#we just needed to scream into the void for a second

[fvaleraye]

maybe this is just a sign of how petty we are at times, but we genuinely think that if you can't make your point without being an asshole about it, then... we probably won't listen? like, being an asshole is not a great way to get people to hear what you have to say. like sure, if you're making a good point then you're still making a good point, but like... more flies with honey, etc.

[itty-bitty-sunshine]

Okay so maybe trying to draw a bunch of comics at once wasnt a great idea motivation and energy-wise,

[bougonia]

went to a concert so good it rewired my brain chemistry

[be-good-to-bugs]

WOW i am way overemotional lately

[rrogueamendiares]

the way 99% of my problems would disappear if i could live by myself !!!!!!!

[ckret2]

who wants a prism break?

So, the Theraprism! The Theraprism sucks, right?

This is like, a good day.

The Theraprism clearly sucks.

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

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

####

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

####

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

The absence of everything.

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

This void was the opposite of her. 

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

Reality returned like a light bulb being switched on.

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

He stopped screaming. The shrill sound stopped.

"Energetic as always, are we?"

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

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

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

"Perfect. What's your name?"

"I'm ol' Vinegar Pete."

"No clowning, please."

He sighed loudly. "Bill Cipher."

"Good. Where are you?"

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

"Very good. When are you?"

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

The Orb checked its notes. "Eight minutes."

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

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

Bill groaned again and flopped flat on the floor.

"Do you know why you're here?"

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

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

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

"Because you tried to escape."

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

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

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

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

####

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

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

"A-AOX4."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do you miss Earth?"

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

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

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

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

"Do you? How many exes?"

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

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

Hook, line, and sinker.

####

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

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

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

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

####

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then he was left in his cell.

####

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

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

####

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

####

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Be respectful," D-SM5 said warningly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When the light faded, he was gone.

The observation room had fallen perfectly silent.

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

####

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

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

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

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

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

"What?"

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

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

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

"Is it really your birthday?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You stopped moving."

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

"Well, take less time."

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

"Hold it!"

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

"You dropped a pill," the guard said.

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

"No exceptions, Cipher."

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

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

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

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

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

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

His entire plan hinged on it.

####

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Beast rumbled, "Em deerf evah uoy."

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

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

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

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

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

####

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

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

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

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

"Looks like it, boss."

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

####

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No response. He was plastered flat to the floor.

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

He was paper.

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

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

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

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

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

####

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

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

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

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

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

He was betting his life on it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm not listeniiing to yooou!"

"You're only going to hurt yourse—"

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

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

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

"Cancel the reincarnation!" D-SM5 snapped.

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

"Then get him off the altar!"

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

"Don't let him esc—!"

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

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

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

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

####

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

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

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

[nasatshirts]

i am so fucking tired of having nothing i say matter.

[rae-writes]

tight schedule

nsfw || something something Barbatos brainrot

The pitch black void of Barbatos' time crevasse was a little disorienting but nothing could pull your focus away from the way your boyfriend was pounding you. 

His tail was coiled around your waist tightly to keep you as close as possible, hands gripping at both your chest and your throat. The sounds he made- growls and near whines- were completely unlike his typical composed demeanor, but he just couldn’t help it— 

Barbatos stared down at his phone for a couple of seconds, heart practically beating out of his chest. 

‘Need you. Please.’ sent 1:03pm 

You never asked for hardly anything when you knew he was on duty. The heat between your legs must’ve been torture if you were begging for him now. 

He had to serve the young master’s tea in seven minutes…but not if time..stopped. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you, sweetheart.” Barbatos breathed raggedly, thrusting into you sharply. He shuddered at how tight you felt, probably from how pent up you’d been because of his piled on duties. 

“‘S o-okay..just needed you—“ You gasp, always so sweet and understanding for him. 

But he didn’t want you to be understanding right now, he wanted you to selfishly snatch up the pleasure he was giving you, to scream out his name and feel what you’ve been craving for who knows how long. 

“Take it then— take whatever you need. No one will find us here, they’ll never even know we left. Right now’s about you, sweetheart- just tell me what you want me to do. Please, tell me what you need.” 

[anadiasmount]

we’re pretending? - jude bellingham x reader.

quick sum: no date to an upcoming wedding, you use your best friend as last resort. what happens when your best friend isn’t playing pretend anymore and you’re left conflicted with these unusual feelings…

wc: 4.6 k | masterlist | jude’s masterlist

psa 🗣️: i used my og ‘glory box’ fic to get some inspo while writing this fic ngl!! 😣 this was so fun to write not only by the trope but the DRAMAAAA!! like always, hope you enjoy! 🤍

“yes mom, i know. i picked my dress up yesterday, and my flight is booked as well,” you sighed and rolled your eyes knowing she wouldn’t be able to see you through the phone. she knew how important this wedding was but she kept putting the pressure on you. it was the last thing you needed especially after you told her you’d bring someone along.

that someone was now you’re ex-boyfriend. you had less than 48 hours to come up with an excuse or show up alone.

"are you still bringing your plus one?" she asked, the line going silent for a few seconds before she spoke up again. "y/n? are you there?" you should've just lied or said the truth, all you could think of was how happy and super excited she was when you told her you'd met someone and began dating.

"yes mom... we both will be there," you closed your eyes, disappointment in yourself filling the void in your head. you could hear her squeal in the background, telling a voice there with her about the good news. you chewed on your lip anxiously, wanting to cut the call or else you'd break down.

"listen mom, i have t-to go okay? ill call you tomorrow. try not to stress so much," you smiled weakly hearing an "i love you", ending the call after gifting your goodbye. there was no avoiding the mistake you had committed. you wanted to slap some common sense into yourself, because where the hell were you about to find someone?

you clearly remembered the day telling your mom you'd met someone at uni. she was over the moon and wanted to tell everyone but you dismissed the idea, not wanting to rush since you had recently met. you would call her and tell her about him, and she listened so attentively, just like in the movies.

you couldn't bring yourself to tell her when you and max had broken up. your whole life has always been surrounded by being told you needed to be more like your older sister, the pressure of being a golden child laid on you. for once you had something, but that had to get ruined as well.

the scolding, the perfect grades, friends, hell even family. you had to be so careful and live up to their expectations. you loved them, you did, but at times you just felt like moving away was the best idea. and you did just that, the first to move out to a new country, breaking records at uni, and even finding a suitable job.

your boss loved you, and coworkers admired you for the passion and dedication you carried. so why did it have to go all wrong with max? you had an image of him in your head that he was madly in love with you, though you'd later be proven wrong when you found out he was sleeping with his boss. finding them in the act on your 6th month anniversary.

you still can recall the feeling of being unable to breathe, their screams and his pleading going quiet as you could just stare into the room, not once being able to see his eyes. disgust, and rage, but mostly sadness, a heavy heart, and the lump in your throat. he hurt you terribly and you would forever resent that.

after the call, you sat quietly on the couch, hands in your hair as you thought about everything. looking around seeing your bags packed, the blue dress hanging by your room, pictures everywhere. you hated to admit but you were living in a hell, life messy and a disaster. your buzz ringed, seeing through the tiny camera your best friend jude in the frame.

you allowed him in, walking over to the large mirror and wiping away the dry tears, making yourself look more presentable. you looked worn out, eyes droopy and low, lips slightly chapped, and to make matters worse a zit on your chin. you exhaled a breath, keys jiggling as jude came in.

he set his training bag down, took his shoes off, and walked to you, giving you a small hug. "you look terrible," you gave him a warning look, "but lucky you, i brought us food," he spoke cheerfully, the mood inside you going from gloomy to content. "it's raining like crazy, i almost fell coming up. also i brought some packages and your mail," jude continued.

"thank you, i haven't had the time to go down and pick them up! i've been so busy packing and planning last-minute stuff," you groaned, going to the kitchen and washing your hands. "watch, in the next few minutes i'm going to get a call," you theorized. jude pulled out the food and served it into your plates as you grabbed a water for him and a soda for yourself.

"how was training?"

jude shrugged unimpressed, "same old. didn't really have to go in, but they needed me for a small campaign shoot, so i had no choice. also cama and tchou send their hello's."

you and jude spoke amongst yourself. just about each other's days and catching up from the last time you guys were together. you teased him about losing a bet with his little brother, jude whining about how he cheated. new music that came out, and a pop up store that opened lower in downtown.

"so what's got your head in a twist?" jude sipped on his last few ounces of water, leaning his head on his propped-up arm and hand. you awkwardly scratch the back of your neck, pick up the dirty dishes, and walk to the sink. "okay don't make fun of me-"

"you're basically asking me too... also no promises since you just made fun of me for losing against jobe," jude chuckled.

"jude."

"oh it's serious then... what did you do?" he saw the serious look on your face, a small worry constructing in his chest because he rarely saw you like this. you close your eyes, feeling the anxiety build in you once again, "i told my mom i was still bringing max..."

jude scoffed in denial, or trying to cope with the confusion, "y/n, you what?"

"i know! i know! i should've just confessed and coughed up the truth but i- i couldn't! she was so excited jude! i feel terrible for lying believe me i do, but after telling her about him and filling her with hope to break her heart, i just c-c-couldn't," you ramble, dishes clattering as you freaked out.

in your head it didn't seem as bad, but fully saying it out loud to jude, seemed even worse. jude grimaced, knowing you had messed up bad especially since the wedding was right around the corner. "i'm just embarrassed... i know they will start something and just talk down on me if i showed up alone."

jude knew how heavy-handed your family could be, often wanting to resent them because he cared for you so much. he saw how physically and mentally they could rain you even with the smallest sentence. they seemed so worried with their lives instead of the ones they should most value and care for.

jude gave you a concerned face, "what?" chuckling nervously when you gasped out, almost being able to see the lit-up light bulb on top of your head. "jude, I'm a genius!"

"well i beg to differ-"

"shut up," you pat your finger against your chin, a mischievous smile on your lip taunting jude's concern even more. "i don't know why i didn't think of this sooner! why don't you pretend to be my boyfriend? just for the wedding that's it!"

jude shook his head, hands coming up to back out of the idea. it was one thing you lying, but now asking you to play pretend was something totally different. "that's not a good idea y/n..." jude clenched his teeth forcing a smile. "oh cmon why not?"

"well, first of all, that's an even bigger lie to your mom. second, pretending would seem impossible. third, i don't want the first time meeting your parents to be a lie because of what happened," jude defended and stated his case.

"it's a huge favor but you'd save my life jude! one weekend and that's it! you have plenty of suits, you're also off this weekend, and they would never suspect a thing! please jude! i wouldn't be asking if i wasn't so desperate," you begged, seeing the hesitation in his eyes.

"it seems like a bad idea... you don't know what you're asking for y/n... were pretending to be a couple when were not! we have to make it believable even under the pressure of the wedding. a theatrical play, a stunt!" jude exclaimed standing up from his chair.

"jude please, please, please! it might feel weird but it's for the night only! after that, we go back to the good old y/n and jude," you followed him as he paced in your living room thinking of his answer. would it be back to normal even if he continued to feel the same for you? the unknown loving feeling he had for you?

the pretending would be hard when all he could hardly think of was you. how he felt recently and how nervous he got around you. he would do anything for you in a heartbeat, but this would break jude further than now. he couldn't fake pretend holding your hand, or kissing your cheek when he meant and wanted to do that with you currently.

as bad as the idea was, here he was hugging you as you cheerfully yelped when he agreed. time moved slowly for him, the sensation of regret and curiosity as what was yet to come from both of you. all he cared for was to make sure you were happy, and if faking being your boyfriend would help you, he was willing to do it, no matter the consequences.

as jude was fixing his hair, you finished setting your makeup with some powder and setting spray. nerves bubbling in you after the first test you encountered last night after your arrival. you let out a laugh at the tiny bed you had to share with jude. seeing his uneasy face even after he offered to sleep on the couch.

"we're running on schedule," you spoke, finishing clasping your jewelry around your hands and rings. jude came behind you, his shirt unbuttoned and abs in full view, as he finished zipping his pants. best friend or not, there was no denying how incredibly sexy jude was. the name should speak for itself, but with the looks and personality he had, it was too good to be true.

"need some help?" he asked seeing you nod slowly and looking down at your feet. he took the necklace, your skin on fire as his fingertips grazed your skin accidentally, almost jumping on the spot, goosebumps grazing your body. he clasped the necklace, grabbing the pendent and fixing it so it laid in the middle. "perfect," he cockliy smirked.

"thank you."

"are you almost ready?" he looked at you as he buttoned up his shirt, you almost stuttered but regained consciousness, "yes, just need to put my dress and shoes on," you turned back quickly furrowing your brows, wanting to slap yourself for allowing yourself to get carried away, or maybe at the uneasy desire in you when seeing jude.

you went to the bathroom, grabbing the lacy undergarments and the blue dress. the color was to die for, the perfect length even with your heels on, the opened back with the front just showing the perfect amount of cleavage, and the whole dress just accentuating your body even more.

you felt the need to throw some water in your face though you couldn't or else it would ruin your makeup. you settled with fanning yourself with your hand, the tense in your chest getting to you as it was becoming real now. you were just pretending with jude. nothing more right?

you looked in the huge light-up mirror, and suddenly the confidence you had dripped away as you thought of jude in the next room over. why did all of a sudden everything feel like it wasn't before? as in, things changed drastically since the night at your apartment? you've never felt this clumsy or as edgy around him.

when you woke up this morning, with jude on top of you laying peacefully, you couldn't help but feel overjoyed, as if it was a natural state and you've done it before. in your own world where the only thing that mattered was him and you. since then you were slightly freaked out, butterflies in your chest when he left or walk into the room.

jude double taked a look as you walked into the room again. the tiny room that felt like a joke to him after walking in hand to hand last night. his eyes roamed you, lips slightly separated as he admired your beauty, heart hammering in his chest. he watched as you grabbed your cheeks, immediately offering to help.

he leaned down, gently grabbing your foot and placing the white jeweled heel on you. your hands were clamped around the small bench cushions, jude looking up then and there to make sure they felt comfortable. once again, his touch felt like fire, playing with your head even more.

when he finished clasping the heel, he extended his hand helping you up. "you look absolutely gorgeous y/n... this dress was made for you," jude croaked, hearing you laugh shakily. "thank you jude. likewise," jude smiled at your reaction, "i mean as in you look super handsome with the suit, not a dress!" you explained.

"i think i got what you meant..." he joked, his eyes roaming uo and down again at you. "good. good. shall we head out?" you swallowed heavily, grabbing your purse, phone, and other stuff you needed for the night. you were in a rush, wanting to get some fresh air or you would explode in the room with jude inside. "lead the way y/n."

jude helped you in an out of the cab, his hand on your bare back as he guided you to the double doors leading into the reception. "how are you feeling? any nerves?" you spoke quietly to him, looking around as people were taking their seats or had their own conversations.

"some but not too many. like you said, it's just for today," he whispered along your ear, gently giving your shoulder a kiss as his hands went to your hips and walked you forward. your mom and aunt gasped, grabbing their dresses and walking towards you, almost sprinting. "here goes nothing," you say.

"oh my god! so you are real!" your mom yelped, making you give her a glare and eyes pleading not to make a scene. "i was starting to think my sweet y/n was lying to me about this boyfriend she had," you almost choked on your saliva, clearing your throat at her words. "i am y/n's mom, what is your name?"

"i'm jude. it's a pleasure to finally meet you ma'am," jude shook her hand and leaned down to kiss her cheeks in a greeting manner, the same with your aunt. jude's hand interlocked with yours, the happiness in your mother's eyes never leaving, almost tearing up at the sight of you with your "boyfriend."

"i can't believe it! it's a miracle, my daughter finally has her first boyfriend," she clapped her hands making you wretched at her choice of wording. you did everything to have her at least praise you once in life, and all it took was to have a boyfriend? you brushed away the glum feeling, jude kissing your hand, distracting you from the small burn in your eyes.

"oh my! look at them! they make such a beautiful pair," your aunt gleamed. "we do, don't we?" jude teased them, "took her a while to say yes to me, but i'm very fortunate to be here," jude resumed. "we're very pleased to have you here, anything you need don't hesitate to ask."

after saying hello to other family friends and cousins, you sat for the ceremony. jude wiped a small tear away after your old school friend finished her vows, slapping his shoulder when he made a small joke about your mascara running. "its not funny! the vows were so beautiful," you said.

"it's like we are watching me before you again," he said making you gasp. "jude what are talking about? you literally cried with me?" you recalled laughing, jude looking around scared if someone was hearing you. "please don't remind me... in my defense, i didn't see that ending at all."

after the ceremony, you and jude greeted other families, and most importantly congratulated the bride and groom. their faces ushered with happiness, overall content with how their day was turning out. you had to excuse yourself from jude at one point, your mom dragging you away for your help. jude was left behind with your dad.

"since she was little, she always hated getting thrown or dragged around," your father spoke, taking a sip of his whiskey. "seems like nothing had changed?" jude asked carefully with a playful smile. "oh not even close! it's my wife doing," he winked.

"jude right?"

"yes sir," jude nodded, presenting the dad talk coming up. "I'm gonna save the unnecessary talk and get straight to the point. it's so weird to see my baby girl all grown up, with the lusting and loving eyes she gives you. you love her very much and i can see that which is why i'm not worried about you hurting or losing her trust."

hell if jude didn't feel guilty before, he did now. he gripped the glass harder, nodding to your dad who looked upset. "she may have told you some stuff about us, but at the end of the day, she's my daughter and i love her the way she is... please just take good care of her for me... she been through enough as it is..."

"i only have good intentions and i promise you i won't ever break her heart," jude promised to your dad, but also himself. he would never be able to forgive himself if he ever did break your heart or make you lose the trust you had. max did it once and jude would never do it. even if it meant keeping away these long feelings for you.

when you returned you saw them laughing and chatting away, your heart full of emotions at them getting along. jude was so mature for his age, and it didn't come to a surprise when he got along with your dad so fast. his hand would naturally lay on your back or on your hip.

the next few hours were filled with more people dancing or chatting away. jude insisting you sat on his lap for a picture when the photographer passed, smiling wide, looking like a happy couple. it seemed so natural to you, being this close and intimate you were getting scared at how fast everything was being thrown at you.

"i had to see it for myself! y/n bagging a footballer? never saw that coming," your cousin approached you giving you a high as he dabbed up jude. "jude meet my cousin adrian, he's a huge fan of you, and just successfully signed with a small club," you introduced them to each other, with a huge grin on your face.

jude’s hand snuck around your waist, his thumb drawing shapes as his full attention was with your cousin who spoke about sports. you listened then and there, but your feet began to ache, switching your weight back and forth uncomfortably.

jude was quick to notice, leaving down to your level and asking if you were okay. “i’m fine i promise, these shoes are killing me that’s all,” you reassured with a smile, jude nodding before cutting the conversation after a few minutes. “i’m going to get her a chair and drinks for us,” you froze when he kissed your temple, “i’ll see you around later,” jude said his goodbyes dragging you along slowly.

like before, your chest beat faster, if he stared, smiled, even touched or got near you, you’d get nervous immediately. the familiar string of falling for someone filling the empty space left behind inside you. he was super good at pretending and it didn’t feel like that anymore.

it felt real. was he just pretending? or was he actually taking this fake relationship seriously and real?

all you could do was stare at his face, mostly his gorgeous brown eyes as he helped you get seated and served you some water, making sure you were fully okay. he sat next to you, his hand interlocking with his, and placing it on his lap as he paid attention to his surroundings. you become quiet, so into your head and questioning his every move now.

“jude?” you spoke softly, a confused smile on your face as he immediately turned to you with a soften gaze. you inhaled a breath, unable to look away from him, his ínstese state causing you to feel intimidated. “is everything okay?” he asked, leaning slightly over to you, pushing a small string of hair back. “is it supposed to feel like this?”

“what is?” jude shook his head not understanding.

“us? why am i getting the idea we’re no longer pretending…”

jude tore his gaze from yours, the panic growing more intense when he wouldn't reply back. "jude please... don't push me away. are we just pretending or has something changed?" you persisted, your hand gliding against his back to get his attention. jude debated, afraid of losing you right here and now, or having the possibility to maybe hear you feel the same way.

"come with me," jude demanded, helping your and dragging you to the dance floor where no one could really see you besides the other happy couples. his hands circled your waist, as yours went to his shoulders, unable to look away from him. "tell me i'm not the only one who feels it..."

"tell me what you feel y/n... what your head is begging to scream out..."

"i can't, i don't know jude. i'm afraid yet so confused? since we got here yesterday things feel different between us. it happened again when we had breakfast, when you put my necklace on, my heels! all of this is giving me mixed signals jude... i haven't felt this in so long.." you confess, a shaky breath escaping your lips when he pulls you closer and kisses your head.

"like now. i can't if you just did that out of pretending or because it came naturally to you. i've never had to worry about what you think till recently... it feels strange... yet ican't help but get hope that it means real," you rest your forehead on his shoulder blinking away the tears that slowly begin to let out.

jude could see how this was affecting you, holding your lower body with one hand and the other smoothing down your spine, feeling how you immediately let loose and relaxed by his praise and touch. jude could also feel the heavy weight beginning to feel heavier if he kept his true hidden feelings away. it was a sign, and there was no going back.

jude's hand cradled your chin, forcing you to look up at his, his brown eyes gazing over your teary face. he was truly amazed and so in love with you it made his head feel cloudy, almost dizzy, at how perfect and pure you were. his tummy fluttering at his gorgeous girl who was confused at how she felt... but in this moment jude knew you were in deep as well.

