#until one of them is a failure i eat it out of spite and replace it

[citrusitonit]

cooking 5 little perfect children 2 done and 1 on the way. lookin perfect

[littleholmes]

The fact that Dabi is burning himself through his skin and muscles and down to the bone and has been living and burning in spite all these years is just so distressing.

In two weeks we’ll find out more of his backstory, but until then, given what we know about Touya and Shouto, the first and last Todoroki sons, as well as how their father’s actions reverberated throughout the whole Todoroki family, these final panels of 349 not only mark the start of an important chat between two brothers, but illustrate the parallels between Touya and Shouto.

I’ve analyzed the Todoroki family before as someone with Todoroki-esque trauma, but I haven’t really gotten into Shouto and Touya. Shouto and Touya are both, of course, carrying highly visible physical scars to match their emotional ones. However, and I’m sure this has been said, but it’s interesting that Shouto’s scar is smaller compared to the full-body impact of Touya’s because it’s semi-reflective of the pain they carry. This is not to compare their pain, because they both endured very different situations at the hands of the same man, and everyone responds differently to trauma, etc. What I mean is that Shouto’s scar being smaller than Touya’s is interesting in that it symbolizes a few things.

First is the way their father’s behavior impacted them. Shouto’s scar is more localized which is indicative of the way he was isolated from the rest of his family while being his father's soul focus growing up because was their father’s masterpiece as Touya says. Their father focused exclusively on Shouto, obsessing over him and his path, while neglecting his other children.

Meanwhile, Touya’s body is fully scarred because his father’s focus on him increasingly disappeared with each sibling. More specifically, his scars illustrate the way his pain, from being told he could be a hero to being told he wasn’t good enough again and again with each sibling that was born to basically replace him and make up for his failures, all while being neglected and essentially told by his father to stop trying to get his attention, manifested. His scars stretch across his face and limbs because Touya, whether intentional or not, shouldered not only his own pain and anger, but the pain of each sibling and each subsequent neglect of that sibling. His own pain burned and his anger at his father only grew until it literally began to eat and burn away at him.

Which brings me to the second parallel.

Second is how long the two have lived with the pain. Both Shouto and Touya were isolated from the rest of the family at one point of their lives, and that’s guided how they live with their trauma. While this isn’t the strongest symbolism, it’s worth noting that Shouto is younger—a teen while Touya is in his late twenties—and, though he and Touya have been living with their trauma for roughly the same number of years, he’s had less time to live with it than his big brother who’s been marinating in this for just over two decades.

Furthermore, in this way, Shouto’s seen less of what’s been done to his siblings, especially Dabi, and had a negative reaction to their father’s No. 1 hero expectation because of what he endured (and, sure, his mom too) being his father's perfect pancake, so to speak. He was isolated, placed in a different bracket of treatment, and has trauma the other siblings don’t. Touya is similar but on the opposite side of this. He has seen his sibling’s pain and was there for all of it, held his father’s No. 1 expectation and had it squashed, and has a negative reaction to their father’s No. 1 expectation because he was the ‘failure’.

Finally, and this is the one that upsets me the most as someone with Todoroki-level trauma, the scars symbolize how they’ve been able to handle their trauma. Shouto has the support system and has been in situations where he’s been able not only acknowledge his pain but, with the help of friends like Izuku and Class 1-A, actually start the long task that is unpacking trauma and working through it. Dabi, as far as we’re aware, hasn’t been able to do this because he’s been alone. Sure, the LOV was there, but he hasn’t exactly had the resources, namely a support system, that Shouto has to work through it. He’s been shouldering it alone, living in this pain, burning through his anger, and it’s literally showing to the point where it can very likely kill him.

Which is why it’s so important that we’re seeing that Shouto understands this, knows that there’s still time for Dabi to have that support system, and is here to offer it to him and try to help his brother address it. It’s also why it’s so important that Dabi is willing to tell Shouto everything.

People call it 'trauma dumping' when in reality it’s just a healthy form of reaching out for support and letting it out instead of keeping it bottled in where it can cause even more harm to him. It’s especially important here that he even acknowledged that he’s Shouto’s “big bro”, and the fact that he’s allowing Shouto past the metaphorical fiery fortress he’s built (and literal too in this case) is major.

Idk I’m rambling but Shouto and Touya have two of the strongest quirks in their family, were both isolated, and have physical scars to match their emotional trauma, and only one has been able to process theirs at all. This parallel between the two is fascinating and illustrates the journey and struggles of unpacking and living with trauma. Dabi still has time to process and start healing, and I sincerely hope he’s able to begin doing that and live after this war to continue sorting things out with Shouto.

[p0ck3tp03t]

Rampant Thoughts 16.

Envy is something I have been feeling in a high amount lately and guilt is in close pursuit. I look around at people achieving the thing that I have been dreaming of for quite some time, and can't stand the fact that I am the only to blame for not being in that position yet. Spite is eating at me even more as the realization that my existence isn't worthy of having what they have and what is worse is knowing that this desire is shallow beyond allowance.

If I were to give a name to what I want it'd probably be along the lines of attention or recognition but after careful introspection it has come to me that the object of desire is represented by the idea of validation. The knowledge that some stranger validates your existence because you brightened his day simply through doing an act that serves you more than him must feel quite fulfilling, and I speak from personal experience even if that may be on a smaller scale. One must accept what they feel as a part themselves and use that as fuel to either burn themselves aimlessly or to ignite a sense of perspective within oneself if capable of such action. This mindless pursuit stems from my inability to find reason to form an affection towards myself so in consequence I try to fill that chasm with that of others even if I am fully aware of how fleeting it may be. This is more or less a losing battle because it is futile trying to stitch and patch this cavernous space that I sense cannot be filled with nothing but self-acceptance. No matter the actions taken or the steps ahead, never do I feel satisfied with the things accomplished as they amount to nothing aside from being fickle exertions against the seemingly insurmountable walls called expectation and disappointment. Living in fear of living and having oneself as ones worst enemy, being reminded and discouraged constantly by feelings of worthlessness piled with lack of success does not amalgamate into a concoction that yields success and never will. Until these hurdles are overcome, the light sought will never be found and this includes any endeavor one wishes to pursue.

Truth be told, though denied, that which I seek might not be a path fitting for one such as myself, but nonetheless, rebellion coupled with perseverance are parts of myself that still flicker despite the amount of darkness that roams throughout my existence. I have not done enough and probably never will, and I will live a life where daydreams of finding the light will replace reality as life itself withers slowly together with everything that I am until there won't be anything left..

Quite incredible to believe that this which I seek is important enough to affect to such a degree, almost to the point of crippling my thoughts for days, causing me to overthink the situation until I would end up in a state of deep melancholy. Further introspective analysis into this has surfaced even deeper reasons as to why this represents such significance, almost instinctively. I recalled watching people who do and have done this for a very long time and the joy they have brought to people around them through their work. Everyone wants something they cannot have and it is possible that somewhere along the line I took notice of how powerful were the people whose actions managed to spark a flicker of laughter in strangers that shone their eyes upon them. Among those people, I also found myself, looking and studying their acts, gestures, personas, trying to understand everything about these strangers for which a form of affection had begun to catch root.

It didn't take long for me to imagine myself in that position, wishing to do what they did but never actually doing it because I felt it would turn into an act of plagiarizing and I would turn myself into a copy of someone else, which in turn would transform me into a breathing lie. Nothing could stop me from trying but in my head, if I wasn't them or like them, the result they had achieved would be different or even opposite from mine which meant failure or worse, rejection. So it started a battle in my head that has been going on for many years and its aftermath is yet to be settled as it branched out into many other issues that have become a component that defines everything I am.

The pursuit remains active and steps towards its capture have been taken, and though still fruitless, I refuse to concede until a sense of contentment will end the hunger. The end of the journey is nowhere in sight and considering the progress rate, expectations to succeed are low, ironically. Maybe I do not need the destination and rather the journey in order to find that which I seek so vehemently, and if that may be true, then the path below my feet might be the right one and despite all the turbulent weather that plagues the skies, there is no need to rush. The self that I am destined to be will wait, patiently, hopeful that when I get there, I will radiate with contentment. Until then though, I continue to carve endlessly until I will have shed and become an existence worthy of validation, not so much from others but mostly from myself, and I believe that only then will I have reached the true end of my journey.

                                                                                           By:PocketPoet

[mizmahlia]

I am damaged at best (like you’ve already figured out)

Summary: Between Bruce's insane training drills and his on-the-job experience, Jason could get out of just about any kind of restraint. Cuffs, rope, zip ties, packing twine, electrical cord- you name it. But after he’s rescued, it's proven to be much harder to break free from Slade's hold over him and he's not sure if he can get away this time.

He’s not sure if he even wants to, if returning to a team that hates him is his only option.

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This is the Titans version of Jason Todd. Post 2x05.

TW: Be warned- this chapter contains some heavy stuff such as suicidal ideation, mentions of physical and psychological torture, and other serious mental health concerns. If you've seen the episode, you've seen how emotionally wrecked and traumatized Jason is, so tread carefully.

AO3

Jason takes pride in his ability to hide how he really feels, only allowing the world to see what it wants to so he can go on pretending he’s fine. If acting the part of a scared child got food on the table, then that’s exactly what he did. In front of a social worker, it’s the kicked-puppy act. With teachers, it’s striking the balance between being a smartass and actually using the intelligence they both know he has.

With Bruce, it’s acknowledging he’s a bit of a troublemaker, while staying just this side of the brutality/justice line. As long as his homework is done and he follows the rules of the Batcave, he can patrol. He bullshitted his way through Bruce’s psychological exam, manipulating his answers enough to appear like he was being honest, but he really only said what he needed to pass it. If Bruce noticed, he never said anything.

Jason never thinks too much about the possibility Bruce saw right through his act, but chose not to do anything about it. If he spends too much time obsessing over that, he spirals down too far, and it takes a week or more for him to claw his way back up to the surface, on his way back to ‘barely-functioning’.

Slade, however, is different.

In the time he’s been down here, Jason’s insults and threats have had no effect. And since his escape attempt earlier, Slade tightened the restraints and tied him to a chair, so he had no way to gather any momentum to break free. He’s stuck until Slade moves him to another location, which seems likely at this point. Jason is out of his element and Bruce never prepared him for dealing with a situation like this. Being in uncharted territory, he goes back to what he knows, what he’s familiar with. 

He leans into the restraints, getting as close to Slade as possible.

“Fuck you, you pretentious asshole. Hey, look at me. I’m not scared of you.”

He gets no reaction from Slade as he simply stares back at Jason, holding a whetstone and his sword. He sits at the table to Jason’s left and begins sharpening the blade with long, slow strokes. He doesn’t say a word for a few minutes, leaving Jason in tense silence.

Jason isn’t sure if it’s the sleep deprivation, the throb of the wound in his thigh where his tracker was previously embedded, or the fact Slade hasn’t laid a hand on him since the phone call to Dick and the others hours ago. Granted, he's grateful for that because while he can certainly take a beating, Slade hits harder than most. But he can feel terror creeping into his head and down the back of his neck when he realizes he has no idea what’s going to happen. He listens to Slade begin to talk about Dick, picking up on the way rage bleeds into Slade’s voice as he does so, telling Jason he’s being used for bait.

When Slade stops talking and waits for a smartass retort from Jason, he gets nothing, and Jason knows he’s smiling behind the mask. Slade leaves the room and cuts the lights, leaving him in total darkness to think about the possibilities of what’s coming. Jason knows there’s a meeting at three a.m., but he has no way of knowing what time it is. It could be twenty minutes or five hours until the meet.

He can’t take the ‘wait and see’ approach that Dick is so fond of- he doesn’t have the time or patience. Bruce operates much the same way and it drives Jason crazy. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree where Dick and Bruce are concerned, but Jason knows he’s different. He’s the rotten, worm-filled apple on the diseased tree that’s on top of the burn pile.

After all- you gotta get rid of the disease before it spreads to the rest of the orchard.

That thought is pushed to the back of his mind along with everything else he can’t let himself dwell on right now.

After waiting a few minutes to see if Slade is coming back, he goes to work on the restraints. He pops his other thumb out of joint and tries to wriggle his hand out of his glove, but it won’t budge. The cuffs are loose enough to prevent a loss of circulation, but tight enough he can’t slide his hand out. Short of having someone actually amputate his thumb, he isn’t getting out of them.

He sighs in defeat and leans his head back against the rock wall behind him. The silence in the room is complete enough he swears he can hear his own heartbeat, and he starts tapping his boot on the floor. It’s the bass line to his favorite song, one he listens to when he needs a distraction from the dumpster fire his life has seemingly turned into.

The tapping gets faster as he realizes Batman isn’t coming this time, and neither is Dick. The Titans likely aren’t, either. Not like he expects they would- it’s not as if they like him all that much. He closes his eyes and sighs deeply. It appears there’s one thing he and Slade agree on.

He’s on his own.

Like he’s always been.

It shouldn’t comfort him, but it does. Just a little bit.

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

He doesn’t remember how he got to the top of a skyscraper or how Slade sedated him, but he sure as hell feels the backhanded slap as Slade tries to wake him up. He winces before spewing a string of colorful profanity, letting Slade know exactly what he thinks of him, before Slade slaps him again. There’s blood on his lip this time and Jason spits it to the floor, keenly aware Slade isn’t hitting as hard as he had previously. He says something Jason can’t hear over the wind and disappears back inside, leaving Jason alone with his thoughts again.

It’s a place he tries hard not to be, inside his own head. It’s a dark place full of blame and anger and guilt. And no matter what he does or how hard he tries to keep them at bay, the darkest of his thoughts always manage to bubble to the surface and threaten to pull him back under. It used to be his own voice, telling himself he’s nothing more than a harbinger of violence, bad luck and chaos- that the world is better off without him. And it’s hard to ignore the voice in your head telling you how much of a failure you are when the voice sounds just like you.

But now the voice sounds like Slade and it’s telling him all the same things, but with an added twist. Now he hears Slade’s voice telling him he made the mistake of trusting Dick and believing himself to be some kind of hero, when he’s nothing more than a punching bag- something for Slade to beat on and torture just to get someone else’s attention. A pleasant distraction.

He pleads with the voice to stop, to leave him alone, but his voice is lost on the wind and he continues to replay the awful things Slade said to him earlier.

“You’re Robin two-point-oh, and you’re just as replaceable as Dick was. Batman will find a third one, but this time, let’s hope he finds someone who can actually do the job.”

“How does it feel to know I’m only doing this to you to get someone else’s attention? To be used for spite?”

“Do any of them know how much you hate yourself? Do they even care?”

“I know Gotham is a fucked up city, but for it to have spit you out... that’s impressive.”

Before he realizes it, the tears are falling and his legs threaten to give out from under him. He shakes his head and tells himself to focus. But as he gets a hand free, the shutter opens and he sees Dick and Kori fighting with Slade, which sends his heart soaring.

They came. They’re here to save him.

Then Slade raises the hand with the detonator in it and presses the button. Dick screams and Jason drops, reaching out to grab the ledge. There’s a hand out the window and Dick’s panicked face appears, and for the briefest of moments, Dick has him. But their grip isn’t strong enough and Jason falls.

He has no choice but to look at Dick as he falls, the wind whipping through his hair and drowning out the sound of Dick’s scream. He knows he’s also screaming, but it’s an automatic thing- his body’s response to fear that he can’t control. But underneath the terror he feels, he senses relief, too.

It’s better this way, he thinks as the space grows between them. No more feeling alone, like he didn’t belong anywhere. No more having to pretend he was fine.

And no more having to fight Slade’s voice in his head.

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The first day back, he gets hugs from Hank and Dawn, with Hank giving him a high-five for talking shit to Deathstroke. Gar gives him the biggest hug known to man, apologizing repeatedly in Jason’s ear and telling him he’s glad they found him. Rachel’s reaction is hard to read, as is Donna’s, but Kori seems genuinely happy to see him.

Rose stands back and gives him a sarcastic salute, clapping her hands, but the smirk she wears softens enough to tell him she’s glad he’s back.

Dick hardly leaves his side and Jason has to tell him to give him some space, something he’s never had to say to anyone before.

It’s a nice feeling, for people to want him around.

But it doesn’t last.

It never does.

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A few days later and Jason begins to think Conner catching him was a mistake.

He can’t sleep. He doesn’t eat. And he can’t even carry on a conversation without losing grip on what’s real and what’s only in his head. He’s taken to pushing on his bruised ribs to remind him the pain is real and Slade’s voice isn’t. Most of his time is spent in front of the window in his room, replaying his fall over and over again.

After their impromptu dance “lesson”, Rose tells him he’s the only one worth talking to and that sparks something in Jason’s chest- hope that he was supposed to survive after all, that people really do care about him. It’s something he holds onto with everything he has. It’s the only thing he’s had to lean into, to fight for.

He’s starting to think he and Rose could be really good friends, or perhaps more down the line. The constant worry he’ll infect her with whatever curse he’s got is always present in the back of his mind, but when he hears her say he’s fucked up, but that she understands? Jason almost cries in relief. The smile he wears is genuine- the first one in a long time.

Then she finds the record, her brother’s record- a dead brother Jason doesn’t even know she had, and shit hits the fan. Once again, the fingers point to him first, just like Slade said they would.

Next it’s Rachel.

Then Hank, Dawn, and Donna.

His world begins to implode for what feels like the twelfth time in less than a week, and he doesn’t even bother trying to quiet Slade’s voice this time.

When he manages to speak loudly enough, the words tumble out before he even has the chance to consider how it sounds.

“You people are insane. I’d rather be with Deathstroke than you assholes. You think everything is my fault.”

In the midst of their arguing, Jason disappears and decides not to take the elevator. Lately, the only place that brings him any comfort at all is the roof. Being up that high might get rid of the awful feeling that he’s falling, and he wishes he would have thought of it sooner.

As he climbs the stairs, he rubs the red, raw skin at his wrists from the restraints. His thumbs are both bruised from when he dislocated them, and he absently wonders if that’s why he couldn’t grab Dick’s hand tight enough that night. In his attempts to free himself, he nearly died because he couldn’t hold on.

But he’s tired of holding on, and if what happened downstairs is any indication, he shouldn’t bother.

The sun is bright up on the roof and he knows he should feel warm on his skin, but he doesn’t. He hasn’t felt warm in forever, not really. There’s a moment of hesitation and he wonders if he should barricade the door so no one can get up here. In the end, he decides they probably don’t know he’s gone, anyway, or are glad he left.

He gets closer to the edge and looks down again at his wrists, running his fingers over the tender skin, one question he hasn’t been able to answer rushing to the forefront.

If he really got away from Slade, if the shackles really are gone, then why does he still feel so trapped?

[everlarkficexchange]

Incubus

Written by: @alliswell21

Prompt 49: He has spent centuries coming at night and sleeping with as many humans as possible, many dying from childbirth with no child to bear, or because his lust overpowered them. He needs to find a women that can live through his lust and birth an healthy offspring and after centuries, he thinks he found the one, the sixteen year old Katniss Everdeen. Dark incubus!peeta Angst Old times. [submitted by @animekpopxx​]

RATED: EXPLICIT for disturbing themes, imagery and adult situations.

WARNINGS: Dark!Peeta; Creepy!Peeta; Stalker!Peeta. Demon!Peeta; Dark!Toastbabies; minor character’s death, Canon compliant violence, Non-con/Rape. Stockholm Syndrome-ish.

TAGS: Supernatural AU; Under 16K words; Smut (Underage!Everlark, non-everlark)

Acknowledgements: Thanks to @animekpopxx for the great prompts, you never cease to inspire with your ideas for stories… sorry if I didn’t completely adhere to all the specifications listed on the prompt.

Many thanks to my amazing beta @wingletblackbird, who’s insights made this story 10 million times better.

@xerxia31 and @javistg for their dedication to Everlark Fanfiction, you keep the creative juices pumping with this events, and I thank you both for that… and thank you for reading my One Shot. Hopefully is to your liking! 

  KPKPKPKPKPKPKPKP

I’m thrusting vigorously into the wet, hot and loose pussy of a married woman who summoned me by name to get back at her cheating husband— who apparently has sired no less than 4 bastards, each from a different woman— by fucking a demon.

  She’s also awake, which is fairly unusual for my encounters, but I couldn’t refuse an invitation such as this when the woman is so willing and eager, and the call comes laced with the delicious odor of arousal.

  The problem is, she talks too much!

  I’ve done my best to tune out her asinine remarks on how big and intimidating my cock is compared to human penises, how much watching my member excites her, and makes her greedy pussy flutter in anticipation; I’ve heard stupid comments like those for millennia from women with the same wicked gleam in their eyes. They think that calling me to fuck them is some kind of thrilling game, as if the stories of how most of my partners don’t survive their first encounter with me, how their bodies can’t take the stress I put on them when I’m really overcome with lust, are mere jokes passed down from generations. But this woman really is testing my patience.

  Everything was alright until she asked a question that enraged me above anything she’s said so far.

  “My lord, is it true you impregnate every one of your victims?” There is that psychotic glint in her beady eyes again.

  I grunt and push away onto my haunches.

  The woman tries to sit up quickly, chasing my retreating form desperately with a pleading apology taking shape in her mouth. She doesn’t get to voice whatever idiotic excuse she was about to spew.

  With a flick of my hand, five silk ropes spring up from the floor and wrap around both her wrists and both ankles; the last one gags her mouth. She whimpers and the sadistic gleam in her eyes finally gets replaced with fear when the ropes pull back her legs bringing her knees level with her ears and her thighs spread wide open to me.

  Without stopping to look at her, I ram into her ass with so much force the legs of the bed groan and break under the punishing pace I’m keeping.

  The woman cries out in terror or pain, maybe both, I don’t care. I don’t stop driving into her until my release is imminent. When it’s time, I pull my cock out of the woman’s rectum swiftly, and spill all my cum on her face, chest, and part of her stomach. I take great care not to let even a drop of my precious seed fall into her reproductive organs.

  I sigh in relief once I’m done.

  The woman strains against her restraints, and moans pitifully. I look down at her tearful face with spite.

  Pathetic.

  Finally, I answer her question, “No. I don’t impregnate every one of my partners. Some aren’t worthy of carrying my offspring.” I stand from the broken bed and give her a disdainful glance, “You should count yourself lucky you don’t rate as a good partner, otherwise I would’ve taken your life, as well as your pleasure.”

  I dissolve into dark mist leaving her in that shameful position, tied up like a hog and covered in mess, to be found by her husband.

  ——

  It is not my custom to glide aimlessly through a human town after I’ve fed my lust, yet tonight’s encounter left a bitter taste in my mouth I just can’t shake off.

  I’ve been cursed into existence with the sole purpose of mating with as many women as there are sand grains by the ocean until one of them births me an heir to… to replace me, I guess, until he too has successfully produced a replacement of his own. Regretfully, I’m still here, after thousands of years, fucking my way through humanity. Not one woman has been strong enough to carry my spawn to term, so the careless curiosity of a self indulgent idiot got to me a little too hard.

