#this is still healing but I could not wait to post it

[steviewashere]

I Don't Wanna Leave Him Now

Rating: General CW: None Tags: Post-Canon, Future Fic, Set in the '90s, Fluff, Tooth Rotting Fluff, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Marriage Proposal, Established Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson Loves Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Loves Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson is a Sap, This is Really Sweet, Romantic Eddie Munson, Engagement, Nervous Eddie Munson, Happy Ending Guaranteed, Listened to The Beatles While Writing This Title from "Something" by The Beatles, but make it gay.

💍—————💍 Eddie's nervous. The most nervous he believes he's ever been in his entire life—which is saying something, a lot of somethings. He's put himself in front of crowds, of classmates who have never wanted to hear a single vocal from his lips, walked on tables and shouted profanities, placed himself in the dungeon master chair, and screeched with laughter as he deemed fit. But here, in an apartment he's made with love—with Steve by his side, unexpected and bright like sun on a gloomy, fall day—he's the most nervous he's ever felt.

When he first realized he liked men, could even view men as a possibility, he never thought of a future in it all. Never thought much of what comes after the dating phase. Of sharing a bed with a man, let alone a life. He didn't put himself in the shoes of somebody a partner is excited to come home to. A life of warm stew in the kitchen and low lights and mosaics of lives coming together like stained glass in the Catholic church he and Wayne used to frequent. Of a whole within a heart so beaten and battered, he never thought to consider it beating alongside another's.

Steve started his heart with the tenacity and urgency crackling in his palms. With parted lips and swimmer's lungs. Pleads and cries under a desolate sky, in a darkness burdened upon their shoulders, blood soaked fingers skittering over his pale cheeks. Tears that he could never piece being poured for him like the tap leaking from a broken pipe—one more incident and it may just burst, explode and flood and damage. And yet he lived, woke up in a hospital bruised and stitched to all hell, fluorescents beating down on him in nauseous buzzes, sweaty hands still crackling around one of his own. "Steve?" he had croaked and those tears arose once more, this time coming down like God's flood.

And now he paces the carpet of their apartment's living room. Up and down as if marching through pews, brightened by the mosaic that is their lives—crisp magazines and peeling books and a couch ready to collapse from how worn it's become through their midday cuddles. There's a candle dancing and flickering before him on the coffee table, some linen scent that Steve has sworn by his entire growing up. Its off-white wax and orange on the wick, ablaze and coating the room. He inhales and places Steve ahead of him in his brain, smiling gooey before he left for the day, hair swooped away from his forehead still eternally seventeen, and an ochre polo ironed over his shoulders because it's his favorite color—so, of course, it's Eddie's favorite, too.

He's warm under his layers. A sweater Steve knitted him, this deep pink thing that scrunches at his hips and gently lays over the base of his neck—because screw the sweater curse, he'll cherish this falling apart masterpiece until it's nothing but spooled yarn once more. And a t-shirt to prevent the sweater from rubbing his healed scars raw, it's a plan shirt, black and fitting. Grey sweatpants because he wasn't sure what kind of pants to wear for what he's going to do. At least his hair is tied back with a tired elastic band, he isn't sweating there.

But he holds his breath and waits. Waits for Steve to come through their front door. With his overflowing college bag because he's a determined college boy now. For his shoes to be set aligned with the other sneakers they bunny ear tie for one another. Keys to be hung up with a soft click. His drooping dog eyes, heavy with the day, but alight with love anyway.

There'll be snow on Steve's shoulders. White and melting and sticky for a few seconds before the radiator catches up. He'll smile with all his teeth in that gentle, kind way he does. Where his whole face radiates and his eyebrows shoot up in excitement and his eyes pool with reverence. Eddie will kiss him, despite his nerves. Trembling and soft, almost as if they were new, but he'll kiss him.

Kiss him and kiss him and kiss him.

There are tires against pavement and he shakes his already shaking hands out at his sides. Jumps up and down like he's seen Steve do a million times before, right before the big playoffs, right before the World Series airs, before he's determined to win. He leaves the living room and stands in the entryway, merely two feet from the door, and waits. Patiently impatient, he waits.

Steve bounds in after his key clicks the lock loose. Tosses his book-bag to the ground with little care, arms stretched and plucked from the snowed-on jacket sleeves, shoes stepped out of after the laces are undone, and the key goes on the hook. He turns and finds Eddie with those puppy back soft eyes of his, hazel and bright and fresh even after all this time, and he smiles. God he smiles.

It's a gentle peck. A reminder of lips against lips.

"Hey, baby," Eddie purrs.

Crinkling eyes. Mm. "Hey, Eds." And the way he says those words, all sweet and dripping, affected by the push of his smile, of his lips pulled wide and pink and just crackling from the cold air, cheeks flushed and bulbous. He sways further into Eddie's space, love colored across him in pinks and reds and gentle peaches. His hands are cold in Eddie's palms, warming slowly from the radiator, from the body heat they exchange, from words and gooeyness and stew in the kitchen and linen candles and mosaics. "You look comfy," Steve says, murmured hot and cold over Eddie's own grinning mouth.

"I look like a million bucks, thanks to you," he whispers.

"Mm. Mhm. You look so good in pink."

He smiles bigger, his own teeth showing, Steve's eyes dropping down to where he's missing one on the left side—still droopy and in love, caught up. "Why don't you go in and get comfy? I made us some dinner, I'll dish you up."

"Yeah?" Steve's eyes are still on his mouth. Voice still low and stirring. "It smells good."

"It'll be even better on your tongue, sweetheart. Go get changed, m'kay?"

Another peck. And then Steve disappears into their bedroom with a gentle click behind him.

Eddie's hands shake, but he jumps further into action. Diving behind their sofa for a bouquet of roses he hopes he hid well enough. Places them on the coffee table so that they're right in the open. He does as he intended, pours them two bowls of steaming stew—turkey stew he made with leftovers at Thanksgiving, using the scraps just as he's been taught by Wayne's guiding hands. Puts those on the coffee table, too, the candlelight dancing off the porcelain bowl edges. The last piece of his not-so-over-the-top puzzle is his acoustic, banged up and still shiny, resting in his lap.

His breath comes fuzzy and his heart jumps and spins behind his ribcage like ribbon dancing in the wind. Sanity spilling out his ears, but he holds on. Listening in as Steve shuffles back down their hallway, poising himself at the ready with his fingers angled on the gently taut strings, watching Steve come around the corner in his own sweatpants and another sweater he made—this one a light cherry red, slightly messier with its strings, but put together and comfy.

The surprise on Steve's face makes Eddie giddy.

Eyes wide and eyebrows scrunching, mouth gaping, but still at ease and pleasant. He breathes out some half-humorous, half-shocked sound—a chuckle or something like. But he sits down next to Eddie on the sofa, sinking into the middle cushion with practiced ease, right where he usually leans himself into Eddie's side to watch reruns and talk gossip.

Tonight, Steve smiles at him all the same, but scrunches his fingers into his own knees. Just as a kid does when they're getting the thing they wanted the most for Christmas, trying not to wiggle too much out of their seat.

He strums down with his thumb, plucking out the notes as he places the tips of his fingers over the frets. Sings, in his husky rasp:

"Something in the way he moves, Attracts me like no other lover"—

The shock doesn't really leave Steve's face, but there's this calm that settles over his features. Leaves his eyes shiny and curious and warm. His mouth settled in this soft, all lips, shy smile. And a light pink flush to his wonderful, full, mole-dotted cheeks.

—"Something in the way he woos me I don't wanna leave him now You know I believe and how"—

Steve begins to wriggle more in his seat, swaying gently back and forth to the music. Just as he does when he's standing in the kitchen, focused on the dinner he makes or the dishes he may do. The way he does when he's nose deep in his homework and Eddie comes up behind him to soothe his tense shoulders. And just as he does with ear protection deep in his ears, at the front of their local bar, weeping beer in his hand, watching on as Eddie performs for him and only him—despite the crowd, despite the nerves set deep in his bones.

—"Somewhere in his smile, he knows That I don't need no other lover Something in his style that shows me I don't wanna leave him now You know I believe and how"—

He finishes out the song, his eyes down at his own fingers, but he knows Steve is still looking on directly at him. At his thumb plucking dutifully over the strings, the scrunch he slowly produces between his eyebrows as he focuses more and more, and every single time he licks his lips before singing the next line. But his gaze remains the same, gooey as the brownies he bakes around Christmas, as passionate as he ever is.

And by the end, Eddie is no longer trembling, putting aside the guitar. Steve gives him easy, soft applause. "That was so beautiful, Eds," he compliments.

Eddie, no longer nervous, but still shy, rubs the back of his neck bashfully. "Thanks," he says quietly, "I learned it just for you, sweetheart." He takes a deep breath, and before he lets Steve respond, he's digging deep into the left pocket of his sweatpants. "I have...I have a question to ask you, though."

"Sounds serious," Steve comments. "Whatcha need to know, babe?"

Of course he's nonchalant after something like that. It makes some of the nerves come back, timid and tepid. Eddie's way of wooing probably isn't all that original, he's aware of that at least, but Steve doesn't seem bothered by it. If anything, his face is open and expectant, soft and still curious.

He takes a deep breath, lunges his shaking hands forward, and props the lid of the little box he's holding.

Inside is a shiny gold band. It's not the best of the best, that's for another time. But it's a hefty ring, fit for Steve's left ring finger, and engraved with their initials on the inside of the band. When he received the finished ring to place inside the yellow velvet box he found, a part of him flourished and bloomed like newborn roses. He wept that night, staring down at it. Something was finally settling into place.

He was one step closer to getting a future he never expected.

One step closer to a happy ending he never thought he'd get.

Steve gasps quietly between his parted lips, eyes darting down to the ring, up to Eddie's, and back down. He's still gently swaying in his seat, happy and vibrant and beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous, it makes Eddie blaze like the candle, warm and dancing.

"Eds..." Steve breathes. "Oh my gosh, Eds."

"Steve," he speaks softly, "I know we can't do anything legal about this yet, but I guess my heart's too eager for a lifetime with you. You started that heart, kept it cherished and going, wrapped up and safe in your hands, and now I'm here, offering it to you all over again. Offering to you a life we already share, with your excitement over sports games that I may never understand, our music tastes both daunting and similar, and all these soft moments we have.

"I know that how we started isn't the most wonderful of stories, but I wake up everyday to make it better and better—you somehow outdo yourself day in and day out. And I'm ready, if you are, to take the next step. No matter how long it takes until we can get the gaudy, giant wedding of our dreams. I still want this with you, all of you—as you are, as you will be.

"So...

"Steve Harrington, the love of my life I never expected, but cherish anyway, will you marry me?"

"Eds," Steve breathes again.

Instead of saying anything more, Eddie swallows down his words with a gentle gulp. Grips the box tighter, trying to keep his shaking at bay. The bundle, of every emotion he's ever felt, pulsing and tight deep in his stomach. But he's patient. And he's sure.

"Of course, oh my god," Steve answers, "of course I'll marry you. This is...this is...wow."

Eddie pries the ring free of its little white cushion. He takes Steve's left hand in his own, fingers gripping to soft skin. And he smooths the ring down Steve's ring finger. It sits bright and pretty on him. Just as Eddie imagined it to be. He tightens his hold on Steve's hand, wrangling them so they're fully holding onto each other.

When he looks back up from their tangled fingers, Steve kisses him. All encompassing, devouring, with fervor. He kisses with words, all the words Eddie's read, with every what-if and eventually, and every soft memory they'll make in the near future. A love that coats and soothes and flames; a love that's kept Eddie's heart beating after all these years.

He gasps for breath when they pull apart. And is reminded, endearingly, of all their breathless make-out sessions years ago—when they were in their early twenties, tentative, and nervous.

When Eddie asked Robin for permission to date Steve.

And now, in their early thirties, the permission to marry Steve sitting heavy in him—welcomed fully and tight by Robin's squeezing arms. That's a story for another time, though.

"I love you, Eddie. I love you so much," Steve whispers, "you beat me to it."

"You might'a been the jock, but I had to make sure I was faster than you on this. I like to jump the gun when I know what I want."

"And you want me forever," he says in awe.

Eddie nods once, a sure thing. "I want you forever, Steve Harrington. Just as I promised in the beginning, sweetheart."

"You're such a sap, Eds."

"For you, sweetheart. Just for you."

Their stew needs to be reheated. And they'll cuddle into each other to watch their reruns. Maybe do some other exciting things tonight.

For now, though, Eddie holds onto Steve's engaged hand. Gazes at him. And continues to promise forever.

A forever after that he's always dreamed about—made real in those honey drenched eyes.

💍—————💍

[bloedewir]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

There's some post-game thoughts I can mark as spoiler ones. Read only if you finished the game.

I love the game. Really. The grand finale was magnificent, the main plot idea is painfully touching and I adore the heavy weight of sorrow I bear after I finished the game. The best kind of bittersweet grief of possible.

However it doesn't mean the game is flawless. There's some stuff I didn't get at all.

Why there's no option to ask Solas about the Forgotten Ones? Like, hello, you have an encyclopedia of elven lore in your head, can't you ask a few optional questions about weird ancient guy you've met during the journey? Nadas Dirthalen? (Or it's because da5 is going to be about new dwarven and/or qunari lore and Forgotten Ones/Executors?)

You also can't say anything about the murals.. which is kinda strange. Why didn't Rook comment those mind-blowing revelations? For Harding, at least?

Evanuris. Solas' story is beautifully written, Mythal' story was also revealed more than before (even if she's in all 4 games) so we get to know her better. But Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain? Fine, forget other evanuris.. but the spectacular duo? Spirits and demons are kinda the same, like two sides of a coin. Solas is Wisdom and Pride, Mythal is Benevolence and Retribution (as Morrigan said). Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are just.. bad? They're blighted and corrupted now but what about the past? Where's the duality of their personalities? No chance for redemption now because they don't want or need it, I get the idea, but the story itself? I wish there would be more about them. We do have something on Ghilan'nain tho, like: she created hallas but can't create them any longer and she has a full control over the Blight as if it's modeling clay (+ some Bellara' thoughts on a matter of "navigation" and "healing" and path Ghilan'nain chose for the People). But Elgar'nan? He likes tyranny. And he still had his hair. Uhm.. ┐⁠(⁠ ⁠∵⁠ ⁠)⁠┌

Romances. Can't say much because I didn't try all of them but Neve's and Lucanis'.. uhm. It doesn't feel like a written romance, y'know? Just a bonus lines so you doesn't have to feel lonely or whatever. Characters are on their own and don't have connection with Rook till the very end. There's no impact and Rook is, ironically, just an enjoyable side benefit™ but nothing more. Comparing to datv romance situation solavellan romance is hot as hell and full of content. And it says a lot.

Inquisitor. I do like how their absence was explained... yet Lavellan was robbed. I don't want to see a cringe Fade therapy session with Solas telling his tragic lovestory to a random stranger (Rook) and whining about just how much he misses his gorgeous wife (and I'm solavellan). But adding a few tiny details? The bare minimum: take the dai tarot card and place it on the wall in a music room. That already could've been much better. (mods mods mods 🤞🤞🤞).

Dialogue timing and triggers. I suspect dialogues are cool but I can't know for sure. In my first playthrough I didn't even know Davrin and Lucanis are not a big fans of each other before the Weisshaupt quest because I didn't hear it. DATV locations are much smaller than it was in DAI, so you just don't get the chance to hear those dialogues unless you find a trigger point and just stay there waiting to play all lines.

Some of that is not a tragedy and, theoretically, could be improved by magnificent people creating mods. But sometimes datv seems kinda unfinished like there's a missing puzzle pieces as if content was cut out with no replacement.

Despite some questionable moments and a bit of criticism I love this game regardless. It's dark and atmospheric, absolutely beautiful and mesmerizing. And analysis of Regret? Choices and consequences, acceptance, struggling, desperation, guilt..? The work Bioware did deserves to be highly appreciated. The final left me in tears, sobbing and grieving, and heartbroken - that's all I ever wanted of Dragon Age 💜

[aplaceinme]

What is your theory for 8x8? I don´t think there are any more big plas for Buck so I will cling to the fact that 8x8 was supposed to be called "sob stories". since the show decided that people can talk about Tommy again since he is no longer present (*rolls eyes so hard atm*) I choose to believe that Buck will either get a snippet of Tommy backstory, maybe about who broke his heart before, or we get Buck having a meltdown- he should really get angry and sobbing. It would heal me

I´m sure the show will proof me wrong but this is still 5 to 7 days of uniterrupted delulu for me.

Hi, nonnie! 

Well, first, I will start with saying that I’m on the “I would rather have no hope and then be pleasantly surprised if things turn out ok” boat. This is 911, this is Tim, we know he changes things at the last minute, we know he can be extremely petty, we know he does what he wants even if it doesn’t make sense storyline wise. So, yes, I’m going to keep expecting nothing, just in case. 

If I go into my more pessimistic side, I will say that given the interviews (and we already know that the interviews are basically bs but still) we are supposed to see Buck “exploring” his bisexuality and trying to move on. We haven’t seen that yet in the show, so we might see that in episode 8. Perhaps he will be ready to put the phone away, and start fooling around. Perhaps we will have a small mention of Tommy when Buck talks about getting tired of waiting and deciding to follow madney’s advice of getting back into the pond, which we will then see in S8B. Therefore, the door to the relationship will be closed (still leaving the possibility of Tommy returning next season though -after all, we know Tim loves to bait the fans).

If I go into my more positive side, I have to admit that they did kind of handled the post break-up better than I was expecting. And by that, I mean, that we did get to see Buck longing and pining for Tommy. We got to see him not wanting to move on yet and him hoping for Tommy to return. Besides from Abby, we hadn't seen that before. Ali, Taylor, and Natalia’s break-ups were a done deal and that was it (we didn’t even see Natalia and Buck breaking up), Buck just carried on with his life with no problem. We are once again seeing a huge difference between Tommy and all of Buck’s other love interests.

Besides that, I also have to admit that the choice of showing Tommy also wanting to reach out to Buck but then not doing it, it’s interesting as well. Why do that? They could have just showed Buck struggling with the break-up but nothing from Tommy. So, is that just the way of them leaving the door open for something to happen because they still don’t know what to do? Is that just baiting? Did they want to see how people will react so they wrote little hints of Tommy possibly returning just in case? Is this just that part of the romcom when the couple break-up? Maybe!

And finally, if I allow myself to put on a tin foil hat… there could be many possibilities: 

Buck saying “what if he’s in trouble and he needs my help?” could be foreshadowing of something to come. According to Tim (and again, lets take everything he says with a grain of salt), “Nobody’s hanging off a cliff at the end of the episode except for possibly one character.” Could that be Tommy? Maybe Tommy will be rescuing someone, and while on the harness and hanging from the helicopter, something happens and he needs rescuing. The 118 gets called, Buck realizes its Tommy, he gets desperate, he saves Tommy, they talk in the hospital, they get back together. 

I think both Oliver and Tim have also said that maybe Buck will see Tommy on a call. So, what if next episode that happens? They both have to rescue someone and while doing that they talk/discussed the break-up, they clear the air after everything is said and done, and again they get back together (or is implied that they will be in the future).

