#very noticeable and it bugs me a lot. but to be fair that’s bc i’ve of course spent like 12 hours staring at this image

[goldensunset]

ILY KIT

this resentment’s tainted me,

dearly beloved of mine 💔

[miradors]

pretty girl

Pairing: Jake Kiszka x Reader

Word Count: 3,789

Warnings: bottom!jake, feminization/forcefem, crossdressing, rimming, fingering [m.], pegging, pet names, dirty talk, use of the word pussy (directed at m.)

A/N: please make sure you read the warnings, as this fic will probably not be for most people! also this is the first time i’ve ever written anything like this so pls be gentle with me but i hope u guys enjoy bc this was a labor of love <3

crossposted to ao3

Your bedroom door creaks open as Jake steps back into the room, carrying the bottle of chardonnay you had started at dinner, and two plastic solo cups stacked together in his other hand. He hands you one before filling your cup and resuming his spot on the bed.

“Nice cups,” you giggle. “Very classy.”

Jake playfully elbows your ribcage and grins. “Hey, I only have two hands,” he flashes a smile, pouring some into his own cup, only spilling a little bit. “Unless you want to deal with broken wine glasses.”

“Okay, fair enough. That just means less dishes for me to do,” you smirk, taking a sip.

You put your arm around Jake’s shoulders, inviting him to lie back against the headboard. He turns slightly into your warm embrace and rests his head on your chest. “Did you decide on a movie?”

“Yeah, what do you think of this one?” You ask, gesturing toward the movie preview you had pulled up on the television.

You watch his gentle, deep brown eyes flit back and forth over the words on the screen, and then back up to meet your gaze.

“Sounds like it’ll be good,” Jake nods, turning his attention back to the screen.

“Okay, good. I’ve been wanting to watch this with you for a while now,” you say, running a hand through his silky hair and gently scratching his scalp, before grabbing the remote beside you and pressing play on the film.

You feel a shiver run through his body as he nudges closer to you, sliding an arm underneath your sweatshirt and resting it across your stomach. He absentmindedly glides his fingertips over your skin, smiling when you tell him that it tickles.

Jake brings his hand out from under your shirt while the movie’s opening credits conclude, now absentmindedly toying with the hem of your sweatshirt.

You love it when he’s soft and vulnerable with you like this; leaving sweet little touches while he traces the details of your body or playing with your hair while he’s nestled into your side. Of course you love when the roles are reversed, as they usually are, but there’s something incredibly special about getting to see Jake’s gentler, submissive side that you love so much. He deserves to be taken care of and made to feel as pretty and special as he makes you feel.

He pulls your shirt up ever-so-slightly, just enough to reveal your underwear. He innocently dips his fingertips underneath the lace and begins playing with the fabric, lifting his head up to take a look when he realizes he doesn’t recognize the texture.

“Are these new? They’re pretty,” he looks up at you with his doe eyes.

You stroke the side of his face. “Yeah, they’re new. You like them?”

Jake lightly bites his lip - not enough for you to tease him for it, but enough for you to notice. “I really like them..” he trails off, sounding like he has more to say, but he stays quiet.

You sit up slightly, sensing his urge to get something off his chest. “What’s wrong, bug?” you ask, furrowing your brows.

“Um..” he sighs. “Nothing. Let’s watch the movie, we’re missing important parts,” Jake says bluntly, refusing to meet your eyes while trying to distract you, regretting ever bringing anything up.

You feel around for the remote, pressing pause on the movie and sitting up the rest of the way. “Jakey, you’re scaring me,” you pout. “What’s wrong?”

Jake sighs and sits all the way up against the headboard, still not making eye contact with you. “I just..” he sighs again, knowing there’s no way out of this conversation. “There’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately but it’s really embarrassing for me to admit, and I’ve been too scared to ask you,” he stares at his lap, picking at lint that isn’t there.

“Jakey,” you say softly, extending a hand and caressing his cheek. “If it’s something that you want, there’s no reason to be embarrassed about it.”

He meets your gaze before quickly looking away again. “I’m just scared that you’ll think it’s weird, or it’ll make you think less of me or something.”

“Honey, have I ever asked you anything that made you think any less of me?” you try.

“No..”

“Exactly,” you state plainly, moving your fingers from his face and taking one of his hands in yours. “So why would I think less of you? If there’s something that you want to try, I would be more than happy to do it with you. Just tell me what you need, baby.”

Looking everywhere but your eyes, he takes a deep breath to center himself. “Can I try on some of your lingerie?” he asks in the smallest voice possible. “I just.. I think I would really like it.”

Your stomach flutters, imagining Jake wearing one of your matching lacy lingerie sets. You try to speak but all you manage to get out is “Fuck, Jake…”

“It’s okay if you don’t want me to,” he turns his face away as a reddish glow spreads across his face. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Do you have any idea how fucking hot what you just said to me was?” You place your hand on his cheek and turn his head back to face you. “Jake.. of course you can. Will you? Please?”

“Are you sure?” he asks, not completely sure if you’re being serious.

“I’ve never been more serious about anything else, ever.”

“Okay,” Jake nods slightly. “Would you be upset if I asked you to wait outside while I change? I’m nervous..”

“Not at all, baby,” you assure him. “Come out and get me when you’re ready.”

Holding his face lightly with both hands, you trace your thumbs over his cheekbones before planting a gentle kiss on his lips. You climb out of the bed and make your way to the door, closing it behind you as you make your exit and wait for his cue.

The anticipation builds as you stand outside your bedroom door, waiting for him to finish searching through your drawer for the perfect set of lingerie. Your heart races as you hear the drawer close, and then the soft click of the door opening.

There he is; your gorgeous Jake, wearing a black lace bralette and a micro-skirt, just short enough to tease a sneak peek at a snug, black thong underneath. His hair is messy, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes sparkle with mischief. With a seemingly newfound sense of confidence, he opens the door wider and beckons you inside with a slight grin.

As you step into the bedroom, you're awestruck by the sight of him standing there, so beautiful and alluring in your lingerie. You circle slowly around him, taking in every inch of his body, admiring the way the skirt hugs his hips. He's even more stunning than you could have ever imagined he would be. You reach out to gently caress his chest through the lace of his bra, pinching a nipple that's already hard and aching for your touch.

He lets out a shiver, his eyes closing briefly as you caress him. "You like it?" he asks, his voice a whisper.

"You’re so beautiful," you reply, tracing the delicate lace of his bra with your fingertips, feeling a sudden wave of confidence crash over you as you meet his eyes. "Such a pretty girl."

He lets out a soft moan, and you can feel a shiver run through his body beneath your touch. "Fuck," he whispers, gazing up at you with a mixture of desire and vulnerability in his eyes. “Say that again, baby, please.”

“Yeah? You like when I tell you what a gorgeous girl you are?” You tease, admiring the way the lace of his bra hugs his chest. “My fucking girl.”

Jake lets out a loud moan and you can't help but feel a surge of possessiveness as you continue to trace your hands over his body, running your fingers over his strong shoulders, the smooth skin of his arms, his delicate waist, and finally reaching around and firmly cupping the rounded curve of his ass in your hands. He arches into your touch, letting out a soft groan that vibrates through your core.

"Jake..." you breathe, feeling the familiar heat rising in your chest. "You’re so fucking gorgeous.. I’m gonna make you feel so good, babygirl."

He looks up at you, his eyes darkening with desire, and then slowly leans in, pressing his lips against yours in a passionate kiss. His tongue darts out, seeking entry into your mouth, and you eagerly open up to him, letting him explore every inch of your tongue, every corner of your mouth. As your bodies melt together, you can feel the hard length of his cock pressing against your thigh, heightening the desire coursing through you.

Jake breaks the kiss, gasping softly, and looks at you with a mixture of love and lust. His hands roam over your body, across your chest, teasing your nipples through your shirt. He suddenly stops and pulls away from you with a mischievous grin spread across his face.

"I also found a little something else when I was digging through your drawer,” he trails off, turning toward the bed and bending over, his perfect ass on full display as he reaches for something under his pillow. Your palms start to tingle, wondering what he could have found as he smugly turns back to face you, dangling a modest-sized dildo and a matching harness in front of your face. “You never told me you had this,” he says plainly, raising his brows and flashing a sultry smile. “You’re gonna fuck me, right here, right now.”

His words send a shockwave through you, and you can feel your heart race with desire. You look deep into his eyes, nodding, and without warning, you spin him back around and lightly push him forward until he’s on his forearms and knees on the bed. He peers over his shoulder, watching you intently as you kneel between his legs, his eyes never leaving your face as you look down and take in the sight of him yet again.

“You want to get all dressed up like a girl? Then you’re gonna get fucked like one,” you say firmly, playing into it, fighting off a smile, as you’ve long-awaited this day.

You know he’s hard and ready for you, and it's all you can do not to reach around his slender body and stroke his cock right now. But you want this to be special, you want him to feel everything before he takes your cock.

With a slow and deliberate hand, you guide his body down even further; his chest against the mattress, his face pressed into his pillow. The position makes his ass stick out enticingly, and you can't help but let out a soft moan of appreciation as you run your hands over the back of his thighs.

You move closer, taking in the sight of his exposed, smooth skin and the way his ass cheeks are spread just enough to reveal his tight entrance underneath the skimpy micro-skirt and black thong. Your fingers dance over his skin, tracing gentle circles around his hole. He lets out a needy groan, thrusting his hips backward in response.

Unable to wait any longer, you lean in and kiss his ass cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin against your lips. Then, you flip his skirt up and gently nip at the string of his thong before pulling it aside, revealing his tight, pink hole. You breathe in sharply at the sight, feeling a surge of power course through you as you gaze upon his beautiful ass. Your tongue darts out, tracing circles around the puckered flesh, teasing and tormenting him.

“Oh fuck," Jake moans, arching his back into your touch.

With renewed eagerness, you begin to lick and suck on his hole, relishing the salty taste and the musky scent that fills your nose. Your hands grip his hips, guiding his movements as he begins to thrust his hips back towards you, meeting your tongue with each thrust. The sounds of his moans and gasps fill the air, drowning out any other noise.

Jake's body trembles beneath your lips, his muscles tensing and relaxing in time with your movements. His fingers clench into fists in the sheets, digging in as he struggles to maintain control. The way he arches his back as he pants and moans only serves to fuel your desire, making you want to please him even more.

“Fuck, baby,” he whines. “Eat my fucking pussy.”

You pull your head back before harshly spitting on his hole. “Yeah? You want me to eat you out like the pretty girl you are?”

You push your tongue deeper, not bothering to wait for his reply, feeling the hot, slick flesh of his entrance grip you tightly. You can feel the tremors running through his body as he fights for control, and it only makes you want to push him further, to make him lose himself in this moment.

Your hand moves down to cup his balls, giving them a squeeze as you begin to thrust your tongue in and out of his hole. His moans grow louder, more desperate, and you can feel the tension building within him. His muscles twitch beneath your lips as he clenches around your tongue, his hips bucking wildly. His ass feels impossibly tight, and you can't help but marvel at how perfectly he's made for this. You increase the pace, fucking him with your tongue.

The taste of him, the scent of him, it's all so intoxicating. You're lost in the sensation of having him pinned beneath you, his ass in your face. You feel so powerful, so in control, but at the same time, you're so acutely aware of how much he's in control of you.

You pull away from him, reluctantly removing your tongue from his ass, and watch as he gasps for air, his breath heavy as his chest heaves up and down. His eyes meet yours as he glances over his shoulder with heavy eyes, and he’s wearing a mix of desire and anticipation on his face. He blindly feels around for the strap, reaching over his shoulder to hand it to you after he locates it.

“Fuck me already, baby, please,” Jake whines, his voice raw with desire. “I need it so bad.”

"Jakey, are you sure this is okay?" you ask delicately, your voice barely above a whisper.

Jake nods, his eyes never leaving yours. "I need you inside me."

With a shaky breath, you lean back on the balls of your feet, guiding your legs off the bed and placing your feet on the floor. You stand and take a small step towards Jake, pressing a gentle kiss to his temple before stepping into the harness, getting used to the weight of the toy. You take your time adjusting it, making sure it fits snugly but comfortably, and then you turn back around to face Jake, taking in his beauty once more as he eagerly waits for you. A shiver of anticipation runs down your spine as you approach him.

You guide Jake’s body so his ass faces you as you stand at the edge of the bed, both of your feet still planted on the ground. You gently cup one of his hips with your hand, his skin warm and smooth beneath your fingers. You can't help but marvel at the trust he's placed in you, letting you take control like this. It makes your heart swell with love and desire.

"I'm gonna make you feel so good," you whisper, your voice hoarse with need. You dip your head down, allowing a strand of spit to fall from your lips onto his pretty pink hole.

You stand back up, your fingers guiding the strap toward Jake's entrance. The head of the toy nudges against his opening, and you feel a tremor run through his body at the thought of what’s to come. You push gently, slowly sliding the toy inside him, inch by slow, exquisite inch.

You pause, letting Jake adjust to the feeling of being filled, before beginning to push into him deeper, feeling the smooth surface of the toy slide past his inner walls. His breath hitches as his back arches, his hips moving back involuntarily, meeting yours.

"Oh fuck, you’re so big," he gasps, arching his back even further as you sink the toy to the hilt. "Please fuck me.”

You begin to thrust gently at his command, your hips moving in a slow, steady rhythm that matches the movement of Jake's body beneath yours.

"That's it, baby," you murmur, your voice raspy with desire. "You're such a beautiful girl." You pause for a moment, leaning forward to kiss Jake's shoulder. "You’re so nice and tight for me."

Jake lets out a shuddering breath, his body tensing as you begin to thrust harder. He whimpers, arching into you with every stroke. “Yeah? You gonna fill me up and make me cum?”

You push deeper, answering with a growl, "That's the plan, princess."

As you begin to thrust deeper, Jake's micro-skirt flutters and billows around his hips, moving with your thrusts. It's the most erotic sight you've ever seen, and it only serves to heighten the sensation between your legs. You can't help but pick up the pace, your hips moving faster, your breath coming in ragged gasps.

"Fuck, you’re so big," Jake moans, arching his back and dropping his head. "Tell me what a good girl I am." His words are punctuated by a high-pitched moan as you find his prostate, sending sparks of pleasure through his body.

You bite your lip as you whisper, "You're such a good girl for me.. taking me so well,” you reach forward and grab a fistful of his hair, pulling his body up so his back is flush with your chest.

You feel the muscles in his ass clench as you begin to thrust harder, faster. You groan into his ear, your hips moving with a force that you didn't know you possessed. His moans echo through the room, mingling with the sounds of skin slapping against skin filling the room.

Jake whines, arching his back further and attempting to steady himself as you pound into him. “Oh, baby, fuck my pussy,” he whimpers.

Your jaw hangs slack upon hearing his words, and it's all you can do not to cum just from that. The feel of his ass against your pelvis is overwhelming, and you can't help but moan into his neck as he cries out, the vibrations of his voice sending shockwaves through your body. His muscles tense and relax, his hips meeting yours with perfect rhythm.

"You look so pretty all filled up with my cock," you growl, losing yourself in the sight of his gorgeous body. Jake's movements become more urgent, his body arching further into yours. You fuck into him even harder, feeling the toy slide in and out of him with each powerful movement. “God, fucking take it, pretty girl," you groan, your hips moving in a furious rhythm.

Jake gasps, arching his back even further as his body trembles on the brink of release. "Oh fuck," he whispers, “I'm going to cum.”

Jake gasps, his head falling back against your shoulder as you continue to pound into him. His body convulses around the toy, his hole gripping it tightly as waves of pleasure wash over him. His breaths come in short, sharp bursts, and you can feel the tension building in his body, his muscles quivering with the effort of holding back his climax.

You lean in, your teeth grazing his earlobe as you whisper, "That's it, princess.. cum for me."

The warmth of your breath sends a shiver down his spine, and he obeys, his orgasm crashing over him like a tidal wave.With a cry that's almost a scream, Jake's body tenses, and he cums hard, his cock spilling white-hot pleasure all over his panties without even being touched. His inner walls spasm around the toy, milking your cock as his orgasm washes over him. You feel your own release building, your hips moving faster, your grip on his hair unyielding.

You slam into him one final time, your body tensing as you orgasm from the friction of the leather harness alone.

"Fuck," you moan, your hips still moving even as you come down from your high. "Oh, fuck, Jake." You slide your hands down his arms, sucking a dark red mark onto his neck. You rest your forehead against his shoulder as you attempt to ground yourself and steady your breathing.

Jake tilts his head back toward you, pursing his lips slightly to silently ask for a kiss. His chest rises and falls with each labored breath, his back still flush against your chest.You slide the toy out of him, your breath coming in ragged gasps as you both try to catch your breath.

Jake collapses forward onto the bed as you follow his lead. He reaches up to stroke your cheek, his fingers trembling slightly. "Baby, that was... you're incredible." His voice is barely above a whisper, but it echoes in your head like a thunderclap. He tilts his head further to look at you, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "I've wanted to do that for ages," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Thank you.”

You press your lips to his again, feeling the softness of his mouth against yours. His tongue dances against your lips before tangling with your tongue in a slow, sensual rhythm. You can taste the saltiness of the sweat from his skin on your tongue, and the sweetness of his breath mingling with your own. You feel so connected to him, so close in this moment.

As your lips part, you gaze into his eyes, searching for any hint of what he's feeling. He looks back at you with a mixture of wonder and contentment, and you can't help but smile. You run your fingers through his hair again, this time more gently, as if trying to memorize the feel of it against your skin.

You both lie there in silence for a moment, catching your breath, your bodies still intertwined. The room is quiet, save for the sound of your hearts beating in unison. You feel the warmth of his skin against your body. It's a comforting sensation, and you find yourself wanting to stay like this forever.

[kwonhoshi0]

𝟕 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐠𝐨𝐮, 𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐲𝐚, 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐤𝐢 | h.c

navigation | requests : open |

pairing : bakugou, midoriya, todoroki and denki x reader [ separate ]

genre : very suggestive, fluff

notes : got this idea while realising everyone i simp for in this damn anime is emotionally unavailable :] i think this says a lot about me

[ bakugou ]

> internally screaming

> so you were all doing spin the bottle for 7 minutes in heaven

> and it was his turn, he didn’t want to be there but kirishima told him you’d be there 😭

> and when the bottle landed on you, your body temperate went ^^^^

> kirishima and mina practically shoved you both inside the closet

> you wanted to kiss him but like this is blasty boy we’re talking about

> he will not show his emotions if he likes you and he probably won’t make the first move

> ‘why are you looking at me like that’

> ‘like what dumbass’

> you decided to be a brat so you said ‘like you want to kiss me’

> mans eyes widened, he looked like a bug

> ‘i-i uh, i mean’ and your confidence went ^^ and he saw that you so he decided to be a brat

> so he put his arms around your waist pulling you in

> ‘doesn’t seem like you don’t want me’

> and you crashed your lips on his pulling away for a second saying ‘if it wasn’t obvious enough i like you, a lot’

> ‘i like you too idiot’ he says blUShing

> and he kisses you again ‘you’re mine now’

> ‘don’t i get a choice blasty’

> ‘not at all princess’

> you were both getting a little heated letting out some quiet groans and moans

> his arms around your waist yours around his neck and one of his hands w a n d e r i n g

> so when mina and denki opened the door to that they s creEAMED

> ‘FINALLY’

> cue angry bakugou screaming

> ‘YOU COULDVE FUCKING WARNED US WHEN YOU WERE GOING TO OPEN THE DAMN DOOR’

> ‘that’s no fun bakubro’

> fair to say you both didn’t go back to the game 😳

[ midoriya ]

> it was his turn and to say he’s nervous is an understatement

> of course he hopes it lands on you bc if it landed on anyone else he’d be disappointed but like also he’d malfunction if it does

> anddd then it lands on you and he’s just O.o

> everyone knew about his crush on you except from you

> he’s not exactly subtle he goes so red everytime you try talk to him

> try because he doesn’t talk back most the time he just stutters

> so you’re a bit afraid that he’s uncomfortable with you so you’re like ‘uh midoriya we don’t have to i don’t want you to be uncomfortable’

> and he’s a little mad at himself for making you think that

> ‘no no i’m not uncomfortable!’

> with that you both walked in and they closed the doors

> s i l e n c e for a second before you both start babbling

> ‘i-i uh wanted to say’ ‘i was going to say’

> ‘oh sorry you go first’

> ‘i-i wanted to say that you could uh never make me uncomfortable’

> ‘close your eyes midoriya’

> ‘call me izuku’ he says with a FLusHED ass face before closing his eyes

> his breath hitches when he feels you getting closer to him

> you’re like a pinky nails length apart rn and he feels like he’s going to implode

> you knew he’d never make the first move

> so you put your hands on his jaw and press your lips to his

> he m e l t s, he doesn’t know where to put his hands so you place them on your hips or around your waist for him

> he gets more into it as you both kiss slowly letting himself move and not being so damn stiff

> you tug at his hair a little making him groan and flushing red again

> you didn’t realise how long you’d been kidding for because the door opens wide

> and thEY DIDNT EXPECT midoriya to come into any contact with you without squeaking or making it obvious to everyone outside the wardrobe

> cheering from everyone bc you finally made a move on eachother

> but also a very embarrassed deku </3

[ todoroki ]

> has no idea what 7 minutes in heaven is at first

> mina has to explain it and he’s just like ‘this is dumb’

> until he sees mina dragging you to sit down

> it was your turn to spin you said ‘if it’s mineta todoroki please turn me into an ice cube’

> which made him- giggle?? ANd you just went （♡ ��♡）

> mina just looked at you both and said ‘it’s so painfully obvious’ leading you to glare at her

> you got a little sidetracked and didn’t realise who it landed on

> when you saw it landed on todoroki you panicked

> mina was cheering like a lunatic

> you both got up and walked to the wardrobe

> as soon as the door closed you both looked at eachother a little red

> ‘y/n it’s okay if you’re uncomfortable with this we don’t have to even talk’

> you pouted at this looking at the ground ‘i love talking to you im not uncomfortable at all’

> you didn’t see him but he smiled as soon as you said that

> ‘i love talking to you too’ man was r ed

> you looked up at him and accidentally flicked between his eyes and lips blushing a little when he noticed

> ‘y/n’. you hummed

> he brought a finger up to your chin lifting your head up so you were now looking at eachother again

> your body temperature was r i s i n g

> you kinda knew he liked you from the past couple minutes

> he leaned down his hand now on your jaw and kissed you

> it was soft and seemed like that out of a disney movie

> you wrapped your arms around his neck pulling him in a little

> after a minute more of small kisses you felt a cold breeze

> pulling away for a second you realised the door was wide open and everyone started yELLING

> which made you both shy away a little

> ‘y/n do you want to uh get soba with me’

> boy basically told you he’s in love with you tbh

[ denki ]

> this mf i stg he’s probably the one who brought up the idea

> has a FAt crush on you and is shameless about it

> you knew but didn’t hes a little flirt so you just thought that he’s like that with everyone

> the bottle lands on you and hes just :D

> you both walk into the closet and you’re a little nervous

> ‘hey cutie’ you grin at his antics ‘hi denki’

> he gets really close to your face making your breath hitch ‘so uh if it wasn’t obvious enough i like you’ and you just go 0.0

> ‘wait really? i thought you just flirt with everyone’ making him chuckle a little

> ‘nope the difference is when i flirt with you i don’t make sex jokes i make dating jokes’

> ‘charmer aren’t you’ this flirty ass just puts both his arms around your waist pulling you so your hips are touching

> ‘wouldn’t you like to know sunshine’ he captures your lips with his own, surprisingly he was soft at first

> and then he got a little rougher biting your bottom lip tugging on it a little making butterflies form in your stomach

> you tug on his blonde locks making him groan

> his hand wandering along your body tracing down your arms and waist

> anD then the door swings open and he lets his head rest on your shoulder

> ‘DENKI I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO PUSSY OUT AT THE LAST MINUTE’

> ‘NOt COOL’

> yeah you didn’t go back to the game either :]

A/N :

i realised i’ve barely done any suggestive content on this acc so i wanted to try write some more <3

taglist : @blazedbakugou @todoroki-shoto-is-life

[robinrunsfiction]

an idea that's been bouncing around my head like the dvd screensaver: fun ghoul x reader, enemies to lovers. reader is taken in by party after she helps him and kobra against a drac ambush. Tension between her and fun bc he thinks shes into party or just him being him? She goes out on a run and doesn't come back for longer than usual-> they think she's dead, he starts wearing her choker she left behind. but surprise she's alive, just barely, and its just super fluffy at the end.

