#pose is from dear John

[lilmoonbunny]

Denial; Mycroft Holmes

Mycroft only seeked you out to deduce you (aka, how Mycroft realised he liked you).

John and Sherlock were, without a doubt, the loudest neighbours that Y/N had ever had.

Gunshots at God only knows what hour, constant stabbing, banging, and so on. Despite this, she still considered them dear friends and the best neighbours that she had ever had. Sure, they were weird and loud, but they were also kind and genuine, at least for the most part. Alongside this, they also appreciated her baking, especially after long cases.

A gentle knock sounded on the door the 221B catching the attention of three people.

“You can come in, Y/N,” Sherlock called from behind the door, greeting the woman with a nod before turning his attention back to Mycroft whilst John smiled at her.

“Hi, Sherly. Hi, John.” She smiled at the two friends before turning to the older Holmes brother. “Hi, Mr Holmes.” Y/N greeted him with a smile. Although she hadn’t met him before, it wasn’t difficult to deduce who he was; the expensive suit and the fact Sherlock was glaring at him gave it away.

“Sherly?” Mycroft spat, grimacing at the nickname given to his brother. “Who on Earth would you let call you that?” He asked.

“This is Y/N, our neighbour. What have you brought for us today? I’ve been looking forward to this all week.” The sweet smile Sherlock gave to the woman made Mycroft feel ill. He had no clue who this woman was and absolutely no idea why they seemed to be this close.

“Chocolate cake, sugar cookies, and love.” She joked, beginning to laugh at the way Mycroft audibly gagged. “I’m only kidding. No love.”

“I should certainly hope not,” came Mycroft’s response, one which simply made her laugh again.

“Are you jealous, Mycroft?”

“Because of the cake, he is.” Sherlock interrupted, waving Myrcoft off. “No, I won’t take the case. You can leave now.”

“This is an urgent matter, brother mine.”

“Don’t care.”

With a groan and a roll of his eyes, Mycroft lifted himself to his feet and prepared to leave.

“I’ll leave these with you, just in case you change your mind. Goodbye brother mine. John.” The hesitation was obvious on Mycroft’s face, despite how well he typically hid his emotions, as he faced Y/N.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr Holmes.” Y/N smiled sweetly, earning a simple nod from him before he left.

Sherlock, who had leaned to grab the tub of baked goods from the woman’s hands, rolled his eyes as Mycroft left and immediately began to eat.

It wasn’t long until Y/N’s entire life had been researched.

There wasn’t much there. No criminal record, a few jobs, occasional moves, but no sign of her posing any danger to Sherlock and, by association, John. However, the way Mycroft felt upon seeing her was unusual, so he decided to do his own investigation.

“Morning, Mr Holmes,” he was greeted before he reached the empty counter. “Welcome to my bakery! Would you like anything?”

“Just a coffee, please. Black.” Mycroft nodded, not returning the smile she had given, despite the odd feeling it gave him. She was evil and he would prove it to Sherlock.

“Coming right up! Take a seat wherever you’d like, and I’ll bring it over.”

As Mycroft occupied a seat, he took a moment to properly assess the woman making his drink.

She didn’t seem threatening: a content smile on her lips as she prepared his coffee, humming a quiet tune that he barely picked up on. In fact, she didn’t seem out of the ordinary at all, but the feeling when he first saw her – a feeling Mycroft couldn’t explain – had him needing to investigate her further.

“Here you go, Mr Holmes.” Y/N said, placing a hot coffee and chocolate cake on the table in front of him. “Sherlock mentioned that you like cake, so I grabbed you some. It’s all on the house.”

“Why?”

With a small laugh, she responded without hesitation. “You’re Sherlock’s brother.”

How odd, Mycroft thought to himself. She doesn’t even know me and she’s giving me things for free…

Despite his thoughts, Mycroft simply nodded, watching as she took a seat opposite him. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s quiet today so I figured I’d try and keep you company the best I can. I’m sure you have better company than me, though.”

“I don’t mind,” he replied before even thinking. It was safe to say that he didn’t enjoy the way his chest felt whilst he watched her smile.

Maybe she’s a witch? No, don’t be stupid, Mycroft. They don’t exist.

“So,” Y/N’s voice broke the man from his thoughts. “It’s a funny story how me, Sherlock, and John met. I was actually working and Sherlock bursts in demanding to talk to me. My baking stuff had been found at a crime scene and he thought it was me!”

“How interesting.” Came Mycroft’s blunt reply, even if he was intrigued.

“You listened to it, so you must care, even just a little bit. I think that’s a win for me!”

Mycroft couldn’t help the tiniest smile that crawled onto his lips, but he internally prayed that nobody noticed it, especially her. She, however, seemed oblivious to the movement, simply staring over his shoulder and out of the window.

“Anyway, what was he like growing up? Was he like he is now? Blunt and rude?” Y/N asked with a giggle.

“He wasn’t, actually. He was rather sweet. He liked playing pretend with his friend; he always wanted a dog too.” Came Mycroft’s reply. “His favourite thing was pirates.” He said with a fond look in his eyes. Sherlock wasn’t going to be happy when he found out that he had told her, but he couldn’t resist answering her question.

Mycroft watched closely as the woman in front of him grinned, the bright and happy smile a nice contrast to what he was used to whilst working with the government. He couldn’t help but smile back, noting how her smile widened further as he did so.

“That’s sweet. I couldn’t imagine that, to be honest,”

It was time to ask the question that was on his mind. “Are you attracted to Sherlock?”

“Sherlock?” Y/N said, bursting into laughter. “No, absolutely not. He’s more like an annoying older brother. Same with John. We’re just friends, and, well, neighbours too.”

Confusion spread over Mycroft as she felt the weight on his shoulders lift at her words; she was telling the truth.

“How is she?” Sherlock asked the moment he answered the phone.

“How is who?” Mycroft’s voice sounded through the device.

“Y/N,”

“Why do you assume that I know?”

“It’s obvious you were there earlier.”

“…”

“Well, that and Mrs Hudson told us.”

“Of course she did.” Mycroft said with an involuntary roll of his eyes.

“So, how was it?”

“It was fine.”

“You like her then?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, you went to see her. It’s quite obvious, Mycroft. Come on, I thought you were smarter than that.”

Mycroft simply put the phone down.

He did not like her.

The next time that Mycroft came across Y/N was when it was raining.

He hadn’t wanted to seem ‘creepy’ by seeking her out again for more investigations and deductions, so he simply waited. She was friends with his brother, it wasn’t like their paths wouldn’t cross at some point. Besides, he didn’t want Sherlock to think that he liked her.

“Raining real bad tonight, isn’t it?” The driver spoke to Mycroft. He was new, so Mycroft couldn’t exactly blame him for attempting some type of conversation with him; it was still annoying, though.

Anthea, looking up from her phone was what caught Mycroft’s attention. “I feel bad for her.” She said, nodding towards a soaked woman. It only took Mycroft a moment to realise who it was.

“Pull over,” he stated bluntly, grabbing his umbrella. He simply ignored the look he was receiving from his assistant.

It had been a long day filled with rude customers, and to make it worse, it was raining, and she had forgotten her coat. Today couldn’t be going any worse for Y/N.

Shivering wildly and soaked to the core, Y/N huffed, watching the way her breath instantly evaporated; it was clearly below freezing, but she held out hope that the rain would stop and she would be home soon.

Her hope seemed to pay off, though, since she could no longer feel the rain. As she looked up at the sky, she spotted a familiar face.

“Mycroft?”

“Y/N.”

“What are you-“

“Get in.” He said, pointing towards the car before wordlessly leading her towards it, still holding the umbrella above her, even if he was getting wet.

“You don’t have to, Mycroft.” She said as he ushered her in and shut the door behind them both. “I mean, I’m soaking your car!”

Mycroft, who could feel the heat on his cheeks from their proximity, simply shook his head. He was too focused on the way her leg was pressed against his as she sat between him and Anthea who stared at her phone with a small smirk.

The ride was void of conversation, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, the only noise was that of Y/N shivering.

After a moment of hesitation, Mycroft shrugged off his jacket and handed her it. “Here.”

There was no chance of refusal, Mycroft wouldn’t allow it, so with a quiet ‘thanks’, Y/N popped the jacket over her shoulders. He just found the chattering of her teeth annoying, was what he told himself.

As they arrived at the flats, Mycroft followed her out of the car.

“Thank you, Mr Holmes.” She said as they stood on the door of her flat.

“Mycroft is fine, Y/N.”

“Thank you… Mycroft.” She said with a small smile before bidding him a goodnight.

“I see you gave her your jacket,” Was all Sherlock said as Mycroft entered 221B.

It was hard. Very hard. Harder than anything Y/N had ever experienced. Having a crush was not easy as it was, but having feelings for Mycroft Holmes was the hardest thing in the world: he rarely showed emotion, he was blunt, he was rude, but most importantly to her, deep down, he was nice.

A small sigh left Y/N’s lips as she worked on her latest batch of cookies for the morning. He was on her mind… again. It was a common occurrence by now.

“We’re not open yet, sorry!” She called over her shoulder at the sound of the door opening. As she turned around to see who it was and apologise again, a blush rushed to her cheeks. “Mycroft! What are you doing here?”

Mycroft stood there, umbrella in hand, and gave a simple shrug. “I was on my way to work so thought I would ‘pop in’ as people say.” He explained, earning a laugh from the baker.

“Modern phrases don’t suit you, Mycroft.” She teased.

With an amused shake of his head, Mycroft took a seat at the table nearest her.

“Want some cookies? They’re fresh out of the oven!”

Mycroft nodded with a grateful smile, always glad to have sweet treats. He would never turn down anyone’s desserts, least of all Y/N’s; not because he liked her and didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but because she was a good baker.

The pair sat in a comfortable silence, Mycroft gladly eating his cookies with an appreciative look whilst Y/N worked on her next batch. There was nothing awkward between them, and there, surprisingly, never had been.

“Are you not at work today?” Y/N broke the silence with a question that was bugging her. She could have sworn Mycroft had always worked this time over the months that she had known him.

Mycroft hesitated for a moment. He was supposed to be there right now but had decided to visit you before. It wasn’t like anyone could fire him for it, he was basically the British government, after all.

“Not yet,” he lied, and he was glad that he was a good liar.

“Oh, okay! I’m happy you came then. I don’t want to bother you.”

“You could never be a bother,” the words fell from his lips before he even registered what his thoughts, and he noticed the blush race up her cheeks, as did she with his.

“Thank you, Mycroft.”

As he stared at her and her rosy cheeks, a million thoughts went through his mind, but they were all related to one thing: her. It was in that moment that he realised the truth, he did like Y/N, and he had been attracted to her since the beginning; that was what he was feeling.

Oh dear…

#sherlock #sherlock x reader #sherlock imagine #sherlock imagines #sherlock fanfic #sherlock fanfiction #bbc sherlock #bbc sherlock x reader #bbc sherlock imagine #bbc sherlock imagines #bbc sherlock fanfiction #bbc sherlock fanfic #bbc sherlock mycroft #bbc sherlock mycroft x reader #bbc sherlock mycroft imagine #bbc sherlock mycroft imagines #mycroft holmes #mycroft holmes x reader #mycroft holmes imagine #mycroft holmes imagines #mycroft holmes fanfiction #mycroft holmes fanfic

[sinkovia]

Silence

Kyle Garrick x Fem!Reader

Angst, violence, blood, mention of death.

Masterlist

For weeks, he had been planning to propose, to ask you to spend the rest of your lives together in love and happiness. He had envisioned the moment countless times in his mind, rehearsing the words he would say and imagining the joy on your face when you said yes.

But fate had other plans, cruel and unforgiving. On what was supposed to be a routine mission, Kyle and you found yourselves captured by the enemy. Bound and helpless, you both were subjected to interrogation, the enemy demanding information that could jeopardize the entire team.

In the danger surrounding the both of you, the thought of the proposal lingered in Kyle's mind. He couldn't help but wonder if he would ever get the chance to ask you to marry him, to express his love and commitment in the way he had always dreamed.

As he felt the weight of the small box in his pocket, Kyle prayed silently for a miracle, for a chance to make his proposal a reality and to begin building the future he had envisioned with you.

They observed the way you and Kyle gazed at each other, bound in chairs mere feet apart, the silent communication of love and desperation passing between you. It was a connection they sought to exploit.

A vulnerability.

With brass knuckles clenched in their fists, they loomed over Kyle, their intentions clear in their presence. One of them approached you, his voice laced with malice "Answer our questions, and we won't hurt him," You could only nod in response, your heart heavy with the knowledge that any refusal would only result in pain for Kyle.

Despite the agony of betrayal that gnawed at your conscience, you answered every question they posed without hesitation. Laswell and Nikolai's names spilled from your lips, your loyalty to Kyle outweighed only by your determination to protect him from harm. It was a choice made in an instant, fueled by love and the primal instinct to shield the one you cherished most from suffering.

As their focus shifted back to you, the tape sealing your lips felt like a cruel reminder of your helplessness. Despite the fear and pain that gripped you, you found solace in the unwavering trust you held for Kyle. In the depths of your soul, you knew he would do whatever it took to protect you.

As the men approached, their footsteps echoing ominously in the cramped confines of the room, you met Kyle's gaze with unspoken reassurance. You trusted Kyle implicitly, knowing that he would give them the answers they sought in order to spare you from any harm. Kyle had always placed your well-being above his own, never hesitating to shield you from danger or sacrifice his own safety for yours.

You knew he would do the same for you just as you did for him.

“Where is John Price?” Kyle remained resolute, his jaw clenched in a defiant line. He couldn't bring himself to betray the trust of his comrades, couldn't sell out Price and the others to save himself or even you.

Your heart sank as you witnessed Kyle's refusal to comply with the enemy's demands. Desperation clawed at you as you attempted to provide the answers they sought, but your efforts were futile, your words reduced to muffled noises by the tape sealing your lips. The realization that Kyle's silence was placing you in imminent danger filled you with a profound sense of horror.

With each passing moment, the torment inflicted upon you only heightened Kyle's anguish. The sight of their cruel hands leaving bruises on your skin, the sound of your muffled screams echoing in the room—each moment tore at Kyle's soul, filling him with a profound sense of helplessness and despair.

Every fiber of Kyle's being screamed for him to intervene, to put an end to your suffering, but he knew that yielding to their demands would mean betraying everything he stood for. He couldn't allow himself to falter, couldn't let down Price or the team, even if it meant sacrificing everything he held dear.

Kyle clung to the hope that the team would arrive in time to rescue you from this nightmare, to put an end to the agony and bring you both to safety. With each passing moment, he prayed silently for their arrival, willing them to come to your aid before it was too late.

With each brutal blow that rained down upon you, your world became a blur of agony and despair. Your vision swam, the relentless assault leaving you feeling as though your very essence was being torn apart. Despite the overwhelming pain and the sensation of your body betraying you, a flicker of strength remained within you, allowing you to cast a desperate gaze toward Kyle.

But to your dismay, Kyle's gaze remained averted, his attention fixed elsewhere as though he couldn't bear to witness the torment he unwittingly allowed to unfold. The realization pierced through the haze of agony, leaving you reeling with a profound sense of betrayal. How could the man you loved, the one you thought would always be there to protect you, turn away when you needed him most? In that moment of anguish and despair, the truth hit you like a sledgehammer.

Kyle's loyalty to the team outweighed his love for you.

The thought cut deep, shattering the illusions of security and affection you had once held dear. As the pain and betrayal consumed you, you couldn't help but wonder if the love you had believed in had ever truly existed.

“Dead already?”

As the echoes of their callous laughter reverberated through the room, Kyle's heart sank like a stone. Slowly, he raised his tear-streaked gaze, his eyes falling upon the devastating sight before him. There you were, slumped over in the chair, your once vibrant spirit extinguished, your form shrouded in a veil of crimson.

The weight of your lifeless presence hung heavy in the air, a chilling reminder of the irreversible consequences of his silence. Tears streamed down Kyle's face unabated, his hands trembling against the restraints that held him captive.

The unbearable burden of guilt pressed down upon him, suffocating him with the crushing weight of remorse. With each tear that fell, Kyle's anguish deepened, knowing that his refusal to speak had sealed your fate.

As the team finally arrived to rescue you both, Kyle's heart shattered into a million pieces. He fell to his knees before you, his hands trembling as he reached out to touch your bloodied skin.

"Y/N, I'm so sorry," he whispered, his voice choked. "I should have protected you. I should have never let this happen."

He begged for your forgiveness, his apologies a futile attempt to atone for his unforgivable failure. His words fell like broken fragments against the silence of the room, each apology a futile attempt to turn back time and undo the horror that had unfolded before his eyes.

Your lifeless form slouched in the chair, surrounded by a pool of crimson. Kyle's pleas for forgiveness fell upon deaf ears, his words lost in the suffocating silence that enveloped the room. The team watched in solemn silence, their hearts heavy with grief, as Kyle's agonized apologies echoed through the chamber.

In that moment, as he knelt there beside you, Kyle couldn't help but imagine a different scenario. He envisioned himself on his knees before you, a ring in his hand and a question on his lips, ready to pledge his love and devotion to you for all eternity.

But now, as he stared at your lifeless form, battered and broken, he realized that he would never get the chance to ask you to be his wife. The future they had once dreamed of together lay shattered at his feet, a casualty of the silent agony that had consumed him.

With each passing moment, the weight of his failure pressed down upon him, suffocating him with the knowledge that he had failed you when you needed him most.

