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blrush · 3 years

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If Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding was a serious drama with hour long episodes, Part 3: The Honeymoon Is Over.

Ki Wan drew back his hand. Why had he reached out to Ho Seon like that? What was he hoping to achieve? It must be the exhaustion getting the better of him – yes that was it, he was just tired. In the warm room, under the candle light, Ho Seon had looked so handsome, like a painting of a prince and Ki Wan had felt the urge to touch the painting, and check if it was real. But Ho Seon was a man of flesh and bone, who reacted, and it scared Ki Wan out of his reverie and back to reality – a reality in which he could not afford to make such careless mistakes, or let down his guard.

He stepped back and mumbled under his breath;

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay”, Ho Seon replied, as he brought himself to his feet. They stood apart, an awkward silence between them.

“Ah!” Ho Seon realised, “You spoke!” Ki Wan brought his hand to his mouth, he hadn’t even registered that he’d opened it!

“I’m glad.” Ho Seon smiled, “I thought you never would. I was almost wondering if you could!” He joked, relaxing them both.

Was this the right moment? Should he tell Ho Seon the truth now? The opportunity was presenting itself, he could easily use this conversation as a starting point…

“Come,” Ho Seon spoke before Ki Wan could make up his mind. “Let’s go to bed, you must be tired.”

Ki Wan looked at the bed, then back to Ho Seon.

“Not “to bed”, in that way, I mean to sleep.” Ho Seon assured him.

They were both already down to their under garments, and Ki Wan was tired enough to fall asleep as he was, even though the layers of bandage-like fabric were tight and constricting on his chest and he would rather sleep naked or in a light open robe, he thought that exposing himself was probably not the best way for Ho Seon to find out the truth.

He had never slept in the same bed as another person, and he thought it might prove uncomfortable, but he found the sound of Ho Seon’s deep breathing soothing, and drifted off peacefully, carefully curled up on his own side of the bed.

In the morning, he woke feeling properly well rested for the first time in years. He had never minded his room at home, and was always happy in his own company. But his room had been bigger, and colder, the only sound was the wind outside, whistling through the archways and halls of their empty home. He had no idea the comfort that a warm body beside you could afford. During the night, he awoke briefly, but simply watched the shape of Ho Seon’s shoulders slowly moving up and down and he was quickly lulled back to sleep.

Ho Seon was such a welcome presence, he emanated warmth and comfort. And whilst Ki Wan was still fearful of him discovering the truth, he felt a level of safety and trust already with Ho Seon. He began to truly believe, rather than simply hope, that Ho Seon would be able to accept the truth and Ki Wan’s reasons for his deception. He no longer feared any kind of violent outburst from his new husband, now - he just feared the look of disappointment that would inevitably colour Ho Seon’s normally happy face.

Apparently, even sober, Ho Seon was not easy to rise. He took an age to wake up, twisting and turning under the covers, grumbling and murmuring. Ki Wan found it exceedingly amusing, and lay happily under the warm covers for longer than he should – watching Ho Seon. Ho Seon eventually turned to face him, at first seemingly a little taken aback by another person in his bed, but then registered it was his wife and smiled – toothlessly, his eyes closing.

“Goooggmrrning” He mumbled. Then he opened his eyes, sparkling with mischief, and added in an overly formal tone “My wife.”

“Mmm morning” Ki Wan responded, muffling his voice beneath the covers.

Ho Seon smiled and gave a prompting nod. Ki Wan rolled his eyes.

“Husband” he added quietly. This seemed to please Ho Seon to no end and he smiled ear to ear, giving an enormous yawn and stretch before beginning to get up.

~ ~ ~

The next few weeks of married life passed like a blissful dream. Ho Seon spent most of his days studying, or tending to administrative work, whilst Ki Wan kept his mother-in-law company, doing housework or tending to the garden. Some days, Ho Seon would come out to the courtyard and set up his desk outside on the balcony. Ki Wan suspected he didn’t like to feel excluded from any possible fun they may be having.

Ki Wan found himself settling into a routine of family life, and he and Ho Seon would bid each other goodnight and good morning as spouses, but it felt more like they were children playing house. They both avoided touching one another, and Ki Wan still avoided speaking as much as possible without seeming rude. Though he began to relax, particularly around his mother in-law, who had insisted he call her ‘mother’, which at first Ki Wan found difficult as it made him sad to think of his own loss, but he eventually complied and it only added to the happy-family delusion. She didn’t seem to notice or mind his voice. In fact, she complimented him on it once, and requested that Ki Wan should read to her sometimes – a request that Ki Wan happily complied with, as he missed reading and studying, things which he used to enjoy so much in his old student life before his mother passed away.

One evening Ho Seon passed comment as they were getting ready for bed. Ho Seon was sitting on the bed, cross legged, expectantly, like a child would.

“How come you read to my mother, but you never read to me?” He pouted.

“You can read.” Ki Wan responded.

“Pleeasssse,” Ho Seon whined, “Won’t you read me a bedtime story? Pleeeaase? Wife?”

Ki Wan stifled his laughter, and threw a pillow at Ho Seon in lieu of a proper response.

Their comfortable pantomime as a married couple became second-nature, and Ki Wan almost forgot about the graveness of his circumstances. He knew deep-down this illusion couldn’t last forever, but he couldn’t bring himself to be the one to shatter it. Their bubble was burst before long, not by either of them, but in the form of an unexpected visitor.

~ ~ ~

Ki Wan often bathed at the house, where they had a big warm tub which the maid would fill for him, and that Ho Seon would use after him. But his fear that the maid may walk back in at any moment, or that Ho Seon himself might barge in unknowingly meant that bath-time became more stressful than relaxing, and he could never really clean his body properly as the tub was too small and he spent most of the time trying to hide his naked body under the water. Walking one day near the river, his mother in-law pointed out a gorge where she said there was a natural spring that people could bathe in.

“I used to take Ho Seon down here when he was little.” She reminisced, “He used to love splashing around – he was so chubby as a baby! Aiiguuu, you will have such cute babies!”

The topic of children did seem to come up an awful lot with his mother-in-law, though Ki Wan normally brushed it off by acting coy and shy about the topic of baby-making. She never pushed him about it or asked intrusive questions about the physical side of their marriage, but she did always manage to slide babies into the conversation.

One morning, Ho Seon announced that he had to go into town on some business, and would take a few hours – whilst his mother-in-law felt poorly and said she would be staying in bed to rest. After helping her into bed, and reading to her until she fell sleep, Ki Wan felt a sudden rush of freedom and relief – he was alone! He immediately rushed back to the bridal house, collected clean undergarments, and headed out for the spring. He left a note beside his mother-in-law’s bedside, lest she wake and panic – or worse, come to find him.

Amongst the rocks and foliage, the spring looked tranquil and inviting. He carefully made his way amongst the trees, down the steep incline. He removed his clothing, and waded in. The water was cold but refreshing, and he dunked his head right under. Relief and calm enveloped him under the surface. He floated around happily, washing himself and swimming, revelling in the peace and quiet.

He knew he should get out soon, as his fingertips were beginning to wrinkle, and his mother-in-law was sure to wake eventually, but he was so relaxed he didn’t want to leave.

Giving his hair a final rinse, he dragged his fingers through a knot at the end and turned to where he had left his clothes on the rocks. He yelped with fright, a man was standing above the rocks looking down at him. He lowered himself further under the water, covering his chest completely.

He could only make out a silhouette, a tall frame, an adorned hat – a government official.

He dared not move, he could barely breathe. He had let his guard down for the first time in over a month, and this is what had come of it! The man began to move, and at first Ki Wan thought he was going to come further down the rocks to the pool, but instead – thankfully – the man turned and made his way back up to toward the road. There was no way of knowing how long he had been standing there. Had he been watching? How much could he see from up there? Had he simply wanted to use the spring, seen a young man bathing, and left? Or had he seen a woman in a state of immodesty? Either way, Ki Wan told himself that the man was a stranger so what should it matter to him?

But what should he do? Grab his clothes and head the opposite direction? But he didn’t know his way around the woods outside the property that well, he really only knew the way back to the Ryu house along the road. No, he would have to stay in the pool longer and hope the man left. But there was no way of knowing how long that would be. He sat in indecision until he could bare the cold no longer. Shivering he clambered out of the spring and put on his dress. Struggling and rushing, his clothes were now damp and he felt uncomfortable. But the afternoon sun had moved beyond trees and he was beginning to freeze in the woods. He would have to head home and hope the man had left the road. He tied back his wet hair and set off.

Upon arriving home, Ki Wan went directly to visit his mother-in-law, who was sitting up in bed, sipping some tea.

“Ahhh, my daughter, come sit beside me.”

“Eomeoni, how are you feeling?”

“Fine, I’m fine. I hate wasting away the day in bed. It makes me feel like an old lady!”

Ki Wan cracked a smile. “Oh? But you don’t look a day over twenty-five!”

“YA!” She half shouted, half laughed. “Rude girl! I was a real beauty in my day you know!”

Just then the maid knocked on the door and entered.

“Ma’am, there is an officer here to see the young master. He has been waiting a little while near the stables. I didn’t want to disturb you, and I wasn’t sure where the young madam was. I told him that Ho Seon was away in town, but he said he could wait. Shall I put him in the guest room, or offer him some tea?”

“Ughhh” she harrumphed, “I’m not in the mood to see some stuffy old court official today. He can just wait for Ho Seon, he should be back soon.”

“With all due respect Ma’am, he does seem very high-ranking. And he is not so stuffy or old… he’s actually quite handsome.” She giggled and looked toward Ki Wan for some sisterly affirmation.

“Very well. Hwa Jin, since you are now the lady of the house, why don’t you go and tend to him. Just serve him some tea and make a bit of small talk until Ho Seon gets back. Oh, and then let me know how handsome he is” she winked.

Ki Wan tried to force a smile as he rose, but his heart was sinking. What if it was the man from the spring? It had to be, what other official would be out on that road coincidentally? He began following the maid toward the stables to collect the gentleman.

Perhaps he had not seen Ki Wan’s face? Who was to say he would make the connection that the person he had seen in the pool was Ki Wan? He had to calm himself down!

As they approached the stables, where the official was tending to his horse, Ki Wan was sure it was the same man. The same broad stature, the same high-ranking hat. He turned when he noticed them, he was – as the maid had claimed – young and very handsome. The maid introduced Ki Wan formally.

“Sir, may I introduce the Lady Ryu Hwa Jin, wife of Ryu Ho Seon. She will see to you whilst you await Master Ryu’s return.”

“Pleasure to meet you. My name is Kim Tae Hyung, Head of the Department of Justice.”

The maid gave a bow, and shuffled away, leaving Ki Wan quaking with fear.

Ki Wan gave a polite bow, then turned for Tae Hyung to follow him through the courtyard. Ki Wan kept his head low and turned away from the man, silently praying for Ho Seon’s speedy return.

Ki wan showed Tae Hyung to the guest room, a simple room with a large reception area and a small alcove for bedding to the side. They rarely used it, but it was the most appropriate space for the man to be received, and for him to meet with Ho Seon if it were for business. Tae Hyung sat down at the table, and Ki Wan waited silently at the door for the maid to bring tea. Ki Wan was on edge, waiting for the man to speak. But he sat quietly, and Ki Wan continued to stare at his own feet.

Finally, the maid arrived with a tray of tea, which she placed on the table before leaving again. Ki Wan took a deep breath to steady himself, then went about serving the tea. He focused on his hands, looking down at the table, he poured two cups and handed one politely to the gentleman. As he did so, their hand touched, and Ki Wan wondered if it had been intentional on Tae Hyung’s part – as if he was trying to incite some sort of a reaction from Ki Wan – the kind of small gesture that might fluster a particularly prudish, gentle, or chaste young lady. Ki Wan made no reaction, and sipped his own tea. Then he sat back on his heels, placed his hands in his lap and waited. All the while, repeating the same mantra in his mind; ‘Ho Seon come back. Ho Seon come back. Ho Seon come back…’

“Unseasonably cold today wouldn’t you agree Lady Ryu?”

Ki Wan nodded.

“A bit cold for a swim, wouldn’t you agree?”

He knew.

Ki Wan was petrified, unmoving. What had he seen? There was something sinister behind his light tone. Ki Wan was sure he knew.

Tae Hyung placed his cup down on the table and leant forward. He brought his hand up to Ki Wan’s face, grabbed his chin and forced Ki Wan to look up at him.

Ki Wan could feel himself losing control of his fear, his neck and ears felt flushed, he was gritting his teeth so hard it was nearly audible, and he could feel tears beginning to well in his eyes. This was it, he was finished. This was not his kind husband finding out the truth, this was a powerful military man who probably had deeply strict Confucius values.

He examined Ki Wan’s face carefully, and looked almost pleased with himself.

“Hmmm… utterly convincing. But how odd. What’s a pretty young boy like you doing parading around as a noble woman?” He sounded amused, like this was all a fun game. Ki Wan was gripping his skirt tightly, and felt bile rising up in his throat.

Just then, Ki Wan heard the sound of approaching footsteps in the courtyard, and Tae Hyung calmly pulled his hand away – like he wasn’t at all bothered by the thought of being caught touching another man’s wife. Ki wan had never met someone so self-assured in their own sense of power.

Ki Wan heard Ho Seon enter the room from behind him.

“Ah! Kim Tae Hyung! I wasn’t expecting you. Sorry I had business in town. How have you been?” He sat himself down beside Ki Wan, and began to pour himself some tea.

“I’m well, thank you. I’ve been travelling the country on some royal errands. I heard you were getting married, I was so sorry I couldn’t attend.”

“Ahh, not to worry!” Ho Seon responded brightly, “It was a small wedding, just family really.”

Ho Seon’s exuberance and cheerful voice, which Ki Wan usually found so comforting, was like the sound of grinding metal in its contrast to Ki Wan’s mood and the tension of the room. Ki Wan was still fraught with anxiety and fear and felt like he was suffocating.

“I never pegged you as the marrying type” Tae Hyung began, “What changed?”

“My mother’s getting older, I guess she wanted a daughter to keep her company, and she was determined to see me settle down and have a family.”

“Oh?” Tae Hyung looked amused over his cup of tea, “Any luck so far?”

“Tae Hyung!” Ho Seon chastised half-heartedly. It was clear to Ki Wan that they were old friends, perhaps from school, Ho Seon’s easy manner and informal speech made that obvious. But Tae Hyung was fishing for information, trying to figure out if Ho Seon knew his wife’s secret – but his subtle jibes at Ki Wan were going completely unnoticed by Ho Seon.

“Tell me, where did you find such a beauty? I’ve never met another woman like her.” He looked directly at Ki Wan, with a smirk that, to Ho Seon, must have seemed like flirting – but to Ki Wan felt more like a threat.

Ho Seon followed Tae Hyung’s gaze, and for the first time since entering the room, finally looked at his wife. His smile quickly faded.

“Hwa Jin! Are you okay?” He sat up to attention. He reached across her skirts, and put his hands over Ki Wan’s. “You’re freezing!” He held Ki Wan’s hands tighter and gave them a squeeze.

“I believe your wife went for a dip in the nearby spring whilst you were out.”

Ho Seon lifted a hand to the back of Ki Wan’s neck, checking the temperature of his skin, he touched Ki Wan’s hair.

“You’re soaking wet!” He sounded genuinely concerned. But Ki Wan had barely noticed the damp seeping through his clothes. He was shivering from nerves not the cold.

“Hwa Jin, why don’t you go and get changed and get warm. I will get the maid to bring you some dinner.” He gave Ki Wan’s hands another squeeze, and prompted her to get up.

Ki Wan wandering aimlessly back to their bridal house as night began to fall around him. Should he have left Ho Seon alone with Tae Hyung, what if he told him the truth? What were Tae Hyung’s intentions? What was Ki Wan’s plan? He needed a plan. But he couldn’t think. He was still reeling from the shock of his encounter with Tae Hyung and as the night fell and the temperature dropped, he did begin to deeply feel the cold of his damp clothes.

He arrived back at their room, where he quickly tended to the fire under the house. Inside he lit a candle and began undressing. He hung up his wet dress and put on new under-dress. He was still freezing. He began to put on all the jackets and outwear he could find, then got under the covers of the bed.

Maybe he should leave? Run away into the night. What if Tae Hyung had him arrested, as a fraud or a pervert? What if he turned Ho Seon against him? But where would he go? Run away into the woods to starve or freeze to death? Before he could think of a plan, his eyes became heavy and he submitted to sleep.

He was awoken by Ho Seon gently shaking his shoulder.

“Hwa Jin. Hwa Jin. Wake up, have something to eat.”

At first Ki Wan thought it was morning, but the room was still dark and Ho Seon was still dressed.

“There’s some dinner here for you, you should eat something.”

Ki Wan begrudgingly sat up, his neck felt stiff and he was sweating under too many layers of clothing.

“Why are you wearing all my clothes?” Ho Seon laughed.

“I was cold.” Ki Wan drowsily answered.

“Mmhm”. Ho Seon nodded. He seemed himself. Not angry or scared. Tae Hyung must not have told him. Somehow, that make Ki Wan more unsettled. If he was keeping Ki Wan’s secret, was he planning on using it against him? A high-up military man, he could easily be the type of person to collect people’s secrets and use them to his advantage. This was Ki Wan’s crossroads, the illusion he had created for himself was finally shattered and he would have to make a decision. He would have to tell Ho Seon the truth.

Ki Wan starting shaking off the layers of jackets he was wearing, leaving a trial of clothes behind him on the floor as he went to join Ho Seon at the table.

“Wait.” Ho Seon stood up. Ki Wan froze. Ho Seon began approaching him.

“Your hair is still wet.” He said. Ki Wan sighed in relief.

“Oh.” He was still so drowsy, his limps felt heavy. He felt back to his wet bun – no wonder he had been so cold. He took out the pin and untied the ribbons. He rummaged around the dresser for a brush.

“Come here” Ho Seon plied, “You really need to eat something, you’re already so skinny – how can you go all day without eating. Mother said you were out half the day.”

Ki Wan sat down in front of the table and let Ho Seon take the brush from him. He slowly started picking at the food, but could barely stomach anything.

Ho Seon sat behind him, and began slowly brushing out his hair. It was a nice feeling. And Ki Wan almost began to fall asleep again.

“Tae Hyung spoke to me.” Ho Seon began softly. Ki Wan snapped back to attention, his heart hammering in his chest.

“Mmm?”

“He has a position for me in his department. He wants me to take it, and move to the capital.”

Ki Wan tried not to react. Ho Seon attentively kept brushing his hair, in long careful strokes down his back.

“Oh?”

“I told him I couldn’t take it. That my mother is too sick, and that you are just getting used to life here. But he said it was “of national importance”. I think things in the court are bad. He says he needs “allies”, whatever that means. I don’t want to go. I hate all the politics of court and I am perfectly happy living here. But he can be…. well, he is a difficult man to refuse – he’s powerful and … he said that it was really more of an order than a request.” He sighed.

“He said you would come with me of course, that we would be given housing at court. I am just sorry that you will have to move again. You just got settled here, and I don’t know what my mother will do without us – but she can’t make that journey she’s far too frail…”

He was rambling now, caught up in the rhythmic task of brushing Ki Wan’s hair, he was letting his own anxieties come tumbling out in a string of thoughts and apologies. Ki Wan had not seen him this anxious since their wedding night. He lifted a hand to stop the brush in Ho Seon’s hand, and turned to face him, their knees touching slightly.

Ki Wan had grown to love this space, their evenings together. In this candlelit cave that was theirs, where it was quiet and just the two of them. He knew he was about to ruin that forever.

