#the only things i catcall are trees.

[theworldiswhispering]

ok but November kinda slaps

[rafeandonlyrafe]

out for a run

words: 900

warnings: established relationship, catcalling, physical violence!!!, description of blood, reader kinda crazy as well as rafe lolz

“you ready?” you ask rafe as you finish tying your tennis shoes before making sure your watch is strapped tight to your wrist.

“yup.” rafe says, still leaned up against a wall, not so subtly checking you out as his eyes look up and down your body, dressed in tight fitting leggings and a sports bra.

“earth to rafe.” you wave your hand past his face as you head towards the door, taking a final sip of water before you start your run.

“yeah, yeah.” rafe jogs to catch up to you, again admiring your body, this time from the back.

you go through a quick stretching routine once outside, warming up your muscles. you walk to the end of the driveway, occasionally swinging your knee back to kick your butt and warm up your thighs. 

rafe is right by your side as you start to run, keeping pace with you, even though he could probably go faster. rafe insists it's the perfect pace for him, but you know it's just because he wants to stay by your side.

you fall into a comfortable silence. you used to like listening to music during runs, but you've come to enjoy just the sounds of the outer banks, whether it be the distant waves or dogs barking, even the cars driving past provide you a bit of interest as your feet pound against the pavement.

a car horn suddenly beeps out, causing you to look over, making sure it's not directed at you.

you twist your face in disgust when you see a guy smirking at you out the window. he even has the audacity to roll down his window and shout. “nice tits!”

rafe doesn't hesitate, turning up his pace as he sprints onto the road after the truck, but it tears away, blowing through a stop sign.

“it's okay rafe.” you reach your hands to his shoulders, legs burning slightly from the sudden stop as he rejoins you on the sidewalk. “he's just some asshole, okay?”

“im gonna find out who he is and fucking kill him.” rafe grunts out, eyes staring into the distance like his glare can cause the man pain.

“alright, you gotta run your anger out.” you shove slightly on rafes shoulders. “go faster, it's okay. just circle back to meet me.”

rafe looks at you, then back in the direction of the truck, wondering how far it's gone. hopefully it's parked somewhere close and rafe can confront the asshole.

“call me if anything happens.” rafe says, planning to just run up and look down the streets of a couple blocks before rushing back to you.

“of course.” you give him another gentle shove, and rafe takes off.

you give your legs a little stretch, shins hurting slightly before starting to jog again, heading the direction rafe went. you always switch up your route, but it doesn't matter because you're always together. you figure the best thing to do is just stay going straight.

you get back into your groove quickly, listening to the birds chirping, the wind rustling through the trees, only for it to be interrupted by a quiet thud of skin hitting skin.

you look down the side street, eyes widening when you see the same truck as earlier, the driver now splayed out on the grass, rafe standing over him. 

you turn quickly in his direction, pushing your legs as hard as they can go as rafe kneels down over the guy, fisting one hand in his shirt and pulling his other arm back to punch him again.

“okay, rafe.” you grab his elbow when he raises it up to swing again. “i think he's learned his lesson.” the guys face has turned black and blue, blood dripping from his nose onto the green grass.

rafe stands, turning to place his hands on your shoulders, blocking your view of the creep with his wide chest. “come on baby, you don’t gotta see this.”

rafe turns to spit at him before leading you back in the direction you came when the guy has the gall to speak again. 

“your ass is as nice as your tits.” the words are slurred, rafe clearly did a number on him.

rafe turns, clearly he hasn't beat him well enough if he can't shut up even when he's lying on the ground bleeding, when you stop him with a hand on the bicep.

“i got this.” you say, turning towards the man, looking down at him with disgust, sorry you have to dirty your favorite pair of running shoes with his filth as you swing your leg forward, connecting your toe with his side.

he lets out a loud groan, twisting to cover his side, but it just gives you a better angle as you muster everything you learned from playing soccer in elementary school and kick again, directly in his stomach.

“you need to learn how to treat women with respect.” you spit onto his face as well, landing on the opposite cheek that rafes had.

“you're lucky i don't let my boyfriend at you again.” the guy is sobbing into the ground now, but you're not satisfied, giving him a kick right in his crotch to finish off your point.

“come on, rafe.” you begin to walk away as he looks at you with wide eyes.

“baby-” rafe hurries after you as you start to jog, turning back down the street like nothing happened.

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[diorchids]

ALL YOUR INNOCENCE, CORIOLANUS SNOW.

cw: reader is a virg, PRAISE, taking virg, peacekeeper!snow, p in v

nsfw ahead !

coriolanus hated the hob. unless you were there. the drunkard's smell filled the place up while coriolanus and sejanus bantered over small things. peacekeepers get a few nights off, they have to make it last.

his favorite part was you. you’d be with all of your friends, bow in your hair swaying every which way when everyone was boot stompin’, this was the ideal night for you. different men trying to feel you up or talk to you made you even less engaged in the show and more so in the drinks.

you’d scrapped up your last bit of change for your drink, but it still wasn’t enough. “still not enough, sorry,” the bartender offered a pity smile before shuffling away to serve other patrons.

coriolanus had been watching you, your pretty face being the only thing left to entertain him on those cold, uneventful nights. 

you were surprised, to say the least when he walked to the bar and put a few dollars on the counter for the tender to see, “that should cover it.” his tall frame behind you, practically towering over you. 

the bartender hands you your drink before you look up at coriolanus, “thank you, sir.” and he shudders at the sudden eye contact. “my pleasure, ‘s on the house.” a quick smile creeps onto his face. you waltz back over to your friends, drink in hand. 

he stares across the crowd just to see you. this was your first time seeing him outside of his full peacekeeper attire, but he had seen you multiple times. on reaping day, outside of the hob, at the hanging tree. the way tears rolled down your face each time the criminals were strung up made him realize just how innocent you are.

you shuffle away to a room toward the back of the hob, trying to find a friend who had wandered off. he follows narrowly behind you like you’re his prey, like his princess. you notice him behind you, startled by his presence. “s’ just me. you’re good, princess.” he examines you, so small under him.

“ – thank you, again. i can get the money back, sir.” you furrow your brows, feeling scrutinized, “promise.” 

his lips curve softly into a closed-mouth smile, “my pleasure, princess.” his eyes move all over your small frame. your fingers fiddle with the end of your dress, your lower thigh being put on display for him as you look up. he can’t help but wonder how innocent you are, how much he just wanted to protect you. 

your pouty lips only add to his need for you, his need to treat you like his princess. you guys can’t help but just stare at each other, his eyes piercing straight into you. 

he snaps out of his trance, eyes finally moving away from you. he gives a courtesy smile before pivoting right back to the crowd's direction. “gotta get back, princess, hm?” he says while walking back into the common, crowded area. 

you practically forget about the encounter half an hour later, but coriolanus still eyes you from his seat next to sejanus. “ – desperate,” sejanus says, swishing his drink around in his cup. “you’re desperate.” 

the crowd is still compact, you move through safely aside from unwanted touches everywhere and catcalls. you stumble before bumping into coriolanus, “watch where you’re goin’, could hurt yourself, princess.” he coos into your ear, leaning down to reach your ear. 

you look up at him before touching his shoulder, eye contact strong. “sorry.” your fingers touching his wrist before grabbing it, and dragging him onto the floor. he touches your waist briefly before gripping the other side. “too loud, let’s go to the back, hm?” you smile and nod eagerly before he leads you to the hallway you previously had an encounter in. “now, what’s your name, doll?” he asks you, finger trailing up your arm. you tell him, not being able to hold back from answering.

you wait for his words, only getting a hand cradling and stroking your jaw. “what a doll.” he coos onto your skin. your eyes almost make his legs buckle when you look at his lips. he examines you with a certain look while he caresses your cheek softly. you can’t help but kiss him, but he kisses back passionately. his hands roam your body, fingers gripping softly around your neck. he had never been this close. 

“don’t want you back out there, ‘kay?” you nod as he leads you into a room with nothing but a small cot and a table. he kisses you ferociously while his hands softly graze over your skin, not wanting to break you. “what’s your name?” you ask him, and he answers, “coriolanus – snow.” hesitating to finish the name.

he looks at you for confirmation before running his finger up your dress and along your lace panties. “god, i mean, you’re just teasin’ me. huh, doll?” finger touching your clothed clit. your hand curves around his clothed bulge, and he bucks his hips into your hands quickly.

“never done this, never got this far.” you whisper into his ear while you hook your finger onto his pants. “good, that’s good, i’ll show you,” he whispered to you before kissing you again, the cut on his top lip serving as a reminder of his occupation. what he does to people. yet he can only think to protect you.

he lays you down softly on the table, standing between either of your legs. “can i see it? please?” you beg while he caresses your thigh, dress ridden up to your stomach. he complies, nodding while he unbuckles his belt. pulling his pants down to reveal his clothed cock with a wet patch, hunched over while he palms himself through his boxers, earning a groan.

you look up at him with your innocent eyes, waiting for him to do something. he pulls his cock out of his boxers, it springing up and leaking with pre cum. he ruts his cock against your clothed clit, large hands gripping your waist as you pout. 

“gonna make you feel good, ‘kay, doll?” he says, pulling down your panties. “‘s not gonna fit. gonna break you.” his tip prodding at your wet entrance. his tip makes you wince when he even tries to stick it inside of your wet cunt. you shudder and grip his arm, “it will, won’t hurt me just put it all in.” you say, so needy for his fat cock in you, wanting him to take away all of your innocence. 

“ready, princess? ‘s gonna hurt.” he furrows his eyebrows as he waits for your confirmation. you nod before he pushes his fat cock deep into you. your eyes water and you whine when his tip forces its way into your tight cunt. his gaze meets yours while he slowly pushes in, inch by inch getting more engrossed into you.

you mewl and cry as he moves his hips back and forth, barely thrusting. “told you, doll, it’s gonna hurt.” his thumb running over your lips when he speeds up, getting more length inside of you. he loves to know he’s doing this to you. do you know how many times he’s even thought of this? being able to break you open?

“ – m’ okay,” you hiss. “gonna push it all in, ‘kay?” he cranes his neck to see your eyes, making sure you know. he places his hands on either of your hips, lightly caressing them before sliding far inside of you, eliciting a groan from him and cries from you. you whine and tears run down your face when you smile at him. “tsk, so pretty.” his cock now sliding in and out of your tight cunt that grips him perfectly.

your lower half shakes uncontrollably under his cock. “so pretty, hm, doll? takin’ it good. first time for everything.” you turn into an incoherent mess when his cock brushes up against that spongy spot. he can tell you’re almost there. his hands press all over your back, pulling you closer to him. “feel it comin’, feel it in my stomach.” you say. he nods, taking in your words.

your cunt grips coriolanus perfectly, making sure to attend to every vein and suck every drop of pre cum out of him. he thrusts passionately, hips finding a rhythm to pleasure you with. you look up at him with those big, pretty eyes and whine every time.

“ – can’t take it– can’t take it anym–more.” your legs shake before your stomach tightens up completely. he sets his warm thumb on your clit, rubbing it lazily. “c’mon, princess. scream for me. tell me how good this feels for your first time.” you cum hard around his cock, spasming harshly. 

you can barely form a coherent sentence when you cum all around him, his lips smashing yours, juices spilling all over the table and floor. “ – s–so g–good.” you try to say as drool pools at the corners of your mouth.

juices fall from your cunt as he takes this as an opportunity to speed up again, pushing deep inside of you as you dig your nails deep into his arms. “almost d–done, princess.” he groans. 

his cock twitches before his balls tighten up at the sight of you. so pretty, completely cock-drunk, crying from him. you can barely look at him. 

“gonna take it all, take all of me, princess.” he wraps his arms around your torso before cumming deep inside of you. his cock continues to twitch as it gets covered in his cum, making sure to fuck it deep inside of your cunt. tears flow freely down your face when his cum gets pushed into you. “can’t – can’t do it anymore. stomach…” you taper off before you cum again, your mixed juices falling onto the floor beneath you. 

coriolanus still thrusts, just slower and more tame. he delivers sloppy kisses all over your face, letting you know how proud he is of you. “did so well. took me so well for your first time, princess.” he nods to make sure you know how perfectly you did.

“hurts, hurts real bad, coryo.” he hisses at the sudden nickname.

“i know, i know, doll.” he coos while rubbing your back.

he smiles knowing you’re his now, you’re his girl.

um im gonna watch tbosas again

[lyrakanefanaticwriting]

Love your writing and requesting a fic that is literally Gray and Lyra shopping for limes. And Lyra making Gray go speechless (bonus points if Gigi tags along)

ofc!! (im so sorry this took so long I’ve had 0 motivation lately im sorry 😢😢)

Grocery Store Confessions - a grayson x lyra fic

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Lyra picked up the bar of dark chocolate before placing it down in her cart as she followed Grayson and Gigi towards the snack section. Gigi had her car privileges taken away after she rammed it into a tree, and was now getting driving lessons from Grayson. Since she doesn’t have a car, as it’s in the shop, she asked if Grayson would drive her to the store. And as her older brother, Grayson had obliged. And of course Lyra was tagging along, because that was her new job as Grayson’s girlfriend. Gigi bounced towards the candy section of the aisle, before grabbing 5 bags of gummy’s and treats.

“I don’t know how you eat that much candy. It’s too sweet.” Grayson said, giving all the candy in her arms a look. Gigi just rolled her eyes before turning to Lyra with a grin.

“Lyra, do you want some candy? It will pair extremely well with your…” She trailed off as she glanced at the dark chocolate bar in the cart with a sour look. “Bitter chocolate.” Now its was Lyra’s turn to roll her eyes.

“Dark chocolate is supposed to be bitter. That’s why it tastes so good.” Lyra said with a half shrug. Gigi just stuck her tongue out, before speeding towards whatever other aisle had caught her attention.

Lyra turned before grabbing a bag of chips off the shelves, bending over to pick it up, and just as she did, she heard whispers from not too far away. Just outside of the aisle, she saw a group of teenagers boys close to her age whispering and stealing glances at her behind. As soon as their gazes met Lyra’s glare though, they started hollering and laughing before taking off. Lyra just scoffed before harshly grabbing the chips and straightening up again. Just as she did, she felt a hand on her waist. As soon as she looked down she recognized it. Grayson’s. His arm wrapped around her waist and he pulled her closer to him. Lyra smiled before looking up at him, and seeing a dark look on his face as he watched the boys jackrabbit towards the exit. Her smile only grew. Possessive, much.

