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barefoot-joker · 2 months

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Snake in the Garden Pt 4~ Yandere!Lucifer X Reader

Hey, guys! Welcome to Snake in the Garden Part 4! In this chapter we meet a few new characters, so I hope I got their personalities right. I do hope you all like the new chapter as I had a lot of fun writing it. As always, enjoy and I hope you have a great day/night!

Words: 2395

Warnings: Swearing

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

I heaved as I ran through the streets of Hell. I couldn’t get enough air to my lungs and my legs were growing weary of the journey. However, I kept my eyes on the marquee and just kept going. You’re almost there, Y/n! Come on! Soon you’ll be free!

I didn’t take the time to look at the demons surrounding me but my ears caught all of the screams, moans and conversations as I passed. A couple of times I was grabbed at, but I just shoved them away and continued my trek. When I reached the gate of the hotel I stopped to catch a breather, my hand grasping the iron bars to steady myself. I looked back from where I came, the palace a tiny speck in the distance. I wanted to pat myself on the back but I knew I wasn’t in the clear. Until I was back home Lucifer could rear his head at any moment. Speaking of the Devil, I wondered how long it would be till he noticed I was gone.

Taking in a few more breaths, I walked up the cobblestoned hill to the front door. The marquee shone a bright red and I felt like I was bathed in blood. Stopping at the front door, I marveled at how intricate it was. The stained glass formed a circus tent pattern and the rim held a golden tint to it. Bringing my hand up, I knocked on the glass, a knot forming in my stomach. What if all this work was for nothing? Would the Princess even listen to my case?

I didn’t have much time to think when the door opened. In front of me stood a tall, lean man dressed all in red. Among his red and black hair, black deer antlers stood and what I assumed to be his ears straightened in surprise. His red eyes felt different compared to Lucifer’s, his feeling more sinister. His grin seemed to grow wider as he looked me up and down. “Hello, my dear. Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel. I’m Alastor, the hotel’s facility manager. How can I be of-”

I rushed past him and slammed the door shut, my nails digging into the golden wood. “-service to you?”

I spun around to face him, my eyes blown wide in panic. “I need to speak to Charlie! Please, it’s an emergency!”

I clasped my hands tight in prayer and tried to make myself look as vulnerable as possible. “Charlie isn’t here at the moment, I’m afraid. She’s out on some business with Vaggie. The two of them should be back soon though.”

I groaned and hung my head in despair. How long will she be gone?

I lifted my head back up and let out a slight shriek at how close the deer man was. He was practically on top of me, our noses almost touching. “Though I could speed along the process if I was told what constitutes an emergency.”

I hadn’t noticed it before but as the man spoke his voice held a static to it, almost like an old radio. “Listen, Alastor was it? I don’t feel comfortable sharing that with you.”

“Hmm. I guess you’ll just have to wait then. Husker, make this sinner feel at home.”

I looked to the left and saw a bar that looked way too out of place. Blue boards made up the walls and floor while the dark oak bar top sat in the middle. The cat demon, Husker, looked up from drying a glass and sighed. Alastor wrapped his arm around my shoulder and dragged me over to the bar, shoving me at a stool. I sat on top of it and gulped as the radio man kept eyeing me from his post nearby. “What’ll you be havin’?”

“Oh, um, a water is fine.”

“Not much of a drinker, eh?”

“No. Besides, I don’t really drink around strangers.”

Husker shrugged and turned his back to me. When he returned to my side, he placed a rocks glass in front of me on the bar top. I grabbed it and sipped my water. “So, I couldn’t help but overhear you’re in an emergency. Got some loan sharks after you or somethin’?”

“Oh no, much worse. It’s a long story.”

“I’ve heard my fair share of long stories as a bartender.”

“I just don’t feel comfortable sharing. I’d much rather wait for Charlie.”

“I can respect that. Hell is a rough place and if you’re not careful it can swallow you whole. I learned that the hard way.”

He sighed and continued to dry glasses. As I sipped my drink, I glanced over to see Alastor still staring at me. That maniacal grin never leaving his face and his eyes cool and calculating. “So um, what’s Alastor’s deal? Why does he keep staring at me like I’m fresh meat at the butchers?”

“He’s always like that, scoping out the new guests. But a word of advice, don’t make a deal with him whatever you do. You think your life is horrible now, you got another thing comin’ with him.”

“I see.”

Suddenly I felt something grazing my ankles. I peered down to see a very short woman with a red bob, a stripe of yellow hair in front of her one giant pink eye. My eyes widened upon seeing the silver blade in her hands. The female looked up and a giant grin spread across her thin lips. “You're not meant to be down here, are you?”

“Huh?”

“You smell…human. Sinners have a certain scent and you don’t have it. We’ve got a live one, guys!”

She hopped into my lap and grabbed the top of the nightgown. I gulped at how the knife was slightly pointed at my throat. “You’re pretty for a live one, not that I’ve seen many like you before.”

“T-thanks?”

“How rude of me! I’m Niffty! I clean.”

She shook me back and forth. “A live one, hmm?”

Suddenly I felt a hand tighten on my shoulder. I looked back to see Alastor, the end of his smile reaching well past his eyes. “You didn’t quite introduce yourself to us, did you, my dear?”

“Leave her alone, Alastor!”

“Tsk, tsk, Husker. I just want to know what I should call our newest arrival.”

“I, I, I-”

I stopped when I heard the front door open, two voices chatting as they came inside. I had never been more thankful for a door to open. “Oh, hey guys! What’s going on,” The tall blonde asked.

She looked so similar to Lucifer so she must be Charlie. “We’ve got a live one, Charlie! And to think she was trying to hide,” Nifty replied.

The Princess turned her red gaze to me and I quickly threw off the deer and housekeeper. I got down on my knees and looked up at the blonde. “Please Charlie, you have to help me! Your dad is fucking crazy-”

“Oh you must be Y/n!”

My heart dropped. No. No, no, no, no. How much does she already know?

Lucifer’s daughter scooped me up to my height and pet me on the head. “It’s so lovely to finally meet you! My dad has sent me several pictures but you look much prettier in real life. But what are you doing all the way out here? Shouldn’t you be planning a wedding?”

“That’s my problem! I don’t want to be here! Please, you’ve got to help! I’m begging you!”

I could feel tears come to my eyes as I pleaded my case. Charlie’s eyes softened and she placed her hands on my shoulders. “Here, let’s take a walk. Vaggie, can you put our shopping away?”

“Of course, honey.”

“Come on.”

The blonde took me by the shoulders and led me up the grand staircase. We went up a few floors before stopping in a room that resembled a library. Charlie ushered me to sit in one of the leather armchairs and then she followed my lead. “So tell me everything. I’m sure my dad left out a few key details.”

I did. I told her how the two of us had met up until I had been forced to say yes to marrying him. While I told my tale, she didn’t say anything. She just hummed at key parts. “So can you help me?”

“I want to, I really do. However, my dad-”

“Fucking kidnapped me, Charlie! Do you really want me to go back to that?!”

She opened her mouth to say something when suddenly her phone rang. She pulled it out of her red suit jacket and her eyes widened. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“It’s my dad.”

“Shit! I’m not here!”

“But…”

“You see the good in others don’t you, Charlie? Can’t you see the good in you helping me?”

She bit her lip before sighing. She clicked the answer button and held the phone to her ear. “Hey, dad. What’s up?”

Lucifer didn’t even need to be on speaker as I could hear him shouting from the phone. “Charlie dear, thank goodness you picked up! Look, I’m in serious trouble and need your assistance.”

“What can I do for you?”

“My darling bride Y/n is gone! Vanished! I left her to her own devices and when I came back she’s left me! I thought someone took her but then I found this rope hanging out the bathroom window and have you seen her? I don’t know how long she’s been gone for and I don’t want her out and about by herself. Hell’s too dangerous!”

Charlie and I made eye contact and I begged her to not give me up. Her grip tightened around her phone and I could see the battle going on in her head.

“Sorry dad, I haven’t seen her. I’ll keep an eye out though.”

“If you do find her please make sure she’s unharmed. I want my dear apple to be in one piece after all.”

“You’ve got it. But, hey, I’ve got to go. Vaggie’s calling me. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay, thank you sweetie.”

“You’re welcome. Love you. Bye.”

She disconnected the call. I let out the breath I was holding. She did it. She actually was going to help me!

“Okay, I know somebody who can get you back to Earth. But we’d better hurry. My dad sounds like he’s getting close.”

“Thank you so much, Charlie! I really do appreciate it!”

“Hurry now!”

She summoned a dark trenchcoat and fedora from thin air. I quickly put them on and out the front door we went. Our walk felt just as long as when I had run to the hotel, but this time demons didn’t seem to bother us. It was probably because the Princess of Hell was with me. We continued walking until we stopped at a very large mansion. Out front was a cobblestone drive and a fountain spraying water. Charlie and I walked up to the double set of dark blue doors and she knocked. They opened to reveal an imp butler, a small white mustache hiding his lips. “Hello, Princess! What can we do for you?”

“I need to speak with Stolas. It’s urgent, Pringles!”

“Follow me.”

We strutted inside and the little butler led us to a study. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

“Thank you, Pringles.”

“Of course, Princess.”

The door shut behind him. The study was quite large with several bookcases housing thousands of novels near the walls. A desk with a tall, navy and gold chair sat behind a dark oak desk. The place seemed very fitting for a Prince. As we waited I found myself playing with my engagement ring. I willed myself to stop but my fingers kept rubbing it. Don’t get cold feet now, Y/n. You’re almost home free.

I heard the navy blue door open and I turned to see a very tall, skinny owl man. He wore a dark red jumpsuit with a wine red cape draped on his shoulders. White and black feathers made up the collar and they mingled with his own gray feathers. A smile found its way to his beak when he spotted us. “Charlie! It’s so good to see you, my dear!”

The two hugged and when he pulled away, he looked at me with his four red eyes. “Who might this be? A friend of yours?”

“Stolas, this is Y/n. My dad captured her and brought her down to Hell. We need to send her home to Earth.”

“Ah, so this is the infamous Y/n I’ve heard about. It’s a pleasure to be meeting you.”

He bowed. How many people has Lucifer told about me?

“But why would you want to go back to Earth? You’re getting married in a few months.”

“Because I don’t belong here! I was fucking kidnapped and am becoming a bride against my will! Please Mr Stolas, let me go home!”

“Have you and Lucifer made a contract together?”

“Huh?”

“I mean have you signed anything that he has given you?”

“No, I don’t believe so.”

He bowed his head. “Then I can help. Just let me get my Grimoire.”

He held up his hand and a blue and gold book came flying towards him. The book looked heavy as it floated in the air but the owl Prince paid it no mind. He flipped through each of the pages until he landed on one. “Y/n, if I do this for you I cannot guarantee your safety. I know Lucifer. He’ll be looking for you until you’re in his grasp again.”

“That’s fine. As long as I can go back.”

“Very well.”

He chanted out a spell and before I knew it a purple portal materialized before my very eyes. “Go quickly now. I can’t hold this open for long.”

“Thank you, both of you. I appreciate it!”

“Go!”

I walked through and not a minute later the portal closed behind me. I looked around and smiled. I was back in my house in the hallway. I laughed triumphantly and threw off my disguise, making my way to the living room. I stopped when I heard the crunching of what sounded like…chips? I looked over to my couch and I felt my eyes widen.

