#if i were to explain my experience as rolls of the dice

[hellishfig]

i wish i could post insightful things about fantasy high: junior year but i am too busy being thrust into intense flashbacks of my own high school years and dealing with the anxiety that produces

like kudos to dimension 20 for accurately portraying how junior year of high school in the usa fucks a person up while simultaneously building a truly fantastic and gripping plot

but also i am literally just. sitting here. and did not ask to be mentally and emotionally devastated in this particular way

#to be clear i am absolutely LOVING this season #the very real emotions about high school are good actually #but at the same time i am suffering #also they're all doing good in high school! i barely graduated! #i liked learning but i hated homework! #bc i had and have adhd! #if i were to explain my experience as rolls of the dice #i feel like i rolled low on many classes and refused to take stress until the very last second #but also the stress was so real #so i identify deeply with this season #i'm in this picture and i don't like it #just kidding this might be my favorite season yet #so excited for the episode tmrw #dimension 20 #d20 #fantasy high junior year #d20 fhjy #fhjy

[prokopetz]

In recent posts I've complained that a lot of tabletop RPGs which toss around the term "fiction first" don't actually understand what it means, and I've been asked to expand on that complaint. So:

In my experience, there are two ways that game texts which want to position themselves as "fiction first" trip themselves up, one obvious and one subtle.

The first and more obvious pitfall is treating "fiction first" as an abstract ideology. They're using "fiction first" as a synonym for "story over rules" in a way that calls back to the role-playing-versus-roll-playing discourse of the early 2000s. The trouble is, now as then, nobody can usefully explain what "story over rules" actually entails. At best, they land on a definition of "fiction first" that talks about the GM's right to ignore the rules to better serve the story, which is no kind of definition at all – it's just putting a funny hat on the Rule Zero fallacy and trying to pass it off as some sort of totalising ideology of play.

A more useful way of defining "fiction first" play is to think of it not in terms of whether you engage with the rules at all, but in terms of when they're invoked: specifically, as a question of order of operations.

Suppose, for example, that you're playing Dungeons & Dragons, and you pick up the dice and say "I attack the dragon". Some critics would claim that no actual narrative has been established – that this is simply a bare invocation of game mechanics – but in fact we can infer a great deal: your character is going to approach the dragon, navigating any inclement terrain which lies between them, and attempt to kill the dragon using the weapon they're holding in their hand. The rules are so tightly bound to a particular set of narrative circumstances that simply invoking those rules lets us work backwards to determine what the context and stakes must be for that invocation of the rules to be sensical; this, broadly speaking, is what "rules first" looks like.

Conversely, let's say that your game of Dungeons & Dragons has confronted you with a pit blocking your path, and you want to make an Athletics check to cross it. At this point the GM is probably going to stop you and say, hold up, tell us what that looks like. Are you trying to jump across it? Are you trying to climb down one wall of the pit and up the other? Are you trying to tie a rope to the halfling and toss them to the other side? In other words, before you can pick up the dice, you need to have a little sidebar with the GM to hash out what the narrative context is, and to negotiate what can be achieved and what's at stake if you mess it up; this, broadly, is what "fiction first" looks like.

At this point I know some people are thinking "wait, hold on – both of those examples were from Dungeons & Dragons; are you saying that Dungeons & Dragons is both a rules-first game and a fiction-first game?" And yeah, I am. That's the second, more subtle place where game texts that talk about "fiction first" go astray: they talk about it as though being "fiction first" or "rules first" is something which is inherent to game systems as a whole.

This is not in fact true: being "fiction first" or "rules first" is something which describes particular invocations of the rules. In practice, only very simple games spend all of their time in one mode or the other; most will switch back and forth at need. Generally, most "traditional" RPGs (i.e., the direct descendants of Dungeons & Dragons and its various imitators) tend to operate in rules-first mode in combat and fiction-first mode out of it, though this is a simplification – when and how such mode-switching occurs can be quite complex.

Like any other design pattern, "fiction first" mechanics are a tool that's well suited for some jobs, and ill suited for others. Sometimes your rules are fine-grained enough that having an explicit negotiation and stakes-setting phase would just be adding extra steps. Sometimes you're using the outputs of the rules a narrative prompt, and having to pin the context down ahead of time would defeat the purpose. Fortunately, you don't have to commit yourself to one approach or the other; as long as your text is clear about how you're assuming a given set of rules toys will be used, you can switch modes as need dictates. However, you're not going to be capable of that kind of transparency if you're thinking in terms of "this a Fiction First™ game".

(Incidentally, this is why it can be hard to talk about "fiction first" with OSR fans if you're being dogmatic about fiction-first framing being an immutable feature of particular games. Since traditional RPGs tend to observe the above-described rules-first-in-combat, fiction-first-out-of-combat division, and OSR games tend to treat actually getting into a fight as a strategic failure state, a lot of OSR games spend most of their time in fiction-first mode. If you go up to an OSR fan and insist that D&D-style games can never be fiction-first, then attempt to define "fiction first" for them and proceed to describe how they usually play, they'll quite justifiably conclude that you have your head up your ass!)

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #game design #fiction first #violence mention #death mention #swearing

[mypoisonedvine]

𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 • eddie munson x reader

sequel to 𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 • far too long after your rendezvous with that cute groupie you couldn't get out of your head, you finally make good on your promise to call.

𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 • 4k

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 • smut (18+ only), phone sex, m and f masturbation, discussions of oral f and m receiving and penetrative sex, subby eddie, pillow humping (kinda), fluff, pining, some angst, lots of dirty talk

Your manager was the one who convinced you to get a cell phone.  It was a luxury item, it was a status symbol— it was bulky and heavy and you barely used it.  She was still the only person who called you on it!

And you'd never even placed a call from the brick before, not in the first three months of owning it.

But, it's usefulness became more apparent when you were stuck on the tour bus, up later than usual, horribly bored.  Not just bored, but… lonely, to put it nicely.

Your mind ran through some people you could call to take care of this problem, but it's not like anyone could get on the bus with you when you were going 75 miles an hour through the California desert.

That's when you remembered someone else; someone you'd never really forgotten.

Rolling on your side on the bed, you slid open your bedside drawer and searched until you found a folded up piece of paper.  You opened it and beamed as you saw the numbers written in messy, boyish scrawl, snatching the phone so you could punch it in.

You held it to your ear as it rang, anticipation building.

"Hello?"

You smiled as you heard the familiar voice, blurting out, "Eddie?"

The next pause was so long that you almost worried you'd accidentally called the wrong number, but he finally broke it.  "You know how long I've been waiting for you to call?" he laughed breathlessly.

"Sorry for the suspense, kid," you smiled.  "Got busy."

"That new album— wow," he began immediately.  "I was worried when you put out a ballad as a single, but damn— it was such a good record!"

"The label picks the singles," you explained.

"You just keep getting better," he sighed.  "You're incredible."

"You flatter me," you cooed.

"How've you been?!" he asked excitedly.

"Uh, you know, the usual.  We're doing a tour in Europe this time, kinda crazy," you hummed.

"Tell me all about it!" he encouraged.

"Oh, it's boring," you dismissed.

"No, seriously, I have a geography final tomorrow."

You laughed.  "I forgot how funny you are."

"Well, I try…"

"And I forgot how sexy your voice is."

He paused for a second.  "Oh, you think so?"

"Are you alone?"

"Y-yeah, whole place to myself," he agreed.

"Good.  Because I want you to say some things to me that I don't need anybody else hearing."

You could all but hear his shiver, and you grinned.  "Okay," he said shakily.

"Do you still jerk off to my poster?" you asked, point-blank.

"Yes," he answered instantly.

"Tell me how you do it," you instructed.  "Tell me what you think about."

"Uh, fuck," he stalled as you slipped your hand into your panties.  You were already just a little wet from hearing him talk at all.  "I mean, like, how I do it physically?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Well, when I'm thinking about you I get hard in a half second… so I just lay in my bed and look at it— your poster is right on the other wall.  And I get it out of my jeans and start stroking my dick."

"You don't use lotion?"

"Only when I'm feeling… extravagant."

You smiled.  "And, not to be too cliched here, but what are you wearing?"

"Well, uh," he stammered, "I run this club at my school?  And we make— I make— shirts for everybody.  So I'm wearing mine.  And my leather jacket, and some ripped jeans."

"Sounds cute," you smiled.  "This club, it's not the I fucked a celebrity club or anything, is it?"

"N-no, it's just a club for Dungeons and Dragons."

"Oh right— that, uh, Satanic game," you nodded.

"Oh!  It's not actually Satanic," he corrected, "it's just an immersive roleplaying experience where you roll dice and you can do basically anything you want.  It's a fantasy game!"

"Oh," you frowned, "I think I liked it better when I thought it was Satanic."

He snorted a laugh.  "But you probably don't wanna hear about that.  You could always, uh, tell me what you're wearing?"

"Gonna be a pretty short list," you warned.  "I've only got my underwear on."

"O-oh, shit," he hissed, "that's hot."

It was only because you'd stripped out of your performance wear and got too lazy to put pajamas on.

"It would be even hotter if you didn't have anything on," Eddie added, and you laughed but respected his boldness.

"Not while you're still totally clothed, pretty boy," you cooed. 

"Well I can get naked in, like, ten seconds," he offered.

"Oh, I'm sure," you grinned, "but not yet.  I want you to just touch yourself through your jeans first."

"You… huh?" he mumbled.

"I'm sure you've got a nice bulge going," you assumed, "just rub your dick through your jeans— get even harder for me."

"O-oh, fuck," he groaned.  "Okay, I'm doing it…"

"Does that feel good?" you pressed.

"Not good enough," he whined.  "Obviously I don't usually tease myself this much."

"Well, this will be a fun new experience for you," you decided.  "I'm teasing myself too, if that makes you feel any better.  I'm playing with my clit really slow and gentle…"

"Fuck," he grunted, "you sh-should play with your tits, too."

"Yeah? I was thinking about licking my fingers and running them around my nipples, what do you think?"

"I think if those are the fingers that were just on your pussy, then that's really fucking sexy," he replied.

"They are," you promised, and he growled through his teeth.

"God, do it, I wanna hear it," he encouraged.

Pulling your hand out from your panties and bringing it to your tongue, you wet your fingertips and circled your hardening nipples one at a time.  Your moan was totally natural, and louder than you expected.

"You sound so pretty," he praised, "I— god, I'm squeezing my bulge way too hard and it's not even helping.  I need to be in you right now."

"I'd be so much louder if you were," you imagined, shutting your eyes, picturing him above you again.

"God, please, I'm so hard," he whimpered.  "It fucking hurts, I need to—"

"Get it out, Eddie," you offered, and you heard him sigh so hard it was almost a moan as the sound of fabric shuffling came through the line.  At the same time, you put your hand in your panties again, biting your lip while you rubbed your clit properly.

"Can I jerk off?" he asked dutifully, and you grinned.

"No, right now I just want you to rub it on something," you decided.  "Is there anything in your room that's as soft as me?"

"Fuck no," he sighed, "for that to be true there'd have to be a girl in here."

"Have there, uh, been any girls in your room since you last saw me?"

There was a pause, and it made your heart catch.  "Don't tell me you're jealous," he realized, lowering his voice in a way that made you shudder.

"So what if I am?  I wish you were all mine, pretty boy— nobody else should get to feel that perfect cock of yours…"

He laughed a little.  "Well, there have been a couple girls since you rocked my world in that bus, darling," he admitted.  "But they were nothing compared to you."

It still made your jaw clench angrily.  He shouldn't have told you— you were going to go harder on him now.  "Come on, Eddie, something to rub your cock on, I don't have all night here."

"Okay, well, there's… something here…"

You raised an eyebrow.  "And what would that be?"

"Um… you remember when I used your extremely tiny bathroom before I left?" he mumbled, and you grinned.

"Yeah…?"

"Well, there was a shirt on the floor— a black one?  I guess you changed out of it that day but, uh… I might have… taken it."

You smiled wide, feeling your cunt pulse as you imagined him that desperate.  "Naughty," you scolded.

"It was this old KISS shirt and it smelled like you— and I actually sprayed it with your perfume while I was in there too and… there's still a little bit of your scent left on it.  I get rock hard every time I smell it."

"Then rub your cock on it.  Put it on your bed and hump it like the needy boy you are, hm?"

"Sh-shit," he groaned, and you heard the bed creaking under his weight.  "Fuck, it's— god, you're so— shit."

You grinned playfully at his obvious disdain for the teasing, but he was helpless to you now.  "Keep going, do it just how you would fuck me," you encouraged, "give that shirt the night of its life, Eddie."

"Ohhh baby," he whined.  "Fuck, I'm so fuckin' hard… I-I'm leaking…"

"Hm, wish I could lick that up for you," you cooed, laughing when he moaned loudly.

"You're so dirty," he groaned, "the things you say— oh my god—"

"I just like driving you crazy," you admitted.

"Yeah?  It's working," he sighed.

"Are you still humping the shirt, Eddie?"

"Yeah, how I'd fuck you, like you said," he agreed.  "I'm giving it, uh, long strokes— that's what made you moan the loudest, before.  And you liked it when I went really deep."

"Yeah," you agreed, back longing to arch hearing him talk like that.  "I liked feeling your cock all the way inside— I was afraid at first that you wouldn't fit…"

"Y-you're making that up," he coughed.

"No, really, I wasn't sure I could take it…"

"Well, fuck, you did," he sighed, "you took it so well— all of me, all of my… big c-cock…"

"Uh huh," you agreed coyly.  "You're good at this, Eddie, you're making me jealous of my own fucking shirt."

"Don't make me come on it," he whimpered, "cause then I'll have to wash it and your smell will be gone— please, it's all I've got left of you."

Ouch.  Leave it to him to drop those little heartbreakers when you were trying to be sexy.

"You don't need to come on it, in fact you can stop humping it altogether," you decided.  "Stroke that pretty cock for me Eddie, I wanna hear you moan."

It was so loud, poor baby, he was so sensitive.  "Thank you," he choked out, and your heart twisted.

"Just think about how much better it would feel if it was me instead of your hand."

"So much better, god, fuckin' perfect," he whined.

You smiled to yourself.  "Do you miss my pussy?" 

"So much— I always think about it when I do this."

"She's so wet for you right now," you taunted, making him groan.

"God, what I would give to slide right into your wet little hole, let you feel this cock stretch you out— I wanna feel you cream on me again."

"Uh huh?  What else do you want?"

"I want— I want you to suck me off again, your mouth felt fucking amazing," he added.

"Anything else?"

"A-and I wish I'd gotten a chance to eat you out when we were together— I would've loved making you come on my tongue.”

“Well,” you smirked, “I certainly wouldn’t have minded that…”

“Yeah?  Then maybe I would’ve made you come twice,” he purred, “again.”

“Bet you’re still real proud of that,” you giggled.

“Proud is an understatement— I’m waiting for my trophy any day now,” he corrected.  “Shit, and making you come with my head between your thighs?  Holding your hips so I can keep you just where I want you?  Tasting how bad you need me?”

You moaned as you rubbed your clit harder and faster, your hips starting to rock on their own as your pleasure grew.

“Fuck, do that again,” he grunted.  “Moan for me again.”

You couldn’t exactly force it to happen, but you did slide two fingers into yourself— just to feel full for a moment— and your next sound was lower and needier.  “God, I miss your cock,” you admitted with a sigh.

“Just say the word, I swear on my life I’d be driving across the country to see you,” he sighed.

“But you can’t miss that— ah, fuck— that geography final,” you purred, making him laugh.

“Guess not,” he agreed.  “F-fuck, I’m close…”

“Good,” you praised, “I’m so hot imagining you coming right now— making a nice big mess, jerking your thick cock, listening to me, picturing us together again—”

“Tell me it’s gonna happen,” he groaned, “‘cause fuck, babe— I dunno how I’m supposed to go on knowing it was just one night.”

You raised an eyebrow.  “Shouldn’t you be happy with just one night?  That’s more than most people get.”

He paused.  “I should be, yeah, but m’not.  It was too good for just once— the way I feel about you, I can’t be happy with just once,” he admitted with a heavy sigh.  “If you weren’t gonna make me yours, you should’ve never touched me.”

As fucked up as it was, you nearly came when he said that— but you managed to hold back.  Not because you got off to sad things, but because you felt the exact same fucking way.  “You’re mine, Eddie,” you breathed.  “Mine— fucking mine.”

“Oh god,” he whined, “I-I’m gonna come.  Fuck.  Please…”

“Come for me, Eddie,” you ordered, but he surprised you by disobeying (for now).

"I-I want you to come when I come," he pleaded.

"No, then I won't be able to focus on how cute you sound," you laughed.  "I need to listen closely so I can imagine you're pumping that huge load into me instead."

"Fuck," he groaned.  "That's what I'm imagining too.  It felt so good to come inside you…"

"I loved all that jizz dripping out of me for the rest of the night," you recalled, "it felt so dirty but I fuckin' loved it."

"Oh fuck, oh fuck," he whimpered.

"After you left, I tasted it," you admitted.

"Oh fuck!" he said again, yelping. "I-I'm gonna come, I'm so close, just— just tell me somethin'."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me you really care about me."

You gasped slightly.  "Eddie, I…"

You surprised yourself when you realized what you were about to say.  I'm falling for you.  You tried to think of what else you could say, something that would be true and satisfy him without giving yourself away entirely.  I think sometimes you're the only one who ever loved me for who I am.  I miss you so much that I can't bring myself to call because I'll miss you more.  I get scared because I worry you'd hate me if you knew me better.  I regret letting you go even though I know it was right.

"I meant what I said before," you offered instead.  "I need you."

"I— oh god— I need you too," he whimpered.  "I'm gonna come, fuck fuck fuck!"

His high pitched whines dropped to a low, deep groan as he came— abrupt, choking sorts of moans that made it so easy to imagine every pump of hot come he was coating his bed with.

"Oh my god," he sighed, "fuck, I just… I came everywhere.  Fuck."

He let out a breathless laugh and it was the sweetest thing you'd heard all day.

"I… I have no idea how to clean this up," he realized.  "B-but you still need to come, right?  Just tell me what you wanna hear, you can get off to my voice."

"I want to hear you beg," you decided.

"I— god, I'll try," he offered.  "Uh, please?  Please come…"

"Good start," you egged him on.

"I… I want you to," he kept going.  "I wanna hear it, and I can imagine that I'm licking your cunt while you do it."

Fuck, he's not bad.  "I'm close," you whispered, "Eddie, I'm close— just keep going…"

"Please, please," he whimpered, "let me hear it, come for me— I know you'll sound so damn good… please just come, I want you to feel as good as I do— you deserve to feel so good…"

You gasped as it hit you, a sharp stab of pleasure that made your fingers nearly cramp up— but thankfully they didn’t, and you were able to keep pushing yourself further and further into it.

“Fuck, s’good, you’re so good,” he praised, “you sound just like I remember— except, you know, you were louder with me.”

You smiled as you started to come down, hips bucking weakly while a wave of numbness settled over you.  “Damn,” you laughed breathlessly, hearing Eddie laugh too.  “I’ve actually never done that before.  Phone sex— not masturbating, that I’m very familiar with.”

“I’m kind of surprised,” he replied.

“You thought I would’ve had phone sex by now?” you assumed.

“No— the masturbating thing,” he corrected, “I mean, you’re a superstar!  You could just have this, like, endless line of guys who wait for you to get horny and you could have sex whenever you want.”

“Uh huh, endless line of guys?” you repeated, sinking into the sheets a little deeper— that relaxation that could only come in those ‘after’ moments only enhanced by talking with Eddie.  He seemed to put you at ease so naturally.  “I don’t have room for many more people in this bus.”

“Okay, then just one guy,” he added, his grin audible even through the layer of static.  “One super cool, curly-haired, educationally-challenged metalhead guy!”

“Hm, he sounds like a lot of fun,” you considered, “and I do like the idea of getting laid every day.”

“Every—” he choked, starting over again as his voice cracked.  “Every day?”

“What, worried you can’t keep up?” you smirked.

“Oh— no, that is… so not my problem,” he sighed, and you laughed.  “I’m just dying a little inside because you’re calling me from heaven and I’m stuck in hell— which has been going by Hawkins, Indiana for the past several years.”

You smiled, softer than before.  “I’ll send you a postcard.  Wish you were here.”

“Yeah…”

The silence wasn’t quite awkward… it was comfortable, but somber, too.

“It’s too bad your tour didn’t stop in Indiana this time,” he finally blurted out.  

“Oh, Eddie— I really tried,” you promised, sitting up.  “But the venue changed their price, and the label wasn’t pleased, and I argued about it but—”

“Hey,” he interrupted with a laugh, “it’s fine.  I’m a big kid, I can handle it.”

You sighed.  “I know.”

“And I’ll wait for you,” he promised.  “As long as you need.”

“Funny,” you laughed, “I always thought I was the one waiting on you.”

“Waiting on me to do what?” he wondered.

“Graduate!”

“Right,” he chuckled thinly, “that’s what everybody’s waiting on me to do.  But I seriously don’t know if I can pass Ms. O’Donnell’s class.”

You sighed, shifting onto your side as you slipped under your covers; that orgasm took you out, and it was already later than you would normally go to sleep.  “Tell me about it,” you offered.

“Well,” he sighed, “first of all, she assigns so much reading— and reading kinda gives me a headache…”

He talked for a while about it, venting about his issues, about the jocks in his class that bully him, about the teachers who didn’t really believe in him.

You listened, eyes getting heavier, the sound of his voice like a comfort for your mind similar to the blanket that was draped over your body.  “And don’t even get me started on Mr. Young’s math class…”

“Eddie?” you interrupted.

“Huh?” he mumbled.  “Oh, fuck, was I rambling again.”

“No, no, it was fine,” you promised, “I’m just getting pretty tired…”

“Oh… okay,” he offered.

“Will you stay on the line until I fall asleep?” you requested hesitantly.

“O-oh!  Yeah, sure,” he agreed.  

You couldn’t be sure how long he stayed on after you drifted off, soothed by the fuzzy sound of the silence over the phone— you had no way of knowing that he stayed on for hours and just listened to your breathing, hoping to hear you whisper or mumble to yourself, smiling when you snored for a minute.

All you knew was that when you woke up, there was a dial tone in your ear.

You hung up and put the phone away, its battery nearly drained, and snuggled yourself back into the sheets for a few more hours— hopefully able to continue your dream where it left off.

You called again a few months later, from what was technically your home phone— but the LA mansion never really felt like home.

An older, rougher voice answered after five or six rings.  "Hello?"

"Um, is Eddie there?" you asked.

"No," the man answered flatly.

"Will… he be back soon?"

"Considering he doesn't live here anymore, I'm figurin' not."

"O-oh…"

"Who's callin'?" 

"Uh, just an old friend.  He's not… in jail or anything, is he?"

The man laughed heartily.  "Amazingly, no.  He moved to Indianapolis after he graduated—"

You interrupted with a beaming smile: "He graduated?"

"Yes ma'am, and he even got a few As on his final report card," he explained proudly.  

You opened your mouth to ask for another way to reach Eddie now— a new number, maybe an address, but you suddenly stopped.  He finally did it, he escaped.  And he did it without you.

Maybe he needed to move on; really, it sounded like he already had.

Now that he was out of school he might ask to join you on tour like you promised over a year ago.  It would break your heart to have to say no to him— if you could find the strength to.  Worse, you were terrified that he wouldn't ask to be with you, that he'd be content without you… which simultaneously is what you wanted, and what you feared most.

You didn't want to know, was the main thing.  You didn't want to find out the hard way that he didn't need you anymore.

"Listen, uh, next time you see him, just tell him to take care, okay?" you requested.

"Sure, can I get a name with that message?" the man pressed.

You wouldn't believe me if I told you.  "You don't have to say it's from me," you decided.  "Just tell him on my behalf, is all."

"O…kay…" he replied, confused.  "I will."

You thanked him and hung up, looking around the empty house— someone else decorated it, and it looked good, but it was too empty and clean, too sterile.  Why even have all this space if you had nothing to fill it with but noise.

Noise, that’s what you needed right now; you went upstairs to grab your guitar, suddenly realizing you had a new song to write.

part 3

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fic #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x female reader

[trendywaifus]

It kinda sparked a little fic. anyone can expand onnit if they want. I can’t choose between them why not make a fic about them both together??

↳ roll the dice and play the game.

how did you even get in this position? you were in a daze by the two dangerously beautiful women looming over you. their bewitching gaze left you speechless and knees utterly weak. you’re so glad that you’re sitting down on a chair. because If you wasn’t, you’d be on your knees from the pressure alone. “ darling, don’t look so nervous now. “ kafka smiles sweetly, amusement laced with her words. she saunters over to your side, her fingers slowly running up your arm as she went. she bends down to your ear, red lips brushing against your lobe and her long locks of hair tickling your skin. “ you wanted us here, hm? i didn’t expect you to be so shy. “

you swallowed thickly, “ w-wanted you here? wh-what are you talking about, kafka? “ yelan uncrosses her arms with a chuckle and made her way over to the empty space opposite side of you. she places her gloved finger under your chin and maneuvered it so her striking emerald eyes can peer into yours. “ i think we both know what she’s talking about, (twitter name).” your jaw dropped. with her other arm, she reaches behind her back to retrieve something and hands it over to kafka. the stellaron hunter whistles at the contents of the paper before reading along,

“ the things i’d do to have both kafka and yelan in my bed. “

kafka pauses to take a peek at your reaction and she was very much delighted to see how absolutely dumbfounded you were. her smirk turns into a full blown grin.

“ call me desperate but i’ll let them both bound me and have them do whatever they want to me. “

“ h-hey! don’t just read my tweets out loud, okay?! i-i know what i said—“

“ shush now. “ yelan husks, placing a finger against your lips. she emits a hum of content when you don’t continue. “ good. now to the point, “ her hand rests itself on your thigh suggestively, the placement of her hand was an inch away from your inner thigh. “ we’re not here because of your little tweets—“ kafka comes in, bringing her face close to yours, lips nearly brushing against your own.

“ we’re here for you. i will say, in the pictures, you’re a cutie but now that i’m seeing you in person, you are a fine piece of work, lovely. “ she closes the distance, immediately tilting her head to deepen the kiss. kafka’s lips tasted like something that you’d never thought you could ever experience; sweet heaven. you were ripped away from your awe by the chill sensation of a gloved hand slipping under your top. “ i agree, “ an audible moan rumbled in your throat at a second pair of lips leaving open—mouth kisses on your neck. “ it’s a shame that we have to ruin them though, but I’m sure they don’t mind, right (name)? “

they pulled away simultaneously, chuckling softly at the mix of red and purple lipstick smudged on your lips and neck. “ i have an idea. “ with the flick of yelan’s wrist, she bounds your wrist together with her hydro threads. “ oh? what do you have in mind darling?” kafka inquires, tilting her head curiously at her. yelan conjures up a hydro–crafted dice and presents it out in front of you and her. kafka’s mouth shapes into an “o” at the realization of an idea yelan may have in mind before smiling ear to ear. “ gambling? now that’s interesting. explain the rules to me and our little pretty thing here. “

“ it’s simple. i take odds and you take evens. whichever odd or even number the dice lands on, either of us has to make them cum the same amount of times. “

“ e-excuse me, wh-what? “ you interrupted nervously, “ i-i know i set myself up for this but how m-many rounds is this? “

kafka licks her lips in anticipation, slipping the jacket off from her shoulders and sets it aside somewhere. “ until we milk you dry of course, my darling. “

yelan inspects the dice before looking down at you with a predatory smile. “now then, let’s roll the dice,“

“ and play the game. “ kafka finishes smugly and the dice is lifted up in the air, twisting and turning.

will it land on an odd or even number?

#yelan x reader #kafka x reader #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail #honkai x reader #hsr x reader #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact imagines #honkai star rail imagines

[spidercookie18]

𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝑪𝒂𝒏 𝑹𝒖𝒏 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝑪𝒂𝒏’𝒕 𝑯𝒊𝒅𝒆

The Lost Boys 1987 AU set in modern time. None of the boys died, and all the Emersons/Star/Laddie/Frog brothers are vampires. This is explained later…

Tags: Talks of manipulation, mentions of loss of family, death , hunting a p3do, mild gore, mild claustrophobia, mild nudity, smoking, scenting, marking, use of magic, use of y/n, afab, use of she/her, I aged the boys up because I personally don't like them as teens. Warnings: This chapter discusses toxic behavior, survivor mindset, death. Summary: Y/N tries to leave for work, and David's toxic behavior rears its ugly head. Word Count: 8.4k Previous chapter here: Next chapter here:

“No one should suffer what I suffered. I still dread those scenes when man killed man. I lost my parents, most of my family, by running away.” — Milkha Singh

Chapter Seven

Sunlight began trickling in through the cave. The gentle rays slowly rousing your sleeping form. You stirred, naked, spare for the blanket lain across your body. A dull ache throbbed in your lower half, and you smiled at the memories that played through your mind.