As he continued to plead for forgiveness, his voice lost in the emptiness of the room, Kyle knew that he would carry the guilt of your death with him for the rest of his days, a haunting reminder of the love he had lost and the promises left unfulfilled.

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[yeyinde]

WILLOW TREE MARCH

John Price x Reader | Fae!AU

"They'll give you gifts," your gran says, shaking her head. "Things from their realm. Little trinkets and gems—" geodes, sapphires and diamonds, raw gold and coral; "—and you must never accept them," a whittled deer made of sequoia under your pillow; crow bones buried in the garden."Because if you do, if you do, they'll never let you go."  "Why?" You asked, blinking at her.  "Because it's a courting ritual, and to accept means… well," her mouth twists in wry disdain. "Just don't." 

—WARNINGS: 18+ | SMUT fae shenanigans, mythological nonsense; unsafe sex, smut in random places, slight exhibition kink if you squint; Dom-ish Price, soft Price, pining Price; fae trickery (dubious consent on account of the trickery but not really); unreliable narrator; ahhhhhh, body horror (??????????) —TAGS: Fluff, AU, mythology —WORD COUNT: 8,5k —Based on this ask

There's a thick forest at the edge of your town. It curves along the coastline, breaching the yawning maw of the inlet—the last safe haven before the open ocean—and can be found almost nowhere else in the entire world. A unique ecosystem comprising vaguely familiar flora and fauna. Brown and Black bears. Wolves. Sitka-black-tailed deer. Ravens. The waters that crest through the forest are full of salmon, steelhead, and river otters. On the coast of the inlet, you can find whales, sea lions, seals, orcas, and porpoises swimming offshore. 

It's protected, in large part, by its sheer vastitude. Spanning a massive chunk of your home, it stretches far north with curling fingers cutting through the granite of the crumbling coast, and as deep south as its knobby knees can reach. 

From above, it looks like a child curled on its side, knees tucked to its chest. It's this pose alone that makes others revere it as some sacred being, slumbering mindlessly until the day it cracks open its eyes, and awakens to the new world. A child god made of conifers, red cedar, spruce, fir, pine, birch, and hemlock. Mossy caves of granite and limestone. Thick colonies of moss, liverworts, plume moss, and common haircap. 

The forest is linked to your town only by a small strip of land that juts out from a raging ravine with currents too dangerous, too deadly, to try and traverse. An archipelago all on its own, untouched by greedy, human, hands because of its placement. 

It's insulated by the vast ocean on its front, and a series of insidious looking mountains ready to swallow wandering mountaineers whole if they get too close to the sleeping child. Protected and safe by anyone who might try to harm it. 

You used to dream about the forest. A nightmare dredged up about whispers and calls. Lured close to the edge of the river where a man would hand you his heart—sap-stained, and charred; a brittle piece of Bristlecone pine that felt fragile and worn—and told you to come back for him. To wait for him. 

You'd wake in a cold sweat each time, heart pounding so fast that it almost felt like you were dying.

(Maybe you were. Maybe you did.)

You don't know if you believe the stories told about people wandering into the gaping chasm of the forest and never coming out. It's not uncommon for people to get lost, after all. But it feels distinct and archaic. Old. Something about the way the wind howls sounds different from the other woodlands scattered around your home. 

It sounds like a beckoning call. A mother calling their child home for dinner. Come to me, the Chinook bellows. Come home now, dear. 

You never venture too close. You know all too well what happens to children who do.

His name is—was now, you suppose—Kyle, but no one called him that. To everyone in town, he was simply known as Gaz. 

Newcomers to the isolated archipelago are a rarity—so much so that news of the new family's arrival sent waves through the community, making Gaz an instant star overnight, all without him even setting foot on the shores. 

None of that mattered, though. He fit in with an ease that seems almost preternatural when you think about it, as if he was meant to be there. And maybe he was. Maybe the soft rolling valleys were destined to be his home where flowers bloomed in the spring, and Arctic tern trilled from the branches. 

Gaz was unique, different. 

He picked dandelions with the same intensity that picked fights with the bullies in the neighbouring town, the ones who tried to pick on the smaller kids in the community. 

With his fists always covered in dandelion oil and bruises, face caught between a grimace and a grin, like he was never sure if he wanted to spit at their feet or tell a joke, he stood against the onslaught with an anger that seemed to crackle in the air like fireworks. Ready for battle. Thirsty for blood. 

His anger never waned even when he turned back to the group, eyes cresting in satisfaction, and body trembling with adrenaline, and you could scent the rage in his smile, hear it in the soft words he muttered to the kids, telling them everything would be alright. 

Gaz was everyone's friend. The person you told your deepest secrets to, the one you planned adventures with. He was a rock—always armed with snappy jokes to make you smile, and advice when you needed it. 

He was everyone's friend—yours especially—but you can't remember if anyone was his best friend. He was polite. Distant. 

It started in the summer. His hands were always cold, and he kept them shoved deep in his pockets, clenched tight around the latchkey his parents gave him. 

He started to seem almost liquid then. Temporal. You'd reach for him, brushing your hands against his arms or shoulders just to assure yourself that he was really there.

You noticed that his eyes would list sideways, head tilted, slanting toward the forest. It looked to you as if he was listening to something. To some unheard noise or call that only he could hear. 

When you asked about it, he'd always blink, surprised, as if you'd woken him up from a dream quite suddenly. Then, he'd smile, and shake his head. 

"Don't worry about it," he'd say, shrugging. "Just the wind."

He'd bend down and pick a dandelion for you, holding it out between pudgy fingers with a grin that seemed to mimic the cresting moon. 

"For you."

He picked them for three springs before he, too, became another victim of the endless forest. Another empty tomb in the overcrowded graveyard.

Missing, they said, but not forgotten. 

You think about him often. 

(Even more so when you, too, begin to hear your name echoing through the forest.)

Beware the woods, your grandma says. Especially when it calls your name. 

(You never understood why something that sounds so comforting, so sweet, could ever be dangerous. It sounds like an old friend calling you over to play. 

"Never go," she snaps, her hands lashing out to grip your arms tight. You feel her knobby fingers digging into your bones. "Never listen, and stay away—"

"You're hurting me, gran—"

Her rheumy eyes burn into yours. "Stay away—!"

(You wisely never speak about the whispers in your head, keeping them to yourself. A secret just for you.)

You leave town when you're old enough, when the hisses in your head grow too loud to ignore, and it feels as though they're scratching at your skull. 

(Clawing at the walls.)

"Crazy weather, eh?" The first mate mutters nervously, eyes tilted upward as the sky darkens into an angry grey. "Came outta nowhere." 

You leave, and you don't look back. 

(But oh, how the forest screams.)

She calls you back several years later with a phone call. Your gran has passed. 

You think you should mourn, but it's been so long since you thought of home, that you don't remember what she looks like anymore. The sound of her voice is a whisper in your head—the cadence gone, the tone flat. 

But you don't cry, and you don't grieve—she's been dead for a long time now, after all. Ever since your mum went missing all those years ago, she's always seemed more of a ghost than a person. Living as if her body hadn't realised her heart was long dead. 

You go back only because you think your mum would have wanted you to. 

(And pretend it isn't because the silence in your head is suffocating. Without the whispers, it feels as if you're missing something. A part of yourself forever lost in the forest.

You wonder if anyone has found it by now.)

Nothing has changed since you turned your back on the town that raised you, the forest that stole from you. 

It's the same buildings. The same market. The same roads. The same houses. 

The people, too, seem largely unchanged by the years that have passed. 

The friends from your childhood who stayed meet you at the graveyard, eyes filled with sympathy as they ask how you're doing. 

She'll be missed, they lie sweetly to you. Everyone loved her. 

She was a hermit, you want to scream. A woman driven mad by ghosts and fairytales and terror. 

You nod, instead, and let them lead you around the town on a grand tour as if anything about this beautiful, haunting place had changed since you ran away. 

It gets easier to force a smile when they ask if you're okay. 

"Fine," you murmur and wonder if your voice even carries over the whispers. "Just—yeah. Fine."

North of the town is where the river separating the lonely forest carves a path, not at all dissimilar to an idyllic trough, through bedrock and sand, and flows into the sea. 

The estuary is dangerous in high tide when the rapid ascent of water on the sandy shores hides the rip current that is known to form when the two bodies of water meet. 

It's a dangerous place to get caught in. 

This beach was impressed upon you as deadly from a young age, almost in equal—if not greater—measure than the rapacious forest across the river. You know the dangers of standing on the slippery bedrock. 

But as the sun glows a burnt orange in the distance, and the endless ocean before you darkens into an almost unfathomable black, you can't help but find the view from the cliff's edge to be the most mesmerising thing you've ever seen. 

It looks like a painting. A brush stroke of tigers eye in the centre of the cresting sun that gradually fades out into xanthous, and rings of hazy peach; the light of diminishing star smears coruscating rings of persimmons into the indigo water. The gradual fade into gradients as the waves lap closer to the shore is reminiscent of liquid sapphire and smelting amethyst. 

The picturesque view is more befitting of a pastel postcard, an ethereal pastiche of the Ninth Wave—a moment of life imitating art, or—perhaps—the same view Ivan Aivazovsky stumbled upon when he set out to render the haunting beauty of the ocean in oil. 

The cresting waves arch into curled petals of white before setting upon the sloping beach with frenzy. It's the roar of those hungry waves that seem to, if only for a moment, drown out everything in your head. 

There are no whispers. No songs. No screams. Vengeful hissing can't climb to a higher decibel than the frothing waters slamming against jagged bedrock. 

All is quiet—except the sea. 

You lean into it. The closer you get to that precipice, the quieter everything in your head goes. Sounded sucked into the vacuum of the ocean. The endless song of the sea. 

Another step. Another. 

For a moment, you're free. 

The forest doesn't scream for you. Your grandmother doesn't dig her teeth into your gyri, hands clawing at the space behind your eyes. You don't think of her, or your mother, or Gaz, or anyone else unfortunate enough to get consumed by this damnable place where fairy tales split the seams apart, and merge with reality. 

It's peaceful. 

You take another step—

A hand curls over your shoulder, tugging you back. 

Anger pools, thick and acidic, on your tongue, but the flash of your ire, your vexation, is dashed by the sound the waves make when it slams into the spot you were just standing. 

It slashes across the concrete as the stranger pulls you into his broad chest, heat nearly liquifying your spine. 

He sucks in a breath. You feel his chest expand with it. When he breathes out, you taste gunpowder on your tongue. 

"Gotta be more careful n'that, love." 

You've had near-misses before. Flirted with the reaper. Ripped yourself from the jowls of death himself. 

This isn't anything new.

And yet—

Your eyes drag up, meeting flat black boring down at you. His hood is pulled over his forehead, casting shadows down to his jaw. 

"You—"

Your teeth sink into your tongue. Emotions lash through you like the flick of a bullwhip, shredding your skin until it's raw and oozing. The tail pulls away whenever you try to wrap your fingers around one of them—relief: you're not dead; embarrassment: how could you be so stupid; shame: saved by a stranger; and—

Visceral terror. Panic. 

It bludgeons its fist down your throat, barbed knuckles clawing at the soft tissue of your esophagus until you taste blood on your tongue. 

Panic tastes of ozone and leaks, thick and warm like molasse, down your throat. 

"Hey," he murmurs, and the sound of his voice, his low timbre, is porous, calcined. The rough scratch scours through the haze of fear threading through your sternum. "C'mon on, now. Gotta breathe, yeah?" 

It's his hands on your shoulder—hotter than grenade fire—and the thick scent of musk, of stale smoke and kerosene sweat, that break through the gossamer of your acrid panic. He spins you around to face him, eyes fixed on your face. 

"That's it," he says, soft, soothing. "Keep breathin'. You ain't dead yet." 

You come to yourself in pieces. The world bleeds with startling clarity around the blurred edges. Home, you think. Maybe.

Once upon a time. 

You blink. Blink again. 

The hand still on you—heavier, you find, than an anvil—lifts, his thumb brushing over the curve of your jaw, swiping over the sweat-stained skin.

You can't see his eyes through the shadows cast over his face. A stranger. You've never seen him before. 

They didn't say anyone new moved to town. 

"Who are you—?"

"You don't know?" 

And then his hand is gone, taking all the heat in your body with him. 

It lifts to his vest, thick fingers, gloved in yellow, curling over the butt of his cigar. 

You must make a face. A grimace. A whisper of bemusement. Whatever it is, it makes his lips twitch under the shorn burnt umber of his beard. 

"I'd share," he mutters, teething sinking into the hilt as he pats himself down for a lighter. "But I ain't got the time."

"Shouldn't be smoking in a provincial park, anyway." 

The words are dragged out of you. Numbed, gritty. 

It makes him snort. "Maybe—;" he cups his hand around the end, thumb striking the ignition of the lighter. He inhales, and the red circle at the tip illuminates the cerulean blue tucked away into the folds of his hood. The plume of smoke curls over him like a shroud. "But I doubt a cigar is gonna bring the whole forest down, mm? 'sides, we all have our vices, don't we?"

With that, he leaves you standing in the tendrils of smoke that billow out from his caustic mouth. No goodbye. No name. Nothing except the hum of his touch buzzing through your veins. 

Your head is numb. Thoughts congealing into hardened clay. 

Yeah, you think sluggishly, eyes dropping to the drenched pavement where the ocean narrowly missed you. Swallowed you whole. We do. 

(Yours is bad decisions that reek of napalm. 

Men who scour your hands raw when you touch their coarse surface.)

You find him again in some desolate pub on the fringes of town a few days later. It looks like it's one strong gust of wind away from blowing down. Dilapidated. Rusted from the harsh salt of the ocean to the north. 

He lifts his head when you slide into the empty chair on the left, but says nothing about your unexpected company. 

Instead, his lips curl over the cigar sawed between his teeth. A grin, you think. 

You wonder if he was expecting you. 

(Wonder, then, with a touch of something warm gnarling in your belly, if you surprised him.)

The barkeep wanders past, brows lifting at you in question. 

"Um, a vodka soda—"

The man, Price you learned from the locals with a great of digging, snorts. 

"Ain't got none of that here, love. Two scotches. Neat." He leans over, thick fingers grasping the middle of the cigar, an inch away from the bristles on his upper lip, and pulls it away, ashing it in the tray in front of him. "And a bottle of spring water." 

"Scotch?" You echo, leaning your elbow on the sticky counter. He reeks of smoke. Sweat. Blood. Gunpowder. You veer closer, soaking in the astringent tang of him. Everyone on this island smells of daffodils and cotton; clean and neat and innocent. He reeks of danger. Everything inside of you screams to stay away. "I don't drink scotch."

The cigar burns in the tray. He pulls back, shifting in the chair. His elbow rests on the counter, the other arm is slung over the back of his seat. The picture of appeasement, of a satiated tiger eying a little mouse sniffing past it. There's no immediate danger, and his posture is relaxed. Open. But his eyes—

Price turns to you, then. His legs are spread, knees notched apart, taking up more space than you offer him. A looming presence. Dominating. Confident. He's not doing it on purpose, you don't think, he's just—

Big. 

His legs are too long. Thighs are too thick. 

Something gnarls behind your ribs when you take in his bare face. It's different, smaller, without the bulky black hood thrown low on his brow. His hands bare, leaving him in only casual clothes that stretch taut around his broad body. 

The beanie on his head, pulled low on his forehead, makes him look roguish, rough. The picturesque presentation of a bad boy down to the pelt-brown leather Levi jacket stretched taut around his broad shoulders. 

He looks older, somehow, without the tenebrous of night shading him in dark indigo. Aged like a fine whisky. All burnt umber and ivory. 

The charcoal colouring brightens the heavy blue of his eyes—crushed bluebonnets and powdered graphite; a black hole centre—and the frame of his brown lashes dusting over his clean cheeks makes something pool in your lower belly. 

(You wonder if he'd taste of whisky sour.)

"Well," he murmurs, brow lifting. It makes the skin on his forehead crinkle. He has laugh lines cresting around the corners of his eyes. They stand out to you, now. Void of the shadows you're used to. "You do when I'm paying."

The scotch, the cigar, the dingy pub that reeks of stale cigarettes and is perfumed in a dusting of nicotine that films every surface coalesces into incipient vice. 

His hand moves from where it's loosely curled around his glass, and rests, heavy and warm, on your thigh. 

When he leans in, you taste calcine on his breath. 

The acrid tang is a balm to the blisters in your raw esophagus. You meet him in the middle, smaller hands curling over the wool lapels of his jacket, tugging him into you. 

"Never thanked you for saving me," you murmur, his beard grazing your lips. A tickle. A brush. 

Price sucks in a deep breath, eyes liquifying into an intense azure. "No need to thank me, love. As much as I love the ocean, you don't belong there, do you? No," he adds, decisively. Sure. "You belong on land. The earth. You're wild, like the forest, aren't you?"

It's an out. An escape. An option to flee from the cosm that folds around you like a nebulous cloud. 

You could take it. Back up, away. Walk out of this dingy pub on the wrong side of town, and forget the man who reeks of nicotine, smoke; who leaves ashes behind on your skin when he touches you. 

The only one who stares at you from the unfathomable black of his eyes, lashes shrouded in tenebrous, and makes you falter. Makes your heart lurch, jumping to sit at the bottom of your throat.

You should pull away. Stay away from the man who leaks ethanol and nitroglycerine. From the man who smells of acrid smoke. Gunfire. 

