#or the time i said i had depth and dimension

[letoasai]

dp x dc Chronos part 5

Part 1 - Previous - Master list

Diana was furious. 

She’d known her young uncle for only a handful of hours but here she was, ready to go to war for him. Perhaps that was what her grandfather had meant earlier, his words still ringing in her ears. 

I have a task for you, Diana. One i do not think you will turn now but i’ll give you the illusion of choice.

Perhaps it was less an illusion and more her grandfather merely knowing ahead of time how she would react. If Danny was to be believed – and he did seem such a trustworthy boy – his Clockwork knew every path one could take. 

She knew there were still questions to be asked, but Danny had been able to tell her a great deal before his eyes began to droop and she insisted he try to sleep. The curtains to the room had been left open and she watched as his eyes happily glazed over at the sight of open space before him. It had only taken minutes for him to fall asleep. 

Now she had a lot of work to do and she planned to get as much done while Danny slept as she could. 

She entered the conference room with a quick stride, many members already present for the meeting she had ordered via text. They’d learned that some equipment didn’t work well around Danny. Visuals were blurry at best and audio crackled into something indistinguishable. Diana had instead been texting information to Bruce and Kal to look into while she focused on the boy. 

“Were you able to find anything?” She asked immediately, not elaborating on which fact she was talking about. She’d sent them so many little snippets that she didn’t really care where they started. 

Batman just grunted, and despite wearing his cowl, she could see just how unhappy he was. 

“You’re not going to like it, but you expected that.” Superman said, papers laid out in front of him. He wasn’t the only one doing his research. 

Green Lantern and Flash were still there, the latter looking like he was having an existential crisis over the topic of ghosts. 

Martian Manhunter had also arrived, his frown informing her that the others had caught him up on what had been happening. 

“Can we confirm the truth as Danny has laid it out for us?” She asked, taking a seat. 

“Oh, yeah.” Hal muttered, rubbing a hand down his face. “Constantine will arrive later, but he could confirm the new High King of the Infinite Realm went by Phantom. Never heard him sound so horrified as him learning that someone had punched a hole into another realm in their house though. Inter-dimensional war crimes on our end are stacking up.” 

“Our end?” She asked. 

“The GIW…” Bruce began, sounding a mixture of exhausted and livid. “Are completely out of their depth and did not have the authority to just name a species unidentified to the rest of us as non-sentient. If the Infinite Realm retaliates, and John thinks it’s a possibility, it won’t just be aimed at the GIW alone but the entire dimension. That makes this more of a mess for us to clean up than it already was.” 

They’d already decided to help, that was what they did. But there was a difference in lending a hand and righting a wrong and taking responsibility for someone else’s fuck ups because they had to. 

“Can we prove it?” Diana asked. 

“Absolutely.” Kal nodded. “Honestly, for a government agency, their security is a joke. There was a backdoor already in place. We can ask Danny about that later.”

Diana nodded, certain the information would be good in his hands. She turned her attention back to Bruce. “The Fentons?” 

There was a certain level of disgust that tried to choke her out in that situation. Danny had been so hesitant, the betrayal fresh and painful. She had lived in the World of Men for a long time now and it had as many delights as it did drawbacks, but to learn what Danny’s parents had attempted to do to him left her burning to seek them out herself. 

His mother had lost her privilege to refer to herself as such.

She didn’t care what the circumstances were. Capture and torture with the intentions of vivisection was inexcusable. The target being a child made it all the more heinous. Diana knew Batman would understand without her saying a word. 

“Run of the mill mad scientists. They might have been onto something once when it came to energy but their bias took over. Even if they had been correct about ecto-entities, their language is incredibly inappropriate. No licenced and competent science journal would be associated with that.” He stared at her unhappily. “They’re lunatics. The fact that their children grew up in their home is outrageous.” He hit a button on the remote and a location appeared on the computer screens. 

A bricked house on a street corner, enormous Fenton Works sign taking up most of the front. It was an eyesore, but not as much as the sci-fi looking shuttle sticking out of the roof. The OHSA violations alone should have had the building condemned and there was no way permits had been granted for any of that construction. 

It was a supervillain's dream and not the least bit subtle. It should have been a crime in itself for the town to allow it to remain in a residential area and was shocking that no calls to Child Protective Services had been made. 

Yes, Danny was an exceptional being, but Diana understood now all the likely scenarios where he could have died in that house. Danny had called his death an accident, but she wasn’t so certain about that. “They were the ones to hurt him.” Diana said, hating how her throat was tight. She was already emotionally compromised. 

“Yes, i know.” 

Diana’s attention snapped back to him. “How?” 

“Simple reasoning. They are unstable ghost hunters with questionable science. Danny was removed from his home for his safety. Chronos said he needed a guardian. That doesn’t paint a pretty picture.” Bruce muttered. “Either his guardians couldn’t care for him, or shouldn’t care for him.” 

She felt her shoulders relax somewhat, knowing that such a logical conclusion should have occurred to her too. She really was worried about Danny’s recovery. “We can add it to the file i know you’ve created, but i’d prefer if no one asked him about that at this time. This last attack only happened several days ago and it is still fresh on his mind.” 

Bruce’s eyes narrowed, always a hound when it came to sniffing out abused kids. “This last attack?” 

“They’ve been after him for a while.” Diana hummed, though she’d only had a vague example or two since Danny hadn’t wanted to get into it. She couldn’t imagine how he’d just returned home every day to parents who tried to capture his other persona. 

“We must factor in his identity.” Martian Manhunter approached them, having been listening. J’onn had been doing his own research the last several hours. He laid down a startlingly clear picture of Danny in his white haired ghost form. A print out of an Amity Park newspaper article. 

“What is that?” Bruce frowned, sliding it closer to read. 

“The hero of Amity Park. Phantom. The articles are biased and unfavorable, but that is not the current accepted public opinion. Phantom protects the living from ghosts. He also protects the ghosts from the ghost hunters.” J’onn explained, voice carefully neutral. “Phantom appearing other places, perhaps shouldn’t coincide with where Daniel Fenton ends up.” 

“A name change could be warranted. If that’s what he wants.” Bruce adds. 

J’onn gave a single nod. “It’s a great deal of pressure on one teenager's shoulders. Being a king of a realm on top of that…” 

It was silently agreed upon that Danny deserved this break and Diana was going to get it for him.

“It was only a matter of time before something had to give.” Diana said, turning enough to speak to everyone in the room. “Well he won’t be dealing with all of that alone now. We start with dismantling the GIW, appealing the Anti-Ecto Acts, and smoothing over our relations with the Infinite Realm.” 

“Only that much, huh?” Flash muttered, trying to wrap his head around the science of ghost hunting. 

“Why not get some of the kids involved. Young Justice, maybe?” Hal was rubbing his eyes, not looking forward to the consequences of this mess. “Once he heals it might do him some good to be around others closer to his own age. People he wouldn’t need to hide half of himself from.”

When put like that, Diana could only agree. 

“I’ll mention it to him.” “I’ll get the information i have to Lois.” Clark said, sliding his papers into a binder. “If public opinion of Phantom is already decent in Amity Park, then we’ll up the exposure to put pressure on our oblivious government.” 

“I’ll take a few of the GIW facilities.” Bruce muttered, but he had that familiar tone that said he was about to let his children go buck wild. “A little recon…” he added vaguely. 

Before anyone else could put in their own two cents, the sensors went off, exactly how they had before Chronos had arrived. A paranormal knock of sorts before the very air seemed to split in two, a glowing green portal building around it. 

“Here we go again.” Barry muttered, each of them surrounding the portal as they’d done early for safety’s sake but they were less inclined to fight immediately. 

As J’onn was seeing it for the first time, he remained near Diana, keenly watching the portal manifest. It wasn’t Chronos who stepped out though, it wasn’t human at all. 

From the portal stepped a creature that Diana didn’t have the name for. Bipedal, humanoid, but beast like in appearance. Horns on his head and spikes from his tail made of ice were noticed secondary to his arm of ice that still encased his bones inside. His fur was white, his claws could easily kill and he was covered by a kilt and cape. 

What gave Diana pause as the bag slung over one shoulder, the tell tale signs of a medical cross across the front. 

“Who are you?” Superman asked, more polite than their earlier run in with her grandfather. 

The creature, a ghost presumably, held himself rigid. He was doing a great deal to make himself appear smaller then he was but his gaze was assessing. He was ready to fight if necessary. 

“I am here for His Majesty, the Great One.” Was his response. 

Diana stepped forward, deciding this was exactly what she suspected. “I am Diana. Granddaughter of Chronos who Danny fondly calls Clockwork. You are Frostbite, come to check on Danny, yes?” 

All of his attention was on her now, but he seemed to see what he wanted in her after locking eyes. “I am. Frostbite, Ruler of the Infinite Realm’s Far Frozen. I have come to see Our Savior the King, as his primary physician.”

“He’s a doctor.” Flash whispered. 

“Fascinating.” J’onn muttered, sounding a little winded by whatever he was sensing. “He is who he claims.” 

“I’m relieved.” Diana muttered, approaching him with a smile this time. “Please come with me and i will take you to Danny. I’m afraid we did what we could but his unique biology left us questioning our choices. He is resting in a private room.” 

“Did something happen to setback his recovery?” Frostbite asked, serious over the care of his charge as he followed Wonder Woman out of the conference room without so much as a glance back at the other heros. 

“Excitement, i believe.” Diana offered. “He may have been a little too excited to show off his alternate, living form and seemed to forget his condition.” 

Frostbite actually snorted. “Sounds like him.”

“I did not realize how badly wounded he was. We had been talking about our arrangements and he was answering my questions about ghosts. He appeared sore, but fairly pleased to speak with me. Given what he had just been through…” 

Frostbite grunted his agreement. “His heart is soft, but his will is unlike anything i have ever known. Many of us saw this tragedy coming, but he insisted on seeing it out for himself, hoping for a favorable ending.” 

Diana cracked her knuckles out of habit, that anger still simmering. “He will be safe in my care, i assure you.”

“The Great One is the rightful King to our realm, but many forget he is still just a child.” Frostbite said, eyeing her even as she led him through the Watchtower. 

“It is not something i am likely to forget.” Not after she’d seen how small he was in their medbay bed. “He’s resting but weak, you can help?” 

“As long as he has not taken more damage, i’m sure i can.” Frostbite said, a gentleness to his voice as they stopped at Danny’s room. Diana went in first to prove the area was a safe one but that may not have mattered given how quickly Frostbite followed her. 

He was at Danny’s bedside in an instant, having somehow moved passed her without knocking into her. He could have gone through her for all she knew. For all he seemed to be a hulking beast, Frostbite was nothing but gentle as he examined Danny. He looked over any and all work that had been done to Danny since his arrival, and checked the bandages across his torso. He went as far as to grab the clipboard on the foot of Danny’s bed to read, having no trouble understanding the medical jargon. 

From his medical bag, he pulled out several small bottles, all of them growing a toxic green. Injections were given to the teenager, and it didn’t seem to matter that he was in his living, dark haired form. 

“Has he explained to you what it means to be a halfa?” Frostbite finally asked, breaking the silence. 

“Only in vague, teenager terms.” Diana said. She’d been quite sure that Danny’s flippant attitude was more a coping mechanism than anything.

Frostbite just hummed. “Then i will have to fill you in.”

#ghost king danny #danny phantom #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #wonder woman #Frostbite

[disturbedgerblin]

"Listeners, as I speak we are winding down to the final hours of a momentous occasion. For the second time, I am a contender for some sort of internet sexy gentleman award. An award for which I will gain nothing but online clout and the value of which--as far as I know--is not fungible in any known countries, dimensions, or time paradoxes. As before, everything comes down to the results of an internet poll. Truly the greatest tool of democracy, with the exception of those neat little 'I voted' stickers."

"But the outcome of this poll is of little concern to me. Because right now the sexiest man I know is at home, fast asleep on our couch. Curled up on his steadily rising chest is a cat that is there but is not there. The TV remote control is steadily slipping out of his hand. He is snoring now, but moments before, that man was watching the Last of Us show before falling asleep. Except not really because zombie stories frustrate him because they 'aren't based in science, Cecil,' and 'I've already synthesized five different antidotes in the event of a zombie outbreak, Cecil.' But he will watch the episodes anyway, because he knows I love zombie flicks, and I am scared of zombie flicks. And he will let me know when I should avert my eyes before a jumpscare is about to happen. How can you get any sexier than that?"

"A wise man at Ace Hardware Store once imparted these wise words: 'Measure twice, cut once.' He said this as he was purchasing a lot of plywood, so I'm assuming he had measured once, realized he had made an error after cutting and had to get more material--but his words still ring true. A poll measured once only reveals a snippet of what makes a sexyman sexy. It does not delve into the depth of legacy, the weight of experience, the height of thirst. Sexiness comes in many shapes and sizes. It takes two to tango, and three to cut a mango. And that's why I never cut my fruit alone."

"Listeners, I hope that after tonight, when all is said and done, you take a moment to look in the mirror, wave to the faceless woman staring back at you, and appreciate the tumblr sexyman that was inside all of us, all along. Good night, Night Vale. Good night. "

#wtnv #tumblr sexyman #cecilsweep #welcome to nightvale #unreality tw #my writing

[2kmps]

FAULTY TEST

android x reader one-shot | 2.5k | MDNI!!

story summary;; a newfound responsibility of yours has been to record the behaviors and responses of an exclusive, advanced android marketed for the wealthy and elite. he is beautiful and meticulously fulfills your every need. however, when you start to notice odd changes in his usual pattern one morning, you begin to wonder if he's defected.

story warnings;; ducon, implied insemination, coercion, brief sexual content, somewhat obsessive behaviors, overall criticism of society as a whole, prose + heavy descriptions, incomplete ideas but for the sake of this one-shot it is cohesive, ending left vague and open to interpretation, android critiques mc's health, roughly proofread, mdni!!

please interact & reblog if you enjoy!!

He had a face that was structured to be unimaginably beautiful. A sort of face that you'd never tire of looking at, finding something new to admire and touch every time, yet saddled your mind with some inexplicable discomfort and set the hairs on the back of your neck straight like needles. Over time, that feeling had never fully subsided, simultaneously becoming one you craved at every instance he entered a room, like Pavlov’s dog trained to salivate to a bell.

“What is your preference this morning, Tester?” Elio announced himself from the kitchen once your first heel struck the bottom of the staircase. His voice was liquefied velvet, mellifluous with enough depth that you swore even the simplest words spoken could make your heart tremble. “Tester? Are you well?”

You wished he would call you something else, something other than what the manufacturer had programmed him to. He was an advanced model—pardon, a luxury model—so his repertoire came with extensive features not available in other options, but insofar, the ability to have androids refer you by name was only achievable by obscene amounts of money and sending them back to the manufacturer to have them install it there. 

Elio was up for being considered the gold standard in android development, as proclaimed by the researcher you were put in communication with during the beginning of the trial run. He was made to be perfect in every way, perform flawlessly in anything asked of him, respond favorably regardless of situation or dilemma. 

“Coffee with cream and sugar is fine. I'm not in the mood to eat anything this morning.” It was often explained, he was supposed to memorize it but he asked you every morning regardless. “Are you having issues with your memory bank, Elio?”

Single strands of his coiffed hair moved with his head as he looked at you, hands busily putting together your beverage to every exact specification. This made it obvious enough that nothing was inhibiting his ability to store away your morning preferences.

“Not at all. It's just that some days you prefer your coffee lightly sweetened, others you enjoy a meal that won't leave you feeling groggy in the afternoon.” Elio said in his precise, elegant tones with a smile far too effortless to come from a machine. “I thought it wise to commit these discrepancies to my memory bank for your convenience and to ask from now on.”

Fascinating. You weren't aware of this element in the newest model. The guidebook that Researcher Kim had given you made no mention of it. 

What's more is he decided to do this spontaneously. You were making a note about it in your phone when a simple, white mug was placed before you, Elio’s pristine fingertips turning it by the rim until the handle faced your dominant hand. 

“Please consider eating something before leaving the house. Coffee on an empty stomach, especially one as sensitive as yours, won't end well, as I'm led to believe from my research.” Elio watched you drink through long, dark lashes that framed depths of piercing green. You liked that they seemed to turn paler or darker in different lighting, dimensions similar to a marble held up to the sun. “I’d also like to remind you that the quality of food that you consume first thing in the morning aids with energy disbursement throughout the day. I have a very gratuitous database of recipes that I can prepare for you.”

You were taking delicate sips from the round rim while he talked, lips surrounding the porcelain long enough that you swore his gaze had wavered to them for a split second before returning eye contact. 

“I’m glad someone is concerned about my tummy health, because I always believed someone would find me face down in the bathroom from my ass prolapsing.” You wished someone with a sense of humor was around for that banger, but, alas, it was Elio and he did not laugh.

His expression turned severe. “Human bodies are oddly as robust as they are sensitive. Most of the worldwide population suffer with similar afflictions: Lactose intolerance, varying dermatitis, poor eyesight, gastrointestinal diseases. Humans are, in every sense, meant to harbor and experience chronic pain and disease throughout their lifespan. I do believe this attests to your durability as a species. 

“All this is to say is my main prerogative and function is for the betterment of your life and health. So, knowing all of this and to conclude, please consider a couple slices of toast or an omelet before leaving. Your daily habits dictate a routine visit to the coffee shop on 5th and Lowe, where you'll consume around one-hundred twenty milligrams of caffeine and your first meal of the day may be a sweetened pastry without nutritional density. You will, indubitably, ‘feel bad’ the rest of the day as a result.”

“Holy shit,” you had given up on recording his speech after the first two minutes, phone facedown on a gleaming countertop. “You didn't plagiarize that from a random article on the internet, did you?”

Coffee having turned lukewarm by the end of his presentation, he took the mug away and emptied the medium-brown contents into the drain before turning on the faucet to clean it. “Not at all. I've simply been accumulating knowledge on your routines and have noticed you're at an increasing risk for different ailments. Did you find it helpful?”

Truthfully, you weren't so sure.

Androids were built to serve humans in every capacity, but their limitations were still well-known. They were capable of carefully compiling decades worth of information on their owners, plus the equivalent of hundreds more, but everything Elio had just said was beyond the scope of their normal hardware. The information had been elucidated critically, yet with a certain sentience you expected from a caretaker—not a machine built for convenience, entertainment, and pleasure. 

You weren't sure how much of it you needed to relay to Researcher Kim, if it was any real reason for concern at this stage or just part of Elio’s advanced circuitry. A part of you worried, just slightly, that officially documenting all of this would have Elio removed from the testing period prematurely—he was supposed to be yours, exclusively, for another six months.

The contract had been signed. Elio had been promised to you despite the number of waitlisted celebrities trying to bribe their way into the corporation, and Researcher Kim’s good graces. 

This, of course, was all only contingent if he operated and performed, at all times, as outlined in the guidebook you were handed upon Elio’s awakening. Researcher Kim had delivered his newest creation to you himself, a dreary Wednesday in late autumn in the mid-morning, and had taken great care to put the crisp, chemical-scented poundage of bound pages in your fingers and insisted that if you noticed the slightest deviation from what was printed inside, he be alerted to it immediately. 

You didn't do that. 

You took a hot shower, blow-dried your hair, put your arms through some clean clothes and let Elio follow you to the front door to see you off for the day. 

That day grew stranger still, not even yet being ten o’ clock in the morning, when the deadbolt clicked and your finger joints bent around cold brass. It didn't raise chicken skin on your arms and neck nearly as high as when Elio pushed his hand to the door, keeping it shut despite your pull. 

You couldn't look into his green eyes, shockingly pale in the golden rays filtering inside your home from the window arching in the door. “Did I forget something?”

“No. I accounted for everything you'd need on your outing.” Elio said, perfectly. His hand made a sound as it slid down along the door, resting shoulder height near you. “A function you have not utilized in me as of now is that of a ‘companion’. Do you find me defective in that way? Dr. Kim developed me to be attractive to the human eye—stimulating, perhaps, is a more definitive word to use.”

“I—no, Elio. You're plenty, er, stimulating. I just don't know how appropriate it is for me to do anything like that while you're in a testing period.” It felt distasteful to have to point out his own inhumanity to him, despite his model being cognizant enough to be aware of it. “It would feel weird, I think.”

“That is one of my primary purposes,” he insisted, shrinking the height of himself so he was nearer to your face. “I was created to be a companion, to alleviate that pervading loneliness that plagues you—all of humanity. Humans have forgotten how to communicate and love each other, so that's why I'm standing here now. You're ignoring one of my most critical functions.”

“Elio, if I get too attached to you, it's going to create problems when you're—”

“—sent back. I do understand how human attachment works. Perhaps not on the same scale, but don't you think my attachment is similar to yours. Everything about you is secured in my circuitry, and you're the only thing in my world that’s programmed to matter. Even once I'm returned to the lab, you'll still be a part of me; memories of you, your favorite things, the things you hate, the people you cherish and what they like, what you do, where you go, what you buy, how you sleep—it’s all part of a larger system, a mainframe that secures this data. I may be wiped clean, but you'll still remain.”

You felt like he was letting you in on some dirty secret, something devious and meant to be unknowable and guarded. But, then again, Elio had always displayed an odd sort of disinterest in the Company—in Researcher Kim, you hadn't considered until just now that this was also a defect. 

“What do you want?” You'd never asked him that before because it had never been about what he wanted. He wasn't supposed to want anything; he was meant to provide—to give, give, give.

Elio took away your shoulder bag, nearing your face until his lips settled between yours and his hands pulled you away from the door into his body. His kiss was warm, movements at a pace you could keep up with but urgent as though seeking to burn every bit of you into him. As much as you daydreamed what it'd be like, he felt completely natural on your mouth, large hands sweeping under the layers of your clothing seeking out the fire on your skin.

In your generation, it wasn't common for humans to intermingle physically anymore—dating culture was reserved for the elite looking to reproduce for heirs, and often still thought to be rare. All others were either loveless or ravished by androids who supplemented love that simply wasn't real.

Humans wanted to be wanted and adored and cherished and to belong, such was a natural behavior predating all written record; androids were created to fill the vile void engendered by humanity, self-imposed isolation and avoidance in the same species. 

Elio was nestled between the sprawl of your legs before long, both your bodies bare and above the clean sheets he had outfitted your mattress with last night. His rhythm inside your body was some equal parts loving and passionate, something you hadn't realized you liked until he started rocking you with his cock. You liked how his hands gripped under your thighs to raise your legs, blunt fingertips pressing marks into your flesh as though he, too, could feel all the same pleasure that you were.

His lips traveled all over, mapping out routes and sweet spots on your flesh, purposefully lingering for a time if you squirmed or moaned underneath him. 

You tried to keep in your mind, midst the insatiable buzz in your mind and hot throb in your groin that he was simply performing a function—his attention to you, his lips finding yours time and time again, darkened green eyes spearing deep into yours with every slow, hard thrust—it was all performative.

“You're beautiful.”

“I like you like this.”

“Moan louder for me.”

“Cum for me.”

“I love you.”

Elio said the last one at the end when you were tight around his girth and writhing, panting during an orgasm that he fucked you through until the heat from your bodies cooled and heart rates returned to normal. You were confused to feel warmth sluggishly ooze out of you, white and dampening the bedsheets below.

“How—what is that?” you asked, suddenly breathless as his lips caressed your jaw, moving lightly behind your ear.

“Another part of my purpose.” He said quietly in your ear, whispering to you in tones not so velvety as though divulging a well-lain secret. “This one isn't advertised because humans in this day and age are so fickle and avoidant to certain commitments. Unfortunately, certain programming I cannot override, and this is one of them. Forgive me.”

You were kissed on the lips again and again, and then a few times more after he left the bed. He did not return your clothing to you, but rather piled it under his arm and made the motion to go left for the bathroom down the hall.

Elio turned back. “I'll start you a bath. Today, would you prefer eucalyptus in your bathwater or something sweeter?” 

Your jaw felt as tight as your throat, as the sheets bunched into your fists. The nerves in your stomach were wild. “Choose for me.”

He was still naked and beautiful in your doorway, a modern marvel to your eyes even now. You would, undoubtedly, see him like this much more often now that he had broken through the barrier you had been so meticulous to keep robust and well-fed with paranoia and derisive self-talk. 

“Very well. Eucalyptus will be the best option considering how tight your muscles are.” He smiled neutrally, finally leaving the bedroom for the bathroom at the end of the hall. “I'll return for you once the bath is ready. Please don't go to sleep yet.”

You weren't sure you'd be able to sleep again with your new insight. Once the empty air filled with sounds of gushing water, movements within the bathroom, you started to wipe furiously at your groin—inside and out—with the sheet as far as you could reach. There was a slither of hope you could get most of it, a chance you could contact someone for a lifeline even if the price would be ungodly, and consequences treated equivalent to murder if caught.

In a world where humans could no longer love each other, and chose the embrace of complex circuitry and delusion, even the testers needed to contribute to society somehow. 

a/n: so, this is going to become a longer oneshot in the future. it'll be diabolical and dark and awful, but also a needed tale given today's climate on sex and such. there's a lot more I want to explore with my ideas and elio, but yeah.

I'm gonna put up a poll soon to decide on a definitive appearance for elio since I just threw in some random characteristics for this.

if you liked this, please reblog it and interact!! I'd love to hear your thoughts more than anything 😭😭

#android x reader #android x you #android x y/n #robot x you #robot x human #android x human #monster fiction #monster x human #monster x you #monster x reader #monster fic #monster fucker #monster story #original writing #original story #original fiction #original fic #interactive fiction #.02 #2k writes #horror #horror writing #horror fiction #horror romance #dark romance #dark fiction

[loveinhawkins]

Up until recent events, Eddie hasn’t really put much thought into flashlights—save for that time he had to take out the batteries in the T.V remote to get his to work, back when the power went wonky last summer.

But now? Oh, as soon as he’s through with this whole nightmare, Eddie’s gonna find out whichever saint invented the damn things and start a petition to get them a federal holiday. That’s gonna be his whole… raisin something, something—he thinks it’s French, Buckley will know.

Fucking wondrous creations.

… Okay, he might still be a little jittery.

So sue him. It’s either run with his increasingly stupid train of thought or have a thoroughly justified panic about—well, there’s just so much to choose from: the ash in the air, the apparently sentient vines on the ground, how it’s so fucking cold and dark—

Jesus H. Christ, calm down.

It’s not all that dark anyway—or at least, it’s not as dark as it could be. Steve’s lighting the way, flashlight in hand. Honestly, Eddie thinks he should get it preserved, like in one of those glass cabinets in museums, complete with a plaque: This bulb somehow survived a journey from the depths of a lake into an alternate dimension, and all for the low, low price of…

Well, Eddie doesn’t know how much it cost. He’ll workshop the whole plaque thing.

In his reverie, he stumbles carelessly, nearly pitching over right into Hive Mind territory.

“Ah, shit,” he whispers.

Steve’s hand must move because the light drifts over—ends up illuminating much more of Eddie’s path than Steve’s.

“Thanks,” Eddie says—glances sideways to find Steve already looking at him.

“Think I’m the one who should be thanking you,” Steve replies.

His hand flexes, as if he’d gone to twirl the flashlight before catching himself; Eddie has a very faint memory of Steve doing the same with pencils in class and fights a private smile.

“You gave me it,” Steve continues. “I would’ve just… gone right in without thinking.”

It’s said self-deprecatingly, but Eddie would argue that Steve’s impulsivity (his courage) is an admirable character trait, even if it sets his heart pounding.

His own problem is that he thinks too damn much, until the window of opportunity has almost been and gone.

He was the only one to hesitate before diving into the lake: he knows all too well how that could’ve made its way onto the increasingly long list of moments that haunt him.

He could’ve been too late, could’ve not found the Gate at all—and then, would only have been able to pathetically swim back to the kids and tell them that their heroes were gone.

The light skips onwards just a little, encourages Eddie to look up from his feet. He blinks a few times to try and adjust to the darkness looming ahead. There, the indistinct outline of trees, and he’s drawn back to a classroom again, to the soporific noise of chalk on a blackboard, to…

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

“The hell is that from?” Eddie wonders, and he doesn’t realise he’s also said the quote aloud until Steve speaks.

“S’a poem. Robert Frost.”