Ki Wan took a deep breath.

“Ho Seon. I have something to tell you.”

TBC (Other parts here)

Authors Notes:

Yeah, sorry, trigger warning I guess? I made Tae Hyung a creep for added drama, cause every good Joseon drama has to have an evil antagonist.

And I hope you enjoyed my blatant references; to a certain natural spring in cloud recess and a little hair brushing reference to the gayest scene to ever pass chinese censorship.

Hope you enjoyed!

#trigger warning: the military 'friend' is now a creep cause I love drama #nobleman ryu's wedding #nobleman ryus wedding #choi ki wan #ryu ho seon #kdrama fic #bl fic #bl series #korean bl #wetv #Lee Sejin #kang insoo

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slythraco · 3 years

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Hey I just read your sfw Tom ABC’s and I gotta ask any chance we can get a NSFW ABC’s for Tom? 🙊🙈😍 obsessed with your writing and just discovered you!!

Author's note: Here it is ! I hope you’ll like it ! I’m all very new to writing smut so i really think i could’ve done better but i guess it’s with practice that i’ll get better ! Anyway, have fun ! Also, I took the alphabet from @malfycs you can find it here (Btw, her NSFW alphabet about Draco is crazy ! I recommend reading it if you haven’t already and you like spice !

Warnings: 🔴+18🔴, This thing is all about sex so if you're under 18 please don't read it !

Words count: 1,5K

Masterlist

______________

A = Aftercare (What they're like after sex)

Tom loves to cuddle you after such an intimate moment. He always covers you in kisses and caresses to make you feel loved. He also tells you a bunch of cute words in your ear, never falling to make you fall a little more in love with him.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner's)

His eyes, for sure. It's the first thing people see in him, and it's normal because they are incredibly beautiful. He knows the power he holds when he looks right into your eyes and loves to see you get lost in them.

And for you, It's hard for him to choose one favourite part of your body since he likes every single inch of you but you would bet that he particularly likes your belly, at night we're your cuddling on the bed or in the couch, he always lay his head on your tummy while you play with his blond hair. He also always leaves kisses all over it, which never fail to tickles you and he loves hearing your laughter when he does this.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically... I'm a disgusting person)

Tom biggest fear is that you'll feel degraded during sec so when he feels the need to cum he'll completely refuse to cum on your face on in your mouth if you don't give your consent to it. Otherwise, he'll cum in you or on your belly.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Tom secretly the biggest dream is to go around the world with you and have sex in the most beautiful places. He already imagines himself eating you up on a beach of Hawaii or Bahamas, making you love in a bedroom with view of the Eiffel Tower, pounding in and out of you while your moaning resonate in the lanes of Berlin.

He'll propose the idea to you soon enough.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they're doing?)

It might not seem like it, but, Tom knows what he's doing. At least after making a few times, your first time together was really banal and clumsy because of the level of stress Tom was enduring, but he was already so much better the second time.

Why ? You may ask, because he remembers EVE-RY-THING. He studies all your reactions and notes in a small corner of his head all of yours weak spots and things that makes you go crazy. Trust me, after a few times, Tom is completely able to make you come in a matter of seconds if he wants to.

And the more you have sex the more it gets better since he's always searching for a new spot to exploit to make you come for him.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Tom's favourite position probably the missionary, he finds it perfect. As a shy and romantic guy in bed he loves the intimacy and the proximity of it. He can easily kiss you while he makes love to you, or kiss your neck to make you even more crazy. He can also look at your beautiful face screaming his name, which drives him insane.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Tom is globally serious with you're having sex, but he can crack a joke once in a while to take the pressure off. Especially before it actually begin. He'll bring a bad pick-up line often inspired by Harry Potter like "Would you let me Slyther-in tonight ?" Is his favourite one so far, he used it a lot, but he always tries to find new ones.

H = Hot Spots (Places that drive them crazy)

Definitely his thighs or his neck, every time your hands touch his thighs he can't help but jump a bit and looking at your hand to make sure you don't move it too far in front of people because this shit can turn him on in a matter of seconds.

And his neck because when you're starting to kiss it or bite on it, he can turn into a totally different person. You can say bye to the pure and cute Tom to leave room for a dominant and nasty version of him which can be surprising at first.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspects)

Well, there is two Toms. The really romantic and gentle Tom and the dominant and rough Tom it really depends in his and your mood on the moment.

He'll either be really loving, covering you with kisses and caresses for you to fell like the most precious thing in his eyes which you are. He'll do everything to make you feel all the power of his love, and he loves to hold your hands while making it.

Or, he'll turn into the unknown version of him. If he's mad at something, nervous or you two have been away for a long time, he'll become rough and dominant. Shocking, slaps (on your butt) and even love marks to remind you who you belong to.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

He only does it when he's away from you for a film otherwise when you're around him there is no need to do it.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Something Tom loves to do is to take ice between his lips and trace a line on your body. Seeing the block of ice melting on your warm skin drives him crazy. And you, you love the contrast of the cold feeling on your body, it makes you even more turned on.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Simple but your bed, you both like to be comfortable and the bed is the best place to be.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Something that can go crazy in less than a second is when you clearly ask him to fuck you. With that, Tom wouldn't a second to get you undressed to satisfy your wishes. When you kiss him languorously too, which can be a problem sometimes when you are in public and your kisses give him an erection.

N = NO (Something they wouldn't do, turn-offs)

Don't you ever think of having him touching your feet. He hates it. And like mention before he doesn't like a situation where you could feel degraded, so you can cross out BDSM, he doesn't like the idea of being violent (more than just give you a slap on your ass), he doesn't find anything exciting about it.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc) He likes both to be honest, he doesn't really have a preference, he loves when you suck his cock it always makes him feel extremely good and make you realise it with his moans. But he also loves to hear you moans his name as he eats you up, and you just taste so good he could do it all day.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? Etc.)

Like mentioned before, it depends on Tom's mood.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

It's not his favourite way of having sex, but he doesn't mind it if you don't have much time, and he's really horny. Quickies happen a lot when he's promoting a new film, since during these period he doesn't have a lot of free time you two manage to have quick sex between two interviews.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Yes ! A lot of Tom's first time were with you, he's always up to try new things with you.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last...)

Tom can honestly last really long, he knows how to keep himself from cumming

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

The only toy Tom own is a connected vibrator. One he asked you to put it in, and you went to a dinner together. Let me tell you, he had so much fun making it vibrate at the most random moments to see you keep yourself from moaning in front of everyone, and he found it so fucking sexy. You probably had the best sex night after that.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He does it all the time, he would slip some nasty words in the crook of your ear to make you shiver before disappearing. Or something else he loves to do is to snog with you until you almost do it but then get up and do something completely different, he finds it so funny when you get mad but also so hot, so he never teases for a long time before he actually fuck you mercilessly.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Tom definitively makes some sounds in the sheets, he likes you to know how good you make him feel. He's also really vocal at the moment, telling all kinds of dirty things in your ears. "Just like that." ; "You make me feel so good darling." ; "You're so tight." ; "You're so beautiful." ; "Continu like that." And that's only a little part of what he can tell you.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Tom doesn't stop after you had an orgasm, actually, it makes him even more horny and will continue to fuck you until you have a few more. Otherwise, he doesn't feel like he did a good job.

X = X-Ray (What they look like under clothes)

Tom is a grower, I'd say about 6 inches at rest and almost 9 when he's hard. Also, his cock is long and thin, so he's definitely big enough to satisfy you.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

He never says no to a good romp, especially with you. He just can't contain himself when he's around you, you're just too damn desirable. He always feels the need to feel his naked body against yours.

Z = ZZZ (... how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Not that quickly actually, he likes to cuddle and talk with after a such intimate moment. And he usually waits for you to be asleep before him before he can allow himself to do so.

#TOM #Tom Felton #tom felton imagine #tom felton one shot #tom felton x reader #tomblr #tom felton smut

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waterfall-ambience · 4 years

Text

Void Fog (Cosmic Horror AU), Part 3

Deeper, yet deeper still.

- A few days later, Grian found an unfamiliar door in his base.

As soon as he opened it, the truth was clear to him. He didn’t think it was possible, but as he peered into the darkness, he found himself in an all-too familiar library.

He fumbled around for his communicator.

- Joe and Xisuma received the message and immediately headed over to investigate.

- EX had passed out well into the afternoon, and Joe decided not to wake him.

- According to Grian, this library was part of the Infinite. The Watchers sometimes used it for research, and there was a section within the expanse that led to their archives, but it was unlikely that they’d find it, especially because the dimension was just so...vast.

- Joe, Xisuma, and Grian ventured into the library and lit up their way as they went. They weren’t necessarily hoping to reach an endpoint- when they ran out of torches, they’d just head back.

- Xisuma periodically checked their coordinates. The numbers started off stable, but they shifted and grew erratic as they wandered deeper into the library.

- The rooms continued as normal, but deep within the library, they found a rift between worlds. Upon going through it, they found themselves standing in front of an unfamiliar portal frame.

- It stood tall, despite its incompleteness. Its frame was made up of layers of obsidian, crying obsidian, and bedrock.

- X checked their coordinates again. This was where EX’s portal was.

- They destroyed the frame, or at least what they could of it. Even with a brief dip into Creative Mode, they couldn’t break the bedrock.

- They hid a camera in the area to monitor the portal. Just in case something weird happened.

- Xisuma went back to his base for the night. Grian and Joe went back to the vineyard to compare notes about the Infinite.

- They found EX sketching out what he remembered from his dreams. He drew some of the events in the hopes of finding a pattern, but wasn’t comfortable in showing them due to how several related back to...personal issues. He let Grian see the pieces that were more focused on the erratic landscapes, most of which Grian recognised as the Infinite.

- They discussed their experiences with the Infinite, and what it meant for the server if it were to bleed into it. Nothing good.

The Strait of Joebraltar saw no phantoms that night, but Joe dreamt of the Infinite.

- A few days later, a server-wide meeting was scheduled. EX was apprehensive about attending, but Joe convinced him to go.

- Several Hermits reported that the errors were back. Chunks they were working on unloaded and reloaded. They found rooms they hadn’t built. Maps didn’t update. Items went missing. Scar lost his gear to flames when he died, despite only dying from fall damage. Grian’s doorway to the library disappeared.

- Other admins like X, Cub, and Tango also reported vivid dreams in what Grian, EX, and Joe believed to be the Infinite.

- The server was becoming near impossible to live in. The season was going to have to end early.

- They originally planned to travel to the next season through a portal, but that put them at risk of getting separated if it got corrupted.The proposed solution was to build a starship- an ‘ark’ of sorts. They could sail it out of the world and open a stable portal from there.

- EX considered the facts- the errors started with his arrival back onto the server. They got worse when his nightmares grew more vivid and the voice from the Infinite grew louder. The Infinite was bleeding into the world, and it was corrupting itself.

…This was all his fault, wasn’t it?

- Joe woke up one night to the sound of shuffling in the hallway.

- After some investigation, he found EX wandering through the winery. Joe tried to lead EX back to his room, but he swatted him away without a word.

- EX made his way to the front door and teleported out of sight.

- Joe searched the surrounding area, just in case EX was still nearby, but he was gone.

- Joe checked on EX’s portal, and found him building it up. He tried to stop him, but he reacted violently when Joe tried throwing whatever blocks he had onto it to disrupt the frame.

- ‘EX’ teleported away again, leaving Joe behind.

- EX woke up in a distant field the next morning. Stress found him hopelessly lost and led him back to a more familiar part of the server.

- EX thanked her for watching over him when he first arrived. He apologised for ‘being a hassle’, and for anything ‘weird’ that happened while he was unconscious. Stress smiled and told him that it wasn’t a problem.

- EX made it back to the vineyard. He was clearly possessed the night before, and they had to do something about it before the portal was finished. Joe broke the obsidian, but the bedrock remained.

- EX recounted how Xisuma freed him from the Wither back in Season 5. He killed him in the mindscape, and it left.

Surely, it couldn’t have been that simple.

- According to Joe, to get to the mindscape, X had to use bedrock, which he got from Ren in ‘Creative Mode’.

- The server was already under strain, and entering ‘Creative Mode’ had the possibility of making the errors worse. However, if EX’s connection to that…’Entity’ grew stronger, it could corrupt the server into oblivion in a matter of days. If it remained once they left, it could continue to follow them. It’d better to sever the connection for good.

- They met up with Xisuma and Grian that night. Xisuma briefly went into ‘Creative Mode’ to get the bedrock. He was to monitor the server and watch for errors. Grian tagged along to help navigate through the Infinite.

- EX didn’t want anyone to see his mindscape. Only Joe and Grian would see it, and while he didn’t entirely trust them enough to let them see inside his head, they could save the server.

- If severing the connection to that...Entity meant redemption, he’d take it.

- EX’s mind, to put it lightly, was a cluttered mess.

- It somehow managed to be empty and full at the same time. Flashes of colour and obsidian pillars filled what should’ve been the sea. What should’ve been stable ground was instead made of arrays of potted plants, scissors, and villainous looking masks. The sky hung above them, deep orange from the smoke. Red strings littered the ground, seemingly pointing to...somewhere.

- They decided to follow them.

- Grian told them not to worry about getting injured. While they were in the Infinite, everything was, at its very core, all a dream. They should be more careful of making deals with things that wanted to bring themselves into their world.

- EX figured that he made a deal with the Entity at some point, but couldn’t exactly remember when.

- The string that they followed led back to the remnants of the town that EX built during his exile. His old rustic house stood tall in the middle of it, ever-expanding, encompassing the town.

- Grian and Joe pointed out how it was similar to Grian’s Hermitville house from Season Six, only for EX to look at them in confusion.

- As they approached the house, they realised that it was covered in vines. They grew over the doors and windows. Grian, Joe, and EX managed to break down the door, and found that the interior of the house was relatively intact, were it not for the vines creeping down the stairs.

- They followed the vines. The hallways twisted and turned, and open spaces became narrow passages. Joe found himself ducking under some particularly low arches and spaces where the roof jutted into the house.

- Eventually, they came to a door to one of the towers. EX mentally kicked himself- this was the way to his old room. The vines grew thicker as they climbed the stairs to the platform. The door to his room was sealed shut, but after tearing the vines away and some effort kicking it down, it swung open.

- Beyond the door was a dark void. Through the darkness, they saw something bright in the distance. As they walked, it became clearer.

A body lay on the bed. It was covered in the same vines that swallowed the house. EX crept closer to try to see if he could identify it.

It was himself.

He should’ve known.

- Joe and EX tried to cut the vines in an attempt to free this version of EX, but they just grew back thicker. From the way this EX slept through all their grabbing and pulling at the vines, EX thought that he could just be dead. While trying to free this EX’s arms, Joe caught a glimpse of what looked like- what, a tattoo?

It was definitely a symbol of some sort. Vaguely circular, with some sort of detailing to it- holes and lines, something that looked like infinite eyes. Joe got dizzy the longer he looked at it- were the patterns shifting? Growing outwards? It was impossible to tell.

- Grian stared into the darkness. Something was off about this space. Empty voids existed in the Infinite, but more often than not, they weren’t this...blatant.

- The void opened up, revealing its countless eyes. The vines turned to shadowy tendrils, tightly gripping the sleeping EX. He didn’t stir. They looked up- some of the larger eyes turned blank, and similar to a tv screen, a projection played.

- Old memories, ridden with pain and sorrow, jealousy and anger. Scenes of destruction, fire, and storms. Nightmares from the past week and months of exile spilled onto the screen, all part of some twisted, pathetic story that kept repeating.

- The last nightmare that played wasn’t a recent one. EX only had vague memories of it. This one showed him crying out in desperation as something crept through the walls of his lonely tower. Eyes. Darkness. A mixture of laughter and pained screeching from what sounded like millions of people. Shouting. At the end of it, a promise. It was a promise of belonging somewhere, no matter how dark.

- EX started shaking. His weakness brought the server to its knees yet again. No matter how hard he tried, he was still trapped in an endless cycle of failures and destruction. He didn’t hear the dark tendrils squeeze his sleeping form even tighter.

- Joe tried to calm him down. After all, EX hadn’t intentionally caused harm to anyone, and while his methods of stopping the Entity were far from efficient, Joe saw that he was at least trying. The Entity latching onto him wasn’t his fault, and he was even trying to save the server by entering the Infinite head-on.

The void started to crack and break apart, even if it was just a little bit.

- Of course, a cosmic, nigh-incomprehensible Entity couldn’t be defeated with love, but it could at least dispel some of the fear it preyed upon. The destruction of the server was imminent. Joe hoped that the Entity would sever its connection to EX once it was done, but he’d still need the time and space to recover.

The void’s infinite eyes fell away, and the trio found themselves back on the Hermitcraft server.

#void fog #hermitcraft #hermitcraftserver #hc cosmic horror au #evil xisuma #my writing

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delimeful · 4 years

Note

First time they saw Patton cuddling with Virgil? (Like y’know the energy thing maybe?) Or Virgil protecting the three of them from some other alien?

Okay, now that Making Adjustments is out in full, I’m posting all the asks that inspired me for certain parts or even just to continue writing! Thank you to everyone who sent in ideas/what they wanted to see/theories, I really appreciate it! All asks under the cut!

@ironwoman359 said: I’d be really interested to read about what the first week or two aboard the ship with all four of them was like. I’m sure it was a big adjustment for all of them, and it’d be really cool to see!

@skeletonsloverockcandy said: WINBAR prompt - Virgil’s first night on the ship, is not with Patton, and gets a nightmare. Logan finds him and Virgil has to explain his nightmare/dreams

@the-princey-pie said: Logan mentioned that Virgil would probbaly have trouble fitting through the space ship doors. Now I really want to see Vorgil stepping into their spaceship the first time/navigating it for the first few weeks.

@indigomasquerade97 said: WIBAR prompt. Virgil is Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. You know the scene I’m talking about! ;) Roman is still freaked out with the idea of having a human on board, and one night (maybe on patrol, since he is still jittery from loosing Patton and doesn’t want to loose him - or Logan - again) and he gets freaked out by the nocturnal human suddenly being in the room? IDK

Anonymous said: So. I was wondering for the WIBAR prompts, what was Virgil’s first night on the ship like? How did Roman and Logan act towards him? And is he worried that his relationship with Patton is going to change now that he’s back with his family? Sorry if this is a lot…

Anonymous said: WIBAR prompt idea: Food! Since food is often culturally connected for humans, would it be the same for our alien friends? And if they have any, from Virgil’s pov., strange food items etc. Would be interesting to see considering they are all from such different species. :D

@justanotherpurplebutterfly said: WIBAR: did Patton tell his crewmates how to interpret Virgil’s body language? Did they figure it out for themselves? Did they struggle to remember when they saw him smile or stretch (and make himself big) or something?

Anonymous said: I would love to see some V POV or adjustment period/cultural differences! (particularly L/R’s reactions to V smiling, differences in diet/hunting styles, what V considers a threat vs. what LMP consider threats… anything that highlights the deathworlder in Virg! (Space Australia is like my fav thing that came out of tumblr)) also maybe some more of L/R’s thoughts on Patton befriending a space boogieman?? I really really love this au! :)

Anonymous said: OoOOooh okay how about,, Virgil’s POV as they head back to Roman and Logan’s ship and get on, (and maybe if he doesn’t know the species Logan and Roman are he could ask? That seems the easiest way for us to learn more about the boys without it being too awkwardly shoved in) and V’s probably awkward because he doesn’t know Lo and Ro and Ro’s openly hostile and he wasn’t expecting to go along with them and idk you decide. Also :DD wibar’s not done yet!! Tysm; I’m really enjoying it!

