#this is LITERALLY what death of the author is FOR

[andvys]

The edges of your soul (I haven't seen yet) ⭐︎ chapter twelve

⭐︎ You're a bandit like me. Eyes full of stars

Warnings: 18+, minors don't interact! hurt/comfort, grumpy x sunshine, post apocalypse au, mentions of death, mentions of killing, mentions of sex, alcohol consumption

Pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Word count: 15k

Author's note: Here it is friends! I've been so excited for this chapter (and I hope you will be too, this has some good stuff). I struggled so much writing this, I have no idea why, it's literally one of my favorite moments in this story so far! But here it is now, and I wouldn't have done it without @hellfire--cult , she wrote a good portion of this (aka all the fun stuff between Steve and Sunshine hehe) so please give her some love ♡

series masterlist ⭐︎ previous chapter

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“We can cut through Idaho, Colorado, or we can drive straight through Utah.” Eddie explains with his hand. His eyes are focused on the map before him, eyebrows furrowed and eyes concentrated. 

Steve is standing beside him with his arms crossed, nodding as he thinks of what road seems the best. 

“Wasn’t Colorado crawling with infected when the news was still airing?” Steve mumbles. 

“When was that, Steve?” Eddie shrugs at his friend. “A year or two back? The cold temperatures have either wiped out the infected or they have moved down south by now.” 

Steve nods his head, “yeah, you might be right. What do you think, Nance?” 

Nancy isn’t focusing on the map, she isn’t even listening to them. Her eyes are set on you. You are sitting on the steps of the RV, your head leaning against the door frame. You are staring into blank space, fiddling with the loose string on your flannel. 

Someone who doesn’t know you would think that you are just enjoying the sunlight kissing your face, but it’s not that; she wishes it was that. You are quiet, and you have been quiet for the past few days now since the attack. She understands it, but she is concerned about you, scared that you are losing yourself and that there is nothing she or the guys can do about it. 

Steve’s eyes follow, and his face only falls further. He has been trying to get through to you for days now but it’s like your mind stayed there. You don’t talk much, you barely eat, and your lips are in a permanent straight line. He knows you need time and that you aren’t gone completely because even with your mental absence and your silence, you still let him hold your hand, you still sleep in the same bed with him, you still let him hold you at nights – it became a regular thing, after that day especially. 

Steve needs you close, he needs to feel you in his arms, he needs to know you are there, or else he can’t breathe, he can’t sleep, he can’t function. You are on the same page and, without much debating, you settled on spending every night, every perimeter check, every run into towns together. He knows that he is now going against everything he promised to himself when he first met you, but he can’t help it, he can’t help the way he feels about you now, the way he needs you around. 

He misses your voice, even more so, he misses your laughter and your smile. 

“A few weeks, give or take, and we’re in Nevada. That is, if we don’t get into too much trouble on the road. I’m talking weather conditions, blocked roads, hoards of infected–”

“You just said they moved south.” Nancy frowns, not looking away from you just yet. “Now you are talking about… hoards?” She squints her eyes. 

“Probably, yeah. I think they moved south, but I can’t know for sure, Wheeler. There might be a hoard gathering somewhere – which we’ll deal with, no problem. There also might be more demo shit monsters out there which we had the luck of avoiding so far. We don’t know what kind of trouble we’ll run into the rest of the road. Maybe we’ll even have to lay low for a while,” Eddie exclaims, throwing his hands up. “The winters are brutal out here, we’re lucky if we don’t get snowed in.”

“We will get snowed in at some point. I was stuck in a cabin for two weeks last year, I almost starved and froze to death.” 

Your voice catches everyone by surprise. Eddie and Steve glance at one another before they look at you. You are still staring straight ahead. 

Your words make Steve’s heart ache in his chest, even more so when he thinks about how he treated you when he first met you. How awful he was to you, how much he wanted you to leave, push you out the gates where you would have been all alone again, fighting for survival on your own, fighting the kind of people you have killed for him. 

“It’s gonna take two months or more until we get there.”

“It doesn’t matter how long it will take, Sweetheart.” Eddie says softly. “What matters is that we’ll get there and we will. You’ll see your family again!” He tries to lift you up, to make you see the point in this trip again. 

You will see them again, yeah. 

But what will they think of you after what you have done? 

Eddie notices the way your shoulders tense at his words, the way you suck in a sharp breath, the way your eyebrows furrow as you stare at the ground now. You suddenly get up and move forward. 

“I’m gonna check for more supplies,” you murmur as you walk towards the gas station that Eddie and Nancy have already gathered supplies at. 

Steve follows you without a second thought. Eyes filled with concern and body tense just like yours, “Sunshine–”

“I need a second.” You mumble without looking back. “Just one second…” 

One second to yourself. 

Steve’s face is etched with pain. Sadness flashing across his features, twinkling in his eyes. He halts in his tracks, staring at you in deflation. He wants to follow you, knowing exactly what is troubling you. He so badly wants to take you into his arms and comfort you, but he can’t, not when you are like this. 

Both Eddie and Nancy take a look at him. Pity flashes in both their features, he doesn’t have to look at them to see it. He hates it, hates the way they can see right through him. 

“Steve–”

“It’s fine, Nancy.” Steve grumbles as he takes a few steps back again, he leans against the side of the RV and crosses his arms over his chest. 

She sighs and looks back down at the map before her. Giving you the space that you need, giving him the space as well. 

But Eddie stares at the door you have shut behind you, watching you through the dirty window as you mindlessly walk around the store. His jaw clenches, not in anger at you but in anger for how you feel about yourself. He sees the way you avoid mirrors, the way you stare at your hands for a little too long. He can practically feel the horror you feel towards yourself. 

“I’ll talk to her.” 

Steve pushes himself off the RV again, eyes widening as he watches Eddie stomp after you. 

“Eddie–”

But Eddie doesn’t listen, and he flips his hand up, telling him to stay there. He opens the door and walks inside, not bothering to look back. He closes the door softly, not wanting to startle you. 

He is careful not to step on any broken cans or boxes that fell from the shelves as he looks for you. He walks past the aisles, looking into every one for you. He furrows his eyebrows, wondering where you had disappeared to so quickly in the second he had looked away. 

He searches for a moment until the sound of shuffling lures him into what once used to be an office or a break room. He finds you there, standing in front of a table with your back turned to him. You are holding something in your hand, staring down at it. 

Eddie walks inside, clearing his throat so he doesn’t startle you. You don’t budge. You stand still. He takes a deep breath before he looks over your shoulder and his shoulders tense, a frown appears on his face. 

A mixture of sadness and anger creeps up inside of him. 

“Sweetheart,” he whispers as he steps even closer and takes the note from your hand. He glances down at it one more time. He skims over it a second time: ‘If you turn into a monster is it still you inside?’ Eddie crumbles it up and throws it on the ground. 

He doesn’t know whether to pull you into his arms or to scold you. 

He wants to do both. 

Eddie wraps his hand around your bicep and he turns you around, forcing you to face him. 

“Look at me.” 

You hesitate but look up at him after taking a deep breath. 

Eddie’s gaze softens when he sees the vulnerability in your eyes. His shoulders slump and he sighs. 

“Sweetheart,” he whispers as he moves his hand up to your shoulder. “Don’t even think about it, don’t let your mind go there. You are not a monster.” 

You don’t regret what you did, not in the slightest. You would do it again and again if it meant saving your friend, if it meant saving him. You would do anything for your friends. You would do anything to keep him safe. 

“I murdered them–” 

“Monsters. You killed monsters.” He gives you a pointed look, trying to get it through that thick head of yours. “Do you think that’s what we think of you now? That you are some kind of monster too?” 

Your silence answers his question. 

Eddie shakes his head wildly, gripping your shoulder tighter. 

“You did what you had to do, what we couldn’t do but don’t… don’t think for one second that I, that we wouldn’t do the same for you. I would have ripped those bastards apart one by one to save you, and I know that Steve would have done the same.” 

Your eyes soften at his words. You know he is telling the truth, the look in his eyes is so determined and truthful. 

“You saved him, you saved us. I don’t care how you did it, you could have fed them to the infected – hell, I would have helped you drag them to their dinner table. But stop being so hard on yourself, stop living in there,” he taps your forehead. “I know what that evil part of your brain is trying to tell you and I can promise you that it’s all bullshit, okay? You’re a fucking saviour, Sweets. You are fucking hero.”

The tension on your face disappears little by little. Your lips start curling up a bit. 

“You’re not a monster, we don’t think that about you, and your family won’t either. Hell, your brother will be proud to have such a powerhouse as a sister.” 

A smile tugs on the corner of your lip, and you can’t help but chuckle, “stop that now…” 

Eddie feels successful when your laughter fills the room again. He squeezes your shoulder, smiling at you. 

“It’s nothing but the truth. You’re strong, really fucking strong. This world hasn’t gotten to you in all that time you’ve been out there by yourself. Don’t let it get to you now, not over some pieces of shits who had it coming – god knows how many potential victims you have saved.”

You nod at his words. You know he is right. He is right about them, they deserved it, every single one of them. 

“I don’t regret what I did,” you shrug, “I just… I didn’t know that I could turn into this.” 

“There’s a different side to everyone, Sunshine.” Eddie speaks softly and carefully. “Sometimes we have to resort to it… to save and protect the ones we love.” 

His eyes flash with something else, a distant memory that never strays away from him, always reminding him of the night he protected everyone too, the scars on his skin a forever reminder. 

You nod at his words, knowing that he is right about everything. 

“You sacrificed a little part of yourself… that doesn’t mean that you are lost completely, Darling.” He whispers as his eyes flicker to the forming scar on your cheekbone. 

Warmth spreads through you, and you feel the kind of comfort you always got from your brother whenever things got tough. He is like him – in a lot of ways. 

“Like you did…” You whisper, knowing about the night he almost gave his life to save everyone. 

His throat bobs as he nods. His dark eyes flashing with horrors that night tortured him with. 

“I’m sorry, Eddie.” You whisper, knowing how painful it must be to think back to that night. 

He gives you a smile, a soft and comforting one. 

“I’m sorry too,” he mumbles and pulls you closer, wrapping his arms around. He tugs you into his comforting embrace. Giving you a warm, big hug. 

A sigh falls from your lips as you close your eyes and wrap your arms around him, squeezing his waist. 

Eddie is a little surprised that you hugged back so quickly, but a satisfied smile appears on his face. He loves hugs. Unfortunately, Nancy hates them and Steve… is well Steve. He only allows you to get close nowadays. 

You stay in his embrace for a while, only now realizing how much you needed it, how much you needed the reassurance and the comforting words of someone who is now like a brother to you. 

“You smell really nice.” Eddie blurts out after a long few minutes of silence. 

You furrow your brows as an amused smile makes its way on your face. 

Eddie sniffs at your hair causing you to giggle, especially when you pull away and he follows. 

“What’s that scent? Is that raspberry?” Eddie questions, tilting his head to the side. “How do you smell so good?” 

You push him away with a giggle, rolling your eyes at his genuine curiosity. 

“I wash my hair? Duh.” 

“I wash mine too, smarty pants.” He rolls his eyes at you, poking your cheek. “Mine never smells like that.” 

“Gotta find yourself a new shampoo then.” You shrug and look down, blushing a little. You always made sure that you look decent, that you don’t smell, which isn’t always easy in a world like this considering you sometimes run out of water and have to resort to wet wipes until you find a lake to fill up your water tanks again and Eddie tends to use way too much of your body wash. 

But you always do your best to stay clean, to smell nice – especially, especially now that you share a bed with Steve and somehow always end up in his arms or even on top of him. 

You may or may not have a secret bottle of perfume hidden in one of your boxes. 

He hums, crossing his arms over his chest as he eyes you slowly. 

“It’s not the shampoo, is it?” He squints his eyes as a smirk tugs at his lips. “You got some sort of body spray or perfume hiding somewhere, don’t ya? No one can smell that nice from shampoo or body wash alone.”

You shrug, humming, “I do.”

But Eddie can see the way you avoid his eyes, the way a blush creeps up your face, and you grow flustered. He knows exactly why. 

He can’t help but poke your waist, chuckling when you flinch, “you little liar! You got perfume hidden somewhere, don’t you? Wanna smell nice for Stevie boy, huh?”

Your eyes widen and your lips part as you begin to stutter. 

“Oh, I knew it!” Eddie laughs loudly. “I mean, I get it, if I shared a bed with someone I have a big fat crush on, I’d do the same.” 

You roll your eyes at him and push his hand away, turning around, you walk back into the store. 

Crush is an understatement, you are way past that point. 

Eddie’s smile never fades as he follows you. “You didn’t deny it.” 

You didn’t, no. There is definitely no point in denying something so obvious. Eddie already knew it when you attacked him with that wet shirt. 

“Do you want me to deny it?” You scoff. 

“Nope. I know it already anyway,” he shrugs, following you with a satisfied smirk on his face. “Tell me, have you kissed yet?” 

You halt in your tracks, cheeks burning at this point. 

Eddie almost walks into you when you stop so suddenly. He raises his eyebrows as he stares at the back of your head. 

You turn around to face him, not bothering to hide your flustered face. 

“No…” You mumble, shaking your head. The thought of kissing Steve makes your cheeks burn hotter and your chest flutter. There was a moment, a fleeting moment, where you thought that he would kiss you, where you thought of making the move yourself and closing the gap between you, but he pulled away before you had the chance to. 

Your eyes flash with something that makes Eddie’s smile fall slowly. The teasing no longer evident in his eyes when he sees something more serious in your features. 

“You hesitated,” Eddie points out, tilting his head at you. “Did you try to…?”

You shake your head. Your mind wasn’t there in these past few days and before that you were too insecure to even think about it. But you want to, god, you want to kiss him so badly. 

“No. There was a moment…” 

Eddie raises his eyebrows at you to continue. 

You take a deep breath as you glance out the window, even through all the dust and the dirt on the glass, you can still see him. He is standing with his arms crossed, face etched in concern as he waits for you to come back out. 

Eddie’s impatient huff pulls your attention back to him. 

“When I saved the cub, Steve pulled me into his arms… to warm me up– Don’t look at me like that, he would have done the same for you or Nancy!” You frown, blushing furiously when the teasing grin is back on his face. Though the thought of Steve holding Nancy the way he held you makes you feel sour for some reason. 

“No, he wouldn’t.” Eddie snorts. “He’d throw a blanket over our shoulders and call it a day. Now, continue.” He waves with his hand. 

You huff at him, rolling your eyes as you look down at your hands. 

“There was a moment where he moved closer… and I-I thought that maybe… he would kiss me.” You shrug, trying to act like it doesn’t affect you that he didn’t do it. “But then he moved back again… so maybe I just… saw something that wasn’t even there.” 

Eddie’s eyes soften, and a sad smile tugs on his lips. You don’t even see the way he looks at you. 

“Sweetheart–”

“No, it’s fine.” You shake your head, hating that exposing vulnerable feeling rising up in you. 

“You wanted him to kiss you, didn’t you?” 

You bounce your knee and bite your lip as you feel the nerves clinging to your heart. Your ears burn too now. You don’t answer his question but you look at him through your lashes, allowing him to look into your eyes. 

Eddie’s eyes light up, his dimples show when his smile widens. 

“Aw, Sunshine.” He giggles as he leans closer and pinches your cheek. “You’re adorable.” 

“Stop!” You groan in embarrassment, pushing his hand off. 

“I mean I already knew there was something between y'all but… damn… just make the first move. What are you waiting for? For him to sweep you off your feet and kiss you stupid before putting his cowboy hat on you so you can–”

“Oh god,” you interrupt him, rolling your eyes, though with a smile on your face. 

“You make the first move, you’re an independent, strong woman, Sweetheart. Don’t wait on the guy, I think he lost all his charm, you gotta be the one to make the first step here.”

You shake your head, “nope, I don’t think he likes me like that.”

Eddie sighs at your words, “listen, my sweetheart used to bully me when we were still in high school, we hated each other, turned out we just needed to fuck to see the potential between us,” he shrugs. “Steve wasn’t a bully to you… but… he kinda was. Still, I saw him checking you out, even when we were still in Hawkins.” 

Your eyes widen, “w-what?”

“Oh, Honey.” Eddie chuckles, his eyes flickering with amusement. “You are so oblivious. You’re telling me you don’t notice when his eyes are glued to your ass?”

You swallow and you shake your head, feeling as though you will suffocate if you don’t get out of here. 

“I thought women notice that shit.” He chuckles. 

You only stare in response, not knowing what to say because no, you don’t notice. 

Eddie tilts his chin down and lowers his voice, “you’re telling me he never got hard during one of your cuddle sessions–”

“Eddie!” You slap his chest, blushing harder than ever before. Your reaction giving you away yet again. 

He laughs loudly, eyes widening. “Oh, so he did!” 

“Shut up!” You mumble as you turn around and continue your way towards the door. “He said it was… wasn’t like that…”

Eddie furrows his eyebrows, still laughing behind you. 

“He just got hard for the fun of it?”

You roll your eyes and turn back around, “it was cold, it was before I got sick, when we hid in the car during the storm… We warmed each other up and he… you know.” You say quietly. 

Eddie didn’t know that. Steve told him about the part where you had to ditch your clothes and cuddle to warm up, but he left this very interesting part out. 

He crosses his arms over his chest, unable to fight the smirk off his lips. 

“It doesn’t work like that, you know? At least not to me, I’m not gonna get hard because of someone I’m not attracted to, Sweets. No matter how close they are.”

Your eyes grow hopeful, and he sees it. 

“Besides, you can’t tell me that wasn’t the only time…” Eddie says slowly. 

You and Steve have been sharing a bed since you got sick, and more than once, Eddie walked in on you cuddling in your sleep. 

You breathe in sharply and Eddie laughs again. Oh, he is gonna enjoy his next conversation with Steve. 

“And you haven’t mounted that horse yet, Cowgirl?” 

“I am done with this conversation!” You say with a high pitched voice as you turn on your heel and make your way out the door. You breathe in the fresh air, hoping for the coldness to cool off your burning cheeks, but the moment your eyes lock with his, you are done for. 

Eddie clears his throat as he steps out behind you, he stops laughing, though the amusing smile on his face gives away the kind of conversation you had in there. 

Steve pushes himself off the RV, his concerned eyes moving across your face. Unlike before, you don’t seem tense, and your expression is softer, though there is something else now troubling you. You are flustered, he can tell that much, especially by the way Eddie is smirking. 

Eddie picks up the pace when he notices that Nancy isn’t outside anymore. He catches up to you and reaches out for your arm, wrapping his hand around your bicep, he leans down and whispers, “also, you better talk to that poor man again; he follows you around like some lost puppy.” 

Guilt surges through you as you glance at Steve, whose eyes are softer than ever as he eyes you. You know you have been neglecting conversations with him, struggling to talk the way you did before the attack. The look in his eyes is why you avoided eye contact with him – it’s killing you now. 

Who would have thought that you would ever turn him into this? 

Steve furrows his eyebrows as he looks between you, noticing the flustered look on your face right away. 

Eddie brushes past him after letting go of you, he pats his shoulder before he disappears into the RV, giving you a moment to talk. 

Steve never takes his eyes off you, his body moving on its own accord, towards you. His name falls from your lips softly. His voice forces you to look up at him. 

“Are you okay…?” Steve whispers, his hand slowly reaching towards yours. 

You nod, looking into his hazel eyes, feeling warmth flooding through you, settling in your chest and in your stomach. The feeling of comfort holding you strongly every time you are near him. 

“You know that you can talk to me, right?” He doesn’t even try to hide the desperation in his voice. He knows Eddie tried to get through to you, and he might have done, but he wanted to be the one. 

“I know,” you whisper, sighing as you look down at his hand. You can’t help but reach out and slowly wrap your pinky around his. 

Steve’s heart flutters in his chest, he looks down and envelopes your hand fully, giving it a squeeze. 

“I just… I needed some time.”

Steve nods, understanding it more than anyone. 

“But Eddie…”

“Eddie is just like my annoying brother. Impatient and forcing me to talk.” 

Steve doesn’t know why he feels the weight of relief at the words ‘Eddie’ and ‘brother’ in the same sentence. He was fearing that you might have a more special bond to Eddie than you do to him. 

He cracks a smile, his shoulders slumping as the tension slips off. You notice it, how his eyes soften and a breath of relief falls from his lips. It gives you a shimmer of hope. 

“I wanted you to talk to me but I didn’t want to pressure you,” he murmurs softly as he takes a step closer to you and looks down at you with an expression that hasn’t faltered, not even after that night. You were so scared to look into his eyes, to see fear or disgust after how you handled things but you find none of those things – if anything, the look in his eyes is even softer now, making you feel stupid for even worrying, for thinking that he could see you how you saw yourself.

“I would have talked to you,” you whisper. Your own eyes soften, your voice filled with guilt. You didn’t mean to push him away, you didn’t mean to be so distant. 

“Yeah?” Steve tilts his chin down, looking deeply into your eyes. 

You nod. 

“Good. I thought you might have ditched me for Eddie,” he jokes, caressing the top of your hand with his thumb. “Thought you’d kick me out of our bed to snuggle him instead.”

Our bed. 

Your heart skips a beat, cheeks burning hotly at the choice of his words that you like a little too much. 

“Never.” You giggle, your eyes glinting with amusement. 

Steve’s stomach flutters, his heart yearning to hear more of that sound. His eyes light up and his hand squeezes yours tighter. 

“I missed that.” He blurts out, redness taking over his cheeks. 

“Missed what?” 

You tilt your head to the side in a way that makes him feel weak, you just look so damn cute, with that line between your eyebrows and the slight pout on your lips. 

“Your smile, your laughter.” 

Your breath hitches in your throat, your heart nearly exploding. 

He missed your smile? Your laughter? 

The look on his face is serious, his eyes vulnerable. You never thought that you could have such an effect on the guy who didn’t even want you around at first. 

Now he is holding you in his sleep, needing to feel you in his arms at nights, yearning to see you smile, to hear your laugh, to have you with him. It drives you crazy. It makes you yearn for him even more. 

Lost puppy is what Eddie had called him, the look in his eyes resembles just that. 

You can’t even fight the sudden urge to hug him, you take a step towards him and let go of his hand to wrap your arms around him instead, strongly. It certainly is not your first hug but it still catches him off guard, especially after days and days of your silence and distance.

You lean your head against his chest and close your eyes, breathing in his scent and melting into his embrace when he slowly wraps his arms around your waist, hugging you back after a second of hesitation caused by surprise. 

Steve’s face crumbles completely, his eyes softening even more if that is even possible. His heart beats so strongly, threatening to expose the way he feels about this. He takes a deep breath, an inhale of your sweet scent that sets all his insides on fire every goddamn time. His breathing turns shaky as he leans down and tightens his hold on you. 

You don’t know how long you stay that way for, but a few minutes pass – and if it was up to you, both many more could pass, but you need to move, you need to get back on the road. 

You pull away reluctantly. He keeps his hands on you, not pulling away completely yet. Your eyes meet and they speak to each other, the way your hearts do too. If only you could voice out your feelings. 