You should. 

But your fingers tighten in the lapels of his jacket, pulling him closer. Closer. 

The bridge of his nose is warm when it presses against your own. 

His eyes spark, wildfires. A blazing forest. 

"You said something about vices." His chest rumbles in response to your hushed words. 

"So I did." 

Smoke singes your nose when you brush your lips over his. Warm. Chapped. Dry. You taste ash. Humus. The bitter tang of dandelion oil. 

"Got some time tonight?" 

"Thought you said I shouldn't be smoking."

"We're not in a park, near flammable trees," your hand falls to his chest. His heart thuds beneath your palm. Thick, full. Your eyes lift to his, lidded and heavy. You gaze at him from under your lashes, coy. Demure. You wonder if he can see how eager you are beneath the sly cut of your lids. "Are we, Price?"

The use of his name makes his lips quirk. A small, secretive thing that you can't read. 

"No, we're not." His hand slides down, curling over your knee. "Don't know what you're gettin' into, love." 

"Oh, no?" You taunt, breathless. Even through all your layers, you still feel his searing heat on your skin. His eyes drop when your tongue lashes out, wetting your lower lip. "And what's that?" 

A frisson shudders over his face. Lashes fluttering. He leans forward, resting the rim of his beanie on your forehead. 

When his eyes slide open, all you see is arsenic white pooled around Prussian blue. "More than you could ever dream of." 

Your trembling fingers curl into the lapels of his jacket. For leverage, maybe; or to hide the quiver in your joints from his widening eyes. 

And so, you kiss him. 

A messy punch to the mouth with your sun-blistered lips. 

His mouth parts, wry curls flutter when he inhales sharply. And then—

He devours you. 

It's messy. More sealed lips glueing together than it ever could be considered a proper kiss, but it feels more like a homecoming than stepping off the boat, and you tuck that inside your pounding chest. 

(The whispers in your head seem to sing when his lips touch yours.)

You taste bark on your tongue when it slips over his. Loam. Moss. Something earthy and rich. His beard scratches your chin, your lips, but you pull him closer, hungry for more—for the taste of wilderness on his tongue, for the respite from the whispers, the screams. Like the ocean, he, too, is a vacuum, swallowing everything whole until just you remain, stripped down to nothing but sensation and want. Bare, raw. 

Your teeth ache when you pull away, fingers curling into the coarse hair along his chin. The whips of his wry curls scratch your palm. 

You never want to let go. 

Price's eyes are noctilucent clouds; a storm over a rainforest. He'll ruin you. Devour. Destroy. Take, and take, and take until there is nothing left. 

Your lips tremble when you speak, words tremulous with your desire, your eagerness, when they slip past your bruised mouth. 

"I can think of a few that are better than smoking." 

Price shudders. 

"Where did you go?" Your friend asks, eyes swinging from the cards spread out in front of him—the Idiot, Solitaire—to you. They burn into the side of your face, the same place Price touched with bare knuckles, and said you belong to the forest, don't you? "Missed dinner."

You ate Doro Wat in a small shop after Price fucked you stupid in the dingy bathroom of the pub, face scraping against the waterlogged wallpaper that chipped with each brutal thrust of his hips. 

Like that, hmm? Can barely take me, love, but you're so fuckin' greedy for it, ain't you? 

You're sure the barkeep heard your moans as they bounced off the jaundiced walls. 

(You still hear him hissing in your ear. Still feel him splitting you apart.)

You try not to shiver. 

"Ate already," you shrug, bundling your sleep clothes tight in your trembling hands. When you stand, his eyes follow you. "So. Um—"

"You okay?" 

"Yeah," you say, shifting on the balls of your feet. "I've—" You think of his eyes, gyre white, and wonder if this is what it feels like to get swallowed by the sea. "I've never been better."

"Good," he says, smiling. "I worry about you, you know?"

You nod. "Yeah," you say. "Me, too."

You break apart in the shower, falling into pieces as you make yourself finish, thinking about nothing but the phantom stretch of his cock seated deep inside of you, the taste of his come pooling on your tongue.

It balms the residual burn in your esophagus, and you know, then, when you throb, still wanting his touch on your skin, that you've always been terrible at telling yourself no. 

It can't happen. It can't.  

There's a strange magnetism about him—an uncanny sense of mystery and familiarity sutured together. 

It feels a little bit like staring at the looming maw, the event horizon, of a black hole. Unfathomable black. No way out. 

There's something that feels a bit like forewarning inside your chest when he brushes against you, and presses his lips on the skin behind your ear—a secret place only he knows, where only his fingerprints have ever been. You feel his touch even when he's gone. Haunted by the memory of his rough hands and rasping tenor. 

Running would make sense, you think, watching the ferries come and go. You have enough money for a ticket, and you've yet to even unpack your bag. 

You don't know who he is, but you've given him everything. All of it. There's nothing left inside of you to hand over, but he keeps looking at you as if he's waiting for more. 

"Waiting for a ride?" 

You glance back at the operator with a divot between your brow and cotton inside your ears. 

You want to say yes, but you shake your head instead. 

"No." I can't leave. "Just enjoying the view."

You find birch branches stripped of leaves, juniper berries, maple leaves, spindles of dogwood, bushels of fir, and bouquets of bog rosemary, northern bluebell, fireweed, and wintergreen on your doorstep each morning, laid gently against the old welcome mat. 

You should toss them out, and throw them away. How does he know where you live, anyway? It would make the most sense; be the wisest decision. 

Instead, you tuck them inside your notebook, pressing them against the pages where they'll be safe. 

(You try not to think too much about why they never die.)

It happens again. And again. Again—

It becomes a ritual for the few months you're back in town. The leaves, twigs, petals, pines, and seeds all show up at your door each morning and come nightfall, you're drawn to him like a moth to a flame. 

He finds the nastiest looking pub in the city, and you find him there after dark. 

He sits, smokes a cigar. Orders two scotches, and a bottle of spring water. Teaches you how to drink it properly—none of that sugary cocktail shite; just pure whisky, love, as it should be—and lets you puff on the damp end of his cigar, eyes gleaming in the soft yellow light above as he takes in the way your lips curl over the wet tip.

He stares at you like he's indulging you. 

Like he knows. 

And maybe, he does. 

Maybe he sees the way your jaw works, tongue lashing over the tip just to chase his taste. The heat in your cheeks, your eyes, as you gaze at him, open and raw and wanting. The way you list toward him. Eager for it. For him. His touch, his smell. 

He must, you think, but he's a right bastard. 

He doesn't give it until the end of the evening, when everyone has gone home. When it's just you and him and the barkeep that glowers at you something ugly when you stand on shaky legs, and whisper you're going to the washroom. 

Your fingers curl over the chipped porcelain, back arched as you stare at the face in the mirror. 

You can't remember if it's you. 

Whisky has polluted your synapses. The thick scent of smoke, the tobacco from the cigar, has congealed into resin over that little bundle of axons and nerves that control your impulse, logic. 

Stupid. 

You stare at the thing in the mirror, and wonder if the basal want on your face was so apparent to him as it is to you. If he saw the dark gleam of hunger, greed, impatience, swimming in your ink-smudged depths. 

The door rattles. Clicks. 

The squeak of the hinges is the only warning you get before Price is there, liquified in the doorway and clouded in smoke. 

His hand curls over the worn, peeling frame. Eyes dance with the same hunger, same want, as the ones that flicker across the surface of the mirror. 

"Couldn't wait for me, eh, love?" He breathes, his chest expands with his exhale. Scenting you, you think. You wonder if he can smell the slick pooling in your panties. The desperation brimming in your veins. "Wanted it that bad, huh?"

He moves. A mountain of a man now filling up the entirety of your gaze until all you see is him. 

You used to want to climb mountains. In training, they always warned of summit fever. Of that little part of your head that just wanted it to be over, to reach the very top of the precipice. Impatient, it couldn't wait. It made you spring up, and climb higher and higher before you were ready, prepared. 

You think of it now when your hands lift, curling over his broad shoulders. 

("Summit fever will get you killed," they say.)

"Just shut up and fuck me, Price." 

His eyes flash. "Greedy little thing, aren't you?"

You are. Painfully so. 

It etches in your ribs like a sickness, festering in your mouldering bones. Rotting you from the inside out. 

A crutch in the searing heat of skin, sweat, and sin. The feeling of him taking you apart, breaking you down into atoms and molecules that bubble in the lining of your head becomes so commonplace, so often forget who you are when you're pushed up against a wall, being filled to the brim by him.

He leaves madness behind when he goes, and the world that divides fantasy from reality begins to crack, to splinter. 

You hear his voice in your head late at night when the wind blows through the window, carrying the scent of the forest.

"Come home," he rasps in your ear. 

The scratch of his beard seems to scrape against the little thread keeping you tied down to reality. It's frayed and worn by his hands. You wonder when he'll sink his teeth in the silk, and snap the line. Untethering you from your binds.

Come home to me. Come back to where you belong—

Price takes you out to dinner three months after this—whatever it is—starts. After your house becomes more of a garden, writ with the wild remnants of the forest, after each passing day. Full of bushes, and branches. Twigs and precious gems. He gives you raw gold, and open geodes full of amethyst, and sapphire. Canopy leaves, and bark from the trees. 

He leaves a whittled deer made from the red wood of a giant sequoia, and the likeness of the little fawn makes you believe that one day, it'll come to life in your living room.

(You leave a dish of water near the doorway—just in case—and wonder if you're becoming just as mad as your gran.)

He shows up at your doorstep, the bleached antlers of a great pronghorn in his hands. It's decorated with vines and moss weaved over the ivory in intricate braids and knots that you can't even begin to unravel. You marvel at the gift as he tells you he's taking you out for dinner. 

There is no discussion. He doesn't ask, he just—

Does. 

"Found a spot," he says, arms crossed over his broad chest. The cable-knit sweater pulls, stretched taut over his bulk. "Think you'd like it."

You don't know what to say. The antlers feel heavier in your hands, and warm to the touch. You try not to shiver when you set it down beside the little fawn.

"Oh," you say, but know you've never turned him down yet. It's all—

So much. 

Your home is slowly becoming one with nature, with vines growing on the walls in great blooms of wisteria and lilac; the old floor boards under your feet shudder and creak as little saplings sprout through the cracks. You wake up at night and taste earth in your throat, feel the grass beneath your fingers. The breeze in your hair. The call of an arctic tern. 

You dream of running through the forest. Of being chased. You breathe and feel the little seeds inside of your lungs start to take root. Soon you'll bloom with dandelions.

"Okay," you say, and wonder if the madness rummaging around your head will turn into a beautiful sequoia in the end. "Let's go."

The tavern is busy on a weeknight, crowded with a swell of mainlanders who'd ventured out for a camping trip over the long weekend. 

You sit with your back straight, and listen to him talk about a hike he wants to take with you in the morning. Through the woods, he says, and you don't ask which one. You know. You know. 

(It's time. It's time.)

There are alarm bells ringing in your head, but they're drowned out by the crooning whispers. 

But the line is only frayed and worn, and despite the lure in his voice, the itch in your head to say yes, you hesitate. Falter. 

The woods are dangerous. 

You don't want to go. 

He seems to sense it. His brows knot together. 

"You want to, don't you?" 

You fiddle with your napkin and try not to meet his arsenic stare. "It's… dangerous."

"I'll keep you safe."

"It's probably time for me to leave, anyway." 

The air in the room turns frigid all at once. You think you can see white plumes of condensation when you shakily breathe out, teeth chattering. 

"Price—"

"Didn't wanna do this, love," he says, voice hushed. Barely a whisper. His eyes are lavascapes. "But you ain't givin' me much of a choice, are you?"

"What—?"

The words die on your tongue when movement flashes in the corner of your eye. A man weaves, liquid, through the mindless crowd, cutting a path like the parting red sea. 

His eyes are honeycombs. In his hand, he holds a limp dandelion. 

It takes you a moment to make out the strange man who looms in the background. A splash of colour among sfumato. 

It's Gaz.

The childish swell of his cheeks has sunken into angled, sharp bone. Slender fingers twirl the flower around, around, around—

It's hypnotic. You stare, horrified and awed—a strange amalgam of emotions that slip down your spine: worry, elation, panic, comfort—as his pink lips part into an easy, familiar grin. The cresting sun breaching the horizon. Eyes slanting in playful derision. 

He looks like he's torn between telling a joke and spitting vitriol. Making you laugh, and then making you cry. 

It buzzes in the air, electrified fingers dancing down your spine, and then just as quickly as the boy who disappeared reemerges into the land of the living, into this bastardised reality, he gives one last sharp, fanged grin, a mordant wink, and then he's gone.

He slips through the door, and without hesitating, you give chase. 

Price says nothing when you go. Or maybe he does, but you can't hear anything except the rustling of leaves in your head. 

Gaz, it whispers. Gaz, Gaz, Gaz.

(It's time for the lost little boy to come home.)

The rocks sit in a zigzag pattern through the frothing waters, a deceptive bridge that connects the valley to the coast. You feel the tremulous rattle of the water slicing against the hollow cavern beneath your feet. A ledge chiselled from the blunt erosion of the rapid currents below. One day, they say, the granite shelf will give and a massive hole filled with howling water will fill it. 

Try not to be the idiot standing on the ledge. 

You feel the power of the currents even on the peat-covered edge. 

The water in front of you is deceptive. A calm, rolling surface at the shoreline almost seems to beckon you inside. Come take a dip in the cool waters. Grow fins and gills and chase the river otters through the currents. Feast on the wily salmon, and see if your feet can touch the sandy streambed. 

But the river's fatality is nearly assured. No one has survived a dip in these waters that act as a serrated knife, carving chasms and channels through the granite below. The currents will rip into you, pulling you until your body is crushed against the wall, or into an unsearchable cave. 

One slip, you think. Just one. 

But—

The man in the bar flickers through your mind. His honeycomb eyes, fanged grin. Ethereal in his beauty like a painting of a god in oil and raw canvas. Carved likeness of a Stygian prince. 

It was Kyle. It was Gaz. You know it. Know it deep within your bones, your marrow.

Taking the first step to the jutting slate that peaks just a few precious inches from the raging waters is easier, then, when you think of the boy who plucked a dandelion from the earth, and tucked it behind your ear. It makes the risk less daunting when it's for him. 

For his parents who sunk into themselves, into the crater his absence left behind. A deep depression into the earth that swallowed them whole.

They moved last year after laying down a bouquet of flowers at the mouth of the forest. 

You toe your shoes off, leaving them at the embankment, and then you leap. The perch is slick with waterlogged moss, slimy. It wobbles under you, but you catch yourself, stabilising. Steady. You huff. One down, four more to go. 

Up close, they look so far apart. A chasm between each rock. An endless abyss that will rip you into pieces. 

Still. Still. You have to find him. Have to. 

You step, toes sliding in the algae. The rock beneath is stained green. It wobbles again when you bring your other foot down on top of it. The loud clack of rock scraping against rock is heard, unmuffled by the roaring water that tugs on the stone. You feel the push against your feet. 

Two more. Two more. 

You take another step, and then—

You fall—

The world drips into focus, a steady trickle of cognisance that paints the world in shades of greens and browns. An eagle soars above the canopy, their shadow swooping through the thick tangle of conifers reaching to the heavens.

The bed of moss beneath you is damp—lush with dew and softer than your mattress at home. You sink into the ground when you breathe, caught in an embrace. The vines curl over your wrists, your ankles, as if refusing to let go. 

It should scare you—and maybe it does—but there's something against your head, fingers digging into your temples, and you feel nothing except a warm serenity leaking in. Thought spool into liquid gold, threads that weave together in a knotted clump. Indistinguishable from each other, and unreachable when they slip deeper into the honeyed-thick fog that curls around your mind. A temper from logic, from fear. Anything that isn't pure, artificial comfort is filtered through and cast aside. 

You don't know why you're here. 

One moment, you felt the coils of the raging currents sinking its claws into your flesh, pulling you under the deep waters, and then—

Heat on your face. The sun's desperate attempt to filter through the corded canopy and touch the forest floor. The shrill call of an eagle on the prowl. The tender caress of the moss below cushions your body. 

You should be underwater. Pressed tight against the side of the rocks until you were swept downstream and spat out in the inlet, waterlogged and dead. 

You draw humid air into your lungs until it swells against your ribcage. The steady thud of your heart tells you that somehow, somehow, you're alive. An empty brag—thud, thud; thud, thud—that seems to call out to the birds in the emergent layer, the ones nestled in their branches as they watch your feeble attempt to reconcile how you survived. 

It's strange, you think, but the soporific warmth coursing through your veins does not let you panic. 

You are—

"Foolish." 

The warmth turns molten. You try to sit up, but the vines tighten around your limbs. If you weren't so vulnerable, you think it would almost feel like a hug. 

The soft crunch of the moss tells you the voice—the man—is moving forward, toward you. You want to scream, but your tongue is thick, and your mouth is numb. 

"What you did there was stupid," he says, and the forest around you seems to come alive in his anger. Pulsing. The branches sway and the leaves rattle without any wind. The trees bend down, coming inward. You hear the scream of a fox in the distance. The chuff of an agitated brown bear. 

Primordial signs tell you to run.

But you're trapped. 

Price steps closer, falling to his knees beside you. You can see him now, and suddenly you wish you'd been swallowed by the waves. 

His face is writ with anger, brows tightening together in displeasure. 

