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seokth · 2 years

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i don't usually ramble on here except for when it's about fics but w the recent bangtan news, i guess i'm just looking for a space to vent to so here it goes.

idk how much of the english subs were accurate and how much of them were lost in translation, but when namjoon talked about how the kpop and idol system don't really provide much room to mature, the wording and the thought itself (and the fact that the camera panned to jungkook - the maknae who started this rollercoaster when he was just in his early teens - at this part) really hit me hard.

whenever i watch their behind episodes, i always had this lingering concern that their schedules are way too packed. but seeing as i'm a baby army and i'm still new to the world of kpop, i just brushed it off as normal in their line of work. but hearing them talk about not being able to do some of the things they really wanted to do, about how they sometimes have to sacrifice their me for the sake of we, about how they literally don't have the opportunity to just sit down and be — it all makes me realize that though they're global superstars, though they're seemingly larger than life itself, at the end of the day, they're all just twenty-somethings who want to enjoy the experiences they're missing out on while still at the prime of their ages.

and that's not a bad thing.

hearing the news first on twitter, and then seeing just shortened clips of minimoni crying and captioned screenshots of yoongi saying, "we're on a hiatus," really had my heart hammering in my chest. i was so scared and i felt cold all over. but once i psyched myself up to watch the whole dinner, i eventually calmed down because i told myself hey, this all makes sense. all 7 of them took the time to sit down and carefully explain why they're doing things the way they are, and despite the bittersweet undertones, the hour-long video had a happy and content vibe to it. honestly, i couldn't ask for more.

ngl, i've only just been in this bangtan shit for a short while (not even a whole year has passed yet, i think), and it makes me curse my timing at how i've only just experienced my first real comeback, and that cb is gonna be the last one for a while now. but this isn't about me. it's about them. and i'm so so so happy that they're thinking about themselves.

but then, what about us? what's gonna happen to us now? someone pointed out that this will be the time for us fans to grow as well. in as much as bangtan has been working nonstop for the past 9 years, armys (whether you've been here since pre-debut or have only just joined the fandom) have been pouring their hearts out nonstop as well. and in as much as bangtan needs a well-deserved break, armys need some much needed "me" time too. ofc, we'll still continue supporting bts in their respective individual projects, but this will be an opportunity for us to plant, sow, and reap the seeds of our individual growths as well.

i know it's not the same for all of us but for me, i'm at the point in my life where i really need to focus on myself and my family for real. i'm not saying that i can't do that without a hiatus, but it's more of me wanting to focus on that because of the hiatus. bangtan focusing on their individual goals, passions, and priorities inspires me to do the same for myself too. and just with the way my life is panned out right now, this couldn't have come at a more coincidental timing.

to my fellow armys, this news is a big deal so please process this however you want and need! don't be afraid to cry or to feel sad! just remember, bts is thinking about you and you have a planet full of purple friends beside you. APO BANGPO! 💜

#brain dump!!!!#i just need to clear out my thoughts so why not do it here on my blog :D #i love u all sm!!!#fandom hug <333 #b.texts

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murdrdocs · 3 months

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repressed and desperately horny luke who has never seen a porn video vs new to camp reader who used to be able to watch it whenever they wanted but now can't even flick the bean in peace

oh and maybe reader who gives Luke a dirty polaroid or two they've been hiding before they leave camp for the fall

— 🦣

🦣 anon strikes again omg. this concept actually makes me all giddy i want it to be something Bigger hence the informal format but just follow me here okay.

just thinking about ya'll finding each other in a moment of need. fate, really, if either of you believed in the concept. you, grumpy and insatiable from lack of proper sexual satisfaction, and luke, knowing he's feeling something but he doesn't know how to expel the need. sure he jacks off sometime, but not nearly as much as a guy of his age usually would.

so there you are, grumbling about, eyes narrowed, mimicking the behavior of ares kids (your possible siblings but it's anyone's guess at this point) and luke just has to go and be the mediator, asking what's got you so down. of course, you're wound up so tight, and a little grateful that someone your age has asked the question because you can finally tell the truth.

out comes your dirty secrets. your longing for peace and quiet to get off. your slightly remorseful nature because you had no idea that you were that reliant on pornography to help you out. and luke is just standing there, ears reddening as he suddenly finds the trees behind you incredibly interesting.

