#which is that my knees are so unstable that running for long periods of times isnt really possible

[greencloakedfae]

I would be so annoying as a doctor who companion honestly. Like oh dear companion what awesome adventure through time and space would you like to go on now? Oh dear Doctor please take me back to 1705 so that I can steal some sewing patterns. Oh and maybe we can do a trip where we start in 900 and stop every 10 years until the 18th century to see how fashion and sewing techniques progress. Show me the superior linen that we used to have access to before it went extinct, I need some for a project, Doctor.

[multifandomthoughts]

GN Reader

Tw: Canon typical shenanigans, grave robbing, mentions of death and corpses

“Medic, we can’t be doing this! It’s not ethical or legal!” Your voice trembles as you follow the doctor down a secluded dirt path. “And when has that ever stopped me? Those qualms aside, I am in the pursuit of scientific advancement, you know that. You can’t believe you’re actually going along with one of his schemes.

There was a tendency you had to stay up late, but you had been methodical in your efforts to stay away from medic during these periods. His mind was the most unstable, most creative. And often was in need of companionship in order to carry out whatever experiments or other activities he had going on in the dark of the night.

He had caught you red handed. Sneaking a drink out of the shared fridge, the door creaking open alerted him to your presence. “Oh, there you are…” He growls.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

You can tell by the tone of his voice that he has some sort of shit-eating grin on his face, and that only means one thing. He was going to persuade force you to help him with whatever dastardly plot he has going on.

Before you can even respond to his comment, you drop your drink and try to sprint past him. He grips your shirt and with that same devilish smile, he shakes his head. “Now now…you’re going to help me with my experiment whether you like it or not.”

An hour later, all you’d managed to do was grow increasingly hoarse as you kept futilely protesting the whole way to your dark, unknown destination. You stumble, tripping multiple times over what seem to be tree roots and rocks. But, not knowing where you are, and the fact that fog has begun to set, distorts your vision heavily.

“Yes, yes! We are almost there, Schatz.” Medic says, his grin spreading ear to ear and his voice sounding like a giddy school boy. “Medic, where exactly are we going?” You question timidly. “Why, we’re going to the cemetery of course! I needed new specimens for my studies, and Miss Pauling refused to give me the bodies of the people we killed, so I had to resort to….drastic measures.”

Your stomach is now in your throat and your skin goes pale. You knew you were doing something unethical, but you didn’t know how unethical. Your footsteps slow, but don’t stop as you have nowhere to go, Medic was the one who drove you here.

As if he had eyes on the back of his head, he mumbled: “We’re not using fresh corpses you know…” Upon hearing that you spat “How does that make it any better?” “Well, I’m trying to run some tissue decomposition analysis so I can see how long it takes, and how I can potentially speed up the process.”

The gears turn in your head as you realize what he’s getting at. Your jaw drops as you look over at him. “Medic! That makes things worse!” Looking back at you, Medic gives you a sheepish grin. Or what could be described as a sheepish grin if he wasn’t absolutely unashamed of what he’s doing.

You continue to follow him as you have no way to get out of there, he did drive you there. Sighing, you know that no matter what you do, you can’t dissuade him from what he’s doing. He practically has no morals, so any way to change this would be moot. “Ah, here we are.” He comments, arriving at a relatively old grave.

It wasn’t by much, but it made you feel a little bit better that you weren’t disturbing a freshly dug grave. You can’t help but feel a bit on edge as you begin to dig, not wanting to destroy the remains. For what seems like forever, you uncover dirt and remove it from the grave. Finally, you come upon something as the shovel makes a “thunk.” noise, causing you to jump a bit. Beginning to panic, you remove the rest of the dirt, trying to see what you hit. The noise you had caused turned out to be a coffin, which relieves you greatly.

“Oh, what do we have here, hmm?” Medic mutters as he stops his digging, wandering over to you. He eyes the coffin devilishly, eager to open it up and see what’s inside. With a subtle nod, you both kneel down and open up the body’s final resting place. To your relief, it was only bones. Even though it was a relatively old grave, you weren’t quite sure what you were going to see.

With a rather giddy sound, Medic begins to appraise the skeleton, seeing if the specimen is up to his specifications. Gleefully, he decides that he can use the bones, and begins to pocket them. Within the next few hours, the cycle rinses and repeats. Sometimes you didn’t find anything, sometimes the body wasn’t up to his standards and sometimes it was perfect.

“Now that we have all the specimens we need…” Medic states calmly “You won’t ever have to do this again. I’m quite aware that this frightens and disturbs others, but I figured that since you were around when I needed you, you would comply like a good little assistant.”

Fidgeting with your hands, you begin to speak up. “No, I.…I actually loved it. At first it terrified me, as it would anyone, but as I got into the swing of things, it felt nice to actually spend time with you, get to know you better, even crack jokes with you. But next time, I’d prefer a heads up of what you’re going to be doing instead of forcefully dragging me along.”

And in that moment, you saw something incredibly rare from Medic: a genuine heartfelt smile. “My friend, that pleases me to no end to hear you say that…some people don’t exactly enjoy my company due to the reasons you stated before…but to hear you say you enjoyed it, makes my heart soar. And I promise that next time I will ask for your consent for these little excursions, alright?” Medic states, holding out his hand for a shake.

Taking his hand, you give it a firm shake before letting it linger a little longer that normal. And with that, you follow Medic into the night, ready for the next new adventure.

[joel-millerr]

The Chase - One Shot

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!reader

Rating: explicit

Word Count: 5k

Summary: You bet Mando you could last two hours on the run without him catching you. Reluctantly, he agrees to the bet.

Warnings: outdoor (rough & unprotected) sex, hunter and hunted type of vibe, mild choking, being gagged, size kink, mando talks a lot during sexy time, maybe slight dom/sub mentions?

A/N: this is just my take on the whole “bounty hunter and quarry” fantasy. also I basically wrote the smut and then added context around it. this is pretty much shameless smut  /// 

*Masterlist can be found here**

--

It started out as innocent banter.

“I definitely think I could last a couple days,” you told him, slouching in the passenger seat inside the cockpit.

The modulator scoffed at you. “No.”

“Are you doubting my skills?” You asked, eyebrow cocked.

He swiveled his chair around to face you. “That’s not it.”

“Then tell me what it is, Mando.”

Even though you weren’t able to see what his expression was, you could tell by his body language that he was getting annoyed. The way his hands fidgeted at his sides, the way he leaned his body back in the chair—something he did every time you tried to rile him up about something. Despite the fact that he hid behind the beskar, he was generally easy to read whenever he was irritated.

“I bet I can last two days.”

“You wouldn’t last two hours, let alone two days.”

Now that was a challenge you didn’t want to back down from. Anytime someone told you that you couldn’t do something, it scratched that itch inside you to do that exact thing. Your incessant need to prove people wrong sometimes got the best of you, but Maker, the satisfaction you got from it was worth the consequences.

“I’ll take that bet,” you said to him, feeling your stomach stir.

“I wasn’t—”

“Too bad, Mando. You challenged me and I accept.”

--

And then the rest was history. All you had to do was last two hours without Mando tracking you down and then you could die happy knowing you evaded the best bounty hunter in the parsec, even if it were for a short period of time.

You’re not sure what planet Mando lands the Crest on but it’s definitely one of the quieter ones because he’s landed the ship in a large clearing with only woods as far as the eye can see. It’s not a problem for you, though. Growing up on Naboo meant you were always exposed to forests and clear landscape. In theory, this is the best place he could have chosen, not that you’d tell him that.

“There are some ground rules for this,” he begins to say, standing in the galley of the Crest.

“I’m all ears,” you answer back.

Mando lets out a chuff of air that crackles up through his vocoder, like he’s still considering calling this whole thing off, but after weeks of still not finding a Jedi for the kid, you both need a little distraction.

“First thing, no guns.”

“Okay, that’s understandable.”

“Secondly, you keep the commlink open at all times,” he orders.

“Not a problem,” lips curling into a smile, you already feel the adrenaline pump through your veins, body itching to get this whole bet started.

“Thirdly, if you somehow manage to last the day, we check in once it gets dark.”

“Ouch,” you take a step back, slightly offended at his jab. “You have so little faith in me.”

“I’m not the one overestimating my abilities,” he jests. Who knew Mando could be so snarky?

“Do we call it off at night and wait till dawn?”

“If you want to make to things easier.”

Oh, so that’s how he wants to play.

“All right, Mando. We don’t stop.”

“I don’t know how safe this planet it, but you shouldn’t run into any trouble.”

“Okay, yeah Mando, let’s do this,” you’re basically shaking from the thrill of all this. You can’t wait to show off your evading skills.

“I’ll give you an hour head start. Put as much distance between yourself and the Crest as you can.”

“Don’t worry, Mando. This isn’t my first time running away from someone,” you say with a smug smile.

“Fine,” his voice terse.

Your turn your back to him and face the open ramp. With your heart banging against your ribcage and your palms damp with sweat, this might be the most exhilarating thing you’ve ever done.  

“Be safe, I’ll see you soon,” He says with a hint of mockery. He’s so confident in himself, it’s actually getting under your skin.  

Looking over your shoulder, you hit him with your own jab, “We’ll see about that,” and then you’re descending the ramp.

Once your feet hit the ground, you think of the best direction to head towards. In order to do this successfully, you’ll need to choose every single one of your movements very carefully because any slip up could end up hurting your chances to win.

You hear your named being called, so you turn around to look back at the Crest and see Mando standing at the top of the ramp.

“When I do find you, try to put up a fight.”

That sends heat right to the apex of your thighs. If you didn’t have enough incentive, that was the last nail in the coffin. You’ll make this as hard for Mando as you possibly can.

You shoot him one last devilish grin and disappear from sight, opting to go to your right. Once you reach the forest edge, you break off into a sprint, heading deeper and deeper into the foliage.

The forest isn’t too dense, but there are roots everywhere on the ground and you stumble on a couple of them, nearly falling flat on your face. The positive to having so many branches and roots in the ground means the chances of your footprints showing up in the mud are low but Mando’s got a heat tracker on his helmet, meaning he can still track your movements without actually seeing your prints.

The adrenaline keeps telling you to run, run as fast as you can, but the rational part of your brain realizes that no matter how much distance you put between you and Mando, it won’t matter unless you have a clear plan as to what tactics you’ll need to use in order to make sure he doesn’t find you.

Should you try to find the closest village?

Should you stay in the forest?

Think, think…

You continue to put some more distance between you two and when you feel as though you’ve made some progress, you check the clock on your commlink.

2:50PM.

In ten minutes, Mando will leave the Crest and begin tracking you. You’ll have to start making important decisions soon. When you entered the planet’s atmosphere, you tried to pinpoint a specific spot that might give you some kind of advantage. If your memory serves you correctly, you saw a small area that appeared to be some kind of canyon. Ideally, that might be the perfect spot to find some shelter. A hard surface means no footprints.

Now if you could only find out how far away you are from it…

As you take in your surroundings—which is basically just trees and more trees, you think about finding a high enough viewpoint for you to see where this possible haven could be. A few metres away you happen to see a tree that appears to be much larger than the rest of the ones around it. Its branches look sturdy enough for a human to climb and it doesn’t take you long before you’re heading straight for it. You haven’t climbed a tree in years but if there was a perfect moment to touch-up on your skills, it’s right now.

As you climb up the stump, the branches and leaves break apart, and the sky begins to get clearer and clearer. When you finally reach the very top, you’re so high up that you’re able to spot what you were looking for. It looks like it’s a couple more clicks away, but you were lucky enough to be already heading in that direction. The Maker must be on your side.

One more look at the clock.

3:01PM.

Shit, you have to start moving.

If you start to climb down the tree, you’ll end up losing precious time, allowing Mando to close some of the distance. It’s something you can’t risk. Eyes scanning the woodland between you and your hideout, you come to the conclusion that you’ll have to jump from tree to tree and pray you don’t fall and break any bones. It’s incredibly risky, and your inner self is warning you against it. If you do fall, you’re screwed, breaking a lot of the bones in your body. You’ll have to hope that these branches will be able to carry your weight.

Trying to balance yourself on one of tree’s larger arms, you crawl across it on your knees, knowing damn well if you stood up, you’d lose your balance and fall down, and it would be a pretty big fall. You’re easily fifteen feet off the ground, maybe more. Fuck, this might have been a horrible idea, but it’s frankly too late to turn back, you’ve made up your mind and you need to go through with it.

The jump from the branch you’re currently on to the adjacent one you’ll be jumping onto is about four feet, but it’s not the jump that concerns you. What concerns you is the sturdiness of that branch. Will the impact cause it to snap? Will it make too much noise, letting Mando hear it? All these questions are racing through your mind as you hear your heartbeat pounding in your ears. The longer you consider it, the more time you waste. You’ll just have to take the chance and hope everything works in your favor.

“Okay… I can do this,” you whisper, psyching yourself up.

As you slowly rise to your feet, your legs are buckling. You take one last look down, fully realizing that this idea is absolutely bonkers and jump.

When your body hits the branch, you latch your arms around it, landing on your stomach. To your surprise, the branch doesn’t break off, it barely even moves.

Success.

You continue to leap from branch to branch, until the rest of trees in your wake look too unstable for you to leap onto. Luckily, the tree you’re currently on isn’t too far from the ground, so you’re able to climb down it in under five minutes before reaching the ground. Keeping still for a moment, you wait to hear something.

A twig snap, leaves rustling, anything, but you don’t hear a single sound.

“Did you actually climb these trees?” You hear Mando’s voice through the commlink on your wrist, which startles you.

Is he already there? He’s already so close, how is he already so fucking close to you?

“Um, no?” You reply.

“That’s convincing,” he answers dryly.

If Mando’s already reached the tree you started climbing at, then he’s really not far behind. You’ll need to start sprinting again. Without trying to make noise, you begin to tiptoe around the forest, trying to be as quick and efficient as you can. It doesn’t take long until you see a break in the forest and somehow quicken your tread to the clearing.

Once you reach the wood's edge, you’re about to take a step into the clearing when you stop yourself.

Kriff, if you step into that open field, you’ll be sticking out like a sore thumb, which is a risk you cannot take. Instead, you’ll have to walk along the sides of the clearing, keeping to the trees and hoping you won’t be spotted.

“Are you really about to step into that glade?”

Your breathing hitches, everything inside you is burning up, adrenaline nearly making you shake uncontrollably.

He’s found you.

He sees you.

Keeping very still, you turn your head in every direction, desperately trying to see where Mando is but you can’t see a fucking thing. You consider making a break for it—which direction, though? Do you turn around and head back into the forest and hope that you’ll be able to lose him in the trees? Do you stick to your guns and continue to make for the mountains?

“Better make up your mind quickly, pretty girl. Time’s running out,” he’s fucking taunting you. Mando knows exactly where you are and is relishing in watching you struggle in deciding what to do next.

There’s something incredibly titillating knowing that he’s watching you, right now. Predator watching prey, observing your every move, waiting for the perfect time to ambush you.

“What are the chances I outrun you?” You breathe into the speaker on your wrist, chest puffing in and out heavily.

Mando doesn’t answer right away, mulling over your question. “Very slim.”

“But not impossible?”

You’re sizing yourself up. You know damn well there isn’t a chance you lose him, not when he’s got eyes on you, but you have an advantage on him. Carrying all that armor on his body makes his movements more abrupt, meaning he’s less agile and relies more on his weapons to catch a bounty rather than his own speed. All you need to do is outrun him, make yourself impossible to catch and then maybe, just maybe, you can reach the other end of the forest without getting snatched.

“What are you planning?”

“’Put up a fight’,” you repeat the last words he said to you. “That’s what you said, right?”

“Yes?”

“Well… Come get me.”

And then you’re racing into the glade, your legs moving as fast as you possibly can. The air whipping passed the burning hot skin on your face, lungs feeling like they’re on fire, you’re running so much faster than you ever thought you could. Maker, you didn’t even know you could sprint this fast. Taking one quick look back over your shoulder, you see Mando break out from the forest edge, racing after you. He’s a couple metres behind you, but he seems to be closing the gap between you quicker than your efforts to gain distance.

Starting to panic, you make a sharp turn to the left, hoping he’ll be caught off guard, giving you just a few more seconds to stretch out the distance.

“I’ll give it to you, you’re much quicker than I thought,” he pants.

You’re so close to the forest, just a few more sprints. With your legs burning and getting tired, these last few metres are either going to make or break you, but with the determination to prove him wrong, you refuse to give up. You can almost taste freedom… just one more step—

And then you’re falling to the ground. Face slamming into the grass so hard, your vision goes fuzzy, and your head is pounding, hearing a faint ringing in your ears. When you turn over on your back, you look down at your legs and see your feet wrapped up in grappling line. Still in somewhat of a daze, you try to unravel the coil from your ankles with haste before Mando can close in on you. The tall grass shields your view, stopping you from seeing anything until it’s directly in your face, which mean he can be just a few feet away without you even knowing it. If you have any chance at slipping passed him, you need to move very fast.

Just as the cord untangles from your legs and you jump to your feet, you see Mando standing in front of you, just a little further than arm’s length away. Standing in place, you freeze up like a prey animal being spotted by its predator. Maker, he’s intimidating, carrying himself with such confidence and gusto that it could make even the more fearless predator cower in his presence and because you can’t see his expressions, you have no idea what he’s thinking under that bucket of his.

“Well, you managed to last two hours,” he notices after checking the time on his vambrace.

Relaxing your shoulders and readying yourself to break off into a sprint for the woods, you cock your head to side and chuckle. “Technically, you haven’t caught me yet.”

He tilts his head ever so slowly to the side, chest puffing out. With caution, he takes a step forward and in turn, you step back, maintaining the little distance between you two.

“Don’t make this harder for yourself.”

“When have I ever made it easy for you?”

The visor’s locked on you. Both of you stand incredibly still, waiting for someone to make the first move.

“Don’t run,” he warns.

It’s impossible to ignore the stirring in your stomach. It’s time to face the facts, you’ve already been defeated. There’s not a chance in hell you can possibly win this. You fucked up, somehow. Maybe you shouldn’t have started climbing trees, maybe you should have gone left instead of right. None of those things matter anymore. The only thing that matters how is what your next move is.

“Isn’t this what you really wanted?” His voice hitting low in the register.

Oh?

Does he mean what you think he means? Your pussy gushes, and you’re hit in the face with reality.

You would have to be a fool not to notice the way Mando looks at you on the Crest, and how you look at him. There’s clearly chemistry between you two, maybe even infatuation. It’s been three months since you started travelling with him which means there’s been three months’ worth of sexual tension. Both of you felt it, the electricity in the air whenever you were alone together. The air would get thick, your heartrate would quicken, and you’d wait for him to make a move, but he never did. Whenever you felt like that day was finally the day he’d let go of his devices and fuck you senseless on his ship, he’d retreat to the cockpit and lock himself up for hours, leaving you to take care of yourself in the fresher. It was enough to get the job done, but you wanted him, and you know he felt the same.

So, yeah, you’d be lying to yourself if that idea hadn’t crossed your mind. Getting him in his element, force him to come after you, and when you finally gave in or rather, when he found you, he’d be so caught up in the moment that all the sexual tension that had been building up for the last three months would climax at this very moment. What you couldn’t have anticipated was Mando figuring all of this out and actually calling you out on it.

Slacking your jaw, you lick your bottom lip, staring at the ‘T’ of his visor, realizing that this whole bet was just a façade—that the real reason you started this whole wager was to rile him up.

Mando body shifts, his fingers flexing at his sides.

“Been wanting it for three months, Mando,” you challenge.

He makes a guttural noise in his throat, and now you know you’ve got him. It’s taken three months to get you where you are now. Three months of walking around the Crest, swaying your hips purposely in hopes he’d look at you as you walked by. Three months of not so innocent touches on whatever part of him you could touch. Three months of soft moans and groans, trying to get his attention.

All your hard work is finally going to pay off.

Mando tries to close the gap between you, taking a step towards you. Being the brat you are, you step back.

“You’re really going to make this difficult?” He asks—very much a rhetorical question.

“Come get me, Mando,” the words slip off your tongue, once again trying to entice him.

A game of chicken.

Who’s going to make the first move? Is Mando going to charge for you? Do you let him? Do you turn and try to run away?

In a flash, Mando leaps forward and you’re just quick enough to dodge him, whipping your body towards the forest’s edge and taking large strides forward. You barely make it three feet before there’s more grappling line squeezing your ankles together. Once again, you land on your stomach with just barely enough time to cover your face with your hands.

Now, you know there’s no way you’d be able to get up in time and still somehow slip through his fingers, not that it was ever the point of this bet. You thoroughly enjoyed the thrill of being on the run and having Mando chasing after you but you’re way more interested in what’ll happen next than actually winning.

It’s takes a few seconds for you to get your bearings, and as soon as you begin to push yourself upright, you’re being shoved back into the ground by Mando using his bodyweight against you. He straddles either side of your legs, pushing them together.

“If this is what you wanted, all you had to do was ask,” Mando’s voice suddenly whispers in your ear, pressing himself into your body. He bucks his hips against your ass, his erection nuzzled between your cheeks. Propping himself on his elbows so he doesn’t suffocate you with his weight, one of his hands grab hold of your waist, digging into your flesh.

Trying to arch your back, you push your ass out to grind against his cock even more. Maker, you want him so fucking badly. Being fucked in an open field where anyone could see you, it’s daring and intoxicating.

Your hands fumble to your pants, trying to unbutton them and slide them down your thighs. Mando senses your urgency and swats your hands away and then his body leaves you momentarily, just long enough for him to tug your trousers down to your knees. It’s rushed, and you’re already panting underneath him, the anticipation eating you up from the inside.

A leather gloved hand grazes your lips, then he’s pushing two fingers in your mouth. The tastes of earth and salt lingering on your tongue.