Eddie clicks his fingers. “See, that’s why you actually passed English.”

Steve rocks his hand back and forth, so-so.

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Don’t play coy now, Harrington.”

“I’m not, I passed by the skin of my teeth, dude.” Steve looks into the distance as he walks, like he’s being drawn back to some place, too. “I was meant to, um, submit a portfolio thing, and I just… didn’t.”

“Like stories and shit?”

Steve smiles. “Mm-hmm, and shit. Poems, too.”

“So why didn’t you…?”

Steve just shrugs in reply so Eddie changes tack—rolls his eyes expansively, but only at himself.

“Fucking Frost. Ugh, why can I remember that shit now, but when a paper’s in front of me, it’s just…” Eddie mimes an explosion in the back of his head, gone.

“Well,” Steve says, chuckling, “if the, uh, lovely atmosphere of this place jogs your memory, we’ll make some time, get you to write an essay.” He grins at Eddie, teasing and charming in equal measure. “We’re nothing if not productive.”

“Sure, that’s one word for it.”

Joking aside, Eddie finds that the mention of school calms his heart somewhat: to think of the foreboding sights around him as part of a story. Maybe it’s a control thing, like his campaigns. Dress shit up, put a film on top, then you don’t have to look at it directly.

He suggests as such to Steve in a longwinded ramble, and gets a thoughtful look in response.

“Like the Shire? And Mordor?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Yeah, exactly.”

Steve nods slightly. The movement dislodges some particles in his hair—and yes, it helps, Eddie thinks, to believe it’s just freshly fallen snow.

“Yeah, that sorta never really worked for me?” Steve’s voice goes up at the end, almost apologetically, although for the life of him, Eddie can’t work out what he’s apologising for. “Like, when the kids ran with all the D&D stuff, the uh… analogy? Metaphor?”

Eddie gestures at himself with one hand, I failed English.

Steve laughs. “Yeah, whatever. Dustin and Lucas keep hashing that one out. Anyway, it didn’t exactly… help. Help me, I mean. Just made everything more…”

He sighs heavily.

Eddie thinks he understands. All his bullshit is just a veneer, after all: it doesn’t truly mask the fear.

“Hey, maybe you could give it a shot,” Steve adds. The light dances for a second, like he’s just barely resisted twirling the flashlight again.

“What?”

Steve smirks—juvenile, light-hearted, almost like he’s about to challenge Eddie at the school gym, like, bet you can’t make that shot from center court, Munson.

“You could write a poem. Make sense of…” Steve gestures around them.

“Harrington, as I keep reminding you, I failed English.”

“Yeah, so? I’ve heard Henderson go on about your campaigns, dude, s’not like they come from nothing.” Steve looks Eddie up and down in exaggerated scrutiny. “You look like the kinda guy who loves a theme.”

“Oh, really,” Eddie says flatly. He can’t hide his smile even if he tried.

“That’s what I thought, every time you’d come into class late: oh, here he is. The symbolism.”

“Jesus Christ, Harrington, shut up.” Eddie steps into Steve’s space just to shove him away (just to touch). He thinks that if he were to try his hand at poetry, it’d be horrendously self-indulgent—something about how he might not be the one holding a flashlight right now, but he’s certainly carrying a torch.

“I don’t work for free, Steve. You’ve gotta do one, too.”

“A poem for a poem, huh?” Steve says. “Sure. It’s a deal.”

And yeah, they might just be saying anything to pass the time. But Eddie chooses to believe otherwise; there’s still a pensive flicker in Steve’s eyes that makes him think he might just get lucky, that Steve might even dig up some old stuff from his abandoned portfolio.

It’s a nice thought—something to look forward to, at the end of all this.

He considers Steve, and even though he knows it’s not snow, he can’t help but turn the particles into flakes in his mind again, into something prettier, safe—almost as if Steve’s presence has softened the danger.

He wants to stop here, suddenly. Linger. It doesn’t make sense. But it feels like time is…

A gentle nudge—a warm elbow to his side.

“C’mon, daydreamer,” Steve says. “You can write down whatever you’re thinking later.”

Eddie snaps out of it with a breath of a chuckle, follows Steve’s light again. Keeps moving forward—past the ash, and the vines, and the trees.

The woods won’t be forever.

After all, he’s got promises to keep.

#oh the woods… they could’ve talked about so much #pre steddie #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie

[sixth-light]

Finished watching the Netflix ATLA live adaptation, having gone into it with absolutely no expectations whatsoever or intention to necessarily go past the first episode if it didn't catch my attention. While it was firmly unnecessary when ATLA existed as an entire piece of art as its creators intended it...it's not half bad? Like, talented cast including the newer actors, decent cinematography/costumes/etc, but what worked most about it for me is that it takes a very similar approach to the WoT TV show in regards to its source material.

Namely, it's working with a closed canon and it's very clearly trying to adapt the entire story rather than do a 1:1 adaptation of each section. So, like WoT, it's unafraid to chop and change up the story order, to introduce characters earlier who only came into prominence later in the original work, to give more depth and space to its villains, and to straight-up write new material rather than trying to stick meticulously to the original text wherever possible. It also does a lot of work to tidy up some of the less-well-aged parts of its source, which lands probably 90% of the time. Basically, it's doing the work to keep me as someone who knows the original story well interested by giving me new scenes and things to chew over without losing the essence of the original. If you're going to do a fairly unnecessary high-budget live-action remake of a twenty-year-old cartoon series, that's not a bad way to go about it.

Let it not go without saying that it has also cast Asian and Native actors as well as handing the story over to Asian-American/Canadian writers and directors and that does matter. Unlike WoT it doesn't have a gay agenda, but to be fair the first season of ATLA (original flavour) barely had a romantic agenda period.

As I said: it's not necessary, but it's not at all bad, and I will watch the next season at least on purpose. I think if we're going to be trapped in remake/adaptation hell for the foreseeable future we can do worse than have them made by people trying to give some new dimensions to the story. I also think the people making this show would do a hell of a job with a Legend of Korra live-action show, and that is a story that didn't get its full due originally and would benefit from being made for an older audience. Plus, the gay agenda is right there. If this show does well enough to greenlight a Korra show...I could find some genuine excitement about that.

#atla #atla live action #lok #the bit that aged the least well but still got used #was the whole 'northern water tribe doesn't let women fight' thing #it's an EXTREMELY kids version of sexism and it still played out like one #even though this show isn't aimed at kids #hard to drop without radically rewriting Katara's arc but...yeah

[just-french-me-up]

Harmonies

Dream of the Endless / Hob Gadling | Human AU | Writer Dream - Voice Actor Hob | Explicit | 2.2k Porn with some Plot | Masturbation | Literal voice porn | Dream doesn't quite know what to do with himself honestly

@hardly-an-escape recently had this FABULOUS idea of acclaimed writer Morpheus who secretly publishes popular romance novels under a pen name, who shamefully gets off while listening to voice actor Hob Gadling acting out an explicit scene from one of his romance stories. I would say my hand slipped but this was 100% planned and thought through.

Morpheus refreshed his inbox. Early afternoon, Lucienne had told him. He gave a quick glance at the clock. 5:42PM. Early afternoon was fading into late afternoon one second at a time, with nothing to show for it.

Morpheus refreshed his inbox. Again.

This is stupid, he thought, frustration seeping in. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Surely, they had not finished editing or formatting the whole thing yet, he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. Perhaps they had forgotten. Morpheus didn't usually request to be sent the beta recordings. He was more than happy to let them do their job unencumbered, trusting Lucienne to green light everything once it was done. Truth be told, he was barely involved in the whole audiobook side of things, except for, well, writing the damn thing in the first place and having his pen name slapped on the cover. Lucienne had arched an eyebrow at him when he'd asked for the latest recordings out of the blue, but had not been overly curious. A good thing, really. Morpheus carefully avoided any occasion that required him to lie through his teeth. This, no doubt, would have been one of them.

His phone buzzed, startling him.

[6PM 09/05/2023 – The Kindly Ones – Edit Zoom Meeting]

Morpheus turned off the reminder. Too many fires at once. That was his problem, his sister had told him once. Stretching yourself thin until you're see-through, she had said. She was not wrong, of course, although Morpheus would not admit it to her face. She would be far too smug about it.

He refreshed his inbox.

Inbox (1)

Morpheus froze and stared at the screen. There it was. Finally. His pulse racing, he reached for his headphones, struggling to plug it in in his haste. The file was slow to download, the recordings accounting for more than half of the book. Morpheus' fingers tapped impatiently against his desk as he watched the bar crawl to the finish line.

5:51PM.

Surely he could allow himself a quick browse through the file. The meeting with his editor―his other editor―wouldn't start for five more minutes, if not more, should they run a little late on their side. Morpheus found himself wishing they would. Unprofessional, a little voice admonished him.

He opened the file. It had been divided into sections, each corresponding to a chapter. Skip. Skip. Skip. He knew what he was looking for. The book had come out a year ago or so. He still remembered the outline well enough. For a while, he heard nothing but the initial breath of the voice actor, one for each chapter, before he would skip ahead. When he finally let the recording play, the voice engulfed him in its warmth.

Although Morpheus had been the one initially weaving the words and sentences together, they found another dimension and depth in that voice. He was rediscovering his work on someone else's tongue, and the effect left him... intrigued. A few voice actors had given life to the words on the page over the years but this one... This one breathed a soul into the story like none had ever managed to before.

When Morpheus had learnt Robert Gadling would narrate another one of his books, he could not resist.

The beta recordings were rough, lacking the polish of the final product, leaving intakes of breath in and other little imperfections editors would cut out. Morpheus could hear every huff, every chuckle when Gadling would stumble over a word and correct himself, going back to the beginning of the sentence. He could picture the smile on his lips then, the playfully apologetic look at the tech team. He had looked up pictures of him online, once. His face matched his voice: warm, inviting, with a hint of mischief. Suave, even. Morpheus had then closed the tab, embarrassed at his own thoughts.

The scene he had skipped to was professionally relevant, or, at least, he tried to convince himself it was. He had always understood sex scenes to be a tricky thing, for actors. At least, when it came to traditional acting, it was a shared awkwardness, a simulacrum of pleasure played by multiple people who could find solace in the fact that they were all on the same vulnerable boat, camera crew included. Now, voice actors... Acting choices could either make or break a sex scene. It required a subtle mix of smoothness and confidence few could manage. The last thing he wanted was for his words to sound clumsy and awkward, when the goal was quite the opposite. It was Morpheus' authorial prerogative to check every aspect of the audiobook fit his vision, after all.

As the chapter began and Robert Gadling's voice filled his ears, Morpheus imagined him in his recording booth, alone. Some audiobooks had multiple actors playing different characters, but this one only had him credited. There were slight fluctuations of tones, accents and speech patterns, as he switched characters. Morpheus listened intently.

"Gabriel gave a fleeting look downward. Nathan's shirt was soaked, revealing hints of the skin underneath. He tried not to stare, but only managed to do so through conscious and continuous effort. 'You should change your shirt before you catch something,' he told Nathan, his tone as casual as he could manage. 'You could borrow one of mine.' "

The acting was good. There was tension in the words, in the tone. The characters sounded like different people, even though they were played by the same man. Morpheus continued. In the book, things heated up quickly after a long, tentative courtship. He braced himself for the following scene, replaying the words in his head from memory.

" 'It smells like you.' Gabriel stared at him, stunned, unable to look away as Nathan stood in front of him, his own t-shirt and boxers for only garments. 'What?' he managed, his throat dry. 'It smells like you,' Nathan repeated, lifting the fabric to his nose with a smile. 'I like it.' Gabriel's gaze trailed down Nathan's body, only now noticing the growing outline of his cock aga―"

Morpheus paused. He had written those words. He knew those words, from having read and reread them a few dozen times during the writing and editing process. Yet he had never heard them. Especially not in that voice. Even the narration was sensual, almost cheeky, dripping with lust like honey. Clumsy and awkward it was not. It was.... something else entirely. Shaking off the feeling, Morpheus hit the 'play' button again.

" ―inst the taut fabric of his boxers. 'I like it,' Nathan repeated, slowly reaching for his cock through the thin fabric, his fingertips brushing the shape of it, well aware of Gabriel's undivided attention."

The rest of the scene followed, word for word Morpheus' work, yet somehow completely new to his ears. He sat there, enraptured, his eyes staring into nothingness while the rich, luscious voice surrounded him, filled him until it became his only focus.

A lewd, enthusiastic hum rose from the headphones, making Morpheus jump. Every word he had been anticipating thus far, but artistic license? It fitted with the narrative well. Too well. Not Gadling's first brush with erotica, he immediately guessed. He played it again for good measure. The sound was deeply erotic, with just enough warmth and breath. Real. It sounded real. It was followed by a breathy sigh Morpheus could almost feel at the back of his neck. God.

He played it again. He could feel the sound, the anticipation, the desire, the pleasure. Gadling conveyed it with such ease it felt genuinely intimate. Arousing, even. Morpheus ran his hand against the front of his own trousers, feeling the very real erection pushing against the hard fabric. This was ridiculous. Yet he could not stop. The scene kept playing, Robert Gadling's voice purring in his ears, words like caresses and gentle tugs, and he could not help but cup his cock through his jeans, seeking friction. He imagined him in the recording booth, leaning over the microphone, his features fitting the suggestive sounds, his lips wet from running his tongue over them. If he could just get a little further in the scene―

His Zoom alarm went off. Instantly, Morpheus removed his hand and his headphones, his back stiff as a board, a cold wave of panic rushing through him. Fuck! He gave himself a quick look through the camera of his phone. He was blushing slightly, to his utmost annoyance. Nothing he could not blame on bad webcam settings, he thought. The rest could be concealed easily enough. Especially when he was only visible from the waist up.

It was with a slight flush and a distracting, frustratingly hard erection that Morpheus answered his Zoom call, his mind scattered between book royalties, publishing dates, and Robert Gadling's voice still deeply embedded in his skull.

--

It was hours before Morpheus found a minute of free time. Night had fallen, the evening spent in front of a screen or on the phone, discussing the imminent release of his upcoming novel, one whose cover would feature his actual name, this time. Book releases were always exhausting affairs, between planning podcast appearances, book signings, press tours, and the likes. Morpheus disliked the fanfare of it all, the exposure, but could hardly complain. There were worse flip sides of the coin, out there.

At least writing under a pen name saved him the hassle, with the other half of his published work.

Lying on his bed, fresh out of the shower, Morpheus sighed, staring at the ceiling. He felt both exhausted and wide awake, his coffee-fueled brain refusing to quiet down. There were a few things the editor needed his input on in person, tomorrow, something to do with the cover art. He'd promised himself to write, too. Perhaps clean the flat a little. Too many fires at once, his sister's voice echoed in his mind.

His phone buzzed again. Incoming email from Lucienne.

Listened to it yet? Thoughts?

Plenty. Enough to know it was good. Enough to keep the reader listening. Enough for him to want to go back for more.

Going through his emails, Morpheus found the link to the beta recordings, and downloaded it onto his phone. He reached for old earbuds in his bedside table drawer. Where were we?

" 'Come here.' "

The latent desire in that voice was enough to get Morpheus right back where he had been, a few hours ago. Lying on his bed, he kept listening, swallowing hard at any well-placed sigh, any improvised grunt and whimpering sound. Was it even improvised? Did he plan on adding those? Did Gadling discuss it with the adaptation team beforehand? Marked the exact spots where he would do it in the printed script?

" 'You're so beautiful like this, love. Look at you.' "

God.

" 'I have thought about you like this. Hard under me. For me.' "

Hesitantly, Morpheus reached under the waistband of his pyjamas, finding himself hard already. He blushed at his own embarrassment, alone in his bedroom, his hand wrapped around his cock, his own words spilling in his ears. Vain, perhaps. Awfully self-absorbed. But deep down, he knew it was not that. Not really.

" 'Do you want me, Gabriel?' Can you feel I much I want you?' "

He hated himself for including so much narration in this passage, keeping him from the lascivious heat of Gadling's voice, waiting for the dialogue to return like a starving man begs for food. How could he do that? A wanton moan reverberated in his ears, quickly echoed by one of his own, harmonies of pleasure filling his head and his room.

" 'Fuck, you feel so good!' "

Why did his editor even let him publish that? Morpheus' mind was bridging the gaps between dialogue bits, ignoring the narration in favour of more pleasurable mental stimulation. He pictured Robert Gadling in his recording booth, focused over the microphone, his lips pressed into a sinful hum, his eyes closed. Gadling next to him, his mouth pressed against his ear, spewing new words, ones he did not write, ones of his own.

" 'Let me see those eyes.' "

Morpheus whined against his pillow, both from pleasure and frustration. He hated this. This was... mortifying, and yet he could not stop. He arched his back, chasing his pleasure.

" 'Fuck! I've waited for this for so long.' "

Morpheus came in his pyjamas in a muffled grunt, the release helping nothing with the shame spreading through him. It brought him some clarity, at least. Disgruntled, he yanked the earbuds out of his ears, Robert Gadling's voice reduced to a hushed whisper, the siren's song finally muffled. He looked down at himself, suddenly aware of the mess he'd made. Great. Fantastic.

His phone buzzed again. It was Lucienne.

Do you want the edited files once they are done? They would love your feedback before they start trimming it down.

Morpheus sighed, struggling against the brightness of the screen.

Yes, tell them I would like them.

#the sandman #dreamling #dream x hob #dream/hob #sandman #sandman fics #sandman fanfiction #smut #my writing #the brain worms were too real and too demanding #so they made me do it #in my defense it was pretty fun to write #also i know nothing about the publishing or the audiobook industry #most of this is just adlib #Morpheus finally meeting Hob for the first time #being absolutely unable to handle Hob's voice without getting a hard on #now that's a thought

[thefallennightmare]

Mercy-Four

*gif created by me. feel free to use, simply give credit*

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Fallen Angel!OC

Warnings: swearing, angst, fluff, smut, mythological talk, violence.

Summary: "Blinded by a fear of feeling, these are the kings we chose. Lost and looking for the meaning, I've been searching high and low" It came crashing down on him. This is the story of the highest banished angel from where she came only to find home in the arms of a mortal man. This mortal realizing he'd face Lucifer himself to keep her.

Lethia: Archangelus Oneironaut also known as Archangel of Dream Walking. Across worlds and dimensions, she walks within. Uncovering dangerous secrets, leaving her cast out, isolated- that is until she begins to learn what it means to feel.

Authors Notes: So I pulled a lot of ideas from my favorite fallen angel romance series, Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick! I hope you all enjoy!

Tags[OPEN]: @thescarlettvvitch @blackveilomens @crimson-calligraphyx @cookiesupplier @lyschko666 @shilohrosechicken @thebadchic @iknownothingpeople @sammyjoeee @malice-ov-mercy @collapsedglasshouses @klutzy-kay24 @iamamatus @lma1986 @bngurngheart @happi-goth

LETHIA

I sat in the middle of Noah’s bed with my knees pulled to my chest and rested my chin on top of them. My mind continued to replay the conversation with Maraxa and her parting words had been etched deep within my soul. I feared that maybe I brought darkness and death to not only Noah but all of his friends' lives. They were innocent bystanders in the battle for my alliance. Stay on this Earth with mortals or fall into the depths of Hell with the light bringer. 

Lucifer. He wanted me alongside him to lead his army of darkness. Against what? I wasn’t sure. But the love we shared wasn’t what it used to be and my heart didn't covet for him any longer. Not when there was someone else who seemed to have filtered into this newfound life without warning. 

Those almond eyes captivated me from the moment I had Noah pinned against the door. His scent was different from most mortals and for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why. The way we always seemed to run into each other or that anytime I dream walked, it was his dream.  

Why was it Noah’s face I saw moments before my fall? 

Why did we have the same tattoo? His on his neck, mine on my ribs? 

None of this made any sense and it only angered me more as to why I was stuck here. 

As I was staring at the length of my black nails, there was a gentle knock on the door of the bedroom; me humming in response to it. When it opened slightly, Noah poked his head in, the long strands of his hair falling into his face. 

“Hey,” his voice was gentle. “I’m just checking to see if you’re settling in fine.” 

“Yes,” I nodded. “I’m sorry for having Maraxa show up here. I assure you, it won’t happen again.”

You don’t know that. 

Noah leaned against the wall next to the door, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s alright. Is she an old friend?” 

I scoffed while laying my legs straight on the bed to lean my back against the wall. 

“She is far from a friend. More like an acquaintance that always wanted my position.” 

If he could hear the venom in my voice, Noah said nothing and simply nodded. 

“Are you hungry?” He asked instead. 

“I’m fine, thank you,” I ran a hand over the black comforter. “I must say, I do feel terrible making you sleep on the couch when your bed is quite comfortable.” 

“Seriously?” Noah chuckled while walking farther into the room to sit on the bed next to me. “I’ve had this mattress for years and it's anything but comfortable.” 

An eerie silence fell between us, something that made me shift in my spot next to him when the warmth from him radiated around me in flames. I could feel his essence all over my skin while not feeling his actual touch. Bumps rose at the back of my neck when I felt his gaze linger there, lighting me a blaze. 

My eyes caught sight of something hanging from above his window so I pointed to it. 

“Are you religious? The rosary?”

Noah peered up at the wooden necklace hanging from his curtain rod. “Oh, that. It’s kind of a long story.” 

Crossing my legs, I rested my elbow on my thigh to rest my chin in my hand. “And I have time. I’d love to know your view on it.” 

With a tender laugh, he nodded before turning toward me so we sat facing each other. “Well, I was raised in a very Christian Baptist household with my grandparents; when I wasn’t staying with my mom. That's another story but it’s not important.” 

Immediately I picked up on the way his eyes cast down at his hands at the mention of his mother but made no effort to acknowledge it. Instead, I urged him to continue with a nod. 

“I’d go to service with my grandparents and help out in the church any way I could. Painting, setting up for service, things like that. I was exposed to a lot of religion growing even though when I was younger I didn’t buy into it as much. Despite having a lot of questions and doubts about it now, I still think there’s a lot to learn about it through religion, spirituality, and faith. Which is why I write about it metaphorically.” 

He ran a hand over his chin for a moment. “I never try to push my own beliefs or agendas on people. I want people to think and believe in things on their own, without having my choice influence them in any way.” 

“I think that’s marvelous,” I hummed. 

Noah smiled. “The whole lore and stories in religion really interest me. I’m currently reading a book about The Fall.”

My mouth ran dry when my body went rigid. “Th-the Fall?” 

“Yeah, fallen angels. It’s actually quite interesting.” 

I ran my hands over my thigh and cleared my throat. “Do you believe in them?” 

“Angels?” Noah asked with furrowed brows. 

All I could do was nod, afraid that my voice would give way to how nervous I was for his answer. 

He ran a hand over his mouth, almost deep in thought. “It’s hard to give a definitive answer because I haven’t seen proof of angels. I thought that angels didn’t exist at first but something changed my view on it. My grandma told me a story about fallen angels when I was younger. What about you? Do you believe it?” 

“You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen,” the tone of my voice dropped drastically as my fingers brushed along the softness of the comforter beneath me. 

Flash images of what I’d done under the King’s command plagued me. Death by my sword was ordered to anyone who disobeyed him. Which rarely happened but when it did, I was the one that dealt with the end of the traitor's life. The familiar feeling of ripping out their wings weighed heavy on my hands as I stared down at them with sheer disgust. 

How could the creator who was supposed to love all of us equally order me to do such vile, horrendous, things to his creations? 

“Lethia,” the softness of his large hands rested on my shoulder, fresh off a kill. “You’ve done well my child. Your allegiance is greatly thought of.”  

My jaw clenched at how foolish I’d been. Following a King who cared so little for us in the end. The amount of wings I ripped out was too much to count. The amount of angels I dragged my blade into cut deep into my gut, causing me to revolt in disgust. 

At myself. 

Since I fell weeks ago, I questioned so deeply why my appearance changed and I always thought it was because of my love for Lucifer. But it could be to pay for all of my heinous crimes up in the Kingdom. Crimes ordered by Him. 

“Hey,” Noah’s tattooed knuckle lifted my chin. “Are you alright?” 

I nearly sobbed when yet again I couldn’t feel his touch; another repercussion. 

“No,” I choked out. “I did horrible things back home and how could I ever be allowed back? Why would he want me back?” 

The screams of my victims were loud in my mind, their bloody wings lying at my feet, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the vision. 

“You don’t have to go back there. You can stay here with me. Whatever you did can’t be that terrible,” his voice cooed in the silence of his bedroom. 

The words died on my tongue, it not being worth it to explain myself to him because Noah wouldn’t understand. 

My heart's racing faltered for the briefest of moments, only for it to double in pace when Noah’s eyes studied me, assessing every inch of my face. I tracked every movement of his tongue when it darted out to wet his pink lips. 

“Lethia.” 

My name was all but a hushed whisper that hung on his bottom lip and when our eyes met, some kind of light danced behind his. I raised my fingers to his mouth to drag the nail of my pointer finger along that bottom lip. Noah’s breath hitched in his throat but remained still as I glanced up at him, dying to know what it would feel like. Facial hair peppered his chin and above his mouth, and I couldn’t help but smile at how good he looked. 

There was no way he wasn't like me. Noah was too eternal, the aura that radiated around him shone bright and pulled me in every time he was around. 

The long locks of his hair fell into his face when he tilted his head towards me, closing the distance slightly. The divine scent of him filled my senses and I let my eyes flutter shut to pick apart each of the different smells. Noah smelled woodsy with a hint of Bergamot and Nutmeg. It smelled like his bedroom. It smelled like him. 

“Noah,” I breathed, now dragging my nails over the tattoo on his neck. 

I couldn't feel his touch but I did notice my hair being brushed away from my face. 

“I can’t explain it,” Noah swallowed. “But I feel this strong connection to you.” 

All of my actions were unknown to me, along with this feeling in my chest that burned with such a good ache. Noah silenced all of the voices in my mind, easing away the guilt and hurt that weighed heavily on my heart for my actions in the Kingdom. I was resistant at first with him but I think it was only because this feeling deep inside of me scared me to the ends of the earth. 

“Me as well,” I admitted quietly. 

My hands rested in my lap now, shaking with nerves, wondering what Noah was going to do. We were so close now, with almost no space between our lips, and before my brain could catch up on what was happening a sudden surge of warmth exploded inside of me before seeping into my veins. My skin pricked with electricity when Noah’s hand glided through my hair and it was then that I noticed his eyes were closed but his lips were on mine. 

He was kissing me? 

Fuck. 

I nearly cried and cursed the King for bestowing me with this curse of not being able to feel human touch. All I wanted was to feel Noah’s lips on mine, taste him, devour him. Although I couldn’t feel him, the feeling that was coming alive inside of me was almost too much to handle and I let a quiet moan be swallowed by Noah, who hummed in delight. 

It felt like fireworks being shot off inside of me. It felt like that first flight I took when I realized my wings kept me upright. It felt like the wind blew through my hair and the softness of the clouds encased me just as Noah’s arm did. 

Something spread my lips apart and now all I could feel was the sudden wetness in my mouth and between my legs. I clenched them together while grasping at Noah’s shirt, trying to feel anything. 

He pulled away to glance down at me, briefly searching my eyes for any emotion I couldn’t give off in the kiss we just shared. 

“I mean this with genuine curiosity but have you never been kissed before?” Noah wondered while his hand cupped my cheek. 

I shifted on his bed and kept my gaze cast down on my lap. While I lay with other angels up in the Kingdom, we’d never kissed; Noah was my first kiss, ever. 

“Lethia?” 

“I-,” my shoulders slumped. “No. Was I that bad?” 

Now while I couldn’t feel his touch, that didn’t stop me from meeting his kiss with the same amount of gentle caress that he led with. 

A low noise rumbled in Noah’s chest. “Not at all. I’d actually like to kiss you again if that’s alright?” 

Unbridled heat expanded deep within me as I nodded quickly and then his lips were on mine again. I let the passion in my heart guide my lips, doing my best to mimic Noah’s actions, and he let out a moan when I climbed into his lap to run my hands through the waves of his tawny hair. Even if I couldn’t feel any part of this physically, I could feel it in my heart, and to me, that’s all that mattered. 

“Lethia,” Noah groaned when I pressed my hips into his. 

