#i don’t know streaming so i don’t describe it technically

[honeyedmiller]

The Gift | Javier Peña

pairing: husband!javi x wife!reader

warnings: marriage, mentions of pregnancy (reader is pregnant!!!), reader described to be shorter than javi, mentions of the holidays (specifically christmas), mentions of starting a family, tooth-rotting sickeningly sweet fluff, brief mentions of a deceased family member, tiny uses of spanish with translations at the very end, no use of y/n. if any content warnings may not be suitable for you to consume, please do not read forward. 18+, minors dni.

word count: 3.4k

synopsis: you and javi do your yearly gift exchange with each other. your gift to him just so happens to be life-changing.

this is *technically* a part two to when you wish on a shooting star, but it can be read as a stand alone.

tysm to my bby @ilovepedro for beta reading this for me. you’re amazing ily ♥️

divider by @ dvluc

The bright streams of golden sunlight shining into your bedroom is what woke you up for the second time that morning. You let the warmth of the rays soak into your skin, knowing it was a chilly December day outside of the four walls of your shared home. 

The first thing that woke you up was your loving husband kissing you on your forehead and telling you he loved you before he went to work that morning. You’d been feeling extra sleepy lately, so he didn’t want to disturb you by fully waking you up. 

Your body just felt so exhausted, and you woke up with short waves of nausea in the recent mornings. You just painted it as stress from your own job, not thinking much of it. 

You groaned as you stretched, dreading getting out of your warm bed where the scent of your beloved husband engulfed the entirety of your body. You missed his presence already, wishing the warmth of his chest was pressed against yours as he peppered soft kisses all around your face. You found your mind swirling with longing for him, but you couldn’t get too distracted. 

You decided it was time to get up and straighten up the house since you had the day off. Next week was Christmas, and you and Javi held your annual Christmas party at your house every year, so you wanted to make sure the house was pristine for the guests you were to have over. 

After you brushed your teeth and washed your face, you made the bed and trudged downstairs, yawning as you reached the kitchen. Caffeine sounded heavenly right now, considering Javi kept you up most of the night. 

You made a fresh pot of coffee to brew, leaning against the kitchen island counter as your eyes roamed your kitchen. Your eyes landed on the pastel yellow sticky note stuck to your fridge, immediately recognizing Javi’s handwriting. You took the sticky note off of the fridge, eyes scanning over what he scribbled. 

Good morning, mi amor. Don’t forget we have our annual gift exchange tonight. Can’t wait to give you your gift, bebita. I also left you some chorizo and eggs in the fridge for you. Te amo para siempre.

-J

You grinned down at the endearing note and opened the fridge, and as promised, there was a small container with one of your favorite, simple breakfasts. You took the container out of the fridge and a pan from the cabinet, scooping the contents out of the container and onto the pan with a wooden spoon, turning on the flame to the stove to heat the food up. It looked mouth wateringly delicious at first, but when the smell of the food invaded the kitchen, you suddenly felt so nauseous. 

It was odd, because you usually loved the smell of the meal. You turned off the heat and abandoned the kitchen altogether after putting the food and coffee away, shaking your head as you made your way back upstairs. You sighed as you sat down on the bed, grimacing as the nausea slowly dissipated. 

Maybe breakfast wasn’t the best idea today. You got up again to officially get ready for the day, needing to stop at the store to get some items for your Christmas party before you came back home to tidy up. Luckily you and Javi kept your house neat, so cleaning wasn’t going to be a super tedious task.

You made a list of things you needed at the store and made the short drive over, checking off all of the things on your list. You passed the feminine products section, halting when you realized you needed to pick up some more pads. You spotted the pregnancy tests right next to the pads, and your mind reeled for a second. 

When was the last time you got your period?

You’d been so wrapped up in life recently and busy with work and preparations for the Christmas party that you hadn’t even realized your period never came this month. Again, you could’ve written it off as stress, but a tiny pit in your stomach was telling you to get a pregnancy test. You and Javi had been trying for a baby after you made an agreement at your little getaway trip for your third wedding anniversary in Lake Arrowhead. 

Now that you were both back in Laredo, reality broke the bubble of pure bliss you two were wrapped in. It was back to work, back to responsibilities, back to the mundane daily life—one that you absolutely adored getting to live with Javi. Nonetheless, time slipped away from you and you’d completely missed the fact that your period was late by nearly a whole month. 

You grabbed three pregnancy tests just to be extra sure of whatever outcome you’d receive. Your mind swirled with thoughts of the possibility that you were carrying your first child, but you didn’t allow yourself to delve too deep into those thoughts just yet. As you made your way to the checkout stand, you happened to pass the baby clothing section, spotting a pastel yellow newborn onesie that said “abuelo’s amorcito” in white lettering. 

You smiled and instantly thought of Chucho and how happy he’d be hearing the news that he was to expect his first grandbaby. You grabbed the onesie, possibly getting a little too ahead of yourself, but you’d save it and give it to him when the time came. 

Your heart fluttered as you made your way home after checking out all of your items, realizing that it was already two in the afternoon. Javi got home around four, so you had to hunker down when you got home to clean. You finished cleaning the backhouse you and Javi lived in in record time, moving to the living room of the main house to tidy up a bit. You still had about thirty more minutes to spare, so you took your tests to the bathroom with you. Once you were finished, you laid the tests down on the counter and washed your hands, sitting at the edge of the tub in anticipation. 

The five minutes you had to wait for the results to show up had to be some of the longest minutes of your life, face buried in your hands as your knee bounced up and down. Your breath was shaky as nerves took over you, the five minutes nearing an end. You stood up from the edge of the tub and made your way to the double vanity, squeezing your eyes shut while inhaling a deep breath. 

Now or never.

Your eyes shot open, only to be met with six pink lines meeting your gaze. Every single test was positive. You exhaled a shaky breath, a small sob bubbling within your throat as your hand covered your mouth. 

You couldn’t wait to tell Javi. 

You’d originally gotten him a nice watch that he had his eye on for a couple of months for the gift exchange knowing he’d never splurge on himself like that. He insisted that he splurged on you, though, to which you always argued ‘if you can do it, I can do it for you, too.’

You decided to save the watch for Christmas though, seeing as giving him a gift like this was far more heartwarming. Your eyes teared up at the thought of how great of a father Javi would be. You wrapped one pregnancy test delicately into a small box, wrapping paper covered in snowmen adorning the box. You wrapped the onesie for Chucho next, carefully writing on both boxes who the gifts were for. 

You hid the other two tests, making your way downstairs with the boxes in your hands. You set them both under the Christmas tree, wiping away a stray tear that had rolled down your cheek. 

“Mi amor, I’m home!” You heard Javi call out from the front door of your home, and you couldn’t help the smile that instantly appeared upon hearing his voice. 

You walked to the entryway of your home, seeing your husband set down his work bag onto the floor. 

“Well if it isn’t my handsome husband.” You say as you approach him, stopping in front of him to gaze up into his beautiful brown eyes. He instinctively wrapped his hand around your waist, pulling you into him so you were flush against his body. He smiles down at you, cupping your cheek. 

“If it isn’t my beautiful wife.” He counters back. Your hands travel up to his broad chest, running over the lapels of his beige suit he was wearing. 

“I missed you, mi amor.” You coo softly, one hand cupping the nape of his neck. 

“Yeah? I missed you too, baby.” His smile never wavers from his face as your free hand wraps around the dark plaid tie he wore, gently tugging on it to make him bend down. Your lips easily met his in one swift movement, and he groaned softly into the kiss. His hands slid down to your ass, grabbing it playfully before lightly tapping it and pulling apart from you. 

“Let me change out of my work clothes and then we can do the exchange, cariño. Papá made pozole for tonight.” 

“Sounds delicious. Meet you on the couch.” You huff a laugh, giving him a quick kiss before he makes his way upstairs to change. You make your way over to the couch, grabbing the smaller present that you’d tucked under the tree earlier along the way. You plopped down, nerves overtaking your body. You weren’t sure what his initial reaction would be, albeit you were sure it would presumably be a positive one. 

You heard his heavy steps descending the stairs, and his face lit up when he saw you sitting on the couch. He carried a small box in his hands, a boyish grin on his face as he made his way to the couch to plop himself down next to you. 

“You wanna go first, or should I?” He asks, hand resting on your thigh. The gift exchange you two did was a tradition you both started for yourselves the first Christmas you were together. You’d been doing it ever since, small heartfelt gifts to be exchanged between you both. Javi called it “the pregame to Christmas.” 

“You go first, amor.” You grin, heart leaping in your throat as you try to control your breathing and emotions overall. 

“Here you are, corazón. I hope you like it.” He hands you the small box and you grin at him, carefully tearing the wrapping. You uncover the contents in the box, revealing a silver charm bracelet with a charm already on it. It was a small inscription saying ‘siempre.’ Tears welled in your eyes as you took it out of the box, the shininess of the silver glinting from the glow of the Christmas tree lights nearby. 

“Javi, mi amor. It’s beautiful.” You cry, tears cascading down your cheeks. 

“You think so cariño?” His voice is soft, hands reaching out to wipe the tears from your face. You nod with a smile, eyes glossy and brows furrowed. 

“It’s perfect. Thank you so much.” You unclasp the bracelet and hold it out to him so he can put it on your wrist. He easily clasps it, the cold metal pressing against your skin. He lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles softly. 

“Your turn, baby.” Javi encouraged, and you cried even more as you shakily handed him your gift. You held your breath as he tore open the wrapping paper, opening the box to reveal the test. His movements completely halted as his eyes scanned over the contents in the box. 

His eyes snapped up to yours, glossy with tears threatening to spill over. You’d only ever seen Javi cry less than a handful of times since you two have been together, so seeing him so emotional made you sob. 

“Is this real?” He whispers, eyes moving back down to the test. 

You nod your head, both of your hands gently grabbing the sides of his beautiful face. 

“One hundred percent real, mi amor. We’re gonna have a baby.” You try your best to contain your sobs, but it’s useless at this point when your own husband is crying with you. He leans over to you, laying you down on the couch as he wraps his arms around your frame and just holds you. He nestles his face into the crook of your neck, salty tears skimming the warmth of your skin. 

Your fingers card through his dark, thick locks, holding him close as you kiss his head repeatedly, mumbling how much you love him and can’t wait to have his baby. 

Javi never thought he’d have this life. He never thought he’d be able to meet a nice woman, date, settle down, fall in love, get married; let alone start a family. 

He was a very different man when he’d left Colombia and came back to the states after taking down Escobar and the Cali cartel, so closed off and unwilling to picture or allow this kind of life for himself. The kind of life he deserves—working a good paying job at the Laredo Sheriff’s Office, married to the most gorgeous woman he’s ever laid his eyes on, reunited with his dad, content and fucking happy. 

He never thought he’d see the day, and yet here you were, laying underneath him and allowing him to cry into your neck about you being able to give him the best thing he could’ve ever asked for, which was a family of his own. 

After both of your sobs subsided and tears melted into a salty stiffness on your cheeks, he kissed your neck softly and hovered his face above yours. Your hands cupped his cheeks gently, pulling him down for a long, comforting kiss that said I love you I love you I love you a million times over. 

“We’re having a baby.” He breathed, a genuine smile that made his crow’s feet prominent adorning his face. You nod your head, leaning up to kiss the tip of his nose. 

“We’re having a baby, Javi,” You laugh as he starts to attack your face with an array of kisses, a deep chuckle rumbling in his throat. “I got something for Chucho too to tell him the big news.” You say against his lips, and he sits back up while gently tugging you up with him. 

“Yeah? I’m sure he’ll love whatever it is.” Javi’s heart warmed at the thought of you getting his father a gift as well to tell him that he was going to be a grandpa. 

You stand up from the couch and hold your hands out to Javi, making a grabbing motion to coax him to grab your hands. He does so without hesitation and you pull him up from the couch, hands landing on his chest afterwards. 

You beam up at him, a glint of pure happiness in your eyes as you let your gaze roam over his features. You still don’t know how you got this lucky, thanking the universe every day that an unlikely pair as yourselves met at an H-E-B of all places. 

“Te amo con todo mi corazón,” Javi wrapped his arms around your frame, pulling you into him as he hugged you. “Gracias por darme la vida que siempre quise.” 

Tears sprang to your eyes once more at his endearing words. “I’d go to the ends of the earth for you, Javier Peña. I promise you that.” You kiss him one more time before breaking away, collecting Chucho’s gift from under the tree before you both make your way to the main house. 

The chilly December air nipped at your skin, so you nuzzled closer into Javi’s side as you both walked down the stone path to the main house. For a second, you were worried that the smell of pozole was going to make you nauseous just as the chorizo and eggs did earlier, but you found it to be the complete opposite this time. You were practically salivating, ready to devour the delicious meal your father in law set out to make you three. 

You and Javier stepped into the kitchen, greeted by Chucho stirring the pot of pozole a few times before he saw you both. 

“Ah, mija! Thank you for cleaning the living room today. Haven’t been able to get around to it myself, so I appreciate it.” Chucho grins. 

“It’s not a problem, Chucho. Thank you for making us dinner. It smells delicious.” You say, setting the present down on the dining room table. 

“Not a problem, querida.” 

Javi prompts you and Chucho to sit down at the table as he takes over, grabbing bowls for the three of you. He serves you both before coming behind you to gently grab your shoulders, giving them a squeeze. You grin up at him and clear your throat, catching Chucho’s attention. 

“This is for you, suegro. I hope you like it.” You hand him the gift, and he looks bewildered as he takes it from you and starts to unwrap it. 

“You didn’t need to get me anything, mija–” His words are cut short as he opens the box, seeing the tiny onesie in it. 

“Surprise, Pop.” Javi says, and Chucho looks between his son and you in disbelief. 

“You’re having a baby?” His voice is full of shock, and you can’t help but reach across the table and squeeze one of his hands. 

“You’re gonna be an abuelo, suegro.” 

Chucho looked down at the onesie in his hands with tears pricking his eyes. You never thought you’d see the day that Chucho Peña got teary-eyed. 

“Tu mamá would’ve loved to see the day her baby boy was having a child of his own. One with a sweet, wonderful woman such as yourself, mija.” Chucho looked between you both with a bittersweet smile on his face. 

“I know, Pop. She’s looking down on us all, and I know she can’t wait to see what a wonderful abuelo you’ll be.” Javier moved to his father, giving him a comforting pat on his back. 

“Thank you both for blessing me with the opportunity of becoming a grandfather. I know you two will be the best parents. I love you both so very much.” Chucho put the onesie back in the box, grabbing your hand once more while shaking it. 

“We love you, abuelo Chucho.” 

Dinner was purely full of baby discussion after that, like name ideas you already had, what you think the gender will be, how you’ll want to decorate the nursery, when you’ll schedule a doctor’s appointment, and all things alike. You couldn’t lie, you absolutely adored every minute of it seeing the love of your life and a man who was such a prominent father figure in your life discussing even the most minute details about your child who you already know was so extremely loved. 

That night, you and Javi went to bed with smiles that you couldn’t seem to wipe off your faces. He kissed you and pushed up his oversized t-shirt you were wearing to bed, resting his head gently onto your stomach as he tenderly cooed into your soft flesh. 

“Hey there. It’s your papá. I can’t wait to meet you, pequeño. Your mommy and I love you so much already.” You grinned down at Javi, raking your fingers through his hair as he continued to babble on to your unborn child. You’d nearly fallen asleep at the soft timbre of Javi’s voice reverberating the four walls of your bedroom. Javi pulled down his t-shirt on you and kissed your forehead tenderly, wrapping you in his arms. 

“I love you, my beautiful wife. Thank you for choosing me and loving me the way you do. I can’t wait to become a father to our child.” Javi’s voice was raspy as it dwindled to a near-whisper, and when he got no response from you, he looked down to see you’d completely fallen asleep. 

You looked so peaceful. Javi smiled down at you as he softly kissed your forehead one more time before laying his head next to you, thanking the universe and all the shooting stars in the sky that you gave him the gift of a lifetime. 

-

translations:

te amo para siempre — i love you forever

te amo con todo mi corazón — i love you with all my heart

gracias por darme la vida que siempre quise — thank you for giving me the life i always wanted

suegro — father in law

pequeño — little one

tags: @party-hearses ; @tinygarbage ; @nostalxgic ; @bastardmandennis ; @catchallfangirl ; @lizzie-cakes

please lmk if you’d like to be added / removed from the tag list. 🖤

#javier pena imagine #javier pena fic #javier pena fanfiction #javier pena fluff #husband!javier #wife!reader #javier pena x reader #javier peña #javier pena x you #javier pena narcos #javier pena one shot #javier pena #narcos fanfiction #javi p #narcos #pedro pascal fandom #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfiction

[kaykebitez]

Arcane Arousals (Rolan x F!Reader)

Rating: Explicit Category: F/M Pairing: Rolan/Tav; Rolan/Female Reader Status: Complete Chapters: 1 Word Count: 6,838

Tags:

POV Second Person, Unnamed Tav (Baldur's Gate), Wizard Tav (Baldur's Gate), Location: Sorcerous Sundries (Baldur's Gate), Female Tav (Baldur's Gate), Tav is Not Described (Baldur's Gate), Banter, Mutual Pining, Teasing, Inappropriate Use of Telekinesis, Vaginal Sex, Clothed Sex, Desperation, Sloppy Makeouts, reader is a shit, Wizard Banter, You Tease Rolan Until He Snaps, Feral Rolan, But Still Kinda Submissive, Shameless Smut

Summary:

You're an accomplished wizard and in the wake of the Netherbrain's defeat, the hero of Baldur's Gate. In the aftermath of the mindflayer invasion, you move into Ramazith's Tower with Rolan, technically taking on the role of his 'apprentice', even though you have several years of teaching experience under your belt at Blackstaff, pre-tadpole. Rolan is insufferable, prickly, and very obviously into you, but he hasn't made a single move towards you, and it's starting to drive you just as crazy as his ego is.

So, one day, after taking verbal potshots at each other that wind up with Rolan giving a demonstration of a new spell he's learned... you decide to test his concentration. By any means necessary.

You also want to see just how far you can push the bratty wizard until he snaps.

AKA: You (Tav) tease Rolan until he can't take it anymore and you fuck on the floor. That's it. That's the fic.

READ ON AO3

Snippet Below the Cut

“Rolan, for the last time, Spectres & Spectral Weave Incantations belongs in the Evocation section, not in the Necromancy section,” you chide, plucking the tome from the dusty shelf in Ramazith’s library to pass off to one of several mage hands that float animatedly around the room. The noonday sun streams in the stained-glass windows, and sorting books would be a wonderful, relaxing way to spend an afternoon up here, if it weren’t for the insufferably prickly tiefling wizard insistent on mucking up your carefully-curated organization strategy.

Rolan whips his head around from where he was rifling through books on a different shelf, letting out an irritated huff through his nose. “By Vivri Arevi? The necromancer?” he says, the emphasis on the last word reminding you much of how one would speak to a small child. The tone has your hackles raising already, but more than annoyance is the overwhelming desire to put this pompous arse in his place.

“Just because the author was a necromancer doesn’t mean all of her writings are classified as Necromancy,” you say, directing the mage hand to shelve the book in its proper place across the way, watching as Rolan’s honey-gold eyes follow the hand with annoyance. “Honestly, have you even read the thing? You’d know within the first few pages it’s clearly an Evocation text.”

“I don’t know what kind of time you think I have these days,” Rolan says with a scoff. “But between running the shop and re-organizing this disaster Lorroakan left, there’s little time left in the day to pour over obscure texts.”

“Obscure?” You snort, stepping down from the ladder you’ve been perched on to place your feet on the floor. “That’s a second-year text for students at Blackstaff. I think I could recite the prologue forwards and backwards. Honestly, Rolan, as talented as you are you’re remarkably under-read.”

It’s a cheap shot, sure, and Rolan’s tail thrashes as he glares at you. But after everything you’ve been through together, this kind of bantering is normal for the two of you, and you flash him a teasing grin, even if the gleam in your eyes is a little mean.

“Is that any way to speak to your master, Tav?” he shoots back at you, all sharp teeth and smug satisfaction. Oh. You’re playing ball today, alright.

As the de-facto ‘master’ of the tower, that makes you his apprentice. Although it’s more of an in-joke between the two of you rather than a true master-apprentice relationship. You taught at Blackstaff Academy before you were forcibly abducted by mindflayers and infected with a tadpole. Your abilities zapped, you were forced to save Faerun with little more than a first-year’s spell knowledge, and unfortunately, the full scope of your talents haven’t returned in the wake of the netherbrain’s defeat. You couldn’t very well go back to your old life as an instructor at your level, so you stayed in Baldur’s Gate, Rolan graciously offering you a place to stay at the tower in return for saving his and his siblings’ hides multiple times over.

 And so, on paper, you’re technically his apprentice, but it’s in name only. While your spellcasting abilities took a hit thanks to the tadpole, your knowledge certainly didn’t. Considering Rolan is entirely self-taught, you find yourself often teaching him things, when he’s not getting on your nerves or you’re not riling him up, that is. In fact, you’ve both grown as wizards in the last two months of working together, you in power and him in knowledge. It’s been an enjoyable working relationship, to say the least, and his company isn’t bad, either. You almost rather like living at the tower with him and his siblings; it’s less lonely than your solitary teacher’s dormitory back at Blackstaff, that’s for sure.

You eat dinner with him most nights, talking about all things arcane until your food’s gone cold and you’ve both sunk nearly a full bottle of wine. When Rolan isn’t trying to posture, isn’t trying to be the ‘best wizard in the realms’, he’s almost rather charming. You could even consider the two of you close friends.

But that doesn’t mean that Rolan, the bastard, won’t rub in your face that he’s your ‘master’ at any chance he gets.

Which is why it’s now become your hobby to knock this young brat down a few pegs each day.

It’s simply the natural order of things.

#bg3 #bg3 fanfic #bg3 fanfiction #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate fanfiction #rolan #rolan x tav #rolan x reader #x reader #fem reader #my fics #kaykewrites #bg3 fic

[thesharktanksdriver]

Blood's Thicker Than Water (Platonic)

Made this cause I love assassins creed and I hate how they left the plot point about Desmond having a kid from a one night stand. Like sure there’s a comic for Elijah but let’s be real, who here has read that comic?

Sorry if any of them seem out of character, I haven’t played the games in a long while lol

Also thanks to my friend for streaming the games so I can get back into them lol

You never really met your dad but from what your mother described him as he was….a troubled soul

Now to be fair you’ve never exactly met Desmond Miles yourself but from the stories she told it’s obvious he had his fair share of demons

Some of which seemed to spill from the cracks of his soul from the short time she spent with him

A bartender is what he was, until he suddenly up and vanished from said bar in 2012 and died not too long after

It didn’t really make sense then even to your young mind

The gap between his sudden disappearance and death leaving too much unsaid for your mind not to be annoyed by

But as a child you eventually put the thought away

Eventually you forget

Instead going on to pursue your next whim as you focus on the present, or in your case Learning about the past in the present time

Unlike your fascination with your father that went away, your love of history never faded with time

It just seemed to grow the older you got

Your not sure why but something about history just clicked with you

It was somewhere within the range of middle school and reading national geographic that you had realized you liked it

That despite how some areas of it were bleak and disturbing it was interesting

And it got even more so interesting as you delved deeper into the depths of libraries

Nose buried in books lined with dust and old parchment

Yellowed pages and old ink that you carefully decode from centuries of lost meaning and metaphors lost to the modern age

You studied from the ancients all the way up to Victorian

Easing your way though literal centuries of historical records as you soaked up information like a sponge

And it’s there you vegans seeing an odd…repetition of events that seemed to occur

Odd assassinations plagued each era you looked into, all of which connected somehow by people in odd dress

In some journals that had luckily stood the tests of time you uncovered more eye witness accounts

A solider’s log back in the revolutionary war talking about an odd man meeting with his superiors in the dead of night

The diary of a log master who wrote of an odd frequent visitor that had an odd blade hidden beneath his sleeve

The drawing of a Victorian child being freed from a factory that had a hooded lady and man on the rooftop

I’m one you found a symbol, one created from the bottom perspective of an eagle skull, something also commonly associated with these hooded figures

What’s odd as well is that with these hooded assassins you also find traces of another group

One well know to historians such as yourself

Oddly enough the symbol of the Templar knights keep showing up even after their annulment

It’s odd, but what’s more odd enough is that both seemed to be tied to other historical artifacts

Ones well kept in archives and from the public eye

Ones you shouldn’t technically know about if not for you sneaking into sections your don’t have the status to enter

Their always gold with odd symbols. Somehow always pristine and polished despite the fact their dated to be from before ancient times

They for some reason seem to call to you specifically

Tempting you with forbidden knowledge you wish to taste like Eve

But for now you choose to wait until you can do proper analysis on them without the risk of punishment

So you lie and wait

Admittedly you didn’t think anyone expected for you to be this good at your job

In their defence you were a university student here on Co-op and not an actual full time historian

Hell you were in first year for gods sake

But somehow despite it all

Despite the fact you had actual historians and people in the history program years above you here you quickly began to become an outlier

A shinning beacon within the large archive, so much so that you began being allowed in the restricted sections you already snuck into

Mind you, now properly allowed there with some supervision of sorts gave you much more flexibility in research

You got to touch these artifacts

Hold them in gloved palms as silk covered finger glide across its edges and ridges

You study them extensively decrypting and decoding the ancient texts and hieroglyphs

Jotting down what you found in both a report and your own personal journal

Your not sure why you do so but you chock it up to making sure no one takes credit for your work

And this continues to the point your eventually allowed alone with them

It’s great

You dedicate yourself to this task as you learn more and more

Soaking up knowledge like a sponge as you find out more of what was previously lost

Find new angles and perspectives on events

For history isn’t just a set time and date, it’s interpretation based on what we know from sources

And even then sources can be biased

Sources can lie and silence another person’s view on the event

Your more than happy to try make your own interpretations

Admittedly when you were asked to study what looked to be a necklace from these unidentified ancient artifacts you were ecstatic

How could you not be?