You are a hopeful person; you have always been one. It isn’t easy to be one in a situation like this though – even when a part of you, the smallest one, hangs onto the weak string kept together by the little moments of his eyes flickering down to your lips or his hands holding onto you tightly, searching for your touch. 

Could he feel the same? Could he feel a sliver of what you are feeling? 

If so, will he ever make a move or was Eddie right about what he said about him? 

Will you have to be the one to try? 

You aren’t sure if you are ready to try but you know that you will regret it someday if you don’t take the leap. 

You notice the way he stares at your lips, you feel the way his fingers tighten around your arms. 

Your eyes move across his face, tracing every mole, every scar, his pink cheeks, his lips that look surprisingly soft given the cold weather. Too many nights you have gone to sleep wondering what it would feel like to kiss him. 

This isn’t the right moment, it definitely isn’t. 

But you have to test the waters, you just have to. 

“Come on, we should hit the road,” you whisper as you take another step closer, moving onto your tippy toes, you press your hands against his chest, avoiding his eyes as you lean closer and press your lips against his cheek, pecking it softly. 

Steve’s eyes widen and his breath hitches in his throat. The spot your lips touched tingling as his heart threatened to jump out of his throat. 

He stands there for a while, even after you have pulled away to make your way back into the RV. He stands there processing what just happened. 

It was an innocent kiss. It was the smallest peck, a sweet kiss on his cheek – nothing he hadn’t felt before, and yet it made his heart beat in a way nothing else ever did before. 

He can’t help but crave more, he can’t help but want more than just this. 

When he returns to the RV, his cheeks are still burning, his heart's still pounding. He tries to act like nothing happened, like this little moment didn’t affect his emotions. He closes the door behind him, locking it. 

He clears his throat as he looks around, his eyes meeting Eddie’s, who is smirking at him, eyes glinting. He saw the whole thing, of course he did, he watched it. 

Though the metalhead says nothing and only turns back around, getting comfortable in the passenger seat as Nancy throws the map into his lap. She glances over her shoulder after fastening her seatbelt, looking at you before her eyes meet his. 

“Ready?” 

Steve nods, scratching his neck awkwardly as he moves towards you and takes a seat beside you. 

“Hit the road, Nance.” Eddie hums, but not without looking back at you one more time, giving you a wink that doesn’t go unnoticed by Steve. 

He glances at you, though you turn away from him, blushing. 

Steve raises his eyebrows, still looking at you – so he isn’t the only one getting teased by the metalhead. 

That sparkle of hope lights up inside of him. And he doesn’t know how to feel about it because it grows fastly and strongly. 

When after a few minutes of the drive, you lay your head on his shoulder, his heart nearly combusts as his skin starts burning up. The little sparkle will quickly turn into a flame and then… what?

How will this end for him? 

He doesn’t want to think about it, he doesn’t want to worry. 

But it’s in his nature to worry, to drive himself crazy with the what if’s. 

But for now, he reaches for your hand and he intertwines his fingers with yours. 

The squeeze of your hand makes his heart flutter wildly and it shows him nothing but the fact that he is screwed, so very screwed. 

-

You have always heard about the harsh winters in Wyoming, the sudden snowstorms, the heavy wind, and extremely cold temperatures. Though you didn’t think that it would hit you so suddenly, the way it did, given the warmth of the sun you were grazed with earlier today. 

You’ve only spent three hours on the road before Nancy had to stop driving due to the worsening weather conditions. The snow started falling harder, making it difficult to see. Thunder started rumbling, the red lightning in the distance made you all a little anxious. 

She parked the RV on the side of the road, close to a sign leading to a town. Her and Eddie left to find shelter for the night but they had been gone for an hour now and the wind had picked up since.

You look out the window, bouncing your knee anxiously as the snow covers more and more of the road and the trees. 

The howling of the wind makes you feel slightly uneasy. You feel it, it’s causing the RV to sway, making the tires creak beneath you. 

Steve is pacing back and forth, unable to find rest, knowing his friends are out there and the storm is getting worse but you couldn’t all go together, it’s too risky to leave the RV standing on the side of the road. 

“They’ve been gone for an hour.” He stresses. 

“They’ll be fine.” You assure him as you pull away from the window and sit down on the bench. “It’s not that bad out yet. I’ve been stuck in worse storms.” You shrug, trying to act like you aren’t afraid, like he is. 

“Have you?” He asks softly, his eyes finding yours as he stops pacing. 

“Yeah. It was one of those storms.” You murmur as you gesture to the red lightning in the distance. 

Steve frowns as he glances at the sky. He knows that this means nothing good. The storm, the red lightning, means the town ahead of you is crawling with monsters. 

The thought that you have been stuck in one of those makes his heart clench in his chest. The thought that you could all get stuck in that again, makes him feel the paralyzing fear that he hates so much. 

“We should have kept driving.” He mumbles as he thinks of everything that could happen. 

“No, we could’ve gotten stuck right in there. We are still a good distance away from it, we just need a more stable… shelter for the night, and after that we can figure out how to avoid this area.” 

You are right, he knows it, yet he can’t stop his fear from spreading inside of him. 

The door bursts open, making both you and Steve flinch from the sudden noise. Nancy rushes in first. Her scarf is covering half of her face, her clothes are covered in white snow. She removes the scarf, revealing her red nose and her trembling lips. 

Eddie curses under his breath as he slams the door behind him and removes his scarf as well. “Jesus, it’s cold as shit!” He breathes as he rubs his hands together. His nose is glowing red too. 

“We found something.” Is all that Nancy says before she makes her way back into the driver's seat, not wasting any time to start the engine. 

Steve looks between her and Eddie with furrowed eyebrows. “Found what exactly?” 

Eddie keeps rubbing his hands together as he brushes past Steve and plops down into the passenger seat. “Big place with a garage and everything, we can leave the RV in there, no problem–”

Steve sits down beside you before Nancy starts driving. 

“Any infected?... Monsters?” 

Eddie shakes his head at him, “just one infected outside the gate, nothing else. We checked the area and the mansion–”

“Mansion!?” You ask, your eyes widen. 

Eddie chuckles at your reaction, he holds onto the back of Nancy’s seat as she drives down the road. He looks between you and Steve. “Yeah, the place hasn’t been touched in years, we checked inside as well. It’s clean, nothing except for dust in there.” 

“Yeah.” Nancy nods. “Looks like it was some sort of vacation house.” 

“Mhmm.” Eddie hums, his eyes flashing with something that you can’t read. “You’re gonna love it, Sweetheart.” 

“Why?” You tilt your head at him. 

“You’ll see,” he chuckles, wiggling his eyebrows at you. 

You and Steve look at each other, both frowning in confusion. He takes a deep breath and turns back to Eddie when the RV suddenly lurches forward. You begin to slip off your seat, gasping in surprise as you reach your hand out to grab the handle behind you, when you feel Steve’s heavy arm around your body. 

With his arm around your waist and your back pressed against his chest, he holds you tightly, saving you from the fall as he holds onto the table beside the bench you are both sharing. 

“Wheeler!” Eddie breathes, holding his hand to his chest as he stares at the girl gripping the steering wheel tightly. 

“Sorry! Must’ve been the infected!” She shrieks. 

You grab Steve’s wrist, holding on tightly even though the RV is moving normally again, driving smoothly. 

“Jesus!” Steve grumbles behind you as he turns around to face the two in the front. “You drove over an infected?” 

“I didn’t see it until it was too late!” Nancy snaps. 

“Doesn’t matter anyways, it was dead, it was also dead when I killed it.” Eddie shrugs as he settles back into his seat. “Now we know for sure! Nance sealed the deal!”

Nancy shakes her head at Eddie, huffing at him. 

The sound of your giggle fills the silence in the RV that followed after Eddie’s attempted joke. Steve freezes behind you, his hold only tightening around your body as his heart skips a beat. 

A smile tugs at Nancy’s lip as she glances at you again, watching the way you lean your head against Steve’s shoulder who is looking down at you like you are the sweetest thing to walk this tainted earth. 

“Oh man,” Eddie whispers quietly enough for only Nancy to hear. She narrows her eyes at him before she returns her attention back to the road. 

“Ten bucks she’ll make the first move,” Eddie murmurs as he leans closer to her. 

“Money has no worth anymore, Munson.” Nancy snorts. 

She straightens her back as she leans closer to the steering wheel, a soft smile appears on her face. “I’ll get you two packs of cigarettes if you’re right but I have faith that he’ll make the first move.” 

He is intrigued, he didn’t think that she would agree to this. A smirk tugs at his lip, he moves closer to her. 

“And what do you want if you win?”

Nancy hums, “a shotgun.” 

“Why did I even ask?” Eddie chuckles, shaking his head as he leans back again. 

“I don’t know, now shut up, I need to focus.” She mumbles. Her eyes squint as she drives through the snowstorm, getting heavier by the minute now, the sky darkening. She could almost sigh of relief when she saw her flashlight in the distance, guiding her towards the garage. It was her idea to leave it there, knowing she wouldn’t be able to see the roads with the falling snow.

You could still feel Steve’s arms around your waist as the RV kept swaying, and then, you felt a slight drop making you squeal and Steve’s grip only tightened as he cursed under his breath. Your eyes turned to the windows and it was pitch black. You frowned, slowly getting on your feet with Steve as Eddie got up from the passenger’s seat.

“Let’s lock ourselves up, and we’ll go inside.” You blinked a few times, looking down at your waist. Steve followed your eyes, and he ripped his hand off you, feeling himself burn in embarrassment from holding you even after you didn’t need holding anymore. He feels as if he had been caught red handed. 

“DON’T FORGET MY FLASHLIGHT!” Nancy yells as she sees Eddie walking out of the RV with a wave of his hand. She sighs, shutting down the RV and sighing out of exhaustion. “I can’t wait to just relax…”

She gets up from her seat and turns around to face you both. Instantly, her eyebrows furrow when she senses the sudden awkwardness as Steve is blushing furiously while trying to busy himself with taking out a few cans of food to take into the house. You are sitting down still, looking up at him with a flustered look on your face. 

She can’t help but chuckle. However, when you both turn to her, she covers it up with a cough. She takes a step towards the door and opens it. 

“Alright ladies and gentlemen, garage is locked.” Eddie’s voice echoes in the garage. “Let’s go inside! Sweets come on, you’re gonna wanna see this!” 

You jump up from your seat and make your way out the RV. It’s too dark in the garage to see anything, only the flashlight Eddie is holding lights up the space around you. 

“Come on,” he tilts his head into direction of the door which you assume leads into the house. 

Eddie is grinning at you as he opens the door. He uses his flashlight to guide you inside. You make your way inside, curiously looking around, but you can’t see much yet. 

“They have a generator in the basement, but we couldn’t find any gas.”  

“That’s fine, we can light up some candles and the fireplace if there is one.” You murmur as you walk further into the house with every step that you take. 

“Romantic.” Eddie chuckles as he turns around, pointing the flashlight at Steve, wiggling his eyebrows at him. 

The former jock only rolls his eyes in response. 

“Oh my god!” 

Your shriek startles everyone, but Eddie quickly recovers when he sees what you’re so excited about. 

“Give me that!” You rip the flashlight from his hand and point it at the wall, gasping.

You start jumping up and down, bouncing on your feet as you squeal in excitement.  

Steve steps closer to you, noticing how your eyes light up like the ones of a kid on christmas morning. His lips curl into a smile, a small chuckle falling from his lips.

The wall in the long hallway is decorated with cowboy hats and western style pictures, giving away the kind of people who lived here before. 

Nancy and Eddie laugh at your reaction as you stare at the collection of cowboy hats, already looking for your favorite one. 

“This is like Wayne’s collection except we were poor and these people were rich rich.” Eddie murmurs as he looks into the big living room. 

“Hey,” Nancy steps closer to you. “You wanna take a look in the closet upstairs? I think you’re gonna like it.” 

Your wide eyes meet hers, and even in the faint light, she can see the excitement swirling in your eyes. 

Steve doesn’t tear his eyes away from you, loving the genuine surprise in your features, the happiness that slowly makes its way into your eyes. 

“Looks like a couple lived here and they were gone before shit hit the fan,” Eddie mumbles behind you as he gestures to the plastic covers over the furniture but you aren’t even listening to him. Your eyes only light up even more as you stare at Nancy. 

Steve’s own eyes widen in surprise when he suddenly feels your hand holding his, and you begin to drag him away from the hallway and towards the big staircase in the middle, “come on, Stevie!” 

Nancy’s laughter echoes in the hallway, the look on Steve’s face is more than just amusing. 

“Stevie.” Eddie murmurs under his breath to her, chuckling softly. 

“Shush.” Nancy slaps his chest as she watches you both move up the stairs. “Come on.” 

“I knew she would love this.” Eddie smiles as he and Nancy follow you up onto the second floor, which they have checked out before already. “Do you think she’s gonna force Steve into a cowboy outfit?” 

“Is that even a question?” She chuckles. 

When Nancy mentioned a closet, you didn’t imagine it to be a walk-in closet, let alone one filled with clothes your heart desires the most. You look around with wide eyes, spotting the variety of cowboy boots on the shoe shelf, the leather jackets, the jeans and vests.

“Holy shit!” You whisper as you slowly let go of Steve’s hand. 

Steve squints his eyes as you walk away from him, leaving him in the dark as you use the flashlight to take a closer look at the clothes. 

“That is like a dream come true,” you whisper, putting the flashlight down to grab a pair of boots. “I wonder if these will fit me.” 

He leans against the wall as he watches you move around, his eyes soften, and a smile appears on his face. His heart melts, the tension slowly slips off his shoulders. It’s nice to see you like this again.

“Why don’t we dress up?” Eddie speaks from the doorway, smirking cockily at Steve, expecting him to shake his head though Steve only shrugs. 

“Are you kidding? Why do you even ask?” You exclaim as you start looking through the jeans, tapping off the layers of dust that have unfortunately covered the clothes. 

Eddie chuckles at your expression, at the bewildered look on your face. He steps closer to Steve and pats his shoulder, “why don’t we find you an outfit to impress the girl, cowboy?” He whispers to him. 

Steve glares at him, though only because his cheeks heat up at the thought of your reaction to him wearing something that you love. 

“Let’s do justice to your new nickname.” Eddie chuckles as he pushes him towards the side of the closet that has all the male clothing.

“Where is Nancy?” You frown, already picking out an outfit for her. 

“Looking for batteries for a table lamp.” Eddie explains. “Go on, get dressed, Sweets.” 

You shrug and turn your attention back to the clothes, picking out an outfit. You grab the pair of boots you liked the most before you start making your way out of the room. 

Steve’s eyes follow you until he can no longer see you, with a soft gaze and rosy cheeks. 

“Be right back, fellas!” Your giggle echoes in the hallway.

Eddie’s hand is still on Steve’s shoulder. His smirk bigger than it was before, eyes flashing with mischief. 

“Oh boy.” Eddie murmurs, enjoying Steve’s reaction already. “She’s adorable.” 

Steve's smile slowly falls, his expression hardens as he turns to face his friend. 

“Hey now, I didn’t mean it like that.” Eddie chuckles, his smirk never fading. “She’s all yours, man. Matter of fact, you can make her all yours tonight. We’re safe here, nothing’s out there and if there is, the storm will take care of it, nothing survives that shit out there,” Eddie points out the window, the snowstorm now raging stronger than before. 

Steve’s shoulders tense up again and he frowns, shaking his head. 

“Eddie–”

“Don’t. I know what I see, and I can see right through you. Whatever is going on in that big head of yours,” he pauses, flicking his forehead, making Steve frown harder. “Whatever is holding you back, delete that shit out of your brain, man. Don’t let her slip through your fingers. You waiting on that perfect moment? You got it now, perfect chance.” Eddie whispers, spreading his arms out as he gestures to the big space they’re standing in. “There’s even a king sized bed, you ain’t getting that opportunity again.”

“Dude.” Steve shakes his head, blushing at the last comment. 

“Don’t dude me,” Eddie sighs, rolling his eyes. He turns away from him and starts looking through the clothes. “Just watch the way she will drool when she sees you in… these… tight pants.” He murmurs as he hands him a pair of jeans, pressing them against his chest. 

Steve looks down, lifting his hand up slowly, and he grabs them, a sigh falling from his lips. 

“This is ridiculous–”

“Guys!” 

Eddie looks over Steve’s shoulder, taking a look at you. It’s dark in the room, the flashlight only gives little light but just enough to see you. His eyes widen, and he puts his hand back on Steve’s shoulder. 

“Tell me I look like a real cowgirl!” You giggle as you twirl around. 

Steve stares at you, not even blinking, not moving, not breathing. He is just staring. His lips are parted as he eyes you up and down. 

The jeans you are wearing are tight,hugging your curves, and your ass perfectly. The brown belt low on your hips. You could have chosen one of the many flannels in the closet, but you didn’t, instead you opted for a jean vest with a very low neckline. You buttoned it up, but it is still very open, very exposing – exposing to the point where he can see a little of your bra, the lace standing out underneath. You opened your hair, removed the hair ties around your braids. 

His eyes keep flickering between your ass and your chest, unable to look away. His stomach making somersaults at the look of you, his skin heating up beneath his clothes. 

“Well damn,” Eddie whistles at you, chuckling when you stand in front of the mirror and check yourself out with a squeal. “You look hot, Cowgirl.” He smirks, squeezing Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve swallows, unable to tear his eyes away from you. 

“What do you think!” You turn around, facing Steve. 

His eyes widen at your attention, his cheeks reddening underneath your gaze. He looks away from your chest and into your eyes, though finding it hard to after checking you out like a perv. 

“Y-You…” His voice breaks, which makes Eddie cackle behind him. Steve clenches his jaw, taking a deep breath. “You look amazing, Sunshine.” 

A giggle falls from your mouth and you bite your lip as you look down at the jeans in his hand, “come on, it’s your turn!” You smile excitedly, making your way towards him. “Let me pick out the rest of your outfit!” 

Steve and Eddie step aside, letting you do your thing. They both watch as you pick a flannel and a vest for him to wear. 

“You need any assistance, Eddie?” 

The metalhead chuckles, shaking his head as he keeps on watching Steve. 

“Nah, I got it. Just help this Cowboy here out.” 

Steve feels a little relieved when he finally gets to leave the room after you hand him the rest of his outfit. He takes a deep breath once out in the hallway, earning an amused smile from Nancy when she walks past him with the table lamp now in her hand. 

“You okay there?” She asks, glancing between his face and the clothes and boots in his arms. 

“Peachy.” He grumbles as he steps into the closest room he can find privacy in. 

Nancy can’t help but chuckle, already sensing what she will walk into. She steps inside the walk-in closet, lighting up the room with the lamp she found. Her eyes widen when she notices your new outfit. 

“Oh wow! You– Your ass looks amazing in those pants!” Nancy gushes over you, looking you up and down. 

A laugh falls from Eddie’s lips when he sees how flustered you get. 

“Nancy isn’t the only one who thinks that.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “You should keep them.” 

“Eddie!” You huff, slapping his shoulder. But you can’t fight the blush off your cheeks, thinking about how he might have checked you out. 

“Just telling the truth.” He cackles, stepping away from you and towards the hallway. “I’ll be right back, I got the best one.” 

Nancy crosses her arms over her chest, shaking her head at him with a smile. She takes a seat on one of the armchairs and glances at you. 

“Aren’t you cold?” She asks, eying your exposed arms. 

“I am, but I wanna enjoy this moment in this pretty vest.” You say, turning back towards the mirror. “Are you not gonna get changed?” 

Nancy shakes her head, “nope and don’t even try to convince me, this is not my style. It looks amazing on you though.” 

You pout at her, “not even a pair of boots?” 

She shakes her head, “I’m satisfied with my own. I’ll take a look at the rest of the clothes though, I’m sure there’s something other than western stuff, right?” 

“Let’s take a look.” You shrug. You busy yourself with the big closet, standing next to each other as you look through the drawers. 

Nancy opens another one, her eyes widening. 

“Wow.” Nancy whispers, blushing as she pulls out a thong. “You want those?”

You narrow your eyes, glancing at the lace in her hand. 

“Wear them during one of your cuddle sessions with Steve,” she giggles, wiggling her eyebrows at you the way Eddie always does. 

“Nancy! You are sounding just like Eddie.” You whisper and grab it from her hand, making her chuckle. You shake your head at her, cheeks burning. 

The floorboards creak in the doorway, causing you both to look over your shoulders. Your eyes widen as Nancy gasps. 

Eddie stands there, hair hanging loosely down his shoulders, cowboy hat on his head. He is wearing a black leather vest with nothing underneath, his tattoos and his scars on full display. You look down and you can’t help but laugh loudly. The leather pants are a little too tight on his crotch, leaving no room for imagination. 

“Ew, Munson! I can see your dick!” Nancy screeches and covers her eyes. 

Eddie walks over to the mirror, ignoring her reaction. A wide smile appears on his face as he checks himself out the way you did before. 

“Oh, I am definitely taking these! My sweetheart will love this!” 

You giggle at both his and Nancy’s reaction. 

“Don’t ever wear this in front of me again!” Nancy stresses, turning back towards the closet with red cheeks. 

“I’m wearing them now, Wheeler.” Eddie mumbles, not paying attention to her. “Just don’t look at my dick, perv.” 

“Fuck off.” 

You can’t help but shake your head in amusement at their interaction. 

“I think I get it now, Sunshine. I’m kind of digging this.” Steve mumbles, appearing in the doorway. 

You turn around to face him, opening your mouth to speak, though before you can even utter a single word, your breath gets caught in your throat and your eyes widen at the sight of him in this getup. Your lips part and a weird sensation rushes through your body as you take him in. 

He left the shirt under his vest unbuttoned at the top, showing off his chest hair. You eye the scar around his neck, taking a quick glance at his face to see him staring back at you already. You bite your lip without noticing as you take in the way the jeans hug him, the way the vest looks on him, the boots. 

He doesn’t even look dressed up, it just looks… good on him. 

Your heart flutters as he brings his hand up and runs it through his hair. 

You take a deep breath, sighing softly as you tilt your head. This is it, this is your cowboy. 

Nancy presses her lips together, holding back her laugh when she notices the way you stare at him. 

And Eddie, he only shakes his head at how obvious you are. 

“So…” Steve murmurs, smiling as he finally looks up. “What do you think, Sunshine?” 

You blink. 

Steve raises his eyebrows at you. He places his hands on his hips, eying your expression. Satisfaction grows strongly inside of him when he sees how flustered and speechless you are. 

Eddie looks between the two of you, his lips curling into a smirk. 

“Do you like what you see?” Steve adds, tilting his head down towards you. 

Finally, you blink yourself out of your stupor. Your whole body is burning up now, your lower stomach tingling, your knees weaken. 

“I-I… you look… you look—“

Nancy cringes a little at your stuttering, knowing that you are dying inside. 

“Yeah, Stevie looks hot doesn’t he?” Eddie chuckles, taking pity on you. “But not even he can beat this.” He gestures to himself, which luckily forces Steve’s attention away from you and towards him. 

Steve eyes him, his smirk falling as his eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Dude…” He grumbles. “Are you trying out for your next job or…?” 

Nancy bursts out laughing, nodding. “I did see a dancing pole somewhere in here, might as well practice.” She jokes. 