The call and the person hanging from a cliffhanger has nothing to do with Tommy BUT it reminds Buck of the lighting strike. He realizes that life is short, that he got another chance in life and he doesn’t want to go on living without Tommy by his side. So, after the rescue, we finally have Buck going to Tommy and talk and try to get back together. “You don’t find it, son. You make it.” Or we just have a cliffhanger of Buck going to a house, knocking, and Tommy opening the door, scene ends. We will have to wait and see what happens.

Buck decides to move on. At the end of the episode, he goes to a bar intending to find someone, but once he gets there, he sees Tommy. They make eye contact and they both timidly smile. They show Buck walking up to him and sitting down to talk, but we can hear what they say. Or, it just ends like that, with both of them smiling. Find out in March what happens. 

Ignoring everyone’s advice, Buck arrives at his loft after the shift and immediately calls Tommy who picks up. We hear Buck saying nervously: “Can we meet up?” Then he smiles, and says, “Great, I will see you there.” He hangs up still with a smile on his face but also still nervous, and the episode ends. 

I could still go on, honestly… But that’s probably enough. 

I don’t know what will happen, nonnie! As I said, I will rather have no hope. 

They have probably not written S8B yet, but they probably do have possible storylines of what will happen with every character. They have more than enough time to change them, though.

Maybe we will see Tommy in S8B, maybe we will see him in S9. Or maybe, this has truly been the end. We will just have to wait and see! 

I do hope that they get better at writing and that they stop with the biphobic rhetoric because, my god, that’s just too bad and fuck them for that! They need to do better!

Whatever happens, the important thing is to try to find joy. If putting on your clown make up, bring you joy, then do that! If moving on from the show until you know what happens, brings you joy, then do that! 

Sorry, this got way too long! Hope I made sense nonnie! 

[starkinclustries]

After just finishing act 2 of season 2 of arcane, I'm firmly of the belief that they just didn't have enough time to tell this story the right way.

To clarify, I don't mean it in a "production was rushed and its poor quality" way, but rather a "9 forty minute episodes is NOT enough time to tell this story" kind of way.

I would have liked more time in season 1, but i don't think the lack of time was to season 1's detriment--but i think it IS to the detriment of season 2.

I want to see Jinx lost and aimless after Silco's death. I want to see her bond with Sevika over that loss, and the journey of healing that they go through with Isha.

I want to see Vi and Caitlyn struggling post Cassandra's death. I want to see Vi struggling with what it means to become an enforcer, the villain of her childhood, of struggling with that because of her love for Caitlyn. I want to see the toll it takes on Vi that she became the monster she was most afraid of for love, and how she copes with that when the love wasn't enough, anyway. I want to see Vi struggle with how she has never felt less human, and how her sister is currently more human than she feels right now. How Jinx is seemingly adjusted and she's not.

And that's not even to mention all the stuff with Viktor, Jayce, Ekko, Heimerdinger, Ambessa, Mel, and the backstory they've provided to Vander/Warwick.

Fortiche is *really* good at their montages, the scenes are so visually interesting and the music choice always feels so compelling. But some of the things that happened (particularly in act 2) in season 2 feel rushed in a way that doesn't feel natural. (vi and jinx just going off to look for vander, suddenly and unquestionably sisters again, Caitlyn turning on ambessa for Vi, when she's been shown to be in some sort of relationship with someone new anyway, vander just recognizing jinx/powder and there being no struggle there, I could go on) I think not having more time to tell this story is a much bigger detriment to season 2 than I'd like.

I still think it's amazing and am waiting for act 3 to drop next week, but GOD can you imagine what an AMAZING story this could really be if they had a full like 20 episodes to tell this story the way it deserves?

[nico-di-angelic]

‘Cause she… she got a lotta legs… just like a centipede🕷️😈

[skrunksthatwunk]

landing

[basslinegrave]

anyway i need more monarch a trois fics. sigh. wish i could write, i gotta draw them more at least

[boyczar]

[ckret2]

who wants a prism break?

So, the Theraprism! The Theraprism sucks, right?

This is like, a good day.

The Theraprism clearly sucks.

Have a one shot of Bill escaping Theraprism with the most desperate escape plan imaginable: reincarnation.

(Warning for, as you might expect, psychiatric hospital abuse.)

####

There are fates worse than death. Like boredom, for instance!

####

Everything was black and numb and silent and cold so so cold but no he could only call it cold if he felt cold and Bill didn't feel coldness there was just the absence of a feeling the absence of heat the absence of light the absence of sound the absence of touch the absence of air.

The absence of everything.

Bill had loved a void once—a micro black hole. Every time they touched it slowly killed him, spaghettified his limbs, drained his energy. His energy was so vast that she never claimed a drop of a drop of a drop of his reserves—but it still hurt like nothing else to be crushed and stretched and ripped and consumed by her event horizon. The pain was wonderful. Being shredded was ecstasy.

This void was the opposite of her. 

He couldn't even feel anything when he tried to scream—without air, he couldn't feel his vocal plates vibrate. He couldn't feel his hands, his face, his eye; he tried to bite himself just to feel something and he couldn't feel his mouth, he tried to rip open his wounds and couldn't find them; why couldn't he see his own light, why couldn't he see his blood, where had he gone, was he gone—

Reality returned like a light bulb being switched on.

The first thing he registered was a shrill sound on the verge of inaudibility; and then the pain in his eye, his sides, his wounds; and then the dull gray light, the hard floor under his knees, the antiseptic stench in the air conditioning.

He stopped screaming. The shrill sound stopped.

"Energetic as always, are we?"

Bill blinked blearily at the Orb of Healing Light hovering before him. He croaked, "I'll regurgitate you."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." A glowing translucent clipboard manifested in front of the Orb. "Well, you've gone through this enough times to know the drill! Do you need a moment to recover, or—?"

"No no, I'm fine, I'm fine." Bill slumped forward, trembling hands on the floor, waiting for the vertigo to pass. "I'm fine. Do your thing." He'd rather get the post-Solitary Wellness Void reorientation interview over with.

"Perfect. What's your name?"

"I'm ol' Vinegar Pete."

"No clowning, please."

He sighed loudly. "Bill Cipher."

"Good. Where are you?"

He considered saying hell, but decided he'd used up all the clowning he could risk for one day. He didn't want to go back in. "The Theraprism. Ward 333."

"Very good. When are you?"

"I was gonna ask you," Bill groaned. "How long was I in the hole this time? A million years? Ten million?"

The Orb checked its notes. "Eight minutes."

"Wh—no, no I know that time moves slower out in reality than in the prism. I'm not asking how much time passed in reality, I'm asking how much time passed here."

"Eight minutes," the Orb repeated. "Outside the Theraprism, one third of one second passed."

Bill groaned again and flopped flat on the floor.

"Do you know why you're here?"

"Why are any of us here?" Bill asked the gray linoleum tiles. "Usually because some dumb beast tripped into the booby trap that sets off its reproductive process. How's your species work, you pop outta nebulas, right—?"

"I meant, coming out of the Solitary Wellness Void."

"Oh." Bill tried to remember what his infraction had been this time. "Because I failed to escape."

"Because you tried to escape."

If he'd succeeded, they never could have punished him. "Sure."

"Good, you seem oriented to your surroundings. Let's get you to the nurse and then back to your cell." The nurse? What did he need a nurse for?

He only realized then that he must have succeeded in reopening his wounds in the SWV: the never-quite-healed crack across his exoskeleton was wider, the edges chipped and bent. It hurt. His eye socket hurt too; he tasted blood. With the way his whole body usually ached after leaving the void, he hadn't even noticed.

Through the crack in his exoskeleton, his edges had frayed into fine golden threads. The sight of silvery blood on his hands made him nauseous; he hastily looked away and reminded himself it was only his own. 

####

As Bill wearily followed behind the Orb and two security guards followed behind him, he had to periodically turn to hover sideways to streamline himself. These days he was so weak that he could feel the air resistance pushing back against him when he floated; with his wound reopened, he felt like the air pressure could snap his exoskeleton along the crack and break him in half.

"You're not Emmy," Bill said. "You're, uh..."

"A-AOX4."

"Oxyyy," Bill said weakly. "Heyyy. S'been a while. Usually I get a personal welcome back from the void, why didn't Emmy show? Don't tell me it doesn't see me as a threat anymore!" He'd be offended if it didn't. D-SM5 was the closest thing he had to a nemesis these days. Even if he couldn't beat it, he wanted to think he still irritated the daylights out of it.

"Director SM5 couldn't make it. It's overseeing the preparations for Paingoreous's reincarnation."

"That's today? Good riddance." Paingoreous had started getting sanctimonious the past few hundred group therapy sessions—don't you have any compassion for your victims and it's possible to live a happy life without slaughtering all your enemies first and maybe I should ask for permission before I vivisect my friends' faces—passive, self-defeatist crap like that. Vivisecting your friends and seeing who complained was how you found out who your lame friends were! Now that the wet blanket was leaving, the rest of them could get back to spending their sessions reminiscing about the glory days and trying to set the donuts on fire when the therapist was distracted.

"Yes," A-AOX4 said pointedly, "it is good he gets to leave to go become a productive member of reality. We're all so happy that he's rehabilitated enough to earn a new chance at life." (Bill rolled his eye. A-AOX4 ignored it.) "Wouldn't you like a chance to rejoin reality, Bill?"

More than anything. He'd been in this crystallized brain's perpetual dreamscape for what felt like both a thousand years and a single day—time never passing, an eternal inescapable moment. He'd tried to break out, sneak out, or bargain his way out more times than he could count; sometimes he was locked in the SWV as punishment; and sometimes the staff gently stopped him, confiscated his supplies, and chastised him for the effort—and the reminder that he was as powerless as a child was worse than the void. He'd gone delirious from the boredom, hallucinating screams and burning faces as his mind struggled to stimulate itself (and he'd been medicated for it). He'd so despaired of escaping that he'd looked for a way to burn up the remains of his energy and vanish for good (and he'd been medicated for it). He ached with the need to see the stars again.

But not enough to sell his soul for it. If he took the staff's route—let them break him down, sandblast off his rough edges, erase everything that made him him, and finally physically transform him into some alien creature—then whatever left the Theraprism would no longer be Bill Cipher.

"What, and force you guys to find a new 'unique case'? I wouldn't do that to you! I know how much you love me," Bill said. "Besides, why would I go through all that just so I can reincarnate as a sentient snowflake, or Mi-Go antennae lice, or..."

"A butterfly," A-AOX4 cut in, an edge of impatience creeping into its tone. "Paingoreous has chosen to reincarnate as a butterfly. We all think that's a very productive way to channel his desire to digest his own skin."

"Unless it's one of those blood-drinking butterflies, lame." Bill scoffed. "Wait—hold on, you said butterfly? Like an Earth butterfly?"

They were, of course, not actually speaking an Earth language, but an interdimensional pidgin that borrowed words and grammar from dozens of worlds. When around the Orbs of Healing Light that held half the staff positions, Bill tended to speak a dialect of the pidgin that used flashes of light for 40% of its vocabulary. It was perfectly possible that the word Bill knew as "butterfly" was also used for some alien creature, but—

"Yes, an Earth butterfly. A Vanessa atalanta, to be precise."

Aw, boo. Not even a cool butterfly. "He's reincarnating on Earth?"

"Yes. Many of our patients reincarnate on Earth. As long as you're careful about which region and century you reincarnate into, it's at the top of our recommended list of Goldilocks zones."

There was another phrase that Bill recognized, but this time he was sure his definition was not A-AOX4's definition. "Whaaat do Goldilocks zones have to do with reincarnation."

"You didn't pay attention to the orientation session on our outpatient reincarnation program, did you."

"What! I didn't get an orientation session!" said Bill, who probably didn't remember any such session because he didn't pay attention to it.

"Well—we rank millions of planets and their dimensional parallels based on their potential to help patients reintegrate into reality. We do try to set our patients up for success," A-AOX4 said. "To qualify as a Goldilocks zone, a planet has to meet the Theraprism's rigorous list of criteria: its lifeforms, cultures, laws of physics, and position in interdimensional society must all be conducive to a patient's continued recovery. We want to ensure that our patients' new lives are neither so difficult as to retraumatize them, nor so easy as to let them coast by avoiding continued personal growth, but right in the middle, so that they're emotionally and spiritually challenged without being overwhelmed. The Goldilocks zone: a perfect compromise between two extremes."

"Yeah, sure, sounds great." Bill could feel his eye glazing over in disinterest. Fight it, Cipher.

"Do you miss Earth?"

Bill tilted to glance askance at A-AOX4, and was surprised to see it had turned to focus a spotlight on him. Oh—it thought it had finally found a carrot to dangle in front of him. That was a popular strategy here: they figured out what a patient wanted most, and then used it to coax them into good behavior and "rehabilitation"—better still if they could attach a sense of urgency to it. Don't you want to see your descendants again before the last of them dies out? Don't you want to see your homeworld before its sun swallows it? Don't you want to reconcile with your god before the heat death of your universe?

But Bill had no universe, no homeworld, no family; no lovers or friends or gods that hadn't betrayed him and left him to rot here; and he'd remained smugly steadfast in refusing to give D-SM5 and its minions anything else it could use to get under his chitin. He was proud that he was too broken for even the famed Theraprism to fix him.

A-AOX4 probably thought it had finally found an opening. It might be useful to let it keep thinking that.

"You kidding me? Earth? Pfff! I don't miss that overgrown asteroid one bit!" He waved off the suggestion, and winced when the gesture tugged wrong at his reopened wound. "But hey, you don't study a world for millions of years without finding a few things about it to like. The music's pretty good. And the movies and literature, though if you ask me, they peaked between the first two World Wars. I like trees, evolution did a great job with trees. And humans really went off with the architecture. The pyramids? 10 out of 10. And some of the locals aren't bad, I've got a few exes from Earth."

"Do you? How many exes?"

"Living? Just a hundred forty or fifty," Bill said dismissively. "Earthlings just have those pretty eyes, you know? I'm a sucker for a pretty eye! But outside of that, no, there's nothing on Earth for me."

"I see," A-AOX4 said lightly, and dropped the conversation.

Hook, line, and sinker.

####

The original definition of a "Goldilocks zone" came from astrobiology. The Goldilocks zone was the ring of space around a star in which an orbiting planet could support liquid water and thus water-based life: not too close to the star and too hot, not too far and too cold, but just right. Earth, for instance, orbited Sol in its Goldilocks zone.

It was from this definition that other, more metaphorical definitions of Goldilocks zones emerged. Such as the Theraprism's: a world that was neither too stressful nor too boring for a newly brainwashed—sorry, "cured"—patient. And apparently Earth was in that Goldilocks zone, too.

Which was very interesting to Bill—because in their search for a new home, the Henchmaniacs had come up with their own definition of a Goldilocks zone. For them, it was a dimension close enough to the Nightmare Realm with a thin enough barrier that they could easily punch through it, but not so close and so thin that puncturing the barrier would pop it like a balloon and cause the dimension to immediately prolapse into the Nightmare Realm—which was a problem they'd had before. More than once. They needed a dimension they could easily cut a hole into, but control it, so they could slowly pump the Nightmare Realm's contents in. A barrier neither too vulnerable nor too strong, but just right.

And wouldn't you know it—but Earth happened to be in that Goldilocks zone too. Right next to a point in the dimensional membrane so thin, the Nightmare Realm could almost stretch through and kiss it.

####

Since Bill Cipher was infamously known as the last survivor of a trillion-years-extinct species, and had until recently been capable of instantly repairing himself, there were no medical records on how his anatomy worked. It didn't help that at some point eons ago he'd somehow managed to graft a 3D exoskeleton to his 2D anatomy without breaking his own physics, meaning no one had seen his true body in recorded history. Bill knew how he worked, but refused to offer any hints. So the Theraprism staff had to guess at Bill's medical treatment.

But Bill was still made of energy, and even weakened he could eventually self-repair. So whenever his injury was exacerbated, the nurse tended to just patch up his exoskeleton to keep it stable enough to send him back to his room.

On top of his mysterious anatomy, the staff had no idea how to medicate his physiology. They knew he could be medicated—Bill's personal substance (ab)use experiments were notorious far outside the Nightmare Realm—but they had to treat him like a newly-discovered form of life in figuring out what affected him, how it affected him, and how much it took. He'd been on and off hundreds of drugs as they tried to chemically stabilize a mind for which they had no idea what baseline stability looked like. D-SM5 had told him that between the enormous doses needed to impact his energy-based physiology and the vast variety of drugs he'd been through, Bill's medication regimen was the most expensive in the Theraprism. He took some pride in that.

He had very few things to take pride in anymore. He clung to what meager victories he could.

If Bill got his way, he wouldn't be medicated at all. None of the substances they wanted him on were what he'd call recreational. (Although for a while he had gotten away with not telling the docs that one of his antipsychotics had given him a side-effect of kaleidoscopic hallucinations.) Plus there was the fact that he'd heard rumors that quite a few pharmaceutical execs were good pals with a certain director—not that Bill would name names, of course!—that's his motto, Don't Slander Maliciou5ly!

But when he resisted taking his meds, they could send in the guards to pin him down so a nurse could inject a sedative so strong he wouldn't remember anything that happened for the next few hours to months (hard to tell) until they started tapering it off... and although he'd rather die than admit it, after losing that fight five or six times, even he had to admit to himself it was a lot less scary to just take their rotten drugs. Better to go through his days with his mind dulled and hazy than blacked out altogether.

To retain what little pride he had left, he'd reached a compromise with his jailers.

When the nurse had finished attaching the reinforcing splints around Bill's injury, they grabbed a medication measurement cup, filled it halfway with syrupy eye drops, and double-checked Bill's chart as they dropped thirteen different pills (plus a fourteenth pill for a painkiller) in the cup.

As Bill redressed, he eyed the unappetizing cocktail of antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and things he'd forgotten the purpose of but that probably weren't doing whatever the doctors hoped and definitely weren't doing anything Bill liked. "My straw?"

"Right, right." The nurse handed over one of the wide-diameter disposable white straws they kept on hand for patients who struggled to drink (or, in Bill's case, patients they struggled to get to drink).

Only a tiny fragment of Bill was actually locked up in the Theraprism—like pinching the glowing lure of an anglerfish in a trap while the rest of the fish thrashed outside—and because most of Bill's vast energy was elsewhere, he was nearly powerless. But he still had enough energy to heat up a finger, twist the straw around it, and hold it there until it had melted into a new shape.

The nurse sighed. "Do you have to do that every time? You ruin more straws than you get right."

Imperiously, Bill said, "Leave me to my whimsy." He tugged off the straw when it had cooled down to examine the corkscrew shape he'd made. The wall was a little flattened in one place, but he could pinch it back open. "See? It's perfect!" Cheerfully ignoring the nurse, he stuck the straw in his cup and slurped down his pills like tapioca balls. He tried not to remember what was in them.

A-AOX4 had left Bill with the nurse, but the two mall cops with medical kinks known as Bill's personal guards were still waiting nearby. The nurse's office was next door to the cafeteria—for ease of patients picking up their medications at meal times—in an anteroom that was connected to the rest of the ward by a set of locked double doors. A couple of guards were stationed near those doors at all times, and generally the guards assigned to Bill hung around with them while Bill was in the cafeteria or nurse's office. Bill floated up to them, regarding them with the disinterest of a king ignoring the servants he expected to open doors for him, and continued to ignore them as they escorted him back to his cell, one in front and one behind, while he sipped on his drugged cocktail.