A soft buzzing on the ground let you know there was a message you needed to attend to. You tried to roll over off your back, to find your phone and see what the message was but were held down by something heavy around your waist. Scratch that, you weren’t naked, there was a vampire draped across your body.

David’s arm was across your stomach, and his leg across your thighs. You squirmed under his weight; you hadn’t noticed till now how his limbs pushed your body into the mattress. You looked down at his arm and leg strewn across your naked form, he was still fully clothed, you never understood why he refused to undress. 

But this fully clothed monster lover of yours had you trapped under him. You tried to pull your arm out from beneath his; he was heavier than you’d expected him to be. You curled your arms up to grab at his arm and tried to pull him off, no dice. The smell of the stale iron blood on his coat began wafting through your nose.

“David,” you spoke softly, trying to get him to wake up, but he continued to snore quietly. The itchy wool rubbing against your skin as you tried to move him. “David,” you patted his arm, like you were tapping out, “David?”

No response.

You wiggled your shoulder trying to push him off with your elbow, but you couldn’t get his arm to move. You shifted your hips side to side, trying to get unstuck from your suction cup mate. You were starting to panic, the feeling of being trapped settling in your bones.

“David. Get. Off,” you grumbled, flailing against the bed.

You huffed, “fuck!”

You’d managed to pull one arm free from him, and slowly forced his arm to slide down your body and off of you. “Christ, David, how much do you weigh?”

With both arms free now, you sat up and pushed his leg down your lower half. You panted, trying to calm down from your claustrophobic experience. Hot, and beginning to sweat, you rolled over, trying to get out of the bed.

“Mmmm, no.” David mumbled, throwing his arms around you, pulling you close and back against his chest.

“David,” you whined, “let gooooo.”

“Nuh-uh,” he grumbled into your back, not opening his eyes.

You growled in frustration. “David, too tight,” you complained.

“Tough,” his arms wrapped tighter around you, nuzzling his face against your skin, his beard scratching you gently.

You coughed, “I gotta breathe,” you wheezed out.

“Uugh,” David groaned, easing his hold on you, throwing his leg back around your hips, like you were his living body pillow.

You gasped at the crisp air being let into your lungs.

“Stop being dramatic,” David griped.

You were pressed flush against his chest; one of his arms under your armpit, the other over your ribs, and they met in the middle, closed around you. You made soft noises, like high pitched grunts and whines as you struggled against his hold.

“If you keep doing that, you’re gonna have to deal with it.” David mumbled behind you. You could feel his hand wander to your breast and grope it through the sheet.

You let out a squeak when you realized what he was talking about; the thing that was poking your ass.

He chuckled, “atta girl,” he sleepily peppered kisses along your shoulder and back. You could feel a soft rumble coming from him, like a gentle vibration through your body.

“Are you…” you tried to turn your head to look at him, “purring?”

“What of it?” He snapped, an agitation growing in his voice.

“Didn’t know y’all could do that,” you wiggled yourself closer to his chest, “I like it,” you hummed. You pressed a kiss to your fingers, then pressed the fingers to his hand.

He purred louder, and you smiled.

You could feel the purring in every inch of your body, all the way to your feet and back. After a short while, you felt the vibrations die down, becoming gentler and gentler with each passing minute.

You let him fall back asleep before you tried to get your phone again. You reached your hand over the edge of the bed, and waggled your fingers at the tote strap till you could pull it close enough to grab the bag. You rifled around in it till you reached your phone. You had a new notification. It was 4 in the afternoon, much too early for any of the boys to be awake.

** New Message: 8 Hours Ago**

“Ugh,” it was work. You swiped the screen up and unlocked the phone to read your message. You sighed and tapped on the screen to respond. David felt you moving around again, and he pushed the phone out of your hand.

“David,” you scoffed, annoyed at him, “knock it off.”

“You knock it off,” he grumbled, “go back to sleep.” He pushed your phone into the mattress and away from you.

You jutted your shoulder back to push him off and grabbed your phone to finish typing your message. “It’s work, give me a sec.”

“No.” He batted the phone with his hand, “sleep,” he fussed.

“David, seriously,” you adjusted your hold on the phone, your tone sterner now.

He groaned and you continued to tap on the screen, quickly reading the details and sending out a few messages to confirm order and pick up.

You tapped on the photo and snorted. “Just great,”

“Hmm?” David hummed against your back.

“Someone wants a damn werewolf.”

“The whole thing?”

“Yeah, guess it’s some guy on city council.” You angled the phone over your shoulder to show David the picture, “you know him?”

David opened his eyes and grabbed the phone to inspect the picture, his arm leaving from around your waist. “Nah,” he continued to look at the photo, “wait, actually yeah.” He pulled his other arm out from under you. David laid on his back looking at the photo. “Guy likes to hang around playgrounds, if you know what I mean.” He looked at you, giving a look of disgust.

“Me and the boys have had our eye on him for a while, but he’s always got an entourage with him. Fucker got a whiff of us once a while back and we haven’t been able to get close to him since.”

“Gross,” you said, motioning with your hand that you wanted the phone back from him, “but that does kinda help me.” 

“Hold on,” David started tapping on your phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting my number in your phone.” You watched as he took a picture of the both of you. Your messy hair, smudged makeup, and sleepy look against his chest as he smiled.

“Hey that’s a bad picture,” you spoke, protesting how you looked.

“S’fine,” he continued to tap on the screen. When he was satisfied, David let you take it and you looked at what he saved his contact name as.

“Seriously?” You chuckled. The contact name was saved under ‘D’ with a series of hearts and a vampire emoji. “Oh, I’m gotta change that,” you started tapping on the screen.

“What are you gonna save it as?” David smiled, kissing into your shoulder.

“Captain fuck face,” you giggled out.

David tried to snatch the phone from you, “hey, stop that!”

“Noooooo,” you squealed as he started grabbing at you.

He sat up and tried to pull the phone from your hands. “Change it back,” he sat on top of your waist and reached for your arms that you held above your head.

You tried to keep tapping at the screen while evading his grasp. He finally managed to get a hold of your wrist and pinned both of your hands above your head.

You smiled up at him and let the phone fall to your bag on the floor.

You panted; David stared down at you with a look of hunger, and you tried to make an innocent face to avoid punishment.

“You are gonna get it,” David growled. He shoved his face to your neck, nipping and biting against your skin.

You squealed and hollered at the feeling. You squirmed under him while his beard and teeth tickled you.

“Ahh stop! Stop!” You yelped, pulling on your arms; trying to get free, but David easily held your wrists with one hand. His other coming up under the blanket to scratch at your chest and stomach.

“David!” You squealed, giggling under the assault of his mouth.

“Say you’re sorry,” he barked into your skin. You continued to giggle. “Say it,” he was teasing of course, but still enjoyed the sight of you.

“I’m s-so- aahh!”

“Will you guys shut the fuck up!”

“It’s too early for this!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

The other boys yelled from the roost.

David snapped his head in the direction of the boys, “ahh shut up, you’re just jealous!”

“Booooo, boo David,” one of them yelled, and they all started booing.

You chuckled at them all, and David turned back to you, “fuckin’ fuckers.”

“I was only kidding,” you giggled.

David came down to peck your cheek with a kiss, “I know darlin’.”

He let go of your wrists and rolled off you. He laid on his back and kicked his arms and legs out. He yawned as he stretched, his arms and feet wiggling, smacking his lips as he let his limbs rest on the bed. David looked over to you while you sat up in the bed, rubbing the bite marks along your chest.

You let your fingertips trail over the purple marks. You felt David watching you, “take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

“Dunno where my phone is,” David laid on his side, watching you. “Guess I’ll have to make more when I find it.”

You rolled your eyes, “smooth.”

“Thanks,”

“I meant your brain,” you chuckled.

He huffed, “you’re gonna make me weep.”

You ignored him and began to look for the clothes you’d packed in your bag. Lord knows what David and Marko had done with your panties. You pulled a new pair from the tote and began to slip them up your legs.

“Well, I guess I aught ta head home soon,” you yawned, looking back at your lover.

“You’re seriously going after him?” David asked.

You reached for a shirt from your bag, a clean one, not the bloodied mess of a shirt you’d need to seriously disinfect. “I mean, not right now…” you replied, sarcastically. You looked for the shorts you had on last night.

“No,” David said simply.

“No?” You stared at David, holding the shorts in your hand, dumbfounded by his ‘matter of fact’ attitude.

“He’s too big for you to take down by yourself.”

You began to put the shorts on, “you just told me he knows you guys were after him. He obviously knows your guys’ scent.”

“I’m not letting you do it alone,” David stared at you, distressed, “we do things as a pack.”

You sighed, “It’s fine, it’ll only take a few days to-”

“A few days??” David stood from the bed, staring at you in disbelief. “You’re not doing it, end of discussion!”

You stared at him from where you stood by the other end of the bed; shock, and anger coursing through your veins. “I’m not asking for your permission, David.”

You both stared at each other; unyielding to the other.

The tension in the air was rising. You could feel your fists clench on reaction, and you watched as David clenched and unclenched his jaw.

You slowly walked to him. You tried to put your hand on his cheek to get him to look at you, but when you reached for him, he turned away. You sighed and sat on the bed; dejected. Unsure what to say, you sat quietly, while the minutes passed by.

“I’ll only be gone about four nights,” you whispered.

You weren’t going to let him talk you out of it, but pushing the matter would drive a wedge between you two. After being alone for so long, you almost forgot that you needed people. Even if David and the boys weren’t ‘people’, you knew in your heart that you needed them. You couldn’t bear to lose another family.

“Why so long?” David spoke, half turning to look at you.

“I’ve got to get y’all’s smell off me,” you joked, taking a handful of your hair and pressing it to your nose. “Whoo,” you took your hair away and sneezed, “you guys have been scenting me after all.”

David turned to look at you, his hands coming to your shoulders. His eyes shifted over your features, a nervous look across his face. “I…” he didn’t know what to say. He hated the thought of you being away. What if you needed them, what if they needed you?

You stared up at him, not wanting to make him feel like you were running away. You moved one of his hands to your cheek, and held your hand over his. “I can handle it,” you sounded sure of yourself. “Do you trust me?”

His eyes locked onto yours. Everything in him saying not to let you go, his instincts screaming against his mind.

“David?” Your soft doe eyes cutting through his thought. Of course, he wanted to trust you, but where had that gotten him. He wasn’t about to let another one of his mates run off where he couldn’t protect them.

“You can’t,” his words were like daggers in your heart. “I can’t let you do it,” his blue eyes holding your gaze. It was like you were about to fall into them, you could barely focus.

“D-da-,” you could feel him trying to sway your mind. If he couldn’t persuade you, he’d resort to his old tricks. The worst side of him always came out when he was frightened.

You felt the well of tears start to fill your eyes. His thrall more powerful than what he’d tried on you before; he had much more magic than you’d ever anticipated.

David watched the tears in your eyes overflow and spill down your cheeks. The ache in his undead heart growing. He knew this was wrong; he understood it, even through his fear.

After a second, you felt the fog in your mind dissipate. As soon as David released his thrall on you, you pulled from his grasp. You pushed your arms to the mattress and scooted back and away from him.

David tried to move, to reach out to you.

“Don’t,” you put your hand out. “Just, don’t.” You pulled your knees up to your chest and wrapped your arms around your legs.

“Y/N, I-“

“Just save it David,” you snapped at him. You hid your face in your legs in an attempt to hide your tears. Your voice came out muffled, “I don’t want to hear it.”

There was a pang in your chest. A sharp, stabbing pain, like your heart was breaking. You tried to will the anguish away, but it was no use. The tears easily flooded your vision. You felt so small in that moment, and you sobbed, quietly.

The sound of David’s clothes shifting let you know he was moving around. You could hear him standing next to you now. You felt his hand rest on your shoulder, and you pulled away on response. He let out a sigh, and you heard him begin to walk off.

You stayed in the bed, still clutching your legs, you watched as he walked off towards his alcove. He stood in his mess of memories he’d saved; he was looking for something, but you didn’t care about that. The only thing you could think or feel in that moment was the hurt in your chest, the anger that began to course through your veins.

How could you trust him so easily when he was just the same? The same as what you ran away from.

He’s just like what we promised we’d never let ourselves live through again.

No, he isn’t, he was kind, he’d shown us that. Until now, he’d never given us a reason not to trust him.

Now? Now we’d known him not even a month, and he already tried to lock us away.

But he didn’t. He stopped; he knew it was wrong! It was just a lapse in judgeme-

A lapse in judgement? Look what that got us last time!

You were at odds with yourself. The fear of your old life seeping through your own thoughts. You clutched your legs harder.

You heard the soft sounds of someone walking towards the bed.

“Here,” David sat down on the bed next to you. You looked up from over your knees, still half hiding your face. He was holding out the photo album to you.

“I’ve already seen that,” you grumbled, hiding your face back into your legs.

He exhaled and scooted a bit closer to you on the bed. “Yeah, I know you went snooping through my stuff,” he joked. “But you never asked me the story behind them,” he opened the picture album. The sticky plastic pages making a noise, like soft Velcro, as he flipped through them.

You looked up, still holding your legs close to your chest.

He picked up a dingey paper that was placed within a plastic holder. The paper was small, maybe four inches by two. The plastic card holder wasn’t much bigger. The clear plastic that covered the paper was a dirty, brownish yellow. He held it out for you to take it. You sheepishly put it in your hands, and you read what you could. You could barely make out his first name, and a year that read, ‘1860-something?’

“What is this?” You brought the paper closer to your face, trying to make out more of what it said.

“It’s my death certificate.”

You looked up at him. His tone so casual and lighthearted for what the paper was.

He chuckled, “yeah,” he leaned in to look at it too. He looked, almost reminiscent, maybe of his past life. His gaze softening as he looked at the paper, you let him take it from you. He gently thumbed over the dirty yellow plastic. He spoke, and his snickering got louder as he did, “y’know what they ruled for cause of death?”

You silently shook your head.

David was laughing now, “they said, they said it was ‘complications from gangrene.’” He waved his hand in front of his face “Course you’re gonna get gangrene when the fucking doctor is using the same tools on everyone. And,” he was laughing again, “and you know what the complications were?”

You stared at him, not moving. Waiting to see how this would play out.

“The complications, pfft, were from the doctors, ha-ha, cutting my fucking stomach open to pull out those goddamned .44’s!” He stayed laughing to himself. You were sure he was doing this to try and hide his real emotions.

You could see through it; he was angry, he was hurt.

“God damned friendly fire mother fuckers,” he gritted his teeth. You watched as his fist gripped at the sheet below him. “All because I was kind to someone from a different race,” he snorted. He chuckled, then exhaled, long and shaky, like he was picturing their faces in his mind.

You let your legs go and reached a hand out to David’s arm. He slowly regained his train of thought, and his ragged breathing slowed.

“I was, uh,” he paused; his eyes shifted nervously between you and the certificate in his hands. “I was 21 when I died,” he sighed out. “21 fucking years old. And all I have to show for it is this paper.” He gripped the plastic between his fingers. “This… this was all they sent home. There was no funeral, no headstone, no one cried when I died.” He stared off towards the ground, then back at you. “Not a single person cared that I was dead.”

He got silent for a moment, then placed the paper back in the book and began flipping through the pages again, “course, nobody got headstones in those days. Hell, if Max hadn’t found me when he did, I’da probably just been kicked into some ditch with the rest of-” he stilled. His mind flooded with the twisted and contorted faces of the dead soldiers he came to call his brothers.

“The worst part, is not dying.” He continued to flip through the pages of the book, his tone solemn, not looking at you. “Yeah, the pain isn’t great. It was fucking horrible. The waiting to die wasn’t fun either,” he tittered. “But, the worst part is not being able to protect those you care about.”

He reached his finger behind a picture, a bland image of a tree. He pulled out a folded hand drawn image from behind a polaroid. He unfolded the drawing, the paper was a deep orange, and the image was a smudged pencil, or maybe charcoal. It was a drawing of a young man and a woman. They held each other, the features were a bit smudged, but they appeared to be smiling.

David turned the paper for you to see, not willing to let it go. “This is my mom and dad,” his thumb slightly rubbed the edge of the old paper.

You stared at the couple, “they look so in love,” you smiled as you spoke.

“They were,” David started. “She always talked about how kind he was, how she wanted me to be like that. Brave, and smart, and kind.” He angled the paper a bit more for you to see, “but he died before I met him.”

His finger traced the outline of his mother’s face, “when she got sick, I tried to take care of her… but I was just a boy.” A smile grew on his face, remembering her, “she used to make the best pigeon pie,” he chuckled, “but, er, don’t tell Marko.” He looked back at you, “he says his birds are meant ‘to be loved, not to be eaten’,” David rolled his eyes. 

You snorted and relaxed your legs a bit.

“She taught me to sew, cook, forage, how to clean a fish, heh, she even taught me how to waltz.”

“Oh yeah?” You relaxed a bit more.

“Mhm,” you could hear the happiness in his voice. “She said she wanted me to be ‘a gentleman’, think I kinda missed the mark on that one,” David sighed.

“You’ve got her smile,” you tried to ease his mind.

David chuckled, he let his lip curl up to reveal his fang and licked his forked tongue across the sharp tooth, “eh, not anymore I don’t.”

You and David stared at the picture quietly. He spoke in a whisper, “she’d be real ashamed of the man I’ve become.” He pulled the plastic behind the polaroid and slipped the drawing back behind it.

David continued to flip through the book and found an image of him and the boys.

They were all wearing cuffed, pressed jeans. White t-shirts, and a flannel or their jackets; the collars were all ‘popped’ up. Their hair was slicked back; spare for Marko, whose curls were clearly defined in the old picture. Marko and Paul stood next to each other, their hands in their jacket pockets. Dwayne stood between David and Paul, his thumbs in his pant pockets, and David stood off on the right. His hands were clasped in front of his hips, they were all smoking cigarettes.

“This is the first picture we all took together.” David pulled the picture out of the album and handed it to you. “We’d been taking pictures of each other all night, but Max said we needed one of all of us.”

You took the photo in your hand.

“Nobody liked Max at that point; he’d been a real buzzkill all week. Getting on everybody’s nerve, trying to tell us what to do, saying we were being too ‘obnoxious.” David grunted, “course, I had to wrangle everyone up for the damn picture… but Dwayne has never listened to him,” he laughed. “So, I had to get everyone together.”

You brought the picture closer to your face to see the detail better. Marko already had a few patches on his jacket, David had his medal and the buttons, but the coat was different. Paul had a safety pin on his flannel, and Dwayne had his key necklace. He and Paul didn’t have their matching eye rings yet.

David leaned in to look at the picture too, he pointed at himself in the image. “That’s me,”

You leaned away a bit, “yeah, I got that.”

He pointed to Dwayne, “Dwayne lost his wife and kids in the red scare.”

You looked at David, surprised by his candid remarks.

“He was…I think 24 when we found him.” He moved his finger to Paul. “Paul’s sister drowned; he was 23 when he met us.” He pointed to Marko, “Marko lost his family to a house fire.” He looked at them all in the picture with a heavy heart, “he was 22 when I found him.”

You kept your gaze on David, unsure how to react. “So,” you started, “you’re not the oldest,” you joked.

David snorted, “not in human years, but that doesn’t matter now, eh?” He turned his head to you, his eyes full of guilt, “Y/N, I’m sorry.”

You scoffed and handed him back the picture. You scooted away from him a bit.

He turned his body, and reached out to you, “I am, I’m sorry. I-“

“I don’t forgive you,” you said angrily.

“You don’t have to; I just need you to know that I’m sorry.” His hands fumbled with the paper, he set it down on the album and moved it to the side. “I just…” his hands turned up, silently asking for your hands.

You hesitated, not entirely wanting to give him your hands. You stared at him, slowly putting your hands in his open ones.

He eagerly took them, and gently squeezed your palms.

“I needed you to see this stuff, I’m not like this just because, I don’t want anyone else getting hurt. I don’t want you getting hurt.” His eyes searched over your features, hoping he’d gotten through to you.

You turned your face so you wouldn’t have to look at him. Your eyes fell on the photo album, the full pages making your mind wander to all the things David showed you.

“I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you. Please,” David leaned close to your face now, and you tried to keep from looking at him. “I’m sorry, I just- if you need help, you know you can call us, right?”

You looked back at him. You saw his eyes flicker across your face, you saw his nostrils flare, and his face pinch with anxiety.

“You know that, right?”

You gave in, “I know that,” your voice sounded tired.

He pressed his forehead against yours, “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

You were still angry with him, still hurt. You could feel him purring again, it was soft, but you could feel it. Maybe if he was willing to change, you were willing to be patient.

David nuzzled his face against yours, and into the crook of your neck.

“I don’t want you to feel unsafe with me, with any of us.” His beard scratching at your skin as he continued to nuzzle you, “please, I’m sorry.”

You could feel him starting to nip at your flesh,

His nipping and pawing at you started to tickle, “okay, okay, just stop,” you gasped out.

You thrust your hands to his shoulders and pushed him away. “Calm down already,” you were giggling.

He brought your arm to his mouth and kept biting at your skin.

“Daaavid,” you heard one of the boys call from the roost.

You were trying to pull your arm from David’s grasp, while he ignored the other vampire calling to him.

You looked behind David; Marko was the first to wake, probably because he was such a light sleeper. He stood in the entrance to the roost, his hair disheveled from his sleep.

Marko walked around barefoot, switching between scratching his hair and his crotch. “David,” he called to his brother, “you gonna let er’ go do her thing?”

David ignored the curly haired blond, the banter he was trying to start wasn’t of importance to him at this moment.

“You could hear us?” You asked Marko, leaning back and away from David.

“Course we could. With David being a weenie about the whole thing.”

David kept kissing and nipping at your wrist, with his free hand, he flipped off Marko.

“Right back atcha buddy,” Marko chuckled and flipped off David as he walked off somewhere.

“We’ve been trying to tell ya,” Marko called out, undoing his pants and walking over to a deep hole off on the far side of the cave. “Max has been bitching about you falling behind on chores!” His voice echoed off the walls softly and you could hear him urinating, and sighing.

You pulled on your arm, and David finally released with a groan. “That lazy fucker never wants to do his own ‘dirty work’,” David grumbled. He pressed a kiss to your forehead before he walked over to the couch, waiting for the others to wake up. He kicked his legs out on one of the cushions, wiggling his toes through his torn socks.

You tried to ignore the sound of Marko urinating and looked for your socks and shoes. The sound of him groaning and mumbling to himself was audible as it echoed through the cave. You gathered the rest of your things and sat on the edge of the fountain.

David smiled at you, and watched you slip your socks on.

You sat on the fountain, slipping your shoes on, “really? Y’all in your 20’s?”

“Mhm, people think we’re younger a lot,” David toyed with one of the buttons on his coat. “It’s cause we’re so hot,” he teased, pretending to brush some 'long' hair out of his face.

You scoffed, “sure.”

You watched as one of the other boys came from the dark part of the cave. It was Dwayne, he was rubbing his eyes, and you could see his long dark hair flow as he walked, the wind catching it lightly.

Marko started walking back to where the couch was, you could still hear him scratching himself through the denim of his jeans. “Hey, come on man, put your dick away,” he griped at Dwayne, and you looked back to the brunet that’d come out of the roost.

He was fully naked. Standing proud and tall as he stretched his hands above his head.

You could feel a flush come to your face. You blushed, hard, trying to avert your gaze.

Now you knew why he walked like that.

David laughed at your reaction, watching you stare at the floor.

“David, tell the horse to go back to the stables,” Marko complained.

Dwayne finished his stretch and languidly flipped off Marko, still yawning with his other hand to his face. Through the corner of your eye, you watched his smile, the large, sharp teeth in his mouth catching your curiosity.

“Let him be, Marko,” David snorted. He patted his lap for you to go join him on the couch, and you obliged.

You sat atop David’s lap with your back leaning against the couch, he was sat up against the arm and you both watched as Dwayne went to go collect his pants from Paul’s alcove.

“Why did no one wake me up?” Marko asked David and Dwayne, alluding to the fact that there continued to be, ‘bonding’ after he went to sleep.

“Cause we were busy,” David laughed out, his deep voice rumbling through his chest and vibrating through your side.  “Right darlin?” David jostled you in his lap.

“You guys coulda at least told me, or something…assholes,” Marko continued to grumble. He walked over to the couch and sat on the last cushion, pushing David’s feet away.

“Now who is being a weenie?” David snorted.

“Ah ha you’re so fucking funny,” Marko sassed. He leaned over to press a kiss to your cheek, “mornin’, bella.”

You were still blushing when Marko kissed your cheek, and he knew it was because you weren’t used to seeing such a display as the one before you. This cocky vampire, parading himself through the halls of the cave, stark naked aside from his necklace.

“You better be getting dressed over there!” Marko chuckled; he’d cupped a hand to his face to amplify his voice.

You looked over to Paul’s alcove and could see a hand shoot up over the pile of crap Paul kept, to flip Marko off. You could hear Dwayne slip his legs through the jeans, he walked over with the button and zipper undone.

His bare feet gently rapping against the floor as he walked back to where you all were sitting. With himself put away, you sheepishly looked up to the brunet. The denim jeans were hanging off his hips, you weren’t entirely sure how they were staying up so well. His treasure trail was thick, and you had to pull your eyes away from where his downed zipper ended.

Your eyes tracked up his abdomen, and David bounced you in his lap, poking fun of your curious eyes. Dwayne’s fingers were in his hair, brushing the mane out of his face. “You okay?” Dwayne asked looking down at you, with genuine concern. The years of unashamed behavior making him forget that this wasn’t normal behavior for when someone had ‘guests’.

“She’s fine,” David smiled, bouncing you in his lap again

“She’s not used to watchin’ your big ole’ dick swing around like that,” Marko interjected.

Dwayne had about enough of Marko poking at him, “oh, I’ll swing this dick, keep talking like that.” He pointed his finger in Marko’s face.

The blush coming back to your cheeks. David heard you squeak and it made him laugh.

“Alright that’s enough you guys, you’re scarin’ her,” David spoke up.

Marko flipped Dwayne off and reached over the side of the couch to grab a beer. He popped the tab and it hissed. Dwayne stuck his tongue out at Marko and put his hands out to ask for a can. Marko tossed him one and Dwayne popped the tab and took a sip.

David had his hands around your waist, and he let his hands wander to the waist band of your shorts.

“Not on your life, mister,” you snapped at him.

“Yeah, I know,” David spoke, dejected, “you’re still mad.”

“Damn right I’m mad,” you pouted at him.

He placed a kiss on your arm, “that’s fine. Oh, don’t forget to send me that picture.”

“You’re pretty cute when you’re mad,” Marko spoke up.

David bounced you in his lap a bit and you rolled your eyes at them.

“Marko’s right though, David,” Dwayne spoke. He wiped a drop of beer off his lip with his thumb, David and Marko looked at him. “Max has been asking for you a lot, he said if you didn’t stop by soon, he’d have to come looking for you.”

David groaned, picking you up off his lap and standing you up. “Fucking guy,” he turned in the couch and his feet landed on the ground. “Can’t ever have anything nice.” David patted your ass and you jumped, he stood and looked back to the roost. “Where’s Paulie?”

“He was pretty ticked off with you guy’s waking him up earlier, so he’s probably still asleep,” Marko said, bringing the can to his lips, slurping the liquid.

“Paul!” David yelled in the direction of the roost.

No response.

David walked over to the entrance of the roost and hollered again, “PAUL!”

No response.

David sighed, shaking his head. He looked over to the boys and turned back to the roost. Marko covered his ears and Dwayne covered yours. The last thing you heard before you felt Dwaynes large hands clasp the sides of your head, was the beer cans hitting the floor. You all watched David open his mouth to take a deep inhale.

“PAAAAAAUUUUULLL!”

“WHAT?! FUCK! WHAT!!”

“Paul, come say goodbye!”

“GOODBYE! FUCK!” Paul was screeching from the roost.

Dwayne removed his hands from the side of your head, and you turned to look at him. He was wincing with pain as he rubbed his ears, and Marko stuck his fingers in his ears to shake them out.

You rubbed your ears too, even with Dwayne covering them for you, it was painful to hear David scream like that. You felt it through your bones, you thought the sound had shaken the cave. You could still hear a ringing in your ears.

The boys had discarded their beer cans when they rushed to protect themselves from David’s scream; and now, the yeasty brown liquid gushed on the floor as the can’s laid on their sides.

