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pitviperofdoom · 3 years

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Me: I’ve got some time and motivation on my hands! Maybe I should work on one of my immediate projects, like putting the finishing touches on my RQBB piece, or making some headway on my TMA BB piece, or editing the next chapter of the DND AU...

Me: *writes a 5k opener for an au that’s basically The Owl House*

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“Again.”

Jon held still and kept his eyes shut. Everything ached, his head most of all; the slightest movement sent lightning bolts of pain through his skull. Even now it throbbed like a quiet threat behind his closed eyes.

“Get up, Jon.”

He couldn’t. He was done. Wasn’t that obvious?

“I don’t have time to indulge you. I know you can do more. Now get up.”

He couldn’t.

“Open your eyes, Jonathan.”

That was a simpler request, at least. He could do that much, couldn’t he? He could open his eyes. It barely counted as moving.

Dutifully, Jon forced his eyelids apart. Punishment was swift; this time the pain was so intense that he couldn’t even scream, only curl up tighter on the floor with a strangled whimper. The polished tiles were cold against his face, but they did little to soothe the ache. Warm liquid trickled from his closed eyes; when had he started crying?

Across the room, Jonah sighed. “Already? We’ve barely scratched the surface, Jon. I expected another hour from you, at minimum.” Footsteps echoed against the floor, and Jon tensed in spite of the pain, but the hands that picked him up were gentle. “Come now. Our work is too important for me to indulge you like this. For Titan’s sake, your endurance was better when you were a mere child.”

Jon kept his eyes shut, and hated the part of himself that wanted to curl up again, apologize, and promise to do better. The ache was beginning to recede, just barely, but he kept his eyes shut. If he opened them too soon, then Jonah would take it as a sign that he wasn’t as tired as he behaved.

“Can you make your own way back?” Jonah asked, steadying him by the shoulders. “Or do you need help?”

Jon’s blood ran cold. That was a dangerous question. If he chose to go under his own power, then Jonah might change his mind about letting him stop. But he didn’t want help. His limbs felt like wet clay, and there wasn’t a single muscle in his body that didn’t hurt, but at least they were still his.

“I—” HIs voice cracked in his dry throat. “I can—I can make my own way. Th-thank you, Jonah.” He held his breath.

After far too long for comfort, Jonah sighed again, heavy with disappointment. “Alright, Jon. Get some rest. We’ll do better in the morning.”

“Yes, Jonah,” Jon replied, faint with relief, and waited.

He was met with silence.

“Have you changed your mind?” Jonah said, after a moment. “If you’d like to continue…”

“No,” Jon replied. “No, I’m—thank you. For letting me stop. Just…” He held his hands out in a blind plea. “It’s my eyes, so I need…”

“Ah, of course, how could it have slipped my mind?” He heard a faint rustle from Jonah’s robe, before warm, smooth wood was pressed into his waiting hands. Jon swallowed another sob of relief. “There you are, then.”

“Thank you,” Jon repeated, and turned toward where he hoped the exit was.

The shape in his hands shifted. Smooth wood became downy softness, before the feeling left his hands and landed gently against his face. Soft wings brushed his cheeks, tiny legs grasped the bridge of his nose, and the world returned to him.

He hadn’t opened his eyes, but he could see the room once more: the library’s main room, a vast space where he and Jonah did most of their work. He could see Jonah as well, watching him with the weary patience of a parent indulging a child’s tantrum.

Jon looked away, muttered his thanks again, and limped out of the room.

Even with a closed door between them, the weight of Jonah’s scrutiny never left. Not helping the matter was the wallpaper that, currently, was openly tracking his progress through the countless eyes hidden in the intricate pattern.

That was the downside to navigating with these eyes; when he used his own, he couldn’t see the Beholding that soaked every nook and cranny of the manor. At least then he could pretend that closed doors and distance meant something.

It was a long way from the research wing to his quarters—their quarters—and Jon had to pause several times for a moment’s rest. By the time he reached the last flight of stairs, he was shaking from exhaustion, and strongly considering the benefits of simply curling up in a corner of the hallway and falling asleep on the floor. Jonah certainly kept the carpets plush enough.

His borrowed vision went hazy for a moment, and soft wings beat gently against his face. Jon braced himself against the wall as another powerful headache washed over him, closed eyes be damned. His face was wet with tears again.

“Alright,” he murmured. “Alright. Just a bit farther.”

The mask of wings left his face in a sudden flurry of beating, leaving him blind again. Jon bit back a cry of alarm and stayed where he was, leaning against the wall. He wouldn’t leave—surely he wouldn’t. He’d be back. Maybe he was just…

Before he could work himself into a proper panic, he heard the door at the top of the stairs creak open. Familiar footsteps came tumbling down the steps.

“Fuck, Jon,” a familiar, wonderfully welcome voice breathed out, and Gerry caught him before he could fall.

Jon made the rest of the journey leaning heavily against him, blind and trusting. He could feel gentle puffs of air against his face, fluttering wings that didn’t quite touch, and smiled gratefully.

Eventually Gerry deposited him in a chair and went to retrieve something—from the potions stand, going by the clatter of glass vials. Less than a minute later, one of them was pressed into his hand.

“Here. Need help drinking?”

Jon shook his head. “I can manage. Thanks.” He downed the potion and was rewarded by a receding headache. His eyelids were so sticky that he had to massage them open, and his vision came back in blurry patches, one piece of the room at a time: A single table and chair by the kitchenette. Two beds shoved together in the far corner. The sparsest alchemy array on the Isles. Gerry's face, watching him with open concern.

"Do you know how much you lost?" Gerry asked.

"What?"

Gerry gestured to his face, and Jon mirrored the motion until he found rough, sticky stains streaked down his face. He was confused until some of it crumbled off at his touch, and he looked down to find flecks of congealed blood clinging to his fingertips. "That's probably not good."

"Yeah, Jon," Gerry sighed, short and forceful with held back anger. "Probably isn't." He moved off to the kitchenette, and returned moments later with a damp towel.

Jon cleaned his face, sighing in relief at the coolness against the lingering ache. He put the now-soiled towel aside, eyes finally clear, and caught the briefest glimpse of amber eye spots on coppery wings before their owner alighted gently on the side of his head.

"Yes, of course," he said, reaching up to stroke one of the moth's large downy wings. His familiar nuzzled his finger in return. "Thank you, Atlas."

"He alright?" Gerry asked grimly, already checking the moth for any sign of damage.

"Jonah had him for the entire session," Jon replied. "No overt threats today, he just… didn't let him go until we were finished. So. Could be worse."

"Could be a lot better," Gerry muttered.

It will be, he carefully didn't say. Soon, it will be.

It wasn't safe to talk like that. Not here. Not yet.

After Gerry coaxed food into him, Jon crawled beneath the covers and curled up as small as he could manage. Patched and mended blankets didn’t offer any more protection than the walls of this place, but huddling in the dark made it easier to pretend that Jonah couldn’t see him here. It was the only way he could make himself sleep, these days.

When he awoke to Gerry’s gentle shaking, Jon found that he hadn’t moved so much as a finger in his sleep.

Without a word, he slipped out from under the blanket. The light in their quarters was dimming as twilight approached. Gerry barely glanced up from the book he was reading at the table as Jon shuffled to the kitchenette and the kettle.

Casting the spell was a simple matter of well-practiced sleight of hand, disguised beneath mundane activities. One spell circle traced idly by Gerry’s finger against the page as he turned it, the other drawn in the air as Jon waved away the steam. They never did it the same way twice, nor with any regularity by day or week or month. If it became a pattern, then Jonah might catch it.

The spell slipped into place smoothly, with none of the clumsy ripples of their earliest attempts, and Jon let out a shaky sigh. They had to assume that Jonah was always watching—but now, if he was, all he would see was Gerry reading at the table, and Jon drinking tea at the kitchenette. It was a routine they had set long ago. It was exactly what Jonah would expect to see.

Titan willing, it would be enough. They couldn’t afford to slip up now.

“It’s almost ready,” Gerry assured him. “Everything’s in place. All we have to do is wait for the moon’s alignment to power it.”

Jon ran his hand absently over his arm, scratching at the pockmark scars that dotted his skin. Some of the ingredients had cost them dearly to procure. They likely wouldn’t get another chance on any of them.

When he looked at Gerry again, his friend was watching him with something indescribably soft in his face. “It’ll work, Jon.”

“And if we’re caught?” Jon blurted. “We can’t hide this ritual behind false visions. He’ll sense it no matter what his eyes tell him.”

“Once it’s cast, it won’t matter,” Gerry said with grim satisfaction. “We’ll have our out. And where it leads, Jonah won’t have any of the power he does here.”

Jon took a deep, shaky breath, and nodded. His hands curled and uncurled at his sides, nails digging deep into his palms.

Gerry’s eyes never left him. “What’s on your mind?”

Swallowing against the thickness in his throat, Jon struggled to find an answer. “Is it—is it wrong that I’m afraid?”

“Jon, no—”

“I didn’t want to be here,” Jon went on. “I never wanted—ever since I came here, I’ve wanted to leave. And now we finally have a chance. Why am I afraid?” Gerry opened his mouth like he was about to reply, but Jon couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried. “It’s not like I’m safe here. Today wasn’t even that bad, compared to… it wasn't that bad.” A bitter, ragged laugh tore itself from his throat. "He pushed me until I bled from my eyes, and he was happy to keep pushing, and all I can think is it wasn't that bad. Why am I afraid to leave?" His voice trailed off. Atlas’s wings fluttered against his head, mirroring his agitation.

Instead of answering, Gerry held out his arms. Jon walked into them without hesitation.

“You were a kid.” With his head on Gerry’s shoulder, his hand to his heart, and Gerry’s arms holding him close, Jon felt surrounded by his friend’s voice.

“I was nearly eighteen,” Jon protested. “Hardly a child.”

“I’m just saying, you’ve been here too long not to be scared of what’s out there,” Gerry reminded him. “And it’s not like we’re escaping out the front door. We don’t really know what we’ll find on the other side.”

Jon’s hand curled into a fist against Gerry’s chest, and his other arm tightened around him. If they did this right, then their exit strategy would dump them into an entirely new world, of which Jon had only ever read old books or heard second and third-hand stories. A fresh wave of apprehension seized him.

Not for the first time, he let himself be desperately, pathetically grateful that he wasn’t doing this alone.

“Can you keep it together?” Gerry asked, still quietly gentle. “I just—I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. But I can’t do this alone. This is a two-person job at least, and—”

“Of course.” Reluctantly, Jon pulled back to look him in the eye. “I’m not going to give up at the last moment. You can rely on me.”

Gerry smiled. That was a rare thing, these days. All the more reason not to lose his nerve. Once they got out, Jon was going to spend the rest of their lives giving Gerry every reason to keep doing it.

“I know,” Gerry replied. “Now come on. Let’s finish prepping before we run out of twilight.”

***

“You know,” Gerry whispered late at night, as Jon settled himself into the curve of his body. “By the time I left home, I’d passed up five chances to escape.”

Jon listened in silence. He was never quite sure what to say when Gerry talked about how he grew up. Nothing felt like the right thing to say. Luckily, Gerry never seemed to expect him to say anything at all.

“Those are just the ones I was looking out for, at the time,” Gerry went on. “Couldn’t tell you how many I just didn’t see.”

“You were a kid,” Jon murmured back.

Gerry scoffed into Jon’s hair, and Jon smiled. “Don’t you turn my words back on me. How dare you.” A moment later, “But… you’re not wrong. I was a kid. She was all I knew. I didn’t know who I was without her.”

Safely out of Gerry’s line of vision, Jon allowed himself a thoughtful frown. It was different for him, wasn’t it? Gerry had been born his mother’s son, but Jon had been someone before he was Jonah’s… whatever he was. Student, research assistant, test subject, prisoner.

