#the bullet catch metaphor owns me

[weirdmageddon]

yesterday i wrote a scene where jade wasnt a plot device and was left the hell alone in A6A5 because this being dave and jade’s last proper conversation in years made me sad and i wanted to see them reunite properly. i mixed a bit of narration in too even though it was rare around this point in the comic but its just to paint a better picture. also i wouldnt mind feedback on character voice (it’s important to me that the dialogue sounds believable)

[3 years are over, everyone is in the new session. The prospit ship is on LOMAX, as is everyone who arrived on the meteor, safely warped by Jade onto LOMAX as well. Jade has banished B2 Jack to the Furthest Ring already. She hasn't seen her friends in 3 years, not to mention she never met the trolls in person yet.]

[Jade teleports to LOMAX where John was talking with the meteor crew. Her eyes widen when she sees the trolls, giving everyone a greeting. Jade waves to the trolls.]

You’ll have time to catch up with them later. First you want to reconvene with Rose and Dave.

> ==>

Dave... Oh my god! DAVE!!! That’s right! The last time you saw him, he died in your arms after Jack redirected the bullets from your gun into his body!

JADE: dave!!!! DAVE: hey DAVE: this has been three years coming hasnt it DAVE: cmere

> ==>

[Dave hugs Jade with a slight grin on face. He notices her… sniffing him?? but doesn’t even bother to question it.]

JADE: it is so nice to hold your body when its not a corpse :) DAVE: ok DAVE: weird thing to say DAVE: actually who am i kidding who gives a shit DAVE: i almost forgot how much i missed the enigmatic riddlefuckery that is your phrasing DAVE: fortunately i have context for this so i know what youre saying DAVE: humor me for a sec and imagine that i didnt DAVE: but first DAVE: are those dog ears JADE: yes! i am part dog now JADE: because i prototyped my dreamself with becsprite JADE: jadesprite became part of me! and so did her doggy traits from bec DAVE: got it DAVE: oh yeah john mentioned that on the back of his dumb poster inside that bucket that appeared out of thin air DAVE: right before we had to haul ass out of there before jack caught up to us DAVE: karkat had a complete fucking meltdown over that btw i wish you couldve seen it DAVE: damn it feels like so long ago now JADE: heheheh i remember JADE: john realized it at the last second but it was too late! DAVE: of course it was johns idea only he could do something that gooberish DAVE: you know what this means though JADE: yup!! woof woof DAVE: it means youve done it harley DAVE: youve finally done it god damn it DAVE: the evolution of humankind is finally upon us DAVE: the scientists said it would never happen in our lifetime DAVE: but look what we have here DAVE: before me stands mans first legitimate furry subspecies DAVE: homo canis DAVE: as the name implies theyre gay as fuck btw DAVE: its too bad all those scientists are dead and cant witness this phylogenetic breakthrough DAVE: rip to the science community yall wouldve lost your collective shit DAVE: hey jade lets pour one out for the science community for being real ones

> ==>

You are still nestled into Dave’s shoulder. He’s taken a sort of protective position over you. Your perceptive barkbeast ears can hear his formerly bullet-riddled heart beating a mile a minute with the regularity of quartz beneath his time-branded pajamas, all the while he continues to ramble to you about certifiably dumb shit. You can tell Dave is psyched to see you again, even if he expresses it in his OWN bizarre way, which means extended metaphors and topical tangents. What a hypocrite, calling YOUR phrasing perplexing! You sure missed this guy.

You realize you started tuning him out while thinking about all this.

DAVE: jade JADE: umm homo is the species name JADE: so wouldnt that mean were all gay? :p DAVE: yeah that sounds about right DAVE: anyway enough of this bullshit

> ==>

[Dave motions to retract his arms since he doesn’t want it to get too weird, but Jade squeezes tighter. Dave immediately yields to the movement]

DAVE: jesus wow ok DAVE: really happy to see you too DAVE: like if you had a tail it would be wagging so forcefully youd be knocking over all the fucking furnishings in the room DAVE: just slapping it so hard on the owners thigh that it feels like theyre being flogged DAVE: talk about getting bitch slapped JADE: :D DAVE: so howve you been JADE: really really excited to see you guys all again!!! JADE: and to meet the trolls! DAVE: yeah theyre pretty weird DAVE: and im still not used to it DAVE: but it gets more manageable the longer youre around them DAVE: by the way JADE: ?

> ==>

DAVE: sorry you had to go through that JADE: through what? DAVE: seeing me die and stuff again DAVE: except that time right in front of you JADE: .... DAVE: when we were gathering up all those frogs i knew jack was going to appear DAVE: i was waiting and waiting to play it out DAVE: mentally rehearsing my fucking torso getting turned into swiss cheese and knowing you would have to watch on top of it DAVE: i had to make sure it happened to protect the integrity of the alpha timeline DAVE: but if you knew this was going to happen you wouldve tried to prevent it and created a doomed one DAVE: and so i didnt say anything DAVE: i couldnt DAVE: so DAVE: sorry for putting you through that JADE: oh..... JADE: dave D: JADE: well im here JADE: if you ever want to talk about it DAVE: its cool DAVE: you just deserve to know what happened there DAVE: but thanks DAVE: so am i JADE: yeah i know JADE: i guess i should be glad you did that then... JADE: even though i was freaking out when it happened ._. JADE: otherwise you wouldnt be here will us now dressed in your red god tier time pajamas DAVE: yeah these magical rags really are comfortable arent they DAVE: and they stay like perma clean JADE: they are! i would wear mine over and over for days on end JADE: id take a nice shower and put it right back on JADE: and you know how much i love cycling my outfits through my wardrobifier JADE: by the way dave your cape is sooo cool! :o DAVE: thanks DAVE: yeah i love it its hella soft DAVE: its like ive got a portable snuggle blanket with me in case i ever need to drop to the floor like a tired sack of shit and get my snooze on DAVE: ive got a permanent personal reservation at club bed featuring dj pillow and mc blanky JADE: heheheh JADE: can i touch your cape? DAVE: of course go nuts JADE: yaaaay!!

#hs #homestuck #davejade #dave strider #jade harley #my hs dialogues

[warnersister]

“Your Lethal Hand” Michael Gray x Reader

Michael Gray x Reader, Thomas Shelby x Reader(platonic)

Extremely sad ending.

You looked up at Thomas Shelby from where you were sprawled on the ground. The man you’d once called a friend; a brother. Your cousin in law after your engagement and eventual conjoining in a holy matrimonial ceremony to his cousin Michael. The man that walked you down the aisle.

You couldn’t breathe. Your chest was constricted, trachea suffocating in shallow breaths as you drowned in the salty sadness of your own tears. The world around you was the way it was before you’d met Michael - a constant bleak midwinter. Cold and grey. Shallow and painful. He’d introduced you to a magnificent make-believe that romanticised every crack and crevice and every misfortune divot of imperfections in this world into something incredulously beautiful.

Michael had shown you how to live. He’d taught you to breathe after removing that metaphorical bag you had constricted around your own head in a suicidal fashion. He’d treated you like the princess your parents refused to humour as a child and would dress you up in lavishly expensive gowns and insist on doing your hair for you - to be paraded as his and only his. He’d encouraged you to run before you could crawl and goodness did you sprint. He’d taught you who you belonged to, who you were, your reason for living, he’d introduced you to yourself and for once in life you felt free.

“No one close to you makes a choice without your opinion, Tom.”

“You selfish bastard” you’d breathed out between desperate breaths.

“Not Arthur, not me, not Ada.”

“You satanic monster” your eyes were sore now from the chlorine-like waters that pooled in the overflowing viaducts of your eyelids.

“We can’t escape you!”

“I can’t live without him Thomas.” Your heard lunged out of your chest. “You killed my husband”

“Your lethal hand is always on our shoulders”

“He was my reason to live and you took him away from me for some stupid fucking Vendetta” you clawed at nothing.

“Give me the gun, Thomas.” You say and he calmly hands his pistol to you, now unarmed himself as he felt he owed you this much. You had done nothing wrong. You were mourning.

“Killing me isn’t the answer yn” you shook your head “you and I have been friends since you punched that lad for pulling my hair when I was befriending Finn” you say. “And when I met Michael and you introduced us. You weren’t like that then. Your eyes sparkled and you picked me up and spun me around when we announced our engagement.” The gun rattled in my shaky hands, hardly able to focus on the man before me through blurry vision.

“You walked me down the aisle, kissed my cheek, gave me away and cried. We got married in your house for goodness sake.” I shout, and he remained quiet. “It’s gone on long enough. John, Polly, Michael, Grace, the Italians; the Mafia, the Peaky Blinders.” I exhale calmly. “It’s all that ever mattered to you. Not your aunt. Not your brothers. Not your cousins. Not your wife. Nothing but business.” He looks down at his feet.

“Don’t you dare look away from me.” I seethe. “I understood, for our sake. It’s the family business for crying out loud. But Michael was the only thing I had in this world and my own brother from no blood took him away from me. I loved you Tommy.” I said, lip quivering. “Yn, I understand-”

“Bury me with Michael.” You say, turning the gun on yourself as the bullet accurately punctured the space between your eyes and you collapsed forwards, Thomas catching your lifeless body as you bled onto him. He screamed in pain, looking at the woman he called a sister as a tear ran down his cheek.

“I’ll bury you with him.” He slid down the wall, looking at the red brains dripping down the adjacent one. “A lovely plot near the tree we used to swing on.”

“I’m sorry yn.”

#masterlist #xreader #smut #fluff #warner sister #angst #x you #requests #michael gray x reader #michael gray peaky blinders #michael gray #michael #gray #michaelgray #Thomas Selby #Peaky blinders #isaiah jesus peaky blinders #John Shelby #Arthur Shelby #Ada Shelby #Finn Shelby #Bonnie gold #Thomas Shelby #Tommy Shelby #Shelby #Polly gray #imagine #headcannon #sad #sad imagine

[concretevampire]

An Indulgence

arthur morgan x f!reader ꔫ 1k ꔫ drabble/blurb about affection (or lack thereof) and whatnot

A/N: hi everyone, I'm back from the dead! sort of. it's an understatement to say that I've been busy. between exams, finals, and portfolio preparation, I can't seem to catch a break. I would have loved to have something more substantial to post but alas. hope y’all are well!

Hugs are not something that crosses his mind often. Nor remembers.

But it is no understatement to say that Arthur is touch starved beyond incomprehensible belief. For a long time, the closest thing he’d gotten to a hug in years (decades, he jokes sometimes) were the quick pats left on his back by the various men in the gang; festering marks of unbridled, masculine brotherhood, and nothing more. There’s an odd, silent code between all of them that touch– that love– cannot cross a certain line. 

And if it did, the world would simply collapse because hugs cannot formulate within the constraints of existence. It would break fundamental laws. If gravity no longer clawed at everyones boots and limbs, maybe then Arthur supposes he could share a hug with John. Or Dutch. Or Hosea. Maybe Charles. Sean too. 

When it comes to this, he often envies the affection that women give each other so freely, so often. 

He stares at the way Tilly braids Mary-Beth’s hair, how Abigail lets her fingers linger at the curve of your elbow, or the way you help Karen lay down and rest after a bit too much to drink— even if she’s slapping at your hands. 

He wants this. He yearns for this unbridled affection. Yet then he thinks about the other men in camp and realizes perhaps it’s best that they all keep their emotional distance. 

But Arthur likes hugs. He really does, and he’s not particularly frugal with them. 

The various women he’s saved along the road, each equally shaken and ruined, have wrapped their arms tightly around his chest, sobbing ‘thank you’s and ‘thank God’s into his shirt– and Arthur can never quite find it in himself to spare them of an arm around their shoulders, his hands rubbing soothingly along the space between their shoulder blades. He understands. 

He’s got a corruptive, self-hating need to be a hero. 

Not to forget his troublesome stint with Mary (which never seems to end), and the blink he shared with Eliza. Eliza and Isaac. It seems that beyond hugs, affection comes naturally in Arthur’s life, as rare as it is. This rarity has corroded and cauterized him, because whatever cottonball tidbits plug up his arteries, well, they might as well be non-existent. 

Time has tapped on his forehead diligently, and he’s become whatever sand-ridden, tumbleweed-pushing, gunslinging-outlaw history will immortalize him to be. To an extent, Arthur’s accepted that he’ll be nothing more. That this is his legacy. 

But then there are these moments where he’ll be in camp, standing in front of his small mirror, tilting his chin left and right. Do I need to shave? Maybe trim? And then he’ll feel it. 

Your arms, wrapping comfortably and gently around his middle. Loose enough for him to punch you away and put a bullet in your head if he really wanted to. When he doesn’t do this, you’ll press your cheek harshly to Arthur’s vertebrae, filling that metaphorical chip on his shoulder with the expanse of your lungs. One deep inhale in: mud, tobacco, sweat, sweetgrass, and pine. With your exhale he hears you silently say all sorts of things: I missed you. Did you miss me? How are you? Are you okay? You better be or I’ll kill you. 

It always makes him smile, gently and nearly silent under the thrum of crickets and frogs (you always make sure to embrace him when everyone else is half-asleep) and his hand drops lazily to splay over your own fingers, playing tug-o-war with his shirt. 

And with your deep warmth seeping into the sinew of his back, Arthur will then tangibly remember that he likes hugs; that affection is in fact a part of his day-to-day life. 

Even then, it’s not often that he can truly afford to wrap you up in his arms and press his cheek to your temple, murmuring abstract words quietly as he holds you to his chest. He doesn’t have the time and energy. Actually, it’s more capacity than anything else. He would kiss you if his lips were’t bruised and swollen from a brawl. Hold your hand if his fingers weren’t broken. Hug you if there weren’t a gunshot wound in his shoulder. Fuck you if he had gotten more than four hours of sleep in the past week. 

