#replace foggy window glass

[pepsichrry]

Ride || Theodore F. Nott

Summary: An arranged marriage between two Pureblood families is almost common, but what happens when a sudden infatuation is brought into the mix.

Set after the Battle of Hogwarts!

Warnings: Sexual content, smut, Mentions of violence, angst, unhealthy relationship, Theo is obsessed with his wife

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Theo felt himself slipping away. Not quite how he did when he’d received the Dark Mark, and not quite how he did when he watched the life vanish from his mother’s eyes. This time, it felt different.

He watched you through foggy window panes in the dewy spring mornings and from across the dining table as you ate breakfast. He couldn’t stop watching you, and it drove him insane. His wife drove him insane. Of course he’d heard such sentences from his father’s colleagues and other men who complained, but those feelings were nothing alike Theo’s. Not like the pang in his heart when he watched you in the grassy fields of the estate or the fondness disguised by hard eyes as you exchanged pleasantries like strangers. After all, you really were strangers.

But Theo had come to know you like you didn’t even know yourself. To him, you were anything but a stranger.

He couldn’t even count the amount of times that he had dreamt of you sleeping beside him, feeling your warmth, imagining what it would be like to kiss you and please you like any husband would wish to, Merlin, like any man who lay eyes upon you would. If it weren’t for your complete lack of interest in him, he would have asked you to have your way with him already, but ever since the wedding, you hadn’t been interested in going near him at all. He couldn’t blame you, at first he had been opposed to marrying so young, claiming that his father was taking away his freedom, stripping him of his youth and leaving him to be stuck with a stranger in his house. But, oh, how wrong he was.

You were a delight, a pure and innocent light in the darkness of the family estate. You brought with you little possessions, maybe only a few dresses and boxes of trinkets, but you gave life to the creaking floorboards and dusty walls. In a matter of months, you’d planted flowers and fruit trees, stripped the dark rooms of misery and replaced it with sunlight and brighter decor. All of a sudden, the fires were lit and the house no longer sent a chill down your spine. That, at least, Theo could be grateful for.

Taking note of the subtle changes made, he always made sure to thank you with something or another, whether it be silky gowns, sparkling jewellery, shoes or perfume. But none of it seemed to impress you.

As time went on, Theo became aware of your distaste towards his expensive gifts and tried everything he could to satisfy you from an arms length, but it was difficult. When he’d been in school, a pretty bracelet would have been enough to get a girl to want him, but it seemed that there was nothing that he could give that made you want him. So he decided on giving you the only thing he could think that you’d want from him; space.

In leaving you alone, he began to observe you whenever he could, and in doing so, he started to understand that you didn’t desire dresses or sparkles to admire yourself in, though he did see you trying his previous gifts on in front of the mirror with a grin, and instead he realised that you enjoyed sitting in the library with a book or lounging in the garden eating fruits.

He admired you every day when you wore your lacy white dresses in the spring sunshine, hair falling over your sun-kissed shoulders. He admired you as you sipped at the fresh lemonade the house elves had prepared and watched as your soft lips enveloped the glass. He admired you as you lounged in the living room with bare feet on the oak floor. He even admired you in your bedroom from time to time as you slept, praying to Merlin that you wouldn’t wake up as he smoothed gentle fingers over your temple.

Sometimes, though, he wished that you would wake up, catch him in the act. He wondered what you’d say, how your face would contort into confusion or shock, he wondered if you’d let him stay. So, as time went on, he visited you every night whilst you slept, enjoying the close calls and nervousness that ran through him at the thought of you waking up. He took pleasure in the thumping of his heart and how you stirred in your sleep from time to time as the mattress dipped beside you. Every night, he wanted to kiss your plump lips as you slept, wondering if the action would wake you or if you’d be angry if he did. He knew it’d be wrong, but he couldn’t help how much he wanted to kiss your beautiful lips and freckled skin.

He imagined how it’d feel to run his lips and tongue over your body, lose himself in the supple curves of your hips and breasts or in the soft feeling of your hair. Sometimes he’d dream it too and wake up sticking to his sheets with a mixture of sweat and precum. It was a guilty pleasure to relieve himself thinking of you and everything he did to you in his imagination.

You were a sinful temptation wrapped in pure white bedsheets and gowns, tormenting him until he had to excuse himself from dinner with a swollen cock and a pink face.

His wife drove him insane. And she was oblivious.

One night, as Theo dodged the creaky floorboards outside of your bedroom, he heard it. The soft sigh falling from your lips, indicating that you weren’t asleep. The warm light emitting from the ajar door drew him in, enticing him into pushing gently against the barrier between him and you. And upon opening the door, he saw you.

You lay spread across the bed, hair framing your head like a shining halo in lamplight as your nightgown was pulled up to your stomach, held in place by one hand whilst the other reached between your open legs, though the sight was obscured by the flesh of your thigh as you lay parallel to the door.

Theo cursed mentally, wishing that you’d lay with your head on your pillow so that he could really see what your hand was toying with. He felt himself grow hot and shifted as his trousers tightened uncomfortably, alerting you of his presence when you heard the creak of a floorboard. Fuck. You looked at him with wide eyes, a deer caught in headlights as you ripped your small hand from between your thighs. Before you could even begin to stutter, Theo chocked out a bashful ‘Sorry’ before turning and slamming the door behind him.

In that moment, he wished that the ground would swallow him up. He had never been so shy around a girl, especially one that was lying, touching herself in his house, not that there had been any before. His head softly thumped against your door as he slumped back. But he didn’t have much time to feel sorry for himself as your door opened suddenly.

He spun to look at you. It had seemed that you’d smoothed down your wild hair before coming to find him as it hung over your shoulders like usual. Your eyes met his in the darkness of the hallway and he nearly collapsed. Between the blood from his head running to his groin and the look in your eyes, he thought that maybe he would collapse, but he cleared his throat and straightened up to his full height to look down at you with his usual stoic expression.

Your eyes trailed down his neck, to his chest and then, they looked straight down to the sizeable bulge in his slacks. He had worn neatly ironed trousers and a button down shirt to visit his father that day, and secretly wished that he had changed his clothes before coming to see you that night. It would have been more comfortable for his raging hard-on.

“Would you like to come in?”

Theo’s prayers must have been answered, because your soft voice lead him through your doorframe. He barely even registered what was going on until he was sat on your mattress like many nights before, but this time, you were awake, looking at him with lustrous eyes and flushed skin on your cheeks, neck and…

You leaned into him once he was settled on your bed and brushed your damp lips onto his own. His jaw hung open and his eyes were wide as they looked at you. This must have been a dream.

Surely he was awake judging by the feeling of your lips on his own and the hammering of his heart and the throbbing between his legs. You kissed him with fervour, running your hands over his shoulders tenderly and Theo sighed at the feeling of your touch, it was something he hadn’t felt before. You hadn’t even touched him during the wedding, not even for a dance, let alone at night. You had never consummated your marriage and he had never been so aware of the fact. He leant into your hands, chest rising and falling heavily as his head spun and his body overheated.

You hushed him quietly, running your hand through his brown curls and straddling his lap quickly, sighing as you felt the bulge in his lap against your bare core beneath your night dress. It had been drilled into your head that as a Pureblood woman, you must remain as pure as possible until you were inevitably married off, meaning you’d never been in any position similar to this. You didn’t even know what to do with the boy who began to run his rough hands over your back as he hungrily kissed you. But something about the situation made you giddy, here he was, you could finally have him all to yourself. The gorgeous, brown-haired beauty you’d snagged up.

You ground down into his lap on instinct, something sparking deep inside of you at the sound of his throat emitting a deep noise. Your mouth hung agape, breathing hot air onto the column of his neck once you’d tugged his hair back to reveal the expanse of his skin.

Theo felt like prey under your scorching touch. He wanted nothing more than to feel what you had been touching so dearly before he’d interrupted you. He wondered what it looked like, what it smelled like, what it tasted like. Merlin, how he wanted to taste it. To have what he’d imagined so vividly above him, restricted by nothing but a layer of clothing drove him to insanity. He couldn’t help but rut into you from where he sat below you.

He felt the pressure of your palm on his chest, encouraging him to lay his back against the silk sheets. Theo was down, obeying your every wish as you kissed fiercely, hands claiming every inch of his burning body, fiery like a sinner in church, your fingertips the devil, searing the flesh from his bones and torturing him in ways incapable of any human being responsible of.

His body throbbed, lungs heaving and struggling and his heart hammering against his ribcage. His legs and hands shook like they never had before and Theo did wonder why his body reacted the way it was.

Your lips let a soft sound pass through them again as his hips jolted, the bulge in his trousers pressed at the perfect angle, his cold belt buckle rubbing against your slick clit with a pleasurable shock. The boy was almost thrashing beneath you as he was oh, so eager to hear the noise again. His large hands encouraged you to press down against his need, spurring a deep sigh from him. You didn’t know why you hadn’t done this before.

“Is this what you imagine when you watch me?” You asked, and his body stilled minus the shivering of his hands and legs.

A frown dragged at his brow as you pulled your warm face away from his. “I-What?”

You grinned devilishly. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice how you sneak in here each night? Now answer me, is this what you imagine?”

The air was knocked out of him when your body ground down onto his again, forcing the answer out of him. He wheezed, “Yes!” His head falling back harshly onto the pillow as his eyes scrunched closed as if it hurt to watch you work atop of him. Your hand threaded through his curls, scraping gently at his scalp and tipping his head aside, revealing the moles scattered up his throat. You hungrily attack the expanse of his neck, leaving him purple and pink.

His body fell slack, allowing you to take him in any way that you pleased. With your mouth against his neck and your pussy against his groin, he felt himself grow closer and closer to succumbing to his own pleasure. The white hot light in his eyes grew closer and his mouth tasted the familiar sweetness of lust, all he needed was for you to keep going, then he was sure to release all tension. He needed it more than he’d needed anything before.

Theo tried to call out, but his breath was gone and his head span in circles, so all that could be said was nothing but the most pathetic noises he’d made. He whined as you scratched circles into his hair and bruised his neck with your sweet mouth. He pawed desperately at your body atop of him, searching for any way to force you harder onto his swollen length.

You felt his body shake and his chest rattle with unsure breaths, so hesitantly, you slowed your hips until you halted, appreciating the groan that slipped past Theo’s lips at the lack of friction.

Hushing him gently with a finger over his lips, you smiled sweetly at him. His eyes were bleary and almost unfocused as he looked up at you. A careful hand reach up to smooth over your face in attempts to bring you back down to his lips, but it was to no avail. He breathed out a tiny noise of complaint.

You brushed over his face gently. “I just need you to be quiet, Love, can you do that?”

It felt nearly as if he was in pain without the feeling of your hips rocking onto him, but he obeyed, nodding his head vigorously.

“Good.” You whispered, lifting yourself from him. Theo nearly complained until he realised where you were steadying yourself.

Your knees dug into the mattress on either side of his shoulders, wetness hovering over his shirt and he nearly thought he was about to pass out.

“Allow me?” You ask him. You knew the answer, but you waited quietly for his response.

“Fuck! Yes.” He twitched beneath your legs.

Slowly, almost teasingly, you found the end of your nightgown with your fingers. You toyed with the hem, brushing the soft lace against his clean-shaven chin as his jaw slackened. His mouth was open, heaving in breaths as his eyes watched intently as you lifted the gown up to your belly. Theo was downright salivating at the sight of your pretty little pussy right in front of him. He slid a hand from your backside, all the way up the front of your stomach, taking the nightgown from your hand and pulling it over your head. He hungrily stared over your body, drinking in your beautiful skin and rivets and dips.

His large hands dragged over your sides until they parted, one trailing down to your hip and the other to your full chest. His mouth was ready to feel you, to map out the entirety of your core, ready in his mind to remember when he sinfully touched himself.

Your hands reached to the headboard, pulling yourself up the the pillows, where his head lay, and you lowered yourself onto his eager mouth.

Instantly, his lips engulfed your clit, suckling at it as his hands held your hips firmly over him. As soon as he touched you, you couldn’t help but moan at the feeling. His tongue lapped at you with boiling hot accuracy and you fell victim to the wet sounds of your bodies connecting.

Your head lulled to the side, body weakened at the pleasure he was giving to you. His tongue ran in vigorous circles and you ground against his face in an attempt to make him lick harder.

Your forehead rested on the headboard, knuckles whitening as the sounds were becoming more and more obscene. Theo pressed you down harder onto him and between licking at your sensitive pussy, he sucked harsher and harsher. Your pearly juices were helping you slide over his mouth but he didn’t care that it was coating him more and more as he encouraged you to press onto him. The taste of you was sure to linger on his tongue, and he welcomed the thought eagerly.

His teeth grazed against your skin and you whined, reaching a hand down to his locks, hoping that just your hand would comfort him slightly despite the rough grinding of your pussy on his face. But by the desperate sounds he was making, he didn’t seem to mind at all.

The mixture of your juices and his saliva dripped down his neck and onto the pillow. His chest heaved up and down relentlessly as he awaited your climax. He wanted nothing more than to make you come.

He moaned into your pussy, the vibrations of his deep voice sending a shiver through you. Your entrance was beating and you could your thighs feeling light at his continuous movements. You were close.

Once you felt the familiar sensation run through you, your other hand came down to grip at his hair as you jerked over his jaw, thighs clenching around his head. Theo felt you squeeze his head, causing an odd lightheadedness to come over him, but not just in his head.

His legs went numb and his vision blurred as his cock leaked spurts of hot cum into his underwear. You still hadn’t stopped grinding on his face, feeling the last of your orgasm as he rode his out all the same. He shook gently, sucking harshly on your clit as you squealed at the sensitivity.

You soon came back down, legs shaking, still squeezing your husband’s head. You quickly realised how red his face was becoming and you were sure that you were killing him. Your legs quickly swung back over him and you sat beside him, viewing the result of your orgasm. His face was pink and his mouth hung open, taking in as much air as possible. His face was covered from his neck to his cheeks with slick and his eyes were closed shut. That was when you noticed the dark stain on his slacks.

You hoped to see him in your bed again.

pt.2

#theo nott #harry potter #ministry of magic #theodore nott #sub! theo nott #sub!theodore nott #sub!theo nott #sub!male #smut #theo nott one shot #theo nott fic #harry potter fic #theo nott smut #theodore nott smut #theodore nott one shot

[conyersmooney]

The Glass and Door Pros

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[wmarximoff]

𝐤𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐭 | 𝐰. 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐟𝐟

summary: to get what she wants Wanda will do anything - including hurting you.

warnings (18+): smut, strap-on sex (r receiving), non-con, a bit of dacryphilia, breeding kink, loss of virginity, forced pregnancy, toxic relationship, manipulation, heavy angst. MINORS DNI.

pairing: Wanda x fem!reader

word count: 3k

masterlist|

(please, don't flag the work)

༺ᱬ༻

At dawn, gray and foggy, the bitter winter temperature would arduously exceed the limitations of common sense degrees demarcated by popular thermometers.

The vehement peak of the serene dawn, as placid and peaceful as it ever was to be, had been swallowed up by a broad blanket of white, chaste snow; blizzard which had interspersed, crossing from north to south along the entire longitudinal extent of the ten thousand hectares located near the tiny town of Westview, New Jersey. You weren't born in there and, in fact, you barely knew that place at all.

The whiteness of sprays of snow in flakes of polished ice continued to crumble through the openings of the dense clouds, and a pale veil of frost took more and more possession of the tiles above the roofs and the tops of the enormities of the hills around the town, inferring a white and crystalline color.

You retained your own private assumptions about the phenomenon, however, and attributed it to increasingly distressing global warming (come on now Tony Stark, you could very well reverse global warming if you really wanted to!). But maybe you still held such a mundane concern at your core just to keep a sober dose of normality within you, and not give in to the long chants of long lonely days, as maddening as they could be.

The days that had passed gradually slipped one over the other, consubstantiating, consolidating into a single amalgam, and you no longer knew what to do to ward off the acute boredom that was consuming your nerves little by little like an autoimmune disease – there was no book to read or movie to watch that would wriggle your soul out of the lonely corners of a world you'd been segregated into, walls slowly closing in around you one by one. You were alone. Utterly alone.

Through the dim glass of the wide window of your solitary room, you gazed, with your gaze watered by the apathy that is intrinsically sprinkled in your irises and sluggish limbs and heavy in your joints like lead, the occluded sky of dawn – the few gloomy trees raised in the neighborhood surroundings like fortresses of dark, thick foliage, swaying on their own axes as the constant wind dictated outside their painted plaster walls.

With a sliver of fresh skin on your right temple pressed against the cloudy glass, so cold to the touch, your dead eyes followed the willow tree of snow outside as if it were natural, as if it was common to snow at that time of year and as if she wasn't using the situation to her whim, wherever she was at that moment, as much as she was everywhere at the same time.

Right, screw global warming. You were living like a little snowman cloistered inside your own particular snow globe – free from your point of view, but trapped inside the dome.

The truth was that Westview was a huge board full of pieces all situated in their proper squares, the vast majority composed of pawns as maneuverable and disposable as they could be, endlessly, always ready to be used and discarded and then replaced – and you were the queen of them, the most important piece to be cherished, but like everyone else, at your core, you would be just another component part of the grand scheme that Wanda Maximoff ruled with an iron fist. One wrong step and you were out, checkmate.

In a time that then sounded remote, an echo of a dream derived from a memory already forgotten, perhaps seven or eight months ago (you only calculated the passage of time by the gradual expansion of your belly, which then encompassed a larger roundness than a basketball), you were free. You were young and you were free and the world was a little less terrible than it could be.

But Wanda had kidnapped so much of you, in fact, disfigured you into a bizarre parody, a grim reflection of who you once were – but of your own free will you gladdened to the end in an elan worthy of praise, in the greatest pose of a soldier who is willing to kill and die for the glory of your people, despite the notion that you were fighting a vain, lost battle.

At the end of the day you were still her possession to be used and abused however Wanda saw fit. She saw everything, and everything she controlled.

You were nothing but a poor college student, still so full of spirit, and your captor was an esoteric entity versed in superhuman capabilities, the wielder of celestial powers who, according to herself, was also a multidimensional traveler – whatever meaning it held, or at least what she meant by such an eccentric statement as that.

All you knew was the things she could do and undo with a simple, banal hand movement, and how it affected you.

The fact was that you were alone, isolated, confined to an unknown town where escape was infeasible and outside contact was nothing short of scarce, subject to the pleasures, daydreams, paranoia and whims of a woman deeply troubled by her own inner demons, that you supposedly hated, but couldn't get away from even if you wanted to. Not when she was growing on you like a parasite, literally and figuratively speaking.

It was clear as the snow outside – conceiving Wanda's offspring in your womb (albeit at odds with your own individual desires at first, but attempts to shed such a burden proved, at first, flatly flawed and highly unnerving to Wanda's exhausted mind, who wasn't used to being a very reasonable person), whom she held so dear, there would be no way to nurture a flame of hatred for that woman that would not be extinguished quickly; no matter how little you knew about her for as long as your pregnancy lasted, Wanda's humanity, so disparate from the morbid cruelty at the bottom of those abyssal green irises, resided in the bosom of motherhood for which she cherished so much.