Intricate gold woven in something akin to Grecian jewelry

Yet also had hints of something akin to Egyptian

It also…glows? Or at least you swear you’ve seen it glow gold and pulsate a few times but that could be the sleep deprivation speaking

Either way it’s an honour

One you don’t take lightly as you study it

Spending countless restless nights and days trying to crack its code

An unknown source has been funding the archive and your research quite a bit

Betting big money on it much to your surprise and suspension

You get that this is potentially something big but it feels out of left field

Especially since no one knows the name of the company

It’s just under an anonymous donation every month

It’s sketchy

But you aren’t one to argue about free money to further your and your colleagues pursuit of knowledge

Not when this beautiful place used to be underfunded

Not when most historical records were donated by people with a good conscious

Not when this place was almost shut down

With a sigh you continue on your work

Diligently tact checking and writing up a storm

Your writing looks like chicken scratch but that was a commonality between all history majors

Well, along with being giant nerds

And it’s there at that desk at 3 am in the morning, tired and only running on 3 hours of rest you find something peculiar on the necklace

A sharp jaded edge that you absentmindedly prick yourself on by accident

With a groan you wipe the blood away on your pants

Then going up to get a bandaid

You swore to god if you died of tetanus you’d be positively pissed

Unknown to you the necklace starts to glow

When you get home your more exhausted than usual

Your limbs feel like their kade of concrete and your head is stuffed with tissue

Eyelids trying to glue themselves shut

You practically kick off your shoes before tumbling to the couch

Not bothering in changing clothes or showering for the sweet relief of sleeps embrace

So you flop down face first into the old leather cushions of your couch

Only putting in the effort of fishing a hand to grab a throw pillow and blanket from nearby that you burrowed yourself into

A comfy cocoon/prison you couldn’t will yourself to leave even as you swore for a moment you heard something in the house

But your mind writes it off

Your too tired to question anything let alone get up

All you want is sleep

And that’s exactly what you get as your eyelids shut

You fall into the realm of dreams, odd ones playing out in your mind

Blurred images of odd men

A weird void-like realm

The cries of an eagle overhead

A single word appearing in your head

Kenway

And then your eyes snap awake when the sound of arguing fills your ears

Yelling of several male voices jumbling up your already fogged up sense as you practically fall off the couch in a mixture of fear and confusion

Curses escaping your mouth when suddenly the voices go silent and your left in a realm of fear

Hair standing on end as the creaking of the house makes you more alert

Despite the fact you’d never fought a day in your life you will up the courage to grab a baseball bat and cautious cross to where you heard the commotion

Careful steps on the non-creaky boards of the home that you’d luckily memorized

And there you find several men in old garb

Accents of Red tying them together like a string of fate

Or a trail of blood fainting their very existence

they turn to you with sharp eyes

It’s the one in modern clothes that surprises you the most

The face of your supposed dead father staring back at you

Ocher brown eyes that had long lost their life now rejuvenated as they seem to find familiarity in your own features

Some of which mirror his own along with some of the others in the room

The bridge of your nose

A all powerful spark in your eyes as they flick between everyone and escape routes

The way your lip slightly twitches when you try to keep a brave face

Your posture as you decided what to do

It’s all too familiar to him and them in a way that isn’t just coincidence

Especially not when all of them are Kenway

Not when he had been able to prove to them that fact through the experience of virtually living through their lives up until his death

“I’m not sure who the fuck all of you are but get out of my house.” Your fingers twitch and flex as your palms grow sweaty, the wood absorbing the pressure and moisture “especially my dead dad look-alike”

You all but confirm his suspicions

Their suspicions

And it looks Ike for you tonight will be much longer than you anticipated

Turns out that artifact you were studying wasn’t just as normal one

Neither were the other ones you looked at

The way they explained it as was their “artifacts from dead gods”, a fallen civilization that engineered humanity into being their slaves

It’s a lot to take in

Even more so when your suspicions of something bigger happening throughout global history with those odd deaths were real

Oh, and these were you dead ancestors and dad somehow back from the grave and now in your home

…..yeah safe to say that’s a lot to take in after an already very long and tiring shift

You sit there as they explain this, half asleep, and half exasperated

Cause how the hell are you supposed to believe all this bullshit that for some reason feels correct

Something in you tells you that their right yet your mind is fighting that logic

You’d always been a logical person, when it came to most situations you used your brain instead of your heart

And in those cases things ended up fine

But now your faced with this

A situation where your heart is screaming for you to listen as your brain tries to take this all in

Cause logic is completely out the window at the moment

For now you have to trust them even if your still afraid

I mean, how couldn’t you be?

But you get the sense that they understand

At least a little bit by how their also thrusted into a new environment without much say

Perhaps that (along with your own apprehension) is helping comfort them as well

So for now they’ll stay

Your just thanking (the dead) gods that grandma and grandpa’s old home is big enough for all of them

Altaïr Ibn-La’ Ahad

The oldest down the line of your dad’s side of your lineage finds himself often reading through your books in your study

It was a bit of a surprise one day entering it to find him sitting in a spare chair but you don’t mind the silent company

Especially as he seems to find interest in your studies

Occasionally he breaks the silence and asks you a question about the subject he’s reading about

He’s by far the oldest (even if he’s back in the body of his prime) of them therefore he’s the one who has the most figuratively to catch up on

So you indulge him

And also asks questions as well that he seems eager in answering

Knowledge connects you both, scholarly intellect being the bridge between the two of you despite centuries of time apart

Typically he asks about thinks such as modern life and what is know about his home, what happened to it? What it’s known of his era

You answer as best you can

Especially since that era of time isn’t exactly your forte

But he appreciates it anyways

Appreciates that you try, appreciates that you passionately care about history in the first place

Admittedly your mom was supportive but never understood your love of history

She’d listen to your rants and long conversations with a polite smile but you knew she never understood what you were talking about

But he does

He does and contributes whole heartedly in just as much passion

It’s nice

What’s also nice is that he’s studied the artifacts you now study as well

So now your both constantly coming up and developing ideas together

A constant back and forth

Hypotheses, discussion, and testing

Delving deeper into discovery like you’ve wanted

But with this he also helps you see where passion and obsession mix together

After the loss of his wife and son he delved into studying as a form of escape

It drove who was left away

Made the pit in his heart deeper

He doesn’t talk about it often but he seems to see how you may go down the same path

And he warns you of it

Unlike his younger self (that he now appears as) he’s wise if a little rough around the edges

He encourages knowledge but not to the point where it’s an all encompassing and toxic obsession

Within the household he seems to take a somewhat neutral but quiet role

He helps out and offers advice and guidance

Much like a teacher and grandfather of sorts

Speaking up when he has to and making sure the house doesn’t end up in disrepair

He seems to have a fascination with modern appliances, or at least holds a thankfulness for them

Like a few others he sticks to his robes most the time but you’ve seen him sport more modern clothes once awhile

Stuff still somewhat reminiscent of what he wore before but with a modern flare. Things with hoods and draping. Silks and wool. Something with an accent of red mixed in

Sometimes when you fall asleep in your studies you find a blanket draped over you and a cup of tea at your side

He won’t admit it’s him but he’s the only one who knows your tea preferences

He keeps his worry for you deep down but it’s somewhat relived when seeing that you take his warning of not taking the pursuit of knowledge too far

“It says here there was something called the “French revolution”. Would you care to explain what happened here to me?” He asks making you pause your work for a moment, when he sees your smile he knows your answer. Sure he read some of this book and got the gist of it, but something about seeing your eyes light up at his inquiry makes him feel at peace for a moment.

“Would I ever!”

Ezio Auditore da Firenze

This man is quite literally all up in your (and everyone’s) business

Not in an annoy way per say but he’s definitely curious about the lives his descendants have led (both good and bad)

Ezio is very clearly a family man and it’s somewhat ironic to see since half of this household has some sort of familiar issue

Most of which is some sort of daddy issue stemming from either Haythem or Edward that trickled down the line to you

Something that Ezio is seemingly trying to wrap his head around

Out of the others he’s the one who opens up the most

Partially because you think he misses his immediate family and friends

It must be a lot to handle being away from home, now in a foreign land where everything has changed

Despite that though he keeps a brave face

Almost always flashing a smile as he drags you from your study to have some “bonding time”

You won’t admit it to his face but you don’t mind

Especially as he gives your poor hunched over back a break

And treats your pallet to some good old fashioned (literally) Italian food and not cup ramen once again

He tried it once and threw your supply out, saying he’d be supplementing you with food from now on

You can’t exactly say your disappointment or upset from the heaven that is fresh baked garlic bread and pasta

He cooks not only for you but for the others of the house as well, saying his sister taught him lest he piss off his future lady

Taking in their suggestions and cooking foods from their homes as a way of him offering comfort

Whilst he does these tasks he often hums in his mother tongue of Latin

You don’t have the heart to tell him it’s a dead language

Especially when he seems so happy that you can somewhat understand it

He’s happily rambling and teaching you words

Helping you sound out phrases and pronunciation correctly unlike your Latin professor

Some of his songs he lightly sings under his breath get stuck in your head since he has a good singing voice

But despite the facade you see the cracks

Sometimes you find him looking at modern objects mumbling about how Leonardo would have loved to see this or made something similar

Or how Claudia would’ve liked this book

How Petruccio would have loved this toy

It….leaves a bitter taste in your mouth

Once upon a time you felt this same type of longing for family

Once a time you thought of you dad before going to bed and staring at his old Polaroid with hope

One that would never come to fruition (until now)

It’s why you indulge him, to keep his mind off the deeper plunge of melancholy

Compared to the others he’s relatively open to modernizing

In fact he seems somewhat excited in these things

Raiding your wardrobe like a damn fashionista and critiquing what’s good quality

He also has a wide variety of looks, not sticking to something similar to his time of dress

Versatile and somehow up to date? Your not sure how but somehow he’s in fashion?

Like he must’ve found a copy of vogue or something cause there is no way he just guessed that this was the new trend

When you pressure him on it he replies that he’s simply that amazing

You call bullshit but have yet to find evidence

But in the meantime you ask get him to tell you about Da Vinci and you furiously jot down what he says

Sometimes when he looks at you he sees flashes of Claudia’s quick wit

It makes him long for home yet as he looks at his descendants and ancestor he also feels….something

A small pit of warmth developing as he gets to know the inhabitants of this house longer

Meet Altair besides through a weird vision

His home is in Florence yet that feeling of comfort from the Villa is bleeding into these old (yet new) walls

“So this painting is his most famous work?” He asks looking at your computer with a bit of confusion, his scared lips quirking at the digital image.

“Yeah. This is actually probably the most famous painting in the world”

“Really? Of all his works this one is considered the best? I’m not doubting his skill but of all his pieces?”

“Believe me, I get it. It’s only this famous cause it was stolen”

“Stolen?!? Tell me who did it! I swear-”

Edward Kenway

For someone who was a feared pirate on the seas he’s surprisingly much less violent than you’d think him to be

Sure, he’s scary as hell still but at least he’s not stabbing you in the back and making off with your grandmas pearls or something

Still your a bit unnerved by him considering you did a project on him back in middle school and he’s now in your home

Munching on some god damn biscuits as if this was a normal situation

His son Haytham avoids his as best he can but he seems to bond with his grandson quite easily

Or more easily than he does with Haythem

It takes some time but you eventually go to him when you find him awake at the dead hours of night

A whisky bottle in hands as he occasionally takes a swig in silence as he stares out the window

You don’t talk

You don’t need to when he drinks in silence for awhile staring at the moon before eventually talking about the guilt

In his pursuit of power and gold he let people die

Greed woven into his soul as he sacrificed good men for his cause

He changed and did good yet his past haunts him

Hands stained red

Guilt eating away

A son who doesn’t want anything to do with him

At some point when he stops his rambles you speak

Reminding him that while his actions weren’t good he changed

It doesn’t wash the blood away but it stoped more from staining his hands

Though Haythem avoids him Connor is more than eager to fill his place

It doesn’t fix his overlying problems but it does help

In the morning he ends up talking with you more after this as your initial fear melts away

You end up seeing Edward Kenway, not the fiercesome captain of the Jackdaw

You see a man burdened by past mistakes and still wishes to do better

You see a human being at its core

With history it’s easy to forget the people your looking at was once alive and a breathing being

One who was just as flawed as you and I

But seeing a infamous pirate captain cry about issues pertaining not just time him made you remember that

He isn’t opposed to modernizing but seems to keep a certain sea-like touch to his appearance

Clothes for labourers and something loose is what he normally sticks to

He’s lucky though since he doesn’t exactly have traditional robes and can incorporate what he appeared in with a modern flair

Occasionally when he gets drunk he slurs out old shanties and talks about his epic tales

You might or might not have freaked the fuck out learning that James kidd was actually a woman

Mind blown

Ezio and Altair had to drag you away from your computer from writing an entire essay

Sitting on your countertop he holds a glass of whiskey in hand, one held out for you as you sit down beside him. The moon casts its gentle rays and lights the marble slab you both sit on. “I prefer Rum but this’ll do” it’s said in a playful tone that makes you nod and take a sip.

“I can grab some captain Morgan later…speaking of which, did you know him?

“No, but I did find a few of his things laying about “

“Care to tell?”

“Aye, sure thing”

Haytham Kenway

As the only Templar in this house it’s safe to say he’s definitely the outlier of the bunch

A relative lone wolf from the group that all hold some sort of Ill feelings towards him

From his father its confusion and sadness

The others it’s a mix of that and anger

From Connor it’s just plain…well your not quite sure how to describe it

The two’s entire family situation is just plain messy and thick with tension that their blades could cut through

But here’s the thing, in this house your also an outlier

A neutral zone so to say

Hell, the entire house seemed to be a haven of sorts from their whole Templar vs Assassin conflict

To be honest you don’t really care about this secret war

Well that’s a lie you are interested in these war of secret societies but you don’t specifically care to get involved in their politics

Not when you have business in interfering in it unless a fight breaks out and your telling everyone to calm the fuck down

So safe to say your kinda the only one who talks to Haytham

He is…well sometimes he’s a bit of an ass (in the British type of way) but at the same time he’s good conversation

Specifically when it comes to that of morals and philosophical beliefs

He is a conflicted man

A flawed one

But he holds his beliefs and morals despite the fact he’s been hurt and betrayed by a man he viewed as a mentor

He doesn’t talk about it much but he’s still hurt

Still seething with venom that burns his soul and flesh

Makes him want to lash out despite his upperclassman appearance and attitude

That despite it all he loves his son, so much so he willingly walked into what would be his death knowingly

That despite what happened he loves his dad yet can’t face him yet on account of what he became

What ideals and morals he still believes in even now

It’s perhaps he’s venting this to you rather than a journal because he knows you won’t judge him unfairly on the basis of what side your own

Your judging him as a flawed man and as an equally flawed person

It’s with him as well you open up about your own frustrations

How you still don’t know how to feel about this all

The fact that a lot of what you once knew was flipped on it’s head

Along with the fact your not even sure how to address your dad

It’s an entire mess but perhaps your both messed up together and that also draws you both to talking

To discuss your feelings of insucurity and confliction

To feel comfort that your not alone in not having your emotional shit in order

On some especially…emotional nights you both both have a cup of tea

He seems to enjoy that each time you use a different type, much of which used to be hard to obtain due to shipping and it’s prices

He hasn’t really yet grasped modern technology but your slowly helping him with it

It’s kinda like trying to teach a grandpa to figure out a phone, but now it’s him with the concept of a microwave

Like some of the others he’s yet to really also change his clothes to something modern

There has been a few times though he sported sweaters and vests

Your now working on helping his wardrobe since he prefers a sophisticated look

Occasionally he looks at the photos that line your walls, looking as you evolve through the ages

It’s…odd

With Connor he never had the chance to watch him grow

Never a snapshot to immortalize what he was like a child but now ones of you litter the walls like paintings

He feels melancholy

Yet at the same time he’s happy to get another chance maybe

One that is seemingly being helped by your gentle hand unknowingly

“I never thought about it until now but the stars are different” he says taking a sip of his matcha tea, he lets it pool on his tongue and experience the flavour. Not his favourite but not the worst

“That’s cause of light pollution here…though the stars do move so it it’s possible they’ve shifted position in the sky”

“Do they teach you about the stars in your schooling?”

“Yeah I took some. Not sure why, it just kinda spoke to me. Maybe it’s the Kenway blood”

Ratonhnhaké:ton/Connor Kenway

Of the group Connor is the most quiet and surprisingly the one whom you connect with the best for some reason

Perhaps it’s cause your both socially awkward in ways that let you relate

Or the fact you’ve both been ostracized by society for various reasons

His company is that of a quiet one but one you accept it with ease as you both sit and enjoy each others company

A quiet kinship made of unspoken but understood words from one another

The reminder that someone else is there and your not truly alone

He is perhaps the one you feel you can understand the most

And it’s the same likewise for him

Your both people deeply hurt and still bleeding internally

People raised by only their mother in a cruel and harsh world

People who were let down one way or another by their father

People who are still mad and angry but use that to further their determination

It’s odd but you feel truly understood

Like your soul was peeled back to reveal at your core your still a lone spirit lost in the world

One clinging to what they know as their only lifeline in this confusing and jumbled mess of a situation

The hulking 6 foot 2 man shows you trails near your home

Taking to the forest paths you’ve know your entire life and helping you discover even more about them

And while he does this he teaches you more about the world as you both walk the old beaten path

He tells you how to identify what type of tree is which, which stones are likely geodes and what tracks belong to who

It’s honestly petty interesting especially since he adds snippets of stories from his heritage

In return you talk about what you know as well

Snippets of your own knowledge that he seems to store into his mind just as you do with his stories

An equal exchange of sorts

On these walks you begin to notice he takes you out on these when your at your most stressed

The times in which your mind is overworking and consuming itself with anxiety

The times in which you need to breath

Connor doesn’t seem like one to vocally express his care but he does so through action

Small inconspicuous actions that mean a lot more than what meets the eye

It’s seems that his towards you is helping you when you need it most

Taking you away to just take a moment for yourself

To just breath in the fresh air and let the sunset coloured leaves of autumn crunch under your boots

Letting the cold breeze take away your worries

It’s perhaps better than any type of verbal support

Yet another unspoken action of care and compassion through knowing and watching

Of watching and knowing when you need a break

When you realize this and give him a small tired smile as a thanks he seems to know

Only giving a small nod with a minuscule smile of his own

It only grows bigger when you begin to ask him if his traditions, of the stories and practices of his people that he’s more than willing to tell when he knows you ask out of genuine curiosity and respect

Connor is somewhat 50/50 in modernizing

He adapts quite well but still needs help with certain things as he navigates the situation

But like usual he is anything but resourceful as he watches what you do and figures it out

He helps the others quite a bit with what he’s picked up and somewhat takes pride in the fact he can help them

Whilst he’s privy to wearing his robes he isn’t against more modern clothes

The only problem though is sometimes finding stuff that fits him considering he’s not only a giant but also fairly muscular

But your both eventually able to find some stuff for him to wear that he likes

He really appreciates though that you try to buy clothes and jewelry from nearby indigenous peoples

It might not be his but he appreciates the sentiment and familiarity that the beaded jewelry give him

“I’ve lived here my whole life and walked down these paths a thousand times yet it seems more like your the local here” you say with amusement as you follow Conner through an area you’d be never been before.

He smiles, it’s small but there as he adds “just a matter of perspective. You see the paths your used to and I see ones you hadn’t noticed”

Desmond Miles

Yeah so this is entirely awkward for you

Like how the fuck do you emotionally deal with this and the fact your very dead dad who didn’t know you existed till now is now very alive

And living in your house with his very dead ancestors that are also now alive

Case and point you don’t, specifically you ignore the problem and act like everything is fine

You lock yourself away and try to avoid him like the plague

Somehow Scurry past him and into the kitchen to grab something before returning to your abode to eat

But then things got complicated

Things change

You began talking to the others

Slowly coming out the darkness of your study and joining the dinner table

But you still try to avoid him

It feels like the sight of him burns your mind, all those nights as a kid coming back to you

The hope and then disappoint in learning he died and that he likely never wanted you

Your mother never said this but the other kids did. They always teased and picked at the fact you were a mistake

It’s why you push so hard now to be the best, To prove them wrong (to prove to yourself that your worth existing)

The fact is that now he’s here and you don’t know how to deal with that

How would you even start?

What do you even say to him?

You quiet down when he enters a room because you don’t know what to do

Whatever your about to say dying in your throat like a caged bird and all that came come out are garbled noises as you evade him

Eyes casting down to your hands like a child averting their gaze from their parent when in trouble (he is your dad so it’s the same thing right?)

Leaving the room he’s in as quickly as you can once a take is done

The others notice quick, I mean how can’t they? A damn butter knife can cut through the tension

The whole thing with Haytham and Connor is less tense than this

But what can you even do?

How in thick do you talk to him and how can he even talk to you?

Your 18 and in university, he’s 25 and was a bartender in New York before apparently sacrificing himself for the world

He’s closer in age to being a big brother rather than your dad.

But even besides that he’s been long dead and gone since 2012

It’s been years since that point and more importantly he’s someone important and your not

He’s an assassin born to a bloodline of other assassins

Someone who was raised in this tradition with greatness not only in his origin but also in his death

And your you

A child born from a one night stand who’s only achievement is being good at knowing about old people

It hurts but it’s true

If he’s a star then your a candle compared to his light

A mere blip or spark to the greater picture

There had been times he looked like he wanted to say something but you scurry away before he can say anything

Sometimes you catch the looks and small gestures Ezio tries to make as if to encourage him to go up to you

How Connor sometimes brings up to you how he wishes for reconciliation with his dad and that perhaps it’s possible with your own

Altair not beating around the bush and plainly telling both him and you to talk

But it all feels for naught and dies when those feelings and thoughts return

But eventually he corners you

Well not really corners you per say but he catches you as you leave your study after a talk with Altair

“Listen I don’t have any grudge against you. For one you died, I’d be a dick if I blamed you for that or your decision to save the world and whatever. Second you didn’t know about me in the first place” you say briefly looking up at him before averting your gaze, he looks like he wants to say something but he can’t get a word out before you continue “but you don’t have to act like my dad or anything. You never asked for me, it was a mistake, I was a mistake and I’m fine with it.” (Your lying to yourself)

You leave before he can get a word out, and he’s left alone in the hallway. When he returns to Ezio he just sits down in silence. It’s enough for everyone to know I didn’t go the way he wanted.

Admittedly when you begin to notice odd figures at the achieves you write it off

I mean it could literally be anyone plus the supervisors aren’t making a fuss about them here

If anything their welcoming them and looking at them with hopeful eyes

Small glances full of opportunities in them

It’s odd but maybe their just some non-profit here to support the archive

Or even private benefactors of sorts

But then they turn their attention to you

Plastic smiles on their faces, artificial pleasantries as their main spokeswoman sits in front of you in a slick suit

Her stilettos tapping against the ground as your eyes trail to her bodyguards of sorts

They stand not too close nearby

Watching

Waiting

And then she begins talking

And slowly you grow more and more uncomfortable

Hands playing with one another, fingers twitching in your palm as crescent are indebted in your skin

They apparently are interested in your findings

In your research

But more specifically you

They’ve researched you…a lot

Down from where your mother was born to her great great something grandfather

And your father

…but that’s not public knowledge

It wasn’t even on your birth certificate

This….this isn’t

She smiles though now the darkness melts away into something more knowing

Dangerous and sadistic of sorts

And it’s there on her little pin showing her name you recognize the logo

Within your house you’d vaguely heard whispers of the others talking in hushed tones

You didn’t mind

The less you know the better in that sense

Out of sight and out of mind

But sometimes you’d hear the mumbles of a name that you didn’t put together until now

One spat with venom just as they did with the word of the Templar

Abstergo

You barely have time to react before your black bagged and sufficiently knocked out

Mind drifting to that of panic

What would happen to you?