Eddie’s smirk only widens at their teasing, “I would make a good stripper.” 

While the three of them continue to joke about Eddie’s potential stripper career, you are still staring at the pretty brunette, feeling taken aback by the effect he has on you. You have been attracted to people before, your ex-boyfriend for one, but it was never like this. He never stole your breath, he never made you feel weak in the knees, he never made your heart beat so strongly, not even when he broke it. 

You are screwed and it scares you a little. 

Your heart flutters strongly when he offers his arm out to you, acting charming. 

“Care to join me for dinner ‘round the fire, ma’am?” Steve attempts to imitate a southern accent. 

Your eyes widen and a surprised giggle falls from your lips. 

His eyes light up, his rosy cheeks glowing beneath the golden light of the table lamp. 

You hook your arm around his, biting your lip as you step closer to him, “why yes, sir. Do you have a horse to take me there?” You play along, using the same accent.

Steve chuckles as he leads you out of the room, grabbing the flashlight on the way out. 

Nancy watches you both leave the room with a smile on her face. 

“He sure does have one.” Eddie murmurs under his breath, chuckling. 

Nancy’s smile falls and she rolls her eyes at him, slapping his chest. 

“Why do you always have to be so gross?”

-

The fireplace in the living room is burning brightly, lighting up the room in a golden glow, the wood is crackling, music is playing softly from the radio Eddie had carried inside before dinner earlier.

You hear the howling of the wind outside and look out the window every once in a while to make sure that nothing followed you out here but both Nancy and Eddie keep repeating that you are safe for the night, that nothing will come even close to this mansion without getting stopped by the storm raging outside. 

They are right, you know they are but the red lightning in the distance makes you feel a little unsettled knowing that you might have to go through there tomorrow. 

“I have a proposition to make.” 

You push away from the window and draw the curtains close again, turning around, you face Eddie. 

He had changed into a different outfit earlier, a comfier one but you saw him stuffing the leather pants and vest into his backpack. 

Steve who had been looking at you, sitting close to the fire, tears his gaze away from you and glances at Eddie who is keeping one arm behind his back. 

“What is it?” Nancy murmurs without looking away from a book she found. 

Eddie grins as he reveals the whiskey bottle that he had been hiding behind his back. 

“Before anyone protests, I would like to remind you that this might be the only opportunity we have to relax and have some much needed fun.” He says, holding back a smirk as he looks between you and Steve. “We are safe here, you guys know we are, and we don’t know when we’ll ever get such an opportunity again.” 

Steve’s eyes find yours again. 

“You two deserve it especially.” He points between you. “You guys need to let loose.”

Nancy clears her throat and sits up on the sofa. 

“I think we all deserve to let loose. If these two are getting drunk, then so are you and I, Munson.” 

Eddie’s eyes widen in surprise, he turns to face her, “Wheeler, you never fail to impress me.” 

“Like you said, we’re safe here,” she shrugs. “And if anything happens, I’m an even better shooter when I’m drunk.” 

Eddie chuckles at her confidence. “Alright then,” he murmurs, turning back to you, he raises his eyebrows. 

You look between him and the whiskey bottle. The desire to forget about everything for a moment, to let loose, to have fun, is so strong. 

“You’re feeling better now, Sweets. You can drink,” he grins, tilting his head to the side. “Cowboy doc over there won’t say no, not tonight, am I right?” 

Steve licks his lips, taking a deep breath as he takes in the desire in your eyes. 

“No.” He shakes his head. 

“Okay…” You murmur, nodding. “But only if Steve drinks too.” 

“Oh, Sweetheart,” Eddie chuckles as he makes his way back to the bar in the corner of the room. “He’s already made his decision.” 

You make your way towards Steve, giving him a small smile as you sit down next to him. Nancy grabs a blanket and a pillow to sit on, throwing it down across from you, she plops down on it, giving you a curious smile, “when’s the last time you got drunk?” 

Eddie sits down beside her and places the cups on the ground. Opening the whiskey bottle, he fills them all up. 

“Uh… well, I haven’t had a single sip since all this shit had started,” you shrug, squinting your eyes. “Can’t even remember when that was.” 

Steve eyes your side profile, watching the way your dimple appears in your cheek when you smile. Your skin looks so soft beneath the golden light. There’s a scar forming from where you have been hit, he traces it every night, like he wants to cover the painful memory with another one – the way you do to him with his own scars. 

“Happy drunk or sad drunk?” 

You grab the cup and tilt your chin down as you raise it up to your lips, smelling the alcohol. 

“Happy drunk.” 

“Good, good.” Eddie nods. “This is gonna be fun then.” 

Steve pulls his knee up to his chest, grabbing the cup Eddie pushed towards him, he presses his hand against the floor, close to where yours is resting. 

“Do you get drunk quickly?” Steve asks as his fingers brush against yours. 

“Hmm, given the fact that I haven’t had any alcohol in over a year… probably yeah.” You nod. “But I am no lightweight usually!” 

Steve chuckles softly, finding you endearing. 

“Whatever you say, Honey.” 

Your cheeks heat up, and you look away from him, which makes his smile widen even more. The urge to tuck your hair behind your ear is growing strong. 

“Let’s drink!” Nancy cheers. 

Steve’s eyes stay on you, watching how you raise the cup to your lips and how you knock back the whiskey in one go, not even scrunching up your face in disgust. He gulps down his own and scoots closer to you, patting you on the back softly. 

“Atta girl.” 

You try to not feel affected by his words or his soft touch but it’s hard not to, especially when he speaks to you like that. 

You know this won’t be the only moment tonight that will make you feel weak in the knees, and you know that getting drunk might not be the best idea here, especially now with your feelings being so overwhelming. 

But you don’t care because one drink turns into two, two into three, and then into four. By the time Eddie is pouring your fifth cup, you have gone into a complete state of bliss. A permanent smile is stuck on your face, giggles fall from your lips at every joke made. 

And Steve feels no different, he is in the same state as you are. You have both scooted closer to each other, leaning towards one another every time you burst into laughter. His hand finds yours every time you fall into a fit of giggles at some stupid joke Eddie makes or tells a story from the past.

And in your drunken haze, you grow a little more confident, a little more daring, though waiting for an opportunity when it ends with just the two of you. It doesn’t take long for that to happen because soon Nancy passes out with her head on Eddie’s lap, the latter leaning against the couch, slowly falling asleep as well. The two of them too tired from driving all day. 

But you and Steve are far from it, not interested in sleeping at all. He is the first to get up, keeping his balance even with the alcohol in his system. He grabs the whiskey bottle that is half empty now. 

“Come on, Sunshine.” He whispers, turning to face you with a lazy smirk on his face. He reaches his hand down to you, “let’s get out of here.”

You giggle, gazing up into his eyes. Your heart flutters at the sight of his messy hair. His cheeks are rosy, sleeves rolled up, revealing all the veins in his arms. 

“Where are you taking me, sir?” You whisper as you put your hand in his and let him pull you up onto your feet. Your blanket falls off your shoulders, and you leave it on the ground, not caring to take it with you. 

“We’re gonna explore, Cowgirl.”

You giggle at that and he quickly moves his finger towards your lips, shushing you. “We don’t wanna wake them up.”

Your eyes widen, though a smirk tugs at your lips, “why, do you want me all to yourself?” You whisper, your head tilting to the side. 

All the worry, all those insecurities, all those what if’s that were coursing through his mind before are gone at this moment, and he can’t find it in himself to care to hold back. A part of him feels confident, the other intrigued, and the biggest part of him feels desire and yearning for this, for you. 

“What if I do?” He murmurs as his eyes flicker between your eyes and your lips, expecting you to get flustered, but instead, you take another step closer to him. 

“Well, you got me all to yourself now.”

Steve hums, his stomach flipping at your comment. He takes your hand, squeezing it as he smiles at you, “come on.”

You both tip toe out of the room, making sure not to wake either of them. You step out into the hallway, trying not to step on any creaking floorboards. 

“Where to first?” Steve whispers as he grabs the flashlight from his back pocket after handing you the bottle of whiskey. You instantly raise it up to your lips, taking a swig. 

“Hey now,” he shakes his head at you, “easy with the whiskey, little lady.” 

You can’t help but giggle at the deep tone in his voice and at the plastered frown on his pretty face. You take a step away from him, not letting go of his hand just yet. 

“Or what?” You raise your eyebrows. 

Steve lowers his eyebrows, a suggestive look flashing in his features. His eyes follow the drop of whiskey that rolls down your chin. Sober Steve would think about it but not do it, drunk Steve acts on his feelings though – he steps forward and brings his hand up to your face, cupping your cheek as he wipes away the drop of whiskey. 

Your breath gets caught in your throat at his action. Your stomach flipping with excitement and desire. You sink your teeth into your lower lip as you look into his eyes. 

Everything happened so quickly, so suddenly. It went from zero to one hundred. You don’t even know how it happened, how you went from shy touches to this but you aren’t complaining, not when he looks at you like this, not when he touches you like this, not when you see the chance of something more happening between you. 

The alcohol in your system makes this feeling between you so much stronger, like you threw fuel into the fire and the flames are burning higher and brighter now. 

Steve is looking at your lips, you are looking at his. All it would take is for one of you to make a move, just one step closer, just one. 

You aren’t your usual selves tonight, barely anything is holding you back and yet, the smallest part, the smallest voices in your heads, manage to break this moment apart. You don’t know who pulls away first, but a few seconds later, you are moving through the hallway again, still hand in hand. 

“I’ll pick out a hat for you.” You whisper to him, looking up at the collection of cowboy hats on the wall. 

“You don’t wanna wear one?” Steve asks, looking down at you. 

“No, I want you to wear one.” 

Steve aims the flashlight at the wall, though he isn’t looking at the hats, he is looking down at you. His heart thumping strongly, his stomach burning in desire. A mixture of emotions rushing through him. 

He watches the way your eyelashes flutter, the way you keep biting on your lip, the way you scrunch your nose up at certain hats. Steve swallows, the desire growing stronger with each passing second. Then his eyes move down to your neck, to the very revealing vest on your body, the black lace peeking out, your skin, your boobs–

“This one!” 

Steve blinks, swallowing harshly as you pull him out of his stupor. 

“I can’t reach it!” You pout as you look back at him, still holding your arm out towards the black hat. 

Steve doesn’t even think before he moves. He puts the flash light down and grabs the bottle of whiskey from your hand, placing it down on the ground as well before he steps up behind you. “I got it,” Steve murmurs into your ear, his lips getting caught in your hair. Instead of just taking the hat himself, he grabs your hips and he lifts you up with ease. 

You almost squeal in surprise, but you manage to hold it back. Your body heats up, burning like the flames in the fireplace, but you enjoy the moment, a little too much. His hands are big, his arms strong – you always knew, but this is making everything in you flutter. 

“Got it,” you giggle as you grab the hat off the hook. 

Steve puts you down again but he doesn’t let go of your hips just yet. His thumbs brush against your bare skin between your vest and your belt. Your skin is so soft, and you smell so sweet, so intoxicating. Your scent drives him crazy, every night when he goes to sleep with you, every morning when he wakes up with you in his arms but now… now it all feels more intense. 

His touch makes you feel weak, it brings out feelings in you that weren’t there before. And when you feel his breath on your neck, his nose in your hair, you almost lose it. Almost. You take a deep breath and turn around to face him. His hands are still holding your hips, grip never loosening. 

You bat your eyelashes at him as you rise up on your tippy toes, holding eye contact as you bring your hand up to fix his messy hair, the bang sticking up. 

His grip tightens on you in response, the feeling of your hands in his hair doing things to him that he can’t even explain. 

“There,” you whisper as you place the hat on his head. “Pretty Cowboy.”

Despite the cocky smirk appearing on his face, he also feels the heat spreading, feeling himself blushing, strongly. His heart skipping in his chest at your compliment. If only he could act upon his desire – he is already doing so, but still holding back. 

“Come on,” you whisper, reaching for his hand again. You bend down and retrieve the stuff from the floor. You press the whiskey bottle into his free hand and keep the flashlight in yours.

Steve tries to not look at your body when you walk up the stairs before him, but it’s hard not to do that when you move your hips the way you do, when your ass looks so good in those tight jeans. 

He swallows harshly, his eyes glued to you. His lower stomach flutters, and his breathing turns shaky. His desire for you had always been there, but never like this. The more he gets a taste of what it could be like to have you, the more his hunger grows. 

You make your way through the darkened hallway upstairs, finding a room that looks like it used to be an art room once. 

“Oh wow…” You breathe as you walk in further, eying all the drawings on the table, the paintings on the wall. You let go of Steve’s hand and pick up one of the wooden sculptures. 

Steve already misses the touch of your hand but he lets you explore the room. He looks around as well, noticing the camera on the shelf. He makes his way towards it, squinting his eyes because of the darkness in this room. He blows the dust off and picks it up, surprised to see it still turning on. He puts down the whiskey bottle, giving his entire focus to the camera. 

He polishes the camera lens with the sleeve of his flannel. He glances at you to see you standing close to the window now, the light of the flashlight kissing your features subtly. A smile tugs at his lips when your eyes light up. You look so beautiful. He raises the camera up, squinting one eye as he tries to get the perfect shot of you. 

You are so focused on the sculpture shaped into a horse that you don’t even hear the snap going off. 

“This is so nice,” you smile, putting down the sculpture. You turn to face Steve. Your eyes widen in surprise when you see the polaroid camera in his hand, not even noticing how he stuffed something into his back pocket. “Oh my god!” 

You rush towards him, taking the camera from his hand. 

“I’ve been looking for one everywhere!” You gasp, turning it in your hand. “Is it still working?” 

“Try it.” He smiles innocently. 

Your eyes flash with excitement as you take a step back. Bringing the camera up to your face, you aim it at him. “Perfect, now I get to keep a reminder of this.”

Steve chuckles. The never fading blush stays on his cheeks as he poses just for you. Not in a million years would he act this goofy with anyone. But he does it for you. So he holds the edge of his hat, almost tipping it as if saluting the camera, and his right hand is hooked on one of the belt loops of his pants. He hears the camera shutter going off, and you are smiling widely, bouncing on your feet as you hold your hand to the device to grab the picture developing already.

Once in your possession, you look at it in awe as you shake it, fanning it so it develops faster, and soon enough, your cowboy appears in the picture. He was born to wear these clothes. He sure is going to kill you someday. Your heart can barely handle it right now, but maybe the alcohol is helping with that one. The camera gets taken out of your hands, making you look at Steve, who is smirking already, a dangerous smirk that almost sends your knees to the floor.

You are startled when you feel a hat being placed on your head, his hat, and your thighs clench. You giggle a bit as you bite your bottom lip, your eyes finding his through your eyelashes, your hand stuffing the picture into your backpocket.

“Do you know the hat rule?” He tilts his head in question, a lazy smile on his lips, his body dangerously close as he moves a strand of your hair behind your ear. His voice almost a whisper.

“Why don’t you tell me?” He honestly doesn’t know what you are talking about but he also doesn’t even know when he got this close to you. He didn’t realize it. He also didn’t realize how his fingers were playing with your belt, and how your fingertips were running up and down his arms, almost without your knowledge.

“No, it’s more like… something that has to be shown.” Your eyes are fluttering and his chest is brushing with your own body and his lips are some tippy toes away. Your heart is hammering in your chest thanks to your emotions, to the alcohol, and to the heavy tension that hangs in the air, that hangs between the two of you. 

He wobbles in his place for a second, dizzy by just looking down at you. How bad leaning down could be?

But a rough rattling makes the two of you jump in your place, something having hit the side of the house and you wouldn’t be surprised it was either a tree or an infected. He steps away from you, feeling a bit more awkward than courageous now. He had to change the situation back to friendly. He had to. He points at you with the camera, a smile on his lips.

“Pose for me, cowgirl.” You smile widely, heading a few steps back, heading towards the large porcelain horse sculpture in the corner. Steve frowns because, when did that spawn? He shrugs, following you until he sees you pose, holding onto the horse that is standing on two of its feet. He snorts when you pretend to give the horse a kiss, and is that jealousy he feels for a piece of inanimate porcelain?

He swallows when you pull your vest down tighter, a more provocative pose. More skin of yours being revealed, more of your flesh that he wants to touch. He takes a picture and he is trying to think of something else to distract you from taking that last one for himself. He pretends to jump and turn around in his place. 

“What’s in the other rooms? I wonder if Eddie went into one of those.” He lies as he moves away and you jump up, rushing to get the whiskey bottle and following Steve as he holds the flashlight and camera. 

“Wait for me!” You whine. Steve is biting his bottom lip as he looks at the developing picture in the same hand he holds the flashlight. Mission accomplished. He sees you rush forward in front of him and– His eyes stuck to your ass again. You really should stop moving like this. Today is not the best day for you to show off that you look this good in tight jeans.

He sees you open the door from the room that is next to the one you two were just in. 

“Holy fuck…” A plastic wrap covers the entirety of it, protecting it from dust, bugs and humidity. Your eyes open like plates as well, sighing in surprise as you approach the massive mattress. 

Your hands immediately grab onto the plastic and you start ripping it off. Steve walks over to the dresser, wiping the surface off before placing the camera and then the flashlight on it, making it face the ceiling to turn it into a pretend lamp. It is very dim, but it works. He wobbles towards you, helping you with the weight of the plastic wrap. He almost tumbles a few times, which only makes you giggle. Once the plastic is off, you get on the bed, standing in the middle of it with your knees. 

“Sunshine–?” His voice gets cut off when you start bouncing, your hips going up and down and up and down, and your breasts and your body and– 

“Oh, this wasn’t made just for sleeping!” You giggle as if unaware of the images you just gave him. The fucking fantasies that flashed in his mind in a milisecond. You had just conjured images of yourself in many positions and with much less clothes than you had now, and you managed all that by just bouncing on a bed. 

He has to focus. The alcohol is making it all go south. It is going faster by the minute, and he is afraid of not being able to stop it. He feels sweaty, suffocated, and then you plop down on the bed with a huff, taking off the hat, you throw it on the bedside table. Laying on that bed would not be a good idea. Drunk Steve should leave. Drunk Steve should look away. Drunk Steve should leave you alone for the night.

But he can’t control himself. He wants to be near you. He wants to be close to you. So he lies down next to you, looking up at the ceiling. His head starts spinning in a good way, and oh fuck, he is sure having a hangover tomorrow. 

“I’m so fucking drunk that I feel so good, Stevie…” You mumble out, and he smiles, nodding.

“Me too.” He turns on his side to look at you properly, and you are still looking up.

“Does sex feel this good too? I imagine it does.” Your question catches him off guard. Sober Steve would have become nervous and wouldn’t have known what to properly say. He hums, making you look at him.

“It depends.”

“Depends?”

“Mhm. You can have sex, sure, but if the other person only cares for their own pleasure and is selfish? Kinda sucks. Or sex without feelings, that also sucks too.” You are caught off guard by his answer, making you turn on your side to face him. Despite the wide bed, you two are close, too close. Maybe one hand away from each other.

“So, you never had sex just because?” You ask, and he chuckles, nodding.

“I have, that’s why I can tell you that sex like that sucks.” You blink a few times, feeling a lump in your throat. Your head is spinning, and your heart is singing, and you don’t know if it is nausea or butterflies in your belly, but maybe it is a mix.

“And… would you do it again?” His eyes find yours at your question, and one of the qualities alcohol had was that it made you honest.

“Sex without feelings?... No. I wouldn’t, Sunshine.” And for some reason, that answer of his made you want to sigh out of relief. But the answer made you think a bit more, your eyes moving down from his.

“I wouldn’t do it normally… but I don’t think there’s another way for me to experience it… So I guess I would.” His heart plummeted at that. You would give your virginity away if the situation were to present itself. He felt his throat closing up at the thought of it, and rationally he should not care. Rationally, he should nod at it, and if it happened, good for you.

But fuck does he feel sick thinking of the possibility of another man touching you.

The horrible thought gets interrupted when you let out a big sigh, your eyes slowly closing.

“I hope my kids don’t get to see this, the world as it is now.” Your words shock him, making him raise up using his elbow for support, which kind of makes him dizzy.

“You… what kids?” You open your eyes to find his alarmed ones, making you giggle as you shake your head.

“I don’t have kids now! I meant– I meant my future kids, if medicine allows me to have them.” Your giggle dies down when you find him just staring at you. You feel a little intimidated and shy, making you pout. “I like the idea of having kids, sue me! I’m 22 years old!”

His heart becomes a furnace of pure warmth with your words, making his mind feel a little foggy, a little heavy. His eyes drift down for a second towards your belly… just one second. Fuck, oh no.

“I didn’t say anything, I was just surprised.” You see him lay back down with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling. “I want kids too. Six, to be exact.” 

“SIX!?” You yell, the emotion coming out naturally at the surprise. 

"I know, I know, it's a lot and the world isn't the best place to be right now but... I just want a big family. I always did.” He admits to you for the first time. Your eyes are looking at his profile, your mind filled with possibilities, with images of a future that started including little details you never expected.

"That sounds... nice. A big house... with a pool. A dog. Maybe one set of them are twins..." You start with your rambling, your eyes looking up at the ceiling as the image forms right in front of your eyes. Steve smiles, as if connected to you, as if he could see what you were imagining.

"Get to take them to the lake. Buying a suv." You giggle at those words, but nodding nonetheless. He follows you with a chuckle, looking at you at the same time you turn your head to look at him.

"Can't forget the family movie nights." He nods at that, and his voice starts lowering, his stomach flipping into itself as the words slip out of his lips before he could contain them.

"Yeah... and then when the kids are all sleeping, I can finally be alone with... my wife, partner. Have that solitude for each other." And you hum for a minute in thought, not realizing how Steve was looking at you.

"Honestly, with six kids? I think the one thing I would do is sleep." And you giggle but Steve keeps looking at you. Just looking at you.

"Yeah... you would definitely sleep." Steve smiles, still staring at you, never looking away from you, not even when he catches himself thinking of that future with you. Of walking into the living room after putting the last kid to bed, ready to spend the night on the couch with you, only to find you sleeping. The image of that is so endearing to him. His warm smile widens, his chest flutters with warmth. 

You close your eyes, humming at his words. A lazy, yet happy smile lingers on your face as you move closer to him, searching for his warmth, for his touch. 

“You getting tired, sleepy head?” He whispers, his eyes softening as he watches you snuggle up against him. 

You only nod in response. 

Your hand brushes against his, and he looks down, moving without thinking. He envelopes your hand in his, pressing his larger palm against your own. 

You open your eyes, and you are so close now that your nose almost brushes against his. Your breath hitches in your throat as his own does too. 

Steve’s eyes flicker across your face, staying on your lips for longer than they should, for it to mean nothing, for it to be friendly. You look down at his lips too, craving them on your own so badly. 

Your heart skips a beat. You want to kiss him, you want to kiss him so badly. And everything in the way he looks at you, in the way he squeezes your hand as he finally entwines his fingers with your own, tells you that he wants it too. 

And yet, neither of you make the final move. 

Neither of you step over the line that you both want to cross so badly. 

But you won’t lie and say that all his reactions, all his actions tonight, didn’t fill you with confidence. 