“Bite,” he instructs.

You oblige and the glove comes off, discarded just inches away from your face. Without skipping a beat, his naked hand travels down your side, and with your ass in the air, he palms your stomach, keeping you in place and forcing you to arch your back even more. The pool of arousal in your stomach is making you squirm, getting more impatient as the seconds go by.

Mando takes his time trailing your lower belly, fingers barely grazing your skin. Your breathing is completely erratic, panting heavily into the ground. When he finally cups your sex, your breath hitches, a sharp inhale escapes your lips.

“Stars, you’re fucking soaked already,” he admires, and then two calloused fingertips are rubbing tight circles on your clit.

Writhing underneath him, you can barely keep still. The pleasure is overwhelming, something you’ve been waiting for for so long, you can’t believe this is really happening

Your hands grab at his waist with haste, trying to remove his pants but because you can’t see what you’re doing, you’re just aimlessly grabbing at him. He sees you struggling and lifts himself off of you. Hearing a small scuffle, he presses his body into your back again, and you feel his freed cock between your cheeks. Maker, he’s huge… is it possible for someone to feel this big when he hasn’t even stuck it in you yet?

“Are you sure you want this?” He asks breathlessly, his own pants scratching low in his helmet.

“Y-y-yes, please,” you croak, your throat already bone dry.

Gathering as much of your slick on his hand as he can, you feel him smear it all over his length and with your ass still shoved up against him, he teases your entrance with his tip. Hands grabbing at his hips with urgency, he actually fucking chuckles and then starts burying himself inside you.

Stars, he’s fucking huge, it almost burns how much he’s stretching your walls. Your eyes wrench shut so hard; you’re seeing stars. It feels like all the air is being knocked out of your lungs, you can’t even make a sound as your jaw fucking drops. He buries himself deeper and deeper—kriff you’re not sure how much more you can take. Your body freezes once he’s fully inside you, teasing your cervix with his head.

“F-f-fuck, you’re tight,” he breathes out once he’s filled you to the hilt. Steadying himself on his palms, his cuirass leaves your back, but he doesn’t move. He just sits there, giving you time to acclimate to his size. “I’ll try to be gentle—”

“No,” you say, cutting him off. “Please, j-just, fuck—do what you want,” you’re basically sobbing already, and he hasn’t even begun to fuck you.

He slowly pulls out and when you feel just the head still inside you, he slams into you so hard, you jerk forwards and cry out, your whole body stilling from being so full.

“You have to be quiet, someone might hear,” he tells you gently, pulling out again ever so slowly.

In an effort to stifle your moans, you bite down hard on your bottom lip, and when he bucks his hips and crashes into you again, you’re unable to stop the shriek that escapes you. Balancing himself on one arm, he grabs the discarded glove by your face and stuffs it into your mouth, gagging you with it and then begins really fucking you.

He drives his cock into you at a grueling speed, stopping his rhythm momentarily to roll his hips against your ass, making sure you feel every fucking inch of him. Whatever pathetic noise tries to slip through your lips is muffled by leather and you’re grateful for it because your cries would echo through the field if not for the glove.

Mando drops his weight back on you, feeling his breastplate dig into your back. He lets his cock just sit there as his naked hand wraps around your neck, applying pressure with two fingers. He resumes his pace, jackhammering your pussy with so much force, his balls slapping against your skin echo through the clearing.

“Shit, this—this is what you wa-anted?” He hisses, never once relenting his rhythm.

You couldn’t have planned for how mind-blowing this is. The daydreams, the dreams while you slept, nothing could have prepared you for the real thing. Nothing in your imagination even comes close to the actual feeling of Mando fucking you senseless in the middle of an open area. You’re so close to your climax already, something no other person has even gotten close to doing. Mando knows how to fuck, how to reach the right spots inside you, how to drive you fucking insane.

“Yes, ah-shit, yes Mando, please, please, it feels so good,” you babble, your mind unable to come up with a coherent thought; instead, you’re reduced to a blubbering mess. Tears are forming in the corners of your eyes, and when you squeeze your eyes shut, they begin streaming down your face.

“Be a good girl and come all over my cock,” he grits out between thrusts.

The grass is tickling your face, he pushes you deeper in the ground with every plunge, and then your orgasm rips through you, waves of white-hot pleasure crashing over you, electrifying your body from the inside out. Clawing at the ground and grabbing fistfuls of dirt, your body tenses and untenses at the same time, you can barely breathe. His hand is still pressing into your neck, making you dizzy from the limited air you can actually take in, as well as your climax punching out of you.

“Yes, fuck—ah shit—stars, you feel so fucking good.”

Mando doesn’t like to talk very much, only speaking when directly addressed, but now he’s a mess. He praises you, repeating words of admiration like it’s a prayer he tells himself at night and knowing you’re the reason for all this chatter just fills you up with pride.

He has incredible stamina, so he doesn’t need to pause in order to catch his breath very often. Mando continues to drill into you with such speed and force, you don’t know how much more you can take. It’s so much better than you thought it could be, you never could have predicted Mando to be so good at fucking you. He knows exactly how to treat your body, how to get the most pleasure out of you, it’s like he already knows you better than you know yourself. His cock rams that spot deep inside you that’s never been touched, nearly blinding you and causing your mind to go blank. You curse the Maker for making you wait this long. Both of you needed this, to take your frustrations and desires out on each other.

It’s primal, the way he thrusts inside you, feeling his cock pulse and twitch as your walls squeeze around him. Mando can barely shut up, if he’s not growling admirations in your ear, he’s keening into the helmet, his baritone hitting so low and rough, it only spurs you on.

The hand on your neck slacks, and then he’s pulling the glove out of your mouth. “Where d-do I—”

“Inside,” you manage to mewl, although your voice is barely above a whisper. “Please.”

“Ah—shit, you want me inside you? Fill your pretty little cunt with my come?”

You make a pathetic noise in your throat, the dryness of it too much for you to actually speak.

“Words, pretty girl. I need you to use your—fuck—words.”

You swallow hard, trying to get some dampness in your throat. “Y-yes.”

Mando growls contently and resumes his ruthless, hard pace. It’s no longer rushed, but with every thrust, he slams into your pussy so hard and hitting your cervix that your body jerks upwards, struggling to keep still. He grinds his hips a couple more times and then he reaches his own climax. You feel his cock throb inside you, filling you up with his seed.

“Fuck!” He snarls into the helmet, keeping it pressed against the side of your head.

You’re completely spent, you can barely move a muscle. Mando’s just fucked the life out of you, and you could lie here for the rest of your life, happy and satisfied. When you feel him start to pull out, with the little strength you gave—which is by no means a lot, you clench your walls around him, trying to keep him inside you.

“Don’t want me to leave?” He jokes.

“Want you inside all the time,” you mumble into the ground.

Mando hums, sheathing himself inside you once again.

“Pretty girl, I’m just getting started with you.”

[thelonelyrainbowguy]

Meet Persephone.

Persephone is the first mobility aid I’ve ever owned. I’d been thinking about getting a folding cane for bad chronic pain days for literal years, but every time I had one in my Amazon cart, ready to order, I’d think “I don’t actually NEED this. It’s only unbearably bad once in a while, and even then it usually doesn’t last long.” And I wouldn’t order it.

But over the past few years, my general pain and fatigue has gotten worse. My joints are more unstable, which causes my muscles to work extra hard to keep them in place when standing or walking. And just going grocery shopping makes my low back hurt so badly I need to lie down (my legs are different lengths, and on top of that, my low back muscles work super hard to keep my hips in place).

So I posted on Facebook about how I was thinking of getting a cane, but having trouble with my internalized ableism and severe social anxiety, and a few wonderful friends encouraged me to do the thing, and I ordered Persephone.

I received the package today, still thinking that it wasn’t a worthy investment. I opened her up, unfolded her, adjusted her height, and began to walk around with her.

I noticed the difference immediately.

The muscle fatigue in my lower body was greatly relieved. My knee joints didn’t grate quite as hard. My back wasn’t as tense and achy. And when I put it down and walked without it, all that pain and exhaustion came back right away.

For years, I suffered through it, thinking it wasn’t that bad because I had no frame of reference to tell me otherwise. But I finally took the plunge, thinking I’d only use it when I really, truly needed it, and now I’m realizing that I do need it, all the time. Anyone who has acquired a disability (rather than being born with it) can probably tell you what a strange realization that is to come to, and all the conflicting feelings surrounding it.

Having a cane is great. But it also sucks.

Because, like I said, I have severe social anxiety. I walked to the mailbox with it earlier, and smiled at a neighbor, and it made me feel nervous, but empowered. Then I took out the trash without using it (no garbage juice on MY cane, thank you very much) and the realization suddenly struck me that anyone who had seen me walking with it earlier might see me and think I was faking, or using it for attention.

And it shouldn’t matter what anyone thinks.

But, as anyone with social anxiety will tell you, the part of your brain that cares what people think of you is EXTREMELY difficult to turn off.

At work, I go down two flights of stairs and a long hallway to get to my desk. When I go outside on breaks, I have to go all the way back up that hallway and the two flights of stairs. And after five or ten minutes of standing outside to vape, I’m exhausted and I need to sit down and rest. I’m often extremely fatigued just from walking to the kitchen, washing the dishes I used, and returning to my desk. Frequently, sharp joint pains in my ankles or knees will strike when I’m going down the cement stairs, almost causing me to fall (I haven’t yet, but I’m always scared I will). Using my cane would be extremely beneficial to mitigate the exhaustion and provide a layer of security against the possibility of falling and cracking my head open.

But the thought of the looks I’d get, the questions people would ask that I’d have to answer over and over, and the questions and looks if I didn’t use it, not to mention the prolific gossip culture at my workplace, honestly terrifies me. Yeah, people would get used to it eventually, but the thought of that period when I’m constantly having to explain myself, constantly feeling eyes on me, is mortifying.

So I’m going to start slow. I’m going to use it to walk around my house, around the neighborhood, with friends, maybe when I’m running errands. But even if I do eventually get rid of all my internalized ableism, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get past the social anxiety enough to use this thing that helps me. And that’s really sad.

Mobility aids are not embarrassing or shameful. Anything that helps a disabled or chronically ill person live their best life is absolutely wonderful. Just be aware that they might feel this way, too, and don’t stare or speculate or ask questions. We’re people, just like you.

To my fellow babes with mobility aids: No matter your reason for using a cane, rollator, wheelchair, crutches, walker, whatever works for you—I see you, I validate you, and I love you. Live your best life.

[rubykgrant]

Ah, to heck with it; have some “Simon Survives Scenarios”. Various ideas that have been rolling around in my head, I can’t be bothered to actually DO anything with them myself, but perhaps others will have fun! Or angst. Or both. You can use these in a “and then everything was OK, the end” kinda way... OR “and then he felt BAD, because he made US feel bad, you get what you give dude” kinda way. Either way, enjoy~

Scenario 1- starting from the point of Grace still being trapped in her video memories, what finally snaps her out of the trance is somebody knocking the projector out of the way... it is Samantha. She started feeling anxious (and perhaps a bit guilty) about giving this to Simon, and worried about what he’d do with it. Samantha and Grace talk for a moment, concluding with Samantha lamenting that she should have taken better care of the boy when he was younger, and Grace pointing out that he’s a big boy now, his actions are his own choice. Grace continues on while Samantha stays behind. Things proceed basically the same as they did originally, until the Ghom attacks Simon. It seems that he’s really going to die, the thing that he’d been running from since he was a child finally caught him, he wasn’t able to stop himself from becoming somebody terrible and now he was going to be stopped forever... and suddenly, something lunges at the Ghom. It is Samantha, still dressed in her very classy vest, but now she’s got her fur raised, claws out, hissing and ready to bite. She lunges again, grabbing the Ghom and rolling, swiping and swatting at it the shole time. Simon is still out of sorts... he just tried to kill his best friend, then she was OK, and then the Ghom was on him, and he could feel himself dying, and then Samantha was there, and he feels tiny and afraid again. Grace takes a step forward, not sure if she can do anything, but wanting to try. Samantha is pinned down by the Ghom, looks up at the children, and manages to shout “GET BACK IN THE CAR!” before she pulls herself free, rounding on the Ghom. Grace grabs Simon by the arm and pulls him back toward the doors of the Mall Car, the kids rushing in ahead of them. Grace pulls the doors shut, and Simon finally reacts. Sitting on his knees in front of the door, he slams his hands against it. For a few seconds, everybody is just trying to ceatch their breath and process what just happened. Simon looks down at his arms, both covered with numbers. He turns around, sitting against the door, and off to the side he turns and looks into a reflective surface of some window the kids broke years ago. He sees his face, and then quickly looks away. Grace speaks to the kids as she did in the original, her number going down, her new little origami companions with her. Simon is silent for now, he doesn’t even want to hear his own voice (you can take that wherever you want from there. maybe he still keeps being a jerk and eventually bites it in a whole other way, maybe they find Samantha again later, maybe whatever)

Scenario 2- The well-being of the passengers was the most important thing... and that was why One-One jsut couldn’t leave this alone. Before... before Amelia, before a lot of things, there had been very specific safety measures that made sure, no matter WHAT, a passenger wouldn’t die. It hadn’t been all Amelia’s fault, not entirely, but when she took the train, she removed several safety measures, and others fell into dis-repair as she was only concerned with her personal project. There was also other problems, things that had nothing to do with Amelia, things One-One should have anitcipated and fixed before anything bad happened... but he hadn’t, and then he’d been so invested in getting things “back on track” (so to speak) after becoming the Conductor once again, he missed this. Now a passenger was dead, and that was simply not acceptable. Even Sad-One couldn’t find the right words to describe how devastating this fact was. Amelia was a little reluctant to mention that One-One was so concerned with the whole Simon Incident, that he was ignoring other issues. After all, passengers weren’t in danger before she started taking over the train, and she’d been RIGHT THERE, right in front of the boy, she could clearly see how troubled he had been, how narrow-minded and head-strong, how very much like herself when she’d been at her worst... and she had only antagonized him, then left. Finaly, Amelia forced herself to speak with One (being more honest and direct was something she needed to work on. her number spun down as she took a deep breath and walked up to the little robot). She talked about how this was unfortunate, and very sad indeed, but warned One not get so obsessed. That was what had hurt the boy. It was also what had hurt her. She’d been so obsessed with bringing back Alrick, she’d tried all kinds of things, now obviously nonsensical; cloning him, holograms, once she’d even tried using her memory tape and a particular car to create some sort of time travel. “Oh? Which car was that?” One asked, in an off-handed way. Amelia explained it had been a car that was now currently glitching, but the original purpose was to go into “history books”, like some after-school special where children time travel and learn a history lesson. The car couldn’t let you change or alter the past, just re-visit and re-live it. Until Amelia started adjusting it... oh, she’d gotten CLOSE with that thing. However, after some experiments, she decided it was a bad option. Pulling something out through the machine from the past almost never lasted. Most of the time, whatever she brought back deteriorated. She had only chosen random objects, things like house plants or fruit, too afraid to actually put Alrick through all that. Going through the machine yourself also wasn’t practical, you also got pulled back to where you had been after a certain period of time had passed. You could bring things with you (she’d been able to grab a chair), but that still held the same problem of the past object possibly falling apart. She also found that you couldn’t be very accurate with where and when. She often was a few minutes and several feet off where she was “aiming”. Finally, she noticed that she also became more unstable after trying to go back. Not only had she not even been able to see Alrick (what with being an hour later than she wanted and also two hole miles away), she had nearly destoyed herself. Amelia had intended to share this story to hopefully help One understand that he couldn’t keep dwelling on Simon. Instead, she had given him an idea

Scenario 3- The Ghom doesn’t suck out Simon’s soul... it turns him into ANOTHER Ghom. Grace quickly rushes the kids back into the Mall Car as the thing that used to be her best friend tries to attack her. Again. Any hope she had of reasoning with him, helping him, sotpping him... all that is gone. Inside the car, Grace tries to comfort the kids and explain to them that they need to change. In the days that follow, instead of going out on raids, Grace goes out on little trips with the kids. Now that they know what they are supposed to do, learn lessons and get their numbers DOWN, they really seem to be making progess. Sometimes she head out with a group of 7 kids, and come back with 3. At first they were afraid of getting to 0 and suddenly facing an exit door, but Grace helps them understand that it will be OK. They’re going home. The kids still don’t want to be alone, and that’s why Grace still uses the Mall Car as a base. If nothing else, they can still come back here to rest. Some kids find their true companions, and Grace says good-bye. She knows she should try to get her own number down (although, it seems to do it just fine without much effort), but she doesn’t want to leave just yet... for one thing, she’s been on this train for... what? 10 years? 11? She wasn’t totally sure, but she did know this had been her life for a long time, and she wasn’t ready for “the real world” yet. She also still wanted to find Hazel. If nothing else, to apologize and make sure the little girl was alright. Why lie, she also kept thinking about Simon. She knew it was impossible to even think she could find him, or tell him apart from the other Ghoms, or help him if she DID find him. She kept thinking about him though. One day, while exploring some cars with her little origami companions, Grace hears somebody yelling; she can’t believe it, but it is Hazel! A group of Ghoms have gotten into the car, and they’re chasing her. Grace runs as fast ashe she can, but the car is designed to be like a giant jungle-gym in a fast-food place. Everything is all twisted together, an obstacle course in bright colors. Grace gets stuck, and calls out to her friend. Hazel tries to get to her, but 3 Ghoms advance on her. Hazel crouches down, her turtle shell appearing as a last line of defense... and suddenly a fourth Ghom slams into the others. It chases them off, then turns and walks toward Hazel. Grace finally finds a way through, runs over, and wraps her arms around the tiny girl to protect her. The Ghom stops. It seems distressed, which isn’t unusual for Ghoms, but it also isn’t attacking. It keeps pacing around them, growling and crying. Hazel slowly relaxes in Graces arms, and Grace finally asks “Simon? Is that you?”

Potential Follow-Up to Scenario 3 and 4- Simon is returned to his normal form, still covered with numbers and still not in his right mind. After first panicking when he sees who he still considers to be the “false conductor”, he then starts to remember what he did, and asks “Wait, what happened to Grace? Did I hurt her? I... I thought I did, but I didn’t really WANT to, but I still DID... no, did I kill her? I didn’t, right? Something saved her... Din’t it?”. Finally Amelia comes in, and taking a softer tone than the one she used when they first met, she explains that yes, he did indeed try to kill Grace, and yes, she was saved by denizens of the train. Now, he has been saved as well. Still trying not to be too harsh with him, Amelia explains that he has been wrong about the numbers and how the train works. Simon still doesn’t want to listen to that... because if he was wrong about that, then EVERYTHING he did was wrong. After some time passes, Amelia manages to locate his former friends, as they’ve been concerned about him (he has trouble understanding why they even still care). Samantha comes to see him, and after looking at his face she says “Oh, Simon... what have you done to yourself? What did you do to everybody else?”. Grace comes to see him as well, and she’s a mess “I should be HAPPY to see you alive, we should both be happy, but we can’t be, I don’t know HOW to feel about this, we saved each other so many times Simon, until the very end I was still trying to save you, and you... YOU...” she can’t finish. He knows. He tried to kill her. Shame doesn’t seem like a strong enough word for what he feels. Hazel is somewhere nearby, but she refuses to come near him. He can’t blame her. On his own, Simon looks at himself in a mirror, seeing all the numbers on his face. Like brands of his mistakes and bad choices. When Amelia finds him, he’s crying and scratching at his face “I don’t want them anymore, I don’t want these numbers, get them off, GET THEM OFF!”. She runs toward him, grabbing his arms “Simon, stop! Stop it! Hurting yourself is just making your number go UP!”. He colapses against her, crying, and Amelia has to do something she’s not very good at; comfort him. She also tells him “Sometimes... the hardest thing we can do is live with the consequences of our actions”. In the days that pass, Simon finds himself constantly thinking about how this isn’t fair, why should HE get to be here? He doesn’t deserve this. If he could come back, why couldn’t... Simon starts asking about how the denizens of the train work, how they are “alive”. He learns about the “cores”, how they can be repaired and thus possibly heal a denizen that has been hurt or destroyed. If the core itself is broken, then nothing can be done. If Simon could just find Tuba, then he could fix this (this could be wither him traveling way back to the spot where he cause her to tall, searching the wasteland in the area. or, him using the time machine, which is potentially dangerous to him as going back and forth might cause him to fall apart)

[ehstarwar]

under thy own life’s key (4/7)

“You want to go first?” Ben asks her, moving out of the way.

“Lets go together.”

“Okay,” Ben says. Rey wants to scream never mind and climb down right now, but Ben is holding a hand out to her before she has a chance to do anything.

So, she takes his hand.

-

The gang goes on a tree-top course that goes south, real fast. Also, Ben and Rey try to talk. (They get distracted easily though.)

-

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 5k

Read on AO3

Notes: thank you all so much for reading! i've gotten more comments on my work in the past week than i have after YEARS of writing fanfic. so thank you to all the reylos. y'all the real mvps. (♥ω♥)

Chapter 4: the torture of the mind to lie in restless ecstasy

-

“Are you sure the line is strong enough to support me?”

“Are you over 500 pounds?”

“No. But, I mean, I had a big breakfast this morning. Like four eggs, at least.”

“Then it will support you just fine.��

Rey grinds her teeth at the exasperated worker, wishing he’d say something just a little more reassuring. She looks across the rickety bridge, seeing Rose and Finn get across with little hardship, just a few missteps here and there. Ben sailed across the bridge like there wasn’t at least of foot of space between each plank; like he wasn’t at least thirty feet off the ground; like it was nothing.

If it could hold Ben, then surly it could hold her.

