CHAPTER 10: WORKING FOR THE KNIFE

ੈ✩ gojo satoru x reader, geto suguru x reader

He’d like to eat you. Curse of a girl. Could be the prettiest of his repertoire, he thinks. He remembers the shock on your face when you killed that curse in the forest — while something horrible rooted itself inside you, sheer terror from the rot you were capable of, disgust with yourself — his face was warm with affection. Or something twisted like that.

ੈ✩ chapter cw/tags: explicit content (18+ mdni) , unprotected sex, oral sex, fingering, impact play, alcohol, mentions of mild violence

ੈ✩ wc: 5.4k

playlist ✸ read on ao3 ✸ series masterlist

February, 2010

The winter months had never been kind to Suguru. It was ironic, being born in February—he thought that he eventually wouldn’t mind the cold, because at least his birthday fell after all the important holidays. Shoko’s birthday, Satoru’s birthday, Christmas, New Year’s.

He didn’t care for his birthday the way that Satoru did. It was another day, always. Wake up, work, exorcise, swallow, sleep, repeat. He’s built for work and routine—broad shoulders, strong hands, tough mouth. Thick-skinned enough to handle swallowing the tragedies and sufferings of human nature. Satoru used to joke about him being akin to a Grim Reaper, swallowing hell’s leftovers instead of leading them to the underworld.

Both of them, myths as boys. One cursed with being impenetrable, and the other cursed with having to absorb everything.

Suguru had started kissing Satoru as a teenager to get the taste of curses out of his mouth. Now he had you as a palate cleanser too. He liked that you always tasted sweet to him, no matter what. He doesn’t kiss you like Satoru, who is always a little overeager, desperate to devour. Suguru kisses you slowly, savoring it until you realize that you’re the one begging. You’d gotten to his head like a drip of paint spreading through water—slow but absolute. Gradually feverish like Oxycontin releasing in the bloodstream.

He can’t sleep. His cock is throbbing, thinking of you. Thinking of Satoru in your mouth. 

He had ignored everyone’s requests to have an impromptu party like last year—he didn’t need to count down the exact minute he got a year older, didn’t care for the exact strike of midnight. But now, it’s his birthday, and it’s two in the morning, and he’s half-hard and frustrated while thinking about you. Pathetically so.

He’s never needy. Not the way Satoru is. But all the curses he’d swallowed on his mission today made him feel like he was fucking dying. He thought he’d gotten control of it, being able to mask the putrid taste with your mouth, with food. He’d spent half an hour over the toilet bowl before bed, his tongue tasting like vomit and sea salt. 

You would never taste it on him—he would ask in between making out. To you, he tasted like cigarettes and ginger candy. The kind he started sucking on so he wouldn’t get so sick from the curses, the kind that he’d steal from the konbini because Satoru liked them.

Suguru isn’t usually this restless, let alone bothered by cottonmouth. Weed didn’t satiate him tonight. It helped his dick harden for sure, making his insides feel gooey and warm just at the thought of being touched, but usually, it was also enough to get him to sleep. Despite this, he stares at the ceiling in frustration. Craving touch like a predator, if intimacy could be synonymous with a collision.

It’s why he ends up in front of your room now—knocking, just barely. After no immediate response, he’s impatient. 

Suguru rolls his eyes once he finds out your door is unlocked. You didn’t need to lock it since Satoru could warp, and he was more than positive that no one else was falling into your bed at night. Perhaps you left an invitation for him. Either that or you were naive and forgetful as could be. He’d have to tease you about it later. 

He slips into your bed, hands smoothing over the bare skin of your stomach, the silvery roughness of your scar. Remnants of a dead man. Suguru cringes whenever he thinks about it —how he thought you were dead along with Satoru. It always made his mouth taste like bile again.

You stir with a hum, which surprises him. Ever since the incident, you became a heavy sleeper —it was all that alcohol that Shoko would slip you. Indulging in vices that only she would. It wasn’t that Suguru didn’t approve of this the way Satoru did, but he noticed that you would act more like him. Moody. Less likely to take Satoru’s shit.

Suguru stares at you, half-tempted to wake you with his mouth in between your thighs, but he doesn’t, not yet. He only curls a finger at the nape of your neck and strokes your hair from root to tip, following along the shell of your ear. You move again, lip twitching. It entices him more than it should.

He licks a strip from your collarbone to your jaw, and you keen into his touch immediately. Curling towards him as if he were the sun. 

You blink awake slowly, a lazy smile spreading among your features as your eyes adjust to the dark. 

“Birthday boy.”

“Baby girl.”

You pretend to gag and he laughs.

“What do you want?”

“My present,” he says roughly, pulling you closer by the hips. “Missed you.”

“You saw me earlier.”

“I know,” he mumbles. “God, I sound like Satoru, don’t I?”

The mention of his name makes your cheeks warm. Suguru notices it immediately. 

“No one is as needy as Satoru,” you snort. “How’s it feel to be able to legally drink?”

He chuckles. As if that mattered when Shoko was getting contraband since they started at Jujutsu High.

“Great. I can finally pay for overpriced cocktails.”

 “Wait, I have your present. It’s kind of corny.”

“Yeah?” he grins. “Let me have it.”

“Close your eyes.”

He sits up and crosses his legs, closing his eyes as if in meditation. Nervously, you pick his gift out of your drawer and place it in his lap. When he opens his eyes, he unwraps the tissue paper, messily wrapped and covered in stickers, and sees a scrapbook.

“My disposable film photos developed,” you mumble. “They’re probably not as good as yours, but I thought I’d make a scrapbook of… you know, everything.”

Suguru turns the pages carefully. There are relics from last summer, before everything had gone to shit. Polaroids of him and Satoru lounging lazily in the grass, Satoru always blurred because he was always moving. There are more intimate moments of you in his t-shirt and boxers, the flush of your cheeks suggesting he or Satoru had taken surprise snapshots of you in your post-sex haze.

His throat feels dry.

“Happy birthday, Suguru.”

He puts the book down and leans in to kiss you. It’s gentle, feather-light, giving you goosebumps in a way that makes you realize it’s been a while since you've been touched so delicately.

“I love it,” he murmurs into your ear. “Can I get my other gift now?”

“What do you– oof!”

You always underestimate how big he is, how easy it is for him to overpower you. He has you on your back in seconds, smiling as he runs his warm hands on the bare skin of your waist. You let out a low, satisfied hum when he squeezes your lower back slightly, massaging it with his fingers. Your face warms at the visible bulge in his sweatpants.

To your surprise, he parts your legs, pulling off your panties immediately, and lowers his head. 

“Don’t you want me to–”

“Shh,” he whispers, shutting you up with a bite to your inner thigh. “Wanna eat you.”

You exhale as he rubs your clit in lazy circles. He doesn’t tongue you just yet—merely picking and prodding at your cunt with his fingers while he watches you squirm. He has much more patience than Satoru, intent on playing with you until you cry. 

“Suguru,” you whine.

Before you can make another complaint, his mouth latches onto your clit, tongue swirling tenderly at the bundle of nerves while his fingers sink into your cunt. He lets out a short laugh as he watches you try to hold back a moan. You taste like you’ve been waiting for him.

“So fucking soaked,” he murmurs, half-mad at the sight of your glistening pussy. You make a small noise of protest when he pulls his face away. He moves towards you, resting his head on your pillow before forcibly pulling your thighs onto his abdomen. 

“Can you not throw me around like I’m a ragdoll?”

“Sit on my face,” he demands, ignoring your comment.

“What?”

“C’mon. It’s my birthday,” he grins. 

“O-Okay,” you whisper, crawling until you’re hovering over his face. You often felt mortified in this position, always feeling too exposed. You’d only sit on Satoru’s face when the two of you were drunk.

You yelp when Suguru pulls your thighs down to each side of his head, immediately sucking on your clit. You whimper as he laps at your bud, his hands grabbing your ass and squeezing the flesh. His tongue keeps up a constant pressure and rhythm. You have to resist the urge to ride his face, but he seems to be encouraging you with the way he kneads your ass.

“Take off your top,” he murmurs, his voice hoarse. You oblige, stripping off your thin tank top. 

He groans when he sees you exposed, your nipples perky as you run your hands across them. You lean into his mouth, your legs shaking from the way he’s sucking you, from the way his eyes widen like moons as he watches you from below. 

“You look so good from here,” he slurs, cunt-drunk. His lips glisten pink even in the dark.

Your wet cunt throbs when you look down, seeing his black hair fan out like an angel underwater, eyes half-lidded in desperation. You can’t even react to his praises, your tongue numb and heavy in your mouth as he pushes his palms against your ass, encouraging you to grind on his face.

“Pull my hair,” he rasps. 

Your pussy drools all over him, but he takes it all, lapping up every drop of your arousal as he moans. You pull his hair and it feels like silk in your hands. 

It was all more sensitive from above, you didn’t know why. You could barely take it.

You cry out once his tongue rolls over your bud in a constant rhythm, his hand reaching into your cunt with fingers curled towards him. Your orgasm is overwhelming, has you clutching his hair so you don’t completely fall over. You groan at the overstimulation, on the verge of tears as Suguru clamps your thighs down against his shoulders so he can keep tasting you.

“T-too much!” you whimper.

He finally releases you, letting you lift your thigh to stumble onto your side. You whine again when he grabs you, forcing you to straddle him again. He groans as he lifts his hips. You feel him against your ass, his dick hard against it. 

“You want me on top?” 

“Yes,” he moans. He’s quick to pull off his sweatpants. You’ve never seen him like this — desperate, begging. The opposite of his usual calculated demeanor.

You hover over him, your cunt dripping. He wants to slam your thighs down with his hands, fill you to the brim himself, but he waits. Even after all this time, his size intimidates you. You touch yourself as you kiss his neck, reveling in the satisfied sounds he makes.

He pulls you onto him gently, playing with your clit before he coaxes himself into you. You moan at the same time—you wincing at his size, him groaning at your warmth. 

“Oh,” you gasp.

“Do you get this wet for Satoru?” he taunts.

You say nothing in response, only whining. 

“You’re almost tighter than him,” he mumbles, low enough that you can’t hear. You’re too busy caught up in rapture, pulling his hair the way he likes, ravished by his hands all over your thighs and up your bare stomach.

“Sugu,” you breathe, your body trembling at the sensitivity. He helps you through it, guiding your hips so that you roll against him smoothly as he moans. 

You’re so fucking warm. So tight around him. He almost feels like he’s dreaming as he bucks up into you, staring at you with a slack mouth. His eyes scan over your bouncing tits, the way your thighs tremble just slightly above him as you squeeze them, coaxing you to ride him even harder.

“Love this fucking pussy,” he growls. It makes your cheeks flush, too embarrassed to look at him, so you shut your eyes as you move your hips.

You ride him through his babbling, his moans. It’s unusual that he’s so vocal right now — Suguru is often more reserved with what comes out of his mouth during sex if it isn’t a grunt or praise. He’s never desperate like this, never whining the way Satoru does. Even when you feel yourself keening for him, you still suppose you have him in the palm of your hand.

You test this theory, pinning his hands above his hands just like the way he often does to you. He moans, jaw falling with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. He looks vulnerable, eyes unfocused. Pointed towards you, like he’s squinting at the stars. 

You try not to let the power get to your head. 

“Hit me,” he moans, his voice sounding drunk.

“What?”

“Hit me. Slap me. Just—do it.”

You grind against him slowly, blinking at him. You lower your hand to caress his jaw. His eyes are closed, his mouth still falling in surrender. Open and loose. After seconds of apprehension, you do it—it’s a small slap against his cheek, hard enough to hear, soft enough that it doesn’t leave a mark. He moans louder than you’ve ever heard him. 

“Oh, fuck—”

He brings his thumb to your clit as you ride him and it makes your bones loose. Melting within his grasp. You breathe heavily, watching him with wide eyes. 

Suguru grabs your hand and places it at the base of his throat. It’s then that you notice the large bruise below his collarbone, peeking slightly at the collar of his t-shirt. In the dark, you can’t tell the color—but in your field of vision, it looks purplish. 

You squeeze the base of his neck like he wants, and you see his eyes roll to the back of his head. You whimper as you bounce his cock, your tiredness catching up to you. You hadn’t been in a position of power during sex many times, especially not with Suguru. The thought of it makes your head spin, the expressions on his face making your cunt throb.

“So fucking good, baby,” he grovels. “Perfect girl.”

You hold him by the throat, your small hands incomparable to his body as a whole, but you apply pressure regardless. Fascinated by his expressions, by your ability to make him come undone in ways you hadn’t even imagined before.

“Harder,” he groans. “Make yourself cum on my cock.”

Even with his demanding tone, Suguru’s face appears otherwise. He’s flushed, mouth parting and trembling. You’ve never seen him so vulnerable.

“Oh,” you whimper. “Gonna—”

He holds you by the hips firmly, fucking up into you. Holds your hands, interlocking your fingers. When he cums at the same time as you, he has your fingers in his mouth, his teeth grazing your knuckles as he sucks on them with a muffled moan.

You fall onto him and he’s quick to let you nuzzle your face into his collarbone, rubbing your back gently. Eventually, you straddle him, tracing your fingers over the bruise under his collarbone.

“What’s this?” you breathe.

He looks down, chuckling. 

“Satoru’s gift,” he smirks. “I’ll give you a matching one.”

You let him nibble on your skin without protest, but something aches in your heart despite it all.

Suguru discards his shirt in the middle of the night. You don’t notice—at least, you aren’t awake for it. He’d had you passed out in his arms immediately the night before. 

When you finally open your eyes, he’s staring back at you. You nearly jolt out of your skin.

“Don’t do that,” you whine, hitting his shoulder lightly. “You’re like Satoru.” 

He doesn’t answer. Only laughs.

“Where are all these bruises from?” you mumble, touching them with your fingertips. 

“Satoru,” he says plainly. He doesn’t elaborate. Not even when you look at him with raised brows.

Suguru doesn’t feel the need to hide anything from you. Neither does Satoru, apparently, but he had barely been intimate with just you in the past two months. Suguru was always included, which you didn’t mind, considering your love for both of them, but you still craved tenderness. 

It’s the first time that it occurred to you that Satoru and Suguru were together separately from you. It was stupid—they’d kissed before you were even truly in the picture. Probably messed around, too. You didn’t have any deeper access to Satoru’s heart, even if you had known him as a child. You had to remind yourself of that.

But still, it felt odd to see the remnants of Satoru’s hunger on someone other than yourself. You liked to think of yourself as the mediator between them, the center of their universes, when you let yourself think more loosely, more confidently. 

But now, you’re small again. Separate from them.

“What’s wrong?” Suguru asks.

“Nothing.”

“Something.”

You smile warmly, running a hand through his hair. “Nothing.”

You’re not jealous. You can’t be. You would be annoyed by short quips from either of them during sex, teasing you about the other like it was a competition, but it was never serious. You were a plaything between the two of them, you knew this. You liked it.

But the prospect of the two of them together without you made your stomach hurt. It was almost as if the idea itself was to spite you—it made you feel endlessly guilty. You were so willing to be there, to be used by either of them, to be the favorite. How selfish it was that you hadn’t noticed that the boys had wanted each other, perhaps more than they even wanted you.

“You gonna ask us how often we fuck without you?”

“Suguru!”

He laughs, but it’s not out of spite. 

“Some of these are from sparring. You know how he likes to play.”

“Yeah,” you mutter. Embarrassment colors your features. He didn’t need to say it as if he was reassuring you.

“He wouldn’t let you be his punching bag,” he ruffles your hair. “You’re too precious.”

You can’t find it in yourself to believe him.

April, 2005

Suguru empties the remnants of the curse in the toilet. It's not the parts themselves, more like the ghost of the cadaver, his insides making themselves sick from the taste. He was still getting used to it. 

He coughs and wipes his mouth. Examines himself in the mirror, frowning, hair unkempt. His hair was getting long, down to his collarbone. The girls liked it a lot, which he didn’t understand —the length made him get greasy. They’d compare him to male idols, not that he cared. 

He washes his hands in Satoru’s fancy sink and moisturizes his hands with jasmine-scented lotion, the kind that his father would maybe gift his mother on a holiday. 

When he leaves the bathroom, he nearly collides with you. You mumble an apology, barely making eye contact with him. Did Satoru have a sister?

The two of you didn’t look alike, for starters. You didn’t have the same blinding-white hair as the rest of the Gojo family, plus Satoru probably would’ve mentioned a sibling. Suguru watches you leave, face warming slightly when he realizes he’s looking for too long. He curses under his breath when you notice, but you don’t look perturbed at all—you flash him a small smile. 

He returns the smile sheepishly and heads back to Satoru’s room.

“Who’s that girl?” he asks.

“Huh?” 

Satoru is barely paying attention. His eyes are fixed on his game, Final Fantasy.

“The girl downstairs. Our age.”

“Oh. She’s the maid’s daughter. Family friend. Kind of.”

Suguru sits on the floor next to Satoru, knees touching as they sit up against the foot of the bed. 

“You never mentioned her. She’s cute,” he remarks.

“Off limits.”

Suguru scoffs. “I didn’t even—”

“Seriously. She’s like… family.”

Satoru is lying through his teeth, jaw clenched only slightly. He nearly said sister instead of family, but that would be a hole that he was not willing to dig for himself. He pretends to blame his attitude on losing the game. Grimaces when he hears Suguru snicker beside him.

You must’ve been one of Satoru’s toys. Suguru knew the boy hated sharing. 

“So you’ve claimed her already.”

“Shut up.” Satoru throws the controller at him, huffing like a child. “I can’t fucking beat this guy. Try it.”

“That’s because you fucking suck,” Suguru laughs.

Satoru grumbles and folds his arms. He was always too candid in the face, terrible at hiding emotions, and everyone knew it. He liked that Suguru didn’t care to pry. He hated that Suguru was exactly the kind of guy that you would have a crush on. Soft-spoken but quick-witted, pretty in the face.

It didn’t matter, anyway. Satoru hadn’t had a real conversation with you in over a year. 

April, 2010

You are not a jealous person.

Satoru is talking to a girl who is much too close for comfort, and you are not a jealous person. Both are objective facts. Maybe.

For once, everyone is getting drunk somewhere that isn’t a Jujutsu Tech dorm room, but it was a shitty venue that wasn’t much better. Yuki played bass in a punk band, and the girls weren’t willing to go without you and the boys as chaperones. Despite this, Shoko and Utahime had fucked off during the first set, probably making out in the bathroom.

“Need a breather?” 

You spin around to see Suguru with his hair down, cigarette nested above his ear. You look back at Satoru, who is now being entertained by two more girls. 

“Yup,” you nod.

The night is moderately warm. The moon hangs above the velvet black, jagged like a piece of glass. Suguru wraps his arms around your middle, lighting the cigarette and bringing it to your mouth.

“Didn’t think you were the jealous type,” he says.

“What?” you frown, crooning your neck to face him.

“Oh, come on,” he teases. “I’ve never seen you make such hostile faces.”

“That’s just my face.”

“Sure.”

He kisses the top of your head. He pulls your hair and tips your head back so he can kiss your mouth, his lips upside-down against yours. 

“People give me looks when both of you kiss me within the same ten minutes,” you murmur. “Did you notice that?”

“No,” Suguru chuckles. “I’m usually too busy looking at you.”

You exhale smoke before putting the cigarette in Suguru’s mouth, peering at the moon again. He was bored. Considered taking you in the bathroom so he could spill inside of you, just for Satoru to find out when you’d sleep in his bed later tonight. There wasn’t a rivalry, not truly, but he liked knowing that it made Satoru tick. 

Satoru had started healing his bruises for him. They’d fight, rolling around on the floor before fucking it out. He would only let his Infinity through a handful of times, but always let it through when they fucked. Suguru knew that Satoru liked feeling the roughness of his hands on him. It made him feel alive. 

It’s all carnal. Instinct as desire. Satoru wouldn’t let you see that side of him. He thinks about when he came back to life and feels horrified, sick like he came back wrong. He was never sure if you were looking at him differently or if it was vice versa. Suguru always looked at him the same way. It’s a mutual understanding. 

Suguru looks at you that way, too. There’s something hungry in his eyes now, something that feels like an ultimatum. He grins at you with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

He’d like to eat you. Curse of a girl. Could be the prettiest of his repertoire, he thinks. He remembers the shock on your face when you killed that curse in the forest — while something horrible rooted itself inside you, sheer terror from the rot you were capable of, disgust with yourself — his face was warm with affection. Or something twisted like that. 

The way he scooped you into his arms, your fragile body all bloodied. Naive little thing. He’d held you as the two of you flew back on the manta ray and he had felt like he saw something he shouldn’t have. A turning moment. Not even Satoru would be able to make sense of it. 

“Wanna go back intside?” Suguru purrs into your ear.

You nod.

You take his hand in yours just as Yuki’s band is about to start. Satoru is exactly where he was before, but this time he’s staring at the both of you. You’re too busy watching the stage to notice. The lights flood over you in a way that makes you look like a heavenly body. You and Suguru had matching eyes tonight, black kohl smudged over your eyes by Shoko during the pregame. 

You feel a pair of small arms circle around your middle, the scent of tobacco and men’s Issey Miyake perfume filling your senses. Speak of the devil. 

You turn your head and Shoko grins, Utahime in tow behind her. You laugh when you see the lipstick smudges around Shoko’s mouth. 

“Have fun?” you ask.

“Huh?” she shouts.

“Never mind!” you yell back. 

Satoru watches from afar, trying to get his way through the crowd, but is bombarded by the sheer amount of people in his way. Everyone’s too drunk to care about politeness. His size wasn’t helping him either — no one was willing to let such a tall guy get in front of them. 

“You get our girl drunk yet?” Shoko asks Suguru.

He shakes his head. “She’s being responsible tonight.”

You giggle and stumble. Trying to move your body in a way that feels appropriate for a punk show. Shoko flashes a grin to Suguru.

“I think your girlfriend is lying to you,” she murmurs into his ear. “Where’s Satoru? Expanding Japan’s gene pool?”

“Shut up,” he mouths, laughing. Well, probably.

He didn’t know if Satoru was seeing other people. He didn’t care, but he knew that you would. It wasn’t something he felt like bringing up when he was alone with him, though. He trusted Satoru enough to not break your heart, but he knew that the boy was restless lately, almost manic. 

Satoru had made out with a girl who looked like you at a bar two weeks ago, then cried on the way home. Suguru almost found it pathetic. 

Suguru holds you again once Shoko busies herself with Utahime, the both of them thrashing and running toward the front of the crowd, close enough to touch the stage. He rests his head on top of yours, slips his large hands underneath your shirt just to feel the warm skin of your stomach. 

Satoru is a few feet away. His mouth is moving, but Suguru can’t figure out what he’s saying amongst all the fucking noise. He looks drunk. Something lurches inside Suguru when he sees a girl nearly hanging off of Satoru. 

He spins you around in his arms and presses his mouth to yours with more force than he intends. 

You succumb immediately — is it always that easy? It must be. You were arguably easy to the two of them. It was something Satoru liked talking about when they were in private without you, something to tease Suguru about when his hand was wrapped around his cock.

She’d be so good if she was here right now, wouldn’t she? So fucking wet… so warm.

Suguru sucks in your tongue and holds your face. He opens his eyes to lock them with Satoru’s — they’re blazing blue, almost brighter than the stage lights. 

Satoru laughs, though his eyes look mean.

May, 2010

You are nodding off in the courtyard when you feel a light kick to your thigh. When you open your eyes, Shoko is looking over at you, a lollipop in her mouth. It’s one that you had gifted her one day as a joke — “smoke stop pops.” She liked them anyway, the herb flavor weaning her need for nicotine while also replacing her random cravings for black tea. It didn’t actually curb her smoking habit, but it was a new oral fixation. She’d eaten three a day for the past week.

“It’s time for quality time,” she grins, the lollipop making her left cheek jut out.

“You’re taking me out on a date?” you question, blinking at her. If she moved a little to the right, she’d block the sun out completely. Unfortunately, it’s still bright beside her head. You squint at her.

“I will later, if you want. But Yaga wanted us to do a little… project together?” 

She lowers her hand and you take it. She pulls you to your feet and picks a leaf out of your hair. 

“Is that why they call you Twigs?” 

“What?”

“Never mind,” she snorts. “C’mon.”

Shoko takes you to a greenhouse that has a path leading through it. There are cherry blossoms and hakone grass, azaleas and bonsai trees. A koi fish pond with a small wooden bridge. 

“This is beautiful,” you say.

“It is,” she nods. “I used to come here a lot when I was a teenager. My old high school is pretty close to here.”

“Is Yaga-sensei forcing us to go on a date?”

“Okay, even if this was a date, you would’ve gone on it regardless, you ass,” Shoko laughs, pinching you on the side. “Anyways, this is more of an assignment. Or experiment, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

She leads you to the little bridge and you gaze at the orange and black-speckled koi fish below. 

“Have you ever brought anything back to life?” Shoko asks. Her hands tremble ever so slightly until she reaches for one of her lollipops and puts it in her mouth. 

“Twice. The first time was when my kitten got hit by a car when I was a kid. The second was a bumblebee I killed. Just to see if I could do it.”

“You didn’t try it any other time?” 

You shake your head. 

“Okay, well, come outside with me.”

You follow her out back. There’s a plot of dirt with pots of small trees lining the square of land. She presents a few small plants stuck in their little pots, dehydrated as hell. Brown and drooping.

“You want me to… ‘heal’ these?”

“Your technique isn’t necessarily healing. And you can’t do reverse cursed technique like Satoru and I, but you can regenerate cells, right?”

You pause, staring at her, then your hands. Then the plants.

“I guess.”

“Great. So bring these plants back to life.”

You frown at her bluntness. You hate being put on the spot. To be honest, you hadn’t showcased the strongest output of your technique since the Star Plasma Vessel incident, and before that, the mission with Suguru. Every time you were in fight or flight mode, you’d pass out with a nosebleed. 

Bringing a plant back to life probably wasn’t a huge feat, but Shoko’s wording made you grimace.

You lift your hand and close your eyes. You touch the dead leaves and exhale, circumventing the energy inside you into something tangible, something to hold in your hands like a spiritual weapon. Within seconds, the plant straightens its leaves and turns green with solid stems. Leaves that extended past the bottom sprouts, which also rose from the dead roots.

When you open your eyes, you see Shoko smiling. 

Over the next week, you bring back small animals. Bugs and mice. Guinea pigs. Shoko nearly has you try it out on the little fetuses suspended in formaldehyde in her lab, but you refuse. 

You’d never thought about using your technique in this way. Since Riko died and Toji Fushiguro left a scar on your body, you felt weak. Your cursed energy would manifest enough power for you to fight, but using your actual technique would be exhausting. Like a muscle, it was finally beginning to strengthen again, and at a rapid rate.

When you’re walking home from an easy mission, you find a stray cat that limps with only three legs. You feed it milk from the konbini. When you hover your hand over it, it heals. Regenerates another limb that looks like it was always there.

Your cell phone rings at the same time you open your eyes.

“Hello?”

“Are you almost back?” Shoko asks. “Yaga-sensei wants to talk to you.”

only i must wander, pt. 4

[on ao3] [pt 1] [pt 2] [pt 3]

content warnings: discussions of death, kidnapping, drug use, and cannibalism, internalized homophobia, character considers self-harm

Colors looked different inside the Munson trailer. Steve didn't know if it was the lightbulbs, flickering in the ceiling, or how cramped the living room was, but everything was so warm that it made the world seem yellow. And it was cramped, the furniture pushed out into the middle of the floor to make room for the shelves and shelves of mugs and hats on the walls. It was more cluttered than Steve cared for, haphazard in a way that made his fingers itch-- He kept his room bare of his own volition, needing as much space as possible so he didn't wake up thinking the walls were closing in on him. It would make him claustrophobic to stay here for too long, Steve thought, but it was cozy enough to spend time in. It seemed kinder than his house, for sure. 

And for all its mess, it was obvious that someone worked very hard to keep it clean. Under all the clutter there was no dust or debris. He could see where stains had been before and then scrubbed until they had come clean, the spots dots of lightness amongst the dinge of age. Some parts of the couch and the old, big recliner had been patched up, fresh blocks of fabric and clean, white stitches. 

Steve hesitated in the doorway, taking it all in. It was hard to imagine that they were standing in the lair of two werewolves. He knew they weren't real werewolves, at least not the kind he'd seen in horror movies, with the moons and silver and freaking out once a month. It still seemed weird to imagine one cradling porcelain in his big paws, or curling up on a neat, mended couch. 

Eddie came up behind Steve, shoulder-bumping him out of the way to get into the trailer. Steve moved for him, wordless, but Eddie turned before he had even really cleared the door. 

"Probably not what King Steve is used to, huh?" Eddie said, the kind of nonchalant that echoed so often in highschool hallways, the kind that meant they were itching for a fight. "Sorry about that."

Steve's first impulse was to ask Eddie not to call him that. He'd always hated it, thought it was a pretty stupid nickname for a guy whose life was spiralling out of control, but Billy had made it into something toxic. Billy had wanted it so badly that it warped itself to meet that want. Not a stupid nickname his friends had given him, but a title that meant something-- Something that Steve had never wanted to be. Thankfully, after graduation the name had fallen out of use. Largely, Steve assumed, because outside of school it became extremely apparent that he wasn't the King of much of anything. But here Eddie was, still stuck within those walls, and calling Steve that name that made his skin crawl. 

He couldn't make himself put a stop to it, though-- Mostly because he wasn't sure if Eddie would listen. Eddie had never been a bully, to Steve's knowledge, but he was obviously looking for a fight. Steve hadn't learned much in school, but one of the lessons that had stuck was that an angry man will use any weakness to his advantage; If Eddie knew the name bothered him, it might be his name until the end of time. 

And, if Steve were being honest, Eddie made him a little nervous. Always had. It was something about the eyes, Steve thought, because they were so big and honest and... Well, Steve had always been a little afraid of Eddie seeing too much when he looked at him. Or feeling too much from what he saw there. Maybe both. Maybe Steve couldn't stand the thought of either. It had been enough to make Steve avoid Eddie in high school, and now it left him frozen under Eddie's challenging stare.

"It's, uh-- It's really warm in here," Steve said, wincing at his own words. He honestly had no idea what to say; He'd barely learned to talk to Robin like a normal person, and Eddie seemed like a much harder sell. Just to smooth things over, Steve muttered, "I like it." 

Eddie just looked at him for a moment, eyebrows furrowed, and when the silence grew too long, Steve looked away and shuffled over to the couch, dropping into the seat between Robin and Dustin. Wayne had taken the over-stuffed recliner across from them, and after a moment, Eddie followed him, propping himself against the large back and staring down at the odd group on his couch. It might have been menacing, if Eddie hadn't look so confused. 

"So, Harrington," Wayne said, so abruptly that Steve sat up straighter on reflex. Wayne Munson wasn't anything like his high school coaches, but he commanded the same level of respect. An air of minor authority surrounded him, his jurisdiction small but his control total. " You gonna tell me what the hell you were thinking, coming to a Blutbad's lair in the middle of the night, poking around? With two kids with you, no less." 

As Steve flushed at the gentle reprimand, Robin protested."I'm only, like, a year younger than Steve, you know." 

Wayne didn't seem too swayed by that knowledge, and Steve knew he was content to simply wait for an answer. He didn't look pissed, just concerned, which made Steve squirm under his gaze. There was nothing worse than someone who was just genuinely worried you might be a complete idiot. It would be so easy to tell him all the truth and blame it all on Dustin, but that wouldn't fix the problem. Steve was trying to present himself as an adult, someone who was grown up and put together enough to be out hunting down a kidnapper. Being bullied into stupid shit by a literal child wasn't exactly the best proof of that. 

Steve had never been a great liar, though. His parents had all but demanded it of him, when they still cared enough to be around. Nothing huge, of course, nothing that could be traced back to them, but enough to present their son as a better version of himself. He'd struggled with it for awhile, and then figured out that while he would never be a good liar, he was pretty good at pretending. 

It was startingly easy to pretend to be his father, for instance. That had been an easy one, to start with-- He'd been cataloguing his father's every gesture for years, after all. Watching the movements of his hands and the way he held his head was the only way Steve had ever been able to predict his father's moods. So when it came time to lie, Steve just did what his father obviously wanted him to, and... became him. The way he put his hands in his pockets when he didn't want to say hello to someone beneath him, the way he pouted, gently disapproving, whenever anyone else spoke. His parents adored it; Thought it was a sign of him growing up. Their friends ate it up. 