Before, he’d been the son of parents he barely remembered. He’d been the grandson of a woman who did her best until he drove her to give up on him, and a coven leader came to her with a kind smile and a promise to take away her burden. And now…

And now he wasn’t any of that. Because there wasn’t anything for him to go back to. The only way out was forward, into the unknown.

“I figured it out in the end,” Gerry told him. “You will too. I know you will.”

“I might need help with that,” Jon admitted. “I could use your expertise.”

A soft huff of laughter jostled him. “I’m gonna be in the same boat as you, you know? I’ve never been to the human world.”

“You still know more about it than me,” Jon pointed out.

Gerry was quiet for a moment. “He didn’t tell you anything?” he asked eventually. “It didn’t take much to get him talking, when I was running around with him.”

“Only a few things. His family, his brother, some of his favorite foods. It was all we had time for before we parted ways.”

“Ah, that’s a shame,” Gerry sighed. “The human world sounds amazing—if even half the things he told me about were even real.”

Jon laughed softly. “I know what you mean. Can you imagine someone actually swimming in the ocean? It would strip the flesh clean off your bones.”

“Not if the water’s cold and non-corrosive. Which it apparently is. People swim in the ocean all the time. It’s a thing. They take their kids and everything.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Jon stifled a yawn.

“It was weird, you know?” Gerry went on. “The things he’d talk about like they were nothing. Sometimes he’d say just the wildest thing, and he’d look at me like I was crazy when I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”

“Like what?”

“Hmm… trying to think of one I haven’t told you before…” Gerry hesitated. “Did I tell you about how mornings in the human realm just… make water?”

“You mentioned something about the rainwater being cold,” Jon replied.

“No no, this is different. Titan, how did he explain it…” Gerry hummed thoughtfully. “Something about how, when it’s cold enough, everything’s covered in little droplets of water in the morning. The air just… does that. Makes water out of nothing.”

“I’m sure there’s more to it than that.”

“Can’t remember,” Gerry admitted. “He showed me a picture, though. Water droplets on a spiderweb. Looked like tiny little diamonds. Dunno what kind of face I was making, but he laughed at me.”

“Rude,” Jon murmured.

“Still not sure I believe it.”

“Maybe we’ll see it for ourselves. One day.” One day very, very soon.

Gerry’s only reply was to run gentle fingers through Jon’s hair, again and again, until Jon finally fell asleep.

***

The moon sat at its apex, round and bright and wreathed in blue fire that seemed to dim the stars around it. It was the first thing Jon saw when Gerry gently shook him awake.

He stirred, wincing when his movements jarred his injuries. Most of the day had been devoted to Jonah’s experiments, and Jon had fresh wounds to prove it. The burns on his face would heal without scarring, but his right hand was still wrapped in liniment-soaked bandages. Jon avoided putting any weight on it as he rose to a sitting position and pushed back the blanket. The sight of the moon, burning brightly in celestial alignment, chased away any lingering weariness.

They cast their usual cloaking spell with less caution than usual. It was only a stopgap measure at best, a few minutes’ safety to get everything in place. The table, chair, and alchemy set were pushed aside to clear the floor. With steadier hands—Jonah had been focused on Jon today, leaving Gerry a day of respite—Gerry borrowed Jon’s staff to draw the circle. Atlas alighted on his place at the top of the staff, colors fading as he shifted back into wood, and the symbols glowed brighter. Jon fetched each component from their hiding places around the room, and began laying them out amid the lines that Gerry was tracing.

They worked quickly, not speaking, barely breathing. For all their planning, there had been no time to practice. They would get only one chance, and no more.

And so, there was no time or opportunity to brace themselves before Gerry drew the last line, and Jon poured the last drop of Titan blood, and the circle caught the moonfire blazing through the open window.

The spell ignited, and the sheer force of clashing power nearly knocked them both off their feet. Their flimsy cloaking spell shattered, exposing them to Jonah’s sight, but it was far too late to turn back.

Jon had barely regained his footing when his own magic, coursing through the spell circle alongside Gerry’s, was caught in the moonlight’s amplifying effect. For a single, glorious moment, for the first time in years, Jon felt magic—wild magic, covenless magic—coursing through him. He smelled fire and earth and sea air, felt wind against his face, sensed the distant light of stars above them, tasted blood in the back of his throat as drumbeats pounded in his ears. Every sensation rushed him at once, melding together into a storm of color and music. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever felt.

And then the coven brand on his arm blazed, burning away the storm until only the Beholding remained.

It seized him mercilessly, knowledge clamoring its way into his head all at once. It was a confusing mess, so many sights and sounds and thoughts that he couldn’t have picked out a single one among them. But in the end he adjusted, the stream became more focused, and his mind was his own once more.

At the center of the circle, a seam formed in the fabric of the world. It split neatly down the length of it, opening wide into a ragged doorway.

Jon’s heart leapt. They had been planning this for years, researching in secret, sneaking and lying and stealing to get the components together, and yet—only now did he realize that he had never expected it to actually work. The fact that it had, that freedom lay only a few steps from where he stood, was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

Jonah was on his way, he realized absently. It wasn’t just the inevitability of it; even without his focus on the river of knowledge flowing through him, he couldn’t help but catch a few drops. One of them showed their captor flying up the stairs toward their quarters, wild-eyed and intent.

“Gerry,” he said. “We have to—”

Another scrap of knowledge slipped into his mind, like a dagger between his ribs.

“Jon?” Gerry’s voice sounded far away. Everything was suddenly muffled, even the portal. Even the Beholding, swollen with moonlight, felt far away. The whole world was contained in a single, inescapable truth.

“We can’t.” The words slipped from Jon’s mouth. His hand closed on Gerry’s arm. “Gerry, we can’t.”

“Jon, let go, the portal’s right—”

“It won’t work.” Jon squeezed his arm. “It won’t—there’s not enough power. It’s not stable enough for both of us. As soon as one of us goes through, the spell will fall apart and the portal will close. It won’t work.”

Gerry stared back at him, face suffused with dismay.

Dismay, but not surprise.

Jon’s heart sank like a stone in mud. “You knew.”

“Jon, there’s no time for this, now let go—” He was pulling away, prying Jon’s fingers from his arm, and the portal was within his reach, and Jonah was so close to their door.

“You knew,” he repeated. “How long have you known? How long have you been lying?”

“I had no choice!” Gerry shouted over the crackling, ringing din of the spell. “There was no other way! What was I supposed to do, sit here while both of us wasted away? What other chance was either of us going to get?”

The worst part was, Jon couldn’t bring himself to be surprised, or even all that angry, really. Of course this was going to happen. It was simply the culmination of his entire life, thus far. His parents, his old friends, his grandmother—and now Gerry.

Maybe it was just his lot to be left behind.

Across the room, the door rattled. Jonah called to them from the other side. Jon barely heard either.

“I…” His throat grew thick. “I understand.”

“Jon, I’m sorry,” Gerry said desperately. “I wish there was another way.”

“No, I—” He really shouldn’t be crying. This was a happy thing, after all. Gerry was going to be free. “At least—even if it’s just one of us—”

Gerry smiled through his own tears. “I’m really gonna miss you,” he said.

“It’s not fair,” Jon blurted out. “We were supposed to go together. We were supposed to see it together!”

“When has any of this ever been fair?”

Tears gathered in his eyes until Jon blinked them away. His last sight of Gerry should be a clear one. “Please don’t forget me.”

The door rattled again, and Gerry choked back a sob. “Fuck. I could never. You’re not the sort of person anyone just forgets.”

Before Jon could reply, Gerry lunged forward. Not toward the portal, not toward freedom, but to Jon. The kiss was fast and clumsy with desperation, but the hands against the sides of his face were ruthlessly gentle.

“I love you,” Gerry whispered. “Don’t look back.”

Jon blinked back his tears, confusion cutting through the grief. “What?”

Gerry curled Jon’s hands around the staff and threw him into the portal.

He fell through the riot of color and music, too shocked to scream as the image of Gerry shattered into pieces above him. The light winked out, and Jon fell into the emptiness alone.

***

Jon landed hard, though not nearly hard enough for how long he must have been falling.

He lay in darkness and silence, wheezing softly as he regained his breath, gripping his staff until his fingers went numb and his injured hand screamed in protest. The air was cold and smelled stale. The light show from the portal was gone, but he could still feel its power humming beneath his skin, threatening to burst free.

After a while, Jon gathered himself enough to roll over. The floor felt like stone beneath his hands, relatively smooth but unpolished. With a grunt of effort, Jon planted his staff on the ground and pulled himself to his feet. It was too dark to see well when he opened his eyes, so he felt along the length of the staff until he found the shape of wooden moth wings at the end.

“Atlas?” His voice rasped in his chest. The wood turned to soft chitin, and Atlas took off from the head of the staff to flutter in frantic circles around his head, buffeting him gently when he flew too close. “Yes, yes—it’s alright. We’re alright.”

Atlas landed on his shoulder, and Jon’s eyes adjusted.

Was this the human world? For all he knew, the portal might have simply dropped him elsewhere in the demon realm. He was in a room, possibly a basement, judging by the clutter. Boxes sat in stacks and piles, some of them too full to close properly. Indistinct objects sat against the walls—an old mirror, frames wrapped in thick brown paper, a tall wooden clock that didn’t seem to be working. A thick layer of dust blanketed everything, untouched by fingerprints or footsteps.

He was alone.

Of course he was alone, he’d seen the portal break apart as soon as he fell into it, with Gerry still on the other side. Jonah had been seconds from breaking the door down, and now—

A harsh sob took him by surprise, and tears blinded him all over again.

Jonah had never set a clear punishment for escaping. And now, whatever it was, Gerry was facing it alone.

They weren’t supposed to be alone, they were never supposed to be alone. It shouldn’t have been him going through the portal, it should have been Gerry, why couldn’t have been Gerry, why couldn’t Gerry have been selfish for once in his life—

A distant scream rang out, shocking him out of his tears. Jon stared around, wide-eyed and searching, but the room was still. Then the ceiling shook with a crash, drawing his eyes upward.

“It’s above us,” he murmured. “Stairs—we need to find stairs.” Atlas took off from his shoulder, eye spots glowing in the gloom.

With an extra set of eyes, Jon found the stairs within a minute. He ran up them, his brand warming as he loosened the leash on his swollen magic. The door at the top of the steps was locked, but he Knew within seconds where to find a key. Atlas vanished from his side and returned moments later, clutching it in all six of his legs.

The door opened to an unlit hallway. Jon hesitated, took one last look back at the dark and cluttered basement, and hurried on.

He could hear more, now that he was really listening for it. Running footsteps, multiple sets by the sound of it. Shouting, always muffled and bitten-off, as if whoever was doing it was trying very hard not to. There were people in trouble—this was the human world, wasn’t it? Was it as hostile as the demon realm after all?

The hallway ended and took him up another flight of stairs. He expected to see light at some point, either artificial or from the windows. The last time he saw the moon, it had nearly blinded him. But instead, the darkness of the stairwell only seemed to grow thicker as he ascended, and reaching the door at the top did nothing to abate it.

At the very least, what he could see of the room he stepped out into looked more like the ground floor. There were proper floorboards, high ceilings, and windows that only showed faint outlines of trees against a dark, starless sky. The house was unlit, and his eyes refused to adjust. Jon drew a quick spell circle on his forehead with one fingertip, and magic poured into his eyes to light the way.

Shouting rang out again from somewhere above. Jon raced to follow it.

Around him, the house was in the slow process of falling apart. Ornate wallpaper hung faded and peeling, shreds of old rugs showed the ragged remains of color and embroidery, and broken shards of wood protruded from walls and doorways alike, as if any ornamentation set into them had been ripped out long ago. This must have been a fine-looking house once, but now it was a crumbling wreck.

Eventually the hallway opened up to another dilapidated chamber, this one a rotting front hall with its doors still standing ajar. Opposite them, the sagging remains of a grand staircase led up to another floor.

