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vixen7243 · 26 days

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Undivided Attention: Gaz

Gaz X AFAB!Reader | TF141 X AFAB!Reader

Masterlist | John Price |Ghost

MDNI!!

Y/N was Task Force 141's combat medic, a sweet little thing that barely ever since joining had seen the light of day in a fight, they sheltered you to the base and that was it, the most action you had seen ever was on the rare occasion that Price okayed you to get on the helicopter with Nikolai to pick them up and that was it. At first Y/n was unbelievably annoyed with them when they had started developing feelings for you and started to slowly shield you from the tainted things in the world, or so they say but whenever they would throw that stupidly lame excuse around in front of you a hearty laugh would erupt from you. "Tainted world? Guys, the amount of dead bodies that I've had to leave in my wake before joining you all is enough to fill hell alone. I'm parted of that tainted things in this world."

The angry glances and scoffs that followed your attempt with reasoning with them made you hold your tongue after John's following statement. "You won't ever be apart of that world anymore, not while I'm still breathing."

It had taken a while for the team to warm up to you, the thought that General Shepard was the one to specially assign you to them didn't sit well with them till they had seen the back handed way you would openly shame him and degrade him with annoyance and slight humor gleaming in your eyes. "No wonder you have been working so well with them, rabid dogs always know how to stick together." Barking a laugh at him you made quiet the spectacular come back on his embarrassing attempt to hit on you and get you into his bed, only for you to make an impotent comment to him and his age. After which, with the brightest red face, being sure to always avoid your presence whenever possible. After that, Soap, Gaz and even John eased up on their ignoring and slanted looks, having small talks with you eventually enjoying long chats with you late into the night if you or them, couldn't sleep. Ghost still gave you hard stares every once in a while but he would at least respond back to you when you asked him anything or talked to him.

Somewhere along the way of slowly easing you out of the field and keeping you at the base, the men had even started leaving lingering touches, longing glances and sweet nicknames that would make your stomach flutter. It was one late night in John's office, you were yet again up late with him, mostly keeping him company, he sat at his desk, papers scattered, his bourbon abandoned long ago while you were insisting he drink tea after 7 if he needed to drink something, this being better for his liver. You sat in a chair on the other side of his desk, legs kicked up while you read a book from his mini library, bored mostly but you always were curious of the books he read so you pushed through, a night that was the same as any other when you would sit in his office, the sound of the clock ticking, his pen scratching along the papers and the occasional turn of a page from you. Finishing the last page you slammed the book shut, making John look up at you, stretching back into the chair you groaned loudly, "Good lord Captain, can't you read mor entertaining books? Maybe ones that also have a happy ending, thought I was going to fuckin cry, why do authors always kill the character that draws out the best in other characters?"

John set his pen down as he also leaned back cracking his back as he settled in, "You still finished the book, I would say it was entertaining enough. Would you rather I read one of your books this time maybe?"

A blush dusted your cheeks as you thought about your stash of books in your room that you kept locked in a footlocker, they were definitely dirty and maybe more sick minded than what John was used too. "Uh, no, we'll stick to your books, you definitely couldn't handle my books." A small chuckle left your lips, a smile coming up thinking about how John might blush at some of the things you've read, or even are currently reading. You wonder how he would even react to knowing that you read about girls getting absolutely destroyed in bed, so sore they can't even barely move after, even passing out because of how good it feels. Sucking your bottom lip between your teeth, you glance up noticing that he was watching your lip.

"You don't think so?" You watched has his hand ran over his beard that he hadn't gotten around to trimming, or more or less you haven't, he had you take up the dutiful job of keeping his facial hair trimmed and kept up, you sometimes sitting in his lap, doing your absolute best not to grind near his crotch when seated. "What do you read then? Enlighten me." Looking away from him you tried to think if you should lie or make up an excuse and leave, to embarrassed not to tell him the truth of the filth that you read. Hearing him clear his throat, you glanced up through your lashes watching as he pointed to his lap. You had gotten so used to sitting in all their laps, your ass barely ever sat the seat of a proper chair or couch, especially in the rec room, Soap and Gaz loved to pull you up into their laps, their hands massaging your thighs or back as your fingers massaged their scalps, necks or shoulders. Ghost sometimes would push you to one side of the couch, throwing himself down, resting his head in your lap while your fingers played with his blonde hair, you hadn't gotten a chance to see his face but he does now wear sometimes a surgical mask, black. Getting up you made your way to him, sitting in his lap, feeling like a little doll, you belonged to all of them, you knew that, they knew it. As soon as you straddled his lap, his hands crept up and down your sides and thighs, you were trying to find the words you wanted to use to get yourself out of this but looking into his eyes, you were stuck.

That night, through soft words, guided affection, and encouraging embrace, John set claim to you, later in the morning notifying the rest of the lads you walked out to the rec room Gaz and Soap the first up and right in front of you like puppies. You all had a very long chat about boundaries and limits, safe words and commitment that morning. After all was aired out, you were officially locked down to the base, and eventually, surprisingly fast just accepted it.

Soap was the handsyiest, even around base, he always had his arm wrapped around your waist, face buried in your neck, there was no reining him in, this was him holding back. In the rec room, he would beg you to cuddle on the couch, which would lead to cockwarming, then eventually down right fucking, he loved having you around him, you did nothing but praise him, words he barely ever heard but yearned for. You handed them out to him like candy, without a second thought, sometimes admittedly yes, you should have told him to stop, not in public, no PDA but god, his puppy eyes always made your heart clench, you just couldn't say no to that face, the bastard.

Ghost was more reserved, having to be careful do to him being a superior officer, as well as John. That's not to say that he didn't follow you around the base when Soap wasn't glued to your hip, whenever he found his chance, he would stick to you, happy little glances his way making him preen. Getting you to the rec room where you two could be slightly more open with affection, Ghost was almost, almost unrecognizable with his little whispers, your praises making him blush, his softened eyes quietly begging for more of your attention. Once he has you in his room, god, he has you pinned under him, sometimes even holds you above him, just begging for more praise, his voice uncharacteristically cracking from emotion, your gentle hands smoothing over scars that make him flinch, whining as he thrusts into you, body breaking as you just keep giving him everything, telling him that he deserves everything, even forcing him to say he deserves this, as you kiss his body gently, caressing him, handling him as if he was the finest piece of glass that could break from even a breath. You really did enjoy giving Ghost your attention, especially when you knew at times it was helping him heal wounds that he refused to ever heal, he was your delicate flower, even if to all them, you were theirs.

John got you most nights and mornings due to how busy he was, it was unspoken but agreed upon, you slept in his bed, unless one of the others truly needed you after a bad day, or dream. Sometimes when he could spare a moment in the day away from the confines of his office and work, he sauté you out, like his own little personal mission, and you would go back with him to his room, or his office, which ever was the closest. After making sure the door was locked he would hold you, your words ringing in his soul as you held him tightly, whispering the sweetest love you could offer him that wouldn't make him rebuttal that he was too old for you, that he was being selfish in holding you the way he does. That if he was a better man, half the man you praise him to be, he would stop his advances, let you go, close himself off again, but he couldn't he was filth, worse than filth for keeping you so close. You would hush his negativity with kisses, massages and words so sweet you would see the broken captain that tried so hard to stay strong for his team, for you. You held him together as he found the warm and love he didn't believe he deserved inside you.

Gaz, sweet, patient, caring Gaz, he let you be, he never followed you, never looked for you, he gave you space. He knew you would come to him, you always do, you always make sure to divide up your days for all of them, giving them all the attention and love you could possibly offer them while trying to give yourself some in small increments whenever possible. Gaz watched as you would coddle Soap, giving in to the grown mans pleas of just the tip before absolutely destroying your little cunny on the couch, both of you spent and panting when Ghost comes in to lecture Soap on keeping that to his room. While also noticing on the rare occasion when Ghost wouldn't close his door all the way, seeing as he begs under you, quiet tears slipping down his lieutenants cheeks, your sweet words and encouraging praise breaking the man down even more before the two of you flip over, Ghost's head resting over your heart, the both of you taking a short nap in each others embrace. Seeing when his captain would take you to his office, and then hear him confined in you his fears, failures and short comings, all which you counter softly, Gaz would walk away hearing his Captain break down with you as well, before he's sure, as you had done with Ghost, hold him.

Gaz was patient, but to a point. For lords sake, he was a man too, he had needs, desires, problems, and he was apart of this team. Whenever he would notice in the past fortnight that you were making your way to him, his body would tense, a pent up of emotions flooding him, ready to be released into your caring embrace only for you to be dragged off by one of the others. Never, not once did he ever speak up with his annoyance, or aggravation, he kept quiet, waited, but, today was it, he couldn't be patient, or your good boy while Soap was dragging you away from his path to take you to his room. Gaz stood up abruptly and picked you up, throwing you over his shoulder, "Damnit no, it's my bloody turn with her, the lot of ya keep out my room for the night." Huffing ignoring their questioning gazes, not quite used to Gaz having that kind of tone, he carried you to his room slamming the door shut and locking it before setting you on his bed gently, he wasn't trying to take his annoyance out on you truly but he was at his limit.

"I'm sorry Kyle."

"Not you that should be apologizing, come here." Kyle got up into the bed after kicking his boots off, waiting for you to do the same as you curled up into his side, resting your hand on his chest, head over his heart listening to it pound heavily. There was a beat of silence as you stayed on his side before pushing up slightly and looking into his eyes.

"Talk to me, you have me all night I won't go anywhere."

Kyle let loose everything, everything he was feeling, had been holding in, the things that had been happening, people that had been pushing him, his desire for you, and finally he broke down to his loneliness of being without you for so long. You listened, unjudging as he started to fall silent, bring your hand up to his cheek you cupped it as you kissed his other cheek lightly, the soft look in your eyes making his heart wrench, he really did miss having you in his arms. You reassured him, changing positions as you cradled his head into your lap, breaking down everything he told you, lifting up his soul with your loving gentle touch, words lighting up his world.

After a comfortable silence befell the both of you, Gaz turned squeezing your thigh, while he moved your body where he wanted, slotting himself between your thighs, groaning as he dragged your body down the pillows. He kissed your stomach as he undid your pants and dragged them down your legs, kissing and nipping your thighs and ankles before going back down and nudging your underwear to the side laying a soft kiss to your clit. "Kyle" Wrapping your fingers into his curls you moaned, feeling his smirk against your cunny as his tongue darted out and dragged up your slit before he started grabbing at your shirt and pushing it up. Taking it from him you slightly pushed up and tugged your shirt off, feeling him moan into you you flinched as he wrapped his lips around your clit and sucked. Feeling your juices start to coat his lips and drip down his chin he sat up and pulled his shirt off, guiding his hand back down tugging on your underwear while undoing his belt and pants. Tugging on your underwear you kicked them off wrapping your legs quickly around his waist when he freed his aching cock, wrapping your arms around his shoulders you kissed him, your tongues sliding into each others mouth, reexploring each others bodies, his hand groping, mapping, feeling your body under him, his cock bobbing at your entrance, pearly beads of precum dripping onto your clit.

Pulling back, he looked between your bodies, gripping the base of his cock before lining himself up, and pushing in slowly, giving short, slow thrusts as you squeezed the back of his neck moaning into his skin. When he bottomed out inside of you the both of you groan, he was slotted in right at your cervix, fixing his position, he set either hand on each side of your head before pulling back just enough to where his tip was resting inside and then slamming back into you. Setting that pace, the neither of you could hold your moans back, the sound of skin slapping on skin echoing, carrying out into the hall. Reaching your hand down you skimmed your fingers over your clit rolling it between your fingers, your back arching up, and your walls clamping down onto Kyle's cock, your orgasm washing over you quickly. Kyle fucking you through your first one smirking down at you, "First one, many more to go gorgeous."

Kyle pulled back and grabbed your hips turning you onto your stomach, yanking your hips up before sliding back in, your sensitive walls fluttering around his cock, a whimper sliding out of your mouth, his pace was quick and harder. You were sure that by the end of the night, your cervix had to be bruised but god, it was feeling amazing and you would welcome the arch for the following days. Kyle grabbed a fist full of your hair before pulling back, your back arching deliciously, pushing up onto your elbows you cried out when you felt his tip sliding against your gummy spot making your toes curl and a broken groan fall from you as you gushed around him for the second time, a cry fall out of your lips as he continued to pound into you. "Kyle, fuck, I-I can't..."

Smiling he pulled out and turned you over, pushing your knees up to your chest, both legs thrown over his shoulder and he guided his cock back in, "One more for me gorgeous, I know you can do it, come on." Crying out he relentlessly pounding into your swollen cunny, pushing his forehead against yours, sweat falling from him to you mixing with your own, your skin stuck together, your cum connecting the two of you when ever he pulls out for a moment before he pushes back against you.

Feeling him twitch inside of you, you kissed him, massaging his back and scalp feeling his hips stutter when you started, lifting your head as much as you could, you whispered sweet praise into his ear, your voice hoarse from crying and moaning. Kyle couldn't hold back, slamming his hips back into your sweet spot he pushed the both of you over the edge a groan mixed with a whimper pushed out of his chest while you cried out using whatever strength you could must to hold him as close as possible.

Slowly pulling out, he rolled beside you pulling you into him, both of you smiling exhausted, his hands rubbing your lower back and kissing your forehead. You intertwined your legs, and rubbed the sides of his neck before scratching the base of his head humming. The moment was sweet and quiet between the two of you, content with just the presents of the other. You had fallen asleep after a moment, Kyle figured he would be nice and let you rest for a few before you woke you up with his head between your juicy thighs, and his fingers restuffed deep inside you. Besides, the night was young, you guys could rest for a bit.