but luke is a Problem Solver, so he awkwardly has a suggestion for you. "the showers right before the bonfire are usually pretty deserted. and for your ..." he scratches a nonexistent itch behind his ear. "other problem, my brothers have some old magazines i could lend to you."

you snort, arms folding as you pretend to be disinterested. but really anything would satiate you at this point. "what are they? women on motorcycles? maybe an old playboy mag?"

luke shrugs. "dunno. never seen 'em."

and it takes you a second. a really long, tense, and warm (for luke) second where you eye him up. noticing his stance, taking in his clipped words, how he said them. and it occurs to you that little demigod luke, having been at camp half blood since 14, has never seen what the world has to offer in the pornography department. or if he has, he hasn't seen the porn of today.

and unfortunately, it's impossible for you to fix his issue in naivety. there are no phones in camp and even if there were, you don't think the service out here would be all too good. which leaves you to improvise.

you do end up getting the mags from the hermes boys, critiquing their selection with a scrutinized glare at the pages, flicking through them with the edge of your shirt to avoid any remnants. and then you report back to luke, telling him to give them a look, prefacing it by telling him that things now are much more entertaining. slyly hinting at your ears being open if he wanted to give his opinion.

which, he does. standing awfully close to you at the bonfire one night, body turned just a little so he can speak lowly.

"there's ... things better than that out there?"

you nod, affirming his statement while attempting to hide a small smile. the magazines were barely pornography in your eyes, women in manufactured poses to appeal to men. skin artificially smoothed, their cunts shockingly dry, their poses so meticulous. it lacked the emotion and desire that you enjoyed to watch.

and poor luke didn't even know the half of it.

at least you do introduce him to what he could be consuming just before you leave camp that summer, sliding him two polaroids you'd managed to take.

one of you in the showers, body littered with clumps of suds. your skin shining from the overhead light which gleams from the water along your body. it's taken from a low angle, the side of your backside being the main focal point with your tits at the top just barely making the cut.

and then the other is much more lewd, showing luke what the magazines should have. you, on your back in a camp bed, wearing nothing but your standard issued shirt which is bunched up around the waist. your free hand is between your spread thighs, two fingers clearly singled out to spread your lips and reveal just how wet and shiny your cunt is. and after one of his many sessions of getting off over it, the post nut clarity manifests as hyper analyzing for luke.

he notices the familiar pair of shoes off to the corner, the pillowcase he had one of his brothers sneak in last summer, the stain he's never been able to get out of his fitted sheet.

and suddenly the picture has new meaning for him.

#this is just a brain dump #but im so excited abt this concept #i couldnt help it #plz forgive me #lukesworld!#luke castellan x reader #–𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 🦣#luke castellan smut

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ryssbelle · 3 months

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Had a silly dream where JD and Floyd came back to the troll tree before the last trollstice but after singing killed their grandma and decided to doodle and expand upon it a bit

Clay never left the tree but was too scared to return to the families pod since he didn’t want things to go back to how they were before, he did try to find his brothers during the escape but got separated by the cave in.

John Dory was the one to find Clay and see him get caught by the cave in, when he came out of the tunnel without Clay and holding his wristband they all just assumed he was dead. Even so JD still searches for Clay with the hope that he might’ve escaped and is alive out there.

They know Bruce is alive but after JD got the post card he assumed Bruce didn’t want to be found

Some more doodles that kind of show their dynamic

Also-

JD always brings home souvenirs for the brothers both as an apology for being gone for so long and also because of this:

#my art #trolls #trolls 3 #dreamworks trolls #trolls band together #trolls branch #trolls john dory #trolls floyd #trolls clay #trolls bruce #theyre mentioned but still #the dream brought the concepts to my brain #and i havent been able to stop thinking about it so i had to draw it #jd and floyd were going camping exposition dumping the lore #it was like i was watching a retellig of the first movie #clay is still alive btw #he doesnt know grandma is dead #JD and Floyd had run into him after coming back and tried to tell him #but they saw how well he was adjusting to his new life they didnt have the heart to do it #then they never got the chance since the second time they saw him it was during the great bergen escape #and they think he got buried alive or worse #floyd and branch were one of the first ones out of the tunnel #jd was one of the last #since after presumably watching his brother die he went on to help others escape #and now he insanely searches for clay and bruce while pretending everything is a okay #floyd has to be the voice of reason while also taking care of branch #and branch is branch completely isolating himself #good times :D #idk if ill do more for this but i wanted to share what i had