Jon had nearly reached the foot of it when he spotted movement at the top of the steps, and his vision went black.

For a split second he thought he’d lost consciousness, but the floor remained firmly beneath his feet. His breath came in short bursts of alarm as he drew another spell circle for sight in the darkness, to no avail.

Jon settled his grip on the staff, wincing at the pain in his burned hand. The bad news was, nothing that simple was going to let him see through this darkness. The good news was, it meant he knew what he was dealing with. He should have figured it out as soon as he left the basement and saw how dark it was. Stupid.

He could hear the others. Their running footsteps had fallen still, but the sound of panicked breathing was unmistakable. Someone was whimpering in pain with each breath. Someone else was whispering frantic reassurances. The darkness swallowed up everything else.

Jon hardly had to reach for his magic. It was brimming all the way to the surface, swollen from the storm of half-wild magic that had brought him here. When he drew a spell circle in the air with a tight whirl of his staff, it all came boiling up and out like a geyser.

Eyes opened everywhere—in Jon’s face and neck, along the length of his staff, in Atlas’s wooden face and wings, and in the choked air all around him. The darkness burned away as quick and clean as thin paper, revealing the scene before him.

There were three people now at the foot of the stairs, in such a state of panicked disarray that Jon could hardly tell whether they’d run or fallen down them. The larger of the two men had the others pushed behind him, backing away from the creature that menaced them, all three of them too frozen in terror to even attempt to cast a spell.

In spite of the glowing eyes that lit the room, a single wriggling mass of darkness remained, crawling and twitching toward its prey with wispy feelers that reached out to touch them. Sour air wafted from its body, filling the room with the smell of rot.

An acid shade. Nasty, hateful things that hunted prey by blinding it, then dissolving it while it was still alive. One touch was enough to melt the skin off your hand. Gerry still had scars from his last encounter with one.

Gerry.

The eyes blazed, and for the first time the brightness touched the shade’s slick hide. It recoiled, convulsing with a sound that was not a scream, but close enough.

Jon didn’t remember crossing the room, but he stood between the writhing mass of shadows and its would-be victims, so he must have. Fear warred with wild, directionless anger. He missed Gerry and hated Jonah. He remembered the feeling of lips on his, and the sight of his only friend weeping as his image shattered. Jon took all of it, gathered up every last drop, and poured it all into the merciless light of his swollen magic. He gave it all of himself, until it was blinding, until he could See every part of the room he stood in, down to every last crack in the walls, down to every convulsing wisp of darkness that made up the shade.

It let out another not-scream as it was utterly, agonizingly Seen.

And then it was gone, and Jon’s last drop of magic trickled out and left him hollow.

The darkness returned—not a demonic creature this time, but regular unconsciousness creeping up on him. He fought it as he turned and looked back at the faces of the people he’d saved. A round-faced man, so pale that his freckles stood out in his face; a woman with wide eyes and dark hair in disarray; and the second man clutching a corrosive burn that covered his arm, whose face—

—whose face Jon recognized.

“Danny?” Half-blind, Jon struggled to focus as the world grew smaller, and the darkness overtaking it nearly obscured the look of shock on the man’s face. “You found your way home?”

He lost his grip on consciousness before he could hear the answer.

#the magnus archives #tma #jongerry #tma fic #tma isekai au #fanfiction #tales from the pit

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waatermelon-sugaar · 4 years

Text

Cold

Pairing = Santiago x reader

Summary = You get too cold on a mission and there’s only one bed in the building where you have to camp out for a couple of days...

Warnings = Fluff, mutual pining, near death situation (??kinda - I mean there’s danger), partial nudity (non-sexual but with sexy pining), huddling for warmth, only one bed, many many compromising positions

Word count = 6458

A/N - so this is my first fic i’ve ever finished! Eeee!!! I’m quite pleased with it, but please let me know what you all think! Also it combines two of my favourite fic tropes ever because of course it does haha.

Edit = Now cross-posted to AO3!

Masterlist

You were in trouble. Feeling the chill setting in your bones, it was harder and harder to lift your legs. Your teeth were now only occasionally chattering, and it was only the shivers running up and down your body which reassured you that you didn’t have hypothermia. Yet.

The path you and Pope had found wound through the trees as you walked towards the setting sun. Despite the ferocious cold, you couldn’t help but admire the landscape you were in, the dark contrast of the tree bark offsetting the brillant, deadly white. Snow hung from every available surface, causing branches to hang low with the weight.

You were more used to the warm - it was weird completing a bust in Canada of all places. But it had been going so well, all the drugs and money accounted for, no surprises, all packed up to fly out when the surrounding forest became alive. The timing had been misjudged or miscounted, you had no idea, all you knew was that the 6 of you had to get out of the building as fast as possible.

You’d instinctively found Pope to your left when the first shot had rang out, and amid all the chaos and shouting the two of you were running outside, taking down anyone in your way, not stopping to see if the others had followed you.

Gradually the popping sounds of gunfire and hand grenades had become muffled as it began to snow. You waited as long and as close to the house as you dared, but hadn’t seen the others. Restraining Pope from running back inside to find Catfish and the others had broken your heart, all you’d wanted was to run back in with Pope and find them, but the logical side of your brain knew that you shouldn’t.

“Pope! No!” Your shouts were hushed as you pushed at Pope, you didn’t dare grab someone’s attention, but Pope needed to listen to you, he had a wild look in his eyes that you’d only seen once before. “If you go back you’re as good as dead and no use to anyone!”

You’d fought with Pope before, you’d fought against all the boys in training sessions and knew their moves almost as well as they did. You’d yet to fight against one of them in real life, and it shocked you that although Pope’s moves wouldn’t seriously hurt you, he still wasn’t listening.

You knocked behind his right knee, conscious that the left one had only just healed from the previous mission, causing Pope to fall to the floor. He was still struggling against you, all lithe hard muscle and intent. Holding one arm around his neck to gently constrict his airways, you pushed down on his shoulders, forcing him to remain kneeling on the ground, your body blocking his view of the house as he glared at your stomach.

“Listen!” He stopped struggling against you but his shoulders still held all his tension as you put your mouth next to his ear. “They’re good at what they do, they might have got out. We need to reach the rendezvous position - they’ll meet us there. They don’t need us killing ourselves when they might be fine.”

Deciding to risk letting go of you, you relaxed your hold, kneeling in front of him as you grasp his shoulders, Pope sinking back onto his heels, his eyes finally focusing on you, still agitated. “You think they’ve got out?”

“They’re good agents, I trust them. You have to as well.” Pope knew you were talking sense. He also knew that you were good at pushing emotion down on a mission, not feeling things until afterwards. The number of times he’d comforted you back home, the way you looked before you were about to cry, how you dealt with guilt, fingers picking at your nail beds… he shook his head, not wanting to think of that now.

Instead he focused on your face now, your mouth set in a line, eyes gazing into his, waiting for him to confirm the exit route. When he nodded, you exhaled, and the two of you stood, setting off to the east.

As the day had continued it had begun to snow, harder and harder, until you realised that you were lost. Ditching your heavier packs and only taking the bare minimum had made it easier to walk however the temperature continued to drop, and worry chewed in your mind as you kept going, unsure of where you were heading until Pope had spotted the small cabin across the way.

As the sun set further and further beyond the horizon, turning the sky a deep purple, making it harder and harder to see, although it had thankfully stopped snowing. “Pope,” God your voice was hoarse. Had it always been so hard to open your mouth? The air that hit the back of your throat was painful, but you tried again. “Santiago!” A couple of steps in front of you, Santi turned.

The bottom half of his face was covered by a balaclava, which only served to make his eyes more intense as they looked you over. He was cold too; you could see it in the way he held himself, shoulders lifted and bent knees. The little skin you could see had lost a lot of its warmth, and now you’d caught up to him you could see that ice crystals clung to his eyebrows and eyelashes.

“Santi, w-wh-where - how far is th-this house?” Your mouth was stiff and the effort it took to move your tongue had never been so immense. Your voice was quiet, and as the two of you continued moving, you missed the concerned look Pope shot at you, instead concentrating on one foot in front of the other, despite how fuzzy your brain felt. “It shouldn’t be long now. May-maybe half an hour?” Pope was trying as hard as you were to push down his shivers, but you merely nodded in reply, not trusting your voice.

You shifted the small pack on your back as something dug into you, and the lapse in concentration on where you were going caused you to stumble. Pope was talking to you again, warm words washing over you but not going in. You were too cold to concentrate, your steps becoming heavier, and you felt like you might fall forward into the snow and never get up again.

You’re glad the two of you had made the decision to ditch your heavier packs once it had started snowing, the weight would probably cause you to topple over. Both you and Pope had pulled the hood up of your dark jackets, but it didn’t help alleviate the fogginess that was growing in your mind.

A dull pressure from the cold had begun at the base of your head, sending a throbbing through your skull. You became aware that Santi was holding onto your elbow, supporting you, though when he had begun, you couldn’t have said. And then you were standing in front of a building as your teeth continued to chatter and violent shivers tore their way up and down your body. More like a shack, the building was small and made entirely of wood, a warm brown, that looked so inviting.

You didn’t notice much else as Pope led you inside, sitting you down on the bed before disappearing. You were sure you saw his lips move, but you couldn’t remember. Everything was such a big effort and if you lay down on this bed with its cool inviting sheets, everything would fade away. You knew it would. All you could think about was the thin, needle-like points of pain shooting through your head, eradicating anything else.

When Pope returned, he was carrying neatly chopped wood, which he dropped to one side as he began to clean up the fireplace, clearing out old ash, charcoal and dust, before placing the wood down and neatly arranging the twigs so that the whole thing would light. Careful not to disturb the small pile of ash he’d made on the hearth, Pope set light to the fire. Watching carefully for a minute to ensure it had caught, he turned back to you.

You were still sitting in the same place Pope had put you, and he couldn’t help the pang of worry over your core temperature. You had easily bypassed the mild stage of hypothermia, he knew that much, if your confusion and lack of motor control was anything to go by, but beyond that, he wasn’t sure of the symptoms.

Making his way over to you, he began to unwrap you from your coat, pulling down your hood and untucking your plaits, and if his fingers lingered a moment longer than necessary on your cold hair, you didn’t notice. Hanging your coat on the hook by the door, hoping it would dry by the time you needed it tomorrow, he picked his own coat from the floor and placed it next to yours.

Santi removed your boots, and outer trousers, deciding to leave you in your thermal underwear, as the fire had not yet fully warmed the room. He scooped snow outside into a pan, placing it on the stove above the fire and not trusting the rusty looking tap in the corner. Returning back to you, he wrapped the blanket that had been at the foot of the bed around your shoulders, tucking you in before leading you to the fire.

Pope could still see that your lips had lost their colour and the skin on your face was cool to the touch. Leaving you there, Pope busied himself making soup for the two of you, using the water created from the snow and stirring in soup from a packet. The water began to bubble, and gradually Pope found himself relaxing as the room began to warm up.

Dishing the soup into two bowls, he sat down in front of you noted with happiness that a bit of colour had come back into your cheeks. You were still shivering, but not so much, and your eyes seemed a fraction more alert. “Careful, it’s hot” he warns you, and is gratified to see a small smile, causing his heart to stutter in his chest. “Thanks Santi.” It’s easier to speak now, though your voice is still quiet from a lack of energy.

The pressure at the base of your neck had lifted slightly, but the headache was still present. As you sipped at the soup, you could feel it inside you, almost burning down your throat and gently warming your stomach. The fire was getting hotter, and almost burning your skin, yet you didn’t feel any warmer inside and kept shivering. Moving away slightly, the cool air in the rest of the room soothed you slightly, and you concentrated on not spilling any more of your soup.