I Don't Believe In Luck

Pairing: Fun Ghoul x Female Reader

Rating: General

Word Count: ~1950

Requested By: Anon

Author's Note: I hope this is sufficiently fluffy for you anon. As always, (YKN) is your Killjoy name.

Fun Ghoul looked on with annoyance as (YKN) and Party laughed together across the diner. (YKN) was always hanging around Party ever since he brought her back to the diner a few weeks back and Fun couldn't stand it.

Party and Kobra had been on a regular supply run out to Zone 4 when the Trans Am started having problems, but while trying to fix it, the Venom Brothers were ambushed by a carload of Dracs. The way Kobra tells it, (YKN) arrived seemingly out of nowhere and picked off more than her share of Dracs and saved them from getting dusted. In exchange for saving their lives, Party made her a member of their gang since she wasn't running with any other crew. 

Fun knew that as the de facto leader of the Fabulous Killjoys, Party had the right to bring anyone into their fold, but it didn't change the fact that it bugged him. Having a girl changed the whole dynamic of the gang and he was pretty certain her presence was a distraction and someone could end up getting hurt. Or at the very least he knew she was distracting him.

(YKN) must have noticed him staring as she glanced over at him. He rolled his eyes and went outside despite the sun beating down, baking the hard, dry desert. He grumbled the whole way back to the shed behind the diner. It wasn’t fair. He couldn’t put his finger on what exactly, but something about it all just wasn't fair.

~

After a few more days of awkwardly ending conversations when the other would walk into the room, and going out of their way to avoid each other, to Fun's relief he heard her leaving on her bike. He sighed, now things were back to normal for a few hours.

But then (YKN) didn't come back. As the sun moved across the sky, a tension headache started building in the back of Fun's head and he hated it. He hated it almost as much as not knowing where (YKN) had gone to. It was nearly sunset when Fun couldn't take it any longer.

“Where has (YKN) been?” Fun asked when he found Party in the kitchen.

“I dunno, maybe she decided she didn't stay here anymore," Party replied pointedly.

"What does that mean?" Fun retorted.

"I thought you'd be glad she's gone," Party answered. "You never made her feel welcome."

Fun was stunned. “Why does it matter how I make her feel? She's your girl, don't you care where she is? She could get dusted and you wouldn’t even know where to find her mask to take back to the mailbox!”

“What the hell do you mean my girl? Me and (YKN) are just friends! We’ve never even hooked up, I’m not into her like that.”

“Really?” Fun's tone was much softer.

“Yea. Again, I don’t know why you're suddenly so worried about her, but she can hold her own. And if not, well… not much we can do now,” Party said as he pushed past Fun Ghoul.

Fun shook his head and went into the back room and started pacing. Something wasn't right, he could tell. He glanced over at her cot, that’s when he noticed something near her pillow. He rushed over and picked up her choker, the one he’d never seen her take off.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he ran his fingers along the necklace. He wrapped the cord around his neck, tying it securely. He couldn’t decide what to do; go look for her and hope she’s alive and just over being at the diner with them, or more specifically him and his shitty behavior, or if he should just accept that she was gone, either alive or dead.

Fun groaned as his headache started to worsen, laying down on his own cot to try to relieve the tension. He closed his eyes for a moment and by the time he opened them, sunlight was coming in the small window and the others were asleep in their cots. Except (YKN).

"I gotta find her," he muttered to himself before getting out of bed. He snatched the keys to the Trans Am from Party's coat pocket and set out.

He wasn’t sure where he was going because he didn’t know where she went. As his eyes searched the road from behind his aviators, he decided that there was no point sticking to the main roads, someone else would have found her by then and word would have gone out that she’d been dusted. He remembered overhearing her telling Kobra there was a road off Route Guano that she loved driving down and she had recommended he check it out some time.

He turned off the main drag and onto the side road, hoping it was the right one. As he drove he thought he spotted something reflecting the morning sunlight back at him. He floored it and quickly recognized her bike on its side in the dirt just off the side of the road. On the other side of the road was a white car that the Dracs always rode around in.

“Fuck,” he groaned as he pulled up and scrambled out. All around were the corpses of dead Dracs. Party was right, she could hold her own. He started to look around for (YKN), she had to be around there somewhere he reasoned. 

“(YKN)?!” He shouted, when he spotted running her laying in the sand under a small outcropping of rocks. His heart started hammering in his ears as soon as he spotted her. “Fuck, please be ok, please be ok."

“Fun?” She mumbled, raising her head, her voice barely above a hoarse whisper. "What the hell are you doing here?"

“I came to find you, are you hurt? What happened?” He asked quickly, looking her over.

“I got caught off guard and surrounded by Dracs. I held my own but that one got me while my back was turned,” she said pointing to the corpse on the ground in the distance. “He shot me in the leg, and I can’t walk on it, so I’ve been hiding out here, just kinda waiting to die.”

“You're not gonna die out here, I'm gonna bring you home," he said, helping her to sit up.

“What do you care? I thought you'd be glad I was gone."

"I'm not fucking heartless (YKN)," Fun replied, looking a little hurt.

(YKN)'s brows furrowed as she looked at Fun, his hands still on her, sitting closer to her than he ever had before. Then she spotted it. She reached up and ran her fingers along the necklace that hung around Fun's throat. "You found my lucky necklace."

"I don't believe in luck," he mumbled as he tried to hide the shiver her fingers grazing his skin gave him.

"Where was it?" She asked as he helped her to her feet.

"On your cot."

"Oh, must have fallen off."

"That's how I knew you hadn't intended to leave for good."

(YKN) tried not to smirk as he helped her to the Trans Am. "Party let you take the car out? That's surprising."

“I didn’t ask him. Not to be a snitch, but the other guys were gonna let you go.”

“Damn. I mean I told Party I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stick around, but…” she trailed off.

“But what?” Fun asked as he started the car.

“But that was because I didn’t think I was totally welcome at the diner.”

A pang of guilt ran through Fun and he winced. “Because of me.”

“Yea,” she said while looking out the window.

The ride was silent, but Fun Ghoul’s mind wasn’t. He got it now, he understood what it was about (YKN) that bugged him so much. He liked her, he liked her a lot, because she was a total badass, and so pretty and he had no chance in hell with her because Party met her before he did and who would ever pick him over Party?

They pulled up in front of the diner and before (YKN) could even get her door open, Fun was rushing to the passenger side to help her out. “Easy does it. Let’s get you inside and rehydrated and fed.”

(YKN) nodded as Fun slipped a tattooed arm around her waist as she wrapped the other over his shoulders.

“(YKN)? Fun?!” Jet asked in shock as the pair walked into the diner. 

“What the hell happened?” Kobra asked, jumping up to help get her in a booth.

“I was on a ride, but I got ambushed. Sound familiar?” (YKN) laughed lightly. “I was just waiting around to die when my hero here came and saved me.”

“(YKN)! I thought you left!” Party exclaimed as he walked back into the front of the diner just as Fun was bringing her a drink.

“Nope, just left for dead apparently,” she said, shooting him a look.

Party glanced from her to Fun. “Sorry, I thought you didn’t wanna be here.”

“Who would wanna give up being a Fabulous Killjoy?” she asked, glancing back at Fun.

He couldn’t be sure, but he felt like there was something to the look she gave him just then. More than just appreciation for getting her home. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

~

Later that day (YKN) was back on her cot, recovering and Frank was hovering outside the door. He wanted to go in and talk to her but he didn't have any reason to. Then an idea popped into his head.

"Hey (YKN), I meant to give you this back," he said, taking off her choker and holding it out to her.

(YKN) shook her head. "You said you don't believe in luck, but I think it was luck that helped you find me today. Keep it, find some more luck."

Fun hesitated for a moment. (YKN) had to know that you don't just exchange jewelry with anyone in the Zones, it was a significant gesture. He nodded and put the choker back on.

"It looks good on you," she said and when he looked up, she was smiling at him.

A smile tugged at his lip as well when he was struck with an idea. He pulled off one of the beaded bracelets around his wrist and offered it to her. "Only seems fair."

She looked from the bracelet to his face and back to the bracelet in his hand. She took it from him and her fingers lingering on his hand before slipping it on. "Thank you. For everything, especially coming to look for me. I never thought you of all people would."

"I could never leave you for dead," he said. "And sorry for being an asshole to you for so long. I…" he trailed off.

"You what?"

"I really like you. I was jealous and being an immature jerk about it."

(YKN) smiled. "I told you that necklace would bring you luck."

"Why?"

(YKN) sighed. "I like you too Fun. I was thinking about leaving not because you were an ass, that I can handle, but because someone I like being an ass to me, that hurt."

"I'm sorry," Fun apologized again and (YKN) couldn't stand the sight of him feeling so ashamed.

She reached back up and tugged on his hand, pulling him down to her level. "Try your luck again," she breathed, their faces inches apart.

It only took a second for Fun to close the small distance between them, kissing her hard. She smiled into the kiss as she ran her hands through his long hair. When they pulled back Fun rested his forehead against hers. "Ok, maybe I do believe in luck after all."

[mego42]

I 100% agree about wanting more fanfic lists! I honestly think it's the best way to get a variety. Everybody has personal preferences, if someone, who mostly reads long, fluffy au Brio fic, is making recs, they're not likely to mention short, angsty, canon Brio (which is understandable and fair!) so ideally someone else, who does like those, would also do recs. I'm pretty sure I've read or at least tried the vast majority of Brio fics, but the recs often make me re-read the fic and author.

YAAASSSS!!! I mean like, okay, I v much get why people have issues with rec lists, and I def do not by any stretch endorse the idea that recs/rec lists should be considered anything other than one person sharing a think they liked, but to me a lot of the issues (the same fics/authors getting recced, feeling like awesome fics/authors are going unrecognized) can be solved by more reccing, not less. everyone’s got different taste and different stuff they look/read for and I am extremely pro sharing that.

Idk, I think about it like this: in a previous internet life I was a YA book blogger and I lived and died by recs from other bloggers whose taste and preferences I knew. I mean, you know, I’d check out a book bc the premise sounded interesting but literally the first thing I would do was go to Goodreads and look for a handful of people who tended to like the same books I did and see what they were saying about it bc that was the best way to get a good idea of if I wanted to give it a shot. Or, on the flip side, there were some people whose reviews I followed bc I knew we v much did not read for the same things so if they hated a book for X, Y and Z reasons, I was probs going to like it (one thing about book blogging is if you want to keep current, you do not have a lot of time to mess around, snap judgements are key but that’s a whole other thing and idk if it’s even relevant anymore bc that landscape has changed so much). 

ANYWAY, the point is, I got in the habit and now I do the same thing with fic bc, tbh, I don’t have a ton of time to read, esp not when I’m actively writing which, with the exception of the last week or two, I’ve been doing p non-stop since I got here. All of which to say is, I am desperately in favor of fic recs for purely selfish reasons, I need them! Give them to me!!! Please!!!!!

That said, I uh, am v bad at returning the favor and I recognize that (I think I’ve made what? two rec lists for this fandom?) so I will try to do better to live by my own, idek what this is, moving on and here are 10 recs not really thematically linked by anything other than I’ve read them and loved them and don’t think I’ve put any of them on one of my rec lists yet (and if I have, my blog is a trainwreck I cannot be expected to remember what’s on it LET ME LIVE):

The Goodest Boy by EnsignDisaster

There’s a key turning in the lock and Buddy rushes over to greet his Master excited for her to meet his new friends. The door opens and he dances around Master’s feet rejoicing on the fact that she’s made it home. It's been literally forever.

“Hey Buddy what’s wrong? Need to go potty? Need to pee-pee?”

“Nah he’s good we took him out.”

Master does something very unMasterlike, she drops all the food she’d brought in on the ground and screams. It’s a non traditional avant garde type of hello…Buddy loves it. Mostly because while Master taps furiously on her small light box and sits tense in the corner opposite his new friend Buddy can lick up the egg smashed on the hardwood floor.

Buddy! The! Dog! POV! no further explanation necessary. Technically WIP, but it covers the whole pilot in a way that could be read as standalone (THOUGH THAT WOULD V MUCH GIVE ME A SAD though, when did the show forget the Bolands had a dog? so maybe that’s a tragic casualty of canon, idk)

May The Moon’s Silvery Beams by @pynkhues

Emma hums in agreement, and Rio turns her around to sit her on the counter, grabbing one of the older looking boxes of muesli while she kicks her legs out, heels bumping back against the counter, watching him. He gropes around the inside of the box, finally just opting to pull the plastic cereal bag out and peering inside. He can’t quite keep the grin off his face when he sees the wad of cash lining the bottom. This woman kills him, she really does.

Then there’s a little face peering up beside him, trying to peek into the box.

“What is it?” she asks, and he tilts the box sideways so she can see inside.

The upside to not getting here until s3 is that old fic is new to me! Huzzah!! Idk how many of y’all have already read this on but if you haven’t I highkey recommend. Extremely cute take on what if Emma woke up when Rio and came by to collect his/Beth’s/whoever's money during the shutdown. Cannot believe I’m reccing kidfic. Witchcraft!!!!!!

Maybe You’re My Fantasy by ohmisterjapan

He fucking loves the involuntary. It speaks to how he likes to unlock chaos and walk away. He's been called a control freak before and it felt like such a misunderstanding of him - he's all about self control but he doesn't want to control others. It's more that he enjoys revealing to them how little they can control themselves. It's more that he likes to stand still in the eye of someone else's storm and pick coldly through the wreckage.

Another oldie but a goodie. This fic is more like an extended character study (first chapter Rio POV, second chapter Beth) and I LIVE FOR THIS KIND OF SHIT. I really really really love the take on both characters, it really digs in and pulls out some nuances that made me sit and think about my own read of them and I love it.

A Shock Of Blue by mintletters16

“You don’t look very well. Would you… like me to get you a glass of water or something?”

Her voice is low but smooth, laced with a softness that cuts straight though to his core. Strawberry blonde locks fall gently just above the pair of magnets freezing him in place.

He can still feel the chaos tearing through his veins - emanating from the gold plated gun stuffed in his waistband - and suddenly he can’t be here anymore. Can’t meet this wide-eyed gaze that’s been locked on his for the past God-knows-how-long anymore.

Can’t see blue alive and concerned when he just left it cold and void somewhere in oblivion.

She’s looking at him like he’s on the brink of madness. He thinks maybe he is.

Apparently, it’s backlist rec day over here and I’m not sorry. This one is another technical WIP but the chapter works as a standalone (BUT if the author decided to return to it I WOULD NOT BE MAD). It’s a what if Beth and Rio met pre-canon and it works so!!! well!!!! The tension and fascination and build are all *chef’s kiss* plus the writing is gorgeous and lyrical and ugh, I love it.

for a moment we were strangers by openhearts

“We got stuff,” Rio motions with a nod to the backpack Beth hadn’t noticed when they arrived hanging on the back of one of the chairs at the island.

She swallows and turns back to the dishes, realizing Rio apparently means to sleep there , assuming the place isn’t bugged.  Or for some kind of cover story if it is.  She turns and fixes Rio with a narrow-eyed stare, studying his face, the corner of his jaw especially prominent from the angle she’s looking up at him.  He’s methodical about drying each dish and setting it back on the rack, maddeningly ignoring her hard stare, so when he goes to take the next plate from her hands she grips it tightly and gets his attention.

“Hey.”

“What you on about now?” he asks, irritated.

It gets her gut uneasy, how he’s just . . . there, settling in, in ways he never had before, no matter how nonchalantly he would let himself in through her locked doors.  

“This is,” Beth tries, failing, to find words for it, “. . . it’s weird .”

This one takes place post 204 and Rio and Marcus end up spending a long weekend staying with Beth and Emma for reasons (that work, for the record, I’m just not trying to summarize rn) and it’s domestic and cute but honestly my fav part of it is how weirded out Beth is by how easily they slip into sync. The story does an excellent job balancing where they are in canon (uneasy post-sex truce) with a snapshot of what they could be if they got over themselves (HA! as if) and Beth is DEEPLY FREAKED which makes her slow slide into realizing she could maybe sort of kind of oh shit like it/him??? that much more satisfying.

Not So Careful by @bensonstablers

When he doesn’t answer, her eyes go to his but he’s too busy watching the letter opener which is still pressed against the back of his hand. Curiously, Beth runs it up his arm, careful not to press too hard, and smiles a little as he shivers. Pulling her leg up onto the bed, she shuffles closer to him before pressing the tip of the sword to his chest and slowly circling his left nipple with it, being sure not to get too close.

“You ain’t gotta be that careful.”

And when she lifts her eyes to meet his, he’s got that look. The one that always makes a lump form in her throat and for her to fall back into bed with him without a single thought of what they have to do that day. Only thing is, this time they’ve got nothing to do for the rest of the weekend and well, staying in bed the entire time had seemed like an appealing idea so she allows herself to give in a little to that look.

It makes me EXTREMELY SAD that knifeplay ranked so low on the kink survey so I’m gonna need y’all to check out this V V V EXCELLENT example of it and come back and tell me you’re sorry and you voted wrong. I am v reasonable what are you talking about.

love (where it wasn’t supposed to be) by @lilliloves

"You know what I can't stand?" Rio asks, stepping closer. It's a rhetorical question but he pauses for a second and watches Dean sniff, watches a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead, watches him shift on both his feet as he contemplates making a run for it.

"A guy who don’t realize how good he's got it." Rio continues, looking Dean up and down in disgust. "A guy that will literally fuck up a good thing just to get his dick wet."

"Yeah, well I can't stand a guy who can have anyone he wants but chooses the married woman he's not entitled to.” Dean shoots back. "And I really can't stand the fact that you're always in the room with us even when you aren't there."

And who brings him into the room Dean hmmmmm????? Jk, jk (or am I). In this one Rio catches Dean out on the town with another woman (bc of course he is) and tries to call him out but whoops! gets called out himself. I really love the like, idk, undercurrent of wistful regret in this fic. I love Dean straight up calling Rio out on his feelings (spoilers but there’s an exchange right after this one that made me straight up holler), and, you know, obvs I am here for Rio making Dean feel like an ass. 

Hell Is Other People by makemanybraver

Rio: We're in Hell, Elizabeth! If you don't think you belong here, then repent! Don't fuck everyone in the room in hopes that you get to go out!

Beth: Why do I have to repent?!

Rio: Because you did some fucked up shit in your life, Elizabeth! You keep doing fucked up shit here, too! And you think you don't belong here!

Beth [screaming at the top of her lungs]: Because I don't!

This fic is existentially bonkers and I love it. It’s the kind of experimental format/homage/what have you kind of thing that I L O V E. Based on No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, Beth, Rio, and Fitzpatrick are stuck together in a room in hell for all eternity. What more do you need, honestly.

Working On Things by odenkirk

Unknown Hold up, Elizabeth. I'm really thinkin about you here.

Beth turned her face into the pillow, effectively suffocating herself for a moment, but thinking it was a good trade off for the way the cool silk of her pillowcase chilled her skin.

She lifted her head to glance at the still sleeping Dean before replying.

Beth I'm thinking about you too. But this can't happen.

She wanted him to know she wanted him, but she also thought that admitting she was already there would save Rio from trying to convince her. She wanted him, but morals had to win just once in a while.

YES this is technically Beth/Dean while also being Beth/Rio BUT it’s also sort of Rio/Dean and I am HERE FOR THE DIVERSITY OF SHIPPING leave me alone who asked you.

Five Times He Knew What She Was Thinking, and One Time He Didn't by JoeyLee

Aight, so tell ‘em I was hittin’ it. Said deliberately blunt, eyes locked on her face the whole time, just to see those blue eyes widen. She looked so shocked that he almost laughed, so he softened it teasingly just to keep her going. Oh, I’m sorry, sweetheart, tell ‘em we were makin’ love.

Then he just watched her, just watched her face, just fucking fascinated. Her lips were parted and her eyes were big as saucers, and…there it was. Before she could look away flustered, he watched the thought go through her mind. Him and her together.

He wondered what she was picturing or where. Them in the back seat, her bed, a motel?  Her on top or him from behind or his face between her legs?

Whatever it was, the blush started immediately, and he watched it bloom out from her cheeks to her hair. Then she was tearing her eyes away to gulp a little.  But it didn’t knock her down for long before she was looking back. And then, wait, was she actually asking him how to go about telling a fed they were fucking?

Okay this is another technical WIP but works as a standalone. I am absolutely fucking feral for character POV takes of canon scenes and this is a supremely excellent take on Rio POV of some notable scenes from the pilot through 204. Imo it brilliantly captures Rio’s voice and I love it a lot. 

HEADS UP I am absolute shite at tracking ao3 to tumblr unless people have specifically told me someone’s ao3/tumblr name SO if you recognize any of the non-tumblr authors on please lmk so I can tag them and YES I recognize that I am asking y’all to do things for me throughout this entire post and I’M SORRY OKAY I’M A WHOLE ASS MESS LOVE YOU BYE

[tirednotflirting]

you're the one to help me get to sleep // maybe i fell in love when you woke me up

oh boy that title looks a lot longer on tumblr than it did on ao3. anyway.

i got stressed out yesterday and finished some fluff bc that’s what we do here at tirednotflirting. forgot to post it here yesterday though so i am doing that Now post-first cup of coffee of the day and halfway through the french toast i made. 

random side not but i’ve been listening to my time capsule playlist on spotify and i highly rec checking yours out bc this is So Fun.

here is this on ao3 if you wanna read there.

The sun is just beginning to set over LA and Alex is in love.

The day had been long but good. One of those California summer days that stretched on long enough that it made him wonder if the sun would ever start heading toward its resting place below the horizon. Warm but not hot, the slight breeze allowing them to spend the afternoon writing outside instead of stuck up in the studio. 

He’s out on the balcony now, already changed into pajama pants since they decided they would stay in for the night, and a glass of wine dangles between his fingers in between sips. The city is somehow quiet from his spot above it though he can tell it must be loud from all the activity he can see on the street. It’s nice, Alex thinks, to find peace among the blaring white noise of Los Angeles. Today had been his last full day in the city, his flight back to the farm and his furry friends sometime in the early afternoon. He has his boarding pass loaded onto his phone and could easily wander back inside to find his phone and triple check the time so he could make note of when they need to be up in the morning but he’s not quite ready to start thinking about how he has to leave again yet. 

Jack would also just immediately kick him back out to his current spot if he tried heading inside right now anyway. Over coffee that morning Jack had declared he would be making dinner for Alex’s last night (It’s romantic, Al, and I only have one more night to romance the fuck out of you). At the time Alex had assumed it was the still half-asleep side of Jack speaking but when Alex arrived back at the apartment after spending part of the afternoon writing, he’d been handed the glass of wine currently resting in his hand and ushered to the balcony door by an apron-clad Jack. 

It was rare for Alex to feel this much peace on his last day of a trip to see Jack. Usually there was some element of sadness or anxiety over the impending time apart until more band things or another trip to either coast. But as he tips back the last of his wine and stares back out toward the last bits of light in the city sky, all Alex can feel is a fullness in his chest. 

He decides he’s going to want more wine with dinner and given the time, he figures Jack must be close to finishing things up. Alex pulls himself up and pushes the sliding door open to call out toward the kitchen. 

“Jack, babe, am I allowed into the kitchen for more wine?”

Jack’s head pokes out from the kitchen with a pout on his lips. “Five more minutes, Alex. You have to give a chef space to work.”

“Bring me the bottle then, please,” Alex says in his sweetest voice, his lashes fluttering. He can see Jack’s dramatic eye roll from where he leans against the door frame before he steps back into the kitchen, emerging a few seconds later with the bottle of white he had poured for Alex earlier.

“Here you go, you lush,” Jack says while passing over the bottle once he’s close enough. Before he has a chance to step away, Alex pulls at the front of his apron to briefly press their lips together. Jack drops a hand to the bottom of Alex’s back to hold him close, his fingers pressing into his skin through his t-shirt. 

“I like the apron. It’s cute.” Alex compliments as he smoothes out the wrinkles in the fabric.

Jack’s hand runs up and down Alex’s spine as he hums. It’s an action that mimics the way Jack had been waking him up most days, and a lazy smile pulls at Alex’s lips at the memory of the fond moment. “Thank you,” Jack muses. “I only wore it because I figured you would think that, so it’s nice to know I was right.”