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chemmerson · 2 years

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dear writers who are slower/take more time with their writing or writers who are on hiatus or writers who are trying to find their voice again, i see you and i love you and you are valid

#i needed this reminder myself and if you resonate im hugging u <3 #em’s brain dump

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hyernn · 4 months

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Jason is my roman empire like he's burned into my brain. There's genuinely not a single day I don't think of Jason Todd

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #red hood #red hood x reader #batfamily #batfam #i need him carnally #like all the time #ak jason #hye brain dump

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koalchicine · 10 months

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My fractured soul has become entangled in yours.

#malevolent #malevolent podcast #arthur lester #tw eyes #tw eye strain #koal's doodle dump #stared at this for too long i started to hate it a little #drawing malevolent quotes that live rent free in my brain [1/??]

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highwaytohellgrammite · 11 months

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I had an amazing idea. Ready to bake bread dough in the shape of a roach so when you buy it it is pale and soft like a teneral roach but then when you bake it the crust will harden and brown like a roach sclerotizing. Then you can grasp it in your forearms taking one bite at a time like a mantis.

#brain dump #bugs

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jazzkrebber · 3 months

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Joost had three problems, actually. the moon, his mustache, and the fact that his girl was literally about to murder him

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lemonadeslice · 2 years

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hello lgbt community. i have a new favorite movie(s).

#working with NASTY colors that HATE each other 💚💖💚💖💚#re-animator #reanimator #bride of re-animator #so i'm. OBSESSED with this movie and its singular sequel. i just threw it on in the background while i was drawing a couple weeks ago.#and it LATCHED onto my brain with TEETH. with BARBS. it's IN there. blood and guts and stage actors and accidental gay subtext YES baby YES.#it obliterated my momentum on that oc challenge. my brain turned into green glow stick goo and it was all i could think about.#anyway. using her 37th anniversary to dump a bunch of sketches!!! this is not all of them!!! it is horror movie seasonnn!! let's go girls!!!#sorry if you followed me two years ago bc i drew baby yoda and now i'm drawing screaming women ripping out their own hearts. my bad.

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batsvnte · 4 months

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𝐂𝐔𝐓𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐘 — Blade was one who you never expected to be with. Being part of the Stellaron Hunters has its ups and downs. The first months were light for you since you were sticking with Kafka. Occasionally Sam or Silverwolf would tag along if they were needed, rarely it was Blade. You didn’t push immediately to form some sort of relationship with him. You’d rather kept at a safe distance from the swordsman till the time was ready. Which was sooner than expected.

The inner turmoil sparked within him at the beginning. His goal was directly towards death. Taking every opportunity to throw himself into battle without any repercussions. During the few days he was developing feelings, he took precautions onto what he chose to battle whenever you were near. Protecting you was one of his priorities as it was for everyone else he was around. Kafka would often point out how he seemed to be showing off at rare times.

You on the other hand had an entirely different goal than what Blade had. Only Elio knows what it was since he was the one you came to. Often you would refuse to speak on your lifelong wishes, but as far as anyone knows it’s one of the more tamer goals you had. Fighting wasn’t the main concern, but it was something else that was more off the field.

The habits with Blade started out subtle but it was beginning to become noticeable. There was a day where nobody had seen him. Not even Silverwolf. When you entered your shared room during the night, he was there. Standing there with an blank look on his face. You could’ve sworn he was there the entire day since he wasn’t part of the script. He acknowledged your presence when he saw the movement out of the corner of his eyes. And yet he stayed, wanting to be with you after being gone for so long.

Anywhere you would go, he was there somewhere within your presence. It only took a few seconds (actually three according to Kafka) before he was there by your side. He’s grown comfortable after some time to finally trust himself to be physically affectionate with you without the fear of harming you. Sometimes he would have his arm around your waist, his hand holding yours or just standing close to you to where you might lightly bump shoulders. He wasn’t the type to admit things out loud. Rather let actions speak louder for his words.

