#not so much salt but better safe then sorry

[yourlocalcorviddad]

Ok Ok so.

In dpxdc stories. Danny always gets assumed to be sick or uses it as an excuse or whatever to hide his powers right?

What if he wasn't lying?

It wasn't something easily noticed, not when half a dozen other things could explain it after all.

The shakes lingering? Well he'd used his ice powers a lot the night before fighting Skulker.

The faint feeling and lightheadedness? Well his mom had a good shot when people didn't interfere, and while he healed fast, it wasn't from nothing; he felt better after he ate anyway.

Heart racing suddenly? Probably just attempting to regulate the low beat on reflex again to seem normal but over shot it.

But the getting out of breath or spotty vision hadn't really been easily explained.

It was Mr. Lancer who asked about it after he'd gotten up from his seat in detention-happening less and less for actual reasons and more an opportunity to safely do his work and rest, after the truce with the ghosts to leave him and the town be during certain hours-only for the next thing he knew he was on the floor, head pillowed on Mr. Lancer's sweater, and a cool wet paper towel on his forehead and neck.

POTS. Post orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Not uncommon for those who had had injuries too their hearts to get.

It made sense when the teacher asked if he could have it. Apparently a friend of his's daughter had it.

From there, it made things easier to an extent. Salt was pretty easy to add, he figured out a wrist brace that he could extend into a cane if needed to.

In ghost form he didn't need it at all, but human form had its limits.

Despite all that he'd gone through, he graduates and even gets accepted to a college near jazz, hers was in Metropolis but Gotham had the ambient ectoplasm that he needed, and it was a day trip away.

And so Gotham U became his home, especially after his parents couldn't take that he wasn't "their son" anymore when he told them-after moving everything and getting his cheap apartment set up just in case. He considered it lucky that they loved their son enough they couldn't hunt "his ghost".

Last he'd heard they were working closer with the GIW but hadn't had much luck since the portal strangely closed soon after he left and the other ghosts didn't feel much reason to visit Amity anymore without him there.

It was Gotham U where he met Dick by literally fainting into his arms after a long day where he'd forgotten to eat and the early dinner the night before plus the going down the stairs at a quick pace and leaning forward with gravity.

"sorry, couldn't help falling for you~" the cheesy pick up line was the only thing his foggy brain could comprehend before he fainted.

#dpxdc #me giving Danny my own conditions cause i can? #more likely than you think! #but it can cause a lot of the same issues he has from being half ghost. heart rate can be really slow sometimes #bp can be really low heck I've read as dead on machines before lol #and other stuff #in phantom form it doesn't actually go away #it just gets healed fast enough that he doesn't notice #he deserves a bit of a break in it I'm not heartless #death defying

[marzipanandminutiae]

articles about the “wild new trend” of piercing from the late ‘50s and early ‘60s are fascinating to read. a selection of excerpts:

- one doctor cautioned that girls with pierced ears would be “required to constantly wear earrings to hide the holes in their heads” (or you could just not be weird about a tiny dot on someone else’s earlobe?)

- Genevieve Dariaux, then director of the Nina Ricci couture house, said in 1965 that “Pierced ears are unthinkable for an elegant woman, and even more dreadful for a young girl.” bear in mind that, as I’ve said, earrings that made your ears LOOK pierced were still common. what the difference was, nobody has yet made plain

- lots of evidence that going to a doctor was the preferred “safe” method for piercing at the time. but many doctors refused to do it, or said they would but that they strongly discouraged patients from having the procedure done. this checks out with my mother’s experience in 1965- her schoolmate’s anesthesiologist father did free piercing for all his daughter’s friends

- some teenagers around 1965 called clip and screwback earrings “chicken earrings” (implying that the wearers were too scared of pain to get their ears pierced, I think)

- one advice column, also from 1965, implied that pierced ears were just a passing fad. the previous several centuries of western history would like a word, Mx. Columnist...

- A GIRL WITH RESTRICTIVE PARENTS BRINGING UP THE ARGUMENT THAT HER GRANDMOTHER HAD PIERCED EARS. YES. FINALLY SOMEONE REALIZED THE LOGICAL FALLACIES HERE. the argument against that is, indeed, a sort of “that was the Bad Old Days and we know better now” deal as some other commenters have hypothesized

- one article mentions that the trend could be part of the Victorian revival that was just becoming popular in the mid-60s, which is a fascinating thought I’ve never considered before

- many doctors complaining that they were suddenly being called upon to pierce ears despite not really knowing how. this is interesting, because before the Great Ear-Piercing Taboo, jewelers offering piercing services were more like modern piercers than Claire’s employees (and doctors weren’t involved at all unless an infection set in). descriptions I’ve read of Victorian piercer-jewelers mention a lot of things we’re familiar with today- needles designed with a hollow for inserting the starter jewelry, for example, and even “freezing” solutions to numb the earlobe. so in those early resurgence days, going to a long-established jewelry store for your piercing might actually have been a better option than a doctor’s office

- two young women in a 1964 Canadian article (from Calgary) mention that they think screwback earrings look cheap and gaudy, and the pierced version is more conservative and tasteful, in an interesting reversal of mainstream thought

- a newspaper columnist saying pierced ears give him “the wim-wams,” so they are to be avoided. whatever the hell that means

- a LOT of people seem to think that ear piercing was popular in the Victorian era because wealthy women didn’t want to lose their expensive jewelry. sorry folks- my collection of Victorian costume earrings (all pierced) says otherwise

- much confusion as to why modern girls want to do something so old-fashioned

- one woman marvels at how comfortable it is to wear earrings in pierced ears, as opposed to clips and screwbacks. I feel infinitely blessed, as an earring-lover, to have been born when I could escape the scourge of ear-vises altogether

- apparently an eccentric elderly man on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, literally bribed all the women of the community to pierce their ears because he liked the way it looked. one of them mentioned that she held out for $25- $244 CAD or $188 USD in today’s money. all because some rich Victwardian codger had a very specific fetish

- this absolutely incredible response of an Indian diplomat’s wife when asked, in New York, why she wore a diamond nose stud: “Because I feel [diamonds] become me more than rubies or emeralds.” QUEEN

- “when the fad changes, as it indubitably will-” are you certain of that, ma’am

#long post #ear piercing #fashion history #retro #vintage #dress history

[seravphs]

ੈ♡˳·˖✶ — GOJO x FEM READER

Gojo has had better ideas than putting all of your friends together in one house, but at least you have a pool. 

wc — 2k

tags — large friend group, set after cruel summer but can be read as a stand alone, summer vacation

It’s already evening by the time you arrive. The sun is still warming the sky, but it’s descending steadily. It’s a shame. You had wanted to be there earlier. 

The minute you step out of the car and onto the grass, verdant in a way it never is in Tokyo, a large shape comes hurtling across the grass to snatch you up. Gojo grabs you around the waist and hauls you up so you’re trapped, kicking uselessly as he spins you around. He’s always been too strong for you. You pound his shoulders with your fists uselessly, demanding to be put down. 

“Hi,” he says breathlessly when he finally does. “What took you so long? I was waiting for you.” 

That shouldn’t make you as pleased as you are, but it does. You allow yourself a small indulgence, gentle brushing one stray lock of hair out of his face. He nuzzles into your touch like an overgrown cat, so sure of himself and what he deserves. 

Ijichi clears his throat. He cowers when Gojo shoots him a nasty look. You press your hand over his face and shove him back, leaning into the car through the passenger seat window to talk to the poor man. 

“You sure you don’t want to come?”

He eyes Gojo. “Absolutely, ma’am.” 

“I’ve told you that you don’t have to call me that,” you say affectionately. “I’m only two years above you, you know. Have a safe trip back.” 

As soon as he’s determined you’re done with your conversation, Gojo pulls you back to his side. He’s too handsy in a way only he can be, the way he always has been. He slings an arm around your shoulder as he steers you towards the house. You can hear music coming from inside, the strains of some pop melody off the radio’s top 100. Over it, Getou’s voice croons the lyrics, sweet and cheerful. 

It’s a beautiful house. Utahime picked it out and Gojo paid for it. It’s a beautiful pale blue, even more faded from the constant wear and tear of salt spray so it matches the soft hues of a perfectly sunny sky. The white trim makes it look like it’s been pulled off a movie set. It’s an adorable little thing. Utahime did a good job. 

As soon as you step through the doors, you’re attacked again. Haibara crashes into your arms so forcefully you knock backwards into Gojo, feeling your breath being crushed out of your chest. You wheeze in response, but still bring a hand up to stroke the crown of his head. You can’t be mad at him for being so excited to see you. 

Gojo can.

“Hey,” he warns, peeling Haibara off you. “Gotta be more careful.” 

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that you, Gojo, Getou and Shoko are the oldest now. Utahime graduated this year. 

“Sorry,” Haibara whines. Then he jumps on Gojo, too. 

Gojo laughs and pats his back. “You saw me two minutes ago, man.” 

As Haibara clings on to Gojo like a suckerfish, testing how long Gojo can put up with him, Nanami gets up off the couch. “Here,” he says, a hand out for your bags. “Let me take your things.” 

You follow him into the kitchen, where Getou and Utahime are arguing furiously. Shoko, without a care in the world, sits by the sink with her headphones in. Her eyes are closed, hair ruffled by the breeze coming in through the window. It’s beautiful outside. The previous owner had planted an apple tree right by the window, and now pink blossoms press against the glass like kisses. 

Utahime lights up when she sees you, opening her arms to you immediately. She looks so domestic in her white, frilly apron and floral sundress. Some part of you wants to fall into her arms forever. She laughs as she peppers your head with kisses. “So spoiled,” she says, but you know she loves you. She wouldn’t baby you so much otherwise. 

Of your entire class, Utahime had met you first. You were her first underclassman. She’s always been softer towards you and Shoko, but you have a special place in her heart. 

Getou’s a little more patient than Gojo is. He waits his turn for Utahime to release you before he scoops you up in a hug as well. You’re still wondering when Gojo and Getou will stop growing. It’s getting a little uncomfortable to hug them at this point. Even standing on your tip toes can’t get your arms over their shoulders, so your feet lift off the ground when he hugs you back. 

Shoko moves over on her seat to make room for you as the only two competent chefs in the entire house go back to arguing. Utahime throws syrup and ice in a shaker as she talks, pouring it into a tall glass of some sparkling liquid.

“No drinking before the pool,” she tells you as she hands you her signature mocktail. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt.” 

Getou rolls his eyes. “What are you worried about? Gojo and I are there.” 

She shoves his shoulder to get to the stack of plates she’s prepared. “Just because you guys are special grace sorcerers, you think you’re lifeguards too?” 

“Come on,” you interrupt. “No fighting, please! We’re here to have fun.” 

Utahime pauses on her way to the plates. She sighs, turns around, and plants another kiss on your hair. “Alright, alright. Truce?”

“We were never fighting.” 

You and Shoko exchange a look. Out back, Gojo has the grill set up. Nanami had taken your things to your room, but Haibara was already in the pool swimming laps. 

“Finally,” Gojo says when he sees the four of you coming with plates of food. 

“Show some gratitude,” Getou tells him playfully. “Utahime and I put a lot of work into these, you know.” 

Gojo’s already adding skewers to the grill. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Thank you mom and dad, we’re so appreciative of everything you do for us.” 

“Brat,” Utahime says, coming to your side. “Isn’t he such a little jerk?” 

You laugh. 

“She loves me,” Gojo says confidently. “She’s on my side.” 

That’s when Getou gets a sneaky look in his eye. “Want me to take over the grill?” 

“Nah,” Gojo says. “I’m better than you so- whoa!”

Getou snags Gojo by the waist and drags him towards the pool. He, in turn, grabs your wrist and takes you with him. When Getou dumps him in, you take the plunge too. 

Underneath the water, you open your eyes. Gojo’s white hair has turned blue in this underwater light, a few shades lighter than his electric eyes. He’s watching you back, his lips curved into a smile. 

Then, he grabs you by the shoulders and pulls you up with him. Breaking the surface, you gasp for air. 

“Are you okay?” Utahime calls. 

Gojo gives her a thumbs up as he starts pushing your wet hair away from where it hangs in your face. His hands are as pretty as the rest of him, long and slim, but they feel almost rough as he works. Maybe it’s the friction of the water against your skin. 

His hands feel good. He’s just touching you normally, but even the slightest bit of contact has your stomach in knots. 

For a second, you think he’s going to kiss you again, like he did last summer, but he just affectionately bumps your cheek with his. 

“Are you happy?” He asks, treading water. 

You follow him, regardless of where he’s going. “I’m always happy when we’re together. All of us.” 

He smiles. “Then I’m happy too.” 

Having finally reached his destination, he grabs the water gun floating on the surface of the pool that Haibara had left in earlier. Just as Nanami steps outside, he aims. 

Bullseye. 

Nanami curses him out as Haibara, who was on his way to greet him, ducks and weaves, ditching his best friend. Sometimes there are casualties in war, and he knows how to cut his losses. 

“I’ll avenge you!” He vows, tears in his eyes as he goes for the second gun. His aim is terrible. Instead of hitting Gojo, he hits you. 

Just as Gojo aims, Utahime calls,” Food’s ready!” 

It gives you deja vu. From the look on Gojo’s face, he feels the same. He gets out of the pool first and offers you a hand. You use it to pull him back in and climb out yourself. 

“Brat,” he mutters, parodying Utahime’s words. 

You just giggle, leaning into his side as the two of you walk towards the candlelit table. Utahime really does look like a mother in this light, her soft black hair falling over her shoulder. It’s slightly frizzy from the salt of the ocean nearby, but it only makes her look more charming. She’s wearing a floral bandana to push back her hair as she bustles about arranging plates. 

Nanami, ever dutiful, gets up to help her. When he passes her, he mutters something in her ear that turns his pale cheeks red, but she only coos and calls him her good boy. That makes the blush even worse. 

Gojo gives you a knowing look that you meet readily. “Ten bucks on the end of the summer?”

“Fifteen before,” you retort. 

“Ah, but there’s Getou,” Shoko says, coming up behind you. She drapes one arm over each of your shoulders. You turn your head to press a light kiss to her wrist. 

“Who says she can’t have both?” Gojo says. 

That’s sort of the crux of the situation. Both, all. It doesn’t really matter to you how things shake out as long as you all stay together. There’s a faith in this, something larger than yourself. Your friends are a god of sorts to you. This thing that all of you share is unbreakable, holy. No matter in what form it comes, you will always love each other. 

“Oh dear,” Shoko says, watching Haibara struggle under a stack of plates he insisted he could carry. “I’ll be right back.” 

Gojo secures you two one of the loveseats around the table. When you sneeze, he grabs a towel from the stack Nanami set out earlier and wraps it around you. You lean into him, relishing his warmth as he wraps an arm around you. 

“Nanami,” he calls. 

“No.” 

“Do me a favor?”

“I’d rather die.” 

“Yeah, yeah, we all know about your emo taste in music. Can you wrap a blanket around us?” 

“Why can’t you do it yourself?” 

“But I want you to tuck me in, please?” 

Utahime’s watching him. He brings the blanket. 

“Good boy,” Gojo coos, and Nanami turns bright red again. He stalks off to help Getou cook the last of the food, his shoulders rigid. 

“You tease him too much,” you tell Gojo as he settles in. Utahime comes by with a plate she already prepared for the two of you. Gojo blows her a kiss when he notices she’s piled his favorites on. She scoffs, but she’s pleased. 

She knows your favorites too. You snag her wrist and press a kiss to her hand. She ruffles your hair affectionately. “Eat up,” she tells you. “We have plenty more.” 

Slowly, the seats around you fill up. Shoko, carrying half of Haibara’s now much lower stack of plates, settles in on your right. Getou sits with her, letting her sprawl across him. He should be the one asking for more room, being so much taller, but it gives him more joy to indulge her. He feeds her a skewer by hand. 

Nanami and Haibara surround Utahime on either side. She rests her head on Nanami’s shoulder, taking slow, small bites. She’s always been elegant like that. Haibara leans against her in turn, chowing down with relish. Nanami hands him a napkin when he inevitably gets messy. 

When you’re done cataloguing your friends, making sure they’re comfortable, you realize you’re being watched yourself. Gojo’s eyes are intent. 

“Are you happy?”

“Why do you keep asking me that?” You laugh. 

He pretends to bristle. “What, I can’t care about my friends?” 

You give him a look that says please be serious. 

“Hey! I’m a changed man, you know. I can think about other people.” 

You laugh and snuggle in closer to him, letting his body heat continue to warm you up. “I’m just teasing. I know you care about us.” 

“So?”

“I’m always happy when we’re all together.” 

“Okay,” Gojo says softly. He pulls the blanket over your heads for a minute. Before you can ask what he’s doing, he presses a light kiss to the corner of your lip. “I’ll make it happen then.” 

“Hey!” Getou kicks Gojo in the leg. “What are you guys doing under there? Hands where we can see them, mister!”

