#i actually only live for those two from now on

[rederiswrites]

You can train your tastes. You can choose what you see beauty in.

Lemme go further, actually. You are constantly doing so--or letting others do it for you.

Nearly two decades ago, when we were planning our wedding, I made a very firm decision not to look at any wedding planning magazines or anything with marketing material for wedding products. I wanted our wedding to be uniquely us, and I also wanted not to be bombarded by product advertisement and beautiful photo shoots of very expensive weddings. Consequently, maybe we wasted a little bit of time reinventing the wheel, but we had a wedding we were very happy with that only cost perhaps four thousand dollars at most, probably not that much, spread out over our finances and those of both our families. Our guests went home with live potted plants that we'd paid pennies for at end of season, our florist had a great time getting to design a bouquet that tested her skills because I didn't have any preconceived ideas, my dress was utterly unique--and I really do feel that those magazines would have had a corrosive effect on all that.

When we moved to this property three years ago, I spent a LOT of time looking at images online, trying to form a coherent vision for a property that was at the time a fairly blank slate. I found myself scrolling through a lot of Russian dacha Instagrams, of all things, and they unlocked something for me. Seeing the same homey make-do decorations and techniques I grew up around a continent away, the same plywood cutout old ladies and tractor tire flower planters, somehow chewed through that last binding cord of classism, and suddenly I saw the art in it. The expression of a desire to embellish and beautify, even when you have very little, even when all you can afford is things the more well-to-do consider trash. I saw the exuberance of human love for beauty in a brilliant flower bed planted next to a collapsing shed--it didn't need to be perfect to be worthwhile. They didn't wait til everything was pristine to start enjoying things. And now I earnestly and unironically covet my own version of the tractor-tire Christmas tree at the farm down the road.

We've spent centuries now idolizing the manicured estates and quaint country retreats of the European wealthy elites. We've turned thousands of miles of living ecosystem into grass deserts in service of this vision. We need to start deliberately retraining our tastes. Seek out images of a different idea of beauty and peace. I'm not telling you what it'll be. I'm telling you this is not involuntary. You can participate. You can look at the many beautiful examples of native xeriscaping for arid climates, or photos of chaotic tangles of wildflowers, tamed by narrow paths, a bench under an arbor overwhelmed with wisteria. Maybe instead of trying to get lawn to grown under your mature trees, you'd actually get far more joy out of a patch of dirt. A hammock. A firepit ringed with log sections for seats.

You can free yourself from harmful conventions of taste and beauty, and you do it through imagining something better.

[enwoso]

INVISIBLE STRINGS - alessia russo

*i started writing this and loved it then got bored by the end so sorry for the rushed ending:) but thank you for the love and support on my first post!!

google would define invisible strings as a thread that connects two people who are destined to meet regardless of time, place or the circumstances. the thread may stretch or tangle but it never breaks.

you and alessia both truly believed you were a prime example of the invisible string theory.

the two of you always existing among each other but neither ever really acknowledged each other until later on when you were both older.

you lived on the same street as alessia growing up, only a few doors down, she was the blonde girl you would always see from afar playing in the park with her two older brothers as they blasted the ball at the young girl.

however she always gave back as good as she got.

you had even went to the same school, however she was in the year above you. there were plenty school photos with the two of you in only a few metres apart. walking past each other in the corridor every single day - not having an idea how important each other would become to be to the other in the future.

you had played football for the local team as did she. the blonde playing in offence taking any spot on the front line whereas you sat at the back and played in defence stopping the opposition from scoring.

that is how the two of you met, well kind of. you played for the same team but you two never really friends. it wasn’t that you didn’t like each other it’s just you never really spoke to one another bar the few words when necessary.

however you only played with each other for a few months before she moved onto a new local team. only seeing her now when your team would face her new team.

you both existed in the backgrounds of each others lives.

when you were sixteen, you were scouted by the arsenal's academy for the under seventeens teams, it took you a little time getting used to playing academy football and not the usual sunday league but after a few months you had found your feet and began to settle in.

you had one goal, the england youth squad. your family pushing you each day to try and help you achieve your goal however just a month before the squad announcement you tore your ACL at sixteen.

you were out of football for a year, endless days sat with a physio, in the gym just trying to get your knee to bend again like it once used to. watching from the sidelines as your friends in the academy got their calls up for the youth teams and how you wished it was you.

you felt as though you were fighting a battle you were never going to win, you were falling out of love with sport that you had played your entire life.

after three hundred and sixty two day you were finally allowed to play again, however your return it wasn't the fairy tale dream you had spent the past year dreamed about. you ended up spending a lot of time on the bench not playing as regular as you did before your injury and you spent many of those ninety minutes wondering why you were no longer good enough.

losing all your confidence in yourself and your ability to actually play football - you felt as though you had hit a brick wall. finding yourself some days where you didn't want to play football anymore.

but thankfully your family, mainly your dad, were not going to let you give up so easily on the talent that they had spent watching over the last ten years. your dad repeatedly telling you 'that you time would come'

and like the fairy tale you had dreamed about you slowly begun to get minutes again and fell back in love with sport all over again. forever thankful for your family for their support each day, for sometimes dragging you to training even when you had told them multiple of times that you were done and that you quit.

and you dad was right, your time did come. your hard work finally paid off and just after your nineteenth birthday you made your appearance for the arsenal first time - even bagging yourself an assist.

the next few season were spent learning and being loaned to another other club spending half a season at brighton when you were 20. but you saw it all as learning and a way of improving - you were getting minutes, plenty of clean sheets and you were working towards a new goal: the 2023 world cup.

you were back at arsenal and were a regular starter in the back line for arsenal and with that came your good from and finally your call up for england came as they were beginning their campaign to quality for the world cup in australia.

"are you excited?" leah asked swinging her arm around your shoulders as you walked towards the changing rooms, she had been a big mentor to you since you had came into the first team, along with helping you to improve your game. you could say you became her little prodigy.

the squad had just been announced on social media for the first time and hearing your name on the sheet of paper had you feeling something you could even begin to find the word to describe.

“yes.. but no, i’m a little nervous” you admitted with a small laugh as leah gave you a soft smile and a squeeze of the shoulders to reassure you.

“listen, you’ll be fine! just play with the passion you always have” she said as you nodded slowly, “plus you’ll have me, beth and jordan!” the blonde added as you playfully groaned, leah gasping and unthreading her arm from around your shoulders.

“i’m just kidding, you know i love you all” you smiled, as leah rolled her eyes as you reached the doors of the changing rooms, “i do kiddo! ..but i’m at the top of that list, right?”

“whatever helps you sleep at night, lee!”

leah was right - you were fine. while you didn’t get any starts in any of the games at your first camp, you did get some minutes as a sub which was more than you were expecting. but while sitting on the bench you did find yourself talking to a particular blonde.

“you said you were from kent, didn’t you?” alessia asked as you hummed, a puzzled look growing on your face as you waited for the blonde to carry on. your eyes were glued to the girls running around on the pitch as you sat on the bench with a bright orange bib over your jacket.

“me too! what part?” the blonde asked as you turned your head at the question being slightly caught off guard at the fact she was also from kent.

“um maidstone” you gave her a small smile, your attention turning back to the girls on the pitch as the ball was close to going into the back of the net. alessia gasping making you think she had seen something you had missed on the pitch as well as making you jump a little, “me too!”

you turned back to her, giving her a shocked look. confusion filling you as the two of you spent the rest of camp talking about each others childhood finding out your grew up on the same street as well as going to the same school.

when the next england camp rolled around, you and alessia had became even closer to the point you were counting down the days until you next saw each other.

short and sweet messages turned into hours and hours spent on facetime until the other fell asleep. friendly comments turned into subtle flirty ones and the touches turned to ones that lasted longer than friends and slowly you found yourself falling for the blonde.

the last england camp before the euros in the summer at home had finally arrived, you had arrived at st george’s park with beth and leah but before alessia.

you found yourself sitting patiently in the common room, like a lost puppy waiting for the blonde to walk through the door. the other girls chatting and playing cards in the background.

“kid, if you stare any longer at the doorframe your gonna burn a hole in it!” lucy teased as you glanced away from the doorway for the first time in a least thirty minutes, rolling your eyes at the teasing comment you moved your gaze to fix at watching leah try and beat beth’s high score on the basketball hoop game.

eventually after what felt at least a year to you and fifteen minutes to everyone else - the blonde walked through with ella, as she made a beeline for you as you wrapped her in a tight hug.

the two of you finding a rhythm and falling into a deep conversation about all the things you had forgotten to tell each other over the phone.

“so then me and ella had to stop, so i could get a coffee and she-“ alessia was in the middle of telling you a recount of her journey here before you interrupted her with a big gasp, jumping up out of your seat to find your phone quickly.

“what?” alessia asked as she watched you frantically search for your phone on the beanbag you were sitting on - finding it wedged under the beanbag.

“i have to show you this before i forget!” you said a grin on your face getting bigger with ever swipe your finger did on your phone screen. moving closer to the blonde, your shoulders touching as she peered over your own shoulder wondering what on earth you were about to show her and why was it such a big deal.

"look-" you moved your phone so that it was in her eye line and on your screen was a group school photo, "i don’t get it? what am i looking at?" the blonde asked her squinted her eyes trying to get a better look at the photo.

"there's me and.." you paused as she pointed to herself as a small gasp followed from her, "and there's me" alessia whispered, so quietly you also couldn't hear her. shock has consumed the blonde and you sat back with a smug smile as she examined the photo a little more.

"how’d you find this?" alessia asked as she turned her head back to you, handing you back your phone, "my mum sent me them,, there's more if you swipe across" you said beginning to swipe along your camera roll.

the two of you spent the next hour looking through the photos, some from school and others from your grassroots club, recounting each others side of the memories both of you in shock of how close you to were to each other growing but in reality how far you were to each other.

"we've literally been in the background of each other lives forever" alessia smiled as you nodded. "attached by an invisible string" you added.

the international camp came to an end and you both went back to your respective clubs, this time the two of you were making an effort to see each other without it being on a pitch or about football — so on your days off you went to see alessia and on her days off she came to see you.

your feelings for alessia were growing each time you saw her, her smile was infectious, her blue orbs were the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. but you didn't want to admit your feelings to her in case it ruined your friendship, plus why would she like you back, alessia sees you as a friend and a friend only.

or so you thought.

"less, why don't you just admit you have feelings for the girl!" ella said as she caught the blonde smiling at her phone knowing that she was messaging you.

"w-what" the blonde stuttered her phone dropping into her lap. "less, we can all see that you like her!" ella paused as alessia's cheeks tinted red, "except for y/n - but she definitely likes you too!"

"she does?"

"of course, everyone can see the way you both look at each other!" ella said bumping her shoulder with the older blonde as alessia gave her a small smile and nodded processing the information that had just been given to her.

before the euros came around in the summer alessia managed to make the first move taking you on the first date — a fancy dinner accompanied by going back to her apartment and spending the rest of the night cuddled into each other while watching a film.

the euros had come and you were back with alessia and the rest of the england girls. the tournament had been the best time of your life making unforgettable memories with the girls. slipping in a few dates with alessia when you two had some downtime.

you were just beginning to enter the second half of extra time the score being 1-1 in the final, yes the final at wembley. the little girl inside of you was buzzing with excitement, you couldn't believe you were going to get to play here. your whole family had made the trip to wembley, sitting proudly in the crowd.

it was england's chance to score, germany had conceded the corner. alex was hovering over it to take it as white shirts littered germanys penalty area.

the ball swing in as everyone jumped up, you watched alessia drop to the ground and then watched as chloe poked the ball into the back of the net. chloe running off to celebrate as the stadium erupted, as you all gathered around chloe celebrating.

all you had to do was hold on for the next ten minutes and the trophy was englands.

keeping the ball in the corner, desperately waiting for the final whistle to blow.

germany had one last chance but before it got into the final half the whistle blew, england where european champions.

running to the closest person near you which happened to be leah, engulfing her in a hug as the tears began to fall. "we did it!" you whispered as she hummed, the two of you sniffing and wiping your eyes and going off to celebrate with the others but your eye caught the sight of your favourite blonde moving toward her.

you don't know if it was the adrenaline of the win that was flowing or if you had finally just grew the confidence to say it but after months of dancing around your feelings for the blonde.

you ran up swinging your arm around her neck, as you both cheered before you faced her grabbing her hands, "less! will you be my girlfriend" you blurted out, clearly catching the blonde of guard as her head perked up, alessia thinking she had misheard you before nodding, "yes, a thousand time yes!" 

you smiled bringing the blonde in for a bear hug, not wanting to let go. enjoying her touch, it made you feel safe and loved. as she pulled away she wrapped an arm around your shoulders pulling you into her, kissing the top of your head lingering there for a few moments.

"all along there's been an invisible string tying me to you."

liked by lucybronze and 915,703 others

alessia day one or one day?

comments -

lucybronze well y/n looks thrilled on the first one

24m 140 likes     reply

-> yourusername she annoyed me that day.

-> alessia how on earth can you remember that?

-> yourusername i can’t? i’m just guessing that you did

yourusername i love you<3

24m 140 likes     reply

-> alessia love you more, my love<33

#lucy bronze #alessia russo x reader #leah williamson x reader #woso x reader #lucy bronze x reader #woso blurbs #woso imagine #woso fanfics #woso #woso community #woso one shot #alessia russo x y/n #alessia russo #arsenal wfc #arsenal women #arsenal #awfc #awfc imagine #awfc x reader #football #enwoso

[ellecdc]

💰jingle jingle💰

how much for you to continue the barty shirt fic where they make it up to the tower and tell the marauders🤭

I'll give you this one for free but the rest will cost you

Barty Crouch Jr x potter!reader who tattles on Jegulus

CW: making fun of only children, siblings insulting one another, platonic Prongsfoot drama, no real angst - just chaos Continuation of this one shot

The trek from the Slytherin dungeons up the Gryffindor tower in a full sprint was unideal for even the most athletic and fit quidditch player in the castle; but if there was one thing a lifetime worth of living with James Potter and his pranking ways prepared you for, it was running.

Fortunately for you, this was not a universal experience and you were quickly able to leave Regulus and Barty well enough behind you.

You screamed the password at the Fat Lady who shrieked in fear when she saw you barrelling towards her causing her to open so quickly that the portrait thwacked against the stone walls and you all but dived into the common room. 

You stood up straight as your chest burned to survey the patrons of the common room only to find that the entire common room was already doing the same to you.

“Circe’s tits, Potter.” Lily said with a smirk. “You look like you were trying to outrun Peeves.”

Your smile turned devious as you continued panting. “Better.” You answered quickly, turning your sights towards your brother, Peter, Remus, and…

“Sirius!” You greeted as you speed-walked over to their sofas.

“Hey Trouble; get tired of the snakes?” Sirius teased as he moved a chess piece with an air of nonchalance.

You were eager to change that.

Before you could open your mouth, two Slytherin’s came spilling into the common room before the portrait had a chance to close behind them.

“I’m so glad you could join me for this.” You taunted Regulus who’s jaw tightened as he straightened himself up and shook Barty’s hand off his shoulder.

“Isn’t this a nice shirt, Siri?”

Sirius looked up at that as he considered your form. “Yeah, actually; that’s designer, right?”

You look down at it with a smirk when you heard Regulus whisper a cautionary, “Potter.”

“I’m not sure…it’s got a little crown on the sleeve.” You explained innocently.

Sirius’ eyebrows widened at that. “Shit. Yeah those are super expensive; but great quality and super soft. Great choice, Junior.”

“Thank you!” Barty accepted eagerly. “See Treasure? Black gets it.”

You smirked as you looked over at James who you could see by now was clearly sweating. “Right…but I actually stole this from Jamie’s trunk.”

James’ eyes shot to Regulus as yours moved back to Sirius who was staring at you bemusedly.

“That is not Prongs’ shirt, and didn’t Junior just admit it was his?”

“Nope.” Barty answered with a pop of the p. “I admitted buying it.”

“Why are you buying clothes for James?” Remus asked cautiously then, eyes darting nervously between your mischievous form, James’ anxious form, Regulus’ tense form, and Sirius’ confused form.

“Oh, I’d never buy clothes for that Potter.” Barty scoffed. “That shirt was Reggie’s birthday present last year.”

The sound of Peter’s hand slapping against his mouth as he stared at you all wide eyed was the only sound in the entire common room.

Remus was holding his book in front of his face like a shield as he watched the spectacle that was his friend group.

Finally, Lily let out a long suffering sigh. “Potter, you might want to take this chance to get a head start.”

“Right.” James agreed quickly as he took off towards the portrait hole, pausing as he passed Regulus, seeming to decide since he was already going to die tonight, he may as well go big or go home.

He paused long enough to pull Regulus into a searing kiss before ripping away from him and taking off out of the common room.

The room continued to sit silently as everyone digested what they just saw.

“Did we seriously lose both Potter’s to Slytherin’s?” Marlene asked finally, causing Regulus to scoff.

“Like you’ve got a leg to stand on here, McKinnon.”

“At least I’m not fucking my brother’s best friend!” She volleyed back, causing Sirius to let out a dramatic gagging sound.

“You lot really need to spend less time worrying about who your siblings are shagging.” Peter said with an air of finality.

“Thank you!” You and Regulus chorused, causing you to glare at one another.

“You’re taking this rather well, Pads.” Remus chuckled, tapping Sirius’ knee with his book as Sirius continued staring unseeingly at the portrait hole.

“Mhm.”

Remus and Peter exchanged a worried glance. “What are you waiting for?” Peter asked finally.

“James will get lonely when he realizes no one is chasing him.” He replied in monotone. “He’ll be back in a few.”

“Sirius, please be cool about this; I’m happy, alright?” Regulus sighed in exasperation.

Sirius’ eyes flit over to his younger brother as his brows furrowed. “Listen, am I particularly pleased about…this? No. But that’s not what I’m going to kill him for.”

“What are you going to kill him for?” You inquired, wondering if it was worth writing home to your parents about.

The second your sentence finished, James cautiously stepped back through the portrait hole to find the common room in much the same state as he’d left it.

Suddenly, Sirius stood from his spot on the sofa. “ALL THOSE TIMES YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE TOO BUSY TUTORING TO PRANK WITH ME, YOU WERE DITCHING ME FOR MY BROTHER!?”

The room collectively grimaced as they looked over at James. 

“Listen mate, it’s not what it looks like.” James pleaded, earning him a scoff from his best friend.

“It isn’t what it looks like!? Because the way it looks to me is that you lied, and you kepy secrets! You know, there was a point in this relationship that trust and honesty meant something!” Sirius shouted back.

“It does!” James offered quickly. “It does, Pads! Swear it!”

“Right, forgive me, but your word means nothing to me right now.” He spat as he went storming up towards their shared dorm, James quickly following behind.

“Please don’t shut me out like this; you’re still my other half!”

But the rest of the argument performance was silenced when the door to their room shut behind them.

“Well, Regulus.” Remus sighed with a tired smile. “Welcome to the family; our boyfriend’s are each other’s boyfriends, and this happens every three days.”

“Salazar’s fucking balls.” Regulus groaned as he threw his head back. “This is why I didn’t want it going public.”

“Oi!” You shouted as you lobbed a throw pillow at your new future brother-in-law. “If you’re going to love my brother, love him with your whole chest, coward!”

“You take that back.” He hissed at you.

“I’ll do no such thing.”

“I…I don’t know what to do…should…should we get a professor? What’s happening?” Barty started, looking around the Gryffindor common room with a look of panic on his face.

“Oh, relax, Junior. Your only child is showing.” Remus sighed as he pulled his book back out.

“Aren’t you an only child, Lupin?”

“Yup.” Remus responded as he turned a page of his book. “But I’ve lived in the same tower as the Potters for seven years, and dealt with Sirius and Regulus for the past two; you pick up a few things. Things like this-” he explained as he pointed towards you and Regulus who were still throwing insults back and forth. “Is what siblings call bonding.”

Lily chuckled as Marlene, Barty, Peter, and Remus watched as you called Regulus a “spoiled rotten toerag” to which he replied that “even listening to your voice made him feel like he was losing brain cells”.

“Siblings are weird.” Barty decided.

#marauders era #marauders au #marauders fanfiction #reader insert #self insert #barty gate #barty crouch junior #barty crouch jr #barty #slytherin skittles #the slytherin skittles #barty crouch jr imagine #barty crouch jr x reader #barty crouch jr x you #fluff #comedy #siblings #ellecdc fics

[scoonsalicious]

Unwanted: Chapter 26, Unsurprising - Pt. 1

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn’t be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust.

Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, mentions of miscarriage and aftermath, fluff.

Word Count: 1.1k

Previously On...: You and Bucky actually had a good talk.

A/N: Chapter 26 begins!

NOTE! The tag list is a fickle bitch, so I'm not really going to be dealing with it anymore. If you want to be notified when new story parts drop, please follow @scoonsaliciousupdates

Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917!

Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!