What will happen when the others find out?

But then those thoughts fade away into the dark void of sleep

When you wake up things are odd

Everything is a sterile white and too bright for your foggy sleep tinged eyes

The room is blurred as is your senses as you weightlessly drift

Everything feels odd

And then it happens sharp and pure pain that leaves you writhing and screaming into the void

And that’s when you notice that white light had left and your in a void of sorts

Empty glitching effects all around you as your left to look around in confusion until you see something

A memory? Specifically one of your memories

Your staring at a simulation of sorts of your past self

A 8 year old in their bed with chubby cheeks pulled up into a melancholy smile

You recognize this moment, your small hands holding a picture that had long been put away into a scrapbook and forgotten

Your left wordless and confused

And then that bitch’s voice appears again and she explains

This entire thing is a simulation of your memories

And essentially their gonna go through your head picking through them to not only learn what they want but then use you as their lab rat cause of your bloodline.

Cause apparently memories of your ancestors could be accessed that way and it was generally easier to have a descendant rather than finding objects and artifacts

And it’s there in that simulation it feels like your mind is being ripped apart

Memories ripped from your mind to play out in front of you as she makes comments and documents them before their forced back in and another is ripped out

Like book having pages torn out and then crudely stitched back in

It hurts so damn much

Over and over

Your just left in screaming again on the ground of this simulated world as she makes idol comments

Left begging for it to stop

For someone to help

For the love of god someone help you make it stop

Of course this would happen to you

You’ve always had shit luck despite your whole family motto being “make your own luck”

What utter bullshit

You can’t make good luck from bad

Can’t just change things when the scales are already tipped one way

But then like a miracle from above she goes quiet and suddenly the memory is gone

And your left in the void still reeling from it all

Still on the glitching ground before once more white encompasses your view

Blinding and bright as your still recovering

And then an unfamiliar voice tunes in

“Your safe” it’s heavily accented, in an Irish twang that’s soft as he says these words to you. A reminder that your ok now, it’s over. “Can you walk?”

You try to look at him with squinting eyes yet they still can’t adjust, your limbs feel heavy like solid rock. Unmoving even as you try. With some difficulty you shake your head

“Aight, I’ll have you carry you then. Are you alright with that?”

“Just get me out of here…please. I just want to go home, I miss my family” it sounds pathetic but as tears begin to fall the stranger doesn’t seem to think Ill of you.

“Don’t worry, I get what that’s like.” The tone is sympathetic and like before is soft “you’ll be home I no time, I promise”

You think for a moment before responding “I trust you”. For a second you feel him go still at that before he picks you up.

For awhile there’s buzzing alarms and panic as your saviour gets you out whoever’s you were taken too

There’s not a moment of silence as he sharply runs and dodges past what you think to be gunshots

Occasionally he grumbles something but for the most part he seems calm

Composed despite the chaos of it all

So much so that it makes you wonder if this is an average Tuesday for him

There’s so much shout and yelling for your already pounding head

But sometimes the yells are silenced as the sound of a blade cuts it short

Footsteps far behind eventually stopping

Sirens getting more and more distant and allowing you and the man to breath

It’s there in the pocket of silence you learn his name

Shay

It sounds familiar, like really familiar yet you can’t put your finger on it

Either way your grateful because how can you not be?

Your away from that place

Away from the torture of having your mind picked apart like a lab experiment

Having the privacy of your memories looked at and prodded

But now your somewhat okay

Your eyes feel weird, your vision feels weird like it keeps switching between something

Your at least somewhat able to walk though it’s unbalanced

but Shay doesn’t seem to mind

He offers an arm that you cling to for support

A kind smile on his face as he makes sure you didn’t injure yourself further

And then you notice his clothes are….old

Like Haytham and Connor level old

And…shit

It’s halfway home through the trails you recognize due to Connor that your vision changes

The world feels bigger as if your third eyes opened or something

Shays figure and presence is highlighted in a clover green

And perched nearby is another green figure, one waiting for a good moment

Shay follows your sight before promptly having to duck out the way from a knife that flies at his head

He pushes you back behind him, you stumble back vision switch between monochrome and normal as someone else grabs you

Instinctively you almost yell before realizing who was now helping keep you steady

And the other person now attacking Shay

“Connor! He’s good! He saved me!”

“He’s a Templar!”

“So is Haytham and you haven’t killed him…again have you!”

At that Shay pauses, turning to look at you with confusion as Connor stops his attempt as slitting his throat

Ezio on the other hand helps you up but keeps a firm protective grip

Watching Shays movements like Connor in apprehension before the two settle down and stare at you for more detail

Both waiting on your word

“He saved me and today has been a long ass day-“

“You’ve been gone for 4 days”

You pause momentarily at that before adding “long 4 ass days of having my mind literally ripped apart. Can we please head back to the house and settle this there? Thank you”.

The moment you get back your almost immediately tackled to the ground by a familiar white and red hoodie wearing absent (dead) father

It’s….odd but nice

Desmond (still feels too awkward to call him dad) is holding you like a lifeline and you notice bags beneath his eyes

He looks like hell

But none of the others are any better either

They all like positively exhausted yet light up when seeing your safe

Your home

It reminds you of your mom when you returned home from school

The long work day evident on her brow but her smile lighting up the room at the sight of your face

It’s no different compared to then except for the fact they all (except Haytham) then protectively pull you away from the nearby Shay who’s being glowered at by Connor

Safe to say it’s a little awkward until you somehow pull free of Desmond’s death grip hobble your ass between the two lone Templars and Assassins

A long discussion having to take place between them all as you not only explain what happened but also it seems you all forget one crucial thing

It seems you forgot about your mom’s side of the family

Whoop de Doo you have more things to process and so does everyone else here

Specifically Connor and Haytham Because before apparently knew (or know of) Shay

Great, another complex relationship in this household like there needed to be more of that

But with this entire situation it also highlights something bigger

Your not safe

None of you are safe

Perhaps you never truly were

And that in turns leaves you with the difficult decision of what to do next

Because In this difficult game of politics between two ever warring groups your a neutral force

You wanted to stay that way but unfortunately fate had other plans

as your drug into this game your left with limited options of sides for not only yourself but for the others who seem keen on following you

Even the two (former?) templars seem to follow your decision

So When Des…er your dad suggests finding his old friends it seems like the best option

It’s either that or be kidnapped and prodded again and who knows what abstergo will do to everyone else (even one’s that once upon a time we’re on their side)

Besides, he says you’ll get along well with someone named Shaun so It can’t be too bad

So he sends out a message and you leave the home you find yourself look at with melancholy

It stopped being a home when mom died but now it seemed like it was just that again

Only time can tell what will bring upon you next

But….you think you’ll be ready for whatever is thrown at you when you have this odd group of family at your side

The expression of blood is thicker than water never really held much weight since you only ever had your mom until she was gone

But maybe you understand it a bit better now

#platonic #assassins creed x reader #assassins creed imagine #desmond miles x reader #ezio auditore x reader #ezio x reader #altair x reader #connor kenway x reader #haytham kenway x reader #shay cormac x reader #edward kenway x reader

[hatchetmanofficial]

(I love this question and I love your username!!!)

Thanks!

I like to think that Alan still has a part of him, that wants to weasel his way back into society, especially after meeting his Doe-eyes. But he can never have it. It's selfish of him to want.

Or Alan doesn’t believe that even if he can get away he can be redeemed/deserves it. Or could cope with being part of society.

Boss is unpredictable and very much so picks those who believe they are someone without a cause. I'd like to think that The Beast's song "Come Wayward Souls" applies to him.

I really enjoyed Over The Garden Wall, and especially Come Wayward Souls/Potatus Et Molasses. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hWgVdUv9UHo

It’s a shame the show got pulled from streaming services in a lot of locations.

TW suicide, death, religion feel free to ignore and delete this ask if it’s too heavy or triggering.

I watched Over The Garden Wall years ago and while I haven’t actually read The Divine Comedy/Dante’s Inferno directly… I need to as I’ve found a great VN that also derives from it called 10:16 …I seem to remember some analyses that describe the sin of despair.

(Makes sense. Catholics believe suicide is a sin.)

That is why blithe Greg was aided unlike Wirt. He is a child, innocent of the sin of despair, and in turn his seemingly random foolish actions stave off disaster, ie. dumping the coins from the ghosts creates a bonding experience while getting to Adelaide’s house so Beatrice can change her mind about betraying them.

(Also - that means they didn’t pay the coins to the ferryman to cross Acheron/the Styx! Charon’s Obol. Put into the mouth or on the eyes of the dead for that purpose. They also played a song for clemency like Orpheus.

Technically they haven’t paid for passage or received rites so cannot cross over into death and are trapped on the Earth side of the bank! Forced to wander/given more time before crossing. This may have been key to finally getting out of there. Though a villager in Harveston did say it wasn’t their time.)

And Greg is only ever in real danger when he loses hope, gives up and chooses to sacrifice himself for Wirt.

Wirt only breaks the curse when he has a realisation and dares to hope. To act. Otherwise he would have been trapped as the new employee, the new woodcutter/soul reaper/perpetuator of the cycle.

So… The Beast, and perhaps the Boss, do prey on despair and the lost. And potentially suicides but I’m not sure.

The Edelwood trees also recall The Wood Of The Suicides, which is yet another reference to Dante’s Inferno that I first encountered in The Sandman series. (Though those were in hell.)

So. With Over The Garden Wall being a child friendly allegory for purgatory or hell… I’m actually wondering if Carver, Alan, and Stitches may be dead without being aware of it? Or at least no longer strictly living, caught halfway in the liminal space of the uncanny town.

Stitches was constructed from the remains of three people. Carver doesn’t resemble his past self, retain much of his humanity or remember much about his life. 

Alan… was an unprepared 14 (?) year old runaway who was homeless for at least a year in Canada (?), which means he very likely experienced at least one bitterly cold winter without adequate shelter or clothing. Due to his genetic condition he may not have even been able to feel cold or pain to know how much peril he was in and find shelter, or he was lost.

I don’t know whether he was ‘rescued’ while still alive as an alternative to dying or whether he could have actually succumbed to exposure (or to despair in a tragic literal sense) and been found then.

I wonder if this is a Charon situation, if Alan replaced a disobedient employee and a future victim may replace him. (Perhaps Stitches is being lined up, or was created to watch Alan.)

Are the employees psychopomps? 

Or cultists enacting sacrifice?

Both?

In a way Alan cutting down people with his hatchet recalls the cutting down of the Edelwood Trees, that being a metaphor for death.

(I wonder if the choosing is similar to that of the employees - if he takes the despairing, those lost in life, or those who get lost in the forest. The victims are cut down with a hatchet, reaped to feed/fuel the Boss/the Beast.)

Which is more traditionally represented with a field of wheat being reaped by Death’s scythe.

A cornfield, another scary liminal space where people get lost, with similar reaping imagery, has also been associated with evil supernatural entities. 

A good example is He Who Walks Behind The Rows, implying an ancient evil god/cult worship and human sacrifice. Giving a hint of why the Boss might be making them do this.

Much in the way the Ancient Greeks believed they needed to placate gods and ghosts with blood.

Doe Eyes is a pull to humanity and life. Orpheus trying to lead Eurydice out of Hades. 

Or maybe the coworkers are just metaphorically ‘dead to the world’ through being taken in by the cult and largely isolated from society. (Stitches though is absolutely on some level dead or was never alive.)

I’m also seeing some Twin Peaks/Deadly Premonition parallels with forests/trees, weird towns, and another entity like BOB feeding on suffering.

I remember reading that the Boss may have been partially inspired by Bill Cipher too, so I’m wondering if the town is a little pocket of supernatural chaos. 

Bill (a yellow pyramid) was in turn inspired by Nyarlathotep, who liked to start cults and spread chaos and discord amongst mortals - and where Nyarlathotep is associated with pyramids The Boss is embodied in a similarly angular form of a diamond shaped sign. A yellow sign! 

The Yellow Sign is a symbol that is usually used by the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign, a cult that worships the Great Old One Hastur. It is said that the symbol can bestow supernatural powers such as mind-control and possession, and is used to get people under the control of the King in Yellow.

Actually… Past traumatic event in Doe Eye’s life and (spoiler) aside, that may also explain Doe Eye’s nightmares and inability to sleep. As well as their pull to the forest.

So while I’m half recalling all of this or extrapolating from googled snippets maybe all of these things together are hints to the Boss’s eldritch nature.

However, he can still influence his employers. If he sees someone get out of line, he would simply have to put them back in place. Alan, however, never gave Boss any hassle, not even when he first found him. You could say he has a clean track record when it comes to his job. Until doe-eyes that is. When I say that Boss kinda has favorites. He truly does.

I think Alan was too young, beaten down and scared to rebel and so obeyed without question. I think the Boss liked that. Alan is wolf coded but was as obedient as a lamb. Or the Boss’s loyal dog, used to guard and attack.

I had a blast reading through all of this

thank you tumblr user krowspiracyanon!

#conspiratorial ramblings #is it true?? idk i won't say

[phantomskeep]

Putting the "Fun" Back in "Funeral" Excerpts Pt. 1

okay yes I am impatient and I kind of want feedback on this idea, so have some excerpts from the Dead on Main fic I'm writing! \o/ (also I have no idea how to format things LOL). There is a very, VERY large timeskip between E1 and E2, btw. Criticisms and opinions are very welcomed!

Warning for small bits of violence in E1, and for mention of blood in E2 as well as a suggestive ending ;)

------- Excerpt One -------

Danny sometimes wishes he could travel through time. Don’t get him wrong! He knows the danger of messing up the time stream (Dan, Desiree, and Clockwork all taught him that much) but there are still times when he’ll sit on top of a building, staring at the stars, wondering what he would change given half the chance.

Currently, however, he was debating on his life choices while not on a rooftop.

White gloved hands shakily grasped broken concrete, slowly lifting his broken body out of the crater in the middle of some random street. The latest ghost who decided to try their hand at using Danny as a punching bag was one that he hadn’t encountered before. His usual roster of ghostly enemies still came by, of course. Ember, Skulker, Lunch Lady, Johnny 13, Kitty and Box Ghost at least visited Amity Park once a week, if not more. However, the ghostly entity that Danny was currently facing? He had never seen them before.

As Danny raised himself out of his impromptu resting place he considered the being before him. Dark, void black skin and fur greeted him. The ghost’s face was an odd cross between a horse’s and dogs - long, block-shaped snout with a mouth reaching right up to under their dark red eyes. Pointed ears flicked wildly back and forth between a long mane that reached just up until the collar of the ghost’s thick golden necklace. The ghost’s choice of clothes baffled the white-haired ghost greatly, black dress shirt and (oddly enough) bright golden skinny jeans? Really? Who died and thought that was a good fashion choice?

Yeah, Danny was just as confused.

The other ghost looked down at the young halfa, “I cannot fathom how you are the one Hotep described to me.” He sneered, clearly mocking Danny. “The great Akuris will easily defeat such a pathetic child.”

Danny gasped, mock-offended. “Well, Mr. Fursuit, I will have you know that at least I don’t dress like an accountant in the middle of a mid-life crisis.” He smirked before resting a soul-piercing green glare at the larger ghost floating above where Danny stood. “Or would it be mid-afterlife crisis?”

With that, Danny leapt back into action. He swung a powerful punch directly into Akuris’s long muzzle causing the dark ghost to be pushed back. Amity Park’s ghostly hero did not relent on his assault, though. Danny followed the other ghost’s backwards momentum to bodily slam into his opponent’s soft belly in a move he often saw Dash pull during his football practices. The twenty year old halfa quickly grabbed the Fenton thermos off of his belt loop, taking the opportunity to finally capture the winded ghost.

A great sigh left Danny’s body as he hovered in the air, surveying the damage leftover from the fight between the two. It was well around two in the morning, judging by the placement of the twinkling stars. Today was the day of his coronation - exactly five years after he defeated Pariah Dark.

Originally, Danny was told he was technically king of the Ghost Zone in the aftermath of the battle. The young ghost had argued with the mysterious time-themed ghost named Clockwork who appeared. Danny was successfully able to get a five-year grace period of kingly procrastination.

Since then, Danny had grown up a little bit. He defeated his alternate evil self, discovered new powers, traveled through time on Clockwork’s request, graduated highschool, took a gap year to focus solely on fighting ghosts, and successfully never let his parents or the world know about his ghostly half. All in all, Danny considered it a successful five years.

All good things must come to an end, though. The half ghost kept staring dejectedly at the stars so far away. He knew that even though he probably *should* tell his parents what was going on, the fear of everything going wrong lurked in the back of his mind. After the events of Dan, the young man pulled away from his parents bit by bit. It was grief that drove Danny to rip out the most vulnerable parts of himself, after all. If he had nothing to grieve about then he would never be pushed into doing something as drastic like destroying the world, right?

Jazz disagreed very heavily with his mentality, but he was fine with that.

Another sigh left the poor halfa’s body and he re-hooked the Fenton Thermos to his beltloop. He might as well go back home to continue to lick his wounds before Danny had to, unfortunately, be crowned king. What a shitty Tuesday.

------- Excerpt Two -------

A delightful aroma wafted through the late morning air, easily slipping between the weak rays of sunlight filtered through the windows. Jason slowly blinked as he shuffled his way out of bed, slightly wincing when his bruised leg hit the time-worn wooden floors. He still hadn’t fully recovered from the latest fight with Scarecrow – something Danny certainly wasn’t letting him forget. Thinking of the ghostly man, Jason glanced over to the other side of their shared bed only to see the sheets rumpled but obviously used. With a small sigh, Jason pushed himself off his mattress and started his sleepy trek into the apartment’s kitchen.

The sight of a smaller, pale man with his exposed back to Jason was always something the man longed to see. The first time Danny was relaxed and comfortable enough around Jason’s home (and by extension, Jason himself) to make the pair breakfast had rapidly become one of the man’s most favorite memories. It made the middle of his chest hum with feelings of pride-safe-I-did-that-yes-home-safe. Of course, seeing his boyfriend only in space-themed boxers was something Jason loved for another reason, as well.

Danny let out a small laugh, pushing back against the strong chest bracing him. “Jason,” he whined, dragging out the man’s name. The other man just hummed and dropped his chin on top of Danny’s head. Large arms wrapped securely around the younger man’s torso and waist, Jason’s steady breaths moving Danny’s smaller body as the Crime Lord hugged his lover from behind.

“Yes?” The taller man asked.

Danny half-turned his head to look into Jason’s similar crystal blue eyes. “If you keep this up the pancakes are going to end up burnt,” he warned half-heartedly.

A deep chuckle shook the smaller man’s body and Danny couldn’t help but purr contently at the feeling. Jason always made the younger feel so safe. Even when he came back to their shitty little apartment deep into the heart of Crime Alley covered in blood, or when the Pit Rage got the better of Jason so early into their relationship. Jason, to Danny, felt so much like home sometimes it physically hurt.

“What if,” Jason said slyly, blue eyes-half lidded with promise. He leaned closer onto Danny’s body, his mouth ghosting across a pointed ear. “I wanted something different for breakfast instead?”

Danny gasped as Jason finally captured his lips in a kiss. Calloused, practiced hands ran over cold cheeks and through soft hair. The half-ghost ran one hand along the stove’s counter, finding the dial to turn off the stove quickly. The man turned around in the comforting embrace before fully facing Jason.

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

aaaand yeah that's it! I'm slowly finishing up chapter one and I'm hoping to get it posted this weekend ^-^

#dead on main #danny phantom #dc #batfam #jason todd #red hood #danny fenton #danny is a twink #a goth punk twink #but still a twink #jason is a dilf #legit #have you seen that man #im not really into men #but i would let him do dirty things to me #im in love with dead on main #i want more fics of it #so im writing it myself #domestic dead on main #my beloved #dp x dc #dc x dp #dead on main ship #dead on main fanfic

[morallyinept]

Shoot: Augustman Singapore, Oct 2019 Issue. Published online on Oct 10th 2019.

Photographer: Doug Inglish

Interviewer: Cezar Greif

Grooming: Mira Chai Hyde

Full interview, behind the scenes, outtakes & shoot photographs below. 👇🏻

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

• Cover shot and original images used in the magazine.

• Outtakes and behind the scenes images.

• Full interview.

Pedro Pascal: Life before and after Game of Thrones.

Until recently, people were still erroneously addressing Pedro Pascal as Pascal Pedro. But he didn’t mind. Years of struggle in New York’s theatre scene had taught him to take things in stride. Pascal had studied drama in NYU, with his appearances on television after that limited to bit parts in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a few cop dramas. It took Game of Thrones, playing the part of Oberyn Martell, to make Pascal a household name – at the age of 37, no less.

Since that breakout role, Pascal has been busy. Among other works, he starred opposite Denzel Washington in The Equalizer 2, played a leading role in the Netflix biographical crime series Narcos, and acted as Agent Whiskey in Kingsman: The Golden Circle. There’s more to come, beginning with the titular character in The Mandalorian, which airs on Disney’s new streaming service Disney+ this November. In June next year, Pascal is slated to appear in the next Wonder Woman movie as the villain Maxwell Lord. Clearly, the man’s career has just properly started.

When did you first fall in love with acting?

At a very young age. My father used to take us to the movies three times a week. He’d come home from work and ask if we wanted to go see something, and we would, of course, want to go. I saw First Blood, The Big Chill, and so many other films. There was one summer when my mother would drop me off at the movie theatre as though it was daycare – times were different back then.

I’d watch a few screenings of movies like Poltergeist in one afternoon before she picked me up at six. This exposure to films led to a hobby in acting that my parents were happy I had – at least I wasn’t sitting around watching cable TV all day. It occupied so much of my time and eventually turned into serious training.

Why did you make the shift?

I had to take things more seriously if I wanted to stick with it. It wasn’t just being in love with the idea of appearing in movies and on stage any more – I needed to learn to analyse a story, delve deeper into the various aspects of acting, and learn the technical side of things. What came next was getting jobs to pay the bills. Surviving as an actor, basically.

You took some time to find mainstream success. Did you ever consider quitting?

The confidence definitely fluctuates. I didn’t develop other skills, so my familiar routine was to attend auditions for jobs. One would be enough to pay for rent and food for a while, or I had to wait tables to pay for my expenses. It felt completely desperate because I was really in love with the art of acting and the idea of being a working actor.

But I always got enough work to keep going. I don’t think I would have if I couldn’t get a job in three years or something like that, but such a thing never happened. I would get a role in a tiny little play outside of Boston, or a beer commercial, or an episode of a cop show in the city.

Do you appreciate your popularity more since it came later? How do you think this has influenced the way you approach your status as a celebrity now?

I was definitely more self-assured because my habits and routines were firmly in place and felt more important to me than my newfound success. I know it’s hard for me to describe this, but I just don’t feel famous. That wasn’t part of my development when I was younger, so I came into it “fully cooked”, or maybe even overdone. (laughs) As exciting and as strange as fame can be, it just doesn’t feel as real to me as my relationships, or the fact that my backaches, or how I panic in the morning if I don’t know exactly where I can get my coffee. Those things have much higher stakes to me than the public’s perception of who I am.

Can you identify a reason for your success? Did it make sense for to you when it “arrived”, perhaps because you thought you were becoming a better actor, or was it pure luck?

I oscillate between the two. It can seem totally random, which is terrifying because anything can happen, but the randomness of it all makes a little more sense to me. But I see some clearly predestined circumstances for other people, and you sometimes have these very clear realisations that an opportunity was kept from you a long time ago because it wasn’t the right place or the right time. I guess I probably lean more towards the randomness of it all, or the simple idea that if you keep at the same damn thing, you’re increasing your chances of it succeeding.

And how do you view your breakout role in Game of Thrones now?

It changed my life, but what’s interesting is how all the silly jobs that I’ve had before this one also felt like big breaks. I was a jobbing actor by my late 20s, and I was just as excited with some seventh-tier role on some network television show because it meant that I could pay some bills.

That felt like as big as a win as anything else. It’s the same with theatre. Because it’s so hard to go from the small plays to the medium-sized ones, getting a role in the latter feels like a miracle too. I was close to becoming homeless many times in the past, and was actually staying at an AirBnB before getting the role in Game Of Thrones, so I must really thank the showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for taking that chance on me.

Has your experience in theatre helped your work in film? How do they compare?

Theatre work is like the building blocks of what I do now. From Shakespeare to something contemporary, and everything in between, I’ve done them all. When you perform the same thing eight times a week, you’re constantly reworking your role to keep it interesting, whether it’s discovering something new or discarding something that exists. It feels like training. The last time I took classes was in college – and that’s something I don’t recommend – but doing theatre work felt like staying in school, which helped. Plus, it provided medical insurance and a weekly paycheck.

Tell us more about the new Mandalorian series.

It’s taking things in a new direction. I think it’s amazing that Lucasfilm is letting Jon Favereau and Dave Felloni take Star Wars into new territories as far as style and tone are concerned, from using practical effects and digital special effects in tandem, to exploring characters out of the familiar Star Wars settings.