Arthur’s wealth in physical affection is generally meager. It is both his fault and the world’s. What can he say? He was dealt a poor hand, and like most men, he seldom knows how to play these cards right. 

But you’ve cheated the game. You peaked— perhaps to his discomfort— at his stack of ones and threes and inadvertently handed him your royal flush. Earlier on you probably would have played against him; but he’s blessed to find that you now share a weak real estate worth a pack of cigarettes. He knows this fact more than you. Of course, you’re not impervious to the result of your shared affection but you certainly aren’t aware of the extent to which it envelops him. 

How he adores you, wants to demolish you with gnashing teeth and teary eyes. And simultaneously, Arthur simply wants to wash the clothes you wear and clean the plates you eat from. 

It’s an uncomfortable dichotomy, one that encapsulates the push and pull of Arthur’s psyche that he can’t entirely wrap his own head around. You know about this struggle; he’s hoarsely whispered it to you after returning on week-long excursions on Dutch’s behalf. 

I killed someone, he’ll whisper. They didn’t deserve it. It’s likely they did, because he’s usually a good judge of character, but you have no real way to tell. He’s never quite shaken up per se, but he’s disappointed in himself, oddly enough. He’ll hold your hands tightly with both of his, thumb rubbing numbingingly to your strangely naked ring finger. Fervently, as if his confession will mutate him into the monster of the West’s legends. 

The only real thing you can do to soothe him is by forcing food down his throat and letting him sleep by your side. Let your nails scrape softly against his scalp and cultivate the fields of his dreams. 

So perhaps when things are harsh, harsher than usual, he finds it in himself to seek you out, rather than the other way around. And he’ll clasp one gently ruined palm around your forearm, and press your hearts together. 

#arthur morgan #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan fic #arthur morgan fanfiction #reader insert #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 fanfiction

[pommedepersephone]

I feel like I'm the only one in the Good Omens fandom who doesn't get the subtext behind the "aim for my mouth but shoot past my ear" quote. Do you have thoughts to share on what it means to you?

Ooooh do I. This is probably one of my favorite lines in all of Good Omens. And that is saying something because I'm one of those with an old dog-eared copy of the book AND the S1 script book, both full of underlines (don't tell Aziraphale, he'd be horrified). So, here is my unhinged passionate explanation of what that line means to me, and how I think it actually applies to multiple moments through S2, specifically moments where there is some kind of performance/deception taking place. I will try to keep this only marginally long, so I will break down the three moments I think are MOST important, and then sum it all up at the end. Ready? Here we go!

What the line means in 1941

"Aim for my mouth but shoot past my ear" clearly applies to the mechanisms of the bullet catch in S2E4, so let's start there. What does the bullet catch tell us about their relationship? First, they are always being watched. By humans (the audience) but also by their respective sides (in this case Hell). Second, they have to pretend they don’t know each other but still have ways to communicate throughout their charade. Third, they HAVE to trust one another. Like, a LOT because - Fourth, their relationship puts them both in danger.

In this context, the line is really interesting because the idea of aiming for the mouth and shooting past the ear can also be interpreted as speaking and acting in ways that either pacify or confuse those watching, but that clearly communicate to one another. There is SOMETHING about the fact that in the presence of the Nazis Crowley speaks very plainly but in a way only Aziraphale would REALLY understand - “If the bomb does land here, it would take a real miracle for my friend and I to survive it” - yet when they are being watched unaware the line that the Nazis manage to get is “banana, fish, gorilla, shoelace with dash of nutmeg” because never, not even alone, do they speak in a completely straightforward manner. This does not mean they do not communicate, it means they communicate in their own language.

What the line means in Job

But wait! There is MORE! Because 1941 isn’t the first time we’ve seen these two perform for an audience! "Aim for my mouth but shoot past my ear" also applies in Job. There is one big difference - at the start of the story, Crawley is performing alone. He is saying all the right demonic things - "I want to. I long to destroy the blameless children of blameless Job, just as I destroyed his blameless goats." And at first, Aziraphale is in the audience, unaware of the sleight of hand taking place in front of him. But Crawley offers to read him in by showing him… the crows. And Aziraphale ends up stepping into the roll of magician’s assistant as Crawley works to save Job’s kids, human and otherwise.

What I find interesting is the way you can think about mouths and ears here - Crawley lets him hear the crows bleat (shoot past my ear) which lets Aziraphale understand who Crawley really is. Then Crawley offers him the ox rib (aim for my mouth) which in some ways makes Aziraphale begin to actually examine who HE is. Both are necessary if they are going to eventually become An Us, and it really starts here, with Job.

What the line means in the Final Fifteen

By the time we get to present-day S2 “Aim for my mouth but shoot past my ear” has taken on such a deep meaning for these two man-shaped beings. Their communication is so rich and layered, where they speak in metaphors and puns and have rituals like the I Was Wrong dance. I mean, just look at this silly little act of love -

I. Simply. Cannot. These two! They deeply enjoy one another. BUT this very complicated language they have developed together only works when they are ON THE SAME PAGE.

What happens in the Final Fifteen? They stop speaking the same language. For the sake of this analysis, we are assuming that Aziraphale is feeling threatened, and is aware that Metatron has ill intent, okay? Okay. In that context… just like 1941, they are AGAIN being watched (this time by Heaven), pretending they don’t know certain things about each other, need to trust each other and their relationship has put them in danger. But here is the kicker - they have slipped back into their roles from the start of Job, except reversed. They don’t have the same information and awareness. Fell the Marvelous is desperately putting on the performance of his life, and Crowley doesn’t even know they are on stage. There was no time for a backroom conversation to discuss the finer points of the trick. In the end, Crowley decides “fuck shooting past your ear, you aren’t hearing me."

And in the MOST devastating way possible, these two aimed for the mouth and shot right past each other's ears. Ouch. OUCH.

*Clears throat, dries eyes* in summary, this little line of poetry does a heavy lift for S2. It applies to scenes where a performance/sleight of hand is taking place, but it reads differently in each one. Importantly, "Aim for my mouth but shoot past my ear" only works out when they are properly partnering not pretendy partnering. If there is information withheld, or they aren't in agreement (this applies to Edinburgh toooooo) things just implode. They have to have TRUST for this to work.

Just in case I seem even remotely normal at this point, here is the little poem I wrote after watching S2 the first time, as the brainrot started to take real hold:

aim for my mouth and shoot past my ear

tell me the lines but show me your eyes

so i learn how hearts can hide truth in lies

here beside you

aim for my mouth and shoot past my ear

i promise to burn you if you hold the match

you walk through fire but i'll turn to ash

a shade grey for you

aim for my mouth and shoot past my ear

show me the words i can't seem to hear

give me something to hold as i go through my fear

and here return to you

#aim for my mouth but shoot past my ear #good omens meta #ineffable idiots #good omens brainrot #its the poetry of it all that kills me #emily dickinson would approve

[itachi-with-a-chicken]

Today I'm here to traumatize you with something probably not so groundbreaking but!! It broke my mind!! So I'm gonna share

I've been thinking about the sentence "you said 'trust me'" and why it felt a bit strange. Like, sure, Crowley trusts Aziraphale. We know that, we know Aziraphale knows that, they say it explicitly for once, so what is the matter

Well, the matter is that Aziraphale asked Crowley to trust him, like it was Aziraphale shooting the shot, but in reality we know it was Crowley the one with the loaded gun

So what was Crowley trusting?

Well, Crowley was trusting Aziraphale, who in return was trusting Crowley with his - technically only corporal - life.

Now, aside for the entire ordeal of not being actually dead only discorporated and ecc ecc, let's speak symbolism

Because in my humble opinion, this is the closest thing we have to an admission of feelings from both of them.

On one side, we have Aziraphale - who is having a quite exciting night between the nazis, the show, the miracle not working, the hots for his knight in a shining armor - who is saying "I know for sure you will never hurt me, you'll find a way, everything will be fine"

If we ever gonna get Aziraphale admitting he's lost his faith, I believe he's gonna recall this moment. He's not praying God, he's on his own, and he's not afraid

(what was it? Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me)

On the other side, Crowley is just having a nightTM: saving their angel in distress (nice), him being grateful (NICE), contraband gone wrong (less nice), flirting with the angel (I don't know how else to call it)(niiice)

A normal tuesday.

Then, the miracle stopped working and they are on their own and they're pointing a loaded gun to their angel and oh boy things are going south fastly. The camera does a great amazing job in expressing how stressed Crowley feels with the trembling and the movement, just right on the spot. It starts trembling from the moment the gun is passed to Crowley, and its underlined when they cut to Furfur and it's perfectly stable, and stops only when the trick is done (amazing I love it)

Crowley is terrified, but Aziraphale said "Trust me" and he did. Only, it's not Aziraphale who is doing the risky part in theory, by shooting and aiming while never firing an arm before. But in practice? He totally is.

From facts, it's not news for us that they'd do anything to keep the other safe, but they can never acknowledge it, right? But here he is, entrusting his very own existence in Crowley capable hands and not only it's risky for a number of reasons, no, that's straight away nuts from any point of view. And it's even nutter (ehehehe like Agnes) when you realize he's doing the very same thing in the 67 by gifting him holy water.

I've always found odd that change of heart by Aziraphale. I couldn't only be because he found the entire heist thing silly, but it's not like they gave us more material to work with.

But in the light of what we saw in the 41 I feel a little bit more certain to say that Aziraphale is moving on the same feeling he moved in the bullet catch.

"I trust you to not hurt me, I trust you to not kill yourself because you know what it would mean to me"

Of course, they cannot speak of it. Of course, all they have is flirty banter and Crowley hyping Aziraphale up for his show. Of course, when Aziraphale gave them holy water, he nearly couldn't stop their feelings from coming to the surface and Aziraphale needed to be the one to put a break on it. They had one (1) public appearance and it took an earthly miracle to not get discovered.

All they had, for so much time, was those silent confessions and those candle light lit and glasses of wine shared. Someday, tho, they will dine at the Ritz (metaphorically, too). (And maybe have some go--sat--damn explicit conversation about their mutual feelings towards each other)

#good omens #good omens 2 #azirapahle #Crowley #aziracrow #azicrow #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #flashback #meta #more like #wanking and crying #sometimes I think #this is what happens #THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH #that's the tragedy of it #isn't love giving a loaded gun to someone and knowing they won't shoot at you #what is even love if it's not this #crowley #aziraphale

[everythingelseisextra]

Love Song (Tommy's POV)

Part Nineteen: No Harm

Part Eighteen out of Twenty-One (Or Twenty-Two, haven't decided yet) Author's Note: Sorry for how short this is, and sorry for not responding to any of your guy's comments on the last part. I did read them, but I've been pretty overwhelmed with work recently and it just felt like Too Much. Description: Tommy formulates a plan. Warnings: language, references to trafficking, and poetic rambling Word Count: 1559 (again, I'm so sorry.) Tag List: @theshelbyslimited  @ttaechi  @weaponizedvirtue  @majesticcmey  @optimisticsandwichgladiator  @zablife  @princesssterek  @mm0thie  @callsignvenus @ay0nha  @mgdixon  @fairytale07 @dreamy-caramel  @ce1iat  @algae-tm @dragonsondragons @trentknd @nothingofsimplicity @babayaga67 @shelbydelrey @globetrotter28 @look-at-the-soul @notalxx @chaengist @cookiez56-blog @skxawngs @h0neylemon

I thought nothing would bring me to my knees like that night. A sapphire on bloodied, pale skin. A gunshot ringing in my ears. Bones cracking beneath my brother’s hands. Glass shattering on the man with the gun. Her weight going dead in my arms. I turn women into martyrs. Does that say more about me or of them? Do we care too deeply for each other, or do we care too little about ourselves that a sacrifice comes easy? 

Once Arthur pulls the bullet from the muscle in my shoulder and once the blood is stemmed, I stand, stagger forward, and almost fall. He catches me with an arm around my back and mutters like a madman, words thick and full of anger. “Where did they take her, brother? Where did they take her?” 

He shakes me to break me out of the stupor I swim in. My gaze stays rapt on the door where I last saw her, where a group of hardened men walked her out. She went willingly and I sat and watched. I did nothing to protect her. 

“I don’t know, Arthur,” I say quietly. “I don’t know where.” 

He shakes me roughly again. “You giving up? You letting that woman get taken by the kind of men who think little girls are all grown up and ready for them? She’s not fucking dead, Tom, use that head of yours and go get her out of there.” 

There’s one person in this damned city who could tell me where to hunt. One person with the knowledge of quiet transportation, stealing someone from their fate, bringing them home or into hell. Whether he’ll give me the gift of his advice and help me take her back; that’s a gamble. That’s the game I have to play, and I know for a fact that he will play it, too, toy with me the way I toy with others. Smart as I am, that man. Smarter, even. 

I nod slowly and Arthur releases me. I pull a cigarette from its box in my pocket and light it, an excuse to take a deep, smoke-filled breath. An expectation lingers in Arthur’s watchful eyes. 

I turn to look at him, faint mirth twitching my lips. “You’re not going to like this.”

—

“Good morning, Mr. Solomons.” Seven hours since they took her. Seven hours since she was walked out of Arrow House and placed in a car and driven off somewhere where hell and earth merge. And I am wasting time with pleasantries, because Alfie has a propensity towards what he refers to as ‘tittle-tattle.’ 

“Yeah, it is.” He meanders from the window over to my desk, placing a hand on it, leaning his weight on the wood despite the cane in his other hand. “You’re lucky I was passing, weren’t you, because you still seem to believe that you are some god from some religion that has the power to summon up Jews of a particular standing.”

