#worth of trauma all packed inside one human

[hopeled]

i just find it so funny that after what happened in lb 7 ritsuka's sense of self-preservation and danger is just fucked. it's gone. snapped in half. you die twice in one lostbelt and fight ORT and now everything is just ' yeah sure cool why not'

setanta out here saying demonic beasts have a better sense of it while tiamat is calling them a delinquent because they don't want to go back just yet because why not! why shouldn't they help a beast regain their authority?? what's the worst that could happen ?? human order is already blocking them out the counter force going after ritsuka is just a little icing on the cake. a little pizazz. a little flavor to keep going through the seven singularities of arcade spicy. nothing like being hunted by demon pillars again and beung cut-off frrom chaldea it's like the good old days!!

[loliwrites]

I. Tenacity | Edelweiss

pairing: joel miller x f!reader  rating: explicit, 18+, minors dni  warnings/tags: jackson era!joel, sharpshooter!reader, age difference [joel is mid 50s, reader is early 30s], joel lives forever fight me, canon compliant violence, no infected here just terrible humans, mention of death, blood, and murder, mentions of hunger, diva cup appearance, talk of irregular menstrual cycles [trauma-induced menopause][epigenetics], DUBCON/NONCON [tagging ‘cause reader allows it but true enthusiastic consent is absent], brief SMUT, unprotected p in v sex, female reader, no physical description other than a height difference, slow burn-ish, protective!joel, no use of y/n. word count: 5.6k series masterlist a/n: my first go at writing something tlou-related. be gentle pls.

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The steady rhythm. You could count the number of times your hip would be shoved into the wooden table with a high degree of certainty of when it would be over. Michael never lasted too long. Somewhere between thirty-four and thirty-seven thrusts. He was never particularly rough, and though he was never chasing to make you feel good, he was at least better than George and James – both of whom would probably be lining up after Michael was done. George seemed to last forever. Some old fart who’d gained his stamina before the world came to a screeching halt. He usually landed somewhere between sixty-two and sixty-six thrusts. The bruises he left behind always lasted the longest because of the sheer amount of times he slammed your body into whatever you were up against. A table, a railing, an old pool table with torn, dirty felt. And the worst of all was James. He may not last the longest, but he had the uncanny ability of making you feel like some depraved wild animal he was trying to break. He never took his time to make sure it wouldn’t be absolutely painful like Michael did. Nor did he have a pencil dick to make it somewhat manageable like George. He took it how he wanted it – fast, unceremonious, and always left you in a mess you’d have to clean up.

Part of you wondered if this was worth it. If the wolf was only as strong as the pack, then having a pack was supremely necessary. And though, these guys… and the group they led… weren’t the people you would’ve gone with by choice. A pack was a pack. Alone, you were an easy target for almost anything and anyone. Being together afforded you safety in numbers. Relative safety in numbers. Safe enough to have stayed alive with them for the past six years. Years that you likely wouldn’t have gotten if you’d fought them tooth and nail and went off on your own. Solitude could only get you so far. No matter how proficient you were with your rifle.

The one that lay in front of you on the table. Clean, well-oiled, with a scope affixed to the top. As Michael started to moan recklessly behind you, you thought about the meals you’d forfeited in trade for the supplies needed to keep the weapon in the best of shape. Times were tough – had been tough for a couple decades now – and a gun was a gun. It didn’t need to be clean, it just had to work. But this was no ordinary gun.

Michael came inside you with a strangled grunt and pulled out a second later. That was a relatively new twist in the routine. For years the men were careful to never finish inside you… or any of the other women in the group. Food and resources were scarce enough as it was, let alone adding little mouths to feed and take care of. But a few months back, you’d confided in some of the women that your period hadn’t been coming when you expected it to. And when time had passed and neither a baby nor your period came, you came to the conclusion you were suffering from the same fate as some of the other women. A hard life compounded. Trauma induced menopause. You weren’t sure which of the women had ratted you out. But soon enough the men had become aware of your new biological situation, and they stopped the frantic pulling out as they came. Perhaps that was for the best. Who’d want to bring a child into a world like this?

“Was that alright?” Michael asked, buckling his belt back up. His back was turned toward you as he reached for his own rifle, which he’d propped up against the wall.

You glanced over at him and pulled your pants back up your legs. Over the lofted railing, you could hear George and James mumbling to each other. “Fine,”

“Did you…?”

He finally met your eyes. Anxiety-ridden. None of the other men ever asked, but you didn’t have it in you to lie to him. At some point maybe it’d sink in that he should stop partaking in the act just to fit in with the boys. “No,”

His gaze averted to the floor sheepishly and he shouldered his rifle. “Guess we should get back downstairs,”

“I’ll be down in a couple minutes,”

Now you were the one to turn your back on him. Though you hoped he’d come to his senses and start to become a better man. You knew he wouldn’t. He was initiated into the system. The one George and James, and all the other men in the settlement formed. The one that meant they brought girls along on patrols so they could get their kicks and save face with the others that they were doing their due diligence in protecting the group. And you joining the group… well you turned out to be the little guardian angel for the women in the pack. Good with a gun, able to pick off infected and humans alike from a mile out. It only seemed natural that the men going out on patrols would take you with them. For that you inadvertently protected the other women from your fate. 

Michael cleared his throat and started down the stairs from the loft. You bit the inside of your cheek to show yourself you could still feel something, and – BANG! 

Your head flicked around toward the noise. What was left of Michael was splattered against the wall leading up the stairs. You grabbed your gun and held it poised. Looked over the lofted banister and down at the room below. George had backed up into the far corner; his arms raised in non-threatening compliance. Someone must’ve been pointing a weapon at him, but you couldn’t tell from the angle. And James, well… if it didn’t warm your heart a little bit to see him being restrained in a chokehold with a handgun to his temple. The man you could see, holding James, was tall, muscular… he had black, curly, jaw-length hair. A thick mustache. He was in all denim. And it was clean, which was the thing that caught you the most off-guard.

You lifted your gun, disregarding the scope, and looked down the barrel. James may’ve been part of your pack, but you’d thought about putting a bullet in him on a daily basis for the last eight years. And while these guys might kill you afterward, at least you’d have the brief satisfaction of knowing that you’d taken one terrible human off the face of the planet.

So there was no hesitancy when you squeezed the trigger. The round flew by the denim-clad man’s head and went straight into James’. He crumpled to the floor and the man who’d been holding him looked up in your direction, though you’d backed away enough to ensure you weren’t seen.

Your pulse was pounding in your ears. Despite two thirds of your life having been in a post-Cordyceps world, the sound and reverberation of your rifle going off right by your ear didn’t keep it from ringing. An almost concussion-like haziness emphasized by the adrenaline coursing in your veins. From down below, you could just barely hear George pleading for his life. Something about how he had a woman he loved and wanted to go home to. Strange considering he had his dick in you on most days out.

The ringing in your ears started to quiet, just in time for you to hear a footstep behind you. A heavy one. Definitely belonged to a man. But not in time for you to spin around with your rifle before finding the man already pointing his rifle at you.

“Drop it,” he commanded gruffly. A deep, gravelly voice. He was sure of himself. Confident. His tattered jacket bunched up around his shoulders. He wasn’t as clean-looking as his partner currently detaining George. Graying, brown hair, a prominent scar over his nose, a scruffiness… and yet, he still looked too put together to have been living off the land for any amount of time. You should know. God knows what you looked like had you ever taken any time in front of a mirror. If the dirtiness of your hands were any indication, you were a little worse for wear. “I said, drop it,”

Your eyes flicked back up to his face and you slowly bent over and placed your rifle on the floor. No sooner than you’d completed the action, he had another order for you. Kick it here and get on your knees. So you did. Nudged your most prized possession away with your foot when another BANG! rang through the old hunting lodge. Your eyes flinched shut; the nanosecond of thought that this was it. You’re dead. But then… you still felt alive. And you squinted your eyes open to evaluate. Yep, definitely still alive. No bleeding holes coming from your body, and the man still in front of you waiting for you to comply with his last order. Which you did… awkwardly. A grimace stretched over your face when you knelt down and felt your pants sticking to your thighs; Michael’s spend dripping out of you.

The muzzle of the man’s rifle never left you, “got anything else on you?”

“Knife in my front pocket,”

“Slide it over,”

You did. Quickly. Hoping that your quickness and willingness to obey him would mean he’d let you go with your tail tucked between your legs.

“You infected?”

You glared at him, “do I look infected?”

He cocked his gun and held it up in line with your head. You trained your eyes on his index finger around the trigger. Just one twitch. That’s all it’d take.

“Joel,” both you and the man… Joel… looked away from each other, and fixed your eyes on the stairs where the second one – the one you’d disregarded in order to kill James – entered the loft. “Look at her gun,” both men looked at your rifle. “I don’t think she misses very often. If she was gonna kill us, we’d already be dead.”

He went to approach you, and this time Joel spoke up. A cautious step forward, “Tommy.”

But this Tommy… he took another couple steps in your direction and handed off his rifle to Joel when he went to stand in front of you. You kept your eyes on his face, tilting your head back to keep him in your line of vision. Even if he tried something, you weren’t sure what you’d do to stop him, but at least you’d see it coming.

“I don’t think you missed me. I don’t even think you were aiming at me,”

“I wasn’t,”

A victorious smile spread across his face and he twisted around to look back at Joel, “see.” Tommy looked back down at you and set his hands on his hips. “What’s your name?”

You flicked your eyes at Joel quickly before returning them to Tommy to answer his question.

“You’re with the other settlement?”

“I wouldn’t call them a settlement,” your eyes flicked over to Joel when he clicked his tongue on his teeth and rolled his eyes. “Nomads, at best,”

“And at worst?” Joel barked.

Your eyebrows lifted quickly in contemplation before… “a bunch’a assholes,”

Another wide grin broke out over Tommy’s face. “You got a family or a partner in that bunch of assholes?” He waited for a verbal response but you only shook your head. “We’ll take her back with us. She might be able to give us some answers about our friends we’ve been seeing on patrol.”

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

They made you walk while they sat easily atop their horses. Some kind of cruel twist of fate that your own gun was turned on you the whole time. Joel made sure of that. Based on the way the sun fell toward the horizon, you figured you’d all been an hour and a half walk south of their settlement. Which as you neared the large wooden gates, seemed to be more like a QZ than some random encampment. And judging by the way the two men bickered, you assumed they were brothers. Only siblings could piss each other off like that and not take it personally. How lucky, you thought, that after all this time, they still had each other.

When you did near the enormous gates, Tommy left you behind with Joel. A precarious position. His face remained stoic the entire time, muzzle of the gun pointed at you… didn’t even answer when you asked if his horse had a name. You thought about goading him into an argument for the fun of it. Maybe he named his horse Princess. Or Spike. But Tommy interrupted again, riding up with a handful of others and even a dog. It growled and snarled in your direction, and you weren’t sure why, but you glanced back up at Joel to see if his expression had changed. Maybe you wouldn’t be so scared if he didn’t look like there was something you should be nervous about.

To your surprise, he was already staring at you. Upon meeting your gaze, he nodded once and jut his chin in the direction of the dog. “S’gonna sniff you. See if you’re infected. If not, like you say, nothin’ll happen.”

“If I am?” You cocked your head back toward the snarling animal.

“It’ll probably just take your leg off or somethin’,”

“Any chance this dog fucks up?”

“Probably not,”

And it didn’t. Thankfully. Hopefully this meant they’d trust explicitly that you indeed weren’t infected. They seemed to trust their trained animal enough to let you inside their settlement. Jackson, they called it. You’d never heard of it. Never heard of any rumblings of a massive commune. And yet…. It was gorgeous. Nice buildings, string lights, stables, a bar, dining hall, and in the distance, what seemed to look like a large, sweeping neighborhood.

Tommy had joined up with a woman: Maria. They kissed and spoke fondly to each other, so you assumed they were partners. Both walked ahead of you, while Joel remained at your rear. You figured with your rifle still pointed at you. Everyone stopped what they were doing when you passed by. All staring to get a glimpse of the newcomer. Would you be joining them permanently? Would they kill you? You asked yourself the same questions.

Your feet had stopped moving but you didn’t notice until you felt the muzzle of your rifle press against your upper back. Joel jabbed the metal against your back again, growing antsier with the fact that your gaze had settled on a teenager in the distance. She was staring at you, too. A fact that seemed to make Joel even more aggravated. He mumbled his annoyance to you and you got moving again, walking up the boarded steps into the dining hall. 

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

They treated you better than you expected. Hell, better than your group would’ve treated someone they didn’t know. They set a big glass of water in front of you with a heaping plate of vegetables, chicken, and fresh bread. The water was one of the biggest surprises. You couldn’t remember the last time you didn’t have to boil water before drinking it. Maybe when you were still with your parents. That felt like a lifetime ago.

Tommy and Maria shared glances like they weren’t sure what you were going to tell them. Considering no one else joined you, you figured these three (or a combination) held a great deal of power in the settlement. Joel, however, looked pissed that this was even happening at all. That he hadn’t just shot you on sight back at the hunting lodge. It was pretty easy to ignore him. You’d spent the better half of your time on earth ignoring men just like him. But then the questions started coming and you figured all this kindness came at a price. They wanted to know everything. So you didn’t hold back. Maybe if you were open and frank with them, they’d let you stay here. They wouldn’t make you go back to those awful people. 

Told them that you’d been with that group for the last eight years. And in those eight years, they hadn’t really expanded their numbers by any considerable amount. That they hovered somewhere between forty-four and sixty-two people -- including the three that had been killed today – and that about two thirds of them were men. You even told them about how you’d become a sort of fun novelty for the men. That they brought you along on their scouts because you were better than anyone with a rifle. Once they got their rocks off by watching you down game a mile off, they got their rocks off again, fucking you up against anything sturdy enough to withstand the weight and pressure. 

Joel looked down at his lap at that. Avoided your eyes. You took it to mean that he knew what that was like. Maybe he did the same. 

You shrugged and pushed the remnants of food around on your plate. Eight years was a long time to endure that type of treatment. You told them as much.

“You don’t have loyalty to anyone in the other group?” Maria asked, probing. 

“She shot one of her own guys today. Doesn’t have loyalty to anyone,”

Everyone’s heads turned to Joel. He’d since leaned back in his chair, almost nonchalantly. The gun that had been pointed at you now lay on the opposite end of the table. You thought you saw indignance in his eyes. Disdain for you and the plight he perceived you to be on. Scorched earth. Loyal to no one but yourself. Maybe that was true. Maybe you’d evolved to become highly selective in where to lay your loyalty.

“He wasn’t my guy,” you spat in Joel’s direction. It might as well have been just the two of you in the room. “He was the guy that killed my parents. So fuck him,”

It was hard to tell what they thought of you. Tommy was the only one who smiled freely. Maria saved hers for Tommy. And Joel didn’t smile at all. There was no talk of a plan or a future. No conversation about what was to become of you. All they told you as you wandered from the main street and down one cul-de-sac road lined with houses was that they didn’t allow anyone to have weapons in town. All firearms stayed at the armory. 

That conversation ended as they stopped in front of a small one story cottage. It was dark and rickety, and for the life of you, you couldn’t fathom who you were to be put into the arms of. If the house was any indication, probably some horribly untidy mess of a man. Maybe it’d be the type of man you’d wished you’d have your gun around for. 

Maria, Tommy, and Joel led you inside that dark, rickety cottage. Unlocked the door and flicked the lights on as they entered the living room. You kept your eyes and ears alert. Your awareness might be the only upperhand you had in sensing danger here. But you heard nothing. You saw nothing. There wasn’t another soul in this house waiting to attack. It was just you and the three who’d brought you here. They didn’t offer an explanation. Joel just stood back and eyed your every move carefully while Maria handed you a little stack of clean clothes, a toothbrush and a tube toothpaste, and a small cardboard box that held something you’d never heard of before: a diva cup. 

You looked up to give her an apprehensive glance but found that she was already giving you one. It was a look you’d seen before. When you’d talked yourself into joining that other group all those years ago. It was the look the women had given you before they realized you were about to become their saving grace. She turned away from you and gave Tommy a peck on her way out; not even bothering to acknowledge Joel.

There was a part of you that admired her. For the amount of power she clearly wielded over not only these two men, but seemingly the entire commune. And the other part of you was scared of her. She reminded you of your mother. A strong, domineering type who knew how to control the men around her. You figured if the outbreak hadn’t happened and humans didn’t devolve before your very eyes, you might’ve become the same type of woman. The type who could keep her men in line with a look. The type whose men would’ve quivered at the look you’d shot them.

The front door shut behind Maria in the same moment Tommy was handing you a key. You took it in your hand and ran your thumb over the cold, smooth metal. It had been decades since you held one like it. Surely even before the outbreak, people just didn’t hand over keys to houses for nothing.

“You can stay in Jackson for a month on a little trial run–”

“Probation,” Joel interrupted.

Both you and Tommy flicked your eyes at him. While Tommy looked annoyed, you actually smiled. Somehow Joel’s bluntness was growing to be comforting.

“Jesus, Joel,”

He shrugged, “S’call it what it is. Probation to see if she’s a problem and we gotta send ‘er packin’,”

“Appreciate you both not shootin’ me,” you said, you voice sounding hoarse. You cleared your throat and shook your head absently; a small smile passing over your lips, “would’ve put a damper on my day.”

Tommy grinned though his brother looked unamused at your effort of levity. “Someone’ll come ‘round tomorrow morning around seven-thirty to bring you to the greenhouse. Teach you the workflow down there.” Then off your confused look, he smiled again, heading for the door, “if you’re gonna live in the community, you gotta help out.”

Joel turned his back on you to follow his brother, and you were quick on their heels, “what about my gun? I mean, does everyone have their own gun at the armory, or…”

“It’s a commune. We share,” Tommy said over his shoulder as he tugged the front door back open. He and Joel stepped through the threshold, but your voice stopped them.

“It’s just that… I’d rather not be here and have my gun, than be here and have someone else usin’ it. I appreciate what you’re doin’, and your helping me out, but… to me, staying in Jackson isn’t worth havin’ someone else use my weapon,”

“It’ll be safe,”

Tommy’s voice rang clear and sure, trying to reassure you of something. What, you weren’t certain. But he continued on his way, and only once he stepped off the small porch, did you realize that Joel had momentarily kept himself frozen in place. By your front door, staring you down. You started to shrink back beneath his gaze, unable to discern what it was trying to convey to you. Anger. Resentment. Disappointment. The door nearly concealed you entirely before Joel got his bearings again and descended the porch steps and jogged to keep pace with Tommy again.

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

The whole thing was weird. All of it. Jackson was an anomaly and the more you tried to make yourself at home, the weirder it got. The house they’d just given you was definitely a pre-outbreak build. It was obvious. Some of the other houses on the block looked new. You imagined they’d smell new. Not your cottage. Scuffed up wood floors. Cracks in the paint and drywall. Even the wood-burning stove. And when you looked out the front window, out at the street, you saw children. Walking by themselves. Joking around. Not nearly on edge or high alert. In fact, you dared to say that they looked like they were having fun. 

You’d only been ten when the world came crashing down around you. Fun ripped out from right under your feet. The homestead you’d grown up on – climbing trees, playing hide and seek, shooting down Coke cans – once a safe place to be a kid, had quickly become something to be defended. As you found out many moons later, to the death.

At ten, there wasn’t anything to rebuild in the new world. You hadn’t had any worldly possessions to hang onto. When money became obsolete, it didn’t matter because you’d never had any. Perhaps in a bank somewhere, stuffed away in a savings account that no longer held any weight. Nor did you need the money to get by in life these days. You’d heard tales of the QZ’s from people who’d come from them. Escaped from them. They had a new type of currency. Not the kind you used to have. The green paper money with a bunch of old dudes on the front. The kind your family burned sometime in the winter of 2006 when the first freeze took over and you were sure you’d never get back to the old normal.

And that was what made Jackson the weirdest. It was the closest to ‘old normal’ you’d seen in over two decades. A whole town. Village. Commune, they’d called it. A formal education had stopped young, so the only awareness of anything commune related came from a book your father had about the Bolshevik’s October Revolution. And if you were being honest, it didn’t sound too good. But on top of that, how were you supposed to rebuild now? Maria had been kind enough to give you a few things, but there wasn’t wood for the wood-burning stove. And the electricity might’ve been working, but there wasn’t any food in the fridge. No sides of deer cut up and stored in a chest freezer. How were you supposed to get that in a commune? Did they have money? Did they barter? And either way, you had no money to give and nothing to barter. So how exactly were you supposed to get on in life?

Face up, staring at the ceiling, you laid in bed willing yourself to go to sleep. You’d gone to bed hungry before. More times than you could count. But usually those nights were accompanied by a dirt floor, extreme cold, the threat of being hunted. A million other things to keep your mind off of the fact that your stomach was growling. There wasn’t any of that in Jackson. Everything was quiet, almost eerily so. You were warm. And even though the mattress wasn’t the comfiest of things, it sure as hell beat the floor. With all these little luxuries, it was hard to ignore the hunger.

But even if you had been asleep, you’re sure you would’ve been woken by the footsteps on your old, rickety porch. None of the wood planks laid exactly right. All creaking with age and rot. Much like the world, you thought. Plus you couldn’t remember a night’s sleep that wasn’t disturbed by panic or anxiety, or just plain fear. Probably hadn’t had a peaceful night like that since before the outbreak. Now that creaking on your porch made you jump up and scurry into the corner of your bedroom. Into the shadows. Praying you’d had your rifle. Cursing the idea that you’d stay here without it. 

The creaking came and went in a steady procession. Four footsteps. A pause. Another four footsteps. On and on for a few minutes. Long enough for you to have gained your courage again. Long enough for you to have crawled to the front room and peek through the window. Long enough for you to see Joel Miller ambling back and forth on the porch, stacking pieces of wood, conveniently chopped to fit the size of your wood burning stove. What a stark difference from the Joel Miller who’d been pointing a gun at your head this morning. You went to the door and unlatched it, slowly pulling it open so as to not startle him. He came to an abrupt stop. An armful of wood. Staring at you.

