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levmada · 5 months

Note

PLEASE write about Levi’s mental state, i’m begging you

He’s faced death and precarious situations since he was born, yet he’s still standing strong and hopeful, WHAT THE HELL I LOVE MY SHORT KING

IT'S FINALLY HERE😭im sorry anon i hope you're around to see this and if u are i hope i dont disappoint

the tone in this analysis is so weird because i kept getting caught between 'this is an apa paper no contractions, academic language, double spacing -' and 'this is a tumblr post about a fictional blorbo wtf r u on'

i also use some scientific language i try my best to explain but if this turns anyone off i don't blame them because im unhealthily obsessed

*i'm a third-year undergraduate psychology student w/ a concentration in psychopathology

tw/cw: discussion of childhood exposure to sex (not assault)

Foreword

I’ve been putting this off for a while (I’m forgetful and this topic is intimidating what can I say), but being a year out from graduating with my bachelor’s to become a mental health professional, and being a Levi scholar(/hj), I wanted to give this a shot.

I wanted to dissect and examine Levi Ackerman’s mental health “currently” (as in general canon), and explain as thoroughly but as simply as possible how and why he thinks and acts the way he does.

Seeing how AOT is pretty renowned for leaving out the ‘insignificant’ details, especially character details, a good majority of my assertions and even details of his life are built off of correlations and “signs and symptoms”; meaning some things could be an aspect of Levi’s personality, or a symptom of psychopathology.

I will examine his childhood (especially his childhood), adolescence, young adulthood, and “present” adulthood, with a short summary at the end of where he might be mentally after the war.

*Lastly, I don’t like it when things I say about a series or character are taken as fact or make it implied that someone else’s thoughts are “wrong”. This is partly built on headcanons anyway, which are influenced by my own experiences. Don’t take away from this that this is me telling you what to think.*

Childhood

The most important period of development occurs in infancy and childhood, especially from the ages of 3-6. This is when a child learns where to find security, love, and basic skills, gaining stability as they develop.

Well, Kuchel died when Levi was 4.

Maternal Love / Learning Empathy / Anxious Attachment Style

Levi was born into deep poverty within a violent unwelcoming environment. Basic physical needs must have been very hard to meet (i.e., consistently fed enough, a clean environment, no physical threats). And where Levi was born is like the dictionary definition of a bad environment for a small child, excluding only his mother’s care and love.

As it’s generally understood in canon (and suggested from Levi’s special backstory manga so far) she was a caring parental figure early in Levi’s life that loved him unconditionally. We can conclude that Kuchel did everything within her power to compensate for both parenting Levi alone and shielding him the best she could from his horrible surroundings, teaching the kindness, goodness, and love that Levi would internalize and go on to strive for for his entire life.

As far as we know, no other children lived in the brothel. Socialization is just as important for a young child as receiving love. With this isolation, it’s extremely difficult to learn how to connect to other people, or pick up on social cues. Levi would’ve never learned how to interact properly with his peers—aside from use of aggression and violence which Kenny would go on to instill in him.

With the danger/anxiety imposed by strangers, mostly if not entirely men, he would turn to his mother for comfort all. The. Time.

And she would give him that support and affection of course. This early motherly affection is integral to child development: a child who receives empathy and affection is subliminally taught how to feel and express empathy towards others.

While Levi’s surroundings were dangerous, lonely, and chaotic—traumatizing enough for a toddler or young child—Kuchel provided a safety net from that, so I think that Levi developed an anxious attachment as a child: exhibiting clinginess, excessive fear of abandonment, and an excessive need for security and/or reassurance.

Paternal Trauma / Potential Androphobia

Born and living in a brothel, we can assume that Levi was probably seen as a burden and a mistake by others, especially by men (both the likely majority of her customers and her boss).

AOT ch69; Before the Fall, ch34

This is likely in contrast to the women (those living and working in the brothel like Kuchel). They should know Kuchel if not as friends, then acquaintances who could empathize for her and her son.

There’s an obvious trend here. If Levi is going to feel fear/danger/anxiety because of men, he should have a general aversion to men and-or the behavior of men who he encountered as a child. This is impossible to know for sure or in meaningful detail, but it seemed to be resolved by the time he became an adult if so.

Although Kenny in his words was no more than Levi's teacher, Levi did see him as a father figure.

The subject of Kenny will be expanded on later, but it's clear Kenny in no way resembled a father, who also would go on to abandon Levi (at the age of 11 or so). Children without father figures tend to struggle more emotionally, psychologically, and socially. Specifically, (especially boys) tend to exhibit intimidating/aggressive personas to compensate for resentment, fear, and unhappiness.

Sexual Trauma (Tangent, Probably)

This is unconfirmed but a likely trauma Levi went through: exposure to sex as a child. There’s no way to confirm what he experienced, so I’ll function on ‘probably’s’ and ‘most likely’s’.

Because Levi and Kuchel only lived in one room, other rooms in the brothel should have belonged to other women, and he was at the oldest four, I wager that he was babysat by women who Kuchel knew and/or was made to hide somewhere while she worked, such as in a cabinet.

(for reference)

AOT ch69

The odds are high that he was exposed to the aftermath of sexual violence (i.e., marks seen on his mother), and the sound or smells that have to do with it. That young, he wouldn’t know what it was, but he should have realized later as an adolescent.

In general, children regardless of gender exposed to sexual content usually experience early puberty (which is just as likely for impoverished children, or children who experience chronic high-stress in general); issues with intimacy; become desensitized to high-risk behavior; negative/inaccurate expectations about sex and relationships in the future; influence inappropriate behavior with other children or adults; sex addiction.

This is especially relevant to Levi’s fear of closeness/intimacy in the future. Exposure to sexual situations—possibly not including CSA in his case—very early in life inflicts on a child emotions and stress they don’t have the intellect or reasoning to process or understand. An extreme aversion to interpersonal relationships, especially physical ones, results.

This stress Levi must have felt, being powerless to this happening to his mother, is a different beast. Children aren’t capable of handling high levels of stress, and so the brain will automatically create coping mechanisms: dissociation (a severe form of “zoning out”; observing the self “from the third person”; numbness; the feeling of living in a dream), excessive daydreaming/overactive imagination, symptoms of PTSD (nightmares and terrors; flashbacks; spontaneous activation of fight-flight-freeze associated with anxiety; excessive worrying/fear; loneliness/self isolation). PTSD will also be prevalent in Levi’s later life, which I’ll delve into later.

Inappropriate behavior and sex addiction are also highlights for me because they shouldn’t exist in him based on Levi's personality and behavior throughout the series. In my opinion, Levi ought to associate sex with pain, shame, and violence; he does see it as an ordinary job—a means to an end. He should be desensitized to sex as a concept, but associates it personally with shame, sadness, and pain, possibly feeling disgust towards it. So it is highly likely that Levi in every stage of life following this experienced sexual repulsion (usually associated with high anxiety towards sex), a low libido, or a lack of sexual desire entirely.

From a trauma perspective, he could avoid sexual topics of conversation, sexual settings (i.e., brothels), or an array of things which are sexually suggestive or he as a child possibly associated with sex (i.e., cleavage, panties, specific touch). Similarly, he might avoid direct reminders or have a post-traumatic reaction to them, such as anxiety or flashbacks (i.e., the sound of a bed creaking, the sight of wet clothes).

Importantly, it can be concluded that sexual violence was often exhibited, and the idea would be ingrained in him that sex, like everything else besides his relationship with his mother, is “give-and-take”, “victim-and-attacker”, and learn to be repulsed by intimacy. This impacts his willingness for later friendships and relationships as we’ll see later.

Early Abandonment & Early Exposure to Death

As Kuchel’s health deteriorated, Levi’s sense of security would break down. Availability of shelter, food, and emotional support would be even less secure than before. He might have been providing for Kuchel for some time, even, as it can be gathered that he received little to no help from those around him while she was sick. To whatever length he had to take responsibility and both fear for Kuchel, this would cement a sense of responsibility and guilt in him from the age of just four years old.

He will fail to save her—regardless of the fact that that’s not his responsibility in the first place; a child wouldn’t understand that—and then lose her with nothing he could do to even cushion the blow.

How powerless he must’ve felt. How hopeless. How likely is it that Levi found comfort in joining her? A child his age wouldn’t be able to comprehend death, basing our understanding on Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. To summarize, at the age of six or seven, children aren’t capable of complex, abstract thought like death or the finality of it. But Levi had to learn early.

AOT ch69

This will be center in his “clean-freak” tendencies later.

Adolescence

Most of this section is going to be rather vague again, but we already got the bulk of that over with in childhood!

Emotional Train Wreck / Lack of Identity

It’s hard to notice if you’re not paying attention, but in every scene we’re shown with Levi after his mother dies but before Kenny leaves, he’s wearing some variation of his mother’s one dress styled into a shirt. He loves her endlessly, even or especially in death. And part of cherishing her memory, to him, should’ve been taking after her as much as he could.

That’s how to explain why he didn’t become a cruel person (Kenny for instance) as he grew into a teenager, even though much of Levi’s outlook and behaviors come from him (ch57).

The more pertinent question is how extreme violence, reinforcement of the idea that that violence is power, and Kenny’s total (or most likely total) lack of communicated emotional connection affected him.

Levi would still desperately want that connection deep down, especially with his mother gone. This is a major reason why Levi sought to get stronger to please Kenny. For chronically abandoned people, that continues into adulthood and even beyond. A hole inside which can't be filled.

AOT ch69

Chronic loneliness—like I explained before—basically explains his aloof nature and awkward disposition. It’s not that Levi feels as detached as he looks, but he doesn’t know how to express himself or open up. He wouldn’t learn how to process his emotions, let alone talk about them. He’s basically emotionally stunted and immature in impersonal relationships (between friends and especially in regards to intimacy).

The Underground’s environment also makes him socially awkward, rude, of course stoic/not very expressive, and blunt. Levi was forced to become extremely observant of people to suss out their intentions, remaining vigilant of his surroundings at all times.

Levi doesn’t even get affection in any sense anymore. He doesn’t get a hug or a pat on the back, and he certainly doesn’t get a shoulder to cry on.

If anything, Kenny would punish him for showing weakness. Vulnerability is weakness; weakness is death.

What results is a continuous and boundless sense of emptiness inside that can’t be filled. He’s plagued by a chronic sense of unbelonging and loneliness. There’s no time or opportunity to develop “normally” as an adolescent. Socialization is limited at best; thinking of his place in the world is irrelevant when his one and only most pressing goal is survival; he doesn’t get to explore hobbies or interests.

OCD Propensity

One “interest” Levi is passionate about is cleaning, at least. Disease is what caused his mother to die. The easiest cause to point to would be their disgusting surroundings (although, Kuchel was infected by a customer). It is canon that Levi’s love of cleaning comes from "his personal experiences". In that interview, Levi first specifically references the important of fighting disease.

In other words, his "clean freak" nature comes, primarily, from the death of his mother: Filth -> disease -> death, and abandonment by extension.

His mother would’ve encouraged him to keep their room clean. There were times he or she had to have come down with something and dirtiness was the cause. On top of Kenny’s enforcement to keep up “clean” appearances to garner respect from everyone else in the Underground.

This in particular is extremely relevant to his mental health. When someone feels out of control of what is happening to them, especially in a recurring way, and especially as a child who doesn't yet know how to feel stable in an unstable environment, they look for something to control. It can be weight, bodily functions (blinking, breathing, etc), dominance over others, or cleaning, for instance.

Fear of disease, the urgent need to have control, and the basic need for stability makes it obvious that Levi would become obsessed with cleaning. And moreover, developing OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I’ll go deeper into this diagnosis later.

Lack of Self Worth

Despite the acknowledgment throughout canon that he trusts in his own strength, it wasn’t always that way.

Canonically, Levi sought praise from Kenny by showing his strength because that was the only thing he received praise for. The conclusion Levi came to once Kenny left him was that he wasn’t strong enough (wasn’t good enough) to warrant staying with him.

In conjunction, Levi’s first conclusion was that he did something wrong, not that Kenny possibly had some obligation that forced him to leave the Underground, pointing again to his own lack of self-worth.

This scenario created a complex in him, the very root cause of Levi’s pain, the very foundation of what Levi would go on to prioritize in adulthood. If he isn’t useful to those he wants not to abandon him, he’s worthless. He’s only useful when he shows his strength. Every other aspect of him like his interests is either irrelevant or bland by default in his eyes.

He would go on to make it his mission to try his best to be good enough in order to save and protect the lives of others, but foremost those he cares about.

Young Adulthood

Our first exposure to Levi as an adult is in A Choice with No Regrets, his OVA/backstory.

(By the way, I’ll be basing this analysis off a mix of the manga and the OVA.)

Emotional Immaturity/Affective Dysregulation

Generally, Levi’s defining negative character trait as a young adult is his emotional immaturity/anti-social behavior. Yes he’s grumpy and rude which is always indicative of him, but he’s very quick to anger, too. He cursed at the Squad Leader who offended him (by assuming that because he, Isabel, and Farlan are from the Underground, they’d be dirty), and argued furiously with Farlan that he would kill Erwin—not because it was required for the job, but because he disrespected him—for a few examples.

ACWNR ch2

He tended to be arrogant, too. Such as when he ultimately called a Scout who had experience with the Titans stupid for telling Levi to hold his swords in a certain way. He spoke to every officer the same as he would anyone on the street, having a remarkable lack of basic respect for authority. He was insistent on distancing himself from the entire setting and structure of the Scouts as much as possible, both to not get attached, and he found their mission childish/foolish.

He’s rather selfish. There is nothing Levi cares about genuinely more than Isabel’s and Farlan’s lives and the job that will set them up with a good future. Farlan’s advice is the only one’s he takes and the only judgment outside himself that he considers, such as when Farlan asks him to not cause trouble with authority to keep a low profile, but even then he acts stubborn. Levi trusts nobody wholeheartedly except himself (until later in ACWNR).

There’s a cognitive dissonance in him. Growing up, and still as a young adult, Levi’s headspace is marked by fear and uncertainty, with his power as his source of confidence. The first time he kills a Titan (with Isabel and Farlan), he uses too much gas because he refuses to potentially risk his friends’ lives; when the expedition is upcoming, he abruptly tells Farlan and Isabel to find a reason to stay back, and that he’ll complete the dangerous part of the job on his own.

Levi is full of repressed fear and uncertainty. He hides and/or buries all of it for the sake of self-preservation both emotionally and physically.

Antisocial Personality…?

It’s extremely interesting how a character as selfless, heroic, and empathetic as Levi exhibits antisocial symptoms. I’d even argue that if his childhood was spent entirely without his mother figure, then he might be a dictionary definition of ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder).

People with this disorder live day-to-day under the constant assumption that whoever is around them is “out to get them”/searching for a weakness to exploit. Humanity is made up of only prey and predators; morals are completely subjective, perpetuated by the society that surrounds them. This constant need to defend oneself, the effect of the exact trauma the potential sociopath experienced, combined with a muted emotional spectrum, results in a complete disregard of everything, including people outside of themself. They might believe they’re entitled to comfort or admiration, but overall, they’re intensely self-serving, often aggressive, and ruthless.

Because Levi for instance learned to rely on violence both for “love” and survival, then he might fall on violence to manipulate a person or situation into serving himself. I see reason to believe that Levi could have grown into worse than Kenny’s image if it weren’t for his mother’s influence.

However, the greatest cause for deniability is Levi’s wide emotional spectrum (especially including empathy and shame), while a lack of shame is the most significant marker of ASPD . (It is arguably one of many testaments to his strength that a victim of so much suffering, violence, and cruelty could become a man as empathetic as him.)

However, these tendencies may still be relevant: A sense of arrogance—both to the way Levi thinks of some who he perceives as weak and live without good morals—lacking issue with using deceit or violence to attain a goal, and living outside the rule of authority.

I go into more detail about this idea here.

Conclusion

As is true in general, there’s very little to say of mental development once someone has reached their early–mid-twenties. What we know of Levi’s young adulthood does reinforce his fear of abandonment, but he finds a cause where his strength and compassion can be “put to good use” and give to him a life that is worth living.

Conclusion: the ‘Present’/Diagnoses Overview

C-PTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)

Levi’s emotional dysregulation (i.e., inability to sit with and process negative emotions), his difficulties in relationships, insomnia, negative worldview, absent sense of self, and finally, his persistent sense of unworthiness/worthlessness are all indicative of C-PTSD. It’s distinct from PTSD in that he didn’t endure one short-term traumatizing event, but he grew up surrounded by trauma and saw it as normal (e.g., gang violence, extreme poverty, death of a parent, (more presumably) physically and emotionally abusive parental figure). Levi as a child developed no understanding of a nurturing, secure environment.

Negative/Absent Sense of Self

I’ve talked about this at length already, but it’s worth noting how Levi’s perception of himself must have changed when it was revealed that he is extremely strong physically not from his own efforts as much, but because he’s an Ackerman.

His self-confidence and self-worth have always been built on the foundation of his strength. He’s useful if he’s strong, so he’s worthy if he’s strong. Along with the extreme high pressure his goal to kill Zeke put on him in season four, he might have gone to extreme measures to compensate for his strength he might have felt was “unearned” (such as excessive exercise for example). This is an aside, but it was a blow to him for sure.

Emotional Dysregulation

The causes of emotional dysregulation generally which he experienced are as follows: early childhood trauma, feelings ignored, judged, or invalidated at a young age, and physical and emotional child neglect. Beyond his first four years of life with his mother, Levi experienced all these things (early exposure to sex and likely exposure to domestic violence aside).

It’s important to focus on emotional neglect specifically, when any and all perceived “weakness”, no matter how small, is unacceptable to Levi. He will never ask for help (being independent to a fault), he can’t define or process his emotions, and it doesn’t occur to him—and it could be a shock—when he learns that his friends care about him, not him insofar as how useful he is.

As an adult, Levi appears to be emotionally mature, but I argue that this isn’t the case. It’s more accurate to say that he has better control over his emotions (in that he buries them or ignores them) with a mature outlook because of all his experiences with suffering.

Similarly, he’s not outwardly emotional not because he’s antisocial (as related to ASPD, not introversion), but because he’s so “emotionally constipated” that he’s numbed the vast majority of the time.

Relationship Issues + Fear of Abandonment

Because of his fear of abandonment and impaired emotional intelligence in close relational conflict, he’s extremely passive and/or passive aggressive. In order to avoid potential abandonment, he doesn’t go out of his way to win major arguments—such as threatening to break Erwin’s legs if he didn’t stay away from the expedition in season three, but ultimately giving in. He’s also more likely to sneak petty insults into arguments, give “silent treatment”, slam doors, etc. His kindness and exceptional empathy shouldn’t let him be physically or overly violent.

These are likely additions to why Levi doesn’t foster many close relationships.

Fittingly, as a child I thought that Levi might have had an anxious attachment style (clingy, excessive need for security), but as this possibility for security was removed entirely, and he was taught to not rely on others, he would develop more of an overt avoidant attachment in adulthood in combination (fearful-avoidant): making very few emotional demands—even though he has needs—withdrawing when there’s conflict, acting aloof yet fearing abandonment, having difficulty expressing emotions he feels intensely, and fear of depending on someone else.

Anxiety

His cool-headedness even in the heat of battle/war (other factors like experience aside) is exactly what you would expect from someone diagnosed with C-PTSD; he’s accustomed to chronic high-stress. But small stressors (i.e., a change of plans) are overwhelming and make him quick to anger/excessive annoyance.

OCD

Emotional dysregulation is also closely associated with OCD.

OCD is much much more than being concerned with keeping clean or organized. OCD is an anxiety disorder composed of anxiety-related obsessions and compulsions, such as frequent and disturbing thoughts or images (intrusive thoughts). These attempt to be managed through rituals (i.e., handwashing, counting in patterns). Although symptoms will fluctuate with anxiety, OCD at its baseline is a distressing disorder.

Since he was young, Levi should have had an incessant need to be in control at all times. A shining example of this is his mother’s death, an incident he couldn’t control but included dirtiness/disease as a cause he could pinpoint, so this anxiety with dirtiness becomes a major obsession, and the compulsion is cleaning. (Putting aside the fact that Levi enjoys cleaning by itself too.)

It’s a widely-held belief that if Levi has OCD, it’s contamination OCD, as it specifically has to do with an obsession with dirtiness and a compulsion in cleaning (i.e., damaging handwashing, ritualized bathing that may take hours). However, based on the multitude of times Levi was covered in blood and remained unbothered by it (Titan and human), and in fact the obsession’s lack of relevance entirely during urgent missions/situations, contamination OCD is simply not plausible. Instead, it’s general OCD.

There’s no way to know for sure, but I don’t see his OCD as mild or severe. Levi is an extremely orderly and balanced person, so it can be concluded he must have things done a certain way, routinely, organizational, or planned; when the dirtiness is “negative” (i.e., Titan blood, blood on a knife he used to kill Isabel’s attackers), he is never more rigid with cleanliness; it’s probable he suffers intrusive thoughts (likely of the violent nature), a fear of contamination, and/or counting ritualistically, but the most obvious compulsion is cleaning. He might have sensory issues, such as disgust if he happens to brush shoulders with a stranger; aversion to particularly bright lights, irrational rage towards “mouth sounds” (i.e., chewing, coughing, swallowing), etc.

EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified)

Levi should have a complicated relationship with food to say the least.

In the realm of eating disorders, EDNOS is sort of a catch-all term when an individual doesn’t qualify for the diagnostic criteria of anorexia or bulimia, and it encompasses lesser-known eating disorders like Pica. It’s the most common diagnosis for clinical eating disorders.

I already covered how integral the early years of life are, and beginning at a young age, if children aren’t given a basic need like food, and they must seek out food on their own, it becomes an anxiety deeply rooted in the brain regardless of how well-fed they are when they’re older. There will always be an urge to have food available. Levi’s years in the Underground were spent either actively starving, or going about every single day having acquiring food as top priority. He was a young adult when he left, so it’s impossible to unlearn this (without extensive therapy, which Levi doesn’t seek). It’s similar to compulsions found in OCD: even though he logically knows that there will be a dinner after lunch, it’s impossible to put aside this worry.

That may mean always having food stashed, eating too much—especially in his early years Aboveground when he’d eat as much food in a day than he’d eat in a week Underground— stealing food, or eating way too quickly (as someone who lived in a place where food was considered something of a luxury resource and threatened being stolen at any time).

The latter factor contributes to Levi’s suggested preference to only eat alone—joining the fact that Levi only eats with Erwin after expeditions. Eating in front of others should be considered a weakness to him.

As time passes with this easy access to food, combined with his extremely narrow sense of what makes him “good enough”, his relationship with eating may become toxic. Especially when the stakes of his worthiness are so high—literally life and death. He may think that he’s privileged to eat at all, and when he feels worthless, he restricts himself from that “privilege”.

He may be so accustomed to the feeling of hunger, that it doesn’t immediately register with his mind when he is hungry.

Lastly, he may have a generally low appetite. This is often associated with depression, but depression is comorbid with C-PTSD.

Misc.

Some tangents/miscellaneous speculation about Levi’s psychology:

Queer?

Sexuality is formed and shifts due to a wide variety of factors, which most if not all are terribly understudied: genetics, hormones, and your environment/experiences. So again, my speculation.

With his fear of close relationships and negative experiences with sex, I think he should land somewhere on the queer spectrum, specifically under the asexual or aromantic umbrella (i.e., pansexuality/being panromantic (attraction to personality) and demisexuality/being demiromantic (attraction only to those he has an emotional connection to)).

MDD

The odds of Levi having MDD (major depressive disorder/clinical depression) are iffy. Most if not all of the symptoms are comorbid with childhood trauma and C-PTSD: Such as persistent apathy, guilt, and/or discontent; sleeping too much or too little; lack of energy; reduced or heightened appetite; irritability.

Oftentimes, depression, C-/PTSD, and related mental illnesses cause unexplained physical pain, such as back pain and occasional tension headaches. “Stress hormones” like adrenaline are built-up in the body, and usually persist without physical therapy and-or medication (Disclaimer this mention is based on nothing more than Levi always standing with at least one hand on his hip).

Body Language

Similar can be said of his body language from a cognitive perspective. The vast majority of the time, Levi has himself closed-off in some way, usually by crossing his arms to protect his chest; a subconscious barrier between oneself and another person.

Also see this official art of Levi asleep.

Afterword

We’ve known it’s not just Levi’s physical strength and skill that makes him the strongest, right? It should take immense mental strength to make it day-by-day dealing with the trauma and issues that he does, but not only has he survived and continues to, but he lives heroically, selflessly, with the wellbeing of everyone around him as a top priority. He buries all of his pain by moving forward always and without exception regardless of how painful the present is. Living with “no regrets” should in mental respects be a guise for pushing his trauma down, too; there’s just no words that can properly do Levi’s resilience justice.

Part of me wants to go into detail about his later adulthood, but given how very little we know (right now), I think it’d be too speculative.

However, based on what we have seen at the ending of AOT, it’s comforting to know and plain to see that Levi wasn’t defeated when he “lost” the reason to be so strong, and even his strength itself; he didn’t lose his love for his friends nor of life.

In middle age, based on Erikson’s psychosocial stages, the conflict that should enter Levi’s life is the idea of generativity versus stagnation. He seems satisfied with his life despite the negative effects of all he went through—grief, physical disability, inevitable mental scarring—and he’s still concerned with helping others, especially the younger generation in a world after the overwhelming devastation that was the Rumbling.

My speculated psychopathologies/diagnoses of Levi:

C-PTSD (insomnia prevalent)

OCD (contamination obsessions)

EDNOS

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animentality · 1 year

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my main problem with terfs outside of the obvious issue is that they stand for nothing.

they don't care about women's rights. they don't care about intersectionality. they don't care about racism or feminism.

they don't care about changing the world for the better, or making anyone happy, or saving people from the fucked up world we all live in.

they have no fucking platform. they aren't pro abortion, they aren't pro choice, they aren't pro women, they aren't pro men, they aren't pro children.

they don't care about anything at all, not even themselves.

because they are the stereotypical high school mean girls, who spend their time cyberbullying because they're too chicken shit to bully anyone in real life.

they enjoy being nasty because there's something broken up inside of them that they don't want to examine.

they have no real goal. all they want is to take out their aggressions on an easy target.

because think about it like this, right???

a normal, happy, well adjusted human being with a family and friends is NOT spending their time harassing random bloggers like me and sending death threats and sharing rancid racist memes and lurking on /pol or reddit or twitter, harassing trans people who exist.

someone who has friends and hobbies and a life, is not spending their time being as horrible as they can to as many people online as possible.

Terfs are NOT people who have met other people. Who have things they feel positively about.

If they were, they wouldn't make their entire personality about hatred.

If they were, they wouldn't be fucking all over Tumblr, stomping down on any pro trans post they see.

if you, a regular person, are online and you say hey trans people are just people who want to live as they want.

and then you get a deluge of hate.

just remember that terfs are absolute fucking freaks. they are not normal people.

they are not people with jobs and boyfriends and girlfriends and a community of supportive people, because if they were, they wouldn't be on fucking line all the time, wasting their time trying to get reactions out of people.

they are attacking you not because they're defending anything, but because they have to attack. because they WANT to attack.

because they like being mean, because it's all they have.

because they feel fucked up, and they don't know why, and there's a million things wrong with their lives, but they don't know how to fix them.

and it's sad.

feel bad for them, for a second, and then worry about trans people, who deserve it more.

terfs are not worth your time.

what matters now is defending trans people, more than attacking terfs.

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chainofclovers · 9 months

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Half-baked gender thoughts are burning a hole in my pocket.