He seems imbued with the forest. One with the lush green that swells around you. Burnt umber and icy blue. Ethereal, unnatural. Something in your hindbrain tells you to run from that man that looks as if he could swallow you whole.

"Tryin' t'die on me, hmm?" 

His hand lifts, and you feel his warm knuckles graze your temple. Soft, gentle, despite the ire in his eyes, and the irritation clenched in his jaw. 

"Gonna hav'ta try harder than that, love." 

You weren't trying very hard at all, you think, dazed, dizzy. You weren't trying at all. 

"You're mine," his eyes flash, and you feel the press of gravity against your skin, pulling you down to the soft earth. Your fingers twitch. The fog inside your head clears. 

Blinking up at him, you catch the scattering supernovae echoing in the corners of his eyes; galaxies of pine and cedar, humus and tussock. They bloom from the black hole in the centre, surrounded by sapphire blue. He's not human, you think, but it doesn't surprise you because you already knew. Have known, really—ever since you asked around for his name and watched the same strange fog seep into their eyes as they struggled to remember a man they claimed to know. 

Ever since you found bushels of figs on your doorstep. 

A crown of pine needles and crow feathers. 

Price leans over you, brows knotted together like the gnarled, weaving trunk of a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine. 

There's a forest fire in his eyes. "You're mine, aren't you?" 

You think about the trinkets left on your doorstep. The whispers, the screams. 

"Did you ever give me a choice?" 

The tension in his brow snaps taut. Agony frissons through the spaced canyons; whet from ire and slick from sorrow. He bends down, and shakes his head. 

"I've always given you a choice," his words are smouldering logs, crackling with his pain. "I've always told you to go, but you couldn't stay away, could you?"

Price takes you on the mossy forest floor, fingers digging into the peat as you sink, down, down, down—

His hand under your head, cradling the back of your skull, keeps you from getting swallowed by the grass knoll that breathes and trill against your spine. 

Fire licks in the crevasses of his eyes, molten desperation you can't ignore. He rages above you, quivering in the fading glow of the sunset struggling to slip through the canopy. No longer a man but a myth. He hangs over you with his canines bared, and flashes of anger and sorrow scorch the path his teeth leave behind on your skin. 

You're becoming unmoored. Each touch, and brush; each sweep of his tongue soothing the indents of his razor-sharp teeth all seem to loosen the ties that thread through your soul, anchoring you to the world that stands in full bloom before you. 

The forest shudders with his frantic pace; each piston of his hips leaks his fervent anguish and makes the trees croon, and creak as they bow their foliage in sorrow. His pain lashes through their roots, and rent the air in two. A fox mourns his loss in the distance. A wolf yowls in agony. His brethren lifting their muzzle to the sleepy moon, and howling out the melody of their despair. 

It's too much, too much, and you fall into pieces in his hands, shivering beneath him as the woods around you tremble and quake. It's a mesmerising dance. 

He finishes with a grunt that makes the world shudder anew, spending himself as deep inside of you as he can, as if he could overwrite your empty spaces with himself. Fill you to the brim until you are bursting with him, with life. Tulips for your eyes. Furze for veins. Moss for hair. Peat soil for blood. 

When he speaks, the world falls silent. 

"You don't know it yet, but you will. You've always been mine. Always belonged to the forest, to the earth. To me."

Despite his words, he lets you go. 

And you run, run, run—

Your toes dig into the wet soil near the stream. The desperate catapult across the ravine halted at the very last moment, leaving you winded and shaking. Hands clenched into tight balls by your side. Quivering with fear, with the adrenaline rush still roaring in your veins. 

You don't know what you're doing. 

The whispers in your head go silent. 

The absence of sound makes you mourn, and you think about his agony. The pain when he took you, the resignation when he let you go. 

You think of him, and you know. 

I've always told you to go, but you couldn't stay away, could you?

You scent napalm in the air, cloying despite the acrid burn that scalds your lungs when you breathe in deep, holding it there. 

You think of the chest inside your closet. The pieces of yourself you left behind. The way he fits you like a puzzle, like he was made for you. Designed with your rough edges in mind. Softening your hard lines; scouring your gritty surface it was smooth and shiny like fire Opal and precious gems. 

Ever since you felt his hand on your shoulder, you haven't been able to let go. 

(You don't even think you ever really tried.)

Come to me, the forest says, honey in your ears. It sounds like the rapid beat of a million birds' wings, ready to take flight. Pulsing and alive and full of wonder, childish glee. 

The earth blooms in your chest. You feel the soft, tender caress of the leaves against your skin, the moss sinking between your toes. Clinging to your flesh, desperate to get inside, and take refuge in your heart. Come home to us.

Your grandmother warned you to stay out of the forest, that it was dangerous. Deadly. Wrong. But how can it ever harm you when it touches you so sweetly? 

The branches curl around your ankles as you walk, leading you, guiding you, to the place where you belong. The forest opens around you, spreads apart and makes room for you to pass, touching you as you go, taking little pieces of you. Strands of your hair, the salt from your tears. Pieces of clothes. Parts of your soul. 

You pluck your heart out of your chest, and leave it beneath a gnarled sequoia. She will protect it forever. 

Moss grows inside of the empty space. A tern makes a nest inside of it, filling it with a bed of pine needles, and twigs from the junipers. You feel a mouse make a home in your rib cage, burrowing between your bones. You place your hand over your side, and feel her nuzzle against your palm. 

"You're safe now," you say. "We're almost home."

It's Gaz who greets you with a crown made of sugi. When he cups your face, you feel raging rivers and streams in his palms, and now that you are home. 

"Missed you, dandelion," he breathes, and his voice turns into a Chinook that crests over the mountains. "But there's someone who wants to see you."

His hands slide down to your wrists, and you feel the sun grazing your skin when he spins you around, around, around—

"Now," he leans down, pressing his lips to the shell of your ear. You hear the Falcons nesting in his chest, and smell pine in his breath. "He's been an impatient bastard, you know? Just moping about ever since you left—"

A scoff. You lift your head and feel the swell of the earth beneath your feet. Dizzying. Wanting. 

He waits for you in the thicket, eyes made of sapphire and stone. When he breathes, the forest swells with his breath, and you taste loam when you swallow. 

"A sorry sap, thinkin' you were runnin' away, and all. But you won't, will you?" Gaz pushes you forward, and his laughter rings in your ears. "Not anymore."

Price meets you in the middle, his eyes sparkling embers. A baptism in fire. You feel the heat on your skin, and shiver. 

You used to be afraid of forest fires, but you know, now, that sometimes trees need to burn before they can truly grow. 

Lodgepole roots bud under his skin, rippling veins across a ravine. He rests his hand against your cheek, thumb brushing the dawn redwood needles that bloom under your skin. 

"Welcome home."

"They'll give you gifts," your gran says, shaking her head. "Things from their realm. Little trinkets and gems—" geodes, sapphires and diamonds, raw gold and coral; "—and you must never accept them," a whittled deer made of sequoia under your pillow; crow bones buried in the garden."Because if you do, if you do, they'll never let you go." 

"Why?" You asked, blinking at her. 

"Because it's a courting ritual, and to accept means… well," her mouth twists in wry disdain. "Just don't." 

You don't tell her that you already have. You don't mention the sticks and precious stones that always ended up on your windowsill. The whispers of the forest calling your name. 

You nod sagely instead, fingers tightening around the sap stained heart chiselled from Bristlecone Pine. The charred ends are warm in your palm. You feel it pulse. 

Will you accept this? My heart? Will you keep it safe for me? 

"I will."

This was meant to be light and fluffy and smutty but now it's. This. And um. Oops. I hope you enjoyed it!

JOHN PRICE MASTERLIST | NAVIGATION PART THREE OF COD X MYTHOLOGY ⁞ SOAP ● DRAGON PRICE

#captain john price #captain john price x reader #john price #john price x you #john price x reader #captain price x reader #captain price x you #fae price #cod x mythology #bhhhhhhhh #ive been in halifax for the last week and it's been kinda rainy and weird and this was born

[mur4qw]

Any headcanons for Doe with a s/o that loves to draw him? (Artist!Reader)

that's gonna be cute for sure.

#_ headcanons for john doe & artist! reader.

• we all perfectly know that doe loves people, interested in them and their creativity especially. creativity helps doe to feel people much more than philosophy or something like that.

• you artist? you can see sparkles in his eyes.

• doe loves any of your arts, no matter where you made your drawings (i mean...even on fcking toilet paper), your skill would not matter to him. everything you did - automatically wonderful.

• "huh? y-you wanna draw me?" and then he just goes crazy.

• at first doe will be very shy, and then he will wonder if he is even good enough for your drawing? but you quickly drive away all bad thoughts from him.

• john won’t move while you’re drawing, but every five minutes he will excitedly ask “is it ready? can i see it? please please please?”

• he will like any result, he will keep it somewhere in his personal belongings.

• do you need references of poses, emotions, or any part of the body? john will definitely help. for him it will only be a joy.

• most likely, during the drawing process, he will be endlessly happy and will not stop smiling, because your gaze is focused only on him and he really likes it.

• one day he'll want to draw you some cute art of you two as a gift, but it will look like children's scribbles - hella cute.

• when you draw a landscape, for example, john will watch with adoration how your hand moves smoothly from side to side. it's so hypnotic for him.

• "i love love love you and your art so much, dear!"

#johndoegame #headcanon #john doe #john doe horror game #john doe x reader #john doe x you #johndoeheadcanons #mortisfox

[sibelin]

I don't want people to reblog that AI art post so I'll put my addition here:

One thing that will always make me cringe with those AI imitations of middle to late 19th century art is how the intelligence will always try to match ALL the women figures with the current 21th century beauty standards. Now, of course, I wouldn't be complaining if these kind of images weren't plaguing the "classical art" or "oil painting" tags. But since they are, I will show you what 19th century painting of women really looks like. And yeah, I know, some paintings match with current beauty standards but it's still more complicated than that. "Classic" painting is not all about representing pretty ladies. Otherwise historians of art would be bored.

Okay, if it's a "classic" painting, let's go with neoclassicism which is basically a return to the classic inspirations from antiquity and a return to simplicity after years of the wild Baroque and Rococo of the 18th century. Want to see portraits of women in that time?

(Left : Detail of Portrait de madame de Verninac by Jacques-Louis David, 1979. Right : Portrait de Madame Duvaucey, 1809, Jean-Dominique Ingres).

So far, notice how these two women don't look at all like the women in those fake AI paintings. They are portraits of real women, thus real models. But even when they were painting gods, 19th century painters HAD models! Not only that, they were also inspired by antiquity, which wasn't really doing realism either, they had their own ideals like, to cite one exemple, the really straight noses you always see in greek statues. Well, that's also in neoclassical paintings! Look:

(Detail of La Mélancolie by Constance Marie Charpentier, 1801)

On the other side, you've got two strong opponents (and logical responding movements) to this return to classical culture : Romantism and Realism. Once again, look at the diversity :

(Left: Details of Les foins by Jules Bastien-Lepage, 1877. Right: Jeune orpheline au cimetière, Eugène Delacroix, 1824.)

Realism is pretty self-explanatory. The painters were going back to show normal people, farmers and workers. They weren't here to make them beautiful or to conform to beauty standards but to show the world as it is. Result was a lot of controversies, notably with Courbet and Les baigneuses, a representation of a strong woman in an unflatering pose and dirt on her feet that shook the beauty standards so dear to the academic ideals of his times. Check it out if you're interested, there's plenty of articles about it. And romanticism? Once again very diverse. Just look at pre-romantism, with Goya, who loooved representing fucked up little scenes. Or with Delacroix, here with one of his most famous portrait (Jeune orpheline au cimetière) probably because of the expression, the pose, everything that makes that girl look alive, real, unique.

But wait.... You've already seen classical paintings were the ladies looked like all the ladies nowadays, right? Maybe you've seen those very pretty pre raphaelites paintings with those women that look kinda like Florence Welch. Maybe you've seen academic art, the most palatable of 19th century style when it comes to beauty norms. And it's true, it could be similar to these prompted AI classical babes, except once again, it's not. Because once again, they had models, and models were different from paintings to paintings. And this is this systematic same face vibes that makes AI so boring. Because even when real historical art comes close to that, it is always way way way more rich and full of surprises.

(left : The North-West Passage by John Everett Millais, 1878. Middle: Detail of Contemplation by John William Godward, 1922. Right: Detail of La Naissance de Vénus by William Bouguereau, 1879)

Then, you have all these art styles that AI weirdly stays away from : those where the style and process is so strong, so much more important than the subject, that it would be hard to copy without noticing the difference. It could be impressionism, it could be symbolism or better, it could be the avant-garde artists that announces then blends into the wild, colorful and tortured art of the first half of the 20th century.

(Left: Le chemin de fer by Edouard Manet, 1973. Middle: I lock my door upon myself by Fernand Khnopff, 1891, Right: Jane Avril by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, 1892)

Conclusion/ TLDR : If fake historical AI art becomes more realistic every day, it will never be as rich and diverse as the real deal because it will always be used to appease an algorithm for people who just want to see pretty images that catters to them and never challenge their views. When it comes to beauty norm, this could be dangerous and make people believe that these was always how women looked like. That all girls were born with removed buccal fat and symmetrical faces, even in old paintings. I don't know, it may be nothing, but it may be something. Thank you for those who read all that and I hope see many cool paintings in museums :)

Addition: This is of course a very european centric vision of art but it's what the AI will take inspiration from anyway. For the same reasons, these paintings are very white but I was also trying to avoid the icky orientalist representations that were so trendy in the 19th century. Note that there is an even better diversity in paintings when you open your eyes to non-european centric art.

(If I see a terf reblogging this, i'm blocking on sight)

#history of art #art #classical art #paintings #anti AI #ai #long post

[seaslugfanclub]

Time In the Spotlight

“(Y/N) dear, what’s gotten into you?” Captain Hook spoke for the room, filled with his fellow villains, who all shared the same looks of frustration and confusion.

They had all just finished with that claustrophobic group photo, their cheeks still hurting from forced smiles, when (Y/N) wormed their way into the dispersing crowd, asking all the villains to follow them.

“Yeah kid, I’ve been surrounded by enough people for a lifetime, if I have to hear any more singing I’m going to scream.” Hades added, picking his ear as if he could get the song physically out of his head.

(Y/N) had managed to wrangle everyone into a spare auditorium in the studio that was usually reserved for tours. They had even taken the time to thaw out Hans, who still had one of (Y/N)’s spare jackets wrapped around him.

Sensing the crowds impatience, (Y/N) gave a crooked grin.

“I know, I know! Sorry!! This won’t take long, but that’s kinda the reason I brought you all here.”

Looking around at the Villains confused looks, they elaborate, pulling out their phone.

“I thought it’d be nice if there was a photo taken of all you guys alone. Disney wouldn’t be anywhere without its villains, y’know? Give everyone their own time in the spotlight”

The room fell silent, surprise painted usually stoic demeanors.

“You’re not fucking with us, right?” Rourke called out, not used to being acknowledged.

(Y/N) shook their head, motioning to their phone,

“I know it’s not fancy like Goofys, but I promise I won’t drop it.”

A beat of silence passed, until a raggedy fox spoke up, “Well who are we to deny our audience!? Gideon step closer to me.” Honest John pulled his cat companion closer to him. That seemed to break everyone out of their shock, chuckles filling the auditorium as villains began to preen and prop. (Y/N) even helping Ratigan find a spot where he wouldn’t be overlooked, much to his delight.

After a couple minutes of getting situated, all the villains found their desired spots. The humans in one group and animals in another, with Chernabog looming above them all.

(Y/N) stood in front of them all, phone raised to their eye.

“Alright everyone, on the count of three!”

“One!”

Hades drooped his arm around Jafar with a grin, Jafar only huffing in annoyance.

“Two!”

Honest John removed his hat, his hand sneakily drifting towards King Johns back pocket.

“Three!”

Queen Grimhilde stood proudly, her lips slightly upturned.

(Y/N)’s phone flashed, a small click following as they took the photo, their own smile painted their face.

Everyone left their spots to crowd around (Y/N)’s phone, some complimenting the photo while some criticized their poses. But the air was light (as light as villains could be)

“Ugh, I blinked!!”

“Nonsense DeVille, you looks fine.”

“Look at us, we look great!”

“No one looks greater than Gaston! But yes, it’s a fine picture”

“Has anyone seen my wallet?”

Through the voices a hand was placed on top of (Y/N)’s shoulder, turning around their eyes met with Hades grin.

“But really babe, thanks.”

(Y/N) smiled up at him, already planning on finding the closest printer.

#disney #disney x reader #disney imagine #disney villains #disney ursula #disney jafar #disney hades #tgmd #self insert #honest john #once upon a studio

[thedemoninme141]

Blade Of Miquella Chapter 10: Remember Me My Woe.

Summary: A life spent with Wednesday... but a death left unshared. Warnings: ANGST! HEAVY ANGST! HeartWarmingMoments, EmotionallyWhippedWednesday!!! Previous Chapter 👉 Here Blade Of Miquella Chapter-List 👉 Here "Would you mind if I sit here?" You opened your eyes to see the braided girl. A playful smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you leisurely unfurled your eyes, acknowledging her with a glance. "Yes, I would mind." you retorted in a jesting tone, a smirk playing on your lips. "Pity, It seems fate has already conspired against your preferences." Her words carried an undertone of amusement as she settled herself beside you, seamlessly claiming her place in your tranquil haven. "You aren't like the other students," she remarked, a wisp of nostalgia in her voice. It was a playful attempt to recreate the memory of your initial encounter, a memory that you held dear. "Neither are you." You smiled. Her next words bore a hint of whimsy, a spark of lightheartedness that underscored the gravity of her statement.  "It seems the threads of fate have woven us together, doesn't it?" The distance between you closed as she leaned in, capturing your lips in a tender kiss, a silent affirmation of the bond that had steadily grown between you.