I nod vaguely, wait for him to continue, picking bits of information from his phrasing. Confusing man, he is, with a habit of mixing metaphors and twisting his own words. He takes patience, like a stallion who’s learned he’s bigger than the rest. 

“I’ve heard that you took in a girl, didn’t ya, who’s opened her legs to just about every man I’ve met from France! Now, that’s something, now isn’t it? You, a man of some standing, and a girl who used to go from place to place with a collar around her throat and someone begging her to use one of her holes. Now, I don’t know which one she used for you, but word is, she’s got you wound tight. You do know how many of them there are, don’t you? I could get you a man, I could, who would bring you any girl you like. White slaves, and all, you know the like.” He sits down on the chair beside me. Light shines in from the window across from us and plays in his bright eyes, serving to make them almost transparent. “Best thing to do, mate, is to forget about her and stop asking those questions and killing those men, right? You’ve been fucking around with the slavers, now haven’t you, you silly boy?”

I raise my eyebrows and stand, walking over to the windows to stare out at the grounds. “You’ve been keeping tabs.”

“Yeah, well, I was curious, now wasn’t I?” His mouth twitches, not into a smile, but sideways, thoughtful. 

The sentiment hovers between us. That I had stepped lower than my standing to be with a woman who hadn’t a clue about the life I live. He doesn’t realize who she is and how easily her world merges into mine. Basic understanding stays preserved through the horrors we both have witnessed. And now, for the first time, she needs me, instead of the other way around. She can’t protect herself against something as big as the organization she’s been taken by. 

“Then you should know, Alfie, that she can survive it.” I keep my back to him, one hand on the sill, the other in my pocket. 

“Just like you did when you came back from France and like your fucking family did when they put the nooses around their necks. Eh? Just like that, right?”

“Just like that, yes.” I turn to face him, walking forward to put both hands on my desk, looking down at him. “She will survive, and we will bring her home.” 

“Yeah, about that, there’s someth—”

“You will be properly compensated once the job is done, Alfie.” I look down at the desk, working my jaw. Reaching down, I slide a piece of paper towards him. “You’ll find the sum appropriate.”

He pulls his spectacles out of his suit jacket, his hand trembling slightly, and peers down through them at the paper. He looks back up at me, eyes bright. “I do, yeah, I do. Suppose you want a miracle worked, do you?”

“Something like that.” I step back, drawing myself up and taking a deep breath, eyes still on the paper. 

I pay for her life, for her freedom, in the same way men pay for her body and their own pleasure. It brings a boiling sensation to my stomach and my jaw tightens slightly.

“If you asked, I wouldn’t fuckin bring you a woman.” Alfie shakes his head. “Not from them, anyway.”

“I know.” I move around the desk and sit down next to him again. “While I waited for you to arrive, I formulated a plan.”

—

I don’t believe in God. 

I once talked to Him while I stood in my grave. I asked Him to give me a reason and He never could. He looked down on the End and he saw that it was Bad. He turned his back on me, and I turned mine on him. An eye for an eye, like the bible says. 

I believe in poets and I believe in lovers. I believe in soldiers and I believe in hatred. I believe in the innocent and the guilty and the men and women and in-between who fought for the right to their lives. I believe in Her. 

I know we are not soulmates because I can’t feel what She feels, not at all. We will love each other on purpose when this is all over. We will choose to fight for each other like we do now. We will stop sacrificing for the other and start building. 

I don’t believe in God. 

This life, this brief glimpse of heaven on Earth, this is all we fucking get. Not what we expected but what we have, and for Her, I would waste this one life on fighting. I would go back into that tunnel, that birth canal, and I would defuse and defuse and defuse and light and light and light until there were bombs under the men who keep Her and a pathway for Her to crawl through, back through my grave, my mother’s womb, and out into the world. 

I have always had a hatred for Cain. Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes. We are our family’s keeper. It is being human that bonds us together, and to kill kin is to kill yourself. I have tried to do both, accidentally, on purpose, the line blurs. I understand him, though, in a way. If I was not in God’s good graces, I would want to wander. I would want to roam. His punishment was wanderlust and still, there is more to see. Always more, more, more. No place to go but everywhere. 

I don’t believe in God. But I believe in Her. 

A defiant act of creation, both haunted and holy, chaotic mess of joy and fear and memories pounding between temples. She is the reason I get up in the morning, and She is the reason I can sleep at night. Like every beautiful thing, She is poisonous, and I know those who bite into Her flesh will feel Her wrath. 

There is an intimacy beyond sex or love to self-destruction, and I promise to Her that I will not give to it. I will give to Her and only Her. She saw the worst of me and hardly flinched. 

I don’t believe in God.

#only the wild ones #peaky blinders #tommy shelby #tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders x reader #tommy shelby imagine #thomas shelby x reader #tommy shelby fanfic #peaky blinder imagine #thomas shelby fanfic #thomas shelby angst #thomas shelby imagine #poetry #alfie solomons

[thesandsofelsweyr]

For the guessing game: blood, pet, and/or collar

(from Fanfiction WIP Guessing Game)

These three are excerpts from early drafts of fics in My Arkhamverse series 🙃

Pet:

The room is filled with sunlight. He’s still lying on a cold, hard floor. But it isn’t the filthy floorboards of his cell. There’s a pillow under his head and a blanket draped across him. As the fog of unconsciousness lifts, his mind starts to clear as he takes in his surroundings. He’s lying in front of a toilet. Remembers trying to eat some food, real food—how much it had hurt to chew with broken and missing teeth—and immediately puking then passing out. That’s when the fever took him. He doesn’t know how long he was out of it. Tries to sit up too fast. Head is spinning, throbbing, and he winces as a piercing ringing noise fills his ears, drowning out all other sounds. His hand immediately slides into his hair, over the scar where the bullet grazed his skull. He applies pressure, breathing shallow until the ringing and pain both subside. Terrible memories flood over him. He fights the instinct to crawl in a corner and hide, breathing deep, reminding himself that his tormentor is thousands of miles away, that he has finally escaped. But as always, thinking of escape brings back Joker’s terrifying warning of the consequences he’d face, the mutilation he’d suffer. Panic starts to creep in again, illogical panic fueled by the months he spent as a prisoner. Joker had beaten it into his head—physically and mentally, literally and metaphorically—that he was an object, not a human being. That Jason was his pet: his puppy, his “little bird”...

⚠️ cw: smut, mild dubcon (⚤)

Collar:

Aww, that’s adorable, little bird. You think she actually cares about you.  It’s not the Clown speaking. It’s his voice. It’s him.  A part of him. The part that crawled out of the pit, not the one who fell in. He sounds so much like the psycho who tortured him for over a year of his life. Who taught him everything there is to know about pain. Who taught him how to hate.  She’s using you. Oh God but it feels so fucking good.  Taking what she wants from you. She’ll leave you all alone. Broken. And you’ll just let her do it because you’re too weak to say no.  It was always easier to submit, to obey.  Look at her. She’s beautiful. And what are you? Just a miserable failure covered in scars. She knows it too. She knows you’ll follow her around like the pitiful little puppy you are.  The dog he trained me to be. He even gave me my own leather collar!  The memory makes him burn with rage. He digs his short, ragged fingernails into her flesh. Look at how little she is. How easy it would be to overpower her.  You could make her do whatever you want. She’ll be helpless to stop you. You remember what that feels like.  No one’s going to want me… Hurt her like she’ll hurt you—you know this will never last. Take what you want before she abandons you. Just like everyone else. 

Blood:

“Are you okay?” That voice again. Softer. Concerned.  The Clown is there, doubled over in a fit of raucous laughter. “Leave me alone!” He shouts, voice dripping with anger, hatred, pain. At the Clown. At her.  “Please, let me help you…” “GO AWAY!” He roars He still can’t breathe. Can’t catch his breath. Vise is still firmly locked around his skull. The invisible hand is still cranking it, tighter and tighter.  He runs a trembling hand through his wet hair, feeling for the scar, the bullet hole, feeling for but not finding fresh blood. He’s desperate to escape this misery.  The agony is weighing his body down so much he can’t even crawl. He’s dragging his body across the floor, pulling himself with his hand. Where? Somewhere, anywhere, to escape the pain.  “Oh, little bird, this is too much! Even I couldn’t couldn’t come up with comedy as good as this!” “Someone actually wanted you and you’re screaming at her to leave!” “A beautiful broad pops your cherry, and here you are, curled up on the floor, boo-hoo-ing like she hit you with my crowbar.”  “Comedy GOLD I tell ya!”

#sands replies #wip guessing game #my wips #my arkhamverse #smutty sands #jason todd #arkham knight #joker #arkhamverse #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd smut #arkham knight smut #jason todd x oc #arkham knight x oc #fic: misery and ecstasy #(blood and collar) #oc: camila alvarez

[hermanunworthy]

Hi, there, Siren, hope you're doing well! If you're still taking dndads ship requests, how about maybe 35 for Cheerkicks/Oakli (not entirely sure on the name here, but. Link and Normal. You get it), please? Feeling in a silly rarepair mood today hehe 💚💚💚

Bullet Holes and Acne Scars (and Other Wounds to Heal)

35. kissing their bruises and scars

from the touch prompts list!

I WAITED A MONTH TO START ON THIS HELP 😭 trust me though ive been so excited about this one, oakicks makes me ill /pos (and also im glad i waited bc i got to use the latest episode as context for this scene!)

cw: violence (including gun violence), blood and injury

also on ao3!

Normal never would’ve taken Lincoln as a fighter, at first.

Ever since they were young, Lincoln has been timid, uptight, the type to go rigid if you get too close to him. Or maybe that’s just in Normal’s case. They’re working on it, though. He thinks. He hopes.

He never would've thought that the sweet kid he used to see kicking rocks in the corner or a soccer ball on a field would one day be kicking FBI agents and military soldiers on the battlefield. With the force of a beast.

Normal thinks he understands, now, why Lincoln’s dads tried to shelter their son so much.

But he also thinks he understands, as he’s too distracted looking at Lincoln to succeed at the spell he’s currently casting, the way he feels. He may not understand what it’s like to be unconditionally loved by his parents (something that arouses a deeply-rooted feeling of envy in him towards his friend, but that’s another thing he’s working on), but he understands what it’s like to feel pressured by his parents. And he thinks, in their own loving way, Lincoln’s dads have pressured him too much. And this is his release. His rebellion. Like a caged animal set free.

And Normal does believe he deserves this. However. It also concerns him greatly.

Because the paladin is moving so quickly, so aggressively, and the cleric is barely able to even keep an eye on him but it sounds like he's breathing heavily and at one point he thinks he catches a glimmer of something in his eye. And it all keeps distracting him from helping out in the battle himself.

Normal just narrowly avoids another incoming attack. Focus, Normal, fucking focus! He shakes his head, his heart pounding irregularly in his chest, trying to pay attention to anything other than Lincoln, Lincoln, is Lincoln okay—

“Norm!” Scary’s voice calls from a ways away, blasting a fireball directly into a man’s face. “Taylor could use your help!”

“No, I—!” Taylor immediately snaps back from where he stands off, holding a soldier back with their weapons clashed. “Uh, I mean… Yeah! Normie! We need you!”

Normal leaps straight into action, fueled by his friends’ words and ready to defend them, but realizes while he’s charging his spell just what’s going on. Something burns within him, something that has settled deep within his veins and has been repeatedly threatening to burst through these days. Do you really need my help, or do you just want to feel better about being such a dick to me lately?

His spell fizzles out in failure again, and he clutches his head and growls to himself. Lincoln, get out of my damn head!

“Norm— Augh!” Scary, in her distraction, takes a blunt melee attack to the head, knocking her down.

Taylor swivels around with a slash to his opponent to face Scary’s assailant. “What the hell?!” He jabs his sword toward the FBI agent. “Normal! What’s with the weaksauce spells?”

The blood is roaring in Normal’s ears so loudly that he can't even hear himself stuttering. He dizzily looks between Scary on the ground, Taylor standing off against the agent, and Lincoln, off in the distance, surrounded by soldiers. He's paralyzed. His lungs feel compressed tightly in his chest, and not even the strong emotion shooting through his blood is enough to awaken any magic.

Scary, thank the metaphorical heavens and not the godawful place they all visited earlier, manages to make it back onto her feet, but not without great effort. “You're—” She coughs. “You're good, Norm, you're good.”

The squeezing feeling in Normal’s chest somehow worsens. Stop it, don't say that. Why am I even here? I'm no help at all!

He stumbles backwards, and his back bumps into somebody. Before he can turn around to face them, a pair of burly arms are slung around his neck. Already short of breath, the cleric is easy to choke out, and his hands fly up to scratch at their sleeves. Panicking, he looks to Taylor, the closest nearby person, and cries out, “Help!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Taylor drops what he’s doing and, like a true hero, blindly sprints over to slice the back of Normal’s attacker. The arms release him from the chokehold, and he falls to the ground, heaving for air.

But he isn't able to recover for long, because somebody is yanking him back up by his collar. He braces himself this time, but finds himself face-to-face with Taylor. His expression is twisted in anger, the way he looked at him the last time they argued.

“What the fuck was that, dude?! You can't even use a spell to help me, but you can use me to help you?” He shoves him, nearly toppling him back to the ground.

He… I used a Command on Taylor, didn't I? He didn't even realize. It was just instinct, of course he wouldn't just use his friend like that…

You only ever want to help yourself, a familiar voice scolds him in his head.

“Taylor, quit it, he’s already been…!” Scary is beginning to argue with him now, but Normal can't even pay attention to that anymore.

Lincoln is now fighting Agent Shmegan.