That little trick of his had gotten him far in school, too. The boys that terrified him were always nicer when he mirrored their own bodies back at them, and whenever that failed, Steve just copied Tommy. It had kept him alive in middle school, and when his growth spurt hit in the summer before high school, it was enough to catapult him into popularity. 

It worked like a charm until everyone realised he was stupid. Then, at least, they called him well-behaved, teachers and his father's coworkers alike, but there was always a trace of pity to it. Like they were looking at an animal, kicked often but too dumb and well-trained to run. Of course, that offered its own benefits, especially with girls. They liked someone they didn't have to worry about hitting on their friends, and their mothers liked that their daughters might marry someone who wouldn't put their own ambitions above their families. 

Steve had never liked it, not his own behavior or the way people responded to it, but it was necessary. 

He doubted Wayne would appreciate it, though. He didn't seem the type to be impressed by Bradley Harrington, much less a cheap imitation of him. Mirroring Wayne was too much of a risk, of course; The man was miles smarter than the dumbass teens of Steve's youth, and if he fucked it up it would come off mocking. Steve could mirror Eddie, easy, because he knew Eddie's mannerisms and they were large and loud and beautiful, but Eddie didn't exactly strike Steve as an effective negotiator. If he was, Steve doubted he would have signed up for a third senior year. 

Who did that leave? Steve considered Hop, but too much of the man's personality was tied up in being a cop. The last thing Steve needed was to be accusatory after getting caught in the man's yard in the middle of the night. It needed to be an adult, though, Steve knew. He needed to be an adult. 

The only other adult Steve knew was Joyce Byers. 

That... could work, Steve thought to himself, watching Wayne's face shift into annoyance. Joyce was motherly and kind, when she wasn't ripping apart the universe to get to her son. People liked her. People liked her a whole lot more than they liked Steve, that was for sure. Plus, she was the kind of person Wayne would like-- Stubborn and passionate, but down to earth. Relatable. And, the best part was, she almost always got her way, no matter how hard to please she was.

So Steve kept his face open and honest, blinked slower. He relaxed his shoulders but kept his body tight, crossing his legs at the ankles. He settled further into the couch, keeping his elbows by his side and his hands in his lap. Steve felt Robin shift nervously next to him, probably wondering what the hell Steve was doing, and without thought Steve reached out to pat her on the leg. Not the possessive, stroking way a boyfriend would, but... chaste and gentle. Maternal. 

Robin made a small noise of surprise as Steve returned his hand to his own lap, but Steve was focused more on the look of disgust that flashed across Eddie's face. 

"I'm sorry for the trouble," Steve said, polite but not overly refined. Plain. Upfront. That was him, now. "We didn't mean anything by it, I promise. We're just in a tough spot, and we were hoping you knew somebody that could help us." 

Wayne shifted in his chair, looking faintly amused. "I'm listening." 

Steve sighed, reaching for the deeper emotions he'd seen written all over Joyce's face. Frazzled and determined. Tired. Make eye contact, widen the eyes. Lean forward and drop the volume. "Something bad is happening to the kids in Indiana right now, Wayne," Steve said. His hands clenched in his lap. "I don't know if you've heard anything, but Robin and Dustin both came to me with stories of kids who have just gone missing. No sign of them. And I know there's always a runaway or two, but this is a lot of kids. Most of them Wesen. And I've been looking into it, and there's... There's evidence that it might be a Blutbad who's doing it. And I--" 

As he spoke, Wayne's face hadn't changed, but Eddie's had. His expression got darker and stormier with every word, and when Steve brought up Blutbader, he nearly exploded. "If you think you can come in here and accuse us of--" 

"No, Eddie," Steve said, soothing. Thinning his voice out a little, to sound a little more worn. Exhausted. "Of course not. You wouldn't-- You've more than proven you wouldn't do that, okay? We may not have ever been friends, but I was paying attention for the past four years, you know. Besides, Robin wouldn't have let me get this far if I hadn't been." 

"The kid was less convinced," Robin said, and Steve could practically feel her pointed smirk.  

"How was I supposed to know!" Dustin protested from the other end of the couch. Steve looped an arm around his shoulders, rubbing squeezing him just a little. He needed the kid to chill out. "I'm not allowed in the high school yet! I've tried!" 

"And what's the reason you think this is a Blutbad?" Wayne asked, with the air of a man who was very used to speaking over a loud child. 

"The lack of a pattern. I know it's not much to go on, but-- Most of these kids have nothing in common," Steve said, laying the case out as best he could. "There's no school that crops up more than the others. They're all different ages. Even the gender is split right down the middle. Whoever-- or whatever -- is doing this doesn't have a type, and from what I understand that would strange with a human culprit." 

"Most other Wesens have strict seasons and grounds for hunting," Robin added. "Some of them even have preferred species. There's none of that, here. It's all just random, like it's going for whatever Wesen kid crosses it's path." 

"With a few human kids in the mix for good measure," Dustin said, and Steve nodded. 

"Unless someone has lost it so hard they've warped their own prey drive, it's hard to imagine that this could be anything other than a Blutbad whose chosen prey is... well." Steve hesitated, not sure how else to put it. "Kids. Does that sound like anything you've heard of before?" 

Wayne shifted in his chair. To someone else, it might have seemed like an old man settling further into his favorite chair, but Steve clocked the stiffness in Wayne's shoulders and the nervous twitch of his fingers. Something had unsettled him. That either meant he hadn't considered it before, or that he hadn't expected anyone to figure it out-- And either was a pretty good result for Steve. 

"Can't say I've heard of that specific type, no," Wayne eventually said, his drawl elongating further with thought. "But... can't rule it out, either. Lots of Blutbads I knew had weird types. No one really talks about them, of course. Isn't polite. But you know how it is." 

Steve didn't really want to think about the intricacies of Blutbader culture right now. "... Right," he said, shaking his head. "So, you can see why we thought it might have been--" 

"So why come here, then?" Wayne said, interrupting Steve's effort at pushing the conversation along. "If you didn't think it was me or Eddie, why come here at all?"

Joyce's shrug was deeper than Steve was used to, almost an anxious twitch, with both shoulders high around his ears. "To be honest with you, sir," Steve said, "I don't know very much about Blutbader. We were hoping you could fill us in on anything that might help. If there's anything you know about any other Blutbader in Indiana, especially." 

"Uh-huh." Wayne's eyebrow stayed high, and it didn't look like it was going to budge anytime soon. "And what's that got to do with you snooping around in my backyard?" 

Oh, fuck it, Steve thought. He was going to have to throw Dustin under the bus, anyway. 

"... Well, Dustin insisted on coming along," Steve said, with a mother's rueful smile. "I didn't expect him to rush back there, either, but, well... Kids, you know?" 

Before Steve could finish the sentence, Dustin had dug his heel full-force into Steve's shin, and he aimed to hurt. Usually, Steve would have just grabbed the little shit in a loose chokehold and shook him around until he begged for mercy (or, more likely, until Steve got bored) but that wouldn't be very Joyce of him. Instead, Steve smacked Dustin's arm with the back of his hand, lightly, like he had seen Joyce do to Hopper when he made jokes she didn't think was funny. 

Before Dustin could escalate things further (and Steve just knew he was raring up for it, too, the bitchy little gleam in Dustin's eyes brighter than ever), Wayne's laughter broke through their quiet squabble. Steve looked up at the Blutbad, a little shocked, and felt that shock grow when he saw the fond, wistful smile on Wayne's face.

"Y'all remind me too much of my little brother. He never knew how to keep out of trouble, either," Wayne said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. It was a memory, a compliment, and a warning all at once, Steve realized, though it was one he really didn't have context for. He glanced up at Eddie for a clue and all he found was pain, Eddie's face creased with a grimace. 

Steve wanted to help, to smooth out the lines of Eddie's face, but that was a little hard when he knew he was the one causing Eddie to make it in the first place. Looking back at Wayne, Steve forced himself to concentrate, so he could stop ruining the Munson's night and let them live their lives in whatever peace Hawkins could grant them. It was the least he could do. 

Wayne also seemed to sober, though his eyes were still faraway and hazy. He said, "I won't lie to you, son. I heard about the kids. There's been people whispering about it for years now, way back to when that Byers  boy came back. Didn't know it had gotten so bad currently, though. Only thing I've heard recent was... God, must have been gone six months or so, now. There's a man who used'ta work the line with me, most nights. One night he doesn't come in, and everyone's worried because, well, Rick ain't the kind to forget to call in. But then the office girl comes out, near tears, talkin'bout how the cops can't find him, neither. Turns out he'd gone to the store before work to pick up some things for dinner, and when he'd come home she was gone. She was just a little thing, six or seven, I think. Not old enough to run away. Craziest thing was, the doors were still locked. Everything was exactly the way he had left it. The cops couldn't find no trace of anybody in that house but Rick and his wife. The man didn't take it well, apparently. When the cops called us, we knew he didn't do nothing wrong, but... Well, they found him a couple days later, in the woods, still looking for her. Can't say I blame him."

Steve struggled to unstick his tongue from the roof of his dry mouth long enough to ask, "They never found her?" 

"Nah," Wayne said, shaking his head. "I wasn't following the case real close, of course. Felt too weird, knowin' Rick and all. Last I heard, they didn't have much to go on." 

Horror filled Steve's lungs with every heartbeat. Steve was no stranger to his own reaction to the stories of the missing kids, but he had at least hoped that with all he'd read over the past week, he might have built up a tolerance. Apparently, he'd had no such luck. If anything, it was worse now. It wasn't fictional, and it wasn't in the impersonal voice of the crime reporter. It was just a man who'd seen his friend lose the one person he loved most in the world, and Steve's chest ached with it. 

He thought, as always, of Will. And Barb, if he was being honest. Because while he knew what happened to Barb, it never got any easier to imagine what her parents must have felt, not knowing. No matter what Nancy thought, he had never forgotten. He tried, all the time. When the guilt got too big to hold on his own, he tried to limit it to Will, tried to force things back into the size a teenage boy was supposed to handle. But then it only grew, as Steve had to acknowledge he was only abandoning Barb again. 

He tried to reach for Joyce's character, but there's no help there. She would be perfect-- Incredibly compassionate and understanding. She would take Wayne's hand, even, and ask if there was anything she could do. Steve can't do that. Not because he doesn't want to; Wayne looks haunted by something he never even saw, and Steve wishes he could fix that, but he also knows he's not allowed. 

Fixing things was never Steve's role in the story. He never got to be the one who loved or the one who heals for very long. When he was very lucky, he got to be the hero, but most of the time he felt like some impersonal, distant villain. At the very least, some rich asshole who stood at the edge of a grieving community and watched, never really understanding. 

So, instead, Steve froze.

"I... I'm so sorry, Mr. Munson," Robin said, her voice genuine but unsure. "That must have been terrible to go through." 

"You don't gotta apologize to me, girl," Wayne said, gruff. "Wasn't my burden. I'm lucky enough to say that my kid is right here at home, safe as anything." Despite his words, Wayne looked disturbed by his own story, as if he was imagining a world where Robin's apology was a little more apt, and there was no nephew to stand guard behind his chair.

Anticipating his uncle's mood, Eddie said, "I can take care of myself, Wayne." 

Sheer contrariness pulled Wayne out of his melancholy. He shifted back in his chair to stare up at his nephew with a stern frown. "Did I say you couldn't?" 

Steve still wasn't sure what to say, his brain instead latching on to the ease of the dynamic between Eddie and Wayne. Eddie definitely wasn't a kid, but it seemed... sweet, that Wayne still thought of him as one. As his kid. Steve wasn't sure his own parents had thought of him that way in years. Before he could descend too far into self-pity, he felt Dustin tuck himself further in Steve's side. 

Immediately, his attention was on the kid. Although Dustin wouldn't look at him, staring angrily at a burn mark in the carpet, Steve had to assume that it was fear that pushed him into Steve's arms. Fear or grief, one. If it reminded Steve of Barb, then it had to remind Dustin of Will. And Dustin was a child. Just a kid, and none of this was his fault, and if Steve couldn't shake off his own grief and do something about Dustin's, then could he even call himself an adult?

He ran his hand up and down Dustin's back, the way his favorite nanny used to do for him when he got upset, and hoped it helped. There was nothing else he could do right now, besides finding more information about whatever did this. 

"That's exactly why we're here, Mr. Munson. I... I know it's probably a long shot," he confessed, "but I'd like to bring that little girl home, if I can. And if I can't, then... Then I at least want to make sure that no more kids go missing. More than that, we need people to know that their kids are safe again. When parents start to connect the dots, it's going to get bad out there." 

"It's bad enough after what happened to Will and Barb," Dustin said, sullenly, and Steve fought not to flinch at her name said out loud. 

"No more dangerous animal than a scared animal," Wayne said, softly, and Steve couldn't help but tilt his head at the familiarity of the phrase. 

"...My dad says that all the time," Steve said, wondering if it was some Wesen parable that he'd missed. 

Wayne didn't confirm or deny Steve's implication, just smiled wryly and said, "Well, I reckon he would know." 

And then, after a moment where Steve searched for the right words to say, Wayne continued, "You know, you keep poking into this, you're gonna end up facing something a lot more dangerous than some scared parents. Blutbader have been hunting for longer than Grimms have even existed. That's old power, especially for a youngin' like you. You sure you're willing to risk your life for some monsters just because they look like kids?" 

Steve knew he didn't really believe that. Wayne didn't seem the kind to hate himself, no matter what he had done in the past. He seemed level-headed, realistic, in a way that just didn't line up with calling kids monsters. But that didn't mean it didn't piss Steve off. It was Wayne's tone of voice that got Steve more than anything, really. 

There was a voice that adults only used when they were testing you, when they knew the answer and they probably knew what you were going to say, but they wanted you to say it out loud. Steve hated that voice. He hated that every adult in the world thinks he needs to be tested. He hates that they're all so sure that they deserve to test him. He hates that they just can't seem to ask what they're really asking. He hates that they can't believe him when he speaks. 

He hates that everyone on earth seems to think he's either evil or incompetent. 

Steve can feel the woge settle across his face, jerking like a twitching muscle, but he doesn't try to stop it. Adrenaline surges in his blood, but he doesn't feel the usual compulsion to fight and tear and rend. It's easy to keep himself in the chair, and for once Steve doesn't feel out of control. He feels powerful. 

When he speaks, his voice is clear. 

"I know you don't really believe that," Steve said, because it's less confrontational than telling Wayne that he's the reason Steve hates people older than 18, as a general rule. "They're children, not monsters. And even if they were, that doesn't mean they deserve to be hurt." 

Steve's woge forces Wayne's, the same instinctual shift that Steve seems to inspire in Wesen, but unlike with El or Robin, Wayne's Blutbader face was gone just as quickly as it came. And that was... interesting. Steve's eyes narrowed as he took in Wayne's unbothered appearance. It was all odd, wasn't it? They had been looking into each other's eyes the entire time, and Wayne had never so much as flinched away until Steve woged in his face. There was no shock or horror in whatever he found in the shadowy depths of Steve's eyes, and Steve very much doubted that Wayne had less to be guilty about than Robin Buckley. 

Was it all Blutbader who could fight their own instincts so well, or was Wayne Munson special? 

Unable to stop his own curiosity, Steve looked up and deliberately met Eddie's eyes. Eddie didn't woge again, but he met Steve's gaze only for a moment before awkwardly shifting his weight and looking away. Steve supposed that answered his question. It was less of an inherited skill and more of a learned one, though it was obvious that Wayne had taught Eddie a little of it. That was the only reason that Steve could think that the likes of Tommy Hagan and his merry bands of meatheads were still alive after tormenting Eddie and his friends for five years. 

It was impressive, to be sure, but also a little bit worrying, if Steve was honest with himself. The eyes, as far as he understood, were supposed to be a Grimm's last fail-safe. Something to protect himself with, give a raging Wesen pause, when traditional means failed. The fact that some Wesen could just ignore that last line of defense wasn't a great sign for Steve's future odds of survival. 

More than that, if the eyes were supposed to inspire guilt and self-loathing, why were the Munsons so immune to it? The only options Steve could figure were that they were really good at controlling their own feelings, or they just weren't capable of feeling guilt. And Steve would love for the first to be reality, he really would, but the idea of a Wesen in Hawkins with no genuine conscience unsettled him. 

Even as Steve promised himself to keep an eye on these two, he wished he didn't have to. He wished he was allowed to believe the best in people, wished he didn't have to make lists in his head of people most likely to hurt children. Because, when it came down to it, he liked Wayne. A lot. He thought that Wayne would get along with Hopper, probably, if Hopper could accept the way Wayne didn't seem to be moved by much. A dad like him would have been amazing. Steve couldn't imagine Wayne freaking out because of the color of shirt Eddie wanted to wear, or if he wanted to try out for the school play. 

Steve wanted Wayne to be a good person. He really, really did. He just didn't know if he could believe it, yet.

"I have to admit, Mr. Munson," Steve said, settling back into the couch and forcing his muscles to unclench. "You're not what I thought you'd be."

Wayne laughed, though there wasn't much humor to it. "I could say the same thing about you, Harrington. Eddie always told me you were at least gracious enough to keep your teammates from publically humiliating him and his friends, but I figured that would change once you were... aware," he said, and Steve flushed at the idea of Eddie bringing home stories about him. God knew the kind of things Wayne must have heard. "It's a nice surprise to see it hasn't. Guess I should have figured, since you didn't cause problems for Eddie last year." 

"Last year?" Steve asked. Did he even talk to Eddie last year? He didn't think so, but so much of last fall was a blur. He looked up at Eddie, askance. 

"Last autumn, when you-- After you quit basketball, I noticed something was off," Eddie said. He still wouldn't make eye contact, and a light blush was beginning to creep across his face. Steve got it; It was never fun being caught caring more than you should. "Figured it was probably you coming into your Grimm... ness. Sorry if you didn't want anyone to know about it, but I was freaked out and needed to tell Wayne. You never did anything, though. Not even when Billy--" 

"Billy isn't worth it," Steve said, quickly. That was the reason he had given himself, anyway. He meant it, too. Billy was an asshole, and Steve would do anything to keep him away from Lucas, but it wasn't worth living with the guilt of ruining a huma like Steve knew a Grimm could. At least, that was the only explanation he had now for why he couldn't beat one teen boy after taking down several demonic dogs in a junkyard. He hadn't used his bat on Billy, after all, and some part of him hadn't wanted to fight back. 

So maybe Eddie was right. Maybe Steve's powers had started coming in after one too many fights against the demodicks. It certainly made more sense then them coming upon him randomly one spring day. Then again, Eddie didn't know about demogorgons or El or any of it, so to Eddie it must have seemed pretty random, anyway.  

Steve was pretty curious about the logic there. "Wait, why did you think it had to do with my powers?" 

Eddie shrugged, gaze darting all over the room. "You didn't... care about anything. Not, like, in a 'cool' way. You didn't talk to anyone, not even when they were yelling in your face. You quit the basketball team, you were sitting right next to me everytime the principal lectured us about our grades... I mean, fuck, man, I'm pretty sure you didn't even flinch the first time Wheeler and Byers walked into the cafeteria holding hands," Eddie said, and Steve couldn't even remember the day he was talking about. "Whatever happened, it had to be huge, and I figured discovering monsters were real was about as big as it could get. I skipped as much school as possible trying to dodge the oncoming woge." 

It was a surprise to know that Eddie had noticed. Sure, the malaise his life had been consumed by that semester didn't actually have anything to do with being a Grimm-- If he had to guess, Steve would say it was probably the lingering concussion. But Eddie had been looking enough to notice. And that was... That was a lot to think about. Steve was a little dismayed to learn that he'd had Eddie's attention on him all this time and he hadn't had the opportunity to do anything about it. He would have to chalk it up to another thing the Upside Down had taken from him, he supposed.

"So you can see why we were a little suspicious when you showed up tonight," Wayne said. And, yeah, that made sense. They thought he was a full-fledged Grimm, completely in his power for going on a year. That would be enough to scare anyone. 

Clearing things up would make working together in the future, Steve realised, but keeping his own past in mystery would offer him more control. It turned out that adults weren't that different then high schools; They all feared what they didn't know. They worshipped the mysterious, mocked the sincere, and gossiped incessantly. Still, Steve was tired of ruling with fear-- Tired of ruling anything at all. 

"I'll be honest, the whole 'Grimm' thing has been slow going. I only started to woge after graduation," Steve confessed. "I've been getting stronger-- I think you were right, it started last year, but it comes and goes. Everything else is... sporadic, at best." 

"Kinda young for a Grimm," Wayne remarked, which was news to Steve. Not much in the books had been mentioned about other Grimms' awakenings. "Your parents must have been surprised." 

"Yeah, they definitely... Definitely were not expecting it," Steve said, stuttering around the fact that he had no plans to let them know. He can't have them asking too many questions, can't just show the big, blinding weakness in his own chest. "I don't think they planned to tell me until later, I-- I still don't feel very... Grimm. It hasn't really settled in yet, I don't think. My abilities still feel like me, not some magic thing, and I... Sorry, I guess what I'm trying to say is, you have nothing to worry about. I'm barely a Grimm. I've spent the last six months just trying to keep the people I care about safe." 

He doesn't elaborate, hoping they will simply assume he's talking about his parents, or Dustin and Robin beside him. There's not enough time to go into all the details of the things he's had to do in the past two years, and he doesn't trust them enough to mention El, yet. 

It was just a throwaway half-lie, a small justification as to why Steve wasn't trained as a Grimm that didn't go into all the stupid drama his family brought with them, so Steve was surprised to see a frown on Eddie's face. He still wasn't looking at Steve, but to the right of him, his eyes all but boring into Robin's forehead. Steve's mind caught on that, long enough to be embarassing, until he realised what it meant-- What it would always mean, for boys like Steve. 

Because it made sense now, why Eddie had looked so upset when Robin was the one by Steve's side. Why he had immediately tried to start a fight. It was so blindingly obvious, the only kind of signs that Steve had ever been good at reading: Eddie had a crush on Robin. 

The jealousy was swift and unpleasant. Before Steve could even really process the emotion, he could hear himself bemoan how unfair it was, how Steve hadn't even gotten to look at Eddie properly, and how he was already untouchable. And, really, the pettiest part of him complained, what did Robin have that Steve didn't? 

They were ridiculous, unfair thoughts. Steve felt his stomach churn, and he made himself look away from Eddie, his eyes unfocusing in the swirl of colored mugs. It was a bad habit, these little obsessions of his, one that apparently he hadn't kicked as well as he thought. And Steve had thought he'd beaten it. It had been months since he sat up at night, thinking about another man's hands. He'd really thought it was over. 

Part of him wanted to blame Eddie for it, even though his rationality knew it was no one's fault but Steve. There was always a part of Steve that had known Eddie was pretty, always paid a little more attention to him than others, but at the time Steve had been mostly tied up in Tommy. Tommy's hair, Tommy's smile, Tommy's freckles. Whatever Eddie Munson was faded into background noise. Being with Nancy had let him pour all his compuslion into something good, something wholesome, but now he was alone and Eddie was here. Steve couldn't stop the tug in his stomach when he thought about Eddie's eyes. 

The worst part was how selfish it was. People were hurt. Steve had a job to do. It was the worst possible time to be thinking about the plushness of Eddie's mouth, or the way his curls would get frizzy at the temples after gym. The worst possible time to linger over the strength of his hands, or the way his nose wrinkled when he smiled. The worst possible time to focus on trying to see the flash of his tongue when he spoke or-- 

Steve was the most selfish person in the world. It was the only explanation for why he was doing this now, when so much was at stake and he knew Eddie wanted someone else, anyway. It didn't even make sense, really, why he felt so suddenly betrayed. He had been able to put his own emotions to the side when Nancy showed up with Jonathan last fall, because the kids needed all of them focused and ready. So why couldn't he stop thinking of ways to make Eddie look at him when he barely knew the guy?

"So why aren't your parents the ones trying to find these kids, then?" Wayne said, breaking through Steve's panicked thoughts. The pool of guilt in Steve's stomach grew as he flushed, embarassed to have been caught daydreaming about Wayne's nephew in their own living room. 

"Wh-- Like I said, they're out of town," Steve replied, trying to gather the scattered thread of his own lies. "Business trip." 

"Uh-huh. And is that Grimm business?" Wayne asked. A little too curiously, for Steve's taste. Though he supposed he did owe the man whatever information he wanted, at this point. 

"Honestly, sir, my parents aren't really the kind of people who let me in on that sort of thing. They come and they go and business is business," Steve said, trying to sound confident that this was all completely normal and absolutely did not bother him at all. Which, it probably wouldn't if monsters hadn't gotten involved. He was sure there were tons of people who practically raised themselves after age 12. 

"Fair enough," Wayne said, and to his credit he didn't even look disappointed. "If I had to do what your parents do,  I can't say that I'd be letting Eddie get involved." 

It was a sweet sentiment, but Steve doubted that was why his parents kept him in the dark about so much of their lives. He didn't tell Wayne that much, though. It was difficult, though, because Steve was almost sure that Wayne knew more about Steve's parents than Steve himself. It was his best bet towards getting any kind of information, but to get it he'd have to admit that he was going into all this blind. That wasn't exactly a smart play, even if Wayne was completely on the up-and-up. The last thing Steve needed was for people to start talking about how the only Grimm in Hawkins didn't know what the fuck he was doing. 

"Since my parents won't be coming to fix this anytime soon, what can you tell me about Blutbader packs in the area?" Steve asked, trying to steer this mess of an evening back on course. 

"I hate to break it to you, son, but officially there are no Blutbader packs in Indiana," Wayne said with a sigh.  

"I told you!" Robin hissed in Steve's ear. He shoved her away, gently, watching Eddie's face crease with pain. 

Fuck.

"When Eddie and I moved here, I chose Hawkins for a reason," Wayne continued. "Your parents offered me a deal that was hard to refuse, of course, but ultimately it was the lack of a proper pack that made it a good place to raise a wieder cub. Of course, that's probably their doing, too. Most packs don't move through a Grimm's territory without a good reason. Living this close to the city means Eddie can go off with his friends on the weekends without running into something he shouldn't."

"Sorry, I--" Steve paused, unsure where to start in the dozens of questions he suddenly had. "What does wierder mean? And why does it have to be away from packs? Am I allowed to ask that?" 

"Well, let's start simple," Wayne said, and his eyes drifted towards Dustin. "Would you want your little one around a strange Blutbad alone?"  

Steve hesitated, unsure if this was a trick or not. "I... You and Eddie are the only Blutbader I've ever met," he said, every word carefully measured,"so I'm not... I don't want to say for sure, but from what I've read? Not... exactly." 

"And it's the same with me." Wayne shrugged, as if it was a simple fact of life there he was nothing he could do about. "Murderers aren't great with children, even if they are their own." 

"So you left the pack?" Steve confirmed.

"We more than left. We went wieder," Wayne said. Steve frowned when he heard the unfamiliar German.  

When he turned to Robin, she was looking at Wayne as if he had just started babbling like an infant. "I'm guessing that doesn't mean what I think it means," Robin said, as if she was as afraid of upsetting Wayne as Steve was. 

"Nah, wieder is older than that," Wayne said. 

"Older than German?" Robin asked, her voice rising into 'I'm about to freak out' levels of pitch. Her eyes flew to Steve, widening. He shrugged; He didn't know why she thought that he, of all people, would have answers, but he didn't even have context for what they were talking about. God, he really needed to learn German, but the idea of learning a second language when the kids already confused him in English was exhausting.

"Since the creation of monsters, there's been those of us who didn't want to be monsters," Wayne said, as if that explained anything at all. Maybe for Robin, it did, because she began to nod thoughtfully. "For Blutbader, though, leaving is... hard. We're real big on the pack, and stepping away from that goes against everything we are. Can't stay, though, without getting pulled back into the hunt. And even now, every second I'm alive, I can feel myself trying to go back to them." 

"How do you do it?" Dustin asked, voice quiet.

"Don't listen," Wayne said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. Steve had to assume that it was a very practiced nonchalance, because he couldn't imagine talking about his own compulsions this way. "There's a lot of things I don't do anymore, because it makes the wolf louder than the man. I don't eat meat, I don't wear red, I don't suffer assholes and, most importantly, I don't keep company with other Blutbader anymore."

And that almost made sense, except that Steve was certain he would have noticed Eddie doing literally any of that. One incident especially came to mind, and Steve was quick to say, "I... have definitely seen Eddie eat meat before. In fact, I'm almost positive I once saw him eat an entire chicken in one sitting." 

"I've never hunted before!" Eddie protested, as if he and Wayne had this argument every day. "Eating a chicken isn't going to make me start craving human."

"It's like an alcoholic having a drink versus someone who's never had a drop a day in their life," Wayne explained, and Steve was grateful for an explanation he had literally any chance of understanding. "Sure, the second guy could become an alcholic, but he can also just have a beer on a Friday night. First guy can't go back." 

"So Eddie could--" Steve didn't want to think about it, about Eddie acting like the Blutbad in Otis' journal. 

"He could," Wayne confirmed gravely. 

"I won't!" Eddie said, with the air of a kid who had been promising his father the same thing for his entire life. 

"You won't, but you could," Wayne said, reasonable in a way that came with practice. 

"Oh, my God, Wayne," Eddie hissed, starting to look strained around the eyes. "For the last time, I am not going into a killing frenzy in the mosh pit." 

"Let's hope not," Wayne said, as if that was an actual possibility, and oh my god, Steve didn't need to think about that. Didn't need to think of Eddie in a club at all, especially not in a pit. He'd never seen one, but he'd read about them, violence in a sea of anonymous bodies, an orgy for those who liked to let loose by collecting bruises-- The kind of fun that made Steve's stomach twist in ways he didn't want to examine too closely. The kind of thing he'd never let himself do. 

He just really should not think about it. 

"So why'd you do it?" Dustin asked. His voice was a welcome and necessary distraction to the spiral of Steve's thoughts; Wherever that path led, he'd never let himself go down it sitting next to the kid. 

"What?" Wayne asked, looking a little surprised. 

"If it's so hard," Dustin clarified. "If you have to live the rest of your life struggling, when why leave?" 

Wayne paused, as if he wasn't sure how to explain it. And while Steve was sure the man had thought the same question to himself, maybe the answers he came up with weren't ones he wanted to tell a 13 year old in his living room. Or maybe, he just wasn't sure that Dustin would understand them. (Steve was sure Dustin would, though. Dustin had seen more than he should. Steve wished Dustin understood less.)

Eventually, Wayne said,"When Eddie was born, my brother Al changed. For the better, I mean. He'd always been an asshole, and I don't think having a kid was ever going to change that, but it was like he had woken up one day and his perspective had changed. Suddenly the only thing my brother wanted was to keep his baby safe, even if it meant giving up everything he had ever known. And I... I had never been good at telling Al no." 

All embarassment was gone from Eddie's face, leaving behind instead an uncomfortable sadness. Steve was all too familiar with that pinched frown. To him, it was always from a grief that he didn't know how to hold, a sorrow that fit just a little too big within the spaces of his chest to have a proper place in his life. It required more than his two hands to hold it, and Steve wished he could be that second pair of hands for Eddie. He wished he knew how to hold someone else's pain like that; He wished he'd ever had someone to teach him. 

"We stayed on the move for a few years," Wayne continued. "Came up the East Coast and then headed West when--  Well, stumbling onto Hawkins was almost an accident. I didn't think we'd get to stay until your parents found me and offered the deal." 

It was easy to imagine what the deal might be. Steve knew his parents, knew the kind of deals they liked to make in a board room, and he didn't imagine they saw their town as any different. Still, he wanted to know the details, the particulars. He needed to know exactly how big the knife his parents were holding over Hawkins was.

"Wait a minute," Dustin said, before Steve could ask further. "If Eddie is wieder and he's never hunted before, then my mom has to let me join Hellfire this year! This is perfect!" 

Steve blinked, stunned by the sudden change in subject, then said, "Dustin, there is absolutely no way you can tell your mom about any of this. She would kill me, and probably Wayne, too." 

"Come on, Steve, if the other all join--" 

"There are others?" Eddie said. He actually sounded excited by the idea of the Party joining his silly little club, damn him. Steve hated that it was almost adorable. 

"Yeah! My friends Mike, Lucas, and Will all play together," Dustin said, babbling with excitement and innocence like Steve hadn't seen him in God knew how long. "And maybe Max and El, if her dad lets her come to school this year--" 

"Dustin!" Steve snapped. The Munsons had pretty much been cleared of any and all suspicion at this point, but that didn't mean he trusted them with El. Even good people talked to the wrong suits, sometimes. 