It has been a week since you were discharged from the hospital, and Wednesday remained a constant presence by your side. Her typewriter found a new home in your room, a testament to the intimacy that had taken root between you. Since you had one less period than her you waited under your maple tree that had become both of yours since she also spent the lunch time with you there.

As Wednesday felt the gentle weight of your head against her shoulder, a rare sensation of lightness enveloped her. The touch of your skin against hers never failed to stir a warm feeling within her otherwise cold and unyielding heart. Even within this moment of tranquillity, her thoughts meandered back to the private conversation she had shared with your brother the previous night.

The moonlight had cast a soft glow as they spoke, the gravity of the topic hanging between them like a shroud. John, your steadfast and devoted brother, deserved to be informed, despite the heavy burden of truth it carried. He had the right to know. "So... you think there is no cure for her?" John sighed. "I can't claim certainty, but it appears more likely that it's neither a malady nor a curse. Y/n and this entity Malenia... their souls are intricately intertwined, each reliant on the other's existence," Wednesday's voice carried a weight of sorrow. The truth pained her as much as it did him, but the revelation was necessary, he was risking his life to find a cure after all. "Did you tell her yet?" John's inquiry cut through the heavy air, his concern mirroring her own. "No, I couldn't, I..." Wednesday couldn't find the right words. "Because you're not ready to shatter the hope she clings to." John's words held a profound understanding. "And neither am I," he added "So, would you still tell her?" Wednesday's question hung in the air, a plea for guidance, a plea for your sake. "I don't think I have the strength to do so." he confessed, his voice tinged with the burden of his emotions. He looked at Wednesday, "You don't have the strength either, right?" He asked, Wednesday looked down and nodded. "What are you going to do now?" she asked. "Even if there is no cure for her, the Golden Order still poses a threat to Y/n," John replied, determination entering his tone. "They'll continue their pursuit to get to her." "How will you stop them then?" She inquired. "By getting to them first." He answered.

"Would you come with me to the train station Wednesday?" You got her out of her thoughts, "For you, I would traverse the ends of the world," she replied, her words filled with a sincerity that resonated in the air. The smile you directed at her ignited a warmth within her heart. "Is there anything you wouldn't do if I asked?" you inquired, affection glittering in your eyes as they met hers. "No, there isn't," Wednesday answered without hesitation, her voice a steady affirmation of her devotion. "Then I ask you this one thing – remember me," you implored, your hands gently finding hers as you moved before her, your head tilting to rest atop hers. Your whispered words, a plea for a promise that carried a weight beyond their simplicity, hung in the air. Confusion flickered in Wednesday's eyes, her brow furrowing in question. "What do you mean?" Your hands tenderly found hers, and as you moved in front of her, your head gently met hers, a whisper shared in the fragile space between you. "Just promise me that you will remember me as much as you can." Wednesday found herself hypnotized by your touch, her heart resonating with the sincerity in your gaze. Your words resonated in the air, etching a promise into her very being. "I promise," she whispered On the journey back from the station, Wednesday wanted to remove that sad look from your face that had seemed to settle there after saying goodbyes to your brother. Right when she was about to drop you off in your room, she finally asked, "Do you need me to stay with you tonight?" She needed more time with you, She needed You. She knew you would accept, or that's what she thought. Your hesitation was palpable, a flicker of uncertainty in your eyes that tugged at her heartstrings. Inwardly, Wednesday questioned herself. Why? Did she do something wrong? Was it too early to ask to spend the night with you? Enid told her it's something that couples do together. She cursed herself for listening to Enid. "I am scared." You whispered. Confusion deepened, her brows furrowing in concern. Scared? Scared of what? The emotions that danced within your eyes were a complex array of emotions she struggled to interpret. "I am scared that I might.. hurt you in my sleep. I might lose control in my sleep, I don't want to hurt you like I did to my mother." Your vulnerability was a raw wound, and in that moment, Wednesday understood the depth of your apprehensions. Without hesitation, she drew you into an embrace, her presence a shield against the fears that threatened to consume you. "You won't, you didn't when she had full control of you, instead you protected me. That's how I know, you are the one I would follow." Her voice, soft and unwavering, was a testament to her unwavering faith in you. As you looked up at her, your eyes shimmering with hope, Wednesday's heart swelled with a mixture of emotions. She held you tighter, as if trying to convey through touch the depth of her commitment. "I am sorry. I.." "One day at a time." Her words cut through your apologies, "One day at a time is fine by me. As long as those days are with you, One day at a time is all we've got." She said.

One day became One week,

"Just BE NORMAL WITH HER!" Enid said pushing Wednesday out of the door. "And don't you dare even think about suggesting a graveyard for your date!"

Confidence had always been her ally, but now, as she stood before your door, her heart pounded with a nervous fervor that she had never before experienced. 3 knocks. Then she waited for you to open the door with her heart trying to jump out of her chest. When you did open, however, She was pretty sure it did jump out of her chest, you stood there in a black dress, a bit brighter than her own but still black enough, She couldn't move. Though she had always recognized your profound beauty, tonight, you were a revelation, a goddess in human form. "Wednesday," your voice carried a tender note, a shy vulnerability that only served to heighten your captivating charm. Inwardly, Wednesday longed to offer a compliment, to convey the depth of her admiration in a mere phrase. Yet, her thoughts tangled like a web, her attempts at articulation falling short in the face of your resplendence. How could mere words encapsulate the grandeur that stood before her? Enid's lessons in compliments seemed woefully inadequate in the face of your magnificence. You seem to notice the reddening in her cheeks as you smiled. "So which grave are we going?" You asked jokingly taking her hands as a hint for her to guide you.  She smirked. "Not a grave," she answered.

Vulnerability of emotions was a foreign terrain for Wednesday, a territory she had spent her life avoiding. The concept of being open and exposed had been anathema to her existence. But now, as you lay beside her near the tranquil lake in the heart of the jungle, a location she had meticulously chosen for this very purpose, you spoke of your past and your preferences, sharing fragments of your life that wedged their way into the cracks of her defenses. You opened up to her and she found herself captivated not just by your words, but by the way the moonlight played upon your features, casting an ethereal glow that matched the enchantment of the surroundings.

She realized that this was a different kind of vulnerability – one she willingly embraced. The walls she had built, fortified by years of detachment and isolation, seemed to crumble in the face of the connection she shared with you.

In this moment, beneath the star-studded sky, Wednesday acknowledged that allowing herself to feel vulnerable for you wasn't a weakness, but a profound testament to the strength of what you both shared. It was a vulnerability she was willing to explore, for in your presence, she found a sense of solace that no amount of morbid detachment could offer.

One week turned into a month, 

"Would you mind if I sit here?" You heard the voice of your love as a smile formed on your lips. "Would you mind if I hold your hand while you join me?" With a tender gesture, you extended your hand toward her, a silent offer laced with affection. "Never." She said as she accepted your hand, settling down beside you. This time, her head found a comfortable resting place on your shoulder, a touch that conveyed an unspoken intimacy. "Semester is almost over. Enid and the others are planning to go home." You said.  "Good, that means we will finally have some peace from their obnoxious chattering." Wednesday quipped. A soft chuckle escaped your lips. "You do realize you're free to leave too, don't you?" you said. "To exchange the quality moments I can have with you for my clingy soul-sucking family? Pass. The only torment I relish is the affectionate one you bestow upon me, not theirs," she quirked, her lips curving into a playful smile.  "But what if they miss you? And your brother?" you inquired, your curiosity genuine.  "My decision is already made. Pugsley is welcome to visit whenever he pleases." "I guess, I would love to meet with him." You said. "He is weak. He always needed my protection." "Wednesday!" You reprimanded smiling. "Do you think I am weak too?" you mused, your head finding a place atop hers, your cheek resting on her hair as your fingers intertwined. "Quite the opposite, Your courage in the face of adversity often leaves me envious. Not that I lack bravery, but your fearlessness, coupled with your innate kindness, makes you the most exceptional person I know. While those imbeciles fleeted, you went against the storm. You stood against a threat you had no idea of just to protect this school." Her response was swift, yet brimming with honesty. You gently lifted your head from its resting place atop hers. "I never did it for the school," you confessed. Wednesday raised her head from your shoulder, her eyes meeting yours. You gazed into her eyes, darkness encircling a core of unwavering affection, a love as unique and profound as she was. "I did it for you. And I would do it all over again, just for you." You said.

In that moment, as the weight of your words hung in the air, even after she hurt you back then, you still risked your life to protect her. Wednesday found herself drawn further into the depths of your unwavering devotion. Your confession resonated with a sincerity that was undeniable, and as she gazed into your eyes, she saw nothing but the truth of your feelings reflected in their depths. The allure of your love was irresistible, a magnetic force that tugged at the very fabric of her being. Without a word, Wednesday closed the remaining distance between you, her movements deliberate and sure. The atmosphere between you was charged, a palpable energy that seemed to envelop you both. And then, your lips met in a gentle, tender kiss – a moment suspended in time, a fusion of emotions and desires that words could never adequately capture. The kiss was a silent promise, an unspoken vow that affirmed the depth of your feelings and the sincerity of your commitment. It was a moment of vulnerability and intimacy, a shared space where your souls danced in harmony, entwined by a love that had a light inside it surrounded by a dark shadow protecting it.  As the kiss came to an end, Wednesday felt a sense of clarity settle over her. This was a new beginning, a fresh commitment to her love for you, a love that she knew she would share with you in life... and in death. 

One month turned into One year.

"IF YOU EVEN ENTERTAIN THE THOUGHT OF CONJURING ANOTHER PATHETIC PRANK LIKE THAT WRETCHED DISPLAY YOU UNLEASHED LAST YEAR, I SHALL TAKE GREAT PLEASURE IN PEELING YOUR FLESH FROM YOUR BONES," Wednesday's voice carried a chilling cadence, her words laced with a macabre promise that sent shivers down the spines of Lucas and his hapless companions. She still feels guilty for not going with you to last year's Raven dance which you were looking forward to, however, she also was quite relieved as she knew how badly you might've reacted to the pathetic prank Lucas and his friends pulled. But this time, since she has plans to ask you to the dance, she had to make sure they won't even think of doing anything like that again. Not just them, anyone. She pretty much sent a silent threat to everyone who witnessed her berating Lucas and his friends. Of course, her strategy was precise, her execution meticulous. Dispatching Enid as her proxy, she ensured you would remain blissfully unaware, a calculated move in her symphony of protection and intention. "Would you mind if I sit here?" She asked your resting figure as always. "Only if you ask me a question about a certain dance," you responded with a mischievous glint in your eyes, playfully challenging her. Wednesday took the sit beside you, under your maple tree, which had grown bigger than before, blossoming with scarlet red leaves. Her dark eyes remained fixed on yours as she gathered her courage to speak, her voice a blend of vulnerability and determination.  "Would you do me the honor of being my partner at the upcoming Raven dance?" A playful smile tugged at the corner of your lips, and you couldn't help but tease,  "Ah, but there might be some formidable competition." A flicker of amusement danced in Wednesday's eyes as she responded, "It seems my collection of knives will finally see some action after quite a hiatus." A genuine laugh escaped your lips, the sound mingling with the rustling of the leaves overhead.  "Yet how can these contenders hope to match someone who resides leagues above them?" You said. "And who might that exceptional individual be?" Wednesday decided to indulge in your playful banter. "A certain Raven who holds the key to my heart with her smile." You said.

"Would you mind if I held your hand in there?" The question slipped from your lips with a delicate blend of hope and trepidation, your heart fluttering with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. The party hall's entrance loomed before you, a gateway to an unfamiliar world. "I've.. never been to any parties before. I feel so nervous in crowds of unknown people." You confessed. Wednesday's expression softened as her hands met yours. "I am pretty sure if there's anyone succumbing to unease, it's the unsuspecting souls on the inside. They'll find themselves awestruck by your radiance, a brilliance that effortlessly outshines the mundane. It's a spectacle they won't be prepared for. And as for your answer, I don't want to hold your hand, I NEED to hold your hand, my desire to grasp your hand is not a mere whim; it's an imperative. A declaration to the world, a proclamation of possession. I want them to see that you belong to me, and me alone." She smiled. And that was enough to let your nervousness go away, soothing the tumultuous waters of your apprehension. Once again, you found solace in her unwavering presence, a light in her darkness, a radiant beacon cutting through the obscurity of your doubts. With her by your side, you knew that life's challenges could be confronted and conquered, one step at a time.

"One day at a time." She reminded you again.

"One day at a time is all we've got." You answered smiling.

With a graceful gesture, Wednesday extended her hand toward you, her pale fingers delicate against the backdrop of darkness. 

"Would you honor me by giving me this dance?" She said. 

You took a step forward, your fingers intertwining with hers, and the world around you seemed to fade into the background. The dance floor became a universe unto itself, a realm where only your presence and hers held significance, cocooned in a moment of shared intimacy.

Come to me now And lay your hands over me

As you moved together, the dance became a slow, intimate conversation, an unspoken exchange of feelings and emotions that words could never capture. 

Even if it's a lie Say it will be alright And I shall believe

Wednesday's gaze held a depth that stirred something within you, her usually guarded eyes revealing a vulnerability that resonated deeply. The realization of how much she yearned for your presence, for your companionship, was poignantly evident in the earnestness of her eyes. It was a silent plea, an unspoken confession.

I'm broken in two And I know you're on to me That I only come home When I'm so all alone But I do believe

Her presence was both comforting and electrifying, and you found yourself drawn into the dance with an innate sense of belonging. The world outside the ballroom seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of you in a timeless embrace.

That not everything is gonna be the way You think it ought to be

You found yourself clinging desperately to this moment, your heart fiercely determined to seize every precious second shared with Wednesday. The fear of losing her gripped you like a vice, urging you to hold onto her presence as tightly as you could. In the midst of the dance, there was an unspoken understanding that time was fleeting, and the fragility of the connection you shared was a reality that couldn't be ignored.

It seems like every time I try to make it right It all comes down on me

Then again, Wednesday's gaze gave you hope, Amidst your worries and doubts, her gaze became an anchor, grounding you to the promise of a lasting bond. Her unspoken commitment encouraged you to have faith in the connection you shared, dispelling any lingering doubts.

Please say honestly you won't give up on me And I shall believe

Wednesday felt so lost, so hypnotized by your eyes, the sensation of your fingers intertwining sent a thrill of electricity through her. The world around you seemed to blur, leaving only the two of you in a slow, entrancing dance.

Open the door And show me your face tonight

 With every turn and sway, she allowed her guard to slip, revealing the vulnerable core that lay beneath her stoic exterior. But she knows, it's all worth it, as long as you are glued to her. This gave you enough reason to believe. As your eyes met, a silent understanding passed between you, stronger than any words or uncertainties.

I know it's true No one heals me like you And you hold the key

Her gaze remained fixed on you, a mixture of intensity and vulnerability that left you breathless. Her touch was gentle, her hand resting against your shoulder with a tenderness that belied her reputation. 

Never again Would I turn away from you

Never, she would turn away from the feelings she holds for you again, She is ready to confront the emotions that have long been concealed within the shadows of her heart. You made her ready.

I'm so heavy tonight But your love is alright And I do believe

She can see the fear of the uncertain future in your eyes, she hated to admit it, but even she was afraid of that. 

That not everything is gonna be the way You think it ought to be

There might be something worse awaiting you and her in the future. Something that might hurt you...

It seems like every time I try to make it right It all comes down on me

But Wednesday knows she will protect you, She has already committed her life and soul to your protection. As she grasped your hand and guided you through the dance's deliberate pace, just like she would do in every step of your life, her eyes remained fixated on yours, she can see the unspoken vow being communicated, a plea being exchanged. 

Please say honestly You won't give up on me

There was a sense of shared vulnerability, a willingness to confront the challenges together. As long as you are with her, she can hope, you can hope. Despite the unpredictability of life, despite the challenges and doubts, both Wednesday and you were choosing to believe.

