#start with the child weeping at your feet. nobody will hold them if you don’t

[ajournalingtrex]

“we mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they’ve come.”

since i’m starting my senior year, my mother handed me the scattering of writings and pictures she’d written sporadically in a baby book until i was 4 years old.

(apparently when i was one, i called them by their first names just like i do now. some things never change.)

i looked at my mother for a long time on this first page: it was the only picture i’d ever seen of her pregnant with me. she seemed so happy, and that was almost what broke me.

the wish for my life that my mother had written for me nearly 18 years ago was that she wanted me to be healthy. that no matter where i went and what i did, that i would pick myself back up again when i fell. that she wanted me to always remember how much my family loved me. above all, she had written that she wanted me to be happy.

that entire book drips with so much love, it doesn’t go a single page without saying it. calls me a bright girl. advanced for her age. so smiley. always happy and glowing. a fast talker. a faster walker. their beautiful baby girl.

just an hour before, my mother had told me that she didn’t think i was turning out to be a good person.

my mother has broken my heart many a time. i could count instance after instance, scene after scene like i was living in some terrible drama. everybody knows it and nobody wants to talk about it. and neither do i; do you honestly think i want to make my parents my personality as much as i have?

i don’t really have to, anyway. those who have issues with their parents wear it like a dog tag, like an underage flier with their ticket strapped to their chest. i have issues written across their back in place of a kick me sign.

i keep wanting this heartbreak to happen for the last time. for all the fights at 16 about depression to be it. for the screamed rant at 12 about how i wasn’t lonely and i was being dramatic to be the one. for all the times in my childhood where i’ve ever sought my dad’s arms instead of my mother’s to be the tipping point.

i want to stop caring; because jesus, i know i don’t exactly love her, but it’s not an indifference towards her words. it hurts, still. she’s still my mother. my mom. i called her momma at one point.

i want to brush it off.

but it is not so simple. it will take a long time and a lot of work for me and her if i ever wanted to love her again, much less love her in the way that she loves me. and yet knowing all she’s been through in her life, i can work to hold her in a kindness that i know she will never hold for me. a holistic understanding, rather than picking and choosing what i want to understand.

yet that hope is dangerous. and i am reminded of it every day when i find that small child in my heart curled into a ball at my feet. discarded and weeping.

i remember when i pick her up and set her on my hip, wiping the choppy bangs out of her eyes and pressing a kiss to her forehead. holding her gently as she curls into me and sobs.

i’m just as lost as her.

because in every single thing i have done every day of my life—every achievement, every failure, every action, every movement, every relationship, every word—i have pleaded i want my mommy.

and today she finally told me that if i’m not a carbon copy of her, she does not want me back.

that if i am not their beautiful baby girl, if i am instead just their baby, they aren’t interested.

the dejection and sorrow you feel from knowing that the people who are supposed to love you the most in all the world don’t like who you want to be is unimaginable.

[turnpage]

send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by

feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.

❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775�� ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

[donutloverxo]

Messed up

*gif is not mine*

Kinktober day 5 - face sitting

Note - This is a sequel to past self. But can be read as a stand alone as well I think. Dividers by @whimsicalrogers.

Summary - Steve messed up and he's determined to make it upto you.

Warnings - 18+ only please, smut (m/f), daddy kink, age gap.

Pairing - Nomad!Steve Rogers x reader

Word count - 3.4k

Masterlist is linked in the bio!

“No.”

“Please?”

“Absolutely not.”

You weren’t used to being told no, at least not after you used your secret weapon, if he was anything like his best pal it has to work. Blinking and fluttering your lashes you broke out your Disney princess eyes, “Buck buck, please let me braid your hair,” you cooed.

He stared at you, his lips pressed in a thin line, “Fine,” he sighed finally, giving in.

You squealed, running off to your bedroom to get a brush.

“I remember I used to braid my friends hair at sleepovers, it was such fun,” you said, dividing a strand of his hair in three parts, one over the other, “Before I got my powers anyway, after that they’d all just be scared of me...” you trailed off.

“Steve’s excited to see you,” he told you after a beat of silence.

He had only been living with you for a week or so, it was surprising how close he already felt to you. You had a certain vulnerability that made him want to protect you. That and it was obvious how far gone Steve was for you. You were down so he had to say something to cheer you up.

“Wait what?” your hands stopped, “He’s coming here?”

“Yeah, he left yesterday. Should be here this evening. He wanted it to be a surprise.”

You took a sharp breath, remembering how he had so cruelly rejected you and sent you off to Wakanda just so he wouldn’t have to deal with you.

He abandoned you.

“I don’t want to meet him. I’ll stay over at Shuri’s, she wanted to have a girls night anyway,” you grumbled.

After you had gushed your love for them, baking brownies in your jammies and talking about boys while watching chick flicks, she seemed curious and fascinated, wanting to try one with you.

He hummed at that. He knew something had went down between the two of you, Steve said so himself, ‘I have a lot to make up for.’ He was curious as to how his clueless friend had messed up, but it wasn’t his place to ask.

Which is why he brought Steve to the cottage he shared with you. Listening to him talking about all the missions in Europe and Russia, how he was excited to see you, how he had missed him terribly. Bucky told him he spends his time taking care of his new goat and his beautiful cat. They often keep him occupied.

“Y/N said that I’m ‘totally a cat person’,” his lips curling up at how you had helped him pick a name for her.

“Hm, that’s true. Are you... you live with her... are you two close?” Steve stumbled over his words, his jaw clenching as he stared his dear friend down. He was more than happy to see him, but couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy at the thought of you getting too cosy with him.

“In a way,” he smirked. “She’s a bit upset with you, just a heads up.”

“Yeah, I know, I deserve it,” he hung his head.

His palms shaky as they both entered the small cottage, going over what he would say to you. You were sitting on the couch in the, your feet propped up on it as you flipped through a magazine.

“You’re home early,” you smiled as you looked up at him. Your sweet smile turning into a frown when you saw him.

“Hey there, doll,” he rubbed the back of his neck.

You slapped the magazine on the couch, standing to your feet, your arms over your chest. “Captain,” you spat

His heart ached at that. He knew you were upset but to have you be so hostile to him, he didn’t know if he could take it.

He could easy handle being tortured by hydra agents but not this.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Bucky interrupted you both before taking off to find his cat, who knew where Alpine had wandered off to this time.

You both stood awkwardly, a few feet away from each other while you looked anywhere but his eyes, refusing to even look at him.

“How have you been?” he asked.

“Fine, I guess,” you mumbled, finally looking up, “as fine as I can be after being shrugged off like yesterday’s news.”

“Honey,” he took a step towards you but then stopped in his tracks when you backed away. “I’m sorry, I made a terrible mistake. I.. just couldn’t deal with my feelings, I thought I’d be taking advantage of you.”

You scoffed, “Taking advantage of me? Really? I’m not a child! I can decide for myself what’s good for me and what’s not.”

“I know that now. But... you’re so young and I’m supposed to be looking out for you and helping you,” he tried to reason with you while you shook your head in disbelief.

“Right, because you’re Captain America. Everyone should just do whatever you say. You always know what’s best, unlike us mere mortals,” you rolled your eyes.

He was in front of you in just two long strides, his brows furrowed and his patience running thin. “I’m not Captain America anymore,” he reminded you as he inhaled your soothing scent.

“You’ll always be Captain America he’s a part of you. And I’ll... never be good enough for you.” You stared at the henley stretched out over his broad chest, willing yourself to resist the urge to hug him. Him standing so close to you, you could inhale his unique scent you had grown to love so much.

“What?” he frowned. “Where did you get that idea?” It was absolutely ludicrous. He would have to pay a visit to whoever it was that said that to you.

“It’s the truth... that’s why you don’t want me. And I don’t blame you.” Why would someone like him be interested in you anyway.

“Doll,” he cupped your cheeks, tilting you’d head up to make you look at him, “I’m the one that doesn’t deserve you. I mean look at me.”

You arched a brow, giving him a once over before looking at his blue orbs again, his strong jaw covered in a thick beard, long locks that feel so silky in your hands, “You look like you belong on the cover of GQ, and before you have to ask, I’ll spell it out for you, since you’re like a thousand years old - GQs a magazine with pretty people on it.”

“I didn’t always look like this. I used to be very small, smaller than you.”

“Yeah, I know,” you smiled. “I’ve seen pictures, you were adorable.”

“Would you believe me if I told you a secret?”

“Yeah...” you’d believe him if he told you the sky was falling. Steve never lied.

“I love you,” he confessed as your jaw dropped, “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you. And I might not deserve you but if you consider me worthy of you, then I’d... like to have you.”

Your breath hitched as you stared at him, completely dumbfounded. “Wh - really? Nobody’s ever said that to me,” you blinked as tears started welling up in your eyes.

“I love you more than life itself. And I have a feeling that we will end up together,” he grinned.

“Well, don’t get too cocky now, I haven’t said yes yet,” you slapped his chest.

He grazed his fingers over your knuckles before holding your smaller hand in his, “So? What do you think?”

“I think... if you hurt me again I’ll punch you so hard. And my punches are much better now, thanks to Bucky, he’s been teaching me lots of stuff.”

“Never,” he shook his head, “I’d never hurt you. You’re so precious,” he kissed your knuckles.

“And you’d never leave me again,” you wanted it to be a fierce demand but your pout made it more of a needy request.

“I’m never letting you out of my sight again. We’re partners. Captain America is gone. It’s just you and me now,” he promised.

You blinked your tears away, standing on your tippy toes to place a lingering kiss to his soft plump lips.

Smiling as you pulled away, you grabbed his hand, leading him to your bedroom.

“Where are we going, doll?” he chuckled, holding onto your hips and pulling your back against his chest, attacking your neck with a flurry of kisses, unable to keep his hands off of you for even a moment.

Your squirmed in his hold, “To the bedroom. Just in case Bucky comes back,” you let out a giggle when he blew a raspberry in the crook of your neck, which then quickly turned into a moan as he sucked a mark on it.

Somehow, you managed to drag him to your small bedroom, if he had his way you’d have fucked in the hallway.

Straddling his lap on your twin bed, which looked much smaller now, what with a super soldier on top of it.

Kissing him deeply, you pulled away, breathless but only to say, “I love you, too, this is just too good to be true,” you heaved.

“A lot of unbelievable things have been happening to me lately,” he pulled you back, groaning into your mouth as you rolled your hips against his crotch. Looking at you sternly, “Doll,” he warned you.

“Please,” you whined, humping his growing erection through his jeans and your thin shorts, you could feel your panties getting wet with your arousal. “I want you, so bad,” you kept rolling your hips till he stopped you by digging his fingers in them.

“This is not how it’s done... I’m supposed to take you out on dates and buy you flowers and chocolates - ” he choked on a moan as you palmed him through his pants.

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” he gritted, snaking his fingers in your short shorts, he brushed his fingers over your weeping folds. “You want me?” he asked as you desperately nodded your head. “What do you want, sweetheart?”

You gulped, looking into his eyes and opening your mouth to answer him, his intense gaze intimidating you as you hid your face in his neck, “You know...”

“What?” he asked again, “I’m like over a thousand years old, I’m rusty, you have to tell me,” he teased you, swirling your juices around on your soft petals.

He wasn’t rusty. He had been with 'you' just a week ago, only it wasn’t you. This would be your first time with him but not his with you. It was still strange, he couldn’t really wrap his head around it or bring himself to care.

“I want you... to.. to make love to me,” you said.

“You know I would never say no to you, sweetheart,” he kissed your hair, retracting his hand from your shorts he sucks your juices off his fingers, you taste the same.

You helped him as he rolled your shorts and your panties down your legs, pulling your tank top up and tossing it away. You fumbled, making yourself small and covering yourself up with your arms. But he wasn’t having any of it, he pinned your hands behind your back, latching onto your nipple.

“I’m...,” you gasped as he bit your hardened bud, bunching his henley up in your hand, “you’re wearing too making clothes,” you complained.

“Then why don’t you help me take them off, doll?”

Your eager hands pulled him out his pesky clothes, hiding his magnificent physique from you. You had seen him shirtless a handful of times, while dressing his wounds, but you always stared at him in awe. He did look like he was made in a laboratory.

You knelt before him, between his legs, eager to find out if he tastes as good as he looks.

He tried to stop you but you swatted his hands away, “You’ll hurt your knees, doll,” he reasoned.

You snorted, wrapping your hand around his thick girth, “I thought we were partners. I won’t have you treat me like I’m some damsel in distress again.”

He pouted, pulling at your kiss swollen bottom lip with his thumb, “That’s too bad because I’m always going to take care of you, especially now that I’m your man.”

You rolled your eyes, he really was getting ahead of himself, he’ll have to do a lot more to prove himself before you accept him as ‘your man’.

But you decide to let that go for now, instead focusing on his cock glistening with precum, peaking your tongue out to taste some of it and swirling your tongue around on his bulbous head.

“Don’t tease, doll,” he groaned, holding onto the back of your head, not really pushing but to urge you to take more of him because he was at the end of his rope, feeling as if he’d burst right there.

You pushed away at his hand, “I’m in control,” you stated, “no touching till I say so. Is that understood?”

He didn’t care, he just wanted you to stop your cruelty and put your mouth on him so he simply nodded, not knowing if he could actually keep the promise.

With a victorious smile you wrapped your mouth around his head, leisurely sucking on it, moaning at the taste of him before taking in as much as you could, pumping the rest of his length, fondling his balls with the other hand.

He was about to touch your perky breasts, but then remembered your ridiculous ‘no touching' rule so he ran a hand through his head hair, wiping the sheen of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

“God that mouth of yours,” he growled when you pulled him out with a loud ‘pop’.

A string of saliva connecting your lips to him, “I want you to come in my mouth,” you instructed.

“You want to swallow daddys cum?” he couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the incredulous look on his face.

“Who would’ve known... Steven 'golden boy’ Rogers, of all people...” you shook your head, a small smile on your face as you thought about the times you had called him that in your head while rubbing one out to the thought of him.

You pressed your lips to the vein on the underside of his cock, sucking on it, “You’re going to come in my mouth, daddy, and stay there until I swallow all of it,” you told him, if only to remind him that you were in control, even if he ‘convinced' you to call him that.

You lightly scraped your teeth over his length before swallowing around him, gagging a bit as you tried to take more of him, but it seemed impossible to fit him whole no matter how hard your tried.

“I’ll try,” he teased, releasing a shaky exhale, his balls tightening in your palm as he held onto the sheets, painting the back of your throat with ropes of his spend.

You swallowed all of him, suckling on his length till you felt him softening in your mouth, you opened your mouth to show him, “Told you I’d swallow it all,” you licked your lips, just in case you missed anything.

“You’re such a good girl.” He praised, cupping your head and leaning down to kiss you, tasting himself on your lips. Easily picking you up and flipping you so that you were on your back, he spread your thighs, licking his lips as he caught a glimpse of your cunt. “What do you want to do now, sweetheart?” he asked again.

You whimpered, mumbling nonsense but you knew, once Steve set his mind to something it was impossible to convince him otherwise. He was really gonna make you say it out loud. “I want your mouth on me,” you turned your head to the side, shutting your eyes, completely flustered.

He dove in for his prize, giving your bundle of nerves a soft kiss before smearing your juices around your cunt with his fingers, prodding one at your entrance he plunged it in, your walls hugging it so wonderfully, “You’re so tight, all for me...” he blew a breath of air on it, kissing the soft patch of hair on top of your mould.

You were much too delirious to think of anything but his fingers teasing you, his lips pressing butterfly kisses to your thighs, his hands massaging your titts, but you vaguely heard him call out your name.

“What?” you rasped, propping yourself up on your elbows.

“Come, sit on my face. You said you wanted to be in control,” he shrugged.

“Wh - what... do you even know how that works?” you heaved. You had never done something like that before, while it sounds enticing, it would be impractical... maybe...

“I thought they had like two sex positions in the forties. The missionary, and uh...”

He shushed you, “I’ve never been a prude, you should know that by now,” lying on his back, he felt his dick hardening again and aching for any kind of attention from you, but he’d have to take care of you first.

“Come here...” He held onto your hips, pulling you up till you were over his mouth, “Take what you need, doll.”

You hummed, running your drenched pussy over his face, a shiver went up your spine at the feel of his coarse bread on your sensitive skin, “I can’t,” you mewled.

“Yes, you can, doll. Come on, be good for your daddy,” he spurred you on.

Taking a deep breath, you held onto the headboard, arching your back as he wrapped his mouth around your bundle of nerves, you started grinding your hips over him, soon getting accustomed and even liking the burn his glorious beard gave you.

“I’m gonna... come, daddy,” your voice breathy, your hand massaging your breast as you gushed around his beard.

You held onto the board, trying to catch your breath, your other hand in his long locks as he kept lapping you up.

You shuddered as you crawled down his body, hovering over his hard cock which was pressing against his taut stomach. You spread your lips with your fingers, peaking up to see him looking at you with dark, lust ridden eyes, coating him in your juices by running your clit up and down his length.

It was too much for your sensitive clit to be rubbing against the velvety skin of his cock but not nearly enough for him.

He digs his nails into your hips, growling, “Get on with it,” he held onto the base of his length, nudging your lips aside before plunging into your heat.

“Oh,” you gulped, trying to sink your hips down on him but even after all that preparation he was too big for you.

“You’re so small, doll,” he smiled, noticing your evident struggle as he caressed your cheek, his eyes fixed on you trying to take him in, “is it too hard?”

You nodded, “I can still do it though,” still so eager to please him...

“You don’t have to. You’ve done so much already, you must be tired.”

You opened your mouth, to argue that he was the one who had taken a long journey to get here, but he circled a hand around your waist, bringing you down, flush against his chest.

“You just lay there and let me do the work, okay, sweetheart?” you whimpered but nodded with your cheek pressed to his heart as he thrusted deep into you.

“Okay, daddy, I’ll try,” you murmured, tears streaming down your cheek when he brushed against your sweet spot.

He stopped his hips when he heard you son, “You all right, doll?” he asked, looking down at you.

“Yes, it’s just so good, please don’t stop,” you requested.

And he had promised to never say no to you so he kept fucking up into your tight hole, whispering sweet words to you, telling you just how good you were at taking him, how well you were doing.

“My one and only,” he kissed your head as you cried into his chest, clenching around his cock. Triggering his own climax as he came inside you, staying inside you even after he was done.

Content with knowing that you’ll be his forever.

As long as he doesn’t fuck up again...

Tags will be in the reblog! Click the link in the bio to join the taglist.

I guess that was cheating because the face sitting was just a small part of it😅😅 But I hope you still liked it! Comments and reblogs are really appreciated💖💖 I'll try to write one more part with jealous endgame!Steve.

Please note that my work is not to be reposted or published anywhere other than my Tumblr or AO3 account without my permission. Reblogs are most welcome though!

[firstfullmoon]

what are some quotes that are so visceral they feel like a gut punch to you?

“A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.”

— Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?”

— Ilya Kaminsky, “A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck”

“I want someone to tell me what to wear in the morning. I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat, what to like, what to hate, what to rage about, what to listen to, what band to like, what to buy tickets for, what to joke about, what not to joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in, who to vote for, and who to love, and how to tell them. I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I’ve been getting it wrong.”

— Phoebe Waller-Bridge, from Fleabag

“Les femmes de notre famille, nous sommes engluées dans la colère J’ai été en colère contre ma mère Tout comme tu es en colère contre moi Et tout comme ma mère fut en colère contre sa mère Il faut casser le fil.”

(The women in our family are all stuck in anger I have been angry at my mother As you are angry with me And as my mother was angry at her mother The thread must be broken.)

— Wajdi Mouawad, Incendies

“I know what I want: an ugly, clean woman with large breasts, who tells me: what’s all this about making things up? I won’t have any dramas, come here immediately!—And she gives me a warm bath, dresses me in a white linen nightdress, braids my hair and puts me to bed, very cross, saying: well what do you want? you run wild, eating at odd times, you could get sick, stop making up tragedies, you think you’re such a big deal, drink this mug of hot broth. She lifts my head up with her hand, covers me with a big sheet, brushes a few strands of hair off my forehead, already white and fresh, and tells me before I fall asleep warmly: you’ll see how in no time your face is going to fill out, forget those harebrained ideas and be a good girl. Someone who takes me in like a humble dog, who opens the door for me, brushes me, feeds me, loves me severely like a dog, that’s all I want, like a dog, a child.”

“I can feel myself holding a child, thought Joana. Sleep, my child, sleep, I tell you. The child is warm and I am sad. But it is the sadness of happiness, this appeasement and sufficiency that leave the face placid, faraway. And when my child touches me he doesn’t rob me of my thoughts as others do. But later, when I give him milk with these fragile, beautiful breasts, my child will grow from my force and crush me with his life. He will distance himself from me and I will be the useless old mother. I won’t feel cheated. But defeated merely and I will say: I don’t know a thing, I am able to give birth to a child and I don’t know a thing. God will receive my humility and will say: I was able to give birth to the universe and I don’t know a thing.”

— Clarice Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart

“I know that my phrases are crude, I write them with too much love, and that love makes up for their faults, but too much love is bad for the work.”

“I’m restless and harsh and despairing. Although I do have love inside me. I just don’t know how to use love. Sometimes it tears at my flesh.”

“But when winter comes I give and give and give. The excess of me starts to hurt and when I’m excessive I have to give of myself.”

— Clarice Lispector, Água Viva

“And that was what I felt when reading your book: that solitude.” “Imagine the solitude of the person who wrote it.”

— Clarice Lispector, from an interview

“suppose the body did this to us, made us afraid of love—”

— Louise Glück, “Crater Lake”

“When I put my hands on your body, on your flesh, I feel the history of that body. Not just the beginning of its forming in that distant lake, but all the way beyond its ending. I feel the warmth and texture and simultaneously I see the flesh unwrap from the layers of fat and disappear. I see the fat disappear from the muscle. I see the muscle disappearing from around the organs and detaching itself from the bones. I see the organs gradually fade into transparency, leaving a gleaming skeleton, gleaming like ivory that slowly resolves until it becomes dust. I am consumed in the sense of your weight, the way your flesh occupies momentary space, the fullness of it beneath my palms. I am amazed at how perfectly your body fits to the curves of my hands. If I could attach our blood vessels so we could become each other I would. If I could attach our blood vessels in order to anchor you to the earth, to this present time, I would. If I could open up your body and slip inside your skin and look out your eyes and forever have my lips fused with yours, I would. It makes me weep to feel the history of your flesh beneath my hands in a time of so much loss. It makes me weep to feel the movement of your flesh beneath my palms as you twist and turn over to one side to create a series of gestures, to reach up around my neck, to draw me nearer. All these memories will be lost in time like tears in the rain.”

— David Wojnarowicz, from The Half-Life

“A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.”

— Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

“and cain said, There’s an idea I can’t get out of my head, What’s that, said abraham, There must have been innocent people in sodom and in the other cities that were burned, If so, the lord would have kept the promise he made to make to save their lives, What about the children, said cain, surely the children were innocent, Oh my god, murmured abraham and his voice was like a groan, Yes, your god perhaps, but not theirs.”

— José Saramago, Cain

“I’d like to jet-ski / straight out of this life because right now I am / way attached to real things like for instance / people how they are all so tender how they / love to just go walk around and someof them are / wearing pink now and it hurts me and they / bathe their dogs”

— Heather Christle, “This Is Not The Body I Asked For”

“The idea of deserving love. And then watching love being given to people who did nothing to deserve it.”

— Anaïs Nin, from her journal

“And he cries and cries, cries for everything he has been, for everything he might have been, for every old hurt, for every old happiness, cries for the shame and joy of finally getting to be a child, with all of a child’s whims and wants and insecurities, for the privilege of behaving badly and being forgiven, for the luxury of tendernesses, of fondnesses, of being served a meal and being made to eat it, for the ability, at last, at last, of believing a parent’s reassurances, of believing that to someone he is special despite all his mistakes and hatefulness, because of all his mistakes and hatefulness.”

— Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“The veals are the children of cows, are calves. They are locked in boxes the size of themselves. A body-box, like a coffin, but alive, like a home. The children, the veal, they stand very still because tenderness depends of how little the world touches you. To stay tender, the weight of your life cannot lean on your bones.”

“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.”

— Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“I know we’ve just met but I feel like maybe / you’d feed me and tuck me into your big bed / and only touch me as you covered me with the comforter.”

— Kim Addonizio, “Party”

“The body has no thoughts. The body soaks up love like a paper towel

and is still dry.”

— Kim Addonizio, “Body And Soul”

“I don’t know how God can bear / seeing everything at once: the falling bodies, the monuments and burnings, / the lovers pacing the floors of how many locked hearts.”

— Kim Addonizio, “The Numbers”

“I keep wishing for you, keep shutting up my eyes and looking toward the sky, asking with all my might for you, and yet you do not come. I thought of you, until the world grew rounder than it sometimes is, and I broke several dishes.”

— Emily Dickinson, from a letter to Minnie Holland

“The unknowness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met.”

— Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

“I used to be a hopeless romantic. I am still a hopeless romantic. I used to believe that love was the highest value. I still believe that love is the highest value. I don’t expect to be happy. I don’t imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy. I don’t think of love as the answer or the solution. I think of love as a force of nature - as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving. And when it burns out, the planet dies.”

“As for myself, I am splintered by great waves. I am coloured glass from a church window long since shattered. I find pieces of myself everywhere, and I cut myself handling them.”

— Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

“I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED GENOCIDE TO STOP I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND REACTION I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED MUSIC OUT THE WINDOWS I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED NOBODY THIRST AND NOBODY NOBODY COLD I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED I WANTED JUSTICE UNDER MY NOSE”

— June Jordan, “Intifada Incantation: Poem 38 for b.b.L.”

“Maybe when I wake up in the middle of the night I should go downstairs dump the refrigerator contents on the floor and stand there in the middle of the spilled milk and the wasted butter spread beneath my dirty feet writing poems writing poems maybe I just need to love myself myself and anyway I’m working on it”

— June Jordan, “Free Flight”

“It’s not that I gave away my keys. / The problem is nobody wants to steal me or my / house.”

— June Jordan, “Onesided Dialog”

“What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.”

— John Berger, And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos

“I wept and wept. I had come to believe that if I really wanted something badly enough, the very act of my wanting it was an assurance that I would not get it.”

— Audre Lorde, from “Zami: A New Spelling of my Name”

“You kiss the back of my legs and I want to cry. / Only the sun has come this close, only the sun.”

— Shauna Barbosa, “GPS”

“It has to be perfect. It has to be irreproachable in every way. (...) To make up for it. To make up for the fact that it’s me.”

— Suzanne Rivecca

“I hope it’s love. I’m trying really hard to make it love. I said no more severity. I said it severely and slept through all my appointments. I clawed my way into the light but the light is just as scary. I’d rather quit. I’d rather be sad.”

— Richard Siken, Self-Portrait Against Red Wallpaper

“We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.”

— Richard Siken, “Snow And Dirty Rain”

“Love, for you, / is larger than the usual romantic love. It's like a religion. It's / terrifying. No one / will ever want to sleep with you.”

— Richard Siken, “Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out”

“The hardest thing still remains. It remains the hardest, to bear all the tenderness and only to gaze on.”

— Ilse Achinger, “Mirrorstory”

“i killed a plant once because i gave it too much water. lord, i worry that love is violence.”

— José Olivarez, “Getting Ready to Say I Love You to My Dad, It Rains”

“Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women; kitchen of lust, bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. Sometimes the men - they come with keys, and sometimes, the men - they come with hammers.”

— Warsan Shire, “The House”

“I’ll take care of you. / It’s rotten work. / Not to me. Not if it’s you.”

— Euripides, Orestes, tr. Anne Carson

“We have this deep sadness between us and it spells so habitual I can’t tell it from love.”

— Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband

“There is no question I am someone starving. There is no question I am making this journey to find out what that appetite is.”

— Anne Carson, Plainwater: Essays

“I wish I could peel all my sadness in one long strip off my skin & toss it in a bucket. No one would have to carry it. It would just sit there & be punished. It would just sit there & think about everything it’s done.”

— Chen Chen, “Elegy For My Sadness”

“There is too much or not enough room in my stomach for everything we will do to each other.“

— Adriana Cloud, “Bento Body”

[sohin-ace]

Doppio - Frog Princess

Fairy tale AU and lots of love for my small man.

Doppio dragged his feet across the garden, restless and desperate. He sighed and whined to himself, taking the opportunity of being all alone to voice his pain and concerns, something he was never allowed to do.

"Aww jeez... This prince life isn't made for me..."

He huffed again and tugged at his very uncomfortable, gold adorned collar that was almost suffocating him.

Doppio looked around him, sure enough, the tall trees surrounding him did a great job at hiding him from the potential workers on the castle grounds that could possibly be looking for him.

He could finally have a little moment for himself and sneak out, maybe to cry to himself a little bit.

"O-ow... That still hurts..." The boy whined and rubbed on his bruised fingers, the results of angry professors punishing him for each mistakes he made. "I'm no good, I can't do anything right..."

That's right. Prince Doppio was a clumsy and anxious boy who lacked capacity in every domain. He always tried his best and obeyed every and each order, he wasn't undisciplined, oh no, young Doppio was a good boy.

He was just bad. He hardly managed to keep the required straight stance for more than ten seconds, was better at petting the horses than at riding them, couldn't follow etiquette at all, or protocol, was extremely forgetful and sadly, mother nature did not grace him with the strongest physical traits a young man his age was expected to have.

"Tch... Trish was so popular everyone courted her and she was so easy to marry, but me... No one would want to marry a good-for-nothing like me..."

He angrily kicked some rock and held his back that cracked at the movement, in pain, squeezing his eyes shut and sobbing at the sore feeling. That last lesson of fencing went so terribly wrong, how did the others do it?

"I'm so tired... Why meee...?"

"Ribbit!"

"Huh?" Doppio was startled at the very sudden but intriguing croaky sound and approached its direction near the pond.

He couldn't see anything at first, but then a tiny little creature jumped out of its hiding place. Doppio's honey eyes widened and he quickly wiped his warm tears, crouching down towards the animal.

"A frog!" He exclaimed happily, almost like a small child, new to the world. "Hi! You're so tiny, what's your name?"

"Ribbit!"

He knew very well the animal couldn't respond to him with actual words, but just the feeling of having even a one-sided conversation soothed a bit of his loneliness down. He cupped his hands together to invite the frog in, and the animal obliged by jumping on them.

He looked down and observed the chubby little creature. It had the cutest, roundest eyes, almost sparkly in the dim forest light, its green color was so bright and homogenous, there weren't any marks or patterns that frogs usually had on their skin. Even its limbs were tiny and soft, Doppio couldn't help but pet it with one careful and shaky finger.

"O-ooh! Oh my god!" He squealed uncontrollably. "You're so squishy!"

"Ribbit ribbit!"

The quiet and high-pitched croak felt so pleasant to his ears, it meddled with the sound of the water next to him and made him feel so much at peace. He loved to hear that cute sound and how the frog's belly puffed up like a balloon with each croak.

"What are you? A boy or a girl? I'd say you're a girl because you're super pretty and have a tiny voice."

"Ribbit Ribbit! Ribbit Ribbit!"

Doppio gasped loudly. "D-did I get it right?! Oohh yes!! That's so cool! Well... Not like I would have minded if you were a boy... Or both... Wait, do frogs have genders? Oh it doesn't matter."

The young prince felt like this frog was currently the only thing keeping him sane. He had no one else to talk to, there was no one who actually cared for his own well-being and he had no friends.

The only real person to actually show him some kind of recognition and love was none other than the King Diavolo himself. But even his sweet words and affection seemed somewhat back-handed and laced with pressure and severity.

"You know, you're lucky, little thing..." Doppio started with melancholy. "You don't have to worry so much about your life... I'm bad at everything and I'm all alone... I don't know what to do..."

"Ri-rib, ribbit!"

"Even if a nice princess wanted to marry me, I would turn her down because she would deserve better... Sometimes I wish I could disappear..."

"Ribb-ribbit!"

Doppio's eyes softened on the small frog. That's how sad and pathetic he was. Talking his problems out with a frog.

"Why do I feel like you actually understand me...? Thank you for listening to me and being my only friend."

Without even thinking, he lifted the small frog and brought it towards his face, giving it the tiniest of pecks. He smiled at how weird the feeling was, the animal was cold and slightly humid, a bit sticky too which he did not mind surprisingly.

He sighed and looked up mindlessly before his eyes were suddenly striked by a blinding flash of light.

"Wh-what the hell?!"

The light flashed brighter and brighter, coming from the frog in his hands. What was going on?

Doppio could only drop the creature and shield his eyes with his arms desperately as the frog sparkled like a thousand fireflies and grew in size.

The boy squinted his eyes shut and fell back right onto his butt before he felt a strong weight pressing on him, the mass eventually pinning him down onto the ground.

"U-uughh..." He groaned and rubbed his head, a sharp headache from the harsh light hitting his sensitive eyes still slowly fading.

He looked down only for his eyes to widen like saucers. He couldn't believe what he was currently witnessing and thought that maybe he went blind from the flash and was hallucinating right now.

The weight on top of him revealed to be the figure of a girl laying unconscious. He couldn't see her face buried in his chest, but he could make out her beautiful hair, smooth skin tone and the very frilly green dress she was wearing.

And that wasn't just any dress either, the golden ornaments, the tulle, the silk, the lace, the satin... That was an expensive dress, was she...could she be... A nobleswoman? A baroness? A...

...A princess?

"A-aah..." The girl moaned quietly before pushing herself up, not without struggle and Doppio gasped.

"A-are you okay signori-..." The boy could barely finish his sentence and only mumbled open-mouthed nonsense.

He was beyond mesmerized at the beauty who had just ever-so-slowly lifted her face up to look at him. Her shining wide eyes, her innocent glossy lips, her rose dusted cheeks and her hair framing her perfect face made him believe he just stumbled into some sort of forest Goddess.

"Ah-I... U-uuhm.. Y-you...uh.. W-ah-...eh... I-I'm..." He stammered awkwardly, his brain melting like ice in summer as his face and ears burned a crimson red, his breath catching in his now dry throat.

"Ah! My stars!" The girl gasped as she hovered over the immensely flustered prince. "I am so sorry! I must be crushing you!"

The young girl fretted anxiously before trying to scramble over on her knees and straighten herself up to give the poor man some much needed space, but as soon as she did, she was hit with a wave of dizziness and lost balance again. Doppio was quick to sit up and catch her against his chest, wrapping careful arms around her.

"A-are you okay, miss? What happened to you? What's going on?" The boy asked worriedly, regaining his composure slowly.

"Ah y-yes... It's just... It's been so long since I've been glamoured..."

"You've been... Glamoured?" Doppio couldn't be more confused than this, but the girl explained further as she leaned back slightly.

Her name was Y/N L/N, daughter of the King L/N. Many years ago, she had been the victim of a curse cast by the one and only sorcerer Dio, who was overcome by fury and rage against anyone affiliated with the Joestar Empire, or those who refused to become one of his pets, casting spells after spells, and curses after curses.

"He turned me into a frog and swore to me that nobody would ever come to save me from my demise... But you..." Y/N looked up at Doppio's honey eyes and couldn't help the tears pooling at her eyes.

She was free, at last.

"I was all alone... And you came here... My savior..."

Her soft voice cracked with thick emotions and she stared into Doppio's golden eyes with soft ones, her vision blurred by warm tears. Doppio gasped lightly, moved by her story and she shyly wiped her tears.

"A-ah, forgive me! How shameful of me, to weep in front of a prince like this... I'm just.. So..."

"No, princess, don't apologize." He gently held her wrists to pull them away from her timid face. "You have the right to be overwhelmed... Nobody's here, besides... I cried too, earlier, in front of you. Nothing wrong with showing your emotions."

She sighed dreamily at his gentle words and soft touches, the now more confident boy stirring her heart. "What is your name, my prince?"

"Doppio." He gulped, stiff as a rock at her saccharine gaze and tone. "Doppio Vinegar."

"You're a good person, Doppio..." She breathed out, her words dripping with warm sincerity. Doppio's heart could only skip beats at each and every one of her actions.

The boy may be clumsy and bashful, he surely wasn't dense. He well knew he was deeply falling in love with this frog princess, but something in him told him she may not be completely disinterested in him either, despite his overall appearance and personality.

But maybe, just maybe, it was because she didn't know him enough. She didn't know this extent of his foolishness, how worthless of a man he truly was. This was the perfect opportunity for her to just push him away and run back home, only to never see him again.

But against all he could have ever expected, he was completely shaken out of his low self-esteem filled transe when he felt her leaning her delicate hands and head against his chest, closing her eyes and relishing in his warm hold still on her.

"Prince Doppio... I feel so safe when I'm in your arms... I'll forever be grateful for granting me my deepest wish..." She lifted her head just enough to look at his blushing freckled face, his mouth agape. "How could I ever reward you?"

Was she... Really serious? Nobody has ever told him they felt good around him. Nobody has ever felt safe around the small and skinny man that was Doppio. Could he be strong enough for her?

Well one thing was positive, he didn't want to let her go, and if he had to eat razor blades to protect her, he would do it without batting an eye.

She actually wanted to, or at least seemed to, stay with him. She felt grateful, for him, of all people!

He hoped she wouldn't hear his heart go feral in his chest. She would do... Anything for him? Could he be selfish? Could he ask the inimaginable? Would she say yes? He wouldn't force her but... He would love to think about himself only, just this once in his life.

He had nothing to lose.

He gently grabbed both her hands in his surprisingly big ones, squeezing gently and rubbing his thumbs over her soft skin, as if to want to imprint his love onto her.

"Ma-... Marry me, Princess Y/N!" He confessed with loud yet clear determination. "Please, be mine! I will cherish you like my most prized treasure, you will never be alone and feel unsafe again! I promise my entire life to you, please promise me yours!"

She widened her eyes at his sudden assertiveness and his strong, meaningful words. The pink boy in front of her shook her heart in so many ways, and she had already lost everything to Dio in the past. She had absolutely no reason to deny, now did she?

The girl smiled bright and slowly pulled her hands out of his grasp, only to immediately wrap her arms around her hero's neck, nuzzling her face against him lovingly.

"Yes! I accept... my sweet Doppio."

[stiltonbasket]

chancellor of the morning sun: burdens, mingjue (youth)

In which being a woman in the cultivation world is difficult, and Nie Mingjue comforts a friend.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | | Part 8 | Part 9 | AO3

On the night after the welcoming banquet, Nie Mingjue wakes to the sound of someone crying outside his door. 

This was by no means unusual when he was younger; Huaisang often had night terrors after his mother died, and refused to sleep without Nie Mingjue for the next three or four years. But A-Sang is thirteen now, far too old to come crying to his da-ge after dark, and the person on the other side of his door seems to be a woman. 

“Who’s there?” he calls, lighting one of his dream lanterns before getting out of bed. “A-Sang, is that you?”

“No, it’s me!” a familiar voice shouts, nearly sending Nie Mingjue to the ground as he scrambles to keep his footing. “A-Jue, let me in!”

Nie Mingjue drops his lantern and tries not to panic. The crying is still going on, but the person who called his name was Lan Xichen, without a doubt; and if she had come to his chambers this late, with the Unclean Realm full of foreign cultivators who would gladly take any chance to see her reputation ruined, then she must have come to seek his help with some kind of emergency.

And Nie Mingjue has not forgotten that the son of his father’s murderer is sleeping under his roof, or that Wen Ruohan openly sought Xichen’s hand in marriage for Wen Xu, and would have forced the two to meet if Nie Mingjue’s own fuqin had not intervened.

“I’m coming!” he says frantically, throwing the door open and grasping Lan Xichen’s arm the moment she crosses the threshold. “Lan Huan, I’m—”

And then he looks over Lan Xichen’s shoulder, blinking at the miserable line of young maidens trailing down the corridor behind her. Jiang Yanli is standing at Xichen’s side, crying into her sleeves, and Qin Su and Jin Zixuan’s first shimei are there, too; and Wen Ruohan’s young niece is standing in the back, holding Qin Su’s arm to keep her from falling over. All five girls smell of liquor, even Xichen, and Nie Mingjue gapes at them in bewilderment as Xichen fists her hands in his tunic and shakes him from side to side.

“Jiang-jie won’t listen to us!” she complains, sobbing drunkenly into his chest: which sets Jiang Yanli off again, and then Luo Qingyang starts weeping, too. “A-Jue, tell her!”’

Mingjue frowns. “Tell her what, A-Huan?” he says gently, wiping his intended’s face. It will be ruin for them both if anyone spots her here in the middle of the night, let alone with four other girls in front of his private quarters, but Nie Mingjue would rather cut his own hands off than turn the girl he loves away in such distress. “What’s wrong?”

“Jiang-guniang thinks she’s not worthy of Zixuan,” Luo Qingyang wails. “But just look at him! He prances around like a prize stallion, and he keeps making a fool of himself everywhere he goes! It’s pathetic! And he keeps talking about how wonderful he is, almost as much as Zixun! Nie-zongzhu, I have to beat him up twice a month to keep him in line, and it’s not even working!”

“Not worthy of Jin Zixuan?” he snorts. “Jiang-guniang, it’s Jin-gongzi who isn’t worthy of you. A-Huan, didn’t you tell her so?”

Jiang Yanli only cries even harder, and Xichen gives him a reproachful look and pinches his stubbly cheek. “She won’t listen to us when we tell her she’s more than enough. Yanli thinks we have to say so, since we’re her friends, so I brought her to you so you could tell her instead!”

“Jin-gongzi should count himself lucky that a maiden like Lady Jiang would give him the time of day,” Nie Mingjue says promptly. “He’ll get over himself in time, and Luo-guniang will beat him into the ground if he doesn’t. Right, Luo-guniang?”

Luo Qingyang nods fervently before listing straight into one of the walls. “I will!” she yells, as Wen Qing reaches over and puts her back on her feet again. “‘N then I’ll put itching powder in Jin Zixun’s pants, and, and…”

“Steal his wine again,” Qin Su suggests, letting out a loud burp. “That peach-blossom brew was delicious. Don’t you feel any better after drinking it, A-Li?”

“No, I don’t,” Jiang Yanli murmurs. “Good night, Nie-zongzhu. I’m going back to bed now.”

“Yanli!” begs Xichen, throwing herself at the shorter girl and almost knocking both of them backwards onto the floor. “Yanli, don’t go! You’re worth a hundred of Jin-zongzi, you—A-Jue, help!”

“What am I supposed to say?” he asks, thoroughly bewildered. “I can go challenge Jin-gongzi to a duel myself, if you like. Would that cheer you up, Jiang-guniang!”

But to his surprise, Jiang Yanli only goes to her knees and trembles like a kitten left out in the cold, sobbing about her fears for her future at Koi Tower and her dread of being bound to a man who will never respect her, her terror at the prospect of having no allies past her wedding day save for her mother-in-law, and then about having to spend the rest of her life within reach of Jin Guangshan. 

“Mother keeps telling me that I should try to do better, so that Jin-gongzi likes me,” she chokes. “And one of my Yu aunties told me once that Jin-gongzi has to like me, since that’s going to be the only thing keeping me safe from—from—”

“Why haven’t you spoken to your parents about this?” Nie Mingjue demands, aghast. He knows very little about how his own engagement was settled on Xichen’s side; but not long after his ascension, he discovered that neither she nor her uncle were consulted on the matter, and that the sect elders only informed Lan Qiren of his niece’s engagement after the betrothal papers were sealed and signed and the bride price was already paid. 

Nie Mingjue’s father made the agreement believing that Lan Qiren was amenable, and would have dissolved the betrothal in a heartbeat if Lan Xichen ever said she was unhappy with it—even in the months just before his death, when his greatest regret was that he would likely not live long enough to see his grandchildren. But he never disapproved of Lan Xichen’s decision to remain unwed until Wangji was at least eighteen, though the wedding was originally set to take place just after Xichen turned eighteen, and he would even have accepted a divorce if his daughter-in-law initiated it. 

And Jiang Fengmian is widely known to dote upon his daughter, just as Nie Mingjue’s father doted on Lan Xichen, so why would he not offer the same choice to his child that Nie Huangyin gave to A-Huan?

“Father would break the engagement if I asked, but Jin-furen is mother’s best friend,” Jiang Yanli weeps, in answer to Nie Mingjue’s unspoken question. “It would make things so difficult between them if Jin-furen ever knew I felt this way. And A-Xian and A-Cheng already hate the idea of me marrying into Lanling, Nie-zongzhu. It would be so much worse for them both if they found out I was afraid.”

“It is better out now, than ten years from now, when you are wedded into that house and bound there by a husband and children,” Nie Mingjue says somberly. “Jin Zixuan is not a bad sort, but if he can look upon a maiden who spends her days tending to her family and teaching in orphanages and finding apprenticeships for street children, and call such a girl unworthy because of her looks and low cultivation—then he is not worthy of any wife, let alone one like you, and I pray he will come to recognize it without some great tragedy to bring him to his senses.”

“But—”

“If A-Huan were to lose her cultivation, I would still count myself as the luckiest man in the world to be her husband,” he declares. “And if she were not beautiful, that would be nothing to me. Whatever the strength of her golden core, and whatever she looks like—her heart has nothing to do with either her face or her jindan, and I love her for that above all things.”