I've been thinking a lot about "girl math" and "girl dinner" and all the latest ways that gross gender essentialism are masquerading as adorable anti-feminist internet culture and I feel like it is, once again, about large swaths of society fundamentally misunderstanding a capitalist issue as a gender issue.

(This is basically entirely in the context of rhetorical patterns on tumblr rather than the whole of the internet/tiktok/whatever. Just going off of what I see.)

The precursor to a lot of the "girl [noun]" content, at least from my vantage point, and at least here on tumblr dot com, is that type of post that was popular for a while that kind of goes something like "it's cruel that girls have to work constantly, girls should have a special beverage every day and they should be well-rested and their lives should feel good." And...like...yes? Resource scarcity and grind culture and the OTP that is Corporate Greed/Myth of Individual Responsibility are capitalist inventions that are destroying our planet and the quality of our lives! Human beings (girls included lol) should be able to work reasonable hours, earn a comfortable living wage, and have time to sleep and enjoy the pleasures of life! And also, it's fine, great even, for girls and young women to conceptualize their own experiences with capitalist society as personal narrative, and as something innately tied to their gender affinities! Everyone has a right to autobiography! And to trying to summarize their experiences, even very intense experiences, in a cheeky and/or cute and/or playful manner!

But unfortunately, it feels like the takeaway from these well-meaning, largely harmless posts about girlhood and womanhood and work and pleasure, at least for a whole bunch of people, was to accidentally scoot right past the opportunity to examine capitalism and the intersecting pressures of race and class and gender and age and education (or the opportunity to celebrate the joys of enjoying a good latte sans guilt) and instead launch themselves right down the horrifically slippery slope of gender essentialism and paternalism. Yuck yuck yuck.

#gender things #girl math #girl dinner #about me #feminism #internet things #capitalism

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katherinecrighton · 7 months

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Nuts and Bolts: Thoughts on Plotting

(Reposting a 2013 post from the Anna Katherine co-tumblr)

Here, have some really straightforward, practical thoughts about plots and plotting. Of which I have way too many, btw.

(Previous nuts and bolts caveats apply, naturally. Assume I have so many thoughts about this stuff because I’ve fucked it up pretty often.)

::::

1. A short story is a single idea, examined or played out. (Movies are also short stories. This is why turning books into movies leads to tears.) Figure out what your “idea” is – or the goal of your story, or the point you’re trying to make, whichever terminology floats your boat – and aim toward that without wavering.

2. Your plot and your characters go hand in hand. They inform each other – if you have one, you have the other. It’s one of the ways that storytelling is the least like real life. The entire plot might as well be a metaphor for whatever issues are going on in the characters lives – but once you realize that, you can use that fact to reverse-engineer your characters or your plot if you’re stuck without one or the other.

3. Frequently problems with plots are just problems with structure. Go find your favorite book (or rather, your favorite book that is most like the kind of book that you’re trying to write) and break it down, section by section, until you’ve got something really basic like “meet-cute” and “things go bad” and shit like that. Then see if you can’t just drape your plot right on over that structure like a brand new Sunday suit.

4. It’s okay to borrow structures. It’s okay to borrow stories, for that matter. Plots can come from a lot of places. “Write what you know” clearly meant “steal every anecdote in England” to Chaucer, and he became the father of English literature, so.

5. Middle sections of books are terrible. They just are. Everyone wants to give up. This is the number one reason to have an outline or at least a game plan, oh my god. You want to see some hope of a way out, because the middle of a book lasts twice as long as the end of infinity.

6. To that end, once I’ve got some characters and a vague idea of what I want to do with them, I like to put together a list of “adventures”. It’s just stuff I’d like them to do during the course of the story. Sex scenes, car chases, dress fittings, amusing adventures with food, anything like that. Just stuff that I think would be fun to write, and that I know I will need to fill the endless fucking wasteland of the middle of the book.

7. (Those adventures? Should reflect the issues of the characters. Because characters and plots are the same thing. See point 2.)

8. For short stories, have an end point to aim toward, along with a general emotional zone to wallow in. I had a short story whose working title was literally “and then somehow, making out,” which was indeed the end point I was aiming at. The emotional zone I wanted to stay in was fairly light with some emotional dips into heavy stuff for contrast. But mostly what it said on the tin.

9. For books, writing the last scene right at the start of your process is sometimes nice, because it gives you a sort of mark to aim for. (You can always rewrite it later.)

10. Try to capture some really vivid mental pictures of strong scenes. Add those to your “adventure” list, or, better, just write them down. It doesn’t have to be perfect – if you want, just bro it out like you’re describing your favorite badass robot move from Pacific Rim to someone who’s never seen it. At that point there are barely any characters, there’s just the broad sweeps of movement across the page.

+1. Remember: You are the god-king of the book. If worse comes to worst, have a plague of shrews suddenly appear and make your characters deal with it. You can do anything! If you don’t know what to do, do anything. It’s better than doing nothing, and frankly, if it doesn’t work, at least you’ll have written something. You can always delete it tomorrow.

+2. No, seriously, I was writing a book and I could tell there needed to be some kind of big turn in the narrative (because of structure!), and I couldn’t think of what, so I literally wrote down a list of random shit I could make happen to the characters. Just because I could. That list included:

set house on fire airplane explosion hunting accident heatstroke

I was willing to set a house on fire, possibly by having a plane explode on it, just to get my characters doing something for another twenty pages. And the best part was: All I had to do was write the consequences, and add some foreshadowing, and I’d get away scot-free. The perfect crime. GOD-KING, Y'ALL.

#katherine crighton #writing #nuts and bolts #plots #plotting

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xxchromies · 1 month

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I used to be an anti-feminist/anti-sjw

A loooong ass time ago. Like 2013-2014, when I was but a wee 12 year old. Not anti-feminist in the tradwife, justpearlythings way but rather in the shoe0nhead, "the wage gap is a myth and manspreading isn't real" way. And it's funny how I did a 180 ten years later. But it makes total sense why I felt this way, actually.

I used to consider myself a feminist. I had seen the way men treated women online and felt disgusted by it. In 2013, I joined Tumblr for the first time. I would happily reblog posts about basic feminism. How photoshop was fucked up, how women deserve the right to vote, etc. I started to turn when I realized that it seemed like feminists cared more about doing #epic dunks on le cringe neckbeards then actually talking about feminism in a nuanced and thoughtful way. And so that led to me concluding that "feminists" were actually just manhaters and didn't want to be equal to men, they wanted to be superior. Nowadays, I reblog all these lengthy ass posts, entire fucking passages discussing misogyny and all its nuances. But it wasn't like that in 2014. If you were on Tumblr in 2014, you know what the culture was like. It was all about snappy, quick retorts and epic clapbacks. Another thing was that these feminists often spoke of very trivial things. No talk of female genital mutilation. Instead we should talk about the "friendzone" and how it's just soooo fucked up that commercials for pads use random blue liquid and not red liquid! Nevermind the fact that they do that in toilet paper commercials too!! It's not hard to see how all that could have led me to think feminism = annoying and trivial.

Another reason I was an anti-feminist is that quite simply, I didn't have the experience to understand a lot of what the Tumblr feminists were talking about. Rape WAS talked about frequently, as well as sexual harassment. I didn't realize how prevalent it was because, being an actual child, I didn't have much experience with it. So it felt like they were exaggerating. Plus, I just straight up did not want to believe things were actually that awful. The world they were painting seemed cartoonishly evil. But I know better now. Also, the hypothetical rapists were talked about as if they were dumb 80's bullies like Kurt and Ram. It made it very hard to take what they were talking about seriously. They would talk about these issues as if these men thought what they were doing was just fine and they were just too dumb to realize. The reality is that they know rape is wrong and horrible, they just don't care. "Instead of teaching women how not to be raped, teach men not to rape." I understand the sentiment. But men DO know not to rape. Rape is considered to be one of the most heinous crimes ever, yet they do it anyway. "Teach men consent" they fucking know consent. They just don't fucking care about it. Maybe we should be teaching men to actually start giving a fuck about women.

I often think of the shit I used to reblog and cringe. But I probably shouldn't be so hard on myself. I was transitioning from being a child to being a teenager and I was all of a sudden being exposed to all these serious issues with serious implications. I was being forced to examine my worldview and I didn't like it. It was uncomfortable. I actually do think I would have appreciated a bit of hand-holding when it came to the world of feminism, as dumb as that sounds.

What actually snapped me out of it was actually sitting down and watching Anita Sarkeesian's videos. I used to hate her blindly. But when I sat down and watched her full-fledged analyses, I recognized the misogynistic concepts she was talking about in my own life. And it changed my perception of feminism.

And then after that I became "one of the good ones", then I became a standard run-of-the-mill "makeup is empowering and TWAW" libfem, and that led me to today.

#it's kinda beautiful actually #just yapping #radblr #radical feminism #radical feminist safe #radical feminists do interact #terfsafe

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genshinluvr · 2 years

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Through the Kamera Lens | Obsessed with You 2

Pairings: Various Genshin Men x Isekai'd!Reader

Summary: Itto has gotten a new kamera from the Deputy of the Arataki Gang, Kuki Shinobu. He decides to take pictures with every chance he gets and has chosen you to be the model for his candid shots. At first, you didn't mind that it was Itto that was taking these pictures of you, but what if it wasn't just Itto that had been taking pictures of you while you were unaware of it? Random pictures of you start to appear in your bedroom, and soon, these pictures are accompanied by letters from your new secret admirer.

Note: To be honest, I didn't really expect to be making a second part of "Obsessed with You," but here we are! I swear, for the past month, it's like many things have been testing my patience, and I have been through hell and back because of the things that have been happening in my personal life. I'm not entirely sure what next week's fic is going to be about; I'm leaning more towards another individual character fanfiction because it's also a request. But we'll have to wait and see since I do have an almost 10-hour orientation to go to for my university this coming week. I can't skip out on it or leave early because our attendance is tracked, and I won't be able to register for my classes if I don't stay for almost 10 hours there. To all of my new or returning readers, I post on AO3 as well, so if you have an AO3 and see a work similar to this, it's me (Aaliah_exo on AO3). I don't post anywhere else but on Tumblr (Genshinluvr) and on AO3 (Aaliah_exo).

Warnings: Mentions of murder, stalking, pictures taken without consent, suggestive themes are mentioned

Word Count: 10.9k

Read Part 1 of Obsessed with You [here]!

“Say Beetles!”

CLICK!

You flinched and covered your eyes after the light flashed in your eyes. “Wow, that’s a really bright kamera flash.” You said, trying to blink away the dark spots that would appear each time you blink.

“Itto, you buffoon! You could’ve blinded [Y/N] with that kamera flash!” Childe scolds the oni, lightly smacking Itto upside of his head before snatching the kamera from Itto’s hands to inspect the image that Itto has taken of you. A film slowly slides out from the kamera; Childe takes the film out from the kamera and begins to wave it in the air gently.

Xiao examines Childe before asking, “What are you doing to that film?” He approaches Childe and snatches the picture from Childe’s hands. Xiao looks at the picture but does not see you in the photo that Itto has suddenly taken of you. Diluc looks over Xiao’s shoulders, his arms over his chest while trying to get a better look at the picture.

“I’m not seeing anything,” Diluc stated, turning over to Itto and Childe.

“Aw man, did the picture not develop!?” Itto groans, walking over to where Xiao and Diluc stood before taking the picture from Xiao’s grasp. Childe leans over to get a better look, only to stifle his laughter behind the palm of his hands while Zhongli studies the white film in Itto’s hands.

“The photograph did develop; your thumb was in the way,” Zhongli stated with an amused smile appearing on his face. You snorted and got up from your seat before taking the picture from Itto’s hands to get a much clearer look at the photo that Itto had taken of you.

“Zhongli’s right, Itto.” You said, handing the photo back to the tall oni. “Your thumb got in the way of the lens and pretty much covered most of the picture.”

“If you want to take a picture of [Y/N], maybe have someone else do it instead,” Dainsleif says, resting his arm on your shoulders. “Capturing beauty can be complicated, but with patience and skill, it should be a cakewalk,” Dainsleif added, glancing down at you. You felt your face becoming hot from his comment and gaze; you cleared your throat shyly while trying to find a way to distract yourself from feeling flustered.

“Dainsleif, you smooth talker!” You teased, lightly batting at his arm before snuggling up against him with a smile on your face.

“Hey, I want some snuggles too, sweet thing.” Kaeya approaches you with his arms over his chest, with a teasing yet endearing smile on his face.

You looked at Dainsleif, who nodded his head almost hesitantly. You walked over to Kaeya and wrapped your arms around his slim waist while he snaked his arms around your shoulders, pressing kisses on your head repeatedly. You smiled with contentment and sighed happily, cheeks pressing up against Kaeya’s chest. The door to the abode flies open as Heizou, Aether, Thoma, and Ayato walk through the door. They had a grim look on their face, making everyone in the living area stop what they were doing.

“Hey, you four! What’s with those expressions on your faces?” Gorou asks his ears twitching with anxiety.

“There’s a dead body that was found in Liyue Harbor,” Heizou stated, his eyes scanning everyone’s faces to see their reaction. Your eyes widen while the others look at Heizou in shock and confusion. A dead body found in Liyue Harbor?

Venti asks softly, “Is there a murderer going around in Liyue?” Diluc and Kaeya held onto you tightly while you pressed your body up against theirs, feeling your hands becoming damp with sweat. You didn’t know if there were murderers on the loose in Teyvat, ones that have yet to be identified. While the Harbingers are residing at the abode with you and the other men, you were sure that they weren’t the ones that were killing people at random times. Plus, Childe and Scaramouche did say that the other four Harbingers have not done much Fatui business other than paperwork and interrogations.

Albedo strokes his chin before asking, “Do you have any other information on this situation?” He looks at Heizou, Aether, Thoma, and Ayato curiously. At the same time, the news of a body being discovered in Liyue Harbor was sudden. Albedo was wondering what could be the cause of death of this murder victim.

Aether looks over at Heizou, who signaled him to respond, “The body was found floating face down in the harbor. He’s a young male in his twenties, Liyuen, and the Millelith is still trying to identify him.”

Thoma pressed his lips together before slowly speaking up, “People are speculating that the unidentified person was murdered or that he could have died from an accidental drowning.” That got everyone thinking. Accidental drowning could be a possibility, especially when Heizou, Aether, and Thoma have yet to mention whether there was bodily harm on the corpse or not.

Ayato hums, his eyebrows furrowing as he is deep in his thoughts. “When we approached the scene of the crime, we noticed something interesting about the victim,” Ayato says, looking up at everyone with an intense gaze.

Baizhu leans forward in his seat, “And what would that be, Lord Ayato?” His golden eyes sparked with curiosity.

“While the Millelith is trying to identify the body, we,” Ayato points at himself and the other three men that stood beside him, “know the identity of the victim.”

Kazuha looks intrigued, “Oh? You four know the identity of the deceased person?” He asks thoughtfully.

Thoma nods his head, “Yes, we know the identity of the deceased person.” Thoma looks nervous but is eyeing two people in particular as he replies to Kazuha’s question.

“In fact, all of you know the deceased person, even [Y/N],” Heizou says. Everyone in the room began to murmur to one another, trying to think of someone that everyone in the room knew. Someone that isn’t living in the abode, nor are they dating you.

Scaramouche lets out an exasperated sigh, rubbing his face out of frustration. “Can’t you four tell us who the deceased person is?!” Scaramouche demands with a scowl that emerges on his face. “I’m sick of these mind games you four are pulling on all of us! Just tell us the name of the dead person!”

“The dead person is Yifan.” Aether blurts out.

“Yifan?!” Everyone around you chorused, looking at one another in disbelief. The last time everyone saw Yifan was when the other men made sure that Yifan had stayed away from you. To hear about Yifan’s sudden death and his body appearing in the harbor, face down, felt suspicious. While Childe, Scaramouche, and the other thirteen men had beat Yifan to a pulp just for stalking you and making you feel unsafe in the abode, they didn’t kill Yifan. Or, at least that’s what you think.

“Which one of you killed Yifan?” You ask, turning to face the seventeen men in the living room. All of the men held their hands up in the air to show that they had nothing to do with the sudden death of Yifan. You hum, poking the inside of your cheek with the tip of your tongue while trying to think of a person that could be the reason why Yifan is deceased. While you disliked Yifan for being a total creep with no boundaries, you don’t think he would suddenly take his own life away. If the men in front of you had denied being involved with Yifan’s death, then who could be the one that killed Yifan?

“Dearest, I believe that you’re thinking way too much into this. Yifan is dead, yes, but none of us have anything to do with his death.” Zhongli says, walking up to you to give your shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

“Yeah! If we wanted him dead, we would’ve killed him the night he snuck into the abode!” Childe exclaims.

Diluc lets out a slow sigh, “I would hate to agree with the Harbinger, but he is right. If we wanted him dead, we would’ve killed him that night.”

“Then what could be the cause of his death? Well, who could be the one that killed Yifan?” Venti ponders, his lyre materializing in his hands while he hops onto the wooden stool.

You didn’t think that anyone could be the cause of Yifan’s death. As much as your boyfriends despise the deceased Liyuen man, they wouldn’t go that far to kill someone if they were to overstep the boundaries. Although some of your boyfriends won’t hesitate to kill someone for you, they still have some self-control and wouldn’t kill someone because someone had made you feel uncomfortable. At the same time, Yifan has crossed numerous boundaries that you had created to keep a great distance between you and him.

“If none of us killed Yifan, then who was it that killed him? Surely his death couldn’t be accidental.” Kaeya says, looking at the others skeptically.

“It was me, your honor! I am the murderer.” Dottore says dramatically, entering the estate with the other three Harbingers following in tow. Dottore had on a smug smile before sitting on the couch, his legs spread wide before resting his hands on his thighs.

“You killed Yifan!?” Gorou asks, his eyes widening in shock and fear.

Pantalone chuckles, looking at the seventeen men with a pleased look on his face.“Of course, we’re going to kill someone that has overstepped our beloved’s boundaries. People like him shouldn’t even be allowed to live long, don’t you agree?” He raises his eyebrows at the other men in the room with the corner of his lips quirked up.

“A man as vile as Yifan doesn’t deserve to live,” Pierro gruffly states.

“As if they’re any better than Yifan?” Kazuha whispers to Albedo, who subtly nods his head in agreement.

“It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it?” Albedo murmurs, looking at the four Harbingers through his thick lashes.

Baizhi raises his eyebrows at Kazuha and Albedo before muttering to the two shorter men, “A bit ironic? I believe you meant that it’s very ironic.”

“Anyone who isn’t a Harbinger is better than those four,” Xiao grumbles, tightening his grip around his biceps.

Childe and Scaramouche walk over to the gossiping four with their arms over their chest; both Childe and Scaramouche do not look amused at all. Albedo, Kazuha, Xiao, and Baizhu fall silent when the two Harbingers step in front of them— well, one harbinger and one ex-harbinger.

Childe lets out a long exhale, giving the four men a fake smile before stating the obvious, “You know that both Scaramouche and I are Harbingers, right?”

“Oh? What’s this?” Capitano asks, picking up the white film from the floor before inspecting it. The other three Harbingers walk over to Capitano to get a closer look at the item that Capitano held in his hands. Dottore took the small film from Capitano’s hands and held it up to the light, his eyes squinting behind his mask.

“It looks like an undeveloped photograph,” Dottore commented, handing it over to Pantalone, who now held it close to his face to get a clear look at the picture.

Pantalone hums to himself before shaking his head, “The photograph is developed; someone’s thumb is in the way of the lens, that’s all.” Pantalone places the image on the ottoman before turning toward the other men with a smile on his face.

“Wait, I’m on the fence.” You spoke up, your eyebrows narrowing while examining the four Harbingers who were looking back at you. They looked at you with curiosity as you walked up to them and then looked over at the men. “I don’t think they’re the ones that killed Yifan. Yes, Yifan is a weirdo and deserves the absolute worst, but I don’t think these four killed Yifan.” You said, chewing on your bottom lip.

Diluc, Kaeya, Childe, Scaramouche, and Zhongli raised their eyebrows at you. They couldn’t tell if you were serious or not. After all, you don’t know what the other four Harbingers are like— especially Dottore. It was weird to see these four bloodthirsty Harbingers decide to put on a mask and pretend that they care about you when in reality, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill you off if the Cryo archon were to order them to do so.

Diluc takes a deep breath, “[Y/N], care to explain why you don’t think these four psychopathic murders didn’t kill Yifan? They did admit to it.”

“I didn’t say that they weren’t the ones that didn’t kill Yifan. To me, I see it as a fifty-fifty kind of situation because instead of them killing Yifan, these four Harbingers would’ve made him suffer by torturing him and experimenting on him until Yifan begs them to kill him already.” You said, tapping on your chin with your pointer finger.

“[Y/N] has a point, but none of the four men— Ayato, Thoma, Aether, and Heizou didn’t clarify whether there’s bodily harm on the corpse or not,” Kaeya commented.

“Why do we care about Yifan’s death again? Last time I checked, we all hated the man, and now we’re trying to find out who killed the creepy stalker?” Scaramouche asks, throwing his head back before rolling his eyes with an exasperated sigh.

“Yeah! Let’s get back to taking pictures!” Itto says, holding up the kamera with a giddy grin on his face, waving it around for people in the living area to see.

Ever since someone gifted Itto a kamera (it was Kuki Shinobu that gifted Itto the kamera, she was hoping that it would keep him out of trouble), Itto has been going around, taking pictures of people without them knowing. In your world, they’re called candid pictures, but to Itto, he likes taking pictures of people when they’re caught off guard. It was funny and fit the theme that he was going for. For example, Itto took a photo of Diluc and Zhongli tying their hair while having a conversation. The picture looked nice, and Itto was quite proud of it!

But then he took a photo of Childe while Childe was in the middle of sneezing; Itto howled with laughter when the picture developed and showed the hilarious face that Childe had made while he was sneezing. Disgruntled, Childe wrestled with Itto on the ground while trying to take the hideous photo of himself out from Itto’s hands. The two rolled around on the ground, shouting profanities at each other while having a death grip on the picture of Childe.

“What are you two fighting over?” Kazuha asks, leaning against the wall with an amused look on his face. Itto and Childe stop squirming around on the floor before looking at the young samurai like a deer caught in headlights, but they continue to hold onto the horrendous image of Childe with an iron grip, both refusing to let go.

“Itto took a really awful picture of me, and he wouldn’t let me get rid of it!” Childe exclaims, pulling on the white photograph with a scowl on his face.

Itto lets out a “pfft!” before yanking the film from Childe’s hands, pushing the ginger-haired Harbinger off him before getting up from the ground. “Of course, I’m not going to get rid of the picture, Childe! It’s hilarious, and I believe that it perfectly captures who you are!” Itto says, striking a dramatic pose with a peace sign in front of his right eye and a huge mocking grin on his face. Aether and Heizou pop out from behind Itto, snatching the photograph from Itto’s hands to get a closer look at it. Almost immediately, Heizou and Aether burst out laughing, holding onto their side.

“We need to show [Y/N] this! I bet they will love it!” Heizou says; Aether gives Heizou a mischievous grin, nodding his head in agreement.

Childe sputters in disbelief after hearing what Heizou has suggested to Aether. Before Childe could protest, Aether and Heizou disappeared with the unpleasant photo of Childe, running up the stairs to where your bedroom was. Childe lets out a strained gasp before releasing Itto and running after Heizou and Aether. Aether and Heizou burst into your bedroom, chests heaving from the amount of running they’ve done, panting before running over to where you were lying. Heizou and Aether go silent for a moment, glancing over at each other with wide eyes. They look over at the clock in your bedroom, only to see that it is still early in the morning.

“We should go, [Y/N] is still sleeping! We wouldn’t want to disturb their sleep just to show this horrendous picture of Childe.” Aether says, nudging Heizou while walking over towards your bedroom door.

Heizou begins to sputter, “But we have to show it to them now! What if Childe goes Foul Legacy on this piece of horrendous artwork!?” Heizou whines, waving the picture in Aether’s face. Aether opens his mouth to reply, only for Childe to appear at the doorway, panting while glaring at them with murder in his eyes. Aether and Heizou look over at each other, gulping. Without a second thought, Aether and Heizou bolt over to where you were sleeping, both climbing into your bed and under the mountain of blankets, clinging to your unconscious body. You cracked your eyes open, feeling groggy from your sleep.

You felt something— or someone, cling to you tightly. You lift your blankets, only to see the two anemo users staring up at you with wide eyes. “Aether? Heizou? What are you two doing?” You mumble, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes before yawning. You tossed the blanket off your body to cool down after feeling your body beginning to overheat from the two people attaching themselves to your body.

Aether and Heizou don’t say anything; they gesture to each other for a moment. Childe was now standing at the foot of your bed, glaring down at both Aether and Heizou. You slowly sat up on your bed but quickly fell down with Aether and Heizou still clinging to you with something in both their hands.

“Oh? What’s this?” You ask, reaching down to grab the item from their hands.

Childe screams, “No! Don’t grab it!” He jumps forward to grab the image from your hands, only for Aether to yank it towards his chest. Childe lands on top of you, knocking the air out from your lungs. What a lovely way to wake up from your sleep. You let out a strangled gasp and tried to push Childe off you while trying to catch your breath. Childe lifts himself off you and gives you a sheepish smile, brushing your messy hair away from your face.

“Morning, snookums! You look super cute today with the dried drool on the side of your lips that trailed down your adorable yet squishy cheeks.” Childe grins at you cheekily before wiping the corner of your lips and cheeks.

You whined and pushed Childe’s face away, your face feeling hot from embarrassment. How dare he point out the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you? Especially in front of Aether and Heizou! Childe laughs loudly before burying his face into the crook of your neck, snuggling up against you while wrapping his arms around you tightly. He begins to pepper kisses on your face, completely forgetting about what his goals were before bursting into your bedroom to catch Aether and Heizou. While Childe was completely distracted, Aether nudges you before handing you the picture. You grabbed it from Aether’s hands and flipped it around to see what the film was.

While you were staring at the picture with tired eyes, the other men entered your room to see what the commotion was. Once your vision cleared up, you attempted to stifle your laughter. The longer you stared at the picture, the more it was harder for you not to laugh. Childe lifts his face up from your neck and tilts his head to the side to see what you were laughing at. To his horror, it was the horrendous picture of him mid-sneeze. You burst out laughing; your head was thrown back against your pillow, your body shaking with laughter.

“What is [Y/N] laughing at?” Thoma asks, walking closer to the bed. Childe snatches the picture from your hands before getting up from your bed and running off with it. Behind your closed lids, you saw a flash of light and the sound of a kamera shutter. You cracked your eyes open, your laughter slowly dying down as you tried to sit up on your bed. You wiped the tears that ran down your cheeks and clutched onto your now sore stomach.

“That is the best thing I’ve ever seen!” You said, slowly getting out of your bed. You try to detangle your hair with your hands, your face scrunching up when you feel a tug at your scalp while detangling your hair. “Oh, great.” You mumbled, walking over to your brush to brush out the tangled strands.

Itto hands an image of you over to Venti and Gorou before holding his kamera up to take more pictures of you while you are distracted with your hair. In the photo, you looked so happy. Just looking at the picture made Gorou and Venti smile, their hearts swelling at the sweet sight in front of them. The view of your smile and the sound of your laughter never fails to make them happy. In fact, they felt like they have fallen for you all over again.

“What a beautiful smile.” Gorou whispers, his cheeks tinged pink while keeping his eyes on the picture in Venti’s hands.