#sera writes #gojo satoru x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojou x reader #gojo fluff #gojou fluff #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jjk fluff

[familyvideostevie]

living high until that fatal day

a/n: i never do this. literally, never. when i'm not here i'm writing stuff that's not x reader for ao3 and this is a fic i posted over there. it's a time loop story about joel and ellie. @bageldaddy told me i had to post it here. without her this fic would not exist. thank you so much, bea. so, here we go. if you read it, thank you. let me know what you think. joel miller & ellie williams gen fic. 7.5k words warnings: Time Loop, Fluff and Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, kind of???, it resolves, Suicide, only in one of the loops!, Canon-Typical Violence, joel gets stuck and has to figure it out, Father-Daughter Relationship, thoughts about sacrifice and love, POV Joel, mostly, this one is kind of intense folks, major character death tag is cause well the loop ends one way or another, gonna diverge at the end, but it ends well!!! i promise, also this is pretty firmly game but hbo folks should be okay!

summary: joel finds himself stuck in a time loop of that day in salt lake city.

Joel lies to her. 

He's got dried blood under his fingernails and his shoulder aches from the kick of the rifle and he's so, so tired. 

But he lies to her. 

If he was a smarter man he'd have thought of something better. Told her that the hospital got raided or they had a FEDRA mole, how the whole thing was a sham from the start. He doesn't know if she was awake for any of it. If the last thing she remembers is him reaching for her and failing to save her. If she remembers what it feels like to drown. 

It's hard to look at her in the mirror but he manages. Just keep driving, hands tight on the wheel. Don't white knuckle, don't spook her. She's in the car. She's safe. He did it. 

"We found the Fireflies," he says. She doesn't look at him. "Turns out there's a...a whole lot more like you, Ellie. People that're immune. It's dozens, actually." 

There's a strange pull in his gut, a pull that he's felt a few times before in the moments before everything went south. When the soldier pointed his gun by the river, when Tess looked at him on her last day, when he fell off the ledge in Colorado. But he ignores it. 

"Ain't done a damn bit of good, either. They've actually st--" Ellie closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. She doesn't look at him. "They've stopped looking for a cure. I'm takin' us home. I'm sorry."

She turns her back to him and the pull becomes a burn, becomes a black hole under his ribcage taking everything with him. He blinks once, twice, wonders if he got shot and didn't notice, if he cracked a rib and it punctured his lung, if --

The road in front of him disappears. 

He can't see a damn thing -- not like the lights went out, like there is nothing to see. There is nothing in front of him at all.

Then, Joel wakes up yesterday. 

___ 

He jolts awake with a strangled yell. Ellie kneels over him, the rifle he taught her to hold slung over her shoulder. It's just past dawn based on the color of the sky and how he can make out most of her face, her withdrawing hand and her unimpressed but slightly concerned frown. 

"You were talking again," Ellie says. "Nightmares?" 

Joel tears his eyes from her and thunks his head back down on his crumpled up jacket. The trees stretch high above him and he tries to get it together so he doesn't spook her. 

They’re camped within sight of the highway. Salt Lake City has been looming for days now and Joel doesn't want to take any chances. The ring-road is almost clear, dotted here and there with cars and a fair amount of supplies, enough that Joel suspects people haven't been here for some time. If this is another Colorado State situation, he's going to have to put Ellie in a car and take them back to Jackson before she does something stupid.

She's fine. Well, no, not quite. Things aren't the same and they never will be but he can tell she's doing her best and he won't ask more than that. Their pace has slowed this week and he's having a hard time figuring out if she's sliding back into some sort of post-Colorado haze or if she's nervous about actually arriving in Salt Lake. 

God knows he's nervous as hell.

But every day she'll walk as far as he tells her to and won't complain. He knows she wants to get there. They have to get there and it has to work -- because he doesn't know what they're going to do otherwise. 

She asked him a question. Nightmares. Joel sits up and drags his hand down his face.

"Somethin' like that."

Ellie shrugs and starts to clean up their camp now that he's awake. He still hates letting her take watch, but she needs to feel in control of things, so they split it most nights. She hums a little bit as she works and he has hopes that today might be a good day.

But that dream... It comes back in flashes: the giraffes, the tunnel. Ellie hanging from the side of the bus because she jumped to save him, her small frame sinking slowly, just out of reach. The crack of her ribs underneath his hands. The hospital. The Fireflies.

Joel gets up, rolls his shoulder at a phantom pain and looks down at his hands. Crusted with dirt and nothing more. 

Jesus Christ. He's losing it. 

They set off. 

The blue hospital sign seems to shine in the spring sun all too soon.

"This is where we get off. Let's go, kiddo."

Joel talks even though he knows she's not listening. He talks to take his mind off of the echo that sits at the base of his neck with every step. Has he told her he'll teach her guitar before? He's been thinking it for months. 

Ellie trails behind him, kicking rocks and half-heartedly searching cars when he asks her to. She heads for a faded blue sedan but he stops her. 

"Blue one won't open, don't bother." 

The look she gives him makes him think about what he just said. "How do you know that?"

He blinks. How does he know that? Before he can explain it, Ellie shrugs and keeps walking. 

The disinterest is new and it doesn't sit well with him. She's been through a lot, more than any kid deserves, and they're almost there. He figures it's worse today because of that. 

"I dreamt about flying the other night."

Joel's stomach twists. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Go on, tell me about it."

She tells him about her dream, about how it felt to fly and then fall, and he is dizzy with deja vu. 

"I've never been on a plane." Ellie looks at him like he can tell her what it means. Like he has any damn answers at all. "Isn't that weird?"

Joel hums and swallows the lump in his throat. The bus terminal. Ellie, drowning. Firefly after Firefly in his path. His hands flex around a gun that isn't there. 

"Well, you know. Dreams are weird." It tastes like a lie in his mouth but he can't figure out why. 

It gets worse when they find the bus station, when she runs off in search of something that's got her smiling. Her small hand reaches for the giraffe, her eyes bright, but Joel feels like he's watching it through a fog. He knows what she's going to say before she says it. 

"So fucking cool."

Joel has seen a lot of weird shit in his life but whatever is happening here is leagues above the rest. It bumps up against something in his brain, like the answer is just out of reach but he can't fucking get there. Always a step behind when it counts. 

Ellie hands him a picture of his dead daughter and something in him comes dangerously close to snapping. Instead of gratitude or sorrow or anything that would make sense, he's terrified. 

He's fucking terrified because this happened. Which means he knows what comes next. 

But there's no time to worry about it. They pick their way through the tunnel, through the runners and the clickers and the fucking bloaters. The pressure on his neck gets heavier, gets almost unbearable. He's strung tighter than he's been in years, like the walls are closing in on him and there's a timer he can't see. 

When they get to the rapids, he waits for Ellie to get to the other side of the bus until he jumps on it but it dislodges. The dam in his head breaks and he yells, screams at her to run, to leave him, but she jumps on the bus anyway. 

She drowns.

Joel doesn't doubt that the Fireflies are coming -- he hears them --  but he doesn't take his eyes off of her, doesn't stop the chest compressions until he's knocked out.

The rest of it is a blur, his sense of reality already warped by his need to get to the operating room. To save her. 

Joel picks them off one by one, floor by floor, hardly taking note of how familiar it all feels. He doesn't even give the surgeon a chance to speak before he's dead, a bullet between the eyes. He knows they'll make it to the elevator. He kills Marlene. He drives them away.

He lies. 

He wakes up yesterday again.

___

It takes a few days before Joel purposely deviates from what he's thinking of as the script. His head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds when he wakes in the clearing, Ellie's eyes on him.

He thinks about it as they pack up camp. Can he get them out of here? Would that be allowed? The rules of this aren't clear to him but he figures it can't hurt to try. They could turn around right now and make it back to Jackson in a week or so. 

He watches Ellie carefully arrange her things in her bag, watches her stop to admire a butterfly in the branches above. He watches her and tries to see her alive and not pale on an operating table. 

"Ellie," he says. "I got a bad feelin' about this."

She loves to tell him he's overreacting but today she crosses her arms and sits back on her heels. "What do you mean?"

Her scream as she falls into the water. Her ribs cracking beneath his hands. The piercing alarm in the hospital, her body warm but limp in his arms.

"What if we waited?" She frowns but he keeps going. "Went back to Jackson, rested up. Took a break. Come back in a few months with a bit of a crew. Tommy'll give us some guys, hell, I bet he'll come with if you want --"

"No," Ellie says sharply. There's an edge to her voice he hasn't heard in a long time. "Joel, shut up."

"Ellie --"

She stands abruptly, takes a few steps back. "I said no."  The look on her face tells Joel he's already lost. "Are you -- are you fucking kidding me? You want to go back? Now?"

He sighs. "Just to rest up. We don't know what we're walking into --"

Ellie throws her hands around in disbelief. Her eyes look wet. Christ, he's made her cry again. He promised himself he wouldn't do that. 

"We don't know if they'll still be there."

"We don't know if they are there."

"And we won't find out if we fucking run away like cowards!"

Joel stands. "I don't want another Colorado State situation, Ellie --" Her face shutters. Mistake. 

"Don't bring up Colorado," she growls. "You don't know what that was like." 

Damn right he doesn't. He knows by now what happened but he'll never know how hard it was for her to survive when he was busy dying on that mattress. But he has to try something or they'll just end up here again tomorrow. Yesterday. Whatever. 

The idea of her suffering makes his hackles rise, makes his blood run cold

. 

"Can I finish a god damned sentence?" he snaps. Ellie is undeterred and snaps back.

"Not if it's going to be about leaving. We-- I -- we're not fucking leaving. Not after everything. We can't."

Joel sighs and drags a hand down his face. This girl. He's trying to save her and she can't see it. There's no way to make her see it and it's his fault. She should know by now that he'd do anything, anything, for her. He lost that battle a long time ago, probably longer ago than he'd like to admit. 

"I know," he tells her. "Just...if you want to give it all up, to go back, we can. We don't have to go through with this."

Ellie's eyes are blazing and her tone is disappointed. It cuts deep. "Yes we do. I thought you'd understand that, Joel."

He follows her this time as she stalks down the highway towards the hospital. No mention of six strings, no dreams about planes. They catch the giraffes but she doesn't stick around to watch them for as long. It's a different kind of loss to be without her smile, her laughter. Joel wishes he'd never opened his god damned mouth. 

"I'm sorry," he says. "For earlier." Ellie pauses on the stairs and half turns to look up at him. "I know it's important to you."

She sighs. "I know you mean well." Joel closes his eyes. He knows what comes next. "But there's no halfway with this. Once we're done, we'll go wherever you want, okay?"

He plays his part for the rest of the day, just to get it over with. 

___

Next time, Joel waits until they're watching the giraffes to try something different. 

"So," he says. "This everything you were hoping for?"

Ellie gives him her half-smile. "It's got its ups and downs, but...you can't deny that view, though."

He seizes his chance. "Wanna go down there?" 

She perks up. "Really? Do you think they'll let us get close?"

"They might. Let's try." 

They manage to backtrack a little bit and end up on the field. It smells like a zoo but Ellie is thrilled to be so close so they post up on the roof of a rusty FEDRA Jeep. Two of the giraffes end up eating out of the tree right above them. Ellie holds her breath. 

"They just...don't care, do they?" she whispers. "How long do you think they've been here?"

She leans into his side and cranes her neck to watch one of them use its tongue. 

"Don't know," he says. "Big ones could've been from before. But the tiny one s'probably younger than you."

"So cool," she says again. "They're from a zoo, right? I wonder if anything else lives in the city."

They've been sitting here long enough that the sun has started to set. Joel allows himself to hope. 

"Might be. What do you say we spend the night here and look on the way to the hospital tomorrow? Daylight'll do us better."

Ellie chews on his suggestion. "I guess," she says. "Are we safe here?"

"Should be." Joel has no idea, frankly. He sure as hell wants them to wake up here in the morning. He wants to make good on this idea, wants to show her something else that'll make her smile. He wants this to be a bizarre, unexplainable day that he'll forget about with time.

"I'll keep watch."

They set up camp crowded against the fence so Joel can see the whole field. The giraffes leave them alone and Ellie falls asleep quickly after they eat.

In the quiet open air the dread in his gut returns full-force and he knows he's wrong. Again.

A branch cracks and he whirls around, rifle in hand to find three men pointing their guns at him through the wire. They might be wearing Firefly jackets but he can't tell. He doesn't care. Joel dares to look at Ellie for a second and sees she's still asleep. 

It's a mistake.

One of them follows his gaze and his eyes widen.

"Holy shit," he whispers. "She looks like who Marlene said --"

"Shut up," the second one hisses. "On the ground, old man."

"How are you gonna get around that fence, hotshot?" he says. "Ellie. Ellie, wake up."

She blinks a few times and sees his stance. scrambling to her feet with her knife in hand.

"Holy shit. What the fuck?"

"Get behind me."

One of the soldiers points his gun at her. 

"Don't move."

It's chaos after that. The guys shout at each other. 

"Don't point it at her! Don't you remember the fucking briefing?"

"You hadn't even joined when we got here, you don't know. We've been looking for her for months --"

"If you shoot her we're all dead --"

Joel locks eyes with Ellie.

"When I say run, you run. Okay?" 

The fear in her eyes turns to determination. Brave girl, he thinks. I'm sorry. He waits for the idiot pointing at her to look away and takes a deep breath. What's one more day?

"Run!"

Joel doesn't check to see if she obeys before firing through the fence. The rifle is incredibly powerful at such a short range and where there was once a head there's only mist. Joel clears the chamber as fast as he can and gets the second one in the shoulder but he's not fast enough for a third and before he realizes it he's on his back in the grass. 

The Firefly's assault rifle litters Joel's chest with bullets but he doesn't feel it until he tries to take a breath and nothing comes. It's like he's underwater.

At least he didn't make her cry this time.

__

Joel isn't much of a believer in anything but he decides fairly quickly that he's in Hell or something close. God knows he deserves it. 

His sins are countless, his ledger dripping with red just like his hands. They will never be clean. What he can't figure out is how he got here. Did he die somewhere in St. Mary's? Is the real world somewhere else beyond his reach, now? If he died then what happened to Ellie?

He tries to make tallies in the bark of a tree on the edge of camp but they disappear every time he wakes up. He makes do with his own slowly unspooling brain. Two, five, ten.

Ellie is much the same every time but somewhere around day twenty she asks him about it. "How do you know where everything is?"

They're in the bus depot before the tunnel. He's taking them quickly around the tents, putting off Ellie handing him a photo of his dead daughter. It's muscle memory at this point. A pair of pliers here, some rags there. A half-empty but uncracked bottle of hooch behind that blood-stained bed, some bullets under that overturned partition. 

"Just payin' attention."

"I pay attention!"

Joel uses the excuse to grin at her. It's hard sometimes to remember that she has no idea what's coming, that he can and should be good to her every chance he gets. The violence has already started to blur together in his mind. Killing everyone in the hospital is by far the easiest part of this fucking loop. These parts are harder. 

"Didn't say you don't."

"I feel like that was a double negative."

She's still energized from the giraffes and he knows she's working up the courage to talk about Sarah, but right now he wants to spend time with her. He spots the Firefly medal tangled in the shattered floodlight and points it out. 

"Ellie," he says. She's at his side in seconds, looking up at him with eyes brighter than he's seen in weeks. "Wanna get that down?"

She gives him her classic why are you like this look. "Are you going to be weird and pick it up?"

Joel shrugs and leans on the rotting tank nearby. "Just want to check your aim."

"My aim is really fucking good and you know it!" Even so, she picks up a brick from her feet and palms it, eyeing the silver circle before winding her arm back and hurling the brick towards it. 

She misses. Maybe three hundred miles and a trail of dead bodies ago she'd have stormed off, embarrassed and pissed. But she just makes a face at the still-swinging medal and then looks at him. "How did I miss that?"

He pushes off the tank and scoops up a glass bottle. "Sun s'probably in your eyes." Joel stands next to her and eyes the target, trying to compensate in his mind for her height. "Stand here." Ellie moves over in front of him and he hovers his arm over her. "Can I?"

She nods. Joel presses the bottle into her hand and she takes it as he maneuvers her with a hand on her elbow until she's got the trajectory he thinks will work. 

"Now?" she asks. "Feels pretty fucking similar to what I was doing."

"Just trust me. Throw a little lighter than last time. And higher."

Ellie sighs, but once he steps back she does as he says and nails the medal hard enough that it drops to the ground. She whoops and turns around, hands high in the air and a wide smile on her face. Joel tries to breathe through how easily she puts her faith in him. 

"Fuck yeah! Did you see that?" She holds both hands out for a high five and he obliges. 

"Sure did. Nice job, kiddo."

When Ellie hands him the picture of Sarah, he pulls her in for a hug. He half expects her to shove him off but instead she allows it, twisting her hands in his shirt as he cups the back of her head. 

"Thank you," Joel says quietly, thickly. 

Later, when he finds her on the operating table, he presses his lips to her forehead for an extra moment before picking her up and heading for the elevator. 

__

He messes with the order of things a little bit. Tries to make their morning last longer, tries to stay watching the giraffes for an hour or so. 

Sometimes it works. 

Sometimes it doesn't. 

Watching Ellie drown over and over fucks with his head more than the hospital does because he can't stop it. At least while he's leaving behind corpse after corpse he knows that she's asleep upstairs, waiting for him. In the tunnel, he knows that the only way out is through, but she has to fucking drown first. 