They’re also blurring the boundaries between the good guys and the bad guys, and I love the idea of having things in a grey area. We’re dealing with the outer reaches of the galaxy here, which means a lot of ambivalence around what is right and wrong, and the conflict between self-serving and self-sacrificial decisions and actions. It’s all very much a part of the Star Wars story. As for the character, the Mandalorian is a bounty hunter, and people pay him to do jobs. Let’s just leave it at that for now.

Christopher Nolan said he casted Tom Hardy as Bane because of how he acts through his eyes in the mask. What was it like to express everything you needed to in this role with a full-face helmet on?

Much of the work is already taken care of by the writing, which is great, as well as the visual experience that the show provides. But it was still important to me to live in the story as a person who does not show his face, so I worked a lot on the character’s body language. It feels almost like going back to theatre. I think that there’s a lot that can be told with stillness and very economical movements.

I hear that you’re a real movie nerd. Do you have recommendations for fairly unknown directors or movies that we should pay attention to?

I just saw this incredible movie called Monos by Alejandro Landes. It was amazing. And I’ve been floored by [director] Ari Aster. He’s an aesthetician that also brings out great performances, and the films Hereditary and Midsommar blew me away totally. There’s also someone who’s up and coming – Taika Waititi – who made Jojo Rabbit, that’s, in my opinion, the best movie of the year.

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal shoot #pedro pascal photoshoot #pedro pascal interview #pedro pascal talks #pedro pascal augustman #pedro pascal magazine #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal outtake #pedro pascal behind the scenes #pedropascal #pedro pascal fandom

[leporcide]

cicadas in the background

"Fresh air, scenic views, and a beautiful lake offer a perfect retreat when you need to escape life's troubles. But your peace, however, is shattered when rowdy campers move into the cabin next to yours and an eerie presence in the lake takes a keen interest in you."

pairing: modern au kisame hosigaki x gn!reader for: the Cabin event! word count: 12ishk tw: nsft, body parts are named and described, but i have two versions of the smut section for afab and amab,! there's a divider to warn you! its the first full smut i've ever written so i apologize if it's lacking (or too much!) like reading on ao3?: here u go tags: blood, murder off-page technically, smut, breif? description of being drugged/lingering effects of a sleep medication reader took, bullying, animal death and gore (rip to a frog), uuuh being peeped on in the shower, if there's any i miss pls let me know i'm terrible at it notes: this is kind of a super modern au, with a heavy southern US lens, so take the setting with a grain of salt also thank u to mel for beta reading part of this for me :'>

The sun’s rays reach through the water, warm and easy as they ride the breeze-driven waves of the lake’s surface. Their strength wanes the further down they stretch, lost to the gloom further out in the water. Here in the shallows, though, the water weeds eagerly drink it up and grow lush along the muddy bottom. And in turn, schools of glittering silver minnows dart in and out of the greenery.

It’s so alive. And quiet.

None of the noise above the water reaches your ears. When you don’t move, you can hear the rushing of your blood. Your lungs ache—have been aching—for fresh air for a few minutes now. But you’ve finally settled at the bottom, a foot of blue-green water above your head, a large rock in your lap to keep you down, and the minnows that startle easily gather around you. You are so much bigger than them–they swim over and under your calves and duck close under your chin, looking for any place to hide from larger fish.

The bluegills, with their sunny bellies lurk further away. Wary of how you loom over the minnows. Their spiny fins look deadly compared to the small, rounded ones that propel the smaller fish. When they swoop close, trying to snatch a minnow, the sunlight catches on their scales, highlighting the vibrant red oranges of their bellies. They certainly look more predatory than the minnows. But you know the spines and bright colors are more defensive than offensive. Bluegills might be dangerous in the shallows, but in deeper water, they’re on the menu.

Finally, your lungs give—your ribs convulsing once in warning. The movement sends the minnows scattering. Pushing the heavy rock away, you’re suddenly at the surface.

Everything is overwhelming the moment you break the surface. Annual cicadas buzz—loud, high-pitched, and fast. The sunshine is blindly bright. Birds call back and forth. And a squad of vehicles crunches over the gravel path to the campground’s main office, the driver of the last one smacking their horn in a quick burst that startles you.

You push your goggles up onto your forehead, blinking hard against the fresh air. The sight of others surprises you. It shouldn’t.

The lake isn’t massive, certainly nowhere near the scale considered “impressive,” but it’s big enough that while you can see from one side to the other, you can’t swim across without some kind of endurance training. There are waterways leading to and from the lake, namely a deeper stream which feeds into a river boaters like to take. You spent your first night here tracing a map of all the connections until your finger found the ocean.

The lake prohibits fishing, and only the campground owner is allowed to use motorized boats on the water. You hauled yourself onto the dock. The sign at the end of it announces the swimming hours—between noon and 4 pm. Only four hours. The strange rules cut down a lot of people’s summer plans at the lake.

Your towel is sun-warm, dry, and fluffy. You aren’t quite ready to leave the lake yet, though swimming hours are almost over. Instead, you drape the towel over your shoulders and let your legs dangle in the cool water. Water bugs skate over the placid water’s surface, elegantly moving in patterns that you don’t understand but admire all the same.

The new arrivals are loud and excited behind you. Their car doors slam and you hear them joking together. Though they’re too far away for you to make out what they’re saying.

You turn your head, catching sight of the tail end of the group. A short redhead and a taller blond seem to bicker, their stances tense in the office doorway. They’re close, though, nearly nose-to-nose. Your weight shifts, leaning a little closer, trying to see their faces better.

Something closes around your ankle, still in the water. Warm, alive, and strong. It tugs and you’re jerked forward on the dock; the wood scraping against the exposed underside of your thighs. You shriek and jerk back.

For a split second, you’re hindered, and you’re certain that whatever has a hold of you isn’t going to let go. But then it releases and you tumble backward. Your skull cracks against the dock with a sharp stab of pain.

You scramble to your feet. When you look at your ankle, you don’t see anything. Not a mark or a scratch. Your heart pounds wild and scared in your chest. Laughter breaks out from behind you. The blond, his long hair covering half his face, has seen you freak out. Embarrassment warms your cheeks.

His laugh breaks your fear. You feel silly. A curious fish had probably just gotten too close to your ankle. You exhale, fingers twisting in the comfort of your towel. It’s time to get out, anyway.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The office is small, the tiled floor a dingy white with tread marks a person could spend days scrubbing and they’d still be there. Pictures of the campgrounds, guests, posters, and lists of information cover the walls.

Half the office is a store. A big display fridge hums in the back, hosting neatly organized rows of beverages and cold things. Someone neatly stacked bags of ice in the bottom. Canned goods and snacks with long shelf lives take up space on a single display rack. There’s a window unit propped up by a ten-gallon bucket next to the fridge and from the sound of it, catches the water dripping from the A/C as well.

But despite the constant noise, it’s quiet in here. The group earlier cleared out. The only person left is the campground’s owner. He stands behind the counter that also serves as his desk. You watch him from the corner of your eye while browsing the snacks offered on display. He writes on a piece of paper in slow, smooth movements while the other hand holds a paper fan.

How he’s hot in this little building is beyond you. Then again, you’re in nothing but your bathing suit and a towel, a coin purse in your hand.

You bought groceries before you came, of course. Easy to make camp fair you can make on one of the many grills outside or on the single hotplate in your cabin. Snacks included. There’s no need for you to be in here.

Except that you’re nosy. You haven’t seen anyone else in the campground since arriving. The strangers that stopped by didn’t exactly look like camper material either. It’s a benign sort of curiosity. Something new to poke at more than a real need to know.

You need a plan of action– way to ask the dark-haired man who his previous guests were. When you checked in, you got the impression he was not a talkative person. Shamefully, you can’t recall his name until you spot the nameplate on the counter by the register.

Itachi Uchiha. Certainly an interesting name.

Your stalling comes to an end when he glances up, his dark eyes meeting yours over the top of the display shelves. You duck your head with a silent curse. Grabbing the first thing you can reach, you head to the counter with it.

“Did you find everything okay?” He’s soft-spoken and reserved, his question a rehearsed line more than genuine care.

“Yeah, was just looking for a quick snack. Worked up an appetite swimming,” you lie, putting the treat down.

He sets his pen aside and his long, pale fingers clack against an old register’s keys. The total reads in dim green numbers on a tiny screen that faces toward you. You’re a little disappointed that he’s more focused on his job than continuing the conversation. But you accept it without complaint, handing the due amount over.

“You stayed out there longer than usual,” he says after a beat longer. The register closes with a scrape of metal against metal. There’s a change in his tone, something more amused. “The sign says swimming is closed at 4 pm.”

Your eyes cut away from the path of the creases in Itachi’s face, floundering to focus on anything except him. You almost miss seeing of the upturned corner of his mouth. The big window behind him, decorated with receipts, old order forms, and sticky notes, has a clear view of the lake. And the dock you spend most of the swimming hours on.

“Did I? Sorry, it’s easy to lose track of time out here!” As you apologize, your eyes find the analog clock on the wall above the entrance door. It’s almost five o’clock—an hour over.

“Try not to make a habit of it,” Itachi says, not unkindly. He leaves your purchase for you to collect and resumes writing.

However, you’re not quite ready to let the conversation end. “Is it a slow week? It’s pretty empty for a weekend, isn’t it?”

“No. We’re out of the way. Locals give us the most business in the fall.”

“Oh. Was that group earlier local, then?”

The sound of pen scratching paper pauses.

You look back and find him watching you, face impassive. It makes your mouth go dry, but you press on. “They seemed pretty lively, huh?”

“They are. You would be wise to stay out of their way while they’re here,” he answers after another beat. The way he says it makes you feel like the kid who isn’t in on the joke.

“Noted.” You take the packaged snack off the counter. The plastic crinkles under your grip. “Have a good day, Itachi.”

He doesn’t return the sentiment.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The cabins don’t have private showers. The campground shares a bathhouse instead. Fours stalls for toilets on one side of the building. Four enclosed stalls for somewhat private showering on the other side. Then a heated bath in the other half of the building. Being the only camper these past two days has felt like a luxury.

Well, luxury is a bit of a stretch.

Like the campground office-store, the bathhouse is an older building. You can only assume that only the most pressing repairs get done around here. Spiderwebs are in every nook and cranny of the place with new ones every day. There are small floodlights on either side of the door and in the dusky haze of evening, the spiders have a veritable feast gathering at their doorsteps.

For you, however, it’s like walking through a bait ball on land and the bait gets its revenge. You’ve made it mostly intact this trip, but when you open the bathhouse door, you duck as a heavy-shelled beetle goes sailing past your head.

The inside of the bathhouse is a little unsettling. The walls are the same thick white-painted cement blocks as the outside and the floor is bare concrete. Both of which make it echo. The showers don’t drain well and underneath the smell of harsh cleaning chemicals is the faint scent of stagnant water. There are four yellow fluorescent lights on the ceiling and one of them flickers at random intervals like some Morse code in its dying days.

But this being your third night visiting, you have outgrown your fear of it. You set your travel bag of non-essentials on the ledge above a sink before taking the shower at the end of the line. It has the best water pressure out of the four. But it lacks the coat hooks the other ones have. You balance your clean pajamas and towel over the stall door and your bathroom caddy sits on the ground.

Calling the bathhouse luxury is a stretch indeed.

You strip out of your bathing suit. A small amount of lake debris has gathered under the elastic band. The water is lukewarm when you first turn it on. You hold a hand under the spray, waiting for it to warm, shifting from one foot to the other on the plastic slip-resistant mat on the floor.

The lake will be colder than this with the cooling nighttime temperatures. It’s unfortunate the swimming hours are so short. The chorus of small frogs, crickets, and katydids is peaceful compared to their daytime counterparts. If the night is clear and the wind is still, the lake’s surface calms enough it reflects the night sky. It would be like swimming through the stars themselves.

However, you would hate to ruin the wildlife’s routines. You snort quietly to yourself once you step into the now steaming water. If you were a raccoon, the last thing you would want is to come to the lake’s banks to wash your breakfast and see some half-naked fleshy thing swimming at your table.

You snort at the mental image.

After a long day of sunscreen, lake water, and sweat showers feel rewarding. Like you’ve earned it. It certainly feels that way as you scrub the grime from your skin.

You want to soak in the bath tonight too. With the group Itachi warned you about coming in, you aren’t sure you want to be caught naked out there. You would stick to showering for the rest of your stay, but tonight you were going to take full advantage of the bathhouse.

Perhaps, though, you aren’t quite used to the hollow feeling of the building yet. Or maybe you’re still unnerved by the fish biting at your ankle.

It starts with a fleeting thought. Just a passing whisper from your mind that maybe you aren’t alone. Your chest tightens and the hand scrubbing soap against your skin jerks.

You huff at yourself, trying to be rational. The only other person on the grounds is Itachi, and you have yet to bump into him at the bathhouse. There isn’t anyone else here. But the baby hairs on the back of your neck raise. It feels like someone is trying to stare a hole into your back.

Your heart pounds in your chest. Like a child too afraid to look under the bed, you’re struck with the idea that when you turn, there will be someone standing right behind you—breathing down your neck. The feelings increase with the staccato of your heartbeats. Until finally you cannot stand it anymore and you twist, eyes wide to meet—nothing.

There’s absolutely nothing and no one behind you. You almost roll your eyes at yourself, exhaling with relief. Though, you peek over the top of the stall door, just to confirm that you’re alone in the bathhouse. Your mind is on edge. After the bath, you’ll go back to your cabin and go to bed at a decent hour rather than stay up reading to lamplight.

You’ve just stepped back into the warmth of the shower spray when the bathhouse door creaks open.

Everything inside you comes to a screeching halt. Your heart slams against your rib cage like a panicked, trapped bird. Terror floods your system like a bucket of ice-cold water. Thoughts fly through your brain, too frantic to focus long enough to hold on to one. You need to pull clothes on, need to find something to defend yourself. You need to—you don’t know what you need to do in this situation.

You stand there helpless, naked as the day you were born, with no idea what to do now that someone has come into the bathhouse with you. You’re so scared that you can’t move.

Instead, you listen. It feels like you’re going to burst an eardrum with how hard you strain to catch a noise. It’s hard to hear over the shower and after a few minutes of gathering courage, you snake a hand out to turn the water off.

You stand there listening for so long, staring at the wall of the shower, that your vision blurs and you get light-headed.

There isn’t a single sound except your frantic heart and the gurgle of water doing down the pipes. After far too long, you try to rationalize it. The door isn’t heavy, made to be easily accessible. In theory, a breeze could blow it open.

If it opened at all. It’s entirely possible you imagined it.

Your sleep schedule still isn’t great. The stress from the city, from being let go—maybe it’s affecting you more than you originally thought. Staying up late reading horror novels isn’t helping either.

You take a shaky inhale, trying to force your nerves to calm. Everything is fine, you’re fine. You turn, reaching your hand out for your towel. You meet the gaze of someone very tall. His eyes are small, beady, and bloodshot, and staring at you.

The sight of a face peeping over the shower stall’s door, gray-blue and cast in the shadow of a flickering fluorescent light, sucks all the air from your lungs. There are markings on the person’s cheeks, sharp and angular, but you can’t quite make them out. Dark blue hair drips with water, wild despite being soaked.

It seems like everything stops, coming to a deathly stand-still before you scream. It rips so violently from your throat, tearing at the soft flesh of your esophagus, that it throws you back. Your eyes shut tightly when your back hits the steam-wet cement brick wall, hands flying to cover yourself.

There’s noise, the sound of things falling on the floor, the startled shuffling backward—then barely covered laughter just as the bathhouse door creaks open and close again.

It’s the laugh that catches you off-guard. You hear it over the scream dying in your mouth. And when your teeth clack together, you begin to put things together. You feel stupid in an instant. The bastards confirm it when you hear their laughter further away, muffled by the bathhouse walls.

The group Itachi warned you about.

They must have come back while you were in the shower. How they figured out you were in here is beyond you, but isn’t hard to guess with how small the campground is.

Where they had gotten it or why they had put a stupid—if realistic—Halloween mask on to scare you is also beyond rational thought. But after seeing your little freak out on the dock, you wouldn’t put it past them to dress up like some swamp creature to scare you.

From the two you had seen, they were at least your age or older. Adults acting like jerk teenagers had you cross. Angrily, you dry yourself and throw on your pajamas.

You don’t bother going through with the bath or the rest of your nightly routine. Instead, you stalk from the bathhouse, across the gravel road and to the big cabin a couple of cars are now parked outside of. The blond man stands at the door, his arms braced on the lip of the door to hold himself upright while he teased someone inside. Water drips from his long yellow hair.

You clear your throat loud and ugly. It catches the blond’s attention quickly. He glances at you over his shoulder, his brows furrowed in apparent confusion. A second later, recognition flashes across his face and he turns to you, his lips parting in a smile—a greeting on the tip of his tongue. But you’re not having it.

“Listen, pal, I do not care what you and your little friends do but do not fuck with me,” you steel your nerves as you bite out your words.

He hunches his shoulders at the threat, his expression dropping into something hostile. “Excuse me?”

“Your pranks aren’t funny. I’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine, okay?” You don’t give him the benefit of the doubt.

“What are you even talking about? Back the hell up,” he snaps back. There’s a nasal grunt at the end of his sentences.

It irks you that he’s playing dumb.

You catch sight of red hair coming up behind him. You’ve told him off, but you don’t think you can handle reinforcements. So you give him one more warning look, tug your bathroom caddy close, and stomp the few feet to your own cabin.

Neighbors. Great.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The windows of your little cabin rattling from something loud and heavy scares you awake. You scramble in your sheets, heart pounding before you free yourself of fabric and realize it’s music. It comes through the panes of glass muffled, but you can hear it now that you’re conscious. It’s full of drums and rage against society.

It sounds good—would have sounded good if it weren’t seven in the morning.

You groan into your hands, far too tired to be awake. Considering how late your neighbors got in last night, it’s surprising they’re up so early. But they’re obviously making it your problem as well.

The music continues to blast at top volume for the hour it takes to get your day started. There’s a pause after breakfast where the mirror stops shaking. It gives you a clear view of your bloodshot eyes and puffy eye bags. The respite of silence is short-lived. You bite down on your toothbrush when pop music takes the place of heavy metal.

It goes through several more changes, ranging from country music to techno before it quiets downs again. You’ve put on a cute, comfy outfit for the day, draped a towel over your shoulder, and picked out an easy-to-read book to lounge on the dock with.

You brace yourself, hand on the door handle, for just a moment before stepping into the summer day. It’s hot but lacks the humidity from previous days. The sun shines brightly overhead, with only a few puffy clouds drifting through the blue, blue sky. Cicadas call from the trees. This is your vacation. Your new camping neighbors cannot take this from you.

In the next second, pushing the door open just a little more to step out fully, you’re doused in freezing cold water. It’s such a stark difference in temperatures that it burns. You scream, unable to hold it back. Your muscles lock up from the shock, and you can’t dodge the bucket when it comes down too. It thunks against your skull, still a quarter of the way full. It hurts like a bitch and nearly knocks you off your feet.

You grit your teeth, pushing through the tightness of your shocked muscles and the ringing in your ears. Your neighbors laugh, loud and mean. You’re grateful, in a terrible way, that no one can see the tears among the rest of the water dripping down your face.

“That’s who you’re wasting your time on?” an unfamiliar voice asks, clearly unimpressed.

You glance up, seeing a man with stitching tattoos peeking out from under the sleeveless shirt he wears. Saying he looks intimidating is an understatement. He sits on an ice chest, a speaker crooning something low next to him. The two he’s speaking to—the blond from before and a taller, silver-haired man—clearly don’t hear him.

Your teeth chatter, your mouth twisting into something you hope is unpleasant.

The youthful-looking man with the dull, apathetic eyes is there too, pulling something from the trunk of his car. “Children will act accordingly.”

You blink, droplets of water falling from your lashes, before looking away from them. Despite the warm air, you shiver with cold. The water has soaked your towel too. But your book is dry.

Your book is dry. The vitriolic heat burning your tongue cools when you register that fact.

From the corner of your eye, you catch sight of a silhouette at the edge of the office building. Itachi stands outside, leaning against the white-painted brick. You can’t see his face clearly from where you stand, but you feel his disappointed gaze.

It reeks of “I told you so.” Your gaze drops. The last thing you want is to be kicked out of the campgrounds and have your getaway cut short by your own behavior. When you look back up, he’s gone.

You shoot a glare at the four men gathered in front of the cabin next to yours. The blond shifts his weight to a leg, jutting a hip out. He grins, smug. He’d be handsome if the back of your head didn’t ache and your skin wasn’t just now thawing out.

“Deidara, leave it,” the redhead says sharply. Like calling back a dog.

He snorts and you bite back something mean. Your book is dry and in an hour on the dock, so will you. However, you take their plastic blue bucket. If they want it back, they’ll have to really fight for it.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The sunshine is warm on your back, the gentle lapping of water against the shore soothing you into a comforting feeling. You think about getting in once swimming hours open, but hesitate, thinking about whatever touched your foot yesterday. But it’s your lovely neighbors dragging kayaks out onto the water that makes up your mind for you.

You’ve made it halfway through your book before Deidara seeks you out again.

“You look like you recovered from your shower this morning!” There’s a surprising friendliness in his voice when he calls your name.

Your fingers tighten around the edge of your book, the paper giving slightly. He’s under dressed to be kayaking in deep water—not a life jacket in sight. His shoulders are already turning red. You wonder where he learned your name from. Had Itachi told him?

“I have. Thanks for the concern.” You are far less inviting.

It doesn’t deter him. He dips his paddle in the water, bringing the bright orange kayak closer. The nose of it bumps into a wooden pole and you feel the vibration through the dock.

“Oh, that’s where that thing went,” he says once he’s closer. “Smart.”

Your eyes follow his gaze, landing on the blue bucket. You’ve filled it with ice from the office, drinks buried in it to keep them cold. Irritation pops between your teeth when you say, “It works great. Keeps things real cold.”

“You don’t say…” It’s unfair how pretty he is, with his mouth cocked to the side in that smug way of his. “What are you reading?”

“A book.”

“You’re a straightforward one, aren’t you?”

His grin only grows wider. You think of the knot on the back of your head. Your eyes drop and you turn the page of your book, not reading the words.

“We got off on the wrong foot but look, I’m willing to forgive and forget, alright?” he offers, like you’ve asked for it.

You have to bite back an ugly remark. He shifts in his seat. The squeak of his water shoes against the kayak is loud in the silence. Even the cicadas have gone quiet, as if silencing themselves to spectate this uncomfortable encounter. You turn another page.

Deidara isn’t good at silence. He shows you so in the next moment when his paddle comes up and knocks your book from your hands. It was spared from the prank this morning, but it is the sole victim this afternoon. It lands with a splash on the other side of the blond.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you snarl at him.

“Hey, I didn’t mean for it to go in the wat—”

You don’t touch him—a fact you repeat adamantly later. When Deidara’s kayak suddenly flips, his single cornflower blue eye widening in alarm, you aren’t even close to him.

Your hand reels back in a fist, ready to slug him, but you don’t touch him. Something grabs the lip of the opening of the kayak—you see pale blue, the arc of water droplets catching sunlight like gems—and flips the little boat.

It’s chaos from there. It happens so fast you can do nothing but watch. You don’t feel afraid while he thrashes under the surface, kicking up water and mud.

When Deidara breaks the surface, he’s screaming. Red slashes mar his chest. They’re horrible. The edges of the skin are ragged. Parts of it flap with his panic, barely remaining connected to him. He scrambles to climb atop the flipped kayak, yelling at you.

You think of the knot on the back of your head. It hurts.

It’s Deidara’s friends that save him, eventually. The silver-haired man, Hidan you learn, paddles up, teasing him for being scared of little lake fish. Until he sees the blood. It’s not worry that he uses when he hauls the blond out of the water, though. He seems annoyed at the blood being spilled everywhere, and that Deidara won’t stop screaming that it was a person down there.

The man turns on you until Deidara says it wasn’t you. It doesn’t look like Hidan believes him, but he also can’t believe someone like you could do that kind of damage.

You suggest a hospital, but they both shut the idea down quickly. The other two arrive and they go into the office building, Itachi holding the door open for them. He watches you with his dark eyes.

You feel like he blames you. A part of you blames yourself as well. You should have reached out to help him at least.

You pick up the plastic handle of the bucket and go back home to the cabin.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The evening is quieter. There’s a bullfrog croaking outside your window, cracked just enough to let an unusually cool breeze in.

You’re watching one of the movies you downloaded on your laptop. It’s an old, black-and-white film. It’s entertaining despite its age, but you think you’re made of stronger stuff than to be scared by it. Especially during this scene, where the lead actress is just swimming. Beautiful, of course, with perfectly practiced flips in the water.

People’s fascination with the underwater world hasn’t changed. You included.

The music changes, sharp and threatening as it pans away from the woman and to the monster lurking in the thick netting of green water weeds.