Taglist: (Sadly, tag list is closed; Tumblr will not let me add anyone new. If you want to be notified when I update, please Follow me for Notifications!) @jmeelee @cazellen @mrsbuckybarnes1917 @blackhawkfanatic @buckybarnessimpp @hayjat @capswife @itsteambarnes @marygoddessofmischief @sebastians-love @learisa @lethallyprotected @rabbitrabbit12321 @buckybarnesandmarvel @fanfictiongirl77 @calwitch @fantasyfootballchampion @selella @jackiehollanderr @wintercrows @sashaisready @missvelvetsstuff @angelbabyyy99 @keylimebeag @maybefoxysouls @vicmc624 @j23r23 @wintercrows @crist1216 @cjand10 @pattiemac1@les-sel @dottirose @winterslove1917 @harperkenobi @ivet4 @casey1-2007 @mrsevans90 @steeph-aniie @bean-bean2000 @beanbagbitch @peachiestevie @wintrsoldrluvr @shadowzena43

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You woke up early the next afternoon with your face feeling puffy and your body still sore, but not nearly in as much pain as you’d been in the night before. You’d only been in the hospital for a few hours in total, but it had felt like days. Glancing around, you realized Bucky must have tucked you into the bed in Sam’s bedroom after you’d fallen asleep on him last night. Well, Bucky’s bedroom, you supposed, now that he’d be taking over as your partner until Sam got back. You wondered where he had slept.

Hearing voices from the front of the apartment, you gingerly got up, tossing a sweatshirt Sam had left behind over your sleep clothes, and padded your way softly into the living room, noticing that Bucky must have been up half the night cleaning the mess you’d left behind, as there was no sign of any of your previous debauchery. Bucky was standing at the front door, waving off a couple of delivery men.

“Hey,” you said softly from behind him as he shut the door. Bucky turned around and gave you the once-over, as if he could assess your current state of mind from the sight of you alone.

“Hey,” he replied. “How’d you sleep?”

You shrugged your shoulders. “Alright. You?”

Bucky exhaled a soft laugh. “Fine; couch is uncomfortable as hell.” There was an awkward silence, as though neither of you knew how to talk to the other any more.

“How are you feeling?” he asked eventually.

“Better,” you admitted. “Not nearly as sore. Kinda hungry.”

He looked at you, blue eyes scrutinizing. “I don’t mean physically, Pocket.”

“Oh.” You weren’t sure how to answer him, because the truth of it was, you didn’t know how you felt. You’d been in complete shock, and then you’d barely had a moment to process before exhaustion had overtaken you.

“It’s… it’s just been a lot, I guess,” you said. “I think it’s going to take me a while to process everything. I still don’t think I fully believe that all happened to me; feels like it happened to someone else.”

Bucky nodded and walked past you, toward the kitchen. “Come on,” he called to you over his shoulder. “You’ve got to be starving. I picked up some takeout while I was out.” In the kitchen, he reached into the oven and took out a few covered dishes he’d left in there to keep warm. “Wasn’t sure how long you were going to sleep,” he explained. “So I got some burgers and fries. That cool?”

Was that cool? Burgers and fries were your go-to comfort food, and it thawed your heart a little that he would remember. “Yeah, that’s cool,” you said, sitting down at the kitchen island. Bucky gently placed the containers with the still-warm food down, and you immediately began digging into your meal. “Oh man,” you moaned sinfully as you let the flavor roll around on your tongue. “That’s a fucking good burger. Only thing that would make it better would be a–”

“Chocolate shake,” Bucky finished for you. He’d gone into the fridge and pulled out two large paper cups filled with the blended beverage. “You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”

You took the shake from him and lowered your face to hide behind your hair, not wanting him to see the pleased blush that was coloring your cheeks. “Thanks,” you murmured as you took a sip. It, too, was delicious. 

“Don’t mention it, doll,” Bucky popped the lid off his shake and, quick as lightning, stole a fry from your plate, dunking it in the shake before bringing it to his mouth.

“Hey!” you chastised. “Don’t you have your own? No fair stealing mine!”

Bucky raised and dropped a shoulder. “Super soldier metabolism,” he said. “Need all those extra calories.”

You gave him a wry smile, and the two of you just looked at each other as you ate in companionable silence. For a minute, it felt like old times, as though the chasm that had divided you had never been opened, had never ripped the earth that stood between you, irrevocably separating you from one another.

“So,” you said, clearing your throat as though it could break the spell he had over you, “who were those guys?”

“Huh?” he asked, tearing his eyes away from yours as though it were physically difficult. “Oh, them. Yeah, uh, delivery guys.”

You furrowed a brow. “Delivery guys? You haven’t even been here twenty four hours, Barnes, and you’re already making decor changes?”

Bucky chuckled. “Please. You’ve seen my room at home. You think I’ve suddenly gotten into interior design over the last few weeks you’ve been gone?” You laughed at that. “While you were sleeping, I, uh, got the idea that it probably wouldn’t do you any good… seeing your bed with, you know…” He left it hanging, but you could easily fill in the blank– all that blood. “Tried to get it out with that hydrogen peroxide we got; just kinda ended up making more of a mess, so I figure I’d just order you a new mattress, so you’d–”

You left him in the kitchen as you stood up and walked back to your room. Sure enough, there was a brand new mattress laying across your bed frame, the plastic that had been covering it shoved into a garbage bag, along with what, you assumed, were your soiled bed clothes. 

On the floor, over the spot where you’d collapsed, was a brand new throw rug.

“I made sure to check the tags on the old one,” Bucky said, coming up behind you to stand in the doorway, “so I could get the same exact kind. I, uh, didn’t want you havin’ trouble sleeping if the new one was too different, makin’ you uncomfortable.” He sounded timid, almost unsure of himself, as if he worried that he’d done the wrong thing. “And I tried to get everything outta the carpet, but, uh, there was still a stain, so… I figured a rug would work for now. ‘ll probably have to get the carpet replaced when we leave, if the cleaners can’t get everything out.”

Wordlessly, you turned and wrapped your arms around him, squeezing him in your gratitude. You weren’t sure what state you would have been in if you had had to deal with last night’s aftermath on your own. “Thank you,” you whispered, cheek pressed against his hard chest. 

Your gratitude must have struck Bucky by surprise, because it was a moment before he was gingerly placing his hands around you to return your embrace, keeping them loose, as though wanting to ensure you he wasn’t trying to keep you in a cage. “Of course, sweets,” he murmured into the top of your head. You felt him place a gentle kiss into your hair. “Of course.”

<- Previous Chapter / Next Part ->

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky buchanan barnes #james buchanan barnes #mcu bucky barnes #james barnes

[coolprettyleo]

my soul has changed? - will smith au

wc: 1.4k

tw: depression, suggestion of an ED, awkwardness? mean girl.

will smith x oc celebrini sister!

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

april celebrini was in a point of her life where everything felt still. she was pretty sure she was suffering from depression and it was a cycle she didn't know how to get out of.

she would wake up, go to school, go to work, and then sleep. she was lucky if she fitted a meal in between that meant she had lost tons of weight.

she had been a pretty healthy teen, she played hockey up until high school alongside her brothers; but when the time came to play college hockey, she got no offers. contributing to her depression.

it was a sport she held so much love and dedication, she couldn't understand why she hadn't been good enough? I mean her brothers were good enough, they got college offers. macklin was even projected to go first overall, so why couldn't she?

those were thoughts that were constantly haunting her mind. if she found something to forget them they would flood back in, like if they wanted her to be a lifeless doll she had been feeling like.

her family had been really worried for her. she had finally seen her brothers after a year, at the NCCAA playoffs and it only caused them to worry more.

flashbacks

april knew that macklin and aiden were gonna bombard her with questions as soon as they were alone. they could hardly recognize her. growing up she was always a smiling person with a big personality and now she was about forty pounds lighter and was a ghost of the person she used to be.

"april what's going on" macklin said shutting the door behind him.

"what do you mean"

"cut the bullshit. I know your not okay, you barley answer my text anymore, what's wrong"

"it's nothing mack-"

"no it's not nothing, maybe I can fix it-

"you cant 'fix' it"

"and why not-"

"because I don't know what wrong with me!"

that had been about two weeks ago. she just didn't know what to tell her family. she really didn't understand why she had been feeling that way.

she was currently at work where she was a barista in a cute coffee shop. she honestly loved working there, she had got the job when she was in high school and had kept it till college. seeing as she didn’t move far away for college, choosing to stay close to her parents.

she often wondered if she might be happier if she moved away just like everyone else did, just like her brothers did. but it would always end in her telling herself; that it's not worth dwelling on.

it was currently six am and at this time of day there weren’t many customers. the cafe was always busy mid day when people were looking to find somewhere to study.

so she was surprised when she turned the open side around, to find a boy waiting outside to come in. a boy who looked a lot like will smith.

april wasn’t an idiot to hockey, she kept up with it a fairly good amount, so she would have to be living under a rock to not know the guy who dominated the ice at her brothers rivalry school.

that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to act like she didn’t know him.

he reached for the handle and took a look at her before turning as red as a tomato and blushing,

“hey, are you guys open?” he asked nervously, mentally slapping himself because he just saw her turn the sign around, to ‘open’

“uhm yeah I’ll be with you in a sec” she told him.

will couldn’t help but think her voice was cute. she had a rasp to it that made him want to give her everything she’s ever wanted.

april finished up, putting the coffee too brew and turned to the counter.

“okay! order when your ready”

“uhm. i actually never been here before… any recs?” he asked after a moment nervously scratching his neck.

“well I get a dirty chai, but considering my brothers hate it, you might hate it too… I guess you might like a frap?” she told him, a little too monotone.

“yeah okay” he told her again nervously. he found her to be breathtakingly beautiful.

he paid and stood back as she got to making the drink.

“you from here?” will asked hoping to make small talk.

“uhm kinda. I was born in Vancouver but moved here when my dad got a job”

will panicked. oh god was she still in highschool

april must of saw the worry on his face because she added,

“that was a couple years ago, im eighteen now” she said smiling at his face. something she didn’t do often anymore.

“oh, i’m eighteen too”

“oh yeah, what brings you to san jose, school?” she said innocently knowing very well he was drafted here and was most likely here to work on development.

“no. I”m came to meet with some people here. I go to boston college” he answered. april starting to not feel so bad because she saw he didn’t want to right away say he was a hockey player.

“far from home huh”

“yeah, i’m literally across the country from everything and everybody i’ve ever known” he told her wanting to slap himself. did she need to know that!?!

“i’m sorry. it’ll get easier” she said remembering her brother had been homesick too but utimatly started feeling better after some time-- as she handing him his drinks and gave him a sympathetic face.

“yeah i hope so, i should be moving here soon, if everything goes right” he said as he took a sip.

“hey this is good!” he said taking another sip as april smiled. something that will thought looked amazing on her.

april smiled at him remembering the fact her brothers liked that drink. boys were so typical

“i’m glad… and hey— if you ever need a friend in town my names april” she told him as she held her hand out to him to shake.

will starred at it for a moment before he quickly met her hand.

“will” he told the girl with a smile.

they were cut out of there moment when two customers walked in.

“I should get back to work. i’ll see you around will” she told him as he smiled a nodded and walked right out.

say something! ask for my number! do anything!

april felt really dumb after she basically just presented herself in a silver platter to the boy and he didn’t finish his part in asking for her number. he had definitely rejected her in the nicest way someone possibly could.

meanwhile will got into the Uber with a gitty feeling. she seemed really cool and having someone to hang out with other than his teammates was going to be so nice.

he was midway into the meeting with some general managers when he realized he didn’t even ask for her number.

“oh my god” he mumbled as he came to the realization

"i'm sorry?" one of the GM's said confused.

“uhh— I said I was excited to join the franchise!” he covered up, feeling like an idiot.

hopefully she was still there after the meeting.

the meeting had gone a little to long for his liking and as he raced down to the coffee shop he hoped she was working a long shift.

he opened the door to see a blonde girl who looked old but yet looked young, and a taller boy with curly hair working behind the counter.

“hi. is april working today?” he said breathlessly

the blonde eyed him for a moment before smirking,

“I don't recall an april ever working here...my name samantha though” she said with a face that will knew was a face of someone who was lying.

“yes there is, she helped me earlier-"

“if your here to file a complaint against her, I can totally help you then,” she said

“no she was great— wait, you said you didn’t know an april-“

“your looking for april” the other barista cut in

“yeah she was here earlier, i was hoping she was still here”

“she got off like two hours ago but i can give you her number!” the curly haired boy told will. he was one of aprils friends and he wasn’t going to ruin this opportunity for her.

“you totally can’t do that!” the blonde girl said in a nasally voice.

“shutup samantha. go take candy from a baby or something” he sassily told her.

she rolled her eyes before walking away to wipe a table down.

“sorry about her, here’s her number— good luck!”

“thankyou so much” he told him as he thought about what exactly to text the pretty girl.

both april and will not knowing the epic love story they were about embark on.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

hi guys! i hope this is kinda good, dont feel shy to send in ask and au thoughts… i like never get any but im so open to it!!

#nhl imagine #nhl imagines #hockey fic #will smith hockey #bc hockey #gabe perreault #ryan leonard #will smith hockey x reader #jacob fowler #bc eagles #will smith hockey x oc #will smith hockey imagine #april x will #gabe perreault x reader #nhl #hockey imagine

[respectthepetty]

GMMTV 2024 Part 2 - Hot Tops

I did this for the first part, so I'm following up with the second part. I still have no Midnight Museum 2 or gym bros BL (why?!!!!!), and I'm excluding Ossan's Love and ReVamp since we knew those were coming, but, honestly, this list could have just been one show, and if you know me, you already know what it is . . .

#1 - The Heart Killers

I'm a JoongDunk fan first, and a human second. My troublesome tykes get to be gay and do crime, this might be a Jojo show, and they get to chill next to FirstKhao.

This isn't a gym bros BL, but somehow, I still won! Who do I look at first? Khao and Joong playing criminal brothers? Dunk being a mechanic? First being a tattoo artist? Not only am I getting a YinWar heist BL this year, but now this?! The chemistry is going to be 100%, and for this gift from the BL gods, I'm watching TWO shows on my Pride Petty Watch because I. Have. Been. Blessed.

#2 - Us

Sing was looking fine with his hair, and his body, and his presence, so for me to see him in all his beauty and still scream for him to get the fuck off my screen so I could focus on the ladies means THIS IS GONNA BE GOOD! I'm still holding petty grudges against Emi for the character she played in 609 Bedtime Story and Intern in My Heart, but the second she told her boyfriend's sister to come closer . . . *bites knuckles*

#3 - Heart that Skips a Beat

I'm shocked. I am fully invested in watching this idol love story knowing damn well I hate singing and dancing in my shows. And yet, somehow, this three-minute trailer convinced me that this wasn't just an average One Direction fanfic. No. This is about to be gold-tier fanfic storytelling. These boys aren't living in the BL bubble, but in actual this-shit-is-about-to-have-consequences-for-everyone reality. Plus, it appears to be color-coded, so bring me my idols!

Honorable Mention - Hide & Sis

Jan, drenched in blood?

Yes.

Everything Else

Talking shit about any of the others is pointless because I'm going to watch them all anyway, at least the queer ones that is, so I'm just gonna write that my beef with JittiRain, who got two shows this time around, and Krist is still as strong as ever even though Be My Favorite, which was with both of them, was a great show.

But there was a lot of pink in Sweet Tooth, Good Dentist

And I like Perth x Chimon.

So whatevs. I'll be here. Watching.

#gmmtv 2024 #the heart killers #joongdunk AND firstkhao! #us the series #heart that skips a beat #I support the girls‚ the gays‚ and the goths #and strangely‚ I'm kinda get all of those

[ohnococo]

Sleep Tight | Hiromi Higuruma x Reader

Higuruma’s job leaves him busy, which means the two of you spend far too long as two passing ships, unable to indulge your urges.

He asks for one night to catch up on his sleep, then he’s all yours - but it turns out his body isn’t quite willing to let him make it through that night without being taken care of.

❥ WC: 2.4k

❥ Notes: a request for @bas-writes - Higuruma is so fun to write, thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy!

❥ Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content, SOMNOPHILIA (reader receiving), fem bodied reader/no pronouns used, established relationship, wet dreams (mentions of grinding, oral sex/deep-throating), mentions of masturbation, mentions of semi-public masturbation, cunnilingus, vaginal sex, creampie, sleepy sex

Higuruma feels like a complete fucking idiot.

He’d been pulling all-nighters for weeks now. Coming home well after you were asleep, then forced to get up and leave only a handful of hours later. His work was hard at the best of times, but not even having the respite of time with you had turned it into something much like running a marathon in lead shoes. But the only way out of it was through, and when things had finally settled down you were so eager to make up for lost time.

But… that extended lack of sleep and all of that stress had caught up to him. He’d apologised and apologised again and it still didn’t feel like enough, but he just needed one good night of sleep and he would be on you like it was the last day of your lives the following morning, he’d promised. And you’d accepted, being the caring partner that you are.

Except he didn’t even make it to morning, not properly. Or rather, Higuruma wasn’t counting it as morning, considering the sun wasn’t even up yet. But here he was, barely rested, still so tired he felt almost delirious. And here he was, so fucking hard his balls hurt and he thinks he might have discovered you can actually be so horny that it leaves you with a pounding headache.

It’s not the first time he’d woken up either. The first time, he’d opened his eyes, realised he was humping the mattress, and checked the clock to see it was midnight. You weren’t in bed yet, and he was still exhausted, so he ignored the stirring in his pyjamas, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

Then he awoke and found himself hard again, cock pressed against the heavy duvet, trying to tent it despite not standing a chance against its weight. It was past uncomfortable at that point, but he turned to look at the clock and see those gently lit numbers telling him it was only just past 1 am. Once he’d heard you sighing next to him, he’d realised that you’d only just come to bed. It felt unfair to wake you, especially when his limbs still felt so heavy and he was tired enough that rolling onto his side was a feat. So again, he readjusted himself, and fell back asleep.

The next time he’d woken up, it was around 3 am, and he’d decided that his pyjamas weren't helping with his discomfort, constricting the erection that had returned once again, this time accompanied by a dream of you sitting on his lap and grinding against him. He’d groaned outright at that point.

First his work keeps him from sleeping, keeps him from you. Then the accumulated tiredness keeps him from you instead. And now, the result of so many days without satisfying his insatiable need for you keeps him from getting the sleep he needs to solve his little problem. An endless loop of torment for a man like him, who is more insatiable than most.

When he’d tried to adjust himself in search of a little comfort, he’d found his clothes sticky and clinging to him, precum having made them nearly translucent over this stressful night. He’d done what he could, sliding them off and kicking them out of the bed entirely before letting himself doze back off with that small semblance of relief.

But now it’s 4 am and his cock is throbbing, rudely interrupting his dream of you waking him up with your mouth on him. It was so vivid he’d almost been convinced it was real until he turned to see you were lying next to him, asleep, and not between his legs looking up at him from where his cock was buried in your throat.

Higuruma groans, wiping sweat from his upper lip, staring at the ceiling with his arms helplessly by his sides. He decides that his body won’t be letting him get any sleep until he solves this problem. Then he decides his mind had been admonishing him for being so selfish. Taking all the extra hours he can instead of delegating his work, denying your offer to empty his aching balls, and here he was dreaming of only his own pleasure. So he decides to focus on you first, at least enough to ensure you get yours. He slowly slides the duvet off of you both to pool at the bottom of the bed, and feels almost giddy at his absolute luck after his poor cock had been through so much turmoil.

It’s as if it were meant to happen, with you laying on your back, legs spread, shirt shoved up from tossing and turning of your own. You’re so ready for him, ready to be touched, that he can’t turn back now. He crawls slowly, pausing when the bed creaks or dips too low, until he’s settled himself between your legs. Face to face with your thinly veiled pussy, he can see a wetness of your own has formed, nearly outlining the contours of your slit, and he has to bite his fist to stop from groaning at the sight. It solidifies it for him, sheepishly jerking himself off over on his lonesome side of the bed could never be an option after looking at you in this state.

He moves his face closer, breathing you in, releasing that breath shakily onto your skin, and presses a slack tongue to the damp fabric. His eyes snap up, watching your reaction, but you only let out a breath barely louder than the last. He licks slowly, slowly upwards, eyes rolling as he gets a hint of the taste he knows so well through that dampened fabric, and when even that doesn’t do much to wake you, he concentrates his efforts on your clit.

It’s swollen enough to make its pert little self known through your clothing, and when he flicks at it with the tip of his tongue you let out a deep sigh. It has that little hint of something more that makes him realise that you’d almost certainly been just as pent up as he had. As his guilt at leaving you high and dry swells, so does his cock as his mind inundates him with vivid images of you clenching your thighs and squirming while missing having him there in your bed. Images of you frustrated, whining his name when your fingers and toys couldn’t do what he could. Images vivid enough that they almost felt like visions of what had indeed been happening in his absence. You, left here touching yourself night after night but finding those orgasms didn’t quite go as deep as they needed to without his cock and face and fingers to ride.

That’s more or less how the weeks had gone for Higuruma, when he felt like his head was going to explode during his late nights at work and the only way to stop it was to lock himself in the leaky bathroom on the abandoned floor above and beat his dick hard and fast while scrolling through whatever sweet little pictures you’d last sent him to remind him that you were home and waiting and meals weren’t quite as nice without him there to enjoy them with. It was never really satisfying, just a means to an end so he can think of something other than whining into your neck while you milk him dry.