  There have been a handful of promising cases, but at the end they just amount to female corpses too weak to bear my child. Every single woman I’ve copulated with either dies in the throes of passion, unable to whistand my consuming lust, or has complications with the pregnancy, either because the creature simply sucks the life force out of the host, or because labor pains put too much stress on their mortal bodies and they just give out with internal organ failures.

  On this depressing thought, I come to the center of town where I would never be if there was any sun in the sky right now. I’m about to turn myself into a small smoke tornado that will project me back to my den for a while, before my night starts anew on the other side of the globe, but a small, hopeless sob attracts my full attention.

  I’m a creature of darkness; therefore I’m drawn to and strengthened  by human pain and calamity. The whimpering continues guiding me to an alleyway, behind a lane of brick buildings, housing an amalgamation of shops.

  I notice three things upon arrival. First, the soft sobbing is coming from a little girl, much too young to be outside alone at this time. Second, it is dark, very, very dark; a moonless night, that should frighten a hardened man, a night in which specters like me come out to play eagerly with unsuspecting humans too dumb to stay safely in their beds. And lastly, this is the loneliest, creepiest alley I’ve ever been to. It’s cold, muddy, echo-y and reeks of death.

  My kind of place, I realize.

  Not at all where a tiny child such as this one should be.

  At first glance I determine the child is frail and almost to the doors of death. A female of around 10 or 11 years old, judging by her skeletal frame. It looks like she hasn’t known the taste of food in quite a few days, and she’s giving up her life in this cursed place.

  It is not in my nature to care whether she expires sitting on the hard ground, against the scraggly apple tree she leans on, or not, but for some reason, I speak to her. Soft and soothing.

  “What are you doing here, girl? It’s dark, late, and scary.”

  Deadened, sunken eyes stare at me suspiciously, “I could ask you the same. But I’m not nosy!” She replies turning her pert nose up at me.

  I chuckle and lower myself to the ground. The little brat is a piece of work! “I’m nosy and I don’t care if that’s rude.”

  The girl cocks her head sideways, slightly curious, not the least bit afraid.

  “I ran out of coin.” She finally says, “I can’t to go back home to my little sister, Prim, without food. She’s so tiny, and her lips keep crackin’ and bleedin’ every time she cries, asking if there’s anything to eat.”

  Normally, humans never see my true form if they happen to get a glimpse of me. They would die of terror on the spot, so their minds only see what they can handle. For women, they see every feature they find attractive in a male, making me irresistible for them, in the very, very seldom instance that they see me while awake. Men, on the other hand, tend to see someone non-threatening, a friend who would never hurt them. I’m not sure what this child sees me as, but clearly she sees someone worth opening her heavy little heart to, because the floodgates of her troubled life seem to have opened up, and she sobs telling me the rest of her story.

  “I can’t remember the last time I ate something that I had to chew with my teeth. My tummy started to ache a few days ago, but I didn’t want Prim to ache too, so I’ve been giving her all the little food we had left. Yesterday, all I found in the cupboards were a few dry mint leaves, I boiled them in water and told her it was soup. I came to the market to sell Prim’s baby clothes, but nobody wanted my ragged wares. I got so dizzy after walking all day trying to sell them, and my arms were so tired, I accidentally dropped the clothes on the mud somewhere yonder; I’m not sure where. I couldn’t pick them up, even if I’d wanted to. I knew that if I leaned down, I’d just kilter over and wouldn’t be able to get up again.”

  She takes a ragged breath and paws the soaked tendrils of black hair sticking to her forehead away.

  “I didn’t wanna die like that in the middle of the street where anyone could see. They would’ve known mother hasn’t been taking care of us. They would take Prim to the Community Home. Children in the Community Home get crushed by sadness and red marks on their faces from angry hands… I couldn’t do that to poor, delicate Prim. But this place here…” her eyes take a glassy quality, and her lips curl into a slight smile as if daydreaming of better days. “It used to be the bakery, before the owners moved away and abandoned it. The smell of freshly baked bread still lingers here, and if I inhale hard enough, I swear I can feel the smells fill my tummy.”

  She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, as if truly she could get her empty stomach filled with the long gone fragrance of yeast and flour that used to permeate this alley before.

  “My belly doesn’t hurt no more,” she sighs, opening her eyes and fixing them on me, “in case you were wondering.”

  My head cocks to the side, staring at her curiously.

  “I stopped feeling the hunger aches without noticing. Mamma’s a healer, I once heard her tell a woman, whose children had stopped crying out for food, that those are actually dangerous times, when the body needs food, when it’s so far gone, it starts eating itself out. But I’m not scared about that… dying here, where bread used to be baked… won’t be so bad, would it?”

  Something tugs at me in the back of my mind. Without thinking about it, and barely feeling anything at all, I conjure up two steaming loaves of hearty bread out of thin air. At first, my instinct compels me to take a bite out of the bread, taunt her, mock her, chop off pieces and lug them over the falling link fence of an old pen, where the odor of some kind of animal still persists, and watch her climb over the muck to devour the soiled bread. But then, my hands move of their own volition, offering the loaves to the girl.

  Her eyes follow my every move, stuck on the delectable food she’s been deprived off for so long, just staring at my gift.

  Suddenly, I’m aware of how cold and wet everything around me is.

  “It’s pouring.” I muse flatly.

  The girl’s eyes tell me she clearly thinks I’m stupid, but my clothes cling to my body uncomfortably, and now I’m aware my body feels oddly smaller than usual. I look down at my arms, realizing I have the arms of a child myself.

  I guess the girl is projecting her age and features on me, like humans do.

  “Take the bread before it’s too soggy to eat.” I grunt in aggravation.

  “I—Are you sure? I couldn’t… I don’t have anything to pay or trade—“

  I shove the two loaves into her lap, and kick off from the ground where I had come to sit, next to her. “Go home.” I command. “Get out of this darkness and this cold rain.”

  The girl looks at the food on her arms with disbelief and awe, then she looks up at me, as if I had given her the moon, the clouds, and her very own star. She murmurs. “Thank you…”

  In a second, she’s running away as fast as her scrawny little legs can take her, while I stand here stunned and confused. There was a strange reaction I got when the little girl’s gray eyes met mine and I could see the most appetizing fire within. I knew the little girl would not only survive, but thrive.

  I won’t ever see the little human again, so what do I care what’s in her future? I melt back into the shadows, already putting the incident behind me.

  ——————

I’m particularly fond of nubile virgins, which probably accounts for how poorly their bodies perform when I impregnate them, but I digress… teenage girls have the softest skin. Their budding breasts, still unaware of the effects of gravity, retain an innocent perkiness I could kill for. But, while all this is true on my normal hunts, one prepubescent human has become a most incomprehensible obsession of mine ever since the night I gave her the bread.

  My girl with the braid and gray eyes is now 14. She had to mature in extreme circumstances, before her time, making her exquisite in resilience and a strength her peers lack. I find myself attracted to her dormant… sturdiness.

  But at 14– in human years— her reproductive system is not mature enough even for a monster like me. She has not the means, nor the skills, to sustain the demands of mating with me, let alone carrying my spawn, so I admire her from afar and more often than I should.

  Tonight for example, I watch her sleep for a short moment, then I let myself slip through the same crack in the window I slithered inside, and go on my merry way to find a more fitting host.

  The girl will sleep untouched tonight, meanwhile I still need to bury myself into a warm, available body.

  —————

  “My name is Katniss Everdeen. What’s yours?” She asks the night a come across her, when she’s stuck on the other side of an electrified fence, in a dark, dark forest.

  “Peeta.” I say emotionless. It’s my given name, although her kind has given me a different, more sinister name I’m not terribly fond of. “Why are you out here?” I ask.

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but my papa taught me how to hunt. That’s what I’ve been doing every day for the last two years to feed my family. I come everyday before school, and most days I return even after.”

  “Why come twice in a day?” My voice is flat, but she doesn’t seem to mind it.

  “Well…” She scowls looking at the ground, as her answer comes together in her mind. “My family has to eat, but we also need other things, like paraffin, thread and needles, matches… things for school, soap for the washing. People in town will pay coin for fresh meat, or trade with other goods. It’s a good system.” She states proudly. But then, she looks nervously around, and stutters as if remembering herself. “But you can’t tell anyone about any of that. I could get punished if word got out that I hunt illegally.” Her nose wrinkles in disgust. “Promise you won’t say anything, Peeta.”

  I want to roll my eyes at her, but she’s staring at me with those eyes full of stars and warmth. I have to admit, it felt amazing to hear her use my name. Very few beings even know it, humans can’t even imagine I have an actual name, which suits me, since they fear the one they gave me. It almost rivals the strange pleased sensation I got when her gray eyes widened in pleasant recognition when she saw me approach her tonight. Still, I know not why she’s out here on her lonesome, and I much rather have her go home, to bed, where I have control.

  “I don’t have anyone to tell. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tattle. But why are you here so late?”

  She frowns. “The part of me getting stuck out here is actually unintentional, and happens very seldom.”

  I arch an eyebrow— I had no idea I could use the muscles in my forehead in such manner— and wait for her to elaborate.

  “The fence is a pre-war inconvenience, supposed to act as a deterrent for wild beasts, but is almost never on. Animals know to stay away from town, and people like me get to climb under it to gather apples and berries that grow in the wild. Only a few of us hunt, because it’s still illegal to poach. Today I slipped under the wires at dusk to collect some herbs for mother— she’s got to make half of her poultices and unguents with herbs only found in the woods, mind you— anywho, when I came back, the fence was live.” She shivers, crossing her arms over her chest. “I just have to wait it out. It’ll eventually shut off and I’ll be able to cross back into the district. Prim’s already come by to check on me and knows I’m safe. I’ll climb a tree or something while I wait.”

  I grunt my understanding and shake my head in aggravation. I wave my hand carelessly, and the electric buzz dies instantly. “I think you can come back in again now.” I tell her needlessly. “Hurry up. You never know how long this will last.”

  The girl, Katniss, narrows her eyes suspiciously at me momentarily, but finally shrugs, “As you say.” Then sticks her arm through the links of the fence, holding up her game bag to me. “Hold this for me.” She crawls under the fence and then stands in front of me.

  We are the same height I realize. But then, I grow an extra inch or two above her. The corner of her lips curls up, and I’m certain she’s figured something out about me, I just don’t know if it’ll help or hinder my advances.

  “I’ll see you around, Peeta. Thank you for keeping me company while I was out there. It’s the first time I got caught out at night. It was nice seeing a friendly face.”

  “Mmm. Be more careful next time.” I grunt, and walk away from her.

  —————-

I come back to Katniss’ bedroom for reasons I can’t readily comprehend.

  She’s not very big or particularly pretty; she’s not even ready to copulate! But there’s a certain vulnerability in her subconscious self that calls me to her.

  During the day, she sports the scowl of a thirty year old single mother of two working with only the skills of poaching, handed down to her from her dead father, in order to sustain her family while putting herself and her younger child through school. Of course, she is not really a mother, but everything else is true; so the rest might as well be true also, since she’s had to care and provide for her mother and younger sister for the last two years, taking the mantle of breadwinner all on her slim, little shoulders. Her determination is her own type of brawn in my book.

  I hover above her sleeping form, just studying her face; so sweet and tender, free of the premature worry lines and that perpetual scowl that plagues her features in wakefulness, but then again, it is that intimidating scowl of hers that grants her the respect of any adult she does business with.

  In sleep, Katniss looks more her age. Innocent and soft, like the velvety petals of a rose bud.

  I breathe in the clean smell of her recently bathed body, and wonder if I could just slip my palm up her thigh, just to feel her soft skin under my fingers? But her mother stirs and sighs in the other bed, shutting the thought to Hell.

  My eyes cut to the woman right away, but she’s asleep, just rearranging her position in the sagging mattress next to the one I’m floating over.

  Mrs. Everdeen suffers melancholy. Her emotional illness almost killed her and her daughters; I’m not sure how I feel about her. She’s better now, but the months of starvation and near death have permanently damaged Katniss, emotionally and psychologically, more than she lets on.

  The Everdeens never had wealth or means to afford but the barest of necessities, so when Mr. Everdeen passed, he left nothing behind but a small house with a tiny living area, kitchen, bathroom, and a single bedroom for his surviving family to live in. Another reason I don’t act on my urges to fuck sweet Katniss; the poor thing shares a room with her mother, and more often than not, shares a bed with her little sister.

  Tonight is a rare occasion, in which the sister hopped in bed with the mother, leaving the object of my fascination to battle her recurrent nightmares alone. This only exacerbates the troublesome dreams for Katniss, which aggravates me, since her sleep patterns turn irregular and shallow, making it hard for me to infiltrate her subconscious. She’s more prone to wake up when her mind is occupied relieving the bad days. But I don’t complain much, seeing that while she’s is bed alone, I can leisurely hover directly above her sleeping form, instead of by the side of the mattress like I’m usually confined to.

  I go back to gaze at my sleeping beauty, and decide that this won’t do.

  I have to figure out a way to give Katniss her own room.

  I want privacy when the time comes I can do all things I yearn to do. But there’s still time! Katniss has a couple of years ahead of her to grow and mature. I’ll just bide my time until that glorious future.

  Before leaving her side for the night, I kiss her forehead. I plant a thought there as my lips touch her skin: ‘Don’t pull the covers up too high. Loosen the sheets around your shoulders. Relax your breathing… rest.’

  Then I’m gone.

  —————————-

  I’m inside sweet, beautiful Lavinia, pounding away in glorious ecstasy.

  She’s an absolute delight with a soft, pliable body, with swells and dips in all the right places and shapely legs that go on forever.

  She moans sensually every time I enter her. She clenches her pussy muscles around my cock deliciously, and I lick the perspiration off her pale, luscious flesh to give my tongue something to do.

  For the first time in months, my mind doesn’t drift to fantasies of an older version of Katniss while moving into the designated warm body of the day. I’m thoroughly satisfied, and at the end of the tryst, just when I’m about to pull out of Lavinia’s tight crevice, she seizes, shakes, arches off the bed with her mouth forming an agonizing O, dipping her head back so her auburn hair brushes the mattress beneath and her torso finally collapses on the bed heavily.

  My chest feels the familiar little stir of excitement.

  Every woman I’ve successfully implanted with an embryo has had a similar physical reaction. Some are more violent than others, but it’s always the same and I’m cautiously content this time was so mild on the host… mother… whatever she is to my heir.

  I stay maybe another hour, just staring at Lavinia’s stomach, wishing I could see beyond the skin and muscle, deep into the womb, take a peek at the creature starting to take shape in her tissue. But alas, that’s not one of my many abilities and powers.

  At the first crow of the rooster in the predawn, while it’s still inky dark out there, do I finally see it happening.

  It starts as a small, dark red stain growing on the white linen sheets covering the still sleeping redhead. She doesn’t move an inch, but I know from experience the pregnancy failed. Despite the fact that the girl is still breathing, I can’t help thinking she’s already dead.

  Lavinia’s hemorrhaging fast; the mess covering her clothes and bedding is now reaching her shoulders; her eyes flutter behind her closed lids, and I regret ever putting my hands on her, because now she’s another girl I’ve sent for death.

  I don’t linger to see her last breath.

  None of my partners survive a pregnancy. But the night just began in the other side of world, and my loins call for another lover to replace the child I just lost.

—————————

  Katniss is 15.

  Her dark hair reaches her waist even braided. She hides her budding breasts and the slight curve of her ass, under her father’s old shirts and leather jacket, which are at least 3 sizes too big for her. She’s also taken to wearing  trousers instead of skirts and dresses, but even I’ve grown used to her clothing dwarfing her slight frame.

  The fact her developing womanly figure stays camouflaged serves two purposes; one, is purely practical, people seem to forget she’s a child— female at that— and take her seriously for trades and bartering; the second one benefits both of us, by keeping unwanted male attention from bothering her.

  But there’s no escaping nature, and there’s no stopping puberty. Katniss’ body is maturing nicely, and with that comes torturous growing pains.

  Today was hard for her, I can tell.

  She’s squirming in her sleep, doubled over at her tiny waist with her nimble arms wrapped around her middle. The downy hair at her temple is damped with perspiration, and her sweet lips are pale and dry.

  I kiss the dewy skin of her forehead, murmuring an incantation to numb away her aches. After a few minutes of me trying to soothe her with small caresses, the awful grimace falls off her face, and a relaxed sigh leaves her chapped lips. Her arms loosen, allowing her hands to curl softly beneath her chin.

  Her menses started a few months ago, and they have been rough on her. The cycle wipes out most of her strength, leaving her in cold sweats, dizzy, and unstable on her feet. The reaction really worries me. I don’t want there to be a problem I have not foreseen.

  I lean my cheek against her soft abdomen and whisper an enchantment. Given my nature, I’m not capable of healing ailments, or granting blessings, nor am I allowed to praying to the ones who could help, but I’m allowed to cast spells and conjure old magic, and lastly, I’m allowed to bear certain illnesses in a human’s stead, so I try to take her pain upon myself. I need my girl to be strong and healthy if she’s to carry my offspring in the future.

  I nuzzle her navel for a moment before taking a step back.

  A sharp pain wreaks through me, becoming acute near my groin. I claw at the air as the searing pain pierces through me, and then is gone as fast as it came.

  That’s that.

  I’ve never felt pain before, and I truly hope I never have to suffer it again, but Katniss is resting now, free of deliberating aches, sleeping soundly and peaceful. The unsavory sensations were worth it, just to watch my girl fall into blessed oblivion.

  That should do it.

  I leave her to rest, wiping off tonight’s nightmares from her subconscious as well.

  —————-

  I used to worry that with Katniss’ struggle with starvation and malnutrition, her body would become useless as a vessel. Then the day her first bloods stained her undergarments arrived to my everlasting relief, and that to the added improvement of her hunting skills that fetched her better game, and her gathering double portions of wild vegetables and herbs in the woods, where doing wonders to her health.

  I was delighted to see her filling in her scrawny bones with meat and muscle, and her cheeks get rosier. It’s the best indication that at last, her womb is ready for procreation!

  There’s still the pesky issue of her shared lodgings, so I decided to bide my time until her healer mother gets called to tend an overnight patient, and eager to learn, little Primrose would tag along her mother to help, leaving the house all to myself. Unfortunately, something else happened that I didn’t see coming.

  To my everlasting fury, I discovered her trips to the woods aren’t as solitary as I had believed. It so happens that sweet, capable Katniss, does have a hunting partner, and for some reason I ignored this fact completely until today.

  The fence is electrified again, but this time Katniss has made camp in the branches of a tall, sturdy tree. In a branch below hers, a lanky, older boy made his bed under the canopy, tying a rope around his waist to anchor him to the tree limb, same as her.

  “Hey Catnip, you get some shut eye for now. I have first watch. I’ll wake up when I get tired.”

  “Unless you see something worth shooting!” She tells the boy scowling. “Wake me up right away, Gale. Not like last time you saw a deer and tried to down it by yourself.”

  The boy lifts his hands in surrender. “Alright, Catnip. Whatever you say.” He sounds almost playful. Almost, but then he finishes with a firmer command, “Now go to sleep. I’ll call if I see anything interesting.”

  I feel anger, jealousy, and righteous indignation boiling all over me. I feel my true form emerging, ready to show myself in all my glorious horror, but then I remember Katniss is a mere two feet up above the boy’s branch, and instead of attacking the mortal, I simply explode back to my dwelling, deep in the dark recesses of the Earth.

  Meanwhile, in the human world:

  “Did you smell sulfur?” Asks Gale sitting up straighter on his branch.

  “No. But smelling sulfur out of the blue isn’t a very good omen, Gale. I think we should call it a night, and head back home as soon as the fence is dead.”

  “Yeah. You may be right. We don’t wanna be near any toxic gas leaks, and we know next to nothing about the minerals in the mines yonder.” He points into the dark, in the direction of the old abandoned coal mines that used to be the only source of income to people like Katniss’ family.

  The teenagers descend the tree quickly, with loaded bows aloft, heading in the direction of town, praying the fence is no longer active.

  Oblivious to the angry roar resonating in the empty spaces of earth. Full of vengeance and jealousy.

  —————

Gale Hawthorne gets visited by my female counterpart, the one humans have named Succubus, courtesy of yours truly.

  She does not take his life unfortunately.

  She makes him sick enough he’s bedridden for a week, but he recovers.

  When I confront my demoness comrade, she simply says “The boy is 17, and he’s the sole provider for his family of 5. He’s mother is living enough hell as it is, so I just gave tall, dark and handsome a good ride and a touch at nirvana.”

  I don’t think that was the truth behind her reprieve at all; I’ve seen her take the lives of teens younger than that, who indulge in self molestation a little too much. I believe she let him keep his life as petty revenge on me, for disrupting her other encounters that night.

  The only consolation I have for now is that Gale Hawthorne will have an unexplainable aversion to sex for a few months, which means he won’t pursue my girl in the interim.

  But Katniss is starting to look more like a woman and less like a tomboy. It’s only a matter of time before she gets noticed by other boys. I don’t exactly need my partners to be virgins, but the thought of someone else taking Katniss’ purity drives me into a murderous state I really can’t afford.

  So, tonight, when I slip into the crack of the window to visit her, I dip my hand under her covers, into her threadbare camisole, to caress her supple, soft breasts. I pinch her nipples to erection and watch her react to the sensations.

  I plant suggestive thoughts in her subconscious. She blushes in her sleep and I murmur into her ear reassurances about her beauty and worth, and incredibly, I’m truthful about those.

  I close my eyes to savor the moment. It’s the first time I put my hands on her erogenous zones, and she does not disappoint. Katniss’ breast fits perfectly in my palm.

  “Sleep well my dear.” I whisper in her ear, “Dream of Incubus babies suckling at your tits. That will become your future at some point.”

  ———————-

  I’ve been stalking Katniss for the better part of five years, and still I fail to make her mine.

  She will be 16 in a few days time, and I’ve had plenty of opportunities to lay claim to her body, yet I keep finding excuses to prevent me from going any further than a few caresses on safe places. On nights she spends in the woods alone, I fabricate reasons why I shouldn’t touch her: ‘She’s fully clothed’, ‘A coyote is three miles away and could attack her in her heavy sleep’, ‘She looks uncomfortable on this tree branch; I want her first time to be somewhere she’s comfortable.’

  That last one became obsolete the moment Katniss hiked to a cement shack far into the woods, a place she excitedly canvassed for days, then fitted with a makeshift bed of dry grasses and hay to sleep in. Apparently the place had actually been discovered by her father in his youth, and he shared the place with his elder daughter, a secret location all to their own. Being the sentimental human she is, Katniss only recently found the courage to return without her father, and face the fact that her once happy childhood is gone.

  I blame my lack of progress on a disturbing thought: fucking Katniss in her sleep and leaving her to incubate my offspring after without any explanation, amounts to rape, and although it isn’t in my nature to operate under the moralistic customs of humans, I find the notion troublesome and appalling. I would never cause Katniss such pain and humiliation.

  So I’ve been stalling. Buying time, trying to find a way to make this union less… morbid. More consensual.

  I tell myself this is all for Katniss’ benefit, but the truth is, I think it would be rather nice to be able to look at her beautiful gray eyes while spilling my semen into her womb.