He gets sloppy. 

He forgets about the runners in the side rooms when he ducks in to avoid a clicker and takes a step too close. Ellie is behind him as always and he shoves her back blindly as three runners slam him against the metal railing of the stairs before he can reach for his gun. He's too surprised to feel anything, but their breath smells like rotting meat and something worse, something that makes his eyes water. 

Joel searches the room for her and finds her -- pale-faced and terrified, already reaching for her knife. He tries to say her name but it comes out as a scream when one of the runners goes for his shoulder, jagged teeth ripping through his shirt in an instant. 

"Ellie -- run, Ellie -- GO --" He begs her to leave him but his voice stops working as his throat is ripped out. The last thing he sees is her horrified face as she raises her pistol.

And then he wakes up yesterday. 

___

It occurs to him on day 30 -- if he's keeping track accurately -- that he's got one of the smartest people he knows at his disposal. Kid's got an encyclopedic knowledge of space as well as science fiction stories. He asks her while they're still on the highway, stalling though he can see the blue H sign from here.

"Y'ever read stuff about time?" No reply. "Ellie?" She's staring at that deer again. "Ellie."

"What?" 

"You read any stories about time back in school?"

"Uh, sure," she says. She tugs her sleeves over her hands and catches up to him, eyes on the ground. "Why?"

"Saw a weird movie 'bout it once. Somethin' reminded me of it this mornin'. Guy gets stuck in a...shit, what did they call it?" Joel peeks inside an RV and smells rot so he leaves it be. "He lives the same day over and over."

"A time loop!" Ellie sounds more excited about this than anything they've talked about for days. "Those are so fucking cool. Scary, though. I feel like I'd go crazy."

Joel drags a hand down his face. "Yeah," he says. "How do you think you get outta one?"

"Well, how did the guy in the movie do it?"

"He stopped bein' an asshole," he says. Ellie laughs. 

"Well, we know that's not possible for you. Guess you're fucked."

"Guess so," he mutters. 

The H sign is close enough that she'll see it any minute. He wishes for the hundredth time that they could just stay out here all day, just talking. If he had a guitar he'd play for her. If he had a fucking car he'd put her in it and turn around, even though it wouldn't do any good. They'd just end up right back here because he can't fucking figure out how to get out of this. 

"I think you just have to change, right?" Ellie says. She's looking at the photo of an airplane on the bus. This time she doesn't tell him about her dream. Is he losing pieces of her, already? "I guess it doesn't have to be about yourself. Maybe something you do, or something you say. It's the universe telling you to make a different choice, right?"

That's the fucking thing. The choice isn't an option. It's not even a choice. 

The one thing he hasn't tried and will not try is leaving the hospital when Marlene tells him to. He'd rather die a thousand times, rather live this shit show over and over for the rest of eternity than let them cut her brain out. They will not touch her while there is still breath in his body. 

He'd do it all over again. He will.

__

Joel tries a hundred things and they don't work. 

After his conversation with Ellie he decides to really fuck with the day. Doesn't matter, right? So long as she's not put in any extra danger he considers it. He begs her to walk away, get on his knees and pleads with her throughout the day. Doesn't work. She just gets pissed at him like that first time and he doesn't push it because he can't bear to see her cry. He lengthens their morning in the clearing, fakes sick or says the rifle is jammed and needs cleaning. That goes south, too, when a pack of runners wanders through the woods and straight into them. They make it to the highway and have to miss the giraffes because they're running. 

One time Joel spends all day zig-zagging them around the city to avoid the tunnel. The Fireflies find them much the same way except they shoot him on sight and grab Ellie right out of his arms as he bleeds out on the cracked asphalt, her screams echoing in his ears. 

Another time, he ties them together in the tunnel with some fraying rope and they both drown. 

Killing Marlene early gets him a bullet in the head and not killing her at all gets him back where he started, no change. 

Joel even begs the doctor to run more tests first, to try blood, to try anything, but it takes too long and the alarm sounds and he's cornered in the operating room before he can grab Ellie and go. 

Nothing fucking works. 

But what is there left to change?

__

His mind starts to fray. He loses count of the loops and it becomes hard to detach himself from the slaughter. Not even the good moments -- Ellie's laughter, the awe in her face when she sees the giraffes, her jokes and her muted but still sharp sarcasm -- keep him afloat. He's lost, adrift in a sea of blood and bullets and it starts to eat away any humanity that was left in him. 

The blood of hundreds, thousands maybe, is on his hands and he feels nothing.

Once and only once does he get there too late. Everything else goes like it always does but maybe he took too long on the first floor, maybe he took too long picking the guys one by one instead of using the assault rifle, maybe maybe maybe. 

When Joel gets to the pediatric ward he knows something is different -- he can hear a buzzing sound, something loud and unnatural. The stale air is thick with something metallic, tinged with death. The buzzing stops and he finds his feet glued to the floor outside the operating room. Voices on the other side of it, murmuring and the clink of metal on a tray. Joel's hand shakes when he reaches for the knob because he knows whatever he finds on the other side is going to kill him. 

But he opens it because he has to. The doctor is at the sink this time, the nurses nowhere to be found. Ellie's body is covered in a sheet, blood seeping through the fabric. Joel looks away. He just stands there, his heartbeat loud in his ears as the world ends. 

The first time his daughter died, Joel thought he could will it not to be so. He held her as long as he could, whispered her name with her blood drying on his hands until Tommy begged him to get moving. 

This time, he knows it's true and he knows there's only one ending. 

He raises his gun at the doctor who is now leaning on the edge of the sink. The door swings open and the nurses return, eyes wide and vibrating with the energy of a job well done. He swings over to them and kills them both with quick headshots. The doctor has barely turned around when he's dead, too.

Joel breathes, ears ringing. He manages one step closer to the operating table but his knees buckle and he goes down hard on the cool tile. His vision is blurry. Is he crying?

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so fucking sorry, baby." He angles himself so he won't get any blood on her and then presses the barrel of his gun to his temple and pulls the trigger. 

__

If Joel was on the edge of losing his mind before, now he's laser focused. He doesn't pull any more shit. He settles back into the loop, savoring Ellie's laughter with the giraffe and gunning down every sorry motherfucker in his way at the hospital. He will not get there late ever again. 

So when Marlene says something different the next time around and he almost misses it.

Ellie is dead weight in his arms but she's warm and he can see the rise and fall of her chest. The hospital was messier than usual because he rushed this time, cutting down the Fireflies like it was his last stand. There's blood in his hair and crusted under his fingernails and his shirt is beyond ruined. 

"Are you going to tell her what happened here?" Marlene presses her hand into her side, blood leaking from around her crimson palm. "Are you going to tell her what you did?"

He lies to her.

Every time.

It's never occurred to him to try something else. Even though he's changed almost everything about this damn day except that. 

Because Joel knows what happens if he tells the truth. He knows what that will cost him.

And he doesn't know if he'll survive it.

He's afraid. Joel doesn't want to lose her and if that makes him selfish then so be it. He wants to take her back to Jackson and give her a bedroom of her own and as many stupid comics as she wants and three meals a day for the rest of her long, peaceful life. He wants her to grow up and grow old. 

He'd kill a thousand more Fireflies to make it happen.

He'd damn the whole world. 

Because he loves her and it fucking hurts. 

This girl and her puns and her comics and her god damned bravery and her bleeding heart. He doesn't want to lose her. 

But is this, whatever this endless hell is, is it fair to her? 

If it's breakable, if he has the ability to get them to tomorrow, to get them to Jackson, to get them home, shouldn't he? If he loves her shouldn't he give her a life even if he's not in it?

Joel gently arranges Ellie in the backseat and shoots Marlene in the head. 

__

For a few seconds Ellie thinks she's in the car on the way into Pittsburgh. The hum of the old engine, the rocking motion of the truck. But -- wait. She's lying down. The car smells...musty. And she's cold like she's wearing a dress and --

"What the hell am I wearing?"

She flutters her eyes open. Different truck. Backseat. Is she in a...hospital gown? What the fuck? Where is she?

"Just take it easy," Joel says. Okay, so she's with Joel. Something in her chest settles. She must be safe. "Drugs are still wearin' off."

Drugs? Ellie pushes back into her memory and tries to find something, anything that'll give her a clue as to what's going on here. They were in the bus tunnel. The water was rushing, Joel jumped on the bus and it started moving and she...fell into the water? 

It's a blur after that. More of a blank, really. Did they get to the hospital? Did they find the Fireflies? Based on her weird fucking outfit it sure seems like it.

"What happened?"

Joel's eyes flick up in the rearview mirror to look at her. "Let's get you into some clothes, first. Then we'll take a break and I'll tell you everythin'."

He sounds tired. More tired than he's ever sounded, frankly, but she can't imagine why. And he can't seem to stop looking at her like she's going to disappear. Like he hasn't seen her in ages. 

"Okay," she says slowly. "Where the hell are we going to get those?" 

"Your bag is on the floor by your feet." Joel veers off the highway down an exit ramp and Ellie sits up. Her head feels light for a second and then really heavy so she braces her hands on the seat in front of her and takes a few deep breaths. "You okay, kiddo?"

"Yeah. Fucking...drugs, I guess. What'd they do that for?"

"They ran some tests. We'll talk about it."

Normally she'd push him but something feels off. Ellie tries to get a good look at his face but she can't, not from this angle, and not with her head fucking pounding like it is. She's missing so much time. It makes her skin crawl, makes her heart race. Joel is here, she tells herself. He wouldn't let anything bad happen to her. 

He parks them at the edge of a cemetery and gets out of the car to stand guard while she changes out of the gown. Her last pair of jeans, apparently, and a grey t-shirt with a few holes in the collar. She wishes she had a sweatshirt or something to wrap around herself, to pull over her hands and feel covered. But beggars can't be choosers. At least someone put her shoes in her backpack. 

Joel doesn't turn around when she opens the door but she sees him stiffen. 

"I'm done." He looks back at her and she finally sees his face. "Jesus Christ, Joel, what happened to you?"

It's not just the blood. Sure, he's got dried streaks of it on his neck and in his hair. Ellie glances at his hands and sees it crusted under his fingernails, too. But he looks wrecked. Older, somehow. He looks like something terrible happened, the way she remembers his face when he fell from the balcony in Colorado, when he found her in the burning restaurant. But somehow it's worse. 

He's looking at her like he can't believe she's real. 

"Alright." Joel lowers the rifle and ignores her question, clearly. "Didn't see anythin'. Should be fine to sit here for a bit."

"Are you going to tell me what the fuck happened?"

He moves like he's going to drag a hand down his face but thinks better of it. "Yeah," he says. "I am." 

Ellie swings her legs so they're hanging out the door. Joel leans the rifle against the truck and crosses his arms. "You're making me kind of nervous, man."

"Just...promise me you'll hear me out to the end."

Yeah, something is going on. She doesn't like it. 

"Uh, sure."

"What do you remember?" 

Good fucking question. "The tunnel. The bus and -- water. I fell in, right?"

Joel nods, clears his throat. "Jumpin' on the bus was dumb. Don't do that again." 

She snorts. "Yeah, okay. Point taken. But I was afraid you were going to drown!"

"You did." He delivers the news in a flat tone she doesn't like. She drowned?

"Are you serious?"

"I got us out of the water and tried to get you breathin' again." Ellie realizes her chest is sore. She imagines Joel doing compressions like they showered her in school, imagines his panicked face, his hoarse voice calling her name. Fuck.

"Did it work?"

"No," he says. "Fireflies found us first and knocked me out." 

"That doesn't make sense." She frowns. "They knocked you out?"

Joel shrugs. "Just tellin' you what happened."

This isn't how she imagined it would go. She never told Joel, but for weeks she's been thinking about waltzing up to the hospital and telling them who she is. She pictured Joel telling her jokes while she got her blood drawn, pictured him staring down nurses and doctors while they made the cure. She figured it would take a few days, maybe a week, and then they'd be on their way back to Jackson. She had hoped Marlene might be there, too. She has so many questions about her mom. 

"What did they do with me?"

Joel looks troubled. "I...don't exactly know. It was a while before I saw you again."

It makes her skin crawl. He must be able to tell because he keeps talking. "I'm sure they just ran some tests while you were out. They brought you back, made sure you were breathin' okay."

"Tests?"

"I'm gettin' there." She feels like he's having a hard time looking at her. Something close to but not quiet dread sits heavy in her stomach. What happened?

"Joel..."

"I woke up inside the hospital. Marlene was there. Told me they didn't know it was us, that they'd been waiting." He pauses, drags a hand down his face. "You didn't wake up or nothin'? You sure?"

Ellie shakes her head. She doesn't remember anything after the tunnel. 

"Well, she told me they could do it. They had a doctor who could make the cure."

The air rushes out of Ellie all at once. "Are you fucking serious?"

"And then she said..." Joel chews on his words and looks away from her. He looks angry. 

"What did she say?"

"Makin' a vaccine...would've killed you."

The bottom drops out of Ellie's world. It's like a hundred doors in her brain open at once. 

It would have killed her? Are they sure? Did they do enough tests? Were they going to? Why didn't they wake her up? Were they going to ask her? How did they get out?

She swallows them all and manages just one in a broken whisper. "What did you do?"

Joel looks right at her. "I stopped them."

If Ellie wasn’t already sitting down she thinks her legs would give out. She knows that Joel meant what he said to her in Silver Lake. Knows that he'd do anything for her.

But this?

"What do you mean?" He shakes his head. "Joel. What do you mean, you stopped them?"

His shoulders slump. "They told me to leave and I refused. And I made sure no one can follow us to try again."

Static builds in her ears. She can read between the lines. She speaks Joel now. He killed them all, that much is clear to her. He killed them all, Marlene, too, probably, because she was supposed to die to save the world. Hot tears sting her nose and gather at the corner of her eyes. 

"But I -- but we -- I was supposed to...I'm the cure!"

"You're a person. You're a kid. Don't matter what's in your brain, you ain't dyin' for --"

Ellie pushes out of the truck and to her feet. Joel steps back to give her room but she knows he probably wants to touch her, to reassure her. The anger fills her, makes her face hot and her heart race. 

"Who said you get to make that choice? If they said I had to die maybe I should have? Then it would mean something --"

"Your immunity ain't the thing that matters most. You are. So I picked you," Joel yells.

She's really crying now, huge heaving sobs that make it hard to talk, make it hard to convey how angry she is. "Well, you picked wrong, asshole."

"I ain't gonna apologize for it. I'd do it all over again, the exact same way. Every time." Joel's expression is as serious as it gets. He used to look this way all the time. No nonsense, no room for argument. 

She tries to find the words anyway but they don't come.

"Now, you've got some options here," he says. "I think the best one is for us to go back to Jackson. I know Tommy'll take you in, and --

She laughs, or tries to. 

It sounds like something bitter and awful to her own ears. First he tells her she was supposed to die today and now he wants to leave her?

"Are you fucking serious, Joel? You want to leave me again?" 

Joel's brows pinch together. He looks pained. Good. It feels like her chest is caving in, like her lungs aren't working right anymore. This must be what it felt like to drown in the bus terminal, to sink slowly, to fade away entirely. She read once that drowning was supposed to be peaceful. This hurts. 

"I want you to be safe," he says. "Jackson is the best place for that. I don't have to be there if you don't want me there --"

"I didn't fucking say that!" she yells. "I -- Jesus, give me a fucking second, okay?"

He stands by the door as she paces back and forth, tugging her hands through her hair. 

She was supposed to die. But she didn't. There's no cure. And it sure fucking sounds like Joel didn't leave any option to try again. 

He traded saving the world for her. 

It's too much.

"What do you want, Ellie?" Joel sounds like he's been awake for days. Like he's in pain, like he's being hollowed out. He sounds like how she feels. 

She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes. 

"I want none of this to have happened! I want us to go back to this morning and I want us to not have gone into the bus tunnel and I want you to have asked for tests first, I want them to try something else. I want Marlene to tell me why they didn't wake me up. I want to do it again but differently, I want things to be different, I --"

Her words break off into a sob. "Ellie..." She opens her eyes and finds him reaching for her. His shirt is stained with dried blood but she steps into his hold and his arm wraps around her. 

"I don't know what to do, now," she whispers.

Joel exhales a shaky breath. "I know you wish things were different. I wish things were different. But they ain't."

They stand there, his hand dragging up and down her back. She listens to his heartbeat and remembers those nights in the basement when she thought it would stop any minute. 

"Fuck," she whispers, then pulls away. He lets her go. "Fuck, Joel."

He sighs. "Yeah, kiddo. Fuck."

He told her the truth and that means something. It hurts, it hurts so bad, and it doesn't absolve him of anything, but that matters. 

"I'm so angry with you," she says. "I don't know how to forgive you for...for...saving me." 

It sounds stupid as she says it but Joel nods solemnly. 

"That's alright." 

"But I..." She wants to get this part right. "Let's go back. To Jackson. We'll figure it out there. But you...you have to swear to tell me the truth. Just like this. We have to be honest with each other."

Joel meets her gaze without blinking. "I swear."