Jiang Yanli’s jaw drops open, and she stares up at Nie Mingjue in open disbelief. Xichen is far too drunk to register what he just said, and Wen Qing seems to have stuffed bits of cloth into her ears to keep herself from listening to anything Jiang-guniang would not have confided while sober—but the word love still burns on his lips like the hot filling from Lan Xichen’s sweet bean cakes, flooding through every inch of his body until he can think of nothing else, and he spends a good two minutes in a kind of stricken trance before wondering if saying such a thing before Maiden Jiang might have hurt her feelings.

“It didn’t,” she says softly—because apparently, Nie Mingjue said that last aloud. “I think I see now, Nie-zongzhu.”

Nie Mingjue opens his mouth to ask what she means, but a small purple blur interrupts him before he can get the words out. The blur skids around the nearest corner, screeching in indignation at the sight of Yanli’s tearstained face, and then it turns upon Nie Mingjue and demands an explanation. 

“What did you say to my Shijie?” Wei Wuxian cries. “Shijie, did he bully you?”

“Silly A-Xian,” Jiang-guniang smiles, ruffling Wei Wuxian’s hair. “Nobody bullied me, but Nie-zongzhu made me feel much better.”

“By making you cry?” Wei Wuxian says doubtfully. “Should I get Suibian?”

“A-Xian, no!” Jiang Yanli is giggling now, kissing her brother all over his puffy cheeks. “Come on, let’s go back.”

Wei Wuxian drags her off down the hallway, casting suspicious glances over his shoulder, and Wen Qing charges herself with the duty of escorting Luo Qingyang and Maiden Qin back to their own quarters. However, she declares in no uncertain terms that managing three drunk girls is beyond her, and that leaves only Nie Mingjue to look after Lan Xichen. 

“Your uncle’s going to kill me if he finds us,” he whimpers, as he struggles up a flight of stairs with his betrothed yawning in his arms. “And then A-Sang will spend the rest of his life on birds and fans, and never catch up with his lessons in time to attend your clan lectures.”

“Shufu likes you,” Xichen assures him, patting the tip of his nose. “He would never do such a thing.”

“He would if he thought I’d been improper towards you,” Nie Mingjue groans. “A-Huan, have you had anything to eat after you started drinking?”

“Mm, A-Su brought snacks. And Wen Qing kept slipping headache medicine into my wine.”

Nie Mingjue sighs in relief and hugs her a little tighter. “Good. Will you try to drink a little water after we get back to your room?”

Xichen nods drowsily, nearly stopping Nie Mingjue’s heart as she nuzzles against his shoulder, but he manages to get her up to her bedroom in one piece and helps her get into bed, making sure she lies on her side to prevent choking in the morning. He also puts a few pieces of rice candy on her nightstand since he always carries a handful in his pocket for Huaisang, and fetches a glass of water for her to drink when she wakes. 

Lan Huan is fast asleep by then, breathing quietly in her nest of blankets with her hand tucked under her cheek, and Nie Mingjue makes it as far as the door before remembering that she is still too drunk to be left alone.

But she doesn’t have a maidservant, Nie Mingjue thinks desperately, staring wildly out of the room as if one might climb out of the nearest cupboard. And Wangji didn’t come along this time, and I can’t wake Lan Qiren—

Oh, no.

Oh, this is very bad. 

Anything could happen to Lan Xichen with so much alcohol in her blood, and she might even stop breathing during the night and smother. But there is no one to fetch except for Lan-xiansheng, and that means Nie Mingjue will have to stay with her until she wakes. And given the fact that Lan Qiren will be looking for his niece by mao hour tomorrow, while Lan Xichen will probably sleep a shichen longer than usual—

Nie Mingjue sinks down beside the bed and puts his head in his hands. 

Well, that settles it, he despairs, pulling the thick blankets away from Xichen’s face. Lan Qiren is definitely going to kill me. 

But he would be lying if he said that the sight of Xichen’s peaceful face was unworthy of death by uncle-in-law, so Nie Mingjue accepts his demise with grace and starts planning his funeral instead.

___

When Lan Xichen opens her eyes, the first thing she notices is the dull pain in her head. 

The second thing she notices (after gulping down the water and candy on the nightstand) is that someone seems to have left a heap of something dark near her bed; probably a bag, or a pile of clothes, though she can’t see well enough to tell what it could be. 

And the last thing is that her uncle is sitting on a chair by the door, tapping his foot loudly enough to make her head pound. 

“Shufu,” she croaks, struggling upright with the aid of one of her pillows. “What are you—”

“Disciples of the Lan clan must not consume alcohol,” he says, strangely calm despite the enormity of her transgression. Her clothes still smell like Baling mead, sweet and spicy and fruity all at once, and she nearly dies of shame at the thought of how shocked Shufu must have been when he found her. “They must not go out of doors after haishi. And they must never share chambers with any member of the opposite sex to whom they are not married, unless they are a relative.”

Lan Xichen freezes. “What?”

“Should I not be asking you that?” her uncle reminds her. “What is Nie-zongzhu doing in your bedchamber?”

Thunderstruck, Lan Xichen stumbles out of bed and stares at the dark heap on the floor, which yawns at her touch and stretches like a cat before springing up in horror. 

“Lan-xiansheng, it’s not what it looks like!” Nie Mingjue cries, making Lan Xichen shrivel at the memory of how shamefully she must have behaved last night. “I only wanted to make sure Xichen was safe, I would never—”

“And you did not think of waking me?” Lan Qiren lifts his eyebrows at them. “Even if you wanted to ensure that my niece was well, how could you risk being seen leaving her rooms in the morning? My own quarters are just on the other side of the hall.”

Mingjue ducks his head in shame, and Lan Xichen suddenly wants nothing more than the comfort of his hand in hers. “I didn’t want her to get in trouble, xiansheng,” he mumbles. “She only came out last night for someone else’s sake, and I couldn’t have borne to see her unhappy just for that.”

“You are a sect leader, Nie Mingjue. Don’t look down when you speak to me,” Shufu scolds. “As it is, I am glad that you did not leave her. But as her uncle, I must order you to go now before the breakfast bell, lest you ruin both of your reputations at once and force her to marry before she is ready.”

Mingjue takes the hint and flees, leaving Xichen and her uncle alone. Shufu says nothing more for a while, merely studying the ceiling as if the laws of the Lan sect were inscribed there, and then he clears his throat and points to the stack of parchment on her desk.

“Copy each precept you broke, a hundred times each. The tenth, eighteenth, and seventy-first laws. Go.”

And then, after a moment’s lull:

“I think he will be a good father someday, A-Huan,” Lan Qiren reflects. “Your little ones will want for nothing, what with how he cares for you and how much he coddles Huaisang. I could not have found you a better husband if I chose for you myself.”

Lan Xichen drops her paintbrush.

“Shufu!”

[zephyoongist]

jung hoseok found you when you were about to make the biggest mistake of your life.

which was jumping through the low window of the church without anything to cushion you at the bottom while your fiancé, soon-to-be husband, was waiting at the aisle.

“you sure you want to do that?” a voice asks ever so casually, as if seeing a bride clad in white hugging the skirt of her dress as she hunches over edge of the window, is just another occurrence out of the many he’s seen in his lifetime.

“t-that’s my choice,” you stammer out defensively, not expecting for anyone to be having a smoke at the back of a church.

as if you have any viable options.

go back in there and you’ll marry the man of your parents’ dreams.

sneak out from the window and you’ll end up living in some basement on a month-to-month rent, cut off from your parents’ funds and disowned from the choi family name.

“i’m hoseok, by the way,” he introduces himself a heartbeat later.

and because your brain is functioning on a hundred million thoughts per second, you end up blurting “the blacksheep?!”

“well,” hoseok takes a moment to ponder on that name, “that works too.”

“sorry,” your head hangs low.

“don’t worry about it,” he says, dropping the bud of the cigarette and stomping on it before walking over to the window and standing directly below it, arms open wide.

“jump.”

one word. and that’s all it takes for the alarms in your head to go off. for a moment, you even debating setting your feet back down to the floor of the room but you keep yourself rooted on the ledge, “what?”

“make no mistake, i’m not doing this for you. i just like the thought of my asshole brother’s face going red with embarrassment when he finds out he got left at the altar,” so he beckons you again, “jump.”

you remember agreeing that jeon jeongguk needs to have his ego taken down a few notches. then, before you know it, your heart is leaping inside your throat and you’re squealing without restraint as the air caresses your skin.

it takes a moment before you gather the guts to pry your eyes open - you don’t know when you have them closed. and when you do, hoseok is gone. you’d say it’s magic and that you’ve been talking to an imaginary entity.

but then there’s groaning coming from under the layers of ruffles of your skirt and you quickly gather them in your arms before a flock of black hair appears, lying down on the ground.

“oh my god, i’m sorry!” you gasp, but then you’re releasing the layers of ruffles which come flowing down in place before you place your hands on your hips, “see! you shouldn’t have told me to jump. i had it under control.”

“pray tell, in what way can you control one of your ankles to not twist jumping all the way from there?” hoseok winces as he pushes himself up, hand going to his lower back.

you open your mouth, only to let invisible air out and then close it again like fish above water.

“never mind that, we have to leave. now,” then his hand is twined with yours and he’s dragging you behind him as you barely manage to keep up with his physique but the sight of his suited back and bright sky will forever be engraved in your head as you grip his hand and make up your mind.

mistakes will be made and consequences will follow. but today, your only mistake is leaving your pair of white heels in the room. because these blisters will heal.

x

your parents are furious.

rightfully so when they find you in their home, changed out of the hideously large white dress - it’s your mother-in-law that wanted you to wear such an ugly thing anyway.

“the shame you cast on this family!” your mother dramatically laments as she walks back and forth in the common room, still clad in light violet dress. lipstick as red as her vision.

you get an earful of something along the lines of disgrace and family name and whatnot.

but never do you hear the question why. 

why did you do what you did?

why didn’t you tell them anything throughout the preparations of the marriage?

this. this is why.

because they never bother to listen and they never will, even if you did something so out of character. something choi ____ would never have done with her grace and primness.

so that night, when you hear the sound of pebbles on your window and notice a jung hoseok looking up at you, this time, clad in normal clothes. you don’t even bat an eye when he says run away with me.

“...to a place where nobody could find us. somewhere far away.” he tells you as you cuddle with him on the deck, facing the rising sun with no one - no eyes judging you. no fear of your deviousness going around from mouth to mouth.

well, it may - once anna, your maid finds you nowhere in bed. once she rushes to your parents to tell them the grave news.

but you’ll be halfway to new york by then.

x

years pass and you and hoseok make a home out of the second story apartment. you like plants and he likes vinyls. somehow, it works out. his vinyl player now stands in the corner with your life sized plant which you water everyday and assure him that it’s not going to grow all the way to the rooftop.

the topic of children doesn’t come until much much later.

on a happy accident where you find out and keep it from him for at least a week, gathering up the nerve to sit him down in the kitchen where you watch as his eyes go round and then get filled with fear before the chair screeches as he pushes himself up.

before you know it, you’re being twirled in the air, palms on his shoulders and eyes gazing down at him as he holds you up by your ass.

your marriage is attended by your closest friends at the embassy. your dress isn’t as grandiose but it’s pretty in your eyes. and in hoseok’s eyes too - otherwise, why would he be weeping and wiping the tears from his face.

“hey, don’t cry,” you chuckle softly as you cup his cheek with your hand, your other hand holding the almost wilted bouquet your friend manages to buy off a vendor on the way here.

“you- you shouldn’t be real,” it’s out of character for the ever free jung hoseok but at the same time so - him.

and in your shared lifetimes, hoseok’s only ever cried when you got married, when your first born arrived.

he’s the kind of husband that’ll act tough in front of you and the kind of father to slip a cookie to your kid when you turn your back on them. until you call him out.

“you know, the cookie jar is running low on cookies and you don’t like sweet things,” you say, arms crossed over you chest when he steps into the kitchen with bed hair and an empty bowl of your kid’s breakfast in one hand.

“well, shouldn’t you ask the little one?” he jests, bowl placed in the sink before he starts to tickle your stomach lightly.

“hoseok,” there’s pressure in the way his name rolls off your tongue.

“i swear,” he stands back up, hands raised in a surrendering manner, “i don’t know.”

“mama!” your toddler comes waddling in, hugging your leg with a hand full of cookie.

she gazes up at you with pretty brown eyes that resemble her father’s and the prettiest smile that’s a mix of yours and hoseok.

“my baby! are you done with breakfast?” you take her in your arms, index booping her little nose before trickles of giggles fall out of her mouth.

“and what’s this?” you ask the source of the crumbs that got on her clothes, “did papa give this to you?”

then you turn to him, catching him in the middle of making faces to your toddler to deny your allegations.

“yes! papa! cookies!” your toddler giggles some more.

and you shoot him arched brows and a ‘well?’ kind of look.

“now, which papa is she talking about because it sure isn’t me who gave that to her.” hoseok places his hands on his waist.

“we’ll, talk about this,” you say, and that’s final.

“honey...” he calls after you as you pad towards the bathroom where your child’s bath is long overdue because it’s already 2 in the afternoon and she’s still in last night’s clothes.

“papa! bath!” your child jumps in her spot as you begin to unbutton her shirt.

you shake your head.

kids are so simple minded. you only hope she’ll use hoseok’s wits and your skills to sniff out lies on the boys and girls that’ll be lining up to get even a smidge of attention.

[tomdiddlyumptious]

Can u do a Tom Holland x black actress reader( plays black cat ) has to dye hair silver they are costars in ffh now they are in Spider-Man 3 and they were fwb and now there filming Spider-Man 3 ( they all live in the same house ) and she gets pregnant but ends up having a miscarriage 🥺 and she only tells one person ( zendaya ) and z accidentally tells Tom and he goes crazy on set and security has to get him and he starts yelling at you he gets heated maybe ending in fluff.

THIS IS NOT MY BEST WORK BUT I DID TRY! THANK YOU FOR THE ASK- REQUESTS ARE CLOSED BECAUSE I ONLY HAVE ONE MORE-

Summary: oof

Warnings: fighting, 🔴TW MISCARRIAGE🔴 (bleeding, stomach pains) flushing toilets, people who thought wrong, crying, snapping, fluff, NOT PROOF READ- SORRY I DONT HAVE ANY OTHER PICS THIS IS SOOO LONG- FOR WHY?

You smiled as you looked at the test, thinking about having a child, until you thought about how Tom would feel. You bit your lip as you wrapped the test in toliet paper and threw it in the trash, you stood up and lifted your underwear and pants, very much excited and you washed your hands smiling to yourself in the mirror, you exited the bathroom and laid down with Tom again, he wrapped his arms around your waist “morning” he whispered, kissing your nose. “Morning” you smile, kissing his lips as he was to lazy to kiss back.

“I’m kinda hungry, I’m gonna go in the kitchen” “alright” he he let you go and you went to the kitchen, finding zendaya with the milk in her hand. “Hey” she smiled. “Hi” you shyly said. “What’s going on?” She asked, confused at your words, you quickly sat down next to her. “Well I know you don’t know this so don’t say anything, but I’m pregnant-“ “and who’s the dad?” You sighed before anwsering “Tom”. Her mouth fell agape as she overfilled the bowl and started flowing out. “I- what?” She whispered. “Toms the father” you whispered.

“Do you think he’d be happy?” She says, putting the milk down. “I don’t know” you shrugged. “I’m hoping that he will be-“ “good morning!” Haz says walking in looking at you both as you waved. “Welp we have work soon, we need to dye your hair” “then let’s do it at home!” You smiled, zendaya and haz looking at you as if your crazy. “Do you wanna be bald?” Harrison asked. “Shut up I trust you guys” “but we don’t trust ourselves”

You and Tom had a bond that nobody had, it’s nice honestly, you both started to be fwb whenever, I forgot so I can’t tell you. You killed the audition, had the perfect body, you were just perfect, you and zendaya became instant best friends, Jacob embarrassed himself infront of you which made you bond and haz and you got an emotional connection pretty fast.

“ITS BURNING!” you yelled, turning on the cold water and putting your head under it. “God dammit y/n I told you we shouldn’t have done this” Harrison rolls his eyes. Tom helps you rinse it out, massaging your scalp as he silently laughed at you “if you end up bald we still love you” he commented. “Don’t even Tom” you rolled your eyes, butterflies in your stomach.

It went magnificent! You flat ironed your hair as everyone high fives at their work dancing around you as you moved your waist. You and the rest of the crew went to your dressing rooms, Tom came to yours to get dressed with you. “You look amazing” he complamented, you look at yourself in the mirror, smiling to yourself as you told him thank you, he came behind you and gave a squeeze to your boobs as you let out a shriek. “Ow!” You say grabbing them. “Did I squeeze to hard? What- I squeeze you the same all the time!” He panicked, wondering why your boobs were so tender. “It’s fine they just hurt” you waved it off. “Why?” He asked, “I’m gonna start my period soon” you lied, he nodded at you and ask you to zip him up which you did.

“Alright!” The set manager says, you got ready, on a fake roof about to flip down. “And-“ the person snapped the take part and it was your time to shine.

Black cat flipped down meeting. “Peter Parker is it?” She asked hands behind her back as she walked around Spider-Man. “No- I’m Spider-Man” “stop lying, your boring me already” she said, rolling her eyes. “You sound like someone familiar- Felicia?” He asked, looking at her. “Peter?” She laughed.

“This doesn’t make any sense, your nice!” “And this isn’t nice? Sometimes being nice doesn’t get you anywhere” “look at where it got me!” He yelled raising his arms up like he’s a big shot. “You suck man” she only said. He webbed her hand a punched her in the stomach, making her groan and swipe his feet, climbing ontop of him and starting to claw his face,

“And scene!” You rolled off of him and next to him “nice job” you said. “Pound it” he whispered, raising his fist which you agreed, you gave him a fist bump.

As the week went by you got mood swings, you and Tom hasn’t had sex because you were to fragile, you were currently laying down with zendaya on your phone, silently chatting through text messages. You stomach started to cramp, slowly, as it turned into severe stomach pain, “fuck!” You shouted, holding your stomach. Zendaya placed her phone down as she looked at you “what’s wrong?” “Shit shit shit!” You screamed, clutching your stomach tightly, falling off the bed, holding onto the sheets with your free hand. “Y/n talk to me! What’s wrong?” Tears filled down your face “I-I don’t know- OW!” You sobbed as your stomach cramped more, looking down at your white leggings and seeing blood leaking out of it, zendaya quickly came out of bed and looked at your figure, taking your hand and pulling you to the bathroom, she helped you pull down your pants and your underwear, a bloody mess as you continued to cry, stomach to cramped to even sit down on the toliet.

“I can’t zendaya” you cried, “you have to sit down y/n, use the bathroom” you sat down on the toliet, pushing out something, it didn’t feel like you were pooping, it felt like something slipped out. You gasped as you tried making it leave out of you, squeezing zendayas hands for support as you cried more. “Zendaya?” You asked weakly. “Yes” she replied, worried about you. “Something doesn’t feel right” you looked in the toliet and so did zendaya, finding something in there, someone in there. You closed your legs and weeped, “my baby” you whispered, to desvesistated to talk out loud you didn’t let go of the word baby so quickly, zendaya fell down to her knees and hugged you, hearing your loud cries, sobs, just begging for air, for hope, like that wasn’t what just came out of you. “Zendaya-“ you sobbed “my- my baby” she only hugged you tighter. She started to cry with you, her face in your neck as you cried weakly, the blood in the toliet and the loss of your child. “I’m so sorry- I’m so sorry” she repeated, you held onto her, or at least trying to, your hands shaking as you sucked in your lip. She kissed your cheek on repeat, holding on to you so tight as you were shocked, everything went so fast, only a week past, you couldn’t even comprehend what just happened. It all went down to your stomach, your fear, your anxiety, it was all quaking.

You pushed zendaya away as you threw up in the shower right next to it, almost choking on it, you tried to breath and zendaya helped, “count-count y/n” she reminded you, she counted with you, slowly in and out as you calmed down. “Do you wanna flush?” She asked quietly. “Yeah” you sighed, you got up, pulling up your pants and looking at the small, very small body, you swallowed and zendaya took your hand, signaling you aren’t alone, your shaking hand heastantly flushed the toliet, she pulled you in for a tight hug. “Your gonna take a bath, I’m gonna clean you up and we won’t talk about it”she whispered. “I have to clean it up” “no I will, just go ahead on your room and I’ll set you up for a bath” she whispered. You let her go slowly and made quickly made way to your room, it was no one their but you and zendaya but that’s embarrassing.

You swallowed thickly as you waited for zendaya, mentally counting and zendaya came in, turning on your bath and running it to a tempeture, a nice one. “Hey can you clean yourself up before you get in the bath?” She asked and you nodded, taking care of yourself as zenday stood outside waiting for you. “I’m ready” you whispered, but loud enough for zendaya to hear, you went inside the bathtub, hugging your legs and resting your head on your knees. Zendaya grabbed a wash cloth, dipping it in the water and gently runner it over your back. “I know your not okay but if you need something I’m here, I’m right here” she reminded you, you only nodded as silent tears ran down your face. She continued to rinse you off, taking her time, she rinsed your hair, droplets falling down in the water. You both heard the alarm, someone coming in.

“Take your time, I’ll be right back” she dropped the towel in the water, gonna go see who it is. She left and you sat there, tears still strolling down your face “out of everyone it had to be me” you whispered, crossing your arms as you looked at the ceiling. Maybe this is what you get, maybe this is what you deserve, at least that’s what you thought. Everything happens for a reason? What reason? You quietly cried, covering your mouth to not make any noise. “Y/n?” Zendaya asked, coming in the bathroom. “Yeah?” You whispered. “He wants to see you, I didn’t tell him, he just wants to say hi, I tried to tell him that your doing something important but he says he’s gonna come up here himself soon” she whispered, sniffling. You nodded and she handed you your robe, getting up slowly and holding onto zendaya for support again, stepping out as she looked away, you put on the robe and zendaya said she’ll take care of it again, you put your hair in a bun.

You grabbed a towel to dry your legs and your arms, slowly making your way down you saw Tom, smiling at you and wrapping his arms around your shoulders. “Hiii” he said, rocking you side to side and laughing, but you couldn’t, you just held onto him tighter. “What’s wrong?” He asked, you only started to cry right infront of him, you couldn’t help it, he was clueless. “Nothing” you said. “Ohhh your on your period, I forgot about that, I’ll cuddle you if that’s what you want..” he smiled and you nodded, giving a weak smile. He set his stuff down and grabbed your hand to pull you to his room, you sat on the bed as he took off his shirt and pants, shoes and socks, and laid down with you, taking you into his arms silently, holding you tighter and kissing your forehead, comforting you.

Zendaya opened the door to say something to Tom, not knowing that you were their, from her point of view it looked as if you both were crying and holding onto each other, she closed the door and moved on with her day, she still wants to be there for you but you and Tom need your space.