@bishopriecke said: Okay, so I’ve got a couple prompts so I’ll send them separately in case that’s how you’d wanted them? The story is absolutely adorable and it made me think of the sleeping habits back on the ship. There’s space for Virgil, but will Pat gravitate to sleeping with him, since it was such a comfort and Virgil only gets sleepy if he snags energy during cuddles? If he’s tired/virgil’s stressing over something will he wander over to where Virgil is chilling and settle in his lap? How’s Ro&Lo react?

@bumblebeekitten said: Do any of the others attempt to learn Virgil’s language? Or maybe Virgil quietly tries to dispel some of the more hurtful rumors about ‘deathworlder humans’?

Anonymous said: What would wibar Roman and Logan do if they couldn’t find Patton? Would they assume Virgil had done something?

Anonymous said: While waiting for more WIBAR, I keep re-reading everything (Act 1, Intermission, all the world building asks). Right now, I just want to plead with Patton to go find Virgil as he needs comfort, to calmly tell Logan that I don’t blame him, and to hiss at Roman that, while he has had bad experiences and that is valid, he needs to be nicer. Granted, a reaction like that from a human fan-nut probably wouldn’t help Virgil’s case… but he needs a hug so much right now!

Anonymous said: i’m thinking there’s lots of potential for hurt/comfort with this chapter. Virgil’s obviously panicking so i reckon he’s gonna have to try and convince himself that he can trust Patton if not the others. i feel like virgil still wont trust the others but they’ll get to see that he’s not always this big, strong deathworlder and he gets scared just like them. he’s been traumatised and he cares for Patt a lot and theyll try to understand eachother better and hopefully become friends/gain some trust

Anonymous said: that is very much wishful think and a need for my boys to be happy though haha. soz, that probably wasnt very helpful for writing but thats just something i’d like to see happen but i KNOW that whatever you end up writing is gonna be fabulous (ran out of room on my last ask and couldnt even sign it, whoops)

@justanotherpurplebutterfly said: I’m mainly really curious how Roman will react. If he has even have as big of an imagination as buobba Roman then he will probably interpret Virgil’s outburst as a violent attack and try to frame him as a danger they shouldn’t keep on the ship. However if he was able to detect Virgil’s fear then this might be the first step of them growing closer. Idk which I like better, because on one hand I want them to to get along and witness wacky human things in an amicable atmosphere, but on the other hand, misunderstandings are soooo good!!!! Most of all I want Virgil to get a hug though. Poor boy deserves one. I don’t care with who it is, although I suspect it will be Patton because no way the other ones trust Virgil enough and vice versa.

@yalltookmyurlideas said: Haha wibar fears? There are,,, so many. My main fear is that Roman will misinterpret Virgil’s panic to mean he’s hiding something and not see it for the panic and fear it is.

Anonymous said: I was thinking about for WIBAR, are we going to find out more about Virgils life on Earth? Is there angst there or is it irrelevant? Also would Logan and Roman go after Virgil themselves so as not to worry Pat or would they realise this was a situation they couldn’t solve? OR does Roman think V is attacking them and goes to hurt him? Sorry long ask but I’m excited for the chapter 😅😅🥰🥰

Anonymous said: Ayyy super late gang, barely got a hour of sleep bc anxiety/nightmares so yeehaw. I guess for WIBAR, the most essential thing to consider is how you want Making Adjustments to sorta add onto its characters & how they interact. Idk that ofc, but I think the situation is going to resolve into a ‘im only human’ (the irony) kinda situation and the crew (maybe minus patton??) only /starting/ to grasp the human is a bunch of damaged goods who is lowkey more scared of them than they are of he (½)

Anonymous said: (2/2) how i see the situation going down? Depends who finds him. If it’s Pat, he could sing him clam like in the cell. If its Roman or Logan, odds are Virgil’s gonna b scared & his response will be to Fight or Freeze, as he already did the Flight option. Virgil reacting like a cornered animal would be terrifying Ro and Lo. (Also Ro and Lo going to wake up Pat for Human Help has the same vibes of a child waking up their parents to tell them they puked lmao)

@killerfangirl3 said: After where you left last chapter, I am 100% terrified Roman will find Virgil before Patton and cause real danger to everyone. After all Virgil is flooded with adrenaline right now and he barely knows how his strength affects the metal? of the ship as it is. The sudden increase in strength if he was attempting to defend himself could cause him to put a hole in the ship.

@hotchocolatehugs said: Oh! Also, would Virgil calm down if Patton found him, or would it just make him worse/more crazed? I dunno about his state of mind, but if I were in his position I would probably be acting aggressively to anyone who came in. Do aliens have hot chocolate or tea, or some equivalent drink? Because I think Virge needs a calming drink. (sorry if this is too much!)

Anonymous said: I saw your latest post and all I could think about is Virgil stuck on the appliance, really high up and close to the ceiling unseen while he sees Roman and Logan below. Maybe a bit of a language barrier while they say some words that Virgil may not no yet and jumping to conclusions and filling in the blanks in the sentences

Anonymous said: I’m afraid that In WIBAR, Roman may keep Pat from going to find and comfort Virgil and just…leave him up there

@katelynn-a-fan said: Mission impossible theme while looking for Virgil. Too short can’t see Virgil on top appliance. Mission impossible theme continues and fades into the distance. (That’s all I got)

Anonymous said: WIBAR suggestions/predictions/fears: I worry about Roman or Logan finding Virgil before Patton - Roman because I don’t think he will be understanding about how afraid Virgil is; Logan because I think that would scare Virgil more. He might break out of his flight stage into fight, and that could make them fear him more. But, while worry about this scenario, maybe it would be for the best. Maybe one or both need to find him at a low to see that he isn’t a monster, just scared.

@enby-phoenix said:

OK so wibar thoughts! I’m a little concerned that Roman will think that Virgil was genuinely trying to attack him with that chair and also probably trying to hurt Logan, and he’s gonna get upsetti. I also think that the way they figure out what’s made Virgil go all fight or flight will probably involve Logan doing the memory share thing, but it’ll take them a bit to get close enough without Virgil threatening to bite Logan’s hands off.

Also PLEASE let my boy eat a full meal and get some proper sleep!

I would also love to see Virgil curled around Patton protectively but everyone knows that it’s Patton who’s making Virgil feel safe.

Another prediction is that Logan, realizing that SOMETHING bad just happened, and knowing that all his information on humans seems to be incorrect or at least not apply to this one, will go to Patton for advice on what to do regarding Virgil’s sudden change of behavior, and how to calm him down again. Cause Patton is the resident expert on Virgil.

I also imagine that Logan might keep his note taking to himself again for a bit, until Virgil believes that he’s not the bad kind of scientist.

I love that Virgil climbed on top of the tallest thing he could find, and I imagine that if it’s above everyone else’s usual eyelines, they each walk past him multiple times while they’re worriedly searching the ship for him.

I’m mostly imagining Virgil clinging to Patton like a lifeline and the other two aliens worrying for their tiny friend but Patton knows that Virgil is just scared and sings him the “calm down baby it’s okay I’m here” hatchling soothing song until Virgil calms down a little, and then still staying with him while explanations are had. They do not come out of the small space on top of the tallest appliance and Roman doesn’t like that but he’ll deal.

Now that I’m thinking about it more, one of the best ways for Logan to gain (at least a little bit of) Virgil’s trust would be for Virgil to see his honest reaction to what the other scientists did to him. Cause based on what I know of Logan, he would be horrified. And that might help Virgil to realize that Logan ISN’T LIKE those other scientists.

Anonymous said: *gets out the defibrillator to help kickstart the creative juices* At this point Virgil is running on fumes and when the trio find him Patton tries to comfort him. But he’s too stressed and feels betrayed and there’s just too much inner turmoil for him to hold back so he finally breaks down in front of them. Perhaps it’s not Patton that manages to calm him down, but Roman who finally recognizes him as a traumatized person rather than “just an evil human” :D

@enby-phoenix said: tbh Virgil probably hisses at either Logan or Roman at some point and it makes them nervous and confused.

Anonymous said: Roman forcing Virgil down from his hiding spot. 'Blade’ to his neck and tying him to a chair. Virgil thinking that he shouldn’t have run and that they are going to be even angrier at him now, ergo more painful experiments. Begging to be put under for the cutting away and to please don’t get mad at Patton (just in case Patton was trying to be a good friend).

Anonymous said: Suggestion for WIBAR - Roman goes looking for Virgil, all ready for a confrontation. But, when he finds him, Virgil unknowingly makes some sort of gesture that means fear/terror to Roman’s people and he stops and evaluates the situation with clearer eyes. This gives Patton/Logan/both a chance to get there.

Anonymous said: Can we get somr wibar fluff/angst?

Anonymous said: I’m just waiting for WIBAR Virgil to just pass out and the panic of everyone that sees him. Or Roman threatening him or Logan goes to touch him and BAM he’s on the floor!

Anonymous said: Stuff for WIBAR: 1: who’s gonna find Virgil? 2: what’re they gonna do with him? 3: how’s he gonna react? – Options: Patton: tries to comfort him Virgil: can’t decide whether to trust or not, maybe leading to emotional outburst and sad PatPat – Logan: scared cuz danger goblin had an outburst at him. Wondering what he did wrong & how to best proceed Virgil: 'he’s gonna do tests on me’ fight or flight – Roman: 'so, if you hurt my friends imma hurt you’ Virgil: fight or flight – ½

Anonymous said: 2/2 Of course those aren’t the only options, but it was fun for me, and I hope it got creative juices flowing for you as well. I love all your writing, and I want you to know that you can take as long as you need to be proud of your work. It’s okay. And take care of yourself too! You can’t make as good of work when you aren’t feeling as good as usual

#asks #wibar #assistance asks #long post #read more please work :(

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grimoireweavers · 4 years

Text

{ closed starter for @ofcharredbones ;; Sebastian and Johnny }

♞—-» Sebastian’s world changed so rapidly over the course of several years. He fell in love with his partner, had to go through getting a new partner because he wanted to pursue a relationship with his original partner, got married, and had a daughter. All massive life changes, true, but ordinary things, right? Most 30-something year old men settled down and had a family, right? Perhaps not, but it seemed like the normal thing for an average person to go through.

And while balancing family life and a professional life with the KCPD was a stress all on its own, Sebastian was happy. He would have sworn that up and down for years.

At least, he had been until the accident. The fire that killed his daughter and ripped apart his entire life. He developed a drinking problem to cope. His wife became so obsessed with the idea that Lily’s death wasn’t an accident that she simply wouldn’t let the wound settle and heal. Then her obsession turned into a belief that Lily was alive, but she just sounded... insane. Sebastian tried to reason with her, tried to listen to her, but she was just making the healing process so much more difficult.

Myra disappeared. Everyone blamed him, saying he either drove her away with his drinking, or suspecting him of actually doing something to her himself. His world spiraled out of control, he’d hit rock bottom and he somehow managed to push through that hard rock and spiral even lower.

Then Mobius took him and inject him into STEM.

STEM was sort of a blessing disguised as a curse. For all the trauma he suffered within that devil contraption, he found a lot of blessings in it as well. A newfound strength and desire to not only survive but live again. Yes, he’d lost so much of himself in the last few years, but after coming so close to deaths too horrific to put to paper, he realized just how much he wanted to cling to life, how much he still wanted to be alive and thrive... It gave him a new respect for not throwing his life away, made him reevaluate a lot of his self-destructive decisions, and even gave him new purpose.

Perhaps, above all else, though, he found Johnny.

Their story wasn’t exactly the most romantic of stories. Johnny and Sebastian met in one of the worst places imaginable and ended up relying on one another when they had no one else to rely on or turn to. Desperation and spite brought and kept them together inside STEM, but what bloomed outside, in the real world, was beautiful. Not always easy, not by a long shot, especially when Seb still questioned what was real and what wasn’t, and had to come to some pretty terrifying realizations that monsters and demons were real and his boyfriend was one such monster hunting down even worse creatures. The types of things Sebastian would have believed nothing but stories or fantasies were now very real. Things he faced inside of STEM, nightmares that couldn’t possibly exist outside of someone’s head, were very much real.

But Sebastian processed this new information, and with Johnny’s help, he learned to cope and accept what could not be changed and adapt to survive in this new world that was still the same as it always was.

Turning, though...

Fuck, that’d been the hardest thing of all, hadn’t it? Learning of the existence of the supernatural was one thing, accepting it and living with it and even joining his boyfriend on hunts was another thing, but actually becoming part of it? In a way that he had no actual control over? In a way that tore out his humanity and left him with a memory of who and what he had been, but changed him into something so different... He’d never expected that to happen, never expected it to be possible, and sometimes, when looking in the mirror, it was hard to believe. As long as he was well-fed, he looked more or less the same, able to blend in with those around him just as he always had. Even his own mother couldn’t really tell the difference, though she did expect something was off about him.

Staying well-fed, though, was the tricky part. He could eat as much food as he wanted and never feel full. No sustenance or nutrition came from it. Eating souls took some getting used to and Sebastian had some really difficult times convincing himself to do so. There was a certain air of injustice or immorality that made such an act feel impossible, even when he purposefully went out of his way to find the worst people he really could, people he was probably doing a service to the rest of humanity for taking them out of the realm of existence.

Johnny spent a lot of time coaxing Sebastian into doing what he needed to in order to survive and not wither away under the influence of this transformation and Sebastian still didn’t like it, but at least he wasn’t starving himself.

With his insatiable hunger for the unimaginable, though, Sebastian did develop quite a few abilities that he couldn’t really control, didn’t entirely understand, and allowed him to do some pretty extraordinary things. While fearful of his newfound powers, he also found himself eager to learn and develop them. Look at all of the good he could do with what most would view as a curse! That’s how Sebastian had to look at it, anyway, to keep himself sane. Weaker men than him would have gone mad with power or crazy with the monstrosity they became.

The worst of it, though, was watching just how guilty Johnny was over Seb’s transformation. He blamed himself, it was very obvious. Every time Seb showed signs of struggling with adapting to this new life, Johnny’s guilt only amplified, and none of Sebastian’s reassurances seemed to have much impact on the Rider. Johnny knew he shouldn’t have pulled Sebastian into the lifestyle that he lived, that it was too dangerous for a common human, even one as determined, stubborn, and skilled as Sebastian.

Nothing Sebastian could say would ever alleviate Johnny’s guilt completely, but that just made Sebastian more determined to adjust to his new self, so he didn’t have to struggle in front of his fiancé anymore.

One such developing ability, however, left Sebastian feeling particularly unsettled. He first noticed it with Johnny and his mother, this... inherent ability to feel them even when they were not around him. It was like a personal tracker of sorts, allowing him to sense their general location, if they were in danger, and even, to a certain extent, what they were feeling at the time. It seemed to be the strongest with Johnny, which made sense since they lived together and spent the most time with one another, but as the weeks turned to months, more and more people started popping up on his radar.

Even people like Abraham, for the love of whatever higher power actually existed... Not that he’d tell Johnny about that, he was already salty for how often Abraham tried to steal Sebastian away and spend “quality time” with him.

Someone he never expected to feel eventually found her way to him, though. At first, he thought that it might have been Myra. Wherever she was, she was trapped, confused, and afraid. Sebastian couldn’t make out many details, in truth. Everything around her was dark, foggy, and as if she wasn’t entirely aware of her own surroundings. Why would he be thinking about Myra, though? There was no reason for Myra to hold any real place in his heart anymore, not after all the turmoil she’d put him through, not after finding a better partner in Johnny.

Then it dawned on him. Well, more like infected his dreams, really. Sitting bolt upright, Sebastian had broken out into a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Gwen moved from the end of the bed to crawl up into his lap and greet him, a tiny, concerned ‘mew’ leaving her as one paw came up to bat at his bare, damp chest.

Lily...

He dreamt about Lily, holed up somewhere dark, where she couldn’t see anything. Fuck, it felt like she wasn’t even processing what was going on around her at all, but she’d been right there, in front of him. He reached out for her, only to be stopped by some sort of invisible forcefield that existed between them, something that kept him from being able to touch her, to wrap his arms around her, and hug her like a father who never thought he’d see his baby again ought to.

Normally, he would have just written that off as a bad dream. He had plenty of them after losing Lily, after Myra abandoned him, and especially after STEM, but the feeling lingered, and for a moment, he swore he could picture her in real time, not just as a memory, but as someone who was alive and breathing and lost.

Nudging Gwen off of him, Sebastian pushed himself out of bed, as quietly as possible so as not to rustle the man beside him, though Johnny was likely already coming too from Seb violently sitting upright. Still, he made his way into the bathroom attached to their bedroom and closed the door behind him. Standing in the dark, he splashed a bit of cold water from the sink onto his face and gently patted a damp cloth across his neck and shoulders in an attempt to ground himself.

Could it be true, though? Could Lily be alive?

“That’s crazy,” Seb murmured to himself, staring at himself in the mirror. The lights were off, but his eyes easily adjusted to the dark, so he could see perfectly well. Making out every single detail of himself proved a simple task and he looked... Well, not nearly as tired as he should have been considering he hadn’t slept for very long and was woken in such a violent fashion.

After a few minutes to calm down and process what he’d been dealing with, Seb finally came back into the bedroom. Johnny was awake, sitting upright in his bed, a worried expression painting his features.

“Something odd’s happened,” Sebastian admitted before Johnny could even ask. “I can’t explain it, but I think...” Okay, he could explain it. Even though he had a hard time understanding these new and developing skills, he could talk to Johnny or Abraham or someone of a like mind who understood what it meant to be something other than human and they would likely understand what he meant, what he was talking about, what he was experiencing, and how to figure it out. “I think Lily might be alive, Johnny,” he murmured, and even as the words left him, he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“I can feel her—"

#( sebastian ; muse ) when did i lose sight of what's real #( sebastian ; in character )#( sebastian ; verse ) monster is just a term #( character ) johnny blaze #ofcharredbones #( ship ) sebastian x johnny

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bnha-hq · 5 years

Note

*gasps* Ask box is open! Uh, hi! For a Haikyuu drabble, can you do 27 for KuroYachi and 44 for KageHina? Thankyouuuuu

I am so sorry this is so late, I hope you enjoy

“I’m pregnant”

Kuroo would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried about Yachi, she seemed more worried than usual, more jumpy and prone to panic attacks. He hadn’t seen her this riled up since her university finals and he couldn’t for the life of him pinpoint what it was.

She’d been so stressed recently she was having seemingly random bouts of nausea and had started jumping more when he arrived or suddenly called for her and when he asked her he got nothing out of her, if she even knew what was causing her anxiety she wasn’t telling him.

She wasn’t telling him anything which usually meant she was worried about his reaction or she was still sorting it out in her own mind to be able to word it in a way that wasn’t more a mashup of concepts so he could understand and hopefully help.

Today had been particularly bad, she’d been sick for the third time today and it had just passed lunch time, not knowing what was wrong worried him so much, he felt like all he could do was sit there and watch with no way to help, just hoping that whatever was wrong would soon pass or ease.

Yachi was currently doing what she had been doing for weeks, fighting an oncoming panic attack. She looked at the four positive pregnancy tests on the bathroom counter, fighting another wave of nausea as she tried her best to sift through the ridiculous amount of emotions that were stewing inside her. She was excited and ecstatic at the news but at the same time it was the most terrifying thing she’d learnt in who knows how long. She didn’t know when to tell Kuroo, she knew she had to but coming to grips with it herself was so hard, she wasn’t sure if she could handle his reaction were it bad and no matter how many times she replayed the scenario in her mind it always ended badly. Logically she knew he wouldn’t hate her or want nothing to do with their baby but her anxious thoughts very rarely planted themselves in logic, watered by the haunting thoughts of the unknown and the ‘what ifs’.