Ellie takes a deep breath. The anger, the horror, the disbelief at what he's done settle a little bit. She has no clue what comes next, but this is a start. 

"Okay."

__

Joel wakes up. 

His back hurts and his shoulder aches. It's dark, darker than it should be, darker than it's been for hundreds of days.

Ellie is asleep in the backseat of the truck. 

It's tomorrow. 

thank you for reading. let me know what you thought!

#the last of us fanfiction #i dont know how to tag this #the last of us #bea this is your fault!

[rorywritesjunk]

So let's set out to sea, love, 'cause you are my medicine

Buggy has another frustrating day so you cook him some comfort food.

Rating: Eh, PG13 just to be safe. Warning: Just Buggy being whiny, is that a warning? Food cooks. Cheese gets grated. Buggy just feels appreciated but also mopes. Apparently I just want Buggy to have a bad day and be taken care of. A/N: Had fun writing this and it was hard not to post it immediately. I wanted to wait a bit. Title comes from "On Melancholy Hill" by Gorillaz.

The amount of yelling coming from inside the tent was worrisome. You debated whether you needed to investigate to make sure Buggy didn’t string up one of his freaks again because they missed their cue or the lighting was bad. He took rehearsal seriously and had no issue punishing anyone who he thought messed something up. It wasn’t pleasant, but you knew he was a perfectionist.

You were mostly safe from his screaming while you were in the kitchen. It’s not like you were hiding out there while your boyfriend screamed and shouted through rehearsal. You just happened to be making a grocery list and just as you were finishing up you heard the first bits of screaming and decided that maybe you needed to make sure the pots and pans were spotless just in case Buggy decided that was a problem.

The kitchen was only safe for ten minutes before Hurricane Buggy literally stormed in, kicking the door open before kicking a chair out of his way. You remained at the sink, scrubbing a large pot while he had his tantrum. You knew it was best to let him get it out of his system first before you intervened, and going by how he kicked the table, only to swear and stomp away from it after stubbing his toes, you decided he needed a comforting meal to feel better.

It was a good thing you cleaned the large pot because you filled it with water before placing it on the stove and turning on the burner. Buggy had grabbed the chair he had kicked away, pulled it back over, and sat himself down at the table he had already injured himself on. He crossed his arms in front of him and laid them on the table, his chin resting on his arms as he watched you move around. He saw you grab certain ingredients and if he wasn’t so frustrated he would have perked up at the anticipation of what you were making.

Instead he needed to feel frustrated for a bit longer.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what’s wrong?” He asked sulkily. “I thought girlfriends were supposed to look after their boyfriends when they’re upset.”

You salted the water as it heated up and put the lid on the pot. You turned to face him, wiping your hands on a dish towel as you smiled at him. “What’s wrong, Buggy?” 

He huffed in annoyance. “They keep fucking up out there. Everything starts to go well and then someone misses their mark, or there’s no dancing lion, or everything just goes to shit! How hard is it to hit your mark? I’m not asking for much, just asking for something like that!”

“Hm, that is frustrating.” You agreed as you tossed the towel over your shoulder. He watched you as you grabbed a spoon,  pepper, and some garlic powder. His foot started tapping impatiently on the floor as you set the items on the counter near the stove and checked the water. It wasn’t boiling just yet, and he wished it would hurry up. “I’m sorry it’s been frustrating today.”

He moved his arms off the table and let his head thunk against the hard surface. He looked pathetic, honestly, but you wouldn’t say that to his face. Instead you walked over to him and stood behind him, rubbing his shoulders gently as he shut his eyes, wanting to sink into your touch and forget everything that was driving him crazy that day. 

“Hey, wanna help me make dinner?” You asked as you leaned down to kiss the top of his head. “I’m making one of your favorites and I think it tastes better when you help.”

He didn’t really want to. He wanted to mope and whine some more, but if he helped it meant being close to you, and he liked that. You also wore that cute apron with the little green frogs on it that you bought shortly after joining his crew whenever you were cooking. Reluctantly, he nodded and stood up from the table. Sure enough, you were grabbing your apron down off the hook, placing the top straps over your head before securing it behind you. He walked over to you and reached out to touch the fabric, rubbing it between two fingers while you smiled up at him.

“You really like this one, you know. I should get you your own next time I go out.” You mused as you went to grab the cutting board and knife. “Now, do you want to be on noodle duty or do you want to cut up the hot dogs?”

He just shrugged, obviously still upset and mopey, so you gave him the bag of noodles and directed him to keep an eye on the water and to add the noodles when it started boiling. He knew how to make this dish. He helped you plenty of times, and while he was the Captain, used to telling others what to do, you knew that he also liked it when you bossed him around from time to time. 

Buggy kept looking between the boiling water and you. You had a pack of hot dogs open and were busy cutting two at a time, tossing the chunks into a bowl. Your skill with knives in the kitchen was impressive. Always smooth motions, the blade moving fast in your hand while the other guided the knife along the ingredients. He suggested once you perform knife tricks for his show, but cooking didn't really translate well for an audience in an arena.

He had also suggested you juggle the knives while cutting up vegetables in between each pass, but when you demonstrated your coordination by attempting to juggle three tomatoes and you both watched them fall to the ground, he decided to forgo the knife juggling act for you.

Once the water was boiling, he took the lid off and ripped open the package of pasta, dumping its contents into the pot. It was his favorite kind, pasta shaped like little stars. You bought it especially for him when he needed a pick-me-up. You always kept a bag or two on hand just in case, and he appreciated it. It was those little gestures like that that made him realize how much you cared for him. 

The hotdogs were ready and you needed to grate cheese next. You grabbed blocks of two different kinds and grabbed the grater, humming softly to yourself as you went to work. Deciding that the pasta would be fine without him staring at it for the entire ten minutes, Buggy came up behind you and wrapped his arms around you, resting his chin on the top of your head as he watched you work. You adjusted your position just a bit, wanting him to be comfortable as you grated the cheese onto a plate. Once you had enough, you picked up a few bits and held it up for him as a snack. He took it without hesitation.

“How’s the pasta?” You asked as you started on the next block. You always grated more than you knew you needed for the recipe, knowing that Buggy would put extra on the already cheesy pasta. “How long has it been going for?”

“Just a few minutes.” He mumbled as he continued watching, hugging you tighter as the mountain of cheese got bigger. “I’ll check on it in a minute.”

“Mm, it needs to be stirred to keep from sticking together.” You reminded him as you held up another bit of cheese for him. “Can you go check on it please?”

The way you asked was just so damn kind and gentle. He didn’t deserve you. He reluctantly pulled away from you and went back over to the stove, sticking the spoon into the boiling water and giving the pasta a few stirs. It had started to clump a bit, so he tried his best to break it all up. 

You came over to him and took the spoon from his hand, giving it a few more stirs. “How long now?”

“Um, just a few minutes left, I think?” He wasn’t too sure. You captured a few of the noodles on the spoon and drained off excess water. You blew on it carefully, not wanting it to be too hot, before you held it up for him to try. He picked the bits of pasta off the spoon and tried it, making a bit of a face when he bit into the almost cooked pasta. “Yea, definitely a few more minutes. It’s nearly there.”

“Perfect, let’s add the hot dogs then.” You said as you nudged him out of the way and began to carefully toss in the chopped up bits of hotdog into the boiling water. “And once it’s all done, we’ll drain the water and mix in the cheeses.” You looked up at him with a smile. “Sounds good, right?”

He nodded and moved behind you once more, resuming his previous position of wrapping his arms around you as you worked. You were fine with it, especially because he didn’t get in the way. He was also just a bit taller than you, so he had no issue lifting the heavy pot of boiling water to dump it out if you asked him, whereas you sometimes struggled with it. You turned to look up at him, still smiling.

“Almost done, Buggy.” You told him. “Why don't you go sit down and I’ll bring you a plate?”

He nodded but didn’t move from his spot. He didn’t want to, because you were just being so damn kind and loving to him that he was starting to have thoughts of what he did to deserve you, because he sure as hell didn’t do this kind of stuff for you. What had he done to deserve this love and affection you had for him? You just knew what he needed when he needed it, and he didn’t even know that about himself. He just knew to react, to yell and scream about the problem, and you just looked at him and knew how to make him feel better. 

“Buggy?” Your voice shook him from his thoughts and he swallowed heavily and looked down at you. You reached up and wrapped your arms around him, pulling him down for a kiss. He let you, wrapping his arms back around you as you moved from his lips to the rest of his face, peppering kisses all over, and when you were done, you pressed three to his nose, lingering a moment before pulling back to finish up with the food. He was a little dazed from all that so you shooed him away to go sit down. 

He did as he was told and sat back at the table, watching you drain the pasta (with a bit of a struggle but you didn’t ask for his help), mix in half of the cheese into the pasta and hotdog mix, season it with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and then serve a big helping of it onto a plate for him. You brought it over and set it in front of him before grabbing the extra cheese and a fork for him. Finally, you brought him a beer and sat down next to him, smiling as you reached over to touch his cheek.

“Eat up, Buggy.” 

He nodded and picked up his fork, looking down at his plate. “Thanks, babe.”

#buggy the clown #buggy the clown x reader #buggy x reader #buggy opla #buggy x you #buggy one piece #buggy the clown x you #opla buggy #opla buggy the clown

[yikimiki]

Possessive!stepbrother Eren who tells you about the dangers of the world and men. You need to stay away from them and always stay with Eren. You know better than to disobey him.

this is my shit actually 😎

⚠️ warnings: dark content and smut, manipulation/gaslighting, stepcest, possessive and toxic behavior, fem!reader is very innocent and inexperienced, but they’re both in their early 20’s (college), praise and degradation, misogyny

—

“What did I tell you?” Eren speaks slowly, as if he’s talking to a child. You turn your gaze away from him, cheeks burning and tears rolling down your face — you knew it would come to this, because Eren is always, always right. “I told you he would break your heart, that’s why you don’t listen to what college guys say.”

You nod, fighting back a sob, but still can’t meet his eyes. After being stood up for three hours, you really don’t need to hear him rub salt in your wound. “I know, Eren, I’m stupid, is that what you wanna hear?” You say. You pull your knees closer to you, against your chest, and you think that if you make yourself any smaller you might vanish. “Can you go now?”

He scoffs. “And leave you like this? Of course not.” Eren leans closer to you, and your bed creaks under his weight. His warm hand meets the wet skin of your cheek, and he makes you turn your head towards him. “Want your big brother to make you feel better? Hm? That way you always like?”

You nod — once again, you knew it would come to this.

Eren has nurtured a bad habit for a long time now — the habit of making sure you know who you belong to. What kind of big brother would he be if he didn’t make sure his sister is safe? And who would he be if he didn’t tell you, again and again, that every guy out there just wants you for your body? Of course you got stood up, it’s because—

“—You’re easy to fuck,” Eren speaks against your mouth, ignoring your whimpers as his cock drills inside your pussy. It should always be like this, he thinks, and there’s a tinge of nausea inside his stomach thinking that his precious little sister got fucked by another cock. “You’re an easy slut, that’s why you always end up like this. That’s why— fuck — that’s why you don’t get taken seriously.”

“It’s not true,” you whine, but your mind isn’t all there by this point. Even if Eren says it just to keep you in line, he’s pretty sure you’re a little cock-crazy from the way you always melt away the second he’s inside you. That stupid little brain of yours can’t really deal with a lot at once. “You’re so mean, it’s not my fault.”

“It’s your fault, yeah,” he says. His hand is firm when he holds your cheeks together, making you pout. There are tears staining your lash line, but he doesn’t care. “When are you going to understand that your pussy is mine? Uh? No one can fuck you like this.” Eren rolls his hips and hits your cervix, the mixture of pain and pleasure makes your eyes roll back. “No one cares as much as I do.”

Your pretty eyes are all hazy when you look at him, cunt clenching desperately around his girth. Eren is fucking huge, and he has worked long and hard to make sure that you can take his cock fully, like the good slut that you are. “I’m… I’m sorry,” you give in. His cock is throbbing inside you, soaking wet and leaking precum, and you can’t think when the lewd sounds echo all around you. “Can you fill me up? Please?”

He scoffs. “Only good girls get filled up, not needy sluts like you,” Eren speaks, and you whine in desperation against his warm mouth. He smiles — you’re so, so easy to mold. He’s sure you’d do anything he asks at this point. “Are you my good girl? My good little baby?” You nod, again and again, not breaking eye contact. “Want me to cum inside your pussy, yeah? Gotta keep it all inside, baby, you know it. Gotta push it deep and not waste one drop.”

“I- I won’t waste, please,” you moan. “Please, Eren, please…”

And he does — because he also loves to spoil you, and loves even more to know that he’s claiming you every time he cums inside your pussy. It’s so much, so thick, that you always cum right after him, clenching around his cock and milking him dry as he continues to plunge inside your messy hole. “Good fucking girl, that’s my good cock slut,” he praises, watching as the white liquid squelches out. “That’s my fucking pussy, fuck.”

“It’s yours, Eren,” you mumble. “I’m all yours.”

#eren smut #aot smut #eren x reader #attack on titan smut #eren x you #snk smut #eren yeager smut #eren jaeger x you #stepcest eren

[dark-side-blog3]

Ignore that this Home Alone inspired poly adeuce fic is a month late. Or choose to read it for 2024 Christmas, up to you.

I had a lot of fun writing this! Put it into a word counter just for fun, and I'm surprised to see that my first real WIP I finished in 2024 is 3k long! It was just so fun to imagine a twist one of my favourite Christmas movies, and I got so caught up in the fun of it I didn't make my deadline ^^; It was originally meant to be a short little crackfic, but it was just too fun! There are some cracky, campy elements, but that's just in the spirit of the movie I based it off!

Anyways: MDNI, warnings for standard yandere things, and creepy crawlies.

++++++++++++++++++++++

"Shouldn't we be pouring salt on the pathway?"

"Nah," you smile, splashing another bucket of water on the front steps. "This is so we can have a nice slip-and-slide for tobogganing tomorrow, Grim! Same reason I'm filling up a little ice rink in the back-- I wanna do some skating. I can't wait for it to freeze over and teach you how!"

Grims' head shakes fervently as he beams; "Just you wait! I'll show you the grace and speed of a master figure skater! I'm gonna be teaching YOU how to skate by the time we're done!"

"Well if you wanna do that, you're gonna need to be well rested. Can you grab us some cookies for before-bed snacks?" you encourage, the monster agreeing and scampering off inside the dorm house to pilfer the cupboard.

You continue pouring water on the steps and trudge around the house's perimeter to check on the steps leading outside to make sure they're freezing over like you intended. You have several other home security measures to check over...

Most of the staff, and students for that matter, went home for the holidays. Family to see, vacations to take... A life to live outside of the school and other people in it. Should anything happen, Crowley was unfortunately unavailable (what else is new, the old bastard), nor was Vargas, Trein, or Crewl. Normally they'd be spattered throughout the holiday to watch over the students. But there are other teachers on the premises, and hardly any students who can't return home for whatever reason, and they let it slip by... One night during the whole winter break when none of your trusted faculty members nor any of your more powerful friends like Malleus or Idia could help if you got into trouble.

And maybe, maybe your brain has been rotted by movies and defending yourself from overblotted students.

But it's better safe than sorry.

With everything seemingly in order, and the sun setting quickly behind the treeline of school woods, you rush over to the front gate to hang a large sign:

NO SOLICITORS

Hopefully, this will deter anyone planning to intrude on you tonight.

You trudge your way back to the front door, carefully avoiding the steps. You spend the next few hours snacking with Grim while watching movies together, playing card games, and chattering about what ifs and would you rather... Before too long, it's time for bed, and Grim is out like a light, thanks to several pounds of turkey stuffing, potatoes, and cookies you still had after the holiday party days ago.

The party was fun... It did leave you with more leftovers you knew what to do with, which is always great. You got to wish Rook Joyeuses Fête, decorate cookies with Jack and Jade (the merman being much better at decorating, likely due to working in the lounge), and say goodbye to everyone dear to you before they left for their own plans... But it also had Ace and Deuce.

Which, on the one hand, they're harmless. You know they are. They're just jerks sometimes.

They should be focusing on their studies, and you had to devote your time to keeping Ramshakle clean, and Grim on task to graduate... The little monster became somewhat of a family member. Surrogate son or little brother you're not entirely sure, but you want him to succeed.

And even if the pair of heartslabyul boys were gifted students that excelled at every course with time to spare, Grim wasn't-- Grim needed your help to study, to get to class, to handle some of his projects for him when his paws would cause accidents in the potion lab. Grim needs your help to get through college, and it keeps you way too busy for a relationship with either guy.

And even though they soured the mood of the party right after you told them as such, it's the truth, and that's what it is. You're not going to jeopardize Grim's future just to date college students.

They acted like jerks for the rest of the winter break.

When everyone was opening presents, they bitched at everyone for the gifts they exchanged, teased relentlessly, knocked over decor, and told each classmate going through the magic mirror over the week to 'take their time coming back, if at all'. Poor Idia had an anxiety attack when they started teasing him; it took you half an hour to calm him down enough to stop puking and stick to just dry heaving. Grim scampered off after Idia fainted a second time... It took another hour after that to help him through the magic mirror, with his robot escorts. You would have walked through with him, but he insisted holding your hand as he left would be enough, only dragging you somewhat through the portal.