In the intimate caresses exchanged between her gentle blackened fingertips and your swollen belly, there was a kind of love so subtle and genuine that it almost erased from your memory the fact that you didn't want to be there in the first place. Her contact with that embryo was covered by a lapse of vulnerability, and that's why that witch once proved to have been as human as you were.

At a certain point, goodness was already given for those intentions, when there was not a shadow in her very existence. Deep down you just knew she was good. But it was no use if kindness was eclipsed by a haze of cruelty.

The faint gleam of her smile was enchanting, and the jadish irises were drowned in waves of tears that pooled behind long, thick dark lashes, right at the waterline of the one who so affectionately gazed at your belly by her rotten right fingers. At some point, you knew, you just knew that Wanda had given as much love to the world as she had to the unwanted child in your womb. You wondered what it was that had stolen Wanda's innocence so voraciously that, in the end, she ended up stealing yours too.

“Twins,” in one night she came, and Wanda had smiled at the utterance of her own words, never breaking her gaze from the skin stretched just below your navel, “My boys.”

Her touch felt cold, plastered like a corpse's hand. Everything about Wanda was somewhat cadaverous, reminiscent of the dead – although a veil of purity always overshadowed her dying features (for that witch was indeed beautiful), the dark, sharp circles under her eyes and the deep fleshed cheeks made her a spectral creature, unreal, with the waxy pale skin that so accentuated those emerald eyes that squandered a nuance of intense feeling.

You were never quite sure how to pinpoint what was going on inside her mind, although she always expressed that there was something there to look for.

“How,” you muttered with your eyes focused on anything but her, your shirt pulled up to expose your swollen stomach, not a smile found on your lips' commission to reflect that woman's.

The situation in which everything of the last few months had culminated in your stomach was in knots – the idea that it was done, and now you had nowhere to run from her.

“How can you be so sure, Wanda? Twin boys... that's a pretty... specific guess, I think. It could just be a boy, it could be a girl,” in the room lit by the orange flames of a fireplace that turned Wanda's hair as red as blood, you blinked, “It could be anything.”

“I just know,” lisped the woman who owned the long auburn locks that fell below her breasts, sketching a ghost of a vaguely nostalgic smile on her well-shaped lips, like someone wistfully remembering something that is gone and will never come back.

“I… just know it's them. My… our boys.”

There was a brief pause interspersed by the crackling fire in the dry wood, a breath held within bristling lungs.

“Thank you, Y/n.”

Your eyes finally turned to Wanda, who was crouched in front of you. She looked at you in gleaming green like she did the first time she made you bleed, when she emptied herself inside you, condemning you to that sick moment of intimacy with her.

“I know you don't understand this right now, not this version of you at least, but,” her jaw moved slightly, speaking at length in her speech, as if she were speaking like a child, seeking to express clarity. As if she had to plan her words carefully.

“I love you, детка . Everything I've done so far is because I love you, Y/n. You and our boys, our family. Everything I did was for you. I hope one day you can understand that and forgive me for what I did.”

Your eyes stung and sickly bile rose to the surface of your tongue at that controversial statement of hers. She knew it was wrong, she was fully aware of it. You could never imagine that whatever resulted from that one-sided relationship between the two of you could fall under the nominations commonly associated with the definition of “a family” .

You already had a family to call your own and belong to, a father and mother and siblings too, and from them you were usurped by her. That couldn't be a family, not that relationship structure, not you and her. Not when you weren't even twenty and barely even aware of what, say, Wanda's last name would be.

That night you cried yourself to sleep. And, like every night before that, Wanda listened until you fell into the softness of your own sleep clouded by layers of thick, salty tears.

But the warm, abstruse sweetness behind Wanda's hideous facade made her as seductive as the apple would have been to Eve, and the fragility that rarely saw the light of day made her seem so small compared to the times you feared for your life as she chained her hands behind your back and sternly brought her hips to meet yours over and over again.

You've also heard her cry before going to sleep. It just so happens that she was the one making you suffer, while you just had to put up with her external suffering.

Wanda was a complex puzzle to understand, so fluctuating, fascinating and unpleasant at the same time, like a new flavor to try, bad at first, but then becoming dangerously charming to the palate. And you didn't know whether you wanted to put those pieces together into one uniform image, or throw them in the trash and close the lid.

In fact, if traced back to the beginnings of your gloomy model of relationship (at least in the most primitive sense of the word, summarized only to the exchange of physical touches between two controversial animals, to, moreover, the imposition of physical contact from one part to the other), it was as if Wanda saw what she solemnly did to you as an artifice, a mechanism, a forced method to an end you never chose to have. It was as if she was just performing a necessary sacrifice that justified the means she chose to use.

She apologized again and again because that inside of you stung and hurt when she ripped something inside you, and she worked hard to make you like it too, even though you barely knew her at the time, and in fact just waking up from the stillness of your sleep to the uncomfortable feeling of a foreign body on top of you, with your legs spread wide and streams of fresh crimson blood dishonoring the sheets down your thighs, ripping you in half like no one before her had ever done.

“Shh, it's okay Y/n, it's okay. It's okay, you’re okay детка.”

She lisped that night with the palm of her right hand screwed to your lips, stuffing your protests behind your teeth (scorched-tipped fingers sweeping strands of your hair behind the shell of your ear, Wanda in a red tiara looking like would cry as much as you already did). The first time you saw her, that strange woman invading your room and also you, she seemed as uncomfortable with what she was doing as you felt with her tucked inside your innocence.

“I know it hurts, baby, I know, I…” Green eyes then pulled away from your face contorted in sharp pain, as if, for half a second, she couldn't even look at you in that state. As if, in your room, she would burst into tears with you.

“I'm very sorry. I'm really, really sorry детка , but I have to do this. It’ll pass, alright? Will pass. It’ll fit, we'll make it fit, okay? Just take a deep breath. This will be quick, I promise. I,” Wanda choked on her own words, “I'm so sorry, Y/n.”

And it went on for quite a few sluggish minutes – the headboard hitting the wall rhythmically, hard and slow behind your head, your white cotton underwear crumpled and discarded at the foot of your bed, your eyes focused on how much the sharp points of that scarlet tiara that seemed to protrude from the top of her skull resembled two demonic horns as they rose and fell in the dark of your room, above you.

When your conscience woke up, the very next morning and in a room you were not at all familiar with, the wet pain between your legs was the final sentence given that you were already her property. And you tried to run away, wander the streets of Westview, cry out for help from your new assigned neighbors, but they were smiling like machines, nothing was wrong. Nothing was ever wrong.

And the visits continued, scheduled for sunset; the fall of the veil of night was the apogee of your fate – in that house with dismal walls, dark shadows lightened by the tongues of fire that burned in the hearth, Wanda came in the form of that crimson specter to do what she had to do. And time had washed the regrets from her soul, when did the pleasures of the flesh begin to burn hotter on her skin.

“Dерьмо,” Wanda anathematized one night in a sigh under her breath, moaning in a thick accent in the roof of her mouth as she stood behind you, blackened fingers digging deep into the skin of your hips as hers pierced into yours.

“Dетка, you feel so good, s-so good, Y/n...” she gasped, your white-knuckled fingers screwed to the sheets moving beneath you both, “Fuck, I missed you so bad...”

“I-it hurts,” you squealed beneath her, your right cheek rubbing against your pillowcase, your teeth clenched, your jaw set, “W-Wanda, Wanda wait– go slow, you're– you're hurting me, Wanda, please slow down–”

“I'm going to come,” she suddenly announced, indifferent to your protests, “Fuck, I'm going to come inside you, Y/n.”

The cognition of such a sentence haunted the nerves of your spine. At that point, you already had basic knowledge accumulated about her – she was called Wanda Maximoff, she was from another universe and, as a factor of greater relevance to emphasize, she was capable of performing and handling magic, something that for you, until that moment at the time, was nothing more than a fictitious topic. And, if she was qualified to run an entire city on her own, she might well be able to turn something as frivolous as coming inside you with a fake phallus into a permanent action and one fraught with the most undesirable consequences.

“No-!” you immediately chafed then, trying to crawl your body away from hers on the bed sheets, “Wanda, don't– don't do that– Wanda–!”

But with a pull and a jerk she held you steady, your hips up, ribbons of scarlet energy restraining your wrists bound to the bed, just to the side of both your temples. And the notion that you couldn't even move caused warm tears to pool in the waterline of your eyes, clouding your view of the raised wall to the left of the double bed located in the heart of that partially lit room by the dull bulb of a bedside lamp.

“Hold still, детка, I-I'm almost,” she growled, her hips hammering against yours in essentially violent movements, “Almost there–!”

“No, pull out,” you whimpered, “Wanda, pull out, don't do that, don't do that, Wanda– Wanda, please–!”

“I need to do this Y/n, I fucking need to–!”

“Wanda, please–!”

She didn't pull out. She never pulled out – the point was not to pull out, it was that she emptied herself inside you, painted your insides with that magical secretion that only a few weeks later proved to be appropriate for the purpose Wanda had in mind. And she didn't touch you anymore, not that way, when her goal was achieved – with the plan completed, all she had to do was wait for your organism to do what it had to do. And so the months passed, snow fell on that simulated dome. Her visits weren't as frequent anymore.

“Why me?” you asked her once, as she stroked your belly through your thick crimson wool sweater.

Crouched down in front of the couch, Wanda raised her eyes to you like she always did when she was trying to communicate with the child she had shoved inside you.

“Because I love you,” was her answer, of course. A wave of ominous disgust twisted your insides at that oblivious response, as if Wanda were genuinely alienated from the reality of where she was your captor and aggressor.

“You barely know me, Wanda,” you spat, “And I barely know you. This isn't love, you're using me like a fucking incubator. You’re sick and you fucking know it.”

She lowered her head in front of your prickly speech, a lock of reddish hair piercing an emerald iris of hers, while Wanda's left fingers, dark as pitch, kept stroking your belly through a layer of clothing. She compressed her lips into a long line, and you held your breath. From your point of view, Wanda, stripped of that crimson armor she always wore and then tucked into casual clothes, sweatpants and a sweater as thick as your own, looked small and confused like a child, a little girl.

“You used to know me,” she muttered quietly, “Where I come from, you used to know me. We were married. We had our boys. You... for as long as it took in Westview after I had you back again, you were my world after I lost everything.”

You blinked once.

“Westview?”

She looked at you again.

“Yes, Y/n. Westview. They took you from me, more than once. But the second time they took our boys too. So I,” there was a pause in her speech, “I had to look for you in another reality. In a reality where nothing could ever get out of my control again.”

And for half a second you looked back at her.

“Wanda,” the palm of your right hand slowly snuggled against her left cheek, which approached your touch in an almost pathetic neediness, when was it that you looked into her eyes, “You’ll never have control over me, no matter how hard you try.”

She closed her eyes as a tear trickled down her cheek.

“I know.”

When the twins were born, you didn't want to hold them. And, begrudgingly, Wanda understood. She understood that she could never have you, not after what she had done to you, but to her consolation at least there were those boys left for her.

And she had been benevolent in letting you go, as if she had released a bird from its caged captivity, erasing from your memory any and all discernment of what your relationship had been like for ten months or so, abstracting from the confines of your mind the idea of how much she had harmed you by excluding herself from your memory. You went back to your old life, and she started a new one.

Time has come and gone. You had no sense of the past, and no one in your social circle even seemed to notice your absence for nearly a full year – it was like a dream, a memory, a lie. A kind of collective amnesia. You moved out of your parents' home after graduation and obtained a steady job in your field of work. And, after a while, you decided that it might be good to share your life with a second person – soon enough, a relationship blossomed between you and a dark-haired woman you met during a snowy winter day in a coffee shop.

Your girlfriend was a few years older than you and a single mom, but it turns out you got along great with her kids, and she was the best partner anyone could ask for. And when, on a warm summer day in the city park, Wanda offered you a strawberry ice cream cone right after presenting Billy and Tommy with their respective favorite flavors each, you genuinely smiled at her.

“Thanks, baby,” and then, you kissed her on the cheek. Billy asked Tommy to play tag, and the older twin accepted.

Wanda smiled at you. She smiled at you as if she didn't know how much she had already hurt you. “You’re welcome, детка.”

#wanda x you #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x y/n #wanda maximoff x you #wanda reader #wanda x y/n #wanda maximoff imagine #scarlet witch x you #scarlet witch x reader #scarlet witch #scarlet witch x y/n #elizabeth olsen #elizabeth olsen x reader #elizabeth olsen x you #elizabeth olsen x female reader #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #fanfic

[savannahsdeath]

call me silly but i cant stop thinking about hogwart au ellabs uhhh istg . i cant . also im pretty sure im the first one to make a hogwart au so please give ib if you want to make your own fic🤭 if im not the first one then sorry and please lmk who is !!

summary: you're roommates with your best friend and girlfriend, which don't seem to get along well.

﹒⪩⪨﹒

you and abby often wondered what's ellie doing in gryffindor, as the setting hat had doubts itself, wanting her to go to the slytherin for a split second.

"i mean, i'm happy she's with us." you quickly explained, realizing she might hear you through the bathroom door.

abby frowned, not looking away from her book. "oh, you are? and why, exactly?"

you laughed, leaning in to see what is she reading about, but she slammed the book shut with a loud bam! right in front your nose. "well, first of all, she's my girlfriend. self explanatory—"

"but... why?" she cut you off and sat up. "what do you see in her?" oh, you knew that one. it wasn't the first 'you deserve better' talk you had with abby. "wouldn't you rather to be with someone smarter, stronger and, i don't know, just... not a total loser?"

for a moment you sat there, so close to her your shoulders were touching, with your mouth parted and lips going dry. a moment passed as the door opened and ellie came out, sloppily wiping ruffling her wet hair with the towel. her gaze wandered between the two of you and she raised her eyebrow, but her obliviousness made her shrug the weird feeling off. "how much time do we have?" she asked, ignoring abby's presence, who just went back to reading her book.

"less than an hour." you annouced, getting up and taking the towel out of her hand, replacing it with a little bottle you picked up from your bedside shelf. "drink up."

"the fuck is that?" she twirled the unappetizing green liquid around the glass, noticing it's weirdly dense texture.

abby chuckled, winking at you as if to laugh at your low standards. "just listen to your girlfriend."

you smiled at the blonde girl before looking back at ellie. "it's going to rain, i don't want you getting sick."

"yeah, we don't want to hear you whining like a baby just because you catched a little cold." abby added, smirking as you gave her the stare. her comment passed by ellie's ears, not getting any reaction out of her.

she downed the potion in a few sips, wincing and letting you take the glass bottle out of her hands. she took a deep breath, trying to get rid of the taste. "i'd rather be sick." you giggled and rised on your tiptoes to reach her forehead, placing a loving kiss on it. she smiled for a second, before her face flashed with a grimace again. "wait— it's going to what?"

"it's going to rainnn" abby cooed, mercilessly but melodiously drawing out the vowels. you frowned, seeming to be the only one who doesn't see a reason to panic. yet, ellie was now pacing around the room, stopping to look outside the window. the clouds above the horizon were, in fact, dark blue, what predicted a downpour.

you came up to her, wrapping your hands around her tensed waist. "are you scared of some water?" you teasingly asked, nuzzling your head in the crook of her neck.

"that's not the point." she turned around, taking your hand and parting her lips. you just knew you'll probably spend the next minutes listening to the rules of quidditch, hopefully not enough to be late. "you see, when it rains, it's usually quite... foggy. pretty hard to see anything, yeah?"

"yeah, but..." you walked towards the bed, ellie following closely after. "slytherins won't see anything too, so it's fair, isn't it?"

she quickly shook her head and pursed her lips in a tight line, as if disappointed you don't get it. "someone gifted them special lenses. someone— i mean, anonymously, but everyone knows who it is. their captain's father." she stood in front of you as you sat down, fiercely gesticulating. "fucking bastards. they think money can solve everything... well, it kinda does but—"

"can you shut the f..." abby chimed in, deciding against cussing in the last moment. "...up. jesus, i'm just trying to study." she rolled her eyes as the attention was now on her.

"what are you even studying?" ellie walked closer to her, trying to see the book's cover through the blonde girl's pulled up knees, which she used to lean the volume on.

abby was quick to get defensive, closing the item as soon as she made sure the tab is on a right page. "none of your business."

"it doesn't look like one of our student's books at all..." ellie teased, tauntingly smiling as she got closer.

you sighed, taking a deep breath before speaking. "come on, els, we gotta go - get you ready and everything." you stood up and started rummaging through the drawers to think what should you take with you. ellie nodded and left your dorm, promising she'll wait for you before entering the quidditch's pitch.

"you really should go, it can be fun." you friendly nudged abby's shoulder, trying to keep your eyes away from the pages of her book, which seemed to attract your gaze and curiosity.

she looked up at you, visibly annoyed that she has to repeat it for the hundredth time. "that's not my thing."

that's not my thing.

yet, about fifteen minutes after the match started, you felt her warm presence next to you. she didn't say a word, probably too embarrased to admit she somehow got convinced to get her priorities wrong.

yet, you could hear her breath hitch when she saw your rivals score another point. no matter how hard the rain would hit her, soaking through her clothes, she'd calmly stand her ground and squint her eyes to see how bad the situation is.

yet, you eventually noticed she was holding her wand the whole time. and you noticed how her grip tightened as she mumbled a few words under her breath, inaudible because of the cheers. you couldn't believe it, but after a few minutes the clouds turned purely white and bright sun rays made people take off their coats. the same abby anderson, who always had to be the best student, not letting herself be distracted from studying just broke one of the school rules.

"you know you're going to have problems if anyone finds out?" you innocently looked up at her, gratefully smilling.

"then don't snitch on me." she shrugged, admiring the weather, which was her own creation.

yet, she made gryffindor win.

✧˖°

let me know if you want to see more!

#reqs open #ellie williams #ellie williams x reader #ellie tlou #ellie williams x y/n #ellie williams x you #ellie x reader #ellie x y/n #ellie the last of us #ellie x fem reader #abby one shot #abby x you #abby drabble #abby tlou #abby x reader #abby anderson #abby the last of us #ellabs #ellabs x reader #ellabs x y/n #hogwart #hogwart au #harry potter au #harry potter #quidditch

[allbark-no-bite]

Guilty Conscience || Rafe Cameron x reader

summary: the guilty don’t sleep. nor do their girlfriends

warnings: mentions of death/murder

word count: 1.1k

author’s note: set in season 2. this one is one i posted on Wattpad a while back

It's late. Too late to still be awake but the muffled foot steps of Rafe's constant, on-edge pacing have managed to pry my eyes open to the darkness of his bedroom yet again. The soft tread of his bare feet makes a muffled sound against the expensive carpet, and pauses briefly every few seconds while he stands there, biting the edge of his finger nail with his other arm crossed over his chest, and then repeats the process.

He and Ward had returned mid afternoon from the Bahamas with a police escort, both looking worse for wear. I hadn't wanted him to go in the first place, but Rafe had reassured me he needed to do this for his dad, and that everything would be fine. They were supposed to get the gold and come home. Instead they came back empty handed and Rafe even more unnerved than before.

