why i think she should have aphrodite and dont just assume things. unfortunately i hate her design soooo much here i need to redo it or find some good inspiration

and nahyuta hasnt actually changed uh. much at all since my initial sketches for this au like a year ago. his arcana is the hierophant and his persona is uh. i havent actually decided yet sorry. lmk if yall have any good ideas though!! i do have a rough idea for his moveset, because i think he should have bless magic (because of course, maybe you could mix in some curse too for funsies but im worried about stepping on akechis toes too much with nahyuta dfvbgfd) obviously, and i think he could also be support. i dont think hed be much of a healer but have things like stat buffs and debuffs instead? so things like matarukaja and elec break for example. also for a vague concept of his role in the story, i think he might have a similar role to akechi, albeit probably not a villain really? my idea is that hed be working on his own in the metaverse, and eventually joins the main party because they share similar goals and its safer to work with others in the metaverse anyways. but hes probably slow to actually become part of the group in terms of like. being friends with them fbfrerfg. thats also why his design is sort of different in color palette from everyone else? all the others very mainly feature black in their designs while hes mostly white and gold. i think itd be cool for him to get a costume change at some point to fit in with them better, maybe make his scarf black? idk. also completely accidental but in my rough apollo sketches i gave him a similarish scarf and i think thats a funny similarity. i think nahyuta and apollo would hate each others guts. idk im trying to make designs cohesive like again you cant see it here but i tried to have trucy and apollo share a lot of design elements and i accidentally gave apollo and nahyuta similar scarfs and all the gang has black on their designs etc etc. im trying to make connections but im not all that good at character design so. its a struggle. but we stay silly.

ok thats it ummmmmm. idk. im bad at art but i hopeee you like them.

[netherfeildren]

FEAR OF GOD : Chapter IV : Mouth full of blood

Series Masterlist ; Moodboard

Pairing: Joel Miller x OFC

Summary: A trap is set, the two of you fall.

Content Warnings: canon-typical violence, gore, threat of sexual assault, PTSD, rough sex, heavy angst

Rating: Explicit 18+

A/N: Art is Healing by Laura Makabresku. 

Word Count: 6.8K

Read on AO3

CHAPTER IV: Mouth full of blood

Without violence, how do I understand my life as

meaningful?

As if the only tool I owned for finding truth were a knife. -Gabrielle Bates, Eastern Washington Diptych

A silence as vast as it is particular surrounds the two of you. The loud, wheezing gasp of his breath, the only discernible thing he can make out. It was like you’d been sucked into a vacuum, the rest of the world taken through the maw of a black hole. Trees and darkness and your small hand clutched to the back of his jacket as you follow close behind him. 

He makes his way slowly through the dark, one precise step in front of the other, rifle trained ahead of him. The two of you’d been separated from Tommy and the others one by one, picked off like goddamn flies. He didn’t even know if they were all still alive, if his brother was okay. 

It was a trap. It was a fucking trap. Goddamnit, he’d known. He’d known this was a mistake. 

He was going to kill someone, several someones, for this. 

They’d come out of nowhere, the so-called group of weary travelers the girl had told you all about. She’d appealed to your soft nature, tears and timidity, and scrapes and bruises you’d tended to with the gentlest hands that’d ever graced this world. You didn’t belong out here. He should’ve never let you come. You needed to be somewhere safe and warm and protected. Surrounded by your books and your soft things, and him there, to watch over you, always. This was all so fucking wrong. 

The men had diverted the group, spooking the horses and separating you all, a coordinated attack. Whether they were trying to find an in to Jackson, or if they’d heard rumors of a doctor, the resource you posed was a valuable one any group or community would vie for, he didn’t know. They’d targeted you first, spooking your mare. She’d reared and unseated you, and he’d almost cracked his neck he’d whipped around so fast watching you go down. The small thud your body had sounded as you’d hit the ground, the seconds it took you to open your eyes and start to move again, the longest moment of his entire life. He’d scrambled off his horse and lost it in his rush to get to you. Hands smoothing over you, down your neck and back, your limbs, checking for breaks. And then he’d looked around to find the two of you were alone. The sound of the others echoing off in the distance, accompanied by other, more harrowing noises. The shot of a gun firing, rushed footsteps and shouts going in and out of his ears. He’d told you to stay close and had set off in the opposite direction, away from where he thought the sounds of the group were coming from. 

And then the clicking. 

Singular in the darkness, the croaking click of an infected. He pauses your movements, halting abruptly so that the soft weight of you thumps into his back. What the fuck was an infected doing so far out here? Was this part of their plan? Had they connived some way to herd infected out here as part of their attack? Who the fuck even were these people? He needed to get you back, get you safe. Now. This was all wrong, wrong, wrong. 

“Was that an infected?” your scared, cracked whisper.

He holds up a single hand, listening, listening. “We’re gonna move, slow and steady. Silent,” he whispers. “It’s okay, baby. Don’t be scared, I’ve got you.”

“Joel–” fierce little hand clutched in his jacket. He starts to move again. And then the splintering of a nearby tree, gunshots directed at you, and he’s spinning and grasping the back of your head to push you down onto the ground. “Down, down,” he shouts at you, “Crawl to the tree!” He hunches over your form, knees bent to hover over you and shield you with his body, towards the protection of the trunk. The shooter has shit aim, trees feet away from the two of you fracturing in the ricochet of the bullets. But then there’s a heavy weight slamming into Joel’s side, taking him to the ground, and he hears you scream his name as the man struggles to straddle his middle, get the upper hand. A heavy fist slams into his cheek and Joel grapples to get his arms and legs around the fucker. He can hear your voice sounding in the darkness, but all he can see is the man above him, his sloppy fists swinging without precision or direction. The man is haggard and dirty — months of traveling and wilderness apparent in his face and clothes. Joel manages to get a strong hold on his throat, and then he’s heaving his legs around the man’s torso and cinching him in a lock between his thighs, pulling his face down to meet his fist over and over. His knife is in the holster at his belt, and he’s able to reach it with the hand not gripping the man above him at the same time that he realizes Joel’s reaching for a weapon. He scrambles to knock the knife away and goes for Joel’s throat. Joel manages to turn his head enough to find you in his periphery while still grappling with his attacker.

He watches as the man above you grabs you around the ankle and slowly starts to drag you across the forest floor. Your screams reverberating in his ears like a gong, like the shredding of metal. They’re desperate and visceral and the worst fucking sound he’s ever heard in his entire life. You claw viciously at the ground, nails cracking and bloody, trying to find purchase on anything to pull you away from the man’s grasp, to use as a weapon against him. And then he’s gripping your knee and flipping you over roughly, boot planting his heavy weight on your chest as he pins you in place like a broken butterfly. He bends to say something to you he can’t make out from where he is, but the look of sheer terror and disgust on your face tells him everything he needs to know. Joel sees red, doubles his efforts into a savage mess of limbs and fists, trying to get the man attacking him off. 

The dead man standing over you pauses then, turns his head slowly to Joel, and his smile is revolting – dark and rotting, “You ready to watch?” This is every nightmare Joel has had since the end of the world, come to life. 

The man crouches down over your struggling form, hand wrapping around the delicate column of your neck. Get your hands off, off, off, get your fucking hands off. There’s fire in his lungs, in his blood. He hears the sound of a clicker again, the screeching monstrosity charging through the dark wood towards you all, and with a burst of extra strength, born of pure terror, he finally finds purchase on the ground with his foot, enough to leverage up and reach his hand towards his lost knife. The sound of the clicker getting closer, closer – and then he’s slamming the knife into the eye of the man above him, the sick crunch of steel meeting bone, and then deeper, until he feels the tip meet the softness of brain – rips it out and then slams it back in again at his neck – blood spurts hot and metallic across Joel’s face. And when he turns his head back towards you, preparing to take in the worst thing he’s ever seen since he watched his daughter die – there you are. Small, trembling frame straddled over the much larger body of your would-be attacker, a hunting knife the length of half your arm stabbing over and over again into his chest and abdomen. He can hear your guttural screams over the white noise in his ears –  great heaving sobs shake your chest. Your face, tear streaked and splattered with blood. He sees the eye socket closest to Joel is empty, optic nerve hanging torn and bloody. The gouged eyeball lies a few inches beside his lolling head. The sight of you, his little bird, with hands that hold such power for healing, for care and love, imparting such violence – this is his greatest failure. 