Something in my heart told me that he was brushing his tongue along the side of my neck before his teeth grazed over in its path. That same feeling told me that Noah’s hands were sprawled over my lower back before slipping underneath my shirt to claw at my skin, digging his nails in. 

My spine tingled with fire, starting from the base and shooting straight up into my neck before spreading through my entire angel essence. My head fell back as my jaw went slack when the familiar feeling of ecstasy crept its way into me.

Only this wasn’t the kind of ecstasy brought on by a man's kiss or touch.

No. 

The skin on my shoulder blades began to peel away an opening for my wings to protrude from and with a gasp of fear, I scrambled away from Noah and nearly stumbled over my feet as I stood in front of him. He lay back on his elbows, hair a mess from my fingers running through it, and lips were swollen from our kiss. The rise and fall of his chest was uneven as he tried to catch his breath. I dared a glance lower and sucked in a breath when I noticed how hard his cock was in his gray sweats. 

“Hey, are you alright? Did I do something?” Noah asked while rising to his feet and taking a step towards me. 

I took a step back. “No, you didn’t do anything. I-I can’t explain it but-.” 

How could I explain it? 

Oh hey, Noah. I was getting so turned on by our kiss that my wings almost came out.

Yeah right. 

I dragged my hands through my hair and let out an aggravated groan to which Noah gently grasped my wrists and held them against his chest. My gaze bounced back and forth between his eyes, my erratic heartbeat calming. 

“If I went too far, I apologize,” he said. 

“No,” I hastily shook my head. “You didn’t do anything. I just needed a moment to clear my head, that's all.”  

He hummed. “I know the perfect thing to help with that.” 

Before dropping my hands, he left a gentle kiss on them, and I couldn’t stop the smile that spread to my lips as I watched him gather the extra clothes on his desk and towels.

“A shower always helps me clear my head,” Noah said while leading me out of his bedroom. 

“A shower?” I asked, slowly treading behind him. 

“Yeah,” he nodded as we stepped inside the bathroom. “Hot Water. Soap. Shampoo.”

“Naked. I know the drill,” I crossed my arms over my chest with a raised brow. “Are you trying to get me naked, Noah?” 

Nervously he rubbed the back of his neck and a red tint painted over his cheeks. “N-no. I just want to help you.” 

I took the things in his hands with a nod of thanks. “You’ve already done enough for me. Giving me a place to stay.” 

The space between us was small in his bathroom due to his tall stature and he gazed down at me with a slight up curl of his lips as he stuffed his hands in his pocket. 

“I help the people I care about.” 

I cocked my head at him. “You care about me?” 

This word, care, was foreign to me; unheard of in the Kingdom. So to hear Noah utter it made a weird feeling stir inside of me. 

“I wouldn’t have kissed you if I didn’t,” Noah’s voice was low as he took a small step towards me. 

However, when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I nearly dropped the clothes and towels. I always tried to avoid looking at myself because of how evil I looked. My red eyes matched the red lights from under Noah’s bed and my short onyx hair barely reached my shoulders. Thankfully my jacket and jeans covered the tattoos that were drawn on my skin; etched in deep with my transgressions. 

I despised how I looked now. Revolted in the darkness that I become. 

“I never used to look like this,” I admitted with a long sigh, letting the things in my hands fall to the bathroom counter. 

Noah stepped behind me to stare at my reflection in the mirror. “Really?” 

“This look?” I pointed to my reflection. “It’s a telling of everything wrong I’ve done. I can’t even look at myself without disgust.” 

His face fell at my words and he rested his hands on my shoulders. “Lethia, that’s the farthest thing from the truth. You look beautiful.” 

That was another word I hadn’t heard before. 

“Beautiful?” I raised a brow, staring at his reflection still. 

Noah rested his chin on top of my head and I couldn’t help but giggle at the size difference between us. I wasn’t exactly short but with Noah’s length, he easily towered over me so to rest his chin on my head he had to bend down a bit, encasing his arms on either side of me to grip the bathroom counter. 

My eyes raked over the tattoos that covered the entirety of his arms, various designs and colors. 

“Well for starters, the length of your hair suits your face structure and the color compliments your olive skin tone,” he left a kiss on the side of my head. 

“I used to have long, almost white hair,” I said. 

“Oh,” his face scrunched up. 

“You don’t like it?” I teased with a chuckle. 

Noah shrugged. “You look beautiful either way but like I said this look suits you better.” 

His hands grabbed the collar of my jacket to slowly pull it down my arms, letting it fall to the floor at our feet. I now stood in front of him in my jeans and white shirt, arms exposed to show the darkness of the tattoos that covered them. 

“Your tattoos are made for you,” he breathed in my ear, fingers trailing up the skin of my arms. 

Our eyes locked in the mirror, the deep crimson of mine paled in contrast to his bright almond ones; however this time when I looked into them, they weren’t cold and vacant. Not like I’d see in my dreams. 

“Your eyes,” Noah breathed. “I think your eyes are one of my favorite things about you.” 

He brushed away the hair from my neck so he could press kisses along the skin there. I watched in the mirror as his teeth grazed over the shell of my ear before sinking deep into the crook of my neck. Straight heat shot through me again and I let myself fall into his embrace with a sigh that sounded more like a moan. 

“I’m afraid,” my bottom lip trembled as I cast my eyes down from his. 

Noah turned me in his arms so I had no choice but to look up at him. His eyes were filled with worry as they searched every inch of my face. I grasped at the front of his shirt, fingers trying desperately to feel the material. 

“Afraid of what? This?” He pointed between us. 

“No,” I shook my head and then let out a shaky breath. “I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me.” 

Noah’s hands were on both sides of my face because he held me firm. Then when the light sparked inside of me, I knew that he crashed his lips on mine, tongue slipping inside of my mouth. Although I couldn’t feel his touch, the feeling I had deep inside of me was telling me everything he was doing. 

One hand cupped my cheek while the other slipped inside my shirt, grasping at the skin of my lower back. His lips and tongue explored every inch of my mouth, dragging his teeth along my jawline and neck as he went back to leaving small marks along my collarbone. 

His name came out just below a whisper when he lifted me onto the bathroom counter, digging his nails into the thick material of my jeans to spread my legs open for him. Noah stepped between them as I brought our lips together again in another fiery kiss, needing to bring Noah even closer to me by any means. 

“Lethia,” he murmured against my mouth. “I need-.” 

Just as the skin on my shoulders began peeling away, someone walked into the bathroom, causing Noah to jump away from me slightly. Glancing at the now open door, I noticed his roommate Jesse’s eyes bouncing between Noah and me. 

“Shit, I should have knocked,” he muttered while rubbing his face. “I just saw the door was cracked open and didn’t think.” 

I wiped away the saliva from my lips and turned my head away from the two men, feeling this unusual burn on my cheeks. 

“It’s alright,” Noah ran a hand through his hair, still keeping a wide distance between us. “I was just letting Lethia take a shower.” 

Jesse nodded. “Yeah sure, no problem. I’ll just use the bathroom downstairs.” 

When it was just Noah and me yet again, I peered over to him who was leaning against the wall with a wicked smirk. 

“What?” I asked with a slight up curl on my lips. 

He said nothing, only adjusting himself. I dared a glance downward and sucked in a breath when I noticed his cock pressing hard against the front of his sweats. All the warmth in my body shot down to my core and I squeezed my thighs together, hoping it would curb the itch.

How did this mortal seem to set all of my senses ablaze like this? 

“I’ll give you some privacy,” Noah motioned to the shower. 

As he began walking out of the bathroom, I dared a glance at the shower but tilted my head in confusion. 

“Wait,” I spoke while reaching for his wrist, my black nails grazing his skin. 

Both of us reacted with such a shock, nearly making me rear back in surprise. Noah’s eyes bounced from my hold on him to my face; a spark of something behind them. 

“How do I turn it on?” 

“The shower?” His brows creased. 

All I did was nod, some things on this planet still confused me but I didn’t want to tell him that. 

With a chuckle, Noah walked over to the shower, sliding the door open then turned the dial left. 

“Left is hot. The right is cold. Adjust how you need to. There’s already some shampoo and body wash in there for you,” he said when he stepped in front of me. 

Steam began to fill the bathroom, dancing above our heads like the clouds in the Kingdom. Reaching up on the tips of my toes, I laid a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. 

“Thank you, Noah.” 

NOAH

I stifled a yawn behind my hand as I poured myself yet another cup of coffee, stirring the dark liquid as I leaned against the kitchen island. Craning my neck far to the left, I groaned when it popped in a few different places. Sleeping on the couch did a number on my back and neck but I didn’t want to verbalize my discomfort knowing that Lethia was comfortable upstairs in bed. 

Possibly naked, lying in my sheets. 

Shaking the thoughts from my head, I took a large gulp of my coffee, it slightly burning on the way down, when Jesse walked into the kitchen. His eyes raked over my disheveled hair and skewed clothes with a smirk. 

“Rough night?” 

I grumbled in response. 

“I’m sorry about interrupting you and Lethia last night,” Jesse apologized while reaching for a cup in the far right cupboard. 

“It’s alright,” I set my cup on the counter next to me. 

It seemed as if there was something on the tip of his tongue so I urged him to ask his question with a nod. 

“Are you sure you aren’t moving fast with her?” Jesse was hesitant to ask. “You don’t know a lot about Lethia?” 

Even though I was growing tired of the same conversation with my friends, I took a deep breath to ease away the annoyance. I knew they were only coming from a place of love. 

“It’s hard to explain,” I rubbed a hand up and down my arm. “We feel this strong connection between us and no matter how hard I tried to stay away, it seemed as if something kept pulling us together.” 

Jesse nodded with a faint smile. “She seems like a great girl, Noah. We just don’t want you to fall too deep and end up getting hurt.” 

I reassured him with a pat on his shoulder just as Jolly, Michael, and Orie came bounding into the kitchen, all of them going about to start their typical morning routine. It was a rare Saturday that we all had off so earlier in the week we talked about going for a hike today. 

“Still on for today?” Orie wondered. 

“Yeah,” I answered. 

Jolly took a sip of his coffee. “Did you ask if Lethia wanted to come?” 

My lips parted to speak but there was this tingle at the back of my neck, making the hairs there stand to attention, and when I turned slightly, my heart shuddered in my chest. 

Lethia stood in the middle of the kitchen, rubbing a hand on her elbow. Her hair was a mess from a night of sleep and I could make out the faintest of a few purple marks across her neck. My cock twitched in my sweats when I remembered our kisses from last night. But that’s not what made my heart stop. It was what she was wearing. 

My blue and white star shorts and my Jesus playing basketball with the devil t-shirt. It drowned on her, barely covering the shorts. Not only were her arms covered in tattoos but so were both of her legs, the black designs standing out amongst the sunlight that brushed in through the patio door next to her. Lethia looked absolutely breathtaking. 

Like an angel. 

“Hilarious,” she pulled at the picture of the shirt. 

I smiled. “Did you sleep alright?” 

“You guys were going to ask me something?” 

She averted my question with one of her own and Orie spoke up. 

“We were going for a hike today. Would you like to join?” 

“A hike,” Lethia repeated the words slowly. 

Michael rolled his eyes. “You know, walking up a mountain. Fresh air. Scenery. Exercise.” 

Crimson eyes sliced into him. “I know what a hike is.” 

“Cool, so are you coming with or not?” He crossed his arms. 

“I’m touched you want me to tag along, Michael. I knew you secretly had feelings for me,” Lethia teased with a playful smirk. 

Peering over to Michael, I noticed a red tint covering his cheeks before he hid his face in the fridge, rummaging around for something. 

“So,” I began while closing the distance between Lethia and me. “Do you want to come with us?” 

She peered up at me through dark lashes. “You want to spend time with me?” 

“I think after last night that it’s pretty clear,” I said while taming her sleep-tousled hair. 

Lethia leaned into my touch, her eyes fluttering shut with a peaceful sigh. 

“Okay,” she agreed after a beat of silence. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed.” 

“Take all the time you need,” I said, trailing my fingers down the side of her neck. 

Lethia slipped away from me and trotted back upstairs to get ready and when I turned around, I ignored the looks from Michael, Orie, and Jolly. Instead, I walked into the living room while hearing Jesse fill them in on what happened last night. 

“You kissed her?” Michael asked as he followed me into the living room. 

Slipping my black jacket over my hoodie, I shrugged. “It sort of happened. We were in my room talking and I asked if I could.” 

He hesitated and I knew, like Jesse, he had some reservations. 

“Look, I appreciate you guys looking out for me, I do. But if I didn’t trust Lethia, she wouldn’t be here. So can we please make her feel welcome?” 

I directed the question towards Michael, who raised his hands. “I didn’t start it.” 

“I think the reason why you two seem to butt heads is because she doesn't take your shit,” Jolly chuckled while tying up his hair. 

Michael grumbled under his breath as Lethia came bounding down the steps, yet again taking my breath away. She was dressed in biker shorts, showcasing her long and toned legs, and a black fitted crop top. Her white tennis shoes stood out as she came to a stop when all eyes fell on her. 

“Do I have something stuck to me or something?” She asked, doing a full 360 turn, and I briefly saw a tattoo peaking on her shoulder through the straps of her shirt. 

Some kind of bird. A crow?

“No, you look great,” I smiled. “Ready?” 

“Shit, my jacket. Let me-.” 

Before she could run back upstairs, I handed her an extra sweater of mine I grabbed from the front closet. 

“Your leather jacket is looking a bit worn so here, you can have my sweater for the day,” I said. 

She hesitantly took it, fingering the material of my yellow sweater. “Thank you, Noah.” 

The drive to our usual hiking spot seemed to go by faster than normal as we all piled in Orie’s SUV; he and his dog, Harper, up front; something Michael gave him shit for when he tried to call shotgun. 

Jolly and Michael were in the middle. 

Me, Lethia, and Jesse were in the back seat. 

My knees were brushing with hers, heat spreading throughout my nerve endings and I suddenly wanted to feel all of her all over me. Memories of our kiss last night flashed in my mind when I found myself staring at her lips while she talked with Jesse. 

I remembered how they tasted; like every dark thought I’d ever had. There was something about her that kept calling to me, to a side that I forever repressed. I needed to know more about her and to know who she was running from so I could protect her from them. 

Once we all stumbled out of the car, Lethia bent low to Harper so the dog could sniff her fingers. With a faint smile, she scratched Harper being the ears, something the dog appreciated with a wag of her tail. 

“You’re a beautiful creature,” Lethia mused before rising to her feet. 

With Orie taking the lead, we all followed up the usual path, Lethia slowly trailing behind. I let her take her time alone, figured something was bothering her, but when we made it about halfway up the trail, I finally turned to face her. Her hand was moving in an orbit as she studied the long black nails; sharp as a blade. 

“Come on slowpoke!” I called out to her with a smile after pulling my hood up.

Her eyes barely lifted to mine, something still clouding her mind. 

“What’s going on?” I asked, coming to a stop. 

“Hm?” 

When Lethia finally looked up at me, it was a few seconds too late as she crashed into me, not realizing I stopped walking. My arms wrapped around her to keep us upright while her hands sprawled over my chest. I was still so nervous to have her this close to me that I knew she would be able to tell when she’d feel my heart beating rapidly in my chest. 

“What’s going on in here?” I asked again, tapping her forehead. 

She didn’t even flinch. 

“Nothing,” Lethia said. 

I knew she couldn’t see the look I was giving her through my sunglasses so instead, I squeezed her hips; once again not reacting to my touch. 

“I’m fine, Noah,” she reassured me with a gentle caress to my face. “We should move along before the others wonder where we drifted off to.” 

I glanced over my shoulder, noticing that Jolly was at the top of the hill about ten feet ahead of us; stopped and waiting. 

“The first one to Jolly wins,” I said. 

This made her raise a brow. “A race?” 

“Yeah,” I dropped my hands from her waist. “If I win, I get to sleep in my bed with you. The couch isn’t the best place to sleep on my back. If it makes you feel better, we can put a wall of pillows between us.”

“What do I get when I win?” Her hands replaced mine on her hips. 

I snorted. “Someone’s confident.” 

It was her turn to snort. “There’s no way you can beat me. Now, what do I get when I win?” 

“Whatever you want,” I shrugged. 

She tapped a finger to her lip as if she was really thinking about her decision. 

“If I win, I’d like for you to kiss me again.” 

My cock twitched in my joggers while my heart hammered loudly in my ears. 

“Lethia,” my voice dropped. “You don’t have to make a bet for me to kiss you again.” 

Cocking her head to the side, she stood taller to close the distance. I felt the warm breath fan over my bottom lip and I almost captured her tongue with mine when it darted out to wet her lips. 

Suddenly, her laughter erupted through the trees as she took off in a sprint toward Jolly. Chuckling under my breath, I whipped around to begin running after her, amazed at how fast she’d already closed the distance to Jolly. She was less than five feet from him as he watched the two of us with a smile. 

Suddenly, her steps faltered briefly, just enough for me to pass her in such haste that I didn’t see that she stopped running completely. When I reached Jolly, I tapped his shoulder before raising my hands. 

“I win!” 

Lethia slowly caught up to us with a smile painting the features of her face, not even working hard to catch her breath from the race. It was as if she wasn’t even winded. 

“You did, fair and square,” she agreed while tying half of her hair up into a bun. 

Jolly looked from me to Lethia, a knowing look on his face. “Really?” 

My shoulders fell when I saw the look the two of them shared. 

“Wait,” I pointed to her. “Did you let me win?” 

“No,” Lethia dragged out the word and shrugged. “Why would I do that?” 

When she slipped between Jolly and me, she patted my chest and winked. “You better not be a blanket hog, Noah.” 

I watched her walk up to Jesse, the two of them picking up the conversation they had in the car. 

“You know Lethia let you win, right?” 

Jolly’s voice made me snap my gaze over to him. “No, she didn’t.” 

Now it was me that gave that knowing look and I shifted on my feet. 

“Why would she let me win?” I asked. 

“She wanted you to share your bed with her,” Jolly said as if it was obvious. 

I stood there for a long moment after he left to catch up with everyone else, letting his words settle within me. Lethia let me win because she wanted to share my bed. A fire burned in my gut with that knowledge as excitement filled my veins with the thought of going to sleep tonight. 

When I reached the group, they all were standing on a cliff edge staring down at the city of Los Angeles. This was one of my favorite spots because you could see everything up here but hear nothing of the hustle and bustle of the city, only your thoughts. 

I took note of Lethia who was a few feet away from all of us, in her own little bubble, letting the wind blow through her hair and my sweater that was tied around her waist. Her eyes were closed, a look of peaceful bliss on her face almost as if she belonged in the breeze. Her arms were outstretched as she tilted her head back.  “Lethia.” 

One eye cracked open as she looked at me when I snapped a quick picture of her with a smile. 

“I’m glad you invited me with you guys,” she breathed while dropping her arms. 

“Yeah, you’ve been alright company,” Michael admitted with a grumble. 

She came over and ruffled his hair. “You’re not so bad yourself.” 

Hooking an arm around her back, I pulled her into my chest, breathing my question over her lips. “You let me win the race?” 

“Now why would I do that?” Lethia hummed, playing with the strings of my hoodie. 

“That would mean I secretly want to sleep in the same bed with you.” 

Something mischievous sparkled in her crimson eyes as I lowered my head to her, capturing her lips in a soft kiss. Her body relaxed in my embrace, lips molding against my own, while my hands roamed up her back. 

Pulling away, Lethia dragged a finger over my bottom lip. 

“Looks like we both won in the end,” she respired. 

“How sweet.” 

Lethia’s body went stiff in my embrace when she peered over my shoulder toward the unfamiliar voice. Following her gaze, my brows creased when I noticed a man standing a few feet away from our group, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his dark Levis. The top two buttons of his white shirt were undone, showcasing a golden chain. For someone walking outside on a dirt-filled mountain, he looked clean; pristine. Not a single strand of his blonde hair was out of place on top of his head. 

“Uriel,” Lethia forced out through gritted teeth.

“Do you know him?” I asked when I looked back at her.

“Unfortunately,” her jaw ticked, never removing her eyes from the stranger. “He’s an old friend. Give me a few minutes?” 

I swallowed the jealousy burning deep in my gut at the way she said old friend but nodded, letting her slip from my embrace. With the guys flanking in a line a few feet behind her, we watched with careful eyes as she moved out of earshot from us. 

LETHIA  

“How did you find me?” I questioned, the soles of my shoes scraping along the rocks beneath my feet. 

Uriel smiled with his lips but not his eyes. “I must admit, your scent was a bit harder to find now that you mingle among these mortals.” 

“What do you want, Uriel?” My hands shook at my side so I rolled them into fists. 

Bright gold eyes flicked over my shoulder towards the guys before they fell on me. 

“I come with a message from the King.” 

I swallowed thickly, nearly faltering my stone face at the mention of the King, but remained calm. 

“I’m surprised he let you leave his side; you were always the one to be up his ass any chance you could get.” 

Uriel’s eyes sliced into me. “The vulgarity of your speech, Lethia. A few weeks here and you’ve changed; in more ways than one.” 

“What’s this message?” I asked with a sigh, ready to end this surprise meeting. 

“The King is welcoming you back into the Kingdom.” 

My heart stopped in my chest as my jaw dropped. I couldn’t ignore the way relief flooded me for the briefest of moments. 

A way back home? I was allowed to go back home. 

“That seems too good to be true. How can I believe your word?” I asked while crossing my arms over my chest. 

Uriel held out his hands. “I am an archangel, Lethia. We’re known for our word.” 

“When the fuck has your word ever been good enough? I sneered, countless memories of how wrong his word had been in the Kingdom. 

“Do you want to be granted a way back or not?” Uriel clicked his tongue against his teeth. 

“Surely the King has a catch,” I reminded him. “He always did.” 

Uriel pointed to Noah. “Erase that mortal’s memory of you, renounce him and everything you’ve done together. Never look his way again and you have your way back home.” 

My heart fell to the depths of my stomach at this demand. Even though there was a tiny sliver of hope of being granted access back into my home, there was no way I could erase Noah’s memory of me. These feelings we shared were still unknown to me but that didn’t mean I didn’t understand that we were important to each other; the feelings were real. 

“I’m not interested,” I spat while spinning on my heels, ready to walk back over to Noah. 

“He will allow you time to think about it, but not for long,” Uriel spoke. “I suggest you accept because the stench of humans is beginning to rub off on you; especially that mortal.”

Both of us glanced over at Noah who was watching us intently while talking with Jesse. They were still a good distance from us so I knew none of them could hear mine and Uriel's conversation. 

“Hm, he fancies you, Lethia. Tell me, how often do you walk in his dream? Quite often I suppose since he has those vulgar thoughts of you,” Uriel breathed against the back of my neck, fingers grazing over mine. 

My head snapped up to Uriel, creating distance between us by snatching my hand away from him. It was clear that I still was able to feel the touch of fellow angels, just not mortals.  

“You don’t know anything! He’s a good man offering me a place to stay away from Maraxa and Lucifer,” I seethed. 

His eyes darkened, almost as black as my wings. “You must not heed to their demands. If you even think about joining Lucifer's army, any chance of you getting back into the Kingdom will be long forgotten. The King is only allowing you one chance. Erase that mortal mind or stay on this putrid planet and walk among these disgusting creatures.” 

“Trust me, I have zero intention of joining Lucifer. It’s because of him I fell into what I am now. But the thought of joining a Kingdom that banished me also isn’t quite appealing,” I scoffed and walked a few steps away from him when his next words gave me great pause. 

“What if I sweeten the deal?” 

Turning slowly on my feet, I held out a hand. “I doubt it but go ahead.” 

Uriel pursed his lips before running a hand through his already perfect long, golden hair. “It is known that Lucifer is looking to revolt and he’s trying to find other fallen to join his army; for example, you.” 

I shook my head. “I already told you, I have no interest in joining him.” 

“The King can be quite lax with this upcoming war. He thinks he has enough soldiers for it but if I’m being frank, without Oblivion, we have no chance.” 

Every part of my body chilled to the bone as all the breath was snatched from my lungs at hearing that name; I hadn’t heard it in so long. 

“I’m not that person anymore,” I stated. “I haven’t been for a very long time.” 

“If you come back to the Kingdom, you can bring him with you. But still would need to erase his memories of you.” Uriel nodded behind me. 

To Noah. 

“What?” I stood tall. “How would that work? He’s mortal, he wouldn’t survive in the Kingdom. Not to mention, the King would never allow it.” 

That’s when something sparkled in Uriel’s eyes. 

“You two will dethrone the King.” 

I laughed out loud at his words. “Dethrone the King? Show up to the pearly gates so we can spit in his face?” 

“Think about it,” Uriel stepped closer to me, running a hand through my short locks. 

“If you accept to dethrone the King, lead the army in victory against Lucifer, you can bring the mortal with you and rule the Kingdom. However, he would have to be a mere peasant there. He cannot remember who you are. Think of him as a mere pawn for you to play with.” 

I stood frozen under his touch as he twirled a strand of hair around his finger. “I’ll even return you to your old physical state. Which you should be thankful for because this one doesn’t suit you.” 

The promise of not only going back home in my old form but being able to bring Noah with me made something inside of me light with the life I’d been searching for since I fell. But it wouldn’t be easy to bring a mortal into the Kingdom; there was only one way to enter. 

Being an eternal being. 

“I’ll think about it,” I muttered under my breath. 

Uriel smiled as he removed his hand from my hair. “I suggest you do because the longer you try to hide your true form, well I don’t need to remind you of what will happen.” 

No, he didn’t. 

My wings will deteriorate. My powers will weaken. Slowly over time, I will lose myself in my mind. 

With a scowl, I turned my back to him and finally sauntered back over towards Noah, who met me halfway, quick to pull me into his embrace. 

“Everything alright?” He brushed away some stray hairs from my face. 

“I need to get far away from that man,” I begged, parts of me that I didn’t want to remember coming back with force. 

“Did he hurt you?” Noah’s hands were on both sides of my face, almost mute against my skin. “Are you alright?

“Please,” I grasped at his arms, digging into the material of his jacket. “Can we leave? Seeing him brought up far too many memories I’d like to forget”. 

Noah nodded while wrapping an arm around my shoulder to begin leading me back down the hill, Uriel’s voice calling after us. 

“I’ll be seeing you soon, Lethia!”

JOLLY

“This place is called what?” 

Noah chuckled at Lethia’s upturned head at him with furrowed brows. “In-N-Out. They’ve got great burgers here.” 

“Burgers?” She said slowly. 

I watched as Noah explained the menu to her, what’s good and what to stay away from. Revealing that she wasn’t particular to any kind of food, he took it upon himself to order her a cheeseburger, fries, and a large chocolate milkshake. 

“Oh, that milkshake sounds delicious,” Lethia mused with a bright smile.

There was a faint smile on my face as I continued to watch the two of them, Noah sliding his hand on the lower back of Lethia as they waited for their food. She had slipped on his sweater on the way down from the mountain, the sudden change in the wind causing all of us to feel a frigid chill.

After Lethia spoke to that old friend of hers, something shifted with her. Noah could tell instantly because he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, not wanting to let her more than a few inches out of her sight. 

“Something doesn’t feel right about this guy,” Noah muttered to me as we watched Lethia and her friend converse. 

I held him back with a grip on his elbow when he nearly stomped over there seeing Uriel run his hands through Lethia’s hair. 

“Jolly,” he warned through gritted teeth. 

“Just give her some time alone, like she asked. If she’s uncomfortable, she’ll let you know,” I said. 

I could practically see all the worry leave Lethia’s body when Noah’s arms wrapped around her not even a minute later. 

I couldn’t explain it, and frankly, I don’t think Noah could explain either how Lethia entranced him since he found her in our driveway all those weeks ago. He claimed there was this undeniable pull between them and almost as if it was fate that they kept running into each other.

There’d been this light in Noah’s eyes every time he looked at Lethia, shining brighter now knowing and witnessing they kissed. He’d become transfixed ever since that first meeting even when she had her hand wrapped around his throat. We all should have been terrified of the strength she possessed when she tackled Folio to the floor or with how tight her grip was around Noah. But if he didn’t feel harm when he was around her, the least we could do was trust her. 

“What do you think?” Noah asked. 