For tonight, you move closer, giving him one last smile and a squeeze to his hand before you curl into him, snuggling against his body and tucking your head under his chin. And your confidence only grows when he doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around you, to squeeze you, and pull you into his embrace. 

And then… he presses his lips to the top of your head, and your final decision is made. 

So maybe you won’t kiss him tonight, but you will kiss him tomorrow. 

☀︎

taglist: @prettyboyeddiemunson @pretentious-blonde @thecreelhouse @tvserie-s-world @thesickestqrmydcll @crispystarfishhottub @sophal22 @definitionwanderlust @talkativecarnation @mysticalwoolenfroglegs @ariesandwolves @mortqlprojections @sattlersquarry @sherrylyn0628 @purpleeyeswithgoldensparkles @micheledawn1975 @keepingitlokiii @littleromanoff2005 @sunshine-mrk @xxladymjxx @bananasplits-world @myharrington

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

May 12th

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1. Hey .

So I just can’t find this fic anymore no matter how much I have tried . It’s abo where omega we’d is expecting . Sort of a 5 + 1 format where people around him know he’s expecting even before he does. There’s one scene with lqr where he says something offensive and makes wwx cry . And lqr says that’s the exact look his sister in law gave him when she was expecting lw. Is there any lead on which this fic is ?

Thaaanks in advance :)

FOUND? What to Expect When You’re Unexpectedly Expecting (and you don’t know it) by gamayuglagay (gracon_bacon) (M, 1k, WangXian , Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Modern AU, Mpreg, Fluff, Humor, Comedy, Misunderstandings)

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2. I’m looking for a fic I remember reading ages ago I think was called my monster or something like that? I’m pretty sure it followed mo xuanyu when he was first brought to the Jin sect and was him having issues but finding a secretly captured and tortured wwx in the dungeons. He calls him his monster because of his broken body and eventually tells the lans somehow? Lqr thinks he calls him a monster because of the demonic cultivation and is shocked to hear no it’s because of how jacked up wwx is? Thanks for any help finding this!! @preciouscommoditybears

FOUND! i’ll take a secondhand monster by Stratisphyre (T, 24k, MXY & WWX, MXY & JGY, LSZ & LWJ, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Bullying, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kidfic, Minor canonical character death, Injured WWX, Earn Your Happy Ending)

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3. Hi! I am looking for a series of short fics. The base premise is that Yiling Laozu Wei Wuxian is trialed and sentenced by the clans to be hunted. Everyone presumes Wei Wuxian will die in the hunt, but he manages to kill the 1000 Jin hunters and he survives the hunt. If I remember correctly the series never actually tells what happened during the hunt: the various fics cover what happens in the aftermath. Thank you for your help!

FOUND! the wild hunt series by antebunny (G, 18k, WangXian, JYL & JL, WWX & JL, WWX & JC, LXC & LWJ, Canon Divergence, Angst, Non-Linear Narrative, Canon-Typical Violence, JL and his many many uncles, JGY is morally ambiguous but okay, BAMF WWX, WWX is innocent of literally everything for plot purposes, JYL Lives, Not Everyone Dies, Hopeful Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, what is fanfiction but 10k of reunions, Found Family, Fluff, they’re soft your honor, Domestic Fluff, Happy Ending)

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4. A )Hello, I am looking for a fic I read awhile ago. All I remember is that after the first siege, Wei ying take a-yuan away and runs away from the world. Lan zhan goes to find them and finds them in a cabin miles away from the cultivation world with a-yuan having a fever. They go see a doctor and i think Yanli was still alive and trying to find a way to bring wwx back home.

B) I am also looking for one I saw was ask, but couldn't find if it was found: it was a time travel, JC got back and found kid!WWC in Yiling, and somehow left him at BM. Then WQ, who also got back (JC doesn’t know that yet) takes him to her parents, and I think he grows up as a Wen. They both visit him through the years, and I think even LWJ shows up at some point.

Hopefully you can find them.

Thank you so mucb in advance @mariallia

4A)

FOUND? something left to save by androids_fighting93 (E, 57k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, No Bloodbath of Nightless City, JYL Lives, Not Everyone Dies AU, Hurt/Comfort, single dad WWX, Sick Character, Golden Core Reveal, the lightest d/s dynamic if you squint, handjobs, Anal Sex, Canon-Typical Dynamics)

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5. Hello! I lost a fic series I read here in Tumblr, please help me find either the fic or the author!

What I remember is;

• Imperial!Lan. Prince Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian(of Jiang Family) have an arrange marriage.

• Wei Wuxian is already in love with Prince Wangji and tries to be the best consort possible, but Prince Wangji doesn't quite like him (yet)

•There was a war. LWJ had to go fight, and WWX secretly went after him (as an archer, he watched LWJ's back)

• LWJ fell in love with WWX through the course of the war

• After their victory, on their way back home, there was an assassination and WWX shielded LWJ from sword/arrow. There were 2 possible ending...

• Happily Ever After! WWX survived his wounds and they got married and had Ayuan afterwards.

• Tragic Ending! WWX died, entered the city in coffin lauded as a hero. Jiang Cheng got mad at LWJ and went to his house to kill him. JC found out that LWJ went crazy and still thinks and acts as if WWX is alive.

I really like this series and was so heartbroken when I couldn't find it anymore. I remember the other works of this author is also good reads, highly recommended 👌

FOUND? rebuttable presumption by sarah-yyy

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6. Looking for a Wangxian modern AU office meet-cute involving double-mistaken identity hijinks & shenanigans @olimlacus

Does WWX call LWJ mistakenly thinking he is the IT guy ? (LWJ is actually the head of the IT department. WWX is a downtrodden graphic designer for the same company)

FOUND? 🧡 Hello, IT. Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again? By overmountainandmeadow (T, 65k, WangXian, Modern AU, Office, Modern office AU, IT Director! LWJ, Graphic Designer! WWX, Father!LWJ, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Juniors as interns, Light Angst, Mistaken Identity, Identity Porn, Rabbits, Cloud Recesses as a company, Happy Ending, Single Parent LWJ)

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7. Hello,

thank you for your great work. 💖

I'm not sure which tag would fit my search because I only remember few things.

WX or LZ has the idea that Gusu and the Cloud Recesses are big enough that nobody would realize when the Wen remnants would resettle there. I think some become farmers, other new members of the Lan clan and WX + A-Yuan move in with LZ.

I think there is also a scene with LX who is basically 😳🤯 because LZ told him nothing about his new family and so he still believes the Lin rumours.

I have no idea if it is an one-shot or a longer story. My ideas to search for it on Ao3 were too bad so I hope you can help. 😌

Thank you in advance for your work and help. 🌸🦋🐇 @dream-about-dancing

FOUND! 🔒💖 (💙) Paths untaken by apathyinreverie (T, 6k, wangxian, LSZ & WWX, canon divergence, fix-it, fluff, not cultivation world friendly, smitten LWJ)  

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8. Hi! I am looking for a fic where everyone thinks Wei Wuxian died, but he actually didn’t. He tries to hide away, thinking it is for the best that everyone move past him, but he can’t help feeling awful when he sees Lan Zhan’s grief. So WWX pretends to be a water spirit ghost, and he pops up in lakes and streams near Lan Zhan so that the two can talk. They meet here and there when Lan Zhan goes out for night hunts or conventions and the like. Eventually Lan Zhan begins spending all his time at the shore so that he can stay with Wei Wuxian's "ghost", and Lan Xichen thinks his brother has gone insane with grief. I would love love love to read this again if anyone can point me in the right direction! Thank you for your help!!

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9. Hi!! Im looking for a fic where wanxian was betrothed at a young age, and there was also a curse or a prophecy that prevented wwx from showing his face to anyone (he wore a silver mask - the summary talked about this i think). anyways, once wanxian got married, for a mysterious reason (had not been revealed in the fic yet), lwj completely ignores wwx, wont let him take off his mask, and works with wq on some project. however, everyone thought wq/lwj were having an illicit affair. wwx is hurt by the unfaithfulness and the coldness of the family he married into. i think he either leaves or gets himself banished (dont remember) and lives with someone (jiang yanli maybe, she was definitely there, but there might have been an oc character - dont remember) in an isolated manor for a while, until the wens attack. then he defends the area he lives in (probably yiling tbh), and is called back to the lans so that he might be honored. he didnt want to go though due to his previous humiliation at their hands, but has no choice in the end.

i think that is where the fic "ended" for me, as it was unfinished. i also remember one distinct scene, which is wen qing coming to see wwx in his banishment(?), and has lwj's headband with her, which upsets wwx. furthermore, there were hints in the plot that lwj was being controlled by something (vines, maybe) and is having wq (doctor) treat him. jiang yanli also shows up a good amount.

the fic was >500 kudos, >100000 words, and unfinished (both might have increased since i read it, however, and the fic mightve been completed. The kudos and wc are also estimates in my memory). it was a lot of hurt, little comfort, heavy angst. if it is still unfinished and unupdated it would have been probably last updated in 2021/2022. if you know of it, it would be great help! Thank you in advance! @eviichee

FOUND! Should be the deleted "A Price To Pay" by wangxianist. It's not on the Wayback Machine, but it is in this Google Drive Folder

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10. Hello! I couldn't find this so this is where it starts, it's lan wangji going bat shit insane after wei wuxian dies and I remember he ruled the cultivation world and he killed Jiang Cheng and meng yao, also nie huisang was the one who summoned wei wuxian because he wants lan wangji either to continue to rule or be happy, I remember wei wuxian going to the cloud recesses confused because everyone was talking about lan wangji.

FOUND? A Matter of Time by mrcformoso (E, 41k, wangxian, Time Travel Fix-It, POV LWJ, POV JC, Dark LWJ, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, LWJ goes crazy, Manipulation, Grooming, Except LWJ and WWX are physically the same age, but LWJ kept his 30 year old mind, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Consensual Underage Sex, Except problematic please read warning in first chapter, Blood and Violence, Insane LWJ, Manic LWJ, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Conditioning, Come Eating, Come Swallowing, Anal Fingering, WWX is a Lan, Minor Character Death, Golden Core Reveal, Good Friend NHS, WWX Isn’t Adopted by the Jiangs, Abusive Jiang Family, Jiang Family Bashing, POV NHS, Dark NHS, Anal Sex, Marathon Sex, Dual Cultivation, Horny WangXian, Qingheng-jun Lives, LWJ Has a Big Dick, WWX Self-Lubricates, Plot Twists, Porn With Plot, Lanling Jin Sect Bashing, Scheming NHS, Manipulative NHS, BAMF LWJ, BAMF WWX, BAMF NHS, Burial Mounds Lore, Sentient Burial Mounds, Married WangXian, Adopted LSZ, Breathplay, Dark WWX, Yandere LWJ, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat) I am not sure and I don't remember Jiang Cheng's death, but the description sounds similar

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11. Hi! For the fic finder, I am trying to find a fic where after nightless city, WWX is captured rather than killed, and he ends up being imprisoned, I think by the Nie, eventually? I do remember that no one feeds wwx because they assume he can keep himself alive with his golden core (they might have did something to his mouth to keep him from whistling?) and that he nearly dies. Thank you in advance!

FOUND? 🔒❤️ whipstitch by curiositykilled (M, 131k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Dysfunctional Family, Torture, WWX Lives, but basically no one else, Case Fic, Cultivation Sect Politics, Past Abuse, WWX Whump, YLLZ WWX, JL Needs a Hug, JL Tries, Yunmeng Bro Reconciliation, Past Character Death, Body Horror, Non-Consensual Body Modification, POV Alternating, Flashbacks, Eventual Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Suicide Attempt, PTSD, Depression, Not A Fix-It, Mouth Sewn Shut)

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12. Hii, I'm looking for a fic I read a while ago that I thought I saved but that was not the case so now it's lost and I can't find it😭. It's a modern Au fic in Wich if I'm not wrong Lz and wxx meet in an airport because they're flies got cancelled , I think they were going to different places but anyway. I don't recall why they ended up in a hotel that night, more specifically in the same room, the thing is that they discovered they were fated mates so that kind of triggered their heats, they fucked like 3 days straight or something like that and were all in love with each other, they bonded I think, although I'm not pretty sure. The end of the fic is they go separate ways to do what they were supposed to do and then it shows they got married and Wxx is either pregnant or with a baby or toddler A-yuan.

If you can help me find this fic I would appreciate it very much, thanks!♥️ @anonimtak

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13. hiiiii im looking for this greek mythology au where lwj is the god of flowers (persephone) and wwx is the god of the underworld (hades) and i dont remember much but i know lwj kissed him while he wore a blindfold and it was also quite smutty @ashxi-wx

FOUND? Flowers Blooming in the Dark by TheLegendOfChel (T, 64k, WangXian, Gods & Goddesses, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, but it’s still in a xianxia/wuxia setting, Pining, Mutual Pining, Courtship, Forbidden Love, Hades and Persephone AU, Kidnapping, Kind Of, Smitten LWJ, Smitten WWX, Fluff, Courting Rituals, Secret Relationship, Minor XuanLi, Minor ChengSang, references to wwx’s canonical kinks, Child LSZ, Tooth-Rotting Fluff)

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14. Excuse me, but could you please help me find a Post-Canon Wangxian fic? One where they go into the desert and fight against mummies? Possibly inspired by the Ben Frasier Mummy movies? Please and thank you. Have a good day. 👍 @kaitou-cure-prism12

FOUND? Bitter Plants Bearing Sweet Fruit by Kryal (M, 83k, WangXian, graphic depictions of violence, canon-typical horror elements, Worldbuilding, Desert, Misuse of Historic Setting, Original Character Death(s), Case Fic, aftermath of canon, ridiculously long author notes, Established Relationship, Nothing Explicit But Shameless Innuendo)

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15. Hi! I've been scouring the blog and ao3 alike but I can't seem to find a really specific wangxian fic and I was hoping ya'll could help me out. It was essentially a horror, demon (or spirit) possession fic where Lan Zhan gets possessed. I think it was established relationship but I'm not sure, but it definitely ends with smut. It was pretty creepy and I'd love to read it again. Thanks a bunch! @just-some-person-with-a-blog

FOUND? 🔒 Vagabond by xantissa (E, 65k, WangXian, Slow Burn, Mystery, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Frottage, Case Fic, murders, Supernatural, Angst, Fluff, those two are so in love it hurts, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, badass LXC, Canon-Typical Violence, topLWJ, Bottom LWJ) but Wei Ying returns to Cloud Recesses post-canon in the hopes of starting a relationship with Lan Zhan (they're not in an established relationship to begin with).

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16. so i want to find a fic. all i remembered wass that lwj (hgj) married the yllz. this fic is a shifter AU so dragon lwj and huli jing yllz, at the time they married, wwx shift to a woman and always wear his veil. but a night bc he thought that lwj cant see him in the dark (it was explained that drgaons has a night sight so he can see in the dark) he took off his veil and sleep beside lwj, he also shift back to become a man (this is a probaility, i dont remember that much). In the end, bc lwj already know it's wei ying he confronted him, and they live happily ever after. it was either arranged or of convinient bc wwx is yllz ok, so he is like a war prize ig. thank you for your hardwork bb!

FOUND? 💖 Paths of Light and Darkness Converge by ataratah (E, 30k, WangXian, Marriage of Convenience, Animal Transformation, gender non-conforming mythological creature, Non-Human Genitalia, Secret Identity, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Angst, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Happy Ending, Everyone Lives, Fox WWX, Dragon LWJ, Genderfluid Character, WWX can change gender, but uses masculine pronouns, Double Penetration in One Hole, LWJ & WWX's canonical pregnancy kink, discussion of planned future pregancy, no actual pregnancy or mpreg, Supportive LQR, Canon-Typical Violence)

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17. Hello! A request for a Fic Finder. I suddenly remembered, i am quite sure, a short twt thread where there was a comparison between Wangxian and the Sun and the Moon, but not the more common one.

Lan Zhan was compared to the Sun, radiant to the point of being blindning, grandiose and impossible to look at for a long time, steady and always here for those looking for warmth and protection, the first to wake up at the dawn and the first to go to sleep at the same time in the night.

Wei Ying was compared to the Moon - also shining, but possible to always seek out and stare at, lightning the way for everyone in the dark of the night, always fluttering around the Sun (his Lan Zhan) on its orbit and always following it (him) around.

I remember the thread being short and concentrated fully on this comparison. It could have an answer to another thread where Wei Ying was the Sun and Lan Zhan the Moon or had this said in the first post as the base for the thread about another opinion. Please help me find it, it was so sweet and lovely, i really hope it is still out here or maybe even turned into AO3 story ❤️🥺 @shellennium

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18. hiiiii im looking for this one modern BJ Alex au of wangxian @ashxi-wx

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19. Hello again! Thank you as always for the hard work! As usual, I checked the compilations first, but I still couldn't find what I'm looking for. It's a fic where Wei Wuxian is a merman or jiaoren, but for some reason I remember he got injured and had to stay in a lake in Caiyi where LWJ visited (or maybe guarded?) him and that's how they fell in love. I remember Su She was there and either wanted WWX or was jealous of him, and I think the fic might have been rated G or T? That's everything I remember, I think. Thank you and have a great week!

FOUND? 🔒 Secrets of Yunmeng’s Lotus Lakes by Cy_an_Blue (M, 73k, WangXian, one-sided SS/WWX, A/B/O, Omega WWX, Mermaid WWX, Cultivator LWJ, Younger WWX, Younger LWJ, teenage WWX, teenage LWJ, No War AU, Non-Traditional A/B/O Dynamics, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Awkwardness, Injury Recovery, Injury, Blood and Injury, accidental injury, Accidental Stabbing, Cultivation Accidents, Near Death, Near Death Experiences, waterborne abyss, Kidnapping, Non-Explicit Torture, Mentions of major injury, People are evil, people are greedy bastards, Fluff, Attempted Sexual Assault, SS being ick, Courtship, Courting Rituals)

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20. Hi, I’m looking for a fic where canon divergence after I think the Xuanwu of Slaughter Wei Wuxian gives birth to a baby boy, and gives the care over to Wen Yuans mother. He gave birth under Wen Qings care. And after the war he goes and gets both children from the labor camps and claims both children are his and Lan WangJi’s at the Jin banquet and that is how he frees the Wens.

If you could find it that would be very appreciated. @scrumptiouseclipseponyllama

FOUND? Take Responsibility by draechaeli (E, 187k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Mainly Novel with a few CQL and Donghua bits, Everybody Lives, Original Children Characters, Adoption, Adoption but WWX birthed them all, Mpreg, Teen Pregnancy, Pregnancy Kink, Male Lactation, Lactation Kink, Consensual Non-Consent, Light Bondage, Pregnant Sex, easy to skip nsfw chapters, Fix-It, Happy Ending)

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[kayywaiii]

good person !! ⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆

{prohero!izuku x neighbor!reader}

summary : after a particularly shitty night and a heroic sleep rescue leaves you keen over a mysteriously kind man, you find him again after a run in with his very not allowed cat.

mood song : carnival - the cardigans (- w - )

words : 3.3k wrds

warnings : light cursing, FLUFF, kissing, tan curly haired izuku agenda, mentions of scars+injury, crushing izuku, light themes of stalking, (not really tho) izuku goes feral for reader, reader has a dog, izuku has a cat, next door romance

authors note: i literally stopped a wip for this bc i just saw the vision like in my near future ... also like i made this cute banner and for what now i had to finish it !! also i was probably riding on the motivation of knowing izuku's the number 4 hero now uh hell yeah

You weren’t making it to class on time tomorrow, you were sure of it. 

God, could their arguing get any louder? Why this late at night? What could it possibly even be about?

Something about rent… and then something else about another girl. Then an entire monologue about heroes and villains… was this guy serious? You stared at your apartment ceiling, two pillows pressed against your ears and a hopeful thought that a lighting strike would just take both of them down ringing through your head. Maybe then you could get a full night's rest, or at the very least, enough for your class tomorrow morning. You promised to yourself that you weren’t normally that violent, just particularly sleepy– and to be fair to them you weren’t a fierce arbiter of the complex rules either. There were three:

No Loud Noises After 10pm Keep Respectful of Complex Property  Absolutely No Pets 

It’s not like you strictly followed all three… you were housing a small dog, Kiwi, even though your landlord made it personally clear that there were no pets allowed. And you tried to get rid of her a few months ago when you first moved in, you really did. But her floppy ears, spots on her cheeks that were reminiscent of freckles, and lightly browned fur had you swooning, and before you even knew it, you were already hiding her toys during inspections. 

So, maybe it felt a little hypocritical to wish death upon the couple on the breezeway outside. Still, you had half a mind to go out there and lecture them until they both worked out whatever grudge they had against each other. A dog was one thing, especially if she never barked, not even once. But these people outside— they did a whole lot of barking. And you almost got up too, clad in your pajamas and all, ready to stumble into the outdoor hallway and curse until your point got across.  But a voice, smooth and decadent interrupted their yelling, so sweet you could practically hear the soft smile he wore. The man coaxed the both of them not only to calm down, but apologize too. And… god, was he making them hug? You were baffled by the sheer volume of the diplomatic people skills this person must have been sporting, you were sure it must be their quirk. Whatever it was it got them quiet enough for you to drift off to sleep, sullen and dreaming about a man that would whisk you away with a smile.

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ

A shuffling at your window the next morning awoke you, dazed and confused after the best sleep in your life. Something about that guy’s voice just brought you there, damn there hanging off your twin sized bed and drool swept against the inner corner of your mouth. You lifted your head, running a hand over your hair before sliding off your bed to make a quick coffee. You muttered something about a breezy shower and– was the sun shining a little brighter this morning? You swore your copious amounts of house plants looked fuller with life today, your posters of various heroes illuminated and basking in the glory of the bright sun. You swore your small studio looked bigger in a sense, more light as you took out your takeout from the fridge. You stood at your counter, shoveling noodles into your mouth and breathing in this much needed– and much limited– time of peace. 

Another shuffling at the window just above your bed startled you, setting the takeout box down and climbing on top of the bed built into the nook of your room between the apartment and bathroom wall. A small cat purred at your window, eyes wide and big and brown, brushing its fur at the glass. It meows loudly, putting its paw over the hatch and seemingly gesturing you to open your window. Candles and small potted plants lined the ledge of the window, making it hard for you to find the lock to click it open. When you finally did, the small thing leapt through the opening and straight onto your bed. You scoff, bewildered. You weren’t the only person in the complex breaking the rules, you guessed. 

“Hey there, sweet thing…where's your owner?” You scrunch your eyebrows together, watching the cat hop down from your bed and stretch over your floor like it owned the space it sat. It let out a soft meow, large eyes blinking back at you as it skipped over your furniture and picked at your plants. Then, that voice– rugged and clearly fatigued called out from the open corridors outside. 