He calls your name, loud and sharp, and you pause your massacring immediately. Look up, as if waking from a haze, brought back to consciousness at the mere sound of his voice, eyes glazed and vacant, and his heart is breaking for you, a savage howling ringing within him, his bones vibrating with the very force of it. This is no place for his gentle little bird, no, no, this is all wrong. 

“Run, Birdie. Run. Hide. I’ll find you. I promise, I promise. Run.” He can see the refusal in your eyes. The stubbornness threatening to set in. “You promised. You promised you’d do as I say,” he grits through clenched teeth, voice filled with desperation and panic. You shudder, body jerking violently as his words settle inside you, and then you’re shooting up quick as a bullet and turning to run into the darkness. He watches the wood swallow you, and then he’s pushing himself up and squaring himself to face the clicker.

-

The pounding of your feet in the dark, the rattle of your breath in your chest are the only things you can discern in the black surrounding you. 

You have been here before. 

You’re terrified that at any second you're going to see your sister. Her ghostly specter, her savaged and torn body, her beautiful, warm face, whole and healthy and smiling at you, the massacred pieces of her torn flesh, scattered along the forest floor. 

But you need to go, you need to run, to hide, to do as Joel ordered you. Even though every fiber of your being is telling you to turn back. That the worst thing in the world you could ever do would be to leave him. And then you’re slamming into something, jarring and painful. Something blunt and heavy jabs into your gut, slams into your knee with so much force you see stars, sends you to the ground. 

A woman screams, guttural and shrill, as your two bodies collide and a sharp needling cry echoes. Your back slams against the hard forest floor, your head bouncing sickeningly, and white streaks of light flash against the swallowing darkness. 

“Fuck, fuck –” she spits, already scrambling back up to prepare to flee, the high pitched cry sounds again. A baby, you think dazedly. There’s a baby here. The baby the girl mentioned? Your head feels hollow, your brain pulsing against the confines of your skull.

“W–wait–” you croak. You can’t get your bearings, too many sounds muddling your pounding head: the far off gunshots – getting closer, the horrible clicking, your memories battering within your mind over and over, Beth’s phantom screams of pain, Joel yelling at you to run, run, run, the baby’s wail fueling your panic to rise higher and higher inside of you. You have been here before. A sense of déjà vu so acute – as if this moment is the only one you’ve ever existed in. Your skin throbs in echoes, a hair raising chill rolls through your body and you shiver, jerking. “A baby–” you stutter, “You have a baby–” you roll over, reach out to try and grasp her kicking ankle. Her boot collides with your wrist, and you swallow an agonized scream, rolling away from her. 

“Get the fuck away from me! Fucking murderer!” she screeches, over the baby’s cries. A flash of the moon illuminates the woman’s figure for a second and you see the bulk of the child cradled to her front. And her face, panicked, dirt streaked and desperate. You lock eyes for one interminable moment, take each other in, they’re light, almost glowing translucent in her skull with the reflection of the moonlight. 

“Let me– let me help you — Wait–” you urge, you can’t get up, can’t get your limbs to work. 

“Get away from me!” she screams again, and then she’s up and gone, fleeing into the darkness. You need to move, the vicious sounds of a fight are drawing nearer – Joel’s pleading voice in your head run, run, run. The thought of having left him behind makes bile curl in your belly, burn your throat, but you’d promised him you’d listen to anything he said, and the instinct to keep your word won out. You hear Beth’s voice more clearly in this familiar darkness, and you force your shaky mind to move, to work. The way she’d say your name so patiently when trying to teach you something, imparting some of her slightly snooty big-sister-wisdom, always well meaning: The trees, the trees are always our friends. They can do so much for us. And then you’re clawing your way to your feet, just like that long past night, and grappling for any sort of purchase you can find with your hands and boots. Up, up the tree, go up the tree. It saved you once, it’ll save you again. 

It terrifies you to think that life was only ever a recurring set of events; cyclical in an inescapable way. That you were all doomed to repeat the same steps, relive the same instances, again and again. Beth forcing you up the tree last time, the night of her death. You’d been taken by surprise by clickers that night also, but only you had made it up to the first branches before they were on her. Before you were forced to watch, helpless from your perch as she was ripped to shreds. You had been here before and you’d lost something essential to you last time. You would not survive a second loss. 

Joel, please be okay, please, please. 

You manage to foist yourself up into the lowest hanging branches, the blood in your head throbs so strongly it’s coupled with a wave of nausea with every beat of your heart, up higher, a little more. You’d perched on that tree branch for hours after she was finally dead. Staring unseeingly at the scattered pieces of her body. A sudden gunshot echoes loudly in the darkness and you almost lose your purchase on the branch, and then it all stops. Like all sound is suddenly sucked out of the air in a vacuum echo – the struggle of the fight, the clicking and screaming – and the vacant wilderness is so consuming, so terrifying, tears stream silently down your cheeks. You can hear your breath rattle in your chest. You feel very, very alone, as if every other human in the world had vanished with the sounding of that gunshot. 

Alone in a sick and destroyed world. 

But then there’s a sudden bumbling through the trees. A body breaking against the brush and leaves on the ground, and another one of the attackers stumbles into the clearing. You turn your head in the direction the woman had fled, perhaps she’d been part of this group, but the sheer terror in her eyes, the desperation to get away as quickly as possible, her words, calling you a murderer, inclines you to think not. Joel stalks into the clearing after him, and you huddle deeper into the shadow of the branches. The moon slants just so allowing you to take him in. 

It’s like he’s grown five inches taller, the look in his eyes – there is no hint of the man who’d touched you with the gentlest hands you’d ever felt in your entire life – it’s terrifying. His gaze swings almost manically in his head, taking in the clearing, and then his eyes stop on your tree, pause on the patch of dirt at the base and slowly travel up, looking into the looming darkness of the branches. He will always find you. You know this as surely as you know your own name. His face, his hands are steeped in blood, his clothing savaged. There’s no weapon in his grasp as the man turns to swing a long, serrated hunting knife at him. He jerks back, smoothly evading it. “I’m gonna find your little bitch, gonna fuck her dead – gut her. Make you watch the whole thing, you motherfucker,” he taunts. He’s laughing, provoking, and Joel’s countenance is so terrifying in this moment – his face seems set in stone, unmoving and frozen in a rage so black. Your whole body shivers so violently you almost lose your perch. The branch creaks beneath you, and you let out a small whimper as your hands scrape and scramble to hold on, your bloody, broken nails clawing at the wood. The man turns at your sound, but Joel’s gaze remains trained on him. The man’s eyes are manic with sick glee. “Oh, there she is,” he croons. His teeth gleam red in the moonlight, and he never should’ve taken his eyes off Joel, not even for a second. He’s on him faster than you can blink, shoulder to the man’s gut, he slams him to the ground and his skull rebounds with a sick crack on the hard dirt, the sound of his skull breaking with the sheer force of the tackle. 

Joel is an animal, hungry and vicious, ready to gorge. 

The knife is in his hand then, and the sick, slick squelch of it plunging deep into the man’s chest sounds loud and victorious in the night. He lets out a small surprised oh, as he looks down at the knife impaling him, and Joel’s teeth are bared in a snarl, he grinds it harder, deeper.