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John Price |Ghost

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cordeliawhohung · 8 hours

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Strangers

john price x fem!reader | masterlist | ao3

John Price remembers every life he's ever lived. When death takes him in one universe, he's born into the next with all his memories and past experiences still intact. Throughout the lives he's lived, you're the only thing that ever seems to quell the ache in his chest, and he spends every life searching for your comfort. Except, in this life, he's too late

cw: soulmate!au, murder, suicide, feticide, kidnapping, drugging, possessive john price, non-con elements, one shot, dead dove: do not eat!!!

In every life you’ve ever lived, John Price finds you.

He’s drawn to you like an animal is drawn to its cage. The glint of the metal bars look like stars if he squints hard enough, and the smell of blood and iron is the fairest perfume in the world. There is no life that he wishes to live without you in it. Tucked close to his chest in bed at night. Curled up underneath his thumb. Where you go, he follows you, hidden in the shadows until he’s ready to reveal himself as the soulmate who’s been tracking you across eons worth of lives.

It’s a simple curse. One that’s haunted him since he first poofed into existence so long ago he can’t recall how much time has passed. Forever bound to remember every life he’s ever lived while everyone else debates the possibility of a god or heaven, forgetting their reincarnated selves in other universes. It’s a particularly lonely ailment. He had been locked in chains in one life for attempting to convince the world that there was life after death, not through a god, but through sheer human will. Had to sever the artery in his tongue with his teeth and drink down his blood to escape a life of imprisonment, and just like he knew he would, he woke up in his next life a free man.

These days, he spends his lives on something more worthwhile: you. Just as he does, you look the same in every universe with a smile he knows by touch alone and a laugh that is the only melody that can soothe the immortal ache in his chest. He’s fried his brain with drugs and killed his liver with drink, forever carrying the burden of memory, and yet throughout his travels, you remain the only thing capable of soothing that terrible ache that haunts him. If death has already taken you in one life, he kills himself and moves onto the next, a wild man forever on the hunt for you.

The only other thing that stays consistent throughout his many lives besides the desire to be yours, is the taste of fresh tea. He prefers Yorkshire tea, but the Earl Grey they substitute at the shop is fine enough. Quiet muttering fills the air around him as he sits in the corner of the shop, alone with his thoughts. He takes a sip of the tea, allowing the hint of lavender to wash over his tongue as if cleansing him. It’s the only thing that tastes and smells like home. Besides you, of course; but he hasn’t found you yet, and it’s getting late.

Usually, he’s lucky enough to find you by the time both of you are in your twenties. It’s easy to win you over at that age. He holds a maturity well beyond his years, and you hold a wide-eyed innocence that has you in his grasp before you even realize it. But he’s in his thirties, and that has him anxious. Too much time has passed — a decade more than usual — which leaves him with a variety of possibilities. Ones he doesn’t like entertaining.

No matter. He’s learned to be somewhat patient over the countless lifetimes spent searching for you, because it always pays off in the end. All the marriages, the children you have, the love you make. John Price is the luckiest man in the world, being able to replay his favorite memories with you for all eternity. He could never tire of you, would never dream of such a terror.

So when the bell attached to the shop door rings with the entrance of another customer, it quickly turns to music to his ears when he sees you. Afternoon sunlight illuminates the world behind you, blinding him with the beauty you carry across universes and worlds. Your familiar eyes scan the area briefly, hardly paying him any mind before you approach the counter with a grace and poise that has his heart thudding in his throat. He can never get used to the first time. The first time his eyes land on you, he hears your voice, or skin touches yours; it’s the only thing that can tear him apart as well as you do.

He tries not to stare at your ass when you order your drink. It’s always been his favorite physical feature of yours. There’s something different about this version of you, yet still familiar. Nothing is ever entirely unknown to him, not when it concerns you, but you’re glowing more than usual. It’s captivating in a way that makes him feel like a dog, looking at a woman in such a perverse way, but he knows you like it when he stares. You always have in every other life.

When the barista hands you a to-go cup, John knows he doesn’t have long before you slip away. Such a sharp girl, quick on her feet. Always buzzing around, never staying in one place for too long, as if the imprint of your soul enjoyed the chase of him following after you. It’s a game he enjoys very much; one he doesn’t mind entertaining at all.

John rises from his seat, cup still half full, where he slips to the door just as you turn around to leave. His pace is leisurely, certainly in no rush as his hands reach out for the exit, only for him to pause. How silly of him to have left his drink behind, the only reason he even came to that shop in the first place. When he turns around, it’s quick and violent, and catches you so off guard you run right into him.

Piping hot tea splashes around in your to-go cup, and if it wasn’t for John’s quick reflexes and a firm grip on your wrist, you would’ve gotten yourself hurt. Your gasp is sweet and melodic on his ears, and he nearly melts under your gaze as your wide eyes stare at him. Your surprise is cute. As if you couldn’t remember meeting him in countless different universes like this.

“Terribly sorry, darling,” he says as if surprised. His grip loosens on your wrist just as his other hand comes up to rest on your waist. It’s quick, he knows; but in some way, you’re already used to it. “You alright?”

It takes you a moment to catch your breath, and once you do, John feels you slip out of his grasp as you take a step back. Both of your hands come up to hold the cup, afraid of dropping it, and you give him a polite smile and nod.

“Yes, thank you, I… good save,” is all you can manage as you chuckle and gesture to your drink.

John’s hands mourn the absence of your warmth, yet he allows them to politely fall back against his side. His lips yearn to be on yours. For him, this isn’t a first time greeting, but a long awaited reunion. Still, he calms his nerves and hardens them to steel as he chuckles with you.

“Would’ve hated for you to have gotten hurt,” he comments as his eyes glance down at your legs. The brief thought of that searing hot liquid broiling the supple skin of your thighs invades his mind before he can push it away. “You’re sure you’re alright?”

Whatever your response is, he can’t hear it. The dazzling bling of your betrayal drowns out the sound of your voice and everything around him. It’s beautiful; your ring. Its gemstone glints in the sunlight streaming through the windows as if attempting to blind him. No, not blind him. Something worse. It screams at him the very thing he had feared for the last few years; he was too late. Bound to another man in matrimony, a silly mistake you had made before ever seeing the light.

The aftertaste of tea suddenly tastes putrid on his tongue. His sweet mate, too impatient to wait for him in that lifetime. You’d fucked other men in other lives, and though it had always made his stomach turn, John could understand. But marriage?

His teeth threaten to shatter under the pressure of his clenching jaw.

When the sound comes back to him, his eyes comprehend the expression on your face. Discomfort — near disdain. In this universe, John Price is not your lover. He is a man, and only that. One who just so happens to be barring you from the exit.

He remembers himself, and smiles at you kindly as he quickly steps to the side, muttering an apology with a jaw that’s much too stiff. And still, he reaches behind him to hold the door open for you, and despite your apprehension you thank him quietly and say goodbye before you vanish into the streets. Your smell lingers in the air next to him for only a moment before it dissipates and drowns in the aroma of herbs and teas. His face goes cold as he glares at the corner where his now cold tea sits.

This was the first life he ever lived where you married a man that wasn’t him. Something broke. Shattered in his chest where the shards cut him apart from the inside out. When he breathes in, he can smell the blood pooling inside of him and it wakes him up to the terrible realization that — for once in his many, many lifetimes — he’s late. He’s late, and he doesn’t know what to do.

As the sweet smell of tea fades and is replaced by the putrid aroma of London, John tells himself to let it go. So what he wasted thirty plus years just for your heart to already be stolen away from him? There’s a millennia behind him, and a millennia ahead of him. When one life doesn’t go right for him, there’s always the next. Yet as pavement turns to brick and The Thames sprawls out in front of him beyond metal bars, he finds himself hesitating. The idea of letting go can’t quite sink its tendrils into his mind, and his knuckles grow white as he grips the barrier in front of him.

Bitter wind bites at his face as he looks at the water below him. Hesitation. He doesn’t know why it paralyzes him. There’s never been any need or use for second guesses, because he’s always known what’s waiting for him on the other side. All he needs to do is lift his leg, hoist himself up, and then let gravity do the rest. He’s done it before, in some other life. He’s felt his body hit the frigid water with needle-like pain blossoming across his skin just before it swallows him whole. It’s not an easy way to die, but it’s the only thing violent enough that has the capability of smothering the bitterness growing in his heart.

The answer to his confusion comes as a whisper on the back of his neck, where it tingles until it reaches the base of his spine and flutters throughout every cell of his body. Principle. It’s the principle of it all. In every single life, you’ve been his lover, his wife, the mother of his children, and if you are not, then you are dead. Rotten. Decaying in some grave by the time he finally finds you. You’re not just his desire, the love of his life, his reason for being; you are his right.

How long can someone love a soul before it becomes theirs? Before it’s ripped out of their lover and tucked safely away into a cage?

John chuckles as his hand slips from the railing, and he slides them into his pockets as if he had been enjoying the view of grey water and even more grey skies this entire time. Kill himself? No; you’ve been his this entire time. You just don’t know it yet.

He’s only ever done this a few times before; kidnap someone. In a few of his past lives, he’s been a soldier. A stone-hardened man who’s stolen families as bartering tools to make terrorists talk when their mouths were otherwise sealed shut. Killing is a good way for him to let out the anger that builds in a man’s soul after so long, and though he prefers to keep it to people who deserve it, his fingers can’t help but twitch as he watches your husband drop you off at the yoga studio.

Doesn’t he — your husband — deserve it? Death? Shouldn’t he pay the ultimate price for stealing you away from your true lover? The man who’s looked after you for eons? John wants to do it. Kill him. Smell the sanguine aroma that mixes with the harsh gunpowder that expels after a bullet is shot. He wants to, and he could do it, but murder muddles things up more than he would like, and though he’s good at covering his trail, he’d rather steal you away without incident. He’s been carefully plotting this ever since he saw you in that tea shop all those days ago; he can’t ruin it.

A smile pulls at his lips as he thinks about the look on your husband's face, when his pretty little pretend wife doesn’t return home. When he realizes how he’s failed you.

John’s hands tap at the steering wheel as he waits, patient as ever, for your session to end. Silly of you to go to a night class, really. Even sillier of your husband to allow such a terrible thing. If anything, it's greater proof that this new man in this new life isn’t good for you. It could have been anyone sitting in that car park, waiting for you to leave. Waiting to take you home.

Good thing it’s only him.

John exits the car just before eight. Cool air does its best to calm the electricity sizzling in his veins, but ultimately it’s his own mind that stills his nerves. Everything is planned out in his mind with moves expertly rehearsed in a past now forgotten, yet still ingrained in his memory; he knows he’ll get exactly what he wants. You. It’s all he craves. All he ever does.

You exit the studio with a laugh and a wave goodbye to the other women in your yoga class. That pathetic husband of yours is late, which only proves to be good fortune for John as he slips by your side. His feet are dangerously silent on the pavement and his arm is just as warm as ever as he wraps it around your waist, blade in hand. Even through the fabric of your shirt its point is noticeably sharp, and your feet stumble as he presses it against you in warning.

“Not a word, darling,” he whispers, too saccharine to be a stranger.

You listen, just like he knew you would, and he steers you away from the pavement and into the car park. It’s difficult for him not to chuckle as he recalls you in another life. How you once batted your pretty lashes at him, all but begging him to use a knife in bed with you. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to feel the cold sting of it against your skin. He wonders if some part of you feels that way in this life.

Once you reach the car, he slips the zip ties over your wrists in a single fluid motion before opening the door for you. Any onlookers would just think he’s being a gentleman helping you into the car like that, but there’s a method to his madness. As soon as you’re seated into the passengers side, your eyes meet his and they widen with terrified recognition. Not quite the look he hoped for from you, but your expression quickly melts away the moment a needle pierces through your pants and into your thigh. All that’s left to do is buckle you in and drive off.

He likes to pretend he’s carrying you to your honeymoon room as he curls you up into his arms. A sweet bride, passed out against his chest as he carries you to bed, safe in the confines of the cage he’s spent that entire lifetime preparing for you. You don’t stir when he places you in bed, but he lays down next to you as if both of you are resting. He lays in front of you so he can see your face while it’s peaceful; not while it’s twisted with confusion and disgust like it was in the tea shop a few days ago. No, he likes you much better like this. Quiet and pliant.

The tips of his fingers trace the features of your face, and it’s a dance he’s grown to have well memorized. They brush your lips and the tip of your nose before dipping underneath your jaw where they continue to wander. It doesn’t feel wrong, even though he knows you’d beg to differ. He’s done this before, in a life you don’t remember. Touch you like this. Feeling the dip between your breasts and the skin of your stomach. He pats your hands, still bound together with a zip tie — he tells himself he’ll remove them once you start behaving — before caressing your thighs. He wants to slip upwards, to brush his thumb against your clit just like how he knows you like it, but he refrains. He’ll wait until you wake up to do that. Your gasps are always sweeter when you’re aware.

The sweet bliss of numb eternity melts away as the drugs begin to wear off, and when your eyes flutter open you’re met with the face of a stranger. Truly, he’s not a stranger at all. Or, at least that’s what John would have you believe with the knowing smile he gives you. Your bound hands move up and press against his chest, desperately attempting to earn some space between the two of you. This only makes him laugh, and his hand rests on top of yours.

“Easy, darling,” he soothes.