He blinked a couple times in quick procession, gaining the wherewithal to move again. “M’sorry if I woke ya’,”

You shook your head, “I don’t sleep much.”

Joel nodded and set the armful of wood on top of the rest. He wiped his hands on the back of his jeans, almost sheepishly. “Winter comes up on us pretty quick here. Insulation in this place is for the birds. Figured you’d need some wood for the stove.”

“Oh,”

“I cleaned out the flue a couple months back so you shouldn’t smoke yourself out,”

Lips pursed together, you pondered the stack of wood nestled up against the cottage. “I don’t think I’m gonna stay. Doesn’t seem like this is the right place for me,”

Joel didn’t have a response for you, just looked down at his feet and kicked at a nonexistent something on the porch.

“That gun–my gun. My dad gave it to me in 2003. September 26th,”

Joel’s eyes flicked back to yours. Pain riddled in his gaze as if he remembered that date all too well. And when it vanished, the coldness you’d first noticed in the hunting cabin returned.

“It’s all I have left. And as ridiculous as it sounds to be so attached to a rifle, I am. And I–”

“It doesn’t sound ridiculous,” he interrupted. Just when you thought he’d continue on and show a little more softness, kindness… he kept speaking, “Look, I don’t care if you stay or go. Don’t need stragglers hangin’ ‘round. So I’d love to give you your gun back and dump ya’ out past the gate. But Tommy’s always been a little stupid. Takes chances on people,”

“What an idiot,” you smirked.

A smile flashed over Joel’s face. It was gone in a second. And he turned away from you, descending the porch steps. “He’ll bring you to the greenhouse. Teach’ya how things operate, and…” he took a deep breath. Something almost like fondness erupted in his tone, “you might not wanna stay, but don’t fuck things up there for the rest of us. We got families here. And we’ll need the resources to get through the winter.”

“You think I’d fuck things up on purpose?”

Joel looked over his shoulder and nodded, “yeah. ‘Cause I’ve been in your spot before and I did.”

He continued on and you stayed put on your porch, watching him until he was out of sight. Wondering where the house he was given was. If he was alone, or if he had some sort of partner living with him. But also figured you’d never get the chance to know. 

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

“We get most of our roughage and root vegetables in the colder months. There’s a constant harvest to keep up with the community’s needs, but some of these aren’t hearty enough to withstand the winter. Even inside the greenhouse,”

You nodded dutifully behind Wendy. At least you think that was the name Tommy mumbled as he was being dragged out of the greenhouse by Joel. Something about being late for patrol and not wanting to spend all day on some godforsaken cliffside. She’d just got done showing you the strawberry vines. The lifeless things that she assured you would spring to life when the warmer weather came back.

The work was easy enough. Boring. Nothing you hadn’t already done on your family’s land as a teenager. Only this was on a much smaller scale. Maybe most of these people had come from QZs. And maybe before that they came from big cities. Places where they never knew where their food came from. That it just somehow appeared in their groceries. Yet, by current standards… of canned things from yesteryear, the greenhouse was a bit of a spectacle. Something beautiful.

Wendy continued on her well-practiced lecture about potatoes as you got lost roaming the rows of plants. Up and down each long, leafed path. Fingers gliding over them, not taking the time to stop and acknowledge any plant in particular. Until, in the absence of your thought, your fingers brushed over something woolly. Pulling your hand back, you focused in. There, just beyond your fingertips, a tray of small white flowers. The petals, less like blossoms, but more like leaves. And woolly. Fuzzy. Unlike anything you’d ever seen.

“What’re these?” Eyes still locked onto your discovery, you hadn’t fully comprehended that you’d interrupted Wendy’s spiel.

And yet when she came upon you, there was no ill will or annoyance from her. Just her gentle hand on your shoulder. “It’s edelweiss,” she smiled and shrugged her shoulders when her answer had you giving her a questioning glance. “It’s usually up in the Alps. In the middle of nowhere. Jesse came back from patrol one day ‘bout a year ago with a handful of these plucked up from the root. No idea how they ended up in Wyoming.” Wendy brushed her fingers over the fuzzy leaves.

“How’d you know what they were?”

“Call it coincidence or divine intervention, my grandfather had an oil painting of them above his fireplace in the eighties. When he was stationed in Germany during the war, he’d heard all these stories about this little star-shaped flower. Soldiers would climb high up into the mountains to find them. They grow in the harshest places, sometimes even right on rocks. The journey to get them was hard. A lot of guys didn’t finish the trip, but if they did, they got to pin one of these to their uniforms. A symbol of true bravery,”

You admired the flowers again. Now even a smile crossed your face.

Wendy let out an exasperated sigh, “and I figured, hell… if they can survive on the top of the Alps and in this nightmare of an apocalypse, Jesse finding ‘em wasn’t no mistake. Maybe we’re lucky here in Jackson.”

[untaemedqueen]

At Your Service

Escort!Jeongguk x CEO!Reader

Genre: Strangers to Lovers!AU, Angst, Fluff, Smut

Chapter 11.

Series Warnings (Will Be Updated): Angst, Fluff, Cold Heartedness, Emotional Trauma, Healing, Smut, Dark Humor

"Did you pack enough stuff in your bag?" Jeongguk inquires, tilting his head to look at you as he drives your car towards his apartment.

"Yes," you reply with a laugh.

"Enough stuff to last a lifetime?" he jeers with a soft smile.

You packed enough clothes for multiple days even if your brain was screaming at you to be reasonable but with Guk you can't really help it.

He was so excited to take you home with him that you didn't even feel human, you felt as if you were a beautiful piece of art or the sweetest pet known to man. So when he finally got you in the car to go stay with him at his apartment, you too felt overjoyed.

"Taehyung and Jimin are gonna come over later, I promised to cook them dinner," the escort announces, pulling up to his block.

You've heard so much about his two friends while laying beside one another that it almost makes you feel nervous about meeting them. Which is a feeling you're certainly not used to.

"What if they don't like me?" you find yourself asking as he parks the car.

When he shuts off the engine, he tilts his head towards you, eyebrow cocked with a disbelieving expression. "Why would they not like you? You're incredible, baby."

The compliment sends your stomach coiling and your mind reeling instantaneously. But you're pulled back to reality when his soft, warm hand coasts over your cheek sweetly.

"Well my personality isn't for everyone and what if--"

"Baby," Jeongguk cuts you off sweetly, leaning in just the smallest bit closer, "your personality is astounding. Jimin and Tae can be idiots but they would never treat you wrongly. They know how much this means to me, how much you mean to me. They're going to love you."

You've always been under the impression that the sudden romantic relationship you've entered has had a profound impact on the handsome escort but it's never really sunk in until now.

You mean something to this man.

Strangely, it doesn't put you off of him for a second. You want to get to know him more, you want more of these talks and more of these feelings.

You're for once willing to open up to someone and let them in.

Fuck being scared and cold, you're personality is basically rewriting itself with every earnest word he speaks and you're in love with that notion.

"Ready?" Guk asks, grabbing your bag from the backseat and pulling it over the middle console.

"Yes," you reply sweetly.

You're ready for pretty much anything now, Jeongguk is absolutely worth it.

The apartment building the escort lives in is simple but you find it apt for him and his personality. The hallways are lined with cream wallpaper that have tiny lines decorating them vertically that somehow makes it feel homey and comfortable. The sconces on the walls are simple pewter and the light they give off is just the slightest bit yellow which compliments the wallpaper and the dark gray carpet underfoot.

The escort looks in his element here, slinging your expensive bag over his shoulder he glides down the hallway with confidence. To see someone in their own home is usually the most eye opening thing, you can see their comfort level, what they like, how they act in a place of their own.

For you, your mansion was never really home so you aren't sure what people can see about you when you're inside of it.

Guk whistles a sweet tune that carries through the stagnant air as he rounds the corner of the hall and he slings his arm over your shoulders with a smirk. "4D, this is us."

Us.

You aren't sure if he plans out the things that he's going to say or if he really is just the sweetest, smoothest person of all time.

"Brace yourself," he whispers happily.

Your body goes almost rigid on his command, hearing nail scratches behind the front door of his apartment.

"He's a big dude," the escort whispers, putting the key in the lock.

"Hawking, step back," Jeongguk calls through the door with a laugh.

When he cracks the door open, you can see the huge door excitedly wagging his tail, hoping to welcome his owner home.

"We have a guest!" Guk cheers, stepping inside the apartment and waiting for you with a smile.

When you step inside the large black great dane is up to your waist and he's not paying a lick of attention to you as he runs around his owner happily greeting him home.

When the escort laughs vibrantly, crouching down to accept the love, your heart flutters sweetly inside of your chest. He looks up at you with his soft doe eyes and you immediately feel warmth spreading through your limbs like a drug.

"Look! Isn't daddy's girlfriend so pretty?" Guk coos, standing up tall.

Your skin raises goosebumps at the simple word and you're taken aback by how naturally it rolls off his tongue.

"Hi Hawking," you whisper, petting the top off his head.

"You are my girlfriend, right? I'd hate to lie to man's best friend," the escort quips, setting down your bag on the couch.

Hawking licks your hand sweetly and you want to just sit down beside him and hold him for days, he looks up at you so sweetly that it makes you feel like mush.

When you have a chance to look around the apartment you notice how completely clean it is. There's not a piece of dust or a crumb anywhere in sight. Not to mention how bright and open it is with all the windows around.

The escort has comfortable furniture and the house feels more lived in, something you would never feel in the dark mansion you own.

"Sit down," your boyfriend insists, throwing himself down on the couch.

He opens his arms, narrowing his eyes at Hawking who tries to jump on the couch before you.

You can tell that you're moving awkwardly already, especially when your muscles strain awkwardly to sit down.

The escort can tell almost immediately how uncomfortable you are and he tries to help by running a soothing hand over your exposed thigh.

"What do you want me to make for dinner?" he inquires, brushing some hair back behind your ear.

The question distracts you and suddenly you're too concerned with your thoughts that you sag comfortably against him and the couch.

"I can just order something for all of us," you suggest, looking over at him.

He shakes his head, groaning loudly when his large dog jumps on the couch and lays their weight on him.

"You're not a Yorkie, buddy. Jesus!" he wheezes, petting Hawking as he lays his head over your lap.

"He's really cute," you whisper, smiling down at him.

"The guys like it," Guk announces, stretching his legs out and putting them atop his coffee table.

Raising an eyebrow, you tilt your head to look at him in confusion.

"Jimin and Taehyung," he clarifies, kissing your cheek, "they like my cooking."

"I didn't know you cook," you reply, allowing him to pull you closer.

"I love cooking. Hopefully you'll enjoy it too. I'll even make you dessert," the escort whispers, winking.

"What kind?" you inquire innocently, looking around the living room.

"Somethin' real tasty," he answers, slapping your inner thigh just hard enough to produce a sting that makes you suck a shallow breath between your teeth.

"How does Coq au Vin sound?" your boyfriend asks, combing his fingers through his hair.

"If you can make that, sure," you whisper, running your hand over Hawking's head when he begins to doze off on your lap.

"Oh, baby, I can make anything," he promises, sliding his dog off his lap to get up.

Being in this apartment with this man makes you really feel like this is something that you can get used to.

You can already feel yourself opening up, you want to experience these things again even if you fight it every step of the way.

Jeongguk is not Jasper.

He's not out to hurt you.

You keep reminding yourself over and over again but it isn't as easy as just berating yourself for being so closed off.

The apartment smells simply divine, the aroma of red wine and perfectly cooked vegetables permeate the air wonderfully.

Jeongguk truly is amazing at everything.

The gentle pop music that echoes throughout the apartment and the sight of your handsome man cooking dinner has allowed you to relax to the fullest extent possible.

Currently, you're lying long ways on the large black couch with Hawking beside you. For such a big dog he truly is incredibly gentle.

The escort moves with such grace around his kitchen. Even though it's small and cozy, he makes it seem like he's in a restaurant.

Jeongguk hums melodically to the current song that plays, bringing a spoon coated in the stew liquid to his mouth.

You watch with rapt fascination as he enters the spoon past his lips and he nods to himself before grabbing the pepper and eyeballing more into the pot.

Hawking licks at your elbow for attention and you realize you've stopped paying attention to anything else. You're enraptured with the shirtless man making you dinner in his apartment.

You give a kind smile to the dog, going back to mindlessly petting him.

When Jeongguk claps, you tilt your head to watch his arm muscles flex and contort with the movement.

After putting the pot in the oven, he turns his head to look at you only to realize you've been staring for quite some time. He smiles widely at the sight of your innocent eyes and he winks at you fof good measure.

"What do you think?" he asks, holding up two different bottles of red wine.

"The Marquise is good for deep dishes like this one," you reply, pointing to the left bottle.

"Perfect," he smiles, setting down the left one and grabbing the wine opener for the right one.

This is so domestic.

You would never think that this is something you would be doing on a random Thursday.

Your boyfriend brings over a glass for you, filled perfectly to the curve of the glass.

"My dad used to be a line cook so I know some stuff about cheffing it up," Guk says, handing you the glass.

"It smells amazing!" you reply earnestly.

He lifts your ankles, sitting down at the end of the couch and narrowing his eyes playfully at his dog who simply lays his head on your breast lazily.

"You can change and get comfy y'know, you look too good in that expensive dress to be sitting on a couch covered in dog hair," your boyfriend offers, running his fingers thoughtlessly over your calf.

"I wanna make a good first impression," you avow, taking a sip of the wine.

It's the truth, really. Jimin and Taehyung are probably incredibly protective of him. They helped him through everything with Chloe, it's only right that they have their reservations about you.

Hell, you even have reservations about you.

"Just be yourself and they're going to love you," Guk promises, angling himself closer to you.

You set the wine down on the coffee table, letting the pop you don't normally listen to wrap you in a comforting blanket of melodic tones.

"Y'know," your boyfriend breathes, smirking wickedly at you, "I can always get you naked and make you change."

You laugh softly, adoring how his mocha orbs become lustfully playful at the drop of a hat.

"Oh really?" you counter, knowing full well that Hawking is so large that there wouldn't be any way to do anything sexual.

"Mhm," he cajoles, clicking his teeth sharply, "Hawk, get down, bud."

The dog heeds his owners words, jumping off and over the arm of the couch easily.

Okay.

An oversight on your part.

"Uh," you breathe, looking at the door.

The escort slides between your thighs and he notches an eyebrow at your flustered expression. "They don't have a key."

He kisses up what is exposed on your thighs and you can simply only squirm lustfully under his touch.

"Lemme give you your dessert before dinner," he mumbles against your skin.

Your fingers card through his long black locks and right when you reach the apex of your thighs, the door's lock begins to open.

Guk is so flustered by the loud noise that he recoils so fast from you he almost pulls a muscle in his neck.

"Oh honey, we're home!" Jimin yells, thrusting the door open.

You look up wide eyed, slowly closing your knees and the older man immediately knows he's intruded upon something.

"What're you crazy kids doin'?" he guffaws, clearly not bothered by the flustered sight of you both.

"Where did you get a key?!" Jeongguk gasps, tossing the throw blanket on the top of the couch over your legs.

Taehyung steps inside politely, nodding his salutations to you.

"You should really keep track of your belongings, Gukkie. I took your spare when we were here last time! You should be grateful. What if you end up choking one day and I'm the only one that can save you," Jimin replies happily, pouring himself a glass of wine.

"Seems like he was about to be choking on something else," Taehyung muses with a smirk, giving you a once over.

"This is Taehyung and Jimin," your boyfriend whispers softly, extending a hand from one to the other.

Oh.

This evening is going to be interesting.

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[henryobsessed]

The Veterinarian and the Werewolf - Chapter 8

Word Count: 1879

Warning: trigger - hunting, and demeaning verbal abuse.

A/N thanks again to my beautiful @sillyrabbit81 for your editing and @amberangel112 for your encouragement.

Chapter 8

Henry could not understand why Jessie was still considering going out with this jerk. He huffed at Joe’s words and was pleasantly surprised at Tom’s reaction. Pleased to have someone in his corner, he nuzzled into the young man’s arms. It felt nice, an odd feeling of loss and regret pulled at his soul. He hadn’t seen his nephew in five years, he would be fifteen years old now four years younger than Tom. Memories of their last time together flooded his mind, the feel of his hands running through his fur. Even then he had refused to change, sadly his nephew had never known him in Human form.

The packhouse was large, made of local stone it would be considered menacing to outsiders. But for those invited in, it was a house filled with love. They had found Henry and his nephew Adam just outside their forest line, half-starved, dehydrated and desperate for care. The pack doctor had tended to Henry whilst one of the pack's mothers had shared her milk with the little pup. Adam had captured the mother’s heart and at Henry’s approval had adopted him into the pack. Henry had grieved the loss of his only kin but been so grateful to them. He knew he could not look after the little one, not with his heartbroken in pieces.

Over the next ten years, he had come and gone from the house checking up on Adam, watched as he grew strong, not only physically, but emotionally he had developed into a beautiful soul. Their last time together they had sat just like he was now with Tom. He had curled up next to Adam, his head in his lap, Adams fingers running through his fur. “I wish you could change for me Uncle, I see all the other dads and sons playing together and I love the idea that when I change next year we can run together. Then I can finally talk to you and hear your voice back. But I want to know what you look like, to be able to hug you like I see that others hug their dads.” His face had added to Henry’s grief looking so heartbroken and longingly at him. He had tried at that moment, had attempted to honour his request but his human side was so lost, hidden in pain. He had left the house that day, knowing even if it broke his heart, he needed to let his nephew grow with his new pack and not be held back by him.

Now nestled against Tom he regretted that decision. He heard a chuckle soft and happy. “Well look at you two. I would never have guessed Wolfy could be so comfortable with another human. I haven’t seen him like that with anyone except with me. What’s your secret Tom?” Her bright eyes landed on Tom who had continued to scratch behind Henry’s ears.

“I don’t know Miss Jessie, but I have always loved wolves, well any kind of animal really but especially wolves.”

She seemed thoughtful as she eyed them both making Henry wonder what she had planned. “Tom, are you free tonight? I have a date and I really don’t want to leave Wolfy alone again.” Henry felt Tom stiffen. Wondering what was wrong with the request, he moved his head to look up at the boy.

A brief look of disapproval flashed in his eyes before they softened as he looked down and saw Henry watching him. “Yes, Miss Jessie. I would love to spend more time with this beautiful boy.” Internally he chuckled at Tom’s words, if only he knew he was twelve years older than him.

That afternoon Henry, Jessie and Tom spent out in the garden. Tom seemed to fit beautifully into their friendship group kneeling beside Jessie as they planted new flowers and shrubs where they had pulled up the weeds. Together, Henry dug the holes, Tom placed the plants and held them in place whilst Jessie filled the soil around them. Henry enjoyed hearing the light conversation between his Mate and his new friend until it became heavier. “So, Tom, when did you begin to love wolves? I know your father traps them, so I’m interested as to why you don’t follow his belief.”

Tom continued to work, as a gentle hum was heard working up from his throat. “I know why Dad does it, although I don’t think he is correct. He blames the wolves for his loss of cattle, but I haven’t seen that many around. The wild dogs are more to blame but he won't listen. They have a group that meet purely to discuss the wolf problem, but in my whole life, the only large group I have seen was back when I was four. It’s the first and last time Dad allowed me to come to a hunting party. Mom was horrified that he was taking me, but I wanted so much to be with Dad, and he wanted me to be just like him.”

Henry shuddered as the boy spoke as if by some force of nature, he knew that he was about to hear what had happened that day. He also sensed the grief radiating off the boy, wanting to calm him he pushed his body into Tom’s side. Nuzzling his head as if to say, “It's ok, I’m here for you.” Tom let out a heavy chuckle as if he had heard Henry’s voice.

He sat back looking down at Henry as he spoke, “Thanks Wolfy, you would think that I would not remember something that happened that long ago, but it's imprinted in my mind. They had been tracking a pack that had only just entered the area, convinced the rest of the ranchers that they were a risk to our lively hood, that we couldn’t let them nest here. So, the best of their marksman left, when we found them all, sitting around a tree, curled up sleeping, all I wanted to do was go play with the cuddly animals. Dad kept pulling me back holding me still and quiet. I didn’t understand until the loud bangs began.”

Tom’s voice wobbled at this point and Jessie who had been silent up till this time also came closer. She pulled him into her side, her arm encasing his thin body as his shoulders began to shake. “I started screaming as I saw a single wolf with a baby on its back running away, Dad aimed for it but I managed to push the barrel up making him miss. I got the thrashing of my life that night. I couldn’t sit for a week, but it was worth it. I was never allowed to come again after that, not that I wanted to. It took a while, but Dad eventually began to trust me enough to check the traps. I am glad too because it meant I could help this fella.”

Jessie held the boy as his sobs subsided. Henry was trying to hold his anger in, these were the people who had destroyed his family. And yet this one boy had not only saved him once but twice, his gratitude was the only thing stopping him from wanting to go rip the throats out of the group. Ignorance and fear were the driving forces that ended his family, if only they knew the wolves would only ever take a sick animal, and sometimes the young, never the strength of the herd. They would never kill without need. But the wild dogs he had seen were giving us a bad name.

Jessie's voice interrupted his thoughts, the softness not hiding the grief in her own. “Was that near here Tom?” How did Jessie know?

“Yes, Miss Jessie, by the tall tree in the middle of the forest.”

She silently picked up the tools, both animal and human watching her, wondering what she was thinking. Sighing she stood up, “Come, it’s getting dark and I need to get ready for this date.” She walked silently back into the house. The boy and the wolf looked at each other before both followed.

Jessie fixed dinner for Tom and Henry then left to dress, leaving the pair to their own devices. Tom seemed quiet after revealing his early childhood trauma and Henry was eager to help calm the boy. After eating, he plodded into the living room, jumped up on the couch and yipped in Tom’s direction. Chuckling, Tom responded, “You want to watch some TV boy?” Nuzzling the remote, he yipped eagerly hoping to distract the boy from his thoughts.