It makes his heart clench, saddened and flattered at the unconfirmed but may-as-well-be-true-to-him thought that you might be helplessly fucking your pussy to thoughts of him. That maybe you were even dreaming about it now, like you couldn’t have the real thing, and you hadn’t - for far too long for how insatiable the two of you had been during your seemingly endless honeymoon phase. Higuruma thinks that he’ll never make you go so long without him again, even if he has to fuck you in his office, even if you have to climb on his cock while he’s passed out and dreaming of you sitting on his face.

These thoughts and the taste of you on his tongue act as a pincer attack on his hazy mind. It makes him forget himself, swiping his nose at your clit as his tongue busies itself trying to press at your entrance through the thin cloth keeping him from you. It’s not gentle, or subtle, but Higuruma isn’t thinking straight, not now that his mind is sending him on a spiral of filthy thoughts about how he needs to make you cum so hard you forget every night you’d been alone. He licks and nuzzles and sucks until your underwear are clinging to every contour of your pussy and even then he hovers so very close to grazing his teeth along your folds before he just catches himself.

It’s too much, because it’s too little, and his aching cock begs him to take care of you both as soon as possible. By the time he’s sitting up to settle between your spread legs his hands are shaking, and he has to hold his breath to steady them as he peels the sodden fabric away from you and pulls it to the side.

The way you glisten in the moonlight has him emotional, enough that he swears there are tears welling in his eyes - a pressure relieved by letting out a low sigh, shaky and distraught, as he pumps his cock in his hand and lines it up with you. Half of him wants to toy with you further, gliding his head against you, seeing if you’ll mewl for it the way he has to hold himself back from crying out for you, but the other half wins out as his cock throbs just from the lightest touch against you.

He pushes in, and the sticky sound of diving into your wetness makes his stomach clench, eyes rolling back as he bites his lip to stop from making the pathetic noise his body so badly wanted to release. He starts to push deeper, pausing and shaking his head as he realises it’ll just leave him cumming far too quickly, and that’s not what he’s here for right now, so he pulls back. His knees slide forward, nudging at your legs gently, as he repositions himself and starts making shallow thrusts, his tip just reaching deep enough to press and slide until he has your lips parting to release soft moans and your chest rising and falling faster and faster.

He grazes the pad of his thumb over your clit, holding his breath when it makes you clench around him, so he does it again. You only get wetter for him as he goes, warmer, more malleable as you beckon him to sink deeper and fill you completely, but he knows he has to wait, for both of your sakes. So he shuts his eyes, head falling back as he keeps the first few inches of himself lazily working at you, knowing he’ll get there eventually even like this.

You sigh, and squirm, and clench him again and again, sounds of your bodies like a wet squelch of a kiss as you work his tip even in dreams, and Higuruma doesn’t dare look at you - knowing that’ll be the end of him if he sees exactly what he’s feeling below. Instead he works his way just barely deeper, willing himself to enjoy the journey until that telltale clenching lets him know he can let go fully.

But his hastily laid plans change as you let out a moan and your knees lift towards your chest, a sound too loud and a move too big for you to still be sleeping. He looks down to find you looking as desperate as he feels right now with your curling toes and clenching hands. He doesn’t know when you woke up, but he knows you’re awake now, even if your eyes are closed, and your hands are down by your sides gripping the sheets tightly. He thrusts deep, for the first time in too long, and it makes you open your eyes, coming face to face with him as the tight squeeze of being buried so fully sends him bucking forward and catching himself with hands on either side of you.

“You’re awake.”

You laugh, breathy, clenching at him with the sound as he sets a new pace of long thrusts, “You’re fucking me.”

The hot breath of his laugh collides with yours as he gives you that lovesick smile that only has your pussy desperate to be ruined by him, so you wrap your arms around him and kiss at the corners of his mouth as you instruct him to finish what he’d started. “Go on, then.”

It’s playful, a soft challenge that has him hissing as he settles on his pace, heavy balls slapping at your ass as he makes sure you feel every inch of him you’d been without. He tries his best to keep his movements steady, but is all too aware of how he stays buried deep a little longer before pulling back with each thrust. He goes on like this until he’s barely leaving your heat, the thatch of hair scattered at his base rubbing against you with his desperate rocking.

Then you’re squeezing him tight, with arms and legs and pussy alike and it has him crying out. His full weight falls on top of you as all of his energy goes into thrusting - and staving off his body’s desperate call to release until you’re good and ready to squeeze it out of him on the tail end of your sleep-heightened orgasm. He sucks at your neck, sloppy and wet and barely muffling his shuddering groans until you’re finally cumming on his cock and rocking yourself up into his movements.

He sputters, whines, lets hot breaths loose against your neck as he cums right alongside you with the pull of your hungry heat. It’s a relief so great that it leaves him feeling boneless, like he was floating with only your body to keep him from drowning face down as his body and mind reset after cumming so hard after so long.

It’s much the same for you as well, with Higuruma acting as a weighted blanket over your body, the heat of him staving off the chill of the room as your skin cools down. He’s drifting off first, as is expected with such a tumultuous night, and you follow suit, only half thinking of the earful he’ll be getting in the morning for cumming inside of you.

#my writing #reminder minors and ageless blogs get blocked #jjk smut #higuruma x reader #higuruma x you #higuruma x y/n #x reader #reader insert #hiromi higuruma x reader #hiromi higuruma x you #higuruma hiromi x reader

[takemehomefromnarnia]

10 years of Rainbow Direction!

Exactly 10 years ago a girl named Danny printed out this rainbow poster and took it to the first concert of One Direction's Where We Are tour:

Anniversaries are always a bit arbitrary, and Rainbow Direction's was always a hard one to pin down.

This blog is just a day or two short of celebrating 11 years and without it Rainbow Direction would have never existed, because the people who were at the start of it would never have met, but its purpose and setup were entirely different and RD was still far from being developed.

The suggestions that eventually took form in "Project Rainbow Direction" were first submitted to the blog in late 2013. The first brainstorm between Kat, Li and Ellis about it, and further strategy talks with Ed and Molly took place in the early months of 2014. The project was announced in February. Haven and Red submitted their winning poster designs in March. Amy developed a logo and opened a merch store for us in early April.

While we've often referred to that midnight brainstorm on a cold January day as the origin of rainbow direction, that was only its conception. We don't even have a record of which date it was. We could also have chosen any of the more pin-downable dates: announcing the project, announcing the poster contest winners, opening the store. But really, all that Rainbow Direction was at those moments, was an idea, a plan, the hope that we had that it was within our, the fandom's power, to change something for the better for the LGBTQIA+ fans in it.

For months all of us, and especially Li, had worked tirelessly to encourage people to sign up and commit to bringing a rainbow poster to a show.

And then the big moment was there. First day of tour. The moment of truth. Would the people we'd encouraged actually have the courage to take a rainbow to a show, and stick it up in the air? Would it matter to people? Would it actually change something?

10 years on, we know that it did. So much more than we could ever have imagined.

But that was was anything but self-evident at the time. We had no idea. We nervously monitored the wwa tag and the blogs of those who had signed up, and then, after a few days, finally this report appeared. Danny from Bogota shared the first Rainbow Direction fan report.

I think if you'd ask any of us who were here at the time, they'd remember fondly how knowing that someone had actually done it, something happened in the real world, and if one person had done it, more would, how that sparked a fire in our hearts. A ball of warm feelings, not quite the same feeling as before. Before, there had been buzz and excitement and drive, but this, this felt different. Hope. A sense of the personal strength, and collective power, that could come from this if we could make it grow. It took a lot of hard work from a lot of people who committed themselves tirelessly to the campaign, but grow it did.

Thanks to Danny. Thanks to all of you who at some point or other, crafted something rainbow at home, took a rainbow to a show, put a rainbow on your blog, showed that you believed in your own power to change something, and showed the LGBTQI+ people in the fandom that they mattered, and that you cared.

It has been quite the roller coaster ride. As the coordinating group, we've had many ups and downs, and by now, for most of us, our attention has been drawn away from the fandom by our real lives and new pursuits. But regularly, when one of us checks in and sees the rainbows at one of the boys' shows, we share, revel, and sit amazed at how this thing, that once took so much effort on our part to get one, two, three people per show signed up, has grown into a regular staple, with people spontaneously taking it upon themselves to organize for entire venues to light up in a coordinated rainbow pattern, to design new posters and rainbow outfits, or to hand out hundreds of mini rainbow flags in the audience. This community has taken it up as its collective responsibility - let's get those rainbows out. How beautiful is that?! You are all so so amazing.

Thank you, you beautiful people, for becoming a part of this, for making it your own, for making it better, for carrying it forward, into the future.

So long!

#rainbow direction #one direction #rainbow project #harry styles #louis tomlinson #niall horan #liam payne #zayn malik

[tikvin]

While y'all waiting on your sketches and Eshra's "in game" dialogues lemme talk about Vice for a sec, because I love them with my whole being and unhealthily obsessed.

BG3 SPOILERS AHEAD

VICE (he/they/it)

Mechanically, spore druid, flavouring him as just some disgusting necromancing swamp devil, not actually tying him to any circles or balance obsessed folk.

Vice is quite emotionless and blunt, some would say even cruel. "When you out of my sight — you don't exist" type of person. So far, the only durge who flat out made conscious decision to kill Karlach, as he couldn't care less that she's just a tiefling, if that what Wyll's mission is, then he better do it and quit whining (tbf if Vice met Karlach first then Wyll would be the one dying, I just forgot that was a possibility lol.) Vice just doesn't care much for negotiations in these confrontations. They have a passive attitude when it comes to confrontations with his companions, he's more amused than anything, when he's being threatened, suddenly feeling strangely confident and patronizing, as if intentionally provoking to bigger conflict. It probably would get better in act 3, but right now he's quite an asshole.

I wouldn't say he isn't capable of understanding emotions and moral dilemmas, but he's driven mostly by his own whims and wants. He recognizes when he killed without any good reason, but he doesn't necessarily feel bad about his kills. He might do or not do something just because he feels like it, even if he knows it might hurt someone, he doesn't care, unless it's someone deeply close to him or someone he is very curious about, which is hard to achieve.

He haven't got there yet with him, but considering how his relationships with Shadowheart look rn — she's in quite dangerous area with the whole nightsong deal, as Vice couldn't give two shits about her (or anyone else's) secrets and just doesn't ask companions about their lives until they speak about it themselves. So Shadowheart haven't got a chance to tell him anything about her worship or herself. That makes her distant to him, which makes him not give much of a shit, considering nightsong is not only the key for Thorm's immortality but also a potential strong ally. The attempt to kill Lae'Zel also doesn't do Shadowheart any favours in Vice's eyes, as he enjoys company of those who are more straightforward like Lae'Zel, because if you want something from him — you better tell as it is, and not dance around the subject. That is why he's most close to Minthara and Lae'Zel, while being more prickly to Gale, Shadowheart and Jaheira.

Vice is yet another durge who doesn't care much about their lust for blood, nor concerned by their own actions. The only thing he strongly doesn't like about it is losing control, but he is curious about his past.

Concept of romantic relationship is a bit alien to him, as is any sexual relationships. Yet again, it's not like he's not capable, considering how it is with Bhaal, I'd say Vice probably was a huge horndog before amnesia, but after the incident he just didn't give much of a thought to it, since there are bigger problems at hand. His level of understanding the romance will actually depend on if he kills Isobel or not. If Vice won't do it, and my favourite durge camp scene happens — Vice will be kinda pushed to think about it for a moment, when Skeletaris make comments on whatever companion that will be. That would make him dig deeper into his everyday time with that companion and consider what his feelings are and does he even have them.

If Vice kills Isobel and gets power — he gets more emotionless and aloof, mindless killing will be much easier, just like it would be easier to betray close friends for power or just for his own fun. (And the latter even Minthara won't approve of, considering her opinion on killing without purpose).

Would've probably went with the whole Bhaal biz if it wasn't for losing control over his body (After Karessa, he unconsciously grown to absolutely despise any sort of helplessness and lack of control over his own body). So he most likely will be the most questionable "redeemed" dark urge.

#original character #oc #durge oc #durge #bg3 dark urge #dark urge #tiefling

[the-midnight-blooms]

I Know It's Over

pairing: park seonghwa x reader

AU: historical au, war period

word count: 3.7k

ATEEZ as angst tropes series:

Hongjoong | Seonghwa | Yunho | Yeosang | San | Mingi | Wooyoung | Jongho

Trope: Tragic Ending

When the news of the war came, she looked up at her lover who met her gaze- those once kind eyes full of love and adoration now brimming with social responsibility. They said nothing to each other. They didn’t need to, courtesy of the love that bloomed from childhood- spending their time talking to their night away so much that everything that was hers was his, everything that was his was hers-if not more. They did not hold a fragment of each other, but their whole entities.

From the moment the country looked to their leaders in anticipation as they spoke of their allies marching to war, everybody knew that at one point their lovers would be pushed in line marching with them. So, they held onto each other longer, savouring every word, every touch, kiss, moment, letter. Anything and everything that reminisced their very presence. The streets had gone quieter at night sometimes you could hear the faint jazz music playing, the flickering candles of the windowsills reflecting the fluid shadows that moved under the cover of the night, ever so gently-music in their feet. Yet, when the ladies at the dress shop had told her of the news, she dropped the dress in her hand and fled from the shop, heart pounding in her chest blood rushing through her veins. Launching up the steps, she stormed through the front door her husband, who was in the kitchen, with creased eyebrows rushed into the living room. She looked up at him and knew.

Knew that he wouldn't have hesitated one bit. That he had already gone and enlisted, he was probably the first man in line at the office. Curse his honour. Curse his patriotism. Curse his integrity. His hands cupped the sides of her cheeks as tears blurred her vision. Seonghwa knew that he didn't have to commit to his crime, that she already knew. That's why she had left from her work in the middle of the day; she never did that in the ten years she worked for them. Even on the day he proposed to her, he relived that day over and over again-the memory of it persisting in his head.

He consulted the old lady, Mrs Noe, the oldest dressmaker in town almost on his knees begging her to give her best dressmaker the day off.

"Why would I do that, boy? Get up you look foolish." she snapped. Hastily, Seonghwa got off his knees following the old lady to the back of the shop. His pleas were getting nowhere, "Especially at the busiest time of the year, it's wedding season boy. All the brides are frantic, unless you want to grab a tape measure and help us- leave." His heart fluttered at the word 'wedding', a blush creeping onto his face as he slumped onto the chair in her cramped office.

"I...I wish to propose to her." He whispered, just loud enough for Mrs Noe to hear him. The scrunched up look on her face had faltered, her lips uplifting into a wide smile. She giggled; the sound had him taken aback. Did she just giggle?

"Oh, you silly boy, why didn't you just start off with that? Of course, I’ll give her the day off. Only on one condition." Seonghwa perked up in his chair, brown eyes wide and attentive. "We design her wedding dress, and she must still work here after marriage." That's actually two. Regardless, Seonghwa did not care. Springing up from his seat, he placed a kiss on Mrs Noe's cheek, who angrily hmphed despite the small smile complacent on her lips. Though the happiness, only came from one party. When she arrived at the shop later that day and was informed by Mrs Noe that she wasn't needed tomorrow, hence had the day to herself a wave of sadness enveloped her. A tsunami of customers were making visits to the dressmaker's day after day, waving rolls of cash; and demands for bridal attire while the softness of the summer air lingered, with the sun beaming down at them even as the day travelled towards an end. An uneasy thought settled into her brain thinking that perhaps she was underperforming at work, what if her manager was beginning to disapprove of her work?

Her solemn mood had continued the next day, even when Seonghwa came to take her to their spot, a large oak tree that overlooked the meadows around fifteen minutes from her home. Though their clasped hands had sent a ripple of comfort flowing through him, he sensed the palpable dejection as she trudged towards the tree. As soon as they sat, the tears had burst from their banks; burying her head in his shoulder as she cried.

“I think I’m going to get sacked.” She wailed through her tears. “Mrs Noe gave me the day off and she never gives me the day off.” He couldn’t hold back his snicker, her head shot up from his shoulder, tears coming to a sudden stop with a look of fury plastered across her features.

“Are you laughing at me?” She inquired; the accusatory tone almost made him coo at her. She looked so cute, with furrowed eyebrows.

“Shouldn’t you be happy you have time off between the chaos of the shop?” She shook her head profusely.

“No, I’d rather have the job done once and for all and enjoy the quietness of the shop for about two months.” Gently, he tugged at her and she rested her head on his shoulder again, legs outstretched in front of them. “What if she sacks me, Hwa?” A small laugh escaped from his lips, the melody easing the panic in her soul.

“I don’t think so, Jagiya. She loves you too much for that.” She peered up at him beneath her lashes, catching the gentleness in eyes, the bridge of his long nose, the overturn of his soft, plump lips. “Forget about that for now. You’re overthinking.” For a while, they were pressed up against each other- his arm draped around her waist the red velvet ring box protruding in his left pocket.

“Do you ever think of a future with us?” She blurted; her voice carried away by the wind that came to caress them. In that moment he wanted to do nothing more than to kiss her as his fingers reached for his pocket. Surely, she wanted a future for them both too, right?

“Every day. Every moment, every second my heart beats I think about how lonely I feel without you.” Suddenly her head got up from his shoulder, craning to meet his gaze. “How much I find myself unable to do so much as breath, when you’re not there but when you’re next to me I can’t think.”

“Hwa-,” she breathed, she drew closer to him until their foreheads touched.

“Please. Be mine. Be my wife.” He begged, his hands travelled to his pocket, pulling out the ring. This time a sob escaped from her lips once more but one built from gaiety when he broke the burning question, “Will you marry me?” violently she shook her head, yes, slipping the ring onto her finger. Flinging her arms around his neck they held onto each other so tightly then as if they were afraid that they would be torn apart by natural forces forced to live a life of solitude.

It was anger, pride and discontent that was wedging a gap between them. The pride of the selfish leaders that ruled countries, manifesting wars creating weapons to flaunt their strength and brutality. But what was the point of such strength if all it did was kill each other and tear a mother away from her child? A husband away from his wife?

Seonghwa noticed how his wife did not cry during the last few weeks he had before he left for the military. Instead, she had that beautiful smile plastered amongst her lips tending to his every little need. Uncharacteristically, she began to reduce her hours at the shop besides at this point nobody wanted those fancy dresses anymore, not since nobody knew when they’d get the chance to wear them again. Instead, the government had requested the tailors to start designing and sewing as many military uniforms as they could. She spent most of week running beige polyester under the sewing machine, her hands gliding over the fabric but lacking the passion she once had for her work. It pained her that soon her husband would be wearing one of these uniforms. A majority of the time when they were both at home, they were glued to each other’s side: cooking together, cleaning together but often in silence. There was no conversation to be had anymore as she knew that if she opened her mouth, she’d submit him to her vulnerability which was the last thing she wanted to do. Even the day, his gorgeous black locks had been snipped away at the hairdressers, she bit her lip and kissed his cheek. Seonghwa felt his own tears forming as he caught his reflection in the barber’s mirror. He held it together, still. What a pitiful thing for a grown man to want to cry over.

She lay awake later that night, staring blankly at the ceiling as the moonlight streamed in through the slit in the curtains beaming down at his resting body. He looked so ethereal, her hands moving to trace the outline of his structured nose and jawline relishing the way his skin felt smooth to the touch. Would it feel this way after the war?

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping, dear? Long day for us tomorrow.” His groggy voice pausing her movements, clutching her hand against his cheeks she shifted closer towards him the warmth radiating of his body comforting her.

“Do you have to go?” her voice quivered, at once betraying her pent-up sobriety.

“You know I have to, my love. My country is very dear to me.”

“Dearer than I?”

“No” he blurted, without thinking. How could she suggest such a thing? The last few weeks he had spent trying to come to terms with the fact that he’d had to leave her- without ever knowing when he was going to return. For the first time, since his enlistment she sobbed. She didn’t care anymore, she just wanted him as selfish as she seemed she wanted him for eternity. Sinking her head into his chest, his fingers ran through her hair as she clutched onto his shirt as tight as she could. As if that would stop him from leaving, as if that would decapitate his morality and everything he stood for. Their lips found each other in the midst of all their hurt, passion flooding through them. All their love, adoration, affection poured through them that night as they remained within each other’s arms unable and unwilling to let each other ago from the comfort of their hold.

A whiff of steam evaporated into the cold winter air that eerie morning, as the station bustled with the intense movement of soldiers moving to the train. With clasped hands, they inched forward, the pummelling of their hearts in sync as he stopped in his tracks turning, no longer a mile but a mere two metres away from the train. His arm wrapped around her waist pulling her towards him, pressing his lips to her forehead, nose then lips- the same systematic order he always kissed her.

“You’ll write to me, won’t you?” He muttered and she nodded. “Everyday?” she scoffed.

“Maybe not every day, but I’ll write an account of everything I did each day in a week.” She joked, a fond look on both their faces. A comfortable silence held among them, interrupted by the whistling of the train and uproar of the noise by the men running to catch the train before it was too late. “Come back to me, Hwa. As soon as you can, you must come back. Promise me.”

“I promise. I’ll come back, no matter how broken I am. You own every last part of me, complete or incomplete.” He beckoned, pushing his lips against hers for God knows if it was the last time. The crowd pushed against them, and Seonghwa pulled away, their hands gliding over each other their fingertips touching last as he ambled towards the train. Her body glued to the ground watched the train set off, knowing that even though she couldn’t see him he was watching her through the window, only God knew when they’d meet again.

