#theoretically that should have been mentioned but some things get lost

[fiddles-ifs]

I cackled when a certain coyote showed up in an alleyway, thanks for looking out for us!

Though that route, I'm not sure where... Liam? went when all that went down. I didn't see it mentioned anywhere so the transition is a little hazy there for me.

He just left! Skedaddled! Moseyd on out. He's in his room at home playing XBox.

[delimeful]

just a little rush (2)

G/T July Day 5: Caught

warnings: angst, remus POV w more theoretical gore than usual, mentions of surgery & gore, jerk giant minor oc, panic, dissociation, dehumanization  

-

Remus hated to admit it, but Pattycakes had been right.

He definitely should have waited a little longer before trying for his next escape attempt.

It was the woulda-coulda-shoulda sort of regret that he didn’t usually waste time on. He was well aware of how many of his plans were bonafide bad ideas, and he generally went through with them anyhow.

The alternative was letting the fire ants under his skin grow more and more intolerable until he ended up doing the dumb thing anyway, but even more recklessly. It wasn’t so much a ‘choice’ as it was a ‘delay of the inevitable’.

After all, he was the only one getting hurt in the end, right?

Now, watching helplessly from behind birdcage bars as that bastard human loomed over Patton, he was finding that there were some consequences that could make him feel regret, after all.

Initially, the bastard had seemed eerily unperturbed by catching Remus in the act, even if his grip had gone dangerously tight for a heartbeat. He’d dropped Remus back in that gaudy cage without even a single word of scolding, turning away with a preoccupied gaze.

That should have been the first sign that something was about to go horribly wrong.

As it was, Remus’s bad feeling didn’t catch up with the reality of the situation until the human walked in mid-phone call, stopping right in front of them. The bastard looked them over with a calculating eye as he spoke to the tinny voice on the other end about prices and procedures, as though they were too dumb to put the pieces together.

Patton hadn’t stopped shaking until hours later, his wings tucked as tight against his back as they would go. Remus had forced himself silent for once, knowing that the gory thoughts he had to offer would only make the situation worse, and simply squeezed Patton against his side as securely as he could.

It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. No matter how hard they tried to cling on, it only took a single human hand to wrench them apart.

When the bastard had walked in with heavy leather gloves on, Remus had thought he was ready. He’d been prepared for his wings to be mangled, for tiny hollow bones to shatter and wiry muscles to be ground to a pulp, for even the lifelong pain of a botched amputation.

He hadn’t been prepared for the human to grab Patton, instead.

He was shouting, barking swears and threats and pleas that he barely registered as words as Patton was pinned against the polished wood of the nearby table.

It was like he had to make as much noise as possible to counter Patton’s awful, tremulous silence. His cellmate’s face had gone blank and pallid, eyes distant. A few of Remus’s shouts had made him twitch, but nothing seemed enough to bring him back to himself now.

The human— the monster pressed down on Patton’s wing joints and forced the feathery limb to flex open, soft blue plumage on full display.

It picked up a pair of narrow scissors, ignoring the compulsive twitches of the overextended wing under its hand.

The howl that Remus made was inhuman, shredding out of him like razor blades in his throat, and the human paused to glance over at him for the first time.

“Huh.” Its expression was pleased, almost smug. “That vet was right on the money with that ‘social creatures’ thing. Maybe this will finally teach you that there are consequences to your actions, hm?”

It flicked the scissors open with a metallic sound, and as though it was a signal that all was lost, Patton went entirely limp with resignation.

Remus forced himself to keep gripping the bars with numb hands, to keep his ears uncovered, to keep his gaze locked on the only friend he had here. His heart felt like a hammer against his ribs, his mind conjuring up a hundred different gruesome imaginings that were all nothing in comparison to knowing it was about to happen for real.

Patton was going to be grounded forever, at best, and it was his fault. The least he could do was witness exactly what he’d caused.

The monster slid the scissor blades into place, adjusting the angle once or twice, and then snapped them shut with a sharp snkt!

A fistful of feathers tumbled free from Patton’s wing, jagged at one end from where they’d been sheared off. Another cut, and more downy blue scraps fluttered down to the desk’s surface.

Remus felt his breath catch in his throat, a sick and sudden hope twisting through him.

He waited on pins and needles as first one wing, and then the next, had their feathers cropped short with snip after snip of the scissors. There was no split flesh or severed bone, only the near-silent whisper of more and more feathers being cut away.

There were a few moments where the scissors got dangerously close to clipping a blood feather, but ultimately, when Patton was deposited back in the cage, it was without a single wound.

Well. Without any physical wounds.

Even as Remus gathered his friend into a crushing hug, Patton remained unresponsive. Checking him over revealed dull eyes and his shorn wings laid out limply behind him.

He didn’t twitch, not even when the human reached in and clicked a thick, bulky piece of plastic around his shin.

More than willing to pick up the slack, Remus lunged at the intruding digits with a snarl and bared teeth, his wings flared out aggressively.

There was no biting through gloves that thick, though, and with a few casual movements, it had him pinned down with suffocating force. A pair of fingers pinched around his leg, pulling the limb straight and maneuvering something hard and smooth into place around it despite his best efforts to kick and writhe.

There was a click, and the bastard finally, finally withdrew, closing and locking the cage door thoroughly behind it.

Remus barely spared a glance for the thick plastic cuff that had been latched around his lower leg or the wire cord connecting it to the other half of the restraint where it sat on Patton’s own leg. It didn’t matter, not compared to the insistent urge to reach out and make sure that Patton was really there, really alive despite his current lifelessness.

At first, he scoffed at the idea that it was a punishment to be linked to his only companion in this sterile gold-leafed hell, but a closer inspection of Patton’s wings revealed the truth.

Almost every single primary had been severed, an obvious gap with a long stretch of jagged angles left behind. Patton wouldn’t be able to fly like that. Remus would be surprised if he could even manage to glide like that.

Oh. He understood now.

Without use of his wings, the chances of them escaping dropped as abruptly as a piano from the top of a skyscraper, going from challenging to near-impossible.

Hurting Patton and making him watch had been the punishment. Cuffing them together, making it so that any attempt to fly, to escape, would end with Patton inevitably dragging them down— that was a reminder.

Maybe they could still manage to find a way out, if Patton could be persuaded once he came back to himself.

Maybe next time they got caught, it would be the wing itself that was snapped, instead of just the feathers.

Maybe the punishments would continue to escalate until all that was left to cuff Remus to was Patton’s bloodied corpse.

“Sunshine,” he tried with an unsteady voice, desperate for a response, anything to get his mind off the miserable hopelessness of their situation. “Can you hear me?”

Patton didn’t even blink, his mind far away and his body unresponsive. He stared through Remus with glassy eyes, and Remus bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, forcing his breathing into something steadier out of spite alone.

Okay. Patty Wagon wasn’t quite ready to come back yet. That was alright.

Remus could take care of them both for a little bit.

He drew Patton closer, folding his friend’s wings back in as neatly as he could and resisting the urge to run his fingers obsessively over the irregular edges of the cut feathers– they’d need to be removed, but not now. Not now.

Once his mangled wings weren’t laying askew, Patton started looking a little less like roadkill. It was alarmingly easy to maneuver him into a hopefully-comfortable sleeping position, as simple as wrapping an arm around his shoulders and squishing him against his side like they were dead fish in a tin.

It might have been his imagination, but when he ran his hand over Patton’s back, he thought it was a little less tense than before.

With nightmarish visions still playing on the back of his eyelids every time he blinked, Remus mantled his wings to hide the both of them as best he could, and settled in for a sleepless night.

[epicspheal]

Alright so that Neo Champion event was...disappointing. Infuriatingly so. So to start off Professor Oak sees that there are a bunch of new trainers who are struggling. Professor Oak feels like they are aiming too high and that could cause problems for them and wants to help them. So he calls Lance to gather Red, Blue and Leaf. The Kantrio think they are being summoned to help be judges when Lance surprises them by saying he wants them to be participants by teaming up with the beginner trainers. Lance and Professor Oak mention the parameters of the tournament which provides my first and probably most major critique. There's two parts: a knowledge part and a battle part. Now, the problem I have here is there should've been three parts. The name of the event is "Three Trainers, Three Minds" which implies that we're going to see how three trainers with different mindsets mentor others. So theoretically there should be three parts that showcase the strengths of their individual training styles Only there's two...so someone is going to get left out. Leaf suggests to Red and Blue that because this is an opportunity to grow they should try using new Pokemon. She mentions she was inspired by the Galar NC trio, so this gives the hint that the three had already caught the legendary birds (par for the course so far for the Neo champion events in that the Pokemon they're paired with are ones they already owned). Now it's time to train!

First we have Blue, who enlists the help of three previous neo champions to help train his team: Bede, Hop and Calem. Now this is cool because they all have the same thing in common with struggling to beat their rivals (the protagonists) and it seems like there might be some discussion where Blue talks about learning from past mistakes...or not they just kind of skip over any discussion. Oh and where's Zapdos? Not around apparently. Blue was really eager to take up Leaf on the idea of using his legendary bird but of the three he's the only one not shown to be practicing with it with his mentees. Leaf does actually use her Moltres to her team and her part of the story involves her instructing her team on how it's important to deepen their knowledge of Pokemon not just by looking at a Pokedex but by bonding with them. It then cuts to Blue meeting with Leaf in the town square. Both of them feel like training is going well for their teams, but then the conversation switches to Red. They're both concerned about their silent friend as they don't know about his teaching skills. So they decide to check on him They eventually find Red and his Articuno...relentlessly beating his team. The trainers look visibly panicked and even say they surrender at one point. Blue and Leaf try to caution Red about overdoing the tough love and that they're being judged on how well they mentor the others. Red assures them (silently) that he has this in mind and that's why's he going all out on them Now Red going ham on his team invokes him Gigantamaxing his Snorlax in the Rocket Hideout back in the Villain arc. He clearly isn't one to go easy. But where you can at least justify him really not liking Team Rocket and wanting to shut them down with haste...it's hard to say the same when of the Kantrio, he has the youngest mentees (a youngster and a camper). It felt like overkill. I can 100% buy Red not being the most natural mentor. He's not perfect and it's a good way to show that. I thought it was a little much to have him go that hard on newbies. If his team was slightly more experienced trainers but who were stuck in a rut it would've felt a little less heavy-handed. Then it's the day of the tournament. We see Blue and Leaf with their teams who are clearly nervous. Blue's team tell him they're scared of holding him back and despite them winning against Hop, Bede and Calem, they apparently lost more times than they won. Blue tells them to have more confidence in themselves but honestly it felt like they needed to hear different words of encouragement. Meanwhile Leaf's team is also feeling similarly, however Leaf manages to respond with telling them to relax and have fun. That they won't be able to show their best if they're too anxious. Where's Red and his team? Well thankfully he didn't scare his group off. In fact they run into Diantha, Alder and Steven and eagerly challenge the three champions to a battle. Congrats, Red you're Bootcamp was successful.

The tournament begins. First part is the knowledge assessment. Everyone does well but Leaf is the clear winner. Professor Oak compliments her and her team's deep knowledge of Pokemon and their love too.

Blue remarks "trust and love in your Pokemon"...which almost certainly reminds anyone who played RBGY/FRLG of what was told to Blue after he lost to Red. That was a key part he was missing. And years later, he missed it again.

Now to the battle portion. We already know Leaf has secured her spot as a neo champion so now we know narratively we're about to see another Red vs Blue matchup. Well with the Neo champion stadium being about growth and seeing interesting upsets (Calem finally beating Serena and Bede, Hop and Marnie finally taking down Gloria, Victor AND Leon) surely we're about to see something unprecedented right? Ha. Hahaha. Red, Blue and Leaf all make it to the semifinals, with Blue's team taking out Leaf's team. But then it's time to face Red's and it's clear he's at a disadvantage. Where Red's team takes the powerful hits in stride, Blue's team quickly becomes frazzled and his two mentees get knocked out rather quickly leaving only Blue left. A final clash happens between Zapdos and Articuno but Red's Articuno emerges victorious. So Blue focused too much on training them up quickly that he forgot to teach them to enjoy battling. Despite Red's training from hell, his team managed to at some point lose their fear of losing (as seen by them being fearless enough to challenge the likes of Diantha, Alder and Steven to a battle). Once again we see Blue repeat a mistake that cost him the championship title years ago: being so afraid of losing he forgot to just enjoy the battle. This leads me to my second major problem with the arc. Blue has been hinted throughout Pokemas to not only enjoy mentoring others, but to be good at it. Yet if I'm being honest, he did poorly in this story. He failed to realize his team needed better words of encouragement, he was the only one of the Kantrio to not use his legendary in training, and he failed to teach his trainees how to better bond with their Pokemon and how to enjoy battling. The only saving grace in this is that he at least in both instances of failure against Leaf and Red recognizes where he messed up and apologizes... Which would've been a great jumping off point for a third arc where he can correct those mistakes and give his team a chance at victory...oh wait...it's only two parts to this tournament. Welp With the trend of Neo Champion events being a chance for the rivals to triumph over the protagonist friends, it was really jarring and disheartening to see Blue not get a clear distinct moment to shine against both Red and Leaf (yeah he wins against Leaf in the battle portion, but it's never stated he came in second place to her for the knowledge portion which would've implied that he at least beat Red at something). We come to the end where they announce the Neo champions. Leaf is first and she's praised for having a deep knowledge of Pokemon and true love for them as well. Red is last and he was praised for being able to conquer his team's fears of losing and how sharp they looked, reminding Lance of when Red challenged him. Oak does mildly chide Red for his methods being harsh but it was kind of downplayed.