“Neko?” He spoke, the sounds of clattering pots and keychains ringing from right outside your apartment door. He swore faintly when a pot shattered on the ground. Swept potting mix scattered under your door at the attempt of a makeshift cleanup, the whoosh of stray dead leaves catching the cat's attention and it scratched at the door.  “Neko, come on– I’ve got work…” 

“Is that you? Are you Neko?” You mumbled, clicking open your door. Reflected green shot across your vision, sun rays passing through his curls and painting your apartment walls like the Sistine Chapel. A light breeze whisked past the green’s hair and led your eyes to his tan, freckled face, one that knocked the thoughts right from your skull. He smelled of vanilla and freshly groomed puppies, like something soft you could just flop into, sleep for a little while. He swore, eyes widening at your sudden appearance, and carding a hand lightly through his tresses. Then he groaned, trying to brush white broken clay shards into his gloved palm. 

“Crap, I’m– I’m so, so sorry… I’ll replace this.” He hurriedly muttered, flicking his head down and furrowing his brows in contained frustration. Your breath left your body, face warming in silent attraction as you cleared your throat and leaned over him to check the damage. Hundreds of tiny bits of argil sat at his feet, littered across the breezeway and towards the edge of the corridor. Bits of thick pieces you’d hand painted sat face up on the concrete, and so did the small bud that had been slowly inching towards the complex ceiling for weeks.

“Don’t… stress about it, ‘s fine. Not your fault I was too lazy to take it inside.” You choke up and force a smile, playing with a pimple on the base of the back of your neck. God, you knew you were jittery, watching him stand to his full height and cup the pieces of pot in his clunky gloves. You were hardly able to force out a coherent sentence, nevermind keep up a steady conversation with your next-door neighbor. 

Here he was, donning his hero armor and flowing yellow cape that he barely tucked under grey sweats. Chunky red shoes and gloves that clanked against his midriff, and the designs on his chest were faded and worn out. “You’re– Deku… aren’t you?” 

“Ah–Izuku,” He gives you a soft smile. “I, uh…  don’t think there’s a need for titles, we’re neighbors.” You dorkily nod, keeping your eyes anywhere but his. His presence felt overpowering, yet friendly, fit for the number four hero who not only rocketed in the ranks, but in popularity too. 

“Oh– well, thank you.” You curse internally, wishing this morning would already end. He chuckles, and that only seems to make it worse for the raging embarrassment seeping deep into your chest. He lets out an exasperated huff, shaking his head and keeping a strict eye on the doors down the hall. “I should be thanking you for sweeping this little one up.” He scoops his cat up from the floor beside you before opening his door and pushing him into the room. “He likes to roam.” A fond grin crosses his face.

“Actually– I wanted to thank you… for last night?” Your eyes bounce back up to his, taking in the way his biceps flex with every indifferent movement. Your neck heated up when his yellow scarf, faded and caked in dirt stains, fluttered behind him in the chilly spring wind. And God, you wished he was still tired and didn’t notice your shameless, obvious– and oh so necessary– ogling of him through his hero costume. “It was you wasn’t it? I– was actually able to get the best sleep.” You gushed, fighting the urge to drop to your knees and thank him raucously until the neighbors filed a complaint. It was just that important to you. Your sleep, that is. 

 He stared at you for a moment, before looking at his shoes in modesty and giving you a weak thumbs up. “It’s… no problem, really. It’s still kind of my job even if I’m off the clock.” He shuffled his feet and looked away, curt wind rushing through your thin sweater and making you shiver like a stray dog. You nodded awkwardly, about to retreat back into your studio when his voice called out again.

“I’ve got another way you could thank me!” He suddenly and practically yelled at you, catching a wrist in his blushing hand before dropping his fingers and clearing his throat.

You paused, eyes widening as you looked back at him. His face was visibly red, eyes darting with a nervousness you’d never seen displayed on a pro hero. You flushed, lashes fluttering and you felt so sick. Were you seriously about to throw up in front of him like this?

“Sorry?” You manage to mumble.

“Would…a date be okay?” He swallowed hard, bringing a calloused, gloved hand to his neck and playing with a curl. Your fingers clenched around the handle of the door, blinking in surprise and pure confusion as he watched you carefully, awaiting an answer. The silence was deafening, save for the soft meow and scratching of Neko at the door and the calm breeze whisking past the both of you in waves. Something about his clear nervousness calmed you, giving you enough courage to nod and say, “That’d– be great.”

ᯓ★ˎˊ˗

Izuku never had great luck with his words, his passionate spiels saved for the nassiest of villains who’d he believed deserved redemption. He just wanted to be a good person, someone that people regarded as a good man, like All Might. With that, his love for saving others always speaks for him, quickly leaving his mouth in perfect and persuasive sentences. With you, however? It was the most challenging thing he’s ever attempted. It'd been months before he finally spoke to you, and he was sure you hardly even knew he lived there due to your clearly starstruck expression. He’d watched you move in, heard you cursing up a storm over university homework, lugging in packages of dog food– which he knew you weren’t supposed to have. And yet still, he only hyped himself up in the expanse of his apartment, opting out of actually getting to the part where he might ask you out.

And so, he only watched you from afar– that was until today, when he’d haphazardly left his bedroom window ajar for his cat to sneak out and hop onto the flower boxes from flat to flat, keen on taking a rest in a particular someone’s bed. And now here you were, Neko languidly stretching at your feet like he hadn’t just ruined Izuku’s life. 

And Jesus did you look pretty, a thin sweater flanking a tank and pj pants hanging low on your hips. That was it, his life was ruined. He had no idea what to say to you, you who now looked at him with what he could only guess was annoyance at his breaking of your pot. And then you gave him a smile, assurance lacing your tone and a familiar excitement prevalent when you spoke again. 

“You’re Deku, aren’t you?” 

That just about killed him. And you were oh so pretty when you spoke– and when you thanked him profusely– that just about killed him too. 

Izuku scoured his brain, unable to flip through carefully picked notes and instead having to remember ounces of dating advice from Kacchan and Kirishima. His palms sweated and he brought them to wipe on his sweatpants. God, he felt like a highschooler again, that same dork who stuttered over every syllable. Kacchan would be confident, wouldn’t he? Loudmouthed, cocky– there was nothing keeping him from what he wanted. Izuku just had to channel all that. And that should be easy, right?

Shit, she’s walking away! He grimaced, feeling bile rise in his throat, catching your wrist, tongue finally betraying his mind’s first thoughts. 

“I’ve– I’ve got another way you could thank me.” He swallowed and allowed himself to meet your gaze, if only for a split moment. 

“...Sorry?” 

“Do you want to go out with me?” He tentatively asked, breach catching in his throat at your stricken expression. Your face was red, eyes widening in either shock or pure amusement. A cold wind passed, a moment passing seemingly even longer than that. And his breath all but left his body when you nodded and spoke, a smile widening on your face. 

“Okay.”

ᯓ★ˎˊ˗

His apartment was quaint, similar layout to yours, save for the bathroom adjacent to his small bed. It was a wonder he could even fit in it, you thought, looking over his height and large arms as he stood at his kitchenette opposite of the door. This setting was a lot more intimate than the first few of your dates a few months ago, your first one being to a nice restaurant, and then a lunch picnic at his agency. He always said he wanted to cook for you, which is why now, a few months into your relationship, he finally felt confident enough to do so.

 The room smelled of sizzling chicken and boiling noodles, the green bouncing from appliance to appliance muttering recipe ingredients to himself. You watched from the small arm chair he’d forced you to take a seat in, a practically offended look on his face when you offered your help.

“Are you kidding me?” He’d gawked. “Sit, I’ll cook for you.” 

So, instead you stared at pictures hung high on his apartment walls, some of his mother and others of his former classmates. Dynamight still wore his signature scowl, even as a teen, and Shoto timidly smiled for the camera. Izuku, clad in his UA uniform beamed bright, messy curls hardly kept like bright, flickering fire catching a swift air. It reminded you of your friends at secondary school, enthusiastic and eager for the world the new heros had promised. And Midoriya’s passion all but reassured you that promise would be kept. 

A short curse came from the man and the sound of glass shattering made your eyes flick up to him, his eyebrows scrunched tightly wound as he tried his best to flick the pain from his hand. You rose, quickly moving to where he was crouched near a broken glass jar and a large gash was present on his palm. Neko stretched atop the counter, eyes slit and a guilty meow coming from him. You sank next to Izuku, looking over his wound and bringing a cloth hanging from the oven to his cut. “Thanks…” He muttered, an embarrassed look in his eyes when they finally flicked up to you, to your sympathetic focus. He had to admit though, you looked really pretty up close like this. 

“Damn Neko.” He chuckled and you followed suit, helping him up and to his bathroom. It was a simple four by four, the mirror decked with motivational sticky notes and inspirational All Might posters. He blushed even more, clearing his throat and coming to a stand in front of the mirror, standing taller over the posters. “Bandages?” You asked, too preoccupied with his palm to tease him about it. “Under the sink.” He answered, voice cracking and eyes widened when you sat him down on the toilet. A comfortable silence washed over you and you as you rushed warm water over the previously used cloth and pressed it to his hand. His hands were warm, soft– apart from the countless scars littering his skin. This one, this one was just another notch added to his countless array. 

“I never pegged you for the rule breaking type, Midoriya.” You raised an eyebrow, giving him a teasing smile and he gave you a soft one back.

You rummaged through his cabinet while he watched in barely contained awe. He held his wrist, now dripping with blood and a swallow bobbing his throat as he nodded. “He’s a stray. It was cold– and it was raining… I couldn’t find it in me to leave him alone.” 

“That… sounds just like you… actually.” You chuckled, running the cloth under the water again and watching the clear liquid turn crimson. 

“What, a hero?” He wore a half-hearted smile, eyes flicking between you and his palm.

“Mm… a good person.”

His heart stuttered in his chest, breath slowing while he watched you press the bandage across his rough skin. He didn’t wince, not because it didn’t sting, but because he couldn’t help but redirect all his senses to you. His chest warmed, spreading throughout and up his throat like a liquid. You were too good and apparently you thought he was too. 

“A good person, hm?” 

“Of course.” You hummed, oblivious to the rising warmth of his cheeks and the goosebumps prickling on his skin. Did you not know how much you affected him? 

And he can’t help but lean down and capture your lips with his, leaving his bandage half lifting in the hurry of his passion. He pressed his hand to your thigh and then under it, effectively lifting you and on to his lap. Izuku tilted his head, delving deeper as you cup his freckled cheeks and giggle a soft, surprised sound. 

“Izu–” 

A strangled groan left his lips at your nickname, a knowing grin smiling into his mouth. You pushed back with just as much fervor, running your fingers over his scalp and sinking them deep into his curls. You whined when he pulled back, pressing chaste pecks to your neck and collarbone and cheek, seemingly drunk off the mere thought of you. His eyes were glazed over, hair tousled from your fingers running through it and he kept pulling you closer like you were about to disappear. He’s clearly timid, shy– but he clumsily presses his lips onto yours like he’d known to do this his entire life. 

It’s only when he hears the smoke detector ringing that he pulls away,  slipping you off his lap. He presses another kiss to your face before going to the kitchen where smoke pillows, lifting off the now burnt food and straight into the detector. He curses once more, fanning away smoke like his life solely depended on it, trying to calm the device before it annoyed the neighbors enough to contact the landlord. He carded a hand through his hair, watching you softly giggle at the entire fiasco. He let out a somewhat dejected sigh, giving you a sloppy grin and sliding across the room to cup your face. 

“I’m– sorry about dinner, love.” He exhales, but can’t help but give you more kisses on your jaw and cheek. He seemingly couldn’t pull away, large hands locked onto you like a wayward lifeline. 

“It’s cool, Zu… let's order takeout, mhm?” 

And Neko yawned, meowing in agreement atop his wooden dresser.

[lordcephalopod]

I went to look at the study and it immediately pissed me off. It's SO poorly designed.

Subjects were asked to read the first seven paragraphs OUT LOUD to facilitator during a 20 minute taped session. For many people reading out loud and reading silently are two VERY DIFFERENT different cognitive processes.

As a kid I was a delayed reader and received a lot of tutoring. I seemed to stall out, then one day they discovered my reading comprehension was actually massively above my grade level...if they let me read silently. Frequently with kids it's actually the other way around, where they over-rely on reading out loud, and struggle to read silently. Don't ask me how it works, I'm not a childhood education person, I've just been on the receiving end of this shit. Point is, it's not consistent person to person. Like you also have my husband's who can read out loud and somehow replace the words on the page with whole ass synonyms and not even realize he did it. Point is, reading aloud MAYBE isn't a great yard stick for everyone.

The study later clarifies that participants who weren't comfortable reading allowed were allowed to read silently but I have so many questions. Did participants have to speak up and say they were uncomfortable? Were they told up front they didn't have to read aloud?

They then had to "translate" what they just read into their own words. Facilitators were instructed to interrupt them to prompt their interpretation if the person kept reading? I'm not sure how this worked for the silent readers. It states: "During the sessions, subjects were asked to read out loud and then translate each sentence of the passage from Bleak House." And they had 20 min to read the 7 paragraphs.

So you're performative reading out loud for an audience with constant interruption. That is an awful setting for comprehending something you're reading. And on top of it all the these poor bastards have to read Dickens? A 19th century author? And by some horrible bout of cruelty they picked fucking BLEAK HOUSE????

For the record. I love Dickens. I do not think he is a "difficult" author. He's probably my favorite 19th century author. However I'd characterize Bleak House as uh... overwrought. Bro was getting paid by the word and boy did it show.

Here's the first paragraph of Bleak House

LONDON. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-cor- ners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. (49)

You will note, this is not a paragraph that lends itself well to being broken down sentence by sentence. It's a very stylistic, mood setting opening that's difficult to put to a literal translation on the fly since it's as much trying to establish a vibe as it is describing a street. I would argue a sentence by sentence breakdown of the paragraph would almost be missing the point.

And because it's a 19th century piece, you have period things like the horse's "blinkers" that might just catch students up who are unfamiliar with the time period. Not knowing what an old-timey Thing is isn't a failing of reading comprehension. The paper expressly shit on participants for not understanding a bunch of these words, specifically in the context of Bleak House using a bunch of English legal words that are both UK English and old fashioned. And because this is a TIMED TEST the fact that they don't know random 19th century British legal words is going to impact their reading comprehensions scores. So they get to waste their precious 20 minutes trying to google wtf a thing is, or do the thing MOST readers will do and hope they'll get clarifying context later. But apparently, according to this paper, not stopping every time you hit an unfamiliar word in a 19th century text was the WRONG answer.

Also, just think for a moment. That opening sentence is borderline meaningless to a modern American reader until you have context, and that has nothing to do with your reading comprehension! There's too many likely unknown words, and even if you google them, the grammar is intentionally kinda odd. So it's going to fuck with you if you immediately get quizzed on it. You kinda need the context of the rest of the paragraph to know what the fuck you're looking at. Talk about starting your test subjects off on the back foot.

And because you had to digest and spit out your conclusion for what that sentence meant on the spot, well, it's in your brain now. Have fun adding the context back to it by force later as you get to it!

Also lets admire that absolute chungus of a final sentence. A proper chunky boy there. Wouldn't you love reading that out loud and needing to explain that absolute unit on the fly while on camera and being judged for reading comprehension? Lmao, I understand it just fine sitting here, but no, I would die on the spot.

Like. Were the makers of this test pranking the participants on purpose? This almost feels like bad faith? This is a perfectly fine, if dense paragraph if you're allowed to read the damn thing like a normal person, not if you have to go sentence by sentence on something so intentionally stylistic. THAT'S NOT HOW READING COMPREHENSION FUCKING WORKS???

The longer I read the study the more I just felt like the makers of the study were setting people up to fail and were being dicks on purpose. I am seriously flabbergasted.

Though the people who didn't get figures of speech were a bit embarrassing I'll give them that. But that could still be easily chalked up to the bizarre testing parameters of stopping every sentence of 19th century purple ass prose to "translate" short circuiting a person's ability to make sense of the words that just tumbled into their eyes and out of their face hole.

Like, I'm not saying my thing is 100% what swayed the results. When I started college back in the stone age of like 2006 English majors had to take a grammar course because they'd found the high schools had been shitting us out so bad at grammar we needed an extra class. We have some real problems with literacy happening in this country and it's been going on for a long time. But I have REAL. SOLID BEEF WITH THIS TESTING METHODOLOGY

i appreciated this study: "They Can't Read Very Well: A Study of the Reading Comprehension Skills Of English Majors At Two Midwestern Universities"

essentially, a pair of professors set out to test their intuitive sense that students at the college level were struggling with complex text. they recruited 85 students, a mix of english majors and english education majors - so, theoretically, people focusing on literature, and people preparing to teach adolescents how to read literature - and had them read-while-summarizing the first seven paragraphs of dickens's bleak house (or as much as they made it through in the 20 minute session). they provided dictionaries and also said students could use their phones to look up whatever they wanted, including any unfamiliar words or references. they found that the majority of the students - 58%, or 49 out of the 85 students - functionally could not understand dickens at all, and only 5% - a mere 4 out of the 85 students - proved themselves proficient readers (leaving the remaining 38%, or 32 students, as what the study authors deemed "competent" students, most of whom could understand about half the literal meaning - pretty low bar for competence - although a few of whom, they note, did much better than the rest in this group if not quite well enough to be considered proficient).

what i really appreciated about this study was its qualitative descriptions of the challenges and reading behaviors of what the authors call "problematic readers" (that bottom 58%), which resonated strongly with my own experiences of students who struggle with reading. here's their blunt big picture overview of these 49 students:

The majority of these subjects could understand very little of Bleak House and did not have effective reading tactics. All had so much trouble comprehending concrete detail in consecutive clauses and phrases that they could not link the meaning of one sentence to the next. Although it was clear that these subjects did try to use various tactics while they read the passage, they were not able to use those tactics successfully. For example, 43 percent of the problematic readers tried to look up words they did not understand, but only five percent were able to look up the meaning of a word and place it back correctly into a sentence. The subjects frequently looked up a word they did not know, realized that they did not understand the sentence the word had come from, and skipped translating the sentence altogether.

the idea that they had so many trouble with every small piece of a text that they could not connect ideas on a sentence by sentence basis is very familiar to me from teaching and tutoring, as was the habit of thought seen in the example of the student who gloms on to the word "whiskers" in a sea of confusion and guesses incorrectly that a cat is present - struggling readers, in my experience, seem to use familiar nouns as stepping stones in a flood of overwhelm, hopping as best they can from one seemingly familiar image to the next. so was this observation, building off the example of a student who misses the fact that dickens is being figurative when he imagines a megalodon stalking the streets of london:

She first guesses that the dinosaur is just “bones” and then is stuck stating that the bones are “waddling, um, all up the hill” because she can see that Dickens has the dinosaur moving. Because she cannot logically tie the ideas together, she just leaves her interpretation as is and goes on to the next sentence. Like this subject, most of the problematic readers were not concerned if their literal translations of Bleak House were not coherent, so obvious logical errors never seemed to affect them. In fact, none of the readers in this category ever questioned their own interpretations of figures of speech, no matter how irrational the results. Worse, their inability to understand figurative language was constant, even though most of the subjects had spent at least two years in literature classes that discussed figures of speech. Some could correctly identify a figure of speech, and even explain its use in a sentence, but correct responses were inconsistent and haphazard. None of the problematic readers showed any evidence that they could read recursively or fix previous errors in comprehension. They would stick to their reading tactics even if they were unhappy with the results.

i have seen this repeatedly, too - actually i was particularly taken with how similar this is to the behavior of struggling readers at much younger ages - and would summarize the hypothesis i have forged over time as: struggling readers do not expect what they read to make sense. my hypothesis for why this is the case is that their reading deficits were not attended to or remediated adequately early enough, and so, in their formative years - the early to mid elementary grades - they spent a lot of time "reading" things that did not make sense to them - in fact they spent much more time doing this than they ever did reading things that did make sense to them - and so they did not internalize a meaningful subjective sense of what it feels like to actually read things.

like, i've said this before, but the year i taught third grade i had multiple students who told me they loved reading and then when i asked them about a book they were reading revealed that they had absolutely no idea what was going on - on a really basic literal level like "didn't know who said which lines of dialogue" and "couldn't identify which things or characters given pronouns referred to" - and were as best as i could tell sort of constructing their own story along the way using these little bits of things they thought they understood. that's what "reading" was, in their heads. and they were, in the curriculum/model that we used at the private school where i taught, receiving basically no support to clarify that that was not what reading was, nor any instruction that would actually help them with what they needed to do to improve (understand sentences) - and i realized over the course of that year that the master's program that had certified me in teaching elementary school had provided me with very little understanding of how to help these kids (with perhaps the sole exception of the class i took on communications disorders, not because these kids had communications disorders but because that was the only class where we ever talked, even briefly, about things like sentence structures that students may need instruction in and practice with to comprehend independently). when it comes to the literal, basic understanding of a text, the model of reading pedagogy i was taught has about 6 million little "tools" that all boil down to telling kids who functionally can't read to try harder to read. this is not productive, in my experience and opinion, for kids whose maximum effort persistently yields confusion. but things are so dysfunctional all the way up and down the ladder that you can be a senior in college majoring in english without anyone but a pair of professors with a strong work ethic noticing that you can't actually read.

couple other notes:

obviously it's a small study but i'm not sure i see a reason to believe these are particularly outlierish results (ACT scores - an imperfect metric but not a meritless one IMO for reading specifically, where the task mostly really is to read a set of texts written for the educated layperson and answer factual questions about them - were a little bit above the national average)

the study was published last year, but the research was conducted january to april 2015. so there's no pandemic influence, no AI issue - these are millennials who now would span roughly ages 28-32 (i guess it's possible one of the four first-year students was one of the very first members of gen z lol). if you're in your late 20s or early 30s, we are talking about people your age, and whatever the culprit is here, it was happening when you were in school.

i think some people might want to blame this on NCLB but i find this unconvincing for a variety of reasons. first of all, NCLB did not pass because everyone in 2001 agreed that education was super hunky-dory; in fact, the sold a story podcast outlines how an explicit goal of NCLB was to train teachers in systematic phonics instruction, because that was not the norm when NCLB was passed, and an unfortunate outcome was that phonics became politicized in ed world. second, anyone who understands anything about reading should need about ten minutes max to spend some time on standardized test prep and recognize that if your goal is truly to maximize scores... then the vast majority of your instructional time should be spent on improving actual reading skills because you actually can't meaningfully game these tests by "practicing main idea questions" (timothy shanahan addresses this briefly near the top of this post). so i find it very difficult to believe that any school that pivoted to multiple choice drill time in an attempt to boost reading scores was teaching reading effectively pre-NCLB, because no set of competent literacy professionals would think that would work even for the goal of raising test scores. third, NCLB mandated yearly testing in grades 3-8 but only one test year in high school; kansas set its reading and math test year in high school as tenth grade. so theoretically these kids all had two years of sweet sweet freedom from NCLB in which their teachers could have done whatever the fuck they wanted to teach these kids to actually read. the fact that they didn't suggests perhaps there were other problems afoot. fourth, and maybe most saliently for this particular study, the sample text was the first seven paragraphs of a novel - in other words, the exact kind of short incomplete text that NCLB allegedly demanded excessive time spent on. i'm not really sure what universe it makes sense in that students who can't read the first seven paragraphs of a novel would have become much better reader if everything else had been the same but they had been making completely wack associations based on nonsense guesses for all 300 pages instead. (if you read the study it's really clear that for problematic readers, things go off the rails immediately, in a way that a good program targeted at teaching mastery of text of 500 words or less would have done something about.)

all but 3 of the students reported A's and B's in their english classes and, again, 69% of them are juniors and seniors, so like... i mean idk kudos to these professors for being like "hold up can these kids actually read?" but clearly something is wack at the college level too [in 2015] if you can make your way through nearly an entire english major without being able to read the first seven paragraphs of a dickens novel. (once again i really do encourage you to look at the qualitative samples in the study, lest you think i am being uncharitable by summarizing understandable misunderstandings or areas of confusion that may resolve themselves with further exposure to the text as "can't read.") not to mention the fact that most students could not what they had learned in previous or current english classes and when asked to name british and american authors and/or works of the nineteenth century, roughly half the sample at each college could name at most one.

the authors of the study are struck by the fact that students who cannot parse the first 3 sentences of bleak house feel very confident about their ability to read the entire novel, and discover that this seeming disconnect is resolved by the fact that these students seem to conceptualize "reading" as "skimming and then reading sparknotes." i think it's really tempting to Kids These Days this phenomenon (although again these are people who in some cases have now been in the workforce for a decade) and categorize it as laziness or a lack of effort, but i think that there is, as i described above, a real and sincere confusion over what "reading" is in which this makes a certain logical sense because it's not like they have some store of actual reading experiences to compare it to. i also think it's pretty obvious looking at just how wildly severed from actual textual comprehension their readings are that these are not - or at least not entirely - students who could just work harder and master the entirety of bleak house all on their own. like i don't think you get from "charles dickens is describing a bunch of dinosaur bones actually walking the streets of london" to comfortably reading nineteenth century literature by just trying harder. i really just don't (and i say that acknowledging i personally have had students who like... were good readers if i was forcing them to work at it constantly... but i have also had students, including ones getting ready to enter college, who were clearly giving me everything they had and what they had was at the present moment insufficient). i think that speaks to a missing skillset that they don't know are missing, because they don't have any other experience of "reading" to compare it to.

just wanna highlight again that although they don't give the breakdown some of these students are not just english majors but english education majors a.k.a. the high school english teachers of tomorrow. some of them may be teaching high school english right now, in case anyone wishes to consider whether "maybe some high school english teachers can't read the first seven paragraphs of bleak house?" should be kept in mind when we discuss present-day educational ills.