Alex laughs. “You wore something just because you thought I might find it cute?”

“I like being told I’m a cute boy. Sue me,” Jack says, his hand wrapping more securely around Alex’s waist. “Now go back out. I’m just putting things into bowls, I’ll be out in a second, handsome.”

Alex feels himself blush as Jack leans forward to press his lips to Alex’s temple before spinning on his heel and heading back toward the kitchen. As he steps back outside, Alex can’t help but hope that they never leave this phase of their relationship. This not quite honeymoon but not quite settled phase, where they’re so damn comfortable being with each other (in a way Alex used to spend hours awake at night worrying they would never find the path to) but compliments like the one Jack’s just thrown his way still make him blush. It’s a nice spot to be in for now, he thinks.

He pulls the cork from the wine and gives himself another generous pour before leaving the bottle in the middle of the table they’re meant to be eating at. The sky is just fading into dusk, the city draped in a blanket of purples and blues when the light above him clicks on. Alex turns from his spot to find Jack sliding the door open mostly with his foot, two bowls somewhat precariously balanced in each of his hands. Alex jumps up and ignores Jack’s whines as he takes the bowls from him and wanders back to set them on the table while Jack jogs back through the apartment to return with plates and silverware and another wine glass.

“Alright so if this sucks, we’re blaming my mom because she basically walked me through the whole thing step by step,” Jack says once they’re back at the table while he pours wine into his own glass. “Also the caprese salad was her idea since I wasn’t feeling leafy but I feel like romantic dinner date is incomplete without salad.”

“You called your mom to have her walk you through a recipe?” Alex smiles as he lets his head drop to rest in the palm of his hand while he watches Jack spoon some kind of pasta onto the two plates.

“Listen, you know I’m helpless in a kitchen,” Jack says while pushing one of the plates in Alex’s direction. “And it’s your last night here and I wanted to do something nice for you, damn it.”

“That’s very cute,” Alex replies before taking another sip from his wine glass. “You’re very cute.”

“You already told me I was cute. You gotta get more creative with your adjectives, Mr Songwriter.”

Alex shakes his head in mock protest. “I said the apron was cute before, not you.” Jack scowls at him while gently kicking his ankle. “Hush, I knew what you meant.” A smile pulls at Alex’s lips when he notices how Jack leaves their feet all tangled up together under the table after the kick. It’s silly, he knows, to get all blushy over such a simple, nonchalant action but he can’t help it.

Jack points his fork across the table at Alex after taking a bite. “Also my mom said to call her when you get back. She wants to catch up and probably bug you again about when you’re going to propose.”

Alex laughs brightly. “Well my mom was asking that I get you to Facetime her when you’ve got some free time likely for the exact same conversation.” He gestures down to his plate with a nod. “This really does not suck, by the way.”

“Our mothers really ought to be more strategic in their approach on this,” Jack says while shaking his head. “I mean it’s completely impractical that we both propose. And thank you, I try.”

“I think they figure if they double the effort they have a greater chance of success or something.”

“Fair enough, I suppose.”

The banter back and forth over their meal continues well into the night. After a while, Alex insists on clearing the table and taking things inside. He quickly cleans the dishes before grabbing another bottle of wine from the fridge and clean glasses and heading back out. Jack has moved over to the couch he keeps out there and has a blanket pulled over his bare legs, the nighttime breeze dropping the temperature enough to call it a cool night. Alex fills their glasses and leaves the bottle on the table before wandering over to where Jack has decided to lounge. 

“For you, sir,” Alex announces while handing over one of the glasses. He takes a seat next Jack, scooting closer to his side to steal some of the blanket and drops his head to rest against Jack’s chest.

Jack hums his thanks as he takes a sip and wraps an arm around Alex’s shoulders. His fingers immediately move to play with the sleeve of his t-shirt as he sighs. “Is it selfish to ask you to cancel your flight and stay longer?” 

“Not selfish but also not really a possibility, my love,” Alex says while tilting his head up to press his lips to Jack’s jaw. “I’ve got animal friends to attend to and you’ve got that trip out to see Zack to pack for.”

“Mmm, yeah you’re right,” Jack says while swirling the wine in his glass. “The goats and Zack need cuddles too, I guess.”

“Exactly.” Alex sighs as he lifts his shoulder, asking Jack a silent question that he thankfully knows the answer to. Jack drops his hand to rest in his lap and Alex reaches over for it, his fingers slipping into the spaces between Jack’s and squeezing to press their palms together. He smiles lazily at the action. It’s the little things about time with Jack that stick in his brain when they’re apart. The weight of Jack’s hand in his own, the steady sound of his heartbeat below Alex’s ear, the tapping of Jack’s foot against the ground since even in the quiet, still moments Jack has to find a way to expel the extra energy he always seems to possess. It’s all so familiar and warm. Alex isn’t sure what life would be like without the small details that make up them.

He isn’t sure how long they sit there, sipping and resting against each other while staring out at the light polluted LA night sky. Long enough that Jack eventually lets out a yawn that breaks Alex out of the daze he’d fallen into, the gentle rising and falling of Jack’s chest beneath his head acting as a lullaby of sorts.

“Bedtime?” Alex asks with a gentle laugh. He lets their hands fall apart in favor of moving to cup Jack’s jaw. His thumb runs across the top of his cheek, just below his sleepy eyes. 

“Think so, yeah,” Jack slurs his words slightly as he leans into Alex’s touch. “Don’t you need to pack? We’ll probably need to head out at like eleven since your flight is at one.”

And of course Jack remembers what time his flight is at when Alex hasn’t bothered to check all night. He’s always taking care of him in the little ways. In the ways that Alex didn’t realize he needed taking care of, really. 

Alex moves to stand and smiles at Jack’s pout when he reaches to pull him up with him. “I can pack in the morning. Right now I just want to cuddle my boy.”

Jack grins at his words and rises without any more protest. They gather the glasses and shuffle back inside. Jack steals them away from Alex once they reach the stairs and gestures for him to head upstairs while he goes in the direction of the kitchen. Alex pouts at the action and leans against the railing to wait for Jack to round the corner again. 

Jack jumps a bit when he finds Alex in the same spot he left him. “And you thought I was a sleepy boy?” Jack laughs, something warm and soft behind his gaze. Jack takes a couple steps up, his hand reaching back to loosely link with Alex’s to guide them upstairs.

They get ready for bed quickly despite the half asleep state they both drifted into and soon enough Alex is crawling beneath wrinkled sheets. He’s just barely plugged his phone into the charger when a pair of arms pull him toward the center of the bed. 

“How are you always so warm?” Jack mumbles into the back of Alex’s hair as his arms wrap more fully around Alex’s middle. He turns in his arms and Jack settles against his chest. “Not that I’m complaining since it’s freezing in here. But still.”

Alex laughs as he tries to keep his eyes open while Jack nuzzles his cool nose against his collarbone. He reaches a hand up to thread into the hair at the back of Jack’s neck. “Somebody’s got to keep you warm.”

“I’m glad it’s you,” Jack mumbles almost incoherently. Alex waits for him to say more as he continues drawing short patterns through Jack’s hair but he only softly hums and nestles further against his chest.

Alex is moments away from falling falling falling to a peaceful rest when Jack’s hand settles against the bottom of his back beneath the sweatshirt he stole from his closet, the extra layer of Jack’s familiar scent providing some additional security on his last night in this bed. Alex feels Jack’s sleep steady breath puff against his neck and in his final moments of consciousness, all he can think is Jack Jack Jack. His gentle laugh and warm gaze fills Alex’s mind as he lets his eyes finally flutter shut.

And maybe that’s what love is, falling asleep already in a dream.

*

It’s pouring down rain in Maryland and Jack is in love. 

He’s only just woken up, his mind still cloudy from sleep and his eyes still locked shut. Jack isn’t sure what time it is but given that he’s rising naturally and not from an alarm or kisses being pressed against his cheeks, he assumes it must be pretty late into the morning hours. 

It’s his first morning on this visit out to the farm. His flight the previous night had gotten in before dinner so Alex had declared it date night (Is every night we’re together not date night, Alex? Romance mode 24/7, baby.) and insisted they stop at the store for ingredients before heading back to the house. Once they were at the farm, they tended to the animals (or Alex did while Jack sat on the floor and let the goats chew on his hoodie strings) before heading back inside where Jack sat at the counter and told Alex stories about his airport adventures while watching him cook. They had tried to start a movie after food but Jack kept falling asleep every few minutes with his head in Alex’s lap so it wasn’t long before he was being pulled in the direction of the bedroom.

He sighs as the last moments of sleep drift off and he settles back into the land of the living. He’s yet to open his eyes in case the sun is peeking in anywhere in the room since he knows he’s not yet awake enough for true daylight. Two thoughts enter his mind almost immediately though: it’s cold as hell and there’s coffee brewing in the kitchen. Both of these things are a result of a third thing that Jack notices and it’s that Alex has left him alone in bed.

Jack would get whiny about the third thing but he knows that given where they are it would be pretty selfish of him. Mornings at the farm are loaded with more responsibilities than mornings in LA, and Jack knows the animal friends deserve breakfast and Alex’s bright, sleepy smile just as much as he does. Plus, his boy did make him coffee. 

Jack takes a deep breath and catches the scent of dark roast mixed in with the scent of Alex (his cologne and the same laundry detergent he’s used since his mom would pack it for him on their early tours) before finally pushing himself up from the mattress and opening his eyes. The room is thankfully still dark since Alex left the curtains closed for him but he can hear the rain beating down against the windows even through the heavy fabric. Jack pouts then, suddenly worried about Alex having to wander around out in the January rain by himself. 

He finds a hoodie and the slippers his mom gifted him for Christmas a few weeks earlier on the floor beside the bed and pulls both on before shuffling from the bedroom. Jack immediately pulls at the sleeves to cover his hands and considers going back to the bedroom to steal a shirt to throw on underneath the hoodie but the coffee hits his nose again and he continues in the direction of the kitchen.

The only light on in the room is the one over the sink and because of the rain, the kitchen remains pretty dark despite the clock on the microwave reading that it’s a little bit past ten. Jack wanders through the room to the drying rack by the sink to get his mug (the one he found in some little thrift store somewhere in Texas with the painted butterflies) before turning back to the island. He fills the mug from the mostly full French press that must have been made pretty recently, Jack thinks, as he burns his tongue a little on his first sip. Fresh coffee means that Alex has already been out to the stalls for the morning so Jack turns then, having a good feeling about where Alex may have wandered off to, and lets his hip rest against the edge of the counter.

From where he stands leaning against the kitchen island, Jack can see Alex’s head poking out from the back of the couch out on the front porch. He’s got a blue beanie pulled over his head and Jack can see his hands cupped around a mug and he can see the steam rising against Alex’s face. He pulls his phone from his pocket to check the temperature and rolls his eyes at the number shown on the screen but it doesn’t stop him from lifting his own mug to head in the direction of the front door.

Alex looks over in his direction as Jack pushes the door closed behind him to join Alex out in the cold morning air. The rain had settled mostly and a thick fog blankets over the property, the trees at the end of the road and pasture just barely visible. A soft smile pulls at Alex’s lips as he pats the cushion beside him. Jack returns the grin as he takes in the crinkles beside his boy’s tired eyes. Sometimes Jack forgets they’re getting older but then notices a gray hair when he’s looking in the mirror while brushing his teeth or notices Alex’s laughter lines deepening ever so slightly and it reminds him just how long they’ve been on these wild adventures together.

He takes the spot beside Alex and pulls the blanket he’s got covering his lap over his own before letting his head drop to rest against Alex’s shoulder. Jack turns to press his cold nose against Alex’s neck and smiles when he hears a soft whine in response to the action.

“Why are we having our coffee outside when it’s nearly freezing out?” Jack mumbles against Alex’s skin. He feels a hand reach up to card through his bed head and smiles at the feeling.

“You’ve been in California too long,” Alex teases. “We would have been calling this a warm morning back in the day.”

“Jesus, are we really old enough for things to be back in the day now?”

“We’re definitely getting there, love.” Alex laughs before pausing to take a sip from his mug. “Anyway, I finished up feeding everybody and wanted to keep listening to the rain.”

Jack figures that’s a fair enough answer (at least coming from Alex) so they sit in silence for a little while. They sip from their respective mugs and Jack cuddles impossibly closer to Alex for warmth as he searches for patterns in the sound of the rain against the roof. Jack notices the shapes Alex has been drawing through his hair change suddenly and he sits up a bit to see his face and pouts at the expression he’s met with.

“What are you thinking so hard about, huh?” Jack asks as he reaches a hand up to rub away the lines across Alex’s forehead. “Is everything okay?”

“Do you want to move in together?” Alex asks in a somewhat rushed voice while his hands pull at the ends of his sleeves. “Like here? On the farm?”

Jack’s hand falls from Alex’s forehead to cup his cheek. “What?”

“I mean, you should probably keep the place in LA since we’re over there enough for work stuff. And I’ve just been thinking that this feels like a good place to settle down and,” he pauses to take a breath and looks up to meet Jack’s gaze. “And I don’t know if I’m moving too fast but I want to settle down with you.”

“Al, I’ve known you for like, half my life. We’re not exactly operating on a normal relationship timeline here. I’d love to move in,” Jack says into the space between them and he can’t help but lean forward to brush their lips together when Alex’s eyes widen. “Though you’re going to have to teach me how to actually be helpful around this place rather than just sit and look cute while petting the goats.”

“Having someone to sit and look cute with the goats is an essential part of farm maintenance, Jack. Don’t sell yourself short,” Alex says while reaching to cover the hand Jack still has against his cheek. “But don’t worry. We’ll teach you to be a proper farm boy. Get you some boots and everything.”

“I want a cowboy hat, too. But sounds perfect.” Jack says before leaning in to press their lips together again. Alex pulls him closer and Jack feels himself smile into the kiss. Alex’s warmth almost makes him forget about the cold winter air surrounding them and his mind is flooded with the thought of a future where everyday is spent with the eternal summer’s day that is Alex Gaskarth.

Alex pulls away first and a giggle leaves his lips as Jack whines at him. “Guess we should go ahead and actually get the day started then?”

“Has to happen eventually, I suppose.” Jack sighs as he sinks further into the couch. 

Alex laughs as he stands up, his hand reaching down to link their hands together. “Come on. We’ve got brunch with the mothers in an hour and now we’ve got good news to share with them. Moms love good news.”

Jack allows himself to be pulled up from the couch and in the direction of the front door. He leans against the wood once they’re back inside and pulls Alex into his hold while his arms move to hang over his shoulders. “We smell like farm and wet dog. And since we’re going to be sharing a home now, I think it only makes sense that we try to conserve resources. What do you think?”

Alex rolls his eyes and slides his hands up to rest against Jack’s chest. “Thank you for the invitation but I figured I would make up another pot of coffee for us while you go get ready?”

“What did I do to deserve you?”

“I keep asking myself the same thing.”

With a final press of his lips to Jack’s cheek, Alex heads off to make the promised coffee. Jack watches him head into the kitchen from where he stands in the front hall. He sees Alex leave the mugs on the island in favor of pulling his phone out to connect to the speaker next to the sink and a second later a song starts playing that immediately has him bouncing on his toes as he fills the kettle from the sink. Jack smiles as he leans against the frame into the dining room while he watches Alex dance around and softly sing while scooping new coffee grounds. He turns then and Jack is caught as Alex smiles and winks in his direction, a mouthed Go while pointing in the direction of the bedroom being his parting gift. 

Jack blows a kiss and starts making his way down the front hall to the stairs. He pauses for a moment at the table where Alex had left a mess of different holiday cards he’d received throughout the season. Bright colors and happy smiles meet Jack’s eyes as he spots friends and their families and pets. He sighs and continues down the hall after a moment, wondering if maybe they could get the goats to sit still long enough for a holiday card sometime next fall. It’s a swirling, dreamy thought, but he spends the rest of the morning stuck on the idea of seeing their smiling faces and well wishes mixed into their loved ones’ piles of cards.

And maybe that’s what love is, waking up to the beginning of another dream.

*

[lordxgrinnyxboy]

rewatching The Grinning Man once again,,2am edition,,just through Beauty and the Beast bc i had to give up and go to bed. @past me you really thought you were gonna. ha. haha. who ever said you’re not a funny clown.

‘ye gods’ is fully a tagphrase of barkilphedro’s. bc saying it at least twice makes it definitely a Thing.

josiana says Bark looks like a...~bug~...and ngl the cut of his coat + those limp antenna things on his hat do actually kinda create that effect. they really did make him look like a skittering creature

accidentally paused at such a moment where his head is angled just so and it’s so weird bc u can’t see the paint on his nose at this angle what

i could play barkilphedro. it would be a ghastly shame but i. no. i could though. no i couldn’t. but

everything bark says just sounds very...Like That.

gonna start doing eye makeup like bark’s

i have so many feelings about the fact that Mr. Maskell’s ensemble(?) character and Ms. Obianyo’s ensemble character stand beside each other for this scene

au where Gwyn’s mom lives and the two of them work as performers

no but fully that Green Cowl but also like. Ms. Obianyo’s entire outfit??? that is a Fantastic Look right There right There.

i like how Bark points at an audience member when he says “whose life is even worse than yours”

okay so the mist that comes up when Bark first says “laughter is the best medicine” plus the way Ms. Obianyo’s ensemble character Looks At Him plus the way Ms. Obianyo’s Ensemble Character and Mr. Maskell’s Ensemble Character stand next to each other plus the fact that this is all Barkilphedro telling the story of events he perpetrated and whatnot just generally the whole look of the bit gives me Feelings like these particular two ensemble characters are almost sort of the ghosts of Gwyn’s mom and kinda sorta who Gwyn could’ve been but also not but also Kinda

i’m just so very emotional and love seeing these two together they look amazing and i love them DX

Josiana’s Introduction/Portrait dress looks fantastic and im mad she doesn’t get to keep it

London!Jojo’s costume is better

genuinely still can’t believe Clarence is Ursus

but it’s kinda ironic tho since it’s by Clarence’s orders that Bark was ever in the situation where ‘hmm guess i havvvve to mutilate this kid’s face lol, that’s too bad” was a thought htat occurred to him so i mean both of Ursus’ characters had a hand in what happened

clarence is like “look at my unhappy children/what a tonic for my pain” ursus is like “...” and dea’s like “look at your unhappy children father i dare u”

the lords on palace hill are a gift

Ms. Brisson is just a truly adorable individual i love her ensemble character

also the material on the sort of dress/aprons the Lords wear? the print kind of looks like a map to me but idk if that’s what it is?

Osric’s “Welcome to the Stokes-Croft Faire” is like. one of the top 10 most iconic moments of the show for me negl. maybe even top 5. It’s got this particular energy i can’t describe but it’s So Good

i feel like in this scene like the top half of Mr. Maskell’s face is painted white(er) which looks fabulous once the bandages + cowl are added like heavens above but also with the whole “ooooh that’s the ghost of pre-barkilphedro!Gwynplaine” angle it’s interesting w/how Jojo’s got that bit of white paint/powder as well and it looks like Dirry-Moir’s whole face is painted at least for this number like Ooooh Is That A Lord Thing idk but it’s a Vibe

i once again think it’s interesting that it’s the actors for Angelica and Jojo who are in the picture frame for “Chained Beasts Fighting” considering how Jojo and Angelica seem to for real not get along so well during the play’s events

i’ve another theory abt mr. hubert

bark’s really like all up on Mr Maskensemblecharacter for the “stab an old man with a needle” bit.

i’ve tried so hard to figure out what the heck that could mean but all i can find is “they’re probably referring to murdering ppl with hat pins” u-u

yo the artwork on the walls behind them Wowie

gosh i love Osric

the little dance thing they do after “I’ve got the misery” is something i yearn for like. pls.

idk if anyone gets more into that last Laughter is the Best Medicine choreo than mr. Dirry-Moir like. he is positively Aggressive with it

the drum or whatever makes that little repeating like, three-point, one-two-three over and over toward the peak of this song is like. i don’t know what i was about to say but I Like This Part Of The Song Even Though It Is Very Stressful And Intense

idk man gwyn just looks Really Good when ursus pulls back that curtain like idk if it’s the way he’s standing or the way he’s moving however slightly or what he’s doing with his hands but like. A+ Gwynlit you look fantastic right here

i like how initially he looks just at Ursus but then kind of looks directly into the camera. sort of fancy the notion that in order to get through shows Gwyn’s kind of particular about where he looks and will try to focus on Ursus and Dea as much as possible but otherwise kind of just tries to not really See the audience maybe or something

oh hey that’s Born Broken that’s music boxing hangon lemme go back what plays for

i don’t reckona- give me a minute - i don’t. recognize. there we go. the music box sound that  plays for gwyn

dea is So Pretty

“I shall put my money where my mouth is” dirry-moir that is a most unfortunate turn of phrase

ngl gwyn always looks like he’s having a good time doing up the Drama for his act as Clarence

shadow!gwyn’s hair is next level kinds of floofy magnificence

even his bandages look amazing

“Sonny” :}

no but when Gwyn walks little puppet!Gwyn up the ramp to the ship but Dea’s helping and so they wind up standing Very Close and there’s Height Difference i’m sorry but they are Adorable

i reall like the ocean effect they do

Dea’s cowl look is Exquisite

can’t actually remember for real for real but i’m fairly confident that Mr. Maskell’s “MOTHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER MOTHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER” was at least 67% of what initially forced me to fall in love with this show so Thank You Mr. Maskell For That

the cowl + bandages just looks so good i don’t know what to say. that’s a Look right there. the eye makeup? the hair? The Bandages and Cowl? I’m sorry who says this is not a handsome boy?

he looks amzing

puppet!gwyn constantly looks like he’s got one eyebrow raised thanks to how the eye area is carved

i want to know how Ursus thought he wasn’t going to wind up with a couple of the most dramatic chidlren on the earth like when did he think there was a chance they wouldn’t both turn out Dramatic

high note hazlit has arrived

i wish that in the Osric Raises Gwyn au there was some way for Osric to meet like Ghost!Hazlit or i don’t even know but. they need. to meet each other.

Osric’s got vibes and i don’t know what they are but they’re so powerful and they move me to intense affection

it’s Ridiculously Tall-looking Gwyn time. he goes to stand up straight and keeps on Extending

he really just keeps his eyes on the puppet at all times tho

“your little hat can find out what it means” i know he said ‘heart’ but he said ‘hat’ gwyn needs a hat send tweet

book gwyn got to have a hat

don’t worry gwynlit osric’s gonna take care of that in the au

dea’s so cute

so when Ursus says “for certain, it would be no man” is that like a heads-up that they changed the wolf’s name bc now it isn’t Homo anymore or

it’s 3am now and im only 20 minutes in help me dea

forearms

the “No” “Yes, yes” when Ursus first gives him the Crimson Lethe kills me every single time bro.

how long is this post do i need to shut up yet

i’ve babbled for longer before i think we’re good

And Ursus Gave The Boy A Name. A Cruel Name. A Name That Means “Wow That Debilitating Wound Carved Into Your Actual Face Must Hurt Pretty Bad Huh Kidlet”

arms

still mad about the fact that Ursus mentions “Melt into mist/no longer exist” and Barkilphedro uses those Exact Words

i always assume they’re talkin about going to Murca but i mean technically anywhere could be the ‘new world’ huh

forearm

see the one thing i

when he says “we’ll come back to the place where once we were lost in the snow” now im thinking about adult!lord!Gwyn revisiting like. the actual place. where it all Happened like. imagine adult!Gwyn going back to the gallows-site and just.

under angelica’s reign it’s probably converted into a memorial instead ofc and is no longer a gallows-site but still

puppet!Dea doesn’t wear shoes

when puppet!Dea first goes “Mojo?” puppet!Gwyn kinda reaches toward her for a sec like he’s Concerned

Dirry-Moir waving at Dea like he’s trying to figure if she really is blind smh

cowl gwyn is such a phenomenal look

GWYN DOES THE FOOT WIGGLE DURING THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST SCENE I JUST NOW NOTICED

HIS FOOT IS ACTUALLY FLAT ON THE GROUND SO INSTEAD OF IT BEING A LITTLE HEEL SHAKE IT’S MORE LIKE A LIL ANKLE TWISTY BUT. !!

puppet!Gwyn fiddles with his shirt/vest a lot

forearm

the lil motion with his head after the Kiss tho rlly does look suspicious like the “twinge (of unspeakable agony)” motion tho

love how Osric just runs along to go with to see the rest of the show like. he’s into it.