Eventually you’d finished eating and it was all you could do to keep your eyes open. Pope tugged the bowl from your hands and helped you into the bed, tucking the duvet under you, reminiscent of how your parents had done to you as a child. You blearily watched through tired eyes as he loaded the fire with enough wood to last the night and turned the stove off. Before you knew it, the bed was dipping on the other side and Pope was taking his outer layer of jumpers off, leaving him in the same style thermals that you were wearing.

Closing your eyes, you tried to go to sleep, but it seems your body did not want to. Your feet felt like blocks of ice, and you tried to rub them together without annoying Pope. Placing your cool hands under your armpits you try to warm them that way but to little success. Maybe you should have some more soup...

“Hey,” you turn, opening your eyes to see Pope looking at you, and you shiver, unable to keep eye contact. Your legs are still cold, and you once again try and rub them together to warm them up. “Take your clothes off” he commands quietly. The words hang in the space between you, only interrupted by the occasional crack from the fire still burning behind you. You laugh lightly to try and dispel the tension. “You know, I thought you were a sw-sweet t-t-talker when-n it comes to the ladies” You’re desperately trying to ignore the chattering of your teeth as you talk, and in the dim orange lighting you merely see Pope raise a singular, very sexy, eyebrow.

And then he’s moving, sitting up as he pulls his top off and drops it somewhere behind him, causing you to swallow when he starts to remove his thermal trousers. And when he’s done, he turns to you and “Your turn. You’ll warm up faster. I’ll be a massive hot water bottle for you.”

And you nod, because there’s nothing else to do, and because of course that was why he wanted you to take your clothes off, and you sit up, trying to ignore the tiny pang of disappointment in your chest. As you’re pulling your top above your head you suddenly feel a little embarrassed about the sports bra you’re wearing, and although it would be uncomfortable, you kind of wish you had something a little nicer on.

You copy his previous movements as you take your leggings off, your movements as fast as you can as the air in the room is still cold, sending more shivers through you and causing your hands to tremble. And again, you try to ignore the feeling of disappointment as he resolutely doesn’t look at you until you’re safely under the covers again. You try to tell yourself that it’s good that he respects you enough to not take advantage of you while you're vulnerable, that it’s unfeminist of you to want him to, because he should respect you as a person, he should respect your privacy.

And by wanting him to look at you in a sexual way, despite this being a distinctly non-sexual situation, are you playing into rape culture? Or lad culture? Your brain hurts just thinking about it, and you try to push it out of your mind when Pope speaks again.

“Is this ok?” His words are only a little louder than a breath when the two of you face each other again. And again you can only nod as he opens his arms, and you move forward, trying to take a deep breath to calm yourself as your heart feels as though it will burst out of your chest.

You gently put your head in the space between his neck and the pillow, trying not to put too much weight on the arm underneath you. And you can smell his aftershave that he uses, still clinging to his skin, a pleasant contrast to the smoke from the fire. Your nose is buried in the crook of his neck, your lips nearly touching his skin and if you leaned forward just a centimetre more… But there’s more than that primal urge, his skin is so warm on your face, you can feel the heat transferred from his skin to your cool cheeks, relaxing you as you intermittently shake from the cold.

And then he brings his other arm around you, pulling you closer and closer, and all you can feel is Santi. His rough fingers curling into your back as he holds you as close as he can, and you can feel the muscle under his soft warm chest. You can feel how his heart beats, the steady thump calming you.

You bring your legs in, and nearly jump when they touch Santi’s, the hair tickling you a little. And your arm is over his side, and your fingers are dancing softly up and down his back, occasionally catching a scar as you stroke him. And if you apply a little more pressure, just so, he hums, low at the base of his throat, and you think you’d almost miss the sound if your ears weren’t so close to his vocal cords.

And he’s so warm, and so comfy, and god he smells so good, despite not having had a shower for 24 hours. And your breath begins to even out and your eyes start to droop, and Santi rests his chin delicately on the top of your head as your hand starts to slow. You’re both exhausted, the day has been longer than you’d anticipated and the two of you fall asleep curled together.

When you wake early in the morning, you realise that during the night the two of you had moved so that you were spooning, but you weren’t as close anymore. When you realised this, you began to carefully scoot backwards, not wanting to wake Santi, but wanting to feel his warmth again. As your back touches his chest he automatically moves, reaching his arm over so his hand is on the little pouch at the bottom of your stomach. The movement brings a small smile to your face, especially when you realise that you’re no longer shivering, and you feel warm again.

And you never want to move anywhere ever again. If this was how you died, you’d be happy. Lying in Santi’s arms after he’d warmed you up the night before, still too groggy to worry about the day ahead, you fell back asleep.

When you wake the second time, the sun has fully risen and is beaming through the gaps in the shutters which cover the small dusty windows. The light illuminates more dust notes floating in the air and for the first time you take note of your surroundings. You’ve clearly stumbled across a hunter’s cabin, if the numerous antlers and deer heads on the wall are anything to go by, and you’re surprised that you didn’t notice them last night. You can see the pile of blankets by the still-smouldering fire where you sat last night, the soup bowls abandoned haphazardly to one side.

The fireplace was split in two, one side for an open fire, and the other for a stove, where you could see Pope’s back as he busied himself and a rich smell of porridge filled the room. He hadn’t put his clothes back on, and your eyes unwillingly drop to admire his bum, encased in his boxers. Ripping your eyes away, you look instead at how the room itself was split into two, with the bed at the back, creating the illusion of a bedroom, while a kitchen style was created by the combination of the fire, stove, and table. The deer theme continued here, antlers extending from the tops of the chairs, creating what looked like many poor attempts to recreate the iron throne.

There’s a slight bite to the air, a kind of crisp chill that you only feel after it’s freshly snowed, and when you sit to get out of bed, you hiss sharply when your bare feet touch the cold floor. At the noise, Pope turns around, his hair still a little mussed from sleep. “Sleep alright?” He asks, and you suddenly feel exposed as his eyes look at you and then resolutely focus on a spot above your shoulder. “Yeah so much better. You’re the best hot water bottle I’ve ever had, can I take you home with me?” You’re only teasing and yet when Pope replies “I don’t go home with just anyone, you know,” you lean down as heat rushes through your body and you pull yesterday’s clothes on, trying not to show how hot under the collar Pope can make you. Especially when he’s basically naked.

Once your socks are on, you can just about bear to walk over the cold wooden floor and join Pope at the stove, watching him divide the porridge into two portions. On one he pours an extremely generous amount of honey, while the other he leaves plain. Giving you the one with the honey, he sits at the table. “Is there any reason you gave me more honey than porridge?” You ask as you stir it in, sitting opposite him, and trying not to think about his hands, clasped around his bowl, and how nice those hands felt on you last night.

He scoffs before he replies, “Because you need the sugar.” There’s a pregnant pause before he elaborates. “You were too cold last night. You need to get your energy back up.” And despite the excessive amounts of honey, the porridge is nice, warming you, and Pope’s right, you do feel better and more alert once you’ve finished it.

Not that you’d tell him as such. Although… “I actually wanted to say thanks for yesterday.” Pushing the bowl away, you lean on your elbows on the table and look at Santi, admiring the way his salt and pepper curls are in more disarray than usual. “You saved my life, thank you.” He looks back, his gaze steady. “You know I’ve got your six, however that might be.” You stand, collecting the breakfast bowls and leaning for the soup bowls too. “Well. Thanks anyway. And you know I’ve got yours too, right?”

He smiled in thanks, and you moved on. “What’s the plan? Do we know where we are?” Pope shook his head, “There’s a map next to the door, but it’s too old to see where we are.” He put his feet up onto the chair opposite him. “I’ve sent out a rescue signal on our trackers though so hopefully someone will come get us.”

You nod, and a sudden wave of tiredness over takes you, so instead of washing the bowls, you place them in the sink and sit back on the bed. You closed your eyes, only meaning to rest them for a minute, when you heard Santi begin to make a lot of noise. Frowning, you watch him as he puts his jacket, trousers and boots back on. “Where are you going?” You gesture out the window “It’s snowing again - I don’t think you’ll see much.”

“I know but I want to check the area. There must be a road or something nearby.” And with that he’s gone, shutting the door behind you and leaving you alone in a warm, if slightly creepy, house. Letting yourself have another second of rest, you forced yourself to get up and poke around. You knew it could easily be 2 hours until you were picked up but it could be 2 days or longer and you needed to know the food situation.

The cupboards were dusty but packed full of canned foods which didn’t go out of date for another year, causing your heart to relax a little and the ball of worry in your stomach to unknot a little. You made yourself a mug of watery hot chocolate to keep you going, adding a little powdered milk to create the illusion of decadence.

You knew it freaked Santi out, not knowing where you were or what to expect, so you didn’t worry too much while he took his time outside, knowing his need for control wouldn’t let him rest until he was 100% happy. That didn’t stop you from worrying about Santi though. He hadn’t been as bad as you yesterday but that didn’t mean he was invincible. When he came back, you’d make him a hot chocolate.

Before you knew it, slight shivers were running up and down your body again, and when you glanced at the fire you realised that it had gone out, so you set to work cleaning out the ash, and replacing the charcoaled wood. Your gloves were grey by the time you finished, but you kept them on. You’d need them when you went outside for more wood. The wood had been neatly chopped and piled into an outdoor shed, which involved pulling on your boots. Groaning at the thought of the effort involved ahead, you shut your eyes for the briefest second.

____________________

By the time the fire was built, you were sweating, but pleased. It had caught well, and although it wasn’t neat, you were proud of yourself. Dropping your gloves to the floor, you got to work on lunch, a stew with an assortment of vegetables from tins which hadn’t looked very appetising but once you’d added some spices the tomato base had started to smell better.

Stirring in water you left it to bubble a little while longer, picking up your gloves and stomping outside. Your breath came out shaky, considering you’d long taken your jacket off and were just wearing your thermals. Beating your gloves against the wall, you attempted to shake the ash off them. “What did those gloves do to you?”

You turned to see Santi approaching, his eyes crinkled from his grin, and glittering as he tried not to laugh. “Well if you must know, they didn’t keep my hands warm today. Or yesterday” you added as an afterthought, trying not to let it show how relieved you were to see him again. You were pouting as you grumbled, though the effect was ruined by a laugh that bubbled out of you after a second. Examining your gloves, you gave up, admitting defeat that they’ll have ash on them until you could get them in a washing machine.

“Did you find anything?” You were only brave enough to ask once the two of you were seated and eating. “Not really. A dirt track leading to a road leading to nowhere. The only signs were to places I’d never heard of.” You snorted, “As if you’ve heard of any towns in Canada.”

“I could name places in Canada.” He protested, but you shook your head. “Not a chance! Name one?” He was smirking now, leaning forwards slightly. “Vancouver.”

You shook your head. “Doesn’t count. That’s a city.” You could see the flicker of panic as he struggled to think of a town not a city. Finally he let out a growl, tugging on his hair in frustration, both of which sent a flood of heat to your stomach as you imagined your fingers in his salt and pepper curls, pulling that noise from him. “Fine! I can only think of Quebec, happy?” He took another spoonful of stew. “This is good by the way, what’s in it?” You opened your mouth to reply when he cut you off. “And anyway, I bet you can’t name a Canadian town.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Want to bet?”

Santi narrowed his eyes as he pointed his spoon at you. “What are we betting?” You grinned as you jumped up, opening the door to one of the cupboards where’d you found a delicious looking bag of marshmallows. His eyes widened greedily at the sight. “No way! We’re not betting those, you clearly know at least one town.”

“Ok let’s say we split these - what will you give me if I know a town?” His eyes flicked up and down you as he appraised you, giving you a pleasant thrill, liking the way he looked at you. “You don’t know a town.” He was drawing his words out slightly, elongating them to exaggerate, playing at sounding confident, trying to see if you were bluffing. “Ok, if I don’t know a town, you can have all these marshmallows. If I do, I get to have the bed to myself tonight.”