My love, my life, my heart,

For everyday I’m here, my nights are filled with dreams that I am at home holding you in my arms as that song you love plays. It’s a dream that’s both euphoric and painful for me and I know with each passing day you ponder when I will be home again, I wonder all the same. However, good things come to those who wait. It’s significantly quieter out here at the front and rumour has it that the general says that some soldiers may be able to return home. We listen to the news on the radio every night, as those pesky politicians fill us with promises of the war ending soon. (The war was supposed to end three months ago and we’re still here.) Then there’s that burning question I know you’ll ask. When is soon? I don’t know my love, but we’ll wait all the same.

I hope you’re taking care of yourself; I want both you and my little Park to be as strong as he (or she) can be.

All my love,

Seonghwa

My dearest Seonghwa,

Though I am growing impatient by the day, you’re right: good things do come to those who wait. A customer at Mrs Noe’s last week told us that her husband, who works in defence, suggests that the war will come to a close. Many of the countries are forging alliances now, and the enemy state seems to be losing traction with the leader gone and substantial lack of funding. Hopefully that means good for us! I hope you’re eating well and keeping warm as the nights grow even colder than before. The last thing we need is you falling ill.

Yes, I am eating well, little Park is making sure of that. He has a big appetite much like his father. I miss you more and more. Please come back to me. Come back to us.

Your love.

My heart,

Just two more weeks my love, just two more. It’s been a while since our last letter, I trust it’s little Park exhausting you. That little bugger. I cannot wait to hold him in my arms when I come home. Two more weeks then it’s just the three of us, nothing can tear us apart then. Remember my comrades, San and Mingi I was telling you about? Those arseholes get to leave in about a week and they won’t stop going on about it. How jealous I am, I tried to put in a request to leave early but no can do. There are so many things that I wish to say, but I can’t write them. I have to look at you, even as I close my eyes now the words rush to my head at thought of you but disappear when I reopen them. So let’s wait two more weeks my dear, and hold each other again like we did long ago.

All my love,

Seonghwa

“Comrade Park?” His head snapped up from his book, catching the eyes of his superior. Ditching his book on his bunk, he stood up from his seat standing up as straight as he could. “It’s ok boy, sit back down.” Hesitantly, Seonghwa sat back down, the lieutenant positioning himself next to him. A silence flooded between them; he wondered what the lieutenant had travelled all the way to their camp for. It had to be more than to take a seat on his bed. An anxiety fulfilled him as his mind suggested that there were still a few more things to do at the front.

“We need a few men to volunteer themselves to go up North for about three days. There’s been sightings of a rebel group, a common enemy that both we and our former enemy share.” He paused; a breath hitched in his throat.

“I’m sorry I cannot sir. There’s not long left until I am discharged and I have a wife and child waiting for me back home. I wasn’t there during my child’s birth to begin with. I think I’ve stayed away from home long enough.” he declared; it was true he had enough of this measly war. He did not care if the superiors praised him for his determination on the battlefield and war strategy. His military service proved his capabilities beyond the job in the mundane office he had once worked at.

“I understand, but it’s only three days. There will be no combat, think of it like going on a camping trip-,”

“With all due respect sir, that’s what they had said to us to get us to enlist. It will be fun, a game, a ‘camping trip’, and this has been nothing more than hell on the face of the earth.” He mourned the empty bunk next to him, of Comrade Kang, a college professor who despite his timid appearance had great strength and shared Seonghwa’s capacity for strategy on the field. He lost that man in the front line; he took his last breath in Seonghwa’s arms-the sound of his coarse breath engraved in his memory.

“You’ll get to leave for home early. How long do you have comrade? A week and a half? Say three days more and you’re done. You can kiss this camp goodbye and see me in six months at San’s wedding.” A deep sigh had escaped from Seonghwa’s lips, the notion of leaving the safety of the camp resisted within him for a few moments before he reluctantly agreed. The lieutenant lightly cheered, patting him on the back before turning on his heel.

Three days my dear.

“Sanghoon!” a bellowing voice echoed throughout the home, followed by the eruption of high-pitched giggles. “Get down from there otherwise just you wait until your appa gets home.” Slumped on the sofa beside him, she picked up her child in her arms, ignoring his soft whines as he nestled within her embrace.

Park Sanghoon, she had named him. Meaning benevolent and rank, as when she first saw him-it was if she was looking into the face of her lover. Everything about him was his father, from his eyes and lips to his kindness and maturity. He had been her rock, his laughter lightening the home in moments where she missed Seonghwa so much. He was due to be home soon, counting down the days in her head until she’d see her lover again. Rocking Sanghoon back and forth in her seat, she gently settled him down once his wide brown eyes had fluttered to a close.

The knock on the door had seized her attention, a quick glance at the clock as she pondered who it could be. Swinging the door open to reveal a man, with broad shoulders, high cheekbones and crescent eyes staring down at her- the loitering despair sending a pang of anxiety through her.

“Mrs Park?” A slow, single nod rocked her brain. “I’m Choi San, I fought alongside your husband in the military, perhaps he spoke of me.” A small smile crept on her lips as she recounted the things Seonghwa said about San. How kind he was, initially intimidating due to his perceived strength but on the inside had a heart of gold.

“Ah of course! What’s wrong, San? Why don’t you come in?” Stepping to the side to allow him entrance, San remained fixed outside her porch.

“I’m sorry Mrs Park.” Looking into his tear-filled eyes, a shock of realisation pounded through her. Please no, please no, please no. Let this all be a sick, sick joke. “Seonghwa, he-,” an obnoxious wave of sobbing eructed form her, she sunk to the ground-her whole world sinking beneath her feet dragging her under but not six feet under with him. Not to the other life with him.

You promised, Park Seonghwa. Anger seething through her, he promised. He said he’d come back to her. She stood by the doorway, endlessly sobbing San bowing his head as he bit onto his lip- refusing to let the tears pour from his own eyes. While the whole street listened in solicitude, the wives had their husbands return home to them- her pain had only transcended few barriers in their hearts.

Their husbands had returned back to them, but Seonghwa had not returned back to her. Taken by his country, the one he sold his soul for.

Come back to me, please.

Sanghoon’s father,

I can no longer sit by the door waiting for your arrival because I know better than to expect to you walking through it. I know it’s over. Yet my heart wavers in anticipation as some stupid delusion fulfils me that you’ll come back home, and I’ll run into your open arms. Your broken promises fill me with dread, for what was once “two more weeks” is now an eternity until God returns me to your side. How ruthless can you be to me, to leave me with the responsibility of taking care of your child. One who wholly embodies you. Every day he looks more and more like you, and I think about how much you would adore him if you were here. I couldn’t go to San’s wedding, a cowardice I am for not wanting to watch a love that bloomed over ours being shot stone cold dead. Could you blame me, my dear?

Every week, I take Sanghoon to our spot by the meadows but it seems to be inhibited by a young couple. He snatches the book from her hands and lifts it above her head knowing that she won’t be able to reach. He is so much like you and she, like me. I just hope the war doesn’t snatch him away from her. There is no war now, there will be no war now. I’m angry at you, but no amount of anger will bring you back to hear my scolding. How cruel of you to leave me. So, count the days now, until I return to your side since you couldn’t return to mine. Now you must suffer and wait for me, while I live out the rest of my days in my cold and empty heart.

Your lover, your dearest.

•••

All Right Reserved © the-midnight-blooms DO NOT REPOST, TRANSLATE, REPURPOSE, OR PLAGISRISE ANY OF THE WORK HERE

AN:/ my first fic! I also wrote this during a terrible cold, and published before the yunho fic I had lined up. (I also have exams coming up but we'll ignore that for now-blame my creative inspiration for coming at the wrong time), please leave feedback if you can!

#park seonghwa #seonghwa #seonghwa x reader #seonghwa x you #historical au #ateez #ateez fanfiction #ateez angst #kpop #ateez imagines #ateez x reader #angst #heavy angst

[lazydoodlesandfanfic]

Surprise Visit Pt 2 (Thor X Son!Reader)

Characters: Thor Odinson X Son!Reader

Universe: Marvel, Avengers

Warnings: None

Pt 1

Request: Hi, I'm just finish Poco's udon world, and right of the batch I thought what if Poco is Thor's son, Poco has some of his feature too and I remember your fic Surprise Visit. Can you please do a Part 2 of it?🥺 reader is like Thor but he quite shy and always bring with books that his mother read before bed they bonding by activities together Thor bring him to Asgard to meet his grandparents Loki read them books, tell them stories, show and teach them magic (Harry Potter) with Freyaa and all fluff❤

The first few days after finally meeting your dad had been awkward to say the least. You were spending almost every waking moment either with him, or your uncle. You had expected that Loki would be a lot more awkward with you- or straight up wouldn’t like you from the get go, but it ended up being kind of the opposite. Thor had been a bit too eager from the get go to play the fatherly role, and you found it unnerving, and when Thor realised that (with help from Clint and Steve pointing it out for him) he backed up and started to just try and get to know you, your interests, your dislikes, and take things a little slower. Loki, on the other hand, was nowhere near as pushy, gave you space, and didn’t force conversation on to you. Eventually though, you ended up finding something to bond with Loki over; Books. 

You had been interested in the books he read, even if you couldn’t read the language, and worked up the courage to ask him about it, and after an explanation, he asked what kind of books you liked, and it was a start of an actual long and meaningful conversation. Loki took that, and hinted that Thor should look into those books. The next day, Thor showed up to your room with a pile of books in his arms and a grin on his face. 

Things since then had got a lot better between you and your dad. Instead of forcing it, or acting the part for the sake of it, Thor had naturally fallen into the father role that made it a comfortable change for you. Thor had little interest in books, but you had the ritual with him now of him buying a book for you, you read it, and after every chapter, you give him a rundown of what happened in detail, and you’d discuss it. You’d opened up a bit with him over the weeks, about what your life was like growing up with mum, holidays, key memories for you, and the rituals you two had- including reading books before bed together, which was where your love for books came from. Thor soon got you some of the books you mentioned, so you could do it with him. You got into a nice rhythm of living with and being around your dad and uncle, to the point where you were expecting it when an advancement was suggested. 

“How do you feel about going to Asgard with Loki and I, tomorrow?” Thor asked, as you were tidying up after another late night discussion about a book you had been reading- this one actually a recommendation from your Uncle Loki. You stopped what you were doing, and looked over at Thor, who waited patiently. 

“Uh… sure. Okay.” You agreed hesitantly, and immediately his face lit up. You had long guessed this conversation would happen, so you had time to prepare for it, though you knew that was actually impossible. What could prepare you for going to the land of gods- where you know you didn’t belong, even if Thor was your father? “Do… Do they know about me?” You asked cautiously. 

“Of course!” He immediately answered. “As soon as I returned to Agard after we met, I told mother and father about you, and my friends! I wanted to tell the entire kingdom, but mother- your grandmother, insisted we wait till you met them all first before telling the rest of Asgard. Freya, your grandmother, is the most eager to meet you.” He gushed to you. You’d heard a lot about your grandparents through both Thor and Loki. Admittedly, Thor was the only one who talked about Odin, and while Loki didn’t talk much about them, when he did, it was always about Freya, about how she was also a bit of a bookworm, and how she taught him magic.

You got up early the next morning, mostly due to struggling to sleep from the anticipation, and you didn’t have to wait for either your dad or uncle to be ready either, though you couldn’t tell if it was due to excitement or nerves, or maybe they were both feeling those things- your dad the excitement, and Loki the nerves. It didn’t help that your dad was a raving optimist, and your uncle was a pessimist, so you couldn’t tell who was feeling the right way, so you just adopted a bit of each of their emotions. Cautiously excited.

You honestly wasn’t sure what to expect when you actually got there, or even the process of getting there in the first place, but as soon as you left the Bifrost, you were in awe. Sure, they had told you all about Asguard- the rainbow path that led to it, the great kingdom, the beauty of it all, but none of that was in comparison to what you were actually seeing. You remained in stunned silence the entire walk up the bridge, actually entering into Asguard, past the several hundred people who came to welcome them back and ask about you, up until your father actually called for you, after seeing you distracted by something else further away. You turned, seeing several people stood with your father and uncle, looking at you smiling. “Y/N, these are my friends, Fandrall, Hogun, Volstagg, and Sif.” Your father introduced you.

“So this is the little prince?” Sif questioned with a smile. 

“Little? Thor, you said he was a boy! Give it a few years and he’ll be ready to be king!” Volstagg laughed, though the mention of such a role made you look at Loki quickly, and then your dad. 

“He is a boy! The very idea of being king is still a long way away- you make it sound like he’ll outlive me.” Thor defended. 

“Speaking of Kings.” Loki spoke up, placing  hand on Thor’s shoulder. 

“Right! Haven’t had the chance to introduce him to the rest of his family. We’ll pick this up later, promise.” Thor told them motioning you over, and guiding you deeper into the kingdom, down several expansive corridors, before you turned a corner, and spotted a group of women talking in the hallway ahead, and your father and uncle stopped. “Loki, stay here with Y/N.” Thor requested, before going towards the group, and you looked up at Loki confused, who patted you on the shoulder. You watched as your father approached the group, made some small talk, before all the women except one left down another hallway, and Thor stepped to the side, motioning the woman towards you and Loki, and you realised who she must be. Freya. Your grandmother. 

As soon as she saw you properly, she smiled warmly, hands clasped and pressed against her chest with excitement, and any fear you had- fear of not being liked, or not meeting their standards, of being a disappointment, being looked down on for being half human- it all faded. You could feel the love and acceptance radiating off the woman as she reached out her hands, and took your own. “Y/N, words cannot describe the absolute joy I feel to finally be in your presence finally after all of Thor’s descriptions.” Freya told you, gently squeezing your hands, and you couldn’t help but smile too. 

“I’ve heard so many wonderful things about you too from dad and uncle Loki.” You told her, and her smile grew, before she pulled you closer and wrapped an arm around you. 

“Thor- Loki, go tell your father that you’re here with Y/N- I’ll give Y/N a tour of the palace- we’ll be in the library when you’re done. We have a lot to talk about.” Freya decided, already walking away with you, and you didn’t fight it, leaving with her. 

Thor and Loki did as ordered, finding their father, letting them know they’d also brought you, and after a bit of back and forth questioning where exactly you were, and Loki explaining their mother had already stolen you away herself, and Odin simply sighed, and got up to follow his sons to head to the Library. 

By the time they met back up with you and Freya, you and her were already getting along like a house on fire- she’d asked about your mother, her health, your childhood, her own expieriences that related when raising Thor and Loki, and when she heard about your little tradition with Thor with books, she picked out a book for you to take home to read, and to keep. You felt comfortable enough with her to ask about Loki and Odin’s relationship, the comment Thor’s friends made about being King one day and how you weren’t big on the idea, and also how according to how your dad and Loki talked about Odin, you were much more worried about meeting him than her. Freya had answers your questions, reassured you of your worries, and promised Odin would be on his best behaviour, and she helped your first meeting with Odin a lot from the get go. 

As soon as Freya saw her husband, she stood first, smiling. “Odin, thank you for joining us. I was just about to ask Y/N if they’d like a private family dinner. What do you think?” Freya asked him, wrapping an arm around you again, and you smiled nervously at your grandfather, who was a lot more intimidating than you had anticipated. Odin didn’t talk at first, stepping a little closer, and you panicked internally, not knowing what to do, if you were supposed to do something- but Freya had kept her arm around you, gently rubbing your arm in reassurance. 

“That can certainly be arranged. It’ll let us get to know our grandson. Thor, will you come with me to make the arrangements?” He asked, of his oldest, who nodded. “See you at dinner, Y/N.” He told you, before making his leave, Thor smiling at you, before following after him. 

“In the meantime.” Freya spoke up once the two were quite a distance away. “Y/N, want to learn some magic?” She asked. 

“Mother, I don’t know about that…” Loki fussed. 

“Just beginning spells, nothing serious… we’ll save that for later. Maybe you could mentor Y/N as well when back on Midgard.” She suggested, and you realised that maybe, just maybe… Loki got some of his mischief from his mother. 

“Am I able to do magic? Since I’m half human?” You questioned. 

“I believe so, it’s worth a try. You coming Loki?” Freya questioned her son, who simply sighed, and followed after, deciding to be apart of his mother’s antics, knowing that Thor might lose his mind when he finds out about this. 

Hope you like it! If you have any questions, please send them in!

*Not my Gif

TAGS: @insanityismysanity12345 @klanceiscannon14 @marvelhoeingismyhobby @bellamyblakemorley @dummiesshort  @freyathehuntress @abbybills22-blog @mutantjediavenger @theoraekensnotsosecretlover @alicedanganh @sleutherclaw @sleepy-coffee-bean @stawwpp @rebellionofthecattle @hello-love-youre-pretty @werosemagic @courtneychicken  @graysonmalfoy @bellero @originalpottervengerlock @supernatural-pan @esoltis280 @lady-of-lies @lenaswritingandstuff @macbetheliza @mandywholock1980 @cdwmtjb8 @caswinchester2000 @determinedpines @huntheimpossible @automaticbakeryfreakshoe

#Marvel #Avengers #Thor #Thor Odinson #Loki #Loki laufeyson #freya #Odin #thor x reader #thor x male!reader #thor x son!reader #loki x reader #loki x male!reader #loki x nephew!reader #x reader #x male!reader #x son!reader #x nephew!reader #reader #male!reader #son!reader #nephew!reader #oneshot #writing #story writing #question #ask me anything #one shot #send me questions #send me asks

[akiizayoi4869]

The Southern Raiders

Been meaning to make my own post about this episode for a while now, so hear it is. The main thing I hear about this episode is that Aang didn't understand Katara's pain at all but Zuko did. The notion that a genocide survivor doesn't understand another genocide survivor is certainly one hell of a take, and it's very stupid. Are we really going to forget the air nomad genocide?

Aang lost EVERYTHING because of the war. And to make it worse? He feels guilty because he wasn't there to stop it from happening (even though he wouldn't be able to do much since he hadn't mastered the four elements yet) because he ran away from his duties as the avatar. When Aang finds Monk Gyatso's body in the Southern Air Temple episode, he's overcome with so much grief and anger that he triggers the avatar state:

Katara herself even compares what she's been through to what Aang was feeling in this moment by saying "I know how hard it is to lose the people you love! I went through the same thing when I lost my mom." Certainly sounds like two people who understand each other perfectly if you ask me. Also, in the Lost Adventures comics, we're shown that the Fire Nation used a dirty tactic to smoke out any other airbenders that might have escaped from the genocide.

We see how happy Aang was to learn that some airbenders may have survived, only to find out that it was all a lie to capture any remaining survivors. At the end of the comic he looks disappointed and crushed knowing that the possibility that air nomads fell for this trick and were killed as a result.

A lot of people take Katara saying "I knew you wouldn't understand" to Aang as her saying that he doesn't understand her pain, but if you actually look at the context? That's not what she's saying at all. What she means is that she knew that Aang wouldn't understand her need for VENGEANCE. For her desire to kill her mother's killer. Because Aang was taught that revenge isn't the answer. Even though Aang absolutely understands how she felt, something that he says himself:

In both of those moments he felt extreme anger and hatred, both strong negative feelings that would have caused him to lash out and do something that he would regret later on. Who stops him in both cases? Katara. She calms him down (and can I just say that I think it's really poetic that in this specific episode, Aang's words are what calms Katara down in the end, and is why she decided to spare Yohn Rha?) in his moments of rage, something that he's grateful for.

Another argument that I've seen is that Zuko understands her pain more than Aang because he also lost his mother. While I can see why people make this comparison, those are two entirely different situations. Ursa was banished because she protected Zuko from being killed when he was a child. Which means that she's still alive (as we later find out from those horrible comics). Kya, on the other hand, was KILLED because she protected Katara by saying that she was the waterbender that they were looking for. This happened in a genocidal raid by the Fire Nation. Safe to say that Zuko can never understand what that feels.

Also, it's pretty crazy to me how people can say that Aang was wrong in this episode, when Zuko HIMSELF says that Aang was actually right, and that what Katara needed in the end was revenge. Aang knows Katara a lot better than Zuko does, and he knows that killing the man who killed her mom would have absolutely destroyed Katara because of the kind of person she is. Just like Aang remembering how he killed all of those Fire Nation soldiers in the North Pole while he was in the avatar state and being controlled by his past lives and the ocean spirit caused him to have nightmares and be terrified of what the avatar state can do. Both of them are alike in that regard. The closest thing I can say that Zuko understands about Katara is her anger. Boy spent 3 seasons being angry so he definitely understands that. But other than that? He doesn't understand her, which is to be expected since he just joined them a few episodes ago, and spent a whole year chasing them and trying to capture Aang. So he's just started getting to really know everyone on a personal level. In conclusion, Aang did indeed understand Katara, and his words were exactly what she needed to hear.

#atla #aang #katara #zuko #atla meta #the southern raiders

[see-arcane]

Blood of My Blood: Never Loved

One more Blood of My Blood cinderblock for you @ibrithir-was-here and @animate-mush. Put on your most dramatic breakup song playlist.