“Has y/n changed to you?” Tom asked zendaya, both in their suits and outfit. “I mean yeah but we both know why, she’s going through a traumatic period” Tom was confused. “What why?” “What do you mean why... she had a miscarriage- the same day she started crying- I thought she told you-“ zendaya stopped middle sentence “fuck” she whispered. “What the fuck are you talking about zendaya?” He asked, harshly. “Nothing” zendaya remained silent. “So your telling me she had a fucking miscarriage and kept it a secret for two weeks?” Tom said, mostly to himself. “Don’t be hard on her, she’s in a depressing state Tom” zendaya sighed, looking down. “How am i- you know what” he turned around to you, across the room on your phone leaning against the wall, he walked up to you.

“Why the fuck would you tell me” he whispered. “What?” you asked, looking at him. “Why the fuck wouldn’t you tell me?” Tom repeated, getting impatient. “What are you talking about?” You asked, turning off your phone and looking up at him, in fear. “Fuck- look I’m trying to be quiet with you” he banged his fist on the wall next to your head, your eyes started to water. “What are you talking about Tom?” You ask again. “Stop playing dumb!” He said harshly, causing attention to both of you. You jumped “Tommy what are you talking about?” You try to calm him down by placing a hand on his cheek, but he slapped it away, pure hatred filled his eyes. “Don’t fucking Tommy me!” He yelled and you jumped again, the tears falling down your cheeks know, his lips in a tight line. “Why the fuck. Wouldnt you. Tell. Me” you only stayed silent, he banged the wall again screaming at you, ‘why wouldn’t you tell me’ ‘for two weeks? You sat here for two weeks!’’

You tried backing up but you were against the wall, the security grabbed one of his arms while another latched on his other one. He just kept screaming at you, looking in his eyes as tears started to fall down his cheeks, trying to lunge at you, get an answer out of you, you feel down the wall as Tom was backed out, know falling to his knees “y/n, why would you tell me?” He whispered desperate. “I’m so sorry” you said crying in your arms as Harrison came over to you, soon zendaya to. “What happened?” Haz asked, you only cried more, slightly choking on your spit. Just repeating ‘I’m so sorry’ as Tom still tried to reach out to you.

As time passed they got you out of there, and into the house, you sat there in your room, Harrison and zendaya talking outside, crying and crying, your eyes stung and your tears hot, lips dry, sniffling trying to not cry anymore but it was forcing itself out of you. Zendaya stepped in and Harrison followed, sitting next to you and a head on each of your shoulders, you chewed on your lip. “Tom didn’t know what he was thinking, you are okay I promise he won’t hurt you anytime”

Haz whispered to you, rubbing your back as you slowly calmed down. “Out of everyone it was me, I-I don’t know why, I deserve it don’t I? I shouldn’t have anything” “no don’t say that” zendaya shut you up. “Don’t talk down about yourself, it isn’t healthy” “well having a miscarriage isn’t either, but that still happened” “it’s common y/n, your gonna be okay, next time it’ll work” Harrison reassures, smiling up at you and you nodded. Your lip quivered, “what do I say? How do I make it up to him? I kept it for two weeks” you whispered. “Would he ever wanna see me again? We were never together in the first place” you sighed. “He’s gonna be so happy to see you” zendaya said, rubbing your back. “You don’t know th-that” “yes I do, isn’t that right Harrison?” “She always knows, she’s like the writer of our lives, we she made us, it’s true” Harrison laughed, making you silently chuckle. “Seeeee!” Zendaya smiled.

“She didn’t tell me though” Tom said, beer on the coffee table. “How was she supposed to idiot! Oh hi Tom by the way I had a miscarriage” he faked your voice. “Yes! Exactly like that” Tom rolled his eyes. “You have no right to tell someone what to do with their lives, that’s not okay” Harry snapped. “Two weeks? Two fucking weeks! Try that! I could’ve been with her! We could’ve tried again, I was gonna be a father” he sadly sighed. “We could’ve went through it together-“ “your being selfish” “how?” “Who’s the one who carries the baby?” Harry asked, Tom hesitantly said “her” “who’s the one who can actually go through depression?” “Her” he whispered. “Exactly, so stop acting like your the victim when really she is” Tom only swallowed and took the beer for a sip. “Don’t talk to her, give her her time but don’t ignore her either” Harry gave the solution and Tom nodded, dreaming about it for a minute. “Buy her something, like a basket of something” he shrugged.

“I was gonna be a dad Harry” he whispered, biting his lip. “I know that, but somethings aren’t just meant to be” Tom looked at Harry and eyed him from his seat. “How are you gonna tell me it’s not fuckin meant to be? You don’t know shit, I’ll have a child with her one day, no matter how many times I have to fuck her, bust in her, I don’t care, fuck off” he scolded, picking up the beer and walking into the kitchen “thanks for the advice, I’ll put it into some good use” he mumbled, throwing the bottle away as Harry just shrugged as he watched Tom grab his keys and his coat, leaving out the door.

He was gonna give you your space while he bought a few things for you, including essentil oils, daisies, and a type writer with a huge pack of paper for it. He told the people he wasn’t really feeling the best and he had something to really take care of, which they really respected. He took his time driving home, not knowing what to say, he just won’t say anything he guessed.

You were slowly eating your food, haz made you a fruit bowl with some chocolate on the side, nothing to big but a little to make you feel better, you zoned out and z looked out you. “You think she’s ever gonna get past this?” She asked, haz shrugged “I mean she needs support” “it’s my fault though” she looked at haz. He raised his eyebrows at her. “I- I accidently told him, I thought he already knew” she looked down is disappointment. “Then it isn’t your fault, you didn’t know” haz shrugged as zendaya let out a soft sigh, biting her lip as she laid down taking in the silence.

The door opened slowly but the alarm gave it away, Tom walked in, his black shoes stepping in first. You jumped a bit looking infront of you and finding Tom, your anxiety raised through the roof, your hands shaking as you let go of the fruit. “Hey” he said, two bags in his hand as he walked past all of you and went to your room, setting them down. When he came back down he slowly walked to you, not saying any words as you got up and sat in the seat farthest from him, leaving the fruit there, he sighed and only came closer, holding out his hand for you to take, you looked at his hand then at him, what would he do? How does he feel? All these thoughts went through your head, what if’s, what nots. “Please?” He whispered, you swallowed. Putting your hand in his, he lifted you up and traced you to your room.

When you made it you started to speak. “I-“ he cut you off by his hand over your mouth, trying to take off your shirt as you looked at him confused, he only tugged softly, you raised your arms and he pulled it up and over your head, throwing it on the floor, he unbuckled your pants pulling them down, you took out your legs and covered yourself, although you were covered and he’s seen you before, but know it was just different, everything changed. He started to take off his clothes, once he was finished he closed the door and went to your blinds, closing them. He walked up to you and took your hand away, holding onto it and pulling you to your bed, you looked at him and he looked at you, pure silence but you know what he wanted, you laid down and he did infront of you, pulling your hand around his waist.

You both just breathed, his hand holding your wrist and your head on his back, legs under his. His back started to lift and drop as he exhaled roughly, you kissed his back. He broke down. Tears falling down his cheeks as he silently sniffled, you went over him, laying infront of him and he pulled you closer, hugging tightly as hips pressed his forehead to yours. You brushed your hands on his arm, his tears not stopping as he bit his lip, looking at you he shook his head a little. “I’m so sorry” he whispered weakly, and to that you wrapped your leg around his leg, your arm circled around his neck as he continued to cry in your chest, you kissed his head as silent tears ran down your face, looking at the picture of you both in your night stand, his body shaking from him crying and his rough and cold hands holded onto your back, “it’s okay, we can try again” you whispered “we can try again” you repeated, he looked up at him and nodded softly “do you wanna be together? Do you actually want a kid? We’ve only been friends with benefits, we can’t just bring a kid to the table... right?” He mumbled, his voice hoarse.

“Only if you want to” “I do” you nodded at him, agreeing and he hid back in your chest, taking in your scent and how comforting it is. It’s surprising, weren’t you the one who had the miscarriage? Why were you holding him? It didn’t matter, at least you had each other. You both dreamed of it for a while, being together, a small kid in the middle of you both while you sleep, Christmas and how he’d be glowed up to see aunt and uncle zendaya and haz, or even god parents. But the main picture was you two, as long as you to are together nothing can go wrong, he took his hand and brought it to yours, playing with it silently and holding onto it, looking up to you and finding you already asleep, he kissed your lips and squeezed your hand, tired himself.

[404fmdminjung]

self para — reflections

summary: a self-reflection into the psyche of seo minjung. (i got inspired — it’s trash don’t read it). warnings: analogies to suicide tw wc: 1468 

“아빠는 그냥... 네가 행복했으면 좋겠어.” (i just want you to be happy).

it’s the first time she hears those words from her father when she’s twenty-five — not a child, nor does she feel like an adult. (in hindsight, she doesn’t believe him).

in person, her hand cups the aged japanese whiskey (her father’s favorite). lets the pain from gripping onto something cold wash redness over her fragile fingers. she grimaces, clenches it harder — her hand shakes, just like her whole body rumbles from the exhaustion of thoughts and the tear that streamlines down her face.

ugly sobs and in comes the cataclysmic effect of short breaths, heavy chests. she lets go of the glass. lets herself reel in, savor the pang in her chest. it’s no longer freeing, no. it feels like a weight settled heavy, unwavering in the face of the short words.

“난 아빠 한테 죄야.” (to you, i’m only ever a burden). it comes out in muffled sobs and a voice too broken, incoherent.

happiness ��� she doesn’t know where happiness stems from.

—

she flits from one corner to another, her mind in a blanked out grey haze. it blackens out, darker and darker till it all hits — a blacked out mind, and her heart now hides behind coy smiles and rose-tinted words.

when she’s eight, she learns how to deal the cards to a game. 

one fold over and a pretty grin, teeth exposed. inside her eyes bring in the contest for warm conversation and false camaraderie. the type of laughter that frees her chest, and becomes enticing for the poor souls around. here, they feed into it with their hungry hands, reaching deep for the taste of seo minjung.

the voices rattle off the same backhanded sweet nothings that jar her heart more than they offer a billowing sense of an escape — pretty girl, funny girl. draws beautiful pictures of blossoming magnolias, never the lilies. jitae’s daughter, second in the top of her class (my son’s got first).

she learns skepticism early on.

how pearl lined teeth becomes masks for the piranhas of the vast sea, and how easy they are to bite before they entice her in with the bait singing the songs to her praise. (seo minjung never bites. never has, never will).

her mind crafts the boundaries for a make believe world. it’s her and the lonely willow tree in a distasteful breeze. palms behind her back, the branches are enough to cast their shadow — an ablation of the sunshine, she’s never craved it anyways. it’s her taste of permanency inside the four walls of her imagination with her legs crossed and eyes closed. ignorance is bliss, and she’ll only ever be blissfully lonely. 

—

then, she turns ten — she learns the backhanded rush of perfectionism.

it comes when her painting’s on display in tandem with the high marks of class. “she’s bound to the ivys at this rate.” they tell her. 

her lips curve into a smirk, and her father tells her: 넌 진짜 무서운 애야. (you’re a scary child).

when her hearts in play to the weeping willow, she doesn’t learn how to decipher his words nor the narrowed eyebrows that fidget when she stares right into it. what he means is straight, dead-on: nobody knows what your smile is ever thinking or what you’re hiding behind your head.

she learns to play a game with her own parents by age twelve.

it’s when perfection embodies itself in rose-tinted words, circular in motion and weaved in pastels. she lures them into a game one by one, fingers lightly entangled on heartstrings, floating to the rhythm of her bleeding heart. they don’t know, but she knows — they fall like pieces of pawns, and she maneuvers it bit by bit till it all topples. checkmate, she wins. her mother cries.

—

thirteen comes when she’s on the verge of youth in rebellion.

it comes in glimpses of edged words, poised to attack and the isolation that comes in hours inside her room. it’s here she juxtaposes the pieces scattered around to form the willow tree — she’s lonely, but she never admits it. the noose around her neck becomes tighter with the expectations that grow by the day — a sister bound for the hollow mold laid out for her. and she’s still, the lonely girl settled underneath the willow, sketching away.

it’s habitual when the ribbons of golden hues peek through the curtain, and lodge themselves against her bed. knees against her chest, she steadies herself in shallow holds — one two three. 

eyes swollen in heavy steps, she makes one by one into the corridor of their dogok-dong apartment (the second apartment in the past twelve years, the fourth move). she passes the first room, her brother’s asleep — the second, and her sister’s already made a home somewhere in a boarding school far off. vacancy, and she’s never felt more whole. 

it’s when she shuffles in lazy steps, she’s greeted — “일찍 일어났네.” (you woke up early)

“잠이 안 와.. 피곤하네.” (i couldn’t sleep — i’m tired.)

“네가 그러는거니까 할 말이 없네. 다시 들어가서 자라.. 3시간 뒤에 학원가야지.” (since you do this to yourself, i have nothing to say. go back and sleep, you have hakwon in three hours). 

“나 학원 안 갈래. 이제 내 일에 신경 쓰지마” (i don’t want to go to hakwon, stop caring about what i do.)

“알아서해" (do as you please).

(but she knows, it’s the kickstart to an implosion ready to happen when her father dims down, subdues himself to the nighttime curse where her mother becomes relegated to a casualty, wounded by the war of words.)

she takes it by stride, one by one. confident steps inside a dead-beat silence kitchen, so quiet that only the stream of water shatters it. there’s no exchange of eyes, just the smirk that rests on her head: fuck this.

—

fifteen comes when she’s helpless.

a sister already on the verge of the ivies and a brother following in the footsteps. an outcast, it’s spoken inside her head as she clutches the sketchbook tighter in hopes for an escape.

she doesn’t draw the magnolias today, nor does she dip into the vibrancy of lilies. instead comes the outlines of the willows, grey. withering. dead.

boston’s cold, but enough that she cracks a window. lets the breeze singe the tip of her nose, enough for the red sheet to occur. dead of night, her father calls her down with her mother evidently too tired in her subtle shakes of her head.

“넌 야망이 없어. 어쩔수없다. 아빠는 그래도 이거라도 추천할게.. 네가 알아들을지는 모르겠지만.” (you have no ambition, nothing we can do with you. still, i’ll recommend this whether you listen or not)

there’s silence that ticks when the cracks of the wooden chair creak as she slips into it. her gaze averted, she pays more attention to the white walls which feel eerie, and never like home.

“연예인 해라. 넌 그거 밖에 안 된다.” (become a celebrity, you only have that going for you.)

seo minjung pulls together another grin, shakes her head. doesn’t say a word into the radio silence that feeds into the thickness in the air — she’s never listened to a word he says, only ever drumming to the hums of her own push. 

but for once, the weeping willow roots itself in seoul. bound, and never willing to let go.

— 

twenty-two comes with remorse.

the limelight on stage, and public eyes hungrier and more ravenous than the talks when she was eight. this time, they’re louder — starved for attention as they dig their nails into her flesh. piece by piece, they tear her apart till nothing’s left but the barren smile she learned when she was ten.

her father’s face no longer looks like it had three years past. his eyes wearier, the effects of time strangling him whole. grey hairs form faster, she notices he starts to get his hair dyed. (her heart cracks, just a notch). and when she sees her mom in her frail hands and wistful smile — her heart shatters, and the replay of past choices come to broad daylight.

before she swims, she voices — “i can, i’m the best swimmer.” 

but the bristles of the tree in her makeshift reflect honesty: “you don’t know how to swim.”

so, she jumps in head first, eyes casted to the rest of the faces. her body moves, wades through — catches up. and when she looks back, she’s come to realize: she swims.

yet, the continuation ceases and the dance of harp strings wedge themselves deep inside her mind. 

she jumps from sea to land only to gasp for air when she’s drowning ten feet under.

[singingunderthecurtain]

DIAMOND (CEO AU Baekhyun Series) Part 20

Author: @julietsoddeye​ AU: CEO!Baekhyun Genre: Angst | Smut | Romance Pairing: (in this chapter) Baekhyun x Lee Soojin (OC) | Junmyeon x Yanmei (OC) | Chanyeol x Hisako (OC) Word Count: 5.5K Trigger Warning: Strong Language, Gun Use, Blood, and Physical Violence

Plot: After 10 years of exile to another country, Soojin is finally back home and was surprised to find out that she was already engaged to the son of her father’s long-time friend and business partner.

Diamond Mini Mansterlist

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20

“Don’t fucking panic, guys!”

Hisako yelled suddenly as she was pacing around the small space provided for her in front of everyone. Friends are all gathered in Baekhyun’s office, figuring out where Soojin might be. Yanmei then grabs Hisako’s wrist to pull and squeezes her in between her and Jongdae. The man has no other option but to scoot farther away from Yanmei so that Hisako can properly sit down.

“Nobody’s panicking, only you.”

Yanmei said matter-of-factly rolling her eyes at her friend, Hisako pouted like a child as a response. She can tolerate this crazy attitude of hers just as long as she provided a barricade between her and Jongdae.

It has already been two and a half days since Soojin has gone AWOL. President Lee Seungho almost had another heart attack when they found out that his daughter was missing. Both Soojin and Baekhyun’s mothers were inconsolable with the news, they kept crying when Soojin’s name is ever mentioned.

After the Twenty Four hour mark of her absence, private security and investigation companies were called, but not the Police. They knew the media would soon find out that the Heiress of the Lee clan and soon-to-be Daughter-in-law of the Byuns, and sure news about her disappearance would blow up if they decided to ask for the Police’s help. They didn’t want unwanted attention from anyone or anything at this point, reporters and journalists will swarm their buildings and homes and that will definitely affect their stocks.

“Shouldn’t you be at work today?”

Jongdae snarked, suddenly annoyed at Hisako even though it wasn’t her fault that he was blocked from being next to Yanmei.

“How can I go to work when one of my two best friends is missing?” Hisako snarled her lips at Jongdae. “Also, President Seungho told me to take a break.”

“You think she’s been kidnapped?”

“Yes, probably. Soojin-ssi wouldn’t just suddenly run away like that.”

Mia answers Baekhyun’s question immediately.

Everyone fell silent for a while. They all have sullen-look in their faces, the wedding is just right around the corner, why is this happening now?

Baekhyun felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, he must have accidentally put it on silent. Looking at the screen, he was jolted to see that Soojin is calling him. 

“What is it, bro?”

Yixing saw the bewilderment in his friend’s eyes and everyone’s attention snapped to Baekhyun as he sat on his office table with his jaws hanging down.

“I–It’s S–Soojin.”

“Answer it!!!”

Soojung pushed through people to get near Baekhyun. Her eyes were blown big as she waits for her future brother-in-law’s next move.

With quivering hands, Baekhyun slides accept the call and put his phone on his left ear.

“H–Hello?”

“Listen Byun Baekhyun, I know you’re probably surrounded by people right now. Pretend like this is Soojin…”

“Okay…”

Baekhyun answers with a shake in his voice, everyone looks at him expecting a piece of good news. He recognized the person on the other line and already know who the person was behind all this and his blood is already boiling with anger.

“We have your fiancé and if you still want to see her alive, you will do as I tell you. Understood?”

“Okay,”

Baekhyun repeats his one-line answer, lips quivered and nose flared when he hears Soojin screaming for help in the background.

“You will meet me at the address that I will be texting you... alone. And then you will come with me. Don’t let anyone follow you or I will make sure my men will put a bullet through Lee Soojin’s skull. You don’t want a dead bride at your wedding, am I being clear?”

“BAEKHYUN, BAEKHYUN NO! DON’T LISTEN TO TH—”

“SHUT UP, BITCH! Shut her up before I punch her unconscious once again!”

Baekhyun hears loud banging noises until he can’t hear Soojin’s screams and cries anymore. He hits his fist on his table, grinding his teeth together to suppress his anger.

“What? What’s happening?!”

Seungmin was about to snatch the phone away, but Baekhyun motions for him to stop.

“Do you hear that, Byun? Now be a good boy and don’t fuck shit up for me!”

The call ended abruptly and it took a few moments before Baekhyun’s inside battles clammed enough to answer everyone’s loud questions.

“Baekhyun-ah,”

Seungmin sounded straight-up begging now, the desperation in his tone made it a little harder for Baekhyun to lie. He is deliberating what sort of bullshit he will tell Soojin’s brother. He needs to be careful or they will kill his Fiancé for sure.

“I…”

Baekhyun trails off, suddenly zoning out again.

“Oppa, please.”

It was Soojung, this time, to beg Baekhyun. Begging to know what was going on. She can see the feat in Baekhyun’s eyes and she’s worried what sort of danger her sister is in.

“Sooj– She wants me to meet her… Soojinnie.”

Baekhyun stutters.

“It was Soojin eonni on the phone?”

“Y–Yes.”

Baekhyun’s phone dinged with another notification and sure enough, it was Soojin’s number they used again and he starts scrambling on to his feet, grabbing his motorbike keys out of the many vehicular keys inside his office table drawer.

“Please, guys… I need to go.”

Baekhyun was stopped mid-run by Junmyeon, he looks back at everyone to see them all confused and puzzled by his sudden odd behavior.

“What is happening, Baekhyun-ah?”

Junmyeon tightens his grip on Baekhyun’s arm when he tries shaking him off. Sehun and Jongdae then grasp his other arm when he suddenly bolted and tries to escape. 

Every single person in his office probably thinks he’s about to or has already gone insane, but right now is not the time to care about that. He needs to go because the text message only gave him an hour to get there or they will get rid of her - immediately. He has no other options but to just go there even if he wasn't sure they were tricking him or not.

He has so save Soojin!

“Baekhyun, relax! Use your words, please.”

Yanmei pushed pass bodies to touch Baekhyun’s cheek, using her ‘teacher approach’ she practices with her students daily. Baekhyun slumps when he felt his fiancé’s best friend’s warm hands on his face. It reminded him of the warmth Soojin shows him every single day even though he probably doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve her and now she’s at the hands of bad people and it’s his fault.

“Mei-Mei, please…”

“Tell me, Baeks it’s okay.”

Baekhyun’s tears are pouring like rain, he just wanted them to let him go but he can’t verbalize what he wanted them to do.

“Baekhyun-ah.”

Jongdae pushes on, shaking Baekhyun’s arm that he was holding.

“Jongdae, no—”

Yanmei warns her ex and Jongdae immediately silenced with the mention of his name straight from her lips.

“Baekhyun? Talk to me.”

She returns her attention to the aggravated man once again, gently coaxing him to speak. It took a while before Baekhyun calms down from his sobbing and he finally found his voice, determined to save the woman he only ever loved in his life.

“Guys, please… Please trust me. Don’t follow me or they will kill her.”

“Hyung, what are you saying?”

Sehun interjects.

“I need to go… NOW! Or they will kill Soojin and if that happens, I will never, ever forgive myself for it. Do you understand me? I have no time?!”

Baekhyun starts screaming now to no one in particular.

“Oh my God! What are we gonna... What are we gonna fucking do?”