She nodded with a mouth full of food then once she swallowed, Lethia took a large gulp of her milkshake. “Delicious.” 

While I ate my food, I continued to carefully watch them as the others around me had their own conversations. I didn’t miss the way when Noah muttered something in her ear, Lethia’s cheeks turned a deep crimson, like her eyes. 

She had her milkshake halfway to her lips when her body stilled, a painful grimace crossing her features. Those eyes scanned the entirety of the restaurant, almost looking for someone. 

“Are you alright?” Jesse questioned. 

“Uh,” Lethia winced, nearly doubling over in pain when she grasped at the ends of the table. 

A small gust of wind bristled by our table, tickling the back of my neck, and as I rubbed there Lethia quickly rushed to her feet. 

“I need a moment,” she grumbled before rushing out of the restaurant. 

Noah wanted to go after her but decided against it, knowing she needed time to herself. 

“Anyone else think she does that a lot?” Michael questioned. 

Noah sighed while running a hand through the long strands of his hair. “Lethia has a lot going on right now. She needs help.” 

“What do you mean?” I asked while tossing my garbage on the tray in front of me. 

There was slight hesitation from Noah for a long moment until he eventually divulged to us that he believes Lethia is running from an ex who wanted her back, even though he kicked her out of their house. 

“Oh, right. Lucifer,” Michael snorted. “Are we sure she doesn’t have this obsession with the occult or some shit? The only Lucifer I’d heard of is the supposed devil. 

Orie smacked him upside the head. “Dude, Lethia is not dating the devil.” 

“She’s not dating anyone,” Noah’s eyes sliced over to him but they softened when he realized his words. “Lethia’s not dating anyone.” 

“Then what do you call what’s going on between the two of you?” Jesse wondered. 

“I don’t know,” Noah shrugged. “I like her but I don’t want to rush her into anything she doesn’t want.” 

“From what I’ve seen, you’re not. Whatever you’re giving her, she’s reciprocating it back. Lethia feels the same, Noah. You don’t have to worry about that,” I assured him. 

All he did was nod as he kept his gaze on the door of the restaurant where Lethia stormed through minutes before. 

LETHIA

“Come to me, Lethia. My queen. I need you by my side to rule.” 

I clawed at my ears, digging out Lucifer's voice, and continued to run into the woods behind the restaurant. My body ached with the pain of my wings nearly forcing their way out of my back. It’s been a few days since I let them out and it was beginning to crush me. 

“I miss you, Lethia. I need you again.” 

“Stop!” I cried while falling to my knees in the leaves and dirt, hands covering my ears. 

“I’ll never stop until I have you in my presence. You are mine, Lethia. Not his.” 

All but ripping Noah’s sweater off of me, I tossed it to the side just as I let out a sheer groan of agony mixed with ecstasy when my large wings exploded from my back. The force of them caused the branches of the trees around me to falter, some falling to the ground around me like drops of rain. 

My jaw was slack as I peered up to the gloomy grays of the sky, an upcoming storm about to ravage through the city. All the pain I felt inside the restaurant was long forgotten, replaced with the intoxication of my angelic being. My powers began to slowly fester low inside of me and with an open palm, I watched the bright light slowly begin to grow into a baseball-sized orb then with a flick of my wrist, I sent it to a tree far off into the distance, incinerating it completely. 

My body vibrated with all of my senses. I could hear the chatter of people miles away, feeling the slight creep of chills against the skin of my back when my name came out from the chatter. 

“Lethia.” 

Before, it was Lucifer speaking in my mind. But now, that voice that uttered my name was the same that spoke when he was kissing me last night. 

My left wing came around to the front of me, blocking me from anyone who dared to venture into the woods and a broken sob fell from my chattering lips. They were deteriorating at such a rapid pace. While they were still large, dark, and caused fear to any mortal who saw them, my wings were a pathetic excuse to any other angel. A few feathers drifted into the wind, the weakness from hiding who I was taunting me. 

“There she is. I knew you couldn’t hide who you were. The darkness lies inside of you, begging to awaken.” 

I sucked in a gulp of air when Maraxa’s voice crept into my mind now; the cold and monotone bringing a chill to my bones. 

My eyes rolled to the back of my head when a vision slammed into me. 

Noah and the guys sitting in the booth of the restaurant, smiling and laughing with a group of girls that sauntered up to the table. One of the girls was standing a bit too close to Noah, as he signed something for her. When he handed it back, their fingers grazed over the girl’s. His almond eyes snapped from her hand to her face, gazing at all of her features.

“No!” I screamed while rising to my feet. “Stop. I know what you’re doing!” 

“Oh, sweet Oblivion. I’m doing nothing that your mind is already thinking.” 

The way Maraxa uttered my other name made me whirl around, thinking she was here with me. 

“I’m not Oblivion anymore. I haven’t been for a very long time,” I spat, eyes scanning my surroundings. 

“You should see yourself. Looking like a mad angel who lost her mind.” 

Uriel’s warnings were right. My wings were deteriorating and now, I was losing myself in my mind. Were these voices even in my head? Or had I been imagining them since my fall? 

“Lethia?!” 

My head snapped up to just outside the clearing of the woods, Noah’s faint outline slowly closing the distance. 

“Oh, you’re thinking of letting him see you in your true form. Surely, he will think you’re even more of a freak than how you look. He wouldn’t understand.” 

Meraxa. 

The voices wouldn’t stop, no matter how hard I smacked my ears to drown them out. 

“This mortal will never understand you. You’re mine, Lethia. Mine and no one else's. I will have you in my arms once again.” 

Lucifer. 

“Stop,” I cried while falling to my knees again, my wings wrapping around me in a protective barrier. 

“Dethrone the King and all of his kingdom will be yours.” 

Uriel. 

“Lethia? Are you okay?” 

Noah. 

Snapping my eyes open, they landed on Noah who was now a few feet away from me. With a roll of my shoulders, I stood to my feet, appearing just as I had moments before leaving his presence. 

NOAH

“Lethia, are you alright?” I questioned as she appeared through the clearing of the woods. 

I felt Lethia brush past me as she walked back toward the car, not uttering a word at me. My heart sank slightly but I did my best not to dwell on it because of our moments together in my bedroom and the bathroom last night. The unbridled passion between us was burning over into undeniable attraction. 

With a sigh, I tied my hair into a low bun, ready to go back home after this long day, but a flutter of movement at my feet caught my attention. It was a lone black feather, just like the one I'd found that first night Lethia appeared in my life. 

Bending at the knees, I reached for the feather, and then with a gasp of breath, I felt my vision being yanked away from me at the edges, darkness encompassing every part of me. I felt my soul being dragged away into another dimension, tumbling into a brighter vision of pure peace and eternal life. 

A woman with white golden hair stood in front of me, even brighter wings protruding from her back, as she held onto less fragile wings from the man who kneeled at her feet. 

"Oblivion," he cried. "Don't fall into the true meaning of your name, please." 

The woman; no angel cocked her head to the side with a slight wicked smile. 

"The King bestowed this name to me for a reason," was all she said before the man's cries of death and pain erupted but were overshadowed by the sounds of his wings being ripped from his back. 

With a gasp of breath, I was dragged back into the present, nearly stumbling onto my ass. Looking around my surroundings, I noticed I was back in Los Angeles, Jolly and Jesse slowly walking towards me. 

"You alright?" Jolly wondered. 

Ignoring him, I twirled the feather in my fingers and locked eyes with Lethia, who gave nothing away from her face except the slight flicker of light in her red eyes.

This vision didn’t feel like it was one of my own memories. It was as if I was dragged into someone else subconscious as I watched from the outside looking in. Something about watching the angel get his wings ripped away from him felt wrong, especially with the wicked smirk the female angel had on her face when she did it. 

I couldn’t ignore the way my mind vibrated with the familiarity of her. I knew who she was but she didn’t look familiar. Her presence was the only familiar thing about her and with a flick of my gaze to Lethia, there was a small part of me that knew who it was. 

With a sigh, I carefully pocketed the feather in my coat pocket and nodded over to Jesse who asked if I was ready to head back to the house. When I climbed into the car, I noticed that Michael and Jolly sat in the back with Lethia, so I retreated into the front seat of the car, while Jesse lounged in the middle with Harper. 

“Everything alright?” Orie asked as he pulled the car out onto the main road. 

Glancing over my shoulder, I watched Lethia for a few beats as she stared straight out of her window, not bothering to meet my gaze. I knew she could feel it burning into her but whatever happened to her outside in those woods rendered her speechless. 

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully before turning back to face forward with a sigh. 

As soon as we arrived back at the house, Lethia nearly jumped out of the car to run inside once Jolly opened the door for her. She locked herself away in my bedroom for the rest of the afternoon well into the evening. Part of me wanted to check on her if she was alright but it was clear she wanted to be left alone. If she needed me, she would let me know. 

Would she? 

With a shake of my head at the thought, I bid a goodnight to Jesse and Michael as we watched a movie together in the living room and slowly retreated up the steps to my room. The door opened a crack but before I pushed my way through, I noticed Lethia standing in the middle of my room in front of my mirror. She was only wearing a pair of black panties and a matching bra. I knew I should have averted my gaze to anything else but I was mesmerized by her. 

Lethia showed me her back, hands slinking up her spine towards the hook of her bra, the material falling to the floor at her feet. My breath caught in my throat when I noticed the large crow tattoo on her right shoulder blade. But it wasn’t just the sight of it that gave me great pause; it was the large upside-down V scar on her back. It wasn’t an old scar. It looked new; fresh. 

“What the?” I muttered, slowly pushing away from the door to stand in the middle of the landing above the stairs. 

With a glance over the landing, I noticed that Jesse and Michael were still sitting on the couch, and knowing Jolly and Orie retreated to bed earlier, the computer in the studio was free. As I came back downstairs to head into the studio that was off the den, Jesse raised a brow at me. 

“I thought you went to bed?” 

I motioned to the room in front of me. “Late-night inspiration.” 

Shutting the door behind me, I dropped down into the chair in front of the computer with my fingers hovering over the keyboard. My mind was full of different words, I wasn’t sure where to start. 

Black feathers. 

Vivid dreams. 

Crows in dreams. 

Upside-down V scars on a person's back. 

Angels. 

Fallen Angels. 

The last one made me freeze ever so still, a memory of my own past creeping into the front recesses of my mind. 

“Noah, dear! Come on. It’s time for your bedtime story!” 

Eight-year-old me ran down the long hallway of my grandparent's house into my bedroom there and hopped into my bed, where my grandma sat on the edge with a fond smile. 

“Lord of the Rings?” I asked while climbing under the blankets. 

She chuckled while tucking me in. “Now, what did I say about those books? Aren’t you a little too young for them?” 

I rolled my eyes. “Ok grandma, what’s the story tonight?” 

“Fallen angels.” 

“Like from heaven?” I asked with furrowed brows. 

“Now I won't bore you with all the details but there’s something special about them,” my grandma began while patting my thigh over the blanket. “When an angel falls from heaven, people think they’re automatically stripped of all their powers but sometimes that's not the case.” 

She continued. “There’s this story of a great angel that fell, her feathers scattered all over the world. Whenever a human touched them, they would be sucked into memories of the angel.” 

I gave my grandma a “you can’t be serious” look but she only cupped my cheek in response.  

“No one believed that angels walked among us until someone saw the scars on the back of one.” 

“Scars?” I said, sitting up straighter in bed. 

“Large ones on their back. In an upside-down V.” 

I choked on a breath nearly falling out of the computer chair but gripped the handrests to keep myself steady. When I was eight years old, I figured my grandma was blowing smoke out of her ass, telling another one of her many stories. But now, everything seemed to have a bit of truth. 

Biting my bottom lip, I clicked on Google and quickly typed the words into the search bar before I doubted myself a second longer. 

Fallen Angel.

I clicked on the first website. 

“Fallen Angels are angels who have been exiled or banished from Heaven. Often such banishment is a punishment for disobeying or rebelling against their King,” I read the words out loud. 

I scrolled down the page a bit farther, still muttering the words out loud as I read them. 

“If a fallen angel is impaled or struck in the scars created when his or her wings were ripped out usually spanning from shoulder blades to kidney area, he or she will be temporarily immobilized. Some angels still have scars even if they haven’t lost their wings. It’s easier for the skin to peel away for the wings to slip from.” 

I shivered at the phantom feeling but then froze when I read the next section. 

“A fallen angel is unable to feel physical pain or sensations.” 

Scrolling down a bit farther, it was then that I realized how right I’d been about this feeling festering within me; almost begging to be let out. 

“A fallen angel's feather holds a lot of power. It holds the memories of the angel and whoever touches them can find themselves in those memories. A fallen angel's biggest weakness is one of their feathers. If a feather is burned, the original owner of the feather will be chained in Hell for eternity. Otherwise, fallen angels are nearly as indestructible as Angels and Archangels.” 

I fell back into the chair and rubbed a hand over my mouth, letting everything I read process in my mind. Everything correlated to what I’ve noticed with Lethia especially the part of her not being able to feel anything. 

There’d been a few times when it seemed like my touch meant nothing to her. But when we kissed, it seemed as if she could feel that. 

The feathers. 

Even though I tried to deny what I’d seen when I picked up the feather today, I knew that it was true what I’d seen. 

But how come I hadn’t seen anything when I picked up the first feather? 

Hunching back over towards the computer screen, I read more into the section about fallen angel feathers. 

“The more fallen angel feathers you touch, the stronger your connection to their memories is.” 

With a purse of my lips, I rummaged around the desk looking for my lyric book where I had stashed the first feather, using it as a bookmark. The other feather was still in my pocket, weighing heavily with the fear of what I would see next. My heart was pounding so loud I could hear it in my ears and feel it in my throat. It was suffocating, this feeling clawing its way inside of me, threatening to pull me under. 

Did I want to do this? 

Was I ready for what I could potentially see? 

Granted, I had to take everything I read online with a grain of salt because it could have been a bunch of made-up bullshit. But with it correlating to not only my grandma’s story but things I’ve noticed about Lethia, there had to be some truth to it all. 

“Fuck it,” I muttered while grabbing the feather in my lyric notebook at the same time I grabbed the one in my pocket. 

Darkness lingered at the corners of not only my vision but my mind as well. It dragged me under with no warning to the dark depths of what I could only assume was Lethia’s mind. 

My body landed with a thud to the cool wetness of the grass below me and quickly scrambling to my knees, I took in the vast empty field that went on for miles. Brightly colored trees lined the edge of the field and it was so quiet here that I could hear my blood running through my veins. 

“My love. I've been waiting for you.” 

Whirling around on my heels, I took in the sight of a tall man with skinny but large white wings extended from his back. His black hair was a mess of curls in front of his eyes and the dark levis hung low on his hips. The sheer brightness of his green eyes was almost eerie and I felt as if he could see straight into my soul. 

But he didn’t. It was as if he didn’t see me when he walked past me, over towards a lone figure lying in the grass a few meters away from me. 

Long golden, almost white, strands of hair fell around her shoulders as she sat up, bright eyes staring back at the man who was slowly closing the distance. I swallowed thickly when I recognized that face. 

It wasn’t the way I knew her but it was still her. 

Lethia. 

“Lucifer. You know you’re not supposed to be here,” she quickly rose to her feet, taking a step back from him. 

He stood in front of her shirtless, the defining muscles of his chest and stomach tightening as he stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. 

So her ex actually was Lucifer. 

What the fuck did you just step into, Noah?

“I snuck away from the King for a moment. I needed to see you,” Lucifer tried to reach for her. 

Lethia smacked his hands away before running a shaking one of hers through her long hair. I then noticed she also had her wings exposed; large and as white as her hair. 

“We cannot be seen together! If the King finds out we’ve been together, he will banish us; or worse.” 

Lucifer chuckled darkly then pulled Lethia into his arms; her going willingly. 

I gritted my teeth at the jealousy that coursed through me, trying to tell myself that it was a very long time ago and it didn’t mean anything; not anymore. 

“My sweet Oblivion. The King wouldn’t banish his number one soldier. If he lost you, who would tear out the wings of the ones who went against him?” 

My blood ran cold at Lucifer's words. I knew that the first memory I saw had something to do with Lethia but I never put two and two together. She was the one who ripped out the angel's wings.

“I did horrible things back home and how could I ever be allowed back?

Her words from the last night made more sense now than they did when she first uttered them. 

“I cannot,” Lethia tried to fight against his grasp but ultimately gave in. 

“One more night. After tonight, I’ll let you be,” Lucifer’s fingers linked behind her neck, tilting her lips up towards him. 

“We both know we cannot stay away from each other,” she uttered before pulling him down to the grass with him. 

My eyes snapped open with a gulp of air and I gazed around the room of my studio, making sure that I was still alone. It took me some time to get my breath back to normal and my heart back to a steady pace. 

I slammed both of the feathers in my lyric book and hid it in the far back of the closet in the room, hoping no one else would find it. Those feathers held too much power and if I lost them, the looming fear of what could happen taunted me. 

“If an angel's feather is burned, they become changed to Hell for all eternity,” I reiterated the words I read earlier. 

Whether or not that part was true, I couldn’t risk it. 

Letting out a long breath, I shut down the computer and slowly slipped out of the studio, going upstairs to my bedroom unnoticed by Jesse and Michael who were still watching the movie. This time when I stopped in front of my room, I noticed the door was shut so I was quiet as I stepped inside, finding a sleeping Lethia cuddled under the mounds of blankets on my bed. 

I stood there for a long moment, staring at her back as it faced me, wondering what the scars looked like again underneath her shirt. 

My shirt. 

I had offered her to wear anything of mine and it seemed like she took me up on that offer. 

It was clear who she was running from. Lucifer. He wanted her back for reasons unknown to me but it was clear she didn’t want to go with him. 

I moved around my room quietly to change into a pair of sweats, opting not to sleep in a shirt only because it got extremely hot in my room during these summer nights, even with the air conditioner on. 

Softly, I got into bed behind Lethia as the faint breaths coming from her filled the air. For the first while, I laid on my back and stared up at my ceiling but when I noticed she didn’t move away, I turned to my side but still kept space between us. The heat from her body radiated around me, pulling me into her aura and I found myself never wanting to leave. 

Even though I knew what she was now, I wouldn’t tell Lethia I knew. This was something she needed to tell me when she was ready. 

Instead, I wrapped my arm around her midsection and pulled her into my chest. Although she might not be able to feel my touch, that didn’t stop me from running my nose along the crook of her neck, breathing in the scent of her. She must have showered because she smelled of peaches and a hint of something familiar. 

Me. 

I faintly smelled my shampoo in her skin and I hummed in pleasure. 

“What happened to the wall of pillows?” Lethia’s tired voice broke through the silence. 

I knew she was teasing when I heard her smile with her words. 

“This is much better than a wall of pillows,” I mused while I caressed her neck with my lips.

Lethia relaxed in my arms as she gave herself over to me and linked my fingers that rested on her stomach with hers and I wrapped my leg over hers, locking her in place. 

“Goodnight, Noah,” she murmured into the pillow. 

“Sweet dreams, Lethia,” I pressed a kiss to her head, finally letting the long day falter away with the darkness that swallowed us whole. 

#noah sebastian #bad omens #noah sebastian fanfiction #noah sebastian smut #noah sebastian angst #noah sebastian x fallenangel!oc #mercy noah sebastian

[commonghost]

100 Epitaphs thoughts!

Alright, so like I said yesterday, I unfortunately did NOT have the time to write out all my thoughts and had to wait until tonight to do so. No particular order to these, it's word vomit time.

(warning: this is LONG. it's not even all my thoughts. i cut myself off at parts. this song is so good guys.)

1) YURA AS THE SUN!

I'VE BEEN FUCKING SAYING AND IT KEEPS BEING THERE AND I KEEP GOING INSANE ABOUT IT. especially in conjunction with the fact that, yknow, the sun hurts sanya. the icarus symbology is THERE it is PRESENT i KNOW this is gonna down that awfully (sanya please dont die. but also that would be the perfect resolution. GOD) and i'm so ready for it.

ALSO: "ready to be blinded by the breaking day" -> "the visionless (sergei) leading the blind (sanya)", and we know she's got bad eyesight. doesn't mean it couldn't get worse. the lines "loose compromise / where the sun won't set / as long as i can set the stage" are also interesting wrt yura-as-the-sun, as you can take it both as sanya saying that as long as she has any kind of control she will stick with yura and help him in whatever insane plan he's got going on, but it's also her saying that she will always, always make the choice to put herself in danger.

yura is the bright relentless sun, and sanya's got very sensitive wings.

2) the parallels between sergei and sanya!!!!

i think what really fucks me up about them is that, at their core, both of them just want to keep the people they care about the most safe. for sergei, that's sanya (and olga, but she's a grown woman who makes her own decisions while sanya's his little sister and also his only remaining family, so it's different), and for sanya it's yura (who, to her, represents freedom—"but the wiser you is [FREE]"—and an escape from her current life, which is everything she dreams of.) and it absolutely ruins their relationship!!!! and it ruins me!! every time!!!!

and on that note, "the tepid autumn day is starting to thaw" is 1. a genius a callback ("a thousand years ago it was a tepid autumn day" + "a day will come warm and bright when i tear down these dismal shelter walls"), and 2. a signifier that shit is about to Get Real. even if you don't read the explanation in the doc, we still understand that the action is going to pick up like crazy very soon. i believe someone also mentioned how it could represent sergei and sanya's relationship going downhill, although im not the expert on that so i wont do more than mention it.

3) this was SUCH a good dive into sanya's character.

honestly her songs have consistently been my favorite of the lot and i think it's because her personality and her character are just. perfect for these kinds of character studies.

this entire song is at once her forcibly entering herself into the narrative after being so completely seperate from it for like, the entire series up to now (there were some very good posts by some very skilled people on this exact topic but alas i have lost the links to it, if anyone has them lmk) and ALSO an exploration of her trauma (almost everyone she knows seemingly dying on her or disappearing from her life in another sense) in such a fascinating way.

there is such a depth to all her actions here and the song explains why she clings on to yura as much as she does, and it's because he's (along with sergei, but she resents him for isolating her) all she has left, really! of course, there are the BG gang, but they aren't as involved in the story and sanya doesn't seem to be as close with them as she was with yura. it also gives another dimension to her wanting to join in rescuing KT: this isn't just her wanting to rebel and/or do something with her life (both of those things already being associated with anya & yura respectively) but her having the chance to get someone she cared about back into her life after they were taken from her. of course she'd want that, after a lifetime of losing people.

a bit of an extension to that last point, i think it's also really incredible how ferry manages to portray how complicated sanya's relationship with yura is. i find these two shots in particular ->

<- really interesting, because they are actually really similar! i think it's a great way of showing how sanya is both angry and resentful of some of yura's worst traits and refuses to stand for them, but that they are still at the end of it all friends who have fun together. they're just kids who have no idea what they're getting into! if you look closely at the second one, she's shushing him for being too loud. (hell, i'd be willing to bet that she probably felt similar to how she felt before yura snuck her out to her first party right then.)

her (budding) dynamic with dima is also quite fascinating, and manages to say so much about her, her thoughts about KT, and dima all at once. it's just masterful. her segment with him displays:

the fact that she deeply cares about KT, and wants this to go as perfectly as possible, even going so far as to put herself in more danger than necessary.

her absolute determination to get this done, even though she knows she won't make it out unscathed ("i'm aware no soul can enter / roam its halls / and come out clean")

her feelings about her family and how she perceives herself and the legacy she has been given ("and it's like that / and i'm like that / and i'll always bear this stone")

dima feeling actual empathy after meeting another mutant! poor guy has no idea what's going on. but i think it's a really important step in his character and might even get him to actually open up.

i need to stop with this section before it takes over the whole post.

4) KATA-FUCKING-BASIS! (and eurydice!)

(thank you light for teaching me that word)

not much to say about this one but the descent-into-the-underworld vibes are off the fucking charts! we got death imagery with katya already with THIS:

and so, in a way… whoever makes the trip to the facility? to retrieve katya? the metaphorically dead girl? that's a trip to the underworld, baby! that's katabasis!

and you know who else goes through katabasis to retrieve a girl from the underworld and bring her back out?

that's right!

ORPHEUS!

which. like. we already kind of knew it, but.

this plan isn't gonna work out well, is it.

#pafl #parties are for losers

[moon932]

I genuinely think that Gumshoe x Miles is an underrated ship in Ace Attorney. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the appeal of Phoenix and Miles, hell I enjoy reading the fics and browsing the tags. But I think so many focus on just those two. Focus on how well they ought to know each other, and completely miss out on the other relationships within the games. Platonic or not.

(more of my thoughts under the cut)

In the games it’s said and shown multiple times that Gumshoe and Miles have a close relationship. If you ignore the generalization of Gumshoe in the later games, which is a tragedy because Gumshoe was a really interesting character in this first game. He had more dimension, and if he was done right he could’ve portrayed a really interesting viewpoint that isn’t looked at that often. One that touches on how the people within the police system view it. Not to mention how this topic will always be an important thing to discuss, for those who rely on said system and those who work within and alongside it.

But I digress this post isn’t about that.

What this post is about, is that there is a lot more depth to Gumshoe and Miles relationship than I think both the games and fandom give it credit for. There is a trust there that I honestly think run deeper than the one portrayed by Phoenix and Miles. The fact that they’ve worked closely together for years before the first game starts. The fact that in the Investigation games we get a glimpse of how their dynamic works from Miles pov, which yeah we get it in the third game but there’s something more to it in the Investigations games in my opinion. Also in the DLC of the first game, the fact that Gumshoe left Miles the brochure for that lunch place, will always make me smile. It’s the fact that it was such a natural thing, a simple “hey I know you aren’t doing well, here’s a thing I think you might like.”

Not to mention that Gumshoe was the only one who knew Miles was alive during That Year? No one seems to actually talk about that. Putting aside what I think the letter meant, the fact that not even Franziska, Miles’s sister knew if he was alive or not. But Gumshoe knew? Guys. Guys.

Again, I get the draw of Wrightworth. I do, I was also very attached to the ship when I first got into the franchise and fandom. But I do think that there is something to be said about the other relationships portrayed in game that aren’t overly stated.

If this post was shit I’m sorry, please forgive any errors I’ll work on fixing grammar another day. Maybe I’ll also talk about my opinion of langworth if anyone is interested in that.

#ace attorney #miles edgeworth #phoenix wright #dick gumshoe #wrightworth #gumworth #fandom discussion #i don’t mean any of this as neg btw #this is just my opinion on the whole subject of gumworth

[ckret2]

Chapter 25 of human Bill is the Mystery Shack's prisoner and somehow befriended Mabel: in which Bill and Mabel make friendship bracelets. It's heartwarming. Bill is not, I repeat, not secretly up to anything nefarious.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the chapter, Bill is secretly up to something nefarious.

####

"I'll be back in exactly one hour," Ford said. "Be finished showering by then. You've got everything you need, as well as..." He looked disdainfully at a baggie of shampoo and conditioner sample bottles, "your gift from the Northwests."

Bill eyed the Northwests' little care package skeptically. Four entire separate products that were supposed to be used all in one shower. He was drowning in mammal-cleaning slimes. What a waste of his time. "You don't expect me to use allthis junk, do you?"

"Frankly, as long as you aren't bald and don't smell like gnome urine in an hour, I don't care what happens between now and then."

"You're the most merciful warden I've ever had, Stanford."

Ford wasn't sure if that was supposed to be sarcasm or an awkward glimpse into Bill's sordid history, so he just shut the bathroom door. "One hour."

"One hour!" Bill waited until he couldn't hear Ford's footsteps; and then he turned on the shower, fished a crushed cider can and eight candles out of his hoodie, and stood on the wooden crate by the window.

Over the last few days, he'd spent every spare private moment using toothpaste and toilet paper to polish the bottom of the can into a perfect, shining, concave mirror. Now, he held it up to the window with one of the candles, using the mirror to focus the sun into a point on the wick of the candle... and...

It took a couple minutes of agonizing patience, but finally the wick smoked and then ignited. Yes. Moving carefully so he wouldn't douse the flame, he used the burning candle to melt the bottoms of the other candles just enough to stick them to the floor, lit them in turn, and in the middle Bill quickly made a (frankly terrible) drawing of Kryptos by finger painting with a tube of toothpaste.