The man is trying to resist his attacks, shielding his body with his arms and trying to talk to him, but the paladin will not let up. “Kid, if you could just— You're making this harder than it needs to be, we just want—”

“I don't care what you want!” Lincoln roars, the first words Normal has heard him say during this entire fight. “I'm not going to listen to you anymore! I hate you adults! Fuck you!” He kicks him again, and again, and he's starting to lose his momentum with each swing but he refuses to give up. “Fuck you! Fuck you!”

Normal knows Lincoln has a history with this man, but he also can tell that this is not just about him and Taylor’s kidnapping.

“Li-Wilson— Please just get a hold of yourself and your friends—” Schmegan orders through grunts of pain. Normal knows Lincoln has been training hard to perfect his soccer kicks, so that can't feel good to take.

“Shut up! That’s Mr. Kicks to you!” The soccer player utilizes a swift kick to the crotch as emphasis.

While the FBI agent is finally doubled over in pain, unable to make any more demands, Lincoln’s body heaves with effort. He looks like he’s preparing another kick, but he’s cut short when a loud gunshot fires out, and he stumbles backwards.

“Link!” Normal shrieks, his body finally allowing him to move again, and he dives over to where his friend has fallen. As he gets close, it becomes apparent to him that Lincoln is crying, and he’s crying hard.

“Sir, let's get out of here.” Another agent, holding the gun used to shoot Lincoln, rushes over to Shmegan’s aid, helping him to lean on his shoulder and escort him back to their helicopter. “Freeman kept us from capturing the King, but we have him and his buddies as hostages for later. We need to retreat for now.”

Shmegan’s face contorts in pain and anger. “That better include Wilson. I have some words for that man about his son.”

The other agent chuckles wryly. “Oh, yes, sir. He’s been incapacitated since the fight began.” He looks down at where Lincoln sits, with no sense of remorse. “Seems we’re not the only ones disturbed by that kid’s violence.”

Normal is crouched by Lincoln’s side, trembling just as bad as he is. “Link, it’s Normal. Normal’s here.” God, that must be the least comforting thing he could hear right now. He must be the last person he wants to help him.

Normal’s hands are on Lincoln’s hands. Lincoln’s hands are on his knee. Lincoln’s blood is on his hands, on his knee, on his clothes, on the ground…

“Dad,” Lincoln sobs weakly. “Dad.”

All of Lincoln’s fight has left him. Now he’s just a scared, powerless little kid.

And so is Normal, now that he’s drained of magic. He can't cast any more spells. He used the last one to help himself. He can't heal his friend. And dear god, Lincoln’s still crying for his dad. But Grant has been captured. And so have the rest of their dads, it sounds.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck!

He presses down harder on the wound, but he can't tell if it’s even helping to stop the bleeding, or if it’s just him trying to squeeze Lincoln’s hands to help himself calm down. God fucking damn it, I'm so selfish, even as my friend is sitting here with an actual bullet wound… Can’t do shit for him…

He dares to look back up at Lincoln’s face, and finds it even worse to look at than all the blood. His eyes are scrunched up, leaking a river of tears down his face, his lips quivering with each shaking breath. It reminds him of when he got to see this boy as a baby, and how he promised him that it was going to be alright. He has to make this alright again, if it’s the last thing he does.

With one hand still pressing against his knee, Normal uses the other one to carefully lean forward and stroke his cheek again, wiping away some of his tears.

Lincoln opens his eyes, and when they meet Normal’s it’s clear that they are bloodshot and unfocused. “D-Dad…” he still whimpers. “Help…”

It hurts, knowing that he doesn't want Normal, but he tries to put himself in his shoes. What would I want from my dad, if I were him?

He knows Grant wouldn't know any healing spells. But he does know that he was very tender and affectionate with his son. He seems like he’s very gentle in how he cares for him, like he feels like his own dad has the potential to be.

He knows what he wanted his dad to do for him when he got hurt when he was younger. Grant seems like the type to care unconditionally, though. So, unlike his own dad, he ignores the disturbing and gross nature of this situation, and with all the love (and lack of magic) in his heart, he presses his lips lovingly against Lincoln’s knee as if it was simply the scraped knee of a child.

Lincoln gasps at the feeling, and Normal instantly regrets it, feeling like an utter idiot, He has an literal hole in his knee, I can't just kiss it better, this must be hurting him so bad—

“Normal,” Lincoln chokes at last. He grabs one of his friend’s hands and squeezes it with enough strength to break him. “Normal.”

The cleric lets out a squeak from the strong grip, but watches as a golden light begins to slowly, slowly glow from underneath the paladin’s other hand, which is still on his knee. He’s casting Lay on Hands on himself. Oh, Normal didn't even think about the fact that Lincoln hasn't been using any magic, so he probably could've…

But no, Lincoln wasn't able to help himself before, was he? It wasn't until Normal kissed him that that something in his eyes cleared, like a fog being lifted. Did Normal actually help? Or is he just being selfish, just taking credit for something that had nothing to do with—

“Thank you, Normal,” Lincoln breathes. The words he’s been wanting to hear all this time. Normal’s heart squeezes at the sound.

“Did you…” Normal’s own voice feels thick in his throat, and he realized just then that he has tears dripping down his face as well. “Did you even realize what you were doing? How hard you were fighting?”

More tears begin to roll down Lincoln’s cheeks. “It… There was no pain… At first… Only anger…”

He squeezes his friend’s hand back, but it’s not nearly as strong. Not as strong as Lincoln, never. “I was so worried, it felt like losing you…”

Lincoln’s face crumples again, and Normal can hardly bear to look at it. “Normal…”

His eyes wander over Lincoln’s body, realizing that there are other spots of blood not just from the gunshot. All sorts of cuts and bruises, all of which look very painful, but Lincoln hasn't acknowledged any of them. That “zone” that he seems to get into, that rush of adrenaline, that thrill of violence, must be a very, very dangerous place for him to be in. He never wants to lose his friend to that darkness again.

So he shows him the light. He leans in close to each wound, trailing the gentlest of kisses over the dark spots on his legs and the nasty gashes on his arms, never once shying away from the blood or the hair or the sweat or the filth because it's all normal to him, and even though he knows it's selfish to give Lincoln what he wants for himself, he wants to love Lincoln like he’s perfectly new.

“Normal,” is all Lincoln can say now, through his continued crying. “Normal, Normal…” The way he’s whimpering his name, like a prayer upon his lips, only fuels him further, the way it feels to have replenished magic surging through his veins.

It isn't until he gets tugged away by his hair that he realizes he should probably stop. But Lincoln's hand doesn’t move from the back of his head, and when he looks up at him, Lincoln just stares back, his pupils wide. “Normal,” he whispers again.

Lincoln’s gaze is roaming over his face, and especially over the blood drying on his mouth. Normal can taste it, he realizes self-consciously.

“How can you still be so nice to me?” His eyes shine with a horrible, heart-wrenching guilt, a guilt that Normal can feel himself as he fights the overwhelming need to kiss the one little cut that he missed, the one he’s been avoiding, because he knows it would be too selfish of him.

The one on his lip.

“I'm… so sorry.” Lincoln’s fingers loosen in his hair, but Normal still leans his head into his hand before he can decide to let go entirely. “For how I've… I've been so…”

“It's okay, Link,” Normal murmurs, even though he doesn't know if it's true. It’s just hard to focus on the long-term pain this boy has caused him when said boy is caressing the back of his neck so delicately that it makes him melt.

“No. You're my friend. You're my husband.” The certainty with which he says it brings Normal a shiver. “I need to make it up to you.”

This time, Lincoln is the one leaning forward. Normal freezes up, his face flushing red as his husband’s lips land on his cheek.

But Normal doesn't understand. He doesn't need healing, he doesn't have any scars. Not on the outside, anyway.

Is he… kissing my tears away?

Another kiss. And another. Each touch of his lips to his face leaves him with a feeling of warmth and light. Lincoln even reaches with his bloody hands to brush the sweaty hair sticking to Normal’s skin out of the way, and begins to leave kisses on his forehead as well.

Oh. He’s kissing his acne scars.

More tears run down where Lincoln has kissed. Nobody has ever… He's always been told that he's gross, that his acne is a problem, something to be ashamed of. He has spent countless hours staring at himself in the mirror, popping pimples and picking at scabs (despite his sister’s warnings), wondering why he has to look like this and if anyone could ever love him like this. His parents would never do something like this for him.

But Lincoln is. Lincoln, the one he’s been trying to win over for years. Lincoln, the kid he always wanted to play with but wasn't allowed to. Lincoln, the friend who always seemed to shut him down no matter how hard he tried to love him. That same guy is here, sitting on the ground in literal Hell, a bullet in his knee and blood on his clothes, his fingers curling in his greasy hair and his lips kissing his pockmarked face.

“I'm sorry,” Lincoln whispers tearfully against his skin. “Thank you for… for being my friend. For being you.”

As he pulls back, Normal pushes forward, resting his forehead against Lincoln’s. “I love you,” he sighs, selfishly but honestly. He hopes it brings Lincoln as much catharsis as it does him.

Lincoln glances up from where his eyes sat downcast at the blood on the ground, to stare into his husband’s eyes. His hand on Normal’s neck drifts to his jaw. Eyes still glittering sadly, he offers a smile, but the stretching of his lips opens his cut and makes him wince away in pain.

Normal reaches forward with a careful hand, and catches Lincoln’s chin. He really hopes this isn't going too far, too fast, too bold, like he always seems to be going without realizing it. “Let me…?” He can't even finish the question, can't bear another rejection.

But Lincoln beats him to it, kisses him first, kisses him better. Cradles him with such love and care that you’d think he’s the one being nursed back to health.

And it is undoubtedly healing. Something Normal has needed for a long time. Something that tastes like blood and grime and filth, something that tastes so normal and familiar that it feels like coming home. Feels like being blessed by an angel visiting Hell.

After all, Normal always thought Lincoln was more of a lover than a fighter.

#oakicks #cheerkicks #normal oak #lincoln li wilson #dndads #dndads fanfic #dndads fic #my fic #touch prompts

[vampi-fixx]

akira fudo + love languages.

five love languages, five instances where akira shows you the depths of his affection.

a/n: love how these were supposed to be short and they ended up long. i may have made akira the most extra af bf in the world

tw: some of these are nsfw

i.  ACTS OF SERVICE

You joke that Akira would probably take a bullet for you, and he responds quite seriously.

“Yeah, I would. If it meant saving you, I’d do it. I'd do anything really.”

He’s kneeled before you, from where he dropped down to fix your loose shoelaces, when he makes the declaration. But after catching your surprised expression, he stands to his full height, flashing you a small smile.

"Sorry. That weird to admit?" he asks, rubbing the back of his neck.

“It's—no it’s not. It’s just so like you to say something like that,” you groan.

He blinks several times. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, genuinely curious.

“It means,” you start, pressing a hand to his chest. You smile at the way his heartbeat stutters under your touch. “I have to avoid putting myself in danger otherwise you’ll throw yourself in front of me like the reckless doofus you are.”

“You know,” Akira says, edging closer to you, pressing your palm into his chest, where you can feel his heart thundering now. His other hand cups your chin, tilting your face up to meet his wry, toothy grin. “Some would call that romantic. Risking it all for the person they love.”

“Fudo, you are not risking your life for me,” you say, exasperated, jerking yourself out of his grasp.

“But babe, I’m a devilman! I’d probably survive a bullet!”

In a way, you can’t blame Akira. You suppose that’s the way he knows how to love: putting himself on the line for others. He did it for Ryo, he did it for Miki, and he would do it for you in a heartbeat.

It’s not just the big things either. From saving you from demons to creeps ogling you on the subway; from whipping up curry for dinner when you're too tired to cook, to offering to rub your shoulders when you're stressed and achy.

While Akira doesn’t neglect to tell you he loves you, his actions practically scream it.

“Just have some kind of sense of self-preservation, alright?” You sigh. “I wouldn’t want to be widowed at such a young age.”

He frowns. “It’s not like I’d leave you on your own—W-wait.” His eyes widen. “Did you just say widow? But we’re not even—”

You turn away swiftly, hoping to hide your own surprise at your declaration. “Ah... forget I said that,” you say, walking away.

“Hey, wait—we’re not done talking here! You can’t just leave!” He runs after you, grabbing your wrist. You glance back, surprised; you nearly forgot how fast his demonic abilities made him.

He calls your name, sickly sweet. “Mind repeating what you said back there, babe?”

“Just ah, throwing that out there, Akira.” You laugh nervously, hoping your voice doesn’t sound as high-pitched to him as it does to your own ear. “You know… metaphors. We’re not actually—I mean, we’ve only been together for what? A year so…”

You hope against all odds that he can’t feel your pulse thundering from his grip, but the way he smirks devilishly has you convinced he can anyways.

“Well now you’ve got ideas in my head,” he says smoothly, pinning you against the closest tree. “And I wouldn’t want to disappoint your expectations.”

ii. PHYSICAL TOUCH

tw: light nsfw at end

Akira's parents were hardly around when he was a kid, busy as they were traveling to different countries to offer their aid. He would never complain about it, knowing that as traveling doctors, they were serving the greater good—but still he yearned for the little things he missed out on: a pat on the head for a job well done, a hug whenever he hurt himself and needed comfort.

It makes sense then, that now that he’s in a relationship, he's almost always missing your touch.

"You’re up way too early,” he grumbles, shuffling into the kitchen. He makes for a hilarious sight, his hair in disarray, black tufts sticking out in every direction. His lean form is swathed in a throw blanket he’d grabbed from your bed, one you distinctly remembered bunching up next to him so he wouldn’t notice you left that morning. Opening his arms wide, he envelops you in a hug from behind. You giggle as your spatula flips the eggs on the pan.