Rey takes a tentative first step, holding onto her glider for dear life. Hoots and hollers below her  come from Poe and Jannah, but she tries to tune them out and focus ahead of her. Each step is more unstable than the last, and when she makes it more than half way there, she sprints ahead, just to get to the solid base at the next tree. 

“Oh my gosh, Rey! How did you run? I can barely move my legs more than one plank a minute,” Rose says. 

“Sheer force of will and a very good survival instinct. Being on solid wood is better than… not.” She looks at the next course and sees small pegs, almost the size of one foot, stretching across to the next base. A gasp escapes her lips before she can stop it. 

Finn is already halfway there, being coached by Ben, who stayed behind so he wouldn’t wobble the pegs further. 

“The next one is a little further away, so just spring forward a little bit more,” Ben yells. Finn has a death grip on his glider, so much so that Rey can see the whites of his knuckles from here. Its a good five minutes before Finn reaches the next tree and the mocking jeers of her friends below her do nothing to calm her fear. 

Rose goes next, deciding that Ben did a good enough job coaching Finn and deciding she needs that same support going forward. Rose does not account for the fact that Finn is a big scaredy cat and required a lot more input than she does. 

“How are you so good at this? Are you secretly Tarzan, swinging from trees instead of going to a traditional gym?” Rey asks Ben. He laughs at her, but keeps his eye on Rose.

“Guess I’m just used to this more than you, city slicker.” Ben taunts Rey with the same endearment from yesterday. Rey just rolls her eyes, figuring insulting the person who will be coaching her through the rest of this course would not be of the wisest decisions. God knows she needs to make a few more of those. 

“I used to climb these trees when I was a kid, so I guess it’s just engrained in my psyche to not be afraid of it,” Ben shrugs. Rey’s eyes snap up to him. Ben never willingly talks about his childhood. He usually has to be at minimum four bottles of wine deep before he even brings up events that happen prior to him turning 21, so Rey is shocked to hear this information.

“These tree? Like in Chandrila?” 

Ben nods. “This used to be a camp ground. Han, Chewie, and I would stay further towards the lake, but it’s a real possibility that I actually climbed these exact trees, like twenty years ago.”

The admission feels very intimate and Rey’s throat goes dry thinking about that. Images of a ten-year-old Ben, with big ears and braces, climbing trees while Han watches on, probably trying to freak him out more than help him, flashes in her mind. She bites her lip from saying something stupid and ruining the moment, instead just letting out a soft “Oh.”

“I made it!” Rose screams when her foot touches the base, and Finn scrambles to pull her fully on it, to safety. 

“You want to go first?” Ben asks her, moving out of the way.

“Lets go together.”

So much for not saying anything stupid, she thinks.

“Okay,” Ben says, hooking on their gliders together. Rey wants to scream never mind and climb down right now, but Ben is holding a hand out to her before she has a chance to do anything. 

So, she takes his hand.

Ben keeps her close, only one peg between them at any given time, one hand wrapped securely around his rope and the other holding onto Rey. Not that it would take much effort on his part. Rey’s hand is clutching his like a vice, like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to this equipment. It’s warm and calloused from hours of tugging rope and she tries to think of any other time they held hands for that long.

They haven’t before, she realizes, and she’ll be damned if she ever lets go now. 

They’re halfway across before Rey’s foot catches one peg the wrong way, making the bridge wobble and sway in a very terrifying fashion, and she calls out Ben’s name without even thinking.

“It’s okay, I’m right here,” He says, staying still for her. Her eyes are looking down at the forrest floor that now looks much, much further away than thirty feel. She can feel herself shutting down, which is not the most helpful of experiences when in the middle of a rope bridge. 

Suddenly, she’s eight again, climbing in the junkyard, looking for salvageable parts she can bring to Unkar, at the top of a pile when a marred up television crumbles, making Rey slide down the pile. The cuts and bruises she got lasted months and some of the deeper scars still haunt her skin. 

“Rey, look up. Look at me.” She knows she hears Ben talking, but she can’t move a muscle in her body. “Rey, I need you to look at me, please.”

She thinks even when she was eight, the little Ben wouldn’t have let her slip. Her eyes snap up to his and she can feel the reassuring squeeze he gives her hand. 

“You’re attached to a safety rope. There is a net beneath us. I’m right here. I will not let you fall.” 

If she could move, she would kiss him. Right there. In front of God and her friends. In front of the staff that are waiting for them to be done so they can bring in the next group. On the tree that little Ben climbed. 

“Can you go further? Can you let me help you?” He asks and all Rey can manage is a terse nod. They go even slower now, Ben helping her with each step. Her friends are silent and Rey is grateful for small mercies. When they reach the tree, Rey’s knees give out. She stays on her hands and knees, taking deep breaths and trying to shake off the memory. 

After a few moments, she feels Ben’s hand on her head, brushing back some hair that had fallen in her face. She can’t bring her eyes up to meet him, ashamed that a little jungle gym made her spiral so far. 

“We’re going down now. There’s a ladder right below us. I’m going to go first, okay. Just follow me and we’ll get down.”

“Okay.” Her voice is a whisper, but Ben hears her. She hears him step down the ladder, until his head is the only thing peaking above the wooden base she’s kneeling on. His eyes are impossibly wide with concern and determination and it makes Rey want to cry even more. 

“Just follow me, Rey.”

-

The water coming from the faucet is warm, doing nothing to help cool the redness in her cheeks. Rey looks in the dirty, cracked mirror, seeing her eyes still wide with terror, despite being on the ground for a solid twenty minutes. She curses under her breath and stars counting back from 100 again. 

“Rey?” She hears Janna’s voice call.

“Yeah?”

“Do you care if I come in?”

Rey just opens the door to the bathroom in response. Jannah’s holding a bottle of water and an energy bar, and Rey takes both happily. They lean on the sink while Rey munches down her snack in silence. 

“Feel better?” Jannah asks when Rey’s finished and she nods. She actually does. Leave it to food to cure all the problems in Rey’s life. 

“That was… intense, “ Jannah says, looking at Rey gulp down water.

“I’m fine now, honest.” Janna looks like she doesn’t believe her, but she doesn’t press further.

“I thought we’d have to tie Ben to a chair to keep from busting down the door, but Kaydel and I figured you could use a few minutes.” Rey’s heart lurches when she thinks about making Ben distressed.

“Where is he now?” Rey asks, trying to cover the worry in her voice. 

“With Hux, by the lake. He needed to cool off too, I think.” Rey nods, happy that there’s someone else looking out for Ben too. “Can I ask you a question?” Jannah asks, making Reys’ stomach drop. She nods.

“Is everything… alright with you? I mean, in your life, right now. You’ve just been so… off this week. We’re all a little concerned.”

Rey still can’t believe she has friends that actually care about her, enough to check on her and bring her snacks. She’d fell much better about it if she wasn’t fucking their trip with her inner demons. 

“It’s just been one of those weeks. I’ve felt off, too,” Rey tells her.

“Period?” No, but what the hell.

“Yeah,” Rey says sheepishly. Jannah nods in understanding, then scoops her into a hug. Rey hugs her back with enough force to crush both of their lungs, but doesn’t have the heart to care about that.

-

The ride back to the cabin is actually fine. The whole car is buzzing with the adrenalin from climbing the trees, so Rey’s friends are chatting up a storm without bringing up her episode.

Ben had, in true Ben fashion, been by her side since he spotted her come out of the bathroom. This means that he had to take the unfortunate middle seat, one that a man of 6’3 should absolutely not sit in, but did so without complaint. Their legs are squished together, but Rey wouldn’t have it any other way.

-

The heat from the bonfire was a welcome feel when the sun went down and the forrest got cool. It was a modest fire, despite Poe’s insistence that they build one that rivals the size of the cabin. It was the only illumination, casting a warm glow onto everyone’s faces, sticky with marshmallows that were, in fact, too big. 

Everyone had taken a turn trying to give their best campfire story, which ultimately devolved into who could make their friends laugh the most, but Rey didn’t mind. Despite being in unfamiliar territory, she was surrounded by friends who loved and cared for her. Finn and Rose were sitting very closely, inching closer when the other wasn’t looking; Kaydel, Jannah, and Zorii were still roasting marshmallows, mostly just to light the big globs on fire and poke them towards everyone else; Poe and Hux were wrapped tightly together, with Poe passed out on Hux’s shoulder; Phasma was sitting at Rey’s right side, fueling the bonfire with blocks of wood whenever it looked low.

Ben was staunchly seated to Rey’s left, only mere inches away from her, like he had been all day. He didn’t make a fuss of it, just naturally gravitating towards her while doing the most mundane of things; putting up the gear from their trip, chopping up veggies for dinner, ect.

She hadn’t had the opportunity to be alone with him to tell him how nice it was, him being near. She would tell him when they were in their room together. Maybe while lying in bed. Maybe while doing things that were decidedly unfriendly.

She’d woken up once again with Ben wrapped around her like a vice, but they’d been screeched at by Hux, telling everyone to be ready to go quickly. There was no time to discuss what happened last night or the way they woke up this morning, and Rey was slightly relieved. 

What would she say to him? ‘Thanks for letting me ride your thigh, now please fuck me into the next millennium and date me and love me and be this close to me always.’ And she’d naively thought they’d have a lot to talk about when they just mutually masturbated together. 

There was also something else nagging at the back of her brain. The fact that Ben didn’t tell her until halfway into this trip that he grew up camping here. The small tidbits of info she’d gotten from him only brought more questions to her mind. 

There was a lot to be discussed, to say the least. 

When the fire dwindles out, and Phasma heads back to her personal cottage, the rest of the gang starts dropping like flies. Before Rey knows it, she and Ben are heading down their staircase, shouting ‘goodnights’ to her fellow cabin-mates. She’d thought about it all night, how she was going to approach this. About a way to casually work into the conversation that she was curious why Ben revealed so much to her just today and not before the trip. But, Rey was Rey, and there was really only so much her head could take.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you came here with your father? Before we got here, I mean.”

Being direct is probably a good thing right now, she thinks belatedly.

Ben had just finished taking his shoes off and looked surprised at her question, but not angry at it, which Rey thought was a win.

“It… didn’t seem important,” He says, slipping off his socks too. 

“I think it is important, Ben. I know you don’t have the best relationship with your dad, so I’m sure this trip could be… a lot.”

“It was a long time ago, Rey. I didn’t even realize it until we got here and the roads looks familiar. If I felt like it was too much, I wouldn’t have stayed.”

“Well… okay then. But you’ll tell me if it does get to be too much, right. I can’t have us both being mentally unstable for the rest of the week.” Her attempt to make light of what happened earlier is a cheap shot, only serving to make Ben’s brows furrow. 

“You’re not mentally unstable. You just had an anxiety attack. It happens; it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you,” Ben’s tone is comforting and Rey can feel tears prick her eyes again. But she doesn’t want that now. She doesn’t want to be sad around him any more today.

“If you say so,” She relinquishes, turning to go into the bathroom. 

Ben is sitting on the edge of the bed, scrolling on his phone when she comes out. He’d changed into his white shirt and boxer shorts (although a different pair than last nights) and Rey suddenly has the urge to ask him what he normally wears to bed. So she does.

“This usually. Why?” He questions. 

“I’d feel bad if you slept in the nude and were wearing clothes just for my comfort.”

Rey see’s his throat bob.

“What do you wear to bed? Normally?”

“A t-shirt,” Rey admits, “and underwear, if I have enough that are clean. Sometimes I go without just so I don’t have to do laundry so often.”

His eyes darken and his gaze feels very hot against her skin. She’s wearing an old-giant t-shirt from college with a pair of cotton sleep shorts that barely peak out from under the shirt. 

“Oh,” He says, eyes still looking her up and down. “You don’t have to wear shorts if you’re… uncomfortable.” 

Without saying word, Rey slowly pushes her shorts down and steps out of them. He can’t see her underwear. Can’t see the damp stain forming on them. But it feels like he can. Ben places his phone on the night stand and Rey decides to be bold and step directly in front of his slightly parted legs. He looks up at her, eyes soft and hungry at the same time. He keeps his body the same, not opening his legs to accommodate her as she wants. After a minute of silent staring, Rey finally finds the will to speak up.

“Will you let me do something for you?”

Ben’s neutral expression doesn’t waiver. “You don’t need to do anything for me.”

“I know,” Rey gently drops to her knees, “but I want to.” Ben’s eyes follow her down, widening when realization crashes over him. 

Rey lightly puts her hands on his inner thigh, pushing them apart with little resistance. She can she his growing erection already beginning in his boxers, spurring her on further. She presses light kisses up his thigh, giving him kitten licks too. She works slowly, feeling the muscles tense beneath her lips and being reminded what it felt like against her cunt. When she finally gets to his crotch, she rubs her mouth against him, now straining against the fabric. She presses her tongue flat against him, licking from root to tip in his underwear. She feels him twitch against her lips, seeing a small bead of wetness form.

When she dares to look back up at him, Ben’s eyes are black. He’s breathing heavily, and she can see the muscles in his chest constricting. 

“Ben, can I do this for you?” She asks, eyes never leaving his, lips brushing against his cock.

“Please.” His voice is strained, like he’s already on the precipice of orgasm. Rey’s hands go to the waistband of his boxers, and he lifts his hips as she pulls them down and off. 

The sight before her is magnificent. Ben’s cock is thick and long, curved up towards his belly. He is flushed all the way to his tip, where a small bead of preccome is dripping onto his white shirt. Rey licks her lips before leaning towards him. Her hand comes up to gently trace a vein with just one finger, and Ben whimpers. It is the most beautiful noise she’s ever heard. 

Her hand wraps around him at the base, brushing against the coarse, black hair there. She hears his breath hitch as she beings to pump her fist. She uses her thumb to swipe the drool of precome now dripping down her hands.  

Rey slowly moves her head towards him, and when she’s only centimeters from the tip, she looks back up at him and extends her tongue to taste him. The strangled groan that comes deep from within him, sends a rush between her legs, and Rey has to adjust herself so that she can rub her thighs together.

Her licks become bolder, as she begins to follow her hand from where she pumps him. He is painfully hard and throbbing in her grasp, so Rey presses light kisses up his length to sooth him. When she makes it back to the tip, she envelopes him in her mouth, tasting the tangy precome as her mouth works down further. 

Rey feels one of his hands shoot up and cradle the back of her head, tangling her hair in his fingers. She’s grateful that she choose to loose the three bun look when she changed into her pajamas, because the tips of his fingers pressing into the base of her skull is heaven. 

She moans around him, sinking even further and taking as much of him in her mouth as she can. She feels Ben’s hips twitch, and she knows that she needs to work faster now, for both of their sakes. So, Rey hollows her cheeks as she begins sucking him in earnest, moving up and down and guided by his hand.

Ben is spilling moans and profanities now, head thrown back and exposing his long, pale neck that Rey wants to devour. She quickens her pace further, feeling his whole body tense. She’s involuntary rocking her hips, seeking friction on the back of her calves, but falling short in an infuriating way. 

“Rey..” His voice is a whine; desperate and pleading for something he can’t put into words. She moans against him and takes him the furthest she can into her mouth, before he hits the back of her throat. His fingers clench in her hair and she knows he’s trying to control himself right now.

But that’s not what she wants. She wants him to use the immense strength he so clearly has against her. He wants her to loose himself within her. She wants him to destroy her. 

“Rey, baby, please…” Ben’s voice is low as he speaks through gritted teeth. “I’m gonna come, baby, I’m gonna come.”

Tears are pricking her eyes once more and she tries to think of a way to tell him ‘yes please! Please come for me, baby’ without taking him out of her mouth. She stares up at him as she sucks up and down his cock, hoping that will convey everything.

He’s looking down at her again, face flushed and body heaving. “Can I come down your throat? Will you let me do that, baby?” Rey nods as best as she can with her face stuffed with his cock. Ben shouts as warm come pulses out of him.

She lets the tip rest on her tongue, and uses her hand to work him through orgasm, letting his come pool on her tongue. It’s tangy and bitter but its Ben, so Rey loves it anyways. She savors the taste, swirling it around her tongue as she gives kitten licks again. 

Ben is sweating. His lips are red, like he bit straight through them. His cock is still hard, but she can feel him softening slowly. They stare into each others eyes as she swallows his come. 

When Rey sits back on her legs, she feels her throbbing center and involuntarily whimpers at the feeling. Her panties are soaked clean through and she’s very, very tempted to just shove a hand down to her pussy and finish herself off with Ben’s eyes taking her in. 

Rey, blessedly, does not get the chance. 

Ben picks her off the floor, and pulls her onto the bed, following her with his own body, and covering her. His head is kissing at her stomach, though the t-shirt that dulls the sensation but still makes her cheeks warm. When he gets between her legs, Ben lick a strip, clean up her center through her panties, before ripping them off and shoving his mouth against her cunt. 

He licks and laps at her, movement only enhanced by his nose that she can feel against her clit. He leaves messy, open mouthed kisses on her folds before using his tongue to circle her clit. Rey shoves a hand in her mouth to keep from screaming too loud. 

His hands grip her thighs and toss them over his broad shoulders so that he can spread her easily. His tongue delves into her, warm and wet and positively sinful. Her hips buck against him with abandon, seeking purchase against his face. His whole face is nuzzled into her, and she’s sure if he looked up at her, she’d she her juices dripping down her face. The thought makes her whole body shake. 

“You gonna come for me?” Ben says against her. “You’re gonna come on my face, baby?”

Rey just chants ‘yes!’ and ‘Ben!’ over and over, until her mouth is incapable of forming words. Her orgasm is white-hot as it races down her spine. She feels her thighs tremble and abdomen clench as she uses her free hand to tangle in his silky locks and push his face impossibly harder against her cunt.

Ben works her through it, tongue relentless against her, lapping up at all the fluids nearly pouring out of her now. His plush lips brush against her clit every now and again, making her twitch in overstimulation that is glorious. 

They stay that way for a long minute; Ben with his mouth still attached to her pussy and Rey with one hand in his hair and the other still stuffed in her mouth as tears run down her face. 

When he starts to pulls back, Rey winces at the contact and he presses a little kiss to the corner of her thing to soothe her. She takes her fist out of her mouth (because, ew, that can’t look nice) and stares up at him. 

Ben is still flushed. Rey is sure she is too. They’re both breath deeply, the hint of musk penetrating the air around them. Her heart is hammering in her chest, blood rushing in her ears.  Ben is still looking at her. 

He looks at her like she’s water and he’s been in the desert for a week.

Rey doesn’t know what motivates her to do it, but she moves anyways. She pushes herself up and grabs a fistful of his shirt and crashes her lips together. His mouth and chin are with with her, but Rey doesn’t care. If anything, she likes tasting herself on him; it’s like a claim.

Ben’s hands immediately go to wrap around her shoulders, crushing her to him with more force than she thought possible. His lips moves against hers, tongue tangling together as he lets her dominate his mouth. Their noses bump and teeth clash occasionally, but it only makes it that much hotter. 

His hands wandered up to her head, cupping her jaw and throat as they kiss. It steadies her as she pressing bruising kisses to him, like she’s trying to crawl within him. She feels her back hit the bed again and the softness of the pillow beneath her, before she realizes he’s laid her down again. Still between her legs as his mouth continues its assault on hers. 

The shrill ring of a phone pierces the silence that had previously been accompanied by the wet slap of their lips. Rey tries to turn away from him to see who would be calling him at this time of night, but his lips chase her. Ben clearly has more important things on his mind.

“Ben,” she mumbles against his lips, when he moves to working her jaw. “Ben, we have to see who it is. It could be… an emergency.” Rey’s voice hitches when she feels him nip at the underside of his jaw. Ben’s movements slow against her before he literally growls. 

His hand quickly grabs his phone to see who’s calling before letting out an exasperated sigh. 

“Fucking Poe,” He mumbles before accepting the call. “What?” His voice is sharp in annoyance and Rey can’t help but chuckle at that. She hears something like screaming happening from the phone and suddenly becomes very worried, before Ben lets out a sigh. 

“Fix the rooms’ A/C yourself.” More shouting happens on the other end and Rey can make out a high-pitched whine. Ben’s head drops to her chest, where his black hair fans out around him. 

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Ben grumbles against her t-shirt before ending the call.

Rey pushes a lock of hair behind his ear and trails her fingertips on the back of his neck, causing him to shudder. Ben abruptly pushes up and back on his legs, still red-faced and a bit angry.

“I have to go fix Hux and Poe’s A/C,” He tells her, with barely contained distain. 

“Okay,” She breaths, not able to form more complex sentences at the moment. She wants to say ‘let those two deal with it themselves and kiss me again before I loose my damn mind,’ but that’s certainly out of the question. 

“Stay right here. Don’t fall asleep.” Ben says as he removes himself from the bed. Ben gives her a pointed look that makes her insides clench. Rey already misses he weigh on her. 

“I won’t,” She vows. Ben takes a long look at her, seemingly contemplating with himself whether or not just to say ‘fuck it’ and crawl back on her. But he doesn’t. With another growl, Ben is out the door and stomping up the stair. 

Rey is asleep before he reaches the top. 

[kennedycatherine]

things may be shitty but sometimes I'm shittier

I’m overheard retelling half a joke my friends have heard 30 times over. One of the greats in my rotating stock of five. 

“Wait, what’s this about?” Asks someones boyfriend and I lean on an elbow, angle myself toward him with a grin.

“It’s actually a really funny story.”

His girlfriend rolls her eyes, “it’s not funny.”

My eyebrows go up, in, “I think it’s funny?”

“Kennedy,” she begins and looks at me with even eyes, “it makes people uncomfortable.”

She says it like a mother warning her toddler not to pull his pants off in front of the dinner guests, not again. And I feel a lot like he might;

Defiant - it is a funny story, I’ve done the math on which details can stay in, which have to go out, I know where to pause for a laugh or a sigh. He’d probably like it. 