The Dimensional Tyrant Ward was already one of the most heavily-guarded wards in the Theraprism; but to reach the maximum security cells, a patient had to pass several increasingly heavy security checkpoints with increasingly impenetrable security doors. The final door was warded against all magic, unhackable, unbreakable, and so airtight that even without his exoskeleton there was no gap Bill's 2D form could slide through. The doors to each cell—outfitted with tiny one-way mirror portholes, no latches or hinges on the inside—were a little less heavy duty, but packed with just as many failsafes. The Dimensional Tyrant Ward's max security hall had the most advanced security architecture of any psychiatric facility in the multiverse.

Bill had made a trillion year career of trying to break his way through a door nobody wanted him to go through. He could think of seven different ways to get through the doors. Sooner or later he'd find a way out of this place altogether.

A few of the doors had modifications: this one with a metal slab over the porthole to protect passersby from the occupant's petrifying gaze, that one with extra soundproofed padding coating the door. Bill was almost insulted his own door didn't warrant any special modifications.

His favorite door was The Beast's. A comfortingly yellow triangular sign on the door displayed a black symbol of a steak. Red signs above and below read "CAUTION! FEED UNSEASONED MEAT ONLY." "NO SUGAR ALLOWED." The Beast's heavy snuffing was audible through the door; his hot, sickly sweet breath seeped through the slot in the door that had been installed to deliver his food.

Bill's escorts automatically drifted to the far side of the hall to avoid The Beast. Bill, whose first medication was already starting to kick in, zigzagged lazily back and forth across the hall, heedless of how close he came to The Beast's cell.

Bill had never seen this door opened once in all his time incarcerated, and the dust settled on the additional chains and padlocks stretched across the door showed just how long it had been since the last incident. But some of the patients who'd been here longer than Bill still couldn't bring themselves to speak of the last time he'd escaped. Elder eldritch gods shuddered and gibbered nervously at the mention of his name. 

Bill tilted over to try to peer through the food slot at The Beast. A quivering, sickly blue eye stared back at him. Honestly, Bill thought The Beast was adorable.

Outside Bill's door, the guards waited for Bill to finish his medicine, hand over his cup and straw, and open his mouth and lift his eye out of the way so they could check and make sure he'd swallowed them.

And then he was left in his cell.

####

A perfect cube of uniform dull grey tiles supernaturally lit by a uniform dull grey glow, no light source, no shadows; in a max security room in the Maximum Security Wellness Center, patients weren't even trusted around light fixtures. The staff had removed everything Bill had used thus far to commit violence or attempt escape, plus a few more things as punishments for various infractions: journal, paint, pens, books, magazines, puppets (he missed those the most), even the furniture. He'd never earned the privilege of a TV or radio. By now, all he was permitted were black, red, yellow, and blue dry erase markers to draw on his walls—and the red and blue had gone dry; the "Be a TRY-angle!" poster they'd replaced whenever Bill left the room until he gave up and stopped tearing it down; and the clothes on his back. He'd gradually gotten himself banned from every extracurricular and recreational activity the Dimensional Tyrant Ward offered. Whenever he was fresh out of the SWV, when his restrictions were highest, his schedule consisted of mandatory individual therapy, mandatory group therapy, med checks, and the cafeteria.

He spent the vast majority of his time in his cell, sitting curled up alone, day after night after day, barely moving, barely talking, barely eating, waiting for nothing at all.

####

The seamless door swung open and admitted an Orb of Healing Light.

Bill blinked blearily up at the Orb. It was hard to tell how slowly time passed here, but he was sure it couldn't have been more than a couple hours since he'd been returned to his cell: that was when his medications made his mind the foggiest. "Emmyyy. Where ya been? Didn't see you when I came out of the Solitary Dullness Void. Nice of you to, uh..." A second ago he'd had a clever quip about how D-SM5 had clearly dropped by because it missed Bill, but he'd forgotten how to word it.

"Well, I'm here now. I'm flattered you missed me, Mr. Cipher."

Bill blinked heavily. "You turned that around on me," he griped. "Not fair." Ugh, the room was spinning. He flopped on his back.

"A-AOX4 tells me you showed an interest earlier in our outpatient reincarnation program," D-SM5 said. "Since it looks like your schedule is light these days, I thought you might be interested in attending Paingoreous's reincarnation?"

It took him a moment to process the offer. "Really? That's something people can attend?" What was the catch?

"We usually only extend the offer to the departing patient's friends, and—exemplary patients. But... I thought you might benefit from watching the process for yourself. It may encourage you to take a little more interest in your future."

For it to push a possible lead so fast, it really was desperate to find some leverage they could use on Bill. It probably thought of this as a rare opportunity—a patient from Ward 333 wasn't ready for reincarnation every day.

"Wow. I sure am encouraged," Bill said. "You have no idea just how encouraged I am."

####

If an unambitious office building and a utilitarian hospital reluctantly got married out of a vague sense of heteronormative social obligation, had a depressed child, and the fae spirited it away to replace it with an even more depressed changeling child, the child's small intestines would look a lot like the Theraprism's interior hallways: it was windowless, it was labyrinthine, it was beige, and it was grey, and it didn't even care anymore. Monotonous commercial high-traffic carpet alternated with monotonous commercial high-traffic linoleum. The fluorescent lights buzzed just enough to be annoying, but not quite enough that you'd feel justified in snapping and screaming "I've had it!" as you swung a pleather-seated metal chair at the light fixture.

Even though Bill had been languishing in the Theraprism for hours and/or millennia (Bill couldn't tell; he couldn't feel the passage of time), he hardly knew his way around the Dimensional Tyrant Ward, much less the rest of the facility. As D-SM5 led Bill (and six guards) out of Ward 333 and into a lower security zone, he looked for any scant identifiable landmarks and tried to memorize which turns they took by coding the lefts and rights and ups and downs into a mnemonic word. The walk helped wake him from his medication stupor; but his mind never quite felt fully on.

Bill had only briefly glimpsed the Theraprism's reincarnation unit during intake, just one of many rooms he'd been whisked past as he was dragged to Ward 333 screaming and cursing the Axolotl's name. Entering the unit now, it looked like an occult sacrificial altar carved from marble that had been modeled after a 23rd century starship's teleportation platform, contained in a room that looked like a magic planetarium: glowing stars hovered around the dome of the ceiling. Against the back wall in pale pink marble was carved an impossibly long axolotl, swimming in a figure 8 so its vapid smile almost caught the tip of its ribbonlike tail. Bill glowered at it. Backstabber.

He, D-SM5, and the other observers who'd already arrived were in a connected observation room with an enormous, thick window and a sealed door. Next to the window was a large computer console encased in the same marble as the reincarnation altar. That probably controlled the process.

The audience consisted of three aliens who looked a little like Paingoreous might have with his face unpeeled, a few patients and staff Bill recognized, more he didn't, and Jessica with the shining spherical head and the thirteen fingers. Oh boy. If he'd known Jessica would be here he would have tried to polish. Bill straightened his bow tie and smoothed his rumpled orange jumpsuit.

Paingoreous himself was already in the next room, standing on the altar. At the sight of Bill, his exposed facial muscles twitched, as though trying to widen his eyes even though their eyelids were already long gone. "Bill? What are you doing here?"

D-SM5 answered before Bill could blurt out a witty retort. "I invited Mr. Cipher. I thought he would benefit from seeing what he can look forward to once he's improved. I hope you don't mind."

Paingoreous's face immediately smoothed out. "Yes—of course, director, if you say so. I remember how difficult it was in the early days. I'm happy to help my fellow patients in any way I can." Suck up. A dry note entered his voice, "Especially a more troubled patient."

Bill took one of the folding chairs lined up in front of the window and shot back, "I'm about to have one less trouble! Byyye!" (Did Jessica think that was funny? Sometimes she did. He snuck a sideways glance to see if she was laughing. Oh, right—she didn't have a face.)

Paingoreous didn't dignify him with a response. Too good for the likes of Bill, no doubt. Paingoreous wasn't obligated to answer anybody—except the staff, of course.

Bill had never met the real Paingoreous. By the time Bill was committed, the monotony, medication, and mandatory therapy were already well on their way to killing whoever Paing had once been. No way the offensively bland sap leaving now was the same one who'd come in with his face skinned and muscles pinned open.

A technician was already turning on the computer console, running through a whole list of checks as the machine booted up. A hum filled the room as the altar began to softly glow. To all appearances Bill was facing forward, slitted pupil aimed straight at Paingoreous; but his anatomy was built for watching things out of the corner of his eye and his real attention was focused on the reincarnation technician. "So how's reincarnation work in this dump?" Bill asked D-SM5. "I didn't get the orientation."

"Yes you did," D-SM5 said. "I was there."

"Oh yeah? Well, I don't remember seeing you."

D-SM5 sighed. "First, Paingoreous's memories of his current life must be erased, to give him the best fresh start possible and to comply with Earth's soul sanitization regulations."

"Seems like a big waste of time. His head's already empty enough."

One of the Paing-ish aliens a couple seats over shot Bill a dirty look. "That's my son in there."

"Not for much longer, he isn't."

"Be respectful," D-SM5 said warningly.

Bill ignored it. "So once you've scrubbed his brain clean, what then?"

"Then, we reincarnate him. We've already carefully selected his destination and species; except for special circumstances, we generally don't customize the patient's body further, as the program is already set up to divinely design the body most well-suited to the soul about to inhabit it."

"If these bodies are so perfect, why customize them at all?"

"We wouldn't want, say, a recovering pyromaniac to be reborn with pyrokinesis." (Bill felt unfairly targeted.) "Once his species and destination are entered into the program, off he'll go to start his new life as an egg."

"An egg?! Sheesh, wasn't going through childhood once bad enough? I assume his childhood was bad, anyway! Nobody with competent parents ends up like him."

The Paing-ish alien beside Bill bolted out of their seat and lurched aggressively toward Bill. (Ha. Too easy.) The next alien over tugged them back by the arm. Bill was sure he heard a whispered, "Careful, do you know who that..." 

D-SM5 said, "One more crack like that and you're going back to your cell."

"Fiiine. Why can't he skip straight to being a butterfly, though?" What he really wanted to find out was how to skip straight to adulthood.

"For starters, because spontaneous generation has been heavily restricted on Earth since the 15th century, and banned completely outside of special circumstances since the 19th century."

Spontaneous generation. The creation of fully formed life from unliving matter: maggots that emerged from flesh, geese that emerged from barnacles, snakes and crocodiles that wriggled out of the mud of the Nile. He'd always planned to legalize it again when he took over. So if the only reason the Theraprism couldn't do it was because it was banned, then they must have the technology for it, right?

Bill tuned D-SM5 out as it prattled on about the mental health benefits of restarting life and beginner's mind and boring therapeutic psychobabble, and ignored the flashing lights and divine music as Paingoreous's memory, personality, and identity were all wiped clean. He was only interested in what the reincarnation technician was doing. (Although when Bill briefly glanced at Paingoreous, his shape seemed somehow uncertain, as though his molecules had only just walked into the room and promptly forgotten what they'd come in for or who they were supposed to be. Ready to be reshaped into something else.)

The technician opened up the primary reincarnation program, checked a box confirming that the patient's previous incarnation had been erased, and began setting up the specifications for his next incarnation. Choosing the reincarnation world was easy enough: under the drop down menu, the "Goldilocks zone" worlds were sorted first. Earth was sixth on the list. Choosing a dimension was just as easy.

However, choosing the location and time period looked more complicated; rather than searching through a handy list of continents or geological epochs, the technician checked Paingoreous's patient file and typed a couple of long strings of numbers into the blanks for the coordinates and time. They didn't look like any date system or coordinate system Bill was familiar with. How the heck would he work with that?

And selecting the species, to Bill's horror, meant scrolling down a menu ordered by how frequently a species had been selected for reincarnation at this facility. That was insane! The Theraprism always discharged patients as unambitious species where one member was nearly incapable of making a meaningful impact on the local biosphere—anything useful like an octopus or a goat would be buried amongst the literal billions of species that had received zero reincarnations. Couldn't you just start typing the species's name to jump down to—? But no, the Theraprism's keyboard didn't have characters to type human loan words. The technician seemed to be scrolling manually.

That was fine! That was fine. Whatever Bill left as, he wouldn't be it for very long. He wasn't shopping for a makeover; just for an escape pod.

The technician located Vanessa atalanta (147 prior reincarnations) and kept moving, tabbing past a dizzying array of options—sex, size, coloration, visual clarity, caterpillar spine distribution, a whole list of health conditions and mutations the technician skipped—and every box she tabbed past automatically filled in with the word "DEFAULT". How many boxes could be filled in with defaults?

Bill leaned toward D-SM5. "So do you chuck these suckers out anywhere random on the planet or what?"

"Of course not," it said promptly. "What a thought! We take a deep interest in our discharged patients' well-being. We never leave where they spend their next lives at the whim of the computer's randomized decision." 

But they could leave it up to the computer. Still watching sideways as the technician scrolled past an "advanced settings" button without touching it (was that where the spontaneous generation option was hidden?), Bill asked, "Do youalways choose for the patient, or can the patient make requests?"

Dryly, D-SM5 said, "Unless you make some enormous progress, I doubt you'd get clearance to reincarnate anywhere near that town you terrorized, if that's what you're wondering."

"What! Who said I want to visit that crummy valley! All those mountains and trees? Ugh! No, do you know what kind of place I like? The Greater Cairo metropolitan area. Dry! Sandy! Flat!" said Bill, who detested flat landscapes with all his heart. "Covered in pyramids! Sometimes with my face on them! Plus there's the Nile! I love the Nile! I love being in the Nile! I'd spend all my time in the Nile if I could! I've had some loser ex-friends say that living your whole life in the Nile is an unhealthy coping mechanism to avoid addressing problems in your life, but if you ask me they're just jealous of how amazing my life is—"

"Ready for reincarnation," the technician said. "Proceed?"

D-SM5 left its seat, hovering closer to the glass to catch Paingoreous's attention. "Are you ready?"

"Sure," said Paingoreous, who clearly wasn't certain what he was claiming to be ready for.

"Proceed," D-SM5 said. Bill fell silent, paying close attention to how the technician began the reincarnation process.

She clicked a button that said "EXECUTE" (gruesome), clicked through a couple more confirmation screens, and then the faint background hum grew to a rumble and the magical stars glowed brighter. "Ten seconds," she said. "Nine... eight... seven..."

"Hey!" Bill shouted through the glass. "Friendly tip for Earth! Humans love when you fly into their eyeballs! You should do that!"

D-SM5 rounded on Bill, glowing furiously at him. (Maybe it was Bill's imagination, but he thought Jessica looked amused. Worth it.)

The soon-to-be caterpillar formerly known as Paingoreous stared in confusion at Bill. "Okay," he said—and then there was a bright flash of light.

He let out an awful wail of pure soul-rending agony.

When the light faded, he was gone.

The observation room had fallen perfectly silent.

"That's fine," D-SM5 said. "That's—that's normal."

####

Every once in a while, the Theraprism got something right. It was one of the few big government-sponsored "respectable" institutions that didn't make a fuss about how Bill ate. They just let him go to the cafeteria, strip down, unpeel his exoskeleton, and hang out with the photosynthesizers for half an hour or so in the corner under the grow lights. No gasps of horror or screams of outrage—not from the staff anyway; some of the patients took a bit to get used to it when they were new. It was a refreshing change.

On the other hand, even though they were willing to turn a couple lights high enough to melt most mortals' eyeballs when Bill was feeding, he never left feeling truly energized. The grow lights were designed for species with leaves and solar panels; they weren't designed to fuel up a god made of energy. A few bright lightbulbs didn't measure up to raw starlight.

He figured there wasn't any point in complaining. As much as he hated feeling like a gas tank trying to burn a dust mote for fuel, he knew that they knew that long before he even reached 1% of his usual power, he'd be strong enough to vaporize the Theraprism with the snap of a finger.

When he'd had his daily dose of light, he folded shut, redressed, and drifted over to the actual food for dessert. He grabbed a bottle of an allegedly "lemon" nigh-flavorless clear soda—this would do—and hovered toward the exit.

The cafeteria monitor stationed in the door elbowed her way in front of Bill. "Ahem."

"What?"

"You know the rules. No food outside the cafeteria."

"What! This isn't food, it's a soda. Beverages aren't food, everyone knows that." The monitor didn't budge. Bill tried whining. "C'mooon, I got injured in the void today. Look at this!" He gestured demonstratively at his splints. "Look how much pain I'm in!"

The Solitary Wellness Void made this cafeteria monitor uncomfortable. She'd never said so directly, but she tended to turn a blind eye when patients who'd just come out of the SWV were more aggressive than usual or tried to sneak extra desserts. One time when Bill had come out of a week in the SWV, she'd wordlessly slipped him a couple of packets of low-sodium fear sauce, a condiment usually distributed exclusively to the obligate phobophages in the ward. "Besides, it's my birthday! I'm a birthday triangle! You wouldn't deny a birthday triangle a soda, right?"

"Is it really your birthday?"

"Heck if I know. It could be. I don't know it isn't."

She was trying not to smile. "Fine. Just one time. Don't let anyone catch you with it and finish it before you're back in your cell."

"You got it, toots." Bill glided past her.

He slipped from the cafeteria into the nurse's office before his guards could catch sight of his illicit drink. "Hey, bartender! I'm here for my nightcap."

The nurse prepared Bill's evening battery of drugs. He bent his straw into a fun zigzag—honestly it was really more of a sad N shape—slurped down half the eyedrops, and opened his soda to refill his cup.

The nurse looked over at the hiss of the cap opening. "Hey! Hey—"

"It's just soda!" Bill protested. "The cafeteria monitor said it was fine! Besides, what's a little soda gonna do? Nullify all seven of my antipsychotics before I reach my cell?" (Bill had overheard the nurse grumbling to a colleague about the amount of antipsychotics he was on. They thought it was utterly excessive, considering that they'd had no evidence the drugs were doing anything but making him more erratic—which was something, because Bill had seen patients near drooling catatonia from their meds without any of the nurses questioning their current dosage. Conversely, the docs thought Bill's odd biology meant they needed to give him more if they wanted any hope of impacting him.) "Come on. It's not even caffeinated!"

The nurse took the soda bottle to check the ingredient list, then relented. "Fine. I suppose it won't do any harm."

"You're a peach." Bill topped off his cup, poured the rest of the soda over his eye, crushed the bottle, and consumed it too.

"The plastic probably isn't good for you, though."

"I like the way it melts in the back of my throat."

As he drank his medicated soda and got escorted back to his cell, he lazily drifted back and forth in the hall as far as the guards would let him go, dawdling more than usual—he knew they hated it when he dawdled, but they knew he hated spending one second more in his cell than necessary and grudgingly put up with a little lollygagging to keep the peace. But their tolerance ran out in the max security hall as Bill slowed down even further near The Beast's cell. The guard behind Bill pushed him. "Hurry up." 

"Hey!" Bill wobbled off path and stumbled into the wall, spilling some of his drink. "What's your problem!"

"You stopped moving."

"I did not! I'm just taking my time! Enjoying the weather out here."

"Well, take less time."