“There you are! It took you long enough!”

~~~~~~~~

TAGLIST

@ladymothbeth @cosmic-spider @l0vedoe @stormz369 @strawberry-gothic @repostingmyfavs @purplechan9 @caniseethefourthsword @rl800 @froggybich @txpchhhhhhh @stayinguplate @theonlykawaiigod-blog @vash-yuu @musicb33nsstuff @zennylz @rosieposie005 @weirdgirlislonely @noxianwarmason @luksusowejachty234567 @nicky190i @flutistbyday2020 @insanepurplegrapes @rin22 @b-connie @yepperoniro @halparkebitch

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15minlatewithbatbucks · 11 months

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It's forty minutes into the latest state of the company press conference and Bruce has had to mute his mic entirely to avoid being turned into a meme AGAIN for sighing too much at his own event. For all that he's spent almost 20 years coaching his own children on not making scenes, he's really not much better. It's hot and he doesn't want to be here. His ribs hurt. He's tired. He's hungry. He's every excuse Dick or Jason have trotted out over the years.

(Tim understands company manners and can almost always be trusted to stick it out as long as he's allowed to vent his frustrations afterwards. He's recently taken to smashing ugly thrifted dishes. Stephanie and Damian have been collecting any ceramic not entirely pulverized and turning them into pavers for Alfred's garden.)

(Bruce gave up after Tim. He really only needs one kid to tag along to social events. If the kid start to outnumber him they start getting IDEAS.)

His distraction is why it takes two very rude repetitions of his name for him to take notice at the young reporter pushing his way to the front. Lucius stands, cutting off the project manager currently presenting and speaks into the mic.

"Please keep hold all questions until the end of the presentation, thank you."

"Mr. Wayne," the reporter tries again and Bruce waves away Lucius's further protests.

"Can I help you?" He asks, smiling with the full force of Brucie Wayne's charm behind it. It's been awhile since his last scandal, but if the press is inventing drama then it's less work for him.

The man holds up a photograph almost accusingly. He reeks of gotcha journalism.

Bruce squints towards him, unable to fully make out the contents of the photo. Dick may have been right when he gently suggested Bruce add glasses to his Brucie Wayne persona but that was a hill Bruce was still willing to die on. It was bad enough he had to have a prescription COWL.

"What do you have to say about the presence of your adopted son, Timothy Drake at the illegal mob in Robinson Park last Saturday?"

"Drake-Wayne," Bruce corrected because Tim hyphenated, damn it. He was the first of his children to let Bruce tag the Wayne name on and it mattered, damn it. "Wait do you mean-"

"How about reports of him kissing a man while there?"

"A blond man?" Bruce asked, finally giving up and crossing to take the photo for himself. "Oh. No, that's his boyfriend."

There was a beat of silence before Bruce realized his mistake. Just as the reporters began to squall, he dropped the blurry photo and began to speed walk off, phone suddenly in hand.

Through the podium's microphone, the gathered reporters heard one thing as Bruce evacuated the immediate vicinity.

"Tim? Don't be mad."

---

Despite Bruce's best efforts, he becomes a meme.

---

Immediately following the bombshell that Timothy Drake-Wayne had a boyfriend, social media blows up, clamoring for more information. They're ravenous for it, desperate. Tim doesn't have a personal social media presence but they stalk his professional accounts religiously. Bruce does have personal social media, but he maintains radio silence.

In the end, a Gotham based "influencer" stumbles across Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne getting donuts at Kosher Donuts and Co. Dick is personable, as always, and stops to speak with the young woman briefly.

"Yeah, Tim wasn't mad," he laughs when asked. "Just disappointed. But man, he knows how to milk it."

"Bruce is in the doghouse, huh?" she asks, full of false sympathy.

"A little bit," Dick says as Damian mumbles, "Titus would never share."

"But," Dick continued. "Tim's spun it so Bruce is on the hook for like, half a million in donations for local LGBT charities. Tim says it would hurt less if he sponsored a new shelter too, so that's something to look forward to."

"That's a lot of money! Where's it all going?"

"Oh you know," Dick says and gestures vaguely. "A lot of different programs."

"Yeah? Anything you personally want to see done with the funding?"

"Drag story time," Damian answers before Dick can. He looks intense. "But not for children. For dogs. In the shelter."

---

A day later, Tim breaks the silence. He goes live on Bruce's Instagram.

"So the problem was that Bruce thought the reporter was saying I was being unfaithful," Tim explains. "He totally forgot I wasn't out to everyone yet. Bruce was just worried because he's already told me if I break up with my boyfriend, he's not uninviting him from any future family events."

"Luckily, I was in fact just kissing my boyfriend at PRIDE. Just because people got shifty with the permits at the last second because of protestors doesn't make it an illegal mob. If you wanna hear about Wayne's and illegal mobs, talk to Dickie about his younger years. Nothing I do can compare."

#tim drake #bruce wayne #dick grayson #batfamily #dc pride #happy pride #timbern #wrote this on my phone so good luck with grammar or spelling #my writing tag

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majorhortonisonleaveinlondon · 1 month

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If you’re wanting to watch Band of Brothers/The Pacific/Masters of the Air in chronological order with BoB 1st Currahee episode split up in the dates on screen I made a list

(Updated: April 12, 2014 7:58pm pst)

July, 10 1942 Easy Company Trains in Camp Tocca (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee 2001) August 7, 1942, Allied forces land on Guadalcanal (The Pacific Ep. 1 Guadalcanal/Leckie 2010) September 18, 1942, 7th Marines Land on Guadalcanal (The Pacific Ep. 2 Basilone 2010) December 1942 The 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal is relieved (The Pacific Ep. 3 Melbourne 2010) *June 23, 1943, Easy Company Trains in Camp Mackall N.C. (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee) * June 25, 1943, 100th Bomb Group flew its first 8th Air Force combat mission (Master of the Air Ep. 1 2024)

July 16, 1943 the 100th Bomb Group bombed U-Boats in Tronbhdim (Masters of the Air Ep.2 2024) August 17, 1943 the 4th Bomb Wing of the 100th Bomb Group bombed Regenberg (Masters of the Air Ep. 3 2024) *September 6, 1943, Easy Company Boards transport ship in Brooklyn Naval Yard (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* September 16, 1943, William Quinn and Charles Bailey leave Belgium (Masters of the Air Ep.4 2024) September 18, 1943 -*East Company trains in Aldbourne, England (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* -John 'Bucky' Egan returns from leave to join the mission to bomb Munster (Master of the Air Ep.5 2024) October 14, 1943, John ‘Bucky’ Egan interrogated at Dulag Lut, Frankfurt Germany (Masters of the Air Ep. 6 2024) December 26, 1943, 1st Marine Division lands on Cape Gloucester (The Pacific Ep. 4 Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika 2010) March 7, 1944, Stalag Luft III Sagan, Germany, Germans find the concealed radio Bucky was using to learn news of the War (Master of the Air Ep.7 2024) *June 4, 1944, D-Day Invasion postponed (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* *June 5, 1944 Easy Company Boards air transport planes bound for Normandy (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* June 6, 1944, 00:48 & 01:40 First airborne troops begin to land on Normandy (Band of Brothers Ep. 2 Day of Days 2001)

June, 7 1944 Easy Company Takes Carentan (Band of Brothers 3x10 Carentan)

August 12, 1944, The 332nd Fighter Group attack Radar stations in Southern France (Masters of the Air Ep.8 2024)  September 15, 1944 U.S. Marines landed on Peleliu at 08:32, on September 15, 1944 (the Pacific Part Five: Peleliu Landing)

September 16, 1944 Marines take Peleliu airfield (the Pacific Part Six: Airfield)

September, 17 1944 Operation Market Garden -(Band of Brothers 4x10 Replacements)

October 22/23, 1944, 2100 – 0200 Operation Pegasus (Band of Brothers 5x10 Crossroads)

October, 1944 Battle of Peleliu continues (the Pacific Part Seven: Peleliu Hills)

December 16, 1944 Battle of the Bulge (Band of Brothers 6x10 Bastogne) 

January, 1945 Battle of Foy (Band of Brothers 7x10 The Breaking Point) 

February 14, 1945 David Webb rejoins the 506th in Haguenau (Band of Brothers 8x10 The Last Patrol)

April 5, 1945 506th Finds abandoned Concentration Camp (Band of Brothers 9x10 Why We Fight 2001)

April 1-June 22, 1945 Battle of Okinawa (The Pacific Part Nine: Okinawa) 

May 7, 1945, Germany Surrenders V-E Day - (Master of the Air Ep. 9 2024) - (Band of Brothers 10x10 Points 2001)

August 15 The Empire of Japan surrenders end of the War (The Pacific Part Ten: Home)

#band of brothers #the pacific #masters of the air #HBO War Fandom

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ultrone · 28 days

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what music do you think Jackie would listen to…?

very random playlist i know lmaooo i hope it’s at least a bit accurate. i tried to stick to before the 2000s as much as i could 🫡

Gwen Stefani/No Doubt for sure. I feel like she’d specifically love “Cool” by Gwen

I Touch Myself by Divinyls

Crush by Jennifer Paige

Fastlove, Pt. 1 by George Michael

The Cranberries (influenced by Shauna 🤔)

The King of Wishful Thinking by Go West (she got obsessed with it after watching Pretty Woman)

Kiss Me by Sixpence None The Richer

Back For Good by Take That

Some songs by Fleetwood Mac & Stevie Nicks, like Sable on Blond, I Don't Want to Know, Edge of Seventeen, Only over You…

Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) by Kate Bush

Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley

Madonna

Waterfalls by TLC

Right Here - Human Nature Radio Mix by SWV

Living On My Own - No More Brothers Radio Mix by Freddie Mercury

I feel like she’d also be lowkey into Country 😭

Shania Twain

Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus

Jolene by Dolly Parton

Amber by 311

Baby, I Love Your Way by Big Mountain

Angel by Shaggy, Rayvon

The Sign by Ace of Base (medicated Lottie got her into it)

Had a hanson phase lmaoooo 🧐

Torn by Natalie Imbruglia

Bitch by Meredith Brooks (she’d sing/yell this one in Shauna’s car)

I Try by Macy Gray

Girlfriend in a Coma by The Smiths

Alanis Morissette

There She Goes by The La’s

Two Princes by Spin Doctors

You Get What You Give by New Radicals

Fast Car by Tracy Chapman (I feel like Shauna would overplay it while driving)

Be My Baby by The Ronettes

Duran Duran

Bon Jovi

Fantasy by Mariah Carey

Genie in a Bottle by Christina Aguilera

Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus

Livin' la Vida Loca by Ricky Martin

Savage Garden

Uptown Girl by Westlife

Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners

Summer Of ‘69 by Bryan Adams

The Power Of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Hero by Enrique Iglesias

Whitney Houston’s top hits

Let’s Hear It for the Boy by Deniece Williams

Some Aerosmith songs, like Crazy & I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing

The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss) & One by One by Cher

I Love You Always Forever by Donna Lewis

Black or White by Michael Jackson

Accidentally in Love by Counting Crows (from the Shrek 2 soundtrack 😭)

Alone & These Dreams by Heart

I Think We’re Alone Now by Tiffany

More Than a Feeling by Boston

What’s Love Got to Do with It by Tina Turner

Close to Me by The Cure

Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Eiffel 65 ☠️

Endless Love by Luther Vandross, Mariah Carey

Be My Baby & Divine idylle by Vanessa Paradis

Smile by Lily Allen

I’m Gonna Miss You by Milli Vanilli

Conga by Gloria Estefan 🤣

New Kids On The Block

Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds

Queen

Hey Ya! by Outkast

Dreaming Of You by Selena

extra… songs she’d listen to if she spoke spanish or was latina cuz i’m mexican and i’ve been thinkin abt this 🙂‍↕️

Tu Dama De Hierro by Marisela

Belanova, especially Rosa Pastel, Me Pregunto, and Cada que…

Formas de Amor by Calo

Mi Media Naranja by Fey

Bazar & No Controles by Flans

Gracias A Dios by Thalia

La Ventanita by Garibaldi

Ahora Te Puedes Marchar by Luis Miguel

Cuando Calienta El Sol by Luis Miguel

Mírala, Míralo by Alejandra Guzman

Virgen de las Vírgenes by Gloria Trevi

Ni Una Sola Palabra by Paulina Rubio

No Puedo Olvidarme Ti by MDO

La Calle de las Sirenas by Kabah

Enamoradísimo by Mercurio

Veneno by Ragazzi

Dile Que la Amo by Kairo

Hombres G

Oye Mi Amor by Maná

Rica y Apretadita (feat. Anayka) by El General

Moriré by La Factoria

Enloquéceme & Shabadabada by OV7

Timbiriche

Amante Bandido by Miguel Bosé

Alejandro Sanz

#jackie taylor thoughts #yjs thoughts #yellowjackets thoughts #jackie taylor #yellowjackets #jackie taylor headcanons

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daechwitatamic · 1 year

Text

IV. Something Has to Change

(banner by @/itaeewon)

Title: My Feet to Follow, and My Heart to Hold (Masterpost)

Rating: NSFW - minors dni

Genre: college!au, roomie!au, angst, s2l, the absolute slowest of burns

Pairing: Namjoon x female reader, unrequited Taehyung x reader

Beta'd by @/kookstempo, @/casuallyimagining, and @/toikiii - thank you endlessly!

Summary: You know a lot about the many types of love thanks to Kim Taehyung. You love him as the only person you see as “family”, you love him as your very best friend, and you love him as the beautiful, funny man he’s become. But when a twist of fate during your senior year has you rooming with his good friend Kim Namjoon, you just might find that you have plenty left to learn about love.

Lesson One: there are such things as a right way and a wrong way to love and to be loved.

Your friendship with Taehyung starts to show its cracks.

Section Warnings: language

WC: 7.5k

The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake, Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road A gateless garden, and an open path: My feet to follow, and my heart to hold. - Journey | Edna St. Vincent Millay

Saturday October 20th

You text Taehyung before going to sleep just to confirm he didn’t die in a ditch, but it’s radio silence from him until almost three o’clock the next afternoon. When he does finally answer you - “alive but at what cost?” - you roll your eyes and turn your phone over, screen down. You’re sitting in the living room, two author anthologies open on the coffee table, bookends to your open notebook.

Apparently he’s displeased with your silence, because your phone buzzes again a few minutes later - the longer buzz, indicating a call of some kind. With a huff of aggravation, you flip it over to see it’s a video call, his preferred method of communication. You slide the button to accept the call, but let him stare at your ceiling.

“What?” you demand. “I can’t talk, I have to go call off my search parties.”

“I was asleep,” he defends himself. “I texted you as soon as I woke up!”

“Didn’t sleep last night, huh?” you joke, but the sting is there. Just a little.

He avoids the question. “What are we doing tonight?”

You laugh at the audacity of his whole existence. Admitting to your face that he’d been up all night with a girl, and then calling you first thing upon waking like he knows you’ll just be there, waiting for him. What would happen if you weren’t?

Not to mention asking what the Saturday night plan is thirty seconds after waking up with a hangover.

“I’m assuming you won’t want to go out?” you ask.

He hums, runs a hand through his messy hair. “Depends. I could be persuaded, maybe. Wouldn’t mind just hanging out, though. What about a movie? We have that one we’ve been saving?”

We.

You’re not sure why, today, it’s bothering you so much. The truth is, Taehyung’s acting and speaking the same as always. So what’s different?

You don’t want to examine the answer to that, so you focus on the plan instead. “I like the sound of a movie,” you agree. “Wanna see if anyone else is interested?”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says. “I’ll text everyone.”

“Sounds good. See you around eight?”

“Should we order dinner before that?” he asks.

Something in your stomach turns. You don’t want to. You don’t want to keep getting your heart stepped on. You don’t want his metaphorical scent on all of your clothes, so that you can’t go anywhere or do anything without him lingering on you.

And at the same time, he’s your best friend. He’s your family. You love him, in multiple ways.

It feels like being tugged in opposite directions. It feels like lose/lose. It feels like there’s no right answer, nowhere to turn, no option that doesn’t hurt.

“Not tonight,” you hear yourself say. “I have too much homework.”

“Okay,” he says easily. “See you around eight, then. I’ll let you know if anyone else is coming with me.”

You try to return to homework after you hang up, but your focus is shot. You lean onto the cushy back of the couch, closing your eyes. You’re still sitting like that when you hear the front door open. Namjoon hadn’t been home when you got up, had been out the whole time.

“Hey,” you say, eyes still closed.

He gives a chuckle. “Everything okay?”

“I think my brain is broken,” you tell him. “Can Edna write about something besides death?”

He huffs out a laugh, and you hear him drop his keys onto the counter. “I think she does,” he says, coming closer and peering at the anthology you still have open on the table in front of you. “Nature. Rebellion. Men. Women. Love. Sex.”

Your cheeks burn, like you’re thirteen damn years old, just from hearing the word sex in his low, steady voice.

Get a grip, you scold yourself silently.

“I guess so,” you admit. “But today everything I read is about grief.”

“Take a break,” he suggests, moving into the kitchen. You hear a cabinet open and the sink run, and then he comes in carrying a glass of water. He sits down a few feet away from you on the couch and copies your pose, leaning back against the cushions.

It occurs to you that you’ve never sat on the couch at the same time as him before. In fact, your Uber ride last night was the closest your bodies had ever been.

“We’re gonna watch a movie tonight,” you find yourself telling him. “That new one with what’s-his-face, Raven’s Prophecy? Around eight. If you want to join.”

“Yeah,” he says right away, surprising you. “Sounds good.”

–

The movie’s good - really good. You’re all crowded around the living room - Namjoon on one end of the couch, Yoongi on the other, you and Taehyung and Jimin on the floor. The coffee table has been pushed to the side to make room for you, the lights turned down. Taehyung is sitting with his back against the couch, legs extended in front of him, and you have a throw-pillow leaning against his knees, laying perpendicular to him. Jimin sits next to Taehyung, one of his legs resting lazily over top of yours.

It feels normal, and it feels nice, and everything weird from earlier seems to float away. Maybe you had just been tired.

“That’s totally foreshadowing,” you pipe up, raising a hand to point at the screen. “Because when he-.”

“Hey,” Taehyung says loudly, reaching over to flick the back of your arm. “No nerd talk. Just enjoy the movie. No one asked for a literary analysis.”

“But, look -.”

“No,” he repeats firmly, and Jimin giggles, used to this exact squabble. “This is fun, not school.”

“Foreshadowing is fun!” you protest, laughing, but you let it go.

A second later, your phone buzzes in your hand.

[9:37 PM] Namjoon: 🤯

You bite back a smile, turning off your screen before the light can catch anyone’s attention, and then you cast your gaze up at the couch to find Namjoon looking right at you, a sheepish smile creeping up on one side of his face.

You’re thankful for the dark of the room, the light shifting and changing with the scene on the tv screen, as you feel yourself blush.

God, you think to yourself. Get it together. Two days ago, it hadn’t been like this, where every met glance cues up a shy smile, and each tiny smile elicits a flush. You don’t know who this girl is but she is un-fucking-recognizable.