  To my chagrin, I’ve realized that while trying to consort with this girl, her humanity has bled into my very essence. I’m just afraid I cannot conform to mortal morals too long. My sole reason to exist is to procreate and satisfy my ever growing lust. My nature will win at the end, and I fear I will lose her when it happens.

  ———————

  It’s raining a monsoon outside, yet Katniss is sitting on the porch crying quietly into her hands. It’s past her bedtime too, so I’m sure this is something she’s trying to hide from her family.

  I sit next to her on the creaky step before even realizing my physical body has materialized out of thin air of its own volition.

  “Gale, my best friend and hunting partner, kissed me today.” She says without even looking up at me. “I pushed him away and told him I didn’t want to be with him that way. That I never wanna get married and have children. He walked off angry, and now I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’m… sorry?” And I am, I just don’t quite know what it is I’m sorry about, yet.

  “I just don’t understand why he had to go and ruin a good thing!” Her gray, tear-filled eyes find me, and I’m surprised at the fire, anger, and betrayal in her gaze. I’m mesmerized. “Why did he have to go and complicate things that way? Isn’t he happy we are friends? Isn’t it enough we go out into the woods and feed our families together like partners? Why mess it all up?”

  “Because you’re beautiful. Because you’re worth the try. Because he’d be an idiot if he let it pass and never confessed his feelings for you. You are extraordinary, Katniss. You have no idea the effect you can have…”

  “What does that even mean, Peeta?” She demands angrily.

  “It means, men look at you and see someone worthy. Someone valuable. Someone they can’t help but admire and want to pledge their loyalties and affections to.”

  She snorts, pawing the tears off her cheeks. “You’re just saying that because you are my guardian spirit.” She says dismissively.

  “Your what?” I ask in disbelief, astonishment and an edge of offense.

  Katniss rolls her eyes, letting me know she thinks I’m being unnecessarily obtuse. “Come on, Peeta. You only show up on moonless nights when I’m in trouble, to help me with whatever supernatural powers you possess. I’ve known who you are since my friend Madge let me read her father’s old books from before the first rebellion of Panem. People back then believed in spirits and those kind of things. I just found one that fitted your description, and it came up as ‘Guardian Angel’ which mostly protect humans… you don’t have to deny or confirm it, but I’m pretty confident I got you identified!”

  She smiles through her tears. There’s a glimmer of satisfaction and playfulness deep in her eyes.

  I’ve never been confused with a Being of Light before, and to be honest I’m doing everything in my power to hide the disgust I feel at that. At this point, I find it counterproductive to correct her preposterous assumptions, so I bite my tongue for the time being.

  “Katniss,” I sigh, “Many boys are going to like you. You are an incredible young woman. That said, you don’t have to choose any of them, especially if you’re not comfortable. If Gale Hawthorne knows what’s good for him, he’ll come back and apologize for imposing himself on you. Otherwise, you did nothing wrong and you don’t owe him anything. Be sure you are happy and safe. Even… even when I’m around. You have such an incredible power to you. Don’t be sad about any of this. Chin up and be a great example for little Prim.”

  “Thank you, Peeta. You always know what to say to make me feel better.” She reaches for my hand taking me by surprise, and squeezes.

  My eyes fall to our entwined hands, and I marvel at the sight; there’s a fluttering of emotions in my chest. I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve never been touched by a human willingly, in friendship or otherwise. It’s extraordinary to say the least.

  I clear my throat. “You should go inside.”

  I watch her duck into her house, and for the first time since the inception of Earth, I remain frozen in one place for the night without seeking a mate to pollinate.

—————

  Two weeks after Gale kissed Katniss, and they still aren’t on speaking terms. They avoid each other and start hunting separate parts of the woods in different schedules.

  Gale is 18 and can opt for a job at the medicine factory that opened up after the rise of the New Panem some ten years ago. He can also apply for a farming license and get a lot with fertile soil to work. Katniss is still too young to apply for any of that, but she’s old enough to marry.

  I will never understand the arbitrariness of human’s law regarding age of consent. A girl of marrying age, should be a girl of independent working age. But what do I know? I’m just a Being of Darkness; such conundrums are beneath me.

  Yet, I’m standing here in the other side of world, pondering on it!

  She doesn’t own me! If I’m going to obsess over a human, I still want to be me. I don’t want her to turn me into some angel I’m not.

  I don’t want to be a piece in this girl’s involuntary game.

  So, on my sweet, beautiful Katniss trudges to the woods teeming with game and wild herbs, waiting for her clever hands to pluck, either the string of her bow, or the greens off the forest floor; it matters not. Her family will eat better than her many neighbors, who sadly still live in poverty despite the new era of freedom.

  Ugh… curse that resilience and strength of hers! She’s irresistible!

—————-

  It’s late in the evening, the last remaining rays of sun just disappeared in the distance, not quite moonless, but dark enough to make anyone uneasy.

  A greasy, disgusting man spots Katniss slinking away from the dead electric fence, and lunges at her like a fiend. He takes her by surprise, and gets a hold of her game bag, which is quickly discarded carelessly on the ground. Katniss tries to fight the man back, gritting her teeth and growling like a rabid animal, but it’s no use.

  Despite how heavy set the man is, he’s quick on his feet, and has restrained Katniss by the wrists.

  The man reeks of white liquor. His balding head has a few long hairs combed to the side, which does nothing to hide the shine of his scalp. The disgusting creature is talking filth into Katniss’ face when I finally step out of the shadows and stalk his way. He doesn’t see me, too distracted on Katniss… MY Katniss.

  She’s doing everything in her power not to show how terrified, how trapped she is, but her eyes are filling with tears and this miserable maggot is feeding off it.

  The man presses his disgusting body into hers, and she tries to kick him off, snarling a threat that doesn’t reach him. The brute shoves her against a tree; she chokes a small sob back and begs him to stop, while shaking like a leaf. The man laughs, then sticks his nauseating tongue out of his mouth, and licks her face, from her chin to her temple … That’s the last thing I remember cohesively.

  I blink, and the next thing I see, there are blood, guts and gray matter splatter everywhere.

  The ground, the trees, my hands and clothes, everything is covered in gore. The man’s corpse lays shattered on the ground in two pieces ripped straight down the middle, from his head downward.

  I gasp her name, scanning the scene frantically until I see her, huddled up behind a tree with her head buried into her arms that rest on her knees.

  I call her name again, but she doesn’t respond to my voice. She mutters something I don’t catch, so I try to touch her. She yelps as soon as my fingers brush her shoulder, and scoots away from me like a crab running from a seagull.

  “No!” She yells batting my hand away.

  “Katniss—“

  “What are you? You’re no angel at all are you?” She stumbles to her feet shakily. I try to follow but she stomps her feet like a toddler in mid-tantrum. “Stay away from me! Monster. Mutt. Whatever you are!” She takes off running home, snatching up her game bag as she goes.

  The only evidence linking her with this horror sight is gone, so it’s time to cover my own tracks.

  I extend my arms straight, at my sides, I close my eyes summoning nature to me. When the hair covering my arms stand with static and my fingers tingle with tiny shocks of electricity, I clap my hands way above my head bringing down a mighty flash of lighting that scorches the ground and singes the bark of the nearest trees.

  Looking at my handiwork with satisfaction, I leave Panem behind. It’s the last time I stalk Katniss Everdeen, awake or asleep. Anonymity is my gift to her.

  Sure enough, when morning comes, the death of that awful man, gets attributed to lightning.  

——————

Plump, bodacious Delly Cartwright is as opposite in looks and personality to Katniss as humanly possible. I chose her painstakingly for that very reason. Her hair is a mess of yellowish curls that remind me of the majestic mane of a lion. Pretty enough face, with fair skin dotted with freckles, thin pink lips framed by laughing marks and wide set blue eyes full of trust and kindness.

  Delly’s had a sheltered, pampered life, and is very free with her affection. She is engaged to be married come Spring, but she’s by no means a pure, innocent virgin. I go at her like a dog with a bone.

  I’m in the process of covering her eyes with my special heavy sleep scales, to ensure she won’t wake in the middle of our tryst, but I feel the tug overpowering my whole body before I hear Katniss’ voice calling me by my proper, given name.

  Delly stirs in her sleep, while I try to hold on to the bedposts, refusing to answer the summon, but Katniss says my name again. It’s too powerful a pull. My fingers slip off the polished wood and my body pops out of existence in this room, and snaps back into being outside the familiar tiny shack the Everdeen women call home.

  The air crackles around me with electric pulses and a cloud of fog surrounds my body.

  Once the fog clears, I can see the single oil lamp sitting on the porch railing, illuminating the slim figure of the girl I’m trying to avoid with all my might.

  She’s beautiful though. I take her in hungrily.

  She’s standing barefoot on the old doormat that’s seen better days, wearing a white, threadbare nightgown I’ve never seen her in before. An equally threadbare shawl that can’t be providing any warmth in this chill wraps around her shoulders. Her hair falls loose down her back, but she keeps fiddling with the end of a lock she’s twisted around her fingers.

  Her pink lips tremble slightly from cold every time she exhales a foggy puff of breath from her mouth.

  Without really stopping to think of what I’m doing, I glide up the porch steps until I’m in front of her and tighten the shawl over her chest with both of my hands.

  “You’re shivering. You shouldn’t be outside in this cold with so little clothes on.” I try to sound stern, but my voice is too soft and caring.

  Her lips twitch up at the corners. Her gray eyes shine in amusement. “I wouldn’t have gotten so cold if you hadn’t taken so long to show up. I called you over 120 seconds ago!” She admonishes in a tone dripping with sarcasm.

  I narrow my eyes at her, trying to figure her out, but I give it up when her teeth start clattering together. She speaks before I can comment further.

  “Come inside with me?” It’s not really a request, since she’s holding my hand like a vise and dragging me towards the door.

  “Is that wise?” I ask her arching an eyebrow. “I’m not the Being of Light you previously thought I was.”

  She scowls at that, “No, you ain’t. But you’ve still saved my life more times than I care to remember. I owe you, and I’m not very comfortable having a debt so steep hanging over my head.”

  “Consider the balance void, Katniss. It’s safer that way.”

  She purses her lips and tightens her hold on her shawl. “We’ll see.” She pushes the door open and in we go, without hesitation.

  “I spoke to Greasy Sae,” she tells me, as we cross the living room and kitchen area, into the bedroom with the two beds, both empty tonight. “She’s the oldest person in the District, you know.” She states as if that explains anything.

  “There’s a wealth of wisdom in the elderly’s counsel,” I comment looking at her profile curiously.  “What did this Sae have to say?”

  Katniss pulls a chair from a writing desk and motions me to sit. I obey without questioning it.

  Katniss shrugs, “I asked many things, really. Sae talks a lot, and she knows everyone, so people come to her for advice.” She sits on her bed opposite me, yet her eyes shy away from mine.

  “What advice did you ask for?”

  “No advice. Just information.” Her eyes flick to me quickly, then go back to a point over my shoulder. “You know, what you did to Cray… well, it wasn’t subtle at all.” She finally pierces me with a glare, but that only lasts a second. “I mean, you tore his body in half with your bare hands and left his carcass to rot in the meadow. Who does that?!” Another glance, this one I can’t tell if she’s disgusted or terrified. She should be both.

  “I made it appear as if had been a lighting strike.” I protest.

  “It wasn’t storming that night, Peeta. We had beautiful, clear skies the whole, entire week. People knew something supernatural was behind that monster’s death.”

  “He was about to do terrible things to you, Katniss. Have you thought of how scared and devastated your sister would’ve been if something awful had happened to you?”

  “Of course I have!” She interrupts me. “It would’ve destroyed her. Don’t get me wrong, people are happy to see the bastard gone, because he’s always had a history with harassing girls, but everyone is scared now of something they don’t understand and can’t start to explain! The whole district is so shocked they close their shutters earlier, hide their youngsters fiercely, walk in large groups when going places like school or the market. Even at school teachers step out of their classrooms to make sure the students milling around the halls are safe. It’s horrible and traumatic…”

  “Then you know why I had to take care of that predator.” I spit venomously.

  Her shoulders sag, “I know.” The pinched look falls off her face.

  She stands up and walks towards me.

  In a surprising move, she lowers herself sideways on my lap. My arms go around her waist immediately, in case she changes her mind, but Katniss leans her head onto my shoulder and sighs deeply.

  In all the centuries I’ve fucked my way through humanity, I’ve never been this close to a girl before. I do not mean merely physically, but intimately. I’m not sure how to respond and reciprocate the affectionate gesture, so I settle for resting my cheek on the crown of her head.

  “Where’s your family?” I ask.

  “Tending to a birth. Twins. There’s some kind of complication, so mother took Prim to help her. They will be out all night.”

  I accept her explanation with a sound at the back of my throat. After a minute of easy silence, I ask, “Were you satisfied with the information you yielded from Mrs. Sae?”

  “No.”

  She doesn’t elaborate for a few minutes.

  “How did you know Cray was attacking me?” She finally asks shuddering in my arms.

  I scowl. “That kind of evil. It comes from me.” I tell her. “I recognize the ones who maim the soul and hurt the spirit, because that’s my job. That perversion originates from the same darkness I come from, and responds to the same urges I do.”

  Katniss tries to appear unperturbed about my words, but she can’t hide her trembling.

  “Sae said she didn’t recognize any spirits by my descriptions. I tried to remain vague and distant, as if asking on someone else’s behalf, but she was troubled by my questions, and I think she knew I’d witnessed Cray’s disembowelment. I had to stop my inquiry.”

  “I’m right here, Katniss. You can ask me anything you want to know. Isn’t that why you called me here tonight?”

  She shakes her head in denial. “Sae said it sounded like a dark one was protecting his mate, or maybe grooming a prospective mate. But of course, she’d never heard of something quite like you. She didn’t know who or what you were. She couldn’t tell me how to proceed.” Katniss straightens up, and stares into my eyes apprehensively. “I have an idea of how you may like me to pay off my debt to you.” She says blushing violently, averting her eyes and fiddling with her shawls fringe.

  She breathes in deeply, and lets the shawl fall from her shoulders. She takes my hand and brings it to her clavicle; her fingers interlace with mine, to venture under the neckline of her nightgown. Before I can make sense of what’s happening, I brush the soft skin of her full breast with the pad of my digits.

  Katniss presses my fingers to her delicate nipple, and I surrender my will to a human, for the first time in the memory of creation.

  I trace her areola gently, with practiced ease, until the nipple puckers up in response. Her own hand falls away, leaving me to my own devices.

  Katniss shudders a little, clenching her eyes closed. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” She asks me, not quite in accusation, but unsure and fearful

  “Yes.” I tell her. No sense in denying the truth. I lean into her ear to whisper, “Katniss, you should have left that debt alone when you had the chance, Sweetheart.” She shivers in my arms, but presses her torso against my body.

  “This is the price isn’t it?” Her voice wavers.

  “Partially. The price I’m charging is something you already told me you were unwilling do. Now we will have to come to some agreement.”

  “How long have you been touching me like this?” She’s holding back tears, but not stopping the pinches and kneading of my fingers on her flesh.

  “I’ve only done this twice to be honest. I palmed your behind once. Somehow, touching you without your knowledge feels… wrong.” She nods, a stray tear trails down her cheek. I nuzzle the sensitive spot behind her ear. “I’m sorry, Katniss. I’m not a one mate being. I go around the world, taking women such as yourself during their sleep, oftentimes impregnating them with my spawn. It’s not my custom to groom my partners, but everything about you has been different from the beginning.”

  “Aren’t I the lucky gal?” She spits bitterly, yet her breathing is getting shallower and a pretty blush is starting to color her skin from her face to her chest. She’s actually enjoying my ministrations on her breasts. “What makes me so special?” She asks.

  “You’re strong minded. One of my powers is to whisper things into a human’s ear, and plant ideas, orders, images… you’re too stubborn to listen to any of that. I’ve command you to cut all of your ties to that Hawthorne boy at least thrice, but you’ve refused to forsake his friendship and companionship each time.

  “I’ve tried to get you to wear dresses and shifts to bed, but you keep wearing your father’s clothing even to sleep.

  “Every time I try to induce a sexual dream into your mind, you clam up, and never stay asleep long enough to get too far into the dream for it to affect you the way I’d want it to. But, things seem to be changing right now.” I pull my hand out of the neckline of her gown and place it on her knee.

  Once I make to hike my hand up her thigh, Katniss clenches her legs together, whether she���s doing it to deny me access, or because she can’t handle the arousal, I am not sure. I drop my hand off her knee all the same.

  “I can’t take you without your consent, Katniss. That much is clear after my failed attempts at wooing you while unconscious.” I whisper into her temple, dropping a sweet, barely-there kiss. “This ‘grooming’ debacle has happened both ways.” I state. “Katniss Everdeen, you’ve tamed the feared and despised Incubus.” She gasps. I suppose, Incubus she’s heard off before.

  “I’m still a demon.” I say solemnly, “A sex fiend. My nature hasn’t changed, despite your domesticating me. You could reject me right this second, and I’d go away without ever touching you. But, once out of your snaring presence, I’d have to prowl around in search of other women to satisfy my needs.”

  “You’re saying that other women and girls well-being rest upon my shoulders?” She asks looking a little green in the face. “You couldn’t possibly do anything to them without their express permission, would you?” She sounds hopeful, and her eyes are pleading.

  “You’re the only one with power over me, Katniss. I only care for your wants and dislikes. I am yours to command, anyone else is disposable.”

  “How am I supposed to agree to these terms, Peeta? You… you’re- you molest women in their sleep! You get them pregnant against their will and nearly every one of them dies as a result of your encounters with them.” Her eyes fill with tears, but she doesn’t look away from my own. “I never want to have children. But that’s what you want from me, isn’t it?” She murmurs shakily, her body sagging into my chest. “I don’t want to die either. My sister needs me.”

  “Katniss, I’m obsessed with you, because you’re the sturdiest girl I’ve met. You’re a survivor. You don’t give up when you know the difference between death and survival is you. I’ve been investing my own powers on perfecting your body and preparing your internal organs so you’re in top condition for mating, sustaining a pregnancy and delivering a live half human, half demon child.”

  This stuns her a second. “You really were grooming me for years.” She sounds devastated. “I told you I didn’t want marriage, loving a man that could die and take away my will to live to his grave with him. It happened to my parents. I can’t abandon my children to their fate the same way my mother did to me and Prim. You knew all this. I told you all about it before… you still want me to… to—” she chokes back a sob and clams up.

  I’m aggravated with her. I had walked away from her, left her alone, freed her from my presence, yet she summoned me back here because she can’t let some fabricated debt go. I growl lowly, trying to keep my temper under control. She really won’t be able to survive my wrath, and I don’t want to harm her in an angry rush.

  “Since you insisted on calling me here, then I must inform you, you will become pregnant if we mate. That’s a guarantee. But I’m no man. I can’t die. I will never grow sick and time will never age me. My children won’t suffer human needs either. They’ll be strong and capable of hunting their own meals, much like you do now. If you can’t mother them properly, I will take them away and raise them myself. We have little room for negotiations at this point. Mating and childbearing are inescapable if you pursue the debt route.”

  “Kill me now then!” She snaps, trying to push away from me, but I keep her in place with my hands.

  “I will not kill you.” I say it like it is a command.

  “If I refuse to m-mate?”

  “Will you?” I counter. “Mating will happen on your terms. On your time.” My voice sounds gentler now, like it was before. “Then I’ll leave you alone for good if that’s what you want.”

  “You… you would?” She’s shaking all over.

  “My word is my bond.”

  “What should I call you? Master? Sir? Lord?”

  “Peeta. Just Peeta. That is my given name.” I tell her simply.

  “Why me? Why now?”

  “I don’t quite know. I just know you’re the one strong enough to stand the physical toil of carrying my offspring which has caused all the previous hosts’ demise.”

  She nods absentmindedly. I’m surprised when Katniss starts undoing the tiny buttons at the neckline of her gown, and slowly slips off my lap, to stand between my legs. I lose no time pulling the soft material covering her body down her arms, to pool at her feet. I stare at her naked torso and then at the apex of her thighs, drinking in her beauty with relish.

  “I’ve never seen you nude before.” I tell her in awe, rubbing my hands up and down her arms.

  “Let’s do this now. No sense delaying it. It would happen eventually anyway.” She says, shyly.

  She most see the greed and lust in my eyes, because she tries to cover her chest and the curly, black hair covering her sex. I remain seated on my chair, until she starts squirming under my heated gaze.

  “Do as you must, Peeta. Do it quickly.” She says after forcing her eyes back to mine.

  “You need to be more specific, Katniss. Otherwise I’ll stay planted here until dawn slashes me away.” I tell her arching a brow. I burn with desire for her, but I cannot move without her permission.

  She grunts and taps a foot impatiently. I smile at that. She’s still so strong willed even now, and so pure deep down; it’s endearing.

  “Take me, Peeta. Now. Mmm… sexually.” She punctuates.

  I can’t help smirking deviously. I stalk up to her and reach my hand to rest on the curve of her waist, gently pulling her forward.

  “I am going to kiss you now.” I purr into her ear.

  Kissing my partners is unusual for me, but this is Katniss. I take her lips with mine in a searing kiss that burns down my body. I lay her on the bed blindly, caressing her velvety skin tenderly.

  I’ve master the art of masturbating my conquests to assure lubrication, but other than that, I’ve never given thought to foreplay for the sake of pleasing my partners. I’m doing things here, I’ve never done before. Human lovers may be more adept at romancing, but I’m doing my best to pleasure Katniss with my hands, lips, tongue and words.

  I taste, kiss and nip at her skin. I tweak, pinch, knead and caress her flesh; I suck on her nipples and nuzzle the cleft between her thighs. She tenses, melts, and chokes back sounds on intervals every so often, not quite sure if she should resist me or enjoy the sensations I’m evoking in her.

  “Relax, Katniss. Clear your mind. Enjoy the moment.”

  She lifts her head in time to watch me take a long swipe of my tongue along her labia. Her head falls on the flat pillow and a soft moan escapes her sweet mouth.

  “You smell and taste divine.” I tell her while inserting my middle finger inside her warm, wet pussy.

  Finally, Katniss cries out my name, and I swear it’s the most intoxicating thing I’ve ever experienced.

  A second and then a third finger find their way inside her making her bow off the bed. She’s moaning loudly now. My thumb makes contact with a small kernel of flesh I haven’t really paid much attention to while with other women.

  Katniss shouts with the first few passes of my thumb, she begs me not to stop, to “please, please, please, keep doing that!” And I can’t resist lapping at the copious arousal bathing my hand and Katniss’ thighs.

  I’ve made women orgasm before, unintentionally of course. They cum just by the sheer size of my shaft, but it’s never been as extreme as this. My sweet, little Katniss arches off the bed, her shout dies in her throat, and then she falls on her back, convulsing and twitching.

  At some point her fingers tangled in my hair. She pulls on it every time she shudders her release, until she lays still.

  I sit up and catch my reflection on the oval mirror propped on Mrs. Everdeen’s night table, next to the blade her late husband used to shave his face. Both items remain in the same spot they were left at 6 years ago. Young Primrose polishes the reflecting surface everyday, readying it for a father that will never use it again.