She’d been sitting on this for way too long now, she’d known for a week without telling him and she felt so guilty for not, she had come to the conclusion that she had to tell him, and she would tell him. Today. She knew the logical reactions, she knew Kuroo loved kids and she knew he wanted them in their future. She knew all of this, she just had to cling onto the logic, however fleeting, and not let go no matter what the anxious thoughts screamed at her. She’d tell him today and deal with the consequences as they came, that was all she could do.

Kuroo had started dinner, he hoped Yachi would be able to keep it down tonight. If it didn’t get better he would probably take her to the doctors, throwing up this often isn’t normal right? He didn’t think anxiety alone would cause her to be so sick so often, it hadn’t in the past. Sure, she felt nauseous and like she was going to throw up but she very rarely did so he had to wonder, was her anxiety just getting worse or was she actually sick with some stomach bug? She hadn’t mentioned anything or avoided anything so it didn’t seem like an anxiety thing.

He sighed and finished chopping the vegetables, putting them in the pan to stew with the rest.

Tetsu?” Yachi’s quiet voice cut through the kitchen, she fiddled with her sleeves and avoided eye contact. Maybe it was anxiety related.

“Yes kitten~” he smiled at her, stopping everything to give her his full attention.

She pulled out four little white sticks, at first he didn’t know what they were. They looked like thermometers that you stick under your tongue, so maybe she actually was sick?

“Hm?” He walked over to get a closer look, taking one from her hands and looking it. He saw two clear blue lines and he knew.

His eyes widened as her looked at the test, to her then to the ones in her hands, his mouth open and closing like a fish out of water as he thought of what to say.

“I’m pregnant” she clarified, with more confidence than he expected considering how timid she was only seconds before.

So many feelings flooded through Kuroo that he thought he was going to be sick for a moment, he was so excited and overjoyed, he was going to be a dad! But at the same time he was terrified, he was going to be a dad!

He decided to push away the fear, his excitement easily overpowering it as he picked her up in a tight hug.

“We’re going to be parents!!” He laughed and spun her around, earning a laugh from her as well which was like music to his ears.

“Is this what’s had you so worried?” He finally set her down, seeing her nod weakly and look away. He could tell she was embarrassed, she often said she felt silly after an anxiety attack. He smiled softly and kissed her face, the relief he felt was so intense he just wanted to laugh.

“I’m so glad it wasn’t something bad, I was worried you had the flu or something” he chuckled and gave her lips a quick peck. She giggled.

“Sorry for worrying you” she smiled at him, kissing back gently.

“I wish all my worries ended with news as good as this, we’re going to be parents Kitten!” She smiled at him brightly as he said that, he could just about physically see the stress and anxiety leave her body and he was so glad.

“Yes we are” they could both relax and rejoice in the news, neither weighed down by anxiety and neither could be happier.

“If you die, I’ll kill you”

tw: war and death

It wasn’tsupposed to be like this, it was never supposed to be like this.

They were supposed to finish high schooland go straight into university, hoping to play for the national team one day.

They were meant to find a house together,adopt a pet or two and live out their dreams, happy and content.

It was never supposed to be like this.

They had known the war had started, theycouldn’t not know about it, it had been plastered on every paper, TV channeland radio station.

Japan had gone to war.

The country was thrown into chaos, Kageyamaand Hinata had been drafted and now found them away from home, away from whatthey knew and away from routine and normalcy.

They’d been lucky in the fact that theyhadn’t been separated but Kageyama was terrified, this whole thing scared thelife out of him.

Whenever they were separated for too longhe worried so much he often made himself sick, he worried Hinata had beenkilled, or taken and exposed to much, much worse and by the way Hinata huggedhim, with all the strength he could muster, he figured he had the samenauseating fears as well.

It was never supposed to be like this.

He was meant to come home, maybe a roughday at class or work perhaps, met with that tight hug to squeeze away problemsof the day, not to remind themselves that they were both alive and alright.

It was never supposed to be like this andit made him so angry, angry at the war, at his government, at the opposingarmy, at everything. They should be living their life, just the two of themwith whatever they felt like doing as stupid young adults, not wondering ifthey were going to live to see the next day.

As the war dragged on it took a heaviertoll on them both, Hinata especially. Kageyama had lost count of the amount ofnights he held Hinata as he cried, loud sobs, heavy under the weight of hisfear and guilt.

The weight of the world was on hisshoulders, the uncertainty of tomorrow clouding his vision and the panicgripped his throat in an icy grip, his cries for help barely audible to his ownears and Kageyama couldn’t help him.

Not completely anyway.

He could lie there with him, holding him ina tight grip and doing whatever he could to take a little bit of that weightoff him. To clear his vision just that little bit or loosen the grip on histhroat, but he couldn’t. There was just too much, too much pain, fear,uncertainty, and so much guilt he felt like he would suffocate before theyreached the light at the end of the tunnel. If they did suffocate, if it didprove all too much, the one thing he was certain of though was that he wouldn’thesitate to give his last breath so Hinata could have one more, even if hecouldn’t make it he’d do everything within his power to make sure Hinata did.

He squeezed the boy in his arms a littletighter, savouring the feeling of him being there, dedicating it to memory,dedicating Hinata to memory, even though he already had.

The sound of his voice, his laugh, his cryand the feeling of his skin and the softness of his hair and his smile. Thesmile he has when he’s done something cool, when he sees Kageyama after a longday or when he’s just woken up. All these little details have etched themselvesso deeply into Kageyamas memory they were just another part of him, heremembered these things like he remembered his own name, he firmly believedhe’d forget his own name sooner that those little things about Hinata, he wouldif he had a say in it.

Hinata’s sobs slowly settled down untilthey were more whimpers and hiccups than actual sobs, though his body stillshook violently, his fingers still digging into the fabric of his shirt so hardKageyama briefly wondered if it had been torn, not that he’d care if it had.

He knew he wasn’tthe only one though, he wasn’t the only one who’d held the one he loves as theycried, who lived in fear and everyday had to push it aside and do what neededto be done. He’d seen his team mates here, from middle school and high school,people he didn’t get along with now trusting him with his life and vice versa.

He remainedawake for what felt like hours after Hinata fell asleep, but realistically itwould have only been a few minutes before he too drifted off into a mercifullydreamless sleep.

Kageyama couldhardly keep up with what was happening, bullets were whizzing past his head,his ears ringing as something exploded somewhere he couldn’t quite make out,voices screaming out commands he that couldn’t quite hear but none of itmattered, absolutely none of it, it may as well be white noise in this exactmoment.

“K-Kageyama…I’msorry” his voice was weak, his hands shaking badly as they covered the redpatch on his stomach that only grew, taking Hinata’s colour with it and leavinghim pale.

“S-Shut up, you’regoing to be alright” Kageyama’s hands also shook as he did his best to stop thebleeding, blinking away the tears furiously in attempt to clear his visionthough whatever tears he shed were quickly replaced.

“I’m sorryTobio, I-I’m so sorry” he sobbed weakly himself, Kageyama growled and screamedfor a medic again.

He was vaguelyaware of Iwaizumi running over to help, vaguely aware of an explosiondangerously close to them, vaguely aware of everything that wasn’t Hinata inhis arms.

“If you die,I’m gonna kill you.” He sobbed weakly, holding his face in his hand and pressinghis forehead to his.

Hinata manageda weak laugh, one that shook Kageyama to his core, before leaning up to leave agentle kiss to his lips.

“I’m sorryTobio�� he managed before he shut his eyes.

All Kageyamacould do was scream, a pain unlike any other took hold of his being andsqueezed him agonisingly tight.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

#kuroyachi #kuroyachi fic #kuroyachi fluff #pregancy fic #kagehina #kagehina fic #kagehina angst #tw: character death #tw: war #hq #haikyuu #haikyuu fic #hq fic

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gumnut-logic · 6 years

Text

Attempt

Title: Attempt: chapter three of Sotto Voce Author: Gumnut 28-30 Aug 2018 Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS Rating: Teen Summary: Sometimes the voices are far too loud to ignore. Word count: 1800 Spoilers & warnings: Mentions of suicide. Spoilers for the end of Season 2 Author's note: This is the shortest installment so far, but it called for it again. Feel free to join me on the giant cliff of hang again. Sorry ::hugs:: Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

Scott nursed his coffee, staring out into the morning sun. Down below Gordon was lapping the pool, but it was one of the loungers that kept Scott’s attention. Virgil was asleep sprawled on his back, shirtless. Scott didn’t know how long he had been there. He was there at five am when Scott went for his morning run and he was still there when he got back. Nothing seemed to have disturbed his snoring.

It was unusual, to say the least. Why he was out here, Scott didn’t have a clue. Usually Virgil didn’t see daylight until at least past nine unless there was a callout or his ‘Bird needed some extra attention. His brother was more of a late nighter than an early riser. And why the pool lounger?

The purple bruising across his shoulders and torso from the safety harness available for all to view.

Scott’s coffee burned on the way down.

Why?

It was the question still hammering the inside of his skull. Why would Virgil purposefully crash that hydrofoil? It didn’t make sense. There was no sign of…well…anything. The concept of Virgil seeking his own end…no, it wasn’t possible! He stared down at his brother. Was it? They say that those closest often don’t see it coming.

Scott had spent the entire night going over everything in his head. Virgil was under stress, yes, but no more than usual. They all knew what their jobs entailed, they all kept an eye on one another for indications of help needed. They talked, they discussed. Hell, everyone knew that if Virgil started pounding the piano keys or getting particularly violent with his paintbrush that he needed to be checked on. It was the same if certain pieces of gym equipment took too much of a beating, or if a tablet went flying across the room, or if Gordon couldn’t be dragged out of the pool. They looked after each other, they all knew each other’s indicators, there were five of them, enough for intervention if it was needed.

But this…why?

Part of him wanted to shake his brother awake and ask him. But there were no signs that Virgil even remembered the accident, much less causing it. John, Brains and himself had decided to watch and wait. They would tell Alan and Gordon if necessary, but for the moment they would keep an eye on their engineer brother.

Down on the lounger Virgil’s head shifted side to side and he mumbled.

Scott frowned.

“No!” And his brother was in motion, his arms reaching out as if to push something away, his legs scrambling as if to run, his body toppling off the lounger and onto the decking below.

“Virgil?” Gordon was leaping out of the pool and Scott was flying down the stairs. Scott skidded through the kitchen and around the pool, but Gordon beat him to it.

At any other time, Virgil falling off a lounger would have been hilarious, but after recent events, everyone was touchy around the second eldest. They had almost lost him and Virgil was no joking matter.

“I’m fine, Gordon. Just a bad dream.” And then Virgil’s glare hit Scott with a dare for him to say anything else.

Scott obliged and with a sense of déjà vu offered him a hand up. “Pancaking again, Virg?”

The glare sharpened, but he took the offered hand as a wet Gordon stepped back, expression slightly confused.

Virgil grunted as he righted himself. It was obvious his brother was stiff and sore, and he staggered slightly, Scott using his other hand to steady him. “Any reason for sleeping beside the pool?”

“I needed the air.” Virgil didn’t look at him. “I’m going to go have a shower.” He took a step towards the house.

“See you at breakfast.”

Virgil waved a negligent hand in his direction as he walked off into the house.

“Weird.”

Scott looked down at Gordon and let out a worried breath. “Yeah.”

-o-o-o-

Virgil felt so much better after a hot shower. Some of his muscles actually worked now. His head still ached, but that could be ignored, mostly.

He downed a glass of water in his suite and decided to forego breakfast. His stomach just didn’t feel like it. He tried to think back to why he had been out by the pool and why he had yelled himself awake again and came up blank on both scores. Of the two the fact he was beside the pool was the most unnerving. Last he remembered he had been in his own bed.

John’s hologram suddenly appeared in front of him and he jumped. “Hell, John, give a guy a little warning.”

John arched an eyebrow at him, but didn’t acknowledge his protest. “Virgil, we need you, Brains and Thunderbird Two. Report to the hangar bay.”

Virgil didn’t hesitate. “FAB.”

And he was out the door.

-o-o-o-

Brains was tired.

Since the discovery of Virgil’s sabotage of the hydrofoil test, he hadn’t been able to rest. Of the five brothers, Brains felt he knew Virgil best. They had a great deal in common and they worked together well.

He could see no reason why Virgil did what he did. It was so far out of character it defied possibility. It would be like dropping a hammer in a standard gravitational field and have it fall up instead of down. It was a nigh impossible result.

But it had happened nonetheless.

He was standing amongst the remains of the little hydrofoil at the back of Thunderbird Two’s hanger when he heard the hiss of Thunderbird Two’s pilot delivery gantry deploy far above him. A blink and Virgil came flying out, catching the bars at the end of the ride and flinging himself into his ship.

A moment later the module bay opened and Thunderbird Two lowered herself over Module Four.

Brains frowned. What?

At any other time, it would have been an every day thing, but Virgil was grounded, Virgil had apparently tried to kill himself. Brains hit his comm. “S-scott, Virgil is in Th-thunderbird Two. Is he c-cleared for that?”

“What? No!” There was the sound of hurried footsteps. “Coming down.”

Perhaps Virgil just wanted to do some maintenance? Brains walked over towards the green machine. But then why was he in his uniform? Virgil always wore his daggiest clothes for maintenance as he always managed to get filthy.

“Brains!” And Virgil was running towards him. “We’re needed.”

“W-what? Where?”

The young engineer skidded to a halt in front of him, his expression energised. “Unknown. John said he would brief us in flight.”

Brains frowned. “B-but y-you’re grounded.”

Something flickered across Virgil’s face and for a split second there was an expression of pain. Then it was gone. “We’re needed.”

Brains took a step back. “S-scott will be here in a moment. H-hopefully he will h-have more information.”

That flicker again and this time, Virgil grimaced. “I need you on board Thunderbird Two. It is urgent.”

He took another step back. Virgil was a big man, but Brains had never seen him use that advantage in a threatening way, ever. The man was so gentle. But just at this moment, there was something, some potential, that sent a chill up his spine. He kept his mouth shut, hoping to delay enough for Scott to arrive.

Virgil took a step closer. “Please, Brains.”

He swallowed. “I-I can’t, V-Virgil. I-I’m s-sorry.”

Another grimace, another flicker of pain and Virgil closed his eyes, a hand covered his face, his shoulders hunching just a little.

Brains scurried back a few more steps, suddenly afraid.

But Virgil was faster, the larger man abruptly bending down to grab Brains about the waist. The world tipped up and Brains found himself hanging head down over Virgil’s shoulder, his only sight blue and green boots running beneath him.

Brains yelled and struggled, but Virgil was as strong as he was large. The engineer didn’t have a hope. The hanger floor was replaced by the chequered plating of Thunderbird Two’s hatch and then he was swallowed up by the big ship.

-o-o-o-

Virgil wasn’t sure what was happening.

John kept yelling urgencies at him, yet Brains seemed so blasé about it all, as if he didn’t care that there were people out there who needed them.

God, his head hurt.

“Virgil, you need to secure the engineer.” He jumped at the sight of his holographic brother yet again. John looked agitated, which was unusual and likely a sign of how urgent this callout was.

Brains was still struggling, but Virgil pulled out the co-pilot’s seat and deposited him gently in its embrace. “Please don’t make me restrain you.”

He ignored the expression of horror on Brain’s face and set about pre-flight checks.

“Wh-why are you d-doing this?”

“Because they need us.” He activated the launch sequence.

“Who?”

Virgil looked at his fellow engineer. “Those who need saving.”

“Stop dithering and get moving.” John’s expression was harsh and completely out of character.

“Virgil! What are you doing?!” Scott ran into the launch bay, his expression somewhere between worry and terror.

“Get a move on!” John was snarling now.

Virgil stared at his brother on the floor of the bay. “I-“

And pain exploded in his head.

He might have cried out, he wasn’t sure, the world whited out for a moment and he teetered to one side. “Launch the damn ship!”

In desperation he hit the control for the bay door.

Nothing happened.

He hit it again.

“You’re not leaving, Virgil.” Scott was staring up at him defiantly. “I won’t let you.”

“No. I have to-“

He hit it yet again with no result.

A knife stabbed through his brain and this time he did scream.

“We must leave now!”

Desperate to make it all stop, Virgil deployed Thunderbird Two’s cutting laser. Red leapt out of the front nozzle of the ship and began carving a hole in the solid rock of the bay door. He was vaguely aware of Scott diving for cover far down below.

“Virgil, why are you doing this?” And it was John’s hologram on the dash that asked. Sitting right next to the same hologram that was snarling at him. Virgil froze staring.

“J-John?” And the pain spiked again. “I have t-“

“Virgil! Launch now!”

He looked between the two holograms, one furious, the other familiar, reassuring and safe.

Virgil’s fingers quietly cut off the laser cutter.

“Damn you!” And the pain hit again.

“No! No, I won’t!” But the words dissolved into screams.

Somewhere outside the pain there was yelling, then hands were holding him, pulling at him, his name was called. But all he could see was John, anger in his eyes, a snarl on his lips, his green eyes blazing.

-o-o-o-

End Part Three.

Part Four

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #tb fanfiction #virgil tracy #hiram hackenbacker #scott tracy #whump #virgil!whump

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gregellner · 6 years

Photo

Cover by Jenny Frison.

Today I’ll be reviewing the complete four-issue limited series “Year One” style story for Cassandra “Cassie” Hack, the protagonist of “Hack/Slash,” titled “Hack/Slash: My First Maniac.” It is written by Tim Seeley, with artwork by Daniel Leister, colors by Mark Englert, and letters by Crank!, all published by Image Comics (@imagecomics) as the first of the “Hack/Slash” properties to be published there before they took up the second ongoing series.

As a warning, this review is also an analysis, and so will include spoilers regarding this arc and major developments therein.

Throughout “My First Maniac,” Tim Seeley’s word choice rules the day, showcasing changing scenarios through repetition of common lines that have small, significant variations. Particularly in the first issue, there are intense parallels during the last two days that Cassie spent in her Wisconsin hometown, with her survivor’s guilt and vulnerability contrasting against her utter viciousness on her last day, figuring out how to use her “otherness” to make others afraid of her. On a similar note, the repeated use of certain phrases such as “come home” and similar words helps to add on to how alone Ms. Hack really feels and how she does, deep down, wish she could be at home again, but can’t seem to allow that for herself, a recurring struggle for her throughout her slasher slayer career.

Repetition also continues through events, such as the aforementioned last two days and her feelings about firearms. While Hack was at first upset and in shock over shooting her mother after she had become a slasher, noting that the gun felt heavy in her hands, her almost casual execution of the slasher she set out to hunt in this arc and intentional use of the gun she had actually demanded from someone else gives a look at how far she has delved into her killer lifestyle.

Religion, in particular Christianity, gets some mention, and acts as a contrast to the slashers themselves. Seeing as Cassie doesn’t know much about them (and won’t know much at all beyond the basics for years), she equates their ability to rise from the dead by sheer hatred as a kind of opposite number to Jesus of Nazareth, albeit not an actual antichrist. “The Bible says Jesus Christ died for our sins and returned to show his love. What about those who died for their own sins and returned to show their hate?” While this connection isn’t really all that important, it helps to tie readers in to the story, given a common perspective that many are at least familiar with on a cursory level.