An incoherent response stumbles out from your lips just as fearful tears swell in your eyes. His hand pants yours against his chest before he frowns. The gemstone on your wedding ring stands out like a sore thumb against his palm, and it serves as a stark reminder as to why he had to do all this in the first place. You don’t — or can’t — fight against him as he slips the ring off your finger and places it on the nightstand next to him. He’ll dispose of it properly another time, but for now he just can’t stand to see that proof of ownership on you.

“Please.” It’s the first word you’re able to slur out, and John hangs onto the syllable like it’s dessert. “W-Whatever you want… please… my husband, h-he’ll give it to you just… let me go, please.”

Husband. He hates that word on your lips when it’s not in reference to him.

“I’ve already gotten what I want, love,” he whispers.

Your eyes wrench shut and tears fall free at the realization that there’s nothing you can do to get away from this crazed man. He shushes you as he holds your face in his hands and presses his lips against your forehead. It’s not enjoyable, the way you recoil from him, but giving you the same love he’s given you in every other life feels right. It feels more wrong to withhold it from you.

Because this is his right, isn’t it? Of course it is, and in some sort of way, you seem to know this too. Your hands no longer press against his chest in disdain, and it’s all too easy to prop himself up on his elbow and press his lips against yours. The pressure is firm, as if he’s holding himself back from taking more from you. He groans at the taste of salt on your lips, and nearly chuckles at the way you tremble. It’s a one-sided embrace that you refuse to return, but he tells himself you’ll learn otherwise soon enough.

When John pulls away, your eyes refuse to focus on him as the shame eats you from the inside out. Your entire body is limp, bound hands resting against your stomach as he sits up. Deciding you’ve been behaving well enough, he reaches for the knife on the nightstand and he turns back to you, ready to cut the ties from your wrists.

The very moment the glint of the knife catches your eye is the moment you begin to squirm. Legs thrash and mess up the sheets as you scramble away from him until your head and back is pressed against the headboard. Your chest heaves violently as your terror overtakes you, and John pauses as you retreat. He’s never seen you look at him like that; not in any life he’s ever lived.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he promises.

“Please don’t,” you beg, his assurance falling on deaf ears. Your pleas turn into mindless stuttering for a moment before something visibly breaks in you, forcing you to share a secret that feels like sealing your death: “Please, you can’t just- I- I’m pregnant! Please!”

Everything stops. The world. His heart. It all falls quiet except for the sound of your hyperventilating which is almost as deafening as the ringing in his ears. Pregnant. Anything kind in John’s eyes dies quietly as he clenches the knife in his hand.

Pregnant. Not with his child. It must be a lie — it has to be a lie. You don’t look pregnant. There is no swelling of your stomach. Yet your hands lie on your lower abdomen as if you’re cradling something. Cradling someone. You have never been good at lying in any of your lives, and the candor sheen in your eyes tells him you’re not good at lying in this one, either.

John tells himself he only wants to embrace you. To mourn the life the two of you could have had if you only behaved. He doesn’t register why you’re screaming until the blood covers his hands, and then you fall quiet. His knife sinks into your stomach like it’s butter, and it pulls free from you even easier. You stare up at him, confused. As if you can’t comprehend why he would do this to you.

Ichor flows free from you like a river, and all you can do is gasp and paw at your wound. Your legs flail as John pulls you against his chest, chin resting on top of your head as if this is something he can soothe away with a hug. It’s not. He can’t soothe away your betrayal. Can’t come to terms with the fact you carry another man’s child when you should be carrying his.

“I know,” he shushes with a strained voice. “I know. It’ll be over soon.”

Your death is not kind, and he mourns every minute you bleed in his arms until you eventually still. It’s only when your blood goes cold that he allows himself to cry. Angry, hot tears that sear his skin as they soak into your hair. Damn this ruined life. Damn the years he wasted trying to find you only for you to be soiled by the time you were in his grasp. He hates the gore that stains your being, but he assures himself it was necessary.

In every life, you belong to him. In the lives that you don’t, you’re already dead.

John carefully places your body back on the mattress where he takes in the sight of you. There’s no more glow to your skin, not like there was while you were alive. But you’re dead, and he knows the life inside of you is dead, too. He tries to take comfort in that fact before angling the knife towards himself.

Killing himself is easier than killing you, as driving the knife into his throat is a well practiced motion. It’s something he’s done before, and he’s so used to it he doesn’t even groan at the sting as the blade slices his artery. Darkness is quick to cloud his vision as the blood loss overwhelms him, and he sputters and stares down at your cold body below. There is little comfort he feels when his blood meets yours on the stained sheets of the bed he wished to love you on. The mixing of blood is the only bond the two of you will ever have in that life.

He coughs as he falls forward. Soon, he has no use for any sort of comfort at all.

There is no blood in your next life. No iron taste in your mouth, or rotten flesh haunting your nose. No, there is only ink, paper, and well loved books.

You love your job. Books are your livelihood; the tool you use to escape reality on rainy days, so it only makes sense that in this life you work as a librarian. The building is dated with poorly insulated windows, and a bell that chimes as another patron enters, but that’s what makes it charming. Millions of words have been consumed in that library, and they linger in a way that never leaves you feeling alone.

Several books sit tucked safely in your arms as you wander aisles, on the hunt to return them home. Every shelf is well memorized. You could find any book in that building blind folded, and you hum to yourself as you go to return Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself to its rightful home on the top shelf of the WXYZ aisle.

Your feet are nimble as you climb the step stool to reach the shelf. It nearly reaches the ceiling, which is no small feat for a building of that size. Your arm stretches over your head and you breathe in the scent of stale paper and well loved books. Just as your fingers slide the item into place, the stool below you jerks, and your stomach drops as you fall to the side.

The books in your arms tumble onto the ground, but you’re saved from that same fate as a pair of arms swoop around you. You squeak as your hands grip the shirt of your savior, and you look up with wild eyes at the man. John Price is younger in this life when he finds you. In his twenties this go around. His face is clean shaven, but his eyes still hold the wisdom of forgotten ages and dead worlds.

“Terribly sorry, darling,” he apologizes. His grip on you loosens, but he doesn’t quite cut you free just yet. “You alright?”

“Yes, thank you, I… good save,” is all you can manage through a breathless chuckle.

There’s an innocence in your eyes that has John smiling at you. His hands are kinder in this life. The angry claws that ended your previous life don’t exist anymore. They do not wield a knife in anger; they only hold you with unbridled adoration. It’s the way things are supposed to be, with you in his arms and looking up at him with that innocent gaze, just the way he likes you. For a moment, John worries that you somehow recognize him when you tilt your head, yet as you bashfully return his smile, he takes comfort in knowing that you don’t remember anything.

You don’t remember anything at all.

#core writes #john price x reader #captain price x reader #price x reader #fucked up soulmate au #f!reader

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hauntedpearl · 1 year

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it's 0:03 on the 24th of january, 2003 and dean is 24 years old. he's lonely and scared and his dad hasn't seen him in person in over nine months. he doesn't really know what to do. he wanders the continent waiting for his father to text him the details of a hunt (john doesn't even bother calling anymore) and when he does, dean goes. he finds something to put his fist through. finds somewhere to kill his liver. finds someone to keep him warm at night. it's all very tideous and empty and he doesn't know how long he's supposed to sustain himself like this.

dean's 24, and his dad doesn't call on his birthday. his brother doesn't either. there was a time when sam would pretend to be asleep, but he'd really be hiding under the covers with candy he bought with change he'd pilfered (badly) from dean's pockets, waiting for the clock to strike midnight so he could "surprise" dean. but that was when dean was 8, 10, 12. dean's 24 now, and his brother doesn't give a shit.

the world feels like it's moving fast when you're 24. you think you've seen all you can already, think you've met everyone you're ever going to meet. wherever you are, whatever you're doing, it feels like that's all there is. forever.

dean's 24, and he's shit faced in a podunk town somewhere in middle america with six bucks to his name and a colt under his jacket.

it's a bleak fucking forever, and he isn't sure what he's supposed to do about it. there's that feeling in his chest like some sonofabitch has its claws stuck in there. he can't breathe. he can't think. he's scared, kind of, but he doesn't even know what he's scared of.

it's a shitty fucking feeling.

dean's 24, and he really, really just wants his mom. his family. he wants a degree, and he wants to see the proud smile on mary's face — lined, it would be lined, because dean's 24 now — when she hangs it up in the foyer. he wants —

well. whatever. it doesn't matter. dean's 24. and alone. and he thinks that's all he's ever going to be.

but dean's only 24, and there's a lot he doesn't know.

it's 00:03 on the 24th of january, 2023 and dean winchester is 44 years old.

he's putting on a show of being annoyed at being woken up at midnight, grumbling and grouching, but really, he's preening under all the attention.

his house — and he has a house — is a mess. he's been corralled onto the couch by jody's girls who crowd around him as he waits for the birthday cake — or pie, he isn't sure yet — to arrive. they joke over his head like he there isn't six feet and change of person between them, and it makes him want to smile.

dean's 44, and his life is slow, and quiet. there's a ring on his left hand and no gun under his pillow. the only time he wields a knife these days is when he's cooking for his family. his hair is more salt than it is pepper, and his knees hurt when he bends them. he's got glasses and hearing aids and he's traded in his heeled boots for orthopedic shoes.

all this is not forever, not really, but he likes whatever it is. there's this feeling in his chest, like maybe an angel's pressed a palm to it and is blessing him. like sunshine. or a good meal. or the sound of his family being dorky in the room over. he's happy, is the thing. he's so damn happy.

dean's 44. he's got an angel for a husband and a band of almost-kids he loves so much he doesn't know what to do with it. his mother's here, too. his mother's here. her face is lined— just like his, because dean's 44 now — and when she smiles, it feels like the world is sighing. like it'll be okay.

it's a good feeling.

it's the 24th of january, 2023, and it is a birthday pie. there's a candle that he blows, and the noise following that is loud enough that he almost worries about the neighbours.

"happy birthday, dean!" they all say — mother, brother, son, husband, and the girls. his family.

cas— his cas, who's here, he's here—holds dean's face in his hands, kisses his forehead.

"i love you," he says. "you, too. always," dean replies.

dean's 44, and his life is good. it's more than good. there's so much he doesn't know, but he's not too worried about all that, because he's not alone.

life happens. they'll deal.

#doe's writing #HERE HAVE A SMALL SOFT LIL FICLET I WROTE JUST NOW #I'm sorry i didn't plan a proper fic but you know #dean is HAPPY!!!!#THAT'S SLL YOU NEED TO KNOW!!!#dean is so happy!!! <33333 #spn ficlet #dean's 44th birthday!#deansbirthdaybash

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reds-skull · 5 months

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Not Alive, Nor Dead

[PART 1]

Don't ask me why I wrote chapter two literally a day after the first, it's a mix of the nice comments I got and the fact I'm enjoying myself more than I expected, haha.

Ghost crashes into his desk chair, throwing two folders on the table. One was the Sergeant’s report, which he had to go through and approve before forwarding to Price, and the other…

The other was Soap’s personal file. He technically didn’t have clearance for it anymore, but Price left it on his desk next to the report, and Ghost figured he won’t notice if it disappeared for a couple hours.

Besides… he was supposed to read it before the mission. He just didn’t care in the past.

Ghost opens the file, and immediately gets greeted by a picture of Soap. He’s younger and seemed to be holding back a smile for the photo.

John “Soap” MacTavish. Somehow, Ghost can’t see how this fiery Sergeant shares a name with the captain.

The rest of the file is pretty standard. Born in Scotland (In a town Ghost never heard of), age 27, enlisted at 16. It gets more interesting when he reaches the Revenant section.

Or, whatever he can see from it. His Reaping, his first death, is completely blacked out. His powers list the explosion immunity and creation, but another line is censored. Ghost feels cheated of information - the amount of red tape around Soap would be concerning, if it didn’t make him that more intrigued.

He flips through his previous missions fairly quickly, not expecting much of it to be uncensored. Lad was SAS before dying, the reports are practically a solid block of black ink.

Ghost continues to the medical reports, fully intending to skip those as well, and he keeps flipping, and flipping, and flipping…

An icy hand grabs at his throat. Frowning, he slowly flips back.

The frozen feeling persists when he starts reading. 4 years ago, mission in Austria. Exposure to thermite explosion, 3 fingers missing and loss of motor function to his left leg. 11 months ago, C4 accident, right ear, eye, and majority of throat missing. 2 years ago, grenade explosion, massive damage to liver and stomach.

Combing through all records, Ghost took a moment to realize no medical procedure was noted. Which means Soap didn’t receive any.

He shut the folder.

Something different from the freezing horror he initially felt started rising within him. It was rage.

The personal folder gets thrown aside, and Ghost focuses on the mission report. Right. Perhaps this will shed more light on what Soap is capable of, because honestly right now he can’t bare thinking about how much damage the Sergeant suffered through any longer.

The report is well-written, as any soldier of Soap’s rank would be. Ghost enjoys seeing just how competent Soap was, clearing rooms at neck breaking speed. What catches his eyes is the reason the explosion at the warehouse happened.

He never did get an answer to that…

As it turns out, Soap did get spotted. But according to the report, it wasn’t a hostile that activated the explosive. No, Soap himself did that. The reason given is “estimated risk to Bravo 0-7”.

…Soap thought he was in danger?

Ghost racks his brain trying to understand why. Did he think Ghost didn’t clear the third floor yet? Did he think… they were going to alert backup?

And he decides to… blow himself up.