Venti let out a soft exhale, his left hand coming up to press against his racing heart, his cheeks tinted pink at the sight of your smile. “I think I’ve fallen in love with them all over again,” Venti says softly, looking up at where you sat while trying to get the knot out of your hair, your eyebrows furrowed with concentration, your lips puckered in an adorable pout. Itto quickly held his kamera up to his face and quickly took another picture of you; your eyes widened, and you glanced over in Itto’s direction. Itto lowers the kamera from his face and pulls the developing film from the slot, and waves it in the air with an excited smile on his face.

“Did you just take another picture of me?” You ask, blinking at the oni that was across the room. Itto gives you a massive smile before taking another picture of you. You felt your pupils shink from the flash; you drop the brush onto your lap before you rub your eyes with a mumble. If Itto continues to take pictures of you, you might become blind from the flash that came from the kamera.

“Oi! I’m going to go blind if you keep taking pictures of me with the flash on!” You exclaimed, glaring at Itto playfully.

“As if you weren’t blind already, you find those Harbingers attractive,” Xiao says, sitting down at the edge of your bed. You looked at Xiao with your mouth wide open, speechless.

You scoffed in disbelief, the corners of your lips quirking up in a smile. “Listen, you didn’t need to call me out like that, XiaoXiao.” You said, pouting at the yaksha before grabbing the brush on your lap to continue to brush out the knots in your hair. “Man, this knot is really annoying.” You groaned, tightening your grip around the brush.

Albedo walks over to you and gently takes the brush from your hands, “May I?” Albedo asks, pointing at your other hand that was holding onto the strands of hair that are tangled together. You nodded your head and scooted closer to Albedo. He stood behind you and grabbed onto the knotted parts of your hair before gently brushing out the knots. Another flash of light blinds you; you groan and cover your face with your hands.

You groaned, “Itto!” You looked up from your hands and at the joyful oni. It seems like Itto really enjoys the kamera that was gifted to him. You wonder how many pictures Itto is going to be taking before he runs out of films for the kamera. “‘Bedo, if I go blind because of Itto, will you make new eyes for me?” You ask, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt.

“That’s a little bit dramatic, don’t you think?” Dainsleif asks; you scrunched your face up before muttering something under your breath. Albedo cracks a smile before wrapping his arms around your shoulders and pressing a kiss on top of your head; you smile shyly before letting yourself melt into his arms.

“Albedo is my favorite out of all of you, by the way.” You said, turning around and burying your face into Albedo’s chest. “He showers me with affection, and he happily detangles my hair for me.” You added, snuggling up to Albedo like a cat.

Baizhu chuckles softly, “I don’t think you should be saying that when there are possessive people in the relationship.”

You slowly pulled away from Albedo and blinked, coming to the realization that Baizhu was right. You were doing nothing but putting a target on Albedo’s forehead just by saying that he’s your favorite person. You slowly turned to the other men and saw the look on their faces, it was unreadable, but you could clearly see that the others were not happy over the fact that you said that you favor Albedo.

You sighed dramatically with a lighthearted eye roll, “Okay, okay, you’re all my favorite!” Everyone perked up at your comment. “But if any of you do anything to wrong me or make me feel dumb, the percentage in favoritism goes down by one percent.” You joked, pointing an accusing finger at each man in the room.

“Well, gentlemen, it looks like I will be the one to be in the lead,” Zhongli says, crossing his arms over his chest with a faint smile on his face. The others around him scoff at Zhongli’s comment. As if Zhongli would be the one you’ll favor the most; it’ll be them that you’ll prefer instead!

“I’m joking, I’m joking. There won’t be any favoritism going on; I love each and every single one of you equally! No competitions!” You said, getting up from your seat before feeling for the knotted hair, only to notice that Albedo was able to get it out for you. “Anyway, since I was rudely woken up by my two sweet boyfriends hiding under my blankets and clinging to me, I think breakfast would be nice.” You said, stretching your limbs before cracking your knuckles and your neck, causing the other men in the room to flinch at the sound.

“Babe! You know that we’re not the only ones that had rudely woken you up from your sleep! Childe was the one that jumped on you!” Aether exclaims, latching himself onto you with a dramatic pout on his face.

Diluc’s eyes widen in shock, “He jumped on you?” Before you could respond, Diluc stormed out of the room to search for the ginger-haired Harbinger. You could see the steam coming out of Diluc’s ears, his face red with anger.

“I think we should stop him before they kill each other.” You said nervously, rushing after Diluc to make sure that he doesn’t kill Childe over it.

Needless to say, ever since Itto was gifted a kamera from Kuki Shinobu, the oni has been going around, taking pictures of people. But the person that he took photos of the most was you, and it was always while you minded your business. The men weren’t pleased about it at first, but then Itto had to bribe them with the option of him taking pictures of you and certain men together without the two of you noticing him with a kamera from a long distance. Itto was pretty much the abode’s private paparazzi, except he had good intentions.

The photos that Itto has taken of you and the other men consisted of you napping with one of them, cooking with them, sparring with one of them, snuggling up against one of them while they read a book to you, and many more. The pictures that Itto has taken of you and the men would be either framed on walls or kept in a photo album that Pierro had oh-so graciously gifted to Itto for his newfound hobby. Now Itto has a collection of photo albums where it’s just you and the men (and him, of course) doing regular coupley things together! It was sweet, and you loved every bit of the memories that Itto has captured through the kamera lens.

Until one day, you saw a photograph on the floor of your bedroom, slipped from underneath the door when you were all alone in the abode when the men were out. You got up from your seat and squatted down to grab the picture, curiosity getting ahold of you. You flipped the film over, only to see that it was an image of you, laying on a hammock underneath a tree in the abode, immersed in the book you were reading. You would think that it’s a nice candid picture of you until you’d realize that someone had taken the photo of you while you’re all alone in the abode.

“Huh, that’s strange. Did Itto take this picture of me before he left?” You ask yourself, slowly getting up from the area where you were squatting down at.

You walked over to your desk and placed the photograph on your desk, not thinking much of it. Maybe Itto did take a candid shot of you before he left the abode with the others, but even if he did, how did the picture end up in your room when he and the others haven’t returned to the estate? You sat down at your desk and stared at the photo that was taken of you, trying to remember the moment Itto took this picture of you, but nothing came to your mind.

You shrugged your shoulders and scratched your head while muttering, “I’m thinking too much into this.” You got out of your seat and laid in your bed, pulling your blanket up to your neck with a quiet sigh. Maybe Itto did take this picture of you, or perhaps the other men snapped this photograph of you, who knows. Either way, the photo came out nicely, and you sort of liked it! Maybe you’ll hang it up on your wall or something, but for now, you just want to take a nap until the men return to the mansion. When the men returned to the abode, you didn’t mention anything to them about the random photograph that was on your bedroom floor. Instead, you acted like nothing had happened and kept the image hidden from the men. Plus, you keeping that one picture hidden from your boyfriends isn’t really a big deal, right?

Gorou plops down on the couch beside you, his arms automatically snaking around your waist as he snuggles up against you. “So, did anything interesting happen while we were gone?” He asks, nuzzling the tip of his nose against your cheeks.

“No! I was bored out of my mind!” You whined, letting your body become limp in Gorou’s grapes, sniffling playfully before burying your face into his chest. “I was so bored that I was contemplating on getting a job somewhere in Teyvat!” You said, looking up at Gorou, then at your boyfriends who were sitting around you and Gorou.

Kaeya smiles, moving your legs to sit down where you once sat before letting your legs rest on his thighs. Kaeya brushes your messy hair from your face, “A job, you say? Do you want to work for the Knights of Favonious?” Diluc makes a disgusted noise, causing you to crack a smile.

“I don’t know! I don’t believe that anything government related is my thing. Since I’m not technically from your world and nor am I a citizen of any of the regions in Teyvat, I prefer a job that is simple!” You said. “Plus, I get stressed easily and don’t work well under pressure.” You quickly added.

Zhongli interjects, “Well, working is never easy. Have you thought about continuing your education of some sort? You are a student in your world, correct?” He looks at you curiously.

You nod your head, “That’s correct. I was a university student in my world way before I was brought into your world. But I’m not sure if I can continue my education in Teyvat when the things I learn in my world are very different from what people in Teyvat learn.” You said, tapping on your chin while Gorou played with your hair.

Kazuha hums softly to himself while stroking his chin before inquiring, “Doesn’t that mean that [Y/N] will have to start at a grade school level and work their way up to academia?”

Albedo nods his head, “Yes, it’s very likely that they’ll have to start from the very beginning and work their way up to academia.”

You immediately shook your head, “In that case, I will not continue my education in Teyvat! As amazing as that would be, I don’t have the patience to get familiar with all things Teyvat history, language, mathematics, science, economics, politics, law, arts, and many more. It’s a lot to do, and my brain will malfunction.” You laugh sheepishly. “Plus….” You trailed off, your lips puckering before you looked away awkwardly.

“‘Plus’ what?” Ayato asks, sitting on the armrest of the couch beside Gorou, reaching over to grab you by your cheeks, squishing them together in the process, before turning your head to make you look at him in the eyes. You stared at Ayato with wide eyes, you were about to say something, but the kamera flashing startled you. You pulled your face out of Ayato’s grasp and saw Itto holding the kamera up to his face with a cheeky smile on his face.

Baizhu clears his throat, “Continue.” He says, adjusting the glasses on the tip of his nose with a smile on his face.

You huffed, “I would go to school in Teyvat, but I don’t want to be far away from all of you! And I can never get up early in the morning, and you guys know that I can never wake up early in the morning.” You said. You got off the couch and walked over to where Itto stood before taking the white film from his hands to look at the picture that he had taken of you and Ayato. You grumbled under your breath when you saw how unkempt you looked in the image compared to Ayato. You looked like you just got out of a fight with an abyss Herald while Ayato looked like a handsome prince interacting with a troll from under a bridge that saw the light for the first time.

“You’re talking down on yourself, aren’t you?” Scaramouche asks, bringing you out of your thoughts.

You squinted your eyes at Scaramouche, “And how would you know that exactly?” Your right eyebrow arching up.

Xiao sighs softly, “You tend to make self-deprecating jokes about yourself without even realizing.” He gives you a disapproving look with his arms across his chest.

“Your expression also gave it away, but please remember that we love you just the way you are!” Thoma says, pressing a kiss on the side of your head affectionately while placing his arm over your shoulders, pulling you close to his chest.

Dainsleif nods his head, “Please keep in mind that the way you see yourself is different from how we see you.” He caresses your cheeks in his hands with a sad smile on his face.

You whined softly, “Stoooooop, you guys are going to make me cry!” You groaned, covering your face with your hands before ducking down your head.

Venti panics, “Windblume! Please don’t cry! You know how much it hurts to see you weep!” Venti runs up to you to snuggle up against you, his face rubbing against your shoulders with a pout on his face. As if that would make you feel even better, the other men ran up to you to comfort you and to make sure that you were okay. You saw a flash in the corner of your eyes; you looked over to where the flash of light came from but didn’t see anything. You looked over at Itto quizzically, who smiled at you sheepishly.

“Sorry, I think I accidentally took a photo,” Itto says, rubbing the back of his neck. You brushed it off and grabbed onto his hand and gently squeezed them.

You thought the one photo of you on the hammock was from Itto, but more and more photos start to appear in the abode while you are alone and the others are out. At first, you thought it was a prank of some sort that the men were all in on, but when you brought it up, everyone was confused as to what you were saying.

“Very funny, you guys.” You said, walking into the living room with your towel wrapped around your body, your hair soaked from your shower.

Heizou looks at you in confusion, “Very funny what?” You stared at the men blankly, waiting for one of them to come clean.

“I know it’s one of you that’s playing a prank on me,” You said, crossing your arms over your chest, gripping onto your towel tightly. You were going to get them to confess sooner or later because this so-called prank wasn’t even funny anymore.

“Play a prank on you? As you can see, we haven’t been at the abode much.” Scaramouche interjects, rubbing his temples with a sharp exhale.

“Snookums, as much as we would love to play a prank on you, we have things to do outside of the abode as well, you know that, right?” Childe hugs the cushion against his chest, raising an eyebrow at you. You cursed to yourself internally. Childe was right. If they wanted to play a prank on you, they would’ve been acting weird when you confronted them. Yet no one had the reaction you expected; they were all confused when you brought it up. You felt your heart sink to the pits of your stomach after realizing something. If it wasn’t Itto or any of the other men in the abode that had taken that specific picture of you, then who was it? Could there be an intruder of some sort? No, it can’t be. The abode is secured, and only specific people are able to get into the teapot. You shook your head and turned around to go back into your bathroom, leaving the men to themselves while wondering what you were talking about. You closed your bedroom door behind you and locked the doors, slowly walking up to your desk and staring at the envelope on your desk and the pictures laid out in front of you.

Each of the pictures was taken while you were unaware of your surroundings. One where you were in the bathhouse while butt naked, another photo was taken of you while you were changing your clothes, and other images were of you in a compromising position with the other men while unaware of the person that had snapped that photo. This one picture, in particular, made you feel like you wanted to rip your skin off your body. It was you and Venti, sitting on your bed with you in his lap, both completely naked from the top half of your bodies, your hands cupping his face, lips hovering over his while his hands were gripping onto the fat of your ass while staring into your eyes, his tongue peeking from his lips. In the envelope, it contains a letter written by someone.

“My dearest [Y/N],

It angers me to see you with these men who don’t care about you. They would leave you all along in your mansion while they are out, tending to whatever business they have going on. It hurts to see you all alone, with nothing to do and no one to keep you company. If I were to be your lover, I would spoil you with my love and attention. It is clear that these twenty-one buffoons do not love or care about you with how they are always leaving you at the abode all alone!

My hands were itching to hand these photos to you personally, but I did not want to scare you off. These photos are my absolute favorites that I have taken of you, and I believe that you look absolutely breathtaking and lovely in these images. The way the water trails down your naked skin, the way your eyes roll to the back of your head when the warm water engulfs you is absolutely mesmerizing. You are indeed a beauty. Did you know that? This distance between us is driving me crazy, and I yearn to be by your side. But fret not, my love. I will be by your side very soon. You and I will finally be together, and those twenty-one men will finally be out of the picture. I will reveal who I am to you very soon.

Forever and always,

Your secret admirer.”

You examined the handwriting, hoping to recognize it from one of the men, but alas, none of the men has that handwriting. It was elegant, but it did not look like any of the men’s writing. While writing does not have gender, this handwriting, in particular, is a bit interesting. The dots on the “i’s” were hearts, and the ends of each letter curled up slightly. You grabbed the pictures and letter, putting them back into the envelope before walking back to your bathroom to change into your clothes. Whoever this “secret admirer” of yours was, you will find out who they are, whether they like it or not.

Since the men are busy with their duties outside of the abode, you’ll have to either figure out who this secret admirer is or just brush it off and hope for the best that the person will stop when you continue to ignore their odd way of courting you. You ended up choosing the latter and acted like nothing was going on, despite feeling like there was someone staring into the back of your head when you were not looking.

The more you tried to ignore the situation, the worst it was gradually getting. Each picture you kept receiving got even worse and even creepier. If one of the men were in the photo with you, they would be scratched out, or x’s would be drawn on their eyes. It was strange that this person was going through so much effort to get you to be with them and to show how much they did not like your relationship with your boyfriends. Behind each image were little notes about how much they’ve missed you, how they yearn to be by your side, how they wanted to get your boyfriends out of the picture, etc.

You ended up putting these weird pictures and letters from your creepy secret admirer in a small box and tossing it under your bed to never look at it ever again. Most people would throw it away or toss it into a pit of fire, but you were gathering evidence just in case you have to file charges against this person to the Knights of Favonious, Shogunate, or the Millelith.

“Fine, if this person doesn’t want to stop, then it looks like I’ll have to find a way to confront them about it.” You said, opening the cardboard box that contained evidence.

Maybe with these images and letters, you’ll be able to find a hint as to who this person was. When the men fall asleep in their respective bedrooms, you would get up in the middle of the night and leave the abode, hoping to catch the person that claimed to be your secret admirer. On different nights, you’d explore other regions alone.

You plopped down on the seat outside of Good Hunter, sighing in defeat. “What am I even doing? I’m not going to be able to find this person at all.” You remained sitting in the chair for the next ten minutes, trying to collect your thoughts while ignoring the feeling of someone staring at the back of your head. Your stalker, or “secret admirer,” has been following you around Mondstadt and has yet to reveal themselves. If you were to turn around to try to confront them, all you would see is a crowd of people walking and minding their business while you stood there, looking lost.

You slowly got up from your seat before making your way to the entrance of Mondstadt. As much as you wanted to stay longer in Teyvat to find the culprit, it was getting late, and you didn’t want any of your boyfriends to worry about you if any of them were to wake up in the middle of the night to check up on you. While walking to the front of the city, you stop in your tracks when you hear footsteps echoing with yours. You furrowed your eyebrows before continuing to walk; the person began to walk when you resumed walking to the front of the city.

Once you have made it out of the city, you took off and ran to wherever the teapot was floating. To be frank, you always forget where the teapot was placed whenever you leave the abode. It’s one of the reasons why the men don’t trust you to leave the teapot all by yourself because you will forget where it’s placed in Teyvat. You ran through Whispering Woods, hoping the person would stop at the entrance of Whispering Woods, but you were wrong. The person continues to follow you, but they keep a reasonable distance. The woods were dark; it was hard to see. You shield your face from the tree branches, your chest heaving with every breath you take; your legs feel like it is going to give out on you very soon.

“Where is it? Where is it?” You panted, your heart thundering against your chest as you frantically searched for the floating teapot. Because you were in the woods and didn’t have a flashlight on you, it was almost pitch black and the only source of light to guide you through the woods was the full moon hanging above your head. Like any classic horror movie, your foot got caught in the vines, causing you to trip and tumble down the hill. You quickly got up from the ground before limping to find where the abode could have been placed. You hear a tree branch behind you snap loudly; your head snaps towards the direction where the noise came from, only to see Gorou and Diluc appearing out from the darkness. You felt the sense of relief wash over you when you saw them emerge from the darkness. You collapsed to the ground, your legs weak and exhausted from the amount of running you’ve done.

“[Y/N], why did you leave the abode in the middle of the night!? You could’ve gotten lost or hurt!” Diluc scolds you, walking up to you before helping you up from the ground.

Gorou wraps his arms around you before helping you up from the ground, saying, “You had us worried when we went into your room and saw that you weren’t there!”

The bushes rustle, putting you on edge. You pressed yourself up against Gorou, shaking like a leaf, fearing that your “secret admirer” was finally going to reveal themselves. Ayato and Xiao appear from the darkness, approaching you, Diluc, and Gorou.

Xiao grabs you by your bicep, pulling you towards him, “Why did you leave the abode?” He demands, his eyes narrowing at you. You shrunk under their gaze and looked away from them, unsure of how to answer Xiao’s question.

Ayato sighs, “I believe that it’s best that we interrogate [Y/N] about it when we get to the abode.” Ayato says, pinching the bridge of his nose. The men reluctantly nod their heads before escorting you back to the abode. When you five arrived back at the mansion, the seventeen other men were waiting for you, Ayato, Diluc, Xiao, and Gorou. They looked pissed and worried.

“Care to explain what you’ve been hiding from us for the last few weeks?” Kaeya asks, towering over you.

You look at Kaeya weirdly, “What do you mean? I’m not hiding anything from you all.” You lied, letting Baizhu and Albedo approach you to treat the scrapes that you’ve gotten from your tumble.

“There’s no use in hiding it anymore, [Y/N]. We saw the box you’ve been hiding underneath your bed.” Thoma frowns. You froze in your spot as the four Harbingers approached you before tossing the images on the coffee table, the pictures scattering everywhere, letting everyone see the photos you’ve been hiding from them.

“Do you want to explain to us what these photos are and who has taken these pictures of you?” Capitano asks, picking up a random picture on the table before holding it up.

Pierro interjects, “And don’t play dumb and try to lie to us. We’ve read the letters as well.” He held up the envelopes, his eyebrow raised.

You sighed softly, “I may have an admirer, but they’ve taken it too far, and I don’t know who this person is.” You said, your gaze falling onto the coffee table before looking away from it. Now that the men knew what you were hiding this entire time, just the mere sight of the photographs made you feel disgusting and embarrassed.

“How long has this been going on exactly? There’s a lot of pictures taken of you without your knowledge.” Dainsleif asks; you shuffled through the pictures on the table before handing it over to Dainsleif.

“A few weeks, I think. This was the first picture that was taken of me while you were all out tending to your businesses outside of the abode.” You said. “At first, I thought it was Itto that had taken this photo of me, but then more pictures started appearing, and soon enough, letters accompanied those pictures.” You said.

“Is that why you asked us whether we were pranking you or not?” Aether asks, sitting down beside you. You nod your head, resting your head on your hands. You didn’t know what else to do other than to confront this “secret admirer” of yours. You knew that if you were to do that with your boyfriends, it’d scare off the stalker, and you would never know who this person was. You were hoping it was a prank, but after seeing the reaction from the twenty-one men, it was not a prank at all and that someone was watching your every move.

“That still doesn’t explain why you were out of the abode in the middle of the night all by yourself. You hurt yourself, and you could’ve gotten yourself kidnapped by this anonymous person.” Zhongli says, kneeling in front of you before reaching out to grab your hands.

You sighed in defeat, “I tried to find that person myself. But I failed to do so.”

“You were being followed in the Whispering Woods; it’s most likely the person that has been stalking you for the last few weeks,” Diluc says.

“I believe that this person has been infatuated with [Y/N] for a long period of time but has finally decided to take it to the next step,” Albedo commented, wrapping the bandage around your scraped knees.

Venti frowns, “Well, what do we do now? How are we going to lure this creep out from the shadows?” Venti asks, sitting down beside you to wrap his arms around your waist.

“I hate to say this, but we might have to use [Y/N] as bait to lure them out,” Baizhu speaks up, tucking your hair behind your ear.

Kazuha’s eyes widened at Baizhu’s comment, “You want to use [Y/N] as bait?! You know that can put [Y/N] in harm's way, correct?” Kazuha’s red eyes burned with rage.

Dottore chuckles softly, “Now, now, Kazuha. Baizhu is correct! The only way we can lure this secret admirer out is by using [Y/N] to bait them.”

Childe shakes his head, “Absolutely not! We are not using [Y/N] as bait to lure some pervert out from the shadows! There are plenty of ways to track this creep down, and using [Y/N] as bait isn’t one of them!”

Capitano snorted, “Oh, come on now, Childe. Usually, you’d be on board to use someone as bait.”

Childe gently pulls you up from the couch and wraps his arms around you protectively, “Not when the bait is [Y/N].” Childe shoots a glare at Capitano, Dottore, and Baizhu before looking down at you and cooing at you softly while pinching your cheeks and brushing your hair away from your face. He wraps his arms around your shoulders before pressing a kiss on the crown of your head.

You sighed and rested your head against Childe’s chest, your arms wrapped around his slim waist. As much as you don’t want to be the bait, you need to know who this stalker was so you can finally get a moment of peace… right after you press charges against this person or file for a restraining order if that exists in Teyvat, of course. You slowly pushed yourself away from Childe’s chest.

You hugged your body tightly, “I guess I can be bait, but as long as I’m not alone with this person.” You said, letting your arms fall to your side.

“We won’t let you be alone with this person; we’ll be hiding up in the trees in Windrise and wait for this person to show themselves,” Venti says.

Thoma looks at Venti quizzically, “Why Windrise? Why not the Grand Narukami Shrine or Yujing Terrace?”

Zhongli stands up and dusts his clothes off, “It’s best for us to catch this person somewhere where there aren’t many people around. The Grand Narukami Shrine and the Yujing Terrace have frequent visitors, thus can make it harder to get this “admirer” to reveal themselves.”

“Okay, then let’s go to Windrise now and hope to catch the admirer tonight!” Heizou says, clapping his hands.

Your eyes widen before looking around at the others, “We’re doing this tonight?! I thought we were doing this some other time!” You squeaked.

“The longer we put it off, the bolder and braver this person will become,” Scaramouche says; you slumped forward and pouted to yourself.

Just when you thought you had enough of the fiasco that has happened tonight, it has gotten even worse than you thought. At least this will be the final time you’ll have to deal with the so-called “secret admirer.” Right? The men have come up with a plan where you will be lying underneath the tree in Windrise while all twenty-one of them hide in the tree to wait for your little admirer to approach you and reveal to you who they are.

Chances are that your admirer might not show up tonight, or they will! But it was a fifty-fifty chance, and everyone hoped that this person would show up. Or else it will continue on and escalate even more. Here you are, laying underneath the massive oak tree in Windrise. You looked up in the tree and saw the twenty-one men giving you a reassuring smile.

Gorou whispers loudly to you, “You’ll be okay! We’re right here with you.” Even though he wanted to shout down to you to reassure you, he didn’t want to risk getting his and the twenty other men to be seen by your admirer.

You closed your eyes and turned on your side before curling up into a fetal position. You would rather sleep in the abode, but maybe sleeping under the giant oak tree in Windrise isn’t so bad, especially when you feel a gentle breeze. Perhaps it was Venti’s subtle way of comforting you without revealing their hiding spots. Before you knew it, you drifted off to sleep under the twenty-one men’s watchful gazes. Not even an hour had gone by, and you were woken up from your slumber by the sound of leaves crunching and tree branches snapping.

You kept your eyes shut, not wanting this person to know that you were woken up by the sound of leaves crunching and branches snapping. You curled into a tight ball, praying that this person wasn’t going to do anything to you while you were “unconscious.” The footsteps got closer and closer to where you lay; the person stopped in front of you and kneeled in front of your face.

Itto grumbles under his breath, “Dammit, they’re covered.”

“For someone who wants to reveal their identity to our precious [Y/N], they sure are a coward,” Ayato scoffs, rolling his eyes while watching the person get a bit too close to you for their liking.

You cracked your eyes open when you felt someone brush their thumb over your cheeks, tucking your hair behind your ears. You looked around with bleary eyes before rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. You looked up at the person and let out a choked gasp before sitting up suddenly, alarming the men hidden in the tree.

The cloaked person whispers, “Apologies for waking you up, my dear. I couldn’t help myself.”

“You’re….” You stood up and backed away from them, eyes wide in shock.

“Oh, are you disappointed to see who I am?” They frowned, their shoulders slumping.

You gulped before laughing nervously, “I just didn’t expect to see you…” You trailed off. Eyes scanning the cloaked person. “Donna.” You whispered.

“DONNA!?” Kaeya and Diluc whisper loudly, looking over at one another with wide eyes before looking back down to where you and the cloaked person stood. The cloaked person sighs softly, taking the hood of their cloak off, finally revealing who they are. Alas, it was Donna, the girl that was hopelessly in love with Diluc.

“I thought you were in love with Diluc.” You stated, crossing your arms over your chest with your right eyebrow raised with skepticism.

Donna shakes her head, and she reaches out to grab both your hands. “I’m not in love with Diluc anymore! I’m in love with you!” She claims. You felt dizzy. This was all so sudden, and someone like Donna was in love with you? “All of those pictures, all of those letters, it was all from me!” Donna exclaims.

You shook your head, “Donna, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m in a relationship.” You said, trying to pull your hand away from her grasp.

Donna scoffs and rolls her eyes, “Of course, I know that you’re in a relationship with those idiotic men. You’re better off without them, and you’re better off with me instead!”