“Gah!” Marko griped, still wiggling his finger in his ear, “I hate when he does that!” You could hear him hissing, or maybe that was from the scream.

“Don’t make me yell again, Paul.” David stood, with his hands on his hips.

“FINE!” You heard Paul land with a thud. “FUCK!”

“Dumb idiot forgot to turn again,” Dwayne chuckled, still rubbing his ears.

You heard Paul grumble as he walked up out of the roost. His feet scraping along the ground as he forced himself to come out where the others are. You watched as his wild blond hair turned the corner. His pants were half on, and he didn’t have his shirt or jacket, “What the hell do you want,” he hissed at David.

David gestured to where you stood, “Y/N is gonna be out of the cave for a few days.”

The other boys looked at you, surprised you were leaving. “I wanted to give ya a chance to say bye before she left.”

With that, Paul ran over to you and scooped you up by the waist. He held you easily a foot off the ground and shook you around in his hug. “Aww nooooo, whyyyyy?” His groggy, whiney voice piercing your already sensitive ears.

“Fuck, Paul chill out,” Marko continued to wiggle out his ear.

“P-Paul,” you choked out, your arms pushing against his shoulders, trying to break free. “I’ll be back in a f-few days!”

Paul stopped swishing you about and held you against him, still half in the air. He smooshed his face into your breasts and let out another whine, “but I didn’t even get to play with yoouuu-“

“Paul, let her go man,” Dwayne walked behind you and tried pry Paul’s hands off from around your waist. “Dude, put her down,” he grunted, trying to pull him off you.

“Nooooo,” Paul wailed.

Dwayne finally managed to get one of Paul’s fingers back and pull the rest of his hand and arm away from you. With his free arm, Dwayne wrapped himself around your waist and pulled you away from Paul. He set you down gently to his side and kept Paul away with the other.

“Knock it off dude, she already said she’s coming back.” Marko called to him from the couch.

Dwayne turned you to him. He cupped your face in his hands and thumbed over your cheeks. “Can’t wait for ya to get back, short stuff,” he placed a kiss on your nose, and you could feel the blush come back to your face.

You stuttered out a chuckle and Marko stepped you back from the brunet. “Real smooth, Casanova,” he poked at Dwayne.

“You’re gonna get it,” Dwayne eyed Marko as he walked back to the roost to find his jacket.

Marko rolled his eyes at the brunet, of course he knew what he was doing when he antagonized him. He turned his attention back to you; he pressed his forehead to yours and clasped his hand around the back of your head. His free hand cupping your cheek. “See you soon, bella,” he rubbed his nose against yours. You could feel him inhaling you; he softly kissed your lips, and slowly pulled from the embrace.

Marko took Paul by the hand and led him back to the roost, “come on you, let’s get you washed up.” Paul still sniffled as he turned to look at you one more time and waved goodbye.

You looked at David, who was watching the others walk off down the tunnel.

“Talk about a bunch of ‘weenies’,” he chuckled.

“Geez, the way they were acting, you’d think I was never coming back,” you rubbed your arm sheepishly.

David looked at you, “you are coming back, right?”

“Well…yeah?” You stood, studying his reaction. “Yes, for the hundredth time, I’m coming back,” you walked a bit to him, “I forgive you, ya big baby.” He closed the distance between you two. His hands slowly coming up around your waist. “Besides,” you pressed a kiss to his cheek, “you’d hunt me down if I didn’t.”

He laughed heartily into your skin. “No, I wouldn’t,” he chuckled out.

You cocked your head, as if to question his statement.

“Okay, yeah, I would.” he pressed his nose to your cheek. You could hear him purring softly, as he pressed a quick kiss to it.

“Or at least Paul would,” you tittered, “is he…going to be okay?”

“He’ll be fine,” David pulled from you to go find his key, “just gotta give him some lovin’ when you get back. He’s a bit sensitive.” He waived his hand nonchalantly in the air.

You could hear some screaming coming from where the others walked off to.

“No! I don’t want to take a bath!”

You looked at David, a confused look on your face, “um?”

“NO! STOP! Y/N HELLLPPP!”

“PAUL, YOU NEED A BATH!”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO-”

David quickly produced his keys and grabbed your hand to lead you away from the screaming, “that’s our cue.” He swiftly turned you around and walked you out of the cave; you heard a series of yelps and yowls as you left.

David pulled up outside of your house on the driveway. He didn’t turn to look at you, he just sat on the idling bike, his head hanging low.

You moved your hand from around his midsection and placed it on his shoulder. “Hey,” you softly spoke, and he half turned to look at you. “It’s okay,” you wrap your arms back around him in a sympathetic hug.

He snorts and turns the bike off. David stood and got off the bike. He put his hand out to help you off, and you gently squeezed it as you stood. Your foot got caught on the seat as you tried to get off and you stumbled into David’s arms.

“Heh, if you wanted me to hold, ya, you coulda just asked,” David smiled down at you.

You scoffed and straightened your clothes. David began to walk you up the porch steps and you followed suit. When you got in front of the door, he turned to you. Something weighed heavy on his mind, though he tried not to show it.

“You really gonna make me stay away for four nights?” He held your hand in his.

You could feel his grip tightening as he waited for your answer. His eyes darting across your features, the look on his face making your heart ache.

You placed your free hand atop his and gently rubbed it with your thumb. “We both have things we need to do,” you reminded him, and his grip tightened more.

He grumbled and looked away from you, “I’m gonna come looking for you, the second the sun goes down.”

You chuckled, “I’d expect nothing less from a ‘big scary vampire’.”

He pulled you closer to him and growled against your neck, “you’re mine.” He nipped at the skin, “don’t you forget it.”

“Like you’d let me,” you laughed out.

“Damn straight,” he held you against him. David inhaled your scent, trying to hold onto you for as long as he could.

You both reluctantly pulled away from each other, and he waited on the porch as you opened the doors to go inside. He half expected you to still invite him in, and stifled his grief when you didn’t.

He stood on the porch, in the darkness, as he watched the lights inside turned off.

Once again, that annoying feeling was gnawing at the back of his head. He gritted his teeth, trying to will it away. No luck. David stomped back to his bike. He knew if he stood there any longer, he wouldn’t be able to drag himself away. He headed back home; it was killing him, but he couldn’t stay there.

The roar of the bike sounded as he started it. He pushed his feelings down and focused on getting home.

The bike rolled to a stop. He kicked the stand out and sighed as he got off. David knew he should get your scent off too, that way Max couldn’t yell at him. He stood on the edge of the cliff, watching the tide roll in.

David pulled out a cigarette from his coat and lit it. He brought the collar of the jacket to his nose and inhaled your scent. He hated that he was going to have to get your smell off him and his clothes. He cursed Max under his breath. He stared at the waning moon for a moment, wondering how things could be, if they had been different.

Did you love him for who he was? Could you love him and all his flaws? All the hate and anger that bubbled under the surface; the monster he believed himself to be?

He took a long drag of the cigarette, loathing the thought of how he never lived up to his mother’s expectations. How he longed to be kind, to be brave, to be the gentleman she always wanted him to be. He scorned himself for these thoughts.

“Fuck this,” he scoffed. He looked down at the water as it lapped up the edges of the lighthouse and turned to go home.

David walked down into the cave, feint whines and grumbles echoed off the walls as he stomped down the ‘stairs’. He stood at the base of the entrance watching his brothers hold down and dry off Paul.

Paul, was sat on the floor, in a towel, with Marko standing behind him, brushing and drying his hair out. Paul had his hands wrapped around his front in a pout.

He hated baths, and more, he hated not getting to dry off the way he wanted.

“Ya have to chase him down again?” David asked, sarcastically, because he already knew.

“What do you think?” Dwayne replied. He was sat in front of Paul and Marko, with a belt in his hand, waiting for Paul to try and take off.

Paul didn’t particularly care about being clean or dirty, but he hated getting his hair wet. He said it made him feel like a ‘wet rat’ and avoided it whenever he could.

Marko ran a brush through his hair, and with his magic he turned on a hair dryer. It was a peculiar sight; a normal hairdryer, except it had no cord, no outlet, no electricity, and it still turned on.

Paul happily wiggled around on the ground, chirping. He tilted his head back and shook his hair out in the warm air. He liked this part at least, and Dwayne stood to stretch.

“Hold still!” Marko grabbed Paul by the top of his head and straightened his sight. “Stay!” He scolded his brother, and Paul pouted, still wiggling with the feeling of the warm air.

Marko gently brushed Paul’s hair, and he hummed to him trying to keep Paul still. David walked over to his alcove, looking at all his things. He nudged a box with his foot and sat in the cot in the middle. He looked at all the things around the space and sighed. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time.

Fuck, it’s only 8? David thought, he hoped it was much later in the night.

He saw a message from an unsaved number. He figured it was you. He saved the number and pointed the camera at the boys. He snaped a picture and sent it to ‘Babydoll <3’.

He looked over at his brothers, who were still bickering about Paul and his ‘grooming habits’.

New Message: Now

He opened it,

‘omg, is he okay?’

David started tapping at the screen. ‘Yeah, he’ll survive.  He just hates baths.’

He stared at the phone, waiting for your reply. After a minute his phone vibrated.

New Message: Now

‘Well good luck with them, lol.’

One Attachment:

David looked at the photo you’d sent him. It was the one he took on your phone earlier. He gently traced the outline of your lips and face with his finger, he stared at the image, and smiled.

‘I almost forgot to send it.

See you soon. <3’

David stared at the messages and the picture. His smile slowly faded, he grunted. What was he going to do these next few days while he waited…That nagging feeling was back.

He stood up, dropping his phone on the cot and took off his boots. He emptied his pockets and took off his coats. Barefooted, he walked towards the mouth of the cave.

David was going to walk around in the sea for a while till his mind cleared.

#the lost boys #the lost boys 1987 #tlb #tlb 1987 #tlb david #tlb marko #tlb dwayne #tlb paul #david the lost boys #marko the lost boys #dwayne the lost boys #paul the lost boys #david x reader #david tlb x reader #the lost boys x reader #the lost boys x y/n #the lost boys x you #TLB YCRYCH

[octoberclidan]

Let Us Help You

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader, Sam Winchester x Reader, Castiel x Reader (platonic)

Request: the reader has visions of the future events, but suddenly the visions become painful and after every vision it's getting worse and worse and she falls sicker and sicker. The boys are worried to no end and try to keep her sane help her, but after every visions she also gets weaker until to a point where she's nearly too weak and in terrible pain that she's nearly not able to walk out of her bedroom without help. The boys need to find a cure until it's too late. Angst, fluff, hurt and sick and comfort. I really hope you like my idea.

Masterlist

Story:

[Y/N] had been helping Sam, Dean, and Cas out on cases for several months now. The previous month they had even invited her to stay in the bunker on a more long-term basis. [Y/N] had a gift, or a talent. It started when she was a child, she would get a 'feeling' that something was about to happen, or a 'feeling' that something wouldn't happen, and this feeling grew stronger into her teenage and young adult years. For example, she once spent an entire afternoon stressing about an English essay that was due the next day. She just couldn't figure out what to write or how to answer the question. Then, in the evening, the stress disappeared. She suddenly could no longer imagine herself handing in the essay the next day. She couldn't imagine seeing the teacher the next day. So, she didn't do it. She went to school the next day, and it turned out that the teacher was sick and had left instructions for the essay deadline to be extended. She started to be able to predict the way a coin would flip, or the way dice would roll, and she was right every time. It only got stronger into her adult life.

About a year ago she had her first vision. It was a terrifying experience; all of her predictions up until then had been feelings, or an ability to imagine things that hadn't happened yet accurately. This vision was completely uncontrolled. It was short, it was just about her bus being cancelled, but it was extremely vivid. Not long after that she had a vision that would lead to her crossing paths with the Winchesters on one of their cases. She saw someone getting attacked by a werewolf. She managed to get there in time to stop it from happening, and was able to escape with just a few scratches and a dead werewolf. Sam and Dean had interviewed her about the incident, under the impression that they were FBI. At first she tried to tell them that she was just in the right place at the right time, that it was an animal attack, but when they implied that they suspected she was somehow more involved than that, she explained her visions to them.

She didn't really have much of a family or many friends, so when they called her a few weeks later asking for help on a case revolving around a psychic, she was more than willing to drop everything and go to them. She was hoping she could learn something about herself and her visions by helping with the case too. She had another vision on that case, longer than the werewolf one and it even left her feeling a bit tired, but it helped the boys solve the case. They offered her a room in their bunker to stay in while in the area not long after that, and she began to help out on all of their cases as well as come to see them as family before she permanently moved in. She was keeping a secret from her new found family however; her visions were getting longer, more vivid, and were taking more out of her. They tended to happen in stressful situations, so [Y/N] had opted to stay at the bunker and research instead of join the boys for the last two cases.

She was in the library working on cataloguing some of the bunker's older books and artefacts when Sam walked in. She looked up and smiled at him as he came over to have a look at what she was doing. "Cataloguing again?" He asked and she nodded. "You'll have the entire collection done before the end of the week at this rate".

"It's relaxing" she shrugged as she brushed some dust off the top of an old box. "You wanna help?" She looked up at him.

"I'd love to, but we have a case. I actually came in here to tell you to pack a bag. We're going to a nursing home so I'm thinking instead of our FBI getup we could go in as some sort of historians looking to interview the older residents? So maybe just a nice sweater or something, you know, something warm and welcoming, more friendly than a suit".

[Y/N] sighed and busied herself with opening the box and looking through it. "Isn't Cas around? Three of you should be more than enough, you don't really need me tagging along on this one". Sam frowned at her, but she glued her eyes to the contents of the box not wanting to look at him. He reached over and grabbed her arms, holding them still so she'd look up at him. He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Want to tell me why you're avoiding cases?"

"I'm not, I'm just focused on cataloguing at the moment".

"[Y/N], cataloguing can be done at any time. People disappearing from a nursing home on a regular basis is kind of a time sensitive issue".

She pulled her arms from him turned away from him to look at the books on the shelf behind her. "I just think four of us going is a bit much".

"Cas isn't coming on this one. He's busy, and not going to be around until next week".

"So? You've gone on like a million cases with just Dean before, I don't need to go too". She was starting to feel anxious now, a mixture of worry that she'd have to go on a hunt and annoyance at Sam's refusal to drop it.

Sam took a step towards her and put his hand on her shoulder to turn her back around to face him. "What's going on with you? We miss you out on cases". His eyebrows were furrowed in concern. She shrugged his hand off her shoulder and moved back to the box. Sam sighed. "Do you not want to hunt anymore? What about saving people? Do you not care?"

"Sam!" She turned around to face him again. "Of course I care!" She was starting to pass annoyance and enter anger now.

"What's all the shouting about?" Dean walked into the room carrying a mug of coffee.

"Sam is saying that I don't care about saving people because I don't want to go to this nursing home case". [Y/N] crossed her arms and glared at Sam.

"Why don't you want to come? You missed the last two cases too". [Y/N] turned her glare to Dean.

"You too?!" She was starting to feel a bit lightheaded, a warning sign that a vision was coming. Dean shrugged, and before she had a vision in front of them, she stormed past them out of the room and down the corridor to her bedroom. Locking the door behind her, she leaned her back against it and slowly slid down to the floor. She could feel herself disassociating and everything in front of her started to turn blurry.

***

"And what exactly did you see when you walked into the room?" Sam asked the elderly resident, a woman in her early 90s.

"I saw a ghost! No one will believe me. They think I'm just old and seeing things. My eyesight may not be what it once was, but I saw something that was not human. I know it".

"We believe you". Sam smiled at her while Dean took notes.

"What makes you say it was a ghost?" Dean asked her.

"Well, it was ghostly. A pale, ugly thing".

"And what was it doing?"

"It stuck a pencil into Mr. Conway's head". Sam, Dean, and [Y/N] shared a look before Sam smiled at the lady.

"Thank you for your time Mrs. Browne". She nodded in acknowledgement before the three of them stood up to go sit at an empty table by the window. "So a pencil wielding ghost?" Sam asked.

"Wouldn't be the strangest". Dean shrugged. "But where do they go after? There was no body, and three others have disappeared in the last month. She's the only witness so far". He nodded towards Mrs Browne, who was now happily knitting something interestingly unrecognisable. [Y/N] looked around the room, trying to see if there was anything she hadn't noticed before when they first got there. It all looked fairly normal, especially considering the disappearances. There was a nurse playing chess with an older man, a group of women happily chatting, and a small group gathered around a TV. She looked to one of the doors when another nurse walked in pushing a cart with food on it, and that's when she knew what was going on.

"It's not a ghost, it's a wraith". She turned back to the boys.

"How do you know?" Dean whispered, suddenly aware that if there was a monster in the room, it could hear them. Although [Y/N] had psychic visions and feelings, auras weren't something that came naturally to her. She typically couldn't see anyone's aura unless it was particularly strong. In the case of wraiths, she could always see them immediately; they were evil.

"The nurse that walked in, with the red hair, he has a wraith's aura. It wasn't a pencil, it was a wraith's spike". The boys glanced over to the nurse, not fully turning so they didn't draw any attention to themselves.

BANG. [Y/N] turned to look behind her, but there was nothing. Looking back at the boys they were still watching the nurse, having not reacted to the bang at all. BANG. There it was again, definitely coming from behind her, but there was no one there and the boys didn't react. "You guys hear that?" [Y/N] tried to ask them, but nothing came from her mouth. BANG. [Y/N] looked back again but everything was blurry. Her head hurt and she felt dizzy.

***

"[Y/N] open the door!" The voice was muffled, and there was a ringing in her ears. She forced her eyes open and she saw she was no longer in the nursing home, she was on the floor in her bedroom. BANG. "[Y/N], the door!" The voice sounded again, and this time she recognised it as Dean's. Pushing herself up, she wobbled slightly and leaned on the door for support. Unlocking it she slowly opened the door to see an angry Dean and a worried Sam. "Are you deaf?" Dean asked.

"I opened the door".

"Yeah, after thirty minutes of us calling your name, calling your phone, and banging on your door".

"I didn't hear you". Had her vision really lasted thirty minutes? That would be the longest she'd ever had by far. She still felt disoriented and felt like if she let go of the doorframe she might fall. Sam stepped forward and put the back of his hand to her forehead.

"[Y/N] you're burning up, what happened? You were fine earlier". As Sam said this, Dean's anger melted to concern to match his brother's.

"Are you sick?" Dean asked, now also pressing his hand to her forehead.

"No". She grumbled, and pushed herself off the doorframe to slowly, and carefully, get to her bed to sit on its edge, afraid her legs wouldn't hold up much longer. Sam and Dean shared a look before following her. Sam sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulder while Dean knelt down in front of her, one hand reaching out to hold her arm and give it a squeeze.

"Talk to us, what's wrong?"

"I just solved your nursing home case for you". She looked up to meet Dean's eyes.

"What do you mean [Y/N]?" Sam asked.

"It's a wraith. The male nurse with the red hair, he's a wraith. I saw it in my vision".

'You had a vision? Is that why you didn't answer?"

"She didn't answer for thirty minutes Sam, her visions are only a couple minutes at most". Dean glanced at him before returning his attention to [Y/N], who was shaking her head at him.

"No, Sam's right, I was having a vision the whole time. I swear I didn't hear you. I closed my door and then next thing I know I'm on the floor and you're shouting, I opened it as soon as I knew what was happening".

"Have you ever had a vision last that long? You said they only last a couple of minutes". Dean said while he stood up to go to the sink in her room. He took a cloth that was lying there and wet it with cold water, then brought it back over and knelt down again, holding to her forehead. She sighed and leaned into it, the coolness helping her to relax.

"They used to only last a couple of minutes. They've kind of been getting a bit longer, and more intense. Usually when I'm feeling anxious or angry. They've never lasted that long though, that was a first".

"When Cas gets back next week we'll have him take a look at you, okay?" Sam asked, pulling her closer to his chest and sliding his hand down from her shoulder to run up and down her arm. She nodded, maybe Cas could tell her what was wrong with her and know how to get her get them under control.

"We have a couple other psychic friends, I'll call them and ask if they have any advice too. For now I think you should get some rest Sweetheart". Dean said as he took the cloth away from her face. She nodded again and Sam took his arm away while she moved to slide under the covers. Sam stood up from the bed and pulled the blanket up to cover her, and brushed her hair out of the way.

"We'll sort this out, now that we know about it". He smiled at her before leaning down to kiss her forehead. "No more locked doors until we do though, okay?" He waited for her to nod before he turned to leave, patting Dean's shoulder on the way out of the room.

Dean pulled over the chair from her desk to the side of her bed and took a seat beside her. "Are you going on the case now?" She asked him.

"You already solved it". He smiled at her. "No, we're not going to leave you here alone like this. We already asked Jody to take a look earlier when we couldn't get through to you, she's on her way there with Claire. We'll just let her know what it is and who it is, they should be able to get him by surprise". Dean reached over to feel the back of her forehead again. He was relieved to feel that it was a lot cooler now, and he moved his hand to stroke her hair. "Close your eyes [Y/N], we can talk more later". She let her eyes close and focused on Dean's hand in her hair, the gentle movements slowly lulling her to sleep.

***

Sam was on his way back from a supply run. He had his music playing, happy to have the chance to listen to what he liked in the Impala for a change. He was worried about [Y/N], since that thirty minute vision a couple of weeks ago, she'd been having shorter, but more frequent visions. Both he and Dean had noticed that they were hurting her. She was left exhausted by them, unable to stand, and over the last couple of days had broken down in tears due to the headaches they would leave her with. He had been searching the bunker's library looking for answers while Dean had called every psychic they knew. Cas had even had a look at her but couldn't tell why they were getting worse. All three of the boys had been staying in the bunker as much as possible, passing on cases to Jody, Donna, and a few other hunter friends. Even when they went on hunts of their own, one of them would always stay behind with [Y/N]. She had been having a vision of every single hunt they found, which made the hunts a lot quicker, but made [Y/N] a lot weaker. They had stopped telling her about new cases they'd found, but even when she didn't know about them, the visions still happened. She was staying in bed most of the day, needing help just to get to the kitchen for food or even just to get to the bathroom. Cas had tried healing her, but he said her body was fine, it was her mind causing the issues.

Sam came to a stop at a red light when his phone started to ring. He reached over and grabbed it, seeing it was Dean he answered. "Hey, what's up? I'm on my way back".

"Where are you? If you get to that crossroads between here and the store do not start driving as soon as the light turns green".

"I'm at the crossroads now, stopped on red".

"A truck is gonna come out of nowhere and hit you from the driver's side. When the lights change you just stay there okay Sammy? Don't move. A blue truck will speed through the junction through a red light only a few seconds after you get the green". Sam looked out of his window, his light was still red and he didn't see any signs of a truck coming the other way.

"This one of [Y/N]'s visions?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, she just had it. She's fine, just back in bed. Get home in one piece alright?"

"Alright, tell her thanks for the heads up. Make sure she gets some water".

"Will do". Sam hung up and put the phone back on the seat beside him. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel while looking out the window at the traffic lights in front of him. They turned green, and he looked to his left. Sure enough, a blue truck sped through the lights and was in the middle of junction just where Sam would have been if he'd started driving as soon as the lights turned green. Once it passed, Sam made sure to look left and right before proceeding through the junction.

When he made it back to the bunker, he left the supplies in the kitchen before heading to [Y/N]'s room. The door was ajar so he gently pushed it open and found Cas sitting at [Y/N]'s desk flicking through a book, while [Y/N] was resting. She opened her eyes as the door squeaked and smiled at Sam. "Hey, thanks for the warning". He walked over to her and sat beside her on the edge of her bed. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm happy you're safe. It was a bad accident Sam".

"She was screaming when I found her with Dean". Cas said, turning around in his chair to face them. Sam stroked [Y/N]'s cheek gently. He could see that her eyes were red from crying.

"Well I made it back in one piece, we're all okay". He looked over at Cas. "Where's Dean?"

"He left a few minutes ago, got word of a psychic who apparently had a similar issue to [Y/N] a few years ago. He said he'll be back in a few days".

"I think he's mad at me". [Y/N] mumbled, drawing Sam's attention back to her.

"Why do you think that?"

"You know how my visions are brought on by stress? He told me to stay in bed today since I had that other vision yesterday, the one about Cas knocking over the milk? He wants me to stay in bed all day after I have one, and I kind of shouted at him saying he can't tell me what to do. We got into a heated argument and that's when I had the vision about your car crash. I collapsed during it and I guess I was screaming like Cas said. You know Dean, he blamed himself for it but I know he's mad at me for not listening to him".

"[Y/N], Sam would be dead now if you hadn't had that vision. Dean will realise that. He's angry at himself for stressing you, he's not angry at you". Cas said.

"He wants to fix me". [Y/N] started to sniffle and wiped a tear away from her eye.

"Hey, come on, don't cry. You're not broken, he's just worried about you. We all are. It's terrifying when you collapse and we can't do anything to help". There were more tears coming from her eyes now as Sam tried to comfort her.

"You should try and sleep. I'll get you some more water". Cas stood up and left the room, and Sam brushed her tears away with his thumb.

"Come on, scooch over, make room for me". He smiled at her. She moved over in the bed and Sam lay down with his head resting on the headboard. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest, letting her rest her head on him. He traced circles on her shoulder and heard her sniffling stop, her exhaustion from the vision making her fall asleep quickly. Cas came back in and placed the water on her desk before walking over to them.

"They are getting out of control Sam. Dean is right to try and find a cure". He said quietly.

"She's not broken, she just needs to learn how to control them".

"If she can't find a way to get them under control soon then we will need to find a way to get rid of them quickly. Her health is declining, she spends most days in bed now". Sam sighed and looked down at her, but nodded knowing Cas was right.

***

For the next few days while Dean was gone, Sam and Cas took turns looking after [Y/N]. She was having frequent visions, sometimes only an hour or two apart. Mostly about small things, but she did have two visions about monsters, which Sam called hunters to tell them about. She was sitting up in her bed scrolling through her phone when Dean came home. He knocked on her door and she called him in, he looked tired. He held up his arms in defense as he walked over to her. "I don't want to argue, just hear me out. Let us help you". She put down her phone and nodded at him. "So I met with a psychic, and she was having similar visions to you. She didn't have control, and they were killing her, taking all of her energy. It's not a cure, but she gave me the ingredients to a potion that a witch made for her. It doesn't take the visions away, it just dampens them. Makes them less frequent, lessens the energy they take".

"My visions help. If I hadn't had that one about Sam he'd be dead".

"I know, I know that [Y/N]. But if you keep going like this then you'll be dead. I can't lose you, neither can Sam or Cas. We need you, visions or no visions. You're family now". She sighed and looked down, trying to think but she was tired. She was always tired. "Look, like I said, it's not a cure, more of a treatment that you have to take every day. Just try it for a week or two, and if you don't like it, you can just stop taking it and we can look for something else. Please, just give it a go?" He reached out and hooked his finger under her chin, pulling her face back up to look at him.

"Okay. I'll try it".

"Thank you. I've already given the ingredients to Sam and Cas, they're gonna gather them. In the meantime, think you have room in that bed of yours for me? It was a long drive back here". She smiled at him and nodded, setting her phone down and moving over, pulling the covers up for him to get in beside her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her on top of him, getting a giggle out of her as he settled back. His arms were tight around her waist and her head fit snuggly under his chin. His smell was so familiar, so comforting, she could already feel herself drift off. She stayed conscious just long enough to feel him kiss the top of her head and whisper an 'I love you'. Dean fell asleep not long after, hopeful that they'd get a healthier version of [Y/N] back soon.

The end

#supernatural #dean winchester #dean winchester fluff #dean x reader #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester x reader #dean x y/n #dean winchester comfort #sam winchester #supernatural fanfic #sam winchester comfort #sam winchester fluff #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester fanfiction #castiel x y/n #castiel fluff #castiel x reader #spn reader insert #spn fic #spn fanfiction #spn fanfic #spn #sickfic #angry dean #dean fluff #dean winchester angst #sam winchester x y/n #cuddle

[agent-cupcake]

Flashbang

Chapter 9 Part 2 - Honey I'm Home

Spotify Playlist / All Chapters / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 /Chapter 7/ Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 pt.1 / Chapter 9 pt.2 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12

Pairing: One Piece Live Action Buggy x f! Reader

Synopsis: Childhood memories entwine with the rest of the month spent in Lafitte as the pieces fall in place for the grand debut of Buggy's new show.