“Maybe those boys were working up the courage to ask me for my number and you scared them off.” She said, her brow raising at him. His eyes met hers and a flash of surprise crossed his features. Alright, it’s clear that those weird boys were just looking for a girl to catcall, but teasing Grayson was hilarious.

“And what would you say?” He asked her, matching her brow raise with his own. Lyra took his hand off her waist and held both of them in hers as she took a step back, thinking.

“Oh, this guy?” Lyra said in a girly voice, angling her head to Grayson. “He’s just my lawyer. I’d be happy to take your number, hehe.” She twirled her hair dramatically, and a smile that only Lyra got to see touched his lips as he pulled her by her waist closer to him.

“Sure, sweetheart.” He said softly, pressing a gentle kiss to her neck. Lyra glowed from the touch, and just as she was about to say something else, Gigi popped out from another aisle.

“Guys!!” She said, hollering for no apparent reason. The two turned to her with a confused look on their faces. “I forgot we need to actually get grocery’s. Mom gave me a list.” Gigi pulled out a sheet of paper from her pocket. Grayson sighed, but Lyra just smiled before speaking.

“Alright, Gigi.”

The three of them were almost done the short grocery list Acacia had given them, but there was just one thing left: limes. Gigi went to pick up a bunch, before turning to Grayson with a grin.

“Remember these?” She said, her voice teasing. Grayson tensed suddenly, and Lyra got the feeling that he was hiding something.

“No.” He said. But just a bit too quickly, Lyra thought with an internal smirk. Lyra was wearing an innocent smile as she turned to Grayson.

“Why would you remember them?” She asked, her tone completely innocent as she gazed up at him. He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear before speaking.

“I don’t, and I have no reason to.” He told her softly. Then his expression changed into a glare as his gaze averted to Gigi. “Gigi’s just making things up for entertainment.” Gigi shrugged before speaking, a sly smile on her face.

“Sure I aaammmm.” She sang, stretching out the words as she grabbed the cart and limes from Grayson and took off towards the cash register. Lyra raised her brow at him, but Grayson just took her hand and walked after Gigi, grumbling “I said I was paying” as he did.

Once they were all in the car, with Grayson driving, Lyra in the passenger seat, and Gigi in the back, Gigi spoke up.

“Lyra, do you want to know the story behind the limes?” She asked with a mischievous grin.

“No, she doesn’t.” He said, his tone meant to end the conversation. Gigi, however, didn’t get the hint or just didn’t care.

“It was 3 years ago, before the first Grandest Game was created, and before I knew we were siblings. Him and I were at the store and-“

“Enough, Juliet.” Grayson said, cutting her off. Lyra turned to him, and was surprised to see the slightest blush on her face. Lyra had made him blush once before, but seeing it now still made her jaw want to drop. It was an unusual look for him.

“No, Gigi,” Lyra said, her tone teasing. Grayson glanced at her, surprise clear on his face. “Keep going.” Gigi obliged.

“So we were at the store, and I was confused on why he had a sudden interest with what happened to my father. And me, being the only one who didn’t know Grayson was our brother, decided to come to the horrifying conclusion that he and Savannah were-“ She stopped suddenly, but Lyra still shuddered as she realized what Gigi was getting at. “Snorking.” Gigi finished lamely. Lyra raised a brow at that, as nobody before had ever referred to two people dating as “snorking”, but Gigi was already moving on.

“Anyway. To prove that they didn’t, in fact, date in the past, he went on this whole tangent…” Gigi paused dramatically, grinning as she leaned forward in her seat to peer at Grayson. “About his girlfriend.” The blush on his cheeks grew a tiny bit redder, but Grayson kept his eyes on the road.

“So what?” He gritted out. Lyra was confused why he was embarrassed, and also confused on why he never told her about this girlfriend. Maybe it was an ex talking stage, or maybe he still had something going on with Eve, or maybe…

When Lyra realized what Gigi was getting at, she couldn’t hold a snort back as she bursted out laughing.

“You had to make up a fake girlfriend so Gigi didn’t think you were dating your sister?! Oh my god!” Lyra teased Grayson often, but this was beyond teasing. Right now, she was doubled over laughing, twisting around in her seat so she can breathe.

“Lyra!” He exclaims. Lyra wiped her tears, a smile still on her face, as she glanced at Grayson’s betrayed expression. That only made her laugh more.

“Okay, okay!” Lyra choked out, finally done laughing, “What was this fake girlfriend like?” Gigi grinned.

“Unexpected, smart,” Gigi stated, clearly trying to imitate Grayson’s deep voice. “Not perfect, and when I’m with her, I don’t have to be either. More stuff, but I honestly forget.” Lyra turned to Grayson.

“How poetic.” She says, biting her lip to keep her laugh in. Grayson just hums in response as he glances at her, his eyes softening as he takes in her happy expression, even if it came at his expense.

“I can be.” He says. Then, he glanced at her again, before imitating a hurt face. “But not anymore, because you made fun of me.” Lyra faked a pout, before leaning over the best she could with a seat belt, taking his face in her hands, and kissing his lips. It was a quick peck, but Lyra still felt electricity run through her body all the same.

“You’ll be fine.” Lyra says with a smile as she sits back in her seat.

“Ugh, I am never going in a car with you guys again!” Gigi exclaimed from the backseat, while making gagging noises. Lyra just rolled her eyes in response, meeting Grayson’s eyes and seeing a look in them that made her heart skip.

Love.

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why do i feel like gigi + jameson bitch and moan when lyra and grayson kiss?? like i feel like they’d make such a big deal about it as a joke LMFAOOO

also i hope u like it!! :))

[zerobaselove]

zb1 being protective

pairing: zb1 x reader

genre: fluff

warnings: catcalling in jiwoong's, mention of thunderstorms in matthew's, mention of bullying in yujin's. lowercase intended, not proofread

notes: idk if all of these are even considered as protective but i view them that way so i hope that's okay <33

members under the cut!

jiwoong ;

window shopping was a frequent hobby for you and jiwoong. the two of you often enjoyed just walking around, drink in hand, as you browsed the store lined streets of your city. it wasn't abnormal for you to get some stares from people, but usually they were from women looking at jiwoong; you couldn't even blame them, your boyfriend was quite the sight.

this time however, the attention came in the form of calls and whistles from a group of men nearby, and you knew it was directed towards you. you were just going to speed up, attempting to drag jiwoong past the group without saying anything, but he wasn't having that.

"who do you think you are, really? do you have nothing better to do than make someone uncomfortable in your presence? no wonder you're all sitting here with nobody other than each other." he spit out, an almost venomous tone to his voice, a contrast from his usual voice. grabbing your hand and walking you around the corner, out of their sight.

pausing for a moment, jiwoong faced you, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. "are you okay?" he dropped his hand to grab yours, "i'm sorry they were acting like that, and i'm sorry you had to see me like that." his voice trailed off slightly, reflecting on his short tempter. "i just couldn't let them continue thinking that they could get away with that."

you simply smiled at the boy, cupping his cheek as you placed a quick peck on his lips, "it's okay jiwoong, i'm okay," you squeezed his hand lightly, "and i appreciate it, i appreciate you."

zhang hao ;

it wasn't abnormal for you and zhang hao to like to go for walks together; you both enjoyed the fresh air, especially with summer around the corner, and you enjoyed just having time to yourself to chat as you admired the breeze through the trees or the pretty flowers that lined the sidewalks.

the two of you weren't walking with much purpose, but you had ended up in the middle of town on a street lined with bakeries, cafe's and little boutiques. despite your best efforts you had come out of a few of the shops with small bags, some earrings you couldn't pass up or a small pastry.

"give me those," zhang hao said quietly, reaching out to hold the bags you've collected, adding them to his own in his hand. you tried to turn to him to respond but before you knew it he was on the other side of you, separating you from the cars on the street. you couldn't help but smile at the act.

"you didn't have to do that you know," you shook your head as the two of you continued down the street. zhang hao simply hummed, switching the bags to his other hand so he could use his free hand to grab yours, "who've you been hanging out with?" he almost sounded disappointed at the idea of you not getting this respect before him, "it's a basic courtesy."

it was foreign to you though. nobody had ever done something like that, even if it was just simple. and it made your heart speed up faster than it should've. "at least let me carry the bags." he only shook his head playfully, leaving you in defeat as he squeezed your hand, holding it up in front of you, "and anyways, your hand is already busy."

hanbin ;

hanging out with your friends was fun and all, until it wasn't. you loved your friends, you did, but your social battery only lasted so long and you were well past your limits. you just wanted to go home and wash off the day you've had, but here you were with your group of friends, unable to leave as they were your ride here.

the only thing keeping you sane at this point was texting your boyfriend hanbin, he always knew what to say and what would calm you down, and he had some good ideas rolled up his sleeves too. "do you want me to come pick you up? i can even call you with an excuse if you'd like ^^" the text read, and without any further consideration, you typed back a quick agreement and awaited the call flashing across your screen.

you muttered a small, "sorry i have to take this," before answering the call, ready for whatever fake situation hanbin had managed to come up with. as he relayed the information to you, you could hear the faint sound of his keys jingling and the door shutting in the background, signifying he was already on his way. you had to hide the smile threatening to spread to your face at the idea of getting to relax with your boyfriend instead of getting dragged to the next bar your friends wanted to hit.

soon enough you hung up, explaining the "dire emergency" to your friends. they all wished you well as you walked outside to wait for hanbin, soon seeing his car pull up. "never knew you were such a good actor," you chuckled as you got into the passenger seat. "what can i say," he smiled, "i'm a jack of all trades."

you and hanbin chatted over the soft music playing over the radio, and you had felt at ease for the first time in hours. after a moment of silence had risen, you let your words surface, "i love you hanbin," you looked over to the boy as you watched his ears immediately turn a light shade of red. he stuttered a few times before gathering a response, "i love you too," he reached over and grabbed your hand, giving it a gentle squeeze; you couldn't think of a better way to spend your night.

matthew ;

ever since you were a kid you had been afraid of storms; whether it be the loud cracks of thunder or the heavy downpour or the potential aftermath, you hated storms. you remembered countless nights as a kid when you'd seek comfort in the blankets on your bed as you hid under them in an attempt to muffle the rumbling sky. but now you were grown up, you were past that; the blankets that is.

because once again you had found yourself unable to sleep because of the raging storm outside. the rain so strong it felt like it'd break your windows at any moment. and quite honestly, you were terrified. but lucky for you, you had a new vice. matthew.

the usual blanket wrapped around your frame had been replaced with matthew's arms as you leaned into his chest, finding comfort in the heat radiating off of his body and the smell of his shampoo. while he couldn't quite drown out the noise, he did make for a pretty good distraction.

"it's okay my love, you're safe, i've got you" he whispered close to your ear, his hand rubbing circles on your back as your breathing evened out. you weren't keeping up your end of the conversation too well but that didn't stop him. whether it was reassurance or telling an embarrassing childhood story, or singing his favourite song, he found a way to keep your mind off of the outside world. and you were forever grateful.

and like always, the storm had slowed, beginning to pass as it soon became a memory of the evening. "thank you matthew," you breathed out with a shy smile. despite the storm being over you still couldn't help but cling to him. he made everything feel okay.

taerae ;

"i don't want to go," you whined, a pout prominent on your face. you hated the dentist, there was no way around it. quite honestly you hadn't been in what most would consider way too long, but you knew you had to. after some convincing, and promises of cuddles, from your boyfriend taerae, you had made the appointment.

all was fine and well until the day had actually arrived and you found yourself running through every excuse in your head on why you shouldn't go. unfortunately for you, nothing had seemed to come up that would leave you with a good conscience.

"well, if it'd make you feel better, i can come with you," taerae smiled, "moral support and all that." having him there sounded a lot better than going alone, you couldn't lie. and so, you took him up on his offer, reluctantly leaving with the boy.

soon enough you were in the waiting room being called to come into one of the offices, and to say you were nervous was an understatement. but you had taerae.

"i'll be right here okay? you're not alone, and before you know it it'll be over and you won't have to worry about it again," he placed a small kiss on your forehead, then your nose, and then a chaste kiss on your lips. "you've got this." he mumbled against your lips, causing you to smile for the first time all day. maybe things wouldn't be so bad if you had taerae by your side.

ricky ;

you had never really thought about it, but sometimes you could be quite oblivious. it wasn't always a bad thing, at least that's what ricky insisted, but it did seem more prevalent on days like today. maybe it was how safe you felt around ricky, or how it feels like you're the only people around when you're with him, but sometimes you forgot how not everyone is as kind and respectful as ricky.

you had opted for a shorter, flowy outfit for your shopping trip today, and while you thought you looked good, you hadn't considered how the clothes would be to walk around in; spending the better part of your day tugging and pulling on the fabric and being overly aware of every passing breeze.

"here," ricky stopped the two of you in your place, turning you around to face him as he tied his jacket around your waist, "don't need anyone seeing what they shouldn't." he smiled shyly, "plus you should be more comfortable this way, and you still look good." he shot you a wink and a smile before grabbing your hand to continue walking.

you couldn't help but blush at the gesture, letting your free hand fiddle with the sleeves tied around your waist as you let your mind wander. "thank you," you mumbled, getting a smile in return from the boy.

"no need to thank me," he shook his head playfully, "it's the least i could do."

gyuvin ;

gyuvin was a little clumsy to say the least. you found it quite endearing, but he had collided with one too many cabinet doors and countertops to see it the same way; and so, subconsciously he had found himself protecting you from a similar fate.

you hadn't noticed it for a while; the way his hand would hold the edge of the counter you were crouched underneath, or how his hand would cover the corner of the table you had to walk past. sometimes he would even try and physically move things out of your way if he could help it.

however, today you did notice. you noticed when you stood up too fast from trying to get something under the sink and instead of the solid countertop, you had a softer impact with his hand. you had braced for the sharp pain to rush to your head, but nothing came. "thank you," you mumbled, "do you always do that?"

he chuckled, nodding slightly, "i guess i do," he let himself think back on all the times he didn't even notice himself doing it. "gotta keep you from ending up like me." he laughed again as he rubbed the back of his neck; the memories of one too many near concussions flooding to his head, literally.

you joined him in laughter as you brought your hand up to card through the his hair, "you've gotta be more careful you know," you lightly scolded. he only let out a tsk before responding, "you try being this tall."

gunwook ;

"don't you live in the other direction?" you asked gunwook, curious as to why he was heading in the same direction as you instead of leaving you with a simple goodbye. the dim streetlights casting a glow on his skin, just enough to see the way his cheeks flushed at the question.