But Blue gets told his team was solid in both performances so the judges thought he should get the title too. Honestly didn't feel like he was really solid because he made two critical mistakes (that again were supposed to have been ingrained in him after his loss at the Indigo Plateau). Also the praise was more directed at his team having a solid showing but not the one thing I felt like he did really well which was own up to his faults and saw room for improvement. It's an important part of leadership and the fact that was dismissed too was annoying. Again, a third leg of the tournament the writers could've used that strength of his to give him a chance to unequivocally defeat Leaf and Red instead of just being the solid number 2. Yeah it was nice to (finally) see Professor Oak praise Blue to his face, but it honestly felt a little unearned in the sense he didn't feel amazing the way Leaf and Red got to be. It felt more like a participation trophy than him getting to back the claims up that he's made over the story of Pokemas of being a good mentor (and as he said in his sygna suit sync pair story he's supposed to be better at it than Red). So yes, the Kantrio get to all be Neo Champions but it felt like this story didn't capture the same level of growth and resolving loose ends the previous two did. Blue failed to triumph, Red kind of got away with harsh training that would've been scolded a bit more harshly otherwise, and Leaf kind of shines in a safe way but not really challenging her skills.

[reitziluz]

so, while idly wondering what reigen’s major might have been, i got inspired to sort out my thoughts on it properly.

first, let’s lay down some straightforward facts from the manga, anime, and fan book:

he must be suffering from impostor syndrome or something similar, based on how he talks about his ”true self”

he was a humanities major (mentioned in the spinoff as the reason he can’t help mob with math which is. so real.)

he’s extremely confident in his argument skills, is good at reading people, and is competent and comfortable discussing things like the relationship between individuals and society, the meaning of life, and what makes a self

he is also knowledgeable about laws and deals with things like insurance companies with confidence

in the separation arc press conference, his narration stated that he had expected to have gotten bored with spirits and such ”within a year, too”, so assuming he had ran it for up to a year before meeting mob, he was around 24 back then

"within a year, too” implies he worked at the water cooler telemarketing job for up to a year, so, since he was around 23

on the same page, he refers to that time in his life as when he could easily get the gist of anything, but couldn’t get into anything more deeply than being curious about it (this is very often translated very, very badly.)

he quit his previous job because he had grown sick of it, and rented the office space before he had even come up with what kind of business he wanted to start

when wondering about why he is working as a psychic, one of the points against it is that it’s not profitable

his father is a local government employee, and as someone who’s very serious about things, thinks reigen is unemployed

his mother is a housewife, and as someone who’s very serious about things, thinks someone has tricked him into doing his current job

his sister works at a bank, thinks he’s a total fraud and that he should turn himself in, the earlier the better

it’s also reasonable to assume that:

he started working at the water cooler job immediately after getting his bachelor’s, as bachelor’s degrees are four to six years long in japan, which fits perfectly between being 18 when graduating high school to being 23~24 while he worked there

he probably finished his degree, because dropping out would have been a massive contradiction to how he said everything had come to him pretty easily – he was thinking back to himself when that was stated and was being pretty harsh about his own fickleness, so it’s safe to assume he wasn’t lying about that

with reigen’s lack of focus and tendency to pick up things that seem interesting on a whim, his degree is likely a mishmash of things instead of something that would railroad him into a specific career

his major was on the artsier or more theoretical side, as graduating and ending up in a job that has nothing to do with your degree because you need to work somewhere and it crushing your dreams and soul is a bit of a trope for those majors (he could have been talking from experience when telling the 7th div folks that they need to live in reality and that society doesn’t care about their fanciful ideas)

his family is likely well-off and at least a bit conservative

he would have received financial aid of some kind or taken a loan to be able to quit and up and rent an office on a whim just two years after graduating, even if he had been working while studying

his parents likely wanted him to get a good, serious job, like his sister going into banking

his father specifically might have wanted his son to follow in his footsteps – and he might have had his best interest in mind, because based on what the japanese career counseling website i used as reference said about ”local government employee”, it would have been a perfect fit – lots of change, working with people, solving problems, needing broad knowledge/skills etc (i’ve lost my mind over this before, there’s so many delicious family dynamics to explore in this)

he could have gone to university because he didn’t have any better ideas and tried to just get a degree that would satisfy his parents while also letting him explore ways to ”become someone”, as in have importance and make a difference

taking all that in, and acknowledging that i do not know enough about how japanese degrees work so i’m basing this somewhat in my own experience with academic freedom, i’m leaning towards reigen having been a political science major who kept taking classes outside his major. psychology, philosophy, maybe some folkloristics or other fun things like that? it would fit with his personality, current skills and knowledge base, and with trying to please his parents while doing whatever he wants to. picking political science might have been a compromise – his parents might have wanted him to study something like law instead of arts, and leveraged paying for his to have a say on his pick

that’s a nifty little hypothesis, right? perfectly reasonable. not much reaching, fits in the themes and narrative aims of canon. doesn’t require any wild leaps of logic. a good point to stop.

…

so hey, you know how when starting a business it’s pretty common to take a loan? and his sister, who works in banking, thinks he’s a fraud? and his father thinks he’s unemployed, lying about working but instead living on money other than his own income? and his mother thinks he’s been tricked and exploited? and in the fan book, reigen says he hasn’t been home in years but thinks he probably should drop by to clear a misunderstanding between them?

does the misunderstanding have something to do with, oh i don’t know, his family backing his loan or otherwise being involved with it and him seemingly fucking off to waste the money on weird shit with no sign that he was going to pay it back??

reigen, reigen please, what have you done, i know you self-sabotage and get into fucked up shenanigans to avoid having to be vulnerable and then you DO fix things in the end but reigen, it’s your family, what have you --

[crossedsabers10s]

dude i need inspiration. gimme! gimme! gimme! xox, splatooshy

Uhh *scrambles for something to type* ok so in the vampire diaries books Stefan has curly dark hair, green eyes, and he and Damon look more visibly like siblings. Also! Damon has very dark eyes in the books. I think they were described as onyx.

Anyways I like to imagine that Show!Stefan looks specifically different than he would otherwise bc of doppelgänger shenanigans. The Silas Effect overwrote everything else.

Completely unrelated to the first thing, but yk how Alaric gets all human-fied after the anti-magic bubble strips him of his vampirism and he’s saved from what had been his death wound?? All I’m saying is that Enzo died of, what, TB? Providing that it didn’t immediately kill him, he could have theoretically been dragged over that same bubble boundary as Alaric and been de-fanged the same way. The mental image of Damon pretending he’s not hovering over both of his suddenly mortal, suddenly v fragile and probably with lingering health issues as vampire blood can’t cure tuberculosis, best friends is so, so funny to me.

Third: I think that Wes totally could have approached Elena between S2-4. Like. Hey, ur Grayson’s daughter (or Jeremy, either, both) I need some research that may be with your dad’s things. Great man, he saved a lot of lives. Or all the suspicious deaths in Mystic have him trying to track down the mysterious killer after the Whitmores—before Aaron and his aunt get targeted. Grayson’s daughter might make good bait. All that’d have to happen is Wes to mention Augustine in Damon’s hearing. Bam. Instant angry vampire. Who now has to explain to his brother and/or their girlfriend why he just tried to kill a scientist. Like he worked with Elena’s father obvs he’s such a good guy. Damon , of course, does not give them a straight answer until Wes realizes what’s up and references his number or whatevs.

Damon, after having Stefan try to hold him back and Elena ask for mercy, bc they don’t have the full story and all they see is Damon holding a defenseless human by the throat: Mercy?

S/E: yeah, mercy

D: Alright. I won’t rip out his guts.

Wes: thank—

D: if he gives me back five years. No. Fifty.

E/S: Fifty years?

D: All the time I lost. Every second I spent numbed to everything.

D: I’ll let him live if he gives them back

W: I can’t—

D: How about this, this should be easier. I’ll let you live if you give me back my best friend.

W:

S/E:

D: no? shame. Guess you die.

In the books, Damon can turn into a wolf and a—I think it was a raven? Anyways I just think that Shapeshifting Damon is Fun, but especially if he just goes Gender is Stupid and Stefan wanders down one morning and is just like… I guess it’s sister today?

Damon: eh, it’s one of those Tuesdays.

Okay, now it’s ur turn 🥺

[imagionationstation]

To go with the previous post which can be found here-

Post Vampy~

Feel like I should clarify something I said in the last post, where I mention this scene:

Some might believe that this is out of character, and in a way, it both is and isn’t. An almost desperate need to protect his family at all costs is ingrained on every Leonardo out there, but if you notice, Raphael has already been lost. Now, it’s only a theoretical that he can be cured as of that moment. Leonardo has no reason to believe that this is something that can be reversed.

So now he has two options: Spend his time chasing down the brother that has already been ‘lost’ while putting the other two and the planet in jeopardy, or write off Raphael (for now) and continue with the mission to save their home.

That’s an insane and incredibly difficult choice to make.

But, as leader and now sensei, he has to do what’s best for his team. And it’s a well-spread fan theory that Leonardo is an expert at shoving his feelings to the side to get things done. He’s made the hard choices a million times, and now he shoves down his feelings to continue the mission.

That’s not to say he doesn’t care.

He does! I truly believe with every bone in my body that if that mission had ended with a win, but they lost Raphael in the process, Leonardo would carry the weight of that guilt and pain for the rest of his life. He would be utterly devastated.

Here is the moment @sr200916 referenced:

“I don’t know, man. Unless you or Renet come up with any bright ideas, Raphael may be lost forever.”

So, @tmntforeverinmyheart, Leo is still Mr. Wait All Night for Donnie to turn Raph back to normal. He was waiting for a cure after the battle with The Creep, with the belief that Donnie could give it to him. The disaster was over, so now he could allow himself time to worry.

Leader duties were finished. The big brother emerged full force. (He was big bro the whole time, but also leader, if that makes sense?)

And, @sr200916, you’re also right! Leonardo wasn’t really giving up on Raph, but he was setting his concerns to the side for the moment.  I was upset about the ‘for the moment’ part, mainly because of how much Donnie clearly believed that he could save him.

Donnie was convinced that he could be saved.

Leo, less so.

And considering how much regard Donnie holds for their eldest brother’s opinion, that could have been cracking at his hopes and making him doubt himself. And considering I’m over there routing for a Donnie-miracle, it rubbed me wrong.

Ergo, my unnecessarily aggressive statements clearly passed across the wrong message. Thank you for your comments! I’ll definitely be more careful about the things I say in the future!

Additionally, if anyone does not want your comments responded to as a post (I like to do this to clarify things with everyone), please let me know. Or just drop a /nopost with your comment!

Thank you!

[thedawningofthehour]

If Draxum had raised Gale then it would be a normal separate AU, which wouldn't hurt me as much since at least no one would be actively trying to keep the brothers apart (EW Shredder doesn't count because he's brainwashing his turtle too). What's more, in most separate AU's Draxum wants them to meet. And now I absolutely want to know what your version of that AU would be.

Because that's the part that bleeds me, for me, turtles are a package deal, you either get them all or you get none. I don't care if Draxum is trying to conquer the world as long as all the turtles are together and I think I just explained why my AU exists.

My whole basis for doth was literally a separated AU but with all the angst of having developed that brotherly bond and having it snatched away. With every other separated au, even ones where they were originally together and kidnapped/lost as older children, (like Leo and Mikey in EW, and there is one fic where Draxum kidnaps Donnie at a young age whose name I can't remember now) the bond still isn't what it is in the show. And it's ironic mentioning slushie's au, since that was one of the stories that inspired doth. I basically looked at that and went "I can make that more emotionally wretching." I wanted MAXIMUM angst, and this was how I decided it was best to deliver it.

An actual doth separated au, hmm. Well, first of all we have to overlook the fact that Donnie named himself here, realistically Draxum would have named him something else, (probably after some heroic Yokai or maybe his father or something) but for simplicity's sake I'll continue to call him Galois. A lot of it really depends on how Gale ended up with Draxum and what went down when the turtles were separated. Splinter could see that there were four turtles, did he think Donnie died in the blaze? I could see him becoming even more depressed if that was the case, trudging along to care for his remaining sons but always feeling the gap where his fourth kid should be. (he might have even resented April a bit, feeling like she was taking the spot his 'real' daughter/fourth son should have occupied) He probably wouldn't have told the boys about Donnie-until he was confronted with evidence that he survived the lab explosion, and then honestly it's a 50/50 shot whether he'd go murder a goat right then and there or jump straight to denial, because there's no way he could have just left his child with that nutjob for thirteen years.

If he saw Draxum take Donnie for himself, there's no way he'd leave that alone. He'd make sure his other boys were safe, but he would go at Draxum with everything he had to try and rescue his son. Maybe that's the situation he'd go back to Big Mama for, knowing she could keep his other kids safe and help him get his last baby back. Draxum would probably have to go into hiding.