Summary: Castle Dracula is abandoned. By son, by subjects, by its Master. The latter finds himself dwelling in the dirt and dark as he waits to strike the English shore once again. Thinking on traitors and thieves. And on his dear friend, who makes him bleed still into the grave earth.

Warnings for: Violence, coercion with and without hypnotism, and domestic abuse.

He woke with a draining ache behind his eyes. A worse one in his chest.

The surprise had gone out of this nights ago. Anger rushed over the sensation like a balm. More, he rushed toward anger. Spurred it, stretched it, wrapped it around himself like a gossamer membrane. It would thicken as the night wore on and his mind roamed its new gamut of bile and rage, snapping at itself until the sky overhead should have roiled in time with his internal tempest. But no. Only favorable winds here. Not that such winds were wholly necessary now. He and his grave earth rode a ship without sails. How fast the mortal mites and their innovations worked in this age.

Jonathan had spoken of traveling by one. An idle comment in their talks of England. One of many. The travel, the choice of estate, the precautions needed to counter the possibility of a second attempt to thwart the setting down of roots. Always in that measured way. Always with the mien of one laying out itinerary rather than laying the foundations of an invasion. Always looking his Master in the eye. Always with that sad grey shade in his pallor, the face of a man who hates his work and knows the alternative is worse.

Poor villain against his will. Poor martyr. Poor Jonathan.

Thunder grumbled high overhead. He heard voices through his box, warm bodies exclaiming and jumping. One of them was close. There was a spiced whiff of cigar smoke. A cheap odor.

Not like the ones you gave him. He dropped so many vices after the boy was born. Smoke and drink vanished from his lips overnight. Just in case they might have tainted him somehow. Spoiled the blood. You told him it was nonsense. Even she did. But he would not have it. Not until this year. He used his allowance for one single box of cigars; cheap, like the ones he’d had back in his shriveled nothing-life in Exeter. You caught him at it in January. Within the month he found the little box gone, replaced by a pack of Romeo y Julietas. One, maybe two a month since then. And what did he say when you asked him why? Why return to the habit now?

“Almost time,” he’d said. That’s all. “Almost time.”

He had pressed Jonathan on it. Oh, gently, gently. Barely a nudge of the mesmer; because he’d thought he already knew.

Jonathan had looked at him through the coiling smoke with those dead starlit eyes. The same glowing shade of the ghost-light on St. George’s Eve. And he had simply raised his hand to his chest, rubbing the place over his heart as if there were still a crucifix to wear there. Worry and sorrow had rolled off him like cologne.

“I may as well, Sir. I think I am saying good-bye to it this year. In whatever way.”

And oh! Oh, what an idiot child he had been in that instant! Later that night he had laughed aloud at himself. He had actually felt a pang of fear. Had even strained his ears to be sure of his friend’s heartbeat. It had drummed steadily enough, he thought. Mostly. Steady, but thin. Always thin, for the tide of his blood was necessarily fickle by his exsanguinations, but…

But you did not know for certain if there was some threshold near to being crossed. You’d never had a case like Jonathan Harker before you. Not even to experiment with. Why bother? You never thought in terms of keeping a single body as your reservoir when you were content to either starve or glut yourself at random. No one like Jonathan existed to you until he offered himself up as the living meal to you and two other hungry mouths for twenty years. And, childish thought, you’d wondered if he could do thirty. Longer. However long the charade could last before the inevitable came and you bled yourself back into him, feeding him from your heart’s blood to end the game of humanity and lock him in your thrall. And then, finally, you would get to see him drink. Master’s orders, my friend. Gorge yourself.

But that presupposed there would be no issue come the time of turning.

That this state, the ghoulish and gauntly haunting form that existed on the line between life and death, was not itself a spoiling factor in the process. Would the rules change if he died as this creature? Would he rise at all? If he did, would he be a Vampire or something else? Something still beholden to his Master only because he was chained by love and not the unshakable tether of being sired into undeath?

He did not know.

Having acknowledged that he did not know, he had almost ripped the cigar from his friend’s mouth so that he might force the man to drink from his veins that second.

Jonathan had seemed to read this in him. He tapped his ash into the tray with something very nearly like a smile.

“No, Sir. Not now. There is every chance I could be wrong. Perhaps it’s age alone whispering to me. Many men start to dwell on these things once they reach the 40-year mark. So I was always led to assume. For myself, I remain shocked that I have lived this long in the first place. I only feel as if there is now a clock ticking somewhere in all this. That it will end before the year is out because…”

He had paused to puff and shrug.

“…because it must end. Either because this state is finally preparing to collapse or because, with three adults to feed, I have begun to deplete too much to sustain the meals and myself.”

It was true. The boy was now a boy only in feeling. Somehow the calendars had piled up and the child was now a young man. Careful with his Papa—and no, even now he did not envy the boy learning his Lesson from his mother the night his adolescent hunger had slipped too far and left the man as pallid as his hair—but still taking more than he ever had in his boyhood. He and his mother had agreed in silence to feed a little less, alternating on their meals each feeding. Even he had stopped short of a full draught more than once. And it was not enough.

Still, Jonathan had been unperturbed. His Master had thought little of that calm. Time had not broken so much as smoothed him. An unfinished stone sanded and shined by a waterfall’s endless pressure until what had been his nightmare was reduced to mundanity. Ah, he woke to the New Year feeling that death was imminent? Hmm. A shame. May as well enjoy a smoke first.

Months passed since that scene. Though his blood did not change, his mien did. Each turn of the calendar’s pages brought some unknown weight down heavier and heavier on him. Distraction drew his attention away, his ghost-light eyes blazed like warning flares in the dark sockets, he lost himself for minutes or hours at a time at the desk, and once, in the far end of March, his Master had caught him weeping silently while eating. A tear would roll every few bites. Savoring and saying farewell at once.

Whether this unknown mortal clock really was ticking or not, his friend believed in it. Felt it was real enough to say his good-byes to human sensation. Such a fuss, his Master had thought. Tried to think.

You did try. Truly, painfully, you tried to make yourself laugh. Jeer. Hold to certainty and joy at the approaching finality. Humanity shed to give your friend his stalled eternity. Still, you caught yourself worrying. Wondering. What if something went wrong? What if something was wrong already? What if, ha, he was making plans to short you at the last? What if he had made plans with some conspirator in the towns to pierce his heart and take his head? What if the turning somehow did not take at all? What if, what if, what if?

What if indeed. You fretted so much over those months, old devil. You worried about every little thing that might go wrong before you made your move. Before you ended the game and took your prize and burned the nuisance of mortality on the pyre it deserved two decades ago. 

The prize you never thought was waiting at the end of someone else’s long game.

He made a noise into the soil. A coughing bark of a laugh. Out in the cargo hold, the smoker stirred.

“Hello? You down here, Mikhail?” He leaked himself out of the box. Fog to flesh. The smoker squinted in the half-gloom, coming closer. “Hello?”

“Hello,” he echoed. The smoker swung around to face him. There was not much to face, as he stood still in shadow. He watched the man’s brow furrow. Trying to squint his way toward recognition.

“Who are you? One of Arnold’s new boys?”

“No,” he answered, stepping into the glow of the man’s lighter. The squint turned to a gawking mask of horror bordering on disgust.

“Jesus,” came out in a gasp that reeked of cheap smoke. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Trouble at home,” he admitted with a flash of teeth. Within a blink, he was tearing into the man’s throat. He inhaled blood and cigar fumes until he was iron-grey, until he was at his prime, until he was a youth. Hating the taste with every gulp. Unable to glut himself further, he sighed and twisted the man’s head off. The heart he tore out with more relish than he preferred to admit. He crushed all three pieces of the body as if crumpling paper and did not rise to the deck until he sensed it was unoccupied. Up he went, tossing the balled up remains into the waves. “My thanks,” he whispered after it.

The corpse had provided him with something like a lackluster disguise. A jacket to match the rest of the seafarers.’ He hoped the sight of it might let him go unbothered on deck. Though it was an easier thing to simply slip back down to the cargo’s shade, he wanted the openness of the night and the sympathetic frown of the moon peeking through the clearing clouds. He looked up to it now the way a drunken man sulked up to his barman. A barman who had waned a few phases since he was last seen.

The moon had been so full the last time he saw Jonathan. Rather, times.

Once while alive. The other…

“Which one are you, then?” Swallowing a curse, he slid his gaze to his right. A man with a flask stood there, pausing mid-sip to scrutinize him. His lip curled as he gestured with the liquor. “Who said you could have hair like that and work a vessel, eh?” He did not pause for an answer before shaking his head and taking a full drink. “Arnold’s getting sloppy if he’s hiring from…from…” A cloud of hazy concentration came and went on the ruddy face. “What? The Nordics? The Slavs? One of those lots with hair to their knees.”

He did not answer. Only looked again to the moon. He imagined the wedge of it gazed back at him with apology. The man blundered forward a step, reaching to take him by the shoulder.

“I’m talking to you, boy—,” A callused hand passed through his shoulder like mist. For it was. The flask made a tinny sloshing sound as it struck the deck. “Oh.” It was a small sound. The frightened moan of a child in a rancid dream. Feeling the moment warranted it, he turned his young man’s head to fully face the man. Letting him see the maimed display of the left eye. The dried maroon crust that streaked his cheeks. The man made another noise, even reedier. “Oh, Christ. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Arnold never said anyone died on this one. It’s too new, he said.” His throat worked like a thin tangle of pulleys. Bloodshot eyes bulged. “The Persephone’s only been on the water three years and no one’s ever…”

“Newness is no guarantee against death any more than age is a guarantee against foolishness,” he grated out.

“Right. Right, of course, apologies. I’ll just—I’ll just—,” the man didn’t seem to know what he’d ‘just’ for several tediously agonized seconds. But, between the drink and the rarity of the moment—How often did one cross paths with a spirit, after all?—his feet remained anchored. Then, “…How did you die?”

Of idiocy. Here and now. Requiescat in pace.

“I was betrayed. Over a woman.” Sour needles pricked along his throat. “Over a child. The years made me blind. Soft. Comfortable. So certain that all was in order, that I held everything in my hands. But I lived among thieves without knowing it. I woke one night to find all that was mine was gone, stolen, and the one I had handed my heart threw it away as though it were the sole piece of filth that could not be bothered with. And then…” He gestured to the mark upon his face. His eye now a ball of blazing arterial red set in a spray of wild scarring from the lightning bolt. Even after a deep meal, he felt that the damage had scarcely receded. Had he not twisted in time, the blast would have struck him square through his skull.

The wretched woman had fine aim.

And that’s not all she has, is it?

“Sorry to hear it, son,” came from his right. The man had retrieved his flask again. It winked like tarnished silver in the moonlight. Though his face showed a bleary bafflement as to what exactly the manner of death could have been, he went on, “And here I figured the worst that could happen to a man at sea was drowning.”

“Terrible ends can happen anywhere. But if it saves you worry, I will not remain on this ship forever. I will disappear once it docks in England.”

“Reckon you’re off to haunt the bastard who did this to you?”

“Not yet. First I must go to my son, who they sent away all oblivious to their work. Then,” his hand drifted of its own accord to his chest, dipping under the hanging coat to feel at the lump in a high pocket. It sat cold and out of place there, like an elaborate little tumor. Touching it brought back the pain to his chest and eyes. “Then I shall see to the traitors.”

“Cannot say I envy them.” Another sip, nearing the bottom.

“Few would. They thought me a monster to slay together. But they have yet to meet the worst of me. For they grew comfortable too, seeing me docile, hospitable, giving them my home and my love and a thousand allowances that no other in my life has ever wrung from me. Yes, I will haunt them. I will hunt them. And I will deliver to them a recompense so much worse than death.” The man was trying again to drink from his flask and finding himself thwarted. “Empty?”

“Afraid so. Do you ever miss that, being dead? Getting to drink?”

“No. I still drink. But I am full for the evening.” He bared his teeth in a gleaming crescent. Some of the man’s crewmate still stained his fangs. He watched the man’s face abruptly lose all its tint. “I am glad you got to enjoy your own. It is a rarity not to face this part sober.”

So saying, he plunged his hand into the man’s chest. He twisted out the heart with the ease of one plucking a ripe apple from its bough. The man croaked out only a small noise at this. Nothing more than a damp little bleat, smothered by the steady roll of the waves. He was still gawking at his heart in one clawed hand while the other snared him and hurled him overboard. The sound of the splash was nothing. Sighing, he shrugged off the apparently useless jacket and cradled the heart in it to prevent a drip. Back to the cargo hold it was. Down to the dark and the dirt and—

He left it waiting for you. Even in the midst of all the confusion, the haste needed to get out, to be gone, he made sure to leave it right there in the sow’s coffin.

The cold lump shifted in its pocket.

He bit down a curse as his eyes stung, burned, boiled.

A roost was made in the furthest corner of the hold. The heart sat in his hands. Huge and dense with old smoke and liquor and fatty seaside meals. He’d lied to Jonathan before, about how certain consumed vices changed the blood’s quality. There was no alteration in what it fed, but the taste shifted. Between the crewmate he’d siphoned and the swollen muscle in his fingers, he realized he was indulging in the nearest thing he had to slovenly eating after a hard day. He took an experimental taste of a ventricle.

Immediately acrid. A rich and awful tang that ran to the back of his throat.

Nothing like the spigot that had flowed for him like careful clockwork for two decades. So meticulously tended by diet, by caution, by the vessel it sprang from. Twenty years of ambrosia meted out in scheduled mouthfuls and the occasional drop snuck between meals, as was his right.

“No, my friend, not the wrist. The boy would know someone was taking extra. And from his own plate! So to speak. Undo your collar, you know she will not complain…”

And Jonathan had. The brilliant eyes sliding away from his Master as he stole one, two, three, four or more little tastes from neck and shoulder, collarbone and breast. A single sip from each bite. He had not even winced. Not until Jonathan’s Master brought his mouth up to his face. Printing the blood there like a girl with her kiss’ lacquer. It had taken his Master’s hand around his jaw to make Jonathan turn and face the second one, pressed into his own lips. Eyes shut against the threat of a trance, mind fluttering frantically out and away.

He had let him then, back in those early nights. Always so shy, his Jonathan. Even after the whirlwind of that long-ago summer, the thresholds crossed and barriers erased for the sake of playing his Scheherazade, still he quailed from the gentler edges of his better. Hiding up in his head or in his Master’s teeth or under the flimsy shelter of his duties whether they were self-assigned or not. Anything to not accept what lurked and grew under the veneer of mere surrender to an enemy.

Had that too been a trick? Laying bait the way his Master had once drawn the hunting dogs back to his genius loci with the woman already tainted?

A Wolf did not chase if the prey did not run. And he did love to chase. To play. Up to a point. He had tried more than once to smother the overgrowing feeling in him as the years marched and his friend continued to drop his eyes and tense away from tenderness. When that failed, he told himself it did not matter. He owned his friend through the woman and their son, and whatever performance he sought—the rent owed to many a charitable landlord, really—could be ordered from him.

And he had ordered it.

In specific, he had, on a particularly maudlin night, ordered his friend to kiss him as he would her. He would know the difference. He’d leeched through her senses on occasion when they were, quote, ‘alone’ together. Sometimes he thought Jonathan even saw him staring out of her eyes. Or else the woman simply gave him away by some private sign or other. Whatever the case, Jonathan had never once withheld his love with her.

So, the order. Out of curiosity. Out of boredom. An order given without even a trance to smooth the act, just to see how he would muscle past the walls of indignity and a lover’s loyalty as he had back when he thought he had been charming for his life in their supple sabbatical once upon a time.

Instead, a magic trick.

Between one blink and the next, Jonathan had been the self he reserved for the woman. Even the smile kept for her had been there. A necessary prelude to the hands that bookended his Master’s face and pulled him level. Just like that, there were their mouths together. Not the press of a patient doll’s lips as its owner mashed themselves there in pantomime of intimacy. If he had not known better—

But Jonathan made sure he did. As soon as the kiss elapsed, he’d receded into himself. Less a tortoise into his shell than a closing fist praying not to be pried open lest the treasure in it be snatched away again.

“Was there anything else, Sir?” asked in the rug’s direction. Shame and a miserable whiff of apology yet-to-be had stamped him. He would throw himself into making amends to the woman, of course. Whether or not he wounded her with tattling on this little service, he would meet her with whatever kindnesses he could muster that were not already given. It was one of many moments in which he was convinced that his friend would give of himself until he was down to bones and then try with his last breath to gift someone his ribs. “Sir? Am I dismissed?”

He was not. All at once, his Master had a list of tasks for him to perform over the course of days. Weeks. Months. A year and more. And was that not where the mistake of it all had begun? The willing leap at addiction? Commanding his friend, his immaculate actor, his Scheherazade, into a hundred little indulgences. And not just in matters of sampling each other. Sometimes he would wring whole nights out of the man, without even the boy to perform for, trapping him by the fire or in a moonlit room or down in that half-secret glade by the stream where they played hunter and hunted and hid together from the walls of domesticity, spurring his friend into the easy and smiling talk of companions, of intimates, of…

Go on, old devil. You can admit it. Why not? What point is there in pretending he did not perform so well as to leave you reduced to this?

Fine.

Talk of those in love.

Yes, he had used the exact word. More than once.

Do this, do that, do any and all these things as if you loved me. Just as you do her.

And Jonathan had. Always with the bracing misery before and the shuddering withdrawal after. But he served his Master’s wants. He did so with such an ease that his Master had invented half the trap himself; he had convinced himself somewhere that he was giving his friend permission to do what he truly wished to do, freed from the yoke of duty and fealty to the woman, to his morals, to his sanity. Yes, that was it. He was giving his friend release. Lifting away the leaden weight of his beloved martyrdom and letting him know, yes, it was alright, he could want something other than what was ‘right’ or ‘good.’ What had such scruples brought him besides pain? God and humanity no longer had a place for him or his family or his love; that bottomless fount that had more to give than his veins ever would.

Here, my friend, I will take it. I will catch it all as it spills. Love me. Love and be happy. It’s alright.

The cold lump in his pocket felt heavy and frigid as a glacier on his chest. Scrubbing his hand clean on the jacket, he fished the hateful treasure out of its home and glared at it in his fingers.

A brooch the size of a dove’s egg. Antique gold ringing a garnet of such brilliance it might have been frozen claret. Splitting it was an ornate dragon, rampant, seeming to cling to the stone like the mythic hoards of legend. One of few mementos kept in his bedchamber from mortal days and nascent immortal nights that had gone sour in recalling their joy. He had taken it from its hiding place of velvet, shined it until it glowed, and, at the end of another race through their wilds, another capture, another victory drunk from the won throat…

“You have been here five years. Yet still I get word that you are not always recognized as being in my service.” This was fractionally true. At least in the sense that he knew there was a certain level of laxness that existed between Jonathan and a handful of those he did business with in the towns. Little mistakes or a dragging of feet on assorted exchanges and services that his friend would try to paper over with excuses on their behalf.

Once, only once, he had even tried to get away with hiding a newcomer’s attempt to swindle him outright. He had only seen a tourist of means with an Englishman’s lilt and tried to rob him over a new toy for the child and a novel for the woman. Jonathan had not pushed back, only gutted his allowance while the seller’s neighbors threw their shocked and silent looks. Perhaps that would have been the end of it but for Jonathan idly mentioning the encounter to the woman as they shared his bed post-feeding, thinking little of it. His Master, listening through her, had thought otherwise. Enough to find and inform the seller of his misstep personally. The next time Jonathan went to town he came back somewhat shamefaced with a burden of extra wares given ‘as a courtesy.’ The peasants were careful to point him out to new citizens ever-after.

All this in mind, Jonathan had looked at him oddly over the excuse.

“If that is the case, it has not hindered me in any way. The people have been nothing but gracious when I come through.” Gracious and afraid, he knew not to say. His Master had shooed the words away like flies.

“You remain ever lenient, my friend. You would apologize to the wheels of a carriage as they ran you over. It is for your own good that you must wear this, lest you and your goodwill are trampled by the opportunists among the chattel.” Out had come the brooch. “You will have this visible at all times. Be it to clasp on your coat or wear at your throat. Do you understand?”

“Yes, S—,” A look was caught. No, no. He knew the rule out here. Away from mother and child. “Yes, balaurul meu, I understand.”

Not well enough, of course. Not even when he was made to sit still, his chin up so that his Master could pin the thing in place. No, he had not understood then. Not until the next night when he took his place in bed for the family meal. There he had sat, undoing his shirt collar—with the brooch nowhere in sight. Not before the feeding. Not after he buttoned himself up with strengthless fingers. Not even on his nightstand.

The boy and the woman had looked up with curiosity and ire respectively when Father hadn’t taken his usual leave for the saccharine post-bleeding period with Papa. Papa himself had looked concerned and lost. No one had made a mistake, had they?

“Father? Did you want to stay too?” from the boy. A thread of worry in his voice, as was natural whenever Father deviated from his routine, but far more of eagerness. Father so rarely lingered overlong with the entire family in the room. And, he would admit it, it stung to deflate the child’s hope.

“I am staying,” he’d said, “But you and your mother must go for a time. There is something important I must speak with Papa about.” There had been some bristling at that. But he had yanked the woman’s leash and the woman had taken the boy away by the hand, thinking soft assurances and lies at him until they were out of the tower. Jonathan, dear oblivious Jonathan, had peered at him with genuine confusion.