[welllpthisishappening]

Hello yes you should absolutely write out all of the headcanons and thoughts and feeling you have for 5a bc I don’t even know what they are but they sound great and I would definitely read those and stupidly emotional sounds amazing

Ok, ok, ok, so this turned into something. Which, really, you guys should probably expect at this point because I don’t know how to write short things. Also it’s about more than season five. And mostly about how often Emma loops her arm through Killian’s when they walk. It’s ridiculous, it happens constantly. The Google Doc title of this was: ARM HOLDING MEANS TRUE LOVE. So, you can imagine how this is going to go. 

Also on Ao3 because I have no self control at all. 

She spins around so quickly she nearly stabs him.

“Bloody fu–” Hook shakes his head, eyeing her with something that looks like barely contained fury and that’s fair.

Emma knows it is.

Because it’s been two days already and they’re not any closer to finding Henry or the Lost Boys and she’s fairly certain Peter Pan is actively trying to drive her insane, which, really should not surprise her at this point, but it may actually be working and–

“Can you put the blade down, love?”Emma hums, widening her eyes slightly and Hook nods at the cutlass in her hand. She’s not sure if that’s the right word.

She’s not sure of anything.

She has no idea how to read Pan’s stupid map.

“The blade,” Hook repeats. He leans to his left slightly, hooking his, well, hook around her wrist and tugging her arm back to her side. It’s forceful, but not in a way that feels like anything more than the distinct desire not to be stabbed.

It’s…no. Emma does not have time for that. She’s got–things, lots of things, incredibly important son-saving things and a variety of villains to deal with and the goddamn, fucking map to figure out and–

“Are you following me?” Emma asks, voice snapping in the otherwise silent jungle. She hadn’t noticed that at first.

Neverland, by its very nature, appears to be the loudest place in the known universe. There are bugs and more bugs and Emma can’t remember the last time she didn’t feel bone-weary, not able to close her eyes when she can hear the Lost Boys. It makes her heart twist and her stomach clench and reminds of things she never wants to remember.

It’s difficult to breathe in Neverland.

It’s difficult to breathe with her parents watching her every move and Regina wearing a pantsuit like that’s an appropriate son-saving outfit and Neal is dead and she’s got no idea where Rumplestilskin is and–

“Were you going to answer or just stare at me some more?”Hook’s lips twitch, and Emma isn’t sure if she should congratulate herself for that or not. She’s leaning towards not. Because her stomach is doing that thing again.

“To be fair, Swan, you make it rather easy.”

Her groan sounds impossibly loud. “Is deflection part of the pirate code or something?”“I wasn’t aware of a code.”“Really?”“Seems to fly in the face of most piratical tendencies, doesn’t it?”“I have not had enough sleep for any of those words,” Emma mumbles, drawing a quiet laugh out of Hook and for half a moment she’s really, truly, genuinely stunned. And so is he. Because, for half a moment, that sound is normal and, maybe a bit hopeful, and there are a ridiculous number of stars in Neverland.

They all seem to be reflecting off of them at that very moment.

She’s definitely gone insane.

She hopes Pan doesn’t realize that, like, immediately.

“That’s part of my reasoning, as a matter of fact,” Hook mutters, and he’s never actually moved away from her. The metal on her skin isn’t as cold anymore, but there are still goosebumps on her arm and Emma has to take a deep breath because she knows they have nothing to do with the metal at all.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping. It’s my turn for watch.”“And yet you’re out exploring.”“You make it sound like a game.”Hook shakes his head. “The opposite. Do you have any idea what you’re walking towards?”“It’s not like I’ve been to Neverland before.”

He licks his lips – frustration obvious and only slightly distracting. Emma is going to blame the stars and whatever his fingers do against the side of his coat, tapping out an impatient rhythm.

He’s not asleep either.

She doesn’t ask about that.

She doesn’t really have to.

“It’s dangerous,” Hook snaps, as if that’s enough an explanation.

Emma scowls. “So is everything in this hell hole. Tell me something I don’t know.”He doesn’t answer immediately and something in the back of Emma’s mind rises at that, questions and curiosities and there’s so much she doesn’t know about him. She isn’t sure she wants to know. She isn’t sure what she’ll do if she doesn’t know.

The muscles in Hook’s throat move when he swallows, another twist of his lips that makes it all too obvious how often Emma is staring at his lips, and, he finally, lets go of her wrist.

His fingers move to the hilt of his sword.

“There are places on this island with…nothing,” he starts. “No people, no beasts, no Lost Boys. Places that are–” Hook exhales, the force of it enough to make the ends of Emma’s hair ruffle slightly and she didn’t realize how close they were standing. “Just…empty.”“I don’t understand.”“And that’s the rub isn’t it? There’s not anything to understand.”“Should I make that joke about no sleep again?”Hook scoffs, the hint of a smile tugging at the ends of his mouth. Emma is having a difficult time keeping her eyes open. “No, that’s alright, love,” he says, softer than anything he’s said in…ever. Maybe. Definitely.

This may be a dream.

She hopes not.

“Have you,” Emma whispers, eyes moving anywhere except Hook’s face, “have you been to some of these places? Nowhereland?”“Clever title.”“Not an answer.”He makes a noise in the back of his throat, a sound that makes it all but impossible for Emma to pull her eyes up and the air in Neverland is always oppressive, humid and heavy, but now it feels as if it’s filling her lungs with cement. She pulls her lips behind her teeth.

“Once,” Hook answers. “A very long time ago.”“And I take it it didn’t end well?”“No, it did not. These places, they’re–it’s as if everything gets pulled out of you. Every thought, every belief, every ounce of…humanity left in you.”“Why?” Hook eyes her – a flash of something and Emma digs her boots into the ground. “It’s not as if either one of us is going to sleep any time soon.”“I think it’s Pan,” he says. His knuckles have gone white gripping his sword. “I think it’s the realm responding to Pan and every single whim that passes through the demon’s mind.”“You think the–what? The island is trying to pull goodness out of people? Why?”“Magic,” Hook replies simply. “Those are places with nothing left, love. The magic on this island has been withering for years. It’s like–a flame with only a bit of wax below it. Flickering and doing its best to hold on, but–”“–It’s only a matter of time,” Emma finishes, Hook nodding in agreement. “So Neverland is trying to make up for it by drawing people to…”“Nothing.”

She bit her lip at some point. There’s blood in her mouth. And every single one of her muscles feels like it’s stretched too tight and too thin, a discomfort that’s worse than exhaustion because this is more than exhaustion and Hook tilts his head when she looks at him.

“You didn’t have to follow me,” Emma says. Her voice cracks.

And Hook shakes his head again, strands of hair brushing dangerously close to his brows, which only makes her hold his gaze longer and the whole thing is as absurd as it isn’t because he’s goddamn Captain Hook and Neverland is trying to drain them all of their life force and she’s going to strangle Peter Pan as soon as she sees him.

“Didn’t I, though?”

Emma doesn’t answer. She’s not sure she can.

And that’s probably for the best because she’s not entirely prepared for Hook to shift on his feet, standing up a bit straighter with shoulders set and that same flash in his eyes, a glint of a memory and a moment and she doesn’t actually gasp when he offers her his arm.

She takes it, looping her own around the bend of his elbow and the leather is soft against her skin.

“We’re going to find him, Emma,” Hook says, quiet and certain. She nods. She believes him.

“What is he going to do? I’ve got magic, he’s got one hand!”

She hates herself as soon as the words come out of her mouth. Truth be told, she hated herself as soon as the words landed on the tip of her tongue and whatever part of her brain controlled motor skills, but Emma isn’t sure her heart has beat at a regular rhythm in the last seventy-two hours and the look on Hook’s face is–

“You know I’m good in a fight,” he counters, and she knows it’s a defense mechanism.

She knows.

She knows.

She knows he did the best he could, was trying to protect Henry and her and probably the entire goddamn town because he may actually not be the villain she needs him to be.

He’s not.

She knows that too.

“At the very least he can draw fire,” David reasons. Hook’s expression shifts again.

“Oh, now I’m cannon fodder?”

Emma’s going to scream. That seems kind of selfish, though, with Mary Margaret in labor and Zelena who knows where and she, somehow, is still dealing with Rumplestilskin.

There is not enough oxygen in this hospital for the amount of groaning she’d like to be doing.

David doesn’t blink when he looks at her.

And her groan sounds kind of pathetic, really.

“Fine,” she sighs, complete with an arm movement that is the height of melodrama. “He can come. “Hook glances at her, shoulders slumped and something that feels distinctly like defeat sitting across them. The light in the hospital hallway looks ridiculous glinting off the hilt of his sword.

That sentence isn’t as strange as it probably should be.

“Fine,” he nods, succinct and distinctly unemotional and there should not be any emotion there. Emma does not have time for emotion. She’s going to do this, save everyone because that’s her job, and then she’s packing up her stuff and taking her kid as far away from magic and danger and wicked witches as she possibly can.

She’s going back home. She thinks. She knows. She’s got no goddamn idea.

“Shall we?” Hook presses.

Emma barely looks at him when she answers, already moving towards Henry. “Hang on, give me a sec.”

She hugs her kid.

“You ready, Swan?”She hugs her kid tighter.

“Yeah,” Emma nods. “Let’s end this.”

It, well, it goes to shit from there. And, honestly, Emma isn’t even really sure how, which makes it that much worse. It’s half a moment and a splash of water and he’s already so cold when she pulls him back onto the ground, a pallor to his skin that makes the breath catch in her throat.

Emma doesn’t know what to do.

She can’t move her hands fast enough – memories of middle school health classes and a plastic dummy some kid she can’t remember the name of tried to kiss at one point and there’s something about chest compressions.

“There’s got to be water in his lungs,” she mumbles, half to herself and half to some greater power and she can feel the magic roaring in her ears.

It doesn’t help her. It’s too much and not enough, all at once, a rush of everything and nothing and–Let me guess, with you?

“Oh, fucking hell,” Emma says, blinking so the tears she can barely feel in the corner of her eyes don’t fall on her cheeks. She shakes him, desperation clawing its way to the surface and her fingers feel like they’re on fire.

“Hook, wake up! Killian! Killian, come back to me!”

And, well, there it is.

The truth and the feeling and the magic in her seems to simmer, a fire low in her belly and in between every single one of her ribs and he’s not breathing.

He’s got to come back.

He had come back.

She knows.

“Son of a bitch,” Emma hisses, and it doesn’t take long to decide. She’s not sure there really was much of a decision.

She presses her lips to his.

And it happens almost immediately, a tug and a pull and the emptiness she feels in every single one of her limbs is only a little jarring. There are tears on her cheek. She’s got no idea what she’s doing with her thumb, but Emma can’t stop touching him, still a hint desperate and a bit selfish and she wants far more than she’s willing to admit.

He coughs before he opens his eyes, water and air in equal measure, snapping his head back towards Emma in a way that can’t possibly be safe for someone who very nearly drowned.

Or did drown.

Emma doesn’t know the specifics.

“Swan,” he mumbles, and it’s probably wrong for several of her internal organs to react the way they do. His fingers drift towards his mouth, eyes widening and the terror that etches itself on his face is…she can’t breath. “Swan, what did you do? What did you do?”

She doesn’t answer.

He knows.

Emma swallows, standing up and offering Hoo–Kill–no, Hook, her hand. He takes it, palm still clammy and grip on the wrong side of shaky, but he doesn’t let go even when they start walking away from the farmhouse and neither one of them say anything when Emma twists her arm around his.

She can’t breathe.

Emma refuses to question whether or not that’s because of the corset in her dress or because she’s having a difficult time forming coherent sentences every time she looks to her left.

That jacket is–

“Just when I thought the clothes here couldn’t get any worse,” she grumbles, letting her eyes flit around the ballroom and there is actually a man standing there to take their invitations.

The whole thing is absurd.

And over the top.

And she wonders if it’d be weird to ask Rumplestilskin if they could bring that jacket home.

Or, well, Storybrooke.

Or, well, the present.

She’s going back to New York.

Yes. Right? Absolutely.

They’ve just got to get her parents to fall in love first.

Simple.

Emma has no memory of moving her arm, is only aware of its current state when her fingers start to tingle from being airborne for so long and she can hear the smile in his voice before she even looks up.

This jacket is causing problems.

“You might not be able to move Swan, but you cut quite a figure in that dress.”

She smiles. And the not-so-small flutter of emotion that lingers on every inch of her skin feels a bit like sparks and a hint like magic and both of those things are impossibilities.

Emma doesn’t have magic anymore.

She’s got a schedule to stick to – one that goddamn King Midas almost destroys, but she can’t find it in herself to be too frustrated because that is how she learns that Captain Hook may actually be the world’s worst liar in a variety of different realms and various timelines.

He stammers and stutters and his eyes widen in a way that almost makes him look innocent, which is absurd because he’s Captain Hook, but the jacket, God the fucking jacket, is messing with her head and her opinions on monarchies and it might me fun to play princess for a moment.

Just a moment.

It makes her heart sputter in her chest.

She has to glance down to make sure her left foot isn’t actually emitting flames.

Nothing.

Of course not.

Maybe playing is overrated. Maybe Emma is kind of bitter. She assumes it has something to do with the corset.

“Mary Margaret and David are always going on about this ball or that ball,” Emma whispers, leaning a bit closer because the music is loud and there are lots of people and she’s glad she’s not the worst liar in that room. It’s comforting while she’s lying. “What’s the big deal about these things?”

When she was ten she’d gone to a school that encouraged students to dress up on Halloween and Evelyn Sola had dressed up as a princess. No specific princess. Just a princess. Her mother had made the dress, far more intricate than anything bought in the costume store in the strip mall on the other side of town, with beading and bright colors and Emma still isn’t sure if she’s ever been more jealous than she was walking into that classroom on a Thursday morning.

She’s a walking contradiction and a liar and–her jaw drops. She’s fairly certain her knees wobble a bit too and it’s suddenly difficult to walk, but there’s still an arm wrapped around hers and he doesn’t let her fall.

She can still hear the smile.

“You were saying?”Emma never graduated high school so she would argue that’s why she can’t come up with anything witty to say – no quick comeback or slightly biting retort and it’s really probably the goddamn jacket and whatever his fingers keep doing when they happen to brush over her skin.

Her feet still aren’t on fire.

“What am I supposed to do?”“Blend in.”He doesn’t waver when he wraps his fingers around hers – no trace of lie or anything except the absolute certainty that the schedule can wait a moment and the moment can linger and it’s nice in a way that is far bigger than nice.

“Wait, are you saying you know how to do whatever this is?”“It’s called a waltz, Swan. There’s only one rule, pick a partner who knows what he’s doing.”Emma smiles, the closeness of him overwhelming and a little intoxicating and she hadn’t gotten drunk that Halloween – she’d been ten for god’s sake, but there were other Halloweens and other almosts and she can’t remember a single one of them feeling like this.

He starts moving.

She follows.

Or the other way around because the specifics don’t matter and the moments stretches out and Emma takes a deep breath as soon as Killian Jones calls her your highness and keeps his arm wrapped around her.

He flinches when she touches him.

It makes her blood run cold, which is not a pun Emma has time for when dealing with evil snow queens and memories she’s only recently remembered, but Killian’s jaw clenches and she swears her heart stops for a moment.

He doesn’t blink.

Every movement looks exaggerated and over the top, a twist of his hand or tilt of his head. He keeps clenching his jaw.

And Emma knows something is wrong.

“The important thing is, it works,” Killian says, a promise that rings hollow in the middle of Granny’s. “All they have to do is walk through it.”

“Then we should go.”“Brilliant. I, alas, bruised myself during the curse. Really need to get it seen to.”Something is wrong.

She knew it before the curse and during the curse and this is–

He’s already walking away from her. That doesn’t happen. Ever.

“Hey, Killian,” Emma says quickly, stepping back into his space and his eyes widen when her hand lands on his cheek. “What’s wrong? You are acting strange.”He tries to smile. It absolutely does not work.

“Nothing. I’m fine.”He kisses her wrong. Again. It’s too quick and too…nothing, no feeling or emotion and the Killian she–no, it’s far too early and there still far too many threats and something is wrong.

“See you around…love.”

Killian moves again, a step to his right, but it’s as if his hand hasn’t gotten the message and the grip he has on Emma’s forearm will probably leave a mark. His fingers shake with the effort of holding on, like he’s trying to grip something or make sure it doesn’t disappear and Emma resists the urge to touch him again.

He lets go with a flourish.

And, Emma realizes belatedly, it’s the first time he’s tried to hold onto her arm in weeks.

Rumplestilskin is gone.

Emma Swan is so goddamn happy she sometimes worries she’ll actually burst with the feel of it.

That may be her magic, honestly.

And it’s got nothing to do with Rumplestilskin. It’s got everything to do with the easy quiet and the sense of peace and she’s started using the phrase boyfriend out loud.

It makes him smile.

So she keeps doing it.

The muscles in her face are going to get stuck that way.

They go on dates. They don’t go on dates. They sit on the couch in her parent’s loft with her kid and movies in the background and it’s nice and normal and better than both of those words.

And she’s fairly positive the arm thing is, in fact, a Navy thing.

He told her about it a few days before – quiet admissions walking down Main Street because that’s a thing they do now, they take walks and they talk and they explain and admit and a whole slew of other verbs that aren’t nearly as bad as Emma always thought they had to be.

“Liam was a stubborn git sometimes, but he was–” Killian had said, taking a deep breath and his fingers still move every time he hooks his arm around hers. Like he’s tracing her skin or committing to memory. There’s probably a map joke to be made. “He got us that life. It was..respectable, honorable.”A gentleman.

Honestly, the muscles in her face don’t know what have hit them in the last few weeks.

“You ready to go, love?”Emma’s head snaps up to find Killian holding her jacket in his hand, standing in Regina’s foyer because they had Sunday dinner and it was only a little weird, but that might have just been her and Henry is staying there tonight.

She nods.

Killian beams.

“You want to walk?” she asks, sliding her arms into the offered jacket. “I can put my jacket on myself, you know.”He hums, a hint of teasing in the sound that really isn’t playing fair at all, but then his lips brush behind her ear and that’s even worse. Better. Definitely better. “A fact I’m all too aware of,” Killian promises. “Let’s walk.”They say their goodbyes, promises to see you soon as if they don’t see each other every day, and Emma isn’t surprised when he offers her his arm as soon as the front door closes behind them. It makes the magic flutter in her veins.

And it’s totally a Navy thing – a bit of the past and the present, the desperate desire to live up to something, still and always, and Emma isn’t even sure he realizes he keeps doing it, and–

“Did you leave a string of broken hearts in your wake, Lieutenant?” she asks, pulling herself closer to Killian’s side. He’s always impossibly warm.

“It’s insulting not to use a man’s proper rank, Swan.”She nods again, nose scrunched and lips twisted because those things never fail to make the tips of Killian’s ears turn red. “You’re still not very good at deflecting. I’m serious. I’d imagine all the young ladies in a variety of ports swooned quite a bit.”“I think this means you’re swooning.”“Deflecting.”Killian chuckles, a press of his lips to the top of her hair even as they walk towards Granny’s. “Not as such.”“I think you’re leaving out the most interesting parts of this story. Captain.”His eyes flash, turning on her suddenly enough that the breath rushes out of her and they’ve made it across town far quicker than she expected. She’s pressed up against a door far quicker than she expected as well, a quick roll of hips and teeth grazing on the side of her neck and that goddamn spot behind her ear, something about treasure and pirates and she’s never really been jealous, but she doesn’t want there to have been anyone else.

Not anymore.

Not–no, she’ll get there eventually.

In the meantime she’s more than willing to frustrate Granny and, possibly, break a few public indecency laws because her boyfriend is exceptionally good at kissing her.

“I like that better,” Killian mumbles against her mouth, fingers ghosting over her hip. There’s more kissing and more fingers, which is biologically impossible, but Emma’s magic feels as if it’s pouring out of her so maybe she’s just evolving right there, and she doesn’t hear him at first.

“What?”

“Stay?” he repeats, a question and a want and she must respond. She, at least, nods.

Her shirt is halfway off before they unlock his door.

And she falls asleep with an arm wrapped around her.

“Well, you don’t look like a crocodile.”

“Guess I lucked out.”She can’t possibly be expected to deal with his eyebrows. Not when it feels as if she’s been twisted and reformed, new and the same, good and bad, light and dark. But he’s standing there and smiling and she wants, wants, wants.

“He never did say it back did he?”

Emma ignores it, the voice in the back of her head and the desire that burns right in the middle of her. The need to take and control and she deserves it.

It’s her right. After everything, years and loneliness and never getting what she wanted, the world owes her. Several different realms owe her.

All of goddamn magic owes her.

The voice laughs.

“Here,” her mother says, brandishing the dagger in front of Emma and the voice disappears as soon as it arrives. “We think you should have this.”

Emma can taste the temptation on her tongue, sweet like…God, she doesn’t know. She can’t possibly know. She can’t keep a single thought in check, each one appearing and dissolving like fog on the water and smoke in the air and her fingers tingle at her side.

She wants.

She wants too much.

She wants Killian to take another step towards her.

“Of course,” the voice adds with a slightly different lilt, and Emma doesn’t dare take her eyes off the dagger, “you didn’t really give him a chance did you. Far too self-sacrificing for your own good. What’s a poor pirate to do?”Emma grits her teeth, swallowing back her retort. Whatever her parents are saying is nothing more than a buzz in her ears, a distraction and a pull and the magic is strong. Too strong.

Overwhelming.

She glances away from the dagger. Rumplestilskin doesn’t say anything. And she knows he wasn’t the one speaking.

There’s more than one.

“No,” Emma says, doing her best to make the word sound certain.

It’s not.

Rumplestilskin doesn’t blink.

And she gives the dagger to Regina.

She’s less certain about that.

There isn’t time to second-guess, though – there’s explanations and Granny’s and Killian’s arm finds hers as soon as they start walking because, apparently, they’re in Camelot now. With knights and the round table and goddamn King Arthur.

She tugs herself closer to his side, trying to cling to something she isn’t sure has a name, but may just be a feeling, the steady certainty of him and the quiet confidence and she wants, wants, wants.

And Emma knows something is off as soon as they set foot on the drawbridge, a shadow to it all that doesn’t ring true with the legend she knows, but there’s no time for that either.

There is a dance.

Apparently.

“We don’t have time to waste on a bloody dance,” Killian seethes, pulled away from the crowd with his hook resting on the small of Emma’s back.

“I’m not going to go dark in one night,” Emma argues. That want is back, growing and festering until she wonders if it’s worked its way into her bloodstream and her muscles and the tips of her fingers. He’s a good dancer.

He may get a new jacket.

“He didn’t say it back,” the voice calls. “Still. There’s been plenty of time, don’t you think?”Emma ignores it, tilting her head up to find a pinch between Killian’s eyebrows. There’s tension in his shoulders and a clench to his jaw, exhaustion lingering in the air around him.

“I’m not willing to take that chance,” he says.

He takes a step away from her.

The voice laughs. “Nothing.”

She hugs her kid. Tightly. As tightly as she can. And does her best to cling to some semblance of hope because, at this point, everything has felt a little hopeless and she’s not sure if her eyes will ever be prepared for normal sunlight and Killian keeps glancing at his shoes.

Henry squeezes her back.

He doesn’t say anything when she and Killian walk away, which is equal parts the worst thing that’s ever happened to her and some kind of rather large mercy.

Emma keeps her head up when she moves, half a step in front of Killian with her fucking heart in a bag and the elevator door rattles when he yanks it closed. She doesn’t really think about what she does next.

She turns, whether on instinct or want or true goddamn love, it doesn’t really matter. Her feet twist and her face turns towards his shoulder, arm wrapping around his until they’re practically occupying the same few inches of space and it still isn’t close enough.

Emma isn’t sure anything ever really would be.

And she knows it’s greedy and needy and several other buzzwords with decidedly negative connotations, but she can’t bring herself to care because it’s this and them and she’s not leaving without him.

She’s not.

He kisses the crown of her head without a word.

There’s no ambrosia. There’s true love and tests and the feel of him under her when she pushes him out of the flames, but there’s no ambrosia and Emma feels that last bit of hope flare out as soon as Killian’s fingers catch hers in the chamber.