But another thing was he was silent as hell. You lost count of the amount of times he had scared you since he was silently follow you and wouldn’t warn you about anything. It’s just seems like he appears out of nowhere when he’s there the entire time. Just going out for some fresh air, he was leaning against the wall with his eyes fixated on you. Going to the kitchen for a snack, he’s already grabbing it for you when you were just looking for it a second ago.

At times you would back up and accidentally bump into him out of nowhere when you thought you were by yourself. You would ask him to at least give you some sort of sign that he was there. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t.

It rarely ends well when he comes back from mission in the middle of the night covered in blood.

#— ghouul frights #blade x reader #hsr blade #blade hsr x reader #technically red and green flags with Blade #song reference #hsr blade x reader #him being a black cat makes my brain implode #random word dump that makes no sense at all #hsr blade drabble

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starlight-tav · 4 months

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Loving Astarion, for me, is an act of self-compassion. Maybe it's different for others who play BG3, but every time I have built a relationship with Astarion, it has been both intentional and a challenge. I've had to commit to loving him, to learning him, to balancing what is good for me with what is good for him.

Astarion is desperately hungry for safety. But he doesn't know what safety looks and feels like; it's an unfamiliar animal that seems hostile to him. If you are set on goodness for your playthrough, you have to be creative and sometimes underhanded in your efforts to be kind and merciful. Otherwise, he'll never trust you.

It is a commitment to figure out all of the ways that you can create safety and show him kindness in ways that he'll accept. I'm struggling to phrase it correctly, but it's so, so important to me that the more he trusts you, the harder it should be to love him, because that's when you learn about the harm he's caused and how little remorse he has for it. But instead, it gets easier to love him. You no longer need to disguise your kindness around him.

What's more, he no longer disguises his--at least, not as often. He even shows a bit of mercy.

If you choose to persuade him not to ascend, he thanks you for it. Not because you saved him, but because you were his mirror, showing him that he was always more than what his abuser made him. Even knowing he's done horrible things, you love him.

That's something that I desperately needed to see, to experience. Loving him through his pain and hunger and villainy helped me accept those parts of myself as well.

I'm so grateful to Larian and Neil Newbon for this character. He can be a real pain in the ass at times. But he's worth the effort. I love building a relationship with him and watching him learn who he is and who he can be. Is it a perfect experience? No. But I'm so thankful for it.

I don't know why, but I feel the need to apologize for the ramble. I'm sitting at work and just thinking about Astarion. I'm not doing all that well in my head recently, but I'm clinging to the things that matter to me. Anyway, you can ignore me.

#bg3 brain dump #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #astarion ancunin #bg3 astarion

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murdrdocs · 3 months

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ares is such a little bitch and i want him SO BAD. he pistons, drills into you, and you already knew he was not mortal but its only when his cock tips into your cervix that you realize you're fucking a god, cums like he's winning a war, like conquering your cunt. and it is, no man will ever make you his territory ever again, not now that you had a taste of a olympiam

tbh i understand why he has so many kids bc me too would let him hit it raw

and also i have such vivid images of ares using you like a pocket pussy. he has a weird fascination with mortal sex toys so best believe he uses them on you consistently, pushing you to your limit time and time again, forcing you to go further until you're sobbing and pleading for him to give you a break.

he doesn't even need toys to do that. he's alarmingly big, both in stature and dick size. and shockingly he doesn't just let his length speak for itself. he knows how to use it, knowing how deep to go and where to reach to literally make you see stars.

you'll complain about it when the deal is done, wiping his excessive amounts of cum off of your stomach and grumbling about the pain already settling in your inner thighs. but then you're on him again within a couple of hours, begging him to fuck you like you're both nothing but rabbits.

sometimes, he'll tease you. when he hasn't seen you for a few days, and he comes down to talk to you over some really good bar wings. you're fidgeting in your seat, gnawing on your bottom lip, not bothering with the drink he'd brought you (he even bothered to remember your order). he knows what's wrong, what's got your panties in a twist. but he shrugs it off, nodding towards some mortal man who's been eyeing you.

"why don't you get with him if you need sex so bad." it's a rhetorical question, he knows what you're going to say before you even do.

it's not like you'll admit it outright. you won't say exactly what makes ares different from these other men. but you'll tell him, "i don't want some other guy", and ares knows that with how stubborn you tend to get, that's your way of saying no one can compare to a literal god.