“What is it? Has something happen—,”

His Master had flung the full weight of the trance into him like a boulder. A boulder that became a crushing fist around the flailing mote that was Jonathan’s ostensibly free will. Having hold of it, he wrenched his friend up to his feet and prodded sharply at his mind until he turned to where he’d stored the brooch. There, the wardrobe. Go. Fetch.

Jonathan had managed two steps before the weakness of his emptied veins dropped him to hands and knees. He crawled the rest of the way. Staggered back upright. Worked the doors open and shuffled with trembling hands through the hanging clothes. Here was the coat. There, fastened at the chest, was the brooch. He fumbled at it with twice the difficulty of fastening his shirt. So much so that it pricked his thumb bloody and slipped through his fingers. He made a small despairing sound before falling back down on his knees, searching in the shadows and shoes for it. When his hand finally closed on it, his Master tugged again at his mind, ordering him back the way he’d come. Across the floor, up into the bed. Holding the brooch.

His Master tugged again. Jonathan held the brooch out on his palm. The one now striped and smeared from the bleeding thumb.

“What did I tell you to do with that, Jonathan Harker?”

“To—to wear it in town—,”

“No.” He’d paused to watch Jonathan’s face. The shift of expression that sketched such a perfect epitome of dread, especially in a bloodless face. “I said, You will have this visible at all times. And where was it instead? Thrown away, out of sight, out of mind. Is it not so?”

“N-No. No, I did not mean to—,”

“Must I make it simpler for you? The boy still has the collar he never bequeathed to the trapped wolf. I am certain it would fit you. The emblem would never be misplaced again.”

“Sir—,”

“Do you think I gave it to you as a whim? Another token to cast aside, to ignore like all the rest you are showered with all unconscious to, stewing in your precious stringency, self-deprived as a monk?”

“Please, I swear, I only thought—,”

“What? What did you think? Do tell.”

“I thought,” his voice caught and rasped, trying not to be a cough. “I thought it was meant for strangers. As something official, part of a uniform. I’m sorry, Sir, I didn’t know it was…” But here the words dried and his face showed again that crumpled confusion. The pain of a kicked dog unsure of what mistake he’d made, only knowing he had erred. Jonathan’s eyes had found his Master’s, as much plea as fear.

What? the look begged. What is this? What did I do wrong? I cannot act without my lines.

There was no questioning of his Master’s anger. Such storms were known to pass and one could only brace and weather them. This was all he knew.

But you knew better, didn’t you, old devil? It took you a moment to catch up to yourself. To truly admit it to your own mind, even knowing from what happy old era’s dust you fetched the thing from. You made no ceremony of it. You buried the giving of it in a disguise. But the meaning was there even as you fastened it to him without fanfare, without warning. All you did was stitch an importance to the ornament that was invisible to him. And look where it led.

Jonathan hadn’t blood enough in him to hold rigid as he usually did before his Master’s moods. He shuddered even as he fought to be still. Afraid. Cold. Eyes of pale blue glass pinned to his Master, searching desperately for a reason to it all, for the thing he must make amends for.

Still with his hand outstretched. The brooch in a bloodied palm.

Just as it is now. Here in the brine-scented shadows. It looked more precious in his.

It had.

Jonathan had kept the hand out even as his Master joined him on the bed. As his Master plucked the brooch up, tasting it clean of the red stain, then kissing away the same from the bleeding thumb. As his Master gently tilted the quivering chin up and fastened the emblem in its proper place. As his Master did not move except to close the last of the gap between them, stroking the white curtain of hair from his brow.

“I am sorry, draga mea. You did not know because I did not explain. It is too easy to forget you are the only one here who does not go walking into others’ minds. So often you fool us all into believing otherwise.” The stroking hand traveled down to trace Jonathan’s jaw. No longer shaking. Not as badly, anyway. “You did not recognize that it had a mate, did you?” Jonathan turned his head an inch, frowning. His Master tilted up his own chin. For a moment, more confusion. Then realization.

The stone worn at his Master’s throat had no beast stretched across the stone. His was a coil that encircled it entirely, an ouroboros of a dragon.

“I know that rings are the tradition. But you are a creature of loyalty and I did not wish to test my Harkers’ ire in demanding you remove the gold band for something of mine, be it a signet or a stone. This is as close as we can come the way we are. At least until the night of consummation. Baptism. Whatever you prefer.” He trapped Jonathan’s eyes with his. “When that time comes, we can talk of more classic rites, insofar as our arrangement allows for such things.”

Jonathan had nodded at this. Perhaps tried to speak. A ‘yes, Sir’ seemed to snag on his tongue. The shock was too much to work around on his own, so his Master hoisted him over it with a final hook of the mesmer and gave him words to say:

“Of course, balaurul meu. I look forward to it.” His mouth had snapped shut around the last word, pallid eyes huge and almost teetering in their sockets. He was shaking again. Ah, it was too much as he was, poor thing. His Master had left him swaddled in another blanket, asking if he was prepared to see mother and child now. Jonathan could only nod, his hand rising and falling away from the space before the brooch. As though he feared the thing would bite him.

Good.

Good enough, you reasoned. He would grow into it. He would accept it. He had accepted it already. Enough that you had to deal with a particularly entertaining round of aftermath from the woman’s mind. For all her collaring of herself when she had to grovel for something—and was her own peasant’s past not fine training there?—the Vampire of her could not be smothered when it came to theft. Not even sharing! This, when you could have ordered the ring off him. Could have had him write up divorce papers for the dead, if only as a prop to hang in the office. But then the boy would have questions. Perhaps even tears. Was Papa not allowed to love more than one parent? It would not do. To think you offered to let her be Maid of Honor.

Amusing fireworks had ensued.

They had cooled, he thought, as the years continued to stack. On and on until the end of their second decade made its way to them. Jonathan never misplaced the brooch again. The woman appeared resigned to joint custody of both her Loves in her sullen way. And the boy, his little diavol, barred from full knowledge and unhappiness, had grown to manhood under their care.

A fine excuse the latter had made.

He thought back to it now. That last scene with the grey and ghastly shape of his friend in his surreal mortality. Another cigar lit, the smoke curling out the library’s window. What a strange image he’d made. He had looked like…

A month or so ago he had found his friend thumbing through an American magazine of all things. Some publication or other that had made its way across the Atlantic and the Channel to join its English siblings. It had been one of his few vices over those latter years, catching up on the newsworthy pulses that beat outside their mountains. The American one had shown an advertisement at the back. A rather charming illustration of a man in what had to be a modern eveningwear suit. Arrow Collar and Shirts for Every Occasion the image declared.

Jonathan had seemed to be a macabre translation of the man posed in the picture.

Seeing this, an abrupt needle of mourning had pierced his heart. Twenty years of feeding had made his friend into this wasting enigma. Twenty years of allowing the arrangement to unspool on and on without end, simply for the fact of Jonathan continuing to breathe and bleed unimpeded, as if his will alone were enough to hold his half-life existence together. Twenty years of letting his friend’s incessant need to give of himself down to the marrow get in the way of sense. Of what was right. Of what was long past due.

How did you allow this? How did you agree to let this carry on so long? Look at him, look at the calendar. So many years lost in which he could have already been what he was meant to be. Why? For your agreement? For the charade of the bitter conqueror taking his consolation trophy? It made sense at the start, perhaps. Those early years of gloating. It was your due. But once the sting was gone, once it became clear what he was to you under the vitriol of old, what excuse was there to drag this on, to make a living ghost of him? What excuse is there now? Look at him, old devil. Look at him and think of what he could have been, should have been, for the last quarter of a century.

And he had. He’d stood in the doorway, staring, overlaying the haggard reality with what should have been. Here was Jonathan Harker, forever young, the flesh back on his bones, his eyes free of shadows and crimson as an opened throat. Jonathan Harker, still and strong, a beautiful killing thing like a spider waiting in its silk.

Instead, he was this. A ghoul waiting to find out the when and how of his death before the year concluded, seeming far deader than the thirsty revenants he called his family. The unfairness of it wrenched in his Master’s chest. Worse still was the hindsight of its pointlessness. As if this arrangement of the household had done anything but ruin his friend and cripple their son against the reality of the wider world waiting for them. He had even felt a twitch of pity for the woman, if briefly. She had lost her Love to the needs of their hunger and their Master’s whim, watching every year as that Love was shriveled and shifted into a wretched grotesquerie of what he ought to be. Her prized possession spoiled by mishandling and a refusal to simply tear their Jonathan free of his scruples and do what needed doing.

“Was there something you needed, Sir?” Jonathan had asked without turning. His eyes were on the moon. Full as a pearl.

“There was. Is.” His friend did not jump upon seeing him abruptly at his side. Nor did he turn his head. “You are almost replenished.” It wasn’t a question.

“I am.” A tap of ash. Still not taking his attention from the sky. “Did you wish to steal a drink ahead?”

“It is not stealing. Only taking what’s owed.” There was a soft sound of fabric pulling away. Jonathan had turned and froze. His Master had removed his own clasp and the cravat under it. Vest and shirt hung open. The skin above his heart was already cut open. “And giving what is long overdue.”

“Sir, that’s not necessary. Not already.”

“When, then? How much longer will you reduce yourself like this? They are beginning to go hungry even with your sacrifice, my friend. Mother and child both. But he is not a child anymore, is he? He is grown. He must feed as such. Yet he tries to feed only as a boy, just as his mother feeds in her little halved tastings. Even I have taken less than my share. All to bow to your craving for self-destruction. No more of it.”

“This seems somewhat—,” Jonathan first tried to sidle away from the sill, only to have himself caged back against the stonework by his Master’s arms, “—abrupt.”

“You have until you finish the cigar.”

“Case in point.” Another drag was taken, neither rushed nor prolonged. Jonathan blew his stream of smoke out into the breeze. Then, “Was that why you had so many of these on hand before? The food and drink and assorted sensory comforts?”

“Before?” Jonathan looked at him. Waiting for him to—, “Ah. Then. No, not precisely. There was an act to perform. Had it been Peter Hawkins there in your place, he would have had the same to consume before his…dismissal.”

“That’s what I mean. You were always planning to either ‘dismiss’ or ‘retain’ your solicitor of choice. You went out of your way to provide the equivalent cuisine and indulgences of a noble’s home, even when the reality of things had set in. I might have had, say, a week’s worth of fine dining and then bread and water from then on. But you kept at the kitchen regardless. Why was that?”

“To drop the quality would be to ruin the masquerade,” his Master said, wondering at the turned subject. Knowing not to be swayed. “Had you proven to be a lowly churl not worth my time beyond the completing of paperwork, you would not have eaten at all. The wolves would have had your bones for toys in the same week.”

“Mm,” another puff. Jonathan was halfway through. “My mistake, then. I had assumed you were interested in giving your pawn a long last meal before his life ended, permanently or otherwise. That or fattening the metaphorical calf. It was hard to imagine you enjoyed playing the role of host and staff without it being part of some standard habit.”

“So it might have been when you returned home.” Oh, only twenty short and endless years ago. Still with their enemies’ blood under his nails. Begging sanctuary for his Loves, bartering his own throat. Memories, memories. “For some reason, you seemed hesitant to trust my culinary skill a second time.”

“Yes, well. Blame that on a joke too many made about the wine and red meat on the menu. I’d not expected you to throw aside pretense to the point of…” Jonathan nodded at his Master’s bleeding chest. “…this.” More ash tapped over the stone sill. A third of the cigar was left. Jonathan’s eyes floated from the oozing cut to the moon. The effect erased all but the furthest edges of blue from his irises and made them into coins of silver. His brooch glowed like fire. “Do you know what I ate on my wedding night?”

Stop. Plug your ears. A trick. A trap. Laying bait again, old devil, do not listen, do not let him talk, do not hesitate, this is how he works, how he has always worked, how he has been the only one in all the infinite hell of your unlife able to steer the storm of you. In pain, in suffering, in servility or supplication, the silver of his tongue did more to tame you than any holy relic, and you knew it and you did not care, did not think to care, because he made himself satisfied with crumbs, with vapor, even when you tried to force bounty into his hands and down his throat, do not listen, do not wait, take him, own him, seize his mind and soul and senses now now now before it is too late—

But this was the bellowing of the present into the past.

All he could do in the ship’s dark was muffle his curses by biting into the bloated heart as the memory unfolded in all its hopeless reality.

“No,” he’d half-whispered to his friend. “You never said.”

“I had what I’d been having since I was taken in by the nuns. Broth and bread. Small simple soft things. I was half-dead then too, albeit in a different direction. Mina and I married and made love on my sickbed, in a rush of joy and tears and illness. I left our wedding venue with one hand in hers and another on a cane. Now I am here, twenty years on, with another marriage to begin in haste. The marriage that will also be my death knell. Lenore again, but without any hope of resting in peace.”

Jonathan watched his Master through his lashes.

“When I am drunk from a last time and I drink in turn, it will be the moment I say farewell to what is left of the good man who existed before I turned the kukri on those I trusted with my life and who I would have died to shield, had it not been for God putting my Loves on the same altar He set before Abraham. The last of that good man will die to the blood baptism, to an unbreakable chain of connection with what is reviled by the divine. Fickle thing that it is. But before I was a Christian, before I was taught the lie that God is absolute love, I already held Love as holy. I held kindness unto others as a mission. It hurt me then as it hurts me now to envision pain wrought on another without cause but profit or cruelty.

“But that feeling will be sunk into a spiritual chasm once I turn. Already I dropped a piece of it into the dark when I bloodied my hands. The rest will follow and I shall become a Judas not only to a select few, but to the whole of humanity. While I can see the logic in throwing myself into consummation for fear of turning back at the last second, I do not think I can stomach yet another threshold where I do not get to walk, but must hurl my way across. Another sprint, another crash into one world out of the last. I would ask—,” his throat had caught, eyes gleaming, “—I would like to have the day.” He cracked a sad smile. “St. George’s Day. A fitting hour to say good-bye to the good of me. And for our son’s birthnight, we shall have our last family meal. No meager shares. No restraint. I shall be too weak by then to hold off. And it will not be done behind closed doors. Behind my Loves’ backs, like another secret. Please.”

The eyes, the eyes, no power in them but what his Master put there, but they held and they drowned and pleaded for this, this last meal, this final allowance, and—

And you swallowed it. Inhaled it. Drank it from him like he’d slit himself open over your mouth. You did, old devil.

He had.

He’d looked his friend in the eye—eyes still vulnerable, still susceptible, still able to be hooked and pinned like the rest of him, ready to be stolen away into his thrall without another puff of the cigar left between them—and said, “Very well. But know that I will accept no hesitation tomorrow. No rescinding, no stalling, no last-minute dawdling. You make your good-byes to yourself tomorrow. Make your peace and apologies to the world if you must. But then I will eat the martyr out of your blood and fill the space with something better. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” This he said before taking his handkerchief from its pocket and wiping the dark smear from his Master’s heart. For almost a minute said Master held still enough to pass for a waxwork as Jonathan righted the shirt, the vest, the cravat. He took his Master’s brooch from a clawed hand that had turned suddenly feeble before pinning it to the silk. It wasn’t until Jonathan tried to pull his hands away that they were caught.  “Was there something else?”

“Yes. You finished,” he’d nodded to the smoldering nub of the Romeo y Julieta, “and I will not go without something for my patience.”

“I need my hands if I’m to open my collar.”

“Everything I want is above the neck.”

“As myself? Or is this a commission, balaurul meu?”

“Surprise me.”

“Only if you do not bite your tongue.”

He’d not understood. Not until his face was brought down and he had seen the flash of parting lips and teeth and then—

You should have bitten your tongue. Should have trapped his head in your hands as he played at catching yours, should have bitten and fed yourself into him while he was snared. If he would dare lie to your face your deserved to bleed yours into his. Bastard. Delilah.

He thought these and a thousand curses even as he warred with the recollection of that taste, that consumption in two directions. What he had thought was a mere prelude to all the ages yet to come for them. Never thinking for an instant that it was only the last helping of honeyed poison. Even the sheepish fraction of a laugh that had left his friend was another dose of venom to numb him with.

“Forgive me. I just now imagined how we must look. An old man preying on the youth.”

“Indeed. You are still all but a gamin, draga mea. In any case, this is hardly novel for us, is it? Merely a change of position. A slow dance.”

“We must all be cautious about said dancing in England, you know. The laws are still—,”

“I am aware. Just as I know what lawmaking parties are at the top of my list to be invited to dinner once we secure the new estates…”

And they had talked. And talked. On and on toward the sunrise. Jonathan had insisted on taking himself to sleep lest he spend his grand farewell to humanity passed out the whole day. Away, Master, away. Shoo.

Off he had gone. Dense and careless.

Did you smell coffee on the way down? Did you? If so, did you think it only imagination or just shrug it away? Your friend, ever disdainful of wasting an hour. Fine, fine, let him wring St. George’s out in his way. What did you care? Fool.

The boy had still been up with his books and, he saw, some his Papa’s magazines. Odd. No less odd than seeing him return to the coffin rather than exercise his ability to doze where he liked; his miracle of a child, born alive and undead at once, able to sleep without a grave earth as bedding. Odd, odd. But he had not cared, had he? What reason was there to care when he had tomorrow night already dangling before his eyes?

The woman was already in her coffin, either sleeping or feigning sleep. He had not bothered to check. Had not cared whether she knew of her husband activity or not. If she now mulled the vision of her Master tasting what was hers, his, theirs, making plans for the future while she gathered dust in the chapel. How pleased he’d been. How sure.

“Father? Are you alright?”

The boy, the child, the son. His son. A young man who’d looked now so agonizingly like his fathers it sent a shamefully fond dart through his chest. Bless the fluke of the woman’s own features, kin of his kin, blood of his blood, by design or accident. He had smiled. Not grinned, not leered, but smiled with an ease he had forgotten he was capable of for so long. The look had made the boy’s face go even slacker with wonder.

“Yes, I am. Why do you ask?”

“You look different.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. You look…I don’t know. Not younger, but,” the boy had fumbled for a word, “lighter, I guess. Did something happen?”

“No. But something will. Ah-ah, no prying,” when the boy perked up in his coffin, “Go back to your books. You will know more tomorrow.”

“Alright,” came the half-false sulk. “Good-day, Father.”

“Good-day, diavol.”

And he had gone to bed in his tomb fattened on bliss and craving more.

And then.

And then.

Bastard. Delilah. Thieving scheming viper of a traitor.

So much accomplished and destroyed within a day and night. Oh, his treacherous Harkers. Had they only been loyal, been wholly his in mind as much as will, he would have drowned them in praise and prizes for such work against a foe. The patience of it all. The skill. The performance. It surpassed the immaculate and made him ponder for one dumbstruck instant in the midst of his rage whether they had ever been human and not some stealthy pair of incubi come to prey on him.

Such a theory was only an excuse, he knew. It would not do to whittle down their ability to that of mere imps. No, they were but a man and a woman, however altered now, and they had proved themselves to be of such sterling cores of concentrated resolve that their Master had laid barely a scuff mark upon their joint machinations all these years. Their labors had born an unthinkable fruit; one it would have doubly shamed him to behold had he been victim to anyone less canny. But no, no. He had harbored his Harkers for a reason. They were uncommon creatures. Singular. Rare pets he’d thought he could tame. And given another century, perhaps he’d have managed it.

But like the fool who mistakes a tiger for a housecat, he had let his guard down too soon. Too quick. A mere two decades. And now his beasts had bitten and torn and robbed him.

His boy, his son, gone inside a day. Shipped away and on toward the teeming masses of England. This alone had been enough to spur him on. Or would have been.

If not for the impetus that the clever sow and her stolen Lessons from the Mountain had brought down on his head. He had fled before the next bolt could strike. Running, running. Just as he had been running since missing the boy’s departure, since realizing he was the only one left in the castle.

What had actually come first? His mind still spun when he tried to concentrate things into a clear order. The entirety of that period was still a swimming blur in the way the events of a nightmare will reach the waking mind as disjointed pieces.

He had awoken to the nettling pressure of the wild rose upon his coffin lid. The annoyance, the struggle, the hard toss and soul-deep agony that had come with booting the thing off. The blossom crushed. A resignation letter crumpled under the cracked ebony of the lid.

He had known his son was missing.

He had thrust his mind throughout the castle and known he was abandoned in full even before he tore away the lid of the woman’s box.

He had seen the glint of Jonathan’s brooch left on her pillow.

He remembered a vision. Sent from her. Brief. Teasing. Baiting.

Jonathan looking upon her with exhaustion and exultation, with relief, with want, with Love. Drinking from her like a man in the desert finding his oasis. Just the two of them in that boxed dark of her coffin. Mere hours before he found them gone. Eloped. So to speak.

She had left a message for him too, though it had come later. The one that came firing out of the roiling sky he’d thought was solely his. Once again the bait had been too much to ignore, even in his hunt.

It had been him.

How long had it been since he’d first tried to claw his way back into the woman’s mind, into her senses? He could not say. Only that he had been shocked to find himself barred except when the moon was high. She had been hardening herself up from within. There was more of a fortress around her will within two decades than his first trio of Loves had built up in centuries. She had been playing lame all this time. Preparing. Working in the shadows cast by her the distraction of her husband. Sharpening herself all along.