You weren’t quite sure why you said that, but the knowledge that Santi would be in the same bed as you again tonight, except this time you wouldn’t be able to touch him was looking to be more than you could bear. “And where will I sleep?” Santi was holding your gaze now, and you knew he was interested. ��By the fire,” you shrugged, “Put a few blankets down…” Trailing off, you didn’t dare break eye contact, until Santi finally stuck his hand out. You grasped it, smirking, until he said “Three towns. And if I find out you made one up, 10,000 push ups.”

“You underestimate me Garcia.” Racking your brains for the best names, you began. “Number 1 - Witless Bay - maybe you should visit,” you teased as he scowled slightly. “Number 2 - Big Beaver and number 3 - Spuzzum!”

“No way are they real!” The two of you continued to lightly bicker, Santi swearing he was going to look them up the first chance he got as the afternoon continued and the fire once again beginning to burn itself out.

When you peer out the window, you can’t see further than 20 meters and deciding you didn’t fancy venturing outside, you asked Santi to go out for more wood, promising that you wouldn’t open the packet until he was in the room, that you would save the marshmallows for after dinner.

You had said that, but surely one marshmallow wouldn’t hurt? You had self control, you could stop after eating one. You were resolutely not looking at the packet at this point, as if turning your nose up wouldn’t make you want to break your promise.

Luckily at that moment Pope walked in, jacket bundled tight under his neck and stamping his boots in the doorway. “Ooh shut the door, all the warm air’s going out.” you hissed as a draft hit you and you crossed your arms. “Aww sorry, darling,” Santi teased you, “is it a waste of energy?” He laughed as you scowled slightly.

“Well actually, yes” you shivered, “and it’s making me cold Pope.” That last sentence was nearly a whine, and you gave him your best puppy dog eyes as you looked up at him. He was still smirking as he took his time piling up the wood and taking his jacket off before closing the door. The cheek of this man!

Huffing in indignation, you grabbed the packet of marshmallows and began to speak “Well if I’m going to get cold again, I may as well just eat all these marshmallows by myself. I don’t sha-” You shrieked as Pope whirled around at your words and began to chase towards you.

Scrabbling to get to your feet in time, you made a dash for the bed and yelped as Pope grabbed at the back of your shirt, struggling to get a hold. You tripped on one of your boots, stubbing your toe, causing you to curse and drop the bag on the floor. Pope was too fast for you, scooping to get a hold before you could react. He took a step backwards, holding the bag tauntingly below his face. “You” you growled, as Santi smirked, sure that he had the upper hand, “give them back now!” And with that you launched yourself at Pope, who definitely hadn’t been expecting that and stumbled back, falling atop the bed.

Straddling Pope’s waist, you leaned forward and grabbed the marshmallows easily, even as Santi attempted to hold the bag out of your reach. Grinning down at him, and holding the bag aloft, you suddenly realised the position the two of you were in, especially when Pope attempted to grab the bag back, and, failing that, rested his hand on your waist.

And, oh, how easy would it be to just move your hips down and grind a little. How easy would it be to lean forwards and kiss Santi on his plump lips. His dark eyes were watching you closely, and you swallowed at the sudden pressure of the situation. But if Pope could treat you with respect, then you could definitely respect him and the friendship the two of you had.

So you pushed yourself off him, looking at the fire as you awkwardly flicked your plaits away from your face. You bustle over to the stove, missing the disappointed look that flashes across his face. Pulling out a can of chopped tomatoes, you fiddle with the opener as you turn back around. “Should we eat dinner first?” Santi nods, sighing as he supposes that actual adults would eat dinner first. He has a strange look in his eyes as he watches you pour the tomatoes into a frying pan, switching the hob on and rooting through the cupboards as you try and think of a recipe with what’s available.

“What are you making?” Santi still hasn’t moved from the bed, propping himself up with his elbows as you pull out varying cans, each with their own unappetising label. “Dunno. Another stew type thing I guess. There’s some sweetcorn here, and some canned sausages, aanndd… ahaha! ‘New chopped and peeled potatoes in water’ Urgh” Placing the numerous tins on the floor next to you, you continue nosing around. “Doesn’t that sound disgusting?” Your voice is muffled somewhat when you put your head into the cupboard to look at products in the back but Pope wholeheartedly agrees.

After dinner, which had tasted better than it both sounded and looked, you’d toasted your marshmallows. You felt a bit cruel as you snuggled nicely into the big bed, starfishing as much as you could, while Santi lay out a small pile of blankets on the floor next to the fire.

Sleep would have come easily to you, exhausted as you were, but it seemed Santi couldn’t get comfortable, tossing and turning and huffing as he did so. “Santi, if you’re going to keep me awake on the floor I think I’d rather if you slept in the bed.” You rolled to the side of the bed, watching as Santi sat up so fast, you were worried he’d snap something. “Really?” His voice sounded so pathetic, you felt horribly mean for making him sleep on the floor.

Until he stood up and you saw that he wasn’t wearing any thermals. Again. And this time he was turned towards you and you could see the outline of everything, causing you to swallow heavily and look away, face feeling so hot you could have been burned. Just friends, you remind yourself, we’re just friends.

And when Santi got into bed next to you, you could feel him shift and relax into the mattress as it dipped under his weight. And why was this so much more awkward than it was last night? Maybe, a snide voice began, it’s because last night, you were on the brink of death. And tonight, you’re a sad, sad girl who has a crush on her best friend.

“Baby, come here.” Santiago’s husky voice seems like it comes out of nowhere, and you blink at the ceiling. Baby? Turning to face him again, you’re kind of surprised to see his arms open again like they were last night. He wants to cuddle? Again? Even though he doesn’t have to? Baby? And it’s so silent, the only sound the fire crackling behind you.

But you move forwards anyway because this is Santiago, who are you to say no? Maybe he’ll call me Baby again. Santi tugs you towards him, wrapping his arms around you, and you press your face into the crook of his neck again, clenching your eyes tightly shut, praying that this isn’t a dream. And then you lift your head because “How do you still smell so nice?” And you realise your mistake too late, because although the movement puts more space between you, you’re now because now your face is level with his, and far too little space between the two of you.

But then his eyes drop to your lips and suddenly everything falls neatly into place. Why you and Santi had been in so many compromising positions over the last couple of days. All those lingering touches and glances. How Santi would do anything for you. How he always told you the truth, even when you didn’t want to hear it. How he remembered details about you. How you made him laugh. How he made you laugh.

And so you leaned forwards and kissed him.

It’s a peck of a kiss, you’re not brave enough to do anything else, maybe lasting for a second before you’re pushing off from him, putting distance between your bodies, the voice in your head screaming ‘Idiot!’ at you over and over.

Until one of Santi’s hands are on the back of your head, pulling you back towards him and you let him, leaning forwards and you’re kissing again.

But properly this time. This isn’t some PG-rated, playground kiss that 12 year olds gave each other during a game of spin the bottle. This was a real kiss, your eyes are closed and your mouth is moving against Santi’s like it’s found its home.

Your mouths are open and his hands move to rest on your waist and yours are in his hair. And it’s too much. But not enough. Distantly a helicopter whirs overhead and you hook one leg over his waist, your foot pressing into his bum, pulling him closer to you. And you can feel him. All of him. He’s clearly just as into this as you are and the two of you keep kissing as you tug on his hair. He groans into your mouth before moving down your neck, kissing and nipping at the sensitive skin until he finds the spot which causes you to gasp out his name.

You keep moving against each other and it’s so good and the helicopter whirs overhead once more. You gasp as it clicks in your mind and you push at Santi’s shoulders as he keeps kissing your shoulders, “You’re so beautiful,” Santi groans and you want him to continue so badly, but if that helicopter is here for you, which it must be after two days of silence, you don’t want to found in this position.

“Santi, stop, we have to stop!” Santi immediately pulls away from you, his brow furrowing as he looks at your face. “What is it?”

You’re sure that the grin on your face is a dopey one but you can’t help it, he’s so cute. “There’s a chopper outside.” Santi sits up just as the door opens to reveal a grinning Frankie. “They’re in here!” he hollers behind him. “Cuddling and -” his gaze lands on you and his eyes drop a couple of inches below yours and he laughs a little, “Ironhead and Redfly, you owe me 15 big ones!”

Santi’s head snaps to look at you as well, and your hand flys up to touch the area he’d been kissing, which has the beginnings of a soreness that only comes from a hickey. You groan and let yourself fall back onto the pillows. The ride back was going to be hell.

Fin x

God this started as a comfort fic when the heating went out in my house - I didn’t think it’d get this far but I’m so pleased to have finished my first fic, please give me feedback good or bad I want to know! I know the ending was weak but didn’t know how to make it better so any tips would be appreciated! Also if anyone knows how to think of titles please please please help me

Taglist

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#Santi x reader #Santiago x reader #santiago 'pope' garcia #Santiago garcia #triple frontier #my writing #fanfic #fic #Pope x reader

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come-on-shitty-boys · 4 years

Text

//missing pieces. miya atsumu//

Warnings: mild swearing. Feelings of hopelessness. infidelity

Word Count: 2.2K

Notes: imnotcryingimnotcryingimnotcrying.

{Read Part II - "Broken Pieces" HERE}

You heard them before they even entered the door. The loud shouts and the howls of laughter. If you sat up enough on the couch, the MSBY training jackets were visible through the front window. Hinata’s orange hair bounced wildly as he jumped excitedly with his older Jackals. It was the fifth time this week that the boys had come over after practice.

It was the fifth time this week that the boys had disrupted your much needed study time. A senior in college, a list of midterms too long to comprehend, and more mental breakdowns than you cared to account for, the hours that your boyfriend was at practice and you could relax and study in the comfort of your shared home was pure bliss.

The door swung open, giving you a full account of just how loud they were being. Atsumu was doubled over in fits of giggles, tugging his sneakers off, Hinata and Bokuto shouting bits and pieces of the same story only a few steps behind.

“Y/N? You here?” Atsumu calls out as he is finally able to calm himself down enough to speak normally again.

“Living room, ‘mu!”

In a matter of seconds, he’s bounding into the room, leaning over your shoulder. “I’m home.” You don’t even have to look at him to know that he has the widest grin on his face, just like he always does when he gets back from practice. No matter how long or how grueling his day, Atsumu never fails to greet you with the biggest smile.

“I see that. How was practice?”

“Good! My hands are kinda sore though,” he whines, opening and closing his hands in front of you as if to show you the pain he was enduring.

“Well, you’re new to this pro stuff still, Atsumu. Your body will get used to it soon.”

“Yeah, I know.” He sighs a little, resting his chin on the top of your head. “The guys are here.”

“Trust me, I, and the entire neighborhood, know. Let me just finish this question real quick and I’ll let you guys have the living room.”

“Aw, come on! You don’t want to hang out with us?”

“I need to study or else I would love to.”

He hums in affirmation. “You’re going to do so well. I’ll make sure we keep it down so you can focus, okay?” There’s a soft kiss placed on your head as you pack up your laptop and notes so you can go study in the bedroom.

“Thank you, ‘mu,” you say, standing on your toes to give his lips a short peck as you pass.

But that was then.

And this was now.

“Are you serious?! You can’t lock me out of my room, Y/N!”

“Our room, Atsumu, and too bad. I did!”

His fist pounds on the door, the intensity of each knock sending vibrations throughout the room. “Y/N, this is ridiculous! Open the door!”

“I’m trying to work. This report has to be done for tomorrow. Please, ‘mu.”

“Don’t ‘mu’ me when you’re literally locking me out the bedroom!”

You roll your eyes, leaning over to twist the lock and tug the door open. Your boyfriend tumbles into the room as his support is swung away from him. He doesn’t even look at you. He just goes straight to the closet, throwing clothes onto the bed. “Where are you going?” You ask, looking up from your laptop briefly as he throws a pair of jeans a little too far, hitting you in the leg.

“Does it matter?” He starts peeling off the lounge clothes that he had been wearing most of the day, opting for a slightly more put together outfit for his night out.