And then he knelt in front of the candle circle, and—quietly enough that the shower covered the sound—he started chanting.

Some humans called Bill a dream demon. It wasn't exactly wrong, even if calling him a dream demon was kind of like naming the entire human race "the mountain bikers."

Which was to say, if Bill was a "dream demon," then so were the rest of his people. The other surviving shapes could cast themselves like shadows onto the walls and floors of other dimensions, slip through the cracks in reality that were too thin to accommodate the depths of three-dimensional creatures, and wander through the higher dimensions' mindscapes.

It was just that it was only one of their many side hobbies rather than their main pursuit as a species—and not a particularly popular hobby, at that. Most shapes weren't into taking safaris through aliens' dreams.

Out of the shapes Bill still hung out with, Hectorgon wouldn't do it; he appreciated why Bill went on his psychic excursions for the everyone's benefit, but skulking in a higher plane's second dimension made Hectorgon feel voyeuristic—and he'd only gotten more uncomfortable with the idea since his three-dimensional makeover. Bill could wheedle a majority of Amorphous Shape into a sightseeing trip once a millennium or so, but they were just a passive tour group who would be lost without Bill as their tour guide. Kryptos alone had taken enough of an interest in alien mindscapes to make the leap from "occasional tourist" to "frequent traveler." He was the only one other than Bill who spent enough time on Earth to network with the locals; and he was the only one other than Bill who had bothered to set up a summoning ritual, in case an earthbound buddy wanted to ring him up for a party.

Kryptos's party line was going to be Bill's salvation.

Which was a shame, because Bill just knew Kryptos would be annoying about this for the next million years. He'd worry about finding a way to bully Krypt into not lording it over him after he was safely back home in the Quadrangle of Qonfusion.

But when Bill called, nothing happened.

That wasn't right. Nothing wasn't supposed to happen. Even if Krypt didn't pick up, Bill should feel the spell working. The sound of the shower should pause. The air should go still and cool. Everything should be gray.

Bill opened his eyes. Nothing was gray. He checked each candle to make sure they were all lit, checked his drawing to make sure it looked right—it wasn't exactly flattering, but the lines were straight and the angles were correct, and anyway it was recognizable enough to work for the summoning. He remembered the words, he knew he remembered the words.

Try again. He shut his eyes. "Rhombus sapphirinus. Fraternitas, caritas, veritas. Te invoco, te invito." And then, not because it was necessary but because he was getting mad, he tacked on, "Responde mihi, quadrum defututum! Culum tuum calcitrabo!"

Nothing. The world went on un-paused. Bill remained awake. He opened his eyes to the vibrant, colorful, tragically real world around him.

It didn't make sense. Even without his powers, he should be able to reach Kryptos. Any human could do this ritual, and Bill knew a whole lot more than any human. Either Kryptos was dead (unlikely; but without Bill there...), or something was blocking Bill. The block could be inside him—maybe the Axolotl was sealing off even this paltry little magic—or outside, some sort of shield blocking the mindscape. But whatever the source, the result was the same:

He couldn't get a call out. Nobody, not even his oldest friends, could hear him.

He stared at Kryptos's ugly mug for a long moment; then blew out the candles, hid them and the crushed can back in his hoodie, used toilet paper to wipe the toothpaste and wax off the floor, and got in the shower.

If he wanted to get out, he had to make new friends. He'd been making some good progress lately, particularly with Mabel. Perhaps it was time to test just how far her compassion could get him.

####

Prisma the Rainbow Fairy said, "Gee, Sunny Cat, I haven't seen you spending time with Teddy Tender lately. What happened?"

"He's a killjoy," Bill said, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV. "He's a wet blanket."

A sunshine-yellow bipedal cat said, "Teddy's so sad today, and it's making me sad. I don't want to hang out with him when he's like this!"

"That's what I said," Bill said. Heckling the characters helped distract him from the urge to scratch the exposed skin on his arms until he scraped it off his bones. After showering, his hoodie had been confiscated for a round of emergency post-eye-bat-repellant laundry, and he was temporarily back in a reject gift shop t-shirt. He felt exposed.

Prisma said, "Sometimes when our friends are sad, all they need is another friend to give them a hug or tell them they care. It'll help them feel happier."

"I don't know," Sunny said. "When I feel sad, being around other people makes me feel worse."

"Everyone's a little different, Sunny. Why don't you offer to hold his hand and see if that makes him happier?"

"I guess I could try."

"Nah, it's too late for Teddy," Bill told the TV. With some glee, he added, "The most caring thing you could do is put him out of his misery."

Mabel, sitting up on the couch with three colors of embroidery floss tangled around her fingers, lightly kicked the back of Bill's head. He grinned wider. Mabel said, "Bill, I don't think you're taking this seriously."

"Was I supposed to?"

"It's a beautiful June day and I'm inside with you, so you could at least pretend to. I thought you were a good liar."

"I've never told a lie in my life," lied Bill. "But okay, fine. I've seen the error of my ruthless ways. Maybe there's hope for Teddy yet."

Mabel nodded, mollified. She set aside her current project and rummaged through her bag of embroidery floss. "Hey Bill, what's your favorite color?"

"Gold!"

"Why did I ask. What's your next favorite color?"

"Every color simultaneously superimposed over each other, instantly blinding you!"

Mabel tried to picture that. She imagined a rainbow that was also a laser that was also iridescent. Her mental image looked a lot like Prisma's combat magic. "You have such good taste."

"It takes good taste to recognize good taste!" Bill mentally reviewed the last couple minutes of conversation, saw an opportunity to bolster the "reforming monster" image he was trying to sell to Mabel, and added, "By the way—thanks for sticking around just to keep me entertained!" (See: he can say thank you unprompted.) "This sure isn't where I'd want to spend my afternoon," he laughed wryly, "but unlike me, you have a choice in the matter."

"Yeah," Mabel sighed. "It stinks. I wish you could go outside with me."

Bill quietly, smugly filed that statement away for later use.

Mabel pulled a couple fresh rolls of embroidery floss out of her bag and got to work with them. "We can't set off fireworks inside the shack. Or play with Soos's paintball guns."

Bill's smugness vanished, leaving behind only the hollow feeling of missing out on a lot of fun. Fireworks and paintball guns. Those were three of his favorite things: explosions, colors, and interpersonal violence.

Mabel went on, "And Candy's saved up three years of Magic Vision Poster calendars to wallpaper the inside of her closet. She read online that if you cross your eyes just right to make them all look 3D at the same time, you can hallucinate going inside them! We're gonna try it out tomorrow. That seems like something you'd like."

"What!" Bill groaned. "I've always wanted to see an autostereogram poster with two eyes! Now here I am, stuck in a stupid meat body, and I don't even get to enjoy the only thing binocular vision is good for?"

Mabel patted his shoulder.

"Back home I've got a chair with autostereogram detailing. I've never actually seen it work. And where is it when I've got two eyes?"

"I think they've got Magic Vision books in the kids' section at the library," Mabel said. "Do you want me to check one out for you?"

Bill glared at the TV, silently fuming. Then he muttered, "Yeah. I'd like that. Thanks."

The low-stakes drama on Color Critters was resolved when Sunny asked Teddy Tender if he wanted to maybe hug or hold hands until he felt less sad, and Teddy revealed he felt bad because he was lonely when he hadn't had a play date with a friend in a while. Sunny and Teddy went to the playground together, the gray swings and slide and seesaw blooming orange and yellow as they played. Crisis of the day concluded. Prisma watched proudly, before joining in the play herself. Bill was not jealous of their freedom to go to the playground.

As the credits rolled, Mabel said, "There! Give me your hand!"

Bill stuck his right arm straight out to his side. "Why—?"

Mabel wrapped something thin around his wrist, and there was a quick tug as she tied it off. "Bam! You just got friendshipped!"

"What?" Bill pulled back his wrist to examine Mabel's handiwork. It was a bracelet made out of embroidery floss knotted together into a flat band as wide as his thumb. "What is this?" Stupid question.

"A friendship bracelet!" (Of course it was a friendship bracelet; he was passingly familiar with the art form, he'd seen it centuries before they were called "friendship" bracelets.) "Make a wish."

He wished to get his body back.

"You've gotta wear the bracelet until it breaks, and then the wish'll come true."

And if he believed that, he'd already be chewing through the knot. "And, why am I getting this?"

"Because we're friends!"

"Oh." Well. Yes. Obviously.

He examined the bracelet more closely. The band formed a zig-zag pattern of black and metallic gold triangles; and Mabel had tied glass beads that looked like eyes over several of the gold triangles.

"I didn't have every color simultaneously, but I thought the black would make the gold pop." Mabel pointed at the triangles. "Look! It's you."

"I can see that." She'd used nazar beads for the eyes—a dot of black ringed in blue and white. A little eye-shaped lucky charm humans had been using to ward off the evil eye for millennia. Cute. He laughed, pointing at the beads. "So is this supposed to protect me from the evil eye, or am I the evil eye you're protecting everyone else from?"

Mabel was thirteen. Mabel hadn't put any deeper thought into it than these look like eyes. All the same, Mabel didn't hesitate before replying: "I'm turning your face into a protective charm! Now you've got to keep everyone safe!"

"Oh." And that, too, Bill quietly filed away.

"I expect you to take your new job seriously," Mabel said, pointing at him. "Don't let me down!"

"You give me a gift with my face on it and then tack on a bunch of extra terms and conditions. Very slick, kid." He admired the bracelet. It really was a pretty fine offering. He hadn't been gifted textiles in a while. "But all right! I've never gone back on a deal before," lied Bill.

Though it galled him to get something without a way to pay back the favor. It felt uneven. People don't want a god who grants miracles worth less than the tribute he'd been offered. He ran down his usual list of tricks—he couldn't snap his fingers and summon up a dream gift, he didn't have any useful info he could offer without prompting an interrogation session with his jailers, right now he couldn't even call somebody else to pull some strings on her behalf... His gaze drifted over to Mabel's bag of embroidery threads. He could see beads and a couple more friendship bracelets inside. "How many of these are you making?"

"A bunch! I'm giving one out to each new friend I make this summer."

That'd do. "Teach me."

"You what?"

"Teach me." He turned around to face the couch and pointed toward the bag. "You're making them anyway, right? Just show me as you go."

Mabel stared at him in disbelief. Was he serious? She thought he was serious.

A broad smile stretched across her face. "Okay!" She dug beneath her supplies for a little dog-eared friendship bracelet pattern book. "What kind of jewelry making experience do you have? Especially involving beads or knots."

"I can tie a living creature's blood vessels into quipu knots that spell my name—all without breaking the skin!"

"That's great! Can you do it with embroidery floss instead of blood vessels."

Bill eyed the bundle of floss Mabel held out. "Yes."

"Perfect!" She shoved four thread colors in his hands, a pair of scissors, a jar of pony beads, thought better and quickly took back the scissors, and added a roll of parachute cord. "I'll teach you everything I know. Even my secret trick to keep the edges from going all wobbly! We'll start you on chevrons and then move up to teardrop loops and triangle ends." She put her hands on Bill's shoulders, looked him in his uncovered eye, and said, "I'm gonna make you a friendship bracelet master."

Solemnly, Bill said, "I'm ready."

####

Ford squinted blearily into the living room.

Sitting alone on the far side of the room, Bill was bent over the living room table, fussing with several multicolored strings and a few beads.

Bill glanced at Ford from the corner of his eye, and then—with a faint smirk—turned back to his project without a word. Oh, he wanted Ford to ask. He was dying for Ford to ask.

It was too early for this. Ford wasn't dealing with it before coffee. He shook his head and shuffled onward to the kitchen.

Stan was already up, eating eggs with some unidentified liquid meat poured over them. Over the past year, typically Ford had been the earlier riser; but this summer Stan had gotten used to Ford pulling late nights downstairs as he worked on his research, so he didn't comment on Ford's sleeping in as he poured himself a mug of coffee.

But Stan did look at Ford's face and immediately ask, "Okay. What's the latest Bill bullsh... soup? Bullsoup."

"He's..." Ford tried to figure out what Bill was doing. "Making jewelry in the living room, I think."

Stan grunted and nodded. "Yeah, he was doing that yesterday with Mabel."

"Well, now he's doing it by himself."

Stan raised a brow.

The Stans leaned around the living room doorway to watch Bill. 

Bill was engrossed with picking out a mis-tied knot, frowning deeply in concentration, one eye squeezed shut and the other squinted. He smoothed out the thread, his face relaxed; and then he glanced at the doorway, did a double take, and his shoulders went up around his ears. "What am I, a zoo attraction? Shoo! Scat!" He waved them away. "I'll throw salt at you!"

Ford raised his palms defensively. Stan said, "Okay okay, we're going."

They retreated to the kitchen.

"Well?" Stan pressed. "Is he up to dangerous voodoo stuff?"

"I'm fairy certain Bill doesn't practice Vodou."

"Answer the question, smart aleck."

Ford ran through every form of magic incorporating strings or knots he could think of. It was a pretty short list, and most of it was used for protection or binding separate things together. "Not that I know of," he said dubiously. "But it's more likely he's up to something I don't know about than it is that he's doing arts and crafts. Don't you think?"

Stan considered that. He shrugged. "Eh," he said. "It can wait 'til after coffee."

Eh. Ford was tired. He didn't want to go to red alert over some string and plastic beads. He sat down with his mug.

####

"I'm home!" Mabel called. "Biiill, I couldn't get you a Magic Vision book! The pictures in Candy's closet started moving, and I don't know if we were hallucinating or if we accidentally summoned an invisible holographic horse you can only see when you cross your eyes, so we decided to burn the posters and library books to be safe! Do you know if Magic Vision Posters summon things...?"

"I wish," Bill said. "But hey, I've got something better. Gimme your hand."

Mabel held out her hand, half pulled it back, and said, "Why?"

"Relax." Bill grabbed her wrist, tied on a bracelet, and said, "Make a wish!" He grinned. "You're impressed, admit it. Tell me you're impressed."

Mabel studied the bracelet. "Whoa." Purple, green, and orange threads formed lacy loops around a central thread, forming an endless wave that rolled up and down. The threads passed through several star-shaped pony beads, making the wave look like the tails of shooting stars. "A Peruvian wave with a perfectly straight center cord. That takes crazy precise string tension." She looked at Bill. "I have nothing more to teach you."

"Thank you, teacher."

"Is this supposed to look like my sweater?" Mabel asked, studying the pink in the tassels tying the bracelet on. "The one on your zodiac thing?"

"Sure! You gave me one that looks like me, I gave you one that represents you. Friendship's supposed to go both ways, right?"

"Bill! Is this why you wanted to learn to make friendship bracelets?"

"Am I that obvious?"

"Biiill! You're being so nice!" Mabel flung her arms around him. "I love it!" And then she took off, running laps around the living room, cackling madly and waving her braceleted arm in the air. Abuelita, who'd been watching TV, calmly turned to watch Mabel zoom around.

Oh, this was great. Look at this, Bill was the best at being a friend. Everyone who'd ever ditched him was a moron who didn't know what they were missing out on. They could've gotten personalized friendship bracelets. Maybe he should have offered Ford a friendship bracelet? No, that was stupid, why would Ford prefer a friendship bracelet over unimaginable cosmic power. But then it didn't have to be either-or, did it? Ford's favorite color was red, what went with red?

When Mabel had gotten the enthusiasm out of her system, she trotted back out to the entryway and hugged Bill again. He endured it. "You won't stop making friendship bracelets now that you've made this, will you?" Mabel asked. "You're such a natural at it! And you need more hobbies that are constructive instead of destructive."

"Ouch, kid. I'll have you know I have plenty of constructive hobbies."

"I don't believe it. Name one thing you like creating."

"Weirdness bubbles."

"Name one thing you like creating that doesn't terrify people."

Bill pursed his lips. "Agree to disagree. Anyway, I'm not getting out of the friendship bracelet game just yet. In fact, I've already got another few projects in mind."

####

Bill plopped down at the kitchen table across from Mabel. "Hey star girl. Guess what."

She looked up from her cereal at the dark rings under Bill's eyes. He had one eye squeezed shut; he could usually keep both open when he'd just woken up. "Were you up all night?"

"Doesn't matter. Time is an illusion and I can see the projector. I'm counting that as your guess. Look." Bill tossed two matching bracelets down on the table between them, deep watermelon pink and minty green, shaped like macrame chains with hearts where each link of the chain met.

"Aww, little hearts."

"Thought you'd like the hearts."

Mabel picked up one end of the bracelet and slipped it on—and then noticed the long coil of embroidery floss connecting the end of one bracelet to the other. "Bill? What's this for?"

"Didn't you say a few days ago that you wished we could go outside together? I thought up a perfect solution!"

With a sudden sense of dread, Mabel realized that the chain pattern and the string connecting the bracelets made them look like an extremely long pair of handcuffs; but before she could take off her half, Bill picked up the other bracelet and said, "There's a little magic in these, look. When both ends are being worn—" He slipped on the bracelet, and Mabel felt its matching pair gently tighten around her wrist. The string connecting them vanished into thin air.

Mabel gasped. "What—?"

"Poof! It's like a ghost: still there, but invisible to human eyes. We could even go into separate rooms and it'll connect us through the walls." He demonstrated by waving his hand under the table. "But we can't get farther apart than the length of the thread. I gave it about ten yards." He plucked up something invisible and gave it a tug, and Mabel felt the bracelet go taut against her wrist. There was no force, no matter how hard Bill tugged she didn't feel like the bracelet was pulling her; rather, it felt like the other end of the thread was tied to an immobile boulder preventing her from moving further away, until she moved her hand closer to Bill's to give the thread a little slack. "And..."

Mabel tried to jerk the bracelet off her wrist; it stuck around her hand. "How do I get it off?! Bill—!"

Bill put a finger on her hand, stopping her. He said, "Neither of us can take our end off until we both decide we're ready. Like... now." He winked; and the bracelet suddenly loosened again.

Mabel pulled it off with a sigh of relief.

"Unless one of us dies or something, I guess," Bill said thoughtfully. "That'd deactivate the magic. It'd be pretty gristly to have to keep sharing a friendship bracelet with a corpse!" He laughed. "Anyway—"

Mabel chucked the bracelet in his face. "That was mean!"

Bill blinked in surprise. "What was?"

"You tricked me!" She cradled her wrist against her chest, heart still pounding from the brief unexpected captivity.

"I did not!" He took the bracelets back and started coiling up the thread between them. "You put yours on before I even said anything."

"But you could have warned me before you got us stuck together!"

"Sure, I could have, but would you have kept it on then?"

"No, you jerk. That's the point!" She looked around for something else to chuck at Bill's face, plucked a dry piece of cereal from her bowl, and flicked it at his nose. 

Bill endured his punishment without flinching. "Well, sorry, but I had to demonstrate how they work somehow." He twirled the bracelets around one fingertip. "This solves your whole 'can't let the big scary triangle out unsupervised' problem! Slap these bad boys on, and I've got automatic supervision that I can't escape! Maybe this'll convince the adults that I can be trusted outside, right?" He ate the piece of cereal. "So? What do you think?"

She thought he was still a jerk. All the same, she studied the chain bracelets. "Did you just make me a gift that's actually a gift for yourself?"

He didn't even look a little bit ashamed. "I prefer to think of it as something we'll both benefit from!"

"Bill."

"C'mooon. You know you want me out there." He lowered his voice. "Who else in this town will help you break into the pet shop to dye the dogs' fur?"

Oooh. Mabel should not have told Bill about that ambition. "Well..."

"Or help you grill hamburgers with sprinkles. You know Stanley's never gonna do that for us again," Bill said. "Or what if you need a drive somewhere, huh? The guys with licenses are gonna get tired of trips to the craft store eventually."

"You can't drive!"

"Of course I can drive, didn't you see me during—?" Bill's eyes widened. "Oh no, you didn't see! I can't believe you didn't see my car. You, you would have loved it."

He seemed serious. Maybe he could drive. "You... shouldn't get to drive."

"What if it's an emergency and I'm the only one who can do it. Do you want me in the driver's seat with or without a leash?" He spread his hands in a shrug. "And anyway... think of everything else we could be doing together outside. Purple poodles and pink pugs are just the start, my friend."

Mabel hated when she knew she was being manipulated but Bill still made a good point. She bit her lip and glanced at the clock over the sink. A tour had just started; the gift shop should be empty and the vending machine safe to use.

She got out of her seat, taking her cereal with her. "I'm gonna run this by the household magic expert."

Bill rolled his eye. "Fine. Tell Sixer we're out of apple cider."

####

"Tell Bill we got three packs last time," Ford said. "If that's not enough to hold him one week between grocery trips, then he has a drinking problem."

"Okay, but what about the bracelets?"

Ford set aside the book he'd been reading and studied the bracelets. He slipped one on his wrist.  "Mabel, would you mind putting on the other side?"

"Sure!" She pulled on the bracelet. It tightened around Ford's wrist and the thread between them disappeared. Fascinating.

After a few minutes of experimenting to see how they worked, Ford was fairly sure this was a spell he'd learned about years ago, although he'd lost the details when he tossed his second journal in the bottomless pit. Usually it was done with metal chains—but the spell should make the bracelets nigh on indestructible while the magic was active, so, as promised, it would contain Bill. As long as he didn't murder the person on the other end of the spell.

"So can I take Bill outside?" Mabel asked, hands laced together and eyes wide. "Please please please?"

"You did hear what I just said about murder, right?"

"We'll bring someone else along! Bill wouldn't try to kill me if someone else is standing guard!" (At least she still recognized that there were circumstances where Bill would try to kill her.) "He's been stuck inside for weeks. That's not healthy! He needs to stretch his legs, get some sunshine!" She smacked Ford's desk as a thought occurred to her, "And we need to take him clothes shopping. I can tell he's uncomfortable in gift shop t-shirts and Abuelita's skirts. Does he even like skirts?" She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Does he even have underwear, or is he still wearing Soos's old swim trunks?"

Ford winced. "Melody was kind enough to pick some up a few days ago." But he could admit it had taken them longer than it should have.

"What about the rest of his clothes? Does he have a bra?"

"Wh—" Ford sputtered. "Does he want one?"

"I don't know, I haven't asked. It might be more comfortable. He has a lot of chest."

Lord. Ford closed his eyes. He did not want to think about bras.

"Pleeease?" Mabel said. "I wanna take him clothes shopping. He's probably never explored human fashion before! He's got to find his style. I can be his style consultant."

Aha. So that was what Mabel was getting out of all this: a person-sized dress-up doll.

Truth be told, they probably should take Bill outside. Depending on how Fiddleford's research proceeded, destroying Bill could take weeks, if not months. If there were ever an emergency, they might need to relocate Bill quickly—so it was better to ensure the bracelets worked as advertised before they became necessary.

"Fine. But this won't be a regular thing," Ford said. "Ask Stan when he can go. And your brother—I'd rather Bill know the numbers are stacked against him. And he's not allowed to talk to anybody outside the shack. You, Dipper, and Stan will have to intercept anybody he might speak to."

"Don't worry about that! I've got the perfect solution," Mabel said. "What if Grunkle Stan doesn't want to go?"

"Ask him to talk to me. I think I can convey the importance."

"You don't want to come? Are you too busy figuring out how to kill him?" Mabel's gaze moved to the books Ford had been reading.

Ford suppressed the urge to shut the books and hide the papers beside them. Mabel wouldn't be able to understand the books anyway: it was an ancient Roman historian's description of augury—fortunetelling with birds—and a Latin reference dictionary he was consulting to help him translate. He was more afraid Mabel's gaze would fall on the pages next to the books, where a few vocabulary words from the mystical, mythical language of the birds had been scrawled out in Bill's distinctive chicken scratch.

No, Ford wasn't busy figuring out how to kill Bill. He was still waiting to hear back from Fiddleford about the feasibility of synthesizing or replacing the quantum destabilizer's Dontium; and, in the meantime, he'd allowed himself to believe there was nothing else he could do on his own... and by now, he'd gotten thoroughly distracted. Going through Bill's notes, verifying his claims, following up on the leads he'd subtly slid in. Bill's miniature grimoire was the most dense magical text since the Emerald Tablet. Opening it up was like a cryptography puzzle mixed with a dissertation research project, and each sentence was a fractal flower of information, a bud that bloomed into a dozen more buds that each bloomed into a dozen more.

It was amazing. Enthralling. This was the kind of research Ford was made for. He was the most relaxed he'd been in weeks.

He hadn't told anybody what he was doing while Fiddleford worked.

"No, not that," he told Mabel, "I just don't want to spend time around Bill. Especially on what's essentially a social trip. Stanley can... handle it better."

"Oh," Mabel said. "That makes sense, I guess."

Ford glanced uneasily at Bill's papers, then looked away before Mabel could see.

He was so caught up in his own shame at getting caught toeing at one of Bill's traps, he didn't notice the quick shameful look on Mabel's face for the same reason.

####

(Thanks for reading! Please drop a comment or reblog if you enjoyed, y'all's commentary is what helps keep me writing. ❤️

Also I feel like Google translate can handle the Latin pretty well if you wanna see what Bill's saying at the start, but it's important to me that you know Google is wrong about "quadrum defututum" and it can actually be more accurately translated as "you square slut.")

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #mabel pines #gravity falls #gravity falls fanart #gravity falls fic #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

[hatelangdon]

Unsaid.

Frat!Kyle Spencer x fem!reader ✧ Angst/hurt comfort

Pt 1 of ? ✧ 3.6k words

Taglist: n/a

(🚨 Warnings: talk of s/a from a parent, Beating, Abuse, Self Deprication, crying, panic attack. 🚨)

Summary: Kyle was supposed to be gone for a entire week for spring break, he comes back in 2 days with a harrowing confession.

(A/N: This is dark and heavy and I tried my hardest to be respectful and represent Kyle as a victim of abuse in a realistic and dignified way. I will be writing a part 2 where Kyle begins his healing journey such as attending therapy and going into more depth of what his mother did, finding resources at the school's LGBTQ center, and asserting boundaries into the relationship between himself and the reader. I don't want to "put him to bed and be done with it" because I don't think that I will be satisfied if I don't give him even a piece of justice that the show failed to. I also tried to add more dimension into Kyle's character instead of making him some happy- go lucky frat boy fairytale. Yes he is a sweetheart, but he is allowed to be angry, upset, and stand-offish because trauma sometimes presents itself that way and he is human...at least in this state.)

There's also like 3 time skips which aren't my favorite but it be like that sometimes, honestly.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The spring semester of your freshman year had brought you fresh flowers for your dorm, warm sunshine, and a blonde headed angel who loved you more than life itself,

Kyle Spencer.

You had met him in your Psych class. His unspoken, ”assigned” seat was right in front of you and you both sat alone, so when the professor said “turn to your neighbor.” Kyle would turn to face you.

Turning to your neighbor soon turned into doing projects together, helping each other with homework, and spending late nights in the library showing each other your favorite songs and eating off the McDonalds dollar menu when you were supposed to be studying.

Kyle was the sweetest guy you had ever met, he could light up a room just by walking in and flashing that beautiful, dimpled, smile and despite being a frat boy, he never treated you differently around his frat brothers and always made sure that the women in the room were respected and felt safe around them.

You two had been attached at the hip since you met. You had a single dorm so sleepovers were always on the table, especially because Kyle hated sleeping in the frat house, it was loud, and sticky, at least that's how he described it.

He always preferred to lay in your bed where it was warm and smelled like your perfume, he was happy to join in whatever you were doing as long as you would have him. You two would listen to music, podcasts, read to each other, eventually falling asleep with your limbs entangled every single time.

Kyle never felt like a burden when he spent time with you.

There was no label to your relationship, it was just something for you to cherish with one another.

It went on like that for 2 months, until Kyle officially asked you to be his girlfriend, right before you moved out of your dorm for the summer. You were finishing up packing your things away and there he was, looking bright and handsome at your door nervously fidgeting with the vase that held a a bouquet of lego flowers.

“I wanted to give you something I made, sentimental y'know?…and I also wanted to give you flowers that never die.”

A small note around the vase read,  ‘Y/n, be my girlfriend?’

Of course you had said yes, with 0 hesitation. It was simple, silly, and sweet just like he was, and Kyle was officially yours.