Hisako then paces back and forth again, Chanyeol pulling her arms to embrace her, pushing her face to his chest. She starts bawling her eyes out when she felt his warm chest on her cheeks, his tight embrace around her body.

“Let go of him.”

Mia all of a sudden speaks, still seated in one of the chairs in the office. Her face was calm, but her feet are quavering into place in agitation.

“What?”

Sehun yells, mouth ajar as he looks back and forth between Mia and Seungmin. Seungmin just stares back at his younger cousin with no answer to the silent question in his eyes.

“I said let go of Baekhyun!”

“Are you a fucking lunatic?”

Yanmei protests, suddenly angry at Mia’s rash decision.

“And why are you even still here, Mia? Hasn’t Soojin already fired you? Why are you still lingering around us, you fucking psycho?!”

Yanmei added, her ears obviously beaming red with anger.

“Yanmei-ssi!!!”

Seungmin infiltrates, pulling Yanmei’s arm harder than he intended to and she yelps in pain.

“Hyung!”

Junmyeon and Jongdae bellow simultaneously. Jongdae lets go of Baekhyun as Seungmin releases Yanmei wrist.

“I–I’m so… I’m sorry, I– Didn’t mean to.”

Seungmin apologizes profusely as Yanmei clutches her wrist.

“Baby, are you okay?”

Jongdae ran to Yanmei's side, grabbing her arms with gentle care to examine it. Yanmei was too lost for words or reactions and so she lets him comfort her.

“What is happening?”

Sunmi starts sobbing silently with no idea what was going on, only hearing the commotion around her. Yixing instantly pulls the poor weeping girl in the farthest corner of the room to calm her down.

“Sunmi, everything will be just fine, okay? Do you trust oppa?”

Yixing starts whispering comforting words to her ears.

“Yes,”

Sunmi replies, although still crying. But Yixing’s soft and gentle words are very effective at making her nerves quiet down a bit to stop her lament.

“I’m so sorry you have to hear this, love. We can go if you want to.”

“No, oppa. I want to know what’s happening, we need to find Soojin eonni.”

She juts her lower lip out, tears ready to be shed just thinking about her oldest sister being gone without a trace.

“Just… Trust me and let go of Baekhyun.”

Mia insisted on with both boldness and assurance. Her eyes were burning with determination, but her heart is somewhat scared of the ten percent chance that all the plans might turn into shit. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen or she will not only fail Soojin, who has already become a big part of her life, but also Seungmin. He trusted everything on her, she can’t let him down... ever. It would totally break her heart.

Seungmin nods towards Sehun and Junmyeon, both looked at each other before hesitantly letting Baekhyun go.

Baekhyun bolted out of the door right away with his newfound freedom.

“I hope you’re not digging yourself a grave with that decision, Mia.”

Yanmei yaks at Mia, pushing Jongdae’s embrace away from her and went for the door also. Both Junmyeon and Jongdae followed immediately after her.

The rest were quiet and it was quite a deafening silence for Mia. But before her mind spiraled into insanity, Seungmin reaches his arms towards her and envelopes her shoulders with comfort. Him cradling her like a lost child, she couldn’t help her tears but spill like a dam letting water out.

— – — – —

It was wise of Baekhyun to have grabbed his bike keys instead of any of his many cars, it’s a Friday night and the traffic jam is insane in the rush hour. 

He can’t let anything happen to Soojin, not now that their wedding is just right around the corner. 

Not now that they can really, finally call each other theirs, that they belong with each other only. 

He parks his bike on a random alleyway where the location was pinged. 

Immediately after he killed the motor off of his bike, get down from it and removed his helmet, a man in all black clothes and dark hat grabbed his arm forcefully and drag him where a black van is waiting.

“Come with me and don’t make a sound.”

Immediately, Baekhyun knows who it was by the tone of the voice.

Kim Namjoon.

Taeyeon’s younger brother. 

“Aah, Namjoonie… It’s been a long time—”

“Don’t fucking call me that as if you’re still Noona’s boyfriend!”

Namjoon cut Baekhyun’s affinity quickly with a harsh dismissive tone. Baekhyun, as a reply, laughed tauntingly at his captor.

“You’ve seen how your sister treated me when we were still together, Namjoon. I can’t stay with a woman like that.”

“You’re just the same, Hyung.”

Namjoon puts a sarcastic emphasis on the word Hyung as if to mock Baekhyun with fake politeness. There was never any camaraderie between Baekhyun’s and Namjoon’s set of friends. There was always a silent rivalry between them ever since they were young.

“I only repaid her for what she did to me. To be honest with you, your sister’s sins are much heavier than mine. I just dated around, meanwhile, Taeyeon sleeps with any man she encounters when we’re fighting.”

Baekhyun sneers and Namjoon pushes him inside the van that has two other people inside who he recognizes as Namjoon’s friends, Yoongi and Jimin. 

“Don’t you dare talk about my sister like that, you asshole!”

Namjoon grabs Baekhyun by the collar and slams him on the vehicle wall. 

Baekhyun groans slightly when the back of his head hits hard on the other side of the heavily tinted van window. 

His head was then wacked using a loaded gun by Yoongi and the last thing he remembers before he lost his consciousness was that a sack-like material was being put on his head and then everything went black…

“What took you so fucking long?!”

Taeyeon stood up from Seokjin’s lap when she finally sees the door of the room opens.

Namjoon is walking in front while Yoongi and Jimin are just close behind, dragging a tied up and very unconscious Baekhyun along like a piece of dead meat. Jungkook, the youngest and the newest member of their friend circle took a chair and settles it in front of a deeply wounded and very weak Soojin who was also tied up to an uncomfortably cold and metallic chair.

“Noona, it’s the rush hour traffic… I’m sorry.”

Taeyeon’s hard look softened a bit when she sees her brother almost shaking in fear of what she will do to him for being late.

The two sat Baekhyun up on the chair and tied him to it in a similar way they tied Soojin.

“It’s okay, baby brother… Noona understands. Did you get the gun I specifically asked for?”

“Yes, Noona. It’s here.”

Namjoon handed a small velvety gun case to Taeyeon, her smile widens when she grabs it and felt the soft case on her fingertips.

“Good boy. You’re not as useless as what our parents make you seem to be, hmm.”

Taeyeon briefly pats her brother’s head and walked towards a nearby table and carefully places the case down. Her boyfriend, Seokjin, offered to open up the case for her and she gave him a quick kiss on the lips before she let him open up the case for her.

Both of their faces lit up when the light hits the rose gold revolver gun in all the right places. The dark mahogany hand grip compliments the glimmer of the handheld gun really well. 

“Beautiful.”

Seokjin sighs looking between the gun and Taeyeon.

“I hope you’re talking about me, Jin...”

One of Taeyeon’s brows raised as she asked. She took her younger boyfriend’s face, her long red nails scratching slightly on to his smooth face.

“Of course, baby. Nothing shines brighter than you.”

“Correct answer.”

She lets his face go and returns her attention back to the handheld gun she especially purchased just for this very occasion.

If she can’t have Baekhyun, no one will.

Especially not Soojin. Hell no.

— – — – —

“Report?!”

Mia roars as the heavily-armed door guards slams open the production floor of their headquarters as she arrived with her entourage. All the staff's heads turned towards her and straighten their positions upon the arrival of their biggest boss.

“Bugs 2012, 2014 and 2015, eyes and ears are inside of the property since 20190304. Targets one, two and three were seen leaving the property at oh-two-twenty-three. Three fawners are left inside to man and be on the lookout, about five fawners are scattered outside. Pawns one and two are alive, but unconscious.” 

Mia sighs in relief when she hears the report from one of her skilled men.

“Do you know what their condition is right now aside from being unconscious?”

Mia asks and Seungmin bit the inside of his lower lip, waiting for the answer as the man types in on his computer.

“Latest update, oh-three-oh-seven, Pawn-one is heavily bruised all around the body, bleeding from the side of the head and has been unconscious for fifteen hours. Last meal offered twenty hours ago, rejected and then received a few slaps from Target-one…”

He paused for a bit to breathe in deeply before reading on the second report.

“Latest update, oh-three-oh-seven, pawn-two bleeding from the nose, a few bruisings on the face and body and has been unconscious since or even before arrival at twenty-two-oh-five.”

“Fuck! Is pawn-one my sister...?”

With Seungmin’s silent question, Mia hesitantly nodded her head. His knees caved and couldn’t control how he knelt on the pavement, with Mia catching him as he falls. She sat him down on one of the couches on the production floor.

Seungmin couldn’t help but cry.

How could such a thing happen to her sister and his childhood friend? How could he let it happen to them?

“It’s my fault! It’s all my fault, I shouldn’t have brought my sister or Baekhyunnie into this mess.”

Seungmin howls, punching and hitting his own thighs as if it’s going to make things better for everyone. Mia immediately wraps the man inside her embrace to stop him from hurting himself.

“Stop that!”

She warns.

“We always knew there was a threat—”

“But I never knew the threat is as near as it is!!! Who knew a woman like Kim Taeyeon can do such an evil thing! Even to Baekhyun, her ex-boyfriend”

Seungmin laments some more.

“She’s the daughter of the devil himself, of course, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”

Seungmin laughs as he realizes that Taeyeon’s father, who is one of the biggest share-holders of the Byun Group of Companies, is a vile man in silence. There were rumors about him being linked to the mafia and that he has been paying his way to be on the top.

“Yeah, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree…”

Mia whispers as she plots ways to capture the whole family of their crookedness

— – — – —

Diamonds.

Diamond eyes.

Millions of diamonds surround her. Like stars in the sky, they shine so brightly even without a source of light.

“Please come home…”

She begs.

“Come back home, eonni…”

The diamond-eyed little girl sheds holographic tears.

“Soojin eonni, please…”

AMMONIA.

The smell of ammonia. 

The ammonium inhalant shoots signals to her brain to wake up. The vile and putrid smell of it almost made her want to vomit, only if there’s something inside her stomach. But there is none. 

Soojin hasn’t eaten a bite of anything they give her since she was abducted, what, maybe five days now. She is not really sure, she doesn’t have a sense of time anymore because she was just there. 

No mornings, no nights. Soojin was just there, constrained not only by the ropes tied around her weak body but also by the evils of Taeyeon and her sycophants. It feels like months now and she misses Baekhyun so bad. She’s not even sure if she will see him ever again. If he’ll ever see her alive again.

“Good morning, Princess.”

A familiar voice greets her.

It’s a very familiar voice, and not in a good way, that has been haunting her for days already. That’s why she would just rather be unconscious and unaware of everything around her. The nightmares she had before may be back, but at least those nightmares won’t cause her physical pain.

She says the wrong thing, Taeyeon will slap her in the face or hit her with whatever she has on hand.

Breathes the wrong way, Namjoon will punch her stomach or kick her sides.

Doesn’t take the food they give? They will swing her head with a gun.

Whatever she does, they beat her up.

“I was so worried you won’t wake up. Oh! Thank God you’re not dead yet.”

Even though she is in her current state, beat up, weak and hurting in all places, she still did not miss the sarcasm in her voice.

“Fuck you, Taeyeon.”

She coughs the moment she spoke and spits up a combination of blood and phlegm. Taeyeon jumps up, face sours when Soojin’s bloody phlegm spatters on her shoe.

“MY FUCKING DIAMOND JIMMY CHOO!!! CLEAN IT OFF, RIGHT NOW!!! FUCK!!!”

Taeyeon panics, hitting her boyfriend, Seokjin on the arms as she screams as if she’s being swallowed whole by the ground. Seokjin then starts panicking as well, as he cringes by both the vision of Soojin’s bloody cough on his girlfriend’s expensive shoes that he bought for her last birthday.

“Get me a fucking rug or some shit!”

Seokjin snarls at Jungkook, their youngest and the group’s gofer.

“Don’t fucking use a rug, you stupid piece of shit! I have some wet wipes in my purse!!!”

Jungkook then starts panicking also, a rug already on his other hand and Taeyeon’s small bag on his other. Namjoon rolls his eyes at the commotion, snatches his sister’s handbag from the younger man and grabbed a handful of wet towelette and wiped the bloody discharge from the shoes himself.

Soojin is painfully laughing at the dumb assery in front of her, but the moment she saw a glimpse of Baekhyun from behind all of them, she starts choking on her spit and tears already starts welling on the side of her eyes.

“Baek… Is that… BAEKHYUN!!!”

Her scream was piercing and it made everyone stop fussing and Baekhyun to stir awake.

“That’s right bitch, your Prince Charming is dumb enough to save you.”

Taeyeon unintentionally kicks her brother off as she starts walking in the direction of Soojin again. She grabs her by the hair and made her look into her eyes.

“Hurt me all you want, Taeyeon, I am begging you. Don’t touch Baekhyun.”

“Too late. My men already tainted his pretty face.”

Taeyeon pushes Soojin’s head forward as she lets go of her hair.

“Stop! Stop it right now, Taeyeon. Let us go and we will all forget about this.”

It’s Beakhyun’s turn to negotiate with his ex. His lips quivered when he finally saw the complete condition of Soojin. His heart breaks seeing how bloody and beat up the woman he loves. She’s probably just as damaged, if not more, on the inside.

“Oh sure.”

Taeyeon suddenly pipes.

“Go ahead, Yoongi, Jungkook, let them go. Go on!”

Baekhyun’s eyes lit up as he turns his eyes from Taeyeon to Soojin whose head is bowed down in exhaustion. Blood, sweat, and tears dripping from her face simultaneously. His ex’s laughter then woke him up from the few seconds of false hope he felt.

His face painted disappointment all over when he looks back at Taeyeon who is now smirking slyly at him.

“You’re stupid to think I’d let you go just like that, darling.”

Slowly, like a ghost in the night, Taeyeon plods her feet one by one on the direction of the table where her gun is settled. Neatly tucked in a velvet and silk case. Tracing her fingers delicately on the metal object before grabbing it, making sure it’s a complete seven shots of bullets.

Seeing the complete seven shots, Taeyeon then makes her way back in front of Soojin, who seems to be unconscious once again.

“Wake up, bitch!”

Taeyeon slaps Soojin’s bloody face to wake her up, causing Soojin to moan in pain.

“Baekhyunnie, say goodbye to your precious bride…”

Taeyeon aims the small gun at Soojin’s head. Soojin just stared at the gun directly, probably too weak and too tired to even recognize a gun that’s being pointed directly at the middle of her forehead.

“TAEYEON! STOP!”

Baekhyun cries.

“Okay, okay.”

Taeyeon drops the aim. And Baekhyun chokes with his own emotions.

“I’m gonna count from ten to one... So you at least still have a little more time seeing her before I blow her brains out.”

Taeyeon’s manic laughter can be heard from miles away and it sent shivers down Baekhyun’s spine knowing that in ten seconds, he will be losing the woman he is supposed to love until his dying day. 

Hopefully, Taeyeon kills him too because he’s sure he couldn’t live without Soojin. 

It would be painful to imagine what their wedding might have looked like, what her wedding dress would look like on her, how they will be spending their honeymoon, to what their children might look like. Will they have his eyes, Soojin’s cute nose? Will they also get their mother’s intellect or will they get his quirky personality?

“TEN!”

Baekhyun snaps from his day-nightmare when he hears Taeyeon’s scream. She had her gun pointed at Soojin’s head again.

“Taeyeon…”

Baekhyun begs.

“NINE!”

She screams, voice shaking with nervous excitement and adrenaline.

“TAEYEON-AH!!! PLEASE!”

He begs once more.

“EIGHT!”

“Taeyeon, please… Don’t do this.”

Baekhyun’s tears are starting to wet the dried blood on his face and he’s ignoring the taste of salt and iron on his lips.

“YOU MADE ME DO THIS BAEKHYUN! SEVEN!”

Everyone around them is just silent, just clammed up with the commotion happening in front of them. Some are obviously disturbed by the fact that Taeyeon is committing a crime and they are being accessory to it. Some are just neutral, maybe even impassive and detached.

“SIX!”

“Taeyeon…”

“FIVE!”

“Please… Please…”

You can hear the defeat in Baekhyun’s voice.

“FOUR!”

Baekhyun stopped fussing, but his tears continue.

“THREE!”

Taeyeon cocks the gun and places her pointer finger on the trigger.

“TWO!”

Baekhyun’s life with Soojin flashes before his eyes and it just made him sob really hard.

“ON—”

And before Taeyeon can scream the last number completely, a silent sniper bullet hits her shoulder and caused her to outbalance and pull the trigger accidentally hitting Namjoon on his thigh.

The Sister-Brother duo both scream in agony as multiple men in black clothing and bullet-proof vests enter the scene.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends and family, we are gathered here today to witness and celebrate the union of Byun Baekhyun and Lee Soojin in marriage. Through their time together, they have seen their love and understanding of each other grow and blossom and now they have come to recognize that their personal hopes, dreams, and goals are more possible and more purposeful through the combined effort and mutual foundation provided in love, commitment, and family; and so they have decided to live out the rest of their lives as one.”

The marriage officiant starts.

It was a beautiful day at a peach orchard in Yongin. This 100 acres land is owned by Yixing’s family and Soojin and Baekhyun have the best memory in this place. 

Yixing brought them here on a previous time to pick Peach and other fruits that are on the property and this is where Baekhyun first fell in love with Soojin so they decided to do their wedding here.

Soojin and Baekhyun are currently hand in hand, shaking with excitement, sporting their own bruises from the previous incident they experienced at the hands of Kim Taeyeon. Who is now in jail for kidnapping and attempted murder alongside her five lackeys.

But none of it matters now, because they are finally in front of everyone, affirming their love for each other. It may have started as an arranged marriage, but they are glad they actually fell hard head over heels for each other. It’s not always you get to choose the one you spend your life with, especially in their circle. They are lucky they were the perfect match from the beginning.

“I, Baekhyun, take you, my Soojinnie, to be my wife, my best friend, my faithful partner and the love of my life from this day forward. In the presence of our family and friends, I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful husband and partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you forever, unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.”

Baekhyun gingerly places her wedding band next to her the engagement ring that’s still on her finger. Even through all the beatings the ring and the Diamond are still intact, shining beautifully in the beautiful daylight.

“I, Soojin, take you, my bubu… Baekhyun,”

Soojin paused to giggle along with the crowd.

“to be my husband, my best friend, my faithful partner and my love from this day forward. In the presence of our family and friends, I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful husband and partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live.”

Soojin also places his wedding band on his ring finger and they both gave each other tight hand squeezes after.

“Before we proceed, should anyone here present know of any reason that this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

The officiant jumps in before officially ending the ceremony.

“Hell no, no one’s stopping the wedding!”

Chanyeol hollers from the groomsmen side, Baekhyun, and Soojin with playfulness in their eyes!

“Well then… By the power vested in me by the Republic of South Korea, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now seal the ceremony with a kiss!”

Baekhyun gently reached for Soojin’s jaw and she slightly tiptoed to reach Baekhyun halfway for their first kiss as husband and wife.

“I now give you, the newlyweds, Byun Baekhyun-ssi and Lee Soojin-ssi!

Every single soul in the property that is part of the wedding rejoiced. Finally, the much-awaited wedding happened and they couldn’t be happier.

~~~

Sunmi and Yixing came to the wedding as an official new couple as well. 

Sunmi finally found the courage to tell Yixing how she feels and surprisingly for her, the man actually feels the same as she did.

Yixing was glad Sunmi was the one to confess first because if not for it, he will probably never tell her that he is in love with her.

~~~

Turns out, Mia is the “maid” Soojin’s brother, Seungmin, ran away with.

Mia is definitely not a maid, she is actually a leader of a private security agency who has been serving The Byuns and The Lees for years. 

Mia and Seungmin met in College and have been together since.

Seungmin connived with Mia, Baekhyun, and Minseok a plan to seek revenge for what their father did to her sister, Soojin.

They explained everything to Soojin and she finally understood now why everything happened. Although the incident with Taeyeon was not according to plan. They have always known her family is shady, but they never post any threat to anyone so they have let their guards down in regards to that.

But good thing, they planted small tracking devices on both Soojin and Baekhyun’s phones and clothing just for security purposes. And that’s why they were able to see their location and save them from the hands of evil.

~~~

Taeyeon and her crew are now in jail and they will be for a long time, Chairman Byun made sure of that.

Taeyeon’s father has been terminated and shamed for what his daughter and all his shady activity with the Byun Conglomerate.

~~~

Hisako and Chanyeol and keep their hands to themselves all throughout the wedding. 

They don’t hide the fact that they are displaying skinship on public and when people ask, they just shrug their shoulders and say they’re really good friends.

~~~

Yanmei went to the wedding as Junmyeon’s date, wearing the necklace he gave her.

Jongdae went alone.

But he saw her still wearing the bracelet he gave her.

~~~

"It– it wasn't your fault."

"What?"

"It wasn't your fault, I'm sorry."

"Ten years... I suffered ten years away from you. And you're saying that now?

"I'm sorry… We only found out a few years after I sent you away. I was too ashamed to let you know that I made a mistake. My pride ate me, I’m sorry."

Soojin just smiled and gave her Dad a warm hug.

“It’s okay dad. I forgive you and I understand. I’m still thankful for what happened. If not for that, I might actually turn out to be like Taeyeon, who knows?”

Both of them laugh.

“And thank you, dad, because if not for you, I wouldn’t have met Baekhyun.”

…

And so…

They lived the rest of their lives…

Happy…

Or not?

Aikie Masterlist | Michiko Masterlist | FIC RECS | FIC REC SIDEBLOG

[mirthless-misanthrope]

Safety (Jotaro Kujo Imagine)

A/N: wow look! i wrote a sad :( but there’s some fluff at the end! so that’s cool

Trigger Warnings: child neglect, family issues, physical abuse (from parents), a whole lotta fear

enjoy!

Being the neighbor of the Kujo family is odd, but more pleasant than one might expect. Holly is a lovely person to live by! She always checks in on us in our house, making sure we’re getting used to the neighborhood and everything, and she sometimes brings her son, Jotaro over as well. I never leave my room when they come over, but I can see them from my window… I want to say hello to them each time they come over. The issue? Well… to put it lightly, my family.

Family is supposed to be important and supportive. It’s quite a shame that mine isn’t either of those things when it comes to me. My older siblings get all the attention and praise, but me? No, I get to be the butt of every joke, the failure child, the mentally unstable mess… And all because I’m different from everyone in the family. My passions are more with the arts than with science or home ec, and my family hates me for it. They want me to go off and get a job making a lot of money, just like they say to my siblings, but they drill the point into my head so much that it’s a nuisance more than anything. So I stay in my room all the time in an effort to stay away from their prying eyes and minds.

I’m Jotaro’s age, my siblings being older than him, and yet I’ve never spoken to him before. He seems intimidating. And considering my timid self, I don’t think he would talk to me even if I left my room and greeted him. His eyes would likely just pierce into my very soul and glare at me… and then he would scoff and dismiss me, just like my father does each time I try to show him something I make. Just that in itself is enough of a reason to never speak to him.