And I shall believe

One year turned into two,

John came back, He did it, he killed every single one of the golden order, You could live safely now, with no threats, no danger to your life. Yet both he and Wednesday knew you had the right to know, they were afraid that you would break down after knowing there is no cure to this curse of yours, they were afraid they would lose you to grief and sorrow again. As John and Wednesday sat you down to convey this bittersweet truth, their eyes clouded with apprehension, your response was surprising. Instead of breaking down, you bore the weight of the revelation with a resilience that left them speechless. It was as though you had already walked the path of acceptance long before they even laid out the truth before you. Wednesday watched you with a mixture of awe and concern, her heart aching for the strength you displayed. "Thank you for not giving up on me," you whispered, your voice carrying the weight of years of shared experiences and unspoken support, hugging him dearly. Tears glistened in John's eyes as he held you close, his embrace a testament to the depth of his love and his unyielding determination to protect you.  But it was your next words that reverberated through the room, echoing in the hearts of those present. "I know you tried. I know you already knew that there was no cure. Yet you didn't give up. I've already accepted that there is no cure for me. I've already accepted that my time is limited." Your voice carried a calm resignation, a sense of serenity that belied the gravity of your revelation. Wednesday's heart clenched as she absorbed your words, a mixture of admiration and anguish swirling within her. It was a bittersweet truth – your acceptance was a testament to your strength, but it also hinted at the fragility of the time you had left. "Don't go again, please," you implored, your grip on John's shirt tightening as though he were your lifeline. Wednesday's heart clenched at the vulnerability in your voice, at the raw fear of losing yet another person you held dear. Your plea echoed in the room, a testament to the depth of your emotions and your desire to hold onto the few constants in your life. But then, you continued your words a soothing balm for her conflicted heart. "I've accepted this already. You don't have to keep searching. You've already kept your promise, John. You are my cure." you pleaded. It took all of Wednesday's strength to contain the tears welling up in her eyes, her emotions a turbulent sea within her chest. Your acceptance, your gratitude, and your plea resonated with a melody that seemed to strike the deepest chords within her. It was a reminder of the stakes, the fragility of time, and the love that bloomed amidst the darkness. A sigh escaped Wednesday's lips, carrying with it a mix of emotions that were as complex and intricate as the person before her. The weight of her feelings was a burden she was willing to bear, for you had become the beacon of light that had illuminated the darkness of her existence. In the silence that followed, as you and your brother shared a moment of understanding and connection, Wednesday felt an unspoken promise take root within her heart. She would be there, by your side, through every moment that remained. The love she held for you, unconventional and profound, was a force that could not be diminished by time or circumstance.

"I am not going away anymore." Your brother promised you,

So did Wednesday.

Two turned into three,

Your affinity for the natural world had always been apparent. The way you found solace in the embrace of flowers and trees was a testament to your connection with the living, breathing entities that adorned the world around you. It was no surprise that you aspired to become a florist, a guardian of nature's beauty, using your skill to heal even the most ailing of plants. That's how you were handed a pot of a small plant that seem to be sick by Wednesday, "Found it on the street. I wanted to save it," she said, her voice carrying an unusual softness. You smiled, even though it was very un-Wednesday-like, but you thought nothing of it. As you placed the potted plant on a nearby table to examine it, you noticed signs of distress – the leaves were wilting, and the soil seemed to be in poor condition. A deeper instinct guided your hands, and you carefully removed the plant from its pot to inspect its roots. Your suspicions were confirmed – root rot had taken hold, threatening the plant's very survival. As you examined the roots within the soil, something unexpected caught your attention – a glint of metal, a spark amidst the decaying roots. You carefully removed it from the roots, it was a ring. You put the plant down and turned back to Wednesday, "Wednesday why there is a.." Wednesday didn't let you finish. "I have a problem, You see... I am not sick of you, I am honestly pretty much in love with you, hopelessly, helplessly." Your heart swelled at her admission, the authenticity of her emotions washing over you in waves. It was a confession that laid bare her heart, her fears, and her desires.  "I don't know how much time we have left," she continued, her voice a blend of raw honesty and determination. "But whatever time it is, I want to spend it with you. Having you by my side is enough for me, if that's enough for you."  In that moment, words seemed inadequate, insufficient to convey the maelstrom of emotions that surged within you. With unshed tears in your eyes, you found yourself drawn to her, your heart guiding your actions. And so, with a tenderness that spoke of all the love you held for her, you leaned in, your lips meeting hers in a soft, delicate kiss.

Four, five, six, seven years have passed, One day became seven years.

Seven years etched their stories into the tapestry of your shared existence, a life painted with hues of love, fortitude, and a quiet understanding that bound you and Wednesday together in an unbreakable bond. The roots of your relationship grew deeper, intertwined with the passage of time, weathering storms and blooming with the promise of a shared future. 

Through the ebb and flow of life, your relationship evolved into a haven of comfort, a refuge against the chaos of the world. From the cozy apartment that you and Wednesday called home, to the shared moments of laughter over breakfast and the whispered secrets exchanged beneath the moonlit sky, your love story unfolded with a quiet intensity.

Wednesday of course continued her writing profession, the darkness that once cloaked her was now transformed into words that resonated with readers, her narratives a mirror to her journey of self-acceptance and growth. While Wednesday crafted tales of introspection and mystery, you nurtured your love for nature into a flourishing career. Your flower shop, a sanctuary of vibrant colours and delicate fragrances, stood as a testament to your nurturing spirit. Each bloom found its place under your care, blossoming into radiant displays that reflected your deep connection with life.

As the sun cast its golden hues across the horizon, you found Wednesday in the living room, engrossed in one of her journals. You approached her, your smile playful. "What's the enigmatic Miss Addams writing about today?" Wednesday's lips quirked up in a faint smile. "Jotting down observations on the human propensity for chaos." You chuckled, taking a seat beside her. "Ah, yes. Chaos seems to be a common theme in our lives." Her gaze softened as she closed the journal. "But amidst the chaos, there is a solace I find because of someone." "And who might that be?" You asked knowing the answer, "A certain florist." She smirked.

In your flower shop, Wednesday observed you arranging a vibrant bouquet with an air of fascination. "You have a remarkable affinity for breathing life into these blooms." You grinned, placing the finished bouquet in a vase. "Well, I did promise to bring life to anything that needs it." Wednesday's eyebrow arched, a playful smirk gracing her lips. "Even to a walking corpse like me?" You turned to her, your eyes dancing with affection. "Especially to you." She stepped closer, her fingers brushing against the petals. "Then I suppose I am in good hands."

A rainy afternoon found you and Wednesday huddled by the window, sipping tea and watching the droplets dance against the glass. The pitter-patter of raindrops created a soothing backdrop to your quiet conversation. "I always found solace in the rain," you mused, your gaze fixed on the world outside. Wednesday's eyes gleamed with a hidden emotion. "Rain has a way of cleansing the world, washing away the dirt and revealing the hidden truths." You turned to her, captivated by the intensity in her gaze. "What hidden truths have you discovered?" Her lips curled into a half-smile. "That even amidst darkness, there's beauty to be found. Just like in you." Wednesday cringed at her own words but it was worth the smile on your lips, Trying to avoid becoming her mother, she ended up like her father. As you both wandered through a local art gallery, Wednesday's eyes fixated on a particularly macabre painting. She turned to you with a small smirk, her dark eyes glinting mischievously.  "I think this one would look splendid in our living room, don't you agree?" You chuckled, knowing her affinity for the morbid.  "You really have a way of finding the most unique pieces, Wednesday. I'm sure it'll add quite the atmosphere to our home." She raised an eyebrow playfully. "Atmosphere? Is that your polite way of saying 'spooky'?" You laughed, your fingers finding hers as you leaned in.  "Well, I've learned to appreciate your unique taste, and I do love how it reflects your personality." She smirked, her lips brushing against yours.  "Just don't be surprised if we start getting visits from ghosts."

A chilly winter morning, you both found yourselves sipping hot cocoa by the window, watching the snowflakes fall. Wednesday's fingers traced delicate patterns on the rim of her mug, her eyes distant. "You seem lost in thought," you observed, concern lacing your voice. She turned to you, her gaze softening. "I was just thinking about how different my life has become with you in it. You've brought warmth to my world, more than I ever thought possible." You reached over to grasp her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "And you've shown me a depth of love and understanding I never knew existed. We've come a long way, Wednesday." She smiled, her fingers interlocking with yours. "Indeed, we have. And I wouldn't trade a single moment of it."

However within all those warm moments, Some cold ones lingered. Cold ones that increased rapidly as time went on. Your tormented soul awoke you with a gasp, a lingering nightmare's grasp refusing to let go. Almost as if sensing your distress, Wednesday's arms enveloped you in an instant, her touch a lifeline in the abyss of your fear. Her voice, a soft, soothing melody, broke through the darkness. "Hey, it's okay," she whispered, her words a tender caress against your tumultuous emotions. "You're safe, I'm here." Tears swelled in your eyes, a testament to the terror you had just experienced. You clung to her as if she were the anchor holding you against the storm, your body trembling against the remnants of the night's horrors. Your voice trembled as you tried to put words to the maelstrom within you. "I can't… I can't control it. She's getting stronger." Wednesday's hold on you tightened, her grip a symbol of unwavering need for you in her life. Her voice, soft but resolute, cut through the darkness that threatened to engulf you both. "We'll face this together, just like we always have."

Days turned into weeks, and the heaviness of your curse only grew. It wasn't long before another unsettling incident unfolded, leaving Wednesday's heart racing with worry. She entered the house, finding the door already ajar – a sight that struck fear into her heart. "Y/n?" Her voice quivered with urgency as she called out, dread coiling in her chest when there was no response. She hurried to the bedroom, her heart pounding like a drum. The sight that greeted her was enough to send a shiver down her spine – the bathroom door stood wide open, and there you were, standing frozen in front of the mirror. "Y/n!" She called you again, but only if she knew what you were seeing in the mirror. Malenia.

"Y/n!!" Her voice seemed to jolt you from the grip of that sinister trance, and you collapsed to your knees. The world around you refocused, but the horrors of what you had seen in the mirror still lingered. Wednesday was there, her arms wrapping around you protectively, her presence offering solace amidst the chaos. "It's okay," she murmured, her voice a gentle balm against your shattered nerves. "I am here. She won't take you. I won't let her take you." Your heartache poured out in sobs, the fear, and the darkness that threatened to consume you finally finding release. Wednesday held you close, her words and touch a lifeline that pulled you back from the brink. The pain in her voice, the unyielding determination to protect you, it all echoed the depth of her love. "We'll fight this together, Y/n," she whispered against your hair, her vow a testament to the unbreakable bond that had sustained you through every trial.

"Y/n please stop! It's me, your love, Wednesday." Wednesday screamed, begging you to stop, but you didn't, flying high with your delicate wings, letting the Goddess of Rot control your body fully, you take over the sky once again with your Scarlet flower of Aeonia. Ready to take over this world by your Scarlet rot. Then, like a comet hurtling toward its destination, you descended, a blur of crimson and despair, you went down on her, you went down on your love Wednesday. With a sudden jolt, you awoke from the nightmare that had ensnared your mind. Your breathing was ragged, and your eyes darted around the room, trying to discern reality from the phantasmagoric images that had haunted your sleep. Beside you Wednesday slept peacefully, she always had slept peacefully by your side. As your gaze settled on your own hands, you saw the faint traces of Scarlet roots emerging, tendrils of your curse that nearly brushed Wednesday's arm. The realization hit you like a lightning bolt – you had come dangerously close to repeating the tragic fate of your mother, infecting someone you loved with the rot that dwelled within you.

One day at a time, Wednesday used to say.

No...

You won't risk the most important thing, the most important person in your life, not for one more day.

As the first rays of sunlight painted the room with warmth, Wednesday stirred from her sleep, her eyes searching for you on the bed. Confusion quickly transformed into worry as she realized you were nowhere to be found. Her heart raced, fear clawing at her as she called your name, her voice echoing in the emptiness. Her eyes fell upon a letter resting on your pillow, a silent messenger that held the truth she wasn't yet ready to face. Trembling fingers reached for the paper, her heart pounding in anticipation and dread. With each word she read, her world crumbled further, the weight of your decision pressing heavily upon her chest.

And so, she found herself retracing the steps that had led to this moment. The place where it had all begun – the maple tree, the witness to your first meeting, now a sentinel to your final act. The sight that met her eyes tore at her heart – there you lay, surrounded by delicate petals, an ethereal contrast to the tragedy that had unfolded. "Would you mind if I sit here?" The words escaped her lips, carrying a tremor of sorrow. Her voice quivered as she spoke, the depths of her grief threatening to consume her.  Oh, what Wednesday wouldn't give to see you smile and look up to her, accepting her offer, taking her hands. She settled beside you, putting her head on your shoulder, clutching the letter in her hands, The promise you had made years ago echoed in her mind, its significance now clearer than ever.  "Promise me that you will remember me as much as you can."  In that moment, Wednesday understood the weight of your plea, the plea that had driven you to make the ultimate sacrifice for her sake.

As tears blurred her vision, she leaned into you, her heart heavy with the realization that she would have to carry on without you by her side. The mornings would be colder, the talks quieter, the smiles and kisses a distant memory. But she clung to your promise, the symbol of your love, believing that one day, beneath its embrace, she would be reunited with the soul that had captured her heart so completely.

"My beloved Wednesday, I love you with all my heart and soul and I hope you can understand my decision.

Our love story has been unconventional, marked by darkness and curses, yet you have been the beacon of light that guided me through the shadows. From the moment our paths crossed, I felt a connection that transcended the boundaries of life and death. You became my sanctuary, my home, and my reason to endure the trials that fate hurled our way.

The years we spent together have been a tapestry woven with laughter, warmth, and shared dreams. Your presence has been the salve to my wounds, the answer to my silent prayers. Every touch, every smile, and every stolen moment etched into my memory like precious jewels. Even as the darkness within me grew, your love remained unwavering, a steadfast pillar that held me upright when I faltered.

But I can no longer ignore the truth that has become painfully evident – the curse, the rot, it has taken a stronger hold on me. I've seen glimpses of a future I cannot bear to subject you to, a future where the darkness consumes me completely. I refuse to let that happen. Our love is too pure, too precious, to be tainted by the curse that plagues me. You are too pure to be tainted by my curse.

I want you to find solace in the knowledge that my decision is not born out of despair, but out of love. Love for you, for us, for the future we could have had. It's a choice I make willingly, as the only way to protect you from the grip of this curse. I need you to remember the promise you made me under our tree, our beautiful scarlet red maple tree that has borne witness to our love... where you can find me...

Please don't grieve for me, my love. Instead, find happiness in the memories we've created, in the love we've shared. You deserve nothing less than a life filled with joy and love and maybe some horror too.

As the sun sets on my time in this world, know that I carry your love with me into the next. I've seen that our souls are bound by a love that transcends even death, and I will be watching over you, cheering you on from beyond the veil.

Thank you, Wednesday Addams, for being my love, my anchor, my haven, my everything. You've given me a lifetime of love in the few years we've had, and for that, I am eternally grateful. Remember me till the day we will meet again my beloved woe.

With all the love my heart can hold,

Y/n" Author here, This is my last fanfiction ever, I have to stop writing because I have some personal issues going on, That's why I poured my heart into it, I would really appreciate if you guys tell me how much you liked it, It's been an amazing journey with you all- Love , Celine. PART 11 EPILOGUE: Reunited With Woe. The lines used on the Raven dance were from Sheryl Crow's I Shall Believe song. The inspiration behind this ending was, some you might have already guessed it, "The Haunting of Bly Manor" ending.

#wednesday x reader #wednesday addams x reader #angst #wednesday adams x reader #wednesday addams x female reader #wednesday addams angst #wednesday #wednesday addams fanfic #wednesday addams x you #wednesday angst #wednesday addams x fem!reader #wednesday x female reader #wednesday x you #wednesdayaddams #wednesday addams #wednesday netflix #wednesday 2022 #heavy angst #sad ending #netflix wednesday #jenna ortega x reader #wednesday x y/n

[mimimyluv]

Hetalia y/n’s have to stand together, how about England x Reader where y/n admires his tattoos?

anon bless your heart because this lead me down a path of picturing arthur as a prep with secret tattoos and i promptly blacked out. when i woke up i ended up with this oneshot. i hope you enjoy and may your meals always be delicious and your pillow always cold (or warm depending on how you like it lol). also i wasn't sure if you wanted smut, so it's sfw (just to be safe). but it's still suggestive. if you wanted full-blown smut tho just lmk 👍

⏆﹒⬚﹒🍏﹒➲﹒reader admiring arthur's tattoos; gn! reader (nothing specified), 800 words/4k characters, fluff with some suggestive themes. lowercase intended.

the contrast is interesting, you muse.

your lover’s always projected a proper– if not a tad pretentious– image of the quintessential upper-class english man. he has all his clothes and shoes tailored; every thread and button perfectly bespoke (the extra costs just for suit jackets can be somewhat incomprehensible, but he always assures you it is a perfectly good investment. you never complain too much– not when he’s so damn handsome in those same bespoke suits).

he drinks his tea with a pinky up; always, always with the fine, intricately painted porcelain (an antique dating back to the victorian era, he often tells you).

he rubs elbows with the upper echelons of london society; engaging in those stereotypical, hoity-toity activities only people with money to burn can do (polo, horseback riding, fucking golf… it would make you laugh if it weren’t for his tall, elegant frame, with the lean, subtle musculature of the ideal english sportsman).

but beneath that proper exterior, though– there’s something more passionate, something more untamed lurking. while arthur often keeps that side of him under wraps, you have the privilege of being privy to it in numerous ways.

you’re reminded of it as you laze next to him in his sheets, basking in the post-sex afterglow. his back is to you, you can fully take in the smattering of golden freckles across his fair skin, and… oh.

“i haven’t seen this one before.”

you trace your fingers along the merfolk inked on his back. you try to summon some hazy memories from a past gallery date with arthur– ah, yes. it’s a near-identical replica of john william waterhouse’s mermaid, except…

it’s you. replacing the mermaid combing her long, auburn hair is you. you’re in that same, languid pose, with just a long white fabric draped tightly along your body to preserve the barest modicum of modesty. somehow, though– with the sultriness of your eyes, the curve of your bare neck and shoulders– this remaster of waterhouse’s mermaid somehow seems more… suggestive.