[olympianbutch]

Hey, no need to dive so deep into Demeter's story. My actual question was about Zeus if you actually read it. Like, why did he let Demeter's whole 'withholding food from humans' thing slide? We've seen Zeus punish other gods for way less. Hera, Prometheus, and Hephaestus come to mind. So, what's the deal? Why not just assign agriculture to someone else? The gods' roles aren't set in stone. They're basically rassigned, like when the three brothers drew lots to determine who'll rule over what. And you'd think Zeus, being the literal all-wise and all-knowing king, would avoid setting up a situation where one god beneath him (any god, not just Demeter) could wipe out humanity.

Ignoring the fact that, no, it wasn't at all clear that the ask was about Zeus, let's get into this.

Zeus punishes the other gods when they challenge his authority or violate the customs associated with his honors.

Hera tried to dethrone him—a direct challenge to his kingship—, so he hanged her from Olympos in chains.

Prometheus stole from Zeus's house—a violation of xenia—, so he chained him to a mountain and sent a bird after his innards.

I'm not even going to touch on Hephaistos because the version of the myth where he throws him off Olympos for interrupting a domestic dispute between him and Hera comes from the Iliad, and interactions within the pantheon in the Iliad are very obviously meant to be comedic (at least it's obvious to me).

If Demeter wants to withhold her gifts, then that is completely within her rights as a goddess of agriculture. She is not violating his honors or challenging his rule by inhibiting agricultural processes because agriculture is hers. Zeus can't punish her for operating utterly within her sphere of influence.

There's also the fact that, whether we understand his process or not, Zeus is always playing 5D chess while the rest of us are playing checkers.

In other words, he is always 1000 steps ahead.

By setting up the events that would lead to the blight, he ensured the creation of the seasons and the Mysteries, which guaranteed humans a better life after death.

Another way of thinking about it is that momentary chaos begets better order.

Also, as an aside: You are seriously misunderstanding the point of the lot-pulling myth if you think it indicates that Zeus can re-apportion honors and spheres of influence as he pleases... The myth is meant to show that Zeus's kingship was a matter of fate, not that he can reorganize the pantheon all willy-nilly.

[agentrouka-blog]

I love (not) how people chose to ignore Sansa’s foreshadowing of motherhood to pretend a permanent celibate like Elizabeth the First is what awaits her. Or that George is banging us in the head with legitimate heirs are important for political stability for absolutely no reason related to the North’s future.

Although she does share traits with historical Elizabeth I believe George is flipping the story around to a Yorkist (Stark) win in the War of the Roses in which Elizabeth of York (with similarities to Sansa as well) is crowned Queen. In this scenario Daenerys is a failed version of Henry Tudor. A foreigner with an invading army that brings disease and war.

I agree.

The fact that Dany is planning her hypothetical rule with complete uncertainty about who to establish as her direct heir (as she believes herself infertile) is not irrelevant in this speculation. The question of succession is made central by GRRM every time. It was central for Robb too, and his inability to answer this question satisfyingly is what led to his Will and the kerfuffle that will undoubtedly come up about it in the future.

What is literally the point of Sansa assuming the rule as first ever queen in the North - since she has living male relatives available - if she is only going to act as a placeholder for, for whom exactly? Bran's potential kids? Arya's potential kids? Jon's potential kids? Rickon's potential kids? At least some of her siblings will survive, and then people will get to fight about who takes over after her death. What's the point? Why not her own potential kids, then?

If Sansa does assume the throne in the North, yes, she'll have to make sure to pick a husband who will not try to sideline her authority or use any of their children as a tool against her, but that's not impossible. She's not Mary Queen of Scots, she's not Elizabeth Tudor. The Stark line is ancient and respected in the North and there's no religious upheaval muddying the lines of loyalty, nor a great threat of invasion from ambitious powers if she makes the wrong international alliance. The Starks are loyal to each other, and they will still be around to protect her.

For all its historical inspiration, this fantasy series is still not a copy of English history. The pack survives.

The continuity of the Stark line for eight millenia is culturally important to the North, and if nothing else, the people of the North would rightfully expect their young queen to do as her forebears successfully did, male or female: keep the line going.

[brazenautomaton]

Disney asking Sonny Bono to extend copyright terms was not a huge extended push to buy a lawmaker. It faced no opposition or argument. Disney just asked "Hey, could you extend copyright?" and then Bono just went "Sure, sounds good," and Congress just went "Sure, sounds good." You can't cite it as an example of buying laws when they didn't need to buy anything and nobody opposed it. It's a completely bizarre outlier and the only thing the "infinitely agentic corporations buy the law" camp can point to to support their case despite it not being what they claim happens.

Yes, certain groups think they benefit from copyright. You're doing that "what they're basically saying" thing where you condense an insane argument to something different that isn't insane and isn't the argument. The original argument was "The rich, who have class interests, defend copyright as a class in order to maintain the power of the rich and harm you. You should oppose copyright because the class interests of the rich are opposed to you." This is an attempt at persuasive argument that is wrong and insane.

"There are some companies who think they benefit from copyright and some companies who think that they benefit from copyright abolition" is a true statement that is no longer an attempt at persuasive argument. It contains no reason why someone should support or oppose copyright.

And here is the case I find most compelling for copyright: If there was no copyright, why would anyone ever pay an author for a book they wrote? Andy Weir wrote "the Martian" as a series of blog posts, and it was a really good story people liked that could be a popular book! In a world with copyright, he is able to go to a publisher from a position of power and say "Hey, I made this thing, it's really good, a lot of people want it, and you can have it if you pay me what it's worth." In a world without copyright, they just say "Cool story bro" and then print it and he doesn't get paid anything. The different publishers can't compete with each other with the quality of the story they are selling because unlike other physical products you can do better or worse, this is just the same story. Disney and Warner Brothers and Dreamworks don't all create their own versions of the same story, they wait for one of them to make a movie and then literally just sell a copy of the same movie.

The incentive structure collapses. Why would you spend millions of dollars making a movie when your competitors can just copy that movie you made and sell the physical object containing the data for the movie for way less because they didn't have to pay for making it? Anyone who pays an artist in any capacity loses because then all of their competitors get the benefit without paying. You get a situation like with the FDA, who won't permit medicine to be prescribed for certain uses without specific tests done for that use in particular, so new uses for drugs that are out-of-patent never ever get approved because whoever does the test for it is essentially lighting a giant pile of money on fire for no benefit. We have SEEN what happens when people don't have the exclusive right to something that costs them a lot of money to do. They don't do it.

Movies, television, video games, and any form of art that requires significant coordination between a bunch of people stop being made. People still write novels and indie comics because that can be one person's passion project, but anything with a budget stops being made. All music becomes garage bands. Why would you hire a record producer, sound mixers, talent scouts to put the band together, get high-quality recording studios and equipment, when all that does is make it so you lose more money when everyone else starts selling it?

A bunch of smug Communists say "ha, good, there are no more Marvel movies," and then everyone else beats them to death with tire irons because it is good for movies and television and video games and forms of art that require significant coordination to exist.

Just like with health care, people act like the deranged way that the American system does things is synonymous with the concept of doing it. The existence of copyright is a good thing that allows art that has budgets to be made. The existence of copyright that lasts for the lifetime of the creator plus seventy years after that is a bad thing. Copyright should be made shorter, not abolished. A patent lasts for 20 years and patents are completely uncontroversial.

What do you mean by "in-group signalling" in that post?

I'm referring to the way a lot of people seem to treat "unconditional hatred for Generative AI" as a signifier by which someone reaffirms their belonging or allegiance to the category of Artist (imagined as a special category of people wholly separate from the category of Non-Artist) based on the conception that the only reason why someone might not hate GenAI (or might hate it but think some criticisms of it are unprincipled) is because they 1) aren't an Artist themselves, and thus 2) they either don't understand what being an Artist is like or they categorically hate and oppose Artists.

To name a concrete example:

Just a couple weeks ago I got an anon message pretty much along the lines of "I get it, you don't have a creative bone in your body and have to pretend that art theft is fine because you're incapable of creating art yourself" (despite pretty clear evidence of me being an Artist™, such as the fact that at the moment that anon was sent to me, you could scroll down like two posts on my blog and find me showing off how some of my music was featured in a doom metal compilation album).

This anon was sent in response to me saying that, while I have problems with the GenAI industry, I think "it's art theft" is not one of them because (by virtue of being a copyright abolitionist) I think describing any situation where a copy of something is made without affecting the original as "theft" is patently ridiculous. Like, that's a pretty clear example of how performing enough unconditional hatred of AI art is treated as a signifier of belonging to the Artist™ in-group, and failure to perform it is treated as a sign that you can only possibly be a ignorant and/or malicious Non-Artist.

[momentofmemory]

The Messenger of Death: Kira & Bardo

↳ for @teenwolf-meta's & @kirayukimuraappreciation's bardo prompts

“I think I actually might know what you’re talking about. There’s a Tibetan word for it—it’s called ‘Bardo.’”

I feel like we don’t give Kira’s opening dialogue enough credit for introducing her as an authority on Bardo—she’s the one who introduces the concept, defines it, and knows enough about it to confidently butt into a conversation based on a handful of keywords. This links Kira with Bardo from the get-go, but why was Bardo something Kira had spent time researching so thoroughly? Could it be, perhaps, because her nascent foxspirit had a vested interest in her learning more about it?

“It literally means ‘in-between state.’ The state between life and death.”

In season four, Kira shocks Scott’s heart using her powers to put Scott in a state where he’s not quite dead, but he’s not quite alive, either—the exact same definition Kira uses for Bardo. Scott then experiences a repetitive dreamlike state very similar to the Bardo sequences we see in 3b, and is only brought out of it by another shock from Kira’s powers. While this is the first time we’ve seen Kira put someone into a state of Bardo, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a fox do it—the Nogitsune is able to plunge them into Bardo at the end of 3b (and in the movie!), proving that it’s something a fox spirit can do.

“And what do they call you?”

In season five, we get a name for Kira’s fox spirit: “The Messenger of Death.” What better name for a creature who can literally send people in and out of Bardo, which is exactly what her powers will again be used for at the end of the season? Theo's dreamscape shares the same repetitive nature and body-locker aesthetic as Scott's did in s4, which is again controlled by Kira's powers (channeled through her sword).

While the show doesn’t mention Bardo by name outside of 3b, Kira’s power set is used very consistently to evoke a Bardo-like state, & I think it absolutely deserves more exploration in fic and fandom!

[loversofthestars]

I know Dedra is a bad person. I know she probably deserves it, but I over all don't think anyone except Palpatine deserves Narkina 5.

With everything that we learned about her, her childhood etc I really feel sorry for her. She was created by the Empire, and never had any say in what she will do (literally). The moment she goes apeshit crazy and does break the rules (in a case to still help the empire) that Empire which created her made her a traitor. The most devoted person we probably ever seen in Star Wars gets accused of conspiring with the Rebels. Ironically WHEN SHE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG.

Dedra was two steps ahead, Heert couldn't do shit on his own, Partagaz for years neglected her reports on Axis. And she was right all along. They couldn't handle it so they put her on Narkina 5. She herself was too dangerous to the Empire. I think death would be a "good" bad ending for her.

It all makes me double sad, because at the beginning of the season we learn that Dedra's parents were criminals, and she was doing everything to not be like that... Just to end up like them anyway.

I need to cope, I need all the delulu fanfic scenarios, I don't think I was ever so devastated over a BAD GUY in all of the media. As bad as she is, Dedra still represents the way women are seen in fields of authority. I bet my ass if it was whoever else but a woman reporting on strange rebellious activities it wouldn't be neglected. She was also disciplined for being "too emotional", and at the end of everything, the "glory for Ghorman" didn't belong to her at all.

It just... Fuck I'm such a sucker for her having a somehow happy ending.

I'm gonna imagine that after ANH The Rebel Alliance will destroy Narkina 5, but before evacuating prisoners, and asking them if they want to join the cause, Dedra finally can have a kind of peace.

I dunno seeing her crying at the end broke my heart.

[drarryspecificrecsdaily]

2025.05.12

Complete fics posted on AO3 this day

1. All but Death by motleygrrrl [M, 170k]

Trapped in Malfoy Manor—no way out, no guarantees they'll make it out alive. When Harry receives an invitation from Draco Malfoy for an upcoming class reunion being held at Malfoy Manor, he's not sure what to think. Against his better judgment he accepts, only to discover that the party may just cost his classmates more than they realized. Will they manage to find a way out before the dead start to outnumber the living? After all, what's the worst that could happen?

2. The Desired by @hufflepuffromantic [E, 152k]

Harry is all set to go on the first holiday he’s ever planned, his honeymoon, to the beautiful French Caribbean of La Désirade. A stunning tiny island that is literally called The Desired, how perfect is that for newlyweds to enjoy romantic time together after their wedding? The only problem is that the wedding never happened… Harry decides to go anyway. [...] Except that when he gets there he has to try and explain to the receptionist that he knows he still has to pay for the Honeymoon suite but he’d really rather not sleep in it. Surely there is a spare standard room he could stay in instead? She is not very helpful at all so he asks to speak to the hotel manager. The last person he expects to step out from the office and try to recover his holiday in paradise is Draco bloody Malfoy.

3. Skimming through the pages of love by xpsychocrushx [E, 10k]

Harry was obsessed with a very famous Muggle writer. Harry would do anything to meet him. The problem? This author keeps his identity hidden behind a pseudonym, so no one knows who he is. One day, the mysterious writer decides to reveal his identity, and Harry receives a special invitation to meet him, but all his excitement fades when he realizes it was actually Draco Malfoy all along.

---

Fest/Exchange

1. Only Three Rules by Anonymous [E, 20k]

The son of the Duke of Wiltshire returned to dreaded England for a much needed holiday. Planning on spending the Christmas period alone in a serene cottage with nothing but books, thoughts, and an odd dog called Crookshanks, Draco did not expect those plans to be utterly destroyed by a singular (but extremely handsome) man. Harry Potter: veteran, divorcee, and single father, returned to his sister's house for the night after getting thoroughly pissed. However, as he pounded on the door to be let in, he wasn't greeted by his sisters exasperated expression, he was greeted by a man who instantly took his breath away. Three rules were all they had. Three rules they quickly broke. ★ Lights Camera Drarry 2025 | @lcdrarry

2. Venus et Veritas by skotini [E, 10k]

Draco knew he was fighting a losing battle. ★ Draco Tops Harry Fest 2025 | @dracotops-harry

[knaveumineko]

Umineko Episode 7 Blog: Earth to Earth

Let's try to get to Episode 8 some time this century.

Even though I had absolutely no concept of what the story was actually about at this point, I've decided that this means I was Right The Whole Time back in Episode 1, which means I officially win at Umineko.

Almost as soon as the "true" sequence of events is revealed to us, Ryukishi throws it into doubt again by interrupting Bernkastel midway through her red truth that might have confirmed it. Still, the story as told feels more realistic than the episodes that preceded it. The adults aren't intimidated by a childish riddle and solve it easily. Beatrice's elaborate plan falls apart immediately. The killings are opportunistic and have a straightforward motive. Sayo's despondency makes her look for the first time since Episode 4 like a girl wearing a witch costume, rather than an actual witch. It's reinforced by Will's loss to Bernkastel, too. He keeps trying to bring up rules and clues and she doesn't even know what he's going on about. This is not a mystery. It's not even a story. It's just a series of events.

On the other hand, the anti-Umineko themes in the Tea Party's fragment draw attention to those areas that still employ significant artistic license. Rudolph and Kyrie are presented not just as bad people, but as Villains, to the point where the story itself points out how Rudolph is basically LARPing. Such things are not unheard of, I'm sure you can find plenty of examples of gun nut types who convince themselves that they're the main character in an action movie as a pretext for violence, but then you have Eva's miraculous survival and Kyrie's dramatic irony bordering on breaking the fourth wall.

Despite what Bern implies, there is still some suggestion that the events she's showing are a fiction, but a fiction of a fundamentally different sort. If it's not reality, then it's still mutable. Battler promises that this is not a sad story, and his complete disappearance after being called out to meet Rudolph offers enough wiggle room for another Devil's proof.

One of the ways Ryukishi lends the Tea Party fragment authenticity is by reintroducing narrative elements from previous Episodes. Rudolph's references to Westerns are a callback to Episode 3, as is Eva shooting the other adults. The phonecall to lure out the children is from Episode 4. The adults all going to the chapel while solving the Epitaph parallels the adults all meeting with the witch in the chapel in Episode 2. There's an implicit suggestion here that the events we're seeing in the Episode 7 Tea Party are the prototype for the episodes, that these stories literally contain "fragments" of the truth.

But this creates a paradox. The first two episodes were written by Sayo before the killings even happened. The rest were written by Tohya Hachijo. I'm willing to believe that someone smarter than me who works as an author and became fascinated by the mystery could solve Umineko's major plot twists just from the first two bottles. You could probably even guess Shannon/Kanon in Episode 1 if you metagamed it, the way I did with Kinzo's death, and realised that Battler never sees them in the same place at the same time. I am not willing to believe that Tohya is such a genius that she managed to randomly guess specific events like the phonecalls that were not alluded to anywhere in the original bottles, and, indeed, could not have been alluded to, because they weren't part of Sayo's plan and they hadn't happened yet. As much as I like the idea of Tohya as this mysterious stranger who happens to have just the right kind of mindset to understand what Sayo was getting at, she really does need to have a source for some of what she's writing. Admittedly, the story is deliberately vague on whether Ange's meeting with Tohya ever happened at all, but someone has to have written the forgeries in any case.

This ties into Battler's disappearance, and his promise to Ange that he wouldn't let the story have a sad ending. I think the twist is going to be that, even though Battler's death seems like the most plausible turn of events, it is still possible to construct a theory in which, by some miracle, he gets off the island. Maybe this will finally resolve that Chekhov's gun about Battler being afraid of falling in the water. How else do you escape the island if you don't know about the hidden passage? Maybe it will be a case where they never confirm if Battler is actually dead or not (otherwise you have to get into why he didn't contact his family), and Tohya guessing parts of what happened really could be a coincidence, but Ange gets something out of the construction of a story with a less bleak ending? That would be one way to pay off the magic angle.

One more Episode to go.

[cherryite]

overthrown - interlude. the lake

summary. in the aftermath of your encounter with the oracle, you and the rest of the heirs search for answers, and you find yourself... 'dreaming', a bit too vividly (word count. 7.6k)

content. princess!reader x prince!mark grayson, fem!reader, strangers to lovers, slow burn, angst, yearning, hurt/comfort, fantasy au, saving the world, war time activities, found family

warnings. MDNI!!, depictions of violence, blood/gore, and injuries, loss of family, death, grief, rex being a dickhead lowk, survivors guilt, anissa (because she deserves a warning), eventual smut (not this part)

author's note. oh heyyyyyyy, i know a lot of you don't read this fic but it's literally my labor of love. i hope you all enjoy, shit's getting real from here on out lol. as always, i love to chat about my fics! so don't be afraid!! (i listened to i bet on losing dogs while writing this and also the power of prophecy from hotd s1 so!!)

taglist. @pickledsoda @heartfully10

previous/next

plot/ world info character index

Candles flicker in the dark.

Wax drips down the tapers, pooling on the table like pools of thick tears from a crying eye. Everyone is still half dressed, sleep clothes the only thing worn, bags under their eyes. Cecil paces at the head of the table, his tunic is ruffled and his face is contorted in deep thought. He’s muttering under his breath, running a weathered hand along the length of his jaw as he thinks.

Rex slumps in his chair between Eve and Rae, arms crossed, his lower lip slightly puffed out like a child denied a treat. “I can’t believe I woke up for this,” he mumbles.

Eve hardly even glances at him as she gives him a swift ‘wack’ to the back of his head. He groans. Rae smiles to herself. “You woke up because she was screaming bloody murder in the middle of the night,” Eve hisses lowly, her tired green eyes glaring at him, “consider being useful for once instead of complaining.” 

You sit hunched in your seat, your knees drawn to your chest near the foot of the table. Your arms have wrapped themselves around your knees, you aren’t sure if it’s for warmth or to comfort yourself. Mark sits in the chair nearest to you and he thinks he’s being subtle about how he keeps peeking over at you to make sure you’re okay. He’s been hovering since he barged into your room after the Oracle visited you. You shiver, the cold of the night cloaked castle floors seeping up through your feet and nipping at your skin, the thin fabric of your night clothes doing little to help. Your heartbeat still echoes faintly in your ears. You haven't entirely left that moment; that figure made of starlight, the voice that made goosebumps run along your arms. It clings to your skin like static.

Cecil finally ceases his pacing, his eyes drawing to look at you. “So,” his voice is rough from sleep,  “what exactly did the Oracle say to you,” Cecil leans with his palms on the large oak table, looking at you expectantly.