Knock, knock, knock.

Three gentle but obvious taps against your door startle you. Made of stronger stuff indeed. Your first thought is your neighbors, your mouth set into a thin line. But you haven’t heard a peep from them all evening. You give your unexpected visitor the silence treatment, hoping they’d get the hint and leave.

Knock, knock, knock.

Or not.

You’re aware of yourself. Guilt makes you defensive. You should have reached for Deidara, tried to help him somehow. Acknowledging you’re being cagey doesn’t help, though.

Finally, you sigh and call out, “What do you want?”

Silence is the response. It extends for so long that it makes you uneasy. You pause your movie and sit up on the bed. The bullfrog croaks, deep and bassy outside the window. A voice answers just as you're about to stand and move toward the door.

“I have your book.” The voice is raspy, rough—out of practice.

Your heart pounds in your chest, quick like a frightened bird. You like to think you’re good at picking up on voices, and this one is entirely unfamiliar. Your tongue swipes over your lips. “Thank you…?”

You aren’t sure what you’re supposed to say. It feels wrong, somehow. After everything today, you hadn’t had the chance to worry about the book you had lost. The book Deidara had knocked into the lake.

There isn’t an answer to the drawn-out pause left for them to give their name. In fact, there isn’t any noise on the other side of the door. It makes your mouth go dry and your stomach queasy. You’re filled with so much anxiety it’s hard to breathe. It presses in on you, suffocating. Until you get to your feet and go to the door.

This is stupid. You know it’s stupid. You’d be snarking at the character on-screen that opening the door is an incredibly stupid idea. But not knowing feels so much worse.

You open the cabin door, just a crack to peek. There’s no one there.

Chagrin floods your cheeks. You aren’t familiar with your neighbors. That’s all. One of Deidara’s friends must have returned the book in apology.

The book in question is set in front of the door. Its pages are sun-dried and stiff with water damage. The cheap ink has bled, smearing a lot of the words. But it’s kind of sweet that they returned the book after everything. You flip to the page you had been reading when it was knocked from your hands, then nearly drop it.

The pages here are soaked red, glued together by something thicker than water.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟. The week will end soon.

You try not to let it loom over you, but it’s there—in the quiet gaps between cicada songs and in the stagnant heat of the day. But it is most obvious in the “No Swimming” sign Itachi posted after Deidara’s accident. You can only watch the minnows darting underwater like quicksilver now. It’s an unsatisfactory goodbye.

You stop, sweat dripping from every roll and crinkle in your skin, to uncap your water bottle before downing half of it. The handle of the blue plastic bucket sits in the bend of your elbow, half-full of lakeside debris: fallen leaves, twigs, some acorns, little round pebbles. Things for you to shift through later and make little handmade things for souvenirs. Most campsites are strongly against the practice, but Itachi is indifferent.

You hadn’t planned to take this hike around the lake, but you’ve already made it to the other side. A sigh leaves your lips when you toss the water bottle back into the bucket. You’re being avoidant as well. Your “neighbors” are still around. They’ve pestered you about everything from borrowing your grill lighter to trying to bully you into drinking with them.

Deidara, with white bandages peeking out from under his shirt, has been the most persistent. It’s flattering, in a vain way, to have the blond’s attention. But you aren’t stupid enough to get involved with whatever that group has going on.

If you let him hit? You would never live it down.

You shudder at the phantom catcalling and jeering as you come up to a bend in the trail. There’s running water here, one of the streams that cut away from the main lake. Further down, you can see a bridge that goes over it.

You hear the sound of splashing above the babbling of the stream. It’s not obvious and if you hadn’t stopped you don’t think you would have heard it. You listen to the noise for a while before curiosity gets the better of you.

You’re so nosy.

Stepping off the path, into unmaintained woodland doesn’t feel as foreboding as it should, considering all the stories that come from doing something like this. The sun is too bright, too warm, and the shade too thin to be anything but pleasant to step into. But your gut still tightens. Something brushes against the back of your mind, warning you it could be an animal you don’t want to startle.

But you’re already so close to the source of the splashing. The undergrowth here is denser, the trees coming together in thick green webs of leaves. You peek through them, eyes wide as movement catches your attention immediately. The person on the side, down in the stream rips the breath from your lungs.

The overhead foliage blankets the stream in shadow, dark and damp—a contrast to the warm sunlight caressing your back. While you watch him, a peculiar mix of emotions stirs within. Despite the well-defined muscles, he looks almost sickly, as if he might be unwell. His cheeks are hollow, his face is made up of harsh angles, and his skin is a soft, pale blue-gray that seems more pronounced in the shade.

You watch the water roll up his arms and over his shoulders in wild arcs. Standing with his legs apart and bent at the waist, he appears entirely absorbed in his task, his hands chasing something unseen in the murky water.

Each movement causes the muscles under his skin to ripple. His tall frame moves with a sense of purpose, exuding both grace and strength. There’s something captivating about his presence, an allure that draws you in despite the uncertainty.

A bolt of fear strikes like lightning as you catch sight of his face. You’ve seen him before. You’re the one peeping now, it seems. You should leave—the thought nags at you, screaming in the back of your skull. Whoever, whatever he is, you know he’s dangerous. The shark-like appearance cannot be a coincidence. But a part of you refuses to move. Rooted to the ground, you watch the flex of his biceps, lick your lips at the downward turn of his mouth while he concentrates hard on his task.

You’re fascinated by something so different.

His hands snap out again, closing around something finally by the grin that flashes across his face. Porcelain white teeth, pointed and sharp, catching a sliver of sunshine.

The tiny body of a muddy green frog almost escapes his palms, flinging itself desperately from the giant that holds it. He moves with it, refusing to let it go. You watch, mouth parted, though you aren’t breathing anymore. The man, his eyes gleaming, presses his hands together.

Squeezing and squeezing until—there’s an awful popping sound and pink-stained water drips between the man’s fingers. It’s terrible what he’s done with that handsome grin on his face.

Then he tosses the dead thing toward the bank below you. Two little raccoons, too small to be on their own chitter in excitement. They run forward to where the frog’s guts spill into the mud, squabbling over it before their fighting tears the body in half. They feast like they’re starving.

It’s gross and makes your stomach queasy. But it offers understanding. He’s feeding them. In an archaic, far too gruesome way, but feeding the animals nonetheless.

Your eyes leave the small raccoons, returning to the strange man. He’s looking at you now, too. His grin is gone, faded into a thin frown. You’ve been caught, the blood draining from your face.

Neither of you make the first move.

The baby raccoons, licking their lips after their frog, chatter at him from the water’s edge. They slap the surface, splashing each other by accident when he ignores them. They’re impatient and demanding. The shark-man glances between them and you. Contemplating, he shifts his weight, disturbing the flow of water around his calves. It’s a tiny movement, barely anything at all, but it causes you to flinch back. And the frown on his face deepens.

“What are you lurking like a pervert for?” he calls out, a lilt of sarcasm in his voice.

His strikingly recognizable voice. You’re relieved, somewhat, to know he can speak. Then feel stupid for the assumption he couldn’t. “You’re one to talk.”

“Me? No no, I would never go around peeping at people like that,” he responds quickly. As if he’s eager to be talking with you. “Especially not you. Not with how much you go around shrieking.”

Your stomach twists itself into knots. It strangles the butterflies. This feels surreal to you. You shouldn’t, but you find yourself pushing back the branches of the trees to ease yourself down the slope of the bank, the temperature dropping when the sun can no longer touch you. The little raccoons scamper away with unwelcoming hisses when they spot you.

“Thank you, for bringing my book back,” you say before trepidation can stop you. You can feel it in your gut that getting closer is a bad idea.

The man doesn’t move from his spot in the stream. His expression shifts from his half-smug teasing to more of a question. It’s reflected when he speaks again, “What book?”

“The one that fell into the lake. I recognize your voice.”

“Just from hearing it one time, huh? You sure?”

“I can remember voices pretty okay and yours is very—well everything about you kind of stands out.”

He pauses for a heartbeat, various emotions flickering across his face before he chuckles, “I’ll take that as a compliment from you.”

Oh.

Your stomach swoops in a distinctly different way from fear this time. It shocks you. Somehow you’ve inched closer and mud wells up around the soles of your sandals. Your throat bobs when you swallow your nerves down.

“What’s your name?” you ask him the words a little strained with how tight your throat is.

His sharp, beady eyes observe you intently. Again you find that as unnerving as his gaze is, you don’t dislike it.

“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you,” he says, his tone light. The way he smiles at you is not comforting.

“Is that code for you don’t have one?” It’s half-playful and wholly unsure. Is it rude to ask another being if they have a name? You offer your own name in the next breath.

He takes it, chewing on it a few times like he’s deciding if he likes it or not.

Suddenly, you’re the frog. Your heartbeat is frantic in your chest once more, desperate for something you’re not sure about. And blindly you think you’re leaping toward the threat when he says your name a final time, his tongue swiping across his blue lips.

“Kisame,” he tells you.

“Kisame,” you murmur, holding the word too gently. “A little on the nose isn’t it?”

“You shouldn’t be so relaxed,” he warns you. “I really could kill you.”

He’s serious. You can feel it in how he looks at you. In the cool shade of the trees crowding too close with the cicada still silent, you know he can. Still, your mouth opens your mouth to protest. Maybe you’re still the desperate frog, jumping the wrong way.

But you hesitate. And he latches onto that hesitation.

You see his plan in the wicked curve of his grin returning before he does it. But you still squeal when he lungs forward, his big arms scooping up water and splashing you in a great wave. The bucket slips from the crook of your arm, cracking against the mud.

His hand, rough but warm, brushes against the exposed small of your back when you turn, fleeing up the side of the bank like a drowned rat. His booming laughter follows on your heels when you return to your cabin.

Your heart is pounding and you stupidly want to see him again.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The first mistake you make is with Deidara.

You’re outside cutting up pieces of your favorite fruit. Fresh and in season, it’s quite a treat. The juice slips down your knife and onto your fingers. You don’t the like the stickiness as much but tolerate it for your snack. The cicadas are at full volume again and sitting beside you is your journal, with glue drying leaves to one of the pages.

It’s a nice day, with a light breeze that occasionally sweeps past you. It makes you drowsy.

You watch the lake. After meeting him, you’re certain it was Kisame that grabbed your foot and injured Deidara. Every disturbance on the water makes you hopeful. Disappointment fills your chest when nothing comes from it. Your ride these up-and-down mood swings for most of the day.

You have to wonder if Itachi knows about Kisame. Is that why he put up the sign? You’re itching to ask, but if he doesn’t you’d sound out of your mind. Or be exposing Kisame’s existence. Which feels worse than being called crazy.

You don’t want to admit there’s selfishness at play too. A part of you resists the idea of sharing the secret you now know. You want to keep Kisame for yourself.

You pop another slice of fruit into your mouth, swiping away the juice that dribbles down your chin with the back of a hand. There’s another disturbance on the water, right next to the dock that’s more agitated—

A figure steps in front of you with a grunt of your name, blocking the view. You sit up in your chair, snorting as you meet Deidara’s gaze. He holds it for a second before darting away. His painted nails tug at his shirt, pulling it up to cover the stark white bandages.

He opens his mouth once, twice, before he finally says, “Hey.”

You chew the flesh of another slice of fruit, holding your gaze on him. When you swallow you drop your eyes to watch the blade of the knife cut another one. “What do you need Deidara?”

“I don’t need anything,” he snaps back too quickly. “Can’t a guy just say hi to his neighbor?”

“Then, hi.”

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

You stop what you’re doing, lips pressing into a flat line. Deidara’s gaze doesn’t waver when you meet it this time. A muscle in his jaw twitches. The mutual annoyance feels heavier than the humidity in the air.

You’re being unfair to him and you know it. The first night they were here you had torn out of the bathhouse, picking a fight with them. But it had been Kisame who had been peeping on you, you’re sure of it despite his denial.

But everything else he had done himself. He didn’t deserve the apology on the tip of your tongue.

“You like art?” he tries again, smoothing the irritation from his expression. You glance at the journal he gestures to.

“Yeah.” You can’t make yourself happy with the conversation change.

“I do art,” Deidara continues as if you’ve asked. “Not any of this kid stuff, of course. I have an appreciation for finer art. The kind of beauty you can only see for a fleeting moment before it’s gone, the aftermath of it vibrating through you.”

He’s animated, his hands moving as he speaks. Whatever he’s talking about, it’s obvious it’s his passion. But you’re stuck on the fact he called your glued-on leaves and scribbles “kid stuff.” Deidara always has a haughty air to him, but it’s most apparent in this aspect.

You have to hide the scowl in the corner of your mouth. But it’s pointless when you say, “So like fireworks?”

Deidara catches you immediately. He scents the mockery in words like blood in the water. His eye flashes, dangerous and scorned.

“I’ll have to show you what I mean sometime,” he offers, challenging.

“Maybe,” you reply. He frowns at the rejection.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The second mistake you make is not locking the door to your cabin.

Well, it’s more so that you’re listening to that damn fluttery feeling in your stomach. You nearly vomit twice from the nerves before you settle onto the bed—it’s neatly made up and smells of air freshener to hide a week worth’s of you.

Your laptop is open, the fans whirring while another black-and-white movie plays on-screen. It’s the sequel to the previous one you watched.

You can’t focus on it, though. Picking at your nails, chewing on the inside of your lip, and glancing like a fugitive at the door takes up more of your attention. For once, you hate the isolation of the campground. You’d be less nervous if your phone had a connection to the outside so you could doom scroll the hours away.

Music from your neighbors rumbles through the walls. It’s nowhere near the volume of their first full day here, but tonight it’s full of spite and bass again. Occasionally you hear one of them belting out the lyrics.

You bite down a tad too hard on the tender flesh inside your mouth. The taste of copper spreads across the tip of your tongue.

A scream rips through the quiet hum of the window unit and the night chirping outside. It’s so sudden it startles you, your heart jumping into your throat before you realize it’s the movie. You reach over and turn the sound down, scoffing at yourself. “Jesus, the volume is all over the place.”

“That’s what you get for pirating bad movies.”

He doesn’t give you the chance to scream, a hand clapping down over your mouth. Panic and terror rips through your system, eyes rolling wild while you try to pry his hand off. The bed dips behind you and then you’re pulled up, back pressed up against a damp chest.

Kisame’s laughter rolls over your ears, rumbles against your back. And your heart beats hard for a reason different from fear. When you stop struggling he eases his hand away and then drops something on the bed in front of you. Shiny blue plastic reflects a warped version of yourself, Kisame wrapped around you. A crack splits the image in half.

It’s filled to the brim with leaf litter.

How he came in through the door without you noticing is a mystery. It’s closed when you glance toward it.

“I’m starting to think you’re leaving excuses to see me again.” Kisame’s thumbs press into the skin of your arms. He hasn’t let fully let you go yet.

Your breathing steadies. “What?”

Lips ghost over the shell of your ear. “You keep leaving trash in my lake.”

“That’s not fair,” you start to say, then think better of it. Looking away from his plastic reflection, turning your head to look at him. He’s startling close. “The bucket technically isn’t even mine and you turned the water into a bloodbath so I couldn’t get my book back.”

“Oh, I suppose that too,” he says with an edged humor.

Your brows furrow. Then you realize what he means. Laughter, surprised and jittery tumbles out of your mouth. “Not a fan of him either, huh?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Someone has to like him, with all the confidence he’s got.”

“But not you.” There are teeth in his statement.

“Definitely not me.”

Kisame grunts in response. He’s warm against you, sturdy. And you find that you’ve relaxed into him. He notices it too, his muscles tensing. For a second you think he’s pushing you away—except he’s moving the little blue bucket he’s returned. It finds a new place on the windowsill by the bed.

You find yourself rearranged as well, scooted to the side so Kisame can sit on the bed next to you. It’s a tight fit. He takes up so much space—even more when he leans into you.

“What are you watching?” he asks, drawing your attention to movie still playing.

Warm embarrassment floods your system. You flounder for words, only to mumble, “A bad sequel.” He snorts and you offer, “You wanna finish it with me? Or… do you need go back into the lake?”

Kisame watches you for breath, considering. “You’re awfully comfortable next to someone who could kill you.”

That gives you pause. The words you want to say are sticky in your throat. They’ll choke you if you try to speak them to life.

You like that he’s dangerous. You like his sharp teeth. You like the way his fingers have inched under your shirt to trace the line of your spine—

“That doesn’t answer the question. Do you dry out on land?” you refocus the conversation.

“I’ll be fine for a couple of hours,” he chuckles, low and raspy.

“Good then buckle up for a feature film from the 1950s.” You give him another pause to change his mind. But when he leans back, his hands behind his head, you settle in next to him.

His brows raise when the antagonist appears on-screen. The costume—a feat of practical effects for it’s time but now barely believable—is awkward on land and even more so when it swoops the female lead for the movie up. Another loud shriek crackles out of the speakers.

You’re deathly quiet while it plays out–a back-and-forth between the hero and the monster before it escapes out to sea. The main couple embrace after the ordeal, but there’s still a third of the movie to go so it’s not over.

Kisame sits with you while it plays out. His mouth closed, eyes intent on the screen. He knows quite a bit for not being human. You wonder if he was one once, or if he learned everything somewhere.

“Does Itachi know about you?” You break the comfortable silence when the credits begin to roll. Somehow the two of you have become entangled, hands touching places bordering overly-friendly.

“You ask a lot of questions.” Kisame is quick to answer, a hand sliding a little lower on your hip. His nails scrape at the sensitive flesh, not friendly at all. “You worried he’d see you with a swamp monster?”

“Not at all,” you say just as easily.

He hesitates at the elastic band of your pj bottoms. Teases the flesh of your hip. “He does. We have…an arrangement of sorts.”

The question must be plain on your face because Kisame laughs. It makes your heart squeeze and a heat flare between your thighs.

“I’m not fucking him,” he says just as plainly, his grin half-feral at the expression you must be making. “Don’t let him fool you. Itachi’s more dangerous than I am. But he hates getting his hands dirty. Sharks gotta eat. He keeps the lake mostly free of shitheads.”

You swallow thickly. His tone is light, joking, but his gaze is sharp. Testing.

“Is he how you know so much about everything?” you ask, voice quiet. Trying to keep the mental images from rushing to the forefront of your mind.

You know you’ve made a mistake when his expression clouds, dark and stormy. “No.” He pulls away so quickly it leaves you cold and falling onto the blanket. “Movie’s over. Try to pick a better one next time.”

Kisame slips out of the cabin as quietly as he came in. He takes the heat of the summer night with him.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The third mistake you make is drowning in desperation.

The sun burns hot outside, the humidity is the worst it’s been all week. Cicadas scream, loud and wretched in their search for a mate.

You slept like shit after Kisame left. Your morning is filled with a back-and-forth of what you wanted to do and what you should do. It’s a game of tug-of-war within your mind and it shows in the shadows under your eyes.

There’s an ugly sense of longing in your chest you can’t let go of. Even when the handsome lines of Kisame’s face clashes with the vivid imagination of him knelt over a body, tearing into the gore of it with his sharp teeth. There has to be something wrong with you. Losing your job couldn’t have driven you to this in a week, could it?

You need to see him again. Before you go home.

Your despair must ooze from your pores, acting like blood in the water to those in the campground. Like with the lake, there’s a new sign at the start of the trail that goes around the lake. The one where that leads to the stream you first found Kisame in the stream. You can see it the moment you step outside, the sweltering heat swarming close to your body.

Your “neighbors” are out too. Hidan and that tattooed man haul packs of beer from the back of their truck. More than four men should have. You would have ignored them like you intend to ignore the sign, but Hidan makes an effort to catch your attention with a wave. He grins too widely to be well-meaning.

Your mouth forms a thin line. It just feels off—wrong.

Before you reach the trail, Itachi steps out of the office. His expression is unmoving as he approaches you. Your intentions are obvious. Your feet are still pointed toward the trail. He is not surprised.

“You’re causing trouble,” he says, stopping a foot away from you.

You bite the inside of your lip before you answer, “I haven’t done anything.”

His dark eyes watch you with a sense of apathy. You feel it in how he talks to you. He isn’t telling you this out of annoyance or anger. Not even out of worry. It’s as if he doesn’t care one way or the other but he knows he’ll have to deal with the aftermath no matter what.

Through sheer respect, you don’t try to step around him. You’ve wasted the morning though, you can’t just stand here.

“It’s a bad idea,” he warns again. His voice is softer. It almost makes you want to listen to him.

But your heart doesn’t want to. It bares its teeth with a petulance. “I’m grown. I don’t need to be told what to do.”

“Then let me suggest you go home before you get yourself hurt,” he intones.

Cicadas scream from the tree line behind him even louder. Furious with how long they’ve been alone, their cries unanswered. It constricts around your bones. “Are you kicking me out then?” He stares at you, silent. “I paid for the week. I’m staying until that time is up.”

“Your time is up tomorrow morning.”

Sharply you inhale. It’s a truth you don’t want to hear. It sits like rot at the forefront of your mind. Itachi doesn’t say more when you ignore him—doesn’t stop you when you walk past his “Trail Closed for Maintenance” sign.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The emptiness in the cabin reflects the feeling in your chest. It’s pathetic, mourning like a lovesick teenager again. But you know what’s waiting for you when you go home to your tiny apartment in the city. Bills will be due. Your bank account will be empty. And you’d have to start looking for a new job.

You’ve packed away your things and tucked all but the bare essentials into your car. You want to make another trip around the lake before you leave in the morning. Just one more chance to see him again.

There hadn’t been a sign of him yesterday.

And here you are with a puffy, wet face from hurting your own feelings. Sleep can’t come fast enough. Stupidly—so undeniably idiotically—you’ve left the cabin door unlocked again.

Your “neighbors” are playing their music impossibly loud again. The glass in the windows rattles. Curling in tighter around yourself you cover your ears. It sounds so angry you can’t stand it. It’s too much noise. Too much emptiness.

Too much everything for your sad little self.

Eventually, you have to get up and dig through your bag in the car to find a sleep aid. Deidara sits on the porch outside the other cabin, drinking. It’s too dark to see properly but you can feel the heat of his stare. It burns into you long after you get back into bed.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The laughing is what wakes you.

It feels like you’ve only just closed your eyes when the drunken snorts and giggles of men too old for it pulls them open again.

The handle turns. The door swings open. The sleep medication you took slows your reflexes, your understanding.

For a long, sluggish moment your heart flutters between your ribs.

But then the figure in the doorway splits in two and they step fully into the cabin. Pale yellow and silver catch the dim moonlight. A single, pretty blue eye meets your gaze. A mean sneer mars his expression as he looks down at you.

Deidara crouches to your level, his breath fanning over your face reeks of alcohol. Amusement is tucked into his words when he coos, “Aw look at you, hm? Did our music keep you awake?”

The nasally grunt at the ends of his words makes it hard to focus on anything else. What had he said? You blink hard, trying to remember. Your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth, dry. A soft hand brushes against your cheek.

Your nose scrunches, a low warble leaving your lips as you pull away. Hidan cackles behind him.

“They’re so fucking over you,” he scoffs. “Let’s just toss them.”

“Shame,” Deidara huffs. “Would have loved to show you my art.”

Your vision swims, sleep trying to pull you back down. You remember the conversation about his art though, and snort. “Fireworks.”

The taller man finds this hilarious, nearly folding in half laughing at his friend’s expense. You aren’t sure why. The blond’s expression is thunderous–ugly and mean. You hate it.

You hate the way he digs his fingers into your face more.

“Let’s see if a dip in the lake will make you a little less bitchy,” Deidara hisses, spittal flying from his lips and hitting your face.

The sleep aid dulls your fear and that’s terribly dangerous. It doesn’t make sense to you at first. Why are they here? Why is Deidara so mean to you? Your head spins and you can’t think straight.

You’re still so sluggish when he pulls you from the bed, locking his arms under your armpits. It’s uncomfortable and you weakly protest. But it doesn’t hit you just how bad the situation is until Hidan takes hold of your legs.

You’re so fucking stupid. Everything goes sideways as you fight against them; slow, uncoordinated kicks of your legs and slurred screams. You didn’t lock the door..

They don’t have any trouble carrying you to the dock between them. Nor do they struggle when they throw you. You hear them laughing, mean, and loud again. The late-night cicadas laugh right along with them when your head goes under.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The lake water is cold. It’s a shock to your muddled brain.

Your muscles lock tight, refusing to move at the sudden drop in temperature. It’s not terrifying at first. Just cold. Your vision blurs in the dark water, and the moon becomes a hazy image as you sink downward.

Down, down, down.

You don’t even need a rock to sink you to the bottom this time.

Then your body releases you from the shock, limbs unlocking with a rough beat of your heart and your lungs swelling to take a breath.

Except you’re underwater and instead of oxygen your lungs fill with the lake itself. It’s painful and so much worse than you ever imagined drawing would be. It feels like someone’s shoved sandpaper down your throat, into your chest and it’s grinding the soft tissue away in there. Your heart hammers as panic bursts awake under your skin.