It was rubbing you the wrong way how they were picking fights with everyone, and snubbing Grim anytime they saw you and the monster around campus.

Suddenly, the front gates screech open, drawing you out of your thoughts. You peek out the sliver of the window from behind the thick curtain in the bedroom to see two figures shuffle through the snow.

It can't be them. Even if you were just thinking of them, that would be too... Convenient. Like some movie logic. Thinking of people doesn't summon them.

Whoever it is will be getting a nasty surprise in three, two, one--

A muffled thud and string of curses can be heard from the other side of the glass. You sneak your way down the stairs so you can at least see who's at the door.

"Son of a--! Grim!" Deuce shouts. So much for not summoning them.

"Open the door, little buddy! We know that you're in there and that you're all alone... Your precious prefect is spending the last night of the winter break with someone else, right?" Ace yells, quickly being joined by a snickering and rapping at the door.

A shadow presses itself against the window, trying to peer through sheer curtains. You duck behind one of the striped couches on the outside of the room, close to the walls. Through the reflection of the glass cabinet, you can see the figure stay and linger at the window, tapping against the glass with a small can.

"Come on Grim. We've got tuna for ya if you just open the door and have a chat..." Deuce says, cupping his hands around his mouth as he yells through the glass.

His shadow straightens up, before pounding back on the glass, rattling the old pane against the tight frame, the narrow strips of wood being tight enough together that neither of them could just force their way through the window; Even if they shattered all the glass.

Which Deuce just might, slamming himself into the frame as hard as he could.

"I saw you move in there! Don't ignore us!" He shatters a pane, shoving his hand through to grab at the sheer curtains and tug, ripping them.

You duck back behind the couch, scanning for tools to protect yourself. Shut up. Don't be stupid, just think. Think quick, and smart.

The banging stops for a second. Before becoming far louder-- powerful enough to feel the floor shake. Metal creaks against its hinges, and the lock crashes into the strike plate of the door.

Ignore that, focus. Cleaning supplies. Always nearby, the dorm is filthy. Dish soap and mop bucket.

You dart out from behind the couch to grab the bottle of dish soap, grabbing it and rolling up against the wall just in time as the banging stops, the door knob jiggles and a thin wire pokes itself out from the cracks between the door frame. It makes quick work of the locks on the door, before opening, and Ace proudly struts into the room. The second he does, you pop the cap and squeeze the bottle, squirting bright blue goop into his eyes and smarmy mouth! And you splurt the floor for good measure!

You sprint back to behind the couch he pulls back, sputtering, and wiping it from his eyes in thick globs. You watch through the reflection of the cabinet as Deuce shoves his way past Ace as he splatters fistfuls of goop onto the floor, next to the bottle of leaking dish soap. Ace shoves Deuce for the push, and the resulting shove has both of them slipping on the puddle of dish soap you left in your hurry.

"Ahg-- Ace?! Why are you on the floor?"

A visibly wet smack as dish soap arches off Ace's gloves, slapping damply right into Deuce's face as he grunts from under his classmate: "Get off me, you buffoon! Go find the cat-- Grim, I'm gonna skin you for this, you little creep!"

"Don't make threats until after we have the little rat, runt. If he goes tattling we're screwed--"

"There's no one to tattle to! He's all alone in this big house! Even the ghosts aren't here! If we stick his claws in an electrical socket or force-feed him motor oil, no one would think anything of it! He's just a dumb animal that killed himself without supervision!"

Something glints from under the couch. You grasp at it, finding a spare ornament, and an unused ziptie, threaded through the top. There's got to be something you can use to create a bigger distraction and get you and Grim out of here.

There has to be something in reach-- going back to the bucket in plain sight of them is too risky. Shoving your hand under the couch, your clutch the first thing that your grasp: An aerosol room freshener. Score.

Wrapping the ziptie around the spray trigger, you tighten it and roll it over to the boys, still scrambling about on the floor. You watch from the reflection in the cabinet as Deuce gets a heavy spray right in the eyes, hollering in pain!

"AUGH-- Fucker! You think you're so smart, punk?! Your little bomb just gave away your position!" Deuce shouts, whipping out his magic pen, covering his eyes.

You feel a sense of dread. Primal instinct. You leap out from behind the couch just as he summons a caldron to crash into the couch, narrowly missing you as it smashes the solid oak to splinters. Splinters stick to your socks, embedding in your feet as you scamper off to another room, streams of water and gusts of wind being shot after you.

Just as you turn the corner to climb up the stairs and rush to Grim's room, you hear Ace curse exasperatedly, stumbling his way to the end of the hall to stare at you, still wiping his eyes on his sleeves. Another string of sighed curses leaves his lips as he watches you scramble up the stairs, making accidental eye-contact.

They know their plans are botched now.

Gotta climb faster.

On all fours, you claw up the stairs, just as a tug on your ankle forces your jaw to slam into them. Casting a glance backwards, Ace has gripped your ankle with his sticky gloves, grinning madly as you struggle to tug your ankle away from him, and try to dodge the other one of his hands trying to grasp for your other leg, only to end up sloppily groping your ass before trying again. You try to shake and kick him off, getting a hits to the side of his head, but not as effective as if you had room to wind up. He's gripping so hard it feels like he's going to break something. You scramble, shifting your weight side to side to get him off, prying yourself off the stairs and scratching your nails into the old wood. Your nails cling to the baseboard, prying the edge as much as you can, the wood creaking and snapping off with each desperate tug to pull yourself up.

The baseboard snaps, and you find yourself with a small wooden shiv, thinking to whip around and stab it into Ace's hand, leading him to retract for a second long enough for you to scramble up a step again-- before being slammed back down into the wood as you're grabbed again.

A girthy, irrate red centipede wiggles its way out from the hole in the baseboard, defensive of the now-ruined home.

You snatch it up, close to the head and the snapping mandibles as it wriggled and writhed, as you slowly reached back around to Ace, still clinging to your legs as you tried to shake him off. The teen was so focused on keeping you still as he pulled some ducttape off the roll with his teeth, that he didn't see the massive, snakelike body of the centipede until it was too late; And you stick it right on his face.

He seemed to freeze, giving you enough time to tug your leg again, just as he screamed an ear-piecing shriek!

Ace pawed at his face squirming violently on the stairs, thumping loudly on each step back to the bottom as you sprinted your way upstairs, into Grims room, slamming and locking the door behind you!

"What the hell is wrong--"

"PSYCHO PREFECT IS WHAT! Is it in my hair? Fucking thing was thick as a finger, and they put it right on my face! Is it in my hair?!"

"The prefect is home?! Dude! We're so screwed!"

"So go up there and get them, dipshit! Why are you standing still when they're up there getting a fucking bear trap or something ready?! Are you having an aneurysm or something?! Why are you just staring at me like that?!"

"...Ace... Don't... Move."

"Deuce... What are you talking about? Go get them-"

"Don't. Move."

"Deuce..?"

The telltale crash of a cast iron cauldron smashing through your rotten wood floors makes you nearly shit yourself, glancing back at a sleep-stirring Grim.

"DID I GET IT?"

"YOU ALMOST CRUSHED MY SKULL YOU NUTCASE!"

"DID I GET IT?!"

"You fucking moron!"

You snatch Grim up, using the blanket he was sleeping with like a hobo bag to hold him in, and open the window, edging your way carefully onto the roof. If you can just make safely to the other side of Ramshackle, you can try scaling down the ivy. And it will at least give you a head start-- Maybe hiding out in Sams is the best idea. A store owner must have a CCTV, right? And if Ace and Deuce try and kill either of you, then even if something happens to you, they'll get caught...

You wrap the corners of Grims blanket around your shoulders, like a makeshift baby pouch. You can definitely feel him squirming on your back, starting to wake up. You let go of the window, slipping down the rough roof tile. Laying on your stomach, you side-shuffle over, staying as low to the roof as you can to get the most traction. The edge nearly takes you by surprise when your foot doesn't connect with length that's not there. Slowly, you shuffle even closer to the edge, swaying your arm around the edge to find the vines of Ivy.

"I FOUND 'EM, ACE!"

Your head whips around to see Deuce leaning as far as he can out of the window before he scrambles to get onto the roof.

Whipping your head back to focus, you grab a fistful of vines and pull the rest of your body off the roof! You snatch another fistful with your other hand as you fall.

And fall all the way down, watching in horror as the ivy peels itself from the brick walls.

You feel Grim claw his way out of the pouch and onto your face just in time, as you land on your back with a sickening crunch.

"Oh shit," Ace comments, seemingly having been waiting for you at the bottom of the wall. You see Grim flee across the yard out of the corner of your eye, unable to lift your head.

The sound of snow crunching underfoot, and Deuce panting like crazy soon joins Ace in staring at you as you lay helpless on the ground. As soon as he arrives he gets asked: "Are we gonna get Grim?"

"No point, really..." Comes the huffed response; "We were gonna get him to fuck off, and he's fucked right off. Tonight didn't really go to plan anyway."

A boot gently kicks at your side as Ace turns his attention back to you: "Are you paralyzed or something? That was quite the fall."

You open your mouth to speak, but only a cracked whine makes it out. You cringe and try again, but nothing intelligible comes out.

"Holy shit, they're brain-damaged!" Ace grins, laughing as he backs away from you.

You feel Deuce tugging at your legs in the snow, dragging you from your shallow ditch in the snow. He begins tugging you closer to the dorm, before he drops your legs, moving to grab you under your arms and haul you that way, up against a wall. Breaking a window, he shoves you in, head first. The cold floors of Ramshackle are still warmer than the ice and snow.

"Alright. Hey, real quick, can you feel this?" Deuce begins poking you with a wire from an ornament, starting with your legs, and making his way up on both sides. You nod, wincing at some particularly sharp pricks, to which Deuce responds by rubbing the area to dull the pain.

"Can you say where you are right now? Do you know who I am? Who you are?" You nod again, voice stumbling through a pained response.

"Awesome. You're not brain-damaged! You're probably just winded from the fall. Is anything broken? Can you wiggle your fingers and toes? Try twisting side to side. If you can't it means your spine might be broken, and you need a doctor."

You comply, weirded out by the sudden care, but the doctor comment means they will call someone. And that someone will keep you safe, and them away. The pain's already fading, and likely nothing serious, but you could trick them... Deuce particularly seems like a soft touch. You wince as you try to twist, feigning inability.

Deuce makes a worried expression, like he's about to piss himself from fear.

He backs off slightly, giving you a bit more breathing room: "Try crossing your arms and lifting them as far away from your ribs as you can".

You comply again, feigning difficulty,

And duct tape wraps around your wrists instantly. Deuce presses his knee down into your chest to pin you down as he wraps as tightly as he can, while Ace ties your legs from outside.

"This really, really isn't my style. But we've got to get you somewhere that is not here when the teachers come back tomorrow, and we can't have Grim knowing where to find you." Deuce rambles, soaking his glove in a bottle of something, before pressing it to your face. He continues rambling, leaning in closer to whisper: "And I know how this looks! But I promise we won't do anything to you while you sleep. Or when you wake up! I swear! It's all more normal than it seems tonight-- or it can be anyways. And... And if you give me some time, give me a chance, we can even ditch Ace and forget this night ever happened! You just need some time somewhere else..."

The room spins with dark spots as Deuce presses his soaked glove further into your face. He continues rambling at you, while you feel Ace begin dragging you back out the window again. The snow doesn't feel cold this time as you fall into it. It just feels soft.

#my writing! #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere twst #yandere poly #poly yandere #yandere ace trappola #yandere ace #yandere deuce #yandere deuce spade #yandere adeuce #yandere poly adeuce #bug tw #creepy crawlies tw #yandere crackfic #sorta~! It is for sure all over the place. but so is the moive tbh #yandere twst x reader #yandere twisted wonderland x reader #holidays.!

[asoiafcanonjonsnow]

JONSNOWFORTNIGHTEVENT2023

DAY 12: HOUSE TARGARYEN 🐉🏰: Jon Snow // Aegon V Targaryen

Hidden Identity

For the rest of his life—however long that might be—he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name. Jon IX, AGOT "To keep my hair shaved or dyed, and tell no man my true name," the boy said, with obvious reluctance. The Sworn Sword

Perceptive

"Father took the king down to the crypts this afternoon. The queen didn't want him to go." Benjen gave Jon a careful, measuring look. "You don't miss much, do you, Jon? Jon I, AGOT He flicked the gold coin back to Ser Uthor. Traitor's gold. Blackfyre gold. Egg said this was a traitor's tourney, but I would not listen. He owed the boy an apology. The Mystery Knight

Celibate Orders

"I want to serve in the Night's Watch, Uncle." "You are a boy of fourteen," Benjen said. "Not a man, not yet. Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand what you would be giving up." "I don't care about that!" Jon said hotly. Jon I, AGOT "It would have," said Egg, "but I spit it out. I don't want a wife, I want to be a knight of the Kingsguard, and live only to serve and defend the king. The Kingsguard are sworn not to wed." "That's a noble thing, but when you're older you may find you'd sooner have a girl than a white cloak." The Sworn Sword

Immaturity

"There is no shame in being a steward," Sam said. "Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life washing an old man's smallclothes?" Jon VI, AGOT So had Dunk. "We'll see how many men turn up at the tower . . . but whether it's five or fifty, you'll need to do for them as well." Egg looked indignant. "I have to serve smallfolk?" The Sworn Sword

Learning

"No. They hate you because you act like you're better than they are. They look at you and see a castle-bred bastard who thinks he's a lordling." Jon III, AGOT You are a squire born of noble blood, but you are still a boy. Most of them will be men grown. A man has his pride, no matter how lowborn he may be. The Sworn Sword

Growth

Jon smiled at him. "I'm sorry about your wrist. Robb used the same move on me once, only with a wooden blade. It hurt like seven hells, but yours must be worse. Look, if you want, I can show you how to defend that." Jon III, AGOT The boy considered for a moment. “I could teach them the arms of the great Houses, and how Queen Alysanne convinced King Jaehaerys to abolish the first night. And they could teach me which weeds are best for making poisons, and whether those green berries are safe to eat.” – The Sworn Sword

Stableboy

She might mistake him for a stableboy and hand him the reins of her horse. Jon ADWD. Your stableboy can stay with the horses.” "I’m a squire, not a stableboy,” Egg insisted. “Are you blind, or only stupid?” The Sworn Sword.

Sharp Tongue

"I'd have an easier time teaching a wolf to juggle than you will training this aurochs." "I'll take that wager, Ser Alliser," Jon said. "I'd love to see Ghost juggle." Jon III, AGOT

"I have my faith to warm me." The red woman walked beside Jon down the steps. "His Grace is growing fond of you." - Jon I, ADWD "I can tell. He only threatened to behead me twice." Jon IX, ASOS

Slynt slammed a fist on the table. "I heard you! Ser Alliser had your measure true enough, it seems. You lie through your bastard's teeth. Well, I will not suffer it. I will not! You might have fooled this crippled blacksmith, but not Janos Slynt! Oh, no. Janos Slynt does not swallow lies so easily. Did you think my skull was stuffed with cabbage?" "I don't know what your skull is stuffed with. My lord."

"Wild boar," said Dunk in a glum tone, "but who wants boar when we have good salt beef?" Egg made a face. "Can I please eat my boots instead, ser? I'll make a new pair out of the salt beef. It's tougher." The Mystery Knight

Unlikely Choices

"I am lord commander because my brothers chose me." There were mornings when Jon Snow did not quite believe it himself, when he woke up thinking surely this was some mad dream. Jon I, ADWD Soon thereafter, the "Prince Who Was An Egg" was chosen by a majority of the Great Council. The fourth son of a fourth son, Aegon V would become widely known as Aegon the Unlikely for having stood so far out of the succession in his youth. Maeker I, The World of Ice and Fire

Maester Aemon

"Allow me to give my lord one last piece of counsel," the old man had said, "the same counsel that I once gave my brother when we parted for the last time. He was three-and-thirty when the Great Council chose him to mount the Iron Throne…Egg had an innocence to him, a sweetness we all loved. Kill the boy within you, I told him the day I took ship for the Wall. It takes a man to rule. An Aegon, not an Egg. Kill the boy and let the man be born." The old man felt Jon’s face. "You are half the age that Egg was, and your own burden is a crueler one, I fear.You will have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done. Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born. Jon ADWD.

Empathy

Jon had to bite his tongue. He didn't want to know about Del's girl or Bodger's mother, the place by the sea that Henk the Helm came from, how Grigg yearned to visit the green men on the Isle of Faces, or the time a moose had chased Toefinger up a tree. He didn't want to hear about the boil on Big Boil's arse, how much ale Stone Thumbs could drink, or how Quort's little brother had begged him not to go with Jarl. Jon V, ASOS "They might be killed, ser. Wet Wat is still half a boy. Will Barleycorn is to be married the next time the septon comes. And Big Rob doesn't even know his left foot from his right."