“What?” she whispers, and it’s a stupid question because she knows that look and knows that answer and her vision is already starting to swim in front of her eyes.

“I’m not going up with you. I never was. We’re never going to find anything up there to save me.”

Emma argues. She steps forward only try and pull him back, move him into her space again, but he doesn’t shift, doesn’t flinch and–

“I’m afraid we don’t have that choice, love.”

There are words, promises and emotions and his hand on her cheek. It’s not enough. Still or always or whatever.

Fuck.

The elevator door creaks again when he pulls it down, and Emma can’t breathe, can’t think, is teetering on the edge of several metaphorical cliffs in the middle of the Underworld and Killian Jones has the audacity to even try and smile at her.

“I love you.”“I love you, too.”

His skin is cold when she kisses him, fingers wrapping around the back of his neck in a misplaced effort to keep him there and with her because she’s stubborn and desperate and the magic in her cries out to do something.

Anything.

There isn’t anything to do.

Maybe there never was.

Fuck. Again.

He has to press up on his toes to keep her hand in his, lips brushing over the back of her palm with a reverence that makes her tears fall faster. And his fingers grapple to hold onto her, but the elevator is moving and it all feels so final and so certain and the door presses into her stomach when Emma tries to keep touching him.

She can’t.

The magic lingers anyway, an electric current in her veins and her arteries and she never graduated high school, she doesn’t know how biology works, but her arm feels heavy at her side as the tears continue to fall down her cheeks.

He’s really the world’s worst liar.

“They’re thousands of leagues under the sea. No one will be able to find them, not even Poseidon himself.”Honestly.

The world’s worst liar.

Emma smiles anyway, hands on Killian’s chest and there’s a chill in the air that feels oddly appropriate. Regina was right; magic is frustratingly literal sometimes.

So, she does the only thing she can think of to be less frustrated. About everything. Prophecy and fate and Evil Queens and scissors that could change the course of everything. She barely even tugs on his shirt before Killian moves, ducking his head and letting Emma catch his lips with hers.

It’s not a rushed thing, no overwhelming emotions or metaphors about waves or anything like that. It’s easy and simple and home. It’s the exact opposite of everything else.

Probably something about a safe harbor.

Making jokes seems kind of tactless in the moment, though.

“Thank you,” Emma whispers. She doesn’t move her hands.

“There’s a storm coming.”“Seems like a perfect night for a fire and some hot buttered rum.”Killian’s expression doesn’t change much, but she’s gotten pretty good at this whole relationship thing and, well, life thing and he’s so bad at lying. It would be funny if he weren’t making sweeping statements about the weather.

And she wasn’t fated to die.

That sucked.

Honestly.

“Sounds like heaven,” Killian says, less of a lie than anything else he’s said. “Just need to check on the old girl. Secure the rigging.”

“Pizza or Chinese?”“Your heart’s desire, Swan. I promise, that’s all I want you to have.”He brushes his knuckles across her cheek before he kisses her, another soft press that leaves her stomach swooping and her heart beating irregularly and she’s never actually asked if he can feel her magic, but Emma’s got some fairly strong suspicions.

She knows he didn’t get rid of the shears.

And she understands why.

Perfectly.

Emma smiles again before she turns away, ignoring, for a moment, everything that’s wrong in favor of everything that’s right and the certainty that this is absolutely, positively, one of those things. In spades or something.

She needs to stop making jokes in her head.

She waits at the end of the docks, texting Henry to give the pizza guy the five bucks sitting on the kitchen table, and Killian blinks when he notices her.

“You want to walk me home?” Emma asks, a fairly pitiful attempt at coy. It might kind of be flirting though, and the smile on his face when he realizes that is enough.

Killian nods. “Aye, I do.”“Figured.”She twists her arm around his before he offers it.

Dying, Emma quickly realizes, has a way of starkly throwing everything into perspective.

And, she’s even quicker to realize, throwing her husband into full-on pirate protector mode.

The thought makes her smile.

Husband.

She’s got a husband.

A husband.

“You really shouldn’t be awake.”

Emma bites her lower lip, burrowing further against the small mountain of pillows behind her because she refuses to be held responsible for her reaction to Killian standing in the doorway.

Their doorway.

In their house.

That they share.

Together.

Because they’re married.

He’s her husband.

She feels a little drunk.

“I can’t possibly sleep twenty-four hours a day, babe,” she says, an old argument that he seems determined to prove wrong. Emma is certain, if Killian had his way, she would sleep for several weeks straight, and for the first few days after The Final Battle, she wouldn’t have questioned it.

Dying, it seems, is also a very good way to exhaust a person.

She’d felt drained, as if she’d been deflated or some other word a human being never should feel, but it had been difficult to stand and even more difficult to feel her magic and although Emma’s first few memories after that moment were hazy at best, she distinctly remembers Killian picking her up at some point.

And mumbling a tradition, love when he carried her through the doorway.

“I think you could definitely try,” Killian counters. The floorboards creak when he steps into the room, but he’s stopped refusing to sit on the edge of the bed now, so Emma figures that makes it a wash. “It’s not unreasonable.”“It’s ridiculous.”“It’s cautious. At best.”“Worst.”“Swan.”Emma shakes her head, and she does feel bad because, well, she died, but he died, like, three times and it’s certainly not a competition. So she keeps telling herself. She just–”Why are you in here? What time is it even?”“Almost four.”“Is Henry back from school yet?”“I believe he was helping your mother with some sort of event after the end of the day,” Killian says. “Archery or…”“Oh yeah, yeah, I think she texted me about that.” Killian’s eyebrows fly up his forehead so quickly Emma can’t help but laugh. “You’ll have to take away my communication devices if you’re going to actually put me in solitary, Captain.”He scowls, but there’s still a bit of worry and anxiety lingering around him. Emma can almost see it. She might actually be able to see it.

“What the…” she starts, reaching out towards the tip of his ear and the side of his neck and she knows she doesn’t imagine the way he shudders when the tips of her fingers brush his skin. “Did you feel that?”Killian nods. “Aye.”“Did you–have you always been able to feel that?”Silence. Emma tries not to be frustrated by that. She’s more frustrated with whatever that one pillow is doing to her spine anyway.

“Babe,” she prompts, and his lips quirk in response. “Have you always been able to feel my magic?”

“Not at first.”“But?”“But,” Killian echoes. “Uh…after Zelena. When it–when it was gone, it was a bit like being thrown off course.”“The nautical puns have got to stop.”He rolls his eyes, shifting closer to her until his forehead rests on hers. “I thought I felt it in the past, before you got it back. When–”“–Dancing,” Emma finishes, Killian pulling back to gape at her. The blush in her cheeks is almost pleasantly warm. “Is it a Navy thing? Honestly.”“Is what a Navy thing?”She rolls her whole head – which only serves to make Killian widen his eyes in reproach, but that was also kind of the goal and she’s missed flirting for the sake of flirting. They’re really good at flirting with each other. “It totally freaked me out the first time you did it,” Emma continues. “You were going on about magic holes in Neverland and nothing and you just…you offered me your arm and I–”“–Took it,” Killian finishes. “If memory serves.”“Yeah, I did.”He chuckles softly, ducking his head to kiss her and it’s not enough. It’s not ever, but now there’s time to try and get there. That’s nice.

That’s better than nice.

“We were always told to offer your lady your arm,” he says, low and intent. His eyebrows jump again when Emma’s magic practically roars. “The Royal Navy was very fond of propriety.”“Your lady, huh?”“Hmmm?”“Not all the ladies?”“Is that a note of jealousy I hear, Swan?”“Confirmation.”

Killian nods, lower lip jutted out slightly and that only makes it easier to nip at it. “Lady,” he says. “Singular. The Royal Navy frowned on flirting quite a bit.”“A shame when you’re so good at it.”“And that, my love, sounds a bit like a compliment.”Emma can’t help the smile that stretches across her face – the rush of warmth that runs from her head to her toes, moving into her fingertips and lingering in the spaces around her heart. She’s getting out this bed. Today.

“Might have been,” she shrugs, if only to make his eyes flash. It works. They’re very good at flirting. “I’m really not going back to sleep, you know.”“Figured as much.”“Then…”He kisses her before she can make any more veiled allusions to other things the Royal Navy would very likely disapprove of. The pillow stops bothering her when they knock it on the floor.

And it’s not that much later, only a few clothes back on, with the sheets twisted around them when Emma announces we’re going to Granny’s and she’s even less surprised that Killian tells her that was half the reason he came in the room in the first place.

“Your mother called,” he explains. “Said there was a plan and something about Friday night.”He’s already standing up, running his fingers through his hair in a way that probably isn’t supposed to be distracting. The magic in Emma’s center jumps.

It makes Killian grin.

“That’s not fair at all,” Emma grumbles, a lie they’re both only too aware of. She holds her hand out, willing herself not to react when he takes it, but that’s a losing battle and they only win those in this household.

This family.

They’re a family.

“Your highness,” Killian says with a smirk, and Henry gags when they steal kisses on the walk to Granny’s, arms twisted and the future laid out at their feet.

[lookwhatilost]

24

i. i must’ve passed out unintentionally at some point. im not happy abt it. I didn’t take my makeup off yet. my teeth aren’t brushed. I do this a lot and I worry abt how damaged they must be getting, jst bc I’m stupid and drink too much. I dnt think I drink that much, I mean maybe in general, but not last night. I had, what? the flights at area two, the spiked seltzer and Moscow mule at cityside, the two beers when I got back to the apartment—wait, no, that actually is kind of a lot. im not sure when I got so desensitized. I check the clock—2AM—so i actually haven’t been knocked out for as long as I thought. two hours, probably. it could be worse. the cat is still awake and still being credulous with me. he’s warming up to me again, but it’s a little disheartening to redo this dance with him each time I see him. remember me, dammit. i remember you. I dnt think I’m being entirely fair to him, though. he’s a cat. i can’t rly apply my human understanding of anything to his behavior. either way, he’s waiting outside the bathroom for me when I go in to attend to my teeth and makeup. he follows me. he falls asleep next to me. i feel a little bit validated. part of me thinks being the kind of person that animals like effortlessly is the mark of some inherent goodness, but I know it’s illogical and this took effort. i want to jst believe there’s goodness here, and in my absence of any real examples, I’ll assign depth to something like this. sometimes it’s all you can do.

ii. the sun doesn’t have any business being up at five-something, but it is, and I dnt think there are shades in this room. well, I’m not sure, maybe there are, but I didn’t have the foresight to look for them or close them. llewyn has moved, he’s in his actual bed now, but he seems to have taken notice of the fact that I’m awake. I try to rest my eyes a little bit. i know i won’t be able to sleep with the sun in my eyes, but it’s restful anyway. I have a long day ahead of me and i want to ease into the morning. i think i drifted back off but I can’t tell. llewyn has moved again. it seems like he wants to cuddle now. impeccable timing, as always. ive heard ian’s alarm go off a few times in the other room but they’ve still not come out of it. i have to leave soon. i wanna actually physically say goodbye but I’m worried they’re avoiding me. the last time we had a goodbye moment, i kissed them on the cheek and that probably made them rly uncomfortable. I’m not even sure why I did that. i think they’re the only person im comfortable showing any kind of affection towards but that doesn’t make that action any less weird. especially given... i dnt want to think abt that shit anymore, actually. i can’t without feeling ashamed and very, very stupid. it’s not like that anymore, but i wonder how much has to happen and how much time has to elapse for something like that to not actually matter anymore. i wonder if it ever won’t. it’s probably not personal. not everything that affects me is abt me, sheesh.

iii. the iced coffee at cumberland farms tastes the same as the iced coffee everywhere else, but i can’t get it here often, and it’s very inexpensive. it can’t help but occur to me that 24 ounces of coffee is 7 calories, and the calorie counts are printed on the packages of the food I got—250 for the sandwich, 150 for the hash browns. i marinade on the thought for a little bit before deciding what to do with it. I eat my food and drink the coffee and try not to remember. I do anyway. I’m trying to think of different numbers. this is a pretty substantial takeaway breakfast for $3 and change. better than what i probably could have got at mcdonalds. the sandwich is kind of soggy but it’s not bad. the hash browns are better.

iv. five hours in the car fly by my nose and im back home, kind of. i think I’m still trying to figure out what “home” means. this place is familiar. it’s where i live. my roommate’s dirty dishes from yesterday morning are still in the sink. mail that the cat knocked off the counter on my way out is still sitting on the floor. 24 hours have passed since I was last here, but it looks like nothing has been touched. I may as well have just stepped out for a cigarette.

v. very rarely does anything change in a days time, but when enough of them pass, everything is suddenly different. i slept on this couch more times than I could count before i was even on the lease, like I’d known I’d someday live here and wanted to warm myself up to it. and I’ve lived here for a while now, going on 8 months to be exact, but it simultaneously feels much longer than that, and as though it hasn’t actually been that long. a lot has happened in that time, but mainly to evan. ive witnessed many things that he’s done but have branched out very little myself. i transferred at my job abt a year ago but im still doing the same work I’ve been doing since i was 19. i still have the same friends but i see increasingly less of them. i get into the same car and travel the same roads that take me the same places. i still drink jst as much.

vi. my body has changed a lot, but the things I’ve always hated abt it are still there and the changes have jst given me more to resent. i look in the mirror when I get out of the shower and it’s all the same. the face with the perpetually stupid, bovine look plastered on it, the same masculine jaw, broad shoulders, breasts that are too far apart, more noticeably so since they’ve gotten smaller, the laparoscopy scar on my navel, the clusters of freckles that are jst pigmented enough to make my skin look blotchy, the perpetually inflamed hair follicles on my thighs, the knobby knees, always covered in bruises, the leg that’s slightly shorter than the other. the counter in the bathroom is high enough that I can’t see my labia but I know they’re there. I want to go a day without debating whether to cut them off with the sharpest knife I can find. it’s not today. the weight loss did little to make me feel better abt the way it all looks—the size of my jaw and shoulders is more apparent now that they are less hidden, my eyes bug out, it’s hard to contort so that my ribs aren’t visible somewhere, my hipbones poke through my clothing. I dnt think I’ve ever looked so bad in my life. Im going to cover up.

vii. I look at the date on my phone and saw that it was the 24th and for some reason identified that this was the last time I’d see that number on a calendar before I turned 24 myself. It doesn’t seem to make sense that I’m that old now. I know it’s not old, too, but it doesn’t seem like that should be me. I still think I behave like a child in a lot of respects, and the thought conjures a memory of my old therapist insulting me, saying that I had the mental tendencies of a child in grammar school. when she told me this initially, I replied to her sarcastically: “well, shit. maybe I should see a therapist abt that” and she told me not to come back to her practice. I cried on the way home despite how cognizant I was of the absurdity of the situation. “grammar school”—who even calls it that? it stuck with me nonetheless. it’s hard to have a therapist fire you, even with the knowledge that the therapist in question was not very good, without wondering if you’re a basket case, if help will always be lost on you.

viii. my job isn’t the worst but the labor feels pointless and it rly intensifies my feelings that I’m fighting never ending monotony to wring out very little in the way of satisfaction. i think you rly have to love this job to do it as a career, or maybe you need to have a specific personality type that makes it easier to engage w. im not very good at socializing and i think im getting too old to keep making excuses for myself abt that. meg and ash are always nagging me to sell more but i dnt feel comfortable enough to make small talk w these people, let alone sell them stuff. i feel like i sound so stupid when I speak aloud. i use a lot of fillers in my speech and it’s rly hard to talk abt hair without sounding like a bullshitter. something is very insincere abt the language that’s involved. i know i know what im talking abt but I dnt know how to sound like i know what I’m talking abt, and it’s hard bc the latter is a lot more important.

ix. I can’t tell if people sincerely aren’t making sense today or if im foggy bc i kept waking up and going back to sleep. this guy keeps saying that the last woman who cut his hair used a 5 on the sides and a 9 on the top but she cut it all w scissors. that definitely doesn’t make sense. i dnt think they even make a 9. why would she be using clipper settings to describe a scissor cut? the top here is at least 3 times as long as the sides and back are. im not going—oh my god, i can’t deal w kids who scream during their haircuts—insane, right? stuff like this makes me rly doubt myself, too, like there are bigger gaps in my knowledge than—wow he rly jst is not tiring himself out w this screaming, huh—i feel there are. what if this actually is a coherent way to describe a haircut? maybe he rly is jst stupid, but I also think that when you write people off as “stupid” all the time, it reflects—god, why is his baby sister screaming now too? nothing is even fucking happening to her—worse on you than it does on them. it’s always the biggest idiots who are so self-satisfied to think that. but im not self-satisfied at all, im very insecure and it’s constantly apparent, but everyone is insecure abt a lot, and that doesn’t doesn’t equal intelligence. I wish I had a sounding board. and i rly wish that kid in Niya’s chair would stop crying.

x. everyone in the salon today seems like they’re in a bit of a weird mood, it’s not jst me for once. the phone is annoying me a lot more than usual today. i feel like it’s ringing every 20 minutes. niya is always very avoidant when it comes to taking haircuts, but meg is lagging today which is unusual. it was busy, too, but i keep getting shafted where tips are concerned. most of my regulars who were due to come in around this time came earlier this week, and usually they’re the ones who tip me the best. the radio station that’s on is very weird too, distractingly so—it’s gone from bowie, to panic at the disco, to nirvana, the police, florence and the machine, neil young, lord huron, rhcp, crowded house. it’s not intolerable, but i can’t seem to follow any sort of genre or time period theme and im paying more attention to figuring this out than i am what im supposed to be doing. it’s that point in the night where people generally stop coming in and I know I haven’t made very much. I’ve counted... $24. weird. are they playing “brick”? that’s a throwback.

xi. i remember my ex being rly into mystics despite not understanding them very well. i forget what he was doing w my natal chart, but he told me once that 24 would be a rly significant year for me. i asked him why and he said that’s all he could figure, there was nothing in the way of further details that he provided. i know I said something back to him abt hoping that id be married by 24—so stupid. granted, i would have been 18 or so at the time and 24 seemed very distant at the time. but that was 6 years at the time, now it’s less than 3 weeks. ive changed a lot, mentally at least, but my circumstances haven’t rly. maybe on superficial levels. yeah, i support myself financially and i have a job in a field i could realistically work in for the rest of my life if I wanted to do that. but im still jst as unsure abt what I want and what’s going to happen to me. i feel like I’m more “sought after” in a few ways, but my phone is jst as dry as it’s always been. i was hoping the move would have been good for me but im very scared abt doing it alone. and i might still do it, i jst dnt know what the timeline is going to look like and there’s no promise of me turning over a new leaf for real and finding my inspiration jst bc my scenery has changed. every time ive moved when I was younger, it jst dug me deeper into loneliness. but i was a child and it wasn’t my choice. but there’s no way for me to rationalize asking my actual lived experiences. maybe that’s the big thing that’ll happen to me at 24? or maybe instead of getting married, I’ll break a marriage up. i know that’s not going to get that far, you know, w kenny. i probably shouldn’t joke abt it, though.

xii. it looks like Evan is home from friday’s already and i rly dnt want to be around him right now. im still feeling rly hurt abt him pulling the plug on the massachusetts move without making any effort at all to sort his finances out or secure some additional income that wasn’t the precarious extra dollars he’s been getting from porn. he keeps sinking all of his money into bar tabs and impulse purchases and takeaway food. and his cars. i wish he would jst be honest w himself abt the cars already. he needs to sell the honda and be done w it before he has to replace the engine and drop another two grand on repairs. i dnt know why he never listens to me. im rly growing to dislike him, but we’re in this together whether i like it or not, and im not going to lead him astray when his financial problems are dragging me down w him. i think i am going to be a hypocrite and go out alone tonight. kenny’s bar is doing that bottle opening thing tonight, right? but i dnt rly want to be around kenny right now. but he might not be there. but i also get a weird satisfaction from being around him I’ll bet it’s going to be a madhouse there, too, and i rly hate crowded bars. but it’s something to do. maybe i will get lucky and someone will talk to me and we’ll have a decent conversation and I’ll never see them again after. why is that my ideal?

xiii. god, running out the last hour on the clock is always hell. no one ever seems to come in, so it feels like a huge waste of time, but when people do come in, i get very irritated. so I’m not sure what i actually want from my time here. i think im jst too fixated on how being stuck here until close almost every night is hurting my ability to expand myself socially. but what would i even be doing if i wasn’t here? i think i would jst be finding a way to waste time. id be sinking hours into doing nothing like I do all the time. i have a lot of time on my hands, in the grand scheme of things. i have literally no idea where it all goes. i drink a lot of it away bc i am generally too uninspired to participate in my hobbies, and i think that feeds the darkness bc they make me very happy. at least w cooking, yknow, i have to eat. i have an organic need to engage w that one. all else has been falling through the cracks, though. i dnt think ive picked my bass up in 3 weeks.

xiv. Kenny’s bar looks like it’s absolutely mobbed and I’d be upset if I went all the way out there only for me not to be able to sit down anywhere. it looks like Evan went back out. that works. i have beer at home. I’d be smarter to save the money anyway. i want to support kenny and the rest of the guys, even though I dnt have a lot of nice things to say abt him. his brewery is cool. it’s cool to have something with so much potential come out of your home town, even if i dnt entirely identify w that place as being my home town. but it’s better than saying that im from alabama, even though i feel like my childhood is more tethered to mobile. i think people would make weird assumptions abt me if I said that. people are rly unfair to what the south is actually like. i dnt know. but their growth has been nice to watch. seeing something you’ve supported since the beginning grow to the degree it has makes you feel pride even if it has nothing to do with you personally. and ive had so many good moments there, w ian, w my family, in general. i met justin there and im happy abt that, even though i dnt know what’s going on w justin. i dnt think justin knows what’s going on w justin. 

xv. looking at my shelf of ian souvenirs is making me miss ian, even though we were jst together, even though we’re seeing one another again in 2 weeks. I wish I could engage w them in a more stable way. seeing them reminds me of being a teenager and breaking into the apartment i used to live in on governor’s island. and since the base went out of commission not long after we moved, i was the last person to live in that apartment. i went back into my first bedroom and the evidence that it used to belong to me was still apparent, but the floorboards had been warped and the wallpaper was very faded out. i felt weird being back, nostalgia and warmth pitted against the instinct that i wasn’t supposed to be there. i wasn’t supposed to see it—a rosy memory colliding w irrefutable proof of the passage of time. ive been very unfair to them, ian, in so many respects but it’s all very mixed and complicated. i look at this person, and i see so many years worth of history, but the familiar messy gold hair is framing a slightly different, slightly fuller face. they talk abt people i dnt know very well, stories set in a city ive spent very little time in. it’s disorienting. i feel like when im here alone, im always confronting their ghost, in places we used to go together, in things we used to talk abt doing but never did—a final hike on a trail that closed before we got the chance to go together, their name scratched in the wall of a dive bar, things they’d always point out on the side of the road, small pieces of their essence scattered across a place they are no longer a part of. i wonder what I did to deserve any preservation, too. i see this person who I truly am proud of, who i rly do think is going places, and that respect gets interpreted into feelings of inadequacy. that there’s no way someone like this can look at me and see anything other than an unstable failure. i dnt think any other person knows me more fully, for better or for worse. worse is dominant. i know it is. my intuition is always screaming at me that they hate me, that they left bc they wanted to get away from me. literally none of that makes sense. i know they dnt lie to spare my feelings, but i feel like they almost have to be. i wonder why i can’t trust that im cared for. i wonder why I can’t have an evaluation of another person that i dnt immediately relate back to myself.

xvi. it took two beers for me to realize that I haven’t eaten anything since i was in boston. i need to stop doing this shit, but im still getting my calories if im drinking them, right? i feel like it doesn’t make sense for recovery to be as difficult as it is, but my emotions have always interfered w my hunger cues, and my body is so accustomed to constantly being hungry that it’s not something i even notice that much anymore. I’ve been getting weird pins and needles feelings in what I’m assuming are my intestines as I’ve upped my intake and I’m afraid of them rupturing and me bleeding out internally when I’m home alone. such a pathetic way to die—having your own blood and bile and shit poison you. I doubt I’m on my deathbed, i think my system is jst on the slow path to returning to normal, but i wasn’t expecting physical symptoms aside from weight gain, which on its own, i could live w. my ednos was never as restrictive as it was until somewhat recently. my problem was generally concerned w binge eating and compensatory behavior, usually fasting or short periods of restriction or exercise. all punishment based. i can’t help but find it ridiculous that i ended up w an eating disorder despite never caring abt my weight. even when I was a high school freshman and overweight, i didn’t care. i think it’s because i dnt outwardly self harm anymore, and that self-destructive need has translated into other conduits. the scars this leaves are much more socially acceptable than what I was left w when I was younger and carved “dumb whore” into my thigh. i can’t believe i did something so stupid. im glad that finally isn’t visible anymore. i can’t believe that i’m almost 24 and still, to some extent, do shit like that.