“That’s right, fucker,” he says, voice low and guttural, almost unrecognizable in this darkness. “Shoulda never put your hands on her.” The sound of it makes you more afraid in this moment than anything else that’s happened tonight, the thought of not knowing the sound of his voice – of losing him so far to his rage you’d be unable to recognize him, to bring him back to you. But then he speaks again: “I’m going to kill you now.” He’s nodding his head mockingly, and that familiar monotone is back. His tone so matter of fact – almost like a reassurance to the three of you. The oily grip of your fear slides off you, and you’re left only to appreciate the magnificence of his violence as he starts beating the man’s face in with his closed first, again and again. The sound of crushed bone and flesh resonating in the dark night air like some gruesome song. And the sight of it: it is lurid, grotesque, but also somehow, erotic. Joel’s huge, heaving body, his fist breaking repeatedly over human flesh; you are mesmerized. You slowly start to lower yourself back to the ground, never once taking your eyes off him, barely blinking. The sight of him, wrathful, murdering, the way he kills for you, the way he protects you; you understand it. It is very much like the moment in which Beth died in its violent inevitability. It will always happen like this; Beth dying, Joel protecting you. The way her body was torn apart piece by piece by clickers as you watched on from above. The basest display of violence imaginable. Joel, meticulous, precise in his strikes, protecting you with everything he has. The man’s skull is an almost bloody mass of pulpy, bone riddled sludge beneath his blows. But in this instance, the scene before you is now something that is being given to you, something being done for you – not something being taken away.

There have been many times where the lines between the infected and the humans blurred in your psyche. Unsure which was more violent, more horrifying, more willing to inflict damage. But there never existed a question of which had a greater capacity for cruelty. It was always, always the humans. Cordyceps had taught you that nature could never be cruel – it only existed as it was meant to, did as it was always intended to. There was no cruelty behind it’s actions, no motivation behind the consequences it wrought besides to go on existing, no choice. But humans, people, the well of cruelty that existed within humanity was endless in its possibility. Endless choices. Nothing else like that lived in the world. The man you killed – his disgusting whispered words ring in your ears as you watch Joel: You think your man over there’ll get off on watching? ‘Cause I sure as hell am gonna enjoy knowin’ he is, pretty thing. 

There are no lines in this moment – the way you’d murdered him – there is no sense of division. There is only Joel’s desperate violence existing with the three of you in this clearing – the echoes of your own.

And the sight before you, the violence in him, it is not frightening to you. He is not frightening to you. To see his very basest nature – to see him protect you in this way – that violent heart, beastly, savage – it does not frighten you. You step forward, closer to the massacre, to the man you love, and he instantly stops. Hearing or sensing your approach, he stops and turns his bloody, savage face towards you, chest heaving, fist still raised. The look in his eyes as he registers your presence, that you’ve witnessed him in this way – to Joel, to Joel it is devastating. You can see it in his gaze, the moment it settles within him – catastrophe of the highest order. 

The possibility of losing you, of you being hurt, of him not being strong or fast enough to protect you; every fear, every moment of unimaginable danger, every point of no return flashes in his eyes – it’s like you’re reading his mind in this moment. The instance of connection, of knowing, of intimacy you share in the wake of his violence – it tethers you to him in a way that is deeper than anything else the two of you have experienced before. To share this, to know what he’s feeling in this space his violence has forged, to understand his rage – he’s seen this play out so many different ways, so many times, with different versions of someone he cares for. Sarah, Ellie, you.

His eyes like glass, broad chest heaving, painfully out of breath; it’s like you can see him recall another moment like this as he looks at you, as he takes in the familiar look of hungry reverence in your eyes, mirroring another set too young to churn with so much appreciation for violence. 

He straightens from his crouch over the massacred form of your attacker, and comes to you, bloody hands fisting in your hair as he takes your mouth, open and fierce. The groan he licks into you is guttural, eliciting a shaky, broken moan in response.

“My brave girl,” he murmurs softly, nose nuzzling your cheek.

His hands roam down, gently pressing for wounds or hurts. “You’re okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” You press yourself to him, gaze peeking over his shoulder, staring out into the empty darkness, only the sound of your shared breaths now. 

“There was a woman,” you whisper, “With a baby.” Where did she go? Why did she have a baby out here with her in this hell?

He pulls you back, grips your jaw gently, “Are you hurt?” He demands, ignoring what you’d just said, and you shake your head, wide eyed. Do they have shelter? Somewhere to go? Someone to help them? 

“Are you?” you ask him. 

“I’m fine.”

“I saw a woman, Joel. She had a baby.”

“Was probably with those bastards. We have to go – find the others. I have to get you back home.” 

“But she had a baby–”

“That isn’t our concern,” he says sharply, and turns, clutching your hand in his, pulling you forward to bend for the knife still plunged in the man’s chest. He isn’t letting you go again. You feel the promise in the strength of his grip around your bones. The skull is caved in, and your eyes volley back and forth between the slaughter and Joel.

“But I–”

“Don’t.” There is no room for discussion in his tone, only an urgency that begs for your obedience. His panic, his terror, envelopes you both in its asphyxiating embrace. “Not now. We have to go.”

-

You make it back to Jackson within several hours. Never coming across the group or the horses again. Joel sets an uncompromising pace that has your exhausted, overwrought body shutting down once you finally set eyes on the gate. 

He hasn’t said a word in hours except to check if you’re okay. His breathing, harsh and angry — you’d focused on the rhythm of it, the reassurance it provided you. Let the sound settle in your bones and guide you forward along with his hand. He’d not let go of you since he’d picked it up, and your fingers have long gone numb in his strangling grip. But you know, that like the sound of his breathing, the feel of your palm in his is his own form of reassurance. The embrace he’d not allow himself right now. Not until you’re safe. 

The dark, red thread of tension pulls taught between the two of you. His earlier violence, still palpable on your tongue, felt in the rigidity he holds himself with, it buzzes between your bodies like a hive. A restless anxiety overshadowing the exhaustion threatening you, making your skin itch and sweat. 

You return to find Tommy safe and unharmed, Kenneth and Pablo being patched up by Nancy and interrogated by Maria. The fourth in your party, Ben, is dead. A group already assembled to go out and search for the two of you. The teenage girl had disappeared from the clinic shortly after your group had headed out – the whole thing was a trap. Joel recounts the fight in tense, short bursts, never letting go of your hand. Pulling your body slightly behind his, as if these people, familiar to you, your friends, your family, also pose a threat. Anyone who dares too close is met with the fire of his glare, bared teeth. He’s yet to shed the blanket of violence he’d dawned to defend the two of you earlier, and your body seems to answer it, a keening cry only he can hear. Shaking and sweating, clutching the back of his jacket, pressing your feverish brow to his shoulder. You know you should pull yourself together, tend to Kenneth and Pablo, clean and wrap Joel’s obviously broken hand and your own scrapes and bruises – it’s your responsibility – but you can’t focus, can’t pin a rational thought in your mind long enough to propel yourself into action. The wet sound of Joel’s pummeling fist plays over and over in your mind, the only thing you can focus on, the feel of his warm back under your touch. You need him, need something from him after that trauma, after your fear of being taken from him, of one of you being killed. You need him to remind you that you’re both okay, alive, that you belong to him and only him. 

You block out their conversation, eyes closed, you try to match the rhythm of your breathing to his, try to ground yourself with his body. The feeling of never having left those dark woods, of still being in that tree with Beth, not Joel, beneath you, of being lost, lost, lost, of never finding him, is overwhelming you. And then he’s turning and pulling you into his arms, guiding you away from the group and whispering into your hair, “It’s alright, it’s alright, just a little longer. We’re going home now.” Home, he was taking you home. The words out of his mouth allow you enough clarity of mind to squeeze the wish from your heart into your brain – that you want so desperately for his home to be yours also. That you could both share the same space you call just your own. 

“I’ve got you, baby. Stop your trembling now,” he presses into your hair. His voice, so comforting, so reassuring. 

Your eyes are blurry, colors passing your gaze in a hazy amalgamation that makes your heart beat faster. You can feel the mass of it pounding against the ribs in your back, the sensation sick and uncomfortable. And then you’re in his bedroom, and his hands are everywhere, ripping aggressively at your clothes, sliding through your hair, squeezing your ass and your breasts and your hips. 

“I need you– need you, need you– Need to feel you, Birdie.” His voice pushes an urgency into your skin that has your heart beating even harder against your ribcage, his mouth sliding over your neck, tongue laving into the hollow of your collarbone, teeth biting, sharp and painful, into your shoulder, and you find your voice finally, keening and broken, calling out his name. He’s moving lower, sucking on your breast, biting, as if he could fit the entire heavy weight of it into his mouth, “Joel– Joel, please.” You push and grip at his head, his hair. 