“do you like it?” he murmurs, turning over to face you. his forest-green eyes are lidded, light, feathered lashes nearly resting on the top of his freckled cheeks. this is the most relaxed you’ve ever seen him; your heart leaps for a split second.

“a tattoo of me?” you say, mock-dryly. still, your face is warm, and you can’t help but smile. “i thought you hated cliches.”

“ah, well.” suddenly, he’s blushing too. his freckles are even more stark against his skin; you barely resist the urge to trace your thumb all over them. “some… can be alright.”

you grin.

“when did you get this?”

“a few weeks after our date to the tate.”

you can’t help but snort out a laugh, fond.

“and you said you were done with tattoos, hm?”

“when i saw that painting,” the pinkness of his cheeks deepen, “i just couldn’t stop seeing you. so one last tattoo couldn’t hurt, i suppose.”

“mhm, it’s not like i mind,” you whisper, drawing a hand down to trace the tudor roses and ivy inked along his ribs, “you know i love your tattoos, arthur.”

“perhaps that’s why i had it done,” he laughs raspily, “you might only want me for my tattoos. needed something to keep the spark alive, don’t you think, my dear?”

“don’t be an idiot.” you lightly chastise him, then draw him closer for a kiss, bracing him by your hand on the back of his head. unlike the heated, passionate kisses you two shared earlier, he moves his mouth against yours slowly and indulgently; the kind of kiss that could lull you to slumber after a long day.

“let me see it again, then.” you say against his lips, quiet and muffled. he smirks, uncharacteristically roguish.

“i believe you just proved my earlier point.”

“oh, shut up.”

he complies anyway, shifting so you can see his back; this time, you can study it more clearly. your face, stark as day– maybe it’s corny, but you can’t help the way your heart leaps at the sight. proper, upper-class arthur kirkland being lovestruck enough to have you permanently inked on his skin, even when he’s eschewed tattoos and everything that can be linked to delinquency in favor of his image. there’s just something truly… amazing about it.

“i wanna see the rest.” you mumble. he rolls over, pretending to grumble.

“maybe you really are just with me for my tattoos, love.”

you ignore him and look over the rest of his tattoos– the tudor roses and ivy on his ribs; the plantagenet lions on his left shoulder; a hobbes’ quote– a great leap in the dark– on his right forearm.

and now, the portrait of you as waterhouse’s mermaid on his back.

“i do love your tattoos, arthur.” you quietly repeat, settling down next to him. you draw nearer, hooking a leg over his body and resting your head against his chest; his heartbeat thrums in a consistent pitter-patter right next to your ear.

“but i love you more.”

he’s silent, but he combs his fingers– long, graceful, and work-worn– through your hair.

“i love you too.”

“yeah.” you smile drowsily. you can see yourself as a merfolk in your hazy mind's eye, forever inked on his back. “i know.”

#i feel like arthur would have like artsy lowkey pretentious tattoos lol #even when he was in his punk phase he was still kind of an art hoe #like paintings or english symbols or quotes from philosophers he likes. nerd #i want to wedgie him so bad (sexually) #anyways god bless you again anon ty for requesting i love this concept so BAD #also if you see the abundant amount of tags look away. #aph england x reader #hws england x reader #hetalia #hetalia world stars #hetalia x reader #hws england #aph england

[raina-at]

Bu the Blue

When Sherlock opens the door to 221B, he finds the Watsons in a highly uncharacteristic state of agitation. The sitting room looks like a tsunami hit it, and while this is not in and of itself unusual (John always says Sherlock and Rosie together equal a mid-sized hurricane), normally Rosie achieves that chaos while happily playing, but she’s sitting in the midst of the chaos and crying her eyes out. John’s tossing things around the room, obviously frantically searching for something.

When he spies Sherlock, he immediately stops. “Thank Christ you’re home!!” he exclaims, walking over to Sherlock and all but collapsing against him.

“What happened?” Sherlock asks, catching his distraught husband in his arms, while Rosie runs towards him, still crying, and hugs his legs.

“Bu’s gone, Papa, you have to help us!” Rosie yells, holding on to his legs for dear life and wiping her tear-and-snot-streaked face on his coat. 

Oh no, Sherlock thinks. Bu is Rosie’s favourite stuffed animal, a ratty old blue elephant of apparently German origin. She’s had him since she was eighteen months old. John loves to tell the story how she ‘rescued’ him out of a department store toy bin, a bit moth-eaten and slightly disgusting, but she fell in love with him immediately and the saleswomen there were so enamoured of her that they let her keep him. She called him Bu because that was the nearest she came to the word blue at eighteen months and the name stuck. 

“I’ve been looking everywhere,” John adds, gesturing at the sitting room. “He’s not here, not upstairs, or in our room, or at Mrs Hudson’s.”

Sherlock scoops up Rosie and hands her a tissue. “Calm down, Watson, we’ll find him.”

“But, Papa, he’s out there all alone!” Rosie wails.

Sherlock decides it’s time to take charge. He strides into the flat, sets Rosie down into the client chair, gestures for John to sit in his chair, and takes his own place to complete the triangle.

“From the beginning, please. When did you first notice he was missing?”

“When we got to the flat and unpacked the groceries,” John answers.

“And you’re sure you had him when you left daycare?” Sherlock asks Rosie, steeping his fingers under his chin in his classic thinking pose. 

Rosie nods. She’s calmed down considerably, and she’s now sitting up straighter, obviously proud of being treated like a client. 

“Where did you go, Waitrose or Tesco?” Sherlock continues the interrogation.

“Tesco,” Rosie answers. “But I’m sure I had him when we left, I was feeding him a banana.”

“Well, then the answer is obvious. He’s at Speedy’s.”

John and Rosie stare at him, surprised. “How did you know we went to Speedy’s?” Rosie asks, obviously awed.

“Easy. There’s a cocoa stain on your dress, and Daddy’s breath smells of coffee. He never has coffee unless it’s from Speedy’s. You went in to pick up some cupcakes to have after dinner to celebrate my coming home from Glasgow today. You sat down, had a bit of a chat with Mr Chatterjee and left Bu lying on the chair next to you. And if I’m not completely mistaken,” he adds as he walks to the door, “That’s Mr Chatterjee now, hurrying up the stairs with Bu.”

He opens the door, and indeed, there’s Mr Chatterjee, looking surprised, with his hand in the air as if he was about to knock on the door to 221B. His other hand is holding Bu. 

Rosie squeals and runs towards Mr Chatterjee, who hands her the toy and accepts her enthusiastic thanks.

“Brilliant!” 

Sherlock turns around and makes a face at John. “Elementary.”

“Thank you, Papa!” Rosie yells, throwing herself in Sherlock’s arms.

“It was nothing, Watson.”

“You’re a genius, Papa! I’m going to tell all of my friends how you found Bu tomorrow. Now they’ll know who to come to when they lose their toys!”

John grins. “Tell them Papa likes to be paid in ice lollies. Now go wash your face, love, you look all splotchy.”

Rosie runs off, dragging Bu behind her.

Sherlock sags into his chair, suddenly exhausted.

“This one’s going on the blog,” John says as he starts straightening the sitting room. 

“Don’t you dare. It’s bad enough that her entire daycare class will now require me to find their sorry belongings. Also, I’ve been home almost fifteen minutes and I’ve yet to get a kiss.”

“Sorry, how absolutely horrid of me,” John says, leaning down for a kiss. “Welcome home, love.”

“Additionally,” Sherlock says, pulling John into his lap, “I don’t accept ice lollies as payment. Ginger nuts or nothing.”

John laughs. “All out of ginger nuts, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll work out an alternative payment plan for you,” Sherlock mutters before pulling John in for a proper welcome home kiss.

“Daddy! Papa! Gross!” Rosie yells as she re-enters the room.

John rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, I know, your parents love each other. Disgusting.” He pecks Sherlock on the lips once more, and Sherlock lets him go reluctantly. “Now let’s see about dinner.”

Sherlock watches the two Watsons bicker good-naturedly about what to make for dinner as he sinks back into his chair and breathes. 

It’s good to be home. 

A bit of parentlock fluff to recover from the angst of yesterday. Did I model the story of how Rosie got Bu after how my son got one of his most beloved stuffed animals? Yes I did.

Also, this one's for the German-speaking world out there, because Bu is, of course, the elephant from Die Sendung mit der Maus.

Here's a picture:

This was written for the May prompts by @notjustamumj, today's prompt was Blue.

I'm tagging the German-speaking crowd I know of, @khorazir @meetinginsamarra @catlock-holmes @the-reading-lemon (i think) (I hope I didn't forget anyone).

And a few non-German speakers as well. Do you have The Mouse outside of Germany and Austria?

@helloliriels @calaisreno @keirgreeneyes @jrow @fluffbyday-smutbynight @peanitbear

#johnlock #bbc sherlock #johnlock fic #my fic #tooth-rotting fluff #parentlock #notjustamom may prompts #blue

[rhapsodynew]

The day the world found out about the breakup of the Beatles

This sad day was April 10, 1970, when the auto interview was published Paul McCartney, timed to coincide with the imminent release of his McCartney solo album. The release did not directly mention the breakup, but it became obvious to fans.

This document is signed John Lennon, Richard Starkey (aka Ringo) and George Harrison, were sold at auction for 325 thousand dollars.

April 18, 1969

Dear Mr. Eastman,

We hereby inform you that you are not authorized to act or present yourself as a trustee or legal representative of The Beatles or any of the companies that The Beatles own or control.

We recognize that you are authorized to act on behalf of Paul McCartney personally, and in this regard, we will instruct our representatives to provide you with the fullest cooperation.

We will be grateful to you for forwarding to the address:

ABKCO Industries Inc.

1700 Broadway

New York

NY

of all documents, correspondence and files in your possession relating to the affairs of the Beatles or any of the companies that the Beatles own or control.

With respect,

John Lennon

Richard Starkey

George Harrison

The beginning of the end: a lawsuit Paul McCartney in 1970, initiating the trial of the dissolution of the Beatles, with handwritten comments John Lennon, refuting the accusations McCartney. A historic and noteworthy document that marks the official action to end the partnership that has dominated pop music since 1964. On New Year's Eve 1970 McCartney took a fateful step after years of infighting and creative differences, many of which are outlined in the 25-point list of the lawsuit.

One of the key reasons given is Paul, is the band's decision to stop touring:

“While we were touring, the relationship between us was very close.”

As for their studio showdown, McCartney claims that:

“Lennon was no longer interested in performing those songs that he had not composed himself.”

Paul and Linda outside the courthouse, 1971

He also claimed that being a member of the Beatles posed a threat to his creative freedom. Finally, he stated that no reports had ever been provided to the partnership since its inception.

Lennon objects to this: 

“There are a lot of quarrels about leadership on the tour”

As long as The Beatles became more and more a studio band, and they began to creatively distance themselves from each other.

“The musical differences became more pronounced,”

and by the time the band recorded Abbey Road, Lennon was no longer interested

“in performing songs that he had not composed himself.” Lennon responds: “

Paul has been responsible for this for many years.”

When, according to McCartney, Lennon finally expressed a wish “get divorced,” he explained, as he claims Paul said that “in fact” the band had come full circle because the photo of the band that would be used on Get Back [became the Let It Be album. - Approx.perev.], so similar to their first album.

 “It never happened,” Lennon exclaimed.

One of the last drops for Paul was the question of the release date of his McCartney solo album. Apple tried to delay the release, and McCartney saw this action as a threat to his creative freedom. To this accusation Lennon replied that the band was “outraged by how unceremoniously his record ‘suddenly’ appeared, and demanded a release date without taking into account other Apple releases.”

Paul also disliked Phil Spector's work on Let it Be, and claimed that he was not consulted - which “never happened before.” Lennon countered that it “happened in the early days.”

No group meetings were held between April and August. In April McCartney wrote To Lennon, “suggesting that we ‘let each other out of the trap’.”

According to Gender, John responded by attaching a photo of himself and Yoko Ono with the inscription on a balloon: “How and why?” McCartney replied:

“How: by signing a document stating that we are thereby terminating our partnership. Why: because there is no partnership.”

According to Paul, Lennon sent a reply postcard saying that if McCartney will be able to get the consent of the others, he will think about it. In the margins opposite these words Lennon quipped: “I expect something a little less ‘poetic’, given that his advisers have been explaining it to him for 2 years.” Then McCartney accused Lennon entered into agreements concerning their joint publishing venture without his consent, to which Lennon objected: “no one can even contact him,” meaning McCartney.

P.S. There is no need to regret what happened, and even more so, many years ago. Without those events, there would have been no individual creativity of all participants and their individual talents might not have been revealed. 

The Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1988)

#the beatles #Yoko Ono #John Lennon #Allen Klein #Paul McCartney #Ringo Starr #1969 #music story #music store #music #music love #musica #history music #my spotify #my music #Youtube #Spotify

[precious-little-scoundrel]

Very important question, how much of Egan can Acorn take in her mouth? Does she have to practice to take him all? Is it the sloppiest, loudest, most grand head Egan has ever gotten? How’s her gag reflex?

Nonnie…ALL OF THIS.

Just all of it. Oh she’s never encountered this sorta thang on the studio lot, no sir, she’s got a very long road ahead of her. But he’s patient and too delighted to just be in her general vicinity to mind the extra five inches not being worked on. Haha.

Or to quote a draft of their first attempted bj:

💌 Dear John Fragment: NSFW (af) under the cut —spoilers sorta??

Jeanie wonders what it looks like from the pitch black of outside, this tiny, foggy, glowing telephone box, a haven in the storm with her worshipful pose and his imposing figure inching nearer and over her until she can duck her chin just that little bit and press her lips to the salty head of him.

John’s loud groan fogs up the glass he has his forehead pressed to and he swallows hard at the initial feel of her timidly breaking her jaw wide apart to fit him further, more, down, almost halfway, red painted nails digging into his hip and making him twitch on her tongue. “Yes, yes, hell yes.” it feels so good it breaks his heart and Bucky feels sweat roll down his temple as his blood pounds and his brain begins to fuzz. The fingers of his left hand twitch uselessly at his side before gently resting on her shoulder, squeezing in rhythm as she chokes herself in her eagerness to please. “Shh, shh, it’s perfect, you’re perfect.” he calms her with a voice shot to hell and dipping a full octave below that of the man who’d kissed her knuckles in greeting earlier that evening.

Jeanie wishes she had more expertise, some ability to dislocate her lower jaw from her palette and take him down all the way but she hopes he’ll give her time to learn.

In a hotel room. In the back seat of her car at the drive in theater. On the bench of the gazebo at the Nantucket country club. A million and one places she wants to learn him.

That’s for the future.

For now she loosens her desperate grip on his flexing hips to work the length of him with her hands, that part she can’t lathe with her tongue. That’s a lot of it, she realizes with some discouragement and not a little admiration. She can hear him gasp above her in appreciation as he finally gets the friction he needs.

“Julie, oh Julie baby!” he praises so loudly she finds herself aflame at the idea of them being overheard on this quiet country lane.

#masters of the air #💌asks #blurbs #my blurbs #dear john

[dragonnan]

Friday Fic Recs

The Sandman - Dreamling

The Undone and the Divine E by @dancinbutterfly

Warnings: Consensual Violence, Burning, Stabbing, Skin picking, Drowning, The Corinthian is His Own Warning, Cannibalism, Horror, Suicidal ideation, Mutilation, romanticization of violence, Dissociation, BDSM elements

For 24 hours, John Dee influences the entire world with the Dreamstone to make what he thinks is a more honest world.

At the New Inn, Hob finds himself uniquely positioned to save his fellow patrons from the dangers they now pose to themselves and each other.

Why not? After all, what's the worst that could happen?

And how can he do anything else?

Read Me Your Longing M by @linzod

The Stranger hesitates, and does something Hob would not have believed possible. He stammers. “I- I do not remember. I came to and was being pursued.”

Hob notices the older man approaching, but is shocked as his voice rings out, addressing them both, “My dear boy, I am so glad we have found you.” He observes the situation warily; the only reaction from his friend is subtle, the smallest recoil.

“Who exactly are you?” Hob asks the man.

“Why, I’m Paul McGuire, and I can’t thank you enough,” the man looks at Hob’s ID badge, “Dr. Gadling, for finding my nephew.”

Hob’s eyes narrow, as he flatly asks, “Your nephew?”

***

Hob’s life is forever changed when his Stranger literally stumbles back into his life, amnestic and hunted, and he must use the skills gathered over an immortal life to evade their pursuers. They soon realize that bits of memory are coming back to Hob’s Stranger, through the power of literature. They are slower, however, to recognize that the most important story to explore may be their own.

A love letter to books, libraries, and the stories that make us, and allow us to change for the better.

Part of the Centennial Husbands Big Bang! Work Complete, Includes Art!

to keep our metaphysics warm by ineverfeltyoung G

“Where on Earth did you learn to make pizza?” Death asks around a mouthful. Hob hasn’t even finished serving himself yet and she’s already dug in. Dream is certain that etiquette would denote this rude behavior, but Hob doesn’t seem to mind, only giving her a disbelieving look.

“I’m immortal,” he says blandly. “Italy. Where else?”

Death comes to dinner. Dream does the dishes. Hob cries a little bit.