What irony, that they had left Jonathan’s old toy behind. The forgotten memento left in its hiding place in favor of being out and away before their Master fell upon them. Before he thought to whip them into the chase after their child. He’d had the kukri on his hip when he came upon the mist. A tell-tale wisp made visible only by the flash of lightning.

You recognized the essence in it. You knew it and you knew what it would lead to. And still, old devil. Still you threw yourself after him, maddened as a Wolf outran too long by his prey.

Only now it was not a Wolf and a hare, a Wolf and a hart. This was the bitch’s dog, her hunting hound, made to race and tear and follow commands—but not his. Not directly. No lashing of his will into Jonathan Harker’s mind would slow him. No order, no threat, no curse found traction upon the spectral rush of him. Cloud and man and spirit and beast flitting away, away, away, a parody of the hunts of old down their hill. It seemed his friend had been playing lame too.

He knew the speed of the Vampire, as was natural. Man or woman, fit or ill before their change, would have roughly the same gait.

But where he and the woman held that equal speed, Jonathan Harker was lightning on the ground. What had he truly been before he was turned? What blight or miracle had he kept hidden under a guise of constant frailness? He had not cared enough to mull it then. It was simply another frustration for the pile. Another nettle, another spur. The whole of it grated to the point of torture as, idle as a child at play, Jonathan had slowed long enough to throw a look back over his shoulder.

Grinning. Mocking. And there, at last, his own internal voice flying back into his ex-Master’s face:

Have you truly grown so slow, Count?

Through trees, over hills, onward, away, steering him off course, away from where the coast waited. The ships. The boy on the other side of the Channel.

Again, you did not care. Once in bliss, now in wrath. You went blindly after. Never learning your Lesson, old devil.

I see you wear my knife. Is it for my head? Or is it just to let you pretend something of me will still hold you against my will?

His own mind had leapt out after the fleeting shape, all champing teeth and thunder. Not in words. There was too much anger to fashion into coherence. Only the intent made its way out. Hate-fury-hate-fury-hunt-catch-punish—

Mine!

It had slipped from him. Flown. Bright and cutting and horribly naked in what was both a craving and a declaration. Had his eyes stung? It did not matter. The thought-snarl came again.

Mine mine mine mine mine mine you are Mine as the boy is Mine as the woman is Mine and you You YOU were Mine first by right by claim MINE and I will not be robbed by her by you thief traitor bastard Delilah—

Here came an echo from the deepness of the past, that cruel Lesson that Jonathan had once taught them all as his preying family warred over the greater claim to him, tugging at his mind like spoiled children over the same plaything, and Jonathan had thought those horrid sharp thoughts, the woman think-scream-ordering…

You can't, Darling, no, no, no, never. Don't you take yourself away, no one can steal my Jonathan, not even you.

But now here he was. Jonathan stealing himself out of reach. Just out of reach. His claws had scraped the back of his shirt, a lock of his hair. Close. So close.

Never yours, Jonathan had thought back. Never. You knew it then, you know it now. If you were ever so oblivious as to think otherwise, my Darling would have been slain the moment the Conqueror became the Coveter. When it stopped amusing you to see us huddled together and instead began to fester. Red eyes turning green. Because you knew. For all you made us do, all you ordered from me, it was only possible because I belonged to my Love. First, foremost, always. While you were only ever the thief stealing from her bed.

A thunderclap above. A pounce upon the quarry below. Just slow enough. Just as they made it to the clearing.

They had tumbled and Jonathan had thrashed until he was pinned in the grass. His grin had curdled then, deforming into an expression barely an inch removed from that of a bat’s grimace. He did not look at his captor, but bared his teeth in feral loathing at the hands locked around his wrists. There was a hiss as the grips tightened; enough to have broken bones had he been human. Jonathan’s face contorted into a horror of twitching muscle, his fangs crowding with the spires of sharp neighbors that jutted out and snapped so close they might have torn a swatch of flesh from his ex-Master’s face.

“Off me,” came a glottal excuse for a voice. The quintessence of revulsion.“Off me get off me off OFF—,”

“No,” he’d grated back, daring the nearness of the rabid jaws simply to press himself nearer. The closeness itself seemed to repel another bite as Jonathan twisted under him. “I am Master of your Mistress, thief. I am lord of your lady. If she is above the Son, I am above All, and the moment I loop my thrall through her blighted skull, I shall make a noose of the collar your soul donned for her and drag you screaming by it.”

Thunder had rolled again. Louder, louder, until it had irritated. He could not hear himself aloud and was barely better in his mind.

Why so coy now, draga mea? You have missed the wedding night and your funeral! Not to worry. I have what you left for me. It will stick so prettily in your throat.

The sky roared. And its Master, its Weathermaker for over four-hundred years, puzzled at that. He was not ordering the tempest to make such a din. Under him, another change. Jonathan was still. The monstrous face smoothed. Still unhappy, but abruptly devoid of any emotion greater than disdain. Perhaps with a hint of disbelief.

“Even now you insist upon the act. I had thought you would finally drop your mask entirely for the sake of rage, but no. Still you insist on pretense as though sincerity were as great an anathema to you as Him.” The grimace shifted briefly to an upturned rictus. In a lilting voice, brittle and musical as tinkling glass, “You yourself never loved. You never love! Ha. Twenty years of playacting fooled me no more than it did them after half a millennium.” Jonathan’s face hardened again, the grin turned to a razor. “I will never return to your stage again, Dracula. No more acts. No more charades. No more using me and the imitation of affection as another thing to steal from her. We are all but finished with you.” His fangs bared to the gums with a smile. “Now comes the denouement, balaurul meu.”

Then, fired into his head:

This is the last time you will touch me.

And like that, Jonathan Harker was gone. Dissolved and slithered away with such speed he might have been a puff of smoke blown away by the storm. The thunder boomed again. Not by his will.

There was a sound almost lost under the noise. An animal’s cry. A bird?

He looked up, feeling the skim of something familiar—

Her, her, the woman, thief, wretched bi—

—and had only a heartbeat in which to notice first the silhouette of a great owl outlined against the clouds, then the bolt of lightning racing down to find him.

He had dodged. Not quite fast enough.

Not before the pain landed and made its home from face to neck to arm to everywhere, everything, every possible niche of being that could feel agony. A blast that would have killed a mortal man. Had it taken both eyes, the second bolt may have landed too. But he was not blind and so outpaced that one. And the next. The woman was trying to track his motion once again, the old reverse turned on her Master, but he threw up the wall of fire between them and shot away toward the waiting coast. Running from his own sky. His own creatures.

Now here he sat in the present. In the gloom and the sea-salt air, crammed hastily away with a bed of thin earth in a stolen crate, hunting after his own son while his subjects herded and hounded him, dancing through the gaps they had found in his grip upon them. The old tricks of his perished Loves who had known that his hold was not as complete upon a mass as he would have wished. Animal minds were simple to coerce. The Vampire was its wants before all else and that very nature could war with a Master or Mistress if the focus was split enough.

And his focus was in splinters now. 

You would have laughed to see another suffer it, wouldn’t you, old devil? You took all that was hers once upon a time. Now she takes away all that is yours. Even your storm. Even the shapes of the animals. And him, of course. But then, he gave himself away. Is it not so?

“Silence,” he hissed to the cold mound of the heart. The blood was already starting to congeal within it. “Silence, damn you.”

If you have resorted to talking to yourself, you may do well to keep a diary of your own. Record your last nights for posterity.

He sat up quick enough to crack his neck.

I do apologize for the interruption, Jonathan hummed on. I can only assume you are terribly preoccupied. Either trying to pry into her head or trying to keep her out of yours. Even now, I remain banished to the outskirts of the conversation.

He felt himself smile for the first time in too many nights.

Oh, dear. His poor unschooled friend, who had not had needs or means to build up the walls as his wife had. Well. Let this be a Lesson for him then.

His own mind sprang upon Jonathan’s like jaws snapping shut. He felt the younger psyche spasm and raise phantom hackles at the intrusion. Scrabbling with an unpracticed grip at the Presence that bulled its way in, clawing, breaking, crushing his way across the waters that he could not pass in flesh, and then they were—

How do you like flying now, my friend? Everything you hoped it would be?

In the theatre of the mindscape he was launching himself and his catch back across water and shore and hill and mountaintop, wind whistling around false bodies. He was the Bat, Jonathan pierced a dozen times in his teeth. They were—

This is enough for me.

In the snow, the sun frozen an inch from setting, dead men watching as Jonathan brought down the kukri. Head, heart, limbs, over and over, carving and splitting. There was no collapse into elemental dust here. Only the mincing of a carcass. Even here, even wearing the skin of the living man he’d been, his eyes ran red. They were—

Ah, for a thief, still you go after too little. Let us at least be comfortable.

In Jonathan’s bed, each bite into his throat another night, and all those nights were his ex-Master’s. Kissing, mauling, drinking, sinking teeth to the gums. Only now his friend fought in his jaws. Jonathan’s teeth and claws tore at him as if he meant to shred him out of existence. To no avail. He was the practiced mind, the greater mind, greater will, and in mind and flesh his will was Law. But now he heard the whistle of air overhead, metal and timber swinging down. They were—

You still feel this one, don’t you? Mina feels the one in her throat on the same day it cut her. Does yours come like a blow at the end of each June? Again, Count, my apologies. You’ll not suffer the headache of me once your head is gone.

In the morning of departure. The shovel was in Jonathan’s hands, the edge bloody. No basilisk gaze pinned him now and his ex-Master’s brow was not merely scratched, but cracked like a grisly egg. The spade came down again. His ex-Master’s hand came up. They were—

But my friend, you know from experience how much I love to suffer you. To suffer for you. Saving—

In the ladies’ chamber, Jonathan torn out of three different suckling jaws as the dead Loves of old shrilled and grasped at him—

and sheltering—

In the grim first night, the woman in a deathly Limbo in Jonathan’s arms, the boy barely more than a twitching thought in her belly, on his knees, knife cast aside, bartering and pleading for the safety of his Loves, thankless and ungrateful already in his traitor heart—

 and supporting you all this time. Even now! Do you think me angry for your little trick? Your theft? Your lies? Why, it is nothing but heartening! To think I ever worried you were too soft for the eternity ahead of you! You, so cunning and patient, laying your tripwire over twenty years’ worth of convincing me—me!—that you were a thing worth trusting. Once we clear up this mess with the boy and your pending penance, I could see you eating holes through whole countries with your sweet venom.

Jonathan was in his hand now. A cursing, struggling mote trapped in a fist the size of a small house. The hand tightened. Jonathan howled. Not with pain, for there was no real sensation here. But the revulsion was true enough. He fought and pried at the knuckles of his ex-Master’s grip as if trying to break free of a cesspit.

The fist broke into other hands. A hundred thousand flashes of as many memories, cold clawed touches finding him wherever they felt like landing. Not injuring, of course. Would he hurt his dear friend? No! Only come closer, draga mea, the better to see you, feel you, count your pulses, that is all.

Jonathan bayed and swung and shuddered in the flurry. Every forced turn of the head with a hand on his jaw. Every talon of a nail tickling along chin and throat. Every idle raking of hair or stroke of his shoulder. Every seized arm, caught hand, grabbed hip, rubbed back. All of these blasted Jonathan’s unvarnished hate and disgust through the shared plane of their mind. And the worst of them all had been—

There.

The window in the library.

Their last night as man and monster. When he had spoken his last lying promise and slipped it into his ex-Master’s mouth like candy. Only hate had been there. Hate, disgust, shame. The weight of it staggered.

He staggered.

Jonathan broke free, but did not run, pausing to bare psychic teeth.

I can feel your scandal from here, Count. Even had you been short all the hundred other evils I had to ignore, I think your hypocrisy alone would have nauseated me. How do you sit there stunned at the obvious? Did you seriously believe my mind so pliant a thing that it would ignore the cruelty you held over our heads at every hour and fool myself into think you capable of love? This, when we both know you only consented to the terms for the sake of my payment in pain. Another performance, meant to last all of eternity, as you reveled over how I sunk to nightly agony behind every measured word, every smile, every taste of me ‘freely given.’ Our precious little summer together made infinite.

Here was the crackling fireside, a client and his solicitor beside it, white hair and dark switched around again. One of the early nights to judge by the healing cut on Jonathan’s cheek, the newness of the shadows under his eyes. Eyes whose fear had been so carefully reined in as he’d goaded his host into talk of the land, of its history, of himself in the guise of ancestors. Rapt young thing. After, he had sat then as he sat now, trapped against the arm of the couch, his host almost crushing him into the tufting as the old devil purred incessant questions about what there was waiting for him in England. Were there others like Jonathan there? Ah, he should not build up his hopes too much, souls such as his young friend were a rarity in any place…

Now the pleasant-pleading eyes flamed. Running red again.

This here. Even before the Weird Sisters laughed the truth in your face and you insisted on a lie of a rebuttal. This game was the core of all the years to follow. And now you complain because I played it too well and ran away while you were having fun? Over four-hundred years old and still a petulant child throwing tantrums over a lost toy.

The castle fell away into the heart of a storm. Veins of lightning wound through the black of it as the ex-Master loomed over his subject, his vassal, his traitor, his—

A toy? This alone?

Jonathan was seized in thunderbolts. Marionette strings that burned scarlet.

This is what you think would earn my interest? My protection?

Jonathan bowed and danced and split his face with grinning as the strings pulled.

I could have that from anyone, Jonathan Harker. I could have had that from you for twenty years, no longer leaving the sword hanging above your head, but walking and talking you through every night while your mind sat bound and mute behind your eyes. I could have laughed in your face that November night after I had twisted your head off your shoulders and burned what was left of your wife on my fire. I would have too. If you were anyone other than yourself.

The strings were a net were a web. Jonathan strangled in it, unable to die, to move, to look away as the parade of that prelude to his life in Castle Dracula came and went before him. The deaths and undeaths, the pains and the promises. Mother and child, Master and vassal with the blood never clean from their hands.

 All of this, my friend. All of this is because of you. You, who came to make the sale of Carfax. You, who refused to stay in your proper place among my lost Loves, waiting for my return and all the future I would bring. You, who set the hunting dogs upon me and so forced my hand with the woman. You, who faced the consequences of going among good men, pretending you were a mere hound instead of a jackal, striking them down for a Love you put above their mandates and their cherished divinity. You, who brought that Love to my door, groveling for the sake of your selfish heart.

You, Jonathan Harker. You are my equal in this ‘game’ you say I played. It is one impossible to play alone. If you had not baited me, not teased and strung me along, not made yourself into a vital thing to my heart rather than a mere curiosity, all would have ended swiftly.

 Something shifted. He couldn’t say what. A tipping, a sliding. The fraying of some final tether left straining in his friend’s mind. Jonathan had despised his touch and shown it well enough. Jonathan had raged on behalf of his Loves and the slain and their life that would never be. Jonathan had even managed to offer wrath on his own behalf.

This was not that.

This was an incandescent, a righteous, a Holy conflagration of fury that turned the clinging threads to ash and boiled away the storm into a flaming void. For a moment, Jonathan was not Jonathan at all. He was only a blistering red light. The fire trailing behind him spread like wings, either those of Eros or one of the Fallen. Whichever he was, he seared in his ex-Master’s mind like a torch.

Your heart? YOUR HEART?

A hand of flame pierced him, cooking the centuries-old heart before it was torn out as a cinder.

Even now! Even in your own skull! Even with the stage forsaken and the audience of our son finally free, still you must shroud yourself in this act!? STILL YOU FEIGN KNOWLEDGE OF LOVE BEYOND USING IT AS COLLAR AND CUDGEL!?

Jonathan fractured then, an inferno of indignation and devotion, flaring with the memory of all he had cherished and loathed in his life. Mother and child for the former. His ex-Master for the latter. All smiled for, all made happy as he could endeavor. Yet only mother and child were given all of himself in earnest, their own love reflected back into him, keeping filaments of joy alive even as he brutalized himself with the conviction of his being a worse monster than they could ever be in potentia, deserving of nothing, of worse than nothing, of—

Flashes of his ex-Master, of his voice and embrace and the steady grinding away of his sanity and will and soul under the lord of the castle’s heel, crushed by the weight of self-loathing, dragged up and eaten again and again by the bottomless pit of his ex-Master’s want, of the threat that he must play the game or leave his family to suffer, of a conviction that all of this, every minute of every night, was no more than entertainment, a distraction to grow bored of and smash to pieces should he fail to cozen and serve and be a good Scheherazade ever-after. His penance for the dead men. For his wife. For their son.

That was all it was. All it ever was to Jonathan Harker.

The shock of it came on too quick and too heavy for its owner to catch before it tumbled into the mindscape. It shattered open as it fell and showed all that had been true behind its owner’s eyes. Twenty years’ worth of truth. What he had taken for truth.

The woman, no longer even dreamt of as a companion, but a brittle-bitter comfort. A sibling he had never asked for, but could not deny for her use in keeping his own barbs sharp and for the guarantee of what she anchored to him.

The boy, so suddenly grown, his love uncomplicated and real and awed, an experiment fostered and festering, burrowing into his Father’s heart as blithely as an insect left to gratefully build its nest in the home of a welcoming corpse.

Jonathan Harker.

Jonathan Harker.

Jonathan Harker.

The keystone against which the sheltering of mother and child, the performance played for the boy, the willingness even to entertain the farce in the first place, all leaned. Why? Why, when he would not have suffered any other victim, any other enemy, any other dear friend to wring such a feat from him like blood from a stone? Why, unless..?

He could not hide it. Could not bury it. Could not raze or deny or shred it into dust. It was too loud, too vivid, too strong. Too starved.

It lunged at Jonathan like its own living thing, an excited Wolf gone mad with hunger, seeing the only thing it wished to eat. Raced, leapt, pounced, dissolved into a frantically grasping wraith of red tears and a heart, unburned but hanging open and raw in its cleaved chest, coiling around Jonathan’s mind and forcing the reality of itself down his throat. Choking on it, the fire of Jonathan Harker went out. Only the man—what had been a man—was left. Staring.

Now would come the laughter. The insult. The dismay. The sour-mocking questions. Oh dear, old devil. Had he really tripped and fallen so? Had he really dared to think that the feeling was returned?

Jonathan, no longer flame or fury, only stood in the black of their shared mind. Still staring. Still…

The shock was not just his ex-Master’s.

The void cracked and splintered. Now. Now the laughter would come. Now another act. Now a sardonic bat of lashes, a false swoon, a coo of cloying flattery, or else the woman herself would dare to graze his mind with her own, the better to jeer alongside her Love, yes, yes, any moment now. Now. Now.

Count. I did not know.

The laughter did not come. No act. No sneer. Not even a ripple of disgust. Nothing. Nothing but—

I’m sorry.

The sentiment was attacked with a thousand tearing teeth. Shredded down to psychic atoms in the hunt for the disingenuous core, the hidden chuckle, the lie, the trick. But Jonathan was no less bare than himself in this space. There was no more to find in the sensation than the feeling itself. It repeated:

I’m sorry. And, just as sincere: I never intended to break your heart. Only to impale it.

The whole of it saturated with an honesty and apology that cut deeper than any bludgeoning of hate.

Sorry is not good enough, my friend. There is no taking it back.

Jonathan, a pillar against the abyss, nodded.

I know. Not for either side. I did tell you. This will end before the year is out. We shall kill you or you shall kill us. It is all that’s left.

Now came a laugh; a familiar hideous sound that unfolded into a trail of chuckling. Giddy, almost.

No, Jonathan Harker. You misunderstand once again. Yes, you and the woman mean to slay me at last. But I remain nothing but loving in my design. All that is left is that you kill me, or—

The void was gone.

They stood in the castle’s chapel. With the certainty of a dream, they knew that the boy was returned. Their only witness as he clung and wept over his mother’s coffin. She had been willed into paralysis by her Master, moving only to maim herself in the box or to gorge herself. Her meals’ dried carrion lay piled and broken around the coffin. The infants’ heads lined in rows while the tiny hearts were left to shrivel.

‘Please, Papa, you have to, please…’

And Papa was, of course. The woman’s Master had slipped the noose of himself through her at last, and now her orders were his orders, and the order was being carried smilingly out by their dear Jonathan. Pardon, his dear Jonathan. The picture of bliss despite his running eyes. Under his chin, the brooch shined. On his knuckle, the gold band had been replaced with a matching stone and clutching dragon. His vows, leaked through the permanent stamp of his grin:

‘I will never look at her again. I will never respond to any word from her. I will speak of her only as if she were dead. And I will love you as you are owed. I will be yours alone. Always. This I will do, or she shall never leave the box or know a moment without pain again. Te iubesc, balaurul meu.’

‘Te iubesc, draga mea.’

And then they were together, in the snug gloom of the great coffin that had been built and delivered in secret months before, undetected in the same chamber as the kukri. Two Grooms lay within it, one joyous and one merely smiling as he wept a stain into his Master’s breast and eternity finally began.

This is how our game ends and the next begins, draga mea. There are consequences to becoming what a monster loves, by accident or intention. He crushed Jonathan to him in their box, hissing. You stole our son. You stole my heart. You stole yourself. I will have all back in time. And you will never slip free again.