Half

"—that I am half a wildling myself, a turncloak who means to sell the realm to our raiders, cannibals, and giants." Jon did not need to stare into a fire to know what was being said of him. Jon VIII, A Dance With Dragons Prince Aegon was the obvious choice, but some lords distrusted him as well, for his wanderings with his hedge knight had left him "half a peasant," according to many. The World of Ice and Fire Maekar I

Reformers

"The wildlings will remain upon the Wall," Jon assured them. "Most will be housed in one of our abandoned castles." The Watch now had garrisons at Icemark, Long Barrow, Sable Hall, Greyguard, and Deep Lake, all badly undermanned, but ten castles still stood empty and abandoned. "Men with wives and children, all orphan girls and any orphan boys below the age of ten, old women, widowed mothers, any woman who does not care to fight. The spearwives we'll send to Long Barrow to join their sisters, single men to the other forts we've reopened. Those who take the black will remain here, or be posted to Eastwatch or the Shadow Tower. Tormund will take Oakenshield as his seat, to keep him close at hand." He enacted numerous reforms and granted rights and protections to the commons that they had never known before. – The World of Ice and Fire

Face Opposition

Marsh flushed a deeper shade of red. "The lord commander must pardon my bluntness, but I have no softer way to say this. What you propose is nothing less than treason. For eight thousand years the men of the Night's Watch have stood upon the Wall and fought these wildlings. Now you mean to let them pass, to shelter them in our castles, to feed them and clothe them and teach them how to fight. Lord Snow, must I remind you? You swore an oath." ...but each of these measures provoked fierce opposition and sometimes open defiance amongst the lords. The most outspoken of his foes went so far as to denounce Aegon V as a "bloodyhanded tyrant intent on depriving us of our gods-given rights and liberties." – The World of Ice and Fire

#Jon Snow #asoiafcanonjonsnow #jonsnowfortnightevent2023 #canonjonsnow #Aegon V Targaryen #GIF #ASOIAF #A Song of Ice and Fire #valyrian scrolls #Original Post #valyrianscrolls #jonsnowedit #House Stark #House Targaryen #AGOT #AFFC #ACOK #ASOS #Dunk and Egg #A World of Ice and Fire #The Sworn Sword #Maester Aemon

[hecckyeah]

Listen. I know, I KNOW we all have mixed feelings about the finale. Just in the last hour, I’ve read at least five posts on each side, some saying it was the best thing filoni’s ever created, and some literally cursing his guts. As I watched it, I was leaning much more to the how dare you, I waited two years for this and this sucks side, but I had a good night of sleep and some thought, and. I think everyone is overreacting.

Some thoughts.

First, I do think it should have been an animated Rebels season 5. I am partial to live action in general and I’m so glad we got such fantastic casting. But Filoni really shines in the animated world. Live action has limits that animation laughs at, and with all of Dave’s creativity and parallels and callbacks and history in animation, it would have suited this show better. Granted, the viewership might have been worse than it already was, but who’s to say?

Secondly, of course the whole thing was a setup for future movies/shows. It would have been near impossible for this to be a standalone series, with only 8 episodes and so much at stake. I still have absolutely zero idea how this fits in with the s*quels, but I hope it’s all part of the plan to safely extract our (Filoni’s) favorite characters before all hell breaks loose on the narrative.

BUT. Just because it was a setup doesn’t make the story any less meaningful. Dave is the master of arcs within arcs within arcs within arcs. There was the mini arc of Ahsoka and Anakin, reconciling very (very very) complicated feelings and Ahsoka coming to grips with her past as a child soldier and forgiving Anakin for the choices and mistakes he made. There was the mini arc of Hera in the New Republic and how she has to balance her loyalty to the government that she helped to establish with her loyalty to her family (something I don’t think we’ve seen the last of). There was the mini arc of (obviously) finding Ezra!!!! HE’S HOME, YOU GUYS. Sabine did the selfless thing and sent him home after a decade to have a fighting chance to reunite with his family. And to meet Kanan’s son and to see the beauty that Lothal has turned into and to hug his adoptive mom. And she has full faith in him that he will be back to get her, or that she’ll find a way to go back. Because she now has knowledge that he didn’t before, and with Ahsoka’s help and probably Shin and Baylan too, there’s no way they won’t Jedi their way out of this. (*cough* world between worlds *cough*) Also seeing Morai was a HUGE plot twist. I, for one, can’t WAIT to see what’s up with that.

FINALLY. and I think this is something that Star Wars fans (dare I call them fans anymore?) seem to always forget is that Star Wars……. Kinda sucks. It always has. No one in their right mind would say that Star Wars is a literary masterpiece or anything close to that. Star Wars is great because you are literally required to take it all with a grain of salt. Nothing goes at face value. You have to overlook things for the rest to make sense. You cherry pick your favorite parts and ignore the rest. Do I know absolutely anything about mandalore and their political history?? Not one single thing. But could I explain to you the nuances of the aptly-named Disaster Lineage and how generation trauma comes in more ways than by blood?? I could write PAGES. There’s so much history and lore and side characters and branches of story and nuance that no one can ever fit it all together perfectly, no matter how good of a storyteller they are. You have to pick a niche and run with it, and that’s exactly what Dave Filoni is doing. AND that’s what we as fans need to do. If you’re mad that he didn’t address the chiss as a whole or delve into the mysteries of the nightsisters or expand on what happened between Ahsoka and Sabine in depth, then I’m sorry, but you’ve come to the wrong place. Put on a pair of rose colored glasses and cry at Ezra’s reunions with the rest of us.

I’ve stopped expecting perfection from any major franchise (haven’t watched a marvel show or movie since TF&TWS) because the bigger they get, the less they’re going to appeal to the general fan base. And Ahsoka was no different. But it did accomplish one thing: bringing Ezra Bridger home after 10 years, and I think that is all we actually need to worry about for now.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#ahsoka spoilers #ahsoka #ahsoka series #rants and thoughts with katie

[lewkwoodnco]

Hi I want to request Lockwood×fem!reader with the song You Are In Love. I don't really care about the plot that much, I just love the vibes of the song. Also sorry for requesting so much, this is my last request I promise.

You Are In Love - Lockwood x Reader

A/N: no problem abt the requests :))) 2.4k, enjoy!

"I'll get you the paperwork," Barnes was saying, as he signalled to a DEPRAC officer before being accosted by a particularly tenacious reporter. She let her eyes drift across the dimly lit scene even as she was distantly aware of herself beginning to spiral as she tried to process the past few hours. It all happened so quickly that she didn't have time to feel scared, but now she felt paralysed. She jerked back to the present when she felt fingers brush against her elbow. She looked up to see Lockwood looking at her with concern as he walked away, following some other DEPRAC officer, but in that fleeting look the whole room had been enshrouded in darkness, and there was only him and her and the look in his eyes that he kept safe just for her. The officer was back, hurriedly handing her the forms she needed to fill on the source they had found, and she numbly began, mind wandering back to the beginning of it all.

It was almost dreamlike, how idyllic the beginning of the case had been. For once, they weren't running late, and Lockwood was in too good of a mood over the new type of salt bombs to fight with George.

"I still think we should test the bombs out first. What if they don't work?"

"Then we'll just chuck you at the visitors. That'll properly scare them off."

George huffed, but he was still in one of his better moods. She was buttoning up her coat as she watched Lockwood shrug his on. His habit of leaving his coat unbuttoned had irked her in the beginning, how he didn't have a coat so much as a robe, though he somehow rarely got his crisp white shirts stained unless his feathers had been seriously ruffled.

They were handling a Spectre that evening: an extremely aggressive bride who had unexpectedly died the night before her wedding. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for the fact that she frequented one of two locations: a bench outside her favourite cafe or her house. George and Lucy had taken a cab to the house and Lockwood and her were now driving to the cafe, and whichever pair saw her first was supposed to tell the others via their walkie-talkies.

"So...murderous bride."

"How fun." She groaned as she shifted in her seat, resting her forehead against the cool window. It was much too cold for running about, trying to stay alive as a ghost tried to gouge their eyes out.

"Should be easy enough. The only issue is that the source is probably some kind of ring, and that would take ages to find."

"It's such a tiny house. One good magnesium flare would finish the job."

"And finish us too, mind." He was looking over his shoulder, watching the incoming traffic, so she felt rather than saw his smile. Once they reached the cafe, they took some preliminary readings and set up their chains. After that, there was nothing to do but wait. She hugged herself, trying to trap some warmth inside her coat. Beside her, Lockwood stood poised as ever, as if he didn't even notice the low temperature.

"Aren't you cold?"

He shook his head stiffly, then shivered violently as a cold gust of wind flew through their clothes. She reached over, laughing, and buttoned his coat. "Maybe you wouldn't feel so cold if you actually buttoned your coat once in a while."

"It makes me feel stifled."

"You just like how cool it makes you look, the way it flaps behind you as you run."

He grinned. "You think that makes me look cool?"

"Shut up."

But she was smiling, and there was no real heat behind her words. Lockwood could be utterly ridiculous, but that didn't mean he wasn't amusing too. She felt a jolt in her stomach as their smiles aligned, a sudden spark, but it was gone before she realised.

"We'll be here a while. Coffee?"

She felt miles better once Lockwood had returned with their hot drinks. She sipped nervously, feeling oddly unsettled, but there weren't any apparitions yet, as far as she could see. "I hope George and Lucy are alright," she murmured.

"They'll be fine. They're professionals."

She stared into the murky coffee, her necklace glinting as it reflected light from the ghost-lamps onto her chin. "I just...I get so in my head sometimes. I can't help but worry."

"I know what we do is dangerous, and you never truly know, but we hope for the best. And...it's taken me a while to truly believe this, but I don't think everything always ends in disaster." His eyes lifted and she followed his gaze to the hazy constellations above them, blocked by the harsh ghost-lamps yet still undeniably asserting itself through the more stubborn stars. "The world somehow...perseveres."

She shifted, accidentally brushing her shoulder against Lockwood's. His eyes flickered down to hers and she felt her breath hitch in her throat. That same connection roared back to life, outlined by the delicate trim of the stars above them, holding them together but not pulling them into each other, like planets circling each other, round and round. A pregnant silence lazily stretched out in front of them. She didn't need him to say anything, or do anything, because the feeling was all around them, enveloping them. Every time he walked into a room it was as though the winds shifted and sounds died away to give way for that pulse that they shared.

A crackle from the walkie talkie broke the silence, and she looked away as Lockwood cursed under his breath, trying to get it to work. After a few seconds of panicked fumbling, he started heading for the car, her close behind.

"We should-"

"Yeah."

When they arrived, the house was a light show from the glow of flares being tossed. Lucy was screaming bloody murder at George, who they identified through the dragging of the chains (he would rather die than lose chains he 'spent perfectly good money on.'). Unfortunately, she had been quite close to the front door when they entered, but luckily Lockwood managed to distract her but feinting straight ahead before rolling to the left. She darted right, forcing herself to look straight ahead even as every part of her screamed at her to look back, just to check that he was alright. All the rooms had been torn apart, and she clutched her hair with desperation. Her eyes finally landed on a deceptively ordinary dresser at the end

She was frantically rummaging the drawers, cursing the fiddly knobs and flinching at the bride's every sharp, heart-rending wail. She had just yanked open the last drawer, but it was empty, and she cried in despair. But the drawer didn't seem to open fully, and in a sudden stroke of inspiration, she pushed against the back of the drawer, and it gave away. She nearly choked on the onslaught of resentment that washed over her. This had to be the source. She scrambled for it, but was stunned when she pulled it out. Lockwood wasn't far off in his guess. But she didn't expect the river of misery that flowed from the crack that nearly split the ring's stone in two.

She heard another door burst open, a distant hiss, and then the ceiling started to crumble. She tried to run, hopefully towards the exit, but then the ceiling lights shattered and the house was plunged in darkness. She heard screams from her thankfully-alive friends, and somehow she continued to stumble her way ahead, gravitating towards Lockwood, sensing rather than seeing him. He was in her reach, all she had to do was stretch her arm, but then he was gone, and that sudden emptiness was the last thing she remembered.

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

Her face was smarting when she came to, and dust threatened to suffocate her, but she was possessed by this blind rage, this force which demanded immediacy and compelled her to stretch her hand through the sharp debris; feeling around for what, even she didn't know. But then she felt a warm hand tremble as it covered her own, and it all made sense to her.

"Lockwood," she choked out, as she carelessly shoved off the rubble burying her with shaking limbs. Lockwood was a bit harder to extricate - his leg was stuck under a chunk of concrete - but eventually he was free. He coughed for a good minute or so, and when he finally looked up, he immediately winced.

"Your nose."

"What?"

"God, it looks something awful."

"Can't be worse than your face." Lockwood laughed, and she did too, but for different reasons. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his gorgeous face. By then, George and Lucy had stumbled over, luckily all with minor bumps and scrapes. They dug around for a while and managed to extract the source, thankfully still bundled up in their iron net. Lockwood turned to call DEPRAC over but the bomb had evidently already informed them, and they were pulling up to the scene with their irritatingly obnoxious sirens.

Barnes didn't look happy but sent her and Lockwood to have their nose and leg bandaged up respectively. Lockwood was done first (probably because the paramedic kept wincing every time he looked at her nose - "It's not that bad - get a grip!") so he started to file their incident report. When she was finally done, she was struggling against the weight of the past few hours. It was probably partly because of the negative feelings emanating from the source she was clutching, but there was some strange understanding she shared with the bride that made her reluctant to let go of it, even for a while. But Lockwood had finished the report soon enough and rejoined her.

“Lockwood and Co.?” The two of them spun around, her nearly slipping on the icy floor. It was the photographer accompanying the reporter who was interrogating George and Lucy. “I’d love to take some photos, if you don’t mind.”

After taking the pictures, the DEPRAC officers were finally ready to collect the source, and she scrambled to find the paperwork spotted with blood that she had been fighting for her life to do. When she returned, the reporter was gone, and Lockwood was holding a few of the photos. “Didn’t need some of them for the papers, so he gave them to us.”

The drive home was fortunately much less eventful. She tried to sleep, but her brain was too wired from the coffee, and adrenaline, and the drug that was Lockwood's smile. Finally giving up on the losing battle, she padded downstairs to the kitchen, before she saw the door to the library being ajar.

Lockwood was sitting at the desk behind the armchairs near the fireplace, and she could see the exhaustion knitted into every wrinkle of his face as he wrote something. She turned to leave, but the floorboard creaked, drawing his attention.

"Sorry," she smiled, slightly abashed. "Just going to get some tea. Didn't mean to disturb you."

"No, it's fine," he put his pen down, leaning back slightly, and she took it as an invitation to enter. Of the few times she had been in the library, she had only vaguely registered that desk. Now, it seemed impossible that she ever missed the dozens of personal trinkets lined up along its edge, and the files and notebooks that littered it. There was even a bulletin board where he had neatly pinned up clues from a previous case where they had struggled to narrow down a specific building to look for the source.

"Hmm. I thought you did all this in the kitchen."

"I do, mostly, but George hogs the thinking cloth sometimes. Most times. All the time."

She pulled her eyes away from his bookshelf and turned to see him watching her over his shoulder, with the barest hint of a smile on his face. The smile faded, and something more subdued took its place. Something quieter, something vague yet...melancholic. Like missing something that you couldn't quite remember.

"I was thinking about the bride, before."

"Mhm."

"I'm really sorry she died so young."

Lockwood nodded solemnly, and for a person typically so adamant on distancing themselves from the visitors they handled, it was a surprisingly sympathetic response. She couldn't tell what he was thinking about, but she was considering what it would have been like if Lockwood hadn't immediately woken up just now. Here one moment, gone the next. She wondered if she could have even beared to come back to 35 Portland Row. They looked at each other, but the silence was different this time, as if they were building up to something, a subtle underlying urgency making them rush towards...something. They probably would have found out what that something was if she hadn't suddenly gotten distracted by a dusty frame on his desk.

“Is that…the picture of me?”

Lockwood stills, and for a moment she thinks that she can actually hear the cogs in his head go into overdrive. “…yeah. I have one of Lucy…and George…somewhere under this mess.”

In the picture, she was holding up the bagged source with tissue stuffed in her nose (Ah. So she really did look that terrible.) to stem the blood. That, coupled with the wall of coats surrounding her face, made her look like a misshapen blob. Not her most flattering picture, but something tugged at her when she saw how relaxed her smile was, looking not at the camera but at someone standing a bit behind it: Lockwood. Suddenly, it felt too intrusive to be in his office, to see this physical landscape of Lockwood’s mind. It was so intimate, so nerve-wracking. How did people ever fall in love?

Violently so, it seemed. That bride had been rolling in her grave, screeching and scratching anyone who tried to keep her away from her beloved. And when she saw that photo on Lockwood's desk, she was possessed by this overwhelming urge to keep him safe, to have and to hold him. It was a flicker of emotion, but enough to propel her to wage wars.

She put the frame down, staring at the wood grain of the desk, at Lockwood's index finger which was mere millimeters from her pinky. In that inky night, which was slowly but surely giving way to sunrise...it felt like love.