You wait a minute or two, then turn your brightness down and send back, “but am i wrong?”. Then you glance back up to watch Namjoon read the text. He gives a laugh, one shake of his shoulders as he sees it, and then he meets your gaze. That same half-smile on his face, he shakes his head imperceptibly.

Behind you, beneath you, Taehyung shifts and you turn back to the tv quickly, feeling something akin to guilt simmer in your gut. You don’t see his eyes bounce back and forth between you and Namjoon, curious.

Monday October 22nd

Monday brings bright sunshine despite the chilly air, morning light illuminating the deep reds and oranges of the trees down the block.

Namjoon finds you in the kitchen, staring listlessly into an untouched cup of coffee.

“Good morning?” he greets you, a question.

You startle. “Shit!” you yelp and then laugh, heart pounding. “I didn’t even hear you getting ready in there. ”

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says apologetically. “I’m heading to campus in a bit… how about you?”

“Yeah,” you say glumly. “I have work and class.”

“Same,” he says, moving around you to rummage for some breakfast. “Class first, and then I’m TA-ing all afternoon.”

You give him a little smile. “I don’t think I’ll be needing your services today.”

“No?” he asks mildly. “Last few submissions went well?”

You quirk an eyebrow. “Bold of you to assume I’ve written anything worth submitting.”

He laughs, his back to you, and then settles against the kitchen counter. “I can help you brainstorm, too, if you’re stuck.”

You bite back the prideful I don’t need your help that rises to your tongue. He’s being nice. Instead, you say, “Hopefully I’ll make some progress on my own. Have fun, though. You still have that office to yourself? If I had that, I’d be so productive. Nothing to distract me.”

Namjoon shakes his head, smiling ruefully. “I find ways. I still have my phone. And a window.”

You laugh at this, and then rise, draining half of your mug of coffee in one go. “I need to head in. Are you leaving now, too? Or, later?”

“I can make now work,” he says, something warm in his tone. “Let me just go grab my bag.”

Out front, you blink against the sudden brightness, holding up a hand to shield your eyes as they adjust. Namjoon locks the front door and comes down the steps at a light jog, stopping next to you.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you tell him, and you start off towards campus in silence, the only noise around you the calls of birds and the hum of car engines from nearby traffic.

You stop at an intersection, watching the orange hand tell you to wait. “So,” you say, glancing up at him as the cars whiz by, “what’s your book about?”

He looks at you completely blankly, like he has no idea what you’re talking about.

“For the grad program,” you clarify. “You said you were in fiction, right?”

“Oh,” he says, as if he forgot. “Yeah. Um, I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”

“Try,” you say dryly.

“It’s a coming-of-age, I guess,” he says, rubbing his chin as he thinks. He’s wearing his glasses today, and you have half a mind to tease him that he’s just trying to look like one of the professors so they don’t kick him out of his hijacked office. “And a bit of an unrequited love story.”

“The good kind or the bad kind?” you ask, a little absently. When he doesn’t answer, you look at him to determine why, and he’s looking at you like you’ve asked the most ridiculous question in the world.

You huff out a sigh. “Like - unrequited because the other person doesn’t know, or because they don’t return the feelings?”

“One of those is the good kind?” he asks, raising a brow.

“The first one,” you say, as if it’s obvious. “It’s… it always exists only as the idea of love, it’s untarnished, it can remain a beautiful and pure thing. It never gets messed up.”

“But you’re alone,” Namjoon counters.

“You still love someone,” you insist. “The meaning of life, and all that shit.”

Namjoon shakes his head as the stoplight above you changes from green to yellow, and then to red. “It’s not the same as loving someone and having them love you back, building it together and working to sustain it,” he says firmly. “That’s real love.” And then he heads for the crosswalk, his long legs carrying him swiftly away.

You hurry to catch up, feet following his without question.

–

The first leaf falls, a warning. Now the rest will follow. I watched them sway all summer. Autumn leaves me hollow.

There’s a promise in the air, I turn towards the icy bite. If autumn can’t make me happy, I wonder if winter might.

Aren’t those frozen days so dark? Isn’t catching snowflakes strange? Perhaps this could be something. Perhaps something has to change.

You frown at the page. Half of you is tempted to take Namjoon up on his offer to workshop during his TA hours, but you’ve got a good reason not to let him see this one.

“Y/N?” Kris calls from the register at the front of the store. “Did I leave my phone back there?”

Their voice brings you back to reality, pulling your focus from the page of your notebook open on your lap. You’re hiding in the stockroom, sitting on an unpacked box of what you hope are books, trying to cram in some coursework.

Kris’s phone is indeed on a table behind you, where you sling your bookbag when you come in to start a shift. You rise, slipping your notebook back into said bag and grabbing the phone, walking it out to them.

You’re alarmed when both phones buzz in your hands, a long, repeating pattern that you aren’t accustomed to.

“What the fuck?” you utter, even though if your boss heard you cursing on the floor you’d get a written reprimand for the first time in your life.

“Storm alert,” Kris says, reaching one grabby hand out for their phone. You pass it over and press your thumb to your own screen. Sure enough, it’s a severe weather alert.

You groan. “Great. I walked here.” You try to pull up the radar, but your shitty service takes too long to load it so you switch over to the hour-by-hour.

“See if your knight in shining armor will give you a ride,” Kris says with a twisted chuckle.

For a second, you aren’t sure if they mean Taehyung or Namjoon, and that fact is startling. Obviously they mean Taehyung, they know a lot of your history with him and they don't know anything about what’s happening with Namjoon. Nothing is happening with Namjoon, you correct yourself sternly. You had a weird desire to scoot closer while drunk in an Uber and had one sort of deep conversation. It’s not a thing.

And, actually, texting Taehyung for a ride is a pretty good idea. Outside, it’s not even raining yet, but the clouds hang low and the leaves that have managed to cling to their branches this late into autumn are flipping and shimmying in the harsh wind.

There’s a long line of students waiting to check out - probably grabbing last minute snacks and drinks before the rain starts, so they don’t have to go out later - so you slide next to Kris at the second register and swipe your access card. You work like this for at least an hour, the rain starting a pace outside the windows as steady as the flow of students trying to get what they need and hurry back to their dorms.

When you catch a minute, you send a text, holding your phone down under the counter and typing with one hand, as if it isn’t painfully obvious what you’re doing. When the answer comes in, you tap the screen quickly.

[4:22 PM] You: are you still on campus?

[4:31 PM] Namjoon: just finished work. can’t wait to walk back in this…

You giggle and Kris looks at you out of the corner of their eyes.

“That him?” they ask. They mean Taehyung, and you’re too damn aware of the lie as you answer, “Mhm.”

[4:34 PM] You: i’m done in 25 min if you want to suffer together

[4:36 PM] Namjoon: yeah sounds good you can make sure i dont drown lol

An “lol”? Oh, goodness.

[4:37 PM] Namjoon: you’re at the bookstore right? i’ll come there and wait for you

Oh, lord, Kris is going to have a field day with this. You don’t have time to focus on this, as your boss finally sweeps out of her adjoining office, announcing that you need to shut down the second register and finish everything in the back room before your shift ends. She’ll be the one to close the store tonight, as she does on Mondays.

When you emerge from the back room at 4:59 on the dot, your backpack on your back, Namjoon is loitering near the registers, and Kris is shooting you looks that are somehow mischievous, delighted, and wounded. You have a feeling you’ll be interrogated during your shift on Wednesday.

Outside, the rain isn’t that bad, but it is steady. The wind blowing makes it look like it’s raining left to right, in sheets.

“We’re gonna be drenched,” you groan. You follow Namjoon out of the bookstore, waving a goodbye at a still-disgruntled Kris, stopping at the glass doors that lead outside.

“It’s not that bad,” Namjoon tells you, voice a little fond, like he thinks your complaining is cute. “We’ll just go quick. I’m mostly worried about my laptop.”

“Ugh, same,” you lament. “We’d better be fast, I fully cannot afford a new one.”

“Let’s go,” he tells you, and leads you outside. Just like that morning, your feet follow his, like it’s natural. You walk in silence almost halfway home, the pace too clipped to really carry on any kind of conversation.

You’re practically panting for breath when you hit the major crosswalk, stopping to wait for the signal to walk. The rain seems worse when you’re stopped - sticking your hair to your head where it lands, raising the hairs on your arms as your body gives one dramatic shiver against the chill. Namjoon looks down at you.

“We’re almost there,” he says, reassuring.

“Mhm,” you manage, rubbing your hands over your arms to fight off the goosebumps. The light changes and you start across, following Namjoon and his naturally long stride. You keep your eyes on the ground, dodging puddles, watching the white stripes pass beneath you.

You’re just across, stepping up the curb onto the sidewalk, when it happens.

The sky opens.

One second it’s raining hard enough to be a nuisance, the next second it feels like someone dumped a bucket of water over your head. The sound goes from a soft patter to a sudden roar, like the rain is alive and it is pissed. You splutter, actually blowing water away from your lips, reaching up to wipe your eyes.

“Fucking shit,” Namjoon swears, and then he grabs your hand and tugs. “Come on!”

He’s not running that fast but there’s still a few seconds where you feel uneven, your gait awkward, trying to match his. Eventually your feet settle into the rhythm and you run just behind him. His hand, so large in yours it's almost swallowing it, is warm and solid and sure. His grip is tight - like he means it. He doesn’t look back as he runs, just squeezes your hand in his and trusts you to keep up.

When you round the corner of your block, together, you try to pull back, try to slow down. Your lungs hurt, your legs are burning, and you just want to admit defeat and walk the block letting the rain know it won.

Namjoon doesn’t let you. He slows his pace to more of a race-walk, gives your arm another playful tug. Not for a single second does he loosen his grip on your hand.

“You can make it,” he tells you over his shoulder. His hair is flattened from the rain, his face a little flushed from the run, but his dimples wink at you through the deluge.

When he reaches the front of the apartment, he finally drops your hand and takes the steps at a clip. At the top, under the safety of the awning, he turns to see why you haven’t followed him.

You can’t help it - it’s all so ridiculous you have to laugh. Your hair sticks to your face like cooked spaghetti, your shirt clings to your arms, your backpack is dripping water like there’s a faucet in there, and even your socks are wet, making each step you take squelch like mud. Still cackling at the absurdity of this moment, of having been completely defeated by the season, of running all the way home and still ending up half-drowned, you look up at the sky. The rain slides down the sides of your face and you let it cool the heat that’s there from either running, or Namjoon’s touch.

You feel a little drunk from it.

“Y/N!” Namjoon scolds from the top of the stairs, but he’s smiling that same fond little smile he’d had on movie night a few days ago. “Come inside! You’re going to get pneumonia.”

You look back at him, the rain still assaulting you from above. There’s a second where you feel something. Something like… you’re half-drowned and chilled to the bone, but you feel warm with his affectionate gaze on you. Like you don’t want him to look away and leave you cold again. Like the rain was penance and now you’re all paid up.

Like for at least this moment, right now, the rain has washed away your histories and left you clean and empty, a blank page waiting for a new story to tell - where before, your pages were full of scribbles and scrawls that held such heavy meaning there was no room for anything new.

You’re thinking too much.

You’re standing in the rain, Namjoon is looking at you like you’re nuts, and you’re thinking too much.

Watching your feet, you head up the stairs, going through the front door that he’s holding open for you.

You squish your way upstairs, neither of you talking. Inside the apartment, Namjoon flicks on a few lamps.

“I’m going to grab a shower,” he tells you, voice quiet. “You should, too.”

“Yeah,” you agree. “That was my plan.”

You stand beneath the spray of hot water, tapping on the faucet to work it hotter by degrees, not wanting the temperature to jump and scald you. You feel drained, like your limbs are noodles. You lean your forehead against the tile wall, closing your eyes and just breathing.

“What the fuck…” you whisper to no one, “is going on?”

You wish you had a friend to talk it out with. Kris would go overboard, exploding with glee. Lin isn’t a talk about boys kind of person, or even a talk about your feelings kind. That leaves Taehyung, and the idea of trying to talk to him about your burgeoning feelings for Namjoon makes you laugh out loud, the single syllable echoing off the shower walls, echoing back to mock you.

When you finally make it back into the living room, hair blow-dried and wearing your fuzziest joggers and a hoodie, Namjoon is tucked away in his own room, the door open that familiar four inches.

You get settled on the couch and pull out your phone and realize practically with a gasp - you hadn’t even tried to text Taehyung to drive you, nice and dry, back from campus. Your brain had thought but I walked here with Namjoon and the option of “dry” went right out the window.

You cover your face with your hands, sliding down on the couch a little bit. What is the matter with you?

You feel right now like it’s all happening too much, too fast. What even is “it”? Do you like Namjoon? Despite barely knowing him? Despite having to live with him?

Despite the years and years of experience you have with loving Taehyung, and Taehyung alone, out of everyone in the whole wide world?

Luckily, Namjoon stays in his room for the rest of the evening, sparing you from any more self-reflection, any more soul-searching.

You still kind of wish he’d come out.

Tuesday October 23rd

One of the steady things that you and Namjoon share, that works for you as roommates, is that neither of you cooks. A whole kitchen of pots and pans just to heat up water for tea and ramen and to occasionally cook an egg.

So when you get home from class on Tuesday so late that it’s already pretty dark out and you hear the clanging and banging from the kitchen that indicates a meal being made, you genuinely wonder if you’re at the wrong door.

As you push the door open, the noise only gets louder. You round the corner and see the kitchen in chaos - two unmanned pans on the stove, bowls and whisks and colanders and cutting boards all over the counterspace. Namjoon has his back to you, a large kitchen knife in hand.

You ease around him, not wanting to startle him until the knife is set down. He spots you anyway, and gives you a sheepish grin.

“What… exactly… is happening here?” you inquire.

“It depends on the scope of your question,” Namjoon answers, because of course he can’t just fucking answer you like a normal person. “If you’re referring to the stove, I am burning some sauce on the left and burning some meat on the right. If you’re referring to the cutting board, I am -.”

“The stove is on fire!” you shriek, pointing, your spare hand flying to cover your mouth in horror. Flames crawl from underneath the pan of meat, over the top, devouring what’s in the pan and leaping into the air. Namjoon drops the knife with a clatter and whirls around, eyes wide.

“What do I do?” he cries, hands in the air like he’s going to swat the flames like gnats.

“Turn off the burner and smother it!” you cry, not willing to enter the kitchen and get closer to the danger.

“Smother it?” he repeats, the words a little wild as he screams them. Smoke has filled the kitchen, blurring your view of him, and the smoke alarm over the front door begins to blare.

“The lid!” you scream, trying to be louder than the alarm. “Turn off the burner and put the lid on the pan! Be careful!”

You add this last part in a shriek as Namjoon follows your directions, reaching towards the flame to twist the burner and then slam the lid over the top of the pan, hissing a little as he does.

The flames vanish almost instantly, but the smoke remains and the alarm keeps screaming. Namjoon looks at the pan, then his hand, then at you.

“Go run cool water on that,” you tell him firmly, and you cross the apartment to open the windows and turn on the fans.

You return to the kitchen to find Namjoon running the sink over his knuckles, brows furrowed.

“Is it bad?” you ask loudly - again, to be heard over the smoke alarm - as you open a drawer and get a kitchen towel, moving to stand in the kitchen’s doorway flapping away, trying to send the smoke towards the open windows.

“No,” he tells you, pulling his hand out of the stream of water to examine it more closely. “It’s just a little red.”

“Keep it there for a little bit,” you tell him, still flapping away. “I might have burn cream in my bathroom, I’ll check in a second.”

Eventually the alarm quiets and you both heave a sigh of relief. The cold air coming from the open windows chills you down to your toes, but smoke still clings to the room, blurring your vision just enough to wonder if you’re imagining it.

You find the burn cream in your medicine cabinet and return to the living room. Namjoon is looking at the ruined remains of his dinner with something like heartbreak on his face.

“Come here,” you tell him, sitting at the breakfast bar, ointment in your hand. “Come sit so I can do this.”

“I can do it,” he protests, but he heads your way.

“Sit,” you repeat, pulling out the stool next to you.

He does, silently and obediently, sliding his hand over to you. You can see the redness over his knuckles, middle and index the most. You uncap the tube and squeeze a little onto your fingers, then take his hand in your spare one to hold it steady. Gently you press the cream into his skin, making sure to cover each bit of redness. Namjoon watches you solemnly, wincing a little when your fingers touch his middle knuckle.

“See if that helps,” you tell him, his hand still resting on yours. “Want help cleaning up?”

He sighs heavily, and you both look at the kitchen in defeat at the mess of pans and bowls to wash.

“Do you ever just… miss your mom?” he asks plaintively, not looking at you.

The thing about grief - long-term grief, lifetime grief - is that you can go days, maybe even weeks at a time without noticing it. It’s kind of like a bruise in a hard to reach spot. It just takes one bump in exactly the right place, and it hurts just as bad as day one all over again. Namjoon’s words pierce you, and you take a slow breath. You were just caught off-guard, that’s all. You can be fine. You can be normal.

“Sure,” you say, trying to sound casual. Failing.

He narrows his eyes at you in suspicion. “Why’d you get weird?” he asks. “Do you have a bad relationship with your mom or something? I didn’t mean to -.”

“It’s okay,” you assure him, but you rise and head for the kitchen, starting to pick things up just to do something with your hands. “It’s just… I don’t have my mom anymore. She passed when I was little. My dad too.” Might as well get it all out there. It felt weird to let someone only know half.