“I know, I know, baby. I know what you need.” He pushes you back onto the bed, rips your legs open, fingers and nails pressing painfully into your soft skin, he spits on to your exposed sex, rubbing his saliva into your folds, bends for a long lick, and then two of his thick fingers are shoving into your cunt. He curls them forward and presses, presses, hooks into that spot that belongs only to him and bares his teeth at you. Snarls like an animal. Mine, mine, mine, you’re okay, you’re mine, he chants. He moves his fingers fast, with a lewd squelch that has you writhing and gasping, scissoring them to stretch you open. He pulls them from you, too soon, not enough, you want to say, but you hear the drag of his zipper – he spits again – and then the hot, wide head of his cock is there at your entrance, swiping along you in a wet arc, and then pressing, pressing in, and he’s there, surging into you and fucking hard and fast into your tight heat, hitting the end of you. The groan he lets out when he sinks to the hilt vibrates through you. You aren’t fully ready to take his thick length, and you don’t care, want it harder, faster, want it to hurt more, to remind you that you’re here with him, that you made it out of that dark wood. You curl your fingers under the damp crook of your knees and spread yourself wider for his ravaging. Eyes never leaving his, you arch your back to allow yourself to take him deeper. The moan you give him, pleading, almost pathetic in its desperate supplication – like an animal, like prey, pinned beneath the claws of a savage beast.

“This is what you needed – this is what you needed. You’re okay, you’re okay” he chants. You cannot discern where it is he ends and you begin. You never want to be able to tell again, want to meld your souls, your bodies together like ore. 

-

Still standing over your naked form at the edge of the bed, he lets himself fall forward, rigid arms holding himself up. He takes in your flushed, sweaty face, the glassy, terrified look you’d worn for hours replaced by the glassy haze of arousal. Delirious at the pleasure he’s forcing into you right now, he picks up the pace of his hips, gives it to you harder. Snakes a hand down to give your clit a gentle swirl, then further down, where his fingers part in a V to feel where his cock splits you open. 

“Just take it, just take it.” His cock inside you is brutal, cunt stretched to the point of obscenity, stuffed full. “I need you to take it for me, just like this – be a good girl – don’t struggle, lemme give it to you how I need.” His desperation has a flavor, a scent to it. He changes the angle to fuck up, up against something no one but him has ever touched, a space inside you that belongs to him, thumb soft as a whisper on your swollen clit, around and around. He can tell you almost need to tell him to stop, that it’s too much. “Fuck, that’s so good, baby, you’re such a good girl,” he praises, and you make a soft, obscene sound that he feels in his battering cock. He gives it to you harder. It’s a sound of acquiescence, of complete capitulation, that he rings out of you. He’s conquered you in this moment – conquered you in a way that grants you no option of stopping. The sound is his permission to conquer. With his body over yours, within yours – you are completely at his mercy and protected from everything else in the world that could ever hurt you. He feels god-like. There is no fear or loss or hurt, no possibility of failure, only his body moving within yours. Your warm wet heat swallowing, gaping for him as he fills it like you both need him to.

The panic of that darkness surrounding him, of being unable to find you, of killing everything in his path just to fucking get to you, sings through him. He’d kill this dead world over and over and over again a thousand times just to find you in that darkness. 

-

He hooks your knees over his arms, hitches them higher – holds your legs open wider to receive him – your bare tits pressed up against the bloody, savaged cotton of his flannel – too desperate to bother stripping his own clothes, and the rough fabric rubs your soft skin raw. Each time his hips slam against your ass, balls slapping, your breath stutters out of you in broken gasps, and you don’t think he’s ever been as deep in your cunt as he is now. He wraps one of his arms around your back, gripping your shoulder to impale you down onto his cock. His other fists painfully in your hair to keep your head in place and tilted up to him; your jaw hinged open so you can breathe into each other. Your own hands clutch uselessly at his wrists, trying to exert some semblance of force against him – to remind him of your own strength while he overwhelms you with his. He’s fucking you as if he could burrow his way inside of you forever, live within the confines of your skin. You’ve lost track of how many times your cunt has spasmed and come around him, your muscles milking him relentlessly. Your clit engorged and rubbed raw. You’re one unending, throbbing orgasm. Everything is wet and messy between the two of you, the gush of your lust sticky and clinging to the hair on his pelvis and thighs. Birdie, Birdie, Birdie, it’s like a prayer. 

“Should’ve never left you alone in the dark, baby.”

He wants to break you, you're sure of it – to turn you into a creature reduced to only the virtue of his whims, ruled by the savaging of his cock. The very nectar of you pooling at his feet, leaking out of your pores under the unrelenting focus of his body and you know you won’t survive him. Not after this. But no, you realize, no, this is Joel breaking, not you. His fear is a living creature sharing the room with the two of you right now. Everything that’s ever held him away from you, everything he’s ever been too scared of to admit, lives and breathes with you in this moment. Like some sort of monstrosity crouched in the corner, bloody and frayed and wanting. 

“Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie,” he brands the words into your skin. “I was so scared—” searing kisses pressed to your face, your neck, your breasts, in the wake of his words. 

Oh, this is it. Your heart, your heart, it’s going to burst, to cleave in two. He’s wrought a fracture through the core of your very being. 

This will never mend. 

The rhythm of his hips speeds up, becoming sloppy and stuttered – he’s close – and his grip transfers to your jaw, so tight and bruising; you’ll have the ghost of his fingers on your skin tomorrow. His cock kisses your womb with each brutal thrust, and he bares his teeth at you as he starts to come, the blazing wash of his spend filling you. “You’re gunna take all of my fucking come.” Anger and violence and all the feelings he wishes he didn’t have to experience, churn in his dark eyes. And you’d hold onto his anger soaked skin for the rest of your life if you could, if he’d let you. His eyes flick between yours, still holding your face, he ghosts his thumb over your wet bottom lip. “Birdie, I– I…” His hips are still moving, fucking his come deeper into your messy, used cunt. You see the realization of what he’s just said settle in his eyes, moving back and forth between yours, as if he’s watching him bare himself to you over again in their reflection. 

You’re losing him, you can feel the tension – regret, please, please don’t be regret – slowly start to seep into him as soon as he’s finished, to steal him away from you, and you cling more desperately to him, pull his face to yours and press soft butterfly kisses across his cheeks and nose. Joel, Joel, Joel. Please, don’t. His eyes flutter closed – the image of you beneath him already too much to bear.

“Stop,” he growls. Again: “Stop,” and suddenly he’s ripping himself out and away from you. The loss of him from between your legs, so violently abrupt, is almost a physical pain. The emptiness after being so full leaves you clenching around nothing, pushing his come out of you, and embarrassment, shame, fills you so acutely – to have your sex bared to him like a wound he’s left you with. You shut your legs, clutch your knees to your chest and gasp for breath, almost a sob. You gouge your nails into the skin of your knees trying to draw blood – before he can. You know what’s coming. 

“I didn’t mean… all that. I– fuck—” he spits, clutches his hand in his messy hair, “I– I got carried away.” He’s backing away from you – other hand outstretched as if to keep you away. As if he could keep the reality of his confession, the betrayal to his own self, away from him with just that outstretched hand. 

You’re still on your back, vacant eyes trained towards the ceiling, sucking in painful gulps of air, but you register him from the corner of your eye, the look he wears – you can’t decide if he was more terrified at the possibility of you being ripped apart by the clickers, taken and brutalized by the hunters; or in this moment, if his fear is more acute now, in the wake of his fortuitous confession. At the risk of being laid bare and vulnerable at your feet; as you’ve lived at his since the moment he first took you.  

“Okay,” you say – try to temper your voice, slow your breaths, remain quiet and calm. Only one of you can be overwhelmed by panic right now. And yet part of you wants to rage at him. Your heart beats painfully in your chest, and you want to say, it’s not like I’m asking you to open your vein and let me drink – only just to love me.

Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie.