#fanfiction #anthony lockwood imagine #anthony lockwood x reader #anthony lockwood x you #fanfic #lockwood & co #lockwood and co #lockwood and co netflix #lockwood x y/n #taylor swift #you are in love #1989 #taylor swift 1989 #1989 tv #1989 taylor's version

[chinelacanta]

Do you have some autistic dragon headcanons?

I DO YEAA THIS ASK MADE ME SO HAPPY AAAAAAA

sorry in advance im abt to yap

he definitely has, for the most part, the 'kinda blank, unenthusiastic, uninterested' resting face, which i think a lot of people see as mean or rude, but that's just the lack of eyebrows i think, makes his eyes a lot more intense!!

holds the den den mushi really close to his heart. he probably spent a lot of time on marine bases so he saw them pretty regularly. i think he was at first curious, then after reading more about them smth just resonated and they've been one of if not his favorite creature since

long periods of time where he doesn't feel like really talking to anyone at length, which is kinda bad for the rev organization, but he has close friends who he shares administration with, like iva kuma and inazuma. he does like being involved and he thinks it's integral to be hands on, but he genuinely enjoys the mundane paperwork stuff they relegate to other members, like collecting newspapers clippings and searching into small time but sketch govt. officials

id say living w garp constantly made him have to mask all his social ineptitudes, plus making him realize very early on that he was Different and, to his father and the other people on base and ships, 'Wrong' in a way. he definitely feels better after the creation of the RA, and leaving all of that behind

he's on the quiet side, not speaking much (after realizing that when he did he was labeled as being 'offputting'), and i think given different circumstances he'd be way more outspoken, but i also think he doesn't mind being a more introspective person. his safe space is definitely his quarters and when he's by himself, and even then he mostly just chills out i think ^^

he's not as blunt as luffy in the sense of saying things he thinks without caring much, or denouncing things he doesn't agree with or thinks are stupid, but he's more questioning of everything- how and why it is the way it is, which i doubt the marines or his father liked.

if he did have any stims i think he'd gently sway with the wind and the leaves while out by the sea, its very soothing and calming. post having luffy he'd do that while facing the east ;;

if you're into dragodile, id say after meeting croco he'd have a special interest for sand, and have those multi colored little jars of it to give as gifts. post breakup he couldn't fully enjoy that hobby anymore, he probably tried to switch to leaf collecting since the wind carries over so many of them to him but it just wasn't for him.

another thing i think he could do is whistle if he's all by himself, like he's echoing the swirling winds <33

he's not photosensitive per say, but he dislikes bright things. but his son is the sun itself, and he loves him more than anything else. it'll always be luffy above himself in his heart, which makes his sacrifice oh him so much worse

i think he hates salt water, the way it messes with his hair and stings his eyes and leaves a bad taste and burns his nose- definitely a nono

little silly bonus, i think he'd have the time of his life riding the cloud bike things at skypiea

SORRY NOT SORRY FOR YAPPING DRAGON IS JUST REALLY SPECIAL FOR ME

#ask!! #bestest ask ive gotten everrrr ty ty #hes so comforting #and cool #and interesting #monkey d dragon

[welcome-back-to-hoimycraf]

A man arrived in town yesterday.

Actually, let her rephrase that- a man washed up in town yesterday. 

She’d woken rather abruptly to the familiar sound of rocks shredding lumber like paper, and knew that another had been claimed by the sea. Gem sighed, pulling herself out from under the comfy, warm blankets that she oh-so desperately wished to return to and threw on her large jacket to protect her pajamas from the salt. 

Hopefully whoever had crashed was alright, but she knew better. The stony shoal at the base of her lighthouse had taken plenty of lives in only her first few months of being its keeper, and she only expected more to follow. She made her way down the spiraling tower.

Through the dim light of the entryway she found the telephone at its usual spot behind the stairs. Gem hoped the operator was awake as she pressed the earphone to her head, listening past the buzzing for his voice. She tapped her foot impatiently as the seconds went on. Finally, she reached her hand up to rattle the receiver and get his attention. The slacker! she thought, though she really couldn’t blame him for neglecting his duties this late at night. It seemed to work, as his bumbling voice swiftly answered on the other end.

“Sorry- uh, what number?”

“Mumbo,” she spoke as clearly as she could through the crackly static, “I need Scar. As soon as possible.” She vaguely wished she could afford to be more polite, but she quickly stamped the thought out. Mumbo would understand.

“Ah! Okay, will do!” The faint sounds of movement started over the line as he worked the wires. Knowing it would take a moment, she let him fish for the information he wanted. “So, what happened this time?”

The lighthouse keeper sighed, a sound she’d become quite familiar with over the months. “An accident at the shore, probably a bad one, judging by the sound.”

An understanding hum carried through. “Understood. You’re on route to Scar now.”

“Thank you.”

After a bit more waiting through the growing sense of urgency caused by the ringing of the call later, the man’s voice, much too bright and cheery for the hour, crackled through the other end. “Hello! Mayor Scar, at your service!”

“Scar? It’s Gem. We’ve got an emergency at the lighthouse,” she started, attempting to give as much detail in as little time as possible. “Bring medical supplies and…” The words died on her tongue, but she cleared her throat. “Some body shrouds.”

“Alright, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Be safe out there,” he finished. It was rare to hear Scar be so serious, but she supposed the guy was just concerned for her being out on the slippery cliffs in the dark. 

“Will do.” The low tone of the line going dead prompted her to set the earphone back in its rightful place, but her hand ended up slipping and banging the receiver. She said a silent apology to Mumbo.

Gem knew she was wasting time leaning her head against the wall, but she needed some damn air alright? She took a deep breath to sober up before gearing up to face her burdens. She made sure to grab her flashlight from its home on the shelf beside the door that was there in case of nights like this, only pausing for a moment at the knob to prepare herself for whatever viscera she might find past it. 

The night was dark, as usual, with very little moonlight to allow her to see. She felt along the flashlight’s corroded surface to find its switch, the beam flickering to life once she found it. Though she wanted to, she wasted no more time in her search. Someone, maybe even multiple people were counting on her. She was the bringer of life and death in this moment- she only had to choose which she would be. 

Her journey down wasn’t very long until she first saw signs of the wreck. Pieces of debris floated past her feet, on its way down to the mouth of the river. From what she could tell it was… bamboo? Who builds a boat out of bamboo? Whatever. It wasn’t her job to question it. 

The detritus only became thicker the closer she got to the base of the lighthouse, the shallower water between the rocks providing ample view of the wreckage. Among the rope and bamboo sat something much more eye-catching. 

A person laid face down in a pool of water. Their heavy red sweater, while good at keeping out the brisk wind of the night, only served to soak up seawater like a sponge. As Gem approached, she heard them groan lowly- in pain or annoyance, she couldn't tell. At least they were alive, thank god. "Are you alright?"

"Ugh,” they grumbled, lifting their head from its place in the wet sand. “Blasted raft, couldn't even handle a few pebbles," they complained, picking themself up and brushing off sludge from their pants. Their distinct English accent caught her off guard with how out of place it seemed- though she supposed Mumbo and Joel were British as well. “And I got my clothes dirty, great.”

Gem blinked in shock. That was what they were worried about? “I’m sorry?”

The person whipped their head up to look at her. It seemed like they just noticed she was there. “Oh. Uh- hello,” they said, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly. The only sound she could hear aside from the crashing of the waves was their sopping hair dripping onto the stone. Gem couldn't even tell if it was brown or blonde. 

“Are you alright?” She eyed them up and down, but they looked to be in good condition despite the circumstance. In fact, she couldn't find a single scratch on them- or even a rip in their soiled garments for that matter. 

“Never been better!” They grinned, clapping their hands together in a way that startled Gem with the sound. “Now, where can a guy find something new to wear around here?” They- he? looked around as if he would spot a shop on the beach. 

“Uh-”

Thankfully, the situation was taken out of her hands as the sound of automobiles rumbled up behind her, blinding her with their headlights when she turned. 

“Gem? You found a survivor?” Scar’s voice was a nice touch of familiarity as he climbed out of the driver’s seat. 

The rest of the night was a blur. She assumed the shock came from the man- which she now learned was Grian- being so nonchalant. Weird name, but who was she to judge? Her best friend’s name was Etho, so she had little say in the matter. What truly was weird was how calm he was. It was like he hadn’t washed ashore in a new, unfamiliar place. Once she made sure he was safely in the hospitality of the town, she made her way back to the lighthouse. She had expected to find a gored body earlier that night. Luckily, she seemed to be wrong about him.

>Next<

psssst @bed-of-ashes asked me to tag them so i did ^^

#fanfic #my fanfic #hermitfic #hermitcraft #hermitcraft 10 #grian #geminitay #mumbo jumbo #goodtimeswithscar #mayor scar

[tgmsunmontue]

It's all academic darlin' PART 2/10

12k+ Hangster AU. Updating 2-3 parts per week and will be finished by 31st January 2024. (Each part is ~1500 words).

Bradley is a professor but living his best life with IceMav parents. Jake is a pilot. Maverick sort-of tries (and fails) to play matchmaker, so he tries again. Touch of epistolary and sprinkling of one-sided unknown/mistaken-identity.

(Note for later parts/chapters - Ice uses sign to communicate at home, I’m typing it like sign is English despite the fact that I know it isn’t (while NZSL is my third language, I have no working knowledge on the grammar useage in ASL).)

PART TWO

                The next morning he wakes up slowly. There’s music again, although quieter, and he can smell coffee. He’d gone to bed early last night, using the excuse of the long drive, because saying he was developing a pressing headache wasn’t something he wanted to mention. He showers and inspects his bruises in the mirror, presses gently on the cuts where the stitches were removed only two days ago. Nothing feels inflamed or more tender than what should be expected.

                He grabs a black Henley from his bag and pulls it on, only feeling very mild discomfit as he moves now. It’s looser and darker colored than what he usually wears, however his usual form fitting things were dragging across the stitches, catching on them. So, he’d succumbed to Phoenix buying him some shirts that didn’t show blood every time he reached too far when playing pool or rubbed his stitches. Not that it’s a problem now that they’re gone, but the shirt reminds him that someone cared enough to help him feel comfortable. Walking toward the kitchen he finds Bradley standing at the stove, poking at the contents of a pan. Whatever it is smells good, and he hopes that there’s the intent to share.

                “Mornin’,” he greets, his voice sounding rough.

                “Hey, morning. Help yourself to coffee, or there’s tea and stuff. I’ve made some breakfast. Sorry it’s a bit, uh, mixed. I’m just trying to get through the perishables so no one has to deal with the repercussions next time we visit.”

                Jake has a closer look at the pan and sees fried potatoes with some ham and egg thrown in along with some spinach and tomatoes, small sprinkling of cheese and it smells a perfect combination of crispy-salt-fat and his mouth is watering.

                “Smells good. Thanks. You didn’t have to.”

                “Seriously man, you turning up means I won’t have to gorge myself too much today to get through everything. I don’t want to have to come back to this place and find liquified vegetables in the fridge.”

                “Learnt that lesson the hard way huh?”

                “Unfortunately,” Bradley laughs and shakes his head ruefully.

                Jake takes a breath, a shaky smile making its way onto his face in response to the wide smile and crinkling eyes. Bradley smiles so easily, like it’s natural to just be smiley and friendly and simply… good natured. Jake would bet money he doesn’t get called an asshole on the regular. Unlike him. Considering he’s Mav’s son though he might just be hiding his more asshole-ish tendencies much like Jake is ensuring he doesn’t stray from the societal norms of being the most polite and accommodating of guests.

                Bradley is making him think though, maybe finding someone who is more mild mannered and edges on too polite would balance him out. It’s not what Jake usually finds attractive, but with the year at work he’s had maybe quiet, safe, and friendly… could make a nice change. Not that he’s in a hurry for any type of relationship, but he might table it for consideration for the future, because maybe coming back to the same place, the same person, has started to have some… appeal.

                “Did you sleep okay?”

                “Yeah, better than I expected,” Jake replies, and he’s assuming the combination of drive and headache had made his brain unable to formulate its semi-regular nightmare fodder. That’s what disrupts his sleep these days, not the location.

                “That’s good. Here,” Bradley says, passing him a plate piled high with food and moving towards the dining table with his own. “You won’t get this again sorry. I’m leaving early tomorrow, so I’ll probably be gone before you get up.”

                “It’s fine. I lived plenty long enough looking after myself, I’m sure I’ll survive a couple of weeks on my own here. I didn’t expect any cooked meals when I decided to come stay. Are you driving back?”

                “No. Well, partly I guess. I’ve got a plane at Fallon, so I’ll drive there and then fly back to San Diego. Perk of the job,” Bradley says, and he grins. Jake assumes it’s a reference to Mav’s connections, that he can store a plane at Fallon and use the runway and airspace for personal use. That’s one hell of a perk. The food tastes as good as it smells and Jake lets himself savor it, enjoys the novelty of food being cooked for him.

                “Actually, I have a favor to ask. Nothing major, just… can I use you phone later? I need to make a couple of calls. First one needs to be to Mav.”

                Jake agrees easily, it’s no issue for him. They do the washing up and Bradley continues to sing along to the music playing from a portable speaker. The man doesn’t seem to care that Jake is virtually a stranger, no embarrassment at all as he belts out the words to the song being played and tries to encourage Jake to sing along as well. Jake guesses he’s someone who is truly confident, which with a new Hawaiian shirt today, easy smile, clearly happy with whatever lot he has in his life… well, Jake guesses Bradley probably is.

                He’d probably be just as happy right now with or without Jake there, singing along to himself. He clearly doesn’t feel like he needs to impress Jake, and for once Jake feels a little unsettled. Unsure about how he should act with no crowd to play up his own abilities, someone he doesn’t need to harmlessly flirt with, it leaves him without a guide book of basic social interaction and he feels unmoored. He excuses himself to go and grab his phone from his room and thumbs through to Mav’s contact and puts the call through.

                “Hello. Pete Mitchell.”

                “Hey Mav, It’s Hangman.”

                “Hangman. Good to hear from you. Did you find the place alright?”

                “Yeah. Although Bradley wasn’t expecting me. He wants to talk to you actually.”

                “He wasn’t expecting you and he can’t call me himself,” Mav says flatly. “Let me guess. He lost another phone.”

Jake barks out a laugh, because hearing Mav’s disappointed tone and not have it aimed in any way toward him makes him feel like he’s in on a private joke. And maybe he can go with a teasing thing rather than a flirting thing if this is a thing. He walks back to find Bradley lounging on the sofa, looking at something on a tablet.

                “Yeah, fell in the lake,” Jake provides and Bradley’s eyes shoot up to meet his, narrowing as he realizes that he must already be talking to Mav.

                “Jesus. That kid. I swear he goes through a phone a year. Falling in the lake is probably one of the least exciting ways it’s happened. There’s been the top of a car, wing of a plane, compressor which was a stupid prank when he was an undergraduate… Can you put him on?”

                “Yeah, of course.”

                “Hi Dad…”

                Jake moves out onto the porch, trying to be polite and give Bradley some privacy, but the other man just follows, clearly not seeming to want or need privacy as he listens to his father talking. “Yeah, I know.” “Yes. Another one.” “Please stop keeping count.” “I’m good. How’s everyone at home?” “Okay. I’m glad to hear that. Tell him I fixed the smoker.” “Yeah.” “Ugh, I know.” “You’d think so wouldn’t you?” “What? Uh, good I guess?” “Got a whole bunch of stuff done.” “Yes Mav, all the important shit.” “Jesus Mav, I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, you can grill me then.” “Well, it’s not like my fridge is going to be overflowing with food, I thought the least you could do was feed me dinner.” “I knew you’d want to see me…”

                Jake listens to the one-sided conversation, can almost imagine Mav’s side. Not that he knows who else Mav might have at home, but the easy laughter and conversation makes part of him ache for what he doesn’t have with his own father. It’s a small passing ache now; he’d like to think he’s managed to work through the worst of it and accepted that the rest is something he can’t change; more importantly accepted it isn’t his responsibility to change. He listens again and the conversation has shifted to confirming times at the airstrip for take-off and he briefly wonders where the plane is stored in San Diego, because from the sounds of it Mav is picking Bradley up and Jake knows Mav has his own plane. Actually, maybe that’s the one Bradley flew here. Or they store their planes together.

                “Yeah, love you too. See you tomorrow. Did you want to talk to Jake again?”

                “Here…” Bradley says, and he passes Jake’s phone back to him before walking away back inside, leaving Jake with his privacy and he appreciates it.

                “Uh, hey Mav…”

                “Hey kid, I hope Bradley isn’t too much… you’re meant to be taking it easy and I know you didn’t break that drive up over two days like you were meant to.”

                “I’m good.”

                “You are good kid, and I want you to stay that way. It’s why we follow the orders of our doctors.”

                Jake snorts because he’s pretty sure Mav ignored half of the orders he heard prior to his retirement.

                “I’m here now, and I will do nothing but rest. Once Bradley leaves with his blisteringly bright shirts and music it’ll be the perfect place to rest and recover.”

                “He’ll get rid of both if you ask –”

                “Nah Mav, it’s kind of nice having someone not walkin’ around like I’m about to collapse any minute. He even cooked me breakfast this morning, he’s a good host.”