It’s easier to handle this moment with Namjoon in another room. You don’t have to watch him react, don’t have to translate his silence and his body language. You slide all the chopped onion onto a plate just in case Namjoon still wants to use it, and turn to rinse off the cutting board in the sink.

He appears behind you, silently lingering in the doorway. “Y/N,” he says softly.

“It’s fine, Namjoon,” you tell him, scrubbing at the cutting board vigorously. You don’t turn to face him.

“I wouldn’t have been so blase about it if I’d known,” he says apologetically.

“I know,” you say. You turn - away from the doorway - to put the cutting board aside to dry. You grab the pan with sauce in it - all congealed and unappetizing now - and move to scrape it into the garbage can.

He comes up beside you; his fingers touch your elbow, feather-light, like he’s afraid he’ll spook you.

“Y/N,” he implores. “Look at me.”

You do, glancing sideways up at him, the pan heavy in your hand. “I’m not upset,” you assure him. “People just get so weird when they find out. I hate… navigating that, over and over again, with new people.”

He gives you a guilty smile, but there’s relief in it as well. “I will stop being weird immediately,” he promises. “I just felt like I stepped in it, you know?”

You shrug. “It happens to the best of us. It really is fine. It’s been a long time.”

You arm tingles where he’d touched you, but he stays put when you move back to the sink, running the water hot enough to steam before you put the pan under it. Then, wordlessly, he moves next to you, grabbing a cloth and starting to dry the cutting board you’d washed.

You carry on that like that, a perfectly synchronized dance, in silence until the countertop is empty. All that remains is the pan that had been alight about half an hour ago.

“Can I ask you something personal?” he asks, leaning against the counter as you scrape the remains of the charred meat into the garbage with a grimace. “I’m just curious. You can tell me to fuck off.”

“It’s so jarring when you swear,” you tell him.

He grins at you. “Hobi says my surprising potty-mouth is one of my best charms.”

You laugh at this. “I can see that,” you agree. “It is surprising.”

“Not charming?” he teases.

You shrug, feeling that blush rise up again. “No comment. Anyway - what did you want to ask?”

He lets you get away with evading the flirtation. “If you were little… who raised you?”

“Oh,” you say. You aren’t sure what you thought he’d ask, but it wasn’t that. “My grandma, until she couldn’t. Then my Aunt Lin took over, but she’s more like a big sister than anything.”

Namjoon nods. Then he asks, carefully, “Did Taehyung know your parents?”

The question makes you smile at the memories it pulls up - you and Taehyung as kids together, goofing off around your house, back when it had been filled with people.

“Yeah,” you say softly. It doesn’t occur to you to wonder why he’d ask that. It doesn’t occur to you to mask the tiny smile, that it might jostle his feelings even a little bit.

You look over at him when you realize he’s gone quiet. “Are you close with your family?” you ask, genuinely curious.

He nods, eyes on the pan lid that he’s drying. “Very. I was a lost soul when I first moved to campus. I couldn’t do anything.”

“You burned dinner tonight,” you point out.

“I can do laundry now,” he retorts, smiling at you as you put the last of the dishes away. “I’ve come a long way.”

“Still room to grow,” you tease, reaching out to give his arm a playful nudge.

You’re giving playful touches now. That’s a thing that’s happening.

You ache, again, to have someone to tell.

Wednesday October 24th

You both love and hate Wednesdays - on one hand, you have your thesis double-feature, and you actually enjoy it. On the other hand, you go straight from double-class to closing shift at the campus store, and you don’t get home until dark. The day is long, and you’d rather be home. For several reasons.

Your morning goes as you expect - you make it through the lecture part of class, updating Professor Jemisen on how your research segment is going. During the break, you eat some leftovers you’d thrown in your backpack, and talk with Gloria and the other girls. After the break, your group helps you workshop your latest poem, the one about the season changing, and you do the same for them.

The season changing is happening in real life, all around you. Fall fades quickly, the days darkening, the chills lasting longer, becoming more pronounced. Gone are the autumn days that change their mood and become summer again for hours at a time.

You normally go straight to the campus store after class, but this week you’re hungry - the leftovers you packed weren’t enough to keep you until you get home. Instead of heading down the main paved path to the student center, where you work, you head for a large academic building you pass on the way there. You know there’s a little sandwich station on the lowest floor, tucked away past the mailroom like a well-kept secret.

You take a hallway off to the side, passing some open classrooms on your way to the staircase. You’re walking mindlessly, head thinking only about the sandwich you’re going to order. You slow your steps when you hear a familiar voice, low and calm.

“All I’m saying,” a girl is saying, and you stop in the doorway, listening, “is that while the idea of going to live alone in the woods is actually extremely appealing, Thoreau as a whole kind of sucks.”

“I might agree with you, but you need to frame that more academically,” Namjoon corrects gently.

A circle of students - freshmen, if you had to guess, maybe eight of them, are sitting at desks, their bags all forgotten on the floor by their chairs. Namjoon perches on the edge of the teacher’s desk at the front of the room, legs casually stretched out before him. He’s listening intently as the students debate.

“We have to specify the problem,” someone else in the group points out. “I’m all for metaphorically dragging down statues of the patriarchy and everything, but we need a solid argument.”

“Or,” a different girl says, voice just barely loud enough for you to hear from the hallway, “maybe instead of giving more attention to ‘classics’ we see as undeserving, maybe instead we should focus just on the underprivileged voices that we prefer to be amplified?”

“You mean pick a lesser-known author and shed light on their work instead?” Namjoon clarifies, and the girl nods.

The group begins to debate this passionately, and Namjoon lets them fight it out, taking a second to glance at his phone. You become aware of the fact that you’re just standing in the hallway staring. You’re about to move on when Namjoon notices you. He looks away quickly at first, and then it registers that it was you standing in the doorway like a weirdo, and his gaze flies back to you.

Caught, you have no choice but to lean into it. You give him a tiny smile, raising a hand in a guilty wave. He smiles back, just barely. You stay there another minute, smiling at each other, while the freshmen continue to argue. Then your feet spur you on, and you give him a little nod before heading down the hall. But the stupid fucking butterflies stay in your stomach the whole time you wait in line for your sandwich.

When you get to the bookshop, you toss your backpack behind the counter and slump onto a low stool that’s stashed back there. You lean your head on the counter next to the currently unmanned register and let out some unhappy grumbles.

Kris comes out from the stockroom - you can tell it’s them by their footsteps.

“What is happening here,” they say flatly, not exactly a question.

“Kriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis,” you whine, not looking up. “I think I need to talk about… my roommate.”

“Bitch!” they utter indignantly. “He has a name! What grade are we in right now?”

You stomp your feet lightly, needing to display your crankiness. “I am feeling very confused and conflicted and I need you to be nice to me about it,” you say petulantly, finally picking your head up so you can pout better.

“Okay,” Kris says easily, leaning against the wall. The shop is devoid of customers, so you don’t bother to lower your voice. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” you continue to whine. “It’s just how I feel.”

Kris gives you a level stare. “I need the whining to stop, like, yesterday. If you feel conflicted, there’s a reason. So, figure out what it is.”

“I already said I don’t know,” you tell them, still pouty, but sitting up straight now.

“Dig deep,” Kris deadpans. “Do it for the dimples.”

“Oh my GOD,” you say, unable to even make eye contact. “Never mind, conversation over.”

They shake their head, not letting you off the hook. “What’s the problem, Square?” It’s a nickname they gave you last year when you wouldn’t go partying - because… apparently you’re a square.

“You know the problem,” you grumble quietly, making them lean closer to hear you.

They lean back, something knowing in their eyes. “Ah. It’s the Taehyung factor.”

“Shh,” you scold, glancing around the empty store like someone might have materialized without you noticing. When you return your gaze to them, Kris is just staring at you plainly, waiting for you to elaborate.

“I don’t know,” you say, and then more emphatically, “I don’t know! If I… start something else… does that mean giving Taehyung up? Because I can’t say I want to do that. Not if I’m being honest.”

Kris nods silently, letting you work it out. You meet their eyes, suddenly feeling the squeeze of anxiety around your chest, like your lungs have something heavy they have to push every time you inhale.

“If I lose him,” you say in practically a whisper, “I will quite literally die.”

Kris scowls at you. “You will not.”

“I will,” you retort.

Kris gives you an eyeroll. “So dramatic,” they scold.

“He’s my family, Kris,” you try to explain. “In a lot of ways he’s my only family.” Your voice breaks as you ask, “What if I lose him?”

Now Kris softens, lips pulling together into something like a very pursed frown. “Maybe you should talk to him,” they suggest quietly.

You hate that idea a lot. “Maybe,” you say loudly, slapping your hand on the counter and standing as the bell over the door chimes and a group of lacrosse guys (the sticks are a give-away) enter the store with a burst of noisy chatter, “I should never talk about any of this ever again.”

Kris sighs heavily, practically doubling over. Now who’s dramatic? “You’re so self-destructive,” they complain.

“Don’t be mean,” you say, going back to pouting.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kris waves a hand at you. “Go write a poem about it.”

“And what if I do?” you demand, but you’re both laughing now, unlocking the registers as the lacrosse dudes line up to pay for their snacks and drinks.

–

Taehyung texts you near the end of your shift - “we haven’t hung out in five billion years :(“.

You roll your eyes at his dramatics and text back, “come get me from the bookstore then and hang out for a little”.

You’re pleased when he agrees. He shows up a little bit before closing, knocking on the already locked glass doors. You hurry to let him in, ignoring Kris staring knives into your back.

“Hi,” you say happily as he slips into the store, and you lock the door again behind him. “I’ll be done in about four minutes.”

“‘Kay,” he says easily, striding over to the checkout counter and leaning against it.

“Taehyung,” Kris greets him, nodding their head as they lock the register. “How’s it going?”

He sighs dramatically. “The usual. Classes. Parties. Trying to figure out why Y/N doesn’t love me anymore.”

You freeze halfway to the stockroom, your eyes wide, air catching in your throat.

Luckily, Kris is and always has been way more slick than you. They cock their head quizzically, letting a playfully concerned frown settle over their features.

“Y/N doesn’t love you anymore?” they echo, the poor baby pronounced in their tone. “What on earth do you mean?”

Taehyung shoots you a mischievous look; luckily, you’ve gotten your act together since he said those words.

“I had to beg for her attention tonight,” he says, clearly loving this bit. “I’m beginning to think she has a secret boyfriend she’s not telling me about.”

He’s teasing and you know it, but after a lifetime of friendship with Taehyung, you know this too: there’s a little sliver of him that must be hurt, or at least bothered, or he wouldn’t tease at all.

You feel both caught - despite not having a secret boyfriend or anything like it - and guilty.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him. “I just got busy with my thesis and everything. I promise I’m not out with other people and not you. Even Kris only sees me at work these days.”

“And Namjoon,” Taehyung adds plaintively, and your blood runs cold.

“Namjoon?” you echo, not sure you can form a different word.

Taehyung’s pouting now, which means he’s not too serious. “Yeah, he has no choice, you’re in his living room every day.”

“Oh,” you say, relief flooding through you. “Yeah.”

You don’t see the point in telling Taehyung that there’s a teeny, tiny something starting with Namjoon. Not when it’s so… unformed, insubstantial, uncertain. You don’t know which word fits best. It’s a maybe at best, and it just doesn’t seem worth rocking the boat over it.

What would happen if things started for real? Would you tell him? It shouldn’t have to be a secret… it shouldn’t stay a secret, not if you mean it. What would happen?

You’re afraid to know the answers.

You finish up in the store and you all head to the parking lot together. You tell Kris goodbye and drop down into Taehyung’s passenger seat.

“You’re gonna stay at the apartment for a little?” you ask.

“Mhm,” he says, fiddling with the heat until he gets it how he wants it. “Can I work on homework with you?”

“Definitely,” you agree. “I have so much shit to do. I wasn’t kidding when I said school is eating my life. Senior year sucks.”

Taehyung isn’t looking at you - he’s watching the road as he waits for an opening in traffic so he can pull out of the parking lot. But something crosses his face - relief, maybe. Something softens, anyway. Maybe he really had been hurt that you hadn’t been hanging out as much.

When you return to the apartment, Namjoon isn’t home - his door hangs open, his bedroom completely dark.

You and Taehyung settle in the living room, dragging out your laptops. It’s nice, hanging out like this again. You hadn’t realized how long it had been - over a week - since it had been just the two of you, like old times. Everything falls right into place. You swap snacks, hands brushing as you both reach into crinkling chip bags. You reach over and type nonsense into his paper when he isn’t paying attention, letting out peals of laughter when he figures it out and starts spluttering at you in outrage. You tell him about the customer at the store who argued with you over - of all the stupid things - a used copy of The Odyssey.

When he hugs you goodbye at the end of the night, swaying you playfully back and forth like he might drop you, both of you giggling wildly, you’re reminded of just what the stakes are. You’re reminded of just how much you have to lose.

<- Prev || Next ->

ahhhhh what do we think??!! there was hand holding!!!! are we clutching our pearls??!!!

as always thank you all so so so much for being here, i appreciate every one of you so extremely much!!!

273 notes · View notes

noodyl-blasstal · 18 days

Text

Not that kind of apocalpyse!

Sometimes you might ask yourself, “What if Taakitz kissed in the historical fish castle during the zombie apocalypse?” Well I answered it.

Happy Birthday @ceilingfan5!

Read below or on Ao3

“There’s someone outside!” Lup shouts from her spot at the periscope.

Fuck. Of course Taako was going to have to deal with this on his watch. The trouble always waited until Magnus was busy flexing somewhere else and Merle was off doing unspeakable things in the garden.

“Someone, or something?” He asks. He tries not to let the weariness creep into his tone, but Taako’s so tired of this bullshit. First he got called in on his first day off in weeks… months? Who fucking knows any more; then he got zombie apocalypsed; and now everyone’s trying to eat him and not in the good way. Not that there’s any chance of boning down with anyone in the near future because he’s related to, or may as well be related to, everyone he knows is currently alive - well, apart from the peppy idiots on the radio who keep advertising their ‘zombie free wonderland’, but Taako doesn’t trust easily and whatever they’re selling seems too good to be true.

“Cha’girl said what she said.” Lup doesn’t move away, just adjusts the scope.

“People?”

“Person, singular, a guy I think.”

“Are you definitely sure he’s people?”

“Are you definitely sure you want to keep asking me?” Lup doesn’t pull her eyes away from the periscope, but she does give him the finger. It’s artful really, her spatial awareness is a thing of wonder.

Before he can think, Taako opens his mouth to pretend to bite it off, it’s reflex as much as anything, but he closes it gently, doesn’t snap his teeth. That bit is a lot less funny than it used to be. Watching a loved one nearly get chomped will do that for you.

“Can I see?” Taako asks instead of answering, he’s not going to do anything completely out of character like admitting fault.

“Hang on…” Lup turns the scope side to side. Fuck.”

“What?”

“Shush a minute.” Lup hisses.

Ah yes, telling Taako to shush, the thing that works every time. “What’s going on?”

“Shit! Run, dude, run” She mutters.

“Lup! What’s happening?”

“Biter.” She turns the scope slowly. “Two… At the moment. I don’t know if he’s seen them.”

“Do you want Taako to…?” Taako gestures at the ladder up to the harpoon gun.

Lup stays fixed to the scope but still manages to nod. “Be ready, see if he needs it. He’s by the unfortunately shaped hill, but he’s moving fast towards the tree that looks like it’s doing a high kick.”

Taako climbs up the ladder into the ramparts and pulls the shutter back from the slightly-wider-than-intended crenellation (thanks to Magnus’ enthusiasm). He zeroes in fast with Lup’s directions. There’s definitely two of them, if not more, lurking behind the dude as he walks. Taako hopes he’s aware of them. He could be, the guy’s walking with purpose. He’s glad, Taako hates dawdlers, not least because he used to be one by choice and now he has to zoom everywhere because he’d like to keep living actually please and thank you.

“You didn’t tell me he was hot!” Taako bellows down to Lup. A crime of the highest order, frankly, it’s been a while since Taako’s had anything good to look at and he could have been looking much faster.

“You can’t see him well enough to know if he’s hot or not, he’s too far away.” Lup yells back.

The guy turns his head in their direction. It’s a nice face, a really nice face, that he’s working with there.

“See! Hot!” Taako refuses to let her get away with this on a technicality. He knew in his bones the guy was good looking, Lup should have too. He sticks his tongue out in her direction. She might not be able to see him, but she’ll know.

“He’s coming this way.” She shouts up.

“What?” Taako looks back, using the wildly inaccurate harpoon sights that Barry was definitely getting round to fixing (it was for the best he left them alone at this point, Taako automatically adjusted for it now.) Hot boy had changed trajectory and was heading their way. “But there’s… fuck!”

Taako slides the harpoon to the side, sees the biter who was lurking on the guy’s tail. Shit. It’s close, too close. He jumps up and bellows with everything in him. “Hey, hey handsome! Watch out!” He’s too hot to die.

They make eye contact and this is it, this is the thing they wrote about, that they sing about, that’s on the TV. It’s electric, it’s perfect, it’s…

“Run you absolute dickhead!” Lup bellows from beside Taako. He needs to get her a bell. “Stop staring at my idiot brother and run!” She elbows Taako and mutters. “Idiot.”

The man shakes out of it and glances round in time to see the biter on his tail. Taako hears the faint “Oh fuck!” on the wind as the guy starts running. Thankfully in the direction of the drawbridge. Shit. The drawbridge.

“We need to let him in.” Taako says, urgently.

“C’mon.” Lup’s already heading for the ladder.

Taako scrambles after her, slides down the ladder, and lands in a roll. He jumps up and does the ‘tah dah!’ arms, but Lup’s already gone. That’s fine, he can appreciate his own talents, he doesn’t need adoration from the masses or anything.