“I was hungry.”

He hums, slotting his chin onto your shoulder, wrapping his arms around your waist, watching you cook. He doesn't let go even as you attempt to wiggle out of his grasp, reaching for the cupboard.

“Got it,” he says, tightening his grip around you, and—with enviable ease—uses his much longer limbs to open the cupboard and grab a plate. He can’t resist letting out a short laugh when he hears you grumble.

“I could’ve gotten it if someone let me,” you say, sticking your tongue out at him. “But thank you.”

As you serve breakfast onto both of your plates, you make your way to the dining table before Akira coughs meaningfully behind you.

“What?”

He sets your plates down and sits himself, before gesturing onto his lap.

Your jaw drops. “Akira, really?”

“Your seat’s taken,” he points out, gesturing at the other seat, where Taro’s settled himself into. Your attempt to lift him off the seat ends with him hissing at you. You glare at the black cat, and he simply meows back at you.

“Fine. No funny business though, okay?” you tell him, before sitting down on his lap. Akira engulfs you in his blanket fort, wrapping his arms back around you.

“Promise I won’t.”

You’re convinced him and Miki’s cat are conspiring against you. You definitely see him wink at the cat when he thinks you’re not looking.

Akira seems happy however, rubbing your side as he chows down on breakfast. You blink; come to think of it, you’ve never seen him quite this clingy.

“Everything good?” you ask him suddenly.

He sends you a wide-eyed look, a piece of egg hanging comically from his mouth. He swallows. “Yeah? Why?”

“Nothing, you’re just… well, you’re pretty touchy this morning,” you note.

His grip tightens around you. “I was just thinking how lucky I am to have someone to hold. That’s all.”

Heat creeps to your cheeks at the sheer honesty in his words, before turning your attention back to your own plate.

It’s not that you don’t want to be touchy, but… well to be honest, Akira’s thighs are lean and muscled—definitely not the most comfortable seat. You shift this way and that, feeling your boyfriend still behind you, before squirming.

“Hey, uh…” He grips your waist meaningfully, and you still. “I know you said no funny business, but keep that up, and these aren’t the only eggs getting scrambled.”

Your jaw drops. “Akira.”

He shrugs unapologetically. “You know what you do to me.”

iii.  QUALITY TIME

“Wanna go for a ride on my bike?”

“I saw this new romcom on Netflix. Wanna watch with me?”

“Hey, what was that video you wanted me to watch with you?”

...

Akira huffs, slouching onto the couch next to you. When you glance up from your phone, he takes the opportunity to pounce, planting his head onto your lap.

“Can I help you?” you ask, raising a brow.

He stares at you pointedly with his sharp rimmed gaze, and you get the sense that he is none too pleased about you shooting down his attempts to grab your attention.

“Nah, I’m fine. Just settling in,” he says casually, before whipping out his own phone. Two could play at this game. He adjusts himself, propping his legs onto the arm of the couch, burrowing into your lap. Catching your eye and sends you a smirk.

“What’s wrong?” he says, smug and borderline mocking. “Thought you were busy. Just trying to entertain myself here.”

You snort, attention returning back to your phone as well.

He nudges your hand with his head a few times, and you get the message, and your fingers curl into his unruly locks. He hums.

You can’t resist glancing over a few times. You know Akira hates spending time on his phone; he says it makes him restless. Has the old man finally figured out what Tiktok is? You lean over to see what he’s watching. His front camera is on, and it flashes, taking a picture of the both of you.

“Seriously?”

He glances up. “I’m documenting my favorite program here.”

You groan, grabbing a pillow nearby and throwing it at him. He catches it with ease.

“Delete that,” you whine. “I look awful.”

“How else am I supposed to remember this exciting time we spent together?”

“Couldn’t you be normal and just—just go on social media or something?”

He blinks at you innocently—or as innocent as his perpetually devious face could manage. “Why don’t you show me what that is?”

Akira certainly has ways of demanding your attention.

iv.  WORDS OF AFFIRMATION

tw: nsfw

“I love you,” Akira groans, trailing sloppy kisses down your neck.

“You feel so good,” he mutters, his hips rocking against yours, his hands pinning yours to the bedframe. He’s frenzied, his hands roaming the soft give of you, wanting to feel every part of you.

“Wanna—wanna make you mine,” he grunts, sealing his fate with a kiss, stilling as he spills his warmth inside you. You’re locked together, your legs tangled for what seems an eternity.

Akira finally reclines back, and you shift with him.

These nights always seem infinite. When Akira murmurs sweet nothings and your body latches onto them, the heat of his promises diffusing into your skin until the morning comes.

“I wanna get stronger for you,” he tells you, gripping your hand in his. “I need to.”’

“You’re already strong.” You squeeze his hand in yours, and his lips twitch upwards.

He props himself up on his elbow, staring at you intently. Then he’s caging your body into the bed, pressing his forehead into your shoulder, the warmth of his breath coming in a rush against your skin.

“Not strong enough to handle the thought of losing you.”

v.  GIFTS

tw: also gets lightly nsfw

Akira’s tried and true method is flowers. Whenever you’re mad at him, or whenever you’ve had a bad day at work, he’ll show up with a bouquet, just for you. Maybe it’s something he picked up from watching too many cliché romance movies, or maybe it’s a method he learned from watching Miki’s parents’ disputes.

He clicks his tongue, setting down his phone. He’s not sure how every single flower shop in the area is closed, but they’re not an option at the moment. He peers at the neighbor’s house, at the array of flowers blooming across her lawn. Maybe he could ask nicely…

When you get home earlier than usual, you’re surprised to see a box of chocolates on the counter, along with a note.

Sorry for being an idiot.

You snort, popping the lid open and a chocolate into your mouth, humming as the sweet taste spreads across your tongue. The door opens and shuts behind you, along with a rushed exclamation.

“Y-you’re back early.”

Akira’s covered in dirt, a bundle of flowers clenched in his hands.

“This is—this is for you,” he says, holding out the flowers to you. “Shit, I don’t have a vase or anything…”

“What happened to you?” you ask, biting back your mirth.

“The old woman across the street said I could take these if I helped her with gardening, but it took way longer than I thought. And then she kept trying to invite me in, or or ask if I wanted to get dinner with her, but...”

You laugh, plucking the flowers from him. “I think we have a vase somewhere.”

“Wait,” he says, gripping your wrist. “Are you still—are we—” You raise a brow. “I’m sorry!”

“I’m not mad, you know that, right?”

He stares at you, baffled. “But you wouldn’t even talk to me this morning.”

“I was running late. In a rush. Besides…” You step closer to him, rubbing at a splotch of dirt on his cheek. “Seeing how far you went for these? How could I stay mad?”

He entwines his arms around you, resting his chin on your head. “I’m glad.” He sniffles. The two of you stay like that for several beats, until you tug at his shirt.

“We need to get you out of this.”

He looks down at you, raising a brow. “Because it’s filthy,” you clarify.

“Why?” He smirks. “Don’t want me to rub off on you?” he asks, nudging his hips against yours.

“Looks like I already did,” he notes, eyeing your stained white shirt. “Why don’t we both clean up in the shower?” He waggles his brow.

As expected, the two of you end up getting down and even dirtier in the shower.

#akira fudo x reader #devilman crybaby x reader #akira fudo imagine #dmcb imagine #drabble; #tati writes #dmcb thots;

[benzedrine-calmstheitch]

there’s lot of good meta about the bullet catch (aim for my mouth, shoot past my ear) being the metaphor for Aziraphale and Crowley’s conflict, and it’s great! but can we talk for a minute about how intimate and sexual it is, just in its own context? it’s “i put my life in your hands and I trust you to protect it.” it’s “I know you’ve never done this, but I believe in you, I know you can give me what I need right now.” and it’s “I know I can hurt you with this, but you believe in me enough for me to believe in myself, and because of that I won’t.” it’s soooo much. it’s “run me through” all over again

#good omens s2 #with a soupcon of ofmd

[pysoch]

More medic projection writing I am a raging inferno and winter is my fuel

~========~

I am unhappy.

There is a calendar above my door with a small red 'x', still reeking of alcoholic scent and prone to smearing. It lays drying along the number reading twelve. Above it is an ordeal of characters illustrated in a ridiculous situation with the year, 1958, off by five years. I know this because it is not Thursday as that twelve reads. Alas, I made do with the poor supplies I was given. It serves as a good distraction above my tattered cot that ought to have been replaced many seasons ago. In fact, it's the only thing I can keep my eyes on at this time of night.

I hear others through the thin wood walls throwing around a light atmosphere with one another. I'm well aware it is self sabotage to not lift myself up and throw myself in the midst of them and instead sit in a dark, dirty closet only able to fit myself if I scrunch up my knees just enough to where it's uncomfortable. Through the thin and cobweb-lined window I can see the outside brings fresh snow that will cover each bullet fired today and melt in spring to unearth them. Nature had a cycle like I do, which was a comforting tune to fade into. Both of us hide the ugly of our fall under layers of white. Fortunately, I'm not as easy to melt. It took very few times before I had taught himself comrades were temporary and family was burden. The one time I had gotten myself wrapped up in such things as relationships on this team ended in a horrific disaster of my mentality switching between euphoric pages and flipping to chapters of social dysphoria with internal loneliness. No matter how much I threw himself at opportunities to break down this little cage I fashioned myself in, there was no interception. I had given up once and for all.

Even doves brought no companionship anymore. A dear, tender place in my heart is reserved for those gorgeous breathing treasures. Yet they cannot talk to me. They cannot comfort me. I cannot feel a loving wing wrap around my back and tell me I am loved. What a twisted little thing that is. I've imagined that exact scenario more than there are veins in my wrist and yet it disgusts me like no poison can. Even now, my nose scrunches in disdain at such a foolish thought as affection. I'd be a liar if I were not to mention how this was tailored, too. It's a vicious turn of desiring such companionship and touch then being a snarling savage at the first cautious reach of a hand.

Yes, an animal describes it quite well. I must not bring myself to that metaphor again. Each hint of wild thought such as freeing myself of mankind and running through earth under my bare skin is almost an escape in itself. I always drift to being like a wolf, ears pinned and eyes narrowed while my tail makes waves in the wind and my paws scratch the ground with callused flesh. Near the end of my travels a crack splits the sky and fires through my skull until I'm a panting, miserable beast on this cold and unforgiving soil as the men who struck the clouds come to catch their prize. What joy it is to be praised like that! A worthy creature for taxidermy, or surely study! Yet when they sling me over their shoulders and throw me in a pit of rotting foxes, I know that it was only a dream. Such a fantasy is better kept deep within me, yes, yes. So is that far buried desire for death.

It all wraps back to what I crave like a starving man. Importance. I could have medallion after medallion tacked on my wall with silver nails and I'd still long to be strung up instead. Not a pleasant thing to most but to me, oh, what a blissful thought. Autopsies are envied by my cold eyes and unable to be executed by my hands. I become lost in the idea of our roles being turned and my own corpse having fingers pressed into it at every angle, admiring that I used to be a beating soul who strained each function of my weary vessel until they all collapsed. My body could be severed into pieces unidentifiable by man, yet if one person were to pick up the piece and let a flash of a memory dart their mind, I'd find my death a significant victory.

Death is as fleeting as life and just as permanent. That's what is brought to me when I hear a thud against the wall and feel a faint vibration in my head followed by the freshly post-pubescent voice laughing beyond reach. My paws stop running along those leaves, and they pause to hear that crack. None occur. Only the drift of that calendar page flitting up and down is heard, and the twelve now solidified in ink. My ears are still perked for the fire to reign through my skull, but the more I sit and wait, the less likely are the gamesmen to see me or raise their instruments against my flesh. I turn around and trudge quietly through the path where I came. Perhaps tonight death is not my savior, but my study. That bullet doesn't quite have the lead loaded deep in the chamber. I am alive.

And I am unhappy.

~=======~

(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)ﾉ⁠*⁠.⁠✧

#team fortress 2 #team fortress two #teamfortress #tf2 #tf2 medic #writing

[penmangids]

What does it take to love someone?

You’ll probably answer communication, trust, and commitment. But for the sake of conflict and debate, we can actually construct a different answer. Such as love can look like giving someone a gun to shoot you right in the head. Or something like, love is pushing your own chest to the edge of the knife. The long list of metaphors goes on. But realizing it, I have to admit, that sometimes, to love someone, takes a good amount of hurt.

We can’t outsmart the world. And that's the worst thing we can do as if we're trying to catch a stray bullet in the middle of a shootout - it's reckless, and stupid. There are days that the world will hurt the most precious thing we're taking care of and our hands are tied from aiding that pain. Days when we can’t do nothing about the trauma, heartache, and suffering it brought. And no matter how hard we try to fix something we didn’t break; it will never help out. It’s not that the act itself isn't heroic, but to try so hard being the hero from their pain is useless.

But as this happens, we’ll also come to realize that a good amount of hurt is also a path to find love. We just have to allow that hurt to hurt them. I understand the cost of choosing what we believed was right then, to be the difference. But sometimes, deciding to take a step back and just letting them is the only difference that'll matter at the time. That not taking the mile is the extra mile. There are moments that they have to navigate on their feelings, by themselves. That they need to run that mile, on their own.

So let me repeat, allow that hurt to hurt them; so much so it's hurting us to allow them. That sometimes, is how it takes to love someone. And in that way, true healing takes place. They'd have the courage to piece the things back together. To restore their heart after getting through something hard; and eventually learn to forgive themselves and be brave to pursue the love they truly deserve.

And when this happens, all we can ever do is just be around. To be there, when they come. Because nothing feels better when home feels like home, again.

P.S. If you happen to read this, know that I love you how Stephen Strange loves Christine Palmer…

In every universe.