On Draxum's side-I mean, like in doth, he'd go from 'warring warrior scientist' to "I love my son and if anything happened to him I'd kill everyone in the world and then myself" in about three seconds flat. Gale would do exactly one (1) cute thing and he'd be a goner.

Logistically, Gale's upbringing would be pretty much identical to the backstory Draxum fed him in doth. He would have been very hesitant to take Gale out in public, homeschooling him and, after realizing how intelligent he really was and giving up on the whole 'warrior and protector of humanity' thing, training him to take over as his scientific successor. They'd have a very close relationship, Draxum would probably be a little more affectionate, and Galois a little less.

I also don't know if he'd be the only one by the time the show rolls around. The ooze used to create the turtles was destroyed and Draxum didn't back up his notes apparently, so the formula was lost. He could have theoretically used Gale's blood to try and reverse-engineer the ooze, (something he does actually try in slushie's au) but it would be a question of if he was willing to use his son like a lab subject. He's very uncomfortable with the notion, he wants to maintain a separation between Galois and the crimes against humanity he regularly commits in the lab, and even something like taking his blood for a mutagen experiment feels like the first step down a slippery slope that Draxum is terrified of going down. But this Draxum would also still be on the 'army of elite warriors' things, plus he's enjoying this whole dad thing. He kind of wants more kids.

When he does realize that the other turtles survived, oh yeah he'd tell Galois everything and try to convince them to 'come home' to him. I don't think he could ever bring himself to harm them, knowing they're his son's brothers. Draxum and Gale would probably try doing what the fam is doing in doth, reverse-kidnapping his brothers and trying to make the case that Lou kidnapped them first and Draxum is their real father.

I still kind of wish I had set this story up just from Gale's pov after waking up from the brainwashing, treating his memories like they were real and having the truth slowly revealed through interactions with Leo and the fam. Most of the story would be missing then and the ending wouldn't really make sense, but that would have been SO COOL.

[mariana-oconnor]

The Yellow Face pt 2

Last time I was possibly overly critical of Mr Grant (or Jack?) Munro who was not dealing with his wife's curious behaviour very calmly. I stand by the fact that barging into people's houses in a fit of fury is very much not a good response to thinking your wife is lying, but I guess we'll see if I'm right.

“It seemed to be of an unnatural color, and to have a strange rigidity about the features. When I approached, it vanished with a jerk.”

An unnatural colour. Yes, both 'chalky white' and 'livid yellow' at the same time. I didn't bring this up the first time, but I probably should have. Was the face white or yellow? The title of the story indicates yellow, but the first description definitely, clearly, stated 'white'.

“Have you ever seen a photograph of her first husband?” “No; there was a great fire at Atlanta very shortly after his death, and all her papers were destroyed.” “And yet she had a certificate of death. You say that you saw it.” “Yes; she got a duplicate after the fire.”

A lot of very convenient events right there. And of course the death certificate comes up again - although now there is indication that it might be erroneous. I didn't know until recently that apparently you can just go to the hospital where you were born in the UK and say 'I've lost my birth certificate, I need another one.' I assume there is more to it than that, but I can't imagine there was in the 1880s. 'Hey, my husband died of Yellow Fever and I lost his death certificate in a fire, can I get a new one please. Yes, his name was Coen Siddence?"

"Let me advise you, then, to return to Norbury, and to examine the windows of the cottage again. If you have reason to believe that it is inhabited, do not force your way in, but send a wire to my friend and me."

Don't force your way into the other people's house. Good advice there from Holmes. He only follows it sometimes himself, but I do appreciate that he's being clear on this front. Do not break and enter, Mr Munro.

“I am afraid that this is a bad business, Watson,” said my companion, as he returned after accompanying Mr. Grant Munro to the door. “What do you make of it?” “It had an ugly sound,” I answered. “Yes. There’s blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken.” “And who is the blackmailer?”

OK, so probably not her kid. Probably her former husband who isn't actually dead, I guess. Because the death certificate which was so very specifically mentioned is not real.

“Yes, a provisional one. But I shall be surprised if it does not turn out to be correct. This woman’s first husband is in that cottage.”

Welp, theory 1 it is. Theory 2 has been thrown out of the window.

Her husband developed some hateful qualities; or shall we say that he contracted some loathsome disease, and became a leper or an imbecile?

Holmes... I'm not going to bother to unpack that but... okay then.

Right the term imbecile was one of those that used to refer to a very specific level of IQ and apparently there was also considered to be such a thing as 'moral imbecility' which was believed to be connected to genetic criminality and part of eugenics (hoooooo boy). Basically I don't really know what it means in this context, but I'm guessing he's going for the moral meaning rather than an IQ issue as I doubt someone with "a mental age of three to seven years" would really be hatching a dastardly blackmailing plot. Although my nephew can be particularly cunning sometimes in his attempts to get more cake, and he's younger than that, so... what do I know?

HOWEVER.

After all of this, we have to remember that this story started by saying the Holmes was wrong.

So maybe I'm right after all. Hidden child is back on the table, boys!

I was going to put the 'looks like meat's back on the menu boys LotR gif here, but decided implied cannibalism of theoretical disabled children is probably not the best idea I've ever had, so have this gif of Jeremy Brett as Holmes instead.

"She has been married three years, and believes that her position is quite secure, having shown her husband the death certificate of some man whose name she has assumed, when suddenly her whereabouts is discovered by her first husband; or, we may suppose, by some unscrupulous woman who has attached herself to the invalid."

Ah, no... the blackmailer in Holmes version is the northern woman who opened the door and wasn't particularly welcoming. Though it makes no sense why she'd be from northern Britain when the husband would, presumably, have been cared for in the US and she would, also presumably, have had to come over from there with him in order to hunt down his wife.

So she's either really good at accents or... she was British to begin with and knew them over there...?

Taking down with her the photograph which had probably been demanded from her.

This is a very weird demand if Holmes' theory is correct. The photo was one of the things that made me think it was a child, because giving your child a picture of you to look at is just... a nice thing. Taking a photo of the woman you're blackmailing is... I guess it's a control thing, or a weird stalkery thing.

"...on which the wife, knowing that he would come straight down to the cottage, hurried the inmates out at the back door, into the grove of fir-trees..."

Again, a strange detail for the blackmailing plot. This implies that Effie would have had some sort of control over her blackmailers. Surely they would be more likely to stay? Her husband wouldn't recognise the guy, by his own admission. Or they'd leave of their own volition, surely. But allowing their blackmailee to smuggle them from the house seems very weird.

But we had not a very long time to wait for that. It came just as we had finished our tea. “The cottage is still tenanted,” it said. “Have seen the face again at the window. Will meet the seven o’clock train, and will take no steps until you arrive.”

A round of applause, please, for Mr Munro's self control, which appears to have finally returned to him.

“What is your plan, then?” asked Holmes, as he walked down the dark tree-lined road. “I am going to force my way in and see for myself who is in the house. I wish you both to be there as witnesses.”

It was a brief reunion, alas.

“For God’s sake, don’t Jack!” she cried. “I had a presentiment that you would come this evening. Think better of it, dear! Trust me again, and you will never have cause to regret it.” “I have trusted you too long, Effie,” he cried, sternly. “Leave go of me! I must pass you. My friends and I are going to settle this matter once and forever!” He pushed her to one side, and we followed closely after him. As he threw the door open an old woman ran out in front of him and tried to bar his passage, but he thrust her back

Effie... please just talk to your husband. Clearly the 'trust me' line isn't working. Just... like... tell him. I really hope you married someone you can trust. Although, given... y'know, Victorian era etc. maybe you didn't. But communication is a really good strategy.

Jack, Grant... Grack, whatever your name is... Just.. stop barging into people's homes. And telling your wife you don't trust her like that is a dick mood. You need to calm down and talk this through, too.

In the corner, stooping over a desk, there sat what appeared to be a little girl. Her face was turned away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed in a red frock, and that she had long white gloves on.

Hidden child. HA!

Also... Grack you just frightened a child. I hope you're happy with yourself, you great numpty.

Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind the child’s ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance.

First - mask! Ha again! I mean... you really shouldn't touch the kid's mask without permission, Holmes.

I... did not expect the mask to be hiding the fact that the kid is Black. But I live in the 21st century, I guess. Yeah...

I burst out laughing, out of sympathy with her merriment; but Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand clutching his throat.

At least she's laughing too, I guess. But Grack, you need to prove yourself not a terrible person pretty damn quick. I still have a few shreds of faith in you.

She touched a spring, and the front hinged back. There was a portrait within of a man strikingly handsome and intelligent-looking, but bearing unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent.

Well that's a super sideways way to describe his race, particularly after the choice of words to describe the kid. Also, hello racist implications of that 'but' right there. Le sigh. This story is really pulling a bait and switch by calling itself 'The Yellow Face', isn't it. You expect racism against one group of people but Surprise! it's about another.

"When I left her in America,” she continued, “it was only because her health was weak, and the change might have done her harm. She was given to the care of a faithful Scotch woman who had once been our servant."

Not going to touch the colourism of the passage before this with a barge pole. That's a whole heap of ugh that I do not have the historical or personal understanding to unpack in a way the subject deserves.

Also, the woman is apparently Scottish, not just vaguely 'Northern'. It does read as a Scottish accent when I look back on it, but still. Coming from someone living in Norbury, which is in South London, 'Northern' could mean anything higher than Watford! Northern? How vague can you be?

(Incidentally if someone from Berwick-Upon-Tweed calls you Southern, it can mean anything south of Sunderland. The Midlands of England is Schroedinger's land. It lives in a permanent superposition of being both The North and The South. Your interpretation depends entirely on which direction you're looking at it from.)

"But when chance threw you in my way, Jack, and I learned to love you, I feared to tell you about my child. God forgive me, I feared that I should lose you, and I had not the courage to tell you. I had to choose between you, and in my weakness I turned away from my own little girl."

Dick move, Effie. On so many points. My theory was waaaaay more charitable to you than you deserved apparently.

"At last, however, there came an overwhelming desire to see the child once more. I struggled against it, but in vain."

Shucks. You wanted to see the child you abandoned. How terrible.

This little girl deserves so much better.

“We can talk it over more comfortably at home,” said he. “I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.”

That... is optimistic. I mean... you're essentially just walking out on the little girl immediately. But he seems to be saying that he's not racist, at least. So yay for that?

That poor kid. For so many reasons.

EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that I missed a paragraph when I was reading, where he picks up the little girl:

It was a long two minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and when his answer came it was one of which I love to think. He lifted the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held his other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door.

OK! Far more satisfying ending if your brain doesn't skip a paragraph. D'oh!

That's really sweet. You have redeemed yourself Grack. Still have those anger and trust issues to deal with, but this is good. I approve. And I approve that Watson approves. Yay. There is a happy ending.

Still some marital issues, though.

Not another word did he say of the case until late that night, when he was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom. “Watson,” said he, “if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper ‘Norbury’ in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you.

I remember this ending. I like this little nod to Holmes being aware of his own failings. And his trusting of Watson to keep him in line.

Well... I was right. And I absolutely allowed ACD to manipulate me into feeling smug for having beaten Holmes to the punchline. I was not expecting the race reveal, sure. But I think I can be forgiven for that. Effie needs to take a long hard look at herself in the mirror. Grack needs to sit down and deal with his temper problems. And that little girl needs to not be forced to wear a mask and gloves and stay inside all day.

Also, both Effie and Grack need to learn to trust each other. I get different time period, different attitudes, different expectations, but maybe you shouldn't marry a person if you can't tell him about your kid? And maybe talk to your wife rather than going full on B&E?

[planetkiimchi]

sunburnt | j.jh

pairing: jaehyun x reader

summary — you take a little vacation with 127 by the beach, cameras off. the chaos ensuing includes a lot of your screaming, some gambling, more drinking (and crying), and an unfortunate sunburn

a/n: this pairing literally crept up onto me?? i didn't plan for jaehyun to be the love interest but i guess my celebrity crush on jeong jaehyun has to manifest somewhere, sometime in my writing

part i. part ii.

THE SHOWER IS RUNNING when you enter Jaehyun’s room, and Mark shrugs. “Doyoung says he seemed to be pretty sunburnt, but I don’t know what to do if he won’t even acknowledge it.”

You nod at Mark and let him know he can leave, silently grateful for his maturity. You're used to thinking of him as a second maknae. Haechan is immature, but Mark is quiet and only acts childish when his hyungs indulge him. It's almost like he's making up for lost time, the childhood he missed out on while training to be an idol. Most of the time, though, Mark’s extremely mature for his age if he isn’t goofing off.

You knock on the door, twice, before you hear the click of the door being unlocked. “What do you want?” he snaps at you. The door isn’t open, so you can’t see his face, but you would guess that he’s in a foul mood.

“Put on something,” you call back. “I want to take a look at your back, so don’t bother with a shirt.”

He obliges, and when the door opens you’re greeted with the steamy hot air of a fresh shower, and a nice smell that’s probably coming from the soap. Even at a glance, you can tell that Jaehyun definitely didn’t put enough sunscreen earlier.

From his neck all the way down his arms and to his torso, Jaehyun’s tanner and his skin is a deep shade of red. With every movement, he winces, and the pain in his eyes is evident. You know Jaehyun’s back is tense as it is, and the movement of his muscles surely causes the thin layer of skin to rub against itself, and friction only worsens his pain.