Warnings: Explicit smut, dubious consent, child abuse, violence/blood,

Word Count: 20.9k

Notes: "I didn't want to post a 20+k word chapter" lol. Part of me wishes I didn't have that bad week so this could be a cohesive but huge chapter because I think last week's was pretty weak, but hopefully this makes up for it. If you don't like the backstory thing and only want clown, ctrl+F the words 'days earlier' to read those sections+the final section.

"Father said that this world isn't for me I tried to pray for a new reality "So, come to me, we can change night into day." A tied-up moth seemed to know a different way (Don't remember it Don't return to it) Oh, Father tore out the umbilical cord There's nothing left in the bottle keeping me scored We'll abandon the scenery in the (Don't remember it Don't return to it) Rear-view mirror"

xx

23 Days Earlier

“What are you doing out here?”

“Crina!” you said, smiling despite your gloomy mood. In the sunshine, she was a radiant figure, her tawny skin practically glowing gold with its light. 

She raised an eyebrow in lieu of any greeting, sitting down on the sand next to you. 

“I’m waiting for Captain Buggy,” you told her, looking around the stretch of beach claimed by the pirates. A few members of the crew lounged around drinking or playing cards or whatever else it was that they did, but the captain was nowhere to be found. He had mentioned getting something to drink, but you weren’t sure. 

“He left you here alone?” Crina asked. 

“I think I upset him,” you told her. “I don’t really know how, though. I only asked if he wanted to go swimming.”

“Ah,” Crina said, nodding. “He probably assumed you were making fun of him.”

“Making fun of him?” 

“Because he can’t go in the water.”

“Why not?” 

She gave a confused look. “Anybody who eats a Devil Fruit is cursed. The sea rejects them. Even a splash of seawater can be debilitating. Captain Buggy didn’t explain any of this to you?” 

“No,” you said softly, taken aback. “Captain Buggy really is cursed then?” 

“Yes.”

You looked down at your feet, half buried in the warm sand, reaching up to pull down a bandana that wasn’t there. Buggy said you needed to get used to going without it, or at least wearing an eyepatch like a proper sort of pirate. Your hands dropped lamely into your lap, restless as the word ‘cursed’ pounded around in your head.    

“I’m sure he’ll get over it. How are you?” Crina asked, breaking the silence. Well, relative silence. The sea had a lot to say, whispering and roaring all at once. 

“I’m fine,” you said instinctively. “How are you?” 

She stared hard at you. In the sunlight, her dark eyes became the warmest shade of brown you had ever seen. “I heard about your dad.”

Your shoulders tensed up, curling inward. “What did you hear?”

“That he’s an infamous Marine and now you’re a valuable asset.” Crina scoffed, shaking her head. “Only Captain Buggy would accidentally find himself in a position like this.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Most people are predictable,” she explained. “You can predict their future based on their past and accounting for things like skill and experience. For Captain Buggy, it’s like… His luck is a dice roll, the only thing he’s truly reliable for is capitalizing on opportunity. I assume that’s what you are. A lucky roll.” 

You shrugged, unable to look her in the eye. “Does everyone know, then? About my dad?” 

“The senior officers do, but it’s only a matter of time until the rest find out. They already suspect. The target on your back keeps getting larger, and he leaves you here all alone.” She looked back, her brow furrowing. You followed her line of sight, shocked to meet the eyes of a familiar blunt-featured man. You looked away quickly, the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. 

“Is he staring at me?” you asked softly, hunching forward as if that would protect you from his gaze.

“Ivo’s never gotten over his little grudge, and this hasn’t helped.” 

You sighed, pulling your legs up so you could put your head on your knees. 

“Are you okay?” Crina asked, her voice very gentle. 

“I’m fine.”  

“I don’t know Captain Buggy’s plan,” Crina told you, “but you know that this will end in a confrontation with your father.”

“I know,” you said, hugging your thighs tightly for some sense of stability. “Captain Buggy said he wouldn’t let Dad take me back. It will be okay. It has to be.”

Crina scooted closer to you, leaning in so she could speak very, very softly. “There are other options.”

You sat up a little, frowning. “What do you mean?”   

“It might be nice to settle down for a while,” Crina said. “I can make a living practically anywhere. You could come along and help me. I would pay you, and you could learn how to live independently.”  

“I… Um, I don’t think Captain Buggy would go for that.” 

“I’m not asking about Captain Buggy,” Crina said. “You and I could leave. Disappear. I know people who could make that happen, and you wouldn’t have to be a pawn in either man’s scheme.”

“I… don’t, um… understand.” 

“Has he apologized for what he did?” Crina asked rather than clarify, staring at you with an intense gaze.

“What did he do?”

“Sending you here alone, keeping you in the brig. Has he apologized?” 

“He doesn’t… doesn’t need to-to apologize,” you told her, drawing back into yourself. “I was the… I lied. Everything is okay now, Captain Buggy told me it is.”

“What about next time you upset him?”

You shook your head, outright refusing to think about that. “No, I won’t. I won’t lie to him ever again.” You exhaled shakily, bowing your head. “He promised he wouldn’t send me away. He won’t do that.” 

“You need to consider having a backup plan,” Crina told you. “Pirates always have one. Captain Buggy undoubtedly has several in case things with your dad go wrong.”

You nodded, trying very hard to swallow the lump in your throat. You didn’t want to think about that. 

“Ah, speak of the devil,” Crina muttered. You looked over your shoulder. Captain Buggy had a piece of paper in one hand and a bottle in the other, calling everybody over to where he stood. 

“Heya, babydoll, get over here,” he shouted at you. You stood up, brushing the sand off your butt, and approached his chair. He handed the bottle to you, motioning for you to open it up. “Check it out.” He held the paper up to show everybody, flicking the back for extra emphasis. It was his bounty poster, a photo you were very familiar with. Except, something had changed.  

“Oh,” you said, realizing the key difference. “Your bounty went up!” 

As soon as they understood what they had been called over to do, the pirates began cheering, raising bottles and whooping excitedly. The sudden assault of noise startled you, but Captain Buggy accepted their excitement and praise as if it were expected, rolling his eyes and waving it off.  Wanting to join in, you tried to open the bottle. The foil came off easily, but the cork was tough.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Buggy finally told them, bringing the cheers to a stop. “This,” he held up the poster again, “is proof that my star is rising. And you,” Buggy waved his hand in a circle around the crowd, “have all been given the very special honor of enjoying my light. Imagine it. If you’ve got the talent to make the cut, you’ll end up serving royalty.”

Everybody cheered again, toasting to Captain Buggy, King of the Pirates. 

 When the cork finally came out, it was with a loud pop that caused you to yelp in surprise, and then a fizzing stream of what you assumed was champagne. The silence that followed was the worst of it all. Nobody was going to laugh unless Buggy did, but he was just staring. You held up the bottle with a forced smile, which was much lighter given how much of the drink had ended up on your dress. “To Captain Buggy.”  

He broke, cackling at the display. Everybody else followed suit. You looked to Crina for help, but she just shrugged. 

“Alright, you’re all dismissed,” Buggy said when he was done laughing, waving everybody away. 

“I’ll talk to you later,” Crina said before departing, giving you a comforting smile that almost helped soothe your crippling embarrassment. 

“You know, babydoll,” Buggy said, grabbing the bottle out of your hand and taking a swig, “most people drink the stuff, not wear it.” 

“I didn’t know it would explode,” you said in your defense, cringing.

“Are you wearing polka-dots under there?” Buggy said, staring at your chest. Now that it was wet, the wrap dress was practically see-through. “That’s bold of you.”

“It’s a swimsuit,” you said, going around him to grab a towel, trying to clean up a bit. 

“No way,” Buggy said. “Show me.” 

“That’s… I mean, it’s for going into the water, otherwise…” You pressed the back of your hand to your cheek. The flush wasn’t going away, maybe you could pretend it was just sunburn. “It’s embarrassing.” 

“Yeah, and?” He asked, raising his eyebrows tauntingly. 

“Captain Buggy,” you said, frowning. “I… that’s really, really embarrassing. Especially after…” You looked around. Nobody was looking, of course they weren’t, but you could imagine what they were thinking. You couldn’t do anything. When you tried, you were bad at it, and embarrassed yourself. They knew the reason you were here, stripping down into glorified underwear would not help with that perception. 

He took another big drink out of the bottle before setting it on the table. 

You realized he was going for you a second later, jumping away with a yelp of surprise. You were fast enough to evade him, somehow. Which didn’t matter because Buggy just detached his hands, grabbing onto the bow’s tail keeping your dress tied and pulling hard.

“When will you quit falling for that?” Buggy asked, laughing. 

“Captain Buggy!” you exclaimed, swatting his hand away and trying to fix the dress. 

“Wrong one,” he said. “On your left.” 

You turned left, over-compensating for your blindspot, but his other hand was behind you, dragging the back of the dress to get it off. You circled around, trying to fight that one off, but something else flew past you. Another part of his arm?

“I meant on my left,” Buggy clarified. You turned right, but you tripped on what you thought was his wrist. With a squeaky cry, you fell into the warm sand on your hands and knees. When you tripped, he dragged the dress off of your shoulders, and Buggy laughed as all the pieces of his arms reattached, your dress like a white flag he waved above your head. 

“Captain Buggy!” You exclaimed, standing up and throwing yourself towards him to try and take it back. He held it up, easily keeping it out of your reach, laughing at your fruitless attempts to try to get ahold of it. Out of breath and knowing it was pointless, you gave up with a huge, unhappy huff.

“What, that’s it?” Buggy asked, lowering his hand enough to taunt you to lunge for the dress. 

“It’s too late now,” you told him, breathing hard. You thought that you were getting stronger, but the old exhaustion was always so quick to set in. Maybe it would never go away. When you nervously looked over your shoulder, nobody was looking. Nobody would. Not only was there nothing worth looking at, but Buggy would get mad if they did. 

Embarrassing. Then again, you had already done about as much damage as you could. It wasn’t going to get worse.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Buggy relax, his arms dropping as he followed your line of sight. 

You blew a raspberry at him, snatching your dress out of his hand and running as fast as you could as soon as you got it, giggling madly.

“Oh, real mature,” Buggy called.

“What?” you asked innocently, stopping about ten feet away to look at him. “That’s it?” 

“Are you sure this is the kind of game you wanna play?” he asked, taunting you. Daring you.

“You started it!” 

“S’long as you don’t cry about losing,” he said. 

You grinned, turning around and taking off. Running was not something you were very good at, and especially not when you were laughing and out of breath. You didn’t expect to get far. 

Buggy caught you about halfway down the beach. Instead of using his ability at all, he stooped down and tickled your bare sides. Which was worse. Way, way worse.

Squealing, you rounded on him, trying to slap his hands away. “No! Stop!” you told him, the words ineffective when you were laughing uncontrollably. “You can have it!” You held up the balled up dress as a peace offering. “I give up!” 

“You think I did this for that?” Buggy asked, not accepting peace in favor of continuing the attack. “This isn’t that type of game.” He finally stopped, grabbing you around the middle and pulling you close so he could talk softly in your ear. “It’s more like the kind of game where I win and we go into that changing booth over there so I can enjoy my prize.”

You, the you that lived in the world, the you that seemed so other compared to the rest, finally recognized where you were. It was the smell. His smell, that was the thing that really stuck with you. You were on Buggy’s ship, in his cabin. Although the details were too dark to make out, you understood enough to figure you were in the dining area.

Why? How? You could almost remember, faintly, from a far away place. But the world heaved and churned and your head fell back against the hard floor and you succumbed to the washing tide and the painful memories gushing out of your unguarded subconscious. 

Out of it emerged the hazy memory of another adult conversation. Even now, that’s how you thought of them. Them, not us. Mom and Dad thought you were asleep, laid out with a fever, but you weren’t asleep. Sometimes you pretended. 

“This is your fault,” Dad said. “Your lack of faith has cursed her. How can you not see that? If you were faithful to me, truly faithful, she wouldn’t be forced to suffer.”

“I am faithful,” Mom argued. “I have done everything for you, for her—I have given you everything.”

“No, you haven’t. She burns with proof of your faithlessness.”  

Mom didn’t say anything at first. All you could hear was the crackling fire and the ticking clock. Eventually she muttered something, but the only word you heard was cellar. 

You hated that word, hated it enough that you almost forgot to pretend to be asleep, hated it so much that your drug-addled brain tried to break itself out of the memory. Cellar meant rats in the dark, it meant the scent of wet rot, it meant shivering in the dank cold, it meant alone. It meant you had done something wrong and were being punished. You remembered each detail of cellar with wicked clarity. 

“What did you say?” Dad asked.

“Nothing.” 

There was silence, and you wondered if they were done talking. 

Finally, “It is your fault I have to punish her, your sin, your curse. Teaching her right from wrong is the only way to keep her pure and clean,” Dad said. “And you deign to judge me for it, but everything I do, I do because I want to save her from becoming like you. All of you—hysterical, inept, faithless women. I married an innocent, beautiful girl, and now look at you. It disgusts me to know that she may meet the same fate. I was too late to protect you, but I will not let our daughter fall as you did. If you don’t see that, you’re even less of a mother to her than I thought.” 

“It’s your hatred that poisons us,” Mom said, her voice trembling but, somehow, defiant. You knew enough to know what kind of reaction that tone of voice received. It was always the same. Thunder, and fire. Rage. 

But instead there was another long silence.   

“Hatred? No, birdie, no. I love you,” Dad finally told her, and he sounded gentle. “I love you both more than anything. That you would see my actions as hatred proves the sickness of your mind. As husband and father, it is my responsibility to do difficult things. You have no idea how much it pains me to see you suffer. I take no pleasure in punishing you—either of you, but I have no choice. I wouldn’t ask for you to understand, but you must trust me. You must have faith in me.”  

That was your mistake, wasn’t it? The reason for your suffering. Was it possible that you could try so hard to take Dad’s warnings to heart yet still make the same mistakes? Still let yourself fumble and fall, still disobey him when you shouldn’t? You didn’t want to become like the women Dad spoke of, you didn’t want to be like Mom, or to be cursed. You wanted to be good, and to be clean. You wanted to please him. 

But you didn’t. Not then, and certainly not anymore. Why? You didn’t understand that. Your actions and intentions never seemed to line up.

It didn’t begin on that day, but it was one of the first times you became aware of the filth that Dad spoke of. The taint of womanhood, the creeping intrusion of the unpleasant truths Harper had revealed to you so many years before. 

How old were you on that day? The day you had your first kiss. You weren’t sure, but you knew it was during the in-between period of your life. Possibly the only time you really felt happy, or hopeful. Dad occasionally took you out on the ships with him as a sort of helper to boil bandages or send messages or help look after basic injuries. When you were home, you snuck away as often as you could to go northside. Whenever you could, you were mapping uncharted territory in the overgrown, crumbling ruins. Finding bridges that could take you from roof to roof without having to climb down, traversing the dangerous tightropes of rusty metal beams and scaling sheer cliff sides of faded brick. It was the one thing you could do that nobody else could. Even when you got tired, or felt too weak, or realized you were too short to reach anything, you found a way. Dad forbade it, but that didn’t stop you. He struck you sometimes, or put you in the cellar, but you didn’t stop. It was the only thing in the world that actually belonged to you.

You remembered sitting on top of the old butcher building with your feet hanging three stories up from the overgrown road. The brick wall below you used to have ‘slaughterhouse’ painted on it, but the second part had faded. You dubbed the building the Slaughter, and that was where you had your first kiss.

“There you are,” he called from below. You looked down, startled and fearful it might be Dad, only to immediately melt. Randall was tall, broad shouldered, and the most handsome boy you had ever known. He smiled in a way that made your stomach explode with butterflies. “Do you mind if I come up?” 

“If you can,” you said, your voice echoing oddly in the empty streets. Sound carried in an eerie way northside. Randall didn’t blink at the taunt, easily scaling the first set of old metal stairs, and then the rusty ladder, and then the final set of steps to the top where you waited. 

“I was worried I’d find you out here,” he said as he took the final few steps up.

“You were looking for me?” you asked, trying to sound casual. To a girl in the awkward phase of life—the phase where you stagnated even after most had grown—and especially one who had yet to significantly develop in the ways that other girls had, even the handful of years between you and Randall made him seem unattainably mature. But he was nice to you, always, and he made you feel little butterflies in your stomach. You liked him. You liked him a lot. 

“It’s gonna get dark soon,” Randall said, sitting on the edge of the rusty old fire escape grate beside you. “You know how much the Major hates it when you come out here.”

Randall’s dad, Harmon, was a carpenter and since Harmon worked on the docks sometimes, he was friends with Dad. Randall didn’t want to be a carpenter like Harmon, he wanted to be a Marine, and so he took Dad very seriously. Dad liked Randall too. Sometimes you thought that he liked Randall more than you. Sometimes you wished that you could do the things Randall did. But you couldn’t. At that point in your life, you were barely out of childhood. Too small for your age and underdeveloped from a lack of healthy growth in your youth. Dad said it was normal, it only meant you were a little more frail, a little less healthy than other girls. It meant there were a lot of things you couldn’t do. 

“You won’t tell on me, will you?” you asked, trying to be casual, to seem cool. You had no idea how to talk to or impress boys. You weren’t entirely sure you even wanted that type of attention, it seemed too dangerous. But you wanted Randall to like you.

“I’ll keep your secret,” he said. “But you owe me.”

“What do I owe you?”

He thought about that for a second, his eyes rolling up to the late afternoon sky. 

“A kiss,” he finally declared.

You smiled sideways at him, struck with surprise, before giggling nervously. “Do you… Do you mean that?” 

“Yes. I like you,” he said, as if it were easy. Your heart nearly stopped, blood rushing in your ears, burning your cheeks. 

“I-I like you too,” you said, but your brain was swimming with filthy words like sex and slut and you were a little confused because you barely even needed a bra yet so you weren’t sure why Randall would want to kiss you and maybe that meant he wanted other things too but those weren’t things you knew very much about and there was nobody in your life you could ask for advice so you were certainly going to disappoint him at some point and also if Dad found out he would be furious because you weren’t allowed to date boys let alone kiss them and—

“Unless you don’t want to kiss me,” Randall said. 

“I do!” you told him quickly. It didn’t matter if that was true or not, or what you wanted. If Randall thought you were worth kissing, you would do anything to keep that. You didn’t want to disappoint him. “I’ve never kissed anyone.”  

“I don’t mind,” he said, turning to face you. “It’s easy, I promise.” You couldn’t meet his eyes for more than a couple of seconds at a time, and your nervous smile wouldn’t go away, but you felt a buzzing sense of anticipation all the way from your toes upward. Excitement. Fear.

“Okay,” you said softly. 

He held your cheek in a hand that smelled like the ladder rungs he used to climb up the Slaughter and pursed his lips in a way that you thought looked a little silly before they met yours and then you realized you were supposed to close your eyes too and that was that. Eyelid filtered red-dark and the scent of old metal and dry lips pressing against your mouth and a pit of sickness in your stomach because you knew you were doing something you shouldn’t. 

Until he ran his tongue along the seam of your lips which felt very strange and wrong and you pulled back with another nervous giggle, opening your eyes. 

Randall frowned, but let you go. “You’re supposed to open your mouth,” he told you.

“Why?” you asked. 

“That’s how you kiss.” 

“Oh,” you said, feeling very stupid. “I’m sorry.” 

“One more, and then I’m taking you home,” he said. “Okay?” 

Was it? Probably. You swallowed down the sick feeling in your throat and nodded. Girls liked to kiss boys. It was okay and normal and fine and you liked it. 

When Randall walked you home—at least part of the way, not close enough that your dad would see you were together—neither of you talked about the one kiss that had become three and a hand on your hips, and then your waist, and then your chest. It made your skin crawl, but he treated it like it was normal and so it probably was. You had no reason to be weird about something he liked. 

You were so preoccupied with trying not to think of what happened that you didn’t immediately notice the tension in the house when you got in and removed your boots and jacket. 

“You’re home late,” Dad said, standing in the doorway into the den. Your heart crashed into your stomach. 

“Sorry, daddy,” you told him, your chest clenching. When he looked at you like that, you worried that he could see everything. See that you had been northside, see that you had let a boy kiss you, see the imprint of a hand on your body in places it shouldn’t have been, of lips on your own. 

“Where were you?” he asked. 

“I took a walk,” you said. “The weather is nice.” 

Dad exhaled heavily, closing his eyes. “You’re lying to me. You were out northside, weren’t you?”

“I was just walking,” you told him again, your voice weakening. 

Dad didn’t say anything, and the silence stretched on and on and on and he just stared at you, his eyes dark. 

“I’m worried about you,” he said, approaching you with heavy steps. You resisted the urge to shrink away, trying very hard not to look guilty. “If you keep lying and sneaking around, I won’t allow you to go out anymore. You’re too sick to put that sort of strain on yourself.” 

“I’m fine, daddy,” you told him, shaking your head. “I feel good, really.” 

“You’re delicate,” he said, his voice hard. “My sweet little girl.” You flinched when he raised his hand, but he only tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “Where were you?” 

“Walking,” you said in what amounted to little more than a whisper. 

“You were with a boy, weren’t you?” he asked. 

You shook your head fast, guilt and shame filling up the hollow in your chest like liquid lead. “No, daddy. No.” 

He looked down at you. You couldn’t meet his eyes. 

“You’re lying,” he said, slamming his fist against the wall behind you. You yelped, trying to make yourself as small as possible. He forcibly composed himself, breathing deeply. “Every day, I feel like I’m losing more and more of my sweet little girl. All I want is to keep you safe, and you throw it back in my face.” He heaved out a heavy, hot sigh, his eyes boring into your own. “Where were you and who were you with?”

He already thought you were lying, he already assumed the worst, but you couldn’t tell him the truth. Dad liked Randall, you would be the one to bear the sin, the blame. The curse. Maybe it was your fault. Why else would Randall want to kiss you? 

“I was walking, daddy,” you said so softly that it was almost inaudible. “By myself.” 

He struck you quickly and precisely, a single blow that knocked you back into the wall. Your ears rang and roared with the whooshing of blood and Dad grabbed you by the arm, pulling you towards the kitchen. Towards the cellar. 

You couldn’t hear yourself begging, but you were. You couldn’t hear him talking, but he was. You could practically feel the force of words like liar and filthy and disobedient. Everything else was a blurred mush of fear and shame.  

When you tripped on the stairs, he jerked you upright by the arm and pushed you past the door and into the dark. When you collapsed onto the cold stone floor, you barely had enough air to properly sob, nausea swelling up in your throat. You looked up a final time before he shut the door and locked it and saw a cruel god. The figure of justice and punishment. And then you were alone and it was dark. The sour taste of Randall’s kiss lingered on your lips, and the scalding imprint of his hand burned into your skin, and you knew you weren’t Dad’s sweet little girl anymore. That only made you cry harder. 

With some vague notion of what you were now, the things you had done and let happen, it was almost laughable that an awkward first kiss was enough to make you feel so disgusting. 

Randall kissed you a few more times after that, and you held hands, and he made promises he never had any intention of keeping, and each moment of it forged a horrible conflict within you. Being wanted by him was the most potent and intense happiness you had ever felt, it was giddy and new and bright. Being intimate with him made you want to burn your skin and never look anybody in the eye again for fear of what they might think when they looked at you. 

You were afraid that they would look at you and see a woman. Dad said that word like it was dirty. Women were impure. 

But it wasn’t Dad who told you that you were what you feared, it had nothing to do with kissing or breasts or sex. It was blood in your underwear, and Mom telling you that it meant you were a woman now. 

You remembered the ice in your stomach, the way your hands shook. You looked at her with tears in your eyes and told her, “I don’t want to be a woman.” 

“You don’t have much of a choice in the matter,” she told you. “Neither does your father.” There was a cool bitterness in those words, but also disgust. She looked so much older than she was. Her beauty hadn’t faded, not entirely, there were moments where the canary shone through her dull eyes, but right then she looked ancient. The weight of the world and a million little cuts had torn her down to the bone. Sadness etched into the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth but, most of all, she looked guilty. “Don’t tell him about this. Menstruation is women’s business, men don’t want or need to know about it. All it will do is upset him.” 

You nodded, swallowing hard. Dad got upset more and more those days. Mom was almost always nursing some sort of bruise, becoming increasingly distant by the day. Her medicine made that worse. She didn’t even sing very often. She didn’t do much of anything. 

So many things happened in your life that were regrettable or scary or bad, and you had done even worse, but for what it was worth, you did love her. Mom was a woman of incomparable beauty, and she had the voice of an angel, and she tried. You knew that now, in hindsight. She did her best. 

That’s what you remembered. 

But you also remembered the day everything changed. The two of you had taken a ship out of Barley. Dad was gone, and she said you were meeting up with him somewhere else, hastily packing up as much as possible and getting out of town without any other explanation. 

You should have been with her at the inn, but you had wanted to look around the town.

Sometimes you thought you remembered telling a stranger who you were, and where you were staying, but you weren’t sure. Sometimes you remembered a man with her, but maybe that was nothing more than the power of Dad’s suggestion. The truth was that you didn’t remember much of anything until the world ended. You were almost inside the inn when it happened. Any further and you wouldn’t have been shielded enough to survive the explosion. You remembered thinking that it smelled funny, and that you were worried about Mom, and that you were a little hungry. 

And then. 

Brighter than the sun, sharper than any blade, the light exploded the universe apart. Effulgent, radiant, deafening, and then it resolved into endless, terrifying black. An abyss of nothingness and panic and fear because you couldn’t see anything, and it hurt. That was all you were aware of. A sticky, sickly, blazing hot pain that you couldn’t understand, it was utterly incomprehensible to feel such agony. Your hands went to your face, but it was covered in plaster and bandages. Even though they were only wrapped around your eyes, you felt as if they were suffocating you. 

“It’s okay,” Dad said as he had several times before because every time you awoke, it was from the same confused nightmare. Then you were conscious and you realized that the nightmare was real. “It’s okay, you’re okay.” 

“Daddy?” you asked, your voice hoarse from screaming and smoke. That taste, acrid and foul, coating your throat in soot, was familiar, and you remembered. You were in the hospital. There had been an accident. “Daddy, it hurts.”

“I know it does,” he told you, taking your hand as it groped across the blankets in search of him. 

The pain was incomparable. It was difficult to understand anything outside of it. Dad said that’s why he waited so long to tell you that Mom hadn’t made it out, because he didn’t want to hurt you further. 

By the time you returned to Barley to bury an empty casket, your right eye had at least partial vision back. The left was ruined. It hurt, and it remained as a hideous reminder of what happened. Randall was there to help Dad, but he didn’t even look at you. Nobody did. All they could do was whisper. Whisper about Mom, about you, about what happened. 

You remembered stumbling to the hole with a fistful of dirt in your hand, nearly toppling into it with how unsteady and uncoordinated you were. You remembered looking at the empty mahogany box. You were glad Mom wasn’t there because Dad was too drunk to say anything and you were still having problems putting together full sentences and you dropped that handful of dirt into the ground with the vicious, agonizing thought that nobody in the world except you loved her. 

You really, really did.

14 Days Earlier

Around the time that the silence of the streets became noticeable, you realized that you had maybe taken a wrong turn somewhere. Lafitte wasn’t a large place by any means, but the winding structure of its layout and your poor directional skills were a bad match. According to the directions you were given, it was a straight shot to the western side of the island where you were trying to meet up with Captain Buggy. Now you were wandering amidst blocks of grungy old buildings that were closed for the day and more than a little creeped out by how dark and isolated it was. 

Maybe you should have asked if someone would walk with you. 

Maybe you had gotten off track somewhere.

Maybe you were hopelessly lost. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” somebody called from your blind left. You squeaked, startled, and whirled around to face two men that had been loitering in an alley that cut between two dark buildings. The smell of garbage and old metal and stale smoke emanated even stronger from the impenetrable shadows.

“Hi,” the other one said, smiling. It was too dark to make out almost any other feature than the glint of a gold tooth. Your heart seized up, panic flooding your system. For all that Dad had warned you of a situation like this, you didn’t ever think it would happen. You didn’t know what to do. “You lost?”

“Um, I’m…” you stammered, smiling out of an anxious habit. “I’m fine, thank you.” 

“Where’re you trying to go?” the first man asked. He was taller and lankier than his companion. In the shadows, he looked like he’d been stretched out unnaturally. 

“I’m fine, really,” you said, taking a step back. “Thank you. I just have…” You gestured to the side, meaning to walk away. 

The lanky one was faster, easily closing the distance between you and grabbing your arm before you could get away. You should have run, but by the time that occurred to you, it was too late and he was dragging you into the dark. 

You yelped, trying to yank your arm free. He pulled something out of his pocket, flipping out the blade of a knife. 

“Don’t do anything stupid, m’kay?” he asked, holding it up so you could see the silvery gleam in the sickly yellow light of the single streetlamp. 