xvii. i still have that vacation time that I took to look at apartments in massachusetts, and since that isn’t going to happen, i want to take a poorly planned solo vacation. i looked at places to stay in DC, in chicago, in nashville, but i left discouraged. nashville is too far, Chicago is too expensive, DC seems too dangerous. i think my perpetual anxiety prevents me from taking full advantage of my freedom. and I can be free. 24 hours ago, I was in Boston and I didn’t have to tell anyone I was doing that. I’ve navigated a strange place on my own. I lived to tell the tale, but I also wonder what the point is of stuff like this if I have no one to share it w. No one to reminisce w. it feels like a waste of money. almost nothing feels worth what I spend on it––time, money, calories, stop thinking abt calories.

xviii. i open another beer, basically on an empty stomach. i need to stop drinking like this, it’s not even negotiable anymore. i know this is a problem. i need to stop. i dnt know if I want to stop. i want to drown in bliss but I feel none. alcohol amplifies everything I feel, and when I’m feeling good, it’s generally very good, but when it’s bad, it gets very bad. i feel weird now so it’s amplifying the negatives. they do not need that. no, i dnt need that. i know this is an addiction. im scared, but not scared enough to do anything abt it.

xix. i still have Rebecca on social media despite everything. she’s moved, she’s no longer in my proximity, but i still have her on things even though I have no motivation to keep any sort of peace with her. I remember when things happened, when i was too drunk to stand up and she insisted on forcing herself on me anyway, after the fact she kept saying all this stuff to me abt how she wanted me to be her girlfriend and i jst sort of laid there and said nothing. i had nothing to say. i wasn’t processing what’s happened, i jst kept thinking “this is bad. that was bad” to myself. and then she never rly follows up, a small acknowledgment of culpability, maybe, but she’s moved in w some boyfriend now. it’s weird that people can do awful things to you and move on like nothing happened, and you have those moments stuck in your head, keeping you stunted, keeping you away from living uncorrupted, uninhibited, the way you should engage w it. i think of how demoralizing it is to have your perception shattered by a 30-something woman who still laughs at nyan cat shit. i think of how most discussions of sexual assault in the mainstream act as though only men are capable of it, as though it’s only ever happening in heterosexual contexts. i think of how everyone who bullied me in high school probably does not even remember it. i think it’s absurd to compare the two things but I dnt laugh.

xx. i want to talk to Justin but i have nothing to say. i dnt know what I should talk to him abt. i dnt know how you’re supposed to do this stuff. im comforted by the fact that, since he was w someone for 10 years, he’s rly out of the dating loop, and he have no idea what he’s doing either. but it’s a red flag, you know. I think we’re jst friendly. and I’m okay w that, I need friends. i want friends. i never see fati anymore these days. things w evan are polluted. ian is very far away. it occurred to me that i know very little abt him, aside from us getting along, but do we actually? how would I know? it’s not uncommon to have good conversations, for most people. but he knows more abt me than I do abt him. i dnt think i could name a single one of his interests if prompted. he probably couldn’t name one of mine that isn’t “drinking”. I’m not sure if I’m willfully ignorant of reality or if im jst assigning negativity to something without a lot of basis. i wonder why im incapable of living in the moment and not thinking too deeply abt what happens to me. i figured out what I’m doing w all the time on my hands.

xxi. everyone has been telling me lately that i should try to monetize my cooking and I dnt know if I believe them. i can’t imagine I’m as good at it as people say. i dnt trust it. im not even sure if it’s a passion, rly, i think my eating disorder has corrupted my relationship w food and i have to push harder to be interested in it normally, and this is how i cope. i might jst be on a kick. and if it actually is a passion, do i want to ruin it by making it into a living? i didn’t feel one way or the other abt hair when I went into it. it was a neutral activity. to grow to hate it is not a loss. i only care abt being good at it bc directly dealing w people makes my failures feel very personal when they happen. i know good food is something you can’t fake. i made ian spring rolls yesterday and they insisted I not watch them eat. i respected the request, but i needed to see the look on their face. I’m annoyed I didn’t. everything was eaten, I know they wouldn’t have done that if they hated them. but I only have my family to go off otherwise, and they would definitely lie to me. so i dnt know. i feel like support is untrustworthy. i know the people who won’t be honest w me, i dnt entirely trust praise from the people who I know who aren’t shy to say “it’s not my thing, I’m not crazy abt it”. i dnt know why i can’t accept that I’m good at anything.

xxii. there’s no reason for my scale to be out when i’m “trying” to “recover” but i will not put it away. i step on it anyway, and it looks like i’m 103lbs, fully clothed, stomach full of beer. i know it’s bad, but i get a weird amount of gratification from seeing it. it’s very hard to maintain a weight that low, so it feels like an accomplishment, even though it isn’t one. it’s been months since i had a period, and that adds to the sense of satisfaction. but it’s not good. obviously. it’s really getting in the way of me wanting to work out and actually improve my body. i’m fatigued. i’m foggy. i know the fact that i’m depriving myself is partially responsible for my terrible mood. i know i already had a heart problem, why on earth would i make that worse for myself? i’ve been having a few normal eating days, so i still won’t admit to myself that i’ve relapsed. i had a lava cake 5 days ago! there’s a quarter stick of butter in that! and an ounce of chocolate! i didn’t care, so obviously i’m doing something right. i know i’m not, entirely, but i’m staying positive. either that, or i’m extremely in denial. there’s still chocolate in the cabinet. no, of course i am not going to eat it.

xxiii. meg scheduled 6 people on tomorrow, so it looks like i’m not going to make any goddamn money again. my aunt is coming in, so i’ll get a little more from her, but the cash i take home there is so very inconsistent. i feel like the more money i save, the more i worry abt it, like i should have more by now. like i’m going to struggle forever. the stuff i’m buying now won’t matter in a few days, but that anxiety is always going to be over my head. i need a career change. i know that. i keep forgetting that pete gave me money for college, so my “i dnt want to be in debt” excuse is a lie. i keep telling people i’m considering going to college again but i know i never will bc i haven’t actually gotten any better at managing my time and being disciplined. i think i’m better at pretending i am, but i’m not. even if i seriously wanted to, i wouldn’t be motivated enough to actually take the steps required to re-enroll. it’s all too overwhelming. i feel like that feeling alone is a sign i’d fail.

xxiv. I’ve been saying this thing to myself a lot lately to self-soothe: “god’s in his heaven” and i dnt rly know what I mean by that. i dnt know if i believe in stuff like that, I dnt have any reason to believe that there’s any kind of order or force that presides over anything. is that what I’m talking abt? we’re all preoccupied w our own things, attending to our own futures, making our own peace to the best of our abilities? maybe? am i saying that we’ve all been abandoned, ignored? then why do I find it comforting? i dnt think my inner monologue makes a lot of sense, but i only ever talk to myself these days. maybe I’m talking abt myself in an idealized way, but I look back on the past 24 hours and see my good mood i woke up w descend, the 900 calories I’ve consumed today, the $24 I’ve made, the singular text thread I have w ian, the nothing I’ve done in the handful of hours I’ve been home, the three empty beer cans. i know i’m constantly in my own head, constantly picking myself apart, picking everything else apart. it accomplishes nothing. it’s useless self-flagellation. i’m constantly raking myself over the coals for shit that doesn’t matter, constantly agonizing over situations that aren’t actually that deep. i think that’s a way in which i lie to myself. i spend all day beating myself up over the inconsequential while never giving due attention to my actual flaws. even if i was, saying that i’m useless and stupid all the time still does nothing. it’s abt meaningful action, and i’m so bad at that, and i’m doing this exact thing again. i think i do it so i have something to point to, to say “i’m working on myself” when i’m jst being mean and self-righteous abt it. where has it gotten me? what do i want from it? do i think i can bully myself into change? do i rly think it will make me do anything other than resign to complacency? 24 hours, and a lot has happened, but i’ve still gotten nothing done. another will pass, and nothing will change. then enough days will pass, and i’ll notice everything is different, and i’ll still feel jst as stuck. i will be meaner to myself abt it. and that’s what i’ll do. over and over, until the end of time. Evan jst got home. he said something abt how sad i looked. he asked me what was wrong. i wish i had the guts to say any of it to anyone’s face, let alone his. it’s fine, it’s fine, i tell him, God’s in his heaven. whatever it is i actually mean by that.

[espships]

Kpop Ship for dododeo

Hello once again everyone, I was planning on packing for a trip I have coming up, but ya girl doesn’t feel good, so hopefully typing this ship can help me feel better (: I have a ship for @dododeo today, and I’m excited to be shipping you today! 

Based off of your request, I have taken these traits about you to help me ship you: 

You’re 5′2, short dark brown hair and eyes, and have fair skin

You have an INFJ personality which means: you’re thoughtful and reserved

You’re an honest person and hate to lie

You’re considerate of others and understand people so well but has trouble understanding yourself 

I’m pretty smart and good at studying 

You’re a bit clumsy sometimes

You have interests in strange and mysterious things

You hate showing emotions, although you can be an emotional person 

Can get depressed easily and can tend to get depressed a lot 

You also can be childish and playful 

You can be sorta talkative or a LOT of talkative 

You’re kind, helpful, smart, strong, polite, and mysterious ooo I love that

Afraid of bugs same

Loves traveling, rain, winter, nature, and math 

And you also enjoy singing, anime’s, and learning languages 

And in your request, you have asked me to ship you with Monsta X, NCT, and Seventeen! I am excited to ship you so I will shut my talking, and get to shippin (: 

Monsta X: Hyungwon

As I was reading your request, I noticed that you and Hyungwon sound similar to one another, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea and here we are now! You both sound like normally quiet people, but you have that quirky side that really packs a punch to the people around you, as well as yourselves. Starting with my first reason why I ship y’all, how you two would share emotions and feelings. I feel like you and Hyungwon would be pretty open with each other and it wouldn't take long to notice a difference between your moods. Hyungwon can be very observant sometimes, and I can see that he would be able to pick up on when you wouldn’t be your normal self, and he would speak up before he noticed that things would become worse. With some negotiating and understanding, Hyungwon would be able to slither he way into your emotions and deep feelings. He would let you know that you can completely trust him with any information or topic that is sensitive to you, and he’ll always, always, always be there for you if you need a pick me up or some advice. He’d 110% be that broad ass shoulder for you try on if you need it, and he’ll snuggle you as well to also help with making you feel better! And of course you’d be haven for Hyungwon and his stressful life. Of course he would open up to you, tell you his everyday struggles, and he can always rely on you to be completely honest with him and you’ll always be there to give him some advice if he’s need it. Moving on from emotions, one thing I could see coming from the both of you, is you two getting hyper. There are days when you’d get big bursts of energy, which would give you motivation, and that motivation can lead to cleaning the dorm if it needs it, goofing off in the dorm, or even going out to go on a date- which that would always be an exciting and eventful adventure. And when you’re feeling adventurous and wild when you go out, you’ll try something completely new together, and you will always have an amazing time, there is no doubt in my mind. And because rainy days are one of your favs, I gotta add some cute stuff about rainy days. On the rainy days, you'll spend the day together inside either in his room or on the couch, snuggled underneath a blanket and you’ll binge watch a TV show about life’s mysterious such as unsolved murders, or ghosts, or even about aliens if you search enough. And with some take out, or some food cooked by one of the members, it would be the cherry on top for a perfect day. And again, because you said you are terrified of bugs, Hyungwon would become your certified bug killer. Sometimes he’ll get a little too scared to kill a bug if it’s too big, but he’ll always have your back when it comes to bug killing. And last but not least, PDA. Very soft, sweater paw hand holding. Forehead kisses, and as a bonus, your legs being drooped over his thighs while you’re watching TV on those rainy days. 

NCT: Yuta

With this next ship, I can see you and Yuta being a little more hyper and exuberant than if you were with Hyungwon. Yuta can be a bit childish sometimes, and I feel like his childish and hyper antics would bring out yours and you’d both be giggly chatter boxes all the time. And just as a little detail point, the fact that Yuta lives with eighteen other wild and insane boys, the energy would always be up. And of course, there are times where you two can just chill out, and enjoy your time together. And sometimes if you two are laying in bed conversating, some emotional topics can show up, and then sometimes things can get the slightest bit fussy. I feel like with Yuta, working your emotions and getting you to open up to him would be a little more difficult than it would be if you’d be with Hyungwon. You and Yuta would be very open and honest with each other, but you two would be a bit more blunt with each other, and sometimes being extremely blunt can cause a little conflict. You two would never have really bad conflicts where you’d go the whole day without talking each other, in fact, you two would be saying sorry and hugging a minute after everything was said and done. It would be a learning process, and with patience and understanding, you two would be able to work things out and peace would be restored, and you would open up to Yuta. Yuta would be very gentle with you as always, and although he can be brutally honest, he’ll always make sure that you get taken care of, because your happiness and mental health would be at the top priorities of his list. Moving on, I would like to touch on your intelligence a bit. Yuta would find your intelligence very attractive, and he would love to see what you would be studying at the time. For example, if you were trying out something new in math, he would want to get immersed, and he’d ask you to show him the process on how to find the answer, and depending on how difficult the problem would be, he’d want to try out a couple. Also, if you asked Yuta to teach you some Japanese, he would be more than happy to teach you. He’d get very excited, so excited sometimes he’d mess up the instructions. He’d also admire the fact you would take extra time out of your day to practice with the different pronunciations and you’d study and try to improve the little rough patches you would have before your next lesson. The Japanese lessons would be a really cute bonding time for you two as well! Moving on once more, cute dates during the winter and traveling to other towns to look at the scenery or to find a new hang out spot. Then once the sun sets, getting dressed up and going to a candle lit dinner, planned by the sweet heart Yuta himself. Then other times you two would snuggle on the couch and watch anime, or going out to take cute mini photoshoots in the snow, or even having snowball fights. Sometimes you would win, and sometimes he would win, and it would be cute if you two would keep count and have little bragging rights, it sounds really cute to me. And then PDA would be a little more toned down to hand holding, and just overall staying close to one another, whether you’re physically touching or not- simple, sweet, and effective.

Seventeen:  Wonwoo

And onto our last ship *little tear down my face* is our little lowkey emo bc he’s grown oml cutie, Wonwoo. When I was thinking about shipping you with a member, the more I thought about your and Wonwoo appearances, I really liked the idea, and that’s how this all started. The height and coordinating hair and eye colors sounds like a pretty good match in my opinion, and as I explain, I will tell you why I ship you with Wonwoo life/personality wise as well! And I will mention that your personalities blend together nicely as well. You two can tend to stick to yourselves more, and simply having quiet time together can allow you to really enjoy each others company more. But similar with Yuta, with twelve other members, you are going to get hyped up by someone at some point in time. I can see a cute thing for you two to do often would be going to a nearby park on fall and spring nights, and snuggling up under the stars and just talking about life. The good, the bad, the ugly, the weird, the cute, anything and everything about your lives you can think of in the conversation can come up, and it can easily be a great way to spend a night, and then you come back home and sleep snuggled up together. Just by what I’ve observed from Wonwoo over the years, he tends to keep to himself more, and he would take his time easing open to you, just as you would do with him. Neither of you would be quick to open up to each other, and you wouldn't poke or prod at each other either. Although, if Wonwoo would see a difference in your behavior and you'd be a bit more down that usual, Wonwoo would take the appropriate action to get you to open up to him about what would be bothering you, and he’d be right there for you to let you vent. You two would honestly take baby steps opening up to each other, and after you’d finally open up to one another, the bond and trust you two would make would be there forever, no matter what. Moving on, I can see you wanting to take interest in taking care of Wonwoo’s fellow members. You’d spend a lot of time at the dorm, and since the boys can get really stressed out easy, it would always be amazing to have that extra voice to allow the boys to vent and a way for them to let out their frustrations. You’d quickly be able to make close relationships with the members since there would always be something to talk about, and the closer you would become with members, the more you would be like a family member to the boys. From Wonwoo’s side, he’d see the difference in his fellow members, and everyone would generally be more happy, and Wonwoo would be so appreciative that’d you take the time of day to help out, basically his family and he’d find it very warming and loving the fact you’re close to his family. I can see Wonwoo being a lowkey cheesy boyfriend, so date nights would always be super traditional and super sweet. Romantic dinner dates, sweeter than candy compliments, the kiss on the cheek at the end of the date, the whole nine yards dude. And of course PDA. PDA with Wonwoo would be similar to Yuta’s, simple but effective. The really cute affection would be behind closed doors when you’d be at the dorm. Both of you being big spoons when cuddling, fingers through hair and SNUGGLESSSS. 

And holy crap, just like that, your ship is complete! I am really proud of this ship!! I have trouble concentrating sometimes when I’m making ships, but I found a playlist on Spotify and I listened to it as I worked, and I feel like my ship turned out so much better, I’m in love. I hope you enjoyed this ship, and please let me know if I guessed your bias(es). Thank you so much for requesting beautiful! <3

Admin Aquarius 

[writerproblem193]

Okay so here’s a long and probably rambling meta on Julian Bashir because I have a lot of opinions and emotions about the genetic engineering plotline and I want to sort them out

if any of you haven’t watched Star Trek: Deep Space Nine then you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about have a great day whoo

Specifically right now I want to ramble about what I feel over his (apparently controversial) “I was actually genetically engineered” plot line.

It’s been the major focus of two episodes so far — Doctor Bashir, I Presume where it was introduced, and a season six episode where he works with other genetically engineered people. I just watched that episode today, it’s the most recent one I’ve watched. After both those episodes, I had to pause watching for a while just to ruminate on the episode. I do love all of Deep Space Nine’s complicated complicatedness. 

Honestly, Julian is one of my favourite characters on the show. I’ve tried to describe why before, but it really hit me during an episode ostensibly about Jake Sisko — he was reporting on how Bashir was being a doctor in a war zone and he was having Problem. Anyway, Jake’s great, but there was a little cascade of moments with Julian in the episode that really hit me. 

the complete transition from goofy to professional with brushing Jake off when the casualties started coming in

and him sitting on the floor with the other medical personnel after everyone was stitched up and jokingly (and kinda not jokingly) asking Jake to carrying him to the replicator to get something to eat

Because before he’d been totally relatable with his general failure at life. He’s a total dork. His favourite pastime is like, dressing up in furs and reenacting weird history stuff with his best friend. But there’s something else about him, too. 

I described it later as “being able to stand on his own, but not having to”. 

That’s something that I very much want in my own life. The ability to not need the support from people around me (my mother is flaming hellpit of emotional abuse, that’s gonna be relevant later). When the casualties were flooding in, he knew exactly what he was doing. He was an expert. He didn’t have to rely on anyone. He knew what he was doing. 

But then, after, he sat in a pile on the floor with friends and was clearly metaphorically leaning on them too. And again, I wish I had that too. The network of support around me when I need it. That’s not a dig at any of my wonderful friends — I just wish there were more of them, and that they were physically all around me too. 

Anyway now that I’ve gotten incredibly personal, time for Doctor Bashir, I Presume?

I have to say that I knew that he was genetically engineered going in, and so I was able to wince at all the hints as it went along, instead of being confused. 

Julian had troubles with his parents. For a good reason, it turned out. He legitimately feels like they murdered him, replacing the (implied autistic/developmentally disabled) ‘Jules’ with the person he is now. And that’s a hell of a lot of baggage, alright? 

I was uncomfortably feeling with him all through the episode. Here’s a quick bullet list. 

when his parents came to see him in Sisko’s office and he had to hug them and make nice and he looked so awfully uncomfortable and Sisko didn’t notice at all and cheerily gave him some time off to have them around

the dinner they had together that was so awful and it was meant to be a little but since my mother is fucking horrible it was hitting way, way too many manipulation and icky buttons with me. The don’t-talk-about-it. The don’t-speak-to-us-like-that. The I’m-an-adult-why-won’t-you-treat-me-like-one. The way he was holding himself, with them in HIS home. The way they berated him for moving so far away from home so they can’t come see him

when he went out into the hall because he couldn’t stand talking to them anymore — out of his own space because they’re in there and he has nowhere else to go — and slid to the floor with his head in his hands. I’ve been there. Achingly, been there. 

And though I enjoyed the fun parts of the episode (the spliced interviews were amazing), near the end it started hitting wrong notes for me. Whatever, they had to keep him on the show I don’t care but

He hugged his parents. He agreed to visit and to keep in touch. He basically forgave them. And it infuriated me. So much of the episode was showing and implying the emotional (and you could probably argue physical with the whole ‘rewriting his genetic structure to the point where he feels like the child he was no longer exists’ thing) abuses that he endured at his parents. The whole episode, his interactions with his parents felt like a SciFi Scaled Up Metaphor™ interaction of me with my parents. 

The way they’ve ‘built’ me. How my mother takes responsibility for the fact that I write so much and so well because she read to me and instilled a love of reading and that gave me the tools to start writing. She believes that she was my ‘architect’, to put it in Julian’s words, and it is painful. Just like Julian. And that’s where I got angry with the episode, for dismissing what for me was a nuanced depiction of emotional abuse with a haha he forgives them everything is happy!

Most of the rest of what that episode dealt with in terms of his genetic engineering, I liked. I liked the way it built another level to him. I am all about this character in so many ways. 

(Also I appreciated O’Brien’s reaction being “hey! Play at your actual level! ….in the corner so it’s fair then asshole”. Because he just accepted it and made their interactions more genuine and agh)

Side note: my sibling is autistic, I probably have autism and/or ADHD, and I’ve been categorized as ‘Superior Gifted’ so everything else w/Bashir’s intelligence/outsider status thing also resonates with me. You know, because he wasn’t hitting literally every other button I had. 

My problems with the second episode was more about the writing and the actual show than it was my personal issues, though those are never gone lmao. 

It started off pretty cool, even if the ‘mutant’ characters were a little too mental illness coded for my taste. Everything can be done well — and for a while, it looked like they might have been going there!

Bashir had some awesome moments connecting to those other characters, and actually getting to be understood. He was able to bounce ideas back and forth with them in a way he was never able to do with anyone else (*cough* me and my sib *cough*) and generally got to know himself better and unwind. And that was cool. 

Something probably about halfway through really dinged all those little sensors in me though. Like his parents. Without warning, super subtly, the framing of the episode changed. Instead of the ‘mutants’ being super cool and #relatable and helpful, the narrative had stopped endorsing it and was showing them as hahah off the rails. 

Oh boy, did that bug me. Ohhhhh boy. 

And it was lumping Bashir in with them too. And even besides my immense problems with that (and even setting aside the gross ableism with all the mental illness coding), the way he was throwing in with them? Completely out of character. This is a guy who has-

Listen, if you’ve watched the show, you know. Bashir will 100% throw himself into danger against awful odds. He’s brave. His entire character development up to this point has been about that! What the fuck ds9!!!!! Why are you suddenly making him say ‘we should surrender to The Great Evil™ bc Stats Say So’. Besides all the icky ableism and reframing the narrative to make him look like he’s in too deep with the off the rails mutants, it’s literally nothing like him!

I am still really bitter about this, if you couldn’t tell. 

And then, the episode framing gets even shittier as all the mutants decide to commit treason. Except Julian, who has suddenly regained his senses, and is like “um. NO??????”

And here the narrative flips again. It’s showing off how Bashir is the exception to the genetic engineering rule, how he’s better than all these crazy people around him, that he’s Not Like That, he’s Better. And I’m just so furious because that’s so clearly how the narrative was positioning him, and it could have been done so much better. 

And then in the end, he stops them, is the Neurotypical Passing Hero™, and then just ushers them off to be somebody’s else’s problem again, basically. And doesn’t get that sweet, sweet feeling of belonging and understanding again. 

(I did like the one moment where he’s trying to explain the super science analysis reports to his friend and genuinely offers “I-I-I’d love to explain it to you if you didn’t understand it!” and O’Brien is so offended and thinks it’s because Julian thinks he’s stupid. I’ve done that a thousand times and it’s not because I think people are stupid — I just like knowledge and facts and sharing them so much I want to explain it over and over and make sure everyone is on the exact same page. It’s not that I think you’re stupid, it’s that I recently didn’t know this myself and want to share it! And I could see that in his tone and expression and this is why I love him.)