Jaehyun won't let you touch him. That hasn't always been the case, you used to have your hands over him all the time. You won’t let your thoughts drift, won’t think of your fingers over him and his light kisses all over your skin, no–

Things have changed. He looks at you with something unreadable in his eyes, and though it’s unclear what he’s thinking, you can be certain that it’s not for you to be in his arms.

You grin at your ex, a way of offering peace. “So,” you begin, waving the bottle of skin lotion that Mark had given you. It was supposed to be moisturising, too, so you supposed it should work? Theoretically?

“What are you doing here?” Although his tone isn’t particularly harsh, it still sounds a bit hostile coming from Jaehyun. You have, after all, gotten used to his diplomatic tone and kind words. Perhaps you had been taking those for granted.

"I was under the impression we broke up on good terms," you say, walking closer towards him. You reach out towards him, hoping to ease his pain, but he flinches away.

"That was before I noticed you flirting with everyone once we broke up."

You don't understand what he's saying. Flirting? Everyone keeps their hands off of you, they all know you have eyes only for Jaehyun. After you had broken up, you had sobbed for a week straight and everyone was treading on eggshells when they mentioned his name to you.

You had eventually come to the conclusion that despite how fucking good Jaehyun looked all the time, being in denial didn’t look good on him. Eventually, you deduced, he would come around and you would get back together and have a big laugh about it.

Evidently, your impression that the breakup was just the two of you biding your time was not a mutual impression, since Jaehyun clearly saw it differently.

"At least tell me that you realised Haechan’s outright flirting with you."

The accusation comes without hesitation. And of course you have noticed, but Haechan's like that towards everyone. Has Jaehyun seen the way he speaks to Renjun? You say all of this, but Jaehyun still looks unconvinced.

"How about Yuta? Your ‘Takoyaki Prince’? He calls you princess all the time."

You huff out a sigh—men and their egos. Yuta sees you as too young for him, too loud and not quite right for him. You're not my type, he said before. It's not like you haven't tried your luck before Jaehyun.

"Then Taeyong? He specifically bought you sweet potato, surely you recognise that he doesn't do that for everyone else."

Oh, please! Taeyong hates to share his food, but he's the kindest soul and can't help but to do it, even if grudgingly. Jaehyun's being unreasonable.

Jaehyun turns his gaze away. He has nothing more to say—until he remembers that morning.

"Johnny was being very flirtatious this morning, when he asked you to help him to apply sunscreen."

As if you'd forgotten. Johnny is perhaps the most outright of them all, and Haechan takes after him. But Johnny’s made it clear that he saw you as a sister, several times. or at least when you ask.

Jaehyun huffs. You reach out for him, helping to peel his shirt off, but he tears away from your touch. The branding on his skin is not just from the sun, it also reflects the wounds you two have unknowingly inflicted on each other.

"It's not like I haven't seen it before." Even this morning, he was happy to show it all off when he went to the beach half-naked. "Really, this is all your fault for not applying sunscreen well. Johnny's not having the same problem, now is he?"

Mentioning Johnny's name was a bad idea. You rush to appease him—men and their egos—but there seems to be no need. He stiffens, but doesn’t make any move to stop you as you bring his shirt over his head. (At least he concedes that it’s his fault. It’s one of the few times he did that.)

You run your hand over his bronzed skin, the pads of your fingers tracing the grooves of his back, the dip in his skin where muscle meets bone, and the curves of his flesh. You press a kiss to his collarbone, exposed and brown, the same reddish colour as the rest of his skin.

He winces in pain, but stays wonderfully still.

Even when you tease him, digging your fingers a bit too much into the tense knots of his muscles, probing for a reaction, he says nothing. All Jaehyun does is grimace in pain, biting down on his lips to keep from crying out.

And so you try hard one last time, kneading his shoulders with your thumb. He can’t take it anymore and flips over onto his back, looking up at you with questioning eyes.

“What is that for?”

Now that you’ve gotten a reaction from him, you don’t quite know how to respond. You shrug delicately and pretend like nothing happened, innocently slathering generous amounts of lotion onto the sunburnt parts of his skin, hoping that it stings.

He grabs your wrist before you can squeeze more lotion onto your palm. “No, seriously, Y/n, what is that for?”

You deliberately ignore him. Unlike with Yuta, it’s easy to wrangle your arm from his loose grip, but you can’t shake off his gaze. It’s curious and a little bit hurt, like he wonders what he’s done to offend you this badly.

“Do you not understand Korean all of a sudden? What was that for, Y/n?” He asks, in perfect, unaccented English. There’s no more excuses for you to make.

“I understand Korean,” you say stiffly. “I live in Korea, in case you forgot.”

“Funny,” he says. “I think that’s the most you’ve spoken in Korean today.” You open your mouth to protest, but he quickly corrects himself. “That I’ve heard, at least.”

He tears his gaze away as soon as you make eye contact with him, but you lift your hand and, tugging on his chin, bring his eyes back to meet yours. “Look at me.”

“I don’t need a reminder of your pretty face,” he retorts. “We’re over, Y/n. We’ve been over for the past 24 days, in case you forgot.”

You haven’t. It’s good to know that you weren’t the only one who was counting. 

“If you want to kiss me, stop being a coward and just do it. I’m sick of waiting around for you to admit you were wrong for breaking up with me. Everyone in this damn house knows you want to kiss me so bad you look like a fool.”

Your eyes are red when you think I’m not looking. Everyone sees the way you miss me. When will you get over yourself and admit that we want each other back? is what you don’t say.

“‘M sick of waking up without you,” he mumbles. “Wanna kiss you so bad and you look so pretty in your new clothes and I don’t know how to say it but I was wrong, I see that now-”

Whose tears are falling down your cheeks? You can’t tell, because he’s tenderly kissing you and both of your tears mix together like you’re two parts of a whole. You’re sure he can taste the alcohol on your tongue and his hands are dry when they graze your skin, and it’s exactly the way you remembered.

You’ve missed him. A lot. And sometimes you forget, but a lot of the time, you come running back to your sunkissed love in your dreams, where you think he can’t catch you. But he can, because he’s Jeong Jaehyun.

YOUR EYES FLUTTER OPEN SLEEPILY. It’s still dark outside, but the gap in the curtains lets in a little bit of light. You trace a pattern on Jaehyun’s back over and over, never growing tired of having your hands on him.

Jaehyun stirs, just as you remember about poor Doyoung. You’ll have to apologise to him later for taking his bed, but at least Mark doesn’t snore. 

“Y/n?” Jaehyun’s voice cuts through the sereness of the early morning, travelling across the room to you, lying on a mattress on the floor, a blanket tucked around you. You wriggle, turning over to face Jaehyun.

“Yes?” Jaehyun grins for a while, not saying anything, his eyes drifting shut.

“I just wanted to say thanks, you know, for putting up with me and all that.”

“Jealousy looked really bad on you,” you blurt out at the same moment that he says, “And good morning.”

He catches your eye and you both laugh. “You’ve got a point. And I’m sorry about before.”

Pressing a kiss to his lips, you murmur softly against his skin, “Apology accepted.”

FIN.

<; prev | next >

[sophieinwonderland]

About the recent post about alter death, I don't think it's always healthy to try to bring an alter who is gone back. My late queer-platonic partner left us half a year ago now. When asked about the possibility of her return, her headmates said that while there was technically a slim possibility, they felt that mentioning it would've been denial.

The truth is that some systems lose alters. Be it by fusing, splitting, a dormancy that outlasts the body, or whatever else. I lost one of the people closest to me, and so did those who literally shared a brain with Her. Grieving hasn't been easy for anyone, especially given that it's hard to find *anyone* outside of those grieving who can truly understand the situation.

I don't know, I haven't read much about the topic, but I think the concept of alter death should be more normalized. I lost someone I loved dearly, and it hurts when people imply that my loss isn't real, that it's not physically possible.

And y'know, I think if any community should understand that experiences are not universal and that scenarios that one might first think of as quite unlikely are very much possible, it's this one.

I'm really sorry for your loss. That's a terrible thing to go through. 🫂

As for my post, I do realize that this won't work for everyone. That sometimes you can try to get a headmate back and you just can't. But on the other hand, I've seen many people who think a headmate is permanently "dead" only to rediscover them later.

I think of dormancy as akin to a missing person.

When someone goes missing, you don't assume they're dead right away. You send out search parties, comb the area, check everywhere they could have been, send out dogs to get their scent. If there's the slightest chance you can find the person and bring them back alive then you do everything in your power to do so.

And yes, there may come a time when you've exhausted all options and have to accept that they may never come back. And you will have to accept that possibility. I mean, even if we say every headmate is theoretically dormant and not dead, there's no functional difference between a permanent death and dormancy that lasts through the end of the body's natural lifespan.

The truth is that the world's understanding of plurality is frighteningly slim. Anyone who tells you with certainty that true permanent irreversible headmate death is possible or impossible is lying to you. Because we just... don't know... We don't know what causes this to happen or if it's reversible in every case, and even my advice on how to reach dormant headmates is throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks based on how I think headmates work in the brain, and that uncertainty is genuinely terrifying.

All that I'll say is that if I went inexplicably dormant, I would hope that my host and the rest of my system would try everything in their power to reach me and bring me back over the following days or weeks. And if I still couldn't be reached... then yeah... they can move on and accept that, for whatever reason, I might be gone forever. But when they did move on, they could at least do so knowing that they tried their best.

Having said that, this is also just me. Some headmates may not want to be brought back from dormancy due to depression or other issues. They may prefer the deep sleep. And that's perfectly valid too. If a headmate wouldn't want to be brought back, then it may be best to not do so. As always, every system is different.

[hypnolurker]

The Lost Time Traveler

Editor's note: this story contains scenes of non-consensual or reluctant sex.

*****

When Maria stepped through the temporal rift she had no idea where it would take her or even if she would survive. She was a very inquisitive researcher and the only one in her department with no family tying her down and brave enough to actually go through this thing. They had already performed tests to determine that it was stable and theoretically she should be able to travel through the rift unharmed and end up in a different time period. There was no real way of knowing if it was true however until she courageously took the first steps through the rift.

Armed with a notebook and a camera to record her surroundings she headed through. It was nerve wracking, taking that first step forward into the unknown. She felt she should make a speech, one small step for man or some such spiel. However she found herself far too nervous and anyway only a couple of her coworkers from the research institute were there as the general public had been kept from the rift for safety concerns. She moved ahead, plunging into the rift and seeing nothing but pitch black void as her whole body started to get sucked further into the terrifying portal. Her heart raced so fast and she couldn't breath as her vision blurred for a second and all her senses were dimmed as reality around her warped and swirled like a freakish dream.

Then she was through. Almost instantly she was simply standing in a field that stretched as far as the eye could see. The sun beat down on her back as she stared blankly trying to compute what she had just experienced. Her mouth was agape and she simply shivered in excitement and relief. She actually made it!

What's that smoke? Oh god!

She threw the camera to the side as it seeped gray wispy smoke and crackled. The rift must have interfered with the electronics somehow. This was important to take note of, not to mention highly frustrating as there would be no video record of her groundbreaking first trip through time. She jotted down her observations in the notebook.

"Successfully passed through temporal rift. No injuries to report. Camera has been rendered unusable, presumably by interference from rift. I am in a field which appears to be part of some farmland, there is a small building in the distance which may be a farmstead or barn. I will approach and attempt to ascertain whether I have indeed achieved a temporal shift and, if so, determine the current year." She noted before marching off towards the building.

She knew that she had a limited time to investigate the area before she had to go back to the rift, which would only stay open for a certain amount of time before collapsing. Based on models her team had made using data from several similar rifts, they predicted that this one would remain stable for approximately one hour after she passed through. As a safety precaution, she had been instructed to return as soon as possible, and no later than 30 minutes after entry. While this information hung in the back of her mind, Maria had just arrived and intended to make the most of her time here. She began to explore and slowly approached the building.

When she reached what looked to be a not too shabby barn area she noted the architecture. This wasn't modern. When was it built? She wasn't a history buff and thinking about it, that was somewhat of an oversight in the planning of this expedition. Still it seemed judging by the cleanness of the air and the lack of any recognizable cities or landmarks in her vision that she had indeed traveled a significant amount backwards through time.

She wandered into the barn and looked through the stables. Inside there were horses braying and shifting their hooves and they quickly drew her attention as she took a moment to admire them. What a beautiful horse this one was, chestnut brown with a long dark mane and-

Shit! A creak from behind startled her but it was too late for her to react. In an instant, large arms reached out from behind and snatched her up. They wrapped tightly around her and crushed her chest as she struggled and screamed. A man's voice was yelling behind her but she couldn't understand what he was saying. Perhaps she was just unable to concentrate as she desperately fought for freedom. It was useless though. Maria was a petite and frail scientist and this man seemed brutish lay strong as he squeezed the air out of her lungs with his beastly, hairy, muscle bound arms.

Eventually she gave in and let her body relax in submission. She couldn't escape him and she realized that. Her notebook had dropped to the ground and she stared at it as the man dragged her to another part of the barn where he picked up an old, filthy looked brown sack and roughly yanked it over her head. He tied her arms with rope behind her back to a post and she heard his footsteps as he left the barn.