I close my eyes again, wondering how we could have possibly ended up in this situation. And whether there is a special place in hell reserved for the girlfriends of murders.

Rafe killed Sheriff Peterkins that day on the tarmac, no amount of denial is going to change that. No matter how hard I close my eyes, it isn't going to change the fact that I saw him raise the gun, his finger squeeze back on the trigger—

Thunder booms outside and my eyes fly back open. Earlier's ominous looking storm clouds that have been looming threateningly since this evening have finally come through on their promise of a summer shower. Not long after the weather sets in do I realize that Rafe's footsteps have been replaced by the patter of rain against the window pane.

The bed dips beneath me and the springs underneath groan in protest as he crawls back into bed. I shift positions as he wraps his arms around my waist from behind, his chin coming to settle between the crook of my neck. Rafe lets out a long, slow breath from his nose and it sounds like it carries the weight of a thousand worries.

I hug one of his plush pillows tighter to my chest. The one that isn't holding the pillow twists the golden signet ring on his finger.

I watch the rain drops as they slide down one by one and leave blurry streaks along the foggy glass window while listening to the rush of air against my ear as he breathes unevenly, never quite falling into the rhythmic pattern of sleep.

A while later, Rafe's head lifts from the safe crevice of my shoulder and his body partially pushes away from me. The comforter rummages as we both move again, and I roll over onto my other side to face him. The dark bedroom has turned his blue eyes a pale grey, but even so I can see the haunting ghosts of doubt and anxiety filling his gaze. There are shadows of half blue moons stamped under his eyes. Sleep has not been his friend.

"I—I need you to tell me that I'm a good person," Rafe whispers, finally breaking the silence. The mattress creaks underneath his weight as he uses his forearm to prop himself up, leaning partly over me. "It doesn't matter if you mean it or not, please— I just need to hear you say it," he says, sounding so broken and unsure of himself.

The request is almost enough to send the sinner inside of me to my knees. I've watched him struggle with his own mind for months now, fighting an internal battle that I know he can't win and I can't fight for him, no matter how badly I want to.

Ward's been in his head for so long now that most days I'm just picking up the shambles of the broken son he's neglected for years. Sarah was always his golden child, there's no denying that. I know it, Rafe knows it, Sarah knows it.

"You let everyone convince you that you're some kind of heartless murder and you're not," I whisper, gazing up at him.

This I believed. Sure, Rafe was a jerk, I'd known that when I met him, but he was a jerk who could press his lips to my neck, teeth grazing my skin and whisper that he loved me; even when he wasn't sure if he was capable of anything else.

My hand finds his cheek and brushes some of the blonde hair away from his eyes. There's a bruise there that I don't remember him having and a part of me wonders what really happened in the Bahamas.

A painful, miserable looking smile finds its way onto his face, and just once, he laughs into the darkness of his bedroom. "No. I'm just the regular kind of murder."

The soft, hopeful expression falters from my own face and I sigh, letting my forehead fall against his with my eyes closed.

It was hard, sometimes too hard, to admit that he wasn't wrong. Which of course always lead to a reinvestigation of my own conscience and why I was doing this. Why would I lie by omission, never think to say any different when Ward and Rafe gave their statements to the police, faking his innocence. My answer to this question, I find is always the same; because I loved him and I was afraid of what Ward would put him through if I left. He's told Rafe that he would never pick between his children, but I've seen him lie to Rafe enough times to know it was just something he said to cover his tracks.

Ward had done this to him, forced Rafe into lying and thinking that what he was doing was being loyal and helping his family, because he knew that all Rafe ever wanted was for his dad to look at him the same way he looked at Sarah. It was never about trying to protect himself or getting revenge. 

Rafe clings to me, falling into a more relaxed position as he settles himself on top of me. His body is warm and comfortingly heavy a top my chest. My finger tips gently scratch his scalp, something that's seemed to calm him in the past. After a while I wonder if he's fallen asleep, but then the soft tone of his voice speaks.

"When this is all over, I'm going to be better," he promises, speaking into the blue fabric of the borrowed cotton shirt that I'm wearing. His lips press to my collarbone in a subdued kiss and Rafe looks up at me. There's a firmness in his voice, like he's trying to be strong. "I'm gonna man up and get right."

Man up, I think. Yeah sure.

My palm cups his chin, my thumb caressing the bruise on his jaw. I don't say anything, just smile sadly at him and he returns the same type of half-hearted expression. My throat clenches. We both know that it's a weak promise.

"You're in too deep this time, you know that?" I'm fighting my own voice at this point. Incredibly, it doesn't break.

"I know, I know."

#obx imagine #rafe outer banks #rafe cameron #outer banks #obx3 #rafe fic #rafe angst #rafe obx #outerbanks rafe #rafe x reader #rafe cameron x reader #rafe x y/n #obx x reader

[kingmaker-a]

Winter without Fireflies | Yu Jimin

Non-Idol AU

Previous: Like a Moth to a Flame

Warnings/Tags: Angst, guilt and regret. Alcohol usage, cheating (?), longing for your friend's partner. Things aren't going well for Jimin.

Summer has since faded to winter, the night lost between the two of you seems all but a distant memory in the torrid affair that is adulthood. Still the scars linger in their own way, life never goes to plan does it?

Word count: 3k

Genre: Angst

Winter, the complete package. 

Snowflakes dance and twist with the grace of a ballerina, beautiful yet frighteningly impermanent. Frost creeps along every surface, marring windows into a frosty frigid embrace caked with ice. 

For some people it’s their favorite time of year, the holiday season, a time for family and friends, for merriment to be had and for-

Death and loss, as nature bleeds and fades against the coldest touch. 

But as her fingers grip tight against whatever soft hallowed warmth she can cling to, she also realizes it’s also the season of absence. 

A thought that smolders against the dying embers of a dream, a memory and her throat clamps up, dragged over the sharp edge of jagged ice. 

Pain rends true, as her teeth clench, tears claw at her eyes with an icy frost. It’s like trying to see through foggy, frozen glass as her hands reach desperately against the embers of memory. 

The embers of summer, of love and life, the taste of heated tarmac on concrete as the air scorches or the embrace of cold beer as the air finally chills.

Embers of you, tangled in her embrace. 

Her tears are icy trails, freezing against her skin with a frosty burn. 

It was months ago. 

So, why does it feel like yesterday? 

Her smile is sunlit in spite of the tangled mess of her blanket, iridescent in spite of her irritated dry skin and bedhead.

 She preens against the morning sunlight, clambering forward with a languid, cat-like yawn. 

Her eyes remain nestled against the edge of sleep, barely brimming against the warmth. She presses her cheek against the neck of pocketed heat. 

“I was thinking~” she churns with the idea of breakfast, arms snaking around with a soft gentle touch and-

You're gone. Her hands claw at sheets, desperation reeks into every motion staining her hands, as if the pain that sinks, poisons her heart can change fate or reality. A choked scream rings in her throat, hollow and pained as tears well at her eyes with a stabbing pain.

It unravels at her touch.

Her blood runs cold, even the sun is a candle that is snuffed out, replaced with the infinite cold void. 

Her eyes snap open, clambering to her feet in a smoldering rush. Her own words ring with a screech. 

“We can’t.”

Blood rushes to her head at the suddenness, the world spins, she stumbles, latching onto the door frame. There’s a nascent hope, primal and barely alive.

Maybe you were having a shower or making breakfast like so many lost nights before?

Silence bristles against her skin, it’s cruel in its touch, pitiless in your absence.

Her words ring through her head, dangerous like a caustic smoke. Her mind lingers on Minjeong; the reason.

A knock rings, her door lacks the warmth of summer, it’s gone, painted a pale blue; locked with cold. 

It thrums again with a familiar pattern, your knuckles crest her brain and her breath hitches. She claws for her phone as she unlatches the deadbolt. 

Her phone is dismissive, no response. 

Like everyday since. 

Her lips purse, curling into the slightest frown. 

It’s been months. 

Her fist clenches, fighting the urge to crumple against the floor like discarded paper. 

Perhaps that is all she was, all she'll be. 

A hand waves in front of her face, ringing with the clinking of keys. 

“Hello, earth to stupid cheese cat.”

She’s all smiles ramshackled in a trench coat that almost looks too big on her, too bad the ginger twinge of her hair makes her look flawless. 

Minjeong. 

She makes a show of plastic bags filled to the brim with takeout, her eyes linger against Jimin’s, wincing when she does. 

“Stupid, depressed cheese cat?” she offers a hopeful twitch of a smile. 

Jimin rolls her eyes, crosses her arms. It’s always her. 

Minjeong strides in without missing a beat; like she does every week. As if the sun hasn't shriveled up and the world hasn't gone dark and she's freezing in the cold. 

Because she isn't, even on twisted winter nights, she's warm. 

She hates the part of her that thinks about punching her in the face. 

How warm is blood? 

“Jeongie,” the nickname lingers like bile, corroding against her taste buds like acid. “Why are you here?”

Why do you keep coming? The words are unwritten on her tongue, too scared of the venom that would sink in. Her mouth hangs for a moment, but she can see the patient flicker in Minjeong’s eyes. 

A tentative candle. 

Fuck she hates I-she’s thankful a snarl never makes it’s way across her lips. 

Minjeong smiles, soothing like the soft touch of winter, a drizzle of rain in a drought. 

“Because,” she offers a container of takeout, chopsticks at the ready. 

“You’re my best friend.”

… 

Her brain coils, snapping around those words with a vice grip. 

Was she… a good friend? 

She snatches the container with a huff, dragging her feet to her table. Street lights slowly flicker to life outside her window, her eyes linger against foggy condensation. 

Minjeong’s container clatters to the table with a tossed smile, she practically sinks into your spot. 

“You know, you're not the type to get so hung up on some guy.” Her words prod and poke like her chopsticks. 

It strikes a nerve. 

“I never said it was a guy,” she can hear the echo of her own laughter, cast in the warmth of your company. The words trace across her lips with a ghostly touch. 

This time. 

“What was that?”

A frown freezes across her lips, tightening ever so slightly as she avoids Minjeong’s gaze. 

There's the slightest flicker of a smile, haunted by the taste of half cold takeout. She can still remember your disapproving look as it melted, caught in the flame of an honest confession. 

She grumbles, “I never said it was a guy.”

Minjeong’s hand traces the outline of Jimin’s, it’s tender and caring like fresh snowfall. 

“Right, that's my bad.” Her eyes linger for a second, head clocking to the side, twisting over a thought. “What was the nickname you settle-”

“Firefly.”

It’s sudden, gripping like spontaneous combustion, caught awash in waves of memories. She hates the way it saunters with warmth, trickling through the cold, cutting air. 

There's a flicker of acknowledgement, of recognition cast in the hum of phone light. 

“Have you tol-'' her words are diced by another notification, caught on the hook of a surprised arch of her brow. 

Your face burns into her mind. It weighs heavy against her shoulders, a lingering guilt and a hateful resentment. 

The worst part is she didn't know if it was meant for her or Minjeong. 

“No…” the word freezes solid in the air, choking at the rational explanation. 

Lies aren't her forte, aren't her thing. 

…Still, all this pretense, all this dancing around the whole thing is not technically a lie. 

But it feels like a sin all the same. 

To deny herself of her feelings, to pretend like she didn't fuck things up–It hurts the way, the edge of the knife cuts at her tongue, a double edged sword because what did she actually fuck up? 

Her friendship with Minjeong?

She may not notice the creak of wood, but the foundation of their friendship is built on rotten wood. 

… Or maybe it’s the fact, she screwed up her chance to be with you? 

Even if it was only for a moment. 

Her teeth clench, eyes faltering against Minjeong. She can trace the small smoky wisps of frost that puff past her lips, eyes unfocused, distracted thankfully. 

Minjeong’s phone grinds against the table with a call. 

She rolls her eyes, “jeez, I don't respond to a text straight away and she's already calling me.”

Her lips tighten, pursing into a fine edge. Though, Jimin can still pluck out the fragments of a smile. 

“Sorry,” Minjeong whispers, holding her phone between her fingers. 

She puts the receiver to her ear, a smile blooming across her lips. “Geez, Aeri give a girl a seco-”

Her eyebrows crimp together, a familiar confusion lingers in her eyes. 

“Where am I?” Her eyes trace a watch she doesn't own. “I’m at Jimin’s…”

Her words putter and fade, drowned against the waves of a pained wince, she wasn't supposed to say that. One of the few conditions Jimin had laid down, to avoid questions from the rest of her friends.

Her eyes clamp shut as she takes a sharp breath, even Jimin can pick out the excited chatter on the other end. 

“Did I say Jimin? I meant… Jaemin,” her gaze shifts tentatively, daring a look at Jimin. 

It’s in that small bitter moment that she realises… 

It’s impossible to hate Minjeong, each word is heartfelt, every lingering glance is sincere. 

Perhaps that's what truly twists the knife she buried herself. It coils, catches against her skin, yet it’s the way Minjeong offers a mouthed ‘I’m sorry’, that nicks an artery. 

It bleeds profusely with a tar-like hatred, it burns and seethes against the skin of her heart. It blisters and crawls with a primal disgust.

She is everything she hates.

A bad friend.

“It’s okay,” she offers, her smile tentative, small, but real.

Minjeong hushes her cell phone, cradling it in the crook of her neck. There's a plushyness to her smile, an almost cocky, yet daring coyness. An idea stands on the precipice of her tongue, yet her eyes remain, shaky and uncertain. 

Should she dare? 

“It’s been awhile since you've come to girl's night.”

Too caught with dates in the past, too caught up on icy bruises in the present. 

It’s a statement, not a question. 

A hallmark of Minjeong. 

Jimin rolls her eyes, lingering on her fridge. How was her stash holding up? 

Her eyes flit back to Jimin. 

“Who’s paying?”

Try as Minjeong might, even the Martians on Mars can see her barely restrained giddiness as if she’d burrow a hole through Jimin’s kitchen floor otherwise. 

Her smile peeks through tightened lips, as she holds the phone to her ear. 

“Jimin wants to know if you're paying.”

She can't already imagine Aeri’s Oscar worthy groan, as if she didn’t miss the company of her dear friend. 

Minjeong’s smile bursts through its chains, her hand grasping against Jimin’s with a vibrant eagerness. 

“This is gonna be so fun!”

…Your night is going well.

 Correction, it was going well is a more apt statement. 

The marr of sleep crusts your mind, calcified with echoes of brooklyn nine nine reruns. 

Your phone screen burns with the time.

3am and an ignored number, texts washed away by the seasons, frozen by the frigid cold. It wails incessantly, stoking your brain.

Looks like an early night wasn’t on the table.

You think about tossing it to the wayside, along with any of the texts that always dared the edge of your mind.

You know better… it has to be important, why else would she ring?

Still you’re hesitant even as you accept the call, an awkward silence hangs in the air, choking at any response that forms.

You wonder, if you’ve even answered it in time.

 Perhaps god had taken the wheel and deemed the interaction unnecessary.

But you catch the way her breath hitches, imagine the smile that must dot her lips. 

No matter how long it’s been you can still taste her lips against yours, an abandoned luxury.

There’s a familiar, soft, beautiful, snowflake-like giggle. It’s fleeting in its touch to your ear, but even though it’s been so long, you know she’s drunk. 

Still, you can pluck out the edge, the deep inhale, the focus. The cold bite that is simply business.

It kills the questions that dare the edge of your tongue, to ask her how she’s been, to apologize despite it all.

Even if it isn’t really your fault.

There’s a huff and you simply wish it’s something else, like she’d forgotten her phone was even on.

The silence aches.

“Your girl is drunk.”

Her fingers trace over cool sapphire hues, snow pirouettes in her somber presence. A scowl dots her lips. 

It snags, coils against fresh annoyance. It isn’t like Minjeong to drink too much. To get lost in the midst of it all. 

She isn’t one to talk, caught in the solace of loneliness. 

A rooftop, all to herself. 

Away from Aeri’s prying questions and how she was definitely better off.

If only she knew who she was talking about. 

Her brain trails over the spark that started it all, just a simple phone call. 

The world spins as she adjusts herself, it’s a whirlwind blur. 

How the fuck was she getting home? 

Did you ask the same question many months ago? 

… She wouldn't dare to ask Minjeong, your incidental company would be suffocating, like drowning in a coffin. 

A coffin she deserves.

“Jesus christ, you’re sloshed.”

A phone is hardly an olive branch, you know that much. But you're caught on the indulgence of it all, the way she smiles lost on the rim of a glass bottle. 

At first, she doesn't even spare you a glance, lost against the sweet succor of Ambrosia. 

Her eyes are hazy, drowning in the thick of it. She traces the sky like fluttering butterflies, her smile sinks, fading into the snow. 

She's drunk, you were told as much. 

You can't help the smile that burns across your lips as her head cocks to the side. 

She's lost on the details. Your blurry silhouette cast in the limelight of it all. 

She stumbles as she stands up, trudging with the uneven grace of someone who is well and truly sloshed. 

It’s not until her hand claws against your shoulder - as she nearly slips - that she can strain the details. She flutters so desperately close, you can taste each hop on her breath and you nearly lose yourself in her. 

But she stops you, eyebrows knotting together as she snaps away from you.

She nearly slips again, but you catch her, your arm looping around her waist. 

Confusion lingers on her features with the softest smile. 

Though you wouldn't exactly call it gentle, like a snowflake. 

“What are you doing here?” 

There’s something in the way that her voice saunters - plucked at the edges of angelic harp - that reminds you, she glows in her own way.

You smile, you try to at least. But a chuckle snags at the edges of practiced porcelain and she brims with warmth.

It’s hard to fight the way she just coils around you in the slightest ways. She preens under your gaze, dulcet and sweet.

You offer her phone.

This isn’t how you expected everything to go. There should be fire and anger, caught against the torrid slow slip of a secret. 

But Minjeong isn’t here.

Though you suppose she always knew.

“You called me,” you have to fight the bark of laughter that bites at your throat. Her hands pat her pockets, clambering through rifled pockets. 

“Technically, at least.”

Her eyebrow quirks as her lips quiver and twitch. The words are lost to her as her mouth hangs agape. You can hear the slightest curl of her voice as it claws across the snow dusted floor. 

You see it in her brow first. It cascades to the bridge of her nose as it scrunches and her lips tighten. 

There are no fireflies in winter, there is no warmth in the cold clutches of snow. 

But she glows nonetheless. She burns, a magma hot red as her hand tangles against your collar. 

She tugs violently, leveling a scorching glare at your soul. Her phone clatters and cracks against the concrete pavement. 

You would happily ignite yourself in her sunlight. 

“What about Minjeong?” 

You bite back a smirk, devilish and annoying. There is no point to unnecessary evil. 

Your touch is delicate, soft like fresh morning dew after frost. Your hands graze her cheeks, she's a moron. 

“God, you really are a stupid cheese cat.”

There's a flare of a nostril, an arch of a brow and a flash of annoyance that sears into her features. You can't help the smile that settles on your lips; as she melts, softening ever so slightly into your touch. 

Her eyes linger on you with a glassy softness and you swear you can see the hazy flicker of her thoughts. Her gaze catches against your lips for the briefest of moments. 

To give into temptation on her second chance. 