"tell me something, when you see me, does it make your heart race, like i'm the only person standing there?" you nod, "does your head tell you one thing but your gut tells you another when you see me?" you nod again, this time blowing the air out of jude's lungs. "my head tells me i shouldn't, but my gut tells me i waited so long that maybe it's now to late for us..."

"why would it be too late y/n...?" you shrug your shoulders. "because i don't you feel the same way i'm feeling." jude smiled weakly, his thumb brushing along your jaw, hearing your hum in delight, "how can you know when you haven't asked me?"

your eyes search his for any sign but you don't find any, "what are you feel in this moment jude?"

"that i'm the luckiest man to be here with you tonight," he says proudly, "that i don't think we've wasted any time, rather i feel we're barely getting started on this new branch of our lives... i can't pretend when i'm with you... because pretending to hide how i feel has been so hard, when all i want is you. all of you y/n..."

"i had to see you go through that idiot max, how he hurt you? when you were hurt i was even more devastated because i couldn't protect you. i'd do anything to make you happy or laugh because it's what i want to do. i want to be the only one who gets to do that. i promised your dad but myself also, ask me what the promise is..." jude insisted.

"what's your promise jude?"

"that i'd never break your heart or give you a reason to doubt me. that from this day forward, i completely will give you my all to care and relish our love once and for all. i'm tired of waiting and holding back of what should've existed and started when i first met you."

"jude-"

"i want to give you my all, to be devoted and in love with you forever. you have no idea what you make me feel, think! i wake up longing for you, at work, at my own home. you're the only girl i want and need in my life y/n," jude confessed, the weight finally lifted of his shoulders, now being able to feel like a free man.

you closed your eyes, breathing out a happy chuckle in relief. you sniffled, "you've ruined me jude, completely ruined me with your words, your confession! look at me, i'm worse than when we finished watching the vow!" you joked, hand nestling on the nape of his next, stroking his soft skin.

"you love me jude?"

"more than what you think."

"i need you to know i'm giving you my all as well. I've always sensed how different what we had was, and come to find out, i was just scared and felt the need to push away because you didn't feel the same way. what i feel for you never happened with who shall not be named..." jude chuckles, closing his eyes and swallowing a heavy gulp like you.

"i'm so hopelessly in love with you jude bellingham... so in love, i want to grow old with you, make every promise we said out loud come true. i knew i loved you as soon as we laid eyes, and you stumbled over your words," jude squinted his eyes, shaking his head embarrassed. "kiss me jude."

jude kissed you exactly how he dreamed. your lips soft and sweet as he imagined, even better. cradling your chin to tilt and pulling the kiss deeper. it felt so right, so amazing, so passionate. he was lost, his tongue entering your parted lips when you let out a small gasp and whimper. there was no more pretending, this was more real than ever.

"could get lost in how you taste. how you feel. i love you so much angel."

[fieldofdaisiies]

Whispers of the Forgotten | pt. 1

pairing: azriel x reader | type: angst | words: 800 | masterlist

Bloody and broken your body slumps to the ground, his hands, the strong grip he had on you, still lingering like a phantom touch.

Ragged breath whoosh in and out of your lungs, the crisp air burning down your throat, your chest aching, like sharp claws are digging right into the flesh. You want to scream, but your mouth is too dry, your throat hurting too much. There is nothing but an endless void inside your heart and mind, and yet a whirlwind of fury starts to boil within.

The creaking of the door hinges is what makes you tip your head back, eyes burning, vision blurry due to the dust in them. But you see him. It’s not too late. You see his face once last time. The face you will remember forever - loathe forever.

"Azriel," you seethe, but your voice is hoarse and breaks before it can reach him. Or that’s what you think.

The young male‘s head whips towards you. He heard you. Or the swirling shadows always dancing around him heard you. They calm down, almost like they are waiting for what you are about to say. 

You brace your bloody fists on the ground, knuckles white from how hard you curl your fingers towards your palms. Your gaze drops for a split second, landing on his scarred hands, gripping the bloody hunting knife tightly. That damn knife that caused you the flesh deep wound on your belly, now dripping with blood and soon puss.

"Yes," you breathe, trying to summon every little ounce of energy you have left. You force ypur eyes to meet his. "That’s right, Azriel." Your eyes lock with his. "And I’ll remember your damn name forever…" You push up, getting on your knees. "Until I do my last breathe. I will personally carve it into your grave stone. And you will remember my name. Forever."

Your teeth are bared, blood and drool running down your chin. "You will remember my name when I rip open your throat with my claws. You will remember my name when—"

"Let’s go, Az. Our job here is done. The High Lord expects us to be back by now."

Azriel is not alone. Someone is with him. Cassian, one of the best Illyrian warriors there are. Right now…his usual confidence is gone. He looks haunted, scared, impatient. He wants Azriel to come with him. Right in this moment.

But Azriel’s lingers. The male doesn’t move. Not even when Cassian clasps his shoulder - tightly. 

Azriel's gaze is trained on you, eyes wide open.

"Az," Cassian warns, curling his gloved fingers around Azriel's biceps. "We need to leave."

Azriel snaps out of his trance and finally averts his gaze, without a look back, they leave, wind blowing through the prison, thrashing against the walls, howling. 

You are alone. Cold. Bloody. Broken. 

A cry parts your lips - full of fury and pain. You thrash your fists against the cool ground, moist with mould and grimy water. 

You are trapped in a cell that seems to be suffocating you, its walls seeming to press inwards, the space getting narrower and narrower by the second. 

You are locked in. Forever. Until the last day of your immortal life. Or until you go insane and forget even your own name. 

Another scream leaves you. Your body is shaking, trembling with cold and hurt. Eventually, you lift your gaze to look around. There is just a small cot draped in a thin blanket and a weathered stool and nothing else. The walls are made of dark stone. Moss and lichen crawl up on them, making decay even more apparent in this place. They bear scars—scratches of beings who have been in this cell before you. 

The air is heavy, thick with desperation. And it is cold. So damn cold, making you see your own breath.

You know this a place where spirits are broken, where the very essence of a person is eroded when you go insane. But your spirit won't be broken. You will get out. 

Shadows dance across the walls and make you remember him. 

Azriel. The shadowsinger. You will remember him forever. Until the day you die. Until the day you personally carve out his heart. 

He left you in pieces and the shards for you to pick up with your already wounded hands.

He is going to pay for this. They all are. 

Nothing is visible through the narrow, slit-like window that seems more like a mockery than a source of light. But you can hear a storm raging outside, branches and the wind hitting the walls of the Prison and it matches the storm brewing inside of you. You won't die here. You will get out of here. And you will get your payback. This is a promise. 

A promise to Azriel. A promise to your mate.

tags (crossed-out I couldn't tag) : @juulle987 @marimorena06 @danikasthings @younxii@nightcourtwritings @mrofontaine @lunalilyf @whor-3-crux @tired-all-the-time @anni-was-here @ummmmmwat @azbracadabra @j-pendragonx @hollyismentallyillhelp @famousbasementpainter @bsenpai @lena-davina @red-highlady @thesugatoyourtae @azrielsbabyg @aroseinvelaris @moony-thoughts @wrensical003 @cherryjain17 @moonfawnx @crushedcloudsx @devilsfoodcake22  @valeridarkness @azrielscertifiedslut @mulansaucey @cynicalpotato95 @hanasakr @high-bi-andreadytocry @eerievixen @feyretopia @moonlightazriel @randomness-it-is @brekkershadowsinger @eliieee23 @girasoli-e-sorrisi @illyrianvalkyriecarynthian  @kennedy-brooke @highladyofillyria @theworthlessqueen @marina468 @topaz125 @illyrian-dreamer @azriels-mate123 @eos-princess @courtofjurdan @a-frog-with-a-laptop @insufferablebookaddict @callmeblaire

tags wotf: @goldenmagnolias @chessebookgirl @blackgirlmagicforever @mollygetssherlockcoffee @honeysuckle-daydreams13 @janebirkln @cleverzonkwombatsludge @namelesssav @sidthedollface2 @brujitafantomatico @ruler-of-hades @favsrachz @katherinejess @jesus-is-me @ashbatz @onyx-obsession @mischiefmanagers @thesnugglingduck @wandas-dream @emryb

[arafilez]

ONCE MORE WITH SUMMER ㅤㅤㅤ☆ ㅤ —﹙ H.TS ﹚

MOVING ㅤ,ㅤ back to your hometown brings you memories and your childhood friend taesan !

ᶻzㅤ( x fem!reader ) 𓂃 ㅤ fluff, childhood frnds, summer romanceㅤ warnings kissing, nicknames ㅤ⋆ ( 5.5k wc ) ㅤ

onedoornet summer with you ❟ㅤ library ㅤ bnd shelfㅤ navi

A cool breeze hits your face through the open window of your car as you let the summer sun hit your skin. You smile in contentment when you enter the familiar area and look at the neighbourhood you have grown up in. Not much has changed in the four years but you feel a fresh wave of nostalgia hit when you see everyone you knew on their regular work schedule.

It really is good to be back home!

Steering the car onto your parent’s porch you skip towards the steps ringing the bell. The house that was re-painted just before you left now doesn’t look that bright, with some dark patches visible if you look closely enough. You hear the door click, and your mom instantly hugs you as soon as the door opens.

Passing a high-five to your dad, you go up to the car to bring your university stuff in. With some very stupid questions from your dad and cute attempts to get you to eat everything your mom had made they leave you alone to go to their own work. The quietness of the house settles around you, a stark contrast to your loud roommates back in Uni as you make your way upstairs to your old room to unpack.

Before you can even start unpacking the doorbell rings making you sigh. You get up grudgingly, still hating the idea to go downstairs even though it has been six years. You turn the knob without much thought knowing it might be some kind of delivery.

“’Sup?” he asks and you still in your tracks hearing the voice. With jet-black long hair with Oreo shades and his signature smirk, there was Taesan wearing a light white t-shirt and shorts standing at your door. You stand in confusion for a while before screaming, “Taesan?”

“Wow you are still blind because I don’t see anyone else here,” he deadpans pretending to look back before he yells lightly as you slap his arm. For a moment it’s all quiet, the sound of quiet breaths filling the void and it almost feels unnatural before he speaks up.

“Still have tortoise feet?” You choke on air at his question glaring at the tiny smirk adorning his face and grit out, “I never had tortoise feet, asshole.”

“Do I need to search up pictures to prove you again?” he grins making you push his chest which he easily dodges. “What? You want me to be nostalgic when we literally messaged last week?”

“You can at least be a little cordial,” you scoff as he enters your house murmuring, “Cordial, my ass, but sure, how have you been my dear tortoise-feet friend?”

“Genuinely, fuck you,” you grit out, pursing your lips and smiling as he turns coyly and says, “No can do too busy honey.” Your eyes widen as you plop down on the couch and look at him asking, “Did you and Reah finally do it? I thought it would at least take ten years with the pace you two were moving with.”

“I broke up with her eleven months ago,” he shrugs nonchalantly as you choke on air for the second time today and scream, “How could you not tell me?”

“You didn’t ask,” he makes a face making you gasp at his answer before you shrug. Taesan has always been like this so deep down you are aware he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. He once fell from the swing set because you pushed too hard and even though six-year-olds are major tattle tales he didn’t utter a single thing about how he scraped his knees to his mom or you.

You came to know months later that his knee had been bloody making you feel extra bad because he kept quiet. This incident is almost as same as this but you avoid the “why” and go on, “So who is the new one?”

“We broke up because I realised I just liked her for being the exact similar to me but slowly I realised we have a lot of differences we can’t mend and that led to us breaking up,” he replies, sitting down beside you and shrugs at your wide eyes saying, “You were thinking it, weren’t you?”

You avoid his eyes as he chuckles still training his eyes on your face before he says, “Well you are still bitchless.” “How would you know that?” you scoff knowing full well he is right, that in fact, you don’t have anyone right now.

“You would scream-text me if you get a boyfriend like you have done before,” he smirks knowing he has the upper hand in knowing all your tiny habits all so well. You show him the middle finger before crossing your legs and leaning back saying, “Then how are you too busy, Mr. Han?”

“You’re wrong there, I said I am too busy to fuck you, not anyone else,” he leans over to you, face close to yours, the little smirk that you feel is permanently attached to his face on display making you stare back.

Your eyes lock with his and you can slowly feel the air drain out of your lungs and the familiar ache return. You purse your lips looking away and try to slap yourself to reality. It has been four years and the summer you return is not the time to rekindle your feelings.

Four years ago when you had incessantly teased Taesan for being bitchless he revealed he actually had a girlfriend which had left you choking on air. You had not expected him to have anyone and secretly hoped your wishes come true. But he got a girlfriend and you knew you had to suppress those feelings one way or another and never tell them to Taesan.

You did not want to burden him further and on the other hand, you would get incessantly teased for a lifetime by his over-inflated ego. And you definitely did not want the second one.

“Girl,” Taesan’s voice reaches your ears making you jump up and you realise you had zoned out. “Sorry,” you murmur softly before turning towards him and getting another light jumpscare from how close Taesan is sitting.

He, too, gets hyper-aware of the proximity before he moves away quietly. A thick silence falls in the air as you two keep quiet adding another layer of tension to it. Taesan clears his throat suddenly as you sit up straight knowing he will say something.

“Do you want to go to the drive-thru movie tonight?” your eyes widen as soon as the question leaves his mouth and you excitedly sit up yelling, “Yes.” You two were never allowed to go to these movies without parental supervision or a group of friends before in high school and now the idea seems too thrilling to miss out on,

And your parents don’t have restrictions on you now.

“And get all that greasy popcorn and burgers to go?” Taesan asks again, his eyes glinting with mischief and you deadpan, “Is that even a question Han Taesan?” He laughs as you start bouncing on your seat with excitement.

“Meet you tonight?” he asks as you nod watching him leave through the door. You knew exactly where to meet him!

“You do know our parents won’t tell us anything if we properly went out, right?” You giggle as you jump down on the soft mound of dirt in your backyard as Taesan shrugs saying, “For old time’s sake.”

“If you are really stuck up on that then let’s call your mom and tell her to catch us and get us grounded for two weeks,” you smile as he laughs at you. Back when you two were eighteen you had once snuck out to go to a drive-thru movie alone. Taesan had just got this license and he needed to put that to good use. But everything came to an end when Taesan’s mom stood at her gate ready to greet you two and she even called your mom. You two never knew how she was aware of it but you were aware of being dragged back home as you glared at Taesan the whole way back and then got grounded.

You smile at the memory as you follow him out watching him walk out the backyard towards his car. You look at him properly for the first time properly in six years, slowly realising that he has lost most of his teenage features. He already had puberty hit him like a Mac truck but now when you slowly see his adult features you realise how much you all have grown.

But that was the problem with Taesan and your feelings for him. You had them when he fell of a swing set, had a runny nose, when he was a scrawny teen, when he changed in his puberty, and you realise now they were slowly coming back.

But unlike in the morning, you didn’t want to deny and suppress them anymore, instead, you wished he saw you in the same light you saw him. You are aware that might be a big delusion you are walking on but the night was young and you are willing to give everything a try.

“You are being exceptionally quiet, you know? Did university turn you into some thinker or shit?” Taesan breaks the silence looking at you making you roll your eyes at him. You sit down on the passenger seat and take in a deep breath inhaling the way his car smells so him.

Slipping into the driver’s seat, he notices you distracted because you haven’t talked back to him about his comment and right now you are blankly staring at the streetlight in front of you. He sighs, knowing better than to poke you about it, he would definitely do it if you two were kids, but you grew up.

And he knows that he can’t be the same as he was before.

He waits for a while watching you intensely stare at the streetlight before leaning over and pulling the seatbelt over your body. The sudden figure blocking your sight finally breaks your trance as you are surprised to see Taesan’s body so close to yours. You gasp lightly as you feel him tighten the belt and look away to do anything to remove the idea of him over you from your mind.

You feel your breath hitch as his body continues to hover over yours making you wonder what is taking him so damn long to get a seatbelt. You look up slowly, eyes tracing along his face and loving every small feature that is accentuated in the low light.

“What are you doing?” you whisper when you feel your breath back in your throat and regret it immediately as he turns his head directly over your face and snickers, “What do you think?”

The moment is broken instantly as he sits back down with a thud and replies, “Little miss passenger princess cannot tie her own seatbelt.” “Shut the fuck up, I can,” you retort hating and loving how he is back to his usual routine of making fun of you by calling you a ‘princess’.

“Sure! That is exactly why you complained about your roommates first day after moving out,” he smirks as you gasp saying, “They were insufferable and you are aware of it.” He grins at your sentence knowing well he does know it because he trusts you with his heart. Some people might call him blind but he knows his childhood friend better than she knows herself and he would actively ignore those people.

He starts driving out of the alley with one hand on the steering wheel which you find oddly attractive making you slap yourself internally. You need to wake up before you regret doing something you only have ever dreamt of. Your eyes stick to his side profile again as you trace your eyes down his arms to the wheel and then back to his face smiling a little at the familiarity of the situation.

You feel like you are seventeen again when you couldn’t drive and he would drive you around, which slowly started with mere neighbourhoods before it escalated to secret escapades. The last part has always been a secret between you two unless well he has told any of his exes.

“Man I missed you driving me around and running errands for me,” you sigh, realising how much you actually missed this making him snicker as he replies, “Aww, the princess had no one to drive her around in uni?”

You roll your eyes at his teasing as you retort, “Hey it is your fault to make me like this, always driving me around.” He locks eyes with you in the rear-view mirror replying, “And have you ever once heard me complaining?”

The soft smile that follows that question has you breathless for the nth time that night before you watch him slowly look away. Your eyes rest on the road in the front watching the dark and familiar neighbourhood before your eyes train to the sign of the drive-thru that you are seeing after a decade.

“Wow the sign is still tacky,” you comment and Taesan speaks, without missing a bit, “Just like someone I know.” You glare at him as he shrugs saying, “I did not mention any names though,” a small smirk making its way into his face.

You smile sarcastically at his comment waiting for him to park the car at an empty spot. “What are they playing tonight?” you ask in a sing-song voice making Taesan hitch a breath wondering why didn’t you say anything to his last comment.

“Ooh, Mean Girls, love that,” you pucker your lips looking at him as he chuckles nervously as he parks his car in an empty spot between two cars and stops the engine.

“You know what else I love?” you ask and he side-eyes you wondering what lunatic he has as a friend and you giggle maniacally as you suddenly move over to his side and strangle him as he catches your hand trying to stop you.

He is strong, you will give him that, as he tries to restrain you, choked voice leaving his tongue before he finally grabs your hands and forces them apart and looks up at you. You glare back at him, faces inches apart as he breathes heavily.

You stay quiet, mind in a haze at the lack of distance and not processing anything. Taesan’s hands still wrapped around your wrist you stare at him shamelessly. Taesan is not much better as he licks his lips and holds your wrists properly so you don’t fall.

The intro of the movie plays suddenly making you and Taesan both jump as you quickly shift to your seat laughing awkwardly as Taesan’s eyes fix in the screen in front of you.

“You’re still ugly,” you hear him snicker after a while as you chuckle saying, “I will really choke you to death this time.” He rolls his eyes as you deadpan before he holds out a greasy burger in front of you. That shuts you up in an instant as you snatch it away from his hand moaning in delight.

“Wow, I did not want to hear that,” he murmurs and you snicker making the sound three more times just to annoy the shit out of him while looking at him with sparkling eyes. He lightly slaps your cheek as your attention finally snaps to the screen.

You lean back as he does too before you two start judging the cheap choices that the characters make and laughing uncontrollably. Just like old times!

You don’t remember when you got home last night but your mom’s scream gets through your ears as you hurriedly sit up to see her standing at the door and say, “If you don’t come down in five minutes, forget breakfast exists.”

You whine in a groggy voice as you reluctantly get out of bed to freshen up. As soon as you reach downstairs your smile drops seeing Taesan being all smiley and helping out your mom as she animatedly talks to him.

God forbid she treats him better than she will ever treat you. You roll your eyes as Taesan passes you a smile which is ninety percent evil and sit down at the table. You hear your mom groan as she sits down and says, “My back hurts so bad.” Your breath hitches as soon as you hear that knowing very well that is her way of getting you to run her errands.

And with Taesan here, she is gonna exaggerate it to make sure you are the one who gets it done. Your eyes thin at her as she locks eyes with you before smiling and continuing, “How will I do my gardening today?”

You purse your lips cursing her internally. Your mom knows you hate gardening like hell and she was down to make you love it and you can’t believe she pulled that one trick on her old book.

“We will do it for you,” Taesan replies without missing a beat and your head is instantly in your hands. You hear your mom gasping and thanking Taesan as you chuckle sarcastically making a mental note to get her back for it.

That is how you land with rubber gloves and a shovel in your hand at your family garden while Taesan holds the dirt in one of his hands and some small flower plants ready to be sowed.

“Fuck you and your best child mindset,” you curse at him before walking ahead as he smiles at your attitude. He loved your chaotic personality more than he cared to admit and he is glad that it didn’t change in the last four years. A lovesick smile plasters over his face as he sees you angrily plant the shovel into the soil and stomp in your plastic boots.

“You still hate gardening?” he chuckles and you deadpan saying, “I didn’t go to Uni to do a gardening major now did I? So of course I still hate it, you idiot.” He snickers at you throwing the dirt bag close to your feet making you glare at him.