Tim Seeley has long proposed that all of the famous slasher film franchises (and a few horror comic series) take place within the same world and share that world with “Hack/Slash,” with crossovers including “Hack/Slash vs. Chucky” (Child’s Play after Seed of Chucky), “Cassie and Vlad meet the Re-Animator” (Re-Animator), and “Hatchet/Slash” (Hatchet) alongside other more subdued connections or offhand references. In this limited series, Cassie’s original research into slashers includes direct mentions of the actions of Freddy Kreuger of A Nightmare on Elm Street (“a man who kills in dreams in Ohio”), Michael Myers of Halloween (“a masked maniac who terrorizes a small town on Halloween”), and Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th (“a camp plagued for thirty years by a psycho who won’t die”) who, though already mentioned to exist within the world by Charles Lee “Chucky” Ray in his one-shot story, are still a nice treat for readers.

As a fun little note, Delilah Hack’s year of death is mentioned on her tombstone as 2004, the same year that the original “Hack/Slash” story, “Euthanized,” was published, and therefore probably the same year that this story takes place.

“My First Maniac” is, at its core, a tragedy. Cassie Hack wants a normal life, and by right, probably would have had one, albeit one filled with bullying, in most other circumstances. But with her life’s path and her survivor’s guilt, any hope for a happy life is mercilessly, repeatedly dashed, and she isn’t the only one to whom this genre applies.

First, let’s look to the case of Cassie herself. From the outset, re-killing her undead mother has irrevocably changed her life, leading her down a dark path that results in running away from the loving foster care of Shannon and Karen Moore. As she starts to develop a new, real life for herself in Buffalo Center, Iowa, over the course of her first intentional slasher hunt, she actually seems to be happy, or at least give the idea of possibly becoming happier with time. She develops friends, and seems on the road to becoming better again after her violent turn in Wisconsin. Then, of course, things go horribly wrong, as becomes a pattern for her life from then on.

On the other hand, we have the supporting cast and even the villains. The Moores just wanted to help Cassie, but her self-given mission had consumed her to such a degree that any happiness would be impossible. Sarah Bunn and her boyfriend Kelsey each have a tragic tale, each a victim of the slasher of the story in their own way. Cassie even identifies them as a “free-spirited girl with a dark secret” and a “genuine good guy” respectively, acknowledging that they also were suffering from tragedy much as she was in their own ways. Even the slasher was in his own way a victim, though not as sympathetic. He was murdered in a rage, but his actions in life were not kind either, so there is less sympathy afforded to him.

A major part of “My First Maniac” is not just the case itself, but how Cassie Hack evolves from a relatively innocent girl into… well, kind of a sociopathic girl with intense post-traumatic stress disorder. By the end of the arc, she even claims that “Cassie Hack, teenage girl” is dead.

The majority of the symptoms of her disorder do not come into play during the limited series (having apparently been developed gradually in the months since), but her increased aggression is definitely important. Over the course of a single day, perhaps two, Cassie Hack goes from reluctantly shooting her mother to death in order to save someone’s life, to experiencing such severe survivor’s guilt that she feels she deserves the beating that a trio of bullies led by group alpha Rhianna Stegman are giving her, to beating Stegman to within an inch of her life with her bare hands the next day and threatening to murder her if she ever tried again. Even more, that very night she threatened her foster father’s life with a knife in his bed to keep him from following her as she ran away, further showing that she is seriously unwell. The speed with which she shifts from a shy, bullied girl to making death threats and physical assault demonstrate a thoroughly fractured mind, one that will only get worse as years of hunting take their toll.

On another note, it is important to be aware that while Cassie is a huntress of monsters, she is not a good person on her own. When she witnesses Jay and Ludo beating up a homosexual student outside of Club Fuzz after work, she almost doesn’t help at all on account of them not being her prey and her not being a hero, only actually getting involved when the odds are obviously in her favor once Kelsey and Sarah jumped in. Part of this relates to how she feels she can’t have anyone to care about, seeing any attachments as collateral in her hunt that she cannot afford (something that takes years for her to grasp is not necessarily the case, and never really leaves her mindset altogether), but another is the fact that she is so obsessed with her mission that she has faith in nothing else at all and makes attempts to refuse any other ways to help.

Even with her increasingly hardened exterior, there is still a sheltered, hidden part of Cassie Hack that is still that flustered, shy, teenage girl who ran away from home. Being the center of attention and attracting compliments leaves her very shy, with her new goth wardrobe breaking her out of her intense focus when people bring up how good she looks. Furthermore, when someone actually tells her she is a cool girl, she is overjoyed, actually writing it down in her diary with her feet up and crossed like a guy she likes noticed her.

Daniel Leister’s artwork is amazingly done, and in two different, but similar styles. On the one hand, we have the present day storyline, with realistic, well-detailed faces and scenes, the emotion clear on everyone’s faces (especially important for this particular slasher). Blood and guts are in horrific, terrifying detail through which Leister considers the amount of time that has passed since the blood has spilled, ranging from a general stain to caked on gore or bruises to a smear to a bloody, oozing wound. Water is shown in detail as well, with sweat and splashes helping to showcase effort in a way that many other artists might overlook.

On the other hand, the tellings of the tale of the slasher threat are somewhat more simplistic in nature, with flatter artwork that somehow works very well regardless, playing off in a way that is not unlike the works of Jack Kirby. In fact, the artwork even utilizes his famous “Kirby dot” technique!

On the whole, it is very well put together in some of the best art on “Hack/Slash” in general (not to put down any of the other phenomenal artists either).

The issue would be incomplete without Mark Englert’s coloring. Darkness and light, across different times of day, different ages of bruising, or even different styles of artwork help to make the entire story feel like a classic slasher movie, even as it is clearly something different.

The coloring of blood and gore is particularly well handled, as each of these elements has a weight to them, with light and shadow playing across them to showcase the amount of blood spilled or the fact that a blood stain may just be a single layer, whether a minor smear on clothing or skin. By using that kind of detail, readers are made aware of how fresh, how wet, a wound really is at any particular moment.

Together, this four-issue series is put together wonderfully, with the masterful writing, excellent illustrations, and disturbingly realistic coloring working together to make yet another piece of the amazing “Hack/Slash” epic.

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 6 years

Text

Life Story Part 78

The neighbor dad next door liked to drink every night – often in packs of other men just like himself, in the back of his house. Sometimes these nights became violent. We could hear his kids crying, his wife drunkenly screaming for order while causing a fair bit of confusion herself. Once two men fell into our back yard and were grabbling and drunkenly trying to pin one another down in what they must have thought was a high end fight scene in the movie of their sad little lives.

The neighbor dad came over to our house one night and started accusing my brother David of stealing his shitty Coors Light beer. David was not stealing his beer at all of course. There was some other son of one of his friends that was eventually found to be the culprit, but this guy was adamant that it was David, threatening to shoot David if he saw him on his property, as if anyone with any self respect wanted to be seen on his shitty property. He eventually convinced the other men who were just like him in our town that David was coming onto his property to steal his missing beer, his most beloved drink, and they all took to calling David names as they drove by. If we were taking our nightly stroll, men would stumble out of the bar and accuse David of being a thief, and once in awhile they called David a 'dob'. We wondered for years what that might mean. It was all very weird. It seemed like from age thirteen on, other men wanted to fight David. I am not entirely sure why.

David signed up for football. I knew he didn't want to. The only reason he had signed up for football in the first place was because my father had been adamant about it for so many years and David didn't feel like he had the right to say no. It was something deeply personal to my father, some big momentous ordeal that had to be done. I think he felt that David had to live the life that he himself hadn't. He wanted David to become a strong football loving American white man – and not the strange hippie that my father had chosen to be at that same age. He wanted to live those wholesome boring American dream victories vicariously through David, perhaps to stave away the fact that he himself had never left the area he lived in, had two failed marriages, thirty-five failed online relationships, a failed business, a growing reliance on alcohol, and a wasted thirty-five years working at a factory who wanted him gone before he could receive the retirement he deserved.

I knew David didn't want to play sports anymore. Not even boxing really. I was sitting on the computer in the living room one night, as David was sleeping on the couch. David started talking in his sleep. He was panicking in his dream, stating over and over that he didn't want to play football. I looked over alarmed, and he had the look of someone who was drowning. A dream like that speaks volumes. David didn't want to go through with it, but he had already signed up. And it was eating him alive that he was doing this. He wanted to listen to music and collect albums, and read and challenge and critique everything he liked against the world. He had no interest in being brawny or masculine – at least not in the way my father wanted, and he hated everyone far too much to have any ambitions whatsoever. He felt completely outcast, and it happened at a young age all at once. It was harder for him than for me I think. I was born an outsider, and had ambitiously worked my way into a system anyway. I had that humility. David just woke up one day feeling like everything was a lie.

For two weeks David went to practice. His coach was that same foul disgusting man that I remember talking inappropriately about the teenage girls in my class and what he would like to do with them. He had talked about my best friend Ava and her weight. He was a loathsome hideous pretentious sick fucker with a whistle. I don't blame David for hating it. He went to practice for two weeks. They forced the boys to run around the field for a very long time, essentially going for miles or until the boys crumpled, at which point, the football coach would crouch over them and scream in their faces until they pulled themselves up and continued to run. David threw up several times. This didn't in an of itself stop him, but it would have stopped me. And then one day, David quit.

This caused my father to have some kind of meltdown. I remember sitting in the kitchen, and not knowing what had happened. I remember he was grimacing with fury and confusion, and leaning over the kitchen sink and then telling me to leave him alone – as if someone had just died. I thought getting upset because your son isn't going to be a small town football star was exceedingly lame. Later he blamed me almost entirely, as he had started to catch on that I had become a cold undermining force to him. His younger kids listened to me, not him. I guess there had been a fight, and David had said to my dad 'STOP TRYING TO LIVE THROUGH ME!'. Which did sound like a very 'me' thing to say, but it was all David. I think anyone around could see the dynamics for what they were. And if it was me, I feel very little sympathy. David's dream self was telling him not to play football, which to me means serious business. You don't fuck with dream stuff. It knows you in a way you don't. Plus, the world has too many 7th grade football players. It really does.

Of course, I wasn't happy with David either, but for different reasons. He went from being a sweet considerate person to being malicious towards Allison and I. It was getting harder to deal with, and I was trying not to hate him, but that resolve was breaking. I just couldn't go between two different realities, my brother as one of my best friends and my brother as someone who wanted to really hurt me. We ended up going up to my grandmother's house in my mother's van. My grandma was trying to get rid of her possessions. She had collected a lot over the years in her line of business. She couldn't sell things on eBay they way she used to. She was tired of packaging and shipping books. Plus, some weird asshole priest in town had taken it upon himself to see that the St. Vincent de Paul shut down – somehow in the complexity of the tax world this was going to financially benefit him personally. And that left my grandma out of work. So she was giving a lot of it away to my mother, who is almost a hoarder.

We drove up there, and a lot of it was work we couldn't really do. My uncle who remodels homes for a living, was also up there at my grandma's, remodeling a part of my grandma's house. It was kind of strange to see that room go. It was a special room full of crafts and beads. Different little tiny shelves went up to the ceiling, each one had a different kind of item inside. As a child I had been mesmerized and wanted to get into everything. He changed that room into something far more spacious – it's a better room ultimately, but for nostalgia reasons I will always miss the old room.

During our three or four day visit, we would sleep on the floor, and wake up early in the morning to the sun beaming down on us and to the snotty little noses of the Yorkies who excitedly sniffed us and licked our faces. On the second to last day of our visit, our uncle Rick wanted to take us rafting down the small river close to where my grandma lived. I was skeptical, as our last rafting trip had been pretty terrible with our father, but given that Rick had all the proper equipment and boats for all of us to use, and the fact that the water was manageably shallow – it wasn't some major north American river, just a forgettable small one, I eventually felt more optimistic.

My uncle Rick is an alcoholic/workaholic. He never had children, and he once told me this was intentional, as his alcoholism would destroy his kid's childhoods the way that my mother and her brother's childhood had been ruined by their own father. I don't particularly think my uncle Rick is all that great, but for some reason this answer was one of the most socially responsible and respectable answers I had ever heard come from someone in my family. It made sound sense to me.

Rick would work very rough jobs that gave him a lot of money and that took up most of his time. He was very anal about his work, and if you were trying to help him but weren't, he would shoo you away in a hostile fashion. After a job well done he would take that money and buy alcohol with it, get into insane fights, wreck his cars and get massive DUI's which cost him just about all the money he could have ever saved from the job he was doing, which would intern require of him to work even harder – causing him to stress and feel like drinking, and when he drank his life would fall apart rapidly and it all would happen over and over again. He will die an alcoholic. He even used to run his own AA meetings back in the 90's when he had a few years under his belt of sobriety – so he knows full and well what he is doing.

For some reason my uncle Rick reminds me intensely of my mother and father mixed together. It's uncanny and weird. He's not related to my father of course, whom I am sure sees nothing of himself in any member of his ex wife's family. But it's true. They are similar. And the differences are made up with the similarities he has with my mom – his sister. It's truly weird to me. The only addition to the mix is that he's a worse alcoholic than either of them. For this reason, I see him as a sort of parent to me, though I have never told him this, as it's a half handed compliment. Not that we are super close, but he's the complete hybrid of those two people who brought me into the world for whatever reason. And he's probably right, if he had kids he would ruin their lives. But since he didn't bring me into the world, I don't really have to hate him.

We ended up going on this rafting trip which was a lot of fun. Allison and I shared our boat. My uncle Rick and David shared another, and my mom was given her own. My mother didn't heed his warning that you should avoid the rocky shallow parts, since the rocks will eventually find a way to break a hole in your inner tube boat, and she felt sheepish and had to get in one of our boats when her boat collapsed. It all worked out though. It was a fifteen mile stretch of a shallow river/large creek (I don't know which). It was a perfect temperature. It was relaxing, and beautiful. All around us we saw fish in the clear water, and deer. I put it down as one of my more cherished wholesome memories – unconnected to anything sinister or complex. Just me out in the water. It is weird at moments of simple clarity and softness in living that I wondered about how I had stayed up all night contemplating suicide from a academic standpoint, or trying to make sense of human nature in my thought so it could be corrected. It was rare that I ever just had a day like that.

David ended up throwing this massive hateful tantrum towards me. He freaked out over a game of monopoly, and I don't remember what happened from there, but he was acting really rude and mean towards us. My blood pressure was up. I wanted to slam him in the face, but that wasn't something I was going to do now. I didn't want to do that ever again actually. So I kept my calm. I also could tell that he was trying to upset me and Allison. He wanted to see tears, and he was going at any length to get those tears. I was eventually made so mad I was afraid to speak, afraid to give him the satisfaction of upsetting me. I just pretended that he wasn't getting to me. Actually, it was really hurting me. It was disappointing me and making me feel horrible, and I didn't even know how to comprehend it. Eventually, as we were packing the van on the last day he caused some kind of chaotic issue with Allison and refused to pack this van. It wasn't a matter of packing your average van. It was like, two hours of work. And he just refused to help. My mother's back was out, and David said he would scream if Allison went out there – so my mother relented and sent Allison inside. If David had instead decided on going inside, seeing as he refused to be of service, this would have made it easier for Allison to come out and help, but he was intentionally setting it up so that I had to pack the van by myself.

My grandma watched, and I could tell she was frustrated. David had a way of using domestic terrorism to get his way. Everyone was afraid of him when he turned into this person. All the same, I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of frustration or tears. So for three hours, I worked up a huge sweat, my muscles tingling as I packed all of my mother's hoarder stuff into the van box by box, bag by bag, furniture piece by furniture piece. On the way back, Allison and David lived buried in stuff. They had only a little bit of breathing room. They must have resented the fact that I always got to sit in front, account of the fact that I was bigger than them, and the fact that I have always suffered extreme car sickness, making it inevitable I would be put up front anyway.

I packed the van, and while I did it David would glare at me and laugh at me and stick his face out at me like I should punch him. He sat there intentionally looking at me working, getting some weird satisfaction from sitting and doing nothing. Of course, maybe this was some kind of punishment for how I had babysat when I was thirteen years old. But I was twenty-one now! If we are all to suffer the consequences at the age of twenty-one, eight years after the fact, the god help us all. I was infuriated, but I somehow learned to use that fury and turn it into one psychotic grimacing smile. I held back, and when I finally had a half of a house worth shoved into the back of the van, I ran to the back room of my grandma's house, flopped face first into the blankets where my mother had slept on the floor, and just extruded this agonized fury in silence. I opened my mouth and nothing came out – only some black evil smoke that I had been holding in for several hours as I whistled past David. I closed my eyes and vividly imagined popping someone's eyes out of their sockets, clawing away at skin, snapping off fingers and toes. I had somehow held into this rage that was almost too much for me to bear. I felt shaky and weak and disoriented. And something emotionally strained in me broke. I loved David, but I didn't see him as my friend anymore. He was an enemy. He was old enough to know he was ruining the relationships he had with everyone around him and he didn't care. I had rarely if ever felt so hurt and frustrated as I had then. I could hear my mother's pampering voice in the kitchen, trying to appease him. I realized that ultimately, Allison and I were going to have to work around him, just like we worked around our parents. He was toxic. I hadn't let go of him as my brother. But I sort of knew from then on that things were going to go south for us. It had already started, and there was no way for me to reverse it.

At around this very same time, a totally bizarre situation happened, and it changed our family's dynamic forever. My dad had started occasionally visiting the local bars both in Kendrick and Juliaetta, a small town not far from there. He had met this young woman, this very young woman – only two or three years older than me. My father had just turned sixty. He didn't look that old – he still looked like he was in his late forties, but he was indeed sixty. It's not illegal, and I am not in the business of judging what two consenting adults do, but I really don't see a twenty three year old woman and a sixty year old man have in common. They had literally nothing in common. They had no shared interests or experiences. They didn't even really know how to talk to one another. She seemed confused and unstable. She had two kids, and a sad story and she needed a place to stay. I don't know if my father honestly deluded himself into thinking that he was going to be some kind of hero in a nonromantic way towards her, or if he had it in mind all along. He will always point to the woman and say it was her who initiated the relationship.

It started out he just gave her some money to help her out. He told me about it, chuckled nervously and assured me they weren't going to be in a relationship. And then she was calling him and soon they were suddenly an item. It all happened literally within a week. I remember the day it happened, and it was so strange. I had spent the day out in Lewiston with Sarah. We had listened to the Tom Waits record 'Heartattack and Vine' and Mr. Seigel had played. I ended up getting Mr. Seigel stuck in my head over and over again. And somehow I knew like, reality had shifted. Something had cracked to pieces and things were going to begin shifting all around me relatively rapidly. I didn't associate it with anything, I just knew everything was wrong, but it wasn't the kind of wrong you cry about or try to understand. It's the kind of wrong that has pushed the wheel towards sheer absurdism. You laugh in self defense because nothing makes any fucking sense anymore. Down is up. Something in the back of my head just tingled.

So I went in, and my father said that Crystal was going to be living in our house now with her two little boys, and she was suddenly just going to be the wife I guess? It was very weird. This woman was my age. Her father had sexually abused her, and she could never stop talking about it. It was very tragic. She was obsessed with older men who played some kind of role that her father had played. She literally talked about her father every single night. I don't really feel like this was wrong per say, but like, shame on my fucking dad. This in a way went beyond anything he had ever managed to do. It didn't even really effect me that badly. I just looked at this strange sister-mom and felt bad for her and thought my dad was a disturbed fucking idiot for bringing her in the house. I knew then and there too that he would never learn. Because he always was some kind of expert at the end of each failed relationship, and he always went on and on about how they were bad and he was good and he had learned his lesson. He imparted all kinds of confusing and harmful and clueless rhetoric. But never had I thought he would date someone this young, someone so obviously dealing with mental illness – someone who was literally looking for an old man to take her father's place in some horrible abusive scenario she kept reliving every day of her life. I remember just coming in the house and starting at my father straight in the face and shaking my head. He couldn't even go against me for that.