She takes a deep breath, refocusing. Even if it is like dragging an anchor through the desert. 

She rolls her eyes, as if the insult was just spoken. Her grip tightens, tangles deeper against your collar. 

She's picturesque cast in sapphire, the air that lingers between you, ripe with the taste of beer and other ill begottens. 

The seasons may be different and the roles may be reversed, but did she feel as you do now? 

Is that why she asked about Minjeong? 

It is such a her mistake to make. 

Words cut like the cold bite of the winter night air.

“We broke up nearly a year ago.”

It’s messy and torrid, you half expect the sting of pain against your cheek as her eyes flare. It crackles in her eyes like looming thunder on a humid summer night.

Her teeth clench tight, twisting into a scowl. The haze of alcohol curls through her thoughts like a murky smoke.

She explodes.

Lips spark against yours, sizzling with a frenetic, desperate edge. You’re caught in the storm of it all, her lips are messy and drunk.

She threatens to drown you as her fingers curl through your hair, to rub your lips raw with swelt. 

Snow clings to you both in that moment, fluttering and fleeting; they soak into every stray crevice. There’s the slightest bite of teeth against your lower lip, awkward and unintentional.

You can’t help the smile that blisters and burns.

But she’s hungry, ravenous, daring to eat you alive like an all consuming flame. Still, she pulls away, fights against her very nature to consume you, forehead pressed against yours. 

It’s cute the way she pouts, nose wrinkling ever so slightly. Though even the small flame of a candle is cute, compared to the emblazoned heat of a forest fire.

She smiles, snowflakes and stars, glisten and sparkle almost as if by her command, caught in the sea of sapphire blue light.

“We’re both stupid,” she offers.

You’d have it no other way.

#aespa x reader #karina x reader #yu jimin x reader #girl group scenarios #aespa imagines #aespa scenarios #karina imagines #karina scenarios #yu jimin imagines #yu jimin scenarios #aespa #aespa karina #kpop imagines #girl group imagines #kpop scenarios #kpop x reader

[happilychaengs]

Solemn Silence

a/n: obviously i don't edit considering how fast i got this published. 3 hours for this. this is kind of my replacement for the jihyo piece i unpublished but it's nothing alike. tried being my descriptive but idk. maybe it didn't turn out like i thought it did. i also thought of making a new series with a car involved but idk how that'd work. i was extremely inspired by a late night drive i went on with my friends when it was raining. might make more pieces with rain involved

word count: 1,136

jihyo x gender neutral reader

"Are you kidding me?" You scoffed as you looked down at the text on your phone. You really didn't think this wouldn't be you spent your night today. Driving in the rain close to midnight, all because of one simple text from a girl you don't talk to anymore for reasons unbeknownst to you.

The rain came down in sheets as your windshield wipers were working harder than usual, swishing back and forth in a sort of hypnotic fashion. Navigating the slick and shiny roads was a hard task but it was nothing compared to the challenge that laid ahead when you saw her again standing on the sidewalk. She looked annoyed and wet, her hair slicked back as she was wearing simple dress accompanied with a black overcoat. It made you really question if this was the same girl you knew.

As you pulled up to the sidewalk, she quickly made her way in and sat down, averting her gaze in every way she could.

"Why'd you text me, Ji-"

"Please drive."

Definitely the same girl. Reluctantly, you started the engine again as the tension in the car became palpable. The only sound was the pitter-patter of the rain on the roof as Jihyo stared out the window, slightly huffing on the glass, making it all foggy and scribbling on it with her fingers.

A long tunnel is in sight as you go through, the pounding of the rain on your windshield effectively stopping. Now it's truly dead silent. You thought this would allow her to start talking to you, but now that your own breaths were the only sound that could be heard throughout the car as you drove, you missed the monotonous rhythm of the rain.

You break the silence. "Jihyo-"

"Stop. Don't... Don't talk please." She starts it again.

Exiting the tunnel and hearing the rain pour again on your car, you ponder about why she does the things she does. Park Jihyo, the infamous heart breaker. The supposed woman who has it all and yet it never feels like it when you're with her. She always feels like she's missing something from her being. A hole in her heart per se.

You park the car on a seemingly stranded sidewalk, making her glance over at you.

"Why'd you stop?"

You pull your keys out of the ignition and lean your head back on the head rest, "Tell me what's going on. You don't speak to me for months, and you text me now of all times. What is it you want from me?"

Her breath hitches as her eyes wander to the windshield glazed in a cover of water, to your hands on the shift stick, and finally to the exhausted look you have in your eyes, a small frown on your lips.

"Either you talk or we're not going anywhere." A stray car passes you by, the headlights casting a hazy glow through the thick curtain of rain.

You see the inner turmoil in her eyes, the war she has going on inside her mind. "Look- I... I don't know. Okay?"

"You... don't know." You repeat in a low chuckle, "That's all you have to say? Because I think there's just a little more on your mind."

"Stop, Y/N. For both our sakes. Stop pushing it."

As you stared out the window, you spoke out, "For both our sakes? My best friend of my entire life suddenly stops talking to me and suddenly you text me now? And it's better for my sake to just not know why? Fuck you. That's bullshit."

You see the slightest reflection of her through the window and you can tell she's surprised. You've never spoken to her like that in the years you've known her. Even through the angriest of arguments, you would never lash out at her like that.

"I... I'm sorry." And for no apparent reason, you hear the door unlock and close. You glance over at her seat and it's empty.

You groan and exit the car yourself, quickly running to the sidewalk as you stared at her, your brows crinkled and water dripping down your face.

"What are you doing? Get back inside, Jihyo. You're going to get a cold."

Her back was facing you as she spoke, "No."

You sigh, your breath becoming a white cloud fading off into the distance. "Jihyo, please. I'm sorry, okay? You don't have to talk about it."

And you didn't expect her to be so abrupt, switching her tone so fast as she turned to you, her entire face dripping with water, her makeup coming off. "No. You wanted to hear it, right? Why I avoided you? Why I texted you now?"

A tearful chuckle escapes her mouth, making you finally notice that those were tears rolling down her face, the rain masking it all. "I was on a date, okay? The first one I've been on since I stopped talking to you! And you know what I felt? Absolutely fucking nothing!"

She pulls out her phone, all her tears and raindrops dripping onto the screen, quickly showing you all the drafts of her texts and messages. All deleted from under your name. All messages saying the words you never thought you'd hear from her. I love you.

She shoves her phone back into her pockets, "I wasn't used to feeling like this when I'm with you! Like my heart was going to burst out from my chest! Like I couldn't control myself! Each and every time I tried to forget, I couldn't help but think of you! So yes, Y/N! I avoided you! But it was because I love you!"

She turns her back on you again as she starts storming off, not caring for a response from you. Your head and heart seem to fall in agreement as your legs run quickly behind her, you tugging at her hand.

Her head turns back to you with a tearful look, "What?" Her tone was so soft, unlike her usual loud demeanor. She seemed... so vulnerable. Something you've never seen.

And then you do something you didn't expect to do in your lifetime. Your lips were pressed to hers. The rain was pouring on the two of you but you didn't seem to care. Her eyes widen but she soon deepens the kiss, getting lost in the feeling of you.

The world begins melting away around you two. The rain, the storm, it all fades into the background. You hold each other close for warmth, as you feel the rain trickle down your back.

The two of you stare into each other's eyes as you don't feel like there is a need for any more words to be said. Solemn silence. It's how it began and it's how it will end.

#jihyo x reader #park jihyo x reader #twice imagines #park jihyo #jihyo #twice jihyo #twice fic #twice fluff #girl group imagines #gg imagines

[heartfullofleeches]

Oc-tober Day Three – Haunted House

Yandere Supernatural Harem(Angel, Demon, Reaper) – Alasdair, Baron, Maddox

Word count: 1.5k

Tw: Violence and blood

“Suspect in multiple robberies is still at large. It is advised to-"

You shut off the tv as you walk by; sliding your jacket onto your shoulders. You had been invited to a haunted house hosted by none other than your housemates at one of their brother’s house across town. You use housemates as a loose term due to the fact you had little say in the matter. The combined three – demon, grim reaper, and your very own guardian angel- had taken up residency in your home for the better part of a year. They’re overprotective and barely give you space to breathe, but you’ve made your peace with their continued presence. 

-

Following the instructions given to you leads you to a three story house overlooking some beach. The yard is decorated in painted lawn gnomes and the garage is open; flashing lights and fog rolling onto the driveway. One of the gnomes holds an “enter here” sign pointed towards the old gate. You do as such, the door shutting as you step inside. 

“Welcome…”

You navigate the foggy domain with your hands in front of you, taking small steps so that you don’t trip. You can barely see anything, an open window keeping you from asphyxiating your only source of light. You nearly trip over and erupted tombstone, and scream at its feet ahead; rotted face peering through smog. Just a zombie prop. You continue a little further, bumping into a wall of black. Tilting your head up to face whatever it was, you’re greeted by a skeletal grin pointed at you. You freeze. 

The being’s blue eyes lock onto yours; shimmering like sapphires. It’s jaw hangs open in a single breath; the room growing colder as it exhales. The wind blows the smoke from its face; revealing its bony face to be nothing more than face paint.

“Maddox?”

The reaper nods. “Hi…”

You look at the rest of their body. They were dressed like a stereotypical grim reaper down to the plastic scythe they weld. They look a bit dejected, but smile faintly in your presence.

“Did I scare you?” 

“A bit.”

They sigh. “That makes me feel slightly better about this. Baron made me put it on in exchange for letting me do the majority of the decorations. I wanted to be a nurse. Halloween is still new to me, but it seems fun. Can we try this.. trick or treating later?”

“Sure.”

They point towards the garage door. “The others are inside. You’ll find them eventually. I’ll be here until you’re all done.”

“Alright. See you later then.” You head out the door; following the blood stained, sheet covered walls to the next location. The trail leads you to the living room. It seems relatively normal except for two glasses filled with a dark liquid on the coffee table. One has lip marks around its rim. You pick up the other and inspect it. It’s grape juice.

“oh~ has a little human come to join me in my den?”

You hear the sound of flapping wings; wind kicked up behind you as a black feather falls on your shoulder. You’re greeted by a horned figure; their points positioned in an angle that remind you of a broken halo. Four wings protrude from his spine; his body visible from the torso up as they wrap around him. He wears a sleeveless, open back shirt; black lines marked on his dark skin. His usual bow tie is replaced for a collar with an upside down cross. He sports a toothy smile; eyes flashing red. 

“Hello, Y/n.” Alasdair purrs. “It’s so lovely of you to join me.”

You step back as the angel steps closer, falling onto the approaching couch. He looms over you, reaching back to grab the untouched glass. He rests his hand on the cushion besides you as he leans in, the glass bushing your bottom lip. 

“You know, Baron gave me this role because he thought it would be a good laugh. He seemed to think he could decide everyone’s costume since Maddox eventually caved. He probably assumed I’d chicken out last minute…” He brings his arms around your neck, breath fanning your lips as his lips cress it. “but I’ve decided to embrace it.”

A smack against the glass panel of the backdoor catches your attention. You gently push Alasdair aside to see a football rolling into the grass. Curious, you walk outside and pick it up; a shout heard from across the field.

“Hey! Y/n! Throw it over here!”

You look up. The entire backyard had been transformed into an American football field. A player waves excitedly to you from the opposite goal. You’re unable to make out his face due to his helmet, but you see the faint pink hue of his eyes.

“Oh Lord, he was serious.” Alasdair steps outside; heels clicking against the patio as he folds his arms. “Baron! Get your ass over here right now!”

Baron runs across the field in record pace; a 666 displayed proudly on his shirt. The seven foot tall devil had been reduced to an even six feet and just as muscular. “What?”

“What the hell are you wearing?”

“I’m a football player! What else would I be.”

“You’re supposed to be scary!”

“And you are? The only thing I see you trying to do in that outfit is making my mate horny!”

“You choose the costume for me!” Alasdair sighs, rubbing his temple to calm the forming headache. “Alright. Y/n, please go back inside. This could last for a minute and I don’t want you to hear it. There’s refreshments in the kitchen and dinner will be prepared shortly.”

You walk back inside and shut the door as the screaming match picks up. Without direction you aimlessly wander the large house for longer than you’d like to admit. It wasn’t going the best for them in the scare factor, but you admired the dedication. You eventually find the kitchen and someone inside, looking through the drawers.

“Hello? Are you Baron’s brother?” Upon a second look you can see that he’s not just looking through the drawers, but dumping their contents into a large bag on the floor. He seems to notice where your eyes have trailed as he picks up a knife from the counter. You slowly back away as he approaches. 

“Look I don’t want any trouble…” 

He continues to walk towards you, clutching the knife so hard his knuckles go white. You bump into something as he charges; bracing for what’s to come. All that does is the splatter of something warm on your face and an arm around your chest.

“Don’t you fucking dare.” 

You open your eyes to see claws in the man’s chest; the knife falling to the floor as they’re ripped free. Blood trickles down Baron’s arm as he lifts it to his face. He shoves his fingers to the gates of his helmet and takes a lick; reaching at the taste.

“Even your blood tastes like shit.” He spits. The robber lays eyes widened on the kitchen floor as Alasdair rushes in. 

“What happened? We sensed that you were in danger.”

“Pencil dick over here tried to stab Y/n so I killed him”

Alasdair walks over to see the damages. “Honestly, Baron. It’s not like he didn’t deserve it, but try not to be so messy with it. Besides, he’s still alive.”

A spear of light appears in his hand as Alasdair stabs the man through his heart with his blade. The man twitches from the force before going limp. Alasdair kicks his outstretched arm back to his blood. He lifts his head up to shout. “Hey Maddox! We got another one.”

“I’m already on it.” The grim reaper appears at the man’s side; taking off their gloves and placing their hand on his head. His body shrivels until it crumbles away into human shaped piles of ash that slowly break away. “He’s been taken to the sands of time. You don’t have to worry about him getting a lighter sentence.”

“We still have to clean up.”

“Do we really have to?” Baron retorts. “There’s already like twenty bodies buried around this place. The most C.C will be mad about is what we did to the gnomes.” 

“I don’t want to touch vermin ashes either, but it’s the right thing to do.”

“Should’ve made him swallow his own tongue.”

In the time they had spent feeding you and caring for you were sick; you forgot the true horror of your band of misfits. They were willing to kill for you at the drop of a dime, and already had in the past. Retribution wasn’t in the cards for anyone who crossed you; their bodies destroyed by powers like no other and their souls dragged to a place where none could return from.

Maddox takes off their robes and drapes it over your shoulders. “Happy Halloween, Y/n.” 

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere oc #yandere scenarios #yandere imagines #yandere x you #yandere headcanons #male yandere #yandere insert #yandere demon #yandere angel #yandere grim reaper #yandere drabble #yandere x y/n #yandere ocs #yandere oc x reader #yandere x darling #halloween event #yandere monster #yandere teratophilia

[labarboteuse]

Shattered souls

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x expilot!fem!reader (no use of YN)

Summary: One mistake, three destroyed lives, a lost love, they will have to rebuild themselves. This is the story of two shaken beings.

Warnings: angst, death, physical wounds, trauma, swearing, very long post, maybe inaccurate things about the Navy (I really don't know much about it sorry), English isn't my first language so for sure grammatical mistakes

"Jake!"

She felt a weight crush her chest and jerked upright under the pain, her heartbeat ringing in her ears. The presence of the sheet under her hand reminded her that she was in her room. Staring at the darkness in front of her she tried to regain her normal breath. A quick glance at the alarm clock on the bedside table to her right told her that it was only five o'clock in the morning, eighteen minutes to be exact. Her sigh broke the silence that reigned and with one hand she removed the sheet before getting out of bed. Grabbing her robe from the chair in the corner of the room, she left it to go to the kitchen. She didn't need to turn on the light, the coffee machine's indicator light was bright enough for her to use. While the coffee was brewing, she leaned against the counter of the central island, slipping her cold hands into the pockets of her bathrobe to warm them up. Staring blankly into the darkness and silence of the night, her dark thoughts found their way, that they knew all too well into her mind. The beep of the machine indicating that the coffee was ready made her raise her head, she took the cup with both hands to enjoy the warmth of it and leaned on the central island, leaning on her elbows, facing the window observing the streetlamp on the other side of the street whose light was oscillating.

"Alright alright! I'll bet you twenty bucks that she'll turn you down before the end of the night!" She giggled as her friend and navigator jostled her by pushing her on the shoulder making her stagger to the side and bump into someone.

"Be careful pretty, I hope you don’t fly as you walk." Mocked the blond Ken that she collided before resuming his way. She looked at him moved away taken aback.

"Who's that one? I've never seen him on base." She turned her head to Billy who shook his head signifying that he didn't know who it was either.

"This one is Hangman." Said Shark who had slipped up behind them without them feeling him coming and startled them. "He just arrived, replacing Sunrise who broke his arm."

"Wait what, how did he do it?"

"He wanted to do trampoline at his little nephew's birthday party. He jumped too hard and ejected and landed against the fence, well actually going through the neighbor's fence to be exact."

The pilot and her navigator looked at him in surprise, a completely stupid look on their faces.

"So he's the one who's going to replace him, Sunrise isn't here to come back at the moment. Jake Seresin, that's his name, that guy is arrogant, nobody can stand him where he comes from." He continued.

"What a beautiful portrait, it makes you want to know him."

The three went back to their planes. As they were about to take their seats, their superior came trotting up to them.

"Touchdown! Sunshine!"

"Yes sir."

"You must have heard that Sunrise wouldn’t be with us for a while, nothing changes for you, his replacement takes his place as a wingman."

The two looked at each other sharply, how stupid had they been not to make the connection when Shark had told them about him a few minutes earlier? From the top of her ladder ready to take her place at the front she saw Jake further away wink at her with a sly smile. It was promising.

Turning off the shower faucets she grabbed her towel and tied it around herself, went to the medicine cabinet above the sink to get her cream, and ran her hand over the foggy glass once it was closed. She looked at herself for a moment in the mirror, swivelling her chest to observe the huge scar that had been part of her for two years now. She brushed it with her fingertips before lowering her eyes and going to her room to get ready.

As she did every Wednesday morning, she went to the local church for the meeting that took place in a room adjacent to the religious building. As usual, she warmly greeted the men and women who, like herself, were attending the meeting, some of whom were just partners in suffering, others had became friends who had found each other and created a bond based on mutual suffering. All the people present at this meeting had suffered a trauma in their lives, all as varied as each other, but which allowed them to understand and help each other in the painful ordeals that followed.

She took off her jacket and hung it on the back of the chair, the same chair for the past two years, a creaky old folding chair with a cracked brown leather seat. Always in the same place, in the same circle, surrounded by the same people.

"Sunshine and Touchdown? Where do you get names like that?" Jake's voice came over the radio and Billy could feel his friend rolling her eyes. "Come on what, we're going to get really close over the next few weeks, maybe months. How about we get to know each other."  The young woman winced at the word "months", she wanted her wingman back, her habits, she hated change and especially, new things. Yes, Sunshine was a person who was perfectly happy in her habits and her comfort.