“Okay…” you say again, “I– it’s… it’s okay. I know.” You sit up slowly, your body throbs and aches, still not able to look at him – the sight of him so terrified of all you represent, it would burn you – but you feel his gaze like a brand across your skin. You wrap your arms around your naked breasts, shielding yourself. His own bloody shirt is askew, his pants still open, cock slick with your mingled come, still semi-hard. If this were any other moment you’d tease him – how are you still hard after all that? 

You turn your head away, towards the door, a traitorous little tear escapes the corner of your eye, and you quickly wipe it against your lifted shoulder, press your fingers to your mouth to keep in the threatening sobs. One of his flannels is strewn across the ground and you toe it towards yourself. “It was the adrenaline.” Your voice is limp, dead. Diminishing this will be the thing to kill you, you’re sure of it. How can he expect you to turn away from the one thing you’ve wanted from him more than anything else? 

Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie.

You shrug on his shirt, and he’s still not said anything else, but you see him move to tuck himself into his jeans now. “I- I’m gonna get some water,” you mumble, give him a moment to recalibrate.

Chapter V

Netherfeildren Masterlist

[lululandd]

rabid; (iii.)

pairing: simon ‘ghost’ riley x gn!reader

word count: 1,077

warnings: comedy, unhinged topics, reader has seasonal depression

note: still miss ghost sometimes, so here i go.

summary: It’s been a rough few months for Ghost. No, it’s not his job for once, work is going well actually. They got a raise, a bonus, and Farah had said something so unspeakable to Soap that the Scot had actually behaved for a mission or two. His problem was with his rabid neighbour.

part i. | part ii. | part iii. | part iv.

Something had happened in your life that he heard you talking less and less hours every night, sometimes not at all. He thought it was seasonal depression—hell, even he suffers from them—yet when he returned that summer you were still absent. He had wondered how to bring it up, whether he can help with something, anything to make you talk again.

Over the past months he had realised how quiet it is without you, how bare and empty his flat is, and how terrible his thoughts are. Without realising, he came home hoping you would be there for him. Inadvertently he had placed expectation in a stranger’s hands.

All he knows is your name.

And favourite flavour of ice-cream, and your preferred drink of choice, allergies, the pets you wish you could have at the flat, your favourite band, your—

Oh no.

His head throbbed with the truth, caressing his temple did not ease his headache even a tiny bit.

It’s a parasocial relationship. His neighbour doesn’t even know his name, you don’t even know if he drinks tea or coffee, and yet here he is, listing all the things he hears over the wall like some sort of stalker.

One night he heard you. It was two in the morning, way past anyone’s time to be awake, and yet there you were. Gone were the playful edge of your voice, gone were the laughter and the lunatic questions. It was as if another person he did not recognise was talking. 

He couldn’t stand your new voice, devoid of energy and motivation. He missed the cheerfulness in your tone, he missed the way your voice would rise several notes higher when you greet a friend, he missed the way you baby-talk when there seems to be animals involved.

Fuck it all to hell, he missed you.

So he started lying.

Knocking on your door to borrow a screwdriver because he ‘broke’ his, bothering you to borrow an egg because he was baking, and all these little lies, so he could check up on how you’re doing without actually checking up on you.

Eventually he saw the annoyance in your face and stopped trying even though he was still worried. In his desperation, he comes up to your front door with the only thing left.

The truth.

Your hair was a little messy, he saw the bags under your eyes, and noted the heavily wrinkled shirt you have on. 

“Let’s go to the park.” He heard himself say.

You stared at him in disbelief before unnecessarily snarking at him, “You gonna make me help you pick up widows at the park or what is it this time?”

He held his giggle in, “Do I look like I’d fancy widows?”

You eyed him before shrugging, “Or winos maybe.”

“Oi.” He warned, “I want you to accompany me to the lolly stand by the fountain.”

“It’s broad fucking daylight—” you gestured wildly behind you, “—and you’re taller than my door. What are you so scared of at the lolly stand that you’d need me to come with?”

He smirked while lowering his voice for dramatic effect, “The widows.” His smile grew wider as he heard you snort behind the now half-closed door.

—-

The park was bustling with picnic goers, bicyclists, and to Simon’s delight, pet owners. He stole glances from time to time, and is pleased to see your face brighten up bit by bit. He pretended to tie his shoe next to a half-shaved Samoyed. Both you and the dog enjoyed each other’s company for the better part of three minutes before you caught on to what he’s doing.

“Your shoes were never untied.”

“Nope. It was, yeah.” He puts on his ‘convincing’ tone he reserves for new recruits. “Had difficulty bending over, ya see. Since I’m tall and can barely crouch down and look at my own feet.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Your tone was brusque but he could see the ghost of a smile at the corner of your lips.

The girl at the counter announced that the orange lollies are out and there are only strawberry flavoured ones left.

You shot him a look, “Well?”

He led you a little way away from the stand to half whisper, “Can’t stand the strawberry ones.”

“So… We walked out here for nothing?”

He pointed at a random dog, “Got to see pups, that’s something, innit?”

You turned your head to look at the little dachshund trotting about and Simon got to see your full blown smile. It was directed at the dog at first, but you turned your head at the very last second before he could look away.

“Thanks, Simon.”

All the gears in his head stopped for a full two seconds before slowly spinning back on. “You know my name?”

Nodding, you avoided his eyes as you answered. “Heard your Scottish friend say your name a couple times.”

“Yeah?” He couldn’t help but smile. “You’ve been listening?”

“Not on purpose! The walls aren’t really… thick.” Simon noted the way the tip of your ears are tinted pink when you’re embarrassed.

“Yeah, I got to learn about raccoons’ circumference—“ he lowered his voice, “—and those prolapsed urethras.”

“You wanna know something about the prolapse?”

“Honestly, no. But tell me anyway.” He directed you towards the parking lot and hopefully you will say yes.

“It looked like a doughnut.”

Simon has never needed to yell outside of work, not even to drunk bastards at the pub, but he made an exception for you. He deemed the mental scarring worth it for the full blown giggle fit you had as he steered you towards his car with his hand on your lower back.

“Where are we going?” You looked up, not even trying to squirm out of his touch, as if you’ve always belonged there in his hold.

“There’s another lolly stand at the park by the river.”

You nodded, sitting in the front seat as soon as he unlocked the car. The sadness in your eyes came back as he drove, but he was satisfied that he got to see you smile, if only for a moment.

[insertyourselfhere]

Body Swap Part 3

AN: Sorry for taking so damn long, there's a bit of a gap here in the story as it doesn't follow their whole journey, just because its almost filler like if I want to later ill do some in-between bits as one shots but I know we want to actually see Gwen and Y/N Interacting so I'm trying to get us to that point which I did! Also the timing in this fic from ITSV and ATSV are off but meh.

Description: It was starting to get tedious now, it had been a few months at least of you swapping with Gwen, being able to talk to her in your mind and nothing else developing. You and Gwen had tried on a number of occasions to work out what your existential crisis was that was stopping you both from moving on with your lives. Gwen had told you her tragic story and you had told her yours, about your parents, your uncle, even your Aunt was involved trying to help both of you out. It was hard to admit at first but you had grown some sort of feelings towards the girl, its hard not too when she’s in your head almost all the time. Thankfully you hadn’t thought that out loud to her just yet but there had been a couple times that you were almost caught slipping. You’ve had to lie a few times saying its about a girl in your dimension but played it off and changed the subject. Everything was continuing like normal, or so you thought.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was the day before you guys swapped bodies on your usual rotation, you laid in bed ready for the next day to come when you swapped over with Gwen. You reflected a little about what you and Gwen had been talking about, what has happened over the last few months and there were no changes. You rolled onto your back staring at your ceiling.

‘Can’t sleep?’ You heard in the back of your mind, seems like you weren’t the only one.

‘Not really I’m just confused’

‘Same’ She said softly.

‘Okay well how about this, lets kill the time, I know all about the tragic backstory that is Gwen Stacy and I know I’ve lived as you as well but in your own words tell me about you. What makes you tick, what are your favorite things to do’

(A/N: This might get a little OC here cause Ive never read any of the Gwen Stacy comics so I don’t know much about actual Gwen so this will be just from what I think she would like)

‘Okay sure lets do that! At a super young age I did gymnastics, dad taught me and got me involved when I was 4, I also was heavily involved in ballet too. I always wanted to be a ballerina when I was growing up but who didn’t at such a young age’

‘I still want to be a ballerina those moves you can pull off are out of this world’ You said and you heard her chuckle.