Tom settled next to him and picked up the remote, they settled on watching a rerun of M.A.S.H before they both heard the clicking of heels and the rapping of knuckles on the front door. Open-mouthed both Henry and Tom sat dumbstruck as Jessie walked down the stairs in a light yellow sundress her dark hair flowing softly twisted into waves. “Wow Miss Jessie, you look amazing” got in first before Henry followed with his eager Yip. Giggling Jessie smiled softly at them both, “Ok I won't be out late, but even so, don’t get up to any mischief”

This caused both Henry and Tom to laugh, one sounding more like a series of yips. The door opened and closed and Jessie was gone. Together the two sat, watched movies and shared some popcorn that Tom had found in the pantry. Just as the end of a Witcher episode finished they heard yelling coming from outside. “I don’t give a dam Boyd, you had no right to hit that poor man, It was an accident.” The front door opened as Jessie stormed inside, the front of her dress had a brown stain down the side of her skirt.

Next Boyd came crashing into the room his face red as he reached out to grab Jessie's arm, this caused Henry to jump into action his snarl reaching the ears of the big man before he saw the wolf racing towards him. Jumping back almost stumbling over the kitchen chair Boyd’s face grew hotter, “Keep that mutt controlled Jessie otherwise I’ll control him for you with my shot Gun.”

The air went still as Henry felt Jessies and Tom's hands on him, “That is enough Boyd Hatfield, you are no longer welcome in this home. Get. Out!” Surprise filled Boyd’s face as he not only recognised Tom but registered his marching orders. Menace replaced the look of surprise, “Listen here little girl, you better watch that attitude of yours. I’ll allow you to cool off but we are not finished talking, and if you value the life of that mutt you will do as your told.” Punctuating the statement with a nod of his head he turned and strolled out the door.

Heart pounding he turned looking up at Jessie who seemed to have lost her speech, her face pale and her hands shaking. Tom moved swiftly pulling her into his arms as she began to cry, frustrated that it wasn’t his arms holding her, Henry pushed his body against her to show he was there, but inside he was furious. That man had threatened not just himself but Jessie, but he had to focus on her right now, she was more important no matter how much he wanted to go after him.

Chapter 9

[hollyhomburg]

Before I Leave You (Pt.2)

(Omegaverse au, Mafia au, Bts x Reader)

*SNEAK PEAK*

Summary: On the worst days, Yoongi is judge, jury, and executioner. But he judges you and finds you worthy of protecting (and loving too). 

Tags: Dead bodies, blood, murder/crime themes, guilt, childhood trauma, drugs (cocaine, heroine), domestic abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, controlling behavior, implications of omega mistreatment/discrimination, anorexia, blood, graphic depictions of violence, manipulation, talking behind someone's back, morally gray Yoongi, 

W/c: 14.5k

A/N: Honestly this took me way too long to write and edit. I can’t tell if this is my favorite depiction i’ve ever written of falling in love or if I hate it. But yeah- i didn’t want to sit on it for much longer. This part takes place chronologically before the last part, and documents what happened while yoongi was away from the rest of his pack. 

Previous part — Masterlist

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

CHAPTER 2: THE DON

“She’s just an omega- you know how they are- they need a firm hand to keep them in their place.” Yoongi scoffs thinking of his omegas. Anyone who even dared to think that Seokjin and Jungkook did not wear the pants in their pack had another thing coming to them. 

He watches his older brother cut another line of cocaine. 

The amount of drugs in this Geumjae’s study cost enough to feed a small family for a year. But Yoongi knows better than to partake. He pretends to take a Bump and taps it off when Geumjae tips back a shot."Omegas aren't even fucking worth it if you ask me, brother, you're supposed to give half of yourself away, and for fucking what? A glorified bed warmer?"

Yoongi boils and stays silent, letting Geumjae get himself wasted on drugs and alcohol. He can't tell what distresses him more Geumjae has such little regard for life that he can't recognize that omegas are fucking people- or that he's so freely sharing this with him. 

He knows he’s toeing the line. More pushing might hurt you more, if he provoked aggression from his brother- it would no doubt come back to bite you. Yoongi can’t imagine wanting to hurt someone he loves or speaking with the same callousness that Geumjae speaks. “Don’t you love her?”

Geumjae laughs at Yoongi’s childish question “Oh little brother, don’t you know that love makes you stupid?”

His brother has it all wrong but Yoongi’s powerless to say it. Those threats from the funeral linger. And it's not only your life and Yoongi’s at stake here but the rest of his pack. He has to fool Geumjae into thinking he is on his side. 

“Work with me here- what will the other omegas in the pack think of you if they find out what kind of shit you pull? And they’ll take their concerns straight to their alphas and say you’re unfit to lead. You know I have to listen to the bulk of them regardless of what you want.”

If he can’t appeal to Geumjae’s humanity- he can appeal to Geumjae’s better interest and common sense. His image in the family is arguably the most important thing in geumjae’s mind, and Yoongi can tell by the way that Geumjae stiffens when he says the words that it’s stuck.

Geumjae might have been trained in torture, but Yoongi was trained in manipulation. And he take the bait- hook, line, and sinker. 

After that, he has the good sense to act softer with you in front of the rest of the family at the very least. But he fears he might have done more bad than good when he sees the way you stiffen and fail to meet his eyes more consistently as the days go on. You’re sensitive about eye contact, Yoongi gets it. you don’t have as much control over your facial expression as the rest of these robotic mobsters.  

Group dinners are routine, and while Yoongi could find an excuse to see you during the day, he’s also often pulled in 50 different directions by the expectations of his family.

He finds himself reading for dinner in a hurry most nights, eager or maybe a little panicked to check in with you. You never request his presence, you never text (though he made sure you have his number just in case), and the family dinners are tense between the two of you.

You maintain none of the easy friendship you’d started that day in the rain or that closeness. You avoid him like the plague at dinner, and It’s like that day in the rain never happened. 

Geumjae sticks to your side like glue too. A hand that probably looks protective to anyone else but looks possessive to Yoongi slung around your waist. Yoongi sees the harshness and pain in your body when Geumjae’s hand tightens digging into the swell of your hip. You’re soft in the way that most omegas are a little soft- and it’s as expected as it is distracting.

He manages to corner you during one of the dinners. you're not alone- and you can hear the grannies and omegas prattling to each other in the kitchen. the alphas are outside enjoying a cigar and investigating one of the new rolls royces that one of yoongi’s uncles recently purchased. 

The corset portion of your dress making your chest soft looking, plump and inviting if yoongi was the kind of man to get distracted by something like that. As it is- all he notices is how it’s making your chest heave. Breath uneven, he thinks he can hear the boning in the dress creek. It’s a designer thing, but it looks way too tight on you. he can tell how uncomfortable you are. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, though it's clear you’re not, you dont reply, looking down and away worried. Hand hovering over your stomach, “I won’t get mad whatever it is.”

You bite your lower lip. hand catching yourself on a side table before you teater over, dizzy. Yoongi grabs you before you fall. “He did my corset too tight, it’s hurting my ribs. I feel like im going to pass out.” Yoongi quickly looks around, but there is no one around in the part of the house right now, the garden is a backdrop, speckled with lights. you’re alone. 

Yoongi turns you around quickly, setting his champagne to the side and grabbing yours out of your hand. He undoes the top knot of the dress and you inhale gratefully as he tugs at the strings looser, fingers touching your bare skin. “Is that better?” he has to be quick. This isn’t exactly scandalous- but- its not quite proper. 

You inhale deep and grateful. “So much better, thank you.” you barely have a second to both straighten up, Yoongi's fingers pulling the bow back together. grabbing your champagne and sipping at it a careful distance away from Yoongi. looking for all intents and purposes like you’ve been swathed in uncomfortable silence the entire time they were gone. The picture of propriety as Geumjae and a few other alphas return in a puff of rich smoke. 

“Don’t mention it.” Yoongi says it softly so that only you can hear it.

More than once. Geumjae catches him staring at you during the dinner. you look so much more comfortable now that it’s been loosened. Your hand hovering in front of your dress to conceal your cleavage under the guise of fiddling with your necklace. During those moments, Geumjae rewards Yoongi’s wandering gaze with bold touches. A hand sliding from waist to hip and your sudden straightening in pain. 

Geumjae’s harsh fingers digging into a bad bruise on your hip. you’re so trained, you barely flinch when he does it. And still- Yoongi’s hands tighten in his slacks. Gritting his teeth and biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from making a scene and reaching across the table to stop Geumjae from hurting you.

Many of the other members of the family notice Geumjae’s sudden dogmatic approach to your presence in his life. Confirming what Yoongi suspects. That he’d never given you too much attention at these family meals before Yoongi came with his wandering eyes. He should do better be better not to put you in harm's way.

Yoongi keeps his eyes firmly trained on his plate full of spiced soft-shelled crab as one of the grannies comments on how sweet the two of you seem. Yoongi wants to gag. “You know how new love is. I feel like we’ll be in the honeymoon phase forever. I want her all to myself so bad I think she’s worried I’ll chain her to my bed” he says- feigning drunkenness. You laugh too- trying to play it off but Yoongi can see your barely concealed fear.

Staying silent and letting your husband hurt you is the hardest thing that yoongi’s ever had to do. But there are many more battles, fights and skirmishes to win in this war. Yoongi has to be patient.

He’s a poised snake, ready to strike at the perfect moment.  

COMING WEDNESDAY APRIL 21 @ 6PM EST

[ashintheairlikesnow]

"I don't fucking need you. I don't fucking need anyone."

(ideally said to reinforce an angry, apathetic façade)

CW: Panicked whumpee, trauma response, discussion of stabbing/murder, defiant/angry whumpee, referenced prostitution/dubcon, brief internal dehumanization reference

Jake Gets Stabbed: First Second Third Fourth

Also includes @nonsensicalwhump’s prompt ‘don’t fucking touch me’

There was an old backpack already in the closet when he moved into this place. It was worn around the edges, with safety pins all along the top because the zipper had long since broken, an olive green that might have been brighter, once upon a time. The bottom’s duct-taped in layers to hold it together. There are more safety pins holding seams together along the side, another strip of tape where there’s smeared permanent marker, too destroyed for Jameson to even read it.

The backpack looks like Jameson feels, wrecked and ruined and trying valiantly to stay together at the seams, only to come apart anyway.

He stuffs a package of goldfish crackers into the backpack on top of the three pairs of boxers and two shirts and one pair of pants he’s already put inside. Then he adds the bit of beef jerky he keeps up on the top shelf in the closet, where he has to climb onto a box to even reach it. 

His heart hammers in his chest, and when Allyn’s fingertips brush along his shoulder blades through his shirt he jerks away from them, shoving some granola bars in, too. “Don’t fucking touch me!” He snaps, but all he wants is to collapse back into their arms, let them tell him it’ll be okay again, and believe it.

But he can’t believe it.

Their rainshower voice is a lie, the taste of ozone and the relieved wash of cool water is a lie, it’s all a fucking lie and it always fucking was.

“Jameson, no one is asking you to leave,” They say, voice low and soothing, their hands out but not quite touching him now. He glances over his shoulder at those long, long fingers, graceful elegant hands made for gesturing at the parties they tell him about. Fingers entirely unlike his own, the pinky that won’t quite close all the way anymore, the scars layered over them from every time they were hit until they bled, until he begged for more.

“No one has to,” Jameson says, staring down at the empty space in the top of the backpack. Does he own so little? Does he even own any of this? He can’t take the carvings in the closet wall, and that’s most of what he even wants to take. His proof to himself that he was a person, however briefly, before he goes back out to lose it all over again. “I killed m-my fucking-... the person who believed I c-c-ould be better, I killed him-”

“He’s not dead,” They say softly, and their hair hangs over their face. It’s all mussed and frizzy, and he thinks they look even prettier and more handsome somehow, like they’ve rolled out of bed, even though he knows it’s because they’re worried, too worried to pull it back, too worried to care. “I, I heard them call a doctor. Someone’s going to sew it up and he’ll b-be-”

“He’ll bleed to fucking death because of me,” Jameson says, and the weight of it hits him now. He sits down on his bed but it’s more like he falls into it. It’s not his bed anymore, anyway. It’ll be some other rescue’s, someone more deserving than he’s ever been of regaining humanity.

Some other rescue will arrive and lay down here across from Allyn and maybe watch the moonlight move over their face while they look outside and think that no one in the world has ever been as lovely in silvery light as them, and Jameson will be out on the street fucking for cash or food or for ten minutes of safety from himself.

Unless he kills them.

He might.

He might do that, if he-... if he sees Robert in their faces, or Brute, or if he gets lost in himself again he could keep killing people and then he’s not any different, and it wasn’t just to escape and it wasn’t worth it, and from the second he walked away from Nanda’s house he was just going to turn into a killer, wasn’t he? And now he is one.

Now he’s-

Jameson leans over himself, pressing his forehead to his knees, feeling all the scars along his back stretch uncomfortably as he moves. He takes in slow, even breaths, fighting the despair that overwhelms him, buries, drowns him in what he’s done.

He’s just a hand, reaching out, but he’d thought he was reaching out for help. Instead he was holding a knife.

“I won’t let them kick you out,” Allyn says softly, but insistently, dropping to a crouch in front of him. Their hands still hover, wanting so badly to touch him, respecting that he doesn’t want them to. He can feel the warmth of them even so. Their hands are so close. “I promise. I’ll, I’ll convince them somehow to let you stay. We can figure this out, Jameson, you don’t have to be all by yourself.”

“It’s fine, I d-did it before, I can do it again. It’s fine.” Jameson talks into the fabric of his jeans, lets it muffle the emotion and flatten his words. His shoulders shake with a sob he catches before it ever leaves his throat. 

“Jameson, you know we don’t do well alone, you need-”

“I don’t fucking need anyone!” His head jerks up, meeting their gray eyes with his own dark brown. He can feel air move against his skin and realizes with some dull surprise he’s crying again. “I don’t-... I don’t fucking need a keeper, I don’t need... I don’t n-need anybody, I don’t need y-y... I don’t-”

He can’t tell that lie.

“Please don’t leave,” Allyn says, and their hands come to rest gently on either side of his face now, cool dry palms against his flushed damp skin. “Jameson. Please don’t leave me.”

“I tried to kill the first person to help me,” Jameson whispers. “The first person who didn’t ask for anything back. I tried to kill him.”

Allyn shakes their head. “You tried to kill R-... Robert, whoever that was. You tried to kill someone who hurt you. You didn’t know. If you leave, I-I’ll go with you, I can... I can go with you.”

“No you can’t. You don’t know how t-to handle shit out there, Allyn, it’d-...” He looks over their faces, the tears in their eyes, tears he caused, it’s his fault they want to cry. It’s his fault everyone in this house wants to cry, now, it’s his fault they bleed in every possible way. It’s his fault, for thinking he was ever more than just another rabid dog. 

“I’ll go anyway,” Allyn says, fiercely. Their voice pours on his tongue, it’s the taste of a raging rush of river, a flood in the middle of the night, washing out the dry earth. “I’ll go with you anyway, we’ll figure it out, Jameson, you and I. I won’t lose anyone else-... I won’t lose you.”

Jameson hitches in a breath that burns all the way down to his lungs, and his own hands rise, slowly, to rest over theirs. “But... it could happen again, Allyn. What if-... what if it happens again?”

“What if it does? So what? It’ll just be us, we can just run, we can do it.” Allyn just looks at him, with those tears starting to well up and run down their cheeks like the water he tastes when they speak.

He licks at his lips, forcing the words out with every ounce of strength he has left. “What if... what if n-next time it’s you?”

Allyn opens their mouth to respond only for there to be a soft rap at the doorframe, both of them turning to look. 

Jake’s boyfriend, the one who used to be like them, stands there. His wide blue eyes are nearly red from crying, and his face is as flushed as Jameson’s. To Jameson, his eyes seem cold and glittering, shattered glass. 

His voice tastes like pears when he speaks, and Jameson shudders wondering if there’s a needle slipped into the soft skin of the fruit. 

“Jameson?”

The two of them don’t move, except that Jameson curls his scarred, rough fingers over Allyn’s smooth hands and holds on as they drift down. He only looks at Kauri and says, his hoarse voice still thick with his own dread and guilt and fear, “Yeah?”

Kauri rakes a hand back through half-controlled black curls and takes a breath. “He’s all sewn up, and there’s some... someone Nat knows downstairs now, with Dr. Masood. They think-... I don’t know. Probably not going to, uh, to d-die.”

Jameson nods, his grip tightening on Allyn’s fingers, but the other rescue doesn’t pull away or flinch, only holds right back, just as tightly. “That’s-... good. Kauri, I, I didn’t know-”

“Yeah, I get it.” Kauri’s voice sharpens, and Jameson closes his eyes. Pear and razor blades, blood on his tongue, not like Nanda. This blood doesn’t taste like pleasure but guilt and regret. “I know-... I get it. Chris more... more or less explained it to me. But we need to talk.”

Allyn squares their shoulders, jaw settling. “It’s not his fault. You can’t blame him, he didn’t know-”

“I need to talk,” Kauri says with effort, “to Jameson.” His eyes go to the backpack packed on the bed, not yet closed up, the symbol of Jameson’s intent to run. Something changes in his expression, but Jameson can’t read it. “I need to talk to Jameson alone.”

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @moose-teeth @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @eatyourdamnpears @boxboysandotherwhump @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @outofangband @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @thehopelessopus @butwhatifyouwrite @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @newandfiguringitout @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whumpiary @endless-whump @burtlederp

[valkyriegoddesses]

Thoughts on ACOSF

⚠️ SPOILERY, SO DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK ⚠️

⚔️ the good and the bad, I’ll try to get rid of the bad thoughts first and keep the positive ones for the end but idk where my line of thought would go as I recall and type so here we go

• Nesta’s journey of healing is hers and hers alone. She owes no one in the inner circle anything, they didn’t do her any favors. (Now before I delve into this, I just want to say that I see they (Feyre and Elain only) had good intentions, but I’m going to point out everywhere it went wrong, probably against what they planned, but still it went horribly wrong) She was still suffering all the same after she got her free will stripped from her, the decision made for her by packing her things without informing her or listening to her opinion or trying to have a more lenient approach to the matter, being threatened that her second option is being thrown to the human lands where she could die, being lied to about the consequences of her actions in law, being told she “belongs in the Hewn City”, being told she’s “a pathetic waste of life”, and choosing the place everyone admits they hate going to aka the House of Wind, as her destination to heal. Knowing full well she can’t make the descent down these stairs and would be imprisoned without the power to winnow. And instead of being given her space and time, they push her to talk and interact when all she’s trying to do is have some distance from everyone. Some time to herself, to not feel anything, to control the storm of thoughts raging on the inside. And she’s pushed time and time again to face her trauma and heal RIGHT NOW because apparently, they’re timing her. And she shouldn’t have her emotions on display, when she tells them she doesn’t feel like talking yet she’s forced to interact and socialize. Anyone who’s been forced to interact against their will knows how draining it is. Now imagine this coupled with being triggered by water, and being triggered by fire, which are a daily necessity. And imagine everyone got a decade or more to deal with their trauma and are still not entirely healed, yet your time is up after little over a year. It sucks. And I hate how what triggered them to action wasn’t that she was wasting away to nothing, but the bill. When the bill was high, they drew the line. And I hate how in the narrative, the “conversation” -even though I wouldn’t call it that because only one side was allowed to talk and the other side wasn’t allowed to object- was written in a way that made it about THEIR image, when she’s frequenting taverns. THEIR image, when she doesn’t show up to their parties. THEIR image when the bill for her drinking is high. (They say it’s too much money, as if they don’t have all the riches and they all spend money on things that are absolutely not necessary, and THEY drowned her with gifts, LOADS of gifts, after she sacrificed her power to save her sister, which she didn’t do for payment, but anyway the thought is, they had the money and just like they thought Amren deserves payment for what she did in the war, they should’ve kept the same energy for Nesta because she had no small role in that either). I just think they handled it badly. Not exactly how you’d talk to someone suffering from PTSD, depression and survivor’s guilt. For one, threatening a worse alternative isn’t helpful. Secondly, There were way too many people in that room. More than necessary. Feyre and Elain would’ve been enough AS HER FAMILY (and I’ll get to details on this in a moment). And Feyre was the only decent one handling it as someone who actually was looking for a better outcome and really had the intention to help, someone who wasn’t there just to humiliate. Amren and Rhys were only there to land jabs and poke at her insecurities and bad coping mechanisms. Rhys used his power on her to force her to obey him and we all know how it’s a big NO among them. Many of those in the IC had worse coping mechanisms. But what she was doing was too much for them to handle? She was self-destructing. And she kept her distance. If I told someone I needed my space and they kept poking their head in my business, I sure as hell would lash out. When someone needs space, their privacy should be respected. No matter how long it takes them.

And I don’t see where the problem with her drinking was. She never showed up to events drunk. We never saw her hungover the day after. She was spending some money on drinking yes, but it did not get out of hand. She was also spending money on food and gambling. All in all, not the worst coping mechanism among those who were criticizing her. Not to mention that everyone who criticized her were drinkers as well, and they all slept around during some part of their lives.