"i do," he paused, turning his sight from the road in front of him to you, "but i wanna make sure you get home safe." a smile spread across his face and you couldn't help but mirror it on your own. "you know you don't have to do that wookie, i live just down the street." you said matter-of-factly, knowing he knew where you lived.

he let the two of you bask in the silence for a moment. the only sound being your footsteps and the light buzz of some bugs in the summer night. "i know," he grabbed your hand in a moment of bravery, "still going to walk you home though," he beamed.

you accepted defeat in that moment, too caught up in the way it felt to have your hand in his. that wasn't something that happened a lot, but you sure could get used to it. the comfortable silence surrounded you again, this time accompanied by a faint hum from gunwook, presumably whatever song he had stuck in his head at the time. in that moment, you felt completely content.

you felt almost disappointed as you approached your front door. the two of you stood facing each other in front of the door for longer than you should've, trying to decide between making eye contact or staring at your still intertwined hands. "thank you for walking me home wook," you looked up at the boy, leaning in to plant a kiss on his cheek. almost instantly he was a stuttering mess; his cheeks flushing a light pink as he couldn't control the smile spreading to his face. "for you, anytime."

yujin ;

before meeting yujin, your days at school were rough to say the least. hell, they still weren't the best. but they were better thanks to the boy you had befriended. you finally had somewhere to sit at lunch, finally had someone to hang out with after school, and finally had someone to call a best friend. and you were so thankful.

but life wasn't always so easy, and you didn't want to bother yujin with it, so you kept it to yourself. and today was one of those days. after one too many passing comments from classmates you had found yourself holding back tears in an empty classroom, trying to dry your eyes before going to meet up with yujin for lunch.

"what are you doing in here?" a familiar voice made your head snap up towards the door, seeing yujin's figure walking to you, you quickly wiped your eyes and stutter out an excuse. "i was just packing up." now yujin was sometimes a little oblivious, but he wasn't stupid, and he knew something was up. "was it them again?" you only nodded in return, shoving your pencil case into your bag and zipping it up before slinging the bag over your shoulder.

he let out a small sigh as he grabbed your hand, "c'mon, we are getting out of here," he dragged you by the hand out of the classroom, and subsequently out of the building, only stopping when you made it to a small picnic bench in the back of the property. "i'm sorry i couldn't protect you more," he mumbled as he fiddled with your fingers.

"yujinnie, you protect me plenty, and plus, that's not your job," you placed your free hand on top of his, "i can't thank you enough for what you do for me." a smile spread across your face, a similar one mirrored on yujin's face at the sight of you smiling. "i'm gonna do my best to make it all okay," you shook your head at his response, "you already do."

[urlocalnonbinarybastardwrites]

Hey hey! I was wondering if you could do the greasers with a hyperfeminine reader? 🫶🏽

Sureeeeeee pookie

The Gang x Hyperfem! Reader

(Tried to find accurate pics but there’s like none on friggin google- ps I could only find pink but hyperfem doesn’t necessarily mean always pink! And Hyperfem can be an umbrella term for many aesthetics (Lolita, coquette, old money, etc. that help you embrace a youthful look and femininity!)

Ponyboy Curtis

-he sees you sitting under a tree, studying one day

-and he’s like Whoa

-the background is fitting, it’s just begun spring and all the flowers are blooming around you

-quite fitting indeed for your flowy dress with light pastel heels

-he really loves your style

-and loves that you embrace your femininity

-he would try to get you things that he thinks you would like

-he smiles when he sees a pretty fabric that reminds him of you 😊

-he compares you to a lot of similar women he sees on screen with similar style (Marylin Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, etc. maybe not time period accurate but whateverrr)

-“Hey uh Y/n! I saw one of those girls that dressed like you in the movie the other day!”

-absolutely draws you

Johnny Cade

-he thinks you’re stunning

-he really loves your style and how it stands out from most people

-I think fashion wise you two contrast pretty well with you wearing more lacy things and him wearing a jean jacket

-just an aesthetically pleasing couple tbh

-he calls you things like “lovely” “love” “princess”

Sodapop Curtis

-he also adores your style

-you two fit like a key and lock

-I think for even his time period sodapop is the most embracing of his own femininity

-and he loves that you can appreciate yours

-he would let you doll him up for fun

-like putting lace or bows in his jeans and hair

-he shrugs it off whenever the other greasers give him shit for it

-he’s simply above their opinions

Darry Curtis

-he’s stunned when he sees you

-you look as graceful as a swan

-his illusion is quickly destroyed whenever you fall on a rock, right in front of him

-and before you fall he quickly catches you

-and you awkwardly get up, uttering a small thank you with an embarrassed smile

-which he thinks is adorable

-I love you guys yall are such perfect husband and wife vibes

-he loves your outfits and you both are such opposites fashion wise

-💀he throws on whatever is clean

-while you spend thirty minutes deciding what to wear

Dallas Winston

-oh, he hasn’t seen a broad like you since New York

-he thinks you’re amazing

-all dolled up

-you two definitely met when he was catcalling you on the street (why is it always Dallas 💀😭)

-and you know walked up to him, in pretty neat strides despite your heels

-and gave him a hard slap (poor dal I always make y/n slap him)

-(cuz he needs it)

-but anyway he’s kinda like whoa… you’re feisty. Don’t worry, I like that. (bc he would say that 😭)

-and you would roll your eyes at him, giving him a polite hand gesture

-before storming away in your heels

-I don’t even know how he’d manage to date you it would take months of effort

-but once you both are dating you’re pretty cute together, and you try to make him less of an asshole

-(which idk what voodoo you pulled out to make that happen but it eventually works a little)

Two Bit Mathews

-when he sees you his jaw drops to the ground

-he really loves your style

-he touches the lace and various things a lot in admiration

-he shoplifts things for you that he thinks you’ll like

-“Aw, Two! This is so nice! But, where’d ya get it?”

-“Y’know…. Don’t worry ‘bout it, y/n.”

-he makes jokes but their kinda more just about admiring your outfits

-he’s really proud of you

- drinks less when you both are a couple

Steve Randle

-he pretends to not be super impressed and amazed at your style whenever you walk into the gas station

-but he totally is and talks to Sodapop about you way too much

-“Hey, but, did you see that one chick, y/n? With all the pretty clothes and stuff?”

-sodapop makes him talk to you next time you’re at the DX

-you actually think he’s pretty cool and you two hit it off really well

-even if you both have different styles and hobbies you both love learning about eachother

-he remembers all the small things, what perfume you like, what lipgloss is your favorite brand, etc.

[leclsrc]

we need need neeed a charles variant of the media naranja fic :( just a multiple lives au even just a drabble or a headcanon auds audrey big a please only u do this shit justice

bec this has been rotting and i needed to practice writing :)

divine sense – cl16

Charles is always led back to you. title from this

“Your mole is nice,” he says, cutting himself off and thinking a bit more on his words. “It sits just there, on the corner of your eye.”

“Really? God.” You poke at it, rub over it even if it sits relatively flat and unassuming and a bit tiny. “I’ve always hated it. People mistake it for leftover eyeliner or mascara all the time, and it’s—whatever.”

“It’s pretty.” His gaze could light you on fire and water it down all at once. “It’s one of the first things I noticed about you. Granted, I thought it was a, uh, how you say? Mascara, yes, that flicked off your eye a bit, but now it’s just there. I like it.”

A slow smile creeps its way onto your lips and you bite it back, to no avail. “Thank you.”

“It’s the reason why you look so familiar to me.” My mole? You ask, your head turning to the side a bit. He nods. “I don’t know why, either. I mean, clearly we didn’t know each other then. But something about you—you’ve always felt familiar, I think.”

“I have?” 

The trees are greener in the spring, but they’re thin still, not yet too thick with leaves that will fade into orange and die and fall. It’s perfect, Charles thinks, because then the sun filters perfectly through the green of them and shines through the blinds and onto your face, smiling tenderly and warm and waiting. Your eyelashes cast a shadow across the rest of your face and he could stare forever.

“You have.”

—

“Did you get mascara on your eye?”

“What? Oh. Fuck, no. This—it’s a mole.” You turn quickly to the mirror. “I know, it looks a bit like it, yeah.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.” 

“It’s all good. So, Charles, right?” You reread the application sheet and stretch a hand forward to shake his. “My new roommate… taking up Architecture.”

“Yep.” He smiles proudly, the emblem of your university front and centre on his sweatshirt. “I hope this doesn’t sound weird, but have I met you before? You just look a little familiar. Mole and all.”

“Oh.” Instinctively, you reach up to touch the area on which it sits. “I don’t think so, sorry. Um, but in my Lit class, we did have a discussion about how… like… moles are places where you were kissed in your past life.”

“Oh?” 

“Yeah.” You smile up at him. The fall breeze filters through the open living room window, blowing tendrils of hair over your face that you’re quick to brush away. “Granted, I don’t know who would want to kiss an area like this.”

“You don’t?”

And maybe you’re a bit loopy from the drive, or hungry from waking up early, or maybe not at all. Maybe Charles the college roommate is messing with you, or maybe pulling a prank, or maybe not at all. The sunset today is beginning to tint the room and his pretty face a muted orange and you could stare forever.

“I don’t.”

—

Your first time in Italy is marked by a series of ugly firsts: first catcall, mistranslation, scam, blistered heel. But you make it, despite it all, to your foster family’s farm estate, all old vine-caked buildings and stables and lemon trees. You spot somebody poking their head out of the upstairs window but the mop of hair disappears just as quickly.

The door is answered by Pascale—the one you’d been corresponding with prior to today. With her is her husband, Hervé, and two sons, one of whom is somewhere in the house getting your room tidy, she says apologetically. You’re quick to quell her apology, sated by the ice water and bowl of fruit (Hervé says something about picking them all out himself; Arthur, the younger one, pulls you aside with a boyish smile and says it was actually him.)

“Lorenzo is off at university for summer classes,” Pascale explains when she’s putting the second spoonful of pasta on your plate. “So I am stuck with Arthur here, and Charles. He’s about your age, yes? Twenty-two in October.”

Charles descends into the kitchen talking in rapid Italian to his mom, that only tapers off when he sees you at the table. You smile, dopey, raising a careful hand to wave.

He stares. 

“Vieni a sederti,” Pascale says, pointing to the empty seat beside you. Shyly, he takes a seat and fills up his glass with water—then yours. 

“Oh,” you say. “Thank you.” Your gaze travels to him, and find he’s already looking—at the corner of your eye.

“It’s a mole,” you clarify with a quiet, pretty laugh. “Are you excited to take me around? Pascale says you’re my tour guide.”

“Sure, sure.” He laughs. “Where do you want to go?”

Hervé has played some Italian music on his vinyl, so it’s what scratchily plays through the dining area, accompanied by the scent of garlic and lemon and olive from the trees outside, blowing a gentle breeze through the archway of the house.

You turn away from his green eyes to answer one of Arthur’s questions, peppering chili flakes over your aglio olio to twirl and deposit into your mouth. One red flake stays on your lip and he imagines swiping it off with his thumb. Your eyes meet his again, gaze amused and gentle and Charles could stare forever.

“Anywhere, really.”

—

“Oh, honey,” you whine playfully, letting your husband crowd you against the counter of your kitchen, peppering kisses all over your face. “Missed me that much?”

“You know I did.” He parts from you, and even if he's taller his gaze seems to convey looking up at you, adoration and love crowding his green eyes. A hand caresses your jaw, cheek; his thumb rubs over the corner of your eye. The blank skin there, unmarked, unblemished.

He kisses it. His favorite spot. “I woke up this morning thinking about you,” he says fondly.

“About how I left you in charge of changing Mila while I slept in?” You tease lowly, forehead pressed to his.

“About how in love I am with you,” he says honestly. Your heart pulses. It was never a whirlwind of love for either of you. It was slow, warm, familiar. Hey, you.

Despite that, he means it, you know he does, he’s never failed to show just how much. When he wakes up early to change Mila, or when he takes charge of the stove when you’re sleepy. When he lets you walk him around the winding avenues of Manhattan to get cookies or a good coffee or a better beer. When he watches you sing karaoke tipsily, Billy Joel or The Smiths. The way he memorizes every part of you, the way he knows you. Any and all of the love Charles ever had and ever felt always answered to you. 

Lips meet the corner of your eye again. “You know that? I love you. You changed me. You know that, right?”

You could stay forever, in the dusk of the city, questions suspended in the air to be lovingly answered in the lifetimes to follow. They will come, though. You can stay for now—you’ve done your waiting for a love like this.

You smile. “Right.”

[chaotic-starlight24]

Darry and Two-Bit

I have begun to write the requests! Thanks so much for this one :)

Almost every single request has involved Darry, glad he's getting love. I couldn't find any photos of these two together though :(

Darry and Two-Bit Friendship Headcanons

When they were kids, Mrs. Curtis was besties with Ms. Mathews so Darry and Two kinda grew up together.

They were constantly together since Ms. Mathews was working at the same diner and everything with Mrs. Curtis.

And they didn’t get tired of eachother either. They were pretty similar age and everything so they were just playing their regular childhood games. They’d find other east side or middle class kids to play tag or cowboys with. Your normal stuff.

As they got older, Darry also became best friends with Paul. So they became a trio of sorts. But Paul’s parents DEFINITELY did not want him near them. Mainly Two-Bit because he was more of a typical greaser. Darry they could see being a soc. Two-Bit was a bad influence on their “perfect child”.

The only time Darry acts like a middle-aged dad is around Two-Bit. And as a joke. It started off with one time Darry said a very dad-like thing and Two-Bit just groaned and told him “You sound just like my mom!” and Darry made it his goal to annoy two-bit by doing that at least once a day. Whether it’s stealing a snack from him and overdramatically saying “Dad Tax” or sitting down next to him with an overly serious tone and telling him “Sonny boy, we need to have a talk.” Two-Bit hates it so much and Darry finds it hilarious. 

Two-Bit is the one Darry acts his age around though. Mostly because Two encourages him to do so. Whether it's trying to get him to go to a party or just take a drive around. 