"Billy was one of the best players on his college American football team, and he's a big fan to this day." Her melodious laughter filled the cabin and the radio as Billy took offense, the pleasant sound making Jake smile.

"One of the best?! I was THE best, the handsome player, I could have been a star myself ma'am."

"And Sunshine where did that come from?"

"She's the sunshine of the base." Billy cut her off as she was about to retort. "A real ray of sunshine that little piece of woman."

"Stop it Billy, that's not true."

"Of course you do! You're always in a good mood, always smiling, and everyone finds it a pleasure to hear your cheerful tone and laughter over the radio when we're on mission."

She felt her cheeks catch fire and put her cold fingers on her cheek to cool down.

"Embarrassed Sunshine?" Jake's mocking tone rang in her ears and she turned her head to the left to see his plane next to theirs, a perfect but mocking wide smile on his face and she flipped him off for any response which made him burst out laughing.

Contrary to what she could have thought from the portrait that had been drawn of Jake, the young woman supported him rather well, obviously with a point of exasperation in certain moments, but she had to admit that he had a certain charm that she wouldn’t have known for all that to describe, but the Texan didn’t leave her indifferent. The two pilots spent their time sparring and jabbing at each other, mostly with a smile, until one day one of the spats ended unexpectedly.

"You are so condescending and lacking in discernment!" She exclaimed exasperated by his behavior.

His legendary cocky smirk on his face, his hands in the pockets of his flightsuit, following her on her tail through the corridor.

"Would I have lacked discernment with you sweetheart?"

She made volt face what he didn’t expect and had just the time to stop himself not to enter in collision with her, and she was now almost against him. She raised her head to address him because he was a good head taller than her. Their two faces were only a short distance from each other. An impassive air on her face, a soft glance and a smirk on his.

"Why do you always have to look so flirty Seresin." Her voice was low, giving a certain intimacy to their closeness.

"Always, you sure?"

"I've always seen that look on your face, a face I often hold back from hitting."

"Maybe you've always seen me with that look on my face because that's the one I'm willing to give you." His seductive tone provoked shivers in her neck and she rolled her eyes ready to turn her heels to move away from him. Nevertheless before she could make any gesture he brought a hand in her neck and put his lips on hers. Surprised, she widened her eyes and felt Jake smiling against her lips. He was insufferable, but at the same time he attracted her like a magnet. Her hand slid down his neck and she stood on tiptoe as he wrapped an arm around her waist. She would have let herself choke for lack of air not to have to break this kiss. A throat clearing was heard and they parted in surprise, but not without Jake pulling his arm from her waist. She looked at Billy who was with a few meters of them and who had just surprised them, then her glance settled on the arm of Jake that she pushed back abruptly.

The three of them looked at each other not knowing what to say and then finally Billy broke the awkward silence.

"Okay I'm definitely not a fan of what I just saw to be honest and I hope to erase it from my memory soon." She bit the inside of her cheek, why did she feel embarrassed? She was of age and vaccinated, right? She could do whatever she wanted. "But if it means you'll be watching over her even more she's in the air, that's fine with me." He finished before passing by them to continue his route, gently squeezing the arm of his friend while passing by her.

Hands clasped on her knee, legs crossed, her gaze fell on the person in front of her, a newcomer, someone who had been unlucky, someone who would be scarred for life, someone who would never be the same. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned her head towards Denise who leaned towards her.

"Would you join us for coffee after the meeting?" She whispered to her and when she looked up her eyes caught the faces of Barry and Shirley behind her neighbor who were watching her waiting for her answer.

"Sure." She whispered in turn causing smiles on all three faces to which she responded with a slight smile and returned her attention to the newcomer who was finishing telling his story.

The door at the back of the room creaked and a cold wave swept into the room, Curtis, who was leading the meetings and had been absent a few minutes before, hurried back to the middle of the circle, he glanced at the young woman, playing nervously with his fingers.

"Please excuse me, I was with a newcomer." He cleared his throat and turned to the door as a figure rushed in, Curtis desperately searched for her gaze and when he caught it, addressed her with a silent "I'm sorry." she frowned not understanding what he meant and was struck with dread when she saw the face of the person taking his place in the circle.

Sitting on the right side of the row next to Billy she saw Jake, sitting on the left a few rows ahead turn his head and wink at her, holding back a smile she pretended to look away which only widened the pilot's smile as he returned his attention to their superior.

"This is a reconnaissance mission prior to the decision of a possible attack. You will take off, perform your reconnaissance and return to the aircraft carrier. Touchdown, Sunshine and Hangman, that's for you, you'll board in two hours."

The pilot and navigator exchanged glances before getting up and leaving the room. As they left to retrieve their equipment wandering through the building, she felt a hand reach between her loins and Jake appeared beside her.

"It's all about reconnaissance. We'll be back as soon as we're gone." Said Billy.

That's what it should have been, a simple reconnaissance patrol.

Her heart was beating so fast and yet she had the feeling that it was no longer irrigating her brain. She sat back in her chair, resting her back against the backrest, her hands still crossed on her knee. She wasn’t able any more to think, wasn’t able any more to keep her attention on what it happened around her, the memories for which she put so much energy to keep buried in her went up to the surface, she knew this moment by heart. It lasted the moment of a flash but she felt it as if it had lasted for very long minutes.  

"Thank you Ben for your testimony." Curtis' deep voice brought her back to the moment. It was his turn now, her gaze quickly found his to get lost in it, as if no time had passed, as if they had seen each other the day before, as if they hadn't gone through the horror that had knocked them both down.

When the meeting came to an end, everyone stood up and after greeting each other, headed for the exit.

"Don't wait for me, I'll be there as soon as I can." She addressed the small group that was waiting for her to go to the café, the one on the corner where they used to meet. They nodded and headed for the exit, leaving only the two of them, face to face, hands in his pockets, her fingers around her scarf, revealing the white knuckle of her fists clenched around the fabric.

"What are you doing here?"

What was ironic was that spending so much time on aircraft carriers, she still hadn't been able to get over the seasickness, ironic, right? For someone in the Navy, even though her role, fortunately, was to spend more time in the air than at sea.

"Shall we do karaoke night this weekend? Just so I can introduce you to Naomi, we'll do duets. You and Ken and Naomi and me." She laughed at Billy's naming of Ken for Jake, they had been dating for several months and Billy, moderately liking Jake, making an effort for his friend, still couldn't bring himself to call him by his first name.

"Maybe you could start by making an effort and calling him by his name." He pouted, which caused her to roll her eyes. As she was about to climb on the plane she heard Ken trotting towards her.

"Hey hey hey. You know we never leave like this without saying goodbye." She giggled.

"Jake we literally fly together, and we talk to each other over the radio." He placed a kiss on her forehead.

"That's no reason, we may be together up there, but we're not physically together."

"God, he's even more annoying that way than when he's a dickhead”. Grumbled Billy who took his place at the back of the plane rolling his eyes of exasperation, what Jake didn’t pay attention to, too busy to scrutinize his girlfriend.

"I got your back." He added before placing a furtive kiss on her lips and joining his plane.

"Hey Cinderella, do you care to come up?" Billy called out to her, she looked up at him and grabbed the ladder to climb up.

"Why should I be Cinderella?"

"Hangman do you see anything?" She glanced to either side of the plane.

"Nop. All seems quiet. We do have the coordinates listed though."

"I don't like it." She muttered to herself.

"A hunch?" Asked Billy, who had learned over time to trust his friend's hunches.

"Yeah, and not a good one."

"Relax, everything will be fine, it's just a reconnaissance." He tried to convince her as much as for himself.

"I know a good way to relax." Jake's voice came over the radio, which had the effect of making her giggle and Billy mime a vomit. Her joyful laughter echoed through the radio to Jake's delight. Flying with them, he had quickly understood what the navigator had said the first time. A melodious, joyful, infectious laugh that had relaxed many on missions. Jake considered himself lucky to be able to enjoy it outside of these moments and better, to be the reason for her laughter even in some cases.

"If you're laughing that means it’s okay. I'm unbuckling myself to look further."

"Jake no, don't." Her laughter stopped short and she looked around for his plane.

"Everything is going to be fine sweetie, there is nothing to report obviously." He wanted to reassure her.

"Hangman you're a pain in the ass, don't do this to us."

"My presence reassures you Touchdown?" He teased.

"That's the whole point of your role dickhead." He replied scathingly.

"I'll be back in a flash." He steered to go in an opposite direction leaving them two, a hint of insecurity rising in her, Billy fulminating in the back.

"I swear, once we get on the ground I'm going to punch him in the face."

"This is the excuse you've been waiting for for months. Do you see anything?"

"No nothing." She sighed continuing her monitoring when Billy stirred behind her. "Shit."

"What?"

"We have two bandits coming our way."

He barely had time to look behind him when he saw two planes heading straight for them.

"Touchdown talk to me."

"There's one coming at five o'clock." He looked across the canopy. "The other one at seven. Shit! Hangman what the hell are you doing bringing your ass in!"

Everything happened very quickly, surrounded by the two, not being able to avoid them being on each side, she accelerated and tried to maneuver not to be hooked hoping that Jake intervenes very quickly. 

"Hangman!"

"Sunshine I'm coming!  I see them, I lock him, I shoot!" Jake, who had managed be on the tail of one of them, was able to stick to him and lock it  before making a strike, but this one had time to shoot before being hit. By the time he could react, the second one had caught up with them and fired instantly, hitting its target in the heart. The first missile hit one of the engines which caught fire, the lights started to flash like a Christmas garland, and Sunshine tried as best she could to regain control of the plane without much success.

"I can't control it! I can't straighten!"

"Eject!" Jake yelled into the radio.

They didn't have time to do so as the second missile hit them dead center, taking out the end of the plane and the second engine, the back of the plane went up in flames, and she heard Billy screaming behind her, desperately trying to pull on the ejection seat suspensions.

"Request backup, request assistance, Touchdown and Sunshine are hit! Damn it hurry!"

"Billy! Billy!"  Overwhelmed by panic her heart raced and tears began to blur her vision, raging on the suspensions. "Why isn't it working, Jake! Jake!"

Her laugh would never echo through the radio again.

When she woke up she was dazzled by the brightness of the room and had to blink several times to adjust. She felt a sharp pain run down her back and let out a groan of pain.

"Sweetheart."

That familiar voice was Jake's, who walked around the bed and came to stand next to her pressing a button on the headboard.

"It's morphine, it will help."

"Where am I?" She tried to look around her but her field of vision was restricted, lying on her side, she looked up at Jake who showed a serious face. Suddenly all took place again in her mind, she tried to straighten up abruptly and a cry of pain of her part pulled a grimace of pain to Jake devastated to see her in this state. The pain forced her to lie on her side. He sat down on the chair facing her and took her wrists in his hands, the palms of her hands being bandaged. In a last effort she had pulled as hard as she could on the suspensions that burned her palms before being ejected.

"You... You were able to eject in time. But the flames that had already reached the device burned your back.” She looked at him frightened, she didn't remember having the burning sensation in her back, maybe it had been because of the adrenaline. But if flames were so close to her to burn her, what about Billy?

The worried look she gave him made him understand what she was wondering and he shook his head silently. Tears began to stream down her face and she began to sob violently. Jake didn't know what to do, he leaned over and placed a kiss on the top of her head, a tear rolling down his cheek and crashing into her hair.

She wasn't sunshine anymore.

Her hard gaze met his, which she couldn't make out, was he sad? Sorry? Full of regret? All three at once?

"What are you doing here Jake?" She repeated wearily.

"I ... I don't know. This wasn't a good idea." He began to walk away with his hands in his jacket pockets.

"You know what wasn't a good idea?" He stopped short and lowered his head knowing very well what was coming next.

"That you're dropping us on this mission." He stared blankly at the ground. "That you leave me when I needed you the most after this."

"You were mad at me..."

"And you think that made it better?!" Her tone grew louder and more aggressive than she would have liked.  "I would have learned to get over it Jake, you made a mistake, maybe it would have made a difference if you had stayed, or maybe they still would have had the upper hand, maybe we thought there was no danger, there could have been no danger." He lifted his head and pivoted toward her. "But you left me alone after that. I needed you Jake."

"I was so angry with myself that I couldn't inflict my presence on you every day. I thought it would be better for you, not to have the face of the man who killed your best friend constantly in front of you."

"It wasn't you who killed him Jake."

"But it's my fault."

A whirlwind of emotions formed inside her. It had been two years since she had seen him, she was torn between giving him a slap, ignoring him, throwing herself at his neck, screaming at him, it was perhaps the difficulty in choosing between all these possibilities that nailed her to the ground and that she was unable to move. Not even taking a step back when he came closer.

"I'm so sorry. I feel so bad if you knew."

And she realized that she wasn’t the only one to have suffered these last two years. But she had been lucky enough to be able to surround herself with people to learn how to rebuild herself, had he been able to do the same?

She was struck by his reddened eyes and tired face features, never had she seen him like this, he who had seemed so strong with her in the times that followed, before he left, and now he had the face of a man crushed by remorse. He who always had a cocky look and a frank smile.

"I hope you can forgive me one day, because I can't." His voice became weaker and almost died out at the end of his sentence. "I lost you, and it's probably the biggest disaster of my life.” He took a step closer to her only being a small space away forcing her to raise her head to look at him. "I need you, do you think you can ever forgive me?"

When he saw her raising the arm he closed the eyes expecting to receive a deserved slap. But she didn’t, with an unexpected softness, she put delicately her hand on his cheek that she caressed with her thumb, wiping a tear which traced its way. He opened his eyes to see her showing a light smile, filled with sadness. He took her hand in his to deposit a kiss inside her palm. Then when she passed her arms around his neck to tighten him against her, he buried his face in her hair and she slipped a hand in his as one comforts a child.

Two years had separated them, and despite any resentment she might have had towards him, it was all gone in an instant. They were two beings in love and torn, who had suffered and who would have to learn to heal, together.

#jake hangman seresin #jake seresin #jake hangman seresin x reader #hangman x reader #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin imagine #hangman imagine #jake hangman seresin imagine #top gun maverick #top gun maverick x reader

[pizzee]

twice

FUCK IT WEREWOLF BY NIGHT FIC. Where(wolf) you can read it here on AO3

When the first rays of dawn shine through the window and cast the chamber in shades of gold, he begins to stir. Or, the lump on the ground that’s comprised of a cloak Elsa found and a man-turned-beast-turned-man-again stirred. She ignores the stinging from the gash on her arm and waits.

The lump groans and the cloak shifts just enough that grey hair peeks out from underneath the blanket of black. Another move and eyebrows hanging over shut eyes make an appearance before a hand — a human hand — juts out to push himself up. Another hand braces against his head, then he looks up, cracks one eye open, and—

“Elsa?”

Jack’s voice comes out in a creak, barely above a whisper. But it’s a voice.

She sighs, feeling half relieved and half exasperated. “Mornin’.”

“Ah is it…” he looks over his shoulder at the shadows cast by the sun, bars over the window making long stripes of grey and yellow on the floor. He huffs a breath. Turns back. Grins at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Good morning.”

Elsa clicks her tongue and tightens the bandage on her arm, biting her tongue to keep herself from wincing. Not that Jack would notice, with how busy he is pushing himself into a sitting position that makes him stifle groans of pain and rubs his eyes. He mumbles something under his breath in Spanish and finally takes her in, eyes catching on her arm. He makes to talk.

“Didn’t think farmers still attacked people with pitchforks,” she lies before he can speak, and makes a show of casually tapping on the bandages, “bit old fashioned.”

Jack frowns, eyes flicking to her shotguns whose barrels are spattered with blood. She nudges them out of view. He chews on the inside of his cheek. “Are you ok?”

“You’re in a cell, mate, and the first thing you say is good morning and ask if I’m ok?”

“I’m used to all this.” He waves his hand in the air. “But, are you?”

Besides the restless night and aching wound and general clean-up work down at the nearby village she'll have to do—

(Beside the small seed of worry in her gut that was planted there when Jack stumbled up to her doorway the evening prior, bleeding out from a wound and politely asking if he could lock himself away for the next few nights. Besides the fact that it's grown since she had to track him down to the village and kill some monster hunters that'd fallen into his path. Besides that its roots are so firmly planted in her that she stayed awake all night, even if he was finally chained up and unconscious, just to make sure he was healing like he'd said he would, that he was still alive and would be ok when dawn came and the claws and hair and healing abilities vanished and left just a man. Just Jack Russell, aching and confused and worried. Jack, who'd smiled at her and asked if she was ok first.)

—yes, she is fine. Her arm would heal. She'll replace the sheep. She'll rest... later. But first and most important was getting him out of this cell, no matter how used to it he claims he is. So Elsa stands and offers him a hand, then leads or drags him out, up the stairs, past the main hall into the kitchen, and rummages through the fridge while he practically collapses onto a bar stool, panting and drawing up his legs crossed under him. She can feel his gaze on her back as she grabs a can of beans off the cupboard shelf and a few slices of bread to pop in the toaster.

“Do you remember anything?” she asks while the pan heats up and she opens the tin of baked beans.

Jack hums and makes a so-so sign. “Hm, in a way. I only remember something but even then, I don't know if it's real. It’s like… watching a dream through a foggy glass." He frowns and leans forward, elbows resting on the counter and fingers intertwined and untwined and intertwining again in a constant pattern. "If that, makes sense.”

She watches his hands a bit longer and changes the topic. “Sure. Your full-proof system failed, so I spent the night trying to wrangle your arse back here.”

“And stop me from—“

“Killing a few sheep and farm animals? Yes, though I wouldn’t say I was as successful at that.”

She leaves out the rest of it. The sprinting through the woods and shooting and the moment when one of his claws grazed her arm in the heat of battle. Unintentionally, she was standing too close and he was too... wild, to coordinate with and there were too many hunters. Elsa leaves it out, not because of those reasons, not because she knows he didn't mean to and never would.

She leaves it out because Jack is staring at her, eyes wide and grateful, hesitant and deeply apologetic. Afraid.

(In that cage, when time was running short and panic long, when she'd long since given up when she stared at him and wondered how exactly he would kill her. And he stared at her and wondered how he'd save her from himself.

Well, does it work? she'd asked.

He shook his head, and slightly tightened his grip on her arm, for purchase. Once, he'd said. And said nothing else.)

She leaves it out and turns back to the food instead.

“Thank you, for finding me.”

She shrugs and spins to place the plate in front of him. “I hope you don’t mind English breakfast because that’s all I know how to make. Here you are.”

He makes a face at the beans on toast that he quickly wipes away, but not before Elsa catches it. “What happened to your butler?”

“I gave him the night off.”

“Dios dame la fuerza...”

She knows just enough Spanish to know what that means. She flips him off, Jack chuckles lightly, then nibbles around the edges of the toast.

“Nice place, by the way," he starts between bites, looking around at the overly dramatic gothic interior of the kitchen, "I didn’t mention it last time.”

“Too preoccupied with not dying were you?”

A laugh. “Haha yes. It’s a lot nicer without the mess.”

The giant murder cage in the middle of the room, bodies of the people they killed. She'd agree if she liked the place. “I’m sure Ulysses would’ve been happy to hear that.”

If he catches the use of her father's name, he doesn't mention it. “Hm, true. But now it’s yours.”