And so I don’t.

I don’t talk to him for an entire year.

But it turns out, Fate wants to bring us together eventually.

It’s my second year of high school now. I should be happy, but… my family has been having issues. Like, serious issues. Mom and Dad keep fighting, their screams so piercing that I’m shocked nobody’s called the police on them yet, and they even bring my siblings and I into the fights. They get completely drunk and lose all sense of morality as they beat on us (and each other). It’s the worst environment to be living in, so my siblings both move out as soon as they can…

Which leaves me there, trapped with the two monsters that are my parents until I finish high school.

Yeah, it’s kind of the worst time. I hide in my room still, but they get so wasted that they shatter my privacy and barge in whenever they want, fists and belts poised to attack me. I put up with it… What else am I supposed to do? I can’t tell anybody since my parents would likely kill me, I can’t call the police since, well, my dad is a police officer, I can’t run since they would find me anyway (again, my dad is a police officer and would send out a search party as soon as he noticed I was missing)... Nobody prepared me for a situation like this. 

...

Saturday nights are always the worst, but this one in particular is the worst one of all. They’re usually good about staying away from my face... so the harsh smack I get across my cheek startles me into tears. That’s not the only injury they give me, but it’s the one that’s out of the ordinary, and it’s the one that leads me outside in the icy air. 

I’m not running away. My feet just carry me around without a destination in mind. I walk past the Kujo household and stop in my tracks when I see Holly outside, humming to herself until she notices my presence and gasps. “Oh my god,” she rushes up to me, “are you okay? Here, come inside, you’re hurt, I’ll help you.” The feeling of her hand on my wrist makes me flinch but I know she won’t harm me… so I follow her into the Kujo household, eyes wandering around until I notice Jotaro reading a book on their sofa. Marine biology…? Interesting, I think to myself as I look at the book he’s reading.

“Here, put this on your cheek,” Holly hands me an ice pack, making me snap my gaze to her and nod as I take the ice pack and hold it against my cheek. “What’s your name, dear?” Her voice coaxes me into speaking. I tell her my full name and she gasps, seeming surprised. “Wait, you live right next door, don’t you? I know your parents and your siblings… They never mentioned you.” She frowns. “We’ve gone over there plenty of times, so it’s strange that I haven’t heard them say anything. But, who did this to you? Are there… any other injuries you have? We have a lot of ice packs, so I can go get more if you-”

“Yare yare, shut up. You’re overwhelming her.” Jotaro’s harsh voice cuts in before Holly can continue and he stands from the couch, setting his book aside for now. His eyes pierce me just like I always thought they would. “It was her dad,” he mutters after a bit. “I hear the yelling from my room every night.” Tears welling up in my eyes, I look up at the delinquent, giving Holly a reason to believe him.

The arms that wrap around me make me wince, but I don’t say a word as Holly gives me more affection than either of my parents ever gave me. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know… I’m not letting you go back there.” She leaves no room for objection, shushing me when I try to speak. “No, you’re staying here until further notice. I’m not letting you go back to there if they hurt you like this.” Her eyes are soft when she looks at me, but they sharpen into a glare as soon as she looks out the window towards my house. “Jotaro, go get the spare room set up for her.” 

I’m surprised when he leaves to set up the room. He doesn’t seem like one to follow orders like that, and he didn’t show respect to his mother earlier, and yet… I can hear the shuffling in the other room as he sets everything up for me. How bizarre… “Are you… sure you want me to stay here? I mean, my dad, he… he’s a police officer, and he’ll send a search party after me until he gets me back home,” I murmur to Holly, and she just shakes her head.

“Listen here, honey, I promise you’ll never have to go back to that house again.”

That’s the end of my questioning since Jotaro walks back in, raising an eyebrow at his mother though he doesn’t say a word. My eyes dart up to him, wondering why he’s being so docile, though I know I’ll never get an answer. “I… Thank you, Mrs. Kujo,” I whisper to her before wandering to the room I’ll be staying in, Jotaro stepping aside to let me in. It’s late, and I’m exhausted, so I plop down on the bed and pass out.

...

It has to be around 3 in the morning when I wake up from a nightmare. The shadows in the room warp into hands that reach towards me, and I whimper, tears starting to drip down my face. My father’s angry voice echoes in my mind thanks to the nightmare, so I cry even more, clutching the blanket around me as a shield (though it doesn’t do much). Hiccups and sniffles are the only sounds that fill the room as I cry to myself, curling into a ball and weeping to myself…

That is, until the door to my room opens and a sleepy Jotaro turns on a lamp. “Yare yare daze, do you know what time it is? Why the hell’re you crying, you’re safe here, y’know.” He walks over and sits next to me on the bed, though his eyes look everywhere except at me. “What a pain… Oi, c’mere, I can’t sleep if you’re crying like that.” As I peek out from my blanket, he sighs, shaking his head. “I won’t hurt you. If anything, I’ll protect you from… whatever the hell you’re so afraid of right now.” That’s the only thing I need to hear before I throw myself at him, hiding my face in the crook of his neck as I grab onto his shirt. “Jesus, you’re really scared, huh? Whatever… Just get some sleep.” 

And with the feeling of Jotaro’s arms wrapping around me, I know that he’s there with me, and he’ll protect me from whatever comes during the night, so I drift off into sleep… completely missing the soft smile he gives me as he kisses the top of my head and lays down with me.

“Yare yare… I don’t know why you’re the only girl I feel anything towards, but you’re safe with me.”

[donteattheappleshook]

Just Human Volume 2  Part 3/5

Ao3

A continuation of last year’s CSSNS story Just Human. Now that Killian is a ghost and Mary Margaret knows everything, what does life have in store for a group of supernatural misfits? With the threat of Gold gone, Emma learns that sometimes just being human is the most complicated challenge of all.

Thank you to the ever patient and talented @djlbg​ for her beautiful artwork and to the wonderful @thejollyroger-writer​ “the comma queen” for all her work and support as an excellent beta!

.... this one’s a little sad. 

PART THREE

Another week passes and David’s time of the month comes and goes without a transformation. With the tension of the unknown finally gone from him, her friend is back to normal and the whole house seems lighter. Mary Margaret is fully moved in, Killian and Emma are enjoying marital bliss and even discussing the possibility of a honeymoon if they can figure out the logistics of “how do we do this without people realising we’re dead”. Killian really wants to show her Paris. And Amsterdam. And Santorini. And the Isle of Skye.

But mostly, they’ve gone back to their old routine. Killian, who is now fully corporeal, has returned to work although at a different hospital after his month-long absence from the General. He found a job as an orderly at the children’s hospital and seems much happier for it - especially now that he can work days. David continues his work at the police station and Mary Margaret is getting ready for the beginning of a new school year.

And Emma, well, Emma has gone back to being in the house by herself for most of the day. Reading books, going for walks, watching movies, cleaning, cooking, and slowly going out of her mind.

They’re all sitting around the table having dinner when Emma makes an announcement.

“I’ve decided to get a job.” Three heads turn to her in surprise - supportive surprise but surprise nonetheless. “I need to get out of the house. Now that I know I can… I need to do something with my days,” she finishes, hoping her friends understand.

Killian reaches across the table and takes her hand. “I think that’s a wonderful idea, love.”

“Absolutely!” David adds.

“I think it’s great,” Mary Margaret starts but then she pauses, hesitant to add whatever ‘but’ is coming.

“What is it?” Emma asks.

“Well, you’re legally dead aren’t you? How are you going to get a job with no identity?”

Emma’s heart sinks. She hadn’t considered that.

“Ladies, please,” Killian says with a slightly arrogant smile. “Do you think I’ve survived three hundred years without learning how to fake an identity or two in my day?” Emma’s heart rises as he shoots her an encouraging wink then turns to David. “Of course, it never hurts to have the cooperation of law enforcement.”

David bristles a little, torn between his love for his friend and his commitment to his career but then he looks at Emma, her expression hopeful and vulnerable, and his face softens.

“I might know a guy,” he says, shrugging, and Emma’s heart soars.

“Amazing!” Mary Margaret cheers. “What do you think you might do?” she asks and it gives Emma pause.

“I was hoping I could go back to being a bail bondsperson” she says honestly. “I’ve missed it.” She did miss it. She missed the satisfaction of a job where she felt like she was doing good - where she felt like she was helping people out in some small way. There was a special place in hell for people who skipped out on their bail, leaving their loved one’s who’d put forth the money destitute and abandoned. It made Emma feel good to find them, to make them pay. And she was good at it. It was one of the few things in her life Emma ever felt she had a true talent for - the other was crime and while she wasn’t ashamed (she’d done what she needed to to survive), it had felt good to be on the right side of the law for those few months she’d been legit before her death.

Killian smiles at her and she’s brought back to a conversation that feels like ages ago ‘You must have been very good at your job’. Yeah, Emma thinks. Yeah, she really was.

A week later Emma holds her new passport and driver’s license. Emma Jones, née Nolan, David’s half-sister and Killian’s wife. It’s perfect.

Killian comes up behind her as she stands in the kitchen looking over her papers. He wraps his arms around her and rests his head on her shoulder.

“Hmm,” he hums. “Emma Jones, it has a nice ring to it don’t you think?” he teases. She can’t bring herself to dig her elbow into his ribs because as much as she knows he’s trying to get a rise out of her… she really really likes it. More than she ever thought she would.

“You know,” she says. “It kind of does.”

Killian turns her in his arms backing her up against the counter until she’s wedged between it and his body.

“I like it,” he says. “Mrs. Jones.” He places a kiss to one side of her neck. “Mrs. Jones,” he says again moving to the other side of her neck. Emma laughs.

“You’re not going to go all caveman on me are you?” she teases and Killian brings his head up to look at her, matching her smile.

“No love, you’ll always be Swan to me,” he promises, kissing the tip of her nose before he kisses her firmly on the lips.

“Good.”

***

Two weeks later, Emma is out chasing a skip when she hears it. The sound of screeching tires then a loud crash and the sound of metal being bent in an unnatural way. She stops in her tracks and runs towards the sound, heart racing in fear of what she might find. She’s only just rounded the corner when she sees it and her stomach drops. There’s a car, wrapped around a light post. The front is completely smashed in, actually curving around the solid cement block. Emma watches in horror as the post sways before falling onto the car, crushing the roof.

She looks around in a panic. She left her phone in her car and there’s nobody around. She needs to call an ambulance. But the driver - what if they’re still alive? She has to help them, she has to -

“Whats going on!?” the voice is young and it’s panicked and terrified. She whirls around and sees a boy standing behind her, only a few feet from the car. He can’t be more than sixteen, skinny with blonde hair and a scar running down one cheek. He runs up to the car and it suddenly hits Emma when she sees the person in the driver’s seat. It’s him. It’s the boy. Which means - fuck.

“What the hell is happening!?” He demands, turning to her for answers now. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know how to handle this. She tries to center herself, to remember the panic and fear of the first few hours after her death. She needs to help him. What did she need that day? She thinks of Killian. What would he do? He would help.

She turns to him, steps cautiously forward and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you’re gonna be okay,” she tells him, her voice shaky. She needs to pull herself together. She needs to be the strong one here. He needs her to be. He’s so young. She quickly casts a glance inside the car, relieved to find there are no other passengers. The boy turns his frightened eyes on her.

“Am I dead?” he says and she knows he’s desperately hoping she’ll tell him he isn’t. But she can’t lie to him.

She decides to be direct. “Yes. I’m sorry. But you’re gonna be okay. I’m dead too,” she adds, hoping it’ll make this feel more real - not that anything could make this feel real. She expects the boy to hound her with questions but instead he only says:

“My mom.”

Emma turns her eyes back to the car, worried she missed someone. But the boy has collapsed on the ground now, his head in his hands.

“My mom. This will kill her. I was so awful. No, no, no.” He keeps mumbling to himself. Emma gently kneels down beside him.

“Hey, kid, what’s your name?” she asks. He looks up at her, fresh tears in his eyes.

“Felix.” Emma breathes a sigh of relief. Okay, she can do this.

“Okay, Felix. I know this is scary. But I promise you’re going to be okay. I’m going to help you okay? I’m here to help you.”

“My mom,” he says again and Emma puts a reassuring hand on his back.

“Your mom will be okay. She -”

“No!” He says suddenly, shocking her. “No, I was so awful. I yelled at her. I said such horrible awful things to her! And now - now she’s going to think I felt that way forever.”

Emma looks around. Where is it? Where is the door. This boy is a child. It’s not fair that there’s no door waiting for him. He shouldn’t have unfinished business. He’s too young. It’s not fair.

“Hey, Felix. Your mom knows you love her. Mom’s always know. Listen… kids and parents fight. I’m sure she knows you love her. She knows you didn’t mean what you said.” Emma doesn’t know. She has no idea what moms and their kids are like. She never had one. She’s making it up but she hopes it will help him.

“No, I told her I hated her. I said she was the worst mom ever. And now that'll always be the last thing I said to her!” He doubles over and starts weeping. “I have to tell her. I have to tell her I’m sorry.” He looks at her now, eyes almost crazed. “You have to help me. You promised you’d help me!”

Emma looks at him, lost. She doesn’t know how to help him. He can’t see his mom - well, she won’t see him. Maybe she could pass on a message for him? Maybe he could send her one somehow - then it hits her.

“Hey. you have a phone?” she asks and he looks at her in confusion and then seems to catch on.

“Yeah! Yeah it was in my pocket!” He says standing suddenly. He reaches into his own pocket but comes up empty. Emma shuts her eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath. She knows what she has to do - she’s not going to like it but she’s going to do it. She makes her way over to the car, reaching in through the smashed passenger window, doing her best to ignore the body in the seat as she reaches into the pocket of the dead boy's jeans and retrieves a phone. She returns to him and asks what his passcode is.

“Tell me what you want to say to her and I’ll type it out for you,” she tells him.

He nods, almost frantic in his relief. “Just - just tell her that I’m sorry. Tell her I’m sorry we fought and I didn’t mean what I said. Tell her I love her and that she’s the best mom ever.”

Emma does as he asks, typing the message doing her best to sound like a teenage boy and hitting send. They both wait, neither saying a word or even breathing until the phone pings and a message comes through.

I know, I’m sorry too. I love you always x.

Emma shows him the message and the boy collapses again, this time in relief. Emma uses his phone to call 911. She’ll stick around, tell them she took his phone to call because she didn’t have hers. She sits with him for a minute, letting him cry on her shoulder, sure he can’t possibly be processing everything that just happened to him. That’s probably best. He shouldn’t have to suffer more. Suddenly, Emma looks up and there it is. A door. Right there in the middle of the street. A door to nowhere.

“Hey, kid,” she nudges Felix. “That’s for you.” She motions to the door.

“For me?” He stares at it. “Where does it go?” he asks her, eyes vulnerable.

She goes for honesty. “I don’t know. That’s something you have to find out for yourself, I guess,” she tells him.

“Will it hurt?” he asks. Emma shakes her head.

“I don’t think so. What do you say? Beats sticking around here?”

Felix looks at the door for a moment, the sound of sirens starting to make themselves heard in the distance. Finally, he stands and steps slowly towards the door. He looks back at her one last time, a little unsure and she gives him a thumbs up. He turns back and opens the door and walks through. And just as suddenly as the door appeared, it’s gone.

Emma sticks around for a while, answering questions from the police, watching as the body is taken away in the ambulance before finally making her way home. She tells Killian what happened and he gathers her in his arms, holding her tightly as he kisses the top of her head.

“You did good, Swan. You helped him.”

“I know,” she says.

“But?” he asks. He always knows what she’s thinking. Always sees through her.

“It’s nothing. I just… do you ever wonder if we made the right choice? Not going through the door? I know you haven’t gotten one yet, but I’d have dragged you through mine if I decided to go. Don’t get me wrong,” she insists, “I’m so, so happy here with you and with David and Mary Margaret. But what happens when they’re gone? When everyone is gone? Do we only get one door? I know it’s silly…”

“It’s not silly,” he tells her, pulling her in closer. “I’ve had the same conversation with myself many times since I was turned all those years ago. I wish I had an answer for you. I’ve never met a ghost who turned down their door.”

Emma thinks for a while, considering this. “What do you think is on the other side?” she asks finally.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “All I know is that I don’t want any part of it if you’re not there beside me.”

Emma wraps her arms around his waist and places a kiss in the middle of his chest, right over his heart.

Another month passes and the four of them are sitting at the table having breakfast on one of those wonderful lazy Sunday mornings where everyone got to sleep in and then stumble down for coffee, nobody in any rush to get anywhere.

Suddenly, Killian looks up from the paper and asks the group: “What day is it?”

“Sunday,” Mary Margaret answers, giving him a confused look.

He shakes his head. “No, the number.”

“The 28th,” David answers equally confused. Killian stares at him.

“David, last night was the full moon.”

David’s eyes widen.

“Holy shit,” Emma says. “Dude, you skipped your time of the month and didn’t even realise!”

David looks at them all, shocked. This is huge. They knew he didn’t necessarily change on the full moon anymore, but to know that it didn’t even need to be a part of his life anymore. That he didn’t have to worry, to stress, to fear. It’s huge.

Mary Margaret clears her throat. They all turn to her.

“He’s not the only one…”

Emma’s eyes go wide. “Are you?” She asks and Mary Margaret nods, taking David’s hand. Both of them wearing smiles so bright it’s almost blinding. She nods and Emma jumps up from her seat rushing over and hugging her friends. Killian looks at the three of them, confused.

“She’s pregnant, you idiot,” David explains and Killian’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline.

“Bloody hell,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “We’re gonna have a baby?”

David bursts out laughing at his friend’s rocked expression and choice of words.  

“Yeah, man,” he says, coming over to

clap Killian on the back. “We’re having a baby.”

Emma and Mary Margaret look over at their boys bemusedly. Mary Margaret giggles. “You know, he’s actually handling it better than David did,” she jokes and Emma smiles at her husband who seems to have finally snapped out of it and is now wrapping David in a giant bear hug, patting him on the back and congratulating him.

She’s so happy, really, she is. As she puts her hand on her friend’s still flat stomach and asks her all the questions you’re supposed to ask, she’s all smiles and excitement and happy. But there’s something, a little thought or feeling in the back of her mind that she can’t shake. A little dark cloud that she doesn’t understand but that continues to follow her around for the rest of the day. And as the day goes on the cloud grows, becomes darker and heavier until it consumes her and Killian finds her hiding in their bedroom, curled up beside the bed, trying and failing to cry the awful feeling out.

“Hey,” Killian says, voice worried and soothing all at once as he rushes over to her side. “Hey, what’s wrong?” He sits next to her and gathers her into his lap, rocking her gently as he strokes her hair and hushes her cries. “Love, please, tell me what happened,” he begs and Emma’s cries get louder.

“I don’t know,” she sobs, her whole body shaking. “I guess… I - I didn’t even know it was something I wanted. I don’t even know if I want it… but now I can’t ever have it,” she tries to explain, her hand curling into the fabric of his shirt. And that’s it. That’s the feeling that’s been following her around, the one that’s been gnawing at her since Mary Margaret told them all she was having a baby. A baby. Something Emma never thought about wanting. Something she can never have. She’s dead. She’s dead and so are her chances of having a child, of having children. She’ll never have babies, never have Killian’s babies. And it hurts.

“Oh, love,” Killian says and she can hear the sadness in his voice, wonders if he’s only sad for her or if there’s a part of him that hurts as much as she does. They stay there, curled up on the bedroom floor until the first rays of morning sun make their way through the window.

[nano-the-robot-blog]

A Vent

Hello. My name is nano (not really, of course), I’m an art student from rural Britain, and I really need a place to vent right now. I don’t know if anyone will read this, or if any of those people will know me, but at this point I don’t really care.

Since childhood, I’ve lived a very privileged life. My family aren’t well off but we get by, my father has always had a job and my mother has always looked after my brother and I. They have their flaws and we’ve had our arguments, but my parents really are amazing. However, unfortunately, that doesn’t grant me ease of passage through life - especially with the world in the state it’s in right now.

I know that I have it much better than a lot of people, and I have always known that. I tend to get things in halves. I have autism spectrum disorder, but I’m not nonverbal and most people don’t even notice. I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, but I’m not wheelchair-bound. I have depression and anxiety, but I’ve never attempted suicide. I have an atypical eating disorder, not anorexia or bulimia (for those out there who do suffer with any of the things I’ve mentioned, my heart goes out to you. I may never understand your struggle but I will always strive to do the best I can to help, and I hope that you can all get through your respective hardships).

Now, as you can probably tell, I’m a very average person. Average height, average weight, average education and average skill levels. My brother, on the other hand, is a little less conventional. He has moderate to severe autism with learning difficulties which he was diagnosed with at quite a young age, and although he has yet to be diagnosed with it, my mother swears that he has pathological demand avoidance. He is also fairly tall and quite overweight, making him a formidable opponent.

These factors add up - the autistic meltdowns, the avoidance of any helpful behaviour and the refusal of commands and the sheer size of him - to make him an absolutely unbearable person to live with. He frequently attacks my family and I, both physically and verbally and with varying degrees of severity. It gets to the point, fairly often, that the police have to be called. My entire family have had to literally sit on his back in order to restrain him before, and it only gets worse once he is taken into hospital. At one point, he had four fully trained, adult police officers holding him down on a hospital bed. He’s had handcuffs, leg braces, the whole nine yards. It’s hell for everyone else in the family - and not just the humans. We have a menagerie of pets in the house as we are all animal lovers (aside from my father, though he does adore our dogs) and, though my brother doesn’t directly hurt them, the effect on them is clear. Our two dogs, one a huge Labrador/Rottweiler/Springer cross and the other a tiny Jack Russel/Pug mix, are utterly terrified every time he kicks off. They can even feel the tension in the air when we’re “walking on thin ice”, as my mother puts it, or when he’s on the edge of a meltdown. We also have three cats who don’t seem too bothered, although he has held up my cat (the oldest, and the smallest) and threatened to choke her before. I also have four beautiful young budgerigars who experienced his wrath for the very first time today, and it’s safe to say that they weren’t a fan. I’m hoping that they will be okay, though, since wild budgies will suffer much more worrying encounters in Australia.

Today, however, my brother went too far. He directed his anger towards the animals - my animals specifically - and me. My mother spent three days painting a gorgeous high sleeper bed which I only just got. I tried to help out, and I kept her company, but I’m just too sick to do such a physical task. Mom just naturally took over and eventually offered to paint the whole thing - even though she herself is ill. Like I said, my parents are amazing. The bed was a real labour of love for Mom, and she did an amazing job - despite the various hardships faced during the process. It was a real bonding experience for my mother and I, which was sorely needed as my mental health is pretty much non-existent at the moment. I’ll explain this as briefly as I can, just to give an idea of how much this affects me.