When they were younger, Darry wanted to buy birthday gifts for Soda and Pony. So he tested out babysitting and made plenty of cash. Two-Bit joined him as well because he wanted some extra money. They became quite the powerful duo. Though some parents would request that just Darry show up.

When Darry was still a more reckless teenager of sorts, they would both give each other so many weird dares. Like the time Two-Bit walked into the diner in a dress and really badly done make-up (Done by Darry ofc) and had to order a cheeseburger without the bun. Or the time Darry had to call Mr. Curtis because he was now hanging upside down from a tree with a jump rope tied to him. Where was Two-Bit you ask? He was too busy untying the lawn flamingo from the other side of the jump rope.

 Darry can help Two-Bit out of a funk and vice versa. Sometimes Two will have times where he takes things seriously. Like he says something about him being fat and laughs though Darry can tell he’s hurting. When Darry has those times where he feels like a terrible person and bad brother Two-bit is right there reassuring him.

Two-Bit is one of the few Darry actually has his complete trust in when it comes to Ponyboy. Most people don’t think Two is responsible, but he actually is. Especially when it comes to kids. So if Pony needs someone to be with him whether it’s walking around town or just sitting at home and Darry feels he’s unsafe, Two is the first person he calls.

Darry has always been a sweetheart, innocent not so much, but respectful at least. But on some of Two-Bit and him’s drives Two would catcall just about any girl who walked by. Making Darry duck and hide in the car. Sometimes Two would drag him out and call out something like “I ain’t too pretty, but my buddy here is on the football team!” which would always make Darry turn bright red. A couple times the girl has approached the car and gotten his number though Darry is a stuttering mess. He isn’t that bad at flirting but when put on the spot he is terrible at just about everything.

Sometimes Two-Bit will just stare at Darry with an unreadable gaze. A look of sadness almost. It’s really just him looking at this tired, sore, and hardened young guy who looks like he has decades of working weighing him down. Wondering where that fun and reckless teenager with that charming smile that made girls swoon, where he possibly could’ve gone. His best friend, reduced to scraping the bottom to survive.

Darry was making chocolate cake one time and Two-Bit wanted to try and make one too. But he substituted several ingredients in the cake for alcohol. Usually it starts to evaporate since most people don’t use that much of it in foods, but Two-Bit poured an entire bottle or 3. It was more of a soup than a cake. Darry turned around to put his cake in the oven and just looked at Two like ??!?!?

Darry loves Two-bit’s little sister, he sees her as his own sibling. Him and Two used to play with her quite often. Sometimes they would put on little plays or try to teach her to play cards.

[adolin]

re: prev post. I love the weight room at the gym but I must say I've only had positive experiences at gyms, and that's why I'm so enthusiastic about it. I know there are plenty of places out there that just plain suck in about a dozen different ways but EYE have been lucky enough to only experience Self-Involved Gym Bros who are literally only there to get a pump and will never look at my ass in the mirror because it's not as interesting as their bicep.

Like. For real. It's amazing. Serious talk: as someone who's experienced an unsettling amount of catcalling / creepy weirdos / groping on public transit / general patriarchy-induced uneasiness that you get sometimes just by existing in public as a woman with a body etc.... that stuff lingers. I've had years of my life where I was just very dissociated from my physical body and hated the idea of just being perceived because of how often I was loudly reminded that I was perceived mostly as a piece of meat. It's a distressingly common experience to various degrees. I like to think I'm pretty well adjusted these days but, like, it's a thing that happens.

And because of ALL OF THAT, I can't stress how refreshing it is to interact on a weekly basis with a bunch of aggressively cishet dudes who just. Don't give a fuck. I could be doing deadlifts in shorts shorts and a sports bra and they'd be like, oh I see you've been working on your hamstrings (this happened to me) It's a next level experience. I love bodybuilders who don't give a fuck about anything that's not their tree-trunk legs. Genuinely. Heaven

[sshewonders]

WARM BODIES

Chapter 10: Promises? Nah

chapter synopsis: After knife training with Daryl, he heads off to track a deer, leaving you to prepare for the Atlanta run. With Glenn's help, you share a secretive exchange about a mysterious item. As Glenn departs, you emphasize safety and his return. Later, while playing guitar, Lori's presence triggers memories of Rick, leading to a tense exchange about his fate.

chapter warnings: Knife training aftermath, secretive exchanges, emotional conversations, preparations for a run to Atlanta, and introspective moments with Lori.

word count: 1.3k words

author's note: Alright, folks, the next chapter will cover Season 1, Episode 1 of "The Walking Dead"! Our beloved Rick Grimes will be here! Yay! Anyway, enjoy reading! Mwah!

MASTERLIST

NEXT CHAPTER >>

The morning sun cast its warm embrace over the campsite, illuminating the aftermath of your knife training with Daryl. Post-training, Daryl had promptly sent you back to camp, citing the need to track a sizable deer. Eager to glean more survival skills, you insisted he let you tag along. However, Daryl swiftly dismissed the idea, asserting that what he needed was the deer, not your potentially frightened presence clinging to a tree.

A slight frown etched across your face as you absorbed his refusal, but you wished him caution nonetheless. Daryl, ever the gruff archer, grunted a dismissive reply, telling you to focus on your own worries. Returning to camp, you encountered the scrutinizing glances Carol had warned you about. Unfazed, you brushed off the speculative looks and turned your attention to preparing, well more like listing your necessities, for the upcoming run to Atlanta of group of volunteers.

The volunteer squad boasted an array of personalities: Glenn, Morales, Jacqui, Andrea, T-Dog, and the unexpected addition of Merle. You couldn't suppress a smile at the thought of Merle being absent for a whole day, freeing you from his intrusive catcalls. Despite being occasionally annoyed by Daryl's presence, you appreciated his protective stance when it came to Merle's inappropriate behavior. It seemed that the older Dixon brother couldn't resist throwing a lewd comment your way, but with Daryl around, you felt a sense of relief and gratitude.

Glenn was knee-deep in organizing his backpack when the familiar sight of your boots interrupted his concentration. Looking up, he was met with your shy smile as you knelt down to his level, handing him what seemed to be a crumpled-up paper. It resembled a list, and Glenn couldn't help but wonder if he was about to get dragged into some post-apocalyptic scavenger hunt.

With a curious raise of his eyebrows, Glenn took the paper, and you quickly explained, "Those are the only things I really need." Glenn, being the agreeable guy he was, nodded and began perusing the list. It seemed pretty standard at first – essentials, art supplies, clothes – until his eyes hit an unexpected item. That mysterious item that left his eyes wider than the Grand Canyon.

"W-what... and who do you need this for?" Glenn stammered, eyes wide as saucers, looking up at you, who was now sporting a sheepish grin.

You, leaning in conspiratorially, replied, "Look, it's something I should've packed ages ago, considering the whole 'end of the world' situation. Just grab it, and let's keep it between us, okay?"

Glenn, still processing, mumbled, "But why?"

You, leaning in as if sharing the world's juiciest gossip, confessed, "You know, for emergencies."

Glenn's face contorted in bewilderment. "Emergencies? What kind of—"

You cut him off with a sly smile. "Just trust me, Glenn. It's a must-have in a world gone crazy."

Glenn scratched his head, muttering, "Alright, but who's it for?"

You chuckled, "Me, obviously. I'm not taking any chances in this geek-filled world."

Glenn's eyes widened further, if that was even possible. "Wait, what? You're serious?"

You let out a dramatic sigh. "Just shut up, alright? And if you spill this secret, I swear I'll go medieval on your manhood while you sleep, ending your bloodline right then and there."

Glenn's eyes widened in horror, and he immediately reassured her, "No way! I-I won't tell a soul, I swear! Not even my own reflection in the mirror!"

You flashed Glenn a grin, the kind you reserves for anyone handing over grub. "Nice to know," you chirped, as Glenn awkwardly chuckled. Your grin wavered, morphing into a mix of worry and seriousness. "Hey, be careful out there, okay? Atlanta's like an undead playground, geeks everywhere. Just watch your back. And, if you can't get the stuff I need, it's cool, no biggie. Just come back in one piece, alive-in-person style, not alive-in-geek style. Got it?"

Glenn took a nervous breath, shooting you a tight smile. "I got this. I practically own Atlanta streets. And don't worry, I'll snag that... thing."

Rolling your eyes, you retorted, "No sudden moves or crazy stunts, okay? I don't need you getting yourself geekified."

Glenn grinned confidently, "Geek? Not a chance."

"Yeah, but your recklessness and stupidity might do the job," you replied with a nonchalant shrug. "Because you're a dumbass."

Glenn squinted at you, "I'm not dumb!" he defended, jabbing a finger your way. "And just so you know, I go off-plan because my gut tells me to." He laughed, and you joined in, shaking your head. "My gut says it's the right move, okay?"

You felt touched. Those were the words you had used when you first brought him to camp, facing doubts about adding another mouth to feed.

Shaking your head, you scoffed, "Look at you, spending too much time with me, turning into little ol' dramatic, socially awkward, terrible-at-comforting Y/N Grimes."

Glenn grimaced, "No way. I'm not becoming Y/N freaking Grimes, the drama queen."

"Hey!" You slapped your chest, looking slightly hurt. "That stings, you know!"

You both chuckled, rising from the ground. Glenn huffed and blew a raspberry, and you countered with a soft smile. Placing your hands on his shoulders, you looked him in the eye. "Come back, Glenn. Seriously, in one piece. No bites, scratches, or anything hurting, okay? Promise me."

"I will," Glenn nodded.

"You promise?"

Glenn scoffed, shaking his head. "I don't do promises."

You, puzzled, asked, "What?"

Glenn chuckled, "I don't do promises. Why? Because I know I'm coming back to you. No need for words when it's a sure thing."

Before you could start tearing up, you pulled Glenn into a tight embrace, burying your face in his neck. Glenn reciprocated; it was the first time he'd be on the run without his best friend watching his back. He had to come back to you, being the only one who had your back.

"Hey," Your muffled voice interrupted his thoughts, "make sure to leave Merle Dixon behind, yeah?"

Glenn chuckled. "I'll see what I can do."

As they broke the hug, you looked up at him with a half-smile. "And no unnecessary heroics, okay? We're not in a comic book."

Glenn grinned. "No capes for me, promise."

You playfully rolled your eyes. "Oh, please. You're not that cool."

Glenn mockingly gasped, putting a hand to his chest. "Ouch. Right in the coolness."

It was afternoon, and you found yourself with nothing to do. Daryl was off hunting in the woods, Glenn was on a run in Atlanta, and Carl was with Lori and Shane. Not in the mood to draw, you lay in your tent, staring at the top. When your back itched, you turned and was surprised to find a guitar. Glenn must've brought it, so you picked it up and headed outside.

The camp was quiet, with everyone seemingly taking siestas. You sat by the campfire, strumming the guitar and humming freely. You were halfway through when Lori joined you. You straightened up, stopping abruptly.

Lori questioned, "Why'd you stop?"

You shrugged. "Not in the mood."

Lori furrowed her brows. "Because of me?"

"Not you, Lori. Just... thinking about the past," You replied, rolling your eyes internally.

Lori pressed, "But you were singing, then stopped when I sat here. Anything wrong?"

You thought, This woman can be too pushy sometimes. Can't she push something that would make me happy?

"I," You took a breath, "I was thinking about Rick, alright? He used to sing with me. Last time was when Daddy was alive. And now..." She couldn't finish.

"Now that Rick's gone?" Lori asked.

You narrowed your eyes. "He's not dead. Rick is not dead."

Lori gave a sad smile. "He is, sweetie. Gone, somewhere better. We need to accept that."

You stared at Lori. "Why would you say that? Rick is not dead. He will be back, and he'll find us."

"Sweetheart," Lori sniffled, tears threatening. "You'll accept it someday. You're grieving. It hurts, but you need to accept the truth."

You glared, stood up. "The only thing that would make me feel good is if you don't believe Shane's lies. Be yourself." Then, you walked away.

@celtic-crossbow @maackiimoo @duckmania127 @xmaeyonaiise @richardsamboramylove55 @snailss

[fox-bright]

I was taught some things, today.

A week and a day ago, in a fit of pique, I walked nine miles for the hell of it. And I remembered that I used to do this all the time, and it's been so long--it was a nice walk! I met several cats! I saw odd infrastructure! I was breathed on by cool spaces between trees! I was approached by half a dozen men and catcalled from the passing cars of another couple of dozen, but that is what it is, isn't it.

Yesterday I thought I'd do the same again, but it was just too hot. So this morning, the Magical Flying Husband and I woke up and went for a shorter jaunt--five miles, we figured. Walk to a park that we've driven past but never walked through, which joins to the Greenway that bisects the city; walk the Greenway for a little bit, turn around, come home.

We got to the park soon enough. It was a lovely little thing, an old-fashioned promenade, trees beside a walk and grass beside the trees. Not very large at all, but cooler than the road.

We walked down the path, and then crossed the grass to the Greenway. Followed the Greenway into the woods.

And we followed the path through the woods, and all of a sudden, entirely unexpectedly, it opened into a broad, open field.

We live at the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Just before the Appalachians. We don't do flat spaces here, it's hills or nothing. But this was acres and acres of nothing but flat.

Immediately, I was extolling it to the MFH. "This is beautiful, why didn't I know about this? This is such a lovely space! Look how big the sky is!"

And we kept walking.

And a minute or three later, we came up to this placard, which immediately reframed the entire scene.

The city put a landfill in the middle of a Black neighborhood. A Fifties landfill, with every noxious substance and evil piece of trash you could imagine might have needed to be thrown away. And what is not on the placard is that the citizens of the neighborhood protested and fought against it for years, until finally they decided that there was going to be a sit-in of pregnant women and mothers with strollers, and they would block the road to keep out the trucks.

The city administration, knowing precisely how well those optics would be received by the rest of the nation in 1963, blinked first. The women did not have to protest in that fashion, and the landfill was closed. And covered, and made into this park.

This park where they can't dig down more than a few feet feet without freeing up the fucking methane. They can't even plant trees, because the roots would destroy the soil cap keeping it down there.

This park over toxic waste.

And decades later I danced out of the woods onto the grass and did not think Unnatural! Why is it shaped this way! but instead thought I could have a really good martial arts practice here!

Only seeing the skin. Not knowing anything of the substance.