"Ugh, fine. Didn't realize you had plans I'm keeping you from." Bill rolled his eye and kept moving.

"Hold it!"

Bill froze. He turned around. The guard was pointing at a streak of clear fluid that had spilled from Bill's cup and rolled down the door. His bones frosted over.

"You dropped a pill," the guard said.

Bill's gaze focused on the circular soap-green tablet on the floor. "Are you kidding?! Aren't the other twelve enough?"

"No exceptions, Cipher."

"You don't expect me to eat it off the floor!"

"Do you want to go all the way back to the nurse's office for another?"

Bill groaned in frustration. "Fine!" He snatched it up, wiped it off on the guard's sleeve, and popped it in his mouth. The guard raised a fist; Bill bared his fangs; and after a tense moment, the guard backed down first. The Theraprism had taken nearly every other power from Bill, but it couldn't take his teeth—and though he knew the guards would win any fight, Bill could make it hurt.

They returned him to his room; Bill handed over his cup; they checked to make sure his cup was empty, inspected his mouth, and locked him in.

He hoped they wouldn't notice that half his pills had stuck in the zig-zag bend of the opaque white straw.

He hoped they wouldn't notice The Beast's tongue thrusting through his food slot to lap up the spilled soda that was running down his door and over the bright red "NO SUGAR ALLOWED" sign.

His entire plan hinged on it.

####

Bill was drawing on the wall with his scant art supplies when he felt reality ripple around him, like the wave in a still pool when someone new quietly slides into the water. He looked up from his work. It was happening.

There were several thuds; then a crash; and then the peal of a prison alarm piercing the air. The alarm melted into shrill dolphin-like laughter, and then the frenetic staccato of a hyper speed dance song that threatened to fracture Bill's internal organs. He shuddered as the sound tore at his wound like freezing ice crystals expanding a crack in a boulder.

But he rose into the air and turned to face the door, ready.

Just in time for the door to vanish. The Theraprism melted away like mist in the sunlight—and oh, the sunlight was glorious. The wide open sky pulsed maddening colors so vivid that the faraway rainbows looked monotone in comparison; the land consisted of rolling hills of candy-coated tongues and stomachs and muscles, the paws of enormous buried corpses thrusting up into the sky, the crevasses between burial mounds running with artificially-flavored saliva. It was Bill's kind of place. He wished he had time to hang around.

Before him, orange fur matted with a fine dust of powdery sugar, wild eyes contracted to pinpricks, stood The Beast.

"You did it, you beautiful monster!" Bill shrieked with laughter. "I knew you'd come through!"

The Beast rumbled, "Em deerf evah uoy."

"You're welcome! You can return the favor later! Me, I have somewhere to be." While The Beast was asserting his personal reality on top of the Theraprism's idea of reality, none of the Theraprism's walls or doors existed. Bill wasn't sure exactly how far The Beast's radius of influence extended, except that it was at least far enough to get him out of the maximum security hall—but he had to move now, before the guards rallied to sedate The Beast. Bill slipped a finger into the band of his ankle bracelet and found that under the influence of The Beast's physics, the stiff plastic stretched like a warm rubber band. He tugged it off and tossed it aside. "Seeya, pal!"

But The Beast held up a paw, blocking Bill before he could zip off. "Noob ym tpecca," The Beast said. "Hself ym emusnoc."

"Oooh. Woww." Bill looked at The Beast's candy paw. "Oh, man. Generous offer! You have no idea how tempting it is to take a taste, but I've really gotta get somewhere, and I've gotta be at least sober enough to pull that off..."

"Emusnoc," The Beast insisted. "Hsur ragus eht fo ssendam gnilims citatsce eht ni em nioj. Rehtegot srorroh letsap dna serusaelp kcis hcus wonk lliw ew. Evarg lufituaeb ym ni em htiw tor."

Bill stared again at the paw. The tip of his tongue slipped out beneath his eye to lick hungrily at his waterline. When was the last time he'd been on something that felt good? "Oh, what the heck!" He took The Beast's paw. "I can do this buzzed! How much damage can one little lick do, anyway?"

####

The guard heaved open the maximum security hall's door. The floor was covered in tacky pools of neon candy and removed ankle monitors. "It's just like we feared," the guard shouted into a walkie-talkie, glancing quickly through each cell door's window. "Every single max security patient escaped under The Beast's reality-altering field."

The guard stopped at the sight of neon yellow and orange, peering through the window at the triangle flopped flat on the ground and surrounded by powdery pink sugar.

"Well," the guard said, "all of them except Cipher."

Through the walkie-talkie, D-SM5 tiredly said, "He licked the paw, didn't he."

"Looks like it, boss."

D-SM5 groaned. "All right! Positive thinking! That's the second biggest threat in the ward already accounted for! Silver lining to Mr. Cipher's substance use issues. Assist in securing the others."

####

The good news was that The Beast seemed happy to frolic randomly around the Theraprism rather than head toward the exit, forcing the other escapees to follow along to remain under his reality-altering protection rather than get stranded in small rooms and locked-down halls. The bad news was that his meandering route let him pick up more and more revelers. After an hour, only a third of the max security patients had been re-captured and dragged back to their cells, and twice as many medium security patients had joined the riot. 

A-AOX4 was on hand in the maximum security hall to supervise as the guards brought in super-powered escapees. Most of them came back loopy on either The Beast's toxins or on the sedative that had been injected to keep them calm. A-AOX4 was checking them for awareness of their surroundings—name, where are you, when are you, why are you here—as each one was locked back in their cell.

And each time it passed by Bill's cell, it glanced in, concerned.

Bill had been almost pleasant when he'd come out of the Solitary Wellness Void—maybe after all those sessions in isolation he was finally ready to be more of a team player. And D-SM5 had said that he'd been unusually well-behaved and attentive during the reincarnation. A-AOX4 had hoped their most surly patient was finally opening up. It would be a shame if this incident with The Beast resulted in his new progress backsliding.

Plus, it took a heavy dose of anything to impact Bill at all, much less knock him out cold. He'd already had to go to the nurse earlier today; what if he needed medical attention?

So after locking up the latest subdued prisoner, A-AOX4 said to one of the guards, "Take over monitoring incoming patients. I'm checking on Cipher."

It unlocked the door and hovered into the room. "Cipher?"

No response. He was plastered flat to the floor.

"Bill?" It floated lower to check his condition. 

He was paper.

Paper meticulously colored in with yellow marker and folded into a triangle; scraps of paper colored black, carefully torn into hand and feet shapes, and shoved in the sleeves and pants of his prison uniform.

A-AOX4 lifted up the paper. On the other side was Bill's "Be a TRY-angle!" poster. He'd written across it, "IS THIS TRYING HARD ENOUGH FOR YOU?"

It turned toward the door—and discovered Bill had filled the wall with a drawing of himself making an obscene gesture, with a word bubble that read, "GIVE MY REGARDS TO THE AX! And tell Jessica I said bye xoxo"

It zoomed out into the hallway and grabbed its walkie-talkie. "Director SM5! Cipher's escaped his cell! He left a decoy! He's not with The Beast, we don't know where he is!"

There was a moment of dead air. And then the director growled, "I think I have an idea."

####

Trying to keep his giggles as quiet as possible, Bill looped through the Theraprism's halls, drifting between The Beast's rolling fields of hard candy corpses and the Theraprism's rigid monotone halls. What had he been worried about! Getting hopped up on astralplanar sugar before escaping his cell had been a great idea! It gave him instant shortcuts through half the walls! And he could handle a little buzz like this! He was totally in control of his actions and knew exactly what he—

How long had he been flying the wrong direction? He turned around. Wow was he high, he could barely focus on anything but all the colors. He wondered if The Beast's toxins had any weird interactions with his meds.

He was lucky The Beast had decided to dawdle around the Dimensional Tyrants Ward: here at the far end of the Theraprism, there were no signs of crisis beyond the sealed doors indicating the facility was under lockdown—and once he was outside a high security ward, there were plenty of cracks, gaps, and vents that Bill was thin enough to slide through. He hadn't even seen a guard since he'd left his cell. By the time he reached the reincarnation room, The Beast's landscape was fading out and the sugar crash headache was fading in, but the facility was still on lockdown and no one seemed to be looking for Bill. He slipped beneath the locked door and powered up the console to the reincarnation machine.

He skipped straight to the reincarnation program and checked the box that said, yes, the patient's brain had been washed. He paused when a warning pop-up blocked the screen. The technician hadn't gotten a pop-up. He had to read over the two-sentence warning three times before he understood what he was looking at. The soul sanitization routine hadn't been run recently, was he sure the patient's memory was erased—ugh, yes. He irritably clicked the confirmation and hoped that would be the last of it.

Bill quickly selected Earth and dimension 46'\; he tabbed past the coordinates and date, and they both automatically filled in "DEFAULT." D-SM5 had said the computer would make a "random" decision if you didn't plug in a time and place, but the staff didn't know Earth like Bill did. If he left the time and place up to the whims of fate, then something as weird as a trillion-year-old alien chaos god escaping a criminal insane asylum to spontaneously generate as a fully grown mortal would be sucked straight into the weirdest place and time on Earth. Gravity Falls: August, 2012. Weirdmageddon. He was willing to bet his life on it.

He was betting his life on it.

After that, with any luck, he'd be able to shed his new body like any other puppet and return to his castle in the sky. If for some reason he couldn't get out of it, he'd only need to pull a couple of magic tricks outside a normal mortal's capabilities to catch his past self's attention, find a way to prove his identity—heck, with any luck, they'd be seeing through each other's eyes and that would instantly confirm it—warn his past self about the Pines' treachery, prevent his own death, save Weirdmageddon, restructure the universe in his image, and rule his new party paradise as god-king for all eternity. Easy.

He scrolled down the list of available creatures, looking for something that would be easy to reach the Fearamid and prove his intelligence with—something with vocal cords that could speak eye-bat would be useful, it'd save him a lot of trouble if he could just shout at his sentinels in their own language and startle them into listening—but, to his surprise, the first useful species he found was humans, down amongst the species that had received a single-digit number of reincarnations from the Theraprism. Really, humans? They allowed that?

Over the blaring alarm, a voice made an announcement. He completely tuned it out—and only realized a moment after it ended that he'd heard his own name. They knew he'd escaped.

Bill didn't have time to search for anything better. He selected humanity.

He tabbed past dozens of features he could choose from for his body—default default default default—who cared what the body peed out of, he wasn't keeping the thing long enough to fill its bladder! He clicked open the advanced settings—there, spontaneous generation! He hoped this thing wouldn't drop him on the sidewalk as a baby, but usually when a human suddenly popped into existence, it was an adult sculpted from clay or something, right? He'd be fine! He checked the box for spontaneous generation.

He got another error message. He groaned. He wasn't sober enough for this.

Something about spontaneous generation being banned on Earth after 1859, is he willing to assume the liability if the patient generates after—yeah sure whatever, he clicked yes. Another pop-up prompted him for the digital signature of the person assuming liability. He typed in D-SM5's name.

As soon as he clicked enter, another error message popped up. "What!!"

He flinched at the sound of a muffled pneumatic hiss. Outside, somebody had unlocked the doors to this hallway. The alarm was still blaring; the Theraprism wasn't coming off lockdown. That meant whoever had unlocked the hall was coming for him.

"Focusss." He skimmed the new warning. Something about humans being on a list of species for which spontaneous generation was restricted—what loser had written a law about that! Who cared if a fully-formed, brand-new human popped out of thin air in the middle of town! What about Bill's wants?! He checked another box YES HE'S SURE HE WANTS TO SPONTANEOUSLY GENERATE A HUMAN YOU MONSTER and pounded enter.

Another pop-up. It wanted to know on which god's authority the spontaneous generation had been authorized.

Bill froze. Why did it need to know. Would it check? A machine that could reincarnate a soul was probably also a machine that could shoot off a prayer. Or was Bill supposed to have some kind of divine authorization code? Which gods were even allowed to authorize that kind of thing? He didn't know which stupid legislative body had made this stupid law or what their stupid definition of a god was! Gods weren't even real, they were just stupid, arrogant, stuck-up jerks who were powerful enough to trick people into thinking they were important! Like Bill! What name were they looking for?!

He heard voices in the hallway. He darted over to the door, slid his fingers through the seams around the doorframe to crush the latching mechanism so it couldn't be opened, and darted back. That wouldn't hold them long; he knew from experience that the guards could bust down the doors in these low security wings without much difficulty.

"Bill Cipher!" That was D-SM5. It had come personally? In any other circumstance, he'd be flattered. "Open up immediately!"

"Has that ever worked?" A god, a god, a god... his eye caught on the bas relief at the back of the next room. If there was any god this place would accept orders from... The guards were ramming the door; the bending metal groaned. He typed "THE AXOLOTL" and hit enter.

The button grayed out but the pop-up didn't go away. The screen froze. "What." Bill tried clicking again. The cursor turned into one of those little spinning balls that meant the computer was quietly having a stroke. "No no no no—"

D-SM5 hollered, "You know what the consequences will be if you don't—"

"I'm not listeniiing to yooou!"

"You're only going to hurt yourse—"

Dropping his voice to a demonic boom to drown out the director, Bill recited, "'I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited! People were not—" There was a shriek of tearing metal, and then a bright glow behind Bill as D-SM5 peered through the gap in the door. Bill started talking faster, "'Were not invited they went there they got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island and somehow—'"

The pop-up disappeared. The cursor returned to normal. The box next to spontaneous generation was checked. Bill stared for a split second, then quickly closed out the advanced settings, scrolled to the bottom of the page, and hit "EXECUTE."

Someone blasted the door out of its frame; based on the blinding glow that accompanied the blast, Bill suspected that wasn't one of the guards, but D-SM5 itself. He frantically clicked through the next two confirmations, flung a couple of folding chairs toward D-SM5 and its thugs, and dove beneath the door to the next room. Ten seconds.

"Cancel the reincarnation!" D-SM5 snapped.

A guard ran to the console. (What if they saw where Bill had gone? They could probably guess the planet, but would the computer keep records of his destination, what his new body looked like—) "I don't see a cancel! I don't think—"

"Then get him off the altar!"

Five seconds. Please spawn as an adult and not a baby, please spawn as an adult and not a baby, please— Bill hadn't broken the door between the observation room and the altar; the guards easily unlocked it. "No no no—!"

"Don't let him esc—!"

Three seconds. An impossibly bright light shone down on Bill. He reflexively peeled open his exoskeleton to accept it. LIGHT—oh, he felt even more alive than the time he'd stolen a bottle of stimulants from the nurse station, ground them up, and snorted them off Mrs. Mirrorcube's back. His eye widened, taking in as much free energy as he could—and then he focused his gaze through the window on the console, focusing the infinite light into a laser powerful enough to instantly melt through the window and explode the computer. The guards fell back, trying to shield their tender mortal flesh from the fury of Bill's fire. Enjoy the blisters.

D-SM5 bellowed, "Bill Cipher, you mo—!"

"CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, SUCKA!" He could feel his body ripping apart, cracking open at the wound. It hurt, but not the hurt of dying; it was the euphoric hurt of spaghettification, of being infinitely sucked beyond a beautiful event horizon. Bill's triumphant cackle filled the air—

—and then the room was silent and dark, and Bill was gone.

####

(If you're new here: I posted this as a one shot because I think we could all use a little Bill escaping from Theraprism, yeah? However it's ALSO part of my ongoing Bill-stuck-in-a-human-body fic I'm currently editing for TBOB compatibility. So, if you enjoyed this and want to see where post-reincarnation Bill goes, check out the fic!! And if you DON'T want to read the rest of the fic, I hope you enjoyed the one shot and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

If you do check out the main fic be forewarned it's only 100% TBOB compatible up to chapter 6. After that it is, bizarrely, 98% TBOB compatible, because somehow I accidentally wrote a fic that lines up with the book so well that I'm legit worried people could use TBOB to work out fic spoilers. But I still need to edit the remaining 2%.

If you're NOT new here: hey gang this is the new chapter 6!!! I finished editing this chapter about fifteen minutes before post time so it's not as polished as my usual chapters, but I hope it didn't read that way. Anyway, I look forward to hearing what y'all think!)

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

UPDATED VERSION ‼️‼️‼️

(as a note the greater yokohama polycule remains intact)

soukoku. they make me insane. so fucking insane. their communication... their weirdness.... theyre losing the idgaf war so hard. theyre both soooooo done. obsessed with each other fr

dazango/angozai. im actually so internally insane abt them and their relationship i just can never verbalize it and the tag is literally like a good chunk me. should have toxic and unhealthy grief motivated sex

souheki. my brothers in shk we stand firm... guys guys the admiration... the care... the TRUST???? insane. actually insane

dazatsu. LISTEN LIKE. everyone is too mean to them i see it now. i see the vision. i understand it. gay people... they need to have a dramatic hug

kunidazai. WORK WIVES !!!!! i stand by the fact dazai misses him sooo much... also need a big reunion hug. and some tears

top five dazai ships?

im so bad with remembering my ships when im asked im so sorry uhmmmmmm

whatever the hell canon dazai is doing with every man he meets (this also means the other ships on this list arent mutually exclusive)

dazai/chuuya. soukoku. whatever the fuck they've got going on. gay sex will not make this better but its definitely something they could be doing

dazai/kunikida. kunidazai. also whatever the fuck they've got going on. he misses kunikida sooo much actually hes like stir crazy for cartoon style violence

dazai/ranpo. souheki. i just think the way dazai also admires ranpo is neat

dazai/fyodor. fyozai. i dont actually ship them whatsoever but whatever hookup mindgames theyre doing deserve a spot here

[casdeans-pie]

---- AO3 link post

---- Part 1

----------------------

Cas makes his way into the kitchen after Dean hears him apologise and make an excuse to leave the table. His gaze flicks to Dean’s shoulder as he walks into the room, in a familiar gesture that’s so quick Dean’s sure he’s seen him do that before and just dismissed it.

“Dean?” Cas says with concern, eyebrows scrunching together endearingly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, but you mind telling me what’s up with this?” Dean gestures at where the handprint should be – which to him still looks like normal skin.

For a moment Cas says nothing. His eyebrows scrunch impossibly closer. He takes a longer look at Dean’s shoulder, then straightens up, clears his throat and says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” in a stilted monotone that would fool absolutely nobody.

“Oh come on! You’re a terrible liar, I know that you can see there’s a handprint.”

Cas sighs. “Yes. There is.”

“What the hell, Cas? When were you going to tell me about the friggin’ mood ring on my shoulder?”

“Mood ring?”

“Patience said it was glowing brighter than ever and I guess I was feeling really happy and uh-”

The corners of Cas’s lips twitch up into a smile. “It was glowing that brightly?”

“Hey, nope, not the important thing right now,” Dean says, heat crawling up the back of his neck remembering why he’d been so happy. He gestures back at his incredibly normal looking skin. “Who else can see this?”

“Psychics like Patience…” Cas begins, a little hesitantly, “and other Angels.”

“Okay, this is starting to make sense ‘cause they’ve always looked at my shoulder funny.”

“And Demons,” Cas continues quietly.

“Wait, are you kidding?”

“And probably ghosts. Though I’ve never asked one.”

Dean takes a deep breath. “Okay. That’s great. Everyone but me can see my sparkly my little pony cutie mark-”

“I don’t understand what ponies have to do with any of this.”