You yanked your hands away from her grasp, “Donna, I swear if this is some kind of a sick joke to you—”

“It’s not a joke! I’m in love with you, [Y/N]! Why can’t you see that you’re meant for me and only me!?!” Donna screeches, lunging towards you. You ducked from under her arms and held both your hands up, not taking your eyes off of her for one minute.

“Why aren’t any of them stepping in!?” You ask yourself, subconsciously looking up at the tree where the men were hiding.

“You deserve to be with someone who will love you until their final breath! You deserve to be with someone that won’t leave you all alone while they’re out and about! And you know who that is? That person is me!” Donna pants, her hands trembling with fear and anger.

You rubbed your temples, feeling your head starting to ache. “I’m sorry, Donna, but I do not feel the same way. I’m in a happy relationship with my boyfriends, and they make me happy.” You stated.

“Why?” Donna cries. “Why them!?” Donna screams, her voice echoing through Windrise.

You stared at the brunette in front of you, “You want to know why?” Donna nods her head eagerly. “I’m with them because I feel safe when I’m around them. They protect me; they love me, and they care for me.”

“And!? I can do all of those three as well! I killed that insolent bastard that had made you feel uncomfortable!” Donna exclaims, glaring at you with hot tears running down her face while her chest is rising and falling at a rapid pace with each breath she takes.

“You killed Yifan?” You choked, your eyes widening in fear and shock. Donna nods her head and wipes the tears off her cheeks.

“See! I told you I could protect you from the people that make you feel uncomfortable! What makes me any different from the men that you’re currently dating?!” Donna demands as fresh tears slide down her cheeks.

“They don’t take pictures of me while I’m in my most vulnerable state. Sure, Itto takes candid pictures of me while I’m not looking, but his intentions are pure. Yours is disturbing and makes me feel uncomfortable.” You spat, glaring at the woman in front of you.

“Please, [Y/N]. Please, give me a chance! I’m way better than those twenty-one idiots!” Donna sobs, dropping onto her knees with her forehead pressed against the grass. “I’ll worship the grounds you walk on. I will worship you like a God! Just, please!” Donna looks up at you; endless tears continue to roll down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Donna. But my answer is final.” You said, turning to walk away from the tree.

“Fine! If I can’t have you, then no one can!” Donna screams. You stopped in your tracks; your back continues to face her direction. What did she mean by that? You hear rapid footsteps approaching where you stood; you turn around to see what Donna is doing, only to see her charge at you with a dagger in her hands. A geo shield materializes around you, blocking the hit that was directed at you from Donna. Donna screeches and begins to stab at the shield over and over again. Zhongli was immediately by your side, expanding the size of the shield while glaring at the brunette in front of him.

“So, you have decided to try to murder someone just because they did not reciprocate your feelings?” Zhongli glares at Donna before wrapping his arms around you protectively.

“The Knights of Favonious will be taking her into custody now,” Kaeya says, strutting up to you, Zhongli, and Donna with the Knights of Favonious following after him. Kaeya turns towards the Knights and gestures for them to take Donna away.

“What?! Keep your hands off of me!” Donna screams, throwing her arms around wildly, causing the dagger to nick one of the knights on the cheek. Donna gasps and drops the blade. The knight glares at Donna before grabbing her by the wrist and yanking her forward before putting her hands behind her back.

“You’re under arrest for an attempt of murder, resisting arrest, and injuring a knight.” Huffman glares at the brunette before taking her away with the other knights in tow.

“You know, I did not see that coming at all,” Aether says, hopping down from the tree.

Diluc lets out a humorless laugh, “Who knew that the strange secret admirer was none other than Donna herself!” Diluc crosses his arms over his chest with a quiet sigh.

“Now that we’ve uncovered who this strange person is, I believe that it’s time for us to return to the abode,” Heizou says.

“Yes, please! I’m so tired, and I don’t think I can stay awake any longer.” You said, leaning in Zhongli’s arms. “Who knew that it would be Donna.” You snorted, shaking your head.

“It really took an unexpected turn.” Dainsleif mumbles, standing by your side while rubbing your back to comfort you.

“Yeah, you’re telling me! Who knew that she was the one that killed Yifan!” Kazuha says, shaking his head.

Albedo walks up to you with a reassuring smile on his face, “Let’s go home, yeah?” He held his hand out for you to take.

“Yes, please.” You sighed softly, grabbing onto Albedo’s hands. “And, can someone please sleep with me tonight? I don’t think I can sleep peacefully after what happened not too long ago.” You said, turning to your boyfriend.

“I’ll do it!” The men chorused, holding their hands up in the air. They all glared at one another; their hands remained in the air.

“I’m too tired for this.” You sighed. “All of you can join me. Just please don’t crush each other.” You said, walking with Albedo to the abode while the other men followed close behind you while bickering with one another over who’s going to sleep where in your room as long as they were close to you and as long as you felt safe and could sleep without fear.

Note: Okay, so this fic is wayyyyyy longer than the first part of "Obsessed with You." 💀 I didn't plan for the fic to be that long, but I guess that's fine LMAO! Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this fic! Next week's fic will most likely be a request because I haven't done a request since the beach fic, so it will be an individual character fanfic as well (it's Venti, it's a request) because this person didn't really specify any other characters in the story or the reader being the isekai'd!Reader. Anywho! For those who are new or returning readers, please keep in mind that I ONLY post on my Tumblr (Genshinluvr) and my AO3 (Aaliah_exo)! Nowhere else except Tumblr and AO3!

Taglist for "Various Genshin Men x Isekai'd!Reader" and my overall taglist: @xxkatsusjinsux, @huboi, @plumpkie, @crazyrichdaughter, @sucker-for-angst-and-fluff, @patata52, @honeybedo, @thedivinepriestress, @pencil-of-ashes, @samarill, @bakuhve, @yukima, @chaosinanutshell, @emperatris-rinaka, @neilify, @ksjjkthpjm, @jaisithebird, @mouchie, @emerald-smile, @jixlem, @the-blob-fish, @jiminscarmex, @bananazzzen, @thelost-in-time, @kryloxen, @ayolk, @tomansimp, @lordbugs, @c-camellias, @chihawari, @lilliansstuff, @zhongloml, @sweethcnvy, @wolf-chan2134, @simp4-fictional-men, @dai-tsukki-desu, @trash-queen-af, @tamayakii, @spo0k-mxchii, @hispasian-otaku, @stygianoir, @crispynutduck, @rnd0m-snnxr (if you have not been tagged, it's because you have your settings turned off for people to tag you in posts)

Taglist is currently closed right now due to tagging limitations on Tumblr; Masterlist can be found [here]!

Hey guys! I hope you all enjoyed this fic and all of my previous works as well! I recently opened up a ko-fi, so if you'd like to support me, please consider tipping there! I'm also currently working on making commissions soon too! This doesn't mean I'll no longer be doing requests, but commissions will be for people who want super-specific stuff or want to express lane their stuff! There will be more details about that later, thank you so much!~ Ko-Fi: [here]

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lhazaar · 2 months

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hey. i'm turning my chair around and sitting in it backwards now because i want to speak specifically to people with ocd. this is a targeted post and is not meant to apply to the userbase of this website at large or to serve as a policy decision.

hi. do you know what scrupulosity means? it is a strong, intense, often painful concern about morality or religion. it's very common for religious people with ocd, actually—the fear that you've sinned, that you will sin, that your thoughts themselves are sinful. you're afraid of being an evil person. every thought and feeling you have is scrutinized to exhaustion in case it's proof that you're evil. this also happens for non-religious people with ocd, it's just that ours will look different; it's often a preoccupation with social justice issues. you care a lot about being a good person, right! most people do. you want to be a good person, you want to be kind to others and to dismantle oppressive systems where you can. i'm making some assumptions here, but they're based on my specific audience base.

so, there's this thing that happens online, especially on tumblr and twitter—not because bluh bluh platforms bad, but because of the ways in which information is propagated on here. people used to tag for these posts sporadically but don't do so as much anymore. you know posts that exhort you, the reader, specifically, to take action? they tell you not to look away, not to bury your head in the sand. they tell you to give and to agitate and to donate time, money, resources.

those posts used to make me intensely, deeply anxious. i don't mean mild agitation, i mean life-ruining, day-occupying panic that seizes your entire body, and thoughts that don't leave your brain. guilt that paralzyes you because you, personally, cannot go kill the politicians responsible. you don't have enough money to do more than donate a few dollars, and sometimes you don't even have that. but because of where you live, because of the fact that you have internet access and you're literate enough to read these posts, you know that you have a level of privilege that most people never will. you're aware of that privilege because you're reasonably in-tune with social justice movements and you've probably spent some time dissecting your own privilege to examine your biases. (that's not a bad thing; i'm not here to condemn that. stay with me, if you can.)

there's a thing that can happen if you've lived with ocd like this for a long time where you become kind of incapable of telling what's addressed to you personally and what isn't. everything feels like a personal exhortation. you have trouble saying no, or knowing when you're overextended, because other people have it worse. how dare you enjoy relative comfort when people are being bombed or drowning in a climate change -induced flood or being crushed to death in a crowd panic. how dare you not be aware of it at all times, always, constantly. how dare you look away. don't look away.

i want to tell you about something i went through, if that's okay. a lot of people who follow me will already know this, but i haven't talked about this aspect of it very much publicly. in 2020, while visiting my partner in southern oregon, we had to evacuate from wildfires twice in under 24 hours. that was a really, really bad fire season, caused and perpetuated by a combination of global climate change and colonialization practices that destroyed traditional indigenous fire management strategies across the west coast of north america. fires stretched from bc to california. we wound up fleeing south, and then had to flee back north again, hemmed in on three sides. i flew back home to bc shortly afterwards, and i have this vivid, awful memory of seeing my home mountain range, the cascades, choked out with smoke from the window of an airplane. the woman in front of me sobbed the entire time until we touched down.

i remember thinking at that time that it was insane the entire world wasn't stopping. what i was experiencing was apocalyptic in scale—the fire we ran from the first time was part of a complex that chewed up entire towns. it wasn't the first fire season, nor the worst for the continent, nor the world. but all i could think in the moment was why aren't we doing anything, this is going to be all of us in a decade, why are people looking away.

if i had gone online and posted that, it would not have been morally wrong of me. there's no ascribing morality to a reaction like that. i mean, if i'd gone to someone who suffered in the years prior in australia or california and told them that ours was So Much Worse, that would have made me an asshole, but i didn't do that. i made some upset facebook posts targeted at the trump voters in my family, but i had no way to express at the time the sort of clawing panic of WHY AREN'T PEOPLE DOING ANYTHING??

the answer to that, which you probably know, is: what would they have done? we were sheltered by friends we evacuated with, but what power did a mutual in new york or wales or singapore have to affect a wildfire in oregon?

so, come back to the present day with me again, if you will. i said above that posts worded like this used to make me really, really anxious. in the span of time after the fire, i developed ptsd, and my ocd ruined my life. i took an extra year to graduate after i'd finished all my coursework because i could not send in the forms required. i was too busy spending 10-16 hours a day rearranging furniture in my room, or lying in bed, full-body tense, until it felt like my teeth would crack from the pressure. i'm medicated now. i'm grateful for it. i have more tolerance for these posts because i've been there. i know the op isn't doing anything wrong, because they're not wrong. why isn't the world stopping to look at a natural disaster, or a genocide? the world should not be like this.

you are not the world. you are someone with a brain that will torture you to death given the chance. you know how learning to reckon with your privileges, whatever they may be, requires you to not try and escape them? you need to be able to hold in your head that yes, you benefit from something that isn't fair; yes, other people should have that benefit, and that they don't is unjust. but you need to, for example, not try and weasel your way out of being white because you're uncomfortable with the guilt that it produces. you need to not go online and say well not ALL americans because you can't sit with the idea of being complicit in american imperialism. if you have ocd, you need to apply that to your own brain, too. you need to apply it to every post that you see. you need to know that people are not speaking directly to you, they are crying out in pain and fear. they are not doing anything wrong. they are scared and hurting.

they do not benefit from you taking on all the guilt of that fear and pain. i am not saying this to absolve you of the guilt. i am saying that you need to be able to exist with that level of guilt without allowing it to paralyze and destroy you. if you can't do that right now, i'm not here to cast judgement on you. blacklist phrases. i had "wildfire" blacklisted for a long time. i'm sure i missed aid posts because of it. the alternative was me being nonfunctional. for a long time, i had donation posts blacklisted across the board, because the way my ocd worked meant that i was neurologically incapable of knowing where my own limits were, and i would give money i did not have. if you need to do that, this is me giving you permission. doing this does not make you evil. it does not make you morally bankrupt. it makes you someone whose brain is trying to fucking kill them, and the world needs you to not let that happen.

this is not a post about how you're exempt from caring about the world if you're mentally ill, it's about how you cannot apply that care to anything useful if you're having massive panic spirals every other day about the guilt that you feel. your guilt should not rule your life. if it does, i say this kindly, but you very likely need medication. i'm sorry if you don't have access to that right now. you cannot think your way out of ocd. you cannot think your way into stopping neural activity. you cannot guilt your way into being a good person; you have to be able to exist with the guilt and not let it rule you in order to do that. nobody benefits from your brain trying to martyr you in the name of solving the world's suffering.

you need to be able to function, free of crushing and paralyzing guilt, before you can help anyone. you are not an effective ally like this just because your brain tells you that it's necessary.

#bark bark #ocd tag #actually ocd #also i want to say this now: if you do not experience ocd i do not want your 'well actually' takes on this.#again. this is not a site-wide thing i think everyone should do #do not mistake this for me saying that it's ~okay~ to be wilfully ignorant about genocide or climate disaster #i am speaking to a very specific clinical population whose brains do not work in a way that people outside of that population understand #the guilt you experience with ocd is not the same guilt that everyone has just turned up #it warps your entire personality. it warps your sense of right and wrong #you will deal with it for your entire life unfortunately #(even medicated i still absolutely have Intense White Guilt episodes lol #i just try not to make them my loved ones' problem #because part of handling pathological guilt has to be responsibility without overresponsibility)

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leoparduscolocola · 3 months

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hey, it's me. i'm not coming back to tumblr permanently, but i figured i'd post this here as a virtual diary entry of sorts (and because i don't know anyone irl that wants to talk about cetaceans at the moment). maybe this post will change people's minds, or at least get them thinking. this isn't directed at anyone or anything; it's more to clear my mind and hopefully inform others about orca captivity, seaworld, etc.

the past six months have been very difficult for me. i'm doing better now, but i'm just not at the place in life i thought i would be at right now. throughout my struggles, one of my biggest sustainers has been my passion for animals, and orcas have been my predominant obsession for a while now. the felidae family, especially lions, will always have my heart—they're the first animal i fell in love with, and they will always be incredibly fascinating and awe-inspiring to me. however, orcas have seized hold of me in a way that i can't really describe. everything i've learned about them has blown me away, from their uniquely stable, mostly nonviolent and matriarchal social structure to their incredibly diverse hunting techniques to their cultural behaviors to the wide diversity of their physical appearance. i just love them so much.

as such, it is inevitable that i would encounter debates about captivity in the course of my internet travels in search of ever more information about these animals. for most of my life, i was unapologetically pro seaworld, viewing them as no different from any other zoo or aquarium and their critics as simply having been bamboozled by the film blackfish (although i staunchly refused to actually watch the film until a few months ago, only listening to how seaworld and its supporters depicted the film to me). by the time i started this blog, i had grown more critical of them, as reflected in my pinned post. at that time, i was more critical of killer whale captivity in general than of seaworld specifically. however, after i had to leave my former college in the middle of the semester due to my mental health, i found myself with a lot of time on my hands before the start of the semester at my new college, so i started doing some more research. as a history nerd, i have always been interested in the history of human interactions with wildlife, and the history of human interaction with orcas is unique from an anthrozoological perspective. i became particularly interested in the era just before and after the release of blackfish in 2013—how seaworld, the scientific community, the animal advocacy community, and the public at large responded, and the lasting reverberations of that era today. i fired up the wayback machine and began painstakingly examining any website i could find from that era that had to do with that topic, from awesomeocean.com to seaworldofhurt.com (neither of which are credible sources, btw: awesome ocean is basically a seaworld-funded buzzfeed clone and seaworld of hurt is run by peta). what i found blew me away in the worst way possible.

the website i spent the most time on was askseaworld.com/ask.seaworldcares.com (https://web.archive.org/web/20160110084856/http://ask.seaworldcares.com/). i cross-checked the information posted there with a little-known website i urge everyone to check out, https://www.seaworldfactcheck.com/ (which i didn't have to use the wayback machine to access, because seaworld has attempted to purge pretty much everything related to the blackfish era from their websites whereas anticap websites haven't). only a handful of the sheer volume of questions they received were fact-checked by seaworldfactcheck, so i had to check a lot of them myself. i was flabbergasted by the responses seaworld posted on askseaworld. they ranged from just your typical corporate pr messaging to outright lies. a common thread running through all of them was a complete refusal to admit that they ever did anything wrong in their entire history. that's something that the entire zoological field has trouble doing, but never had i seen it on such clear display. for example, they audaciously claimed that kohana's calves weren't inbred, and that the degree of relatedness between kohana and her calves' father, keto, is standard practice in ex situ breeding programs. meanwhile, the aza says that inbreeding is to be avoided here and here. additionally, these two pages, while they focus on pedigree dogs, stress that a coefficient of inbreeding (the likelihood of having identical alleles from a common ancestor on both sides of the pedigree) over 5% leads to problems, and kohana's calves had an inbreeding coefficient of 6.25%. i'm no geneticist, but sw's response to that question is questionable, to say the least. when asked about the whales they captured from the wild, they only used the word "collected", which came across to me as corporate doublespeak attempting to obfuscate the trauma and utter cruelty of ripping these complex, cultural, family-oriented animals from their families permanently for the primary purpose of entertainment—which, regardless of their current messaging, was undeniably the purpose of seaworld when it was founded (see page 9 of that link, which is also an incredibly well-researched and well-referenced argument against marine mammals in captivity that cannot be dismissed out of hand just because it comes from an anticap source). they refused to offer even a semblance of regret for how those captures were carried out—even a halfhearted "society's standards for animal welfare were different back then" or "at the time, we had no idea how this sort of thing could impact these animals" would be better than what they said, which was simply that "those were a long time ago". ok, but just because we didn't know it was wrong back then doesn't mean it wasn't wrong. it was just as wrong then as it was now, and seaworld doesn't even say it would be wrong for them to do so now; they just repeat the same line over and over about their last captures being decades ago.

however, none of these are as bad as the askseaworld response that appalled me the most. it genuinely made me question every positive thing i had ever heard about seaworld. unlike most of the questions, the name of the person who asked it was not stated, giving the impression that seaworld perhaps posed it to itself as a sort of preemptive strike. this was their response:

this is one of the most unacceptable and heartrending things i have ever seen written by any person or entity related to animals. nonhuman animals are not a monolith; there are millions of species of animals out there, each one with its own unique behaviors, social structures (or lack of social structures), role in the broader web of life, and ways of thinking. to suggest that the social dynamics of all the animals in the world are so similar that they can be crammed into the word "most" is utterly presumptuous and incorrect. at the risk of sounding like a vegan activist, i will dare to say that this statement enforces a harmful anthropocentric worldview that implies that humans are the only species that could experience distress at the loss of a loved one. by declaring that most animals just get over a member of their social group dying without a second thought, seaworld dismisses years upon years of science revealing the social lives of animals from cows to rabbits to, yes, orcas. including parents in this statement is especially ironic, considering that mother orcas undeniably demonstrate some of the strongest bonds with their children in the animal kingdom, arguably even stronger than humans—after all, when's the last time you met a human who has never left their mother's side their whole life? with this statement, seaworld revealed a callous indifference to the rich inner lives of their animals, focusing on the grief their human employees feel when an orca under their care dies over the far greater grief the orcas themselves probably feel when a member of their actual family dies. orcas have inherent worth and dignity and that deserves to be acknowledged, not dismissed so we can all go back to empathizing with the trainers. i'm not dismissing the trainers' grief in any way; i'm not trying to say the reverse of what seaworld said. rather, i'm saying that their grief shouldn't be seen as more important or more valid than the grief of the orcas.

some might say that this single response, no doubt composed with the help of a public relations firm, should not be taken as representative of seaworld or its trainers as a whole. to that, i would say that while individual employees (i.e., orca trainers) of seaworld may not agree with this statement, it can be presumed that this is or was at the time the official stance of the corporation that is seaworld parks and entertainment, incorporated. personally, i do not think it is possible to separate support for the trainers from support from the larger corporation running the show, as financially supporting seaworld inevitably supports the corporation (which has asked its employees to do some pretty unethical things) and its stakeholders, not just its employees. customers' money is not going into the pockets of trainers; it's going into the corporation first and foremost to pay the CEO and stakeholders before a paltry amount per dollar is redistributed at the company's whim to their trainers and rescue efforts.

as i processed this response, i decided to do some more research into the anti-cap side of things. i found that, despite seaworld's constant claims that they are a science-based organization, i could not find a wild orca biologist (meaning somebody who researched orcas exclusively in the wild, without a personal connection to seaworld or any other captive entity) who supported keeping orcas in captivity in general or seaworld specifically. of course, i don't know all of the wild orca biologists in the world, so i could be missing somebody, but all of the big names who conducted the most groundbreaking research on orcas in their natural habitats condemn orca captivity, as these links show: michael bigg, alexandra morton, ken balcom, deborah giles, naomi rose, paul spong, erich hoyt, and ingrid visser. these are not peta activists—they are experts in their field with phds and decades of experience! pro-caps often accuse anti-caps of only listening to their emotions instead of science, but how is it valid to dismiss all of these esteemed scientists as being biased when their research and experiences in the field with orcas are the reason why they are against captivity? seaworld tends to portray itself as objective and rational and their opponents as emotional and irrational, but how can all of these orca experts who have nothing to gain financially from opposing seaworld be completely incorrect when it comes to captivity and the corporation that profits off of having them in captivity be completely correct? the most praise directed towards orca captivity from a wild orca researcher i could find was robert pittman referring to them as "sacrifical animals" who display obvious signs of poor welfare but need to be kept in captivity anyway so the public will fall in love with their species; hardly a glowing endorsement. in her presentation at the california coastal commission, naomi rose said something (starting at 10:36) that really opened my eyes. she said that she does not believe that seaworld and its trainers are being intentionally cruel to their animals, but that they simply do not understand them: "if they don't know what normal is, then they cannot know what abnormal is." she's saying that in order to build a solid foundational understanding of a species' normal behavior, one must spend as much time as possible observing that species in its normal, evolutionary, default way of living, i.e. "the wild". without doing this sort of firsthand research or drawing upon the scientific literature produced by those who have, one cannot claim that an animal of this species in totally abnormal conditions is displaying normal behavior. the aim of captivity for any species should be to replicate an animal's normal way of living as much as possible to allow the optimal amount of normal behaviors to be expressed, and what the scientists i have mentioned claim is that orca captivity is failing at replicating this way of living.

the institution of orca captivity in its current form takes away almost all elements of what would be considered an orca's normal lifestyle, from hunting to staying in their matrilines to communicating with other orca pods to moving large distances on a daily basis to choosing who they mate with and when to experiencing changes in water depth, light level, pressure, salinity, currents, waves, and weather. they destroy their teeth , exhibit increased aggression levels with each other (compared to their remarkably stable social structure in their natural habitat), and experience dorsal fin collapse, a phenomenon that seaworld has declared has no implications for these animals' well-being despite conducting zero research on it (seriously, imagine if all male lions' manes fell out in captivity and zoos shrugged their shoulders and said it was fine without ever exploring why). manmade enrichment and training can supplement this, but in my opinion it can never replace it entirely because these animals live such active and complex lives in the wild. basically the only natural thing that they are allowed to do in captivity is breed (but again, they can't always choose when they mate and with whom). i and the above scientists believe that orcas' welfare is already so compromised in captivity that removing this element is worth it to protect future orcas from having to endure this and to reduce demand for wild captures as genetic diversity in breeding programs runs out (to my knowledge less than 30 orcas worldwide are part of captive breeding programs) and, as we're seeing in china, new parks opening demand more orcas faster than they can be born. more and more and more breeding (chimelong has been breeding especially rapidly, forcing katenka to have 3 calves in just under four years when a wild orca would only have one calf in that time frame, and shanghai and kamogawa sea world are breeding as well) does not quell the need for wild captures; it drives it. the success of seaworld parks in the usa is likely a major factor in why businesspeople in other countries (china, russia) have started majorly investing in capturing orcas in the past decade.

that brings me to something that has really disturbed me lately. over the months since chimelong spaceship opened in china, i have seen a continual backwards shift in what the pro-cap community has considered acceptable. the number of pro-caps that i have seen praising chimelong while giving mere lip service to the fact that most of their orcas were traumatically ripped from their families is astounding. you cannot praise a facility while ignoring the source of their animals, and you cannot condemn the fact that these orcas were wild-caught while throwing your support behind the industry driving demand for these captures. i highly doubt people come to a theme park that is literally shaped like a giant spaceship with any intention of being educated or supporting conservation; they come there to be entertained, just as people came to seaworld solely to be entertained for much of its history. also, pro-caps must not ignore the fact that spaceship's parent company, chimelong, operates a deplorable circus, chimelong international circus, that abuses wild animals and forces them to perform dangerous and demeaning tricks. chimelong also operates zhuhai chimelong ocean kingdom, at which cruelty and neglect have been documented (china cetacean alliance may be connected to animal rights groups, but that doesn't mean the results of their investigations are completely invalid). this report about chimelong and shanghai, including concerning animal behavior and misinformation being spread by chimelong trainers, is also incredibly concerning. even if no outright orca abuse has been recorded at shanghai, chimelong, or other new facilities yet, it is still concerning that their sister facilities engage in such blatant abuse with other animals. if three out of four restaurants in a chain have been caught on camera serving moldy, spoiled food to their customers, it's a pretty safe bet that the fourth one will eventually be caught doing so too.

anyways, that about wraps up what is by far the longest post i have ever made on tumblr. nobody i know irl really cares about cetacean captivity, so i wanted to vent here. i am not the most anti-cap anti-cap out there for cetaceans, but i definitely am more so than i used to be. heck, i'm not even universally opposed to something like the whale sanctuary project being constructed—wikie, inouk, and keijo are likely going to be transferred out of marineland antibes soon, and even though the sanctuary model is totally unproven, i can't help but feel that their welfare would be better there than at the places they are rumored to have been sold to: kobe suma sea world, kamogawa sea world, and port of nagoya public aquarium. the former two feature tank complexes that are barely bigger than tokitae's infamous "whale bowl", and kamogawa still does waterwork. also, it is rumored that marineland antibes wants to split up their orcas between these facilities, which wouldn't happen at the wsp and would make the stress of the move even worse. however, i absolutely cannot stand the wsp's messaging; they spread a lot of poor-quality information. as many others have said before, the sanctuary model could be super risky, and it's doubtful they could construct it in time if the french government allows the orcas to be moved, considering marineland antibes wanted these orcas gone yesterday. as usual, captive orcas are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

however, i want to make one thing clear: i'm not an expert or a scientist, nor do i wish to portray myself as such. i'm just a bored college student who is obsessed with animals and has too much time on her hands. i try to get as much of my information from experts and scientists as possible, but i do not claim to be an expert and i'm always willing to learn from the scientific literature and from people who can engage in respectful discussion. in regards to captive orcas, i would certainly love to be wrong.