What the hell? She was sobbing in darkness as she tried to figure out what had happened. Who was that man? The farmer? Why did he just assault her and put a bag over her head? She pulled against her bindings but they were tight rather tightly and effectively and all she managed to do was work up a sweat as she wriggled around on the floor of the barn.

Then it struck her. She had to get out soon. The rift could close in less than an hour and if she didn't get back she would be trapped in this time zone. Permanently. Her thrashing grew more urgent and needy but it still failed to budge the thick rope around her wrists.

After some amount of time her heart sank as the man returned. She heard a distinct clunking as something metal dragged behind him. Then she found out what it was as she felt him grabbing her neck and clasping a massive, heavy iron collar around it and locking it up tightly. She felt the chain hanging from it sway as he shackled her to the barn.

"Please! Please stop! I have to get back to my time. You must have seen the rift in your field. It's important! You have to release me!" She begged, muffled somewhat by the sack which blocked her vision.

When the man replied she didn't know what to say. His dialect was so strange she could barely make out what he was saying but it was English. She must have gone further back than she realized if English sounded like that though. Through her hood she quietly shivered and listened as he rambled. Something about her trespassing. He thought she was...foreign maybe. Putting her in her place? She whimpered and continued to listen and poorly translate his confusing version of the language. He intended to keep her chained here and...oh god he was going to torture her. Then...sell her? That couldn't be legal even if she was in the past!

She continued to plead and beg but the farmer kicked her and told her to be quiet. He just assumed she was some kind of foreigner speaking another language and didn't attempt to understand or communicate with her. Instead her began cutting away at her clothes with a shape blade. Maria felt its cold edge grazing her skin as he carelessly tore away her clothing. He remarked something about them being inappropriate for a woman and her being better suited to sitting naked in the hey.

Maria could only sulk and whine as she felt the reality of her situation. The shackles were solid. She couldn't even see and there was just no way she could escape. No one would come through the rift after her and it would probably close soon. Then she would be trapped her in the past with this disgusting farmer to rape and abuse her. Then sold into sexual slavery, likely shipped off to some place around the world and then forced to live in filthy with no communication with her home country or chance to start a new life.

The farmer grunted and a confused Maria wasn't sure what was going on until she felt something hot and meaty rubbing up against her chest. She pulled away but that didn't stop the warm stream of piss flowing into her chest and cascading down her body as this disgusting farmer urinated on her like she was some kind of human toilet!

That was just the start though. He wasted no time in shoving her to the floor and forcibly spreading her legs. He held her down as she wriggled and begged, rubbing the tip of his throbbing cock against her opening for a while before sliding straight in with a grunt. She felt a glob of spit hit her crotch as he yelled something about her being defiled and a whore. About her natural place being a pathetic slut who serves men.

It would have just been offensive slurs that seemed insignificant compared to the way he was raping her vulnerable slit. Except that she couldn't help wondering if she was actually in a time when women were just slaves to men. Maybe he was right. Maybe in this period she would be seen as no more than a dumb, inferior piece of meat to be fucked and mocked. Even if she could escape she may never be treated like a person again.

There was something so disturbing about that as she felt him thrusting into her. He fucked her for hours, pumping cum into her pussy and ass as she laid there and accepted it. Her head was covered and she was reduced to a squirming set of holes as the farmer emptied himself into her. Slapping and beating her breasts until they were sore and bruised. Squeezing her throat until she choked to make her hips bounce on his cock. Using her as a pathetic doll to fuck and abuse.

The rift was closed. That old life in the future just a memory now as she began to adjust to her new life. It was degrading and filthy and dehumanizing but as she resigned to becoming a fucktoy for this farmer and whoever would buy her afterwards she felt like she could...learn to enjoy it. She could learn to like being pounded and coated in jizz. She could learn to like being pissed on and mocked and treated like an inferior cunt. She could...learn her place.

In this era, she wasn't a scientist or an adventurer or an equal member of society. She was a worthless cunt and it was really sinking in now. It didn't take long after that for the farmer to break her in. Teach her about what a woman was for. Fucking. Cleaning. Drinking cum and moaning like the horny idiots they are. She knew it was true. That was what she was for now. She was just his property. It actually made her excited now. Made her squirm and drip. Being his pathetic cum-dump. Something had snapped in her head and she found it easier to just embrace it. Take pleasure in being jizzed in and spat on and treated like a stupid little cunt.

In the future she was remembered as a pioneering scientist and explorer. A role model and brave woman. In this time she was a whining piece of meat for the amusement of men.

[homestuck-vocals]

What’s your opinion on the Broadwaystuck revival?

*I don't follow tags and have been in an "inattentive" phase for a couple months now so I'm not keeping up and idk how much of the following is ACTUALY relevant to this iteration. I do not know annnnything about Broadwaystuck 2023 other than it seems to be another 1:1 casted group. * I've been on record for years as not being a huge fan of the "Broadwaystuck model" where there's an "official cast" where each character is voiced by only one person, other than for a specific project with a deadline such as a musical or planned album. I think that it might result in:

driving away interested parties cause their fave is taken. It's exclusive by design

conflict over casting, which has historically been big drama

lagging collaboration because e.g. everyone wanting a Vriska* number depends on The One Vriska's personal course schedule and workload, not to mention interests and range

similar issues if someone goes inactive without telling anyone, anything regarding that character just comes to a halt and you have to put mod energy into that situation

which is a concern for a project billed as producing things on an *indefinite* basis. there will be turnover, and this model always looks like it struggles with that possibly because of point 1

lots of effort on advertising recasts, auditions, and callbacks, when The One Vriska drops out, *after* you've told all the other Vriska singers that she's taken and they've lost interest

IMO, self-duet like "Past Me, We're Going Down" and the Karkat x Karkat "Loathing" are so much better because there's two voices! I LOVE hearing VAs for the same character together. You don't get that if you've already told all the other VAs for that character to keep walking.

*just picked vriska cuz she's so popular

I have clicked through a lot of dead group blogs where the last dozen posts are repeat attempts to cast and re-cast, and I remember the drama in 2012 about who got to be e.g. Official Broadway Nepeta. And I remember personally applying for Broadway Kanaya in 2012 and then going o well didn't get cast :/ and never trying again. I mean I could have struck out on my own but there's reasons people like to be in a collaborative network for this sort of thing.

I got the sense that it kept being replicated in group after group not because it was functional (original Broadwaystuck lasted like. four? five months? end of 2011 to april? 2012?) but because of how bright it shone, and glittered with (some preexisting) BNFs, while it briefly worked. One of the most common reactions I see in the chat of a listen party I'm hosting is "we should remake Broadwaystuck!". It's undeniable that the project had huge impact. I'm not sure that means that its successor in *impact* will or should operate the same way.

to be fair we apparently did Not At All solve this with whatever we tried with Universe C# after 2019 SAHcon, i think (hope?) in part because Discord is such a clumsy and dark platform for what we were doing. I think it's great that the current project is back on Tumblr, which being on the clearweb (make sure those blogs are search indexed!) is much more accessible to curious passers by than a locked Discord. It's also better than Twitter because Twitter is outright hostile to audio creators. Anyway the ideeeeeea there was that you would record samples for as many characters as you wanted, creating a bank of actors interested in each character as reference for collaboration, plus whatever the hell you wanted to do as an individual, so theoretically you could @tag all the actors for a given character at once for a highly targeted casting call for the specific song you wanted to make!

But this other way of doing things didn't get going. It may be that one of the upsides to the casted model is that there is a sense of a Job To Do that motivates actually producing things more than a casual free for all. I mean, everything I have actually made was because articulatelyComposed needed one more mezzo for a deadline. save for my Candy!Dave "Edges Of The World" that i Do Not Have The Fucking Range For. Chaotic tenors, call me I think the new project has folks with experience on some of those old casted projects so maybe they will iterate on some of the shortcomings. whether my opinion on organization structure is *relevant*? no, i'm not in the group AND folks actually in the group have more direct experience with similar groups than I do. i'm just someone who does data entry as a hobby.

this does all make me want to brush up some of my old WIPs

edit: firsthand feedback on how BS23 works

"part of my job on staff for the project is to set out the base structure of our albums and when songs are released and how in certain cases. we set like… a skeleton of the album we're going to make with a set end point and certain things at certain points (you cant fight the homestuck being track 100 of volume one and thus the album's closing number, track 50 of the current album being beautiful [the song], stuff like that.)

we haven't had any conflict over casting as of yet, least not that I'm aware of. some people dropped out but people drop in too, and people shuffle around based on interest or might volunteer to do a part thats missing from a group number. we've got handling and rules for inactivity and all that. collaborations arent always quick, especially the bigger the group involved, but its not because anybodys got a line or whatever?

this isnt like an official statement but its all technical details so i think its fine."

[loominggaia]

How come the Dusk vampires didn't realize Evan was a werewolf?

That's a really good question! I think there are multiple explanations for this.

(Green) elves have a natural connection with beasts. They can sense when an animal is nearby even if they can't see it, and they can understand what an animal is thinking and feeling.

Werewolves are beasts, but lycanthropes are something else--something between man and beast. They are often described as "a beast wearing a man-suit". In a sense, lycanthropes are like intelligent beasts who can operate as people.

Theoretically, the elven Dusks should have been able to sense the beast in Evan. Why didn't they?

Let's talk about vampirism for a second. It changes elves by dulling their natural abilities and replacing them with new ones. This effect becomes stronger the longer they live with vampirism. For example, their naturally sharp vision dulls in daylight but becomes stronger at night. Their natural connection to animals becomes dulled, but their connection to the moon becomes stronger.

Knowing all this, here's some explanations for your question...

Explanation 1: All of the Dusks (except Lilian) have been vampires for a very long time. I think they all lost their connection to nature ages ago. Lilian still may have had this connection, but she was so sheltered and uneducated, I doubt she even knew what lycanthropy was, so she wasn't able to identify it in Evan.

Explanation 2: It's mentioned in "Ghoul Beneath the Guise" that the Dusks didn't prey on big, strong people. They specifically hunted smaller, weaker individuals for their own safety. Lycanthropy turns people into huge, muscle-bound tanks...in other words, not the type of people the Dusks would have close contact with, so they had very little--if any--experience with lycanthropes and kind of forgot they existed.

The Dusks didn't go out looking for Evan. They only imprisoned him because he came to them and practically threw himself onto their plates. The possibility of lycanthropy didn't cross their minds because as mentioned above, that disease had become out of sight, out of mind for them; probably for centuries.

Explanation 3: The Dusks already had their hands full when Evan showed up. They were trying to recruit Zeffer and prepare for his wedding with Lilian. Weddings are a huge deal to vampires because it's one of the few ways they can expand their clan size, and adding a new member to the clan is not something they take lightly.

This event was an especially big deal to Dario, considering how he felt about Lilian. Evan was the last thing on his mind; just another bloodbag to be thrown in the dungeon and forgotten about.

Explanation 4: Dimitri was a bad dungeon-tender. Dimitri was Dario's "nephew" and put in charge of keeping the Dusk's prisoners alive. As we saw in "Ghoul Beneath the Guise", the guy was a total sadist who enjoyed hurting and killing the prisoners, even though this got him in trouble with the clan. The more the prisoners suffered, the more Dimitri thrived.

Dimitri had a lot of responsibilities, and one of them was reporting sick, dead, or unsuitable prisoners to Dario. Dimitri should have noticed something was up with Evan's blood, and maybe he actually did...but in "Ghoul Beneath the Guise", we learn that Dimitri is terrified of Dario and tries to cover up problems whenever he can. Because whenever he reports a problem, even if it's not his fault, Dario gets angry and beats him.

It's possible that Dimitri did notice the tainted lycanthrope blood and either didn't report it, or just denied it to himself because psychologically he couldn't deal with it.

In conclusion, there was a perfect storm of factors that led to Evan's disease going undetected. And what's funny is that all of them were actually Dario's fault if you think about it...

Dario was the clan master, his job was to oversee the whole clan and its culture. He refused to educate Lilian, he chose who his clan preyed upon, he was too preoccupied with Lilian's wedding because of his own bad deeds against her, and he kept punishing Dimitri just for doing his job.

Evan's lycanthropy wasn't to blame for the Dusk's downfall. Ultimately Dario was to blame. The incompetent way he managed his clan finally came to a head and bit them all in the ass. Evan's disease was just a random spark that lit the fuse Dario left trailing behind them.