And to be clear--it's a well-used park, full of events and activity, and it's undeniably a good thing to have a park and a connection to the Greenway in this Black neighborhood. It was an odd sort of feeling in my chest, a grief and a low simmering rage but something more complicated, too; the space is a wound through the heart of the neighborhood, but it feels like it might be healing into something new.

We were only halfway through the walk, at that point, but I spent the next three miles thinking about it. I'll probably be thinking about it for a while.

[charlenasaxen]

The Grandest Game Favorite Quotes

“There was a price to be paid for power, always. The only question was how steep that price was”

Rohan opted for a different tactic. “We both know I’m a magnificent bastard.”

There it was: the game, the stakes, the threat.

“Go,” the Proprietor said, blocking the way back to Rohan’s rooms. “Now.”

“Look for an opening. Look for a loophole. Look for a weakness. His mind churning, Rohan looked for a pint.”

“Fortunately, Avery Grambs had never been a member of the Devil’s Mercy.

Hello, loophole.”

“Rohan’s lips curved, more on one side than the other”

“Were two of them opposites? Did one of those opposites vary from the remaining choices only by nuance?”

“I’m not in this class,” Lyra repeated. “I fell asleep in the prior lecture.”

“trick questions backfires if the person taking the test knows how to look for tricks.”

“For the past three years, Lyra had done everything she could to seem normal, to be normal”

“the woods and the creek and generations of Kanes carving their names into the same tree”

“Lyra had grown up at Mile’s End. She’d carved her name into that tree”

“She was just treading water.

But that was better than drowning.”

“But sometimes, all you could do was push.”

“No, Lyra thought, picking up the ball. A circus. The circus of assholes probably wasn’t expecting her to punt the ball over their heads.”

Ricocheted off, and smacked the jerk who’d catcalled her in the back of his head.

“No,” Lyra called out. “I didn’t.”

“a message scrawled across it in dark-blue ink. YOU DESERVE THIS.”

“The words engraved above the code were instantly recognizable.

The Grandest Game.”

“A steady hand caught her elbow. A suit-clad arm encircled her waist.”

“He made things happen in an instant. Grayson Hawthorne bled power.”

“He won arguments with a single arch of his sharply angled blond brows!”

“Grayson, however, was impossible to take off guard”

“A group effort between the Hawthorne brothers and the Hawthorne heiress”

“Avery and Jamie requested I be boots on the ground. I’ll be running things.”

“Gigi had gathered—through her powers of inference and also snooping”

“Grayson was the grandson that billionaire Tobias Hawthorne had molded from childhood to be the perfect heir: formidable, commanding”

“Am I to take it that your mahogany bedframe is now residing in someone else’s home?”

“Anticipating—correctly—that he was about to have a very large cat placed on his head”

Grayson did not vamoose. “I have something for you.” He reached inside the jacket of his Armani suit.

“It’s yours if you want it.” Grayson’s voice was softer now. He wasn’t a soft person.

“If I had a tenner, Rohan thought, for every time someone pointed a gun at the back of my head…”

“Sitting on the edge of a bed that was not his, wearing nothing but a lush Turkish cotton robe, Rohan twirled a knife slowly”

“He lost the robe but kept the knife”

“A bishop, a rook, a knight, two pawns, and a queen.”

“if any of them had the versatility of the queen”

“A Hawthorne did this.

And then, a riddle: What begins a bet? Not that.”

“You’re late,” he called.

“If by late, you mean early.”

Lyra froze. She knew that voice.

Grayson Hawthorne.

“I assume, Jamie, that you’re aware that you’re being watched.”

“his gaze going back to Lyra’s, his lips slowly curving into that smile”

“Jameson flew the helicopter, which surprised Lyra less than the fact that Grayson deigned to ride in back”

“a sharp jawline, and he wore an expensive fleece sports vest over a collared shirt”

“worse things in the world than being handed a strategic advantage, right off the bat”

“rich, dark blue woven through with shades of green just as deep”

“He had the kind of face that looked like it had been carved from ice or stone—sharp angles, hard jaw, lips full”

“Grayson Hawthorne looked, in Lyra’s opinion, exactly like he sounded, like weaponized perfection”

“Or would you prefer I rephrase the question: On whom am I about to hang up?”

“Lyra’s heart rate ticked up. Forget Grayson. Forget the Hawthornes. They’d been children.”

“Jameson looked from Grayson to Lyra and smiled”

“Lyra’s eyes flew open. Grayson Hawthorne stared back at her.”

The two of them were standing far too close.

“You are aware that there is a cliff here?”

“Lyra looked down at his hand on her arm, and he dropped it”

“if you intend to make your recklessness my problem, you should expect that problem to be solved.”

She hadn’t even heard him move.

Lyra swallowed. “You’re in my way.”

“There was something gallant about the motion, a match for the finely tailored black suit”

“Recovering.”

“A recovering physicist?”

“The entire ocean-side wall of the house looked to be made of glass”

“She’d won her ticket, one of only four wild cards in the world”

“Gigi hadn’t spent that much time with her half brother’s half brothers”

“This was a competition. Gigi scuffed the chalk off with the heel of her hand.”

“They were talking about a girl, and, from what I gather, she’s dead.”

“She slid her arm under the chain, looping it over her shoulder, and began to climb.”

“Oh, he liked her. Rohan had a certain appreciation for being put in his place.”

“She let go with one hand and lifted the chain off her shoulder and up over the top of the flagpole”

“Your knee, Savannah.” Grayson Hawthorne bore a striking resemblance to his half sister.

“there is some chance he’s carrying a grudge about that whole business with the ribs.”

Ran a little experiment. “But that would require turning all of my attentions to Lyra Kane.”

“when her entire body was on fire? Then she climbed, exploring the cliffs and the rocky shore below.”

“More pages.

She bolted from one tree to the next.”

“She watched as her biological father’s name—all of his names, variations on a theme—burned to ash”

“so pale a blond it looked almost silver”

“The last thing Lyra noticed was the girl’s eyes. Grayson Hawthorne’s eyes.”

“But cruel? Avery Grambs and the Hawthornes four? I think not.”

“Ignore him,” Savannah advised. “It’s good for the soul.”

“And just like that. The gloves come off.”

“A delicate gold chain held a stone the exact deep blue-green as the ocean”

“I’m talking drawer in the morgue, I’ve been refrigerated, and steps have been taken to prevent me from resurrecting myself.”

“she hadn’t said anything to suggest that it was a particularly nefarious death”

“I take back my appreciation of your eyebrows.”

“Tick-tock, little girl.”

“Sunset’s coming, and you’re on the wrong side of the island. I run a five-minute mile. I’m betting you don’t.”

He sighed. “If this is about your brother’s ribs…”

“But Nash Hawthorne wasn’t looking for another little brother”

“Congratulations, by the way,” he called after Nash. “On the babies.”

“Crossing the threshold into an enormous foyer, she saw a white spiral staircase”

“It had been built into the cliff”

“marked by a card on which a name had been written in extravagant calligraphy”

“Conceited vest, darkened soul. Lyra had to hand it to Gigi: That was descriptive.”

“DON YOUR COSTUME AND YOUR MASK.

THE BALL BEGINS AT QUARTER PAST.”

“bodice was a dark navy blue, almost black, like the ocean at midnight”

“She lifted the gown off the bed, revealing a mask, delicate and jeweled, underneath”

“Surely those were rhinestones. Surely those weren’t diamonds, arranged in elaborate, hypnotic swirls.”

“inch by inch, to a brilliant blue that gave way to a light, frothy one”

“but not this. She hadn’t expected it to feel like this. Like magic.”

“Lyra stared at herself, and then the words on the mirror changed. GAME ON.

She put on the mask.”

“A library. Lyra took three steps forward—and spun.”

“stained glass that, in daylight, would have cast colored light across the gleaming wood”

“the skirt full and covered in breathtaking stitching in a shade of silver like moonlight on water”

“black gold? If so, some artisan had cajoled it into delicate, interlocking tendrils”

“Not a player. “You’re Avery Grambs.” The Hawthorne heiress.

“The one at the center of this game. The billionaire. The philanthropist. The Avery Kylie Grambs.”

“When she’d gathered herself, when she glanced back—

The Hawthorne heiress was gone.”

“Avery Grambs was nowhere in sight. It was like the heiress had disappeared into thin air.”

“Towering chocolate and white chocolate fountains sat opposite Greek columns. Each column boasted a platter piled high with meat or fruits.”

“Soaring ceilings boasted an elaborate crystal chandelier”

“an unvarnished panorama of the Pacific Ocean at twilight. Thousands of fairy lights dotted the rocky shore.”

“based on the number of tuxedo-clad masked men present, at least some of the Hawthorne brothers had to be there”

“Not Grayson. Lyra couldn’t shake the feeling that she would have recognized him instantly, no matter the mask he wore.”

“how striking the other girl looked draped in ice-blue silk”

“they walked in a slow, seductive circle around each other. The dance looked like it had been lifted from another era, watching the two of them circle each other, Lyra found it hard to breathe.”

“The stork flies at half past ten,” he said dramatically. “The hummingbird eats a cookie. My dog is named Tiramisu.”

Grayson had displaced him. “May I cut in?”

“She’d known that she would recognize him, no matter the mask. His was black. No adornments. Just… black.”

“They were circling each other now, their hands barely touching. Lyra had never felt so aware of every inch of skin.”

“The music changed, and with it, the dance. Grayson effortlessly took Lyra’s hand.”

“A Hawthorne did this. Lyra steeled herself against the feel of Grayson’s hand on her back, the interweaving of their fingers.”

“he would have—the way Avery Grambs apparently had for the Grandest Game”

“Grayson Hawthorne could damn well move mountains with a flick of his wrist”

“she would have cut him down, but he was Grayson Hawthorne”

“Except,” Grayson said, the oddest undercurrent in his tone, “for me to stay out of your way.”

“That’s the only thing I could ever want from you, Hawthorne boy.”

“Focus on them. Not him. Never him.”

“the remaining Hawthorne brothers took up position around Jameson and Avery”

“think of the five of them as anything other than a unit against the world”

“The masks you’re wearing tonight,” Jameson said, “are yours to keep.”

“The people in this room with you tonight are the only ones who will ever know what it was like to play.”

“From now through the ends of your lives, that’s something you’ll share.”

“Growing up,” Jameson said, looking at each of his brothers in turn, “it was something of a rite of passage in Hawthorne House to receive a pin.”

“Win or lose, you’re all a part of something now.”

Avery smiled. “You are not alone.”

“Every story has its beginning, Knox.” Avery’s voice took on an almost musical lilt.

“Until then…” Avery held out an arm out for Jameson, who took it. “Follow us.”

She realized that she’d just stepped from rocks to sand. Black sand.

“Shoes off,” Jameson called out. Clearly, he was enjoying this.

“like she was some kind of demented Olympic discus thrower. Knox had cursed her out and gone after the bag”

“Through the bathroom wall, she heard someone in the next room turn on the shower.”

“Instead, she looked to the floor, where Brady’s tuxedo was strewn”

“Odette hurled the glass box to the ground. It shattered, shards raining down into the crevices.”

“Neither the gown nor the chain seemed to slow her down. They should have.”

“I am not in the habit of wanting things. I set goals. I achieve them.”

“Grayson Hawthorne stepped into the room unaccompanied”

“suddenly unmistakable now: a heart, a diamond, a club.

Three symbols. Three teams.”

“There are three teams,” Avery reiterated, her voice coming from all around them. “And eight players.”

“Search that tuxedo, Mr. Hawthorne. I wager you’ll find one of these.”

“Ten feet away from Lyra, Grayson executed an efficient search of his tuxedo”

“In the end, to win it all, one must best a Hawthorne.”

“for that dance and the way she could still feel his hand on her back—Grayson Hawthorne owed her”

“face the last person on the planet she wanted to be locked in a room with”

“Grayson stared back at Lyra, his pupils expanding, inky black”

“It hardly seems I have a choice,” he said. “I value my life, and you appear to have a temper.” Muscles shifted over his granite jaw, like he’d entertained the idea of smiling.

“Locked in. With Grayson Hawthorne.”

Grayson walked to stand directly behind her and translated: “And so it begins.”

“but there was an intensity to him that could not be ignored”

“covered in the remains of the hourglass. Shards.

A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling.”

“Ask me how often I won my grandfather’s games,” Grayson suggested silkily

“Lyra reached for the poetry magnets. Grayson did the same. Her fingers brushed the back of his hand.”

Grayson’s gaze settled on hers. He arched a brow. “Are we going to have a problem here, Lyra?”

“Rest assured, Lyra.” Grayson’s voice was low and smooth

“Tuxedo Abs, because hey, the man was built”

“on the three obvious desk drawers and the hidden one on this side, which I’m sure you’ve both already noticed, right?”

“And speaking of, am I the only one who’s noticed that chair is made of swords?”

Gigi could see the effort it took Knox not to look down.

“She knew what it was like to be a part of that kind of we.

And then, suddenly, not to be.”

“The eighth player is your brother.”

“Half brother.”

“Do you intend to keep that appendage?”

Savannah caught his wrist.

“I assume that you are also attached to your appendages.”

“A beam of light and a concave mirror.”

“Grayson flicked a button open on his tuxedo jacket with one hand”

“I could do that. Lyra looked up to see a single strand of blond hair fall into that stone-carved face of his.”

Certain words cropped up again and again.

“Power, crown, adage.”

“It took Lyra a moment, but she got there. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”

“Grayson Hawthorne had the kind of presence that extended well past his body”

“Or do we have to earn that information, your highness?”

“I’m feeling magnanimous.” Grayson’s lips twitched.

“That same damn strand of blond hair fell into Grayson’s face a second time. He brushed it back.”

“Grayson ran his hands over the granite, left to right, then down, his movements automatic”

“aware on some level that she’d adopted Grayson’s exact pattern of movement”

“The number of scars my brothers have obtained directly after uttering the statement I can handle a little glass means you will have to forgive my skepticism.”

“Suddenly, Grayson’s fingers were right next to hers. True to his vow, he didn’t allow their hands to so much as brush.”

“It sank inch by inch, crystals vibrating with the movement, clinking”

extended her gesture to encompass Lyra. “You’re going to have to lift her up.”

“She knew already how Grayson’s touch could linger”

“Remember an interview she’d seen, years earlier. Grayson Hawthorne and Avery Grambs. That kiss.”

“there is again an adage and a crystal chandelier.”