You just shrugged. “I guess not.” Yes.

“Then don’t worry about it.” Atsumu tugs his jeans up and takes a look at himself in the mirror. He ruffles his hand through his hair in a poor attempt to give it some extra volume. You watch him make a few dumb facial expressions at himself. Satisfied, he pulls his hat over his head. With wallet and phone in hand, he finally turns to look at you. “Okay. I’ll see you later,” he states plainly, walking past you and out the bedroom door.

“Do you have your keys?” The only answer you receive is an annoyed jingle of his keyring from the other room.

The thud of front door closing is the sole sign that he had left. There were no final shouts of “Bye, princess! I love you!” “I love you more, ‘mu!” “I love you most!” Those days have long since past. They had been replaced with eerie silences and quick exits from both parties. Life in the current household was far from what it had been a year ago. There were no soft shared kisses just because. No gentle teases as the evening news played in the background. No long cuddle sessions on the couch because both of you were too lazy to get up to go to bed. There was no smacking his hands out of the mixing bowl while you tried to make dinner.

Atsumu wasn’t home long enough for those things anymore. He’d come running in from practice, quickly shower and change out of his sweaty clothes. And as fast as he came, he would be gone, maybe shouting “I’m going out with the guys!” but usually, he would just leave, the slam of the door echoing through the house.

You kept telling yourself that this would pass. He was just excited to finally be achieving his dreams. Of course he would want to hang out with his new teammates and friends. There was a level of trust there that he needed to build with them as their setter and if crowding around Hinata’s television, playing video games was how they bonded, then so be it. Who were you to tell his team how they should and shouldn’t spend their time? But this had been going on for months.

Months of no hellos and no good mornings. Months of Atsumu coming home late, the faint smell of alcohol on his breath as he tucked into bed an arm’s length away from you. He returned affection with the minimum amount of effort, maybe a short apology as he broke away from a kiss, explaining that the guys were waiting for him. It felt like a wedge had been shoved between the two of you, the rest of the Black Jackals jamming you further and further away from him.

Part of you kept hoping that you would wake up, secured in his arms, a gruff “Good morning” whispered in your ear only followed by a soft whine as you tried to get out of his grasp, causing him to just pull you tighter into his chest. You kept hoping that whatever switch flipped in his head to cause this would flip back and the Atsumu that you fell in love with would come back to you, but it never happened. He just kept straying away, not even bothering to look back at how far he had drifted.

You had hoped today would be different. It wasn’t every day that the two of you accomplished four years of putting up with each other’s bullshit. But, when his alarm sounded and he just got up like nothing was different, that slight bubble of hope that was buried in your chest popped. Maybe- maybe he just wanted to focus before practice. Yeah, that’s all this was. Surely, he hadn’t forgotten, right? Atsumu could be a jerk, but he wasn’t that much of an asshole. He wouldn’t have forgotten your anniversary.

“What’s this for?” he had asked as he took the neatly wrapped package from you as he sat down at the table, his bowl of cereal nearly empty.

So, he did forget.

“I’ll open it later. I’m going to try to get a run in before practice.” You didn’t even have the chance to wish him a happy anniversary before he got up to put his bowl in the sink, headed out of the room to slip on his sneakers for his jog.

So, now, as you sat in your shared bed, it felt like the unopened package was staring intently into your soul, mocking you for your failing relationship. Four years of laughter, excitement, and love seemed to mean nothing to him and you couldn’t figure out what you did to make him choose volleyball. It was his dream and you understood that. You would never keep him from being the man he always dreamed of being.

It tore you apart inside, this feeling of absolute failure. It had been bugging you for a while now, but this- that stupid box sitting on his side of the bed, was your breaking point. You didn’t understand what you did. Why was he pushing you away? Did you not support him enough? Did he think that you didn’t care for him? As the questions weighed heavily on your mind, you felt that all-too-familiar sting of salty tears forming in your eyes.

You shook your head, silently begging for the tears to just go away. I am not going to cry. I am not going to cry. I am not going to cry. He wasn’t upset, so you shouldn’t be either, right? But, you were. You were devastated that no matter how hard you tried to put everything back together, the pieces just kept slipping out from between your fingertips and just as soon as everything felt like it was all coming back together, Atsumu would be holding the final pieces to puzzle, refusing to snap them into their place. In his hands, he held the most important pieces. Those gorgeous center parts that brought the entire picture into focus, showing off the breath-taking beauty of it. But, as of now, it was just the background, the few random bits and bobs, scattered around the scene, each beautiful in their own way, but meaning nothing without the center point of the image.

The worst part? You didn’t know when the pieces of your relationship went scattering all over the place, leaving you to scramble, picking everything up on your own while Atsumu was at practice or hanging out with the guys. You just know that it’s felt like ages since everything was put together in perfect harmony.

You wanted to scream. You wanted to cry. You wanted to pull your hair from your head so you could feel something, anything, other than this complete and utter worthlessness and despair that had been swelling within your chest, waiting to be let out.

The hot tears rushed down your face in torrents, but apart from your gentle sniffs, there was silence. There were no sounds of pitiful weeping. It was an art that you had learned to perfect after many nights where these feelings washed over you, not wanting to wake Atsumu, not wanting him to stare at you with blank eyes and tell you to, “Stop crying and go to bed.”

But, right now- right now, you didn’t care. You wanted to hear his voice in your ear, shushing you, reassuring you that everything was fine, just like it used to. The line rings, rings, rings -

“You’ve reached Miya Atsumu. Sorry that I missed your call, but if you leave me a message, I’ll get back to you!”

The beep that signals you to leave your message is what urges you to just hang up. You toss your phone to the side, hoping that, just maybe, he’ll notice your missed call and give you a call back or even just a text message would be good enough for you.

But, there never was. There was no soft ting at the sound of an incoming message. You never heard the ringtone that had been set to Atsumu’s contact, signifying that he had called you. You waited hours, your eyes being dry for a long while at this point, leaving just the shell of a broken person in your place. Your gaze never left that stupid box. You were entranced, staring at the black and gold paper, watching it sheen as it would catch the light slipping in from the window.

Not even the sound of the swinging open could pull you out of your emotionless gaze. Miya Atsumu just stared into your face, eyes red and puffy, streaks in your make-up where the tears removed your foundation. Somewhere deep within his chest, there was a soft pang of sadness. There was nothing that he hated more than seeing you so distraught that you completely shut down. Yet, he said nothing. He simply pulled a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from his drawer, pulling his clothes off his body to change into something that he could sleep in. His shirt came off and your gaze became fixated on his toned chest.

But, even your empty eyes knew the bright red lines of scratches and the harsh purple bruises of a hickey when you saw them.

“‘Mu?”

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x reader #miya atsumu #atsumu #miya #msby black jackals #atsumu x reader #angst #imagine #x reader #part 1

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taylizmasterpost · 4 years

Text

Liz After the Agency (September 2012 - September 2014)

So, Liz is spiraling. Her mental health isn’t doing great. And she was just asked to leave The Agency (presumably to take care of herself, although the public reason given was for her to start a solo career). Things are bad.

However, in the darkness, there’s always a light. And the light for Liz, in this case is her neighbor, Bryan Brown.

24 September 2012 - Liz and Bryan tweet at each other for the first time:

17 October 2012 - Taylor writes This Love:

Now, this COULD be about Liz, considering the back and forth. However, I’m more inclined to believe Taylor wrote this about Swiftgron’s first break up, right after they got back together, which you can read more about here.

The same day, Liz makes a vague tweet about jealousy:

It’s crazy weird to me that the same day Taylor is celebrating getting back together with Dianna and writing This Love, Liz is pissed off and jealous about something. Coincidence? Maybe. But I don’t think so.

22 October 2012 - Red is released. According to a later interview with the photographer who did the Red booklet (who happens to be Liz’s current roommate), Taylor based the concept of the photoshoot on some headshots they’d taken for Liz:

“Taylor is a mutual friend of ours. Stephen and his brother were friends with her years before, and I became friends with her separately. What ended up happening was one of her background singers needed headshots. When Taylor saw them a few months later, she came to me and was like, “Liz showed me the shots you took of her, and I need my album to look exactly like that.” Clearly, this was a no-brainer. I said, “OK!” Before then, I’d been kind of burned out on music photography. A lot of the shoots were super controlling. I needed a new perspective on the field itself and wanted future shoots to be very free-flowing — just the artist and a minimum crew. Luckily for Stephen and me, that’s exactly how Taylor presented the Red album shoot. So it was just the three of us shooting everything together. She wanted everybody else to remain off set, allowing for a more personal and intimate experience.”

So, I don’t know why Taylor did this. Maybe she wanted to look like a hipster for the Red album and Liz was the best she knew. Or, maybe, she wanted to scream to those who knew her well that this album was about LIZ HUETT.

In this series of Liz headshots, there’s also one specific photo of Liz wearing the Stevie Nicks moon necklace that Taylor possibly gave to her:

Is this possibly one of the reasons why Taylor wanted to mimic them for the Red album?

Later that day, Taylor goes on Good Morning America and says she wrote a new song “like two days ago” (probably talking about This Love?)

And after that, Taylor tells the LA Times that Begin Again and State of Grace are about the same person:

“There were a few track list choices I knew I was going to make way in advance,” she said. “I knew I wanted to bookend the album with ‘State of Grace’ and ‘Begin Again’ because they’re inspired by the same person who inspired a few songs on the record. I wanted to start and end the album with the first and last song I ever wrote about that relationship.”

“Then in between those songs, I wanted to paint a picture of the ups and downs I’ve experienced in life and love, not necessarily in the order it happened chronologically,” Swift continued. “I like to spread the emotions out in a way that never makes you feel like there’s a sad lull, then a burst of four songs in a row about joy. At the end of the day, I make a track list based on what my gut feeling tells me.” ‘Begin Again’ is my song version of a cliffhanger ending. Throughout the whole album, there have been songs about the trials and tribulations of love and loss, and there at the end of the record it starts all over. As soon as I wrote that song, I knew exactly where I wanted to put it.”

Now, I don’t think this means Begin Again is about Liz. I think it means that Liz is the past relationship in the song, and Dianna is the present. And Liz actually has a song called “Good About Her” that kind of mirrors Begin Again and I find that HILARIOUS and also kind of a smoking gun.

26 October 2012 -Taylor goes on Katie Couric. Katie asks if Taylor’s ex in WANEGBT got the message and Taylor says she “hasn’t heard from him since” and also mentions “some of my exes like to write really long emails.” Now, if the song is about Liz, this is a lie, because she definitely did get lunch with Liz after WANEGBT came out. However, I think it’s fair that what she’s hinting here is that things did not end well in that messy relationship.

25 October 2012 - Liz quote tweets Caitlin about crying on the treadmill to All Too Well :

8 November 2012 - Liz releases Never Know on YouTube:

youtube

The lyrics that make me think this is about Taylor are the “now and then I catch myself singing your old song.” ESPECIALLY in the context of that treadmill tweet and Liz probably having written this during her Nashville sessions over the summer. However, it could also be about Jason, who, as we know, was a struggling musician before he became a photographer.

18 November 2012 - Taylor shoots the MV for IKYWT, wears the same black and white shirt she wore around when Liz first joined the band. Liz calls the news of her leaving the Agency “bittersweet.”

And “bittersweet” is the exact same phrasing that around a week later Taylor would say the ex who most of Red is about used to describe listening to the album:

19 November 2012 - Ali Puliti tweets about listening to two Liz demos -- Blessed Are the Brokenhearted and Dammit, meaning this song, which wouldn’t be released until 2018, was likely written during those summer 2012 songwriting sessions:

When the song was eventually released by Jana Kramer in 2018, Liz posted this on Facebook:

The song also notably contains the lyric “cause I could hear you in the kitchen, playing your guitar” which REALLY REALLY makes me think of Taylor. Although it could maybe be for Jason, who was also a musician.