How stupid this all is. You’ve drugged yourself—Deidara probably hasn’t even realized. You flail weakly in the darkness. You can’t see the moon above the surface anymore. There’s no way to tell which way is up and which way is down under water like this.

Pain sears, angry, and bright in your chest as your body coughs harshly to try to expel the water. There is nothing but water around you, though.

You want to scream.

You’re going to drown.

Going to die.

Something collides with your torso, even in the water it feels like you’ve been rag-dolled. Your head snaps back on your neck and everything from your lungs is forced out with no time to inhale more water. You’re terrified—so incredibly disoriented. Has your soul been ripped from your body? Are you dead?

Your head breaks the surface. Warm night air kisses your face, your cheeks, your mouth. Dazed you see stars above you, twinkling next to the half-moon above you. Silhouettes of clouds drift lazy and unhurried under them.

It’s so pretty.

A wretched sob breaks free from your chest, hacking up lake water with it. Strong hands, clawed and webbed heaves your body up and dumps you on a dock. It’s not the sun-weathered one with smoothed wood. It’s older. It leans to one side, the dark wood splintering and covered in moss.

You cough and gag up water, whoever—whatever—saved you keeping a hand on your back. It’s horrible. It hurts going out as much as it did going in. Your mind is still foggy, slowed by the sleep aid you had taken.

Finally, when you aren’t vomiting up water, you look at your savior. You recognize him instantly, though he’s different—monstrous in the most basic meaning of the word.

Kisame looms over you on the old dock, his pitch-colored eyes glinting. He is, for certain, more shark than human at this point.

He’s horrifying at first glance. His sharp features merge with a more streamlined shark body. Muscles ripple beneath scale-like patterns down his biceps and forearms, bent to accommodate the fins that sprout from them. Gills at his neck pulsate rhythmically, wet and sticky above water. A massive dorsal fin goes down his back and to a tail that stirs in the lake.

But you know it’s Kisame. You know it from the fluttering beats of your heart that’s been yearning to see him again. He’s saved you from drowning.

He jerks backward when you lift a shaky, uncoordinated hand to his face. You gently cup his jaw, not letting him avoid you. Your thumb brushes a serrated tooth. A pearl of blood beads instantly. His pupils shrink.

There’s so much you want to say–so much you need to confess.

Somewhere on the other side of the lake, Deidara is shouting. He sounds like he’s in a panic. An ungodly sound rips from Kisame’s chest. His webbed hand pushes you down, not unkindly.

“Stay,” he says. When you don’t fight him, he slips off the dock and back into the water.

You sit there, shivering in your soaked clothes feeling like you’ve been drug through hell. It’s less than a minute later when you hear the first scream.

smut warning! afab body parts named and described here! scroll down to the next divider for amab!

The screaming continues even after the cicadas fall quiet. The first one you heard ended quickly. Whoever it was died choking on their own blood. You want to pretend you don’t know who it is.

But you know both the victims and the attacker.

You should leave. Itachi’s office should have a radio or satellite phone— some way to reach help. You don’t like Deidara, but you don’t want him and his friends to die. Your stomach somersaults unpleasantly at the thought.

Getting to your feet has you wheezing by the end of it. You wobble on the first step but can make it to the second step without tipping over. You take a deep breath, you can do this.

On the third, however, your foot goes through the wood. You go down with it, the soft skin of your thigh snagging on the edge of the broken board. It happens so fast you don’t have a chance to even think about screaming. And when you realize what’s happened, you have to bite it back to keep quiet.

Katydids and frogs chirp back and forth while you cry, scooting back to pull your leg out of the hole to look at the damage. You’re bleeding but it’s not gushing blood. It’s hard to tell just how bad it is in the half-moon lighting.

You waste too much time.

A hand closes around your ankle, too close to the edge of the rotting dock. Lacking the claws and webbing between his fingers this time, and strong. He tugs you forward on the dock, the wood scraping against the exposed underside of your thighs.

Kisame doesn’t leave you wondering this time. He lifts himself out of the lake, meeting your body with his own.

Despite being in the water, the blood hasn’t washed off. It’s deep red, staining from his mouth and down his chest. It rolls downward to his naked hips. The sight plucks a cord of fear down your spine.

Just as you’re staring at the blood on him, Kisame is staring at the blood on you. His hand drags upward, over your calf. When he brushes his thumb over the scratch on your thigh you wince, but keep quiet. There’s a fear inside you that you’ll trigger something predatory if you make a noise.

But you can’t stop the gasp when his rough lips meet the flesh of your thigh. It’s just a brief kiss, tender and gentle before his tongue slips out to lick up the length of the wound. He hums, the sound and vibration going straight to your core. He leaves behind goosebumps and smears of red.

His touch drifts higher and higher until he pauses. Your stomach is tight in anticipation, breaths shallow. After a long minute, you meet his gaze, flesh burning under his scrutiny. He’s waiting. And you—you’re sick to death of waiting.

God, you are fucked. “Don’t stop now.”

He grins, full of teeth. The sight of them between your legs, stained with blood, with a different kind of hunger sends a terrible sort of thrill through you.

His fingers hook in the waistband of your shorts. You lift your hips to help him ease them down your legs. Kisame groans out loud when you’re exposed to him as if he’s been waiting for this too.

His thumbs part your sticky, slick folds. His warm breath sends a tremor up your spine. The millimeters of space between his mouth and your cunt feels too far and you can’t wait. He meets your core with more force than intended because you buck your hips upward, needy and eager.

He chuckles into your wetness, flashing those sharp teeth so dangerously close to your sensitive flesh. The hand that pushes your hips down is gentle though, fingers kneading the heated skin in soothing circles.

“Easy,” he rasps.

You have to bite back a whine, grounding yourself by scraping your nails against the rotting dock underneath you.

His tongue meets you again, pressed flat through your folds. It drags a shivering moan out of you. Kisame’s answering groan makes you throb. It’s embarrassing how wet you are—how quickly your lower belly coils tight.

He’s gentle at first, his mouth cautious on your puffy slit as he explores you. Like he’s savoring the flavor of you. One of your hands sinks downward, slipping through his wet hair, fingertips pressing against the back of his skull to push him into you.

“Kisame,” you pant, “please.”

He obliges, a thick arm sliding over your hips and tugging you closer to him, lifting your lower body slightly for better access. Your head tilts back, knocking against the rough wood. His tongue cuts through your wetness, sending sparks of electricity through your core as he teased your clit with skillful flicks. Each groan and gasp that leaves your lips makes him work harder.

Your inner muscles ache, clenching tightly around nothing. Kisame takes his time though, following his own sweet rhythm. You almost beg for him to touch you more, but before the words have the chance to form his fingers are inside you. Thick and skilled two of them stretch your hole, curling against your sensitive walls while his mouth suckles your clit.

He drags his tongue back and forth over your sensitive bud while his fingers maintain a steady rhythm, coaxing you ever closer to the edge. His finger finds the spot inside you that sends your hips bucking up in pleasure and an involuntary cry spills from your lips. You can feel Kisame's rumble of approval vibrating against your core as he licks and teases until you finally go limp, still panting heavily from the sheer intensity of your orgasm.

“Not bad,” he all but coos to you, letting your thighs drop.

Words die on your lips as he settles himself fully between your legs and seals his mouth against yours. The taste of yourself is heady and thick. You want to pull him closer, to delve into his mouth like he had done with your sex. But he pulls away before you have the chance.

You make a quiet sound of disappointment when he moves away. It morphs into a startled cry when, without warning, his hips buck forward and the thick head of his cock sinks into you. His fingers dig into the plush meat of your hips, holding you still so he can fuck himself into you. He splits you open, bigger than you expect.

You’re over-filled by the time his hips lay flush against you. Your chest heaving between adjusting to him and fighting the pleasure wracking up your spine.

“Been thinking about how good you’d feel since the first time I saw you,” Kisame says, voice husky and low with a teasing roll of his hips.

You manage a smile, trying to appear unaffected despite the heat coursing through your veins, “Me too.”

His expression is feral in the silvery moonlight, all teeth and pride. Red smears across his face, between your thighs. Kisame, even in his more human form, looks like a monster. It sends your heart fluttering something terrible.

There isn’t time to admire him, though. You buck your hips, a whine on your lips. His length twitches inside you once before he answers, snapping his hips into you. He throws one of your legs over his shoulder and feels like he reaches even deeper inside you. Groans leave both of your mouths.

It’s hard to think straight as he rocks into you, picking up the pace when your hand slips down to rub your clit. He presses into you, nuzzling into the crook of your neck. His sharp, sharp teeth graze the sensitive skin there and earns him a drawn-out moan, your walls fluttering around him.

“Fuck…not gonna last long,” Kisame pants into your ear. It almost sounds pleading.

“Almost there,” you whine, your core tightening. You’re so close.

His hips stutter a strangled moan slipping out of his mouth. His teeth press a bit harder into your throat and you feel him gush inside you. It sends you over the edge again, insides clamping down around him. It’s quiet aside from the heated panting as you both try to recover and the lapping over the lake against the dock.

A soft-breathed moan wrings itself from your throat when Kisame pulls out. Warmth trickles out of you. But you can’t focus on it because he kisses you again—softer without an urgency. You still chase after him when he pulls away.

He tucks a grin into the corner of his mouth, trying to look serious. “You need to go talk to Itachi.”

“Itachi? Why?” you ask, eyebrows raising.

“He’ll walk you through what to say,” Kisame says hands sliding your shorts back up your legs. As if it’s the most simple thing in the world. His teeth flash in the silver moonlight, unable to help himself. “You look fucked up. The police won’t question you too much.”

It’s so stupid you laugh.

smut warning! amab body parts named and described here!

The screaming continues even after the cicadas fall quiet. The first one you heard ended quickly.  Whoever it was died choking on their own blood. You want to pretend you don’t know who it is.

But you know both the victims and the attacker.

You should leave. Itachi’s office should have a radio or satellite phone— some way to reach help. You don’t like Deidara, but you don’t want him and his friends to die. Your stomach somersaults unpleasantly at the thought.

Getting to your feet has you wheezing by the end of it. You wobble on the first step but can make it to the second step without tipping over. You take a deep breath, you can do this.

On the third, however, your foot goes through the wood. You go down with it, the soft skin of your thigh snagging on the edge of the broken board. It happens so fast you don’t have a chance to even think about screaming. And when you realize what’s happened, you have to bite it back to keep quiet.

Katydids and frogs chirp back and forth while you cry, scooting back to pull your leg out of the hole to look at the damage. You’re bleeding but it’s not gushing blood. It’s hard to tell just how bad it is in the half-moon lighting.

You waste too much time.

A hand closes around your ankle, too close to the edge of the rotting dock. Lacking the claws and webbing between his fingers this time, and strong. He tugs you forward on the dock, the wood scraping against the exposed underside of your thighs.

Kisame doesn’t leave you wondering this time. He lifts himself out of the lake, meeting your body with his own.

Despite being in the water, the blood hasn’t washed off. It’s deep red, staining from his mouth and down his chest. It rolls downward to his naked hips. The sight plucks a cord of fear down your spine.

Just as you’re staring at the blood on him, Kisame is staring at the blood on you. His hand drags upward, over your calf. When he brushes his thumb over the scratch on your thigh you wince, but keep quiet. There’s a fear inside you that you’ll trigger something predatory if you make a noise.

But you can’t stop the gasp when his rough lips meet the flesh of your thigh. It’s just a brief kiss, tender and gentle before his tongue slips out to lick up the length of the wound. He hums, the sound and vibration going straight to your core. He leaves behind goosebumps and smears of red.

His touch drifts higher and higher until he pauses. Your stomach is tight in anticipation, breaths shallow. After a long minute, you meet his gaze, flesh burning under his scrutiny. He’s waiting. And you—you’re sick to death of waiting.

God, you are fucked. “Don’t stop now.”

He grins, full of teeth. The sight of them between your legs, stained with blood, with a different kind of hunger sends a terrible sort of thrill through you.

His fingers hook in the waistband of your shorts. You lift your hips to help him ease them down your legs. Kisame groans out loud when you’re exposed to him as if he’s been waiting for this too.

His thumb ghosts up the underside, until he reaches the head smearing the pearl of pre-cum. His warm breath sends a tremor up your spine. The millimeters of space between his mouth and your dick feels too far away and you can’t wait. He barely has time to wrap his lips around his incredibly sharp teeth before you buck your hips upward, needy and eager.

He chuckles around your length, flashing those sharp teeth so dangerously close to your sensitive flesh. The hand that pushes your hips down is gentle though, fingers kneading the heated skin in soothing circles.

“Easy,” he rasps.

You have to bite back a whine, grounding yourself by scraping your nails against the rotting dock underneath you.

His cheeks hollow out, tongue dragging over you before swirling around the head. It drags a shivering moan out of you. Kisame’s answering groan makes you throb. It’s embarrassing how hard you are—how quickly your lower belly coils tight.

He’s gentle at first, his mouth cautious on weeping cock as he explores you. Like he’s savoring the flavor of you. One of your hands sinks downward, slipping through his wet hair, fingertips pressing against the back of his skull to push him further down on you.

“Kisame,” you pant, “please.”

He obliges, a thick arm sliding over your hips and tugging you closer to him, lifting your lower body slightly for better access. Your head tilts back, knocking against the rough wood. His head bobs wetly over your length, sending sparks of electricity through you. Each groan and gasp that leaves your lips makes him work harder.

Your balls tighten, your hole clenching tightly around nothing. Kisame takes his time though, following his own sweet rhythm. You almost beg for him to touch you more, but before the words have the chance to form his fingers are inside you. Thick and skilled two of them stretch your hole, curling against your sensitive walls while his mouth sucks you in further, your tip touching the back of his throat.

He pulls back, inhaling softly and swiping his tongue over the slit of your cock head, while his fingers maintain a steady rhythm, coaxing you ever closer to the edge. His finger finds the spot inside you that sends your hips bucking up in pleasure and an involuntary cry spills from your lips. You can feel Kisame's rumble of approval vibrating around your length as he licks and teases, swallowing your cum until you finally go limp, still panting heavily from the sheer intensity of your orgasm.

“Not bad,” he all but coos to you, letting your thighs drop.

Words die on your lips as he settles himself fully between your legs and seals his mouth against yours. The taste of yourself is heady and thick. You want to pull him closer, to delve into his mouth like he had done with your sex. But he pulls away before you have the chance.

You make a quiet sound of disappointment when he moves away. It morphs into a startled cry when, without warning, his hips buck forward and the thick head of his cock sinks into you. His fingers dig into the plush meat of your hips, holding you still so he can fuck himself into you. He splits you open, bigger than you expect.

You’re over-filled by the time his hips lay flush against you. Your chest heaving between adjusting to him and fighting the pleasure wracking up your spine.

“Been thinking about how good you’d feel since the first time I saw you,” Kisame says, voice husky and low with a teasing roll of his hips.

You manage a smile, trying to appear unaffected despite the heat coursing through your veins, “Me too.”

His expression is feral in the silvery moonlight, all teeth and pride. Red smears across his face, between your thighs. Kisame, even in his more human form, looks like a monster. It sends your heart fluttering something terrible.

There isn’t time to admire him, though. You buck your hips, a whine on your lips. His length twitches inside you once before he answers, snapping his hips into you. He throws one of your legs over his shoulder and feels like he reaches even deeper inside you. Groans leave both of your mouths.

It’s hard to think straight as he rocks into you, picking up the pace when your hand slips down to jerk your dick, already half-hard again. He presses into you, nuzzling into the crook of your neck. His sharp, sharp teeth graze the sensitive skin there and earns him a drawn-out moan, your walls fluttering around him.

“Fuck…not gonna last long,” Kisame pants into your ear. It almost sounds pleading.

“Almost there,” you whine, your walls tightening. You’re so close.

His hips stutter a strangled moan slipping out of his mouth. His teeth press a bit harder into your throat, and you feel him gush inside you. It sends you over the edge again, insides clamping down around him. Your cock throbs again, cum coating your fingers. It’s quiet aside from the heated panting as you both try to recover and the lapping over the lake against the dock.

A soft-breathed moan wrings itself from your throat when Kisame pulls out. Warmth trickles out of you. But you can’t focus on it because he kisses you again—softer without an urgency. You still chase after him when he pulls away.

He tucks a grin into the corner of his mouth, trying to look serious. “You need to go talk to Itachi.”

“Itachi? Why?” you ask, eyebrows raising.

“He’ll walk you through what to say,” Kisame says hands sliding your shorts back up your legs. As if it’s the most simple thing in the world. His teeth flash in the silver moonlight, unable to help himself. “You look fucked up. The police won’t question you too much.”

It’s so stupid you laugh.

#myfiction #kisame hosigaki x reader #reader-insert #x reader #naruto #naruto fanfic #daryascabin #the cabin fic event #sobs the header art and dividers are mine too pls ignore them #nsft

[astriiformes]

Hey all! Remember the concert @scribefindegil and I talked about performing back in August that ended up having technical difficulties for folks who tried to tune in to stream? I have good news - the convention posted the official video of our performance (this time with sound!) to their YouTube channel today.

Since this is now the largest repository of our music all in once place (especially some of our newer songs), I broke it down into a tracklist, so if you've never heard our music before, want to check out the new stuff, or just want to listen to a favorite song or two, they'd be easier to find.

(And yes, if you just want to see me play the electric kazoo while dressed as Raine Whispers, I have noted when it made its appearance)

If you haven't heard our stuff before, we're Astrisoni, a two-person viola-and-guitar filk (nerd folk, basically) duo that write songs about sci-fi, fantasy, our favorite stories, and all manner of adjacent topics. A handful of our songs are also available for purchase on our Bandcamp (where and and all support is always appreciated, especially since we're going through a bit of a rough patch)

0:22 - Opportunity Lullaby

One of our most popular songs, a lullaby written in honor of the late Opportunity rover. My sister, who I finally got to perform for at this concert, said it made her cry. (As an endorsement). Also on our EP on Bandcamp!

5:15 - Story And Song

A song about the power of songs -- and storytelling, and TTRPGs, and the creativity lurking in all of us.

9:12 - Pure Of Heart

Probably our most famous song, which was nominated for a Pegasus Award back in 2021 and is also available on our EP. A warning about the dangers of unicorns -- and unrealistic standards.

16:14 - Ancillary

One of our newest songs, Scribe's ode to the Imperial Radch trilogy

21:07 - The World Is Still Here

A TAZ: Balance song about NO-3113

25:35 - Don’t Stop Believing (Redux)

I almost hate to give away what's going on with this one, but. Yes, it is a Don't Stop Believing parody. Yes, it is about cryptids. Yes, it is where the electric kazoo makes its appearance. Lot happening here.

32:25 - You Comfort Me

Our Legolas & Gimli duet inspired by their mirrored lines in The Two Towers

38:42 - Possessing The Text

One of our newest songs, Scribe has described this one as an ode to writing queer fanfiction for stories that don't respect you. But you know, with ghost metaphors.

45:00 - Solidarity Forever (Boiling Isles version)

A Raine Whispers-inspired filk of "Solidarity Forever"

49:15 - Chapters In-Between

An ode to some favorite stories, and the aching feeling of having to wait for a better future even when you're working to make one happen. Noteworthy for, among other things, being the song I finally fit a Pacific Rim verse into.

56:04 - Make This Timeline Brighter

Our most common closer, with a fairly self-explanatory title. This one is also up on Bandcamp.

#this concert was really good and i got really emotional watching back over it #these days scribe is often too tired to sing. i'm really glad things worked out for us to be able to play back in august #also yes it's very funny to watch myself perform all these songs as raine #conventions are the best actually #filk tag #music

[thecheshirerat]

Dear Aubrey

(danbrey fic for @tazsapphicweek ! this has been so fun. I'll put it on AO3 if anyone wants, but idk how collections work. also the prompt was technically "home" but I've done like three based on that prompt so...)

Dear Aubrey, 

Do you know how many casserole dishes I’ve washed for the privilege of control over the TV? Jake said that if I keep putting on Supernatural I’ll owe him three bags of the fancy squid chips he likes just for his suffering. 

That’s not it. 

Dear Aubrey, 

I’ve been watching Supernatural. You were right, it’s pretty good. 

Dammit. 

No. 

Dear Aubrey, 

They didn’t have TV shows in Sylvain. You know that. You’ve been there. But of the three that I’ve encountered so far, Supernatural seems pretty good. Definitely better than streaming old episodes of America's Test Kitchen, which is all Barclay wants to watch.

FUCK.

Dear Aubrey, 

Do you know how many perfectly good sketchbook pages I’ve spent, trying to draft a proper letter to you? 

I know you’re not, like. Living far away. You’re going to be back in a few hours, actually, probably, unless you’re killed, but I don’t think you will be, and then you’ll eat something terrible for you and pass out like, two floors above me. 

Maybe I could pass this to you through the vents. 

Did you know that passing notes between bunk beds is common to both our worlds? Sometimes I imagine you’re in the bunk above me, and we could just, talk. In the darkness. About everything. 

The truth is, I’ve got a lot to say. But you’re not here, so I’m writing it down. In my sketchbook. I really should buy a notebook or something. 

Goddamnit. 

I could’ve sketched so many cedar branches on this. 

Dear Aubrey, 

This is going to sound insane, but you smell like home. A little smoky, a little like flash-paper, but there’s also this strong ginger smell. That part is familiar. It’s orange and spicy and makes my teeth flinch in their illusion. 

When you walked by the other day it felt like every spark of heat in my body rushed towards you, like there’s a current between us. What do you guys call it, bird bumps?

For a moment, I was just, frozen. And then you looked over my shoulder at the vase of flowers I was drawing and said something like, “Oh my gosh, that’s so cool!” And you joked that I could make hundreds of dollars online if I drew Deacon Winchester. Your hand brushed my shoulder, and all the warmth came back, just like that. 

I’ve never felt anything like it.

Well, I have. You know about the crystal, right? It felt kind of like touching that. 

God, Dani. Don’t bring that into this. 

Dear Aubrey,

I’ve spent so long trying not to stand out.

I can have my identity, so long as it's quiet enough that no one looks too closely. 

I can doodle on the cover of my sketchbook. I can be the quirky alt girl who doesn’t have her license at the age of… what age do I tell people. I don’t even remember. I can stare into the mirror, smiling at the freckles that show up on my nose, and people will forgive me for not wearing makeup, but they can’t see my skin when it glows, they can’t see my teeth. They must never see my teeth. 

You, on the other hand. Your flashy gestures, your vibrant hair, your jacket that you can barely see under all the pins. When you walk, they clink, alerting people (people whose skin didn’t tingle the moment you arrived, people who are not me) that you’re here. You’ve got an identity strong and colorful enough to be armor. You wear your teeth on the outside. 

I want to know what’s under all that. Not to be- nevermind. 

I want to know what it’s all protecting.

Or maybe, it’s protecting us. 

Dear Aubrey, 

I miss Sylvain a lot. 

It’s hard to describe the feeling of missing your former planet. It’s like an ache, but sharper. It’s hard, and scratchy, and it eats a cavern inside of me. It’s empty in here. It tingles. My pain chimes, and the chimes echo. 

It chafes at you, when the world you’re in is not yours. I don’t belong here, and Earth has no qualms about reminding me. Alien customs. Alien holidays. Alien people, but… not so much you. 

It went away, the other day, when you touched me. Just for a second, I was full. 

In that second, I felt so free. I felt so untethered. I felt like I could go and be anywhere as long as it was with you. So, not untethered. Re-tethered. 

Sometimes I imagine there’s a string between us, and when I see you fidgeting with your fingers, it’s being pulled, looped and tied. I want you to make me into jewelry, to set me around your neck. I want to swing there, next to that gemstone you always wear. I want your heartbeat to warm my skin.

To be a vampire is to know that you are empty, and that other people fill you up. 

Here you are, with all this vitality. If I soaked myself in it, if I tucked myself like a bunny rabbit into your arms, if I bottled up vials of flame to warm my bath and make my tea, would you even notice? I don’t want to hurt anyone. Sometimes I feel like I’m scraping away at the walls of a cave inside me, and one day my willpower will collapse. I keep shoring up my inhibitions. 

Why does it feel like I’ve awoken from the most restful sleep of my life after talking to you? Why do I feel relieved when you brush my arm? I just want to close my eyes. I want to take off this disguise. I want to follow you. 

God, I barely even know you. 

This is so weird. I’m sorry. 

Dear Aubrey, 

I have one episode left of season five of Supernatural. I thought I’d take your advice about stopping there. And now I get the joke you made about chevy impalas! 

Do you want to watch the last episode together? 