Recently, I’ve been suffering hugely with an atypical eating disorder. This possibly started when my ex broke up with me about two years ago, and very slowly built up over the past two years until recently, I stopped eating almost entirely and cut myself down to one small meal per day. The sudden change may or may not have been caused by my final major project in college, which I put my heart and soul into and which ended recently. I got the grade I wanted, but the residual stress left from it certainly took its toll, and my fate was sealed. I became more depressed than ever before and my anxiety, autism and (at the time mild) ED suffered the same way. I isolated myself from all of my friends, even my best friend - our relationship has been recovering slowly but surely from a very rough patch we had last year. I love her more than any other human, but I find it simply impossible to connect with another human being at the moment. My relationship with my parents is also hugely strained since they have to force me to eat now, and though we both know that it’s for the best, it puts a new barrier up between us. Another rather significant contributor is the fact that I have feelings for somebody I can never be with, and I’m quite sure he’s catching feeling for another girl who I’m also friends with, which simply gives me more reasons to distance myself from them. Regardless, back to the current situation.

It started small and simple, like all the worst things do. My mattress is in my parents’ room at the moment, as I can’t risk touching my paint-covered bed. My room also stinks of paint which makes it hard to sleep. My snakes are still in my room, though, as we couldn’t move them. My brother threw a cushion at me through the door. That’s all. I was lying in bed, exhausted and ill, and he threw a pillow at me. I said nothing, threw the pillow onto my parents’ bed, and went back to watching videos. A few minutes later, he threw a doorstop at me. It was heavy, and hit me in the hip, so it hurt a lot more than the cushion did. Again, I said nothing, and texted Mom to tell her what was happening. She came up the stairs pretty quickly, questioning my brother about it in a sympathetic tone. She knows him best, and is the best at diffusing situations like this. Like me, he said nothing. After a short while of her talking to him, though, he shoved past her out of his room and into hers, where I was still lying. I was hesitant to leave the bed, stupidly enough, because I wasn’t wearing trousers. However, my brother soon began threatening (nonverbally, of course) to throw his entire fifteen-pound body onto the mattress and on top of me. I wasn’t about to find out how many of my bones would be broken as I’m fragile enough already, so on request of my mother, I scurried off to the other side of my parents’ bed. He followed. I was hissed at to go into my room, which is what I did. No more than five minutes later, with me now holding a very nervous small dog, I hear a fierce BANG! and my door jumps. I’ve got an old door, one of the originals of our house, and I’ve never seen it budge before. At this point, I realised that he was going to break it down. Another few minutes passed until it happened once more, and once more was all it took. I stuck my legs out, thankfully, and caught the door on my feet, pushing it to the side. Thank goodness it somehow didn’t reach the snake tanks which were mere inches away, as they would have no doubt been shattered. We all knew it now; his anger was directed toward me and me alone. He kept advancing and my mother shooed me out of the room. I grabbed the dogs and hurried them into the utility, turned the light off and crouched down with them in the diffused light from the kitchen. He couldn’t see me, nobody could see me. We were safe. They all came downstairs fairly soon and my dad found me first. He said nothing, simply gave me a stressed look and went back into the kitchen. My mom then came out a few minutes later and informed me that my brother had backed himself onto my sofa, which is currently up against the snake tanks, and had started banging his hands on the glass. Any reptile owners well know that this is an awful situation for any reptile, especially snakes. Even just tapping on their tanks stresses them out to no end. They can stop eating for weeks, and if it’s bad enough, the poor things can even die. I did check the snakes after the whole ordeal and thankfully, they are all still alive and at least one of them is still ready to eat. My brother soon found my hiding place and started advancing again. I had nowhere left to go - my room, the only safe place, was destroyed. I just had to run upstairs and hang around for a while. I could hear him shifting furniture, and the occasional yell from one of my parents as he hit them. I know from experience that his blows are nothing to be scoffed at.

I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but somehow he ended up in my room again, but this time he turned his attention to my bed. Mom was appalled. The face she made was one of sheer horror; she had spent so much time and energy to get it to such a good condition and he had just ruined three days of work. She cried into my shoulder, weeping about the lack of consideration he has for others. I agreed, and we both muttered that we didn’t want him here any more.

That may seem harsh, to you. Who would want their own brother to leave for good? I would have agreed with you, if it weren’t for literal years of constant abuse from this boy, this monster. He’s like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute he can be a perfectly innocent child (he is 15, but his mental state is at the point where he is internally 8 or 9), and then within moments he can switch to some inhuman, unfeeling being of nothing but hate. He cannot be reasoned with, he can only be fought.

He’s gone now, they all are. Mom and him were taken to hospital in an ambulance, and my father followed shortly after. My snakes are alive, my budgies are fine and everything has gone quiet. This will happen again, and it’ll never stop until something is done - but that’s just the thing. What do we do? We’ve jumped through the hoops, we’ve waited years for people to help us and nobody will.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t want to seem like an attention seeker, but I genuinely fear that if this type of thing carries on, I’ll try to kill myself. Tonight put so much strain on my mental state, and each new episode increases that strain so much, that I don’t think it will be too long until I snap.

Sorry that this has been my first post on this blog. It was meant to be an art blog but I’m no longer going to be doing that as I’m completely rebranding myself. This will be a personal blog for me to write about my life - a kind of journal, I suppose.

All the best,

nano

[hisgirlwonder]

One Shot - Seeing Red (cont.)

Length: 4k words Warning: N/A Synopsis: Michael has risen to power, with followers and power galore, only for you to get in the way and knock him back down to earth with your own revelation. Notes: Continuing from part one which is here, this is prior to the creation of the Outposts/ when the sanctuary was starting to be built and the wheels were being put in motion for the future.

A baby was not part of the plan, however, it seemed as if the whole plan had been set fire to. Michael swore that he’d never put anything before you - funny how things change when someone gets desperate, isn’t it?

Slam.  

Your bedroom door hits its frame so hard from the force that you hear the windows rattle.

You fall onto your bed and are comforted by blankets – legs bent at the hips, arms wrapping themselves around pillows. The tears hit, and they hit hard, almost like a dam had burst its bank. Everything you’d built seemed to be crumbling right before your eyes.

Michael is knocking at the door, pleading with you, “Please, honey, let me in. Just let me talk to you.”

“I’ll let you in when you change your tune and put me first, Michael.”

He answers back with a voice full of distress and discomfort, “It’s not that easy, Y/N.”

You slap him with the truth, “It really is. You can either continue down this road full of hurt and destruction and throw me out of your life for good, which will kill us all, me and your unborn child included, or you can snap out of it and be a real man; a father to the life I’m growing inside of my stomach.”  

Words evaded Michael, speechless at the bitter reality of the situation. You grew more annoyed with his silence and threw the pillow in your hand at the door, “I never thought I’d be imagining my life without you but it seems you’re giving me no choice.”

Michael finally gets the ability to speak again, imploring, “I just need some time, please don’t shut me out for good.”

“I’m not the one shutting someone out.”

-

You wake up the next morning wishing this was some nightmare. Rolling over to look at the other side of the bed assured you it wasn’t. It was real life. Michael had disappeared but presently you couldn’t care less.

You throw some clothes on and walk to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, rubbing circles on your belly, cooing, “It’s okay baby, mama’s going to fix everything.” You weren’t sure you believed your words but you tried, for the sake of the baby.

You notice a letter on the table. Opening the envelope up, it reads:

I need time away to process things. I will be back soon. Don’t shut me out, y/n, I’m not giving up. Love, Michael.

You screw the piece of paper up into a ball, angered at the fact that this is what caused his switch to the dark side in the first place; that disappearance to “find” himself. He left you and came back a completely different person. You throw the paper ball on the floor and abandon the idea of tea; heading to pack a bag to stay with your sister for the night instead.

-

“Rough night?”

You dip underneath the arm she was holding the door open with, with hair a mess  and your eyes bloodshot, headed bee-line for the lounge. You never even bothered to look at yourself in the mirror prior to leaving.

Sitting down on the couch, your hand travels over the arm to feel its fabric, bring you back so many years. “I love that you still have this couch. All of those memories.” Your eyes skim the room as you inhale the feeling of nostalgia deeply; admitting to your sister that you missed it there.

It was funny because the two of you didn’t get along so much as children but once you grew out of the teenage phase that was another story.  She became your rock, especially since Michael’s first disappearance; almost as if she did more for you than your own parents. This house, although it was your childhood home, didn’t feel like home until you were almost an adult. Your parents moved away and left the house to the two of you – both of you agreed she would move in because you had already moved in with Michael.

Your sister, S/N, sits down on the chair to your left, and queries you, “Both me and the house miss you. Now, for the real question, what has called for the unannounced rush over here? Do I need to brace myself?”

“It’s kind of a funny story, do you think you could make me a cup of tea? That is if you can remember how to make it,” you tease, deep down thankful for having S/N as a best friend as well as your sister.

“Of course! Unlike you, little sister, my memory isn’t bad. White with one, I don’t forget these things.”

-

S/N returns with cups in hands, placing them down on the glass table and sitting back in her spot. She already knew all about the situation at hand but was like you and didn’t want a part of it. It too made her sad because she loved Michael like her own flesh and blood.

“Basically, to put it simply, I had enough of him ignoring me and the last straw was finding out I was pregnant with his child,” you confide in her as you’re reaching for your cup of tea. Luckily S/N had already put down the cups because she was shocked; her mouth drops open, she gasps, “You’re pregnant?” and covers it up with her hand.

Slowly nodding your head, still trying to come to terms with what was going on yourself. It hadn’t even been 24 hours yet since everything changed. It was no longer just about you, it was also about the life you were growing.

S/N already has an inkling that your answer is no but she figures she may as well ask, “Have you told our mother?”

You were in two minds about telling your mother at all since the two of you barely spoke after you moved out, but you knew she would want to know. She’d be a grandmother, after all, and you know what that meant. She would fawn over the child like nobody else’s business – different to how she treated you. She’d probably want to snatch the child away from you the second you gave birth and raise it herself in the hopes that you didn’t ruin it. You admit to S/N, “I was going to wait a while before I did that. I don’t-“

She interjects your sentence knowing exactly what you’re about to say, “You don’t talk to mother unless absolutely necessary. Got it. Probably for the best at the moment.”

You shrug it off, “I just don’t know what to do. I told him to pick between The Co-Operative and me; the woman carrying the fruit of his loins.”

S/N tries to cheer you up and reminds you of one thing, “I think, at the end of the day, Michael has been with you for nearly half of his life. You’re his one constant. Do you think he’s going to throw this away?”

“Yeah, but S/N, you haven’t seen him how I have. I’m almost invisible most days now. His ‘followers’ seem to be able to provide everything - love and a false sense of security. I’m just the stain on his jacket shoulder that he can’t get out.”

S/N tilts her head sympathetically and her mouth forms a slight pout, “Just give him some time, okay?”

Leaving S/N to finish her tea, you decide to take a trip down memory lane in your old bedroom. When you arrive you’re hit with a yearning; for the past, for how things used to be, anything other than what you were feeling.

Stepping through the entrance, your eyes scan the walls and you notice nothing has changed since you were nineteen.

Your feet lead you to your old drawers, the top of which was lined with framed family photos. One in particular stood out to you – it was taken just weeks before you and Michael met, when you had no idea what life held in the days to come. You pick it up and run your finger over the glass with a longing to be her again, except this time you’d do things differently.

S/N knocks at the door, “I haven’t really touched anything in here except I change the bedding and do the cleaning.”

“You’ve done well, S/N. It means a lot to me after all this time. It still brings me back,” you sigh, “To happier times.”

She asks if you need anything but you just reply back telling her you need space; there wasn’t much anyone else could do. Every emotion was because of Michael.

All you can do is stand in your old room, clutching at the reminder of the way it was - you were a young witch with a brain full of smarts; knowing better than to waste your time on boys. Pulling open your top draw, you discover that your box of “special memories” as you called it was still there - full of letters, pictures, all sorts of things. You take it over to your bed and sit down to dissect the contents.

Inside it held a poem from your best friend, a lock of your baby hair, and random bits and pieces until you get to the very bottom of the box. You pull out a piece of paper, unfold it, and you’d recognise the handwriting anywhere - it was a letter Michael wrote to you when the two of you first got together. You knew you shouldn’t have read it but you were a masochist it seemed.

This letter was a confession of the ways that he loved you. Your heart basically broke itself all over again reading where he called you his “Yoko”. You broke down - how long had it been since you’d heard him sing? He used to serenade you all the time, and now nothing. You throw the box to the floor, not caring that it breaks and the objects scatter all over the carpet and weep into your hands.

Your sister hears the crash and you sobbing down the hall, rushing to see if you were okay. “What’s wrong?”

“I really think it’s over, S/N. As much as he says he needs time, surely it wouldn’t be that difficult if he really loved me?”

She wraps you in her arms, rocking you gently, “Nothing is ever as it seems. Maybe in his mind he really was doing this for you and he got caught up in things. Losing Miriam was devastating for him and sometimes grief makes people act crazy.”

You look up and exclaim, “But I’m carrying his child, S/N!”

“I know, little sister, I know. But that boy is clinging to a place in the world where maybe he feels like he fits in? I’m not trying to make excuses for him but these people are connected with his so-called “father” and so was Miriam. He has more of a place now than he did growing up.”

Lifting your arms up to wipe at your eyes, which now were burning even more, you tell her, “This doesn’t make it right, you know.”

S/N kisses the side of your head, trying to reassure you, “I know, but when does life ever make sense? Come down to the kitchen, I’ll make you some blueberry waffles.”

You smile weakly, “My favourite.”

S/N thinks it’s a good idea to spend the rest of the day indulging in snacks you love and watching your favourite childhood movies to bring you a distraction. It may be temporary albeit it’s a distraction none the less.

You managed to get a handful of movies in then you crash from exhaustion and sleep through the night.

-

The next morning comes and you feel like you’ve been hit by a train. The two of you eat breakfast then say your goodbyes and you travel back home; this is nearly the last place you want to be right now. When you arrive, you notice you have a text message from Michael asking you to call him. You do so, begrudgingly.

You hear his voice on the other end of the phone and huff, “What do you want, Michael?”

“You sound tired, are you okay?”

At this point you’re rolling your eyes at his attempts to avoid the question. You tell him, “Stop deflecting. What did you want?”

Michael proposes, “I just wanted to see if you were home, is it okay if I come over? I’m down the road and had a thought which I feel like is better discussed in person.”

“Sure. Come over but I just hope for both our sakes you aren’t wasting our time,” You tell him; your words sound rather flat, as if almost all emotion has left your body. Anxiety grew in the pit of your stomach and you were overcome with nausea.

The ten minutes that followed prior to him he arriving felt like ten hours. You open the door and there he was; the man you loved despite all of what was happening. You remember the first time he came back after disappearing and you couldn’t wait to see him, but now? You felt like your eyes deceived you – the man you saw had a beautiful face, of a person you once recognised, but not anymore; The insides no longer matched.

You’re cold, and almost callous with your words, “Let’s go sit in your precious office if you really want a discussion.”

Michael has a pained expression on his face; things were already not headed in the direction he was hoping for.

-

“Sit,” you instruct, making him take a seat first to which he complies. You sit across the table, your eyes locked on him as you follow suit.

“Thanks for allowing me to see you, y/n,” he says, understanding that his presence must be causing you some level of pain. He wasn’t wrong.

Your eyes narrow and you spit venomous words in his direction, “I don’t really have much of a choice, Michael.”

“I won’t take up too much of your time except I wanted to propose something.”

“Try me,” You retort with an eyebrow raised.

Michael exhales, his line of sight transferring between his fidgeting hands on the table and yours, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said yesterday and I wanted to say I’m sorry I haven’t been myself. I’m also sorry you’ve felt ignored. I never meant to do that.”

You roll your hands, signalling for him to continue.

“I figured out how to fix that. I want you to be included in everything. I want you to be my Right Hand.”

You pull your head back while screwing up your face at the thought of what he’d just suggested, “Um, excuse me?”

“The Co-Operative can look after both of us. Once this plan is in place, we can go to the sanctuary and live out our lives there. You’ll be treated like a queen, my love. We’ll have everything we ever need.”

You jump up from your chair. “Wait a second, you don’t actually believe I want to do this, do you?” You scoff, continuing, “Michael fucking Langdon, what part of ‘I don’t want everyone I love dying’ or ‘I want to raise our baby up to have a normal life,’ do you not understand?”

“Nothing about me is normal, y/n,” he admits. You can’t help but laugh at what he just said. It seemed like the biggest cop-out to you, as if that was his reasoning for going along with the end of the world stuff. You didn’t want a white picket fence with two dogs – you just wanted Michael to grow old with, and now, to raise your son or daughter.

“News flash, Michael, there’s a difference between ‘not normal’ and trying to blow the whole damn world up.” You point to the door, “I think you should go.”

He starts to plead with you again, reminiscent of his behaviour yesterday, “Y/n, please? Please reconsider my offer.”

You walk out of the office and down to the front door, saying, “I’m not a fucking contract you’re signing over, Michael. This is bigger than your own little fan club of Madelyn and Co. Maybe she can go find you your own evil queen that will happily be your Right Hand.”

Your opening the door and holding it ajar, gesturing in the direction leading outside of the house. “Get out of my house.”

Michael won’t listen, standing off to the side. “Y/n, I can’t do this without you, please.”

“I won’t let you have the privilege of subjecting my child to a life in this so-called ‘sanctuary’ where I have to hide that her father killed the rest of her family for his own, selfish gain. Get out.”

You can hear Michael starts to sniff as he walks out, “Are you serious?”

You scowl at him, “Do you not even hear what I’m saying past the sound of my voice, Michael?”

You slam the door in his face, sliding down with your back against its surface to the floor and crying again. It was becoming a regular occurrence and you hated it. These last few months, especially the last few days, you’d cried more than you had in the last few years.

You rub at your stomach, tears spilling over, “Don’t worry little one, we have Aunty s/n, and that’s all we need.” It was almost as if you believed the words but on the other hand, you wanted nothing more than for Michael to come to his senses and let this whole thing go.

-

Once you manage to get over the shock of what Michael suggested and stop shaking, you lift yourself up from the ground then dust the backs of your legs off, and move to sit on one of the sofas in the lounge. You flick on the television but it’s all mind-numbing. Nothing can really distract you from what’s just happened. You haven’t a clue where it leaves the two of you but you were trying not to mull over it too much. You found a good documentary to lose yourself in temporarily.

S/N calls, asking if you’re okay. You tell her no and fill in why exactly. She’s shocked but not surprised. “Don’t count your chickens yet. It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”

You laugh, “Thank you for your overused lines of positivity. I’m going to go back to numbing myself in front of the television now.”

*

About an hour passes by and you’ve finished the documentary you were watching, only to cycle through the channels to find something else, coming across what appears to be a movie with one of your favourite actresses. She’s confessing her love for the other main and all you can do is yell at the screen, “Don’t be stupid.”

Pulling out your phone to check the time, you see that it’s almost 6pm. No wonder your stomach is making noises. “What am I going to eat for dinner? I’ll just order something. I better enjoy this luxury before the world turns to shit,” you joke, trying to hide the hurt. You pick your favourite kind of pizza figuring the unhealthier the better.

While waiting for your food to arrive, you’re messing around on your phone, looking through old photos, tempted to delete the ones of you and Michael but you can’t bear to part with them. They hold memories, after all. Maybe not memories you cared for right at this moment when you were this pissed off but once you cooled down then they probably would be.

The pizza arrives after what feels like an eternity; To a pregnant woman, I guess it would. You place it down on the table, go to the kitchen and pour yourself a drink. Just as you’re about to start eating, there’s another knock at the door.

“Oh for fucks sake, who is this?” You mutter to yourself. You open up the door again to see that it’s Michael. Who else would it be?

He’s standing on the step, seemingly a broken man with his hands in a praying position, “I really need to talk to you.”

You point at his hands and shake your head. You mock his earlier statement, “Is this to try and convince me some more about how I should be your Princess of Darkness, Michael?”

“No, y/n, I can assure you that it’s not,” He promises but you’re sceptical.

Regardless of whether or not you believe him, you let him in, “Alright, come in so I can listen to you while I eat my food.”

You two walk back to the lounge, Michael is talking behind you, “I know I’m the last person you want to see but I couldn’t ignore what happened. After you kicked me out earlier, I went back to where I’m staying for a rest and to trifle through my thoughts but I was plagued with visions.”

He continues, “They as clear as you are right in front of me and I had three of them. The first was my life without you and it was so cold. Like an eternal winter. All of the light from my life had gone and you lost our baby. I don’t know how but it cut through me. The second was you by my side with our child at the sanctuary. It was not anything I’d have hoped for. You were miserable and my expectations were not met. These people were not good people. It’s almost like when you have a beautiful piece of fruit but the inside is rotten and tastes disgusting – this is how it was.”

“What was the third?”

He’s unable to contain his smile, “The third was my favourite. The world was as it is except the sun was shining brighter than it had in a long time. There was peace within the world, within us. We were living here; you had given birth to our child.” His hand reaches to touch your face, stroking it gently. “Our child is so beautiful, y/n. They have your eyes.”

You close your eyes briefly, melting into his touch. The old Michael was coming back; you could feel it. You reopened your eyes and he was staring at you with adoration. A question fell from your lips, “What does this mean Michael?”

“It means I was stupid to ever let this get over my head. I know now more than ever what I need to do and it isn’t to drive this world into flames. It’s to be here for you, for this family. To give our child what I never had. I’m so sorry, y/n. Can you ever forgive me? I know I’ll find it hard forgiving myself.”

Your head drops, you’re unable to hold the tears back. Michael pushes your chin up with his fingers. “Please don’t cry.”

“These are happy ones, I promise. S/N and I talked about everything and I guess I understand why this happened. I’m sure anyone else would react in the same way; not causing the destruction of the earth but straying to the dark side.”

Michael gets on his knees, finding his way between your legs to kiss your stomach, looking up at you. His hands were on your belly, guarding it.

“Ever since I saw her face, with her mother’s eyes, I knew what I had to do.”

“We’re having a girl?”

“Yeah, we are.”

Taglist: @avesatanormalpeoplescareme @sensitivethot @sammythankyou @sevenwondr

[underroleau]

underrole chapter 7

Toriel reached the ruins doors, running and out of breath, covered in dust. A cold, chilly wind blew from the Ruins, colder than snow. She was terrorized, grasping faintlessly for safety.

Run… run… run… that was the only thing in her mind, a word spoken over and over again every step. Her soul, shaking and slowly cracking, was draining her vital force due to the shock.. Her view started to get blurred, and her steps slowed down as her breaths were heavy and unsteady.. Tears were still flowing as she fell to her knees, unable to continue, and passed out near one of Sans’ stations, empty.