‘I guess it goes with my fighting style though I would love to teach you one day’ She said, you smiled at those words hoping they would come true.

‘Please do, if that means I get to actually see you and not me you, you get me?’ She laughed again and you wouldn’t get sick of hearing that ever.

‘So because I started growing up, managed to get some teen angst going I wanted to do something different, my whole attitude on life changed, I got these powers, I didn’t know how to deal with all this added pressure so I joined a band’

‘Ah yes the Mary Janes! I was wondering how that came about, you just needed a distraction’ You asked knowing full well what that meant, that’s why you joined the football team, You needed a distraction yourself.

‘Yeah actually, I was struggling with who I was, being Spider-Woman and Gwen Stacy’

‘It is a lot of pressure but I can tell you with all my heart that you are killing it’

‘Thanks Y/N I needed to hear that’ The line went quiet and you could feel yourself slowing starting to fall asleep.

‘Hey I got a spider emergency! I gotta go but get some rest okay’

‘Be safe Gwen, Don’t rough them up too much’ She chuckled and it went dead silent.

You managed to stay awake for a couple minutes before Your eye lids grew heavy and you succumb to sleep.

The next morning you woke up only to notice you were still in your bed. You woke up startled throwing your legs off your bed and walking towards your bedroom door opening it and looking at your Aunt.

“Morning Gwen” She said so used to this charade you 2 had, you gulped knowing it was the next day, you saw the date on your phone and looked back at your Aunt.

“Not Gwen” You said and her head shot up. It has been more than 6 months at this point that you had started swapping with Gwen, nothing seemed to stop it, nothing seemed to hint towards it ever slowing down and then one day it just stopped.

“Not Gwen?” She asked walking towards you with her hand out, you grabbed it nodding saying it was you and you didn’t know how to feel.

“Amazing it’s finally stopped! Now you can go back to living your normal spidey life” She said with a little hooray and then a sip of her drink, Your Aunt turned around towards the kitchen table where you could see a 2nd coffee cup laid out.

She picked it up ready to pour out the drink and you could see her hand shaking, you quickly ran over to her to help with the cup and she let out a small sob.

“I am so happy for you that you don’t have to go through this anymore but she was around so often it’s like she was apart of our little family you know” You slowly shook your head and hugged your aunt.

“I’m not happy” You said quietly in your Aunts shoulder, you both pulled away and you had small tears in your eyes. “Neither am I” She finally admitted to you. You slumped in the chair in the kitchen and looked at your Aunt. You were devastated. “Have your little telepathic abilities stopped working too?” You shrugged your shoulders but focused on trying to reach out to her.

‘Gwen can you hear me?’ You asked, your face concentrating to push your sub consciousness out there hoping to get a response. After a few minutes of silence nothing came back. You stood up with a frustrating sigh and leaned over the kitchen counter.

“Nothing?” Your aunt asked rubbing your back, you shook your head. You didn’t know what else to do, you couldn’t even think straight, your alarm started going off symbolising you had to go to school but you just didn’t have the heart to get up. It’s almost like you had genuinely lost a part of yourself, it had felt very unfinished.

“We are taking the rest of the day off today, you and me I think we need this…”

“What if something happened?” You ask out loud cutting off your aunt. “What if something’s happened and she needs me?” You said looking at your aunt.

“There’s nothing you can….”

“Don’t finish that sentence, there’s something I can do I am a Spider, I have all these powers I have to be able to do something” Your aunt could see the hurt in your eyes, the panic, every emotion flashing through you all at once worried that the absolute worst thing happened.

“Y/N look, I don’t understand your situation at all, I honestly couldn’t think of anyone in the entire world could really to relate to your feelings but all I can tell you is that Gwen is one of the toughest girls I have ever met. She is fine, maybe you figured out whatever the universe was telling you or your no longer needed to heal her very broken heart.” You Aunt said smiling softly.

“But mines broken now…” You said quietly. Your aunt gave you a look and you shuffled your feet. “Okay she’s fine, we did what we needed to do, whatever that was and she’s safe in her dimension.” Your aunt nodded and you smiled a little.

“I’m gunna get ready and go to school. Just to distract myself a bit today” You said, your aunt nodded. “I will be mourning the loss of a daughter so I’ll be here quietly sobbing over the cup I bought her” You giggled a little knowing your aunt was joking but only a tiny bit, you could see she was just as hurt as well so you hugged her again.

“She’s fine, she doesn’t need us anymore we fixed her broken heart” You both smiled and walked away doing your own things. You headed to school getting ready for your first class pulling out the books you needed. You saw the drawings, pictures, difference in handwriting even in all your books and smiled. As you went through wondering from class to class you failed to notice an unwanted guest appear out of nowhere.

As you were heading towards gym you heard commotion coming from some other students. “quick everybody evacuate theres a guy in a rhino suit running rampant around the school!” As students began to pile out of the gym and into the hallways running towards safety you ran around a corner and did the opposite trying to find your stashed suit. You ran into the bathroom, lift up one of the tiles on the roof and promptly changed into your suit.

“A man in a Rhino suit? We don’t have that here we have a lady who’s half rhino half human.” You managed to find all the commotion and saw a couple of kids in the way.

“Quick get out of here!”

“Spidey thank you!” They all ran out, you could feel the building shaking and hear walls crumbling.

“Hello tiny spider” He said as he walked around the corner, and sure enough it was a big buff dude in a rhino suit.

“Look I don’t know what your doing here, but I need to get to gym and your in my way” You got into your signature pose.

“Get out of the way tiny spider, I need to go home!” You looked confused for a split second but immediately knew what the issue was. ‘He’s not from this dimension, Im gunna have to lock him up tight and stop him from hurting anyone’ You thought quietly to yourself. A tiny part of you was hoping you would hear Gwen voice in your head again but it was no where to be found. Rhino charged towards you, without missing a beat you punched him clean in the jaw and he was knocked out cold.

“Wow that was….NO don’t say that, it never works out well when you put things like that into the universe.” You webbed up Rhino and dragged him outside, as you got outside a hexagon shaped portal opened up in front of you, you let go of Rhino and folded your arms only to be met with a lady who had a motorbike and an afro.

“Oh hello! You must be the Spider of this dimension” You unfolded your arms feeling the tingle as soon as you saw her.

“I am! The names Y/N” She walked up and shook your hand. “Nice to meet you Im Jessica Drew, I see you caught the guy I’m here for, relatively easy it seems to” You gave a modest look but shrugged your shoulders.

“It was nothing” You said with a small smile under your mask.

“Look, Miguel is totally going to hate me but I think you should come with me” She said gesturing to the portal behind her, you looked in and saw nothing but a tube looking thing.

“In there? That looks like death?” You said pointing at the portal. “I promise it’s not, I’ll explain once we get there but I think you should come with me” She said, you shook your head knowing you shouldn’t follow strangers into very suspicious portals but all that was going through your head was Gwen.

“This might be my only chance to find her” You said out loud. “Find who?” She asked and you coughed and walked into the portal not realising you were talking out loud. As soon as you stepped in you were teleported to a new world.

Once you landed Jessica following behind you, your face dropped, you took your mask off staring at the Nueva York. It was so futuristic and chrome, very shiny, everything was shiny it was burning your retina’s.

“Come on I want you to come meet Miguel” You follow Jessica until you came to a high tech room in a dark looking alley. He even looked like a bad guy, his aura oozed “I am a villain” but even you were slightly jealous of his gym regime whatever it was cause dude looked good.

“Jessica what did you do?” You blocked out their argument taking in the sights and sounds around you. They started bickering and you felt a little awkward to be standing there, it was like you were a child getting scolded from your parents for ditching school.