It hangs in the air between them. Elsa grabs his plate and relents with a sigh.

“It is.”

He smiles (when does he not) then scrunches his nose and shakes his head, like a dog. “Blergh, please let me cook next time.”

Elsa scoffs and rolls her eyes and makes her way out of the kitchen while he trails behind her. “Sure, I’ll let the werewolf make me dinner.”

“There are 27 other days in the month when I can cook.”

“And what, you’ll be spending those 27 days here?”

A stupid question, but the mansion is big and empty. It's crawling with ghosts. Maybe it’s the crypt on the grounds. Maybe it’s the enormous portraits of Ulysses hanging above, perfect poses, and sharp eyes that bore down at her. Maybe it’s the stares she feels on the back of her neck that she spins to try and catch, only to be met with empty air. A stuffed corpse on the wall, watching. It'd be nice, Elsa thinks somewhere far in the back of her mind, to share the space with someone else.

Jack clasps his hands behind his back as she opens the doors to the upstairs gardens. He whistles and moves a little faster to keep pace beside her. He leans forward. “You could come to visit me. In Mexico.”

She tries not to get giddy over that. “I’ve never heard of a monster inviting a hunter to ‘visit’ them.”

“And I’ve never heard of English food being good.”

“Twat.”

The terrace is missing a fence and the edge is concealed by bushes. Elsa remembers her mum always snatching her back before she could get too close and wander off, and she gets a very frustrating and terrifying sense of deja vu when she has to yank Jack back from falling off when he meanders over and almost walks off the 2nd story. She growls and steers him by his shoulders to a patch between some trees and forces him to sit while she stands over him.

“Do you ever think?”

He smiles sheepishly and scratches behind his ear. “I try not to make a habit of it.”

"Bloody hell." She sits roughly beside him, letting out a long breath. He does the same, something pained and uncomfortable, but his shoulders ease, even if the aching tension is still there. He watches the last bit of sunrise and she does the same. And thinks about that cage, that night, the cell, this night. If he'd stay past these few nights if she'd visit him like he said she could.

There's a sigh behind her, then under his breath, “2 more nights.”

Well, does it work? she’d ask him.

She looks at him, from the corner of her eye at first, then turns her head. He’s brighter in the sunlight, warmer. He catches her gaze and locks on. His lips twitch, the corners pushing up until he beams, and his face practically glows. Something spreads in her chest and it feels like the sun. She finds herself mirroring him.

Twice. He’d say.

#werewolf by night #jack russell #elsa bloodstone #yea yea sometimes i write #holy FUCK when did I last use that tag? #whatever whatever whatever here’s the fic DONT TALK TO ME

[nerdylilpeebee]

Evil Doesn't Die Chapter 1: The Hunt

It’s always the same dream.

Phi wakes from some daze, like her mind was covered in fog. It always takes her a minute to get her bearings, but when she does, she’s standing in a dark, foggy room. The air is heavy and tastes metallic. She’s always certain she’ll suffocate if she doesn’t get out of there, but when she turns to run, her path is blocked by a multitude of shadowy figures she can never make-out.

Their presence makes her skin crawl and her body tremble, and when she turns back around to run from them she’s met by even more, all flanked by a smaller shadowy figure that they immediately make way for. This figure steps towards her, slowly, its body jerking slightly as if it’s a zombie. It smiles at her, the only feature it can make out, before its smile widens with a creepy, almost manic giggle.

As it grows closer, it extends its arms out, as if beckoning her for an embrace. Phi raises her hand, trying to attack with something she can’t quite perceive, but stops and nearly screams as she realizes her arm has been severed at the elbow. The figure before her giggles even more, breaking out into manic laughter, before something sharp stabs into Phi’s side.

She tries to cry out in pain, but the sound catches in her throat. The figure takes her face in her hands, forcing her to stare her in the eyes, revealing a horrifying golden glow. All she can think of as they hold this gaze is how… obsessed the eyes look.

Then there’s a sharp pain in her neck, worse than anything she can imagine, followed by the gentle feeling of a kiss on her lips and a voice she can’t quite make out. Then, she wakes, usually drenched in sweat.

Today was no different. When she awoke, brought from her sleep by her hatch-mates, the dream was in full-swing. None of them really paid much attention to her distress, but when they told her what day it was, her distress faded enough to focus. For a while, at least.

Now that she’s standing here, on this ruined building up on the surface, she can’t help but think about her dream. What does it mean? Why does she keep having it? Why is it the same each time?

She breathes deeply as she tries to steady herself. There isn’t any point to asking these questions right now. She knows this, but her mind won’t stop asking them. She needs to focus.

The young devil smacks herself in the face, shaking her head before moving to the edge of the building. She looks down over the city, her eyes scanning the crashed cars and toppled buildings. She closed her eyes, pushing the dream as far back in her thoughts as she can, before opening them again to reveal a golden glow replacing the purple hue of her iris, her black sclera reflecting the moonlight above her.

She crouches down, her wings sprouting out of her back as if breaking free of her skin. They stretch for a moment before she kicks off the building, taking flight over the skies of this once vibrant city.

Maneuvering between buildings and other debris, she searches the streets below her for any sign of movement, quickly tucking her wings in as her momentum carries her through a hole in a tall building, unfurling them on the other side.

There isn’t much here in terms of movement. Even as she draws closer to the city center, the only movement is caused by the wind. She grunts in frustration before slamming into the side of a building with her legs, stabbing the claws on the end of her wings into the stone. The impact causes a few windows to shatter, and as the glass rains down below her she quickly scans the dark interior of the building. Again, there is nothing.

She sniffs the air, hoping to get any sign of prey at all. She grits her teeth as all she can smell is rust. She can’t fail, she won’t fail.

With a quiet growl, she skitters down the side of a building like a bat, maneuvering back broken walls and metal protrusions until she reaches the street below. Keeping herself low to the ground, she sniffs the air again, this time taking the scents that might be on the concrete as well, before letting out another growl and skittering across the ruined streets as fast as she can.

Leaping over debris and across chasms, she quickly makes her way into the city center. Much like the rest of the city it lies in ruins, the buildings vaguely resembling a shopping center and hospital, but as she sniffs the air again her pupils narrow and she smiles. There it is. A human is near.

She leaps high into the sky, flying across the city center to the ruined hospital. Without a sound, she uses her legs to kick through a third-floor window, crashing into what used to be a patient’s room, landing on the bed with a loud bang. She can’t help but giggle as her presence was announced with such a fanfair.

Hastening footsteps echo through the hall almost as soon as she arrives. From here, she can smell the human’s fear. So sweet, almost like cotton candy.

With a loud shriek, she leaps off the bed and crashes through the door, knocking it completely off its hinges. The human screams as she lands right in front of them. She can’t believe her luck.

Without hesitation, the human turns on their heels, not giving the devil before them a chance to move. Phi notices a small flashlight sitting on the floor near her as she begins to give chase. The human must have dropped it. With a manic giggle, she uses the claw on her wing to impale it, throwing it hard against the wall. As it shatters, the only light in the dark hall vanishes.

“Where do you think you’re going, human?” She taunts, standing on two feet as she slowly walks after them, the claws on her wings scraping against the walls as she moves. “The fun is over here. Don’t you want to see your friends and family again? Let me send you to them.”

“Screw you!” A woman’s voice shouts back from the darkness. “I’m not dying here, you freak!”

“The fun way it is then,” Phi muses, immediately getting down on all fours.

She charges through the halls, using her wings to pull herself along faster, jumping off walls and clinging to the ceilings as she chases after the human as fast as she can. It isn’t long before she can’t hear her footsteps anymore.

Phi immediately stops, looking around the dark hall. There are a few rooms the human could have hidden in, but none look as if anyone had opened them recently. Where did she go?

“Where are you~?” She taunts, slowly maneuvering herself around the hall to peer through the little windows on each door. “Are you in this one? Or perhaps this one?”

She lets out a loud giggle, tearing one door off its hinges with her wing before lowering herself inside. It’s a small office room. The nameplate on the desk inside reads “Valentine.” She quietly moves to the desk, tapping the top with her fingers.

“Are you in here, my little appetizer?” She taunts before stabbing her tail through the front of the desk.

She doesn’t feel anything as she does, pulling her tail back through to look it over. No blood. She frowns to herself a little before her eyes fall on a large mirror hanging on the wall at the back of the office next to a small window. Her reflection stares back at her and her whole body freezes.

She… isn’t quite sure she’s ever seen herself before. Her pale skin and glowing yellow eyes make her somewhat stand-out even in the darkness of the office. She reaches up and brushes her hand through her short, messy cherry-blonde hair. Her clothes are somewhat tattered, but resemble a basic T-shirt and jeans. Her wings look more torn and fleshy than she expected. Is this really what she looks like? Is this her? Why does it feel so odd to look at herself?

In her stunned silence she barely notices something rising up behind her. Her eyes widen and she ducks just in time to dodge the swing of a sharp blade. She whirls around to face the human she’s been hunting and prepares her tail to strike.

A tall blonde woman stands before her, dressed in the snow-camo military uniform of the resistance that’s covered in dirt and dried blood. She looks like she hasn't bathed in days and hasn't slept for even longer, her eyes carrying noticeable bags under them.

With a loud cry she swings the blade at Phi again, cutting one of her wings as she dodges. Phi quickly tackles the woman to the ground, pinning the blade, which she quickly realizes is a sword, to her chest as she holds her down.

Using her wings to hold her in place, Phi rises up, a triumphant smile spreading across her face as she prepares to bite deep into her prey’s neck. Once again though, she catches a glimpse of herself staring back at her through the metal of the sword. Her entire body tensed as she does and her smile fades.

Phi barely has time to process this again before the human pushes her off with an angry roar, slashing across her face as she sends her tumbling back into and then over the desk, crashing into the floor on the other side.

Phi cries out in pain as she writhes on the ground for a moment, clutching her face. Pulling herself up, she comes face to face again with her reflection in the mirror on the wall. This time, one of her eyes is shut. No, not just shut. It’s gone. A large, bleeding gash across the left side of her face very clearly shows the destroyed eye beneath her split eyelid.

She growls angrily, turning back to the human with gritted teeth. The human, now on one knee, breathing heavily returns the angry look before rising to her feet and levying the blade between them.

“I’ll take more than your eye, monster, back off!” She commands.

“You’ll take nothing, insect,” Phi hisses. “I’ll eat you alive for that.”

For a moment, the two just stare at each other. Anger is the only thing passing between them.

Very suddenly, Phi smiles, the anger on her face giving way to elation. The human’s face twists in confusion, but only for a second. Phi grabs the desk with one wing, catapulting it forward with all her might. Her opponent barely dodges underneath as it topples over her, and Phi immediately lunges forward.

The human slashes at her as she recovers, barely missing as dodges around it, grabbing arm with both hands before biting into her wrist. She cries out in pain as Phi knocks the blade away, sending it crashing into the mirror, shattering it and impaling the blade into the wall.

Quickly retracting her wings, Phi lets go of her wrist and dodges under a punch thrown at her head. Biting into the side of her opponent’s torso before being thrown off and into the hallway.

She giggles maniacally as the human clutches her now bleeding side and falls to her knees. Wiping the blood from her mouth, she lowers herself down and starts crawling towards her.

“No!” The human cries weakly, trying to get back to her feet. “Get away from me!”

Phi just giggles in response and prepares to pounce. As she does, the world seems to move in slow-motion as a loud bang interrupts her. She barely sees the faint outline of a bullet as it wizzes past her head.

Immediately turning to face the new intruder, her eyes widen as she sees what stands before her. Not one, but five new opponents, each dressed in the same uniform as her prey, but each holding a rifle lined with holy runes. They don’t say a word as they begin to fire at her.

Phi leaps out of the way, jumping over her prey and into the office before smashing out of the small window next to the mirror. As she tumbles into the night, she can hear bullets whizzing past her. Before she can sprout her wings, one of them connects with her shoulder and she cries out in pain as she crashes into the concrete below, her momentum causing her to bounce across the pavement.

She groans in pain as she struggles to recover from the impact. Her ears ring and her vision wobbles. She tries to pull herself to her feet but quickly a light feeling encompasses her entire body and she collapses to the ground, her consciousness fading into darkness.

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

So, here's chapter 1. :3 Finally got it done. Any feedback is appreciated. X3

#fiction #story #writing #evil doesn't die #fantasy #apocalypse #monsters #chapter 1 #my writing #devils

[conyersmooney]

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[juliettedunn]

Awakening From Nightmares (Part 1)

I loved the nightmare sequences in Watching and Dreaming, but I did wish they were longer, so I present this fic to you. I'm very excited about it and I hope you like it.

It does not strictly follow the apparent rules in canon, so other characters can make appearances and speak, not just ones who are puppets.

CW for this chapter: Ableist rhetoric, including the r slur, references to suicidal ideation, just heavy Luz angst in general

***

Luz awakened slowly, her limbs heavy, bizarrely weighted down by whatever clothes she was wearing. Just a few moments before, she had been holding hands with Amity, showing off her new Palisman. And then…the Collector. They had attacked, everyone had been pulled away. And she…what had happened to her?

A great, rhythmic beating pounded at her ears, rattling her teeth. She blinked past her foggy vision to gaze upward, the light in the room eerie, dim, wrong. A great heart sat suspended above her, greenish, shriveled, and twisted. This heart, that sound, the light…she recognized this room. She was in the Emperor’s throne room.

She sat up quickly. There was no immediate cause for alarm; no one was in sight, but merely being in this room had her sick to her stomach. And she had been in the Titan’s skull; a significant trip from the castle. Groaning, she mumbled to herself, “How did I get here?”

She wobbled to her feet. Her clothes were so thick and heavy, they made it awkward to walk in. Why would…? She glanced down, and the sight of her garment startled her so bad she fell to the floor. The outfit was smaller, to fit her, but she’d know it anywhere. She had gazed at it and the man who wore it only a few times, but she could never forget it. She had watched as the gloves she now wore sliced into a Palisman and squeezed out its insides, as the wearer of this robe stood over her, taunting and sneering, subjecting her and Hunter to the worst experiences of their lives. She was dressed like Belos.

“W-what is this?” she stuttered, clawing at the outfit, though there was no change of clothes in sight. Why would she be dressed like this? Who had… “Is-is this a dream?”

She barely registered a small squeaking sound before there was a louder screech and a sharp pain on her ear. She yelped, but mere moments later a reassuring presence entered her mind. Do not worry, Good Witch, I am here!

The friendly shape of Luz’s Palisman appeared at her shoulder, and Luz felt much of her anxiety ease. “Stringbean, it’s you!”

Stringbean chirped excitedly, then curled into Luz’s hands, a calming, soft weight she could hold. Stringbean certainly felt real, and her Palisman mind connection was perfectly clear. Did that mean this wasn’t a dream?

Regardless, Luz was reassured; she was no longer alone. She gazed at her Palisman adoringly. “You sweet little power noodle, I’m so happy to see you! Are Mamá and the others okay?”

Stringbean’s happiness deflated somewhat. Do not know. Much noise, yelling, fear. Scary lights. Was so confused. Then she brightened again, making a happy rattling sound as she swished her tail. But you are here! And if my witch is here, all is good.

The little snakeshifter was only a baby. She had no idea what was happening, she had only been born mere minutes ago. Luz had to protect her. She stood up and Stringbean settled around her neck, a reassuring weight. The witch and her Palisman smiled at each other. “We’ll figure this out,” said Luz. “It’ll be okay.”

I know we can do it!

Luz swallowed hard, praying Stringbean’s confidence wasn’t misplaced.

The two traversed the halls of the castle. Luz tread softly, ready to dart into action the moment a member of the Emperor’s Coven appeared. But there was only an eerie silence, once the sound of the great heartbeat faded.

All was frighteningly familiar, far too detailed to be a dream. Until she entered the hallway with the great stained glass window, to see that the usual image of Emperor Belos had been replaced with someone who looked strikingly like…her?

“W-what?” she whispered. “Why would…?” The Collector must have changed it, like he had changed so much else, though the light in here wasn’t Collector-esque at all.

Stringbean shifted on her shoulders. Who is that?

“I think it’s supposed to be me.”

Stringbean cocked her head at the image, then looked back to Luz, puzzled. Then she hissed dismissively. Not you. My witch is not like that.

She said it with such nonchalance, like it wasn’t even a question. Could she really not see the resemblance?

“Well, if it’s still the same window I saw when I was last here, the exit is close.”

Sure enough, Luz found the way. The door, bizarrely, was left completely unguarded, opening onto a great drawbridge. Where were the guards?

Stringbean nuzzled her neck and Luz smiled at the reassuring pressure. She wasn’t alone. It was going to be okay.

She stepped out onto the drawbridge, the only course of action she could think of. If she could get out of the castle, she could figure out what exactly was going on.

But as she walked along the drawbridge, there were still no signs of life. “Where is everyone?” The Boiling Isles had been mostly empty, but surely her friends were around? They had to have been transported together.

She peered over the edge of the drawbridge, and her heart shattered. Beneath the bridge were people she had just seen today, just been talking to, all petrified into lifeless statues. Ed and Em…Amity had just been reunited with them! Mattholomule, he had just been showing off his cringey drawn-on beard, and Boscha, as awful as she had been, she didn’t deserve this. Yet here they all were, faces contorted into expressions of terror, clinging to each other, frozen for all eternity. There was no cure for permanent petrification. They were gone.

“No! No, no, no! Wh- When did this happen?” How could it have happened this fast? Had Belos been so quick, to transport them all here and kill them like this? Luz could feel the panic taking over, she had to remain calm, if there was anyone still alive here. How many had he gotten? If he got the people at Hexside, and people who had been turned into puppets, could he have gotten…

“Don’t you remember?” Before the words and tone registered, Luz’s heart was flooded with relief. She’d know the voice anywhere, the most beautiful, comforting voice in the world. Her love, Amity. Luz looked in the direction of the voice, prepared to rush to Amity, make sure she was safe and hold her tight.

But when she saw her, she hesitated. Amity stood at the other end of the drawbridge, silhouetted against the night, clutching her staff while her hair blew gently in the wind. In lighter circumstances, Luz might have joked she looked like an anime villain. She wasn’t looking at Luz. Had she seen the people who had been petrified?

“Amity?”

Amity was looking down with the bitterest expression Luz had ever seen on her. Sure, before Amity and her became friends, the witch had been vitriolic, but it had never seemed real, more like a desperate mask she had been trying to uphold. This, though…this was true hatred.

She had to have seen the petrified bodies, otherwise she wouldn’t have been acting like this, when only a bit before Luz and Amity had been giggling and holding hands, Luz finally allowing herself to get lost in a happy moment.

Luz held out her arms, ready to hold Amity as she sobbed into Luz’s shoulder, but then Amity looked up and spoke once more. “This was all your doing.”

“W-what?”

Amity chuckled bitterly, though tears pricked at her eyes. “I thought you were special, Luz. You were everything to me. And then…you betrayed me.”

“No! No I would never! Amity, I swear, I don’t understand. Please just tell me what’s going on!”

“You act like you don’t know? You helped Belos meet the Collector. Your actions led to this.” She gestured beneath the drawbridge, though Luz didn’t dare look once again.