"I mean, we already have some prey species guys in the club," Eddie said, eager enough to ignore Steve's outburst.  "Maybe I can have their moms talk to your mom, let her know what the vibe is like. We haven't had any problems before. Are your friends--" 

"They're human. Well, except for El, she's--" 

"Henderson, if you say one more fucking word," Steve swore. 

"She's basically Steve's little sister," Dustin continued, as if Steve hadn't said a single word. 

"Jesus fucking Christ." 

They both continued around him, as if Steve wasn't having a very public breakdown at Eddie Munson knowing about El's existence. Neither of them even looked his way as he buried his head in his hands and surpressed the urge to scream. Dustin beamed up at Eddie, asking, "So what campaigns did you guys play last year?" 

"Well, we just finished the latest Dragonlance campaign, and let me tell you, those aerial battles--" 

"These children are ridiculous," Robin said, close enough that it broke over the excited racket of Dustin and Eddie's nerdery.  She wasn't wrong; Steve had long since accepted that the kids would always bring their board game up in the face of extreme danger, but he hadn't expected that Eddie would indulge that particular absurdity. Steve was beginning to think that maybe he just had bad taste.

Steve raised his head to look at Wayne apologetically, but he found the man was instead making the same expression back at him. "He'll talk about this for hours, if we let him." 

"Dustin, too," Steve said with a tired nod, and it was in that moment of kinship that Steve had to acknowledge this entire thing was a waste. Eddie and Wayne obviously hadn't done this, they had already known that before Dustin let his emotions get the best of him, but more and more it was becoming obvious that they didn't know anything. They were just normal people who had to work a little harder to get to 'normal', just like Steve and El and Dustin and every other Wesen living on the fringe of what it meant to be human. Whatever clues existed in greater Wesen society were once again entirely out of Steve's reach, and they were no closer than they had been this afternoon. 

Steve let his shoulders slump in resignation. "Maybe we should just let them talk," Steve said. "I don't know what to do now, honestly." 

"It's a damn shame your parents aren't here for all this, kid," Wayne said, eyes sad. Steve hated being pitied, usually, but just for once he let himself revel in it. This was much bigger than he could handle, and it felt a little soothing to have it acknowledged for once.  "They'll get to the bottom of it,eventually. You just gotta wait it out." 

"You have a lot of faith in them," Steve said, curious. He couldn't imagine what they had done to earn it, when he had so little faith in them himself. 

"I mean, not everyone is under their protection, but whatever's out there would have to be awfully stupid to keep messing around where a Grimm can see it," Wayne said, and that, at least, made sense. "Look, son, I know you're under a lot of pressure right now, but this'll all be over once your parents are home." 

It was a sentiment that Steve had heard many times, over the course of his childhood. When he was younger, it felt like he wasn't even allowed to ask questions without someone telling him to just wait for his parents to come home. He tried to tell them that he was sick of waiting, that he was never sure when they were coming back, but that only made everyone upset. So he would call, and someone's secretary would write a note, and Steve would wait. As he got older, Steve stopped calling. Eventually, people let him ask questions-- It was okay when a sixteen year old asked how to pay a power bill, in a way it hadn't been when he was eleven. 

It helped that Steve was good at pretending. He learned to shave in Tommy's bathroom, pretending he'd been doing it for years. He copied signatures and permission slips. No one ever doubted when Steve said he'd called them, because who else spoke like Bradley Harrington? Who else but the son who survived mimicking his tone of voice? Steve pretended he was still waiting, and he didn't feel bad about moving on. 

Wayne made him wish he was still waiting. Not because he actually wanted them to come home-- In fact, the idea of it made him feel the same way he had felt when Nancy had wanted to go to the cops. His stomach squirmed with unease, palms sweating, because his parents were the only people he had never been able to pretend in front of. And if they knew too much about Barb-- if they knew too much about Dustin and El and Robin --then they would know exactly who Steve was. 

But Wayne made Steve want to be the kind of person who didn't feel like that. Or, at least, the kind of person who could ignore it long enough to call. He already knew he should, already knew all the lives he was putting at risk because he was too afraid to pick up a phone, but until that night Steve was okay with his own cowardice. Wayne made him feel guilt for pretending, for the first time in his life. 

Steve wasn't sure if he liked that. 

"Of course," Steve said, still pretending, with a pit in his stomach. "Of course you're right. I'm sure they'll be home as soon as they're able. But is there, uh, anything else you can think of? Just to keep the fort held down until my parents come home." 

"Nothin' off the top of my head, son," Wayne said. "But I'll tell you what: I'll keep my eyes open and my ears peeled, and I'll let you know if anything comes up." 

"Thank you, sir." Steve stood, yanking Dustin out of his conversation. The kid scrambled to follow his lead, still Steve's shadow when he had found a cooler friend, and he felt Robin match his every movement just a moment behind. Steve hesitated for a moment, unsure if it was necessary to leave his number or address with a man who so obviously knew his father. Or even if he would be home when Wayne needed him. He was shit at this leadership stuff. "If-- if there's an emergency, and you can't get in touch with me, you can always call Chief Hopper down at the police station. He knows where to find me in a pinch." 

"Wait wait wait." Eddie sounded harried, and he looked at Steve with wide eyes. "Does Chief Hopper know about this shit?"

"I mean... he knows kids are missing," Steve said, because... well, he had to assume that someone had told the Chief of Police that kids were going missing more often than quarters, "but I haven't told him about the Wesen connection, no."

"But he knows about Wesen?" Eddie asked, and Steve noted that he certainly wasn't afraid to make eye contact now. His eyes all but bored into Steve, big and scared and wholly prey. If he hadn't known better, there was no way Steve would have pegged this man for any kind of predator. Even human seemed a designation too cruel for those eyes.  "He knows there are people in this town who aren't human? Does he-- does he know about me?" 

"No, no, it's not like that," Steve said, because he remembered how scared he was to tell Hopper about being a Grimm, before he even had words for it. He couldn't imagine what it must be like for Eddie, with all this... expectation at his back. "Hopper knows that Wesen exist, but that's... recent. And I doubt he knows anything about either of you; I don't think he's even heard of a Blutbad before. Hop knows the basics, and I don't think he plans on learning much more than that." 

Wayne hummed, considering. He seemed much calmer about the idea of a cop in Wesen business. Although, considering all the weed Steve and his friends had bought from Eddie in school, Wayne probably spent less time in general thinking about cops. "Seems like he'd be a good ally, Chief of Police. You don't want to bring him in on the missing kids?" 

Oh, and wasn't that a doozy? Because Wayne was right, from a certain point of view. It would be so much easier to let Hopper take over. But there were so many reasons he couldn't, and so many of them he couldn't tell Wayne. There was just... too much. Too much about Hopper, too much about Steve, and while he fully believed Wayne was a good person... Well, there were a lot of good people Steve didn't trust. 

"Look, Hop is a good man," Steve said, slowly. "But he's a cop first, and that comes with rules and laws and a bunch of other stuff that I don't really understand. Now, Hop isn't always... the best at following those rules, but that's not a position I want to put him in. If there's every anything in this that we can prove to a court of law, then I would love to call the police and step out of the way. But that's just... not the life we're living." 

Besides, pulling Hop in on any Wesen business would be a terrible idea. Once he had one foot in, he was bound to take a mile, and the more he got involved, the bigger chance he had getting tied up in something that Steve's parents would notice. And them noticing Hopper was just a step away from them noticing El, and that was... Steve couldn't have that. 

Wayne was right, though. Steve needed someone to work the human side of things if he wanted any chance of finding this guy. Hopper couldn't get involved, and Steve didn't trust Dr. Owens or the numbers he'd left behind last fall, but... Well, Steve knew a guy. The local paper might not have as many resources as the police department, but people also didn't close the doors on a pretty smile like they did a badge. 

Luckily, Wayne didn't ask him to elaborate. He just sat for a moment, as if he was really considering what Steve had said-- And wasn't that a trip? --and eventually, he nodded and sighed. "... Jim Hopper is a good man," Wayne said, in the voice of a man who was making a choice he hoped he wouldn't regret. "I don't mind calling him first if there's anything I don't think I can handle without someone getting hurt." 

That was certainly a choice of words. 

"I- I'll be right behind him, if you need me," Steve said, trying not to let his voice shake under the sudden image of mild-mannered Wayne Munson wrecking someone's shit. 

"I don't doubt that, son," Wayne said with a smile. 

Steve, unaccustomed to approval this easily, fidgeted under the light of Wayne's grin. "... Right. Right, well, I-- I guess we better get out of your way. It's past Robin's curfew." 

"Oh." Robin practically inflated with shock like a cartoon character, rising up on her tiptoes as she looked at her watch. "Oh, shit. Yeah. Thanks for all the help, Mr. Munson. Bye Eddie!" 

"Yeah, bye Eddie!" Dustin chimed in. "Make sure you talk to your friends about my mom! Her name is Claudia Henderson, we live on--" 

Steve cut him off with a gentle shove towards the door. They didn't have time. Eddie would figure it out, or he wouldn't. Steve needed to get out of here before a Munson decided to make him rethink another aspect of his life. "Dustin, get in the car. Thank you for everything, Mr. Munson." He at least tried to make that sound genuine. 

"No problem, kid," was Wayne's gentle response. "Good luck." 

They left the trailer in a flurry of noise, Dustin and Robin both bursting into their frenzied monologues as soon as the door closed behind them. Stumbling down the steps, Steve almost tripped over both of them as they stuck close to his sides, and he rolled his eyes when Robin came tripping over his heels. 

She grabbed his sweater to steady herself, still complaing over Dustin's excited ramblings. "I can't believe we stayed out this late, Steve. Do you remember how early we have to get up to open, now? In the summer! This is ridiculous, I'm too young for this kind of--" 

Their voices made such a confusing cacophany that Steve almost didn't hear the creak of a screen door behind them, so by the time he turned to check, Eddie was already halfway down the steps. 

"Harrington! Hey, Harrington, wait up!" Eddie called, as if Steve hadn't already stopped in his tracks at the sight of him. Backlit by the faded porch light, Eddie looked otherworldly, a kind of magic that Steve hadn't believed in since his parents decided he was old enough to stop believing in God. Steve felt his mouth going dry already, just looking at golden swirls of errant curls around his head. 

"Oh, uh... Can you guys wait for me in the car? It'll just be a few minutes." 

Dustin would have argued if it weren't so late-- The kid liked to pretend that he was just as ready to pull an all-nighter hunting monsters as he had been two years ago, but Steve recognized the deep-seated teenage urge to sleep for twelve hours a day, and it was hitting Dustin hard. He only looked upset for two seconds before turning away, a yawn already curling his mouth. He didn't even bother to speak, waving at Eddie over his shoulder as he continued trudging to the car. 

Robin shrugged and followed. "Don't make me late for curfew, Harrington, or I'll make you meet my dad." 

Steve shuddered. He hated meeting dads, especially ones whose daughter he wasn't dating-- Mostly because they were always so sure he was. "No chance of that, Buckley." 

He heard Eddie mumble under his breath, a little, "gross," that had Steve frowning off into the swiftly darkening weeds. 

It was such a bad idea for him to talk to Eddie alone; Steve was more than aware that his obsessions got worse the more time he dwelt on them. He knew he would be replaying whatever Eddie said to him over and over again as he tried to sleep, reading into every word deeply enough to give a little rationale to the delusion. It wasn't something Steve could afford to do, especially not when he also had to deal with Eddie's obvious distaste for him, but the alternative seemed even worse.

 Whatever Eddie wanted to talk about, it was obviously i mportant-- And private enough that he hadn't wanted to talk about it in front of Wayne. Dustin would be too nosy, trying to take over the conversation, and Steve honestly didn't have the brainpower to corral him right now. Plus, Steve doubted that Eddie wanted his crush to hear whatever he was about to say. More than that, Steve needed to not actively be resenting Robin over some stupid boy she probably didn't even like. 

God, he hated even thinking that. 

"What's up, Munson?" Steve said. If he talked to Eddie like one of his old teammates, he could pull off sounding normal. Maybe. Probably. 

Eddie hesitated for a moment, his eyebrows knitting together as if he was gearing up for something big. "If you're going to be out there looking for those kids, then I want to be there with you. Join you, I mean. On your mission." 

"Um, no. Absolutely not." Steve didn't even have to think about it. 

"Listen, I know we aren't exactly friends, but--" 

"What? No, that's not--" Steve rubbed at his nose, trying to find the right words. He had always been awful at explaining himself. For a long time, it had been hard for him to understand that not everyone thought in the same pathways as him. Even now, when he finally understood the weird looks that people gave him when he spoke, he never seemed to pick the right words to make people understand. That was why Nancy had always been mad at him-- He could never make her understand what he was actually trying to say. It seemed important, now, to make sure Eddie didn't walk away from this with the same irritation. 

"Look, Eddie," Steve said, starting over. "I need to keep this hunt lowkey, alright? As little people as involved as possible, for my own sanity if not for your own safety. I already have to look after Robin and Dustin because they refuse to let this go at all, and I really don't think that I can manage looking after a third Wesen kid while hunting for someone who is actively trying to capture Wesen children. If you go out there with me, there's no guarantee you're coming back, and I'm not repaying Wayne for his kindness by getting his nephew killed." 

All of Steve's efforts had apparently failed, because the apprehension on Eddie's face had already melted into a pissy little frown. "I'm older than you, Harrington, and I can take care of myself," Eddie said, and Steve had to hold himself back from laughing. As if age had ever had anything to do with it. As if Steve hadn't seen the tiniest twelve year old girl throw men like Eddie to their deaths. 

Luckily, Steve didn't have to reach that deeply to push back. He had four years of memories that were more than enough to keep Eddie Munson far away from any battle field. "Oh yeah? The bloodless, wieder Blutbad is going to fight the monster off himself?" Steve asked. "Eddie, I had to physically drag Tommy Hagan away from kicking your ass multiple times, and that kid was made of pipe cleaners and marshmallow fluff. I don't think you can handle a real fight. ... No offense." Even he didn't believe his own weak appeal at civility. 

"Oh, what, and you can? You got your ass beat by Jonathan Byers, man. We all heard the rumors," Eddie hissed, and Steve could have recognized the wounded masculinity a mile away. 

He rolled his eyes, a hand on his hip. "I do just fine when my opponent isn't a teenage boy with a mother waiting for him to come home, turns out," Steve said, thinking about the way bone collapsed so easily under the weight of his bat. Yeah, he did okay. 

Eddie looked away, flushing. It wasn't the first time that night, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Steve couldn't blame him; While Eddie had obviously learned a lot about self control from his uncle, whatever he saw in Steve's woged eyes must have been enough to seriously throw him off. Even El and Robin, who'd had the most violent reactions, had mostly gotten over it. Eddie, though, looked at Steve like he might start foaming at the mouth and biting at any moment. 

Which was a little ironic, considering, but Steve wasn't about to point that out. 

Making Eddie uncomfortable had never been on Steve's to-do list, so he decided to simply avoid eye contact from here on out. Honestly, it was a little relieving, because Steve hated eye contact with strangers he wasn't trying to flirt something out of. But it was a little upsetting that Eddie didn't want to look at him. And now he didn't have an excuse to look at Eddie's eyes. 

Whatever, this would probably be good for him. They could just stop making eye contact, and Steve could finally put this stupid crush to bed. 

Fuck, no, Harrington. Don't call it a crush. 

Still looking away, Eddie deflated, and Steve noticed he was just a hair shorter than Steve himself. "Alright, fine," Eddie said,  "I'm not going to be any help in a fight. But I know way more about Wesen society than either of those kids you've got with you--" 

"Oh, come on," Steve said, a little irritated by Eddie playing dumb, "you literally know Robin--" 

"And you need the help, Harrington. Don't pretend you don't." In that, at least, Eddie's voice was firm. Confident. Too bad for him that Steve had always been better at faking it. 

"No, I don't need another tag-along nerd," Steve said, pulling for a little of that tried and true Hagan disdain. He just needed Eddie to give this up, go back inside, and pretend none of this ever ended up on his doorstep. "I have books and shit for that, okay? My parents didn't leave me totally unarmed; We'll be fine--" 

"If you didn't need the help, then why did you show up here asking questions then, huh?" Eddie asked, and, well-- It was a good question. One that Steve knew he wouldn't exactly be able to explain his way out of, considering he was lost in the woods on most of this. 

Steve decided to stop arguing he didn't need help, and just start arguing that he didn't need help from Eddie. Something in him smarted at actively trying to hurt the man's feelings, but it would be better for them both, in the long run. "Because the 14 year old would have shown up alone, if I hadn't, and while I know you couldn't fight your way out of a wet paper bag, I wasn't so sure about Wayne," Steve said.

"Look, Harrington, just-- I have actual connections in Wesen society. Not one or two friends, but a whole network of people in Indiana who know more about themselves than any Grimm that ever lived," Eddie said, and Steve had to wonder how many families on the list Eddie could find a friend of a friend to talk to. How deep these connections really went. Would a Jagerbar family be more willing to talk to a Blutbad who showed up on their doorstep? "If you're going to be actually investigating this, you're going to need someone who can get you answers from people like that. Not the books your parents left you." 

"Why? Why can't you just stay safe?" And Steve was talking to Eddie, sure, but meant everyone. No one in Hawkins was willing to get themselves to a safe place and just stay there. They all had to be heroes, and it was driving Steve insane trying to keep them all alive. Why did Eddie have to be stricken with the same affliction? Why did it have to be every fucking time? 

"I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened," Eddie said, an answer that Steve had already known. It was the same reason he had even agreed to come here, the same reason he had stepped between monsters and the people he cared about every time. It was the same reason that Nancy had walked away from him to find answers, and the same reason Dustin put his stupid neck on the line every single day-- Because they had to. They didn't have any other choice. Steve just wished it could be someone else, for once. 

 "I know I wasn't always the best at it," Eddie continued, his big, sad eyes shining in the moonlight, "but I have done everything I can to try and clean up the messes you couldn't. If there was a bully stupid enough to piss you off, I made sure they came after me, not after the other guys. Because... Because I couldn't handle it happening to someone who couldn't take it, and I knew I could. And I can take whatever this monster's got to throw at me. But those kids...." 

If there was one thing Steve could not stand, it was to see himself in someone else. He could barely stand to look at Dustin, sometimes, especially when he was angry and lecturing his friends. More and more the kid was picking up Steve's sarcasm. But in Eddie it was worse, because it was the only part of himself that Steve even liked. It pissed him off, on Eddie, made him want to take the guy by the shoulders and shake some self-preservation into him. But Steve's hands were tied. He knew it would make him the worst kind of asshole if he brushed Eddie off, and the worst of it was he couldn't even pretend that he wasn't here for the exact same reasons. There was no talking Eddie out of this, and if he was anything like Steve, he'd probably just show up if Steve told him no. 

 "Fine. Fine! I'll keep you in the loop," Steve said, as angry about capitulating as he had been with Dustin earlier. He knew he needed to get better at saying no, but he would rather people do stupid shit with him around to pull them out of it, and he was beginning to suspect that everyone knew it. He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to plan a way to keep Eddie safe and far enough away from Steve that he wouldn't be too distracting. Or, worse, actually helpful. The last thing Steve needed was another competent monster hunter to embarass himself in front of. "I-- Ugh. I need to make some calls, get some info on the human side of things so we can start trying to figure out how this guy is finding these kids. Me and Robin have Monday off, so we can meet up that afternoon and go over what I found. Fair warning, the answer might be 'absolutely nothing'." 

Eddie brightened, a grin spreading across his face so quickly that Steve was beginning to suspect he had been played. "Sounds good. Who are you calling, though? Is Hop feeding you information? Is that why we knows?" 

"Uh, no." Steve really did not want to tell Eddie that his big, important source was his ex-girlfriend. For a multitude of reasons, most of which Steve didn't want to think about for too long. "I actually-- Well. I know some guys in the government." Because true lies were the best kind of all. 

"Wait, what?"

And, yeah, there was no way Steve was going to give more detail after all the hints Dustin had dropped in the trailer. Look, I'll see you Monday, Eddie, but I really have to go before Robin kills me. Bye," he said, turning on his heel quickly before Eddie could get a word in. 

He heard a confused goodbye mumbled behind him, but Steve kept his head down as he marched to the car. Thoughts swam in Steve's brain at a pace that had his pulse pounding in his temples. Everything, from what little Wayne had told them, to Eddie's crush on Robin, to the reemergence of Steve's worst habits, to Dustin's new obsession with getting into Eddie's club, was a jumbled mess in the front of his mind. And he knew it was stupid and selfish, the way everything suddenly seemed equally important, but Steve had never been very good at compartmentalizing. He dealt with what was in front of him; Always had. 

The problem with that was everything had turned up on his plate at once, and Steve only had so many hands. And mouths. And brains. 

It didn't help that he could already hear Robin and Dustin's voices before he even made it to the Forest Hills sign, much less to the Bimmer. He had no idea what they were arguing about, their voices muffled just enough that Steve couldn't make out any distinct words, but they were obviously arguing about something-- No matter how good Steve's hearing had gotten, it hadn't turned him into Superman yet. There was no overhearing quiet conversations in buildings down the street. They were yelling, and loudly. 

Steve snatched open the driver's side door, already glaring and bitching before he even got a foot in the vehicle. "Literally what is wrong with the two of you?" 

Dustin had put up with Steve's scoldings for too long to take them seriously, and he tried to continue the arguement, not even looking Steve's way. "Would it kill you to admit that I'm right for once--" 

Robin, however, had centered all her attention on Steve the moment the door opened. She watched him with narrowed eyes, now, ignoring Dustin's shrill voice behind her. There was a moment of silence as Steve settled into his seat, but the moment he shut the door, Robin asked, "What happened?" 

Resisting the urge to bash his head against the steering wheel for the next half hour or so, Steve stared down at his hands for a moment. He wasn't even sure what she was asking him, as he doubted that Robin would care that Steve and Eddie had just stood outside and had a little bitch fit about who got to be the bigger hero. He thought she'd probably just roll her eyes and call them both stupid boys, honestly. Or maybe not. Maybe Robin did like Eddie back. Maybe Steve was already in the way again, and it would be better just to let them handle it, let Eddie take the spot that Robin and Dustin had dragged Steve into anyway-- 

"Nothing," Steve said, shaking the threads of anxiety from his head and starting the engine. "Eddie just wanted to ask if he could come the next time we do research. I told him it was cool." 

"Oh, good," Robin said. She didn't look too excited about the news, which was a great sign for him vis a vis getting his heart broken mid-monster hunt again. "It'll be nice to have an extra pair of eyes looking for clues. We need all the help we can get." 

"Yeah," Steve said. The car idled underneath them as Steve fiddled with the air conditioner. He knew he should start driving now if they wanted Robin to make it home on time, but his brain was still spinning. He just needed to breathe for a second. Just a fucking second. "I'm not used to being on the mystery side of things. I usually just show up and swing at whatever seems like the thing most likely to kill someone." 

"And he didn't know what a Grimm was," Robin muttered under her breath. 

"Hey, you have me!" Dustin protested. "I know I'm not as good as Nancy, and I don't have any weird old guys with government documents in his basement or anything, but I figure stuff out all the time!" 

"I know, and I'm gonna call Nance--" Steve paused, then twisted around in his seat to face Dustin in the back. "... Do you think we should be looping Murray in on this Wesen thing?" 

"Who's Murray?" Robin asked. 

"Are you crazy, Steve?" Dustin's voice rose an entire octave. "That racist asshole? Fuck no. He'd probably try to put El in a cage or something. And then we'd have to kill him, and Nancy would be, like, so mad at us. "

That was fair. Steve had never liked Murray, anyway. Despite the fact that he was apparently 'instrumental' to getting justice for Barb, Murray hadn't really seemed to care either way. While Nancy had been in it for the truth, and helping innocent victims, Murray had been mostly focused on being right. In the maybe thirty minutes he'd spoken to the man last Christmas, Murray had spent the entire time forcing uncomfortable eye contact and telling Steve all about his incredibly troubling theories. The more upsetting they were, the more excited he seemed about the whole thing. Steve really didn't want to see how excited he got about more missing kids.

Besides, while Steve trusted that Murray knew better than to cross Hopper by coming for El, Steve absolutely did not believe for a second that Murray wouldn't out every single Wesen involved if it could be used as 'proof'. He was addicted to being right. God, Steve really hoped he could get that impulse out of Dustin before it got too late. 

 "You're probably right," Steve said, and turned back around, putting the car into reverse. 

"Who the fuck is Murray!?" 

They did not make it home in time for Robin's curfew. 

Luckily, Robin's mother had been delighted to meet him, and though Robin complained under her breath the entire time about her mom getting the wrong idea, Steve had been happy to play along if it meant Robin didn't get grounded. Mrs. Buckley had all but begged Steve to stay and have dessert, and Steve was oddly touched-- The woman was obviously terrified of a Grimm in her kitchen, never looking him in the eyes for longer than a moment or two, but her offer sounded genuine and warm. He would have said yes, if Dustin hadn't been in the car. It would have been nice to know another Wesen family. 

It was only after he'd dropped Dustin off that Steve remembered why he really shouldn't accept food from the Buckleys. 

The next day before work, Steve called Nancy Wheeler for the first time in months. They'd talked since they'd broken up; Of course they had. With Dustin and Mike as close as they were, it was practically impossible for them not to run into each other now and again, and it wasn't like they hated each other, now. Phone calls were more intimate than a casual conversation, though. It spoke of more intent, to just call someone up and chat for hours, and while Steve was all for trying to be friends, eventually, he hadn't wanted Nancy to fill pressured by him calling her out of nowhere-- He hadn't wanted to put Jonathan in that position, either, though he figured his own feelings had never crossed Jonathan's mind. 

He owed it to the guy, he figured, for being such a dick. 

He figured neither of them would mind in an emergency, though-- They were all nearly adults now, and experienced monster hunters. They could have this conversation without bringing their history into it. Even as he justified it to himself, Steve hoped that it wasn't Ted or Karen who would answer the phone. Ted hated him and Karen had always liked him a little too much; The last thing Steve needed was another set of parents assuming that Steve was chasing after their daughter. 

He could just see Mrs. Buckley and Karen Wheeler glaring at each other during a PTA meeting, fighting over a boy that both their daughters felt nothing but disgust for. It would be funny for about two seconds, until it absolutely tanked Steve's barely recovered reputation.

In Steve's ear, the ringing stopped, and Steve straightened from his slump over his kitchen counter just enough to brace himself. 

"Wheeler Residence, Nancy speaking."

Steve sighed in relief. "Uh, hey, Nance. It's me. ... Steve," he said awkwardly. He hated talking to people on the phone. Without facial cues, he was basically lost in conversations; Most girls were easy because they only wanted to flirt, but for everything else, Steve could barely understand what people were trying to say, much less what they were thinking. He decided to barge through the stilted small talk and get right to the point. It wasn't like Nancy's opinion of him could get any lower. "Look, do you have time to help me with a problem?" 

There was silence on the other side of the phone, leaving Steve squirming for a few moments before Nancy said, "Is this about the shirt you lost? The red one?" There was something tense in Nancy's voice, something that Steve couldn't place, but had to assume was anger or  suspicion or both. 

"What?" Steve said, before he could even think about it. For a moment, Steve had thought she was actually asking about a shirt, and it tripped him up. It was only after he registered the tension in her voice that he realized this was probably some kind of code or implication he just didn't understand. He had no idea what a red shirt meant, or why Steve would have been the one to lose it, but it didn't take a genius to figure out it probably had something to do with the Upside Down. "Oh! No, no, but it is about a mutual friend of ours. The one we met at Chief Hopper's?" 

There was another pause, and when Nancy's voice returned, it was unsure. "But it's... not about the red shirt?" 

"No, it's--" Steve sighed. He hated talking in code, hated that he couldn't just say what he meant and ask Nancy to stop talking to him like she was afraid he might actually explode from stupidity. It was so stupid; She was the one who had wanted to go to the cops to begin with, and now she and everyone else was so afraid to even breathe the wrong way. And Steve got it; He really did. Keeping El safe was the first priority, but what was the point of never talking about anything else? They all knew about the Upside Down and the labs. The government knew they knew.  And it wasn't like the American government didn't know that Wesen existed; They'd had little Wesen girls in labs to do experiments on. They should have fucking guessed one of them would figure it out, eventually. They should have been the ones to stop the kids from going missing, the ones to stop monsters so his parents didn't have to. If they wanted to get involved now, good for them. Steve would happily hand it over. For now, though, he was sick of pretending like he cared. If they were even listening. "Look, Nancy, do you honestly think you've been bugged?" 

"Steve!" Nancy hissed, sharp and angry. Months ago, when they had been together, it would have immediately made him step back and apologize. Now, though, it just made the foreign strength that Steve had begun to think of as his rage prickle across the back of his neck. 

"I'm serious, Nance. This is serious," he repeated, because she didn't often believe he knew the importance of things. Steve didn't take it personally; She did that to most people. He just didn't have the patience for the conversation it would take to convince her. "There's no time to be playing spy games or whatever." 

"The government is serious, Steve," Nancy said, as if Steve hadn't been there. "I don't know why--" 

"The government can go fuck itself, starting with Reagan. And if anyone is listening, they can tell him I said that, too. Whatever, they probably know about all this shit anyway-- And if they don't, oh fucking well," Steve said.

Nancy made a little noise of shock, one that reminded Steve of his mother. All suburban sensibilities. It was a practiced sound, one that Nancy had obviously donned out of some kind of camoflague or simply habit, but it made Steve roll his eyes all the same. 

"Steve, what has--" she began, but Steve wasn't interested in playing their assigned roles right now. 

"El wasn't the only one of her kind," he interrupted. Immediately, Nancy's voice failed. Good, he thought. He could practically feel her investigative instincts firing up through the phone line. Hopefully now they could dispense with the masquerade of normalcy. 

"We knew that, already," she said, eventually. "Her siblings--" 

"No, I mean... El would have had powers even if she'd never been taken to the lab," Steve huffed. He wasn't explaining this very well. It would be easier, he thought, if he could just tell her about himself. That would be proof enough for anyone, especially with his Woge backing it up. However, he wasn't sure if he wanted Nancy to know-- It was hard enough to admit his own lack of humanity to people who understood, like Robin or Eddie. It was entirely another to admit to a human. Hopper had been a necessary evil, because he needed someone to put him down if something went wrong, but what good would telling Nancy do? It would only confirm what she already knew; Steve had never been a real person in the first place. 

"There's whole races of them, Nancy," he continued, trying to keep it all as vague as possible. "They're called Wesen, and they-- They're not as powerful as El, usually, but they're not human. They're more than that. And that's why the lab wanted El so badly. That's why the lab wanted all those kids so badly. Because there's not that many of them, but there's-- There's more than we thought, Nancy. So much more."

Nancy's voice was faint. "... What?"

"I know it doesn't make sense," Steve admitted. He had already known it was going to be hard to sell Nancy on a fairy tale without proof, but without outing himself or Dustin, his hands were tied. "I know that, Nance, but I've met them. Kids and adults both, I've met them and I've seen them 'change' like she does. Ask Hopper, if you don't believe me. It's real. It's all real. And-- and they're in trouble."

"Steve, how do you know this?" Nancy asked, and this time Steve had no problem identifying the emotion in her words. It was doubt, plain and simple, and Steve tried not to think of all the hurtful reasons it was there. 

"They--" Steve paused. He really should have come up with a lie before this, but he had honestly thought having Hopper on his side would have been enough to sway her. Maybe he should have known better. "They came to me because they saw me hanging around with El. She's been trying to find more out about her parents, so..."

"Really? That's it? They just saw you hanging out with El and thought, oh, he looks like the person to talk to about this?" If Steve wasn't mistaken, there was a thread of laughter in Nancy's voice. As if it was so laughable that anyone would choose Steve to be their hero. And that was fair, maybe, because Steve hadn't been chosen by anything other than genetics, but it didn't change that he was the only one that could fix things. And Steve needed her with him on that, whether she believed in him or not. 

"Look, it doesn't matter why they chose me," Steve said, already sick of trying to justify himself.  "The point is, kids are going missing. Tons of them. Like, dozens per year. Not just little kids, either, but people your age. And I think I might be able to stop the guy doing this, but I need your help."

"And you're sure it's not..." Nancy's voice trailed off, unwilling to say it out loud. Steve wasn't sure if she was worried about the bugs again, or if she thought that saying it out loud would bring it back into their lives. Either way, the unsaid name hung between them like a physical wall until Steve swallowed his guilt down. This was different, and it was something he could still stop. They didn't have the time. 