He hastily signs the document and grabs both folders. So much information, missing, blacked out, red tape stopping him from understanding. Ghost has long learned that he won’t, can’t understand everything, orders from higher up not to be questioned. But it has never bothered him more.

Never left this feeling of missing out.

When Ghost reaches Price’s office, the light is on and a lingering smell of cigars wafts even through the closed door. Shit. He’ll have to explain how the amount of folders he took suddenly multiplied.

“Weird how that happens, doesn't it Ghost?” Price shouts from beyond the door.

Bloody hell his stupid mind reading powers can be a real pain in the-

“You better not finish that thought Lieutenant!”

Sighing, Ghost finally opens the door. “I thought you’re on break, Captain”, he places the folders on his desk.

Price glares at the two folders before he looks back at him, eyebrow raised, “clearly”.

Ghost glares back. Not like he has anything to say to his defence.

Price breaks the tension with a little huff, “You know you could’ve just asked for the file, right? I could tell the Sergeant left an impression on you.” he laughs.

Not needing the Captain to mock him further, he bites back “report’s signed, permission to be dismissed?”

Price smirks and dismisses him. Ghost doesn’t miss the thought that leaked from him, “told you, you two would get along.”

He walks away before Price could read his own.

Smoking becomes less intimidating after you die once. Honestly, if it comes to the point he dies from lung cancer, he’ll be happy.

He’ll take that little comfort either way. Watching the smoke dissipate to the night sky, a handful of stars shining through. Little droplets of rain drizzle on the tin roof above him. It’s almost peaceful.

Almost. If only he couldn’t hear Gaz complaining from the floor above him.

“Look, he’s doing it again.” the recruit next to him makes a questioning sound, “Ghost, he’s bloody brooding. I swear, he’s been like this even since that mission with the revenant, what’s his name…”

The recruit mumbles something, “right! MacTavish. I’ll pay a good amount to know what happened with him… you think-”

Ghost slams a fist at the tin roof, “I can fuckin’ hear ya Garrick!”.

“Good! Tell me what happened there!”

He throws the cigarette and stomps it. Can’t get a moment of silence around here…

Gaz still tries to interrogate him while Ghost walks back to his room. He would talk to him when he feels like it, kindly suggest to never bring up that mission again.

Ghost doesn’t need more things to remind him of the Sergeant.

Sometimes he wonders if he ever was as bad as these rookies. Watching one trip on thin air, taking down 3 others poor sods trying to complete a run, he rather believe he wasn’t.

He approaches the 4 idiots, who are now literally shaking while craning their neck to look at their lieutenant. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get up!”.

The rookies finally pull their heads out of their arse and scramble up. While they try to get back on track, he shouts, “five more laps for you four! Get a move on!”.

The ones that finished the training murmur behind him something that sounds like a long list of expletives, maybe about wishing his mother got an abortion or the likes.

Ghost couldn’t care less. But, for the sake of discipline, he throws a scowl at the group, shutting them instantly.

It’s on days like these, where Gaz is away on mission, and Price buried under mountains of paperwork, that Ghost’s thoughts wander back to that mission six months ago. To a certain Scottish Sergeant, to daft jokes and a weird shared understanding. Fingers flickering with flames, blue eyes shining with them.

Useless thoughts. All they do is leave a bitter trail behind them.

On days like these, he can’t help but crave bitterness.

The recruits finally finish their run, and Ghost dismisses them before they can cause more trouble, effectively declaring it “not his problem”. He should be more grateful of Garrick, he’s much better at handling the FNGs.

As he makes his way to the showers, one Private stops him. He looks familiar, but Ghost doesn’t bother learning any of their names.

“Captain Price orders you to his office.” the Private almost sneers at him. Ghost nods and walks away.

Once, a long time ago, he might’ve put the Private in his place, perhaps when he cared more. Now he knows better. His powers speak loud and clear. If he wished, he could wipe the entire base off the face of this godforsaken earth. It might be because of this fact, most soldiers abhor him.

They can’t help hating what they don’t understand.

Three well practiced knocks and a “come in!”, Ghost stands in front of the Captain. Price looks surprisingly chipper for the amount of files on his desk. That makes one of them.

“To what do I owe the occasion, Captain?”

Price flashes a warm smile (one he would call fatherly if the connotation didn’t want to make him want to puke) “I’m considering adding a new member to the 141”.

His first reaction is ‘fuck no’, and Price’s face sours at that. But Ghost is willing to entertain the Captain, so he asks, “you got any candidates?”.

Price motions to the dozen or so files on his desk, “take a look”.

Ghost raises an eyebrow before sitting down and taking one at random. Sergeant Thomas Anderson, 28. Revenant powers… “Breathing underwater? Really.” Ghost shuts the folder and glances at Price, “I’ll take him when we go on a bust against ultranationalists from Atlantis”.

“Not everyone is as deadly as you, Simon” Price sighs, “go on, check the others.”

Several files later Ghost is left wondering how many practically useless revenants are out there. He’s sure just thinking this is considered some sort of blasphemy among Reapers, but as he wasn’t struck down by an eldritch being yet, it’s safe to say he’s free to continue looking down at them.

He knows deep down it’s not their powers that bother him. Hell, Garrick’s Gravity manipulation isn’t that lethal, but the Sergeant knows how to effectively use it to his advantage.

Ghost simply can’t see himself working with any of them. He understands they’re in desperate need for more taskforce members, no matter how strong its three revenants are, but if they’re about to add a forth, he better be useful.

Scouring the table, Ghost realizes he went through all folders already. Price picks up on that.

“None of them up to your standard?”

Ghost crosses his arms, “not in the slightest”.

He spots a personal file on a cabinet on Price’s left, “what’s with that one?” he nods towards it.

Price turns his head, “ah, he’s currently on a long term assignment. Higher ups aren’t gonna let that one transfer so easily.”

Ghost’s interest was piqued, and he leaned to grab it. Price didn’t stop him, but he had a weird glint in his eyes. Ghost gets the feeling this outcome wasn’t unplanned.

He opens the folder and a pair of familiar blue eyes stare back. He looks up at Price.

The captain tilts his head, “well? In terms of strength, no one gets close to MacTavish. I’d dare say you and him could be evenly matched-”

“I’ll take him.”

Price falters, “what?”

“I’ll accept a new member if it was Soap.” Ghost states, leaving no room for argument. A bubbling feeling of excitement washes through him, in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time. The mountains of questions Soap left behind him come back to the forefront of his mind.

And he feels… hopeful.

Price shakes the surprise off his features, and he looks tiredly at the file, “...I can’t promise any miracles, but I’ll do my best to get him.” He takes out a well deserved cigar, “I trust your judgment.”

“Thank you Captain”, the words don’t encapsulate just how grateful Ghost is.

“Now scram, I have about 50 calls to make.” Price waves his hand and picks up the phone. Ghost makes his exit before the Captain changes his mind.

Garrick returns from his assignment the following morning. The reason Ghost knows that is he watches the door to mess being slammed open while he tries to drink his morning tea.

“GHOST!” Gaz shouts, swiveling his head side to side, searching for him. Sometimes Ghost wishes he could actually go invisible like some rumors suggest.

But alas, he finds him quickly enough, and rushes to his table, uncaring of the several heads following his actions.

“Garrick” Ghost greets him, “how was the missio-”.

“We’re getting a new 141 member?!” Gaz cut him off, the excitement in his voice palpable, and he visibly starts floating a few inches off ground. Ghost tries to be annoyed with him, but he always found Gaz’s more energetic approach to life endearing.

“Nothing’s final yet, settle down.”

“But you know who it is, right?” Gaz sits in the chair in front of him, “c’mon, you gotta tell me!”

Ghost considers lying and saying he has no clue either, but he figures he might as well rip the band-aid now.

“It’s Sergeant MacTavish.” he tries to sound bored.

By the mischievous look on Garrick, he knows he failed miserably, “ohoho Ghost… Did you suggest your mysterious Sergeant to Price?” he grins like the menace he is, “seems like you won’t be able to hide what happened on ‘The Mission’ for much longer-”

Ghost slams his mug on the table, “nothing to hide, Sergeant.”

But Gaz is already 3 steps ahead in his brain, “I’ve heard he can create explosions, you think he could shoot up like a rocket? Could work well with my powers…”

Ghost stands up and groans, “he’s not a bloody spaceship Gaz, fuckin’ hell…”

He has a feeling Garrick and MacTavish will get along just fine.

The following days are… weird. Ghost never waited in anticipation for something as impatiently as he does right now. The clock seems to tick at a snail’s pace, and he finds his focus impaired. Thank his Reaper he’s not on a mission right about now…

Price is practically living in his office, constantly making calls and going through document after document. From what he understands, Soap is highly sought after for his explosion immunity, the best defuser there is.

Ghost is bitterly reminded of the huge pile of medical records in his personal file. That taste he rather not chase.

As for Gaz… His excitement grows by the day. It reminds Ghost that while the Sergeant is very friendly and always finds someone to talk to, he’s also one of the very few revenants on base.

He wonders if it feels as alienating as it does for him from time to time.

It’s not for 2 weeks later that he and Gaz are summoned to Price’s office. The place reeks of cigar smoke, and Price himself looks like he’s in need of at least 24 hours of sleep. But a triumphant attitude emanates from him in waves, and Ghost knows before he even opens his mouth what he’s about to say.

“It wasn’t easy, and I had to use every connection I had up there, but I got great news for you lads.”

Gaz smiles brightly, and turns his head to look at Ghost.

“I can finally say Sergeant Soap MacTavish is officially a member of the 141”.

Garrick cheers and floats high enough that Ghost has to drag him down before he slams his head against the ceiling, and sees the Captain’s expression shift.

“But…” Ghost starts for him. Of course this wouldn’t be this simple, nothing ever is.

Price exhales loudly, “Soap still has a couple of unfinished missions he will need to attend before he can join us fully.”

Gaz finally picks up on the mood shift, ‘...he will still be with us on base though, right?”

“Yes”, the Captain scratches under his iconic hat, and not for the first time Ghost wonders if it’s glued on with the way it refuses to fall off, “he will train with us, so take those few weeks as an opportunity to learn to work together. He’s quite powerful, and I think you will find… creative ways to work together.” with that last sentence, he glances at Ghost. Curious.

“When will the Sergeant arrive?” Ghost asks.

Price takes a quick look at the calendar, “3 days, early morning.”

That sends Garrick on a marathon of questions to Price, and Ghost retreats to into his mind.

3 days… 3 days and he will see those flames dance again. That Scottish lilt and crooked smile.

Ghost feels his mouth stretch in a hesitant smile, as if the muscles almost forgot the movement, and notices Price mirroring it.

Perhaps he could give a chance to hope.

Thank you all for reading and commenting! I appreciate it a lot <3

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pink-sparkly-witch · 8 months

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The One That Got Away - Chapter Five

Warnings: tw: child abuse, tw: physical abuse, tw: slut shaming, angst, language.

Word Count: 1.5k

Pairing: Firefighter!Dean Winchester x Female Reader

A/N: There are TRIGGER WARNINGS in this part - please heed these, and if you think you’ll be affected by any of them, please do not read.

You can catch up here!

My Masterlist AO3 Ko-Fi

“Dean,” Mary got up from the table and went to the fridge, opening its door and pulling out a beer bottle. “Have a seat, sweetie,” she said, pulling out a chair and putting the bottle on the wooden dining table.

“Thanks, Mom. So, what don’t I know?”

“Sounds like Y/N might be back in town, son,” John said. “We don’t know for sure yet, only Jess has seen her, but she’s a nurse, and if it is her, she’s going by Singer now,” John carefully eyed Dean. Seeing his son go through such a range of emotions was heartbreaking.

“Yeah, it’s her,” Dean whispered, wiping his hands down his face.

Clearing his throat, Dean downed half of his beer in one swallow. “Bobby told me after Thursday's shift before I went fishing with Benny and Cas. Danny’s not got long left. His liver and heart are going, and he’s in a hospice. So, Bobby called her and said it might be time to think about coming home.”

“I didn’t even think of making the connection to Bobby,” Jess said softly. “He’s her uncle?” she clarified, and Dean nodded.

“Her mom’s brother. Caroline died in a fire when Y/N was little. Then her dad turned to booze and beatings to cope with his grief,” he glanced at Jess, who had a horrified frown on her features.

“From what I saw today and how caring and kind she was to me, I’d never have guessed she went through something like that,” Jess commented, and Dean chuckled.

“That’s Y/N for you! Carries the whole damn world on her shoulders, and you’d never know it. She cares about those around her way more than she cares about herself. She always has,” he smiled.

“You guys were a thing back in the day?” Jess asked curiously, and Dean let out a soft laugh.

“Yeah, you could say that! Dad, Bobby, and Danny go way back, and Mom and Caroline became best friends, so Y/N and I grew up together. We were best friends before we became childhood sweethearts. She was my first everything, and I was hers.”

“They could’ve been married with a couple of kids and a dog by now if he’d asked her to stay,” Mary pointed out, and Dean shook his head in exasperation. “Did Bobby say if anyone came with her?” she continued, trying to find out if someone had followed her from her past life.

“No. No husband or boyfriend,” Dean smiled, knowing the real reason behind his mom’s question. “Bobby said she dated but never settled with anyone. Apparently, she was a love them and leave them, too!” he chuckled just a little bitterly.

“Cute little thing like her, bet she broke some hearts!” Mary grinned. “Now that she’s back, are you gonna finally tell me why you didn’t ask her to stay back then? You and I both know she would’ve if you’d asked her to,” she enquired gently.