The planting part is quiet before Taesan breaks it with his dumb question, “So princess how is it? Getting your hands dirty and doing the peasant work?” You snicker shaking your head lazily; Taesan did a wrong thing asking that because the next thing he gets is you throwing a ball of dirt towards his face.

It happens so fast he cannot dodge it as he gasps wiping the dirt off his clothes and wiping his hands on yours. “Yah, Han Taesan,” you screech as he giggles menacingly and gets up running to the other side of the garden. It takes a while for you to get up but once you do you run, laughing as you see him try to hide behind the bushes.

“You think you can escape,” you smile like a lunatic and then laugh as you pick up the hose pipe and kick the tap open. Taesan fills a huge hit of water before he can run as you run with the pipe behind him.

The summer heat gets in your system, making you sweat profusely but you wish you cared as much as you do to annoy Taesan. So you are frankly surprised when you feel the cool water splash to you from all directions making you scream.

“Having fun?” you hear Taesan’s voice and laugh before you can decipher how the heck he turned on the sprinklers. “Not yet,” you yell back running behind him as you spray him one last time before tackling him to the ground.

He makes a groan as his back hits the ground followed by you on top of him as you laugh. Your full body is soaked as you grin looking at the Oreo hair sticking to his head. His giggles reach your ears as his hands wrap around your waist and you two shake while laughing.

When you finally stop you realise the proximity you are in and your smile drops. You are literally on top of him, while his hands are wrapped around your waist as your elbows rest on the ground. Taesan is still smiling as he looks at the messy garden.

He looks back at you and suddenly is hyper-aware of the proximity too. You stare down at his brown orbs, your rational mind telling you to move away but your body not allowing you to. Meanwhile, Taesan has somehow short-circuited not knowing how to process the current situation.

You are so tempted to look at his lips, but you force yourself not to before reality strikes and you hurriedly get off him.

You laugh awkwardly as you say, “We should be glad we didn’t ruin the good part of the garden.” He laughs too, awkwardness filling the air, as he looks back at the wet bushes and ground, willing to look anywhere but your eyes.

You get up, and he finally looks up as you stand awkwardly, and his eyes widen saying, “You should go change.” “What? Who will help you then?” you ask, offended. Did he think because you were a girl you couldn’t help him do the heavy work?

His eyes shift awkwardly to your other neighbour who was at his door before he towers over your figure gritting his teeth and says, “Just listen to me for once and go change.”

“You’re annoying as fuck,” you murmur but go anyway. If he wants to do more work, then fine, he should suit himself. You like lying down anyway. You curse him again as you enter your room when your eyes finally land on your figure and you realise why Taesan forced you.

Your pink bra is fully visible through the white shirt you are wearing and you realise why he kept pressuring you. Your face heats up at the thought of him looking at you while you look like that before you hurriedly peel off the clothes off your body.

The faster the moment of embarrassment is gone, the better. Isn’t it?

It definitely isn’t as you hear Taesan making fun of you for the fifth time that night as you sit in your favourite Tteok-bokki place. “Okay enough,” you grit through your teeth as your face turns a permanent shade of pink for the night.

Taesan laughs again and this time you take a handful of your food before stuffing his face with your food and watch him choke lightly. “Lunatic,” he mouths before he gulps them down and you grin menacingly. You inhale the food scent loving again to be back home.

It has been three weeks and you already don’t want the summer to end. You wish you could stay here and not go away but you know you have to when you see the email notification hanging on your phone.

But first, you decide as you remove the notification, you need to enjoy the summer.

“We haven’t really done any summer activities, you know?” you speak as you put another serving of tteok-bokki in your month and Taesan hums before saying, “Yeah, but it is our summer, do we really need to religiously do any summer activities?”

You nod quietly, hating he makes sense as he chuckles, “You hate that I made sense right now, don’t you?” Your smile drops as you sigh. Why does this boy know you so well? He could know you a bit less well and it would be way easier for you.

“Fine, since you want to do some summer activity we can go the park from here and see the stars,” he murmurs, regret hitting him instantly as the sentence leaves his mouth. He had promised to never ever do this kind of romantic stuff with you. It doesn’t help his heart at all but his mouth definitely doesn’t know when to shut up.

He looks up, hoping you are so engrossed in your food you didn’t hear it but it all goes in vain as you stare at him with round eyes. Those eyes, those stupid damn beautiful eyes that were always his biggest weakness.

That is a damn lie! Every part of you is his weakness and he knows it. He tried, he genuinely tried to move on as he didn’t want to ruin the friendship at all. Every time you two made fun of the rumours of you two dating, he secretly hoped there was a part of you that didn’t take it as a joke.

Little did he know, your heart was hurting too, watching him smile at something you wish was true.

So he tried, he got a girlfriend, and he loved her but they broke up and it followed the same pattern for all his exes. He just fell out of love! And it sucked, because the only one he knows he would never fall out of love with, is you. And you are out of his reach!

“Sure,” your small voice breaks him out of his trance as he watches you quietly get back to your food.

Sure enough, you two walk to the park silently, feeling the night breeze hit your bodies. The park is silent as you two lie down and not a single word passes as you two look up.

The stars sparkle brightly as you look up from the dark park grounds. The swing set lightly sways in the wind as you hear the metal creak on its joints.

“I have never done this before,” you whisper as he laughs nervously saying, “Why not? You are a hopeless romantic, I thought you would have at least done it once with your every ex.”

You turn towards him, resting your head on your elbow as a pillow and say, “Yeah but he has to be really special, and none of them really were.” He turns his head sideways, not knowing why his heart calms down and gets excited at the same time. He is glad knowing he is the first one you are doing this with.

On the other hand, you just said a sentence that might make him rip all his hair and take a dunk in the pool to get his mind cleared. “So you think I am special?” he jokingly asks, half wishing you don’t answer.

You gulp as his eyes lock with yours and you hum lightly as you turn back towards the sky. You cannot possibly hold eye contact with him or he will know all those feelings you had kept hidden for years.

You gulp again looking up and changing the topic as you say, “It is really pretty.” Taesan hums in approval, eyes not leaving your face as he replies, “It is.”

Things have been a little awkward since that night, but you wish you overcome it soon. You definitely do not want to fuck up your friendship in the last few weeks left.

You jump when you hear a tap on your window and then two more before you get up from your bed and look down. You are hit with a paper ball in your face as you close your eyes and take a deep breath before yelling, “Yah Han Taesan.”

He giggles as you shut the window and get down the stairs to teach his unserious ass a lesson. “We are not kids anymore you know,” you reason as you shut the door loudly as he shrugs throwing another paper ball towards you which you skilfully dodge.

You run towards him as he giggles running out to the street and you scream at him to come back. You catch up with him pretty easily as he runs lazily and wrap your arms around his waist tightly to prevent him from getting away.

He turns around laughing and holding the paper balls high enough to be out of your reach as you whine saying, “Not fair.” “Why not?” he whines back mocking your tone as you jump up to get the paper balls but all is in vain as he keeps them skilfully out of your reach.

Suddenly drops of rain hit your skin as you look up to see the clouds forming. “Fuck,” Taesan murmurs under his breath wanting to go to a shade as soon as possible but you clutch at his sleeves stopping him.

“What?” he asks, as the rain increases as you reply, “Let’s get drenched.” He laughs at your face before realising you are serious and says, “You know we might get killed, if our moms find us getting purposely drenched, don’t you?”

“Fuck I wish I cared,” you reply back closing your eyes to get the summer rain in your system. Taesan smiles, mesmerised by you as he watches you twirl around and jump lightly.

He chuckles when he hears you giggle along, lovesick eyes training on your figure as you dance like a crazy person on the street.

You let the rain hit your skin but maybe you were too mesmerised to realise the puddle was nearby as you slipped. You grasp on thin air, a short yelp leaving your throat but before you can hit the ground you feel Taesan’s arms around your waist as he pulls you to his chest and hugs you.

“Be careful,” he murmurs as you stand awkwardly with him half-hugging you and your chest heaves up and down at his voice. It is weird, you have never heard this tone from him, this protective tone or maybe you have never realised he had used it before.

You look up and before you can stop yourself your hands are working their way up to part his wet hair lightly from his forehead as he stares down at you smiling.

Taesan knows it is now or never. He should not keep quiet, he needs to tell you right now! Maybe it is the high of the summer rain, or you looking up at him with your wet lashes or the fact that you are held so closely to him he finds himself spilling what he wanted to do for decades.

“I like you,” he whispers and your hand stills as you look back at him, wishing you weren’t hearing things. The silence that takes over is deafening as you gulp and ask, “What?”

Taesan takes a deep breath before he says, “I like you, I have liked you for so long, but I never had the courage to tell you and I saw you getting so happy when I announced my first girlfriend, like you never wanted us to be a thing because you cringed at our rumours. But god, have I loved you all through my life, even through your awkward emo phase and god, I tried, I tried so hard to move on, but I couldn’t but I wished I could because you never liked me did you, and even now-“

He shuts up when he feels your lips on his and it is gone as soon as it comes as you stare at him even in shock that you did that. His eyes lock with yours before he grabs you by your waist and pulls you towards him and places his lips on yours without wasting a single moment.

The kiss is not awkward instead, it feels familiar, like you have done it a thousand times before and it feels close to home. So close, that it felt like home! Your fingers intertwine with his as you giggle when you feel him smile in the kiss. The summer shower gets into your lips, messing it up in the most perfect way possible.

When you part you punch him lightly saying, “Stupid, I thought you were the one who didn’t like me back,” as he shrugs and says, “Guess we are the original dumb and dumber duo.” You laugh loudly at him before you hear your mother’s voice screaming.

You two look back to see both your mothers standing at a distance, probably yelling at you two as to why you were getting purposely drenched. But you can’t hear anything over the buzzing excitement in your ears and a loud thumping heart.

“Should we do it?” Taesan whispers in your ear, mischief sparkling in his eyes as he holds you close with a hand wrapping around your wrist while the other casually rests on your waist.

“Run? Yes definitely!” you answer your own question giggling as you look up at his brown orbs that hold so many memories. All the love, lies and hate, all the times you had looked at them and wished he was yours. From childhood to now!

And that is finally true!

“Once more with summer, right?” he asks as your eyes focus on his figure, slowly making the haze of your mother’s figure get closer and closer to you two.

“Once more with summer,” you confirm, smiling and biting your lips as his grip tightens around your wrist and you two run, laughing loudly. 

ARA'S NOTES ㅤ,ㅤ if you can't already tell, i have been religiously watching "love next door" because omg am i a sucker for childhood friends to lovers. anywaysss i hope you enjoyed this story that took two months to finish (i wrote 4k today itself shh). summer romance why can't you happen for me !

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@slytherinshua @gong-fourz @emmylksblog

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nets : @onedoornet @k-labels @k-films

ㅤㅤ(ㅤㅤ© arafilez on tumblrㅤㅤ)

[sukioyakio]

“𝚄𝚜𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞,𝚑𝚞𝚑?”-Y/L

Paring: Sukuna Ryoman x SingleparentReader

Summary: You thought that after your visit with Sukuna who you thought never would see again.He just kept on insisting on you about the deal.

(I completely suck at summary So can you please just read it😭🙏)

An: I didn’t expect that this would be doing well,I just thought that um that I post this and that it and boom 💥 People actually likes this and so here is part two 😃🫶.Im completely sorry for how long it took to post this.Also I loved all of your comments in the last one.I HAD TO FUCKING RESEARCH SO MANY MOVIES 😭 that I personally think Sukuna would be in AND fucking stuff about a retail company that made so much money 😭.i literally had a dream about this for the longest and yes there gonna be a part three of this.Im gonna be completely honest I don’t think I cooked 😞.

Ԝ𝗈𝗋ᑯ ɕ𝗈υ𐓣𝗍:6,023

pevious>next

past

Your body hurts so much,With every tear drop that fall out of your eyes a piece of you dies.The darkness of the blue night does nothing to help you sleep,as the moon light is company with the blue skies,barley shine through your empty bedroom window and yet nothing could make you sleep in these recents nights.

Constantly checking your phone for a certain person to message you back.As you scrolling through your messages. ————- {you}-“Sukuna please you can’t do this to me please,let just talk it out like adults please”*Delivered two weeks ago*

{you}-Please kuna all I’m asking is for you to come back with me.I’ll do anything just please. *delierevd two weeks ago*

{you}-“What did I do wrong?am I the problem here..please text me back please” *delivered two week ago*

{you}-“Kuna please I need someone to hold on please,I-i miss you please” *delivered two messages*

{you}- “Please god please just send me anything,Is it the baby that your afraid to have,Sukuna please if that the case then we can figure out something together” *Delieverd two weeks*

Multiple messages from you.All the having the same meaningless effort to get his attention

{you}-“Did you even love me,was I the wrong one here.Why can’t you tell me just one damn thing,I’ll take anything just please,text me whenever you are back from whenever you doing just please”*delieverd second ago * —————

You turn off your phone before you started crying again.You didn’t have to know that you looked like a wrecked;puffy red eyes with a mountain of red stripes that stain your cheeks with evidence of you crying.

Silence draped over the room like a velvet curtain, muffling even the faintest whispers.

The silence was deafening, each tear drop echoed like a raindrop in an empty hallway. The moonlight cascaded through the window, illuminating the room with a cold, pale light, casting shadows that danced on the walls like specters.

You clutched your phone tightly, hopelessly scrolling through old messages, searching for a sign of life, a sign of something, anything. But there was nothing.

Each message sent was like a plea into the void, a silent scream that went unanswered.

Curled up in a ball in your bed with no blanket on it because you hadn’t found the bother to cover yourself.

In the depths of the nights like this The worst enemy is the silence and yourself,it where you could hear the voices of your thoughts. Make-shifting them into monsters that drain you of any hope that he’ll come back and try to save ‘this relationship’.

“You were probably the one that deserved it,after all he probably didn’t want someone like you.He definitely did out of pity”

Another

“Maybe if you didn’t act like a cringy little lovesick child then you’ll get to live your fake loving lives together that you only lived in”

After another

“He never once said or tried to prove his ‘love’ in this relationship.Hadnt he?and yet your here with his child, who there father who’ll they never be able to have because he rather put himself then you from the beginning.”

After another voices that fills your head like toxic venom,but you can’t help but hear it.Particularly being drowned by it.

You acted like you couldn’t be able to handle yourself when you could fully do it.But after having your family completely taken away by death you were hopeless about having a place in life.

Without any support or guidance how will the baby bird survive in the world?Well the answer is to fall and embrace the dangers.

In which you did embrace the dangers of what it did to your heart by walking towards the tiger den.Completely swoon by him in every aspect that,in your eyes you ‘love’ him.You were so excited to have a child with him to share a future with him.

You knew you could just simply abort the baby and not have to stress about it but you couldn’t bring yourself to doing that to the baby.

As weeks passed by;Work suddenly became unbearable to deal with,being constantly yelled at for being late or having a bad presentation to the customers.

You were worried about losing your job due to uncertainty about how long it will take you for securing another one and the need to feed your growing child that lives inside of you.

Sometimes you couldn’t even take someone else orders without having the urge to throw up,or randomly get kick of anger or sadness.

Your hormones were acting up due to the stress and depression that you dealing with and could cause something to the baby.Moreover your hormones shouldn’t be acting this early on your pregnancy so please take mind of your care said a doctor.

With that being said,you really tried pushing the thought of him aside and should start taking of yourself but how can you when you’re carry his baby.

But you did it,you throw out all his clothes and stuff he left behind and clean up the house slowly but surely you were done.But over time the pregnancy was showing up and you knew that you were going to get fired because they can’t have a pregnant worker on there employees.

In which you did,Being called by your boss that you’re fired and you knew that everything is going to become more difficult for you from that point on.But You ‘moved’ on and now your ready to move forward with your baby. Present

You woke up an hour earlier than your alarm due to your body unable to rest.And so you decided that it better to go take a shower to refresh your mind.

You swing you feet off the bed, yawning, as you rise to a stand.Your groggy vision clears as you look at the time, seeing you have woken up an hour before your alarm.

Your body feels exhausted, as you were tossed and turned all night long. Deciding a shower would help ease the fatigue, you make your way into the bathroom.

But before that you took a peek inside your daughter room seeing how her pink hair was a completely mess and how you saw a bit of drool that sipped from her mouth.

The sight of your daughter’s messy hair and that little trickle of drool slipping from her mouth brought a warm smile to your face as you watched her sleep. It was adorable.

You always notice the little birthmarks under her eyes bags;there barely noticeable but you couldn’t unsee it.(there like Yuji marks) You smile softly as you shut the door quietly.

Now you taking a trip to the bathroom to take a well needed shower.As you turn on the water to be warm as you wait for the cold water to heat up,when ready you jump in it.Letting The warm water drip down your curves and down onto the floor.The warm water washes away all the soreness and sleepiness.You stood there for a couple of minutes recalling yesterday trip.

’Use me then’

A flash of frustration creased your brow and sparked in your eye,as you shake his words out your head.Now getting back to finishing your shower by washing your hair and then your body.

Once done you got out of the shower and started drying yourself up with your towel before getting dressed for the day today.

You still had a good amount of time to waste and so you tidy up your room and the living room since it wasn’t big like your apartment but it makes up the time before you have to wake up little Nova up.(who’s is five years old)

So you decided to relax for a bit on one of the chair,and use your phone in the meanwhile and spotted a message from an unknown person.

you press on it;to see a long message. —————

{Unknown}-Good evening Ms LN,

I’d love for you and I to have a chat sometime soon this week about the deal on the matter.If you’re interested please don’t hesitate to send back a message or email.Here is the address if you’ll like to come in person ‘xxxxxxxxxxxxx’

Bye have a wonderful night Lady L.N.

^5,000 dollars send to your bank account^ —————

Your eyes brow raised up with question of who’s this,but continue on reading you already answered that question.Your jaw clenched as your hands ran through your hair as you mutter underneath your breath a couple of curses words.It was as obvious as it sounds.

“Use me then” His voice rings again as you shake the thought again.Your lips turned into a straight line,”Yea no”you replied to your mind,as you blocked the number but You were sure that Sukuna made someone else write this to you.

Which only proves how he really did care only about himself.A annoyed sigh left your sigh as you close the app and went to watch about a 10 minute documentary on YouTube about a missing girl tape. (YouTuber :Rotten mango)

Before the alarm rang and making you get up from your chair with a yawn and go to Nova room to wake her up.

Now walking Towards the her room with a more relaxed posture then a few minutes ago.You gently opened the door with it making a low creek sound.You push the light switch making the room alive with the light;making it able to all the little things in her bedroom.

You walked more into the room now getting a clear view of her cute messy sleep posture. You chuckled slightly as you witnessed her uncomfortable facial expression, her small groans, moans, and movements.

Her messy hair all tossed about on the pillow, drool leaking from the corner of her mouth onto the soft pillow, and her body curled up in a small little ball.

She was quite the sight to behold.Your heart felt warm and full just by looking at her like that.

A small smile appeared on your face as you hovered over her and kissed her cheek, causing her to grumble and scrunch her face even more.

“It monday Nova sweetheart wake up you got school today” You said softly as you careless her messy pink hair.

You were always found yourself adoring the color of her hair not just because it looked just like his hair but how it looked majestic.

Even as a child, you found yourself at peace in the presence of your baby daughter. Whenever you shed tears over the struggles of parenting and the challenges of raising her, her tiny pudgy hands would reach out to yours, gently guiding them to rest upon her head.

In those moments the weight of your worries vanished,replaced by confidence to move forward because you had your precious little girl beside you.

Nova little hands rub her eyes to focus on regaining her eyes.You leaned back letting her wake up.

She grumbles as she sit up on the bed Looking half dose off from sleep and half awake.Her mouth opens with a loud yawn making you chuckle.

“B-but it’s soo-another yawn escape from her mouth- early in the morning cant I have more time t-to sleep” Her voice sounding raspy and sleepy as you ruffle her hair.

“No cant do Nova or you’ll never want to get up” You said with a calm tone,as a soft sigh come out of your mouth.

“Mhm.. ok mom”Nova says as she stand up from her bed before walking into the bathroom she stretches her body,her pink hair falls down reaching her knees.As she goes off to the bathroom to take a quick bath. You lips form a proud smile from how smart your daughter is,already herself into the shower without your help.

You hear your daughter saying loudly that she already in the shower so you don’t have to worry about her not getting ready.You let out a scoff,rolling your eyes at the comment.

“It mine job to be doing that,troll-you mutter that part-“Well if there anything you need help call me Nova” You sighed in defeat as you walked towards her closet to grab her uniform and put on her bed to make it easy for her to put her clothes.

A sunny morning that sprinkle its warmth onto a beautiful young girl who’s pink hair floats heavenly in the air making her look like a beautiful angel.The trees soothing with the breeze of the air and complimented with the sunlight.casting light to those around.

The girl seem running towards him with a radiant laughter that flowed through the air like soft melodies.He didn’t even mind the sound or the thought of moving his position,as the girl came closer and closer until he was face to face with her.

The girl who looked up at him,with her neck aching from having to look so high up.He immediately kneeled down towards her height.The young girl smile softly,and his lips turned slightly up in return.

He was about to ask the little girl what is her name,but his throat seem frozen.His crimson eyes widened.As in an instant the surrounding turned into more dark.

The soft wind that gently kiss his skin was now gone and replaced with a heavy and harsh wind that would blow him away from the little girl.But didn’t;the sun no longer shined it warmth now hiding it existence in the darkness of the dark clouds.The trees now were holding on their last leafs with how hard the wind were blowing onto them.