Lup yanks on the lever that releases the drawbridge and the portcullis raises at speed, narwhal horns raising up to hang like as many sharp teeth. They’ve saved them all a few times.

“Go go go!!!” Taako yells, hopefully encouragingly. He’s sure not going out there, but shouting he can do.

“I’m going to get my gun.” Lup mutters.

The man’s close, really close, when the zombie lurches out from behind the tree. Not high kick tree, it would never betray Taako like that, one of the bog standard ones. One of the ones he’s going to burn down because it just killed Taako’s new boyfriend. It’s fine, he’s allowed to get ahead of himself, this dude’s going to be nothing but a ‘what if’ now.

The zombie grabs the man’s arm and tries to bite his hand, the guy twists away, punches it in the face, gives it his best shot. Of course he does, he’s got something to live for, he’s trying to survive, trying to make it to Taako. The biter grabs his ankle and drags him to the floor.

Two spears take down the other zombies before they can reach the man and join the feast.

“I can’t get a clean shot.” Lup says mournfully beside him. She glances round, then walks carefully forward, spear gun raised.

“You have to stop doing that.” Taako hisses and steps along beside her. He’s trying to have a moment here, to give his dying future husband the reverence he deserves. They were going to adopt so many cats. It would have been beautiful. He’s not in the mood to be spooked.

“Counterpoint, you have to work on your awareness.” Lup nudges him.

“No need when I have you, sister mine! Taako’s all good.” He walks carefully beside her, remembers to step over the crack in the resin flagstones left after The Incident.

Lup does the face she does when he pretends he’s not training (he refuses to give up the possibility of being blase about the zombies, even if he’s been doing endless crunches, and parkour, and whatever other nonsense Lup and Magnus insist is going to save their lives, at night when no one’s watching. Well, apart from Agnes, but if he wants Taako to ever bake the cookies he likes again he’ll stay quiet.)

They’re close enough now to see that the zombie’s still gnashing, but the guy’s clearly fighting back. Maybe he’s not a goner yet?

“Maybe we can… you know, help?” Taako glances round and can’t see any others nearby.

“He might be infected… I guess I could…” Lup’s mouth tightens into a hard line.

“No! Don’t help him dead, like, help help!” Taako steps closer gingerly. As he gets into range of grabbing and pulling the biter off, it shudders and goes still. There’s no movement underneath it either. Of course. Brilliant, fucking brilliant. “Just Taako’s luck. The first hot guy cha’boy sees since the apocalypse apocalypsed, and he immediately gets himself chomped.”

Lup pats him sympathetically on the shoulder. “Next time ‘Ko”

“You think I’m hot?” The man asks, rolling the un-undead corpse unceremoniously to the side.

“Fuck!” Lup and Taako jump back as one.

“Stay there!” Lup aims the spear gun squarely at his head. “Did you get bit?”

“You have to tell us if you did, otherwise it’s entrapment.” Taako adds. Because why shouldn’t he have a little fun, honestly. He winks, so the guy knows Taako’s not going to be waving any spears at him… well unless he plays his cards right…

“Who enforces zombie entrapment law?” Hotboy asks as if he genuinely cares, as if he’s passionate about legal rights and wants to make sure the lawyer provided is up to the job. He probably does care. It’s the end of the world and Taako meets someone who’s hot and funny and willing to play legal zombism so of course Taako’s also going to have to put him down or, more likely, watch while Lup does it and try not to cry about it until he’s alone in bed later.

“You’re not allowed to distract us with legalese, that’s also entrapment, probably.” Taako adds authoritatively.

The man smiles brightly in his direction. “I didn’t get bit.”

“Prove it.” Lup’s aim doesn’t waiver.

The man sighs. “My name’s Kravitz.”

“What does that prove?” Lup makes a ‘get on with it’ gesture with the gun.

“I usually like to make sure a guy knows my name before I strip in front of him.” He doesn’t break eye contact with Taako.

“Taako.” Taaok stares right back. He’s not a looking people in the eyes guy, but this? This is competitive looking, and if there’s anything Taako loves it’s winning.

“I’m Lup and this is gross, break it up right now!” Lup sounds genuinely disgusted. Good, honestly. He’s been living with her and Barold since this all started, he deserves at least a little revenge for his trouble.

“But you said…” Kravitz’s hands still on his leather jacket’s zip.

“I said prove you didn’t get bit. Like, show me your hands and arms and the bits that were actually anywhere near the dead guy. The medic can fully assess you after that.”

“Fine.” He shows her his hands and his collar bones, and his arms, they’re nice arms. “But what if I got bitten earlier?”

“Did you?” Taako asks quickly.

“No. But I could have been and you wouldn’t know. Someone should check.” Kravitz glances at Taako.

“Cha’boy will do it. You know, to save you having to, Lu.”

“Uh huh, sure, yeah, a brave sacrifice. Now move it, both of you, I want to get the drawbridge up and the portcullis down.” Lup finally lowers the spear gun.

“Portcullis… So… uh… I did want to ask.” Kravitz begins gingerly as he walks across the bridge and into the castle.

“Uh huh.” Taako tries to look like he couldn’t possibly imagine what Kravitz is about to ask.

“I couldn’t help but notice…” Kravitz says gently, carefully.

“You noticed something?” Lup asks sweetly, as she begins to turn the crank.

“That you’re in a castle.” Kravitz finishes as the portcullis falls into place and the drawbridge is lifted.

“It’s not a castle!” Lup and Taako say as one.

“It’s not a castle?” Kravitz asks, warily eyeing the fish themed portcullis.

“It’s so much more, Kraveroo. Welcome to SeaBlaster, we’ve got fish, and the things you use to squish… them.” Taako does his best business smile, the one that they paid him slightly above minimum wage for, and does an adequate job of jazz hands (those didn’t come cheap.)

“It’s not really squishing though, is it?” Kravitz asks, like that’s the only problem with anything that’s happening right now.

“Hey, hey Kravitz, just to check, the only problem you have with the aquari-museum we now live in is the tagline not quite making sense because most of this stuff is used to stab and not squish?”

“No!” Kravitz says indignantly. “Whales also aren’t fish. There’s no way the harpoon you were at was used on anything that wasn’t a marine mammal!”

Lup snorts.

Taako groans. “You’ll get on well with Angles.”

“Who’s Angles?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But I…”

“Ssssh.” Taako pats Kravitz’s shoulder reassuringly. Plenty of time for that.

There’s a long beat of silence as Lup begins to stride back to the staff room. Or, well, the common room as they call it these days, it’s homier, apparently.

Taako inclines his head and Kravitz follows obediently. Good to know.

“So how long have you been here?” Kravitz asks, falling into step beside him.

“This doesn’t seem fair. You’ve already had a load of questions.” Taako looks at Kravitz and smiles, just to be sure he knows it’s a joke.

“You can ask some things.” Kravitz looks positively overjoyed at the prospect.

“How’d you kill it?” Taako asks. He didn’t hear a gun or anything.

“Er…” There’s a long pause.

Taako stops dead. “Kravitz?”

“No wait, it’s not weird.”

“If you have to say it’s not weird, Taako’s inclined to think it’s gonna be weird.”

“But I said it wasn’t!” Kravitz protests, as if that has ever worked.

“People are asking a lot of questions that my “the way I killed the zombie wasn’t weird” tshirt already answered… C’mon, just tell Taako.”

“Staked it.” Kravitz mutters.

“You fucking what now?”

“I staked it.” Kravitz over-ennunciates, spitefully, Taako loves it. Can they keep him forever?

“My question stands.”

“I used a stake. I staked it.” Kravitz shrugs nonchalantly like that’s not completely ridiculous. “You use what very much looks like a historical whaling harpoon!” He adds, as if that’s relevant right now. He’s right though.

“You just…” Taako mimes stabbing Kravitz through the heart. It’s slightly more dramatic than it needs to be, sure, but how often does a guy get to go full Dracula-murder?

“Obviously not, that doesn’t work. I…” Kravitz steps towards him and mimes stabbing Taako through the eye. It brings them close, nearly touching close.

“Show cha’boy again? I missed it.” Taako leans forward.

Kravitz looks confused for a second, there’s a beat where Taako thinks he’s pushed his luck too far. Before he can apologise though, Kravitz is cradling the back of Taako’s head with one hand.

“Like this.” He says softly, barely a whisper, as he fuels whatever is crackling between them and brings his fake-stake wielding hand towards Taako’s eye.

“Urgh, quit it!” Lup yells back at them and flings the door to the common room open. “Taako’s got a…” the door swings blessedly shut before she can finish her sentence, but Taako can hear the chorus of questions immediately rumble up in response.

“Er… you wanna shower? Before you, you know, meet the gang?” Taako gestures expansively at the door which is currently rattling. He can just about hear Magnus’ protests and mentally thanks Lup (or whoever it is) preventing him from barrelling into the hallway, hugging Kravitz to death and asking him a bajillion questions before without giving him a chance to answer. It’d still be better than Merle appearing though.

“You have one?” Kravitz sounds suspicious.

“Are you trying to say Taako smells?” Taako tries not to be offended, but it should be obvious to anyone he has a shower. The apocalypse has never looked so good!

“No!” Kravitz’s indignation is reassuring at least. “I just… It’s…” He peters out.

“Been a while?” Taako asks, giving Kravitz a deeply un-subtle once over.

“Not for lack of wanting.” Kravitz replies, and the want is palpable.

“Taako can definitely help you out there, handsome. Don’t you worry. If Kravitz wants, Kravitz can get.” Taako hopes he’s inflected exactly enough emphasis to be sure Kravitz knows which page they’re on. The sex page of the sex book. “It’s this way.” Taako leads Kravitz down the hallway and towards the stone staircase to the aquarium. They figured the geothermal heat would be good for bedroom temperature as well as the tropical fish. It was a solid bet. “So, how’d you end up with stakes?”

“Is that a fish tank?” Kravitz’s attention is immediately gone. He’s pressed to the tank and marvelling at the clownfish darting around and Taako hates each and every one of them because Kravitz should be looking at him instead.

“Taako wasn’t kidding about the ‘aquari’ bit in the welcome spiel, my dude. We’ve got fish, we’ve got historical fishing weaponry, and all of that comes with a ridiculous part fibreglass, part stone, largely fish themed castle. Buy now for the low low price of spending the rest of forever here, or at least until the bugs eat all the zombies to death or whatever.”

“I’m sold!” Kravitz says, worryingly enthusiastically, as he presses himself to the fish tank viewing window. It’s disgustingly adorable and Taako hates himself for the way his stomach clenches in the ‘going over a bumpy bit of road and loving it’ way.

“So… how’d you get the stake?” Taako refuses to be deterred from finding out.

“Whittled it.” Kravitz says too quickly.

“Why?” Taako asks. There’s something here, there’s a string to pull at and he’s gonna.

“You know, end of the world.” Kravitz flaps his hand dismissively.

“C’mon. You can tell me, the shower’s just over here.” Taako opens the door to his quarters. Well. His ‘office’. They all just picked their favourite and took over. Taako’s is set a bit further away from the others and had a bathroom next door which is now an ensuite, because there’s not a chance in hell anyone’s coming back for this place after, and if they do they’re gonna be owed so much back pay that it wouldn’t be worth the counter-suit for the wages to try and make him repair the wall.

“Here’s the bathroom.” Taako nudges open the door and wishes that he’d spent literally any time cleaning his room in the last mmm… day…s…week… It’s fine. It’s the end of the world, you don’t have to be neat and tidy when humanity’s clinging on by a thread. Not that he was before, but Kravitz doesn’t need to know that. “And here’s a fresh towel.” He shoves one at Kravitz.

“This smells like mint?” Kravitz says like Taako’s magic. Taako could get used to this level of adoration.

“It’s antimicrobial.” Taako says, because apparently apocalypse flirting is letting the guy you like know your towels don’t have diseases.

“But how did you get it?”

“Hydroponics.”

“How did you…” Kravitz starts to ask.

“Not questions for Taako. I deal in fish and harpoons, you’ll need Merle for garden questions and I can guarantee that he’ll answer with more detail than you want and you’ll regret it as much as everyone else does when they ask.

“I don’t mind getting to learn new thing.” Kravitz sounds worryingly interested.

“It’s not about the plants, well it is… but not, you know… in the way you want… it’s not about the things you want to…” Taako squinches his face up remembering The Onion Incident. He hasn’t cooked with them since.

“You’re making it sound like it’s a sex thing.” Kravitz laughs heartily, poor sweet fool. Taako’s silence clearly speaks volumes. “Wait… you mean…?”

“Anyway, here’s the shower.” Taako says quick, loud, and brokering no further vegetable sex questions. He refuses to let Merle ruin this for him. He points at it, just in case Kravitz somehow missed the cubicle, and starts to leave.

“Wait!” Kravitz says quickly. “You needed to check me out!” Kravitz grabs Taako’s arm as he turns away. “I mean… you know, for safety.”

“Well, if you insist.” Taako steps inside and closes the door behind him. “For safety, of course.”

“Of course.” Kravitz says smooth as butter. Then immediately fumbles his zip in a rush to get his jacket off.

“You okay there, Kemosabe?” Taako tries not to laugh.

“I’m fine!” Kravitz’s voice has the slightest hint of desperation. “Absolutely fine. I’m trying to get naked in front of the most handsome man I think I’ve possibly ever laid eyes on, which is, may I say, an achievement at the end of the world as we know it, I knew guys who had access to, you know, stuff.”

“Ah, stuff.” Taako says wisely, trying very hard not to flick his hair dramatically and show Kravitz just how correct he is.

“Stuff.” Kravitz continues. Tugging at his zip again. “... and now I can’t get out of…” he gives a dramatic wiggle “...this stupid…”

“Let me.” Taako steps forward. “Taako can look after you.” He looks Kravitz dead in the eyes as he slides the zip down slowly, and thanks fate that it actually works. He probably could have dragged the jacket up over Kravitz’s head, but this way is so much better, this way means Kravitz is looking at him like he wants to eat him - in the good way. The good good way.

“Thank you.” Kravitz says, close, very close. Close enough for Taako to breathe him in and…

“Wait… shit. Hang on. Is that <i>garlic</i>???” Taako immediately abandons all thought of getting off, because if this is what he thinks…

“Er… I can expl…”

Taako pats at Kravitz’s chest. “There!” He thrusts his hand into the jacket’s inside pocket, hopes he’s right, he’s rewarded with a tight white bulb.

Garlic! It had been months, months, since Lucretia overwatered his stash and killed the last hope for flavour. He still hadn’t forgiven her. “I could kiss you.”

“You can if you want.” Kravitz looks so earnest, so hopeful, that Taako does, presses his lips firmly to Kravitz’s, brokering no room for confusion. He wants this, he means this. It’s intended as a quick thing, a temptation, but the way Kravitz melts into it though, the way he pushes himself forward into Taako, it’s delicious, it’s intoxicating, it’s… deeply uncomfortable.

Taako pulls back. “How much stuff have you got in here?” He flicks the jacket, then his hands are on the buttons of Kravitz’s shirt, working away, before Kravitz can reply. “Why is this cross so massive? It really digs in.” Taako lifts the ridiculously sized, heavy, solid silver cross that’s hanging round Kravitz’s neck and lets it drop again. Maybe he loves Jesus? Although he also seems pretty into boning before marriage… hmm.

“Er…”

Taako pulls Kravitz’s jacket open to reveal a series of inside pockets full of stakes. “How many of these did you make?”

“I… uh… Look, Taako.”

Taako reaches into the external chest pocket and pulls out a vial of clear liquid. “Small water bottle, my guy. Couldn’t find anything else to drink from? Glass doesn’t seem practical.” Taako narrows his eyes.

“It’s…” Kravitz looks panicked. Taako should have known he was too good to be true. “It’s good for the environment…”

Taako raises an eyebrow at him.

“...and also It’s a back up.” Kravitz smiles, winningly. It doesn’t work.

“Why do you have so many of them?” Taako pats at his pockets again. “Wait, is this more garlic?” It is… four more bulbs. Kravitz leans in as if he thinks Taako’s going to kiss him again. He does, obviously, because garlic at the end of the world is garlic at the end of the world, and it would be rude not to.

It’s distracting, the kissing, he definitely means to ask more questions, but also Kravitz is so handsome, and so… there. It’s been a long time. Taako pushes the jacket off Kravitz’s shoulders, it lands, loudly, but means it’s much more comfortable this time when Kravitz pushes his chest against Taako’s. It’s only natural that Taako slides his arm to Kravitz’s back, pulling him closer. The noise Kravitz makes when he does it tells Taako he’s just as desperate for this, for connection, for the press of bodies, for hot breath and moaning in a context unrelated to someone who’s recently dead and trying to bite your face off.

Taako drops his hand lower… “Kravitz, what the fuck?” Taako steps back, holding the stake tucked into his back pocket.

Kravitz sighs, heavily. “If I tell you, can we keep doing that?” He gestures between them in what Taako assumes is supposed to be an approximation of the heavy petting he’d very much like to get back to.

Taako raises an eyebrow.

“It’s not weird!” Kravitz protests too much.

“We’ve talked about this. Remember? You’re making it sound weird again.”

Kravitz squinches his face up, then shrugs. “I’m a vampire hunter.”

“What?” Taako doesn’t even know where to start with this one. Usually he’s got words, he’s full of them, they’re happening without checking in with him first, but he’s bereft, devoid, left wanting. In multiple ways. Is being unhinged a deal breaker for him? Taako’s unhinged. At least the guy’s prepared, dedicated to his imaginary craft.

“So…I told you…” Kravitz’s face is inches from his again.

Taako’s tempted. Sorely tempted. But he should probably definitely ask at least two more questions so Lup doesn’t shout at him later.

He places his hand firmly on Kravitz’s chest and definitely doesn’t cop a feel in the process. “You’re a vampire hunter?” That’s one. Nearly back to hot-boy-make-out-session followed by maybe-moving-things-to-the-shower-if-it-goes-well time.

“Yes.”

“And you think vampires are real?” Taako asks as gently as possible.

Kravitz steps back this time. “Hang on. Wait. We’re in a zombie apocalypse!”

“Vampires aren’t zombies.” Taako says with confidence, there’s not too much he knows about zombies short of the whole ‘they don’t get back up if you harpoon them in the head’ thing, but that’s one of the other facts he’s got.

“Obviously not.” Kravitz says, like Taako’s stating the obvious.

There’s a moment of intense eye contact. Kravitz nods as if what he’s just said was in some way conclusive, point proving, debate winning.

“Exactly.” Taako says. Because yeah, zombies aren’t vampires. “Wrong kind of apocalypse.”

“I didn’t think it was a vampire apocalypse.” Kravitz looks indignant as if Taako’s being ridiculous here. “I’m familiar enough with biting to know what’s gone wrong here.” He gestures expansively to the whole of everything.

“Sure…” Taako’s lost again.

“I was a vampire hunter before the zombies happened.” Kravitz says, as if that’s the same as Taako’s Underwater Fun-gineer role. Taako’s clearly still looking at him blankly because he adds. “You can’t believe in zombies and not vampires! I bet you thought biters weren’t real before this too.” Kravitz had a point, a good one. Fine, Taako can believe all kinds of things for him.