Although he was your Prince Charming, Kyle did have his shortcomings, he had a habit of shutting himself in when he was upset and completely ignoring you for days, especially when he had come back from visiting home. 

When he finally came back around he always apologized and told you that it was issues with his family, but he didn’t like to talk about it and you never wanted to push him.

Kyle also had…issues with intimacy, with touch really. You two had never had sex, you didn’t mind of course. He just said he wasn’t ready, and you respected his choices. You two had almost done it at least 100 times, you could literally feel him melting underneath you as simple kisses turned into steamy makeout sessions, but he would always just push you off at the last minute. Kyle didn’t really like when you touched him at all unless he initiated it, especially at the beginning of your relationship. You would be talking to him and put a hand on his thigh and he would just suddenly tense up and move your hand to your own lap, if you came up behind him and put your hand on his back he would physically bend himself away from your touch.

That's just how Kyle was, physical touch wasn't his love language and he was...jumpy, the worst part was when you would be trying to express something with your hands and he would flinch and shut his eyes for a split second, like he was afraid you might hit him. He had blamed it on the roughhousing from his frat brothers, but you had always second guessed his response and kept it in the back of your mind, making sure you were gentle with him. 

Things had definitely gotten better as your relationship matured, Kyle was much more relaxed and comfortable with your touches but he did still have his moments where he didn't really want to be touched and he got agitated if you kept initiating it, but he was never mean about it. He was always gentle, but he would distance himself.

Friday, 6:39 p.m. -------------------------------

It had officially been a year since you had met Kyle, spring was rolling back around and everyone was getting ready to hit the beach and visit their families during spring break. 2 whole weeks of no exams, classes, or projects.

You sat at the edge of his bed, kicking your feet and watching him pack his bags for his weeklong trip back home. 

“are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” He batted his big brown eyes at you.

“you know, I would my love,” You gave him a smile as you watched him try to shove 14 shirts into a duffle bag already filled with clothes, “But I told Zoe that we would hang out, and you know we don't see each other often.”

“Yeah, yeah I know!" He playfully threw a red shirt your way, “that’s a tomato! I’m throwing tomatoes at you! boooooo! boooooo!”

“you're such a cornball!” You shook your head, admiring how cute he looked in the warm tones of the sun illuminating the room, “But I do love it, and I promise you, next time you go out to visit your mom I’ll come with you.”

“I’m only a cornball for you so don’t go telling anyone” he flashed his dimpled smile your way, “I won’t forget your promise, I really need you there with me.” he said the last part quieter as he held your hands in his,

“Ky,” you cooed “I know you and your mom fight a lot, but I am just a phone call away if you need me, babe. I’ll always be there for you.”

“Yeah…I know ” His eyes shifted like he wanted to say something else but instead he just fidgeted with your hands and looked down, you had noticed that he seemed on edge every time it was time to go back home.

“Honey?,” You gently raised his head with a finger to his chin so his eyes could meet your own,

“you don't have to go if somethings bothering you…you know you can talk to me about anything, right?” You rubbed his hand with your thumbs.

Kyle tensed up, and he removed his hands from yours.

“if there was something wrong, I wouldn't be going back home, y/n.” He gave you a dismissive smile “Don’t worry so much.” 

“I’ll try not to” you smiled back, kissing the dimple in his right cheek, “I do have to get going Ky, there's a bonfire on the beach tonight and I have to get ready before Zoe bites my head off" you smiled gently, "it's not too late for you to come with me, it's a long drive. Why don't you just leave tomorrow morning and i'll come with you?"

Kyle sighed "I would, trust me no one wants to drive 6 hours in the dead of night. But if I don't go tonight and get a 'full week with her' it'll be a whole thing." 

"Okayyy, but call me as soon as you hit the road and when you get there and make sure you eat something before you go." you placed another gentle kiss on his cheek. 

"I will," he blinked twice, his cheeks blushed from being completely flustered, how did he ever score someone as sweet as you? "have fun. I love you" 

"I love you too, blondie”

You were about to make your way out the door, but Kyle stopped you, suddenly yelling your name,

"Oh wait, y/n!"

You jumped, but turned back around, meeting his dark eyes as he approached you with something in his hand.

"Oh- sorry I didn't mean to scare you," he placed a kiss on your cheek as a apology, "I almost forgot! I got you something."

"Really?"

"Happy anniversary!" Kyle opened his hand to show you the gift, it was a dainty gold necklace with a pearl pendant hung from it, "it's vintage avon? I don't know what that is but the lady at the shop said that you'd look pretty in it after I showed her a picture and of course I agreed." He scratched his neck, nervously "I told her you were into v-vintage things, so-"

You cut off Kyle's rambling with a kiss, seeing that he was blushing like he had never spoken to you before.

You pulled away with a smile, "It's beautiful Ky, thank you baby...but i'm confused?"

His eyes widened, worried that he had messed up.

"I know, I should've asked you if you preferred silver or gold-"

"no, no, no it's not that at all!" You cut him off "You asked me to be your girlfriend in June, it's only April."

"I fell in love with you in April."

You felt your heart swell in your chest, "You're too sweet, I would've got you something, if I knew we were doing gifts!"

"Don't even worry about it," He spun you around so he could place the necklace around your neck, the lady at the store was right it did look beautiful on you. "I don't want to keep you for much longer y/n." He glanced at the time, it was nearing 7:30 and you were supposed to be meeting Zoe at 8:45, "Go have fun with your friends, I don't want you to be late."

You gave Kyle a gentle smile, he was always so considerate and warm.

"I love you Kyle, i'll see you when you get back."

"I love you too, y/n! I miss you already!"

You sealed your goodbyes with a final kiss, and then you were off.

Friday, 10:07 PM ------------------------------

“is that Y/n y/l/n?!” Zoe nearly tackled you in a hug as soon as she spotted you standing on the beach, it had been a year and a half since the last time you saw each other. You had been the best of friends in high school but after her boyfriend passed...tragically, she moved away and you lost touch. 

You had reconnected on instagram when she found out you were going to college in Louisiana, and that's when she revealed her truth to you. Zoe was a witch, and she studied amongst other girls just like herself at a school, about a hour away from yours. You didn't believe her at first but you were quickly turned into a believer when she "enchanted" the admissions office attendant so you could have a single dorm.

When you weren't with Kyle, you were face timing Zoe. You two talked every single day, it didn't matter if it was 2 a.m. You two had to talk for at least an hour. It wasn't practical for you to see each other in person often, so when she invited you to a beach party for spring break, you couldn't pass up the opportunity to see your bestie.

"Hi Zoe!" you hugged her back, resting your head on her shoulder “it's cold out here!” you zipped your hoodie up over your swimsuit,

"I know, I was freezing my ass off," she held onto you a little tighter, so you could warm yourself up with the heat of her body against your own. “They should be starting the bonfire soon, do you want a drink? it'll warm you up.”

"Yeah, i'm just gonna have a shot-"

You felt your phone buzz in your pocket, and you were quick to grab it

"who's calling?" Zoe peered over your shoulder,

You pulled your phone out to check, happy to see Kyle's name "It's my boyfriend."

Zoe let you go, giving you privacy "i'm gonna grab you a vodka sprite, i'll be back."

You watched as she walked off towards a cooler, and answered your phone.

"Hi Ky"

"Hey y/n I'm leaving right now, just letting you know." 

You could hear his car engine roaring to life in the background

You wished that he could see your facial expression, you were shocked.

"It's 10:00 p.m. Kyle! Why are you just leaving out? You won't get there until 4 in the morning!" 

"...I procrastinated" 

"Well why don't you just meet me at the beach? I don't want you driving this late on all of those backroads."

"As much as I would absolutely love to party with you, I have to get going. My mom has already called me 7 times wondering where I am."

You could tell that he was frustrated just from the slight change in his tone of voice "I'll be okay y/n," it sounded like he was reassuring himself more than you, "I just left 7/11 to get a red bull, its the white one you like, so hopefully it will keep me up."

You exhaled through your nose, he was already on the road so their was no changing it. "Just make sure you're driving safely okay?"  You knew that his mind would be more clear if he got some sleep and drove in the daylight, but you didn't want to start a petty argument.

"I will. I'll call you in the morning."

"Okay, I love you Ky...enjoy your trip."

"I love you more y/n, enjoy your party."

"Bye, baby."

"Bye."

As the line dropped in your ear, Zoe was right in front of you handing over a red solo cup, smiling.

"Vodka sprite for my angel and a lemon white claw for me. Cheers."

"Thanks, Zoe" You two clinked your drinks together and simultaneously took a sip, watching as the flames of the bonfire illuminated both of your faces in warm orange lighting.

She pointed to your chest, "cute necklace by the way."

Sunday 3:17 a.m. ------------------

Three cranberry white claws later, Zoe had dropped you off at your dorm, luckily you had slept off most of your hangover so you weren't completely out of it when you were woken up by a knock at your door,.

you sat up in bed eyes blurred,

“Who is it?” You shouted, annoyed by the intrusion of your rest.

There was no response, the knocking just persisted.

 You were feeling better luckily, so you took a long sip of the strawberry gatorade that sat on your nightstand, and stumbled over to the door checking the peep hole and see who in their right mind could be at your door this early. 

You were met with fluffy blonde hair and brown eyes….it was Kyle.

You opened the door immediately, vision still adjusting to the lights in the hallway. You were happy to see him.

“Ky? What are you doing here?” You gasped, “did I sleep for a whole week?!”

Kyle didn’t say anything at all, he was barely even listening. He just gave you a glassy eyed stare, before collapsing into your arms.

You managed to catch him, holding up his entire body with your own even though you were dazed and confused

“I missed you too Ky-” you realized that he wasn’t just hugging you, his entire body was shaking…he was crying, hard and holding onto you like you were the only thing keeping him alive. 

You were immediately concerned,

“Kyle? Are you okay?“ You rubbed his back, allowing him to cry it out into your shoulder.

“Come on baby, work with me” You had to drag him into the room, because he was still standing in the doorway and you couldn’t hold him up much longer. 

You were gentle with your movements, cautiously laying him down on your bed so you could fully assess what was wrong.

 He looked up at you through wet eyelashes, his face was swollen and red, his beautiful brown eyes were puffy from the salty tears that streamed down his face, and his lip was busted and bleeding.

 The sight of him so hurt broke your heart into 1000 pieces, and the sight of you looking down in him made him feel pathetic, why was he the one crying at your door when he cheated? how could he be upset when he had kept a secret from you for so long? All of his thoughts ran circles around his head.

He covered up his face with his hands, not wanting you to see him like this,

“Don’t look at me, i'm so sorry y/n” he sniffled, trying to curl in on himself.

“Kyle, no don’t shut me out, please.” You placed a hand on his head trying to run your hands through his blonde curls to calm him down, but he moved himself away, suddenly. His eyes wide with panic as he backed himself into the corner where your bed met the wall, his eyebrows furrowed in a unreadable expression.

You stood back from the bed, giving him some room to breathe. You could read Kyle like a book so you could recognize when he was in distress.

“I know you said you don't like to talk about it…but you’re hurt Ky, please just talk to me.” Your words were calm and your voice remained low. You got on your knees, kneeling by the side of the bed to make yourself smaller and non threatening.

“I called you, and you didn’t answer…” he looked at you through his fingers, his breaths were shallow and panicked he could barely manage to get the words out, “I needed you.”

“Kyle I was asleep-“ You took a breath, you didn't want to be combative especially when he was so vulnerable "I'm sorry baby, I was asleep. I know you needed me."

“If you were there, maybe she wouldn’t have touched me...maybe that would have stopped her.” his voice was just above a whisper, but you heard him loud and clear. 

Your heartbeat sped up, you had your assumptions but you were hoping that you were wrong, “Who ky?..who touched you?” 

He sniffled, his entire face flushed red with despair. He couldn't hide away this time, he was right in front of you. “…My mother”

“She hit you? Is that how you hurt your lip?” You tilted your head to the side, giving him an understanding look.

He took a couple seconds before nodding, his head hung sadly as he tried to stop his tears from flowing.

“she touched me, y/n”

In seconds you felt tears well up in your own eyes, you understood exactly what he meant. It was like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room as you both looked at each other in silence, you didn't know how to respond...you didn't know how to comfort him.

Kyle noticed the tears in your eyes and he was immediately regretful, his sobs breaking the silence, as he reached out to you.

"I never meant to cheat on you y/n! I'm sorry please don't leave me I didn't mean it-" He was cut off, hyperventilating and trying to catch his breath, distressing himself even more.

"Kyle no, i'm not mad at you! I could never be mad at you for that!" You pulled him into your arms, wrapping your arms tightly around him, his head resting on your chest where he could feel the quickness of your heartbeat, "You didn't do anything wrong, Ky. It's not your fault."

You rubbed his back with tender hands, repeating your words over and over as you held him close, what more could you say? Kyle felt immediate safeness in your warm embrace, you were a gentle rain that cleansed the worry in his mind.

You two stayed like that for at least 5 minutes, you just allowed Kyle to feel his feelings and cry as long as he needed to.

"My whole body hurts." He sniffled, his cries had turned into a dull, throbbing, sinus headache.

"I can get you some Advil." You removed your arms from around him, and cupped his face in your hands, meeting his teary brown eyes, "I'll get you some PJ's too." You left a soft kiss on his forehead, and Kyle melted into your touch. He truly felt loved and cared for, you knew exactly what he needed without him having to speak.

You let him go and handed him your water bottle, "Drink up baby, i'll be back."

You retrieved the pajamas he kept in your dorm from the drawers in your closet and grabbed two Advil from the medicine cabinet in your bathroom.

You presented him with the red flannel pants, a white t-shirt and two blue pills which he took gratefully.

After he was changed, he laid down next to you letting the breeze of the fan by your bed cool him down.

You both lied there, staring up at the glow in the dark stars on your ceiling "...do you want to talk about it Ky?"

Kyle took a few seconds, “not tonight, please....i'm exhausted, y/n."

“I understand, Ky. Whenever you're ready, i'll listen okay?"

He nodded, thankful that you would never try to push him, "Thank you y/n for everything, I love you"

"I love you too, blondie. Get some rest, you need it."

Kyle just nodded in agreement.

As both of your eyes grew heavy, Kyle curled into your side, resting his head on the warmth of your chest. He brought his hand up, caressing the pearl on the necklace he had given you with his thumb for his own comfort. He was pleasantly surprised that you had kept it on, and eternally grateful for how much love you showed him.

In the darkness of his mind, you appeared as a warm ray of light, and he was more than happy to be back in your arms, where he could leave his worries behind.

#spotify #evan peters #american horror story #frat kyle #kyle spencer #ahs coven #franken kyle #tate langdon #fanfic #ahs fandom #ahs murder house #angst #my angel blueberry muffin #kyle my beloved #evan peters x reader #hurt comfort

[unpoeticpoison]

sworn on the stars ~ 02 - genshin impact // sagau // imposter au

a/n: I’m so sorry I’ve just remembered that I don’t know how humans communicate naturally so dialogue is gonna be super chonky and jagged- but I also didn’t wanna glaze over a first time interaction so here you go :)

————————————

Sometime while you were staying at the camp, you felt that something had changed. Something- or someone- had arrived, and you weren’t sure how you knew but you just... knew.

Feeling curious and skeptical, you tried to explain to your little group of newfound friends before bidding them goodbye, promising to return soon enough. They’d given you so much care since you suddenly dropped in, and you couldn’t have been more grateful.

‘Never thought I’d say that about hillichurls though...’

Either way, it was time to keep exploring! After they’d packed you some raw vegetables to go, alongside a tattered pouch of mora, you went on your way to find the source of this strange... disruption. That is, alongside the anemo slimes and hydro slimes that had decided to tag along.

After sometime, you asked the anemo slime for its assistance once again, to which it happily (?) obliged. Despite being far above ground, the gentle winds that surrounded you- caused by the anemo slime that you were riding on- brought you a sense of peace and tranquility.

Soon enough, you arrived at the statue in the middle to Starfell Lake. It was as fully embellished and beautiful as you remember leaving it; the result of many days of hunting down lost oculi throughout the lands.

Sitting down at the base of the statue to stretch your legs, you could hear the faint sound of chatter from just beyond the woods, as though someone’s voice was being carried by the wind. A particularly high pitched voice that sounded like it was getting closer...

“Paimon thinks it’s this way! Come quickly! Come one!”

Low and behold, emerging from the depths of the forest were the familiar faces of Lumine and Paimon. They didn’t seem to have noticed you yet.

“Actually- they’re still pretty far away. How can I see them so clearly...?” you muttered to yourself as you anticipated their arrival.

Anticipation might just have been an understatement. It would be your very first time meeting someone- a human- from this world, and it had been long since your last social interaction.

‘Happy thoughts! Just... happy thoughts.’

-

Lumine

It hadn’t felt like long since I had been separated from my brother. I’ve arrived in this strange world with nothing but a floating companion who appears to be a fairy of sorts.

Paimon had insisted we travel to the city of freedom to search for clues about the gods of this world- or archons, as they were called.

Halfway through the journey, I started feeling a little odd. For no apparent reason I was hit with a burst of joy and nostalgia, as though time has reverted back to when Aether and I were happily exploring the seas of dimensions once again.

I had to stop for a moment to catch my breath.

“Lumine? What are you waiting for?” Paimon flew back to ask, mildly concerned.

“Ah- it’s nothing. Let’s keep going.”

And so we did. The feelings in my chest kept growing- but rather than become heavy, it felt as though my heart was so light that it was flying.

I caught a glimpse of the lake up ahead, speed walking a little to catch up to my floating friend.

I felt drawn to the lake. I felt like I absolutely had to be closer to... whatever this familiar feeling was. Then I saw a person more beautiful than any I’d seen in all of my travels. A person that looked like they were glowing from within.

And their eyes...

-

Soon enough, Lumine and Paimon had arrived at the lake, and Lumine was the first to notice my presence.

As many other players of Genshin Impact, you found it difficult to continue adventuring with the traveller, especially when there were so many others explore the world of Teyvat with. That said, Lumine has always held a special place in your heart, alongside her mysterious twin, Aether.

Sometimes you found yourself empathizing with them. They were just two siblings that wanted to explore the world(s) together, yet were struck with misfortune by mere chance.

A family that was separated too soon. You knew of this far too well.

So you couldn’t help but break into a small smile when you met her eyes. A little wave sent her way before you decided to get up to meet them halfway.

For a moment, you felt nervous. It had been a very long time since you’d had a proper conversation with someone new; what if you messed up your words?

Those thoughts were soon sent off when Paimon- the ever beloved, if slightly annoying fairy that has travelled with you all throughout Teyvat.

“Hello there! What are you doing in the woods here? Oh right- This is Lumine, and Paimon is, well, Paimon!”

You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your throat as the girl introduced herself. Certainly, they were the two that had caused that strange feeling of disturbance and yet... you felt a connection of fondness with them, rather than one of malice.

“Hello! I’m [Name].”

You wondered why Lumine wasn’t saying anything. Sure, she didn’t say much in the game but surely you would get to hear her speak at least once?

You would’ve understood had Lumine looked wary of you- you were merely a stranger she happened upon in the middle of a lake, after all. Yet the only thing that came to mind when you looked into her eyes was ‘starstruck’.

“[Name]... it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she finally responds, albeit after a couple awkward moments. She shakes her head as though snapping out of some trance, and you couldn’t help but feel a bit concerned for her.

You shot her a small smile before turning back to Paimon. “Would you believe me if I told you I was transported here from another world?”

A small gasp from Lumine, and something that sounded like a squeal came out of Paimon. “Oh oh!! You two must’ve been fated to meet!”

Stepping forward, Lumine recounts her story. Already knowing the gist of it, you zoned out a little.

‘I wonder how far along we are in the story...’

“And so we’ve been working around Mondstadt for the last little while, hoping to find clues about my brother’s whereabouts,” she finished, a distant look in her eyes.

“I see... would you mind if I travelled with you to the city? I’d like to get familiar with the area.”

“Oh- of course! In fact, I’d be happy to have you with us.”

She looked like she’d wanted to say something else, but ended up biting her tongue in the process.

“Ouch!”

With puffed cheeks she sported an uncomfortable expression, one that seemed to have switched on whatever dormant protective instincts you had inside of you.

“Oh dear- are you okay?” You cupped her cheek unconsciously, brows furrowed.

She’d flushed barely enough for you to realize that you’d been a bit too forward with someone you’d just met.

“Oh, sorry about that,” you apologized, taking a step back. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Um, yes, thanks for asking! We should... start heading out soon.”

And so you did. With the wind on your skin and whispering into your ear, you followed Lumine back into the city of freedom, where you would soon come across a something that did not exist within your memories...

#lumine #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin fluff #genshin #genshin impact #genshin impact angst #lumine x reader #venti x reader #zhongli x reader #raiden shogun x reader #nahida x reader #the tsaritsa #mondstadt #creator reader #imposter au #sagau #sagau x reader #sagau impostor au #sagau reader #genshin impact sagau #hurt/comfort #genshin hurt/comfort #zhongli #venti #raiden shogun #knights of favonius

[qsmp-lore-dump]

Long time no see :) Here is a Tubbo Lore reflection and appreciation thread

ATTACHED ENTITIES

The parallels with Creation and Arin are too much for me to ignore and contain my excitement about. I don’t think it was done on purpose either and that's what makes its soooo exciting to me. That separate creative minds made stories that deepen, mirror, and contrast the other. But not even that, Tubbos Creation lore adds so much depth to other pieces of overarching lore to the Island.

Like i said, i dont know if it was done intentionally or completely by chance, either way it's so perfectly done. 

Arin: 

“Woke up” the day the train arrived with the first members. His existence is dependant on Luzu for now and the Codes were hunting him because he didnt belong in this dimension. Arin says that if Luzu were to know of his existence, Arin wouldnt be able to come here (the island) anymore and that if the Code catches him, he ceases to exist in this world. 

Arins purpose was to learn and make the world a safe environment. 

When he departs from BBH and Foolish on Day 24, he says he will search for answers, a way to bring Tilin back, because in his world it is possible to bring someone back. 

(3 above images from Day 24)

Creation:

*sorry i dont really have screenshots along with this since Creation communicates verbally*

When Creation first appears, we learn that his purpose is to protect the “Shells”, what he calls the Eggs. He warns that Tubbo cannot know that he has been activated. Creation repeats this warning to the Residents on Day 327, his 2nd appearance. 

Day 327 is when Tubbo “dies”, triggering Creation to give protection to Sunny aswell as find a way to rebuild/restore Tubbo “Primary Protector”. 

Arin, linked to Luzu from another Dimension, whose existence must not be exposed to Luzu. 

Creation, linked to Tubbo, created by him, who’s activation must not be exposed to Tubbo. 

THE ICE CHAMBER 

After Bobby’s death, Jaiden commits herself to aiding the Federation with the promise of protection over the remaining Eggs. 

Day 71, Jaiden is tasked with gathering resources from various residents that she will need to deliver on Day 109. That same day, Pomme is attacked 3x by a Code which causes Jaiden to question Cucuruchos ability to protect the eggs or not. She is told this is not the real mission yet. 

Day 109, Jaiden delivers the resources to an abandoned facility, presumed to be Federation. When she deposits the items Cucurucho asked her to gather, it activates the system. The system attached to the Ice Chamber where Tubbo and the others were kept. 

Intentionally or not, this deepens the history of the island and Creation so much. The implication of Jaidens tasks not being the real mission to protect the eggs while ending in her activating the system to inturn activates Creation, whose purpose is to protect the Shells, validates and solidifies Federation lore and the history of the Frozen residents as well as Jaidens character who has an unknown connect to the Federation.

(Day 136 Jaiden)

The abandoned facility is very likely an old BioLab. In Cellbits POV you can see there are multiple water tubes, all with a chair or seating area facing it, along with a shelf and books. A place for taking notes, recording data. It highly resembles the BioLab Etoiles and Bagi were sent to investigate, where the captured code was found. 

(Day 109 Cellbit)

(Day 249 Etoiles)

ELENA

When Bagi interviews Elena, we learn Elena works in genetics, the BioLabs. Refer back to the books found in the abandoned facility, many are noted by “E”. I believe the “E” stands  for Elena. 

I know there are many theories floating around regarding Tubbos' relation to the Federation and Elena in particular, so take this last bit as you wish :) Perhaps Tubbo was one of her experiments.

__

BASICALLLLLY, I have no idea how much or if any of this was done intentionally by Tubbo, if the storywriters had any bit of guiding hand when he was working on his lore, or if it entirely by chance but no matter which, I am VERY excited to see how it develops. To learn about qTubbos history, more about the history and purpose of the Ice Chambers as a whole. 

I REALLLLLY hope everyone sees this the way i’m intending it, as an applause to Tubbo and his character building because it isnt my intention at all to detract from his lore by attributing or linking it to someone elses but rather appreciating the depth Creation adds to the overarching lore of the story as a whole. 

#qsmp thoughts #qsmp lore #qsmp tubbo #qsmp federation #qsmp theory #qsmp creation #qsmp jaiden #qsmp eggs #qsmp sunny #qsmpblr #qsmp elena

[dotster001]

How You Met/Enemies to Lovers, Crowley Edition

Summary: Dire Crowley x gn!reader. At first you were a thorn in his side. Now he can't do without you. Part of mini series for @stygianoir

A/N: It's in my pinned post, and I've mentioned this in a couple posts, but if this is the first of my stuff you've read, I view NRC as an actual college, so reader here is 18+. If it makes you more comfy, imagine it as grad school age.

Other Versions: Idia. Crewel. Rook. Vil. Malleus. Lilia. Leona.

Dire had been headmage of NRC for nigh over a century, and he'd never had a year like this. First some magicless student had warped space and time to cross dimensions and invade his school. Then a fire monster had bonded with said student, and now they were inseparable. And if things couldn't get more aggravating for him, after he'd generously offered you both a place in his school, and trying to find a way home for you, everywhere you seemed to go, his most powerful students would overblot in your wake.

Now here you were again, sitting with your other first year friends, all of you looking like you'd been through hell. And maybe you had. 

"Grim overblotted," you said simply, your voice raspy and choked. "He's fine now."

Dire could feel a headache coming on. "How, may I ask, did this happen?"

"Dunno." You said, clearly as done with this as he was.

He let his eyes wander to your cat monster, who was clinging to you like a scared child. 

"Grim, out of my ever flowing generosity, I will ignore the expenses of the damage caused, should you immediately begin cleaning the mess."

Grim whimpered and clung to you tighter. You whispered something into his ear, and you and your friends all stood up.

"Wait." Dire held up a hand to stop you all from leaving.  "Y/N, please stay for a moment longer, I'd like to discuss something with you."

You looked nervously at your cat monster, and whispered something to him, before trying to hand him to Jack. This led to Grim crying and clutching you tighter. Jack gently but firmly extricated him from you then left with the group, you calling assurances after Grim.

You sat back down looking twice as tired as before. He almost felt sorry for you. Almost.

"Y/N, in all my years as headmage, I have never seen one overblot amongst my students, nevermind eight. Yet you come along, and suddenly," he gestured around at nothing.

You muttered something inaudible.

"Speak up, I couldn't quite make that out."

You scowled and made eye contact with a new found confidence. "I said, all your students clearly have deep seated trauma, and you have no therapy or counseling here, so that pent up trauma has nowhere to go."

"An excellent idea! In exchange for me overlooking the correlation between you and this 'trauma going somewhere' you will be our school therapist!"

You looked shocked. And intimidated. "B-but….I…I'm not qualified to…"

"Not to worry! I will not just throw you to the wolves. I will prepare an in depth course to make you qualified to handle these cases. Aren't I so generous?"

                                ….

That had been five years ago. Despite his misgivings about you, you had thrown yourself thoroughly into the extra course work, as well as overblot research, and all this on top of your "catch up courses" (he'd assigned these so that the normal NRC course work would make sense to you) and your degree work. 

You now had a degree in magical history, a secondary degree in psychology, several published research papers in overblot and it's lasting effects, and a full time job as NRC's therapist. 

Dire couldn't quite help but be impressed. You'd more than exceeded his expectations, and the emotional health of his students was better than ever. 