At the same time, he was in some kind of existential crisis because David had quit football. He had only now decided to see David's behavior as some kind of problem, conveniently when he wanted to punish David for something entirely stupid. David was staying up later than normal, which is totally normal for thirteen year olds. Furthermore, my father sometimes kept us up till midnight, so he was also just as guilty of letting us stay up late on school nights. But my father had his douchebag pants on I guess, and when he was in the upstairs hallway, he looked into David's bedroom and saw that David was awake. He started shouting at David to go to FUCKING BED!!!!! like a lunatic, and then David gave him some attitude, and My father lunged at David, grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against the wall and punched him in the face and accused him of being a 'faggot homosexual'. Then he kicked David out.

I only found out later on, once David's side of the story came to light. My father was very vague about the entire thing. I later found out the reason that he kicked David out was in part because Crystal thought David was 'weird'. My father was so insecure and was so embarrassed to have a nonfootball playing son who some local hillbilly woman-child of low intellect that he barely knew for two weeks had thought his own son, whom he had spent his entire life raising – and though indeed flawed, didn't deserve to be kicked out or abandoned or abused by his father for the very personal choice of choosing not to partake in school sports was worth throwing away on behalf of. I looked at this entire situation with absolute disgust. Despite my issues with David, he really did get fucked over. And if you haven't learned better by the age of sixty, you will never ever learn. You will forever be that hopeless.

I had actually been secretly planning to send Allison to live with our mother up till the point where David got there first. Between my father and brother, Allison's life was getting pretty shitty. I wanted her to experience a new school, to maybe find opportunities somewhere else. I knew the ship was sinking. Crystal was not the cause of it, she was just an indication. I didn't hate her at all. It was weird because we were both so close in age, I would invite her to take walks with us at night, and she would generally talk about her abusive childhood, drifting between idealizing how great it all way, and feeling abused and empty. I just listened to her. Her sons were totally unruly, but I learned to appreciate them as well for what they were. I knew Crystal couldn't help what she was doing really. She had little to no experience outside of bars and living in the middle of nowhere with old cowboys. She had never visited a big city before. She told me that she thought that the horror movie, The Ring was real. She thought all horror movies were real because she couldn't fathom that anyone could think something like that with their own imaginations.

The family unit was combusting. I knew I would be fine because wherever I went, Sarah and Allison were still my family. I suddenly found myself certain I would be getting out of there. Whenever I was feeling unsure of myself, I realized that I almost didn't have a choice, and Sarah was pushing me along and helping me so much. Compared to me, she seemed so organized and sociable and competent. As for David, what could I say? It's not that I didn't love David or worry about him. I wanted to beat my father's brains out for hurting him. But he really was on his own because every time I tried to get close he attacked me or Allison and it got to where saw him as a threat, though not as an enemy. There was nothing further I could do for him. I was really sorry because I knew that we were at this pivotal point where, the things that were going to happen in the coming year or so were going to effect and ripple throughout the rest of his life. The decisions he made now was going to shape his future in a way that was going to cause him to struggle horribly when he got older and realized the consequences of it all.

When David lived at my mother's I only got tidbits of their altercations. Eventually David shoved my mother, but then again, maybe it was my mother that shoved David? I couldn't tell the truth. Because my mother was having some kind of crisis, and so was David and they were both at each other's throats. And then, my mom started telling me that she had called the cops on David. David denied this ever happened. I know that it did a few times because I remember him saying so himself. But then again, my mother really could be lying. Talking about it now with anyone is hard because everyone's memory is warped by intense emotions. I knew the both of them to be half crazy. I also know my mom – if she finds out someone wants to hit her she does everything in her power to make them hit her. I remember once fighting with her and she started screaming with this big wicked smile on her face 'HIT ME!!! HIT ME!!!' and I just looked at her with confusion and disgust. Like she was putting her cheek out at me, and it was beyond stupid. She wanted to get the satisfaction of believing herself to be a victim. It's my mom's thing. She's always a victim. I just looked at her and said 'What the hell? I am not going to hit my own mother.' I felt bad if I even cussed at her, even when she full out deserved it. It's just not in my nature to get in the hog pin with my mom. It's debasing and unclassy and ultimately giving into this notion that my life was and forever would be so small, that conquering her pathetic self with an arrogant and mindless jab in the face in our dirty ass kitchen was the most I could ever hope for. I just had to keep my eye above them all. My revenge would be my freedom from it someday. I had to look to the great big beautiful and mysterious world I lived in and not into the abysmal eyeballs of these maniacs that I called family. I wanted to transcend them, not give into their awful ways.

David stopped going to school. A lot of it was my mother's fault. She didn't really care at first – probably didn't get him where he needed to be because she couldn't understand that you need to keep your kids in school. But then it became a legal issue, and David still refused to go to school and they had fights about it. He wasn't old enough to be making this decision for himself, and yet he was because nobody was in his life to create any kind of stability for him. My dad had thrown him by the wayside for Crystal's minor convenience. My mother was a selfish and distracted chaos queen. He was too young to even realize the consequences of not going to school. But on the other hand, how can I really blame David? I myself stayed in school only because I am thirty percent more afraid of authority than David was, and I had friends and romantic interests that kept me curious about my school life. I barely hung on by a thread, and if I hadn't had those things I might have stopped going altogether as well. David didn't have those minor favors that I did. And at his very same age, I only went to school half the time as it was. I just did it differently, and I went to a school that nobody in a position of state power was going to step in and force me to go to. Idaho is one of the most ungoverned states. You wouldn't believe the kinds of things people get away from outside of the major cities.

At around this same time, my sister Roxanne and her husband Jeremy split up. It was a long time coming, too long a time. Jeremy had become more and more violent and abusive each passing day. He raped Roxanne. He was selling drugs, and he was prepping Sagen, Roxanne's daughter to molest her. At one point, shortly before Roxanne had reached this point with him where she couldn't handle it anymore, her second youngest daughter Hayley, who was only six at the time woke up from a night terror and Jeremy ran in there, grabbed her off the ground by her hair mid sleep, and shoved her against the wall violently. All for having cried out loud in her sleep – which woke him up. The guy deserved to be dead in my book. I couldn't visit there anymore because Jeremy was such a horrible person I couldn't hold it in anymore. My mother had called CPS on Roxanne with my strong eager encouragement, and she had lost her three children she had with her ex, Jody. Jody was also awful, but not a cruel and sadistic monster like Jeremy. I mean, I would cross the street to avoid him for sure, but I wouldn't wish death on him. Sagen Roxanne kept, since Sagen was older and had more say in where she went, and Roxanne's youngest little girl, Meliah she kept as well. Meliah was temporarily kept with Jeremy's sister, who was strangely normal compared to her folks.

It all ended I guess when Jeremy, whilst high on meth, held a knife to Roxanne's neck and threatened to kill her, as he believed she was stealing his drugs. He held her hostage, and eventually one of his friends had to tackle him down to get Roxanne free. So Roxanne finally told him to leave. And at first, we were all relieved. She had been with Jeremy for nearly six years, and every time I thought about what Roxanne and Jeremy were both putting those kids through, whenever I tried to contemplate what Roxanne was going through I felt this sick jab in my chest. It was strange to see how Roxanne had evolved from the hyperactive little girl she had been into this adult. I loved Roxanne a great deal. I believe her bright personality is part of the reason I get excited and feel up for anything. And of course I liked her. But given the damage she was doing and had done to her children at the behest of a man, it was hard to feel like I could warm up to her. So we all thought that Jeremy was the key element in her life, and if he was gone everything would get better. It's not what happened.

Jeremy had kept Roxanne on drugs, but he had always been the master of the drugs and he chose how much she used and how often – in order to keep her competent enough to take care of the chores and the kids. With him gone, Roxanne was able to use all the meth and pills she wanted without him controlling her doses. And then she and Sagen started using together. It was crushing to hear about. Sagen had literally won an award at her school, hand signed by Barack Obama for her gifted intelligence and her excellence as a student. People had seen her as some future lawmaker or someone of great future thinker. Her principal cared about her on a very personal level. So when Roxanne got her own twelve year old daughter on meth with her, we were all besides ourselves. I couldn't believe it. And then soon Sagen just stopped going to school altogether. The state tried to tie her down. They tried to give her to her father, but she ran away. Sagen's father had molested her, and had very little to do with her life, and she hated him. She stole from him and fled. When she ran away, Sagen's father had the audacity to write the Dr. Phil show and told Dr. Phil about Sagen's behavior, and the show actually offered to fly her over with her parents and have it out on the show, which Sagen refused. It was so crazy. Like, I can imagine how absurd it would have looked. Sagen would have randomly called her father out as a molester, and Dr. Phil would have tried to throw her in some kind of boot camp or rehab or something in between. This is just how far my family's madness had gone. Dr. Phil wanted us on his show! I mean, not me obviously as my problems largely manifested themselves internally in a way that would not make for that great of entertainment. But that general anxiety and dysfunction permeated pretty much throughout everyone in our family.

To bring this down to the more mundane, and to mention something before I forget. All that summer, and well into the fall, Allison and David owned rabbits. They joined some kind of FFA rabbit club, that was run by this really creepy dude named Frank that lived at the end of town. Frank had always been this guy on Halloween that dressed in a gorilla suit, all four hundred pounds of him, and chased kids. He chased me when I was five, and it almost scared me to the point where I had to stop trick or treating. I imagine this might have bent my bias against him. He was well known to walk about town until he found someone to talk their ear off, and he thought of himself as an inventor, though he never invented anything.

Allison started talking to his son Wayne, this very heavy kid in her class who was always cruel to due to his weight and I was always prodding her to be nice to him. I had watched him once when he was five in the store. He was always a very outgoing and nerdy boy, and had always been fat. He came up to some girls who were my age to show them some toys he liked. He was absolutely innocent and adorable, and they had pretty much called him names and were incredibly cruel towards him. I remember seeing the look of hurt on his face, and when Allison was in his class, I always urged her to go against the grain and be nice to him. From a very early age, he learned that he wasn't equal to anyone else, and it was massively fucked up. He never was a very good friend to Allison however. He was guarded and kind of crazy. I mean, he wasn't awful – just kind of know-it-allish, and it turned out he was obsessed with Stalin and dictators and most definitely voted for Donald Trump in the last election, and that was really weird.

Allison got this Dutch lop. He was a soft and adorable. If you turned him on his back and cradled him like a baby he would close his eyes. Rabbits are very simple creatures though. I loved him, but we never could do much with him, and it felt weird to keep him locked in a cage his whole life. It's not the way rabbits should live. We also had to make sure he ate the right stuff. My father ended up feeding him some bulb plants at first and it nearly killed him. And it turned out being gay. It never would mate with other rabbits, and got frenzied with disturbing rabbit lust and slobbered sexually whenever it was around other males. He was normally a very soft cuddly creature, but when Allison took him to the fair that year, he hopped across the table and began attempting to forcefully mate with the other rabbits, and it became this huge fiasco at the local fair that nobody will ever forget. David ended up getting this English lop, which are huge, and have the big ears. At first the English lop was really cute, but he soon became vicious. He would attack you if you got near him. He was hard to feed, and he would look at you and bite the cage with his teeth. We ended up having to give him back.

Allison and David eventually left the Rabbit Club. Frank was getting really weird for the both of them. David's rabbit went mad being caged up and full of hormones, so he gave the rabbit back and left the club. I think Frank ate that poor boy. David just remembers staring at Frank as he was conducting a meeting, and Frank had this insane smile on his face. One of his toes was infected and green and there were flies eating away at it. David looked up at Frank, who know that David had been looking at his toe, and he smiled into David's eyes – sort like 'see?' Which was a very disturbing for David. He imagined that Frank was perhaps secretly feeding the flies on purpose or something, and liked the flies eating the infection of his toe. They were literally covering the wound.

Allison's rabbit we found a home for with one of my father's girlfriends. She had a big space for the fuzzy guy, and as far as I know he lived a happy life – considering. Allison left too because Frank and his wife wouldn't stop trying to force Allison to date Wayne, and that got very strange for everyone. Frank was so forward about it, he would talk as though Allison and Wayne were going to keep up his legacy together, and one time accused Allison and Wayne of 'humping in the back of the pick up as Wayne's parents drove' something foul and crude and it just made everyone really uncomfortable. Frank was very good at being just the most uncomfortable person. He always said the most disturbing things. His house was filthy and he kept his rabbits in inhumane conditions. The inside was filled with the filth of rabbit, and they never did the dishes. Allison just didn't want to go there anymore.

On the upside, David caught a kitten around Wes's house, the guy my mother took care of for a living. I haven't mentioned it a lot, but all three of us, me, Allison and David spent a lot of our time at Wes's for those years – mostly going with our mom and leaving with her after her work was done for the evening. It was sort of boring – the walls were stained with nicotine, there were always old westerns playing on television, occasionally some gross old perverted man would stop by for a visit. But Wes was kind of a member of our family. And he bought us things. He wasn't shouting that my mother marry him or any of that disturbing stuff anymore. He paid my mom's bills though, which was kind of weird. It really amazes me just how often my mother has gotten other people to pay her bills. She works hard, but spends hard and often is low on money, but she always found a way. Wes's was ultimately a lot nicer than staying at our mom's for the day. Wes in his wheel chair and his scratchy voice, usually getting slight better from some illness that had really taken him down. He would buy us shrimp dinners and give us birthday money and jobs to get paid for outside. After his previous animal companion had been killed by getting ran over, he bought a new dog. Her name was Samantha, and she is by far the most well mannered easy going creature I ever met. She was half Chow, half Newfoundland. She was all black, and there was absolutely nothing that would upset her in anyway. She was very fat because she had a thyroid issue and Wes kept feeding her sandwiches and KFC. We often had to shave her in the summer because it was too hot for her, and she looked like a gray ridiculous potato. Thankfully dogs don't know what they look like – otherwise she might have been a bit embarrassed.

The kitten that David managed to catch was a stray male cat. I asked if I could keep it and my father said yes. I had had a kitten the year before. But that neighbor dad drunk had caught her and sent her to the pound because he didn't want her to grow up and beat his outdoor cat up, Tux, whom he had declawed. Her name had been Frances, and to this day I am slightly furious. I had a collar on her and everything. You can't just go taking people's cats to the pound. Anyway, this new kitten I named Nim, after Nimue from Arthurian Legend. I believe it was Merlin's lover, if my memory serves me well. But then we found out a month later that Nimue was a boy, so I shortened it to Nim. It was nice to have a kitten to take care of.

Nim eventually grew to be very aggressive though. He went wild and ripped into me one day with the intent to kill me. My mother came over to pick up once, and he bit her so hard she needed stitches. He was nobody's favorite cat. And he had pica, which sounds cute but is actually a disease that causes cats to eat stuff they aren't supposed to neurotically. The delight in question was my little sister Allison's sausage curl locks. Never anyone else's hair, only hers. While she slept, he would creep up to her face and begin eating her curly black hair. She would wake up in the night with half of her hair literally wet with his saliva and chew up. It was aggressive and simultaneously like he was nursing I noticed as I watched him in horror a few times. Allison's whole face would be covered in Nim's drool and it smelled. We slept in the same bed, so eventually I stayed up and waited for him to guard her against such intrusions. I would take him and throw him off her, and he would immediately run manically back up to her head and begin chewing aggressively whilst looking me dead in the eye, and I would throw him off. It became a war where I blocked him as he attempted obsessively to get to her hair. Eventually, he sort of gave up, but I had to keep waking up occasionally to make sure he wasn't up to trouble.

PART 77 - https://tinyurl.com/yc8bathg

PART 76 - https://tinyurl.com/y95kx2bo

PART 75 - https://tinyurl.com/y9afl9of

PART 74 - https://tinyurl.com/ydfkomx9

PART 73 - https://tinyurl.com/y6vy2jeu

PART 72 - https://tinyurl.com/yaegqs9x

PART 71 - https://tinyurl.com/y6v3ln9a

My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-70 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far).

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-70

#text #writing #life story

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chimaeracabra · 3 years

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The medicinal use of Cannabis is actually pretty valid and I have always supported it.

I always hated the way marijuana smells (and still do) and I used to think very negatively of people for using it recreationally. But over the years, I have stopped feeling so negatively about it being used recreationally because I know many people that use it and are still intelligent, professional, and in control of themselves around it. Like alcohol, I really think it should be legal everywhere, with obvious safety restrictions. The other day, Nick was telling me how his coworkers (other nurses) were talking about how much they hate people who use marijuana and how crazy it makes them, and he didn’t bother to say anything.

It pissed me off, because his coworkers constantly tell him that he is one of the best nurses to work with because he really puts effort into the job and is amazing with patients, and he vapes quite often. It would have been hilarious if he could have countered his coworkers because they would probably be surprised to learn how frequently he vapes weed! It actually surprised me when I came over to his place for the first time and he asked me if it would bother me if he vaped some. He doesn’t come off as a “pot head,” he has never smelled bad, or come across as an unintelligent person. And he clearly isn’t. I can have so many engaging conversations with him, especially about science, and he already knows the information. I’ve really never had to explain anything to him, honestly.

When I vape Cannabis indica with Nick it really, really helps me relax. I had a prescription for alprazolam a while ago briefly for anxiety, and I don’t like the way benzos feel so much. It’s a lot more intense in a way that makes me feel like I cannot function. I used to be absolutely anti-recreational use of marijuana, and I still am not interested in doing it if it is not vapor or an edible. I don’t like smoke and I’m not interested in very heavy drugs. So, I would rather vaporize or eat marijuana if I’m going to do it. Although I don’t like edibles as much because the sensations of highness (daze) for me lasts for about 3-4 days after eating one. I don’t like the daze very much, but even with it, I start to get a lot of shit done (cleaning especially, personal to-do lists get completely done, I start wanting to clean up/out/straighten things out even more than usual).

I keep looking at my sleep score (you can wear Fitbit to sleep and have it track your phases of sleep, how much sleep you got, and the quality of your sleep), and I literally sleep so well when I vape. The following occurs:

My resting heart rate goes down

I get into bed around 11PM!

Less waking up from sleep

Pain from working out/menstruation/etc. goes away

I am more productive the following day

Resting heart rate: My resting HR is usually around 60 beats per minute, and it gets as low as 57 when I have indica.

Getting into bed earlier: This occurs because indica does make you sleepy, however, that feeling is easier to fight on indica then it was when I was temporarily taking an anxiolytic. When I vape with Nick, he wants to lie down when that phase of the high begins, but I always get up and start dancing to music. Monday night, I intentionally started drinking coffee with it, and that makes a world of difference. If anything, I think caffeine actually disrupts the high just a little bit because I feel a bit more lucid and I start cleaning a lot. Nick is, unfortunately, okay with messes. I’m thankful that he doesn’t do much outside of his room at his apartment, because I think his roommates would be very irritated with him if he made the rest of the house like his room.

Productivity: Last night, his dad (who I finally met briefly for the first time, does look like Nick. I can see where he gets some features) took his older huge TV that started having problems, the box of which was halfway in Nick’s closet for a few weeks and driving me insane. So, that TV box being gone created some space. There was a whole mess of clothes on the floor in the corner that Nick wanted to take for patients, old clothes he doesn’t wear anymore, but he had them sitting there for weeks as well and that was driving me mental. I threw them all into a trash bag and Nick took them when he went to work this afternoon.