#brain dump #ares pjo #ares x reader #ares x you #ares smut #celeste writes pjo #aresworld!

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sketchy-beck · 6 months

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Been working on a lot of Hellsing sketches lately. Anderson and Alucard have my silly brain in a choke hold.

^ Also a bonus image of Alucard looking like a wet cat that someone left outside for too long.

#sketchy beck art #hellsing #hellsing fanart #alucard hellsing #alucard #alexander anderson #hellsing ultimate #hellsing alucard #fanart #sketch dump #I got covid and these two just took hold of my brain somehow #Like I haven't watched this series in a while?#I was obsessed with it in highschool #teenage beck could never draw these two this well #about to go back in time and flex on a closeted homosexual

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linkbetweenlinks · 1 month

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Imagine an alternate universe where botw Link pulls out the master sword at a young age (like 6 idk) but instead of reporting it to the royal family, Link and his family just keep it hidden and tell no one that the child has it. Link doesn't join the hyrule army at a young age, instead he spends his childhood helping out in his family's tavern (mainly in the kitchen). He has no responsibility on his shoulders because his parents raised him not to care about what an old sword thinks of him.

One day the royal family make their way through the lost woods only to find that the sword isn't there. Remember, Link's family told no one that he pulled the sword (rn it's stored somewhere in the attic underneath a pile of spare furniture for the tavern). Royal family obviously freaks the heck out cos where is it?? Link's family, being the tavern owners they are, obviously hear word on the street the royal family can't find the master sword. What does Link's family do? Put more furniture on top of the sword because honestly in this day and age can't hyrule think of a better way to stop an apocalypse than a single kid with an ancient sword?

Apocalypse begins, but it doesn't get very far because (1) Zelda is confident in herself thanks to an entire childhood of not being compared to Link's feats and (2) Link walks right up the the sanctum sword in hand, and just stabs that gross cocoon that hasn't had 100yrs to turn into a full-fledged Ganon. Zelda (who was wielding her powers to subdue Ganon) notices him and the sword, and asks him why he didn't show up sooner. His response? "Because until today I didn't have a reason to." Zelda asks him what's his reason then. He says "this mf burned down my family's tavern" – then just walks away. Calamity over before it even had a real chance.

#this was a mind dump lol #my brain really took “link never tells anyone he has the sword” and ran with it #also we love a loving and supportive family for Link #should I make this a fic?#anyway hope this made you laugh #botw #breath of the wild #the legend of zelda: breath of the wild #totk #linked universe #lu #lu wild

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2aceofspades · 5 months

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It doesn't feel like anything

...

Unfamiliar territory

...

#rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #f!leo #future leo #rise casey #rottmnt casey jr #bad future rottmnt #wrong fabricated time branch #brain dump comic thing #trying to fight the feels #:)

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after-witch · 1 year

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TPOF!Ren Imagine

Title: TPOF!Ren imagine [Ren Hana x Reader]

Synopsis: What if you were taken by Strade? What if you escaped, leaving Ren behind? And what if you just happened to bump into Ren, years later?

Word count: 2100ish

note: kidnapped reader, drugging, descriptions of violence and torture, scars, kidnapping, descriptions of noncon sex, just a stream of consciousness written imagine that I did before bed because I have no self control, take that as you will

Imagine Strade has kept you. You spend weeks, months--more?--being tortured in ways you could never have imagined. But you live. Somehow or another, you live.

You're kept there, like Ren, as an interesting pet. And the two of you share a tentative bond, in time. He did help you, after all...

But... you're afraid of Ren. A little. Not because he's ever been mean to you or hurt you without Strade forcing him to--but because you know that Strade can be fickle. He might decide he likes Ren better, and get rid of you.

Or maybe someone else he brings home will catch his eye, and he'll ponder getting rid of one of you... and who is more likely to go to make room for another long term victim, you wonder, the boy with fox ears or plain, simple you? It's obvious.

So sometimes, you're afraid of Ren. Afraid that Ren's existence will eventually mean your demise.

But you have your moments together.

Moments where you curl up in Ren's nest of a bed, letting his warm tail wrap around you, ignoring the way your shock collars occasionally clink together while you snuggle. Sometimes you whisper things to each other. Hopes. Fears. Secrets. Dreams for the future, which are sometimes shared fantasies of escaping together, going somewhere, starting anew.