Now the problem with the presence of other people in that room, other than Feyre (if Elain didn’t wish to attend and preferred to have some space between her and and Nesta, it’s her choice) anyway, only Feyre’s presence was required. Everyone else there was just an accessory, only adding stress to the atmosphere, forcing Nesta to get on the defensive with the way they slut shamed her, shamed her for drinking, shamed her for not being able to take a bath even though she told Feyre how the water still scares her, etc. I can see Sarah wanted it to look like a “family” intervening. Like some tough love sort of thing. But she failed. Simply because, the IC might be Feyre’s found family and she might take such a talk from them because it would really be tough love. As for Nesta, she doesn’t view them as family. She barely knows them. So for a group of strangers, or let’s say newly acquainted people, to sit around her and point out her every flaw and shame her for every misstep, who wouldn’t lash out at that? It’s enough she’s forced to spend time among them, on holidays she doesn’t really believe in, where they force her to attend but actively ignore her presence and treat her like a ghost. Why make her come if they don’t enjoy her company? It’s just ridiculous. Then when she gets angry from all the pushing and lashes out and it’s entirely her fault. they’re all like “come to our gatherings where we will insult you, nitpick all your unhealthy coping mechanisms, but don’t be offended and seclude yourself, we all took decades to deal with our trauma and killed people while doing it but your coping mechanisms are unhealthy. And your actions are unforgivable because you lash out at us when we shove ourselves down your throat. How can you not like us? Everyone has to like us.” Then she gets thrown away to a war camp, a FUCKING WAR CAMP, while a big part of her trauma is because of war. And instead of dealing with her face-to-face, while being gentle and showing her they’re on her side WITHOUT JUDGEMENT, WITHOUT WINCING AND GLANCES AT EACH OTHER AND INNER CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HER WHERE SHE’S EXCLUDED, they’re like “we’re tired of your shit so here’s a house you can stay in while you sort this out away from our merry little circle, which has its nose up your business anyway. But still, sort it out away from us.” And in that house she became more and more closed off and her healing - and I will die on this hill - her healing DID NOT start until the house came into play which was her own doing. And it kicked off because of Emerie and Gwyn, who both didn’t judge her, didn’t demonize her, didn’t only see the bad in her, but accepted her as she was and loved every part of her. Showed her that she was not a waste of life and there are things to live for. As for the beloved inner circle? Beyond insulting her and her coping mechanisms, They don’t tell her about the weapons SHE made, because pro-colonization Amren doesn’t think it’s wise, that Nesta would use it against the world. (Amren do you hear how stupid you sound?) they always villianize her, assuming she’d be out to take the world and take revenge on everyone who ever glanced her way. They assumed she was bad, they assumed because she was angry, that she would use her power for killing and terrorizing and building an Empire like they all do. When all she wanted to do was listen to music and be around good company who passed her no judgement.

Anyway, getting into some details with each character:

Feyre: I hated Feyre’s “crying over scrambled eggs because my image is destroyed my sister spent so much money on drinking”. And the fact that when telling Nesta she was doing this for her own good, she told her she was embarrassed for her own image in the same breath. But beyond that I was fine with her. I loved her reconcilation with Nesta. I loved that she was one who wanted to give Nesta more time, recognized that she needed her own time. I love them together. I think without everyone’s interference, their reconcilation would’ve happened much faster. They were already making progress before ~some people~ ruined everything and caused Nesta to be closed off again. I don’t hate that Nesta sacrificed her power to save Feyre in the end. She’s her sister and she loves her and this is not the first time she proved this. She would do anything to protect her sisters and she hates herself for the times she misstepped. Even though it wasn’t her fault and there was a full grown man sitting there who conveniently got a redemption arc. What angers me though, is that it was only after this, that the inner circle viewed her as someone who is worth their respect. And made the sacrifice materialistic by drowning Nesta with gifts. She didn’t do it for their acceptance or for their love, or for payment. She did it because her sister needed help. Period. (Sidenote: I’m writing a post where I delve deep into their relationship, which I will eventually post, because I think I reached an understanding about their relationship)

Elain: let me get something out of the way, she has power. She has free will, she’s not a baby. She’s a grown woman who doesn’t need coddling. I hate how the fandom views her as a baby. And she’s constantly infantilized, preventing her from reaching her full potential. Now that that’s out of the way, here are my 2 cents on her, since she wasn’t in this book much: Nesta’s wording was very clear, yet I’ve seen this scene misread all over the timeline. Nesta said “I sat by your side for weeks. Weeks, while you wasted away, refusing food and drink. While you appeared to hope you’d just wither and die. No one suggested you either shape up or be shipped back to the human lands.” Nesta’s problem is NOT that Elain wasn’t “there” as in “by her side”. She explicitly stated she needed space. Nesta’s problem was that she stood between Elain and anyone who might tell her to snap out of it and lock her trauma in some dark room in the back of her head. She made sure Elain had her time. While Elain agreed to pack her bags and didn’t prevent them from shipping her away, deciding her time was up. All she wants is time, and Elain didn’t have her back on this. Then we have the fact that Elain slut-shamed Nesta. And then when Nesta comes to the party this time, Elain meets her at the door and her reaction instead of saying hi and leaving it at that or simply ignoring her, is “did Feyre pay you this time?” I’m torn on where to stand on the Elain-Nesta situation, a part of me is disappointed in Elain. I think she should’ve handled this better than anyone else because she was there, she witnessed the trauma happen, Nesta was there for her, they grew up being inseparable the entire time. If anyone should understand her better than anyone else, it’s Elain. So why did she abandon her to everyone’s judgement? And a part of me is like maybe she knew whatever she voted wouldn’t matter because the IC were taking the step anyway, and didn’t want to be there when it happened. Or maybe she’s still dealing with her own trauma in her own way and doesn’t want a confrontation. But I always circle back to the sl*t-shaming and the shaming about the drinking, and then I think about the Solstice scene where as soon as she saw her she was like “did Feyre pay you this time?” And a part of me is angry about the shaming undertone of that too, while some part of me thinks that maybe Elain felt unwanted along with everyone else and that in order for Nesta to meet them, she has to be paid, but we will never know unless we hear it from her.

Rhysand: that piece of shit, misogynist, who used his powers to compel Nesta to obey his orders, pulled rank on her, taunted and threatened her every step of the way and utilized her for his own agenda, and was *surprised* to learn the woman has trauma. Took him being inside her head and unable to wake her up from the nightmare, because the behavior she was exhibiting wasn’t enough. [insert shocked pickatchu meme]. I also would like to add that him playing the protective love interest from his mate’s own sister, WHO COULD’VE HARMED HER IF SHE WANTED TO, but never wanted to because she’s not a bad person, is so cheap. Like- you, the guy who drugged her and made her give you lap dances, are afraid for her sake… from her sister? Who only ever used words as jabs and is generally rude? Or do you feel like you’re overpowered and are trying to fill the void in your toxic masculinity and reassert dominance ?

Cassian: He was patient with her, and probably the healthiest person in the inner circle who dealt with her until she was okay, but he still silently agreed with all the shit that was said about her. Shit she didn’t deserve to be said about her as someone going through trauma. He mocked whatever progress she made on the stairs calling it pathetic in the beginning. He stayed silent when Nesta was stripped of her will, when she was told she belongs in the Court of Nightmares, when her fate was decided for her, when she was being lied to, when she was threatened to be thrown to the humans who would kill her. He made some progress and understood her better with time, but it doesn’t excuse how he stayed silent when she was being mistreated. Specially since he claims her loves her. He also stayed silent as the Inner Circle despised her presence but still used her to reach what they’re plotting for. He progressed, and he got better, I’ll give him that. But still, as someone who claims he loves her the way he does, he shouldn’t have allowed his friends to manipulate and use her in their schemes but then exclude her from everything else, even knowledge about her own power. But I love that he was patient, that he worked to understand her, that he grew to stand up for her. I would argue that they are the healthiest ship written by SJM this far.

Mor: fucking Mor, who experienced trauma, told Nesta she belongs in the court of Nightmares. Where she was abused herself. Knowing women are viewed as objects there, knowing Nesta would recieve abuse there. She said that, wishing abuse on someone who she simply didn’t like and had some quarrels with. They never saw eye to eye and that’s fine. They always had sharp tongues when talking to each other and that’s fine. What’s not fine though, is that THIS of all things, seemed so out of character for Mor. Now, she never knew Nesta was a survivor of SA. But as someone who helps SA victims, she’s the last person I expected such a comment from. It felt very out of character. I hate that this is the Bi character in all of this mess. Of all people, a hypocrite is the Bi person. The LGBTQ community deserves better. I thought about it, and maybe Mor, being like a stranger to Nesta, and seeing her ignore Cassian in front of the Illyrians who already look down on him, made her angry to the point where she just wanted to land a jab and didn’t think her words would mean anything. Maybe all she wanted to do was stand up for Cassian, but what she said was definitely not true and not okay. I wanted her and Nesta to have a talk about it, but also she grew to have decent conversations with her and she helped her when she and Cassian had that fight. So I don’t know, maybe it’s a silent progress between them.

Amren: this one told her she was a waste of life. What a great way to deal with someone who’s suffering from PTSD and depression and having suicidal thoughts, Amren. Tell them they’re a waste of life, enforce every thought they are having as fact, push them to the point where they doubt they should be breathing, and when they’re told they could tumble down a mountain and break their bones while hiking, their first thought would be “good”. Amren deserves a medal, a badge of honor for being the 500+ old woman who has healthy ways of dealing with traumatized people telling them they don’t deserve to live because the thoughts of their power and dealing with controlling that power right now is so overwhelming. Amren, who decided that because Nesta was always angry, she had no right to know that she used her power unknowingly and forged powerful weapons. Amren, who was pushing for colonization throughout this book, was afraid of Nesta misusing her power. Villainizing Nesta’s every thought, as if Nesta wasn’t overwhelmed from the thought of possessing so much power, as if Nesta doesn’t refuse to use her powers and train. As if Nesta is out there hiding as she masters her power to reemerge and turn the world upside down. You’re the one who’s pushing Rhys to colonize other territories and become high king, Amren. Maybe *you* should be locked up in the house of wind for therapy. What hurts most in this is Amren was her friend. She trusted Amren. Amren said that shitty line to her and then lied to her and manipulated her and used her to further Rhys’s agenda. She flopped from telling Feyre that Nesta is immortal and a few years are nothing, and she should be given time. She would not betray her trust, to whatever she turned into in ACOSF. And everyone give SJM a round of pats on the back and an applause for making Amren the wise one here and making Nesta, the traumatized one who was wronged, get on her knees and apologize. I mean- if you thought this apology scene was necessary, then clarification about the fight between them was just as necessary. Or you include neither scene. But deeming the apology important and not the incident? This is some victim blaming on a whole other level.

The House of Wind: The house of wind was honestly one of the best parts of this book. It was Nesta, “Lady Death” as they call her, breathing life into something, and it was gentle, and it was patient, and it was understanding, and it pushed her to be healthier without judging, without throwing insults or slut-shaming. It hated that she didn’t eat? It kept waiting for her until her body gave out and she had to eat. It didn’t like her drinking? It gave her water when she asked for wine. It showed her its darkest part where she found the greatest warmth as well, as if saying don’t be ashamed of your darkness because in it you’ll find light, and it didn’t abandon her or stop responding to her when she was angry. It was actively by her side, without any judgement, only support and pushing her to fix the behaviours without dissing her. and it was everything those people around her weren’t. It was family.

Gwyn: their first meeting wasn’t at all what you would call “friendly”, to a fault by Nesta. Gwyn didn’t even know anything about Nesta, yet she didn’t react with even more anger as ~others~ did, she didn’t fear Nesta, or give a retort, or get angry and lash out at her. She took the blow and was, with all the calm in the world, like fine, you want to tell on me, go tell. And Nesta did go tell on her, then realized by herself how she acted rashly. And later helped Gwyn without being asked to, by swapping the book so Merrill doesn’t scold her. And their friendship grew to the point where Gwyn, a traumatized person who couldn’t dare leave the library, started training with her, was her friend and had conversations with her that didn’t center her trauma or her coping mechanisms being analyzed. She went out of the library for the first time in 2 years when she knew Nesta needed her by her side. She occupied her mind with stories of Valkyries, women being strong and unyielding in a society which didn’t allow it. She took her hand and gave her a purpose in life to work for. Gave her a friend who didn’t judge, a kind face in the maelstorm of judgemental faces. Until she felt like a safe space to Nesta to the point where she spilled all her thoughts, the ones she could only admit to herself, to Gwyn, letting her inside those walls. And when she braced for judgement, she didn’t receive it. Gwyn dealing with someone’s trauma, as someone who’s been through trauma herself, is one of the beautiful corners of this book

Emerie: Another woman with trauma. She sees Nesta enter her store, of course she knows who she is, yet she doesn’t judge her. Nesta asks about making the fatigues warmer, Emerie says she’ll ask, but it’s costly. Nesta says then she can’t afford it, admits that she was cut off, Emerie, as a stranger, doesn’t judge her. She says she could make them anyway and she can pay her as she can. Because no one should feel cold. It’s simple, irrelevant. Nesta wouldn’t freeze to death, she as a stranger has no obligation to help, it’s a simple reasoning. “You shouldn’t feel cold”. It’s enough for her to help Nesta. Something as mundane as feeling cold. She asks her to join her for a meal. And Nesta asks her if she would join the training, which Emerie refuses. and Nesta blurts out that she didn’t take her for a coward. And later, Nesta sends her the herbs she wishes to get which she can’t get often because of her location, and it’s a message of “you too deserve to see what’s best in the world, to go out and experience the beautiful parts and live, not just exist”. So Emerie goes to training with her as well, and they bond over romance novels. Emerie also reaches a point where she opens up about her own trauma, and tells the truth about what she faced and her survival. This girl who is 50-something at least, who has never had friends, living a lonely secluded life, finally found someone who was trustworthy enough to be around and form a bond with. As for the fact that she is a PoC, and the illyrians are portrayed as this group of savages who abuse their women and their women have no say in their lives and futures and how they clip their women’s wings, when wings, wingspan and wingplay heavily imply that wings are erogenous parts of the body and wing clipping seems to be the equivalent of Circumcision, which again so happens to be done by the “PoC savages who abuse their women”, hits a whole lot as fucking racist and xenophobic. PoC deserve a storyline where they’re not viewed as the villains.

Azriel: I loved his relationship with Nesta. He was the best chaperon™️, he never spoke in judgement toward her. There was a silent understanding between them. However, I’m not against him showing his feelings toward Elain or her toward him. It’s fine, if that’s what they both want. I don’t think Lucien is the type to call for a blood duel. He simply brings her presents and attends when invited, he doesn’t force himself on her and keeps his distance. However I did hate that Azriel took the necklace and gave it to Gwyn, as a secondhand. I know his only intention was to make her smile but the necklace wasn’t meant for her. It’s not a trial by error, he can’t just keep trying out with different women every time he fails with one. And I’ll just leave this here.

The elephant in the room: the entire IC is involved in this, them all blaming Nesta, framing her as the wrong person, when she told Feyre about the dangers of her pregnancy? I don’t care if she did it while she was angry, her heart was in the right place. She got hurt from them deciding her fate without her involvement, voting on her, not once, but twice, about her fate because she wasn’t fast enough to deal with her trauma, then again when deciding if she should know about what she did with her own power and the weapons. and she showed Feyre what was really at play. Protecting her from what she faced with the Inner Circle. Just because she was angry while doing it does not mean she did it out of spite. She did it to expose them, specially Amren at that point. But I don’t get how it was twisted to “because she wanted to hurt Feyre”. She wasn’t even angry at Feyre. But you all would rather suck up to the Inner Circle than confront the fact that they’re hypocrites and liars with a propaganda. They’re evil. They fear Nesta using her power to seize control of everyone because it’s how THEY are. With all this High King crap. Basically colonization dreams. With how they press rank whenever it suits them, and lie about the law to win arguments. It’s because those who are inherently bad think everyone is bad just like them.

Other Elephants in the room which have been here a long time: the thing with blaming Nesta for not being the breadwinner… I could never get it. Some have money-earning skills, others don’t. She, at the point of her life when she was human, was only trained in dancing and appealing to men socially so she could uplift the family’s social status. She couldn’t hunt. Feyre could. And NEITHER, should’ve been the breadwinner. Nesta was willing to starve to death if it would push her father to do something. Feyre wasn’t willing to wait and starve or watch anyone starve. But it doesn’t mean Nesta was at fault. She was only 3 years older than Feyre. Let’s leave the “the oldest child has to step in for the parents when the parents fail” mentality in the past. It’s ridiculous. Nesta was under no obligation to be the breadwinner. And she suffered self-flagellation regularly for letting Feyre walk out there and hunt. But she literally had no skills that when she thought of something to do, she could only think of selling herself on the streets. The parents were abusive, both of them. Favoring one child over the other and planting rivalry between the siblings. “i love you” means nothing. NOTHING, when there is no action to prove it. And if anything, this book made me realize that Nesta was never okay. She was never in a good place mentally. I mean, I knew, but this book just proved it. Her mother favored her alright, but it was not in a loving way. She simply exploited her to climb the social ladder. She didn’t give her love, she gave her instructions. She enabled the grandmother to beat her, and instill some “harsher punishments” one of which Nesta still holds the scars for. She was called worthless, as a child. Why? Because she made a wrong step in a dance. She was physically and verbally abused, and her mother let it happen. Yet she was the only one who would give Nesta the time of day so Nesta still loved her. As a child, her mother was the only person who showed interest in her and she clung to. However twisted it was, it’s the only love she ever got. The only love she knew. Then she lost her. and later the family also lost their wealth. So all she was taught to do her entire life suddenly became meaningless because she can’t achieve what her mother “trained” her to do. And we know the rest of the story. She never felt at home, not even when her mother lived and she still had that wealth. She admitted as much. She was never fine. She might’ve appeared the part, but it was never true. And since she was so good at masking her emotions, nobody was the wiser.

side note: As for her power being the “bare minimum” now, there better not be a plothole, since Rhysand couldn’t contain merely the “surface of her power” because it was too much. and if that’s all she retained, then it’s good enough for me.

[agentrouka-blog]

What do you mean by Lady doing a reverse death warg on Sansa ?

Hi anon!

Hee! You’re referring to this post, right?

What I affectionately call the death warg is the suggested last leap of a warg from his human body into that of another being.

In the case of Varamyr and Haggon these were premeditated acts with animals specifically chosen for the purpose. (ADWD, Prologue) Warging for “regular” wargs is a transgressive act that requires the subjugation of its target and dogs and wolves are only prized because of the way they take to the bond. It remains an act of force and invasion, if you look at it objectively.

With the Starks, it’s different, because their direwolves are not random animals, they are magical creatures sent to them by the old gods and not only do they share a natural and intuitive warg bond with their humans and a telepathic link to each other, but they may have magical healing powers AND the warg bond might be mutual. They are a part of each other.

If Jon and Robb both intuitively warged into their bonded wolves in the moment nearing physical death, why should the reverse not also be possible?

It’s in the text that Lady’s bones are in Winterfell, but her Shade is not.

Summer's howls were long and sad, full of grief and longing. Shaggydog's were more savage. Their voices echoed through the yards and halls until the castle rang and it seemed as though some great pack of direwolves haunted Winterfell, instead of only two . . . two where there had once been six. Do they miss their brothers and sisters too? Bran wondered. Are they calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady's Shade? Do they want them to come home and be a pack together? (ACOK, Bran I)

Lady is not “home”. She is elsewhere:

He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice.

These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered.

(ACOK, Bran I)

Where is Lady?

Lady is universally described as sweet, gentle, obedient. Her connection to Sansa is extremely harmonious, where we see it in AGOT, Sansa I. Where Arya battles Nymeria with a hairbrush (one of the more obvious metaphors that Arya chaves at the traditional role expected of her) and needs to use a voice “like a whip” to stop Nymeria’s defensive attack on Joffrey, Sansa can calm Lady’s growls with a gentle touch of her hand and is never ever seen in conflict with her. They are a complete unit.

We do not see the aftermath of Lady’s death, we only get a vague description by Ned.

The last fortnight of their journey had been a misery. Sansa blamed Arya and told her that it should have been Nymeria who died. And Arya was lost after she heard what had happened to her butcher's boy. Sansa cried herself to sleep, Arya brooded silently all day long, and Eddard Stark dreamed of a frozen hell reserved for the Starks of Winterfell.

(AGOT, Eddard IV)

Two weeks Sansa cried herself to sleep and became unusually verbally aggressive toward her sister. It can be explained by grief, but there could also be a bit of Lady’s own trauma in there. Lady was murdered by a Stark she trusted, there is bound to be confused anger in even the gentlest wolf.

Theoretically, gentle, soft and harmonious Lady could have leapt into Sansa and blended herself with her bonded human inside the human body the way it usually happens the other way around. This is why Sansa might still have warg-like dreams of running with Lady, why she intuitively connects her own potential death to reuniting with Lady, and why the other direwolves no longer have the telepathic connection to Lady that they still have with Grey Wind even after his death.

So, contrary to the hilarious idea that killing Lady made Sansa less of a Stark, she is actually the Stark carrying a direwolf’s soul inside of herself instead of outside, providing the shelter for her wolf that the others are offered for themselves. It’s part of what protects her spirit from all assault.

I like that image because it works so well with Sansa’s sense of self and her inner dignity. She doesn’t hate herself, she doesn’t question her self-worth, even when she feels empty. She is a whole person, in spite of Lady’s death because she carries Lady inside of herself.

[lanawinters-ily]

The Way We Were

The reader has a stormy, bittersweet relationship with Lana; when they meet again, will it end in happiness, or will she walk away?

Based on the Barbra Streisand song ‘The Way We Were’

Pairing: Lana Winters x Reader

Word count: 1400

Warnings: a LOT of metaphors & a turbulent relationship

Memories Light the corners of my mind Misty watercolour memories Of the way we were

There she was. Lana Winters. Your Lana.

Well at least she was at some moment in time.

You had met on a typical stormy Tuesday; yet another grey, bleak day in what seemed like a melancholic lifetime at that point. Your job was the same every day, no change, no variety to break up the never-ending cycle of life.

Until you saw her. The rain had been streaming down the train window, mirroring the tears of pure frustration that fell down your face, monotony overwhelming & reminding you of just how ordinary you were. But then she had tapped your shoulder, turning to meet sad eyes with chocolate orbs of wonder.

And you fell for her immediately.