Dean smiles before he can help it and Cas’s eyes flick back to his shoulder. Dean grabs at the skin there, but he still can’t see anything different. “Seriously? Just from you doing your,” he lowers his voice when he mimics, “‘I don’t understand that reference’ bit?”

Cas turns his head away, but Dean can see the crinkles at the corners of his eyes from the smile he’s trying to hide.

Dean sighs, knowing the warmth in his chest will only be making the mark glow even brighter. Damn it. “And it's always been like this?”

Cas turns back to him, the smile gone. “I healed the physical scar as soon as I could, but that mark was made on your soul. The glowing print it left behind can’t be healed away,” he says softly, “I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Figures.”

“When I made it… it was the only way I could bring your soul back with me.” Cas’s shoulders tense in that way that means there’s more, he just doesn’t want to say it.

Dean catches on. “Wait… it means something, doesn’t it? What does it mean?”

Cas holds his gaze but says nothing, lips pressed into a thin line.

“Cas? C’mon man, what does it mean?”

Cas closes the short distance between them (Dean hadn’t even noticed they’d been standing so close) and gently lays a hand onto the skin of his shoulder, over where the handprint would be if Dean could see it. He gasps when a hot jolt of something electric shoots straight through him and leaves his entire body tingling.

Cas finally says, “It means you’re mine.”

[too-deviant]

The three weeks it took for Luke Castellan’s wounds to heal.

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Apollo!Reader

Summary: Luke comes back from his quest defeated and angry, and refuses to let anyone see him. But he still needs tending to. You are the lucky sucker who gets to do so.

Content: post-quest angsty luke, reader is awkward, i use the word under’t at one point because i think im shakespeare or some shit

Word Count: 7.6k

Notes: Pushing the agenda that lukes scar is gnarrly like it’s nasty !! not just some faint lil line. the boy was attacked by an actual dragon, like pls. also this hasn’t been proofread so sorry if it doesn’t make sense

part two

꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷

The spring that Luke Castellan spent on his quest was a strange one for the residents of Camp Half-Blood.

For years, campers knew who to go to whenever they needed advice. When they needed help. They knew who to direct the new campers to when they stumbled over the boundary line — and knew they were in good hands. Luke’s hands. He was the big brother the whole camp needed, and not just because he was older than most of them. He just had that aura — and he was undoubtedly kind to everyone he came across. Not to mention the guy was insane with a sword, and had this boyish charm that anyone would fall for. Most campers, if not all of them, looked up to Luke Castellan.

So when he left, nobody knew what to do.

It was pretty tame at first, mostly just awkward. Especially in the Hermes cabin, with Chris Rodriguez in charge in his brother's absence. A Hephaestus kid had taken over the sword fighting classes Luke usually ran, which proved to do more harm than good because he wasn’t all that great at using a sword than he was at forging them, and most of Luke’s students were already better than him.

But nothing went wrong — at least for the first week.

But after the initial awkwardness wore off, chaos ensued.

Chris couldn’t keep the Hermes kids in check — once they realised he wasn’t as authoritative as Luke, they began to use it to their advantage. Everyone got pranked, the camp store was raided three times before Chiron decided to close it down for the meantime and dishwashing duty every night was not slowing them down.

You hadn’t realised just how much the camp relied on Luke until he wasn’t there to keep things under control. Fights broke out with nobody to step in between them, and more and more kids were showing up to the infirmary with injuries that they could take care of themselves — something Luke would’ve told them to do instead of bothering you and your siblings. It was actually unbelievable how much a group of about a hundred half-gods relied on the steady hand of one seventeen year old boy.

You couldn’t wait until he got back so you could finally get some peace and quiet.

Luke didn’t return to camp for two and a half weeks, and as the days went by, campers began to get uneasy. Nobody knew what his quest had entailed, or where he had to go, so the longer they went without news the more antsy people got. You didn’t speak to Luke much — maybe a few shared sentences to be polite — but you knew what he was capable of. You tried your best to reassure the campers, as did your brother Lee and the rest of the Cabin Counsellors.

You knew Luke would come back. You knew he would stumble down that hill with his head held high and meet the group of campers waiting for him at the bottom. You knew there would be a celebration, a party, and a lot of kids out past curfew. But you knew Chiron would let it off, because Luke Castellan was back.

Except that’s not what happened. At all.

It was a warm day, and you were helping some of your younger siblings make friendship bracelets by the lake. Your camp shirt clung to the sweat on your back and you peeled it off with a grimace whenever you stood, straightening out your shorts and checking on the next kid. They seemed happy enough to be in the sun — really, you should’ve been too. Child of Apollo and all. But apparently your father wasn’t feeling the love for you today, because while the rest of your siblings were thriving, you were seconds away from jumping into the lake just to cool down — even if it pissed off the Naiads.

Thankfully, when you stood up once more and looked over the horizon, you saw your brother Aden jogging towards you. You took the opportunity to hide under the shade of the trees by meeting him halfway, and greeted him with a breathless, “Hey.”

He spoke your name with a nod and a smile, throwing a thumb over his shoulder, “Chiron needs you in the Big House. Looked serious. I’ll take over here.”

“Oh, Okay.” You nodded, turning to the kids and telling them you’d be back as soon as you could, before marching your worn converse through the grass and up to where the house sat on the edge of the hill.

Chiron was in the doorway when you reached the porch, sat in wheelchair form and wearing a grim look. You paused, worried. He nodded at you, “Thank you for coming on such short notice. Usually I wouldn’t do this, but…desperate times. Follow me.”

You followed as he led you down the hall, brows furrowing, “What's going on? Is everything okay?”

He looked at you with a serious expression, saying your name lowly, “I need you to ensure that what I am about to tell you will never leave the walls of this house. Nobody needs to know about this until we have deemed it appropriate.”

“Of course.” You said immediately, folding your arms. You weren’t so warm anymore. “What happened?”

He straightened up, and stared, “Luke Castellan is back from his quest.”

That was not what you expected him to say. Dropping your arms to your side and stepping forward slightly, “What? Since when?”

“Ten minutes ago, give or take.” He replied, brows in a concerned furrow, “Mr D has taken him upstairs. He is injured.”

“Right.” You nodded, “I’ll go and—“

“Wait, child.” You stopped, one foot on the bottom step of the stairs, looking back at him, “You must know something.”

Chiron took in a deep breath, eyes glossed over like whatever he was about to say weighed heavily on him, “He is…not in good condition. On top of his injuries, Luke is unfortunately…not in a good state of mind. His quest has affected him, and he requested quite adamantly that nobody should see him until he is ready to see them. I will respect his wishes, of course, but he will still need someone to tend to his wounds. That will be you.”

“Me?” You’d never shared a full conversation with the guy. Maybe some small talk, a polite smile here and there, but you were hardly acquainted, let alone friendly. You told him this.

“Exactly my point.” Was his reply, head held high, “Luke does not want to talk to anyone at the moment, and I’m sure if any of his friends were to be up there, they would simply coddle him. You, on the other hand…”

“I’m a stranger.” You nodded, “Of course. Right. I get that. So, you just want me to patch him up, act like it never happened? I can do that.”

“Not exactly, my child.”

You raised a brow.

“Luke’s injuries are quite extensive. He will need around the clock care until he is healed enough. He will also need someone to bring him food, clean clothes.”

“Oh, so you want me to nanny him.”

He chuckled, but it faded just as quickly as it came, “Unfortunately, he needs it.”

You pursed your lips. It didn’t seem all that hard — it was just like having any other camper in the infirmary. Only this one, everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting for, and you weren’t allowed to tell anyone he was a mere fifty feet away from them, curled up in a bed in the Big House.

No biggie.

i. WEEK ONE

Chiron had ushered you up the steps as soon as your conversation was over, and given you directions to the room Luke was in. Your steps were slow and unsure — you’d never been this far into the Big House before, but Mr D stood idly outside one of the doors lining the second floor hallway, arms crossed and face taut. The floorboards creaked under the weight of your foot when you reached the landing, and he looked up at you.

“He’s in there.” He pointed to the door in front of him, “Careful, he’s a short fuse right now. All the medical thingamabobs you need are in there already. Keep your mouth shut about this.”

Then he slid past you and down the stairs without another word, and you were left alone in the empty hall. Blinking hard to clear your head, you stood a few measly steps toward the door, stopping just outside of it and leaning your ear against the wood.

Nothing tangible. Mostly just the scraping of wood against the skin of your ear, and once you had stopped moving, there was nothing. No mutters, no bed creaks, not even a sniffle. It unnerves you, but you wrapped a hand around the cold metal of the handle and turned it anyway.

Maybe it was because he had been gone for a while, or maybe it was because you never saw him that much when he was around, but you had to blink away the shock at Luke’s appearance. Minus the obvious injuries, he just looked different. His skin was tanned and rough, his jaw taut and his hair hanging messily over his forehead, longer bits curling around his ears after going uncut for so long.

He was sitting on the edge of a bed that had been tucked into the corner of the room. There was a window just above it, but a thin curtain had been pulled over it and blocked out the sunlight that was begging to shine on you. The room was dark, but light enough that you could see what you were doing when you walked over to the desk in the other corner and started shuffling through the medical supplies Chiron had left there for you. Not much, but enough for now. You could always get more later.

Turning, you finally made your way over to where Luke was hunched over, staring at nothing. When you entered his line of vision, his dark eyes slid up to yours, and he blinked. Then he sighed, straightened his back and gave you a look that said do what you have to do and then get out.

But you didn’t move, not for at least ten seconds. Because while Chiron had told you he was injured extensively, he didn’t mention the five inch long scar that ran down the side of his face, cutting through his eye. It was jagged and gnarly, sharp edges carving a path through his skin. It was red all around, and just from looking at it you could tell it needed work. It was fairly new, but he had left it long enough for it to heal over — a thin layer of skin stopping it from bleeding.

He raised his eyebrows at you impatiently, and you nodded, scooting back to the desk and grabbing what you needed before going back to where he sat.

“I, uh…I need to get closer.” You were afraid to speak, to break the silence of the room, but you did need to get closer to his face. You waited for him to turn slightly to his left, hitch a leg up on the mattress and face his scar in your direction. Instead, he just slid his legs apart, inviting you to step between them.

And so you did, albeit a little shakily. You didn’t know Luke well enough to consider him a friend, but you’d seen enough of him to know that he never acted like this. He was never this quiet — all eyes, slow movements. He was charming, always grinning, always offering a hand. His battle instincts and ADHD made him fidgety like the rest of them, but from where you stood between his thighs, he was as still as a picture. It unnerved you more than the scar on his face did. You’d seen nasty injuries before, you’d never seen this.

You picked up a gauze, doused it in rubbing alcohol, and started wiping the area. You started on the outskirts, but when you pressed over the edge of the injury, his brows twitched and you let out a weak apology before lessening the grip. You kept your breaths thin and your eyes on your hand, but he wasn’t looking at you anyway. He had drifted off again, staring at nothing, and you were scared to break him out of his stupor again.

“He’s a short fuse.” Mr D had said. But he didn’t seem that way right now, sitting back silently and letting you do your work on his face. He wasn’t much of anything, if you had to make an assessment. You really wanted to know what happened on his quest, and why he was gone for so long, but you also didn’t want to test Mr D’s words by asking.

“What happened?” He didn’t say anything, again. You pressed on, “I sort of need to know before I reopen it…just in case something—“

“A dragon.” He murmured at once. His voice was rough, like he’d just been screaming. Maybe he had been, and that’s why Mr D had warned you. But it seemed all his anger had dissipated in the time it took for Chiron to get you and explain the situation. Maybe. “Ladon. Poisonous bites.”

So he had been to the Garden of the Hesperides. Presumably to collect some Golden Apples. What for, you didn’t know. You weren’t going to ask. You just grabbed a scalpel, muttered a quiet, “This is going to hurt.”, and started cutting down the scar, following its path across his cheek.

Luke hissed hard, not expecting you to dive in so suddenly, and his hand reached out for something to grab. That ended up being your camp shirt, bunching at your waist from where he gripped it between his knuckles. You didn’t mind it, but when you put the scalpel down and started to clean the inside of his wound, he adjusted his hand so he was holding the side of your waist instead, eyes clamped shut and feet tapping the wooden floor. You paused momentarily, but you couldn’t let him breathe or else it would just hurt more when you went back to work, so you brushed it off and continued your rampage down his face until the whole wound was free of the dirt and grime he had let accumulate inside it while he travelled back to Long Island.

“Sorry.” You finally built up the courage to say.

“S’Okay.” He breathed, “My fault.”

You wiped it over one last time before taping a bandage over the top. You cut it into two bits so he could still see out of his left eye, before stepping back from between his legs and assessing your work. Once you had deemed it good enough, you picked up your supplies and headed back to the desk, feeling Luke’s hand fall from your side.

“Uh—“ You really wanted to leave the room now, “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but how long did you leave—“

“Three days.” He answered quickly. Chiron had probably already asked him that, and you felt stupid for making him repeat it.

You turned to leave, but then remembered what Chiron had said to you before sending you up to Luke’s room. You looked at him.

“Do you need anything from your cabin?” You asked, “It’s, uh, kind of my job to get that, if you do.” You turned to face him fully, “Oh, and are you hungry? Because I have to—“

“Just some clean clothes, thanks.” He quipped. It wasn’t looking like he wanted you around for much longer.

You were quick to leave.

It was hard coming up with an excuse as to why you were stealing clothes from Luke Castellan’s bunk, but you just told them there was a new camper in the Big House and Chiron had run out of spares that morning. They brushed it off, and you ran back up to Luke with the clothes bunched in your arms, and were breathless by the time you dropped them on the bed beside him.

“Did anyone see you?” He asked just as you were about to give him the privacy he needed to change.

You were facing the door when he asked, and turned to answer, but he was already pulling off the marred camp shirt he’d arrived in, revealing his very toned torso. You paused, eyes drifting, but quickly snapped them back up to his awaiting gaze. He didn’t seem to care that he was shirtless in front of you, but neither did most boys.

“No.” You weren’t sure how he would react if you’d told him the truth, even though it was harmless. He nodded and started to unbutton his cargos, and you were quick to turn back to the door and yank it open, “Okay, I’ll…uh, probably be back at…later. Bye.”

The rest of your week was rough to say the least. You had a lot on your plate, and it didn’t help when your siblings kept wondering why you were at the Big House three times a day and why you always made a second plate of food at mealtimes. Eventually, it got around that a new camper had arrived, and you were taking care of them. That's when the rumour mill started running.

“I heard they were older, like twenty or something. Apparently they’re super embarrassed.”

“Well, I heard they were injured super badly on their way into camp, and that’s why nobody’s seen them yet.”

“I heard they got violent when Chiron explained the demigod thing and now they have him locked away in the basement!”

So yeah, lots on your plate. You did little to dispel the rumours, not wanting to allude to the truth accidentally, but when you were the only one who knew the truth, it was difficult to hide from those who wanted it too.

But after a few days, you had developed a routine. Wake up, get breakfast, take food to Luke. Check his dressings while he ate and restock your med supplies if needed. Go to whatever task you were running that day, ignore anyone who asked about the new camper, go for lunch. Take lunch to Luke. Check his dressings. Dismiss curious campers. Go to dinner. Take dinner to Luke. Check his dressings. Dismiss curious campers. Lead the campfire sing-along. Check on Luke one more time. Go to bed.

It was a lot, to say the least. But you didn’t complain — if you did this top secret doctor work right, Chiron might make you cabin counsellor when your older sister Alina leaves after this summer.

And just as you had, Luke eased into the routine too. Every time you entered his room, with a polite knock, he would be perched on the side of his bed, legs open and inviting.

You wondered if he actually did this for you, or if he just never moved from that position.

Sunday morning was slightly different — as camp activities were more relaxed and you had more time on your hands. You strolled slowly to the Big House after breakfast — rather than your usual sprint so you weren’t late to Archery — and knocked politely on the door before cracking it open and heading for the desk. With a plate of food in one hand and a fresh bandage in the other, you made your way over to where Luke sat, readying yourself for another quiet twenty minutes of work. It was quite peaceful, now that you’d gotten used to it. More comfortable, less awkward.

“Hi.”

You blinked, almost dropping what you held, but Luke was there to grab the bandage from your hand as your grip loosened in your shock. He attempted a smile, but winced when it pulled at his scar, and chose to nod at you instead.

“Uh…” You put the plate down into the bedside table, straightening your shirt, “Hi.”

He’d never said hi before.

He didn’t say anything else after that, just let you do what you did, but your mind remained a whirlwind. He said hi. That’s a completely normal thing for him to do, and yet you were reeling from it.

Once you had changed his dressings, you headed for the door and allowed him to eat his breakfast. Your hand wrapped around the metal of the handle and turned it, pulling open the wooden door and stepping one foot into the hall before the voice sounded again.

“Bye.”

You chuckled this time, not looking back, “Bye.”

ii. WEEK TWO

It was an average morning, the blistering sun from last week finally fading and allowing you to walk comfortably outside. You never knew what your dad’s problem with you was last week, but you suspected that it had something to do with the cabin counsellor who slept on the second floor of the Big House with a bandage across his eye.

Like usual, you were heading up the stairs, breakfast plate in hand, ready to give your first checkup of the day. If Luke was healing like he should’ve been, you wouldn’t have to change his dressing at lunch, and you were crossing your fingers that he was.

Pushing the door open with your back, you walked in slowly and headed towards the desk like usual. You grabbed the bandage, made your way over to Luke and put the plate down next to his small lamp. Then you straightened up and put the new bandage under your arm, holding it in place while you moved to unwrap his eye.

Before you could, however, Luke was pulling the bandage from where it was trapped against your ribcage and held it in his own hands. You looked at him, and he gave you a weak smile, “Thought it’d be easier if I held it for you.”

You murmured out a thanks and smiled at him, keeping it there even as you peeled back the old dressings and revealed his still healing scar. Usually, it wouldn’t take this long for a demigod wound to heal itself, but because Luke had gone so long without nectar or ambrosia — or any form of medical help, that is — it was in worse condition. You had to scrape out the infected skin from it a few days back, and it left Luke blinking hard to try and hide the tears.

Nowadays he seemed to be better — not as broody as he seemed last week. But you always caught him drifting off, staring at nothing. You wondered if he was reliving it, asking himself what would’ve changed had he done it differently. Your guess? Not much — you’d read up on Ladon the dragon after finding out it was he who caused Luke’s pain, just in case there was something you needed to know before starting the healing process. He was vicious, not even Hercules could get past him. And while Luke was the best swordsman camp had seen in three centuries, even he would struggle going at Ladon alone.

Once you had redressed his face, you stepped back like you always did, your footfalls sounding out the same metronome as they did three times a day. You wondered if you would wear a mark into the floor from your constant repeating path — door to the desk, desk to the bed, bed to the door. You briefly thought that wouldn’t be possible, something like that would take years to indent, but then you looked back at Luke — his forlorn expression, the bandage across his eye and the bags under’t — and wondered how long it would be before he could build the courage to stand up from the bed, return to a camp that relied so heavily on his skill set, and take the weight of his failure with him.

He pulled the plate onto his lap and you don’t think you’ve ever seen someone look so sad while stuffing their face with bacon.