#relationship #connection #healing #love

[pokedelivery-girl]

cassette!

//

memory: Alias

Callisto's room, Somewhere in Unova, 20XX

"You have (1) unread message(s) in your inbox."

Without so much as batting an eye, Callisto clicked on it. It took a few seconds for the page to load - broadband internet's just like that, of course. She's heard on the TV that internet speeds will only get faster someday, and she couldn't wait for it to happen.

"Uuuughhh..." Callisto groaned, with Aurora - still a Kirlia, playing with some crayons, taking a quick glance.

"Krii?"

"It's nothing, just... complaining."

"Li-lia."

Load, the page eventually did. And visible upon the screen... a rather unusual PM, signed xX_LuNaTiC_Qu33n_Xx. Callisto's heart skipped a beat for a second - that's one of the forum admins! Ack- she KNEW she shouldn't have posted that fic- but, no way to proceed other than biting the metaphorical bullet...

"SALUTATIONS!!! seeing as how thou art an active member of our community i would like 2 invite thee 2 The Royal Parley! srry that we didn't sendeth thou an invite earlier bt we were kinda reconfiguring the chat. our royal engineer hath fixed it so we should be good ^^ BUT EITHER WAY! rejoice, w1nged_freeshooter, as thou shalt finally be able to PARLEY WITH US! AND OTHER FORUM MEMBERS! THANKS TO THE WONDERS OF HIGH SPEED INTERNET!!!!!!!!

link here btw <3 hope 2 see u soon! pw is LVN4T!KR3D3Y35 btw.

- xX_LuNaTiC_Qu33n_Xx

♤♡◇♧Queen Of The Underworld, Eliza - None Escape My Lunatic Red Eyes♧◇♡♤"

Callisto's heart rate dropped back to resting as soon as she read the second sentence. Aurora already came to sit right by her, latching onto the panicked-for-a-second girl to comfort her for that brief period. Callisto wrapped an arm around her, performing one of those awkward side hugs.

"Rii..?"

"I know, I'm fine, I just... thought I got banned for a second."

Aurora doesn't understand anything about the internet, of course, but she's always open to comfort Callisto whenever she feels - or in this case, felt troubled. She turned her head to the screen. Being a Pokémon, she doesn't couldn't read, of course, but there was alot of red on her screen...

"Rii-ya."

"That's just the text colour Eliza likes to use."

"Riiiii-ya."

"It's not a bad colour! I mean - I know red looks dangerous... to us all... but it's fine here!"

"Rrm."

Aurora nods, understanding, but a little suspicious. The colour disappeared from the screen soon afterwards as Callisto clicked the link. One quick installation of Silph Network Messenger later, she entered the invite and the password, and sooner or later..

W1nged_Freeshooter has joined the chatroom.

kyokuya: but no that's dumb. they'd catch them at the airport if they went n flew to unova

xX_LuNaTiC_Qu33n_Xx: FREESHOOTER!!!! SALUTATIONS N WELCOME 2 OUR PARLAY!!!

kyokuya: oh shit it's really her. welcome!

omittedoddish: hey hey. sorry for the holdup.

...There's an unusual sense of gratification as the people took the time out of their day to greet her. It... makes her happy.

She responded.

W1nged_Freeshooter: hi hi! Glad to join you lot!

xX_LuNaTiC_Qu33n_Xx: it is an honour 2 haveth thou here!! i'm trying to get celia 2 look but she responds not to my royal summons

AllyenosTheLamplighter: Eliza what part of do not disturb do you not get.

W1nged_Freeshooter: "Celia"?

xX_LuNaTiC_Qu33n_Xx: AS UR QUEEN I HAVE THE RIGHT!!

AllyenosTheLamplighter: No you do not. Also, yes, that's me. Welcome! Should I call you by your screenname or any other name?

Huh. It's... honestly not something she thought about too much. But now that they mention it... maybe she could.

xX_LuNaTiC_Qu33n_Xx: YES I DO!!

AllyenosTheLamplighter: Drag your ass ad your Pokémon down to Galar. If you want the right to annoy me you gotta earn it.

AllyenosTheLamplighter: and*

She... doesn't mind the name Callisto. It's a cool name after all, but... there's always some feeling missing when people call her that. A sense of self, a sense of... well, her owning that name.

omittedoddish: it has been 0 days since the last time Celia challenged Eliza to a battle

kyokuya: we're not usually like this i stt

And she'd explored. And she came with another name she likes. But she's never had the chance to extensively be called that, other than by herself. Maybe they could...

W1nged_Freeshooter: well, my name is Callisto, but I'd like it if you call me Calli!

AllyenosTheLamplighter: Ooh that's a sweet name. Both I mean.

W1nged_Freeshooter: thanks! i got it for my birthday! modified it myself though ^^

xX_LuNaTiC_Qu33n_Xx: CALLI FROM THIS DAY FORWARD THOU ART MY ROYAL KNIGHT! NOW STRIKE DOWN THIS BUNGLER!!!

kyokuya: by truth give her a choice at least.

...you know, she does like it. There's... a warm fuzzy feeling in her heart. A sense of... "that's my name. It's definitely mine." A small smile curls from the side of her mouth.

"...Liii..."

...A warm, fuzzy feeling Aurora fell asleep feeling too, as well.

W1nged_Freeshooter: hey, hate to do this the moment i join but i'm a little sleepy so i'm gonna hop off for today.

AllyenosTheLamplighter: Gotcha. Rest well!

omittedoddish: ^^ have a good night!

kyokuya: you know, it's like 11 pm here i should sleep as well

xX_LuNaTiC_Qu33n_Xx: ASTRAL PROJECT INTO THE ENTRALINK CALLI AND KYOKUYA!! MAY YE HAVE A GOOD NIGHT'S REST!!!!

kyokuya: what

#text heavy #pkmn irl #pokemon irl #pokeblogging #memory ask #ask game #//ooc post

[onelilhippie]

OUTCAST: chapter six

story masterlist

i do not own this gif

—

"JESUS, WE thought you guys were goners." dustin said, a relieved look in his eyes. i slid down from the rock (on my ass, might i add), and hugged my brother tight. i watched with a fond smile as eddie pulled dustin in for a hug as well.

"yeah, me too man." eddie admitted.

"i thought we were gonna die." i sighed, hugging steve. he looked a little surprised, but i figured it would be rude not to hug him, as he did calm me down the other day. i pulled away from steve, and he put his hands on his hips in the motherly way he always does, bro-nodding at eddie behind me, who came up and slung an arm around my shoulders. steve caught the gesture, but didn't say anything. i was grateful for it.

everyone caught up and we greeted each other. then eddie and i sat down and explained what really happened at rick's house.

"...when we got to shore, we wanted to call you guys, but uh," he took a swig of water from a canteen the kids had handed us, then passed it to me.

"the walkie got drowned, man. drenched. so uh, i did the thing that i do now, apparently. i ran." i lightly smacked him in the arm. i ran too, and for good fucking reason. we would've been killed by jason.

"hey. sometimes running is okay. and it was definitely okay when we did it." i reassured him, placing my hand on his back, running my fingertips up and down like he did with me in the boathouse.

"do you know what time this was? the attack?" nancy asked me and eddie, talking with her hands.

"yeah, no. i-i know exactly what time it was. our walkie wasn't the only thing that got soaked." eddie said, disappointed as he removed his watch from his arm. luckily i didn't have anything too crazy valuable on. he tossed the watch to nancy, who read it out loud.

"9:27."

"the same time our flashlights went kablooey." robin realized.

"which means what, exactly?" i had noticed these past couple days that steve didn't catch onto things very fast.

"that that surge of energy was vecna attacking patrick." nancy tossed eddie's watch back to him.

"that means we're closer to finding out whats going on, though, right?" i asked, looking around at everyone.

"yeah, we know how vecna attacks." robin answered.

"and where he attacks from." lucas added.

"so... now we just need to sneak into his lair in the upside down, and drive a stake through his heart." max said like it was that simple. i was feeling a different way than the rest of them were. how were they so calm about this?

"if he has a heart." robin said.

"a stake? is he like, a vamp? is he a vampire?" steve asked, a panicked undertone to his voice. i rolled my eyes at him.

"it was a metaphor."

"a bullet should work on him, right?" eddie spoke up, glancing to me. i nodded in agreement. a bullet should work on everything, i thought, but i also didn't really know about everything in the upside down.

"i say we chop his head off."

"i'd say all of the above, but we can't do any of that til we find a way into the upside down." nancy said, killing our ideas.

"your superhero needs her powers back." i commented. maybe this would be easier with the eleven girl.

"yeah, everything was way easier." steve said, then looked at eddie, "we had this girl, she had superpowers."

"yeah, marn mentioned her." eddie dismissed steve on his speech. steve often spoke of these children like he was a proud parent, but i guess i could understand, seeing as he'd been battling with them for years, looking out for my brother like his life depended on it. i'd have to thank him for that, keeping dustin safe when i wasn't there to help. i looked to my brother, as he hadn't spoken in a minute.

"hey, my brother isn't cursed, right?" dustin was pacing back and forth, absolutely not paying attention to our conversation. he wasn't even facing us.

"cursed? no, he's fine. mental? absolutely." steve cracked. i would've defended dustin, but steve was right. dustin was kind of strange in the head and it got worse every year he got older.

"boom!" dustin yelled, abruptly yelling into our conversation. i jumped a little bit, falling over into eddie's side. dustin's voice even echoed across the forest around us.

"bada... bada... boom!" he half-whispered, walking in time with his words, a finger pointed at steve. steve, though, looked unimpressed. as was i, and everyone around him. eddie looked to me, eyebrow raised. i shrugged.

"i was right. skull rock was north."

i pinched my nose bridge in between my index and thumb. was he even listening to us?

"seriously? you're serious?" steve snapped, arms crossed over that bright yellow sweater. i was sitting fully on the ground now, beside eddie, who's hand was perched on my thigh.

"mm-hmm." dustin replied.

"this is skull rock! okay? you're totally, absolutely, 100% wrong. right now!" steve pointed at the ground as if to say right here. they had some serious beef nowadays.

"yes. and no." dustin agreed. i was confused.

"oh my god." steve breathed out, turning and putting his face in his hands. i don't think i was the only confused one.

"this compass worked correctly when we left the wheelers. it was correct when we got in the car on curly. but it started to slip the further east we went. now its way off. when i was leading us here, i wasn't wrong. the compass was." dustin concluded, holding the compass up. i was still confused, but steve looked like he was on the verge of a breakdown.

"so you're using faulty equipment, you're still wrong."

"except it isn't faulty. lucas, do you remember what can affect a compass?" lucas was scratching the back of his head, puzzled as i was, but realization hit.

"an electromagnetic field!"

"yep." dustin looked accomplished but i didn't get it, eddie sure didn't, no one else here did.

"i'm sorry, i must have skipped that class." robin said. dustin began again.

"in the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power. so either there's some super big magnet around here, or..."

"there's a gate!" lucas finished. i didn't get it.

"but you told me the gate was closed?" i asked.

"but what if, somehow, there's another gate? a gate that we don't know about. it has to be smaller, way less powerful than the lab." he responded, index fingers pointed out. i had to admit, my brother was very passionate about this shit.

"snack sized gate." robin smiled.

"how? why?" steve asked.

"no idea. all i know is that something is causing this disturbance, and the last time we've seen anything like it, it was a gate. and i hope it is, because then we'd have a way to vecna, and a shot at freeing max from the curse." eddie looked concerned. i placed my hand on his, the one sitting on my thigh.

dustin started to leave, sliding down the hill they came up.

"where are you going? hey!" steve yelled after him.

"eddie and marnie are still wanted men. we can't just go take a hike in the woods!" i took eddie's hand in mine, my thumb rubbing over his knuckles.

"this little steel capsule might be the key to saving max, eddie and my sister. what say you, eddie the banished?" i looked to my right, where eddie was deep in thought, a dip between his brows. i tightened my hold on his hand, and he squeezed back.

"i say you're asking us to follow you in to mordor, which, if i'm totally straight with you, i think it's a really bad idea. but uh, the shire... the shire is burning. so mordor it is." i snorted at his reference, and stood up alongside him.

dustin turned to me, eyebrow raised. i took that as a sign that he valued my input.

"sounds dangerous and scary. i guess i'm in." i shrugged. dustin finally peered at our interlocked hands, then back up at me. he started jumping in excitement. eddie pulled me forward, letting go of my hand and slinging an arm around my shoulders. he was always one for PDA.

behind us, steve was confused. "what is mordor?"

eddie turned, ran back to where we were. i stood, waiting for him. he had forgot his shit. he came up beside me, grinning yet again, chain dangling at his side. i smiled back. he looked at me, eyes twinkling with his regular mischief.

"alright, let's go." i said, patting him on the back, trekking through the woods, leaves crunching under the soles of my boots.

[swaps55]

Mnemonic

This is an AU version of a standalone scene from Cantata that I rewrote with kissing. Because there was a lot of UST and I am weak. 

Ao3

14 June 2180, Hades Gamma, Farinata System, SSV Myeongnyang

For a biotic, the armor never really comes off. What they carry under their skin is like a live wire, a current always in need of grounding.

Standing face-to-face with half a dozen L2 biotics holding the chairman of the Parliament Subcommittee for Transhuman Studies hostage on the MSV Ontario makes it a lot easier for Kaidan to see how much he takes for granted having a safe place to do it. And knowing how.

Reparations for the L2 side effects are a pipe dream. But a pipe dream Colin Daggett and his people needed to cling to, whatever the cost. And it had almost cost them everything.