Because if there was one thing that was for sure in such an unpredictable universe, Lana Winters was far from ordinary.

Scattered pictures Of the smiles we left behind Smiles we gave to one another For the way we were

Make no mistake, Lana was just one woman, but her presence packed an almighty punch, transforming your outlook by filling it with positivity & absolute joy. The tedious routine of life soon became glimpses of heaven in every moment, the beauty of simplicity revealed by the love of your life.

Before you were looking at the wide view, insignificance in such a vast planet making every aspect of life some sort of mocking cosmic joke; as if you were the extra in the movie of someone else’s existence.

Then Lana pointed out every detail that made up the world around you; the details on the petals in the flower fields you walked, the birds chirping each morning from your bedroom window, the leaves rustling in the gentle breeze singing a lullaby to rock you to sleep.

She turned the negatives to positives, the rain no longer a reflection of God’s sadness, becoming Mother Nature’s nurturing of the planet; watering to sooth the wilting souls that walked the ground.

She was your personal land of Oz – bringing plain Dorothy into a bright technicolour vision, worlds away from the black & white Kansas you had been stuck in for so long.

Can it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time re-written every line?

But once a plane has left the ground to soar above the clouds of dreamland, at some point it must return to lucid reality. Romanticizing love is never idealistic, the honeymoon period often fades into truth when the couple learns all they can about their partner, bringing along the flaws & sufferings of life.

Only the Gods are immune to the human affliction of pain; immortality granting wisdom & maturity that only originates in the freedoms away from the confines of time.

Despite the naivety of the beginnings of a relationship, Lana was not a Goddess, & not a Queen; she had cracks in her porcelain surface, deep ones at that. You had your own insecurities of course; cruel voices pointing out every blemish, every sentence spoken, every outfit worn, but not to the multitude of how Lana had suffered.

Her horrific traumas were never verbally revealed to you, triggers providing peepholes into the haunted era of her twenties – scars both physical & mental slowly chipping away at the bridge of your union. You would never know if the truth could have saved you both, or ripped the bandage of the inevitable split, but either way, you never fully understood each other.

The romance of nature seemed to be your only continuous bond, reliance on surroundings to further linger the magic spark of your first glance at each other.

A distraction from the fractures slowly creeping over the glass, ready to shatter at any given push.

For some, putting two broken halves together heals the damage, comfort providing the ultimate cure, but not for you. The shards were too sharp, too jagged, too complex to be fixed with a few words or physical affection.

Really, fate had doomed your love from the beginning, the universe’s entertainment as the new Shakespearian- style tragic romance of the century.

If we had the chance to do it all again

Tell me, would we? Could we?

Oh, but how you yearned for her. It was like having a half ripped away, functions of the body barely surviving, not even close to thriving like you had been with Lana.

It was as if you meant to have your appendix removed, but lost a lung instead. How long would it take for you to not be able to pull in a breath without her nearby?

No matter how broken the sides where, you were willing to try every single possibility to make it work again, but was she?

Is there such thing as a one-sided soulmate? The sun gives so much to the earth; a way to survive, hope for the future & security with the warmth that radiates.

But the Earth simply looks back in appreciation, not providing much in return.

One simply orbiting the other.

Memories May be beautiful and yet

The times shared were just too wonderful & joyous to be abandoned; a lighthouse shining through the grey fog of memories.

Every time you heard Lana’s name, all you could think of were the bright summer days in which you would both sprint through flower-filled fields, chasing each other & giggling like you were little girls again – a childish blissfulness under your shining sun.

You were surrounded by Lana in those glory-days; she was radiant to you, with comfort in all the seasons.

And you would kiss softly under a blanket of darkness as night fell, whilst the stars looked on with their bright, twinkling smiles.

You longed for that eternal summer again, the beauty, the meaning to every moment.

What's too painful to remember We simply to choose to forget

But of course, the seasons carry on, melting into each other as the weather changes. And, as the weather fluctuates, so does the mood of nature; calm, peaceful summers fading into temperamental, dreary winters.

You were children of the earth, the outside world shaping your love for each other, so how was it to last as the seasons moved on? There was no eternal summer for you.

Like frostbite you nipped at each other, the snow beating down outside; stamping on the flowers of hope that you had nurtured in the sunlight.

Frostbite if left untreated, will only spread, much like the little flaws in your relationship that were growing as the days advanced, darkness threatening to hold you hostage.

So your sunshine left, & the flowers were buried under the ground again.

So it's the laughter We will remember

And here she was again, in the present day.

She peered at you with those muddy eyes & flashed a smile, igniting a switchboard of emotions within your very core.

The smile sounded like a thousand jokes shared on a beautiful day, & seemed to last for eternity in your mind. It was bright & warm, evoking a feeling of security, of home at last.

The smile sounded like bickering & arguing; short insults hit in a cruel game of lover’s tennis. It was pierced with venom, teasing with the prospect of a future that was promised, but never received.

It seems that the seasons were now inside of you, a turbulent cycle sped up to feel like an entire year worth of emotion as you flitted through them wildly.

Well, at least she had followed through with the vow that monotony & blank feelings would escape you after the day you met.

It was so bittersweet; should you live in the past or move forward with a different future?

Whenever we remember The way we were The way we were

As if to answer your question, Lana broke your gaze & looked up at the sky as grey clouded the sun, & rain started to spit onto the ground.

She just turned around & walked away, leaving you with the hums of life you began with, beautiful song dimming into the last teasing notes.

The crescendo of your existence faded into the distance, as you wondered if you would ever hear music quite like this,

Ever again.

Taglist: @ka-s @ninaahs @stayeviildarling @babypocahontas @lilypadscoven @winters-witch-bitch @basicasshole @bottom4delia @forevercountess @violentwavesofem0tion @sporadicsupercorpquotesmonger @liberosisaspire @mellowalieneggsknight @thecasualgeek1 @lucykilljoy

[eyeofthedrgn]

A Heavy Battle Symphony Chapter 8

Catch up here >> AHBS Masterlist

TW: language, mental abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, violence, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, self harm, self-esteem issues, sexual abuse (only alluded to briefly in future chapters), drinking (comes up late in the story) just a lot of trauma, angst, smut - lots of lovely gay smut

Word count: 1739

Notes: This chapter is slightly graphic on the physical abuse. It's only like two lines, but I wanted to make it known.

Chapter 8 - Sorry for Now

After a while you may forget

But just in case the memories cross your mind

You couldn't know this when I left

Under the fire of your angry eyes

I never wanted to say goodbye

Four months, thirteen days, and ten hours, not that he was counting, since he left. Since the dark haired boy had walked away, leaving Rowan standing on the sidewalk. Since his mind spiraled out of control, and it felt like part of him died.

Rowan had been seeing a therapist for the last three months. It had helped, somewhat. At least he could function as a relatively normal human being again, when he was around people anyway. Most of the time. He almost didn't graduate. Thankfully, his mom, his friend group, and his therapist had helped him get through it.

But all in all, Rowan felt empty. Somehow his heart was broken. He hadn't realized someone could get so attached to someone so fast even though they never really talked or hung out. Maybe it was because they shared such vulnerabilities with each other that day in the park or there really was such a thing as a soulmate and his just left him. Either way, he was broken inside. Yet, he still went to parties with his friends, hung out, but he wasn't always present. Everyone noticed the vacant stares, but they usually left it alone. They all knew the general gist of what happened that day, but they could never understand the emotional gravity well that that day had caused. No one knew that Rowan had fallen for the other boy.

Except the ever observant Elide. She noticed everything. The way Rowan spoke about Lorcan, the way his eyes lit up when he saw the other boy walking down the hall, and the small looks they both shared on cast signing day.

But nobody had seen Lorcan after he had walked away. He never came back to school. No one knew what to think. Most assumed they moved again and they left it at that. Rowan assumed the worst after seeing Lorcan's bruises and him basically saying this was a usual occurrence.

Rowan was brought back to the present when a beach ball hit him in the head. He was sitting on the edge of Aelin's pool, sulking, feet dangling in the water. Aelin was throwing one of her parties, it was nearly the end of summer and soon most of them would head off to college. The noises from his friends finally filtering back into his head, it was suddenly too loud, too bright, and too hot. He ran a hand down his face.

Fenrys had been the beach ball throwing culprit, Rowan just glared at him.

"Come on, Ro. Try and have some fun?" Fen had swam over to Rowan and crossed his arms over the edge of the pool. The roguish blond just wanted him to be happy.

“I’m sorry.” He said that a lot now. Fenrys just raised an eyebrow at the boy… man.

He was eighteen now and he wasn't that scrawny, nerdy looking boy anymore. Rowan supposed that was one good thing that came out of Lorcan leaving, he got addicted to working out. There was a punching bag set up in the garage with some weights. He was fit now, muscles defined, but not bulky.

Elide walked up and mussed up his hair. "Come help me get some drinks." She didn't leave any room for argument.

In the kitchen, Elide just leaned forward on the island and looked at Rowan.

"I thought we were getting drinks."

"Yeah, we will. But-"

"But what?" He really didn't mean to say that with such an attitude, but he was hot and emotionally exhausted. Honestly, he just wanted to go home.

Elide was on her phone, waiting for him to chill. Taking a deep breath he said, "I'm sorry. What did you want to talk about?" Rowan was trying, he really was. She just slid her phone over the counter towards him. He furrowed his brows as he looked at the article on the screen.

Consultants for Erawan Enterprises arrested on counts of fraud, child abuse, human trafficking, and other illicit activities

"What's this?" He had no idea what this was about. Why would he care about Erawan Enterprises?

He picked up the phone and kept reading since Elide clearly wasn’t going to answer. It was short and there was a photo of a devastatingly beautiful woman with dark as night hair, that reminded him of Lorcan, and alabaster skin in handcuffs being pushed into a cop car and a very angry man shoved against the hood of the same car.

Maeve Valgerian and James Perrington were arrested Wednesday night. After some anonymous tips to the Morath Police.

"Who are these people?" Rowan didn't understand.

"Pretty sure she's Lorcan's aunt."

Oh.

Rowan had searched for Lorcan online after he disappeared, but there was literally nothing. Absolutely zero results. It was like he was a ghost.

They were consultants for Erawan Enterprises and moved all over the world for the very powerful man. Erawan Enterprises is under investigation for fraud, money laundering, and human trafficking.

After Valgerian and Perrington were arrested, MPD searched their residence and found incriminating evidence against them.

There was also a teenager held captive in the basement. They were taken to the nearest hospital with severely critical injuries. The name and gender of this individual will not be released for their safety.

The article was published nearly two months ago.

Human trafficking…

Held captive...

Severely critical injuries...

"Please, don't break my phone." He was squeezing the device and didn't realize it. Quickly handing it back to her, his hand went straight to his hair.

“Are you sure this is his aunt?”

“Well, not 100%, but they have physical similarities and their hair…” she trailed off. “And Lorcan had mentioned his aunt’s boyfriend living with them one day in class.”

"Fuck!" He felt like he wanted to rip his hair out.

"Ro." Elide's voice was quiet.

"FUCK!"

After a couple deep breaths, he ran his hands down his face, and then turned to face his friend. "Is he dead?" His voice cracked.

"I don't know. All of the other articles I could find are just about them and Erawan Enterprises. No mentions of Lorcan. Anywhere. It's like he doesn't exist."

Elide pulled him into a hug and he broke.

---

Lorcan had been through shit show after shit show since he left the Whitethorn house. As soon as he returned to the apartment, it was packed up into a moving van and they were gone.

They were in Fenharrow for a couple months. Maeve didn't enroll him in school. He was locked in the basement of the small house they rented, it felt like he had gone crazy. He hadn't seen the sun until they moved again. His skin turned a sickly gray. By the time they moved again, he could feel every one of his ribs, and his hips stuck out, his fingers overlapping when wrapped around his wrist.

Next move was to Morath. Lorcan didn't know if he would survive. He didn’t have a good feeling about this place. The basement became his home yet again. It was filthy. There were thick iron hooks in opposite walls and chains hanging from them. This was where he was going to die. He closed his eyes as Perrington latched the shackles around his wrists.

---

One day, Lorcan heard sirens intermittently. He kept passing out. He wasn't even sure he was hearing sirens or if it was just a ringing in his ears. They were always ringing nowadays. A punch to his face made his vision flicker. Blood and saliva leaked from his mouth as his head rolled down to his chest.

The ringing in his ears got louder. There definitely weren't sirens. No one was going to save him. He was going to die here. He knew it. It was what he deserved. The bastard born half-breed that no one cared about, left to die in his own filth in a disgusting basement. The world slowly faded to black.

---

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

He was in Hel. He had to be.

Beep.

The incessant beeping was there to drive him insane. And the smell of bleach was there to make him sick.

Beep.

---

Lorcan startled awake. How could he be awake? He was supposed to be dead. Right?

The nightmare he was having felt so real. Probably because he had lived it before. He assumed that was just what Hel was supposed to be, reliving the worst parts of your life.

But instead, he was in a bed, a hospital bed. Why did they save him? Lorcan wasn't worth saving. Yet, here he was covered in wires, tubes, a needle stuck in his hand, a device on his finger. It was dark outside and the lights were dim in the room.

Deciding he wasn’t actually dead, he took stock of his body, he was certain he had some broken ribs, but nothing else seemed to be broken which was surprising. He was definitely sore and stiff. And exhausted. So exhausted.

---

After… Lorcan didn't know how long he was discharged. He had put on some weight, though not a lot. The staff made sure he ate. They were all nice and cared for him. But now, he stood outside the main entrance of the hospital in some scrubs they gave him. Now, he had nothing. Nobody. He may as well have been lost at sea.

Why had they saved him? He still couldn’t figure that out.

Somehow, he managed to find the small house that he had been stuck in for who knows how long. There was police tape over the door. The door was open.

He pushed through the tape. The house was a mess. It seemed the cops had ransacked the place. But he finally found his things, they were strewn about the floor. Thank Hellas, his journal was still there. After changing, he packed up his books and journal, some clothes, and a few other other necessities.

He needed money or something he could sell. Maeve's jewelry would help. He could pawn it.

Lorcan asked the pawnshop owner for directions to the bus station, and then he set out to see if there was still one person who cared about him. Hopefully this wasn’t a bad idea.

____

Thanks for reading. Things will get better, I promise! Let me know if you'd like to be tagged.

Edit- oops! I forgot to actually put in tags... My bad. Sorry!

@thenerdandfandoms @starlightorstarfire

[ddagent]

Inspired by the Sandman casting news, God of Love Jaime and Goddess of the Underworld, the Dead, and the Forgotten Brienne.

I was hoping to write some God of Love Jaime today; this is actually super weird but I hope you enjoy it!

“There you are.” Brienne looked up from the open chest cavity of one Jeyne Snow and found Margaery Tyrell staring at her from the open doorway. “We were going to catch a double feature at the cinema. Want to join us?”

Brienne blinked. “Sure. Just let me finish up.”

Margaery gave Brienne a thousand-watt grin and headed back out into the corridor. She would be with the other doctors in their little group: Sansa, Ygritte, and Tysha. They were all doctors above ground: plastic surgery, gynaecology, trauma, paediatrics. They all did their best to help the living while Brienne remained down here, in the basement, with the dead. While the others squealed and blanched over the prospect of spending day in, day out with corpses, Brienne had no such qualms. After all, she was the Goddess of the Underworld, Patron of the Dead and Forgotten. 

The Stranger. 

Placing a pouch of salt and herbs beside Jeyne’s form, Brienne ensured she was stowed properly before showing and dressing for an evening out with her...she was loathe to say friends. In the rare occasions she had taken human form, Brienne had never grown close to anyone. It was easier in the Age of Dragons, where she could drift from town to town along the King’s Road; giving burial rites to those who needed it and enacting justice to those who deserved it. But times had changed. People sought out connection more than ever before. 

And now, Brienne supposed, she had people who sought her out. 

Sansa linked her arm with Brienne’s as they left King’s Landing General Hospital and headed for a multiplex a few streets down. From here she could see the bright lights and long lines; a large poster with a shirtless man dominating the scene. As they grew closer, Brienne realised who it was. Jaime Lannister, rom-com heartthrob who took off his shirt at least seven times within ninety minutes. The girls ogled the poster and the prospect of the double feature. 

Brienne just stared; the eyes on the poster following her as she moved to join the back of the line. 

“He is so pretty,” Margaery said, letting out a deep sigh at the thought of Jaime Lannister. “You know, I met him on a plane once. His eyes are just...inhuman.” Maybe because he’s not human. “I would give every dragon in my trust fund to sleep with him.”

“Or just to touch his hair. Do you think those are his real muscles?” Sansa, the youngest of the group, swooned. “How high do you think he could lift me?”

The girls chattered on – Ygritte often throwing out negative comments to stir the pot – as they bought their tickets and headed inside. The cinema foyer was packed with single women looking to stare at Ice and Fire magazine’s regular heartthrob of the month, as well as couples hoping that a romantic comedy would be the perfect entertainment on Maiden’s Day. His day. As Brienne walked along to the screening room, film posters of his various features – Oathkeeper, The Last Knight, The Things We Do For Love – stared back at her. One even had the audacity to wink as she walked past. 

“I’m not feeling too well,” Brienne uttered before they had even entered the screen. “I think I’ll just head home.”

But Margaery encircled her wrist and dragged her inside. “No, you don’t. I know you’ve had a bad spell of romance, but a Jaime Lannister movie marathon is just the thing to cheer you up!”

Sansa squeezed Brienne’s hand. “Marge is right. Forget about Hyle and Ben and the others. They’re not worth your time. Just sit back and enjoy the gorgeousness that is Jaime Lannister.”

A woman sitting behind them patted Brienne’s shoulder. “Believe me, it’s just nice to enjoy the fantasy. After all, there’s no men like him!”

A few others around them tittered; the line clearly from one of his movies. Brienne had heard it before, from his very own lips. It was something he was fond of saying and had earned a cane to the back of the ankles from the Crone. Brienne was loathed to stay; the crackle of energy in the room disquieting. But it would seem suspicious if she were to just up and leave. After all, to them she was Brienne Tarth, a medical examiner who had been the centre of a bet by a group of surgeons. Her friends had tried to comfort her, tried to get her to open up; share her feelings. 

The problem is that Brienne didn’t feel. 

“I dreamed of you.”

A sigh went round the room at the opening scene of The Last Knight. Jaime Lannister, dressed in a crimson tunic, stared longingly at the woman he had just rescued from a bearpit. While the rest of the cinemagoers watched the film, Brienne grew more and more uncomfortable. All the hair on her arms stood up; goose flesh covering her skin. When she looked back at the screen, Jaime Lannister was staring directly at the camera. At her. 

“I thought you’d never come to one of these things. You told me I was a fool for acting.” Brienne frowned. She turned to Sansa, who was mouthing different words. “They can’t see me. Can’t hear me.”

“Jaime.”

Upon the large screen, the God of Love walked around the screen ambivalent to the plot and direction and the actual movie that was shot. He lounged in an armchair, picking lint off his shoulder, before offering her a shit-eating grin. “I can’t believe you’re here. Watching me. I’m touched, Brienne.”

“I was dragged here.”

“Against your will?” The image on screen shook his head. “I don’t think so. You are the Goddess of the Dead. Nothing ever happens without your say so.”

“Including using our powers in the land of the living. Or have you forgotten what happened last time?”

The Jaime on screen waved a hand in her direction. The scene changed on screen to the King’s Road but Jaime remained. He peered out at the multiplex. “Building a cinema on the grounds of an old sept. Bad form. Holy ground doesn’t change, Brienne: you know that.”

She did. Everything upon the soil was fair game. They could be their godly selves within these four walls. As Jaime proved as he stepped out of the screen. Pulled apart the layer between reality and fantasy; his costume from The Last Knight fading and replaced by a simple white shirt and slacks. Around her, the room came to a sudden stop. Fallen popcorn hovered in mid-air; conversations fell into nothingness. The whole world had stopped for them. 

Jaime held out his hand. She stared at it, confused. “Why did you come here?”

He shrugged. “I dreamed of you.”

She scoffed; the line from the film ringing in her ears. “We don’t dream.”

“Sometimes I do. They are always of you.”

“I don’t...I don’t feel, Jaime.” She had told him that the last time they had met, in the ruins of Harrenhal with rain hovering in the sky. “I can’t feel for you like I—like I want to.”

His smile was soft; his eyes warm with adoration. “You forget, I can feel everything. And I can feel you. Trust me.”

Her hand slid into his and she was brought up from her seat. Brienne suddenly recalled when she’d offered him a hand; when he, full of love and innocence, had taken a life while in human form. She had been the only god who had not turned away. Brienne had held him and protected him and together they had slain the men who had wanted to bring fire and destruction upon this very city. 

“I loved you then,” he whispered, as if able to read her thoughts. “You loved me, too. Can I kiss you?”

She nodded. Lifting on his toes, Jaime brushed his lips against hers. Her first kiss. Soft and gentle; his mouth tasting sweet and tart like the red berries she had watched him devour in the Seven Heavens. Brienne chased that taste as her hands found purchase on his shoulders; as his arms tightened around her waist. After a moment, Jaime pulled away to take a deep breath. He then kissed her hand and walked towards the silver screen. 

She followed. 

[furymint]

wc: 5,517 | sequel to this & this | Response to Industrial Revolutions RP | tw: war themes, extended discussion of trauma & death, brief murder/death

The last command he gave was “stand easy.”

In Ala Ghiri’s clearing, Nolanel missed, in a way, the mutinae of drill and the march. He preferred the ease of rhythm and motion, one after another, without the trap of conversation or thought. It was not quite numbness, he told himself, which made him believe so less.

Contradiction ached in him. Though senselessness was a type of duty, it swallowed some forbidden part of him that relished being human. To win meant to walk through the bodies in the vale, not to bury them. Except for revenge, the dead needed naught he could give. Others would inter and mourn but he must continue, terror be damned, himself be ruined. He must forget someone loved him.