Ashamed - it probably isn’t funny to everyone, perhaps my math was just enough to keep people engaged, the pauses great for a sympathy laugh. He probably wouldn’t like it.

“Another time,” he whispers with a soft, consoling smile and I silently curse his girlfriend. 

Fuck you, Kierstan, you don’t know the first thing about comedic timing.

The story in question is about the time I found my sister cold and unconscious. I thought she was dead. The punchline about my being in a pink velour costume when the EMT’s arrived and the bit about the stolen laffy taffy, oh and her not being dead - fully worth the undeniable emotional lows. 

Believe me when I say that in some circles, it’s a funny story. There are branches of comedy, Netflix specials, peoples entire careers and livelihoods that are rooted in dark comedy - there is a vast market for illuminating and lightening the horrifying. Also trust me when I say I know how deeply unfunny it is to watch someone you love overdose. 

The story is funny now. A few years ago it wasn’t. It was a nearly unspeakable thing. An experience that happened and it wasn’t funny. 

But life goes on. 

You have no choice. 

Around the time of the pink velour tracksuit and the laffy taffy, I found myself laughing uncontrollably at my desk. I’d just left the job I’d gone to college for and found myself in the pit of broken dreams - an 8 to 5 desk job. The absolute thrill of it all - somedays you might file, somedays you might answer a few more calls than usual. Somedays your boss might ask you to bend over and pick up his pencil while you wear the skirt it was gently (but firmly) implied was mandatory. Mandatory only in the sense that no one could tell you that you couldn’t wear pants but they sure were more forgiving of car naps running 15 minutes over if they could glimpse a knee. 

And boy, did I need the car naps. 

It’s funny because I thought I was doing great. Really, for awhile I thought I was the best I’d ever been. I was laughing pretty much all the time, at everything. I’d never found the world more funny. By all accounts, I was having a great time.

So imagine my surprise when one day I found my eyes full, my face damp and my car hurdling down the highway past the exit to my work. When I did arrive, this time with pants, therefor low forgiveness - I was asked to my boss’ office for a closed door meeting.

Why was I late?

Somehow telling my boss that I wasn’t exactly sure the reason but my brain was telling me I should just keep driving, maybe to the next town, maybe for hours, maybe until the border, didn’t really seem like an option. “I think I have the flu.”

Despite all the things I didn’t know, I did know I didn’t have the flu. I found myself laid out in my doctors office anyway.

When he finally threw the door open, all white coated and anxious, just like I like em’ - I sat up. We made a sort of frenzied eye contact and he asked me what was wrong. 

“I think I might be, like, totally fucking losing it.” 

I left with a plan and antidepressants.

It all sounds kind of simple and quaint.

But it wasn’t.

Stopping to consider if you’re a danger to yourself or anyone else so your doctor can qualify if you need counselling, pills, maybe a psychiatric hold isn’t charming. Those first few weeks of pills, even though you’ve been told and you know you’ll feel worse for awhile, they’re simply awful. This isn’t some beautiful woman on HBO popping a white pill with her chardonnay, suddenly noticing a pink bloom on her neglected cactus. This is ugly and painful before it’s anything else.

And slowly it did become “anything else” … most of the time. 

Depression isn’t a joke. But it is a static way of being that loses it’s edge. 

It softens. Like a shitty haircut, you come to expect the blunt, harsh edges. Your body adjusts to the sight of it. It’s still kind of scary to look at but you know what to expect.

Life goes on.

It’s just not precious anymore. 

I could barely say I’d been diagnosed. I only told the people who were close enough to see the new medication was wearing me out. Now it’s an introductory fact, “Hi, Kennedy Catherine, daughter, lover, lesbian, writer, major depressive disorder.” 

I felt for a long time like it was all behind me. The worst was over! Family, outside of some trick hearts, healthy. Depression, diagnosed, plans made, helpful medications on standby. Experiencing another dark episode seemed dull,  ya know? Just a tad fucking redundant. Been there, done it, bored by it. 

Then: March 2020. 

There was a period of limbo. I still had a job, I just couldn’t be there or do it until things got better - hardy har. I packed up my truck and settled into my families cabin for five or six weeks. It was fine, I was fine, I thought. One day I went out for a walk and awhile later watched my sister rumble through a long stretch of prairie toward me on an ATV. My phone was dead and I’d be gone, oh, three hours longer than expected?

“What happened?”

I just kind of… lost track of time? Lost my sense of direction? I don’t know, I thought. I was here but I sort of went away from myself for a second. When I sunk into the bath later with achy muscles and a blister, I felt nervous.

Now, I haven’t scared myself in years. My depression isn’t so severe that I feel unsafe with myself. Anything I did or have done to effectively terrify myself, I shed by the time I was 20. Because that can happen, you can do that. You can change coping mechanisms and learn real, healthy ways to parent yourself. The mood instability that came later, the dark times, I still felt mostly fortified. I felt like I could figure it out, like I still had access to myself to do the figuring out. 

But I could feel myself slipping away this time. 

I was talking fast about something or another when I finally said to my mom, “I think I might need help.” I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant because I didn’t really know how to help myself and I wasn’t really sure what was wrong. 

And that in and of itself is a problem. I didn’t know what was wrong? 

I was out of the job that got me out of bed Monday to Friday for three and a half years, I left the house that had become my comfort cathedral, I hadn’t seen any of my closest friends in months, I was living with my sister and my mother who I hadn’t spent longer than a handful of days with in like five years. There was global fear and uncertainty and the risk of contracting a virus that could or could not kill you but I didn’t know… what was wrong? Well that’s just deeply moronic. 

Sometimes when you need help, or when I need help, that does come in the form of professional counselling or medications or an anonymous support group. Sometimes, it’s just circumstantial and circumstances can change.

I went home.

And in a few weeks, when I’d more or less returned to myself, I could clearly see the hills and valleys my mind had just wandered. I felt strength again, a sense of renewal and excitement about my imminent return to work and society.

Then I actually lost my job.

I know, redundant. I’m tired of myself too. But bullshit is cyclical, that’s just a fact. 

And if there is one thing I’ll give myself credit for, it’s my ability to immediately concoct a backup plan in the face of a threat. Moments after I was officially terminated, texts and emails went out. The idea of not knowing where my next paycheque would come from and how much it would be, having lost the place I strolled into everyday with a sense of purpose and not knowing when and where I’d have that again was simply not an option.

My head went down, I narrowed focus and the efforts resulted in… enough. I’m living. Which wasn’t and isn’t the hope for life. Unstable stagnancy is deeply uncomfortable.

So, generally speaking, things are not great. 

I lost my humbly secure job. A place I comfortably could’ve lived and died if I’d prioritized everything other than work and my sort of crippling ambition. This effectively led me down the path of questioning every decision I’ve made past the age of 16. First and foremost, choosing radio. An industry that was at it’s peak in the 1930’s and on the decline ever since was perhaps not the most lucrative or secure of career choices. 

My romantic life developed far enough to remind me that often times I am a crusty, avoidant crustacean human and suddenly all those popular tweets about my deep emotional inabilities and intimacy issues seemed, well, not that funny.

I decided I probably shouldn’t drink. I don’t have a drinking problem but I do have a problem with drinking. Namely, waking with no memory, my legs shaking and my stomach clenched so tightly I could sense my body wanted to flee - itself, mostly. And let’s not forget the part where I get fighty and mean.  

When shit hit the fan and then shot off the blades into the face of life in my early twenties, it wasn’t my fault. To be clear, mental health is a no fault area. I was always predisposed to depression, mental illness is genetic. I had no control over that. But there were plenty of variables, extenuating circumstances if you will, that I also had no control over but sure as fuck could and did blame other people for.

This is not the same thing. 

This is a moment where it is necessary to discern illness from circumstance and living from coping. 

Like I said, bullshit is cyclical. And it this point, it’s pretty much just my own bullshit on repeat, forever and ever amen. At twenty or twenty three, when the circumstances weren’t my fault, it also felt like my reactions weren’t my fault. I was floundering, I didn’t know better. I learned some hard lessons about how I cope and handle things. I learned that I didn’t really like the person I was when I was figuring out how to survive myself and life. 

I was unkind, a lot. 

I hated the way that felt, I hated the way it affected my relationships and decided to learn from it.

Except, I didn’t learn. I said, great, noted. Dashed a nice little ~fini!~ at the end of that chapter, closed er’ on up and bypassed the bookshelf for the dusty box in the corner labelled, “garage sale.” Because surely no one would need to read that again! 

And then a few weeks ago when I had a breakthrough in counselling, I dug that chapter back up and allowed myself a few days of surprise. Bitch, you been done knew the WHOLE time. This isn’t news, this isn’t shocking. This is the part of you that developed somewhere along the way and it didn’t work and you didn’t like it but! But. It was comfortable. So you gave it a few years and then when things fell out of control again, let it settle back in all warm and snuggly.

You know what they say. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I guess I need to financially prioritize a CBT therapist. 

So here I am, again. 

Only this time feels deeply, deeply different. Because it’s not the first. 

I sat down with a friend to tell her how I was feeling. How much I felt like I needed and wanted to change my default settings. 

I need a factory restore. 

“I think you’re being hard on yourself.”

No, no, I have grace for myself! I actually have a lot of understanding. I’m parenting myself through this which includes showing myself love while I also discipline.

“I just feel like maybe you were doing the best you knew how.”

Well, I mean, sure? Sometimes? But there were moments where I knew I was saying or doing the wrong thing, where I was even challenged by someone else but I wasn’t challenging myself, you know?

“Well maybe that’s just who you are?”

Right… but this is also who I am? And we do actually have a say in that, you know? Like how I evolved from throwing toddler tantrums on the grocery store floor? I could actually just keep doing that, no one is stopping me, but I don’t.

“I think you’re being self deprecating and that is not healthy.” 

Since when is self identifying a problem self deprecation? 

“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

… but change is hard? 

I appreciate that people want to protect me from myself or from bad feeling or whatever they perceive that all to be. More often than not, I think they, we, you, I, we’re all just trying to protect ourselves. But it’s not helpful. Pretending that everything is fine and that we’re fine and adopting an overarching, “I am perfect as I am, namas-fucking-te” mantra isn’t actually helpful.

What’s the harm in me saying I have been shitty? That I have acted poorly? That I have neglected to be better when there was clearly a different option? That I wasn’t honestly showing myself to people when I could’ve or allowing them space in me?

That it’s… not nice? That just like the joke about my sister not being dead, it’s not comfortable to listen to? It’s true and it is compassionate to view yourself as a whole, to know yourself and think I actually do like myself and this life enough to want to be better.

Just like what is coined the unfortunate evening of Velour and Ambulances or the depression diagnosis or life being turned on it’s head by a plague sent from hell, once it was deeply painful and then it wasn’t. None of this is precious. Being a shitty person sometimes isn’t a rare affliction. You’ve been shitty before, you’ll do it again, I’ll do it again, hey, you might even be shitty right now! Isn’t that something? 

Things are not great right now. They’ve been not great tens of times before. Only this time it isn’t taking me 2 to 4 years to talk and laugh about it. Because this is a muscle, the shit muscle and it’s exercised. It’s buff. 

And you know what? Things could be worse. They could even get worse now! I’m hoping they don’t but they certainly could, and in the thick of it, we’ll always have that glimmering possibility to hold onto. 

[joemuggs]

DO YOU SUFFER FROM SPYMANIA?

It’s the 25th anniversary of the Spymania label, and to celebrate it they have released a record of unreleased tracks. It’s brilliant, you should buy it. In 2016 I wrote a history of the messy, messed-up, but brilliant Brighton scene that they found their feet in. Sadly it got lost in the archiving of the Red Bull Music Academy site, but I’ve still got the text, so here it is. And to prove I was there, here is me, in an inexplicably bad shirt, with the Spymania crew and friends:

Some Spymanians - far left is Hardy Spymania, next to him in blue t-shirt is Paddington Breaks, third from right leaning forward is MDK and that’s me in the bad shirt on the right.

25th Anniversary EP by SONGBIRD & WAFTA

From the town's 18th century genesis as a playground for aristocrats, Brighton has always been a space for outrageous hedonism. Being the closest point to London on the English south coast makes it an obvious place for escape and misbehaviour. With that has always come something grittier and grottier though. It's no coincidence that the best known fictional depictions of Brighton feature razor-carrying petty gangsters (Brighton Rock) and running street battles and hurried back-alley knee-tremblers (Quadrophenia). The novelist Keith Waterhouse famously said “Brighton always looks like a town helping police with their enquiries” – and it still does. Behind its facade of homeopaths, holidaymakers, students and media folk, it hides rampant corruption and organised crime, a heroin economy to match any British city, and sprawling estates that are among the country's poorest.

In the heat of the 1990s rave fervour when the world and its dog came down to Brighton to party their way through untold seven-day weekends, all of this ambiguity was expressed via a rather different electronic scene. While the superclubs along the seafront pumped to the sounds of handbag house, trance and big beat, hidden away in the nooks and crannies a techno style formed that became known on the European underground simply as “the Brighton sound” – and around it sprouted odd rave and electronica mutations that, though they might have seemed pisstakey or bloody-minded at the time, would alter the course of electronic music for a long time to come. All of this was surrounded by a dense web of art, theory, satire, in-jokes and meat-flinging cabaret, that could be perplexing, even off-putting, but has left a huge creative legacy from a tiny scene that punched way, way above its weight.

This scene of malcontents and squarepegs was by definition loose-knit – but if there was a centre to it, it was Cristian Vogel. Originally from the south Midlands, he and his friend Si Begg already had experience putting out cassette releases and primitive music software hacks (with the Cabbage Head Collective) before he came to Sussex University to study 20th Century Music in 1992. With a head full of Stockhausen and rave tapes, he was boshing out the techno, and by the end of 1994 had two releases on Dave Clarke's Magnetic North label and was resident at the Acid Box club nights in a little sticky-floored upstairs venue in Brighton's North Lanes.

This was the period when techno and hardcore were still part-fused, and along with headliners like Carl Cox and Luke Slater you could expect to hear Belgian hoover noises full-pelt gabber rolled into the more “intelligent” beats, all with nothing but relentless strobes and smoke to intensify the experience. It's a sign of how intense it was that the “chillout” in the backroom consisted of Richie Hawtin tunes playing and Tetsuo: Iron Man being shown on a couple of TVs, and felt genuinely laid back in comparison to the dancefloor. It could be shoulder-to-shoulder packed, or have ten people raving away, but it was pretty much always guaranteed to deliver mental obliteration. It's precisely this delirium you can hear in key early releases like Vogel's “Ninjah” or Tobias Schmidt's “Minus One”.

Si Begg and friends

Cristian, together with Si Begg founded Mosquito Records around this point, around which a motley crew of producers of monstrously banging but sonically razor sharp techno gathered. Neil Landstrumm, Tobias Schmidt (an ingenious pseudonym for one Toby Smith), Ibrahim Alfa and Russ Gabriel, as well as Begg and Vogel themselves, all released in the first couple of years. They were closely allied with the Scottish techno scene, notably through Landstrum but also the Sativae label run by Dave Tarrida and Steve Glenncross, and played to seething crowds north of the border, as well as absolutely huge ones in Germany, Poland and further afield. Yet even though the audiences were tiny back on the south coast, the local brand was inescapable: indeed Si Begg, who lived in London right through the nineties, recalls with some bafflement seeing untold German flyers with “BRIGHTON TECHNO” in big letters under his name.

All of this was great, but taken alone could simply have been another local flavour on the international techno scene. The four-to-the-floor certainly remained the heartbeat of the scene as The Acid Box became The Box, which became Defunkt, which became Freekin' The Frame, and the techno dons kept coming through: Blake Baxter, Shake Shakir, Claude Young, Beltram, Weatherall, Surgeon, Bandulu... but very quickly, things became about more than just that. There was a strongly disruptive element from the beginning in the form of a close alliance with the Brighton “clench” of the Church Of The SubGenius. If you don't know about the Church, that's a whole other rabbit hole to fall down, but for our purposes it's enough to know that the local bunch existed on the fringes of freeparty soundsystem culture and subverted its tendencies to crypto-mystical bollocks, and were big on collage and stencil graffiti, heavy punning streams of consciousness (“Bulldada” in the SubGenius parlance), mischief disguised as culture and vice versa.

Heavily influenced by this SubGenius mischief was Mat Consume, in-house designer, computer animator and frequent back-room DJ for the Vogel-related axis. His art, brain-bent ranting and noisily experimental sets became a vital part of the identity of the scene, helping coalesce obsessions with punk and Situationism and ambivalent embrace of digital progress among Vogel and compadres to the point where when they formed an umbrella organisation for their activities it was natural to call it No Future. Held loosely together by Vogel's partner and manager Emma Sola this acted as a booking agency for various acts, but just as much felt like a chaotic but fiercely independent joint art project between Vogel, Sola and Consume, throwing ideas and aesthetic forms out into the underground and forging alliances with equally bloody-minded creators.

Emma Sola

These included the likes of Canadian filmmaker and stencil artist Pablo Fiasco; animators and sound artists Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt aka Semiconductor; non-techno eclecticist club collectives Mufflewuffle and Slack; the combative cabaret night That Stupid Club which would feature subcultural saboteurs like Stewart Home, Dennis Cooper and The Divine David; and another more rave-influenced cabaret night called Monkey's Lounge full of spoken word, off-colour comedy, offal-flinging and pints-of-piss-drinking, run and compered by... um... me (under the names Rimmington Snuffporn Esq and DJ Dead, with help from my music production and DJ partner Jeffrey Disastronaut). It was at a Monkey's Lounge session that Consume physically pushed Jamie Lidell – already widely known as a wildly innovative techno producer via the Subhead collective and their Growth parties – on stage with the house band Balzac, immediately kickstarting a long running residency as their singer and marking the beginning of a performing career that still continues.

Tom “Squarepusher” Jenkinson and Hardy Spymania

Possibly the most important alliance of all, though, was with the Spymania crew. Their social circle was a motley bunch of Londoners, Midlanders and most notably a large contingent from Chelmsford, Essex. Many of the latter had been to school with Tom Jenkinson, a musician known originally as Stereotype and then, when the Spymania label itself was formed by Paul Fowler and brighton-based Hardy Finn, as Squarepusher. Their ethos was preposterous in all ways, fuelled by unstable fusions of questing intellects and Essex swagger. As teenagers they first congregated around a Chelmsford club night called Club Trout, run by future scene mainstay Jane Mitchell (and later exported to Brighton as Smooth But Halibut); they smoked themselves sarcastic to early tapes made by their friends Cassetteboy; everything they did was shot through with skater-stoner-hardcore-raver pisstake attitude. Their rickety old website, which remains live today, still gives a hint of all this. http://www.spymania.com/pgs/hardcore.html

Yet these were musical connoisseurs too, assiduously collecting hip hop, acid, Detroit techno, British electronica, and especially in the case of Martin “MDK” Wood, death metal, gindcore and anarcho punk. This pile-up of musical expertise and sarky dicking about was there from the first release, Squarepusher's Conumber EP – which featured everything from a track that was nothing more than a timestretched Jenkinson asking “can anyone lend me a fiver” to the jungle-acid fusions that would literally redefine how electronica was made from the Aphex Twin on down for the rest of the 1990s. The Spymania records that followed touched on illbient mismatched time signatures, Drexciyan electro-funk, Deicide samples, eerily blissed out atmospherics, Cassetteboy's peurile genius (via offshoot label Barry's Bootlegs), and a dozen more awkward twists and turns besides, always brain-frying, always funny, never settling on any sound that offered the casual listener an easy handle on what was going on.

A standardly Dada Spymania cover

This added up to a refreshing antidote to the chin-fondling seriousness and purism of much of the electronica scene. And when Finn, Wood and friends went raving at the Acid Box, they naturally found a kindred spirit in Mat Consume who would design almost all the Spymania sleeves, their grainy photocopy style a counterpoint to the garish clashing computer images and animated dancing baby skeletons of his No Future work. They in turn helped inspire Consume, with the urbane Lynton Million (a university friend of Jamie Lidell's), to set up Trash Records.

Trash was a label that would take the horrible and confrontational side of the scene to extremes, with anger and ugliness from label mainstays including DJ Paedofile, Chuck Shite and Shit & Cheap (aka Consume & Landstrumm – sample track name: “SuckingCocksForFishheads”), as well as impossibly intricate turns from the likes of Liddell and another Chelmsfordian Squarepusher contemporary and Rephlex recording artist, Matt Yee-King. Si Begg, too, was close to the Spymania team, and launched the rather more good-natured but equally ridiculous Noodles family of labels, featuring a slew of collaborations and AKAs (including Hardy Spymania's pleasingly literal Barry Pseudonym) from the No Future and Spymania families.

It was a messy and disparate little scene. The bulk of the rave action took place in the big clubs of Germany and the rest of Europe, but the creative processes were at least as much about what happened in smoky shared flats and workshops in Brighton's tatty backstreets as they were about big dancefloors. Vogel once described his metier as “the drug pub rant”, and a lot of work sprung from precisely these. Continually, though, the bulk of Brighton club culture, from the seafront clubs to the free parties on the beaches and Downs, tended to look askance at the belligerence and deliberate obfuscations of the No Future axis, or more often simply ignore it all. Perhaps the glorious cresting of the first wave of activity, and probably this scene's peak visibility in Brighton full stop, was at the Brighton Dance Parade of 1997. This attempt to replicate Berlin's Love Parade was never to be repeated – hippie mismanagement and Brighton's endemic corruption saw to that – but for one day only the ravers had their literal day in the sun.