"Yes, Nance. This is just... plain human evil," Steve said. "Well, not human. But you get what I mean." 

"I still don't understand how you got caught up in this," Nancy said.  

"It doesn't matter at this point, Nance. I don't--" Steve huffed, rolling his eyes. "Look, if this is going to be a problem, I can go to someone else." 

"No!" Nancy's protest was quick, the idea of being taken completely off the case apparently much more terrifying than a few unanswered questions. "No, I want to help. What do you need?" 

"So, I've got the Wesen-- that's what they're called, Wesen, it means--" 

"People in German, yes," Nancy, as if that was common knowledge. Steve had no idea when everyone in Hawkins learned German, or why he had been missing from class that day, but whatever. That made this whole thing easier. 

"... Yes, so, I've got that angle covered. I've got some-- some connections in the community, I guess," Steve said. He felt much less protective over Eddie and Robin's status than he did Dustin's, especially considering that they weren't so involved in Nancy's life already. Still, he didn't like the idea of her knowing. Sure, she wasn't as involved in their lives, but they were all going to the same school, and from the sound of it, they were already having a rough enough time there. He hoped she didn't dig. "But I'm having a little trouble getting information on the human side of things. You know, where this guy might be finding the kids, if they hang out in any of the same places, you know? So I was wondering if you had any sources at the paper that might--" 

"I don't work at the paper anymore, Steve," Nancy said, voice clear as Steve's ramblings tumbled to a hault around it.  

"What?" 

"I said I don't--" 

"No, I heard you, just..." Steve stopped, taking in a breath. She had been so excited for that internship. It had been all she talked about, in the few times they had spoken recently. She and Jonathan both had been so thrilled to start the first steps of a life they could build together. Steve had been ruthlessly jealous, but hearing the flat, monotone cadence of her voice now only filled him with sudden alarm. "God, Nance, are you okay?" 

"It's fine," Nancy said, and they had dated long enough for Steve to know that those words were almost always a lie. It might have been a little hypocritical for him to think, but Steve had long since accepted that a Wheeler would always complain when they were happy and smile when they were miserable. Even little Holly whined about being uncomfortable when she fell asleep against Steve's shoulder. 

"No, come on, you can talk to me. Did something happen?" Maybe it was the months of feeling like the entire world was on his shoulders, but Steve felt the unfamiliar urge to fix everything. He was aware enough of his own behavior to know that in the past he had ignored every problem in Nancy's life and hoped for the best, but that obviously hadn't worked. There had to be something he could do, to fix this for her and Jonathan. "If-- If something happened, I can help. I can call my mom, you know, my parents donate a lot to the paper, and if I call her--" 

"Steve, I can take care of myself!" Steve thought, absurdly, of Eddie. How he so badly needed to be cared for, how Wayne wanted desperately to do it for him, and how Eddie chafed and squirmed under the gentle hand of his uncle's worry. The same protestations had fallen from his lips just the night before, but when Wayne had pushed, Eddie had seemed exasperated but... fond? Maybe he and Nancy would get there, one day, maybe she would let him be her friend--

"No, I know you can," Steve said, trying to sound as responsible as possible. "I just--" 

"You're not my boyfriend anymore!" 

The explosion of Nancy's anger, now so obvious, drew Steve up short. He had never forgotten that Nancy had dumped him. He thought of it every time he saw her, how badly she had hurt him. Was he acting like he had forgotten? He hadn't meant to. If anything, Steve had gone out of his way to give Nancy and Jonathan space, to make sure they both knew that he had accepted his loss. Steve couldn't tell how he had overstepped, but it was obvious he had. Nancy wasn't someone who would just bring it up out of nowhere. Steve had messed up, somewhere. 

But all he had done was care about her. Was that it? Was that what he had done wrong? Steve hadn't thought so; He'd cared the same way about Carol and Nicole and his former female friends, and their boyfriends had never seemed threatened outside of some light teasing about the unstoppable charisma of Steve Harrington. So maybe it was just Nancy. Maybe it was just with her that he wasn't allowed to care. Or maybe it was a Steve problem. Maybe it was only him who wasn't allowed to be her friend. 

"Okay?" Steve said. He rubbed at his nose as he coughed, trying to rid the quaver from his throat. "Okay, I, uh... I'm sorry, Nancy. I didn't mean to overstep. I'm... I'm sorry I bothered you, too. I'll find somebody else." 

"No, Steve, I--" Nancy sighed, and Steve recognized the emotion behind that one all too well. He had fucked up again, somehow. She was sighing like his mother did when Steve didn't pick something up quickly enough, like teachers did when he asked stupid questions. Steve flinched away from the phone, even as Nancy said, "I can help without the paper. I want to help." 

"Great! That's-- That's great," Steve said, hoping it was true. "Um, hold on, I have a list of names. Do you have a pen and paper?" 

Slowly, Steve read off the list of names and towns, occassionally stopping to fill Nancy in on small details like parents' names or schools. Because the victims were kids, there was a depressingly small amount of information they had found. In fact, most of what they had was a list of everyone who had a drug addict as a parent, which was interesting, but he wasn't sure how to explain everything to Nancy without her freaking out. Besides, if they were connected through the Buckleys, there was no way Robin and Steve wouldn't find the connection eventually. He just needed Nancy to check out the small, human things. Things Steve had never been good at. 

"Anything you can find would be... I mean, I've already checked, you know?" Steve said, nervously. "But I'm not half the researcher you are, and it would make me feel better to have you checking my work. There's no telling what I missed." 

"Right. Well, I'll start working on this immediately. It's not like I've got anything else to do," Nancy said, bitterly. 

Steve made a small noise of agreement that he hoped wasn't too offensive. Usually, he would have stayed on the phone for just a hair too long, taking advantage of the situation to find out how Nancy was doing, what she and Jon were up too. Sometimes, he asked about the kids, and Nancy would explain whatever game they had been playing in a way that actually made sense for Steve. He liked those conversations; They made him feel like he was finally making progress on the 'friends' thing. After Nancy's outburst, though, Steve had to wonder if Nancy had ever enjoyed them at all, or if she just assumed it was Steve's last, desperate attempt to win her back. 

He tried to think of the politest way to hang up, so he could go to work and try to forget any of this ever happened. Robin would be a great distraction for his brain, her rambling going to a good cause for once, and maybe one of the kids would come in. Maybe he could pick up dinner on the way to Hopper's, maybe Max would be there, too, and Steve could spend some time talking to people who actually wanted him around. Maybe-- 

"Steve, can I..." Nancy hesitated. She sounded almost shy, in a way she hadn't around Steve since they first started dating. "Why didn't you go to Hopper with this?" 

When Wayne had asked Steve that question, he had to bite his tongue somewhat. Steve had been raised in a family with a lot of secrets, although he had no idea how many at the time. And family secrets stayed inside the family at all costs. There were a lot of things Steve wouldn't say to someone on the outside, and even more he simply wouldn't. Things that Wayne wouldn't understand. 

Nancy was different. Nancy had been here for all of it, every second, and she was deeper into the inner circle than Steve himself. More than that, Nancy was keenly aware just how badly adults had kept failing children in Hawkins. She would understand why Steve couldn't just hand it all over and pretend it wasn't happening. He almost wanted to point out that, at one point, she hadn't either, but-- Well. Although Steve still stung with betrayal, at the moment Nancy sounded more curious than accusatory. There was no point in picking a fight. 

"I love Hop, you know that. Mostly, I just want to keep him completely out of this. I wouldn't be able to take it if this put him or El in harm's way. But also, I..." Steve sighed. "It's hard to agree with the way Hop does things sometimes. You know what I mean. You've seen the way he can get with El." 

"He's been through a lot, Steve," Nancy said, softly. 

"Believe me, I get that," Steve said, because Hopper had told him a little after a few too many beers. About Sarah and the way El had torn that hole in his chest right back open. Steve honestly understood; That didn't mean he had to like it. Especially not when, bizarrely, it was pointed in his direction. "And he's been trying to be better about it all. But I can't have him trying to Papa Bear me right now, and if we find those kids, I really can't predict what he's going to do. I need... I need someone I can trust to do things the right way, even if that person isn't me. But Hop's a complete mystery, and I can never tell if he's going to be a hardass or a loose canon. I can't afford that right now." 

"But you trust me?" Nancy said,

"Of course I do. Nance, come on." Steve's voice dropped into softness, almost a whisper. He felt terrible, talking about how much he liked her after everything. Felt guilty and ashamed and sneaky and gross. But he couldn't have Nancy thinking that he didn't still think she was the best person he'd ever met. "You're the smartest person I've ever met, and you've never steered me wrong. Even when... Even when we've fought about stuff, it's just because you were doing what you thought was right. I trust you not to let your emotions put people in danger, which is more than I can say for... Well, Hopper, but me, too. Joyce. Most people, I think. You, though... You're good." 

There was another long, uncomfortable silence between them. Steve kept his breathing as shallow as possible, trying not to make too much noise. Eventually, though, it had simply gone on too long for Steve to spend leaned against his counter and doing nothing-- He did still have a job. "Nance, I--" 

"I hope you have a good day at work," Nancy blurted, and then Steve heard nothing but the buzzing of the dial tone. 

"What the hell just..." Steve muttered, pulling the phone receiver away from his ear and staring at it as if it had more information on what the hell had just happened. The receiver didn't talk, just stayed inanimate in his hand, plastic and useless. "I would love to have even one day not be completely fucking weird." 

Maybe it was nothing, he told himself as he put the phone back on the hook. Maybe she was just busy, or maybe she had realized that she didn't actually want to be talking to him. Maybe she had just gotten freaked out by the way he still thought of her. 

He hoped it wasn't anything more complicated than that. Steve wasn't sure that his brain could take it. 

Luckily, Robin was more than enough distraction when he got to work. A nervous tension had taken over her body, including her brain, apparently. It was like working with a sugar-fiend elementary schooler. Everything Robin said all Saturday was twice as many words with half the substance, and she never stopped moving. She reminded Steve of a spooked squirrel, darting from station to station, hands always toying with something not meant to be toyed with. At first, Steve had tried to be sympathetic. Robin had been through a lot, learned a lot about herself and her family, this weekend. Of course she was a little shaken up. 

Still, eight hours was a long, long time. By Sunday morning, Steve almost missed the Robin who critiqued his every move and word. At least she had a personality that he could stand to be in the room with. Crisis mode had been cute at first, and then deeply annoying, but Steve had realized that this wasn't just anxiety or nerves. Robin was quickly heading into a full scale breakdown, and he wasn't sure how easily he was going to be able to clean up after that. 

After hours of talking about the weather on a loop during their Sunday shift, Steve finally gave up and broke into the heart of the matter.

"So how's it going with your parents?" 

Robin's reaction was swift, her whole body filling with anger at once until she was standing straight, her shoulders squared, and staring at him like he would attack at any moment. If she was Woged, Steve was sure her fur would actually be bristling. 

"I'm only asking because I know how it can feel," Steve said, doing his best to keep his voice soft and comforting. He made sure not to make eye contact; An accidental woge would just set her off. "I mean, you already know all about my parents, but... I had Dustin and El and Hopper to talk about it with. It's a lot to process, and I didn't want you to have to do it yourself." 

For a moment, Robin only stood stock-still, her muscles twitching with tightly held energy. Eventually, though, her stance softened, face going slack with what Steve thought might have been exhaustion. She groaned, turning away from him and leaning against the service counter. He gave her a moment, letting her work through her embarassment before she said, "I thought I was going to hate him. I really did. But then I looked him in the eyes and it... It was hard. Not because I didn't love him anymore. I do. But I know I'm not supposed to, and now when I look at him I want to throw up because I know what he's done, but he's still my dad, and I can't hate him." 

Steve hummed, considering. "Alright, that's less relatable then I thought it was going to be, can't lie." 

"But also I'm... really pissed off?" Robin ignored him, sounding unsure if she was even describing the right emotion. 

"There it is." 

"I just don't know why he would risk all our lives like this," Robin said, words in a rush and tempo gaining as she continued. "Even if your parents don't come back, ever, even if no one ever finds out... This is the exact stuff that got us kicked out of the last place. And I thought it was just rumors. I thought it was just Wesen gossip bullshit! But, no, it was his fault. And if he's not careful, then we're going to have to pack up and move again. It wasn't so bad, last time, 'cause I was so small, but... I don't have it in me to start over again. I don't! Why the hell did he think this was okay?" 

"Honestly, Rob?" Steve winced. He hated that he had to be the one to say this, because generally he was all for being as anti-parent as possible, but Robin seemed actually distressed. She deserved answers, and Steve certainly didn't have them for her. "This is going to sound insane coming from me, but I think that might be something you have to talk to your dad about." 

"And freak him out? No," Robin said, shaking her head as if she could banish the very thought, "that would just make everything worse. He'd probably move us to California on pure adrenaline alone." 

"At least you don't have to worry about my parents. You're right, I'm not sure they're ever coming home. And even if they did..." Steve shrugged. "They're not exactly keen in meeting my friends. I'm pretty sure they think I'm still hanging out with Tommy and Carol everyday. Unless your dad does something ridiculously stupid, I doubt they'd even notice." 

"This whole thing is ridiculously stupid," Robin hissed, and, yeah, she wasn't wrong, but that wasn't exactly the point Steve had been trying to make. He decided to change tactics.  

"If it helps, Hop and I have already talked about what to do if my parents come home and start causing problems," he confessed, even though he knew she would probably tease him about trying to be a super-hero again later. As long as she didn't let Dustin hear it, he was willing to sacrifice his dignity to keep her from freaking out.

"Is that the plan Dustin was talking about?" Robin asked, too in her own head to start the mocking campaign. 

"Yeah. Neither of us really felt... comfortable, letting my parents run the town the way they have until now. I don't like the idea of them holding things over people's heads. Like, I have no idea what their deal with the Wesen in Hawkins is, but I don't like it," Steve said. He wished he had talked to Wayne about it more, but he knew that revealing just how little his parents had told him would only worry the old man. "I know that, like, laws aren't that much different, but. Well. Hop isn't exactly great at those, either. I doubt he's going to change his mind just because people agreed to it when they got here." Steve wasn't great at remembering all the words for politics and wars and such, but he was pretty sure he knew right from wrong, now. Nancy had often talked about making people agree to things they actually had no choice in, just to make it look like you weren't a terrible person forcing people into things. His parents loved that trick; There was never a rule in the Harrington household they couldn't make him feel like shit for hating. He had no doubts they'd pull the same crap on some poor, scared stranger.

"That's great. No, seriously, it is. I'm sure for people like the Munsons, it'll be... It'll be great, to not have to worry. But my dad is doing something bad, Steve. Like, genuinely morally wrong," Robin said, and Steve had to admit that was a fair point. "Hopper would have a problem with that. And he would be right to." 

"Why does Hopper have to know about it?" Steve asked, confused.

"... You would keep it from him? I thought he was, like, your 'psuedo-dad' or whatever," Robin said, air quotes and all. 

"I keep things from Hop literally all the time," Steve said with a scoff. He wasn't sure when he had suddenly changed into such a good boy in Robin's eyes, but lying to parents had always been part of the Steve Harrington brand. When that parent was a cop, all the practice came in handy. "It's the only way El gets to see sunlight or hold hands with her boyfriend. I'm, like, a fucking professional at keeping things from Hopper. The criminals of Hawkins should be asking me for tips, at this point." 

"Classy," Robin said, grinning. Likely at the image of a hardened criminal having an actual conversation with Steve. He knew it was ridiculous; That's why he said it.  

"Besides, it's not like your dad is the one killing people or grinding them up. If I had to guess, he's sourcing them out of state. Maybe from a morgue or something?" Steve said, unable to stop himself from pulling a disgusted face. "Like, if this is a big operation, they're probably trying to keep it as clean as possible, to not get attention. I doubt anyone is dying because of him. People would notice!  Someone just thought it was a good opportunity for a quick buck." 

"You almost sound like you think he should keep doing it," Robin grumbled.

"No, it's still gross," Steve said. He'd always thought drugs were kind of stupid, honestly. Sure, some weed from time to time was fine, it was basically no different than drinking a lot, but otherwise it all seemed like a really expensive way to lose your teeth and die early. The idea of adding that to cannibalism was even wilder. He couldn't imagine ever needing a high that badly. "If you came in loaded on human heart one day, I'd probably stop talking to you. I definitely don't think I can look Mrs. Henderson in the eye again. But, uh, I don't think anyone deserves to die for it. Especially when the problem seems so..." Steve wasn't sure he had the words for it.

"So?" Robin prompted.

"I mean, he's not the only person doing it, you know?" Steve asked, hands spreading parallel as if he was making a globe. "The problem is bigger than him. Your dad being punished isn't actually going to do all that much, when you think about it. Like, have you thought about how weird it is that half the missing kids had parents in his black book? That's fucked. And the thing is, if something happened to your dad, they would just get it somewhere else. I think if we wanna stop this drug organ thing, it's gonna take a lot more time and patience than any Harrington has, including me."

Robin nodded to herself, silently, brow creased with thought. Steve, a little surprised that had actually made sense to her, turned back to scraping dried ice cream off the freezer. He didn't get very far before Robin said, "Please don't take this the wrong way, Steve, but I have to ask." 

"Yeah?" 

"Why do you go so far to save people like my dad when I know you're terrified of pissing yours off?" When Steve turned to look at her, Robin's face was solemn and her blue eyes were intense. Predator eyes. "You know what's gonna happen. I know you know. So why are you doing it anyway?" 

Steve looked down at the scraper in his hands, picking at the residue on the edge with his thumb nail. He didn't like thinking about the inevitable end, hated even more knowing that he was only speeding it up. But Steve had told himself, two years ago, that he had to stop letting fear keep him from doing the right thing. And to his own surprise, he actually had. Steve wasn't about to break that streak now. 

"... Your dad is a good dad?" he asked. 

Robin sighed. "He doesn't always do it the right way, but I can't imagine a dad who would love me more than him." 

Steve smiled sadly, and shrugged. "That's good enough for me." 

After work that day, Steve came home to find his parents' answering machine blinking red at him. The kids hardly used the thing when they were calling Steve, mostly because they knew if he didn't answer they were more likely to find him somewhere else. The only people who really left messages were his parents' coworkers, which Steve had always thought was rather rich. They, of all people, should know his parents were off on business trips-- It made a lot more sense now that he knew. As Steve got older, the messages grew more and more sparing. Still, the answering machine blinked. 

Steve rewound the recording and hit play. 

"Steve, it's Nancy," the recording said. Nancy's voice wavered on her own name. "Can you call me ba--" 

Nancy's voice cracked, and that was all it took for Steve stop the recording and pick up the phone. 

"Wheeler residence, this is N--" 

"Nancy, it's me." Steve frowned. He could hear her sniffling over the line, breathing deeply like she only did when she didn't want someone to notice that she was losing it. They had always been alike that way, never wanting the other one to see them cry. Steve had always just let her pretend, not wanting to push her out of her comfort zone. Well, he was sick of pretending. 

"Oh, Steve. Good," Nancy said, voice uncharacteristically flat. "I was worried. I didn't--" 

Steve cut through the bullshit. "Nancy, what's wrong?" 

Nancy breathed deep. "Have you watched the news in the past two days?" she asked, voice soft. Like she was trying to gentle a blow. Like she was making bad news easier to bear.

"No," Steve said, blood running cold. He couldn't stop it. He knew he couldn't stop it now, when it was too late, but he tried bargaining with the universe anyway. Nancy was smarter than him; she could stop it, right? She could make it all go away. "Nancy, it was two days. I took two days to stop and do research," he begged. It was a poor excuse, but he was so tired.

"There's been five more," Nancy said, voice weak. 

"No. Are you--" Steve's stomach lurched, and he stopped talking for fear he would vomit if he tried. He felt his body lean against the wall next to the phone, and closed his eyes, accepting the weakness that overtook him.

"I've checked the list a hundred times, Steve." Nancy took a deep breath, the air rattling in her lungs. "They're not here." 

"No." Steve couldn't even regret the sob in his voice. It was as gentle as he could make it, when he wanted to scream. 

"Steve, they're... they were close," Nancy whispered. "Close enough that the news anchors keep talking about Will and Barb." 

Steve flinched like she had punched him in the chest. He had brought her into this. He had failed Nancy as much as he had failed those kids. Everytime Steve tried to breathe, it got caught in his throat-- He could feel the sorrow and the panic making a fist around his throat and squeezing tight."I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Nance." 

"They're not wrong," Nancy continued, and she didn't sound like herself. She sounded distant, faraway, like it couldn't reach her anymore. Like something outside of herself was compelling her to keep talking, when the girl herself just wanted to be done with it. "Everything the cops are saying... It's her, Steve. Parents and friends in the same house, and they're still just gone. Not a sound, no sign of a struggle. No witnesses. It's her. It's what happened to her." 

"I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm sorry." What else was he supposed to say?

A long moment passed, Steve just listening to Nancy breathe on the line while he tried not to cry loud enough to disturb her. Eventually, she said, voice the youngest Steve had ever heard it, "Steve, can you-- Can you find them? You said you knew who was taking these kids; Can you find them?" 

"I don't... Nancy, I don't think they're alive," he admitted. Steve had never said it out loud before, fearing that it would make things too real. He hadn't wanted to scare Dustin, hadn't wanted to tempt fate-- Steve had kept telling himself that it didn't matter, that as long as he could stop it before it hunted again, then it would be okay. But he was wrong. He had been so, so wrong. And now it was time for him to admit it. "The thing that's taking them is a hunter. The things they can do... It's bad. I can't bring them home. I'm sorry." 

Nancy's breath hitched on the end of the line, and Steve realized she was crying. A year of dating, and it was only eight months after their breakup that they cried together. For Barb, for every kid growing up in a place that wanted them dead, for themselves. 

"I'm sorry." Steve's fingernails bit into his skin. He could feel himself woge, and wished that he had claws like Robin or Eddie, something sharp enough to make him bleed like he deserved. 

Even though he could still hear the rhythmic wheeze of her sobs, Nancy's voice was cold when she spoke again. "We don't have time for sorry, Steve. You find him. You find him, and then you make him pay. Do you understand?" 

Yeah. Yeah, he could do that. Maybe he couldn't bleed, but he would make sure someone did. 

"I promise. I promise, Nance." 

Story concept: Forever Night

Back in 2020 on the eve of the pandemic, I made a picture that kind of encapsulated the general anxiety and uncertainty of the state of the world as we shut down in the first real way ever. It featured a dead eyed Bill Muldowney, a fictional President of the United States, c. 1970s. Very much a statement about how apocalyptic the mood was, it mirrored real-life Oval Office addresses during crucial moments in American history. This one interrupted by an grim analog to our own real world by the placement of a respirator on the Resolute Desk.

I don't often come back to Muldowney, as he doesn't figure in any of my major stories. In fact, I've only ever drawn him twice. But the concept for the world Muldowney inhabits is something I think about every now and then.

I've never written a plot or story arc for Forever Night, but certain scenes of dread and confusion occasionally bounce around. What's for-sure is that Muldowney, and this fictional version of the United States ceases to exist. While it's easy to cite the target period (the 70s) and point at the specter of nuclear annihilation, or the mask in the first image and point to our real life experience now dealing with a dangerous and fast-spreading disease, the threat in the story I've thought is a lot more unnerving (could you believe it?)

See, the threat in this story as hinted by the title is the "Forever Night." I never clarified what that meant. though I never really meant physical destruction.

The idea behind the threat in Forever Night was some kind of unexplainable reality perforation. In the story, the United States government at some point observes trends in reality that do not follow the laws of physics. This more than just invokes a needful reassessing of our understanding of reality, but actually begins to frighten the experts by making it nigh impossible to even begin comprehending these observations.

Over the course of the story, Muldowney receives updates and reports from his staff as he hunkers down at the White House, each report getting more concerning than the last. States begin combining, history books being mysteriously rewritten as if no change was made at all. People forgetting information and learning the rewrites as if there were no rewrites at all. Sudden, big changes happen: stars disappearing from the sky, the characters undergo distress as events of the plot itself begin to wrap around. They begin to become conscious of the timeline warping and breaking.

The phenomenon is largely unexplainable, and there doesn't seem to be a pattern. With no other way of demonstrating urgency, the government enacts a state of emergency. Without warning, the Soviet Union simply goes missing. The world is beginning to notice an upheaval.

While I haven't figured out how I would execute this plot, or how it all wraps up, I do know how this story ends.

Muldowney, is one last Oval Office address, speaks directly to both the viewer and the diagetic audience. He reveals the government has become aware it is part of a fictional story, and the canonical chaos is far beyond their control. The inexplicable changes being made to reality, Muldowney admits, is something they're not even able to grasp the concept of. What's becoming clear to Muldowney is that the story is wrapping up, and he suddenly becomes acutely aware that the world outside the Oval Office is beginning to disappear. He issues one last harrowed blessing, before staring us directly in the face before the screen goes black.

The Forever Night is more than just the absence of anything. It is the conceptual end of something.

This is one of my most out-there ideas for a story, and a lot is left to be fleshed out and actually written. And given I have little time between my main sci-fi series and commissions to work on this, I'm not sure when we're actually gonna see it materialize. That said, I thought I'd get this out there.

(VERY LONG POST!!!)

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry for the people that follow me for other things than BATIM because this is my new hyperfixation at the moment, please bear with me xD

I suddenly decided to share my ideas about some BATIM AU I had for... a while since BATDR just came out and the fandom is back from the dead x)

So basically this is a Power AU. With everyone of the main cast having particular abilities. (I actually had the idea from the fanfiction "Magic cleaner is more than just an advertisment" by @hello-im-not-a-possum on Ao3, go check it out it's awsome!) I just thought it would be funny because why not xD

Those with powers are: Henry, Joey, Wally, Jack, Sammy, Susie, Norman, Thomas and Allisson. Let's go in that order!

Henry Stein: Do I really have to say? Bringing drawings to life of course!

Pre-Ink: At the beginnig it wasn't much; just a little drawing moving on the page here and there. That's actually what gave Joey the inspiration to start cartoons, seeing his old friend's drawings moving on their own on the pages. But when begining animating Bendy, and by his love for the characters he created, it started to become stronger. Strong enough that the Little Devil Darling would sometimes pop up to reality with his friends for several hours in a row. That is until he got drafted for the war and left the studio. As the years passed by after the war, he discovered that he could even manipulate at the manner of an elemental bender the ink. But it wasn't really strong; just enough to make some shapes and forms when he had trouble visualizing an idea. His powers continu to grow after he returned home, but he became a master at hiding them.

In the Cycle: Joey sealed away (I'll get to it on his part) almost all of his powers before throwing him in the Cycle. He knows that Henry have the strongest magic out of everyone in the Studio, so he went through several sealing and bending rituals before sending him in it. But even that wasn't enough, because Henry can still do a few things; the Golden Ink is one of them. He can create it, manipulate it, make it last for as long as he want, and hide them from Joey's view. He's also capable of using the globs of ink to shape them in the form he need them to -there's no handy machines like in the game in this AU, Henry do that all by himself-. And despite Joey's attempts, he's little by little breaking free from the script's influence...

Joey Drew: Devil's deals and rituals. He can make rituals -often satanics but can be both... well could be at the beginning- contracts and deals with people and they CAN'T go against it after "signing" them. He can also easily persuade them if he feel a weakness in their heart.

Pre-ink: Nothing too bad -compared to what he did next- using his deals and contracts to make sure the Studio and Bendy were growing and becoming more popular and loved. Henry was often his impulse control and moral compass. At that time he would never had the idea of using his powers against Henry.

After Henry left: Oh boy. He took it BADLY. He made a deal with GENT Corporation to create the Ink Machine as a way to "replace" Henry's talent, and to prove to him that the Studio didn't need his "temporary bringing the characters to life"; after all the Ink Machine would bring them to life FOR GOOD.

We all know how that sorted out though. -he had to make a deal to every employees to forbiding them to quit-. However, seeing his former -magical- employees having a (very understandable) grudge against him, he made another deal this time with the Machine itself to trap its ink-corrupted inhabitants locked up: by reducing and warping their powers into something else entierly, something twisted. Exploiting a weakness in their minds to bend them and theirs powers. However, a time loop isn't a type of magic that he could hide from magic users, even as weaken as can be. So after throwing Henry in the Cycle to torture him, he made sure that they would forget the loops. But against Henry's magic it's starting to wear off...

Wally Franks: -I took the idea from hello-Im-not-a-possom fic here ^^'- Telekinesis Fantasia style. Only on cleaning supplies and light objects in general; he's still young, it needs time to develop and he's happy for now with the janitor job.

Pre-Ink: Was absolutely oblivious about why every magical people he could feel and see in the studio were trying their damnest to hide theirs powers from the CEO of the place (to each other's too, but not as much as Joey). Wally personally didn't have a problem to admit that he had magic on his own when Drew caught him in the act -it was the equivalent in real life of the Fantasia scene really; brooms, buckets, rags and feather duster flying around in an organized chaos- because he figured that ("Well he got magic on his own! Can't be all that bad right?") He's the one that accidentally revealed the existence of magic to Joey. (well the existence of his employees' magic) He's also one of the very firsts that Drew made the deal to be unable to leave with. So despite what he loved to say, he couldn't even with his magic "get outta here!"

In the Cycle: He's the one that Joey reduced the most. In a Boris body (this is my AU again) he was unable to cast any spell; he's one of the most vulnerable and sensitive to magic now. But it doesn't stop him from being able to change some of his cards to another color or shape in his games with Henry (to this day he had never been caught.) As time pass by though, he have a nagging feeling that he should... Get away from this place... And it's only getting stronger.

Jack Fain: This one doesn't really have a precise name for it. Jack is a litteral muse; mostly to Sammy but he can inspire others musicians and artists if he write lyrics -or poems-. He brings inspiration and motivation wherever he goes, and as such everyone in the Studio appreciate him.

Pre-Ink: He was just the geniune positive energy of all the studio. No matters the crazy deadlines, the inhumane amount of work, or later on the pipes bursting everywhere, Jack Fain always had a smile and tried to give everyone the strenght and will to continu creating. His lyrics never failed to move the audience, and together with Sammy they gained several awards. (all under Joey Drew's name however...) His powers weren't visibles; he was the one that gave everyone creativity behind the scene, the strenght to move forwards and continu despite it all. He wasn't the animator that could bring the drawings into the real world, nor was he the janitor who make brooms and buckets fly to clean after hours. He was the quiet voice in the back of your mind that whisper to you a new idea or a new song. As such, Joey didn't think it was necessary to twist his powers more than the ink did.

In the Cycle: It's more or less the same but without a lot of his memories from his life before the Studio. Asides the moments with Sammy it's pretty blurry. But since there's not really a lot of people to inspire these days (oustide of Sammy when he was lucid enough to remember how to compose) he's quite powerless. But even in his form of a Searcher, he can still bring a bit of joy and strenght to the others Searchers and the Lost Ones that are under Sammy's wing back at the village.

Sammy Lawrence: Can be seen as telekinesis as well, but stronger than Wally's; if he's angry enough (which already happened) he can throw a person across the room with a wave of his conductor stick (it was Joey.) Technically it's more wind control. It's a tangible force that you can feel contrary to Wally's telekinesis.

Pre-Ink: Prodigy. In music and magic both, the guy was already capable of playing an entiere orchestra with his magic at the age of seventeen. He is seen as one of the strongest air-bender (not the last one thankfully) of the century in the element-bending community. As such he didn't had friends in said-community. He left them to meet his best friend, and musical partner Jack. He used his powers several times when Joey's deadlines weren't humanly possible (he prefer to have the band rehearsal his songs before recording them though; he already wrote songs that were impossible to play without magic before. Only realizing when the band looked at him with bewildered eyes when seeing the sheets he had written.) While he very much did not tell outright that he was an air-bender, he didn't tried to hide him from the band members, Jack, Susie or Norman -well Norman was more him discovering Sammy's abilities because he's just spying on everyone than Sammy telling Norman-.

After Susie was fired and Jack went "missing", he went to confront Joey about it. Only to get drugged without his knowledge by an ink coffee served by his boss (I don't believe you can get dependent by only having an ink pipe burst above your head and some drips of ink getting in your mouth sorry ^^') and got bend by a deal at the end of it. Joey wasn't stupid; he knew that Sammy's magic wasn't going to be weaken and twisted as easily as the others; so he went to poison him slowly but surely to erode them.