“Hey, uh —“ You started, hand on the doorframe in an attempt to look casual. You couldn’t just leave him like that, right? “Do you…know — uh, know where the spare practising swords are kept?” A measly excuse, but it had him looking at you again.

He swallowed his food before speaking, “The wooden ones are in these old boxes in the back of weapon storage, but I think the celestial bronze ones are kept in the Hephaestus cabin now.”

You nodded, tapping your hand against the wood. That didn’t work in the way you wanted it to, but you weren’t going to force it. So you turned, went to open the door and leave —

“Why?”

Nevermind!

You whirled around — not too eagerly! You didn’t want to scare him off, now — “Oh! Uh, some Ares kid snapped one in half the other day, we needed a replacement.”

Luke nodded. Shit, say something else. Get him talking!

“Odd weather we’ve been having.”

What?

His lips parted, and he had the gall to look amused, “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh, yeah.” You breathed, humiliated. You pressed your lips together, ready to give up, until a thought came to you, “Hey, you haven’t been outside in, like, a week.”

Luke nodded, shadows falling across his face like the mere mention of the fact that he hadn’t been outside was a painful reminder of his circumstances, “Yeah, I, uh, don’t think I want anyone to know that I’m back yet. Not until I’m healed, y’know?”

You knew. You also knew that probably wasn’t the only reason he refused to let anyone know he was safe in the Big House, but you didn’t say that.

“Right, but —“ A breathy chuckle, “You need, like, sunlight. Fresh air.”

“I don’t wanna risk it.”

“Ok.” And that was that. You said goodbye, left him to his own devices, and didn’t mention the sun thing again for two days.

It was on Wednesday that you finally gave in. Now that you’d put the thought in your own head, you kept noticing the effects that being cooped indoors was having on Luke. His skin, once tanned and glistening under the sun, was paling by the hour. He winced whenever he had to straighten his back, and even though his scar was healing nicely, he seemed to be more sensitive to the pain of it than he was a week earlier.

So on Tuesday night you formed a plan, and on Wednesday morning at breakfast you put it into action. It started with asking Lee — ever so casually, of course — what the activities schedule was looking like. He started yapping about their cabin, and you waited patiently for him to bring up the Amphitheatre. Then, when he said the Apollo kids were training at two, you said —

“I thought we trained at twelve on Wednesdays?”

“No, that’s Ares and Hephaestus.”

“Oh, but don’t they train at four?”

“No, Hermes and Athena train at four.”

“Then who trains at ten?”

“Nobody.”

Bingo.

Luke was halfway through pulling on a pair of shorts when you burst into the room. He jumped, yanking them up the rest of the way before turning to look at you — his face was a mix of shock and unbridled anger until he realised it was you, then it softened into something calmer. But you saw him, even for just a split second, and the animosity in his gaze made you take a quiet step back. It was fearful almost — you’d seen him annoyed, irritated. You’d even bore witness to the Carden Cross Hot Cross Bun Incident of 2002,

(Carden Cross was this fifteen year old Ares kid. He threw one too many hot cross buns at the Aphrodite table and a then-sixteen-year-old Luke had wrung him out in front of everyone.

Nobody had ever heard Luke raise his voice like that, and Carden avoided everyone for a week straight).

but you had never seen such indignation in his gaze. It was gone in a flash, and you could’ve told yourself it was never there, but it was. You were hit with the humbling realisation that whatever Luke had gone through on his quest was more damaging than you could ever imagine, and no amount of fresh air would change him back to who he was before.

That saddened you, but then you realised he was shirtless again and all morbid thoughts went straight out the window. You grinned at him, “Sorry. But we don’t have a lot of time.”

He stared at you, then at your hands that were empty of breakfast food or bandages, and asked, “Time for what?”

“For some fresh air!” You sang, throwing in some jazz hands as if they would wipe the hesitant frown that had graced his features, “Put some shoes on, let’s go!”

He said your name softly, “I can’t go outside.”

You straightened up from where you had leaned dramatically into the room and sent him a blank look, eyes still sparkling, “You can. I checked the schedule, the Amphitheatre is free from ten till twelve and it is currently…nine forty-five. If we hurry, we’ll miss the post-breakfast rush.”

Luke looked a little more at ease now, but he made no move to put his shoes on. His body twitched like he was thinking about it, but when he couldn’t come up with a valid excuse to get out of it, he sighed and nodded, “Alright. Doctors orders, I guess.”

“Awesome.” You smiled, “I’ll let you get ready.”

It took some convincing, even after you’d gotten him to follow you down the stairs, to get him out the door. But a few firm words (and a couple of threats) and he was basking in the morning sunlight just as you’d planned.

Well — more like squinting painfully. Turns out, after a week and a half in a dark room, it takes a minute to get used to the sunlight again. You ensured nobody was around and took the long way to the Ampitheatre, letting out a content sigh when you knew you were away from prying eyes. Luke seemed more relaxed already, and you could practically see his muscles getting looser.

“Damn.” He muttered, hand over his eyes, “I needed this.”

“Yeah.” You spoke over an unattractive snort, “I’m an Apollo kid, I know a Vitamin D deficiency when I’m looking at one.”

“Alright.” He rolled his eyes at you, amused, and moved towards the steps. He climbed up two before turning and sitting, leaning back on his elbows and blinking at the sky, “Think your dad made it extra sunny just for me?”

“Probably.” You smiled, standing in front of him — but still making sure you weren’t blocking the sun from his face. “After some convincing from your dad.”

Luke’s smile faded. His eyes remained closed but his hands tightened into loose fists, “I don’t think so.”

Now you were desperate to change the subject. Your eyes darted to the wall, and the rack of swords sitting in its usual spot, “Hey, wanna swing some bronze?”

“Gods.” He let out a rough laugh, and you grinned in satisfaction, “Swinging Bronze. Haven’t heard that in a while.”

You nodded, glad he was back to being somewhat happy, “We thought we were so cool.”

“We thought it’d catch on.”

You shared a laugh, and Luke peeked an eye open, looking at you, “How come we were never friends back then?”

A meek shrug, “We weren’t really friends until a couple of days ago. That's if you even count us as that now.”

He just kept looking at you, and his gaze burned into your skin. You stepped back, closer to the middle of the arena space, “We never really spoke.”

He looked at you as if he was thinking hard about what you said, and what he was gonna say next. Apparently he came up short, because seconds later he was clicking his tongue and pushing himself up, joining you in the middle of the arena, “Alright. Let’s swing some bronze.”

You let out a shaky breath, nodding. This was going well. He was outside, he was laughing, he was about to pick up a sword for the first time since he’d angrily thrown his own at the porch of the Big House when he got back a week and a half ago.

He handed you a wooden practice sword, and you raised a brow. Usually the wooden ones were for first-timers, or younger kids. He shrugged, you let it go.

Despite the fact that you and Luke had been at camp together for five years, you’d never actually gone one-on-one in a sword fight with him. It was rare that Apollo and Hermes were paired together for activities, since they were the two highest populated cabins, but even when Luke was running the practice he always picked the people he knew the best for demonstrations. You lingered at the back, watching.

So you were slightly nervous, but you also didn’t want to show it. Sure, on any normal day Luke would reassure you with kind eyes and that Luke Castellan Smile, but he wasn’t exactly himself right now. You swallowed down your nerves, matched his stance, and swung.

Best Sword Fighter in Three Hundred Years — not an exaggeration. His moves were swift, calculated, and he stayed calm the entire time. It was as if he knew everything you were going to do before you did it, and had three counterattacks on the back burner for when you would strike. Your swords clashed every time you made a move and suddenly you realised why he wanted you to use wooden swords — the clang of wood was a lot quieter than the clang of bronze, it was less likely anyone would hear you fighting. It made sense, but you couldn’t focus on that when he was practically parrying your thoughts with sweat dripping down his temple.

You held your own, though. You were quite impressed with yourself when you blocked his swipes and sidestepped his jabs. It was making him groan in frustration, and the edges of your mouth perked up. You didn’t realise how good you were at this.

Then Luke stumbled. He grunted, righted himself, and swung again. You blocked it, and he steadied his shoulders. You slowed, focusing on the way he heaved for breath, taking in gulps of air, while you were hardly breaking a sweat. The way he kept readjusting his grip on the hilt of his sword, and how his fingers shook on his free hand. He went for you again and you sidestepped him, making him trip up. He didn’t fall, but he did let out a long angry groan at his mistake, throwing the sword to the ground in frustration.

You flinched, “Luke.”

“This was a bad idea.” He snapped. He wasn’t looking at you, pacing up and down with his hands in his hair. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

“You’re still recovering —“ You tried to reason, but he wasn’t listening to you.

“I’m the best damn swordsman this camp has ever seen. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why can’t I do this? Why —“

“Luke.” You stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He looked at you, “It’s okay.”

“No it’s not.” He gritted through his teeth, “I fail one quest and suddenly I can’t do anything anymore? Yeah, that’s typical.”

You shook your head, “You just need time to get better.”

“I was better! Better than everyone else here, I —“ He paused, a faraway look in his eyes that unnerved you for a second before he was looking at you again, “I can hear people.”

You perked your ears up. He was right, you could hear the chatter of camp if you listened carefully enough — but it wasn’t anything to worry about. They were all doing their own tasks, far away from where they were. If someone was coming, it would be more clear. You told him that, but he shook his head.

“I need to go back. This was a bad idea.”

“Hey, it’s okay, we can go —“

“No, not we. Me.” He said firmly, a hard look in his gaze that he didn’t have before, “I’m going back. You’re staying here. And I’m never going anywhere with you again.”

iii. WEEK THREE

You hadn’t seen him in five days.

Chiron had pulled you out of Archery to ask about Luke — and why he had seen him storm angrily back into his room and lock the door. You just told him you thought it was best for him to find someone else to take care of him for the time being. You didn’t think Luke would want to see you again, ever.

All you wanted was for him to be his old self again. The guy you always saw helping out someone else with a smile on his face, the one who made others laugh and laughed with them. The one who waved at anyone who waved at him. The one who was completely oblivious to the flirting and just thought they were being friendly. The Luke Castellan who everyone gushed about, who everyone loved.

That man up there, with the scar on his face and the look in his eye, wasn't Luke Castellan. And maybe he never would be again, not completely. But he could come close — he could still smile, he could still laugh.

But you’d fucked all that up just by bringing him outside.

You didn’t know who Chiron had asked to replace you, because you never saw anyone else get up after breakfast with an extra plate. You didn’t see anyone sneaking out of the Hermes cabin with a pile of clothes. You stood in the fields for hours a day, watching those thin curtains stand stiff at the window, never to open. You thought you’d seen a shadow, but maybe it was your mind playing tricks on you.

The weekend came and went, and you spent the whole time worrying about Luke. Did this new person know that he preferred fatty bacon? Did they know that he liked keeping the curtains closed? Or would they just bring him a plate of pancakes? Ask him too many questions about his quest? Your mind whirred — would they make him worse?

No. That’s not what you were scared of.

Would they make him better?

Would they understand him more than you did? Would they coerce more words out of him? Would they even need to coerce him, or would he be comfortable holding a conversation with them no problem? What if he was better now than he ever had been with you?

You flinched when your name was called. Looking up from the bracelet you were crafting with some younger kids and meeting the eyes of Dionysus, “Sir.”

“Our, uh, special guest is requesting your presence.” He said with a stupid look on his face, “So get off your ass and get up there, I can’t stand his whining any longer.”

You did as asked with a slight roll of your eyes that made the six year old who was next to you giggle into their hands. It brought a grin to your otherwise down expression, unsure of what Luke wanted to say to you.

The room was dark when you cracked the door open — there was no response after you knocked, but you could hear him shuffling inside, so you went ahead and opened it an inch. It was a lot darker than it used to be — or maybe you too had gotten used to the shade after spending so much time there.

You pushed it open more, and there he was, in his usual spot on the edge of the bed. Head down, hands fiddling with something by his eye. He was muttering in frustration, and you stepped into the room in concern. The floor creaked, he looked up, and you gasped.

The side of his face where his scar sat was red with blood — you almost missed the bandage he was attempting to tie around it because it had been stained pink. His fingers were shaking and he pursed his trembling lips at you, “I can’t do it.”

You surged forward, immediately taking the fabric from his hands. He let them drop into his lap as you peeled it back and looked at the damage. You winced — not as bad as the blood had made it seem, but bad enough. The wound had reopened at the top, and the blood was dripping into his eye and along the curve of his jaw.

It took a few panicky minutes, but eventually the bleeding had stopped, Luke’s face was clean of blood, and you were staring at him in shock, your own fingers still red from the damage. He was avoiding your eyes, the only other thing he’d said to you being a strained thank you when you had stepped back.

“What —“ You were at a loss.

“I tried to change them myself.” He shrugged, picking at his fingernails, still not looking at you. “I’d watched you do it so many times, I figured I had it handled. Apparently I didn’t, because I woke up and it was freakin’ bleeding everywhere.”

“Oh, Luke.” You breathed, “Why didn’t you wait for someone to help you?”

“You never came back.” He said like it was obvious.

“What — so you’ve been doing this yourself for five days?” You asked, a shocked exclamation, “Chiron never sent someone else to help you?”

“He asked me who I wanted,” He shrugged, “I said you. You weren’t an option, so I did it myself.”

“You said —“

“I know what I said, alright?” He stressed, head in his hands now, “It was stupid. I was angry, hurt, whatever. It was at myself, but I took it out on you. I’m sorry. I don’t — “ His voice cracked, “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

“Luke.” You murmured. You took a step closer, kneeled before him, and gently pried his hands away from his eyes so he would look at you. His expression was so…sad. So distraught. “What happened on your quest?”

And he told you everything.

iv. THE AFTER

Luke was ashamed to admit it — but he had no idea what your name was when you started looking after him.

Sure, he’d seen you around. You were one of the Apollo kids who spent more time in the infirmary than on the archery fields, but he was too good at his job to get injured. Hence why he didn’t know your name. He knew your face, he smiled at you and you would smile back. He was friendly with your brother, Lee. But that was about it.

That’s what made it so perfect.

You wouldn’t ask him about his quest. You wouldn’t try your hardest to get him to open up. You would do your job, and leave him to mope. That was all he wanted.

Until he learned your name.

And just from glancing at your smile — all awkward and nervous as you introduced yourself — he knew he wanted to be near you. He knew you were the type of person he could sit in silence with and walk away from it with a happy memory.

He thought he knew enough about you to determine who you were to him (a stranger). But he didn’t know your name, your voice, he didn’t know your touch or your smile — the real one you give when someone truly makes you laugh. Not the one he thought he knew.

He stood stiffly on the porch of the Big House — three weeks was all it took before Mr D was kicking him out, telling him to get a grip and face the music. Luke was ready; physically. His scar was nothing but that — a memory, faded into his skin forever. There was no other reason for him to keep himself hidden other than the fact that he wanted to. If it was up to him, nobody would ever bear the burden of seeing him ever again.

For weeks he told himself that his quest was pointless. He screamed it at the gods, at Chiron, at you. He cursed his dad every night for sending him on a path to failure and not even acknowledging it. He cursed himself for ruining the first chance he had at gaining his fathers pride in seventeen years — he sat in the dark, fists clenched, and asked himself what it was all for.

The five years on the run, the endless monster attacks, the relentless training, the offerings, the prayers. Would his life be any better had he just let that first monster kill him?

No. Because he wouldn’t have met Thalia, or Annabeth. He wouldn’t have seen the brighter side of being a halfblood — he wouldn’t have met his siblings, he wouldn’t have found his calling. He wouldn’t have experienced the joy of helping a new camper, of being the guiding hand he never got to hold.

But what of his quest? His mission for his father brought nothing but pain — a pointless trip, a humiliating failure, a deep jagged scar. For weeks he asked himself why he was given the quest in the first place, and for years to come he will question himself each and every day.

But each and every day he asks himself what the gods had ever given him, he would be reminded of the day he learnt your name. And he would tell himself had he not taken that trip, had he not fallen to Ladon, he never would have felt the searing touch of your fingertips on his skin.

So maybe it was worth it after all.

He stepped off the porch.

[youreverydayfangirl]

LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO

pairing: max verstappen x singer reader

summary: the one where she's gone radio silent, everyone settles down and someone begins to plot revenge

warning: online hate, mentions of cheating

a/n: i thought i should switch between real life and online so i could feed you guys more

face claim: sabrina carpenter

f1 masterlist

main masterilst

series masterlist

y/nsprivate has posted

liked by thatoneartgirlalex, keekslikestospammmm and 18 others

y/nsprivate healing with my girls

tagged: thatoneartgirlalex, keekslikestospamm

thatoneartgirlalex what are friends for???

-> y/nsprivate I THOUGH JUST BEING HOT TBH

keekslikestospammmm and you better get your cute but downstairs cause we're going out

-> y/nsprivate OKAYY GIVE ME TWO SECONDS

leosfather GO QUEEN

-> y/nsprivate alex is training you i see

livbereallydumb SMASH SMASH SMASH

-> y/nsprivate me whenever i see you

itssabrinaaa YOU DON'T NEED NO TINY DICK MAN AND SKANKY FRIEND

-> y/nsprivate 😭😭😭

________________

Y/n felt a small smile creep up across her face as she went to turn off her phone. She looked up at the warm sun which had begun to set, casting a golden glow along the beach infront of her. The peaceful quiet of the beach was a sharp contrast to the chaos and heartache she had left behind. Still, it had been hard to stay in the moment and she often found her mind drifting back to everything that had happened. Something that seemed to play over and over in her head. Although it seemed everyone else had moved on.

She'd barely touched her phone, forced to reinvent herself and tune out what others had kept saying about her. The whispers, the hate and the betrayal had gone with a swipe of her finger. But the sting of it lingered, a wound that refused to heal.

She quickly grabbed her stuff and shoved it in the bag which lay beside her feet as her mind went to the two girls who were currently waiting in the lobby. They had been rocks for her through this whole ordeal. The trip was supposed to be a fresh start for y/n, a place to forget, but somethings weren't so easily buried.

Y/n hadn't been able to fully trust anyone since exbsf had turned her life upside down. The breakup, the voice recording, it was all too perfect.

Revenge is what had kept circling through Y/ns mind over the past few months. A lot of people had hurt her, turned against her, but their was one person specifically that Y/n kept thinking about. Maybe she wasn’t healing just yet. Maybe she was plotting her rise.

y/nsprivate has posted

liked by thatoneartgirlalex, keekslikestospammmm and 18 others

y/nsprivate not even sad anymore guys, just really mad tbh

tagged: thatoneartgirlalex, keekslikestospamm

thatoneartgirlalex AND AS YOU SHOULD YOU CLOCK EM

-> y/nsprivate you know i will

keekslikestospamm NEW SONG YOU BETTER SHOW US SOON

-> y/nsprivate trust me i will

________________

Y/n found her self sitting infront of the piano for the first time since everything had come out. She hadn't wanted to, because that would mean that it was real.

But after pushing from both Alex and Kika, the girl finally felt like she was in a spot were she could poor out her feelings. But something felt different this time, she had never felt this angry before.

She sat at her desk, the sunset infront of her casted a shadow across her face. Her notebook was open, was scribbled sharply expressing her inner turmoil. She tapped her pen on her desk, staring at the page infront of her, one line sticking out specifically.