“Papa”

Sukuna immediately looked at her,noticing the change of her features.Her big eyes were looking at him with a serious sadness expression.As he saw her eyes forming a tears that flow down her cheeks.It hurted him to stand face in face and not to do anything.

“Why d-did you leave me-and m-mama. ..P-pp-papa?” She asked him with a shaky broken voice,as he saw the tears pooled in her eyes before they streamed down like rivers flows.

He looked at her eyes and saw your eyes in her.His heart banged Against his chest like a drum.His heart was heavy with the weight of his past mistakes. His vocal cords turned to stone, rendering him mute in the face of overwhelming emotion.

Then the young girl looked intensely at him with tears that ruined her beautiful bright face.

“W-what .. d-did I do wrong” She replied,her voice shaking like before.And then her presence changed into something he hadn’t seen before.

A young version of him,with streaks of red painful tears falling from his scarlet eyes ,Looking at him with pain,sorrow and loneliness in them.

“W-what . .. did I-i do wrong” His younger version said with a shaky hiccup.

Sukuna tried to tell him to say something,to speak but nothing came out of his mouth.

His younger version then disappeared into the young girl who now has her eyes widened slightly and her voice turned into more heavy breathing combined with shaky sniffing.

“P-papa. . P-Please d-dd-dont. . Leave m-mme” The young said in a broken voice as she steps closer to him and grabbing his wrists.Sukuna didnt even notice how his breathing become so heavy and how loud his heart beat sounded,especially when he could hear it banging in his ears.

He wanted to grab the girl and hugged her,to tell her that he isn’t going to leave her alone,to make her smile instead of crying like that.But his voice cut off.

And then the second the girl grab his wrist the scenery of the surrounding changed as well his body position changed,Now He standing up looking forward at a hallway that he knew to well and then he felt someone hands.

“.P-please. .don’t L-leave me P-pp-please”

He knew that voice,Your voice,as clear as he remembered.He winced in regret at hearing you choking on your tears.Then the his body moved on his own,his head turned to see you completely,

Shattered

“Please . . .S-Sukuna” a voice so painfully loud in his head,but so low that it could be miss taken as a whisper of the wind.

That was the only thing he heard from before everything went black.

As he gasp for out for air,his body covered in warm sweat,his body now in a sitting position.He heart banging against his chest like a drum,he quickly removed the blanket off his body.Sukuna felt something falling down his cheeks as he rubs his eyes noticing the wetness that come from it.

Tears,his tears.He hadn’t had a nightmare in so long that made him cry like that.He felt that his breathing was off,as he could feel the cold air brushing against his warm skin making him shiver.

“It just a dream”he spoke and so he stood up and glanced at the clock that stood there on top of the night stance.

“What time is it?”He asked in his head,as he keeps his breathing steady and his heart beating calm again.

4:30am on the dot,making him Groan and grumble as he walks around his large bedroom to the bathroom,he desperately needed a cold shower to wake up.To make him forgot about his stupid little nightmare.

Now entering the bathroom he turns on the light flashing his eyesight,making him scrunched up his nose and wince at how bright it is. He looks into the mirror showing his body and face.

“W-what . .. did I-i do wrong” A voiced ringed in his head,as he quickly turned away from the mirror and began to turn on the water.

Now waiting for it to become his prefer temperature,He just sits on the toilet manspread;head being held up by his hand;rubbing his hand against his face.

“It just a nightmare” He whispered to himself in agreement as he rans his hands in his striking pink hair.Taking off his clothes and jumping into the shower to be awake from the cold water.

The icy water hits his body,water sliding down his body and onto the floor of the tub.As it drips down from his face;smoothing his muscular fatigue just a bit.

But even that doesn’t make the damn dream go away.In fact it just keeps reappearing in his mind.

“Papa” “Papa” “Papa” “P-papa”

“P-papa. . P-Please d-dd-dont. . Leave m-mme” the little girl broken voice comes in his ears.Seeing an image of her crying for him;reaching out for him in sake of his warmth.

His breathe hitches as if it hurted to breath normally. ‘I-I won’t let you go’ he whispered to himself as if he knew what he saying is true or false or just a saying to him that maybe he just a hopeless as he was.

He didn’t know why he wanted to be in the little girl life,maybe because she his child,maybe because he it was his responsibility for making you pregnant with his daughter or,maybe because that it wouldn’t be fair to be her father and not care about her as her Stupid Ass father.

Or maybe that he saw himself in her,saw a glimpse of something that he couldn’t control,her hating him for the stuff he did.

He knew that deep inside he didn’t want her to feel like he abandoned her like how life did to him.

“.P-please. .don’t L-leave me P-pp-please” And then your voice comes in his mind as it comes out like an anchor of his regrets.He was really a piece of of shit.

“Please . . .”

-S-Sukuna”

He quickly opened his eyes that he didn’t even recall closing them,and decided to put the water into warm temperatures.He didn’t need this right now.A part of him says that what he did was for the best and the other part of him that deep inside of him knows that he should’ve turned around and walked back to you.But he didn’t.

He let out a big heavy sigh and remembered that he made his assistant ‘uraume’ to write you about the deal.Knowing that you wouldn’t accept it but he was willing to try at least.

And so he continued his shower and washed his hair and body,and once he was done he began wrapping a towel around his waist and glancing on the mirror to see how red his skin looked.

“Urgh fuck work” He reminded himself as he stormed out the bathroom and into his bedroom and started to get changed.

As soon as he was done it was already 5:40am and so he just went to where his garage where his cars are and then went to work early.

Sukuna was an actor and started a side company that was small when he started out,but soon grew into a big company as well as his acting career.

When he made it into his company he just went into his office,and that could be his start of his day.At 6:05am he started working in the morning as he kept his stern demeanor in place.

While you drop off Nova at school you were quick to go to work where it was hell.And so right now you’re on the bus,sitting down with boredom painted on your face,but you kept thinking about the 5,000 dollars in your bank account.It bother you for some reason,like you were happy that you have money in your bank without having to work your ass off.

But the other was like,now it feels like you own him now,and it wasn’t your money that you worked hard for;no it was his money that he just flat out gave to you.

As the bus stop at the station that you needed to get out.And so you walked out of the bus station,wincing at the sunlight hitting your eyes,covering your eyes from the sunlight with your hand.

It was probably 8:35am when you started to walked.

People passing and going,some simply walking around with smile on their face,and other people walking to get on time to work like you.

You made it,at your job as a waitress.Moreover you winced from how many people were there,making you slip out a defeated sigh of that. Hearing multiple voices of people chatting about whatever topic and some trying to calm down their crying babies.

As you check in at the register,as the other employees were busy cleaning,taking orders,cooking,etc.As you were quickly ordered to take people orders.

‘Here goes a fun day of hell starting right now’You spoke to yourself now,putting on your fake smile on.

After a long stressful day of work,your body ache from having to practically running to write orders.You check your phone to see the time is 3:00pm on the dot.You immediately sign off from your shift and onto to getting your stuff and immediately start your walk towards nova’s school.Knowing it was very late to get her up but it is the only way you could make money.

You started to walk quickly towards the bus station,making it swiftly into the bus,and getting a seat.As the bus waits for the other passengers to hop on.After a while the bus start to close the door and finally starts moving.

As the sunlight Glows passing through the windows of the bus,Making the windows hot and warm to touch.As bus passes multiple stations until it was finally your stop,in which you politely Maneuver through the bus towards the exit.You said your thanks to the bus driver and who replied with your welcome.

Now walking towards the school,You really needed a car by now but it doesn’t matter asking as you’re able to pay for life essentials.

As you approach the school, you spot Nova making her way towards you, her backpack bouncing with every step. You plaster a smile on your face, hiding the exhaustion you feel from the long day at work.

"Hey, Nova! How was school?" you ask, trying to sound cheerful.

Nova shrugs, a hint of disappointment in her voice. "It was alright, I guess. Math was tough today."

You nod understandingly, trying to appear more interested in what she's telling you. The thought of having to work longer hours now to pay for tutoring services crosses your mind, but you push it away for now.

"That sounds rough," you reply, showing concern. "But I'm sure you'll get the hang of it. You're smart, after all."

Nova looks up at you, a hint of worry in her eyes. "Can we grab a snack before heading home? I'm starving."

You stifle a sigh, knowing that you're also hungry but also tired and just want to get home. "Sure, we can grab something quick. What do you feel like eating?"

You look at Nova and stare in which she quickly answer the question “um ice cream!” Her eyes sprinkles in joy and excitement at the thought of eating ice cream.

You rolled your eyes at her reply,letting out a small chuckle,as you smile at her face.

“Sure thing sweet heart,there should be an ice cream shop nearby” You explain while ruffling her pink hair.You already are tried out from walking but some more walking wouldn’t hurt.Nova will be the death of you some day.

“YAY!!Thank You mama!!”Nova yelled happily as she jumps up and down,and then rushes towards you with a big hug making you slightly stubble backwards.

‘Yep,she’ll definitely be the death of me’You spoke in you mind as your lips turning up into a big warm smile as you kneel down to hug her back.And giving her a kiss on her forehead.

“You welcome you little troll,now come on before it gets dark” you replied to her.

Nova nods as she politely breaks the hug and looking at you with her adorable smile.You return to standing up,as you extend your hand in gesture of wanting to hold her hand in which she complies to it.

As you both walks towards the ice cream shop that was just three blocks from the school.During that time the Brightness from the sun starts to decrease but rather starts to rise it ironic sunset glow.While walking towards the shop,you listen to nova talk about her day.Passing through multiple citizens until you finally made it there.

You look at the door seeing how it written open with a marker.You let out a sigh of relief that it wasn’t closed;you could feel nova excitement as she looks intently inside the shop.

Now opening the door of the ice cream,as nova enter through the door it makes a light jingle sound as a signal to the person here.Forthwith you walked shop quickly right behind nova.

You notice how small the shop look but how well care it was;you also notice how it give off a comfy granny vibes,not that you don’t like it,it just makes the ice cream shop feel more unique than others.

You saw that there no other customer here,as you see how nova was already at the front desk where the ice cream was displayed,You chuckled when you saw nova expression.

As you glanced at the choices that were being displayed.Then a door opened behind the front desk.

“Oh-h hello there,Good afternoon,is there anything you’ll like or need” a voice coming from the back,whoever voice it was gave off a warm and gentle comfort.As You could hear the steps coming closer to you guys.

Before you could even say hello,or opening your mouth,nova began talking.As the stranger was finally infront of you,and it was an elderly woman with her hair having sprinkled of white hair.Having winkles that were visible,She still looked attractive in her age and her eyes definitely showed adventurous and wisdom.

You would estimate that she was in her early 50’s but she looked still in shape

“Goood aftermoon,Me and mamma Are here for some yummy ice cream!Also I could like cookie and cream ice cream pleasee”Nova cheerfully says.

The older woman chuckled at Nova's enthusiasm,finding it endearing,she smiled warmly. "Well, isn't that a delightful choice. Cookies and cream, coming right up."

She turned around and began preparing the ice cream, adding a generous scoop of the sweet treat into a cone.

"And for you, dear?" she asked as she handed the cone of ice cream to Nova, her eyes looking at you and awaiting your response.

You politely shake your head,with a reassuring smile.”No thank you I’m alright,how much will the cost be in total” your glance at nova who enjoying her treat and return to the elderly women and pulling out your credit card from your bag.

The woman smiled warmly as you declined the ice cream, appreciating your politeness.

“Oh,don’t worry about the cost,dear. It’s on the house today.” She waved off your credit card with a gracious gesture.

"Consider it a small token for brightening up my quiet afternoon." She explains with a warm smile on her lips.

Your eyes widen in disbelief,as you let out a heartfelt sigh.As you thanks her for everything as you check what time is it on your phone to see that it 5:30pm,and you eyes widen from how much time has passed.You quickly put back your phone in your cross body bag.

“Come on nova we have to go back home,we don’t want the boogie monster to come get us,right”You announced to her;nova looks up and quickly walks over towards you with her bowl of ice cream,giggle sip out her mouth finding the thought of boogie monster coming after them.

“Thanks you for everything Ms” You spoke to the elderly woman,giving her a reassuring look.

Now walking towards the direction where the school was,and then you’ll just have to take an another bus ticket to get home. As you glance that the sky to see how the sky color looks more like it sun setting color.Glowing it orange shines through the building of the city.

You carried nova bookbag so it will be easier for you guys to get into the bus.When you made it there You laughed at nova adorable messy face while getting onto the bus.

The bus was crowded, as usual, the city traffic bringing workers home and students home from school.Nova and you found yourselves crammed in the middle, Nova leaning into you as you stood and held her up to keep her from falling.

The bus moved swiftly with each stop, letting people on or off. Nova watched from the side of the bus as you looked forward, watching the city move by.

As you feel nova head leaning against your shoulder,you glances at her to see her eyes close and her breathing evenly,You smile heart fully.Brushing the streaks of her pink hair that were in her mouth.As you leaned to land another kiss on her forehead.

’I give you the world to live to see you grow up.I promise that I’ll never pick myself first before you,nova Ryoman L/name’ You whisper to yourself.

As the bus ride continues on,stopping at bus stops.

The bus rides on, stopping and picking up passengers at every stop. The hum of the engine fills the air, and the sun gone and the moon light shines over the city in a brilliant display.

Nova sleeps against you,as you gaze off to the windows of the bus.The bus finally reaches your stop, and you gently scoop up Nova to carry her off the bus.

You carried her and your stuff along with carry her on your back,with her head slumped against your shoulder making quietly snores.You were careful to not get into to any of random danger in you way home.

Moreover you made it home safely,It not the best choice of place to live in but it works.You wake up nova to go take a shower,as you put away your stuff,your back begging to have a break.But you still needed to go make food for nova. Before you get any sleep.

“Sir Ryoman!” uraume announced with a professional voice,As they knocks one more time against Sukuna office door.

It was 8:56pm in the evening.People always wonder how they are able to handle working with Sukuna,some admired their dedication and other would just make rumors about them and him.Either the rumors would be how they was making ties with him or how they was just his personal quickie.Which none were true.

As uraume thought of knocking on the door again but was stopped by Sukuna sternly voice saying to come in.

While opening and closing the door,They looked to see how dark the room is and how the only light was the moon light.They could instantly see his red eye, glowing under the light.As well his pink hair.

Uraume flicked the light switch on,Flashing the both of them with the bright white light.As they nonchalantly looked at Sukuna and now walking towards his desk,their shoes clacking off the floor,carrying a small stack of paper on top of them is their iPad,they carry it on the other hand.His silence hung in the air like a suspended breath.

Finally breaking the silence,he begins to talk.“What is it now uraume” He said, his voice cold and stern. He was clearly uninterested in what uraume had to say.

Uraume clear there’s throat,brushing their white bob cut hair with there hands.They began to speak with a direct professional voice.

“I have a few documents for you about the recents meetings and there are some paperwork in this pile that are needed to fill out” they say as they place the pile on his desk and grabbing their iPad and turning it on Before continuing on.

”You also are scheduled for three interviews and then your schedule to have meeting with your clients and providers.You have a email on from a director who is willing to give you a role for a upcoming movie” Uraume added off there voice steady and professional,as they turns off their iPad now looking at Sukuna eyes.

Sukuna leaned back in his chair,looking up at the ceiling of his office,a low grumble of irritation.His neck was slightly visible towards uraume,as he run his fingers through his appealing pink hair as it runs along his face and then he return to looking at uraume.His hand pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Thanks for the report uraume”Sukuna replied with sarcasm as well with irritation and uninterested into what uraume said.He already knew that he had new business to take care of,so this wasn’t any different from the other things.

“Is there anything you want to ask me about the regarding matters?” uraume said with control and professionalism,looking at him with a flat face.

He looks at his desk before looking at uraume face with a stern expression.His red eyes staring into uraume face.

“Did she respond back to the message that I had asked you to send?” He questioned along with his voice coming out harsh and demanding.But behind his facade the uncertainty gnawed at sukuna mind.

Uraume thought of the message he was referring too.They knew Sukuna had developed a strange interest for one particular woman.

But why should they judge him,after all it was a rare moment for him to express his personal interests to anyone else.

"No", Uraume stated in a professional tone, "I haven't received a reply from her yet. However," they added, "if you're looking for more answers, I can keep an eye on the situation and keep you updated."

Sukuna nodded,before adding on.

“Also I’ll like you to do a investigation on her life I want it to be done by the end of week with a full detail report on the matter,so If I hear as a simple person hearing about this I wont hesitate to chop your head off” He spoke with seriousness,every word carrying weight and importance.

“Yes sir” uraume nodded as they turns around walking towards the door.Stopping when they heard his voice again. Turning their head back to him.

“And send another message for me to her again today” He announced without looking at uraume figure,now looking at the paper he had to do.In which they simply nodded and left the room with a sigh as they walks to their own office.

Pondering What all this sudden interest in you;They has never seen him so clearly interested in a woman to actually ask for them to track them down,usually it was rather to get them out his house after every night stand he had.

As they enter their office,now walking to their desk with a heavy sigh,now looking at the time on their watch to see it 10:25pm.It was going to be a long night before they could get any sleep or even go home.

author note: I know I left This on a god damn cliffhanger but this isn’t even the original edited version,I HAD to cut out the original by half cuz I think I made it to 10k words and it aren’t even done😭 but I fricking hope y’all love this and part three will be out hopefully soon,I have never hated writing the words they/thier/and them 😭 it so new for me to do.But I already copy and pasted the cut part off and it in own draft so I’ll will be working on it.

Taglist: @lil-annonie @scoobysnakz @chilichopsticks @axkermanrenn @domainofmarie @laraackerman @manikosii @chrys23 @mangiswig @gladiatorgladiator @kosmisoo @midnight-138 @kkshahrewar. I hope I got all of y’all tags list right and it didn’t do that thingy that doesn’t allow me to tag you.

@mononijikayu

[anonymouscheeses]

Obvious shit I noticed part 3 (spoilers for welcome to heaven)

Look at her! "Teehee"

Also she's nervous! Foreshadowing omg 🤯

STICKERS! Two pride stickers and a cute donut. Gives me an idea to draw Chaggie at a donut shop while everything is burning down <3 (I'll probably do it but if any artist wants to as well go ahead!)

*CHOKES ON COFFEE* I LOVE THEM. I'M SORRY I GET SO GIDDY WHEN THEY HAVE EVEN THE SMALLEST INTERACTION BUT UGHHH I NEED MORE, IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH 🙏🙏

KISSY! MWA! *SCREAMS INTO THE VOID*

Vivzie give me more, moar now. MOAR

DAMN. SHE CAN THROW- or maybe it just exaggerates the perspective in this frame but still- ZAMNNN

Cherri x Sir Pentious fans RISE UP.

I wasn't ever really a fan of it myself but I always thought it was CUTE. Like 3 seconds before this part I was already begging for them to kiss 😭

More foreshadowing!

AAAAAA CREEPY BIRD THINGS!!!

Oh wait- Sera's hot and Emily's already adorable

If heaven don't look like what this is in the show, I DONT WANT IT! (THATS A JOKE PLEASE DON'T SMITE ME)

JEALOUS GIRLFRIEND VAGGIE!! Can I just say how much I love Vaggie's face expressions? Not just here but like all the time. She's just made to be so exaggerated, out of all of them I thought it would be Charlie who would have the most dramatic faces but Vaggie wins it for me. I JUST GIGGLE SO HARD WHEN SHE LOOKS LIKE THIS BAHAHAH

Okay yeah. It's very obvious now. Vaggie is definitely an ex-exterminator. They don't close in on Charlie here so it's made to subtly nudge the attention to Vaggie. HOW DID THEY IMMEDIATELY NOTICE IT WAS HER THO??

Hot-

That's it.

SHARE THAT MOTHUSSY GIRL-

YOU'RE TELLING ME SHE GREW OUT ALL OF THAT HAIR?!? YEAH ITS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE THEN BUT STILL AJJSJD.

But overall the design is pretty meh. I always loved the idea of short hair Vaggie and even have seen art of it but it's just yknow, alright. Reminds me of Cassandra from Tangled: the series. IM LISTENING TO ONE OF THE SONGS RIGHT NOW HELPPP

THIS SCENE HERE! WOOOOO! SO GLAD WE KNOW WHEN AND WHERE THEY FIRST MET!! Wish we got it extended tho. And also probably push it to next episode so it would have a better impact(atleast I think thats when they'll have the duet). BUT WHATEVER SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING! or uh whatever

Vaggie must've been a bit terrified at first. The only sinner she ever sent mercy to was a child. Then to see someone who to her is an adult sinner who just looks really human, that must be crazy. BUT THEN IF SHE WAS TOLD THAT CHARLIE WAS ACTUALLY THE PRINCESS OF HELL? HOOOO, LOCK IN AND STEAL HER. THAT'S SOME WATTPAD SHIT. Also, I wonder how long Charlie thought of redeeming sinners. It would make sense to be after meeting Vaggie, since it could have been a wake up call to the fact not all sinners are bad people. Even though Vaggie isn't a sinner technically, Charlie didn't know that at the time. But maybe Charlie was always like this but just needed to meet someone who could start her dream with her. Long rant uhhh

Haha penis 🫵

SCRAP WHATEVER I SAID IN THE FIRST PART. THEY PROBABLY DO FUCK- OR DONT?? I DONT KNOW- ANYWAY LESBIAN SEX (BOTTOM TEXT). WHY DO I CARE SO MUCH??? SOMEONE PULL THE TRIGGER.