The Trash crew: top - Consume, Hunter & Million / middle - Million & Consume / bottom - Cristian Vogel & Million

There, among floats pumping out free party trance and funky house, the No Future bus – stencilled all over by Pablo Fiasco with pictures of dead rock stars, and with a stunningly crsip rig playing weaponised techno whose angles and curves were a thousand times sharper and more present than any other music on the day – stood out like a septic thumb. This was also the year that Vogel's musical partnership with Lidell began in earnest – with Lidell's furious remix of Vogel's “(Don't) Take More”, which remains a brain-damage anthem to this day in some quarters, and their first release as the mutant electronic funk duo Super_Collider, “Darn (Cold Way O Loving)”. The latter track, amazingly, emerged on a major label, thanks to it being signed by Skint parent label Loaded, in turn licensed through Sony. It was a year to wave the freak flag high.

Despite untold hard drugs, fights and the incestuous nature of a town as small as Brighton, the scene and the various record labels involved remained vigorous and continued to diversify right through the last years of the nineties and into the new millennium. Super_Collider released one album on Loaded, and another on Rise Robots Rise, the label created by Vogel and Sola for ever more varied output including Catalan girl-punk and German dancehall. Lidell's ultra-experimental first solo album, Muddlin Gear, came out as a joint venture between Spymania and WARP in 2000, accompanied by deranged artwork and live films by Pablo Fiasco. Bands increasingly became part of the mix: whispering neo-Krautrockers Fujiya & Miyagi (on Paul Spymania's Massive Advance imprint), the terrifying Wevie Stonder (who he managed) and space-pop group Chungking (which I was in for a couple of years, and whose multi-instrumentalist James Stephenson played bass for Super_Collider live, creating a Chelmsford rhythm section with Matt Yee-King on drums - both of these two had also been in the aforementioned Balzac too).

No Future’s logo, designed with typical aggression by Consume

There were prominent fans too. John Peel asked the Trash collective to open Meltdown Festival in 1998. Thom Yorke and Radiohead's resident artist Stanley Donwood designed t-shirts for No Future. Vogel is namechecked on the Sabres Of Paradise Haunted Dancehall album, and Andrew Weatherall would frequently call him up, dumbfounded at his latest sonic advances. One memorable 1999 awayday for the Freekin' The Frame club to The End in London saw Róisín Murphy jumping on stage after the live Super_Collider show to duet with Lidell on an impromptu version of “Once in a Lifetime”, a very young Kieran Hebden repping UK garage, Chicks On Speed shouting their hearts out, and Chris Cunningham playing long segments of white noise to puzzled ravers, as well as sets from various No Future / Spymania stalwarts.

Inevitably, like all but the very biggest musical scenes, the micro-one in Brighton dissipated as people grew up, fucked up, or moved on – but its echoes continue. Vogel and Landstrumm continue to be significant forces in electronic music, both as influences on the post-Blawan generation and as musicians in their own right. Si Begg is a respected sound designer and composer. Matt Yee-King runs the computer music course at Goldsmiths college, and is a big noise on the “Algorave” scene. Paul Spymania is an artist manager and agent, and along with Scuba, brought dubstep to Berlin in the legendary Sub:Stance sessions. Semiconductor became artists in residence for NASA, among many other extraordinary commissions. Jamie Lidell supported Elton John. Consume is in Bristol, currently working on a giant mural of DJ Derek. Lynton Million lives on a small island, selling whisky. Ibrahim Alfa took several sharp diversions that are an epic tale in their own right, and is only now picking up where he left off with a Workshop issue of his “lost” album Once Upon a Time in Brighton. And so it goes on...

Unlike some electronic scenes, the one in Brighton was never particularly chic (although it certainly had massive cultural cachet in a few countries if not at home), and its records don't necessarily fetch silly money on discogs (like that's a measure of value, right?). But out of a tiny techno club and its committed few regulars grew something that filled an entire decade with utterly extraordinary art, music, humour and ideas, and which still has relevance and resonance for smart creative minds many years on. Those messy, aggro, awkward bunch of ravers and jokers somehow managed to hold it together just enough to build a creative world entirely of their own, with its own rules and its own distinctive identity: what more can artists hope for?

This history is dedicated to James Phillips, a vital part of this scene and always 100% one of the good guys. RIP

Some tunes:

Cristian Vogel: Ninjah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ydOFHo9JtI

Tobias Schmidt: Minus One https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YjozNVF7_I

MDK: Sound of Saturday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV3KQHGxmcg

Subhead: Ruction (produced by Jamie Lidell) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5vNX_ylRQM

Squarepusher: Sarcacid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IY6cvGnVCA

Cristian Vogel: Bite & Scratch (Blake Baxter Detroit Mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXIB7I3D7ss

DJ Paedofile: I was Rise in Clouds https://youtu.be/WcyrrAwqaQY

Buckfunk 3000 (Si Begg): Future Shock Planet Rock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp4b6PE0FkY

Cristian Vogel: Sarcastically Tempered Powers http://youtu.be/Q2G3204pfkY

Yee King: Goodnight Toby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbnZuv3xHog

Super_Collider: Darn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh2kauFcGpw

No Future at Brighton Love Parade: https://vimeo.com/119001501

[claydoeee]

Damaged.

Sitting on my flight with a brutal black eye and some hours to spare on New Years Eve, the bittersweet feeling of another year passing sits with me and I couldn’t be more thankful. 2019 was arguably the worst year of my life and I failed myself in more than one way. People always asked me why’d I stay after the first time? Why did I let someone hurt me countless times and continue to do so? I don’t have an answer, I loved this man with my entire heart and I prayed on my knees every night that he loved me enough to change, but he never did. As far as 2019 went, I had many accomplishments this year but nothing can compare to the heartache I caused myself and the relationships I lost because I chose someone who never chose me.

Here’s to you,

I never been in love before until I met you. I was so in love with you, I could never deny that. I felt a way I never felt before in my life with you and nobody could have told me otherwise. You were my other half, the large piece of my heart, my person. You swore you were in love with me but had a really funny way of showing it. Do you remember that? The night I met you and we were inseparable ever since? All the laughs, the memories, and the platonic relationship we created, that I wish we didn’t. It feels like a lifetime ago that I was so blinded by all your “I love yous.” Or maybe just the idea of you. Or just the idea of love. I honestly don’t know anymore. I had a void in my heart that you filled for a long time...until you didn’t. My mind is so cloudy when I look back on that strenuous period of you in my life. Turning a blind eye to all the red flags and believing every lie you filled my head with was the foundation we were built on. Everything was great and I truly believed I met my match made in heaven (or hell I should really say). It wasn’t until I was living a day-to-day nightmare in fear, sadness, and feeling absolutely worthless. You filled my head with negative thoughts that I actually began to believe and hate myself. The happy go-lucky girl you first met was gone. My happiness, my dignity, my self esteem, and my mental health, all gone. I won’t blame you for that, I had a choice. I had a choice to leave and so did you, but we never did.

I seem insane, don’t I? That’s what you told me and everyone, anyway. For the longest time, you would call me insane, a cunt, unstable, and your favorite, “psycho.” I began to think you forgot my actual name. But I was only these names when I wasn’t beneficial to you at the moment or you “snapped.” Of course you always came back with your meaningless apologies and empty promises, until it happened again.

All of those terrifying nights when your alcohol consumption got in the way of your logic and judgement, and somehow, I ALWAYS deserved it. (Same man who made fun of me being raped after I shared that with him in 100% confidence) to give you a better perspective. In your demonic eyes, you truly believed that I deserved every hit, every punch, and every bruise you left on my body. The body I shared my insecurities with you about, the body you kissed up and down every day and night, and the same body that begged you to stop mutilating it. After the fact, it was always “you made me this way, you made me hurt you.” The night before thanksgiving, you gave me a contusion on my head from repeatedly hitting me over and over and over again. I went to the doctor to get my head checked out instead of redneck breakfast and you said I’m “dramatic.” I didn’t enjoy my thanksgiving because I was in so much pain and had a migraine but you carried on with yours.

You called me crazy to the girls you betrayed me with. The ones you reached out to when you missed my warm body beside yours. The ones when your nights were filled with loneliness instead of my laughter, and when your texts to me went unanswered. Staying at random places with girls who could never compare to me, just to tell me about it days or months later to hurt me. It was easier that way, wasn’t it? To call me insane or mentally unstable as justification for everything you chose to do. I get it though, It’s easier to place the blame on someone else than take personality responsibility which you specialize in.

So before I finally say all of the things I’ve wanted to say to you and to everyone you lied on my name to, I need to admit: I wasn’t perfect either. I’m not perfect and I never will be. I lied and hid certain things (that you ended up “exposing” on social media) and I paid for my mistakes. I told you want you wanted to hear instead of what I truly felt to avoid arguments or fear you would harm me again. I didn’t trust you like you didn’t trust me, and from the start I knew that it wouldn’t work for obvious reasons. But I still loved the idea of it. I loved the idea of you. Or the idea of everything you could potentially be to me.

So I ignored the panic in my heart, I ignored the bruises you left on my body, I ignored the way my friends’ voices filled with hatred whenever they’d say your name, and I ignored the pit in my stomach and all the anxiety attacks I suffered as a result of your abuse. I ignored every red flag you waved infront of me and gave you the power to control my emotions and dictate so much in my life.

The way you got jealous, the way you kept so much a secret, the way you always did things out of spite, and the way your eyes would glaze over when you drank too much. The way you would look at me, through me, when the drinking took control. Or how about the way you would embarrass me in public with your animalistic behavior? How you never claimed me? Or how I would be scared to come home with you and what you did to me behind closed doors. A ticking time bomb is what you were. You were angry that everyone found out you were beating me and felt embarrassed instead of feeling remorseful for beating a woman.

You brought up my past on a daily basis and you would say unimaginably horrible things to me, and mock me as I cried infront of you repeating “you don’t like that do you.” And then the way you would half ass apologize hours later just so you could start the cycle over. The way you promised and swore on your children that you would change and would NEVER physically hurt me again (which you did, 5 times after that “promise” was made). I met your kids the day we all went to lunch together, and I remember smiling and holding your 5 month old thinking how could you physically abuse me when you have two daughters? You wouldn’t want that to happen to them. So why was it always so easy for you to do to me? It’s mind boggling. But, I forgave you. Every. Single. Time.

However, I stopped forgiving. I stopped giving in. You almost had to blind me to make me finally leave. Pathetic right? I should’ve left after the first time you physically harmed me in April. But that didn’t stop you. Did it? You still tried to contact me to the point of using several different false phone numbers, social media, and emails. When you were alone you’d text me saying you missed me, you still loved me, and you wanted me back and anything else along those lines. And at night when you’re out at the bar with your so-called “friends”? The other TRUE side of you came out saying hurtful and cruel words filled with anger from all the alcohol and steroids in your system. Not to mention you’d end up going home with someone, lying to me about it, and then kissing my ass begging for my forgiveness. It’s sickening.

From the bottom of my heart, I hope you find someone who makes you happy because I am happy now. Happy that you left me alone, and happy that maybe, you would stop hurting other people, including yourself. But unfortunately, we’re all replaceable to you. The girl before me, the one after, and the one after that. We’re all the same to you. Insane and cunts when you’re drunk at night, and “amazing women who were the best I ever had” in the sober reality of the following morning. But the thing is, you didn’t hate any of us. How could you? The hell you made us live, the deceit, the lies, and the scars you created. You hated yourself, that was the problem all along and I only wish I would have realized that sooner.

I hate looking back on the time we spent together. Trust me, I don’t do it often anymore. But when I do, it’s almost like it happened to someone else. How could I have been so weak? So easily manipulated by you? How dare someone say the things you said to me or be told to go slit my wrists and do everyone a favor and kill myself? I let those demeaning phrases take hold of me. I let them convince me that I was everything you told me I was. But you still reminded me how much you loved me.

Getting away from you was the best thing that ever happened to me. I finally needed to say it all. To say everything you did to me. Everything you changed in me. Everything you made me realize. Thanks to you, I learned what a true man is and it’s everything you’re NOT. A true man would never call me names, he would never make me feel bad about my past, And he would never hurt me, when his job is to protect me. I hope you get the help you need. Because no matter how very much I despise you, no one deserves to feel that much pain and anger inside of them. No one should be miserable enough that their goal in a partnership is making the other person feel bad about themselves. But that was what you wanted, wasn’t it? That was your goal. Thank you for making me a stronger person. For making me realize what should be valued in a life and a relationship. As you lose relationship after relationship, I hope you decide to change. I always stood in your corner and was your biggest fan in every situation, even when you were wrong, I still stood behind you. You were my best friend. But I stopped letting you run and ruin my life. Of all the things I’ve done in my time on Earth, that’s one that I’m most proud of. That I got out. That I got away, and that you’ll never have the chance to hurt me again.

[cyyyyanity]

The Legend of the DreamVerse : Part Two - “Parasomnia”

A long long time ago, a being was created. Only a few years after the incident in Dreamtale was another life form being created. It was a skeleton who would soon be named Parasomnia.

The time of Nightmare, now named NightTerror, had begun. But not just the time of him, but also Dream, now named DayDream. NightTerror had quickly begun to take down any universe or dreams that stood in his way, searching for one he used to call his own brother.

DayDream had struggled to keep up with his brother's actions. He was supposed to keep dreams thriving but it seemed every time he helped a new dream, his brother destroyed ten more. He needed a way to keep up with his brother, who was too powerful to stop on his own. He needed help.

One day, DayDream had been losing hope. It seemed this never ending nightmare of his wouldn't, well, ever stop. In desperation, he sat on his knees alone, praying to whatever gods there were. He prayed for help, for someone to help him keep the balance.

He never truly believed that gods existed, but he was willing to try.. And he was heard. His prayers for help were answered by someone, who knows what.

A being was made. Another spirit entity of some sort, one of both dreams and nightmares. It was him, Parasomnia. But something went wrong. During his creation, some files and codes were made incorrectly.

Because of this mistake, his original purpose was changed from another protector of dreams, to the protector of both. This mistake gave him the defect of giving others parasomnia as well. This update was to help him create both nightmares and dreams. He had been changed so that if he thought necessary, he would change a good dream into a nightmare. This was done so that if he thought he was seeing more dreams than usual, that he would balance it out by changing a few dreams to nightmares equally in order to keep this balance.

They also had given him a flaw to make sure he has a weakness, because without one, he wouldn't be able to be stopped from doing what he does from time to time. If he couldn't be stopped, the balance would ultimately tip. To fix this, they gave him minor insomnia. He needs energy in order to do things, and he gets this energy by changing dreams and nightmares, as well as actually eating them. He has to sometimes take dreams and such away so when he does, he feeds on them and gets energy on them. In order to get into these dreams to get energy, he has to be asleep so that is where insomnia comes in. At times he will have minor insomnia which doesn't allow him to sleep for a certain period of time. This prevents him from getting the energy he needs and leaves him more vulnerable.

He was also given a weapon. This weapon was a staff with a crescent blade on the top and an orange-yellow circle at the bottom, mostly to represent the sun. He'd come to use this staff to protect himself, but only when it was needed.

Back to the main story. Parasomnia was created by some being, whether it be an actual god or not is unknown. Only days had gone by before DayDream began to notice something.

He detected the appearance of new dreams combatting the nightmares. He decided to search further into what was going on, thus finding a figure standing alone, staff in hand.

They turned to face DayDream, a smile forming on their face. They didn't know who he was, but he could easily detect their power over dreams. They approached, none too cautiously. They waved to him, attitude staying the same. "Hello there friend! What is your name?" He'd ask DayDream. He held out his hand for him to shake.

DayDream hesitantly shook his hand, soon feeling the nonthreatening aura they seemed to give. "My name is Dre- DayDream." He said, having to correct himself. He smiled at the new being, head tilted in amusement at them. "What is yours?"

Parasomnia suddenly froze where he stood. He soon seemed to be in a deep thought as he thought about that question. What was his name? Why was he there? And in that brief moment, he knew who he was. It was as if something called out to him, shedding new light upon him. "Parasomnia's the name! I'm here to help you and your brother!" He said excitedly.

DayDream's smile soon faded. "Me.. And my brother?" He asked, slight concern in his voice. He thought he was a friend, but maybe not? Or was this all a misunderstanding? "What do you mean by that?" He asked.

Parasomnia finally let his hand go after the handshake. "Well, I'm here to help you protect dreams, but I'm also here to bring nightmares, only if necessary. A guardian to both sides I guess, helping keep the valance between the two!" He answered honestly. He didn't know where those exact words came from, but he knew that was his purpose. "I'm only here because you asked for a way to help stop your brother." He stated.

DayDream stood there in silence, jaw hanging slightly open. He didn't believe this, he didn't believe his call had been answered. Shock and disbelief were what he was feeling. "You mean.. Gods are real? And they answered my plea for help?" He hoped Parasomnia knew the answer.

Parasomnia shrugged, a look of puzzlement on his face. "I don't really know if they exist, but I do know that I was made to help." He smiled.

DayDream nodded in understanding. He would love to stay longer and talk, but he had a job to do. "I'm sorry Parasomnia, but I really do have to go. I hope you'll stay safe, and be careful when handling my brother if you see him." He said, turning around as a bright red-orange-gold portal appeared. He waved goodbye before hopping through, leaving Parasomnia alone.

Parasmonia had waved back, sighing as he saw him leave. Despite the warning, he felt like he needed to see Nightmare. He needed to know the both of them, even if it was risky. He laid down on his back, sockets closing as he inhaled deeply. He let sleep overcome him, glad to be given it right now.

He could see it all in front of him now as he opened his eye sockets, no longer where he was before. He could see all the dreams and nightmares gathered all around. He could see whenever a new one of either appeared. He was in the DreamScape.

He smiled to himself as he saw the different aspects of sleep here together in this peaceful silence. All he needed to do now was wait until there was a disturbance between the two.

It didn't take long before he could sense a disruption. His sockets had long since closed, snapping open as something rippled through him. He looked around until he caught sight of a dream slowly corrupting into a nightmare. He went toward it, reaching his hand out to the newfound nightmare. His fingers only brushed it before he was taken into a dark area.

He glanced around, looking for any signs of anyone. Everything suddenly brightened, but not by much. All he could see was a dimly lit area and someone running away from something from nightmares. A monster with a mask, consuming all light there.

It soon turned back to nothingness as the thing had seen him. What once lay before him was now a skeletal figure covered in black, spiked tentacles swaying behind. Their glowing bluish purple eyelight seemed to look right through him.

It said nothing as Parasomnia stared at it. They gripped their staff tightly, weary of him. "Are you Nightmare?" He asked the thing, wondering if it was the right thing.

It stared at him, a grin forming on its face. It nodded. "Yes... And no.. I am NightTerror..." He said in chilling voice. "Who are you, and why shouldn't I kill you right now?"

Parasomnia shuddered as he spoke. A shiver ran through his spine. The aura was frightening. "I am Parasomnia.. I am here to stop you. You're disrupting the nightmare and dream balance!" He spoke, finding some determination to speak up. "I make sure the balance stays the way it is by creating dreams and destroying your nightmares. And if needed, I will create some nightmares to restore it."

NightTerror laughed unsettlingly. "I see. A friend of my brother then." He hissed, sending a glare toward him. His tentacles straightened up, ready to attack. "Then I'll have no choice but to kill you too!" He yelled, tentacles lashing out.

Parasomnia flinched back, holding his staff up to block them. He could sense the power he held and knew he didn't have the strength just yet to fight him. In desperation, he slashed the crescent blade, striking him across the face.

NightTerror hissed in pain, clawing at his face as it seemed to burn from contact. He stumbled back, hands over his face as he made a portal out of the nightmare realm. That's what this place was. He backed into the portal, disappearing.

Parasomnia watched, terror clear on his face. He hadn't meant this, but it was what was done. He looked around after a moment of terror, noticing the place becoming unstable. He had to get out before the nightmare collapsed.

He woke up suddenly, shooting up, eye sockets snapping open. He looked around to see the familiar surroundings of when he met DayDream. He was unaware of how hard he was breathing until a moment later.

He stood up, glancing around to make sure no one else was there. He sighed as he closed his sockets momentarily to catch his breath.

He stood in silence there, catching himself up. Moments later he knew what was needed, reopening his eye sockets. His eyelights glinted, a determined look on his face. He turned around and looked up slightly. "We will meet again someday, I swear it... And when I do, you better give me your best."

To be continued...

[samingtonwilson]

Relationship Tutor: (9) Intermediate Repression

relationship tutor masterlist

Summary: College AU. Bucky, a relationship novice, asks for your help in dating your friend. Unable to say no to him, you agree despite everyone and everything telling you not to.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Warnings: language, lil angsty if u look hard enough

A/N: lol im sorry

Eight hours at the library circulation desk made it so that your ass felt like… well, nothing. You couldn’t feel it at all— not that you were always hyper-aware of the presence of your ass, but you knew it was comfortably there. Like this, it was as if your body ended at the lower border of your torso and began once again in the middle of your thighs.

You couldn’t stand the idea of sitting once again to drive back to your apartment, scowling the whole way back and wondering if truck drivers could be paid more for the constant numb-ass they must experience. After all, you would want to be paid more if you permanently lost feeling in one of your body parts— a body part you were particularly proud of, too.

Once the door to your place was unlocked and open, you walked in with the most dramatic sigh and threw your bag aside so it hit a leg of the circular dining table. You picked up the mail Sam must have brought in, skimming through the mostly useless letters. “Someone could really shoot me in the ass right now from close range and I wouldn’t feel it.”

You looked up from the collection of bills, grocery coupons, and horribly written advertisement cards to see Natasha and Sam smirking at you in a bit of surprise.

You laughed nervously, sending the latter a quick glare. “You’d think that would embarrass me considering that you and I aren’t very close, Nat. But someone spilled coffee on me at the beginning of my shift,” you continued, pulling your jacket off and revealing a large brown stain down the front of your formerly off-white sweater. “So I’m all maxed out.”