                Mav makes a weird choking sound and there’s mumbling he can’t make out before he clears his throat.

                “Well, I’m glad. I’m going to call you in a couple of days and check in with you, okay son?”

                “Yeah Mav, that’s fine.”

                Ending the call Jake slides his phone into his pocket, although he should really go and see if Bradley wants to use it to make the remainder of his necessary calls. He wonders what he’d have done if Jake hadn’t turned up. He should probably call home and check in with Javy and his siblings. He flicks off a couple of messages and lets them all know he’s okay. He stares out at the sparse scrubby forest, can see the shimmer of water off in the distance, looks at the lean-to stacked high with firewood and wonders what it would be like to have a place like this of his own. Somewhere he chose to be for longer than the length of a deployment, somewhere to return to. Not to one of his siblings. Not Javy. His and his alone.

                The bang of the screen door startles him and he turns to see Bradley, changed into running shorts and a loose tank.

                “I’m just going to go for a run before it gets too hot. Did you want to come with me?”

                Jake pulls a face, because normally he’d love to, but the jarring nature of running would not be great for his head. Today needs to be a rest day.

                “I’m meant to be taking it easy. Running probably isn’t the best idea.”

                The look that that new information gets him makes him wish he’d kept his mouth shut, but he’s feeling okay right now, needs to allow his body to recover after the drive yesterday if he wants to get back to flying as soon as he can. Bradley just nods his head though, accepting it without asking further questions.

                “Okay. I’ll show you the best place for swimming later, and the docking spot if you want to take a kayak or paddle board out.”

                “Sounds good,” Jake replies, failing to mention that he definitely won’t be kayaking or paddle boarding, although normally he’d love to do either of those things. Swimming sounds good though. He’s been aching to exercise in some form and swimming is something that he can gently start with. Maybe work up to the others.

                “I’ll be back in an hour or so. Make yourself at home.”

                He watches Bradley head off to what may or may not be a regularly run track before heading inside. He’s not going to snoop around, but he figures he can definitely go through the kitchen and maybe figure out what he could make for lunch. There’s an odd assortment of things, but he thinks he could cobble together some type of sandwich, but there’s no bread. Okay. This gives him something to do. He likes his bread too much not to have some on hand for a quick snack so he quickly searches for a recipe. No yeast that he can find, but there is beer, so he sets to work.

PART THREE

#Hangster #Sereshaw #top gun maverick #top gun maverick fanfic #It's all academic darlin'

[bi-bats]

oh? the couch? 👀

I actually posted a snippet of it once here!! Instead of giving you the premise, I'm going to give you a longer snippet! This chunk happens before the one I linked above (the one that was for word game wednesday):

“Well fortunately for me, you don’t want me dead anymore,” Tim smirked, and Jason twitched a little, letting out a laugh that was a little strained. He thought it was fair, considering how often Jason made other people make the same face when he joked about his death. While Jason got his face under control, Tim turned, sliding his toes out from under Jason’s thigh and dropping his feet to the floor, leaning his head back on Jason’s arm as he sipped at his coffee. The thing was, Jason had been… touchy. When they were alone.  They seemed to be alone together more frequently than they used to be, too, and something about that always made Tim feel warm. The touching wasn’t anything that pushed boundaries, just sitting a little closer together than they would have before, ruffles of his hair, occasional shows of physical affection, but it was enough for him to notice the difference.  He dismissed the idea that Jason was interested every time he suspected it, though. Tim was biased, he wanted it to be true, and it wasn’t like he’d never seen Jason like this with anyone.  He’d seen Kori throw her arm around him while they ate, Roy fall asleep on his shoulder. He’d seen Jason lay his head in Donna’s lap, seen him fully cuddling with Kyle once or twice, though Tim sort of suspected they used to have something more than friendship.  The point was, Jason was just like this with his friends.  It still made that pleased thing lounge in his gut that Jason was like that with him, too. And when Tim laid his head back on Jason’s arm, he dropped it around Tim’s shoulder, pulling him against his side so he could pillow his head on his chest.  “Seriously, Tim. You gotta get more sleep, or if you’re not gonna do that, at least be more careful where you crash.”  “Where’d I crash?”  “An apartment rooftop. With roof access.” Jason frowned down at him, and Tim looked into his coffee. “It could’ve been bad, little bird.”  That was the other new thing. The nicknames.  Tim found he didn’t mind little bird as much. Little red made him feel like Jason’s kid brother, like he was trying to imitate him and falling short of the mark.  Little bird made him feel… precious. Like he was something Jason valued. Something he wanted to keep safe.  “Oh, that one’s fine?” Jason asked.  “It’s better,” Tim agreed. “Sorry for making you peel me off a rooftop. I was being reckless.” “Don’t beat yourself up about it, you didn’t make me do anything. Just be more careful.” “Aw, are you worried about me?” Tim tried to tease, peeking up at Jason’s face, waiting for him to blush and deny it the way he usually did. It always felt good to see that dusting of pink across his freckled cheeks, because that was how Tim knew he was lying.  But instead, Jason looked down at him, his blue-green eyes unusually sincere. “Wouldn’t you be worried if you found me passed out on a rooftop?” 

I'm not working on this one super actively atm, but it does have a cute little plot and would probably be a one-shot. I'd guess maybe 20k words or less? (Then again, I'm terrible at predicting the length of my pieces so take that with a grain of salt lmao)

Anyways, hope you enjoyed and thanks for the ask as always bestie!!!! 💖💖💖💖💖

#tag games #batwrites #batsasks #🫘 this was a terrible idea #wip #jaytim

[cloveroctobers]

no worries at all! i was just kinda thinking a fic where the reader and oj are dating and it’s around the time weird stuff with the alien starts happening around the ranch and one of the times that they hear the screams and the power goes off the reader has a panic attack. i would love to see how oj reacts and i’m sure emerald’s reaction would be pretty funny too haha THANK U!

HOW OJ REACTS TO YOU HAVING A PANIC ATTACK !

A/N: I wrote this in headcanon form since if I tried to write a fic, then this probably wouldn’t be out for another two weeks tbh! Hope you enjoy!

First things first, you weren’t keen on OJ leaving the ranch to go after lucky.

You knew how deep his connection was to all of the horses but at a time like this? When things were surely but shortly turning into hell on earth…you were completely against it.

You pleaded with OJ not to go but he did his best to reassure you that he would be back in no time.

“Whatever y’all do, when it comes…don’t look at it.” He warned the three of you, hand resting on the door knob.

Em rolled her eyes, “you don’t gotta tell me twice! Since you don’t ever listen to your favorite sista, why don’t you listen to y/n and stay yo ass in the house?! It’s not like you know how to stay far from the ranch anyways!”

Angel even threw in his own two cents but when did either of the Haywood’s let the words of the monotoned twenty something year old phase them?

So you watched OJ leave, holding back the breath in your lungs because you sure as shit didn’t want to be out there

it didn’t feel right.

Which is why, yeah that was your man and you were supposed to stick beside him! But your instincts told you to stay tf in the house.

So here you were watching the man you love go after part of his peace.

You were a nail biter, no matter how much hot sauce, salt, or jalapeños your grandmother placed on your nails when you were younger could stop you

Sure it did for like a day or two but that only resulted in another bad habit, pulling at your hair. You could just hear the petite woman—with very heavy hands clicking her tongue down at you right about now.

Sorry grandma, shit was getting crazy around these parts and you were more terrified with another being in the sky right now!

The ticking from the grandfather clock in the hallway didn’t calm you, from em pacing the floor trying to find service—it wasn’t the best up here anyways, to Angel peeking out the window with wide eyes at the weather rapidly changing…did not make you feel any better.

The tv screen proceeded to skip channels on its own, only increasing the beat of your own heart rhythm as you witnessed such.

“Oh hell no.” Emerald kicked the button to the old tv off with her foot as she glanced at you and Angel before messing around with her phone again

The quiet only made the anxiety increase as you could now faintly hear a spluttering sound…a sound you heard once before

“Angel…” you started since he was the closest to the door, “is OJ out there?”

Angel stepped back from the door, “n-n-no but it is.”

“What?” Emerald questioned, you could hear the slight panic in her tone.

The pressure that you previously felt in your chest did not compare to the power Jean jacket had.

The closer it got, your chest felt as if it was about to cave in and you clenched your eyes shut as you heard angel thud around, scrambling the house in search of some type of safety.

You felt the hands of em latch onto your wrist pulling you back towards the couch as she glanced around at the ceiling—feeling it’s presence too

Slamming your back against the couch, eyes clenched shut, and the touch of a Haywood’s…you hoped OJ was safe.

The spluttering sound you heard again

which gave you the impression that Jean jacket might just swallow you all up whole!

sweat began to drip down from the nape of your neck

You never thought much about dying and unfortunately you were stuck thinking about it in these next brief moments

You weren’t sure what possessed you to peek through your eyes but the shaking that did not come from your body must have told you to do so

When you saw it, the blood being thrown against the Haywood’s windows and oozing down the glass was almost enough to permanently stop you from breathing.

You couldn’t take your eyes off what you were seeing but you knew the two hiding in the house with you also saw the same.

It was the sudden horrifying screams from the Jean jacket and the spitting of random objects that followed, made your vision fail you

“Y/N?!” You heard em call to you, the fear written in her voice was enough to match the overwhelming feeling you were experiencing

There was nothing you could do, so you chose darkness.

You were unsure how much time passed before the sound of a horn blowing, made you peel your eyes back.

“C’mon, y/n,” Emerald was impatient as she left your side to pry the front door open, “Angel! Got damn it, Help me!”

That’s when another touch, a gentle one, came around your waist, began guiding you to your wobbly feet when you realized they were trying to get you to flee!

But you couldn’t find your voice although the frown on your brows was enough to show your concern.

“We gotta go.” Was all angel said to you, noting that you did not agree with this

Angel didn’t have that much of a secure hold on you as the three of you made it out to blood and belongings covered porch

Against your will, your eyes turned to the right and up at Jean jacket who was getting ready to hide behind its signature cloud.

It’s hunger must be satisfied…for now…

However you still found yourself slipping out of angel’s hold, making you scream as you became covered in dirt and blood.

Your eyes locked on Jean jacket who seemed to be almost smirking at you, before completely disappearing behind its cloud

Another touch, a much familiar one came underneath your armpits—dragging you to wherever as you never found your footing.

“Angel, drive.” OJ ordered as he sat in the back of Angel’s van beside you

His rough hands gripped your jaw, “y/n. Y/n?” He kept repeating as you kept looking anywhere but at the ebony skinned man

“Focus on me.” He now sat behind you, wrapping his arms securely around your ribcage, applying just enough pressure, “now focus on your breathing, palm to chest, count the beats. You’re fine, you’re with me. We’re alright.”

You easily followed Otis’ instructions, his lips by your ear as you silently did what was asked of you

With your head now resting on OJ’s collarbone you asked, voice hoarse, “where’s lucky?”

“Home for now.”

“Are you okay?” You found yourself asking, hand still resting on your chest

OJ hummed, still keeping a tight grip on a blood stained you, “as long as you are.” He pecked your temple, “ As long as you are.”

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*

Continue along with my summer anthology prompts here.

#nope #nope 2022 #Jordan peele #nope film #oj haywood #daniel kaluuya #oj haywood x reader #em haywood #emerald haywood #keke palmer #Angel nope #angel torres #brandon perea #requested #nope x reader

[starlight-vixen-emiko]

Disappear

Warning: The following fanfic contains salt! It contains everyone's favorite Cat hero getting rejected and Marinette having her agency. And me throwing the Mari///Chat ship into the trash where it belongs!

I dedicate this fanfic to my friend who converted from Mari///Chat to Vipernette. Because we both know what the best ship ever is! (*whispers* It's Vipernette!)

Well ok, it's kind of bad for me to dedicate this to her because this fanfic sucks I apologize! This fanfic went so much better in my head but I was thinking about you when I wrote this. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

~~~~~

If Alya were here, she would tell Marinette she was once again the luckiest girl alive.

In Paris' latest Akuma attack, she crossed paths with Chat Noir and Viperion.

Viperion was composed and always had a mysterious look in his mint green eyes as if he were always calculating.

And Chat Noir.

Chat Noir…He was certainly full of himself.

Both boys kept her safe from the latest Akuma attack, and Marinette could finally catch her breath on the top of a tall building where she saw Paris was peaceful once more.

"Looks great, doesn't it Marinette?" Chat Noir said.

Marinette turned and saw Chat Noir and Viperion illuminated by the sunset. Chat Noir was giving his best toothy grin and doing his best to outshine Viperion, who had a soft smile as he held his harp close. Marinette admitted that, in his own way, Chat Noir was indeed cute, but he didn't interest her that much.

Viperion didn't seem bothered that his black cat friend enjoyed the spotlight. He just smiled at Marinette and played a gentle tune on his harp.

Marinette smiled as she fixed her hair. "Yes, it does."

But before she could enjoy more, she felt a particular sneaky cat making a move, and she instinctively took a step back and raised her arm. Chat Noir smiled at her.

"Just so you know, I can take you home, Mari," Chat said as she summoned a red rose in his hand.

Marinette took a moment to process this and then sheepishly smiled as she took another step back. "I can walk myself home. The weather is nice."

"But it would take too long," Chat Noir held out his hand. "You won't have to lift a finger if you choose me."

Marinette didn't need to ponder that decision long as she gave him a disapproving frown. "Sorry Chat Noir!" Marinette promptly walked away but stole a glance at Viperion before trying to find the exit.

"Could've sworn Marinette was interested in me," Chat Noir unapologetically said out loud.

Marinette internally sighed. She stopped momentarily and thought about what she wanted, but she wasn't sure if he felt the same. But now was an excellent time to seize the moment.

"Viperion!"

The snake hero's heart skipped a beat as his magical harp disappeared. "Yes Marinette!"

Marinette turned with a serious look on her face. She started running, and Viperion quickly understood. Marinette jumped into Viperion's arms. The snake hero quickly used his teleportation powers, and they disappeared in front of Chat Noir. To the cat boy's surprise, Viperion summoned pink rose petals, which Chat caught with his claws.

Chat Noir realized then that he should take a hint, but still…

"Can't blame a cat for trying!"

Viperion and Marinette were giggling when they teleported to the other side of the city. Marinette clung to Viperion as he held her safe in his arms. Everyone looked so small from the height they were at. But Marinette wasn't afraid. She gave Viperion a quick hug.

"Thank you for catching me," Marinette said softly. "And taking me to a whole new point of view!"

Suddenly, the wheels in Viperion's head turned, and he smiled at her, which Marinette thought was unbelievably adorable.

"I can take you somewhere else," Viperion said.

"Anywhere," Marinette said. "As long as it's with you," Marinette continued, not even trying to hide how flirty she was being.

They disappeared again in a green flash.

~

Marinette seemed a lot more relaxed as she stretched her arms and sat beside Viperion on a stone bench, and behind them was a bunch of pink roses swaying in the breeze as the moon shone above them. Marinette could live in this moment forever, the beautiful moon, the scent of pink roses, and the gentle sounds of Viperion's harp.

Viperion could live in this moment forever too. The snake hero would always play beautiful music for Marinette, even if he could never truly be with her because he is a hero. But as Marinette got tired and rested against him, Viperion smiled down at her and wondered. Why did she choose him?

Viperion's gentle harp filled her ears as she drifted off to sleep. Marinette didn't want to fall asleep at such a beautiful moment. Still, at the same time, if she was slipping and falling into beautiful dreams, then it felt right.

"You're amazing, Viperion," she mumbled as she closed her eyes.

Viperion gasped as he wrapped his arm around her to keep her secure. He ran his fingers through her shiny blue hair as she smiled and sighed while sleeping. It was the most beautiful music Viperion had ever heard. Still, he had to keep Marinette safe during the dark nights.

"I'll take you home, Marinette," he whispered.

He picked her up bridal style and used his powers to teleport into her bedroom. It was dark except for the moonlight shining through the balcony window, but still incredibly safe and filled with Marinette's creations. He gently laid her on her bed before pulling the lamp chord on her nightstand. Viperion smiled as Marinette looked like she was having the best sleep of her life, and he gently removed the strands of her hair from her face.

Viperion turned off the lamp as he decided to leave her to rest. But Marinette stirred in her sleep and rolled over, her smile a bit wider as she continued sleeping.

Viperion couldn't bring herself to leave her right now, and he summoned his harp and played her one last song. His magical musical notes circled Marinette and filled her entire room. He played longer than he should have and still felt melancholy when the song he created had to end. But he would play more music for Marinette and always be there for her, especially since she chose him. And he couldn't just walk away and forget about the beautiful melody that always supported him.

Viperion walked to the balcony door and looked at the full moon before turning to Marinette one last time.

"Goodnight Melody," he said before disappearing in a green light.

Marinette's dreams were full of magical melodies and adventures with the handsome snake hero. Still, Viperion couldn't help himself and teleported a pink rose in her hand before leaving again.

The beautiful music and the scent of a pink rose made this a night Marinette would never forget. Viperion held a single pink rose in his hand as he watched all of Paris as the stars sparkled above him.

#vipernette #the best ship! #lukanette #pro lukamari #my writing #my fanfiction