“I wanted to. God, I wanted to so bad! But I couldn’t do that to her,” Dean rubbed a hand down his face. “You��re right, Ma. She’d have stayed if I asked her to, and she asked me to ask her. If I had, I’d have married her as soon as we were eighteen, got her out of that godforsaken house. Ain’t no doubt about it. But I couldn’t.” He stood from his seat and brought the whiskey out of the liquor cabinet with three glasses. Mary wasn’t a whiskey drinker, and Jess was pregnant, so John took one of them and Sam another.

“She took a damn beating every day for fifteen years, Ma, from the one person who was supposed to protect her. He was her only parent, and he beat her because she looked too much like her mom. Because she survived,” Dean fumed as he fought to keep the tears at bay.

“Her mom begged him to get her out of that house, and he punished her for it. She was only three years old! That’s her first memory, the fire and her mom screaming at her dad to make sure she got out. Did you know that?” It was a rhetorical question, but the hurt and shock were hard for everyone to hide.

“I don’t know if she still does, but before she left, that memory used to replay itself as a nightmare whenever she was scared or stressed. Y/N didn’t deserve any of it. She deserved a life without beatings and abuse, and hatred. And if going to Chicago instead of Lawrence, fuck, even Kansas City or Wichita gave her that, then who was I to stop her?

“If I’d asked her to stay, her life wouldn’t be any better because of it. Sure, I could’ve protected her from the beatings and got her away from him. But Jody would still call her whenever he got arrested. Y/N would still have to deal with his rage, and she’d still fall victim to his verbal assaults and vulgar degrading. I did the only thing I could to truly protect her and… I let her go.”

Mary rushed over to him and hugged him tightly, trying to ease the pain her eldest son still felt after all this time, and she knew then what she had to do. Mumbling that she’d be right back, she headed upstairs to her bedroom and opened the drawer on her bedside cabinet. She pulled the ageing envelope out, the word ‘Dean’ scrawled in blue ink in unmistakable handwriting and returned downstairs.

“Years ago, Y/N wrote me a letter,” Mary explained to Sam and Jess, as the others already knew about it. “She was in therapy, and her therapist thought it’d be a good idea to write letters to the people she cared about most, and she told me what happened. We all knew something was happening, but I had no idea the extent of it. The fractured skull when she was six? Choking her at seventeen because she missed curfew?” Mary shook her head in disgust. John wrapped his arms around Mary to stop himself from getting in his car and killing the sick bastard himself.

“Was it ever…?” Sam let his question hang in the air, not wanting or needing it to be said aloud.

“It fucking better not have been, or I’ll kill the bastard myself!” John fumed.

“No, thank God,” Dean answered. “Always physical and verbal. The fractured skull and when he choked her were the worst he’s done to her. There were countless other fractured and broken bones, though. He was smart, and that made me so fucking mad! He’d always play off the broken bones as just a kid being a kid, you know? He’d say she fell from the climbing frame in the park or got injured doing gymnastics or playing hockey or netball. She fractured her skull and had a severe concussion from falling down the stairs, not because he pushed her so hard she fell into a fucking hardwood coffee table.

“The manipulative bastard hardly ever left a mark where anyone could see. She had a few black eyes and bruises on her arms throughout the years, and that was it, at least until he tried to strangle her. He damn near killed her that night. She was blacking in and out of consciousness and only got him off her by hitting him over the head with her mom’s crystal vase. She knocked him out cold!” he chuckled sadly. “All because she was helping me graduate. He thought she missed curfew because she was “whoring herself out” to me, but she was helping me study. I never forgave myself for that.”

“Don’t blame yourself, son. Y/N told me you knew everything and made her feel safe and loved. She told me you blamed yourself for what happened to her that night, but she knew it would have been something else if it wasn’t because she missed curfew. She never blamed you for it. For any of it,” Mary smiled sadly at Dean’s scoff of laughter. “And she apologised. For leaving you and breaking your heart,” Mary said, desperate to comfort him.

“I broke hers more when I didn’t ask her to stay,” Dean responded. “If I could go back, I’d…” he sniffed, wiping the tears from his cheeks.

“I know you were hurt when a letter never came for you. But one did, and it was in with mine. Y/N told me to give you this when the time was right and if it was in your best interests. I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever give it to you. If the time would ever be right, but that time is now. I’m not gonna apologise for keeping this from you,” Mary held her hand up to cut off his rebuttal. “If I’d given this to you all those years ago, you’d have run off after her, and I don’t think you’d like what you would’ve found,” she finished as she handed him the letter.

Dean sobbed as he recognised her handwriting and ran his fingers gently over the faded ink. Turning it over, he glanced up at his mom, a silent question hanging between them.

“I didn’t read it. It wasn’t my place to,” Mary raised her hand, wiped his wet cheeks, and gave him a gentle wink. Dean tore open the envelope without another second’s hesitation.

Next Chapter >>

Tag list: @deans-baby-momma @deans-spinster-witch @leigh70 @stoneyggirl2 @hobby27 @candy-coated-misery0731 @iprobablyshipit91 @twinkleinadiamondsky @mrsjenniferwinchester @spnwoman @snackles87 @perpetualabsurdity @hoboal87 @synmorite @nancymcl @trannydean @nic-kolas @jc-winchester @winchestergirl1720 @globetrotter28 @nelachu2423 @kayleighmeister @venicesem @ladysparkles78 @roseblue373 @suckitands33 @tristanrosspada-ackles @silentbutscreaming @lacilou @sandlee44 @kmc1989 @chriszgirl92 @ashbatz @k-slla @jamerlynn @waters-2567 @kazsrm67

#the one that got away #firefighter!dean winchester x reader #au dean winchester x reader #tw: child abuse #tw: alcoholism #tw: physical abuse #tw: verbal abuse #firefighter!dean winchester #dean winchester x reader

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askflightybroad · 2 months

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in ur opinion whats the best type of monster to woo? like theres the classic vampires, werewolves, and rogue AI, but perhaps youre more of a disney’s flubber kinda gal?

I have a great fondness for strange and esoteric creatures, especially of the feminine variety. The Gryla, also stylized as Gríla, the antithesis of Santa Claus and mother of the Yule Lads; or the Kumiho, who would undoubtedly respond to your propositioning if only to devour your liver; and any of the sirens for the aforementioned reasons.

Regarding your suggestions, however, it is of my personal purview that vampires in a romantic context are vastly overdone. The genre of vampiric literature has never quite progressed past John Polidori's The Vampyre, neither in terms of literary prowess nor quality of subtle eroticism — if one desires to be bitten so badly, might I suggest they look into recreational blood letting? So long as it's done safe, sane, and consensually, the damage to the world done in the aftermath would be far more palatable than yet another mediocre Young Adult slash about being kidnapped, mind-controlled through freakishly intense eyes, and/or falling in love with their so-called silver tongue. If I were to debase myself by writing such tales, I would make the entire "blood-sucking" feature completely transactional. But that is a conversation to be had approximately never.

#rose lalonde #askflightybroad #hom3stuck #homestuck #homestuck ask blog #hs #ask blog #ask rose lalonde #askblog #homestuck askblog

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thewhumpcaretaker · 13 days

Text

⚜ 𝓑𝓮𝔂𝓸𝓷𝓭 𝓙𝓾𝓭𝓰𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽 - 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝐼𝐼: 𝐹𝓁𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝑜𝓃 𝒶 𝒟𝒶𝓇𝓀 𝐻𝑜𝓇𝓈𝑒 ⚜

Oops, I guess it wasn't a one-shot after all. Thank you again to @evren-sadwrn for the beta read!

TW: gunshot, car chase, canon-typical violence, John and Vincent bickering constantly

Summary: John Wick and The Marquis de Gramont both faked their deaths on that fateful day at the Basilica. But when Vincent seeks John's help, he isn't expecting genuine compassion.

Vincent was fine, actually. Crying? Someone had been crying five minutes ago? Definitely not him.

So John wanted to help him, presumably out of some deranged fit of loneliness. Who really cared why. This was the best news possible. He would be reinstated in no time.

He reclined on John’s couch as if it had been his idea to do so all along, swinging one leg absently over the side while his host dashed back and forth through the house, packing. This rushing around had started the very moment that Vincent stabilized. They’d already waited too long, probably, to leave. The Table would know that he could only be going to one place if he had come to New York, and they would converge on the location. The Wick residence had just become a deathtrap.

But that didn’t concern Vincent terribly - John seemed intent enough on addressing the issue. He went downstairs with an empty duffle bag, came up with a holster around his waist and the duffle bag full, went upstairs in a t-shirt, came down in a black vest under a matching suitcoat. Vincent contemplated whether it was drab. Maybe not, maybe more like “morose.” But well-fitted, at least.

There was something coming down the stairs after John, something that growled and moved a little too quickly towards the couch, halted only by a leash.

“Hey.” John stopped by the coffee table with a harsh look that brought his bulldog to a sit. “We’re gonna be nice to the Marquis, yeah?” It whined apprehensively, casting a suspicious glance in Vincent’s direction, but stopped growling.

Vincent eyed it back with at least as much suspicion. “Is it trained? I don’t want some mutt biting at my heels in the midst of a fight. We’d be better off leaving it behind.”

That harsh look shifted from the bulldog to the Marquis.

“I need you to listen very closely. This is important. You remember what I did to Iosef, yeah? If that dog dies, you die. I have no interest in your marker if that happens. You do not treat him as something you can sacrifice to save yourself. He IS you, got it?”

“C'est un putain de – [It’s a fucking –]”

“He’s you. A vital body part, like your liver.”

“If you knew how a man who can afford the finer indulgences in life treats his liver, you might reconsider your metaphor,” Vincent shot back, smirking.

“Okay, your heart then. But just. Vital. Okay?’

As he realized the purpose of this conversation, something bitter sunk into his stomach and he felt his cheeks flush. “You don’t need to explain empathy to me like I’m a child. I have dogs, you know that, yes? Cats, horses, swans, a peacock…” He strained to remember the more exotic creatures in his collection. Did he buy that hyacinth macaw, or did he choose the palm cockatoo instead? He hadn’t seen the bird since, so he couldn’t be sure. “Anyway, you know nothing, as usual.” Already this man was insulting him again. Unbelievable.

John just sighed. “Up. We have to go.” He extended a hand that couldn’t have tempted Vincent any less if it had been coated in live wasps. He gave John a look so icy that it earned another whimper from Dog, and struggled upright on his own.

He didn’t trust himself to speak on the walk to the garage. Every step, every tilt of the shoulders, winded him. Maybe shock had been a blessing - he realized that most of the pain had been numbed. But now it was back, tracing a stabbing, fiery line across the pectoral into the bone. It certainly seemed to be aggravated by certain movements, to get worse, but mysteriously, he could never quite detect a moment when it was better. It was a damn trick of the body that took over his vision with a total miasma of pain.

He didn’t even notice John’s hands on him until he was already being lowered into the passenger seat with surprising gentleness. The bulldog was already in the back. Had he blacked out for a second? Massive, muscled hands gripped either side of his waist securely, those darkly troubled eyes peering into his with such maddening concern. This condescending piece of work buckled…his fucking…seatbelt…for him. “Je te déteste [I hate you],” he managed, almost slurring.

“Good. We need you hateful. You want a grenade?”

“I – what? Yes, give it to me.” That woke him up quickly enough. “I’ve never wanted anything so much.”

John dropped the duffle bag in his lap and circled around to the front seat. The engine purred to life. “There’s already a blockade at the end of the street. We cut through the neighbor’s fence. Grenades go out the back after we’re past them.”

The garage door rolled slowly back and for a few short minutes, everything was okay again. Everything was giddy, in fact. It was just after dusk, the sky greying slowly from indigo to black. A quiet, peaceful evening that Vincent couldn’t wait to rip to shreds. With both windows rolled down, the night air rushed between them in a roaring channel of wind that sent John’s hair whirling. A dark little ball of fire turned over and over in Vincent’s hand, and there were more where that came from. John put the pedal to the floor, the acceleration pressing Vincent into his seat and sending a thrill through him as they shot straight through the neighbor’s white picket fence and left two tire treads in a streak across their manicured lawn.

An orderly line of cars scrambled to turn and give chase, bullets striking the taillight, the back window, the trunk. You think you can open fire on the rightful Autem Imperator? He fixed his eyes on them in the rearview mirror, pulled the pin with his teeth, and let them have all the pent up fury of the past miserable day.

Shattered glass and burning bodies. Orange roses and golden filigree painted against the sky. John flying, gliding lane to lane, firing over his shoulder, blind.

Pin. A moment of stabbing pain from the pec all the way through the throwing arm (suddenly worth it). Unfurling flames. Another pin. Another! Could he get this one through the shattered windshield into this idiot’s lap? Yes. He was laughing despite the way every breath stabbed through his chest, every stab fueling the next throw. He was drifting in John’s polished Mustang as it gave its life for him, slowly being riddled with holes but still kicking as the people who hated him spun out in confusion or died screaming in pillars of fire.

They abandoned it some ten minutes later, and jacked a boring white BMW, partly to avoid being followed and partly because it had rattled to a stop all on its own thanks to engine damage. John looked at the previous vehicle for a long moment as he lingered by the driver’s side door. “I like that car.” A simple thing to say, but so loaded given the circumstances.

“It handled like a dream. But at this point, it’s not worth fixing,” Vincent said casually. “You may as well get something even better when this is all over.” He set the final grenade back in the bag, still grinning at the memory of what he had just done.