#katherine speaks #orcas #orca #killer whale #killer whales #seaworld #cetacean #cetaceans #zoology #animal welfare #chimelong spaceship #shanghai haichang ocean park #cetacean captivity #orca captivity

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lav-endermoon · 3 months

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i think i speak for all of us when i say that i am mentally and emotionally exhausted. aside from many reblogs, i've held off on posting about the wilbur situation for the sole reason that it is difficult for me to cope with. to be clear, i will no longer be posting in support of cc!wilbur or lovejoy, nor will i be interacting with those who continue to. time will tell if i continue posting about his characters - i've been drifting away from dsmp for a while now, and at the moment i feel very uncomfortable associating with anything related to wilbur.

i'm going to take some time off tumblr to process all of this (seriously, if you see me on here, please yell at me), but before i go i want to say that we should thank shelby for exposing the truth, being vulnerable, and opening up conversations that needed to be had. deplatforming wilbur and spreading the word of his actions is important, but our energy also needs to be directed to supporting her.

i hope that after a long series of mcyt scandals (<- for lack of a better word - feels a bit reductive), this is a wakeup call for people to stop putting their emotional stability in the hands of public figures and realize that anything they show us not only could be, but most likely is, a facade. i say "public figures" because this is not an mcyt problem - it's a problem within content creator circles in general. recent situations have displayed what happens when parasociality/idolization becomes dangerous. the amount of people in these communities who resort to downplaying and dismissing victims or blatantly upholding abusers, all in the name of keeping their fave on a pedestal, is disturbing. this is a conversation that needs to continue, for the sake of victims and those who fall into unhealthy patterns of idolization. we need to change the way our communities treat victims, and we need to think critically when engaging with CCs who we will never know personally.

none of this is to say that anyone's feelings of grief are invalid. this is a hard thing to come to terms with. it's hitting me that i was deceived by the person who influenced me to become a songwriter, whose music found me at the most relevant time, who wrote a character who i could connect with during a time where i felt deeply alone, who wrote a story that brought me so much joy and comfort at my darkest hour and inspired so many creative projects. i feel hurt and betrayed. even though all the time and love i devoted to his content was voluntary, i still feel like something has been taken from me. like i've been taken advantage of - not just by him, but by the entire industry that he is a part of. i feel manipulated, threatened, and unsafe, and those feelings have been an undercurrent throughout my time in this fandom.

your attention is quite literally currency, and you should assume that creators will try to exploit it. our brains are hardwired to trust others, not to tell the difference between real human connection and a streamer broadcasting their personal life + showing affection to their audience. don't blame yourself for the effects of an inherently parasocial type of content. don't blame yourself for having an emotional attachment to someone or something that once brought you comfort. be gentle with yourself right now, and going forward, examine how the content you consume makes you feel. how does it make you act? how does it change your thoughts? what biases do you have? these forms of content can be deeply manipulative and putting up a mental boundary is important - and, like shelby said, listen to your gut. we need to remember that they are profiting off of us and learn how to keep ourselves safe psychologically. this is another conversation that needs to continue.

take care of yourselves.

#wilbur situation #wilbur soot #this is long and discursive but i'm exhausted man #apologies if this is poorly strung together. trying my best with the state im in #my post

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lady-october · 2 months

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Pairing : Oli Sykes x Female Assistant Genre : Romance, Smut (18+ Only) Full Story : Availabe on Archive of Our Own

Story Content : 18+, Smut, Drama, Choking, Power dynamics, Romance, Dom/Sub, Sadism/Masochism, Mentions of addiction & self harm, Degradation, Praise kink, Exhibitionism, Breath play, Dirty talk.

Summary :

“Don’t you see what a dangerous game you’re playing? Why did you have to look so fucking delicious tonight, I couldn’t stop undressing you in my mind, thinking of all the twisted things I want to do to you.” She had only worked on the touring team for three weeks, but her mind had been hijacked by dirty thoughts of a man she barely even talked to. Sure, he was very attractive, but were there other reasons she was so uncontrollably drawn to him? This is a filthy story of pain, self discovery, and love.

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Chapters 2 - 8 : Mega Post

This post contains chapters 2-8 of You Got a Taste Now so that all chapters can be read on Tumblr as well as on Ao3. All future chapters will be posted as individual posts, but I do recommend reading these early chapters on Ao3 instead, as it's a lot easier to keep track of where you are that way. Link above!

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Chapter 2 - What the hell is happening?

Chapter title is lyrics from "Dear Diary"

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It was raining.

Of course it was, it had been raining all morning. This was England after all.

I was sitting under an awning on the balcony of the same hotel room from last night, waiting for everyone to wake up. Only six hours had passed since Oli went back to his room after what I fondly will refer to as ‘having his way with me’.

Six hours, and all I’d done since was clean the place up – poorly might I add, and had a shower to freshen up. Such simple tasks, so easy to sum up in one short sentence. But something very different was happening on the inside. My mind didn’t get a moment of rest, it was replaying the event over and over, picking it apart from every direction – catching up on the self psychoanalysis I was avoiding just six hours ago.

I shook my head.

Still just six hours, that can’t be right…

I reached for my phone to check the time once again, only 9 minutes had passed since I last checked.

The idea of sleep had felt offensive, so I hadn’t even considered it. Instead most of the time was spent pacing back and forth in my hotel room in my bathrobe, experiencing a myriad of confusing emotions and thoughts. So many unanswered questions were floating aimlessly in my mind. Was I into pain? No, surely not.. Maybe? But oh god it felt so good...

I had always considered myself fairly vanilla. In fact this was the first time I’d had sex that wasn’t in a bed. But I liked that, the bedroom was safe, relaxing, sweet and tender. It was.. great. And not at all boring.

I've had great sex before… Right?

And then there were the serious thoughts, the ones that had been hard to touch on but I couldn’t help revisiting.

Such as; was this a form of self harm? Will I get addicted to this type of high?

Will every other form of sexual intimacy become meaningless in comparison?

My mind would rake through these harder, more painful thoughts, gingerly touching them like hot coals fresh from the fire, checking if they’d cooled down enough to examine them closer.

But they were still entirely too hard to process.

Then the insecure thoughts would creep in; why didn’t he tell me whether he wanted to do this again or not? Was it just a one time thing – or had I been disappointing in some way? God what a sad thought to have.

I wasn’t the most secure of people. Before this job I’d been quite shy, and the only reason I had even applied for this was because I desperately needed to get away from my life after I found out my ex had cheated. I’d been living with him since I was 20, I’m now 31. We were looking to buy a house, have kids... And then one day after my office job, I was cooking dinner, he’d left his phone on the counter and I saw the text pop up on his phone. ‘I miss you’ it read. Just three simple words that would end my life as I knew it.

I’d suspected it for years. He wasn’t home much, always out with the guys, and when he was around he barely paid me any attention.

I just wasn’t ready to face it.

After I’d moved back to my parents, a friend of mine suggested this job. She worked with the agency recently and could give me a shining recommendation if I felt like travelling and partying with rockstars. It was so far out of my comfort zone I just laughed it off at first, but something in me had been itching to break free and do something wild for as long as I could remember. So I did it, I applied – and she wasn’t lying about shining recommendations, they seemed thrilled to have me onboard so last minute.

But whenever I got an order wrong, or knocked over seemingly expensive equipment I always felt like an imposter, because the truth is that I’m a truly terrible assistant. And the only reason I was here was because my friend who has connections in the right places was worried I was wasting away.

No, let’s be real; she was worried I’d off myself any day now.

I wasn’t that far gone, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind. And I’d be lying if I said it hadn't occurred to me that I was heading there.

But everything changed when I started working for the band. They were such lovely and fun people, making even shy me want to break out of my shell a little bit – sometimes.

It had only been three weeks since I was brought onto the touring team, it was mostly me (Alice) and Liam, who had been doing this for years. Liam was a 40 something, flamboyant, kind hearted, and extremely patient soul, who was doing his very best to try and teach me the ropes. The first time I met him I knew we’d get along great. An unfortunate series of events had unfolded causing me to be half an hour late to the meeting with him and the agency. I’d woken up that morning to my mother screaming bloody murder at her cat cause he’d dragged in a bird and managed to sprinkle pieces of guts and feathers all over the living room, only to realise I’d turned off the alarm and was actually running so late I wouldn’t have time to do anything besides put on my clothes from the night before and potentially get a speeding ticket on my way there. I’d stumbled through the door, hair in a bird's nest, hiding my pizza stained shirt with an oversized coat. I was about to start running down the corridor to get to the front desk on the other side of some glass doors, when I heard a light yet demanding male voice behind me.

“Oi, hold up a minute, are you Alice?”

I hadn’t noticed him sitting next to the front door. He got up from his seat, absolutely towering over me. He was a skinny man, long blonde hair very similar to my own, clipped back on one side with a hair clip that shockingly read ‘die cunt’ in a cursive font – such an aggressive contrast from the sweet man, smiling from ear to ear before me.

“I was told you might be a bit late so I thought I’d wait for you..” He eyed me up and down and frowned, took a step back and folded his bare arms. One thing to note about Liam is that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him wearing anything with sleeves, usually this is a trait of someone who works out a lot, or has a lot of tattoos, but neither of these things were true about Liam. He just had a peculiar aversion to sleeves.

“Y-yes, I am so sorry I’m late, I-”

I don’t think he was listening to me cause suddenly he snapped his fingers like he’d figured something out, then wordlessly took the clip out of his hair and proceeded to push my hair back on one side with it, while sprucing up the other. “There! At least now the mess looks intentional.”

I took a look at myself in the reflection of the glass door behind him, and it did.

We never talked much about our feelings, but Liam always had my back. He could clearly tell I was a lost soul and very much out of my element. I hadn’t seen him in almost two days, he had given me a long list of instructions, including how to deal with the party from last night, then he’d taken the past two days off before we flew to America – which we were scheduled to do in just three short hours.

A pigeon landed on the balcony next to me, snapping me back to the current situation, and I checked my phone for the billionth time. To my dismay only 5 minutes had passed this time, so I slump forward with a groan, which scared the pigeon off.

I just wanted to get the awkward bit over with. I was almost certain everyone had heard me and Oli last night – maybe not Matt, he was particularly wasted.

The last instruction on the long list Liam had left me said “Don’t you fucking dare wake the lads until the last minute. They’ll be furious if you do and probably end up blaming me.”

So I waited.

Nowhere in the notes had he specified what to do if the lead singer bends you over and fucks you. It could have come in handy right about now because I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I wanted so badly to fast forward a day, after we’d all said our awkward good mornings, after the drive to the airport – and especially after having been stuck on a flight together for 8 hours. I just wanted to be tucked into my hotel room in Vegas already, finally relaxing, maybe even some sleep if my thoughts would allow me.

Maybe I’d even have some answers from Oli at that point.

I heard the tap running from inside and my head snapped to glance through the glass doors of the balcony. I could see Matt standing by the sink, taking some form of tablet with a glass of tap water. I was surprised to see him be the first to wake up, considering his state last night.

After taking a deep breath to hype myself up to get this over with, I walk back into the common area of the suite.

“Heey Alice, just who I wanted to see. Any chance you could whip us up some coffee, my head’s bloody pounding”, Matt said, looking absolutely miserable.

“Morning, yeah of course, what do you want?” This was good, if we just focused on the job surely it wouldn’t be too awkward.

Walking into the kitchen area with a clear task in mind, I could now see the sitting area where the whole band was currently lounging, including Oli with his hoodie up, bent over his phone. Liam was also back, occupied by dragging luggage out of the rooms. He must have come back recently and woke everyone up. And I had been too lost in thought to even notice.

In my surprise at the turn of events, I’d completely missed what Matt had requested.

“S-sorry Matt, what did you say?” I spoke sheepishly, shyness creeping in once I realised Oli was in the room.

“Just black for me.” Matt repeated, then Lee spoke up from the sofa, sounding chipper, “I’d go for some food myself.”

Lee was clearly the most sober last night, which was also evident by his mood today. He both sounded and looked well rested, unlike the rest of them.

Everyone spoke up with their orders, except Oli. He had yet to tear his attention away from his phone, typing furiously the whole time. Lee gave Oli’s arm a slap, “You don’t want anything Oli?”

“Nah mate, I’ll just eat on the flight.” He said, sounding completely unbothered, not looking away from his phone.

“Alright! All done with that bit.” Liam proclaimed after stacking the last piece of luggage near the door, while nearly sprinting in my direction, flaunting that big warm smile he so often wore.

“Alice, my sweet doll, you’ve done fantastic.” He proceeded to bend over and give me a hug. While looking over his shoulder I could see that the place appeared significantly cleaner than the state I’d left it in some hours ago. He really did have my back. Thank you, I mouthed at him as he pulled away.

The next hour was spent getting everyone's orders and loading up the van, then we were off to the airport. To my surprise there had been no awkwardness as of yet. No one had said anything out of the ordinary banter, and no one had treated me any different than the night before – besides Oli who had not made eye contact once, or spoken a word to me.

To be perfectly fair I’d been avoiding him too. I just had no clue how to break the ice.

Liam decided he would drive the van to the airport because he was more familiar with this area than me, so I sat up front next to him. The whole band sat behind us in two rows, and this is when the ‘no awkwardness’ streak ended.

Oli had managed to sit in the only seat that was visible from my angle in the rear-view mirror, which meant if we both looked at the same time we’d lock eyes. The potential of that happening had me both exhilarated and panicked, which made me feel pathetic. Something so insignificant shouldn't affect me this much. I kept catching myself stealing glances, mentally whipping myself for the lack of discipline. Everytime I caught myself looking, he was just staring out the window, fairly expressionless. Such a stark contrast from all the passionate emotions on his face last night. The memory of them started playing in my mind like a filthy montage. Then my thoughts wandered back to how his hands felt on me, at one point I caught myself reaching for my throat as if to imagine his grasp still being there.

What the hell am I doing?

I straightened in my seat and tried to focus on something else, anything else.

I’d spent some time after my shower inspecting my neck, not knowing exactly how to cover the faint marks left there. I’d settled for a high collared dress, then right before leaving my room I’d added a scarf for good measure. I knew I’d have to take it off eventually. Sure, it was cold in London, but not in Vegas. Liam must have noticed something was up cause he kept glancing over at me with suspicion.

We were just a couple of minutes into the half hour drive to the airport, the rest of the guys had been chattering and joking with each other nonstop at this point when Mat (not to be confused with Matt) complained, “I’m so fucking tired though, maybe I can get some sleep on the plane. Was it you Lee that was railing some poor bird last night? I couldn’t sleep at all until you two were done, and frankly I was shocked to not see the whole place destroyed when I got up.”

My heart sank and I willed myself to not look at Oli’s reaction, even though everything in me was screaming to just have a quick peek.

Matt chimed in, “I just put in some earplugs, I’m so fucking tired of listening to Lee at this point.”

I could hear Lee laughing, “Wasn’t me mate, I was the last one awake but I bumped into Oli on his way back out as I was heading to bed. You got something to share with the group Oli?”

The whole band broke out in ooo’s and aaa’s and anyone who could reach started peppering Oli’s arm in teasing punches, as well as messing up his hair. This is when my concentration broke and I let myself look at Oli, he was smiling awkwardly at them, then he also stole a glance in the rearview mirror and we locked eyes for only a split second, but it was enough for me to choke on my spit and start coughing. Liam's reaction came swiftly and dramatically as his head snapped to mine, eyes wide, jaw dropped. Did you really? He mouthed at me in disbelief.

I shrugged sheepishly, looking apologetic. Liam just shook his head as his expression relaxed into an amused smile.

While Liam had instantly pieced the puzzle together, no one seemed to have noticed what was going on in the very front of the vehicle, as the band was still very much focused on Oli.

“Was it that ginger who kept flirting with ya last night?” Lee inquired, “She was something else, wasn’t she?” He added, in an almost dreamy tone.

“Fucking hell, stop it.” Oli laughed, swatting everyone's hands away. “I don’t kiss and tell lads, you should know that by now.” He sounded so amused, making an involuntary smile tug at my lips.

“You don’t kiss at all as far as I’m aware. I thought you’d gone celibate since She Who Shall Not Be Named left the picture.” Retorted Lee.

Mat scoffed, “Whoever it was man, I’m just happy you’re on the rebound. It was getting sad.”

Rebound.. Is that what it was? A pang of sadness washed over me. It shouldn’t make me feel anything at all, especially since technically this was a rebound for me as well.

I knew that Oli was single, and I knew he’d been in a serious relationship. But from my knowledge that ended over a year ago. Has he really not been with anyone since, or was there someone more recent I didn’t know about from my quick google prior to taking this job?

The rest of the drive, and most of the flight Oli had continued being uncharacteristically quiet. He was usually clowning around with the rest of them, but whenever I dared steal another glance he appeared lost in thought, hints of sadness emitting from him.

It was clear that Liam wanted to talk about it but I’d gotten the impression that he was planning to wait until after since the quarters were so crammed. The small plane was split into two sections. One larger area that was mostly seating where most of the guys hung out, then a smaller area with a bar and cabinets for snacks, and just a couple of seats. For the first four hours of the trip Matt had been napping in the smaller area, but as soon as he evacuated Liam pulled me away to chat.

“Spill.” He demanded as he pulled me down into one of the seats next to him.

I instantly started blushing, “Honestly I don’t really know how it happened, he just sort of grabbed me and started touching me.” I spoke softly, afraid the words would travel despite how loud the plane was.

Liam looked very concerned, “Alice, do we need to call the agency? We can fly you back as soon as we get to Vegas if you-”

“Nonono,” I cut him off, waving my hands. “I understand the concern, but no I wanted it to happen.” I could feel the blush creeping in more and more.

Liam relaxed.

“It just happened really fast, and I still don’t have a clue what it means, or if it was just a one time thing.” I looked at Liam, questioning, as if I was hoping he’d have answers simply cause he’d worked with them longer.

“Oh love, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. All I know is that I haven’t seen him sleep around since I’ve worked with them the past year, but I don’t know what he does outside of tour-times. He was in a pretty serious relationship that I think messed him up a bit. But beyond that who knows, he’s a bit of a mystery-”, Liam cut himself off as we both spotted Oli walking through the doorway.

We locked eyes and I felt like a deer in headlights.

Had he heard us talking about him?

Liam's eyes darted back and forth between us, “right, I'm gonna leave you to it.” He proclaimed unceremoniously as he slapped his legs, got up, and slid past Oli out of the room. Liam wasn’t the most subtle of people.

And suddenly it was just me and Oli.

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Chapter 3 - Sticks and stones may break my bones

Chapter title is lyrics from "Ludens"

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Oli stood in the doorway for a second with his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his hoodie. He looked so shy. I knew he could be shy at times, I’d seen it with fans sometimes when we were out and about. But he had never been shy around me during the short interactions we had, just cocky and charming. I guess it was extra shocking to see after what we did last night. He walked over and sat down next to me, our legs brushed together for a split second, making him reposition.

He regretted it. My mind was flooded with the thought; he regretted being with me, it wasn’t what he wanted and now he’s going to turn me down entirely.

At this point I was so nervous I felt like I was going to puke.

We were both facing straight ahead, sitting in uncomfortable silence. Oli’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times before he finally spoke, “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

The words were so solemn I dared to turn towards him, his eyes were fixed on the floor in front of us, hair draping his face. Apparently I wasn’t the only haunted one.

But anger was creeping in from every direction. I was so sleep deprived, so confused, and overwhelmed from all my revelations, and now the added knowledge of him regretting what we did was just entirely too painful. The last thing I wanted was to be denied the only thing that had made me feel alive in years, but I could feel the possibility of it ever happening again slip away as quickly as it came about. So I snapped at him, “I don’t know what I did wrong last night, but I can tell you’re regretting what we did, and quite frankly I think that’s bullshit.”

His eyes shot to mine, the intensity from last night flashed behind them. “Do you not understand that I enjoyed hurting you?” His voice was dark and serious, “Do you think I want to be this person, someone who just can’t control themselves. I barely know you, and you’re an employee for fuck sake.”

It was my turn to open and shut my mouth repeatedly, I felt dumbfounded.

His hand, covered in a blackout tattoo with an intricate pattern, appeared from his pocket and reached out for my scarf. He let two of his fingers – the same ones he’d had inside me just the night before – graze leisurely down from my jawline to my collarbone, revealing the marks on my neck to him. His vision followed the trail of his fingers. I was frozen in place, a longing shiver running down my spine, making me forget for a split second how mad I was. Meanwhile a confusing mix of fascination, sadness, and possibly hunger was playing across Oli’s face. He continued speaking as he pulled his hand away, “Alice.. You walk around looking as lost as I feel. If I don’t put a stop to it now, if I let this play out, I’ll destroy you.”

The anger was back, and I adjusted my scarf to cover the marks again, “I’m not some poor innocent lamb being dragged off for slaughter. I’m a grown woman, I can decide for myself what I want to do.”

“Yeah? Well I don’t really give a shit.” He shook his head and let out a frustrated laugh, “How exactly do you see this ending, love?”

“I-I don’t really know, but I do know that last night was the most alive I’ve felt in years.”

“That’s the problem though, innit? I felt the same way, and that scares me. I don’t know where it ends, I wanted to just keep hurting you – and not just physically – to make myself feel better, to make you feel better. Do you know what I mean?”

There it was again, the confusing mix of arousal and fear. I hated how he described it as some form of self harm – for both of us. I hadn’t been able to digest that thought for myself last night while pacing in the hotel room, let alone his reasons for wanting to do certain things to me. Frustration was boiling inside me, making me want to scream. I didn’t want to care about the implications, the possible outcomes, I just wanted to keep exploring it. Fucking finally; something that made me feel better. Something that released the ever-building pressure inside me.

I steadied myself and looked him square in the eye, “I don’t care, and I don’t want to care.”

Oli turned towards me and leaned in close, his serious expression mere inches from my face, “I care.” He relaxed back into his seat, looking down before continuing, speaking softly now, “I think you’re a lovely person, Alice. You’re shy but you’re like a ray of sunshine – everyone agrees. Liam’s fantastic, but let’s be honest, the guys much prefer when you’re around. So I feel like a right prick for last night.” He glanced over at me before continuing, “I don’t know much about you, but I know you’ve recently come out of a long term relationship,” How did he know that? Appearing nervous, he adjusted his hair, “And I’m sure you know I haven’t been with anyone since.. After me and her broke up.”

I felt my brows furrow, a bit thrown off from his intimate knowledge of me, as well as confusion regarding where he was going with this.

He pressed on, “I know how I felt when I found out she’d cheated on me, and if you’re feeling even a crumb of that betrayal, I know you’re not in the best head space right now.”

My brows relaxed, realisation hitting me, “I see..” I sat up a bit straighter. “You’re right, you don’t know much about me Oli. You have no clue what my life has been like, or what my relationship was like – and how do you even know he cheated-” I shook my head for even asking, it wasn’t important right now, “Don’t worry about it. I understand, you think you’re doing me some grand favour.”

“You can be as mad as you need to be, love. I should have just picked one of the groupies last night and spared you all of this. I’m furious with myself for having jeopardised you wanting to stay with us for the rest of the tour.”

I shot out of the chair, feeling too close to tears to keep listening to him. “I’m not leaving the touring team. I don’t just give up when things get a bit complicated.” I retorted, glaring down at him.

He stood up in front of me, looking down on me now instead. An amused smile playing on his lips in acknowledgment that my words had referred to him turning me down rather than my job situation, “I know what you’re trying to say love, but I’m just glad you’re sticking around.” I just glared at him in response. He inclined his head towards the doorway that led to the larger area where everyone else was currently hanging out, “I’m assuming Liam knows?”

“Yeah, he figured it out in the van.”

“Do you want to keep this just between the three of us?” There was pity in his eyes, making it unclear whether he was asking due to his own privacy – out of shame of his actions, or whether it was for my comfort.

“Sure, we can do that.” Regardless of his motives, I still didn’t want everyone to know. Especially not now when Oli had made it clear this was just a one time thing.

One time. Was that really all it was going to be? I couldn’t tell if it was more or less painful to have experienced such an emotional and sexual high, and to have it be ripped away, or to never have experienced it at all and continue living my life as a zombie.

We parted ways and the rest of the flight was spent avoiding each other. Thankfully the other band members were playing games which made it easy to focus on their silly shenanigans rather than feel the emotional despair in silence.

It wasn’t until I walked through the door of the hotel room in Vegas that I let myself break down. The tears came instantly, I didn’t even make it to the bed. Instead I just let my body collapse against the door and sobbed.

Everything came crashing down, and there was just pain. Pain from knowing I wont be manhandled by Oli again, pain from feeling so terribly rejected by both him and my ex – like there was something deeply wrong with me on a personal level. Something inherently broken and off-putting.

Pain from having my life ripped away from me by some fucking loser who didn’t even know how to wipe his arse properly – made evident by the skidmarks I had to look at everytime I was doing the laundry. Why had I stayed with him? Why had I let myself become so… domesticated. I was just going through the motions of life, settling when it came to just about everything. My office job made me want to rip my hair out – but the pay was decent enough so I stayed. The flat we picked was not to my liking one bit – oh, but it was near his job so we took the lease anyway.

Did I even want kids, or had I only wanted them because he wanted them?

And then there was pain from all the small ways my personality had been ripped away from me bit by bit over the years. I wanted to dye my hair, but he liked it blonde. In fact he didn’t like it much at all when I appeared anything besides sweet and palatable. I think that was part of why it had been so liberating to dress in a more revealing manner the past three weeks. I finally didn’t feel complete boredom when looking at myself in the mirror anymore.

I cried and I cried, until I was beyond exhausted.

And then I finally slept.

The next day can only be summed up as utter madness, but it was always like that on the day of a gig. There was simply too much to do at any given moment, not made better by the fact that I’d overslept again. Being the crying mess I was last night I had completely forgotten to set an alarm, instead I had been woken by a frantic Liam pounding on my door, rambling off the whole list of things we needed to get done as soon as I let him into my room.

I was very grateful he hadn’t pointed out how I had overslept. His room was right next to mine so he more than likely had heard my little break down, made evident by how extra patient he was being. He instead helped me get ready, and then we proceeded to do our whirlwind of tasks. Most of the day had been spent at the arena getting everything just right, and before I knew it there was only half an hour until it was Bring Me the Horizons turn to perform.

I hadn’t seen any of the band members all day. Liam had repeatedly sent me off on little missions away from them – which again, I was grateful for. But I knew they had been backstage in the dressing rooms for many hours at this point, getting ready and warming up.

Walking down the corridor on my way to the stage area, I see the band filter out of the dressing room ahead of me. They’re laughing and chattering as they draw nearer, and Oli was holding a drink bottle. I had never seen him drink prior to a show before, only after. I gave it the benefit of a doubt, considering it could just be water, until they were walking up to me and noticed a slight flush on his cheeks, as well as his glassy eyes. He smiles lazily at me, making me look away out of awkwardness. The rest of the band paid me no attention as I rushed past them, knowing me and Liam were always too busy this close to a show.

A pang of worry hit me after they disappeared around the corner.

Had our talk caused him to get drunk now? Was the show going to be a disaster because of it? Would it all be my fault? I shook my head, knowing my thoughts were nonsense. Oli was responsible for his own actions after all. Yet the anxiety remained.

I found Liam and we took our place standing to the side of the stage, mere moments before the show started. Everyone but the lead singer was already on stage, and I could see Oli’s silhouette in the distance to our right as he waited for his queue.

My heart was sinking further, so I pulled Liam's shoulder down so I could speak into his ear over the loudness around us “Oli’s been drinking.” Liam looked at me, then over to Oli, before speaking back into my ear, “It should be fine, he does that sometimes, just been a while.” For some reason I had a hard time believing him, but my worries melted away once he ran on stage. The whole set went perfectly, if anything he sang with more passion than usual. But I did notice less crowd interactions, something he was quite known for doing a fair bit of.