“Did that… pay well?” There. Okay, maybe now he believes in vampires because a handsome man said they were real, but he asked three questions, three! Lup definitely can’t shout at him.

Kravitz levels him with a confused look. “I had a day job, Taako. It’s just that I also do this… did this. They’ve fucked off since, well…”

There’s a long pause while Taako processes. “So, just to clarify, you’re… you’re a vampire hunter without any vampires in a zombie apocalypse?” Taako tries really hard to keep his voice straight, he does. He’s unsuccessful. Wildly unsuccessful judging by the look on Kravitz’s face. It’s positively stony.

Taako tries desperately to choke the laughter back. “Just… one more time.” His voice is thicker than normal, but he thinks he just about manages to play it off as regular. “One more.” He adds.

“No.” Kravitz’s bottom lip does something dangerously close to pouting. Taako wants to pull it between his teeth, but he should probably ease off anything biting related right now.

“Go on.” Taako bats his eyelashes, he may as well go for broke.

Kravitz’s nose twitches. “Fine, fine! I’m a vampire hunter in a zombie apocalypse and all the vampires fucked off.” He says huffily.

Taako’s mouth quivers as he presses his lips together, but he can’t stop the snort that escapes. That’s it, there’s no hope, he’s howling, tears streaming down his face, doubled over and wheezing. “S… Sorry.” He gasps out. “I… Fuck. No… no vampires… zombies… wrong… wrong thing.”

“I guess…” Kravitz says slowly. “I guess when you think about it that way…” He lets out a small chuckle. “... it’s… it’s pretty funny.” And then Kravitz is laughing too and they’re leaning against each other, propping each other up as the ridiculousness washes over them. It’s stupid. It’s perfect. Taako’s going to keep him, he can definitely stay.

The laughter subsides, eventually. One of them stops and then they set each other off laughing again over and over again. Taako wants to pin the memory of it to his wall so he can look at it whenever he wants.

“Were there many, you know, before?” Taako’s curious. Why can’t vampires exist?

“Yes. Yes there were.” Kravitz’s face is stony again.

“But less when you…” Taako mimes staking Kravitz through the heart dramatically.

“Yes… Yes. Less when I…” Kravitz grabs Taako by the thighs, pins him to the wall, and pretends to drive a stake into him.

Taako’s not unwrapping his legs from Kravitz’s waist any time soon. “Do it this way often?” He looks down at Kravitz and smiles as coyly as he can manage, which he’s assuming isn’t very.

Kravitz noses Taako’s chin. “Not really.” He presses a line of kisses across his jaw. “I was just showing off.”

“Speaking of showing.” Taako says, drawing his hands over Kravitz’s biceps, strong, good, very good. “I believe I was supposed to be checking you out.”

Kravitz looks puzzled for a second before he catches on. “Of course. Yes. Very important health and safety process. I’ll have to put you down.”

“I’ll live. Probably.” Taako sighs. Then decides he’s at least entitled to some aerial kisses while he’s up here. “Actually, wait no, hang on.”

It’s good, it’s very good. It takes a while before Kravitz starts getting wobbly and Taako starts worrying about them collapsing into a pile of horny limbs because there’s no easy way to explain those injuries. He taps Kravitz’s back. “Okay. C’mon. Inspection time. I’ll warn you, I’m very thorough.”

Kravitz groans, and lets him down. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Taako helps him out of the rest of his shirt, stops to give him some more kisses when another bulb of garlic rolls out. He helps to shuffle all the stakes onto the jacket so they stop rolling around the floor. He helps kiss Kravitz’s collar bones when they look lonely.

“Taako.” Kravitz hesitates, hands on the button of his fly.

“Uh huh?” Taako doesn’t even pretend to look him in the eye, surely they’re past that point now.

“I was thinking…”

“Dangerous thing to do.” Taako lifts his eyes from Kravitz’s stomach and tries to focus on something that isn’t thinking about running his hands over it, grazing his nails through the hair there, kissing his way downwards.

“I have another safety concern.” He says, so earnestly.

“Uh huh?”

“How do I know you haven’t been bitten?” The corner of Kravitz’s mouth lifts as his eyebrows raise in challenge.

“You make a compelling point, handsome, I guess you’d better inspect me too.” Taako’s top is off before he’s finished talking.

#Happy birthday Larissa!!!!#Everyone go say happy birthday to them #Also - I cannot tell you how much fun I had thinking of this stupid world #But tell me I'm wrong - would Taako not use a historical whaling harpoon in the zombie apocalpyse?#Would Merle not be desperately figuring out how to grow onions to fuck?#Did you see that Kravitz has a lead on some vampires - he just doesn't know it yet!#TAZ Fic #Taz #TAZ Balance #Taakitz #Taako #Kravitz #Lup #Noodyl Writes #Zombie apocalypse AU #Why wouldn't there be an aquari-museum in a half resin half brick castle?

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zoesblogsposts · 3 months

Text

o 625 words to know in your target language o

There is a really interesting blog called "Fluent Forever" that aids foreign language learners in tricks, tips and techniques to guide them to achieving fluency "quickly" and efficiently. One of the tricks is to learn these 625 vocab words in your target language, that way you have a basis to start delving into grammar with ease as you can understand a lot of vocab right off the bat. Plus this list of words are common across the world and will aid you in whatever language you are learning. Here is the list in thematic order

• Animal: dog, cat, fish, bird, cow, pig, mouse, horse, wing, animal

• Transportation: train, plane, car, truck, bicycle, bus, boat, ship, tire, gasoline, engine, (train) ticket, transportation

• Location: city, house, apartment, street/road, airport, train station, bridge hotel, restaurant, farm, court, school, office, room, town, university, club, bar, park, camp, store/shop, theater, library, hospital, church, market, country (USA,

France, etc.), building, ground, space (outer space), bank, location

• Clothing: hat, dress, suit, skirt, shirt, T-shirt, pants, shoes, pocket, coat, stain, clothing

• Color: red, green, blue (light/dark), yellow, brown, pink, orange, black, white, gray, color

• People: son, daughter, mother, father, parent (= mother/father), baby, man, woman, brother, sister, family, grandfather, grandmother, husband, wife, king, queen, president, neighbor, boy, girl, child (= boy/girl), adult (= man/woman), human (# animal), friend (Add a friend's name), victim, player, fan, crowd, person

• Job: Teacher, student, lawyer, doctor, patient, waiter, secretary, priest, police, army, soldier, artist, author, manager, reporter, actor, job

• Society: religion, heaven, hell, death, medicine, money, dollar, bill, marriage, wedding, team, race (ethnicity), sex (the act), sex (gender), murder, prison, technology, energy, war, peace, attack, election, magazine, newspaper, poison, gun, sport, race (sport), exercise, ball, game, price, contract, drug, sign, science, God

• Art. band, song, instrument (musical), music, movie, art

• Beverages: coffee, tea, wine, beer, juice, water, milk, beverage

• Food: egg, cheese, bread, soup, cake, chicken, pork, beef, apple, banana orange, lemon, corn, rice, oil, seed, knife, spoon, fork, plate, cup, breakfast, lunch, dinner, sugar, salt, bottle, food

• Home: table, chair, bed, dream, window, door, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, pencil, pen, photograph, soap, book, page, key, paint, letter, note, wall, paper, floor, ceiling, roof, pool, lock, telephone, garden, yard, needle, bag, box, gift, card, ring, tool

• Electronics: clock, lamp, fan, cell phone, network, computer, program (computer), laptop, screen, camera, television, radio

• Body: head, neck, face, beard, hair, eye, mouth, lip, nose, tooth, ear, tear (drop), tongue, back, toe, finger, foot, hand, leg, arm, shoulder, heart, blood, brain, knee, sweat, disease, bone, voice, skin, body

• Nature: sea, ocean, river, mountain, rain, snow, tree, sun, moon, world, Earth, forest, sky, plant, wind, soil/earth, flower, valley, root, lake, star, grass, leaf, air, sand, beach, wave, fire, ice, island, hill, heat, nature

• Materials: glass, metal, plastic, wood, stone, diamond, clay, dust, gold, copper, silver, material

• Math/Measurements: meter, centimeter, kilogram, inch, foot, pound, half, circle, square, temperature, date, weight, edge, corner

• Misc Nouns: map, dot, consonant, vowel, light, sound, yes, no, piece, pain, injury, hole, image, pattern, noun, verb, adjective

• Directions: top, bottom, side, front, back, outside, inside, up, down, left, right, straight, north, south, east, west, direction

• Seasons: Summer, Spring, Winter, Fall, season

• Numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 30, 31, 32, 40, 41, 42, 50, 51, 52, 60, 61, 62, 70, 71, 72, 80, 81, 82, 90, 91, 92, 100, 101, 102, 110, 111, 1000, 1001, 10000, 100000, million, billion, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, number

• Months: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

• Time: year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second, morning, afternoon, evening, night, time

• Verbs: work, play, walk, run, drive, fly, swim, go, stop, follow, think, speak/say, eat, drink, kill, die, smile, laugh, cry, buy, pay, sell, shoot(a gun), learn, jump, smell, hear (a sound), listen (music), taste, touch, see (a bird), watch (TV), kiss, burn, melt, dig, explode, sit, stand, love, pass by, cut, fight, lie down, dance, sleep, wake up, sing, count, marry, pray, win, lose, mix/stir, bend, wash, cook, open, close, write, call, turn, build, teach, grow, draw, feed, catch, throw, clean, find, fall, push, pull, carry, break, wear, hang, shake, sign, beat, lift

• Adjectives: long, short (long), tall, short (vs tall), wide, narrow, big/large, small/little, slow, fast, hot, cold, warm, cool, new, old (new), young, old (young), weak, dead, alive, heavy, light (heavy), dark, light (dark), nuclear, famous

#second language #language #learning #rory gilmore #smart #tips

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stephensmithuk · 5 months

Text

The Red Circle

Published in 1911 as a two-parter, this is the penultimate story we'll be covering His Last Bow, leaving just the titular story there.

This does sound rather like "The Veiled Lodger", doesn't it?

These days, you'd have to check the immigration status of your tenants. In 1902, really not an issue. Although anti-immigrant sentiment was definitely there and growing.

Those strange coded personal messages - some even encrypted - very much existed in newspapers back then. Once radio had become a thing, the British would use them on radio broadcasts to Occupied Europe in the Second World to get messages to the resistance movements. Including the "get ready" and "go" codes for the mass sabotage operations that preceded Operation Overlord in 1944.

"Timekeepers" were used for recording arrivals and departures at a site, including that of staff for the purposes of paying wages, determining lateness etc.

Great Orme Street is more properly called Great Ormond Street, located in Bloomsbury. It is best known for the world-famous children's hospital called Great Ormond Street Hospital. They have a permanent UK copyright to Peter Pan which gives them a right to royalties for publications, adaptations, performances etc. The US copyright on the original version expires next year. If anyone wants to do a LfW retelling of the original book, it would be nice to contact them and arrange a donation. They're a very good organisation.

"Art for Art’s sake" was a French slogan from the latter half of the 19th century. You may know its Latin version - ars gratia artis - as the motto of film studio MGM.

The light flashing message gets a whole chapter covering it in Klinger's annotated version, as it's been heavily discussed by scholars. Basically, it would take multiple minutes to send that message.

The Pinkerton detective agency did a lot of investigative work in its early days, both criminal investigation and more nefarious stuff to aid strike-breaking. The latter got the US government banned from hiring them as such in the 1893 Anti-Pinkerton Act. They are still involved in anti-union stuff today.

Much of Notting Hill had become increasingly slum-like by this time as an influx of people led to houses built for one family being split to hold far more; the idea when the area was built was for the middle classes to live there, but they didn't buy the properties. It later attract large numbers of Afro-Caribbean immigrants in the post-war era, partly as the notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman was prepared to rent to them while others weren't. This growing ethnic tension culiminated race riots in 1958, with white "Teddy Boys" attacking West Indian homes. Since then, the slums have been cleared and the area has gentrified quite a bit.

It is also home to the annual Notting Hall carnival every August since 1965 (bar 2020 and 2021), which around 2 million people attend. The Metropolitan Police have moved from active hostility to active cooperation in its running and there will be photos of officers dancing with those in the parade at any given carnival. The reputation for violence is unjustified and arguably fuelled by racism - while there were frequently arrests for violence, drugs and weapons offences, on a pro-rata basis, the arrest rate is about the same as the Glastonbury Festival.

The Carbonari ("charcoal makers") were secret revolutionary societies active in what would become Italy in the early 19th century. After failed uprisings in 1831, the various Italian governments cracked down hard on them and they were effectively eliminated. They were not really engaged in protection rackets.

Dynamite was patented by Alfred Nobel in 1867. Being a good deal more stable than nitrogyclerine - although storage is important as old dynamite is a good deal less stable - it became popular for terrorists and criminals, with a series of bombings by Irish republicans between 1881 and 1885 leading to the formation of Special Branch.

Covent Garden is home to the Royal Opera House.

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #history #factoids #acd canon #redc #The Red Circle

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rotworld · 7 months

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11: Slither

(previous)

something strange is going on at the university.

->briefly suggestive. contains gore, drugging, mentions of child neglect.

You can still smell it.

Death. Blood and snow. Stiff corpses left in purposeful poses, waiting for you to open your eyes. Bits of brain on the pillow next to yours. Heads like roadkill. You barely eat all day, too sick to your stomach.

He was in your room. He stood at your bedside, watching you sleep. One by one, he dragged their bodies inside and arranged them like old friends sleeping off a party, close and intimate. And then he just left. Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Rushing from place to place, fleeing the snow? Can you go anywhere? Can you stay with anyone? How many chances do you get before he finishes the job? You wish you’d asked more questions. But if anyone knows anything, you’ll find them at the University.

You’ve driven for hours without stopping, afraid of the weather changing. You adjust your route, taking the road east. The scenery becomes strange as the sun goes down. A clock tower looms just off the shoulder of the road, red brick and Verlinda-touched by strangling vines. An oak tree grows clumps of green-tinged parking tickets instead of leaves. A patch of wildflowers grows in the shape and colors of a University sweatshirt. This is a good sign; it means you’re close.

Macbride University used to be located in Bevin, a small town torn to shreds by a particularly vicious shift in a time before anchorware. Those disparate pieces still exist throughout the Drift. Several of its hiking trails landed in the Stillwoods back when it was Green Valley, albeit with noticeable spatial and temporal distortion, and the art museum was excavated in the south end of Primsville. None are more remarkable than the University which emerged along the highway, fully intact, still containing a bewildered student body and faculty who were oblivious to the sudden relocation.

Today, it’s a city of its own. A costly, meticulously maintained perimeter of anchorware has given it an unusual amount of stability—you can almost always find it towards the east of the Drift. Still, the shift that ripped it from its foundations from Bevin left a mark on the fabric of reality and the University has a tendency of shedding like a thick-coated dog, each relocation lodging bits and pieces of town into the surrounding highway. They make for useful landmarks, and you’ve never been quite so relieved to see them as you are now.

Soon, you’re passing beneath streetlights and blending into campus traffic, flanked by stately lecture halls with stone columns and arching doorways. “WELCOME,” the artsy metal sign on the overpass says, “TO MACBRIDE UNIVERSITY.”

[NOW PLAYING ON THE RADIO: PAPAOUTAI BY STROMAE]

You’re familiar with the University. It’s one of your preferred destinations to make deliveries. Navigation is simple. Every building is named and labeled by black stone plaques, every district easily found by following a network of blue road signs. Every section of the city, from the tidy bureaucratic buildings of the Administration District to the picturesque Tudor manors of the Residential District, have reserved courier parking spaces and dedicated exchange offices.

The campus is beautiful. Blushing autumn trees line the cobblestone paths. Cloister gardens are tucked inside the labyrinthine sprawl of college buildings and canopied walkways, quiet corners flush with greenery. You can smell the cloying earthy sweetness of the egg gardens. The College of Medicine stretches across a hilltop overlooking the rest of the campus. You pull into your designated spot outside one of the libraries and pull your deliveries out of the trunk.

The box from Compass Hill is slim but heavy with anchorware, wooden lit stamped with the old textile factory logo. The Stag gave you something the shape of a small glass jar but wrapped in layer after layer of protective coverings; newsprint, bandage wrappings, some kind of thick, glossy leaves.

The library is modern but cozy, earthy colors, tall arch windows and wooden furniture. Students flit through the shelves and crack open thick, dusty tomes beneath warm table lamps. The woman at the reference desk calls Dr. Loyola down to take your delivery. You’re invited to help yourself to tea, coffee, or any of the books while you wait. Most of what’s on the shelves is too dense and dry for you, seventh edition treatises on acute shift sickness and investigations into anomalous anchorware radiation. You sit down with a drink and your map, considering where you’ll go next. You scratch out the motel with a giant X.

“Is that painsilk, by any chance?”

You look up and find someone leaning over your table, resting one hand on the lid of the wooden box. He—or she, perhaps, beautiful and androgynous in a loose knit sweater and black jeans, wavy brown hair just long enough to tie into a low ponytail with a red ribbon—is young but not as young as some of the others milling about the library. A graduate student, maybe, or a new professor.

“You can stop guessing. I’m not a man or a woman, and would rather not be referred to as such.” You quickly apologize but they seem unbothered, waving off your tension. “You didn’t know. Now you do.” They pull out the chair across from you and sit casually, an elbow resting on the table, chin set against their hand. “Ah, I haven’t gotten to ask this in a little while. Where are you from? And where will you go after this?”

You hadn’t expected to meet a child of the road here, but there’s no reason why you wouldn’t. People come to the University from all across the Drift. “I’m from somewhere to the northwest. Not sure where I’m headed next, depends what I get to deliver.”

“Oooh, cryptic,” they say with a grin. “I like that. Mind if I see your map?” You pass it across the table and they flip it around, dragging their finger over your hasty scribbles. “You’re not from any of these, then? Compass Hill? Rivermouth?” You shake your head. They hum thoughtfully. “Have you not marked your ‘home’ due to physical constraints, such as the size of the paper, or is it simply irrelevant information?”