Lute looks like a basic asf anime gorl. Adam doesn't ever take his helmet off, or maybe he just can't. OH HE'S DOING THE GAY SIGN 💅💅 Very appropriate for what he's saying

Mentor, apprentice. I love that Husk is just trying to help Angel grow but isn't going to force him into it if he doesn't want to.

Im not a fan of huskerdust and think they'd be better friends as I can't imagine a relationship with them at all. But it's still nice and they are supportive of eachother so that's like- yknow. Basic rules. Or something like that. (HELP. I ruined it all at the last part)

I- girl- WHY IS SHE GROWLING?? GRR GRR RR (INSERT TWILIGHT SAGA HERE)

VAGGIE'S FACE. SENDS ME. WHO GAVE HER THESE OVERDRAMATIC EXPRESSIONS, I APPLAUD YOU RGAGAGA

Ooo... I didnt like this part at all... Instead of making the choice she just runs off. Then because the plot demands it, Adam says nothing. Kinda whish she atleast avoided the question, maybe in some way that would require actual thinking? For a character like Vaggie, she could choose either way and it feel like it's still her. If she chose to protect Charlie's dream, she would still be perfectly loyal to her but in the act of so would reveal a secret that could harm their relationship(which does happen at the end but that's because the plot wanted it like that). If she chose to side with Adam, she'd be hurting Charlie emotionally, sure, but it would keep a secret that could make Charlie see Vaggie less than who she is to her already(atleast what Vaggie might think would happen). Imo it should've been her deciding to protect Charlie, since it would mean she's devoted to her at all times.

ANOTHER THING! IF SHE COULDN'T MAKE THE CHOICE, THAT IS SOMETHING INTERESTING TO GO INTO. Maybe it could go deeper into how Vaggie doesn't know who she is without Charlie. So when she has a choice to make, like here, she can't do it without feeling the need to ask Charlie. BUT NOOO, YA HAD TO GO WITH THIS!! Wow. That was a long ass rant. Wtf 😭

Maybe I'm a dumbass. Maybe they'll talk about that next episode, but still, atleast touch on it a bit to not seem rushed?

Angel looking out for his kids like a mom. We always did need the motherly figure, the one closest to that being Charlie but girl needs a mother in her life too(damn, wait, I did her so dirty).

Huh, so why does it work here then? 🤨🤨 if it was said in the contract that Valentino can do whatever he wants only in the studio, then why is this the exception? 🤨🤨

Yes I'm stupid. Why do you ask? (No genuinely what's happening here)

OH ITS THE IMAGE! I really like Sera so far, hope we get more of her soon or in season 2.

Now that we know the context of this, yeah, that's fucking insane. And badass. WOMEN.

HMM. THATS STRANGE. DID YOU NOT FOR ONCE THINK THERE COULD BE A POSSIBILITY SHE MIGHT HAVE BEEN AN ANGEL? Okay I probably wouldn't either but I have an excuse, I'm an idiot. Some girl with a standing out outfit, with one eye, looks unusually human, right after/during the extermination... that's pretty solid ass proof. But I'm dumb so don't take anything i say seriously :D

Imagine this. No- shit. Just-

JUST LOOK! THEY ARE SO CUTE! EVEN THOUGH CRAZY SHIT IS HAPPENING.

*SWEATS*

Vaggie is DESPERATE. PLEADING. That's obvious yeah, but don't mind me I had nothing to say for the last 3 images I just thought they were cool

I mean. Slay I guess. 😍💅

Do all the exterminators look similar or is it just Lute and Vaggie? 🤨

Even though Vaggie and Charlie may be going through this horrible thing with a hard punch in the gut, but Vaggie is always going to comfort her and I just think that's so adorable.

Also Adam looks like a chicken hah.

Everyone fears to be like Lucifer. If they don't do bad things they believe are for the greater good and make sacrifices that put them higher than those in hell, they could themselves be fallen. It's really interesting but I don't know if it's going to be fleshed out enough with the amount of episodes left. Which also worries me about everything else that still hasn't be concluded. There's gonna be loose strings I just know it. Hopefully though they rather do that then rush everything out y'know?

I want the next episode to be mostly focused on Vaggie and Charlie's relationship and the healing of what happened. Not for the entire episode of course, it would feel drawn out if it did, but atleast address the problem for the first like I would say 10 minutes? Then the rest would focus on one or two loose threads while also having Vaggie and Charlie acting upon moving on. That's just my idea but yeah-

[joannasteez]

starship pain

pairing: cody rhodes x reader , cm punk x reader warning: explicit content (smut) minors pls dni. angst. emotional infidelity? loads of description!!! a lot of space related metaphors. authors note: lovely little request from @harmshake i hope i did your idea some justice. this takes place after mania. somethings are changed and switched around to fit my ideas. so it's a bit of an alternative universe from present kayfabe. the one flashback i have in this has a little red text noting when in the timeline of the year its set in!! word count: 14k tagging: @333creolelady @theninthwonder @kill-the-artiste @empressdede @southerngirl41 @2-muchsauce @crxssjae @coyotegirl-ramblings @luchorgasm @xbriexx @wanna-see-my-lease

...what gives a star it's character?...

temperature

color

mass

luminosity 

size 

...and with the display of such magnificent character, do stars not go about tirelessly with the work of inspiring awe? living wondrously bright amidst the deafening swallow of that deep void called space, so much so, that even with great distance, they exist bold enough to be witnessed. if so, then can we not be stars too? though not as great, can we not aspire, with terrible diligence, to be as breathtaking?... 

and with the conclusion of wrestlemania forty, the philadelphia crowd erupts thunderous. earsplitting even. the american nightmare, cody rhodes, kneeling with tears at the heart of the ring. clutching the weight of the title belt. gold in hand, the newly crowned undisputed wwe universal champion. the hearts, minds, joys and displeasures of the people performing well to revolve in orbit around such star-like greatness.

"your moonsault needs a bit of work still". your father's voice coarse from age. his eyes unblinking. a perfectionist's stare. his penchant for over examination as lively as the sun. existing still even with the residual thrill of wrestlemania. "you're hesitating too much before you press off'. 

you sigh. small enough that it goes incomprehensible. sipping at early afternoon coffee complimentary of the hotel. "it was just nerves pop", you give. because facing rhea ripley for the title, center stage in front of thousands was no easy feat. preparation took a back seat, amongst the lights and screams and hard bumps to the body. it was natural to have a seconds worth of overthought. "the match was fine'.

because it was fine. it was good. great even. two women telling a story with the violent bursting and clash of their bodies. loss be damned. it felt good to withstand the cold. to toil through limitation so fiercely. an easy break of a glass ceiling that worked well to loom above your head for some time. but your hall of fame of a father couldn't see pass the minor inconsistencies. a scrutinizer to the greatest degree. 

"you should come by the gym soon. we can catch up. work through a few things together'". 

catch up and work through meaning your body bouncing off a turn buckle till his satisfaction reached a good, sore, exhaustion. you pivot quickly at the thought of it. at the thought of drilling through moves and the terse cut of his voice. 

you pick up your phone, hearing the shift of feet from across the hotel room. another sip of coffee that plays well over the soft closing of the bathroom door. because your father didn't need to know the details of your latest tryst. especially so soon after the events of the biggest sports entertainment night of the year. everything to him, that isn't the four sided ring, a distraction. 

you smile. "doesn't sound like anything's wrong with my wrestling. sounds like you miss me". 

he softens. blinks his eyes and lets his pride show through a small smile. "any father in their right mind would". 

"so then say it".

"your moonsault is near flawless...", he gives. like relenting but not really. "...and i miss you". 

the bedsheets ruffle behind you. your cue to end the moment before it has the chance to sour.

"we'll talk later", you give. "i have to go". 

"alright. be good".

the face time call ends. gentle touching steps along the carpet of your hotel bedroom before you're slipping under puffy sheets. the philadelphia sun bursting beyond thin curtains to shape his face. blue eyes more sky than ocean under such bright warmth. his fingers quick to pull against your body. slipping up and over with a tender maneuvering till you lay against him like he seems to like. a drawn tune of a hum singing, your weight pressing in to comfort the sore, exhausted champion. his neck craning, rushing with movement to follow the run of your touch over his scalp and across the apple of his cheek. lips dipping into the heart of your palm. 

"did i wake you?", you ask. 

"no", cody gives. voice tired. "my phones been going crazy all morning". 

your thumb caresses just beneath his bottom lip. soft and sweeping. "as expected. the price goes up when you're the champ. so does the attention". 

"is that right?", tone suggestive. eyes a heavy linger along your lips. 

you oblige him. a small sweet reward for all his tiresome effort. your lips, sweet and rich, tasting of coffee as they meet his. a tender meshing before they slip to slot passionate. his fingers curling into your hips. a venture to endear you, moaning lazy as his body forms deeper into the sheets. mouths parting only so his indulgences can lead him else where. wet, tongue led kisses along your pulse. hot breath and the dull graze of his teeth. surely overwrought still by the thrill of the night before. this morning version of him performing with a delirious high. his every touch sure and firm. the hands of a champion. 

"how does it feel?" 

a deep breath. weighing the question with silence. finding a home for his yet to be spoken thoughts in the dip of your neck. the part of his lips there producing a shiver up your spine. 

"good. it feels good". the shine in his eyes threatening to wane. "scary. now i have to actually carry it. do some good with it". 

you kiss him sweetly. a plant of reassurance. "you will". words kind as you roll on your side to face him. catching the beginnings of an etch in of adoration as he fails to look away from you. a semblance of something near unpleasant troubling your chest. like being under the weight of his gaze is too much to bare. 

"thank you for being here". 

"of course". 

"i couldn't get to you properly last night. it all moved so fast after the match. one thing after the other". 

you find yourself ruffling through his hair again. your own will, making to ingratiate your senses to him. like staining the skin to lay a good base for memory. "it's ok. m'here now", mouth on him. an urge that lives with imperfections, your tongue flicking soft, lapping over sweetly till it works away that ambivalent trouble in your belly. urges growing greater by the second till they form with an edge too defined to ignore. eager now, to feel him against skin. the way the mellow heat of him flares under your palm, melting the worry till it runs off into desire. this performance of a great gravitational pull.

regulating yourself to one drink for the night is a testier task than originally thought, but it works well enough. the celebratory buzz of the room filling in where the warmth of liquor doesn't. the philadelphia skyline sparkling the dark chill of the night as the closed in rooftop swells up to a comfortable fullness. wrestling stars at every corner. drinks in hand and simple, cheery conversation. the scene of it all, once a dream, talked of and imagined, now a reality as you maneuver amidst it all.

a firm take to your arm pulls you toward the secrecy of a corner. your lips failing to keep away from a pull up of excitement. heels clicking to keep the pace as you're rounded about a tall column and tucked away behind it. cody pressing in. a lazy little kiss against your mouth that tastes like his drink of choice. the glass clutched in his hand still, attempting not to spill it. 

not so long after your intimate morning did you both part. post-mania obligations too much of a priority to ignore. 

his free hand slips into the slit of your dress. fingers curling into your thigh. a silky brown number that matches his undone suit. his tie loose, his jacket gone and the vest unbuttoned. cheeks dusted a faint pink. his mouth pressing into your pulse. housing there to feel the warmth corralling under the skin. 

and with only a few weeks of this relationship have you confirmed just how affectionate cody is. his every touch made to linger, his smile luminous and his words warm as they work tirelessly to sink into skin. 

"you look", a kiss to your cheek. "absolutely beautiful angel", and another to your mouth. 

you smile. lip tucking under your teeth. "thank you". fingers running to crease his shirt. pulling him closer. the curt shuffle of his shoes clicking forward as your back flushes up into the corner. your eyes sweeping over his mouth. reaching to lick in for a kiss that makes him groan. "you look good too". tasting the bitterness washing his tongue before going in for more. "very good", a purr of a moan floating in that makes his breath hitch before he's groaning soft. a mindless overworking of nerves you're sure. because the weeks with him thus far—albeit fresh—have been nothing short of a teasing game. heavy traveling and the looming possibility of a good passion not yet explored. that trouble in your belly shortening the full breath of your desires. 

you break for air, remembering where you are. he downs the rest of his drink. clutching the glass still. 

"you had a lot to drink?", you ask. wiping at his mouth with your thumb. licking at the residual bits of liquor.

his eyes trailing over your lips. unhurried to meet back at your eyes. "not too much. this was my last. m'tappin out early". 

"good", you give. tugging at the undone part of his vest. keeping him flushed up against you so that the strength of his cologne steeps in. "cause i need you sober. we have unfinished business". 

his free hand still finds itself making a home beyond the slit of your dress. kneading just where your thigh rounds out into the supple flesh of your bottom. a firm squeeze that's all possession. the action risky, but exhilaratingly so. his words toughing out with a groaning. "fuck the party then". 

"no. enjoy it". slipping from under him slowly. "we'll have plenty of time later". 

a final look of promise before you click away. deep tempering breaths that work to quell your own rise of desire. cheeks hot and your body beneath the delicate dress teeming with the memory of his touch. sensations comfortable enough that they leave you wanting. borderline desperate. but yes, what lives of the the draw, the pull of him, all a symptom of simple necessity. his everything sure enough to fall into. a security exacting to an almost bothersome degree. but maybe this full consumption isn't a bad thing, after past failures and flings too loose and undefined. shapeless, wordless things. maybe cody is what you need. your body tucking to lean into the wall that meets the end of the rooftop bar. "gin and tonic", you order. 

soft clutching hands at your shoulder. you turn. bianca belair beaming with excited knowing eyes and a smirk. "you got blondie real red in the face", she starts. slipping up next to you. "no thoughts, just half of a three piece suit and a vibe". 

you smile with her. feeling heat in your cheeks and a swirl in your belly. the intimacy of your relationship with cody no outright secret, but the confirmation of it never really reaching the great private sphere of your friends and friendly acquaintances. because it was business only yours and cody's to keep or share, but bianca is a good friend. closer than most. a former tag team partner. a nxt sister. and the playfulness of her curiosities were always as fun to indulge in as they were to hear. 

"a real nasty vibe", you chuckle. "that man was trying to give ya'll a PLE from the corner. i had to slip away while i could". 

"and i get it cause this brown and gold!?", her hand taking yours to spin you around. appraising the the beauty of your dress and accessories. her fingers dabbing up under an eye and sniffling with faux tears. "i taught you so well". 

"you really did". 

both of you laughing and sipping at your drinks. 

"is it serious?", her tone shifting firm. 

the question forcing you into a bout of consideration you've attempted to stray from on many occasions. but it's crucial nonetheless. a conclusion you'll have to come to regardless. 

"i mean, i don't know". thumb rubbing against the chill of your glass. taking to a silent mull over. the past few weeks or so a whirlwind of affection. secret rendezvous' and late night calls. the tenderness of him working with an endless drive, even amongst the world of work set before the both of you. "we're slow burning it a bit but i think the end goal for him is to have something serious". 

and your wording doesn't go unnoticed, not that you want it to. some part of you maybe looking to gain some much needed perspective. a nudge in the direction you feel is necessary. and she doesn't fail in delivering it. "you deserve something stable. the casual shit is cool but it's not forever". 

you sigh. memory serving well of your former trysts with a different superstar. "i agreed on that being casual".

"you can agree to a lot when you think the dick is good". sipping at her drink. "he's here by the way". 

and if you pretend not be be affected by the possibility of seeing him, of being seen by him, then doesn't that null the existence of the feeling all together? that twist in of nerves in your belly. residual things, like words and perhaps sentiments left to wander the void of space formally known as a very casual but fevered, undefined union of legs and lips. a deep passion left to succumb to the suffocating elements of space and time. 

"i figured he'd be".

his name is a draw. of money, eyes and thoughts. his return causing this gravitational pull of the people, controversial or otherwise. a veteran in his own right. for him not to be seen at a celebration of the greatest night in their business would be confounded and weird. 

"you good with all that though? i know it ended kinda all of a sudden". 

from passion all the time to none at all. hour long drives and last minute flights. apartments and not so high floor hotel rooms. his name seemingly forever written into the slip and work of your tongue. free and casual but still working so sure in that space of passion that the feeling of being beholden to one another felt more truer by the day. living too sporadically—and maybe too unrestrained—still though, to last well enough on its own. because without the consistency of light, how is anything sure to grow? and then in came cody, prying away your attention with the ease and experience of a star born to evoke awe. his light pleasant and safe. 

you shrug. "you live and learn, you move on. i'm good where i am". 

bianca smiles. her arms a nice embrace. "as you should be. m'happy for you".

"thank you", you give. her warmth contagious. your body squeezing into the hug. 

and when she's called away, montez drunkenly whisking his wife to another corner of the room, she parts with an apologetic smile. mouthing "sorry", as her sloshed to capacity of a husband drags her along with him. leaving you to live alone at the end of the bar, newly made acknowledgements of your relationship resting over you thickly. a tight take of adrenaline to your nerves. small sips of your drink working only to occupy your hands. unwilling to decipher the root of such a rush. fear or excitement. either way, the feeling of it drops your belly and leaves the tiny hairs everywhere to stand on end. because this has happened before, drawing too close to the power of a star too soon, burning amongst the void before the possibility of impact. 

shoes click, approaching beside you. his cologne familiar. a scent made to intrigue. memory slipping in to harshen the roll over happening in your belly. of course he'd be here. the self proclaimed 'best in the world', the second city saint, the straight edged superstar. after some months of nothing, cm punk is alive and looking too well for you to stand. 

you sip again. a cool lean up again the wall. eyes patient as they go about examining him whole. his doing just the same. 

he looks good in a suit, much to your dismay. 

"you clean up well", you give. meeting his eyes. standing firm against the heaviness of his gaze. 

"so i've been told", slipping closer. his body leaning up against the bar to rest just as coolly as you have against the wall. a casual disposition so incredibly indicative of your times together. "you look beautiful. nothing new for you though".

"you're letting your grays grow out again". 

"a new era, a new look". his palm smoothening over the salt and pepper patches of hair. a smile running through his lips. "you always did like them". 

a fight to arrest the heat in your cheeks and old memories. "so what, this is about me?"

"such a smart girl", he chuckles. "i love it when you state the obvious". 

you grin at his teasing. "i just had one of the most important nights of my life', shoving up against him playfully. "you can't be a dick to me". 

"you did well by the way". a sincerity that makes something bloom over the skin. a jittered feeling you choose to ignore as he continues. "a nice bag of new little moves and tricks, it was good shit for your first mania. get rid of that moonsault though, it doesn't fit you". 

you scoff. "oh cause you know what fits". 

body bracing for impact just after such a wild take to flight. the words leaving before you can think them over. his shoulders shaking as he laughs. 

"i've had the pleasure of knowing a time or two". 

"oh fuck you punk". 

"i mean...", dark earthy eyes sweeping over your lips. a lazy, patient journey over your body. a show of his appraisal. "...i don't know if you can. given your new boy toy and all". 

"i'm bound to get a new toy if the old one breaks". not that cody is a toy. no. he's no play thing in the slightest. a sudden need to defend him in that right springing up till its thick in your mouth. stitching into words. his every intention appearing precise and laid bare. sweet gestures and impassioned words. his everything lingering long enough for you to notice. "it's a lot more serious than you think". 

"so it seems", voice neutral, but appearing in his eyes to live, these little slivers of disappointment. 

its something not meant to harp on for the sake of your own peace. but they try their damnedest to penetrate. working diligent. enough for the air to feel too warm and thick to breathe in. your barely touched drink a nuisance and the friendly crowd of the celebration too much to handle. and thank God for cody, your attention catching his motions for you. slipping through the crowd to head for the entry-exit doors. a make to leave as he catches your eyes to join him. 

"i should...i should go-"

"that's a smart decision". 

cody's tongue tastes like his drink of choice. room temperature whiskey. the lap of it lazy and patient, aiming to steep into the palate. his lips soft, twisting wet as they go about the work of ingratiating the senses. his hands following suit. a tight journey over the skin, heat flaring up in the wake of such an ardent touch. curling in to leave cratered impressions. his movements breathtaking, your body hoisted up in his arms before you're bouncing into the fluff of the bed. persistent fingers and his mouth ready, tongue dipping into where your body pliantly unfolds for him. your legs spreading with guidance. an exposure to the air that pulls a shiver through the body. 

"so pretty", musing to himself. tongue slipping deep. warm and wet and earnest. groaning from a pleasure that comes with pleasure. your inner thighs suffering under the gripping weight of his touch. a steady hold that keeps you open for him. "been thinkin about this all day". 

you hiss. touch filled with delirium. your belly overwrought and filling in hot. skin breaking away from the chilly philadelphia air. your hips testing their limits. a gentle swing up that catches against the rhythm of his mouth. a sweet suckle to your clit that shortens the air in your chest.

his thumb joins the fray. teases the messy drool of arousal pooling to drip lazy like. a dull circling at that broaches the possibility but nothing more. leaving you with the desire to be filled to the hilt. your pussy pulsing hard against his tongue. clenching about nothing, waiting impatient as he revels in his own play at giving pleasure.