 For just a moment, he felt it. Fear breaking through Jonathan’s miasma of shocked anger and distaste. But it was not the whole of him. Horribly, cruelly, crawling up and out from the center of his friend, was that unbroken condolence.

Again. I am sorry, Dracula. This will not come to pass. And even in the dreams where you paint this future as reality, you will still have my sympathy in this single thing. Your love is only a chain. Never an embrace. Only a noose, not a held hand. Our son is perhaps the first and only soul to love you without coercion, and he does so only because we spent his life hiding the worst of you from him. You will shatter that illusion if you think to steal him back. And then what will be left? Only this?

Jonathan’s hand was on his cheek, sweeping away something damp.

I had thought your pretenses only another knife to twist in us. But the performance was for you as well, wasn’t it? It was as close as you could get.

Jonathan was crushed again. Tighter, closer. Enough to snap an ordinary man in half. The arms, illusory though they were, trembled.

 Do not dwell like this. You have your conquest to think of, don’t you? Your march on the Living? Return to that, if it helps. You are four centuries deep in this existence. Twenty years should be nothing to scrape aside. We were a distraction, all of us. Let us go. Let us be enemies. It will hurt less.

There was no need for breath here. No more than there had been a need for breath for anything but speech since the day he ceased to live as a man. Despite this, he buried his face in Jonathan’s neck, his mouth opened to bite, but releasing only a choked and shaking sound. It was followed by more. Then:

I will—I will conquer. I will slaughter. I will rule. But I will not be alone. If I must have you all on tethers, so it will have to be. You should not have made me happy, draga mea.

There was no true contact in the mindscape. No touch, no sense. He shivered just the same as Jonathan’s arms slipped around him.

I promise to make you very unhappy once we cross paths in person. My hate is rivaled only by my Love’s and her endings for you are as imaginative or worse than my own. In the interim, I shall do my best to gain your hate, Count. But that shall be another time.

There was a change. A softening in the phantasmagoria of the dark as the characters in it began to lose their edges. He grasped at Jonathan all the tighter.

I have not dismissed you. It is a long way to England yet. I hope the woman is satisfied with riding the rest of the way with you in a coma.

The thoughts leered, but the intent begged. It wound around Jonathan in a serpent’s coils, holding, clutching, trapping—

Let me go, Count.

No.

Tighter and tighter on the disintegrating form, becoming a cage, a coffin, a clutching fist, a dragon winding around and around its treasure, no no no, mine mine mine—

Before it’s too late.

No!

Within the mind and above the Persephone, thunder cracked and lightning struck. A great, blinding, devastating bolt. It had her voice and a single message to share.

MINE.

And with that, he was back in the cargo hold. The sailor’s heart had been crushed to pulp in his hands. His fingers and eyes ran with the same scarlet runnels. Above deck, he felt the riot of a storm that was not his battering the ship. He cursed and threw himself out to it, wrestling until dawn to hammer the weather smooth again.

In another patch of water, under the same voyeur moon, the Aurora cruised on under a starlit sky. A girl and her young man stood on the deck, her hand over his as he gripped the railing so hard it bent to the shape of his fingers. The young man’s eyes snapped open, lungs jerkily refilling with a gasp they’d not yet learned was reflex more than need.

 Jonathan?

“I’m fine. …How long was that?”

Less than two minutes.

“It felt longer.”

It’s like that. Even when conscious, it will try to drag things into dreaming. Ever a showman.

“Did you trace him? Do you know which ship?”

Yes. The Persephone. Our ports won’t be far apart.

Her smile curved, red as rose petals, thorn-sharp.

And I believe their vessel has hit some stormy weather just now. Though it is endeavoring to ease the worst of it.

“Do you need..?”

No, Darling. I only press when I feel it slacking. It will be wrung out by the time it reaches shore. I will merely be peckish. 

Her smile dimmed a shade as she searched her husband’s face.

Are you certain you’re alright?

“I am, Mina. Even if I weren’t, we could not risk it being you. Not while he’s still scrabbling to take your reins again.”

It showed you, didn’t it?

“Showed what?” Mina looked at him. Read him. Turned over the stone that her husband had freshly laid over the revelations bled out into his mind. “Ah. That.”

That. Was this what hurt you in there?

“I am not—,” Her hand went to his cheek. A rust-colored drop was swept away. “Oh. I thought I felt lightheaded.”

Do not distract. Was learning it what hurt you?

“It did not hurt. Only shamed me, somewhat. It casts a different light on his pending demise.”

A slaying made into euthanasia?

“…That is certainly a word for it.”

There are few others to choose from. Extermination. Justice. Recompense. Safety. But, in its thinnest terms, yes, euthanasia. I would not be surprised if he welcomed it in the end. I think I would.

His hand seized around hers.

“Why?”

She smiled back. The ghost of the living girl made its edges soft.

You would not understand. You do not know what it is to love and be loved by you, Jonathan. To imagine the latter was a lie? Worse, a lie you assumed was known by the one who loved you? I do not know if I could suffer it. More, you remain Love himself. Coveted and giving and, even for the Thing we hunt, pitying. For you champion the feeling in its own right, even as you did not guess that you were more to the Thing than a trophy.

They were silent for a time. Feeling the creep of dawn coming for the horizon. Jonathan looked to her again. Searching.

“Mina. Did you know?”

The possibility occurred to me. It did not mourn the Weird Sisters for more than a year, despite their time with it. Lucy it was bitter for losing only because she was the first conquest of a new land, slain before she could be enjoyed. I, the supposed new companion, was relegated within months to an afterthought. No more or less than a necessary evil in its mind—the hostage there to keep you there. With it. And it speaks volumes that it kept even a fraction of its word to you at all.

It could have taken you at any time, Jonathan. Pounced and bit and fed and turned, all with no one to stop it. But it didn’t. Not merely to see you suffer through the performance as you had before, but because it wanted to hide in the fact that you had free will. That you were immune to all but the most superficial pulls of the mesmer rather than the permanent leash upon my mind. It wanted you free and human and in its company, ‘of your own choosing.’ Or near enough. I can think of no reason for it beyond the Thing hoping for the act to become real.

“I cannot tell if that’s a mark of insanity or sadness.”

Perhaps both. And you do not have to cover yourself in barbs here, my Love. There are things we do not wish on enemies, even if they are deserved. That being said—,

“My plans have not changed, Darling.” He leaned his face into her palm, smiling. “We will dance on his ashes for what he’s done. For what he means to do.”

When we finish, we can pour what’s left of him upon a garden of wild roses. Perhaps it will carry some peace after him.

The rest of their conversation was not in words. It carried on even as they pressed their lips into the perfect mold of each other’s, the tableau of them spied only by another couple who thought they must be their elders as they went along to their own room.

“Now when was the last time you kissed me like that?”

“Oh, hush. I’m sure it was only yesterday I did. Sometime after the banquet, wasn’t it?”

“Mm.”

“And anyway, it’s not the sort of thing for our age, dear. These young people are growing ever brasher out in the open.”

“Yes, in public, on a boat. Most brazen. Lord knows there’s scads of witnesses…”

Daybreak came and the storm departed with it. The one in the sky, at least.

Down below, in the dark, in the dirt inside a box, a smaller tempest raged. Tried to rage. Tried to hold to thunder and lightning and hail. But the death-sleep melted it down into its truer shape, freed from the whipping of desperation in the guise of anger. The grave earth became rosy mud as new tears rolled. Between this and the toll of keeping back the storm, even nursing from the crushed heart had barely helped in stalling the change. Black hair had turned to iron, iron to ancient white.

Dreaming dragged him down and away from his own will. Through the foam of futures yet unborn, through the penalties and precautions yet to be inflicted, all the way to a moonlit window in the library. His friend stood before him. Alive and undead. Wasted and hale. Blue-eyed and red. Cold lips smiling and pressing into his. Joy frozen in place.

In the world outside his mind, the cadaver of an old man moved just enough in his bed of soil to hold the brooch tighter. Enough so that the clasp split his skin and poured ichor over the golden dragon and its treasure. He did not feel it.

But wept just the same. 

#this AU has wrung four novellas out of me #I pray this is the last or my hands will be reduced to nubs #anyway #for maximum ambience imagine Dracula rocking back and forth in his dirt box listening to Annie Lennox's “Love Song for a Vampire” #but this time with the (grudgingly) appropriate Harker swapped in #he's about there #blood of my blood #dracula #dracula bad ending au #jonathan harker #mina harker #quincey harker #my writing

[ryemiffie]

Not sure if this has been thought before, but I was thinking about Jason and Tim's relationship and how everything went down with Jason's whole revenge plan or whatever and I present the thought of:

Jason is revived, spends his time with the league and then goes and sees that Batman has 'replaced' him with Tim, of course he's hurt by this and he starts to question if Bruce ever really viewed Jason as a son or if it was all just in Jason's head, he doesn't want to believe that Bruce would replace him but the evidence is damning.

Jason being so hurt by this he decides he can't tell Bruce he's back, and goes on to plan all his Red Hood drama. At first Jason is content with doing what he thinks is right as Red Hood and is fine just killing the Joker on his own. As long as Joker is off the streets and can't hurt anyone else Jason thinks this will be enough.

Years pass and Jason has made a name for himself as the Red Hood, and during this time he has become accustomed to seeing Batman fighting alongside his new sidekick, his new Robin. Whether in passing or from a distance, Jason has seen how the two interact and function with each other, and he recognises how much Tim seems to care for Bruce. It's hurtful to think of Bruce having moved on and replacing him but Jason sees his younger self in the way Tim looks at Batman while they're in battle.

In this time Jason has not been able to bring himself to kill the Joker, his own mental turmoil at the idea of facing the man who killed him keeping him from acting on his anger, instead he only fights against the joker from afar, foiling his schemes in ways that didn't require him to ever actually have to face the twisted man.

Jason tries his best to avoid Batman and his new protege, and just continue working in the shadows of Gotham as Red Hood without having to deal with any conflict from the dark knight/his dad, while from afar feeling a sort of connection with Tim, he is technically his younger brother now right? Even if Jason can't bring himself to so much as wave in his direction when near enough that Tim might see him. During a team up of some kind, probably with someone like Harley Quin, Red Hood is informed of the Joker Jr incident and is suddenly filled with such rage, such anguish at the idea that not only had Bruce failed to save Jason, had let him die and then allowed the Joker to keep his own life, but that Bruce would allow Joker to hurt another one of his sons, to hurt Jason's brother. That even after seeing both Jason and Tim suffer at the Joker's hands that Bruce would still let that man continue with his life, continue to hurt people whether those people be members of the batfamily or just civilians caught in the crossfire of an endlessly painful rivalry between the clown and the bat. That Bruce would continue to take Tim out in the field and put him anywhere near the Joker to fight. When it was just for his own peace Jason could've ended the Joker on his own and let that be enough, sure it hurt Jason to think that the man he had seen as his father didn't care enough to avenge him but he would've survived, as long as he got to watch the life drain from Joker's face and the smile spill off his face when he died. But now, knowing what Batman had allowed to happen, not just to himself, but to Tim as well? It was just too much.

That would be the final straw. The thing that makes Jason finally go directly after Joker, to reveal himself to his father, to scream at him and air out his pain, his sorrow and his anguish, yelling "How could you let him do it? How could you let him continue living after what he did to me? How could you have allowed him to live on to hurt Tim? You couldn't protect me so why didn't you protect him? Was it not enough? To lose me? Was that not enough to make you realise? If I wasn't enough why wasn't Tim? It should've ended with me and it needs to end with Tim! How many more Robins will you let him hurt beyond repair? How many Bruce?! You need to end this! Please end this! If you couldn't do it for me please do it for Tim, he deserves better than you gave me!"

Anyway, just a thought I had. it's kinda hard to articulate in this typa format but maybe I'll write it out as a fanfic and it'll make more sense? Don't know if I will though, let me know if that's something anyone would be interested in I guess. But yeah, I'm just like really interested in Jason and Tim's dynamic and the potential they have for brotherly angst and shenanigans so I might just write some random Tim and Jason interactions for funsies whether or not I decide to post 'em.

#the batman #batman comics #batman and robin #batman #batfam #batfamily #batkids #batsiblings #the batfamily #batbros #batboys #dc jason todd #jason todd wayne #jason wayne #jason todd #dc red hood #the red hood #red hood comics #jason and bruce #jason and tim #dc tim drake #tim drake #tim wayne #dc red robin #red hood #red robin #batman bruce wayne #dad bruce wayne #bruce wayne #dc joker

[goodluckclove]

An Open Letter to a Professional Author

I came across a writer here who I imagine will probably never see this, but their presence was enough to make me pretty mad for two days now. I've decided to pen a little statement to this Long-Term, Professional, Full-Time, Published Author who makes a habit out of being deeply unpleasant in a way that apparently has only attracted an audience of other deeply unpleasant people.

People here seem to like it when I get mad. So, uh, enjoy?

Dear Professional Author,

I came across a post of yours on some feed here the other day and enjoyed your commentary. It was one of those writing memes that sort of called attention to actually writing as opposed to just thinking about your project - the kind that people usually respond to with some sort of joke expressing their repulsion at the concept.

You responded with distaste and I generally agreed. The tone was a little aggressive for me, but that kind of humor also leaves me generally confused. I personally ended up concluding that the self-deprecating humor was a coping mechanism for a larger issue that keeps these people from writing - intimidation, lack of confidence, physical or mental pain, things like that. You seemed to think it was a matter of will, which I found to be an approach that at the very least was well-intentioned.

Turns out it wasn't.

First off, I should say that this isn't about your political beliefs. Your political beliefs that are really more like general human beliefs. I don't want to get into that. Instead, I just want to talk about your writing. You are a full-time, published author, as you say in nearly post where you talk about writing. A major point of pride to you seems to be the fact that you are traditionally published. Any other method doesn't seem to be as legitimate to you. That's interesting to me.

You also don't seem to have much of an audience outside of people who mainly come to agree with your politics. I didn't really see a single positive interaction between you and another writer on here for as much as I was willing to scroll through your blog. That's also interesting to me.

I didn't spent too much time on your blog once I realized that you were definitely not the kind of person I would ever want any interaction with. What I did want to do is use your presence indirectly to prove a point that I've been wanting to get into for some time now.

To put it simply, I'll say this: a career in professional writing is not actually as cool or important as you might think it is.

Now I'll be direct and say that I've never been traditionally published for anything longer than a short story or long-term, unpaid column. You don't give any details on any of your writing, as far as I've seen (Once again - interesting!), so there's a chance you've made more in contracts and royalties than I have. But I'm a working writer. I've had a career in ghostwriting and technical writing. I've written and produced plays that have been featured in festivals in multiple states. I'm not speaking from a place of no experience, is what I mean to say.

What I also mean to say is that - while I view writing in many ways as a spiritual and healing act that I couldn't live without - it's also a job. It's not always exciting, and even when it is exciting it's only exciting to me. I consider the best date night to be when my wife works on video game development while I write my draft. I leave the house on a regular basis, but it's mainly to go to different places to write.

In short - I love to write, but I don't think it makes me cool. Or interesting. Or valuable. Or intelligent. Or just generally fun to be around and talk to. These are things I strive to cultivate in other aspects of the way I live and grow as a human being on this planet.

Being a Professional Author in one particular genre doesn't give you authority over the craft as a whole. You can't just throw yourself into conversations and start with I'm a published writer and assume that means you have the final say on any discussion. Believe it or not, in many cases it does not matter.

Lots of people are published traditionally, and it does prove some level of validity in their line of work. But there are a huge variety of people in the world of trad pub. There are people who write books in genres that don't apply to writers here. There are people who write books that aren't very good. There are even people who write trad pub books that are very good, but their careers are sullied by the fact that the authors themselves are not good people.

Being a successful writer does not mean you're a good person. Being a writer at all does not mean you are a good person. I believe in Death of the Author to an extent, but when that author insists on making a presence on a public website and doling out advice and opinions to other writers the lines start to blur considerably.

Writing is a job. You work it over a period of time and learn skills and strategies that work for you. The same applies to virtually every other job, including ones that society views as less romantic as something in the arts. Can you imagine me breaking into your home while you're making lunch and telling you how to arrange your cheese slices based on what I know as a full-time, professional sandwich artist at Subway? You might be interested based on leaning something you didn't know about a place you might've eaten at before. But that does not entitle me to your respect on its own.

I am not entitled to your respect based on how well I learned how to make a sandwich based on my hypothetical career at Subway. Just as I don't deserve it solely because I know two card tricks, can get out a variety of stains, read most of the works of the major beatniks, can make a really good carbonara, or any other specific about my life that ultimately does not play a huge part in who I am as a person.

When I am on my death bed, I hope to god the core of my character was not the fact that I typed stories from my brain until I got carpal tunnel. If my obituary begins and ends at "writer", no matter how positive the qualifier is before that, it will be the greatest failure of my life.

Because I am a writer. But that does not matter. It does not matter if you're a writer. It can be fun and enjoyable if you are, even better if you make a living at it, but it doesn't mean you'll be happy. It doesn't mean people will like you or perceive you to be the leader and teacher you might think you are. It certainly doesn't give you a free pass to throw cruelty at strangers for truly no real reason.

Professional Author, you had a chance to raise up the next generation of an industry I assume you must value. You're choosing not to, and that's fine. You don't have the obligation to. You do have the choice to not get involved and pretend to give advice that ranges from vague to untrue. You seem to be taking that responsibility very seriously.

It's like some twist on crab mentality, where instead of dragging crabs trying to escape the bucket you're swiping at anyone who tries to crawl in with you. Then, as they struggle, you're looking down at them and making comments on how easy it is to get in the bucket, if you only just do it and maybe read some books.

To all of us, I say this: question authority, even in the arts. Especially in the arts. Nobody knows as much as they say. That includes me, but I do know this - any branch of publishing feels really good. It's scary but it's fun. If you're traditional published or indie published or self published, it says nothing about how good your book is or how good you are as a writer or how valuable you are as a human being.

Don't be this lonely bucket crab. They seem mean and I'm tired of talking about them.

Best Regards,

Clove

#writeblr #writing community #writers on tumblr #on writing #writing #authors of tumblr #writer community #writing inspiration #writing inspo #writing rants #personal #clove is angry

[deadbeat-motel]

Something of a quick fix to the whole "no one in hell knows angels can't be killed" because it's such an insane thing to believe that in a thousand years, not a single soul ever thought of fighting the angels? In the show, angels are told to be such an easy kill because they never had to defend themselves and Carmilla produces angel-tipped weapons by the hundreds, to the point of having a market for her products. It's so hard to believe that not one of the sinners who owns one of these "Carmine-Crafted" weapons didn't try to fight back against an angel and succeeded.

So here's a thought:

What if only Carmilla and Zestiel, the two at the top of the sinner's hierarchy and even able to keep every overlord in check, had actually known that angels could be killed. What if the idea that angels can't be killed was propaganda they started and kept going to keep sinners from killing an angel and inciting an unwanted war with heaven?

Somewhat long post ahead.

In the show proper, Zestiel voices concern about "Heaven purging all of hell for daring an uprising" when the idea of fighting back against the angels is brought up. He seems so sure that this would lead to an entire purge if they ever attempted the idea and surely, there must be something within the 700+ years that he had spent in that realm that makes him so sure about this possible outcome.

Here's what I wrote:

In Zestiel's time, the overpopulation of hell had just begun to be a problem. There was no yearly purge like the one we're familiar with now. Instead, it was only annual visits to check in on the realm and on Lucifer himself (personally, I would like to believe these visits were to check in on him after being thrown into hell by the higher order of angels.) Sinners back then were just as murder-happy as they are now and have found out that Angels are not good at defending themselves and that they can hurt the angels with the weapons they bring themselves.

This first murder of angels caused an extreme outrage up in heaven that it started the first purge of all sinners of hell but unlike the normal exterminations, this purge wiped out more than 80% of the population. Zestiel was one of the few who had survived this initial purge and personally saw heaven's wrath when provoked. Everyone who had survived lived on and warned the newer sinners to never attack an angel.

Heaven, however, decided to start the yearly extermination a few years later and many of those surviving demons died in the many exterminations that happened after that. Leaving Zestiel as the only living demon who still remembers the first purge and why it happened. Zestiel wants to avoid having heaven's big purge again not because he cares about the sinners like him, but because he cannot let himself live through something like that again.

Carmilla fits in this as the main weapons dealer in hell, she could make sure that the production of angel-infused weaponry is contained and limited to only her and an exclusive few. She can also make sure that the weapons being used in hell are controlled by her since she's basically made a monopoly on weapons in hell. Zestiel makes her his partner in making sure to continue making sure that the sinners will never fight and win against angels.

Both these overlords work together to continue scaring off every sinner from attempting to kill an angel and even if they try to, they're able to rely on the fact that none of their weapons can even harm an angel.

-----

It's not a perfect fix (admittedly it was written hastily and does go against other parts of the worldbuilding) but it's at least a step in a clear direction and makes sense of the "No one knows angels can be hurt" aspect of worldbuilding.

#vivziepop critical #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel rewrite #motts is ranting #//also can we talk about how Zestiel feels like he's designed like he came from the victorian era whilst talking in 13th-century English?// #//Cause he made me so confused about whether he should be from 19th or 13th century England/./