Instead, exhausted and hesitant, he shook responsibility from his mind. He longed to know something more than the bloodied dirt of Gyr Abania, and he longed to trust, if not in nothing, then that as he shut his eyes the flash of gunpowder or the groan of a dying soldier would not wake him. He had done enough for now: he dragged his company to this damn hamlet, lost three to disease and another to the wilds, and the remainder of the poor wretches no longer had the strength to complain.

They would be fed with clay roofs above them. And soon, the privacy of darkness. What more was needed of him?

The old, familiar reason responded “all,” but when he heard his name he no longer cared.

Elliot, by gods, by what sick, welcome joke did he come here, this trampled country, scorched waste and war.

Nolanel stiffened and scowled and did not look. Nothing could keep him from love better than himself. His lungs coiled and that damn ringing in his ears returned. Elliot’s voice had cracked over the last syllable–how long had he been in this rotten, faraway fight, and what did it do to him, innocent?

But his name was not Nolanel here. His jaw tightened as he reordered himself and returned the steel to his mind. Rows and columns of wearied soldiers swayed afore his eyesight. He must count. The lumbering weight of kits and packs and weaponry, soles worn and caked in grime, faces like masks or mirrors. Who was missing–or what? Beyond them, where the bone-white curbs fronted the first stretch of buildings, walking wounded trickled from door to door to find surgeons.

He’d had enough. They all did. He could not pretend his indifference defended him from anything. Not while they stood aware of their next peace.

“Fall out!” He capitulated to pity and heartache: “Dismissed.”

He paused, considering what judgements awaited him in time, and did not move until all that was left in the clearing were the imprints of boots.

Nolanel lifted his head to find any ignominy worth it. Lifelong barriers fell from him. He smiled to Elliot. For the hundredth time this sun he said that name for no one’s hearing.

Sheltered behind a low fence, Elliot stood aside a table of a public house patio, an old column shading him from the twilight glare. The blue medic’s jacket boxed his shoulders, and he seemed to have given up styling his hair under his beret: his bangs had been cut back, aging his face if exhaustion hadn’t. He fussed back and forth a moment, trapped, until he swung over the fence and skid on the dry silt with a sudden laugh.

A gunshot cracked.

Nolanel raced to grab him and fled for the pub’s door.

Atop the walls of the town, a squabble flung a body into the clearing. It hit the dust with a halting snap of bone.

Soldiers and locals rioted inside for exits or answers, and Nolanel threw a drunk woman aside to clear the path to the counter. Shoving Elliot behind the bar, he hissed, “Keep from the windows,” and glared a threat to the startled waitress.

People stomped, red-faced and terrified, and shouted through the red alleys. Additional shots echoed from the northern wall, and a Maelstrom fireteam streaked from behind the whirring aetheryte.

Elliot stumbled to his feet, hands slipping on the grease-slicked floor, and snatched Nolanel by the arm.

Outside, an Adder pounded on a window pane. Their mouth moved to repeat the unheard word “dead,” but the hysterics inside neither understood nor wanted to. The Adder sliced their hand across their throat. Understanding rippled through the pub–but calm did not. 

Hatred erupted. Tables rattled under fists. Tipped chairs struck the floor. People roared curses to the Empire, those rotten, miserable whoresons who knew naught but doctrine. It took all the continent–plus those rowdy islanders–to hold this fort, and still a black-souled whatever-the-fuck camped their walls and murdered their sentries. Probably knifed the injured in their beds, too.

Nolanel shouldered back to the door, hauling Elliot with him. He met the unfamiliar road with a gawked shamble.

Elliot knew the paths. He slipped aside and curved into a slim alley, following it to a dead end of brick and weeds. A single door and window faced outward. Without the commotion, he realized how heavy his breath came, and his hands folded over his chest with an apology. “We’re due rain soon,” he began. “I’ve been looking forward to it–that, at least, should put a pause on the fighting.”

Nolanel thought of the crater holes in the reclaimed Fringes, filled with bodies of dead and dying Imperials; how the bastards, shot free of arms and half-buried in the muck, screamed and writhed for freedom as the water rose around them. Reapers, arranged in the distance, did not stop their intermittent fire no matter the sky’s whims.

He offered a quiet, “Hopefully,” and stood apart.

Elliot slid his foot along a crack in the paved brick, looking down. “It is been a long time coming here.”

“Yes.”

“Took a lot, too.”

“Mm.”

“What was the last letter you received from me?” Elliot stepped forward.

“Velodyna. Have you…?”

“No, I haven’t written since.” He offered his hand loosely.

Nolanel immediately took it.

“When someone comes in with their leg torn off, we read the medical slip or ask or infer how. Seeing it happen is different.”

Nolanel stiffened cold, understanding what Elliot told him, and feeling that he’d never understood him so well as when his voice snapped like it did, and when his hands dug into his arms like vices.

“We were at Imperatoris–”

“Fuck.” Nolanel yanked his arms free to hook them around Elliot, clinching him to his chest.

“–I know, I know what it’s like for me. I patch people up, I tell them they won’t die, and I fill them with morphine–if I can, if there’s any–so they don’t feel their heart stop. I know where I stand when I keep one man from bleeding out and another from ripping the bandages over the hole where his eye was. There was rubble and bullets flying, not yet in bodies, and I know what a scream sounds like when there’s a blade stuck in your rib.”

Elliot pressed closer, slowly leaning all his weight forward until Nolanel buckled and crashed into a wall for support.

“And he didn’t sound like that. The broken column pinned him to the ground, and we lifted it from him. Arcian was there. I pulled him out and it was like ripping fabric–the snap and tension–his body split and he groaned and died as I stood there. I stood and watched because I hurt him, and I wondered if he knew. Why did he call for help? Did he know what he was, or what he wanted? I don’t even know if he said aught. I could blame him if he did. I–I–And now too–Someone just now died and I’m thinking of myself.”

He shifted, uncurling his fingers from the braiding of Nolanel’s uniform. “I don’t want to be like this.”

Nolanel’s mind frayed. The weight of his kit faded to numbness, and the sickening pound of his heart deafened reason. He mouthed Elliot’s words back to him, forcing comprehension even as each of his senses shackled themselves in hurried, ugly evasion.

He was sick. Whatever fragments of the world he called his own snapped apart–to beckon them back frightened him more than their distance. The shape of those words were more familiar to him than his own body. To be aught other than this, to know and feel differently, only not to be himself in this moment where powerlessness slowed his pulse. What he hated was old in him, and in Elliot it was old too–but the poor damn kid never knew it till now.

Whispering an apology that could never suffice, Nolanel clawed at his scalp and pulled from the wall. Order returned to him from the pain. “No one does. And you don’t–There’s no need to berate yourself for that.”

Elliot sobbed in frustration and let go. “Every sun, I do worse to our men to keep them alive than the enemy did in wounding them. I take the knife to them, and the saw, and I keep them alive when they beg me not to. The only consistency they have is chaos–and it’s in them, like a part of them.”

Nolanel grabbed him, insisting under his breath, “That’s the point. None of us are ourselves. When people are dying and–or they’re terrified, the truth of what they’re made of doesn’t show. Desperation does, and it’s only that. Don’t expect better from yourself of that. You’re not an angel. You’re no saint. Neither am I. We’re just men, and we’re fools about it, just like everyone else.”

A whine ripped from Elliot’s throat even as he stilled under Nolanel’s renewed touch. “I wish I hated this place more than I do. It’s too much. It’s taken too much. But damn my heart, I want to help!" 

"And you are! But you can’t wreck yourself to do it. Please. I’ve learned by now, by Halone, I’d rather be selfish than a statue. The only fate of saints is death. Survival doesn’t happen by accident–not usually. You have to want it. I want that, and I want what’s good for our country and the people in it. I want you in my life. But I know I mayn’t have it all at once, so I just–I do my best and keep in mind what’s important.”

Elliot only cried, nodded his head that he’d heard, and rubbed his face free of tears–his hat, knocked by his shaking hands, fell to the floor. “Heavens’ sake,” he whimpered.

For a moment, Nolanel mistook the steady pound of the guns for the tick of a clock. He lowered his voice and tone to murmur against Elliot’s hair, “I want to hear it all but we’re in a bad place for it. This alley–these homes–they’re abandoned, are they?”

Elliot paused, waiting to remember how to speak from his mind instead of his heart. With an uneasy sigh, he knelt for his hat and said, “Yes, there’s not many civilians left here, in freedom, on this side of the gate.”

“Then come. When did you last eat?” Nolanel turned his gaze away for the first time to peer through the window.

“Noon. And yourself?”

The glass reflected his face; he hated the scratches and sunburn on his cheeks. “Depends what you consider food.”

“Ser!”

“I’m kidding. Sympathizers met with us along the way. Gave us roasted flatbread. Some I’ve got still–and the last of the cake your father sent.”

Elliot observed him, looking for truth in his reply, or mayhaps reminding himself that love was Nolanel’s desperate smile. It took something cruel and dead in him to break from that comfort to enter the house.

Nolanel did not realize what he wanted so badly from the little dwelling until he stood on its threshold. The door opened into a squat kitchen. Barren cabinets crouched agape around a thick wooden table. One wall bore a macramé tarp to cover an obvious water stain. A threadbare rug skid under his hesitant step; he tripped into the nearest hall to spy a room with a single bed, a dresser missing a drawer, and a dead plant laid on the stone floor.

It should not have been like this. Experience submit to hope. He wanted–not for the people who once called this place a home–something apart from war. Elliot deserved at least that. 

The walls should hold art; clothes should be waiting for ironing in neat stacks; jars of dried fruit surely belonged on the table for easy breakfast.

The strangers who abandoned this home–he suddenly hated them for their despair. How dare they ransack their own home and leave it for filth like him? Why couldn’t they have left it like they must have thousands of times on the way to work–a home, furnished, filled with their songs and stories–to return to?

Fucking ridiculous. He knew better.

Grim, Nolanel strode passed to investigate the room for squatters. Appeased by its desolation, he returned to the kitchen and slammed his kit on the table. He yanked a cloth-bound package from its depth and dropped it afore a chair. “Cake,” he announced. With an impatient apathy to manners, he shoved his belongings to the floor and crashed into the seat facing the door.

Elliot edged towards the empty seat, sat with a frown, and unwrapped the brick of pound cake. He forgot one discomfort for another. “I’m going to regret asking this, but–haven’t you a fork?”

Nolanel leaned his head back and gave a smile that was half pity and half resignation to the ceiling. “All scrapped for shiny new guns.”

“Disgusting.” He plucked a cranberry from the cake and squeezed it. “War breeds innovation yet destroys more than lives and comfort; society is murdered alike.”

“Rest easy. There are wooden forks in the world,” Nolanel said. Hanging out of his chair, he rifled through his bag again.

Elliot said “thank you” afore he saw what Nolanel had grabbed–a piece of flatbread, burnt on one side.

“I thought you were–”

“I know.”

“You don’t have one.”

“No. They’re too good as firewood.”

Rubbing his face, Elliot complained, “I can’t recall which of us said it first so long ago, but I hope it was myself so I may have the satisfaction of saying it twice: you live on your knees, ser.”

Staring deliberately, he shrugged. “I might. Day’s not over yet.”

“You’re worse than Wyda.”

Nolanel flicked his hand towards the door. “Go kiss Wyda then.”

Elliot turned in his seat to find something to throw.

“You want a weapon, you’ll get one in my kit. They gave us egg-bombs.” Nolanel kicked his bag towards Elliot, but it smacked into the table leg and spilled a tin mug instead.

In the silence, the grumble of tin on stone had a quality of the extraordinary. There had not been silence before.

The crash and shriek of war never halted; squeaking, overburdened carts borne by heaving chocobos broke into the plaza every bell. Hammers cracked through the locks on bug-ravaged crates. Terrified by their thoughts, people talked incessantly about nothing. They beat music onto tables and floors, groaned, traded, bickered over cards and bragged their imagined victories.

For the world to have gone quiet meant the world had ended. Nolanel and Elliot paused to live the terror of peace for a moment.

When the thunder of a shell broke in the north, they breathed relief for absurdity.

“I hate this place,” Nolanel sighed, ripping the flatbread in half. “Impossible to tell how much of it is in my head.”

“After a time, I believe we begin to forget the guns. Same as a chronometer,” Elliot suggested, scooping up the mug and rubbing his thumb along its rim.

“No. I don’t think so.” He spoke without combativeness, as if judging the next morn’s weather, and stuffed bread in his mouth.

That dispassion bled into Elliot, who stared at the scratched base of the mug without interest. “Any drink in that bag of yours?” he muttered.

“Sealed pouch on the side nearest you.”

Elliot chittered the first line of a drinking song as he yanked the flask free and unscrewed the top. “Oh, dear,” he wheezed, a lightness somewhere between glee and self-destruction in his smile. “Is it half poison?”

Nolanel snorted. “We’ll find out together.” Standing partway, he took the flask after Elliot poured a shot, grimacing from the stench of it.

With an abiding look, they made a small toast. In the same unity, they choked and coughed their torture.

“Bad. Bad,” Elliot sniveled, curling his legs into the seat with him.

Groaning, Nolanel sealed the vodka and threw it atop his bag.

Guns filled the lull this time.  

Sick of it all, Nolanel growled and rapped his knuckles into the heavy table. His ears rang and he had a distant suspicion they were bleeding. “How are the others? You said Arcian was there?”

Poking at the cake, Elliot ignored him.

“It’s good you weren’t alone.”

Elliot pulled a chunk free and chewed it deliberately.

“Your friends are here. Your Bellworks. You got them too–not just me. Where are they? Name them out.”

At that, Elliot whispered the name ‘Brave’ and covered his face.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

Something was deeply wrong with the world. It must be the world, or Nolanel, and Nolanel. A rasping terror eroded the best of him as he sat apart from Elliot–some type of eternity in a yalm. His thoughts met him halfway between his voice and a stranger’s. Even the sun, long set behind the foreign horizon, seemed to heat his back like in the old verdant lowlands. Desperation at Elliot’s returned tears broke him and he continued to talk:

“I’m sorry. I don’t know if this will be comforting for you. There are very few 'firsts’ in war. What shocks you has long ceased to shock me, and what frightens me has been known by people beside me for years–and furthermore by the dead we have replaced. There aren’t very many new ways to die.

"I think, though, that joy is invented every day. Sorrow is the same. Mayhap what is consistent has greater power–I don’t know–but I prefer to believe what is unique is more important. There will never be another person in this world who feels as I do when I see you. My happiness is mine own–even if most the world shares mine agonies. And you, in sharing that man’s death, did not share what is extraordinary about him. We will all die. Others have died like him. It’s not important, even if it’s heavy. You can’t wreck yourself over it.

”'Tis over now. You will never be there again. There are new things to do. They won’t all be good, but–they’ll be gone too. It comes and it goes but there’s a center to it naught can move. For me, that’s you. And you’ll go out and do your best and you’ll come back to me, and we’ll know there’s something else in this life but horror. I don’t think its name is love. It’s something more unique than that.

“I more than likely am wrong. But it comforts me against the helplessness. That doesn’t go away but it can stop hurting so much. Something so terrible–to be normal–it shouldn’t comfort to be normal. Death really doesn’t matter, but your voice does–to me. I’m sorry. I just wanted the details of what happened, not to–I don’t know what to do yet.”

Nolanel cringed, lowered his head into his hands, and cursed with the haste of terror. Disgust crept up his spine and sealed his throat. He hated himself and what he said, what he sounded like. He was mad and the world was not to blame–people were, many of them nameless. More of them were dead.

As he rubbed his eyes, the sound of the cursed Gyr Abanian skies faded in and out. He did not hear the clip of the moving chair.

Elliot was sorrow and patience. His fingertips skid against the table as he neared, deliberately tapping to indicate his place.

“I’m scared too,” he murmured.

Again, Nolanel emerged from himself as if only through pain could he do so. He grimaced. “You’re upset.”

“No, just scared. I don’t want you to upset yourself. And I dislike the details because there aren’t many of them.”

“Forgive me.”

“I do.”

“I’m terrible at playing priest’s ear.”

“I know.”

“Whatever I can’t say right, you know I’m for you.”

“Of course.”

Nolanel pursed his lips, echoed, “Of course,” and raised his head.

Tiredness, like a poison, showed in the strain of Elliot’s face. His eyes puffed as if with bruises, and the playful curve of his lips had gone flat. The lithe curl of his fingers seemed more in anxiety than anticipation. He spoke with resignation instead of hope: “There’s no need to keep me at arm’s length when I could be in your arms instead.”

Before he knew what he said, Nolanel whispered, “I wish it weren’t this way.”

He did not understand himself until Elliot removed that stupid bloody beret from his crown.

He did not like Elliot here. If it meant hoarding him at home, in Ishgard with the harried priests and wrist-wringing merchants, rivals for company and prayers for comfort–Nolanel would have it so not to see his love’s nerves pin in the same way as his. It was nerves, after all, more than the war. Dreadful body. The spirit would overcome what the body feared.

Contradiction ached in him.

He couldn’t call it selflessness that he felt this way. A strange pride clamored within that he enjoyed his isolation. The wars were unique from any fragment of life outside of them. Nolanel was unique. He liked that. War was his–indelible, rotten, and intransmutable.

It did not belong to Elliot. The hurt he’d forgotten would wrench Elliot’s face when he recounted violent tales of the vigils. When he explained a scar he was a martyr, not some average fool. The stupidity and glory of it all was fresh to Elliot, who still preferred pleasant memories to defining experiences. He still thought death had a purpose.

Did he still? Even now that he’d seen the brave man die the same way as the wretch? When he stood there on the patio, obstructed by columns, stirred dust flying between the rows of march-worn soldiers, did he think he shared something of the soldiers’ exhaustion?

Well didn’t he? It was in the consistencies they’d both ignored, wasn’t it? War mattered: they were in it, they thought it and felt it and wore it. When Elliot set his beret atop Nolanel’s head, he hummed something unheard. Nolanel was looking at that color red–right at the pulse, darting around Elliot’s collar and jutting from his cuffs. Burgundy, like slow-seeping blood, the pride of the north, most blessed house, Durendaire. It was the same in Whitebrim. Elliot had never belonged in Whitebrim.

Nolanel stumbled to his feet, curses pressing against the walls of his mouth. It was the same fight here with himself. Elliot, avowedly apart from this insanity of steel and gore, belonged to it as much as Nolanel did. Even as he begged ignorance, it had its claws in Elliot’s back from the moment he called himself Ishgardian. He’d pretended immunity, packed his bags, marched straight to the battlefield, and returned to his ballrooms with the same lie to himself: that he didn’t know what war was.

And Nolanel had believed it. His eyes screwed. He threw the beret to the table and grabbed Elliot’s wrist to tug him towards the door.

“Wait–Stop–” Elliot set his heels into a groove in the tile. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know. I can’t breathe here. I need to see the sky.”

“What is it on your mind?”

“Let me think through it first. I’ve done more rambling than I ought this sun. If you must be here, I don’t want you to feel unwell.”

“I’m not going anywhere. And you’re right–I’m sick of being miserable. All I want is for you to kiss me.”

“Kissing you isn’t gonna make what you’re feeling go away.”

Elliot grabbed him in return, shook him by the arms, and wailed.

The picture of solemnity, Nolanel whined back.

“"Look,” Elliot said, working his fists to Nolanel’s collar. “Let’s compromise. Right now, you forget or accept the blood in the back of my heart. No more war talk. And I’ll do the same for your ignoring me when I called your name.”

Nolanel wrapped his hands around Elliot’s. “I hate your self-awareness–or whatever it is–sometimes.”

“Call it conviction, or hypocrisy, or bullshit–I don’t care–as long as you smile when you do it.”

Against all discipline and spite in him, Nolanel smiled and lowered his shoulders. He squeezed Elliot’s hands before releasing him, and, looking away, laughed poorly to himself. It would not be possible to forget–like love, such things were made to endure into death. 

“Deal,” he said, backing towards the door. “Walk with me then.”

As deliberate as a waltz, Elliot matched each step, each breath, pressing closer in perfect unity. His triumphant grin widened as he skimmed his grip on Nolanel over his neck, ears, hair. 

Voice as soft as his lips, he murmured “thank you” and kissed him.

Nolanel could have forsaken heaven for that kiss. For a moment things seemed as they used to be. He was himself, unembellished by scorn, alive with memory. When Elliot brushed beside him to leave, lingering fingertips roved the bend of his waist. Nolanel bumped him with a shoulder and stamped back to the sandy brick outside.

Moonlight had no dominion. Above, the giant crystal bursting from the mountainside glew in defiance of night. Windows flickered orange lamplight behind their smoky panes. Ala Ghiri lived with the same intensity of day–unseen legions jabbered on, water dripped a beat into a half-full pail, insects droned among the hills.

It overcame Nolanel how lucky he was. He respected the hulking blue crystal, persistent nature and its refusal to die even as smoke settled on the horizon for days, blades lodged themselves into trunk and person, metal and poisons sunk into its rivers. And vengeance never came to it as it did him, doomed to die from the same torments. Mayhap that was mercy.

But it didn’t make sense. It was not respect but jealousy. It was not luck he felt but gratitude–and no small amount of entitlement. He was alive, full of nonsense and brutal, inexpressible aches, and safe for now with Elliot striding beside him. None of it made sense.

Like sudden music, Elliot’s voice broke him from his wretched contemplation.

“'Tis always more than a little strange,” he said, “To look up and see the same array of stars–yet know they are roamed by some other god.”

They escaped from the alleys to the main thoroughfare, where dry wind stirred the sand dyed blue by crystal light. Nolanel deliberately kept from hastening his step. He did not look at Ala Ghiri’s wall. Unseen clouds moved through the sky, swallowing stars.

“But She’s still near. I’ve never felt without Her.”

“So long as Her name is spoken, She walks with us,” Elliot agreed, taking Nolanel loosely by the arm.