Series: Part 2 of the abstract entities dinner club

Cottagecore series by @the-apocrypha

Warnings: vary by story

The love story of a fae prince and a hedgewitch in the middle ages. <3

The Measure Of A Soul E by @vlakas-ex-machina @blueberrymffn

When Hob Gadling made a drunken deal with a mysterious man in a pub, he didn’t expect anything to come of it. Waking up the following morning with a golden mark on his wrist was a shock, though less than finding out that he couldn’t die. Who had he made a deal with, and what did he want? His Stranger was far from forthcoming, so he’d have to figure it out himself. That his mark was not just a passkey to an underworld of supernatural beings but the sign that he wasn’t meant to spend eternity alone was enough to send him down paths he never knew existed and ask more questions than were answered. Who, or more importantly what was his Stranger, and did the mysterious man know who Hob was destined for?

(An AU where only immortals have soulmarks that mark their species/type as well as their partner, and Hob has something no one has seen before)

who wants to live forever? M by ranchdiip

“An Endless?” Hob asks, softly, because it feels like a question that needs to be soft.

“That’s what we are,” Death responds, trying again for a small smile. “Me and D—”

“Don’t,” Hob interrupts, far stronger than he meant to, and Death looks surprised for as long as it takes him to get out, “Don’t, please. I-I want to hear it from him.”

Sympathy colors Death’s gaze even as Hob feels his face burn. Six hundred years, Hob thinks—he’ll be damned if he finds out his Stranger’s name from anyone but the odd man himself.

—

It's 1989 and Hob Gadling thinks he's been stood up. Death herself is kind enough to inform him otherwise—and, well, now Hob's got to bloody do something about it, doesn't he?

it doesn't matter which you heard (the holy or the broken hallelujah) T by @meadowziplines for Thranduilland

Warnings: Kidnapping, Torture, occultism, Blood and Violence, Blood and Injury, Whump, Broken Bones, dislocations, magical torture, Physical Torture, Delirium, Confusion, Memory Issues, Identity Issues

Roderick Burgess kidnaps Hob Gadling on June 7, 1989, intending to break both him and Dream. Instead, Dream being rather aggressively tortured triggers the knowledge of Hob's identity as Hope of the Endless, wrapped away in a mental box as they had been.

#dreamling #the sandman #fanfic recs

[tweeterwilbury]

Okay I’m curious, what exactly is the story of George Harrison at Woodstock?

I will try to be brief.

Ok, so in 1968, right after the white album was released, George was invited to go to woodstock for the thanksgiving. As he said on I Me Mine; "I was invited there by The Band. It was Thanksgiving time and I'd just finished producing a Jackie Lomax album, directly after the Beatles 'White' Album."

He also mentions in an interview — I think it's for Musician, in 1987? — that he thinks he was invited there by Robbie Robertson.

Robbie mentions the visit in his memoir, Testimony, and he says that he had to convince Albert Grossman to let George stay at his house, and also that "Bob [Dylan] was keeping a very low profile, and when I asked him if he wanted to see George while he was in town, he too was a little iffy at first."

It's a very known fact that George was a big fan of Bob Dylan — he mentioned that in a lot of interviews, and everyone around him mentioned that too, besides the fact that he was always quoting Bob —, and during that time in Woodstock, he wrote two songs with Bob.

The first one is I'd have you anytime:

I have a post about the unused lyrics for that song that might be interesting for now.

George mentions in I Me Mine that "He [Bob] seemed very nervous, and I felt a little uncomfortable — it seemed strange, especially as he was in his own house.", and he also says that the song was written in the third day there. Later, Olivia mentioned that, when George wrote the lines 'Let me in here, I know I've been here, Let me into your heart', he was "directly talking to Bob".

The second song that they wrote together was...

One thing about this song: it wasn't finished. There are only demos of it. But it still is a very interesting song... in the lyrics on I Me Mine, there is this unused part:

That was substituted with "I get tired of being Beatle Jeff" / "I get tired of being Beatle Ted".

One fun fact about that song is that it had different names through the years. This was mentioned the George Harrison website: "Nowhere To Go was a collaboration between George and Dylan from their 1968 Thanksgiving visit that also yielded ‘I’d Have You Anytime’. It was first called ‘Thingymubob’, then ‘When Everybody Comes to Town’. ‘I Get Tired’ was also a working title and finally, by the time of the All Things Must Pass sessions, it is titled ‘Nowhere To Go’."

George mentioned the song using the title 'Thingymubob' in a letter to Bob, where he wrote the chords of the song.

Going back to The Band, Robbie said this, on testimony: "I was very curious about recording techniques the Beatles had discovered. George described their process as extremely experimental and sometimes accidental. I could definitely relate to that. When George inquired about the Band’s recording methods, I could barely keep up with him. For every question I posed to him, he asked me two about [Music From] Big Pink and The Basement Tapes [...]"

He also said this: "But George was one of the most open people I’d ever met, and Pattie was one of the prettiest and sweetest. George spoke incredibly candidly about the problems within the Beatles. John, he said, was far out on a limb, testing his balance. “Kinda crazy,” he laughed. And our dear Ringo was following in the tradition of many a hard-drinking Brit—apparently he had threatened to quit the band at one point. George was quick to admit there were serious tensions between Paul and him. 'Whenever I present a tune, the Lennon and McCartney songwriting team will ignore it as long as they can,' he said. 'Sometimes I even have to fight for my guitar parts. Paul has such a clear idea of how the song should go that he tells me what to play, or he wants to play it himself.'"

Two very interesting things here: the fact that George was talking about the problems in the Beatles, and also the fact that he was very interested in asking about the band records.

From I Me Mine; "When I wrote 'All Things Must Pass', I was trying to do a Robbie Robertson-Band sort of tune and that is what it turned into." He also mentioned that, while writing the song, he always thought about Levon singing it. (I'm not sure about where he mentioned that, tho.)

There are some songs that Bob showed to George on that time and he played later — for example, I threw it all away, a song that was released on Nashville Skyline, was played by George during the get back sessions, in january 1969, even before Bob recorded his version, and also I don't want to do it, that was released by George in 1985 —, and that travel was basically the start of a long collaboration in music, between George and Bob.

Also, George talking about the problems in the Beatles during that travel makes Nowhere to Go have even more sense. And then, when the beatles got together to record an album, it was on the get back/let it be sessions.... when he famously quit the beatles for some days.

Well, i think I've talked a lot, but that's basically the story. George also gave a guitar to Bob, but I'm not sure about when that happened — especially because he used that guitar during the get back/let it be sessions, and then on the abbey road sessions...

Anyway, here are two pictures; in the first, Bob and George, and in the second, Robbie and George.

AND THAT'S IT! i think. Sorry if this wasn't brief at all. It took me one hour and a half to write all this, so i think i probably got lost somewhere and maybe i am forgetting something.

#anon ask #long post #i feel like im forgetting something really important.

[magicofthepen]

so i accidentally bought a used copy of Human Nature last weekend and read it all on Tuesday. and the TV episodes are fresh in my mind too, so Immediate Reactions (spoiler warning):

fascinating that in book!HN, the Doctor decides to become human for the hell of it, for emotional reasons. I’d assumed that it would be revealed eventually that of course he was doing it to hide from the Family (erm, I forget their species name in the book), but no, the Family was the one who turned him human. I do think the TV version works better as a premise—and the Doctor not explaining much and giving limited instructions works better if he was genuinely in a rush, rather than it being a personal choice. but still. huh.

dear lord this book is much darker than the TV version. the whole school getting blown up and most of the students dying, the bullies literally killing Tim and him being brought back to life…..

the one thing I liked better in the book was how it explored the Doctor-as-an-Ideal more—how anyone can be the Doctor. John Smith didn’t have to change back to embrace what the Doctor stood for—he chose to be the sort of hero the Doctor was himself, while he was still human. Tim learned that he can say no to being a soldier and there are other ways to do good — and literally became a doctor.

I am fascinated by John Smith surviving briefly as a separate person from the Doctor. I liked it as a plot resolution—the villain trying to absorb the Doctor and instead being thwarted because he absorbed the mind of a human. weird that he then. dies(?) but there was something quite interesting there briefly, about humanity being his undoing. and the Doctor and John Smith getting to talk to each other. and it was definitely unexpected, given how nothing of the sort happens in TV!HN. (the mechanics of becoming human and the Doctor’s memories being stored separately also being different.)

yes I did read this because I knew Romana would be mentioned. I’d heard that seeing a vision of her was what led the Doctor to realize the threat the Family posed—which is true! but I’d assumed that this vision was before the adventure, that this vision sparked his plan to thwart the Family by hiding as a human. so I was emotionally unprepared for it being John Smith having the vision. he didn’t even remember her, but seeing Romana executed was what convinced him to resist, to not give the Family what they wanted. y’all I’m feeling things 🥺

#emily reads dw books #that’s a tag now #i truly didn’t *plan* to buy and inhale this book so quickly but hey! #it was genuinely really interesting seeing the similarities and differences to the tv version! #dw vnas #doctor who #dw eu #ramblings #romana #doctor x romana

[theviridianbunny]

SCAPBOOKING - JUNE 2023

A collection of scans from my current scrapbook. Just a bunch of doodles, stickers and things that make me happy/ inspire me

notes/credits to follow under the cut:

AGHHH HI IT'S BEEN FOREVER SINCE I'VE DONE ONE OF THESE!!

a few credits and notes:

WOW - what a fun few months it's been - Not really done too much work on this scrap boom for a while (just because my brain is always in 50 places at once ahaahah!!) - had a few problems the with the scanner at my local library again (but it was still fun trying it out !!) - i am aware a few of the pages look rather... blank - I may go back and add to them soon- I think today it was just a "oH MY GOD I NEED TO GET SCANS DONE AHDHJHDFDHFJD !!!" and I BATTLED WITH THE SCANNER AND SCRAMED A LITTLE INTERNALLY BUT HERE WE ARE--- WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

prited out a few of my fave jackie / viridian screenshots- also a few solo shots of my best girlie !! also went mad with stickers because you can NEVER have too many of them !! also collected the cinema tickets from when i saw john wick 4 and across the spriderverse ~

hand written note on the first page is from my dear friend bluefayt (linked her caard) - above that is a picture of me from comic con last year (taken by my fantastic irl bestie @withoutyouimsaskia <333 i love you aaaaa - we saw a bunch of star wars cosplayers and this person cosplaying as darth vader was posing for photos - they LARPed with me for a moment anf that photo was taken mid LARP - oh what an experice that was ~) sorry if you cant see it very well because of the damn contrast settings (tried to edit the scans but they ended up looking worse... so just posted the raw ones!!)

The xfiles tea packet is from @beastlybeverages !! I bought a pack of the xfiles themed tea last year after going to comic con - its a tea I really really enjoyed !!

The fith page - on the right - the postcard with the black and pink squares !! thats some serious art but my irl bestie Tim (aka 1710.film) - the post card was from an exhibition that happened when we were both at uni!!! Tim is not on tumblr- but please do check out his work- He is a photographer / conceptual artist - and one of my best dearest and lovely friends <3 you can find him on intagram here

sticker of the iron bull on page 4 is by @seonysketches - the manga ladies on pages 4 , 6 and 7 are by @pinkapplejam (find her esty here) - most of the other stickers i just had laying around - or picked up random packs in charity shops !! post cards and art cards too !! i found a whole pack of fairyloot(?) prints in a charity shop for like £2.49 and was like YOOO NEED - the art on the first pahe on the left side is of one of the main characters from these violent delights by chloe gong (WHICH I AM HOPING TO START READING SOON AGHHHH!))))

ugh um if you're at the end if this rammble your're the real mvp - thank you for coming to my ted talk wooOOOO !!!!!!!

#scrapbooking #journaling #oc: viridian #traditional art #art on tumblr #cp2077 #bunny makes art #oc: rowan hawkmore #demon slayer #cyberpunk 2077 #jackie welles #otp: to this #scrapbook journal #idk how to tag this aghhh #bunny screams into the void

[pensat-i-fet]

A schoolboy crush (Julián Álvarez, Rúben Dias X Reader)

Masterlist

Word count: 1245

** Another request from my dear 😈 anon. I struggled a bit writing this one but I hope you all enjoy it ❤️ **

The first day back at training meant getting to meet the new players that had already signed for the team. Haaland, Kalvin Philips, …and young Julián Álvarez. He was probably the most nervous out of all the new guys, coming to a country far away from his and not speaking English too well. Thankfully for him, his coach spoke Spanish. But also, many of his teammates could help him.

He immediately built a connection with players like Rodri or the Portuguese boys, but the one who almost adopted him was Rúben.

He had been giving him advice on where to live, where to shop, where to go in his free time,...always offering his help and his girlfriend's for anything Julián might need. She spoke Spanish too apparently.

Another thing he had to get used to was the new staff in the team and it was then that he met you.

You had been helping the boys with recovery after matches for months, thanks to your training as a yoga teacher. And today was the first session of pre-season.

"New boys!", said Jack, "the yoga teacher is off limits!"

"Why?", asked Erling.

"You'll find soon enough", laughed Jack. "But listen to my advice. I found out the…hard way", he said, touching his head and confusing the boys more.

"Hi everyone!", you said to all the players, also introducing yourself to the new ones.

The session was just another one for you. A few players, such as Rúben or Laporte were not present because they were still working on their fitness after injuries, but the rest of the squad was there.

You already knew which poses were the most challenging so you were busy checking everyone was doing it alright when you saw Julián struggling.

"Creo que necesitas un poco de ayuda, Julián", I think you need a bit of help, you said to him in perfect Spanish, which surprised him. His face made you laugh.

"Yes, I've never done this. Sorry", he told you, looking away from your face as you got closer.

"That's ok. Let me move your legs so you put the right amount of weight on them and don't hurt yourself".

You couldn't see him, but some of his teammates could and they started to snigger seeing him blush. It would be the same every single time you either got close to him or talked to him. He couldn't be more obvious despite trying hard not to be.

"There you go!", you told him with a big smile.

"Oh boy", said John. "You're in big trouble".

But he still didn't understand why.

**

The days passed and the team got ready to go to the US for their American tour.

Julián sat next to Rodri, Rúben and Bernardo on the plane.

When you walked past them, you noticed he was still very shy and you found it quite endearing.

"Hey Juli, if you get bored sitting with these old men, you can come to sit with me for a bit".

"So I can't sit with you, but he can", said Rúben shaking his head.

"I see enough of you already, Dias, give me a break", you said laughing, but before you could keep walking, he grabbed your arm and made you lean down so he could give you a quick kiss.

When Julián saw that, he finally understood his teammate's comments and started to worry. Had Rúben noticed his crush on you? Will he get angry?

So he decided to keep his distance.

The next few days were full of training sessions, but the team also believed in giving their players a lot of free time. In this case, to explore the new country they were in. Both you and Rúben invited Julián to come with you to do some sightseeing but he always refused. Which started to bother you, sensing something wasn't right. He was happy to do that in Manchester with Rúben but not now? What had changed?

"Is there something wrong with Julián?", you asked Rúben when you were both on a walk on your day off.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he was super close to you and hasn't been since we landed here. And whenever I talk to him, he finds an excuse to leave".

"Huh, now that you mention it, he kind of does the same with me. But I haven't done anything to him. And I'm guessing neither have you".

"Of course not. Should we talk to him?"

"Give it a couple of days", said Rúben. "He's adapting to the team. Maybe he's just having a couple of weird days".

And so that's what you did. But on a day when Rúben was sick in his room, and you weren't allowed to be with him just in case it was contagious, you found the real reason why your new Argentinian friend was being weird.

"Here comes your girlfriend, Juli, don't blush too much", you heard Kalvin say.

And when you turned, you saw Julián looking away from you…and blushing.

"What did you say, Philips?"

"Nothing".

"Are you making your new teammate uncomfortable, boys? I don't think your coach would appreciate that", you said, trying to scare them a bit. Even though you wouldn't tell on them unless they were doing something really harmful.

"Come on! Don't do that!", whined Jack. "We were just joking because Julián has a schoolboy crush on you".

Oh. It was actually sweet. And it made you feel bad for him. He was probably feeling so bad, knowing you were dating his teammate. And it obviously explained his behaviour since he saw you two together as a couple.

"Does Rúben know about this?", you asked them.

"About the crush?"

"Yes and about you bullying your teammate".

"No. We wouldn't say that in front of him, we don't want him hitting Julián".

"He wouldn't hit him, what are you talking about?", you said annoyed.

"He hit me when I flirted with you!!", complained Jack.

"But that's because you are you, Jack", you said, making everyone laugh.

"Come with me", you said to Julián and took him away from the group. "You don't have to avoid me, ok? Or Rúben. I don't mind you having a crush or whatever. You know, it's flattering that a lovely guy like you feels that way. Even if it of course has to remain just a crush. And you'll get over it soon, I'm sure".

"You sure Rúben won't be mad?"

"I won't let him be", you laughed and Julián's little smile warmed your heart.

**

After that, things sort of went back to normal. You had told Rúben about Julian's crush and he just laughed. You both talked to him and he stopped ignoring you.

Actually, he went back to following Rúben around, but the difference was you were there too.

Seeing you as a couple had made his crush go away, just as you expected. And now you could concentrate on being good friends.

The jokes became more frequent, though, but you just told him to ignore them.

And when Julián scored his first goal for the team, you were the first one to congratulate him. You saw him looking at his teammates laughing at your hug and so you kissed his cheek.

"You know, Juli", you said winking at Rúben, "if Rúben wasn't my boyfriend, I'd definitely ask you out. Not any of these idiots".

"Oh come on!", complained Jack.

But you just laughed at that.

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