"cody please", voice near broken. a sweet little plea. 

he leaves you spread. watches your little performance of appeal. nails painted a color that leaves a beautiful contrast against your soft skin. slipping sweet at the bud of your clit. holding his eyes. enchantment and lust. the light of his desire bright enough that it reflects beautifully off your skin. curving its way up the body. paints itself warm over the work of your pleasure. melting in till its swirling heavy at the base of your belly. a sensation that grows easy. another groan erupting, surely from that clinging sensation you've bought to his tongue. pulsing and shivering. singing and moaning wispy for him. a full consumption that breaks the resolve you've built so easily. and when his thumb sinks into the fat of your clit, circling deep and persistent, you sink further into the sheets. a sharp "fuck", breaking into the air. your nerves unruly as they go in their frenzy. 

your body drunk, senses beautifully askew. a quick to arrive release that speaks to his determination. 

his mouth messy and slipping over your inner thighs. working to kiss your belly and through the valley of your breast. tongue peaking before it flattens over the perk of your nipples. an involuntary rut in your hips rushing up into him. the sensation like kindling for a fire. 

you taste yourself. pulling your lips to his. the whiskey and that dangerous steep in of your own arousal. his hands nailed into the sheets. your own freeing him from his underwear. hot and hard in your hand. slipping him through slick arousal, to feel how awfully ready he is for you, before you're guiding him in with a desperate hand. head tipping into the bed as you feel the wet split as he goes. a hiss of enjoyment as he deepens, resting just over the end of you. 

cody hums. diving his nose into the scent of your perfume. the stain of it at your neck arresting him. hips knocking in firm. deft and easy. working you open to take him. 

your palms sweep over muscle. to layer over that already laid foundation of memory.  his back taut and strong. nails clawing in as he fills you whole. your lips parting. breaths taken. belly coiling with the threat of release. and here the work of taking him in feels more than good. that troubling knot of ambivalence that once warred beneath the skin, trampled upon with a temporary defeat, as his hips work steadily. 

"you feel so good", a moaning drawl of words. 

an admission that slips its way to settling into thick air. performing well enough to saturate the room. and its true. cody feels good. amazing. his warmth gentle, and his everything near flawless.

the man wrapped in your arms, the reigning undisputed universal champion, is only near flawless. this, a thought that slips deep into your conscience. taking root aggressively so. but are stars not perfect in shape? bright and the enormity of them sensational. great enough in size that the draw of them from within performs well enough to gather equally at every side. a faultless sphere of a shape indeed. and has he not—in spite of your damning early morning sentiments—taken on that part of a stars character? wearing it warm and well. the wrestling world revolving to orbit his dazzling spectacle of victory amongst the mania. then what of it could be so wrong as to call him only near flawless and not flawless simply? the touch of his skin and the pull of his lips gracious even in hunger and looking to consume. a ready made heat not so dissimilar to a great star. 

it's clear. so very fucking clear, amidst the slow creep in of the morning, as your phone vibrates with a call, just where the doubt reeks from. 

'the best in the world' showing up as caller ID. because you never changed the name. because you never had the heart to leave him nameless even. slipping from the sheets, from the comfortable weight of cody's body. a fluffy robe over your skin as you slide the balcony doors of the hotel room open. answering his call. 

those slivers of disappointment in his eyes from last night. performing well enough to disrupt your feelings. like the grand effects of a solar flare. 

"have breakfast with me", he starts. 

no preamble to give you room to deflect. a sigh heavy as it leaves you. his morning voice coarse and unfortunately satisfying. maybe you should've stayed in bed. wrapped yourself deeper beneath the sheets and the lay over of cody's body. 

"we lose a little contact and you forget your manners. that's unfortunate". 

he chuckles. "please?"

"that took a lot out of you huh?" 

"not really". a dramatic little pause, because punk does have a flare for it. albeit in small doses, in his own way. and you can feel him smiling through the phone. can feel the change in tone just before he can give it. "begging is just usually more your thing than it is mine". 

and the truth only hurts, vexes the nerve so, because it is the truth. because it has life. breathing and smiling with the sole objective of tethering itself ungraciously to every little thing you do. 

"can you not?" 

"you like it".

slivers of guilt. peering to look through the glass of the balcony door. cody still sleeping, peacefully unaware. but what is there to be guilty of? the past solely the past. this little phone call but a blip in time. a soundless action amidst the airless void of space. 

"ok, m'sorry". he relents. receiving your silence in full. "i'll stop". 

"i can't do breakfast. it wouldn't feel right". 

"it's just coffee and a little chit chat". 

lies. "i've never had just coffee with you...", memory serving right as the words grow heavy and thick. leaving the tongue less easy than you'd like them to. months of passioned tryst' and rendezvous, from city to city, before and not so long after his return to the company. "...it's always had some accompaniment to it". 

he hums. "i know how to respect a boundary if that's what you're worried about". 

slivers of guilt still. a pang in your chest. the cool morning philadelphia air doing nothing to lessen the heat in your cheeks. "the boundary isn't just for you", admission quick and terse. angered that it had to leave.

this slow to slip along silence. a lazy passing over before he's chuckling again. like the type of amusement you get after a small win. his voice is all raspy satisfaction. "i see", he gives.

"i'm sure whatever you want to say over coffee, you can just say over the phone right now".

"you gonna make me bare my soul over some fuckin radio waves?"

it'd all be a less ceremonious go of words. not so serious. as shapeless and uncategorized as the months were with him. 

"you are notorious for saying things you probably shouldn't, so keep that in mind".

"old habits unfortunately die very hard sweetheart". 

a chill creeping up the spine. riding in along the morning air. "it's almost eight a.m., it's not even a good time to be sharing all this...sentiment". 

"then give me a time and place". 

"i don't know punk, whenever you can get to a target closest to you", laughing a little. the rejection feeling sweet and easy as it leaves you. "they sell journals and diary's with matching pens. that's a good place to put all of your little feelings". 

"ouch".

you stand. watching cody slowly make his way to the bathroom through the glass balcony window. your hand against the handle to slide it open. "i have to go". a quick throw of words before you end the call. pride slowly inching over the skin. 

a successful deterrent.

the “archangels moonsault", a name coined by a collective of your fathers contemporaries. his performance of the golden triangle moonsault habitually flawless. appearing more angel than man as his body soared for some seconds. awe forever struck across the color of your eyes at such a spectacle, so much so, that you wished to live it. and so it went, a song and dance done many times before. the child of a legend attempting to step beyond that harrowing shadow in hopes of creating their own. the awe inspired, attempting now to inspire awe. like the cinematic feat of interstellar travel, viable only through the art of imagination. a play at the impossible, and nothing more. the perpetual falling short of a dangerous aspiration. nerves fraying at the seams and a deep plummeting of the heart. angst, a side effect of near flawlessness. starship pain.

"just keep workin at it", cody said once. watching your frustration after failing to perfect your fathers beloved moonsault. the precision of it lacking. your body insistent on underperformance. resentful of the air.

the encouragement working against its own intention. a bitterness rising to meet your tongue. but the near success of it grows palpable on your fingertips. nagging the nerve endings there so much that it forces into the skin a deep repetition. a cycle of the same thing for weeks on end—house shows, and training, and live events and training, and meet and greets and training, and merch signings and training, and interviews and training, and photoshoots and training—till the system grew faithful. and whichever cracks of free time expose themselves are quickly remedied with cody. because if all these distractions exists, then the time to decipher the bitterness growing on your tongue has no room to live. the ambivalence attempting to sneak in your belly once again, snuffed out by other things. 

and friday night smackdown becomes an interesting state of affairs amidst your little world of moonsault turmoil. cody and punk both drafted, a feud storyline written up by creatives. the new undisputed champion versus the self proclaimed best in the world. a guarantee for money and ratings. which always means good business. your draft to smackdown a grounds for opportunity just the same. a fresh creative direction post-mania. but such good chances don't stop your body's war with itself. feeling the toil of the work, that faithful routine, and refusing to surrender from it's grudge. resentful of the air still. 

but cody remains. his touch heated and sure. a sweet kiss to your skin in the privacy of a dressing room before your first match on the smackdown brand. the memory of his words sticking as you make to kiss him. 'just keep workin at it'. the rush of affection feeling odd. 

"you okay?", his eyes searching. thumb swiping gentle, palm holding at your cheek. 

"yeah", your body odd in it's skin. tempted to leave but feeling the need to stay. you grab his hand. a gentle squeeze of assurance. "i think it's just nerves". 

"you been workin at it hard. it's gonna pay off", he gives. his smile small but bright still. a hand roaming gentle. soothing up your back. 

but the second city saint was, is, never too far behind. posturing himself as the metaphorical rock, adamant on flushing you uncomfortably against a hard place. slivers of mischief in his stride and in coarse perfected words. the smackdown before backlash interesting to say the least. proving itself as the first domino. the main event of the night a strategic volley of words. the returned superstar and the undisputed champion. the knot tying itself about your belly barbarous as it works, watching them dig into each other with dramatic promises of destruction. the usual song and dance of a good promo. waiting for something terrible that affirms the odd abrupt spring ups of guilt and that bitterness refusing to leave your throat. everything of your romance, center stage and dazzling with bright lights for all the world to see. and when the words stop, the crowd jeering for who they hate and loud in delight for who they love, the air grows thick with the way it deafens. 

rough thudding drops of their microphones before that faithful rushing in. fire in their eyes and a close size up of the competition. good drama for the crowd. 

punk breaks with a laugh. similar in an amusement you've heard, felt before. like he's won a small victory. wholly fucking satisfied and happy about it. reaching to whisper something in cody's ear. words that penetrate more than they're supposed to. something a little less fire filled than anger striking bold along cody's expression. like a smoldering yet to come fully ablaze. 

and it is said that for every star, there is a loss of mass in it's life time. a lessening of that gravitational pull. a change of character that threatens its awe. 

his skin warm, but not as balmy. his kiss sweet but the comfort of it waning. the journey to seeing to its ease seeming more painful than letting it be. but the need to try breathes still. living bored and tired and thin, but alive nonetheless. the late hours between the end of the live show and his first official title defense quiet and terrible. all of his little bright smiles and tender touches gone. the beauty of the french hotel drained by this sudden standstill. blue eyes colder and distant. taken by the trouble of overthinking. 

text message | outgoing: wtf did you say to him?

text message | the best in the world: what's my name saved as in your phone? 

your fingers feel weak. tired and unable. the nerves there doing well in fraying at the seams. held hostage by a guilt that refuses to leave.

text message | the best in the world: i'm not really a write my feelings in journals kinda guy, you should know that. i want to see your pretty little face for a chat still. whenever you decide to stop avoiding me. 

text message | outgoing: boundaries remember? or are the new gray hairs screwing your memory

text message | the best in the world: well i figure a little courtesy closure is in order before your boy gets his ass whipped on live television. 

text message | outgoing: closure? can't really close a door that never existed can you? 

a thick, curling cloud of steam rolls into the hotel bedroom from the open door of the shower. a silent invitation to join him—an olive branch living still in spite of his sudden brooding—that your body refuses to indulge. but the air does well in an attempt to suffocate you anyways. skin sweltering uncomfortably. or maybe it's just the ambivalence in your belly and the dull taste of something wrong on your tongue. frayed nerves and this half shaped desire to leave. all of these symptoms living as the summation of...of something that feels too harsh to speak to. your eyes take a steady read over the chain of messages. a once over that happens too many times to happen just once and yet there is no clarity of thought here. 

closure? a type of reconciliation afforded to people once terribly impassioned. and yes, your times with him were fevered. fierce little meetings that left you craving more. but never did the attraction burn so much as to bring about such a heat, that lived closer to something like love than not, or whatever he seems to be feeling. 

but there was that one time in albany. a confusing, charged little tryst. different from the others. his fingers curling in so deep then that he'd bruised your skin, like he was trying to remember you-

"so...", cody starts. a simple word edged with hesitation. bath towel wrapped about his waist as he pads out of the steam of the bathroom. skin wet and tantalizingly inviting. "...you and punk?" and finally it comes. the source of his brooding, his silence. that dejection of touch and affection. 

your phone grows heavy in your hands. plops along the sheets like a weight. "old news", words ironed and pressed. dressed up in a surety, that if spoken with enough, can be believable. because the second city saint is old news. 

his eyes are cold. a gray-blue snatched from the impending roll in of a storm. "feels pretty current", he sighs. turns to the table below the bedroom mirror. searching through a small bag of things. lotions and colognes and clothes and such. his perfect teeth spreading mirthless. "very current actually". 

your body anchors to the bed, and curiosity an anchor in your body. inspires a refusal to move—to go to him, to ease the tension in his shoulders—as the sharp edges of it rip through till it holds deep enough. 

"what'd he say to you?" 

"nothing worth repeating...", hands rubbing about his face. a serum moisturizer. taking up small work as he finds and treads slow through words. tone like that of an interrogators though not nearly as violent. but the suspicion in him bothers to root well enough that it can't be hidden. can't be done away with easily. "just implying a bunch of... of shit. which is interesting because punks not that type of guy on the mic. if it needs to be said, he makes it plain..."

"its a work probably...". tone cool. indifferent. the sensation resting in your belly just the opposite. words spilling, living two fold. an attempt at persuasion overflowing so well that it performs for him and yourself just the same. "...ratings, clicks, views. it's drama for tv". 

"well it feels pretty damn personal". 

"and what?", you scoff. "winning mania wasn't?" 

cody recedes. softens. because winning at mania was personal. business but very personal. the stakes of such a win clinging to the base of his emotions at every breath and turn till the belt rested in his hands. that much you could feel, drawing closer to him in those months—a sweet, innocent friendship born from this great host of similarities—till nearly every moment was spent with each other. his words and his thoughts and his touches becoming more intimate. affections as clear as the perfect beauty of his smile. and then comes the guilt, a drizzle against the air, like the first damning drops before the inevitable chaos of a down pour. your body lighter now. the will to leave him be, to wrestle with his feelings by his lonesome unanchored by the shame of doing so. 

"am i being crazy about this?", he asks. 

you move to him. crossing the exceptional size of the room to embrace him. arms encircling and your eyes gentle. his skin warm and comfortable. your body fighting itself still though, even amidst the vulnerability of him, battling back these slivers of a temptation to leave. "it's a mind game. don't let him win". 

his hands venture. a smooth, sweeping take along your arms till they cradle your face. thumbs tender as they roll at the apple of your cheeks. "and us? this is it right? we're solid?"

your eyes flick to his lips in a means to inspire within yourself some true meaning of devotion. desire and fidelity. your mouth pressing sweetly to the seam of his as you pull him into a deeper embrace. words kept unsaid. buried alive before the work of a damning departure. your tongue soft and slipping gentle. wet and precious enough to elicit a moan. the tension in him waning as he goes, falling further into your show of affection. shoulders unburdened and the heat returning pleasantly to his skin. a performance that convinces only his hesitations and nothing of your own. 

and that lack of conviction reigns over heavily. devastatingly so. failure thundering about your chest, slipping wild through the arms and legs, till it swims heavily about the head. ambivalence working ungracious in the body, like a storm of solar proportions. because cody had done well at backlash, performed greatly against the second city saint as they went head to head in their first of a best of three match. 

but you—your knees buckling just after the press off for the archangels moonsault—do terribly. a harsh botch that leaves your feet to slip, head hitting against the ring before your body can be properly caught. a concussion that blurs your vision for the remainder of the match. 

a number of horrible executions that follow, equilibrium disrupted, all amounting to a slow paced performance. your body resentful, spiteful now too. 

this attempt at a diligent work of resting comfortably in the security of cody's everything, like a roaming out into the hostile environment of space. unprepared and certainly unfit for such an expedition of passion. a fast deterioration of desire and the weakening of a strength to see to its survival. 

this longing for a good and whole and secure thing, a need pulsing your heart strong and persistent, now inverted, though working with the same vigor, to bring you under with a maddening sort of frailty. a self induced bout of muscle atrophy. 

"a break", is what hunter is calling it. his words and eyes this odd, cold meshing of empathy and business. a command that lives without the room to resist and it stings even the strongest parts of your ego. 

punishment by the ether, for aspiring to reach so far, with so much confidence, for something never meant to be had. because stars exist out of reach, with light years of distance, for a reason. 

and the doctor gives a definitive "no" on flying back to the states. a futile joke to follow about getting much needed rest in the "city of love", which in full effect lurches your stomach into a fit so disgusting that it empties. that bile troubling itself in your belly, waiting for its call to action, finally revealing its putrid nature to be formidable and unrelenting. a symptom of the concussion they say, but you know, above all things medically sound, that this is just violent revenge inflicted upon the self. the body taunting the mind for its ill-purposed ambition. trying to fall into something comfortable and love-like with cody was, is, and would always be ill-purposed ambition. 

the air of the suv heavy with that leather interior smell. rolling smooth and slow against the parisian streets on its way back to the hotel. 

cody's finger playing along yours with a soothing caress. a patient concern brushing up the drained make of your face from his eyes. soft music living under the sound of his voice as he goes. "they'll probably clear you to fly in a few days. i can get someone to book a flight for you, and you can just… just be with me...", a gentle tone but living definitive. committing himself to your care. a security you'd always hoped to fully adore. "...and im not saying this like you're unfit to take care of yourself but i wanna help...", his blue eyes looking for a response and receiving much of nothing. a shallow head nod that keeps him rambling. "...i wanna—just let me do this for you. please?", his hand squeezing yours. a feather weight gesture. "let me take care of it, okay?" 

you blink. eye lids heavy with exhaustion. a drained sensation that leaves you too undone for any proper recognition of feeling other than emptiness. your voice hoarse, the acid moving up violent enough that it stole away the fullness of it.

"i hear you cody". 

the last words said to him before his departure from france in the morning. 

an army of texts and calls heating your phone as the sun rose and rested amongst the clouds with a far comfortable distance. a reminder of terribly fated ambitions. water at your bedside that felt like heaven as it settled in and down the body. 

five calls from bianca and encouragement texts of the "i love you" variety. one call from your father and a message that read more definitive than suggestive. "come home when you can", it said. and a text from him. 

text message | the best in the world: heard hunter put you on a bit of a break. im here for you when you need me. 

not if, but when. the confidence even amongst the sympathy, frustrating. an imagining of his cool, more sage than forest, green eyes screwed with pity. the thought of it beating a harsh heat pass skin into blood. rolling in amongst the red till it rushes to anger. a pounding in your skull and a light nausea rocketing the delicate lining of your belly. laid out along the length of a too beautiful parisian couch, your body forced to endure the harsh gravitational pull back down to earthly reality. for there could no longer be an ambitious voyage to that outer enormity, in search of bright, wonderful, comfortable lights. a star so secure in its character that you make no qualms with the threat of it burning your skin before even the reach of full impact. and truly how stupid and cowardly was it anyways? fearful of a different end so much as to suffer with something that just barely scratches the surface of fulfillment. 

fearful of the ill-controlled, imperfect things so terribly that you looked upward in an escape to the stars. 

and though albany, new york is not the perfect choice, it is the most suitable option for what you need. a quiet, reclusive setting that works well for all this wonderfully, amazing, burdensome introspection you've been forced to endure. truths roaming tirelessly about your skull as they look and wait with impatience to be fully actualized. and maybe—agreeing with his decisions against your better judgement and instinct—hunter was right. this "break", needed. a thing that could not be put off on the account of some bruised ego. countless little mishaps and slip ups in ring that had eventually led to a nasty botch during the biggest PLE since mania. the look of it not great for business or your health. but to hear it, to feel the full rejection of it, tears through you something fierce. a complete tattering of your pride till it remained undone in mangled pieces. raw and red and blood filled. and once the doctors give their clearance for you to fly, you leave france silently. without a word to anyone. bags and suitcases packed and ready. the flight to new york like a shipping over into uncharted territory. 

because some truths had made themselves painfully aware already. did not wait for your slow foot drag of a realization. funneling up hot and disgusting with the bile from your empty stomach. 

trying with cody was only a dream, forced and sculpted by your hands and a stubborn will, till it formed with jagged edges. the struggle to fit two unmatched puzzle pieces.  

"your old man'll kill me if he knows you're up here with me and not training with him". a ghost of a laugh living along with the coarse age of his voice. jimmy "the butcher" cruz, a dear old friend of your fathers, and a hall of famer in his own right, sighing agreeably as he speaks over the phone. "but you're welcome any time kiddo. you like my own, y'know that? the gym is here whenever you need it to be". 

"i appreciate you butch", you give. the slow ride to your hotel quiet and familiar.

"let me know if you need anything else".