It was very hard to watch him tonight. Everything he did would elicit vivid memories from two nights ago, making me desperate to be back there with him again. He was down on his knees, bent over panting, exerted from singing and performing, and my whole body would recall how it felt when he was hovering over me, holding me down, wearing a similar expression to the one he wore now. I tried to shake off the memories but it was too late, my core was already throbbing in anticipation.

Delusion set in; hope even. That maybe – just maybe he wouldn’t be able to resist tonight. Maybe the drinking would make him give in and take me back to that high I craved so badly, the high that felt more vital than air at the moment.

The song ended and Oli started running off stage to do a quick wardrobe change, he was about to turn the corner and run right past me but he must have seen it on me; how horny I was. For just a split second when our eyes met, he shot me the most feral look I could imagine.

Right before their set was over I decided to leave. I didn’t want everyone else to notice how ridiculously horny I was, and I wasn’t sure what I would have done if he looked at me like that again. I’d probably make a complete fool of myself and just blatantly moan, or simply throw myself at him.

So for everyone involved, especially myself, it just seemed smarter to remove myself from the situation.

I was briskly walking down the corridor from the stage to where a row of rooms were, when I heard someone running up behind me. Due to how loud the arena still was, I hadn’t heard it until just a second before someone grabbed me, and threw me over their shoulder, promptly knocking the air out of me. I never got a chance to see who it was, but I knew it was Oli. He felt and smelled just like him. Adrenaline surged through my veins, and that hope I’d felt earlier grew stronger. He pulled us into one of the adjacent rooms and kicked the door shut behind us with his boot. In one motion he flung me off his shoulder and pinned me to the door, further rattling me, wrapping my legs around his waist.

None of the lights were on in this room, instead everything was painted in hues of green from the emergency exit lights. My heart was pounding, and our breaths mingled as my vision adjusted. He was slick with sweat as he pressed against me, eyes glowing like green flames in the darkness. His voice came ragged, “Is this what you want?” He proceeded to grab me by the throat, making me gasp for air. “You stupid whore..” Words spoken through clenched teeth. He tightened his grip and gave me a shake. Instinctively my hands scramble to attempt to pry him off me so I could breathe, but to no avail. I was officially scared, more so than the first time he choked me. But what scared me significantly more than my lack of air was the realisation that I didn't want him to stop. Thankfully after a moment he let go and I slumped onto his shoulder, inhaling sharply several times. But he didn't let me compose myself before he yanked me back into his view.

A sadistic laugh escaped him, his wicked smile filling my vision, “Don’t you see what a dangerous game you’re playing? Why did you have to look so fucking delicious tonight, I couldn’t stop undressing you in my mind, thinking of all the twisted things I want to do to you..” His fingers grazed my throat with intent, trailing off into my cleavage. His voice darkened “Couldn’t stop thinking about how you taste, how you feel..” His hips ground against mine, and I could feel the heat between us despite our clothes, as the length of his cock pushed against my pussy. I whimpered painfully, my throat incredibly sore. Through the hunger, his tone turned serious, “Before talking to you yesterday, I can’t tell you how badly I wished you’d regretted it – that you wished I hadn’t fucked you. If I knew you wanted more, how was I supposed to resist? It just feels too good doesn’t it?” As he was talking his expression slowly changed to almost childlike wonder. With a depraved smile tugging at the corners of my lips, I nodded in response.

He mimicked my smile then kissed me passionately, similarly to the other night; but something was different, something I couldn’t quite put a finger on.

Our bodies moved together, trying to get closer. It didn’t seem to matter what we did, he just wasn’t close enough. So I reached between us to loosen his belt, but he grabbed my wrist and pinned it to the door behind me, pulling his mouth away from mine. “Fuck sake, love. Let me do this my way, that’s what you want innit, for me to have my way with you?” I didn’t get a chance to respond before his lips covered mine again. The hand on my wrist pried my fist open and intertwined our fingers, turning the moment increasingly intimate – something he shied away from the other night.

A bewildering flurry of emotions bloomed in my chest; warmth, longing, sadness. It all came at once, intensified by him slowing our kiss to something deeper. Something just as powerful as the explosiveness from moments ago, but more akin to the roar of a bonfire.

My other hand freed itself from the tangles of his hair, and I let my fingers roam his face instead – an emotionally indulgent gesture that had him flinching the other night, seemingly welcomed tonight from the squeeze he gave my hand. His face was stubbly and so delightfully warm and slightly slick from the exertion of the show, making some of his hair stick to his temple. I imagined this is what he felt like after making love for a long time.

Making love.

Confusion crept in, not knowing how to interpret the situation, not knowing if this type of intimacy was something I wanted right now. Unlike the more aggressive activities which freed me from my internal pain, these tender ones were pulling on something very delicate, something that really didn’t want attention right now.

I felt vulnerable, like an open wound – infinitely more powerless than when he was choking me.

Was I starting to panic?

That’s when Oli pulled away, resting his forehead against mine, leaving me to wonder if he was having a similar experience.

A heavy silence fell. Uncertainty of what’s to come filled the air, making it hard to breathe. Do we go back to doing delightful and depraved things to feel better, or do we continue down this unknown path he was leading us down?

He raised his head and our eyes locked. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw; the vulnerability, the fire, the sadness – the pain. I felt like I was falling backwards. He was looking right through me, and letting me see something in him I wasn’t sure he showed very often. He inhaled a ragged breath, then leaned in to continue kissing me.

I thought I was scared before, but it paled in comparison to the fear I felt now.

I can’t do this.

My hands shoved at him, my head twisting away from his lips, “No! Get off me!” I bit out as he stepped back.

Tears stung behind my eyes as I struggled to land on my feet, then I tore the door open and ran.

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Chapter 4 - I can’t drown my demons

Chapter title is lyrics from "Can you feel my heart"

This chapter is from Oli's perspective.

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Something in me had been torn wide open, an old wound I thought had scarred over by now.

She had disappeared so quickly, leaving only the bright light from the corridor to flood me; a sobering and offensive spotlight, adding to the shock of having her ripped away from me so suddenly. My body felt like ice where she had been resting against me, warming me.

I wanted to run after her, beg her to forgive me for ruining everything, beg her to forget all about this, but my heart was breaking all over again. I looked down at my hands, watching them shake uncontrollably.

I needed to get my shit together, I couldn’t do this again. My eyes were burning when I decided to slam the door shut and lean against it to steady myself.

The rejection cut sharp and deep. I felt like some type of monster, like there was something incredibly unlovable about me. For some daft reason this was the time my heart decided to relax, and let myself be tender – just for a minute, and it sent her running. I scoffed at the realisation. She wasn’t scared of the passion; the darker side of it, no she wanted that a fair bit actually. But the heavier parts of me, the softer parts – that was the real monster.

I pushed off the door with a deep sigh and started pacing the small storage room in the dim green light, tears streaming down my face.

There had just been something about Alice, drawing me in like a magnet, bringing something out in me that I thought was either dead, or buried so deep I’d never see it again. And the mad bit was I couldn’t figure out why I liked some things about her. Everything she did was like witnessing a car crash miraculously be avoided at the last second.

The first day she worked for us I remember her running down some stairs with our food orders. The tall stack of containers were leaning against her upper body, only kept stable by her chin. With every step they’d slide around, threatening to knock the entire tower over. Yet somehow she made it down with everything intact despite stumbling on the last step. I couldn’t tell if she was cursed or incredibly skilled to be honest. Although the order had been real scuffed, I’m not sure any of us got what we wanted, but we didn’t have the heart to tell the poor thing. So we ate it anyway.

The moments that stuck in my mind the most were the ones where she thought no one was watching.

During one of the afterparties in her first week I’d seen her mixing drinks by a console in a dark corner across the room. She was doing a silly little dance to the music, her golden locks bouncing as she dropped a piece of lemon on the floor. A completely insignificant mistake, but she had stopped dead in her tracks, looked around, eyes wide as saucers to see if anyone had seen, then cheekily kicked it under the console. I couldn’t help but laugh.

Later that same night I saw Liam come in through some patio doors. The mad man had some type of vendetta against sleeves or something, cause why the fuck would you be outside like that in the middle of January?

I got up to catch him before he ran off again, “Hey Liam, you alright?”

He was clearly annoyed at having been interrupted doing whatever he was busy with, but he forced a smile, “I’m alright, what do you want?” He glared at me.

Liam was a blunt man, but I liked that about him. It was refreshing.

“What do you know about Alice?” I asked, trying not to look too sheepish.

He tilted his head, giving me a suspicious smile followed by a short pause as if he was contemplating whether to tell me anything at all, “Why are you asking?”

I looked away awkwardly, not knowing how to answer that, not knowing myself why I was so interested in her. He must have been satisfied with the reaction because he continued, “I know she’s freshly single, poor thing was also cheated on. So be kind to her, yeah?”

I nodded, “Yeah no worries man.” I was about to walk off, under the impression that he was done sharing, but he stopped me.

“You remember Shelley?” I nodded, she had just stopped working for us right before they brought on Alice, “Well Shelley put in a good word for her, it’s why she has this job. They’d been friends since childhood. Do you remember Shelley talking about her childhood friend from back home?”

The puzzle pieces started to fall in place. She was that Alice. The Alice that had allegedly set her ex’s car on fire when she found out he’d been cheating, the Alice who had been struggling with depression for as long as Shelley could remember, the Alice that Shelley had been calling everyday religiously, to make sure she hadn’t off’d herself after quitting her job and moving back to her parents.

Liam must have seen the realisation on my face, “Yeah she’s that Alice. So seriously Oli, be kind to her. She’s pretty fragile.”

Before that conversation I’d just had a fascination with watching her weird and charming behaviour, but now I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

And it was making me feel like shit.

It didn’t help that I made her so delightfully flustered. Every time I spoke a word to her she’d stutter, stumble, or blush. It was intoxicating. I just wanted to tease her.

But things got unbearable when we were in Dublin. We were staying at a smaller hotel and my room was right next to hers. I was laying in bed trying to drift off when I heard a soft moan. My eyes shot open and I listened carefully. Another moan. I quickly sat up in bed and pressed my ear to the wall behind me. There were so many small noises it nearly drove me insane, before I knew it I was rock solid. I started to imagine doing things to her, that I was the one making her sound like that. Every night since I’d get hard thinking about her little noises, letting my imagination roam wild with increasingly degenerate things I wanted to do to her.

And every day I would notice her clothes becoming more revealing, her eyes on me dripping with more and more lust when she thought no one could see her looking.

Every day I’d also catch her staring into space, obviously in deep pain.

Something about that spurred me on, made me want to do things to her.

Liam’s words kept playing in my head over and over; be kind to her. And I agreed with that, she should get to heal and be surrounded by kindness. We all deserve that.

Then why did I want to humiliate her and call her names? Why was it that when I was alone at night, as cum was shooting onto my stomach, that my final thoughts would always be of her beautiful, freshly tortured face?

I tried to not overthink it, it was just fantasy, right? Just a fun thought to get off to. But then my mind would start to wander during the day as well, imagining things while watching her. That’s when I knew I had a problem.

It wasn’t until I grabbed her that night and fucked her that I realized the rough sex I wanted was actually to lessen the pain; for both of us. Was that healthy? I had no clue – probably not. Everything in my body had screamed at me to do it, like my subconscious knew exactly where to scratch the itch. I don’t know how I knew she had the same itch, I thought it might have been a deranged delusion until she’d confirmed it on the plane. Her pain had been a lighthouse in the night, but instead of steering clear of the warning, I’d headed right towards it.

It worked though. The morning after we had sex I felt lighter in some inexplicable way despite being guilt ridden and sleep deprived. And for the first time in over a year I was inspired to write lyrics. I was so wrapped up in writing on my phone that morning I hadn’t even noticed when Alice walked in from the balcony. Although the lyrics had been complete shit, but that was alright, it was part of the process. I just couldn’t believe I was writing again.

For some naive reason I had thought giving in, to let myself have her – just this once – would rid me of this obsession. So I could finally move on.

When she made it clear she wanted more, I panicked. But while infuriating, and challenging, I still had my mind set on staying away from her.

I’m an idiot.

My boot hit something while pacing back and forth in the green light of the storage room Alice had left me in, jarring me back to the moment. I noticed I wasn’t shaking anymore and took a seat on the floor, leaning against the wall.

Tonight was different though, not like the first time. I don’t know if it was the exhaustion from the show, or just how impulsive I had been. Everything I told her on the plane I still believed, but something in me came undone when I saw how she was looking at me as I descended the stage. Suddenly her words from our conversation rattled in my head, sounding very convincing; ‘I don’t care, and I don’t want to care.’

I was so fed up with caring. I just wanted more of it – more of her. When I grabbed her tonight I felt so much frustration, so much anger with myself for not wanting to stay away anymore. Seeing the fear in her eyes as I choked her, even if it was just for a couple of seconds, made me feel such glee and satisfaction. I could have toyed with her all night.

But then she was wrapped around me, kissing me, caressing me with her delicate hands. She was so soft, so warm... A part of my heart that had long frozen over began to melt.

I was scared, but I felt brave enough to explore it.

Instead I was immediately reminded of why I had let that part of me freeze in the first place.

Pulling my knees up, I let my elbows rest on them as I dragged my hands through my hair, pushing it out of my face.

My sadness turned bitter. I was expected to be on vocal rest tonight after the show, which I was pleased about. All I wanted to do was wallow in my self pity– alone. I got up to find Liam so he could arrange a ride to the hotel. He had clearly seen something was off about me, but thankfully not questioned it, and before I knew it I was standing in the hotel shower.

As I was watching the water run down the drain I could feel myself slipping into a dangerously dark place of my mind. A place that had led me to drugs in the past.

I repeatedly tried to shake it off, but hours passed and I was still slipping.

Around two in the morning I decided to go down to the hotel bar, not so much to drink but rather to be around people, and to get a change of scenery.

When the elevator doors opened to the bar area, my heart sank.

Alice was sitting at the bar on the other side of the room, a bit hunched over. I contemplated turning around, going back upstairs, but I knew what waited for me there, and I’d had enough of that. Instead I took a deep breath and started walking towards her. The closer I got the more obviously drunk she appeared. She must have been here a while. My own sadness got pushed aside, sympathy taking its place.

“Alice?” I spoke gently, hoping not to startle her. Her hollow eyes turned towards me, barely meeting mine. She was far gone.

I continued, “Maybe it’s time to head to bed, yeah?”

Thankfully there was no fight in her, she just nodded clumsily and slid off the seat. She would have fallen on her face if I hadn’t caught her. I propped her against me as we slowly stumbled out of the bar. Once we were in the elevator she collapsed further and I slid one arm under her legs while the other supported her back, then I picked her up. She nestled effortlessly into me.

When we got up to my floor I realised I didn’t have a clue where her room was. I looked down at her pained face so close to mine, “Where’s your room, love?”

Her words came slurred, “You know I actually don't have a clue.”

I stood there staring at her for a long time, knowing my options and not liking them. I could either call Liam and let him know about her state, or take her back to my room.

Would she get fired if they knew she’d gotten this drunk during a tour?

Without skipping a beat I started walking towards my room. She wasn’t exactly the best at her job, and I couldn’t bear the thought of her getting in trouble for something I’d been the cause of.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it was unlikely she’d get fired, but I couldn’t risk it; couldn’t risk her not being around anymore. I wasn’t ready for that.

I laid her down on the bed. She cuddled into the pillow instinctively and mumbled something inaudible. All I could do was pull the cover on top of her. Meanwhile something pulled at my heart.

I had been so lonely for so long. I didn’t even know this woman, how could I possibly feel anything for her beyond attraction? I was just falling for the idea of her, because I related to her situation. Knowing I’d go insane if I didn’t ignore the feelings, I pushed them aside.

I went and got the bin from the bathroom – just in case, and placed it next to the bed. Then I relaxed into the chair across the bed, watching her.

What fucking mess had I gotten myself into.

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Chapter 5 - Cut me open and tell me what’s inside

Chapter title is lyrics from "Avalanche”

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I was swimming somewhere not quite conscious when I heard snoring – something I hadn’t heard since I was living with my ex. But it was softer, different from the one I had listened to for years. I pried my dry eyes open to make sense of it. It was like looking through a blurry lens from somewhere far, far away, but I could see Oli awkwardly tucked into an armchair across from me – fast asleep. The lights spilling in through the window from the Vegas nightlife, painting him in shades of pinks and blues. A fleeting image of his eyes in the green light flickered in my thoughts before I drifted off again.

The next time I woke up it was much brighter and my head was spinning. I pulled the cover higher to be rid of the assaulting light, wanting to melt back into slumber, but memories from last night had already started to trickle in. How I’d ran down that corridor, trying my best to keep the tears in before I found the ladies bathroom. When I finally locked myself in a stall, the tears had come instantly and violently. I was so tired of hurting, I just wanted an escape. But Oli had…

I shot up in bed – a grave mistake considering my current state – and gripped my head with both hands as if trying to prevent my brain from falling out.

Oli was here last night. In my room.I looked around carefully through squinting eyes.

Nevermind.

This was not my room.

I quickly patted myself down to see if I was naked, but to my bewilderment I was still fully dressed in last night's attire. Before I got a chance to panic further about the situation, I heard the door open and shut, followed by Oli walking in holding some drinks. He didn’t even look in my direction as he walked over to shut the blinds before coming back around to wordlessly hand me a ginger ale. He gestured for me to move so he could sit at the end of the bed, so I scrambled to pull my legs up. It wasn’t until he was sitting that he allowed himself to look at me. His gaze was cold, unbothered, and his voice matched it, “Do you agree now that we shouldn’t keep doing this?”

I couldn’t think straight, clearly not sober yet from last night's escapades of vodka based drink selection. After a moment of just staring blankly at him, he looked down at the bottle in my hand and sighed deeply, “Drink up, it’ll help.”

I stared at the bottle, it was sweating on the duvet.

“Give it here, I’ll open it for you.” His voice was much softer now, clearly taking pity on my state. When he leaned over to take it off me our hands brushed, ever so slightly, but it was enough to make me feel a mix of the emotions from last night when he had laced our fingers together. Just much duller.

The opened bottle was handed back to me and I downed half of its content in one go, not realising how thirsty I had been. Some of it ran down the side of my face, eliciting a chuckle from Oli, but he abruptly stopped himself, like he had realised his steely guard was faltering.

‘Do you agree now that we shouldn’t keep doing this?’

My brain was slowly catching up on the conversation, trying to process his question.

The problem was that, despite last night, I really didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want to stop sneaking my indulgent glances at him, didn’t want to stop thinking about him at night, and I absolutely didn’t want to stop being manhandled by him. Not only was he an effective distraction throughout the day, but I wanted to feel that freedom again, something only he had managed to do for me. He had made me feel so incredibly alive.

Except last night, when he made me wish I was dead.

It was as if he had been a mirror, forcing me to look at the despair inside myself. The mangled mess left there to rot after having my path in life torn away, and my personality ripped to shreds. I didn’t have a clue who I really was, what I enjoyed, or what I wanted out of life. Just aimlessly taking it one day at a time.

I had gone to the bar last night to forget what I had seen in his eyes, but as I sat there attempting to drown my sorrow, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was as broken as me. I knew he had drug problems in the past, and I knew he had been cheated on. How much of that was still unresolved; how much did he still carry with him? Last night my curiosity had been out of sympathy, but today it was laced with anger. As if it was somehow his fault I'd been forced to feel these things, like he had made me look there.

Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t sobered up yet, or just stupidity, but I decided that I didn’t want to answer his question about us. Instead I wanted to return the favour and make him look at his own suffering.

I cleared my throat, yet the words came horse, “Tell me about her.”

Instantly I regretted asking. It felt so cruel, so callous.

“She was a cunt.” He proclaimed without a thought, spoken as casually as you’d talk about the weather, “That’s all anyone needs to know about her really.”

I blinked. Annoyed he hadn’t reacted the way I expected. Annoyed he hadn’t actually shared anything at all.

Alright let’s be cruel then.

“Who did she cheat with?”

“Old friend.” Hints of tension in his voice now.

“How did you find out?”

There was a slight pause this time, annoyance clearly setting in. “Why are you asking, Alice?”

“Did you start doing drugs again after you found out?”

His expression changed to anger and disbelief as he ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Why the fuck do you-” He started, but stopped himself to stare off in the distance for a short moment. When he continued he was completely calm, looking straight at me, “Yeah, I did.”

The thing in me that wanted to torment him unceremoniously deflated, and I could feel my expression soften.

He sucked his teeth before he continued, “I got out of that pit though, like I have many times in the past.”

There was something I had been wondering about since the first night he grabbed me, and I can only guess the alcohol still in my system let my intrusive thoughts win, because suddenly the question had slipped out of my mouth, “The night we had sex, is that what you were talking about when you said you wanted to throw everything away?”

He looked away, clearly uncomfortable, “I mean yeah, I thought that had been obvious. My history with ketamine isn’t exactly a secret, I’ve talked about it plenty. Didn’t you google us before the tour?”

“I did, but I thought you hadn’t touched drugs in years.” I said, hoping he’d confirm or deny it.

Still clearly uncomfortable, he responded, “I’ve been off the stuff since after the breakup, so about a year. That was the only relapse in a long time though.”

Crap, I could feel another question coming, “So… why had you almost relapsed the night we had sex?” I felt guilty for asking, knowing I shouldn’t probe; knowing I had gone too far about five questions ago.

That caused him to immediately push off the bed, “You know what Alice, maybe it’s time to get you back to your room.”

A fair reaction – and I agreed – but when I shifted to get out of bed everything was spinning from having moved too fast, and I could feel myself falling forward. Oli was there in a heartbeat and pushed me back into a sitting position over the side of the bed, the sudden motion threatening to make me hurl.

Annoyance emanated from him, “Bloody hell, you’ve got to stop doing that.” He said, crouching down next to the bed, still holding me up by the shoulders. His face was too close to mine, his scent surrounding me. The way he smelled was triggering something in me, something I didn’t quite understand, like so many other things I couldn’t figure out – or wanted to think about. Then suddenly I became aware that I probably looked insane, and possibly smelled even worse.

‘Maybe it’s time to get you back to your room.’ his words rang in my ears as I fought off the nausea. I turned my head slightly out of embarrassment before I spoke, “Why am I in your room anyway?”

“Cause someone decided getting shitfaced on tour was a good idea.”

While his words may have been passive aggressive, his tone was sweet. A pang of regret hit me. This wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to hurt him. I wasn’t the only one in pain, and I felt so incredibly selfish for all of it. For the probing, for wanting to continue being used when he had specifically told me it wasn’t who he wanted to be.

For running away last night when it had gotten hard.

My own words now ringing in my head; I don’t just give up when things get a bit complicated.

How ironic.

I spoke softly out of shame, “I-I'm sorry Oli. I just didn’t want to feel like this anymore.”

A frown grew on his face, ”Nothing to worry about, I mean sure you’re being a bit of a bitch, aren’t you? But you're not in some type of trouble, I won’t tell Liam how drunk you got if that’s what you're thinking.”

I didn’t want to cry, but I could feel my eyes starting to burn as I spoke, “No, it’s not that… I'm sorry for running away last night.”

He was clearly caught off guard, sadness – hurt even – painted across his features. Slowly he released the grip on my shoulders, testing to see if I could remain upright. When he was happy I wouldn’t collapse, he leaned back, still crouching before me as I continued,

“It was just too much, I felt so- didn’t know how to, or even begin to-” My vision was blurred with tears as I heard the frantic nonsense escape my mouth.

What was I doing?

His hands were back on me, on my arms this time, “Hey, sh-sh-sh, Alice, it’s alright, there’s no need for that.” But my tears turned to uncontrollable sobs.

“Ah, fuck.” He muttered as he pulled me down into his lap to sit on the floor, my legs wrapped around him, and his arms around me. I had wanted to wait till I was alone to cry again, but I was too drained – too overwhelmed, so I let myself be held as I cried into his hair.

It wasn’t until he held me tighter that I realised he was crying too.

A long time passed, and every time I thought I was done I started back up again. A dam had burst inside me and so many feelings were melting into tears, pouring out of me as I held onto Oli like a lifeline. I cried over the maddening numbness of wasting my life in mundane hell, I cried for the years worth of isolation, I cried over the frustration of last night not going the way I needed it to, I cried over the disgust I felt with myself for having let any of this happen in the first place. And then I cried for all the pain and confusion inside me I couldn’t put into words.

His tears came to an end before mine, so he lazily caressed my back as I wept. When the floodgates finally closed we were left just sitting there, embracing each other in silence. The thought of pulling away to face him after this was nerve wracking, but I knew it had to happen.

So I wiped at my mess of a face with my sleeve, then took several deep breaths to gather myself before leaning back against the bed behind me.

Oli’s eyes were red and slightly puffy, and he spoke without skipping a beat, as if he had been waiting for me, “I thought she was my soulmate.” A sombre smile tugged at his lips, “I know it sounds daft but I really did believe that.”

I wanted to tell him I didn’t think it sounded daft, but I was stunned, not expecting such personal details.

He huffed out a bitter laugh, “Problem is, once you really believe in something eternal like that, but it turns out to be some cosmic prank – what do you do with that? Everything in life lost its purpose, there was no point to anything anymore.” Looking down, shaking his head, he continued, “If I could have been that sure about something, knowing it to be as real as anything else on this planet, how was I supposed to trust my gut again?”

I didn’t have any answers for him, but I knew he wasn’t expecting any. Instead I decided to answer his question from earlier.

“I don’t want to stop what we’re doing.”

He looked up at me through his hair, “Even after what happened last night?”

There was a slight internal battle, but I was so worn down, and I knew it was my turn to share. I looked away before I spoke, “My breakup wasn’t the same as yours. I wasn’t blindsided, I think I knew for a long time that he’d been cheating on me, and I knew he wasn’t my soulmate.. He was barely a friend.” I could only describe it as an outer body experience to hear these things come from my mouth; things I didn’t even like to think about.

When I looked back at him, his head was tilted to the side in bewilderment, “Then why are you hurting so much?”

I sighed deeply, “Because for the past eleven years I had let myself become a version of myself I thought was expected of me, and now I am nothing at all because of it. Just empty, with no interests or passions.”

He shook his head again, “That explains the hurt, but the rest isn’t true, is it?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely curious.

There was a pause as he scanned my face, contemplating, “From my experience, people who say they feel empty are usually the ones bursting at the seams with something. Maybe something they’re ashamed of or just repressed for whatever reason.” He leaned in a bit closer, that playful smile looking back at me, “Honestly love, you seem pretty passionate to me. Why else would you choose to be choked by a rockstar with drug problems, instead of just getting a new hobby or something – a bit extreme innit?”

Heat crept up my cheeks, and I could feel a smile play on my lips.

I couldn't tell if what he said carried any truth for me personally or not. Sure, it sounded plausible enough, but how would I know? There was such a mess inside me I didn’t know where to begin to untangle it. But a little bit of hope fluttered in my chest, like maybe I wasn’t a completely lost cause after all.

I heard the faint ding of the elevator from the hotel corridor, and I was abruptly reminded that the road trip portion of the tour starts today, and I was expected to prep the tour bus with Liam as soon as it arrives around noon.

I straightened with a jolt, eyes widening, “What time is it!?”

My jolt had clearly jarred him, “I haven’t a clue, around one maybe?”

I started to push myself off him, feeling panicked, but stopped myself when I remembered what happened last time I tried to move too quickly, “Can you help me up? I need to get ready for work.” I asked, looking sheepish.