All I think about is karma.

exbsf & landonorris have posted

liked by landonorris, f1gossip and 1, 432, 749 others

exbsf 6 months with you <3

tagged: landonorris

landonorris my gorgeous girl

-> exbsf your too cute

user1 I CANT BELIEVE THEYVE BEEN TOGETHER FOR 6 MONTHS OMG

user2 parents frfr

liked by creator

user3 pov its been 5 months since y/n disappeared 😭

-> user4 GOOD RIDDANCE

y/nsprivate has posted

liked by thatoneartgirlalex, keekslikestospammmm and 18 others

y/nsprivate smiling more

tagged: thatoneartgirlalex, keekslikestospammmm

thatoneartgirlalex and happy to see it

-> y/nsprivate stop i love you so much

keekslikestospammmm i can still through hands though right?

-> y/nsprivate KEEKS NO

leosfather as your honorary big brother i could not be prouder to see how much you've grown as a person

-> y/nsprivate CHARLIE STOP

livbereallydumb I JUST WANNA GIVE YOU A BIG HUG

-> y/nsprivate you saw me yesterday....

itssabrinaaa livbereallydumb wanna come to portofino with me for no specific reason

-> livbereallydumb already on the flight babes

-> y/nsprivate YOU GUYS BETTER NOT BE KIDDING RIGHT NOW ASSHHH

-> itssabrinaaa SUPRISE

-> livbereallydumb we wanted to make it a bigger thing then realised we dont really know where to go and we dont speak italian

-> itssabrinaaa didnt think that one through 100%

-> y/nsprivate 😭😭😭

TWO WEEKS LATER

________________

im trying to make the parts longer cause i feel like there too short

also do you guys like the switch i feel like i wanna give you guys more than just short SMAU chpaters

_________________

@lyannesworld

@pippyth3hippy

@scorpiomindfuck

@syddddddddddddd

@paigem00

@toldyouitwasamelodrama

@lilsiz

@chelle1306

@sired4urmama

@stinkyjax

@kiyomisan

@hotgirlslikemax

@itsjustkhaos

@sid-is-gr8

@mastermindbaby

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@reidsworld

@tall-tanned-tattoo

@mrsmaybank24

@m1892

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@midnights-lily

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@exotic-iris13

@stereading

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@mahii7 @hadids-world

@gentlemonstersworld

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@strengthandstay

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@hahdb8

@c-losur3

@elsoleil

@meow-143

[satxnsupreme666]

Love in the darkest hour: Agatha Harkness x fem!reader x Rio Vidal

Masterlist

Requested by: @perfectartisanwerewolf

Summary: During Agatha´s trial, you are the one that gets possessed, Rio and Agatha get protective of you but you end up getting hurt, your girlfriends feel guilty and all of the wicthes get worried about you.

Warnings: Reader gets hurt, mention of wounds, broken bones, angst and fluff,  I think that´s it (Oh, and English is not my first language but I still try hard to check my own grammar)

Word count:  6k+

Author’s notes: In this story Alice does not die.

Hello, this was a requested story, and I wanted to write it before posting the final old stories I wrote three years ago, sorry that I took three days to write this and that is not longer, but I will be honest, I divide my time between doing nothing at all or doing everything at the same time (that means writing, reading, listening to some music, playing something, watching a movie etc.)

I hope this is what you were waiting for @perfectartisanwerewolf ♥️

I hope you like it! ♥️

If you enjoy, could you comment, like or reblog? it would help a lot really ♥️

Taglist: @midnight-lestrange  @eliscannotdance

“We’re ok” Agatha announced after all of you had had to fly away from the Salem seven, it had been close, really close, all of you really needed to be more careful, you still were worried about those entities trying to get Agatha, she had told you that you didn’t need to worry about, but still, you didn’t want that something happened to Agatha.

“No, we’re not, the entire Halloween aisle’s outside waiting for us” Maybe Jenn was right, could they be really outside?

“Well it doesn’t look like they can get in, does it? All we have to do is complete the trial and continue on before they can get us” Her sentence seemed to calm everyone a little bit, Jenn seemed to relax a little.

“My spell book, I can’t find it!” The teen started to look inside his little bag.

“Where’d you have it last time?” Lilia tried to reason with him so he could think clearly.

“Flying on a broom” The teen sounded sad, so you went towards him and put your hand on his shoulder, you felt bad for him, you wanted to reassure him somehow.

“Forget about it, you can take the training wheels off” The older witch said to him still standing in front of the door.

The teen looked at you and Lilia with a sad expression.

“Hey it’s alright, Agatha’s right, you don’t need it, all of those spells that were on your notebook are also there inside your head, you know all of them, so don’t worry alright?” He seemed to understand because he quickly smiled at you and nodded.

Agatha saw the interaction with a smile on her face, she loved how you were be able to make everyone feel better; you knew how to cheer someone up, you could not only heal physical wounds, but also wounds that were not visible and that only hurt people emotionally.

You sensed someone watching you and turned to look at the direction where you sensed the gaze on you, Agatha was looking at you from her place, she was staring at you with so much love, she winked at you and smiled back at her.

“Look at you!” The teen suddenly said to you, you looked back at him and then at your clothes, noticing the style of the clothes that you were wearing, it was kind of like the ones in the slasher movies you liked to watch.

Looking back at the teen in front of you, you noticed his shirt and shorts as well, glancing back at the other witches you realized they were wearing the same clothing style, same thing that had happened during the last trials, you still wondered when would be your trial and what theme would it be, would it have a creepy vibe? With maybe a haunted house? Or maybe an abandoned house in the middle of a forest? A hill? You were excited to find out.

“You look like one of the teens from those eighties and nineties slasher movies” You had to tell him, if not you knew the idea would never leave your mind.

He took a glance at his clothes and then at the surroundings, he could not deny that you were right, all of you looked like one the main characters of a slasher movie set in the 80’s or 90’s, he remembered something so suddenly that he had to take you by your shoulders, you giggled before he even had the chance to say what had crossed his mind.

“Oh my god, y/n I have the perfect playlist for this!” You grinned and saw how he moved his hands to his sides, as if he was trying to find something, he pursed his lips and looked back at you.

“Right, I forgot, I don’t have my phone either” He sounded a little bit annoyed but smiled at the end anyway.

“You don’t even have pockets remember” you were right, he should have remembered that first.

Rio had heard your comment about the slasher movies and turned herself to look at him, she smirked and walked closer to the two of you.

When she saw you from behind, she noticed that you were wearing clothes that were similar to hers and her eyes looked you up and down, when she got closer to you, she passed her arms around your waist and pulled you closer to her, you instinctively rested your head against her chest.

The teen noticed the smirk on Rio’s face which only made him squirm, Rio scared him, her deadly stare made him grimace.

“Hey, she is right, you do look like a character in a slasher movie from the 80’s, you would be the first character to die at the start of the movie” She said to him while staring without blinking and on top of that, the smirk had never disappeared from her face.

You couldn’t help but giggle at her comment, slightly you patted her chest, the teen swallowed hard and blinked several times trying to laugh awkwardly.

“That is not something nice to say Vidal, don’t mess with him, you scare him” You said to her with a pout on your face.

“She does not scare me” The teen replied back, but Rio turned her head hastily at him and bit into the air, as if she was warning him that she could bite him, the teen jumped slightly.

“Maybe just a little” The dark-haired boy commented being wary of Rio.

“Don’t mind her” Was what you said to him while looking at him with a smile on your face.

“I think you would be one of the final boys that make it to the end of the movie” The boy in front of you seemed to think about it and nodded, he seemed convinced that he would actually be a final girl, and you didn’t doubt it, he smiled fondly at you, and Rio started to caress your back.

“Who would you think I’ would be in a slasher movie set on the 80’s sweetheart?” Rio asked you rising her right eyebrow.

You brought your hand to your chin and acted as if you were in deep thought, but of course, you already had your answer.

“You would be the killer, the killer everyone suspects but cannot actually prove it” You said out lout and the teen gasped.

“She is right, you would be the killer” You had not noticed that the other witches had walked towards you, they were already near you and were looking at you with small smiles on their faces.

Even if they did not trust Agatha at all, and were a little bit scared of Rio because of her antics, they find you really adorable.

In their minds they still could not comprehend how someone as sweet as you, who only used magic to heal people, was with the other two witches.

They still did not understand what a healing witch whose magic was as pure as the meaning of white lilies was doing with Agatha Harkness, former user of the darkhold and with Rio, the witch who did not care about anything and seemed to be so scary, the same woman who agreed on being a “psycho” with a big smile on her face.

Even if they did not comprehend it at all, they could see the way the two witches acted around you, and the way they treated you, they were soft with you, you were the only one that could see and had the privilege to see that side of them, you felt really lucky.

Rio turned her head back at the teen and tilted her head slightly.

“If I was the killer, you would be my first victim, you would not even make it to the second act” Your girlfriend said as if she was just saying facts.

“That is not right Rio, I am pretty sure he would be one of the few that actually makes it to the end” Rio cackled and you tilted your head to give her a disapproving look.

“Ah, fine, he would make it to the end” This deep down made the teen jump internally, it made him feel excited that she had admitted that.

Rio gave you a playful pat on your shoulder.

“Let me look for Agatha, we don’t want her to cause more trouble do we?” She winked at you and left your side.

Alice then came to stand next to the teen, with a curious look on her face.

“Who would I be in a slasher movie?” She inquired looking excited to know your answer.

Examining her carefully you came to the only conclusion that seemed accurate for Alice.

“I think you would be the main character, the protagonist who is tortured and stalked by the killer, because she was the only one who escaped, you would be one of the original final girls, the final girl who fights back, like Laurie Strode on Halloween” Her eyebrows were risen and nodded her head in understanding.

“Yeah, she is totally right, you would be a total badass” The teen agreed with you. Alice beamed with happiness and pressed her hands together.

“You heard that?” Alice asked glancing at Jenn and Lilia.

“I am not really a fan of horror movies, so I really don’t know what you are talking about” Explained Jenn and Lilia nodded her head in a way of showing she felt the same.

Smiling at them you started to explain everything “It’s fine, basically, the horror or slasher movies tend to have a series of “rules” that characterize them, one thing for the slasher movies is for example, that there is a killer-“

“Sometimes there are two killers” The teen quickly said.

“Or sometime yes there are two killers, who usually start their murder spree killing different characters, and the final girl is the character who makes it to the end of the movie and defeats the villain” You finished your explanation.

“Who do you think Agatha would be?” The teen inquired.

“I would say that because of her personality traits she would be the killer that no one suspects of, I mean she is smart, charming” The four of them nodded in agreement.

“And who would you be?” The boy asked you again.

“I would be the character who dies at the start” You simply said, and they all started to discuss that in fact that would not be true.

“I think you would be the character that everyone is attached to, like the character who is friends with everyone and who also everyone tries to protect, you know? also I can see how you would be close to the final girl and you would get extra protection” The teen said and put a finger on his chin, looking at you, analyzing you, you only smiled at him and shook your head.

“Is this how people really looked at the time? I mean, the clothing style, the vibe, all of it?” You wondered out loud and jumped when you felt someone hugging you from behind, you felt the arms of Rio pulling you closer to her.

“Yes, people actually dressed up like this” Agatha said behind you, and all of you turned to look at her, she had kind of a disheveled look, he hair up in a ponytail and the oversized purple shirt fitted her amazingly.

“Whose trial is this?” Asked the teen while looking up at the ceiling.

Rio looked at the window in front of you and you did the same thing, the blood moon could be perfectly seen since your position.

“Agatha’s” answered the witch holding you from behind, you were a little bit worried, so you turned your head to look at Agatha, she saw your worried expression and gave you a reassuring smile, it was a tad scary for her, but with you and Rio there by her side, she knew the trial would be easily passed, or at least, that’s what she hoped.

Hearing Lilia’s explanation about the blood money and the believe of a misconception she mentioned, everyone turned around to look at their beeping watches in their wrists.

“The road wants us to Ouija” The teen showed all of you the board, and everyone started to gather closer, then he proceeded to read the rules.

“Number two, do not speak over each other” And all the witches began to speak over each other, clearly not realizing what they were doing.

Rio and you heard clearly when Agatha demanded to be shown the rules to see if it actually said that and you couldn’t help but share an amused look with her,

Rio shook her head smiling and sticking her tongue out a little, you tried to hide your laugh but you couldn’t, Agatha realized who was laughing and she looked at you, you were next to her left and Rio was next to you.

“What?” Agatha asked with feigned innocence, and you just shrugged your shoulders.

“What is so funny doll?” Agatha asked again and came closer to you to caress your hair, you unconsciously leant into her touch, and let her guide you to rest your head on her chest.

“I love the way you look in those clothes” She commented dangerously close to your ear witch a husky voice.

“Not the time for that” You replied amused, you had to focus on passing the trial.

“Shall we start?” Agatha seemed to tense and you saw the way she started to swallow, it was obvious that she was nervous, the teen sat on the floor and the other witches started to do the same forming a circle.

“Hey, are you alright?” You asked her while she squeezed your hands, you felt the way she pulled you closer to her, and you happily leant into her touch.

“I will be alright, don’t worry” She said to you in a whisper.

“Rio and I are here for you, you know?” You replied back at her and she nodded with a smile in her face.

“I know, thank you, I love you so much” Agatha said near your ear and she pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“Let’s get started” She said, you did not notice the way Agatha nodded at Rio, Rio understood and Agatha took your hand one more time to hand you to Rio, Agatha gave you one last squeeze and Rio took your hand in hers, the brown-eyed woman smiled reassuringly at Agatha and put her arm around your waist, she pushed you slightly and placed you next to her right, while Agatha sat next to you as well, leaving you in the middle of the two of them.

Everyone on the room put their hands on the board and waited for Agatha to start, when her hands got separated from the board you really got scared and quickly turned your head to look at Rio, she saw your worried expression and quickly mouthed a “Don´t worry” and smiled slightly at you.

“She´s scared” Commented Rio while you sighed in relief, for a moment you had thought your girlfriend had been possessed, Rio then patted the sit ordering Agatha to come and sit again.

“Do not do that, it was funny, but you got her scared” Rio said to Agatha and nodding towards you, while the blue-eyed woman sat back next to you and she gave you a shy smile.

“Sorry love, I thought it was funny” The older witch commented with an apologetical look.

Sighing you just shook your head and slightly bumped your shoulders against her.

“It alright, I just do not want anything to happen to you” Rio then looked back at her and nodded, she felt the same even if she found her little joke funny.

“Alright” The blue-eyed woman proceeded to place her hands on the board and everyone did the same, you were not going to lie, feeling the board moving so hard and faster made your heart beat in fear, you never had played it and it actually made you feel scared, but you knew you had to do it in order to pass the trial.

“Punish Agatha” Was what the board said and you quickly felt yourself getting tense, but before someone could actually understand what was happening you heard Agatha yelling at everyone to stop it and you were not sure what or how it happened but Agatha got her hands off the board and you panicked.

The scream that was all over the place, was so loud and it pierced you ears.

You saw her getting to the floor and she covered her ears just as everyone else did, but you were still worried of what could happen to your girlfriend since it was her trial, so you uncovered you ears not caring if the loud sound made your ears hurt and went to kneel next to Agatha to check if she was fine and did not have any type of physical wounds.

Agatha noticed your face contorted in pain, but her heart melted when she realized you were checking her to make sure she was not hurt, out of instinct she uncover her ears and made sure your ears were covered using her own hands, even in the middle of the chaos she still managed to show you how much she cared for you.

You were so lost in her eyes that you did not even notice when things calmed down, the scream could not be heard anymore and the things flying around the room were already scattered all over the floor.

“Is it over?” Your eyes stared to examine the room and the witches around you, getting closer and closer, what happened?

“Sorry y/n, but it seems like in order to pass this trial we have to punish Agatha” Jenn was looking right at Agatha, her gaze not darting somewhere else.

“There has to be another way” The teen said out loud and you agreed with him.

“Wait no! You cannot just decide that you are going to hurt her” You said to the three witches in front of you, your pleading eyes started to get glossy, they could not actually think that this was their way out right? Even if the ghost or whatever was wanted that, there had to be another way.

The teen looked horrified about what could happen, it was clearly they were not thinking clearly and with Rio walking faster towards the two of you, he panicked as well.

“I am sorry but you have to move” Jenn said with what you thought maybe, just maybe was guilty.

Alice was unsure, they were not actually going to do something to Agatha right? She looked at Lilia who had the same unsure look on her face.

Your pleading eyes with tears about to be shed made them feel unsure on what to do, they knew that you loved her and you would not be able to do anything to her, but what if that was what the ghost wanted them to do?

Before they got the time to get closer to you Rio appeared in front of the two of you and got her knife out of wherever she hid it, you were always amazed because whenever you saw her getting something out of her pockets or her clothes, you never really understood where she hid all of the things she carried with her.

“No one is touching Agatha, nor y/n” She said with a firm tone.

Agatha caressed your back and nodded at you, she gave you a reassuring smile and squeezed your hand.

“It´s alright, don´t worry, nothing is going to happen to me, ok” She pressed her forehead against you and you nodded, Agatha then stood up and came up behind Rio.

“Listen, we can talk about it and see what other options we have, let´s not get wild” She said trying to be reasonable, but then a sound was heard from your spot, and everyone turned to where the sound had come from.

“Where is she?” The teen asked with his eyes wide open, the witches started to turn themselves around looking for you.

“Sweetheart? Where are you?” Agatha asked out loud, and everyone started to move to different directions trying to see if they could catch a glimpse of where were you.

“We have to find her! She was right there and the next second she was not, how is that even possible?”  Your girlfriend Agatha started to panic, it was something weird when it came to her, being panicked was not a state she was used to, but when it come to you or Rio, she could not help but worry more than anything.

“Hey, look at me, we are going to find her, she could not have gotten too far” Rio reassured her and Agatha nodded, she was right, you could not have gotten too far.

They all gasped in unison when the lights went out.

“Hey, we were not going to actually hurt your girlfriend Agatha, just come out wherever you are” The potions which announced while she examined the room.

The teen started to look for something that they could use to get some light, and when he found a lamp, he looked pleased, now it would be easier to look for you.

“Hey, does anyone hear that” Lilia inquired and the teen felt something that had touched his shoulder, he visibly tensed and pointed the lamp towards the ceiling.

The scream that came after seeing you was inevitable, the other witches looked up as well and started to scream as well.

“Oh my god, what happened to her?” Jenn screamed and walked back until she hit one of the walls.

“Agatha get her out of the ceiling!” Alice yelled at her.

“I would if I had my powers!” Agatha yelled back; her face was full of worry.

“She is going to get hurt” Lillia declared while covering her mouth with her hand.

What they were not waiting, was that you jumped from the ceiling, landing with a hard thud against the floor.

“Is she hurt? Someone please check her!” Alice yelled again

“She is not y/n” The teen screamed when suddenly your body got up from the fall and started to contort your body, he squirmed and crawled back to try to protect himself from what he was seeing in front him.

“She is possessed for real” The teen was horrified, the look you had on your face was clearly not something he was expecting, he just hoped that neither of you would get hurt.

“Someone needs to grab her!” Someone in the back yelled, but due to everyone screaming the teen did not even recognize whose voice it was.