  As I take a minute to inspect my appearance, I’m surprised I don’t have Gale Hawthorne features. I’m taken aback at how young and kind my face is. I guess I must be 16 or 17 in her mind’s eye. Blond, wavy hair. Warm blue eyes. Chiseled jaw, defined upper lip and a strong straight nose. I rip off the simple white button down shirt covering my upper body to find lean, defined muscles over a wide set of shoulders that look strong and used to manual labor. My skin is fair with a smattering of freckles and light blonde hair cover my arms. I realize this is what Katniss finds appealing. Whatever she’s attracted to.

  I look down at my trousers, and see flecks of flour on dark brown sturdy material. I find it amusing that she’s dreamt me off to be a baker of all things, but I guess in her mind, it makes sense. I did give her bread in the backyard of an abandoned bakery the first time we met.

  I will the rest of my clothes gone, and it disappears on the spot. I kiss her navel sweetly, and hook my elbows under her knees. When I sit up, I pull her hips towards mine.

  “My turn.” My voice is raspy and needy. Katniss nods, widening the opening between her thighs for me.

  “Will you… fit?” Her voice wavers, her gray eyes watch the turgid appendage between my legs nervously.

  My cock twitches. “I will fit, Sweetheart. Don’t you worry about it.” I assure her sweetly, caressing her outer thigh.

  She nods. “Okay.” She breathes out softly. “I’m ready.”

  Katniss gasps when I run the head of my dick through her wet, swollen folds, and without much ado sink my full, long girth into her in one swoop motion. She releases a breathless, long, drawn out moan once I’m seated all the way in. She’s so tight and warm, I wish I could freeze this moment, here, right now, and live in it forever. Alas, time is not something I have control over, so I give into my need and start moving.

  Katniss keens breathlessly every time I rock into her. She’s digging her blunt nails into the skin of my shoulder blades, after having hooked her slim arms under mine. Her face is practically buried into the hollow of my neck, letting me feel the brush of her lips and her hot breath against my pectoral with every thrust. Having her awake for this was the best decision ever!

  I kiss her sweaty forehead, and bury my nose in her hair. She always smells so good, like lavender and fresh rain. I kiss her temple, and then her cheek; lastly I kiss her lips and she sighs into it.

  “Does it feel good?” I ask her, genuinely interested in her answer.

  She nods faintly. “It feels… wonderful. Different. Strange. I feel so full, like I’m stuffed to the brim, yet I need more of you, of your… hmmm…”

  “Cock,” I supply. “Call it a cock.”

  “Alright.” She breathes out. “I- I think I like the feel of your… cock, in me.” She says rubbing her cheek against mine.

  “Good. Let me know when you get tired, and I’ll finish.”

  She gives me a frowning look. “You can do that at will?” She asks.

  I shrug. “Usually. Sometimes, when I’m to keyed in, I just explode after a few pumps. It’s not very often. But it’s happened.”

  “Well, I don’t want to rush you, but, my legs are starting to cramp up, so…” she winces.

  I chuckled and kiss her mouth again. “Alright, Sweetheart, your wish is my command. I’ll fill you up with my thick cum right away.”

  She’s trying to smile at my jesting words, but I pick up my pace before she can respond, and soon I’m driving into her like a possessed madman. It only takes a few pumps, but it takes almost a full 2 minutes to finish spilling my load into her. My hands aren’t idle during my release though.

  My thumb presses tight, fast circles against her clit, and my sweet, beautiful Katniss starts clenching and shaking with her own orgasm. I nearly mistake her body obviously reacting to my semen because she’s riding her release at the same time as her organs start knitting the embryo of my heir deep in her womb.

  Her body tenses, and breaks out into a high fever. She shivers and her lips turn pale and dry, her skin is ashen and papery, and her eyes are closed. She’s convulsing in my arms, but not in blissful orgasm anymore. Since I’m still inside her, I can feel every one of her muscles contract on my cock, and it is too much for me to bear, I pull out of her quickly and spill a second load just shy of her pussy. I gather her into my arms, and mumbled an incantation into her hair, holding tightly to her.

  I’m not allowed to pray, but that doesn’t stop me from pleading for her life over and over as I sit on the bed with her limp body cradled to my chest. “Please, don’t let her die. Please, don’t let her die. Please, don’t let her die…”

  Fuck! I don’t care if the child lives as long as she does… and I keep rocking her until morning surprises me, and Mrs. Everdeen walks in on me holding her almost dead daughter.

  ——————

  Katniss gives birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl.

  The child looks completely human with a mop of dark hair on her head and the bluest eyes a child can have at that age. Still, rumors break out of the origin of the child, and people start attacking both Katniss and the babe when things start getting too weird for them.

  Mrs. Everdeen reluctantly accepts her daughter has mated with a demon, and has a very hard time looking her in the eye. I’m sure the fact that she sees me as an exact replica of her dead husband, has to have caused some psychological disturbance for the healer. It must have been unpleasant to walk in on her obviously freshly fucked daughter, limp and unresponsive in the arms of a man that looks just like the father of said daughter.

  Primrose is not allowed to stay in the same room with her sister and niece without Mrs. Everdeen present, and Katniss is livid about it.

  “I’ve practically raised Prim on my own at the age of 11, when you were too sick to care for anyone, least of all yourself! We are all alive thanks to Peeta!” She yells at her mother one day while bitter tears slide down her cheeks.

  Mrs. Everdeen asked Katniss to leave the house, after catching my reflection on the window glass while the baby nursed. The healer can’t stand my presence, let alone the appearance my body takes in her mind’s eye, particularly when I can’t hide my lust for Katniss regardless of the face I’m wearing.

  On top of the obvious, understandable reasons why Mrs. Everdeen wants nothing to do with her oldest daughter, she claims to be afraid I’ll go after Primrose as well, as if I could have the faintest interest in the young girl, when I only have eyes for the mother of my child.

  “Please don’t say that cursed name in this house, Katniss. That monster will be drawn to it.”

  “I can call his name whenever I want, because he’s the father of my child, your grandchild!” Katniss argues. “He has never done anything to harm us. He’s saved my life numerous times, and he’s fed us, and kept our health when he didn’t have to. You’re being unreasonable!”

  “She really is not.” I say in my most gentlemanly voice, as I shimmer into existence in the middle of their room. “Your Mother has reason to distrust me, but to displace her own daughter and brand new grandchild is cruel.” I say turning eyes full of fire to the woman cowering away from me.

  I go back to Katniss and smile, showing her only placid blue when she looks into my eyes. “Do not worry, Katniss. You’re mine to care for, and that I will do. As for your family…” When I shift my gaze to Mrs. Everdeen, my pupils have taken over the blue of my irises, leaving only a pool of empty darkness. “We will figure something out.”

  ————————-

  The babe nurses with vigor, and my favorite time of day is when I sit and watch the evening feedings. My fascination with the baby is offset by my ever growing lust, sparked by Katniss’ exposes breasts.

  When the child is asleep and safely tucked in her crib, I take Katniss to the living room of the grand house I built for her in the middle of the woods. I strip my lover of her clothing, piece by piece and drag her to her own bedroom, where the softest, most comfortable bed waits for us.

  She doesn’t want to be pregnant again so soon, so she bends over and lets me take her in the rear.  By the sounds she makes, I dare say she enjoys it greatly. Her pussy doesn’t stay neglected though; my fingers keep my sweet, beautiful mate satisfied and relaxed.

  I seldom need another body to satisfy me anymore, but until I have a mature offspring to take my place devouring the sleeping women of the world, I’m bound to keep prowling the Earth seeking to douse a dying lust for other cunts; my conquests all fall flat and insipid compared to the vivacious woman I have waiting on me back home.

  I’m not sure when Katniss’ place became Home for me, but it is the place I always return to.

————————

  Katniss starts hunting again six months after the baby is born.

  On the second day, the child sits in her pen while Katniss skins the game. The baby cries and cries until her mother picks her up and sits her on her lap as she works. Katniss shrieks when the child’s chubby hand plunges into the bucket of entrails next to the stool they sit on, and tries to bring the gore to her open mouth. The little girl throws a mighty tantrum, until she’s fed meat from a squirrel Katniss cooked. After that, the baby only wants to feed on game, not on vegetables and milk like normal babies.

  Katniss thinks it’s unnatural to feed a child so young meat, but she wasn’t truly frightened until a few days after the child’s first birthday.

  Primrose visits with her pet cat, Buttercup. Our baby grabs the feline by the tail and tries to strangle it with a choke hold worthy of a professional wrestler. Primrose nervously laughs it off as childlike curiosity and lack of force control, but Katniss knows better. Our child tried to kill and eat Buttercup.

  I knew it was time to take charge of the toddler.

  Katniss cries with guilt, because she now understands her own mother’s fears, but still hands the little girl over to me, to take to my realm. They get to see each other every day, and our daughter loves her mommy to death. They just don’t understand each other’s natures, and know it’s better to remain separate.

  Our daughter’s growth has accelerated in my realm, so she’s now at the level of a 5 year old child.

  “Will she kill humans?” Katniss asks me tearfully one night after my seed is drying between her thighs.

  I lean down and kiss her temple. “She might. She may become a Succubus. She may become something totally different. She’s still half human, darling. Only time will tell.”

  That’s poor comfort for Katniss, so she cries in my arms until fatigue takes over her. I can’t help myself. I fuck her again while she’s asleep, and this time I don’t pull out when my release is imminent. That’s when it happens again. Only this time the reaction is different. Obviously supernatural.

  Her breathing picks up, her mouth falls open, her skin starts to glow. I place my hands on her abdomen, where the glow is more intense. I push my erection inside her pussy, because I want to feel it happening from the inside, and the heat leaching from her walls is almost unbearable. Her forehead breaks into fat beads of sweat, her skin is burning up, and she shivers uncontrollably under my weight. I’m involuntarily cumming again. My hips can’t stay still, so I give in and piston into her at a frantic pace, digging her slim frame deeper into the mattress.

  Poor, exhausted, Katniss, passes out before I can pull out of her. Much like the first time, my mate is in a short coma for the next week.

  I make her mother tend to her like I did the first time as well. This time, Katniss delivers twin baby boys.

  There’s absolutely no doubt at all the infants are my spawn and hold the powers of the incubus. When Katniss holds them, they look exactly the way she sees me: soft blonde curls that fall on their forehead in waves, pleasant blue eyes like summer sky, long eyelashes that brush chubby, rosy cheeks. The boys look cherubic, and she can’t stop kissing them and showering them with attention.

  They’ve won over their grandmother completely as well. When Mrs. Everdeen takes them, the boys look just like Katniss: straight dark hair, gray eyes, olive skin. They have Mr. Everdeen’s chin. But if Prim is the one to hold them, they look completely different.

  The twins breastfeed exclusively, refusing any other nourishment well into two years of age. The boys are cunning, not showing any demonic tendencies, or habits that’ll scare Katniss away. Mommy— as they call her affectionately— is way too fond of them, and barely leaves their side. She’s lost weight and her skin and hair turned brittle, but her children come first all the time.

  They can’t fool me though. I catch them whispering thoughts into their mother’s head, planting ideas and fears she’s never had before, and I know it’s time to take them away when they don’t even try to hide their wrong doing from me, just staring boldly into my face, sporting identical smirks as they sing into Katniss’ ear they’re the only ones that love her in this world; they need her to care for them.

  Katniss fights me over them, until I show her how manipulative the little fuckers are: I’m fucking her in our bedroom while the boys are supposed to be soundly asleep in their own warm beds, instead, they sneak into our room and watch in fascination as I take her hard and fast. They snicker when my hand makes contact with their mother’s romp and I make the curtain fall, revealing their presence after casting a protective block on her mind against the boys’ trickery.

  Katniss scrambles to cover up her nakedness, but the boys ask excitedly when will they be able to do the same?

  I sit them both on my lap— that my mate has hastily covered with our sheets— and lovingly explain to my sons they will have their chance once they reach puberty. And the best part is, I’ll be able to retire!

  Katniss leaves the bed to wrap herself with a robe and watches my exchange with the boys disgusted from a corner of the room. Her limbs are tied into a tight ball, and her distress is palpable enough for the boys to pick up.

  “Not you mommy,” one of the twins clarifies.

  “Mommy belongs to you, father.” Adds the other one helpfully.

  “And she’s too sweet to break.” Explains the other.

  Katniss does not oppose me taking the boys after that.

  —————

  The third pregnancy nearly kills my Katniss.

  The baby’s aura is just too evil for her body to sustain. I conjure up my most powerful sleeping magic and cover her eyes with scales so heavy she stays asleep for three days.

  I take the child from her womb before she can wake up, but the little demoness survives.

  Katniss never gets to see her new daughter, and the child hates her mother so much I have no choice but to send her to the one place that can hold a being as dark as her. Deep into Hell.

  I tell Katniss the baby was stillborn and she never asks questions about it.

  ——————

  Katniss is 25 the day she becomes pregnant for the last time. She delivers a second set of perfectly healthy twins; a boy and a girl this time. Both completely human. Both looking exceptionally normal and nothing like me, except for their bright blue eyes. That trait could’ve come from Mrs. Everdeen and Primrose for all I know.

  I’m so out of my mind with rage, I terrorize poor Katniss by pretty much destroying everything in the house. I accuse her of sleeping with human men while I was away, Gale Hawthorne perhaps, since the babes have that Seam look to them.

  She denies it vehemently, bawling and pleading, so scared for her life, but shielding the newborns with her battered body after labor.

  I push her aside and stride to the crib, ready to smite the infants with a blow of my hand. She falls on her knees begging me to believe her, screaming her innocence, crying out my name pitifully. “Peeta, please, you have to believe me!”

  “Why should I?” I yell in her face.

  “Because… because… I love you, Peeta!” She cries out loudly, hanging from my wrist, my hand lifts her body off the floor wrapped around her delicate neck, squeezing it tightly.

  I see the petechiae forming in the white of her eyes. The oxygen in her brain will soon be too scarce to function.

  But she’s stunned me into silence.

  “No you don’t.” I slam her down to the floor gracelessly.

  Katniss’ tear stricken face looks up. She crawls closer to me ignoring her sore throat and neck. She tugs on my pant legs, pitifully. “I do, Peeta. It’s the truth.” She rasps painfully. “I’ve loved you since I was a little girl. I could never let any other man or being lay a hand on me. I’m in love with you.”

  “Well…” I struggle for something to say. I’m choked up, words won’t come to my aid. “You shouldn’t, Katniss. Nobody loves me. I’m a demon.”

  “And my body is your temple.” She pleads.

  But the imprint of my fingers marring her neck, are a reminder, not even living a thousand lifetimes atoning, would be enough to deserve her. “And look how well I look after my temple!” I speak mainly to myself, my voice dripping sarcasm and regret.

  “I am yours for eternity.” She vows placing my hand on her chest, where her heart is frantically pounding. “I give you my soul. Please, Peeta. No one has ever touched me, but you. I swear on all of our children. The infant twins included.”

  “Katniss! No!” I lament deeply, falling heavily on a chair the farthest away from the crib.

  “No what?” She murmurs, coming to caress my shins, then she massages my knees, and her nimble hands creep up my thighs, making a beeline for the fastenings of my trousers.

  My cock becomes hard as steel in a second. Katniss Everdeen has been the first and only human to perform oral sex on me. The way she falls on her knees to worship my cock with her mouth, and when it is evident my length will go down her throat only so far, her hands join the cult to my phallus and I loose all my faculties, along with my will to lord over her; I become her slave when her sweet mouth is around me, even when she’s the one in the servitude position. It’s one of the many reasons I know for a fact I could never leave her, is one of the reasons I know she’s my one true mate.

  But I ignore my erection and the all consuming need to be in her mouth. She’ll convince me to anything if I let her suck me off, then where will we be? There are more pressing matters than the gratification of my lust to consider.

  “Katniss, you shouldn’t have pledged your soul to me. That was foolish! Reckless. A gigantic mistake!” I tell her pulling at the roots of my hair, soft and silky, the way she likes it. “Now you truly belong to me, for eternity.” I tell her, and finally cup her cheek in my palm, tangling her dark tresses in my fingers.

  “Peeta, I live in the woods. Everyone has shunned me because I’m the Incubus’ whore. No one talks to me, but everybody fears me. I’m an outcast in this place. My mother barely stands to see me, let alone talk to me. My sweet sister is the only person who loves me and my children. In her eyes the kids are just her nieces and nephews despite their dark inclination, but Prim’s reputation suffers every time people remember we’re related, so I’ve been trying to keep my distance from her.”

  Katniss shakes her head sadly, and sits back on her haunches. “I chose you a lifetime ago. I knew the price of being your lover would be steep. I still choose you. Do you still not know this?”

  “Nobody has loved me before.” I mutter sadly.

  “Well, I do. And I will until you take me from this earth.”

  I nod, my mind resolved on what needs to be done.

  “The day the twins are completely independent, living their own lives, happily according to their own expectations, I’ll come for you, my beautiful mate.” I tell her. “Since these babies are human, they belong to you, and you will care for them until they reach maturity.

  “To makes things easier on you and them, no living human will remember anything about me. The children’s father will just be a foggy memory no one can quite recall. You will be safe, and I’ll be gone until time brings me back to you.”

  “And what of me? Do I sit here pretending I don’t miss you? Feeding our children lies about their father?“ She argues scowling at me angrily.

  “Sweetheart, I’m afraid you won’t remember much about me either.” I tell her firmly.

  “Peeta, you can’t! Peeta—“ She tries to catch my arm, her voice is full of anger and betrayal, but my enchantment is already done.

  “Until then… my love.”

  —————-

  The girl with dark hair and blue eyes dances on tip toes in the meadow. The boy with blonde curls and gray eyes tries to twirl like his sister, but his chubby legs can’t keep up.

  Katniss laughs merrily from her spot on the picnic blanket. I’ve never been good at staying away from her, but I’ve made an art of longing from afar without touching her, our the children. This time I can’t resist the temptation, and reach my index finger to brush away the lock of gray hair that has escape her loose braid.

  She shivers at my touch, and gathers her coat around her.

  “Children,” she calls, standing up and already folding the blanket, “it’s time to go home for the evening.”

  “Do we have to, Grandma?” Whines the little girl.

  “Yeah! Woo ve haf too?” Pipes up the toddler.

  “Remember, we promised mommy and daddy we’d come home early enough to take baths.” Says Katniss with a sweet smile.

  The little girl groans and kicks a pebble. Her brother tries to imitate the behavior, but can’t quite get the sass. Katniss rushes at them both, and takes them in her arms for hugs and kisses. The children laugh until they forget to grumble about cutting short their playtime.

  I gave my family new memories. Then I gave the whole district a similar version to complement.

  Katniss lives with our son and his family above the bakery we met at when she was a child. The walls leading up the apartment are covered with family pictures, full of love and happiness. There’s one single portrait of Katniss’ late husband among the pictures: a wide shouldered baker, with a riot of blonde waves on his head, summer sky blue eyes that match his twins’ perfectly, and a sweet lopsided smile that makes his widow’s heart swoon even now.

  “Tell us a story, Grandma!” Begs our grand daughter after her mother and father tuck her in bed.

  “Stowry!” Shouts the boy from his side.

  “Tell us about Grandpa and his watercolors!”

  Katniss laughs, and sits down on the children’s bed. She tells a beautiful story of how her husband used to paint beautiful pictures of flowers and plants for her, how her husband was a painter, and a baker, how he never put sugar in his tea, slept with his windows open, and always double knotted his shoelaces. I stare at my beautiful mate from the shadows, recounting a romance of great bravery, that defeated odds and trials, just to emerge victorious and true.

  I wish her memories were as real as the sweet smile they bring to her face.

  Rumor has it the baker died attacked by tracker jackers. A horrific and tragic death. Nobody wants to think about it, so they don’t. All anyone knows is that the Mellark’s are a respectable, loving family of bakers that had to survive without their beloved husband and father.

  Katniss learned her husband’s trade and passed it down to their twin children. Both very creative and skilled bakers in their own right. The boy married first at the age of 20. His wife is sweet and devoted and had her first baby the following year. The twin sister, decided to stay single and travel the world, learning culinary secrets from other places to improve the business back home. She returned recently with a dog in tow and has been trying to adopt an orphan girl she befriended in one of her travels.

  Katniss is almost 50 years old now. Tonight I’ve come for her. She’s lived a full, happy life reflected in the laugh lines around her lips and eyes. Her hair has streaks of gray all over; wrinkles and soft skin have appear on her face and arms, but she’s as beautiful as the day I left her.

  She’s asleep, and content. I almost regret waking her… but she’s mine, and I’ve missed her. The world is such a lonely place without her waiting for me everyday. Sure, I have my demonic clan to keep me company in the dark realm, but they’re all wreaking havoc on their own now, and fuck it, no other pussy compares to my mate, despite her human age. I haven’t taken another woman since I released the boys onto the world, they’re even more devious and manipulative than I ever was.

  The girls are the truly scary ones to be honest; they can kill any man with precision and never get a speck of gore on their pristine outfits. Deep down I believe it’s because of their mother’s hunting skills and stubbornness.

  I smile fondly at her, while hovering over her bed. I kiss her forehead, whispering the command into her mind. “Wake up, Sweetheart. It’s time to go home.”

  Slowly, her eyes open, and I see the bright gray hue I’ve missed so much all this years. A sweet, soft smile curls her lips slowly.

  “Hi, handsome. I’ve been waiting for you.” She says and accepts my kiss on her lips.

  “The adoption was approved.” I tell her quietly, of our daughter’s last pending matter. “The twins are already independent and have everything they’ve ever wanted. You did a beautiful job raising them. I’m here to collect you, darling.”

  “You look so handsome.” Katniss says “That silver hair suits you, and your wrinkles match my own. I always knew you’d look devilishly beautiful in your mature age. I’ve forgotten how striking you truly are, though.” She says caressing my cheek and smiling. “The children would loved to meet you.”

  “The children know their father loved them enough to give them a good life. They’re happy and have filling lives, It won’t do them any good to know me.” I tell her without self pity. “Now come, It’s time.” I take her hand, and help her up.

  “Oh!” She exclaims when her soul separates from her body. The wrinkles in her hands smooth out, her hair turns black as night and elongates to her waist that shrinks and tightens. She could be 16 again.

  She looks down at her old body lying peacefully in her bed, now an empty shell. Her eyes widen. “Am I dead?” She asks.

  I nod. “You pledged your soul to me, Katniss. It’s the only way we can be together for eternity,”

  “Will I get to see our children again?” She asks.

  “Any time you want.” I promise. “You’ll see and talk with the ones that live with me every day, but the ones we leave here, in the human world… They will feel your presence, but they will never see you again.”

  She looks sad about the news.

  “It’s the way of mortals, my love.” I tell her caressing her face tenderly.

  “It is.” She acquiesces, leaning into my touch, and then kissing the palm of my hand.

  “You gave them a good life and sweet memories to remember you by.” It’s not much, but it’s enough to get her to move on.