The other weekend, Nick bought all these cleaning supplies (the Clorox bleach I like, sponges, gloves), and I always disinfect the shower before I take a shower. I wiped down his floor with some soapy water, shoved a ton of boxed things under his bed, and rinsed and recycled all the sugar-free Vitamin Water and other drink bottles he has bought us, and threw those in the recycle bin. It’s amazing the space I have created in this man’s room. I couldn’t STAND it! And he told me I should have woken him up so he could help me (he was sleeping while I did all of this). But most people do not clean to my satisfaction, and I wanted to be as comfortable as possible and have some SPACE in his room. His car is worse. My god. Nick even said that we would have a problem if we were living together because he’s really messy. He said that he works very hard at work (which he definitely does, sometimes he works 16-hour shifts multiple days in a row! His coworkers all have great things to say about him, so I believe he is a hard worker, which I love) and then when he goes home, all he wants to do is relax. I can understand that. He was recently dealing with a very violent patient at work who had to have the police come several times during codes, so I believe he is often too stressed to clean when he gets off work. I’ll give him some credit, though. He DID straighten up a bit a few weeks ago after I admitted that I am a neat freak and a germaphobe.

Anyway...

Pain goes away: I have been walking for about 2 hours at a time most days of the week. I’m not going to the gym to run because the virus is again very serious and scary. I don’t want to bring it home to my mom. I jog and run outside a bit too, but it’s taking a toll on my feet. Pain goes away particularly with indica because that species is much more of a body high than is sativa. I was never anti-marijuana for pain and neurological issues; there are some seizure disorders that it actually helps. I knew CBD was helpful for many people with chronic pain, so there’s that.

I don’t know what it is in me, I have often always been someone who likes her environment to be clean and organized. Especially the goddamn floor. I hate a nasty floor. While high and the day after, I am so much more productive and I clean more. I finished more application work today, I cleaned the stairs at home a few days ago, and the floor outside of our bedrooms and bathroom with Lysol solution.

I like marijuana but I still don’t like the smell. It’s not as intense with vapor as it is with smoke. My good friend from grad school is always smoking and vaping marijuana, and I don’t know HOW she manages to function all day and at work WHILE HIGH! I mean, I think I could, but especially for about 4-5 hours after I vape, I think you can tell that I’m not sober. I’m a lot more social and I zone out more, and I move a little funny, and it makes your eyes red (I always have my drops). I don’t know how my friend does it. I would be noticeably high. I have spent an enormous amount of time with her and she never seems out of control at all. In fact, she’s very intelligent and she has done a ton of medical research, works in a lab, etc. so, she’s someone you would consider having all their shit together. Some people are actually high all the time and you may not know because they can function on it pretty well. I think maybe people who smoke all day are using sativa, because there is no way I could walk into a lab and start doing research with a body high from indica.

And I would never try to drive like that. My perception gets very thrown off and I wouldn’t dream of putting myself or anyone else in jeopardy because my body is not entirely my own when I’m high.

My favorite things about indica are that it’s relaxing, relieves pain, makes me sleep well, food tastes insanely delicious, music sounds even more intense and beautiful, and it makes sex extremely intense. Literally, Nick and I were having sex for at least an hour yesterday. We went through almost an entire box of condoms. I cannot physically have that much sex while completely sober. I start getting pain and soreness, which even today, I don’t feel is all that bad. When high, touches feel very good. Your entire body, you notice every touch and sensation in a very pleasurable way. I have had more orgasms in the past 24 hours than I do in one month when I masturbate from time to time. I squirt a lot when I’m high. Indica has helped me learn to relax enough to experience that. And now I can while sober, too. My body is very satisfied overall.

Anyway, that’s my ramble. Went for a two-hour walk today. Wednesday I made oatmeal craisin cookies, saved some for mom at home, brought the rest to Nick’s. He liked them! He’s a pretty picky eater, so I was pleased that he liked them. I had too many. So, I am going to do an at-home work out now.

#personal #love

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geekofmanyforms · 4 years

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New Beginning Chapter Eleven

**A/N: Please let me know what you think. I hope the discussion Damon and Elara have at the end isn’t confusing and too hard to believe. It just popped into my head and I went with it. Let me know if you have any questions. Just so you know, we will be getting to Elijah and Klaus - just not yet. I know, I know - we all love the originals, but we have to get through a few more plot points before then. So until then, as always, please review. This chapter has been edited by my Beta Casey.***

My screeching alarm clock woke me from a dreamless sleep — one I was extremely grateful for.

A tickling sensation on my cheek alerted me that Elena was still sleeping next to me. I brushed her hair off my face and wiggled my nose to rid it of the annoying itch. I gently pulled my arm from underneath her and slid from the bed silently. I couldn’t help but smile as I looked down at her sleeping, hair a tangled mess and mouth ajar. She drooled onto the pillow, and I contemplated taking a picture to use as blackmail at a later time.

There was no denying that she was a Petrova. With that came acts of selfishness and an incredible ability to pit brothers against one another. On the other hand, she was still my sister and had the potential to be an astounding person. She just needed a little help, that’s all.

I removed the hair that had started to cover her face as she tossed and turned. There was something more than last night’s dream bothering her, and I was going to find out exactly what that was. I sighed as her face scrunched with sadness and shook my head at the misfortune of what life had brought us. Sleeping in front of me was a beautiful young woman whose life was about to change drastically. She would be thrust into the supernatural, no matter how much I wished to prevent it. Even if I cruelly asked Stefan to leave, she would still be entangled in the supernatural world.

As I watched her, a feeling of resolve settled within me — I would try to protect her from what was coming. There was only so much I would be able to do, but I would still try. I almost laughed out loud when I realized she had gotten to me, the little Petrova brat! Admittedly, she had always had me wrapped around her finger, but now, I was simply no longer fighting it. She was my sister in this life, after all.

I grabbed some clothes from my closet and headed into the bathroom for a shower. When I was finishing up, I heard someone close the door to my room, and I peeked my head out of the bathroom. The steam followed me as I exited, and I tightened my hold on the towel that was wrapped around my body. My wet hair stuck to the side of my face as I peered around my empty room. Elena must have woken up, I’m sure that was all I heard.

I locked my bedroom door and pulled the towel from my body. I was just putting on my black underwear when I noticed someone on my bed. I screamed and grabbed the towel, covering myself in panic. I growled loudly when I saw it was just Rebekah, smiling at me mischievously.

“Damn you, Rebekah Mikaelson,” I panted, “Damn you to the pits of hell!”

I controlled my breathing and reached for my bra, which I had dropped in my rushed attempt to cover myself. Rebekah was perched on the end of my bed, her legs crossed and curly blonde hair bouncing slightly as she threw her head back in laughter.

“I can’t say I’m sorry El, that was hilarious. Besides, it’s not like you have something I’ve never seen before,” she giggled.

I hid in my closet and quickly threw on some jeans and one of my favorite band tees, the fantastic, amazing Linkin Park. I sat down at my vanity a moment later, looking at myself in the mirror. I brushed my fingers across the dark circles that had formed under my dull green eyes. The night before had taken the brightness from not only my eyes but my skin as well. I looked paler than typical, dry, and dehydrated.

I ran my hairbrush quickly through my knotted hair, wincing when I met a particularly rough patch. I grabbed a black hair tie and threw my hair up into a messy bun, too exhausted to care what I looked like.

“You look as bad as I do,” Rebekah said.

I sent her an artfully evil glare, one her Hybrid brother would be proud of, and stood, grabbing my jacket.

“I feel like death Beka. You should pity anyone who stands in my way today. I think I could even take on an Original if I had too,” I said, my voice dry.

As she stood, I couldn’t help but notice how her gray skin matched by carpet almost exact. My stomach rolled, and I knew I’d never been able to get that image from my head.

“Well, someone is in a mood today,” she said, looking into my eyes with worry.

I brushed past her and grabbed my dirty clothes from the floor, “I had a strange dream last night and then woke up to Elena in bed with me. Something similar happened to her, she had a nightmare of my death…on my birthday…”

I was unable to finish my sentence. Rebekah froze, her face a picture of pure shock,

“She saw your death? But how is that possible? You haven’t told her, and if someone else had she would have freaked and blown up!”

I nodded in agreement. If Elena had found out, I would have had an outraged sister on my hands. There was no way she could hide knowing about my curse from me.

“I agree, and that proves that something else is going on. I don’t think she had a premonition but the idea that she saw my death happening on my birthday—” I paused for a moment as I tossed my clothes into the hamper. “that is too close for comfort. Something is going on, and I need to find out what before she starts asking questions.”

I crossed arms and looked down at the floor.

“I don’t want anyone else knowing what is going to happen. I don’t want them being forced to live with that knowledge,”

Rebekah tapped her foot on the floor her face scrunched up in thought, “Oh my God! The Salvatores, they know about your curse!” she exclaimed, snapping her fingers. “What if they put the thought in her mind? You know that’s something vampires can do.”

I found it odd she could still snap her fingers, even though she was all but transparent. I thought over her idea, and the more I did, the more it made sense. It would be the perfect way for them to tell her without breaking the promise they had made to me. My lousy mood worsened at their potential betrayal.

“You’re right, that is something they would do, especially Damon. The dream I had was more of a memory — one starring him of course,” I hit my forehead with my hand repeatedly, “Stupid, stupid. How did I not even consider that?” I said in exasperation.

Rebekah picked at her white flapper dress, lost in thought.

“Well, I say you go to their house and find out. If they did this, you can’t let them get away with it,” she said.

I looked at my adopted sister, smiling at the determination in her expression. She surprised me, even after all these years she was still so strong.

“That’s exactly what I plan to do. I’m gonna get some answers. I don’t have time for all this extra drama,” I growled, “I swear if it was one of the Salvatores, I will not be very kind.”

I grabbed my car keys and headed towards Elena’s room. Her room was dark and empty,

Great, where had she disappeared too?

I walked downstairs and found the rest of the house empty as well. I took my bag from the table beside the door and left the empty house behind.

I drove to the Grill after receiving no answer when I called Elena and Jeremy. The Salvatores and any of their little tricks were just going to have to wait until I knew what had Elena so on edge.

I pulled into the Grill and hopped out of the car. Heading inside, I was greeted with the familiar smell I had come to associate with Mystic grill — food, alcohol, and tobacco. They were fairly busy, even though it was still early in the day, but this was a small town. For the younger crowds, it was pretty much the only place to hang out on a Saturday.

I looked around and noticed Damon wasn’t at the bar. He must still be missing his ring, something I knew would have him in a violent rage. At least I had a pretty good idea where I could find him. My eyebrow rose when I noticed Elena and Stefan speaking earnestly in a booth towards the back. Elena looked about as bad as I did, her face stressed and pale. I gave Stefan a once over and could see the fear he was trying very hard to hide. After growing up with him, it was easy to catch all the telltale signs that he was barely hanging on — whatever it was that he was discussing with Elena was a big deal. There was only one thing that could be causing this much stress on both sides — she had found out.

I had to admit I was a bit relieved. I had begun to fear it had something to do with Katherine secretly lurking here in Mystic Falls. I casually put my hands in my jacket pockets and strolled towards their table. When I was close enough to hear a bit of their conversation, I lowered myself to the floor and started messing with the shoestrings of my pink converse.

“You said you would explain everything — that’s why I asked you to meet me here,” Elena asked harshly, “When you google vampire you get a world of fiction. What’s the reality?”

So, they hadn’t gotten very far into everything… yet. I stood up and looked around; neither of them were being very careful, and I was afraid the wrong person would hear something they shouldn’t. When I was satisfied that no one was listening, I quickly sat down next to Stefan with a fake smile plastered on my face. Time to get this over with — it would do no one any good if she tried to hide the world I already knew about from me.

“Hey, Lena, everything ok? You both seem stressed,” I said, throwing my arm over Stefan’s shoulder.

He gave me an ‘Are you serious’ expression, which I, of course, ignored. Elena looked at Stefan in fear and tried to smile at me, but her nervousness shone through her doe eyes.

“Elara, this is actually a private conversation… could you wait at another table for me?”

I pulled my arm away from Stefan and kept my eyes on hers. I tilted my head to the side and gave her a sarcastic half-smile.

“Oh, Lena. No, this isn’t a private conversation, because I could hear everything you were saying as I walked up,” I said, turning towards Stefan. “You should use those enhanced senses to make sure no one is listening if you plan on having such an important conversation in a public place.”

Elena’s eyes widened in fear as her cheeks inflamed. She pulled her brown hair from her eyes and tried to act casual, “Ellie, that was a joke between us. You can’t honestly believe any of it,” she laughed sarcastically.

I leaned back in my seat and smiled at her. She had a sheen of sweat covering her forehead — she was anxious. Stefan kept his face down, but I could see him fighting a growing smirk.

I leaned my head against his shoulder and whispered low enough for only him to hear, “I’m going to tell her the basics later today, say anything else, and I’ll make sure I show you how good I am at giving a witchy migraine.”

A thick promise of pain was layered in my voice; I would deal with his possible betrayal later. He stiffened beside me and gave me a questioning look. I squinted my eyes at him and shook my head. I turned back to Elena, who was watching us with annoyance and concern.

“Elena, I know about Stefan and Damon. I’ve known since day one,” I said.

Her brown eyes filled with anger, and I watched several expressions fight for dominance on her face. Her jaw was tight, and she was opening her mouth to speak when I held up my hands and stopped her,

“Listen, I told Stefan to tell you. I never planned on keeping you in the dark, and you should know on my end that there is more to this than just their secret,” my voice was firm as I spoke. “but I can’t discuss it here, and I’d rather do it with Jer present as well,”

Stefan turned towards me in surprise. I frowned at him until I realized he thought I meant to tell her about the curse. I bit my lip and ignored him for now.

“So, I’ll let you finish your conversation,” I said motioning for the nearby waitress. “But when you’re done, I want you to call me, and we will go home for our own.”

A bleach blonde waitress sauntered up, staring at Stefan in admiration. “What can I get you?” she asked sweetly, still keeping her eyes on him.

I gave her an annoyed expression and turned towards Stefan smiling sweetly. “Could you get me a shot of Vodka, please?” I said, sticking my bottom lip out. I used my best sisterly puppy dog eyes. “I’m gonna need it today,” I said.

He sighed loudly and avoided Elena, who was staring at us with her mouth hanging open.

He looked at the waitress with a smile and spoke slowly and softly. “You’re going to get my friend here two shots of Vodka, no questions asked,” he said.

The woman blinked once and repeated what he had told her in a monotone voice. She walked away, and I watched as she poured my shots. I bounced lightly in my seat and smiled at him brightly. Compulsion was one skill I’d love to have.

“What the hell was that?” Elena scoffed.

I looked at her and shrugged. “It’s called compulsion, Lena. It’s a very handy little skill that all vampires possess. Stefan will explain more.”

The waitress brought over my shots, handing them to me with a blank expression. I looked down at them lovingly and downed the first with only a slight grimace. Before I could pick up the second, it was gone. I looked at Stefan and scrunched up my nose at him.

“That was evil!” I gasped.

He sat down the empty shot glass and smirked, “One is plenty for you. Its early, Elandra.”

It took a second for my brain to realize what he had just said. I had started to get used to them using my old name, but my eyes widened when I realized he had used it in front of Elena. I ground my teeth together, and his face paled when he realized his mistake.

“Elandra? Who’s that?” Elena asked.

I looked down at the table and inspected the worn wood like it was the most exquisite table in the world.

“Elara…?”

Elena’s voice rose an octave as she spoke. Stefan kicked my shin, jerking my head upward and forcing me to look at her.

“Nothing,” I said dismissively, “something we can talk about later.”

I hoped this would deter her from thinking about it right now. I looked at Stefan with a blank face.

“You’re paying,” I said with a matter of fact tone. I rose from the booth and looked at my sister “Call me when you’re done, Lena,”

I walked towards the exit as fast as I could. Damn those loud-mouthed Salvatores! I got in my car and sat back for a minute, contemplating what had just happened. With a small sigh, I started the engine and drove towards the Boarding House — I might as well get this conversation over with too.

When I arrived at the Boarding House, I immediately knew something wasn’t right. I could sense it. I had always had a second sense about these things — one the perks of being a witch for so long.

I got out of the car and looked around. The atmosphere was eerie and stiff, like something out of a horror movie. What had Damon gotten himself into now? I rubbed my forehead and closed my eyes tightly. I should just force him to listen to me about Katherine — at least then he would consider leaving. My eyes opened slowly as the thought crossed my mind. Was that what I wanted, really?

I pulled off my jacket and tossed it through my open window and into the back seat of the car. While I walked up to the front porch, I pulled my shirt down and tightened my hair. Fidgeting had always been one of my tells, but it was something I couldn’t seem to stop doing when I was nervous. Even though I knew I could protect myself, I still felt utterly terrified of what I might find inside. I didn’t want to see Damon as the monster he claimed to be. I had already seen him attempt to hurt Caroline; I wasn’t sure how much more I could see without hating him, and I was more afraid of hating him then of what he had become. I sometimes feared that accepting what he was and that he sometimes killed people made me a horrible person, but truth be told, I’m a firm believer hat vampires shouldn’t fight their true nature. They were natural born killers, and as long as they killed for food and not fun, I was perfectly fine with it.

When I reached the door, my hand hovered over the knob as I debated whether I should knock or just go in. Damon probably already knew I was here anyway, and without his ring, he couldn’t answer. I shook my head and mentally slapped myself, then grabbed the knob and pushed the door open. I walked through the entryway and looked around, but didn’t find Damon until I walked into the living room. He stood in the adjacent dining room with his back to me. His cell was against his ear, and he was jabbering, his voice firm and angry.

“Where are you, Stefan? I’m trapped at the house — I’m getting really bored and really impatient, and I don’t do bored and impatient,” he growled. “Bring me my ring,” he walked back into the living room, his phone held tightly in his hand.

“Damn it!” he spat.

He walked over to the bar and filled a glass with bourbon, downing the amber liquid in one swift motion. I toed the rug with my shoe and was just about to speak when I noticed someone on the couch. I could smell something coppery in the air and my stomach twisted. I rushed over and bent down beside the couch — it was Vicki Donovan.

She was lying still, barely breathing, and smelling of blood and gasoline. I scrunched up my nose and removed the hand towel that was being used to cover her neck. The blood was starting to dry in places, so her skin pulled when I moved it away. I winced on her behalf, but she didn’t make a sound. Honestly, she looked too weak to care.

“What is this, Damon? Why are you playing with her?” I said, placing the towel back on her neck and applying pressure. “She looks like death! What were you thinking?!”

I yelled loudly, fury in my voice. He placed his glass on the bar and calmly walked over to us.

“Aw, don’t get blood on the couch!” he said exasperatedly.

I looked at him in horror. He took the towel and moved it away; this time, Vicki tried to protest.

“Please?” Damon asked with false politeness. “I got you good, didn’t I?” he said, eying the deep wound on the side of her neck.

My mouth was still agape as he sighed deeply and stared down at her in boredom. Would he seriously go this far just to have something to occupy his time? This was exactly what I was afraid of. I’ve been around many vampires in my time, but never long enough to deal with acts like this. I had witnessed them feed and taunt, but never had I seen one play with their food — not like this.

“What the hell, Damon?” I asked, throwing my hand in the air, still in shock. “Why did you do this to her?” I questioned.