She shook in silent laughter, her fingers tightening their grip around a pastel pink mug so her pale skin grew even paler.

“You pull it off well,” Sam complimented, a corner of his lips lifted in a playful smile. “Looks like a New York Fashion Week exclusive on you.”

“It’s an original from the Elie Saab collaboration with Starbucks,” you said with a laugh. “I’m gonna go change. You heading to Steve’s soon?”

He nodded, calling as you disappeared down the hall, “You comin’, too?”

“I’ve got an assignment to finish first,” you shouted back, shutting the door as you yanked your sweater over your head and threw on the first thing you could find.

You looked down at the clean sweater to see it was inside-out and sighed a loud, “What the fuck?”

Sweater finally on correctly, you pulled your door open and started down the hall again. “Why am I such a goddamn mess?”

“D’you have an unstable childhood?”

You snorted and rolled your eyes at Sam. “No, Freud, did you?”

“I’m gonna leave before she gets worse,” he told Natasha, rising from the edge of the coffee table he was perched atop. “The sarcasm, fake smiles, and general unpleasantness just escalate once she gets started.”

Natasha cocked an eyebrow the same shade of red as her shoulder-length wavy hair. “So you’re just going to leave me here with her?”

“And talking about me like I’m not here will really alleviate the issue,” you mumbled as you reached down to pick up your bag from where you’d thrown it, stopping while still awkwardly bent and raising your eyebrows. “Huh, it really does just escalate.”

You sat on the floor across from Natasha’s spot on the couch once Sam left and the two of you got to work, Natasha periodically helping you with your assignment for a general education course she’d previously taken and you doing the same for her.

The minute she cracked her nutrition course reader open, however, you raised a single eyebrow in interest and attempted to look nonchalant as you glanced over your laptop which was set atop the coffee table. “That’s the class you have with Bucky, right?”

She looked up from her book and nodded with a small smile pulling at her lips that had a natural berry shade, her green eyes holding a particular sparkle you thought you might be imagining. “Yeah. The one with the deathly boring professor.”

“Speaking of Bucky,” you burst out after a few seconds of silence, scolding yourself mentally for the terrible transition. “How’s it going with you two?”

She eyed you strangely for a moment, her head tilted slightly as she sat back against the couch cushions. “It’s going well.”

“Yeah?”

She hummed and looked down at her book again. “Yeah, he’s nice. Funny and cute, too.”

“He’s alright,” you said with a dismissive wave of your hand. “You’ve been dating for a bit. Any plans to label it yet?”

“Not really. It’s going well enough like this.”

You felt your heartbeat change. “You don’t wanna lock it down? Tie that sucker to you? Brand that ass with your name?”

She snorted, setting her book onto the table and shutting it with a black mechanical pencil as a placeholder. “Do you want me to brand that ass with my name?”

“I mean if you’re hitting it on the reg’ you might as well.” You nearly rolled your eyes at yourself hard enough to have them fall from their sockets. You didn’t think it was possible to sound more like a middle aged man attempting to recapture his youth if you tried.

“No one’s hit anything yet, actually.”

“What?” you breathed, clearing your throat and looking away to control the loathsome smile pulling at your lips. The selfish part of you seemed to be having the time of its life. “Really? But you’re both so hot.”

“I think he’s taking it slow.”

You traced the subtle frown over her lips. “Are you unhappy about that?”

She shook her head. “No, no. Of course not. It’s nice to meet someone our age that isn’t trying to jump into bed at the drop of a hat.”

“But…” you prompted.

“But nothing— it’s nice.”

Natasha always needed a bit of pushing. “You know, I’m not going to run off and tell him anything. I just like knowing things.”

She narrowed her eyes at you speculatively before sighing heavily. “But I want to get to it already! He wouldn’t even kiss me until after Clint’s party. And that didn’t turn into anything more than a teenage makeout session.”

Clint’s party.

There was another shifting in your chest and you pressed two of your fingers against the plush of your lips, tapping them there as if that could do away with the tingling memory of his kiss.

You wanted to roll your eyes at yourself, maybe scoff a bit and laugh ruefully— and you would have, had you been alone.

After all, Bucky wasn’t yours. He wasn’t yours to kiss as you pleased, wasn’t yours to have such juvenile and cliché complaints about— he especially wasn’t yours to feel such fiery jealousy and betrayal over.

You should have actually been pleased. You should have found joy in the fact that your half-witted, borderline-absurd relationship lessons were bearing such fruit. You should have been overjoyed that Natasha wanted more of Bucky than this stage usually called for. You should have been blissfully elated that you were one of the reasons two people you cared about so much were so happy together.

Yet you felt devastated. Completely and utterly devastated at the reminder that the guy you’d fallen in love with, the guy you tried to pour every bit of that love into during the kiss you’d carry with you until your chest mended itself, wasn’t yours.

Maybe the heavy impact of this cruel reminder was due to the timing of it all. Maybe it was the thought that only a few hours after he’d written his name across whatever blank pieces of you remained, he was scribbling those same letters onto pieces of Natasha. Maybe it was the idea that Bucky’s steps only grew lighter and more graceful mere hours after something that was powerful enough to send you to your knees. Maybe it was the fact that hours after something akin to hope blossomed inside of you, the leaves wilted and the petals browned beyond repair.

“I think he just wants it to be more meaningful, you know?” you asked, hoping she didn’t notice the higher pitch of your voice.

“Has he said anything about it to you?”

You shot off a quick text to Bucky, ignoring every unread message that glared up at you, and flashed Natasha a small, tight smile. You noticed the faint trembling in her fingers, your smile faltering when you saw her usually cool and collected exterior slip a little. “He told me he wants to build a foundation with you first.”

She barked a laugh, shaking her head. “God, what does that even mean?”

You smiled genuinely and shrugged. “He just wants to be totally sure and wants you to be totally sure before you invest anything into him.”

She frowned in consideration and nodded. “He’s either inherently a saint or someone did a great fucking job raising him.”

“Ah yes, the ol’ nature versus nurture debate.”

Though Bucky lived only a few minutes from you, you were always surprised at the speed with which he reached your place.

When you opened the door for him, you offered him a smile despite the intense urge to scowl and scream in his face— his stupid, horrible face that looked at you with features so gentle that you thought you might melt.

You opened the door wider. “Come in.”

He smiled at you in what appeared to be apprehension, fingers raking through his hair and tugging at the ends. “Listen, Y/N, we should—”

“Hi, Bucky,” Natasha greeted from where she sat, her eyes narrowing at you accusatory. “This is a surprise.”

“Isn’t it?” you asked, tossing your things into your bag and slinging it over your shoulder. “So I’m going to head over to your place since Steve’s been texting me non-stop about helping him with Greek myth. I know you said you wanted to do nutrition work with Nat, so stay as long as you want.”

Bucky’s eyebrows were knit together when you looked at him again, his mouth hanging open before he sobered up and gave Natasha a timid wave. He then followed you back to the entrance, grabbing your wrist before you could shut the door behind you. “I came here to talk to you.”

“For what? We talk everyday.”

He narrowed his eyes, slate blue an almost metallic shade. “We haven’t for the last three. I’ve been texting you, trying to get ahold of you.”

“Notifications are turned off,” you told him, waving your phone. “It’s midterm season.”

“It’s midterm seas—” he sighed out a mirthless laugh, shaking his head. “We still have to— We need to—”

You took your wrist from his grip. “We need to what, Bucky?”

“Talk,” he finished, a pink dusting over his cheeks and the tip of his nose. “Something happened here and we need to talk about it.”

“What happened?”

“You know what happened.”

“All I know is that I have to help Steve with Greek myth and Nat needs your help on nutrition.” You leaned in a bit closer to him. “She’s also kind of getting impatient on the physical front, if you know what I mean. So I’d get on that.”

When Bucky continued to stare at you in a mix of incredulousness and utter confusion, you sighed softly and shrugged a single shoulder. “You don’t have to feel guilty— what happened didn’t mean anything.” You paused. “Then again, you were using that classic Barnes charm.”

“I don’t feel guilty.”

You nodded and looked away from the shift in his expression. “Good. Well, it was my fault anyway. So I’m sorry. Sleep deprivation can really fuck someone up.”

“I should go,” you continued. You took a few steps back and gave him the biggest grin your trembling lips allowed. “You can use my bed but make sure to put a tarp down wherever your bare ass will be. Have a nice time!”

PART 10: BASIC FOOTBALL STUDIES

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[pixelenchanter]

Old Wounds (Part 10)

Here we are. The end of the story, or at least, this part of the story. Thank you to everyone who read it and gave me feedback and encouragement. There will be a sequel coming soon. For now, however, I hope you enjoy the ending.

Start  Previous

To the Sequel >>>

Marvin returned to his body and slowly opened his eyes. He jumped as soon as he did so, startled by the sight of Doctor Iplier leaning over him. “Jeez, Doc!” Marvin shouted, nearly falling out of his chair.

Doc backed up quickly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you, but you and the Host have been unconscious for several hours.”

Hours? It had only felt like a few minutes. “The Host speaks, reminding Marvin that perceptions of time are altered while in the astral plane. Hours can feel like minutes. Seconds can feel like days.” Right. That was another reason Marvin didn’t like doing it.

“Doc?” He turned, Marvin peering around him. Wilford was sitting next to Damien’s bed, holding his hand tightly. As they watched, a wave of gray rippled through his skin before color returned once more. “What’s happening?”

“The Host reassures Wilford, telling him that his friends will be alright now. Dark is simply re-merging with his host body.”

Wilford’s grip tightened around his friends’ hand as another ripple of gray passed through. “S-so they’ll be alright? All of them?”

“The Host nods, declaring that they shall all be fine, given time to recover.”

Relief flooded through the pink ego’s face. “Thank you,” he said earnestly.

“The Host states that he is not the one that Wilford should be thanking. Marvin did a great deal more than the Host. It was he that resolved the conflict preventing the re-merging.”

Wilford looked to Marvin, tears of gratitude shining in his eyes. The magician was struck by how similar it was to the look Y/N had given him just before he left. “Marvin,” Wilford said thickly, “I can’t thank you enough.”

Dark remained unconscious for some time after that. Doc kept a close watch over him. At first, he was very unstable, his heartbeat thready and weak, his aura almost invisible. Several times his body changed shape to a woman who Wilford identified as Celine.

As time passed, however, his condition improved. His heart rate grew steady, his aura returned. Then his shape changed again, but this time to someone new. Doc summoned Wilford, desperate to know who this new form was. As far as Wilford had told him, Dark was a combination of Damien and Celine. Who was this?

Upon seeing Dark’s new face, Wilford openly wept. “Y/N.” He said the name like it was a prayer. “He managed to save them too.”

Doc was confused. “What are you talking about?”

Will smiled despite the tears running down his face. “When Mark, my and Dark’s Mark, stole Damien’s body, Celine tried to save his spirit. It was too much for her, though, so Dark offered to help. She accepted, but she’d already used too much of her own energy. Her body couldn’t hold even her own spirit for long, much less Damien’s and Dark’s too. So when I...when Y/N got shot, Dark carried all three of them into Y/N’s body. I always thought that he was too late to save Y/N, but I guess he must have made it in time.”

“But I thought that Dark turned your Mark evil. Why would he try to save anyone?”

The pink ego shook his head. “Dark can’t create evil where it doesn’t exist. Mark went bad all on his own. Dark had nothing to do with it.” A ripple passed through Dark, and he once again looked like Damien. “Besides, Dark has changed a lot after spending so much time with Damien and Celine. They’ve helped him become...better. Not perfect, but better.” Wilford smiled again, drying his eyes. “It’s just nice to know that I didn’t actually kill anybody that day.”

It was several days later that Dark finally woke up. He didn’t say much to anyone, except to ask Doc how soon he could leave.

Doc folded his arms across his chest. “You got thrown out of your host body, which fell five stories, was paralyzed from the waist down, and nearly died. You have since spent the last two weeks in a coma, and you want to just leave?”

Dark scowled at him. “I prefer the privacy of my own room to having to deal with a concussed Bim Trimmer coming in here four times a day.”

Bim’s voice drifted in from another part of the clinic. “Hey, screw you, Dark. You’re the reason I have a concussion.”

Dark ignored him. “If I am required to remain in a bed for an extended period of time, I fail to see why my own bed would be any different from this one.”

Doc finally relented. “Fine, let me go get a wheelchair for you.”

Dark sniffed with distaste. “There’s no need for that.” He threw the blanket off himself and swung his legs down onto the floor, standing slowly.

“What the…” Doc was stunned. “You were paralyzed. There was a bullet fragment in your spine.”

“Doctor, I inhabited this body after it was shot and fell off of a balcony. I have ways of...working around certain injuries.”

Dark took a few cautious steps forward. He had needed to be careful with this body before all of the recent damages to it. Despite his bravado, he wasn’t sure if it was the same as it had been before. There were some things that not even he could fix.

As if reacting to his thoughts, Dark felt a sudden pain shoot through his left leg. A spasm passed through it as it gave out from under him. He fell to one knee with a grunt, a low ringing beginning to fill the room.

“Dark!” Doc knelt beside him, concerned. Carefully, he helped Dark back onto the bed. Dark’s jaw was clenched as the pain in his leg continued, without any sign of stopping.

Doc saw the pained look on Dark’s face, how his eyes were screwed shut tight, his mouth a thin line. Hesitantly, he reached out his hand and made use of what few powers he had. Dark gasped in relief as the agony faded to a dull ache. He opened his eyes to find Doc watching him intently.

“Are you going to tell me what just happened?”

Dark sighed. “I said I could work around certain injuries, Doctor. I did not say I could heal them completely. While I was able to restore the use of my legs, it seems that this had some...undesirable consequences.”

Doc snorted. “Undesirable? You collapsed in pain after walking four feet.” His expression softened slightly when he saw the look on Dark’s face. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure out what to do about this. For now, let’s get you back to your room.”

Doc extended a hand to Dark, who accepted it after a moment. The doctor pulled his patient’s arm over his shoulder so that the gray ego wouldn’t have to put weight on his aching leg. Slowly they made their way out of the clinic, Dark leaning on the doctor all the way.

I hope you guys enjoyed this story as much as I did. Thank you for sticking with me through all of it!

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[marinette-buginette]

The Star Wars AU No One Asked For

I've been to the Last Jedi last week and I sort of really waned to writ e a star was au for ML. So have this.  This is a oneshot, but I have a whole story idea developed for this AU. Shame that I don't have time to write it. But, if you guys want, I can turn it into a collection with more oneshots set in this AU.

If you would have told Marinette that her Jedi Trials would mean wandering around on some hellish planet in the Outer Rim looking for a mine of kyber crystals, she might have laughed and told them it was a nice joke. It wasn’t so funny anymore.

“Why the kriff would there be a mine on this swamp of a planet?” Marinette asked no one in particular as she tried to avoid the muddy waters. There was a small line of land that she was walking on at the moment, doing her best not to fall into the water. The last thing she needed was to meet whatever creature was living in there. Cause if her travels and missions in all her life as a padawan taught her something was that there were always some random, horrible and possibly dangerous creatures somewhere.

So far, this mission had been useless. They were on this nightmarish planet for Force knew how long (it was about two weeks, if her counting was accurate) and only interacted with the civilisation once, in the small town port they arrived through, which, as it seemed was the only place in this dump that was populated by somehow civilised species. At least she will meet back with Adrien soon. She let herself smile at the thought.

It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise that they were sent on their Jedi Trials together. Marinette had always felt as if there was a deep connection between them. Maybe it was because they both game into training later than usual, resulting in the rest of the younglings ostracizing them. Maybe it was because their masters were good friends, which led to a lot of missions together during their time as padawans. Maybe it was the Force itself. Marinette always tended to lean towards this answer. During almost all years since she knew Adrien, she had always been just hyper-aware of him and his presence. Even when they were systems away, sometimes it felt as if they were right next to each other.

(“What is this?” she was in her room, back in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, her voice just a loud whisper, trying to keep anyone from possibly. Her connection with Adrien is the one thing she had ever kept from her Master, Tikki, yet she couldn’t bring herself to feel bad about it.

“It is a sundew blossom,” he said with a smile. “They only grow here in Takodana. And they only bloom in the period where both the moon and the sun can be seen. I know you love flowers and look here.” he moved a little, showing her the vast landscapes of Takodana, the forests and the waters and the small field of flowers just next to him.

She was no longer in her room in the temple, but next to Adrien, looking at the beautiful sunset settling over the forests. She felt something warm in her hand and the next thing she knew was that Adrien was pacing one of the Sundew blossoms in her hand, closing her fingers gently around it.

“Just take it. And find something to plant it in.”

“Thank you Adrien.” she smiled fondly at him.

“Anything for you, Princess. Wait for me to come back?”

“I am waiting for you to come back so I can kick your ass again in dueling.”

He burst out laughing. “Of course. I can’t wait for that. See you soon, Marinette.”

She nodded. “May the Force be with you.”

Their connection faded away and Marinette was back in her room in the Jedi Temple, the sundew blossom still in her hand.)

He had always been more daring when it came to… no. Don’t think about that, Marinette, she chastised herself. You are on your Jedi Trials and you know attachments were against the code. She had to keep herself from such thoughts, no matter how much her heart wished. It would only end up ruining them both.

Just as Marinette reached solid ground, she fell to her knees, with a shout of pain. It was sudden, but it hurt as if… as if the pain of thousands just rushed through her. She tried to regain her breathing, but the pain felt almost like it was too much, shattering her from inside out. Her mind was screaming at her to reach for the Force, but it wasn’t helping her. The Force didn’t feel like harmony anymore, it felt like chaos. And when Marinette thought she won’t be able to take all that pain anymore, everything stopped suddenly.

It was… silent. Silent and empty in the Force. Marinette’s heart started beating faster again and a feeling of dread set over her. Something was terribly wrong. Instinctively, she closed her eyes and tried to reach for her master, Tikki. And to her horror, she could feel nothing. She knew she was in the Outer Rim while her Master was on Coruscant, but this didn’t make any sense. She could always reach for her, even if the distance was considerable, she could still feel Tikki’s signature in the Force. But now… there was nothing. Marinette knew she shouldn't panic, but she still did. She trie to feel Grand Master Fu’s presence, but again, empty. She clenched her fist and frowned, searching for something, anything that belonged to other Jedi but it was unsuccessful. A wave of dread washed over her.

No. No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening. She refused to believe they were all gone, it just couldn't.

Marinette!

She was almost knocked off her feet again when a storm of conflicted and chaotic emotions came over her. Of course! Of course, he was still here. Marinette reached through their bond, almost desperate to feel something, anything besides that deafening, cold silence.

Instinctively, Marinette took off running. She needed to reach him. He was close, she could feel it, but she needed to see him, touch him, make sure he was alive and well and…

“Marinette!”

This time it wasn’t through the Force that she heard it. Before she could even see him properly, Adrien crashed onto her. Marinette was pretty sure they would have both ended up on the ground if his arms wouldn't have wrapped around her and pulled her in a  tight hug, keeping both of them grounded. She clung to him, almost desperately, just wanting to make sure he was indeed here, his Force signature as strong as always and… alive. He was alive.

“Marinette, Marinette, Princess, Mari… “ he was out of breath, hugging her tightly and hiding his face in her hair. “I was so afraid, I… I… gone, they are gone and for a moment, I thought you… you… “

“I am here,” she reassured him, running her hands through his hair. “I… I am so happy you are still with me, Adrien… I… I don’t know what I would have done if you… “

They were losing themselves, their emotions and the Force felt almost unstable around them. Marinette was the first one to try to somehow get a hold of herself, despite the pain, loss, fear and confusion she felt.

“Adrien, “ she called softly, but still refused to let him go. “ Adrien, we need to… we need to…there is no emotion, there is peace.” she recited even though in that moment it felt like a lie. No, no, she must believe. She had to.

“There is no ignorance,” Adrien continued, still not letting her go. “There is knowledge.”

“There is no passion,” Marinette gripped onto him as if he was her lifeline. “There is serenity..”

“There is no chaos,” Adrien’s voice became steadier, his breathing more controlled. “There is harmony.”

They let go of each other slowly, just enough to but a little bit of distance between them.

“There is no death,” they recited together, leaning their foreheads against each other. “There is the Force.”

Marinette looked onto the fire, trying to keep her emotions under control. She already had an outburst earlier when they went to the spaceport only to find out that the Jedi are traitors to the Republic, which from now on was the Empire. She broke a branch in annoyance an threw it in the fire. What a bunch of Bantha shit.

You have to much fire in you, my young Padawan. You need to control it better, or it could be your downfall.

Tikki’s teachings came back to her, but it only made it worse. Her Master was gone. The Order, gone. And the Republic, their freedom, might have as well never existed. Marinette felt hot tears run down her cheeks. Damn it, what was crying good for? It brought no one back.

Marinette didn’t even realize she had her eyes closed until she felt a gentle touch on her cheek. Adrien was smiling sadly at her, whipping her tears away with her thumb, not caring about his own. Marinette felt the fire inside her dimming. She tried to give him a smile. it was honest, even if it was sorrowful. There was the who was counting any more reason why she loved having Adrien close to her. They had always managed to soothe each other’s furry.

Marinette grabbed his hand, squeezing it in reassurance. They didn’t need words for this, not when they had been connected for such a long time. Adrien nodded and sat back next to her, their shoulders brushing against each other.

“Maybe it is just an elaborated scheme for our Jedi Trials.” Marinette sugged hanging on whatever excuse she could come up with for this situation.

Adrien looked at her with an amused look. “You know my master, Plagg, he used to be over dramatic and extra.” there was a fondness in his tone. “But not even he would be able to pull such a plan. We are alone.”