Here’s the story Liz told about the song:

“‘Dammit’, actually, was a story that I lived out. Like, I was with somebody I was, you know, getting very serious. We were talking about starting a life together and we even had this house, like, picked out in the city where we lived and we would drive by it and be like ‘one day when we buy that house’. And, so, when we broke up, the pain of, like, saying goodbye was really, you know, really intense, but it was also mourning the loss of the hypothetical future. So, it was like saying goodbye to the past memories and stuff, sort of what we almost had and that’s where that song came from. So, honestly, I didn’t write it for anyone else, but myself, truly. But, um, it’s beautiful that music has such a way of resonating with someone who might not even know and they connect with it so much that another artist would want to sing it. It’s such a high compliment.”

And here’s a quick clip of Liz singing it. So, seems like a Jason song, if not for the fact that she wrote it almost a year after they broke up and kept it hidden for years before eventually giving it to another artist.

13 December 2012 - Taylor’s birthday. Liz does not wish her happy birthday. This, to me, is the biggest evidence that there’s some amount of bad blood between them at this point.

14 December 2012 - The Music Video for IKYWT comes out. Taylor wears a shirt she wore a LOT when TayLiz was first a thing in 2009. She also wears a key necklace, which will be important later.

17 December 2012 - Liz posts a picture from Claire’s birthday party using a picture without Taylor in it (even though it seems fair to assume Taylor would’ve been invited).

20 December 2012 - Liz tells a fan her favorite song from Red is All Too Well:

21 December 2012 - Liz wishes Claire happy birthday. Further signaling bad blood with her and Taylor since she didn’t bother to do it for Taylor.

9 January 2013 - Liz releases Blessed Are the Brokenhearted:

youtube

Here she describes love as “burning up out of control” which is the same phrase Taylor used on Red -- “burning red” -- and Begin Again -- “I’ve been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end.” Also, the idea of love as an out of control flame really does describe their relationship.

20 January 2013 - Liz releases One Hand on the Wheel:

youtube

Here, much like in Red, Liz describes a relationship using the metaphor of a car. The relationship is messy, maybe even toxic. There’s even a lyric that sounds like it could be out of treacherous: “Being wrong shouldn’t feel so right like it does / But it does.”

22 January 2013 - Liz releases Wreck of Who I Am.

youtube

This is the song that is the strongest evidence for me that Liz WAS going through some mental health stuff over the summer when she was doing all this songwriting, and that that Reddit post about running into a drunk Liz who said she was fired for being “out of control” seems somewhat accurate. Here Liz sings about her battles, the way she’s losing them, and asks her younger self what she would think if she saw her now.

I’m not going to go into too much detail on Liz and Bryan (since unlike her and Jason there’s no need to use them to say much about TayLiz) but, despite his flaws, he was the person to pick Liz up off the ground when she was feeling this way, so he should get some credit for that.

Sometime around this - Liz releases Stones. Similar upbeat nature to Blessed Are the Brokenhearted with mentions to some of the struggles of Wreck of Who I Am.

Choice Lyrics:

When you’re knocked off your throne And lying on your back Things will never be so clear Cause when you see it all like that Sooner or later it comes around Yeah we all taste that bitter truth But all the stones you’re throwing now Will be the ones they throw at you

Also with these batch of songs, we get Sun Out of the Rain:

So baby, hold on, the storm will roll away It may be pouring down, but it’s only for today A million pieces might be falling into place And when there are no words to say We’ll make the sun out of the rain

29 January 2013 - Chantelle Paige posts a picture of Liz and Taylor and talks about a “sad night turned awesome.” Once again, I think this is a throwback from that night in 2012.

2 April 2013 - Liz goes to therapy. Her and Bryan are dating at this point.

2 September 2013 - Liz tells a fan on twitter that she hasn’t been to any of the Red shows, which to me definitely backs up that fan account of Liz being bitter about being fired.

23 December 2013 - Liz wishes Taylor Happy Birthday. This seems like a peace offering to me, considering they haven’t spoken in like a year and she refused to do this the earlier year. Also worth noting that Swiftgron is on its last legs at this point.

1 March 2014 - Sara Evans releases Put My Heart Down, which was co-written by Liz and is about walking away from a toxic relationship:

youtube

Now, from what I know of Liz and Jason, this doesn’t seem like their dynamic at all. It’s too soon for it to be about her and Bryan However, it does remind me a LOT of what Taylor was writing about on Red. Her are some choice lyrics:

I never pictured us fighting this much Thought we were figured out, but it’s so messy now Your words cut so deep and I think you should leave

Put my heart down and walk away This kind of love is dangerous So pack up all your things, just leave some air to breathe A million toxic tears fallin’ like rain over here This is the final hour The end of our story tonight And I don’t wanna fight

Now, please go listen to Treacherous, Battle/Let’s Go and Story of Us and tell me this is not the same relationship.

Bonus though, this song is copyrighted for 2014, making it make even LESS SENSE for it to be written about Bryan.

17 July 2014 - Timothy James Brown releases a song called Change My Mind that was co-written by Liz. I’m out of video links, so here are some choice lyrics:

All the horses became soldiers Dark as night to drag me away A complicated kind of heartbreak When you promise somebody you’ll stay

I know you’ve been hurting I know more than most I don’t have the courage Where you’re going, I can’t follow

To me, this reads as Liz making peace with leaving the Agency. She recognizes her demons, and how they ruined her relationship with Taylor, and says “where you’re going, I can’t follow” because she’s not in a good enough place to keep touring with Taylor.

So things are looking bleak in TayLiz land. However, Liz seems to be recovering! She’s writing songs acknowledging some problems in the relationship and her own battles, and she’s also in therapy and dating Bryan. It’s time for some reconciliation. But first, let’s see what’s up in Taylor-land:

Liz References on the Red Tour

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pandemilkbread · 4 years

Text

12.192 meters (prologue)

Todoroki Shouto x Reader

prologue. chapter 1.

Summary: It only took two seconds for your world to start over. You plunged towards the dark, fingers crossed, and hoped for the best.

At that moment, you had two problems and they both had to do with the dead man in their kitchen. He, on the other hand, found himself breathing— and was honestly very surprised by that fact.

Unbeknownst to you, the pretty-looking stranger with the heterochromatic eyes would make the four storey plunge into the Earth worthwhile.

[simply, a reincarnation fic where you the reader learn to live within the silhouette of someone else, in the world of someone else, and loving another in the place of someone else.]

Trigger warnings: mentions of suicide.

☆ ☆ ☆

7:45 A.M.

You were having one of those days where you sort of wished you didn’t wake up.

Sad as it might be, it was a normal occurrence for you to wake up exhausted. Who wouldn’t feel tired cramming one week’s worth of homework into one night. You only have yourself to blame for delaying your work, time after time, on the basis of “I can finish it tomorrow.”

A blaring alarm roused you from your thoughts, and you turned right to pick up your phone— immediately switching off the annoying sound. Your eyes hovered over the time.

7:47 A.M.

Of course, you were late. Regular time usually started at 7:30 in the morning, or around 7:40 if you took account for your homeroom teacher’s tardy record.

You sighed. It was time to get ready for the intense nagging session.

10:21 A.M.

It was quite ironic getting scolded by a teacher who was known to be unpunctual. Even more so, when you were berated for passing work late.

When you arrived at your high school it was a bit past nine. You headed towards your homeroom and came face to face with the terror English teacher herself. With an irritated smile, she ushered you towards the staff room and began the so-called conference.

After listening to her scolding, you left with haste. Your nose scrunched up hearing her voice remain in your thoughts “What am I going to do with you?”

You didn't know what you were doing either.

3:51 P.M.

To say you were tired, was an extreme understatement. You were drained— more likely from the sixth cup of coffee you drank rather than the lack of sleep.

You were unfocused the whole day, drifting off from each class every minute or so. You heard the quiet screech of chalk on to the board and your eyes roamed back to the topic on hand.

Ah, yes. Mathematics. You weren’t bad at the subject, but you weren’t good at it either. If you had the will to study the subject more, you could have been great at it.

You just didn’t have the passion for it at all.

Your eyes strayed back to the window to your left. A class of older students were outside playing volleyball. You saw one boy slump face down to the ground, after he was smacked head first by the ball.

A small laugh escaped your lips. It must have hurt seeing the one who threw the ball had a strength increasing quirk, or something along those lines. Other than the pain, it must be fun.

It must have been fun to have a quirk at all.

5:30 P.M.

“You look tired.”

Your eyes drifted towards the sound. It was Rin, a close friend from childhood who went to the same high school as you. Albeit she was in a different class, she never failed to be there when you needed it.

“Blame the English essays. She had to make minimum pages ten.” You rolled your eyes in utter annoyance.

“I told you to start them early!” Rin strolled to the chair that sat in front of you. “You already know how much you procrastinate.”

“My brain only works when forced to by a deadline.”

“Hah, you’re just overloading yourself.”

You nodded in agreement. Suddenly your eyes focused on a small box placed on the chair nearest to Rin. It was a pink rectangular container that smelled heavenly. Something from the back of your mind clicked and you realized it was—

“Happy birthday,” the black haired girl cheered. “I know you’re probably tired and prefer to sleep the rest of the day. But… at least you could eat some cake for dinner.”

It touched your heart so much to have someone who cared about you to this extent. Seemingly, buying a cake for someone’s special day is considered as a small thing. However to a person who neither had close familial relationships nor a multitude of friends, it meant so much more.

Hot tears slipped from your eyes and you were engulfed in bittersweet feelings. You thought it was Rin’s quirk radiating out that gave you so much warmth; when she reached out to grapple you into a hug.

“Thank you.”

It was your birthday, and you completely forgot. But she was there, and she remembered.

11:49 P.M.

You were stuffed. The chocolate cake was the best dessert you’ve eaten in a while, and you were so thankful to have someone like Rin. Currently you laid on top of the roof of your apartment building, plainly gazing into the dark sky above.

It was always a routine of yours to stargaze on your birthday. It made you less lonely than you were. You did have Rin, you had other classmates at school, you had friends, you even had the little old lady next to your room. She did bake the best banana cakes…

All of a sudden, you heard a creak followed by a slam. Another person seemingly joined the exclusive party. By the sound of her voice you could tell it was a girl, you could hardly see anything on the rooftop devoid of light. You inched yourself closer to the stranger in curiosity.

“I’m done! I can’t take it anymore, everyone’s so unfair! I’m useless! I hate it so much!”

She was bawling her eyes off. Her sniffles becoming louder as you approached her.

Ah, she was having one of those days. You could relate.

“Stupid useless quirk! Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Her sobs echoed, and you could feel your heart rattling.

You were about to reach her when you heard the words goodbye come from her lips. Wait, goodbye!? This girl!

Your hands grasped her shoulders tightly before she made one more step over the railing. She, in turn, panicked like a wild animal trying to shake your grip.

“I’m trying to help! Stop struggling!”

“No! Don’t touch me you don’t understand!” She started to kick your legs in the hopes of leaving your clutches.

“Yes I do! Let me help you!”

“No you don’t! Shut up! My quirk can’t save anyone! I’m useless!”

You clicked your tongue in annoyance. “I have no quirk, you shit! Of course I fucking understand!”

The both of you battle for minutes constantly shoving each other back and forth. Unbeknownst to you, your body was situated directly behind the ledge. Sweat dropped from your chin and you could feel the stress piling up.

“Fine.” You heard the other woman say. She finally stopped shuffling out of your grasp and stood still in your arms.

With a sigh, you let go of your hold. “Finally you took some fucking sense to—” were the only words you could sputter out before seeing her run back towards the railing.

This little shit! You rushed to the stranger, barely grabbing on to the back of her uniform, before you tumbled off the rooftop.

The scrapes of wind that passed your skin were proof that you were falling, and falling fast you were. You couldn’t even cry a scream out, still not over the initial shock. You were falling, falling, falling, and you were going to crash, crash, crash.