“And there is, again,” Odette added, “a girl.”

“Grayson’s touch was gentle, but it wasn’t light”

“His fingers wrapped around the front of her body, spanning her hipbones”

Lyra ripped the bandage off and beat him to counting. “Three.”

Grayson lifted her up and over his head.

“Grayson’s hand moved upward to her back, which arched in response”

“Grayson slid the other one down, gripping her thigh through the gown”

“It shouldn’t have felt like a pas de deux. Swan Lake. She shouldn’t have felt Grayson Hawthorne’s touch like an invitation, a beckoning.”

“Not on him. The gown, his hand, my thigh—”

“beneath her, Grayson began to rotate. Slowly. Delicately.”

“Crystal after crystal after crystal.

Lyra breathed, and she felt him with every damn breath.”

“The next thing she knew, both of Grayson’s hands were on her thighs”

“Got it.” The words came out guttural.

“Grayson caught her around the waist an instant before she would have landed”

“Just like that, his touch was gone”

“a honey-whiskey whisper that sounded raw, even to her own ears”

“I need a moment.” The muscles across Grayson’s shoulder blades pulled visibly.

“What are you doing?” Grayson’s moment must have ended—either that, or he could multitask.

“The Grandest Game is a real family affair this year, isn’t it?”

“Gigi could feel another nepotism rant coming”

“Gigi fell. Knox caught her. His rehabilitation had officially begun.”

“every visible muscle tensed beneath his apparently thin dress shirt”

“I triple-majored in undergraduate. My brain likes A Lot.”

Gigi smiled—and not slightly.

“glorious though she might be, is an asset—a queen, perhaps, but a game piece nonetheless.”

“He’d spoken those words from the floor. Lyra’s eyes flew open. Grayson was kneeling.”

“Being wrong,” Grayson said.

“You have to practice being wrong?”

Grayson kept right on. “And some of us live with each and every mistake we make carved into us, into hollow places we don’t know how to fill.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “About the nature of this puzzle.”

“Grayson’s voice was edged, each word precise and as sharp as the tip of a knife”

“An anagram.” Grayson was suddenly right there beside her.

“The intensity radiating off Grayson’s body came out in his tone. Lyra matched that intensity.”

“the same word at the same time, his voice low and clear, hers husky, their tones blending together”

“so intense that Lyra could feel it, like a fire burning inside her, like a hollow place suddenly filled”

“A sword. The hilt was simple but beautifully made, gold at the ends.”

“Another second passed, and he turned and gestured—gallantly, of course”

“No.” Lyra gave the sword a test swing. “After you.”

Knox looked away, his body wound tight. “And constellations.”

Brady went very, very still.

“what it might be like to touch Brady’s stomach the way he was touching hers”

“saw the answers, all three of them, all at once”

He could hardly blame her for doing the same. “Then by all means, love, go around me.”

The staircase turned, and Grayson’s voice cut through the darkness. “Take my hand.”

“she could tell he’d turned to face her, and somehow, her body’s sense for his was so strong that she knew exactly where his hand was in the darkness”

“Why would an eighteen-year-old with a multi-million-dollar trust fund need to win the Grandest Game?”

“WAIT, THAT’S NOT RIGHT

AT LEAST THE ANSWER IS BLACK AND WHITE”

“Do I seem as though I consider myself playful?” Grayson replied

“Something she couldn’t quite grasp.

Something forever just out of reach.”

“the cruel beauty of a moment, gone too fast and burned into skin”

“everything makes perfect sense. If an answer fails to reveal the trick.”

“Grayson took the sword. Something about the lines of his body and the way he stood.”

His silvery-gray eyes coming to rest on hers. “I’m rather starting to like them.”

“like it had killed his puppy or given him a wedgie or both”

Whatever advantage Brady’s size gave him, it wouldn’t last.

“Push the button, Gigi.”

“Everything okay?” A voice—Avery’s—sounded

“pretty sure that Avery wasn’t the one snorting”

“Brady, if I win the Grandest Game, I swear I’ll make sure your mom is taken care of.”

“Eventually, I started eating dinner at his house, too. Every night.”

“My mama’s a good cook.”

“Terrified,” Rohan replied. “You have yourself a wager.”

“Grayson Hawthorne’s body was never far from hers”

“She saw that one, stubbornly imperfect bit of his pale blond hair fall carelessly into his eyes. Again.”

“He crossed the chamber in two long strides and slid under Odette’s other arm”

“I also do not need living crutches, and yet, here the two of you are.”

“Has any good ever come of telling a Hawthorne they were wrong?” Odette retorted. She shrugged off Grayson’s arm.

“her chocolate chip pancakes with cream cheese icing and rainbow sprinkles”

“She jabbed the Pointy Finger of Accusation”

“And maybe the players and the game makers aren’t the only ones on Hawthorne Island.”

“he deeply suspected the only way he’d be able to get that chain off Savannah Grayson was by invitation”

“She lunged for the rotary phone, and Rohan remembered her promise”

“He locked an arm around her body, and she bit him, hard enough that he felt it”

As calmly as if they didn’t have each other in painful holds. “Black and white.”

Some whispers were weapons. “One that caters to the very powerful.”

“I can only hope that you appreciate the truly undervalued art of yodeling.”

“Always.” Savannah strode past him into the unknown.

“The man’s was sizzling, as she plucked the martini from his hand and downed it. He leaned forward and brought his lips within inches of hers.

The danger of touch…”

“She’s four years old. Today. Today is her birthday.

Another bang.”

“Lyra.” A voice washed over her, familiar in all the right and wrong ways.

skin against her skin, warmth

“You will come back to me, or I will make you come back to me.”

The real world came into focus, starting with Grayson Hawthorne.

“the lines of his face, sharp cheekbones, stone-cut jaw”

“so warm and steady and gentle and solid and there”

“Grayson’s thumb lightly stroked her cheek”

“What are you doing?” Grayson said, his voice softer than it had any right to be

He adopted what he probably thought was a very pleasant tone. “Why would you want to stay bugged?”

“A something-to-behold, earth-shattering, hope-you-don’t-ever-want-to-breathe-again kind of smile”

nearly so quiet. “Being human. You should try it.”

“that the laws of physics and man did not apply to you”

“Lyra pushed down the urge to follow him. She didn’t need to be close to Grayson.”

“Grayson moved like a shadow, silent and swift”

“In other words,” Lyra said, her voice dry, “yes, you can read Greek.”

Grayson held out a hand. “May I?”

“Fair assessment.” His Majesty seemed to consider that high praise.

“allowing herself to take in the lines of his body”

Grayson said in that same quiet, steady voice, “I once ended up locked in a cello case for six hours.”

Him.

Grayson bent to block out the rest of the world from her view. “Give me your eyes, sweetheart.”

“A kitten?” she managed.

“A calico, I believe.”

“the kind of voice that reverberated down her spine”

“Lyra wasn’t even aware that she’d reached for Grayson, but suddenly, her fingers were clamped down on his arm”

“Grayson leaned his head toward hers, until their foreheads brushed”

“HERE THERE BE DRAGONS.”

She reached over to pat Knox’s shoulder. “I call that nickname progress.”

“like she’d slowly started turning into a moose, which was actually a pretty common response”

His throat tensing against the words, “is Calla Thorp. Orion is her father.”

“Knox was set on playing the Grandest Game, and he wanted a partner. I guess some part of me wanted us back, so…”

“And knowing that, Knox sold me out to Orion Thorp for a ride.”

“all Gigi could think was that Knox had never denied that Orion Thorp was still his sponsor”

“The detailing work was exquisite. Tiny pearls lined the bottom and accented each knife-sharp point of the crown.”

“The largest of the crowns, it looked like something out of a dark fairy tale, the metal carved in a way that called to mind antlers and thorns.”

He moved his game piece next to Savannah’s. “Your turn, Savvy. My dice or yours?”

“THIS IS NOT YOUR CLUE.”

“Grayson pulled back from her, just enough to turn his head”

“Grayson cocked his head slightly to one side, a tiger sizing up his prey”

“Tell, Mr. Hawthorne.” Odette stared Grayson down. “Have I told a single lie?”

Grayson’s gaze flicked toward Lyra. “No.”

“Never trust a sentence with three ifs,” Grayson told Lyra. “Particularly when spoken by a lawyer.”

“The last thing. Lyra wondered just how much time Odette had left.”

“Grayson ordered. He was obviously trying to protect her, to spare her.”

“Grayson’s pale eyes locked on hers with an odd kind of recognition”

“who’d met gazes across a crowded room only to realize they’d met before.

Like they were the same.”

“It has taken me a lifetime,” Grayson said softly, “to learn how to be weak.”

“Look away from his eyes, Lyra told herself desperately. Look away from him.”

“all she could think about was the poem she’d destroyed, the one he’d pieced back together”

“she did her best to not think about Grayson Hawthorne and mistakes—about weakness and running and living”

“Lyra watched that kiss with Grayson Hawthorne beside her, unable to keep herself from thinking about the kind of mistakes that were worth making”

peeled the long, velvet gloves off her hands. “And also: This one is one of mine.”

“The man I married never made my father a star,” she said, an odd glint in her eyes. “I was another story.”

“Dollhouse was an understatement. Gigi took it all in. The entire spread was eight feet long.”

“In between, the streets were lined with shops—some Victorian, some medieval”

“If you can get them to spit you out, it’s pretty much just a massage.”

“When she grasped the tiny scepter between her forefinger and her thumb and tried to pull, she was met with resistance.

The head of the scepter was a dragon.”

“Tiny, plastic books spilled out onto the dollhouse floor.

Scrawled onto each of them, there was a number.”

“After all,” she continued, her eyes like knives, “society is kindest to women who do what they should.”

“where the game makers’ command center was and what they had been doing to pass the time”

“three objects: a silver hairbrush, a pearl-handled knife, and a glass rose”

“Not poker.” Avery Grambs was the one who replied. “Truth or Dare.”

“The two of you are most welcome to try and risk not getting your hint. Bonne chance.”

“making it clear that he and Avery knew exactly what was at stake”

“Compared to the Proprietorship of the Devil’s Mercy, what was one little game of Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.” She reached for the pile of white and gold cards.

“the past had clawed its way to the surface of his mind twice, and that was two times too many”

“That’s the most vivid part of the memory. I’m in the water. I can’t swim. I can’t see anything. And it’s not the first time.”

“I can come up with another dare.”

“I want,” Savannah said, “to win.”

“Rohan.” The way she said his name was like a knife slid between ribs.

Savannah.

Savannah.

Savannah.

“Rohan took the knife in his hand and wondered if she was punishing herself for feeling—or him for making her feel”

Savannah stood, towering over the strands of her hair that littered the floor. “Your turn.”

“And now what he likes or wants or expects no longer matters.”

“You want an explanation, Rohan? Try this one: Money isn’t the only thing you get if you win the Grandest Game.”

“That was the truth of Rohan’s life. The Mercy was his, and he was the Mercy. Without it, he was just a five-year-old boy drowning in dark water.”

“It was all connected. Why she was here. That anger. Her father. What else does the winner of the Grandest Game receive, besides money?”

It shattered into pieces.

“There you are, Savvy,” Rohan murmured. I see you.”

“He tried to destroy me.” Odette smiled that eagle-on-a-hunt, grandma-baking-cookies smile. “It didn’t take.”

“And both of them had connections to Tobias Hawthorne, to that List of his.”

“It makes one wonder, doesn’t it, what else they arranged just so?”

“Jameson Hawthorne’s wicked smile, back on the helipad. Right after his brother heard my voice for the first time.”

“Minutes and hours had lost all meaning. It felt like they had been locked in for days, but soon enough, one way or another, this night would end.”

“Lyra would never have to speak to or look at Grayson Hawthorne again”

Grayson angled his lips downward, toward her ear.

His voice was just barely audible—and only to her.

“pushing down the incredible urge to look at him”

“What drawers?”

Like magic, a section of thick, velvety fabric fell away from the wall.

“The metal bore only one word.

FINALE.”

“Gigi took one of them from him, her fingers brushing his outstretched palm”

“We’re in the library.” Her eyes widened. “Books and books. Little ones, big ones.”

“And so it went, book after book. The moment they decoded the last one.”

“A stained-glass panel on the ceiling swung down like a trapdoor, creating an opening overhead.

And down fell a rope.”

“I don’t get to make you feel like that? Like what, precisely, love?”

“Careful, Rohan. He could still feel the moment the knife had cut.”

“There were pieces made of marble and glass, crystal and wood; boards that folded and boards that were bejeweled; simple sets and works of art”

“Beneath, there was writing: USE ME.

Rohan lifted the board, sending the pieces scattering.”

“Veritas.” Rohan said it out loud. There was a beep.

“This moment in time, was coming to an end. Soon the two of them would no longer be a team.”

She was a player, too. “I believe it’s time,” Rohan said, locking his eyes on to hers, “that you and I struck a deal.”

“How long did they have until the first haze of soft morning light would appear?”

“Memory was a physical thing. Back arching. His fingers, my thighs.”

Grayson said behind her. “Every time you move, you dance.”

“I do not.” Arguing with him was the easiest thing in the world.

Grayson’s voice was deeper now. “You never stopped dancing.”

“with Grayson Hawthorne saying things like that?”

“Yes, well, doubt has never been my strong suit.” Grayson’s gaze cheated toward Lyra’s.

“keenly aware of the way she moved and the way he watched her”

“A person could have written a book about all the ways that Grayson Hawthorne could almost-but-not-quite smile”

“Grayson actually smiled then, and Lyra wished that he hadn’t. She really, really wished that he hadn’t.”

“Unable to keep her eyes from going to Grayson’s hands.

His fingers were long and dexterous. The skin of his hands was smooth, the muscles leading to his wrists defined.”

“She thought at first, just from his tone, that Grayson had seen something”

Looking up at her like he might never look away. “And last year, when I told you to stop calling—I didn’t mean it.”

Knox said, putting on the sunglasses.

“The rhinestones really bring out your eyes,” Brady deadpanned.

“That sucked the oxygen out of the room. Brady didn’t so much as check Knox’s reaction, but Gigi did. Wounded eyebrows.”

“She’s not missing. She didn’t meet with foul play. And I know that, because the night before Calla left, she came to me to say good-bye.”

“Knox pulled his collar roughly down, baring the skin at the base of his neck—and a white, puckered, triangular scar”

“An alliance where the end goal is betrayal.”