“Make sure it’s the right girl,” gold-tooth told him. “Scar on the left eye.” 

The lanky one pressed the blade to your cheek, turning your face towards the light. You whimpered, a little sob heaving in your chest. “Mmm, ‘s her,” he said. “That’s an ugly one.” Clicking his tongue in disgust of your scar, he removed the blade to grab your waist and push you towards the other man. You stumbled, almost falling. 

“Please don’t do this,” you begged, looking between the men desperately. It was too dark to see them as anything other than hulking shadows. “Please. If you want money, I’ll—I’ll give you anything, just don’t take me back, please-”

“Can you shut ‘er up?” the lanky one asked. “He said to make it look like an attack gone wrong. Something random or, y’know, accidental. Yeah? Like we was try’na mess with her but she got too rowdy.”

You whimpered, shaking your head. Your ears were ringing so loud you could barely hear yourself beg. Gold-tooth grabbed you, stifling your pleas with a sweaty palm over your mouth and nose. You shouted, clawing at his arm, but he didn’t budge.

“He wants us to rape her?” he asked.

“Nah, just rough her up a little. Rip her clothes, make sure she’s got bruises. ‘s called staging.”

“Staging,” gold-tooth repeated, turning you around and shoving you back against the alley’s brick wall. You pulled in a deep, ragged breath and screamed. Despite your dry mouth and throat, it was a good one, so loud and piercing you could hear it blurring and ringing in your ears. 

Gold-tooth stopped it fast, punching you in the face. The world erupted into stars and the next thing you understood was that you were on the ground. Blood gushed out of your nose like a spout, your eye watering enough to blind you completely. 

“I told you to shut ‘er up!” the lanky one said, grabbing you by the hair to drag you back onto your feet. You were too dazed to struggle, leaning against the dirty brick to keep from falling. All you could taste and smell was your own blood. It flowed into your mouth, your throat. You gagged, coughing, sobbing, crying.  

“Woah, woah, woah, shhh. Someone’s…” gold-tooth’s warning trailed off. He was looking at the mouth of the alley. 

The lanky one grabbed you, pressing the knife against your throat. “Not a sound,” he told you softly, digging the knife into your skin enough to cut a shallow line. Gold-tooth stepped in front of you, almost like a shield. With the alley’s opening on your left, you couldn’t follow their line of sight, and you didn’t dare try to turn your head or make a sound, practically holding your breath.  

“What kind of lame ass party is this?” a very familiar voice called. You sobbed, relief flooding your system. “No booze and only one girl? Borrrrring.”

“We’re not sharing,” gold-tooth told him. 

“You know what you need? Entertainment. Lucky for you fellas, I’ve got a killer act.”

“Hey, friend,” gold-tooth said flatly. “Walk. Away.” 

“Hold on, he’s a pirate,” the lanky one said softly to his companion, significantly more trepidatious. He relaxed the hand holding the knife to your throat, letting you get in a good breath. Everything tasted like blood. “Look at ‘im, he’s that clown. He’s, um... Buddy or something.”

“Buggy,” Buggy said loudly, emphatically. “Buggy the Clown. My name is on the poster, why does nobody…” He huffed in frustration, you could imagine him composing himself. “Okay, here’s the deal. You give me the girl, and I let you live. Sound good? Actually, wait a sec. Hey, babydoll, you’re still alive, right?”

You groaned weakly.  

“I’ll take that as a yes. Great. You boys wanna see a magic trick?”

“Last chance, clown. I mean it.” The lanky one grabbed you, holding you in front of himself like a proper hostage with the knife at your neck again. Finally, you could see Buggy. Not much of him. The light hit him at a quarter angle. What you could see was a sharp cheekbone, the recognizable curve of his nose, and, when he moved his head, a faint glint where the light hit his eyes.

“I guess you’re up, friend,” Buggy said to gold-tooth, his smile evident in his voice even if you couldn’t see it clearly. “Show me your moves.” 

Gold-tooth pulled out a knife from his jacket, rushing towards Buggy. It was going to hit, Buggy wasn’t even trying to dodge.

“Captain Buggy!” you shouted, struggling against your captor despite yourself. The knife dug deeper into your neck, and you whimpered, going limp.

Buggy’s body separated at the last second, coming apart right where the knife would have landed. Gold-tooth had the wherewithal to try and execute a follow-up attack, but Buggy detached those parts of his body as well, letting gold-tooth rush right through him. When the sections of his torso snapped back into place, he tilted his head back to display the manic smile he wore. 

It left you feeling very, very cold inside. Your attackers might have been villains of the night, but Buggy was an unhinged madman cursed by the Devil. 

The lanky one swore, releasing you. Whether he meant to escape or attack Buggy, you couldn’t tell, but he rushed towards him. Knowing it was your only opportunity, you didn’t hesitate. Blood rushed a violent tempest in your ears. You scrambled forward, desperate to escape the alley. 

Too late, you realized gold-tooth hadn’t run away in fear of Buggy’s power. You couldn't stop your momentum, you didn’t have enough traction on the gravel. It slid out under your boots, carrying you forward even as you tried to rear back. 

He caught you with an arm like an iron bar, his other arm winding up and punching you in the stomach. The blow knocked all the air out of your lungs, leaving nothing but pain. You crumpled onto the ground with a broken gasp, a death rattle. 

All that existed was ringing in your ears and pain and confusion and you couldn’t breathe. The world went very, very dark. You squeezed your hand into a fist, feeling the painful stretch of your skinned palms, and let that stabilize you enough to open your eye. You had to blink over and over and over to clear it, coughing globs of bloody phlegm as your body tried to restart the whole breathing process, and then you raised your head to look at the scene. 

Captain Buggy was distracted with the lanky one, cackling wildly as he fought him. Even though you were accustomed to it, the sight of a shadowy man pulling himself into pieces and reforming over and over again was disturbing. Gold-tooth stood above you with his knife out, intending to try and get the jump on Buggy.

“Captain!” you shouted as loud as you could. Which, admittedly, wasn’t very. But Buggy seemed to hear you, finally turning to notice gold-tooth. The lanky one capitalized on his distraction, jumping forward with his knife. Gold-tooth moved at the same time, their movements impressively synchronized. 

You did the only thing you could think of and lunged for gold-tooth’s ankles, grabbing onto one and hanging on with all your remaining strength to trip him. He tried to kick you off, but all that did was destabilize him further. 

The men dropped at the same time. Buggy’s opponent went with a pained howl, his front criss-crossed with countless painful slashes as he stumbled and fell back into the darkest pit of the alley. Gold-tooth fell forward, going heavy and hard onto the ground. He let go of his knife. It skittered forward, stopping only when Buggy stepped on it, kicking it to the side. 

“I’m afraid that’s curtains for you, friend,” Buggy said to the downed man, approaching him with slow steps. Gold-tooth began cursing at him, scrambling to get up. Buggy beat him to it, jauntily kicking him in the head.

It was over.

You collapsed, braced on your skinned forearms, just trying to breathe. Everything, everything hurt. 

Buggy kicked the man again for good measure. And then a third time.

“Just so you know,” Buggy said, his footsteps crunching on the ground as he approached you. “I didn’t need your help. That was a test. You passed. Good job, babydoll.” 

You opened your eye to watch his boots get closer and stop. After a moment, you figured out how to get your arms beneath yourself. Buggy held out a hand for you to take, which you gratefully did. 

As soon as you were on your feet, you realized it was a mistake to move so fast, your head spinning. You stumbled sideways to lean against the brick. For a moment, you worried you would vomit. The taste of blood and bile coated the inside of your throat, the metallic tang mixing with the heavy, ripe stench of garbage that had been marinating in the humid Lafitte heat for far too long. 

Desperate to avoid that, you spit out a mouthful of thick, bloody saliva, coughing out as much of it as you could. You could breathe through your nose, luckily. The punch had landed more on your left cheek than dead center. 

“You’re not gonna pass out or throw up or something, right?” Buggy asked, nonplussed. 

“No, sir,” you said, the words scraping unpleasantly against your raw throat.

“Okay, good,” Buggy said. “Well, now that the show’s over, let’s chop chop get the fuck out of here.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Probably realizing you weren’t going to move on your own, Buggy grabbed your elbow, tugging you out of the alley and onto the street. Rather than going back the way you came, he pulled you across to cut through to the next road over. This one ran parallel to the seawall. As soon as you stumbled into the open night, a heavy wave of humid air slammed against you. The scent of trash wasn’t as intense, replaced by the stench of rotting seaweed and sulfur and acrid oil.

“What did they do, offer you candy?” Buggy asked as you tried to keep up with him, huffing and puffing and wracked with strange little half-sobs that came as much from the adrenaline pounding in your system as it did from leftover fear and pain. “I guess pops never taught you about stranger danger.” 

There were more people here, although not many. This part of the island was mostly filled with those unfortunate enough to call such a place home. Nobody paid you any mind as Buggy pulled you across the road, towards one of the sets of crumbling concrete steps going down to the beach. Well, ‘beach’ was a kind word. That would imply sand and an enticing, lapping tide and a hint of romance. The beach on this part of the island was a strip of silty grit, a thick band of seaweed clogging the tide like hair ratting up a drain, and the greasy churn of foul brown water. It was to its benefit that the night was too dark to see anything other than the gleaming sliver of a moon draping silver over the top of the water, nothing but deep shadow stretched out in between. Once the two of you reached the bottom of the steps, you were lost in the endless dark. 

“Captain Buggy,” you said, your breathing harsh and fast, your heart pounding mean and hot where you had been hit in the stomach. “Ss-stop.” 

“Really?” Buggy asked, annoyed.

Under any other circumstance, his irritation would have been reason enough for you to push yourself, but you couldn’t. “You can… go on without me,” you said, your voice distant and ragged. “I’ll catch up, I just need…” 

“Don’t be stupid, dipshit. I didn’t go through the hassle of saving your sorry ass just to abandon you here. You’d probably walk right into the ocean and drown.”

You drooped back against the grungy wall, unable to think of a response. 

“Why were you wandering on your own anyway? I gave you one rule, and you broke it. You know, I’m starting to understand how daddy dearest must have felt. If you weren’t already busted up, I think I’d go after you with a belt too.” 

You whimpered, your head rolling back.  

“This isn’t a bad look for you, babydoll,” Buggy said after a moment of nothing other than the ocean’s distant roar, tilting your chin up towards the moonlight. “Not at all. How about a little sugar for your savior?” 

You couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, he was just a shadow. Numbness permeated your body, even though you were aware of everything. Everything, everything. The soreness of your feet. The pain pounding furiously against your face, the smell of blood mixing with the briney scent of the ocean. All of it, and nothing. 

“Okay,” you said softly.

Buggy grabbed you, pulling you up and against him. Kissing hurt bad, as if it wasn’t hard enough to kiss him standing up. He had to lean down and you had to tilt your head up, holding onto his shoulders. Buggy didn’t seem to care that it hurt, or that you probably tasted like blood. He kissed you like he always did, like he was hungry, groaning into it when you whimpered helplessly. 

You didn’t fight him when he grabbed your hand to press against the front of his pants, grinding your palm against his hardening erection and moaning into your mouth at the feeling. Entranced, you mimicked the motion, getting an even rougher noise out of him. Buggy bit your lip before pulling your head away with a fistful of your hair. 

“I know last time didn’t go so great,” he said, “but whaddya say to giving the blowjob thing another try?” 

“I… um…”

“You… what?”

“I don't know.”

“Come on,” he said, irritated. “I just saved your sorry ass from two guys. I deserve more than a little peck on the lips, don’tcha think?” 

Your ears were ringing. Or maybe that was the ocean. “Okay,” you said. 

“Try that again, but with a little more gratitude,” Buggy told you. “Actually, you know what, I don’t care right now. On your knees, honey buns.”  

Since your knees were already skinned, you crouched down on your haunches rather than kneel, bracing yourself against the slimy seawall to keep from topping over. Buggy got his cock out so quickly it was almost surprising. Based on what you felt before, he was already halfway hard. With your eye slowly adjusting to the faint moonlight, you could somewhat make out its shape. 

“Say ‘aahhhhh’,” Buggy told you, swirling his cock around in front of your face like a mother with a spoonful of baby food trying to feed a difficult child. Some part of you, way deep down inside, was rightfully disgusted by that approach. But it was like trying to make out the words of somebody trapped at the bottom of a depthless well. All that you could hear was the echo. 

Unable to think of any other way to handle the situation, you did what you were told. Let it happen. Don’t think. With a palm scratched up and bloody, you reached up to guide his cock, opening your mouth. In a way, it was better like this. Nothing else in the whole world made sense, why should this? You were already free falling and helpless and confused, at least this was direction. 

Buggy groaned when you closed your lips around the head, sucking lightly like you would on his fingers. Shamefully, the scent of cock wasn’t all that unfamiliar by now, and the taste was just an extension, almost overpowered by the tangy flavor of your own blood. 

Your mouth was already overproducing saliva, slicking up his dick as you bobbed your head forward. It was easiest to brace yourself with your left hand on his thigh and one of your heels propped against the wall. Buggy released his cock so he could replace it with your hand, closing your fingers around him. He guided your fist down to pick up some of the excess saliva, easing the friction as he pulled your hand back up the shaft. Like Pippa said, a handjob. 

Thinking of that seemed so surreal, doubt of reality infecting your mind now that the numbness really set in. Everything that led you to this point in your life was some weird dream, or maybe more of a joke. A disturbing, horrible joke. Now things were quiet, and that was better. 

Buggy groaned, his hips impatiently pushing his cock deeper into your mouth. You choked a little, slurping around him. Saliva dripped from the seam of your lips. Confused, your tongue raised to slide against the underside and you could feel his cock twitch in your mouth so you did that again. 

“Good girl,” Buggy told you in a heavy, hoarse voice, continuing to guide your hand up and down the base of his dick.

When he let go of your hand to let you take care of it, you didn’t stop. This ended in Buggy coming, that was the way it was. Even you knew that.

At least until something—or somethings—got beneath the band of your panties, worming against your pubic bone and down. Your yelp of disgusted surprise was stifled by his cock. Panicked, you pulled off, and Buggy didn’t stop you. A flood of saliva followed, splashing onto the sand.

“Calm down, it’s just me,” Buggy said, laughing and holding up his ungloved hand. Or, what was left of it. A curve cut around the squishy part of his palm and to his pinky. Everything else, you assumed, was between your legs, working under the confines of your panties, he wasn’t even using his whole hand. “You didn’t think I was just gonna leave you out to dry, did you?” His disembodied fingers dug a little deeper, curling into your pussy without any warning. You shuddered, clenching hard around them. “I guess not dry. You’re soaked. Is this from earlier?”

You shook your head, completely lost. “I don’t…” 

“I bet you get off on being saved. That'd explain why you're so damn pathetic.”

The ocean roared. Sweat gathered in a sour line down your spine, beneath your bra, along your hairline. You should have worn it up, strands that had gotten in the way of your mouth were now coated with spit, sticking uncomfortably to your cheeks. “What?”

“One more time, babydoll,” Buggy said theatrically. “With feeling.” 

That was, as he often said, a laugh. You had no idea what to feel. The well only got deeper, the quiet spreading. Even the pain seemed so inconsequential, the agonizing ache from where you’d been punched in the face a mere background drone as you opened your mouth wide to take his cock. This time, you had a feel for it. He didn’t need to guide your hand along the base, which was for the best because his hand was busy in your panties. 

It kind of seemed like you should have been disgusted by the idea of Buggy using his cursed powers for your sexual pleasure, but you were cursed anyway, and sin didn’t compound, it was a flat rate to be paid in full at the Devil’s convenience.

For now, you could just accept that it was good. 

Everything was too disconnected and disjointed for there to be any coherence to the scattered sensations in your body, but the friction of his fingers drove the far away part of your living self wild. Unobstructed, they could easily curl against your g-spot, his thumb on your swollen clit. It was kind of like a choice. If you wanted yours, you would have to take it. And of course you did. If it was from Buggy, you always did.  

So you slurped and sucked and bobbed your head, striving desperately for some release from the straitjacket hold of the quiet and the pain and the sickness and the fear and the dark. If you could just feel that fast fizzle and let it consume you for a moment, that was enough. That was all there was. 

“Fuck, babydoll,” Buggy swore. “I knew you’d catch on quick.” 

The muscles of his thigh tensed and trembled against your hand, his hips thrusting restlessly against the pace you set. It was messy and unsteady and disgusting and his fingers kept hitting your g-spot in a way that had your pussy weeping around them, your hips trying to roll into a body that wasn’t there, to get more solid friction. More and more. His thumb ground down against your clit, the calloused pad catching against a spot of raw nerves that had you seeing stars.

Time didn’t really exist, so you weren’t sure how long you were held in that hellish limbo of almost. Pleasure curled and tightened around his fingers inside of you, and you held onto it with a death grip, knowing that it was the only way you could make any of this okay. Or maybe you were just selfish.

Now it was like you were the one at the bottom of the well, feeling your body finally give in to the tension stoked to a steady burst beneath Buggy’s fingers. Your body took over automatically, squeezing him so tight it hurt, your clit pulsing under his thumb, your hips rocking back and forth in a way that threatened to topple you over. 

He had to pull your head back and forth by your hair to keep you moving on his cock, but you didn’t care. Nothing mattered except for that exquisite flash, that sparkling sizzle of warmth, that moment of invulnerability. 

Too soon, it was over. You sobbed hard around his cock, feeling like the sensations had been cut short, like it wasn’t enough in the first place. Ruined. You were still falling, still quiet, still trapped at the bottom of a pit in the dark. 

“That was it, wasn't it,” he said, pleased with himself. “It totally was!” He laughed hoarsely, and then groaned. “You know, it—ah, fuck it. Get up.”

Buggy pulled you off his cock, scooping you onto your feet. He shoved your panties down your thighs to release his fingers, reattaching them at the same time he was picking you up and scraping you up against the seawall, scrubbing you into the grime. Your panties dropped down past your knees, falling to one ankle before he grabbed your thighs to wrap your legs around his waist.

His cock was coated in your bloody saliva, and your pussy was soaking, he slid in easy and smooth. Buggy groaned low in his throat, but you just gasped, and then whimpered. The way his cock filled you now that you were already sensitive and needy was almost more than you could bear, too much and yet unattainably distant. You writhed helplessly, your inner walls tightening around him to pull him deeper, to keep him with you in the only way that mattered. 

“You’re so lucky,” Buggy told you harshly, his voice like a growl. “I mean, with a pussy like this, who needs talent? My little mattress actress.” He punctuated those words with especially hard, wet thrusts. Whining, your fingers dug hard into his shoulders, grateful for the stability of his body against yours. 

Your head fell back against the wall, light as air. Buggy clearly wasn’t trying to savor the moment. This was hard and fast and sweaty and filthy and nothing but sickly need and animalistic gluttony. He pressed his nose against the side of your jaw, breathing hard into the hollow between your neck and shoulder as he fucked you. Each thrust pushed you up and down the wall, knocking your empty head against the hard surface, punching whimpers and moans out of your sore body. 

Your eye rolled up over his shoulder to the little silver curl of the moon. It blurred into a pale smear in an endless sky. You closed your eye, your mouth falling open as you moaned helplessly, holding onto Buggy as he fucked you hard and fast. 

With an open mouthed groan, he seized up, pushing his cock as deep as he could, grinding his hips against you as he came. 

Rather than pull out and release you right away like you expected, Buggy kissed your jaw with an open mouth, licking your feverish skin. Then your neck, sucking as he pulled away as if to relish in the obscene noise. Your pussy unintentionally spasmed around his cock and Buggy inhaled sharply through his teeth, pulling out and letting you drop. 

“Good lord, you're a horny little shit,” he said, fixing his pants. 

You opened your mouth to say something, but there were no words. 

He stepped back, leaving you to lean against the seawall. “Aren’t you gonna… Fine, I’ll do it.” Muttering about how he had to do everything himself, Buggy crouched down to get your ankle back into your panties, pulling them all the way up and giving your pussy a little tap. “There ya go, kiddo. Now c’mon.”  

You weren’t exactly aware when Buggy finally half-led and half-dragged you into a bar. The walk along the beach, a shortcut to get to the docks, had been a dizzy stumble in the dark. You let it happen numbly because that was easier than trying to argue. 

The light of civilization shocked and blinded you, like an unwelcome alarm pulling you from a feverish dream. The sleep wasn’t especially comfortable, but it was better than being awake. The bouncer tried to stop the two of you as soon as Buggy pulled you past the door. 

“I’m sorry, we don’t allow…” He looked you up and down, concerned. “Is she alright?” 

Buggy threw an arm around your shoulders, smiling widely. 

“She’s clumsy. I’m just looking for my—Oh, hey, Crina!” he called. “Get over here.” 

You watched dully, trapped beneath the weight of Buggy’s warm body, as Crina came over. She looked at you, clearly unimpressed. “What did you do to her?” she asked Buggy.

“Whaddya mean?” Buggy asked defensively. “I rescued her from two idiots with a death wish. Can you just give her a quick little look-see to make sure nothing's broken? I’m fine with the eye thing, but any other disfigurements would be overkill.” 

Crina sighed, giving you another look. “Let’s go to the bathroom,” she told you gently. 

“Great, I’m gonna go get us a drink,” Buggy said, releasing you and walking towards the bar. You watched him go, feeling very, very cold. Actually, you felt like you were going to pass out. Or throw up. Throw up, and pass out, and probably die.   

Crina cursed under her breath, turning to the bouncer. “Get me some rags, ice, water, and… The bar should have something like simple syrup, she needs sugar.” 

“That’s not my job,” the man said. 

Crina cursed even louder, not under her breath, and pulled out a wad of money. “Now it is.” 

The man pursed his lips, but accepted the money. “Rags, ice, water, and simple syrup. Are you gonna pay for that?” 

“Yeah, put it on Captain Buggy’s tab.” 

He nodded, turning towards the bar. Crina had to support most of your weight as she took you to the bathroom. Your head spun, your body wilting and drooping. It was hard to stay upright, and you felt sour and cold. The world trembled. 

“My… my dad's a doctor,” you told her. “If you get him then… he's a doctor, he can…”

“Hey, focus on me,” Crina said. “What’s my name?” 

“Crina,” you mumbled. 

“Okay, good. You’re gonna have to get onto the counter, can you do that?” It took an impossible amount of effort, but you managed to scramble onto the counter with her help. You fell against the wall, your body impossibly heavy. She tilted your head towards the light, but you kept your eye closed. It didn’t matter. Nothing did, you just wanted to sleep. 

“You have to stay awake,” Crina said, tapping your uninjured right cheek. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I dunno,” you muttered softly. The world swayed. That’s right, you were on a ship. “I wanna… can we go home? We’re almost there…”

“No. Hey, open your eye.” 

Through a tin can, you heard the door open. “Don’t mind me, ladies,” Buggy said brashly. “I got all the shit you asked for and one of those Dirty Sunrises you like.” You heard him set the supplies on the counter by you, but you were too tired to look. “Oh, oof. She looks rough. You hangin’ in there, babydoll?”

“She’s in shock, she can’t have alcohol,” Crina said irritably, wetting one of the rags in the sink. “This might hurt a little,” she warned you before starting to dab at your face. It hurt, but you didn’t care. You would be home soon, and Dad would help you, and then you could go to bed, and everything would be okay. “This blood is dried, what were you doing that took you so long to get her here?”

“Oh, you know how she is, I could barely get her to walk ten feet before she was whining about being tired.” 

Crina scoffed. “And you helped her with that, Captain?” 

“What?” Buggy asked, his tone thin like ice and unnervingly flat. “Is there something you wanna say, Crina?” You opened your eye to look, anxiety spiking you alert. He was smiling, but his eyes were dead. 

“Captain Buggy?” you asked weakly. 

His glare broke when his eyes flicked to you, that hard smile replaced with a smug smirk. “See? She likes it.” 

Crina shook her head, grabbing the bottle of syrup and squirting a healthy amount into the cup of water. “This is gonna taste weird, but you need to drink all of it,” she told you. 

“Don’t worry, she’s getting pretty good at the whole not choking thing,” Buggy said dryly, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed.  

You opened your mouth obediently when Crina raised the cup, drinking all of it without complaint. The cold water and the sugar were more of a wake up than anything else, and it cleared the sour taste of blood and cock from your mouth. You cleared your throat, coughing again, spitting more blood and saliva into the sink. 

“Okay,” Crina grabbed your jaw, wiping at the dried blood again. It hurt enough to make your eye water, but you accepted the pain. “It looks like he caught her left cheek. Her…” She paused before saying the word, stopping herself by clearing her throat. “Everything else is fine. It’ll bruise some, but the tissue around her eye is already so damaged, you probably won’t see the worst of it.” She raised your chin more, wincing at the shallow cut along your neck.

“If you think that’s bad, you should see the other guy,” Buggy joked through a mouthful of food. He was slicing off pieces of an apple, eating it right off the blade. “You’ll know it's him when you see the guy walkin’ around with his guts hanging out.”

“Is there anything else?” Crina asked you, ignoring Buggy. 

“I dunno,” you said, frowning. You felt a little more alert, but that wasn’t better. 

“She’s fine,” Buggy said. “A little pain is good for her, maybe it’ll teach her to listen to me.” 

Crina’s lips pressed into a line, but she nodded. “Maybe. I’ll get her cleaned up and then you can take her back to the ship.” 

“Great,” Buggy said, tossing the apple and putting his knife away. “I don’t know about you, babydoll, but I’m beat.”

You remembered that, after the funeral, Dad fully retired. At first it was to help you recuperate, and then it was for your safety. You were hurt because of him, because of who he was. That’s what he said when he was sober. You were hurt because of Mom, because she cursed you. That’s what he said when he was really drunk. Due payment. The price was her life, and your eye. The truth, you thought, laid in between. You were hurt because you deserved it, it was a consequence of who you were and what you had done.

Losing an eye worsened your health significantly. Not only the headaches, and the unsteadiness, and your ability to read and write for any length of time, but it also intensified the exhaustion that plagued you. You always felt cold and weak, so much that simple tasks took all of your energy.

Even something as simple as going shopping had become a laborious and tiring undertaking. People looked at you sideways, avoiding your left eye. They whispered about you. People who had once been friendly now smiled tight, polite smiles and excused themselves from conversation. And yet, somehow, the worst part of going out was coming up the hill and seeing your house, knowing you would have to go inside. No matter how warm the weather, or how merrily the sun shined, the house had an iciness to it. The walls absorbed the cold and held it there, bleeding out any warmth or noise that entered. Dad would say that was fanciful thinking. Dangerous thinking. And yet he so readily staved off the chill with liquor. 

You walked through the silent hall and put away the groceries, setting aside ingredients for supper, before taking a moment to compose yourself. The world, and everything in it, was so, so tiring. You were tired. Worn out all the way to the marrow of your bones, your flesh itself becoming as heavy as a thick winter coat. And your head ached. Always, it ached. You began to scratch at the scar beneath your eye before stopping yourself, pulling the bandana down instead.  

No matter how tired you felt, the day was not yet over. You stood up and smoothed your hair, taking the stairs with dragging feet. Dad spent most afternoons sequestered in his office. It was the coldest place of all. The hall leading to the heavy door stretched for miles and miles. 

You walked its length and knocked lightly, opening the door at his barked invitation. 

“Can I get anything for you, daddy?” you asked, peering into his dark office. He sat in the large, imposing leather chair, a mess of documents on his desk as well as an open bottle. He didn’t bother with a glass anymore. But his eyes were sharp enough, fixing on you in a way that made you want to shrink back. 

“Come in and sit down,” he instructed. You did so slowly, thinking quickly to figure out what he was going to say so you could get ahead of it, apologize or explain or whatever he wanted from you. When you were sitting, he looked at you, folding his hands beneath his chin. He stared and stared and you squirmed, pulling your bandana down.

“You’ve gone and grown up on me, haven’t you?” he asked.

You blinked, surprised. “What?” 

“I don’t know how I didn’t notice. I’ve been too preoccupied, I suppose, and now you’re becoming a woman.” He sighed heavily, rubbing his face. “I saw the blood in the laundry,” he said. “You’re bleeding.”

Your heart sank, your thighs pressing tightly together as if you were trying to hide evidence of your shame. “Yes, but I’m not hurt,” you tried to explain. “It’s… the blood, it’s not… it-” 

“I know what it is,” he said irritably. You closed your mouth, folding your hands in your lap. “How long?”

You struggled for the right answer, your confusion worsened by the embarrassing topic. “I… I don’t understand what you mean, daddy. I’m sorry.” 

“How long have you been menstruating?” he clarified. The more he talked, the more you could hear the intoxicated slur in his voice. “I assume it began before your mother died.” 