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

[fagexe]

I've been really behind on my tags....so i'm doing them all in one post;P (this way I'm not spam tagging the same people in seven different posts)

tagged by @slvrroses and @pastlives2022 ily last song: Doomed (for each other) by Salem last show: I don't really watch a lot of shows, but the last thing I saw a full episode of was Taskmaster, and the last thing I was watching in order would have been Legend of Korra currently watching: Logic Pro tutorials on yt. I'm taking a class right now that theoretically should be teaching me how to use the program, but the teacher moves really really fast and doesn't do demos with people, they just kind of show it to us once and expect us to understand everything. I'm so lost, just frantically trying to finish my final:/ currently reading: I'm not currently reading anything :/// being in school really takes it out of me. But! the last thing I read was Parable of the Sower, I definitely recommend it but I will say it deals with some heavy topics and was really hard to get through at certain points current obsession: The same thing it's been for a long time….the music those jersey kids make (all of them), but also Ragnar Kjartansson and video synthesizers;)

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tagged by @pastlives2022 to shuffle my "on repeat" playlist and give the first 10 songs! thanks for the tag:))

paralyzer - Finger Eleven (this is here exclusively because @meat-wentz made a post about it like 2 weeks ago that reminded me it existed and I haven't been able to stop listening to it since)

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding

Maya the psychic - Gerard Way

Brother - Gerard Way

Thank You for the Venom - My Chemical Romance

Brain Stew - Green Day

Millions - Gerard Way

Red Room - Hiatus kaiyote

Cool as a Ghule - The Voidz

Desole - Gorillaz

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time to share my receiptify for the last month, thanks for the tag @slvrroses <3

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Tagged by @tasteofyourblood :333333 Relationship status: in it Favorite color: #004225 Song stuck in my head: Out Of Touch - Hall & Oates Favorite food: pierogi! I love them so much Last thing I googled: a hex code color picker to give you the hex code<3 but before that i'm looking for a new apartment so zillow Dream trip: anywhere with good hiking I'm dying in Chicago (I know it exists here by don't have a car) I am planning on going to the driftless with my roommates soon tho so that’ll be really nice:)) Something I want right now: an ice cream sandwich also to not have to look for an apartment during finals

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tagged by @pastlives2022 to post my lockscreen, most recent saved photo, and most recent listened song!!

I recently changed my lock screen from frank to this bird wearing Bread on its head. but the picture of Frank is absolutely hilarious to me so I wanted to share

the most recent photo I saved is this handsome little lad<3

I am currently listening to lucretia my reflection by sisters of mercy

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I was tagged by @pastlives2022<3 and @tasteofyourblood<3 to post 10 songs I've been listening to lately! (these are just in the order I thought of them, and if a song is earlier in the post it's not included here)

House of Wolves - My Chemical Romance (my babygirl will always make the list)

Flu Game - Fall Out Boy

This Charming Man - Death Cab for Cutie

The Heretic - The Sound Of Animals Fighting

Trying To Live My Life Without You - Otis Clay

So in Love - Curtis Mayfield

Footsteps in the Dark - The Isley Brothers

Gallery Of Thrills - The Number Twelve Looks Like You

Afterlife - Avenged Sevenfold

Living Dead Girl - Rob Zombie

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tagged by @happylittlemasksalesman<3333333 thanks :3

I really don't watch that much tv so this is just a list of shows I can think of and also like (i'm not including shows I already mentioned). SooooOoo eight shows to get to know me

Maniac

Russian Doll

Cowboy Bebop

Parasyte

ofmd

Pose

Derry girls

Kim's Convenience

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ily all very much thanks for the tags<3

I'm tagging @tasteofyourblood @pastlives2022 @happylittlemasksalesman @slvrroses @ratmanwalking @meat-wentz @bratmobiles @mourningrays, @salt-and-bramble and anyone else who wants to do one of these (consider yourself tagged)

do whichever one you want or idk combine them <3go off<3

[romijuli]

iiiii don’t have a title for this thing, i titled the doc “Chikage Experiences an Entire Emotion (maybe even two!)” and laughed too hard to change it, but i also didn’t want to make that the title of the post lmao

anyway!!! this was a request!!! the recipient (i don’t know if they want me to tag them? they know who they are lmao) was not just okay with me posting it but actively enthusiastic about it.

anyway!!! have some chikage x reader fic. (gender neutral reader but like. pronouns are barely if ever used anyway?) chikage is very funny in this one god bless

“Back from your trip already?”

Ah. Chikage had been hoping to settle back into the office without much of a fuss, but of course you, of all people, happen to notice him. It’s nothing that a few sweet words (and, perhaps, a sprinkle of truth) can’t resolve, of course, but it’s still troublesome; too much attention drawn to his “business trips” could be cause for the Organization to relocate him, which could cause trouble for Mankai, and especially for Hisoka. Not to mention it could place him farther from you—

Hm. That line of thought—of theoretical attachments outside of Mankai or the Organization—is equally troublesome, if not more so. Best to lay that to the side indefinitely.

You clear your throat, loudly. “I said, back from your trip already?” It seems you’ve misinterpreted his silence, assuming he hasn’t heard you rather than simply being lost in thought. (And thank god for that.)

“The contract was resolved far more quickly than I’d anticipated, so we moved my return flight up a few days,” he replies. (Not entirely a lie; the information the Organization sought was more easily obtained than any planning had predicted, and there was only so long Chikage could spend without doing anything before someone caught on, so back he went.) “Unfortunately, I had no time to gather any souvenirs, if that’s why you’re asking.”

“Uh-huh.” Your eyes narrow; for an instant, he wonders if you can see right through him. “I don’t remember hearing anything about a contract before you left, though.”

There’s a moment, one dread-filled moment, where he thinks you have, in fact, seen through his lies—or at least that he’s somehow failed to recall his own cover story—before you burst into laughter. “I’m kidding, relax. It’s just fun to ruffle your feathers from time to time.” 

Chikage manages to suppress a sigh of relief. If he can keep you on your toes, it should be easy to keep his true identity from being discovered (and, thus, to keep his life at Mankai safe). “Ah, I was lying about one thing,” he adds, just to throw you off. “There was an emergency at the theater, so I was summoned back at the earliest possible opportunity.”

“Which one’s the lie and which is the truth, I wonder…” You roll your eyes. “Whatever. Keep your secrets,” you tell him, turning back to your work. “But if you get tired of lying and wanna be honest for once, I’ll be right here.”

For a moment, in spite of the danger this would present to everyone, he almost agrees. Hm. Troublesome indeed.

---

The curtain falls, the actors make their way offstage, and Chikage makes it about two steps into the lobby before you shove a bouquet into his hands. 

“Nice work. Though I’m sure it’s not much trouble for a gifted liar like you to act so well,” you say, a smug grin planted on your face.

It’s more complex than that, of course; acting isn’t about lying so much as it is about finding a different sort of honesty in the characters one portrays. (In some regards, Chikage is more honest on stage than he ever is offstage; once the lights dim and the audience leaves, he reverts back to the same old lying Chikage.) But that in and of itself is hard to understand for someone who’s never stood in the spotlight themself.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” he asks, not even trying to hide the fact that he’s bullshitting. (The rational parts of his brain say that he ought to be more convincing, that being this upfront runs the risk of unraveling a number of other lies, but something about you makes him care just a bit less.) “I performed in a theater as a child—”

“That’s a less-than-stellar performance. Nope, not buying it, I’m taking this back now.” You move to snatch the bouquet back from him; futile, considering he’s a well-trained secret agent (not that you know this, hopefully) and you’re an everyday office worker. 

“Ah, no, I’m afraid you won’t. It would be rude to take back a gift, don’t you agree?” He grins as he blocks each of your movements, watching you grow more and more irritated—or, at the very least, feigning irritation—by the second.

Still, the banter isn’t unwelcome. Strange how he feels that way.

You sigh, over-exaggerating as you so often do when it comes to him, dropping any attempts at taking the flowers back. “Yeah, you’re right. Just keep it, then. Terrible excuse for a backstory aside, you did great today.” You smile at him, not quite the same sort of grin you wear when messing with him, or when he messes with you back, for that matter. It’s almost vulnerable—admittedly a concept that Chikage, as guarded as he tends to be, is not entirely familiar with. “Well, I mean, you always do.”

He loathes to admit it, but it’s a look he’d like to see on you more often. Just because it means he caught you off-guard somehow. Nothing more, nothing less.

---

For once, you’re not pestering him at his desk. Strange.

What’s stranger, perhaps, is that he feels disappointed about this, rather than relieved that he can work (or pretend to work, or focus on Organization projects, which technically qualify as either of the above, depending on what exactly the project is) without distraction. Has your presence here, constantly trying to sneak a look at his monitor to see what exactly he’s working on and sticking your nose into his business during lunch breaks, become not just routine but something he looks forward to? Honestly, sometimes Chikage wonders if he’s been in civilian guise for too long, if he’s softening up like that.

He scowls as he continues his work (actual work, today, in that he’s fabricating numbers from his last “business trip”), barely sparing a glance at the world around him until he hears the tapping of a familiar pair of shoes on the floor. Ah, there you are—

Except, instead of coming to bother him, you choose to spend your time speaking with Chigasaki. Hm. He really shouldn’t be annoyed by this, yet here he is with a peculiar sinking feeling in his gut, much like the kind he felt when he first saw December (pardon, Hisoka) with his newfound family while he was left behind in the Organization.

Ah, but he’s not jealous. That would be silly to suggest. Chikage Utsuki does not get jealous. It’s simply unbecoming of a spy such as himself. (Not to mention that Hisoka would absolutely use that against him, should he find out.)

…And yet, it’s hard to ignore the fact that your decision to bother someone else for one day leaves him, for whatever reason, deeply irritated.

You catch his eye for just a moment, grinning at him devilishly before returning to your conversation. Infuriating. Are you doing this deliberately, then?

Well. If you’re ignoring him, then he can easily ignore you in turn. He returns his focus to the almost-meaningless spreadsheets in front of him, gritting his teeth and perhaps putting a bit too much force behind his keystrokes. (It’s quite alright, the keyboard can handle it. And Chikage can always fix it on the off-chance that it can’t handle some particularly aggressive calculations.)

He makes it about halfway down the first spreadsheet before something—someone—taps him on the shoulder.

Of course, Chikage Utsuki is a trained spy. He’s been taught to keep an eye and an ear on his surroundings, to ensure no one can sneak up on him or his fellow agents. (Or, more recently, his newfound family at Mankai.) As such, the fact that he is apparently so irritated that he managed to block out any background noise and ignore everything in his peripheral vision is both impressive and rather embarrassing.

For his sake, your sake, and the sake of his coworkers, he chooses to ignore Chigasaki’s laughter. (He can always get his revenge at the dorms, anyway.) 

“That absorbed in your work, huh?” you taunt him as he jolts upright, slamming a hand on the keyboard and messing up a particularly complicated calculation. “I’ve never seen you that interested in…” You trail off, squinting at the heading at the top of the page. “The earnings at our Himalayan branch.”

“We still don’t have a Himalayan branch,” Chigasaki chimes in, apparently choosing to be a proper hellion today. “Reread the manual.”

“I know that. I’m not so sure our senpai does, though.” You grin, eyes sparkling mischievously; ah, you’re messing with him. 

“Merely a placeholder,” he replies. “I’ll edit the title before I send it, of course.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.” You shrug. “I’m pretty sure they don’t check these docs that thoroughly anyway, but it would suck to see you get in trouble for something as dumb as that.”

They do not, in fact, check most of the documents very thoroughly. The benefits of being in an Organization front, even if you and Itaru are completely unaware. (Ideally unaware, at any rate; it seems you’ve managed to see through some of his lies without trying, so you may very well be aware of the office’s true motivations.)

“I mean, really,” you continue, “I dunno what I’d do if you got fired and I wasn’t able to bug my favorite coworker anymore. I might just quit, honestly.”

You’re messing with him, he’s certain of it…and yet, there’s a sort of honesty in your tone. Perhaps you’re being sincere when you call him your favorite coworker? 

The thought sparks a peculiar feeling, one Chikage genuinely hasn’t felt in years. If Muku was here, he’d certainly be starry-eyed, musing about how this situation was exactly like one of his manga—

Oh, no, Chikage can’t feign ignorance any longer; he knows exactly why your compliments catch him off-guard, why your brief focus on Chigasaki irritated him to the point of losing all thought of anything else. It appears he’s had the misfortune of falling for you.

God damn it.

Once you return to your desk, his head slams against his desk as Chigasaki laughs at him from across the room, as though he’s seen into Chikage’s head and knows exactly what he’s thinking.

Not for the first time today, Chikage genuinely contemplates murdering his roommate.

[mypoisonedvine]

Love, Theoretically | Sebastian Stan x reader (chapter 10 - FINALE)

series masterlist

series summary: having lost your husband, sister, and best friend all to the same extramarital affair, you ran away to a secluded villa in the Hungarian countryside to write and get a little time away from the life you’d left behind.  you were only looking for peace and perhaps some inspiration for your novel, but instead you found an unlikely connection with the immigrant repairman– even though the two of you don’t speak the same language.

word count: 6k

warnings: implied smut, angst, fluff, romcom tropes, lots of swearing, pregnancy mention/minor breeding kink

note: click the asterisk for a hyperlink to a translation when the time comes

Six months later...

“It’s good!” she beamed, setting down the last chunk of pages and taking off her reading glasses. “Oh man, that ending hurt, but it’s really, really good!”

You leaned back into the plush chair and sighed with relief. “You think so?”

“It’s best-seller material,” she assured. “With some editing, of course. God, I can’t believe you were sitting on this for so long.”

“What are the biggest changes you want to make?” you asked.

“Well, I’m thinking we’ll cut the romantic subplot,” she mentioned in passing, like it was no big deal. “It’s distracting.

“Distracing?” you repeated. “Nia, it’s the story. It’s a romance.”

“I thought it was a thriller,” she frowned.

“A romance disguised as a thriller,” you corrected.