You swallow, albeit a bit nervously. Your mouth feels exceptionally dry. “It said that Thala’s Blade would be the key to defeating the Dark God’s army,” you say, your voice low as you explain, “that we’d find it where the God’s used to rest their heads. And that hope needs to wield the blade.”

The room is eerily still, the occupants of it processing quietly to themselves. The silence is not comfortable.

Rex scoffs, “But the Blade’s just a bedtime story, it’s a myth. My grandfather used to tell me that story at bedtime. We may as well be looking for a dragon.” Rae shoots him a look, her wild chestnut hair swishing around her as she turns, “well obviously it’s real, why would the Oracle waste its time lying to us?”

Eve is contemplating to herself, “‘Where the God’s used to rest their heads’... what do you all suppose that means?” She steeples her fingers in front of her mouth as she leans forward. You can practically see her mind working.

Cecil sighs, “in the stories, the God’s had a temple here in the Realm. They used to stay there when they visited mortals or had business down here. It was a convergence point, where the realms touched. I’ve never heard of it being real, or any mention of where it’s located.”

The room is tense. The past month has been rough. The prophecy doesn’t exactly say how to beat the Dark God. Meetings have been filled with collecting armies, making allies where they can, preparing for potential attack. But now they have a clue, something to go off of and it may not even be real. 

Mark drums his fingers against the hard wood of the table, his brows drawn in thought, “If the Blade does exist, and the Oracle wants us to find it…” He trails off, hesitating before he regains his train of thought, “The Oracle said Hope must wield the Blade. Do we know what that could mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Rex scoffs, motioning to Mark, “who else would it be? Mark’s the strongest of us. He’s the heir of Viltrum and he’s the best fighter we have. If anyone’s going to take on the Dark God and his army with a legendary sword, it’s Mark.”

Mark suddenly seems a bit uncomfortable, shifting in his seat. “But it didn’t say my name.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Rex says, waving a hand tiredly, “the Oracle didn’t say any of our names directly when it told you the prophecy. I’m just placing my bets early that it’s you.”

“Honestly, I think that's the point. That’s what it wants us to figure out,” Eve murmurs, still thinking, her fingers steepled under her chin. “The Oracle didn’t give an answer. It gave us a path and we should follow it.”

“Our best course of action is to see if there's any clues or documentation in any written sources in the library,” Rae suggests, “at least that's how I see it.”

Cecil huffs, his brows pinched together. “Good thinking.” He turns, running his hand down his face tiredly. “Start searching, tonight if you can. We’re sitting ducks right now. And without the upperhand Thala’s Blade could give us, I’m running out of ideas on how to win this war.”

The whole table nods, and your stomach feels queasy. Mark’s fingers have stopped drumming against the table now and you can tell he’s watching you again. You can feel his gaze, warm and steady, even as your own eyes remain fixed on the dark wood of the floor beneath your bare feet. When you raise your gaze to look at him though he quickly looks away when your eyes meet his. There’s a slight flush at the tips of his ears, his jaw tightening as he picks at a thread on the sleeve of his tunic. His hand rests near yours on the table, close enough to touch with just a twitch of your hand. You don’t, but his presence cloaks you in a comforting feeling.

Cecil rubs his temples, already muttering to himself about war plans and temples and gods as he scans the large map of the Realm on the table. You can hear him continue to mumble about how he hates magic, and how this is all one massive divine headache.

Eve pushes her chair back. “Well. No sense sitting here like idiots.”

You glance up at her, broken from your trance. Her green eyes flick toward you with something akin to determination. “Come on. We’re going to the library.”

Rae rises as well, smoothing the green silks of her dress. “I’ll help too. Besides, it’s either that or I’ll stay up all night thinking about how Rex could actually be right about something.”

“I am always right,” Rex calls after her with a wink, followed by a yawn as he slumps further in his chair. Eve scoffs without even looking back at him. Rae attempts to hide the smile that creeps onto her lips. 

You rise to follow them, your frame a little shaky from the night's events. Mark is standing up as soon as you are up and out of your chair. You turn your head to glance at him, your eyes finding his own, almost like a silent communication of assurance between you both. The way he looks at you then— soft and a little helpless— makes something twist in your chest. You just nod to him, whispering a quiet ‘goodnight’ as you brush past him to catch up with Eve and Rae. They’re already halfway to the door, Eve is muttering something about how there has to be something somewhere. As you catch up with them, you spare a glance over your shoulder.

Mark is still watching you.

And you realize, as you follow Eve and Rae out of the large oak doors of the council room, that it’s not just your place in the prophecy that has you afraid. It’s the feeling growing in your chest every time you look at him. And you don’t know what to do with it.

~

The palace library is still this late at night. Eerie shadows line the walls, candle fire waves as a soft night breeze drifts through the tall rounded windows. The air smells of old books; slightly musty and earthy, a faint hint of what can only be described as vanilla and worn parchment. Tall, looming bookshelves fill the space, nearly touching the high ceilings, crammed full to the brim with texts far older than any soul still breathing. 

You, Eve, and Rae are tucked away in a quiet corner, sifting through so many different texts it makes your brain feel like it’s melting out of your ears. Reading through sources so old the pages could disintegrate if you're not careful enough. A hefty volume sits in your lap, your legs folded beneath you on the thick woven rug. The skirt of your dress fans out around you, flowy light blue fabrics cloaking your figure as your fingers trial delicately across lines of faded ink.

Eve sighs, her brow knit together as she shuts the book in her lap with a quiet thump. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing about where the sword could be.” She rises, brushing her hands on her skirt as her simple magenta dress swishes at her feet. Pink magic glows from her fingertips, soft and shimmering, as she returns the book to its place with a flick of her wrist, slotting it back amongst the other texts. Her eyes scan the shelves, already reaching for another.

Across from you, Rae grumbles, adjusting her glasses on her face and rubbing her temples, a similar expression on Eve’s. “This is hopeless,” she mutters, “I think I’ve read nearly every book in here about the sword, the God’s, the temple, the Realm’s geography… and still nothing.” 

“Rae’s cracking,” Eve mumbles as she continues to scan the shelves.

Rae looks up, deadpan. “Cracking? My brain is shattered. My mind is a soup.”

“Same,” you mumble, your fingers rubbing at your temples. “Sword soup.”

Eve slides another ancient tome from the shelf, fuzzy pink particles curling lazily in the air around her hands. She hums to herself, eyes scanning the faded title, shrugging as she brings it over to where she was sitting. Eve flops into the chair, tossing the book on top of the ever growing stack of them between you all. 

“We should probably rest soon,” she mumbles. “If the Oracle said we’re meant to find the Blade, maybe we’ll stumble across something eventually. Or maybe it’ll find us.”

“Maybe,” you echo, your voice laced with quiet and tiredness. Your fingers ghost over the page of the book in your lap, but you aren’t really reading it. Your mind drifts like a boat lost at sea, back to Ephia, to your brother’s easy laughter, to his sharp mind and stubborn heart. Aaric would’ve found the sword by now, whispers a dark voice you try your best to ignore. He was always so smart.

Before the thought can truly sink its claws in, Eve shifts her body toward Rae with all the subtlety of a cat about to knock a goblet from a table. 

“So,” she starts, drawing the word out. “Rae.”

“Oh no,” Rae says immediately, but Eve hardly pays any attention and continues on.

“You and Rex,” she teases, drawing the words out slowly, as if savoring them.

Your brows rise, curiosity stirred. “Rex?” you ask, genuinely surprised. It’s difficult to picture it in your mind. Rex is brash, just as fiery as his magic, and unapologetically loud. While undeniably skilled, his complete lack of tact often grates on your nerves. Rae, by contrast, is thoughtful, sharp, and fairly competent. You can’t even imagine Rae having an interest in him.

Rae’s face goes red instantly. “It’s not like that.”

“Are you sure?” Eve pushes, her eyes sparkling, “Because when I spoke to him yesterday, he said he thought you were pretty.” Your eyes flicker up to watch the interaction, just catching the way Rae fidgets .

“I do not care what Rex thinks,” Rae says quickly, a little too quickly, the tips of her ears turning an unmistakable shade of red. She grabs the nearest book and flips it open without looking at the cover. “He’s loud and cocky and annoying.”

“Yes, yes, yes, all true. Trust me, you get to know someone very well when your parents arrange a betrothal when your barely six years old,” Eve says, flopping her head to the side, her red hair gleaming in the candle light, “and yet I still catch you looking at him at every council meeting, and at training, and when he-”

“Eve, I think I would rather talk about anything else right now than talk about Rex,” Rae interrupts, pushing her glasses up her nose with a strained sigh. Eve grumbles to herself, crossing her arms as her head rolls back against her chair. Eve turns her gaze to you, studying you like you're a puzzle she’s trying to crack.

“How’s Mark,” Eve asks, the question obviously directed at you. You pinch your brows together, looking up from the tome in your lap again.

“He’s… as fine as he can be, everything considered,” you respond, flipping the book closed slowly, “why?”

Eve shrugs nonchalantly, her magic twisting from her fingertips, wrapping itself around a book amongst the stack between you all. It drops into her lap, a quiet plop amongst the silence. 

“He just seemed stressed at the council meeting. I figured that you would know what's up, considering all the time you two spend together.” You finally look up to meet her eyes, but she’s sifting through the book in her lap nonchalantly. Your heart thumps uncomfortably in your chest as you think back to a few hours prior, Mark sitting beside you, his dark hair ruffled, bags underlining his brown eyes. How he got uncomfortable about being the first choice of the five of you to wield the sword. 

The weight of the world is crushing him and it’s easy for you to see; the loom of his father’s ghost over him, the pressure to assist his mother in matters of the Realm, the stress of controlling powers he hasn’t even fully discovered the extent to. And you can’t even begin to think of the implications of the second half of Eve’s words. So you just shift, your face neutral despite the way your mind wanders to matters surrounding Mark.

“He just has a lot going on, just like the rest of us.” You fiddle with the corner of the closed time in your lap, the parchment smooth under your fingers. “Between the prophecy, the Dark God’s army, and the aftermath of his father’s…” You trail off, the word death catching in your throat. You don’t finish the sentence, cutting yourself off. Your eyes start drifting off towards the pale moonlight shining through the stained glass of the library. 

Eve doesn’t push further after that.

Eventually, Eve yawns and sets her book aside. Rae begins gathering the tomes you’ve already read into a pile. The sound of worn leather and rustling parchment fills the quiet night air. And you sit for a moment longer, gazing at the dancing shadows on the walls. 

When you finally get up to leave, Rae loops her arm through yours, squeezing gently. You try to offer her a faint smile in return. Eve leads the way out, her steps slow and unhurried, her magic dimming at her fingertips as she tugs the library doors open with a quiet creak. The scent of old paper and candle wax lingering in your wake. And so does the quiet ache beneath your ribs.

~

The halls of the palace are quiet at this hour, cloaked in the kind of silence that feels more uneasy than still. Moonlight seeps in through the stained glass, casting fractured light beams across the stone floor in deep hues of violet and amber. Mark walks slowly, lost in thought, Steelsworn at his hip, though he hasn’t needed it since training the morning before with you.

He should be asleep. That’s what William would tell him, anyway. Probably accompanied with a tired laugh and a half-hearted jab about bags under his eyes, how they don’t suit a prince of the Realm. But sleep hasn’t come easy in weeks for him. He finds that his magic thrums too loudly when the world goes quiet. His mind won’t let him rest. Especially not after earlier.

He pauses at the end of a long corridor, glancing through a nearby window. The gardens below are cloaked in silver, still and quiet in the dark. Somewhere beyond them, tucked away in the castle’s east wing, he knows the library was occupied not long ago, the candles only recently snuffed. 

The image lingers in his mind; you hunched over a book, the blue of your dress spilling around you like seawater, fingers curled lightly over the fragile edge of a page. He had barely even noticed Eve and Rae were there with you. He hadn’t meant to stop by on his way back from talking with his mother and Cecil post council meeting. Hadn’t meant to look in through the half-open door when he’d passed.

But he had anyway, something stirring in his chest as he did.

He hadn’t gone in, though. Just peeked in for a heartbeat too long, long enough to feel that pull again. The one he doesn't know how to name yet. The one that keeps haunting him when he does get sleep, the one that makes his fingers twitch whenever you, the princess of Ephia, is near.

He’s still not used to thinking of you that way, not really. Sometimes you feel too distant, too out of reach for someone who talks about your brother like he was still in the room with you. For someone who paints late at night and leaves clay under your fingernails. For someone who’s kind in a quiet way, not because it’s expected of you as a princess, but because you don’t know how to be anything else but that. For someone who lets him talk about his father, how he misses him, about how he feels the crushing weight of his legacy constantly.

He saw the way you looked at him today, when Cecil brought up the Blade. The way your lips parted like you might say something, but didn’t. The way your hands curled in your lap. The way you listen when he talks, like what he’s saying matters, like you’re hanging on every word.

Hope must wield the Blade.

He doesn’t know what that means and that in itself makes his head spin. 

But he does know this: the moment the Oracle appeared in your room and spoke of Thala’s Blade, the way it looked at him and called out to him with its sickening voice—Hello, Gods’ Born—it felt like a hot brand on his skin.

He can tell everyone thinks it should be him, that he should wield the sword of hope against the people who killed his father. He’s the strongest. The prince of the Viltrum Empire. The one born from powerful blood, his father’s blood, even if that blood feels like it’s eating him alive sometimes.

But strength and worth aren’t the same, Mark knows that.

And when he looks at you, he wonders if maybe the Blade was never meant for someone like him at all. The thought stirs in his head, like a bug buzzing in his ear, that it should be you.

Mark leans his head back against the stone wall, closing his eyes for just a moment. The air is cool, sharp. His shoulders ache from training, from holding himself together in front of the council, in front of his mother, in front of you.

He wants to say something. He just doesn’t know what.

He wants to be someone who can help the ones he cares about. But how can he do that if he can’t even help himself.

~

It’s been a couple of days of searching for information on the sword. When you aren’t buried in books with Eve and Rae, your time is spent in the training yard with Mark. Sleep has been finding you easily these days despite it all, your body weary and slack, your muscles sore. 

Tonight is different though.

You're sleeping, or at least you thought you were. At least you had been. There’s no clear line between rest and waking. Only a slow, syrupy pull upward, like you’ve been drifting in a warm sea and now something tugs you to the surface. Your thoughts are soft and smudged, like charcoal rubbed too hard into parchment. Your mind is hazy, fuzzy. The bedsheet beneath you doesn't feel the same, but it did at the same time. Climbing out of bed, your bare feet touch the ground, stone cold against your feet. 

The air feels wrong.

You can hear sounds in the hallway, muffled voices, quick footsteps, a strange, electric hum that crawls beneath your skin. You move, though it doesn’t feel quite like walking. Your steps are light, almost weightless, like your body isn’t real. The torches along the corridor flicker low, their flames dimmer than they should be. The walls seem to shift in the corners of your vision, blurring, warping. Stone and smoke woven into one. 

A figure rushes past. A boy, small but swift, disappears around a corner and folds himself into the shadows. You follow, your pace slow and uncertain, drawn forward as if you’re a puppet on a string. You are inclined to think it’s Oliver until you see he’s obviously older, perhaps eleven or maybe twelve. The sound of heavy breathing and an odd buzz fills your ears as you approach the boy, curled with his legs to his chest. You crouch down, your hand reaching out to comfort him. 

“Are you okay?” you ask, your voice sounds unreal, like you yourself are just a dream. It echoes around in your skull, warped and unreal.

The boy tilts his face up to you and your heart stops. His face is younger, but still unmistakeable. You recognize his deep brown eyes, nearly black as they shimmer under thick lashes. His raven hair is flopping in his eyes a bit, tousled and wild. Tan skin is flushed as tears run down the apples of his cheeks.

“Mark…” you mumble, your heart lurching. Your thoughts spiral. What is happening? Where are you? But the dream refuses to clarify, the edges of it too soft to grasp. Mark’s smokey figure looks at you, his brows furrowed. He looks so young, so sweet, too sweet to be crying alone.

“Dad wants me to attend the council meeting,” he sniffles, his hands shaking on where they grip at his knees, “But I can’t, he doesn’t understand.” It’s his voice, but pitched higher, still wrapped in childhood.

“Why can’t you,” you say, your voice just a murmur, moving of your own accord, wishing to comfort him in this strange dream. Your fingers brush over the soft skin of his cheeks, her thumbs brushing away the tears that flow. He looks panicked, he looks scared.

“She’s there,” he says quietly, filled with hesitation. You stiffen and your heart sinks. 

“Who’s there Mark?” you prod, your voice distorted and your heart pounds against her chest.

His voice is small as he speaks. “Anissa.”

Her brows furrow. Anissa was High King Nolan’s Master of Ships. She was not only a feared magic user, but well known for her house’s fearsome fleet of ships. A name whispered sharply across council tables. Feared. Powerful. Unyielding. Your parents hated her with the kind of cold disdain reserved for those who weren’t just dangerous, but too clever. Your father hated her, your mother even more. Your mother said she was power hungry. You vaguely remember your parents  fussing over the fact that Nolan didn’t see how dangerous she truly was one night when they thought you and Aaric were asleep. Crowned in ambition, your mother said once. Aaric was told never to be alone near her if they visited the Empire, but those sentiments were never extended to you. She hasn’t been seen since Nolan’s death.

A sickenly sour feeling curls in your stomach now, stronger than memory.

“Can you tell me why she upsets you?” you ask, your hands resting on his shoulders gently. His eyes widened, shaking his head. His frame tense and suddenly panicked. You withdraw a bit, nodding, “Okay, okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

He wipes his nose with the sleeve of his tunic and he speaks again, “I want to go see Mom, but I have to walk by the council room. I’m scared.”

You stand, unsure what you're even doing in your foggy state. You reach out, “I’ll walk with you.”

He takes it, his hands shake as you lead him towards Debbie’s quarters. The world around you pulses with fog, thick and unsteady. The walls ripple, like the castle itself can’t quite remember what it is, solid or smoke, memory or dream. Each step is muffled, the ground beneath your feet barely there. But his hand stays in yours, and you don’t let go.

Time passes slow, but also so fast at the same time, you have no idea how long you walk with Mark, until the fog dissipates a bit, a door half cracked, warm flickering light shines out. Hushed voices drift into your ears as you stop just before the door. Mark grips your hand, tightly as you quietly press your ear to the door. There’s maybe two deeper voices, one more feminine one. Something compels you to listen as you pick up words, their voices low and urgent. 

“... it is not the right time. The Dark God isn’t strong enough yet.”

“We must act soon, or the Hand will grow suspicious over time.”

“Then we kill him if he notices.”

“Your ambition will get us killed, Anissa.”

“And ambition doesn’t tempt you, Conquest? War does not tempt you?”

“Enough bickering. We wait. Disposing of the King will not be easy. We have to wait for the exact perfect time. Or it will be far too suspicious.”

“Preferably when the Dark God is at his strongest.”

“The boy must go too. He’s already powerful. That power cannot fall into the wrong hands.”

Mark tugs at your hand, drawing your attention as you look down at him. His eyes are wide, uncomfortable. 

“We shouldn’t stay here. It’s not safe,” Mark whispers, “we need to keep going.”

“One moment Mark,” you respond, trying to focus more, even though he continues to tug at your hand. 

You peek around the door, just slightly. Around the council table you know all too well, stands three figures, basked in the light of a few flickering candles. A woman with short cropped hair and sharp, angled brows—Anissa. Beside her stands a grizzled older man with white hair and a heavy mustache—Conquest, the Master of War. The third is tall and stone faced, dark hair cropped close to his skull—Thragg, former Grand General of the Empire. Thragg, he used to visit your father often, another council member. You barely have time to process what you’ve seen before Mark is pulling you away, yanking you into the mist of the castle walls.

“Mark, wait–,” you say, hushed as you strain your neck back, trying to hear more of the discussion happening in the council room. But when you turn back, you no longer feel the hold of Mark’s hand. The fog thickens around you. You’re alone.

Only a fuzzy feeling, surrounded by a thick fog as the castle walls melt away around you. Your breathing picks up, your heart slamming in your chest as panic sets in. Your mind is a mess as you run into the swirling haze where Mark disappeared in, scrambled and confused. But the mist swallows your voice whole.

Suddenly, the floor shifts, reality shifts. The dream moves on.

The disorientation fades and you find yourself amongst familiar bricks, the air thick with dust from crumbled walls. You know these halls, you’ve walked them so many times as a child it’s hard to forget them. Spreading your fingers out against the crumbling stone, you find your house sigil etched into the center stone of the hallway. A pretty blue fish, with long flowing fins. 

Home, you’re home. But how? 

But it’s wrong. Muffled screams ring in your ears, But it’s wrong. The air crackles. Screams echo throughout the grand halls. Magic surges, dark, violet light streaking across the sky. And then, much to your horror, you hear your own voice. Screaming for your mother. For Aaric. You look up reluctantly and see the wall. The one that crumbled between you and them. 

Familiar voices tear your eyes away, coming face to face with someone you’d thought you’d never see again. Aaric, his face contorted in pain, staring at the walls that once protected them, the walls that now separated them. It all happens so fast, your brain is barely catching up, because your heart thumps painfully in your chest, hazy tears drip from your cheeks. 

Aaric is standing poised, your mother behind him as magic ebbs from both of their bodies. Your mother looks so determined but so frightened at the same time. She was a healer, not a fighter. Your mother wasn’t built to fight.

In front of them, Descending through the air, wrapped in ribbons of shadow, comes Anissa. She looks a bit older than when you saw her in the council room, her dark hair is still cropped short, her eyes still narrowed and mean. Lean, powerful, and terrifying. She’s clad in typical Viltrumite wear, white and grey metal, a sword almost as big as her clutched in her hand.

“Shallan,” Anissa says, her feet touching down on the rubble, her voice creaks in your ears like rusted metal, “Still lovely, even under such grim circumstances.”

Your mother tenses, shifting uncomfortably. “Wish I could say the same,” she says bitterly, her voice raw from screaming. Her face is twisted up, like how it would when you or Aaric broke something in your youths.

“It didn’t have to be like this,” Anissa says, wind curling her brown hair, her face sour. “Your family would have lived, had you bent the knee. Married Aaric to me.” Your mother grips Aaric’s shoulder, her eyes void of anything other than despair. 

“And I would rather die than let you touch my son,” she spits, her voice cracking, tears, angry and hot run down her face, “I would rather die than bend the knee to the traitors that killed Nolan. You have forsaken him for a deep evil.”

Anissa just tilts her head slightly, her lips quirked slightly. Her smile is thin, cruel. That sour feeling in your belly returns. “Oh Shallan, how little you understand about the Dark God.”

Aaric holds his stern expression, despite all that's being said he doesn’t even flinch. But you can see the way his throat bobs, how his powers thicken the air around him. He’s scared, he would never admit it but he is. Your heart is in your throat as you watch the interaction, frozen as if your veins have been filled with ice.

“One more chance,” Anissa says, her voice low and serious, “bend the knee and the Dark God may find use for you.”

She barely even finishes her sentence before Aaric advances, a blast of magic surges from his palm, hitting Anissa squarely. The air erupts in a crackling roar. Anissa skids backwards, her head snapping towards your brother.