In the Cycle: His air-bending abilities were completely burried under the corruption of the ink. Now, his connection with the Ink Demon and the Searchers is taking all of his capacity. He can feel when the Ink Demon is coming and hear him talk; call upon the Searchers and communicate with them, ordering them to attack or not, as well as the Lost Ones. All of this as in the game. The only trace of his wind abilities is his capacity to walk through walls. And the feeling that his mind is trying to fly away from the ink trapping it. And what's with the deja vue feeling?

Susie Campbell: There isn't a real name for her powers either; it's more or less emotion-based. If she's happy, her voice -especially when she's singing- will send you a feeling of happiness as well; when she is sad, you will feel upset upon hearing her. And when she's angry... well if she was angry enough at someone, the nearest people around her would have taken a swing at that person's face. She brings emotions to people by mere hearing.

Pre-Ink: Nothing really out of the ordinary at first; the voice actress was appreciated and loved by everyone. She was with Jack, the sweetest person there is in the Studio, as well as the one that bring the most emotions in her acting. Nobody realized exactly that she had power, until she was -for an episode- rehearsing a song where Alice was angry about the latest prank Bendy had pulled on her. The acting was perfect! So much so that the other voice actor voicing Bendy started to get angry at the toon demon, under everyone's confusion. Upon seeing that, Susie immediatly apologized ans shyly explained that it was probably because of her.

However... The day she was fired, everyone remembered it. She was so upset, angry and betrayed that the music department didn't got out unscathed.

In the Cycle: Joey took the opportunity to use Susie's despair as a way to persuade her to make a deal with him; to become Alice. She accepted, and we all know how that played out. With the ink corruption, her voice cannot make people feel emotional anymore. But she gained something in exchange; the ability to lure people with it, like a true siren, and to put them in a transe... However an Angel is patient. And Susie shall wait for her time to take control back of her twisted body, which she was forced to share with a corrupted version of the character she loved.

Norman Polk: Darkness/Shadow manipulation, and noctural vision.

Pre-Ink: Norman definitely didn't tell his coworkers his abilities. Firstly because he didn't want to be called out for his sneaking habit, and secondly because his element doesn't really have the best reputation. The only things you hear about shadow-benders are how cruel they are of stealing light away, how creepy it is for them to roam around in the darkness and how they are all secretly serial killers. Not the best resume to work at an animation studio, you'll admit. However, he used his abilities a lot; he fused with the shadows when he heard something that he wanted to investigate, turn off the lights in the Studio with a mere snap of his fingers -nobody understood what the heck was going on until Joey investigate throughly every employees' abilities before using the Ink Machine- and of course, played a lot of pranks by suddenly making a projector that he had previously covered the lense with his powers, go off. So for an outsider's point of view the projector suddenly turned on without anyone near it. (he scared a lot of animators that day).

In the Cycle: After he eavesdropped a particularly worrying conversation between Thomas Connor and Joey Drew about the Ink Machine, he got caught, without him noticing himself. Before he could warn others however, Joey called him in his office and used a binding circle to keep him in place before decapitating him. As with Henry, Drew used a lot of seals, and others rituals to reduced and corrupt Norman's abilities; but since dark-benders are not bend by the usual spells as others elementals, Joey had the idea of using its own opposite: light. He switched Norman's head with a projector, and activated the Machine. Then the Projectionnist was born; forced to see only in the limited range of its own light. A perfect way to make his former employee unable to use his magic.

But since he refused to lose his mind that easily despite the ink's influence, Joey directly throw his soul in the -ironically- darkest depths of the puddles, leaving his body a roaming dangerous husk. But a shadow-bender soul's isn't going to be imprisonned in the darkness eternally. Especially with a new golden light in the Studio...

Thomas Connor: Metal manipulation. More particulary morphing it into a different form.

Pre-Ink: As part of the GENT Corporation, he used his powers on a regular basis. Touching some pole of metal to change it for a wrench, use it for a few screw loose, then change it back to a pole... Oh he need a screwdriver? Another touch ans here you go! His colleagues liked to call him "portable toolkit" but that was it. But he didn't used them nearly as much as when GENT had this new client: Joey Drew. The man clearly had powers of his own, and not pretty ones from what he saw. But that's the thing: while he made that Machine, when that... thing came from it, and what Joey decided to do afterwards... Well Thomas was here. Saw everything. And metal morphing capacities or not, against pentagrams, rituals and bending spells he didn't stand a chance.

In the Cycle: As a Boris clone like Wally, he really don't have a lot to work with either; however, even if the ink had weakened his powers greatly, it didn't changed them... Too much. He can't change metal that he's touching anymore, but he have a mechanical arm. And THIS he can act upon. He can morph it however he please, however he can't solidify it more (which led to many broken arm but he never complained). But that's enough to protect his dear Allisson. Poor Allisson that don't remember anything... He will protect her. Through all those blasted loops. Mark his words Mister Joey Drew.

Allisson Pendle: Waves control. It's a seperate branch of magic users who decend from the air-benders, specified in airwaves. In Allisson's case, it's mostly about soundwaves.

Pre-Ink: Allisson didn't used her magic much, asides from messing with Tom when they were working away from each other. She used airwaves to carry sweet loving messages, whispered teases, or reminders that he forgot something. She was honestly a bit surprised that the Music Director was an air-bender (quite powerful too, or so she heard. Then again rumors have a tendency to being exagerated -she quickly changed her mind seeing him sending Joey flying with a movement however-) but she didn't try to pry. Air-benders and the decendants of mutations in their magic weren't exactly friends after all. So they kept their distances -after Susie's replacement it was for the best- until Joey came to her. Asking her a little favor some years after the Studio closed for good, and that the majority of the employees had either quit or dissapeared.

In the Cycle: As she doesn't remember anything, her magic isn't something she reclaimed back from the ink. As such, Joey didn't even take the hassle of twisting it to a weaker version of it. But as the loops are passing and Henry's influence more and more the script, Drew might realize he made a mistake...

And it's all detailled! It took me ages to finish this xD

If you have questions about it, my ask is opened! I'm in the middle of my BATIM hyperfixation, I'd love to talk about it xD (Also no, I didn't really took the books in consideration sorry)

only written hypnosis for hen and ed, so this was a Brand New Experience - bingalicious

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The only sound in the room was the sound of the ticking clock and his beating heart.

They felt in sync, every tick lined up with the steady rhythm of the only thing keeping him sane. He didn’t know how long he had been in here, subjected to his own thoughts. The last thing he remembered was getting an email link, and then everything became hazy after that. 

The room was mostly barren, at least he thought so. Besides the chair he was tied to, the rope, and clock he couldn’t see, and the lamp above his head, dimly lit and lining what he hoped were the edges of the room with shadows, he truly had no idea of the space he occupied.

The room sounded smaller, but he couldn’t see the edges, could only hope his eyes played tricks on him, made the shadows seem to stretch far longer than they should. But his eyes had been playing tricks on him all this time.

And his ears. And his body. And his mind. 

It felt like every part of his body was revolting, the space itself corrupting him.

The shadows felt alive. They lurked at the edges of his vision constantly, and he swore he saw them moving, shifting, and making him stare until his eyes watered and he had to rapidly blink. He couldn’t look away, as they were everywhere he looked, and even closing his head didn’t provide the relief he needed, being assaulted by the swirling, whorling shadows that appeared even under his eyelids.

When there wasn’t the normal sounds he had become used to, there was this…buzzing noise, a soft static that filled in the empty space and left his brain as fuzzy as the noise. It was a surrounding, comforting noise, and he nearly fell asleep every time he heard it. When his eyes finally closed, body slumped, it would suddenly, jarringly stop, enough for his head to snap up and look for it almost longingly before he realized he was alone, and that wonderful, angelic noise was gone for the moment and he was left along with that stupid fucking clock, and his stupid fucking heart.

Sometimes he felt on the verge of a panic attack, heart suddenly racing as he stared, shouting for help, screaming for someone to come save him until his voice was hurt and tears trailed down his face. It would happen randomly, like he couldn’t even control his body, and left him shaking and confused until it suddenly stopped, jarring enough he could only blink and remain silent as he lost control of even his insides.

Sometimes he felt hands crawling all over him. Touching his hair under his hat, touching his arms under the rope, running up and down his clothed legs and leaving him squirming. It was the relief he desperately needed, stimulation that wasn’t rope burn and ticking, but it was never enough, gentle enough he told himself it wasn’t real. 

It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

How many times did he repeat that mantra? It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

He was dreaming. That was why he felt like this. It was a nightmare. It was a daydream. It was a peaceful dream and he would open his eyes and he would be in his bed.

He would open his eyes. Open your eyes. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.

He blinked sluggishly, staring around. He was underwater, surely, because he couldn’t think fast, couldn’t move good, everything felt disconnected. He was swimming, he was drowning, he was soaring above the water with his wax wings, and he blinked, and the sun stood shining in front of him.

The sun was green, he decided, it must be, what else could be so brilliant? The ticking had stopped, finally, God finally, and his beautiful music had started again, static filling his ears and mind and body and leaving him heavy and fulfilled. The shadows seemed to warp around his sun, running away from the glowing man, his savior, his saint, his God. 

There was a strong hand running through his hair, hat somewhere - when did he lose it? - and finally, finally, there was just someone. Something. 

It was real. He could be real.

He opened his mouth to say something, to thank him, but all that came out was a line of drool. His savior merely chuckled, empty hand coming up and wiping it away, trailing up and towards his mouth. All he could do was suckle on the object in his mouth obediently, like it was second nature. He knew his purpose, staring at his sun, and he knew exactly what he needed to do.

The other hand yanked his hair, and he blinked slowly as he stared up at the man, static tears running down his face as the sun beamed at him.

“Good boy. Now that I think you know your place, let’s have some fun, huh?”

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

HOLY SHIT !! THIS IS AMAZING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the descriptionS OF EVERYTHING oh my GOODDDD this is so good !!

What about scourge my friend scourge the green hog❤️

YES SCOURGE OUR FREND SCOURGE THE GREEN HOG

"horrible person" is half-colored in because i can see the argument against the opinions im abt to post. but im right

send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by

feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.

❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115�� ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. �� ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ��� ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

The Impossible Hallway

George storms into Jerry's apartment and slams the door so hard that the photo next to it falls off the wall.

"Well hello to you too," says Jerry.

"We need to talk about your hallway," says George.

"What about it?"

"It can't exist!"

"And yet," replies Jerry smugly, "it does."

"It does, but it shouldn't."

"What are you talking about?"

Kramer slides so violently into the apartment that he burns two long black streaks into the hardwood floor. He looks down at the smoke and whimpers, "oh mama."

"Kramer, what the hell?" says Jerry. "Look what you did to my floor!"

"Put it on my tab," says Kramer as he strolls over to the fridge and opens it to get himself some orange juice, drinking a long swig directly from the carton.

"I'll add the orange juice too."

"For starters," says George, ignoring Jerry's interaction with Kramer, "just look at your kitchen."

"First it's the hallway, now it's the kitchen. What's wrong with my kitchen?"

"Well for one thing," says Kramer, "your orange juice is expired."

Frowning at him, Jerry grabs the carton and drops it into the garbage with a slight flourish. "Thanks for the update—I'll take it off your tab."

"What tab?" asks Kramer, much to Jerry's exasperation.

George strolls all the way into the kitchen. "Look at where I'm standing and then think about where your hallway would go."

"I'd like to remind you that you never actually have been an architect."

"Humor me."

"The hallway is outside my apartment. The kitchen is inside my apartment."

George holds up a finger. "Come with me."

He walks to the front door, opens it, and stands in the doorway with one foot inside Jerry's apartment and the other out in the hallway. "Stand where I am and you'll see what I see."

"Okay, Confucious."

George steps away and Jerry takes his place.

"Hold on," says Jerry. "That doesn't… what the hell is going on here?"

"See?"

"But how?"

"Black hole," says Kramer.

George and Jerry both turn slowly to look at him.

"Excuse me?" says George.

Kramer makes a popping sound by flicking his finger out of the corner of his mouth. "Black hole!" he repeats, shaking that same finger high up into the air.

"What black hole?"

"The black hole," says Kramer with very deliberate enunciation and a waving gesture, "in my apartment."

"What are you talking about?" asks Jerry.

"I've told you about this!"

"I think I'd remember if you told me you had a black hole in your apartment."

"Oh I'm not sure you would."

Jerry shakes his head. "What's a black hole got to do with any of this?"

"Well you see, Jerry, all particles have to travel along the shortest path through curved space."

Jerry and George share a confused glance.

"…and?" prompts Jerry.

"Well… the black hole is warping space around itself. It's pulled the hallway—" he makes a motion like he's stroking an inner tube around his waist. "And apparently your kitchen, too. Which means… mamacita."

"What?" asks George.

"Oh, this is real bad."

"What's bad?" asks Jerry.

"Would you spit it out?" says George.

"It's getting… bigger," he replies, the last word a barely-perceptible squeak.

"Bigger?"

He nods, his face a mask of frightful agony.

"What does that mean, 'bigger'?" asks Jerry.

"The opposite of small," says George wryly.

"A little help?" shouts Elaine from somewhere out in the hallway.

The three poke their heads out to find her struggling to pull her purse away from the wall.

"It's stuck!" she says. She looks at Kramer. "What do you, got some kind of giant magnet in there or something?"

"Black hole," say the three men in unison. They glance briefly at each other.

"What?"

"Kramer has a black hole," says Jerry.

Elaine frowns skeptically at them. "You can't just have a black hole."

"I beg to differ," says Kramer. "I bought it at a flea market."

"Aw, this is ridiculous," says Jerry.

"Are you… all just gonna… stand there and… watch me struggle?" grunts Elaine between tugs. She raises her foot and brings it toward the wall to try to get some more leverage.

"Oh I wouldn't do—" starts Kramer, but it's too late: Elaine's foot gets stuck to the wall alongside her purse.

"Hey," she says, "I think my foot's stuck too."

"Yeah, that'll happen," says Kramer.

"Will you jackasses do something already?"

George and Jerry look to Kramer, but he just stares dumbly at Elaine, ignorant of their attention. After a moment he notices their stares with a jerky startle.

"What are you looking at me for?" he says.

"It's your black hole!" says Jerry.

George frowns. "How did it 'grow' exactly anyway?"

"What do you think happens to all the stuff I drag in from the street? I only have so much room in my apartment."

"What about—I don't know—throwing it in the garbage?"

"What, and haul it all the way down to the curb in the elevator? I get nasty looks!"

"Yeah, this is much better," says Jerry.

"So what do we do about Elaine?" asks George.

Kramer thinks for a moment, then snaps his fingers. "I got it—we put a second black hole in Jerry's apartment on the other side of the hallway."

"Won't that just rip me in half?" says Elaine.

Kramer shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not."

"Hold on a minute," says George. "How do you get away from it, Kramer? Clearly you're able to leave your apartment."

"I just move faster than light."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, the escape velocity of a black hole is faster than the speed of light. You gotta go at least that fast or you can't get out."

"But you can't go faster than the speed of light," says Elaine.

"Oh, I beg to differ."

"How?"

"Kwisatz Haderach," says Kramer with dramatic enunciation.

"Gesundheit," says Jerry.

"'Quick-shots' what, now?" says Elaine.

Kramer holds up a finger. "The shortening… of the way."

"What way?" asks George.

"Any way."

"Okay," says Jerry, "so how exactly does one shorten a way?"

"Well, you gotta become the Kwisatz Haderach."

"And how exactly do you do that?" asks Elaine, tugging frantically at her leg.

"The sleeper must awaken."

Elaine lets out a primal growl of annoyed frustration. "And how do you do that?"

"You gotta drink the water of life."

"What's the water of… you know what? Forget it. I'd rather stay stuck here forever than continue this idiotic conversation."

"Kramer," says Jerry, "can't you just 'Quiznos hot-rocks' her out of there?"

"Kwisatz Haderach," he says. "Say it with me, Kwis—"

"Kramer!"

He flinches from Jerry's angry interruption and then thinks for a moment. "I can try I guess but who knows where she'll end up."

"It's gotta be better than being stuck to your hallway wall!" says Elaine.

"Okay, well… don't say I didn't warn you." He stands upright, his eyes turning a deep blue. There's a distant rumble and suddenly Elaine fades away from where she's standing and fades in cradled in Kramer's arms. The two stare at each other for a moment.

"Ahem," says Elaine eventually.

Kramer looks at her, puzzled, until she nods her head toward the floor.

"Oh. Yeah," he says, setting her down.

"I still don't get it," says Jerry. "How did a black hole make it so that my kitchen and the hallway were occupying the same space?"

"It didn't," says Kramer. "It just made it appear that way to any… outside observers."

He smiles directly at the camera and winks as the audience breaks into hysterical laughter. He stares for so long that eventually the camera begins to pan away, but he strides toward it, his smile flattening, ducking back into frame as it shifts left and right. Soon the laughter in the audience dies out and transforms into a concerned murmur.

A deep hum begins to emanate almost imperceptibly from your television but grows louder and louder. Something begins to rattle and you realize it's the remote control on the table in front of you. Paralyzed by fear and confusion, you don't even think to reach for it as it lifts up and flies across the room, shattering against the screen, spraying plastic shards throughout the room.

As Kramer stares out at you, his eyes radiating an unearthly but somehow soothing blue glow, you finally motivate your body to rush over and turn off the television, but as you stand up and lunge for the power button, your fingers stretch into impossibly long strands, tapering into what looks like spaghetti. When the tips connect with the glass of the screen you somehow become aware that this same experience is being shared by millions of other people all around the world.

You scream, but the sound gets sucked in by whatever force seems to be pulling in the rest of you.

In all your terror you'd forgotten about the deep hum but it soon becomes deafening, pushing all the thoughts out of your mind. As your face draws closer and closer to those pulsing blue eyes, your inner monologue echoes somewhere inside your head, thinking,

Where does that hallway go to?

Where does that hallway go to?

Where does that hallway go to?

Where does that hallway go to?

Am I right or am I wrong?

My god… what have I done?

Thank you @eldritch-and-tired for commissioning this lil’ /Reader piece of @megalommi‘s Sans, Baggs. I will ALWAYS be a simp for this sexyman. Enjoy!!

Tw: injections, unwilling hypnosis/mind control

...

You giggled.

The light was so pretty. Swirling, undulating, cyan and magenta warping and shifting in and out of one another in an endless hypnotising rhythm. It made you think of a funfair... spirals everywhere, from the tops of the stalls to the decorations on the rides, to the signs leading you around to those huge lollipops that tasted tooth-meltingly sweet. Happy memories, carefree, far away and non-solid but still wonderful. What were you doing? You couldn’t remember anything. You liked blue and purple, they were everywhere, all around you, such pretty colours. 

Pretty, pretty...

“... there we go. easy now.”

... You didn’t realise he was even there until he (somewhat cautiously?) spoke. Your senses were just colours. The voice was odd and a bit disembodied at first but slowly, slowly, you became aware of its source- a face hovering just over you. The awareness spread to your body, too... you were bent at an odd angle with your feet just barely lifted off the floor, your back flat on a rather uncomfortable table, gravity pulling your hair and cheeks. And he... he was just a few inches over you, pinning you by one of your wrists.

...

A tight and tense, cutting smile, clear signs of stress around his face and shoulders making it obvious that this was the smile of a man on the edge and not one of any particular joy. Deep sockets, so wide they looked borderline painful, glaring down at you with so much intensity...

... You could feel his body heat. And his breath against your face. Your heartbeat, your slightly itchy nose, how tight he was holding your wrist.

“... Mh... Huh?” You said, ever-so articulately, vision spinning in the same direction as the swirls emanating from his left socket. A similar way to how the world rocked when you were dizzy... except for you, it never righted itself. It just kept spinning and spinning and spinning. Everything was so bright, as you fell under a pleasant fuzzy sensation burrowed into your chest and mind, blanketing your thoughts as if you were just in the middle of a nice dream where nothing much mattered.

“shh...” 

When he gently closed his gloved fingers around something you had gripped in your pinned hand, you put up no fuss, loosening your hold and allowing him to take it... when did you pick up a scalpel? What an odd thing to have. The back of your head hurt and your knuckles felt the telltale aches of having been tense a few moments ago, even though they were now just an unwound coil like the rest of you.

... Dr. Baggs let out a long slow, breath. You could feel it against your nose and neck, he was that close... his mouth open barely a crack, the magenta hue of his tongue glinting against his fangs. 

“... alright.” He said, voice silky, gentle on your thrumming ears and head, sockets easing around the edges as he calmed down. The bluish shadows of sleep deprivation under them became more apparent as the tension in the room, face and posture waned. “that’s better.”

... Yeah. You thought, relaxed and calm. It is.

... He gave you the bare minimum of personal space, leaning back and helping you to sit, lifting you with the perfect combination of gentle but firm as if he knew you’d immediately feel so dizzy when you became upright. Your hands moved up and held onto his shoulders to steady yourself- the fabric of his lab coat was surprisingly soft, it was very nice to touch. 

... He was so close. Supportive but strict hands on your elbows, your knees on either side of him, he smelled like... the artificial flavouring they added candy that just wasn’t quite natural. And a specific, scented brand of antiseptic; clean and sterile and prepared.

“... well.” He hummed, reaching out of sight for something with one hand. Your forehead would bump his collarbone if you leant forward any more. His voice was so soothing and calming, especially since you were only a few inches from his clavicle... you were getting pretty close to shutting your eyes at this point, but a prick in your arm kept you from completely nodding off- you barely noticed it, too busy studying the aesthetically pleasing purple trim to his coat and enjoying the funny fuzzy sensation in your chest and temples. Oh, he suddenly had a full syringe in his hand that he was putting a cap on... where did he get that? 

“i knew from the start you’d be uncooperative, but... not that kind of uncooperative.”

He held something up to your face. You opened your mouth, (wait, why am I opening my mouth...) and he quickly placed it on your tongue. You swallowed, again, without knowing why... it was like your body was following a list of instructions that you couldn’t see or hear. Someone else had taken the wheel; tugging the right strings to make the right parts of you move when they were needed. 

... You didn’t think about it much. No panic, no confusion, no considering the implications. The thoughts were disconnected... just ships in the night, sailing by your muffled brain. All you could really think about was how whatever he’d given you was very strange and bitter and ew, you cringed, an odd acrid taste lingering in the back of your throat.

... Another prick in your arm. That’s weird, he keeps pricking me. Oh well. This time, you looked just in time to see him removing a now-empty syringe; he wiped where he’d poked your forearm with something very cold, then placed a little circular red band-aid over it.

...

There were six other band-aids on that forearm. Two green, three navy, one black... and now the red one.

Hm... I feel like I should be alarmed by that...

Again, all you could think about was how nice you felt right now. Dizzy, warm, safe. Like you’d had a little too much to drink, but now you were laying out in the sun with your friends... I miss the sun...

“most of my ‘patients’ are at least... consistent.” Baggs hummed, continuining to hold you carefully by the elbows, predicting your post-jab swaying. He didn’t seem to realise he was talking aloud, just a scientist observing his experiment, and you weren’t really paying enough attention to what he was actually saying- too many words to process, boooring. “uncooperative awake, uncooperative under. you’re always displaying aggression toward me... and yet as soon as you have no control, there’s an obediency so immediate it’s borderline subconscious. rather fascinating.”

Instead, you...

“... Sexy voice.”

...

...

“... what?” 

Apparently, that was enough to finally break him out of his thoughts. You glanced up at Baggs’ face, still only a few inches away, you kept forgetting where things were around you... the cushion around your soul never wavered but for a moment there was a little blip in the swirls. A slight interruption.

“Mmmhm.”

...

... His expression sort of... well, ‘melted’ was the wrong word. It was more akin to the sun peeking out from between two clouds. The detached, observational, scientific air to him thinned and began to evaporate... revealing something a little more warm.

The razor and unfriendly edges of his smile were rounding into something organic. Perhaps even, daresay, resembling forward. 

“my.” He purred. “how forward of you.”

“S’very nice. Very smooth...” Your tongue felt... eh. And your arm, where he’d poked you, was starting to itch. “And you have a nice face too... handsome man. I think so.”

...

His smile started growing even more, and he leaned back an inch or two as if to look at all of you and make sure you were really the same person he’d brought into this examination room less than an hour ago. “... oh really?”

“Yeah...” ... Your hands had been just holding onto his coat... but, spurred on by your sudden drunken confidence, you properly looped them around his neck.

... He blinked, but he only let himself appear taken aback for a moment or two. Despite how ominously his magenta eyelights glowed in his dark, shadowed sockets... you could tell he was enjoying himself, and this sudden turn of events. “i’m flattered.”

You laid your head on his chest. It was getting kinda hard to stay upright. 

... Your nose scrunched.

“Funky smell, though.”

That was enough to get an actual laugh out of him- albeit shortlived, his skull cocking like a curious mirthful bird. “are you... genuinely telling me that i smell, darling?”

“Yeah. Because it’s true. You’re gremlin.”

 “i’m... gremlin?”

“Mhm.”

“stars. i wish i could tell pap about this.”

Your body shifted, enough to make you lightly squeak- things were spinning so much that it took you a minute to realise Baggs had picked you up, an arm hooked under your legs and another around your back.

“you’re all done for the day, pet.” His eyelights had become a thrumming, almost amethyst colour as he looked at you, a far gentler shade of purple than his previous headache-inducing magenta. You weren’t sure what’d caused that but you weren’t complaining. You weren’t sure what’d caused him to carry you either, considering he usually just brought someone to collect his ‘patients’ for him... but, again, not complaining. “it’s time to get back to your room.”

“I feel funny.” You mumbled.

“that’s normal.”

He started walking. The halls all looked the same, as he moved through them, blending into one another... white and sterile, a few doors dotted inbetween if you were lucky but mostly just the exact same tiles and patterns and lack of anything that would clue you into the fact that people had actually (at some point) existed in this area. 

“Hm... is this where you work...?”

A little chuckle. He was sounding further and further away. “yes. this is my job, dear.”

“It’s so g... ug-ly.”

“oh? you think so?” Baggs’ tone had become... light? Perhaps a little teasing. 

“Jus... put up some nice posters, or something.” Your head was so heavy. Since when was it this heavy? You had to rest it against his chest, feeling that nice fabric against your cheek, hearing an equally nice humming sound from inside his ribcage. “Paint the walls. It’s so... white. Clini... ...clinicic... Calic...” 

“clinical?”

“... Yeah.Tthat.”

A gloved phalange touched your arm. It was probably an attempt at a comforting gesture- stroking the skin. “good to know. i’ll make sure to pass that eloquent advice along to the decorating team.”

“Good.”

He brought you to a cell-like room. It was... vaguely familiar? A bed with one pillow, thin white sheets... some strange posters and a window with bars over it. You felt like you’d spent a long time in there, but it was impossible to think straight enough to actually muster up any memories.

Baggs laid you down on the bed, slowly, handling you like you’d fall apart at any moment. You made a little noise- it wasn’t a very soft bed... but it was good enough. And your body felt so strange and tired that any soft surface honestly was nice enough to lay down on forever.

“comfy?” He asked. Since when did he inquire if you were comfy?

“M... no. S’whatever.”

...

You peeked at him, crouched by your bed... and you reached out, pressing your inexplicably heavy finger against the top of his nasal cavity in a booping motion. You mumbled a little victorious “Silly skeleton.” 

...

He took your hand in his gloved one, gently, before it could go limp and flop down. You couldn’t really make out his expression at this point.

“don’t tell the other subjects...” He murmured... he sounded amused, at least. “but i think you’ve become my favourite.”

“Course.” You shut your eyes. “I’m... m’amazing.”

“... yes. course.” 

A feeling, like a kiss on your hand, before he placed it by your side.

“... go to sleep.”

...

And just like that, your body obeyed him before your head could even process what he’d said, and you were asleep.

Graves into Gardens | Reiner Braun x Reader | Chapter One

Chapter One: Living Ghosts

Pairing: Reiner Braun x Fem!Reader 

Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Warnings: Modern AU, spoilers up to season four, slight manga spoilers (only by including characters met later), captivity, mentions of violence, enemies to lovers, angst, and eventual smut (don’t worry, it’ll come sooner than you think).

Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: Here’s chapter one of my multi-chapter series for Reiner— chapter two is already ready!

A very special thank you to @present-mel​ , and @whats-her-quirk​ for encouraging me to take the plunge and create this monster (I’ve got a lot planned for this fic and I’m so excited for it) 💕

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           You were having that same dream again, the one where you felt like you were dying. Your shoulder ached with the memory of bursting pain, but there were warm hands there, holding you, pressing down to keep the bleeding at bay. You could never recognize the face, never identify the voice, your ears still ringing from the sound of a piercing gunshot. It was always the same; a delirious memory warped into a nightmare. Sometimes the dream ended in the hospital, other times with you staring at the inside of a coffin, or in a shallow grave.

           But this time, you were waking up, eyes flickering open to meet harsh fluorescent lights and clinking, cold handcuffs around your wrists.

          A white-hot sense of dread pooled over your body.

          You knew where you were. You knew how you got here. And suddenly, you wished you were dreaming again.

          You could still see it all, still hear the deafening blades of the helicopter whirring above you. None of your team had expected the Marleyans to be in the warehouse; they hadn’t been on the soil of Paradis in years. They’d caught you off guard and sent your escape plan into action sooner than expected. You’d tried to follow Mikasa and Armin, but Jean was in your way. The lines of your vertical movement gear had tangled with his as you both hurriedly attempted to ascend and meet Levi in the aircraft, sending you spiraling back into the window, back into enemy territory.

          Someone kicked you in the skull when you landed, you could still feel your head throbbing with the soreness. That must’ve been what did you in, what made you easy pickings to become a captive to the Marleyan government.

          You sat up, taking note of your surroundings: of course, they’d put you in a cell, one void of a bed but thankfully containing a fucking bucket. How considerate. Just outside the iron bars was a table scattered with broken pieces of your gear, undoubtedly torn apart to be studied and to keep you from using it to escape.

          Anger brewed inside your chest, a familiar feeling of betrayal returning that you hadn’t felt in years. There were faces here you didn’t want to see, enemies with broken facades that still haunted your thoughts at night. People you’d trusted, people you’d loved.

          You knew they would show themselves soon. If you were still alive, it’s because there were questions that Zeke Yeagar wanted answers to, tendrils of doubt and duplicity that he wanted to sink into your mind.

━━━─── • ───━━━

          Reiner felt sick. He’d never wanted to see you again, yet he’d been the one to carry your unconscious body through the compound, to cuff you and leave you on the frigid concrete floor. He’d stood over your figure for a while, heart pounding his chest out of fear that you’d wake up and flash that scrutinizing gaze of yours toward him again. But you’d just laid there at his feet, small, vulnerable, like a lost memory washed back upon the shores of his life.

          And of course, now that you were awake, you weren’t talking, refusing to take Zeke’s bait.

          He watched the older man pace around the room, glasses glinting as he wrung his hands. Truly, Reiner had been surprised that Zeke didn’t kill you on the spot, instead opting to transport you all the way across the border to their headquarters, insistent that you be treated like precious cargo. Though, it had been hard to keep Porco from poking at your body in the floorboards of the armored truck. Reiner had tried to keep his gaze away from you, eyes glued to the dark horizon outside of the rain smeared window. Maybe if he had stopped looking at you, you would have disappeared.

          There was something pressing Zeke, something worrying him that he wasn’t sharing with the rest of the warriors. He thought you knew something, or perhaps that you could be valuable in some way.

          Reiner knew that if you were to live, you needed to speak, needed to give them a piece of information to work with. He placed his head in his hands at the table, palms rubbing at his eyes. He shouldn’t—he didn’t—care if you took your last breath here. You were the enemy, someone who’d once held a knife to his throat when his true intentions within the ranks of The Scouts were revealed. He almost wished you’d killed him then, that you’d ended all the years of misery and regret that still clung to his mind like a poisonous leech.

          “Maybe she’ll give in to someone she knows,” Zeke stopped his pacing, attention turning to Annie Leonhart who sat across from Reiner, “why don’t you give it a go?”

          “Absolutely not,” she rejected, long legs crossing at the ankles upon the table.

          “Bertholdt tells me that you two were quite the comrades during your reconnaissance mission.”

          “I wouldn’t say that. We just found each other tolerable. Bertie was always sweet on her, though.”

          Zeke sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Bertholdt is kind to everyone, he’s as soft as they come.”

          Bertholdt, per usual, stayed quiet in the face of Zeke’s remarks.