You don’t like the flippant way they say “home,” like it’s nothing but a mirage. “Does it matter?” you ask.

They seem surprised by your hostility. “Ah, my turn to apologize,” they say, hands raised in a placating gesture. They slide the map back to you. “I’m asking from a place of genuine curiosity. I’m studying children of the road for a research project. For all the hearsay and rumor, there’s not much reliable information about people like you and I. My current hypothesis draws on the fundamental mechanics of micro-metaspatial alignment, so I’ve been trying to get better geographical distribution data. Physical birthplace versus metaphysical point of origin, the birthplace of parents if applicable…”

“What about you?” you ask. “Where are you from?”

“Hm? I have no idea.”

You pause, waiting for elaboration. They offer none. “Okay, but where is it?” you press.

“Now who’s being belligerent?” they say, but they’re grinning as if they’re enjoying the banter. “I just told you, I have no idea. I have no inner compass, no little tugging sensation in my chest. I don’t dream about it.” They shrug, as though they didn’t just tell you the most horrifying thing you’ve ever heard. “Anyway. This is painsilk, right? The Department of Paraphysics is expanding and we need a few specialty construction materials. I don’t suppose I could ask you for a ride that way? The last bus ran an hour ago.”

“I don’t mind,” you say. “But I can’t leave yet. I’m waiting for someone to pick something up.”

“I’ll wait with you, then, if you aren’t sick of me yet. I’m Jamie, by the way.”

After your rocky introduction to one another, you reassess Jamie as blunt but friendly. They introduce themselves in a rapid bullet point list: paraphysicist, avid science fiction reader, tea snob. Their graduate thesis was about the reproductive behaviors and cycles of a coffin shroudweed colony in the Stillwoods.

“I actually lived with the colony for two years. They were incredibly open with me. Gave a few…hands-on demonstrations,” they add with a wink. “But in all seriousness, I was there in the first place to settle a dispute. The Stillwoods municipal government had come up with this frankly abhorrent development plan for new luxury housing where the shroudweed live. It was fine to bulldoze everything and douse it in pesticides, they said, because shroudweed are aggressive, mindless and invasive.” They scoff. “Aggressive? Not in the least, unless you disturb the mycelial creche where their young grow. Definitely not mindless, either. Communication was difficult but completely possible, we worked out a system of shared symbols. Invasive, then…” They laugh bitterly. “What a useless word in the Drift. You and I are invasive, by that logic. They won’t say it out loud, but they will say it in all sorts of quiet ways.”

Dr. Loyola is still wearing his University staff lanyard when he arrives, photo ID dangling from his neck. You hand him the jar and tell him it’s from the Stag. He looks understandably alarmed and rushes off with the strange thing cradled in both hands, careful not to shake it. You decide you don’t want to know.

Jamie follows you out to your car, sliding into the passenger seat when you move the egg box on the floor behind you. You notice them looking around with interest, studying the interior, the food you have stashed away, opening your glove box to glance inside, but they don’t disturb anything. “I envy couriers,” they say. “The grass is always greener, I’m sure, but still. Perhaps I do still have some trace of that wanderlust instinct we’re all supposed to have.”

You shrug. “It’s different for everyone. I’ve met children of the road who can’t imagine ever leaving home again, wherever they find it. For those of us who keep moving, it’s the same. I can’t imagine sitting still.”

“Do you remember your parents?”

The sudden shift in topic makes you pause. “No,” you say. “I might’ve been abandoned. Or maybe they’re the ones who left me in Compass Hill.”

Their gaze softens. “I see. Rejection is unfortunately common. The lucky ones will find new families, but I know that’s not the norm.”

“Is that why you’re not a courier?” you ask. “You’re one of the lucky ones?”

Jamie gets quiet. You glance over and their smile has turned stiff, not quite meeting their eyes. “Oh, yes,” they say. “I was very lucky.”

You take a winding path back down the hill, following the signs guiding you to the Paraphysics Department. This isn’t a part of campus you’re familiar with. These buildings are much newer, designed with an unpleasant mix of hard Gothic angles and bizarre alien curves. Cathedral towers curve and twist. Windows are misshapen, squished ovals as though melting in their frames. Halls are joined by spiraling aerial walkways. Jamie directs you to Lyman Hall, a building shaped like a frozen wave. A new section is affixed to one end, skeletal scaffolding that bends and twists in ways that don’t seem possible.

Jamie sets their hand on your shoulder as you take your keys out of the ignition. You’ve noticed in just a short time that they’re very physical, walking close, frequently touching your hand or back to get your attention. “I should warn you before we go in,” they say hesitantly. “A lot of my colleagues are…eccentric.”

You ask, “More than you?”

“A courier and a comedian? Come on.”

You tuck the box under your arm and follow Jamie through the front doors. Lyman Hall is just as confusing on the inside. You feel like you’ve somehow found yourself in the old, majestic building of another department with grand, ornately framed church-like windows and antique decor, but everything is just ever so slightly off. The angles are strange. The hallway looks lopsided and half-sinking. A spiral staircase rises into nothing, abruptly ending just short of the rounded ceiling.

“They used to run artificial shifts here to study their effects,” Jamie explains. “It’s done some odd things to the architecture.” They gesture for you to follow, leading you down a hallway that’s much longer than it looks. “Do you know much about shifts? What happens during one, and why?”

“Not really,” you admit.

Their eyes light up. You get the feeling this is something they don’t get to explain often. “Think of it like this: this is us.” They lift their hand, bent at a ninety-degree angle with their palm facing the floor. “This is our home and all the rules that hold it together. We’re so small and so deep inside that it’s all we know. It’s hard to even imagine that there could be more. But there is.” They raise their other hand parallel. “This is another plane. It might be like ours with similar rules, or it might be completely incomprehensible to us. Now, different planes normally exist at different frequencies. They’re like ghosts to one another, invisible. They would pass right through each other without any interaction, any knowledge of one another whatsoever. But, rarely, those frequencies might change. They might start to harmonize, you could say. And when they do…”

Jamie brings their hands closer, fingers lacing together.

“They run into each other?” you guess.

“That’s one type of shift, yes. But it’s not always a collision. Sometimes it’s more like a merging. The technical term is a ‘superposition event.’ Two or more cosmic planes occupying the same location, existing at the same frequency, at the same time. In most of the world, this phenomenon is incredibly rare and incredibly brief. Thirty-four have been recorded throughout all of human history, most lasting between one to six seconds.”

“That can’t be right,” you say. “We have one at least once a week. They last hours.”

“Those numbers only apply outside the Drift. This place has always been especially prone to them. We’re not sure why.”

You’ve heard that the world outside the Drift is “much more stable” but never truly understood what that meant. Thirty-four, for the whole world, for as long as humans have been writing things down? Does anything change out there? Is it all the same for centuries, for millennia at a time? How do they plan trips if everything is always the same distance away and never any closer? What grows on their trees if not eggs?

Jamie turns suddenly into an open doorway and leads you into what looks like an old laboratory. The floor is scuffed, stained wood, tables and workstations wooden with polished stone counters. A diagram of a fringed, worm-like creature has been partially erased on a blackboard. Chemicals and labeled specimens in glass jars line the shelves along the walls. Jamie flicks the lightswitch by the door and you realize there are several people huddled around one of the tables near the back of the room, heads lowered, muttering to each other, apparently standing around in the dark prior to your arrival.

They all look up at the same time, still as statues and staring right at you. A moment passes in tense, terrifying silence, and then they all relax.

“Silk’s here,” Jamie calls.

“Ah, excellent!” one says. It’s a woman in a lab coat and small, oval glasses, her dark hair cropped short. She regards you with a smile, coming over to take the box. “Oh, you have no idea how much we appreciate this. Superposition-affected structures aren’t easy to repair, or remodel, or really do anything with. This should do just the trick. Ah, where are my manners?” She offers a handshake. “I’m Olivia Higgs.”

You blink. “Higgs? As in…?”

“Pioneer of modern paraphysics and paraphysical biology? Yeah, that Dr. Higgs,” Jamie says wryly.

Dr. Higgs is a household name. Your current understanding of the Drift is almost entirely thanks to her. Her approachable, layman-friendly books on shift safety and Drift wildlife are required reading for couriers who want to survive their job. You have an old, dog-eared and partially rain-soaked copy of Drift Eggs and You: A Beginner Forager's Guide in your car.

“Oh,” is all you can think to say.

“And I see you’ve already met my…” Dr. Higgs pauses for an uncomfortably long time, her enthusiasm wavering. “My, ah. My child. Jamie.” She tilts her head slightly as though listening to something, her gaze vacant. “My…Jamie? Jamie?”

Jamie wraps their arm around you quickly, tugging you back a step, closer to the door. “Well, I’ll get them all settled in.”

“Wh—settled in?” you ask.

They turn their arm, checking their watch. You see three needles moving at three different tempos across the clock’s face, none of which seem to be measuring conventional time. “The next shift hits in a couple hours. You can stay at my place tonight, I have a spare bedroom.”

Dr. Higgs shiver. “Jamie? What’s—? Oh my god. Oh my god!” She starts to scream. Jamie’s hand tightens on your shoulder and they draw you back another step, urging you to leave the room. Dr. Higgs claws at her own face, nails raking over her eyes and nose, leaving long, bloodied scratch marks all the way to her chin. She shrieks in thoughtless terror, throwing herself to the ground and curling up into a ball. The other researchers rush to her side, keeping her hands pinned far away from her face, but you see a gushing wound where she tore her forehead open, a rough, circular hole she gouged into herself in desperation.

“GET IT OUT!” she screams. “GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT—”

Jamie slams the door to the lab shut, leans back against it, and lets out a long sigh. You can still hear Dr. Higgs shrieking. “I didn’t want you to see that,” they mutter.

You nod numbly. You have no idea what to ask, if you should even ask anything. There’s a loud thud, the sound of chairs scraping, sprinting footsteps up to the door and something pounding against it.

“Open the door, Jamie!” she shrieks. “Open this door right fucking now and HELP ME!”

Jamie stays where they are as the door jolts and rattles against their back. They close their eyes and take another deep breath, letting out slowly. The banging stops and you hear dragging, Dr. Higgs still screaming, still calling Jamie’s name, sobbing and cursing, as she’s pulled away. “My mother has…fits,” Jamie says. You can’t help but notice they say “mother” not unlike the way they said “home” earlier. “It’s some kind of paranoia. She’s amassed a broad body of work over the course of her career, but her specialty is actually Drift parasites.”

“So she thinks she’s…infected with something?” you say.

“Something like that.”

You stand there in silence for a while. The weeping in the lab gradually tapers off. You hear movement. A gentle knock at the door. “Jamie? I’m so sorry. I’m fine now,” Dr. Higgs says. “Is the courier still there? Did you tell them—”

“Yep,” Jamie says. “We’re going to go now. Don’t stay up too late tonight.”

“Alright. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Mom.” Jamie smiles at you, as if there’s nothing to worry about. When you don’t move, they clear their throat and step away from the door, gesturing back the way you came. “Why don’t we head home? It’s late, I’m tired, I’m sure you’re tired.” They start moving and all but drag you with them, a hand on your back to keep you heading for the exit.

“Is she okay? Are you okay?” you ask. “Are you sure she’s not—?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” they say, their smile strained. They make you walk a little faster.

Jamie lives in a small cottage in the Residential District. There’s a fence at the front with a latching gate and flowering shrubs growing beneath the windows. The interior is cluttered but cozy. Papers with handwritten margin notes are strewn across the kitchen counter. An unfinished jigsaw puzzle is scattered across the living room table. All the pillows on the couch are pushed into one corner, a tasseled blanket hanging across the back. They make you tea, fragrant and slightly sweet, and some eggs to go with it.

“It’s really good,” you say.

“Rosemary peppermint,” they say proudly, sipping their own generous helping from a University mug. “There’s just a pinch of salt and honey in there, a little bit of milk. I’ve always wanted to show it off to someone, but, ah. I never have company.” They glance at you a few times, tapping their fingers on the counter.

You’re escorted to a guest room upstairs that looks significantly less lived in, the bed neatly made, the decor sparse save for a house plant on the window sill. Jamie lingers in the doorway while you settle in, going through your backpack. “Would you…” They trail off, not looking you in the eye. “Would you be willing to take me with you in the morning, when you leave?”

You look up in surprise. “I could,” you say cautiously. “If you’re sure. Where would you wanna go?”

Jamie leans against the doorframe, smiling bitterly. “Ah, of course. This looks bad, doesn’t it? Like I’m abandoning my mother when she needs me. It’s not like that, I promise. I’ve been planning to do some field research for a while now.” They cross the room quickly, sitting on the edge of the bed beside you. Their hand finds yours, settling on top of it. “Maybe I can explain it better in the morning,” they offer, shifting closer. “I just…don’t want to think right now.”

The kiss takes you by surprise. They’re gentle at first, almost shy. Their lips are soft and their hands are wandering restlessly, one cupping your cheek, the other smoothing down your chest. They swallow your quiet, startled gasp and it seems to embolden them. Quick, fleeting kisses grow longer and hungrier, more forceful. They’re pushing against you, a hand on your shoulder easing you down onto the bed.

“Jamie?” You barely manage to get the word out with their mouth moving against yours. “Hey, wait—”

You push against their chest and they pull back with obvious reluctance. Their hand lingers under the bottom of your shirt, fingertips ghosting over your bare stomach. “You don’t want to?”

“That’s not…” You trail off. Suddenly, you don’t feel good. You feel yourself breaking out in a cold sweat. The room is spinning. The room is spinning. You try to sit up but Jamie pushes you back down easily.

“You’re alright,” they murmur. “Shhhh, you’re alright. Close your eyes. You’re going to sleep really, really well tonight, I promise.” They lean in, pressing a kiss to your forehead, and then their weight lifts from the bed. The lights flick off. You hear gentle humming. The door, gently pulled shut. You fight to stay awake but it’s a losing battle, your limbs too heavy to lift. Jamie’s footsteps go back down the stairs and the noise is distorted as you drift in and out of consciousness, too loud, muddled like you’re hearing them underwater.

You think you can hear them talking to someone in hushed, excited whispers.

(next)

#rotpeach writes #goretober #the drift

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haunted-headset-alt · 2 months

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"do you think we're soulmates in every universe?"

"are we even soulmates in this one?"

things i adore <3

⋆⭒˚｡⋆ films: coraline | opal | shop: a pop opera | harry potter films | hunger games

credits to @daydream-of-a-wallflower for the blog layout idea!

credits to @starzyyy1 for the dividers!

⋆⭒˚｡⋆ anons: 🪱

#hauntytalks

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averagemrfox · 3 months

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was just reminded of my favorite poem and now I'm beat up over bumbleby and these first three stanzas

You will never be let down by anyone more than you will be let down by the one you love most in the world it’s how gravity works it’s why they call it “falling” it’s why the truth is harder to tell every year you have more to lose but you can choose to bury your past in the garden by the tulips water it until it’s so alive it lets go and you belong to yourself again When you belong to yourself again Remember forgiveness is not a tidy grave It is a ready loyal knight kneeling before your royal heart Call in your royal heart Tell it bravery cannot be measured by a lack of fear It takes guts to tremble It takes so much tremble to love Every first date is a fucking earthquake Sweetheart, on our first date I showed off all my therapy I flaunted the couch Where I finally sweat out my history I pulled out the photo album from the last time I wore a lie to the school dance I smiled and said “that was never my style Look how fixed I am Look how there’s no more drywall on my fist Look at the stilts I’ve carved for my short temper Look how my wrist is not something I have to hide” I said Well I was hiding it The telephone pole still down from the storm By our third date I had fixed the line I said listen I have a hard time I mean I cry as often as most people pee and I don’t shut the door behind me I’ll be up in your face screaming “SEATTLE IS TOO RAINY SEATTLE IS TOO RAINY IM NEVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO LIVE HERE.” I sobbed on our fourth date I can’t live here In my body, I mean I can’t live in my body all the time it feels too much So if I ever feel far away know I am not gone I am just underneath my grief Adjusting the dial on my radio faith so I can take this life with all of it’s love and all of it’s loss See I already know that you are the place where I am finally going to sing without any static meaning I’m never gonna wait that extra twenty minutes to text you back and I’m never gonna play hard to get when I know your life has been hard enough already When we all know everyone’s life has been hard enough already it’s hard to watch the game we make of love, like everyone’s playing checkers with their scars, saying checkmate whenever they get out without a broken heart. Just to be clear I don’t want to get out without a broken heart. I intend to leave this life so shattered there better be a thousand separate heavens for all of my separate parts And none of those parts are going to be wearing the romance from the overpriced vintage rack That is to say I am not going to get a single speed bike if I can’t make it up the hill I know exactly how many gears I’m going to need to love you well And none of them look hip at the coffee shop They all have God saying “good job you’re finally not full of bullshit” You finally met someone who’s going to flatten your knee caps into skipping stones Baby, throw me Throw me as far as I can go I don’t want to leave this life without ever having come home And I want to come home to you I can figure out the rain

#long post #royal heart #bumbleby

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aemiron-main · 1 year