“No. I want this one and I’ll fix it.” He put the dog in the passenger seat and turned to Vincent at last. “Get in the back this time. Laying down. Better if you don’t get spotted.”

It did sound good to lay down. “…Fine. But if you try to buckle me in again, I’ll cut off your whole hand to match that finger.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He laid down across the backseats. It wasn’t a great fit for someone of his height, but with his legs folded, he managed. In the meantime, John was rooting around in the trunk. He found a throw blanket, probably meant for someone’s pet, and tossed it to Vincent. “Put that over your face, so no one sees you through the windows.”

“It smells disgusting.”

“Just do it.” Vincent was in a good enough mood now not to argue. He grinned up at the ceiling, finally allowing himself to relax as they pulled away. “That was rather exhilarating.”

“Yeah.” There was a hint of a smile in John’s voice.

“So. Where are we going?”

“That depends. Who’s on your side?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we can’t unrun them. You need to solve this. Who would help you with the High Table problem?”

“Are you a simpleton? I’m excommunicated. No one will offer services to me.”

“…Is there really not one person who has a history with you? Who would help you just because of that?”

“Your naiveté astonishes me yet again, Wick. It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long.” The only person who would have helped him for his own sake was Chidi. A pang went through him at that thought. And here was John lording it over him. He swallowed hard and added, “Do you honestly think anyone has helped you just because they’re on your side? At best, people fear you. They see you for the killer that you are and wish to ingratiate themselves to you. No one would want to help you. Maybe you got lucky, found one woman who was confused enough to think of you as worth saving. But look where that got her.”

The car lurched forward with the tiniest increase in speed as John lost control of the gas pedal for a moment in his anger. “Why? Why do you go for the throat like that? I just barely start to have a pleasant conversation with you and then - This is why there’s no one who has your back.”

“At least I know it. I rely on my own strength. You on the other hand - ”

“Forget it,” he spat. “We’ll figure it out in the morning. I’ll just find somewhere to spend the night, next state over.” A tense silence fell between them.

Several minutes later: “…I’m sorry. About your bodyguard.”

Why did this bastard have to be so raw about everything? “…That has nothing to do with anything.”

“Mm-hmm.” The silence resumed, somehow even more tense, but with an entirely different flavor. Vincent found himself holding his breathe, as if John could hear the lump in his throat if he exhaled wrong. Damn him. He was determined not to cry twice in one day.

They took a scenic route into Pennsylvania, avoiding the toll roads. Vincent gazed out of small gap at the edge of the blanket, gradually beginning to shake again. From that low angle, he could see the near-perfect circle of the moon. The radio warbled on about weather next week and love confessions and affairs. He would almost find this moment peaceful, except…there was that horrific, continuous, world swallowing ache from the center of his chest. An ocean of blood no longer restrained. A fracture in the bone at the core of his body. He could not take this kind of pain, he thought. It was an absurd, even a comical amount of pain. He simply could not take it. He should say something to John, perhaps…but he didn’t. And the world began to dissolve.

At last, Vincent de Gramont passed fully into unconsciousness, and dreamed that he was buying a fine show horse. A jet black Orlov, with a star at the center of its forehead. Ribbons of white sheen glimmered down its shiny withers like a freshly waxed autobody. He mounted it for a first ride, eager to inspect his new wares. And as he did so, the spirited creature read something in his motions that was unworthy of trust, something he could neither have predicted nor suppressed. It seemed so unfair… The horse tossed its dark mane, and reared up in terror, and threw him onto the brambles below…onto a jutting tree branch that impaled him through the sternum, far deeper than the bullet had ever sunk.

(Author's note: An Orlov is a Russian horse breed.)

#john wick #john x marquis de gramont #marquis de gramont #john wick fanfic #wickblr #marquis de gramont whumpee #gunshot #angst #emotional whump #hurt/comfort #whump fic #assassin whump #ao3 crosspost #enemies to lovers

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raindrop-on-a-spiderweb · 8 months

Text

A Message To My Readers

I don't tend to use this tumblr as a personal blog, but I feel obliged to be honest to my readers this time.

On August 11, I shot myself in the head with a .22 caliber revolver.

The bullet entered through my right cheek, fracturing my orbital and mandibular, and exited through the side of my nostril, embedding shrapnel inside my face. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt very much. All I felt was a burning pressure tunneling through my face, and warm blood fountaining onto the collar of my dress. The rest of that night I do not remember–save that in the ambulance, blood clots the size of caterpillars were dropping out of my nose.

I spent the next few days in the hospital, the side of my face swelling up so much I couldn't see out of my right eye. I was in the hospital under observation for three days. Nurse aids--new hires I was supposing– kept looking at me with that faint gaze of horror and slight fascination, at the bloody mess on my face swelling up into a bloodier mess, like rubbernecking at a car accident. Otherwise my stay was uneventful–I watched the Discovery Channel and reread The Master and Margarita several times while we waited for the swelling to go down and for my flesh to knit itself together enough so I could be discharged.. My left nostril leaked so much blood it covered the pillow. Scabs formed to close the bullet wounds on both sides of my face.

I was then transferred to a psychiatric ward. The experiences I had there and the people I met I will remember for a lifetime. It was a fascinating cross-section of humanity. There was an 18-year-old redneck father-of-two (!) who, during a group therapy session where we were asked to find coping methods to deal with depression, yelled out "GO TO A SHOOTIN' RANGE!". The head nurse on the ward constantly quoted One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. There was a woman who believed she was "powerful reincarnation of an ancient druidess". Another man had been a highly successful local restauranteur before meth addiction and mental illness took away his life. A slight, blonde former nurse who after a failed relationship, stabbed herself in the liver and trachea.

The library was meager, but I read John Muir's First Summer in the Sierra and lost myself in snowy mountain peaks and the spray of waterfalls. I made myself popular by giving out palm readings in the day room and was correct approximately 80% of the time. I described one man's temperament as "fiery", which he correctly understood to mean he was an asshole. The ancient druidess asked for a reading but spent most of the time telling me about her myriad other reincarnations (respectively, killed in the Holocaust, killed in the Victorian era, killed in the medieval era). An old former nurse–not the blonde lady– came for a reading and it was so accurate she got teary-eyed; we soon became fast friends. She was elderly but sharp as a tack and had worked her whole life in the profession; through the 70s and 80s. She had never married, although she wished she'd had children. She had been a sci-fi writer as well and had a wealth of advice for me, one being that you should never become a nurse. Nursing had ruined her body and left her wheelchair bound.

My roommate was a quiet woman who barely said two words to me the first day and spent most of her time staring at the wall and sleeping. The therapists could not crack her in the least. By the second day we fell into a card game with each other, and little by little she lit up and started smiling. When she laughed it was infectious. She, I and the elderly nurse spent long hours in the day room, playing cards and watching television and laughing with each other. The night before we were discharged, we were up late, and she confessed her terrible circumstances, her life in foster care, her husband who had molested her children, her trafficking, and her upcoming court hearing so she could claw back custody of her children. A flash of contemplation passed her face, and she said to us, "I have talked more with you than I ever have with any of my therapists." I still have her and the nurse's numbers.

The therapy I was given and the connections I made were overall wonderful and affecting experiences. I left the ward looking forward to meeting the world headon, but when I got out, things grew worse. My mother withheld my medications and electronics and blamed me for everything; wanted me to go to a halfway house (thankfully my father let me stay with him permanently). I was on the verge of filing a police report before she gave them back. And then I realized I was being kicked out of the house. To walk into your room and realize it is not your own anymore, to see your belongings packed up and ready to be stored away or sent back with you, is a jarring experience; to have your eyes go to a familiar place and have it be so alien.

Then she said those words that made my heart drop to my stomach: That I was writing awful, dark things for an audience and that she was completely ashamed of me, and that she thought that it contributed to my decision to end my life. (and also that I was "posting sarcastic comments online for ego strokes"--wtf?) She had gone through everything private of mine, everything I strived to keep separate from my real life identity for this very reason, and told God knows how many people. All for nothing now.

Few things can compare to the horror of having a loved one finding out the deepest, rawest, most honest parts of yourself and reacting with disgust. To have them point a finger at your most delicate personal works and say, "This is responsible for your attempted suicide," when writing had brought me nothing but delight, happiness and friends at some of the darkest times of my life. Part of the reason I love writing was the lack of restraint and escapism, and the idea of being someone else. How could I possibly return to writing knowing that someone was constantly judging me and looking over my shoulder? How could I write honestly, without constantly second-guessing myself?

Anyway, my mother wanted nothing to do with me and threw me out with my father once I got my belongings. The last thing I said to her was "Next time, I won't miss." C'est la vie and that's the end. I'm officially disowned now and cutting off contact. No clue where I stand will-wise, but I don't care anymore.

We got in the car and went home. As my mood sank, I was tempted to do the unthinkable and I gave some serious thought to deleting my account and works. The thought of my mother (and potentially other family members too) reading these stories of mine in all their graphicness was a crippling prospect. It also occurred to me that she had started packing my room up when I was still in the hospital, and that finally made me cry. I wondered whether she was the same person who loved me and hugged me and protected me as a child, or she was the same person all along and I just never noticed.

When we got home to my dad's farm I was shaky and unfocused and my mind was in a dark fugue. But it was a bright and sunny August day. As soon as I got out of the car my cats poured out of the fields and out of the barn to surround me, meowing and excited after a week of not seeing me, Spot and Zorro and Aldous and Erik and Gidget. We're glad you're back. We're glad you're here. Beings that didn't judge me, that I didn't have to explain anything to or justify myself to, that just were happy that I existed.

As I felt the sunlight on my shoulders I started to cry again, but they were tears of relief. How could I have tried to kill myself when a moment so beautiful existed? Things will look up. They always do.

I love writing and I will never, and can never, stop.

#personal #writing

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ms-demeanor · 1 year

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I don’t duck with predatory schools or cheap unaccredited courses/ capitalism/white washed alternative medicines… but does you beef with alternative practitioners extend to Eastern/ traditional medicinal practices as a whole? Like you don’t think herbalism or acupuncture have healing capabilities?

I am deeply, deeply skeptical of nearly all alternative medicine, but you are unlikely to find anyone who says there are no benefits to most types of alternative medicine. (I'll say it about chiropractic and homeopathy though - there's nothing that a chiropracter can do for you that a physical therapist or massage therapist can't do better and more safely, and homeopathy won't do anything except possibly poison more infants)

However, here's the problem with that:

Acupuncture appears to have fairly reliable effects that are not explained by the placebo effect for things like pain relief, anxiety, and depression, and may also help with disorders relating to those things (insomnia and asthma, for instance). But you should not stop taking your asthma medications because you are being treated for asthma with acupuncture because if you are asthmatic, deciding "oh, my asthma [which treatable, but not curable] is cured!]" and throwing away your rescue inhaler can kill you.

Herbal remedies may be comforting for some people, and may have some effects, but it is dangerous to use, for instance, St. John's Wort to treat depression because it is impossible to standardize a dose of St. John's Wort in something like a tea or an extract, and supplements are not regulated in the US so it is impossible to know *what* dose you're getting in a St. John's Wort supplement.

Many people find chiropractic to be a reasonable means of pain relief, and I'm not going to pretend that their pain isn't reduced from chiropractic treatment, but literally hundreds of studies suggest that for the things that chiropractic has any reliable measurable effect on (musculoskeletal pain) you are going to get better treatment from a massage therapist or a physical therapist.

Ayurvedic medicine has a long history of things like surgeries including cataract surgyery and cauterization to treat bleeding, which do actually work! However ayurvedic medicine also often includes consumption of harmful materials like heavy metals alongside herbs that may have actual medical benefits, or practices like oil pulling, which do absolutely nothing.

Chinese Traditional Medicine may have some useful treatments, but is also associated with things like lead poisoning.

Use of Kava as an herbal alternative pain treatment was linked to a spate of people having liver failure. Kava does work to treat pain, it just also causes liver failure at completely unacceptable rates and at completely unknown doses.

So I don't think that alternative medicines are uniformly awful. Some stuff seems to work okay, and there is some stuff that is very unlikely to cause harm even if it doesn't actually heal.

But, hoo boy, herbalism has *immense* capacity to harm (because it is difficult to ensure accurate dosing, because herbal medications may interfere with allopathic medications, because it is difficult to avoid contaminants and easy to make mistakes with preparations in herbal medicine), which is made worse when people choose herbalism in place of other treatments. There are a thousand horror stories of people using black salve (a caustic substance that is used to treat tumors by chemically burning them off) to treat breast cancer, which is only marginally more horrifying than people who chose to forego cancer treatment in favor of herbalism.

And I'm not particularly in the business of telling people what to do, but I am someone with chronic illnesses who has had alternative treatments proposed to me in place of recognized best practices and I understand that for people with a new or frightening diagnosis it is easy to fall victim to a confident person who is offering 'treatment' at a lower cost and with more hands-on care than an overworked specialist who doesn't take your shitty insurance. Because of that I think that it is often safer to assume that alternative treatments are at best unproven and to start treating medical conditions with allopathic medicine and to use alternative treatments alongside of allopathic medicine (with the full knowledge of your medical team - a lot of "detoxifying" alternative medicines work by making all of your medications ineffective!)

And even if you're going to be using herbalism or acupuncture to treat someone and doing so in conjunction with proven treatments, I still think it's important for the practitioner of alternative medicine to be intellectually curious and scientifically educated enough to recognize when their treatments aren't working; if you have cheerfully taken a course in chiropractic and homeopathy as part of your alternative medicine degree, that does not suggest that you are being given a rigorous, evidence-based education in herbalism or acupuncture by the school that provided the homeopathy class!