“It did,” you said, wincing at the reminder. He was so casual about the event, like it was merely something that happened. “I guess it was just… a few months before.” 

“How often do you bleed?”

“Not often,” you said. “Every few months. It’s okay, mom told me how to take care of it.”

“It’s not healthy for a girl like you to bleed,” he said, “it’s not healthy at all. It’s a filthy thing.” 

“But mom,” you began, having to clear your throat to speak properly. “Mom said it’s normal.”

“Your mother was wrong, and she should have told me,” dad snapped. “She never appreciated how frail you are, the sensitivity you must be shown. Your body can’t handle the stress of that muck. My sweet little girl…” He looked at you mournfully, dragging his eyes over you in a way that made your skin crawl. “I just don’t know anymore. Your body is changing, you’re changing.” 

“I’m not changing, daddy,” you said. “I’m the same as always.” 

“I saw you talking to a boy out there,” he said. 

“The butcher’s son?” you asked, confused again. And scared. The interaction had been polite and short, but you never knew how dad would interpret things. “That wasn’t anything, daddy. I forgot something and he was kind enough to take it to me, that’s all.” 

“No, that’s not it. You know it’s not, that’s why you look so guilty.” 

You opened your mouth to reply, but nothing came out. You were confused, and your head hurt, and this conversation was making you feel sick. 

“You’re old enough now that men notice you as a woman. They can’t help it,” dad said. “It’s your responsibility to shield their attention, otherwise you’ll give the wrong impression. Purity is the most vital trait in a young woman. Without it, you have no value.” 

“I’m sorry, daddy. I understand,” you said quickly, bowing your head, wishing very badly to climb out of your skin. 

“I only want to protect you, sweet girl,” he said. “Your mother… There was nothing I could do for her, but I will keep you clean and healthy. I’ll keep you pure, so you never go through what she did. The hysteria, the madness… No, not you. I’ll keep you safe.”

You nodded. “Thank you, daddy.” 

For a minute, a long, long minute, he merely looked at you, and you couldn’t look at him, preferring to stare at the floor. Finally, he broke the silence. 

“Come here.”

You braced yourself and stood up to circle his desk, knowing what he wanted. He tilted his head and you pressed your lips to his cheek.

“I love you, daddy,” you told him, just like always. 

He caught your hand, squeezing it to the point of pain. His eyes were bloodshot but sharp, and he stank miserably of alcohol. “And you know that I love you. Everything I do, I do because of how much I love you. That’s why I worry so much. You’re my sweet little girl. My precious girl.” 

Your medical treatment changed after that. Things you could and couldn’t eat and in small portions, the medicines you had to take, the examinations to make sure you were healthy. He said it was for your health, but you only got sicker. Weaker. And dad drank more and more, his temper flaring at the slightest provocation because of the stress. 

After the funeral, you hadn’t seen Randall almost at all. Whatever fling you had was long dead. He hadn’t become a Marine after all, instead taking up his father’s business. Dad was the one who broke the news to you.

That’s how you ended up in one of Mom’s ill-fitting dresses sitting at a corner table with other guests invited only out of familial obligation.

Even nearing fifty years old, and looking older yet because of his affair with the bottle, the Major cut a fine figure in his Marine uniform standing at the front of the room. People began to hush, anticipating that he was going to speak. Dad had that effect on people, a shroud of command. Just by seeing him, a person got the impression that what he said was important, that there was extra value in the words of a man like him.

“It would be remiss of me if I didn’t start by pointing out the obvious. I am not the man who should be standing up here,” he said. “This honor has been granted to me in the stead of my dear friend Harmon, as today it is the marriage of his son that we celebrate. He is not able to be here, that is true, but I can speak with authority on how proud he would be of his son. I know this because, although Randall is not my son by blood, he is a treasured member of my family. The pride I feel seeing him on such a joyous day as he takes this step forward in his life is immense.”  

He paused, giving that sentiment an appropriate amount of respectful silence. Randall’s mother—Harmon’s widow—dabbed at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. Dad gestured to the newlyweds, wearing a rare smile. 

“Melody, you are one of the finest young ladies I have ever met,” he continued. “When Randall first told me of your breathtaking beauty, I could hardly believe him—and I was right not to. You are even more beautiful than his descriptions led me to believe. There are few women deserving of Randall’s love, but I suspect there are even fewer men deserving of yours. Melody and Randall, congratulations to you both.”

Everybody raised their glasses, applauding Melody and Randall. The beautiful couple.

Dad went to Melody and offered his hand for the first dance, as he had practiced. She went gladly, taking his leathery old hand and standing as the first notes of the song began to play. There was a stiffness to dad’s movements from the life he had lived, an unsteadiness from drinking too much, but she made up for it with her fluid grace. When she moved, it was as if she were floating. You stared at Randall, wishing that he would look at you for just a single second, but he didn’t. It was silly to expect him to, considering the vision that was twirling around the dance floor with Dad. 

You turned towards the table, unable to keep watching. Other people were joining in to dance, but not you. Even if you had the inclination to do such a thing, you wouldn’t know how, and dad said it would be too tiring for you to try. 

It had been a bad week. He said it was the stress that was making you sick. Excitement and change, he said, were not good for your system. Only you knew the truth. It wasn’t stress of the mind or body, it was your broken heart. That was your most precious, and most painful secret. Dad knew nothing of your brief relationship with Randall, and you hoped he never would. It likely wouldn’t affect his opinion of Randall, but you knew what he would think of you.

Slut. Even after years and years, you remembered the way that Harper said that word. Dad called mom a slut a lot, and had even accused you of being one, but it was the dismissively casual voice of a child speaking about things she didn’t quite understand that remained in your mind.

A month or so later, you remembered getting a note, and you also remembered the one you sent in response. 

Northside hadn’t changed much, although it had been years since you sat on the old metal fire escape of the Slaughter. It was the only one of the buildings you dared to climb, since it was the easiest. 

‘Easy’ was a relative term though. You remembered how to navigate your way up safely, sure, but it exhausted you in a way it never had when you were young. Even just a few years ago, you had been able to get up here without a problem. 

Sometimes you could almost forget about your eye and frailty, sometimes you got to thinking about other things so intently that it faded into the background. But then you remembered that you were weak. That you could not do things that you used to do, or things that other people could do. That hurt. It hurt really, really bad. 

So you tried not to think about it. 

From your vantage point, you spotted a familiar figure round the corner, looking around for you.

“Hello there, stranger,” you called to him, waving. Randall looked up, squinting past the low-hanging sun.

“I don’t s’pose you’ll come down to me?” he shouted.

“Nope.” 

His shoulders slumped in exasperation before he approached the building, taking the first set of rusty stairs up to the second floor. From there was a ladder, and then more stairs.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” you said as he reached the top of the second set of stairs, unable to stop from smiling. Randall didn’t match it, too busy frowning, a line forming between his eyebrows. 

“I saw your message and got worried. Are you sure it’s okay for you to be out here climbing around?”

“I’m fine,” you said defensively. “I’ve been feeling better lately. Dad says it’s okay for me to be outside.” 

“Not here, though. He’d have a heart attack if you knew you were out here,” Randall said, frowning. “There’s been rumors that strange people have been hanging around.” 

“Dad said that’s not true,” you told him. “And I haven’t seen anybody, either. Have you?”

“Okay, fine,” Randall allowed. “But what would happen if you lost your footing and fell? You could seriously hurt yourself and nobody would know. What would your dad do then?” 

“You won’t tell him, will you? Please promise you won’t, Randall,” you begged. You couldn’t imagine what Dad would do if he knew you were going northside again, but you knew it would be bad.

Maybe you could imagine, you just didn’t want to. 

“I won’t,” Randall told you, “but you have to promise me you won’t come out here anymore. I mean it.”

“I promise I won’t. I just thought, when you said you wanted to talk to me, that it would be nice to come here. Like we used to.” 

Randall sighed, finally relaxing enough to sit down next to you, his feet dangling over the edge. 

“I’ve missed you,” you told him.

“I know, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been so busy with the business and settling in with the new house and Mellie.” He hesitated, shooting you a concerned look. As much as you hated yourself for it, you couldn’t exactly blame him. You hadn’t taken the news of his engagement very well. But that was a while ago, and you were fine now. It was fine. 

“How is she?” you asked, forcing yourself to sound pleasant. “Is she adjusting to life in Barley?” 

“She is, I think,” Randall said, clearly relieved by your mild reaction. “She’s a lovely woman. You and your dad should come over for dinner some time, I think the two of you would get along very well.” 

“I’m sure Dad would love that,” you said. Realizing the bitterness in your tone, you quickly added, “I would too, of course. I just mean… You’ll probably have to ask him. You know how he is.” 

“I will,” Randall said, nodding.  

You couldn’t think of anything to say after that, so you didn’t. It was strange, you had spent the better part of the last month imagining this conversation, but now that it was happening it was completely lackluster. There must have been something he wanted to talk to you about, but you couldn’t tell from his expression. 

“How are you?” Randall finally asked. 

The question took you by surprise. It shouldn’t have. It was the only thing people ever asked anymore. You dragged your bandana down, making sure it was covering the scar. “I’m fine.”

“The Major seems like he’s doing much better.”

“Yeah, I think he is,” you said, glad for the easier topic. “Dad picked up a new project he’s working on with, um, with the trade routes and everything.”

“He mentioned it when he came by earlier. He asked for my help.”

“Oh?” 

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you, actually. I would like it if we could be friends, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable when I’m around.” 

“It’s not… discomfort,” you said softly. 

“Whatever it may be, I want to settle it. Not only for my sake, but for yours.” 

“I love you,” you told him, unable to meet his eye, looking down at the ground instead. 

Randall stiffened up, you could feel it. “You can’t say things like that. I’m married.” 

“I know,” you said, swallowing the lump in your throat. “I know that. Just… May I ask you something?” You looked up at him, seeing his uncertain frown, his awkward posture.

“If you feel like you need to.” 

“Did any of it mean anything to you?” you asked softly. “If what happened with my mom and my-my eye, if that hadn’t happened, would you love me still? Would we—would you and me be together now?”

“No,” Randall said.  

Even though it was the answer you expected, and maybe even the kindest answer given the circumstances, the single word was a knife into your heart. The pain of it struck you so profoundly that it took the air right out of your lungs. You nodded, your throat too swollen to even attempt speaking. 

“I would like to make it clear that nothing that happened has anything to do with my feelings towards you,” Randall quickly explained. “I do love you, just not in the way you wish I would. You and the Major have been like family to me. I would do anything to protect you, and to see that you live a happy life.”

“You don’t have to explain anything. It’s okay,” you whispered, talking softly so your voice didn’t crack, forcing an agonizing smile to try and smooth things over. You didn’t know if it was worse to see his pity or his guilt. “It was a stupid question.”

“There’s somebody out there for you,” Randall said. “Somebody who can love you the way you deserve to be loved, who can give you so much more than I ever could.” 

You nodded, looking down at the ground so far below. “Yeah, maybe.” You cleared your throat, pulling your coat closer around you like an empty hug. “I’m not… I don’t want to make anything difficult with my dad or Mellie. I’m sorry you thought I might.” 

“Are you okay?” he asked, always so concerned. 

“Of course,” you said, forcing another painful smile. You’d rather be chewing glass, but you hated to think that you were making things more difficult for him than they needed to be.

Randall nodded. “We should head back. I need to get home to help Mellie with dinner, and the Major will get nervous if you’re out too late.” 

“Not yet,” you said. “I’m still a little worn out from the climb up. You can leave, I’ll be fine.” 

“I’ll stay with you.” 

“I just need a minute. I’m sorry,” you said, focusing on steadying your breathing. “When I was little, I could climb these buildings and run around like it was nothing.”

“I remember that.” 

“It’s strange to think about. I can’t imagine what it was like to have that much energy. Even on my best days I’m so—so tired. Everything is exhausting, no matter how much I rest, or what medicine he gives me. And sometimes it’s… it’s more than I can take.” 

“Have you told the Major about this?”

“No,” you said quickly, shaking your head and smiling. “He worries enough already, I don’t want him to think that I’m…” Insane. Sick. Weak. “I’ll be fine. I’m sorry for saying anything. It will all be okay.” You sniffled, wiping your nose and fixing your bandana. Your body was still weary from the climb, but you didn’t want to be here with Randall anymore, so you stood up and brushed off your butt. “Okay, I’m ready to go.”  

13 Days Earlier

Your body hurt, covered in bruises and scrapes, and if you thought about the attack too hard you felt fuzzy and vague inside, but when Buggy let you lay your head on his warm chest, you didn’t feel as bad. 

He saved you. Every time you started to feel too bad, you thought about that.

“Why were you out there yourself anyway?” Buggy asked, absently tracing patterns on your back. 

“I was asking where you were so I could meet up with you, like you said,” you told him. “And they said you were at the Cove and then I asked for directions and… The guy said it was easy to find, that there was no way I could get lost.” 

“Who said that?” Buggy asked. 

“I don’t know his name, he heard where I was going and gave me directions and…” You frowned, realizing your mistake. 

“I swear, the jokes write themselves with you,” Buggy said. “I wanna say I can’t believe you fell for that, but it’s not surprising. The only thing that’s surprising here is how you managed to live as long as you have.” 

You sat up so you could look at him. “How did you find me?” 

“I got pissed that you were taking so long so I went out looking for my missing midget. Then I heard a scream and I knew. There’s only one girl in Lafitte who could make such a god awful sound.” 

You frowned at him. 

“Seriously, I’m shocked that their ears weren’t bleeding when I got there.” 

“You’re mean,” you said, dropping your head back onto his chest as it shook with laughter. 

“I saved you, didn’t I?” he asked testily.

You sighed. “Yes. Thank you, Captain Buggy,” you said, raising your head enough to kiss his chest before laying your cheek back down. That seemed to placate him, his fingers returning to tracing aimless patterns on your back. 

“I’m surprised pops was ballsy enough to send thugs like that,” Buggy said.  

“I don’t think it was him,” you said. “Those guys… I really think they were going to kill me. They mentioned somebody else, but Dad… Dad wouldn’t want somebody else to kill me.” 

“Clearly, they were trying to bait me out so he could collect my bounty.” 

“Maybe,” you allowed, “It’s just that, they really seemed surprised that you were there.”

“Why would anybody want to hurt you if not to get to me?” 

There seemed to be several answers to that, none of them that you much liked, but his tone of voice made you think that it was better not to argue with Buggy. 

“You’re right, Captain Buggy,” you told him, holding onto him a little tighter, affection and gratitude and relief swelling in your chest. 

“Of course I am. Trust me, babydoll,” Buggy said. “I know exactly how he thinks.”  

You remembered the dress you wore. It was heavy and black and unappealing. You wore it because being a shapeless lump was better than risking Dad’s disgust, or inviting any amount of attention. And yet he still looked at you with scorn curling his lip, commenting on how unfeminine it was. You told him that nothing else fit you anymore, which only made him unhappier. 

You remembered the door opening, and the woman who stood behind it. Melody was a tall woman. Not tall comparatively—everybody was tall compared to you—but tall. Rather than seeming bulky, her height accentuated the elegance of her lithe limbs and slender build. And she was beautiful. On her wedding day, she had been radiant. Now she merely glowed, but even that was entrancing. 

She invited you inside warmly, giving Dad a hug and kiss and accepting the pan of rolls you made for dinner to take to the kitchen. Randall came out to greet you both, inviting you into the sitting room for drinks. Dad had a bottle of whiskey for the occasion, and you poured them all a glass. You weren’t allowed to drink on account of your health. 

“You have a lovely home,” Dad told Melody. “Do you think your husband will lend you out for an afternoon so you can help fix up mine? It’s been sorely lacking a feminine touch.” 

Melody had the grace to laugh off the comment while giving you an apologetic look, shrugging off the praise. “I can't take all the credit, Randy’s mother has been a great help.”

“Yes, she has,” Randall agreed. “You know, I heard all these horror stories about the wives and mother-in-law’s not getting along, but the two of them are practically inseparable.” 

“I’m the luckiest woman in the world,” Melody said. “Somehow, I found the perfect husband and another mother.”

“Do you think you could spare one?” you asked, wanting to make a joke to establish your existence. But the comment came out off-beat and awkward, too sharp to be funny. Everybody looked at you. 

Dad was the first to think of a response to break the awkward tension, forcing out a laugh. “You’ll have to forgive her manners, we don’t go out very often.”

The couple also forced laughs and Dad gave you a look. A very stern, very uncomfortable look. 

You didn’t say anything after that, only faintly listening as they spoke and joked and enjoyed the company. You were enthralled by the ring on Melody’s beautiful, manicured finger. It sparkled and flashed and winked with every gesture. Her lipstick left a pretty pink imprint on the rim of the glass. Everything about her was so softly and viscerally womanly. 

Eventually, she declared that dinner was ready and you were ushered into the dining room. 

“Oh my, this is wonderful,” Dad said as he sat down. “Are you sure you're not intending to host a king?”

“Oh, you flatter me,” Melody said. 

“Mellie is too humble to brag,” Randall said, “so I'll do it for her. She went to a fancy finishing school in the city before we met. You won't find a finer hostess in all of the East Blue.

“Randall, how in the world did you manage to find this woman?” Dad asked. “You’ll have to invest in a good beating stick to keep the men away from her. Hell, I'm half tempted myself. Perhaps she could teach this daughter of mine some proper manners.”

“Come now, Major. You’ve done a remarkable job. She's a far cry from that scrawny little scamp who was always scurrying around northside.”

Did he mean that to be funny? You couldn’t tell if it was a joke or a barbed insult, and you weren’t sure which intention hurt worse. Dad laughed at it, but you felt something inside of you wither away. 

“I’ll get our supper,” Melody said.

“Would you like help?” you asked, desperate to escape the room.

“If you would be so kind.”

You followed her into the kitchen, which was as warm and inviting as the rest of the house. Perfect. Everything was perfect. 

“I just need to prepare the plates,” Melody said, bringing a tray of steaming food to the counter. “Randy said that the Major likes fish, so I made a seafood casserole. I hope that’s alright with you.”

“I won’t be eating,” you told her. “I’m… Because of my health, I can only eat some things.” Her smile froze in place, awkwardly stuck there as she tried to think of something to say to that. “It smells delicious,” you said, hoping to smooth things over.  

“Thank you, do you mind preparing the plates while I get the peas?” 

“Not at all,” you said, picking up the spatula. The casserole steamed enticingly as you began cutting into it, the scent of creamy seafood washing the kitchen. “What’s a finishing school?” you asked to distract yourself, setting evenly shaped squares on each plate.

“A school that teaches etiquette and manners and such,” Melody told you, setting the bowl of peas on the counter. She frowned. “It seems like a bit of a waste now that I live in a tiny little town like this.” There was a distinct hint of disdain in her voice, a sharp turn from the cheery tone of before. 

“Do you want to live somewhere else?” you asked, setting a roll on each plate and then finishing it with a hearty scoop of peas. 

“Hopefully. Randall might be convinced to move after his mom passes,” she said casually, oddly cold about a woman she called a second mother. “I don’t want to raise children here.” 

“Oh,” you said. As painful as it was to see him around, the idea of Randall completely leaving Barley hurt worse. 

“I’m sure you’ll understand when you’re older,” Melody said, picking up two of the plates. 

“I’m sure I will,” you agreed passively, taking the third. You wondered if she knew you were the same age, or if she even suspected that you had once been so close with her Randy. 

“It smells divine,” Randall said as the two of you reentered the dining room. She set her plate and Randall’s and you set Dad’s. 

“I hope you like it,” Melody said as you took your chairs. “I tried a new recipe and I may have misread the numbers. I swear, I'm half blind sometimes.” She froze, looking at your covered left eye. “Ah, I didn't mean-”

“It's alright, my dear,” Dad said. “She doesn't mind.”

You smiled, nodding in polite agreement, and then you stared at the table while they ate, thinking about the purpose of going to a dinner where you couldn’t eat and nobody wanted you to talk. You understood why Dad limited your diet to keep you healthy, but not why he was so eager to involve Melody in the conversation. It wasn’t adult conversation, it was fluff. Nothing stories and overly jovial laughter. 

So what was it? Why wasn’t he offended by the way her dress hugged her curves, or the way she flirted with Randall, or her drinking liquor or eating. She even swore once, covering her mouth and apologizing demurely after the fact, and he didn’t look even slightly displeased. He called her charming and beautiful. 

Why?

When they were done eating, you were eager to get out of the room. Nobody wanted you there anyway. 

“I'll take the dishes,” you said, standing up.

“Let me help,” Melody told you.

“Nonsense,” Dad said. You could hear the slur of intoxication in his voice, making it louder, brassy. “She's glad to repay you for this fine meal. Besides, surely you wouldn't deprive an old man of such enchanting company. Genuine ladies are hard to find these days.” 

You took the plates to the kitchen and stood there, listening to them talk and laugh. Nobody minded that you weren’t there, you doubted they noticed. Choices were rarely ever made as a result of one event or feeling, you often felt as if you didn’t make choices at all, but the cold, hollow way loneliness gnawed at your heart as you stood alone in that kitchen was undoubtedly one of the many chained dominoes that led to finding yourself tied up in the dark in Captain Buggy’s cabin, swimming in a drugged stupor of sentimentality and self pity. 

The next domino of significance fell while you were at the docks. There were two reactions you usually got. Either people were hyper aware of your presence and avoided you at all costs, or you were utterly invisible. On the docks of Barley, you were invisible. Since dad was there so often, you became a familiar fixture, and over time you blended into the scenery. The Major’s poor little daughter. Or, less charitably, his one-eyed freak of a girl. 

You were not spying on the sailors, or eavesdropping. You were nearby, and you happened to hear their conversation. Sometimes you did that. You liked hearing about the world outside of Barley. 

“It was a weird Jolly Roger though,” one of the men was saying.  

“All pirates are weird,” the other countered, obviously bored with the conversation.

“No, this one was really… Here, let me show you.”

You peeked over your shoulder to see what he meant. He was sketching it out on a napkin. 

“Yeah, wow, a skull,” his companion said sarcastically.

“No, look, it had a big red nose. Like this.” 

“What is that, like a clown?” 

“Guess so, I didn’t get a real good look at it in the mist. But it was close. I’ve heard all sortsa weird stories about pirates in this area, and I’ve seen quite a few ships that shouldn’t be there, but you never hear about raids or nothing.” 

“Ah, that’s all bunk. They’ve been saying we got pirates hanging northside for years and I’ve never seen any of ‘em.” 

Feeling something very hot and anxious bubble up in your chest, you stood up to leave. And, just by happenstance, you glanced at the picture of the ‘weird Jolly Roger’ as you passed by.

And then you went out into the blinding daylight with some giddy feeling that you knew something they didn’t. It wasn’t just that the Jolly Roger was weird, but that the captain who flew that flag was a freak. That’s what Dad called Buggy. The Clown. A freak.

The risk of breaking into Dad’s safe was very, very high. He didn’t know that you knew how to do it, and you hoped that he never would. He kept lots of boring things in there, but it was also the only place you could look at pictures of Mom. Maybe they were too painful to be left out otherwise. He kept something else in there though, which was files of pirates. Retired or not, Dad hated pirates. 

You found the wanted poster with a relative amount of ease, stealing it and folding it into the waistband of your leggings, relocking the safe and setting the security so he wouldn’t know you got into it. 

That night, you looked at the wanted poster underneath your blanket and you made a list. A mental list, you didn’t really like to write anymore. Pros and cons. 

Pros:

The pirate Buggy’s wanted poster. Dad said he was a clown—Buggy the freak. That’s what dad called him. A freak. His didn’t look as scary as other pirate wanted posters you had seen, he looked younger too. Maybe a little scary. You had to fold the paper to avoid looking him in the eye. 

People didn’t mess with pirates. Marines did, but that was different. Regular people, the people who lived in Barley, would never treat a pirate like they treated you. Pirates got to talk in all conversations, even if they weren’t wanted. Who was going to stop them?

It was your best chance at getting out of Barley, at getting away from dad and Randall and the cold, awful house. If Randall was leaving soon anyway, what was the point of staying? And you had no delusions about being able to run away by yourself. You wouldn’t know how, you didn’t even know how to book passage on a ship out. And then where would you go? Where would you live? What would you do to get money? 

Cons:

The chances of the Buggy Pirates actually being nearby was incredibly low. You could go northside after dad left and check, but, really, what were the odds? Even entertaining the possibility was dangerous, fanciful thinking.

You were too weak to be a pirate, too frail. Too sickly. You refused to think you were crazy, you couldn’t believe that, but dad said you were, and maybe you wouldn’t know if you were crazy.  

Captain Buggy probably wouldn’t take on a crew member who had no skills to speak of, no talent or experience other than maintaining a household. Not unless you could think of some really good reasons.

Dad would be alone. Nobody would take care of him when he came home drunk, or make his food, or clean up the house. Nobody would fix his clothes or shave his beard or love him when he missed Mom. 

Oddly, out of all the problems you thought of that night, you didn’t think that one of them would be the simple truth that Dad would never, ever let you go. You didn’t think about the time and effort he put into your medical treatments, or the way he kept you cosseted up in the house. You didn’t think about how protective he was, how combative he got whenever you tried to be independent. Now, with a bit of space from the situation, you could recognize those things as odd. But, that night, you were only worried for him.

1 Day Earlier

There had been a fight. A mercenary sniffing around looking for a one-eyed hostage. Although you had your doubts about Dad sending the attackers from the other night, that man definitely was someone Dad sent. Ivo said it was your fault, that you were bringing all of this misfortune on them, that you were cursed from the beginning. 

Buggy said you shouldn’t worry about it. He laughed it off. 

But you couldn’t. 

So you snuck away during dinner. It was a plan you had come up with laying wide awake while Buggy slept soundly next to you. You worried. You really, really worried. There wasn’t much you could do for him, no way to repay the debt you owed him, but maybe you could help. Maybe you could do something useful, something only you could do. Lafitte was as shady as they came, but it still had law enforcement, and you knew they had a Den Den Mushi that could contact Marine lines. After you slipped them a little bribe, of course. 

The guy seemed pretty amused by the whole thing. People in Lafitte weren’t really the types that called Marines. He left his office for you, but the door hung open. You wouldn’t have expected privacy anyway. It didn’t matter.

Taking a deep breath, you dialed the number and waited. As soon as you heard it connect, your posture straightened out with a zip of electricity, your heart thundering hard in your chest. 

“Daddy?” you asked. “It’s me.” He didn’t say anything at first, and you wondered if the line was dead somehow, or maybe the number was different and it wasn’t him. “Hello?” you asked, confused and nervous that this had all been for nothing. 

“Is it really you?” he asked. His voice, even like this, was enough to make your heart ache. The feeling ran counter to your nerves, something painful and mushy and filled with longing. You missed him. 

“Yes, daddy. It’s me.” 

“Is he there? The pirate—that clown. Is he with you?”

“No, it’s just me. I wanted to talk to you. I…” You weren’t sure what to say. Tears burned in your eye, the conflict of love and fear choking you. It wasn’t the first time you regretted running away, but right then the feeling was more intense than any you had ever felt. It hurt. Physically, it hurt you. “I miss you, daddy.”   

“Does he know where you are? Are you safe?” he asked. “If you can, hide. I’ll have men there to rescue you as soon as possible and then I’ll get you home. I’ll murder that bastard for what he’s done. I need you to tell me everything.”

“No, that’s not why I called,” you told him, shaking your head. Nausea swam unsteadily in your stomach. Your hands shook violently enough that holding the mouthpiece took both of them. “I wanted to tell you that I’m safe, I’m fine. I-I love you, daddy. So you don’t—you don’t need to look for me anymore.” 

There was a long, long moment of heavy silence.

“Did he tell you to say this? What does he want?” 

“Captain Buggy doesn't know I’m calling you, but I need you to know that you don’t have to look for me anymore,” you said. “Please. I just want to… Please stop looking for me. I know you think I’m sick, but I’m-I’m not. I’m fine, I’m happy.”

“Happy?” he repeated. His tone of voice shot ice water all the way down into your gut, every single alarm bell in your head ringing at full volume. A cold sweat broke out on the back of your neck and you looked around, anticipating violence even though you knew he wasn’t actually there.

“He hired me,” you said. “I’m on his crew and-”

“A pirate crew.” 

“They’re my-my friends,” you explained, shaking your head. “And Captain Buggy is… He’s not like what you think.”