  “That I did.” She looks up at me, gifting me with a bittersweet smile. “Take me away, Peeta. I have so many hugs in store from the grand babies to give you.”

  “Then let’s not delay.”

  “You will really be content with me for eternity?”

  “Always.”

[captainkurosolaire]

Demise... I am...

<“This voyage... It spells of an End. I am a foolish, flawed and overall sinful man, do not mistaken this as my apologies or sincerity, for I cannot wipe away anything I’ve done or take it back nor would those simple words be justifiably allowed to let me off. These should stick to me, ingrain, devour me wholesomely. I brought wrought to those in my waters of haven, I’ve involved to many to give themselves to my cause and affairs... And I’ve failed, every single time. Not once did I win. Or fight solely to capture that by any means. I leave now, to the unknown. To slay a demon who possessed my dearest matey even if I have to give that release personally, I will. My sweat runs rivers, not of fear, but anticipation. I made a vow a promise, t’ not die. Though in honesty, I cannot assure this. If I never hunted those Damned Relics, this would haven’t happened, I wouldn’t have those lives buried and sunken to the depths, tattooed into my inner design. This Lair of a sprawling Devil, will ensure I don’t leave unscathed, though it’ll learn --- The souls inside me, they wish to torment have already done the job of self-destruction.”> A passage was written while extending vocally a monologue in the same simulations, printed to a worn-down stained Captain’s log over-top his desk. Unpacked and several wrapped layers of loose variant astonishing silk was drawn on a scarred up canvas, often this individual didn’t wear anything but himself and a familiarized hat. Though he was shaken to a core, undeserving of holding the mantle of the Captain until he properly slew the demons and plagues that he tried drowning out through feverish one night stands to get by or the thicket of a brew, giving replacement to dealings. A recently engraved Sigil was inked to a chiseled frame right above his left-pectoral which was carefully wrapped to layers subtly behind his chosen appendages. Its properties enhanced the wielder and gave them a more even playing field against the atrocities that awaited in the stain of darkness. He sat on the edge of a reflected bedside and drew a set of wrapped field dressing around his fists in combination. Every delicately wearing apparel was in preparation, a trip to the Unknown..

Removing his family heirloom compass coated and imbued with the last extracted increments of Kahzoo’s own essence to pin-point and confuse the transportation he was seeking to hit certain homing coordinates.Delving through a portal through the making of his fellow Voidal Peers for a usage. He dropped from nasty lilac textured stormy clouds and fell in a hard dropping thud. “Ow.” He silently left before standing up and draping off his dust. A long pause followed as he observed. “Wow... whole lot of nothing. No wonder they invade us. This place is more depressing then last time..” Breathless how a place could exist with nearly nothing of extensive value. He brazenly shrugged off before shouting loudly throughout the whole realm, “HEY, Dumbass! KAHZOO, Get yer sorry-excuse for an ass out here! I..., just want to talk...”  He shouted attentively with little braved concerns on who or what may be waiting to call in answer... Fumblingly lower off breath with mumbles, <Firstly though..., I need to wrangle a noose around the throat before I banish ye once and for all.> More silence broke....

Before, ~ “You came here searching to slay someone certain... But you only found your deathly demise, inferior.“ Feet of a charred black landed with three separations in sharp nailed toes like talons. Immensity of gloom settled in with a rising shift in aetherial pressure, it whirled chaotically and stung like a chain of administered whips. A thick blanketed of dark fog... or a cloud. Hung around its upper body swirling like a shroud of finery. The pitch of the screaming eeriness that cultivated fear that boiled goosebumps and chills, bred formation. As it’s tongue rolled from a putrid poisonous mouth holding more unsavory words that tone enough shattered the carriers of hearts in control. “You called a brother of mine...You must be the one so highly mentioned in spiteful complaints... A failure Captain who led his crew astray that allowed not only his dearest and only other remaining tatted brethren to his painful demise, you abandoned him and allowed him to be consumed by us. Giving my own brother a new suit of flesh, oh how, I like humanity.” It drew manically laughter to the crag-spires in underline vibrations. “Humanity. A storied flaw of what is between us. I hold little, you hide yours but overall hiding doesn’t abandon them. It’s why you’re weak, helpless. Emotions eat and fester attached to your hearts take you to travels out of stupid blind passion. But commonly, its their end they walk on. A grave they dig for chasing vengeance, ambitions, things too lofty for humane hand’s to wrap around, they’re too feeble.” A flex of this unidentifiable demon crackled its bones wickedly through its inner palms as it licked to attempt provoking uneasiness, before its targeted prey in the pirate opposing him. Jaded eyes seething of devouring, that only could be described otherworldly peered through the vapor.

The smug Seeker who typically should be blown away but was warded to the sinister tricks of the Voidkin currently. “My, my. You don’t shut up do ye lad? Humanity, this, humanity that..  News flash, I don’t hide mine. Why else do you think I’ve survived this long pencil dick? I’m flawed written on a blighted canvas! -- This place... Leviathan, it’s cozy to me even though aesthetically you’ve no talent for decor. Can say I feel at home. Cause like you, and you’ll learn if you listened to those whimpering moans of yer brother Kahzoo, I am a monster too. One who eats sins up like another pass-time. I don’t really give a shaded chub for the majority of the reasons, I am brought here. A hunt of those Relics, I obtained all those Summers ago, has brought me here to provide release of yer own unpleasant brother to one way or another for the benefit of mine... I’ll set him free, It’s my obligation and coded in my own set guidelines!” Pointing outwardly and show a symptom of no regard of what stood before him or where exactly they were in. “Fool, fool, FOOL... I feel like that is something you’ve been told. ~ Yes...” The overwhelming foul beast drew an arm up and closed its silted eyes..  Scanning for the heaviest memories and recent sorrowfulness affairs to stir pots. “You were told under crying beloved tears not to venture here. To not be so... densely stupid. Yet, here I find you. Avoiding their words? Ha, I would curse you of misery but it already awaits even without a guide of my touch. Ahhh, but there is more... You left a crew alone, You left behind without taking care of someone who holds yer heart closely and ever devotedly unwavering you have given them the keys of your inner-world but you cast ruination on all they hold precious attached to those sleeves out of this stubborn notion, you’ll prevail here. That what you sought would be claimed and answered... I even think you, -think you’ll honestly win. -- That won’t be a scenario. Here you’re in my Lair. I am infinite, I am eternal, unwavering, no ripple you make can shake me.” An unholy blasphemer quips further to regulate dread throughout a poorly designed creation in accused mortal. Nearly falling asleep while standing up from the sheer boredom and passing out a yawn as he was attempted to be riled, finally snapping back and eye-rolling, he’d shake his head playfully as the pirate launched to a springing jump and kicked in velocity his loosely worn studded leather-boots that pulled pins hung to his toes that detonated at a few second delay. A huge random holy explosion caught against the opposing demon developing him in a bright flash and hearing a screeching in frustration.

Landing back with light-steps. “You didn’t want to keep the mouth-flaps locked, I chose to do you the favor, I typically save the whole gags for another encounter of pleasure, but this was on the house.”  As the crags debris and rubble all scattered and picked up a dust cloud. In the silhouette a bridle of crowned tentacles squirmed over head half of the opposing demon’s face was entirely obliterated off.  As he was gargling against his own saliva the cloud that wore around started to draw into the exposed injury and rejuvenate at an accelerating rate. Tension drew in and instinctively a meteor formed above the Seeker to dodge from the heat in combination with a secondary hand of the purest of darkness etched into its violently purple complexion. A set of beams followed in tracking suite as the pirate started nimbly putting every bit of his athletically heritage running tantrum to the finesse placed on alert test to juke and dodge as many as possible. Anger was now tipped over and the time of talk finally concluded for now. No matter how swift one ran, It could not attend with so many concentrated beams. As pains of agony flinched against him from welted hits smoldering hence of fog his flesh burnt in several spots already one mean puncture against his arm that made carrying the weight of his scimitar difficult as it was unsheathed to coiled clutches. Stammering with his teeth bitten across his bottom lip drawing own blood it left a scent as he hung behind a spire to steadily, formulate a counter. Silence broke through out the dimension by standby and as the pirate took a peeking look over to see if it could determine the location of its monster. He was senseless and felt ready to run towards another spot to secure himself, in mid-step in a cosmic set of speed a thunderous connected kick echoed through out the jaw of Kuro and sent him spiraling through a layer of terrain and momentum. Raw overwhelmingly monstrous strength cracked against his spine threaten to shatter every bone in a throttle. His grip lost hold of his blades nearly by handles.

Barely his exposable fingertips hung on in desperation, only seconds already into the Void and already his own headspace was reeling back nearly wanting to go unconscious there... A blurriness to his one amber-eye watched these taunting and tormenting steps being heard against the brush of his feline ear... Slowly, methodically drawing out. Every echoing thud against the cryptic soils and nearly no sign of life in the dimensional realm. The fiend pausing purposefully before halting away a few ilms off distance. As the pair locked up once again in eyes. Kuro hardly saw the look of the ferociousness pumping in virile unadulterated and matched strength. A singular gulp was prepped as the Miqo’te braved himself for a thrashing watching that contorted face start to merge back its skin its lips still chunked off. In a split shifting speed once again the demon clutched the throat of the intruder and before the scimitars could be mustered to cut they were swatted ferociously with a tail as helplessness settled in defensively. He was being manhandled and being raised swatted with excruciating whelps by the stinging tail, his tendrils hung over head grabbed and bounded his ‘preys’ four limbs before swinging him around back and forth, over and over in crashing thwacks. His eye was blanking out and becoming more hazy as he was donning the horizon of no return. Even with a Sigil to nullify a lot of the Void’s age progression and overall corruption or to break the illusions it didn’t overall grant anything extraordinary in feats. Pain cried throughout the emptiness of the dimension. After enough invented fall-away slams, the demon got bored with his toy and threw it off to watch it try to slump up and stand. It hung back and crossed a leg just simply levitating a balance on one. Though slowly and surely that reckless and stupid, stupid, man spit out blood over himself drooling slops of streaming saliva before wiping his chin and ripping his rags off that were just decimated this point. He weakly and surely slumped over back to his two feet, his face left blank and darkened across.  Before lightly wrapping a set of hands around his coveted eye-patch and rippling it off breaking his own hold. Glistening and glowing two set of the more brilliantly golden hues peered from his eyelids. Yes... Now he could see, truly. He glamoured up a smile in curvature, It didn’t need following words only the expression in his look the blood oozing and battle-worn frame that took a tremendous pounding from a far superior and overall overwhelming enemy. Round two had just began!

B L A C K

           D E V I L

                         S A G A

~ Master-List of Previous Chapters

[startenthousand]

I don’t think I’ve talked much about what bullshit work has been this (academic) year on here so here are some cliffs notes. The very, very short version: I am trying to teach a DIFFICULT and COMPLEX subject to students who are, for numerous reasons mostly related to societal and institutional failures, not yet prepared to be successful in that subject. I am scolded by literally everyone (admins, other staff, students) for not magically making all students successful in this subject, and in the cases of a few individuals, actively undermined in my attempts to do so.

Context: 

8th year in education, 5th year teaching, 3rd year at this school. 

School population is highly heterogeneous, has much higher than average ELL & SPED populations, and is also in the district with the worst achievement gap in the nation. 

I teach physics. We have two classes - ostensibly regular and honors, but really watered-down-to-the-point-of-causing-me-pain regular and just-above regular. They have not been aligned at the district level & we have zero guidance as to what standards/learning targets to set, so we’ve been setting them on our own using our best judgement. 

We have been doing an extensive amount of curving grades/extending the grading scale/etc to the point where I honestly don’t want my name connected with some of the grades we’ve given over the past few years, because students were earning Cs in physics when they really didn’t understand or even DO anything. But there’s a lot of pressure to reduce the number of Fs - which has historically been around 25% for first semester in the “regular” class, in part because:

We are not allowed to have prereqs for courses. Students in the “regular” class range from “has not passed a single math or science class in their high school career” to “could be taking the honors class but didn’t want to do the work.” 

Students routinely move between classes as late as the 10th week of the semester. Building classroom culture is nigh-on impossible. Students are moved between courses, sections, and teachers with zero consultation of the teachers.

Discipline is all but non-existent. The district has theoretically been moving to restorative practices, which I’m all for, but in reality they’ve done away with all punitive measures and replaced them with...nothing. It is impossible to enforce any kind of boundaries because there are no consequences for misbehavior until it reaches the level of a physical altercation.

My supervising AP is incompetent (literally no one in the building respects them) and tried to fire me/bully me into quitting my first year.

Also, my mother died less than a year ago. 

A brief summary of relevant events:

Other physics teacher (OPT) wants to try a self-paced, mastery-based learning approach for the regular class for a variety of reasons. I have some reservations but also see the merits so I say sure - we’ve been struggling to adapt more traditional teaching styles to meet the needs of all of our kids.

We revert to a standard (90+ = A, 80+ = B, etc) grading scale for the honors class

The school is looking more closely at supporting our ELLs this year, and notice that many are struggling in physics. OPT and I were aware of this and had been trying to adapt on our own, but gladly start working with a coach to build in more support for those & all students.  

Rather disastrous meeting with head principle & AP wherein OPT & I try to explain our frustrations (students who are NOT READY to learn physics yet) and they somehow think we’re calling them stupid?

Students in the honors class act incredibly rude & entitled, to the point where OPT walks out of class one day, and I can’t even deliver a 5-minute lecture because they’re all talking to each other about what’s on their phones (see above re: behavior/discipline)

Students are caught cheating, sent down to the office because OPT is stressed and can’t handle the situation in a professional manner in the moment (so took the responsible course of “let’s table this conversation until I *can* deal with this). OPT is yelled at and told kids should never be sent out of the classroom.

OPT finds a new job, leaving the field of teaching entirely. Their last day is our first day back after winter break.

I inform my head of department that unless there are some significant changes to the situation, I will be leaving at the end of the year.

I am now left solely responsible for making & justifying grading decisions, etc. based on a pedagogical experiment that was OPT’s idea.

A long-term sub (LST) is hired and starts the second day back after winter break. I do not even learn LST’s name until the evening before. LST has taught physics in private schools in a different state.

Useless AP does NOTHING to facilitate transition - tells LST that OPT will have sub plans for them, but does not ask OPT to make sub plans, etc. I throw some materials at LST and scramble to keep things from being a total disaster.

Coach & I have some meetings with LST to try to figure out what changes to make for second semester. LST does not want to collaborate on anything, in spite of district requirements that we do so for shared courses. LST does not want to make any adjustments to their teaching style to better meet the needs of our kids or at least ease the transition. Kids from LST’s sections are coming to me and complaining about their teaching.

Students BLOW UP AT ME about course policies that have been in the syllabus from day one and have been discussed multiple times throughout the semester. Failure to plan on your part does not constitute and emergency on my part.

Useless AP doesn’t make decisions about schedule changes to the point where I’m still not 100% which/how many sections of which courses I’m teaching and the semester starts in two days.

[TW: mental health, suicide, etc]

I’m a mess. I am overwhelmed and under-supported and I don’t know what to do. Dragging myself into the building is a victory most days. I’m not eating well and sleeping too much. I’m having suicide ideation, which I’ve NEVER had before in my life. I always thought it would be more...depressed, but it’s much more frantic than that - everything is a constant onslaught and it’s unending and I want to violently destroy SOMETHING but I’d feel guilty if I destroyed something external and at least if I destroyed myself I wouldn’t be around to feel the guilt later.

I love my kids and I believe so strongly in what I’m trying to do but I can’t do it under these conditions because NOBODY could do it under these conditions and it’s poisoning everything and I don’t know if I need to leave the district or leave teaching altogether but I don’t want to do either of those things because being a teacher is My Identity and I don’t know who I am if I’m not doing this? I want to keep doing this but like...actually be able to do it. I’m at the point where I feel like I don’t even know what “good teaching” is or looks like because apparently everything I do is insufficient. I honestly just want to hand in a note tomorrow that says “everybody gets a C, I’m out” screw two week’s notice because I can’t handle this.

Meanwhile my therapist’s hours have changed so I’m not going to be able to see her as much and so generally things are just swell. 

[allhailkingp-a]

( warnings for abuse ??? )

word count: 3659 characters: Aloysius Minch, Lardna Minch, Picky Minch, Mr. Prettyman

There was an oppressive and tense silence in their bedroom as Aloysius was finishing his packing.  He could feel Lardna’s eyes burning into his back as she stood still, cross-armed and and impatiently waiting for him to get a move on.  That bitch really couldn’t leave him to pack in peace, could she?  Was she so worried about him taking or destroying something of worth out of vengeance that she had to stand there and stare at him until he left?

Oh, and there was the matter of him, too.  Her little boyfriend, Mr. Pleasanton or Peaceson or Prettyman or... something like that, was standing watch beside her like she needed the emotional support.  Aloysius didn’t know what was worse, having to deal with Lardna or him.  He could deal with Lardna’s screaming and verbal abuse, but Prettyman was a different specimen entirely.  He tried to be so polite and cordial to Aloysius, as if he wasn’t replacing him in the worst way possible.

That mawkish creep didn’t even realize what he was getting into, did he?  That was the one thing that let Aloysius feel any joy.  The thought of Mr. Prettyman being trapped with Lardna was a good enough revenge for now.  He’d realize just how miserable it was being with her and they’d end up just as disastrous as Aloysius and her had been.  Oh, he couldn’t imagine how great it’d be to hear that the two were getting married.  He bet that Prettyman would actually invite Aloysius to the wedding.  He’d go just to get a glimpse of the upcoming shitshow that it would inevitably be.

Lardna clicked her tongue impatiently.  “Can’t you hurry it up, Aloysius?” she snapped. “I don’t have all day for you to fuck around.  Pack up and leave.”

Aloysius took a deep but shaky breath, feeling rage building up in his chest.  He was tired of screaming at her and arguing with her.  There wasn’t much good it’d do now.  Their marriage was over and this was, ideally, the last time they’d see each other for quite a while.  He wished that they could have cut each other off entirely, but there was the matter of Picky that complicated things.

Lardna was keeping custody of him.  Picky would come visit Aloysius sometimes, but he was hoping that moving to Fourside would deter the two of them enough that it wasn’t all too often.  He almost felt guilty for daring to think that, but he had to be honest with himself now.  Even if it was crushing to watch his family crumble the way it had, he couldn’t have gotten a better deal.

Of course, he loved Picky (he was pretty sure), but... it was so hard.  And so now, with their divorce and his moving out, they were stuck figuring out how they were going to deal with Picky in this split household.  Aloysius was set to send her child support each month, and he agreed to some visitation at Lardna’s insistence, but he would have been more than happy to give her sole custody.  That wasn’t realistic though, and she’d never have allowed him to slip out of their lives entirely.  Besides, she would just fuck him up without some input from Aloysius.

Picky didn’t really seem to care either way, so she wasn’t doing all this on behalf of him, that was for damn sure.  His son had been the silent figure in this whole mess.  Aloysius was a tad grateful that his son had reacted so calmly (or unemotionally) to the divorce.  He was expecting it to much worse than that, but Picky had always been mature for his age.  Not like Pokey, the immature little brat.  Aloysius tried to never think about Pokey anymore, though.  He was long gone (and his disappearance investigated thoroughly with nothing turning up) and both he and Lardna knew he would never come back.

Maybe that was just another failure of this entire family.  Aloysius and Lardna had been such bad parents that one of their sons was now gone for good.  That was another wave of near-guilt whenever he thought about it-- but he was a little relieved that Pokey was gone.  He thought that Lardna felt the same, though she never admitted it.  That had been a massive argument and half, but he just had this feeling that neither of them had loved Pokey as much as they wanted to believe.  But hey, maybe he was just projecting.  Lardna did like to throw that word at him a lot.

Aloysius pulled his suitcase of clothes shut and secured it, now ready to be taken out of this home forever.  He grabbed hold of the handle and pulled it off of the bed.  He finally turned to see Lardna again, who looked irritated just by his being here-- which she undoubtedly was.  She could only roll her eyes at Aloysius.  Prettyman had his arm protectively around her broad shoulders in what appeared to be an attempt at looking as sympathetic to the both of them as physically possible.

He put on a strained and unpleasant smile, gesturing with his suitcase to the door.  “Well, I’m done.  Happy now?”

“I’d be happier if you were dead.”

“L-Lardna--” Mr. Prettyman stammered.

Aloysius could only laugh.  He shook his head in disbelief and tilted his body slightly to slide past Lardna, exiting the bedroom.  Lardna followed closely at his heels like some filthy hound-- and Prettyman, like the demure little thing he was, stayed obediently by her side.  Aloysius unconsciously picked up his pace till he passed Picky’s room.  He paused just beyond it before backing up to peer in.  Picky was sitting on his bed, seemingly in thought.

Exhaling slowly, he hesitated and then entered.  Picky looked up at the sound of Aloysius’ footsteps.  That beyond uncomfortable air returned as Aloysius searched for the right words to say.  “I...  w-well, this is it,” he said. “I’ll stay in contact.”

Stay in contact.  Like Picky was one of his business partners and not his son.  What a shitty choice of words, something Aloysius was already kicking himself for.  Picky seemed indifferent to what he’d said, face propped up his hands. “Okay.”

Again, he felt Lardna staring his down from the doorway.  Aloysius approached Picky and gingerly placed his free hand on his son’s shoulder. “I’ll come visit whenever I can.  We might not be living together anymore, but... you’re still my son.  And I...” Aloysius cleared his throat awkwardly.  He didn’t want to say these next words, but he had to say something.  Mainly to spite Lardna. “I... ahem.  Love you.”

“Okay,” Picky replied plainly again.

That wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for.  Aloysius sighed.  “Okay... well... goodbye.”

“Bye.  And I love you too.”

Aloysius nodded.  He stepped away and exited Picky’s room, saying nothing more.  Lardna and Prettyman followed him down to the living room.  His ex-wife pulled him close by his suit jacket and snarled, “Don’t even try to get Picky on your side.  You’ll just use him to get back at me.  You know you don’t give a fuck about him.”

Aloysius shoved her back as Prettyman raised his hands in alarm.  “N-Now, Aloysius--”

“You don’t give a fuck about him either,” he hissed back. “You’re not the good guy here!  All you are is a fucking cunt.  That’s it.”

Lardna’s eyes widened and her expression changed to unmistakable rage.  “What did you call me?”

Aloysius pulled opened the front door.  “I said you were a cunt.”  He waved, a smarmy grin plastered on his face.  “Be seeing you.”  He slammed the door shut behind him.  The last thing he heard was Lardna’s shrieking his name and Mr. Prettyman’s attempts to keep her calm.

“She complains about you all the time,” Picky said.  He poked his overcooked pork chop with his fork, not meeting his father’s eye. “I guess she never really got over it.”

Aloysius snorted and leaned back in his chair across from Picky.  “I’m not surprised by that.  I mean, you know how hysterical she is.”  The thought of Lardna ranting and raving about him even after his moving out made him laugh.  He leaned forward, the two front legs of his chairing connecting with the floor. “That’s great.”  Picky halfheartedly agreed.  “...you’re not going to eat your pork chop?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“After I did all this work to make a homecooked meal?  At least take a bite.”