It's like if you were getting a degree in engineering and had to take a class on the physics of the time cube in order to graduate. Time Cube Theory 204 cancels out Advanced Fluid Dynamics! Time Cube Theory 204 calls into question the validity of all your other classes! Time Cube Theory 204 is a major alarm bell, and if that didn't chase you out of the building you shouldn't be trusted to build a dam!

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onelonecritter · 1 year

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*Vomits this out*

I can’t tell if I’m proud of this or not, but it sure gave me a good laugh while working on it!

Can’t have shit on the Hispaniola, not even a moment of quiet reading time.

#treasure island #return to treasure island #ostrov sokrovishch #soviet treasure island #Treasure Island 1988 #doctor livesey #ben gunn #jim hawkins #long john liver #captain smollett #squire trelawney #[My Art]

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skippyv20 · 6 months

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Our Prayer List🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s friend Paul, who has received bad news regarding his health. He has lots of love and support, however, prayers will really help him.

Prayers and good thoughts for the family whose mother has passed away from cancer. Prayers for their father who is now in hospice with cancer, and will pass in the next couple of days.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s friend who is having thyroid test for cancer.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s family.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s friend named John. He has been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, is alone and needs lots of prayers.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who needs funding for dentures. She is feeling very overwhelmed as she struggles financially.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who not only is mourning the loss of her husband Jim, but now faced with the possibility of losing her home they shared. It seems his daughter is to receive the home, and our friend has been blindsided.

Prayers and good thought for our friend’s daughter and SIL. They have lost their way. Prayers for our friend for strength during these trials.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend and her little boy. Her son has speech delay and they are seeking help. Also, we pray for the mother to feel peace and comfort as she is feeling stressed and lost. We pray for understanding and compassion for the family, and for them to have acceptance and give support necessary as our friend faces this trial.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend sister Narcisse whose oxygen levels need to stabilize.

Prayers and good thought for our friend whose husband is suffering from mental illness. Also, for his mother as she struggles to accept his illness. We pray for our friend who wants to save her marriage.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s brother Adam. He has stage 4 cancer and limited time. Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s young friend whose mother is ill

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who suffers guilt.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who is suffering from anxiety.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who has arthritis in her ankles and feet.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s friend Ann. She had bowel cancer, they missed her 5 year checkup and when she went for another minor operation her scan showed the bowel cancer has now spread to her liver so she is classed now as Stage 4 (terminal) cancer. Prayers also for her dear grandson and his mother.

Prayers and good thoughts for my friend who suffered broken C5C6 in a freak home accident. She has complete loss of her hands, and can only stand with an apparatus. She has a very long journey ahead of her.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s daughter, who has many health issues and is feeling very overwhelmed.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who suffers from anxiety and has terrifying nightmares that she fears may be back. Praying for peace in her heart and mind.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s brother (Spain) who had vascular bypass in an effort to save his leg. The surgery was a success. Please pray for a quick recovery free of complications. He is doing so much better.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend. She was her father’s caregiver until his passing and now is her mother’s caregiver. She is feeling very overwhelmed and is having difficulties with her family. She struggles with her faith at times.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s nephew who is mending a broken heart. We pray he meets his special “one” and finds love.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend that my have cancer. Her husband of 33 years has left her and both her daughters all at the same time is a great trauma in her life right now. Prayers they will come back to her. And please pray for her sister and mom who are taking care of her.

Our friend is mourning the loss of her mother, and facing financial problems. She is very overwhelmed at this time.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend that is struggling with faith. She feels God isn’t with her. She is lost and frightened and feeling alone.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend whose husband is very, very ill. Prayers for the whole family. They are facing many obstacles for healthcare at this time. Her husband’s pancreas is all but dead tissue but it keeps swelling and then going down, this has caused his liver to start failing. He is facing many medical issues.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s former sister in-law and brother in-law. She was diagnosed with tongue and throat cancer in January and in March he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Also for their 2 daughters who are taking care of them.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend. She is suffering from an anxiety and fear. She is in desperate need of another job, and is worried about her finances. She is being bullied and stalked.

Prayers and good thoughts for our dear friend, who is suffering from severe back pain & pain in other hip

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who has been facing many trials, and is in need of prayers. The last 18 months have been hard, and things still not what they should be.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s family friend who had a stroke. His right side is paralyzed, but he has some sensation. He is very down at this time. He will now face new trials because of his condition.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s family member who we pray will join AA. We pray for success.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who is in financial despair. She is really struggling as she has no one to turn to in real life. She is out of work, and there are no jobs to be found. All of her savings are almost gone and she is afraid she may lose her home.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who has severe iron deficiency and the treatment is very harsh and makes her sick. Her husband has been unfaithful during her illness and her family is ignoring me. She feels very alone.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend who has been battling depression long-term due to trauma and the resulting difficult circumstances.

Prayers and good thoughts for our friend’s daughter who is struggling. She is in much pain mentally. We prayer for her family as well as they try desperately to help her.

Prayers and good thoughts for Baby James and his heart brother Matthew. Also their heart brother Conrad

We pray through Christ our Lord🙏🏻❤️

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sansxfuckyou · 4 months

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from hero to the hunted

Summary: a brief glance into the ways John Dory coped with the isolation, and how the hell a Pop Troll managed to survive for twenty years in the mountains

Warnings: gutting a massive fish (it gets a bit gross), grieving, check Ao3 port for full tags

Authors Note: I've been thinking of how in the fuck he survived out there in isolation since I saw the movie, now I've written about it so I can sleep easy at night. anyways! hope ya'll enjoy and if you do consider dropping a reblog or checkin the ao3 port, it really means a lot

"It's just me and my armadillo now, I guess," John Dory said, out loud, too himself, even though no one else existed in this empty forest. It was just him and his armadillo, which he was going to kill for meat, but chose against it when he realized she was sort of... Hollow.

She didn't have any meat, she was just an exterior, why she was like that he didn't know. And he would've left her alone, forever, but she decided to nuzzle up against his leg and chirp at him and he couldn't deny that. Only a monster would deny that, so he picks her up and starts on his way to carry her through the woods so she doesn't step on anything sharp.

It's kind of stupid, adopting an armadillo for no reason other than 'she looked at me and made sound' but he's a big brother. He's the oldest brother, he's spent his entire life before leaving being the caretaker. Their parents just paid attention to each of them equally and it didn't feel like enough, so he decided to start taking care of his little brothers too. Packing lunches, doing laundry, just being as good a brother as he could be before the band started.

And now it's been four years since he left, he's twenty one and he's probably going a little bit crazy with the isolation. Just a little bit nutty, a minuscule amount of absurd with how much he hasn't interacted with anyone or anything in years. Maybe that's why he's picking up this little creature and carrying her around like she's his little sister. He needs a placeholder to fill that void of a little creature in his life, that'll fend off the depression if nothing else.

"I'm gonna call you Rhonda," John stated as he placed her down on a log and started on foraging on some small twigs and slightly larger rocks for a fire pit.

Rhonda just chirps in response.

-/-/-/-

"I think it's a big one!" There's a laugh on his voice as reels in dinner for the night. It fights, thrashing and kicking up a massive splash of water every which way.

Rhonda is quick to amble over and bite the back of his vest tugging him just a bit whenever he lurches forward. Step by step she slowly pulls him back while keeping the cord from snapping with the tautness of it.

"Thanks girl, I'll save you the liver," John promises, it elicits a purring chirrup from Rhonda. He yanks the rod one last time and the fish is in the air, falling down to the ground in seconds, "Hold it down for me."

The armadillo does as told, pressing one paw on the tail fin to keep it down despite it's writhing. She bats it once or twice with her other paw while John grabs his knife, although it's more of a cutlass compared to the size of his body. He drives it through the eye and holds it until the fish stops moving, Rhonda steps back, resting on hind legs as John works.

He works smoothly really, digging the tip of the knife into the tender underbelly of the fish and running it up to the base of the jaw. Blood is minimal, but it still drips from the frayed flesh as he pops on his goggles. He takes a deep breath before diving into the complete and utter darkness. It's dripping with whatever rests inside of a fish's organ cavity and it used to make him feel like vomiting, but that was a long time ago, back when he could still carry Rhonda in his arms.

It's a pulsing and oozing mess, but he persists, cutting the cords and just hauling them out like they're anything but organs. He takes extra care with the liver and tosses it to Rhonda specifically before sliding out and moving onto cutting off the head.

"I hope you like that liver, this guy was living offa swamp scum," John commented as he lopped off the head, severing the spine with a practiced ease to his motions.

He's twenty seven now, ten years into his isolated life in the mountains and the forests and the swamps. He doesn't know how much longer he's gonna stay out there for either, he's probably a freak to the average Troll society now. He's happy here anyways. He has Rhonda, he has his sword, he has a group photo of him and his brothers before everything went wrong.

He's absolutely odd these days, positively so, talking a shocking amount of thoughts that enter his head. Eating whatever plants don't look poisonous and having Rhonda hit him with those defibrillator paws if he passes out from said plant. Cutting open giant fish and other assorted creatures that he comes across. He can store most of his stuff inside of Rhonda anyways, he could sleep in her if he wanted too, but the nights are never cold enough he has to leave her alone at night.

"Hey girl, can you get a fire going for me?" He asked rather loudly as he worked on trying to wedge some of the bones from delicate fish flesh. It was a tedious process but he'd rather do so than risk Rhonda choking on some bones.

There's a loud rumbling purr before Rhonda walks off to get some sticks.

-/-/-/-

It's a bad night, age thirty and he's spending another night laying awake thinking of his brothers and he left them. He thought he dropped this habit on his sweet, sweet twenty sixth birthday where he found an abandoned barrel of lager. He drank himself into a waking coma that night and came too about a week later, semi naked and covered in tinsel and hay. He still shudders to learn where that tinsel came from, but even more so about where the fuck the hay came from.

He's sleeping inside of Rhonda that night, the cold bite of winter air too much for him to bear. He's stuck staring at the ceiling with his few mementos of what his brothers were lay beside him plastered to a wall. He knows they've changed by now, for fucks sake, he's changed, albeit, probably for the worse considering how feral he is. He eats meat, he's always on the run from some monster, he talks to his armadillo van, he definitely wouldn't be able to just assimilate back into society.

John heaves a sigh, tears are hot on his face and his body shudders as he exhales. He misses his brothers. He misses the nights he'd spend falling asleep nestled against Spruce cause he stressed too hard over the song line ups, or he worried too much about his brothers in one way or another. He misses having Floyd there to try and calm down, he regrets not listening to his younger brothers worries and soothing words. He misses all the jokes and the choreography that Clay would carefully craft for them, he misses their secret handshake. He misses Spruce, he misses Floyd, he misses Clay, he (somewhat) misses Branch.

He doubts they miss him, he broke the one law of eldest sibling: never leave you baby brothers. He shattered it, he ran off to the mountains and he's been in said mountain for thirteen years hiding and scavenging. He left, he abandoned them to go be 'brolone' and he's experiencing a intense wave of regret again when he was sure he was over it.

"This is fucking stupid,"

He's an idiot, he thought he'd be fine alone. He adopted an armadillo, he killed her parents, her siblings, he killed all of them and took her in to replace his brothers. He can't go alone, he's not built like that. There's no more stress to keep all of his pieces together, he's gotten so comfortable in the mountains the wilderness fear has gone down too much to act as a substitute.

John just rolls onto his side, away from where his few memorabilia of his brothers exist. Out of side out of mind. He's crying because he lost his favorite vest to the woods, not because he lost his brothers due to his own hubris. Definitely not, and maybe if he tells himself that lie enough times he'll believe it.

#trolls fanfic #trolls band together #john dory trolls #rhonda trolls #trolls 3 #he deserves to go a little bit peculiar with the isolation. a little bit feral. to gut some massive fish.#writing #fanfic #fanfiction

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xx-blueboy-xx · 6 months

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To celebrate trickster Tuesday! I am going to ramble about Mystery Spot, the episode ever. Don't take any of this super seriously I am by no means a "meta analysis" this is just me foaming at the mouth. + the spiral of thoughts it sent me on.

Anyways. If you wanna read it! It's below the cut! Because it got (long).

First off, Mystery Spot represents the literal cycle Sam (and also the entire Winchester family) find themselves caught in, over and over and over again: due to their inherent savior & martyr complexes. Which are not a great blend. Imagine having to save everyone you care about, but, always being willing to simply - die for them. More than willing. Happy to. Feel like you have to, in order to be worth anything to anyone or them. In order to atone.

Now, we saw in S1-S2 how much Dean is willing to give up for family, for Sam. It's the entire reason S3 is happening - he sold his own soul to a demon, something he hated John for, to save Sam. To bring him back to life. Something we learn that his own mother did all those years ago: just not at the price of her soul, but, essentially - her first born child (so Rumplstilskin of Azazel for real). The Winchester need to save each other, that toxic codependency on family, that "family is all you got at the end of the day" mentality is what started it all.

We have only seen in S1-S2 breif glimpses that Sam also shows these signs. The same codependency as Dean, and that savior complex. However - it never becomes truly and completely apparent until S3. Where he is willing to steal human livers, find anyway - anything to save Dean from his deal. It isn't until Jessica, John and everyone else he has known is gone, that Sam begins to fall completely into the codependency that Dean unfortunately, feeds into. (With all of his "You ran away from the family" talk and such)

In Mystery Spot: we see the first true depths of how far Sam is willing to go to keep Dean alive. How far he has fallen from that rebelliousness he had before John died. Starting to agree with Dean that he "tried his best". And things like that. In Mystery Spot we see that Sam rather relive the same day over and over and over again, than let Dean die. We never see him accept it. Not once. Sure, it's a time-loop, but we know Gabriel was trying to teach Sam to let go.