Shepard doesn’t say much as they arrange for the survivors to be transferred to the Madrid’s brig and the engineering crew arrives to secure the Ontario for the trip to Arcturus. He says even less on the way through the airlock back to the ‘Yang, and the rest of the squad take their lead from him.

When they’re back on board the ship he disappears, sucking the air out of the room with him. They kit down without him.

“You’re an L2, aren’t you?” Pendergrass asks as she shoves her arms through the sleeves of her uniform, armor plating in a heap at her feet.  

Beaudoin jabs her with an elbow.

“Yeah,” Kaidan murmurs, fingers tracing the amp port on the back of his neck when he removes the protection plate. He flexes his fingers, gravity well jumping into his touch. As he reaches for his chest plate to store it in his gear locker, an electric shock passes through him.

When 23:00 rolls around, Kaidan shows up in the mess as usual, figuring he’ll keep it simple tonight and just make some pasta. Shepard is there waiting, as usual, picking at a spot on the table while Kaidan pulls out a pot and finds a container of pasta. The entire time the water boils Shepard doesn’t say a word, stubbornly lost in thought.

Kaidan tells himself he’s not going to do more than olive oil and garlic – it’s been too long of a day for effort – but by the time he gets it to the table there’s parmesan cheese, parsley, and even a little red pepper in the mix.

“You going to tell me what’s up, or do I get to guess?” Kaidan asks when he sits down across from him and hands off a fork. He spent too much energy on going above and beyond with the red pepper to bother with a second bowl. They’ll just have to share.

Shepard looks up, almost in surprise. “Just thinking.”

“You’ve been thinking ever since you got Chairman Burns through the airlock. Maybe you should think out loud.”

The gravity well churns as Shepard stirs eddies in it, in tune with the twirl of his fork in the pasta bowl. “Everything that happened on that ship hinged on what Daggett did with his pistol.”

His toying intensifies, until blue energy shimmers around his knuckles. This one’s been chewing at him. A snap of electricity skips between his finger and the fork, and he drops it with an annoyed mutter. He looks up.

“You pulled the gun out of his hands,” he says.

And Shepard had put a bullet between his eyes. The fight had gone out of the rest pretty quickly.

“He wasn’t going to put it down,” Kaidan says. “We all knew it.”

“No. He wasn’t. And if you hadn’t been there, that standoff turns into a clusterfuck where everyone dies.”

A soft smile tugs at Kaidan’s lips. “Guess it’s a good thing I was there.”

Shepard picks up the fork again, staring at it with an unfocused gaze before he stabs it back in the bowl and twirls more pasta.  

“I couldn’t have done what you did. I can’t refine a field like that. I was prepared to shoot everyone in that room. But you pulled the gun right out of his hands.”

Only because Shepard had given him the chance. Whether Shepard had done it with purpose or actually hesitated is a question he hasn’t been in a hurry to examine too closely.

“We work together, remember? In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve gotten pretty good at it.”

Shepard huffs. “Yeah. We have.”

“But you’re just gonna get bent out of shape about not being able to do everything yourself, anyway.”

“Have you met me?” Shepard says with a helpless shrug.

“Yeah, I’ve had the pleasure,” Kaidan says with a chuckle. He pushes his chair back. “Come on, then.”

Shepard casts him a suspicious look. “Come where?”

“To the gym.”

“Alenko—”

“Come on.” He nods towards the elevator and starts walking, smirking a little when Shepard’s chair scrapes against the floor and his feet hit the deckplates.

“You’re just dying to give me a taste of my own medicine, aren’t you,” Shepard grouches when they board the lift.

“Oh, definitely.”

“You’re the worst.”

“Apparently not when it comes to taking people’s pistols out of their hands.”

Shepard chuckles, though he tries to choke off a smile by looking down at his feet. When they get to the gym Kaidan digs a canteen out of his locker and sets it down on one of the sparring mats.

“I’m guessing that your training didn’t include a lot of control drills,” he says.

Shepard shakes his head. “Tulak wasn’t big on control. Overwhelming tidal force tends to be the krogan approach.”

“You don’t say.”

“Sarcasm does not become you, Alenko.”

Kaidan grins and points to the canteen. “Start simple. Just lift it off the ground.”  

Shepard rolls his eyes, but taps into the gravity well, corona enveloping him in a shroud of snapping blue tendrils. The hairs on Kaidan’s arms stand on end.

It’s so rare he gets to just watch Shepard work. All unrestrained power, from the loose, angry snarl of his corona to the sweeping mnemonics, make him seem larger than life. When he swipes the canteen off the floor he does it with his entire arm. The canteen leaps into the air, nearly hitting the ceiling before Shepard wrangles it. He only holds it still for half a second before sending it skidding to the other side of the gym.

“Hm,” Kaidan says.

Shepard gives him a withering look before marching off to fetch the wayward canteen. “It’s small. I don’t do well with small.”

“Not sure the size trips you up as much as you think it does,” Kaidan muses. “That mnemonic of yours applies some pretty impressive force automatically, so you’re already playing catch up if you’re trying to control the speed or direction.”

“See, I can’t tell if you’re complimenting me or giving me shit.”

“Both.”

“Har.”

Shepard resets the canteen and comes back to Kaidan to try it again, standing close but not so close their fields intersect. Kaidan watches through three variations that all end almost the same way, too much force being applied to the canteen, making it nearly impossible for Shepard to control where it goes, or where it doesn’t.

Doesn’t matter that he’s not accomplishing what it intends. The way the gravity well cants under his touch, the way his corona lights him ablaze like a flickering star, the way it caresses every nerve in Kaidan’s body like a swash of silk is mesmerizing. Kaidan swallows before trying to speak.  

“Good news is, if we ever need someone to punt a suspicious canteen into space, I know who to call.”

Shepard rolls his eyes. “And if you’re not around to yank pistols out of terrorist hands?”

“Well, first, I will be around. But second, as for the pistol, yanking it towards you isn’t so different from kicking it away from you.” He cracks a grin. “In your case you just need to be prepared to duck.”

“Have I mentioned that separating the pistol from the person holding it wouldn’t end well for anyone?” Shepard says. “If you were to go hold that canteen in your palm and ask me to do what I just did, you wouldn’t like me very much.”

I doubt that.

“One problem at a time,” Kaidan says. “Let’s work on controlling the canteen by itself, then we’ll add clutter.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?”

“You need a new mnemonic. You’re fighting yourself by adding force and trying to take it away at the same time.”

“I’m sensing a metaphor.”

Kaidan smirks. “Think that says more about you than it does me.” Before Shepard can protest he raises an arm. “Watch me. You don’t have to use my mnemonic, but I want you to see something different so you can visualize it.”

Shepard folds his arms across his chest, but does what Kaidan asks. A nervous thrill runs through him at the undivided attention.

Kaidan waves a wrist, a hard-learned, hard-fought mnemonic that now feels as natural as breathing. Dark energy rushes through him, responsive and willing, as his fingers flex and settle a field over the canteen. Very little mass-shifting needed to pick up a light-weight canteen, which makes it tricky to keep from doing exactly what Shepard did – send it spinning out of control. But Kaidan has spent years perfecting his ability to do exactly this, so the canteen rises off the floor until it reaches eye level. Kaidan closes his fist and holds it still, floating almost motionless in mid-air.

“That mnemonic is so damned subtle,” Shepard says with an appreciative shake of his head. A flush builds at the back of Kaidan’s neck.

“Easier for me that way.”

Shepard grunts and unfolds his arms. “I was never good at levitation.”

“Because your mnemonics always apply force.”

“Need force to yank that pistol.”

“Sure, but if you want to control it, you need to learn how to hold it still.”

“I’m not good at still.”

“I know,” Kaidan says, lips curving into a smile. “So come here and let me show you.”  

Shepard strays a step closer into Kaidan’s biotic field. The blend of auras creates a low keen through his nerves, familiar but always striking. The canteen wavers before falling to the ground.

“Sorry,” Shepard mumbles, but doesn’t back away.

“It’s fine,” Kaidan says, lifting the canteen again with another float of his palm.

Their eyes lock for a moment before Shepard clears his throat and looks down at Kaidan’s hand.

“You put everything in your wrist.”

“Yeah,” he manages. “You do it all with your arms.”

“Yeah.”

“So maybe, if you’re looking for finesse, try to create a mnemonic that’s a little, uh, smaller.”    

“With my wrist.”

“Right. Um, I’ll show you. Here.” He steps in front of Shepard, angling his body to align their right arms. He takes Shepard’s right hand guides it to his wrist, tingle running down his spine when his fingers close around it. Shepard glances at him with soft eyes that stop the breath in his throat, but doesn’t object.

“Hands-on teacher?”

“Best way to learn,” Kaidan replies, gaze flicking to Shepard’s mouth before going back to the canteen. “Just follow my lead. Don’t act on the canteen. Concentrate on what my arm does. Visualize it.”

“Sure,” Shepard murmurs.

Kaidan reaches into the gravity well, his own corona unfurling, a steady candle to Shepard’s flaring torch. Goosebumps rise on Shepard’s arm, a subtle reminder that he’s human after all, one Kaidan is almost never close enough to witness.

He takes a deep breath and flexes his wrist, Shepard’s fingers loose and feather-light against his skin. A crackle of dark energy passes between them before he snares the canteen and turns his wrist palm-up to lift it off the floor, Shepard close enough his breath washes over Kaidan’s cheek. The canteen wavers but Kaidan keeps it afloat for several seconds, the mingle of auras, ripple of kinetic energy and closeness of Shepard enough to make him dizzy.

He lets it go with a clatter and puts space between them.

“Does that help?” he asks, trying not to sound breathless.

“Yeah. It does.” Shepard’s gaze stays on him, still and steady. “Might take a while to hard-wire my brain for something in the wrist.”

“Doesn’t have to be that. It could be something else. But you associate those big movements with force. Take that away, you might have more luck with leaving velocity out of the initial execution, so you can add it how you need it. Have more control over it.”

Shepard’s mouth crooks in a half-smile. “Sure I’m not a lost cause when it comes to control?”

“I’m sure.”

Shepard breaks his gaze and focuses on the canteen, brow furrowed in concentration. Twice he catches himself using his arm, then nearly wrenches his wrist trying to restrict the movement.

“It’s so ingrained,” he says with a shake of his head.

“That’s why they work,” Kaidan says with a smile. “Here.” He steps close once again, positions reversed with his hand on Shepard’s wrist this time. “Let me help.”

“Fuck, your hands are cold,” Shepard says with a laugh.

Hastily, he loosens his grip. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Shepard says with a grin.  “Go on.”

Gently, Kaidan closes his fingers again. Shepard trains his eyes on the canteen, though they dart to Kaidan ever so briefly.

Shepard’s corona is so bright, so fierce, it’s a wonder he can wrangle it at all. Kaidan breathes in deep, letting his own kindle, the snick and crackle as they blend together forming a resonant hum that hovers just under his skin.

When Shepard’s arm moves, Kaidan tightens his grip, keeping the motion small. Instead of his usual languid, fluid posture, Shepard’s arm is stiff and resistant against him. The canteen spins in a circle but stays on the ground.  

“Breathe, Shepard,” Kaidan says softly. “Just let it happen.”

Shepard inhales deep, like someone trying to relearn how. This time they move together, Kaidan picking up the slack when Shepard falters, until the canteen hovers briefly in the air. It’s more under Kaidan’s control than Shepard’s, but it’s a start, and that’s what matters.

They gutter out and the canteen falls, but Kaidan doesn’t let go and doesn’t step away, not yet, not quite yet, not while the remnants of kinetic energy are still sharp in the air and he has to remind himself to breathe, too.

“How do you do that?” Shepard murmurs. “You worked around me, without…taking over. How do you do that?”

Their eyes lock for just a moment. God Kaidan could get lost there if he’s not careful. “Practice. Years of it.”

Let go.

He means to. He means to. In his head he loosens his hold on Shepard’s wrist, drops his hand away and puts space between them. That’s what he tells himself to do. That’s what he intends to do.

But while he does loosen his grip, instead of fall away, Kaidan’s fingertips brush Shepard’s knuckles, the pad of his thumb running along the round muscle of his palm.

It’s an accident. Just an accident. So many of their touches are, but rather than move or pull away, rather than let it be just another one of those excusable, explainable slips, Shepard exhales, the breath fluttering out of him, then splays his fingers wider, as if making room for Kaidan’s to slot between them.

Let go, let go.

But instead he explores the open space Shepard has left for him, fingertips light, hesitant, ghosting Shepard’s skin as he finds where they fit, hovering, hoping, but never daring to rest. Never giving up the ruse.

It’s an accident. It doesn’t mean anything.

Except it does.

Shepard stays still as a stone save for the rise and fall of his chest. They’re close enough now their cheeks almost touch, though whether Kaidan moves or Shepard does to close that gap he can’t say.

The next time Kaidan’s fingers trespass through that open space, Shepard closes his around them and traps them there.

Kaidan’s breath hitches.

The gravity well sighs as Shepard calls to it, glow of dark energy limming their hands, accompanied by a soundless hum that strums every nerve in Kaidan’s body before settling in his groin. Without thinking his other hand comes to rest on Shepard’s hip, needing something, anything, to hold onto.

A soft sound stirs in Shepard’s throat. Kaidan’s hand doesn’t stay on that hip for long, because Shepard seeks those fingers out, too, lacing them together. Kaidan folds both arms until Shepard is surrounded by them. There’s no imagining any space between them now – their cheeks rest against each other, Kaidan tightening his hold until Shepard is snug against his chest.

Shepard turns his head, but after briefly meeting each other’s gaze, his eyes drift down to Kaidan’s mouth.

Kaidan can still let go. There’s still a way out. Chalk it up to adrenaline, nerves leftover from the standoff on the Ontario. They can walk it off, laugh, pretend it never happened, continue on like they always have.