          Porco Galliard chuckled at that statement, straightening his shoulders before he spoke.

          “Which is exactly why you should’ve sent me to Paradis instead, Chief. I could give her a go. You were being too easy on her, anyways. Once you start ripping off fingernails people really start to give in, you know.”

          Reiner’s gut twisted at the thought.

          “You’re not allowed anywhere near her, Gailliard,” Zeke crossed his arms as a smirk settled into the lines of his beard, “she’s far too pretty, you’d break down and grovel to her before it was all over.”

          Galliard huffed, a pink tinge dusting his cheeks as he shrunk down in his seat.

          “Reiner—”

          He had an inkling that it would come down to this. There would be no point in disputing it, he’d have to come face to face with his past, with sins he thought he left behind four years ago.

          He stood before Zeke could complete his thought, heavy knuckles rapping at the wood of the table.

          “Well, looks like we finally have a volunteer.”

           Every inch of Reiner’s skin bristled as he marched down the corridor to the prison cells. His footsteps were jarring, heavy, like he was determined to leave prints in the floor to mark a final walk of shame. Some part of him hoped you’d be gone when he opened the door, that you would have used your wits and crawled through some air duct and run away from this, from him.

          He almost didn’t turn the door handle. He felt invisible, burdensome hands pulling at his shoulders, calling at him to run. He’d always been a coward, especially when it came to you. He hated you, loathed you because he knew you pegged him as fraud from the beginning. You never threw a kind word in his direction, always looked at him like he was below you, like his pride meant nothing to you.

          Reiner just wished that you had meant nothing to him. Even when the opportunity had presented itself, he couldn’t even find the strength to kill you like his orders demanded. He wondered if you remembered it at all, if your memories had finally flooded back after all this time. Something inside his heart wouldn’t let him that night, some unknown, egregious feeling that by some means overshadowed his hatred. 

          That feeling returned when he entered the room and found you sitting with your back to the wall, your tightly bound hands in your lap.

          He took in a deep breath as he averted his gaze, teeth gritting at the sight of you awake. Zeke was right, four years had done you justice; time had only made you more beautiful than before, and he worried he might fall to his knees before you.

          “Reiner.”

          Sometimes, he just really wished people would stop saying his name.

━━━─── • ───━━━

          A strange relief settled into your stomach at the sight of him. Reiner was as hulking as ever, broad shoulders stretching the threads of his shirt to their limits. But he was different, older…demure, in some ways. He didn’t hold his head as high anymore, didn’t immediately cross his arms across his barreled chest to appear larger. He took tired, golden eyes less intense than you last remembered. His fingers rubbed at his lips, at the facial hair that adorned more pronounced cheekbones.

          You hated to admit that he appeared even more handsome than you remembered.

           There was a red armband tied around his bicep, an insignia emblazoned on it that you’d never seen before.

          “Do I make you nervous, Braun?”

          You caught his attention then, made his eyes look at you as you leaned your head back against the stone wall.

          “Tough question from the one behind bars.”

          His voice had changed, too. He sounded more stoic, more serious. There used to be a hint of glee under that tongue of his.

          “Why am I here?”

          “I’m supposed to be the one asking you things.”

          You shrugged, biting at your cheek as you wiggled your toes to try to make them feel again. Your limbs were starting to ache, your head too, body feeling like it was starting to cement to the floor. You didn’t want to be Zeke Yeagar’s plaything, but you knew that if you were alive, there was something they wanted. There was some leverage you held, but you weren’t sure what it was just yet. You had hoped they would send Bertholdt in to talk to you, you always could get under his skin.

          Reiner was a more difficult case for you. He always coated himself in arrogance, made it harder for you to chip away at his armor. He never let anyone in, just always grinned, acted like he had everything under control. But before you was a man with cracks, a man that time and guilt had eroded. You almost felt sorry for him, almost. A man like him deserved to bear the weight of his burdens.

          “Listen, if you don’t start talking—”

          “You’ll what? Kill me?”

          “We’ll torture you.”

          He said the words with a weight that knocked you back a bit, stole the last breath of gusto you were holding onto. You expected as much, but hearing it said aloud made fear crawl up your spine, made the cuffs around your wrist feel even more strained against your skin.

          “What do you want to know? I could tell Yeagar was prodding for something tangible to use against Paradis.”

          “I just want to know what you know about us, if you know anything about what Marley has been doing in the last few years.”

          “You’ve been fighting a war, that much I know.”

          And he looked like he had been through battle, been through hell in trenches and gunfire. Your intelligence agents had reported that Braun had been promoted to be Vice Commander of the Warrior Unit, and the hardline of his frown told you he’d seen more horrors than you wanted to know about.

          “Tell me something you don’t know from news headlines.”

          Levi had trained all his scouts for this situation once upon a time ago. You could still hear his voice in your head, commanding you to give up as little as possible, learn what the enemy wanted and then give them something else to cling on to. You had a few things you knew you could feed to them, beneficial tidbits that would satiate their hunger and keep them from feasting upon your teammates. But relaying any kind of information was a death sentence within itself; give the dogs a treat and eventually they’ll want more.

          And you knew that Reiner, that Zeke Yeagar, was a very greedy host.

          You stood slowly, releasing the aching tension in your lower back. Reiner didn’t flinch away from his place beyond the rusting iron, instead eyeing you like you were some exotic thing in a cage.

          There was a nostalgia of being in his presence, even if the atmosphere around him was contrary to what you were used to perceiving. He still made your blood boil, still made your fighting instincts come alive in the back of your mind. You still felt small in his shadow, but there was still a lingering feeling, a fleeting memory, about how being around him once made you feel safe.

          Your bare feet moved toward him, toes stinging against the cold of the floor.

          One of your hands wrapped around a bar to your prison, the metal of your handcuffs clinking against the barrier.

          You could catch his scent from being this close, and at least that much stayed the same—he always smelled like cedarwood, earthy and sweet, like the spice of the forest floor after a fresh rain. It was almost funny how smell created memories more frequently than any other sense. 

          Suddenly, you felt like you were back home, like nothing had changed, as if his deceit had never been revealed. Your mind’s eye flashed images of your old training camp, of Reiner lifting Connie onto his shoulders after the small boy had successfully managed to triumph over Jean in his marksmanship practice. He’d used one of the tricks that Reiner had taught him. That once sweet memory turned sour as you remembered just why Reiner was always such a good shot.

          You tilted your chin up to look at him, to come face-to-face with the imposing penumbra you thought you’d warded off. He was a living ghost brought back to haunt you once again.

          “You seem pathetic, Braun, like you’ve lost all that bravado that made you so special.”

          He took your words, let them bounce off his chest like you hadn’t even spoken them.

          “Why did they send you in here? Did they really expect I’d crack under such pitiful pressure? You’re a deplorable, miserable—”

          His fist wrapped around your hand, crushing your fingers between his might and the metal bar you’d secured yourself to.

          You hissed at the pain, but…there was something you had missed in that touch of his; he felt warm, worn, like there were secrets being pressed into your skin.

          “Be. Quiet.”

          You expected his fingers to flex, waited for him to crack your fingers under his pressure. But he kept his strength at bay, electing to keep a steady, continuous tension against your knuckles.

          “Talk, or tomorrow will be your last day. You wouldn’t want to die at the hands of a pathetic, wretched man like me, would you? No, you’re too proud for that.”

          He took a step back, releasing his bruising grip before turning on his heels to leave.

          A string of panic began to uncoil inside you, snapping as his arm extended towards the exit.

           “Reiner,” you called, “tell me something. How much do you really know about Zeke Yeagar?”

           “I know enough.”

           “No, you don’t,” you were starting to sound worried, you could hear it, “there’s something I know that you don’t, and I’d be willing to give you information in return for you answering a question for me.”

           You could feel your heart beating in your chest, every pump within your ribs like the ticking of an oppressive clock. He was silent, steady, back still turned away from you. You noticed that his fists were clenched by his side, a vein starting to appear up the exposed length of his forearm.

           “I’ll consider it. Depends on what your question is.”

           He still didn’t turn to look at you.

           “Reiner…tell me what happened to Marco.”

           The door was slamming shut before the last syllable of the dead man’s name left your lips.