Strangers drifted by like ghosts. No presence lived in their occasional glance. Soldiers, nurses, merchants, fools. 

The pathway broke away into the sunken plaza, the ledge chipped from impatient heels and stubborn vines. Nolanel jumped the yalm with enduring ease: Elliot smirked down at him, pet his head, said nothing his mood did not convey. He set his hand on Nolanel’s shoulder, his thumb stroking warm circles.

“Oh, I know it,” he said, landing each stride between the lines of brick. “My name is closer to your lips than Hers.”

It was obscene truth–and Nolanel felt a guilty pride when he looked to the man who spoke it, taunting heaven with a smile.

“But I’m the same.” Elliot broke his little march to stomp on a brittle leaf. “It feels so much like piety to say your name when you’re not there. It doesn’t belong in the same breath anymore as 'amen.’ Every sun I missed you and I was too afraid to pray that I’d find you within reach. Answered prayers too often arrive as punishments. I prefer to suffer in mine own way.”

And still the word “alone” wrung in Nolanel’s mind as the thing Elliot did not quite say. Contradiction stung like a burn. A flare split the sky in the east but he was too sedated by memory to care. 

He walked, he missed the march, he missed the harsh strike of other hard soles on the earth around him, the whistle of song that drove off death, the beloved dead that followed at his back and shrieked silent envy toward the strength in his body. He was here, the cold breath of night in his lungs, not laughing in the lamp smoke and clap of worn hands, where blades lay against the walls with the glint of firelight in their silver. He’d abandoned what brought him here–the warm mornings on the dirt of the parade ground, the shuffling of hurried men straining to hear the familiar words of the lecturing monk, the raw pulse of something holy in him when triumph came in the sparking husk of a reaper without its pilot–and he knew he loved it too.

If this wasn’t ritual it was stronger than it. What man did in pursuit of miracles never inspired him as when the gods deigned to talk through what the damned called circumstance. In this stupid, bloody conflict he’d been given Elliot beside him, and that was worth every curse he’d spent in a foreign pit, shrunk under barbed wire as the bullet in his arm turned to flame.

As if the world whispered a song only Elliot could hear, he swayed his body and drifted his free hand through the air with the slow descent of snow. The natural blue light outlined the rim of his fine throat, and a different light flashed in his eyes like purpose. There was grace in him, and joy and complete awkwardness, and whatever unbound thrill made birds sing at morning light. The same pearl burned in indefinite color from his ear and Nolanel thought it was more beautiful than anything because it was connected to him.

That was the answer, then. Distraction after distraction, Nolanel had missed him–only that–and it served no name to pretend less. He despised what confusions it took him to understand himself, but he no longer had the patience for anger. He missed Elliot. They had not been themselves–not today, not for a time–except in transient moments, and Nolanel no longer cared to be apart from war or anything. Damn the distractions, the eyes and the fears. He’d be himself because that was who Elliot loved.

The sand hushed and scratched under his skidding feet, the wind seemed to tug at his soul, his eyes went blind with surrender. He caught Elliot and embraced him, nestling his forehead against his chest, arranging his hands against the slope of his back. Fabric bunched around the press of his arms as he edged his touch higher, taking possession of him by ilms, recognizing Elliot’s body beyond memory.

“Dear gods,” Nolanel whispered. “I love you.”

Protectively, Elliot curled over him. He cradled Nolanel’s head and teased fingers through his hair. “Say it louder.”

“You–”

Nolanel’s laugh echoed Elliot’s as he lifted him, spinning him from the ledge and lowering him in the hold of his arms. An imagined tranquility stole over him. Lightning dived above, Elliot gasped, and Nolanel kissed, and kissed, and kissed him. 

Whatever happened he would have this truth. The world kept on its insensate cruelty, and Nolanel thought only of how deeply he missed and loved this man. His pulse sang rapture; his strength crumbled at the sigh against his neck.

He disobeyed the appeal of his heart to be closer and flinched away when the first raindrop struck him. Elliot shrieked his astonishment under the boom of thunder but the witless sky had already burst.

All of Ala Ghiri fell into the haze of rain, extinguished and blurry lights, cold steam and abandoned streets. Vainly, Nolanel replaced his collar; Elliot tugged it back down and took his hand and ran.

As if the alleys had thinned, they tripped over each other and bumped into wall after corner, screaming fake annoyance. Nolanel dizzied from the water drumming on head and back, and he wished he could dance. Laughter broke from him as he cleared his eyes, clinging to Elliot with one hand, every pain gone from him as if by flight. There was life in him, searing like the oldest sunlight, as he sprinted, lost with Elliot though the gathering puddles that burst under his step, the rivulets that tumbled from windowsills, the loud, powerful darkness and promised storm.

x

> sequel (wc:1,125, NSFW)

[mpreg-adventures]

Bellyburstball Remastered

Bellyburstball Remastered

A new type of football game was making a wave of new support. The game of bellyburstball involved two opposing teams the Titans and the Sharks, the Titan Football Club was comprised of the fittest men all over the galaxy and the Sharks Football Club was comprised of the notorious Sharkaliens. The rules of the game where simple both sides must score to win the game. The scoring system comprised of four goal post to score a goal worth six points the player must kick or punt the ball between the two central tall goal posts and to score a behind which was worth one point the player must score between a small goal post on the outside of either of the two central goal posts.

Another rule was as time passed on if none of the titans players scored the sharkalien fetuses inside them would grow and take up more space.

The eight Martian brothers fielding the Titans football team were:

Zorg, Xavier, Cucumber, Gree, Bly, Early Chieftain, Adelaide and Harvester.

The rules where simple for the shark humanoid aliens who got to also impregnate the opposing male players on the Titans side, but the game was far more complicated for the men on the Titans team as they had to fight for survival and try and avoid a sexual orgasmic death giving birth to Sharkalien offspring.

“Welcome to the first ever football season of Bellyburstball!” shouted the happy game commentator Robert Ross.

“The rules where simple, any spectator can adopt a player during his Sharkalien pregnancy. Some of the players may become fan favourites and thus will be carefully care for by the medical team to keep them alive a lot longer to make the game a lot more interesting”

“Each member of the Titans team must be throat fucked and impregnated in order for the game to begun, nut however during the game the sharkaliens can throat fuck and impregnate the human players as many times as the wish without interference from the game’s authority.” Continued Robert Ross.

“And the last rules are when offspring movement within the human players is present the umpire will blow the whistle and the game will be paused as a medic team will be deployed to do abdomen examination including a standing up ultrasound (sonagram) where the player will have his belly examined standing. And that is most of the rules for now. Let’s meet our first players for our very first game in galactic history!” Shouted Robert Ross over the game PA system.

“Now over to you Xenia Remington”

“Thank you Rob. Hi and welcome I’m Stacy Remington I’ll be the on field commentator for the season and in a minute we will meet the five men squad for the Titans side and we will introduce the sharkaliens also.”

“So let’s welcome the players of the Titans. These five players all hail from the earth colony of Mars. Please welcome Jackson, Jeb, Basil, Theo and Zorg.”

The eight men where about 1.81 metres tall, tan, muscular with some of the best six-pack abs in the galaxy and they had piercing blue eyes and light dirty brown hair and the strangest thing was Martian quintuplets.  

Once the octuplets where introduced they were given a teal coloured sports bra with a white and black chevrons centralised on the sports bra and were given  a pair of white footy shorts, black footy socks and footy boots. The players abdomens where to be exposed for the whole duration of the game. Thirty minutes after kitting up in the game gear the octuplets where introduced to the sharkaliens tall muscular humanoids with great white shark heads, dorsal fins and tails and muscular legs and arms and webbed and claw hands and feet and god-like muscular 10-pack abs.

The umpire gave the sharkaliens the go ahead sign to begin the impregnation of the players and the throat fucking began as the sharkaliens French kissed their rival players and depositing seed and embryos down their throats like there was no tomorrow.

“Look at those sharkaliens depositing delicious seed and embryos into those Martian Adonis like hunks.” Drooled Xenia Remington during the impregnation.

Zorg was the youngest of the octuplets and he was enjoying it so much that the sharkalien pup growing within his abdomen couldn’t wait any longer to grow and started thrusting against Zorg’s ripped six-pack causing him to sexually moan whilst still being face fucked by the adult sharkalien.

“Ladies and gentleman we may have our first birth even before the game has even begun.” Said Xenia Remington who couldn’t take her eyes off the sexy Martian hunk Zorg who was in immature labour caused from the strong orgasm from early impregnation

The medical team rushed on the field with the portable sonogram machine and they arrived and pulled Zorg’s shorts and underwear down past the public line and added sonogram gel to Zorg’s happy trail and dragged the sonogram dopplar over his upper pelvic region and lower abdominal region and the sonogram footage was broadcasted live across the field’s huge TV screens.

As the sharkalien pup was preparing itself for its 'birth' , one of Zorg's other seven idential martain brothers Xavier stole the ball from the sharkaliens and ran almost at the speed of light and punted the ball between the middle goal post. scoring 7 points making the Titans FC equal with the Sharkaliens. Both teams had 8 points each, one goal each= 7 + 1 point each.

“That diffidently was  a sharkalien pup thrusting inside Zorg’s abdomen, look at that relentless thrusting  from that sonogram footage there is some evidence of internal trauma.” Reported the field commentator Xenia Remington

The medic team kept on sliding the dopplar over Zorg’s thrusting abdomen as he arced his back and two violent weaken his six-pack abs to the point that his abs won’t be able to hold any longer if his abs were assaulted with another violent and sexual thrust from the sharkalien pup.

Out of all the eight brother only one manged to survive impregnation, Cucumber manged to survive the survival game although he got impregnated but he had a special condition that slowed the rapid gestation of the sharkalien pup  growing inside him, this brought him time, and this 'condition' would help future generations of the upcoming bellyburstball games.

A C-section was conducted on Cucumber and the sharkalien pup was safely extracted and it was discovered that the sharkalien pup was more a hybrid having a set of human DNA, giving the sharkalien pup somewhat of a human appearance, though the sharkalien hybrid pup would still preproduce like all the other 'normal' true to type sharkaliens.

The fatal moment finally came for Zorg as one last foetal thrust caused his six-pack abs to burst spewing a high pressure fountain of blood and amniotic fluid as the sharkalien pup flayed about inside Zorg’s ruined remains of Zorg’s abdomen and the blood soaked sharkalien pup finally began crawling out of the Zorg’s gaping abdomen wound as Zorg continued to violently convulse as the adult sharkalien is still throat fucking him pumping its seed down into Zorg’s exploded abs. The remaining four of the five Martian quintuplets were still being pumped full with sharkalien seed and they didn’t even know of Zorg’s early demise.

“We just witnessed the first ever birth and death on this new galactic wide show. The future is looking bright for Bellyburstball. Stay tuned for nest episode to find out who is next out of the remaining Martian quintuplets. Thankyou ladies and gentlemen and good night.”

[sadselfhelp]

Who I Am, And Why I Created This Blog.

TRIGGER WARNINGS - Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Child Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Violence, Drug Overdose, Suicide, Psychotic Breaks. 

Take a walk with me, let me show you around the mind of The Sad Hatter.

There's a lot going on in my head right now, and I feel like I'm on the precipice of something. I'm standing on a cliff's edge and I'm either going to plummet or I'm going to fly. It's been building inside me for a long time, and I can't contain it anymore. So here it is, here's me laid bare, because I need to say this, I need to put it into words. I need to purge it all. To try and make sense of all of this shit in my brain, I think it's time I organize it. I don't know where to begin, but I guess I start at the beginning and make use of the ability to edit.

Before you read this, please be aware of the trigger warnings. And please understand that this is the most honest and open I have been, I really am stripped bare in this piece of writing. It’s not at all pretty, and am I not guiltless in parts. This may well alter whatever opinion you have of me. 

I guess the beginning is birth, right? But I don't want to rehash all that trauma, so let me speed through it. Twenty-Eight years ago I was born, violently. I'm serious, I ripped my way out of the womb, and tore that thing apart. I guess I can sort of understand why my mother couldn't love me after that was my first act, collapsing her womb. So let me speedrun this part of the story. Mum didn't want me, gave me to my dad who raised me as a single parent with the help of his parents, until he met my stepmother. Shockingly, she didn't want me either, but because she couldn't get rid of me she decided to physical and psychological torture was the next best thing. 

When I was eleven years old I snapped and didn't want to put up with it anymore, so I wrote a goodbye note and then snuck into the medicine cabinet and took a bunch of pills. Spoiler alert, I didn't die. I did however end up in a children's home, cue more abuse, little bit of bullying and sexual assault etc.... I snapped again, but instead of turning my anger inwards, I became an absolute bastard. Ok, I still turned it inwards a bit, I had a lot of anger, and now I have a few hundred scars to prove it. But, it turns out that violence can beget violence, and I acted out in every possible way. Racked up a horrifying rap sheet, assault, vandalism, arson, and finally... GBH. I was supposed to get put in a secure unit (child prison – Scottish Edition) but I was always able to talk myself out of trouble. 

See, I was this tiny little white girl with big sad eyes and a hell of a sob story, even at the bottom of the food chain I still had privilege. So instead of getting locked up, I just got sent to a different home. And here's the really messed up part, this home was better. The staff were nicer, and nobody hurt me. My behavior literally changed overnight. I went from being charged by the police on a weekly basis, to never getting so much as a pocket money sanction. I will never excuse my actions, nor condone them, but after years of guilt I finally realized that the bad things I did were in retaliation to a bad situation, and though I wasn’t acting like a good person, I’m not a bad person, just a messed up one. 

I still refused to go to school though, because though I didn't yet know it at the time, I had severe social anxiety. I was smart, a little too smart to be honest, and I found myself thriving with a private tutor. When the time came to sit my exams, someone fucked up, and despite having record breaking test scores on the pre-exams, I never actually got to sit my standard grades (think SAT's – Scottish Edition). I'm still bitter about that. So by this point in the story, I'm 16, and legally an adult, too old for a children's home. I got turfed to a hostel, and the next few parts of the story are pretty fuzzy to me. 

This is where my mental health really started to deteriorate. I bounced between homeless hostels and B&B's for a year or so, until I got a my first flat/apartment. By that point, I was utterly fucked in the head. I was blacking out frequently, for anywhere between a couple of minutes to three days. I would come back to myself in sometimes compromising positions, and once there was blood. A lot of blood, splashed all over the walls. Then there was the time I suddenly found myself standing in the kitchen, about to plunge a knife into my own chest.

Nobody ever did tell me what the hell that was about. Or maybe they did and I just... forgot? But because I was extremely suicidal, a doctor finally decided to do something, and the police and the paramedics came to my door to take me to the psychiatric hospital. I spent ten months there while I cycled through various anti-psychotics and anti-depressants, and was 'rehabilitated into society'. The second I was out, I made the worst decision I have ever made in my life. If I can give you one piece of advice, one lesson to take from my shitshow of a life, it's this: Don't move hundreds of miles away to be with the guy you met online while you were having a psychotic break.

I've never really thought of myself as a victim, but I guess I'm the only one who saw it that way. Ben, that was his name, Ben was a monster, and I didn't know it until it was too late. He never hit me, never lifted a hand to me, he never had to. He could put a knife in my hand and make me hurt myself for his entertainment. I had told him everything, so he knew exactly how to break me down, how to make me want to bleed. He locked me in a house and used me up. And when I had enough, and tried to break free of him, he would just tell the police I was mentally ill and they would smile sympathetically and give me back to him.

But then my dad had a breakdown. My dad, who when he found out what my stepmother was doing to me, buried his head in the sand and packed my little suitcase for me. I hadn't spoken to him in a while until he reached out from the same psychiatric ward I had not long vacated. He had cracked under the realization that I had never lied about her, and the guilt broke him apart. I could have hated him, if it had happened a few years earlier then I would have. But I had experienced enough of the world to learn a few things, like how easily it is to fuck up, and that no matter how strong you are, you aren't immune to monsters. The truth was he was as much a victim of her evil as I was. She had manipulated him, played with his head, used his insecurities against him. So I helped him through his issues, the way I wished someone had helped me. That doesn't really make me a good person, it just makes me human.

But my dad got better, and found his footing. And when he did, he realized something wasn't right with me, and I told him the truth about Ben. My dad had left me to suffer at the hands of an abuser once before, and he wasn't going to allow it to happen again. He came and got me, and he took me home. He moved me in with him, gave me his bed and slept on the couch. After a couple of months, he helped me get my own place.

And that's the happy ending, right? All the trauma was over, I was safe, that's where the story should end. Right? I bet you're not naive enough to believe that, but I sure as hell was. I thought I would recover and that everything would be ok. I thought that with safety, there would come the chance to heal. I thought my wounds would scab over, and I would have my scars but at least I would be able to move without bleeding out. But that's not how trauma works. I had two decades worth of trauma, abuse, and hell.

I just... faded. I didn't crack, I didn't crumble, I didn't break, I just stopped. For five years I sat in one room of my home, drowning inside myself. Last year I got handed a lifeline, and now I live somewhere better. I'm not really allowed to live independently so I actually live in kind of retirement village of all places. I have my own house, but it's got intercoms and emergency cords everywhere, I get checked on daily by on on-site worker. And I'm trying to get better, I really am. It's just not that easy.

There's more to the whole story that I maybe should have put in, like the fact that my mother was a drug addict when she was pregnant with me, and that may have been the reason some of my organs didn't properly form and/or formed wrong. My lung split in half when I was a baby, and parts of my stomach are missing. Or that my mother is full on batshit insane. I could have had a perfect childhood and I still would have been mentally ill. Hell, I was seeing psychologists at five years old. Take my sketchy genetics, add twenty years of severe traumas, and well... I'm a little fucked up. Because a lot of medical conditions use acronyms, my full list of diagnosis looks like I'm collecting the fucking alphabet.

I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Agoraphobia. I also have a Pulmonary Sequestration, Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, the stomach and lung issues. Immune Hemolytic Anemia, I'm basically allergic to my own blood. Plus, ya know, my liver recently decided to just fucking nope out, the pissy lil bitch is failing. I also may or may not have cancer, I don't know because I pussied out of the tests. At this point I am a walking, decaying corpse that is held together by glitter glue and bitterness.

So... why exactly am I writing this? And why am I even considering posting this? I mean, my problems aren't as bad as some other people's. We've all got shit to deal with, especially in 2020. The whole world is falling apart, so what right do I have to sit here pouting and pouring my problems out? Well, for a start, I guess this is my blog, I can post whatever, and it's up to everyone else if they read it.

So here it is, you have the backstory, so here's what it's all been leading up to.

I'm struggling. Like, really struggling. I'm stuck on this cliff, and I want off, any way I can. Whether I fall or fly, I just want free. I can't live like this anymore, because I can't breathe.

The fucking agonizing duality of being socially anxious and too easily overstimulated, and yet feeling fucking empty inside if you're not surrounded by action and noise. The world is too noisy for my brain, but my brain is too noisy for the world. I get antsy if I'm not doing at least a thousand different tasks, but I get overwhelmed if I try to do anything at all. It leads to short bursts of mania, followed by weeks of depression. But underneath all of that, under all the dramatic showboating, and the dark humor, under all the bravado... I'm really just sad.

Years ago, when I first came up with the moniker "The Sad Hatter", I said it was because I may be mad, but my madness was born of sadness. I'm just sad. I carry it with me where my heart should be. So I named myself Sad, and I put on the hat, and I wore my sadness like armor, turned it into an act, and made a spectacle of it. "I'm The Sad Hatter, and I'm mentally ill but that's alright, I'm going to be just fine!" I told you all I had my issues, and I'll come close to opening up about how bad those issues are, I'll give little chunks of information at intermittent intervals, and then two hours later I'll act like it never happened. I'll admit I was close to killing myself, and then two days later I'll post dog photo's and act like I'm all better.

I'm writing this because I'm sad. And tomorrow, I'll act like I'm not. But when I waver again, I'll come back here and I'll open up again. And along the way, maybe you're reading this and realizing you aren't alone in feeling overwhelmed. Maybe you're realizing you're not the only one who isn't healing neatly and in a timely manner. Maybe you're reading this and gaining some insight into the struggles someone you care about is facing. Maybe my opening up is can help somebody else, I really hope so, but I know it's helping one person. It's helping me.

This blog, it's about living with myself. It's about living with The Sad Hatter.

[aion-rsa]

Squid Game Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/3hK2j99

This SQUID GAME article contains MAJOR spoilers.

For a series with a relatively well-worn premise, Netflix’s Squid Game sure does manage to pack a lot of surprises into its conclusion. It does this in large part by recognizing that the series’ success hinges not so much on who wins the game, but on how they win it and what it all means. Like the show’s beginning, much of Squid Game‘s final hour is set outside the world of the arena—this time, a year following the events of the bulk of the show. Let’s break down what happens in the Squid Game ending…

Who Wins Squid Game?

While the meat of Squid Game‘s conclusion comes outside of the game, the final round—Round Six, the series’ original title—is effective. In a callback to the series’ opening scene, which shows kids playing the titular “squid game” as Gi-hun explains the rules, the final two contestants must face off in the children’s game. It’s especially fitting (and depressing) that the final two contestants are Gi-hun and Cho Sang-woo, as the two grew up in the same town and used to play squid game together as kids. More than that, Sang-woo has been deemed a success by society (well, up until that embezzlement part) and Gi-Hun, a failure. By pitting these two against one another in Squid Game’s final contest, and making it very clear who the more humane human is, the series is calling into question the metrics by which we measure status and worth in our world.

As Squid Game progresses, the competition has become more and more encouraging of inter-contestant violence. This is especially true for the final round, in which Gi-hun and Sang-woo are allowed to use force to beat the other person—even to their death. It’s about winning the squid game or making it so your opponent can’t win the squid game… or anything else. It’s barbaric and raw and, for a moment, it seems like Gi-hun may succumb to the kind of desperate brutality that has claimed so many in this game.