I’m still so furious at the way the episode kept flip-flopping on how it framed the mutants and Bashir’s actions and everything. Super manipulative. Super shitty. I know the show could have done better. I was extremely disappointed. 

So anyway. That’s what I think of Julian Bashir, in excruciating detail. I love the plotline, I wanna fight some of the details. tl;dr: I love him and this plot line on my own terms, in my own biased and revisionist interpretation, but the way the show treated some of it was disrespectful, ableist, and ignorant. I am glad to have had the experience of watching and thinking about it, though. Because now I can articulate some things that I experience with examples, and also I have a new life goal. To be able to stand on my own, but to be supported if I want it. 

[inquisitorsnappy]

3 for ira, 6, 12 for sara

putting this under the cut bc it got long-

IRA KINJAL TIWARI

3.a report written by your OC’s teacher or mentor 

Written by Mohammad Avdol during the events of Stardust Crusaders:

“If I’m entirely honest, when Mr Joestar told me about how Tiwari was she first joined us, I was worried. She sounded very skittish and prone to panicking easily. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with that, it seemed as though it was severe enough that I though it might start causing problems for us. It didn’t though; she seemed to have relaxed and settled into the group by the time I rejoined them and her reaction to me was not one of anxiety. Since then, I’ve noticed she seems to have bonded with Zeppeli and Polnareff. I’m still concerned in some ways but nevertheless, it’s good to see that Tiwari is learning to open up to people since, from what I can tell, DIO’s control over her really took its toll on her mental state and her ability to expect kindness from people. I hope she makes it through this. It’d be a shame for these steps she’s made so far to all be for nothing.”

SARA SHERRY POLNAREFF

6. someone describing a time your OC helped them

A conversation between Shizuka Joestar and Joseph Joestar:

“Shizuka?” the old man said, looking at his phone. The young girl made an inquisitive sounding hum in response. “Do you know why I’ve got a missed call from the police station?”“…Sara mighta done something.”A sigh. “I had guessed that much. What did she do, though?”“Ummm…” Shizuka hesitated. It wasn’t like Joseph would be mad at her. He was probably too lenient with both of them but she didn’t want to snitch on Sara.“I won’t be angry.”“Shepunchedthiskidfromschoolthatwaspickingonme!” Every word she said came out in such a rush that they practically jumbled together.Joseph looked at her, looking slightly baffled. “How old was this kid?”“16,” she said. “You can’t exactly criticise her! You shot up a cafe with a tommy gun when you were her age!”“I really wish I hadn’t told you two about that,” he said. Fair enough. Both girls had a habit of throwing that one at him whenever he tried telling them off for anything. “But fine. If she saved you from a bully, I won’t get on her case about it.”“Okay…good.” Shizuka let out a sigh of relief. “The guy promised not to bug me again too so, if anything, she should be getting gratitude.”Joseph raised an eyebrow. “And how did Sara get him to promise that?””…She threatened him.”“You really have the worst role models…” he sighed again.“What, you mean you?”“No! I mean…nevermind…”

12. your OC overheard while drunk

A conversation between Sara and Hermes Costello that Emporio Alniñooverhead:

It was late and the prison guards were making their rounds. Emporio had learned their routes though. He knew if he stayed out of sight, he could sneak to the cells of his friends when he was feeling lonely in his room. The young boy was just around the corner from Sara and Hermes’ shared cell when he overheard talking.“I just…wanna protect her, y’know?” Judging from the accent, that was Sara talking. Judging from the slight slur in her voice, she was drunk. Where did they even get the alcohol? This is a prison! Emporio sat down, and listened.“I’m sure Jolyne knows that, Sara,” Hermes replied. “But you have had waaaay too much alcohol. You need to sleep.”“I know, I know…” She sounded defeated as she spoke. “Do you think she’ll always be mad at me from not telling her?”“About stands?”“Yeah…”There was a pause. “I dunno. You know her a lot better than I do.”Sara scoffed. “You’re so helpful.”“Go to sleep, Polnareff.” Emporio could hear the irritation in Hermes’ voice.“I told you to call me Saraaaa,” she whined.“Okay, fine, Sara.” Another pause. “Look, from what I can tell, you and Jolyne are really fucking close so I doubt this’ll change much in the long run.”“Good…” Her voice had gone to a quiet mumble. “I just love her and wanna make sure she’s okay…”Hermes sighed. “I’m never smuggling alcohol into this cell again. You cannot hold your liquor.”“S’why I’m in here…”

send me codex prompts for my ocs!! (questions | ask box)

[bygoneboy]

passengers (2820)

one week before hyperion reaches habitat 7, the pathfinder team is brought out of cryogenic stasis. their first obstacle: shouldering the weight of what they’ve left behind.

scott ryder/liam kosta. 5886 words, sfw, falling in love over improper use of the tempest group chat. written for fun 15 days before andromeda’s launch so everything is Probably Very Wrong

DISCLAIMER: this fic is not based explicitly on the andromeda gameplay that’s been revealed so far, but there are still a few canon bits hidden here and there. if you don’t want to read spoilers then please don’t read.

The first thing Liam Kosta thinks after six-hundred years of cryogenic stasis is: Am I awake?

And then, when it’s apparent that he is: We made it, right? Did we make it?

And after that he isn’t thinking much of anything but thank God, thank God– are the others–? Oh my God, thank God, because no amount of experience in the field could really prepare anybody for something like this, and they’d known that going in.

SAM had brought Doctor T’Perro out of cryo first, and she spends a few more minutes helping a blurry-eyed Lieutenant Harper find her balance before she turns to Liam. His joints are stiff and creaky as hell but he’d expected that much; he doesn’t feel too terribly groggy, his speech isn’t coming slow. It had been like a cold bucket of water to the face, waking up. And a bit like the spine-tremor feeling of falling and being caught, right before impact. He remembers going under like it was yesterday. He feels sort of sick despite himself, recalling how long ago yesterday really was.

Nothing could’ve prepared him for this, either, the impossibly absolute realization– a few relay jumps, six centuries of AI-navigated-drifting. Quick as the pop of a flash grenade, and the world they’d left behind is dead and gone.

It’d come up a lot during training, of course, they’d said no regrets, no attachments, say good-bye to everyone you know. Take count of what you leave behind, they’d said, and Liam had straightened up and done his best. He’d made peace with family, friends, everyone who mattered and a few that didn’t. He’d called up every ex he’d ever had, just to say– you know, whatever heart-felt sort of things had come to mind, it was nice. Or even if it hadn’t been nice, you were real to me, and I knew you, and you knew me. And by the next conscious month of my life you’ll be dead, your grandchildren will be dead, your great-great-grandchildren might be alive, depending on the progression of human medical advancements, and I’ll be eons away still feeling like I’m twenty-five.

Don’t let it get to you, they’d said; “Keep still for me,” says T’Perro, and tugs at his chin with her thumb and forefinger.

She sweeps the omni-tool past his eyes in a slow horizontal line. The bright spots stay etched into his eyes even after she lowers the beam. T’Perro’s face was the last thing he’d seen before cryo-sleep had kicked in, and the first thing he’d seen waking up. Six-hundred years. Yesterday. Still feels like yesterday.

He needs to focus on breathing. The rise and fall of his chest, lungs expanding and contracting. He ticks through every piece of advice he’d ever given to shock victims back during his work in the field, how he’d broken them from their glassy-eyes and sagging mouth. “Naturally,” T’Perro says, when he admits to feeling light-headed. She doesn’t seem too sympathetic, and considering the length of asari lives, he’s not sure she could empathize even if he did try to explain. “It’ll pass,” she says instead, matter-of-fact, patting his arm, putting away her equipment. “You’ll have more pressing things to worry about soon. I would tell you it’s imperative to be emotionally vulnerable, but I’ve read your file.”

There’s a lot in his file. “What’re you saying, doc?”

“That you know about vulnerability. Speaking as your psychologist, I’m not sure you’ll need me.”

“And speaking as my physician?”

T’Perro looks amused. “You’ve been asleep for six-hundred years, Kosta,” she says. “You can count on feeling a little sore.”

…

[TEAM MESSAGE BOARD]

SARARYDER: good morning sleepyheads!! is everyone up?!?

CORAHARPER: up and feeling good

LIAMKOSTA: ready for whatever’s out there

SARARYDER: scott where are u!! answer!!

SCOTTRYDER: This isn’t a personal communication channel, Sara. We’re only supposed to use this to share important information with the Pathfinder’s ground crew.

SARARYDER: :P

SARARYDER: blocked unfollowed

SARARYDER: anyway

SARARYDER: does the hyperion’s coffee taste like the bottom of a batarian shoe to anyone else

SARARYDER: or is it just me

…

Their long-range scans have given them a rough map of the area. They’d notified SAM to wake the Pathfinder and his crew about a week before reaching the first potentially habitable planet, to give the ground team time to prepare and everyone else a minute to breathe. Now that he’s awake, though, Liam sort of wishes that he wasn’t, that they hadn’t.

They’ve arrived in Andromeda thirty-four years late.

“Oh, what the hell,” says Harper, both of their jumpsuits unzipped around their waists, sweating through their tank tops in the drive core as they examine one of the ship’s fried engines. “What’s a few more decades under our belt, right?”

He knows she’s just trying to make light of it, keep her head up. It’s not like they can do anything about it now. But Liam has to bite down to keep his worry behind his teeth: the Hyperion will run out of energy eventually. And what if every one of their golden planets has already been settled? What if there somehow isn’t room for them? What if– 

“Hey, are you just gonna sit there and watch?” Harper snaps him out of it with a well-aimed jab to his abdomen. “This strip-tease isn’t for you,” she says, flexing one bare, well-muscled arm, “could you try to make yourself useful?”

He pretends to hit her over the head with the wrench.

…

[TEAM MESSAGE BOARD]

SARARYDER: oh my god guess what you guys

SARARYDER: i was talking to sam this morning and i found out

SARARYDER: i am officially THE OLDER TWIN

SARARYDER: i came out of cryo 2 MINUTES BEFORE SCOTT

CORAHARPER: i don’t think it works that way

LIAMKOSTA: congrats?

SCOTTRYDER: Sara, why do you have to break up your messages like that? You know you can type everything out all at once, right?

SARARYDER: sorry baby bro

SARARYDER: am

SARARYDER: i

SARARYDER: bugging

SARARYDER: you

SCOTTRYDER: There has to be a way to mute this channel.

SARARYDER: if i know i aint tellin

…

Their Pathfinder calls them all together at 0600 and 2100 hours every day for short briefings, but there isn’t really much to say, not yet anyway. Mostly he gives ship status updates, answers questions if they have any, and reminds them to check in with T’Perro as often as they need. Alec Ryder has a practiced steadiness to him, the kind that reflects age and experience. He’s a bit of a hard-ass, the sort who’s fought fair and square for the right to be one. Beyond his military record and N7 credentials, Liam doesn’t actually know much about him– or about his son and daughter.

The fact that they were Alec’s blood hadn’t mattered during training. Most things hadn’t mattered during training, apart from what they were there to do, whether or not they could reave as well as they could shoot, how well they could work together. At face value the twins are joined at the hip: Sara is bright-eyed and approachable, she smiles easy, she’s passionate. Harper makes the mistake of asking about her work in Prothean research and Sara talks her ear off for two hours; later the same day Liam finds her trying to teach SAM what a joke is. He isn’t sure she gets any further than an asari, a turian, and a krogan walk into a bar.

She probably should’ve thought about trying it out on her brother first.

Scott calls his father sir, he smiles but it’s tight at the edges. Maybe base camp had kicked all the happiness out of it, maybe Alec had. But someone must’ve said drop and give me twenty one time too many, because apparently Scott’s face has stuck that way.

He catches him staring off into space during more than one briefing, fixed on something distant outside the conference room viewport window; sometimes there’s a look in his eyes that he can’t seem to place, far-away, dazed, like he’s been sleeping for another six centuries longer than the rest of them. Like he’s constantly cycling back to re-remembering where he is, two million light years from the galaxy where they’d began.

Sometimes he notices Liam noticing.

Which is how Liam learns that the Pathfinder’s son flushes as easily as Sara smiles.

…

[TEAM MESSAGE BOARD]

SCOTTRYDER: Can I get a status update from everyone?

CORAHARPER: habitat 7 shuttle is ready to go and everything should be running smooth down in engineering. liam finished repairs on the drive core last night

SCOTTRYDER: Great. Thanks, you two.

LIAMKOSTA: nbd, glad to help

SCOTTRYDER: Sara?

SARARYDER: yeah uh watch out dad’s in a mood

SARARYDER: he actually yelled at me this morning for agreeing with him

SARARYDER: he’s just pissed off bc i used up all the ship’s hot water when i showered yesterday

SARARYDER: and then he had to take an ice bath lol

SCOTTRYDER: Sara, seriously.

SARARYDER: ok fine one of the relays almost exploded but i fixed it, no sweat, ur welcome

…

On his down-time– and there’s a lot of it– Liam takes his protein bars, does his two hours of fitness, and showers. He’s started rearranging his locker, to keep himself busy, but they hadn’t really brought a lot with them. There’s really not much to move around, so when he’s tired himself out doing that he starts polishing his guns. And when he’s scrubbed his cartridges clean to the point of wear and tear he gets Harper to let him have a go at hers.

Eventually he runs out of distractions. 

He starts thinking again.

Six-hundred years is a long time, even without being thirty-four years behind schedule. By the time they go planet-side, whoever’s already settled in will have passed them up with advancements far beyond their own. They’re at a disadvantage. There’s nothing they can do about it.

Six hundred years is a long time.

He shouldn’t be thinking about it. Which means he can’t stop thinking about it. T’Perro is right; he knows vulnerability. He’s been witness to all kinds of anxieties and fears, he’s equipped to wall off panic and reinstall calm, order, breathe. Go back to the start, why he’d joined the Initiative in the first place:

New beginnings, and the good of the galaxy.

For exploration, for progress and purpose, for the vast expanse of space that he’d dreamed of when he was young. Gazing out from the Citadel’s docking bay, staring up from London bridges, wondering where the stretch of stars ended. Where new worlds began.

For heroes, and everything they’d fought for.

He’d first heard of the Initiative while he was still working crisis response; his HUS-T1 squad had crossed paths with an Alliance support team and the plan for Andromeda had come up in the lapses between cycles. So much had sounded like a pipe dream back then– Reapers, Pathfinders– the sort of things that people talked themselves in circles about, things that never actually happened. But later he’d gotten a call from Ryder himself. And Commander Shepard had started stirring up trouble in military circles around the same time, pushing Reaper lore and calling for strengthened defense around Luna base. And suddenly pipe dreams had been as real as anything.

By the time news of Shepard’s death broke over military channels, Liam had started his training.

He remembers– he’d watched the funeral broadcast in the bunkroom with the rest of the trainees, packed in a tight circle around someone’s datapad screen. The Alliance buried an empty box; they hadn’t recovered his body. Shepard would want us united, Hackett had said in his speech, now more than ever, Liam remembers that so clearly. Remembers how everyone had felt like the Admiral had been talking to them: stand together. The galaxy needs heroes.

Shepard hadn’t been married, he didn’t have family. So when they folded the Alliance flag into twelve they’d handed it over to Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, and then the cameras had cut away– but not before everyone saw him bring the flag to his lips, and then his heart.

The galaxy needs heroes, said Hackett. And something to live for.

He’s pretty sure everyone in the Alliance had been a little in love with the commander. His military record was an inspiration, the guy himself could charm the armor off of a varren. Most of the squads Liam worked with followed every move he made, every interview he gave; Shepard showed one ounce of interest in a new brand of omni-tool and suddenly they were sweeping the shelves. Shepard bought a Model 12 Locust and Kassa Fabrications sold out of them the day after. The man couldn’t sneeze without someone scanning the area for leftover heat signals.

So there were always rumors floating around, fiction-based stories spread around in heavily commercialized pulp magazines and weeklies. Commander Shepard: Double Life As An Omega Stripper! Commander Shepard: His Secret Earth Gang Affiliation! Commander Shepard: Savior Of The Citadel Revealed To Be Half-Krogan!

Liam had tried to ignore them, for the sake of decent morality. But then the Collectors hit, and morality went murky for everyone, and Commander Shepard: Back From The Dead carried some real merit, real hope. 

And Commander Shepard: In League With Cerberus? ended up running clear too.

All-in-all, Commander Shepard: Heartbreak On Horizon! wasn’t the hardest thing to believe. 

Yeah, he read that one for sure, the guy who bunked across from him had sent a copy to him over the extranet. And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t find it at least a little bit thrilling, the idea of a love affair between Shepard and Alenko– the hero and the guy at his back, the soldier going to hell and back and the guy following him there. It probably wasn’t the most worthwhile thing he could’ve been doing with his time before lights-out, fantasizing over someone else’s very real, very dangerous, and very immediate life– but oh, man, that last issue had sure been something to keep a romantic up at night.

Not that it kept Liam up at night.

Much.

Not that it’s keeping him up now.

He’s always had a hard time sleeping in new spaces– in this case, in new space itself. And he’s learned that it’s better to get his brain focused on something else than to stay staring up at the ceiling, so he grabs his datapad, hauls himself out of his bunk, and wanders over to the mess hall. He figures he’ll dig around in the rations cupboard, find some freeze-dried ramen or something, read a little more Blasto.

Apparently, someone else has already had the same idea.

Scott is there when he walks in, his back to the door with one arm bracing the fridge open, staring into the shelves like the answer to geth-quarian peace is stuck somewhere behind the evaporated milk cartons. “Hey,” says Liam casually, and startles him so bad that his grip on the fridge door slips.

He steadies again, quick enough to keep it from slamming on his hand. But when he looks back up his shoulders have squared, body language tense and nervous. He rocks back on his heels. “Hey,” he says. 

“Can’t sleep?”

“Guess not. You?”

“Guess not,” says Liam.

They look at each other.

“Ryder,” SAM’s strange soft voice bursts static through the comm speakers, and they both flinch this time. “I’ve detected a significant change in your heat signature. Your heart-rate has also rapidly accelerated.”

“Wow. Uh–” Scott goes beet-red, eyes sliding away to a spot a foot above Liam’s head. “I’m good, SAM. I’m just– I’m great, thanks for, uh, sharing that, though.”

“Your well-being is my primary concern.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“Analysis of your tone of voice implies sarcasm.”

Scott huffs softly and turns back to the fridge. “Good catch,” he mutters, yanking out one of the packets of freeze-dried ice cream and letting the door slam shut with a gust of icy air. “Feel free to go offline anytime.”

“Remember, Ryder,” says SAM solemnly. “Those packets are individually rationed–”

“Anytime, SAM.”

There’s a quiet chirp as he deactivates. And then it’s just the hum of the fridge, and silence.

The ice cream packet crinkles in Scott’s hands. “Sorry. He can be–”

“Yeah,” says Liam, shrugging like whatever even though he’s feeling a little hot in the face himself, “don’t worry about it.” Scott is still flushed around the edges– soft edges, squared jaw. Stubble-patched and tired lines. Liam’s still not sure what color his eyes are. Light. Gray? But sometimes blue, reflecting whatever comes his way.

“Well,” says Scott, and clears his throat, “it’s late. I should– go.”

Liam almost laughs, wondering for half a second whether that’s supposed to be a line. But then he remembers who’s speaking; Scott Ryder is the last person who’d try to pick someone up in a mess hall at midnight. “Okay,” he answers, sliding into one of the chairs with his issue of Blasto pulled up on his datapad screen. “Have a good night, then.”

“Yeah, I’ll– see you around? I mean, of course I will, I’ll see you tomorrow. At the briefing,” He’s going a steady scarlet, white-knuckling his neapolitan like it’s to blame for everything. “You– take care, Kosta.”

It’s not the fastest retreat Liam has ever been witness to. You can’t spend time with Alliance soldiers and not see someone’s heels beating up dust in your wake.

It does, however, cut it very close.

…

[TEAM MESSAGE BOARD] 

CORAHARPER: god i hope habitat 7 has better food than this

SARARYDER: what!? listen up that freeze dried imitation crab is to die for

CORAHARPER: yeah bc i’m more likely to die than enjoy it

SCOTTRYDER: Actually, the ice cream is pretty good too.

SARARYDER: oh my god stop the world my brother actually likes something

SCOTTRYDER: Shut up, Sara. I like plenty of things.

SARARYDER: okay fair

SARARYDER: for example

SARARYDER: you like sucking the joy out of life

LIAMKOSTA: and ending texts with periods

CORAHARPER: and staring at liam during briefings

SARARYDER: woooooow

SARARYDER: called tf out

LIAMKOSTA: that’s out of line, cora

CORAHARPER: is it though?

CORAHARPER: technically i outrank him

SCOTTRYDER: I don’t stare at anyone. I just get distracted sometimes.

SARARYDER: i’m lauhgin g

SARARYDER: ‘distracted’

CORAHARPER: sounds fake but okay

SARARYDER: cora pls

SARARYDER: cora i’m dying

LIAMKOSTA: are you sure that’s not the imitation crab talking, sara?

SARARYDER: ASDFGHJKL;

…

Living out of a shoebox means his whole world is in a locker, and maybe that’s why he keeps coming back to it. Dragging his things out onto the floor, scrubbing up to his elbow with an oil-stained cloth– for some reason, no matter how hard he works, it never seems any brighter when he stops to take a closer look.

He can think of a few real-life scenarios to apply that to.

“Hey,” Scott says, interrupting his train-wreck of thought and flipping his stomach over instead. “Do you have a minute?” He’s standing a good five feet back with his hands in his issued-Initiative-blues pockets, watching Liam sort through his stuff for what must be the fifth time at least– he would know if he was counting, he’s sort of trying not to, though.

“I’ve got more than a minute.” He wipes his palms on his thighs, then wipes them again when the sweat seems to stick. “What’s up?“

“Just trying to get a sense of where the crew’s at,” Scott says, eyeing up Liam’s ongoing project. “What– are you spring cleaning?”

“Whatever kills time,” Liam says wryly, lifting one shoulder, letting it drop. “How long until we hit Habitat 7?”

“T-minus three days. You ready?”

“Honestly, I’d feel underprepared no matter what. You can’t really be ready for something like this, right?”

“Right,” Scott echoes. “That’s…what I keep telling myself, anyway.” He shifts on his feet, restless, stiff-backed. At ease, Liam thinks, but whether or not it would help, he isn’t sure. “So, uh,” he gestures to the pile at Liam’s feet. “This is all you, huh. Give me the tour.”

He chuckles, but it sticks like the sweat. “Nothing impressive. Just a few things I grabbed from home, backed-up transmissions. I had my family and friends record some before we went under. Snagged some Corellian whiskey, too, and– oh, yeah–” He crouches down, fumbling for the Normandy model. “There’s this, heads-up–”

Scott catches it easy, one-handed. A spark of interest lights up behind his eyes as he turns it over between his palms, “Shepard’s ship?”

“Yeah!” says Liam, stupidly enthusiastic. “I mean, er– yeah. I don’t know why I grabbed it, it’s not great, like, practicality-wise…” He wipes at the back of his neck, feeling his face heat up. “It’s signed, it’s– got his signature. Not that I ever met him, the Alliance was auctioning it off at a fundraiser and I spent a quarter of my credit savings on it. Figured I wouldn’t need those here, anyway, so– you know? I thought, why the hell not.”

“You admire him.”

“I did.”

“Past tense,” says Scott.

He’s like that, Liam is learning. He really listens, pays attention, maybe more closely than’s good for anybody. His chest is tight, like it’s fit with armor two times too small. Shepard’s gone, he should say. They all are, everyone we knew. He’d known they’d be; he thought he’d been ready. But it just hadn’t hit him. Not until he woke up, and felt the weight of every century settle down somewhere in his gut.

Scott runs the tip of one finger over the starboard wing. “He was a good man,” he says, filling the space of Liam’s silence. “He had a good crew. What did you think about all that Reaper stuff, did you believe that?”

“Yeah,” Liam says quietly, “I believed it. I still believe it. Although I guess it isn’t really relevant anymore. Being– two million light-years away. And all that.”

“Not unless they’ve got Reapers here, too. You won’t be disappointed if we don’t find any, will you?”