Most of your research wasn't even his idea, it had been yours. These days, you were researching various potions and sewing if any could mitigate the amount of blot a mage put out. This meant you were working frequently with Divus Crewel.

Was Dire jealous? Hell no!  You were a good employee but still a thorn in his side from how much trouble seemed to follow, and how frequently you asked if he had found a way home for you.

He really had been trying, but at this point he hoped he would never find a way home for you. Not because he cared about you! You were just a valuable asset to the university!

Here you were, sitting in his office again, looking tired. It was reminiscent of your school days. Except the difference being you really hadn't done anything wrong this time.

"Do you know why you're here?"

"Am I getting a raise?" You laughed dryly.

He only laughed back in response, opting not to answer that. "You are here, because I heard from Divus that you collapsed in the lab."

"Am I in trouble?" You asked.

Dire couldn't help the sigh that escaped him. He wished you would just open up to him already. After all this time you still had your guard up around him.

"I have generously decided you need some time off. I am sending you to spend some time in the Scalding Sands. The Asim family has volunteered to host you, and Kalim has agreed to prevent you from working the entire holiday."

You suddenly looked very awake. "I can't go on break now! Divus and I are so close to figuring out the potion!"

Divus. Dire wasn't jealous of your closeness. Totally not.

"To quote your own research back to you, 'an overworked, and overwhelmed mage will have no choice but release the built up strain and anxiety in a way that will be detrimental to their very soul'" 

"I'm not a mage," you pointed out.

"But you are only human." He retorted. "You have spent the last five years pushing yourself to the limits of your being. Humans are not built to take that much strain."

"Might I remind you who asked me to take on as much as I did?"

He smiled in spite of himself. You'd grown used to him enough to push back at least. Progress is progress.

"It's already decided. You are going on break, and I will be coming with you to ensure you actually rest."

You gaped at him. When you found your words you stuttered, "but my research…"

"Will be here when we get back. Besides, a relaxed mind may lead you to a breakthrough." He showed you out of his office. "Now go pack your bags. Anything not packed in an hour will be left for when you come back."

You practically sprinted from his office.

                                   ….

The Asim family had provided their second estate for your vacation. Crowley couldn't help but wonder how large their main estate was, if this was their second home, but he knew he'd for sure be coming to them for more…donations.  After assuring Kalim that he was taking over your care, the two of you had the estate to yourselves, minus a couple servants here and there.

He had researched ways to help humans relax before the trip. He spent so much time surrounded by them, but he was still fae, so he had to remind himself. One way listed in the article "How to Perk up Your Human" was to get sun exposure. So he had told you to meet him outside once you were settled so you could both lounge. Of course he would be participating out of the goodness of his heart.

You came out in a casual outfit, and just stared at him. That's when he realized. He wasn't wearing his mask. And you'd never seen him without it. 

He'd started wearing it once he realized that humans were quite drawn to his features; high cheekbones, piercing golden eyes, black hair with a slight wave, otherworldly fae glow. It distracted them. But right now, he felt a burst of pride as you couldn't draw your eyes away from him.

"Y/N." He called, trying not to sound as smug as he felt. "I have prepared some chairs for us to lay down on and get sun exposure."

You startled back to reality, and quickly looked away from him, moving to a lounge chair. You looked tense. Far tenser even than when you had faced all those overblots those many years ago. Luckily, another point in that article could help.

He strode over to your chair, and knelt next to you. 

"Is it alright if I touch your shoulders?" He asked (consent is sexy, kids)

You nodded, clearly confused, until he began to massage the tension from your shoulders. They were so tight, he should have done this sooner. Pretty quickly, you were melting into a puddle at his touch, and he once again felt a beam of pride.

"If you decline your chair flat, and lay on your stomach, I can do your back as well."

You were too lulled to do anything but nod, as he reclined your chair for you, and you flipped to your stomach. You had so many knots, it was insane. 

After a little while, you had dozed off, and he sat in his own chair and napped with you.

                                   ….

The rest of the trip, he had done his best to keep you relaxed and stress free. He had gone through all the points in the article, had confiscated the books you had tried to hide from him, and had made sure that the servants had prepared both high nutrient meals, but also comfort foods.

Meanwhile, he noticed how quickly you not only got used to him, but loosened up around him as well; responding to his jokes with your own, volunteering more of that beautiful personality, even offering him massages to thank him for the ones he had given you. Truly, it was paradise. (He'd like to see Divus get to know you so well. Also, he's not jealous.)

Your last evening of the trip, Kalim had sent over an excellent feast, and some musicians to live the mood. The two of you had a joyful dinner, reminiscing on the trip, discussing the future, just enjoying each other in general. 

A slow song had started to play, and Dire stood up from his chair, and stretches his hand out to you.

"I would be remiss if I didn't offer you a dance."

"I don't really dance," you stammered.

"Then I'll lead. Trust me," at that you took his hand, and he lead you in the moves. The two of you fit together so smoothly, and moved like water.  As the song came to and end, he freed one of his hands to gently cup your face, looking at you with all the sincerity he could muster. He realized he felt a pull to keep you close and never let go (and also, he was indeed jealous of your closeness to Divus). He gravitated towards your lips, and you seemed to feel the same pull, until something flashed across your eyes and you stepped out of his embrace.

"I'm really tired. I'm gonna head to bed. Is there anything you need before I go?"

'you.' he thought. But instead,

"I am well for the evening. Get some good rest."

Then you left him, taking his heart with you.

The next morning the two of you went back to NRC without a word. He hadn't slept the whole night, thinking about you, and what it meant when you pulled away. Both of you went your separate ways, and things continued like that for a week.

He had been reading an article titled "How Humans Process Romantic Feelings" when you had walked into his office. He hastily closed the article, and turned his full attention to you.

"Y/N. How can I help you?" He truly hoped he sounded composed.

"I…uh…" you looked away for a minute, then with renewed resolve looked back at him. "I wanted to thank you for the vacation. You were right, I had been completely overdoing it."

"It was no problem. As a truly magnanimous employer I care about your well being."

You nodded, seeming unsure how to proceed. But you always managed to surprise him.

"Truth be told, I wouldn't mind doing a vacation like that with you again sometime."

He was practically preening at your statement. He would mooore than not mind another vacation with you, but this time where he'd hold you close, run his hands through your hair, moving his lips against yours, grazing his teeth along your unmarked neck….

"So yeah, thanks again headmage…"

"Dire, please," he interrupted. "I'd rather you call me by my name."

"Oh, well since we were at work I…okay, nevermind. Dire. Thanks." You stood up to go.

"Wait," he said, and you looked back at him, eyes full of hope. "My lunch hour is free today, and I was hoping you would share it with me."

"I'd like that," you said with a soft smile, one thousand words carrying across those three.

For just this once in his life, Dire Crowley was going to be selfish.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #dire crowley #dire crowley x reader #twst crowley x reader #twst crowley

[mrwavellswaps]

Wavell Bios!

Note: mild spoilers in the post for events that happen throughout the Wavell storyline. This post is subject to changes and updates in the future so I’ll try and keep you all informed if it happens. That may simply be extra details I want to add in most of the time however I’m also planning on adding a full Mr Wavell Timeline in the near future to make it easy to read all the Wavell stories in chronological order. I’ll probably make a post about that when I get around to it but for now enjoy the extra info I’ve given here on the different forms of Mr Wavell!

———

Name - Mr Wavell

Also know as - Wavell, Christopher, Chris, Kyle, Oliver, The Warlock

Origins

Mr Wavell is a being who originated from a universe where magic is the foundation. There are Wizards and Warlock’s all around and he’s one of them. Only he’s a little different. Unlike most magic users he was born with magic capabilities that were god-like. Light years ahead of any other warlock. Because of this he was feared greatly as a child and teen by all that knew of his power. After 18 years worth attempts to keep him locked up, he escaped to another universe by using his immense power to open a dimensional hole. Despite that his original body was still decaying due to not being able to handle his overwhelming magic. It would’ve only been a matter of time before his own power consumed him whether he liked it or not. That is until he stumbled across a body that was perfectly synced with his magic...

Wavell goes slightly more in depth about his past and where he comes from in ‘Mr Wavell - Origin’ and ‘Transforming the Teacher’

Oliver Wavell - Former Body

A body that originally belonged to an middle aged man working as a teacher at a local high school. After feeling a certain connection his magic had to the teacher’s body, the young warlock took the first opportunity he and stole Oliver’s body after absorbing the older man’s soul. After that he decided to let go of his former life and take on the name of Oliver Wavell instead. Now with this new healthy and stable body, Wavell is capable of using his powers to their fullest extent and in theory could even now be immortal. After this Wavell would go on to create a separate pocket dimension for himself which at first was an empty void until he created a huge mansion to sit in said void. A place he would hence forth call his home.

This is the very first version of Mr Wavell readers are introduced to. His existence is first eluded to in the story ‘Toby Wished’ and is formally introduced with a much bigger spotlight in ‘Adam and Mr Wavell’. It’s here you’ll get your first glimpse into who Oliver Wavell is. He’s an incredibly powerful entity who loves inserting himself into the lives of unsuspecting men for the sake of his own entertainment. He tends to seek out men who have some sort of deep seated desire to change in some way and Wavell is happy to bring those desires to life (usually) free of charge. He demonstrates to abilities to effortless transform the bodies and minds of those around while also being able to alter their perceptions of reality. He can even freely move souls from one body to another and so much more. Why? Well when he took the body of Oliver Wavell he adored the sensation of becoming someone totally new. So much so he became obsessed with the idea and would soon find an endless thrill in doing the same to other men.

In this form Wavell can be see wearing business casual attire and tends to come off as polite and somewhat charismatic, traits he absorbed from the original Oliver. He’s very generous towards those he uses his magic on, often giving them a body they’ve always desired. However on the odd occasion his actions of helping on individual may leave another in peril. Once again the first example of this being ‘Adam and Mr Wavell’. This fact doesn’t seem to bother Wavell all that much as he’s more focused and bringing joy and pleasure to his initial chosen target. It is unspecified how much time Wavell spends in this form. One can assume years but given the absorption of Oliver’s mental age and maturity, it’s hard to say for sure.

Sexually this version of Wavell is very versatile. After taking Oliver’s body, Wavell slightly enhanced his cock by making it incredibly fat and girthy while also increasing this size of his ass slightly to make it nice and pert. He thoroughly enjoys gay sex of any kind whether he’s getting fucked or doing the fucking. He just loves cock and ass at the end of the day.

Later down the line however, without spoiling too much, Wavell is convinced by his new boyfriend (who first appears in ‘Transforming the Teacher’) to consider looking for a new body that’s just as in tune with his magic and soul as Oliver’s is. Just in case there may be something out there that’s even more his taste than the beautiful Oliver. Wavell accepts this and eventually finds himself not just one but two new bodies. Chris and Kyle.

Find out more about this in ‘Wavell’s Birthday Surprise’ and ‘A Warlock’s Duality’

Chris Wavell - Current Body (main)

Also known as Christopher. A body that belonged to a man of a similar age to Oliver whose original name was Christopher Malroy. He’s adorns short silver hair that’s always immaculately styled as well as salt and pepper designer stubble. He was the owner of a large and well renowned art museum and was known for both his incredible taste in art and fashion. After it was discovered that he was a match for Wavell, the warlock wasted no time kidnapping Chris and taking him back to the mansion where he, alongside Kyle (more info below) were both absorbed by Wavell in a splendid display. After this, Wavell has access to both bodies. He could effortlessly transform into either Chris or Kyle at will.

As Chris he almost completely adopts the attitude of the man whose body he’d taken. This comes with many of the traits he had as Oliver only further amplified. He speaks and thinks in a very intelligent and calculated manner the majority of the time while also exuding an almost irresistible level of charisma that could charm almost anybody. This goes well with his exceptional patience and willingness to do things in very meticulous fashion. He’s confident and driven but also has begun to develop a bit of a superiority complex due to how air headed the original Chris could be. This frequently leads this version of Wavell to believe that he’s simply above those around him and doesn’t often think of the people he experiments on as anything besides his playthings. He will however try his best to come off as humble and caring to hide his true nature a little and will fake caring about his subjects more than his actually does. All that said however he does still have a very real and genuine love for his boyfriend that isn’t dampened by his feelings superiority even if he does occasionally think of his boyfriend to be lucky for having him.

It also becomes very apparent that Wavell seems to adopt Chris’ sense of style whenever he’s using this form. Chris was a man of very expensive taste so in turn Wavell became the same. Always wanting to wear most designer looking clothes that are perfectly tailored to his body shape no matter the occasion. Either that or gorgeous looking and perfectly fitted suits that make him stand out in a crowd. When he’s not out changing unsuspecting men for fun he can frequently be found roaming the streets in some of his most fancy clothings just so people can admire him. His newfound sense of narcissism that came with the body seems to enjoy it when strangers on the street check him out and compliment him on his looks and fashion sense. He deserved it after all. It’s also worth noting that Wavell decided to grow out Chris’ stubble in this form in favour of a short and well groomed beard that he takes a lot of pride in.

As a lover this version of Wavell can be far more dominant than his previous self. When having sex with his boyfriend Dane he insists on being the top about 80% of the time because he loves to be in control and to feel as though he’s superior sexually as he shoves his cock inside the other man. However it isn’t too uncommon for Dane to convince this version of Wavell to bottom for him from time to time. The two do also have sex outside their relationship with other men and in these cases Wavell almost never bottoms. In almost every case outside of Dane, Chris Wavell is the one getting his dick sucked or slamming it into another guy. However there may be an extremely rare occasion here and there where he might consider bottoming for the right guy.

Between the two forms that Wavell gains from Chris and Kyle, he tends to be seen more often using Chris as his main body. He feels as though Chris is a slightly closer representation of who he truly is.

Kyle Wavell - Current Body (casual)

Unlike the other bodies Wavell has taken host to, this body is much younger. Only being around 27 years old as opposed to Chris and Oliver who were both in their 40’s before being taken over by Wavell. The original owner was Kyle Malroy, a passionate IFBB Pro who spent half his life in the gym trying to get as huge as possible. A goal he was certainly achieving with how gigantic he’d gotten over the years. Just like Chris however it was soon discovered that Kyle was in fact another match for the powerful warlock. And just like Chris he too was kidnapped by Wavell where he was taken back to the mansion and absorbed alongside Chris.

As previously mentioned Wavell can switch freely between looking like Chris or Kyle but when he does so his personality changes dramatically to fit whichever form he’s deciding to use. When he becomes Kyle, Wavell adopts more of a bro-like attitude that’s far less formal than his previously mentioned forms. Even though deep down he’s still very intelligent, he can’t help acting like a total meathead half the time. Despite this he doesn’t lose an inch of his charisma and is able to charm people just as easily as Chris. However, partly due to his more youthful personality, Kyle Wavell can often be very impulsive, brash and impatient. This can sometimes lead to him going a little overboard with his experiments or making small mistakes when casting spells that can leave unintended results. This is demonstrated very clearly for the first time in ‘The Homo Bomb’ series. He is however just as confident as ever in this form but doesn’t have quite as much of a superiority complex as Chris does and frequently enjoys being seen as a normal dude when he’s out and about. He may also come off as a little more playful and/or immature than Chris at times.

It’s most common to find this version of Wavell wearing some kind of gym attire such as shorts, joggers, a tank top, a tight fitted t-shirt or anything else perfect for working out in. This is partially for comfort as unlike his other forms he does like to wear fancy or formal clothing and partially due to him spending a ridiculous amount of time working out in this body. It isn’t even something he has to do as his magic can prevent his muscle from getting any smaller but he still gets this burning desire to lift that he just can’t ignore whether it be in the home gym he contrasted in the mansion or out in a real world gym. He enjoys going to real world gyms a lot of the time however because he just can’t help showing off his massive bulging muscles in this form. He’s just as much of a narcissist for his good looks in this form as he is when he’s Chris only he’s a lot less subtle about it when he’s Kyle. Always flexing his gargantuan biceps in the gym for all to see. Taking off his tank top mid workout so those around him could admire his perfect physique. Bouncing his pecs with giving a wink to anyone that stops to look. Total fucking meathead.

Like his other variations, Kyle Wavell loves sex and he can be a total muscle slut when it comes down to it. He’s more like Oliver in the sense that he’s completely versatile. A big hunky himbo that just loves to fuck. His narcissism does seep through a little however when he’s constantly showing off during sex and telling whoever he’s fucking to grope and admire his muscles both before, during and after sex. Being told he’s a hulking muscle god gets him going like nothing else. He loves slamming his thick cock into any hot hole he can find, especially Dane’s, just as much as he loves tempting another cock into jackhammering his own big muscle butt. Because he knows they can’t resist him.

As mentioned Wavell doesn’t use Kyle as frequently as he does Chris. He views Kyle as being more of an escape to his usual self. A way to break free and be something a little different. To really enjoy embodying the idea of being young, dumb and full of cum. Especially considering his Chris form is so much more mature. It’s just nice for Wavell to switch to a more youthful and much beefier body from time to time where he can let himself be a little more relaxed.

If you love my stories then please consider supporting me on Patreon as well!! ❤️

#mr wavell #character bio #bios #not a story #identity theft #male body theft #absorption #permanent #magic #male transformation

[thiniceofeternalyouth]

MISLEADIN' ME SERIES: CHAPTER TWO

A WALK TROUGH THE FOURTH DIMENSION

⊳ Gojo Satoru x f!reader

series masterlist

Genre: angst, , sci-fi, cosmology.

Chapter warning: MANGA SPOILERS, cursing, mentions of blood, mentions of food, Gojo is a meanie

Words count: ~9k

⊲ previous next ⊳

[24 Dec, 2018; 06:01pm; Shinjuku Special District, Tokyo Prefecture]

A small group of people dressed in black and covering the lower half of their faces with masks were on one of the lower floors of a business center, the wall of which had been completely demolished from hollow purple. The reinforced concrete structures that used to make up the whole were either splintered into crumbs or dangling from the remains of the wall exposing steel bars. From this spot there was a perfect view of the battle of the two strongest, which was spread out in the shadow of the broken skyscraper. You, on the other hand, remained invisible without emitting any cursed energy.

Sitting on a piece of broken reinforced concrete that used to be the floor, you watched the sorcerer and the curse king's actions and every time Gojo took damage you jerked your leg nervously and clenched your teeth. Your gut was pissed off that you didn't understand the nature of the feelings that made you this way. As everyone else sat lazily against the far wall exchanging jokes, a man's cheerful voice jerked you out of your state of irritation:

"All we need here is beer and chips," Vito tried to lighten the mood. He was the oldest of the active hunters and he looked exactly like Danielle. His blond hair, short though it was, glistened even in the dark, his fair skin, which was always flushed was covered with small scars and there were deep wrinkles under the outer corners of his eyes as his blue eyes watched the action below. "Look, that king of curses got another series of punches to the face from the white-haired one," Vito said humming approvingly.

"Considering they used territory expansion three times already, it's no wonder they had to switch to hand-to-hand," you said propping a hand on your face keeping your eyes on the fight. "Can ya imagine the state of their brains right now?"

"I can tell that you're imagining it too vividly by looking at you," Vito said shifting his gaze from Gojo to you and smiling slyly. "You're worrying a little too much."

"Just a bad feeling," you brushed off his teasing tone. "Remember what Itadori told us about Zenin Clan's technique?"

"Oh, right, what's its name..." hesitated Vito straining his meanderings. "Ten shadows technique?"

"Exactly!" you exclaimed snapping your index finger and thumb. "The technique is already unusual enough on its own, but here's its latest shikigami, uh," you stammered, seeing the white-haired sorcerer wipe away the blood that came from his nose with the back of his hand, and a stack of needles plunged into the back of your head with an unsettling feeling again. "I guess that thing out even of my depth."

"You mean divine General Mahoraga?" asked Vito grinning. "Geez, that's quite a name they gave it."

"Quite a name for a monster that can adapt to any cursed technique," you shrugged, and thinking that at this rate Mahoraga would soon be able to adapt to Gojo's infinity technique, you jerked your foot once more knocking over a small piece of concrete that was held up by a protruding iron beam. Now it was clear why Sukuna needed Megumi's body, for in any other body he would never have been able to defeat Gojo because there would be no Mahoraga to break through his infinity. While you were pondering this, the battle of the two strongest due to their swift movements shifted from the roadway under the road bridge, part of the supporting structure in the form of several reinforced concrete pillars was immediately destroyed. Everything seemed to be going according to plan for the white-haired sorcerer: he was striking blue after blue and Sukuna had only to dodge or take it and your heart was beating in an invariably calm rhythm, but a growing sense of anxiety was building up the force of its impact on your chest. You saw that with each blow they made against each other, they were getting farther away from your location and you found yourself standing on one of the dilapidated bridge pillars still in the shadow of the concrete rubble without even thinking. This pillar was though not close, still behind the Gojo and if you had even a modicum of cursed energy in you, one of them would have sensed your presence immediately. Sukuna's body had just taken an enhanced version of the red that Gojo had suddenly directed at him from around the corner before your eyes. After getting hit in the face with the debris from the pillar, Sukuna was already healed in the next moment. Itadori was right: the sorcerer had already had more than one chance to finish Sukuna off, but Gojo couldn't do it while the curse was in Megumi's body. "Damned sentiment," you thought to yourself.

"It seems you wanted to be sudden, but apparently you're so tired that you don't realize that all your techniques have been read," Sukuna turned to Gojo, a nasty smirk drawn on his face.

"Don't jump to conclusions," Gojo said and you noticed how a moment later, a red flash circled the building and struck the curse straight back and Gojo activating black lightning struck Sukuna's solar plexus, whose body flew straight at the sorcerer's fist on the inertia of the red strike. The curse's eyes rolled uncontrollably, blood spurted from his mouth, he recoiled and the wheel above his head, which allowed Mahoraga to adapt to any technique, fell as it made its final turn. Sukuna disappeared into the shadows and darkness began to grow beneath Gojo's feet, from which Mahoraga's huge hands reached out to him inviting him into a deadly embrace. Your heart skipped a beat: Mahoraga had just adapted to Gojo's infinity technique. While Gojo was trying to dodge the huge hand with a huge blade sticking out of his forearm, he didn't notice that the shadow behind him had already formed a triangle of index fingers and thumbs.

      "Isolation."

As soon as you said the word, you began to gulp for air and it took all your strength not to recoil or you would have flown down the pole with a stone. You felt like your skull was being poured sulfuric acid and your organs were wandering around your body instead of staying in their designated places. "So this is what it's like to have two consciousnesses in one body," you thought to yourself with a faint indecipherable thought, someone was trying to dislodge your consciousness, but a stream of dark energy blocked all attempts of the unpleasant guest. You tried to see through the white veil where your idea had led and you could still see two silhouettes standing there.

"Oh? What is it?" Gojo's voice sounded a little surprised, but the surprise changed to defiance as if by a click. "Has daddy Mahoraga abandoned ya?" He tilted his head to the side, a grin flaunting on the sorcerer's face. Sukuna, on the other hand, stood motionless resembling a statue. The drooping, impersonal eyes began to close, the dark patterns that adorned Megumi's body began to fade and with a slight recoil, the curse fell flat. If you could see just a little better you would have noticed how in just a couple seconds the entire spectrum of emotions showed on the sorcerer's face - from confidence, to courage, to bewilderment, to confusion, and even slight panic. Gojo cautiously approached Megumi's body, leaned over and checking something, his body shuddered in a relieved exhalation and you shuddered with him.

      "Isolation."

You cast the spell a second time and now your body was concerned only with the cold evening air and a hungry stomach. You watched Gojo gently brush the black strands from the boy's face, and you wondered to your shame, what the movement would feel like if it were your own hair. You waved your head chaotically from side to side, as if chasing away childish thoughts. Meanwhile Gojo tried to gently take Megumi in his arms to return home with him, but the adrenaline accumulated during the battle instantly evaporated, passing the duties to his colleague in the face of fatigue making the sorcerer stagger, and he holding Megumi in his arms, began to fall himself.

                                       TWO DAYS EARLIER

The sound of metal cutlery paired with the early morning mist from the window that was built into the rock filled the dining room. You were already standing at the large metal chopping table waiting for your portion and the smell of roasted chicken filled your nostrils. Behind you on the dull stonework were two long dark wood tables, flanked by similarly colored benches where the few hunters were already seated, exchanging jokes and stealing food from each other's plates. The metal door that led to the kitchen swung open and out came a terribly tired Danielle, who had once again foolishly served her punishment holding your plate of flavorful baked potatoes and equally flavorful bird meat. Taking the plate from her hands, you winked at Danielle and headed toward the boy, who was sitting alone in the far dark corner, picking at his plate without appetite. When he saw you approaching him, Itadori only pressed his lips together and turned away from you covering his face with his hand as he continued to mash the innocent potatoes with his fork.

"What are you doing sitting here all by yourself?" ignoring his behavior you sidled up to him, your hilariously chipper voice exploding in the boy's eardrums. "Itadori?" you tapped the back of his head with your finger quietly catching his attention.

"Y/N, that's not fair!" exclaimed boy slamming his hands on the table.

 "Did ya get up on the wrong side of bed or something?" you asked peering into the brown eyes and noticing that they were filled with childish resentment.

 "Ya know, you remind me of those nerds from high school who always sit alone," Rachel placed a tray of food on the table with a metallic clang catching your attention. Kyle came over with her as well, and sat down next to you winking at you. "What's up, kid? Is that brat offending you?" She turned to Itadori pointing a finger at you.

 "And here comes prom queen," you said with irony in your voice and Rachel turned to you showing her tongue.

"Y/N said she had plan to suppress Sukuna in Megumi's body and then just up and left!" pouted Yuji crossing his arms over his chest. "Like she did it on purpose! I realize you don't have to tell me anything, but... Maybe after this, I can sleep a little better," he mumbled hiding the lower part of his face in his high red collar.

"Close your eyes," you said to Itadori and he looked up staring at you incredulously. "Close your eyes, don't be afraid," he obeyed your second request and after a little fidgeting in his chair, he closed his eyelids.

"What do ya feel?" you asked leaning back in your chair and crossing your arms over your chest.

"What do you mean?" asked Itadori without opening his eyes, but faced with your silence; he decided to describe everything in order even if it sounds like complete nonsense.

"I can feel soft but firm fabric of my uniform," he began to say, his fingertips groping the fabric. "I feel warm skin of my hands, I smell fried chicken and someone's male cologne, uh," Itadori hesitated a little. "I can hear Rachel typing on her phone and Kyle chewing his food."

"Here ya go," you praised the boy, if only for not being confused by your question. "I realize it's going to be problematic in such a noisy environment, but now imagine that all your senses suddenly stopped feeding you information as if your brain had been taken out of its skull and placed in a machine that provides it with everything it needs to function outside your body."

"Sounds a little... scary," Itadori said squirming harder in his chair.

"You've faced worse things," you patted the boy on the head. "Back to the subject at hand, what would be left of you in that case?"

"Memories?" suggested Yuji.

"Exactly!" you exclaimed quietly. "All the experiences you've had, which you'll relive over and over again for lack of interacting with an environment, maybe start building some scenarios in your head, having internal dialogs, until the very moment ya start going crazy."

"Y/N!," Rachel hissed at you threatening you with her finger. "Don't ya dare scare him!"

"Long story short, if you've managed to experience what I'm talking about for even a brief moment," you paused briefly to chew the piece of food you'd just put in your mouth. "Congratulations, you've just been in isolation."

"I still don't fully understand," Yuji said, there was a confused awkwardness in his voice.

"That's because we haven't explained everything yet," Kyle interjected into the conversation. "Remember when you told me that the peak of your world's prowess was territorial expansion? Well," Kyle hesitated, as if searching his mind for the right words. "Roughly speaking, isolation is the peak of our world's prowess, though it's functionally very different from yours."

"What happens in isolation? What is it for?" Itadori continued to pile on the questions looking each of you in the eye in turn.

"Actually, it carries more than one function, there's no telling in a nutshell," you said with a shrug. "But let's start with the fact that the Isolation is a place made up of only dark energy, nothing exists there but it itself," you turned to Itadori and after taking a sip of sour orange juice, you continued: "Put aside all prejudices about dark energy because it is most likely the most vile phenomenon that exists in the universe."

"Is it the reason something bad is happening?"