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“mother is god in the eyes of a child,”/“i can see your sin as clearly as god can”/“if i only could, i’d make a deal with god,” and why alice creel was the angel in the creel house and why virginia killed her.

I’m still working on my ST-Silent Hill analysis, but there’s a line in the Silent Hill movie (which has VERY BLATANT parallels to ST & Silent Hill is a confirmed inspo for ST) that I want to talk about right now:

“mother is god in the eyes of a child ”

Long story short, the character who says this line, Dahlia Gillespie, is extremely Virginia coded. But why is it relevant? Well, for the sake of this post, it’s relevant because it also aligns with something in Carrie (and the mother in Carrie is very Virginia coded too and there’s a TON of confirmed Carrie parallels in ST):

“Don’t you know by now, Carrie? I can see inside you. I can see your sin as clearly as God can.”

Carrie’s mother talks about how she can see into Carrie’s mind as clearly as god can (which ties into my theories about Virginia being able to reach into Henry’s mind but that’s a whole other post).

So, we’ve got TWO separate pieces of media that inspired ST/that ST references that both have a Virginia-coded mother talking about how mothers = god. Now, let’s look at another reference to god- “Running Up That Hill”.

If “mother is god” and Virginia is the mother, and “Running Up That Hill,” talks about “making a deal with god,” then the deal would be made with the mother to swap places- but the singer isn’t swapping places with god, the singer is getting god to let them swap places with someone else- someone else like Alice Creel. Not to mention that Henry refers to the spiders as gods, and Virginia’s reflection (when Henry “holds a mirror” up to her with his powers) is a spider in the bathtub- her reflection is a god. Henry wanting to swap places with Alice- but not only that. Why would Henry make the deal with Virginia if he supposedly killed Alice? Because he didn’t kill Alice. Because Virginia did. Hence, why he would make the deal with her, hence why she’s the one paralleled to god, because she’s the one making the decisions about who lives and who dies. Why would Virginia kill Alice, though? Well, Victor heard the voice of an angel. A voice that brought him out of a trance- and I’ve gotta finish the full analysis, but I suspect that there’s a solid chance that Alice also had powers and was messing with the radio, there’s one shot of her staring intently at it that’s super suspicious AND another scene where she literally flicks her head in time with the radio changing channels (plus some other stuff). Here’s Alice staring weirdly at the radio.

And the nod is pretty subtle but when you watch the scene with sound, you can tell that it lines up right with when the channel flickers again.

And so, if Alice was turning on the radio, and thereby bringing Victor out of his trance, that would’ve thwarted Virginia’s plans, hence why she’d have motivation to kill Alice. I think Alice may have even turned on the radio in the dining room because she knew what was going on between Virginia and Henry. This also explains why the “signals overlapping,” subtitle during the dinner scene is overlaid on top of a scene of Alice- the subtitle itself, IMO, refers to Virginia and Henry’s powers as “overlapping signals,” as they fight with eachother- and Alice recognized this, and likely turned on the radio as a pre-emptive salvation attempt- she may have already known that music worked against trances/against Virginia, after all, we do see a piano in the Creel house that Lucas plays while he talks about the idea that the piano might open a “secret passageway”. And in “Alice in Wonderland,” Alice finds a secret doorpassageway into the garden- the garden, which seems to be where Henry was shown killing the rabbit. I think that might be the moment when Alice realized something was up with Virginia, but I need to think on it more. And also, in “Alice in Wonderland,” there were three secret passages into Wonderland: the tunnel, the well and the hall of doors.

And also, there’s the whole “painting the roses red,” thing in Alice in Wonderland, and the rose imagery in the Creel house- and if we look at the members of the family as roses, they were literally painted red with blood, which sounds like a stretch, but the “painting the roses red,” scene in Alice in Wonderland was a reference to the Wars of the Roses, which, interestingly enough, in addition to confirming the idea that the red is equivalent to blood, was a series of civil wars- civil wars fought between family members. And it gets better with the Wars of the Roses, let’s look at an excerpt from Wikipedia:

“the modern term Wars of the Roses came into common use in the early 19th century following the publication of the 1829 novel Anne of Geierstein by Sir Walter Scott. Scott based the name on a scene in William Shakespeare's play Henry VI”

HENRY. And Henry VI himself was literally INVOLVED in the Wars of the Roses.

And now, back to in Alice in Wonderland, who ordered to have the roses painted red/ordered the deaths so to speak? The queen. Virginia. She was the one committing the murders.

Anyway, going back to what happened at the Creel dinner table that night with the radio- Virginia then started scrambling the radio, hence why it goes from music and starts flicking between channels- it doesn’t just go from music to static, it flicks back and forth between channels, almost like a tug-of-war.

And look at this- at first, it’s subtitled as “staticky signals overlapping,” but then as SOON as it goes to Alice it’s subtitled as “singals overlapping”- it’s because a.) she was making the signal clear by trying to turn it back to the music and b.) in a more meta sense, Alice, unlike Victor, is aware of what’s going on- her signal is clear, her understanding is clear.

And to top it all off, what line do we see in the lyrics of “Running Up That Hill?”

“come on, angel.” Alice was the angel. With what I’ve said here, “Running Up That Hill,” would be from the POV of Henry towards Alice, wanting to swap places with her- and Henry would know that Alice was the “angel,” the song is directed at Alice, and refers to the person the song is directed to as an “angel,” thereby referring to Alice as the angel. And Henry is one of the few characters whose family has very overt religious imagery in the family itself, not just in the town as a whole, with Victor talking about demons and angels.

Alice had powers. Virginia had powers. Henry, of course, had powers. Victor, is there something you’d like to share with the class? (he doesn’t have powers dw- at least as far as i know.)

Virginia killed Alice. This is something I’m going to talk about in the full analysis, but it’s worth keeping in mind that in Carrie, Carrie’s mother tries to kill her (and Carrie, in the movie, looks quite a bit like Alice), and after Carrie’s mother stabs her, Carrie ends up pushed to the bottom of the stairs, JUST like where Alice was laying.

Even Virginia comforting Alice after her nightmare is a Carrie parallel.

And take a look at that painting on the wall when Carrie falls down the stairs. It’s crooked.

And what other paintings are crooked? The ones in the Creel house when the Hawkins gang investigates it. Specifically, the one right near the stairs (above that table on screen right), just like in Carrie.

And to conclude, @laozuspo has made some fantastic posts (part 1 here and part 2 here) about Alice and Henry and “Running Up That Hill,” and Henry wanting to swap with Alice and this sort of stuff but the Silent Hill and Carrie parallels and the radio stuff just all hit me like a brick tonight, esp since those shots of Alice with the radio were making me absolutely insane last night. Anyway. I’m being normal about the Creels as usual.

#stranger things #st analysis #st music #st soundtrack #st running up that hill #st-silent hill parallels #henry creel #creel family

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anotherrainbowsky · 7 months

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The cottage in the hills (my short Good Omens Essay)

There is a Good Omens shaped hole in my heart. There has not been a day that went by where I didn't think about this little show. Dramatic, I know.

I just wanted to share with everyone, there are things that hurt me more than the ending of season 2 and that is how I came to terms with it. Maybe this can help you too.

Crowley and Aziraphale will end up in a South Downs cottage. That has been confirmed, that they are happy and will be happy for the rest of their existence.

The likelihood, however, of us seeing normalcy between them is slim. I want to see Aziraphale and Crowley stroll through the park with their hands locked together. I want to see them waking up next to each other with the biggest smile on their faces. I want to see Aziraphale making tea for Crowley with a kiss as a thank you.

I want to see a domestic life. A joyful one.

Perhaps we will get a glimpse, maybe one more kiss. But this next season is going to be chaos. A big kaboom with a sweet ending.

We probably won't see them waking up next to each other. We probably won't see them hanging out in their garden. And we probably won't see Aziraphale reading to Crowley while he lazes in his lap.

A content, normal, life.

But the beauty of that is, I feel like I've already seen it.

There are thousands of creative people out there who have dedicated time, energy, and love into putting out fan works. I've seen these goofs in every situation imaginable, because we (the fans) love them so much.

So while it hurts right now, and will still hurt for a time, as long as there is love for this show, there is a future.

So yes, it's painful. We probably won't see David Tennant wrapped up in a tartan blanket while Michael Sheen leans into him with a book, but sure as hell someone will draw that.

We have the power to continue this story far beyond the reach of the show, of the book, and of the radio series. So no, you're not going to see a private life between Aziraphale and Crowley. But I think it is much more beautiful to know that it exists and that fans are inclined to write, draw, and create it for themselves.

Thank you to everyone who worked on any part of the Good Omens show, the book, the radio series, the everything. You've changed my life in an insurmountable way.

And I can't wait for the morning after season three when I sit up and wonder, what the hell am I going to do with the rest of my life?

#good omens #good omens s2 #aziraphale #crowley #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #fanfiction #fan art #thank you to everyone that makes such wonderful things

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anthrofreshtodeath · 11 months

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P FKN R Intro

I'm at work, sort of working, sort of tinkering with some writing stuff at lunch, especially the beginning of P FKN R in hopes that I might manufacture some inspiration. Too soon to tell, but maybe if I share it here that will spur me on some more. Here we go!

___

Jamaica Plain’s cars were jammed onto its narrow streets, effectuating a one-way rule by default; those that did crawl through broadcasted an amalgam of sounds into the Latin Quarter: Spanish talk radio, classic rock, and of course, full and knocking reggaetón beats.

Jamaica Plain’s three-story homes groaned as they expanded at high noon, stacked and running from one end of Chestnut Avenue to the other, one of those narrow streets in the time-honored New England style. In another facet of that tradition, its air rippled in a summer scorcher, wafting smells over from La Isla café on the corner: the strong oil-sweet of fried plantains and roasted pork, the kind Jane Rizzoli liked to order with a side of rice when she sat down at one of their vinyl-topped, worn-in, peach-colored tables.

JP pulsated at lunch time.

Jane’s stomach gurgled when she remembered her last meal: a chugged cup of coffee at the marble counter in the Beacon Hill home of the woman kneeling over the body they’d been called to investigate. The image of it was made more grotesque by the contrast of her Aeron skirt and Bottega Veneta heels with the contorted limbs of the man on the walkup in broad daylight.

Jane still liked it, Maura Isles’ high-class wardrobe and the attitude it brought to neighborhoods like this, neighborhoods like her own. That attitude, the I’m the hottest in the room chest-beating, shoulder-brushing mindset, matched what Jane always knew about Boston’s real cultural pockets. The ones with subsidized housing and community gardens and spots like La Isla. “Watcha got for me?” Jane said by way of greeting.

Maura looked up, her long, highlighted hair swishing to the other shoulder when she shook it out. Her green eyes shimmered and she smirked when Jane winked. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

“Saw ya like thirty minutes ago,” said Jane. “And if we hurry this up, cut the pleasantries, I can take you right on over to that restaurant and introduce you to the best lunch you’ll ever eat in JP.” She pointed to the wide-open window view of the restaurant just a football field away.

“Hmm,” Maura replied, “I could be persuaded, I suppose. Penetrating wounds to the chest and abdomen, surrounding shell casings would indicate he was shot.”

Jane pursed her lips and smiled at the same time. She crossed her nitrile-gloved hands over her hips and shrugged under her blazer for some relief from the beads of sweat rolling down her back. She should not have worn black in late June. “You don’t say,” she teased. But then, quickly back to business, she pointed to the decedent’s broken ankle, distorted and impossibly angled toward midline. “That from this fall?” She asked.

Maura stood, narrowed her brows at Jane’s narrowed brow. “Can’t say right now,” she answered. “But these steps are narrow and uneven. It’s possible.”

“Even if it isn’t, he wa’n’t goin’ very far,” Jane commented. She clenched her jaw, and her masseter muscle clicked in investigatory concentration. “What’s on his hand?”

“Burns,” Maura said. They shared a look, one that only experience, only dozens and dozens of murders, could engender. A car door slammed and footsteps approached as they communicated about the man on the ground without words.

Maura never went to JP unless there was work to be done, and Jane? Jane really only traveled out this way for murder anymore, which was a damn shame because the food was good, and so was the company - even if that company happened to be related to the asshole walking up to them now. “Hey oh - the hell are you doin’ at my crime scene?” barked Jane.

Rafael Martinez, lieutenant of the Drug Control Unit.

Tall, dark-skinned, in a baby blue v-neck stretched against his defined chest, with a Boricua jawline that showcased his trimmed beard like art. He ran his hand over his shaved head once, and licked his lips on his way to the woman shouting at him. “I could ask you the same thing, Rizzoli,” he said through a wicked smile, all white teeth and innate pride. Just as he held out his arms to really rub in his obtusity, a lowered, electric green and black Impreza roared past them, changing Martinez’s mirth to ire, now directed entirely to the street. “Ey!” he shouted, the car already long gone. Then he stepped onto the sidewalk and dusted his dark, slim fit jeans. “Swear to god if one more lowrider tries to run me off the road, I’m outta this city.”

Jane scoffed. “You already were outta this city, remember? Almost a decade. They ain’t got those in New York, Mr. Hot Shot?”

Martinez stared at her, awed by both her attitude and her mouth, until he shook his head of its disbelief. Maura smiled at him as if to commiserate, and held her medical bag in front of her as she faced him. “Not that we’re not happy to have you-”

“We’re not,” Jane interrupted.

Maura glared with a good-natured, nonverbal shut up that worked, at least for the moment. “Like I said - not that we’re not happy to have you, but a federal task force in New York City with the chance for so much more? What brings you back to Boston?”

“Homesick, I guess, doc,” Martinez replied with a cheeky grin. Maura nodded and out of habit, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Jane was unmoved by his obfuscation and his easy Boston-Latin accent. “Bullshit,” she said, “you live for that. You live for the thrill. And the juice.”

Rafael shrugged. “Whatchu want me to say, Rizzoli?” he overtrilled the r of her surname on purpose, in the way that both Italians and Puerto Ricans do. “Me voy a caballo y vengo a pie, eh? Didn’t turn out, no matter how bad I wanted it. When you come from the neighborhoods that Paddy Doyle runs, the Bureau gets certain ideas about where your loyalties are. Especially if you BPD.”

Maura bowed her head in embarrassment, and Jane actually twitched her nose at that one. A droplet of perspiration ran down it, a sign that she’d been in the sun too long. “Well that sucks. Sorry. Still don’t answer why you’re here, steppin’ all over my toes.”

“That,” he started again, pointing to the victim sprawled on the porch of the house they surrounded, “is one of the main earners of the Kill Shot Gang. New crew muscling their way into JP. And I…” he drew out the pronoun for emphasis, “needa find out who did it. I already got your bro out there runnin’ ops for me.” He threw his head in the direction of the strip mall at the intersection of Chestnut and Weaver, a block that saw a lot of traffic. Literal and metaphorical.

“You got an Italian infiltrating the Latin drug trade? Sounds like all you’re doin’ is lookin’ for ways to get him killed,” growled Jane. She marched her long body toward him, her posture designed for intimidation.

Martinez laughed. “Would you calm down? I know what I’m doing,” he told her, stepping into her aggression, opening his chest to it, bringing his face close to her hers. He smiled when she glared. “And other Rizzoli’s a grown man. Despite you and your ma’s best efforts.”

Just as Jane initiated her lunge, Maura caught it, her fingers wrapped firmly around Jane’s bicep. “Jane-”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Jane, body bridled for the moment, unfurled some biting words, “don’t think I don’t remember your mommy comin’ down the station with sack lunches for all of us.”

“Alright, alright, listen,” Martinez put up his hands when he acquiesced, because she had a point. “One: I don’t remember you complaining about all that food when it was put in front of you. Two: I will personally make sure that he stays safe. You got my word.”

Jane pulled out of Maura’s grip and sighed. Rafael’s deep and steady voice, when divorced from deceptive intent and real life experiences at his side, inspired faith. It made people want to believe. But Jane had been his partner for too long. She had been in his bed for too long. “Yeah, that’s my worry,” she grumbled quietly. She took stock of his eyes one last time, brown and expressive and alive, and let them give her that little jolt they had before all the history came seeping in.

He took stock right back, and the passion that had always burned in him shook her, passion for her that she could never reciprocate. She broke first, turning her head to Maura at her side - Maura, who had a pretty indulgent grin on her face. “It seems you have business,” Maura said, hand on Jane’s back. “I can take a rain check for lunch. Meet me for the autopsy?”

“Y-yeah,” Jane stuttered.

“But don’t wait up for her too long,” Martinez butted in. He winked at Maura, in a way that reminded her of Jane. “Because I’ve got a task force on KSG that I have a feeling Detective Rizzoli here is gonna want in on.”

Maura regarded him for a long time, without regard for the social rules on how long a person should stare, before she decided on a smile of her own. “I’m the Chief ME, lieutenant. I’ll wait for whomever I want, however long I want.” She winked back, clearly in mockery of his previous display, and then bid them her goodbyes.

Jane held in her laughter as Martinez withered under both the midday sun and Maura’s retort. “Man it’s hot. Let’s get this processed so we can get back to the ranch.”

#lauren writes rizzoli and isles fanfiction #P FKN R #this idea has been so great in my head but writing it has been bleh #idk I guess we'll see #also while dunkie's and lobster and the freedom trail are Boston #so is this - I try to infuse a little of it into everything I write in the city

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