Picky sighed and tested the chop with a small bite.  Aloysius raised his eyebrows in expectation.  “It’s... okay.”

Aloysius slammed his palm on the table, chuckling.  Picky jumped slightly at the sound.  “I just can’t please you, huh?  Fine.  We’ll waste it, then.”  He plucked Picky’s plate from the table as well as his own and wandered over to the kitchen.  He scraped off the nearly whole pork chop into the trash and set the dirty plates in the sink.  “You can at least clean up for me if you’re not gonna eat my food.”

Aloysius sat back down at the dinner table, watching Picky get up to start his chore.  He reached over to the beer cans on the table.  Empty.  He tried the other.  Also empty.  “And get me another beer, will you?” he called. “And I mean now, Picky.”  He could almost sense irritation in Picky’s reaction as he shut off the sink to get his father a beer.  Aloysius snatched the can from Picky’s little hands when he finally gave him his offering and cracked it open. “Yeah, thanks, kiddo.”

Picky nodded and recommenced his chore.  Aloysius took a swig of his beer.  “If you do a good job, maybe I’ll give you a beer, huh?”

“No, that’s okay.”

“What, you don’t want one?  Come on, it’ll be fun!  You’re getting to be a man now, aren’t you?  Trust me, it’s not bad when you get used to it--”

“I said I don’t want to,” Picky replied in a tone that was sharper than intended.

“Watch your tone,” Aloysius warned. “What’s with you tonight?  You’ve been acting like a brat the whole goddamn time.”

Picky’s voice wavered when he responded.  There was that tinge of fear in it, too, that Aloysius was all too familiar with. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“If you don’t want to be here, then just say it,” Aloysius said with a malicious friendliness. “I know how you feel about me.  Just so you know, I didn’t want to have you here either.  But your mother-- oh, your wonderful mother!-- insisted that you should.  Probably because she’s sick of you and just wanted to dump you on me so she could go off and-and-and-- and let that little creep fuck her.”

“Dad,” Picky tried to cut in, voice cracking.  “I don’t hate you.  Please.  Can we just stop talking about this?”

“Oh, you want to stop talking about it, huh?  Sure, Picky!  Let’s drop it, and then we’ll sit here and pretend like nothing is wrong!  Just like when I was still living with your mother!  It’ll be like old times.  Well, fine.  You’ll get what you want.  You win!  Hope you’re happy.”

Picky slammed one of the plates in his hand down into the sink.  It connected with the metal sink with a loud bang, though it didn’t sound like it broke.  Through a choking sob, he forced out the words “I’m not.”  Aloysius huffed, rolling his eyes at his son’s crying.  If he was supposed to feel sympathetic, then Picky was doing a terrible job convincing him to care.

��Just knock it off, Picky.  Stop acting like a girl and grow up.”

“I wanna go home,” Picky sobbed as he wiped the tears from his face.  “I wanna go home.”

Aloysius pushed his chair back to stand up.  He made a sweeping gesture outward with his arms, beer still in hand.  “Fine.  You’ll get your way yet again.  Let me call your mother.  ‘Cause I’m not driving you back, and if she won’t either, then you’re walking home, got it?”

Fourside and Onett were far, but he didn’t care.  Picky obviously did though, as he objected, “B-But--”

“Just keep quiet.”  Aloysius picked up the receiver and dialed in what had once been his home phone number, now burned into his brain permanently despite his wanting to forget.

“Sooo,” Aloysius started uncertainly, cradling the receiver between his ear and his shoulder to open a beer, “Christmas is coming up, huh?”

“Yep,” Picky replied. “Thirteen days.”

“That soon?  Wow...”  He shook his head in disbelief.  Time was flying by so fast.  He still hadn’t gotten the obligatory present for Picky just yet.  He had no idea what he even liked, and Lardna wouldn’t help him out on that front, of course.  He’d ask Prettyman, but he’d never want help from that fucker.  He could figure it out on his, probably.  Well, he’d try anyhow, and no one could expect much more from him.  “So you done with school till January, or...?”

“Almost.”

“You’re getting good grades?”

“Yes.”

Aloysius chuckled awkwardly.  “Well, we’ll know for sure when we get your report card, huh?”  Picky hummed in agreement. “What grade are you in again?  Third?”

“Fifth.”

Shit.  Bad guess. “Ah, right.  Yeah, fifth.  I was just testing you.”

God, there was so much about Picky he knew he was missing out on.  He hadn’t seen him in months.  At least six or seven months altogether, but he hadn’t been really keeping track.  Aloysius just let the days fly guiltily away, never wanting to know for sure just how much he was neglecting his son.

Not that it really seemed to matter.  Picky never seemed happy when they were together, so they weren’t missing out on much.  Still, Christmas was a pretty big deal for kids.  He’d probably have to go see Picky before then, at least to drop off his present once he figured out what it was.  And, well, there was that other thing, too.

“So John Prettyman told me you guys are having a Christmas party.  He invited me, actually.”

“Yeah, he told me.”

“Good, good, he told you... uh, well, I was thinking I might go.”

Picky’s voice sounded so surprised when he replied, “Really?”

Aloysius paused.  Was he really committing to this...?  Well, it wasn’t a wedding to crash, but he needed to see what Lardna and Prettyman were up to nowadays.  His curiosity had to be satiated somehow.  And yeah, he could see Picky and fill the quota of quality time for the next few months to tide him over. “...Yeah!  Might as well.  I was going to come down and see you anyways.”  He sighed.  “Sorry I haven’t really seen you, kiddo.  I mean, I’ve been looking for good work again and it’s just been crazy here, so you know--”

“You don’t need to make excuses.  It’s fine."

Damn, all right then.  “N-No, I mean--”

Picky cut him off again. “Dad, I said it’s fine.  Don’t worry.  I’ll tell John you’re coming to the party, okay?”

“Thanks, Picky.  See you soon.”

“Yeah.  I’m looking forward to seeing you.”

God, he needed to not screw this up.

This was the first time Aloysius had been back in Onett since the divorce.  The town was poisoned to him after that.  He never wanted to come back, and yet, here he was, about to walk into his ex-wife’s and her boyfriend’s Christmas party.  He wondered who else was invited.  Mr. Prettymen seemed pretty liberal with the invites if he’d asked Aloysius to come.  He was sure Ness’ family would come over for as long as they could bear, the pretentious bastards.  He wasn’t sure who else would, and he almost dreaded to find out.

Aloysius stood at the front door for what felt like an hour, but was probably only a minute or two.  His hand, curled into a fist, hovered just above the door as he hesitated to knock.  He held Picky’s present in the crook of his arm on the other side.  It threatened to slip from his grip at any moment and so he stood there, continuously readjusting his hold and waiting for the courage to knock.  Suddenly, the door swung open, exposing Aloysius to the warm lights inside.

Lardna stood there with a disdainful and already unhappy look on her face.  “Aloysius, just come in.  You’ve been standing there for ten minutes.”

Aloysius frowned and pushed past her while she stepped aside.  “I was just reconsidering some of my choices.  Nothing wrong with that,” he replied quietly but snidely.

Mr. Prettyman approached with a friendliness that set Aloysius on edge.  With his arms outstretched as if he expected a hug, he said, “I’m glad you could make it, Aloysius!  I didn’t think you would come!”

“Yeah, I didn’t either,” Aloysius grumbled, trying to keep his distance. “Where’s Picky?  I have a...”  He gestured with the present in his hand.  “Yeah.”

“Oh!  He’s around here somewhere... check the kitchen, maybe?”

Lardna cut in. “You can just put it underneath the tree.  Picky doesn’t need it now.”

Aloysius shot a glare at her.  “What’s one present before Christmas?  Big deal.  It’s not like I’ll be there to see him open it up otherwise.”  Not waiting for Lardna’s response, he booked it towards the kitchen at Prettyman’s advice.  Surely enough, Picky was there, gathered by Ness and his little sister.  He perked up a tad at Aloysius’ appearance.

“You actually came,” Picky said.

“I said I would.  So I’m here.”  Aloysius held out the box to Picky.  “Got this for you.”

Picky took the present from his dad.  “Thanks.  I’ll open it a little later.”

“No, you can open it now,” he replied encouragingly.

Lardna grabbed Aloysius and yanked him back by his shoulder.  “It can wait.  He’s talking to his friends,” she said with a fake sweetness.  “Come on.  Don’t bother Picky, all right?”

“It’ll only take a second.”

“Then you can wait a little while longer!  Oh-- Rich, come over here and say hi!”

Aloysius groaned.  Not Rich.  He fucking hated Rich.  He still never paid Aloysius back for all the money he lent him and his family.  The nerve of that rat bastard, after everything he’d done for him.  His wife and kids weren’t much better either.  Ness was a constant annoyance, as far as he was concerned.  Rich was just another reminder of how much of a shithole Onett really was.

And there he was.  Rich, home on a rare occasion, just like Aloysius.  Except his family was still in tact.  He looked surprised to see Aloysius there.  Just as surprised as everyone else.  “Aloysius, it’s been a long time,” he said in attempt to be friendly.  “How’ve you been?”

“Aside from Lardna divorcing me, taking my house, and forcing me to pay child support while I’m stuck between jobs and barely surviving myself?  Just swell, Rich.  Just swell.  And how’s your family, huh?”

The smile on Rich’s face became all the more forced.  Lardna shot a deadly look at Aloysius, no longer able to keep herself calm.  “Will you excuse us for a moment, Rich?  Thanks.”

The closest place that allowed them any privacy was bedroom upstairs.  Lardna shut both of them inside and Aloysius, so curious to see what bullshit would come out of her mouth this time, was willingly lead there.  If only because he wanted to give her a piece of his mind, too.

“Do you want to pull yourself together, Aloysius, and stop embarrassing your family?”

“Family?” Aloysius interjected. “What family is that?”

“Picky.  You acting like a jackass in front of everyone is not going to go over well, especially since you haven’t even bothered to visit him in months.  Months!  And then you show up and you decide to fuck everything up again!  What’s wrong with you?  Why even bother?”

Aloysius scoffed. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.  You’re the one acting like a bitch when I tried to give Picky his goddamn present.  I mean, is it really that hard for him to just open it really quick while I’m here?  Was it really so horrible for me to want that?  Huh?  It wouldn’t kill you to just keep your fucking mouth shut or leave me alone while I’m here.  I just wanted to see Picky.  That’s it.”

“And now you’ve seen him, so you can go!”

“No way.  I made a special trip from Fourside for this.  I’m staying and I’m going to make this party a living hell for you if you don’t stop this shit.”

“You’re repulsive.”

“So are you.  You’re a soul-sucking bitch.”

“You’re a fucking bastard,” Lardna hissed quietly.

Aloysius felt a burning hatred deep in his gut.  Neither said anything at all for a moment then, taking the time to really look at each other for the first time in a year.  Lardna was the first one to move, taking Aloysius’ face into her hands and pulling him into an aggressive kiss.

Lardna pulled back, still cupping his face.  Aloysius was too stunned to speak.  Fuck.  Why did he miss this so much?  He took the initiative and kissed her again.  It wasn’t as long or as intense, but there was this sort of giddy embarrassment that came from it.  He pulled her into his arms, pressing kisses onto her jawline and neck.  She squirmed and objected, just like she always did.  She was too ticklish for it, she complained.  Aloysius always thought it was too cute to not kiss her there.

Then, he pulled back, holding her at arm’s length.  “What will John think?” he asked, half genuine and half mocking.

“John doesn’t need to know.”

Aloysius grinned at her and pulled her in for another kiss.  Just like her, the cheating bitch.  But for that one singular moment, she was his cheating bitch, and that was enough for him.

[arrow-guy]

Take Cover (2/??)

Summary: The world’s gone to shit and the Avengers have been missing for eight years. What difference can one person ever hope to make?

A/N: I am legitimately so excited about this fic, and I genuinely hope you guys like it!!

Pairing: TBA

Word Count: 2960

Warnings: None

part 1

I wake to Webster licking my nose. Not ready to be awake yet, I push him away and press myself more firmly against the wall and try to get back to sleep. Instead of leaving me alone, Webster bites me on the nose and my entire body jerks back from his sharp little teeth.

“What the hell do you want?!” I hiss. Webster meows quietly and points his nose towards one of the partially broken windows. It’s pitch dark outside and I suddenly understand.

I yank the sleeping bag off of my legs and stuff it back into it’s drawstring bag before shoving it into my pack. I push myself up off of the floor and sling the pack onto my back and grab the produce. Racing outside, I heave a sigh of relief at the sight of my tarp covered bike. I strap the veggie bag to the bike and, instead of starting it up and riding off, roll it out to the main road, just in case any of the government caravan is still lurking around.

Sticking to the shadows, it takes me nearly twenty minutes to reach the other side of town. I didn’t see any sign of the people that had been following me earlier, but I didn’t want to take any chances just in case they had decided to hide like I did.

We started off on the bike again as soon as we hit the edge of town. I do my best to stick to the road, but occasionally stray into the woods that flank it if I hear anyone driving up behind us. I have to take breaks a couple of times a day so I can walk around and eat while allowing the bike to recharge and sleep. We’re able to travel close to a hundred miles a day, and we manage to make pretty good time once we hit New Jersey. Only when we hit upstate New York do we encounter any serious issues.

When we hit Saratoga Springs, the bike begins to overheat. Not wanting to push it so far that a little overheating becomes a catastrophic failure, I pull off to the side of the road and cut the engine. I take this time to allow Webster to hop out of the duffel he’s been confined to for the past five hours and wander for a while. I watch him out of the corner of my eye while I check over the bike.

There isn’t anything specific that I can see without breaking down the bike that could have caused it to overheat. I don’t want to mess with it too much, so I decide to leave it be so it can cool down.

I lean against a nearby tree and dig around in my pack for something to eat. I find a ziplock bag of freeze dried strawberries, picked clean of their seeds, and a bit of jerky from the night before. I mix the last fourth of a packet of tuna with some water and roll the package down so Webster can get to the mixture. I prop the packet up against my leg and refocus on my own meal. Webster trots over and scarfs down his food like there wasn’t anything to begin with. He cleans his paws and licks around his mouth before placing one small paw on my leg and meowing loudly.

“What?” I ask.

He nudges the soggy tuna packet with his nose and mews again.

I shake my head. “No. No more right now. We still have at least twenty miles to go till we hit Albany.”

He makes a soft frustrated noise and turns his back to me. I snort and reach out to scratch his ears.

“Fine, more water to wash out the pouch, but then you’ll have to wait till we stop again for more solid food.”

His ears perk up and he eagerly turns around and watches as I pour more water into the pouch. He sticks his nose in and starts lapping up the tuna water before I’ve even got the lid back on the water bottle. I laugh softly and pop a strawberry into my mouth.

--

I allow myself to doze off for a bit after I’m finished eating. When I wake up the sun is well on it’s way to setting. Webster is curled up on my lap, asleep. I hate to wake him, but we have to get going if we’re to make it to Albany before morning.

“Alright, bub,” I murmur, scooping him with one arm. He makes a tired mewling noise, but doesn’t try to jump from my arm. “We gotta get going.”

Bundling Webster into the duffel, I pack everything back up and start off on the bike once again.

I manage to get about fifteen miles up the road before the bike dies completely. I try to restart the engine, but nothing happens. The engine doesn’t even turn over.

I growl and shift my weight to my left so I can put one foot on the pavement and get off the bike. After safely moving it to the side of the road, I grab the bag of fruits and veggies, sling it over my shoulder, and then kick the bike over, as if that’s a sound way to get revenge on an inanimate object. I scowl at the overturned bike before turning on my heel and walking away. Webster squirms in his duffel bag and meows loudly. Taking this as a sign that he’s had enough time to nap, I unzip the bag the rest of the way and crouch down so he can hop out.

We walk down the road, side by side. I desperately hope that I’ve made it far enough away from the caravan that was following us to safely make the journey on foot. Even if they’re still tailing us, I haven’t got much other choice so I resolve to just keep off of the road when at all possible.

By the time I see any new road signs, we’ve been walking for nearly three hours. Streetlights are few and far between and, when one does crop up the light is simultaneously comforting and altogether too bright. After walking through the light of the first few we passed under, I tried my best to avoid them at all costs.

I try to stick to the trees, but much of the forest was planted in a grid so the trees are very evenly spaced and provide very little cover. Webster is the only one of us who can hide with any ease, as the shrubs reach my knees and he’s not a very big cat.

At about midnight, I notice a single building in the distance. I take a moment to make sure that the coast is clear before stepping back out onto the road and turn towards the building. I’m about three feet away from the underbrush when I hear a loud meow. Turning around, I find that Webster has stayed behind.

“Come on,” I crouch down and hold out a hand to him. “I think I found a place for us to stay for the night.”

He pads out of the shrubbery and sits on the side of the road, staring at me with bright, green eyes. He meows again and refuses to move. I sigh and sit on the cold asphalt.

“Why are you being so stubborn? Everything was going so well up until now, can’t you tough out one night in the mystery building?” He just stares at me and I hang my head in resignation.

A soft paw rests on my knee before I have a lap filled with cat. Webster pushes his nose against my chin and licks it several times. I laugh and push him away. He meows happily when I scratch his chin and jumps out of my lap, trotting off in the direction of the building in the distance, tail held high. I scramble to my feet and hurry to catch up with him.

As we near the building, it becomes clear that it was once a sort of ma and pop diner, The bright facade has faded to a subdued pastel and the neon signs were smashed beyond recognition long ago.

I pause at the front door and Webster brushes up against my leg, I pull the door open and a bell dings somewhere deeper in the diner. Looking around, I can see a fine layer of dust covering everything, but it’s not thick enough for a place that’s been abandoned as long as this one appears to have been from the outside.

I hear a growl from beside me and look down to see Webster with his hackles raised and the fur along his spine prickling up. He’s staring at something in the doorway of the kitchen, When I glance up to investigate, there’s a shock of red before whatever was there is gone. Immediately freaked out, I take a step backward, only to run into someone who wasn’t behind me when I walked in. I open my mouth to say something, but a rag is pressed over my and nose before any sound can come out. I scrabble uselessly at the hand holding the rag and try my best to hold my breath while doing so. I feel my shoulders sag and my defiant body grows heavy. Soon I can’t even support myself and a strong arm wraps around my waist to hold me up.

As my eyelids grow heavy, I watch as a woman with shockingly red hair scoops up Webster. She holds him tight to her chest in spite of his yowling, wriggling and scratching. I lift one heavy art, desperately wanting to help him, but I can’t reach him.

The rag is pulled away from my mouth, only to be replaced with a dark canvas hood that covers my entire head. Any sound and light is muffled and dulled by the fabric. Whatever on the rag kicks in and everything slips away.

--

The feeling of something tightening around my wrists rouses me from the drug induced sleep, and I find it hard to ignore the subtle pounding in my head that it left behind. My eyelids are still heavy and my eyes are dry, but I do my best to force them open. When I’ve just barely managed to pry my lids apart, someone throws cold water in my face, shocking my drowsy system awake. My eyes fly open and I’m left coughing and spluttering.

“What the hell?!” I hiss, blinking water from my eyes.

“Naptime’s over, sweetheart,” they growl.

“And who put me to sleep in the first place?” I mutter. I shake my head in an attempt to get my wet hair out of my face and further clear my vision.

There are two figures in the room. One with red hair, probably the woman I saw earlier. She hasn’t got Webster with her, and I’m not sure whether I should be worried or relieved. The other is standing a short ways away from me. They’re wearing worn jeans and a flannel shirt. Their hair is a dark blond. I assume they’re the one who drugged me earlier. Now that I’m more awake, I realize that they’ve taken everything I brought with me. Even my ka bar sheath is gone from my thigh and my father’s butterfly knife is missing from my pocket.

“Who are you?” the woman asks. Her voice is harsh and pulls me out of my thoughts.

“I could ask the same of you,” I answer. “I thought the diner was abandoned.”

The blond man leans in close to me, squinting, and I lean away as far as the chair I’m stuck in will allow.

“Who are you?” The man repeats the woman’s question.

“Why would I tell you? You’re the one who drugged me and then strapped me to a chair!” I lift my hands from the arms of the chair as best I possibly can and wave them around.

“You broke in.”

“The door was unlocked!”

The woman disappears through a doorway and soon returns with my backpack in hand.

“What’s in here?” She asks.

“Clothing, food and a sleeping bag. I’m backpacking across the country.”

She drops the pack to the linoleum floor and I sigh loudly. She rummages through it, not caring that she’s throwing my socks and underwear halfway across the room. I watch as she pulls the hard drives from the pack and slaps them on the table before diving back in for more. She retrieves my spare batteries and laptop before she looks up again.

“Why do you have S.H.I.E.L.D. tech?” She demands. The man standing in front of me perks up at the name and turns to investigate.

“What do you mean? It’s my laptop. The only thing that’s on it is my journal and a log of daily reports.”

“Reports of what?”

“Why should I tell you? It’s not like you’ve done anything great for me,” I say, scowling at both of them. “You’ve drugged me, stolen my cat, strapped me to a chair and now you’re rifling through my shit! I’m not exactly feeling forthcoming right this moment and there really isn’t any reason why I should be.”

“Sounds like she’s got a death wish,” the man mutters.

“Yeah, well better you kill me than the government thugs who were chasing me a week and a half ago,” I mumble, my eyes trained on my pack.

“You’re wanted by the government?” the woman asks.

I shrug. “I was the last person left at a functional farming station and I destroyed everything before they could get to it. Tends to piss those guys off.”

She snorts. “Wow, sounds like you’ve been living an exciting life.” She folds her arms across her chest and takes several steps forward so she’s standing in front of me, her toes practically touching mine. “Doesn’t explain why you’ve got old S.H.I.E.L.D. tech in your pack.”

I squint at her and tilt my head to the side. “You look familiar.”

She raises her eyebrows, but her expression remains wholly unimpressed. “Do I really.”

“Yeah, you do, actually.” I lean forward slightly and it hits me. “Phil had a picture of you on his desk!”

“Phil?” She asks.

The man behind her turns around and stalks up beside her. “Phil Coulson?”

“Yes, why?”

“You knew Coulson?”

“Yes, I knew him. He was in charge of the church until about four years ago.”

“Was? What happened to him?” the man asks.

“He had cancer and we couldn’t get the tech necessary to help him, so he was dying. He put me in charge eight months before he passed away.”

The man shakes his head. “That can’t be right, he died years before that.” He glances at the woman at his side. “We saw it happen.”

“Well then he must have been a different Phil Coulson, because he was very much alive when I showed up on the church doorstep eight years ago.”

“What’d he look like?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know, five nine? Kept his hair short because he was worried about his receding hairline. Had a really nice smile. He made really bad jokes all the time. Had a really bad habit of making every single person who set foot through our doors feel like part of his family. People liked him.”

“It had to be him, Nat,” the man whispers.

“She could be lying,” she whispers back.

“Yeah, well I’m not, so you can stop whispering about me like I’m not sitting seven inches away from you.” I scowl at him. “You were in the picture too. Looked like the three of you were close.”