“Listen, I get what you mean, but I didn’t get this—” she tapped the nameplate on her desk: ‘NIA BROWN, HEAD PUBLISHER’ in shiny letters— “for nothing. I know what I’m talking about, and I know what your readers want. Violence, gore, drama!”

“It has all that!” you defended. “But it’s all there to talk about the real love he finds in her!”

“What do you mean ‘real love’?” she pressed flatly.

“I mean…” you pondered. “I mean love where you feel like a version of yourself that you actually like. Love where you feel unjudged, no precedents or caveats or back-up plans. Love that fucking hurts because you never wanted to rely on anything or anybody. Love that lives in silence because you don’t even need words.”

She furrowed her brow. “That… sounds nice, I guess, but I don’t think anybody really has that. Everybody needs a back-up plan. Everybody needs words— a writer should know that.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god,” you groaned, your face falling into your hands. “I’m so fucking stupid. Jesus Christ, I’m a moron.”

“What? What’s going on?”

“I had that! I had that, and I let it go! I’m the dumbest bitch on the fucking face of the Earth.”

“Don’t say that,” she soothed, but you were already standing up.

“No, I need to find him,” you decided as you grabbed your coat and briefcase. “I need to go back and try to fix this. I love him, I’ve never— I didn’t know I could love like that, I didn’t know I could be loved like that… oh my god, I need to find him. It isn’t over.”

“It isn’t over?” she repeated incredulously. “You said Michael signed the papers!”

“It’s not Michael,” you rolled your eyes as you stormed out of the office. “It was never Michael.”

You ran into the first telephone box you could find, slamming the door shut as you searched your purse for the business card that probably wasn't even in there.

After a moment, you gasped with delight when you pulled it from a very bottom pocket and began punching in the number as fast as possible with shivering hands, long-distance charges be damned.

“Hello?” the confused voice on the other end answered.

“Mrs. Alberti, hi— does Sebastian still work for you?” you asked hastily.

“No, dear," she sighed, apparently recognizing you by just your voice (and likely your request), "he quit recently, and moved away.”

“Moved?" you repeated with a wrinkled brow. "Where?!”

“I assume back home, sweetheart; to Bucharest.”

“Shit,” you sighed. “Shit!”

“Are you having your ‘run through the airport’ moment, sweetheart?” she realized.

“Yes, I think so— do you have his address?”

“Well, no, but I’ll see what I can find.”

You waited rather impatiently as she shuffled through papers in the background, mumbling to herself as she apparently searched for information that could help you.

“All I’ve got is the address of a previous employer… a carpenter,” she finally explained, breaking the silence. “It was his only reference when he came to work here," she explained.

"Wow, you really did just hire him for his looks," you blurted out.

"He was desperate for work, that boy had nowhere else to go,” she defended.

“Right, well, I guess if that’s my only lead then I’ve gotta go for it,” you decided. “Thank you, Mrs. Alberti.”

“I told you to call me when that book was a hit. Did it happen yet?” she piped up.

“It’s not published yet,” you explained. “It needs some more work… but I think it’s almost ready.”

“I think so, too, dear.”

Learn Romanian in 10 Weeks! A practical language guide.

Week 1, Day 1: Greetings

Hello                      Salut

Goodbye                La revedere

Thank you              Mulțumesc

You’re welcome      Cu plăcere

Good morning         Bună dimineata

Good afternoon       Bună ziua

Good evening          Bună seara

Good night               Noapte bună

You brushed your hair back out of your face with a sigh, turning the page as you mumbled the phrases to yourself. Broken Hungarian and your high school education in Latin were not getting you as far with this as you had been hoping.

How are you?          Ce mai faci

I love you                 Te iubesc

“Te iubesc, te iubesc, te iubesc,” you repeated over and over in a whisper.

Each day you had a new routine: practice Romanian for an hour, check flight prices online (or call the airline), research what you knew about Sebastian and the address Mrs. Alberti had given you, and then get back to practicing Romanian again.

Oh, and occasionally you worked on the edits Nia wanted for your manuscript. You were focusing on the minor changes— grammar errors, rearranging sentences— and putting off her big request for the removal and replacement of the romantic aspects. More than ever, they seemed like the most important thing the book had to offer.

You had a small apartment, just a place to sleep and shower really; much too small to fit everything you’d already taken from Michael’s house (you know, the one that used to be your house) along with what he’d shipped to you that you forgot before. He included a letter in the package as well. You threw it out, unopened.

Truthfully, you never really fully unpacked. As much as you realized you probably should, in order to really feel like you had a real home, you couldn’t bring yourself to empty your suitcases when you knew you’d be packing them again any day now.

You also realized how outrageous this all was. Ignoring the unlikelihood of even finding him in the first place, Sebastian probably wouldn’t want anything to do with you after you broke his heart, left, and then randomly tracked him down after over half a year. But to be totally transparent, you weren’t really doing this to get him back, necessarily. You knew that was probably never going to happen. You were doing this because you needed to try. You needed to go there, and get hurt, and come back knowing you did everything you could: you’d never be able to live with yourself if you did anything less than that.

You couldn’t start your new life until you had put everything else to bed. And if that meant being 100%, painfully certain that you and Sebastian could never be together, then that was just how it needed to be.

After two weeks of looking, there still weren’t any reasonable flights to Bucharest, so you booked another trip by train, figuring you could use the three day trip to brush up on the key Romanian phrases you were going to need as well as prepare your speech.

Yes, your plan was a speech. You didn’t have a back-up plan. You didn’t even have a return ticket back to London yet.

A passage by Yeats came to mind; But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

In all your life, you’d never understood before why someone would want to only have their dreams. But now, here you were… and yes, it felt terrifying and vulnerable and uncomfortably naked, but it felt pretty damn good, too.

With a sigh, you scribbled out the last sentence you’d written, tossing the trash paper aside. You looked up out the window at the scenery flying by in a blur, worried that if you didn’t look out from the train every once in a while you’d get motion sickness.

The sun was beginning to set already, the green of hills and trees tinted orange. You only indulged in it for a moment, though, before getting back to this god-forsaken speech you were deadset on finishing before you arrived in Bucharest tomorrow. At first, you’d figured the translating would be the most difficult part… but writing in English wasn’t exactly a piece of cake, either. You had so much to say, and suddenly so few words for any of it.

You’d probably done more editing on this than any of your novels combined; the crumpled up pages spilling out of your wastebasket were proof enough of that.

“And I’m a fucking writer!” you groaned aloud, to no one in particular. “How is anybody else supposed to be able to do this, if I can’t?”

Other people aren’t as emotionally constipated as you, the voice of your inner critic reminded you plainly, making you roll your eyes at yourself.

A rap at your door made you sit up straighter and turn around. A stewardess slid open the frosted glass slightly to give you a friendly smile. “Is everything alright, ma’am?”

Your brows furrowed at the sound of her accent. “Is that a Romanian accent?” you asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” she nodded.

“So you’re fluent in Romanian and English,” you concluded.

“And Portuguese, yes ma’am,” she agreed.

“Could you come in here for a moment and help me translate something?”

She seemed slightly confused at the request but stepped forward, sliding the door most of the way shut behind her. Leaning beside you on the desk, she picked up your handwritten letter and blinked her wide, brown eyes a few times. You felt slightly embarrassed knowing she was reading such intimate thoughts, but that was how it felt the first time someone read anything you wrote so you were pretty much used to it by now.

“I usually ask the passengers what brings them to Bucharest,” she mumbled after a moment. “This is the most interesting thing so far. Am I reading this correctly, that you intend to confess your love to someone you met—” she scanned the page quickly— “during a vacation in Hungary?”

“Yup,” you smiled awkwardly, popping the ‘p’ at the end of the word.

“And he doesn’t speak English?” she assumed; you nodded. “And… you don’t speak Romanian?”

You nodded again, and she breathed in and out quickly, sitting beside you as she stared at the letter.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she explained.

“Sorry for sucking you into the entropic vortex that is my life,” you chuckled.

“I don’t mean to pry,” she sighed, setting the letter down, and you laughed a little internally at the idea that she was worried about prying when she just read the most personal piece of writing you’d ever put to the page, “but do you think this is… enough? I mean, to build a relationship on?”

You just gave her a shrug. “I have no idea. But, you know, I spent my whole life worrying about stuff like that. I dated my husband for seven years before we got married, because I wanted to be sure. I was initially interested in him because he was successful and ambitious, and it made me feel like this was a really secure relationship that I could rely on. I double majored in English and Computer Science because I wanted a more stable career to fall back on in case being a writer didn’t work out, and even though it did, I’ve spent most of my career publishing what I thought people wanted to read instead of what I wanted to write, so I’d have a better shot at a good paycheck. I grew up thinking the best thing I could ever have was security. And now I’m divorced, watching my royalties shrink every month, more insecure in every way than I’ve ever been, and I’m realizing that the choices I made didn’t give me what I wanted. I gave up so much in the name of safety, and I let the one good thing I’d ever found go, so I could go back to being the same person I always was. I’m ready to settle again, if this doesn’t work… I’m ready to accept that this is just the way life goes, and be thankful that I got a taste of the kind of stuff I thought only existed in the sort of books I’d read but never write.”

She swallowed as she looked at you, and you felt your eyes water as you stared out the window towards the dimming scenery one more time, smiling at the sight of a distant village, a church with a steeple, vineyards and farms. Someone’s whole life is in that little town, you imagined, and they’re just watching your train go by like they see every other day.

“Sebastian gave me more security than I’d ever had before, even though the whole thing was such a ridiculous little whirlwind, and nothing like I ever imagined my life could be. But he made me want to be honest and raw and write sappy letters like the one you just read. He doesn’t have any money, at least as far as I know, and I haven’t known him for seven years, and on paper it makes no sense… but you would understand if you knew him. If you felt that joy that he radiates, if you saw him live his simple little life like it’s the best thing in the world. You would understand if you knew how much I needed this. You would understand if you had been just as miserable being who I’ve been for so long, and finally had a chance to be somebody you think you were maybe meant to be the whole time. So, if I never see him again, I hope I just get to thank him.”

You waited for her to say something, but furrowed your brow at the long moment of silence, looking back from the window finally and finding her staring at you with a tear running down her cheek. When you met her gaze, she quickly wiped it away with a sniffle and looked down at your desk again. “Let’s get to translating, shall we?” she announced with a half-smile.

You noticed the way the other passengers looked at you as everyone was in line to deboard from the train car; you stuck out like a sore thumb, since everybody else was carrying heavy luggage and all you had was a backpack.

In your defense, you really had no idea how to pack for a trip where you knew neither the duration nor the true final destination. So, it was mainly filled with your essentials, a few clothes for any kind of weather, and enough leu to buy anything else you needed along the way.

The stewardess was waving goodbye to everyone as they shuffled out into the train station, occasionally stopping to shake a hand or give directions to nearby destinations. When you were just about to pass by, though, she pulled you into a tight hug.

“Good luck,” she whispered, holding you just a moment too long before pulling back and giving you an encouraging look. “If he doesn’t take you back, feel free to blame my translation… because if he knows what’s in your heart, I know he’ll say yes.”

“Yeah, that’s the hard part isn’t it?” you laughed weakly. “Thank you for your help. I guess if I come back alone for the return trip tonight, you’ll know how bad it went.”

“Then I hope I don’t see you again,” she winked.

It being a major train station and all, cabs were waiting around every corner so it was pretty easy to grab one and give them the address you already had written down for this exact purpose.

“This is pretty far,” the driver explained, “on the edge of town. Not a tourist spot.”

“Good, because I’m not a tourist,” you nodded, already only giving him half your attention as you pulled out the translated speech to practice.

“And you can afford this?” he pressed. You sighed and dug through your bag, pulling out a haphazard stack of bills and handing them through the plastic partition.

“Is this enough?” you asked, and he didn’t answer, just taking the money and starting the car as you smiled and leaned back in your seat.

As much as you had tried to convince yourself to not get your hopes up, the butterflies in your stomach felt more like whole birds at this point, demanding to break free as you practiced the words hand-written on the page over and over again, committing it all to memory.

“What are you reading?” the cab driver asked after several minutes.

“Oh, nothing,” you mumbled, “sorry if I’m bothering you, you can turn on the radio.”

“No, it’s not bothering me, but what you are saying… it’s very odd. It sounds like something from a play, or movie,” he explained.

“Um, it’s not,” you replied, a little embarrassed. “But does it sound like it’s from a good movie? Like, if you heard a character say this to another character, would you think they should get together?”

“I… don’t know,” he answered, sounding confused. “I mean, it depends on what happened, right? How they met, how well they get along…”

So, you told him the whole story, as succinctly as possible (which is not very succinct at all). By the end, he was actually giving commentary as you spoke.

“Why the hell did you leave?” he interjected, clearly irritated with you. “You loved him!”

“Yeah, well, sometimes love isn’t enough! I loved my husband too, and look how that turned out,” you defended.

“But that’s different. That was love for all the wrong reasons.”

“I promise, it felt very real at the time,” you shrugged.

“And now?” he countered. “You realize that this man— Sebastian, right?— is real.”

“I hope I’m right this time,” you offered. “But even if I am, he may not agree.”

The driver scoffed, taking a hand off the wheel to wave dismissively. “If he’s anything like you said, then he will still be completely in love with you. After all, you still feel the same way after all this time apart, don’t you?”