"will do".

the call drops. a blow of air past your lips working well enough as it plays an odd tune of some mild mannered frustration. a soreness of spirit where the body breathes and functions well, systems and internal processes going on as they should but still there rests this adrift feeling. a weightless sensation. fatigue and an imbalance of any direct thought. confusion. symptoms of the concussion surely, which only do well in leaving you to exist in this dead space limbo. an auto pilot of movement. muscles remembering the weight of things. your suitcases and bags, and the heavy swing back of the hotel doors. memory bruised but alive. because you don't have an explanation for returning to albany. your foot stepping into the quaint beauty of the hotel room like aggressively lifting the unfinished heal of a scab. being here, in this place, like your body is taking the long, necessary journey back down to earth. hot on impact of the surface but ready to land. 

your lips suffering under your teeth and your fingers tingling. a wistful air working about you, brushing up against your skin as a reminder of times past. here in this place with him, before the abrupt end of it all. 

flashback - january 2024 - albany, new york

and it is said, by scientists and theologians alike, that before the creation of everything, there was nothing. whether the world came to be from a Godly "let there be", or this abrupt but explosive expansion across the cosmos, the truth remains here, that we exist not of our own casual volition. and so if this coming into being—a devastatingly beautiful ripple through that forever stretch of space—is as ornate in nature as it is said to be, then how is it that one can exist so unceremoniously with another? passion this slow, steady expansion like that of the universe. his name on your tongue and his grip nestled into delicate skin. eyes fashioned with colors to rival that of those painting the faraway galaxies and the breaths singing between coarse little moaning songs, a great imitation of the wind. surely these are bouts of madness, giving frivolous, near shapeless names, for such heavy performances of affection. 

or maybe it isn't insanity. because don't we always give awful, insufficient names to things we hate. and even more terrible names to things we fear. 

the apple state inn, a small time hotel in albany, new york, is not known for it's size or luxury. a just off the exit, two and a half, maybe three star rated establishment—google reviews and the website beg to differ with one another—with a scarce housekeeping staff and forever stale, day old coffee. always near empty vending machines and a just out of high school receptionist who doesn't know the difference between credit and debit and counts change like they're counting sheep. but the walls are thick and the privacy is immaculate. immaculate enough that it'd be more useful and cost effective to keep from printing do not disturb cards than not. because once the door closes behind him and that roll of his mini suitcase follows him in, you figure—with the way he's nearly suffocating you with his mouth—that he needs all the undisturbed time he can get. 

the cloud over of steam and a stream of hot, prickly, shower water. your fingers sudsy as they comb through the slick, soaked ways of his hair. thumbs sweeping at his nape before the caress behind his ears. these tender little dotting ministrations that make him groan some. a dark, near weightless, trembling sort of song humming up his throat. tattooed fingers feeling stitched into the soft flesh of your hips as the water works to wash away the soapiness of his hair. his nose nudging into yours and the slight height of him leaving this impression about you that he's surrounding you some. working to consume. to prove with a wordless go of his everything that he's the best in the world. 

that thick curl of heat and the prod of his hard dick against your leg don't help either. his tongue jutting against your lips—a little lick that you chase with enthusiasm—as he smooths it over his own. such a damn tease. your body alive and burning with a war of feelings. not so little sensations that burst at your neck and your mouth and your chest and the warmth pulsing between already wet legs. the proximity of him damning to whatever words you used before to name your current state of affairs. because this seems a little more than casual. a little too charged and full of breath and life to be just a fulfillment of those nagging, sultry, desperate, bodily desires. because it's never felt this impassioned before. this slow and meticulous. a strangulation about the heart that makes the muscle somehow pump harder, faster. like if it fights for life, for it's right to be as its always been, than maybe it can survive the domineer of whatever this is.

the soap dissolves from his hair, washing down into the drain. your fingers remaining still. running dull over his scalp. a deep caressing. an act living so well that it forms it's own memory in your fingers. the seam of his lips pecking at yours. tiny, lax, unhurried kisses that work like they have till the end of the expansion of the universe. 

a laugh cuts up from your chest. like it's unsure it even wants to escape. a fear that it'll have to explain itself. 

cool green eyes and a spark of diligence you've only seen him have when he's wrestling. "what?"

"nothing, it's just...", eyes failing to meet him. dim as they take to the littered ink all over his chest instead. "...this is strangely intimate no?" because it is. the usual air of your rendezvous' living with a more curt edge to it. an urgency of spirit. something great and simple and to the point. made and brought about from a deep mutual attraction, but for the pure sake of fulfillment. 

and maybe your words, amounting to this cautioned little question, have put some distance between your bodies. like the air and nerve to say it leaves the both of you just a little more distant than seconds before. and it must have, because he's fastening himself to you. skin pressing hotly over skin, a slow mold, leaving you to shiver up against cool tiling. mouth still a sweet tease over yours. palm sweeping down and under to cup your thigh till it's hitching up into his palm and cinched to his waist. "i take last minute flights to nameless little, kinda three star hotels, to eagerly stick my dick in you...", his hips canting up. nudging at the sensitive bloom of your slit. lips at the curve of your ear. his breath hot and your skin shuddering. "...and i'm not knockin the hotels..", he chuckles. "...i'm just sayin. it's a bit of a journey to make it to you. this whole thing has been pretty intimate in a way for a while". 

you take slim little nips at your lip. "does that bother you?"

an earnest moan escaping as he slots his lips along yours for a real kiss. the gentleness of it turning sharp as his teeth glide to pull your lip. "why would it?...", tongue led kisses. hands cradling him hostage. his mouth tasting like the sweets he indulges in before he meets you. "...our whole thing is a little informal but that doesn't mean we can't have a moment...", nipping a trail to your neck and kissing over the slights as he goes. breath at your pulse and the thick heat of him slotting and nudging still between your legs. "...or moments". his words these actors of persuasion. as if muddying the lines of a casual thing has ever been good for anyone foolish enough to do it. 

"does it bother you?", he gives into your neck. fixing your hips to the wet wall as he grinds into them. 

the air thick still. his hair fine under your fingers as they find a home there. your lips kissing his shoulder. dazed by the sensation of shared little whispers and the hard ride of him provoking your arousal to slip and your belly to roll with delicious quiver. "no", you hum. meeting his hips with a roll of your own. "i think it makes our thing more enjoyable". words shaky and a shitty contradiction to the inevitable. 

because this thing, this flare of a sensation—soldering hot to melt your bones—is neither unceremonious or fleeting. it is that forever expansion, forming from nothing into something after the abrupt snap that wills it into being. a universe of a feeling housed in the fragility of skin, simple sweeping touches and the persistence of his eyes. 

your body is this picturesque take to the sheets. his arms strong, a gentle carry before he's settling to slot between your legs. wrapped up in your thighs and his lips placing delicate. and no, not like the simplicity of it would work in a means to break you, but like the need for reverencing runs deep enough that it'd feel like sin to ignore it. and cm punk has never been a man of self-denial. his tongue curling against yours, sweet and patient. hums of moans and the warmth of him working in beautiful opposition to the cool sheets. his thumb soothing up your jaw, palm cradling your cheek, like he's keeping the angle of your lips just where he likes it to be. control living easy in him. pressing kisses in without the urgency of forethought. 

and maybe the apple state inn deserves a five star rating. a review that speaks to the allure of low yellow lights and that natural smell of lavender stuck to the walls. 

an embarrassing sort of greediness spills over. hips rocking clumsily to rush into the simple glide through of his fingers at your slit. a firm circling with his thumb but still sedated. a measured touch that nearly aches your teeth in anticipation. breaths short and brattish whimpers. your back curling, attempting to steer him to the tight throb of your entrance. 

he's enjoying this. teeth nipping your lips with a small smile. nails digging at his arms in need. "please". a drawl of a whine. 

a gentle, testy, shallow, slip into your pussy makes him groan. raw and unmoderated. your legs falling over the muscles of his thighs, spread for him as he dips and retracts. the lewd little sound of it hot to the ears. "don't rush my process", teeth gripping into your neck. tongue following to sooth. 

you squeeze his arm. digging what exists of sharp nails into tattooed skin. impatience unruly. "fuck your process, i wanna-"

an emptiness. the dip of his lone finger gone, replaced with the swift swat of his hand at your slit. a gasp cutting up quick, your body jostling from the speed and the cruelty of it. nestling then in pleasure that rolls in after. his tongue still at your neck. remedying skin sure fated to bruise in the morning. your clit overly wet and throbbing and sliding messily along the idle way his finger just sits there. resting right over without a mind to do something useful. the second city saint, a bastard and a half. 

his laugh breaks into your skin. a little wry and a little mean. like maybe he thinks you're too audacious. so vulnerable and desperate and still making demands. "you barely know what you want for breakfast sometimes...", he starts. forehead pressed into yours. his right hand playing through the easy slip of your folds and the other tight as they ball the sheets near your head. like all of his control is stored there. knuckle white tight and fighting to stay strong. "...so whatever shit you think you want, it's just you being impatient and greedy. i guess its that only child syndrome shit". 

"fuck you", you cut. nudging your face against his. cheeks roughing over the gray of his beard. defiance rife. 

"oh sweetheart", he sings. a drawl of a tenor voice that makes you shudder. makes your hands cling to him tighter. like your hold there could maybe cause it to wring out more of his voice and breath, warm and sweet over your body. "you got not the slightest idea how much you're gonna eat every letter of what your just said". kissing your mouth harder. tongue sweeping with a less gentler purpose. lips pulling and suckling and nearly suffocating. looking to savor the dirty taste of your words. touch taking an abrupt curl into your pussy. a steady wet stroke that rattles your body with an almost ugly moan. almost. "you been drivin me crazy since before i got on that flight...", tongue lapping at your yours. a stress of a moan working up as he seats his finger deeper. "...been thinking about touching you for days". 

and you rush to meet the feed in of it. an upswing of your hips, urging him just that much deeper. praying for the feel of it along that sensitive little spot inside that makes your skin jitter and your breathing short. your hands cradling his face close. a tough hold in his hair as you suck his tongue. a lazy timeless go if it, nearly falling so well into it that you almost lose yourself. 

"someone sounds a little obsessed", you give against his lips. 

his eyes green but nearly black and piercing. forehead pressed to you still. "unfortunately yes". an almost whisper if not for the bass of it. 

your heart hammering. fearful and exhilarated all the same. 

and you can feel his mouth on yours still, moving and hot and dangerous even as your eyes close for some feen for reprieve. a break from the diligence of his own. but you can hear him, the pry the noise of him takes to flesh, like he's opening up and splitting your nerves at the seams. "want you to show me what you do when i'm gone...", kissing your lips sweetly. a second finger joining the first. burying deep to the knuckle and balancing with perfection the deftness it takes to numb your brain with bliss. clit nudging against the add of his thumb. sensitive and the sensation of it blooming it's way till it reaches your toes. "...wanna see how good you take care of yourself when i'm not with you'. 

that lavender smell soaked into the walls filling your lungs. the tips of your fingers pressing his thumb in till it's flush up against the swell of your clit. control ill suited to your body as you groan in his mouth. 

back curling in with another arch. nipples aching and needy and up against his chest. 

your longing this breathy, moaning, call to action. his mouth quick with a salacious answer, finding your body there. a flat, wide, lick over the twist of it. deep in it's savoring. curling and flicking and smiling about the perk of it as he feels you cling wet to his fingers. the pad of his thumb touched by the throb in your clit and the tight press you lay over it. keeping him there as he drags long and steady through your pussy. a greedy moan of his bleeding into your skin as it leaves him, the ball of your nipple playing in his mouth before he's suckling with tongue and prying with his hot mouth. wringing up the pleasure till it's voicing pliant and needy for him. teetering a line of overindulgence where he forsakes control. breaths heavy and hungry as he moves on to the other. a similar treatment that forces your hips to buck. a harsh, abrupt spurring that slips him deeper. right there, nestling and stroking lewd still. "harder, baby", you gasp. clutching the sheets. control lost. sporadic ruts that feen for that touch again. 

"there?", humming at your breast. fingers just a little more vicious. the sensation sweetening your blood as it heats.

throbs undulating your skin, like the rippling push of something that goes on to last forever. his thumb releasing to let your have at your own undoing. lips suffering under your teeth. eyes glazed and your head tipped into the sheets. chasing that bliss as it waits to unfurl all over. 

"yes", gasping. a tiny, pleading soprano. small and aching as it leaves you. trembling soft under him, the beginning of it rocking into you slowly. "oh God, i-", labored breaths and groaning. your fingers running up sloppy at your clit and his mouth suckling still. fucking into you with a purpose you're sure that entails seeing you go mad. "i'm coming ". 

he releases your nipple with a simple pop of his lips. returning to sweep his tongue through the awestruck expression of your mouth. a sloppy kiss. wet and meshing and a little mindless. pussy drooling still as it steeps and clings and throbs. 

"not sure he'd love hearing you say that but i sure do", a frail kiss at the edge of your mouth. "say it again". 

"i'm coming", you pant. short cuts of breath he presses his lips over. 

a glint to his eyes. gaze cascading over. appraising the state of your unraveling. "and so pretty doing it too". 

you hiss. body collecting with a short hitch, like it means to ease the landing of this brace-less thing. an effort made in vain as the violence of it takes you. his throat humming satisfied, and the work of his fingers going on still to brush up against that deeper, delicate, slip of skin in you that drives you crazy. a bright, pitchy, "fuck", flying off the tip of your tongue as you curl in and lose yourself. a wordless, world of a feeling. an inconceivable burst of color behind the eyes and your lungs fighting for those better takes of air. unruly and exposed. skin teeming with too much of a good thing. the bed dipping and un-dipping, the shift of him living just at the edges of your awareness. the taste of former words heavy and thick in your mouth, like he said they'd be. his fingers collecting your thighs to adjust the way they reveal the mess of you. 

a trail of dainty kisses as he ventures low. a journey over flesh to mark his appearance. a quiver playing your nerves, his tongue slipping to lick long along the full bloom of your slit. messy and drunk, like the careless indulgence of a reward long awaited. drawling moans and the grip in your thighs meaner than any touch he's given you thus far. a drive of his tongue through where you pulse and drip. weak hands near dead, trying their hardest to ease him off. eyes recovering and lazy, watching him go greedy. another hiss through your teeth, one now that indulges. a little less than brutal hold in his hair that keeps him close. the end of an old pleasure making way for a new one. suckling your clit like he did other parts of skin. little bursts of pleasure breaking to the surface, your hips rutting to following the sensation blindly. 

his quickness, a jarring little feat. feeding tongue into your mouth to share the taste of you. your thumbs over his cheeks and your thighs hiking over his hips. the hard heat of him grinding along till it's snug and laying at your slit. 

and even the thought of him slipping in is enough to leave you shivering. 

"how do you want me?" 

"deep". a thoughtless answer. your tongue wetting your lips, aching for it. "just take it, take me. i-", desperate and thin feeling. "please", you stress. 

his earlier words a little clearer. thoughts and imaginations disrupted, having been troubled by the thought of you. his diligence running vengeful. 

and there is nothing exactly satiating about this, about the pace, the life of it, of this. heavy feeling as he makes to stretch you deep. filling to the hilt and nestled comfortably so. like perhaps he was always meant to be there. your throat singing, breathy and filling his mouth as he makes to kiss you. a softness to you, boneless and subdued. the slightest touches made into something bigger and greater. a hand held at your thigh, a smooth reach till its hooking under your knee and the other calm and patience, the thumb of it stroking your forehead. 

"not much for being a selfish prick but i need you lookin at me", he rasps. cool green eyes just a bit warmer under the low lights. gentle and arresting. "so beautiful", like a whisper to himself. "i wanna see em when i'm coming in you", he gives. testing your devotion with a push of his hips. 

something heavy and dismantled erupting in his chest. bass-y and coarse, breathing over your mouth. his lips making like they mean to kiss you but never fully getting to the completion of it. your thighs housing a sweet aching and your ears burning hot, pleasured by the noise of him. the way his body slowly conforms to being taken in. easy and patient and terrible for his nerves. "yeahhh", he drawls, like an agreement of some staggering pleasure made with the self. or maybe a noise of satisfaction made pure by completion. 

whimpers stuttering and cut with short breaths. your eyes glassy and your throat gaining that bit of heaviness. softly trembling, and feeling crazy under the weight of his eyes. like such vulnerability would soon be your end. a quiet sob breaking free, fingers sinking into his skin for dear life. your pussy quivering desperate, clutching hot as he gives a slow, firm, slipping stroke, pressing in enough that it makes you whole. 

terror delighting it self in your bones. pressure in the body heavy enough to make diamonds. a tear slipping tenderly, falling over your cheek, the trouble of another release gathering in your belly. 

he kisses the wet streak along your face. lewd and hot and wet, pussy pulling at him softly to stay. an endearing path being made upon the skin, a light press of his lips everywhere. silent and filled with purpose.  

it isn't enough to let go, to deny the self of a former ambition. solid ground must be met, a full impact made regardless of how unsavory the process is. this quiet, contemplative, stretch of time in albany, not so dissimilar to a travelers great return to earth. readjustments made to air and the gravity. a re-stabilization of things—your walking and your turning and your weight against the ropes of that faithful squared circle and your ego—because a concussion only made your body's resentment more of a hell to deal with. compromise, a great ordeal with the self, a testier thing to endure even. a month of falling away, deep into the recesses of a particularly dark shadow. a host of memory lanes and the diminishing of self importance. FOMO a real bitch and a half to deal with. the frustration buried beneath skin feeling more childlike than anything else, eyeing the others as they roam and enjoy, from the window of your injury styled detention. week after week, nestled at the back of a little less than dingy sports bar, watching your friends and colleagues perform at the greatest arena's and stadiums. 

but the time away made for an easier reclamation, a confession you wouldn't speak well too aloud, lest it proved hunter's opinions right. your head clear of that horrible knock of an ache against your skull and the nausea more than minimal. 

minimal, but not gone. a small swim of it rippling your belly. flowing against the slosh of ginger beer you've become friendly with since discovering the existence of 'porters dive bar'. an albany staple for the city's exuberant wrestling community. the spice of the ginger steeping your tongue and the fizz of the liquid rolling over to test the limits of your stomach. like the first weary steps of a travelers feet back on earth. a fear of failure but an eagerness of spirit regardless. the building back of strength and resistance. a well made sort of exposure therapy. 

your phone pings. another one of his messages appearing. his televised win against cody at an arena in albany, working like a kindling for this abrasive flare styling his words. ego on fire and looking to consume. 

text message | the best in the world: soon i'm gonna stop asking to see you and just show up unannounced. you know i'm close right? where are you?

text message | outgoing: porter's dive bar 

and this here is the full impact. a hypersonic re-entry. soaring past atmospheric layers as the body is once again enveloped by earths gravity. reality styled with its many worldly limitations. rich colors and coarse ground and a pulling weight in your bones. 

talking to him is that meeting of skin against solid ground. the unsavory process. 

your phone pings again. fingers slipping against the screen to reveal who. dread coursing wild and unfettered. a quick washing in your blood that plunges the heart. 

text message | cody r: can we meet sometime soon? to talk? 

text message | outgoing: of course.

you owe him that much. an explanation—regardless of how terrible it will form on your tongue. bile and a lack of brilliance born from guilt.—of your faults and self misguided decisions. but it's all just another step. a heel toe to reclaim familiarity with the earth. building back the strength lost from that unruly lack of ambition, from that great deal of muscle atrophy. 

the wooden chair opposite your booth seat scoots harshly against the floor. his entrance screeching your nerves to wake with a horrible sort of surprise. the cool green of his eyes hidden beneath the curl over of a ball cap brim. shoulders squared and wide and persistent. "you look good", he gives. sitting across from you. "refreshed". 

you settle your phone down. a soft tremble in your fingers as you make to embrace one hand in the other. the feel of his gaze, like the easy thin slice of a razor over thick skin. a surgical opening that leaves you bare to eyes and air alike. useless to yourself and a short ways from uncomfortable. fighting against a painless pain, against that shameful, irritating weakness that comes with vulnerability. fears and slivers of frustration born from this ill-controlled performance. because cm punk, the best in the world, makes you vulnerable. 

you take one of the two ginger beers off the table. sipping at the cool spice of it for some reprieve. "your first words are always about how i look".

"because i'm unfortunately very invested in your wellbeing". 

"unfortunately?" 

"s'not a whole lot of reciprocation on that front". words not minced. eyes trailing to look over the cold glass left untouched. his curiosities moving him to bring it closer. "what is this?"

"ginger beer". watching him sniff at the rim of the glass before he tests the taste. the spice of the ginger and the fizz delightful and cold sober. "reciprocation". the truth of it cutting across the air, to give something deep and sharp and exacting against whatever assumptions he's made amidst his resentments. because while your investments into his wellbeing weren't as vocal as his for yours, they still hold firm in some form of existence. 

"where you been hiding out?"

"our little go to hotel".

he shifts the curl of the brim to reveal more of his eyes. in a manner that allows you to see them well enough. to get the gist of whatever mixture of emotions they take. a hardened sort of confusion styling them now as your answer sinks in. "why there?" 

hesitation. like the stutter of your foot after a misstep. body afraid to fail, afraid to fall after that great coming back to earth. "not sure". 

his nose flares. a fierce movement. and then his jaw. a chain reaction of many things. as if to curb the brunt of his anger. this overbear of a deep vexing, he pulls into the constraint of words. hard eyes and a harder tongue. "you got a real nasty habit of not saying the things you mean and i can really do without it". 

but it was enough, too much even to admit such wrongdoings amidst the court of your own thoughts and imaginations. resentment housed by the body, less sore as the days venture on, but still aching in the skin. felt in the abruptness of harsh maneuvers. swimming knocks in the head and your balance disturbed. those disgusting dull bursts of nausea and a heaviness in your body. exhaustion from nothing. "...and what is it exactly that you want from me?" 

"a little transparency", he grits. "some honesty".  

"i was fine with cody...was on my way to something substantial even', you give. a corral of words you feel were truthful sometime ago. back when the ambition felt sure and not so unattainable. before muscle deep resentment and injury. "we fell away from each other naturally...", words more like a tool. these builders of persuasion. and God what horrible persuaders they were. everything falling off the tongue half made and shoddily voiced. "...but in true cm punk fashion, whenever you don't like something anymore you get pissy about it. threw a dirty little wrench into my relationship to screw me over". 

his chair stresses against the floor. body pulling in closer. fury stored in the pull in of his brows. "you screwed yourself. threw yourself headfirst into bullshit because you're scared. called what we had a thing, because if you actually put a decent name to it then you'd have to admit how you feel about me, and how much that terrifies you...", his tone hushed and curt and piercing. "because cody is safe and easy and if he fails at making you happy, it's no real loss at all right? because you were never really in all the way anyways". 

you feel thin. subdued and quite overwrought by all this exposure to him. "you had time to say something. why wait till when i'm with someone else?"

he sighs. settles into an answer like it's the hundredth time he's come to the conclusion of it. "spent since january trying to get rid of you and it didn't work for me, and you were on live tv botchin the hell out of everything, trying to get rid of me, so i don't think it really worked for you either...so here we are". 

the air thick and the silence loud. the droning of the bar easing in to fill the space. a hard siphon of the energy by words and the confession of not so dead feelings. your ginger beers icy still and watered. a waitress comes, strutting up to your table. 