(…)

Meanwhile, Wave reached Muffet holding onto Sans. Endogeny halted right under a big net, as a dark substance dripped from the opening on his face. Wave jumped off the beast, looking at Sans and wondering how could he sleep at any time given, and he cracked a smile before calling

- Muffet! Muffet?? Are you there!??? -

The spider woman, bothered, descended from her web – Yes, I am here… - her glare pointed to the skeleton, and her brows scrunched together, upwards as her tiny feet touched the ground – Why did you bring him here? -

Wave started opening his jacket, letting the spiders go free – I have to go back now!! -

Muffet stared disconcerted, as her spiders went back to their beloved and homie webs.

(…)

Undyne was at Alphys’ lab, talking angrily to the scientist as she paced the floor.

- That… that… arrghh, that brat!!! He just runs all over the place! What’s even wrong with him?? Where is he now?! I can’t let the other monsters see him, Asgore will…!! No, he would tell me to calm down, but how can I?? -

Alphys was occupied looking at the cameras trying to locate Wave, when she suddenly pointed in horror – UNDYNE!! Look here! -

The camera was recording Toriel running out of the ruins, and a child was following her.. Their step was creepily slow, paced, the one of a predator hunting down it’s prey, like it knew Toriel had no chance of escaping no matter how far she went. Alphys was paralyzed in fear, but Undyne grabbed her courage and rushed out of the lab. She bumped almost instantly into the group of Wave.

- YOU!! It’s not the time!! - She scoffed, quickly returning to her objective as Wave followed.

He was stunned. That feeling.. “fear”.. it was so real. It engulfed him, and he couldn’t process it being so sudden, so startling.. so tangible…

Seeing Wave acting more dumb then usually got Undyne even more pissed off at him, so a sound slap on his face was delivered after stopping short.

- Stop looking so stupid, punk! We have a task!! Rescue Toriel and see what happened! - she shook him holding him by the shoulders, - Now go!! -

The kid seemed to perk up, wide eyes as if wakening up from a dream, then pat Endogeny on the head.

- LET’S GO! - he shouted, and the beast sprinted away.

(…)

Outside the ruins, the wind mixed with dust kept blowing, covering the snow. Several screams followed each other at different intervals of time, but now… now only silence.

Wave was passing through Snowdin, the fear still pumping in his brain, and Endogeny kept going, unable to feel something so complex. A weird fog was ahead, thick with what remained of innocent people.

The kid incited Endogeny to speed up right in front of them, and they went till they spotted a blue figure collapsed on the snow.

- TORIEL!! - Wave stepped off Endogeny as he rushed to Toriel, whom was frigid, and immobile on the ground.

With all his strenght, he picked her up and threw her on his friend, who was stronger than him.

- Go to Alphys, she will know what to do!! -

A small pat on the creature’s fur, and it was gone with the precious delivery, and he followed by foot. Suddenly, however, the sound of the phone broke the silence.

RING- RING-

He answered, and on the other side came Alphys and Undyne talking together, one agitated, the other furiously upset.

- You have to evacuate like the others! Right away!! Reach Snowdin and--- its still too danger---- the human--- -

The call was interrupted.

Wave placed the item back into his pocket and kept running, trying to catch up with Endogeny. Some monsters were running trying to find a safe place, others instead stood still, armed with whatever they could find in their houses that they thought could be useful, maybe in an attempt to slow the creature down, and buy time.

When he reached Snowdin, the village was caught by hysteria and panic.

He was now filled by an acute consciousness of what was going to happen, but he facepalmed hard, with resolution – Stop thinking now, it’s time to act!! What can I do now… mhh… -

By the time the idea came to mind, monsters came running agains him for safety, scared by the “human”… who was standing in front of a tiny monster ready to strike. A sick grin on his face.

A feeling behind Wave made him react, and he flung forward, grabbing the blade as it struck downwards, in front of the monster on the ground.

- GO AWAY, IT’S NOT SAFE HERE!! GO! -

He obeyed, running away in tears and fear.

Wave kept his eyes on him till he was far enough, then turned to face the human. It was a child, smaller than him and not much taller, dust on his clothes and no light his eyes, that creature was empty and soulless.

But Wave, Wave saw something else; someone who was destroyed, someone with nothing to loose anymore, and as he stared at him, a sentence left his lips.

- Poor little one… no matter how much I try, I can’t find it in myself to feel something for who or what you are. It seems like you can’t “feel” either, right? -

The human spoke, next.

- I wasn’t expecting to find a human here, but don’t worry… Everything will end now, for you. -

That said, she assaulted him knife in hand.

Wave dodged and dodged, trying to dialogue.

- Why are you doing this?! I can’t feel anything from you, just a faint light… why are you letting your red become black?- he punched her with enough strenght to make her bounce away from her original position at a discrete distance. She got up, laughing hard and maniacally before attacking him with inhuman speed.

- YOU KNOW NOTHING… About what I must do! -, she started to strike again and again, - I’m doing this for a higher purpose! But you can’t understand… nobody can! -

Slash after slash, her aim became better, and she got close to getting Wave, until he struck her again with another blow and threw her back.

- So, you’re just going to push me back till I give up? You IDIOT! -

They kept going for a while, and as she was close to hitting Wave, she got pushed away, until she spoke these words;

- You don’t understand, like him! You’re only going to die like this. -

Out of spite, she threw her knife, kneeling down and weeping. The barking of a dog could be heard in the distance. Wave stepped closer to her, kneeling to her height to look at her eyes. Right then and there, she grabbed the knife and sliced right at Wave when he didn’t expect it, the perfect shot.

However, Endogeny just happened to antepose himself between the blade and the kid, just to get slashed in half and left to disolve, as the hit went right through him. Both Wave and Endogeny went flying for an alarming distance, the impact making the dog splotch everywhere, to never unite again. Wave, on the other hand, had a deep cut in the chest from which what seemed to be blood started to flow out.

The human turned her back, leaving with two more notches on her blade. thanks again !! @nephdetermined this was amazing uwu !!!!! MASTERPOST !

[wynja2007]

Gondolin, the Hidden

Chapter One: Birth

The birth of any City requires the blood of three individuals; a woman in childbirth, a warrior, an old person. This is the real reason there were few elven cities; elves were created immortal, and although childbirth and battle hold similar risks for elves as for humankind, old age is not something they know, just the weariness of ages.

Beautiful Tirion of the musical voice, he was born from the wisdom and sacrifice of one of the Maia, who foresaw the need for Cities, who had heard them sung softly in the Song of Creation, but it had been a brief threnody, growing stronger only when the theme of the rise of Men joined the melody. This one had thought it worth his life to take age upon himself and sit in the tallest tower of the city until the weight of his borrowed years crumbled him to dust that blew away through the open windows to be carried in the high winds across the land. Some settled like a blessing on the streets of Tirion, sparkling and glinting gold in the corners, for this was where his heart had ever dwelt.

(But some of his life force carried across the continent to fall elsewhere, to prepare the ground for further sacrifices).

The mother of Fëanor, Míriel Serindë, died shortly after he was born, but the deliberate sacrifice of all her strength to pour it into her fine, bright, doomed son began sooner, so that it was childbirth, his birth that began the process which took her life, and her essence of death was caught by the Maian sacrifice and mingled in the earth, waiting for the birth of the City. A son of Tirion, new to weapons and armour, died at Alqualondë, defending his friends amongst the shipbuilders, weeping as he saw friend turned against friend, brother against brother, and prayed for an end to kinslaying. (The same events saw the birth of Alqualondë from the ashes and flotsam of its broken fleet just a few days later, while Valmar, first of cities in Valinor, was last to gain her personification in the darkness following the silencing of the lamps.)

The Maia’s sacrifice, then, gave three cities the chance to grow and thrive. But this story concerns Gondolin, firstborn city of Middle Earth.

*

He was nearly born from the ice.

So many deaths, so much emotion, such need, calling out to anyone who might help, the sense of knowing the help sought would not come. The despair, the need, the need.

He stirred in Vinyamar, turning and stretching and testing out the bounds of the dark womb around him, but something held him back, some power outside himself, something with pity in its heart and awareness of his nascent agitation.

Finally, though, it was on the plain of Tumladen when the land shook, and shook, and shook that finally he broke free of the earth and stretched and stood tall, bewildered and exhausted from his difficult gestation and long-deferred birth.

Around him was a wide spread of the greenest grass, crossed with rivulets and streams. Above, the sky was unbearably blue and the sun was warm on his naked back. Around his feet, bursts of colour; Larkspur in bloom.

He felt a tug, a yearning in his heart, and started to turn, seeking the source, allowing his gaze to roam the landscape. There!

In the middle of the plain, walls of sheer stone rose up, forbidding and stern, beckoning, crowned with the towers and turrets and fine-made walls of Gondolin itself. Young as he was, new as he was, he could taste the people, their hopes and fears, their loves and their rivalries, the sense of relief, the sense of dread, and he saw himself reaching out to nurture them…

He smiled and set off towards the cliffs.

*

‘My lord? Can you come? There is something happening.’

Ecthelion, Lord of the House of the Singing Fountains and Captain of the Great Gate nodded and picked up his helm. He followed the sentry from his office – in reality a desk outside the armoury – through the passageways to the lookout point. His companions jokingly referred to it as ‘The Eyrie’, but such an appellation always made Ecthelion shiver; his friend Glorfindel spoke often of how he thought they were not so much blessed by visits from the eagles, birds of Manwë, as spied upon by them…

He repressed a shudder. They were all on edge, the secret city barely finished, the people still so recently arrived that sometimes they missed their way, still, nothing was familiar yet, nothing felt safe and so anything out of the ordinary was a cause for concern. The earthquake, in the night; had it been a warning? A sign that Morgoth was moving in the depths of the earth far away, sending his evil through the ground to shake them, to seek them out…?

There had been deaths that some said boded ill; a warrior, injured on the way and grimly hanging on to life, his wounds healing and breaking, had finally succumbed to injury and breathed his last on the plain. Then an elleth nobody had known was here had fallen, somehow, from the walls, and the saddest thing, the saddest thing, was that she had been about to give birth, but it was too late; the child had quickened, and died before any help could come. Ecthelion made a mental note to try to find a faster way down to the plain than the current system of tunnels and stairs and slopes with defensive corners and reminded himself he was not a superstitious elf, he knew a sign from the Valar would not come as an earthquake or an unexpected death, but as a formal, direct approach, a message or a visitation. After all, there had been another death, that of one of the oldest, earliest-born elves, who had travelled to Valinor and back again, and who had become world-weary and had said surely, this was what it felt to be old, and had faded, just two days ago. No. Not all deaths were bad, sad though they were for elves.

Ecthelion pulled his long, black hair back out of the way with one hand and passed under the archway that led to the lookout post before sliding his helm into place with the other; it was a fine piece of workmanship, decorative and elegant, and part of the uniform, but it was also topped with a high silver spike that sometimes got in the way and to constantly scrape it against the stonework was embarrassing.

At the lookout, the sentry saluted smartly, hand on heart, and stood aside. Ecthelion passed through to find the narrow ledge crammed with his warriors, all with bows drawn, arrows nocked and trained on a figure that seemed to be erupting from the greensward.

Ecthelion caught his breath; they were all jittery, fearing discovery, exposure. The king’s standing orders were to shoot first and question later; but there was something about the way this individual moved, the way Ecthelion’s heart had lifted…

‘Sir?’ The voice of the captain of the archers was tremulous, tight. ‘Orders, sir?’

Ecthelion stared at the figure. Tall, strong, gleaming in the sunlight with golden hair that shimmered and fell in waves to his waist, naked and obviously unarmed, he had begun to move slowly towards the cliffs below the lookout post. Slowly, but not cautiously; it was more that the individual was unused to walking, his feet sliding through the grass as if the landscape was flowing around him, carrying him forward.

As if he was part of the land…

Something, an unconscious connection in Ecthelion’s mind…

‘Send for Lord Glorfindel.’

‘Sir?’

The captain was right to question him; it was against standing orders, the stranger, by rights, should be lying dead and bleeding on the plain by now. But…

‘Keep your weapons on him, but do not fire yet. I think this is not an enemy.’

*

The message: ‘The Captain of the Great Gate demands your attendance, my lord,’ found Glorfindel, Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, in the midst of debating with his sisters on the merits of yellow over blue as a colour for the Festival of Spring, so that it was with some relief that he headed out. He paused to collect his sword and helm, slung his bright red cloak across his shoulders, and was on his way to the Great Gate before his sisters even had time to complain.

He had time on the way to consider the summons from his friend, his more-than-friend Ecthelion; the formality, the use of his military title rather than his name or even his House title made it clear that this was not a social invitation. Ah, well. Thel’s duty tour was over soon, and there’d be time then to meet and dine and talk and all that could follow after…

He did not blink as he went from bright sunlight to dark, torch-lit passages as he entered the tunnels leading to the Gate, his eyes adjusting easily, but he did slow his pace as he considered the wording of the summons again. Not a social invitation, fine. But… it was odd. There was no strategic reason that Glorfindel should be needed here; if it was something serious, then Turgon, the king, should be informed. So why call him…?

Well. He’d soon find out.

*

‘Lord Glorfindel, there you are. Take a look and tell me what you make of this, would you?’

No friendly greeting, no ‘Hullo, Findel, old friend,’ no wink, no touch of hand on arm… but even as he assessed this, Findel was making his way to Ecthelion’s side. Together, they looked out.

Glorfindel spoke first.

‘Company?’

The stranger was closer now, so much nearer to the wall that the angle at which the archers had to hold their bows had steepened. One or two of the guards were glancing anxiously at their captain as they strained to keep the target clearly in sight.

‘Apparently so,’ Ecthelion said in an almost-laconic tone. ‘Remind you of anyone? Anything?’

‘The hair, could be mine…’

‘Don’t flatter yourself!’ A whisper, a flash of a grin that made Findel stifle a laugh as Ecthelion continued. ‘He broke free from the greensward and has been making his way towards us steadily ever since.’

The stranger was near enough now to make out features, details. His ears had the pointed tips that all elves had; his eyes seemed to shine and glow and there was something to him that reminded Findel of a long-ago, long-missed lord…

‘Tirion. He reminds me of Tirion the Fair.’ Findel gave a half-sigh, half-laugh. ‘I had thought him a Maia at first, until they explained to me that he was the City, its heart and fëa, walking amongst us.’

Ecthelion nodded. ‘I never met any of the Valinor Cities, but I remembered your descriptions of Tirion the Fair. What do you think?’

‘I think…’ Glorfindel paused, thinking. Every city had its City in Valinor, of course, the embodiment of the settlement, its soul, its streets, its people’s fëar all wrapped up and walking about through its own byways and highways. ‘If he is, then your arrows won’t kill him. But if he’s… what? Newly hatched, newborn? He could be angry, and although he may be vulnerable, he will still be dangerous. And besides, do you think it’s polite to make our first action on meeting him to shoot at him? Turgon’s standing orders be blowed, I think we need to talk to this fellow first, at least. Maybe offer him a pair of leggings before we all go cross-eyes from trying not to look…’

Behind Findel, one of the watch suppressed an anxious laugh; others took it up and a glance around showed several of the archers grinning; the tension was broken, at least.

‘Very well. Send to Stores, spare tunic and leggings…’

‘Extra-long,’ Findel said. ‘And probably extra-large, too.’

*

They argued in official, formal tones about who should take the garments.

‘This is my watch, my lord Glorfindel,’ Ecthelion pointed out. ‘It is my duty, and my responsibility, to investigate.’

‘Yet we all know that if you do so, you will be countermanding your orders, Lord Captain of the Great Gate. This is not my watch-post, and therefore while you may protest my actions, your life would not be forfeit for such disobedience. Nor would mine, since I am simply investigating, and the archers are watching with you in command of them.’

‘Yet the paths and tunnels running to the plain are many and finding the quickest way will be difficult for you; I have the knowledge to reach this… individual more swiftly.’

Suddenly Findel relaxed, grinning.

‘Oh, I know a faster way than the tunnels,’ he said, and vaulted over the parapet wall, the bundled garments tucked under one arm.

Gasps from the guard. Ecthelion shook his head, striding forward to look.

‘The Lord of the Golden Flower has not jumped to his doom, never fear,’ he admonished them. ‘Make way, there!’

Glorfindel was seated on a narrow ledge just below the wall, booted feet dangling over the void as if he cared not a jot for the danger. He glanced up and back at Ecthelion, grinning.

‘If this is our City,’ he said, ‘I’ve nothing to fear. Watch him carefully… Ai, but he looks so young! See how blue his eyes are? Bluer than mine, even!’

‘Never!' Echtelion leaned forward to whisper in Findel’s ear. 'Never was there anyone, nor will be anyone, with eyes as blue as yours, my lord of the Golden Flower!’

Glorfindel grinned, but continued. ‘…And freckles, whoever heard of an elf with freckles…?’

Lifting a hand, he waved to the probable-City.

‘Greetings, down there!’ he called out. ‘I wish to parley, may I join you?’

*

Things were happening; people were clustering, there were… things… sharp, pointy things… arrows, directed towards him. He felt the intention, the wariness, sensed the leader’s hesitation, his unwillingness to take life without need. Compassion. It was good, good that one of the first emotions he felt from his people was compassion; somehow, he felt it would form him into a compassionate city…

…but there was fear, and weariness of fear, and he could also sense that these, his people, had been afraid for a long time.

He continued on his slow progress towards the cliffs.

A new arrival, a golden, shining figure, and he felt his heart swell and reach out; this one, whoever he might be, he was precious, he was beloved, he was dear to someone… he mattered…

The golden person jumped over the wall and sat, apparently unconcerned about the drop beneath; he could feel that, sense it even as he was aware of curiosity and intelligence, warmth and friendliness. A lifted hand, a wave, a call…

He waved back, looked at the rocks of the cliff and thought of how a person might get from a ledge to the ground in safety. The rocks shifted, slurred, melted and reformed into a stepped pathway down which the friendly golden creature could descend.

A murmur from the watchers above, but the golden one was descending, unfazed by the sudden stairway’s appearance.

The new-born City waited, a stirring of impatience troubling him. But above, there were still pointed things aimed towards him; although he felt strong enough to withstand such minor things as they seemed, and the intent behind them was not malicious, it seemed right to wait here until he knew more.

So much was still unknown, just guesses at the edge of knowledge.

Finally the figure reached the lower steps, jumped down the last two.

‘Hullo! I’m Glorfindel,’ he said, smiling, and there was no doubting the warmth behind the words, the… wonderful, happy feeling… ‘Here; some clothes for you. It’s a bright day, but still a little cool and we didn’t know if you’d be like an elf, or impervious, or what. So. Welcome to Gondolin… you are our City, I take it?’

‘Gondolin. I am Gondolin.’ The new City took the garments, shook them, tried to work them out. ‘This is Gondolin?’

‘This is Tumladen the plain surrounding the city. Look, here, this… you step in, one leg in each side. Sit down, might be easier.’

Gondolin frowned, concentrating, finding out the ways of the clothes. The leg coverings tied in front, and the tunic tied at the neck, and the fabric felt strange against his skin, confining.

‘I am Gondolin. Where are my spires, my towers, my fountains? Ah, I can feel them I can… there are markets and wide squares, armouries and fine houses… it is beautiful!’

‘Well, we like it,’ the golden one said.

Gondolin turned to him, taking him in.

‘Glorfindel. Golden hair, you are beautiful. Bright blue eyes and elegant ears. Strong but not heavy with muscle. You are a fine person.’

Glorfindel laughed.

‘Well, you’re not so bad yourself, you know. Better hair than me, bluer eyes, although Ecthelion says otherwise.’

‘Ecthelion?’

The City repeated the name, taking into himself all that he could sense of the bright warrior in Glorfindel’s heart. It was like to his own emotional response to Glorfindel, and he wondered if he would feel for all his citizens as he did now, if it were a normal, usual thing.

‘Yes, Ecthelion, Lord of the Great Gate, amongst other things. You know, you could have got into awful trouble, emerging like that, if it hadn’t been him on duty today; I’ve talked to him of my City, Tirion – my first City, that is. You’re my City now. But what I mean is, there are orders… to protect the city, that’s all, but that all strangers should be… forbidden entry and… not allowed to leave.’

‘This is a riddle. How can one not leave and yet not be admitted?’

Glorfindel shrugged. ‘Orders are for the guards to shoot first and ask questions afterwards…’

‘Another riddle, Glorfindel. For how…?’ Gondolin felt the hard meaning of the phrase, the sense of regret from the glowing, beautiful elf before him, and understood. ‘They would not harm me. No ordinary weapon could harm me.’

‘Well, no. Probably not. But you’re… new. I understand that newborn Cities are more fragile than those who are established. Anyway, that doesn’t matter, what matters is that Thel – Ecthelion, knew of Tirion through me, and wondered it perhaps you were our Gondolin.’ Glorfindel smiled, but his eyes were anxious. ‘Do you mind waiting here while I tell him it’s all right? Then he’ll send for Turgon, probably, our king, and… oh, you’re probably hungry and thirsty. You wait here, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

‘I…’ Gondolin frowned, puzzled at how suddenly he did not want Glorfindel to leave, at how much he wanted to stay at his side. Realisation dawned. ‘I love you, beautiful Glorfindel.’

Glorfindel smiled and twisted his shoulders, as if he felt awkward.

‘I love you, too. Or I will; you’re my City. And you’ll love all of us; we’re your people. So that’s all right, then. Only it might take a little time, with some of them. It’s been a long and hard road to get here.’

*

‘So…?’ Ecthelion asked as Glorfindel vaulted over the wall and onto the watch platform.

‘If this were my command, I’d stand them down. We have ourselves a City.’ He grinned suddenly, shaking his head as he saw the blank expressions on many of the guard. ‘What that means, essentially, is that Gondolin – or Gondolin, our new city – is important enough, vital enough, that it’s become personified; that individual down there, on the Tumladen – he is our City. He will walk with us, talk with us, share our fears and hopes, support our king. He will feel our pain, and he will strengthen our walls, he will care for us and we will care for him, and we will be the stronger for that. Now, someone should take meat and drink to our City, he will be hungry and he’ll want to meet you all as soon as possible. And if I may make a suggestion, we should send to Lord Turgon and give him the joyful news.’

‘And it is a matter of joy because…?’

Glorfindel clapped Ecthelion briefly on the shoulder, his eyes shining.’

‘Because, my dear Captain of the Great Gate, Cities don’t just happen at random; this means that Gondolin is here to stay!’

Notes:

With grateful thanks and acknowledgement to thecitysmith for permission to take their wonderful idea from 'Paris Burning' and re-imagine it for Tolkien's Legendarium. As well as the stories here on AO3, many wonderful tales for this inventive and fascinating new concept can be found on tumblr.

This story is in no way connected to, or dependent on, the amazing 'Hands of stone or hands of tallow' by consumptive_sphinx and our concepts of the City are a little different. But read it, read it anyway.