Liam doesn’t laugh the same way Scott doesn’t smile; they both give it a try anyway. There’s common ground somewhere in the middle, there must be: a compromise, thick throats but steady hands. “Believe me,” he says. “I’m not holding my breath.”

“Me neither,” says Scott. “Not for that.”

…

[TEAM MESSAGE BOARD]

SCOTTRYDER: Hey, Liam. I really enjoyed our chat yesterday. We should talk again soon.

SARARYDER: what??

SARARYDER: oh. OHO

CORAHARPER: is there a reason you’re posting this on the team forum

SARARYDER: ohhhh boy

SARARYDER: ohhhh man

SCOTTRYDER: I apologize, everyone. I meant to send that privately.

CORAHARPER: how come you never have these “chats” with me?

SARARYDER: CALL HIM OUT

LIAMKOSTA: down, harper. jesus, you two

LIAMKOSTA: i enjoyed talking to you too, scott

CORAHARPER: consider my feelings officially hurt

SARARYDER: i love u all so much pls never change

…

Alec Ryder begins the next day’s morning conference with a not-so-gentle reminder that there are, actually, individual rations on the freeze-dried ice cream.

And Habitat 7, he announces, with his arms folded firmly across his chest, will most likely not be stocked with the stuff.

So whoever’s been sneaking extra portions should know that once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

The subject is dropped after that and they move onto a briefing of local fauna from there. Across the table Scott is dead quiet, and very interested in the grain-pattern of the table; Liam has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing, straight-out.

That night he goes back to the mess. But it’s empty and stays empty, through two (individually rationed) ramen packets and a quarter chapter of his now embarrassingly over-read copy of Blasto: Eternity is Forever.

“Liam,” says SAM. “If you are still experiencing difficulty falling asleep, there are multiple sleeping aids available in the medical bay.”

“Oh– no thanks, SAM. I’m good.”

“Perhaps I could attempt to improve your mood. Sara has often implied that humor is appropriate in attempting to lift one’s spirits.”

“That…depends on what your definition of humor is, I think.”

“I will proceed momentarily,” says SAM, sounding as pleased as an AI can manage to sound. “Scanning– transferring data files. Transfer complete: an asari, a turian, and a krogan walk into a bar.” 

“Does the punchline involve Omega strippers and batarian shard wine?”

“Possibly.”

—

[TEAM MESSAGE BOARD]

SCOTTRYDER: hi everyone my name is scott

SCOTTRYDER: i like long walks on the beach at sunset and crisis response specialists ;)))

SCOTTRYDER: i also have an insatiable sweet tooth and fhdfdkjglkfjghksgohjlk’l;45

LIAMKOSTA: ???

CORAHARPER: oh my god

SCOTTRYDER: Fuck you, Sara!

SARARYDER: keep 👏 ur 👏 hands 👏 off 👏 my 👏 ice 👏 cream

…

The Hyperion isn’t called an Ark for nothing. It’s huge, on a new-age scale, and it’s frighteningly easy to keep to yourself, if you’re not careful.

That being said, Liam isn’t sure how he and Scott seem to keep managing to run into each other.

He wonders if this is just something else he’ll have to get used to: the mess hall door hissing open, his brain short-circuiting. Scott giving him that wonky not-smile and Liam thinking hey, thinking come here often? Fumbling for something smoother: what’s a guy like you doing on a ship like this?

Maybe he’d have better luck with something from Blasto. With false confidence: is that a thermal clip in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

“You should be getting some shut-eye,” says Scott, just honest, tired lines and three-day stubble.

“I was about to say the same thing,” says Liam, which is such a shit lie. “Are you back to check out the ice cream reserves? I’ve heard they’ve been dwindling.”

Scott flushes; Liam knew he would. “No,” he says. “Actually, I’m– SAM says you’re having trouble sleeping.”

Snitch. Liam glares half-heartedly at the comm, but the AI stays annoyingly silent, and Scott is waiting on an answer. “It’s nothing. I’m still just getting used to everything, that’s all.”

“He also says–” Scott looks troubled. “That you haven’t really…spent time with anyone else.”

Snitch! “SAM,” Liam says, exasperated. “Really?”

“I am required to report stress-induced complications of this kind.”

“Complications–! Scott, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” says Scott. But he doesn’t look convinced. “Well, I wanted to check in, just in case– I know you know this, but the worst thing you could do right now is–”

“Isolate myself. Yeah.” He does know; ergo, should know better. He’s seen it before, out in the field: division members who’d felt too deeply and seen too much, who stopped being seen at all. Separating from their squad. Becoming the ghosts of the victims they were too late to save.

“We could talk about it, if you want,” offers Scott. “Or– we could try something else? Stop me if you’ve heard this one before; an asari, a turian, and a krogan walk into a bar.”

Of course he’s heard it before. But he’s not about to stop him, it’s a classic. That’s sort of the problem with it, actually, you can never be sure which punchline was the original, which answer is meant to be the right one. There are so many damn ways it could go. An asari, a turian, and a krogan walk into a bar; the volus walks under it. An asari, a turian, and a krogan walk into a bar; only the krogan walks back out.

An asari, a turian, and a krogan walk into a bar.

The human shows up thirty-four years late and says, what’d I miss?

“You can’t give up,” Scott says, pulling a hand through his hair, “I don’t actually know the punchline.”

His ears have gone red, again, around the edges, eyes shifting: Liam’s started to commit that face to memory, every time he sees it. Locking it up somewhere safe, somewhere in the center of his chest, behind his bones. I won’t give up if you don’t, he could say. Or they could skip the bullshit and try again: A human walks into the mess hall at midnight, and Scott Ryder says ‘I should go’.

You know how many humans it takes to save the galaxy, Ryder? Twenty thousand and one: twenty thousand to leave before the fight’s even started, and Commander Shepard to stay behind and deal with whatever bullshit they’ve left behind.

“You’re worse than SAM,” says Liam. Instead of what he could, or should, or any of that. Instead of a heart-to-heart, a real one, for the sake of sanity and the rest.

“I know,” says Scott. “I really am.” He puts his hands in his pockets, tips his head toward the door. “C’mon. Let’s take a walk.”

…

[TEAM MESSAGE BOARD] 

SARARYDER: hey liam

LIAMKOSTA: what’s up?

SARARYDER: hey scott

SCOTTRYDER: Yes?

SARARYDER: lol

LIAMKOSTA: do you need us for something or??

SARARYDER: nah just trying to settle a bet with cora

LIAMKOSTA: sara it’s two in the morning

SARARYDER: and yet…ur both up…

SARARYDER: suspicious…

…

The habitation deck is dark and deserted, with the Pathfinder crew all bunked away like good soldiers, the rest of humanity along for their cryo-ride. The only thing keeping Liam from tripping over his own feet is five years of field experience and the blue emergency lights, glowing softly along the hall edges.

“Everyone’s here for their own reasons,” Scott tells him. “My father calls it his responsibility. Sara says it’s her calling– turn here, it’s just around that corner.”

There’s the hiss of a door’s hydraulics; Scott steers him through, fingers steady at his elbow. Whatever room they’re in is even darker than the hallway. Scott is just a low voice, warm breath at his ear.

“Every time I went out past the Sol relay I could always map my way home. I could look up and know where I was. Even if we were right out at the edge of the traverse, I could look out and say, there, that’s Fortuna. And from there, the Annos Basin, and the relay to Arcturus, and I could work my way to the Citadel, just stargazing…SAM?”

“Yes, Ryder.”

“Open the observation deck shutters, please.”

Light filters in as the night-cycle shutters draw back from the viewport windows. He’s been on the observation deck before, but never like this, with the lights cast low and Andromeda’s stars painted from floor-to-ceiling. Definitely never with Scott Ryder’s hand splaying flat across his back.

“Maybe it was only in my head. But it was like a tether. Knowing I could map myself back home again, whenever I wanted.”

Focus on breathing. The rise and fall of your chest. Their arms brush when he shifts his weight, and Liam pretends he can feel the heat of him, the thermal clipped waves. I bet you bring all the girls here. “Earth’s a long way from here,” he says. “A long way, Ryder.”

“It’s still out there, though.”

Six-hundred years. Liam didn’t know it would be so heavy, all that leftover indecision mixing with doubt. Afraid to be left behind, of what he’s left behind. Afraid to be here, too, in the first real uncharted world of their lives.

“Scott,” he says, “can you tell me– why’d you join up?”

“With the Initiative?”

“Yeah, you know, new beginnings…?”

“Uh,” Scott looks embarrassed. “I don’t know, I just…Dad wanted Sara to go. And Sara, she did really want to go, it was all she used to talk about. And I’d spent so many years watching everyone else go off to fight, the adrenaline of it all, the glory…back then I thought I wanted that, too. So when Dad signed on, and Sara, too– I couldn’t stand the thought of–”

Pipe dreams, Liam thinks. Empty boxes and folded flags and being left behind, in a galaxy without a hero.

“I didn’t want to be alone,” Scott says, very softly.

He’s close enough that Liam can see the shadow of his lashes against his cheek, and hear him swallow. He’s close enough to kiss; he wonders whether Scott would let him. He thinks there might be a sliver of something in his face that says he should, but maybe it’s just the light of stars they don’t have names for, reflecting off of the surface of Habitat 7. Maybe it’s just Hyperion’s low-power glow reflecting in his eyes, relay-blue and soft the way Liam feels, on the edge of everything unknown, on the verge of something incredible.

Those eyes would reflect anything.

“Ryder,” says SAM, “Habitat 7 is within range of short-distance scans. The Pathfinder is requesting your presence.”

Whatever spell had been caught between them, it’s broken now. Scott blinks and sighs, and rolls one shoulder. “Fathers,” he says, shaking his head as though it’s an old joke of theirs, but Liam knows better; Scott only has one joke in his arsenal and he still doesn’t know its punchline. “I should go,” he says, like a damn hero. “I’ll see you on board the shuttle.”

Despite the unknowns: Scott is going to carry him to hell and back; somehow, he’s sure of it.

Damn the unknowns:

Liam is going to let him.

“You know,” Scott says as the door hisses open, swiveling back around with his hands in his pockets, shy almost-smile and shoulders squared, “I think he’d really be proud of us– Shepard would, I mean, don’t you think?”

Liam’s heart thuds once, twice, out-of-rhythm. Skips a beat and then goes on beating, high in his chest, filling the hollow of his throat.

“Yeah,” says Liam. “I reckon he would be.”

…

[TEAM MESSAGE BOARD]

SCOTTRYDER: All right, team, we’ve got the green light. Who’s ready to set up some outposts?

SARARYDER: i’m ready!!

CORAHARPER: beyond ready

LIAMKOSTA: born ready

SCOTTRYDER: Let’s move out!

SCOTTRYDER: Liam, I don’t know what we’ll find down there, but I just wanted to tell you…there’s a lot I didn’t get to say, last night. But it’s been a real honor, getting to know you. And I promise you: I’ve got your back.

CORAHARPER: oh scott

LIAMKOSTA: why are you like this

CORAHARPER: poor scott

LIAMKOSTA: someone seriously needs to show him how to work this thing

CORAHARPER: scott come back

CORAHARPER: you can’t pour your heart out on the team forum and then leave

SARARYDER: THAT’S TWENTY CREDITS YOU OWE ME HARPER

SARARYDER: PAY UP

…

In the end, Liam thinks, as the shuttle engines flare to life, as the shuttle bay doors yawn open, as the Hyperion shrinks behind them–

Maybe they don’t need a punchline at all.

20,000 humans cross into Andromeda galaxy.

20,000 humans sleep for six-hundred and thirty-four years.

One human stares off into space and says: I didn’t want to be alone.

And the other says: I know.

The other says: you aren’t.

[werm-whole-skwerm]

thank you, i like that nickname. i just have,, like, for the past few days, felt really good for some of the day and been like 'i'm getting better!! there was never anything wrong!!' and then like,, just feeling bad for the other part of the day. and it's getting closer to the end of the school yr, i only have a few wks left, and like,, last wk i had two exams and a presentation and they havent been graded yet but i think i did bad and i feel like i'm bothering all my friends and like they (1/?

like they don't like me that much and. idk. earlier today my best friend texted me telling me that she deserved to die and i got rlly worried abt her bc i just. love her a lot and she's an online friend and i've had one other online friend try to kill herself twice last year, and another online friend just like... idk what happened to her bc we used to talk everyday p much, for hrs and then one day she just didn't comeonline and i haven't heard from her since, it's been almost a yr, so,, (2/?)so she could just,, drop out of my life so easily and i just really don't want that to happen i want her to be happy but. and i mean i think she feels better now than she did earlier but?? i'm still worried abt her. and i didn't do well in school last quarter and i'm trying but i don't think i'll do that great this quarter either and ?? my parents dont know how i'm feeling and my mom called me randomly a few days ago 'to make sure [i'm] doing okay and happy' and i started crying while i was (3/?while i was talking to her and i mean i don't think she noticed bc it was at the end of the phone call and it was quiet and i think my voice sounded normal but ?? idk. i just. don't want to keep doing this. i mean i will, bc i have to, right? but i don't want it to be summer again. i don't want it to be halloween again. idon't want it to turn into fall again. i don't want to keep doing this. i'm not doing enough and i just. can't imagine the future being good. after this quarter i'll have (4/?i'll have all the general university requirements done, but i don't know what i want to major in. my parents keep bugging me to choose a major and apply for jobs and scholarships, and do good in school but i haven't done any of that and . it's just hard and i don't want to do any of it. i wish i'd never existed. but it's okay. it'll be okay. thanks for asking, sorry for the rlly long answer :/ (5/5)also--i keep imagining cutting my wrists and . dying. i guess. it almost feels like there's an itch under my skin there. so i've been drawing vines w flowers coming off of them there instead. so it's pretty instead of just making me feel awful. idk. that's been bothering me too. (6/5)

Well first off never apologize for having a long answer. I asked, and I’m glad you told me. I want you to be able to unload like this. It’s good for you.

Secondly, I’m so, so, so terribly sorry that you’re feeling like this, that you’re going through this. It seems like so much to bear at one, and it’s truly not fair that you’re having to shoulder all of this at once. 

I don’t know if it helps at all, but I understand what you’re going through. I do. When I was 17, I had a really bad mental breakdown that lasted until I was 21. I didn’t do anything. I was depressed, wanted to kill myself, I didn’t leave the house. I just started college at 21 this January and moving to get my life in order. Don’t let anyone rush you, alright? Don’t let your mom or your friends or anyone else try to pressure you into choosing something you don’t want to do. My mom still is doubtful about my major in linguistics and a minor in Japanese studies, but I’m doing it because I know I love it and I want to do it. If you don’t know what the fuck you wanna do right now, that’s alright! That’s totally gucci! That’s what general studies programs are for, and if you change your mind, and you decide on what you want to study, then you can totally just change your major! That’s the beauty of it. Don’t let them pressure you into anything you’re uncomfortable with, Sweetpea. You need to do this at your own pace, for you.

And I know kinda pushing through it is tough. You’re gonna spend a lot of time just going through the motions, and it’ll feel almost hollow and empty. But, fun fact from big sib Lexie, you’re gonna really appreciate doing it, ya know? One day, I promise you this, you’ll look back and you’ll really realize how amazing and strong you were for having to push through all that. It’ll suck in the moment, yeah, but when you’re finally on the other side, the absolute astounding pride that you’re gonna feel for being able to pull yourself through the worst times of your life on your own merit, and even with some help from your friends, is gonna be the most overwhelming joy you’ll be able to feel.

I know that all probably seems so far away from now, but time passes in the blink of an eye, Sweetpea. Before you know it, that time’ll be here, and I hope, I really do, that you’ll be able to pull yourself through this so you can come out on the other side. Even if it’s slowly, I want that for you. I wanna see ya be able to smile and truly say that you’re proud of what you’ve been through and what it took to get there. 

Because ya know what? I’m proud of you, dude. I’m so proud that you’re in school. I’m so very proud that you’ve managed to stick around this long, that you’ve managed to power through your bad habits and awful thoughts. I’m so proud that you’ve taken to positive outlets like drawing on yourself, making yourself feel pretty and good with flowers. Because that’s what you deserve, Sweetpea. And I mean, I know it probably won’t mean a whole hell of a lot since I’m just some random person on the internet, but I always want you to know that, okay? I’m so proud of you as a person, Sweetpea. I’m honored to call you a friend, if I might even be so bold. And I love you a great deal. 

I’m proud of you, and I love you lots, Sweetpea.

[subjectsilver]

my psyche and wormy be ruthless sometimes.

originally i told myself that i was only going to use tumblr every sunday to log what has happened throughout the week or anything noticeable or note worthy but i literally need to type this right now because I'm losing my goddamn mind and on the verge of a panic attack...i can feel my chest tightening and my heart has such a “funny” feeling that isn't so funny so idk why they call it that... its like a light feeling like when u get light headed - i feel light hearted rn

the absolute worst part about my depression is that it literally just comes and goes whenever it wants. obviously theres things that help trigger it, a song a picture of my ex friends snapchats, any object that i can play connect the dots with back to a single thought that can disrupt my entire mental.

and it hit me tonight and it hit me hard and tonight I'm trying not to run away from it. I'm not going to go smoke cigarettes and listen to music until 5 am I'm trying to just type what is going on instead of like holding it into my head. or type something at least. the thing about it is that whenever it hits me, i always find a way to make it so much worse.... like i see just the right combination of words or objects to sink me or look at pictures of emma and even though i know its hurting me i continue to do it anyway....maybe its because in that moment I'm actually feeling something, she is making me feel something just like she use to in the past. i really valued that until i became too grey and numb and hopeless.

i feel like throwing up

i used “ex” up there and  makes me feel really uneasy i haven't used it very much at all mainly because i have to explain myself to anyone here and I've only told a few people what is going on with me. That was good thought because i have a friend named hank who went through some shit too so he kind of connects with me but still not a person i would talk to about shit...i don't really have anyone for that so i don't really know... sometimes i type it all and erase it, sometimes i make songs, sometimes i say it out laid sometimes i just cry.

i started taking prozac 3 days ago this will be the fourth, so hopefully that'll help  me. Im still underweight as fuck but oddly I'm comfortable with it bc i like the way my shirts feel and clothes fit, unfortunately i need to gain like 20 pounds if i want to exist on this soccer team which is kinda mad. I was going to suggest leaving wake because i don't really even care to play soccer rn. and i realized a while back that all i needed was in ohio... like i had the best friends the girl of my dreams and i could've had a 1st year internship paying between 40-70k at some health company under my step dad... its kinda shitty because its something i wanted to tell everyone and i would always think about how disappointed my dad would be and how supportive my mom would be but something told me not do make moves with any of it. its like the universe knew i was going to go through some shit. like it knew i was gonna get low and the perfect image of life i had in my head up. like bitch u thought you'd plant roots,,,nahhhhhhtttt  

i keep listening to this song on repeat

https://soundcloud.com/yvpoipoi/maxence-cyrin-where-is-my-mind

but the real is back the ville is back

i fucking hated listening to cole until like 2 weeks ago. it was so annoying listening to cole bc of hani playing it literally all the time. when things like that get annoying they because white noise to me. but recently i went through his 3 most recent projects and actually listened heavily to the words and that shit is crazy.

i also have been paying a lot of attention to jay z and beyonce. i guess jay z had an affair or some shit and ten he and “once” went back and forth on songs about it... but i read this quote by him where he was like “our relationship was built on top of lies, and i had to tear it down and build it back up again and it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.” thats the kind of shit that gives me hope in the world of relationships. I've accepted that its probably false hope but ill hold onto anything the keeps me going at this point...

my suicidal thoughts haven't been present the last few days but i never know if and when those will come back. to be truthful I've been stacking up on things in my camera roll that give me up for when I'm feeling low.

the light hearted feeling has subsided, i just realized it. i kinda of ignore all grammatical practices when i write freely. i just go with my own language because i feel like its more personal ya know. someone i know annotates her own letters that she use to write me and i always loved that shit because i have so many side thoughts when i write as well.

luke christophers album finally came out and what do you know 5 of the songs had already been released and some like a year ago so its barely anything knew but it still has new music and bangers so i do appreciate the legend himself. after seeing his hair blonde on the cover idk if I'm going to keep growing my hair black or re-dye it. maybe ill keep it blonde until i feel like I'm above 80% better or something  right now i feel about -7% (if i could annotate that line id tell you that i originally wrote -7 person instead of percent then i autocorrected person then backspaced it to a symbol) 

the last few days I've felt really weak though and I've been sleeping a lot like two days ago i got like 11 hours and yesterday i got like 10 and I've been taking naps during the day. but I've constantly felt like I've had low blood sugar or that I've been dehydrated or something. i can't even make a fist and squeeze that hard.

its crazy because when i type anything about myself ever i just start tearing up for no reason...happy thoughts sad thoughts dark thoughts i could be writing about my microwave and be tearing up. and i do it a lot with emma or my best friends or my ex and ex best friends idk what anyone is to me anymore. been too focussed on trying to survive, which i feel is the correct selfish thing to do for once.

“don't give a fuck and they love you do give a fuck and they hate you - I'm always gone be there for you”

this man luke in onto something

its crazy that i will leave my phone in my room from 7:30 am to 7-8 at night and the only notification that ill get is “your phone hasn't been backed up in 57 weeks” or some shit like that. occasionally ill receive a random text from someone but its funny because sometimes on the inside ill be screaming like “PLEASE SOMEONE TALK TO ME” and then it happens and its like nah.. i thought i sent out an amber alert but really I'm sending out a batman bat symbol. i thought i needed anyone to talk to, but in reality i just need one singular person to talk to. that was my mistake, will always be my mistake but at least i recognize it now...just a little late there big guy.

having so much time to myself probably too much time to myself is really interesting...if you've ever thought that you've done real reflection, submerge yourself in complete loneliness and isolation and try again because its so much deeper. you think about everything. every individual relationship, every right every wrong multiple perspectives. you think about all of your problems and the root to your problems.  all of your mistakes why u caused these mistakes or what caused these mistakes. its actually really shitty because the bad will always stick out more than the good because the good is what is suppose to happen and the bad is the variable...variables get more attention than the constants i feel. deep down i don't think I'm a shitty human being.. even though i might think that a lot or hate myself...ik I'm only human and i can't be perfect and as much as id love for everyone to love me and me to not hurt anyone its more than likely unrealistic and it'll happen to me and already has happened to me and now i understand that and i will be more forgiving as i go on in life, the same forgiveness id want people to give me.

i use to think that everything had to work in reciprocality like for some reason i always thought everything should be equal all of the time..but i was extremely wrong, some people need more some people need less some people expect things and if they mean anything to you, the extra effort should hinder you or disrupt you...every human has a different way of looking at relationships and when those ways collide and don't add up it creates problem. I'm not saying people should give up in what they believe in but people should be less harsh about it... i know people who should be less harsh on me and i know people that i will be less harsh on and who i would be less harsh on if i could go back in time.

i tried to think about why I'm so afraid of butterflies and i can't really think of what happened along the way that got me here but i think the very root is the movie “butterfly effect” I'm also pretty sure they are remaking that movie into a 2018 version and ill probably go scare the fuck out of myself while seeing it.

my anxiety was gone until thinking about butterflies 

i tried to explain a fear of butterflies to this kid named mike and i sounded like an absolute idiot and then his response was “does this scare you” and it was the close up of a butterfly from this spongebob episode and i can't get it out of my head.... i think the video is called “wormy close up”

 fuck wormy

usually id think something so symmetrical was beautiful seeing has my old tendencies make me love symmetrically and i do things in that way like when i touch my feet to surfaces and shit bc i feel all neat and organized but i don't like that every butterfly ever is symmetrical as fuck...like show why what the hell. and i want to watch a video on it but i don't want to go into shock or some shit.

and they have wings that flap which is what i hate about bugs in general.

to be fair though i do like butterflies that have bright blue or white wings cus i use to see those a lot as a kid when my backyard was a golf course. but my vision of a butterfly with like brown wings and black borders gahhhh fuck that....id weather let a centipede crawl on me from head to toe than a butterfly land on me to put in in perspective. 

idk man i think this post has done for me what i thought it would do what i intended it to do...i have to be up in like 3 and a half wish hours then run for an hour then ill take a solid nap for like 5 hours or just sleep pt.2 but i must be going... until next time or sunday.

i love you

fuck wormy

goodnight