There are shared pains, too. You sneak into the bathroom and clean each other's wounds, as much as you know Strade will allow without crossing an unspoken boundary. You press cool cloths to his burning cuts, he gently massages your healed but always-aching broken fingers.

Sometimes, Strade makes you hurt each other. Usually, Ren wins out in the end. But you have no chance against claws. You don't hold it against Ren after the fact, but sometimes when you're sharing a bed at night or a quiet moment when Strade is out of the house, you can't help but think about the way his claws rip through your flesh or the way his knot hurt when Strade yanked him out early.

And one day... Strade is dead. You scream for Ren when it happens--some new victim he's captured finally getting one over on him, not without their own fatal wounds--and Ren watches Strade die, and you watch Strade die, and then the two of you are standing over his gaping-mouth corpse.

The two of you head upstairs, the basement thick with quiet, and for the first time you don't have to worry about hearing Strade's footsteps come up them.

Ren's collar comes off first. Then he helps you with yours.

And you should--say something. You should tell him that the two of you will leave, go to the police, find an apartment, figure out what to do--something, anything.

But in the moment, you panic. You panic because you see in Ren's eyes that he wants you to stay with him and you're so afraid of being trapped again.

You bolt. You bolt out the front door and don't look back. You hear Ren shout your name and the pad of his feet up to the front door, but he doesn't cross the threshold.

You should go back for him. You should tell the police that he's there. But you're afraid. Your face was on Strade's streams. Who knew what sort of people watched them? What if you were recognized? Strade wasn't shy about the fact that powerful people watched his streams. What if... one of them was connected with the police department?

And so you don't say a damn thing. You pick up the pieces of your life and there's a part of you that you left in that damned house with Ren that rots and festers, but you can't let it stop you. You hate yourself for leaving. You hate yourself for not going back.

But you might have hated yourself if you stayed, too.

And then it's been years... and years.... and years.

You still suffer from your time with Strade. Mentally. Physically. The scars have faded, but they never go fully away, some white-blanched and others still retaining a tinge of vivid pink. You hate those the most.

And there's the aches and pains, too. Arthritis in your fingers and hands. A fracture in your foot that didn't heal properly, but you didn't have the health insurance to get it fixed, and now you walk with a limp and cane on bad days.

You get nightmares. Most of the time, you're right back in the house or the basement. Being tortured. Slow and thick dreams that are usually coupled with sleep paralysis. Ren is in them, sometimes, and he's scared and hateful and you wake up with that gnawing, awful guilt.

But you force it down. You have to--Ren was an adult, too, just like you. That's how you cope with the guilt. You tell yourself that he left the house and found himself a small place to live and he's doing fine out there. Working at a bookshop or some anime collectible store. Something that helps him get by. He'll have scars and nightmares, too, but he'll be okay, for the most part.

Just like you are.

Because you've moved on as much as one could, considering. You have a spouse--ten years together, now--and a house with a little yard and a career that leaves you comfortable enough, financially. You don't have kids but your spouse has nieces and nephews that you enjoy spoiling now and then, and that's enough for you.

You were so hyper-vigilant after your initial escape. You wore wigs, and went outside only rarely. You hopped around from place to place, used fake names. You had locks upon locks upon locks on your doors. You never went home the same way twice.

But over time... you gradually stopped worrying. When 1 year became 5 years became 10 years, when time aged your face and slowed your racing heart. When you got a long-term partner and stopped hopping to new places every year, terrified that someone would come find you.

Over the years, you stop looking over your shoulder everywhere you go. You stop assuming every stranger staring at you on the bus recognizes you from Strade's streams and is going to kidnap you and kill you. You stop thinking about it as an immediate threat and treat it like past trauma--to be dealt with, sure, but to be tucked away for your sanity.

And one day, one ordinary little day, you're walking around a secondhand collectible store to look for a particular book when you bump into someone.

The first thing you notice is that they're wearing a nice suit, tailored, like they're going to a business meeting or live in a big city where such outfits are considered casual wear.

The second thing you notice, when you look up at their face with an apology on your lips, is that underneath the hat that they lift every so gently, they have fox ears and scars and red hair peppered with just a dash of silver.

It takes you a moment. Two moments. Three moments.

It's Ren.