“I will never kneel to the likes of you, traitor,” Aaric spits, his gait steady, confident, and powerful. Anissa just regains her balance, cracking her neck, before advancing on Aaric. They clash, a flurry of magic shoots through the air, the sound of sword metal colliding.

You pull yourself from your daze to run to grab for your mother, to pull her out of the way of the fighting, but your hand goes right through her, like you’re a ghost. Your limbs move so slow it’s like you’re moving through honey, because you could touch Mark in your last ‘dream’. But you can’t here. This has to be some cruel trick, to watch your mother, to watch Aaric die and be fully unable to help in any way. Tears prick your eyes as frustration sets in, attempting to cling to your mother, even though you continue to phase through her. Your eyes are trained on Aaric and Anissa. 

They continue to exchange blows, a flurry of swords and magic twisting around them as they fight. Aaric lands a heavy blow on Anissa, knocking her in the nose with the hilt of his sword, curling his magic around her ankle to slam her back into the ground. He’s breathing heavily, watching her still form, turning to look at your mother, to look at you. 

“Mom– Mom are you okay?” Aaric shouts, making his way over to your mother, his shoulders heaving from the fight. It happens so fast, the misty dream state barely hides the way Anissa surges up behind him, so fast you could blink and miss it. Your mother screams. You scream. Aaric doesn’t, because his empty eyes are staring at you, his head rolling on the ground as his body slumps a few feet away. Anissa lowers her sword, coated in Aaric’s blood, glaring down at your mother. 

“Aaric!” your mother cries, her eyes wide and terrified as his name tears from her throat. Anissa rolls his slack head under her foot, as if he was nothing more than a bug under her shoe. A horrifying sickness seeps through your body, unable to take your eyes off of your twin. Your baby brother. His jaw slack. His eyes vacant and dull.

“All who oppose the Dark God must fall,” Anissa speaks, her voice a hiss, “I’ll reunite you with your husband and son. And when I find your daughter, her blood will stain my sword. Your family will be whole again. My final kindness I’ll do for you, Shallan.”

Your mother, tears in her eyes, rage surging below her stare, is strong in her final moments. “I may die here today, but you will not win. One day you will find yourself at the end of the road, Anissa. And you will have no one to save you, not even your God.”

Anissa simply stares at her, the breeze ruffling her hair, her face splattered with blood. Aaric’s blood. 

“Whatever brings you comfort, your Highness,” she says, her voice cold, a horrifyingly emotionless expression on her face. Anissa’s sword swings down swiftly, lodging directly in the front of your mother’s skull. You screech, scrambling forward as if you can save her. But you just fall, suddenly floating through the air, as if you fell through the floor. Your eyes squeeze shut, begging for this to stop, your heart breaking, your stomach plagued with a sickness you don’t know you’ll ever be able to get rid of.

You feel like you're on the ground again when you open your eyes. The grass beneath your bare feet is bright, the scene laid out before you is a sprawling lake, the sun beating down on your tear stained face. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t all fake, an evil twist of your mind. You find yourself squinting, your shaky legs pulling you towards the lake as if you’re just a puppet on a string. Before you is a woman, tall, gorgeous, ethereal. Soft features and deep beautiful skin that glows with divine warmth, staring out at the lake, water lapping at her feet. She doesn’t turn as you approach.

“Oh sweet dreamer, you’re quite a far way from home.”

You freeze, her voice ringing in her ears like she’s in your head speaking. The figure radiates warmth, basking in a feeling of what can only be described as a yearning for something better. 

It shakes you then, your mind mush and your heart squeezing in your chest. This is Thala. This is the Goddess of Hope. 

“Thala,” you whisper, a shake coating your voice.

“I need help,” you find yourself saying, as if you don’t have control of your own words. Thala hums, her gaze still fixated on the lake. The sound is soft and sorrowful.

“I know. That’s why you’re here.” 

A thick quiet falls over you both.

Thala stands, still has a statue, her gaze fixed on the water as it ripples. She’s draped in robes that ripple like liquid starlight, the crease with every brush of the wind. Her hair coils down her back in long, intricate braids. The lake laps gently at her feet, the water so clear you can see every stone that lies underneath it as it reflects the blue sky.

“I assume you mean to ask about my Blade,” she murmurs.

You swallow, your throat suddenly dry. “Yes. The stories aren’t quite clear…” you say quietly, as if you speak too loud then she will disappear. Thala finally moves, tilting her head, the faintest but saddest of smiles of her lips. “I find stories are often where truth is stored when the world is not ready for it.”

On shaky legs, you step forward as your bare feet sink into the soft Earth. “Can you help us? Help us find it.”

You feel a shiver run down your spine as Thala’s eyes meet yours, shimmering with a sadness that is ancient and deep. “This place,” she says, half ignoring your question, lifting a hand toward the lake, “once bore witness to the sorrow of a thousand lost things, of betrayal, my loss of hope. Here, the world thins.”

You follow her gaze. The lake stretches endlessly before you, calm and unbroken. A mirror of the sky. Your reflection does not ripple on its surface.

“But I don’t see anything,” you whisper, eyes searching the blue water for anything. A temple. A sword. A sign.

“You won’t,” Thala says. “Not yet.”

Your chest tightens, confusion infecting every cell in your brain. “Then how—?”

“The Blade does not wait for command. It answers only to those who carry hope like a torch through the dark.” She pauses, then steps slowly into the water, the ripples gentle around her ankles. It’s as if the lake welcomes her, like she’s coming home. “It will not show itself to the bold, or the strong, or the brave. Only the worthy.”

The word rings in your ears like a bell toll. Worthy. Because who decides what is ‘worthy’. The vagueness of Thala’s words, the vagueness of the Oracle’s words. Too much left to chance, too much unanswered.

“Worthy of what?” you ask. “The prophecy? The fight? Of your sword?”

Thala turns her face toward you, and her expression is impossibly kind but also filled with what you can only guess is regret. “Worthy of bearing light when all seems lost. Of protecting the Realm not for glory, but because it must be done.”

“I’m not like the others,” you murmur, the reality of what's happening is setting in. Your mind is a mess of grief, fear, and confusion. “I don’t have magic. I’m not the strongest. I wasn’t supposed to be here.”

“But you are here,” Thala says simply. “And that matters more than you know.”

You look at her, tears clouding your vision. You don't understand, this shouldn’t be happening. How can this be happening? “Why me? Why are you talking to me?”

The Goddess turns back toward the lake, ignoring your question again, her voice fading like morning mist. “When the time is right, it will rise. But only for the one who walks with hope in their blood.”

She raises her hand, and the surface of the lake shimmers, glowing faintly, the light pounding like a heartbeat pulsing just beneath the water. 

“And what if we fail?” you ask, breath hitching.

Her voice softens. “Then the Realm will fall. But hope... has a stubborn way of surviving. Just like you five.”

And then—

The wind changes.

The sun dims.

And you’re falling back into the dark.

~

When your eyes snap back open, you’re gasping. 

The first thing you feel is cold, a bone chilling feeling that seeps through your body. Water wraps around your lower half, ending at your waist, soaking your nightdress. You blink rapidly, trying to clear the sleepy haze that still clouds your vision. The gardens around you are the same as you have walked plenty of times before; you’re awake this time, not in bed, but in the pond by the patch of flowers Oliver favors when he picks you flowers for your room. 

Pink streaks of dawn crawl slowly across the pale blue sky. The surrounding grass shines as dew drops cling to them. A warmth anchors you, cutting through the chill of the water. Hands grip your arms, firm but gentle, holding you in place. One arm cradles the small of your back, holding you steady as your balance threatens to give out.

Still in a daze, you turn your head to the side, meeting Mark’s brown eyes, filled to the brim with worry. He’s standing in the water with you, the sleeves of. He’s just as soaked as you are, the water lapping at his hips, fully clothed. His tunic is dark with pond water as it clings to his stomach, his eyes wide as his hands grip at your arms.

“Hey, hey— you’re awake,” he says, breathless. “You were,” he swallows thickly, his eyes frantic but tinged with relief. “You were sleepwalking. My mom and I saw you roaming the halls. You just walked straight outside. I didn’t know what to do. You wouldn’t stop.”

You stare at him, his voice a foggy blur in your mind.He’s rambling, his hands gripping your arms in an attempt to ground you. His fingers are tight on your arms, like he’s afraid you might slip away again. They’re the only warmth you feel as the morning breeze and chilly water washes over you. You think. You think about the lake, the vision, Thala and her words. It hits you then as you imagine the map of the Realm that you’ve all been staring at for days. The large lake that sits smack in the middle of the Realm. Middle Man’s Lake. Where all the borders meet. It must be there, the rolling hills, the way the water reflects the heavens above. It all washes over you suddenly, determination crawling through her cold blood. All the stories make sense, the place where the two Realms touch.

“I called your name, but, you–you didn’t answer. Mom said not to startle you, but then you came out here and walked into the pond I couldn’t–”

You cut him off, your voice soft but gasping. “I know where it is.”

Mark freezes, “What?”

“The Blade,” you gasp, your hand desperately reaching up to curl into the fabric of his tunic to steady yourself, “it’s in a lake—the lake. Middle Man’s Lake. Thala showed me—she was there, I saw her, Mark.” Your words rush out of you like a waterfall, your mind racing to catch up with your mouth as you speak.

His brows draw together, concern flickering behind his eyes. “Wait—slow down. What do you mean she showed you?”

“It wasn’t a dream, not fully. It was so real, Mark. It was like—” your breath hitches, heart racing. “It was real. I could feel her. Thala. She spoke to me. She told me where it is. Said the Blade only reveals itself to the worthy.”

The two of you stand there, soaked in pond water and pale morning light. For a moment, it’s quiet again. Only the rustle of early wind through garden hedges and your heaving breaths. The hush of water lapping at your legs. Mark doesn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes roam your shaking figure, taking in the waterlogged fabrics that cling to your body like a second skin.

Mark’s eyes rise again to search yours, his hand still braced protectively on your back, “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure. Do you believe me?” you whisper, suddenly self conscious. You sound crazy, like a grieving girl who’s real life has invaded her dreams. “This doesn’t sound—Gods, I sound—”

“Yeah,” he says, voice soft. “I believe you.”

The tension in your body melts, causing your knees to wobble as your body trembles in the cold morning air. Mark shifts you in his grasp, pulling you closer to steady you. 

“You’re shivering,” he murmurs, half to himself and half to you, he’s close enough that you can feel his breath brush your temple. Your chest constricts, the sudden realization blooming in the space between you, the space that’s barely there. You hadn't noticed the way your body leaned into his until now. You hadn’t realized how badly you needed him there. How you clutched to him like you were afraid you would be pulled back into a dream. 

You blink rapidly, pulling in a breath as you step back slightly, the water rippling around you.

“I need to tell the others,” you say quickly, shaking the fog from your thoughts. “We need to go there. We have to go there. Soon.”

Mark’s mouth opens like he wants to say something, but just nods. As you let him guide you out of the pond, water trailing behind you like a cape of waves, your mind races. Because now the war begins. Things are getting very real, very quickly, but the path forward is clear.

Get the Blade.

Win the war.

Save the Realm and those you’ve come to hold most dear.

[saintvainglorious]

Fics I Enjoyed in January - DC Comics Fic Rec List Part 2

I am still neck-deep in DC fandom this month and the fics have been so so good. Unlike last time, I am too tired to write mini summaries/reviews, so I'm going to feature my favorite quote from each fic instead.

My first DC Comics fic rec list is here!

Floor Plans by @oh-mother-of-darkness (Teen & Up, 1k, 2016) “I really didn’t want to die,” he finished. “I was kind of hoping if I laid here long enough, I would remember what that felt like.”

Losing two brothers in six months takes an emotional toll.

almost right by @bitimdrake (Teen & Up, 3k, 2020) He desperately wishes that he didn’t know what Dick’s cheekbone feels like under a gauntleted fist.

Bruce sucks in a breath, hand raising to fix the cowl. Dick flinches back.

but more with love by @danishsweethearts (Teen & Up, 3k, 2022) Dick wakes up one morning, groggy from a dream that he thinks might’ve been about the circus and also about his favourite car and also about how lonely he is, and realizes that he can’t remember what his mother’s voice sounds like anymore.

O Robin, Robin, wherefore art thou Robin?

The Mechanics of a Hug by @sohotthateveryonedied (General Audiences, 4k, 2017) “You know… that crushing sense of depression? Like,” Dick chews his lip. “It’s. A physical weight. Makes it hard to breathe?” “Yeah,” Tim says, soft. He smiles, wryly. “I sort of hoped you didn’t, though.”

“So,” Tim ventures. “It's… what, a cuddle pollen?” Bruce just shrugs. “Something like that.”

No Pain, All Gain by @sohotthateveryonedied (General Audiences, 1k, 2020) Tim’s eyes go even wider. “You stole my organs?” “Technically,” Jason chimes in, “the doctors stole your organs. We just gave them permission.”

Bruce checks Tim’s IV. “Are you in any pain? Do you need more morphine?” Tim’s pupils are so wide that only the faintest ring of blue can be seen. He watches Bruce the way a five-year-old watches cartoons. “I’m all good, B-dog. All Gucci, like we cool teens say." His words are slurred almost beyond recognition, but Tim doesn’t seem to notice or care. "I could fight Superman right now.”

The Wind Sits in the Shoulder of Your Sail by @birdchildsnest (Teen & Up, 7k, 2020) “Oh my god. Bruce. I can’t even tell if you’re serious. When everybody finally eats the rich—they’re going to eat you first.”

At least, back then, Tim had barely been a teenager. He could almost forgive his own volatility. And he’d been smart enough (scared enough?) not to tell Jack that he didn’t need him. What was his excuse now? Bruce was his dad (at least, in the legal sense), but (surprise, surprise) it turned out that Tim wasn’t any better at being a son. Or Tim and Bruce still have some things to sort through after the adoption.

I Left My Conscience On Your Front Doorstep by @dustorange (Teen & Up, 21k, 2022) He doesn’t want to be loved if being loved is like this.

"I think I'm leaving," Dick whispers. "I think I'm not coming back."

bad boys bad boys (whatcha gonna do) ♫ by @drakefeathers (Teen & Up, 20k, 2014) "They live their lives thinking they can charge through the city with the right to hurt and kill and destroy as many lives as they want. And they do it all without a shred of remorse." “But—” Damian begins, brow furrowed in confusion. “Isn’t that like you?”

a Jason and Damian as Batman and Robin AU!! featuring a bunch of graffiti, a rival dynamic duo, and Cat Jason (a cat named Jason).

The Biggest Mistake by @oh-mother-of-darkness (General Audiences, 1k, 2016) “I could ground him anyway, if it would make you feel better.” “He only said it because I called him ‘a garbage can so ineffective it actually became garbage.’”

"You know what really needs to be addressed? Bruce's truly terrible treatment of Damian." -Me, on a daily basis

been a number and a name by @wynterstars (Teen & Up, 35k, 2023) “Turns out if you just say ‘spacetime’ until people’s eyes glaze over they don’t really question anything you say. Also, somehow nobody expects me to be able to actually do enough math to explain it.”

On a field trip, Robin has a close encounter with the newest super in Metropolis, only to discover the hard way that Superboy secretly works for Lex Luthor. They agree to work together on a plan to free Superboy from Luthor’s hold, but Robin isn’t sure how far he can trust him—and his developing feelings only make things more complicated.

clean it like you mean it by @wynterstars (Teen & Up, 70k, 2024) "Wait, ugh, you're not my dead dad, right? If I'm getting a dying vision of my dead dad I want a do-over because he suuuuucked."

When Gotham's crooks have to scrub down their lairs, who do they call? Jason Todd, Gotham's first and only underworld crime scene cleaning specialist. He's spent his life dodging the Bat, but after a chance encounter he saves Robin's life. Tim Drake finds himself drawn to the conflicted rogue, and soon Jason becomes Robin's street informant. But they can only stay on opposite sides of the law for so long before something breaks.

3:16 by @wufflesvetinari (Teen & Up, 70k (WIP), 2023) “Try to decouple one thing from the other. I’m proud of you, but ice cream isn’t my grand statement about whether you’ve been good or bad today. Good things are good. Happiness is precious. Sometimes you just want caramel chocolate chip.”

The knife pushes thin along Dick’s carotid artery, cupping the indent between neck and jawline—forcing him to angle his chin. The metal is warm, pulled with execution speed from under Damian’s pillow. “Okay,” Dick says quietly, tracking the intricacies of his own heartbeat—counting the space between breaths. “Guess I did need a shave.” (With faltering steps, Dick and Damian become Batman and Robin.)

wolf-king of rome by @mysterycitrus (Not Rated, 25k, 2024) “You go after Joker, but you don’t kill him, because it’s not about the Joker dying, it’s about Bruce breaking his code for you. It’s about Bruce loving you enough to change himself for the worse. It’s about your idea of grieving.”

Jason doesn’t fear Dick Grayson. Fear itself has changed shape for him, since his return from the Pit - it tastes of dirt in his mouth, of drowning, of fire and blood and laughter, more than a tangible face. Still, he’d be stupid not to be cautious. Dick liked playing on an uneven field, and would do anything to keep him off balance, so he just had to stay focused. That’s the nature of the armistice, both waiting for the other to make a move. It’s like balancing on the head of a pin.

Declensions by @dustorange (Teen & Up, 13k, 2018) “Do not tell them your name. Do as I did to survive. I lied. I have always lied. Make one up. Do not let them have you. Say your name is…is…is…Richard Grayson. Or something. They are going to steal you; do not give them anything to steal.”

“My father,” Dick says, “worked the rope. It cut him. His hands were never clean.”

Passiontide by @bigdvmnhero (Teen & Up, 5k, 2025) Despite its faults, the day had tried to be good. He felt young, like someone's son.

On the 96th day Bruce didn't call, Dick remembered their old game. Three things he knew: 1) In three months, it would be Dick's death anniversary; 2) Bruce was still missing his check-ins; 3) Here Dick was, persisting. Imagine the things I'd survive, Dick thought distantly, if I loved Bruce less. Or: Agent 37 and his various crises of faith, on Day 277 at Spyral, Day 150, and Day -0.

the time you won your town the race by @silverwhittlingknife (Teen & Up, 4k (WIP), 2022) Tim. Tim is Dick’s. Death sharpens, clarifies these things. Who will receive the body, decide on the funeral, receive condolences, make all the decisions that matter. No one has questioned it, not even Tim’s friends. There’s a terrible clarity about death. If Dick said, let’s burn everything he owned, Alfred would do it.

He doesn’t know exactly what Tim would say. But he knows what Tim would do. Tim dies. Dick doesn’t take death for an answer. A Red Robin 12 AU.

door, opening by @cowboysorceror (Mature, 70k (WIP), 2024) Dick, with the keys to every locked door Jason has ever tried to open, tucked inside the cradle of his skull; all of that, snuffed out like a candle.

It’s barely audible, but he knows what he heard. A short, four-note whistle, chirping down – E, C#, then jumping up to A, F#, a little trill on the finish. He waits a moment, head turned slightly towards the dim shapes of storage containers between him and the ramp, eyes straining against the blackness. Long, stretching seconds. There it is again. His gloved hand, prickling with cold, closes into a fist. It’s a wood thrush. A small North American songbird that doesn’t sing at night, doesn’t live in the city. He knows what it means. It means hold, steady, not yet. It means wait for me, I’m behind you.

[xxactlyperfect]

Oh, Betsy, here we go. Just ignoring all these people I mentioned, apart from two. Acting like whatever they've done ain't a big deal. Alright.

I'll first address your rant, before addressing the video:

"it does seem like y’all are turning a blind eye to femicides though - i don’t see a lot of TERFs on here posting about reproductive rights (you know, women bleeding out in Texas parking lots) or domestic violence, unless there’s an angle to make it about trans people" - False. You just don't reply to those posts because they're not about trans people. Oh, the projecting. A bunch of shit on my blog isn't about trans people. But when you're a TERF, of course everyone will fly to you, talking about trans people. Trans/gender ideology is also one of the biggest issues right now. I can multitask.

"That’s the appeal of TERFism - you get to stick all of your problems on one group." - Yeah. Men. Aren't you a self-proclaimed feminist?

"you *define* women’s rights as by nature opposed to the rights of trans people - which is illogical and irrational. there’s a reason that studies of TERFs show that they act in very similar ways to other alt right groups" - Someone decode what the author had in mind when typing this out. And what rights are we speaking of? Are trans people missing their human rights? Spoiler: free plastic surgery is not a human right. And then you go on blabbering about the alt-right, despite radfem ideology being a leftist ideology. Lol. Lmao.

"it also feels good because you are on the same side as the well funded conservative fascists" - In what world? You do realize these "conservative fascists" literally hate women?

"you get that little feeling of power from getting to be on top for a bit - that while you may be oppressed for being a woman, you get to turn around a get that “high” from being shitty to trans women" - Can I apply this logic to TRAs? They get their little high from sending us rape threats and death threats, and harassing us. Something, something, “the most dangerous patriarchal men are those who are oppressed but who want to oppress"?

"you take as axiomatic that trans rights are *inherently* opposed to trans rights - almost starting as a religious point of faith for your little cult" - You reading over these replies before posting them? I'm guessing you wanted to say trans rights are inherently opposed to women's rights. Again, no one deserves a right to free plastic surgery, sorry! Also, look at you stealing our slogan, tsk, tsk. You evil little TERF.

"IRL - i yelled at some anti abortion fuckers this morning - what have *you* done for women’s rights today?" - Didn't starve myself or self harm in a way that would please the patriarchy. Been living naturally as a woman without the need to have surgeries or take cross-sex hormones. No shame in being a woman.

OVER TO THE VIDEO...

You linked a 2,5h long YouTube video from a bloke who also got a video on JKR and couldn't help himself but bash her like... literally 30 seconds in. I'm not even joking. I was sort of expecting you to send me one of those Innuendo Studios videos you love to distribute around. Can't have everything we want, I guess. How ironic that you have the guts to be sending me your crap, when actually we all know that if I sent that to you, your ass wouldn't watch it. Because you love ignoring points. I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and think that maybe you just overlooked them by accident, as I sometimes do, but no, it's a pattern with you.

I'm in the middle of watching, and I'll give you my response once I'm done. Hell, might even watch the entire 3 parts.

You have to be an entirely different kind of hateful to genuinely just hate trans women trying to live their lives. Every human soul on this earth is beautiful and you treating others as subhuman is genuinely horrible of you. I hope you find kindness in your heart.

Try addressing my actual views next time, because you're fighting ghosts.

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[achillesunly]

Yk that feeling when you undergo any type of surgery and you are left with an intense feeling of helplessness and trust for the professionals? That's what's happening to me my heart is in Hiraeth's hands rn

And it's not even frightening I can't even worry that's what is most crazy about it

Like I'm being gently cradled to my death it's insane a slow tranquil flow yk???

Such a fucking bizarre experience

It's like all the problems and troubles I feel as I read are being dealt with it's like the story is putting its finger on my lips and goes 'shsh babygirl I'll take care of it for ya' AND IT DO