After an ugly fight, Gi-hun manages to beat Sang-woo to the ground and make his way to the circle drawn in the sand that, should he step inside, would mean his victory and Sang-woo’s death. He almost does it, too—he is so angry with Sang-woo whom, over the course of the game, he has realized is willing to kill in order to secure his victory—but, in the end, human life is worth more to Gi-hun than any sum of money. It’s what Kang Sae-byeok reminded him of right before she died (at Sang-woo’s hand). We all have the capacity to do both good and terrible things. Gi-hun may have a good heart, but, more impressively, he is able to act with it.

This is exactly what Gi-hun does, realizing that he doesn’t have to choose money over human life. One of the three rules in the game allows for the competition to be canceled should a majority agree to end it. The group enacted it after the first round before deciding to re-instate the game shortly after. To the surprise of the VIPs watching from their gilded booth, Gi-hun walks back over to Sang-woo and asks him to leave with him. To end the game. Sang-woo seems to consider it, reaching out for Gi-hun outstretched hand, before he instead takes the dagger buried in the ground next to him and plunges it into his own neck.

Why does Sang-woo do it? Perhaps he is too ashamed of what he has done, both in the arena and outside of it. Or maybe he can’t stand to face his mother and others without the money. Perhaps he does the math and realizes, at this point, the only way to get the money to his mother is to make sure Gi-hun wins it and helps out the woman he’s known since he was a kid. Maybe he’s just tired and traumatized. Probably, it’s all of the above. Whatever the reason, Sang-woo kills himself and Gi-hun wins the game. In the end, though, I think it’s clear that no one actually wins Squid Game.

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Who Dies in Squid Game?

It might be easier to list who doesn’t die. None of the game’s 456 contestants make it out, save for protagonist Gi-hun and old man contestant Oh Il-nam (more on that later). Ali is tricked by Sang-woo into giving all of his marbles in Round Four, and is killed by the soldiers. Han Mi-ryeo succeeds in her promise to kill gangster Jang Deok-su when she grabs onto him and throws them both off of the glass bridge in Round Five. Kang Sae-byeok, the North Korean woman looking to get back to her brother, is killed by Sang-woo in the lead up to the final round.

Notable deaths in the series conclusion that take place outside the arena include Hwang Joon-ho, the police officer who infiltrates Squid Game pretty damn effectively, only to be killed by the Front Man, aka his own brother. And also Gi-hun’s mother, whom Gi-hun finds dead upon returning to his apartment after winning the game. Presumably, she died from complications to her diabetes, which is shown to be very serious in the second episode.

Joon-ho’s Brother: Who is In-ho?

In the eighth episode of the season, “Front Man,” Hwang Joon-ho makes it off of the arena’s island with evidence of the game. He is hunted down by the game’s Front Man and his goons. Joon-ho tries to call for back-up and to send he evidence he has gathered to his police chief, but is unable to due to cell phone poor service. He is cornered on a high, rocky cliff and asked to surrender by the Front Man, who reveals himself to be Joon-ho’s own brother, In-ho.

In Episode 5, “A Fair World,” Joon-ho discovers that his brother was a previous winner of Squid Game—in 2015, five years prior. Somehow, In-ho went from being a winner to being a main controlling force—probably in no small part because, as we see from how Gi-hun responds to winning, it is not easy to get past the extreme trauma of Squid Game. In-ho is so committed to his role as the Front Man that he shoots his own brother, when Joon-ho refuses to surrender to him. Joon-ho, who spent the entire season gathering evidence of Squid Game, falls to the water below, presumably to his death and presumably with all of the evidence he has gathered.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Who Runs Squid Game?

This is a complicated question because we don’t truly understand the scope of Squid Game. When Joon-ho infiltrates the records vault underneath the Front Man’s rooms, he finds evidence of years and years of games like the one we have been watching play out. Discussion amongst the VIPs also suggests that the game is being played in different locations around the world—this could mean that multiple games are happening simultaneously or that they happen throughout the year in different locations. We know from the labels on the (honestly very well organized) records that there are multiple games every year.

Logistically, the Front Man runs the game with the help of the workers, soldiers, and managers—aka the dudes in red coveralls. In the final episode, Oh Il-nam, aka Contestant 001, is revealed to be the Host of the game, and implied to be if not the person who runs the entire gambit, then one of the people who is in charge. He gives more of the game’s backstory from his deathbed…

Why Did Oh Il-nam Play Squid Game?

We find out in Squid Game‘s final episode that Oh Il-nam, the older man Gi-hun befriended in the arena and whom we all thought died in the marbles round, actually survived the Squid Game. This is because he is one of its creators. He chose to play the game after years of watching it because he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor that caused him to reflect on his life. As he tells an understandably very angry Gi-hun from his death bed a year following their Squid Game, he wanted to feel like he did when he was a kid, playing with his friends and losing track of the hours.

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By Kayti Burt

This is pretty fucked up. To Il-nam, the game truly was a game: something to pass the time and make him feel alive when regular life wasn’t doing it for him. Of course, Il-nam wasn’t like any other player. When he lost to Gi-hun, he wasn’t killed. The Front Man may espouse the equality of the game, but it isn’t a fair competition—it’s rigged for the uber elite, just like the outside world. Il-nam’s survival proved that, if it wasn’t already obvious. His desperation wasn’t like the other player’s because he knew exactly what was going on and had an out, not only from the game but from the kinds of desperate situations that the other contestants found themselves in outside the arena.

When Il-nam is dying on Christmas Eve in the corner of a mostly barren office-tower floor, he tells Gi-hun that the very poor and the very rich are the same in that living is no fun for either. Somehow, Gi-hun doesn’t strangle him then and there. He also doesn’t strangle him when Il-nam reveals how Squid Game started: basically, Il-nam and his rich friends were bored and joyless, and decided to create the games as a way to have some fun. This legacy continues with the Squid Games of today, as demonstrated by the VIPs, a group of (seemingly mostly American) rich men who sip whiskey and tell jokes as they watch desperate people die in the game they bet on. To them, human life has lost all meaning, and, because they have an exorbitant amount of wealth (which is to say power), these are the rules others must also play by.

Gi-hun is extraordinary because he refuses to play by those rules. Il-nam tells him that he deserves the money, because that is the logic he and his ilk have lived under—as if anyone deserves the kind of immense privilege that must always be built on others’ exploitation and suffering—but Gi-hun refuses to spend it. Il-nam tells him that no one will stop for the man passed out on the side of the frozen road, and Gi-hun takes that bet. And he wins. What sets Squid Game apart from so many of the stories in this genre is its ability to balance the ruthlessness and injustice inherent in the premise with a stolid belief in the capacity for goodness. The system is rigged for people like Il-nam, who suffers no consequences for his actions. but there will always be people, like Gi-hun and the person who went to get the cops to help the man on the street, who care and who act on that caring.

No doubt this plot twist will be a divisive part of Squid Game discourse. Personally, I could have done without it. Gi-hun’s relationship with Il-nam is one of the best dynamics in the entire show, and one that underscores the series’ central theme of how important it is to value humanity, even when the system you live in does not. Episode 6, “Gganbu,” is the best hour of the entire season in no small part because of how Il-nam and Gi-hun’s contest to the apparent death plays out. To backtrack on that for a final-episode plot twist that doesn’t add much thematically to the story feels like a mistake. That being said, there is enough that works about this scene and episode for Squid Game to remain an overall rewarding watch.

Gong Yoo’s Cameo: Why Does Gi-Hun Change His Mind?

Il-nam’s deathbed confession seems to kickstart Gi-hun’s life. He dyes his hair red like a K-pop idol. He finds Sae-byeok’s brother and leaves the boy (and half of his winnings) with Sang-woo’s mother. Though it seems like Gi-hun intends to return to them following a trip to visit his daughter, who has moved with her mother and stepfather to Los Angeles, this all changes when Gi-un sees something on the subway: the same man (played by Train to Busan‘s Gong Yoo) who recruited him for Squid Game is playing ddakji with a man. Gi-Hun abandons his luggage and dashes to the platform where Gong Yoo’s salesman character is working to recruit another desperate soul. Gong Yoo has already boarded a train by the time Gi-Hun makes it to him, smiling through the glass door. All Gi-hun can do is grab the Squid Game calling card from the latest recruit, and command him not to play the game.

Or is it all Gi-hun can do? When he is on the airbridge to board his plane to LA, he takes out the calling card and dials the number, telling the voice on the other side: “Listen carefully. I’m not a horse. I’m a person. That’s why I want to know who you people are, and how you can do these horrible things to people … It wasn’t a dream. I can’t forgive you for everything you’re doing.” Like the person who stopped to help the man on the street, Gi-hun refuses to accept the status quo, if there is anything at all he can do about it. He has wealth now and, rather than accepting complicity in a horrifying system as a condition of that power, he is risking it all. He is stopping for the man on the street.

The post Squid Game Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[marshmallow-phd]

The Anormic

Part of The Experiments Universe

Genre: Lucky One/Obsession AU

Pairing: Kris x Reader

Summary: You were everything he needed to feel human. But not even your presence could keep the nightmares away. The years had gone by and it seemed his dreams were all that was left of his trauma. When his past comes back and snatches you away, the human mask he’d worked so hard to create will be ripped away and he’ll stop at nothing to get you back.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3

**

You stumbled back, tripping over your feet and barely catching your balance before you could meet the floor. You felt like you’d been tossed in front of an eighteen-wheeler. To keep you steady, you placed your palm against the cold cinderblock wall. No. It couldn’t be the same Kris that he spoke about, not your Kris. Sure, he had a mysterious past, but you took it as easily explainable; a bad childhood or dysfunctional family he was trying to outrun, maybe even a criminal record that he deeply regretted. This was something else entirely.

You racked through your memory, trying to find any sort of sign or clue that this man was telling the truth. Kris couldn’t have any powers or extraordinary gifts. He was an average person who worked a laborious job, who came home to you in the evening, and lived an ordinary life. But the dots were there to connect: the ambiguous past that he rarely spoke of, the quick reflexes, and lifting of objects that should have taken more struggle. This Dr. Brandt had said he was like a dragon – a possible hint as to what else Kris was hiding from you?

“Quite a shock, isn’t it?” Dr. Brandt said, amused.

The words to snipe back were far out of reach. Part of you wanted to jump him like an overprotective cheetah, clawing his face with your fingernails until you drew blood. But the meeker part of you couldn’t find the strength to attack, barely able to keep your knees from buckling under.

“He was one of the subjects that progressed quickly. A shining example for the other eleven.”

Other eleven? Tao. Did that mean Kris’ friend Tao was among them? Were the other men you saw leave part of that group as well? Dr. Brandt’s smirk deepened, if that was possible. He seemingly enjoyed your confusion.

“So… you want to cage them all up again?” It was the only question you could push out onto the surface. There many more – more details of the experiments, what he meant by Kris jumping sides. A deep labyrinth lied before you. While you had no idea what sort of Minotaur waited in the middle and you were left without a string, you knew you would have to move forward to get to the truth.

“Actually, we’ve made progress without the original subjects,” he said. “Much more than could have ever hoped from the first trials. However, we’ve hit a bit of a wall. If we are to keep forging a new way, we need to glance back. We need Kris’ cooperation to do so.”

You swallowed thickly. At least he wasn’t trying to be the mysterious mad scientist in the tower. He came right down and had no issues explaining to you his evil plans. “So what do you need me for then? To make him help you?”

“Unfortunate collateral. We know that getting Kris here would be more trouble than it's worth. You were the easier target, so we brought you here. Eventually, Kris will come to us and be more than cooperative. Then, when we have all that we need, the two of you can go on your way.”

Great. You were bait. Like a worm on a hook. The tension in your jaw made the muscles under the skin ache. Even your teeth were whining from the pain. “So, I’m guessing you left him a little map on how to get here?”

“Oh, no!” Dr. Brandt laughed. “That’s not nearly as fun. But we did leave behind a clue to get him started. He’s an intelligent being. He’ll find us… eventually. Until then, enjoy the hospitality.” Like a dancer, he whirled on the balls of his feet and exited the room. The door slid closed behind him, the click finalizing the idea that this would be your prison for the foreseeable future.

You were battling yourself. You wanted Kris to come rescue you, but him getting pulled back into this mess of a place was horrifying image. It was hard to wrap around the thought of Kris living a life of experimentation, of tests and needles and torture. And for what? What was the purpose behind all of this? You almost shouted for the mad doctor to come to answer the questions, but you held your tongue. Now wasn’t the time to draw attention to yourself. While the doctors and guards might be aware of your presence, you needed to fade into the background of their minds. If you were going to get out of here, you needed to become almost invisible. So, instead of screaming into the abyss where your words would fall on uninterested ears, you lied down on the bed, eyes focused on the slick white ceiling. Kris would come for you, but in the meantime, you would create your plan. Because you would get out of here and you refused to let Kris be caged ever again. In order to that, you would have to find your own way.

**

It was hot. It was the kind of memorable hot where beads of sweat dotted the hairline in a way that was never ending and the sun shined up in the sky without any mercy from the clouds that had been dotting the sky for the past few days. Overnight they had either drifted off to another landscape or dissipated back into their individual water droplets. Despite the heat, it was still a beautiful day. The park was full of families and couples enjoying the fresh air, but it wasn’t overcrowded to the point of being suffocating. You took in the sights with a smile as you sat at one of the picnic tables by your lonesome. Textbook and pen at the ready, you were killing two birds with one stone by finally leaving the confining walls of your studio apartment while still getting plenty of studying done before your test next week.

After a few hours, your eyes were tiring from the glare the glossy paper gave off. The words were beginning to blur. You were no longer able to recite the previous sentence that you’d read. A break was certainly earned.

As your gaze wandered around the park it settled on a small food truck across the bike path. The signs all over the metal sides said their specialty was ice cream. Well, you’d worked hard for a treat, hadn’t you? Packing up your things, you threw your bag over your shoulder and made way to the truck expertly dodging children playing tag in the process. The line moved at a tolerable pace, giving you enough time to pick out a treat before approaching the front window. The woman inside the truck was friendly. She wrote down your order with a smile and, after handing your card back, pointed you off to the side where you could pick up your sundae. You were practically bouncing with anticipation as you watched from the opened back door; the employee scooped up the vanilla ice cream and torched the marshmallows until they were a perfect golden brown. The grin on your face was wide to the point of making your cheeks ache as you thanked the young man who handed the Styrofoam bowl to you. Not wasting time to find a spot to sit down, you walked down the bike path as you attempted to eat at a pace that was acceptable for the public.

All afternoon you had been hearing the typical noises of the park, most not bothering you in the slightest. You weren’t so easily distracted, but the blissful air you were currently in must have made you more susceptible. The chime of a bike bell caught your attention. You glanced over your shoulder to see a teenage boy peddling fast and laughing as he left his friends in the dust. But he wasn’t paying attention to where his bike was going, thinking that his bell was enough to clear the way as he stared behind him. Before he could collide with you, an arm wrapped around your shoulders. It pulled you out of the way in time but at the expense of your ice cream.

The bowl was cracked nearly in half. Chocolate syrup and melted mush covered both your shirt and the shirt of the wannabe hero.

“Well, that was nice while it lasted,” you murmured in disappointment.

“I’m so sorry,” a deep voice apologized.

You looked up and – as much as you hated to admit it – your irritation dissolved away, all because of the very handsome face that you were getting lost in. You waved his sorry away. “It’s okay. Better than being a bug squished on the cement.”

That made him laugh. “Let me replace it.”

“Oh, no, that’s alright. Thank you, though.”

“No, I insist.”

“Really, its-” You were completely ignored. The man – the very tall, handsome man – was already walking towards the food truck, wallet in hand. Nerves and butterflies took over your body as you stood there on the edge of the path, unable to walk away when you would have in any other situation. But there was something intriguing about this man. Not to mention, you were a sucker for chivalry.

The man came back with a new s’mores bowl balanced in one hand. Balanced wasn’t really the right word as what took two hands for you to carry rested nicely in his single palm. His other held onto a stack of napkins. The latter was handed out to you first.

“Thank you.” You took a few napkins shyly. Once you were cleaned up, you took the sundae. “Thanks.” You already said that. Clearing your throat, you tucked the used napkins under your arm and held out a free hand. “I’m (/y).”

He smiled broadly. “Kris.”

**

The building looked different. For over a year, the sight of the lit-up windows and the silhouette outline against the setting sun was a welcoming one – it loosened his tense shoulders, opened up his lungs. He felt stronger, even more so than he already was. A deep rest couldn’t do for him what seeing this place had. He always felt like he could live forever. Invincible, like Superman.

Now, though? Now it was simply a monument to his faults. Bricks and mortar that stood for nothing but loss. If he’d known that meeting you that day in the park would lead to this, he would have left the second he pulled you out of the way of the bike. He wouldn’t have smiled as you enjoyed the ice cream or even given you his name. Or, at least, he hoped that he would have gone the other way. As he walked up the stairs of the apartment building, he was bombarded with memories. The happy ones, most of all. But even the fights came pushing through. In those moments he’d been angry and frustrated, wanting to never have another scene like that again once you’d both calmed down and said sorry. In the present, though, he would give anything to have another fight with you. Back and forth he bounced, from wishing he’d never met you to praying he’d be able to hold you in his arms again. With unstable fingers he unlocked the front door and went inside.

The place was still a disaster. He hadn’t bothered cleaning up or even attempting to right any of the overturned furniture before he’d left. Dust was already starting to settle on every surface – something that would have driven you crazy. You couldn’t stand a dirty home. You wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else until it was spotless, just the way you liked it. Although, Kris had always thought that you simply used that as an excuse to procrastinate your studying. If it was you who had made the mess with your homework, then it wasn’t a dire situation. He’d always laughed at your pitiful argument against his statement. The lights suddenly flickered on.

“Kris?”

Turning around, Kris felt immediate relief.

Standing in the doorway were four of his brothers. He hadn’t seen them in quite a while. The exact amount of time was lost to him. Years, maybe? They all lived on the military base that kept them safe. It had crossed his mind once or twice to take you there to live. It might have helped drive the worry and the nightmares away. But that would have meant telling you everything. That inevitability haunted him even more.

“Chanyeol.” He tried to swallow down the shakiness in his voice. Thankfully, the younger hybrid took the first step, not even acknowledging the way Kris was barely holding it together. He closed the space between them with long strides and hugged Kris for the first time in years. Kris sighed into the embrace, even patting Chanyeol on the back. When they parted, Kris said, “Thank you for coming. I know this is probably the last thing you want to get involved in.”

“Hence why there’s only four of us,” Baekhyun huffed. The haughty air was clearly fake given the smirk dancing in the corner of his mouth.

“Nice to see you, too, Baekhyun.”

“So, Chanyeol said that your… friend was taken.” Minseok crossed his arms and leaned up against the door after shutting it behind him.

“My girlfriend,” Kris correct.

“And you both lived here?” Yixing asked.

Kris nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know how they found us. The apartment is under her name.”

“Does she know about you?” Chanyeol ran a hand through his messy black hair. “Does she now about us?”

“No,” Kris admitted. “Well, at least she didn’t before. Now- now there’s no telling what she does and doesn’t know.”

Yixing walked deeper into the apartment until he reached the living room. Crouching down, he examined the shards of glass sprinkled all over the rug. He scooped up a hand full, not bothered at all by the tiny cuts the edges made on his fingers and palms; they healed just as quickly as they were formed. “How long ago did they take her?”

“Day and a half ago. Why?”

“Just wondering. I wasn’t sure if they tried to come back and get you as well. Or if this was caused by them coming back.”

“Nothing’s changed since I left.”

“Did you find anything on your original search?”

Kris cleared his throat. Yixing and he… well, they never really had the closest of relationships, even back before they were separated. As thankful as he was that the latter had volunteered to help, Kris still couldn’t help against feeling the slightest bit awkward. “I didn’t do a thorough search, but I did find this.” He walked over to where his duffel bag was sitting on the floor and unzipped the pocket that held the frayed badge.

Baekhyun narrowed his eyes at the symbol. “What is it?”

“It’s the symbol for Regeneration Science, camouflaged unit for EXO. Wang told me about it. She considerate it their back up plan. I never put too much thought into it. The way she talked about RS made it sound like that’s where they would move everything in case something were to happen.”

Minseok took the patch, examining it closer. “Is it possible that they had a copy of the files that you didn’t know about?”

Kris shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought so. Wang was protective of her research. She didn’t like the idea of copies floating around. While I was still undercover, I tried to find all the copies that I could. They didn’t exist.”

“They obviously still have something on us,” Baekhyun chimed in. “Why else try to come after us again after all these years?”

“That’s a good point,” Yixing said as he straightened himself back up. “If you found that,” he pointed to the patch, “without looking, then maybe there’s something else here. I think we should dig a bit deeper, maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

So, the four of them started searching around the apartment, checking under the couch and in the different rooms for any other clue the enemy might have left behind. Kris headed towards the bedroom, but found himself frozen in the doorway. His brain, adding to the cruel torture he was already in, imagined you sitting on the bed, covers draped over your legs, smiling at him as if he’d just come back from a long day at work.

“You alright?” Minseok asked. His sudden appearance made Kris jump.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Behind Minseok, he watched as Chanyeol picked up the bookcase and set it against the wall. On the floor were scattered papers and folders, creased from the pressure of the wood that had lied on top of them. “Excuse me.” Kris passed by Minseok to get to the living room.

“Is this yours?” Chanyeol asked.

Kris shook his head. “No, it was (y/n)’s. For one of her classes.”

Frowning, Yixing picked up several of the papers and skimmed their contents. “Are you sure about that?”

“Of course.” Why would you lie about something like that?

Yixing held up one of the papers for Kris to see. “I think this might have been how they found you.”

In a flash, Kris snatched the paper. His eyes flew over the words. Slowly, their meanings sank in. It was a list off all the previous places he’d lived, including the different aliases and variations he’d gone by. Only after meeting you had he gotten weak and used his real name. How did you find any of this? But more importantly….

Why were you looking for it in the first place?