"you guys need anything?"

"two more of these ginger beers please", punk gives. a small smile as she leaves. 

his eyes the color of garden sage. softer now. flitting over your face with a renewed sense of diligence.

and it's more clear now than it's ever been. he isn't going anywhere. 

your fingers curl, a slow coming together into your palm to ball. multi-purposed, squeezing to live a little in that familiar burst of an ache. bones and muscles flexing as the skin pulls some. a summation of weariness. knuckles breaking against the door to knock. a similar rhythm playing in your chest, because cody could be many things. sad. angry. vexed. indifferent. he could speak wild or terribly soft, but inspire another layer of guilt to lay at your skin just the same. 

"just a second", he gives. bass in the voice and words slipping thick like over his tongue. in that way that he tries to cover some but can't help. 

a shift in your leg, like the anxious pinch of a nerve. a jerk or maybe a pulling. you're not sure what it is, but it's asking to move. to leave. to maybe do this another time. "i can come back later if you want", shouting some over the regular drone of pre-live show buzz. one hand slipping away from the cool metal of the door handle and the other undoing from that ache of a fist. making to about face into the fray of crew members. but he must recognize your voice, even through the thickness of the door. must've settled himself enough in whatever emotions he's living in.

his voice rushing. like he can feel you falling away from this long overdue talk. "no no, come in. i'm good. come in". 

your hand returns against the door handle. cool metal more like an icy burning. stepping into his dressing room like a re-entry into the world of him. his hair retouched to the roots, a cold blonde that pops his already sky blue eyes. his hands roughing with his wrestling boots. blinking up at you silently. mouth parted and slightly lost for words. like he'd maybe rehearsed everything and has now forgotten all the brilliance of it. a sigh leaving with that realization. like he'll have to forsake all the prearranged self made discussion and go about this a little less practiced. "you look well", he gives. with a nod. "the break did you some good". 

"yeah", stepping in further. arms folded over. body overly aware of his appraisal. "that seems to be the consensus". 

his throat clears, brows pulling together before they fall away quickly. this awkward abrupt movement that reveals the slow work of his thoughts. gears oiled and turning and trying out words before he says them. a farer cry from his in-ring persona, where he's suited and pristine and seemingly always ready. the little action of it making him more human to the eyes and less star-like. something you would have shrunk away from before out of fear that it would cause him some lackluster effect, now finding in its own imperfections, very endearing. 

"was it something about me, or anything i ever did that kinda just-...?", his voice falling off. left to motion oddly between your bodies with his hands. miming a separation. like finishing the words, allowing them to live in the air, would cause them to be true. 

"no! no, it was...", trying to find something not so terrible to soothe him with. stepping a little closer to him. arms unfolded. like the honesty begging to leave you for some time has now taken command of your body and it's functioning. "...i wasn't being honest about a lot of things with myself and it spilled over into what we had going on, and i'm really sorry about that". 

and he nods. not like he's accepting of it all but like he gets it. like he's relating to you. eyes softer, made vulnerable by his own truth. "all the...all the asinine bullshit leading up to mania just...", his eyes rolling as he remembers the trouble of it. "...on top of already wanting the belt for personal reasons, it just drove me crazy. and i think in the midst of that, i leaned in on us a little harder than i should've. maybe more than i planned to". fingers scratching and curling up into his hair, going about aimlessly almost. giving himself something to do to remedy the weight of his words. "we have quite a bit in common so...the intimacy was good enough, it-it was easy to just hold on to. i think we were both faking it to make it". 

your throat grows heavy, face warm with the well up of tears. relief meshing easy with the sadness of it all. the both of you willing to settle, if it meant being comfortable and not alone. a heartbreaking circumstance to force upon the self for sure.

"can i...?", your hands motioning for an embrace. 

"of course, c'mere".

his arms warm and comforting as he takes you in. wrapped tightly, with a friendly sort of affection. an earnest touch, made not to linger in a performance of desire but to give solace. sniffling against his chest as he squeezes tightly. 

"don't you start crying for real...", he jokes. "...cause then you're gonna make me cry".

you smile. slipping away from him gently. "well that don't take much so..." 

his eyes roll. grabbing the outer jacket that completes his in-ring gear. 

your fingers sweep under your eyes to rid of the wet streaks. shoulders less heavy and the dread in your chest no longer fighting to consume. making to leave his dressing room. "don't go easy on him either. i need him a little softened up". 

"will do". 

you make a full exit. slipping your phone from your pocket. his name under your thumb as you press against it. memory serving well, thinking of that sports bar in albany and all the empty glasses of ginger beer spread across the table. the vex about his face growing gentler as the night carried on. that line in the sand washed away, the boundary blurred and then made new into something with a better shaping. his cool, pale, sage eyes working like he wanted to remember that moment. like the satisfaction of having you in front of him again without any attempts to break away from him, was too good to simply be lost to time. 

you click to call and wait for his answer. an impatience running in your fingers as you make to join the producers and tech operators at the staging area. 

he answers. a simple, coarse, "yeah", that sweetens your ears.

"have breakfast with me tomorrow", you give. plain and a little demanding. "please?" 

he hums. amusement in his voice like he's smiling. 

"time and place sweetheart". 

[the-monkeies-girl]

Hello, I've never made a request before but I really like your writing and was wondering if you could do number 29 with Caeser? You're and amazing writer so you know

29. kisses when they're mad Screams into the void.

It was obvious from Caesar’s disposition that he was tearing himself from the inside with aggravated irrationality. Not rare; your eyes were ample as they watched him pace in front of the nest. The stagger of his gait, so hard against the floor in the way that his spaced out toes grasped at the thatches of wood that were bunched together to create a sustained levitation of the home in the air. The way of the Apes, you tried to ignore the push and pull in your stomach that you were indeed lifted so far off the ground when you slept as it caused greater anxiety than you were willing to admit.

Not as much as the moment, you were dragged back into it at the way that Caesar’s fur slowly raised against his shoulders. Recognizing it closely as terse irritation, your mouth parted before running dry at the small shifted growl that came from his throat. Something happened, you figured. Something had to have happened in the Council meeting he just dispatched from. 

The Politics of the Colony were rarely ever discussed between the two of you unless it were something pertaining strictly to the causes of Humanity. You chose it that way, it confused you otherwise the one or two meetings you had been invited to and were unable to keep up due to the mixture of sign language and speaking. “Caesar---” ‘Do not understand.’

 That was clear in the way that he used inflictions between his fingers to sign towards you. Anger coated at the very fingertips of Caesar as he flickered his blown dilated eyes towards you for only a moment before a rocketed growl, this one resting more from his chest, hit your eardrums. ‘Why they… are still unwilling to see my authority in choosing you. My mate. My choice!’

The exclamation came from the way that the Ape King threw his hands towards you, not directed but in frustration at something he could not fix with his word and will power. Koba, you understood that much and brought your legs over the nest and picked your body upwards. You could hear inside of your mind; the alarm bells ringing at the fact that you were approaching an angry Chimpanzee, someone who could rightfully tear off your face without reserve or remorse but there was the other tug. That this was Caesar. This was… Caesar… 

Drawing a deep breath in, you caught the large frame of him with your cusped hands on his upper biceps, mid-pace as he was just turning around and nearly toppled both of your bodies over with the sheer tenacity he was using to catapult his body in annoyed contemplation.

Caesar refused eye contact that you initiated, truly intent on dragging this situation out longer than needed by refusing to acknowledge that maybe speaking to you was a better option. Sure it was, he muttered inside his mind and let his gaze lock onto yours for just a split second. But this was such a drawn out conversation regardless, it felt like Caesar was pulled one direction in the loyalty he proved to Koba and his fellow Apes and the love and affection he proved to you, his Mate. Chosen from so many others after the death of Cornelia, enlightened and… Human.

‘Not just Koba anymore.’ Caesar could feel the prickling of his fur against your fingers as you carded them upwards against the grain of his fur and to his shoulders were you grabbed more finitely. ‘My Son… Asks… Questions I do not have answers for---’

Sighing, your shoulders sloped forwards as you tried to urge Caesar to look at you with the stare that was so familiar, usually so alight with interest but all you were able to see was darkness under his hardened browline. “Blue Eyes? R-Really? I thought we were making good progress---” “It is Koba, I know it…” Caesar’s voice came out gritting, your stare widening at the fact that… This was the first time you were hearing him speak that day, and it was hard and not full of the affection you had so closely associated with him for he rarely ever spoke to you in moments of self-introspection that bordered closer to minor self-deprecation.

It was not offensive to you anymore; the first time something like this had happened and you had taken offense to it, it caused Caesar more inner turmoil that lasted even longer as you refused to even see him for a week. “Koba… Speaks… to Blue Eyes about you, about the things… He learned from Humans. The ones who hurt, the ones who… Caused him…” Caesar’s hackles were incredible to see, the fur that hit around his shoulders rising right under your fingertips as you reached to cup his face, no hesitation with the fact that he was able to eat off your fingers if he so chose that. “You need to calm down---” “Koba needs to listen when I tell him that you are not a threat!” “Caesar---” 

“He is selfish,” Caesar drifted his gawk to stare at something off to the side instead of meeting your stare. Ashamed of himself for getting so angry, for letting Koba’s words slide under his skin despite his conscious mind knowing otherwise and that it was Koba who was ashamed. It was Koba who was afraid. “Nothing but a selfish Ape.”

“Aren’t we all a lil’ selfish?” You offered and catapulted yourself into your tippy toes. “Caesar, you need to listen to me.” Silence. The brooding form that you were leaning against for balance was stagnant, his beautifully torn irises bouncing with exasperation. Fine, you cocked your body forward and closed the gap between your two forms. If Caesar wanted to play the game without words, you were very much allowed to do the same thing. The hands that were holding so tenderly to his face in a bid to get him to look at you shifted downwards as you grasped his muzzle and brought your mouth square onto his own.

Such a Human element to an Ape situation, you fluttered your eyes shut and let yourself linger against the thinned nature of his lips. This was not the first time you had done this, captivating him a few times here and there with spotted pecks when you were in the throes of pleasure and this was the first time you were using it in the throes of anger. 

“You really need… to calm down… And think about this rationally.” You muttered, your words ghosting themselves over his mouth as Caesar finally looked down at you, semi-cross eyed from how close you were. Levering his long arm to cup at your back, you let him drag you inwards almost to the point where your feet left the wooden ground below. “Caes---” There was no more argument to be had, the Ape moved forward himself this time, capturing your mouth halfway open and without reserve, your tongue was pressing against the flatter nature of his canines, eyelids falling shut as Caesar was quick to pull you with him to resume the position you had been in in the nest before he arrived. He’d figure it out, he knew that.

He had known that since the moment he arrived home to complain, his mouth detaching from yours and admiring the slickened saliva that trailed between your lips before Caesar broke and shattered the spit into the air, “Will talk to Blue Eyes tomorrow… Will you… Join me?”

“Always.”

And with that, you were dropped onto your back and allowed to take in the delectation of the Ape King crawling himself up your body. From your feet, his hard frame allotted itself against you, and with a small moan escaping lips, Caesar ate it up and brought his own mouth back down onto yours.

[poisonlove]

Do you write angsty stuff?

Here's my idea:

Tara or Cairo x Reader

Tara/Cario are using Reader as a rebound after a failed relationship with Amber/Miller because Reader is in love with Tara/Cairo and they know it (It's been obvious to everyone but she was ignoring it. Maybe she didn't know how to respond, maybe she just enjoyed the attention.)

At the beginning Tara/Cairo tries to justify herself by saying R made it too easy, but..

...Long story short she starts to catch feelings. But then Reader finds out the only reason she got with R in the first place was to get over Amber/Miller.

Some sort of angst scene probably ensues.

Whatever ending you'd want is great to me.

But ofc if you're not up to it or you can't find the motivation: pretend you never saw this request. (feel free to dm me to say you don't plan on doing it though, i have a bad habit of getting my hopes up :p)

Used

Pairing: Tara carpenter X reader

Status: request

The café air was dense with the aroma of freshly ground coffee beans, and the soft murmur of conversations filled the space. I was sitting across from Tara, trying to start a conversation with my girlfriend.

But Tara was staring at her phone with an absorbed expression.

"How did it go today? Was the exam difficult?" I asked nervously.

Tara put down her phone and raised her head. Her gaze seemed lost in some distant world, my heart pounding tumultuously in my chest.

"Everything okay?" I asked, trying to break the ice that had formed between us.

Tara lifted her eyes to me, but her gaze seemed distant. "Yes, everything's fine," she replied faintly.

"Everything's normal at school… The exam was normal," she added weakly, her eyes glancing at the phone notification.

I played nervously with my fingers.

The atmosphere between us was tense, laden with a tension that seemed to grow with every second spent in silence. I wanted to say something, anything to fill that deafening void, but the words seemed stuck in my throat.

"And you? Everything okay?" she asked curiously.

Her eyes suddenly looked at me with total sweetness, and my cheeks turned red at being looked at with such intensity.

A small smile spread across her lips.

"It was a boring day… if it weren't for Mindy, I would have fallen asleep at the desk," I joked, and Tara smiled timidly.

Time seemed to pass slowly, the ticking of the clock on the wall seemed deafening in the oppressive quiet of the café.

Despite her bright eyes, I could sense that something was wrong with Tara. Her body was tense, her jaw was rigid, and every now and then she looked at me with eyes that screamed "I need to tell you something," but nothing came out of her mouth.

"I missed you," I confessed faintly.

I reached across the table and timidly took Tara's hand in mine. The brunette smiled broadly, making butterflies flutter in my stomach.

"Me too," she murmured weakly.

My eyes looked at Tara with total admiration, my heartbeats increasing recklessly every time she smiled at me.

Tara squeezed my hand.

I sighed, in love.

"Will you come over tonight?" Tara asked curiously, and I raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Me? In the same room as Sam Carpenter?" I asked skeptically.

Tara's older sister was very, indeed excessively, protective of Tara. But I could understand… Both had faced the events of Ghostface, barely coming out unscathed.

"She adores you," she reassured me with a smile on her lips.

A phone notification caught her attention, her mood changing instantly. Her smile was replaced by a dark, cold look.

Tara stood up, her face dark and troubled. "I have to go," she said quickly without looking me in the eyes. "We'll talk later."

Without waiting for my response, she turned and disappeared out the café door, leaving me alone with the weight of the silence that permeated the air around me

(...)

"Look who we have here," exclaimed an annoyingly irritating voice.

After the unusual afternoon yesterday, I had decided to give Tara her space and wait for her mood to calm down before facing her. However, there were questions burning inside me.

I slammed the locker shut, the metallic sound echoing in the air. I turned towards Amber Freeman.

"What do you want, Amber?" I asked with an exhausted tone.

It was too early to face such a rupture.

Amber chuckled maliciously and crossed her arms over her chest, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

Mindy approached us and looked at the situation with confusion. "What's going on here?" my friend asked with genuine interest.

Mindy glared at Amber.

"I don't know," I replied to my friend with a small smile.

"I wanted to talk about Tara," Amber said sing-song.

My attention was immediately captured at the mention of my girlfriend: I knew Tara was her ex and that they had broken up for some strange reason… But now I didn't know what she wanted from her.

"Didn't she tell you?" Amber asked with fake innocence that made me grit my teeth.

Mindy widened her eyes and looked at me with concern. What's wrong with her? Does she know something Tara did? And why hasn't she told me anything?

"What was my girlfriend supposed to tell me?" I asked with a mix of anxiety and jealousy at the way Amber talked about Tara.

"The reason you're together," Amber said venomously.

"Amber, stop it," Mindy intervened, looking at the black-haired girl with anger.

What did I miss?

"What's going on here?" someone suddenly asked.

All three of us turned towards the sound of the voice and saw Tara looking at us with curiosity. Tara stood by my side and leaned in to give me a chaste kiss on the lips.

Amber made a strange noise in her throat.

"We were talking about you," Amber said irritably, her eyes looking at me with hatred.

Tara raised an eyebrow.

"She says you have to tell me something," I blurted with flushed cheeks, the warmth of Tara's lips still on mine.

"Come on, Tara… Tell her, or I will," Amber said challengingly.

Tara's body stiffened at Amber's words, and a strange feeling of discomfort invaded my body. Tara swallowed loudly and looked at me nervously.

"I…" Tara murmured timidly, biting her lower lip with nervousness.

"You know I'm in love with you, right?" she said, looking at me with worry.

"I'm in love with you too," I said in confusion, a smile spreading across my lips at her words.

"But…" continued the brunette with anguish.

I observed Tara closely, noticing the tremor in her voice and her labored breathing. The inner conflict tormenting her was evident, as if she were wrapped in a tangle of conflicting emotions.

"For God's sake! She used you to forget about me!" exclaimed Amber impatiently.

Mindy looked at me with concern, and Tara's shoulders stiffened at her ex's words. I smiled timidly at the absurdity of the situation and looked at the black-haired girl with strange confidence.

"The world doesn't revolve around you, Amber. Tara is in love with me," I replied, looking at Tara with a smile on my lips.

But my smile faded when I met Tara's gaze, her tear-filled eyes reflecting remorse and sadness. At that moment, everything I thought I knew was called into question.

"Tara… Is Amber telling the truth?" My voice trembled slightly, almost as if I didn't want to hear the answer.

My disappointment was palpable as Tara nodded, confirming Amber's words. It was as if a veil lifted from my eyes, revealing the harsh truth behind her actions. I felt as if I had been thrown into an abyss of betrayal and despair.

"I can't believe you did this to me, Tara," my words came out with difficulty, laden with disappointment and pain.

Tears began to fill my eyes, blurring my vision as disappointment seeped into my heart like a slow but lethal poison.

"I don't even know what to think now," I whispered, my voice breaking with emotion. "I feel so deceived."

Tara tried to grasp my hand, but I instinctively pulled away as if her touch could burn me. "Y/n, please… believe me when I say I truly love you," she pleaded, but her words sounded like a distant echo

My gaze drops, unable to maintain eye contact.

"What an embarrassing situation," Amber interjects with a satisfied smile.

Tara glares at her, her eyes brimming with anger and frustration. "It's your fault!" she retorts firmly, her voice laden with repressed ire.

Amber raises an eyebrow, defiant. "Oh, sure, blame me for all your mistakes," she responds sarcastically. "You never take responsibility for your actions, do you?"

The tension in the room is palpable as the two women exchange cutting looks and barbed words. I feel like a powerless observer in the face of this emotional storm, unsure how to intervene to calm the heated tempers.

But what am I saying? Tara used me and I’m still here, standing still?

The realization hits me like a lightning bolt, making the memories of the past few days flash through my mind. Tara’s behavior yesterday fits together like a puzzle: staring at her phone for no apparent reason, her empty eyes hiding who knows what thoughts, the nervousness she tried to conceal behind a forced smile.

"How stupid I am," I whisper, feeling a mix of anger and shame for being so naive.

Tara shifts her attention away from Amber and looks at me with guilt, the sadness and tears she had tried to hold back streaming down her cheeks. "Y/n, please… believe me when I say I really love you," she tries to plead, but her voice sounds empty to my ears.

"I don't think I can believe you anymore," I replied firmly, feeling a coldness take over inside me. "Not after what you've done."

Tara tried to take my hands again, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. "Y/n, please… I know I've made a terrible mistake," she whispered, her voice trembling with emotion. "But please, I don't want to lose you. I love you more than anything in the world."

Her voice was a desperate lament, but my armor was now too solid to yield. "No, Tara," I said with a calm but firm voice. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to trust you again."

Her shoulders slumped under the weight of my words, and I saw the pain in her eyes as she struggled with the realization of the consequences of her actions.

"Please, Y/n, give me just one more chance," she pleaded, the tears flowing unchecked.

I slowly shook my head, trying to hold back the tears.

"Y/n…" Mindy intervened weakly.

I turned to Mindy, my gaze filled with anger and disappointment. "You knew, didn't you?" I asked coldly, the tone accusatory.

Mindy lowered her gaze, unable to meet my direct stare. "Yes, I knew," she admitted in a weak voice, her voice shaky with anxiety.

My anger grew, feeling the betrayal cut like a sharp knife. "And you didn't say anything?" I retorted, feeling the bitterness rise in my throat. "You let all this happen, knowing the truth?"

Her lips trembled as she tried to find the right words. "I'm sorry, Y/n. I didn't know how to tell you," she defended herself, tears beginning to streak her face.

My disappointment turned into fury. "I don't want to hear from you anymore," I said harshly.

"Nor from you," I exclaimed venomously, addressing Tara.

Without another word, I walked away from them, leaving the room filled with tension and bitterness. My legs wobbled under the weight of the disappointment as I headed towards the exit, desperately trying to put distance between myself and the cruel reality I had just discovered.

My mind was a whirlwind of conflicting emotions as the sense of betrayal sunk deeper and deeper into me. With a broken heart and a devastated soul, I found myself wandering in the void of uncertainty, unable to find comfort or consolation. My trust had been betrayed, my world upended, and I didn't know how recover from this devastating blow.