“If anything, I love him more every day,” you admitted, your heart beating quickly just to say it aloud.

“You know, when I met my wife, she was engaged to another man. He was rich, good-looking, and he wasn’t even a bad guy unlike this husband you describe. He was a good man, but he wasn’t right for her. They were… content together, but she wasn’t truly happy. Every night I would come to her window and beg her to marry me, because I knew that she knew we were meant for each other, but she was scared because her family wouldn’t approve and she would be a poor man’s wife.”

“How did you convince her to marry you instead?” you asked eagerly, sucked into the story already.

“I didn’t. On the day of the wedding, some people told me to go and break it up but I didn’t. I thought it would be wrong, to try to ruin her happiness and take it for myself by making a scene at the wedding. I realized she was her own woman and if she wanted to choose him, I had to let her. I had locked myself in my house, not wanting to see anyone that day, and she appeared at my door. I didn’t need to convince her because she knew the truth in her heart, and called off the wedding herself.”

“Wow,” you smiled.

“She was still in her dress!” he recalled with a hearty laugh. “She looked like an angel. We were married just a few days later. And next month will be thirty years,” he added as he lifted his left hand to show the golden band on his finger.

“Thirty years, that’s… a long time,” you sighed.

“It wasn’t always easy,” he admitted. “But it was always worth it.”

Just as you wondered what you could possibly say to that, you felt the car slow down to a stop.

“This is the address you gave me, this is it,” he explained, pointing out his passenger-side window. You leaned up against the glass and gasped in dawning fear as you saw the storefront dark and empty inside.

“No, nonono,” you whispered rapidly to yourself as you swung open the door and hopped out, pressing your face against the glass to try to get a look inside and finding what was undeniably a closed carpentry business. There was a note on the door, taped on the inside of the glass, and you knew enough Romanian to know it said something about a vacation and three months.

“Shit!” you yelped, holding your face in your hands, wondering if your journey had come to an end before it really began.

“Are you alright?” the driver asked, rolling down his window to speak to you.

“This was my only lead, I don’t have his real address,” you explained. “He used to work here, I thought maybe someone would know him…”

He sighed, giving you a sympathetic look. “Get back in, we can search nearby. You came too far to give in yet.”

But getting back in the car felt like giving in, too, which you realized as you looked back at the note taped to the carpenter's door. This was the closest you'd gotten, and it felt wasteful to leave with nothing.

Just as you were ready to hop in the passenger seat and start searching aimlessly through suburban Bucharest, or maybe look around for a Romanian yellow pages, you heard a noise from behind you, across the street; a laugh. His laugh. But it couldn’t be because it was too good to be true… and yet you found yourself whipping your head around and hoping beyond all reason that it was Sebastian.

Across the street was a restaurant, with a large patio where patrons were dining and chatting as they sat at wrought iron tables, and your eyes searched the crowd for any signs of him.

And then your gaze landed on a head of thick brunette hair, red and gold highlights so obvious now when the sunlight hit it this way. Broad shoulders wrapped in a white button-up shirt. He was facing away from you but he was looking to the side so you could see his face; he was smiling, laughing at something someone had said. And it was his smile that you recognized; it was like everything else faded away, and in that moment you thought maybe you could almost be happy with just this, just seeing him be happy even if it had nothing to do with you.

“Sebastian,” you called out to him, but he didn’t react. “Sebastian!”

His whole body turned, his eyes met yours, and you couldn't help but let the tears well in your eyes as you ran across the road to him.

He looked, understandably, stunned, and you realized he was actually waiting on a table at the moment; he said something to them, apparently excusing himself, and stepped closer to you.

But he stopped walking, not coming any closer, not exactly dragging you into his arms like you might've preferred, but with a breath to try to soothe your racing mind, you summoned your memories of the practiced letter and began. *

“Când am venit în Ungaria…” you started slowly, doing your best to remember the words and hoping your pronunciation wasn’t too awful, “nu căutam dragoste. Căutam spațiu, claritate și poate o idee de carte de un milion de dolari. În schimb, am găsit tot ce am căutat toată viața mea…”

You did your best to bite back tears, especially when his expression was nearly unreadable and you had no idea how well this was going.

“Ești tu, Sebastian, bineînțeles că ești tu,” you sighed, laughing slightly. “Ai fost acolo pentru mine când nici nu știam ce vreau de la nimeni. Ai fost prietenul meu fără să spui vreodată un cuvânt - cel puțin nu un cuvânt pe care l-am înțeles. M-ai iubit și nu știam ce să fac cu asta, pentru că uitasem cu mult timp în urmă cum se simțea să fii iubit. Și ce simțeai să iubești cu adevărat pe cineva. Dar te iubesc. Și am fost prost să te las să pleci, atât de neconceput de prost. Vreau să fim noi, Sebastian. Lasă-mă să te iubesc, mai dă-mi o șansă și îți promit că nu te voi mai lăsa să pleci niciodată.

The first thing he said was your name, and just the way he said it made you fall in love with him all over again.

“I… I dream that you would come back,” he shakily replied. “But now I cannot believe. You are my dream.”

Tears were openly flowing at this point and you wanted to run into his arms, but you tried to stay calm and hear him out. He stepped closer, almost hesitant, like you would run away if he got too close too fast.

“I love you, very much that I am sure I am insane person,” he explained with a grin, and you giggled. “We will live anywhere, do anything you would like— be my wife.”

You gasped as he pulled you into him, gripping your arms tightly as his desperation became apparent.

“Marry me?” he asked softly.

“Da,” you nodded, “yes, of course, anything—”

He kissed you suddenly, but gently, and it said more than any words in any language could.

It was a small wedding, in the Hungarian countryside by the lake. You could remember diving into that lake for lost pages of your manuscript; you could remember looking out over the water and dreaming of this moment you were living right now, thinking it was impossible.

He didn’t have much family, but they welcomed you with open arms.

Your family, well, they were too busy with planning another wedding, for your ex-husband and your ex-sister. A few of them sent cards but the rest were suspiciously quiet. You honestly didn’t even notice… you had a new family to attend to, anyhow. And it wasn’t like you didn’t have any guests, since you were able to track down and invite a stewardess named Maria, and a cab driver named Andrei and his wife, Paola.

Sebastian’s cousins weaved flowers into your hair and his grandmother tailored her dress to fit you like a glove. A picture of his parents was hung nearby in tribute; he told you they would’ve wanted to see him get married but that he felt, in some way, they were able to even if they had passed away quite some time ago.

You realized you’d never seen him in anything even mildly formal before; in fact, the suit he wore was rather casual, all things considered, but he looked so painfully cute in it. Sometimes you thought he actually looked a bit out of place wearing a shirt, though, especially one that was buttoned up all the way.

Luckily, the shirt was halfway unbuttoned about ten minutes into the reception.

Mrs. Alberti cooked a massive dinner for everyone, and even grew the flowers that you carried down the cobblestone aisle.

And wow, can Romanians drink. You had to be careful not to try to keep up with them, because if you had you would’ve been blacked out halfway into the night and the last thing you wanted was to forget even a moment of this.

As the night started to wind down to a close, you and your new husband retired to the lakehouse, running up the stairs and finding them as creaky as always.

He wrapped his arms around you in the hall and kissed you eagerly as you stumbled back into the bedroom, tripping over the doorway and falling onto the bed together.

It felt so right to have his weight on top of you, to feel his smile against your lips, to wrap your arms around his neck.

“This room,” he mumbled into the kiss. “Do you remember first time?”

“Yes,” you nodded, “da, I remember, how could I forget?”

He grinned and moved his lips down to your neck. "I thought of you every day… I love you,” he whispered.

“Te iubesc,” you whispered back.

It was almost like the first time in so many ways: passionate, yet oddly hesitant as you rediscovered each other. It was comfortable, though… you couldn’t think of any other person you felt so comfortable with, somebody who finally got you out of your own head and who made you want to experience everything life had to offer.

You were sure you’d never gone so long without worrying about something in all your life.

“My wife,” he whispered against your skin. “This is all I had wanted… from seeing you in very beginning.”

“You’re all I ever wanted,” you sighed in return, “ești tot ce mi-am dorit vreodată, Sebastian.”

Life with Sebastian was beautifully simple. You spent most of the day writing, usually, while he built furniture to sell and occasionally gardened with his spare time. You could always tell how busy you’d been with a new novel lately by how perfectly groomed the hydrangea bushes were.

You’d told him once that you’d come to Hungary looking for a million-dollar book idea. A Killer in Disguise performed alright, but not anywhere near that. The Language of Love, on the other hand, was definitely a million-dollar idea… about eleven times over. Sebastian didn’t seem to worry too much about how much money you made, though; he was just proud to say that he was the inspiration for your hit novel. You secretly suspected that he was more proud of your work reaching enough international notoriety to be translated into Romanian.

His English still needed some work, but you found it endearing. He was determined to get better and spent at least a half-hour each day practicing, but you hoped he wouldn’t get too perfect because you would miss the silly little mistakes he made. At least you could be sure he’d keep the accent forever… damn, that accent; and he knew exactly what it did to you, too.

In fact, you were crossing through the hall in your robe one evening when your husband’s voice stopped you.

“Darling wife,” you heard Sebastian call from the bedroom in a playful sing-song.

“What is it, Seba?” you asked with a smirk.

“Come in here, please…”

You opened the bedroom door to find most of the room covered in rose petals: most of all the bed, which was surrounded by candles, and topped with a shirtless (as per usual) Sebastian, laid on his side seductively with a long-stemmed rose (one you recognized from his very own garden) between his teeth.

“What are you doing?” you laughed. “Is this some sort of special occasion I’ve forgotten?”

You were already searching your mind for what it could be, but your two-year anniversary had passed a few months ago already and since it was spring it couldn’t be the anniversary of when you first met since that was late in the summer.

“Iss not quite a thpecial occathion yeth,” he answered before taking the rose from his mouth so he actually made sense. “I was considering it could be a special occasion, when we’re done…”

You smirked and climbed over the candles and into bed with him, taking the opportunity to run your hands over his chest. “And what occasion would that be?”

“A year from now, it could be the anniversary of when our child was conceived,” he answered.

Your breath caught in your throat, your voice reduced to a whisper of surprise. “Seba—”

“If you’re not ready, I will be understand,” he instantly added, stern yet soft. “Only if you want this, I just thought that maybe—”

You silenced him with a kiss, lacing your fingers into his hair and letting him roll you onto your back. He pulled back just enough to let you answer, but your noses were still bumping into each other and you smiled.

“I’m ready, Sebastian. More than ready,” you whispered.

He grinned and kissed you again, deeper and slower as he held your face with one hand and gripped your waist with the other. As his lips trailed down to your neck, you were interrupted with one pressing thought.

“Can I ask you something?”

He popped up and looked down at you with a smile. “Sure!”

“Why are you wearing ratty old jeans?” you laughed.

“Hey, these worked on you the first time,” he defended.

You gasped. “You don’t mean those are the jeans—”

“Yes,” he nodded, “the jeans that I had been wearing when I was working on Mrs. Alberti’s cottage. And, truly, when I was finding an excuse to work outside your window.”

“Wait,” you sat up, “did you actually work outside my window on purpose?”

He laughed, hanging his head quickly before looking back at you again with a sparkle in his eye. “You are very smart, my love, except for those times when you are— how do you say? Oblivious.”

You chuckled, unfortunately very aware that he was right.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why I was building a window frame, nearly a dozen metres away from the window it was for?”

You thought for a moment before dropping your face into your hands and laughing. “No, I didn’t notice that. I was too busy giving you a thorough eye-fuck,” you recalled.

“Yes, because I was not wearing a shirt and this distracted you,” he pondered, sounding suddenly like a scientist explaining a theorem or something. “See, that’s the beauty of wearing the jeans and no shirt. The body distracts you while the jeans seduce you.”

“How about you take the jeans off and put that body on me, capisce?” you pleaded; not that you didn’t love his humor or anything, but maybe his funny bone wasn’t exactly the bone you were interested in at the moment.

He grinned devilishly and suddenly pulled your legs apart, settling his body between them as he kissed your neck again, nipping at your jawline and ear. “You’re being impatient, dragă,” he purred. “You want to have my baby that badly?”

You whined involuntarily, arching your back as his hands roamed your body and finally began to untie your robe and push the silk out of the way. “Yes, Sebastian, please—”

“Let’s just say, theoretically, I wanted to have more than one? Would you have another of my children?” he asked softly as he reached up and palmed at your breasts, teasing your nipples which were already much too hard and sensitive for how little he’d touched you. The rough denim rubbing against the inside of your thighs was oddly arousing— maybe it was the sensation itself, or maybe it was just that this was almost like the first thing you imagined when you saw Sebastian all those years ago.

“Yes,” you moaned out your answer, “yes, you know I’d do anything for you.”

“What if I wanted a big family?” he pressed. “Really big? Like, Catholic big?”

“We can have our own fuckin’ Brady Bunch, Seb, I just need you right now,” you begged, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him into a hot and desperate kiss.

He decided to wait until afterwards to ask what a ‘Brady Bunch’ was. You decided to wait until afterwards to ask when he’d learned how to use the word ‘theoretically’.

sfarsit; the end