“We were,” he says, his expression neutral. “You said you were in charge?”

“Yes, I was.”

“What happened to you being in charge?”

“It’s hard to be in charge of people who have either left or just straight up died. You can’t really be a leader when there’s no one left to lead.”

“Who did you work with when you were in charge, then?” the woman asks.

“A lot of people, actually. If you’re wanting specifics, there was Melinda May, Grant Ward, Fitz and Simmons and Daisy Johnson. There were a few others, but they defected almost as soon as Phil announced I was in charge.” I sigh and flick a lock of drying hair out of my eyes.

“She was as close to being director as anyone could get, Nat.”

“Can you please tell me what you’re talking about?” I ask. “It seems like you know more about this than I do. I don’t even know your names.”

The two exchange looks that speak volumes that I will likely never understand. He frowns and she tilts her head to the side before his shoulders slump and he nods.

“My name is Natasha Romanoff, and this,” She jerks her thumb to the man beside her. “Is Clint barton.”

I shake my head. “Wait, wait, wait. Romanoff and Barton as in the Black Widow and Hawkeye Romanoff and Barton?”

“Yes,” she answers.

“Well that explains why you drugged me,” I say, eyebrows raised in surprise. Clint pulls the knife from his belt and cuts the zip ties from my wrists. I turn my attention to Natasha. “Where’s Webster?”

“Who?”

“My cat, Webster. Where is he?” I repeat.

“You named your cat Webster?” Clint asks.

I shrug. “He’s a smart cat.”

He shakes his head, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Come on,” he says, offering me a hand up. “I’ll take you to him.”

------

Part 3

Thank you guys so much for reading! If you liked this installment, please leave a response or shoot me an ask! Feedback would be greatly appreciated!

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[it-goes-both-ways]

Over the last few years I've been posting more and more of my actual views, which I'm not exactly ashamed of but realise they're not so much unpopular opinions as downright rejected ones. I pretty much know why I have them, I'm aware of my biases and make every effort to restrict them to words, not allowing them to affect my relationships or treatment of others, restricting the hyperbole and rants to this blog and my long suffering partner. Unfortunately I seem to attract the worst kind of women in real life, which is not at all helping. Every time I reveal something I worry about being rejected, told I'm a monster, a failure, a disgrace, an embarrassment, but each and every time I've gotten nothing but acceptance. I am greatly honoured by your support thus far, for tolerating my increasingly frustrated outbursts and hope I won't push you away with this, but it's been all consuming for almost my whole life, and part of “cleaning up my room” is putting all that baggage out there to be scrutinised and hopefully understood, sometimes all that is needed is a willing ear, suppression only breeding resentment and isolation.

All the bullshit feminism has caused, from protesting the male pill and shutting down shared parenting efforts to the Duluth model and erasing men who are raped by women or by counting them under "violence against women" stats to boost the female victim numbers. Mary Koss, the progenitor of the 1 in 5/4/3/-69/ π r2 stat claiming that it's "inappropriate" to consider male victims of forceful envelopment by women as they are merely ambivalent about their own desires. Lobbying for laws that regard mutually drunk sexual encounters as automatically rape by men, underage consensually sexually active couples (even if they're months away from age of consent or the girl is older) as child rape on the part of the boy, guilty until proven innocent, accusation is the evidence, kangaroo courts, sentencing discounts on top of the preexisting bias which causes a 63% disparity and difference in treatment to the point where if you take every step of the justice system into account the crime rate is pretty damned even (with women often using proxy violence so they have plausible deniability, and avoid responsibility/physical risk). Treating women as the definitive victims of prostitution no matter which side of the transaction they're on. Banning men from charity fundraising events, transpeople only allowed if they provide evidence that they are biologically female. Having the NHS class women choosing to have genital piercings as being victims of female genital mutilation, while male genital mutilation performed at birth is not so much as frowned upon let alone illegal by any single country on the entire twatting planet. In fact you can buy some baby foreskins if you want to, or rub them on your face, the target market being protected from the very process that brought them their anti-ageing face cream, complaining that it costs more than men's moisturiser.

The innate gynocentrism of humanity has always led to women being their top priority, now even above children, it tries to pander, and acquiesce to their every demand while being told it hates them. The cases like the woman who filmed herself raping her own baby and getting the oh so harsh sentence of community bloody service and house arrest. The "poor, neglected" woman whose husband had become distant from her (wonder why) so she raped her son's friend, whose punishment was being banned from his school, which she considered too harsh as she missed her son's graduation. An audience of hundreds of normal regular women cheering and celebrating a man being drugged by his wife, who then cut off his penis and threw it in the "garbage disposal" permanently destroying it, just for asking for a divorce (can't think why he'd want to leave), despite no further context it was declared "fabulous" to the ecstatic jubilation of the empathetic sex. There's the idea that men commit the vast majority of rapes while calling female teachers "seducing" their students mere trysts, shameful liaisons that do not deserve prison, female prison guards committing the overwhelming majority of rape of male children and youths in juvenile detention (89%), among other women who rape men and boys (my own mother being one of them), this in addition to the rape rate among female prisoners being 3 times that of male ones, not a single damned thing is done about the propagation of the bullshit narrative. Somehow the fact that female rapists tend to target children is irrelevant because male ones target adult women, and "you don't see women going around raping adult men" (even though the stats are still around 50/50 because it's a human problem, unless those women are exhibiting toxic masculinity or something). There's the 10,000 men and boys slaughtered in their schools by Boko Haram while girls were released and allowed to go home, the boys being set on fire, their throats slit, or shot if trying to escape, no one giving the slightest hint of the merest ghost of a toss, until they realised that they weren't getting the attention they craved so they kidnapped girls, causing an international outcry and the media/celebrities changing their motivation from "eradicate western education" to "oppress women and stop them getting an education". There's the refusal by both the left and the right to look beyond the plight of women when it comes to Islam, they not only ignore the laws which oppress men, but declare those men the "real" misogynist patriarchal oppressors and innately sociopathic rapists. There's the refusal to recognise that women are a part of society and have far more influence than anyone wants to admit. There's Muslim men's obligation towards women, the segregation in Saudi where they have many public places from which men are banned unless accompanied by a female family member, where they'll be arrested for accompanying a woman to whom he is not related while the woman is merely sent home, where men face potentially fatal consequences for the same "crimes". Where homeless boys in Pakistan are pretty much guaranteed to be repeatedly raped day after day.

Then in my own life, being 6 or 7 years old, my sister 8 or 9 and told to stay put as our Reliant Robin went up in flames, having to be pulled out by a stranger, a man, because we were more afraid of disobeying than of burning to death, mother not even sparing us a glance as she grieved the loss of her car, later keeping it in the garden like some sort of shrine. Around the same year, at an LRP event (Lorien Trust's The Gathering), being left in the tent alone late at night and going to look for her, finding her on top of an unconscious man, she at least picked up on the fact that I was revelling in her severe hangover the next morning. Sneaking downstairs one night to see the aftermath of one of her "encounters", the man was broken, so started my extreme protectiveness of men and distrust of women, to the point of being called a gender traitor for the first time at around 7 years old by my 60+ year old year 1 teacher (who also wouldn't allow me to use left handed scissors or to write left handed, unwittingly making me ambidextrous. Being left with a violent babysitter who made me sleep under the table, or on the floor beside her bed (despite having 4 bloody beds), who wouldn't let me eat since burning the toast, beat me for asking for a glass of water and wouldn't even allow me to drink out of the tap, she once threw me in a wheely bin and poured dishwater over me, mother was in the garden just a few doors down, yet did nothing. She’d always try and get her boyfriends to beat us but they always just laughed it off (they’d put up with abuse themselves but never lasted long after she started bringing us into it), one in particular was into BDSM and later got mother a job as a dominatrix (she was disappointed by our complete lack of surprise), and even he had to draw the line at demonstrating how sexual intercourse works to his girlfriend’s 6 and 8 year old daughters.

My sister and I as little more than toddlers, mother putting our onesies on backwards so we couldn't take them off, having to go to the loo with them still on. Having the door handles put on upside down so that we couldn't reach up enough to open it to get to the loo so we ended up pissing ourselves. Having a daily diet of four slices of bread and the cheapest of generic vegetable spread as we weren't allowed mother's butter, being starved as punishment or just because she felt like it (having won custody of us only to spite dad), leading to malabsorption and osteoarthritis at the grand old age of twenty bloody six (3 years ago now), once a week we got an actual meal. Being around 8 or 9, visiting my auntie who was in hospital after having a stroke, having already had MS she was left paralysed, just 23 years old, granddad put together a system for her to speak by grouping letters and having her blink once for the stated grouping or letter or twice for basically undo. I gave her my only teddy which I carried everywhere, a stuffed donkey I got from Spain, she kept it. Staying in her house, continuing my habit of accidentally setting fire to the toaster, being left alone most of the night and going to look for mother in the village pub, finding her in one of her drinking competitions, walking in and vagblocking her, much to her frustration and anger. Being treated like a replacement husband, even trying to talk me into having a sex change despite only mild dysphoria, which was later greatly lessened by having an implant which stopped periods, eliminating most of the feeling of wrong (most cases of sex change regret are people who were abused, either treated like shit for their biological sex, treated as if they are opposite sex, or sexual abuse). Hearing about how the only way she'd get any when she was with dad was when he was asleep. Why did he end up dying a slow, agonising death while she gets to carry on regardless? Asking me about who I liked, later discovering exactly why she wanted to know, a man I care about was raped because I didn’t pick up on her ulterior motives. Having mother and her friends try to teach me to manipulate men, get them to pay for me, trying to turn me into a gold digger, only making me hate them even more. Coming of age (16), no longer eligible for child benefit, mother having been visiting friends more and more often until she didn't come back, only finding out that she'd been gradually moving out when we got the eviction order.

I'd been training myself to eventually join the army from the age of 5, once when I was 6 mother had asked me to go to the supermarket to get a bag of potatoes, she usually got a 20kg sack, must have taken me an hour to get it home, a man helping me carry it some of the way. When I finally enlisted I had to stop taking codeine for the malabsorption, it wasn't as much of a problem if I was eating every day (I usually forget as my body had been conditioned by neglect, not even bothering to remind me to eat any more), my hips had always made crunching and cracking sounds when I move, but as my body adjusted to the lack of codiene the pain became unbearable, upon being diagnosed with osteoarthritis I had to give up any hope of ever being a soldier, I've lost my purpose, and have nothing to replace it with, couldn't even work a whole shift when I got a factory job, humiliating, I'd informed the woman of my condition and she'd assured me that it was just a machinist job. It wasn't. It was everything you shouldn't do if you have any sort of hip problems. I'd never felt such agony and I'd fractured my bloody skull (at an LRP event). The woman was such a nasty bitch about it, she went from compassionate and understanding to mocking me for being upset that I was so damned useless now. I offered to forfeit my pay but her colleague, who also had arthritis and could no longer work the floor, was obviously far more genuinely empathetic than the woman, my brief boss was also sympathetic and even paid for a taxi to take me home after I refused an ambulance. The pain didn't subside for days.

I've never had a female friend who hasn't betrayed me, my "best friend" in school found it hilarious to punch me in the back in the middle of class, causing me to yell inadvertently as the air was knocked out of me. In year 8 the other kids stepped up their game and went from throwing stones to a house brick, when I got back to school she asked where the stitches were, just so she could punch me and reopen the wound. I was never allowed to retaliate, it would always be me who would be threatened with expulsion even if I only snapped after years of beatings which everyone knew was happening. Every birthday the other kids would falsely accuse me of something so I'd have to spend break times stood outside the headmaster's office, the equivalent of the stocks. Whether it was asperger's making me so unlikeable or if I genuinely am just a massive thundercunt, I never found out what I did to provoke them. Every time I put my trust in a woman it gets thrown in my face. My neighbour decided she was my best friend for life and would call at all hours of the day and night to get me to pick up her bloody methadone twice a bloody week, go to the chippy at 11 o'bloody clock at night, she's always trying to get me to take the pills she buys off a disabled neighbour. There are three things I refuse to take, hormones, anti-depressants, and sleeping tablets and she's always trying to get me to take them. The last straw was when her husband, who I got on very well with and whom she abused constantly, died, I told her to be careful what she wished for. When I finally called her out on using me she leapt immediately to the "after all I've done for you" bollocks.

Time after bloody time it's the same damned story, even regular everyday normal women will talk about things that would get a man arrested or at least publicly lambasted, that erections equal consent, that MGM is not at all a violation of the right to bodily autonomy, that it's absolutely fine and dandy to hit your male partner only to call the police if he defends himself, that female paedophiles shouldn't be punished because boys always want sex no matter what age they are but girls mature younger, right the way back to "We should have the vote but not have to pay with our lives as men had to in their millions while we shamed men and even underage boys into doing the same". What terrified me as a child was women's ability to completely turn off their empathy, the "woman scorned" is seen as karmic justice, there are people defending even the most brutal crimes:  assault, murder, rape, mutilation, over something as minor as rejection, or an accidental drive by fart, or just the crime of being a man who wanted a divorce. Empathetic sex my absolute arse.

A fellow MRA publicly humiliated Adam on a livestream when we went to the men's day march and conference, we were staying in an air B&B, Adam and Will Styles still riding the high of giving their first speeches, only for the woman to dredge up shit that was no one's bloody business and ruin the whole mood for no bloody reason, she also attacked 6oodfella on one of the hangouts. Another one was giving private information, with a vicious twist, poisoning the community against one of our group, Paul Elam didn't want to get involved and Janice Fiamengo immediately cut ties, treating him like a bloody criminal, what the hell did the woman say to her? I could see the Woolly Bumblebee thing coming a mile off, I worry whenever youtubers I like get girlfriends because they seem to either completely change or disappear, like Spino and Bread and Circuses respectively. I'm suspicious of female MRAs, I don't want to be but often even the sane ones are just tradcons. If it weren't for the Honeybadgers and you lot I'd have no hope at all.

The constant stream of "toxic masculinity", oppression, patriarchy, of women complaining that their air conditioned (which is also bloody sexist somehow), seated jobs at a till are paid less than the men (and women but they're not going to mention that) carrying heavy boxes, driving forklifts, working in a cold warehouse, and risking serious injury or death infinitely more than they ever will. The selfishness, solipsism, and sociopathy is too much. Throughout history women have never cared about men aside from ones they have a bond with, have never appreciated a damned thing men have done yet they demand that men prioritise them. Why should they?

I’ve seen and experienced the worst examples of female nature in action, “toxic femininity” if you will, and the difference in reaction to it, never being believed as a child no matter how many times I begged other family members and even strangers to please let me live with them instead, I’ll sleep in a tent, look I brought it with me. Pathetic, but you’d have thought someone would have cottoned on. I'm not going down the anti-women route as my sister has, given her own treatment of her partners and her own admission, she’s not so much pro male as anti-female, but it’s increasingly difficult not to resent them even if everything has a biological explanation. I still defend women if the facts bear it out, even if I don’t necessarily agree on a personal level, reals over feels, the people I agree with most also being female has definitely helped me not fall over the edge, one of whom feels very much as I do to the point where she doesn’t consider herself to be a woman due to her own observations and experiences. But the longer this goes on, the more laws are changed, media is poisoned, speech is suppressed, how the hell do I stop myself from just giving up entirely? How on earth can I stop myself from becoming an all out misogynist? Because it is women, not just feminists. It’s female nature being allowed to go unchecked, even when the same happens with male nature women are still prioritised. There are exceptions on both sides but it’s not enough to change the overall trend. There’s never been a balance, and because of human nature there never will be, which is where the problem lies. I know there’s no hope, that it’s utterly futile, completely pointless, and it’s driving me more towards extremism. I completely understand why we’ve lost so many MRAs to suicide. But I’m still going, even if the only way to make even the slightest change is to appeal to female self interest I’ll still do it. Everything I’ve been passionate about throughout my life is a pointless endeavour, I can’t stop myself from caring or change my fundamental character, it’s a downward spiral and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.

[tierneytherapysblog]

GOD IS THE ONLY WAY TO HEAL THIS………….says  SCIENCE

Having suggested man made solutions are not the answer, that we have to give God a chance to fulfill his promise of casting out demons, I thought it would be fair, right and proper to have science make the case for God through the teachings of Christ Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, within each of us.

Its quite fascinating how God is portrayed as the baddie, anytime He is suggested as a solution. We have become so worldly focused , so dependent on man-made solutions, that we will cut off our nose to spite our face. The concept that we are all filled with the Holy Spirit, both believers and non-believers and all it takes, is for each of us to become sick and tired of feeling sick, tired and broken, set aside all old beliefs and prejudices, and allow the Holy Spirit to activate the promised miracle of Casting Out of Our Demons.

So, lets look at this solely from the scientific point of view. i think this would be fair to everyone, rather than me or some other telling you all the reasons who you can have your miracle, lets tackle this reasoning from the viewpoint of science, does that seem fair to you. this way we will know exactly where we stand and why the problem and the solution are both spiritual in nature.

Thus, science will prove that if any one us want to heal from a past trauma memory or a broken coping skill like PTS, we need to take the spiritual path.

the argument:

‘’ I suffered a traumatic event as a child 48 years ago’’

When I declare I suffered this event when 12 years old, what part of me suffered it. As I am 60 years old today, I can’t very well be a 12 year old body too. This is not possible in any scientific way. So, if i am here writing this to you and over the past 48 years of my life the cells of this body have dies and been replaced, this would imply that this physical body can in no way be the physical body that experienced the event 48 years earlier.

Well then, what about my mind, you might ask, I remember in detail what happened to me. but here is the catch. This event happened to an innocent version of me at 12 years of age , after the event and up to now we are completely different. The 12 year old child version of me was robbed of his innocents, I wasn't robbed of my innocence because I exist today only. I no longer exist yesterday or last week ,what makes me think , I existed 48 years ago.

Science tells us the brain changes from experience to experience, we grow, its like a huge computer, I have 48 years of new memories; experiences; wisdom; knowledge; history; successes & failures; love & loss; rejection and acceptance; education & life skills; dependence & independence, teenage & adult lives; compared to that of the 12 year old innocent child version of me all those years ago.

Therefore i am a new person with a completely different body and mind to that of all the earlier versions of myself whether a week ago or in this case 48 years ago.

What about our emotions, our feelings, one might ask!

No-one is arguing that we don't have feelings or the right to express them, they are the core foundation of our basic survival instincts. The thing is, when we are blocked from healing ,we explode with feeling, it’s as natural as a pressure cooker left unattended. This is not you or I being mentally ill, this would be a perfectly normal human reaction.

So if we can agree scientifically that the author, at age 60 today, cannot have been present at age 12 physically or mentally, then what part of him might have been present at not only both of these times, but also in every day of his life.

My argument is that the soul is present at all stages of life; it’s the one never changing factor; when we were a part of source;  to being in the womb; at birth;  through adolescence; during this event; the teenage years and so on; until present day; and when the time comes to leave this life, I will return to the source, my creator ,please God.

This is the only possible rhyme & reason, I conject, as to how we can be in two places at once.

This being the case, that it was our immortal soul that was there when 12 years old, then the damage I carry ,[we have resolved is not a mental or physical injury,] must then be an injury to the soul.

The event was soul destroying and as long as it goes on ,untreated, mistreated, it eats away at our soul from the inside our, causing untold internal illness like cancers.

this illness we suffer is commonly referred to as

‘the hole in our soul’

and we try to fill this with all things worldly, and man-made.

There is only one way to fill this hole ,and the process is honesty, open-mindedness, willingness, faith and surrender.

The Bible tells us that we can have our Miracle, whatever the Healing is we can have it. its written in The Bible, and i believe The Bible is a Book of Truths.

Haven’t we suffered enough, isn't it time we claimed our healing miracles. Most of all, isn't it time we accepted we are carrying the burden of a trauma event that isn’t ours, that belongs to another person.

I cannot heal your pain for you by taking your medication and having the operation for you. In the same way I cannot heal the pain of the 12 year old version of myself, no matter how much I care for him and what happened to him. its just not scientifically possible.

A Clear Scientific Sign of Insanity is Repeating The Same Actions over and over again, Expecting Different Results!

Its time to learn how to give back this burden to it’s rightful owner, with love and gratitude accepting that they are surrounded by a whole host of angels ,and this younger version has been waiting patiently for each of us to let go of this..

[winterverses]

Walking Wounded - Chapter Forty-Five

Warning: violence mentions, sexual violence mentions.

They cringed when she came into the women’s common room, all except the one whose name she’d finally heard-- Nyota Uhura. She did not seem as afraid as she should have been. Anne did not often visit the common room, and it generally boded ill for someone when she did. She surmised that Loche would eventually notice Uhura’s lack of fear and cause Anne to make her afraid. Until then, Anne would say nothing. She liked the woman, in spite of herself. She would show Uhura no kindness, and perhaps Loche would not notice her soft heart.

The rest of them, however… they shrank away into the corners of their common room, whispering to each other, their eyes wide. Anne couldn’t quite remember what she’d done to deserve that, but she knew she had earned it. She could see it in the scars on their arms, in the missing fingers and slit nostrils. Whatever she had forgotten, she knew the hand that had done many of those things had not belonged to Loche. In front of her, he walked straight-backed and proud, enjoying the eyes that pleaded with him to take Anne away. He liked knowing he was in control, and he liked being the one who dispensed kindness to the women and earned their trust while Anne was forced to deal out the threats and punishment and earned nothing but fear. He liked knowing that Anne hated what she did and did it anyway, to survive.

Anne wondered if the woman, Nyota, would begin to hate her too. That seemed crueler than the rest somehow. She let herself consider the thought with detachment, imagined the pain of earning another hatred, and tried to get used to the idea. There was no escape.

Loche had ordered her to be brought from the sedative early, before her bones were entirely healed. McCoy had protested her removal, yelled even, but in the end he had capitulated and let Loche take her from the crude med bay. She was still swimming in the effects of sedation and opiates, her mind slowly clearing but her body fuzzy-feeling and warm. She felt better than she had in ages. It was the drugs. She knew that somewhere, she felt sick and frightened and disgusted, but the drugs made it easier to push all that aside.

They were approaching a small knot of the women, three or four of them crowded around one. Uhura watched from the sidelines.

“Mara, how is the child?” Loche asked, his voice warm.

The woman looked warily at Anne, and then back to Loche, the bundle in her arms making quiet noises. Anne distantly felt surprise, and growing unease. A child. She hadn't known there was a child here. How awful. “She’s fine. Eating well. She’s a survivor.”

“Let me see her,” Loche said, holding out his arms. Anne closed her eyes briefly. She knew what was coming. She did not want it, but it would drive another wedge between her and the women, make it even more unthinkable for her to ever trust them.

The woman placed the bundle in Loche’s arms, and he held it carefully, bouncing the baby a little when it began to squawk. “You’ve taken good care of her,” Loche said, his eyes fixed on the baby. He held up a finger, and the child grabbed it, squeezing it. He laughed. “What a beautiful little girl. Brynna would be proud.”

Brynna?

Anne struggled to hold onto her detachment. Loche turned to her, thrust the child at her. “Take her. You will care for her now. After all, you killed her mother.”