Love, 

Sincerely, 

Yours,

Dani <3

PS: See on the back my drawing of Dr. Harris Bonkers :)

#THE REASON ITS DEACON WINCHESTER IS A REFERENCE TO TAZ SPIRITBREAKERS I THINK ITD BE REALLY FUNNY IF THEY WERE THE SAME UNIVERSE #anyway #strongly considered drawing dr harris bonkers to accompany this and then attaching it to the post but if I do that it'll be not right now #cheshi squeaks #danbrey #aubrey little #taz #taz amnesty #taz dani #taz sapphic week

[localplaguenurse]

Fear and Hunger is currently 50% off on steam…….

I’m fighting myself to NOT buy this game……

Mmmm but your chara fic is whispering sweet temptations into my ear……

Ivy you’ve given me a reason to rant and ramble about Funger and I think you know that

1. This game is rarely going to be nice to you. Genuinely. First and foremost, aside from plot relevant items, every item is randomized. And not just randomized as in each game has a different set of items when you spawn in, I mean if you manage to save your game, search a barrel, die, respawn and search that barrel again, it’s not gonna be the same item. You could become super op in the start of the game if the cards feel like you deserve it.

2. The combat system is interesting. First of all, there’s no leveling up system. You get 0 experience points from fighting. Most of the time it’s actually better to avoid fighting altogether. When you’re in combat however, there’s a dismemberment system. Think of it like every enemy’s limb gets a turn, sort of, and every three rounds there’s typically a coin flip to avoid a “big attack.” You have to methodically damage/cut off the limbs of your enemy in order to kill them. The recommended strategy is you attack the arms first so they don’t attack you (namely whichever arm is holding the weapon), and then you have to cut the legs (or genitals of certain enemies) to cripple them, which makes their head easier to hit and instantly kill them. It’s very difficult to actually land a headshot without going for the legs. Also, using magic requires “mind” which drains the longer you’re in the dungeon. You can restore mind by getting drunk and doing drugs.

3. Coinflips. Every once in a while the game is going to make you flip heads or tails. They pop up when you search certain chests, search bookshelves, go to take a rest to save, are in combat, are walking around, and even use certain items. If you guess right, you can get some good loot, actually save your game, keep yourself from getting killed and/or witnessing a really nasty scene (that usually kills you anyways), keep yourself from falling through the floor, and other fun things! If you fail, then whoops. Occasionally you can find lucky coins, so if you hold shift, you can flip two coins, which raises your success from 50/50 to 75/25. Nothing is more soul crushing than getting double heads when you wanted tails though. Agony.

4. You can lose limbs and/or suffer other permanent debuffs. An enemy will attack you and cut it off, or it’ll give you an infected limb, or you’ll step on another fucking rusty nail again and be out of green herbs to cure the infection, so you’ll have to take out your rusty bonesaw to cut it off. If you lose one arm, you can still use weapons but only one handed ones, and can’t hold shields. Lose both arms, can’t hold weapons, pray your character knows magic. Lose one leg, your walking speed is reduced, but lose both legs and you have to crawl around. You can even lose your eyes and go blind, and the game is still technically playable, but ragequitting is not only valid but recommended. You can also get fractured limbs which can’t be healed, permanently lowering your hp, or suffer rectal bleeding from getting assaulted and you can’t stop the bleeding ever.

5. This game gets gross. There’s offscreen and, if you fuck up a coin flip, onscreen assault. I lost a coin flip to a harvestman, it broke all my limbs and shoved an arm up my ass and killed me. You get the status rectal bleeding from the night crawlers and certain guards you can lose coinflips to, and at least one boss I know of going off the guide I had to look at to beat the game. Also gore and general nudity. I can not describe when I was first playing the game, I was streaming it with friends during dnd, I ran into a guard for the first time and was met with a monster cock the length of my arm and twice the thickness. You couldn’t even stream this game until someone made a censorship mod.

6. You’re gonna end up looking at walkthroughs to figure out wtf you have to do. That’s fine, just try to avoid actual lore spoilers.

7. The whole point of the game is you have to find L’egarde in the prison in the deepest part of the dungeon. You have to do this in 30 minutes. Fuck whoever told me I had an hour.

8. Don’t jump down the toilet hole. There’s literally nothing there for you as tempting as it is.

9. I FORGOT SAVING!!!! You can only save by flipping a coin before going to bed or getting books of enlightenment. Only one bed is truly safe, Another is safe the first time, the others might end up getting you killed.

And that’s pretty much all the relevant information you need to know before you consider buying funger! I personally like the thought of someone suffering with me but you can make your own choices uwu.

#ask #ivy! #fear and hunger #funger

[wodania]

Do you have Betha Blackwood thoughts and feelings you can share with the class? 👀

Okay sorry it took so long to get to this 😭 because I have so many and can’t decide which are my favourite so I’m just gonna rapid fire headcanons and thoughts right now. I’m basing this all off of the fact that she’s only ever described as stubborn and wilful and stuff like that. Dunk and Egg story featuring Betha come soon please I need more of her. I won’t even complain if it disproves every single headcanon I have of her. I just need her severely.

I think both her and Egg are shorter than average. Short mean people. Love them.

In terms of the kids, Rhaelle takes after her mother the most, appearance wise (Daeron is second in terms of most like Betha, though I like to imagine that he’s like Egg personality wise). She’s also a mommy and daddy’s girl. She’d be a grown woman and Betha and Egg would still call her their little baby. Unproblematic queen btw.

She and Egg both run circles around Dunk. First he had to deal with Egg and now he has to deal with a second Egg. Betha Rohanne blah blah blah stubborn wilful women blah blah blah ‘egg don’t mess with that girl or you’ll end up almost drowning in a stream’.

Her and Egg’s sisters are the best of friends. They’re always hanging out and gossiping somewhere. She knows all of the worst stories of her husband from those two. Rhae and Betha are especially close, but that’s also because I hate female romantic rivals tropes and Egg also hates the idea of his sister wanting to marry him. George please rid of us incest for at least one generation. The Aerion story and love potion story was enough. Give Egg a break please.

I feel like she’s more of the strict parent of the two. Egg seems to hold a lot of resentment towards his children’s decisions but feels that he’s been backed into a corner and can’t do anything about it. Betha is technically in the same position but I feel like she’d certainly make it verbally known to her kids that they fucked up big time. Not that Egg wouldn’t, but she does it more. Maybe toss a slipper at Duncan when he gets a little too mouthy. Like let’s be real most of her kids make some pretty shitty decisions that really end up fucking Egg over. Let Betha be a little mean for a little bit.

Nonetheless, I’d say Jenny grows on her. Egg isn’t a hateful person, so I feel like Betha wouldn’t be either. Even if accepting Jenny is difficult for the both of them at first. In fact, I’d like to imagine that she tries to warn Jenny away from Duncan by telling her all of the embarrassing and annoying things this man has done ever since he was born. “I’ve had to deal with all of this shit, are you willing to deal with it?” Jenny says yes.

Betha’s the more dominant of the two. At social gatherings she’s always standing in front of Egg, she’s always speaking louder than him, and she’s just overall more of a recognizable figure. This changes a bit when Egg becomes king, since obviously they need to watch how they behave in public, but before he was king it was super obvious to anyone. But if you’re close to them after they become monarchs, it’s still obvious that their dynamic hadn’t changed.

all the femdom betha comments in my tumblr tags how you doing rn 😁 no reason to bring it up just wondering what y’all are up to

Irish :)

#my asks

[adamprrishcycle]

Wip of a pynch fic set post-greywaren where ronan is just obsessing over adam and trees… which, I mean, same. Standard stuff tbh (greywaren spoilers)

Tagging @heybubb bc you said you were interested in the trees

The night that Ronan dreamt of Cabeswater, it was raining. It was cold and dark, the clouds like a rolling sea and Cabeswater felt pliant and whole as Ronan folded it around something restless and hungry.

It was the perfect dream thing, and he felt so enraptured by it that he would spend hours, awake or asleep under its boughs of oak and elm and silver birch.

The night that Ronan dreamt of Lindenmere, the evening felt close like the hot summer day that had been left behind. All he could taste and smell was black nigntwash that threatened to drown him from the inside out.

This forest wasn’t Cabeswater. The trees huddled closer, blocking sunlight from the woodland floor causing thick, damp moss to form on rocks and trunks and branches. Brambles netted the foliage and grew high in some places and a stream quickly turned into rushing rapids. To Ronan, Lindenmere was a friend, but to anyone else it was hostile. And though he hadn’t intended it, it was perfect.

It was perfect in its harsh beauty and the deep green of the leaves and the moss dyed the shadow over Adam Parrish’s face green.

Lindenmere suited Adam in a strange way that Ronan couldn’t quite describe. Though he had been tied to Cabeswater, lending his hands and eyes, Lindenmere was more like Adam’s heart. It beat, fierce and wild and beautiful.

“So,” Adam started, “you could’ve been a forest.”

His lips were green too until he stepped into a finger of sunlight reaching through the canopy above and he squinted. His face appeared golden in the sun, his hair messy just the way Ronan liked it.

Ronan looked at him but didn’t speak, letting Adam take whatever he wanted from his expression. He watched Adam look over at him, faded t-shirt, blue jeans and bare feet. The brambles had a way of moving out of Adam’s path, especially when he wore no shoes.

“Sorry,” Adam said eventually, with a grin, “I’m still trying to wrap my head around this.”

Adam always needed a logical explanation to most things, despite the fact that he was psychic. Ronan figured that learning your boyfriend was a powerful entity dreamt into existence and given a human body was pretty hard to wrap one’s head around. He had all the patience in the world for Adam in this. After all, he had yet to come to terms with it himself.

“Yeah,” Ronan said finally, “basically.” He stood with hands pocketed, watching Adam, eyes going from his face to his bare feet slowly but repeatedly. Though he was technically not of this world, he was still hungover and he remained in the cool, green shadows, silently wishing he was still in bed.

“You are what Cabeswater was,” Adam stated, but his voice was searching.

“I’m something like it, yeah,” Ronan confirmed. “As far as I know.” He looked away from Adam, around at the swaying trees and thought, but didn’t say out loud, but I don’t know fucking much.

#let me know if u like it #I’ve nearly finished it #but I say that about most things #you bet I’ve been agonising #pynch #adam parrish #ronan lynch #trc #the raven cycle #greywaren spoilers #Cabeswater #Lindenmere #wip

[written-by-ariddletobesolved]

Forbidden for Helsa, please ❄💙

Hi, I'm sorry it took a while. Anyway, here's something that's inspired by @paradise-of-guilty-pleasures 's Mermaid x Centaur AU.

—

One Word Prompt 17 — Forbidden

Forbidden is the word that the creatures of the forest and the ocean use to describe their union. They are not meant to be together, these creatures would say, one belongs to the land and the other belongs to the sea. But who are they to say such a thing, to assume that nothing good will come out of a union between two creatures of different realms?

‘Just ignore them, Elsa,’ he would murmur to her ear as she leaned back against him, feeling his strong arms around her, her tail dipping in the water as they settled by the docks. ‘They don’t know about us.’

Letting out a sigh, she dared to close her eyes, trying to savour the moment as much as she could, before she had to go back and face the disapproving look on her sister’s face once she found out about her escapade. Her sister would probably not hold back this time, not after she’d warned her so many times before. But Elsa didn’t care, or at least she didn’t want to. 

Although it might be easier to tune out others’ opinions, some of those words still managed to slip through, residing at the back of her mind until one day they were pouring into her stream of consciousness. The reassurance began to subside for a bit when she was reminded of her sister’s words from a few days ago.

‘You should stop seeing that Centaur,’ she could hear Anna say. ‘It will only do harm to your reputation.’ Elsa only corrected her sister to address him with his name, Hans. Anna scoffed.

On another occasion she said, ‘You’re not supposed to mingle with those creatures above the land at all. You’re only signing yourself for a heartbreak, and I can’t keep quiet about it, Elsa.’ Elsa muttered a quick thank you and you don’t have to worry about me.

A slight nudge prompted her to open her eyes, and she was greeted by those emerald eyes which sparkled under the warm glow of the twilight. She gave him a small smile, before nuzzling the crook of his neck and letting out another sigh. He asked her if there was something that was troubling her mind, and she only nodded. He didn’t need to probe, for he knew what it was about this time.

Hans had met Anna before, a feisty mermaid with hair to match her temper, he recalled. As much as he wanted to warm up to her, Anna had never given him a chance to do so. But then again, their encounters were mostly because Anna wanted Elsa to go back, something about being needed in the kingdom, she said. He was reluctant to let his darling Elsa go, but he knew he must. Duties should come above all else, and Elsa was technically a princess of the underwater kingdom of Arendelle.

Sometimes he wondered if he was being selfish, keeping her to himself, courting her as if their union wasn’t frowned upon, forbidden. But before he could ponder further, he felt her shift in his arms. Elsa held his hand delicately, before lifting it up to press a loving kiss on his knuckles, and his heart swell at the gesture.

‘I’m so glad to have you, Hans,’ she said, looking up at him with those big blue eyes he adored so much. 

Reaching up to tuck a few blonde strands that were framing her face behind her ear, Hans cupped her cheek, holding her face and kissing her forehead. He nuzzled her blond hair for a little longer, inhaling the floral smell of the flower crown resting upon her head—his gift for her to celebrate their special day, commemorating the anniversary of their first meeting.

‘I’m glad to have you too, Elsa.’

Relaxing back in his embrace, Elsa hummed in contentment. She couldn’t let him go, not yet, and not ever. She wanted to have him in her life, to hear his soothing voice serenade her, to have his lips pressed against hers, to have his arms around her to carry her as he galloped across the lavender field. And he, too, wanted to experience it all with her. The hope for a happy ending, that everything would be worth it in the end, was inevitable in their book.

For only in each other’s arms could they truly know peace. 

Only in each other’s arms could they find solace to dim all the noises of the outside world.

This is the tale of two creatures of different realms who share the purest love, yet deemed forbidden by the spectators.

#helsa #helsa fanfiction #elsa x hans #iceburns #hansla #prince hans #queen elsa #frozen #one word prompt series #mary's writing #ariddletobesolved #mermaid x centaur

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

So, I’m a big fan of the regular stand-up format: funny stories for varying lengths of time that average out to an hour, callbacks, building up a theme, tying threads together, serious and/or sad bit at the end, try getting overly personal or overly political if you think you have the chops to handle it (because it’s fantastic if done well and really hard to watch if done badly), preferably some meta commentary, up to four traditional punchline-driven jokes if there’s enough time. It’s an excellent formula.

I don’t completely object to experimentation. Nick Helm and Rhys James made me realize that spoken word poetry is probably the artsiest thing I really like in a stand-up show. And I often like people who add music in there. Sometimes I even don’t mind a prop or a costume.

What I find it less easy to get into is sketch comedy, and/or character comedy, something with a narrative that’s entirely fictional. Physical comedy. Anything that can be described with the word “clowning”. I think this is why I don’t mind that a lot of the comedy recordings I have are audio only. The visual side isn’t a big part of what I enjoy in most comedy.

Basically, I'm a big fan of stuff that was called alternative comedy twenty or more years ago, when the thing to which it was an alternative was just a misogynist going setup-punchline for 30 minutes straight. Whereas stuff that's called alternative now can be literally anything, and some of it I like, and some of it makes my chest feel weirdly tight in an uncanny valley sort of way. I don't like puppets. I'm glad everyone else is having a good time but I don't like the puppets.

I’ve posted about this before, and usually add that every once in a while I’ll watch something like that to try to expand my horizons. Here’s how that’s gone.

Shows that have made me think – yep, I was right to believe this isn’t for me, I mean I’m really glad everyone’s having a good time and I wish them the best and I can appreciate that this might be technically very well made, but not for me:

- The Delightful Sausage – Nowt But Sea

- Mr. Swallow – Houdini

- Phil Ellis - Excellent Comedy Show

- Anything with that little purple Feltface puppet

- I watched this show called Siblings that was streamed from the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe because it was a variety show and I wanted to know what that was like, there was someone who spun hula hoops and removed her clothes and someone else who juggled fire and various sketches and a drag queen and one guy who just slipped on banana skins as his whole act, I was very impressed with some of the technical skills on display but it also felt weird and uncomfortable and the only part where I had any idea what was going on was when Tom Ballard came on to tell jokes about his sex life and made me say “Oh thank God for something I recognize”

- Anna Man – A Sketch Show For Depressives

- Elf Lyons – Swan (to be fair, this is probably a lot funnier if you’re familiar with how ballet works)

- Christopher Bliss – Writing Wrongs (this barely belongs on the list because it’s very accessible, but technically it counts because the whole thing was in character, and the character seemed to pretty much have one joke, and that one joke was quite funny but not for a whole hour)

A lot of it made me laugh but it still gave me this strong sense of "this isn't really my thing":

- Lorna Rose Treen – Skin Pigeon

- Joseph Morpurgo – Hammerhead

Shows that have made me think – actually, I could be cultured and understand outside-the-box comedy, I am enjoying this a lot:

- The Delightful Sausage – Ginster’s Paradise (I don’t think this was actually more accessible than Nowt But Sea, I think it just watched it second and enjoyed it more once I’d figured out what to expect from them)

- John-Luke Roberts in general

- Zoe Coombs Marr in general

- Lazy Susan – Forgive Me, Mother!

- Crizards – Cowboys

- Does Jordan Brookes count? I went into his stuff thinking it might be too experimental for me, but then it ended up being much more accessible than I’d expected, I did really like it though.

Shows that I can definitely tell are very good, and they made me laugh and think at the right places, but also made me really uncomfortable while watching them and I don’t know if I could call the experience enjoyable, but it was still good in some other way I think, I mean I recently mentioned in a post that I find John Robins “pussy line” routine mildly uncomfortable just because I’m a bit squeamish about hearing someone say the word “pussy” that many times in a few minutes and this sure did have a challenge for that side of me, also I find puppets difficult to look at, but seriously, they were really good, they made me feel a lot of things in the way I believe art is supposed to, I mean they made me feel a bit anxious in a squeamish way but also I think made me feel some proper art things alongside that, and they were funny, overall I’d probably pay good money to see her live but only if I’m allowed to close my eyes at some parts, it’s at times like this that I remember I am a jock/athlete that migrated to this level of art appreciation in my thirties, I do not have the type of theatre kid background that may be necessary to be unbothered by all the weird shit going on in this, but still, really really good and I highly recommend them though with the caveat of trigger warning for like everything:

Natalie Palamides – Laid

Natalie Palamides – Nate

[phantomskeep]

Putting the "Fun" Back in "Funeral" - Chapter 1

AO3 Link | Next Chapter

Chapter One: Furries, Cannibalism, and... The Goonion?

Danny sometimes wished he could travel through time. Don’t get him wrong! He knows the danger of messing up the time stream (Dan, Desiree, and Clockwork all taught him that much) but there are still times when he would sit on top of a building, staring at the stars, wondering what he would change given half the chance.

Currently, however, he was debating on his life choices while very much not on a rooftop.

White gloved hands shakily grasped broken concrete, slowly lifting his beaten body out of a crater in the middle of some random street. The latest ghost who had decided to try their hand at using Danny as a punching bag was one that he hadn’t encountered before. His usual roster of ghostly enemies still came by, of course. They all visited Amity Park at least once a week - if not more. However, the ghostly entity that Danny was currently facing? He had never seen them.

It was something that had been occurring more and more often. A random ghost would show up, declare a challenge against Danny, and inevitably lose.

As Danny raised himself out of his impromptu resting place, he considered the being before him. Dark, void black skin and fur greeted him. The ghost’s face was an odd cross between a horse’s and a dog’s - a long, block-shaped snout with a mouth reaching right up to under their dark red eyes. Pointed ears flicked wildly back and forth between a long mane that reached just up until the collar of the ghost’s thick golden necklace. The ghost’s choice of clothes baffled the white-haired man greatly; black dress shirt and bright, gaudy golden skinny jeans? Really? Who died and thought that was a good fashion choice?

Yeah, Danny was just as baffled.

The other ghost looked down at the young halfa, “I cannot fathom how you are the one Hotep described to me.” He sneered, clearly mocking Danny. “The great Akuris will easily defeat such a pathetic child.”

Danny gasped, mock-offended. “Well, Mr Tall Dark And Barks A Lot, I will have you know that at least I don’t dress like an accountant in the middle of a mid-life crisis.” He smirked before resting a soul-piercing green glare at the larger ghost floating above where Danny stood. “Or would it be mid-afterlife crisis?”

With that, Danny leapt back into action. He swung a powerful punch directly into Akuris’ long muzzle, causing the dark ghost to be pushed back. Amity Park’s ghostly hero did not relent on his assault, though. Danny followed the other ghost’s backwards momentum to bodily slam into his opponent’s soft belly in a move he often saw Dash pull during his football practices. The twenty-year-old halfa quickly grabbed the Fenton thermos off of his belt loop, taking the opportunity to finally capture the winded ghost.

A great sigh left Danny’s body as he hovered in the air, surveying the damage leftover from the fight between the two. It was well around two in the morning, judging by the placement of the twinkling stars. With a jolt, Danny remembered that today was the day of his coronation - exactly five years after he defeated Pariah Dark.

Originally, Danny had been told he was technically king of the Ghost Zone in the aftermath of the battle. The young ghost had argued with the mysterious time-themed ghost named Clockwork who had appeared and was successfully able to get a five-year grace period of kingly procrastination.

Since then, Danny had grown up a little bit. He defeated his alternate evil self, discovered new powers, traveled through time on Clockwork’s request, graduated high school, took a “gap year” to focus solely on fighting ghosts, and successfully never let his parents or the world know about his ghostly half. All in all, Danny considered it a successful time.

All good things must come to an end, though, the half-ghost thought as he kept staring dejectedly at the stars so far away. He knew that even though he probably should tell his parents what was going on, but the fear of everything going wrong lurked in the back of his mind. After the events of Dan, the young man pulled away from his parents’ bit by bit. It was grief that drove Danny to rip out the most vulnerable parts of himself, after all. If he had nothing to grieve about then he would never be pushed into doing something as drastic as destroying the world, right?

Jazz disagreed very heavily with his mentality, but he was fine with that.

Another sigh left the poor halfa’s body, and he re-hooked the Fenton Thermos to his belt loop. He might as well go back home to continue to lick his wounds before he had to, unfortunately, be crowned king. What a shitty Tuesday.

༼ つ ╹ ╹ ༽つ 

Later that day, at exactly three in the afternoon, Danny Phantom walked through the ghost portal in his parent’s basement. It felt almost like he was walking towards his own death - a quiet, somber affair with very little fanfare. Danny had made sure no one knew what he was up to; Sam, Tucker, and Jazz all had their own lives to worry about. He was sure that the three of them would give Danny the ass-kicking of the century for making them miss such a big milestone in Danny’s life, but…

Well, from the walk-through of the coronation his ghostly mentors laid out for him, Danny was sure this would not be a pretty affair.

Danny pulled himself from his musings as he stared into the deep green abyss in front of him. The young, white-haired ghost tilted his head forward, letting gravity take hold as the man fell into the Zone like a sort of twisted, backwards Baptism.

Useless lungs pulled in the ambient ectoplasm streaking through the air of the Infinite Realms. A parade of ghosts were waiting for him on the other side, lines of his soon-to-be subjects chanting his name. Ectoplasm-green eyes darted across the various ghosts lining the young king’s path, quickly registering those he knew and didn’t. Many of them wore clothing from various different eras, some seemingly dressed to impress their new ruler. Danny spotted one ghost in particular wearing what looked like a bedazzled bathrobe next to one whose long hair seemed to be braided into their dress. Some of the others who were cheering him on were more animal-like than Danny had come to expect, or were even completely non-humanoid. The odd shadow of a ghostly whale loomed over Danny as he turned his awed face upwards to watch the giant creature sail easily overhead with Young Blood’s pirate ship alongside it. Many loud cheers were heard from the ghostly child’s crew and large booms echoed across the infinite green surrounding them as cannons were fired. Smaller marine afterlife followed closely behind, easily marking the trail Danny had to follow to arrive at his official coronation spot with their different, bright colors. 

Even though Danny had gone over what he was supposed to do with his council, he still hesitated a little in the face of all the excited residents of the Zone. He knew, logically, that many were excited for him to take the crown. King Phantom’s reign was projected to be one of peace among the Realms, after all. However, seeing it? All of the souls - passed or created - of the Ghost Zone cheering for him?

Well, it made his core swell with a frosty sense of pride-I did this-they are safe-protect my people. It filled him with a feeling lighter than air and full of confidence, like he was actually making a good choice for once in his half-life.

Danny slowly started moving forward, waving at the Zone’s inhabitants, talking to those he knew. Pariah’s old castle had been slowly moving closer to where the Fenton Portal usually floated in the great expanse of the Realms. What used to be a two-hour flight was now closer to a little under an hour’s walk. So while Danny originally complained to Frostbite about how he didn’t want to slowly make his way there, he realized now the giant ice ghost was probably right when he said Danny’s stroll from his old haunt to his new one would seem faster than ever. It certainly didn’t feel like much time had passed at all when Danny finally laid eyes on the large, ugly castle that was going to be his.

Danny’s first order as king? Tear that eyesore down. Ew.