Next Chapter

21. Listening to someone's heartbeat? From the intimacy prompts, With Loki/Tony, please? 💜

I could've written a whole story with this prompt! As it is I struggled to keep this near 2,000 words! Thank you for the prompt!

~~~~

Where is this place? What is this place? Loki asked himself for about the millionth time, glancing around the room and trying not to fidget on the hard-backed chair he was sat on. He stretched his neck from side to side, trying to relieve the irritating itch he felt from the collar chafing his neck.

He’d suffered through worse. He could endure this.

‘If looks could kill,’ Mobius mocked.

‘What do you want from me?’

‘Well, let’s start with a little cooperation.’

This man knew nothing about him, and Loki had already formulated a plan about how he was going to escape from here, possibly killing him in the process. However, that plan began to unravel the more they spoke, this TVA agent able to strip back every façade, every mask that Loki had constructed around himself.

Only one other person had been able to do that, strip Loki bare and see his vulnerable, true self beneath.

And that man was currently shining on the wall that was playing the movie of Loki’s life.

Loki didn’t react at seeing Anthony again, didn’t give away what they were to each other, feeling himself seethe as an image of them kissing after a battle was revealed.

His greatest secret.

‘A secret Avenger lover! How did you guys manage to hide that? I don’t know which is worse, a hero falling in love with the bad guy who murdered his people…’

Loki clenched his teeth, refusing to speak. It was no one’s business about how he and Anthony had gotten together, what drew them together in the first place. He knew what Mobius was trying to do, but it wasn’t going to work. He was going to escape, find the Tesseract, and convince Anthony for once and for all that they needed to leave their worlds behind.

‘Or the man who fell in love with the enemy, giving up his mission for glorious purpose because of a pair of pretty doe eyes.’

Pushing himself up and away from his chair, Loki paced the room, mind trying to think of a way out of this, to protect Anthony, find a way back to him while eliminating whatever threat this was to them both. If the TVA knew about the relationship, something Anthony had taken great pains to hide, then Loki needed to eliminate this threat.

‘What exactly is it that you want?’

‘I want you to be honest about why you do what you do,’ Mobius answered, still calm despite Loki’s growing agitation.

‘Liar!’ Loki called him out.

Even as Mobius gave a passionate speech back, something about wanting to understand him, Loki paid him no attention, gazing at the hideous orange panels on the wall, feeling the squeeze of the collar on his neck.

‘What makes Loki tick?’

The man reached out and tapped the orange ball on his desk, revealing more moments of Loki’s life, the invasion of New York, his shame, his weakness that he’d nearly harmed the one he…cared about in some misguided quest for glory, his true intentions warped by the Scepter.

He needed to get back to Anthony, to explain it hadn’t been him, that he had been beholden to some trick.

That he wasn’t the monster Anthony had needed to stop, led away by Thor in chains and a muzzle until an opportunity presented itself. Loki was forced to witness his shame again from an outsider’s perspective, the haze of blue in his eyes as he’d forced the Midgardians to bow before him.

Had Anthony known that wasn’t him, that he had been controlled? Why hadn’t Thor seen it?

‘I was... I am on the verge of acquiring everything I am owed, and when I do, it'll be because I did it. Not because it was supposed to happen, or because you or the Time Variance Authority, or whatever it is you call yourselves, allowed me to.’

That wasn’t quite the truth, what Loki truly wanted mingling with the aftereffects of the Mind Stone’s influence, his impatience to get back to Anthony and set things right overriding his rational mind.

Please don’t allow this to change your feelings for me. Please, beloved, please realize it was not me who acted.

‘Honestly, you're pathetic.’ Who was Loki speaking to, the TVA agent before him, or himself?

‘You're an irrelevance. A detour. A footnote to my ascent."

‘If you hadn't picked up the Tesseract, you would've been taken to a cell on Asgard.’

What sorcery is this?

‘What is this? This is nonsense, more tricks. This never even happened.’

‘Not to you, not yet. Look, the TVA doesn't just know your whole past, we know your whole life, how it's all meant to be. Think of it as comforting.’

All his thoughts, his arrogance, his plotting fled as he watched his mother die. For the first time in his life, he was speechless, his desperation making him babble.

‘Where is she?’

‘You lead them right to her,’ the man said, a hint of sympathy in his voice.

‘I don’t believe you. You’re lying. It’s not true.’

He couldn’t be responsible. This was a trick, it had to be a trick.

‘It is true. That's the proper flow of time and it happens again and again and again because it's supposed to, because it has to. The TVA makes sure of it.’

‘Where is she?’ Loki demanded.

What if they have Anthony locked up in his place too? What tricks are they playing on him?

‘Now why don't you tell me, do you enjoy hurting people?’ The man asked again, his voice increasing in volume, making Loki feel as though his chest was being squeezed with overwhelming pressure.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Loki paced in agitation.

‘Do you enjoy killing?’

‘I'll kill you,’ the words were hollow, and they both knew it.

‘Like you did your mother? Like how you attempted to kill Thanos and left your lover alone to sacrifice himself?’

His rage that had been steadily building the whole conversation suddenly dissipated, leaving him lightheaded at the swing between the two emotions, a cold fear now scrabbling up his throat, chasing away the burn of his anger.

‘What happened to Anthony?’

‘Who?’

‘Anthony! Tony Stark! What happens to him?’

‘Does it matter? I mean I know he was your secret lover, but he was an Avenger, an obstacle in your-’

‘Tell me!’ Loki screamed, feeling the furious tears burning his eyes, the onslaught of his emotions frightening him.

He’d shown his hand, exposed his feelings for the two he cherished. Loki had known this would happen, that emotions would make him fragile, defenseless. Now he had no way of saving either and had given the TVA what they needed to blackmail him.

‘You care for him that much?’ All the bluster and posturing from Mobius was gone, a genuine curiosity in his face as he watched Loki.

‘I love him,’ Loki admitted, words he’d never uttered to anyone, not even Anthony. ‘Please, I know you have no reason to trust me, that I’m everything you say I am, but please, let me see what happens to him.’

Sighing, Mobius reached into his pocket and pulled out a separate tape, revealing he held it all along. ‘Here…he was a great man, your Tony Stark. I’ve watched how you interact with everyone around you, your enemies, and the ones you pretended not to care for… it was hard not to be moved by Tony Stark.’

Loki wasn’t listening, trying to fumble with the machine, almost snapping his teeth at Mobius when he reached over to take the recording from him and set it up in the machine. He watched the film, waiting for the moment where Anthony’s life had twinned with his own, when Thor had first been banished and Loki had faced the man of iron for the first time.

Their secret meetings Loki initiated because he’d been intrigued by this morally gray Midgardian, their first kiss, their first tumble into bed. Loki treasured those moments, and now they felt tainted with Mobius’s scrutiny, his gaze leaving grubby fingerprints over their memories.

There were other moments, a future Loki still had to discover. The moment Loki finally confessed his feelings, the heartbreak of betrayal Anthony felt from Captain America (Loki threw the chair across the room at that). He watched as the Hulk creature passed on news of Loki’s death, the way Anthony’s sorrow hardened and was reborn as fury, the catalyst for why he launched himself into space after Thanos’s minions.

And then the end, the blaze of glory, standing alone and proud against the Titan, his beautiful mind destroyed under the effects of the Infinity Stones. Loki couldn’t breathe, his chest trying to move in short sharp pants, his teeth gritted against the pain.

No. Not like this.

He couldn’t see past the agony, couldn’t keep his heart beating with the vile poison of the truth. He could feel a hand on his back, a voice trying to call to him.

‘Please, let me go to him,’

‘Loki, I can’t-’

‘Please. You’ve brought me here for a reason. Whatever it is you want from me, I’ll do it without question. I won’t escape. I won’t betray you, whatever it is you want, but please…’ Loki trailed off, unable to speak past the emotions webbing in his throat.

‘In all my studies of you, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you beg, not sincerely anyway.’

‘You know my…my love for him to be true, that I would not jest about this. Please, Mobius, you have my word, my vow, just please… let me see him.’

‘Ten minutes, that’s all you get. No messing around with the timeline, no giving cryptic warnings. You do anything to divert the timeline Stark is in and I’ll send in a team to prune him and the branch you’ve created, understand?’

Loki didn’t know what pruning meant, but he made an educated guess it had to do with those glow sticks the TVA agents wore and the way they disintegrated the people they stabbed them with.

Nodding, he offered up his hands in a silent plea, sniffing back the tears. Mobius reached out to clasp his hands for a moment, before pointing towards a glowing doorway in the room.

‘Ten minutes and then I’m pulling you out.’

Anthony was asleep in his bed when Loki stepped through, and he rushed over to his bedside, crashing down to his knees as a wounded sound spilt from his lips.

‘You foolish, idiotic mortal, what were you thinking!’ he hissed, the words barely forming sound, not wanting to wake Anthony up or inadvertently cause his destruction. ‘I knew your self-righteousness would be the end of you, that you’d sacrifice yourself in some heroic deed.’ Loki brushed Anthony’s bangs back, leaning forward to press their foreheads together, trying to keep his tears at bay.

He glanced around the room, recognizing it as Anthony’s house in Malibu, no sight of the Avenger Tower. This had to be before New York, before his carnage of Anthony’s homeworld.

‘Lo?’ Anthony suddenly whispered, voice thick with sleep, hands sliding from the bed covers to reach for him. ‘You said…busy…’ he yawned, not entirely awake.

‘I know, dear one, but I made time.’ Loki slid into the bed beside him, taking care to rearrange himself so he could curl around Anthony, protecting him while trying to keep him asleep. He rested his ear directly over the arc reactor, his hand on Anthony’s chest. He could hear the thrum of energy beneath his ear, felt reassured by its continuous sound, knowing it was keeping his mortal alive.

He could feel Anthony’s heartbeat under his palm, never as strong as he liked it, but reassuring enough that Tony was here and alive.

‘I’m sorry. By the Norns, Anthony I am sorry.’

Anthony shifted in his sleep, hugging Loki close and kissing the top of his head.

‘Bad dream, honey?’ he whispered, still sleepy, but trying to comfort him.

‘Something like that. Go back to sleep, darling,’ Loki soothed, hiding the pain in his voice.

He knew what he’d promised Mobius, and his promise to help him stood, but Loki knew he’d twist the intentions of his help to suit his own purposes. He’d find a way to meet these Time-Keepers and bend them to his will. He wasn’t going to lose Anthony to Thanos, would save him from his fate and be together like they deserved.

For now, Loki focused on the sound of his heartbeat, the reassurance he was alive, committing the sound to memory for the next eight minutes.

La La Land

Read Prologue

Warning ⚠️

Triggering subjects: disassociation, manipulation, mind control, grief. (READ AT OWN RISK)

Wandavision: spoilers (up to episode 6 - just to be safe), violence

———

Pools Of Despair

You weren’t sure how long it’d been, the drive feeling as though it had taken a lifetime. It might have been just down the road and you wouldn’t have been able to tell; time seemed to move torturously slow under Wanda’s control.

She tried to keep herself calm besides your frozen body, already thinking of a way out as she turned the steering wheel. But it was too late to go back.

‘No other way. No other way.’ The words replayed over and over in her head as she finally made it to the front of the building, and it was the first time she fully looked at you. Your face was stoic, the only sign of life being the soft breaths escaping your mouth. You couldn’t look at her - even if you wanted to - and as she reached a hand to your face, the feeling of complete numbness returned.

During the drive there had been small moments of clarity; moments where for the first time you felt in control. It was almost euphoric being able to push through the fog.

But then, as quickly as it had subsided, she would crawl her way back in.

Even now as she turned you toward her fully, you tried to swim through the heaviness, but the black swirls of grief and anguish just got tighter the harder you fought.

Wanda sighed in annoyance. “You can’t go in looking like that.” She pulled at a strand of her hair with a small huff. “Need glasses.”

You were sure if you had control of your body, the pain of your neck would be unbearable, the awkward angle surely making every muscle strain as you were forced to watch her pull apart the car.

This had to have been owned by the only man on the planet that didn’t carry sunglasses in their car. Wanda almost laughed, a punishment for stealing it? She couldn’t be sure.

“Well...” Wanda pulled the blue and white baseball cap by the brim from under her seat. “Better then nothing.” She gave a small smile as she adjusted it on your head, pulling back and grabbing your hand and letting it rest in her lap. “If there was any other way, I swear, I would let you go. But... I just... I can’t live without him.”

You said nothing as she cried.

———

“Head down, get Vision. Leave.” Her voice plagued your every step, each word carved into your brain as you finally reached the front desk.

‘Sword’ was a nice place - or at least had nice flooring - and from the bright light that filled each and every inch of the glossy tile, you knew there had to be a lot of glass. It was a government building after all.

“Can I help you?” Her voice is chirpy, a polite smile painted on her lips, you don’t need to see her eyes to know it wasn’t anything but genuine. She lets the wheels of her chair carry her forward, her computer forgotten besides her as you near the desk.

“Do you have... a meeting?” She smiles again, more forced and you’re able to see the golden pin on her chest that proudly says ‘Mary’ and try once more to float above the darkness.

“I -“ The word leaves your lips aprubtly and the fight drains from you just as fast. “I’m here to inquire about some of my father’s equipment. I’d like it back.” You let the darkness swallow you whole.

“And who are you again?” Mary is quick to pull her deskphone to her ear, hand hovering over the numbers.

———

The name that fell from her lips made Mary freeze. She looked up with wide eyes, both fearful and exited.

Starks were top priority at ‘SWORD’ - she was sure they were top priority everywhere - and as she desperately tried to recall if her boss mentioned anything about Stark equipment, the girl’s patients quickly wore thin.

“Can you please just tell me where to go? I have a long drive ahead of me.” Her voice was a sharp contrast from her apparance. The girl’s voice was stern and loud while her body was scrunched in on itself, eyes glued to the desk. Mary took a glance over the desk and saw the dark fabric of a dress, the hat didn’t even match the girl’s shoes.

“Right.” Mary said. “I’m sorry, just a little... starstruck.” She tried to keep her cool, turning again in her chair and started typing as fast as possible on her little keyboard. The atmosphere was thick with uncomfortable silence and Mary had to make sure not to shiver in the girl’s presence. She scrolled down the list of names and let out a small “ah” when she found your name. Just as quickly as she clicked on it, a pop up window filled the screen

STARK - Access Denined. Call Security

She felt sick; her nerves making her skin pucker as she tried to keep calm. When Mary finally found the courage to move, bile reached through her throat as she saw red eyes looking back.

“Ahh!” Mary was quick to jump out of her chair.

“Fine.” The girl sighed, hand flat on the counter as she took long strides around it. “If you won’t help me.” A red trail flowed through one of the doors; slithering like a snake as it wrapped around the shell shocked receptionist. “I’ll do it myself.”

———

Wanda’s mind had warped, grief and anger become one as she ripped through each and every room of the building. No one was safe from the witch’s wrath as she swung them through various glass panels and equipment. By the third turn she took, guards had given up, opting to instead try desperately to get out of her way.

She had left you at the desk, too transfixed to care and as she heard the various shouts of alarm from down the hallway, she was glad you weren’t in her way.

———

The group of four man were shocked; watching as the two guards dropped their guns and put their hands up for mercy.

“We’ll give you what you want. Please!” One of them - Felix - cried as the woman barreled through the double doors.

Wanda simply flicked her hand and he was sent flying to a wall, his partner following.

“Where is he?” Her accent was thick and the youngest tech almost asked her to repeat herself. “Where is Vision?” The stunned silence only fueled her anger. “You.” Red swirled under one of the men’s feet and lifted him from the ground. “Where?”

If the man could have, he’d be shivering in fear right about now. His life was in the hands of a deranged woman who with a simple flick of her wrist could send him plummeting down ten floors.

Wanda tightened her hold on him in warning and he knew he had to speak.

“Behind us.” He said. “There is a set of double doors, turn left and there’s an examination room.”

“He should be there!” A colleague on his left was shaking as she turn to face him. “He’s not lying.” Wanda let her power swim under him once more beofre gently letting him go.

“Thank you.” She gave a small smile. “Now, go.”

They didn’t have to be told twice.

———

Wanda felt as though she couldn’t breathe, the sight of her dead lover on the table was crippling. Vision was a dark grey; his eyes blank as they stared into her. If it wasn’t for the table itself she would have probably collapsed on to the floor as sobs took over her.

“I cant. I can’t. I -“ The words fell from her lips like a mystical chant. She couldn’t look at him anymore, his body was nothing but an empty shell of parts.

When her body turned to ash; Wanda was ready to die, her last shred of humanity died with Vision. The battlefield would be her final resting place. She chose to spend her last moments hoping that If there was a God that they’d be merciful, that she’d be allowed to spent her afterlife in blissful ignorance.

But instead she woke up.

Five years had passed and she was still there, only now she was alone. It was only after the death of Tony Stark that she let the floodgate of loss fill up her veins. While Thanos was alive, she had a mission; kill him and reverse the snap.

Wanda never imagined the pain that followed. She should have died that day, why couldn’t she have died that day?

Grief had a knack for turning the strongest people into helpless pools of despair.

Vision deserved better. That was what go her up, got her to calm her tears and push herself up. She wasn’t going to let them win. Vision was hers to mourn, to love, and hers to take care of.

She had a new mission, one that was stronger then her need to submit to pain.

But... she needed help carrying him.

———

Your body moved through the halls, following the tethered rope of energy that wrapped around your waist. If it wasn’t for your boots, your feet would have been covered in cuts from the sharp edges of the broken glass that filled the hallways.

The fog had cleared more then before and if you tried hard enough, you might’ve even been able to pull free completely. Wanda was exhausted and the fight had been ripped from you So you let her pull you, let the fog seep through every inch of you.

And as you entered the small room, you forgot you were suppose to care anymore.

“I need you to hold onto his legs.” She said softly, hand stroking his cheek. “Easier to carry both of you.” Your body moved again and you placed a gentle hand onto vision’s ankle.

Wanda wiped the last of her tears away, grabbed onto his arm, and all three of you were lifted off the ground.

———

Hot air blew through Wanda’s hair making her hands continuously push back strands from her face as she walked. The afternoon sun was unrelenting and she had to take several short breaks.

The car was too dangerous to return to - a swarm of agents was not something she wanted to deal with - and controlling someone for almost 24 hour straight took a lot out of her. Her hold on you was weak enough for you to sometimes fully take over, her control turning into a dull ache at the back of your brain.

As she walked in front of you thoughts of running flooded through your brain but the walking had tired your body out, and you were sure that if her little pushes weren’t there, you’d have already collapsed. Even if you had the strength to do it, the empty roads had long ago turned into tall trees and bush. You were in the middle of nowhere and getting loss in the woods with a heartbroken witch was not something you wanted to deal with. So, like a trained puppy, you followed silently behind Vision’s dragging body. It wasn’t hard to keep up, she was as slow as she could be while Vision’s body left a dirt trail.

“Break.” Wanda breathed. Who knew an empty little spot of grass would be so inviting? “Sit.” You felt a small push and follow it down to the ground. You let your fingers grip the direr under them, the cool breeze making you sigh.

“Where-“ The sound of your voice startled both of you but she stayed still. “Where are we going?”

She said nothing, choosing to instead turn on her knees and pull Vision forward by the arms.

“When I was little-“ Wanda smiled to herself as she stared down at Vision. “- I use to dream about this field. Me and Peitro went past it everyday during the summer. It had all these small flowers growing.” You listen intently as she giggles, eyes losing focus as she is hit with the memory. “I always tried to sneak past the fence... but, I was alway stopped by someone.” Her mouth twitches and you feel the pulsing return in your neck. “It’s probably nothing but dirt now, like everything.”

“Where are we going, Wanda?” You try to keep your voice soft, afraid of ruining the small moment as you reached out for her but she was quick to stop you, hand glowing red and inches away from your face.

“Don’t.” She warns. You nod in silent apology.

“We’re not far from a road.” Wanda let’s her hand fall back to her side. “I want you go and call whoever you need to.” You’re almost startled when her control leaves fully from your body, it almost feels empty. “Tell them what I did, or don’t, I don’t care. I have what I want.”

“Wanda -“

“Please.” The crack in her voice makes tears pool in your eyes. “Just go.”

You stand on shaking legs. The world was spinning and you felt as though you had just gotten off a rollercoaster but you tried to steady yourself. Unsure of where to go, you turn to her once more for guidance and she simply points behind you.

Your conscious wouldn’t let you leave. Wanda was tired and you were afraid of leaving her alone. Regardless of what she did; you knew you couldn’t blame her, she had lost everyone.

In a way, so did you.

“I’m sorry about Vision.” Wanda looked up again and gave you a small nod. “About Pietro, about everyone. I wish it was different.”

“Me too, Stark.” She let her fingers wrap around your hand and squeezed. The warmth from the dock returned and you couldn’t help but give her a small grin of gratitude. “I meant what I said at the funeral.”

Both of you were so wrapped up in your own little bubble, you didn’t even question why the birds stopped.

————

Tag list (open, just ask)

@white-wolf-buckaroo @y-napotat

All my stuff is open, and I’m always happy to hear from people so feel free to let me know what ya thought. I always get stuck halfway through writing but I hope it wasn’t too hard to read.

Next chapter will be fun.

“Discordant Sonata” Chapter 20

>>Click here to read on Ao3<<

>>Click here to read on Wattpad<<

–––––

CHAPTER 20: PRESTISSIMO

 Music glossary:

 Prestissimo - "Extremely quickly”; to be played as fast as possible

* Fun tidbit:  The name “Gaspard” means "bringer of treasure" *

–––––

(Mood Music: “Dead Things” - Philip Glass)

Adrien cursed into his gag, feebly squirming on the back seat of the car he’d been dragged into. The windows were heavily tinted, so there was no chance that anyone would be able to see him. Not that that mattered right now anyway, as he couldn’t even sit up at the moment. In fact, he couldn’t feel any of his appendages due to whatever drug his bodyguard (or... whoever he was) had injected into him.

One thing was certain: since neither of these men was the real Gaspard, they must be akumas, and his father had used their likeness to trick him.

Damn it. Why had he left his guard down back there? He should’ve known not to trust anyone. And now thanks to his idiocy, Marinette had gotten dragged into this giant mess, and he had no idea where “Fake-Gaspard #2” had taken her. He’d never forgive himself if anything happened to her. He seethed silently, consumed by fear and anger, both simultaneously raging for control.

He could feel Plagg behind him trying to fiddle with the zip ties that bound his arms together; but it wasn’t as simple as merely unlocking a safe or a door. Having Plagg with him was his only ace in the hole, so he had to remain hidden. Adrien had to plan his escape carefully for when the effects of the drug had worn off enough. Even if Plagg wasn’t able to remove the ties, he could still unlock the car door, so Adrien could roll out and... hopefully not be crushed to death by traffic. He let out a muffled grumble.

Okay... maybe that wasn’t the best idea.

He had to do something soon though; there wasn’t much time left before they arrived back at the Agreste mansion, and the only feeling he’d regained was in his hands and feet. He supposed he should consider himself lucky. If the dosage had been any higher, it could’ve interfered with his lungs, or worse.

Not that Father would care, he huffed impassively. If anything, it would get him out of the picture permanently, and he’d no longer be an inconvenience to Hawkmoth’s schemes.

Adrien’s thoughts drifted back to Marinette; worry and anxiety about what had happened to his beloved roommate clouded his mind, interfering with his concentration. He replayed her scuffle with the bodyguards over and over in his head, the overwhelming feelings of guilt and shame causing his entire being to ache in agony and self-loathing. This was all his fault. He was pathetic. Degraded from superhero to hostage with no one but himself to blame.

If Gabriel locked him away, would he ever find out what happened to her? Memories of being locked in a small, almost completely barren room for days at a time as punishment for misbehavior flashed in his mind, causing his insides to churn and his hands to get clammy. He fought the panic that threatened to boil over within him and firmly shoved the memories away. He needed his wits about him at the moment, and getting sucked into a spiral of panic would prevent him from being able to think logically.

His thoughts were interrupted as the car screeched to a halt, and had his Not-Bodyguards not partially strapped him into the lap seatbelts, he would’ve been thrown onto the floor from the momentum. He managed to turn his head and shake it slightly to try to get the hair out of his eyes, letting out a small grunt of puzzlement. What was happening??

His confusion didn’t last long.

An enormous force hurtled down from the sky onto the hood of the car, squashing it like an empty aluminum can, crushing the engine and rendering it useless. Once the dust and debris settled, Adrien peeked as high as he could, trying to catch a glimpse of what had landed on the car. Despite his meager view from the back seat, coupled with his blurry eyesight (as he’d lost his eyeglasses sometime during the scuffle), he could still make out the unmistakable red boots and black leggings that stood on top of the broken metal.

A million questions swirled around in his head in a jumbled tornado of confusion and elation. He tried calling out her name, having completely forgotten that he couldn’t, and he doubled his efforts trying to squirm out of his bindings so he could get her attention.

His endeavors were cut short though. Despite his impaired vision, he saw the distinct glowing masks form in front of the men’s faces.

I knew it!! he thought, glaring at them with distaste.

They rushed out of the car without a word, and he couldn’t help but utterly loathe the thought of Ladybug fighting both of them by herself, despite her partner being mere feet away, albeit totally useless.

God, I hate being a damsel in distress, he frowned. I hope she’s gonna be okay.

In a vicious display of skill that shocked onlookers, barely a minute later Ladybug had the two men strung up with her yo-yo from a street light. They hung several feet above the ground, expressions slightly miffed but otherwise still rather blank, which, for an akuma, was unusual to say the least.

“Ugh, not in here either,” Ladybug remarked crossly, discarding a broken watch onto the floor, joining the plethora of other torn items and belongings scattered all around them. “Where the hell is it?!” she grumbled after tearing a shoe in half and still not seeing any blackened butterflies.

She frowned, twisting her mouth in annoyance. If I keep going like this, they’ll end flashing all of Paris, she thought. Best to turn them over to the authorities and continue this search at the police station. She needed to check on Adrien anyway.

Right on cue, the police arrived and secured the area. After making sure the police had a handle on the situation, Ladybug rushed to the busted car to retrieve Adrien.

She jerked the car door open––or rather, tried to– accidentally yanking the entire door handle off and warping the metal of the door itself. She cursed in irritation, deciding to bypass the door altogether, and leaped onto the top of the car. With a strained heave, she peeled off the entire roof like a can opener, all the while muttering a colorful string of expletives Adrien had never heard his mild-mannered, even-tempered partner say before.

She dropped down next to him onto the back seat, releasing the seatbelts and assisting Adrien into a seated position. She reached up to touch his face, apologizing sheepishly before carefully peeling off the tape that covered his mouth.

Despite the gag being gone, Adrien remained speechless, staring at Ladybug with an intensity she’d never seen coming from him before. With a small, flustered stutter, she summoned a Lucky Charm. A pair of small, polka-dotted scissors landed onto the palm of her hand. She made quick work of his bindings and briefly inspected the red marks on his skin to make sure he was unharmed.

Adrien threw his arms around her, bringing her into a bone crushing hug, his entire body shaking like a leaf.

“Oh, Adrien,” she whispered, her voice still a bit raspy, and squeezed back firmly. “I’m so glad I found you. I was so scared.”

He didn’t reply, as he was near-hyperventilating, but his grip around her shoulders tightened and he buried his head into her neck, seeking comfort.

A few moments later, Ladybug gently lifted Adrien out of the car, careful not to touch the jagged metal edges. She hopped down to the ground and gingerly sat him on a nearby bench. He wobbled unsteadily, but managed to stay upright as she examined him.

“How are you feeling? Can you tell me what happened?” she asked, seemingly snapping him out of a haze.

Without a word, his head whipped up and his eyes developed a determined glint. He shot up to his feet– or, at least, he attempted to– barely managing to take a single wobbly step before crumpling onto the ground.

“Adrien!!” Ladybug called out as she halfway caught him. “Are you injured?! What’s happened to your legs?”

“Paralyzing drug,” Adrien slurred. “I’ll be fine,” he continued as he clumsily broke away from her hold, successfully taking a couple of shaky steps forward.

Ladybug exclaimed, horrified, “They drugged you?! What did they want?” She stepped in front of him, placing her hands gently on his chest, halting his attempt to flee. “Where are you going?? You’re in no condition to be running around right now, we need to take you to a hospital!”

Adrien shook his head, his tone becoming increasingly desperate, his pace becoming faster and more frantic as he stumbled ahead. “No no, please, I need to go look for her!”

“What’s wrong?” Ladybug asked, perplexed. “Look for who?” she said as she rushed beside him.

“I have to go back!” he pleaded. “I have to make sure she’s okay! She could be in danger, I need to find her!”

At this point, they’d reached a grassy portion of an adjacent park, and the uneven ground caused him to trip over himself. He cried out as he fell on top of Ladybug, who had surged forward to catch him.

“Please…” he looked down at her, barely able to hold himself up with his arms in their weakened state. “I have to find Marinette. She got hurt trying to save me,” he uttered quietly, his voice quivering and eyes glossy. “If anything happened to her, I don’t think I could–” his voice cracked, unable to continue. He inhaled slowly, then uttered with a trembling voice, “Please, I need to go back. She’s really important to me, I can’t go anywhere else until I know she’s alright.”

Ladybug’s face softened, touched by his concern. “She’s fine!” she blurted out. “Marinette’s fine!”

Adrien gave her a puzzled look. “What?? But how do you know?”

She attempted to give him a reassuring smile, trying her hardest to avoid looking like a demented clown. Think, you knucklehead, think!! Ladybug screamed inwardly in a panic.

“Uhh, she’s the one who contacted me!” she lied, then lowered her voice, as if she were letting him in on some forbidden knowledge. “She’s been secretly helping me and Chat Noir, so I gave her a way to contact me privately in case of emergency. But of course, this has to remain a secret; so please don’t tell anyone.” She helped him to a sitting position on the ground and added, “Can I trust you with this?”

Adrien’s face and posture relaxed, his eyebrows upturned with both amazement and affection. “Always,” he breathed out softly. “You can count on me, always,” he murmured, a kind smile etched on his handsome face as he reached for her hand and squeezed.

Ladybug smiled fondly in return, remembering why it had been so easy to fall in love with him several years ago. He was truly a selfless and sweet person at heart.

He lifted his hand up to her face, rubbing his thumb across a cut on her lower lip and wiping away a spot of blood which, unbeknownst to him, she’d gotten as Marinette. Her breath hitched, face suddenly feeling rather warm.

“It seems like we always meet under less than ideal circumstances,” Adrien chuckled softly. “Fate has a cruel sense of humor sometimes. I’m sorry.”

Ladybug’s stomach tingled, a sense of familiarity descending on her yet again. She must have been staring because Adrien swiftly withdrew his hand with a quick apology, muttering sheepishly how he’d never been very good at recognizing the need for personal space.

Not wanting to make him feel uncomfortable, Ladybug forced herself to pretend to have a functioning brain and smiled politely, helping him to stand and letting him use her as a support. “It’s okay, no worries!” she added amiably. “Would you let me take you back to the school? My yo-yo’s better than a taxi, or so I hear.”

He grinned widely, then nodded. “Yeah. I’d appreciate it.”

Ladybug picked him up, acutely aware that crowds were beginning to gather around the area. As she was about to take off with Adrien, she heard one of the cops call out her name.

“What is it, Officer Raincomprix? Do you have the situation under control? I’m taking Adrien back to the school to get him checked out by a medical professional. You can get a statement from him there, away from the public and from–” she added, an annoyed crinkle forming on her forehead “–from all the reporters. Be on the lookout for any possible akuma.”

Officer Roger Raincomprix’s face was one of pure bewilderment. “Uh– well, ma’am, something’s happened. I’m not sure how to explain. You’d better come take a look for yourself.”

Ladybug and Adrien exchanged puzzled glances, then she nodded as she and Adrien made their way to where she’d detained the kidnappers.

Upon arriving back at the scene of the battle, Ladybug gasped, almost dropping Adrien in shock, with a look on her face like she’d just witnessed an alien invasion.

“WHERE ARE THEY?!” she shrieked. “How did they escape?!?”

“We’re not sure,” Officer Roger stated. “Somebody caught it on camera, maybe you can get some clues from the video.” He called over one of the cameramen from a local news crew. “Rewind it, please,” he instructed him.

Ladybug and Adrien stared at the tiny screen in awe. The two men had been released from the lamppost and were being walked towards the police car in handcuffs. Once they’d almost reached the vehicle, they halted mid-step, then fell to the ground, faces twisting in agony, and they let out a bloodcurdling wail, like their insides were being ripped apart. A cloud of dark, indigo smoke engulfed them, obscuring them completely; and when it cleared, there was nothing.

Ladybug gaped in total confusion. “So they just… disappeared??” she cried. “Vanished without a trace??”

The officer shook his head. “Not entirely. These were left behind,” he added, presenting two small, white feathers.

Ladybug accepted them, even more confused than before. “And you’re absolutely certain you saw no akumas leave their bodies?”

Roger nodded. “Positive. There was nothing else. We’re searching the area for clues; we’ll let you know if we find anything.”

Ladybug exhaled sharply, feeling like she’d been thrown into a freezing lake, the tiny hairs at the back of her neck standing on end. What in the world was happening??

(Mood Music: Ballet from “Orpheus and Eurydice" - Christoph Gluck)

By the time Ladybug had gotten Adrien situated at the school nurse’s, the effects of whatever neuromuscular drug he’d been injected with had waned somewhat, and he’d regained most of the feeling and mobility in his limbs. Since he waved off the need to actually lie down in one of the beds, she helped him sink into a small sofa, adjusting the pillows, fussing over him, asking if he needed a blanket or something to drink. All the while, he kept trying to reassure her that he was fine (although his face did look a bit flushed during this exchange, which didn’t ease her apprehensions).

As the nurse examined his vitals and gave him a quick check-up, Ladybug’s thoughts slowly shifted from doting concern to one of regret and guilt. This was all her fault. She should have listened to Tikki and transformed instead of rushing in headfirst without knowing the full situation.

Her earrings rang out their second beep, reminding her that her time was beginning to run short. She knew she needed to part ways, but a pressing question rooted her to the spot. She couldn’t leave just yet. Not until she knew.

Adrien must’ve sensed her discomfort; as soon as the nurse excused herself to fill out a health report and speak to the police, he touched her arm and asked quietly, “Is everything okay?” He motioned for her to sit next to him, patting the cushion with a friendly gesture.

She complied, trying to appear as calm as possible as she took a seat. “Well, it’s about… earlier,” she began hesitantly, then lowered her head to whisper, “Do you think this had anything to do with those photos of us from a few months back, when we went to the movies together? Maybe the pictures got leaked after all, and the wrong people got ahold of them. I can’t help but feel like that’s why you were targeted.”

Adrien’s eyes popped wide open as he jerked his head up. “Oh, no!! No, it wasn’t!” Adrien replied, arms waving in emphatic denial. He tried to calm his voice again as he continued to insist, “Believe me, it’s not connected to that at all!”

“What?? B-but how are you sure? You can be honest with me; you don’t have to downplay it for my sake,” she insisted. “I accept all responsibility for everything that happened that evening. I should’ve known it was too dangerous and that it would put you at risk. I just want to fix things and make sure what happened today won’t ever happen again.”

“The timing was just a coincidence, I promise,” Adrien assured her, reaching forward and giving her shoulder a squeeze. “This has nothing to do with you... and everything to do with my father,” he added darkly.

Ladybug’s jaw dropped as a realization dawned on her. “Oh no, your father… he’s going to be so upset!! The police have probably already notified him, he must be worried sick!” Ladybug groaned in dismay, her head dropping into her hands, entirely missing the way Adrien’s eyes rolled sardonically. “Would it help if I escorted you to your home myself? Just to make absolutely sure that you arrive home safely? It’s no trouble, really! I’d just need to go recharge real quick and–”

Adrien looked like he’d just been set on fire. “NO!!!’ he cut her off, unable to keep the terror out of his voice. “Please, don’t!!”

Ladybug recoiled back like she’d been slapped in the face, utterly bewildered at his response. Adrien’s hands began to tremble, and he gripped the fabric of his pants to try to keep them still.

“Uhh, what I meant to say was, ‘no thank you, that won’t be necessary.’ M-my Father is, uhh... very particular. Fastidious, really. Someone will drive me back.” He grimaced as if his words tasted bitter, then he exhaled, seeming to compose himself. “I appreciate the offer, it’s very kind of you. But there’s really no need.”

“I… b-but…” she stammered, twiddling with the hem of her skirt, unconvinced. “Are you absolutely, positively sure you’ll be alright?”

Adrien nodded. “I’ll be fine. Trust me.”

Ladybug let out a deep sigh. “Well… alright. Sorry I kept pushing, it’s just…” She bit her lip, trying not to think about the chillingly blank stares of the impostor bodyguards. “It’s just that those men were no ordinary akumas. Actually, I don’t even know if they were ever really human in the first place. Or akumas. Something is very wrong here. I don’t like it.”

She felt Adrien shuffle nervously beside her, and her posture straightened like she’d been smacked with a rod, her head whipping up to meet Adrien’s concerned eyes again.

“Oh goodness, I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t be blabbing all this stuff to you, especially after what you’ve just been through. You’re safe now and I’ll make sure it stays that way, alright? I swear it! So, please try not to worry about it. I’ll discuss this incident with Chat Noir and see if he knows anything about this weird phenomenon, okay? We’ll protect you.” She grinned and took his hands into hers, giving it a gentle squeeze.

An odd look crossed his face, but it shifted into a cordial smile before she could think much of it. “Right. Thanks, Ladybug. I’m sorry you had to get dragged into this.”

Ladybug sputtered, “Not at all! Please don’t be sorry! It’s my job! I was happy to do so! W-well, I mean– not happy you almost got– I mean, obviously not that, but happy that you... that I—“ she stopped her ramblings with a loud, embarrassed facepalm. “Ow. Anyway, you know what I mean,” she finished with a self-deprecating grin.

Adrien was about to reply when the door to the infirmary swung open, crashing into the adjacent wall with a loud bang.

“ADRIEN!!! BRO, ARE YOU OKAY??!” a despondent-sounding Nino rushed to his side, throwing his arms around him without even noticing Ladybug’s presence, a concerned Alya following closely behind.

Adrien hugged him back, touched at his concern. “Nino!! Boy, am I glad to see you! I’m fine, really!”

“You’re not hurt?? You’re really okay?!”

“Of course! I’m fine now, all thanks to Ladybug and Mar— wait…” His head whipped around the room, squinting his eyes as he searched (the action reminding Ladybug that Adrien’s glasses were still missing). “Where’s Marinette? She’s not with you guys?”

Ladybug let out an odd squeak, then tried covering it up with a cough.

Alya shook her head. “I tried calling her, but there’s been no answer. But someone pulled the fire alarm and called the cops, so maybe that was her? I was able to squeeze some info out of one of the officers. He said a young woman called and claimed she saw Adrien Agreste get taken away in a vehicle against his will. He mentioned that she sounded out of breath, almost like she was running or chasing after them. If that doesn’t sound like Marinette, then I don’t know what does.”

Adrien bit the side of his cheek, brows upturned in concern. “She saw us and tried fighting the assailants. She could be injured, I have to go find her,” he said as he stood up, still wobbly but able to do it unassisted.

“NO!!” Ladybug yelped, leaping off the sofa like it was made of hot coals, and they all looked up at her. “I mean, you shouldn’t push yourself. D-don’t worry, I’m sure she’s on her way! You should stay here so she knows where to find you! No sense in having you both running around and potentially missing each other, right?”

Adrien crossed his arms, not quite convinced, but deciding to follow her instructions. “Well… I-I guess. We should try her cell phone again.”

Ladybug continued, words dribbling out like a broken faucet, “Anyhoo, my earrings are about to beep again, so I’d better get going! But you all know how to get a hold of me if anything happens, right guys? Right?? Right... Anyway, bug out!!”

And with that, Ladybug scampered away like a white rabbit late for a tea party.

A few minutes later (the entirety of which Adrien spent answering Nino and Alya’s worried queries as well as filling out a police report) a rather rumpled-looking Marinette quietly entered the room, not wanting to interrupt.

She didn’t stay undetected for long, however. Upon seeing her, Adrien’s features morphed from surprise into joy, followed by relief, then concern. He’d never seen her look quite so… tired .

He must’ve uttered her name out loud because she approached them sheepishly. “Umm… hi. S-sorry, it took me a little while to walk back to the school and my phone ran out of battery on the way. Are you oka––”

Adrien sprung off his seat and shuffled towards her, halfway dragging his still-sluggish legs. He threw his arms around her, clutching her as tight as he could, as if she might disappear again at any second.

“Marinette, thank God,” he cooed, gently cradling the back of her head. “I don’t know how to thank you. If it hadn’t been for you, I would’ve been–”

“You would’ve done the same for me,” she said as she embraced him with matching fervor. “I’m just glad you’re okay now.”

They felt a large thwump as someone wrapped their arms around them, followed by another set of arms joining the pile.

“This most definitely calls for a group hug,” Nino said, squeezing hard.

“Especially after what Adrien told us happened,” Alya added. “Girl, you are so brave! I’m so proud of you!! Ladybug and Chat Noir better watch out or you’ll be stealing their jobs soon!” Adrien heard Marinette let out an amused snort as he and Nino chimed in in agreement.

Now that the danger had passed and the adrenaline had subsided, a moment of calm was exactly what they needed.

As the group pulled apart and he was able to get a better look at her, it was then that Adrien noticed how truly beaten up Marinette appeared, physically. Her hair was out of place, her clothes torn in a few spots, her usual hair accessory was missing, and she was covered in grime, cuts, and bruises.

“Oh, Mari…” he whispered sadly as he slowly turned her head by the chin, gently thumbing a large cut on her lips and ghosting the tips of his fingers over a darkening black eye, moving her hair out of the way.

Marinette then realized that, in the midst of all the commotion, Ladybug had forgotten to use her Miraculous Cure.

Damn it! Screwed up yet another thing today.

She wondered if she could summon another Lucky Charm later today and try to fix things then . She’d never tried using a Lucky Charm outside of battle once the danger had already passed. Would it even work?

Marinette winced. “That bad, eh? Do I have to wear a paper bag over my head for a few days to avoid frightening the children of Paris?” she joked. She instinctively stuck out her tongue to search for the cut on her lip, then flinched when the wetness of her saliva made it sting.

Adrien frowned. “Nonsense. Here,” he said, leading her by the hand back to the sofa. After she sat down, he began gathering some of the first aid materials that the nurse had left on the countertop, then rummaged through the drawers and cupboards for more.

Marinette let out a flustered squeak as he brought the supplies over and pulled up a chair, sitting across from her.

“Oh! Don’t worry about it, it’s totally not necessary,” she said, holding her hands up. “I can take care of it later, it’s no big deal, you should really get some rest–”

Adrien leaned forward in his seat, reaching for her hand. “Please. Let me do this.” he murmured, insistent. “It’s the least I can do.”

Marinette could feel her face getting flushed from all the attention, but didn’t want to argue with him. He was clearly blaming himself for what had happened, and maybe this would be a way to help him feel better, even though it wasn’t his fault whatsoever. She shyly tucked some hair behind her ear, then nodded in consent.

As Adrien treated Marinette’s wounds, they overheard Principal Damocles and Madame Bustier conversing as they walked down the hallway outside of the nurse’s office.

“—And now there isn’t even anyone left behind for Monsieur Agreste to press charges, since the police claim that the perpetrators disappeared into thin air!” Mr. Damocles lamented as he paused in front of the slightly ajar infirmary door. “It’s not like he can sue Ladybug or the authorities for their negligence in capturing the culprits. Or, come to think of it, maybe he can! He is friends with the mayor, after all,” he pondered, continuing his musings. “Regardless, the blame will surely fall upon us!”

“Perhaps this isn’t the time to worry about that, Principal Damocles,” Mme Bustier spoke in a more hushed tone. “Surely M. Agreste must be feeling absolutely distraught after what nearly happened to his son. He’s such a caring and devoted father, always worrying about Adrien’s well-being, especially since his wife’s disappearance. His son is all he has left. We should try to be more considerate.”

“Hmm, yes, I suppose you are correct. Perhaps if we send him a basket of fruit to show our condolences about this incident, he’ll let the whole thing slide and we can avoid a lawsuit.”

“Sir…” Caline Bustier let out a troubled sigh as the two continued down the hallway.

The room was quiet again and Marinette had to work really hard to suppress an irritated groan, as her acting skills were put to the ultimate test of avoiding outwardly cringing at her principal’s misdirected priorities.