Marinette clenched her jaw. “We can’t be the sole survivors, Adrien. We can’t. There had been hundreds of Jedi, not all of them on Coruscant. Some of them are still alive, they have to! Grand Master Fu couldn’t have been killed so easily, could he?”

He looked at her sadly and grabbed her hands, pulling her closer. “Marinette, I know but, I can’t feel them in the Force. I can’t feel anyone or anything, besides you, silence and coldness.”

“Maybe… maybe… “

Maybe what, she questioned herself bitterly. Maybe the Force is broken? Yeah, sure.

“We have rations for a couple more days.” she stated dejectedly, looking at untouched food in the field kit next to them. “We have to move,” she said suddenly jumping to her feet. “We can’t stay here forever, we need to get somewhere that is still safe for us and we also need a change of clothes and…why are you looking at me like that?

Adrien had a very silly expression on his face. He gave her a dopey smile while his chin was resting in his palms. He sighed, standing up. “It is just so… you. One moment you are grieving and the next you are planning our escape and what we should do to keep ourselves concealed.”

Marinette crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow. She had always been a little bit of a strategist. Or a little bit more, according to her master. She was still tormented and heartbroken, but she couldn’t keep mourning forever. They needed to get a hold of themselves and see what they can do to fight this regime. They might be the last ones, but she didn’t care. If…

“If we go down, we raise hell on the way” Adrien grinned as her. “Wasn’t that the motto of any mission we were put in together?”

“To my master’s exasperation and your master’s amusement.” Marinette reminded him.

At least they got that. They got each other and Marinette felt a warmth spreading in her chest at the thought. Because if there was someone with whom she believed she could fight against the Empire and the sith and bring their downfall that someone was Adrien. She felt a little bit of hope blooming in her heart.

“Princess?” Marinette glanced up to see Adrien giving her one of those looks she had never really been able to place. Or she didn’t want to… “Can I do something stupid?”

“Jump out of a ship midflight in the traffic on Coruscant kind of stupid or fight a rathtar alone without your lightsaber kind of stupid?” Marinette raised an eyebrow, trying to ignore the way her heart began to beat faster.

“It seems like all the rules we had ever known exist no more, so for the love of everything, give me permission to kiss you kind of stupid.” his tone was joking, but Marinette knew his heart was about to jump out of his chest, she could feel it.

Years after years, Marinette tried to deny that they developed affections for each other. It was against the code and it could lead them to the Dark Side. It reached the point where they were perfectly aware the love they held for each other was more than platonic, but they both refused to act on it. It was almost painful sometimes, the need to be close to the other, closer than allowed, but they had to control themselves. But now? The galaxy already went to hell, it wasn’t like a kiss between two padawans could condemn it any further.

“Permission granted.”

Warmth. That’s what Marinette felt when Adrien’s lips covered hers. A pleasant wave of comforting warmth rushing through her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, craving his touch and presence. It was affecting them somehow, she could feel the Force pulsing around them, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. What she cared about was that she felt… safe. There was something in the kiss, almost a wordless promise to protect each other.

When they pulled apart, breathing heavily, their eyes locked. There was no need for words, not even communication through their bond. It was something they knew for years now. The galaxy could burn, but they will be there for each other. They got each other’s back. And for the first time in what seemed the darkest hours of her life, Marinette dared to hope.

[calcdad]

What Happened™ with Artpop

Right so i’m not editing this i’m just going for it but try to follow along and if it’s a bit scrambled like do let me know but otherwise here we go

So like before I get started, it really should be known that this isn’t a conspiracy theory and the illumanati is super stupid and not real and not about this shit at all but really what this comes down to is a difference between an artist and a management team, but the way in which management ran things is very indicative of how sociological phenomena come into play when making such business decisions and it’s really interesting 

also a lot of this will be copied and pasted from my friend whom i elaborated on this with and slightly modified but i’m assuming if you’re reading this you don’t need much context for how much mystique shrouds the artpop era as well as the blackout era, which is a very necessary era to examine so that we can use tools from that to look further into artpop 

For like the last 18ish hours i kind of got back into gaga demos for whatever reason and found myself on youtube with all of those artpop conspiracy theories and “demos” and like eighteen different versions of partynauseous, the unwatermarked version of red flame (which i have and it’s like okay at best), and 70 pages deep into google later this is what i’ve really gathered 

Artpop’s failure was a flop because of sabotage by her management which she didn’t know about, and the purpose of the sabotage served to mark her as  martyr for pop music so that she could enjoy more long run consistent success like britney and not burn out so fast like katy 

Before going into artpop, look to Britney Spears, her elusive original doll era before her breakdown, and her life as a whole

In like late 2004-2005-2006, after she broke her knee and right before her breakdown, she was preparing for the release of an album called original doll. she even went to a Kiss FM interview and played the demo of the lead single, mona lisa, though i don’t know if she had permission to do this and people who are reasonable and not conspiracy theorists will tell you she didn't have permission and that's why the whole album was scrapped, but in 2004 she was one of the most powerful celebrities on the planet you know like that doesn’t really just happen to people with that power(?) anyways like keep in mind there’s no secret plot to kill these girls or anything, it’s literally all just about business

the album was talked about in i think a handful of interviews, was recorded, registered, etc, and just suddenly scrapped entirely, no warning. Like put on a “don’t ask about this” list, never spoken of again except for when it was remastered and put on the extended version of the singles collection in 2009, though there were edits to the lyrics etc that refined it from the song it was, which conspiracy theorists largely attribute as a foreshadowing of her fall, into something that makes it seem less ominous and more like “i’m the only one of myself”.

then look to her famous breakdown, note how blackout originally had a bunch of jazz tracks recorded for it (like let go, baby boy) and like it really isn’t crazy or wild for albums to shift direction dramatically like that indicates no conspiracy theory whatsoever. If anything it’s really just indicative of the fact that she was going through it and artistically she was trying to express her emotions but because she was going through it she couldn’t really like...do it with precision and stuff because she was all over the place and like this makes sense because she’s checked into rehab for amphetamine problems before, abuse of which can be required by pressing management to keep constant energy but also cause psychosis-like side effects which closely resemble her behaviour in 2007 but also like she’s recently confirmed that she has bipolar disorder and was likely not getting the treatment she needed! like, that’s normal, there’s no illuminati involved 

an important factor to point out is that Britney Spears has been a star all her life, and when she was signed on to be the songstress of baby one more time, she forever changed the boundaries that hollywood would have with women, and she was just the puppet for the idea. like, britney spears was 17-18-19 and on top of the world, SO sexualized when she was 17, and i’m sure to her she didn’t care because money and fame is promising at that age you know? but like the moment she was nearly nude on magazine covers when she was 17 and 18, it really gave photographers and directors the okay to gradually make younger and younger girls sexualized and poor britney is just out there living her career (which she may or may not have even really wanted as several interviews indicate)

But look further! She was harassed in interviews SO many times during her relationship with justin timberlake about her sexuality and she was a teenager! a young girl! Several industries, though it was clearly not their foremost goal, used the product of Britney Spears as a virgin to be deflowered before the world for our entertainment. What comes after she’s used up? that doesn’t really matter as long as she’s making the money at the moment

In looking at this, you really have to keep in mind that like...Britney Spears and Lady Gaga and Madonna and all entertainers are abstract entities of a sort. I’m listening to artpop as I write this right now, and those vocals on the track are stefani germanotta’s yeah, but like, Britney and Stefani are people off stage and when they’re out of the public eye. When you’re in nothing but the public eye for your entire life the way britney was, it’s not surprising to find that she might struggle with an identity crisis and wonder who she is at some point when she isn’t Britney Spears the performer. she isn’t stupid either, and i’m sure her current day activity is indicative that she’s reflected on who she was when she was younger and ignorant and she doesn’t want any part of that kind of a person anymore. Imagine living 25 years thinking you know who you are and then you realize that one day, who you’ve always been which is the person you are on stage, will some day step off the stage for good. you have to wonder a bit what is left with your life you know?

A N Y W A Y S britney had a great comeback from a legitimate personal struggle and like, she’s the comeback queen of our generation, but furthermore, her and her camp are guaranteed financial security from her product for at least another ten or so years. America loves a good comeback. We don’t love it enough to give her a #1, but she’ll scrape top 40 for the next ten years, and you know the clubs will never stop paying homage to her old music and poor remixes of her new stuff which isn’t even bad but is so clearly departed from the woman who went through the breakdown that it’s almost a new product entirely  

Set the stage to artpop: this was said to me by a friend of mine who cares about lady gaga much more than I do, and like, it doesn’t even seem that farfetched so i’m gonna copy and paste it here- "What happened was that her management team was pushing her to keep going after her hip surgery so she started self medicating in heavy doses of opiates and then her team saw the danger coming and saw the potential for lost money so they dropped her and left her addicted to opiates, a half healed hip, fibromyalgia and ptsd"

I mean, this sounds a lot like britney and her amphetamines to keep up energy for her workload right? But like, looking further, Lady Gaga had amassed a LOT of fame and power in SUCH a short time. This is a highly unstable structure in any discipline, be it economics, chemistry, psychology, or jenga. She was under a lot of pressure to keep surpassing the bar that she herself had raised so high, her hip being broken was awful, but also i know she’s intelligent enough to understand the sociological cycle of celebrities. 

There’s only one celebrity who comes to mind who can really handle being a public personality for an extended period of time the way these girls have to be, and that is Madonna. And like, that’s really why she’s around. She’s been at least 100 distinctly different people over her career because she draws a very clear, hard line between who she is as a performer and an icon and who she is as a person, and it is remarkable that she’s kept these two entities separate for so long. Her life is not always madonna the entertainer. She very much goes home, “clocks out” of being madonna, and goes back to a relatively normal life. She’s an entertainer as a job, and some of these girls become privy to the mindset of being the entertainer who they are, which can have sever psychological consequences.

Further, to again clarify the identity crisis that these people like, reasonably go through, is like “subliminal lyrics”. Like, i do think they put words in their songs sometimes, not because "it's the only way they can speak", but because they're so fucked that they really think it is the only way they can say something you know? Like these girls aren’t literally going to be murdered for speaking, but we have NO idea what is in their contracts and what they can and cannot say, especially in the stage of being massively popular but relatively new. They won’t die, but the legal or financial implications of fulfilling a certain image or product that the company wants to produce could be extremely severe that they could realistically never recover. This is nothing new, either. hollywood has always been like this and there is no reason to think that these girls couldn’t have gone through a similar position.

Do I think artpop would have done better if she hadn’t paraded around promoting it as god come to earth in an album? absolutely. It’s a phenomenal club album, it’s a glorious acid trip of a dance album, and she really should have just called it that. I do think that Artpop Act II was legitimately planned and she had such high hopes for all of this, but so much is also out of her control.

Personally, I haven’t really spoken to anyone who personally thinks artpop is as bad of an album as everyone said it was. Literally, not one person i’ve discussed this with thinks it was a bad album at all. Gaga herself seemed so...shocked that it did so poorly. I was shocked that it was received so poorly. Mainstream media ruined her over it, yet it debuted at #1 and was the 9th best selling album of the year despite coming out on November 6th.

So like, what I think happened is that her management strategized sociologically. They looked at Britney’s breakdown. Britney isn’t dominating top 10, but she doesn’t need to; she’ll always be relevant and rakes in 50 mil for an easy residency. Gaga had too much too fast, and the public is waiting to claw someone so perfect down whenever they can. Gaga could claim a couple more #1s and burn out like a shooting star, or she can tumble, come back, and plateau at 3rd or 4th consistently as opposed to 1st temporarily and 10th in the end. So like, i think that her management definitely paid for some of the reviews about artpop to be bad in order to get the ball rolling on such gamble. But I don’t think Gaga knew. Like, she split with her team during that era, so if they were going to leave her, they have no reason to tell her but also they could still profit and the gamble wasn’t with their own lives that they were playing with. 

the gamble of a comeback isn’t even a new strategy. Like, britney’s was organic, and gaga’s response was organic, but there have been staged comebacks.  Madonna’s initial stumble with erotica and her evita comeback were legitimate ones, but further comebacks with Ray of Light and Confessions were absolutely and meticulously calculated by a brilliant business woman who made waves and rode them like a surfboard to the top. What sold Artpop is Gaga’s dedication. She really believed it was a good album and was astonished when she appeared to be so wrong about how much the public would like it. And that drove her to work hard and readjust her craft.

And like, I do think that she’s looking back and realizing how ahead of its time artpop was. Look at that record as a business investment not so much immediately, but for the future. SO many songs we’re hearing today are reminiscent of the insane EDM that we heard on Artpop. Aside from the slight dip into hip hop and r&b brought about mostly by beyonce and adele’s respective presences, as well as the faux trend of country pop which is dying as quick as it came, Artpop is what is on the radio today. Mark my words and just like, watch HOW many think pieces will be written in the next five years hailing artpop as ahead of its time. Artpop laid the foundations for all of these DJs to make their mark on mainstream music, and consider what DJ White Shadow posted about artpop’s little sister. It’s a reflection artpop was never bad, and now is a better time moreso than ever to venture back into that kind of music. When music historians look back on music trends, i do believe Artpop will probably be one of the most, if not the most, important album in Gaga’s catalogue because it came out four years before all of this music and predicts the exact structure and flow of what is popular, yet at the time was deemed unlistenable, which, again, i do believe was paid for by someone in order to set up for something like this long-term business investment i’ve been describing.

What’s really funny to me about all of this, is that like, comebacks do not always work. Look at Witness. I’m sure that Katy will try to spin this as her blackout or her artpop but like, it won’t work for several sociological factors discussed above. First, katy took her place as first for a fast five years and i’m sure she’s burned out by now. People really are like...over her. Second, Witness won’t define, shape, or influence anything, as it’s all really current music specific to that period of time in 2016-2017. Third, the “breakdown” associated with witness isn’t authentic. Like, it could have been predicted a mile away from that comment she made at the grammys. The subsequent hair cutting and witness world wide and all of that stuff were management’s grasps at achieving the authenticity that britney and gaga had, and like gaga didn’t even really have a breakdown. The only breakdown that Katy is going through is like, realizing that she doesn’t really bring anything revolutionary to the table nor has she ever, even though she has records. She really was a vessel for producers and a record label to rake in the cash while she got to play famous for a bit, but she’s never stood for anything or really contributed artistically, and she wont’ be able to dig deep and “find something” worth redeeming. She has been manufactured from the start, but the tragedy of her is that you can tell that she really thought she was different and ahead of the game. The struggle for her will be for her to realize that she’s nothing that her team told her she was for ten years, and she’s gonna have to deal with that alone and it’s going to be really really hard you know? There’s nothing redeemable about katy perry. Gaga will be seen as an innovator, truly the top of the influx of pop girls in the second half of the 2000s all vying for britney’s place. Gaga will be remembered as the one with the insight, the foresight ten years in advance, and not some one off like fergie or gwen stefani. Katy did a little better in the beginning, but ultimately slow and steady wins the race. And witness was a gamble that producers lost on.

This was super condensed because I couldn’t get my ideas in order the way that I wanted them to be, but like TLDR: Artpop was a gamble by management in order to place gaga as a martyr who can bring longtime success and she’ll be remembered for being so insightful with her musical intuition and what she was doing in 2013 and the illuminati isn’t real but small businesses do shady shit with contracts all the time so is it really so unrealistic as to believe that they took a gamble on artpop when the cards where in their favour to do so with all of her potential energy from being on such a high pedestal? it really isn’t because like it worked sis lmao and that’s just how business works! 

[zeldahijinks]

Flock Together

 Part 8

[Previous Chapter] Revali/Reader Summary: Mitra, Thabo and Reader do what they must in order to escape.  Word Count: 3518 [Ao3] to read full story

Mitra looked absolutely horrified from what she had just done and dropped the rock as if it scorched her. You instantly picked her up before taking her near the door. You had her face the open door before grabbing onto Thabo, placing him next to her and told them to keep watch for a moment.

Mitra began to sob though, hiccuping harshly as large tears streaming down her chubby cheeks. “I-I didn’t mean to! He was- h-he was--!”

She was shaking uncontrollably, the imagine alone pulled your heartstrings as you cupped her face in your hands, “What you did was very brave, but it’s okay he’s just knocked out.” A little white lie wouldn’t hurt her...you hoped..

Her trembling barely ceased, but with a hard swallow, nodded her head at the reassurance. She rubbed the tears that slip from her eyes and held her brother close. You stood up and went back to work removing the guard’s weapons and clothing as quickly as you could. Before you removed all of his outfit, you took a moment to checked his pulse and felt a rock hit the pit of your stomach.

He was dead.

You looked over to Mitra, she was still hugging her brother. You bit your lip and continued with your plan in fear the other guard would be on his way back.

You motioned for the siblings to come over and when they turned around, they were confused. They were terrified the guard knocked you out, but the could see the way the clothes sagged that it was merely you. You opened the suit, “I need you two to hide under here. You cannot make a single sound, no matter what your hear.”

The small children climbed inside the sweat smelling suit and both of them, as comfortably as they could, grabbed ahold of your waist and locked their legs around your thighs. You closed the suit and began to waddle out the room, the sword banging against your hip and Mitra’s arm.

Looking down the hallway, the left side went down a slope and disappeared in the darkness while the right went up. You honestly head no idea which direction would be the best, but you knew the guard went to grab food from the left. Usually it would be wise to go the opposite way, but wouldn’t fresh food need an entrance to be brought in?

You had to take a chance and went down the left hall.

The slope was steeper than you anticipated and had to use the wall for support, The kids were weighing you down and strained your thighs as you walked. The throbbing pain in your head did not disappear and had actually increased, but with so much adrenaline coursing throughout your body you were only half aware.

So far, the corridor had unfinished cells like the one you were held in, the only difference were these ones did not have the brass door yours had. They had the torches spaced out along the walls and from what you could make out, it was for a good reason. Although these tunnels were newly carved out, it looked like they have not accounted for the roots of weeds creating weak spots. Some areas were unstable with signs hanging around cautioning, “LEAVE ALONE” OR “YOU TOUCH, YOU DIE”.

What a bunch of idiots, you thought…

“[Name]...h-how much longer-” Thabo began before you shushed him.

“I said not a peep.”

The tunnel went on for sometime before it came to a fork. You quickly slid to the left wall and sidled forth to lean around the corner to check for any guards. Hiding back, there were two Yigas wearing their masks but only had a towel around their waists. They laughed and headed behind a curtain seeping out steam.

You decided to waddle to the right and check the area, seeing a long hall fully lit and a lot more well constructed. There were no guards and with the hall stretching quite a ways, it was difficult to tell what was down there and how many doors there would be.

You sighed heavily and began to waddle down the hall all the while ready to use the sword. Mitra and Thabo began to groan about their arms and legs. You could only quicken the pace in hopes that there would be signs or something to guide you, but you wouldn’t count on it.

“[N-Name]...” Mitra’s strained voice whispered, “M-my arms are hurting…”

“Mine too…” Thabo sniffed loudly.

You grabbed the back of their shirts through the suit and attempted to hold them in place. It was difficult not having the balance of your arms as you waddled. There was a large double door on the right-hand side of the wall and down the hall stood an extremely large gate occupying the corner. Your heart stammered in your chest seeing it, but you had to figure out how to open it first.

As you walked near the double doors Thabo was slipping despite the hold you had on him. He was struggling regaining his strength and grabbed on to his sister for leverage. Which in turn caused Mitra to lose her grip and they both began sliding down. You were struggling to even stand, but Mitra was able to grab ahold of your waist again but Thabo’s little arms were just not having it.

Suddenly the double doors swung open, scaring you enough you let go and Thabo lost his grip, falling down into the suit.

A Yiga and yourself stared at each other while a large mass sat in the crotch of the suit. There a was heavy period of silence before you silently picked up the ‘lump’ and laughed nervously. “That’s what I get eating too much bananas…. the potassium just goes right through me... E-excuse me!” And you bolted down the hall, turning right and hiding behind a pile of crates.

You collapsed for a much needed rest, the kids sagging off to the side in the suit. You opened the chest area and fanned the overheated siblings. Footsteps were suddenly heard and you pressed against the crate, holding the kids close. That Yiga from earlier walked by completely unaware of your presence, but that didn’t stop you from holding your breath. You let a moment go by before you felt you could relax.

“[Name]?” Mitra inquired quietly.

You whispered, “Just bear with me a moment longer. I found a gate, but need to figure out how to open it.”  You looked behind the crate and saw the hallway entrance expanded to a large space. They seem to be using the extra space as a warehouse with stacks of crates in various spots. You saw tables at the far end and stacks of dirty plates further off. This must be the food court, you thought.

You noticed there were platforms running along the walls and leading up to the gate. There was a pulling system overhead that would open the it, but the trouble was finding how to get up there with no ladder in sight.  At the end of the other wall, there was a pile of food crates stacked up near the platform. If you could make your way over there and climb up, freedom wasn’t that far away.

The mask prevented any of the air to escape and instead trapped your hot breath. You could feel sweat soak your head and down your back. The kids’ fingers were digging into your tunic making you wince from pain, but you crept over to the crates all the while keeping aware of your surroundings.

As you started climbing, a sound like a horn blared and not a moment after, tons of members swarm the halls. Climbing up the crates was hard and difficult, and sometimes ending up elbowing Thabo or Mitra in the head. You could hear shouting from below, and you wasted no time and began fast pacing along the small platform.

The wooden planks shifted and groaned under your weight. There was sense of fear bubbling that these platforms would collapse  as the horde ran amuck. The vibrations rattled the platform further and you were cursing under your breath to stay upright.

Clan members were yelling and the noise level rose to ear splitting levels.

“Ghako’s been killed!! The prisoners have escaped!!” Another round of horns blared.

“Look for anyone that sticks out!”