The thought made the young king snicker quietly, before slightly turning his head to eyeball the thousands of ecto-entities at his back. He scanned the ever-growing crowd under the watchful eyes of his various mentors. He could pick out Ember, Lydia, even that ghost who fought him that morning - Akuris? -, and so many more of his various frenemies watching Danny. 

The young man picked his methodical float back up to his new haunt. He could just barely see the figures bobbing at the front doors to the royal eyesore, though he could pick each of the Ancient ghosts out easily. Danny felt his core thrum nervously inside his chest, seeming almost like a heart with just how harshly it pulsed. Underneath his gloves, the white-haired ghost felt sweat start to form. But Danny kept making his way down to the landing where many ghosts were waiting for him to be officially crowned as king.

Danny really, really hoped he wouldn’t make an absolute fool of himself.  

As Danny looked up at the stoic figure of Clockwork, the various Ancient Ghosts fanned out beside the Master of Time: Frostbite had a goofy smile on his large face, Pandora wore a proud smirk, Ghost Writer was almost sneering at him as the smaller ghost floated next to his peers. Vortex was grudgingly gazing at the inhabitants of the Realms with his large arms crossed, and, finally, Undergrowth was completely ignoring Danny. Fright Knight, while not an Ancient, was standing alongside the various mentors Danny had throughout the years. Behind the Ancients floated many of the Observants, who gazed upon the Zone with an air of collective anticipation.

Taking a small step, Danny finally presented himself to the various ghosts looming over his much smaller figure. The halfa gave Clockwork a nervous smile, only to receive a tiny nod from the much older ghost. With an awkward about-face, Danny fully faced the entirety of the Ghost Zone steadily. He felt it when Clockwork stepped up to be next to Danny, the Ancient staying in his middle-aged form to address the Infinite Realms and her inhabitants.

“People of the Realms,” Clockwork started, his voice booming over the quickly quieting chatter. “Today is a new dawn for us. Five years ago, Danny Phantom defeated King Pariah Dark through single combat - sealing the King back into his Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. This was a task that the Ancients ourselves struggled to complete in years past,” the blue ghost paused, resting a comforting hand on Danny’s (totally not shaking) shoulder. “And as our laws state, upon the defeat of the previous Ruler of the Realms the new King must take the final step into rulership by consuming all that remains of the preceding Crowned Head.”

Even though Danny knew it was coming, hearing those words out of Clockwork’s mouth made him shudder all the same. When he turned to face Clockwork the young halfa could feel Clockwork’s concern radiating off of him, even as he still went through the process of accepting the box holding Pariah Dark’s core from Frostbite. Danny tried to focus on the box - dark red with black trims, how nice - instead of what he was about to do. This was another part of the whole “you’re going to be king” schtick that Danny complained about greatly.

Eating another person, even if that person was technically a ghost, just felt so wrong to the halfa. Unfortunately, as Clockwork opened the sparsely decorated box, Danny was about to have to become a (technical) cannibal.

Yay.

The white-haired young man cupped his hands like he had practiced weeks prior. Clockwork gently lifted the swirling pearl to place in Danny’s waiting hands. Pariah’s core, despite holding one of the nastiest beings Danny had the unfortunate luck to meet, was honestly a thing of beauty. Dark reds dueled with lighter pinks, with small bubbles of fire and electricity leisurely swirling amidst it all, deep inside the older ghost’s core. Danny almost wanted to shake it to see if it would swirl like a snow globe.

Danny hesitates for a second, glancing up at Clockwork. The ancient being floated patiently, deep red eyes boring into Danny’s own. Ectoplasm-filled air passed through the halfa’s chest as Danny carefully rolled the pulsing core onto one gloved hand, slowly bringing it to his mouth. A shudder racked Danny’s body as he quickly dropped the warm rock-like core onto his extended tongue before hurriedly swallowing it whole.

For a brief moment, Danny only felt the dizzy sensation of nausea before a blinding surge of raw power burst through his chest. His core was practically vibrating with uncontained energy and felt like it was going to push through his chest like some sort of alien baby in a shitty horror movie. The sharp sensation of pain took over Danny’s entire world, his eyes open but unseeing.

It felt like hours had passed by the time the young half-ghost’s thought process was restored. He groggily blinked, attempting to focus on the present. Strength flowed through Danny’s veins - which he dutifully ignored in favor of looking up towards the oppressing castle behind himself. The keep itself was barely shaking, little pieces of rubble spilling into the greenish fog surrounding it. A pulse rushed through Danny’s core and he was in awe as he watched the depths of the Zone light up in tandem. A shaky hand reached up to clutch at the stylized letter displayed on the halfa’s chest - Danny could feel the Zone around himself. Trying not to panic, knowing that Clockwork said this was totally normal, young Danny, he managed to give his mentor a shaky nod.

The other ghost continued on with his speech, like the last few minutes hadn’t happened. Taking a large, glowing green skull ring from the steady hands of Undergrowth, Clockwork spoke. “With the core consumed, King Phantom will bear the Ring of Rage with a fair and just hand.”

Danny held his quivering right hand forward, watching as the older ghost slowly slid the ghostly artifact over his ring finger. Holding his breath, Danny waited. He fully expected the ring to reject him - who would put him in charge of an entire realm, after all? When the sharp sting of electricity never came, the halfa let out the smallest sigh of relief. His eyes met Clockwork’s own, earning a smile in response.

When Danny casted his gaze back onto the ectoplasm colored jewelry, he was shocked to note the colors and overall shape of it had changed. Before he had the chance to further inspect it, he was interrupted. 

“The Ring of Rage is coupled with the Skeleton Key,” Clockwork continued as Ghost Writer presented the glowing key to the other ghost, “and is used to access the many realms connected to our own. The Key allows our Crowned Head to reach any of his subjects in their times of need.” With that, Clockwork waved his hand in front of the artifact. When the key was back in Danny’s view, he could see it was attached to a sturdy-looking chain. The young man ducked his head, letting Clockwork slip the necklace over his head.

Clockwork turned to face Pandora, who was holding a flaming green crown in her hands. He gently took the headwear, before meeting Danny’s eyes. “And finally, to fully become Ruler of the Infinite Realms - Land of the Dead, the Eternal Plains, the Place Between, Heaven and Hell - a crown built from the fires of her core must be placed onto the brow of the Realm’s Chosen. King Phantom, kneel before the people you are to rule and accept this great burden for them. Feel their cores with your own, their obsessions alongside your own, and the Realm will fully accept you as her Crowned.” Gingerly, Danny dropped to his knees like he had practiced. He bowed his head, closing his eyes and waiting for the Crown of Fire’s weight.

When the warm metal touched his head, Danny felt the Zone shudder. As a bright light eclipsed Danny’s form, he could feel the metal on top of him change. In fact, as the young king tried to focus on his newest headgear, he could tell he was no longer wearing the white hazmat suit he died in.

The light faded and Danny took stock of himself. Monochrome rubber had turned into fancy-looking black pants tucked into armored white boots, a tight-fitting white shirt with his logo in black blazed across his chest, and a heavy-fitting cloak wrapped around himself. Danny wanted to inspect himself more - but the feeling of the Zone pulsing through his core brought Danny’s attention to the cheering of the thousands of ghosts around himself.

Danny was flooded with the feelings of happiness-hope-rejoicing-euphoria from around him. The Zone quaked, pulsing purple lights blooming across the infinite green void surrounding its inhabitants. A smile cracked its way across Danny’s face, and he didn’t even try to hide it as he faced his subjects. The speech Ghost Writer drilled into his head fled Danny, and for just a second he floundered. Before he could drown in the bottomless pit that was his brain, another pulse of pure hope shot through his veins.

Feeling like he was drugged, Danny spoke around his smile. “When I was a kid,” he started, “I never could have imagined becoming the King of anything. All I wanted to do was go to space, to see the stars watching over me.” He let out a laugh. Usually, these days, when Danny laughed it was world-weary and bitter. Now, high on the feeling of hope, his laugh was one of joy. “Now look at me! Look at yourselves! We’ve all come so far - and I promise to protect each and every one of you. I will be your star - your light in the dark, your guide to a better future.”

“You are the people of the Infinite Realms, and it is my promise to forever keep you all safe.”

The ghosts of the Zone cheered for him. Pandora flanked Danny’s right side, Clockwork on his left. A cold presence at his back told the new king that Frostbite was behind him. Danny could only assume the other Ancients were also surrounding him, but he didn’t dare look away from the mingling bodies before himself. As one, the Ancient Ghosts let their cores hum, speaking in a language known only to those of the Zone. Before him, Danny’s subjects joined in until a swelling song of hope-peace-happiness-new era flooded his senses, leaving the young halfa to float endlessly in the feeling of pure acceptance.

That day, as a chapter of the Ghost Zone’s history ended and a new one began, a song of hope touched the many universes attached to it.

ヾ( ･`⌓´･)ﾉﾞ

Jason’s day was going pretty okay, so far. He woke up a little before noon, made himself some breakfast, worked out for a few hours, and managed to read an entire three pages of a book before he got a call from his siblings about a potential drug bust. A majority of them had recently began working on chipping away at the increasing amount of drug trading going around Gotham. Ever since Red Hood had taken a step back from his self-appointment crime lord duties, other criminals have been attempting to fill in his shoes. It usually ended in one of Gotham’s various vigilantes drop-kicking said criminals into a wall, but still. Criminals were the worst kind of weed.

So with a grumble that was half for show and half pure annoyance at being interrupted, the man suited up and made a stealthily exit out his window. Apparently he had a pre-”Curbstomping the Newest Pain in His Ass of the Week” meeting to attend with a handful of the Wayne family.

Jason can only hope he doesn’t get stuck with the annoying ones for this.

His day was still going pretty well after the initial run-down of the game plan when he and Dick, who was decked out in his Nightwing wear, finally landed on top of a warehouse’s unstable roof. They were near the edge of Crime Alley and Robbinsville, closer to the docks than Jason’s usual patrol routes brought him. Based off of Oracle and Red Robin’s joint intel, a large shipment of illegal drugs was being delivered to the Iceberg Lounge sometime after dusk. The issue came up when the question of how the drugs were going to be transferred from wherever they were stored to Penguin’s business front.

Which is where the Batkids came in, apparently.

“Comms check,” Oracle started. “Nightwing, sound off.”

“Comms confirmed, reading you loud and clear!” The older vigilante chirped from where he was stretching lazily. “Red Hood?”

Red Hood sighed, speaking up. “All good. Red Robin?”

“Also reading loud and clear. Orphan?”

Three taps cut across the comms, letting the other four know their sister could hear them all. “Awesome,” Oracle started. “Plan A is ready on Red Robin’s signal. Remember - do not engage.”

Hood slowly rose from his crouch, shaking his hands out before letting them rest on the many holsters strapped to his body. “How many times is she going to say something like that?” He stated, words practically oozing sarcasm. “Every single time we somehow manage to still end up in a shoot-out.” 

The crime lord could practically see Red Robin’s eyes rolling, “And who’s fault is that, Mr. Emotional Support Guns?”

“Shut it, Replacement,” the Hood growled.

He lazily turned to look at Nightwing, a challenging grin hidden behind the red helmet protecting his face. “Race you, Dickface.” Hood stated before turning east and leaping off the roof in a burst of speed. The helmeted man ignored his brother’s sputtering protests as he tried to keep the small gap forming between the two while they parkoured to the docks in one of the most eastern parts of Gotham.

Jason wanted to laugh, to revel in the feeling of messing around with his older brother. Despite all the bad blood still looming between the rest of the Wayne clan (adopted, blood, “family friends” or otherwise) and Jason, he wanted to make up for his past mistakes with the rest of his family.

Does this mean he fully forgave Bruce for never avenging his death? No.

But did he see the man try. Dick told Jason about the full-body cast their father put Joker in as soon as Batman could. Which was more than Bruce ever told Jason, but whatever. All of the Bat’s kids know he’s emotionally constipated on the best days.

Things were still awkward between all of them, though. Jason talked more to Dick than the rest of the Bat Clan, mostly because he was the only one between the original three who actually apologized. For being a shitty older brother, for not being there, for not realizing Jason was back earlier. Really, the older man practically apologized for everything under the sun one night while Jason stuffed his face full of fries and tried his best to not be emotional. He still needed to talk to the others about everything that happened.

However, that meant emotions and Jason? Jason didn’t do emotions.

He was a cold-blooded semi-retired Crime Lord. Anyone who said he had any emotions besides pure, seething rage was a lying liar who lies.

Even though Jason’s head was practically higher in the clouds than his body was, he was abruptly reminded that he was doing some epic parkour when Nightwing finally passed him.

“You’ve gotten slower, Hood!” The older taunted as he did a theatrical flip between rooftops.

Red Hood let out a frustrated noise, all previous thoughts of his family forcibly shaken from his brain when he rolled onto a gravel-topped roof. 

The man could tell by the state of the buildings around him that they were getting closer to the docks. Red Robin and Orphan would be further north than Nightwing and himself. The intel collected had stated there were two locations being used that night; one was a dunce, the other had the actual goods. Red Robin originally wanted to only focus on the location with the actual drugs, but Nightwing was able to convince him to also hit up the secondary location for information. So, that’s what they eventually agreed to do.

Hood looked forward, eyeing Nightwing as the other slowed to a stop at the edge of the last warehouse’s roof before the high-chained fences of the port stood. “You ready to bust some kneecaps?” Hood quipped as he walked up behind his brother.

“But of course,” Nightwing playfully scoffed, “hopefully we got the drug side of things.”

“That’s a sentence that would worry most parents.”

Even with the domino mask covering the older vigilante, Hood knew he was getting side-eyed. “And you suddenly care about what parents think?”

“Not the time, Wing.” The crime lord practically growled. He knew that was a remark aimed at the sort-of hostility between Jason and Bruce. And he was going to be the adult in this situation, thank you, Dick, and ignore what his brother said. “Let’s go ahead and get this over with.”

“Alright, alright,” the other pacified, “time to get our sneak on.”

Hood rolled his eyes, even if they were covered by his helmet. He aimed himself towards the edge of the street between the two vigilantes and the fenced in areas. With a quick drop and a well-timed roll, Red Hood was in a secure shadow cast by the metal warehouse. With a near-silent grunt, Nightwing joined him. The two shared a nod while Nightwing let Oracle know that they were about to enter their targeted site.

The larger of heroes quickly moved across the small, broken down street. Nightwing was half a pace behind him, and the two easily vaulted over the tall, barbed fence unsuccessfully keeping out unwanted civilians.

Silently, they hurried deeper into the heart of the port, easily dashing between long shadows thrown between towering cargo containers. Hood only slid to a stop when Nightwing held up a fist - a silent order to stop. A few months ago, Jason would have completely ignored his brother’s signals and simply shoved his way past him. Now, however, Hood stilled just behind the smaller figure. With a hurried gesture, Nightwing grappled as quietly as possible onto the dulled metal stacked around them, Red Hood quickly following.

Hood watched as five figures turned into the alley the two had just been. Kevlar-covered fingers caught Hood’s attention in swift commands to spread out and attempt to follow the people below them. A quick nod of a helmeted head showed agreement and Hood silently stalked his prey from his perch on top of sea-touched metals. Nightwing slowly slinked the opposite direction, going his own route to cover more ground.

The five people, dressed in stereo-typical “Goon in Hiding Garb” (as Dick helpfully named it so many years ago), continued on their journey between the containers. Their silent observant kept close watch on them, doing his best to listen in on their conversation. A fit of frustration ran hot and angry through Hood’s veins when he realized that, in order to clearly hear what was being said, he would have to plant a bug of some sort.

Which meant he would have to get closer. And Jason? He really did not want to do that.

However, since Hood was such a nice person, he would put his frustrations to the side in order to successfully plant a tiny Batbug. He was just that nice.

Hood waited until his unsuspecting targets rounded another corner to take action. Once the end of his grapple line was securely hooked, the helmeted man quietly slung down to the concrete-covered ground. After releasing the grapple’s hold, he continued after Penguin’s goon squad. He carefully peeked around a corner, took aim, and quickly threw a small robotic Batbug after them. He watched only long enough to see the tiny piece of technology successfully bounce and latch onto one of the goon’s shirt before ducking out of sight. Hood tapped the side of his helmet to turn on the listening device and stood still as voices flooded into his ear.

“-and like I was saying, Sal, some days it’s better and others it’s worse.” A woman’s tone was the first Hood could make out. “Just do what the bossman says, take your cut, and keep your head low. So long as you try to not break a lot of laws you’ll be fine.”

A younger man’s voice followed behind the woman’s, “I don’t know… The pay is good, yeah, but I’m not too keen on being someone’s punching bag.”

Hood could only presume this boy was Sal. While the man wasn’t one to put stock into guessing ages based only on the sound of their voice, Red Hood found it very difficult to even begin to think this kid was of legal age. It wasn’t that surprising, but it did make Hood’s heart ache and begin to feel a wash of rage ebb into his mind.

“Don’ listen ta ol’ Tracy, kid,” a third voice joined, this one with a thick Narrows accent. “Jus’ get the money ya need ‘n get out. Boss ain’t gonna fault ya for tha’.”

There was a small pause in the goons’ conversation and Hood took this opportunity to glance around the corner again. The five of them were further down, far enough where he could confidently follow within the shadows without being seen.

“... Thanks, Mark,” the kid’s small voice made the Pit Rage lingering in the back of Hood’s mind swell once again. Kids shouldn’t be joining the many villain gangs that lined Gotham’s streets so young. He knew it was hypocritical for the Red Hood, once most feared crime lord in Gotham to be saying, but he practiced what he preached. Kids that came to the Hood for help were given it, no questions asked. He did what he could to make sure no child in the Alley went cold or hungry. Red Hood protected his people.

The Penguin did not.

It was this knowledge, that Cobblepot was openly risking the safety of these children, that set Jason off. The leather protecting his hands creaked as he clenched his hands. He was shaking as he desperately fought to keep the rage from creeping into his vision, mentally warring with himself. Blue eyes blinked behind white lenses, still tracking the hazy figures through the toxic green fog swirling before him. 

He needed to keep following them. At a distance.

Jason honestly wasn’t sure if he could control himself if he got spotted and put into a confrontation.

Quickly grappling back onto the top of the many containers surrounding him, Red Hood continued to follow the people he was eavesdropping on. The five continued to chatter as they unknowingly led a temperamental vigilante straight to the heart of their operation.

Nightwing was keeping tabs on another group he had spotted, if the quiet commentary he was filling the comm line with was any indication. The group Nightwing was following was heading in the opposite direction of Red Hood - meaning that it was likely the older pair who had pulled the short straw of the night.

Which only caused Jason’s frustration to grow. The man really, really wanted to punch something now.

However, Jason was experienced enough in the art of “conceal don’t feel” to not let the raging emotions burning his inside explode outwards. He kept on task, easily keeping up with the small figures below him in an awkward half-crouch.

It was when the small group made it out of the corn-maze inspired cargo storage system that everything went right into the shitter. A massive, green-painted ship swayed gently in the tide, her mooring lines quietly creaking with the strain of keeping such a large vessel moored. Red Hood quickly attached his grapple to a parallel line of containers stacked in the direction Penguin’s goons were heading in. The near-silence of the night, however, did nothing to hide the shocked gasp as the feeling of absolute peace overcame Jason halfway through his leap to the other side.

The worn handle of his grapple gun slid out of Jason’s grasp as he plummeted to the quickly-approaching concrete. Luckily, the man was able to twist enough mid-air to land across his side. Unluckily, he landed directly behind the previously stalked squad of goons.

A quiet, “shit” was all Hood was able to say before the raggedy bunch turned to face him. The man quickly jumped to his feet, pulling out his dual pistols in the same movement. He did his best to try to compartmentalize the growing panic in his chest. Hood kept reaching for the giant void so often full of swirling rage and finding nothing.

He fired rapid shots at the scattered goons, striving to not shoot the smallest one. However, for all of Hood’s training, nothing could have prepared him for being in the middle of a firefight while actively seeking the very cause of all his problems.

Shooting a well-aimed bullet through a hispanic-looking man’s knee, Red Hood rolled behind a sun-bleached blue container. The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps made Hood whip around, coming face-to-face with another three of Penguin’s goons. He could also see two suspicious figures booking it down the ship’s gangway. Hood knew he could handle a fight like this, widening his stance and taking lazy aim at the hostile figures. His first shot went wide when a pulse of hope-settled-forgiven rushed through him, leaving Jason’s eyes useless and his legs shaky.

A bullet piercing through the body armor on his shoulder was barely enough to bring the man out of his head, leaving Jason to realize he was about to be surrounded if the feed from the Batbug was to be trusted. The distant phantom feeling of lounging in the sun, on his favorite chair in a giant, book-filled Wayne Manor library made Jason realize something was wrong. What should have been pain was only half-baked fuzzy feelings of warmth and comfort. It was enough to cause Jason to shoot wildly around himself, bringing a hand to clumsily tap on his helmet. When the man finally heard feedback from someone else’s com, he drunkenly slurred to whoever was listening.

“I-I need b’ck’p,” the hooded man said, firing a shot that went through a goon’s abdomen, “‘m drugged?” Jason couldn’t help but giggle as a smaller body got closer to him, turning his near-unresponsive body to slam the other into unforgiving concrete. An armored boot smashed the goon’s head against the ground. “Hemlo to ya’, too!” Jason laughed as the voices of his siblings flooded his ears.

Another burst of gooey happiness reverberated throughout the crime lord’s body, causing his vision to blackout again. He turned to see a woman with a gun pointed at him. She was the last one left, Jason blearily noticed, her friends’ broken bodies scattered across the ground around him. When did that happen? Jason doesn’t remember them playing, he thought with a frown. It was only when a black-clad individual backflipped into Jason’s narrowing view that he realized Dick had shown up at some point. 

“Big Bir’!” Jason cheered as his brother smoothly took down the last person playing. “Ya go’ ‘er!” His vision went dark again, but the feeling of something rapidly tapping his cheek brought the world back into focus.

“Hood, Hood can you hear me?”

Jason groaned in response, weakly pushing at his brother with heavy arms. “Shhhh,” he hissed, “‘m try’ng ta l’sten!”

Dick’s masked face, darkened with spots of speckled blood, danced with black spots around his vision, “Hood, what do you mean?” The older one asked.

Instead of responding, however, Jason’s body decided that talking was too much work. A peaceful feeling overtook him as he fell unconscious to the increasingly worried voice of his big brother, and a song of hope sung deep within his being.

( ुᴗᵨᴗ)ु.zZ

A/N: Hello! Please pardon any bad writing, it's been one hell of a hot second haha. Anyways - this has been an absolute labor of love from me. I've had this chapter finished since mid-February but a combination of my jobs, schooling, and a big editing block made it hella late. That being said, huge shoutout to my two betas @the-archer-goddess and Aerois! Legit could not have done it without you guys <3

Taglist: @vixen-uchiha @apointlessbox @mentalcarebear @asphyxia778 @horribly-lost-and-gay @may-rbi @blacksea21090 @kyrianclawraith (Hope I got everyone! If you want to be added to or taken off the taglist feel free to ask <3)

#DCxDP #DPxDC #Dead On Main #fic #Crossposted on ao3 #first fic in a while #cannibalism warning #slowburn #friends to enemies to lovers #its gonna be a long one boys #buckle up

[kumaradosha]

Part 2 of re-contextualizing past lore in light of knowing Dream’s mental state/motivations/fears:

Still on the first day Tommy visits Dream in prison, he says he’s been going crazy with no visitors.

-

Throughout the stream, his tone is flat, low-energy.

-

Tommy says everyone hates Dream now, and Dream responds with, “Well, I mean, I’m in prison now, so there’s no reason for them to hate me anyway. Right?”

-

He burns himself in lava and describes it as a positive, getting to ‘swim’.

-

“Hey, Dream, are you getting all sad?”

“...No.”

-

When Tommy tries to impersonate Dream by saying he’s going to visit every day and make Dream put his stuff in a hole, Dream response with, “Dude, I like if you visit me. You can visit me, and if you--just please visit me. Just visit me.”

Tommy complains that he doesn’t want to visit him every day, because it took 49 minutes just to get into the prison.

“Well, if I--if I don’t--...okay...”

Tommy talks over him, but perhaps this is the point he realizes he’s miscalculated both the technical difficulty of visitation and the amount people want to see him.

-

“I’m glad you visited me.”

-

“Tell me how you’re feeling.”

“Um... Sad.”

“Why?”

“Because I lost my friends.--”

-

“Who do you miss the most?”

“......... I think you should go, Tommy.”

Tommy insists, eggs him on about George and Sapnap specifically, and Dream insists he leave.

-

The dismal “Bye” when Tommy leaves.

#I sent the first post before I'd finished the vod; there is More #Dream being so desperate for company but so aggravated by Tommy at the same time #that he begs him to visit; demands he leaves; hates being left #He's like? So bad off already; help #dreblr #Dream #DreamWasTaken #Dream SMP #DSMP #DSMP lore