“He’s a pirate. An egotistical overgrown child with delusions of grandeur. He’s exactly what I think. Whatever he told you, whatever promises he’s made to you, they’re a lie,” Dad said, his voice hard. “He’s using you. He’s taking advantage of your weak mind. Once he’s done enjoying and exploiting the fruits of my labor, he’ll throw you away without a second thought. I imagine he’ll try to ransom you back to me, or perhaps sell you off to the highest bidder. All you mean to him is money and a warm body.”

“No,” you said, shaking your head fast. “No, that’s… No.”

“What else do you think would make you worthy of his attention? I have tried to mold you into a good, useful girl, but you’re sickly and you’re weak. You’re not smart or capable or beautiful. You’re practically a child. You need to be taken care of and given strict direction. The only reason a man would want a girl like you is because you’re easy and because you’re my daughter, don’t you understand? That’s why I’ve tried so hard to protect you. I never should have trusted you to be left on your own.” He sighed. “Help me arrest them and I will do what I can to protect you.”

“What?”

“Your Captain Buggy will be caught, and I’d wager it will happen soon. Give me information about him, and I will ask that you’re spared execution and released into my custody for treatment.” 

“I can’t do that,” you whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you want to come home?” 

You blinked out a single tear, staring hard at the desk. “A little,” you admitted weakly. “But I… I can’t. I made a promise. I’m sorry, daddy.” 

“My sweet girl, you’re not capable of surviving out there without me. You know that you’re sick, you know that you need me. This is the only chance you will have to beg for my forgiveness and help. Give me a reason to speak on your behalf. I’m ordering you to, as your father.” 

Your stomach turned painfully. “Daddy, I know that I’m… I don’t want you to be mad at me, really. I never wanted that. I love you. But I made a promise.” 

“When that man is caught and tried, you will be prosecuted right along with him. Has he told you of his crimes? He is a killer and a thief.” 

“I know.” 

“He killed Randall.” 

You froze, your heart stopping. For a moment, you could smell the blood and the old wreckage of the crumbling building. You could hear the way he screamed, the sickening sound of the blade getting caught in his neck.  

“I know,” you said again, barely audible. “Daddy, I’m begging you to stop trying to find me. Please. I love you, I will love you forever and ever, but I can’t live like that again.”

His facade broke with a noise that barely translated, a growl like sound. You flinched hard, whimpering. 

“After everything I did to keep you clean and pure, you turned out just like her,” Dad said, almost like he was ranting to himself. “Perhaps it was inevitable after all. You still belong to me. No matter what you have allowed that man to do to you, he cannot have you. I will find you, no matter what. You are mine.” 

With those words hanging like the final, solemn condemnation of an executioner, the line went dead. 

Slowly, so slowly, you hung up the mouthpiece. 

The man who let you use his Den Den Mushi seemed significantly less amused by you after having heard the interaction. You didn’t know what he might have taken from that conversation. You weren’t sure what you took from it. Disgust? Dread? Fear? Despair? You left the office with a brick of anxiety in your gut, the slow, sinking realization of what you had done setting in. It was all true. Dad was looking for you. He would find you. Calling him like that told him exactly where you were.

The sun was setting on Lafitte, you needed to hurry back to Captain Buggy. You had no idea what you were going to tell him. Overcome with sour nausea at the thought, you stumbled into an alleyway to violently dry heave, gagging on the sour bile that you squeezed out of your empty stomach. 

“There you are,” somebody said. You stiffened, turning fast with fresh terror making your heart race. It was not the kidnapping mercenary or Marine you feared, but a familiar round, red face. 

“Newt,” you said, relieved. 

“Hey there,” he greeted you awkwardly. “The Captain wants you back on the ship.” 

“Right,” you said, nodding and wiping your sweaty palms on your thighs, trying to hide the obvious evidence of your guilt. “Lead the way.” 

He frowned. “Yeah. I’m real sorry about this.” 

The last thing you were aware of was a sharp sense of betrayal, and then the cloying scent of some powdery mist Newt sprayed in front of your face.

The rest of it, sneaking northside with the vague idea that you were going to join the circus and be a pirate, converged with the last time you woke up dazed and confused and tied up. 

And just like last time, Captain Buggy was the one to pull you out of the stupor. He opened the door and flicked the light on, blinding you. 

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” he called, shutting the door behind him. He grabbed one of the chairs from the table that was pushed aside, swinging it around so he could sit on it the wrong way with his arms crossed over the back. “Sorry about the,” he gestured around. “I was hoping to get a cage up here, but it was a bit of a rush job. Maybe another time.”  

“Captain Buggy, what’s going on?” you asked, the words coming out mushy and heavy.  The light was too loud, too violent. Your head ached with each agonizing pound of your heart. You weren’t entirely sure this was real. Maybe it was another memory, maybe you were still lost. Maybe nothing ever was real because you felt awfully disconnected and confused. “Please untie me.”

“Only if you’re good,” Buggy said. “We need to have a little talk first. You’ve been a naughty girl.”

“You… you drugged me.”

He shrugged glibly. “Technically, that was Newt.” Oh, right. You remembered that part.

“Did he tie me up?” 

“Oh no, that was me. Couldn’t risk letting you make any more stupid decisions. Although,” he leaned forward to speak conspiratorially, “between you and me, it’s hotter than I thought it would be. If I weren’t so pissed right now things would be going very differently.” 

“What?” you asked. 

“Exactly, I’m glad you asked, babydoll. Because of your little stunt, we had to leave Lafitte early.”

Stunt. That one took you a moment, but the grief and despair was quick to rush back in right alongside the fear and uncertainty. “No,” you muttered, shaking your head in denial of it. “I’m sorry, I-” 

“Do you know why your dad only told a few trusted mercenaries and Marines that his daughter had been kidnapped?” Buggy asked, cutting you off. “Because, unlike you, he’s not a moron. Plastering your name and face on missing posters would be an advertisement to all of his old enemies that he misplaced most of his most valuable assets. If the Surgeon really wanted to save you, he had to do it quietly.”

“You’re… It’s because I called him, right? I just wanted to ask him to stop looking for me,” you tried to explain, although you could hear how cheap that excuse sounded.

“Did you now?” Buggy asked, his voice dripping with condescension. “Well, dipshit, what you actually did was let him know that you left because you wanted to. Now daddy dearest doesn’t care one bit if his little girl gets roughed up, she’s used goods and he’s got a bigger prize in sight.”

“What prize?” 

“Me,” Buggy emphatically answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And you,” he pointed at you, “are nothin’ but bait.” 

You frowned, your mind lagging behind trying to keep up with what he was saying. The anesthetic still gunked up the insides of your head, made your body all heavy and uncoordinated. “I don’t… understand,” you told him. 

“The news is that the Surgeon’s beloved daughter had been kidnapped by the Buggy Pirates. I’ll give it to him, that was bold. He’s trying to get everybody else to do his job so he can come in during the third act and collect my bounty. I can see it now—” Buggy raised his hands as if to showcase a marquee. “Past his prime has-been Marine takes the stage for the final time to stop one of the most infamous pirates in all of the East Blue.” His hands dropped. “Unfortunately, it’s a tragedy. For him. Sure, we’ll have to premiere sooner than I would like, not great, but it’s gonna make waves, babydoll. All this is just free marketing.”  

“Is that…” 

“Is that what?” Buggy asked. 

“Is that why you're mad at me, captain?” you asked, hating the feeling of embarrassed, pained tears pricking the corner of your eye, making your chin wobble. 

“Oh no,” Buggy said. “I’m not mad at you for that, sweetheart. I mean, I’m a little mad, but I’m not exactly surprised that you would run off and call home. I’d even say it was convenient if you had waited a day or two. No, I’m worried about you—about your loyalty. I heard your conversation with pops and I’ve gotta say,” Buggy clicked his tongue in disapproval, “yikes.” 

“You were spying on me?” you asked. “How? Why?” 

“Because I’m not stupid. I knew I couldn’t trust that you’d be honest with me about your conversation with him, and now I see why. Seriously, I did not expect it to be that bad. Shit’s nauseating. I knew you were a little stunted—mentally and physically—but hearing it firsthand... Bleh. You know what you sounded like? Daddy’s little princess. There’s something weird going on there and since you were a virgin when I got you, I can only think that maybe you’re not nearly as dedicated to me as you keep saying you are. That’s what this is, right? You’re playing both sides, waiting to see who comes out on top?” 

“No, I’m loyal to you, Captain Buggy,” you said. 

He gave you a flat look. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“I called him because… Because I thought it would make him stop. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, right. Because you didn’t believe me when I told you that I’d take care of you, right? That’s what you’re saying. But you trusted that daddy would do what you asked if you said it real sweet. Is that it?”

“I wanted to help,” you said, trying very hard not to cry. 

“You said you love him, was that supposed to be helpful too?” 

“No, that’s… He’s my dad, Captain Buggy.”

“You chose to come to me. You wanted to leave him.” 

“He’s still my dad.”  

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Buggy exclaimed, standing up and kicking the chair away. You yelped, curling in on yourself. “You know who takes care of you now?” He demanded loudly. “Captain Buggy.” 

“He’s the only family I have.”

“What,” Buggy asked, raising his eyebrows. “I’m not enough?” 

“No, that’s not-”

“If you think about it, I’m a way better dad to you than he ever was.”

“No, he…  it’s different, Captain Buggy,” you said, struggling to get the words out because you couldn’t fight the tears anymore.

“I feed you, clothe you, look after you. I keep you safe and I let you come every single day. What did he do? Beat you? Make you feel like shit?”

“Captain-”

“Why don’t you love me more than him?”

“Please-”

“What more could you possibly expect me to do!? I swear, you’re just like the rest of them. Ungrateful, miserable little—”

“Captain Buggy, please stop yelling!” you cried desperately. “I’m so-so sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, really, I’m-” Your words cut off with a broken sob. You couldn’t even wipe your eye or nose, having to hide your face against your knees to clean up some of the mess. “You know I only want you, you ha-aave to know I do. I would do ah-anything for you. I thought if I—if I could help you, then… I’m so so-” You couldn’t finish the apology, your words cracking over one another in your incoherent, blubbering haste to get them out.

He didn’t respond right away, leaving you to sob pathetically in the ensuing silence. Now that you were crying, it was like everything was flooding out. Every memory your brain saw fit to replay, every feeling of despair and sadness and misery and pain and loss and the acute ache of disappointing the only two people in your life who had ever really mattered, all of it gushed out all at once. 

“Aw, shit. Hey,” Buggy finally said, crouching down next to you. When you looked up at him, he pulled a face. He didn’t look angry though. “Eee—yikes, that’s… Okay, look. Let’s just take five, okay? Cool down a little bit. I didn’t mean that thing I said before about you being… You know. So, um, can you just… Not do this,” he gestured to your face, “anymore.” 

You sniffed, looking up in an attempt to stop the tears. “I’m sorry,” you said again, your voice breaking. 

“Yeah, I got that part. Okay, here, let’s…” Buggy flicked out his knife and sawed through the ropes around your wrists. You sniffled, trying to mop up your face as soon as you could use your hands. “Jeez,” he said, “that is a lot of snot.” 

That just made you sob more, you couldn’t stop yourself. 

“No, hey, I don’t even mind,” Buggy said quickly, clearly trying to placate you. “C’mere, you snotty lil brat.” He grabbed you, forcibly pulling you against his shoulder. Without any hesitation, you threw your arms around his neck, clinging to him. Buggy grunted, rocking back before stabilizing himself and awkwardly patting your head.

“Yeah,” he said. “There, there.” 

“I’m ss-oo, so sorry, Captain Buggy,” you said, your voice muffled by the way your face was squished against his chest. 

“I know,” Buggy said. “This really is a disgusting amount of—you’ve only got one eye that can actually cry, where is this all coming from?”  

He settled his arm around you like a hug. Even awkward and not at all comfortable, Buggy was holding you while you cried. When was the last time anyone did that? You couldn’t remember. Every other pair of arms you had sought refuge in had been cold or hard or unwelcoming, but Buggy wasn’t. He was warm and solid and scary and cranky and cruel and funny and handsome and he was all you had and-

“Captain Buggy, I love you,” you said. 

“Aw, babydoll,” Buggy cooed. “I know you do.” 

“No—oh.” You sniffled, wiping at your face as you pulled away to look at him. “I don’t mean kissing or holding hands love, it’s…” You grabbed at his hand, pulling it up and pressing it against your chest, above your heart. “I love you. Before I talked to him, I guess I still thought that Dad was… That some part of him would—would care about me, but…” You choked down another sob, hating how hard it was to get those words out. “The Surgeon is our enemy, that’s all.”

“Do you realize what that means?” Buggy asked. 

“I know,” you said, forcing yourself to harden against the soft part of your heart that shied away from that. “I know that. But I’m a pirate, and he’s a Marine.” You looked up to meet Buggy’s eyes. “And you are my captain, so… So whatever you think is best, Captain Buggy. I trust you.” 

#opla buggy #opla buggy x reader #buggy x reader #one piece live action #buggy the clown #buggy the clown x reader #my writing #flashbang #not sfw #tw.dubcon

[erikiara80]

A beautiful Byler-Polivia parallel, Will's truesight and other parallels with Fringe

I said I could make 50 posts after my rewatch of S4. I'm gonna start with the parallels with one of my favorite shows. Let's go! @lilitblaukatz

Olivia Dunham is Subject 13, and she has the ability to see and travel to the parallel world. In ST there are many mentions of number 13, and imo that's a hint that there are different timelines (not actual parallel worlds) and we've been seen them since the very first episode. In fact, Will mentions the number 13 in the first scene of the show.

Will-Olivia parallels

It was a seven. I read many theories about this moment and Mike's strange reaction. That maybe Will is in a Vecna vision, and that's why the lights flicker and "Mike" doesn't know what he is talking about.

Well, I think Vecna is spying Will; those eyes on the skis behing Mike! I think this detail proves that Will's abduction wasn't a coincidence.

But if this Mike is actually Vecna, shouldn't he know about the game and the Demogorgon? He can read minds, wouldn't he at least try to smile?

Then I remembered why this scene seemed familiar. It reminds me of a scene of Fringe, ep 3x15, when Olivia, who can't control her powers yet, travels to the parallel world and for a moment sees the other Dr Bishop, who is quite surprised by what she says.

(in 3x15 Olivia also meets Peter for the first time)

So, I don't know, maybe Will does have a Vecna vision later, at home. But when he talks to Mike, I think he's seeing a Mike from another timeline/or he ended up in another timeline (because the gate just opened?) I don't know. Maybe a timeline where Karen interrupted the campaign earlier, or Will rolled the dice and won. That would explain Mike's confusion, and the flickering lights.

And now I'm thinking about other parallels

The zeppelin and the Rainbowship

The first time Olivia sees the parallel world, she draws this

What if Will didn't just imagine the Rainbowship, but drew what he SAW, like he drew the vines?

Nina kinda looks like a little spaceship, so, maybe... I don't believe what Owens said. I think they were already using the silos before El lost her powers.

(EDIT: Spoilers of The First Shadow- Now we know that in 1943, the ship of Brenner's father wound up in Dimension X, during the Philadelphia Experiment, which was connected to the Rainbow Project. So, maybe Will's Rainbowship is a reference to that and a hint at different timelines)

But back to Olivia and Will. Here she's drawing while the adults are talking about her, and Will is drawing while Joyce and Hopper are talking with Owens, who gives major Walter Bishop vibes, and even has a son named Peter.

Byler and Polivia, the parallel of their first meeting

The Rainbowship is mentioned in the shed scene, the same scene in which Mike reminds Will of the first time they met.

In 3x15 Olivia draws the zeppeling, and in the same episode Peter finds her sketchbook and sees her drawing of the field of white tulips. Her drawings, that are connected to her powers and visions, help him to find her. And this is a beautiful parallel with Will and Mike, because Peter's life changes when she meets Olivia. They talk about her abusive father (in the shed scene Jon mentions Lonnie) and it's after they talk in that field that Peter decides to accept his new family and his new life.

Asking Will to be his friend is the best thing Mike has ever done, and their lives changed too, when they met.

I don't think there are parallel worlds in ST, just different timelines, because for some reason they're stuck in a loop. They mention time loops a few times, and Max even mentions it when they are in Henry's house.

In S2 Nancy tells Murray that his timeline is wrong, and in his letter Hopper says that you can't turn back the clock... But then Henry does it in the flashback. There's also this Back to the future line: The appropriate question is 'When the hell are they?'

And if there's really a time loop, I think Will and Henry can see other timelines or maybe the timelines are merging? There are so many hints.

From Will's Marty Mcfly outfit in S1, to Henry seeing the Mind Flayer when he was a kid. The crystal ball in the Will the Wise drawing, used by clairvoyants, the Forever Clock that Dustin gives to Will, Will's name engraved on the grandfather clock and him saying, in his Will the Wise outfit, that he's seen into the future. If they're stuck in a time loop, then the future is actually the past, since the story has repeated itself many times. Steve and Robin even mention the whole going back to future/present thing.

In 4x01 El says that they're all time travellers, so yeah, if Olivia can see and travel to a parallel world, maybe in ST people can see (or travel to) different timelines of the timeloop.

Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen

In the Nina scenes I noticed that Thirteen is often in the frame with El or Twelve (who I think represents Will). At first I didn't understand why. She never speaks or interacts with El. And I didn't know why they cast a girl that looks like young Millie. The actress said that the crew kept telling her that she looked like Millie, and before S4 many fans speculated that she would play El. Everything means something in this show, and the casting is always on point, so I thought maybe they want us to notice something? Then I remembered that Olivia was Subject 13.

So that kid could be a subtle hint that we're seeing different timelines in Nina. From the beginning, when El wakes up and see the rooms of Four and Nine. 4+9=13

Twelve and Thirteen

Twelve and Thirteen in the Rainbow Room. It's interesting that in both these scenes they focus on 12, "Will", and 13, who looks like little El, after they show the twins. Willel, twins, and different timelines...

Brenner and Thirteen's room

Thirteen and Eleven (and Twelve)

I really think that Thirteen is a reference to Olivia, and since Olivia can see parallel worlds, maybe this is a hint at the ability to see/travel to other timelines. I already thought that El was seeing different timelines, and that she was actually there, with her mind, but this is a nice detail.

*Another interesting 13 mention. The 13th birthday of a kid named Georgie. George, like George Smith in the play? We know that Will's birthday is important, and since this scene is about his parents, I think this mention is connected to both Will and Henry/Edward

Hm, a bit lost, because of other timelines/a time loop?

Anyway, I love Fringe and I love that ST has so many parallels with such a beautiful story.

#byler #tfs spoilers #the first shadow spoilers #will byers #mike wheeler #twelvegate #willel twins #time loop theory #timeline theory #henry creel #vecna #st theory #st parallels #el hopper #stranger things

[gorbalsvampire]

On Building Characters

I generally hold two things in my mind when I'm putting a character together at the dots-on-sheets level. Neither is the "quick and dirty" work-your-way-around-the-sheet process in the Player's Guide, where you decide if you're a Specialist or a generalist or a Jack of All Trades and just put dots in skills. I think that's really helpful for explaining and introducing how character creation works, but it doesn't go all in on the build to the extent that I like.

I try to walk the line between having a tuned, capable character with healthy dice pools in things that will be useful (key Discipline powers and hunting rolls for their Predator Type as a priority, survivability pools like social awareness, difficulty to surprise, and at least one decent combat roll as secondary concerns), and having a concept that makes sense as someone who was a person before they were a vampire and isn't just dots in the optimal places.

To understand my approach it helps to be familiar with the Stormwind Fallacy - the claim that "good roleplaying" is antithetical to "optimising character". It's nonsense, as Tempest Stormwind elegantly proved. Roleplaying is entirely a soft skill: one can play a finely tuned and powerful character to the hilt and still make in-character decisions that have entertaining, dramatic, difficult consequences.

There is a tension between optimisation and verisimilitude, though: a character who's been built entirely to be a good vampire often doesn't feel "right" or "good" because they're artificial: they weren't engineered as someone who existed before their Embrace. That's what the full process in the V5 corebook - not the two page summary spread but the chapter that follows, the full method for building a character - strives to avoid. As ever, slow and close reading of the book reveals deep truths.

In particular, the full method encourages you to break your skills down into Professional (two at three dots, two at two dots, one with a Specialty, derived from what your character's "day job" was), Life Event (one at three dots, one at two, derived from the most important thing that happened to your character) and Hobby (three at one dot, representing things your character has dabbled in).

Then you pick either one Skill to really overspecialise in (four dots, and you can move your Specialty in here too) or six more to pick up (two at two dots, four at one), and this is where you pick the "good at being a vampire" stuff that your character has learned to do post-Embrace. These are the ones that I like to keep plastic, fantastic, and somewhat elastic, selecting them to make sure the hunting, combat and survival stuff is taken care of. If you want to focus on combat, you'll need to pick a profession package that leans into it, and give yourself a reason for that focus. I'm looking ahead towards the stuff I'll pick next: Predator Type, clan Disciplines, and Coterie Type, so I know what to leave space for in my Background spend and contribute to the group fund.

The other thing that's always circulating in my mind is Flaws. In my experience veteran players kind of miss the point of Flaws in V5, expecting them to be customisation options like they were in the older game. They're more... story signals. You're telling the Storyteller this is the problem you'd like your character to have, a thing that's going to come up often during play. That means, from a "keeping the game functional and playful" perspective, you need to put some thought into what kind of obstacles, challenges, difficulties, barriers you enjoy overcoming, or don't mind being thwarted by. It's easy to pick something that ends up backfiring on you.

For example: I am really touchy about loss of agency and control. I won't touch the Weak Willed Flaw with a goddamn barge pole, because being able to throw some dice in active resistance to Dominate or Presence is important to me. I need to feel like I had a chance, however long of a shot it was. Now, one of my OCs should have this Flaw, it fits with the character and her relationships with authority, but if I'm going to play her in a chronicle I as player am going to repeatedly encounter something that discourages me from playing. It crosses a line, and setting myself up to cross that line repeatedly in play is a surefire way to make the play not playful any more.

That's what this optimisation stuff comes down to, really. Making sure your character is fun to play - that you can get stuff done in the game, and that you don't have to keep on doing things that spoil the experience for you.

#meta #vtm #v5 #vampire the masquerade #character creation #character builds #character building

[hawkinsgirlnextdoor]

okay but imagine dming a girls-only dnd campaign with Nancy, Robin, El, Max, and Erica

The D&D scene in Hawkins has always been kind of barren. A boys club if you will. Of course there was always the party and the Hellfire Club but you were always looking for a space where you could feel more comfortable playing with other girls. 

When things become more stable in Hawkins you acquired a solid group of female friends. Nancy and Robin are your age, and while you definitely spend time with the boys, you’ve started to hang out just the three of you. 

El and Max are younger than you but you always enjoy their company. You serve as a kind of older sister figure to the party and the two of them kind of look up to you. 

You’ve only recently started hanging around Erica but you like her a lot and once she gets in to D&D you two start to bond. 

It’s actually Erica’s idea to start the campaign in the first place. 

All of the girls are coming in with different levels of experience. 

Nancy has observed D&D through Mike for a good chunk of her life and has occasionally participated so she knows the basic mechanics and other random facts about the game. 

Robin has never touched a 20 sided die in her life. The people that she’s hung out with before the summer of 85 were never the type to play D&D and she barley knew it existed before the whole Satanic Panic thing started to sweep Hawkins. 

Max has always been a bit put off by D&D. At first it was something that was used to exclude her from the group and once she became friends with the party she would be insecure that she wasn’t as good at it as the boys were. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will had been playing forever and she feels like she doesn’t fit in.

When you pitch the idea to her you assure her that the majority of the participants are starting from square one and there's nothing to be worried about. That persuades her to give it a shot. 

El is just happy to be doing something with other girls. Of course she’s friends with Max but she longs for more female company. She also knows a little about D&D due to how much Mike has tried to explain it to her. 

Once Robin is introduced to D&D and learns the rules she’s super psyched about playing and creating her character. She also rolls her dice really weird (big Ally Beardsley ala Fantasy High energy). 

Robin is obsessed with languages so she quickly tries to learn Elvish and uses it during role play. Her experience in drama also leads her to commit especially hard (sometimes too much lol). 

As for classes and races: Robin plays as a teifling bard, Erica as a half-elf rouge, Max as a tabaxi barbarian (my first instinct was also rouge but Lady Applejack is already a rouge so gahhh), El as a half-elf mage, and Nancy as an elven duel class cleric and fighter.

Nancy is the resident note taker and jots down every detail, stat, and piece of inventory. 

She also probably unravels all of your planning with her great detective work. Like you’ll spend ten hours crafting a mystery that's supposed to be revealed in the very last session and she cracks it by the third.

Erica spends hours hand painting minis for each character. The detail is astounding.

"Did you paint a tiny star in her eye?" "I'm thorough."

El is that player who cannot do basic addition for the life of her (aka me). Max always has her back though.

"I rolled an eighteen. Eighteen plus seven is ....." "Twenty five." "Thank you."

El is also proficient in animal handling and constantly adopts wildly dangerous creatures to be her pets.

You might think that Erica is a head-straight-into-battle kind of player due to the absolute powerhouse that is Lady Applejack but she's actually incredibly tactical. Her and Nancy tend to alternate as party leader.

Max and Robin on the other hand are the kind of players who crave chaos.

You: "The villager seems to know something about the creature that lives in the woods. You can see however that he's apprehensive to answer any of your questions."

Max: "This guy is totally shady." Robin: "Yeah you're right ... we should punch him." Max: "Oh my god you're so right. If I roll a nat 20 can a tooth fly out?"

As a DM you are very attentive to your players. You craft scenarios for each girl to shine and show their growth as a player. You also make little dice boxes and customize. You make their favorite treats and have them in the middle of the table every session.

You notice they all seem to be getting closer and more comfortable with the game which warms your heart.

Sessions are hosted on Friday nights and usually conclude with movies, pizza, and sleeping over someone's house based on the availability of their living room.

Each girl also gets to make her own mixtape to play during sessions. The vibes of which are all over the place. Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, Kate Bush, Tiffany, Blondie. The works.

The environment of the campaign is so comfortable. Yes you're putting their characters through horrible danger and mental gymnastics but its out of love <3.

Your players are amazing. You feel so lucky that you're able to share something you love with the girls in your life and make it your own.

By the time you're nearing the end of your campaign Dustin and Lucas are begging to get in on the action for the next one, only to be disappointed when Robin slams the door in their faces clarifying that this party is "Ladies Only!".

#stranger things headcanons #robin buckley #robin buckley headcanons #nancy wheeler #nancy wheeler headcanons #erica sinclair #erica sinclair headcanons #el hopper #el hopper headcanons #max mayfield #max mayfield headcanons #stranger things x reader #self insert #just girly things #i love my girls #stranger things #rebel robin

[beesmygod]

i had this typed up for my newsletter im working on lol. i solved one of my health mysteries. tl;dr: food allergy

---

having a completely fucked up sleep schedule goes hand in hand with having a fucked up food schedule, which means my last meal is when the sun comes up and i dont get hungry until late in the day. any attempts to break this pattern risk waking up ravenously, eating-raw-meat-out-of-the-freezer hungry in the middle of what was supposed to be my sleep cycle. i do whatever the opposite of torpor is. i invented a worse way of mammalian living. do NOT steal.

so anyway, every night before i go to bed, i would fill my empty tummy with a delicious peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich. this is because strawberry is the tastiest, most accessible jelly. let me explain: when you go to a diner and search through the little jelly basket with all the jellies in it, you will see these flavors and these flavors ONLY!!! (ranked by deliciousness):

strawberry

orange marmalade

mixed berry

the putrid concord grape

orange marmalade is a distant second to the only good jelly on this list. i like strawberry jam.

in the mornings, i started eating special k cereal (red berries, again, the only good one) hoping the vitamin c would cure whatever was causing me to feel so fucking sick and miserable on a daily basis. every day i would wake up exhausted and every night i would go to bed in terrible pain from my entire chest down. it was hard to explain my symptoms outside of just feeling like total shit generally. to be honest, i thought it was just the result of bad living. my chest was often tight but i attributed this to how freakishly tense my body is from years of letting anxiety run ramshod over my brain and body. ive had this problem for over a decade.

recently, i went on vacation for a few days to d.c. with my boyfriend, adam. on the evening of the second day, as we shared a plate of fried chicken livers as romantically as possible, i told him, "i feel so good. this is the best i've felt in a long time!". and i really meant it. the rash on my face had cleared up significantly, my stabbing chest pain i had attributed to heartburn/dying was gone, and best of all, i felt like i could breathe. my chest no longer felt like it was being crushed and my lungs didnt feel like they were sticking together instead of inflating. my legs didnt even hurt as much when i walked, which seemed like a massive achievement to me.

i came home from d.c. late in the evening and returned to my nightly ritual sandwich. that's when i noticed, for the first time ever (now that i was unburdened with terrible pain elsewhere), that my mouth was burning and tingling in a way that might be textbook anaphylaxis.

i thought back to the time when my sister told me she liked the taste of bananas but they were too spicy for her. and how i laughed at her and said "what the hell are you talking about", which in turn lead to the discovery of her birch allergy. i also thought back to high school when i suddenly started feeling very ill, tired, and weak almost every single day. but i would still *~bravely~* find the strength to go into work nearly every day. i would be sooooo hungry by the time i got to my job immediately after getting out of school and wouldnt get to eat until i got home at 9pm. so i would commit a little corporate theft and eat some sample sized special k (red berries) intended for patrons. hmm. a pattern is emerging.

now i have an epipen and blood work being processed by a doctor who expressed mild horror at how frequently i was dosing myself with a little bit of near death experience just for delicious strawberries. as it turns out, you feel a lot better once you stop poisoning yourself on a daily basis. at no point did i ever think i was going to die from any of my various problems despite having every symptom that obviously points at a reaction. i dont know. i thought i just rolled some bad genetic dice and got stuck with the shitty body lol.

i did sort of eat the rest of the sandwich tho. it was good. no ragrets

[shegoesbyjoy]

i've been thinking a lot about why Disco Elysium in particular has touched the core of my being in a way no other piece of media has and i think there are several factors at play here. this is half a review and half me dumping my various thoughts on this game ever since i finished it a couple months ago.