“Sure”, he helped me up slowly and I made my way to the door, but there was one last question still rattling inside my head, clawing to get out. “Hey Oli,” I looked back at him standing next to the bed.

“Yeah?”

I knew this was a bad idea, but it had left my lips before I had a chance to think it through, “Do you want to keep doing this?” I swallowed, “As in, doing things to me.”

He shifted awkwardly, eyes falling to the floor. Disappointment washed over me at his reaction to the loaded question.

The tone of his voice shifted into something much more intense, “More than you know, Alice. But I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

The disappointment melted away, quickly replaced by the fighting spirit in me that still wasn’t willing to let the one thing I was passionate about slip away. “Because you can’t trust your gut?”

He grinned at my question, but it died on his lips as he spoke, “Because I’m not sure it’s for the right reasons.”

His words sprouted so many follow-up questions; so many arguments. Realising this could turn into a lengthy conversation – and I was very much out of time – I decided to cut things short with a simple few words that would hopefully work in my favour.

I pushed the door handle down, “I’ll be skipping the underwear from now on.” When I opened the door – a clear indication that the conversation was over – his eyes darkened, violence behind his stare.

I couldn’t help but smile as I left.

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Chapter 6 - That’s all the time we have this week

Chapter title is lyrics from "MANTRA"

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The world was testing me, clearly trying to see where my breaking point was.

About two hours had passed since I left Oli in his hotel room, and I hadn’t sat down since. On a normal day that would have been fine, but considering I was just now starting to sober up, combined with Liam having me work at double speed due to being late again, it was unusually brutal.

A few times I had to lean against the bus for a moment to catch my breath after dragging luggage, various drinks, snacks, bedding, equipment, and whatever random things the band had decided to bring onto the vehicle. It wasn’t made better by the fact that this was a double decker, meaning many of the heavier items needed to be carried up the cramped bus stairs; where the sleeping bunks were located. The lower tier was mostly seating, with some tables, a small sink, and a toilet in the back next to the stairs.

When we were finally done setting everything up and making the beds, we collapsed on the larger sofa in the seating area. Liam sighed deeply and looked at his watch, “Alright, we did it. We even have some time to spare. Fucking miraculous.”

I raised my arms in celebration, but immediately dropped them again, entirely too tired to keep them there.

We had been sitting in comfortable silence for a while when I let myself sink into the sofa further, closing my eyes, in heaven from being off my feet. That’s when Liam, out of nowhere, decided to ask, “Did you have sex with Oli last night?”

My eyes shot open to stare up at him in shock. He never asked me any personal questions, and I had thought our conversation on the plane was a one time deal of getting personal. He smiled when I didn’t answer, “You did, didn’t you?”

I sat up straight and positioned myself to face him, “Actually, no. We didn’t do much.”

His expression turned to confusion, “But you spent the night with him?”

I scratched my head, not knowing how to explain the bizarre series of events; not knowing if I even wanted to share them with Liam, “I-I guess? It’s a bit… complicated.”

He shot me a teasing smile, “Do you like him?”

I blushed, not knowing how to answer that question either.

“Sorry love, I don’t mean to interrogate you. I just couldn’t help but notice you weren't in your hotel room this morning when I went to wake you up.”

Guilt hit me for having been late so much at this point, “I’m really sorry about that, I swear I’ll get better at-”

Clearly uninterested in my apology, he cut me off, ”So I may not have been completely honest with you when I said I didn't know anything about Oli’s intentions.” He said, looking guilty himself, “It might mean nothing at all, but I have seen him looking at you Alice, and I don’t just mean in that lusty way you stare at him all the time.”

My blush deepened, I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me. I didn’t realise I had been that obvious.

He held his hands up, “Like I said, it might be nothing. But he’s positively beaming when he looks at you sometimes. And while you do with that information as you wish, can I ask you a favour?”

I felt dumbfounded but curious, “Of course, what?”

“I can’t help but notice you haven’t looked at him that same way. So if you’re gonna break the poor man's heart, please do it gently, yeah? He’s clearly been through hell and back.”

In all honesty I didn’t know how I felt about Oli, I was entirely too wrapped up in how he made me feel. But besides our conversation this morning, we barely knew each other. How could he possibly feel anything for me? Surely Liam had misinterpreted the situation, right?

Right?

My mind wasn’t allowed to process Liams questions any further before we could hear the band members outside, and suddenly Lee burst through the door, taking long strides to get upstairs. Mat was right on his heels and disappeared up the steps behind Lee.

“Good morning to you too, lads!” Liam yelled up to them.

Earlier Liam had explained that Lee and Mat would always fight over the best bunk, having apparently resulted in a handful of injuries in the past.

I heard more footsteps outside, and out of habit I fixed my hair in anticipation of seeing Oli, making Liam chuckle next to me. I glared at him but he just gave me a knowing smile, so I gave him a well-deserved jab with my elbow.

Matt was next (again, not to be confused with Mat), he strolled in casually while hugging a pillow, shaking his head, “Will they ever stop doing that? Who cares what bunk you get, they’re all the same when you’re in them.”

You could hear Mat and Lee arguing faintly upstairs, then the bus was shaking slightly from their brawl, mixed in with some yelping noises every so often.

Then Oli stepped onto the bus while responding to Matt, “I vote we let them fight it out, personally. They’re like toddlers, let them get some energy out so we can have a nice trip.”

Then everyone took their seats, and to my surprise I watched as Oli took the chair right across from me, on the other side of the walkway. He let his eyes roam my body for a moment – never actually meeting my eyes – before looking away.

Liam inclined his head towards Matt’s pillow in confusion, “You know we brought pillows, right?”

“Yeah but last night I slept better than I’ve done in years, I couldn’t just leave this puppy behind.” He said, slapping his pillow, looking down at it as if it was his most precious possession.

Oli laughed, “You stole the pillow, mate? I thought those days were behind us.”

Matt’s face lit up, “Remember when we walked out carrying a whole mattress? I still can’t believe they didn’t even try to stop us.”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures as they say,” Oli looked over to Liam to explain further, “We didn’t have enough bunks on the cheap tour bus we could afford back then, you see. So we got creative.” He said, tapping his finger to his temple.

The conversation went on but I couldn’t focus on what was being said, getting too distracted looking at Oli.

He was wearing the same plain black t-shirt from earlier with some grey shorts. I hadn’t taken much note of his appearance at the time due to my state, and how emotional everything had gotten. While all of us were dressed in more casual attire than usual – both because this was the beginning of the road trip, but also because Vegas was quite warm compared to what we were used to in the UK this time of the year – it was such a stark contrast from what Oli usually wore. Seeing him this dressed down, without any of his usual loud accessories, prints or colours, really accentuated him. Elaborate inkwork cascading down every limb, up his neck, around his face. All of which made so much sense with his usual attire, everything coming together as one cohesive design. Now it threatened to look out of place next to the plain clothes, with his gentle eyes, boyish smile, and messy hair.

Somehow both of these versions worked entirely too well. And I found myself wondering if there was anything this man couldn't pull off. I also found myself wondering what some of the designs on his thighs looked like higher up. As my mind tried to imagine it, I realised that while I had felt his dick inside me, I hadn’t actually seen it.

I must have unknowingly let my eyes rest on his crotch area for a long time while I was daydreaming, because out of nowhere Oli shot me a piercing glance without turning his head, making me straighten on the sofa, tucking my hair behind my ear awkwardly.

“Shall we get going then?” Liam asked, saving me from further embarrassment.

This was also the day I learned that Liam used to be a bus driver when he was younger, which was apparently a big reason the touring agency had wanted him.

Hours passed on the long journey and I had managed to keep my thoughts in check for the most of it. The daylight had faded into darkness when Liam pulled into a Walmart car park for a short break.

“Alright lads, you have around 30 minutes before the store shuts. Go, go, go!” He proclaimed after parking up, hurrying himself to get off the bus. Everyone scurried to get out to grab the variety of things they had been planning during the past hours.

Everyone except Oli, who was looking right at me. His arms were crossed, one of his legs propped up on the other.

We sat in silence until no one could be heard in the distance.

When all we could hear from the calm night was distant cars, he spoke, “Are you wearing any underwear?”

I swallowed, feeling increasingly nervous, “No.”

His arms relaxed onto the armrests, and his eyes darkened – along with his voice, “Show me.”

Not a question; a command.

I could feel the heat spread throughout my body, continuing up my cheeks. I was wearing a simple black mini skirt and an oversized tour shirt. With a nervous exhale, knowing someone could come back at any moment – knowing the bus door is still open, I decided to obey his command. My heartbeat fell to my core as I leaned back and spread my legs, raising them up to let my feet rest next to me on the sofa, giving him a clear view of my more-than-likely soaking pussy from having been wrapped up in dirty thoughts about him all day.

His propped leg dropped to the floor with a deep sigh, and he let his hand play on his chin. The carnal gaze shifted between awe and something barely contained, as he let himself leisurely take in the sight of me.

That’s when I noticed his bulge shifting – growing, causing my breath to hitch.

The noise got his attention, and his expression turned intense and his serious eyes shot to mine, “Touch yourself.”

Another command.

I wordlessly reached between my legs to do as I was told. I was in fact soaking, and the wetness made a noise that caused the now clear outline in his shorts – pulling slightly to the right might I add – to twinge in response.

His lips parted slightly, letting his fingers brush them as he appeared almost intoxicated.

I was pushing at my entrance to elicit more wet noises, so I could see that delightful twinge again when he spoke, “No, play with your clit, love.” His eyes transfixed on my pussy now.

Stopping my motion, I went back up to my clit, rubbing it slowly in small circles. After a moment a whimper spilled from my mouth as it started to feel particularly good. That wicked smile bloomed on his lips, his eyes still not leaving my pussy, “That’s it, a bit faster now.”

Once again I obeyed. My breath came heavier, and adrenaline was hitting me as I realised I would cum if I kept going like this long enough, causing my eyes to dart towards the bus door nervously.

He caught me looking and abruptly leaned forward, shooting me daggers as he let his arms rest on his legs, “Look at me.” He said. Demanding words, sharp with anger.

My wide eyes met his, “Don’t worry about that,” he said, gesturing towards the open door, “Just keep looking at me.”

A breathy “Okay.” left me, as I continued to build my orgasm, followed by another small whimper.

With a tilted head, his dark eyes roamed my face, and I watched as that corrupt smile continuously tugged at his lips. “I’ve thought about what you look like when you touch yourself so many times now, I had to see it for myself.” His gaze darted to my pussy before returning to look at me. He continued speaking, tone growing increasingly intense, “You’re fucking stunning.”

Small breathy moans start spilling from my open mouth, causing Oli’s own breathing to grow heavier as he pressed on, sounding nearly demonic now, “You’re a fucking whore for doing this, you know that right?”

His words just encouraged me, setting something in me ablaze – getting me closer to my goal.

He huffed out a breathy laugh, looking like he’s about to snap; like he’s also close to going over some kind of edge. He carried on in the same dangerous voice, “I want to push you to your fucking limit, Alice. I want to see your makeup run down your pretty little face as I make you choke on my cock, testing how long you can hold your breath for me.”

I was shaking, feeling my orgasm building, and building.

He let out a ragged breath, “You close, love?”

I nodded through my whimpers.

He shot out of his chair and was suddenly over me, one of his hands slipping behind my neck, gripping my nape firmly to keep me looking at him, our breaths mingling with his face hovering mere inches from mine. His other hand disappeared between my legs, his middle and ring fingers slipping into me, going straight for the g spot.

My whole body went electric.

“Cum for me.” He demanded with a softness the other commands had lacked.

I went over the edge, my free hand grabbing his arm as my eyes rolled back. Through the sounds spilling out of me I could hear him murmur words of encouragement, “That’s it love, that’s it… Fuck.”

As I came back down his eyes were on fire, appearing drunk with lust. “You’re such a good whore.” He whispered, a devil's smile growing on his lips as his fingers started moving in me again. “Keep going, Alice. Cum for me again.”

My hand started moving again, but as soon as it did we heard distant chatter.

Oli leaned back, head snapping towards the open door, then back at me with violence behind his eyes – clearly frustrated to have his playtime cut short.

He pulled his fingers out of me and fell back into his chair, propping his leg back up on his knee to conceal his otherwise very obvious erection.

As I hurried to pull my skirt down to cover myself up, I looked up to meet his fiery gaze staring back at me, his fingers in his mouth – the same two fingers I just came on – sucking them dry as his chest rose and fell with his still laboured breathing.

I felt panic grow inside me, knowing I wouldn’t be able to appear normal; knowing I was too far gone, I got up and ran to the toilet, locking myself in there before anyone could see me.

My reflection in the mirror confirmed my fear. My hair was a mess, my face was flushed, and my eyes appeared as glazed with lust as Oli’s had.

There was no doubt in my mind that if we kept going like this it was only a matter of time before everyone found out about us.

…Only a matter of time before I found out if Oli actually had feelings for me or not.

Before I had to figure out how I felt about him.

I swallowed, spiralling further into panic.

What the hell was I doing?

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Chapter 7 - My heart’s a hieroglyph, it talks in tongues

Chapter title is lyrics from "Run”

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Get yourself together Alice.

But the woman staring back at me in the stupid little mirror just continued looking panicked and flustered.

I should be happy. I should be over the moon. When I left Oli in his hotel room this morning, informing him I wouldn’t be wearing any underwear going forward, my hope was that he’d eventually give in to temptation. Not realising he’d pounce the very second he could. Regardless of the risk.

How could I have known it would be that effective?

Sure, maybe I should have been able to put two and two together after he proceeded to throw me over his shoulder and manhandle me, just one day after very adamantly arguing what a bad idea more sex would be.

‘Because I’m not sure it’s for the right reasons.’ His words echoed in my mind. And while I didn’t want to agree with him – while I didn’t want to even entertain the idea – I had to admit the same thoughts had occurred to me once or twice as well, but I’d swatted them away like flies at a picnic.

Frustration was building. What if Liam was right? What if Oli was interested in me, and what if he eventually wanted something more? A big part of me thought it was absurd, he barely knows me. But I still couldn’t help but toss the idea around, examining it from every angle. It would explain why our time together in the storage room turned so incredibly intimate out of nowhere – and why would he bring me back to his room when I was blackout drunk, just to take care of me?

No, that was a ridiculous thought to have. Any decent human being would take care of someone in need, and the intimate moment could happen to anyone – it doesn’t mean anything.

I could see the panic grow on my features.

While it probably meant nothing, I knew that if there was even a sliver of a chance Liam was right, I had to figure out what the hell I was doing here as soon as possible.

Despite this being a truly horrible time to do this, I couldn’t resist touching on those painful thoughts I’d been ignoring the past couple of days, knowing that if I didn’t take advantage of my current panicked state, I’d never want to revisit them again.

I leaned forwards, placing my hands on the sink in the small tour bus toilet, and gave myself the steeliest stare I could muster up.

Why – The Fuck – do you like to be used, choked, and called a whore?

While I tried to answer my own question, images of Oli’s delightful expressions when he did these things to me flooded my mind, making my knees weak, and my stern face melted into a flustered smile. It didn’t help that I just had an orgasm, and wouldn’t mind a couple more.

Out of pure stubbornness, I slapped myself and decided to fight through it.

Alice – you horny piece of shit – why do you like it so much?

What does it actually make me feel, what do I get out of it? Is it the loss of control, the freedom? Sure, but while that explains part of it, I knew there was a lot more to it.

I felt shame flood me, fighting me, making me want to stop going down this path.

Was Oli right, was it some type of self harm? There was a part of that thought that scared me, but I couldn’t help but feel like the shoe didn’t quite fit.

I shook my head, knowing I was getting nowhere. I was ready to move on to the next question when I noticed the bite mark on my neck slightly poking through my concealer, further reminding me that it was only a matter of time before everyone would find out about us at this rate, further spiralling me into panic.

Okay, seriously – focus. Do you like him?

I sighed deeply. How do I feel about Oliver Sykes besides finding him incredibly attractive? I know I like how passionate he is, not just sexually, but with all his projects. I know I like how funny and charming he can be. I know I like the way I feel when he’s around me, regardless of what's going on. I couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but he made me feel some type of way – the same way I felt when I could smell him.

Discomfort was starting to creep in as I realised it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to spend more time with him, maybe get to know him better. As if just the idea of it becoming something else, something more, struck fear in some tender part of me that just wanted to run away and hide.

I found myself hoping that Liam was wrong with his observation, because at least then I could keep enjoying my time with Oli without anyone getting their feelings hurt. If anyone else found out about us it wouldn’t be a big deal – lots of people casually hook up.

The woman looking back at me in the mirror looked sad and defeated, but all signs of panic and fluster had left her.

Knowing I wasn’t getting anywhere, I took one last deep breath and got myself ready to leave the bathroom.

Everyone was back when I stepped out, and Liam had just gotten back into the driver's seat, ready to keep going. I awkwardly sat back down across from Oli, who was on his phone, casually eating some oreos the guys had picked up, as if nothing had just happened between us.

Right as I picked up my own phone to distract myself, Oli looked up at me through his messy hair and shot me a warm smile before putting another oreo in his mouth. The warmth of it caused something in my chest to heat up in response, shocking me so severely I fumbled and sent my phone tumbling onto the floor next to his feet.

You could tell he stifled a laugh. With his mouth full of oreo, he bent over to collect my phone and hand it back to me. Thankfully no one else paid any mind to my awkwardness, as they were too busy having a heated argument about amp models. But I felt like a ridiculous school girl getting flustered by some pretty boy. It made so much more sense to me to get flustered by the man before we had sex. Now it came with some implication that I wasn’t ready for.

The rest of the trip was an exhausting mix of awkwardness and confusion, made worse when the conversation died down from everyone getting tired, leaving me to my thoughts more than I had liked. Leaving me and Oli to accidentally lock eyes more often than I was comfortable with, knowing it meant we both couldn’t keep each other out of our minds.

It was 3 am when Liam pulled up to the hotel we were staying the next two nights.

Everyone filtered out of the bus like zombies, carrying our bare essentials for the rest of the night. We were all on the same floor of the hotel, so when the elevator doors opened I headed straight for my room, forcing myself to not look back to see where Oli was.

I heard a bunch of doors open and close as I tried to get the card for my room to work. With every swipe I was internally praying it would unlock, and after every failed swipe I had to fight myself to look back to check if he was there.

With a click the door finally unlocked, but for some inexplicitly stupid reason I allowed myself to look back.

He was standing all the way down the corridor by his door. He swung it open and waved for me to come over before he stepped inside.

I froze.

Why did I have to look back? It could have been so simple. I could be having hours of uncomplicated sleep ahead of me, but now there was some unknown abyss waiting for me down the hall. Would we have amazing sex, or a conversation I wasn’t ready for? Spin the bloody wheel.

Knowing I couldn’t resist either way, I locked my door and headed towards the unknown on the other side of the corridor.

I shuffled past him awkwardly while he held the door open, then dropped my bag on the floor before sitting down on the end of the bed, not knowing what to expect next. He locked the door and came over to sit next to me.

He leaned forward, facing away from me as he spoke, “Listen love, I clearly can’t keep my hands to myself, and while I’m aware that is exactly what you want, I’m struggling with it a fair bit. I feel like I’m at your mercy here.” I could feel myself becoming claustrophobic as he continued, “I had every intention to have an actual conversation with you when we were alone on the bus, but that went out the window as soon as I saw the way you looked at me.”

I shifted awkwardly, wanting to run away.

“I know you barely know me Alice, but can I ask you something?” He tilted his head in my direction and searched my face, questioning, “Do you trust me?”

I was stunned, not knowing what I had expected, but that wasn’t it. It must have shown on my face as he looked surprised back at me. I opened my mouth, “What do you mean?”

It was his turn to shift awkwardly, his voice dipping a bit lower as he spoke, “When I choke you, do you trust I won’t just choke you out?”

I didn’t have to think about it, I could feel it in my gut, “Yes.”

He huffed out a small laugh before turning his body towards me, “And why is that exactly?”

I frowned, “I don’t know, but I don’t think you’d actually harm me.”

His head tilted to the side, bewilderment spreading across his features, “All I’ve told you is how I don’t feel like I can control myself around you, how I want to hurt you might I add, and you’re telling me you don’t think I’ll harm you? Are you stupid or something?”

I scoffed, “Maybe, but there’s never been anything wrong with my intuition. Like I said, I knew my ex was cheating, I knew my past life wasn’t for me. So if my gut is telling me I can trust you, I am pretty sure I can.”

He shook his head, “That is a pretty big leap of faith you’re taking there, innit?”

I paused, contemplating his words, “If I’ve learnt anything from the past 11 years, it’s that not taking any risk at all is probably the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done.” I looked down at my hands in my lap, playing with the hem of my skirt anxiously as we sat in silence after my response. I knew he had a problem trusting his own intuition after what happened with his ex, so I couldn’t help but worry that my remark could’ve been interpreted as a jab, despite not intending it to.

I was about to clarify when he spoke, his tone had grown much more serious, and his words came slower, “When I choked you the other night in the arena, it didn’t look like you wanted me to stop. If there’s any truth to that, what exactly is it you’re looking for here?”

Of course he had noticed, is there anything this man doesn’t pick up on?

Shame was simmering somewhere under the surface, but something came bubbling up from beneath it, “I…” the words spilled out of me as I realised them, “I don’t want to die if that’s what you’re thinking – at least I don’t think I do. I’ve just been living my life in such lukewarm temperatures, too scared to experience anything to the fullest, never feeling something real. I just want to let go and have someone fly me closer to the sun, someone that won’t burn me. Someone I…”

Oli was watching me closely as I spoke my thoughts out loud, “Someone you trust.” He said, finishing my thought.

I swallowed, feeling myself sink deeper into panic.

As I sat there trying to fight the urge to burst out of the door, I was once again aware of the wonderful way he smelled, and suddenly it became crystal clear what it made me feel…

Safety.

He smelled like safety – just like his mere presence made me feel safe. How incredibly ironic, considering how terrified I currently was.

I could see the vulnerability in his eyes as he watched me, but it was too much. The revelation was too much, the moment was too much. So I shot out of bed, “I need to go.” I hurriedly exclaimed as I all-but-ran to the door.

But he had leapt in front of me, blocking the exit, “See that makes no sense to me, love.” Angry eyes stared down at me as he began stalking towards me, forcing me to take steps back in the direction of the bed, “You’re trying to convince me you trust me, but you keep running away scared. Explain that to me.”

“Like you said, we barely know each other.” I answered, my heart racing.

Another step, “Yet you’re so sure you trust me.” He said, his strong build towering over me, his hazel eyes shooting me daggers.

We took several more steps before my foot suddenly hit the bed behind me, causing my breath to hitch. “Yes. W-why does it matter to you anyway?” I retorted in a pathetic attempt to stand my ground, knowing my stutter had only made things worse.

In one quick motion Oli picked me up and threw me onto the bed, knocking the air out of me. Then his warm and hard body was on top of mine, intense eyes staring down at me, his hair brushing my face, “Trust doesn’t come easily for me.” His tone was dark – frustrated. ”You think I open up to people a lot? You think I sleep around? That’s not who I am, love.” His fingers brushed my forehead tenderly, an eerie action considering the situation, “Then you casually come along, basically telling me you trust me with your life. You’re so fucking confusing Alice, you want me to hurt you, you cry in my arms – open up to me – yet you keep wanting to run away. If you actually trust me, what the fuck are you so scared of?”

I wanted to tell him to let me go, I wanted to run away again – not out of fear of his actions, but fear of where the conversation was heading. But I also knew he deserved answers, despite the way he was going about getting them. So without thinking I spoke the first thought that came to mind, “I-I just got out of a relationship, I’m not ready for anything.”

The tender caress abruptly grabbed my chin in a painful grip, “You’re chattin’ shit, that relationship meant nothing to you. What are you actually scared of?” He bit out.

My heart was in my throat, shocked at his sudden increase in aggression, words I didn’t know to be true until I spoke them out loud came flying out of me, “I’m scared I’ll fall for you.”

The frustration left him instantly, his grip loosened and slipped away. He searched my face carefully before speaking much softer, sweet even, “Why does that scare you?”

I looked up at him, feeling as if I was losing some internal battle I hadn’t known I’d been fighting, “Because we might become more than… whatever this is.”

He squinted down at me, “Would that really be so bad?”

I nodded, scared to speak my next realisation out loud, knowing it threatened to make me cry again – and I had cried entirely too much lately.

Hurt spread across his face, “Why?”

My words came so softly, they were barely audible, “I… I’m terrified of having something worth losing.”

He rolled off of me and positioned himself next to me on the bed. We stared up at the ceiling for a short moment as my heart threatened to leap out of my chest, and I contemplated making a run for the door when he spoke, still staring at the ceiling, “Stay the night.”

Not a command this time, but a request.

He was done forcing me to stay, forcing me to share my thoughts, and was handing the choice back to me. I could give in and make a run for it – get away from the deep discomfort I was drowning in.

Or I could stay and fight through it.

But I really didn’t think I could fight through it, so I whispered, “I can’t.”

He turned his head towards me and spoke softly, pleading, “Yes you can.”

When I didn’t answer he sat up, “I’m gonna get ready for bed, when I get back I hope you’re still around.” He shot me one last pleading look before he disappeared into the bathroom, and I heard the shower turn on.

For a while I just laid there – frozen – both body and mind, before I sprung out of bed, grabbed my bag and headed straight for the exit. I stopped myself just a couple of feet short, realising this might have been an ultimatum. That if I left now this might be the end of it all, the end of all the delights and all the discomfort the same.

I let my bag drop to the floor again and watched the bathroom door, listening to the running water. I felt anger set in, like it wasn’t fair of him to expect anything from me, but it faded away as quickly as it came, knowing he had every right to walk away from this if it’s not what he wanted.

I started pacing the room, feeling the timer run out to make a choice. Do I risk leaving, in the hopes he’ll come around and want to continue anyway?

Or do I face my fears and stay?

I sat down on the bed, still unsure what to do. The sound of the shower felt deafening at this point, as if it grew louder with each passing moment I hadn’t made up my mind yet.

Every so often the water would splash differently, reminding me the culprit of my pressing issue was in there. The man that both made me feel safe, and struck so much fear in me I wanted to run for the hills. Someone who filled me to the brim with excitement, yet I was dreading his reappearance to an immeasurable degree.

The shower stopped, and my racing mind went into overdrive, raking over everything that’s happened the past three weeks, the last 11 years – right back to my childhood, as if I could find answers somewhere in there, going down useless paths that lead nowhere, when the bathroom door opened and my racing thoughts came to a shrieking halt.

Only in boxers, steam lapping him as he stepped into the room. He was drying his wet hair with a towel as he wordlessly walked over to the bed, watching me with a blank stare to see what I would do next. As if it was written all over me that I still hadn’t made up my mind.

I got off the bed to collect my bag before looking back at him, then with a deep breath I chose to walk through the bathroom door instead of the exit.

As soon as I shut the door behind me I felt myself go slightly numb, half disassociating from my decision. I chose to not acknowledge it and go about my business. I showered, I brushed my teeth, and I dressed myself in an oversized t-shirt, covering some sexy underwear. At least this way I felt ready for multiple outcomes, not knowing where this night was heading.

When I stepped out of the bathroom he was laying in bed, one arm propped behind his head, the other holding his phone, which he proceeded to put away when he saw me. Shyness washed over me suddenly, the setting feeling entirely too domestic, too familiar, yet I didn’t know how to behave in this setting with this man. Like he didn’t belong in familiarity.

He moved over and raised the cover to let me in – I followed, then he turned off the lights.