“Look they’re here and I know Y/N will do a fantastic job, plus with the large amount of animalities running around thanks to 1610 we need all the help we can get”

“We have over 1500 different peters you think this other variant will help out”

“They’re a lot stronger than most of the others Peter’s surprisingly took down Rhino with a swift punch”

Your feet shuffled and you looked down taking in the compliments Jessica was throwing your way. Miguel looked at you and threw up his hands.

“Whatever, kid heres your watch go hang around I’ll call you if I need anything” Jessica smiled and you looked at the watch in your hand, you put it on and started walking out hearing Jessica and Miguel start up again.

You made your way out and went to sit at the top of the tower which seemed to be everyone’s favourite spot it seems. You met a couple of the other Spider, a few peter parkers…a lot of peter parkers actually, your favourite though had to be the T-rex running around.

Your world was 1405 as deemed by the I guess lords of the multi-verse, you weren’t too sure how it worked but you kinda just rolled with it, you wanted to make sure Gwen was okay but deep down you knew she was, for now you would go about your business and hopefully save some other worlds, who can put that on their resume.

“Alright Y/N ready for your first mission” You looked at your watch and saw Jessica on the other end of it.

“As ready as I’ll ever be” you said holding the watch up.

“Alright this one’s easy so I’ll be going with you but mostly to observe” She said with a small smile, you nodded your head and typed in the co-ordinates she sent you.

15 minutes later

You and Jessica were standing next to each other back in the Spider Society, you had your web wrapped around the prisoner and she stood next to you with the biggest surprise look on her face.

“Okay that was very quick, you are very efficient” She said and you just stood there nodding holding onto your villain. He started to groan and you knocked him out again with a swift punch.

“Alright well um go hang around, catch more sights and I’ll get back to you with another mission” You could tell she was still stunned, she didn’t really know what to do but walked away with your prisoner attached. You made your way back up to the top of the building again however instead of sitting you made the rounds, getting to know other people and know who all the different Spiders you could. After a couple hours of wondering around, getting lost and meeting MORE people you finally got another call but it wasn’t from Jessica. It was from Miguel’s Ai friend LYLA.

“Hey could you go help Miguel over on world 65 please” You were shocked at first to hear that you were going to help Miguel but You didn’t even hesitate you immediately input that number and jumped straight into the portal. As you exited the portal you went straight towards the parchment vulture in front of you and punched him square in the jaw.

“Nice!” You said, Miguel got up from his rubble and walked over to you, “Good punch rook alright lets take this guy down” You got your fist’s ready to fight with Miguel not taking in your surroundings fully (You should really work on this btw) when a quiet familiar voice hit your ears.

“Y/N” Your head whipped around so quickly but before you could say anything vulture had punched you right back sending you into a pillar.

“That wasn’t nice, okay rook new plan” Miguel said as he shot you with one of his webs and flung you towards vulture, you managed to clock him again but this time he was ready, he grabbed your arm and readied one of his wings, but before he sliced you with it you saw a web holding it back and Gwen had kicked him in the back of his head causing him to go crashing in the ground.

“Your moves are so much better when you do it” You said towards Gwen, she gave you a quick fist bump and you both propelled down.

“Do you 2 know each other” Miguel said pointing at both of you “It’s a long story we’ll explain later but right now he needs to go back” You said pointing at vulture.

“So whats this guys deal anyway” Gwen said asking you, you managed to talk while fighting and dodging all the vultures attacks.

“Well he’s made of parchment so you can assume he doesn’t belong here.” Gwen rolled her eyes “I gathered that much this isn’t my first run in with the multi-verse” She said kicking a few rocks towards the vulture who dodged all but 1.

“This isn’t your first run in?” You asked, she gave you a look and you nodded your head. “Oh right yes us” She webbed towards the vulture holding his wings down and punched him again, he broke free clambering up the pillar up into the night sky, Miguel went after him attacking him leaving you and Gwen alone.

“So crazy that we didn’t swap bodies right?” You said looking at her. “I actually have an excuse for that” She said and you looked at her intently.

“The night before we usually swap I was out fighting one of my villains when a portal opened up and sucked me in, I was blown into another dimension that had this really cool Spider-Man named Miles” You looked shocked, so because she wasn’t in her universe you couldn’t swap. Makes sense.

“I’ll tell you the rest of the story later” she said as she webbed away, you looked up to see a helicopter flying down towards you, both Miguel and Gwen had managed to get their webs under it to slow it down you jumped on a rock that was sticking up and stood waiting for the impact of the helicopter when its nose reached the palm of your hands you used your strength to push against it and put a stop to it. Everyone started cheering, Miguel grabbed vulture and you were both getting ready to leave, you wanted Gwen to come with so you asked Miguel to wait. When you looked up though you couldn’t see her anymore but you could hear shouting.

 “She needs to come with us she’d be an asset to the team” You said to Miguel, he looked at you and grunted before jumping up there, you followed after him witnessing Miguel throwing one of his barriers on the ground and tying up George Stacy. You walked over to Gwen who looked frightened and grabbed her shoulders gently.

Miguel opened a portal and threw vulture in it, he turned around to you and Gwen and asked. “So what’s it going to be kid?” He said, she nodded, Miguel gave her a watch and jumped in the portal. You followed after him but looked back at Gwen and George, your heart breaking for both of them.

As soon as both you and Gwen got back to universe 928 she let out a big sigh of relief and her legs collapsed under her. She was on the verge of tears but you could see that she was fighting the urge to let them fall.

“Hey” You said.

“Hey yourself” She said wiping away her tears, you couldn’t believe that you had managed to find her. You were so relieved but you could see all the mending you guys had down over the last few months was slowly starting to break all because her dad found out who she was.

She pulled off her mask and you saw half her head was shaved.

“Whoa! That’s new!” You said looking at her new haircut, she looked at it and rolled her eyes.

“It’s a long story but I had to shave it”

“I like it, it suits you” You said looking at her hair, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked away, she coughed and turn back to you.

“Thank you, I think we owe each other an explanation” She said trying to change the subject, but you being dense didn’t notice.

“Y/N Show the newbie around Ill put our prisoner away, you owe me an explanation for how you 2 know each other by the way.” He started walking away and you looked back at Gwen.

“Come follow me Ill introduce you to everyone!” You grabbed Gwen’s hand and pulled her towards everyone.

“Hey Y/N!” You walked pass a group of Peters and waved towards them. “Hey Peter this is Gwen!” They all waved and went back into their groups.

“Wow there sure a lot of Peter’s”

“Yeah Peter seems to be the most common canon, there are a very rare amount of us that aren’t Peters but I guess there’s almost an infinite amount of universes so there’s infinite possibilities” you replied looking back at Gwen who was taking everything in

“This place is so big” she said in awe watching all the other spiders running around

“This is the lobby” You replied whispering in her ear.

“Your kidding” She said turning back to you with her eyes wide.

“Not even in the slightest, here Ill show you where I like to hang out!”

You took her to the tallest building and hung out at the top looking down at Nueva York. You didn’t know how you felt about the whole situation but was surprised about how the whole situation went down, you had a crazy 48 hours that’s for sure. Shoot you didn’t check in with your Aunt. You both sat down over the edge of the tower, she looked down at her watch and then looked back at you.

“I guess I owe you an explanation it seems” You looked back at her and then back to the view.

“Nah, you’re safe that’s all I care about” You said looking away, she smiled and hit your shoulder gently.

“I’m so happy I can finally do that as me and not looking at you in the mirror” She said looking out towards the skyline again, she tucked her leg up towards her face and leant on it.

“It’s weird, I’ve seen you so much the past few months but not like this, its nice” You replied smiling.

“I know you said I don’t owe you an explanation but I have to tell you what happened it was crazy!” You folded your legs and shuffled so you were looking at Gwen as she told you all about her trip to 1610. She told you about Miles, about how what happened to her hair, you couldn’t help but laugh at that part knowing full well how hard it was to control your powers when you first got them.

She told you about Peter B Parker, Penni, Spider-Ham and Spider-Noir, You could see how happy she was about her little band of misfits. Maybe you and your Aunt had managed to heal her enough that she let herself open to gain other friends.