Older, like you. But Ren, clear as day, there is no doubt about it.

Relief and an awful, stomach-churning anxiety spread through your gut at the exact same time.

"Ren?"

He doesn't react at first, merely stares at you, and your nightmares come back to you: those nightmares where he hates you, where he tells you that you left him there like he's nothing, where he throws back all your whispered conversations in the dark back in your face.

And then a little smile splits his face and the gut-churning fear in your stomach recedes just enough for you not to shake when he places two hands on your shoulders, steady, and firm.

"Hey. It's okay. It's been a long time."

You break into something like a laugh, and tears prick at your eyes before sliding down your cheeks.

"How..." You don't know what to ask first. How is this possible? How are you? Why are you here? Are you okay?

And finally you settle on something that's eaten away at your soul, bit by bit, since you ran away.

"I'm... sorry." You can't look him in the eye. "I shouldn't have just left that day. But I was scared, and I--"

He places a finger to your lips, and the claw at the end seems sharper now, polished and carefully filed.

"Don't," he says. "It doesn't matter now." He has a coolness to his voice, a shrugging tone to it all. You wonder if it matches your own tone, sometimes, when you're confronted with reminders of the past.

"Do you... want to get coffee or something?" You ask, and you immediately feel stupid, asking if someone who was tortured alongside you (who hurt you, too--but he had to) for coffee like they were an old high school friend.

But he smiles, a little grinning pep to it now, a little bit of an edge with his teeth showing, and says, "Sure."

You leave the shop together, book forgotten, intent on catching up.

It should bother you, that he didn't look actually surprised to see you. It should bother you, that he swept you out of the store so quickly.

But you're too overwhelmed by his presence to notice little things like that.

You don't even notice the black car parked down the street that turns only only when Ren leads you into a coffee shop, pulling around the corner into a nearby alleyway.

You don't think twice about Ren texting someone after you arrive. You don't think twice about Ren ordering for you, motioning for you to find a seat, insisting on taking both cups to the little stand with sugar and creamers himself.

You don't think twice about the taste of the coffee being a little off. Ren put in too much sugar, probably. You used to take it much sweeter, back then, when Strade allowed the two of you to indulge in cup after cup to stay awake for nighttime streams.

It's a shame the hyper-vigilance ebbed away, really, because if you had noticed any one of these things, maybe you would have left the situation. Though, in the end, would it have stopped him?

You focus on awkward small talk. Asking what he's been up to (running his own business) and how he feels (better than ever) and whether he's okay (are you?).

He asks you questions, too, and you find yourself spilling it all too easily. You talk about your spouse, your cute little home, the garden you planted, the books you've read, the little career you've built. You ask if he still likes anime and he smiles, and then your hand is on his arm--you can see some of the scars on his hand, and your own, too--and feel so bad so you start to apologize again---

That's when things get... woozy. Your hand slips from his arm, and you can't grasp your coffee cup. You mumble something about not feeling good.

Ren is standing right away, helping you to your feet. He pulls out his phone and says he'll call an ambulance. You try to wave it off, you're fine, you're just overwhelmed, you didn't eat much today. He insists you sit down and if you weren't so dizzy you might realize something is wrong as he leads you down the street, into an alleyway, where at the end there is a shiny black car with tinted windows.

"I'll take you to get some help," he says, and you don't question it, because your mind is foggy and you can't see straight, and it's just Ren, isn't it? It's just Ren.

It's not until you're bundled into the car with Ren taking the spot next to you in the backseat, his worried expression smoothed over into something cool and triumphant, that the sense of wrongness hits you. Even through the fog of your mind, it hits you.

"Ren? Ren?"

"Shh."

That finger is back on your lips, but this time his finger pivots sideways, a claw lightly tracing one of your facial scars. You can feel it slicing open, like a papercut.

The little blossom of pain is a good distraction for the punch of the needle that he jabs into your thigh a moment later.

You have just enough time to gasp and mutter something, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Nothing comes out. You see him watch you for a moment, eyes half-lidded, before he stares ahead at the driver.

"We'll have time to talk later. When the drugs wear off."

The last thing you see before unconscious is his smile, almost a grin.

#the price of flesh #tpof #ren hana #btd2 #boyfriend to death #afterwitch writes #mmm I wanna flesh this out into a fic #but just brain dump for now

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