Amity raised her staff and fixed it at Luz, as if to fend her off. “You've been the real villain this whole time!”

“Wha- Listen, I- I don't know what I missed, but I'd never do this.” Luz hesitated, trying to find some way to explain. Her cloak flapped in the wind and she tore the disgusting garment off, casting it aside. “See?”

Luz stared pleadingly at Amity, but Amity had averted her gaze. Her face, so soft and tender just a short time ago, was filled with the worst hatred Luz could imagine.

“I cared about you. I thought you were cute, funny, smart…you were my universe. I did everything for you. I risked Odalia for you. Do you know what she did to me that night I saved you from the Abomiton? And the night I dyed my hair?” Amity closed her eyes. “But it didn’t matter, I risked it all for you. And then, when you ruined my chance at getting the brawl championship, I didn’t get mad. I listened to you cry about your dad, I picked flowers with you, I never asked for an apology. On the Day of Unity, I dragged you into the human realm. If it hadn’t been for me, you would have died in the skull.” Amity shuddered hard, and her next sentence came out choked, as if she were gagging on her words. “It would have been better if you had.”

Luz couldn’t breathe. It was nothing Luz hadn’t thought of herself, but to hear it from Amity, the safest person she could imagine, that Amity regretted ever saving her…

“No…” Luz whimpered.

“I’ve done nothing but care for you, listen to you, support you, and you’ve repaid me with nothing. You betrayed me. You’re not who I thought you were. I'm sorry, Luz. But I have to take you down.”

She drew a spell circle, summoning a wave of abomination goo. It was all so fast, Luz barely had time to react before Amity rode the wave of goo, holding her staff out.

“Amity, please!”

Luz dodged Amity’s wave, barely having time to catch herself from falling before another attack launched at her.

I will help!

Stringbean transformed into a staff and Luz leaped onto it. What was she going to do? She couldn’t dodge forever, and she couldn’t hurt Amity. That was one thing she was certain of, she could never hurt her. Not more than she already had…

She darted for the castle, Amity in pursuit, but by some miracle the doors swung shut behind her. Luz didn’t know if she had somehow done it with Stringbean’s magic, or if it was just the mysterious workings of this hellish landscape, but she didn’t dwell on it. She had to get as far from Amity as possible.

She flew down a slew of corridors, zigzagging as erratic a trail as she could think of, until it was clear Amity wouldn’t pursue. Once she jumped off her staff, Luz lay against the wall, breathing heavily, fighting the urge to break down and sob. This was all happening so fast, she had no time to process what was going on. She had never believed Amity would say something like that to her, it had to be a dream, but then why was everything so real, why couldn’t she wake up?

Stringbean partially shapeshifted, growing thick, fluffy fur for Luz to bury her face in, rubbing her face against the soft texture. “Th-thanks, Stringbean.”

I will always save you! Stringbean purred.

but…I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Your special purple witch…she was wrong.

Luz shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I sense she is wrong. She did not want- Stringbean cut off. Good Witch, look!

Luz flinched back as a vine tried to wrap around her foot. “Aah!” She stumbled back, kicking it away, and instinctively reached for her glyphs. But this outfit didn’t carry any; she was defenseless except for Stringbean.

She ran from the vines, only she clearly wasn’t running the way she had come in, because the corridor only grew darker, until she was surrounded by thick trees.

“Trees? What?”

Look!

Luz turned to see the familiar form of Willow, crouched beside a tree. “Willow! Oh Willow, I'm so happy to see you. Do you know what's going on? I just saw Amity, and-”

But Willow wasn’t turning around, and horrible dread returned. When Willow did speak, it was with a calmer rage than Amity’s had been, but no less terrifying. “You know, Luz, my life changed after I met you. I finally believed that there was this big, bright future ahead of myself.”

Finally, she turned to face Luz, staring at her with nothing less than profound disdain. “But that didn't last long, did it?”

Her eyes glowed green, as they had when Luz first met her, only now the rage truly was directed at Luz.

“You destroyed my home and any chance I had at happiness. I have no future now. None of us do.”

“Willow…”

“Did you ever think maybe we were tired? Tired of trying over and over again to help you and support you, when all you did was whine and complain and never get better? While I lost my home, my family? Why are you the one who always has to be taken care of?”

“Willow, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to be a burden, I-I-”

But her words were amounting to nothing; vines were rapidly growing as Willow held her hands out. Luz screamed as the vines reached for her and she darted away once more, Willow in pursuit.

She stumbled into darkness, gasping, until Willow’s vines caught her and wrapped her tight in their hold.

Luz whimpered as thorns dug into her skin, tearing at her when she struggled, before a blinding spotlight flooded her vision.

“Look, everyone. It's good ol' Luz.”

Luz cracked open her eyes, straining against the glare, to see Gus dressed in his Grom outfit, microphone in hand. She struggled against the vines as Willow took her place beside him, both fixing her with vicious glares.

Luz flinched away from their faces, only to grow even more confused as she took in her surroundings. It was her human realm school’s gym. She’d performed plays here; she starred in Romeo and Juliet and had been so sure her extra flair would earn her a good grade and finally please her school. Only, the opposite had happened…

And here were all her classmates from the human realm, mixed in with those from Hexside. They were cheering as Gus strode back and forth across the stage. “And she, just might be, the biggest hypocrite ever.” The audience booed and jeered.

Gus spoke with taunted, twisted jeers, of the type Luz was used to in the human realm. Different once again from Willow and Amity’s rage, but perhaps the worst kind yet. The audience joined him, booing and laughing while she still sat helplessly in Willow’s vines.

“Everyone helped you get back to your mom. Meanwhile, because of you, I'll never see my dad again.”

“Gus, no. I- I- I swear, we'll get him back. We'll get everyone back! I won't stop until we do.”

Gus laughed. “Really? That’s a lot of confidence for a retard.”

She had heard the word in school so many times, sometimes to her face, but mostly whispered behind her back, accompanied with giggles and disdainful stares. The words that had accompanied her first rejection.

Who would want to date a retard? Why would anyone be friends with a spaz?

“G-Gus?” She hated the way her voice trembled, but Gus and Willow were the first real friends she had. Sure, her mom had scheduled playdates when she was young, but the other kids didn’t truly want to play with her.

Willow and Gus had chosen to hang out with her, to stick by her side, before anyone else did. They didn’t think she was stupid. They loved her. Had she really messed up so bad, that they now thought this?

Gus looked at her coldly. “What, do you deny it?“

“Yes, I’m-I’m not stupid."

She wasn't, her brain just worked differently, like Gus's...or she had thought. But Gus, for all his differences, was a prodigy. He was smart, he had probably never struggled in any school. Did he truly look down on her like this? They had never broached the subject, she had always been proud of him, but...

A sinisterly familiar voice spoke now, and she squeezed her eyes shut in shame. Her human realm principal appeared on stage.  “So you just weren’t trying? No fun fantasy adventure to keep you occupied, so you thought you could slack off?”

“No, I-I want to do good! I want to do better, I just don’t know how, I don’t know why it’s so hard!”

“Not paying attention, slacking through school, embarrassing yourself in front of the whole class. You realize how much your mother puts up with? She’s coddled you far too long.”

“I’m sorry. I can be better, I swear!”

Gus gave her a hard shove and she fell into darkness, half-expecting her life to come to a sudden, dramatic end as she hit the ground.

Instead, she continued floating in darkness, before a familiar voice came to her.

“I don’t know what to do!” said Camila.

“Mamá!”

Luz couldn’t see her anywhere, there was just darkness, and Camila continued as if she couldn’t hear Luz at all. “I’m trying so hard to support her, but she just won’t stop. I’ve done everything I can think of, why can’t she just get better? Even a little? I can’t deal with this, I can’t do it without Manny. I’m so tired.”

These words weren’t made up; Luz had overheard them one night, creeping down the stairs to get a glass of water, only to find her mom crying on the phone to Luz’s aunt. Luz had vanished before Camila ever saw, but the words imprinted on her mind forever. She hadn’t realized how much she was hurting her mom, and she vowed to stop, only somehow, no matter how much conviction she had, she never could do it. The principal remained angry, remained punishing her and calling Camila in a rage, she continued to be the pariah among the other kids, sometimes in a humorous, laughingstock sort-of way, sometimes the subject of rage.

She tried to stop, she could feel everyone’s disappointment, the anger, but somehow, no matter what happened, what she went through, she could never be like the other kids, never settle down and just do her work, never just get better.

“Mamá, I’m trying, I’m trying so hard. I…I…”

She finally hit the ground, rolling to a stop on a cold stone floor, somehow unharmed.

Good witch! Loving mother not here. All wrong.

“No, Stringbean, I’m wrong. All those things…they weren’t made up. They happened before.”

But heard! Heard loving mother talk mistakes. Help me hatch.

The snakeshifter pressed her forehead against Luz’s, and Luz gasped as the conversation she and Camila had not an hour ago entered her head, interspersed with brilliant light and color.

Share memories, said Stringbean. This I remember.

Luz’s heart raced, her own emotions during the conversation mixed with Stringbean’s, as the Palisman finally awakened, connected to her witch’s purpose, blasting into the world with a powerful wave of excitement and hope.

“I…I remember too…” Camila had said she went through what Luz did. She had apologized, even after everything she had done for Luz since, she had said Luz’s mistakes were okay, she understood. Understood. She wasn’t mad, she wasn’t disappointed. She was proud. And Luz believed it.

Luz took several deep breaths. “You’re right. She did say that. I…” She gulped. “I need to find my way out of here. I don’t -“

“Help!”

Luz froze. That voice…but Vee wasn’t here! She was safe, safe in the human realm!

“Vee?” Luz desperately searched for the source of the noise. No one was acting right, everything was wrong and she didn’t know what was real or what wasn’t, but if there was any chance her sister was actually in danger, she had to be there to protect her.

It didn’t take long to find her. The paths and landscape remained wildly inconsistent, ever shifting, but somehow Luz found herself in what appeared to be a dark dungeon, lined with cells. And there was Vee chained to the wall, curled weakly on the floor in basilisk form.

“Vee!”

Luz held out her hand and Stringbean dutifully transformed into a staff, blasting at the metal bars to disintegrate them.

Luz knelt by Vee’s side, but her sister flinched away, looking at Luz with a terror Luz had only glimpsed a fraction of when she first met Vee and she had been caught in the snare.

“Vee, it’s okay. It’s me, Luz.”

“I-I know who you are,” Vee stuttered. The confident happiness that had grown in her voice over the summer months was gone, replaced by complete terror.

“I’m going to get you out of here.”

“You got me in here!”

Luz should have expected it, but it still hurt. “Vee, I know everyone’s saying stuff like this, but I swear -”

“Why did you do it? Why did you help my tormentor?”

“I was tricked!”

“You brought him here! You brought him to Gravesfield, my safe place! The only place I ever felt at home, where I could just be! I was happy. I was so happy, I had my own room, a loving mom, everything you had that you threw away like it was nothing. Just an annoyance you could abandon for a fantasy adventure. Well it was everything to me, and then you brought that monster to it. You brought him to me.” Vee shuddered. “Why couldn’t you just leave us all alone? Let me have a happy family, finally?”

“Vee, I know I messed up, but please, just let me get you out of here. Let me help you get back to Mamá.”

She reached for the chain, but another voice called out. “Luz? Vee?”

Hunter. Hunter was safe, if anyone was. Hunter had known her secret, and he had shared his. They were united. Hunter would understand.

“Hunter!"

Hunter approached, and for a moment, his face was soft, open, and she thought she finally had something safe. Then his gaze took in her outfit, and it flashed with horrific fear.

“No,” he choked. “G-get away.”

“Hunter, no! I don’t want to be wearing this! It’s me, Luz!”

“Why…why would you be dressed like this?”

“I don’t know!” She looked around. Somehow, without her realizing, their surroundings had changed once again, and they were at the castle once again, though outside. The dungeon was gone, and Vee with it.

A towering statue of Flapjack sat in the distance. She cringed at the sight of the large crack in its wing. Hunter turned to look too, and his hands curled into fists. “I've always just— followed orders. I never thought about making friends or— going to school. Then I met Flapjack. He was more than a palisman. He was my best friend. And then I lost him, helping you! And you still get to have your own Palisman? Why, Luz? Why do you get to have it all?”

His wrathful gaze flicked to Stringbean, and Luz shielded her protectively.

Hunter grit his teeth. “Are you worried about me hurting a Palisman?"

“Hunter, no, I -“

“As if you’re not the one who got Flapjack killed. As if you’re not the human who came here and thought she deserved it all. Taking everything from us without a thought. For all the help I gave you, you didn’t believe me! You told me it was all in my head, that I was crazy! But I was right, he was back, and now you’re dressed as him? How long until you start eating Palisman too?”

“What? H-Hunter, I would never!”

“Yeah, well, I never thought the person I trusted most, the one who called me family, would just not believe me, right up until it got my best friend killed. I guess people surprise us.”

Luz tried to step toward him, comfort him as he dropped to his knees and sobbed. But he cried out at the sight of her. “No, please! Leave me alone!”

She looked for somewhere to flee. Hunter wasn’t attacking her, but he was terrified, quickly entering a panic state. She stumbled away, breathing heavily, as her own panic took hold.

Not him! said Stringbean. I cannot feel my kin in him.

“W-what do you mean?”

My kin. The red bird. He is not there. All these people. They are all empty.

Luz wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe it so bad, but as confusing and dream-like as this world was, they sounded like her friends, had the memories of her friends, and what they were saying was true.

Except for the part with her mom. It was true, but not the full story. Camila was proud of her, she knew it. If no one else was, Camila stuck by her. And that memory Stringbean had shared was still there, lending her strength.

She wasn’t left with much more time to ponder. Amity, Willow, and Gus stepped forward, standing in front of Hunter protectively.

“I'm sorry,” said Amity. “But for the sake of everyone you hurt—" She pointed her staff at Luz.

“Please. No.” Luz wouldn’t fight her. She couldn’t. If Amity attacked Luz, then she would die. She closed her eyes and turned away; she didn’t want to see the hatred in her love’s eyes as she ended her life.

“I challenge you…”

Luz’s heart squeezed. Was Amity really going to use something so special to them both, special to their relationship, against her?

“...to a witch’s battle!”

Wait, what? Despite everything going on, the wrongness of the words registered. Luz was so familiar with the quote, she had finished it in her own head before Amity had even gotten the sentence out, and now Amity had messed it up?

Luz had to talk Amity down from hijacking her social media account when Amity happened to see an internet user state a media illiterate take on the Azura series. Amity could diagram every character’s convoluted family tree in Azura perfectly. Like Luz, she knew Witchtongue by heart, in all the dialects. It was one of the greatest joys in their relationship, the kind of joy only shared between two neurodivergent people bonding over a special interest. So to get one of the most iconic quotes of the whole series incorrect…

“Wait. Say that again.”

“I said, I challenge you to a witch's battle!”

Of all the things, Luz didn’t know why this stuck out to her. She had long realized that this world wasn’t making sense, it couldn’t be real, but she had thought, somehow, these might be her friends’ true feelings. But this couldn’t be Amity.

“A- a witch's battle?” She stepped toward Amity, and as she did Stringbean left her staff. See! Special purple witch is wrong.

Luz looked into Amity’s eyes, usually filled with fierce, stubborn light. But now, on closer inspection, they were…dead. This wasn’t her. It wasn’t her.

Luz cupped Amity’s face and squished it, half-expecting it to fall apart and reveal the illusion. She couldn’t resist reciting a little teasing routine she had made up with Amity. “Bap.”

She flicked her ears, and they bounced up and down like the spring of a doorstopper, though Amity’s face didn’t react at all. “Boop.”

Internally, Luz was shaking, but as each second passed, her confidence increased. “You look like Amity.” She gently lifted Amity’s arm. “You feel like Amity.”

She took Amity’s hand. Her hands were always cold, but this was unusually cold, a frigidity unknown to her before. “But you're not Amity, are you?”

She laughed, trying not to cry from relief. It was so obvious. Why had she accepted this was some kind of strange dreamscape, but not the possibility that her friends weren’t really themselves? “You're not her! None of you are you!”

“How dare you?” Willow snapped. “Of course we're us!"

“It's ‘I challenge you to a witch's duel,’ not ‘witch's battle.’ And the Amity I know would never misquote The Good Witch Azura.”

Stringbean transformed into her staff form, and Luz, despite her body still trembling, felt resolved. This was some kind of dreamscape, a nightmare designed to trap her in her worst memories and fears. It was a trope she was familiar with; how had she not guessed from the start? This was the Collector’s doing.

She took a confident stance in front of the cheap imitations of her closest friends. “So come on. Attack me. I know what’s going on now.”

They rushed forward, and Luz instinctively closed her eyes, prepared for the attack. But the footsteps stopped, and nothing touched her.

Luz’s eyes opened to see Ghost’s staff form inches from her face, pink strings wrapped around the cat’s neck. She stepped back, only to see the entire group bound by these strings.

Amity looked up and gasped. Something indefinable shifted in her eyes, the spark returned to them, they were no longer dead. “Luz?”

The love was back, Luz could hear it. She did what she had been dying to do since she first saw Amity here, and placed her hand gently upon her girlfriend’s cheek. “Amity, is that you? Is it really you?”

Amity was trembling, straining against the strings trying to pull her back. “Yes! Luz, everything I said, it-it was lies! We've all been collected, including Camila. The Collector came from the sky, and-”

Gus broke in. “He's playing games with you, Luz. He's trying to keep you away from King and Eda!”

“But if you want to save everyone, you have to wake up!” Willow said, as all three struggled to maintain their positions. There wasn’t much time; they were about to be taken away.

“How?” If the Collector had truly gotten them all, transformed them into puppets, then she was alone. How could she do this?

Hunter spoke now, his voice still achey and sad, but the gentle nature she knew had been in him all along had truly emerged now. “Think about it. What's the first thing you do when you wake up from a bad dream?”

Amity placed her shaking hand in Luz’s, and Luz resisted the urge to cling to her forever. There were only moments left, she had to relish this last bit of contact.

She looked down to see that Amity had given her a light glyph. The very first glyph Luz had ever learned, the glyph she used when she first started to break through Amity’s walls. She still remembered the pride she felt at its discovery. It was the first time she really felt she was good at something useful. The glyphs were something that came naturally to her, the patterns and imagery, the connection with the lands all made so much sense in her head. Not that she didn’t have to work, far from it, but when she studied and learned and invented, she could feel her brain light up, a language she truly knew. No one mocked her, she wasn’t stupid, or lazy, she was understood, and through these glyphs, she had reached so many others.

And while she loved all the glyphs she had discovered, but this, this was her glyph. 

Belos used glyphs too, but he had said himself how difficult they were to find, how he had to control and force them into submission, like he did to the very lands themselves. The glyphs and the land were one, after all. 

Luz, she had found them out of her passion, her way of seeing the world, and she had made them work. She had created something to be proud of. Now she knew what Stringbean meant, when they looked together at the stained glass painting. She was wearing Belos’s robes, but she wasn’t like Belos. Even at her worst mistakes, she never wanted to control and dominate. 