He looked at me, his face empty of emotion. Even his crystal eyes were vacant, almost like he had flipped the switch. If I hadn’t known him for as long as I had, that would be precisely what I thought. Luckily, I knew that he was pushing everything down, but it was still there — he just wanted people to believe he was an unfeeling monster. No, I could fight for his humanity, not only for his sake but for Stefan’s as well. I wasn’t able to save them the first time, but I could now— I had to at least try.

“What? I had to feed, and for some reason, this girl just didn’t seem to want to die. So, I brought her here,” he shrugged. “I’m bored, Ellie,” he finished, his voice lacking any emotion.

I sat back on the table behind me and lifted my head to the sky as if asking for divine intervention. Honestly, at this point, I sort of was asking for divine intervention.

“Well, you’re not gonna be any fun today,” he whispered to Vicki.

I lowered my head and watched him closely as he stood up and walked to the side of the couch where her head rested. I tilted my head to the side, shaking it in disappointment. I knew trying to intervene wouldn’t make a bit of difference. If he wanted a plaything, he would have one.

“I’m so gonna regret this,” he sighed and bit into his wrist.

There was a ripping sound when his teeth met his flesh, and I shivered. He bent down and placed his now bleeding wrist to Vicki’s mouth. I looked away in slight disgust as she struggled.

“Drink up. Drink up. Don’t drip,” Damon said gently, running his other hand over the side of her face in an almost loving manner.

After a few seconds, she finally gave in and drank from him deeply.

“There you go, good girl, that’s it,” he praised softly.

I felt sickened, and I was sure that’s exactly what he wanted. Instead of running from the room, I decided to play along. At least then I could keep an eye on them.

I remained on the table with my arms crossed and watched as her wound healed almost instantly. When her eyelids fluttered, I stood and walked over to the bar. I grabbed a glass and filled it to the brim with Damon’s Bourbon. I heard him compel Vicki to go upstairs and take a shower, but I kept my gaze on the glass in my hand. I listened to her footsteps recede as she headed upstairs. I took a drink and enjoyed the burn as it slid down my throat. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe that this was what my life had become.

I sensed Damon behind me but ignored him.

“You gonna stick around for the party, love?” He whispered in my ear, his breath was warm and smelt of blood. The coppery scent made my stomach swirl.

I turned around and meet his heated gaze. He was testing me, and I knew it.

“Yeah, I think I will. I have nothing else to do today. It’ll give me the chance to make sure you don’t fuck this up even more than you already have,” I said, sitting my glass down without breaking eye contact. “Oh, and don’t call me love,” I leaned into him and ran my nose across his jaw. “You have no right.”

I pushed past him with a rough shove and sat down in an armchair by the couch. I crossed my legs and watched him make himself another drink, then pulled out my phone and sent a quick text to Stefan.

“You need to bring Damon his ring NOW! Things are getting out of hand. You should have never tried to interfere with his plans, it only made things worse.”

Damon sat on the arm of my chair and leaned over me. “Who are you texting El, Boyfriend?” he asked, putting his hand behind my head. “Lover? Or…ohhhh girlfriend?” he abashedly said.

I slapped him on the chest as hard as I could. He fake pouted, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “Your brother, actually. I told him he needs to return what belongs to you. I also told him how stupid he was to try and get in the way of whatever your planning. What is that, by the way?” I asked, raising my brow.

He patted my head as if I were a small child, and pulled me out of the seat before taking my place. I scoffed loudly and started to walk away before he pulled me onto his lap.

“What makes you think I’m planning something, Elandra?” he asked.

I laughed sarcastically and tried to pull myself away from him.

“Because, I know you, Damon — probably even better than Stefan does,”

I finally got out of his tight grasp, then walked behind his chair and put my hands on his shoulders. I rubbed his muscles with a firm touch, smiling at the low groan that escaped his lips.

“I was only asking out of courtesy Damon, or did you forget that I was very close with Emily Bennett?”

Before I could even blink, he was out of the chair and beside me. “What do you know about any of this, El? You weren’t around when it happened.”

Damon looked at me in confusion. I had gotten exactly what I wanted by bringing up Emily — Damon did have a shred of emotion left.

“Just because you and I were no longer speaking when you made your deal with Em, doesn’t mean I never knew about it,” I rolled my eyes and stepped away from him. “Emily and I burned together, after all. We were pretty close,”

I cleared my throat and decided to just do it — to tell him. He needed to know.

“I never wanted to tell you this Damon, but I knew when you returned,”

I closed my eyes at the sound of his gasp. I didn’t want to open this old wound, but it was necessary.

“I knew that you were back in town and I knew that you fell for Katherine. I knew that she had you under her spell. I just didn’t know that you had fallen so hard for her. It wasn’t until someone told me that you loved her, that I finally realized the truth. You had chosen her,”

I sat down, wringing my hands, and looked up at him. His eyes were squeezed shut, his face pained. I looked away and frowned. After he returned on leave, I’d expected him to come to find me. When Katherine visited and told me he was back and had been spending his time with her, I knew he had fallen for her. She had captured his attention, and I had been forgotten. It’s a hard pill to swallow, knowing you weren’t good enough for someone you loved.

“How…did…” the anger in his eyes was hard as steel. “…was it Stefan?”

I shook my head and let out an irritated tisk. Not everything was Stefan’s fault.

“No, it wasn’t Stef — it was Katherine, actually. She told me you were home on leave. She and Emily visited me a lot. I trained with Em, and Katherine was never far behind,” I said, looking down at my hands.

He had started pacing while I spoke, and I could see the guilt in his eyes. I wasn’t bringing it up to hurt him, but he needed to know everything. I had mentioned to him several times now that I had spoken to Katherine in another life, and if I had, then it should be evident to him that Katherine wasn’t in the tomb. He had either heard me and refused to believe it, or had selective hearing.

“Katherine told you about us, and you never showed up and confronted me?” he asked in disbelief.

His face was a mixture of anger and something else, something I wasn’t able to place. It was almost as if he felt betrayed that I never tried to regain his attention.

“No, but she loved mentioning that you and Stefan fought over her. She never told me that you were sleeping with her, but it wasn’t hard to guess at, Damon. Besides, I figured if you didn’t want me to know you were home and hid away from me when I was around, then why bother with you at all?”

I sighed and stood from the seat. I walked over to him with my hands on the back of my neck — this whole conversation was tiring. I could feel the stress covering me like a lead blanket. Standing in front of him, I could see how hard this conversation was on him too. Yes, he was the one who cheated on me and had thought it was something that had been lost to time, but it wasn’t hard to see it was one of his biggest regrets. I guessed he hoped I’d imagined their relationship had started after I died, that he had returned to find me dead and gone, only moving on after grieving the appropriate amount of time. When I didn’t speak for a moment, he looked at me, running his hand through his hair. Not knowing what more to say at that moment, I let out an audible breath and let a half-hearted smile ease his worries.

“Listen, Damon, it was a long time ago. I got over it. I was told everything I hadn’t already known from an old friend in my next life. I also heard it from Katherine just a century after that,” I said, hoping he would bring up the fact that I was trying to ease him into the idea that she was living her life, and not stuck in a tomb.

When he didn’t mention it and just walked away towards the curtain covered window, I let out a loud growl of annoyance. He didn’t turn around or even acknowledge my outburst, possibly thinking it had to do with our past. In anger, I lifted my arm and opened my palm, and with one swift motion, I focused on Damon and pulled him towards me. A loud shocked gasp filled the silence as his whole body lifted into the air and came flying in my direction. I twirled my index finger, and his body twisted around and faced me. Without caring how much it would hurt, I closed my hand into a fist and dropped him. He landed directly in front of me, I smiled down at his crumpled form.

“Now that I have your attention, you are going to listen to me,” I sternly said.

He pushed himself onto his hands and knees and lifted his angry oceanic eyes to mine. “Damon Salvatore, I know how much she means to you, but you have to know she isn’t where you think she is. She never was. I - Have - Seen - Her!” I said enunciating the last part of the sentence.

He was breathing heavily, his eyes clouded. I bent down to his level and gently laid my palm on his cheek. I ran my fingers across his tense brow and bit my lip. I was past everything that happened between us, it was long since forgotten. I chose to only remember the good and to be honest, I didn’t blame him. He was a weak human man. How could I expect him to win against a beautiful vampire Goddess? She used all of his insecurities to make him believe she loved him and wanted him for eternity.

“Damon, you have two choices. One, you can remember that I would never lie to you. Or two, you can continue to try and find a way to open the tomb and see for yourself. Either way, I will be there to help you. No matter what, you are still my friend,” I whispered with a small sigh.

I stood, pulling him to his feet and leading him over to the couch he had placed Vicki on. We sat in silence, the only sound between us my slow breathing. He had long since sat still enough to remind me of a statue, not a single breath or movement to make him appear even slightly human. I watched him with concern for his mental wellbeing. I wasn’t sure what I could do or say to make any of it better. His body was slouched forward his head in his hands, elbows pressing into his knees. Tension filled his whole body, I wanted to touch him, to give him at least a small reminder that he wasn’t alone. I was buried so deep in my own thoughts that his sudden intake of breath caused me to jump so high the couch rattled beneath me.

“I’m so sorry for the way our relationship ended. If I had been around and not pushed your safety onto Stefan, then I would have been there to protect you. Instead, I was in Katherine’s bed as you burned to death,” he said, his breath hitching.

I licked my dry lips, unsure of what I was supposed to say to that. “No matter what, I would have died Damon, I’m cursed,”

He lifted his head and glared at me. “I blamed Stefan for so long, even though I should have been the one there. He knew everything, yet he kept it from you, even after I tried to get between him and Elena. He truly is the better man,” he whispered, so low I could not be sure that’s exactly what he said.

He gripped his hair tightly in frustration as he stood from the couch and paced in front of me.

“I have to know for sure. I have to see it for myself. After everything, loving her cost me, I can’t believe she would do that,” he mumbled, in an almost crazed fashion.

He walked over to the bar and grabbed the glass container of bourbon, lifting it to his lips. He started chugging it like a dying man finding an oasis in the desert. I shook my head in sympathy.

“Ok, Damon, ok. We will open the tomb,” I said slowly.

As much as I hated the idea of how broken he would be once we opened the tomb, I would help him. Until then, we both needed a distraction. Making a quick decision, I walked over to the stereo and turned it on. Loud music filled the room, and I made my way to the bar. He looked at me in confusion his brows raised in question.

I pried the bourbon from his tight grasp and filled a glass, raising it in the air with a sly grin. “We’re stuck here, for now. So we might as well have some fun!” I said, lifting the glass to my lips.

He softly chuckled with a small smile on his lips, but it wasn’t enough to reach his eyes.

“All is forgiven, Damon. But if you want to, you can make it up to me by showing me a good time. I’ve heard your good at that, Mr. Salvatore,” I playfully said.

He grabbed the small silver stereo remote and switched the song to something with an excellent beat. “That I am Ms. Miller,” he said with a tired smirk.

I sat my empty glass down and started dancing a circle around him and was quickly joined by Vicki. I hadn’t even noticed her return. I looked down to find that she was only wearing a bra and panties. I turned towards Damon, who was eyeing me expectantly. I almost laughed at the challenge and shook my head with a shrug. I connected hands with her, and we both lifted ourselves onto the table in front of the couch. I grabbed the bottle of Vodka she was holding and took a swig. When in Rome, I guess.

#vampire diaries #damon salvatore #klaus mikaelson #oc #submission

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blookmallow · 7 years

Text

hey wow look what i found buried in my drafts from 300 years ago

this started as Bits Of Story Notes but then i kinda ran with it and let it become more drawn out prose so now its like. a lil writing blurb

specifically, about antis and their formations. its kind of a nonspecific narrative voice i didnt want to try to work into particular characters bc then id be limited by which characters know what/who would be willing to tell who what/etc so its not anyone in particular (theres also some names missing bc i havent figured out all the details)

“But what IS an Anti? How could something so... sinister come from someone so kind?”

“Well... that’s the trouble of it, you’re looking at it all backwards.”

“Backwards?”

“Well, to start, they come from nothing. It’s no fault of the Origin’s, after all. ...and you speak as if humans are inherently something kind, Antis inherently something cruel. I can promise you that simply isn’t the case.”

Antis are not literal pieces of their origins - it isn’t so much “my dark side, embodied,” no proper Hyde to one’s Jekyll, as it were. An Anti comes not from within, but without; like a formless, nonsentient parasite locking itself to an unwary host. This occurs at random, of course- anyone could have an Anti.

Any human, that is.

Though they’re said to be particularly drawn to those with high propensity for magic.

The nebulous spirit matter from which they come is all around us- no, don’t look, you can’t see it. Not even the Soul Collectors can. But something invisible, no matter how transient and slight, is none the less real. They have no self yet; no mind to think or to consider, no consciousness at all. Only the instinctive drive to become. Antis long to exist before the conception of “longing” exists within them. They form themselves as a sentient, corporeal being through the unconsenting assistance of the Origin. That person becomes a sort of mold, a self and a form from which the Anti creates a kind of reversed mirror image to inhabit itself.

The very moment of formation is still quite mysterious even to Antis themselves; how exactly it occurs, or why this moment and not that, and each Anti is quite different just as humans are from one another. It is not impossible for two Antis to form in the same way, but the variation is infinite.

However, it is as of now believed that an Anti comes to fruition upon achieving some kind of inciting incident which serves to shove the dormant spirit into physical reality, such as a moment of intense emotion, contact with magic, a traumatic event - something to release the spirit that has been quietly building itself up.

“But-...what if it doesn’t? What if there is no incident, the spirit never released-? What would that... do to a person?”

Well... Nobody knows. Possibly it might kill the both of them. Possibly something more sinister may occur, an amalgamate form never meant to be. But we need not worry about that. One could hardly imagine a person who never has a moment of intensity in their entire life. It is most likely the case that the spirit, upon having built itself up long enough, eventually will release on its own, anyhow.

Now, some Antis have an immediate fixation on their origin, some are an immediate destructive force, some are scared and confused by their own sudden existence, and... some just want to get as far away from them as quickly as possible. It’s not entirely fair to compare them to parasites - their formation is not harmful to the Origin, after all. But it is said that they are never quite the same afterward.

Damian Nightfall - yes, that one - formed from shadows one night when young Skye Blue had a particularly violent nightmare; he was suddenly awoken in the middle of the night and overwhelmed with dread in the darkness of his room. He had never been afraid of the dark before. He had sensed a growing anxiety every time the lights went out for weeks beforehand, but never told anyone; it felt silly and irrational to him- why would I be scared now? Why, I’ll be turning thirteen soon! I ought not to be afraid of dark rooms.

But he was, anyway.

He watched in confused horror as his own shadow turned into a dripping, crawling darkness that slowly gained mass and moved sluggishly across the floor on its own terms.

the thing on the floor immediately fixated on him, and while it was only half-formed and still an amorphous shambling mass of shadow, it lunged out of the darkness to attempt to strangle the boy the moment it had anything resembling hands

Miss Shuri immediately felt the intense distress - and the threat to Skye’s life, as it most definitely was - and appeared at once to cast the Anti out. But she refrained from killing him, though she could have, because a soul collector never kills if it can be avoided - and Damian was really only a child then.

He slithered off somewhere into the woods, and continues to terrorize Skye to this day - though he’s no longer interested in actually killing him. An Anti without an Origin becomes mortal and powerless, as he’s learned all too well.

And so that was Skye’s first encounter with Damian. He still suffers from frequent nightmares, and cannot sleep in the dark anymore. His shadow, even in bright sunlight, is oddly faded and light - not terribly noticeable, but almost as if there’s less of it somehow.

Miss Iris appeared as a sudden face in the mist of toxic fumes that erupted when Christina had fallen into a patch of mushrooms in the woods

there was a brief moment of grotesque entanglement as Iris’s body formed against her; both confused and trapped against each other, but both struggling to get away, each in disgust of the other

the moment they became untangled, there was a brief instant of hatred between them, and Iris vanished in smoke. These days, the two are content just to live their lives completely away from each other - neither acknowledges the other’s existence, and both are better off because of it.

Laelia Thorne’s Origin’s hand was cut off in an accident - and moments later, the severed, still-bleeding hand suddenly began spasming and mutating, growing itself out hideously, red blood pouring out in a bright rush as if it were being purged out - until Laelia was formed.

The poor girl was so horrified, she passed out from the shock. When she finally came to, Laelia was gone. No one believes her, supposing her to have been in a state of hysteria from the traumatic event - but the hand was never found.

She never saw Laelia again.

Lex Calamity’s Origin was looking into a mirror one day; feeling a crisis of identity, stressed and alone and feeling lost, when she realized suddenly that her reflection looked somehow wrong.

It wasn’t following her movements anymore, as if it were frozen in wide-eyed horror. She stared back into the mirror, feeling as if she were looking into a stranger’s eyes. A wild impulse to smash the glass to pieces came over her, but she could not bring herself to move.

Tears slowly slipped from the reflection’s eyes - which were rapidly changing color - but not from her own. In a sudden movement, she reached to touch her own face, but the tear was not there. The reflection did not move.

Inky black spread over the reflection’s blonde hair, consuming it as if a bucket of paint had been dropped over its head, as she could only watch in horror.

She slowly, slowly reached for the mirror. This time, the reflection moved in sync - but when their hands touched, she felt cold skin instead of glass, and the fingers twisted into hers.

She screamed and pulled back, inadvertently pulling the reflection out with her, and they both tumbled to the floor.

The reflection scrambled to its feet like a frightened cat and ran.

They found her, hours later, sobbing on the bathroom floor, shattered glass everywhere. After they heard her story, the sisters took her away to be exorcised of the evil she professed immediately. There was no trace of the demon reflection, and it was never seen again.

She is to this day desperately afraid of mirrors - and if ever she dares to look, her reflection is distorted and blurry- like some part of it has left.

Sage Blackburn’s Origin nearly drowned in the sea; She was desperately tangled up in seaweed that suddenly became arms - she saw bright yellow eyes glowing in the dark of the water, and felt someone holding her, pulling her up toward the surface.

Those eyes were the last thing she was conscious of before she passed out - the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, she says.

She awoke on the beach, alone, but alive.

She believes a mermaid came and saved her. She calls her her Muse; she paints pictures of her all the time, trying to remember, and dreams of one day finding her again. She has overcome her fear of the ocean after this event, determined to return to the sea that she loves, and find her Muse again.

Sage knows nothing of this, and left the girl on the beach, hurrying away to discover her own life. She has told no one of this story; and so no one knows if she saved her Origin out of compassion, or just so that she herself would survive - and Sage wouldn’t tell you if you asked her.

[-unfinished-]

[roach: origin was very, very sick for a long time - and suddenly coughed up a huge bug that skittered away into the dark (and later, unseen, became Roach). they coughed up a few small, repugnant mushrooms, and immediately felt better. They recovered rapidly and seemed completely unphased by the whole ordeal.]

[gasket keskar: formed in a spark of lightning that destroyed a tree, but did not harm anyone. Origin (Kavi Narang) knows he exists, but has never seen him again - though he is actually interested to meet him again.]

[malkin erebus: formed in an explosion which destroyed Origin (Cyril Flintwitch)’s home and killed their mother. malkin did not intend to do this, and feels terrible for it, having never intended harm. cyril has permanent mental scars and has never been well since, though their paranoia and anxiety has improved recently - as well as their relationship with malkin. malkin is at times infatuated with cyril - and has had a very tumultuous history with them - but is learning to respect boundaries, and is accepting the responsibility for the things he has done.]

[crow hackett: unknown]

[crank: unknown]

[zyx: formed from the dust under Origin (Cody Jemson)’s bed. lives there still. unsettling, but not actually harmful. yet.]

[siren hemlock: unknown]

#cellophane rose #cr ref

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