“He could see Savannah from every side. Angles. Curves. Power.”

“shining, silver thread. SURRENDER.”

“Half brother.” And there it was.

“I’m…” She almost said fine, but that word felt loaded now.

[kaija-rayne-author]

I wrote something hard today. It's long. Please mind the content warnings, this one is heavy.

We Must Remember

ON DECEMBER 30, 2023 BY KAELENRHY/Kaija Rayne

Content Warnings: AIDS epidemic, queer death, queer abuse, child abuse, child neglect, mention of attempted rape, sexual harassment in the form of catcalling and whistling.

My generation of queers, the ones who came of age in the middle of losing most of a generation of our queer siblings… we don’t talk about it.

It’s got to be pretty obvious why we don’t. I can’t think of a queer person who knew they were queer who didn’t lose someone. And we all lost when it comes to some people. Freddie Mercury, for one, the lead singer of Queen. He died a day after announcing his diagnosis in 1991. He was 45 years old.

And there were so many others.

I’ve been aware of the lack of people who lived through it talking about this for a while. But it really brought it home to me when I asked my eldest, who is openly queer, if they knew what the AIDS quilt was. They didn’t. And generally, they’re interested in queer history, so tend to be better informed than a lot of queer youth about our collective history. It helps that I was a history teacher at one time and have always lived and breathed teaching it to anyone willing to learn.

So, here’s a story from a time I hope never to see again, but one which, when I look at the world, I deeply fear is coming back.

The moral panic we see now is like déjà vu for people like me. It was this exact same moral panic that caused medicine, and most of humanity, to completely ignore it as loved ones died. To treat human beings without the care or respect any human being deserves simply by drawing breath.

I grew up in the mountains in a very Christian cult-like atmosphere. It was honestly so close to being an actual cult. There really is such a minuscule difference. But it wasn’t an official cult. Just… very poor people backbiting each other any way they could. Praying like good people on Wednesdays and Sundays, but doing anything they wanted every other day of the week. You’d think with all the mountains around, they’d have anything better to do than gossip. But gossip ran as life’s blood. The internet didn’t yet exist in private homes in that piss hole in a snowbank. There were 3 churches in the town, and 6 bars. For 300 people. The closest store was a good 20-minute drive away, the closest library an hour.

Christ, it’s hard to remember these things. It’s been 33 ish years since this story happened in real life, and I still don’t want to revisit it.

But it’s important.

The memory of this day is ingrained on the inside of my skin. I can almost feel the heavy summer sun.

Sad Summer Day

I’m around 14 years old. I’m barefoot, because my family doesn’t see the point of buying shoes for summer wear. Feet toughen up just fine.

I’m wearing a fourth or fifth-hand t-shirt that is far too see-through and cut-off jean shorts. The tickling of the strings falling against my thighs as I walk is a soothing sensation to me. I’m finished with my chores, the horses are cared for, the dog fed, the abusive younger sibling has stopped screaming and throwing things at me because I wasn’t a suitable big sister and had gone to hide in her room. I’m an embarrassment to my allistic sister. I’m an embarrassment to my mother too. If she ever crawls out of the bottle long enough to give a shit about anyone. My brother lives elsewhere.

I stink. I don’t know that or understand it, but I stink. Getting clean means swimming in a scummy mountain lake most evenings. My mother hasn’t taught me anything about personal hygiene. She smokes like a damned chimney and always smells of booze. There is no way I don’t smell bad. We had bath nights once a week in the winter. The only reason I knew my period was a thing was school health class.

I hang around in the barn a lot. Or in the ancient maple tree in the pasture. Ar Bazara is my beautiful Arabian mare. Her hide is the stunning red of particularly vociferous sunsets. She often patiently lets me lie on her back with a book open on her rump while she grazes. My new goat, Esmerelda, is still adjusting to not being the house goat she was used to being. She’s miserable, mourning her friend and old life. I do what I can, but it doesn’t help very much. Goats grieve as much as humans do, maybe more so.

It’s my job, and escape, to walk to town and get the mail for my father, who works more than not, and can’t get to the post before it closes at 5pm. I have no idea when or if my mother will come stumbling in blind drunk.

I hope to see my friend, who lives at the top of the road to the post office. He hasn’t been feeling well. Wrapped up in a quilt in his mother’s rocking chair on the porch is how I’ve been finding him lately. It’s not very odd, it never gets truly warm in the mountains, so people in heavier clothes or a blanket around their shoulders isn’t uncommon. I think nothing of it.

He’s a relatively recent addition to my life. He moved into his mother’s house last year. Esmeralda had been his, but he’d asked me to take her last week and love her like he did. I really don’t see it coming, or maybe I don’t want to add up the clues.

He’s my only friend there. He looks much older to me, but in reality, is likely in his late twenties. He wears dark tortoise-shell rimmed glasses, always has interesting books to read and ideas to discuss. He’d made it out of the mountains, so has seen so much more of the world I long desperately to experience for myself. His butterscotch blond hair is always a curly mess, and he’s always running his hand through it. I hope I can sit on his porch steps, picking at splinters, while he tells me another story. I’m not supposed to talk to him. No one does in that town. We might catch it, if we do so much as look at him. But I like him, and he treats me like a combination of younger sister and wild animal. He always speaks in such a gentle, calm tone. A tone I never hear at home. Except for the day he gave me Esmerelda. He couldn’t talk through the tears he was trying to hide.

My aunt lives next to him and warns me away every time she sees me. I suppose she likely told my parents, but my parents either aren’t there or are drunk. He’s the only adult in that town other than my grandmother, who even sees me. Much less talks to me like I’m a person. My aunt is happy enough to take his money to make an extra portion of food for him when she cooks for her family every day. She drops it off on the porch and will only take the dishes back if they’re soaking in bleach water when she comes to get them.

I’m tanned dark brown. My mother kicks us out as soon as the snow melts and we’re expected to stay out until dusk. But I’ve got my summer colour, my hair is frizzy from the yearly perms, and sun-bleached. The stench of lemon juice in my hair is still strong, but I know better than to not use it every morning. Having my mother yank the black, spiral hairs out of my head hurts worse. But I hate the smell of lemon juice in my hair.

It’s a short walk to a mountain child. Though if you’d called me a child then it would’ve infuriated me.

I am still a child, a very naïve one. I only know the words gay and lesbian because I’ve read the OED cover to cover. But they’re nascent, formless concepts to me. I’m in the midst of my first crush. A girl in my class with the prettiest brown eyes and lush, curly hair. But, I’ve told no one.

There’s sand on the sides of the beaten-up tarmac of the road. I’m avoiding walking on the road itself because prickers from wild roses and blackberry bushes are vastly preferable to burnt feet.

In shade areas, the mounded sand is cool, a treat to dig my toes into, and there’s a place where rain makes interesting patterns in the sand. I stop there for a short time to look at the swirling patterns in that section. It’s different every time it rains.

The air is heavy, like a wet wool blanket, presaging another evening rainstorm. I cuss because it means I won’t get to swim that night. If I want to rinse off, it’ll be in the cold rain. Hopefully, there won’t be thunder. Loamy earth and the particular faintly metallic scent of slightly damp, lichen-covered stone coat my tongue with a musky taste. The lighter, higher sweet honey note of spreading dogbane makes the walk smell like a slice of heaven. They’re poisonous, of course, but they’re beautiful and one of my favourites. Bunchberry shows little red splashes of colour. Orange hawkweed is blossoming, and so is the milkweed. Soon there will be so many monarch butterfly caterpillars I’ll have to watch where I step. The unnatural stench of old, oft-tarred tarmacadam adds an unwelcome element of human activity to the interesting scents.

The forest sings, murmuring to each other with the slight breeze that’s the only coolness I’ll find unless it rains. And the creaks and groans of the poplar and birch trees provide a symphony. I walk by my grandmother’s house. She’s outside tending to her flowers and checking the bird feeders, so I wave instead of meandering over. My grandmother loves to talk. I’ll stop on the way back. I’m later than usual going to get the mail because of my sister’s abusive outburst.

My hands are stuffed in the far too small front pockets of my shorts. My hand is tightly wrapped around the mail key. I always hold it in my fist, my father says it’s a trust, and I don’t want to blow it. A hopped-up pickup truck with a custom paint job, jacked tires, and glass-packs roars by. The boys inside and riding on the bed cat call me, but I don’t understand it.

By this time in my life, my mother has dived into a bottle and never looked back. She taught me to drink on hanged man’s bridge when I was 11. Vodka. She’d already moved on to vodka from wine by that time. In a lot of ways, I didn’t have a mother anymore, if I’d ever really had one at all in anything other than the physical sense.

It’s 1990. Big hair is falling out of fashion, but I still have the perm that my (at the time) stick-straight hair needs to look like Bon Jovi.

It’s mid-summer, the sun is high in the sky and it won’t get dark until after 9 pm. I won’t have to go inside until 10. The voracious bugs are preferable to listening to another argument. And Gram will let me in and likely feed me. Maybe my brother will be there.

As long as I’m on my father’s or grandmother’s land by dusk, I don’t have to go inside. The crab apples aren’t quite ready, but I pick one to eat, anyway. The bitter, tart juice is still green-flavoured, but it fends off my hunger. I didn’t get to eat my food; I cleaned it up from where my sister had thrown it at the wall and took it out to the hens. I wonder if they like grape jam?

It’s not the first time I’ve been hungry. Hunger is basically my ground state. So much so that I don’t even feel it when I’m hungry.

I pause on hanged man’s bridge. Just for a moment, while I warily scan the church parking lots at the end of the road.

They’d kicked me out when I was 12, but if the minister sees me, I’ll get scolded for breathing. I’m lucky, the lots are deserted and I continue on my way.

There’s no tree cover here, but there is down by the water. The beavers are busily building a dam that the men will burn come fall. It makes me sad because I can see kits with their parents. Beaver has a lot of fat in the fall, so it’s good meat.

I turn left at the end of the road and walk past another not-so-distant relative’s house. I stop for a moment to pet the Percheron workhorses who obligingly hang their heads over the fence so I can pluck handfuls of fresh green grass for them. Their slobber on my hands is green, but it doesn’t register as anything other than something to wipe off on my butt. I love these gentle giants, but the sun is lower in the sky, so I hurry on. I pass two more relatives’ houses. I have a tendency to walk with my gaze on the ground, partially to make sure I don’t step in anything, but partially in hope of finding a new, interesting stone or a bone for my collections.

So, I just… don’t notice. I’m in my own head a lot, working on stories. I started writing 3 years before.

There’s a sharp, rattling sound I associate with caster wheels and I look up.

My friend isn’t on the porch and he can’t tell me any more stories.

The glaring canary yellow of haz-mat suits screams brightly from his faded house. They look like aliens to me. Fierce, terrifying aliens. We don’t have TV, or rather, we don’t have TV reception, so the only reason I know what the suits are is because of my long habit of reading encyclopedias.

One of them is roughly handling his body as the other wraps a second roll of cellophane around him, over and over. They’re great yellow spiders as they finish wrapping my friend in cellophane and put him on the emergency bed from the ambulance. There aren’t any lights on, it’s turned off, and the driver has his booted foot hung out the window while he looks at a playboy. He whistles at me and winks. I hear one of the aliens say the body bags are too expensive to waste on trash. One of them fetches a floral sheet from my friend’s home. They wrap him in that.

I stand there like a rock has landed on my head.

I’m mute. I can’t even make myself move to go yell at them for laughing over my friend’s body and trading slurs for him as if it’s a game. Even if I were brave enough to confront adults. Which, I am not.

They very carefully take the gurney to the ambulance, avoiding all possible touch with the cellophane cocoon. The straps are so tight around my friend’s body that if he could feel them, he would have cried.

The doors make a doubled, muffled thump and the engine of the ambulance starts. It jerks me into movement, but I’m too late. They drive off.

They haven’t closed his kitchen door. So I do it, thinking in that odd way that he’ll be sad when he comes back to find it left open. I never have seen inside his house and I don’t breach his privacy as I close the door.

I have no way to lock it, and he told me he hasn’t any family left.

I step quickly down the top of the searing hot grey metal culvert cover to my aunt’s large backyard. I’m grateful to not run into my cousins. One of whom has already tried to rape me. I can fight him off if I have to, again, but all I need is to escape. I hopscotch across the brook and into the old potato field. I leap like a yearling deer from one mound to the next before I can disappear myself into the forested lands on my dad’s property. I practically live in the forest, and my friend’s habit of treating me like a wild animal isn’t off. I am.

The next thing I clearly remember is hugging Esmerelda’s neck, finally understanding why he’d asked me to take her.

Finally understanding a lot of things a 14-year-old probably shouldn’t have to think about.

I never did get the mail that day. I had to scour the area I’d walked to find the mail key I’d always been so careful not to drop.

Years later, when I was 19, and I’d escaped those fucking mountains, I was in university and doing very well. The only semester I didn’t hit the president’s list was the semester I had mono, and I still made dean’s.

I and a couple of others had recently been thrilled to get the B added to the LG group (lesbian and gay). Bisexual erasure is still prevalent, and it was worse then.

It was meeting night for the club, and one of my friends, one of the first openly gay men I knew while understanding what that meant, had a square of heavy white cloth. He explained it was for a project to remember those we’d lost to AIDS.

I took it home to my dorm room that night and feverishly embroidered a little grey goat wearing a green collar and a shiny gold jingle bell. I’ll never know why he named her Esmerelda.

The last time I visited those mountains, just before our move to Canada… I walked over with my eldest on my hip to look at my friend’s house. The door gaped open like a missing tooth in a smile, but no human scavengers had touched anything. (In those mountains, scavenging is a way of life. It’s a testimonial to their prejudice and discrimination that his home wasn’t pillaged.) The roof had fallen in at some point, always a danger in those mountains, from the weight of snow. The porch step I’d sat on to listen to his stories had fallen off and lay almost rotted through. I stood there looking at his house for probably longer than I remember. They’d closed the post office. The workhorses had been sent to make dog food when the man of the house died and his widow couldn’t care for them. Pound for pound selling them to the butcher was more practical.

My mother sold Ar Bazara just before she left my father. My beautiful mare had died at her new owners from pneumonia not long after I’d graduated high school.