She still cringed at the knowledge that she had shared the glyphs with him. She couldn’t erase that awful mistake, she didn’t know if she could ever feel okay about it. Sometimes, she wished her friends really did hate her. But they didn’t. Like Stringbean, when they looked at her they didn’t see a villain. They loved her, and after all this, they trusted her.

She looked up at Amity and smiled, trying to blink back the tears that were already obscuring her vision. Her friends smiled back, all of them looking at her with so much trust. She held onto the moment as long as she could, before the group suddenly sagged, eyes deadening into lifeless puppets once more. They were dragged into the sky, disappearing without a trace, and she was alone.

She dropped to her knees. Of all the things that could have happened next, Stringbean nipped Luz on the ear again.

“Ow! Hey, what was that for?”

Told you it was wrong. Said so many times, you did not believe! Why?

“I’m sorry, Stringbean. I guess I just…I don’t know. I felt like I deserved what was happening. I was upset that they weren’t mad at me, I wanted them to yell at me, in a way. It’s something I’m working through. I should have known my friends wouldn’t treat me that way. You knew and you only met them like an hour ago.”

Heard much talk in egg. Come whispering to me.

“I know, I talked to you a lot. I’m glad you could hear.”

Not just you! Friends too!

“What?”

Yes! All friends say things to me! They make me promise.

“P-promise to what?”

Protect you! Keep sharp eye and make sure you are okay! Do not hurt yourself. Stringbean nuzzled Luz, and like before, the snakeshifter’s memories projected into Luz’s head, hazy, muffled sounds, but still easily comprehensible.

“You’re already so loved. Luz would do anything for you, make sure you protect her too. She’s so hard on herself, she needs a good friend like you. I’m so excited to see what a precious little baby you’ll look like.”

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m scared for Luz. She’s done so much for me, she changed my life. I’m too scared to say it out loud, but I…I love her. And now she’s distant, and I don’t know what’s going on, I can’t reach her. I’m scared she’s going to do something she can’t take back. When you do wake up…well, I know you’ll keep her safe, you’re her Palisman. But…please try to wake up soon. You won’t regret it, you couldn’t have asked to be a better witch’s Palisman.”

“Wow, I-I’ve never seen a Palisman like this. I didn’t even know it could be done this way! You’re, uh…pretty special. But I guess that makes sense. Luz, she doesn’t do things conventionally. Neither do I, actually. We’re both kind of weird for witches. I bet you hear everything that’s going on right now, and…well, it’s not great. But, Flap does such a good job taking care of me, I know you’ll do the same for Luz. She deserves a friend like I have.”

“Hey sweet little egg. I understand it’s taking you a while to hatch. You know, I actually took a while to come out of my shell, too. But Luz, she helped me gain confidence when no one else saw how powerful I was. And she…well, I think she needs someone like that, now. She’s pushing the rest of us away…maybe you can be that for her? I hope you can make her understand how important she is to all of us, even if we haven’t been as close these days. I hope we can be closer again.”

“Emmeline, that is not food! Sorry little guy. I know you’re doing your best, huh? We all are…take care of Luz, okay? We might not be the closest in the friend group, but she means a lot, you know? She has a lot of self doubt, and I know that feeling. I don’t like seeing her get so stuck in her own head, like I do…Also, with all this time you’re making us wait, you better be the most badass Palisman anyone’s ever seen. No pressure though.”

“I don’t know much about Palismen, I never really got the chance to learn much in the demon realm. But I know you’re really important to my sister. You’re probably scared of coming out, huh? It’s a crazy time, but…well, she’ll be there for you, just like she’s there for everyone. No matter what you look like. I wasn’t sure about her at first, and I felt awful for taking her place, but she and Camila welcomed me. We’re a family. I never thought I’d have something like that. Not just a mom, but a sister, too. You’ll be an amazing Palisman.”

As the memories ended, Luz looked into Stringbean’s happy, smiling face. “I…this is real?”

Yes! All said that for you! Stringbean wiggled excitedly, rattling as she did. Somehow, the snake never seemed to stay worried for long.

“I…wow, I…” She hiccupped. “That means a lot. I shouldn’t have pushed them away like that. It was so stupid, I-” She caught herself. “No, it’s okay. They believe in me.” She stood up, letting out a shuddery breath. “I’m going to make things better. As soon as I see them again.”

I did a good job protecting you like they asked!

“Yeah, Stringbean.” Luz wiped her eyes. “You did.”

Luz, at fourteen years old, had made a mistake. One made because of a man who was so twisted and evil, he sacrificed the lives and souls of others to fuel his own, clinging to that life with hatred and spite. A man who manipulated and tortured for hundreds of years.

Luz had thought she was above such manipulation. She wasn’t. But she had learned, and if this nightmare had taught her anything, it was how much she truly hated harming others. Luz was dressed as Belos, but she could never be him.

Looking at the light glyph, thinking of how she felt when she discovered it, the love and appreciation for the Isles, she knew not only did she want to stay, not only did others want her to, but she belonged here. This was her home, these people were her family, and as always, she was ready to fight with all of her power to save them.

She held up the glyph and took a deep breath. “Well, ready to deal with a celestial god?”

Stringbean attempted a salute with her tail. Ready, Good Witch!

Luz clapped her hands against the light glyph, and blinding white light filled the room. Moments later, her eyes opened, this time for real.

#the owl house #toh #luz noceda #the owl house luz #lumity #the owl house season 3 #watching and dreaming #toh fanfic #my fics

[flowerlikelives]

lyrics

the MOON

I drove up to the city at night where the hills were filled with void, lack, houses and you grew up there and your gooey melted self that you hold strongly somehow ricocheted off your parents’ absence and you narrowly escaped and felt stronger and hotly radiated revenge towards us all today and you were spending the night nervously dialing for your true friends and strongly I got your call and lovingly was reeled in. I invested it all for some reason and found myself excited to see the warming city night sky through the cars and painful glass and gas and the beautiful location and soiled sand bore fruit before rotting and cutting down and sickly replacing for the wrong reasons. I was wholly excited to greet this waste. Pointless things like trimmed trees and radio towers became towering symbols and I noticed you in the cold standing simply right next to me and then we walked around until it got late, a triumphant blow to the fleeting fires that usually pull us both to bed when they go out early on, disappointingly early, you told long stories about your long upbringing while we passed mansions and leaf-blown heaps, rot, bricks and garages, we could probably both feel the ghost of a lighthouse of a tree they could see from out in boats and across the bay where everyone used to climb the hill, where now 3 red metal towers dominate, to congress and figure out what’s gong wrong, back before all the things in the city were so devastatingly wrong, someone’s house dumbly replaced such an important spot, the house dumb and serving so few because of its quick rise. But alas, in spite of all this spirit-breaking waste I felt intact, sturdy even, a soaring self looking around and noticing the minor things that importantly hung on, meekly insisting that the world is actually mysterious and unconquerable, even the weird beauties we have a tainted hand in: the glowing orange nighttime cloud cover, the echoing cross walk alarm, the din of the street, tires rotting, our weak castle being slowly demolished, these things can bring me slowness, calm power and cutting eyes in the right moments, and I felt it then looking up at the orange lights lighting unfortunate streets and reflecting back up and resonating through the thick cloud coating in an orange city glow, the black behind eerily reminding us not to forget what else, and I turned my cutting eyes your way and saw pools of brown just as wide as my holes of brown bearing honestly what we held inside for a second we were both looking brave and sharply seeing in. I ended up just spending the night up there next to you in the same room where you grew up and the sleep was so thick that when we woke up, when the sun was up miraculously again, it was a miracle to me that we were still sweetly there in your parents’ house, lying in bed together feeling strong and open and the light came in the expensive windows to light our out-of-place thighs like raised arms and cocked head screaming in rejoice, the feeling was deep and strong. Tides turned. I went back to feel alone there, to wipe the place clean, to see the towering symbols for what they were, to confront painful clues to a wholesome loving past and neutralize myself in a way where maybe I could be human again.

Flashback: and we went all the way up to the small town where I’m from and you had family there and a big wholesome idea about what I was because of the wholesome sense that this place puts off, and admittedly it’s a wholesome place, foggy blankets hold rocky peaks and fishing nets usually are getting untangled in the yard. We were there separately as kids when it was safe from the poor judgement that’s ruining it now. The wind blows strongly and whipped us into a wintry frenzy feeling rugged and warm about the closeness we calmly shared and we avoided thinking of the problematic plan you set out with that would bloom and hurt later on. We went to the top of the mountain and looked off the edge at the other islands and the rolling clouds, the cascading mountains and the eerie heights. It was high to look down from and still feel safe, we held each others’ hand and sadly couldn’t all the way feel each other, though the smooth wrinkles in your palm were hot and shocking enough to generate a sense of clear in me. I finally felt like I was breathing free to be at such a height and look across the globe and hold a loving limb that gripped lovingly and firmly in the whipping wind. Was I imagining this sense that you were also there with me? Was I putting you in a role I’d already put out and just believing what I wanted? I got a glimpse that replaced my doubts with a thick breath of clean air, the fog below parted and revealed lakes and trails through the mossy woods where we spent that night outside under mountainous blankets looking up at the swaying trees in a way that told an old story to me, the lyrical swaying of long black limbs was full of character, the character was so dark and long lasting into the night it crept into our heads and held us under its spell, we dreamt the same dream, and ended up dreaming creepily similar every night, our minds were obviously dreaming towards the same cloudy “place” for a sweet reason and I held tight to that fact, the shallow proof that we were on the right path and looking back this becomes a gloomy shameful clawing grasp: we were lonely people lying out in the yard struggling to feel each other, sleeping soft, to feel softness so nearby is a slippery reward, we got it in our grasp and held tight all night in a way that put our limbs asleep. There was the distant repetition of the lighthouse tone all night, the wooshy clacking of the trees’ chilly blow and more cloudy glowing lights from the refinery’s green glow in the sky, the night was long and sort of weird how chilly and sturdy it felt the whole thick night through. Another miraculous awake dawning, roosters and tramping baby goats bleating and discussing the common night, for animals in the barn who wake up cold every day there’s no refreshing feeling like ours to get hot slowly while the creeping sun composted our mountains of padding, waking up in the yard felt the same with soupy muscles as the day before being tilted by wind and clinging to rocks in a barren place, the warm slow chesty feeling was the same, the calm assurance of having a friend who can see with you, you know? but the cutting truth was made clear: I have an island home, my place is to be ferried not bridged, the dramatic sadness poured out and I went back and felt alone in those places, I went up the mountain again alone and tried to not hold any false power in my old feelings up there, I let myself feel awful and blow away.

We went to the beach together, a detailed trip with larger vague warm feeling. It was cold and we only had the wool blanket from my bed, we used it as a shield from the sandy wind and the blinding light coming off the loud water, a tiny tent, a hidden birth, 2 bodies on the earth eating sand and lovingly rubbing it in all around and through our hair, taste, temperature, a fresh perspective of what seems really important, a triumphant statue in the face of a lonely world, we had a lofty feeling on the beach like pioneers while I pioneered the territory in your chest, the bloody frontier, my homestead was stocked with flesh and whispered stories, a bountiful stockpile for today’s long winter, my cured supplies have turned bitter, the warmth I hoped to reminisce about was a freezing illusion, there’s no storing away what’s so true and fleeting, the constant palette of lack is reliable, it’s slow and visible through a flimsy film of pride and poorly built false secure senses. It was intense. We were new, you were trying to stake your claim on me then and I swung my gate wide for your parade, gifts, jugglers, banners, fruitful hope and warm teamwork. You moved in upstairs from my room, you lowered down notes, you walked softly on my ceiling, your bath leaked on me. There on the beach in the wind we were 2 teams joining forces understandingly and streamlining to fierce wind, the roaring waves, the pounding surf, the foggy (something) that caught my eye stayed there and grew, my view got wide and I was a larger person, magnificently widened. Wide eyed under covers in a threatening place and feeling warmth from another’s breath. I got sharply cut in half and had to go back to the sea and wish I hadn’t opened my gates. I had to, in a way, renounce what I knew was true and the large ways that I’d grown I had to claim to not be, it was stupid. I went to the sandy expanse and felt sweeping regret, my woolly shield at home, and standing out there threatening to be blown down, to inflict a sobering blow on my cold head. I stared to sea in a violent way, a red gaze to the blue washy spray. I went back there to remember my small place and your insignificant role.

Continuously now every single night since I’ve been alive there’s been a white light from above, a sort of eerie bluish glow on the empty streets where we live. In the summer’s end we climbed out the window downtown and out onto the roof with more blankets again and stared knowing at it for what it was, a floating ball of rock lit up by another ball, an invisible ball of fire reflecting light and weird blue mooney thoughts ricocheted around our planet onto us on the roof staring silently up and feeling invincible, dangerous, and high, I had the exciting feeling of heft in my chest like I was carrying a baby, my baby looked exactly like me and looked me in the eye sharply knowing I was about to lose it but from up on the roof I looked out across the globe again with you: I felt the lava behind us coursing deeply and the other side, I felt the space above us and the other side of the moon and behind that, and off to the side I felt tiny lights off the glass, my sensitivity ran off, I could feel electricity through a wire from a mile away and I even felt the churning water turning turbines behind that and the fish upstream and smooth rocks beneath being slowly ground down by the polishing flow and the bubbling mountains glacially spilling stone, the smooth escape and reformation of pilgrims from one rotting body to another tiny growth to rot soon and expand. I felt a part of this all and I was content to have you feel it too, to have the blood in your hand holding mine be equally wet and warm, and I looked to my right and saw you riveted to the sky, riveted in an all encompassing way to feel it all, including me and my mountainous pride to your left, we were a pair of moist bodies again in the creepy bluish light. To be able to feel in an instant the size of your self and the distance to that elusive glowing ball and the long path it all takes to become what you’re a part of now: it’s like being transcendently dead for a second, to be able to breathe in and out and have that be a rapturous play, we were silently amazed and nobody said any words, we felt safe and we discovered that our skin is soft, we both are glowing in smooth flesh like blue mooney light and we found that out, you had your arm on my waist, I had my palm on your neck, air flowed in and slid out, cars drove by, the roaring sound of the planet’s spin, we were separately mighty and tiny universes and our main strength was being able to psychically discuss certain death, the only thing left. We were mighty. After getting terribly hurt by you I had to go back and cancel everything out that had any value, a helpful and depressing way of dealing with such a loss. I went out into the street by my house to try and look up at the moon blindly, to all of a sudden think it’s a white hole or some kind of stupid prop, to get in the car and drive pointlessly around, to try and forget that. I made the attempt to hang my mightiness up and to be painlessly dumb, peacefully numb, it seemed better to not have to know what’s really going on for some reason. I sacrificed my calm powerful way for a stupid attempt to avoid, I stood out in the street looking up and my eyes got wide. There’s no escape and the end’s not something I’d be able to wait out, I have to lucidly keep going along and feel the cut grow and get infected before it even maybe won’t heal, I looked up for a long time and my mouth got wide and chilly air filled my chest I saw the slow rustling in the bushes across the tracks and the orange lights up the street and the tunnelling feeling below them, my neck bent low as I surveyed my still dark home, I saw my feet firmly planted on the cement. They were tinted in blue and I looked past them through the crusty layers into the burning coil, I saw the smoke from my chimney and felt my stomach roar and in the blue light I held on to my lack.

[aestheticafrogoddess]

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What is a skylight?

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How to know when you need repairs

If your skylight is leaking, foggy, cracked, or damaged in any way, it needs to be repaired as soon as possible. A leaking skylight can cause serious damage to your home, and a cracked or damaged skylight can let in unwanted light and heat. If you're not sure whether your skylight needs repairs, it's always best to call a professional. A qualified roofing contractor or skylight specialist will be able to assess the damage and recommend the best course of action.

Different types of repairs

There are many different types of repairs that need to be done in order to keep a skylight in good condition. Some of the most common repairs include: -Replacing damaged or broken glass -Repairing leaks -Cleaning and maintaining the skylight -Adjusting or repairing the opening mechanism If you are having any problems with your skylight, it is important to have it repaired as soon as possible. Depending on the severity of the problem, some repairs may be more complicated than others. However, no matter what type of repair is needed, it is important to have it done by a professional in order to ensure that it is done properly and that your skylight will continue to function properly for years to come.

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#skylight #skyligth repair #skylight service

[honeyandbloodpoetry]

December 2022

I am rooted in an endless winter,

Where my leaves are brown

And the air is hot,

And nothing makes sense anymore.

.

I hold December in my arms and mourn.

December, you used to be my everything.

You were my hopes, my dreams, my joy.

Somewhere along the line,

Foggy breath became replaced with beads of sweat,

And I forgot the rhyme you speak to make a wish on a star.

.

One step.

At the shore of a great, dark ocean,

A million hands beckoning you to drown.

A song in a language you have never heard,

A melody that makes your blood start to ache.

There's a knocking on the window,

And you are suddenly in the living room,

Looking down at your phone

And seeing the inevitable.

.

Two steps.

A realization, the final tarnishing of a legacy,

Learning that you were born with broken glass in your blood.

What is a man to do

When he is born as paper in a sea of flame?

.

Three steps.

She asked you for help and now she's dead.

You never got to say goodbye, and you will see her in every corner and every shadow,

And you will live with the knowledge that you never learned why she hurt you,

The knowledge that despite it all, you loved her.

.

Four steps.

You cough blood up from your lungs,

The joints in your fingers swell and stiffen,

And the nerves in your back are set aflame.

You do not walk for nearly three weeks.

There is a part of you that is scared you will never walk again,

Or at least, that is what you will become.

.

Five steps.

You realize, at the end of the day,

It is you and your wife against a world

That would laugh if you died.

You are a joke and a freak,

And you will never be what you are.

.

Six steps.

You stand in front of the mirror, knife to your throat, then to your wrist,

Shaking as you try to come to terms with how much it would hurt.

You take a breath and put it down.

.

Seven steps.

You can't fall asleep,

You have work in the morning,

And you feel something undefinable, inconsolable, shifting behind your eyes.

Reality is shimmering,

A black oil spill shining rainbow,

Not as a promise, but a threat.

.

Eight steps.

Your brothers and sisters are being killed en masse,

All you want is for someone to do something,

To simply See what is happening,

And still you haven't seen your mother in over a year.

And when someone knows,

It is rare they look you in the eyes.

.

Nine steps.

You can't walk anymore.

You fall to the ground.

.

Endless winter,

One day hot, one day cold,

But I am melting all the same.

I fear I am on the cusp of shattering,

Because what is there left to do when you find the truth,

But that truth is fragile and butter-soft,

The world made of many knives?

.

I let December slip through my fingers,

And wonder if I will ever heal from this horrible month.

I wasn't ready.

.

I spit out the chicken heart,

Tears in my eyes,

Coming to terms with the fact that I am not as cruel as I thought.

.

Ten steps.

After all,

I got back up.

I at least have to try.

#indomitable human spirit #spilled thoughts #poetry #poem #spilled ink #lgbt #twcpoetry #writerscreed #transmasc #lgbtq #trauma #psychosis #actually psychotic #mental break #grief #mourning #childhood trauma #hope #keep going #transgender #trans #trans man #transitioning