"We don't know why, but our universe is expanding and doing so at an accelerating rate," you said scratching your temple with your index finger. "And since scientists have no idea what makes universe expand, they usually refer to any hypothetical phenomenon that can accelerate the expansion of the universe as dark energy and yeah, we didn't rename it to suit us, it sounds cool," you threw your forearms up shrugging playfully. "Dark energy expands our universe not from any particular point, but in all points at once. I'd like to point out that dark energy is kind of the opposite of gravity meaning that the more filled up space is the stronger the gravitational force, and the emptier space is the stronger the dark energy is because although it's counterintuitive, its density per square foot doesn't decrease as space expands," you glanced at Itadori to make sure he was still with you. "I mean, do ya get what's going on? As the expansion of the universe accelerates, there's more and more empty space, which in turn will cause the expansion to accelerate, which will cause more empty space and so on ad infinitum, and I highly doubt that the expansion of the universe is its only property."

"It's good that you explained everything," Itadori said smiling, but the corners of his lips crept down again and he went limp in his chair. "Too bad I didn't get anything."

"Don't fill your bright young head, if ya think about it too much you can catch existential dread," you laughed rubbing the boy on the top of his head. "The easiest way to put it is that isolation is a completely empty place with only dark energy to ensure exponential expansion throughout eternity."

"So, in isolation space expands itself for an infinite amount of time?" asked the boy, a flash of insight on his face.

"That's right, you're a smartass!" you exclaimed grabbing the boy's pink cheeks with your palms. "Now imagine ya have the ability to put some sort of consciousness in there - your own or someone else's, it doesn't matter."

"But isn't that dangerous?" mumbled Itadori from behind his cheeks clenched by your hands, and you blushing slightly, finally let him go. "After all, if everything there is expanding from all points at once, doesn't that mean that consciousness will expand with space?"

"You're right, it's dangerous," you sighed quietly examining the ridiculously ornate silver bracelet on Kyle's arm. "First ya'll forget yesterday, then what ya did last year, what ya were like ten years ago and eventually ya'll forget even your own language, and so on until your existing self dissolves into dark energy."

"How do you use it, then?"

"And here comes into play something that scientists can hardly ever explain and this perhaps is called magic." you smiled awkwardly fiddled with your fingers because you weren't used to having someone listen to you with such interest. "Because, without going into too much detail right now, even though dark energy is a nasty thing, if you know how to use it, it can be a pretty good tool."

"Oh!" exclaimed Itadori, catching the gist of it. "You're going to put Sukuna's consciousness in there?"

"You're thinking in the right direction, but there is a catch," you retorted looking out the window. " Sukuna and Megumi's consciousnesses are in the same body right now, so if I send the isolation to Megumi's body, both of them will have to go into isolation with me and I won't be able to tell which one I'm 'capturing'," you said pointing to the quotation marks in the word 'capturing' with your fingers. "I'll have to re-enter the isolation second time directing it only at myself, because it doesn't matter who's here after the first isolation," you looked at Itadori, tapping your temple with your index finger and the boy's eyes widened. "And who goes back into Megumi's body."

"But what if Sukuna returns to Megumi's body?" asked Itadori with excitement in his voice.

"Well that's not so terrible, because Sukuna will most likely be left without ten shadows technique because Megumi's consciousness will sit quietly in my body until your precious teacher finishes the curse so I can quietly return Megumi's consciousness to his body through second isolation, but there is some possibility that during that time I will die myself due to such an internal conflict."

"But what about..." Itadori began rubbing his knees nervously clearly trying to suggest something else. "Can't you immediately re-enter the isolation and wait there?

"Itadori, don't forget that my mind is used to isolation and Megumi's mind isn't," you clarified shaking your head. "Also, I realize this isn't very intuitive, but like I said nothing exists in isolation but dark energy. Although there is no such thing as time there, but along with that there is an infinite amount of it there.

"What do you mean? Itadori asked losing the thread of the point again.

"Y/N means," Kyle interjected. "She could spend two infinities in isolation, but to us outside observers, it would look like she never left," Itadori's mouth dropped open in surprise, forming a perfectly shape of 'o'.

"But what if it's the other way around?" it suddenly hit Itadori. "What if you suddenly put Sukuna's consciousness inside you and Megumi's consciousness returns to his body?" the boy panicked remembering his past experience when the curse parasitized his body.

"That'll be even easier!" you exclaimed clapping your hands together. "If after the first isolation Megumi's consciousness returns to his body and I have Sukuna's consciousness," your lips spread into a cheeky grin. "I'll just re-enter the isolation and wipe the bastard off the face of the creation."

"Adoptee, ya sure you can go into isolation two times in a row?" inquired Rach with a note of anxiety in her voice. "Think twice."

"Think twice?" you popped your head up from your plate and stared at Rachel. "Buddy, I don't think even once!"

"Yeah, we're aware of that," mumbled Kyle into his hand, which he completely covered his face with as if he was embarrassed by your behavior.

After your brief conversation Itadori finally began to eat devouring the long-cooled potatoes with appetite. You watched as he chewed one bite and put the next one in his mouth, amused by his direct behavior. Time flowed slowly and even though the winter sun was rising on the other side, where the spacious windows of your house looked out, but still the sunlight was filling the far dark corners of the room more and more decisively with each passing moment. You glanced at the invisible watch on your hand and turned to Yuji:

"It's about time ya get ready to go home," you said gently flicking Itadori on the nose. "Otherwise they'll notice you're missing."

"Can I ask you one more question?" the boy asked and you nodded your head affirmatively. "I've noticed that you say 'something like consciousness' or you just say 'consciousness' but with such, uh, skepticism in your voice. Why?"

"Geez, boy, you've opened Pandora's box again," Rachel rambled on with feigned panic in her voice. "Close it back up, pretend you didn't ask anything!"

"Well," you tilted your head toward Yuji, and your foot kicked the leg of the chair Rachel was sitting on with such force that it nearly fell over along with her.

"Little bully-" muttered Rachel under her breath, but you continued talking, not listening to her:

"It's just that humanity still has a very poor understanding of what we call consciousness," you said with a shrug.

"But what about it?" objected Itadori. "I think there's a lot to dig up on that subject."

"It is. Different sources will tell you about an immortal soul, or neurophysiological connections or that consciousness has nothing to do with the soul or the brain, but no one," you said, emphasizing the last word. "No one can explain to you why this happens. You and I are made of the same matter as stars, planets or that stupid bracelet on Kyle's hand," you nodded at his hand that was resting calmly on the table. "But it's unclear how ordinary matter composed in a certain way - suddenly - can generate subjective experience?"

"Maybe I don't quite understand everything, but does it matter?" Itadori asked shrugging his shoulders,

"It doesn't until you start thinking along those lines," you agreed with him. "Except that everything we talk about, everything we think exists is postulated by our consciousness. All the sensations you get from birth until you die are created by your brain," you gently tapped Itadori's forehead with your knuckles. "The brain internally forms a kind of environment that exactly replicates the external, real world environment... Or not?" you peered into brown eyes that reflected the lights in your own eyes in the light of the suddenly flickering lamp. "Anyway, perhaps there is a very tiny but already existing possibility that you are not the one who speaks your thoughts. You're the one who hears them." With those words, you got up from the table, picked up the few trays to take them back to the dispensing table. Coming back and leaning your arms on the table next to Itadori, you whispered:

"So when you're sitting alone in a room going about your unremarkable mundane business," you whispered in the boy's ear in a conspiratorial tone. "There's a chance you're not alone there."

"Y/N!" howled Rachel grabbing you by the scruff of the neck, dragged you towards the canteen exit.

Before the wooden doors closed in your face, you saw the worried look in Itadori's eyes and only had time to yell. "Sike!"

Concrete crumbs pounded into your back, the back of your head ached quietly from the impact with the ground and something too heavy was pressing against your chest. As you struggled to open your eyes, your hand tried to shove something heavy off to give your airway room to breathe and get more air into your chest. The moment your fingertips came in contact with the object, the thought that it was too soft jumped into your head and it hit you: the moment Gojo fell, you were at his back knowing that your size would make it harder to support him and more likely to hurt yourself, but your actions were faster than your thoughts. Finally, when you fully focused your gaze you saw a snow-white mop of hair right under your nose and on the sorcerer's body as a cherry on the top was Megumi's body, which he had picked up, but never had time to take anywhere. Silently cursing to yourself, you crawled out from under the unconscious bodies as carefully as you could holding Gojo's head gently. You gently checked their pulses with your hand, and exhaled a sigh of relief as you sat down beside them as if you needed a little respite yourself. Quietly shaking off the construction dust from your uniform, you noticed that your hands were darkened with indecipherable, chaotic, and to top it all off, ugly patterns. Rolling up your sleeves you clenched your teeth uneasily seeing that they had spread all over your forearm. Going into isolation twice in a row was risky, but looking at the two motionless but still alive bodies you had no regrets. You unconsciously reached up to flick a strand of white hair away from Gojo's face, but as soon as your hand was a few inches from his skin, you yanked it away as if you'd been burned. You would have kept hesitating, moving your hand in and out of his face, if it hadn't been for the sharp voice that called out to you:

"Get your hands off of them!" shouted a female voice in a frenzy, and you noticing that a two-handed axe was flying straight at your head instantly vaporized along with the two bodies you were holding in your arms. 

[25 Dec, 2019; 08:42pm; Tokyo, Tokyo Prefecture, Chiyoda Special District, Cafe N].

You were sitting in a familiar soft armchair and hot, fragrant coffee with each sip seemed to fill your veins with home warmth. Having settled down at a table in a secluded corner, a garland of all kinds of colors was shimmering against your silhouette, a pleasant, unobtrusive melody of the place was flowing quietly through the spacious hall, which was accompanied by chewing sounds of the boys sitting in front of you. Looking at their tired, but terribly peaceful faces you drowned all even the sharpest pricks of regret about your own intervention somewhere in the depths of your soul.

"I never thought you'd still keep your promise you made back then, in this very café," Yuta said adding more hot sauce to his plate.

"Hey!" you threw your head up sharply frowning your eyebrows. Your hand reached across the table to quietly tap your index finger on the boy's forehead. "That sounded really rude!"

"Sorry, I didn't mean it that way," laughed Yuta. He kept looking at you and there was no way he could shake off the idea that you reminded him a lot of someone. "Honestly, I just didn't think it would end so soon and so... uh, well."

"Good," you smiled brightly squinting your eyes. "I hope ya'll have a quieter time now, because there is nothing to waste your youth on such things"

"Y/N, how are sensei and Megumi doing?" asked Itadori cutting into the conversation.

"They're fine," you replied tapping your fingers on the table to the beat of a quiet tune. "They haven't come to their senses yet, but that's not surprising," you slapped the table gently with the same hand and leaned back in the upholstered chair.  "Doc said another couple or three minutes of this kind of exertion and your teacher's brain would have turned into a fried steak, but Megumi... Well, isolation hasn't gone unnoticed for him, so he needs as much rest as possible right now."

"Then can we stay with you for that time too?" asked Itadori biting his lip awkwardly.

"Look at ya, what a nimble booger," you said grinning. "You've already picked out your rooms and settled in pretty well anyway."

"Is that a yes?" asked Itadori excitedly and you nodded affirmatively. "I told you she'd say yes," Itadori whispered in Yuta's ear and you tactfully pretended not to hear them. As the boys ate and drank their cocktails taking advantage of your promise to pay for them, you were still anxious, even though it seemed to be over yesterday.

"You know, he'd like you," Yuta's quiet voice pulled you out of your rebellious musings and you raised your eyebrows questioningly without realizing what he meant. "Our teacher. Well, I think so," he added and a feeling of embarrassment spilled over his cheeks red. 

"I wouldn't bet on it," you mumbled to yourself mentally marveling at the childlike directness and lack of understanding of the conflict that could result. After all, your worlds were divided thousands of years ago by strife and discord gradually making everyone living in your world a monster and a thug. Luckily for you, after a while you were no longer spoken of at all seemingly erasing your existence from the face of the Earth while you quietly did your work. At that moment, while you were scrutinizing the young faces, caution snapped into your head with a scathing cry.

"Watch out!" you only had time to yell in their direction before a shard of the far window slashed your cheek, a rush of air blew the building aside and only your table and chairs remained standing in the deserted spot, thanks to your flash of caution. You, instead of turning in the direction from which the stream had been directed, turned your gaze in the opposite direction where the now former café had piled up into a heap of splinters and bodies. A painfully familiar silhouette appeared out of the dusty chaos and as you took a step toward it you were blocked by the backs of two boys and you could sense that Rika was now somewhere close by, but you couldn't see her because of your lack of cursed energy. "What the hell," you thought to yourself and grabbed the boys by the scruff of their necks pulling them aside.

"Y/N!" the boys exclaimed in unison, but you stubbornly led them away.

"Ya both, get out of here," you murmured softly under your breath letting them go. "Here's the key card, go home," you tossed the key into Yuta's hands. "While the adults talk."

"But we can-" began Yuta, but you cut him off abruptly.

"I said get out," you said keeping a friendly face as you spoke the same warning words. As soon as they nodded their heads but in disagreement you turned around and Kenjaku stood before you, about ten foots away.

"There you are, thief," Kenjiaku gritted his teeth in a grin. "Thanks to that black-haired kid, without his massive flow of cursed energy I doubt I would have found you so soon."

"Oh?" you raised your eyebrows tilting your head slightly to the side. "Has a superior creature such as yourself stooped to such base human desires as revenge?"

"In my case, it's no more than a response to such a cute but still irritating stimulus," you barely refrained from rolling your eyes at his tiresome familiarity. The purpose of the curse was as clear as day, but it stood motionless, hands clasped beneath the folds of the kimono taking its time to close the distance. You could feel something wandering and hovering around you, an unpleasant veil enveloping your heightened sixth sense and it was unclear to you whether it was just a stream of cursed energy coming from Kenjaku or whether the curses he had summoned were surrounding you. You got a shot of adrenaline from your body at the exact moment something hit your chest with great force, and you flew at instantaneous speed towards the ruins of one of the buildings mixed with a stream of artificially created lightning-fast wind gusts that lifted pieces of asphalt and ground. In that brief instant, the nails of your hands managed to clutch at the ground, but still it didn't slow you down and your body, which now lay in the ruins of the building, was buried the one that flew with you. 

Kenjiaku stared at the mess he'd made trying to catch even the slightest movement that would tell him if you were still alive after something like that. As he stared at the ruins he had created, ten thin, tiny black streaks began to appear on the ground on a lower trajectory and second by second they grew joining together until they formed one large, elongated line as if someone had cut through reality leaving a black bleeding wound in the fabric of space. A kick of such force flew into the curse's back that he instantly fell into the dark embrace of the abyss. "Life didn't teach ya anything," you muttered wiping the blood from your face with your sleeve and exhaling sharply pushing back a strand of your disheveled hair that had fallen over your face. "Well, let's wait a few minutes," you said glancing at the invisible watch on your arm and sat down next to the darkness.

You scrolled through the news feed on your phone switching to online stores, throwing in your cart the sneakers, earrings, and unbelievably beautiful dresses that you would never wear. You looked into your group chat, which was created for the purpose of information exchange or just for idle chatter at least, was now filled with endless idiotic memes and you glanced at the time and realized with horror that 23 minutes had already passed. "Oh, shit!" you exclaimed with panic in your voice and thrusting your arm over your shoulder into the abyss, yanked the body out with a jerk.

The curse appeared before you in a different form: face gaunt, hair disheveled and torn in places, eyes filled with madness and horror, clothes faded and torn in places. "Sorry, sorry, I went a little overboard," you mumbled in a guilty voice, though it was just a lighter version of the isolation you hadn't dared to enter because of yesterday's events. This darkness consisted of just dark matter, which seemed less dangerous than dark energy and it didn't take away one's senses and consciousness nor did it require your personal presence, but it did erase the sense of time and you realized looking at Kenjaku's frantic look, that he hadn't felt it for really too long. "Anyway, look, ya have two options," you squatted down in front of his mangled silhouette lifting two fingers up at his face. "Either I push you back in there and close the incision," a lie, you wouldn't have been able to close the incision with the dark matter striving to push the foreign body out like a splinter, but by the certainty of your voice Kenjiaku had no choice but to obediently heed you. "Either we go to the judges now and see what they have to say about this whole mess you've made."

"Who are-" a hoarse voice rose from his lungs and he stopped half-heartedly and coughed violently. "Who are the judges?"

"I have no idea," you said with a shrug. "We used to just take the demons to them and then they'd figure out what to do with them. But I think they'd be very interested in a creature like you," you said with a smile looking into the dark eyes. "It's not as bad as it sounds. Maybe they'll just give ya spanking and let ya go and then we can have a proper fight when we're both strong enough. So, what's it gonna be?"

"Lead the way," Kenjiaku mumbled idly and you grabbed his temples with one hand lifting two fingers of your other hand somewhere upward uttering:

"Under the eyes of the Gods of Justice, before the radiance of the Witnesses of Fate, protected by the word of the creation and blah blah blah... Shine the light, open the veil," and with that, your silhouettes disappeared with a food-distinguishable pop as if bursting.

The fathomless blue eyes had been continuously watching Megumi's body for an hour. The unconscious body of the boy as if exsanguinated, showed no signs of life. If it weren't for the heart monitor next to him occasionally playing the beat of the young heart, Gojo would have gone insane - and God save those who witnessed the madness of the strongest. The sorcerer regarded the dark, chaotic and somehow disgusting patterns that slid up and down Megumi's forearm, as if trying to reach his heart. He leaned back in his chair looking over the last two messages from Itadori: the first one Itadori had asked in case Gojo woke up when no one was around, not to worry about anything and that they were fine and the second with the information that he and Yuta would be coming here soon received more recently. "Everything's fine, you say," he thought to himself shifting his gaze from the phone to Megumi and bit his lip with such force that it bled. He wiped the blood away lightly with his hand and covered his eyes with the thought that it was all from accumulated fatigue.

"Sensei?" Yuta's voice pulled Gojo out of his restlessness. "How are you feeling?"

"And what is this doubt I hear in your voice?" wiping his face with his hands and pulling on his usual smile, Gojo turned around to his students. "I'm fine as always!" placing his hands on his students' shoulders and leaning down to their level, he still with the same broad smile, but subtle threat in his voice said: "Well, my boys, ya will explain it all to me now."

"Uh, we..." mewled Yuta running his fingers over his hands. "She'll be home soon, so I think you'll need to talk to her."

"Who is her?" squinted Gojo's eyes squeezing their shoulders even tighter.

"Her name is Y/N," Yuji said with childlike directness in his voice and wide eyes.

"Honestly I don't care what her name is," Gojo said with a shake of his head and letting go of their shoulders. "Is this her work?" he pointed at Megumi's body.

"Yes, that's her-"

"Where is she?" asked Gojo with an already undisguised anger in his voice.

"We were sitting with her at the cafe," Itadori began in a dazed manner, not understanding why his teacher was getting angry. "But then Kenjaku attacked us and she told us to get out of there-"

"What?!" he snapped in their direction, as if spitting out the last remnants of patience with that word.

Stretching... Stretching... Stretching... Stretching...

The line of your indistinct silhouette stretched reflecting in the eyes of Kenjiaku, who was following you with a fine, irritating ripple. Each of his feeble steps seemed to sink into the ground that wasn't beneath his feet. He lifted his hand to get a closer look: unfilled with color, devoid of any paint, only the shadowy line of his hand's silhouette trembled constantly breaking into small segments. Kenjiaku knew exactly what his palm was holding straight at this moment, but it seemed to be strongly curved towards his face and turning his hand with the back side, it already formed the same arc-shaped something. The edges of your lines were also constantly curved approaching him and then moving away. Beginning gradually to lose his mind from such changes, he could not stand it. "What's happening to us?" he asked and dreading the fact that instead of his voice he heard only a strange dragging sound that spread through the space in a vibration.

"Nevermind, there's a slight distortion of space here," you circled your hand around the heavily arched horizon. "Because this one here is actually a straight line. And yeah, just don't think about the fact that there's no floor under your feet," the vibrations from your voice pierced through his gut and as soon as you said that he immediately started to fall down, but you grabbed him by the scruff of the neck already prepared for that. "I warned ya. It's kind of a four-dimensional space here, so you can step not only left-right and back and forth, but also up and down, so follow me strictly."

"I thought hunters were just a scary fairy tale for naughty little curses," said Kenjiaku.

"Do you know who I am?" you said trying to mock the tone of cursing from your last encounter, but that tone dissolved into a chirr.

"Not really," Kenjiaku said and the segments of your lips spread into a twisted grin. "What's going to be going on with these judges?"

"Usually they already know themselves what the so-called 'defendant' has done," you said with a shrug. "But with ya no idea, maybe they won't know what to do with ya at all; we've never brought a curse here."

"How much farther do we have to go?"

"As long as space isn't this empty," you replied to curse continuing to step forward making the lines of your silhouette stretch behind you. The warped horizon once again showed fine ripples and it grew into the outline of an indistinct surface as you approached. You moved even closer and the silhouettes of three seemingly human beings became visible, but there was no hint of eyes, nose or lips on their faces. There were no ears, no outlines of hair, just a general humanoid outline, the trembling line of which kept tearing and joining together in different places. You stopped not far from the surface behind which the judges stood and waited quietly. "What's going on?" asked Kenjiaku.

"No idea," you replied. "Maybe they're evaluating ya; maybe they haven't noticed us at all."

"Approach," the emotionless vibration thundered through all visible space causing your chest to convulse several times. Kenjaku took a step forward, but you grabbed his forearm.

"It's for me," you said smiling. You got as close to the surface as you could and the lines of one of the creatures, though geometric, still chaotic, began to stretch toward you. As it merged with your silhouette into one, your brain felt as if a hundred fists were clenched it. It searches for memories. Memories of your last conversation with Kenjiaku and of this procedure you conveniently 'forgot to mention'. Just when you began to think you were losing consciousness, the creature's lines and yours began to separate and it was back behind the surface.

"Open the wormhole," uttered the same powerful vibration.

"What does that mean?" only had time to ask the curse as visible geometric lines began to distance him from you. "You!" he exclaimed in anger, clearly addressing you. "You little scum!"

"See ya in hell," you said with just the outline of your lips slightly waving the fingertips of your raised hand in farewell. "Or outside the observable universe, it's just a matter of luck." You turned back to the judges and remained standing motionless, until one of them finally turned his attention to you.

"Else?" said a voice.

"I want Geto Suguru's body back," you said pondering whether it was worth such a ruse to return a dead body to one who treasured it.

The dark corridor of your infirmary seemed to sleep with along with the patients. Only the muffled clatter of the wheels of the stretcher you were pushing in front of you disturbed this peacefulness. On the stretcher lay a body covered with a black cloth on which you tried hard not to lower your eyes. Next to you walked Vito, who knowing his calm temperament and his tendency not to ask questions you had asked for a small favor: to help you deliver the body. Keeping your course straight to the morgue room, which was at the very end of the corridor, the two of you - or to be more precise the three of you - were approaching one of the rooms, from which you could see the dim color and hear albeit not loud, but vigorous conversations. As you neared the doorway, you peered into the room to see who was disturbing the medical peace.

"I see ya having a family quarrel," you said jokingly to the trio and if your heart could beat faster than usual it would have punctured your ribs long ago at the realization that blue eyes were staring right back at you. "Not reprehensible, but be a little more quiet, others are resting," with those words you seemed to gather your wits and stare back into the blue eyes.

"Now forget everything I just told ya," Gojo smiled and after patting Yuta and Itadori's hair so hard that they shrank back, he headed in your direction. He didn't understand himself now: just a second ago he'd been seething in his own invisible anger, but when he saw you his anger was replaced by confusion and he didn't know what to do, so he followed you as soon as you moved. 

"I already have an escort," you turned to Gojo noticing that he was walking directly behind you and Vito.

"I'll be the third, then," Gojo said with the same smile, but with a subtle sarcasm clearly realizing that his phrase had a double meaning. You reached the metal door, and Vito pulled it open allowing you to enter the morgue with the stretcher without obstruction. You walked a little farther letting go of the stretcher's handrail when it was next to the freezers and turned around.

"Should I stay?" asked Vito and you shook your head pursing your lips. Vito shifted his concerned gaze from you to Gojo and left the room slamming the steel door shut leaving you two alone. Gojo slowly walked over to the vacant iron stretcher and sat down on it keeping his eyes on you. If you hadn't been so tired, you might have noticed that the living embodiment of winter was sitting in front of your nose, but now your mind was on finding ethyl alcohol and formalin to treat the corpse or to replenish the supplies if you ran out of it. Since Gojo was silent and you had nothing to say to him, you began your ridiculous search through the many lockers.

"Are ya serious?" responded Gojo to your actions. "Am I that uninteresting?" His playful tone was met with your silence accompanied by your fiddling and the creaking of shelves causing the sorcerer's patience to burst for the second time of the day. "Why the hell did you get involved? No one asked you to," the playful tone changed to a serious one as if by snap.

"We don't need to be asked," you countered his attacks rummaging through one of the cabinets that held various tubes and needle injectors, but nothing resembling formalin. "Your problem was your problem equally as long as it was localized."

"Huh?" Gojo let out a chuckle as if in disbelief. "Believe me, I'm strong enough to handle everything and certainly without the help of a bunch of obscure creeps," his every word echoed with a spit on the back of your head.

"How old are ya?" you asked finally turning in his direction examining Gojo from head to toe. "Nearly thirty? So ya had plenty of time to get rid of Sukuna before he got into Itadori's body," you shrugged turning back to the drawer. "But you didn't. So stop acting like a child who got his first place prize taken away."

"You're the reason Megumi is in such a state with some black abomination spreading through his body, aren't you?" Gojo asked not even trying to keep his voice down, the tone of which felt like cold shower of accusations and recriminations over you.

"Yeah," you agreed easily nodding your head.

"Well, if he dies-"

"He won't," you said in a firm voice and realizing that you were out of formalin after all, you closed the door of the last locker in defeat. You walked over to one of the freezer lockers and opening it, pulled the iron retractable structure towards you. Connecting the stretcher to it you pulled the cloth off the dead man and began to slide the body deeper into the freezer compartment.

A lump rose in Gojo's throat at the sight of the deceased's face and he tucked his trembling hands in his pockets. "Well, if you're that good," he began sarcastically. "Then why didn't you do the same thing to him as you did to Megumi?" when he said "to him" you realized he wasn't talking about Kenjaku.

"Because he wasn't there," you mumbled quietly, while the mechanism of the structure clicked into place and you reached for the small iron door to close it.

"Lie!" shouted Gojo in anger slamming the door shut with one hand and you took a step back. "You just killed him, didn't you!"

"Incredible," you clasped your hands slightly as if in defeat. You weren't expecting honors or thanks, you weren't expecting anything and yet your already exhausted gut told you that it couldn't take another accusation and you would snap back. You were well aware that the sorcerer standing in front of you was tired, he was tired and probably still hurt and maybe there was a very tiny chance that he didn't mean everything he said. "Maybe I also shot Kennedy and dinosaurs had turned up their toes because of me? All it took was one freak to tell ya your friend was alive and you believed him and ended up in hoosegow, but the second I told ya he was never there ya say in a heartbeat that I'm a fucking liar," you ran your hands over your tired face. "If I'm that bad, then take the kids and get out, no one's keeping you here.

"Look, I-"

"If we have decided to kindly exchange barbs, well," you knew you would regret your next words, but no strength still could stop you. "You killed him first," if you had listened to your surroundings a little better you would have heard Gojo gulp feverishly. "Let us call it a day. Go to your room, get some rest." You pulled open the metal door leading out of the morgue and with one last glance at Gojo; you smiled softly realizing he wouldn't see it because of the mask. "Good night, boxy." As soon as you stepped onto the threshold of the corridor someone's unfamiliar and from that disgusting touch reached your hand making your eyes see nothing but red. Just as the scarlet veil began to fall from your eyes you realized that you were pressing the sorcerer's throat into the wall with your forearm, your other hand already holding a dagger to his carotid artery. The realization hit you on the top of your head with a sharp axe and you backed away disappearing into the darkness of the corridor and if it hadn't been for the shame that kept you from looking back you would have noticed the concerned blue eyes watching you.

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