Fall asters bloomed, making shockingly bright splotches of colour around his house. No one would even go close enough to do the neighborly thing and mow the tiny area of land that went with the house. Perception was everything to those people. It wouldn’t do to be perceived as less than a ‘good Christian’. So it spoke volumes that no one had shoveled the roof or mown the lawn. The only way people survive up there is by banding together when needed. My cousins may shoot each other (true fact) but they’ll band together if someone threatens from outside.

My grandmother was gone. Still with us in the flesh, but Alzheimer’s took her from us long before she actually died. She didn’t even remember I had a kid.

My father had cut the ancient maple tree I’d loved so much for firewood years before, sometime when I was in uni.

There weren’t any horses anymore. Esmeralda had gone. She never recovered. The sweet, gentle goat I’d agreed to love turned vicious and mean. I didn’t know how to help her and no one I dared ask could help. My father made me get rid of her when she butted him in the knee.

I kissed my little one’s head when he reached up curiously to touch a tear on my cheek. I doubt he’d ever seen me cry before that. I don’t cry easy. My therapist has me working on relearning how to cry.

That isn’t a problem right now. I can barely see to type. No matter how many years pass, I can’t forget the tearing, sticky sound of the cellophane as they wrapped my friend up. I can’t forget the things they said about him while wearing those stupid haz-mat suits. Which they hadn’t even been wearing correctly. I can’t forget and it’s so bloody hard to remember these things, much less talk or write about them.

Within my lifetime, we’ve seen amazing changes in queer rights. But I, and a lot of older queers, are watching the current political climate of the world and… we could so easily lose everything we’ve gained.

Trans people are always the canaries in the coal mine; always the ones sacrificed first. They will come for the rest of us.

If you’re queer, don’t ever fall into the trap of thinking it’s ancient history. I’m currently 47. This day happened 33 years ago. Don’t fall into the morass of thinking our rights can’t be stripped from us.

They can. And I fear, deeply, that they’ll strip our rights from us again. We could so easily fall down the slippery slope until all of us are disrespected as my friend was. He died alone. And I suppose I should be grateful my aunt noticed right away, that anyone noticed at all. He was a pariah. He’d come home to die after his partner did, only to face massive social exclusion by people he’d grown up with. My aunt only fed him for the cash. Even then, barter was still common. Hard cash wasn’t always easy to get.

I went to the cemetery to try to find his grave and plant some flowers on it. I found where it was supposed to be. Right on the very edge next to the pine forest. Just a slight depression marking what was likely a cheap pine coffin, if they even paid him that much respect. There wasn’t a crematorium anywhere close by. So they’d stuck him as far away from the other dead people as possible. As if the dead could catch it. We didn’t name it. It was the illness variety of the boogeyman. If you don’t name it, it can’t find you.

Starflower had grown to cover the area, so at least I know every spring he has a blanket of small, ethereal white flowers. We lost most of a generation of queers due to medical negligence and reprehensible cruelty from humans to other human beings.

But these stories shouldn’t die with us. Queer youth need to understand what we lived through so they don’t get too complacent. I’ve fought for queer rights since I was 14 years old.

My eldest can just be openly queer. Something I’ve never been able to be except for a few short years in university.

I don’t want to see us lose our rights again.

I don’t want another misunderstood, abused, hurting queer kid to have to watch as their only friend is wrapped in cellophane and denied the honour of a body bag. Denied the honour of a decent grave with a simple headstone.

We’re already losing queer rights. Please don’t be complacent.

Phew, so… I’m a sobbing mess. If my work of words touched you, please consider a tip or becoming a patron. We live in poverty. My husband is recovering from one of the likely three back surgeries he needs for his broken back. We have two autistic/ADHD kids and finding a job is impossible. I’ve been looking since January 15th, 2023. I have $50/$1220 I need for rent for January. We can’t get any government aid because I’m an immigrant.

Far too many queer creatives live in poverty. I’ll do a series of these memories as I can. They’re very emotionally difficult for me to write, but I feel they’re very important things.

http://ko-fi.com/A630KKM

https://www.paypal.me/KaelanRhy

[neteyammeowmeow]

Vent... Getting Non-Ninjago for a moment and I'm not sure if anyone will be bothered for this but, my country is having Election Day today and. I think this is one of the only (and maybe ONLY) elections that has made me scared for the results, well, I'm scared to talk about it in general because I'm scared they might dig this out but. Anwyays.

One of the presidential candidates #2, he participated in a genocide that happened over only 2 decades ago, and he has been involved in the dissapearances of activists during that era. I don't care if people have changed, the thought of people like him being able to take control of my country scares the shit out of me. And I mean seriously scares the shit out of me. There was a debate a few weeks ago or less where the question was, "How will you help the women of Indonesia?" or something alike, and he answered. Free food, that's it? Women will get catcalled, bad treatment educationally or in workspaces, and his solution was free food. Not even that as well, he's been marketing his campaign with AI art, and it's such total ass, but people are falling for it because he's cute, and I can't even begin how disgusted I am by it, and by campaign I mean his face is on billboards, the streets, knocked into every tree or streetlight, this stupid AI portrait of him is everywhere and it ticks me off.

And what makes the whole ordeal even worst, if I'm right, the candidate vice president for him is a nepo baby, like he's straight up there because of our current president, I think. He promotes his shit with AI as well, honestly I don't know much of him to say what I say, it's just there's definitely some guy that can do his job better, and he is still around 30 if I'm right. Putting him with THAT guy, I cannot and don't want to think of this country.

I just hope nothing insane happens, I saw this tweet and laughed at it, but I took it seriously as well. I don't know what that man can do. I just hope I'm stressing things out but I really don't know what can happen.

[das-ende-des-anfangs]

🐝🌸🍰🍪🎄❄️🍓🔪

🐝: 🖤💀🦊🆒👑👢👗 (This one was hard 😅. I bounce between aesthetics a lot)

🌸: This is a tough one; no partners have ever really gotten me flowers (hint hint 😉😉) for me to have a favorite, like, cultivated flower. Idk if this is cheating because it's a blooming tree/shrub rather than strictly a flower, but I'd have to say mountain laurel. I was a Boy Scout growing up, and my dad was always involved in my troop (he was even our Scoutmaster for a couple years), so I have a lot of fond memories of going backpacking with him and my Scout friends. There are a lot of mountain laurels along the Appalachian Trail in Maryland and Virgina where we did most of our backpacking, and catching the mountain laurels during the narrow window when they were in bloom was always such a special treat.

🍰: This is a tough one. I love both, but I'd have to say vanilla, because I have to be in the right mood to go for something strawberry, whereas I feel like I can always go for vanilla.

🍪: Cookies, easily. Cookie dough is nice, but it's only ever one texture, whereas cookies can have a wide variety of textures depending on how they're prepared.

🎄: I'd have to say Thanksgiving, because I love food and cooking and it is, like THE food holiday. I've been wanting to host my own Thanksgiving for a while now that I finally have a place to do it in. Might try to make something like that happen this year, we'll see 😉.

❄️: A few years ago I would've said spring, but now I'd have to say summer, mostly just because now I actually love my body and enjoy showing it off by wearing very little clothing 😜. The estrogen also helped with this just in terms of temperature tolerance. I used to overheat really easily, and I loved the cold for that reason, but now it's the exact opposite, and I feel like I freeze constantly now. That all being said, I think all the seasons have unique upsides and downsides, and I love them all in their own unique ways.

🍓: Ooooh, a secret 😏. I'm having trouble thinking of one right now, because I tend to be a pretty open book. There aren't a lot of things about me that I'd consider a secret because I'm generally willing to share pretty much everything about myself if I really trust someone. Ooooh, I just thought of one, but I'll have to DM it to you because I actually could get in real trouble for posting this one publicly 😅.

🔪: Probably the first time I got catcalled/sexually harassed on the street; I'll always remember it clear as day. It was on the Sunday of Otakon 2022, and I was walking back to the subway station from the convention center in the mid-afternoon. I was with Aria (my current nesting partner) at the time; this was in our first year of dating, back when she still lived in Arlington, VA, like 3 blocks from a Metro station. I was a little over a year on HRT at this point, so I definitely could pass, but I wasn't really used to being perceived as female by strangers. We were walking through Chinatown on the way to the Gallery Place Metro station, through a kind of run-down stretch of 14th street. I was wearing a black strappy top and a red and black plaid skater-style skirt with these red plaid stompy combat boots, so I was looking pretty hot, all things considered. This was also when Aria was pre-everything, so she was presenting male at the time (which I thank the gods for every day, because it may have saved my life).

As for what actually happened. I hear a voice coming from my left, and there's a Black homeless guy (unfortunately his race is relevant to what happens later) on the side of the sidewalk under the overhang of the building asking me for money. I normally like to give cash to homeless people when I can, so I went to go into my purse for my wallet, but I realized that I had spent the last of my cash on merch at the con. Realizing that I wouldn't be able to give the guy anything, I pulled my purse back in towards me (because I was no longer feeling around inside it) and sort of stammered out "Sorry, I don't have any cash" in as feminine a voice as I could muster, because I knew that I did NOT want to get clocked in this moment.

Unfortunately, he perceived that motion as me clutching my purse out of some sort of racialized fear, which I totally understand in the abstract. Truth be told, I was afraid. Not because he was black, but rather because he was male, and I was deathly afraid of getting clocked and thus potentially hate-crimed in broad daylight. He (again, understandably) becomes visibly upset at the thought that I was responding to him in a racist way, so he starts yelling stuff like, "Oh, this b*tch is scared, huh? You scared, b*tch?" All I could think to do was keep quiet, keep my head down, and keep walking, because nothing remotely like this had ever happened to me before, and I had no idea what to do in this situation. However, it seemed like being ignored only set him off more, because he starting actively hurling insults at me, like "Ay, f*ck you, you cr*cker-*ss b*tch," "F*ck this racist b*tch," etc. I was now incredibly afraid, but we kept walking, and as we were about to cross the street onto the next block, I hear his parting shot: "I bet you like black d*ck though," and the added sexual component of the harassment just freaked me out even more.

Thankfully he wasn't angry enough to follow us into the next block (which probably had a lot to do with me having someone with me who he perceived as a "man"), and as soon as I realized I was (at least physically) safe, a flood of emotions came over me. Obviously there was an element of trauma there, because I had never been berated on the street like that in any context, much less a sexual one, and I was truly afraid that I might have been physically harmed during that interaction. I was on an adrenaline high afterwards that lasted the entire rest of the day. There was also a feeling of intense validation (shout-out to gender-affirming misogyny), because for possibly the first time in my life there was no doubt in my mind that I fully passed in that moment and was viewed no differently than this man would view a cis woman. I initially felt a lot of shame for feeling this way, but I've come to terms with it since then.

Thankfully, I went back home to my parents' place (this was when I still lived with them), and I was able to talk it over with my mom, which really helped me process all of the complex emotions. Episodes of street harassment for me have thankfully been few and far between since then, and the trauma from that event has been fully processed and integrated into my new worldview. It was definitely an awakening for me that forced me to acknowledge one of the unfortunate costs of living as my true self, so in a way, I'm grateful that it happened, because it taught me a lot about myself and what it means to be perceived as a woman in our society.

[ahb-writes]

Comics Review: 'Sara'

Sara by Garth Ennis, Steve Epting, Elizabeth Breitweiser, Rob Steen

gender studies

military comics

snipers

social commentary

WWII

How else would comics enthusiasts immerse themselves in the pitiless grime of WWII sniper combat among incorrigible and faithless women up against the odds, if not through the phenomenal art of Epting and Breitweiser? The duo's familiar tour of environmental design and background art seeped in realistic textures, as well as characters with twitchy brow ridges and hard jawlines and faultless eye lines, pulls readers into the fragrant drama of a war that's scarcely begun, both historically and metaphorically.

SARA is an immersive read. Whatever the violent, vengeful, or petty reasons people sell themselves when they willingly enlist for active duty, few bear any practical or ethical sentiment in common with the cold, garish, human-shaped shadows that cloak the battlefield. Sara knows this. She's a defeatist veteran, she's the team's best sniper, and she's seen, heard, and experienced enough to know that all propaganda is fiction, that all wars end in death, and that the only friendships worth saving are those one sacrifices everything for.

Sara is the pessimist. Lydi is the ingenue. Mari is outwardly matter-of-fact but inwardly a humanist. Darya dreams of equality. Vera is a sadist. And 'Rina, the sergeant, is the pragmatist. Together, they've killed dozens upon dozens of German soldiers. They are mocked and they are feared. They are levied national awards and they are catcalled. And the war grinds on.

SARA burns into readers' memories a tale of survival made necessary by the egotistical and appalling, if inevitable whims of state violence. It's not simply staring down the barrel and pulling the trigger. It's reading the wind, identifying enemy formations, and relishing calm while everyone else panics out of habit. Sara impatiently deconstructs an enemy unit's command structure while napping aloft. Lydi enjoys the company of a team of canines, until she realizes they're trained to scamper under enemy tanks with mines strapped to their backs. Mari tells a young male officer that no, she doesn't want a poem he wrote just for her; she's changed her mind. "I don't suppose you've got any chocolate?" she asks. "I like chocolate. Chocolate I can definitely use."

SARA spies the feral beast in all, and gives them just enough room to run, whether in heart or mind or body, toward home or country or enemy fire.

Extraordinary artwork elevates an effectively written story. Sara doesn't care for her country, or even for her job; she's a survivor and a creature of survival. It doesn't matter if she captures an infantryman alive or snipes an enemy colonel from 700m away, the woman's cynicism carries the day. And framing it all, readers have compelling character art and complex, lived-in environments: massive, snow-covered trees; pitted tanks; pock-marked forests, cleared of vegetation; and messes of gray-brown fortifications, all crumbling. Epting's knack for carving unflinchingly realistic but not excessively melodramatic character dynamics is again perceptively complemented by Bretiweiser's choice of deeper or darker shades that match the comic's many burned-out buildings, muddy fox holes, and oil-lamp-lit cabins as much as the many exquisitely bright and chaotic flashes gunfire violence.

Well-written and evenly paced. Well-drawn and enthusiastically colored. Narratively speaking, SARA is a solid book. Literally speaking, not so much. The physical trade paperback is extraordinarily poorly assembled (e.g., weak glue binding, uneven signatures), and the whole thing falls apart after only one read-through. Hopefully, if this creative team reunites for another title, the publisher will opt for a different printer.

❯ ❯ Comics Reviews || ahb writes on Good Reads