Clan members ran from the end of the hall, coming out of the other doors and all you could do was press yourself against the wall and tried to stay out of sight.

They ran towards the cells and the other half split toward the gate. After a few moments, the gate began to rise and the few that gathered below swarmed out. Shuffling quickly, you tried to see what was beyond the gates. It looked like a ravine, tightly closed in, but you could see a pathway out. A sound of horses grew louder as they stampede by the door and out the path. You began to rush toward the open gate before your body couldn’t carry the kids anymore.

You sidled around a rock heading toward the open gate, but two clan members running down the same platform stood in your path.  Blood feeling icy hot and prickly while stuck in a stand still, you tried to remain nonchalant, but you still couldn’t help your fingers twitching over the weapon on your hip.

“What are you doing? You’re heading the wrong way!” One of them screamed, but the other grabbed them by the shoulder and pointed toward you.

“Look at their outfit…”

By those words both you and the guard looked down and realized you never closed the suit, and two little pairs of arms were fully exposed.

You wasted no time, shoving the larger one off the platform and slashed at the lithe one with all your might. They had jumped back pulling out their own sword and swipe near your thighs. You had to thrust your bum back, locking your knees and standing on the tips of your toes in order for the blade to miss the kids. The lithe Yiga continued to slash and advance forward leaving you on the defensive.

They were swift and well skilled at blocking all their openings, but you were beginning to see they would take a moment to swing upward. Timing it just right you swung for their side, but their blade clashed against yours, throwing you off balance. With Mitra and Thabo clutching onto you for dear life it was harder to regain your center of gravity.

But with an exerted twist of a foot, you sure would regret performing later, you spun around with your blade in the path of their exposed side. Sparks flew off the tip of the blade as it scraped across the rock face before slicing a nice sized gash in the Yiga’s abdomen. They cried out, clutching their side as they fell off the walkway. You fell against the wall to gain your breath, sweat dripping from your chin.

“[Name]?” Mitra and Thabo’s voice called out.

You hunched over, trying not to wheeze, but your lungs felt like they were on fire. A rumble of footsteps approached and you quickly held the suit closed. You thought about running, but your legs gave out at the very thought.

“What happened here?” One of the taller ones barked while they looked over the fallen comrades.

You could hear the children whimpering, and with a shaky breath, pointed towards the "kitchen”. “It was the prisoners! They o-overpowered us and ran off back toward the food-hall.” You wheezed, expecting them to leave, but the tall one just stood there while the other three waited for his response.

The tall one cocked his head to the side, “...We just came from the food-hall.”

“Fuck.” Was all you said and grabbed the kids in your arms, tearing the outfit in the process and booked it toward the half raised gate. Spears barely grazed your back and you slid down on a pillar perched against the door’s mechanism. The foot soldiers cursed and chased after you, one of them knocking the pillar down. The door was rapidly closing and you lurched forward as you tossed the kids out in front of you.

They screamed as they skidded outside and forced themselves up. Mitra and Thabo gasped aloud and called out your name as one of the Yiga’s grabbed your ankle. But with a swift kick to their jaw, the grip on you released and you rolled outside just in time. Their gate hit the ground with a loud clang, nearly deafening you and the kids.

Thabo and Mitra rushed over to your grabbing the shoulders of the Yiga suit and pulled with all their mights. You slowly got up, your body feeling the fatigue hitting you harder than you wished. The siblings began pleading for you to stand and you finally rose albeit some stumbling occurred.

You ushered them toward the path way and they were attempting to keep up with your staggering pace. “Don’t run so close to me.” You rushed out, nearly tripping on your own feet from how close they were.

Thabo’s face scrunched and turned red, “We won’t leave you!”

Mitra also expressed her concerns, “You don’t look well, [Name]!”

You wheezed, legs burning and sore running up the uphill path. “I am…” Another round of wheezing, “F-fine. If I slow down you must keep running. I don’t c-care where, just run.” The siblings shared a worried look, their own legs feeling exhaustion.

Arrows shot down by your feet, the kids gasped out of fear.

“[Name]!!” They screamed, greatly concerned.

“Just keep running!!!” You screamed, a burst of adrenaline coursed down your legs.

Another barrage of arrows shot your footprints and you silently curse them to the high heavens.  

You knew there was no chance of giving up. You couldn’t, they would just drag this poor kids back. Anger boiled in your stomach at the very thought of them turning these innocent kids into one of them.  

With a hidden burst of energy, you burst forward grabbing the kids under their armpits and towed them away. Leaping off a bolder, you bound toward across the dried grass plain, running around boulders and tall dead grass in order to lose any that may be following. The kids jostled about in your arms, but you didn’t care as long as they were safe. Despite the intense burning in your muscles you wouldn’t slow down.  

The terrain turned from mild dry landscape to grass fields. In the distant. you could see familiar landmarks that would lead to the castle of Hyrule and estimated it would take three days to make it there by foot. Your pace slowed from a frantic run to a even jog. The kids continued to hold on as comfortably as they could, your forearms digging under their armpits and rib-cage.

It was dusk, the sky a brilliant gradient of orange and pink hues. The air was cool with a mild breeze and you soaked up everything. The smell of the open air and the few plant life graced your senses. Tears of relief almost threaten to spill, and a bubble of laughter wanted to chime through. You bit your bottom lip, but the smile was too strong and you beamed under the mask.

You must have run for at least over a mile and you just couldn’t go any further. Your legs felt like they would tear from their joints and soon collapsed to the ground with Mitra and Thabo in hand. They sat up as you continued to lay there and just focus on getting air into your lungs.

Thabo chimed, “A-are we safe?”

You busted out laughing in relief, “Yes...Yes, I think we are.”

Mitra’s eyes glimmered with overwhelming joy, her little arms threw up in the air as she cheered. Her brother soon joined her, opting to hop from one foot to the other as he circled you two. Thoroughly exhausted, you smiled with little strength you had and watched the siblings dance together.

You sat up, groaning aloud and tiredly thrust one fist in the air in triumph. “And that kids…” You breathed heavily, “-is how it’s done.” They laughed before dog piling you.

Although it would have been nice to just rest here upon the cool grass, it would be smart to adventuring back or at least find a secure place to camp for the night. They kids groan, not at all wanting to move anymore, but you picked them up by the scruff of their shirts making them stand.

“Let’s go.” You ordered, too tired to care that you might sounded more harsh than you intended, but it was for their own good. You patted their shoulders and went to walk when a sudden pain exploded under your left clavicle.

The force where the pain resonated knocked you off your feet, skidding down the small slope you were on. You cried out, going to clutch your collarbone when you realized an arrow pierced through your tunic. Mitra and Thabo screamed your name and began to rush near you. With your good arm, you pulled out the arrow with a pained cry and then grabbed your sword.

You only had a moment to register another row of arrows coming down on top of you. You swung the sword as fast as you could, hitting away two before having to roll out of the path of the remaining shots. You went to stand up when a form appeared in front of you, giving you a swift kick under your jaw. You flew back with a gurgle of pain, unable to move as your world scrambled.

You heard Mitra and Thabo cry out in rage, “Leave them alone!!!”

“Get out of here, you stupid bird!!”

Bird? Your mind registered and went to quickly roll out of the way. You staggered, trying to regain your footing as you took in the stranger before you.

“Revali?” You cried out  in disbelief before jumping back as he shot another arrow.

“Do not ever speak my name with that disgusting tongue of yours!” He muttered out, trying to fend the kids off of him. He shoved them away with a look of confusion before he jumped toward you, attempting to swipe you with the end of his heavy bow.

You were beginning to panic, having to go on the defensive and running backwards. “Wait, wait!!! Stop!!”

Revali’s eyes narrowed as he drew his bow, “Your last request has been denied.” His voice dripping with venom as he went to release.

You ripped off the mask with great speed, ripping hair in the process, and the cold air shocking your heated face. You dropped the sword, your hands flying in front you defensively. Desperation showed in your voice “STOP, REVALI, IT’S ME, [NAME]!!”  

Revali stepped back, his eyes widening. “[N-Name]???”

You collapsed to your knees feeling completely exhausted. Sweat dripped from the tip of your nose and chin while your heart hammered away in your chest. He stood there like he couldn’t believe it, given he was still in his offensive stance, but when Mitra and Thabo ran in front of you, blocking you with their arms wide open, he could only give a look of confusion.

“Leave [Name] alone, you jerk!” Mitra glared.

“Ya jerk!” Thabo echoed, trying to look threatening.

He looked over the children before bringing his gaze back to you. You gave a tired, sheepish grin. “H-hey…”

Revali quickly made his way over, shoving the kids aside and held his wing out for you. You gave another slow smile and placed your hand in his, but you didn’t expect his wing to enclose around it so quickly and yanked you up.

Your face was smothered in his shoulder, his feathers filling your nostrils and trying to breach through your lips. Revali embraced you tightly, basically smothering you to his chest, while your arms suspended in the air at his side. His wing cupped the back of your skull while he pressed the side of his face against yours.

“A-ah, Revali, it’s hurts…” You muttered in his shoulder, lips flickering over his warm feathers.

He cleared his throat and pulled back. “Y-You must forgive me, [Name]...I…” He looked remorseful as he looked at the wound under your clavicle, blood beginning to stain your tunic and the Yiga suit.

He was here. He really was here, your mind tried to process. You rested your forehead against his chest, noticing he was wearing the outfit you bought for him. A smile forced its way on your face and tears of relief pricked your eyes. You didn’t realize you’d be so happy to see him.

Revali’s feathers fluffed as Mitra and Thabo stared at you two rather intensely. He shook your shoulder to gain your attention and you grew flustered at their unblinking gaze.

“Are you two.. You know.” Mitra asked, her fingers weaving together.

Revali and you choked.

[chokememrstark]

Requiem Of Memories // Part 10

Ship: Samifer (Sam Winchester / Lucifer)

Words: 2434 (Chapter 10 / 15)

Fic Summary: After their kiss, Sam feels very strange and goes to sleep. Still, he returns to Lucifer during the night and they have a rather interesting and nice chat. He can't help but wanting to be near Lucifer it seems.

angst, hurt & comfort, alternative universe, au!lucifer, mourning, depression, blood and gore, nightmares, loneliness

Note: I highly recommend to read Nightmares Become Reality before this, otherwise the premise of the story and the setting might not make much sense.

Tagging: @shebahda @sassysupernaturalsweetheart  @spnyoucantkeepmedown   @brieflymaximumprincess  @kajuned @archingangel @this-darkness-light @secretlydaydreaminglifeaway @humongouscandycoffee

If you want off the tag list or want to be added, just drop me an ask or IM!

Read on AO3!

It felt like an eternity that they kissed, but for Sam it couldn’t have been long enough, especially when Lucifer relaxed and actually kissed him back. For this short period of time, Sam felt like crying from the sheer intensity of emotions. There was something so painfully familiar about their touch that Sam’s heart ached when Lucifer eventually pulled away. It was like he lost something precious that he might never get back.

For two whole minutes the two simply looked at each other, Lucifer visibly shocked from what had just happened between them. The longer Sam looked at him, the more he succumbed to the creeping up horror and fear inside of him. His face felt incredibly hot while the rest of his body was freezing cold and his chest tightened so much that he could barely breathe.

“I’m so sorry, oh god....” even Sam’s voice was just a shadow of itself, crackling and pleading desperately. “I didn’t… I mean I did, but I didn’t mean to… I…”

“Sam, breathe,” Lucifer said forcibly calm. “It’s all good, really.”

“No… no no no!” Sam gasped breathlessly. “I… I shouldn’t have done that! I’m sorry, I didn’t think, I didn’t think at all… that was so uncalled for!”

“You didn’t stab me, Sam.” This time, Lucifer sounded much calmer and even smiled at the hunter softly. “It was a kiss, not attempted murder.”

“But it wasn’t right !” Sam insisted, running a hand through his hair desperately. He couldn’t believe what he had just done. How could this have happened? And why now, in this completely impossible situation? Sam felt so awful he thought he would throw up at any given moment.

“It’s all good, I promise,” Lucifer assured the brunet and laid a hand on his cheek. Sam looked up almost panicking, his eyes wild and wide and completely out of himself. Lucifer’s expression softened when he looked at him. “Maybe it’s the blood loss, but that was actually very nice. I already feel a bit better now. Apparently your saying to ‘kiss it better’ actually works.”

Sam could feel his heartbeat in his ears, his hands tingling and as much as he tried to concentrate, the humming sound in his head was overwhelming. A part of him wanted to kiss Lucifer again, but another part wanted to run away as fast as he could and hide in a hole somewhere for the rest of his life. This was surely the most embarrassing thing he had ever done in his life.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” Lucifer continued, his thumb gently stroking over the stubbled skin on Sam’s cheek. “You had a very eventful and rough day, maybe it’s best if you go to bed now.”

In lack of a verbal response, Sam just nodded. He could barely fight the urge to lean into Lucifer’s touch and it got more and more difficult with each passing second. When Lucifer stood up, Sam followed him immediately, the angel’s hand still on his cheek and his eyes still looking into Sam’s own, making it unable for the hunter to break eye contact. He could have stayed like this for the rest of his life and he wouldn’t have complained, even if the mere thought was hideous.

“You were really amazing today,” Lucifer said and, much to Sam’s surprise, leaned forward for another kiss. It was short and gentle, almost like a piece of satin brushing over Sam’s lips, but it had a very similar effect as the first. Sam’s knees became weak and he only managed to support himself by holding onto the other’s arm. He hadn’t felt like this in so many years, he couldn’t understand what was going on. When Lucifer broke the kiss, a faint smile decorated his lips. “Go and get some rest, we can talk tomorrow if you want to.”

Sam couldn’t answer. Again he was reduced to a weak nod when Lucifer retreated his hand. For a moment he wished that the angel wouldn’t go, that he would stay with him and that they’d talk now, but he knew this was a bad idea. He was exhausted and conflicted, his shaking hands alone were proof for that. So, instead of asking Lucifer to stay, as his first urge had been, he walked over to the bed and laid down.

Despite not thinking he would find any rest for a long time, Sam was out within a few minutes already. In the end, it had been a rough day, even if he wanted to deny it. Between the worry about Lucifer and their kiss, he had also met this world’s version of Meg and probably lost some of his mind on the way too, while he was at it. After all, he had just kissed Lucifer! Lucifer, the literal freaking Devil of this world and the reason it was in ruins. And still, it had felt so amazing, hadn’t it? Sam couldn’t explain why he felt so much bliss during the short touch of their lips, or even more when Lucifer had done it again . He should feel scared and awful, but he didn’t.

Sam fell asleep, but his mind couldn’t forget what had happened before during the whole time. He kept thinking, kept wondering what had happened that he suddenly felt the urge to do something stupid like this. Maybe it was just his sheer exhaustion and unstable state in the end, it could be. But why did it feel so good then? Was he really so lonely that he did something like this just to feel a little better? Or was he so relieved that Lucifer would survive and so touched by his words that he forgot everything else around them? When Sam woke up a few hours later, he still had no answer. His head hurt and he still had a hot knot in his stomach that made him want to scream, but he didn’t know what on earth had gotten into him to do something like this.

After laying there and staring at the ceiling for a few minutes - which was difficult because it was still dark outside - Sam slid off the bed. He stood there for a whole five minutes to decide what to do next and what he came to do was probably even crazier than their kiss. For the first time since he was here, Sam walked over to the door that Lucifer had said led to his own bedroom and knocked on it. There was no reaction at first and Sam was about to give up already when a faint ‘Come in!’ reached his ears. Slowly he pushed the door open and peeked into the room.

“Lucifer?” Sam knew he acted very intrusive right now, but he couldn’t help it. “Is everything okay? Do you need something?”

It took a moment before the darkness was lightened up by a lamp next to the bed, but when it did, Sam saw Lucifer sitting on it and looking at him.

“I am fine, thank you,” Lucifer said with a warm smile. “What about you? Do you feel better now?”

“Yeah, a little,” Sam awkwardly scratched his neck and looked up. “Hey, can we talk for a moment? I mean, if you have time of course.”

“I always have time for you, Sam;” Lucifer said and patted on the big spot next to him on the bed. “Come inside. I hope you’re not surprised, this room isn’t very luxurious sadly.”

Sam nodded and followed Lucifer’s invitation. He didn’t bother to look around much, even though he noticed that the room was indeed rather shabby and empty.

“About last night,” Sam began when he sat down, sighing deeply. “I’m sorry, really. I shouldn’t have kissed you, that was very inappropriate and rude.”

“I told you already that it’s okay and I meant it,” Lucifer insisted, still smiling. “You forgot yourself for a moment, nothing to be ashamed about.”

“I know, but I shouldn’t have done this.” Sam shook his head. “I don’t know what got into me, it just… happened.”

“And?” Lucifer asked, drawing Sam’s gaze up to him. “You could have done worse, Sam. What you did was worry about my health and you did everything in your power to help me, which I am very thankful for.”

“And I kissed you without your consent.”

“So did I after that,” Lucifer smirked. “We’re even. And now stop blaming yourself for every step you make, it’s not going to help you in any way.”

Sam smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He was glad that Lucifer wasn’t mad at him, but how could he stop being mad at himself for doing something stupid like this? It wasn’t as if this had been the first time, really, and all because of some flowery and charming words?

“In case you are worrying,” Lucifer continued after a moment of silence. “You are a good kisser, so I won’t say I didn’t enjoy it.”

“You… what?” Sam’s voice died in his throat and he felt his cheeks becoming hot again.

“I think you heard me,” Lucifer chuckled. “It’s all good, I am not mad at you and I am glad you were here to help me when I came back. This fight was awful and I don’t know if I would have made it if it weren’t for you tending to my wounds.”

“But… you’re an archangel,” Sam mumbled, a little confused. “Couldn’t you have just… healed yourself?”

“Of course,” Lucifer smiled. “But even an archangel can have a hard time recovering when they were attacked by three dozen angels at the same time. Our power is like a battery and if we use too much of it, we have to recharge.”

That made sense, but it was hard to believe for Sam that he had actually helped Lucifer. Maybe he assisted him a little, but he had freaked out basically while doing it.

“I’m glad you are okay now,” Sam eventually said, looking down at his hands. “Meg was really worried too.”

“Ah yes, Meg.” Lucifer leaned back into his pillow. “She’s a very loyal one, but a little reckless at times. I hope she wasn’t too mean to you.”

“No,” Sam quickly shook his head. “She was actually rather nice! I mean, after a while. Just like our Meg, kinda…”

“Your Meg?” Lucifer asked and Sam turned around with a smile.

“Are you that surprised?” he asked. “I mean, she was different and all, but their personalities are rather similar.”

“So, your Meg is a little annoying demon too?”

Sam had to laugh at this, as it was a kind of fitting description of the Meg he had known. The most fitting part being annoying, especially when she had possessed him.

“She was… unique,” he eventually answered. “At first she was really nasty and even possessed me, but she… kind of turned? I don’t know why, but she changed. After the apocalypse she was different.”

“What happened?” Lucifer wanted to know amused. “Maybe I can use it to help with mine too.”

Sam’s gaze turned a little sadder and his smile vanished.

“It ended,” he simply said. “She was on our Lucifer’s side when the apocalypse was going on, that didn’t help her after we jumped. Another demon took over hell and everyone who was loyal to Lucifer had a very bad time after that.”

“She’s very loyal indeed,” Lucifer said. “Mine is too. She can be annoying, but she is still young. Out of all my demons, she is the one who stayed most human.”

“Why that? Do you have any idea?”

“I assume you know how demons become demons? Souls being tortured and corrupted in hell, the whole ordeal?”

“Yeah, I heard of it,” Sam huffed.

“Well, Meg wasn’t like that. She died when she was only eighteen, suicide.” Lucifer shrugged at Sam’s surprised glare. “She didn’t even get tortured much. It only took a week until she changed and became a demon. I think that’s why she is still very human inside, there was not enough punishment to fully get rid of it.”

“Wow, that would answer some questions,” Sam mumbled. “Our Meg was able to show compassion by the end.”

“Yes, she can do that here too. But mostly it’s directed at me, don’t ask why. I have no idea.” Lucifer laughed awkwardly, something that made Sam’s stomach tingle slightly. “She’s a good one though, very reliable and strong.”

“She’s nice, yeah,” Sam smirked. “I like her.”

“I think you’re the first human she likes too, in a long time at least,” Lucifer nodded. “She told me what you told her about my other demons too, how they treat you.”

“Oh,” Sam’s face flushed even worse than before now. “I… I didn’t mean to complain or anything, really. It just came up…”

“No, it’s okay,” Lucifer raised a hand to prevent Sam from interrupting. “I’m glad I know and it will not happen again. You are not a threat, you are not a spy either. You are my guest and they will treat you with respect or suffer the consequences. My home is yours now, Sam.” Lucifer gave the hunter the most affectionate and gentle smile he had seen until now. It made his whole body feel warm somehow. “No harm will come to you here and this is not their decision, it’s mine and mine alone.”

“I’m flattered,” Sam said honestly. He was a little embarrassed, but that Lucifer actually cared for this matter was very moving. The angel was full of surprises it seemed, but most of them turned out to be very nice ones in the end.

“I am very content with you being here, Sam,” Lucifer suddenly said, which pulled Sam out of the strange mesmerized state that he had slipped into. “You are special and you are unique to this dying world and having you by my side is a new experience that I enjoy very much.”

“But, I’m just me…” Sam muttered.

“And ‘just you’ is what this world has never seen before - what I have never seen before,” Lucifer smiled. “You told me you were never born in this world and now look what it has come to. Your world is different, you saved it countless of times. Your world is alive because of you.”

Sam had never thought about it this way before, after all it was very narcissistic to claim that he was the savior of the world and mankind. The world wasn’t alive because of him, or not?