She told you about the collider, how Miles came through and gained the ability to somewhat control his powers, she showed you a photo of him on her phone and she was smiling.

“Gwen that sounds like a long week you had” She giggled and then an idea formed.

“Hey can we take a photo” You looked shocked but you nodded. You got ready but she leaned into your side and smiled, you followed suit as she took the picture.

“Thank you” She said looking down at her phone “So what happened to you” You laughed and looked ack at her “Oh nothing, an anomaly came through while I was at school, I knocked him out, Jessica saw my potential and I got recruited. That’s about it” She laughed hearing how easy your time was compared to hers.

“Y/N, Gwen theres a couple of people I need you to come meet” Miguel said over the watch, you both got up and headed towards his Spider-Cave, his fortress off Spidertude, his lair? And were met with what seems like a familiar face to gwen but someone knew.

“Y/N This is Hobie Brown! You’ll be working with him in the upcoming missions. This Spider over here is Peter B Parker” You saw Gwen hugging the other Peter who was surprised to see him so soon.

“Gwen when did you get here!”

“Today actually Y/N came and helped me”

“Is this the famous Y/N I’ve heard so much about hey! The one you’ve been swapping bodies with” You looked shocked that Gwen told someone that and she was blushing furiously.

“Shut it Parker” He laughed and swung towards you.

“Nice to meet you buddy I’m Peter”

“Y/N” You said shaking his hand, You shook a little too hard and he winced.

“Strong grip I like it, you were right they are very…” Before Peter could finish what he was saying Gwen webbed his mouth and he glared at her.

“Anyway cute reunion, Gwen you’ll stay here and train with Jessica, Y/N you’ll head out with Hobie, theres a Kraven In the wrong universe I need you guys to go get” You nodded and started walking with Hobie, you looked back and saw Gwen, she gave you a small wave and you waved back. With an extra hop in your step you turned towards Hobie.

“Dude love your hair”

“Thanks its natural”

“How does that fit under your…”

“Hammer Space” He said and you shook it off, you both input the co-ordinates and were off to another dimension.

[mrradmccoolman]

hello everynyan!! it's baby's second (?) tumblr post. i present to you:

ELLIOTT'S ANDERPERRY SONG ANALYSIS

okay, so, here's the gist of it: i have an ever-growing playlist on spotify of songs i feel fit neil, todd, or their relationship as a whole. each song is not only one i like, but also has lyrics that represent something specific about them. this sort of thing is something ive done for multiple characters for a long time, and ive always had carefully curated reasons behind my choices. i just recently got back into the dps fandom, and thought this would be a good way to not only show how i see the characters, but also become a part of the community on Tumblr myself :)

i will not be doing every song simply because i do not have the time and the playlist is way too long for that, but i'll definitely be choosing some favorites. i'll most likely just post whenever i feel like it, so i can't promise any sort of a timeline. this is just a little project i thought would be fun, especially considering the fics im working on take me ages lol 😅

sooo without further ado: song number one is....

Habanero by Rosie Tucker

i've been listening to a lot of rosie tucker's music lately, and this song really stood out to me as a todd/neil song from neil's perspective. one of the reasons i connect so much to neil as a character is because i see myself in him, and subsequently how he handles what i see as a very real depressive disorder throughout the movie. this song makes me think of his feelings and relationship with todd in canon, how he sees himself and todd, and the bittersweet-ness of loving someone in the "wrong" way.

"...you said "this never happens to me, this never happens" but you smile while you suffer so you're lying or wrong" this lyric encapsulates a big part of neil's perception of todd, especially towards the beginning of the movie. it specifically reminds me of the "what do you mean no?" scene and the argument they have leading up to it. it also alludes to todd's poem scene in front of the class and neil's reaction to it. he sees todd as saying this sort of bewildered, in awe, "this never happens to me," because, well, for todd, that's how it feels. he doesn't speak in front of people, he doesn't share parts of himself like that. i actually believe he didn't even really write poetry on his own before keating's class, either, so even writing at all is a big step for him- never mind showing others. we know todd hates public speaking and being perceived (although it's a lot more complicated than that, but i won't get into it here) so he "smiles while (he) suffers" because even though this is something he hates and feels so much shame about, a part of him is amazed and happy he did it at all. thus the "you're lying or wrong" from neil- i see this as neil recognizing that actually, knowing todd, this isn't the first time he's done something like this like he might think. in truth, todd says and does beautiful things like this all the time. though todd sees himself as dull and embarassing, neil sees the truth. we often think of neil as recognizing todd as a diamond in the rough, but people are more complicated than that. really, todd has always had this beauty inside him- this is just the first time he (and everyone else) has gotten the opportunity to really see it. neil feels vindicated in a sense, because he knew it was there.

"i'm never happy, but i've never been better" i feel this lyric is pretty straightforward when it comes to neil. he has depression, which makes it so so hard to feel happy, even when you think you should- and most of the time, neil doesn't even have those moments. todd isn't some cure-all for his problems, and certainly doesn't make his depression go away, but he's a huge aid to neil. he's the one person who really sees him. even if neil still isn't happy in the traditional way, he still feels better around todd. another thing i could get into buttt this post is already gonna be long enough as is lol.

"i need to see you sweat" i feel this one is also pretty self explanatory. it's sexuality and desire, something neil has likely not felt to this level before. especially when you're depressed, it's hard to feel any sort of desire. i feel that any thoughts neil would have would already be pretty vague because of his internalized homophobia, but this would be similar to the way he would allow himself to verbalize his feelings. there are a lot of great fics out there that i feel really encapsulate this well.

"wouldn't we be perfect together if we wanted exactly the same thing?" i would argue that the majority of the fandom kind of accepts neil's feelings for todd as pretty obviously requited, even though interestingly enough, from an outside perspective i would actually argue neil's feelings are the most obviously canon. not that i don't definitely believe todd feels the same, nor do i think this is a bad thing- it's just that the entire movie revolves around identity, and neil's passion for acting serves as a metaphor for queerness pretty obviously, and beyond that acting is associated with queer identity as a whole, another reason behind mr. perry's aversion to it. neil doesn't know if todd feels the same as he does. even if things may seem obvious to us, this isn't "normal" for the time period and so i believe wholeheartedly that neil didn't know todd had any feelings for him. was this more his own self hatred, him protecting himself, or that anything he saw that may have alluded to reciprocation he convinced himself was his own mind playing tricks on him? probably a mixture of all three.

"but i smile while i suffer like a sucker supreme" even though neil knows this won't end well, that his feelings are "wrong" and this is hurting him in the long run, he can't help himself when it comes to todd. he's a sucker for him and the feelings he gets being around him.

"all at once i'm a child trapping tadpoles in a cup, and i know they'll never make it (...) but i smile while they suffer 'cause i want it so much" neil knows being in the play, being with todd, and defying his father is a losing game. he knows, on a distant level, that he'll never get away with it. maybe during the play he finally, for one gorgeous moment, truly believed things would change- but then his father shows up and proves he was right all along. he knows he's doomed, that todd was right to doubt his plan to lie to his father in the first place, but he wants it so badly he doesn't care (or, more than that, he feels so incredibly trapped that he's given up and has resigned himself to the consequences). not only this, but his depression has made his latching onto the one thing that gives him hope even more intense. to be ripped away from this, the only thing he's ever wanted- the only person he's ever wanted- is the end. he knows that. even so, even though he can see the futility of it all crumbling beneath him, he sees the fall through.

"i can't believe i'll die before becoming a frog" there's a sort of disbelief in his resignation to death in his final moments, a darkly humorous "i can't believe it's come to this, that this is really happening" despite not really being surprised. neil is cutting everything short and throwing away his potential before his father gets the chance to do it for him. he'll never "become a frog" in so many ways- never get to live for himself, never get to become an adult, never get to act again, etc.

well...that was very long! if you've made it to the end of this post, i hope this was as fun for you as it was for me :)) i'll definitely be doing more of these as time goes on!! let me know your thoughts!!

(the playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Fh97W8EItmoJHjQvjsBl4?si=WoH7J5GHTfmt3v7OuqbHnQ&pi=6x2g03n8Q1Knc )

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