“No! wait, she could get hurt! No one is touching her!” Rio glanced menacingly.

“Then how can we help her?!” Agatha asked desperately, she came to place herself next to Rio, the two of them wanted to actually try and do something, maybe catch you and bring you to the center, but the way your body was contorting made them afraid that they could hurt you more.

“Oh my god guys, why are her bones sounding like that?” The teen screamed out of fear at the sound of your cracking bones, you were getting too close to him when suddenly your body for some seconds went limp and crashed against the floor, they were going to go and help you but after only some seconds your body stood up again crashing against the wall, Lilia was quick to get the power back and in a blink of an eye, you disappear again.

“Where is she? Where is she?” Rio looked several times around the room trying to see if you were again on the ceiling.

Before the withes could have more time to look for you, they saw something that looked like white fog forming in front of the stairs.

“That is a ghost, I hate ghosts” Rio said completely angered, Agatha was next to her looking at it with her brows furrowed, where had you gone?

What Agatha saw next made her gasp; her mother had materialized in front of them.

“Mother?” Agatha asked not believing what her eyes were watching.

A sound caught their attention and they looked up to see what was going upstairs, there you were, Agatha sighed in relief but after the worry could be gone, it took over her again, you were trying to stand up, grabbing your left arm with your right hand, you were crying, your sobs were loud enough for them to hear.

“What did you do to her?” Rio asked angrily taking a step forward, and Agatha did the same.

“You have to keep walking the witches´ road without her” The ghost of Evanora Harkness said to them.

Everyone gasped in shock.

“No way, we are not leaving her with you, she comes with us” Agatha said with a firm tone, never hesitating.

“Leave this girl with me, then you will be free to go” The ghost replied.

Lilia, Alice, Jenn and the teen looked at each other, they were not going to leave you there with her, and if they also needed to fight a ghost even if they did not how, they would do it.

“Taking one of the people I love the most?” Agatha laughed bitterly at the thought.

“There is no way we are leaving her with you!” Rio replied back at the ghost with a threatening tone in her voice.

“We are not letting her stay with her, you hear me? She is going to leave with us Agatha” Rio assured the blue-eyed woman.

“It is your time to pay for what you have done, you were born evil, you should not have a chance at love, I repeat, leave her with me, and you can go” Agatha clenched her jaw, Rio who was next to her was fuming, even if they wanted to do something, what could they do against a ghost?

You were crying, your whole body in pain, you were sure you were going to have bruises, you could not even lift your arm and you wondered if maybe it had been broken.

You heard everything Evanora said to her, that she was evil, but that was not true, Agatha was not evil, she was a misunderstood witch who did not have anyone to back her up and show her to control her powers, and even if you were in pain you would let your girlfriend know that her mother was not right.

“Do not listen to her Agatha, we know you are not evil, you are worthy of love” You managed to say between sobs, Agatha did not have time to answer to you, because her mother spoke again.

“I will not repeat myself” The ghost announced.

Agatha could not help the tears falling from her face, it was all her fault you were in pain, her own fault that you had been possessed by her mother, she was being punished for al the things she had done in the past, seeing you in so much pain was breaking he heart, Rio was so mad, it infuriated her seeing you and Agatha both in pain.

Before they could do something else, the ghost disappeared and they watch the way your body started to contort again, you came crawling down the stairs, the witches watched in horror.

“Leave her alone” The witch with the red strands on her hair pushed the teen, Agatha and Rio to the side, all of them saw Alice throwing her powers at you.

“Don´t hurt her!” Agatha shouted ready to go and push Alice away from you, but the teen and Rio stopped her, and watched they way your body return to your normal form, the paleness leaving your skin, and the white fog dissipated.

After some minutes Alice stopped, and you felt to the floor with a loud thud, you quickly started to groan in pain, trying to get up from the floor.

Agatha and Rio ran towards you to help you stand up.

“It hurts so much” You said to them still crying, Agatha could not take in how much pain you were, she did not want to hurt you more, but they needed to check your body.

“I know sweetheart, we know it hurt but we have to touch you to check your body alright?” Rio whispered to you in a reassuring way, it pained her too much too see you suffering.

They tried to help you stand up, but the pain in your body was too much, Agatha could see the bruises forming on your legs and on your arms, and seeing the way your arm had taken a really weird position, she knew it was broken.

“Baby, can you tell us where it hurts?” You heard Rio asking you, her voice sounded a little bit shaky.

“My arm, is what hurts the most” Yous said between sobs, you wanted the pain to stop, but you knew that even healing yourself was going to hurt a lot.

“I think… I think I can try to heal it but, but I am scared, it is going to hurt so much” Agatha turned her head to look at Rio, she closed her eyes, your sobs made her so hard to maintain a hard façade as always.

“Listen, we are here with you, we are not letting you go, you can take my hand and squeeze it as hard as you want, alright?” Agatha said before pressing a soft kiss to your forehead.

Rio placed herself next to Agatha, the blue-eyed woman placed you on her lap, and Rio put her hands on your back, caressing you up and down.

The witches standing in front of you, could not also take the sight, the teen had to look away, he could not stand seeing you crying from pain, and the way your arm was positioned, made him feel uneasy.

Lilia was holding Alice´s hand, watching with glossy eyes, they could not believe that you were the one that had got hurt, Jenn wanted to do something to help you ease the pain, but nothing came to her mind.

 You clung to Agatha´s shirt, and focused hard on the pain you were feeling, Rio never stopped running her hands up and down on your back, trying to soothe you and waiting the pain would stop.

“Everything will be alright, you are going to be fine, we love you so much” Agatha said into your ear, you were trembling and she hated so much that she could not anything.

After several minutes of sobbing harder, you felt you arm getting back to its normal position, your magic had worked, the powers accommodating the bones, putting them in their normal place, Agatha was caressing your legs with her free hands and noticed the bruises disappearing.

With one final breath, you felt yourself relaxing, the pain going away completely, and when Agatha and Rio were sure you were not hurting anymore, a door opened, all of you looked at it.

“We passed the trial” The teen said out loud, they were relieved you had stopped crying, but felt immensely guilty for not have been able to do anything to help you somehow.

 “We have to go sweetheart” She squeezed your shoulders lovingly, and the two of your grilfriends helped you to stand up.

Agatha quickly pulled you closer to her, her left hand on your waist, Rio put her hand on your shoulders, afraid of letting you walk alone.

They started to walk towards the door to get ready to leave and go back to the road.

“Alice” Agatha called for her when she started to walk in front of you, she turned quickly to look at you and to the other two witches in front of her.

“Thank you, for saving her” Agatha said with a soft look on her face, it was sincere, Agatha sounded sincere for the first time since the have arrived at the road, and smiled at her.

“It is alright, you do not have to thank me, I really wish I had done more” Alice gave the three of you an apologetically smile.

“You saved me” You replied at her.

“It was more than enough, Alice” Agatha let her know, Rio gave her a nod and the shorter witch smiled, it was a big smile, she turned herself around and started to walk back towards the door.

The three of you were the last standing in the room right in front of the door that would take you back to the road.

Agatha made you stop and you looked at her, with a frown on your face.

“Listen, I, I am sorry, it was my fault, because of me, because of what I have done in the past, you got hurt, and, none of us could do something to actually help you, I feel so-“ You abruptly interrupted her.

“Don´t blame yourself please, it was not your fault, please stop blaming yourself” You wiped her tears out of her face before talking again.

“I would never blame you for anything, I am fine, we are fine, we passed the trial, I am happy nothing happened to you” Before you could continue speaking, you felt her arm wrapping you in a hug, she passed her arms around your waist and you heard her cry, she loved you with her entire heart, and she could not stop blaming herself, what if something worse had happened to you?

Rio went to place herself next to Agatha and started to caress her back before looking at you.

“Hey, it´s alright, I would never, really never, let anyone hurt any of you, I would break the rules for you, so you can rest assure Agatha, that I won´t let anything else happen to her, alright?” Rio knew what to say, because you felt Agatha getting relaxed and she sighed.

“We are going to keep an eye on you, we are going to make sure noting else happens to you, we swear” Agatha commented while looking into your eyes, and Rio nodded quickly.

Smiling at them, the three of you started to walk again, ready to face whatever would be next, Agatha and Rio let you in first, and it made you laugh, you were not sure what was going to happen, or if something really worst was waiting for you outside, but what you were sure, was that with the two of your girlfriends taking care of you, you would be fine, and that was alright, you knew that if anything happened, Rio and Agatha would be there for you, ready to fight against anything that would even just threaten you, so you smiled pulled yourself closer to them when you stepped outside of that place, Agatha came next to you and again she pressed her hand on your waist, and Rio put her hand on your shoulder, they started to guide you to the group that was waiting for you in the middle of the road, and you smiled, you were going to be alright, no matter what.

When you got closer to the group, they heard the leaves been stepped on by someone and they quickly turned their head to look at you, they all had smiles on their faces.

You saw the way the teen turned his body completely towards you and he opened his arms, the closer you got the more you noticed his puffy eyes, when you arrived in front of him, you quickly opened your arms as well and let him engulf you in a hug.

“Thank god you are fine” He said while the two of you slightly swung due to the teen moving to the sides, you giggled and separated yourself to look at him.

“I am fine because Alice saved me” You replied to him and realized all of the witches had come closer and were standing really close to you and the teen hugging you.

You looked to your left to see Alice wiping quickly one tear that was running down her face, and tried to act as if she did not want to cry, she quickly cleared her throat and saw how Lilia and Jenn were smiling at her, Lilia put her hand on Alice´s shoulder and caressed it lovingly.

You chuckled and walked closer to Alice until you were standing next to her, she looked up from the floor to look at you and she shrugged her shoulders.

“No big deal, it was what anyone else would have done, so we´re cool-“ Before she could continue talking you hugged her, your arms around her shoulders.

“Thank you so much Alice, you really are a protection witch, please never doubt that, you are amazing” Your words had touched her heart and she hugged you more, she nodded and when you looked back at her face you noticed she had left the tears ran freely down her face.

“Thank you y/n” Alice replied back at you.

“I am sorry I, I just let you there, in pain, I, I should have done something else, try to look for something to ease the pain but-“ You quickly took Jenn´s hands on yours, you knew she was not really keen on physical contact so you tried to respect that about her.

“It´s alright, you don´t have to be sorry, it was something that was out of your hands, I am grateful that you were able to save him and stop the bleeding, and that´s more than enough, thank you about that, we did not have the time to thank you for that” You said to her smiling, Jenn nodded and caressed the back of your hand.

“Can I get a hug? Everyone seems to love your hugs, I wonder what is so special about them” You nodded laughing and got yourself close to her to hug her, she always smelled amazingly, her perfume seemed to never actually leave her.

“Oh darling, I am so happy you are fine, I cannot imagine what Agatha and Rio would have ended up doing if something happened to you” Lilia pulled you closer to her after you separated yourself from Jenn, and you let her hug you while caressing your back, Lilia then took your hands in hers, and looked straight into your eyes.

“You are so important to everyone, do not ever let yourself think you do not matter alright?” She said to you with a firm tone, yet it was soft at the same time, you could only nod and your eyes filled with tears.

Agatha and Rio looked at the scene in front of them, and Agatha could only think that no one was going to let you get hurt, if for any reason Rio and her were not able to actually protect you, they knew they still had a coven that would do anything to try and protect you as well.

“It looks that you will have to start being kinder to them” Rio said to her with a smirk but she actually meant it.

“Shut up” Agatha said while pushing her slightly in a playful way.

“But you are right, we are a coven after all” Agatha commented while the two of them got close to you and placed each one of them to your sides, both of their hands on your waist.

“We still have to keep on walking, let´s go” Agatha caressed your back again, and while everyone nodded and continued to walk, you couldn’t help the smile on your face from getting bigger, maybe this would be the time for Agatha to start trusting in others, apart from only trusting in you and Rio, but you would still have a lot of time In which you would be able to help Agatha with that, right now, you still had a road to face, and you had never felt so safe and ready to face whatever that would appear.

After all, you had your girlfriends to take care of you, and a whole coven that now, looked after each other.

[transhitman]

Ok I posted about this in anger a while back but I'm gonna say it more intelligently and actually tag it because I think it's something people need to hear. Something that bugs me about how people talk about the morality of the men in this game is that a lot of analysis totally glosses over Anya's motives and what she actually asks of people, and in doing so once again strips her of agency. Like. The reason Curly sucks isn't because he failed to properly punish Jimmy, it's because he ignored Anya in favor of her abuser. He didn't listen to her regarding how to move forward, he didn't give her a way to protect herself. No matter what he would have done to Jimmy, Anya is still traumatized and in danger, and that's the most important point of failure.

I think a lot of people are projecting a revenge fantasy on Anya, and while I'm not gonna argue about the validity of revenge here, for Anya specifically I think that's a major mischaracterization. She's the one who says that our worst moments don't make us monsters. And while yes, this could just be her trying to appease her abusers, she still doesn't strike me as a particularly vindictive person. She's a nurse, symbolically in a role associated with care and healing. Before the crash, she seems like a very soft-spoken and restrained person. Hell, she can't stand giving Curly his meds because she feels so bad for him. There isn't really a point in the game where she calls for violence at all. And even if punishing Jimmy or Curly is morally correct (subjective), saying that it's what anyone Should have done still glosses over Anya's wants and needs. It still centers the abuser, even in vitriol.

It's especially weird to see people judge Swansea on these grounds, because like... We don't know what his dynamic with Anya was like. We don't actually know what she said to him, if she even confided about her pregnancy or the SA at all! I honestly think Swansea's actions give more credence to the idea that Anya herself wanted a peaceful resolution. The whole "Oh, I'm holding it together" thing, him becoming more hostile after speaking with Anya... He waits until Daisuke AND ANYA are dead before trying to kill Jimmy. I think the obvious reading is that he wants Jimmy dead, but Anya asked him not to do anything crazy. Genuinely, I think Anya just wanted to be safe. She wanted out above everything. She didn't want more violence. The only violence she commits is against herself in the end, in order to escape this hell her coworkers made for her.

And like. Swansea is kind of the only one who actually did try to protect Anya in a meaningful way. I won't say that he couldn't have done more for her - all of the men on that ship failed her in some regard - but Swansea intentionally keeps the axe out of Jimmy's hands. He keeps the pod a secret, probably to give to Daisuke, but we can't say anything for sure. I joke that Swansea should have killed Jimmy from the start, but if we're being real that would have been an insane thing to do given what the characters know. But Swansea isn't the point of this post. Like. Idk I just think it's really bizarre that when people discuss Anya's assault, they still do it from the perspective of the men involved. It's weird and I don't like it. Like people have said before me: it's not enough to hate abusers, you have to love victims.

[hiraethwrote]

cw gn!reader but written with f!reader in mind, angst, no comfort, breakup, pining, minor clubbing wc: <1k an i'm on my period which is making me a little emotional, which resulted in this

ex!suguru will never truly be over you, convinced you’re the one that got away.

the breakup was “mutual”, emphasis on the quotation marks — it only meant you guys ended on good terms. it was a very quiet and tender scene. he holds your hands in his, slowly his thumb strokes across your knuckles, never letting his eyes leave your tear stained face.

ex!suguru who, despite disagreeing wholeheartedly with the decision, sees it’s for the best. he will forever hate himself for being unable to see it coming, unable to stop it — one day he suddenly notices how staying in the relationship brought you more turmoil than joy, and he didn't have the heart to hold onto you even though he so desperately wanted to. but he would ruin himself million times over for you

“it’ll be okay,” he says softly, letting himself indulge in the small acts that come so naturally to him one last time before he has to let go, hand reaching up to dry your tears and cupping your cheek. “i’ll be okay.”

with the quiet promise, he feels the stress leave your body and you rest against his touch, a sad smile painting your lips — you’re so beautiful, he thinks.

ex!suguru who lies because he knows it's what you need to hear. you had already stayed longer than you wanted because you didn’t want to hurt him. he wasn’t surprised. you were just so considerate, through and through. he had always thought the relationship was too good to be true anyways, never truly feeling worthy of you

ex!suguru who doesn’t cry, but that is because he feels numb. he can’t remember feeling a pain as intense as this one.

when your tears have stopped, only shy sniffles escaping you, he comes with one last confession. “i’m always going to love you.” he waits, hoping you would say it in return. it isn’t because you don’t love him anymore that you can’t keep going, it’s just because it isn’t working.

“i know,” you say quietly and his heart shatters.

ex!suguru who has his friends fooled because they think he is over the relationship already. he acts the same, eats the same and goes about his business the same — but that’s because it doesn’t concern anyone other than the two of you.

first weekend as a single man, gojo forces him to go out clubbing with him. he really doesn’t want to, but he can’t give his friend any excuses he will accept.

he hates every moment of it, rudely shutting down anyone that approaches him. no matter how attractive, no matter how charismatic, no matter how willing — they’re not you so what’s the point?

ex!suguru who hates the universe a little more than usual. despite his best efforts, he can’t seem to escape you entirely. and he swears he tries, but you somehow just appear every now and then.

he spots you in the grocery store, doing your daily shopping. he spots you in the line of the coffeehouse, ordering your usual drink (one he knows by heart). he sees you on every feed, posting pictures and updates of your life — you seem happy.

his heart screams for him to surrender to his desires, to approach you and hear your voice again. but he knows better, so after torturing himself by admiring you for a few seconds, he simply turns on his heel and leaves.

ex!suguru who after years still thinks about you as much as the day you left. he has tried to move on, but it feels like a betrayal, even after all this time.

has he healed? sure, a little. life goes on after all. with time he has been reunited with some sense of happiness. however it could never compare to the period of his life where he was so fortunate to be with you.

ex!suguru runs into you after nine years. and not like all the times he has simply noticed you down the street — no, you fully crash into his chest one day while walking out of a bakery.

to say he is surprised is an understatement. he has memorised all the places you used to visit so this exact scenario wouldn’t happen, and this had never been a chain you had set foot in before. but a lot changes in nine years.

“suguru, hi.” your voice is light, a rhythm in it that was not present at the end of your relationship. “wow, crazy running into you. how have you been?”

“good,” he croaks, eyes glued to your face. he still finds you as ethereal as the day you left. he wants to say more, but he is a little unsettled by how at peace you seem to be despite not being with him. “and you?”

it doesn’t go unnoticed how you present yourself as genuinely content with where you are in life. however, suguru goes through the entire heartbreak all over again — he has missed so much of your life. he used to think he would be along side you for every single moment of it. instead he is stood in front of you and feeling as if the walls are closing in on him.

his breath catches when you stretch out your hand to grab his forearm. “it was really great seeing you again,” you muse. it’s probably just wishful thinking, but he believes he hears a sadness in your voice that comes from missing him.

“you too,” he whispers, and you’re gone again.

ex!suguru who eventually comes to terms with just being alone again. before you, he always imagined this was how it would end, not the person made to share his life with someone.

you had obviously made him believe otherwise. with you by his side, waking up next to someone and sharing your meals didn’t seem so silly anymore.

but it turns out he only wanted those things if it was with you.

tags @sad-darksoul ﾉ @madaqueue ﾉ @toadtoru ﾉ @hiraethwa ﾉ @harperluvgojo

©hiraethwrote 2024 . all rights reserved. reposting, translating and otherwise plagarisim is prohibited