But he doesn’t let go, and then the millimeters between Shepard’s lips and Kaidan’s no longer exist and the window is gone.

Shepard’s mouth is warm, soft, lips tinged with the salt of his sweat. They start out slow, cautious, neither of them daring to think about it too hard, but that’s not a problem for long, because soon there’s no room to think about anything at all.

Nothing else matters but this.

Slow and cautious becomes deep and headlong, Kaidan pushing his tongue between Shepard’s teeth, Shepard sighing into his mouth and taking him in. His fingers tighten around Kaidan’s, the glow of dark energy rippling out from their joined hands until it swallows them whole. Kaidan gasps at the sensation.

Shepard kisses him harder.

God.

Kaidan wants to spin him around, throw his arms around his neck and meet him head on, give in to everything, all of it, but he can’t bear the thought of turning loose of that hand.    

They part when they run out of air, both straining to catch their breath, fingers still entwined, Shepard still firmly ensconced in Kaidan’s arms as his corona fades.

Shepard rests his cheek against Kaidan’s, ensconcing himself a little further.

“Oh,” he says softly.

“Yeah.”

Shepard’s fingers flex within his, twining and retwining, never letting go.

“You…don’t seem surprised.”

Kaidan closes his eyes, breathing him in, a star he’s somehow pulled down out of the heavens and trapped right here in his arms.  “No. Felt it…for a long time now.”

“Oh.”

“…Yeah.”

Their coronas may have faded, but the mingle of their biotic fields is a constant, soothing whisper under Kaidan’s skin. A small, contented sound slips from Shepard’s throat.  

“Why didn’t I see it?”

Kaidan huffs. “To be fair, I don’t think either of us are very good at this kind of thing.”

Shepard tightens his grip on Kaidan’s fingers and pulls them to his chest. The race of Shepard’s heart thrums under their joined hands. If Kaidan had any illusions about letting him go, they’re gone now.    

“I think I’d like to learn,” Shepard says.

Kaidan’s stomach flips. “Me too.”

They stay still, Kaidan content to hold him, Shepard content to be held, until their lips find each other once more. Kissing Shepard is easy, effortless, like it’s something they were meant to do, a safe place for the live current running under their skin to go to ground.

Shepard, against all evidence to the contrary, is…safe.  

Shepard gazes at him when they part, and butterflies cut loose in Kaidan’s stomach.

“You’re very good at that,” Shepard murmurs.

“We’re very good at a lot of things.”

“Yeah. We are.” He draws Kaidan’s hand up to press a kiss to his knuckles. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” Kaidan admits. “What do you want?”

“You.”

A shiver runs down Kaidan’s spine, the euphoria of that one, single word enough to make him lightheaded. So simple. So complicated. They’ll have choices to make, all of them with compromises and consequences. But that’s something for tomorrow. Right now there is only the truth.  

“I want that, too.”

Shepard releases Kaidan’s hand to turn until they’re face to face, then runs his fingers through the hairs growing over Kaidan’s right temple. All the while those glittering eyes search Kaidan’s face, as though reconciling all the things he knows with the things he’s learning for the first time.

The corners of his eyes crinkle as a smile spreads across his face, pure, open, and full of possibility. “Taste of my own medicine, huh?”

“Well…” Kaidan shrugs helplessly, and Shepard’s grin only gets deeper.  

“Seems like I should have let you teach me a few things a long time ago.”

Kaidan flexes his fingers, a curl of dark energy igniting in his palm that draws out goosebumps along Shepard’s arm. “All in the wrist.”

Shepard laughs. It’s like music. “You and me.”

“I like that,” Kaidan murmurs, before kissing him again. “I like that a lot.”

#mshenko #kaidan alenko #mass effect #my fic #UST with biotics #in case anyone is wondering #the number of first kisses I have written for Sam and Kaidan #is currently sitting at 7 #and that's just the first kisses i have WRITTEN #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[wavesmp3]

[yjh] are you happy?

jeonghan x reader post-apocalyptic au | wc. 2.3k | warnings: death, gore a/n: originally posted as a tbz fic as a fake title request, so thank you to the anon who sent in this title

--

time has a funny way of waxing and waning through your life. it slows and stops for years and years and years. and then it's running past you, a blur of moments painted before you in hues of pink and blue. time was slow when the rekshi came. when they appeared five years ago, stealing the scream from your lips and people from your life. you swear time stopped when they got seungcheol. and sometimes it feels like time hasn't restarted since. like you're still stuck in that moment, the stench of gasoline, the rekshi's screech, seungcheol's. burned flesh smells terrible--you know that now. people, no matter how small, have a lot of blood. you know that too. you learned about amnesia after trauma in a psychology class seven years ago. you wish it'd happen to you already. that you could wake up and forget all of it. every wretched second of the time that hasn't moved since the rekshi took seungcheol from you.

but then again, time isn't always so unbearably still. other times it's quick, like a bullet. like disaster. it's knocking your door down and pushing you against the wall, gun to your head and knife to your throat. time can be faster than any car or ship or aircraft. it's faster than you can run. faster than anyone. but the funny thing about time is that once it does finally start, it doesn't know how to stop.

time re-started, a year after seungcheol and five days after meeting jeonghan through a close call with a rekshi that you just barely saved him from. near-death experiences do that to people. bind them together like red threads of fate. "it's a good thing we don't meet a lot of people then," you had told jeonghan, five days on the road with him and the soulmate metaphor still falling off his lips.

"why's that?"

"everyday is near death."

he had laughed. and you swear that alone made time start again. a distant ticking of a clock buried under the sound of his giggle.

and time hasn't really slowed down since. it didn't slow when you told him about seungcheol nor did it when he told you about joshua. time doesn't even hesitate when you kiss jeonghan for the first time, doesn't stop to breathe when he kisses you back. it doesn't pause when you and jeonghan meet seokmin. and when the rekshi take seokmin, the same sickening way as seungcheol, time only seems to speed up.

"no one else." you whisper against jeonghan's neck one night, a month after seokmin. a vow to yourself between the lines of your request to him. a vow to never make yourself feel that pain again. "only us two from now on."

"okay." he whispered back, just as solemnly, just as heartbroken, just as lost. "only us."

the mutual promise is broken by you and him five months after that night. but neither of you could turn away when the little girl asked for help, neither of you could walk away when it was so obvious that she had nowhere else to go.

but even then, time doesn't slow down. time doesn't stop or break or pause when the rekshi get her too, a year after you both found her. time doesn't wait for you to catch up. you want to take your fist and shatter the entire concept. you want to take the entire idea of time in your arms and throw it off the tallest cliff in the farthest corner of the world. you want to be something else altogether, something beyond time. unaffected by it.

things change after the little girl goes. a gut-wrenching realization that lands like a rock in the pit of your stomach when jeonghan's laugh no longer manages to bury the ticking clock. jeonghan laughs, and you can only wonder how much longer you have with him. it's been three years now, almost as long as you had seungcheol before the rekshi came.

you remember what he said to you all those years ago, when you were both still strangers, before you knew his heart like your childhood home, before his name sounded like prayer slipping off your tongue. you remember how he said near-death experiences bind people together like the mythical red threads of fate. is that what it means to be bound to someone? is a soulmate, for all its nuance, simply just the person by your side in the face of death? to stare death in the eyes like an old friend with his hand in yours?

you remember what you said after. how everyday was near-death. and when you said that, you thought you had no more than a year left in you. that even if you had managed to survive past the rekshi, you wouldn't have survived your own head. give it a year, you had told yourself a week before meeting jeonghan, a year before grief wraps me like a blanket and suffocates me with its falsely warm arms. it had been a dramatic sentiment, you were dramatic back then and sometimes you still are. but you believed it. and you kept on believing it until a year had passed. seokmin still alive and you still alive too. grief hadn't encompassed like you thought it would. instead, it slithered away the way the cold does between february and march. a surprisingly warm day. and then another. and then it's may and you're laying in the sand with jeonghan under the sun. seokmin gone, but still not cold. not the way you were after seungcheol at least. you lay beside jeonghan, eyes closed and relishing in the light of the sun, and wondering when grief stopped being a weighted blanket that sat on your chest and threatened to crush your lungs. you wonder when grief became a small presence that sits at your feet, unbothered, until you decide to take it your arms and hold the freezing thing against your cheek and heart. you wonder when grief stopped being the default. when it became a choice, not one made to feel sad, but rather, one made to remember.

that day, in the sand and under the may sun, you remember turning to jeonghan and saying it was more than soulmates. he was more than just bound to you and especially not by some wavering red thread. he was your air. your water. the sound of laughter. a reason to keep on running after time. someone to hand the cold weight of grief to, passing it back and forth like kids playing catch, someone to hug when you held it for too long. someone to remind you to set grief back down and that it's okay to occasionally forget about the lives that were. about seokmin and seungcheol. someone to catch you when you spend too long staring at the grief by your feet, someone to push your chin up and tell you to look at the sun. look ahead. look at me. someone to say don't go. someone to stay for.

but that was nearly two years ago. that was before the little girl. before he looked at her and saw what you see in him. things change after the little girl, but it's less to do with you and more to do with jeonghan. more to do with the fact that the girl is gone and you aren't enough to stick around for.

"stop the car." you say one day, abruptly, the words coming out like a confession. he does. as suddenly as you said it.

you're out of the car immediately. running through a field of tall grass and white flowers. you run and run and run. it's been five years since rekshi appeared, not much less since they took seungcheol. four years since you met jeonghan. three since seokmin died. a little over one since the girl. you run past those memories, collecting them in your arms, carrying each of them, their burdening weight slowing you down because you can't breathe anymore. so you do the next most reasonable thing. you grab the grief at your feet and swallow it, let it inflate your lungs. then you keep running. the field is infinite like time. but you run, never faltering, ripping out the grass accidently, tearing every moment of the past five years apart. and then you stop. at the edge of the cliff. at the rim of the word. you stand in the face of death and beside time itself. finally you've caught up to it. finally you gather it in your arms, fit the seconds between the memories and throw them all off the edge of the world.

you remember a documentary you watched once. you don't remember when you watched it, but you remember it now, at the edge of the world while watching time fall. the documentary was about buffaloes, how they travel in herds and fall off cliffs together. how they must not know what they're doing. how they must be blindly following the buffalo in front. you wish to be like that now. to run and throw yourself off the side of this cliff and have it not be a choice. you've spent so long chasing after time, that now, it almost feels natural to run off the edge of the world behind it. it feels like the only thing left to do. to follow the one before you and fall.

"don't jump!" you hear jeonghan scream from behind you.

you turn and he's already running towards you, through the field you just tore through, the same one you just stripped bear. he runs to you like he could hear how much you were thinking about the jump--or more accurately--thinking about the fall.

"don't jump." he repeats, breathlessly, coming to a stop ten paces away from you. too far away. he looks scared. hesitant. as if he knows that if he comes any closer you just might. "please. don't jump."

neither of you say anything after that. you stand facing jeonghan and your back turned to the edge of the world. you both stand in a field beyond the rest of the world and beyond time. you both stand like you're the only two people who matter. and maybe that's not just a stupid simile. maybe that's the truth.

you step towards him once. twice. a third time. he doesn't move. he stands seven paces away from you now, but it feels like worlds apart. like he's at one end and you're at the other.

finally, you ask, "would you?"

and a timeless silence follows.

despite the world between him and you, you still hear every break in his voice when he chokes out, "it's just been so long."

he falls to his knees.

and you cross the world to get to him. you've always been willing to.

he cries next to the flowers. face half covered by the grass. you stand above him. wondering whether he wishes he was like a buffalo too. wondering if he's waiting for you to fall so that he can follow. for how long have you both been standing at the edge and refusing to fall off for each other?

"jeonghan," you kneel down in front of him, "where did you go?"

"i knew her." he sobs. you stare at him. "the girl. she was from my hometown. she didn't remember me. she was so young, but i remembered her. and i knew her mother and her sister. i knew. and it felt like she was untouched by this world, that they couldn't touch her. she gave me hope. like we weren't just sitting and waiting for death, like maybe there's an end to all this. but she's gone. in my head she was invincible. but still, the rekshi got her. and they got seokmin and joshua and everyone. and i don't want to wait for them to get you too."

you don't say anything. you sit in front of him silently. waiting for the flowers to soak up his sobs. you wait for him. long enough for your memories to have crawled back up from the edge of the world and take their place beside you. the girl was his seungcheol, a tether to life before. you're beyond time. have spent the past four or so years chasing after it, and finally today you caught up and threw it away. all this time, you thought jeonghan was right behind you, running after time, after you. but you were wrong. he's been stuck in time since the rekshi got her. and before he could catch up to it, you threw it off the ends of earth. you look behind you. you wait for the time you flung past the cliff to crash. and then you wait for a new clock to start clicking. you laugh, for a number of reasons, but mainly to drown the sound of it.

time is a funny thing. you always thought it waxed and waned, slowed down and sped up. but really, time is a circle with you in the center. and time is the only thing standing between you and jeonghan.

you take the grief at his feet and place it next to the memories beside you. you hold his frozen grief in your hands the same way he's done before with yours.

"deja vu." he mutters, like he can see what you're doing. but he can't. there is no tangible grief for you to hold. it's a metaphor.

"are you happy?"

he sighs. "i was. i am. it's just--"

"no. jeonghan." you take his face in your hands, holding him in your palms. this isn't a metaphor. in a world of things that are, this is real. "are you happy?"

he must hear the clock ticking. he frowns. "are you?"

a/n: there are probably so many typos in this, i apologize, if anyone thinks i should expand on this then lmk cause ngl i am toying with the idea

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