Her attention turned back towards Adrien, and at this point she realized that his actions had halted. His arm hovered in mid-air holding a cotton ball soaked in antiseptic, glassy eyes staring blankly at the ground. He looked rather pale, almost like he’d seen a ghost, and his face was downcast, yet somehow still unreadable. She supposed that years of concealing his emotions came naturally for him as well.

Marinette knew that Adrien’s relationship with his father was rather strained, particularly over the past year, with him becoming more and more strict and Adrien having to deal with increasing pressure to maintain a near-impossible standard of conduct. But judging by Adrien’s dramatic shift in mood, she couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to it than that.

She reached forward, lightly touching his opposite forearm to get his attention. His gaze whipped up to meet hers, his eyes revealing an ocean of sorrow. But he cleared his throat and gave her a small smile, that perfect default smile, the one that she hated seeing on him. Then he resumed tending to her various wounds, briefly apologizing for getting distracted.

She noticed in her peripheral vision a miffed-looking Nino pulling Alya to the other side of the room, speaking in hushed tones. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it sounded like they were disagreeing about something.

“–You can’t just go around making those kinds of accusations!” Alya hissed, almost too quiet for Marinette to hear. “It’s literally the worst time for that!”

“I won’t!” Nino whispered back. “... For now. But it doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop suspecting him. I’m telling you, he’s not a good dude! If he’s such a ‘perfect’ father, why isn’t he here right now?! After what just happened?” His posture drooped and he crossed his arms. “I just… I’m worried about Adrien, babe. What if he’s not actually okay?” he asked with a slight quiver in his voice.

“Oh, Nino…” Alya’s face softened as she brought him into a tight embrace. “Everything’s gonna be fine, hon. Don’t worry.”

She glanced over and made eye contact with Marinette, giving her a small smile; then she and Nino walked off together to a more secluded area to continue their private conversation.

Adrien finished wrapping up a nasty-looking gash on her shin, which had bled through her pants leg. He’d rolled up the fabric to treat the wound, and was now rolling it back down.

“Thank you, Adrien,” she said quietly. “I should get going, my parents are probably worried; they usually keep the news radio turned on in the bakery, so they’ve probably already heard about what happened.”

Adrien stood when she did. Always a gentleman, she thought with a smile.

“Will you be alright? Can I walk you home?” he asked.

Marinette spluttered incredulously. “You’re asking me if I’m alright?! After all that you just went through??”

He shrugged slightly, giving her a tiny, contrite smile. “Well… you went through it with me. And, as amazing as you are, you’re not unbreakable. I just wanna be there for you like you were for me today. And like every time you’ve been there whenever I needed someone.”

Marinette’s heart thumped loudly in her chest, touched by his concern and gratitude. He spoke so sincerely, and she could sense that many things were left unspoken, and there was a weight behind his words that she couldn’t decipher. “What about your car ride?”

“I…” he faltered slightly. “I’ll tell them to pick me up from your place. No biggie.”

“Well… if you’re sure. The company would be nice,” she relented.

“Great!” he said cheerfully, offering his arm. “You can be my seeing-eye mouse.”

“A what? A seeing-eye mouse?” she giggled. “Actually, that reminds me–” she paused, opening her purse and rummaging through it.

Adrien’s eyes grew wide as she conjured up his missing eyeglasses from within.

“I went looking for them before coming to find you. It was lucky that they were still there, in the locker room. One of the lenses has a small scratch, but they should still work fine until you can buy a new pair.”

Adrien let out a small, incredulous laugh, then put on his glasses. “I can’t believe you went back for them. You’re a lifesaver, Marinette; in so many ways. Thank you.”

Marinette’s face warmed at the compliment, despite trying hard to smolder the remainders of a flame that was once there. She cleared her throat and teased, “Can I still be your seeing-eye dog?”

“You mean, my ‘seeing-eye mouse’!”

She raised an amused eyebrow. “Why a mouse?”

“You’d be a mouse ‘cause you’re little and cute!”

Marinette blew a raspberry as she giggled. “You’re such a dork! Alright, I’ll do it, but you’d better be there when I need someone to fetch something from the top shelves!”

Adrien chuckled and gave her a wink. “That’s a promise.”

–––––

As some of you correctly guessed: YES! The peacock miraculous was used to create sentimonsters in the image of Adrien's old bodyguard to deceive him and take him back to Gabriel.

There's some plot decisions I have to make (whether to follow my original outline of what comes next or if I need to tweak some things to improve the flow of the story), so it's back to "normal" updates again, but I'll do my best to update a bit more consistently :)

ah yes, the idea for yet another variant of this au chain

Team Seven take the mission to the Land of Waves. On the bridge, they fight Zabuza and Haku.

On the bridge, Sakura dies.

For a moment that lasts forever, everything seems to freeze. It’s shock, initially, on every face. Haku’s mirrors are in the midst of cracking apart, Naruto and Sasuke standing bloody and back-to-back between them, while Haku lunges across the expanse of stone to protect Zabuza from the shrill and deathly lightning in Kakashi’s hand.

Even Sakura herself seems stunned, rotating midair as if in slow motion. She seems unsure of herself, or how exactly she got where she is - bolted from one end of the bridge to the other, abandoning her post as Tazuna’s bodyguard to intercept Haku on their way to Kakashi.

And she’s made it, to her credit. Caught Haku just before they reach Zabuza, tagged them with her kunai. There’s blood on their clothes, a stark red streak against pale skin and fabric.

They’ve spun at the contact, reflexive, defensive. Somehow, even with the Chidori roaring in Kakashi’s palm, the world goes silent as Haku’s senbon sinks into Sakura’s neck. It’s all too slow as the strike transfers momentum, as Sakura’s feet lift from the ground and the senbon tears out of her throat. Sasuke stares on with Sharingan ablaze, unable to breathe, unable to look away as his eyes dutifully and traitorously record Sakura’s death in minute, excruciating detail. He doesn’t know, just yet, what the cost of his clan’s power truly is.

But Kakashi does, only too terribly well, and as time catches up with itself and Sakura goes crashing into the bridge, he strikes. His hand punches straight through Zabuza’s ribcage, tearing through his heart until Kakashi’s fingers protrude from his back. The surprise on his face is overlaid with the relief on Rin’s, and Kakashi yanks back, turns away, refuses to look at her ghost with the blood on his hands.

Sasuke is frozen, unblinking, struggling to breathe. He can’t drag his gaze away from Sakura’s body, and she looks so small where she’s crumpled on the bridge, utterly motionless in an expanding puddle of her own blood. He can’t see colours, except for the crimson, as if everything else has been spontaneously switched off.

She’s still breathing, barely, a weak flutter that-- Gods, Sasuke thinks he might be imagining it, actually, he can’t tell, and her body is outlined in white fire that he knows isn’t real, Sharingan whirring, head spinning. The world rotates.

It ruptures, all at once, as Naruto lets out an ear-piercing scream at Sasuke’s side. Whatever was holding it all snaps, and Sasuke whips around to check on Naruto, and sees the menacing red bleeding into blue eyes, sees the way his teeth are cracking and elongating in his jaws, the fangs that are too big for Naruto’s skull, the ink creeping out from the birthmarks on his cheeks, winding back along his temples and down his nose.

There’s a shout, Kakashi’s voice, but Naruto has already vanished in a blur of sticky red chakra and the shattering of the stone under his feet, and by the time Sasuke can find him again he’s already torn into Haku like a wild animal, cracking bone and shredding flesh. Their head rolls away from their body, before Naruto pounces on it.

The skull pancakes under Naruto’s hand, a splatter of brains like a water balloon bursting, a tongue poking from between his fingers and an eyeball popping into the air and arcing away. Naruto is snarling, glowing, and there’s blood dripping from every footprint he leaves, his skin melting and boiling as fast as it heals under the cloak of-- of-- oh gods, and Sasuke doesn’t even know, can’t even comprehend what it is that he’s seeing. A Naruto that isn’t himself, isn’t even human, and there are ethereal tails forming and lashing from the dark red chakra itself, two-- three. Long curves that look like ears, deep gouges in the stone as his nails-- claws, they’re claws, wickedly sharp, and they look more like bone than fingernail, like the animal is too big to be contained by Naruto’s real body.

Haku is in pieces under Naruto’s attack, and he won’t stop slashing and biting and shredding. Nausea boils up, fear and panic and Sasuke doesn’t fucking understand but he’s pretty fucking sure that he doesn’t want to, and it’s almost a relief when he has to turn away to vomit.

Kakashi’s voice is in the air, and every fibre of his body wants to help ruin the people who’ve killed Sakura right in front of them, wants to sprint to her side and try to save her - but he can’t, he knows, and he can’t lose control like his kids are. He’s the leader. He’s the adult. There’s too much blood under Sakura already, her carotid artery sundered by the attack, and she’s just a child, she’s beyond help, beyond Kakashi’s rudimentary skills in medical ninjutsu, she’s already gone and there’s nothing Kakashi can do to save her. Because there’s never anything he can do to save her.

But he can’t lose control, and he needs to triage the situation as best he can. If he fails to act, then he’ll lose Naruto too. He’ll lose Sasuke. He’ll lose all of them. So he sprints to Naruto, tackles him to the ground, ignores the sudden searing agony of the Kyuubi’s chakra biting into his skin. Naruto is wild, lost in the onslaught of his demon and grief, but where the Kyuubi’s domination brings with it new and unique strengths, it also brings weaknesses.

It takes more chakra and effort than Kakashi has, but he makes Naruto look him in the eye, brings as much of the Sharingan’s power to bear as he can. For a minute, struggling to keep Naruto down while he howls and snaps his teeth and tries to bite through Kakashi’s wrists, nothing visibly happens. Kakashi is shaking by the time Naruto finally stills, takes a deep breath, lets out a noise like a dying animal.

When Naruto slumps, the Kyuubi locked back into its cage, Kakashi goes down with him.

Sasuke’s approach is slow, shuddering, uncertain. His eyes are burning, and he can’t tell if it’s from chakra or from tears, but he doesn’t care. Naruto and Kakashi are breathing, tangled together in an unconscious pile, and Sasuke can’t even begin to think what to do with them so he ignores them. Goes to Sakura instead. She’s sprawled, her skin scraped and raw from her impact and tumble against the bridge, her throat torn open. Sasuke’s never seen what the inside of a larynx looks like before.

He turns away as he gags, but there’s nothing left to come up except a violent ache so deep that Sasuke thinks, for a moment, that he might be about to die as well. Sakura is limp when he tries to pick her up, warm and pliable and lifeless in his hands. He can’t get them to stop shaking, makes a mess as he tries to wipe her hair out of her face. Smears blood everywhere. It’s matted in her hair, the normal pink warped into a blurring crimson.

It’s the ninken who actually take control. Pakkun sets Bull and Shiba to guard Tazuna, even though the threat to him is gone. The cold reality is that they’re acting more like prison guards than bodyguards; Konoha has lost a genin and nearly lost her whole team, and it rarely forgives such offences. Guruko establishes a small parameter around the scene, and Akino keeps the remaining civilians in a tight group. Urushi comes to sit vigil with Sasuke, and they let him cradle Sakura’s body to his chest and cry.

With only a few words, Pakkun has Ūhei unsummon herself, and she vanishes in a puff of smoke to report to the Hokage and get a rescue team sent after them. With Bisuke’s help, Pakkun himself sets to untangling Naruto and Kakashi and ensuring they’ll live through this. Shiba, the only ninken with a lightning affinity, is pulled off Tazuna duty to give Kakashi a chakra transfusion; he jolts and moans when it’s delivered, but it’s a necessary agony and he doesn’t fully wake.

When Gatō makes his appearance, Bisuke vanishes and reappears on his shoulders, and his entourage is sent fleeing in panic as she rips out his throat too with delicate, savage fangs.

By the time that Ūhei returns with a rescue squad at her side, Naruto is awake again and he refuses to let anyone take Sakura’s body from him but the masked Anbu simply picks them up together. Gai is firm but gentle as he carries Kakashi - not quite awake, but beginning to stir. Sasuke tries to stand - he’s numb and hollow, and he thinks that he should feel like he did when he found Itachi over the bodies of their parents but he doesn’t. He doesn’t feel anything.

Perhaps he should feel guilty for that.

His legs fail him, however, and maybe he should feel pathetic for not even being able to pick himself up from the ground but he can’t bring himself to care as he’s carefully lifted up by Asuma. Sasuke wants nothing more than to stop existing while he watches his team over Asuma’s shoulder, stares unblinking at the way Naruto shakes and begs Sakura to wake up. She won’t.

She won’t ever again.

The ninken make the trip back with them, and if it is a quick affair then it is also a haunting one. Naruto doesn’t shut up the entire time, alternating between talking to the girl who cannot hear him and muttering quietly to himself. If Sasuke looks closely enough, he can see the flash of fangs in Naruto’s mouth that never quite flatten again.

The report to Hiruzen lasts for a lifetime, and is over far too soon. Kakashi is lucid by then, standing on his own feet but with Gai’s continued assistance. His report is... empty. Perhaps that’s as it should be - he does not cry, for death has already wrung from him as many tears as he could ever give it, but his voice is icy and his gaze is bitter and grim. He recommends, as emotionlessly as he explains all the rest, that Konoha execute Tazuna for his crimes.

Naruto finally surrenders Sakura’s body when her parents arrive. He and Sasuke will never forget the way they break when he does, the collapse and the howling and the way that Sakura is stiff and pale in their arms. Her eyes are still open, glazed and green and unseeing.

Why are her eyes still open?

Afterwards, after Sasuke and Naruto are released from Team Seven’s trip to the hospital but Kakashi is coerced to stay, two of the ninken stick around. Ūhei sticks to Sasuke’s side like a parasite, a warmth and stability that Sasuke finds himself loathing, while Bisuke trails Naruto at a short but definitive distance.

Naruto doesn’t let Sasuke wander home alone. He wants to, desperately, wants to hide away in the ocean of death that he lives in and-- gods, and what, exactly? Showering is an option that should be appealing, but it’s not. Even the thought of washing Sakura’s blood off himself - of erasing the last tangible evidence of her life - is sickening. They’d been cruel to her, in life. Sasuke had expected little of her at all, and he hadn’t cared if she’d known it. Naruto, with his puppy-love, hadn’t been better.

Except she was dead, and in the end her strength hadn’t mattered at all. Any one of them could have been caught the way she was - and it was bravery that had killed her, not weakness. She’d left the safety of distance and thrown herself in the way, in between their sensei and an incoming attack, and there was no way of knowing if Haku could have hurt or killed Kakashi in the attempt but Sakura had prevented it from even being an option.

Had she known? Had it been a decision on her part, or had it been instinct and desperation? Had she ever realised that-- gods, had she ever known that her team loved her?

A glare isn’t enough to discourage Naruto from following Sasuke home, as it never has been, and there’s a chance that Sasuke could make him leave with words but--

He can’t bring himself to speak. Not once, not at all. His voice feels like a weight in his throat, like he’s swallowed marbles, and that’s fine, really, because what right does he have to fucking use it anyway? Sakura’s voice has been stripped away. She’ll never speak again, and Sasuke deserves to far less than she does.

Did.

The dogs never leave their sides over the following weeks. Ūhei and Bisuke are their most common company, but all eight of the ninken rotate in and out. Naruto refuses to go back his own home, wherever the fuck it is. At first Sasuke hates him for it, hates everything, but eventually Naruto is absent for half a day - training, he says when he gets home - and Sasuke panics.

So much is gone. Almost everything is gone. Sakura is gone. And gods Naruto is annoying - but he understands, actually, Sasuke can see now, despite the absurd and cheery exterior he’d worn before. He’s always understood, and the cheerfulness was a lie. Or, perhaps, a choice. And the fear of losing him to is so overwhelming that Sasuke simply never asks him to leave.

They attend Sakura’s funeral. It’s... eerie. Too many people and too few people at the same time. Some that Sasuke doesn’t recognise - too many that he does. Sasuke stands between Naruto and Kakashi, and Kakashi doesn’t say a word to them, to anyone, and Sasuke lets Naruto hold onto his hand with a crushing grip. Ino approaches them, afterwards, and habit has Sasuke bracing himself but there’s no admiration in her eyes this time. She snarls at them. “It should have been you.”

It’s hard to argue with her.

Sakura’s parents are... unbearable. The agony in their expressions is so familiar, so intimate, and yet they’re so kind to Sasuke and Naruto despite the fact they let their daughter die. When Mebuki learns that they’re living on their own - not a parent between them - she begins visiting them. They’re not social calls, not really, and she doesn’t linger too long, but her visits are scheduled and regular, and bring with them meals put together for Sasuke and Naruto and whatever cleaning they haven’t managed between them. After the first week, she brings small snacks for whichever of the ninken are with them as well.

Kizashi gives them two stuffed animals and Sakura’s hitai-ite. The toys are generic - a very round bird and a fox, both worn by time and use - but they were hers, and beloved when she was small. Naruto tries to refuse the hitai-ite, because surely her parents want to keep such an important thing, but Kizashi insists. He doesn’t want it, he tells them. He would rather remember Sakura as his daughter, and not as a Konoha soldier.

Perhaps there’s merit in that, but Sasuke and Naruto set it between her toys on the dresser in their room, next to their team photos, and they can’t bring themselves to work out the bloodstains in the fabric, but the plate is kept perfectly polished. Maybe her parents just don’t understand - but Sakura was proud of her position as a Konoha-nin, and she died fulfilling it.

It’s a little shameful, of course, that Sasuke is sharing his room with Naruto - but Naruto disagrees, and Sasuke can’t bring himself to care. Sleeping alone has proven... difficult. And pride is worthless.

The dogs never leave, but Naruto and Sasuke don‘t see Kakashi after Sakura’s funeral. There are meetings with Hiruzen, visits from some of the other jōnin, and no matter how vehemently they protest, they’re assigned a new sensei. It’s hideously uncommon, and it’s not Kaede-sensei’s fault, but Sasuke can’t help but hate her too. She can’t replace Kakashi, and Sasuke resents her for even trying, no matter that Kakashi-sensei has abandoned them. At least they’re not given a new teammate. As if anyone could possibly replace Sakura.

“The dog-Anbu is back,” Naruto says one day, while they spar under Kaede’s watchful eye. “I think... I think it might be Kakashi-sensei.”

And Sasuke knows about the dog-Anbu, of course. Though he rarely speaks himself, Naruto has no such compunction, and his chatter has become a familiar comfort. A Naruto who’s talking is a Naruto who’s alive. He’s told Sasuke all about growing up, about the loneliness and the dread. About the hatred of the village. The dog-Anbu had been the most familiar regular amongst the quiet tail of Anbu who’d watched Naruto his entire life - and yet never intervened. Had it been willful, or were they under orders? Hard to say, given that they were almost never given direct trouble anymore. The civilians who saw them out and about - on the rare occasion they were - were either too sympathetic or too wary to confront them. There was no opportunity to intervene even if the dog-Anbu wanted to.

That the surreptitious Anbu presence was back should have been concerning, but... Naruto had always found comfort in the recognisable dog-Anbu. Maybe it was contagious.

And if Kakashi was still watching them, then he hadn’t abandoned them. Somehow, it made Kaede’s training more welcome.

Jiraiya becomes part of their lives. He’s an irregular and brief presence, but he drifts in and out. They meet him early, and Naruto refuses to leave Sasuke’s side to fulfill whatever task Jiraiya has for him, and so they learn together the truth of the beast caged inside Naruto’s skin. Jiraiya works on the Seal, repairs what he can from the damage Naruto did on the bridge, ensures its continued integrity. He’s hard to like on a personal level, but they don’t begrudge his visits when they happen - making sure Naruto has control of the demon is imperative. He can’t use a power he can’t control.

Because that’s their secret, of course. In the dead of night, in the quiet of the Uchiha compound, when it’s just them and the ghosts. Naruto practices, with Sasuke on hand - Sasuke who’s learnt from Jiraiya that the Sharingan can manipulate the Bijuu, who finally understands what it was Kakashi did to bring Naruto down when Sakura died - and Sasuke practices with him, and forces back what power slips beyond Naruto’s grasp when they break open tiny cracks in the Seal.

And Naruto helps Sasuke too, offers a barrier of stolen demonic chakra that is the only thing, they’ve found, that can provide any resistance to the sticky black flames Sasuke can conjure. It makes his eyes bleed, and the chakra cost is like ashes in his veins, but creating and controlling the Amaterasu gets easier every time he does it.

They’re going to need it. Sasuke isn’t sure if Naruto simply needed the context of Sasuke’s quest for vengeance or if Sakura’s death made him understand the purpose of revenge, but they’re in it together, now. Naruto refuses to leave Sasuke’s side - and if that means following him down the path that leads to killing Itachi, then so be it. His power, despite what Sasuke had once thought, is immense and - somehow - at Sasuke’s disposal.

It’s strange, he thinks. How Naruto can still have faith in people, the differences in how he talks to Sakura’s ghost as if she’s watching them, as if she’s not simply gone, as if she might be proud of them, and how Sasuke can never bring himself to say a single word. Stranger still, how easily Naruto throws that faith away when Sasuke asks him to.

Strange, but comforting. Love, perhaps, if Sasuke lets himself dare to contemplate so fragile and dangerous a thing. And if Naruto will forsake his morals at Sasuke’s behest, then the least he can do is hold true to them. Because one day, when they’re ready, when they’re so strong that nobody will ever be able to rip away a life they love ever again, they’ll hunt down Itachi and make him pay for the lives he tore down.

But first - and maybe it’s practice, or maybe it’s vengeance, or maybe it’s both - they’ll return to the Land of Waves, once they’ve got enough control of their strength, and they’ll burn the Great Sakura Bridge to the ground.

In Honor of Deltarune Chapter 2, Lemme tell you about exactly HOW world-breaking Chara really was, and IS.

Here's the thing about Chara. It is implied that they are THE PLAYER's insatiable thirst for new video game worlds (or, they have latched onto it). As in, they accompany the player to the next world they go to.

Direct quote:

"HP. ATK. DEF. GOLD. EXP. LV. Every time a number increases, that feeling . . . That's me. Chara. Now, we have reached the absolute. There is nothing left for us here. Let us erase this pointless world, and move on to the next." i.e.: Let US move on to the next.

Every time THE PLAYER conquers and sets aside a new game . . . they have effectively DESTROYED it. Because they do not "exist" unless they are played and interacted with. Also, they only exist up until the end of the game anyway (most of the time)

And- I say usually- no matter how many times THE PLAYER plays a game- they will eventually tire of it. Also, if they play 500 games in their lifetime . . . it is unlikely they will re-play that many consistently. Plus, add on random internet "mini" games.

Now, that's only considering ONE player.

But since Chara is a multi-dimensional being, because they are aware of other worlds . . . it's not much of a stretch to say that the millions of people who are carrying around Chara "with" them count . . . as Chara.

Bill Cipher, from Gravity Falls, to my knowledge, despite his reality-warping godly demon powers, makes no such 4th wall shattering and domineering claim.

Let's assume for sanity's sake, that this current dimension you're sitting in and reading this screen on is the primary reality. There ARE no dimensions higher than this. All others are contained within human imagination. Bill Cipher was Created by a Creator.

All the 'lower' dimensions we can muck around in as basically gods. (gods or demigods either incarnate as weaklings, or come about some other way, in many mythologies, but then grow steadily stronger to realize their godhood. Ya know, Hercules. Krishna. In Hinduism. That sort of thing.) We can travel between dimensions on a whim by flipping a switch. With enough Determination, we can ALWAYS reach the end. Now, sometimes collaboration does expand these universes a little bit- through comics and fanfiction. But even these created 'higher spheres' nearer to this primary dimension, author 'omniscience' is taken as a given. Actually there is some debate about that, given the real-world phenomenon of novel writers in some cases having no clue where characters are taking them . . . they just sit down to write with a kernel of an idea. That's how I operate, for instance. In that case, they somehow have had their 'future sight' that should be default as a god, blocked. People who outline plots and know where they're going with a story beforehand, and then create characters to fill in the gaps, they're the type of 'gods' that could tell their characters future events, if they wanted to. Anyway. Back to video games specifically, and their fandoms. There is only so much CONTENT and it can always be recorded and shared. So there is still a limting factor.  Here's the weird thing about Undertale. You are there as a 'god.' Just as usual. That's nothing special. You're just there to muck around. But. The whole toe-curling horror aspect UT was demonstrating, for specific characters NPCs who realize this sobering fact . . . such as Asgore and Sans, they are driven to despair, mental instability, and in two cases, suicide, by the fact.

If Homestuck is considered a "game" that is destroyed once you reach the end? It is rolled into all of this as well.  Homestuck is a game. What evidence to I have of this, since it's a 'written story'? It has many playable elements and 90% of its lore and plot is based on deconstructing game conventions and sticking them back together in weird angled positions with crazy glue.  Therefore. If the player reads Homestuck after playing Undertale, (i.e., someone who is newer to internet culture, and entered it after Undertale came out, which was far after Homestuck) Chara has CANONICALLY destroyed the Homestuck Universe.  (or, if you re-read Homestuck after playing Undertale)

YOU. The PLAYER make or break all fictional characters. They live and die by your interest in them, or, for games, your direction, and no other character has explicitly taken YOUR control over the game, as Chara has. In Homestuck, it never gives you something to "do" and then takes the decision away from you, as Undertale does.

Chara, except for someone who has 100% control of that little dopamine rush that comes with leveling up (read: no one), is out there, gleefully wringing out, growing bored of, and then destroying hundreds of thousands of worlds. Chara is the first of zeir kind.  And possibly the last.  Or at least, anything that comes afterwards will be but a pale imitation.  Toby Fox is truly LEGENDARY, in this way.  I'm not sure even he fully understand what he's done here.  Let me try to explain this.  Our education system is currenlty ripping itself to pieces over back-breaking student loans and the realization that we don't actually need all these professors because of the easy availability of information on the internet (Demonstrated, in a roundabout way, in one or two deft lines of dialog in the movie A Beauriful Mind). Now, let's say colleges and universities do survive this shift in society, going foward. It's probable that at the very least technical colleges and vocational schools will. Any others, including high schools, will be replaced by students shrugging and just taking a G.E.D. certification, because why should they spend time at a high school if they hate it, or if they want to learn at their own individualized pace? No reason to do that at all. If the stuffy old guard of the outdated higher education system ever starts treating stories told by video games as literature, as they ABSOLUTELY SHOULD, because they're merely a different medium, not some weird separate thing . . . Toby Fox, having overturned the "trope" of the RPG "genre", wrecking and dismantling it so thouroughly that it has unsettled millions of people who ever again play an RPG where they slaughter any monsters for 'points.'  He should be immortalized. Just like any other author in history who has churned out a landmark piece of literature.  It's merely his fair due.  Perfectly logical, right?  He is the Ubermench game-changer. Literally.  I hope Sans appreciates the pun. Chara is the vehicle through which this overturning of the trope happens. Chara stares directly at the player, deconstructs a longstanding staple in the 'literary genre,' and gives a body and voice to the psychologically addictive quality of video games.

One estimate says there are more than 60,000 video games in existence. And millions of copies of each one.

Chara, as we've established canonically, has access to ALL that are played after a runthrough of Undertale. (or at the very least, genocide Undertale) In Hinduism, it is Shiva that is the god of destruction.  To quote Oppenheimer,  Chara has become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.  Checkmate.

Q. E. D.

Endgame.

Kinktober Day 18 - Omegaverse

[Ao3 Mirror] Rating: Explicit Word Count: 3,571 Summary: You’ve spent years pretending you’re a Beta. One stray Quirk has that lie ripped away, thrown into heat... right in front of your leader, Shigaraki. Contains: mutual noncon, omegaverse; possessive Shigaraki, breeding, knotting,

For one moment, one moment that stretched on and on and on, you watch as Shigaraki’s eyes change. The haze slides between you, washes over his senses, and Tranquil’s Quirk does as promised: Shigaraki’s eyes fall half-lidded, mouth dropping open in a relaxed bliss, even as his eyes burn to stay focused.

The haze moves over you. And in that moment, you wish you’d been facing down Endeavor. A single, frantic inhale and it would all over.

All the years spent scouring suppressants off back-alley deals, dodging every Alpha that got too close, every governmental body that wanted so badly to stick its fingers into your life. All of it, it all comes crashing down in the face of one Hero, touted and praised for their Quirk: it’s fine, news anchors would assure the public, Warmth is perfectly safe, an immaculate nonviolent option for Alphas and Betas- no need to worry about that oh so rare Omega. If there’s a villainous Omega, surely they are already mated, have been mated since their first—

Warmth burns in your nose. “Tomura,” Your fist is in Shigaraki’s coat before you can think twice. You need to get out of here- and with your Leader half drifting pleasantly, you’ll have to drag him. But he doesn’t move, red sneakers glued to the pavement and you can’t hold your breath any longer.

It’s all over. One inhale- and it’s like spiced apple cider, the faint smoke off a burning log, thick and heavy and curling down, down, down inside you. The scent twists into your guts and for a moment, it is warmth. You think your face may match Shigaraki’s, that easy, smooth ecstasy- he turns towards you. His eyes look dulled, glassy- and his nostrils lift as he breathes in- expects to find firewood and cinnamon and instead, instead

Warmth explodes out, sparks the desperate embers in your body you’ve spent your entire life stomping out. Like a fire, it spreads through your veins, licks across every inch of your skin, and as it burns its way into your brain, you watch as your leader’s eyes shift. Twisting in confusion and then shrinking in shock, betrayal, understanding—- and just as the warmth warps into heat you watch as the pinpricks of his pupils expand out, widen until there’s only a thin ring of red left. Any trace of bliss is gone, left in ashes.

It takes you- and everything you’ve ever wanted to avoid happens at once. Slick pools between your legs, which give out. Your world narrows down and you can taste it. It’s not Warmth that scents the air, it’s you. Every face turns, every pro hero’s awareness centering on you: Omega, in heat, unmated.

The last strands of your sanity make you cry- one of them will take you, crush you down into an obedient little house omega, a breeder until there’s nothing left of you- and in the same moment you’re drooling, one hand pressed between your legs to alleviate the throbbing ache, spreading your knees wider in wordless prayer they’ll come, any of them, all of them, to fill you, to breed you, to fuck you until all you can do is cum and

One steps forward. A young Alpha, entranced by your scent, your need- and you meet his eyes, can’t stop the whine from rising in your throat, a warbling plea for mercy. You want him to stay away, to go away- he reaches for you-

A hand clamps over his wrist- deep, rumbling through the crowd is a truly primal, animalistic growl. His wrist crumbles away, the fear never overtaking desire in his eyes. Shigaraki turns towards the rest of the heroes, twisting his coat where your other hand still holds onto it, and dares them: ”Mine.”

The possessiveness makes your body want- and the last vestiges of your right mind are screaming out no no no because you don't want to be anybody's, not an Alpha's, not Shigaraki's. But his scent is strong, the musk of an Alpha ready to fight, to defend his brood- cedar and earth and a quiet tang of citrus and for all the careful control you've kept for years, your cunt oozes slick and ruts against your hand for any stimulation at all. Somehow- somehow this'll work out, you'll get away, Shigaraki won't-

You don’t have time to worry about it. A cool breeze blows up- up from below your knees. There’s no need to look down; even your lust-addled mind knows that misty feeling of Kurogiri’s warpgate. Gravity itself shifts and you’re falling, clutching desperately to the tail of Shigaraki’s coat. Above you now, the portal tightens as your leader falls through, the last glimpse of a sunny day obscured by Tranquil’s face. They open their mouth, perhaps to speak, but the warpgate cinches closed- cuts off their horrified expression. The bar’s stuffy air is nearly unscented. You wouldn’t even be able to tell on any other day, but now- now you’re too sensitive not to. The faint aroma from a half-drunk glass of whiskey, the sting of the chemicals in the cleaner Kurogiri uses for the counter (and Kurogiri, too, as the faint scent of dew) and there- there- like cinnamon in a burning campfire, like white powdered ash, like the stench of burnt flesh-

“The fuck’s going-” Dabi starts- and your gaze snaps to his. Those cerulean eyes shrink down and down, consumed by the black of his pupil as your heat-scent finds him.

The campfire scent sharpens- and you’re drooling, half a mind of not Dabi, please, not Dabi, half still signing out Alpha.

“Get out.” Shigaraki says- and the command, the dominance there makes your clit tingle.

“Tomura Shigaraki, are you-” Kurogiri speaks- and the rational part of your mind notes the continued evenness to his voice, how his scent is not warring with the other Alphas’, not a trace of dew in the air. Dabi takes a step forward-

and pine and earth and the sharp tingle of citrus explode out as Shigaraki roars, “Get out!” It leaves no question, neither other Alpha stupid enough to fight him. A flash of swirling purple smoke and they’re gone- and you’re alone with him. Alone, on the floor, one hand still curled into his coat, the other between your legs.

He looks down at you- and the last thin ring of crimson burns. On weak arms you shuffle back, cling to what reason is left. “Shi- Shigaraki, don’t.” His chest heaves- and he follows you as you crawl. “Please, I didn’t- I don’t want...”

“Oh?” He starts, his mouth up-turned, but not a speck of humor in his voice. “Tell me what you don’t want, Omega.“ You flinch as Shigaraki spits the word.

“You-” Shigaraki snarls as your voice breaks, “You don’t want to be mated either, re- remember? Gets in the way, you don’t want-”

He drops down- knees fall hard on either side of your hips- and one deadly hand finds your throat, every finger except one squeezing down until you’re wide-eyed and quiet. His voice rasps, the rut rising in him to meet your heat, that primal need to lay claim drowning out every long conversation you’d had- “Don’t tell me what I want.” The mix of fear and want has a weak whine rising in your throat, vibrating against his palm. Shigaraki leans down- and his scent overwhelms every sense, his musk warm and strong. It settles in your belly, mixes with your heat- against all wishes your thighs press together, give you anything at all to grind on as another wave of slick builds— and with that sweet, sour taste of citrus, of old clementines weaseling deeper in your brain, you bare your neck to him.

Shigaraki groans and the sound has you writhing, moaning, thrusting up against him desperation. The hand at your throat turns, keeps your face angled into his hair as his sharp noise presses against your scent gland. He breathes in deep and moans “You smell delicious.” His hips rock against the air, “Fucking hiding this from me? Little bitch Omega, just waiting to be bred, to be mated.” He nips at the gland, not deep enough to claim you, but enough to make stars burst in your eyes, the last remaining bits of your sober mind smothered by the all-consuming ache between your legs.

“Please, please, Tomura.”

He doesn’t need any more encouragement. Shigaraki rips at your clothes, anything that doesn’t shred under his rut-driven strength ends up decayed, nothing more than frayed strings that cling to your body. Your underwear is the last barrier- and as he tears it free, the true power of your scent is overwhelming, even to you. The raw need of your slick soaks the ruined scrap of fabric- and Shigaraki holds it up to his nose, breathes in deep.

Moaning- and you don't even recognize it as your own until your legs are spreading before him, hooking over his hips. You shouldn't. You shouldn't be submitting to him, arching up and presenting your aching center- it's like a buzzing in the back of your brain that this isn't right, isn't what you want, but there's nothing you can do about it. Like your body is being controlled by someone else, some pervert that made you out to be the exact thing you'd feared, you'd been avoiding-

Drool slips from your lips as Tomura fumbles his own pants down- thick black sweatpants rucked around his thighs. His Alpha cock is everything you'd dreamed of, long and thick, the first trace of a knot already swelling along the base, like something out of your most shameful fantasies. The head slides through your slick, nudges along the underside of your swollen clit just once- and the needy rise of your hips has Tomura growling again, angling his cock down and-

He sinks in. As much as your heat has prepared your cunt to be used, it's still a stretch- a fullness of a real Alpha cock completely different than anything you'd imagined, anything your unmated body was ready for. Whimpers suffocate in your throat and you stare up at him, wide-eyed and shocked, floating aimlessly in the raw sensation of being complete for the first time. No, no, not complete, not yet, not without-

Shigaraki groans, eyes half lidded as he watches utterly rapt by the sight of his cock disappearing into your heat-slickened hole. His teeth bite into his cracked lower lip while eight fingers bite into your thighs. Shuddering, he murmurs in a voice you've never heard before, completely lost in his resultant rut, "Omega, my Omega..."

"Yours- only yours, Tomura." Your mouth says despite the buzzing, the ache between your eyes. A partner, a mate- some part of you lulls with the thought, soothes the burning need in your body. Someone to take care of you (someone to own you) and it's someone so powerful like Shigaraki, you'll be set, it's all you need, a strong mate.

And through it all his cock works in deeper, until the curve of his deflated knot sits at your entrance. He withdraws- and your hips chase him, lock your ankles behind his back to keep him close, a stranger's pathetic little pleas of "No, no, stay," falling from your mouth.

"Quiet." Shigaraki growls, feral and deep in his chest- the raw, irrational reaction of an Alpha being commanded by an unmated Omega. He wrenches your legs off him, takes them in an unforgiving grasp beneath your knees- and bends them back, all the way back until the insides of your thighs are aching, burning, you knees bouncing off your shoulders as he fucks you. A snap of his hips and the head of his cock finds the firm wall of your cervix. It rips a squeal from your throat- and a moan from his.

"Feel that?" He breathes, but doesn't wait for you to reply. The words spill from his mouth in a frantic rush- as though if he can't say them now he'll never get them out. "Gonna make you mine, fuckin' breed you. Gonna cum so deep in you, fill you up with my pups and- hnng" Silvery hair falls around you as his head drops forward, "I'm- I'm-"

He's so big, his cock so swollen in his rut that he can't miss; every stroke rubs on those sweet spots before pummeling your cervix- and with your heat- artificially started though it is- it doesn't even hurt. No, it just makes that primal part of your brain to scream out: yes, yes, yes, strong Alpha- "Tomura."

"Yes! Scream my name when you cum, when I claim you!"

Claim you, cl- claim you? Claim you? The word rattles in your head, makes a cold sweat bead at the base of your neck. Claim? The fog parts and you're hurtling towards an edge, towards something you can't come back from, can't avoid-

"N-no, wait." Your voice is small, weak, lost under Shigaraki's feral growling. "Don't, please."

It's too late. Shigaraki snarls, "Take it, take my knot!" His hips stutter, press hard against you- even without his knot it had been such a tight fit and now. All his weight bears down on the tight curl of your cervix, leaves no room for question: he forces your body to accommodate him. It's wrong- it's wrong- you don't want this- but your cunt opens up, relaxes, lets him nestle in deeper and-

His knot slips in.

It's instantaneous. Shigaraki moans so loud your ears vibrate, head lifting up towards the ceiling, showing his fast-fluttering pulse under the long scars of his neck. His cock throbs deep inside you, gushing cum right against your womb. It's primal, involuntary; his knot swells, inflates with each gravelly moan until it's locked in place, keeps his pelvis pressed hard against your clit. Your cunt clenches, body desperate to draw his seed in ever deeper, the instinctual need to be used and bred and you're cumming, twitching around him. Tear well in your eyes as the heat haze clears by a fraction with your binding.

His mouth drops open fully for just a moment and you spot them. For one single heartbeat you're afraid-

and Shigaraki's head drops forward. His teeth sink in and in and in over your neck and you're screaming. If it's yes or no you can't even tell, lost to the burn in your throat, in your shoulder as his fangs split flesh. Pain is all you feel, unable to push him off as blood wells up, spills hot over your skin and then- and then it's not.

It's a light that turns on in your brain. Like an applause sign, a cue that, no, it shouldn't hurt, you should be clapping, screaming. Lag, a loading screen as your body processes the unspoken command from Tomura's teeth- and the weak little orgasm explodes. Raw liquid pleasure whites out everything except Alpha and knot. Where you had been trembling, you're near spasming, every limb lost to the rhythmic full-body contractions- your clit so achingly sensitive pulsing against wiry, silver hairs. Your nails bite into his shoulders and you want to hurt him, scrape deep red marks- and from the moan that reverberates, bubbles in your blood, you don't think he minds at all.

Tomura collapses over you, releases his hold on the backs of your knees, lets them flop down on either side of his hips once more. They twitch from time to time, weak little spasms in response to the subtle shifting of his cock, of his torso against your overstimulated body. Blood oozes from his shoulders, soaks into the loose collar of his shirt. He doesn't move, at least not intentionally- keeps his face pressed to the side of your throat, lazily licking and kissing the deep, still-bleeding bonding wound.

You sniffle, turn away- and to your disgust, can't bring yourself to shove him off you. No, his soft licks keep you shivering, keeps raw dopamine and oxytocin pulsing in your veins. With bloody fingertips you card through his hair, reveal one pale, dry ear through the heavy waves of his unbrushed hair. Tomura. Your Alpha. You- you were mated. A fresh surge of tears blurring your vision until you have to pull back to run at your face.

His lifts his head then. Even with your bleary eyes you can tell he's still half out of it, unsure what's actually happened. Sweat has left his hair sticking to his scarred, cracked face, but it's your blood smeared over his lips and chin. Tomura begins to speak- but all that comes out is a hoarse rasp. He blinks, surprised by his own voice, and tries again, "Crying?" There's a kind of annoyance with it, the familiarity of your leader's abrasiveness, his inexperience with emotion. It's too close to the Shigaraki you trusted before-

Your lips twist, press hard together until your chin dimples in an effort to keep yourself from sobbing outright. Tomura blinks slowly- and a cool thumb brushes over your cheek, interrupts one tear's track. Your voice is small, childlike. "You bit me. Marked me."

He blinks again, like the words are tumbling around in his brain, not quite reaching where they need to go- and he looks down. The haze is gone in a flash, lust-blown pupils narrowing down in shock as he mutters a "Fuck." low under his breath. The hand at your cheek touches your neck, stretches the pierced skin there as he licks his lips- only to flinch and touch his mouth, come away with even more crimson on his fingertips. "Fuck."

He's pushing off you and just like that the post-bonding affection dries up. He's nearly back to his knees when he pulls his hips back- pain lances through your lower half, makes your legs latch to his waist again with a pitiful wail of "Stoooop."

Tomura flinches. The animal comfort of his body returns, awkwardly tucking one arm beside you while the other hovers, frets between your bleeding neck, your tear-stained cheeks, and awkward touches to your hair. He's never done this before. It's apparent enough in his shaking, restrained caresses, must be from the bond, the need to comfort his wounded mate. It makes you sick, this is not the same Shigaraki you knew before and this time, biting your lips does not stop the sob that racks your body.

"Stop." He demands, sharp and mean. It's your turn to flinch, ducking your face away from him- and Tomura softens, tries again. "Stop crying." He licks his lips again, tries to stroke his thumb over your cheek. "We'll- we'll deal with this. It'll be fine."

He doesn't want this either. The thought makes your tears slow, makes you turn back towards your leader's- your mate's frantic eyes. Tomura didn't want to be mated, was too busy plotting the end of society itself to give a shit about mating. Hell, he'd complained about-

"I'll... I'll have Kurogiri get something. For... this." He winces at his own words, but nods towards your body anyway. You nod along with him. "It's fine. Better each other than an outsider, anyway. I killed one, didn't I? One of those heroes who tried to take you, my- my Omega-" He sneers at his own mouth, the phrase still odd on his tongue. "What are you smiling at?"

You hadn't even realize you were smiling. the tears still rolling over your cheeks. You sniff, touch his shoulders. He stiffens at the touch- even with his cock knotted inside you, his cum lodged deep inside, that distrust runs too deep to shake immediately. "You don't have to go to that horrible rut house again."

"What?" One eye narrows as though you've spoken gibberish.

You shrug one shoulder, deflate a little. The collar to his shirt ripples as you fidget with it. "Looking on the bright side."

Tomura stops, stares at you. Your lips twist in the silence, feel bad for making light of it all. It's serious, after all- the little wins don't make up for and you expect Tomura's scowl to return, but it doesn't. He doesn't move for a long moment, before he lifts one hand and touches his still-elongated teeth. Around his hand his mutters, "The teeth caps tasted like cough syrup."

You grin, at that, feel another tear trickle past. "Don't even have to use them at all anymore."

Tomura hums, lowers his face down to your shoulder again, runs his pointy nose along your throat and breathes in your scent. It hadn't yet changed to reflect his, still fresh, untainted Omega in heat. "The Betas there never smelled this good, either..." A shiver shoots down your spine as he kisses the bitemark. He scoffs, then adds, "You don't have to buy suppressants anymore either."

You sniffle, but find your vision clearing up as you peer down at him. "My bank account should thank you."

A snort is the only response he gives you, pleased to tuck himself in close to you. Your hand slides under the collar of his shirt, down along his back, nails dragging over every knob of his spine you can reach. "You're not the worst option." He says against your collarbone, muffled as his eyelashes brush over your skin.

You hum and touch his hair, stroke the silky strands behind his ear. "Yeah, you too."