Teach him to break the fucking cycle. But he doesn't. He contuines to give into it, over and over. Until Gabriel reveals himself, thinking maybe he can still change it. Change Sam. Get through to him. That'd when we get those 6 months of pure obessesion.

And at the end of it? We see the Sam that suggested to Dean they use the evil-immortal doctors alchemy to keep him alive, perfectly willing to steal human livers and such for it: come out full force. He is completely willing to sacrifice a stranger to save Dean. Rather than being hellhent on killing the Trickster, on revenge, he wants him back. At any cost. Even an innocent human life.

This is the Sam we see, after years and years of Dean encouraging this behavior - seasons later, bring an entire apyclopse down on the world to get rid of the Mark of Cain. Force a man to sell his soul. Have Rowena kill the inky person she had ever allowed herself to love - someone she considered her son. To utterly get rid of another person's autonomy (keeping her locked up ect.) to get it.

Note: it is NOT Dean's fault, that Sam broke Amara out, I simply am stating that his "we die for family sammy" and "we do everything for family sammy" throughout the years helped Sam make the decision. But at the end of the day, Sam choose to get rid of the Mark. All of the death that happened because of her is pretty directly on his hands, and he knows this.

I also believe that, while Sam feels massive amounts of sympathy, I believe he struggles a (lot) with empathy (autism + protecting himself/trauma response). He can easily replicate empathy, and act as if he cares but we see his hypocritical behavior consistently come into play and make us think: huh. I don't think he actually understands how Dean, Castiel ect. feels. That is why he comes off as spoiled and ungrateful to Dean in early seasons, and in later seasons does things that are completely amoral and deranged. Simply for those he loves.

Because he struggles to wrap his head around *why* Dean can save him, kill people for him, force an angel on him - but when he releases an apyclopse, him saying "I would do it all again." Is somehow wrong. He doesn't see his own hypocrisy at times and struggles especially to see others.

Anyways.

I support Sammy war crimes.

#trickster tuesday #gabriel spn #sam meta #sam winchester #dean winchester #character study #?#spn meta #spn #supernatrual #sam morality #morality #savior complex

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chickensarentcheap · 5 months

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Long time, no see

@tragiclyhip @themaradwrites @munstysmind @mrsmungus @youflickedtooharddamnit @secretaryunpaid @thebejeweledwatercat @karimac @kmc1989 @ninjasawakenedmystar @theesirenteller @alisbackalleybbq @residentdormouse @asirensrage

“I see you’re still trying your best to charm the locals. It’s nice to see some things never really do change.”

He takes a swallow of his drink. “I’m just a regular ball of sunshine.”

“Tyler.”

“John.”

Wick gestures to the now empty barstool beside him. “You expecting someone or…?”

“Who wants to hang out with a miserable asshole?”

“Well you know what they say; misery loves company. May I?”

Nodding, Tyler pushes the half-eaten plate of food and the empty glass across the bar, signalling he’s done. Until the afternoon, he hadn’t seen or worked with Wick in years; a high profile -and even more high paying- job that had marked his first -and only- North American gig. From what he’s heard, the man’s been through hell; dragged back and forth into the life through no fault of his own. Dealing with the lingering grief and loneliness following the death of his wife while battling with The High Table; a war that had seen him emerge victorious but with a dozen more scars added to his collection. The stories of Baba Yaga aside, Tyler has always respected the man; a freakishly skilled and enormously successful hitman still grasping desperately to the last remaining shreds of humanity. He’d been relieved when he’d heard Wick had not only been involved in saving Esme and Millie from certain death, but that he’d agreed to stay on board until they were safely out of the country. And offering his further services if Tyler felt he needed them.

Wick offers an appreciative yet tired smile at the bartender that approaches; a glass of bourdon wordlessly placed in front of him. “And another for my friend here. Whatever he’s having. Scotch, right?”

“Ice water. But you’ve got a damn good memory.”

“I’m not usually one for drinking buddies, but I do remember that last job we worked together. When was that? Seven, eight years ago?”

“About that.”

“No one forgets when someone successfully drinks them under the table. Two nights in a row. Always heard the stories about Aussies loving their booze, but…” Taking a swig of bourbon, he winces and lets out a low growl as that first swallow burns going down. “When’d you quit?”

“Almost six years ago.”

“What made you decide to give it up? Liver finally pleading for mercy?”

“Being in a medically induced coma for a couple of months had its hand in things. But I probably would have gotten out of the hospital and gone right back to it though; drank myself to death sooner or later. But honestly, I quit for the same reason you left this life.”

“That’ll do it. You meet that one and…” His voice trails off. The memory of his wife is just as powerful and intense as the day she passed the mere mention of her still bringing about the heartache. It’s a tremendous loss that he’ll never be quite over; destined to live the rest of his life wracked with grief and emptiness.

“Guess we finally have a few more things in common,” Tyler muses. “Job’s not the only thing anymore. Whoever said ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all’ was a dirty ass fucking liar.”

#Tyler and Esme series #Lost and Found #Extraction/John Wick crossover #sort of

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homomenhommes · 5 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … December 13

1912 – England requires flogging for a second violation of the 1898 law prohibiting Gay solicitation.

1913 – Sir John Pope-Hennessy (d.1994), was a British art historian and museum director. He was a scholar of Italian Renaissance art. Many of his writings, including the tripartite Introduction to Italian Sculpture and his magnum opus, Donatello: Sculptor, are now considered classics in the field.

Pope-Hennessy was born into an Irish Catholic family in Belgravia, London, to Major-General Richard Pope-Hennessy and Dame Una Pope-Hennessy (née Birch), who was the daughter of Arthur Birch, Lieutenant-Governor of Ceylon. He was the elder of two sons; his younger brother James Pope-Hennessy, also a homosexual, was a writer of note. At Oxford John was introduced by Logan Pearsall Smith (a family friend) to Kenneth Clark, who became a mentor to the young Pope-Hennessy. Upon graduation Pope-Hennessy embarked on what he referred to as his Wanderjahre, travelling in Continental Europe and becoming acquainted with its great art collections, both public and private.

Pope-Hennessy served as the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1967 and 1973, and then as the director of the British Museum from 1974 until 1976. His nickname to staff was "the Pope".

When his homosexual brother James, (1916-1974) was beaten to death by a lover in 1974, Pope-Hennessy left the British Museum after only three years as director. Pope-Hennessy looked for a change in life venue. Initially he withdrew to Tuscany, but was enticed by an offer from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to head its department of European painting, and moved to New York. He combined this curatorial post with a professorship at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, and enjoyed mixing with the city's high society.

In New York, Pope-Hennessy met Michael Mallon, a young scholar attending Pope-Hennessy's Frick lectures. Pope-Hennessy secured him an internship at the Metropolitan and Mallon became Pope-Hennessy's life partner. The two retired to Florence in 1986.

Pope-Hennessy died in Florence at age 80 from complications from a liver ailment.

Peter Dorey (L) with Ernest Cole

1947 – Peter Dorey (d.2021) was the co-founder of Gay’s the Word, the first bookshop in the UK dedicated to selling books and magazines for the LGBT+ community.

Dorey founded the shop in Bloomsbury, central London, together with Ernest Hole and Jonathan Cutbill, in 1979. Naming the shop after the Ivor Novello musical, the trio aimed to provide a safe space where LGBT+ people could meet and share a love of books, including many titles that were not available elsewhere.

Peter Dorey was born in 1947 in London to Frederick and Irene Dorey and educated at Preston Manor Grammar School in Wembley. Whilst at the University of Leeds he became interested in broadcasting, working for the student radio station on campus. Upon graduating he joined the BBC as a sound engineer, spending more than 20 years at studios in Belfast and Bristol. It was at a meeting of Gay Icebreakers, a social group, that he and his colleagues came up with the idea of a specialist bookshop for the LGBT+ community, with Dorey providing the funding.

During the miners’ strike of 1984-85, the bookstore became the meeting hub for Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), a group which raised funds for striking coalminers in south Wales. Their story is celebrated in the film Pride (2014), directed by Matthew Warchus.

As the subject of long-term surveillance and institutional homophobia, Gay’s the Word was raided in 1984 by HM Customs and Excise, which claimed that “indecent or obscene” material was being held there. Thousands of pounds of stock was removed by Customs officers whilst Dorey and his colleagues were charged with conspiracy to import indecent books, under the archaic Customs Consolidation Act of 1876.

Questions in parliament from Chris Smith and Frank Dobson and pressure from campaigners forced a review of the case. A crowdfunding campaign raised £55,000, including £3,000 donated by the author Gore Vidal. Smith came out as Britain’s first openly gay MP a few months later. The charges against Dorey and his co-directors were eventually dropped.

Dorey met Timothy Groom in 1985 and they were partners until Groom's death in 2010

1969 – Allen R. Schindler, Jr. (d.1992) was an American Radioman Petty Officer Third Class in the United States Navy who was murdered for being gay. He was killed in a public toilet in Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan by shipmate Terry M. Helvey, who acted with the aid of an accomplice, Charles Vins, in what Esquire called a "brutal murder". The case became synonymous with the gays in the military debate that had been brewing in the United States culminating in the "Don't ask, don't tell" bill.

Airman Apprentice Terry M. Helvey, who was a member of the ship's weather department (OA Division, Operations Department), stomped Schindler to death in a toilet in a park in Sasebo, Nagasaki. He was left lying on the bathroom floor until the Shore Patrol and the key witness to the incident (Jonathan W.) carried out Schindler's body to the nearby Albuquerque Bridge. Schindler had "at least four fatal injuries to the head, chest, and abdomen," his head was crushed, ribs broken, and his penis cut, and he had "sneaker-tread marks stamped on his forehead and chest" destroying "every organ in his body" leaving behind a "nearly-unrecognizable corpse" that was only identifiable by the tattoo on his arm. Jonathan W. witnessed the murder while using the restroom. He noticed Helvey jumping on Schindler's body while singing, and blood gushing from Schindler's mouth while he tried to breathe. The key witness was requested to explain in detail to the military court what the crime scene looked like, but would not because Schindler's mother and sister were present in the courtroom.During the trial Helvey denied that he killed Schindler because he was gay, stating, "I did not attack him because he was homosexual" but evidence presented by Navy investigator, Kennon F. Privette, from the interrogation of Helvey the day after the murder showed otherwise. "He said he hated homosexuals. He was disgusted by them," Privette said. On killing Schindler, Privette quoted Helvey as saying: "I don't regret it. I'd do it again. ... He deserved it."

After the trial, Helvey was convicted of murder and Douglas J Bradt, a captain who tried to keep the incident quiet was demoted and transferred to Florida. Helvey is now serving a life sentence in the military prison at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, although by statute, he is granted a clemency hearing every year. Helvey's accomplice, Charles Vins, was allowed to plea bargain as guilty to three lesser offenses, including failure to report a serious crime and to testify truthfully against Terry Helvey, and served a 78-day sentence before receiving a general discharge from the Navy.

The events surrounding Schindler's murder were portrayed in the 1997 TV film Any Mother's Son. In 1998, Any Mother's Son won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Made for TV Movie.

1975 – Lionel Baier, born in Lausanne, is a Swiss film director. He began his career with a short called "Good Enough To Eat" and two docs: one for Swiss television called The Pastor, the other about gay pride in the Valais.

At 28 he released his first feature, a breakout festival hit, Garcon Stupide, about a confused, uneducated, perpetually frisky 20 year-old named Loic who wants more than the quick tricks he turns with older men on the streets of Lausanne. The marketing department tried to sell Baier's follow-up, Stealth, as another gay romp but the character's main preoccupation is coping with the discovery that his family's background is Polish, which leads to a road trip, which leads to a providential hookup.

In 2009, Baier made Another Man about a straight writer who stumbles into a job as a small-town newspaper movie reviewer For something different, the next year Baier shot Low Cost on his cell phone in a month. Low Cost is a 60-minute drama about a 34 year-old who knows when he's going to die. In 2013 he released Great Waves, his first period drama, set in April 1974 during Portugal's Carnation Revolution.

1990 – Anton Hysén is a Swedish footballer who plays in the Swedish third division for Utsiktens BK, which is coached by his father Glenn Hysén. He is a former member of the Swedish national under-17 association football team and was given a trainee contract with BK Häcken from 2007 to 2009,[3] but was hindered by injuries and instead joined Utsiktens BK, for whom he plays in his third season. He was previously a member of Torslanda IK. His older brothers are football players Tobias Hysén (half-brother) and Alexander Hysén. He won the seventh season of Let's Dance, being the first openly gay person to win this competition.

He came out as gay to the Swedish football magazine Offside in March 2011. Daily Mail has described Anton as the "first high-profile Swedish footballer to announce that he is gay" and as the second active professional football player to come out, after English footballer Justin Fashanu in 1990. The BBC called him "a global one-off".

Hysén was profiled on Swedish broadcaster TV4 on March 9, 2011, in a debate show moderated by Lennart Ekdal titled "Can gays play football too?".

He works part-time as a construction worker.

1999 – US Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered a full review of the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. The policy had recently been criticized for creating a hostile environment.

2002 – The Belgium Senate approves same-sex marriage, making Belgium the second country to do so.

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