It was what she had expected, but so much worse. Anne took the child, looking down at its rounded little face. “I don’t know how to care for a child,” she said. It was going to be hard to walk the line between protesting and making sure the child stayed away from her. The more she resisted, the more Loche would insist that she keep the child. She glanced at Mara, who was looking at her desperately, as if she would snatch the baby back if she could.

“You will learn,” Loche said. “She is your responsibility.”

Anne looked down at the baby again and felt nothing. “I do not want to hurt your child. I know nothing about them.”

“Please let me have her back,” Mara said. “Please. I’ve taken good care of her.”

“You’ve grown too attached to her, Mara,” Loche said gently. “She is my daughter, and I want to keep her near me. It is best that she comes with us now, before she grows to need you.”

Anne said nothing. The baby gurgled and began to cry.

“Soothe her,” Loche said, amused.

“I don’t know how,” Anne said, looking down at the squalling bundle in her arms. She tried bouncing the child gently, the way Loche had, but that only made the baby cry harder. Anne looked up at him. “I don’t know anything about babies.”

Loche began to laugh quietly, shaking his head. “How ridiculous. Are you a failure to your sex? What kind of woman doesn’t know how to be a mother?” He seemed genuinely surprised.

A movement on the sidelines caught Anne’s eye. Uhura stepped forward. “May I offer a solution?” she asked quietly, her eyes darting to Loche and then away.

Loche frowned, but gestured to her to continue, placated by her respect. “Tell me. I’ll at least listen.”

“I can take care of the baby. She won’t get attached to me before Scott decides to move on, and I’ll have time to teach her how to take care of it.” Uhura looked at Anne. “I can stay with her as long as Scott doesn’t want my company.”

Loche’s eyes hardened. He didn’t like his women thinking… but Uhura was not his woman. That did change things. The baby began to cry harder, and Loche looked at Anne, jerking his chin toward Uhura. “Give her the child. If she can quiet it down, she can stay with you.” His eyes weighed Uhura, measuring how likely she would be to connect with Anne, how likely it was that her departure would hurt Anne.

Anne stepped toward Uhura and handed her the bundle. Immediately, Uhura frowned. “You’re holding her all wrong. You need to support her head more.” She settled the baby in her arms, and the squalling began to quiet. Tracing the child’s cheeks, she made some little noises, and the baby began to settle. “What’s her name?” Uhura asked, her eyes darting to Mara before landing back on Loche.

Loche looked to Mara. “What did you name her?” he asked. Anne bit back a surge of anger. He hadn't even bothered to learn the child’s name.

“Lilla,” Mara said, her gaze flitting away. “For the flower.”

“A beautiful choice,” Loche said, and Mara looked gratified. “You may visit the child once a week, for half a day. Otherwise, she’s to be left in the care of my savage, or--” he looked to Uhura.

“Uhura,” she said.

“Uhura.” He nodded. “Very good.” He lifted his hand, grabbing Anne’s hair and tugging it sharply. “Take her to your quarters. Move her things there.”

“Yes, Loche,” Anne murmured. Her mouth felt dry. She would lose this sliver of human kindness Uhura had shown her.

“And learn from her. The child is yours. You’ll need the practice; I want a son, and you’ll suit me best.” Loche grinned as he saw Anne’s face blanch. “You don’t think I would waste that beautiful survival instinct of yours on a girl, do you?”

Anne saw Uhura’s fingers tighten, but Uhura said nothing.

“Is something wrong?” Loche asked Uhura, his voice edged with poison. He had noticed her tiny movement as well.

Uhura shook her head, looking away from him. “Nothing. I'm sorry.”

Loche relaxed back into calm control, looking Anne over. “Tell me you want my son, and I’ll have the doctor begin work on it tomorrow. Our previous physician left us all we need to easily undertake this effort.”

There was no way around it. If she said no, he would only hurt her until she said yes. If he hurt her badly enough, all her half-formed plans would come to nothing. Anne looked him in the eyes. “Please let me have your son,” she said, her voice weak. She could feel her bloodless lips pressing cold against each other.

That was enough to suit Loche. He smiled. Maybe he liked it better that he knew she was terrified of the prospect. “Take your baby to your room for now. Spend some time learning from Uhura. I’ll come for you when I want to be hated.”

Anne glanced over her shoulder at Uhura, who nodded. Without saying anything, she began to lead the woman away toward her quarters, segregated from the rest of the women. Loche had always kept her that way; it was no wonder she hadn’t known about the child’s survival. As they left the common room, she could hear Loche speaking to the others, his voice full of satisfaction, their voices full of desperation and what they thought was love.

Once they were far enough away, Uhura said, “I won’t let him. The doctor won’t do it. I’ll tell Scotty and Scotty will let him know.”

Anne remained silent. She’d done nothing to deserve help.

“Do you hear me? It won’t happen,” Uhura said, softly and vehemently. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Opening the door to her quarters, Anne held it for Uhura, closing it behind them before she spoke. “Let the doctor do what Loche says. Loche will be alone, with me.” She almost continued, but stopped herself. What was it about Uhura that made her feel she should be honest? “It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “Better just to do what he says. If I carry his child, he won’t hurt me too badly.” So this was the end she’d felt looming ahead. Loche wanted her to be a vessel, a carrier for his progeny. It wasn’t her life he wanted to erase, just her self, her independence, her existence as anything more than an incubator. He wanted to remove her from herself, and replace her with something she had never wanted to be, something he would insist was her purpose.

Bouncing the baby in her arms, Uhura shook her head. “Please trust me,” she said. “Please. I can’t tell you how much you need to trust me right now. It will make everything easier.”

Watching her, Anne almost felt as if she could. Her large dark eyes were so open, so wide and unguarded-- Anne felt like Uhura would help her, if she could. Anne stayed still. “No. If I do, and you leave, I won’t survive it. If I do, and you stay, he will make me hurt you.”

“What if you could leave too?” Uhura asked.

“I can’t. I have nowhere to go that he won’t find me.” Anne walked over to the door that led into her bedroom and opened it, gesturing Uhura inside. She could have the bed. There were couches out here that Anne could sleep on. And anyway, it felt wrong for the child to stay in the same room as the statue that had killed her mother. Loche had made it a present to her; it sat on one of the tables, its face half chipped off from striking the floor. The blood had been cleaned off long ago. “I’ll move your things.”

“Anne, please believe me,” Uhura said softly. “Please.”

That gave Anne a moment of pause. “I never told you my name.” She could have gotten it from Tarenn, maybe. Anne didn't think she would have given it out herself.

“Yes you did,” Uhura said. “Anne Madeline Hardesty.” The baby whimpered again, maybe sensing the tension, and Uhura soothed it.

Uhura knew her name, her whole, real name. She couldn't have gotten the whole thing from Tarenn. He hadn't known it. He'd never cared to find out. That meant that at some point Anne had given it to someone, or someone had taken it. She knew more than Anne wanted her to know. Was she dangerous? Looking sharply at Uhura, Anne felt her entire body tense. “What happened to me?” she asked in a rush, feeling as if her breath was being sucked away.

“Just trust me,” Uhura said. “Please. If you find out, he’ll find out.”

“Tell me,” Anne said urgently. It felt like her entire body was thinning, hardening into something dangerous. “Tell me now. Now.” Muscles tensed with the need to know, she took a step toward Uhura, her entire being coiled, poised, ready to spring. “Tell me now.”

The moment stretched out, Uhura watching her, Anne teetering on that delicate point between stillness and sudden, vicious movement. Uhura’s large brown eyes were steady, and when she spoke, her voice was soft. “You made me a promise. Stand down. That's an order.”

The words tweaked some half-remembered feeling, a moment of tension, of shame and relief and confiding that didn't fit with anything Anne remembered. Nevertheless she subsided, the surge of viciousness leaving her. She knew it was true. Whatever had happened to her, she had made a promise to Uhura, and that meant she’d had a reason for it. She had to trust herself that it had been a good reason. She had to trust her instincts. They kept her alive. “He’ll kill you if he realizes anything at all.” Anne stepped away, the last bit of tension draining from the room. “I’ll move your things, and then afterward I want you to stay in the bedroom. Don’t talk to me unless you need to tell me something about the baby.”

“God, Anne,” Uhura said. “All right. Just keep him busy, if you can.”

Anne paused, looking back over her shoulder, then looked away and left the room. It wouldn’t do to confirm anything, but she would do as Uhura had asked.

She had to trust herself. There had been a reason, even if she didn't know it. And anyway, tomorrow she would kill him. The possibility of anything beyond that would cloud her thoughts. If she could just remove everything else, detach herself from everything but the thought of being the instrument of his death, she knew she could do it.

Sorry about the lateness... bad day. I’ll try to scrape something into an extra for Monday.

[ultimaid]

Sick Days

a request from the lovely @papayaromantic !!! she asked for a polysquad (richie who is dating both eddie and bill) taking care of a sick bill <3 this got pretty long so its under a readmore oh boy

_____

Bill Denbrough HATED being sick.

He was sick a lot more often than he would have liked to be. Today was particularly difficult—he woke up with a headache, was sweating so much that he thought his body might dry out completely, felt incredibly nauseous, and was also so dizzy that standing up was like playing Russian roulette, only the gun bullet was replaced with the possibility of collapsing on the hard floor. School was definitely not an option. His parents left for the day and he stayed laying in bed, eyes unable to close all the way, trying to keep from moving around too much.

Bill hated being sick, yes, but what he hated even more was being sick while alone in the house. He hated being alone anyways, especially after what had happened to Georgie, but sickness compounded that a hundred times over. He felt like his body was going to collapse in on itself. Even in the dim light of his room, everything felt overwhelming. His brain was stuffed up with thoughts and frustrations that were all muddled up with illness. The other Losers all knew how much Bill hated being sick and alone.

So, of course, as soon as they heard the news, Richie and Eddie were cutting school out of the picture to focus on helping Bill out.

Richie came in through the window. Bill would have been startled at the sound of a downstairs window opening if his boyfriend hadn't made a habit of this in recent months. He heard Richie moving around downstairs to unlock and open the front door for Eddie, and once both boys were inside, Bill had managed to sit all the way up as they came up into his room.

"What's the situation, Billy Boy?" Richie asked as he sauntered in, coming to lean against the foot of Bill's bed.

"Wh-what're you doing h-here?"

"Well," said Eddie, hanging back by the doorway, "you didn't show up to class. Obviously. So we came to investigate, and here we are."

Richie leaned over and touched Bill's forehead. "Describe the symptoms to Doctor Tozier," he said with a little smirk that made Bill smile.

Eddie swallowed a little. "Richie, if you get sick, I swear–"

"Easy, Eds, I'm immune to shit like this."

"I'm not holding your hand for a week if you catch anything."

"Wh-what, no hand holding for—for me, either?" Bill gave the best playful pout he could with the energy he had, and Eddie tried to roll his eyes, but both other boys could see he was trying not to laugh.

"We might share a boyfriend, but I'm not sharing your sickness." Eddie took one more cautious step into the door. "Have you eaten?"

"Uh, no."

"Well, fuck, babe." Richie got to his feet. "How's your body supposed to heal if you don't put anything in it?"

"If I e-eat, I'll probably j-just throw up or s-something."

"Won't know until you try it." Richie turned towards the boy in the doorway. "You ready to make some bomb ass chicken soup?"

Bill raised an eyebrow and glanced at Eddie. "Sh-should I trust his—his cooking?"

Richie turned and looked at Bill with mock offense. "Excuuuuuse me, are you doubting my skill at the art of sick-boyfriend-caring?"

"Not d-doubting it." Bill gave a weak grin and attempted to start getting up. "Just saying you d-don't need to do—to do all th-this–"

"Heyheyheyheyhey, mister, you get back in bed right the fuck now before you fall down the fucking stairs and kill yourself." Richie rushed over to physically nudge an indignant Bill back into bed, raising his eyebrows. "Eddie and I have gotcha covered, okay? You stay here. We'll check up on ya before long." He squeezed Bill'sshoulder before turning back towards Eddie. "Let's fuckin do it! I'll raid the shelves for soupy ingredients or whatever the fuck!"

As Richie ran downstairs, Eddie glanced over at Bill. "Why are we dating him again?" he asked with one eyebrow quirked and only a ghost of a smile on his face.

"B-because we love him, a-and he loves us?"

Eddie sighed deeply and looked away from his friend, turning towards the hallway. "You're right."

When Eddie got to the kitchen, Richie had already set up a pot, one raw chicken breast, a bowl of water, some pepper, and a container of dry pasta haphazardly next to the stove. When Eddie came in, Richie leaned against the kitchen counter, grinning widely. "Whaddya think? Nice rig, huh?" "Please tell me you washed your hands."

Richie was quiet for a second before moving to the kitchen sink and briefly washing his hands. "Only for you, Kaspbrak."

"Not 'only for me', because it'shealthy." Eddie followed suit once Richie had finished before turning towards the stove. "Do you.... know how to make chicken soup?"

"I assume you put the chicken and the water and the noodles all together and wait for things to get hot."

"I don't think that's how it works."

"You some kinda chef expert, babe?"

"No, I'm just pretty damn sure it isn't a three-ingredient deal."

"You bring a cookbook or something? Come on, it can't be that hard to improvise. Don't'cha trust me?"

Eddie squeezed his lips. "Mmmm, define 'trust'."

Richie rolled his eyes, kissed the top of Eddie's head, and headed towards the stove. "If you have any better ideas, feel free to share. I am all ears, Eddie Spaghetti."

"We have to put some kind of spices on the chicken."

"I got pepper."

"That's ONE spice, Richie."

"What else goes on chicken??"

"I don't know!!! Salt, maybe?? Uhh...." Eddie balanced on his toes and started pushing through a spice cabinet. "They've got dried rosemary and cinnamon...?"

"You're the one who had the spice idea."

"You're the one who wanted to underseason it."

"Just—" Richie came up from behind  Eddie and grabbed some spices from the cabinet, resting his chin on top of Eddie's head as he did so before moving back towards the stove and pouring the water into the pot. "You wanna put the spices on the chicken?"

"You fuckin' serious?? I am NOT gonna touch the raw meat."

"Jeez, it was just an offer." Richie stuck his tongue out at Eddie, who returned the gesture. "You can handle the noodles."

"How do I handle the noodles?"

"I don't know!! Uh... Put them in the water when it starts bubbling?" Richie turned the stove's heat all the way up. "That's how it always works on TV."

"How long do I leave them in for??"

"Until they get floppy, I guess??" Richie started rubbing spices on the chicken, a conglomeration of flakes and powders he had never even heard of before. 

"You okay to look after this once I put the chicken in?"

"What?? You want me to stay down here by the hot stove that could catch on fire—"

"I'm just gonna check on Bill, babe, okay? You are gonna be fine, it'll be two minutes, and the stove will NOT catch on fire because water can't catch on fire." He put the chicken in the heating water before quickly washing the meat juices off his hands. "Got me?"

"Please don't kiss him while he's sick."

"Wasn't planning on it."

"Yes, you were, I know you."

Richie pecked Eddie's lips with his own before straightening and heading back towards the staircase. "Guess you'll have to be the one to fulfill my gay quota for the day, sweetheart," he said with a wink and finger guns before heading out the door.

"Beep beep," Eddie called after him, though he was smiling in spite of himself.

When Richie got to Bill's room, Bill had obeyed his instructions and was still reclined in bed. He sat up slowly when he saw Richie coming in, grinning at the sight of the other. "How's th—how's the soup?"

"Souping along. You are gonna be magically healed when you ingest this shit. Got magic powers and all that." Richie plopped down on Bill's bed, a lopsided grin adorning his face. "How's Big Bill?"

Bill couldn't help but feel a little wobbly inside at Richie's smile. "I h-hope to fuck you're telling th-the truth, b-because I still feel l-like death is j—is just around the c-corner."

"This soup is gonna make you live FOREVER. It's gonna be fuckin' delicious." He reached over and squeezed Bill's hand. "Think you'll be able to eat it?"

"Maybe."

"Better than no! Hell yeah!" Richie beamed and leaned over to almost kiss Bill's cheek before remembering that he didn't want to pass any sickness to Eddie and just pulling Bill into a hug instead. Bill closed his eyes, leaning his head on Richie's shoulder, gripping the back of his shirt with loosely curled fists.

When Richie stood back up, Bill gave a little pout of his lips and leaned back. "L-leaving so soon?"

"I'll be back in five minutes with Eds and soup. It'll be worth the wait, you fuckin' know it." He shot Bill a wide smile as he started out of the room. "Don't move, okay? I am not gonna deal with a sick AND injured-from-falling-on-the-floor boyfriend today."

"I'll do m-my best."

When Richie got back downstairs, the kitchen was, thankfully, not on fire. The soup smelled at least decent and Eddie had made sure the room wasn't as much of a mess as it would have been had Richie been left in charge. Richie hugged Eddie close from behind, resting his head on top of Eddie's, watching the soup bubble.

"You think it's ready enough?" Eddie asked a few minutes later.

Richie shrugged. "The noodles are wiggly and the chicken doesn't look raw."

"But does that mean it's READY?"

"Eddie Spaghetti, you know as well as anyone in this shit town that I don't know fuck about cooking."

They decided to wait three more minutes. When that was up, Richie got the soup into a bowl while Eddie checked several times to make sure the stove was REALLY all the way off. The soup was at least hot instead of lukewarm, and the chicken was fully cooked, even if it was still in one huge piece and surrounded by limp noodles. They ruled the soup a success until proven failure by means of taste.

Richie handed Bill the soup when they got to Bill's room. "You prepared to feel absolute heaven on your tongue, babe?"

"N-not sure I am," Bill said in a teasing tone.

"We did our best," called Eddie from his place just inside the doorway.

Bill smiled. "Thanks, g-guys. I'm sure it'll be—it'll be great." 

He took the provided silverware and took a small bite out of the chicken. Richie and Eddie looked on, suspense written on their faces.

Bill swallowed. "Hmm." He looked at the soup. "I-interesting, ah, flavor combination."

Eddie leaned forward a little. "That's good, right?"

"Yeah. Y-yeah, this isn't bad." Bill took another small bite. "I mean, I can't r-really taste it all that—all that well, since I'm definitely s-sick and that's how sickness works, b-but it is definitely p-pretty good."

Richie turned towards Eddie and mouthed out the words 'FUCK YEAH'.

Bill ate a little bit more before looking up at the other two boys. "H-how can I repay you for y-you for your services?" he asked, chuckling a little behind the words.

Richie smirked and sat on the bed to slide over towards Bill. "Mmmmm... how about plenty of cuddling when you're feeling better?"

Bill laughed. "That can, ah— th-that can be arranged." He looked over at Eddie. "A-and Eddie?"

Eddie hesitated before taking one more brave step into the sickness domain. "I mean, this is what friends are for, man. But I guess a thumbs-up would be nice?"

Bill gave him a thumbs-up. Eddie returned the gesture, nodding.

Bill ate a few more of the noodles, and when he looked back up, he realized that he hadn't felt alone or trapped since the two other boys got there.

Maybe, he thought, a little chicken soup really does cure all sickness.

[theadorechronicles]

Chapter 1

Snapshots of the current climate:

Attempting to fill hole in life by learning Russian. Buying Babbel: Russian and adding a Russian keyboard to phone. Learning a tiny bit of Russian in lessons 1-14 — not ever really wanting to do any more. Refusing to delete Russian keyboard from phone (flag: admission of failure); taking double the time to type emojis due to multiple keyboards.

Attempting to fill hole in life by buying everything that is for sale anywhere. Spending £130 on perfume — thinking that this will be important for new life. Spending £40 on a new fancy toothbrush that lights up randomly and nearly blinds my tired eyes. Spending £80 on plants. Filling entire room with plants. Room looks nice and is probably oxygen-rich, but excess of plants serves as daily reminder of the purely cosmetic fluff with which I am forced to replace the love of my life.

Attempting to fill hole in life by getting four different dating apps and generously (sometimes manically) swiping right. Forcing self to put aside monumental awkwardness and actually message sad few matches. Send a million messages that say “hi” — receive minimal response. When receive response, make bullshit and entirely dry weird chat for approx. 10 minutes in aggregate; lose interest entirely.

Give up on attempting to fill hole in life. Embrace large hole. Lovingly polish its edges whilst eating clementines in bed and watching endless reruns of Peep Show.

Please do not mistake me. There are some benefits to the break up scenario. For example, things that my ex hated include: Peep Show; Louis Theroux documentaries; documentaries about fraud or finance; getting up early and putting the radio on; all shit pop music; fresh sweet peppers; raw onion; going for walks; being in any way tidy or organised; me going out and not telling her when I’m coming home; me talking about work; me being annoying; me wearing and/or breaking her clothes and things; generally me. 

In the new era of me by myself being alone I can now indiscriminately enjoy or be all of the above! Although somehow (fantastically and of course), they’re not as enjoyable now as they were when I used to indulge in them in spite of her, and chop little bowls of onion/peppers on the side (add your own).

I actually still do this, and add my own, even though it is a dinner just for me and I love red peppers and I also love onions. Still they must go on the side, and politely come along later. Without some semblance of the old order one could lose faith entirely in the basic pillars of life and go completely mad. To be honest, this is probably not far off.

The worst part, obviously, is the insularity. I constantly feel as though I am wandering around in a bubble like those futuristic people in Wall-E (note: Wall-E is one of my favourite films). There’s an ironically tangible quality to the feeling of being untouched — you sort of imagine things. The wind is a big deal. The absent-minded gestures of strangers have deep romantic connotations and an invisible impact as I stand on the tube, like painting a surface with only water.

Things I have done recently to avoid loneliness:

Attended literally hours of rugby-watching. I do not know any of the rules or what it is called when you get points, I am just there to become drunk and solicit hugs from anyone in the vicinity.

Stayed late at work doing nothing but unnecessary tasks like filing my emails or colour-coding my WIP spreadsheet. (If I’m at work, I’m not technically alone — I am working. This is perfectly respectable and normal. It is in no way a scene out of Bridget Jones.)

Third wheeled on my parents.

Seventh wheeled at a dinner party.

Attended nights out with tenuous acquaintances, trying pointedly to look slutty and being the drunkest person there.

Driven around London taking the long route everywhere and playing the radio offensively loud.

Stayed in other people’s beds purely for sleep-company, stealing hugs on a regular basis throughout the night.

People say things to me like “you should date people” and “X will help you move on”. These (dating, moving on) are entirely alien concepts. 

Modern dating essentially means making totally unpredictable plans with people that you do not even know, let alone like. Moving on means actively downgrading the memory of the best moments of your life, and pretending that dating is more fun and will be better than these moments that were, categorically, the best of your whole life. Neither item is intuitive. It doesn’t matter. You must do this even if you don’t want to go anywhere or see anyone. You must just pretend to be interested in moving on until some currently undefined point in the future at which something happens (e.g. all the cells in your body are replaced with new cells) and you no longer care any more about the past.

Not caring about the past is key, and a challenge that I have never (in any aspect of my life) overcome. This would be a great time to cue my coming out story, but I’ll just save it for another time.