AS A VIDEO GAME ITSELF—i've been trying to identify what exactly it is about certain games that causes them to rise above all the rest that i've played, and i have come to the realization that in all of them, combat is usually one of the least consequential things on that list. i love Hades, have dumped 160+ hrs into it, but despite it being a very combat-heavy game with extremely tight controls that i do find truly satisfying, that is not what kept me playing. it's the characters, the art, the story, the world-building, the music...

similarly, while the combat in Horizon Zero Dawn is really quite fun, what really charmed me about it was its spunky, badass protagonist and fascinating mechanical creature designs, in addition to the story set in a world that captivated me from beginning to end. Night in the Woods took my breath away with its emotional & poignant writing told through a unique & delightful art style. i didn't even finish The Last of Us, but Ellie's moment with the giraffes is ingrained in my brain—and of course i went ahead and watched someone else play through to the end so i could enjoy the rest of the story without having to slog through zombie fights myself. so while i always appreciate well-executed combat in games (and have given up on games that do it too poorly), it's never what keeps my interest.

SO. what happens when you take combat out of a game entirely, and absolutely excel at everything else? you see where this is going.

THE CHOICE OF MEDIUM—the fact that DE's story was told through a video game (as opposed to a book, a show, a movie, etc.) is absolutely crucial, because of your active role in the consumption of said story. i think that's what gives some of its scenes such devastating emotional impact. watching this train wreck of a character that you happen to be playing blurt out the most unhinged responses despite your best attempt to salvage the situation, coming to terms with the awful reality of what's in front of you at the same time Harry does, seeing the immediate results of your choices as well as slowly realizing how your choices affect the story long-term as the pieces start coming together... all of this creates an immersive experience that is unparalleled. the game doesn't take self-insert so seriously that the protagonist ~can be anyone~ (Harry's characterization is, in fact, very strong and well-established) but there's absolutely no way a Disco Elysium book or show would have the same impact as me having to progress the story by fucking around and finding out.

GAME SPOILERS AHEAD—combining these two aspects of DE helps to explain what made the tribunal the MOST TENSE i've ever felt playing a video game. this is essentially as close to combat as you'll get in this game. you've just spent the last 20-30 hours becoming very familiar with the mechanics of the game with regards to the dice rolls. you become accustomed to the fact that most skill checks are white so you can come back to them, and that red checks are comparatively rare. enter the tribunal: suddenly you have several very high stakes red checks in a row. you can't leave. you can't try an individual check again if you fail. the story itself has been alluding to this very moment throughout the game. people are DYING, and the lives of those that remain, including your own, are on the line. your earlier decisions have come to a head.

it was 3 am when i got to this point in the game, and the reality of the situation i found myself in shook off every bit of sleepiness i'd been feeling up to this point—my eyes were wide open and my heart was pounding.

i know many people who play video games derive a lot of satisfaction from perfecting mechanics, learning patterns, or deducing the weaknesses of a difficult boss. for me, this satisfaction gets dwarfed by the frustration of having to spend far too long dealing with it in the first place. triggering a boss battle oddly takes me out of the story, because it feels like a very marked switch from "being the protagonist in the game's world" to "sitting on my couch playing a Video Game", where the same repetitive action of "killing the enemy" becomes my goal, no matter what the game is.

by contrast, the tribunal was very much a continuation of the story with each skill check having immediate results on how that story plays out. no other moment in the game was quite like it, and i had no idea how this sequence of events was going to go, so every action felt extremely fraught. i was on the edge of my seat in a way no other game has gotten me to feel, because the weight of this encounter felt monumental in DE. and of course, this is where you come across an iconic skill check where you find out exactly how much your previous choices matter...

i was so damn nervous during this check i probably would've cried if i failed it lmao

FUCK YOUR EXPECTATIONS—this leads me to the other thing that's got me smitten with this game: the subversion of expectations. dialogue options are never written so transparently as to have a "correct" answer, and trying to stay neutral with my answers got me a well-deserved smack in the head in the form of a brutal burn about the dangers of centrism. we have 3-dimensional characters that make you growl in frustration one moment and your heart swell in the next, descriptions that make you marvel at both the beauty and ugliness of humanity, situations where you feel crushed by sadness and dread then want to cry tears of happiness because despite all of it, there is still magic left in the world. it's also so goddamn funny. this game is fucking hilarious—and what is comedy, what is a punch line but the subversion of an audience's expectations established during the setup?

Disco Elysium is a game that far exceeds the sum of its parts. it excels in its storytelling, its voice acting brings incredible life to said phenomenal writing, its gorgeous painterly art style is visually compelling, its music is flawlessly incorporated to full effect, it's intellectually stimulating and fascinating philosophically, and as a murder mystery (oh yeah that's what this game's premise is, right?) it's just plain fun to reveal clue after clue while pondering theories as to what the heck is going on. these individual components come together to create a multi-dimensional piece of media that's deeply human, yet fantastical and absurd. it's uncomfortably relatable while inspiring empathy for even the most unfamiliar of experiences.

for instance, i have no personal experience with alcoholism or addiction, but boy do i sure know what it's like to have a compulsion to apologize at every opportunity for simply existing—to want to cease existing, period. i don't know what it's like to grow up and live in a post-soviet country yet the experience in-game felt as vivid as ever, inextricable from the story's identity. i felt a pang of pained recognition in Kim's complicated relationship with his race as diaspora, and found myself wishing i had the ability to respond even half as effectively as he did with the Racist Lorry Driver during my own past run-ins with racist assholes. this game has caused me to think more deeply about my own politics, my relationships, the world around me, the power of art, the role of capitalism, beauty, hope... even what it means to be alive.

A CHANGED PERSON—a realization i came to a while ago while talking to a friend was that almost all of the media i had enjoyed up to that point shared a theme of escapism in one way or another. there have been many moments in my life where i wished to be somewhere else. to be someone else. i immersed myself in stories where the fantasy of it seemed so much better than the reality of my own life. this game forced me to reckon with where i am, who i am. and not only that, it encouraged me to be accepting and loving of the here and now, despite every single flaw i seemed to be obsessed with pointing out. it made it abundantly clear that constantly running away was not a viable way of living, and that flaws were not a reason to give up. "something beautiful is going to happen"—i should very damn well let it.

it's not an exaggeration to say this game has changed me irrevocably, and the fact that this impossible piece of art even exists in this world feels like a miracle. i'm so grateful that i got to experience it.

#disco elysium #disco elysium spoilers #personal #video games #wow this was long huh? #thanks for reading!

[drtrashgames]

Instead of trying to promote a board game I made, I wanna do something fun and explain the process of play-testing and designing my game!

The Initial Concept

I like D&D as a concept. I love the idea of exploring dungeons, collecting treasure, and being a hero in a fantasy setting. But I have severe ADHD, I’m terrible at math, and don’t have many friends I can reliably play D&D with.

So the initial idea I had was to make a single player board game, that has customizable pieces, randomly generated dungeons, and a simplified attack system. I’d also like to publish this through The Game Crafter so I need to find ways to try and keep the cost down and keep it relatively small.

The First Prototype

The first step was to make the randomly generated dungeon tiles. This was going to be the primary way you’d interact with the rest of the game, and it’s most exciting feature in my opinion. I settled on puzzle pieces because they’re small but would still connect together in satisfying ways.

But this left me with the first of many problems. How do you move through the dungeon? You can’t roll a dice, because you’d quickly either run out of room or spend a lot of time wasted backtracking. We’ll come back to this later. For now I just needed something that fit together.

I came up with the idea of having some dungeon tiles contain treasure chests on them, and some with skulls. Treasure would mean you’d get loot, and skulls would mean you’d fight monsters. This way as you traverse the randomly generated dungeons you would have randomly generated encounters too.

When attacking enemies I wanted the system to be simple. A sort of Hero’s Quest style of attack where rolling dice and reading their outcomes would be how you’d determine how powerful your attack or damage would be. At this stage I settled on 3 wooden dice with skulls on some sides. To keep track of the enemy’s health I settled on using small 8mm cubes that you could move down the card as they took damage.

Probably the most ambitious thing I wanted to make was a modular character tracker. The goal of which would be that you can swap out the health, attack, and player character as you grow and gain experience. This would provide you with more attack power, more health, etc.

I settled on 4 interchangeable characters with the vague idea that down the road I would like them to have special powers, making each one unique and helping the player pick a character that fit their play style.

To round things out I added some domino mats to keep the layout of all the gameplay elements in check, and some play money to keep track of treasure.

The First Playthrough

The first impressions I had was that I was on the right track. The puzzle pieces worked beautifully. Likewise encountering enemies and treasure was easy too. The game mats were a bit cumbersome, but I loved the tactile feel of moving the HP down when attacked, and swapping out modular parts as you leveled up your character.

However, one of the immediately apparent issues was movement. How do you move through this randomly generated dungeon? You can’t do it through dice rolls, and if you just move by yourself on your turn it makes backtracking boring. Once a dungeon was explored there was no danger anymore, and it was trivially easy to escape if you were in a pinch.

Additionally the domino mats I added were helpful… but cumbersome. I included an XP tracker, but the problem was that keeping track of your XP level required a LOT of space. If you only level up at level 20 or 40, you need 20-40 empty squares in between to keep you place as you gain XP. That meant an entire domino mat was dedicated entirely to tracking the XP, and it looked like a spreadsheet.

Simplifying Solutions

Ideally you’d want a way to keep track of your movement, but I did not have much space on my character tracker to do that. One of the play testers I had try my game suggested I keep track of movement with a D6. You would rotate the dice as you moved and gradually spent movement points down.

This was an AMAZINGLY helpful solution! Now movement was restricted, you couldn’t just exit a dungeon whenever you wanted, it offered gameplay challenges and potential to upgrade your movement slots as you leveled up!

This one change suddenly opened up the game and created a risk/reward system that made finding treasure and leveling up through defeating enemies super important!

To solve the XP tracking I reduced the giant domino mat of 100 boxes into a simple abacus. Two rows. Top row are 1’s, bottom row 10’s. Now you could track your progress from 0-99 XP while freeing up the mat to include other information instead.

Then there was the problem with rolling attacks. With the 3 dice setup, it was easy to get stuck in a loop of constantly rolling blank sides (missed attacks) for both player and enemies alike. While browsing around the Game Crafter website I stumbled across a dice that has 3 outcomes. 0, 1, 2. It’s called a betrayal dice and it was just what I needed!

With this one dice I could now make the attacks scale depending on the outcome! If you rolled a 0 as a level 1 character you’d miss, but if you rolled a 0 as a level 6 character you’d do 2 damage! All I needed was a chart that showed what the outcomes were and this could be a part of the character tracker that you’d swap out as you leveled up!

The Second Playthrough!

After another round of play testing I was finding myself enjoying playing the game quite a bit. It had a nice feedback loop that appealed to my ADHD brain. But there were still a few little things that were bugging me.

For starters, rotating the D6 every time you moved was cumbersome and annoying, especially since the numbers on the sides weren’t placed in intuitive ways. I found myself struggling to find the right number to move down from, and after doing that 100 times over through multiple sessions it was getting tedious.

The obvious solution was to have a tracker you could put a 8mm cube in like I had with HP. It would reduce the stress and allow for the movement to upgrade along with XP. The problem was space. With all of these laser cut component I was running out of room to fit everything. The Game Crafter charges by the sheet, and I only had one sheet of chipboard to fit everything on.

The other issue was I kept encountering situations where nothing would happen for long stretches of exploration. There were blank dungeon tiles mixed in between the treasure and enemies, and that resulted in some quests having no treasure OR enemies and quickly running out of your movement points before you could find anything. This was especially noticeable during the early portion of the game.

Enemies too could just be straight up brutal. Randomizing the deck kept things interesting, but it could be extremely easy to get wiped out by a high level enemy when you were low level. If you didn’t have the foresight to stock up on powerful weapons and health potions at the shop before hand, you could be in for a rough time.

And finally I had no real reason to swap out the characters. I had initially included 4 different player avatars you could pick from, with the idea that each had a special power to help you out. But I was finding that I often forgot I had powers at all and would frequently venture through quests never even using them.

I was having fun with the game, but it was becoming increasingly clear that I needed to tweak things again to fix these problems.

Choices!

While doing some research into game design I came across a post that talked about the importance of player choice. The theory was that at no point should a player be doing nothing on their turn. Randomization is fun and all, but the player should still always be making a choice of some kind to keep them engaged.

With that in mind I went back to work retooling my game with an emphasis on choice.

For movement I got rid of empty tiles except for T-section dungeon tiles. Now whenever you encountered a blank T-Tile, you would draw 2 additional dungeon tiles, place them on either side of the T-section, and then you’d have a choice of which direction you wanted to go and engage with.

This worked wonderfully! If you were on a quest to collect treasure, now the player would have a choice to chose the treasure option instead of an enemy, and vice versa! This also greatly reduced the number of tiles on the chipboard that needed to be cut, freeing up more room for other pieces.

With that extra space no, I decided to commit to the modular movement tracker instead of using a D6 to track how many movement points you had left. Now just like your HP, you’d keep track with a small 8mm cube that you’d move (far less cumbersome) and the modular nature meant that it could be upgraded easily as you earned XP!

This focus on choice extended into the treasure too. I began adding locked treasure cards that you’d need to open. You could roll a dice and depending on the outcome you’d either open it or fail to open it. OR the player could spend one movement point for a guaranteed open! This introduced a risk/reward choice for the player. If money was tight they could spend precious movement points to unlock it, or they could take a gamble and roll the dice in the hopes that they’ll be lucky!

I had introduced a shop that sold items, but now I added an on sale item. If you could complete a quest successfully not only would you get a little bonus money, but one item at the shop would go on sale for 1/2 off! This offered incentive to complete quests and not just run away when things got hard.

Kill your darlings!

There was one last issue I had to contend with. The special attacks. They were still useless. Up until this point I had had 4 interchangeable characters each with their own special attack. One regained HP, one did an extra point of attack damage, one regained your movement points, and one was able to unlock locked treasures.

For some reason these 4 options felt lopsided. I wasn’t sure why until I re-examined the specials and their function. I realized that my character tracker had 3 main areas that upgraded as you earned XP. Your HP, Attack, and Movement. But I had 4 characters you could swap out, which meant I needed one extra special that didn’t easily conform to what the tracker tracked.

And this is when I made a tough decision. I cut out one of the 4 heroes. Suddenly everything fell into place. Your sword wielder would do one extra damage, your wizard would regain HP, and your rogue could refill your movement. 3 characters, 3 powers, 3 modules that upgraded as you became stronger.

It was sad to see one of the heroes go, especially since art for them had already been made. But unfortunately cutting them was the right decision. And the additional space allowed me to fit in more movement modules.

Final Touches!

I was still struggling with specials though. I needed a way to keep the player aware of them. I needed… to track them.

This was a scary realization so late into development. I had little room on the chipboard to create more modular pieces, but I needed something to ensure players would remember they had specials at all.

That’s when I had the idea to tie specials to the enemies you collected in dungeons. I could very easily add a little dot on an enemy card that would indicate how many special points you’d gain from them if you traded them in for a special cube you could put on your tracker.

Now again there was a player choice. To get a Special Point you now has to weigh your situation and decide if it was worth giving up potential XP in order to use your specials. And when some of those specials include refilling your HP or movement points, that could become a crucial decision to make if you’re in a tight spot!

The final thing I did was make enemies color coded and have 2 different attacks depending on what level your XP was at. Low level enemies are green, mid level enemies are orange, and high level enemies are red. And since there were 6 times you’d level up during the course of a full game, that meant enemies scaled up as you scaled up. I even wrote a rule to shuffle in the high level enemies as you progressed so you weren’t always encountering dangerous enemies when you were still too low to defend yourself.

Treasure by Torchlight!

Since so much of the movement in the game revolves around movement points being spent, I decided to call these points Torch Points and focus the game around the concept of going into dungeons and fighting monsters while trying to keep your torch lit. Once it goes out you can still move, but monsters attack more frequently and so there’s always incentive to keep your torch light lit!

You now got to pick your character, use their specials to your advantage, explore random dungeons, fight monsters, collect XP and loot which could be converted into special attacks, and buy items from a shop that rewarded you for successful quests!

I made an entire D&D style single player game that requires no math, has lots of replay-ability, and is relatively compact! There’s enough randomness in the cards and tiles to keep things interesting and different every time, while also providing the player with lots of ways to make decisions and have an active choice in their gameplay experience.

I think ultimately I was successful in my mission, and I am very happy with the results! It tickles the ADHD parts of my brain that loves exploring maps and planning for my next adventure without being overwhelming.

If you’ve made it this far then THANK YOU for listening! I hope you found this exploration of gameplay design interesting and if you’re curious about checking out the game it can be found here:

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/treasure-by-torchlight

#treasure by torchlight #the game crafter #board games #rpg #fantasy adventure #process #games #single player #D&D #dungeons and dragons #self publishing

[verosvault]

My Love for D&D

‼️‼️LONG POST‼️‼️

I first got into D&D in the year 2020. I got into it through an online friend of mine who told me about "Critical Role".

I was obsessed with "Critical Role" for some time, and my obsession with the show unfortunately kinda- died out because I just simply ran out of time to even watch the show. Considering the length of the episodes and just of the campaigns in general. I really loved it though!

But I went back to consuming TV show content. The stuff I was really familiar with. You know, I was watching my favorites..."Criminal Minds", "Supernatural", "The Vampire Diaries", "Locke & Key", "Stranger Things", etc... The list goes on an on...

But in September of 2022, my love for D&D resurfaced and came to hit me TWICE as hard with the show "Dimension20"!

Now I'm telling you right now. I have now been into Dimension20 for a little bit more than a year, and I've BARELY gone back to watch my REGULAR TV shows. It's-...Dimension20 CHANGED me and the way that I view TV. Dimension20 really is like NO OTHER....just D&D live-play shows in general just HIT a spot that normal TV just...DOESN'T????

I honestly don't even FULLY know how to explain it!

I'd be watching Dimension20 and then try to go to watch "Supernatural" and I'd just make a gross face because "Supernatural"...as MUCH as I LOVE IT and IT'S ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE SHOWS! It's NOT COMPLETELY IMPROVISED!!!

I know that the main thing that really got me excited and giddy when it came to regular cinema and TV was being able to find and spot all the improvised moments from the actors that WEREN'T scripted!! Watching those scenes made me SO HAPPY and EXCITED because it's like- these people were REALLY IN-CHARACTER and were able to say something off-the-cuff that got accepted into the final cut because of how GOOD it was!

BUT! I NEVER IMAGINED that there was a type of show where THE ENTIRE THING was just FULLY IMPROVISED AND OFF-THE-CUFF! I think THAT'S what REALLY makes me GLISTEN EVERY TIME I watch a D&D show! There are SO MANY GOOD, RAW MOMENTS that feel SO FREAKING REAL!! But IT'S FULLY IMPROVISED! They didn't DO 20 DIFFERENT TAKES of ONE SCENE! They weren't reading from a script or a teleprompter! They were just...BEING THEIR character that they HAD MADE! And of course no one else could...RePLace(?) them because...they're the one that MADE the character! There's NO other person that could play a character that they had made other than...themSELF?!

Like...in normal TV, You have people getting replaced CONSTANTLY! 1 Example being like...Willy Wonka having like- 3 different actors. Riz Gukgak from "Fantasy High". Only Murph could TRULY play him because he MADE that character! Riz IS Murph to an EXTENT! You know what I mean??

Anyways...that whole idea of the improvisation that happens at a D&D table is...it's something that REALLY makes me PERSONALLY believe that D&D Live-Play shows are the best shows to ever exist. XD Again...that's just my VERY BIASED opinion! LOL!

But it's just-...The FACT that you can STILL get the REAL, RAW, TRUE emotion that you get from watching scripted TV in an UNSCRIPTED D&D Game where people are ROLLING DICE is CRAZY TO ME! But it's---

Another thing is like...you are PRESENT with the PLAYERS?!!! Like- when the Players are scared, YOU'RE scared. When the Players are sad, YOU'RE sad. When the Players are happy, YOU'RE happy! It's- It's a WHOLE OTHER experience! I feel like I don't get that with normal TV. Usually the actor isn't worried about the character before the scene happens because they USUALLY know how the scene will play out BEFOREHAND! They're not FULLY IN the moment? If that makes any sense? Like I know that sometimes the directors and stuff will keep stuff away from the actors but ya know- The actors gotta know at some point...ya know...BEFORE the scene gets filmed! They gotta know what they do before the action happens ya know? That's how TV works

But with D&D...Players DON'T know what's going to happen. They're at the SAME wavelength AS their character! They truly have no clue. They're playing a character and they might know what their characters will do in CERTAIN MOMENTS...but like- They fully don't know what's happening in each scene UNTIL it happens! That's what Improv is basically...

Like...When I was watching Dimension20 "A Crown of Candy"- like- no spoilers but- when the INTENSE moments were happening, I COULD FEEL it in my ROOM! I wasn't even in the SAME ROOM AS the players! But I could feel that intensity IN MY ROOM as it was happening and going down! I was TRULY SWEATING! XD

Because NOT ONLY do the players NOT KNOW what's going to happen...NEITHER does the DM!!! LOL! It's like a Director plotting a whole movie, but he doesn't know what's going to happen fully! That's how I see it! It's just- IT'S SO COOL TO WATCH D&D just HAPPEN!!

And that's the thing is like- Another example. "Fantasy High Sophomore Year". Again...no spoilers but that whole season is ALL THEATER OF THE MIND! It's all just WORDS BEING EXCHANGED AT A TABLE BETWEEN 7 PEOPLE! THAT'S LITERALLY ALL IT IS! But I LITERALLY HAVE MOMENTS IN MY BRAIN THAT I LITERALLY FEEL LIKE I SAW HAPPEN DURING THAT SEASON! Like...It's ALMOST like my BRAIN ANIMATED FANTASY HIGH FOR ME! In a way! Like it's- It's legit like a MOVIE getting MADE INSIDE MY MIND!! It's CRAZY! It's BONKERS! Bananas! I truly get shocked at what my brain does whenever I'm watching D&D! It feels like a fever dream tbh for real! And I just thought that my brain was doing that because we were seeing the battle sets but NO! It happens ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE ARE NO BATTLE SETS TO SEE AT ALL! It's KINDA SCARY! NGL! XD LOL! It be like an audio book except the author and the characters have NO CLUE what's about to happen! Agh! I LOVE IT SO MUCH! TRULY THE ONLY FORM OF MEDIA THAT CAN HAVE ME ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT THE WHOLE FREAKING TIME! I'll be on the EDGE of my SEAT ONE SECOND, AND THEN CRYING FROM EMOTIONS IN THE NEXT! It's- AHHHHHH!!! My LOVE for this GAME! IT'S SO HARD TO PUT INTO WORDS!!!

Ever since I was a kid, I've ALWAYS wanted a game where I could do ANYTHING I wanted to! I was always NEVER able to find it...until I did...and it's CRAZY how long it has EXISTED for that I DIDN'T know about it! Lol! It's-

I got no words left...I'm in awe- I can't even speak-

I LOVE this game TOO MUCH!

#D&D #Dimension20 #Dimension 20 #Dungeons & Dragons #Dungeons and Dragons #Blog #Thoughts #Rants #Passionate Rant #Passion #My love for D&D #I can't get enough of D&D #Obsessed with D&D FR #D&D is my current hyperfixation

[canmom]

suicide cw, please don’t reblog or anything like that. but here are some of the terrible thoughts that have been going around my brain whenever i’m not distracted lately. grief sucks.

i can’t believe that fall was planning to kill herself this last month or two since she reached out to me again. it just doesn’t make any sense. she wasn’t acting like any of the narratives i have of someone who plans to die. she wasn’t strangely peaceful, or closing her accounts and tying up loose ends - quite the opposite. nor was she like... talking about suicidal ideation, or expressing any visible sign of distress whatsoever.

admittedly she was often anxious, sometimes to the point of paranoia. she would be quite self-critical, she was so afraid that she was doing evil things. but... that’s not uncommon, i know many people who struggle with something like that. i did my best to reassure her and she seemed to take it on board. and... overall, she was excited. she was reaching out to old friends. she was starting new projects at a tremendous pace. like me, she seemed to have made some breakthroughs in her personal philosophy, and let go of some of the chains that used to bind her.

so... it took us all absolutely by surprise. me and jackie literally didn’t believe at first. i have sadly seen many suicide attempts and every time, the person made it through. so i thought it would be like that. she’d come back to us, we’d take care of her. we were waiting for news, desperately anxious, but i definitely thought, she’s going to come back and it will be fine. i tried to reassure jackie that way.

i really believed it.

we thought of many reasons to think she was probably alive. in many other scenarios, these lines of thought would have been correct and she really would have been fine.

but this time it wasn’t fine.

so like... when we can’t explain something like this, we label it something like ‘psychosis’. her mind, which made all those brilliant connections that we found so endearing, suddenly told her that she had to die. why? unknowable. she can never tell us anymore. her memories, and the process that could experience and express them... they’re lost to entropy.

if that can happen to her, who couldn’t it happen to? nobody is safe.

so yeah. anyone could drop dead at any moment. that’s what it feels like now. not only are there plenty of things that can suddenly break the body like cars and earthquakes and diseases, but one day a demon could spontaneously develop in your brain and all the pain in your life will become too much to bear and it is a roll of the dice whether you will survive that moment.

in some sick sense, i know i have been very lucky to have made it to 30 as a tranny without losing anyone to suicide. and, statistically, this probably won’t be the last time i go through this. demographically we are very likely to kill ourselves. because this world hates that we develop, and treats us in such cruel ways that lay all the seeds. because we are so often cut off from the web of support that holds people in this world - when we aren’t cutting off each other. (and the people who are drawn to make friends with us? are people who are very often in a similar situation. obviously we don’t have a monopoly on pain.)

i knew this. i have thought about this endlessly, using various frames. there was a time where i couldn’t go a day without dropping the word ‘disposability’. and then, at some point i thought i’d become resilient. i could be the one who stays calm and takes care of people when the pain overwhelms them. that was a story i told about myself.

but in fact i was like a soldier on a battlefield who thinks they’re invincible because none of the bullets have hit them yet.

i know all i can do is try to take care of everyone who’s left. dedicate myself to sharing all the feelings and experiences and pleasures of life with the people i am connected to as if any day might be their last. to help us all pursue all those “simple desires” that Fall had at last had a chance to express in the last few years of her life. so that on the day that the next one of us dies, we can truly say, we gave them the best life they could have had.

i will do all of this. i can’t not do all of this.

but

it still hurts so much. why did she have to die?

#suicide cw

[jadequarze]

This is so good, when Orym was explain how Keyleth couldn’t bring back his Husband ir his dad, my heart sunk, because Laudna was killed by the same people, how every Pike is a Cleric, she’s in the war domain now but was also once in life domain.

Honestly I feel like odds of a successful res are much much higher now

Did he actually say Keyleth or was it someone else? I might've missed hearing it. One factor is it might be because those assassins were experiments before the real deal. Maybe. Or they were kinda hoping that they can get to Kiki, preventing anyone from res her should she fall. It's speculation.

It all depends on the roll of the dice. The dice...

#asks #Anonymous #cr spoilers