At first the darkness was smothering me, but then he reached for me, pulling me into his embrace, making me the small spoon, and something in me eased.

I tried not to overthink it. I tried not to make this a bigger deal than it was. It was just sleep after all, this doesn’t mean anything. Everyone needs sleep. Sometimes we sleep next to people we’re not dating, and that’s normal.

All perfectly normal things.

He must have noticed how tense I was, as he whispered into my hair, “You alright?”

I nearly laughed, feeling hysterical from all the recent events, from how exhausted I was, from the bizarre situation. Instead I said, “Y-yeah, I’m fine.” Willing it to be true.

After a moment he spoke again, “I’m sorry if I wake you, I get nightmares.”

He must have been exhausted too, as shortly after he was clearly asleep, leaving me to watch as the sun slowly came up behind the curtains while he held me.

Thankfully slumber eventually took me as well.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 8 - The wolves are at my door

Chapter title is lyrics from "Empire”

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Trust.

The cornerstone of so many things in this world.

As children we trust our parents to do what is best for us, we vote for the political party we trust to achieve the best outcome, and every day we trust that the food we consume wont poison us.

That doesn’t mean our parents won’t traumatise the shit out of us, politicians don’t lie through their teeth, and we won't be puking our fucking brains out after eating the leftover pad thai.

Yet every daily decision – no matter how big or small – requires us to take a leap of faith in some regard.

For most people the majority of decisions are simple, right? The risk so meaningless we don’t even consider it. But to others, that same risk is a mountain. To these people trust is a rare and incredibly valuable commodity, not easily given or received.

The problem is, these people may wish to test you in ways you may not expect – in ways that might make you uncomfortable, vulnerable, or push you to some internal limit.

Sounds harsh? Maybe.

But if you’ve been burnt before, then maybe you too understand why this impulse creeps in like instinct, making it seem impossible to trust someone without testing them with precision.

Is this done with malicious intent? Absolutely not.

We just don’t know any other way.

***

I stared down into my drink, the air thick with the scent of perfume and alcohol.

The night's concert had gone just as expected, and so had all the preparations for it. I didn’t quite understand why me and Liam were invited to this party, since we weren’t actually working, but apparently Liam and whoever was assisting him at the time would always come along on these types of events.

That assistant just happened to be me right now.

Liam had been chatting my ear off all day about whose house we were going to after the concert, but all I could remember was that it’s some famous rapper I had never heard of. I wanted to listen to Liam so badly, but my mind had been too preoccupied obsessing over the fact that I’d spent last night with Oli – just sleeping in his arms. And instead of waking up with him like a sane person, to potentially have some amazing sex, I slipped out unnoticed before I had a chance to see how the morning could’ve unfolded.

The truth is that while I felt a lot of guilt for not staying, last night had been so mentally taxing I couldn’t risk the conversation continuing in the morning light.

Especially considering I hadn’t digested my brand new revelations about the man yet.

Sadly a whole day of pondering, while desperately avoiding the culprit, hadn’t done much else besides make me more confused.

Not made better by tonight's events.

We’d been here almost two hours, lazily nurturing our drinks on one of the many large sofas in the modern, open space mansion with a view. The party featured a large variety of famous people (or so I’ve been told) and what appeared to be models, graciously hosted by someone whose name begins with Lil – like so many rappers before him.

A handful of models had flocked to the band as soon as we walked through the door, despite clearly not knowing who they were. With one lady in particular that latched onto Oli like a leach as soon as she found out he was the lead singer.

I’d been both lucky and unfortunate enough to end up within earshot of them on the sofa as she was trying to get to know him. Their conversation was simultaneously hilarious and made me want to scream in frustration; a long series of shallow questions asked with a vocal fry, and Oli replying by deepening his already thick Yorkshire accent to the point that she didn’t stand a chance of understanding a single answer – made apparent by her poorly timed fake laughter in response.

It was infuriating, yet I couldn’t help but find him charming for messing with her.

Despite clearly being mismatched, they kept inching closer to each other as time passed. More smiles were exchanged, more whispers – and why the fuck did she have to touch him so much?

The long and short of it was; they were flirting. And apparently I didn’t like that one bit, as I couldn’t stop imagining ripping the extensions from her long, dark, Instagram-perfect hair.

Me and Liam were sitting across from them now, a large coffee table separating us. I could hear Liam drunkenly ramble on about his boyfriend back home, but I was hyper aware of what was happening across from us.

Oli was still in his concert clothes. Black trousers, a tight and colourful mesh shirt, with all the usual accessories. And she looked like she had spent a lot of money to look like she could be besties with Kim Kardashian. His hand was currently on her bare thigh, which she had placed there in order to roll up his sleeve and inspect his arm. I couldn’t hear them anymore over the loud music, but my best guess is that they were discussing his ink work.

I’d never considered myself a jealous person, but this was awakening some beast in me I didn’t like. It was some fresh flavour of torture I hadn’t really experienced before. Especially considering I didn’t even know what I wanted from Oli going forward.

What made it worse was that he hadn’t looked at me all night. I know this, as I could barely keep my eyes off him, to the point that I was worried the rest of the band had noticed. And yes, I’m aware that I was the one to sneak out this morning, just like I was the one who had been avoiding him all day. And still this was stinging in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

To make matters worse I couldn’t tell if it was some form of punishment, or if it was his way of making it clear we were done.

She leaned in to whisper in his ear – again – but this time that same wicked smile he usually shows me slowly grew on his lips as she spoke. It was enough for me to rudely and abruptly stand up in the middle of Liams rant to excuse myself.

“I need the bathroom.” I said in a rush before quickly turning around and striding off.

But I didn’t go to the bathroom, instead I made a beeline for the bar across the massive room to mix myself something significantly stronger.

As I was standing there, pouring entirely too much rum into my rum and coke, I felt a hand on my ass. I swung around in shock, only to be face to face with a tall, older man, possibly in his 50s, smiling down at me. The smile was so toothy I would’ve been creeped out even if he hadn’t used ‘grabbing my arse’ as a means of introduction. He must have been some investor or something, cause he didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the crowd.

“Hello beautiful, hope I didn’t scare you.” Somehow his smile grew more teeth as he spoke.

I was stuck behind the bar in a dark corner of the room with this gross man, plotting my escape, when Oli suddenly pushed past him.

“There you are, love. Thought I’d lost you there for a second.” He said as he put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him. A mixture of anger and relief hit me all at once from his gesture.

Oli shot the man a lazy smile, silently daring him to stick around.

It worked. The man wordlessly grabbed a bottle from the bar and stalked off to – more than likely – locate his next victim.

When he was gone I tried to slip out from under Oli’s arm, not in any mood to talk to him after seeing him flirt with someone else, but he grabbed me by the hips and turned me towards him, “Slow down, Alice. What’s the rush?”

I swatted his hands off of me, “Oh please, go back to your whore.” I bit out, regretting the words instantly, knowing it showed exactly how jealous I was.

He didn’t put his hands back on me, but he took a step closer, “You’re on about that vapid bird back there?” He shook his head, “Fuck off.” He took another step, stalking me similarly to what he did in the hotel last night. Except this time I only had to take one step backwards and I was pressed up against the bar behind me.

He leaned in a bit closer, still not touching me, so I’d hear him over the music as he spoke softer, “Besides, you’re my whore, Alice.” I looked up at him, he was entirely too pleased with himself. A devil's smile grew on his features as his eyes fell to my lips. The anger inside me was mixing with arousal despite my best efforts to stop it, and the implication of the word ‘my’ had not gone unnoticed, further spiralling my confusion as I had both hated and loved it.

“Then why are you flirting with her?” I asked, trying to keep my tone cool.

“I wasn’t, she was flirting with me. Why did you slip out this morning?”

“As if you didn’t love every moment of it.” I retorted, completely ignoring his question.

“Did I now?” He asked, words dripping with sarcasm, before continuing in a more serious tone, “Or did I enjoy watching you squirm?”

He took one last step to press himself up against me, his hand slipping to the small of my back.

“You’re a fucking prick, Oli.” I said, feeling utterly betrayed by my own body. I was furious, and while my words reflected that, my tone told a very different story, conveying exactly how horny I was becoming.

From his sudden change in demeanour, he could tell what he was doing to me. His eyes darkened before he grabbed me by the hips again to turn me around to face away from him, out towards the room. While they were far away, I could see Liam and the others through the crowd. Which meant that if they decided to look in our direction, they’d be able to see us as well.

I swallowed.

With a gentle gesture he swept the hair away from my shoulder to place his lips there, lazily kissing as his hands roamed my hips and waist. I gasped. His thick locks were tickling my face as his mouth moved along my neck, sending me into sensory overdrive.

“If you were gonna sneak out like that, why did you even bother spending the night?” He said between kisses.

Avoiding his question again, entirely out of spite, “Stop it, they might see us.” Such flustered words.

“You reckon?” He asked with more sarcasm.

I wanted to push away, stop what we were doing. I was angry, made worse by the fact that he was being this reckless with the others finding out about us – despite me having told him I wanted to keep it quiet. But his actions promised so much delight, and my body didn’t want to fight any of it.

“Why don’t you care if they see?” My tone was so painfully desperate, I couldn’t stand it.

His lips moved to my ear, “If we continue doing this, Alice, they’ll find out sooner or later anyway. It’s all the same to me.” He pulled away slightly and ran his fingers down the side of my neck, sending shivers down my spine, “I love these marks on you, it’s like you’re my canvas.” He said with words full of wonder.

Of course his kisses had rubbed off my concealer – the only thing besides my hair hiding his bite marks on me.

Then his teeth were on my shoulder, a bit lower than his previous marks, pushing down hard enough to make me clutch the edge of the bar as his fingers dug into my hips, holding me closer. He pulled away, his lips grazing my sore skin, “I just want to cover you, love.” He said in a low tone, barely audible over the music.

“Please, can we do this somewhere else?” So, so desperate. I hated myself. I shouldn’t be considering going anywhere with him. I should storm off and not let myself be treated like this. He was just cosying up with someone else for fuck sake – what the hell am I doing?

But my body was winning, it needed him.

I needed him.

“Do what?” He asked, clearly knowing what I was talking about – clearly not done playing with me here.

He began pulling the hem of my dress up. I ripped my vision away from guarding against the band members looking our way, and nervously darted my eyes around to see if anyone could see what he was doing behind the cover of the bar. Thankfully no one seemed to notice, or at least not pay us any attention.

“Oli, please…” My words continued in the same desperate tone, making it unclear whether I was begging him to continue, or stop.

The offending hand slipped under my dress and grazed my pussy ever so slightly, threatening to make my knees buckle.

But suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks, pulled away and turned me back around in one jarring motion. A serious stare looking down at me, “You’re wearing underwear.”

He proceeded to stare at me as I tried to collect myself from the abrupt interruption. When I didn’t answer he continued, “Why?”

I had contemplated not wearing any tonight, but considering I planned to avoid him until I had dealt with my internal confusion, it had seemed pointless.

I shook myself, the break from the intoxicating touches sobering me up and I began feeling the anger in full force again.

“You’re gonna question why I’m wearing underwear? Seriously fuck you, Oli. Why are you trying to make me jealous? I stayed the night didn’t I? Just cause I wasn’t there when you woke up shouldn’t undo that, or justify whatever the hell it is you’re doing tonight. What’s your fucking problem?”

He clearly wasn’t expecting my sudden outburst, and neither had the people around us as some of them were now looking in our direction.

Several emotions flickered across his face before he stepped to the side and leaned on the bar next to me, waiting for the people around us to forget about us before he spoke, “You’re not the only one who’s scared, Alice.”

The anger was still simmering under the surface, but was dulled from his honest answer.

He looked down before looking back at me with a sly smile, “In my defence, you’re fucking hot when you’re jealous.”

My frown deepened as the anger threatened to boil over again.

Nope, I was done.

I started to walk away but he grabbed me by the wrist to yank me back in front of him. “Wait, Alice. Fuck… Alright, I’m sorry.” He said, vulnerable eyes meeting mine.

The grip on my wrist loosened, testing if I would leave if he let go.

I just glared at him wordlessly, contemplating what to do next. Meanwhile somewhere in the back of my mind I was hoping he’d convince me to stay.

When I didn’t walk away he took my hands in his instead.

I let him.

“You should’ve stuck around this morning. We could’ve had a nice time, you know.” A sad yet playful smile tugging on his lips, his thumbs mindlessly brushed my fingers.

Despite having been a dipshit, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, causing something inside me to relax. Whatever anger melted away was replaced by guilt for not having stayed this morning. While I didn’t know how much it meant to him, I knew it had meant something. It was the only way I could even begin to explain his behaviour tonight.

In an attempt to set things right for now – partially because of the alcohol in my system – I interlaced our fingers. He looked down at what I was doing, and when his eyes came back to meet mine they were softer, less sadness resting behind them.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Oli.” Honest words, I was clueless. I had no idea what I wanted, and I needed time to figure it out.

He laughed, “I’ve got no clue what I’m doing either, love.”

We stood like that for a moment before he looked behind him at the band members across the room, then back at me, “How about we go find somewhere they can’t see us?” He said, then pulled me in closer to speak against my ear, “Let me fly you closer to the sun.”

Excitement spread through me as he echoed my words from last night.

He pulled away to search my face for answers.

I knew I couldn’t resist. It didn’t matter what I felt, I was tipsy, exhausted and I knew what he was offering would replenish something in me that felt depleted.

A smile grew on my features, “Okay. Let’s go.”

He smiled back at me, eyes gleaming with mischief, “Before we go, can you do me a favour?”

“What?” I asked, feeling a bit apprehensive.

His expression darkened, “Take off your underwear.”

I shifted nervously, “...Here?”

He lazily leaned back against the bar, looking at me through heavy-lidded eyes, waiting for me to fulfil his request. My heart began to race, and the smile was tugging on his lips again as I was assessing the surroundings, anxiously looking around to see if anyone would notice.

No one was looking at us anymore as far as I could tell.

With equal parts excitement and anxiety, I decided to go with it, trusting that he would fulfil his end of the bargain.

I took a deep breath and began to shimmy out of my underwear as inconspicuously as I possibly could, knowing that if anyone were to look they’d still know exactly what I was doing. Especially once they slid down to my ankles, and I had to bend over to retrieve them.

His eyes appeared glazed over as he held out his hand, expecting me to hand them over. I balled up the black lace in my hands to make it less obvious what I was handing him, and placed them in his open palm. They quickly disappeared into his pocket, then he immediately took my hand to sweep me away through the crowd.

He guided me up some stairs and we sprinted down a long hallway before he began opening doors to find a room he was satisfied with. “Perfect.” He said under his breath as he led us into one of them and shut the door behind us.

It was a fairly simple room considering the size of the mansion. A queen sized bed facing large glass doors, leading out to a small glass framed balcony looking out over an empty garden.

It must be a guest room.

He didn’t bother turning on the lights as all the lanterns from the garden below lit the room fairly well.

He pulled me up to the glass doors and pressed me up against them. The glass was icey against my back, but was quickly forgotten when his hand slipped to my nape, angling me for a deep kiss. The confusing sense of safety washed over me when I was flooded with his scent, easing something in me, despite knowing he intended to take me somewhere dangerous tonight. His other hand guided mine to the hardness straining awkwardly against the stiff fabric of his trousers, forcing me to grab it. His lips left mine with an exhale, staring down at me through messy hair with wet parted lips, panting. “It’s fucking gagging for it. I haven’t cum since I came in you – and it doesn’t help when you keep running away.” As he spoke the last words he made me squeeze it, and I felt it tense through the fabric – my breath hitched in response.

“It was torture not fucking you last night, but I thought it’d be worth it with everything I had planned to do to you this morning.” His voice deepened, laced with frustration and sarcasm, “But you weren’t there this morning, were you?”

Regret sank in, and I was about to open my mouth to explain myself, when the hand holding my nape was suddenly at my throat, pressing me up against the glass so hard I couldn’t breathe. His gaze turned vicious as he held me there, “You’re not running away tonight.”

Adrenaline filled my veins. I tried not to be scared but I hadn’t quite seen that look in his eyes prior. Or at least not to this degree.

Letting go of the hand holding me to his cock, he slipped between my legs instead. He didn’t bother feeling me or taking his time, instead his fingers pushed into me without warning, causing my knees to go weak, forcing me to grab at his arms. His vicious gaze melted and glazed over, staring into my eyes as he played with me, still not letting me breathe.

Then something in me shifted as he watched me, the rush of having my safety in someone else's hands, flooding me with some inexplicably unmatched sense of fulfilment. Suddenly everything felt right with the world, like this was somehow the one thing I had been missing. Sadly the rush didn’t last long enough, as I was becoming more and more desperate for air – something he hadn’t really let me experience before. He studied me closely, testing how long he could keep me suspended like this. My nails began to sink into his arms to let him know it was enough. Too much.

His eyes glazed further, letting his fingers travel deeper into me, grinding his hips against my thigh, “Bit more, love. You can do it.” His words were barely a whisper over the distant bass line from downstairs.

Another rush hit me, a mix of panic and ecstasy that threatened to scramble my brain. I only felt it for a split second before he let go in one quick violent motion. I slumped onto him, coughing as he held me against his chest with the hand that had just choked me for too long.

After a moment or two of letting me catch my breath, he leaned me back against the glass. There were hints of worry in his eyes when they met mine.

“Too much?” He asked tenderly, shaking the hair out of his face.

I stared at him, and for some reason I didn’t want him to know it was too much, as if it would prove some point in his favour. “No.” I replied in a horse tone. Knowing it could be a mistake to push my luck like this.

He held my gaze a bit longer, not looking convinced, before he slipped his fingers out of me. I gasped at the sudden shift inside me.

“We’ll see about that.” He brought the glistening fingers up to my face, “Now open up.” He said, his gaze falling to my mouth.

As soon as I parted my lips the warm and slick fingers pushed into my mouth, causing his own lips to part in delight. Knowing what he wanted, I sucked on them eagerly for him.

“Such a good whore.” He murmured, before pulling his fingers out and pressing his mouth to mine, moaning into me with another deep kiss, his hand grabbing me, digging into me. He pulled away to lean himself against my forehead. “You taste so fucking sweet.”

One of his hands disappeared, and when he leaned back he was dangling my black lace underwear between his forefinger and middle finger, the mischief back in his eyes, “Open your mouth again for me.”

Realisation hit me, but I wasn’t going to deny him this, so I gingerly opened my mouth.

“Wider.” He bit out.

I snapped my mouth open, bringing the smile back to his lips. As he was taking his sweet time stuffing my own underwear into my mouth, I was struck by how surreal the moment was. I didn’t know whether I should be wondering if I had gone wrong somewhere, or if I should count my lucky stars to be experiencing this.

I don’t know if it was my aroused state or the alcohol, but the latter was winning by miles.

When he was happy with his work, he placed a knuckle under my chin and pushed up to close my mouth – leaving only a small piece of lace spilling out of my mouth, tickling my chin.

“No more underwear, yeah?” He said sweetly, nodding towards me – a clear indication that I should nod back, so I did.

He took a couple steps back and started unbuckling his belt. The shadow of my own silhouette shrouding his legs, the rest of him washed in a warm glow from the garden lights below us. He looked like a hungry animal prowling in the night, his eyes barely visible through the tufts of hair covering them, sparkling as the light hit them just right.

All his muscles moved beneath his tight shirt as he pulled the belt off in one smooth motion and folded it in half.

I could feel my heartbeat in my throat, knowing what was about to happen.

“On the bed.” He sounded serious, focused.

Steadying myself, I pushed off the glass and started crawling onto the bed. As soon as I got on all fours at the end of the bed, he grabbed me by the hips to stop me.

“Right there.” He murmured, before placing a hand on my head to push me down onto the bed. Leaving me face down, ass up, clutching the sheets, with my underwear dangling from my lips.

“Stay just like that.”

I felt so incredibly vulnerable and anxious, yet my pussy wouldn’t stop pulsing in anticipation. Every nerve in my body was on edge, not knowing when to expect the pain.

A hand appeared on the back of my thigh, the unexpected gentle touch making me flinch.

“You sit there, watching me with someone else – for hours.”

The hand followed my curves upwards, pushing my dress up, revealing the bare skin of my behind to him.

His voice darkened significantly, “I see you chat with a fucking twat for a split second and I want to set the whole world on fire.”

Despite knowing it would happen, the sudden loud whipping sound accompanied by the sharp searing pain was a complete shock. I shot up onto all fours with a muffled cry.

But as soon as I shot up, he immediately pushed me right back down – as if he had expected me to react the way I did.

He continued, “And you, love…” Such a sweet tone, before turning sinister, “How you stand me chattin’ with some other bird for that long, I haven’t a fucking clue.”

Another loud whip, on my other cheek this time. I fought the instinct to shoot back up, instead biting down hard on the fabric in my mouth, balling my fists into the sheets.

He made a pained noise behind me. I couldn’t tell if it was out of enjoyment, or if this was somehow torturing himself as well. Or maybe – much like for myself – a mixture of both.

An arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me up against the warm body behind me. I made a muffled yelping noise and grabbed at his arm to steady myself. I could feel his heavy breaths on the bite mark he left on my shoulder downstairs. Then his hands were on me, his touches turning more tender, passionate. His fingers reached my pussy and he began touching me for my pleasure, instead of the previous punishment. I felt myself relaxing against him, reaching up and back to push my fingers into his hair, guiding his mouth to the bitemarks. He ground his hips into me with a moan as he placed his mouth over them. I whimpered through the fabric in my mouth in response, both in pain from the stinging sensation on multiple locations on my sore body, as well as in pleasure. The gentler touches had turned into a form of ecstasy as I was coming down from the intense pain, panic, and fear. I felt like I had unlocked another type of high – another addiction I wasn’t sure I wanted to be without anymore.

His kisses moved up my neck, leaving gentle bites as he went, both of us grabbing desperately for each other.

When he reached my ear he spoke harsh words, in an almost disturbingly soft tone, “What’s your fucking limit, Alice?” Causing me to tense up in anticipation all over again as the intimate touches ground to a halt.

He reached for the belt, looping it around my neck as if it was a slip lead. When it was loosely placed around my neck, he let go of it and pushed me forward, making me fall onto all fours again.

My heart was racing, the fear from not being able to breathe earlier returning, making me wonder if I should speak up before he would decide to pull on it. Yet the bass line from downstairs sounded more and more like the steady beat of war drums, resonating with something deep inside me that wanted nothing more than to travel deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole he had led us down.

I was staring down at the dark belt curling in on itself against the light sheets, feeling the fear melt into a deep hunger when I heard him unzip his trousers behind me, and excitement made a grin spread over my lace filled mouth.

I felt something warm push at my entrance, and it was all it took to set my whole body on fire. I wanted to feel him inside me again so badly I began to tremble as I fought off the urge to push back against him.

I heard a low laugh behind me; he must have noticed my desperation. He grabbed my hip to keep me in place, before he began rubbing his tip up and down my slick folds, eliciting the most delectable sounds from him. I felt like I was going mad. I kept trying to move against him – to get him inside me – but his hand just dug deeper into my hip. The sounds spilling out of me growing more desperate by the moment.

His words came low and pained, “Fuck. Am I teasing you or me?” Then he finally pulled me towards him, burying himself to the hilt.

My arms gave out and I fell face first onto the mattress, clawing at the sheets. Only his desperate grip on my hips keeping me in place. His breathing came ragged as he tensed inside me, holding me there. I moaned, biting down on the underwear for dear life, knowing I’d get my mind blown once he actually started moving.

It didn’t matter that I knew it was coming, I wasn’t ready for it. My eyes rolled back as I tried to ride the waves of motion.

Only a short moment passed before he muttered, “Fuck”, low and guttural, only to come to a full stop. A hand appeared next to my face to grab the belt looped around my neck, gently yanking on it, “Back on all fours, love.” His words were shaky, you could tell he was fighting his own climax. Made more obvious by how much I could feel him throb inside me. I should have been disappointed it wouldn’t last long, but all it did was fan the flames of the fire inside me, turning it into an inferno – leaving me intoxicated with lust.

I pushed myself back up, my own arms as shaky as his voice. I could see his shadow painted on the wall in front of me, his head slumped forward, chest heaving. When he started moving inside me again his head fell back, the ragged breaths coming faster, heavier. My heart beating steadily between my legs, my teeth clenching, my fists balling as I used all my energy to stay in place while I felt like my brain was about to explode.

His head snapped back up and he began pounding me faster, making a sound akin to a growl. He yanked on the make-shift leash, choking me for a second as it pulled me up against him, then the movements came to a sudden stop.

“I should’ve fucking cum without you this morning, I can’t do this much longer.” He said through clenched teeth, a mixture of frustration and anger dripping from his words.

Once again I felt him tense inside me, and I couldn’t help it, it was too tempting; I moved my hips on him, causing him to whimper and hold me tighter to prevent further movement.

“None of that.” His words were breathy and distant, clearly too busy focusing on not coming just yet. A grin bloomed on my face, feeling high as a kite from all the extreme sensations I’ve experienced tonight.

Since I wasn’t able to move my hips – and despite my better judgement – I tensed my pussy instead. His grip on me tightened further, turning painful with his nails digging into me, another low and pained noise escaping him as he buried his face in my neck.

“You’ll regret that.” He spoke against my skin before pushing me forward, yanking the belt harder – not quite stopping my breathing, but hard enough to make me grab for it out of pain. I fumbled to steady myself as he suddenly let go of the belt to grab my hips, pounding me hard and fast – just for a moment – before he pulled out. He let go of me, and I slumped forward onto the bed, feeling empty and shaky.

“Come here, down on your knees.” His words were low and pained.

Regardless of my state, I hurried to do as he said, knowing he was close.

As soon as I got on my knees he shoved his hand into my hair to guide my face close to his cock. It was so beautifully veiny and slick from my own juices, bobbing slightly from the edging.

“Open your mouth.” He bit out, in an oh-so-delightfully desperate tone.

I snapped it open and looked up at him. He appeared possessed, completely taken over by lust. His lips were as glossy as his eyes as he stared down at me.

Hurriedly, he pulled the underwear out of my mouth, then grabbed his cock to stroke it as he spoke, “I can’t tell you how tempting it is to cum all over you, love – show everyone downstairs you’re my whore.” His voice was deeper as he got closer to the edge.

My nerves crept back at his words, my eyes darted between the cock in his hand and his dark, glassy, eyes.

“I can’t imagine a more beautiful image.” With each word his tone fell deeper still, turning it nearly demonic. Every stroke came longer, slower – with more intent.

“Suck it.” Barely a whisper. He guided my head onto it with a moan, and as soon as my lips closed around his length I felt the cum spilling onto my tongue. The fist in my hair pushing and pulling me the way he wanted, my mouth filling up more and more with every movement. So many sounds spilling out of him as he trembled, making my eyes fall shut; making me moan in response – making me not want to swallow, so I could keep feeling exactly like this for longer.

When he was done he pulled out of my mouth, and fell to his knees in front of me.

Bliss was on his features; tired eyes, flushed face, a lazy wicked grin, with his still hard cock pressing up against his shirt as he was leaning forwards slightly. I could feel my own features mirroring his bliss as I took in the sight of him.

I wanted so badly to take a mental screenshot and keep it forever.

The lazy smile on his lips grew as he was staring at my mouth. He gently grabbed my chin, realising I was still holding his cum in there.

With a soft laugh he said, “Go on, swallow.”

Reluctantly, I did as he said, feeling the warm liquid run down my throat.

He scanned my face with wonder in his eyes, “Good girl.”

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