You were having one of those days where you sort of wished you did wake up.

Alright. That was the prologue it kind of serves as a background to reader chan and her background. As you could tell, reader is quirkless and has no passion for anything — well, for now hehe.

The actual reincarnation happens in the next chapter :> The prologue is a bit boring, but it’s needed for the events that happen in the next chapter.

I’ll post it later tonight... thank you!

#12.192 meters #prologue #todoroki shouto #bnha x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #bnha fanfiction #bnha scenarios #bnha imagines #shouto x reader #boku no hero scenarios #boku no hero imagines

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percontaion-points · 3 years

Text

King’s Men chapter 1

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions.

Chapter 1

...then studied the spring championship banners hanging in numerical order around the stadium.

I'm still not quite sure that I'll ever be over the author deciding “year-round sport season”.

He'd agreed to spend Christmas break at Edgar Allan, but the Ravens operated on sixteenhour days during their holidays.

I get that the ravens are supposed to be EBUL, but like... they do realize that people need to fucking sleep right? Even beyond sleep, there's such a thing as over-training. And people who are sleep deprived and too exhausted to move ARE NOT AT THEIR PEAK.

Oh wait. I forget that the author knows nothing about sports, and I'm going to lump physical training into all of that as well.

I know that asking that the author knowing basic human biology and how humans function is honestly asking for a lot, but seriously? It seems like the goddamned bare minimum WHEN YOU'RE LITERALLY WRITING ABOUT THIS AS A CENTRAL THEME.

For a moment he was back at Evermore being smothered by the Ravens' malevolence and the court's forbidding color scheme. He'd never been claustrophobic but the weight of so much hatred had almost

crushed every bone in his body.

Again, I feel like this is asking a lot for this really crappy author, but like... not every single person on the Raven's team would have been so mean and nasty. Statistically speaking, at least some of them would have been nice.

But wait! Everybody outside of Riko and Jean are a team-shaped cardboard cut-out. They literally don't even have names, and forget about personalities.

"I was figuring something out."

"You were stalling," Wymack accused him, "so I did it for you. I told them you look like you've gone six rounds with a Sasquatch and said you probably wouldn't want to talk about it. They promised not to smother you, but I don't know if they'll keep that promise when they see you up close. This, though, I didn't tell them about." He gestured vaguely at his own face.

For all that this series likes to talk about the players going to mandatory therapy sessions, the second that therapy becomes relevant AND NEEDED, suddenly it's like “Betsy who?”

Neil doesn't need exy or the team; he needs long-term therapy and a good lawyer. (To sue the pants off from Riko. We'll start with the assault and unlawful imprisonment charges and go from there.)

"Riko called me on Christmas to say he inked you. How long do you think he'll let you hide before he forces you to show it off?”

I 100% feel like the author has no idea that tattoo removal is a thing that exists.

"You still don't have any proper winter clothes," Nicky said. "We should just take you out and expand your wardrobe again, but I figured we'd start with this. You can't keep wearing team hoodies and not expect to catch a cold. Does it fit?"

I find it hard to swallow that Neil doesn't have any proper winter clothes. I know that this is one of the Carolinas, but still. It still gets kind of chilly in the winter.

Riko said Easthaven's Dr. Proust used "therapeutic reenactments" to help his patients. It was a thin line between psychological cruelty and real physical abuse, and Riko made it clear Proust was willing to cross that line if Neil disobeyed.

The 1980's called and they want their illegal therapy practices done by people who should have had their medical licenses revoked a long time ago back.

It was too early and he was too sore to fall sleep again yet, but he pulled his blankets over his head and willed himself to stop thinking.

Chapter 1 summary: It's been two days since Neil got back, and he's basically had the place to himself (and David). But David tells him that the others are at the airport now, and that Neil needs to get a goddamned grip. Again, kind of feel like Neil needs intense therapy, but... sure. Let's shove him back into exy and the dorm and college classes like nothing happened. Sounds healthy!

The others show up, and they're startled by Neil's appearance, and what he had to go through. They don't know the specifics, but the broad, sweeping general idea, that's mapped out by the bruises and Neil's new tattoo.

Some of the team give Neil a warm, winter jacket, citing that he doesn't have any proper winter clothes, and has only just been wearing team hoodies up until this point. Neil starts crying over the entire thing, which... okay. Kevin also gives Neil his binder full of money back.

They then go to the hospital where Andrew has been staying. As they're waiting for Andrew to come out from where ever, Kevin talks with Neil some about the abuse he also suffered because of exy and Riko. Neil asks why Kevin never told David that he was Kevin's father, but Kevin doesn't exactly have answers.

When Andrew comes out, he has a weird blank look, and practically ignores all of them. They go back to the dorm. After Andrew gets settled back in, he and Neil go up to the roof where Andrew asks for an explanation. Neil is still under some mistaken impression that him going to Evermore was to protect Kevin, but Andrew doesn't exactly see it like that, and they fight over the entire thing. Like everything in this dumb series, it's too long and doesn't seem to serve half the point the author seems to think it does.

Neil goes inside, where he pretends like everything is normal, but then randomly blacks out. For hours. And literally nobody notices any of this.

#All For The Game #The King's Men #Chapter 01 #do you even know how sports work?#Neil Josten #Riko Moriyama #do you even know how the world works?#HEADDESKING #Jean Moreau #THERAPY! GET IT!!#i'm done goodbye #Nicky Hemmick #holy medical malpractice Batman!#Aaron and Andrew Minyard #Kevin Day #David Wymack

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softbiker · 5 years

Text

Steve Rogers Oneshot

Warnings: mentions of character death, cursing, haunting, spooky stuff, angst

Word count: 7.1k

Summary: Steve Rogers is a man out of time. He knows more ghosts than people. One of his ghosts has come home.

A/N: This is waaaay longer than I normally write, but I just wanted to do it justice. This is my submission for @barnesrogersvstheworld AYAOTD writing challenge! Sort of an Endgame AU, also features an appearance from a rather obscure Marvel comics character. The prompt I had was “Don’t look behind you.” - it’s highlighted in bold. This is also really sad. I’m sorry for that...but please let me know what you think!

His tastes have changed.

Most people wouldn’t have known that - wouldn’t have seen anything abnormal about a 100+ year old man reaching for minute oatmeal and Folgers at the grocery store. There had been a few articles, before, in health or men’s interest magazines, about the ‘Super Soldier Diet’. They were much more colorful than this - full of sugary cereals and peanut butter and seasonal frappuccinos. The articles always ended with reminders that a normal human should reach for more nutritious foods.

Steve pulls his oats - plain, made with water, no sweetener - from the microwave, and stirs just a little. Not thick enough; he replaces the bowl and adds another 30 seconds to the microwave timer. On the counter, the Mr. Coffee drips away, slowly filling the pot.

He eats quietly, perched on a stool at the island; he never uses the table anymore. A few news highlights appear in the notifications on his phone, and he scrolls through them, eyes scanning as he spoons his tasteless breakfast into his mouth.

New York Nears Completion of Relocation Program he reads, letting his thumb swipe down to read more of the article.

“Almost three years after the globally devastating event in which Earth’s population was reduced by half, the people of New York City are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel in their relocation efforts for residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed in the aftermath of the Decimation. The project, one of the last proposals by Tony Stark before his retirement from the Department of Damage Control, is expected to end-”

He closes his phone.

**********

There are three support group meetings that he attends each week - two as a leader, one as a participant.

“You should come, Nat.” He’s a broken record, but he just keeps spinning. Like the planet, like the solar system. If he falls out of orbit- “Just once. You might be surprised…”

“Some of us still have jobs, Steve.” She raises a still perfect eyebrow, now back to its natural red. He finds a little comfort in that.

“They’re not mutually exclusive.”

“Maybe not. But don’t wait up for me.”

The Tuesday meeting is the hardest, though it was the first one he ever lead. It caters to a specific group, a group that looks to him because...well, because he lost what they lost. He wonders if they know, if they realize, that it’s all his fault.

“Jackie was...she was my rock, you know?” The new woman, Elsie, sniffs as she continues. “We went through a lot together, and I remember thinking all that time ‘God, what would I do without her?’ And now I know the answer - spiral and-and become an alcoholic.”

“You can’t blame yourself for all of that.” Steve shakes his head. “There was so much more going on - the world was practically in flames, and you were trying to cope. What matters is that you’re here now, trying to get better.”

Elsie is nodding, accepting a tissue from the man sitting next to her. She gives a shaky little smile and settles back in her chair, done sharing for now. Steve glances around the circle, waiting for someone else to speak up.

It was such an odd reversal for him, especially at first. When he first wandered into one of Sam’s support group meetings, he had felt out of place and alone - and that feeling was exactly why he belonged in a place like that. Sam could see it. It was one of his gifts; he was better at reading people than anyone Steve knew, except maybe Natasha. Even when Bucky came along, and Sam played the tough act, he could see all of that fear and pain, and knew exactly what to do with it. Over the years they were in hiding, Sam would secretly reach out to Bucky - during their visits in Wakanda, Steve found the two of them sitting at the lake behind Bucky’s hut and talking, low and intense.

“You know, sometimes-” It’s a man on the opposite side of the circle, dark-skinned with a greying beard. “I don’t know about all of you, but sometimes...I wonder if they can see us. If they know what we’re doing. Does that make any sense?”

He gets a few nods and murmurs from the group, so he goes on.

“I mean, after my old man died, my mom used to say he was watching over me.” He swallows thickly. “She was on her own, tucking a 9-year-old boy in at night, and telling me that Daddy could see me from heaven, that he was looking out for me. And I just think....well, I wanna know - where are they? Are they in heaven? Is that even possible?”

He turns to Steve, several of the people in the circle do. It’s always like this - whenever the sessions turn to specific questions or musings about what happened, they look to him. Because shouldn’t he know? He had lead them, he failed them, he was there when their lives went up in dust.

“Well, I don’t think I’m qualified to offer religious advice,” he starts with a rueful smile. “And, from everything I’ve seen, I don’t think we even know what’s possible. All I know is, we can’t live in the past...even if they see us, wherever they are, we have to accept that they’re really...gone.” He crossed his arms. “They’re not here with us anymore.”

The group has gone quiet, reflective. Most are staring at their hands rather than him, each lost in their own haze of memory and ashes. He wishes he could offer them more, but he knows grief like this, and Steve Rogers is honest to a fault - he won’t lie, even for the sake of comfort.

“We’re on our own now.”

**********

He goes for runs alone now.

No Bucky to keep up with him, pushing the pace and trying to trip him. No Sam to complain about his hamstrings and insist on coffee afterwards. Not even music on those weird tiny headphones she had gotten him. Just his sneakers and pavement and the sound of his own breath. Sometimes he hated that - how he never got winded anymore, never sounded hurt and tired, the way he would wheeze through his asthma attacks with Bucky holding him up and reminding him how to pull in air. The machine of his body was too efficient for that.

In his apartment, he takes short showers, cold and fast, like in the Army. The soap is blue, with a generic smell that is clean and reminds him of nothing. He turns and tilts his head back under the spray, allowing a few more seconds to rinse and-

He nearly jumps when a burst of heat runs down his back.

The water has suddenly turned hot, a steamy, balmy, sultry hot that turns his soft Irish skin pink. He had never had this problem with his showers before - never run out of cold water certainly. Maybe something was wrong with the…

When he turned around, he saw the hot water knob turning slowly clockwise, centimeter by centimeter, untouched.

He shut off the water and got out.

**********

“I’m gonna have to call a plumber sometime.”

“Oh yeah? I thought all you old guys were handymen.”

“Ha ha.” He watches Nat scoop some spaghetti into bowls for the two of them. “I was the artist type. Not really handy around the house.”

“Guess that means Barnes was wearing the pants?” She’s smirking, and he feels like he’s seeing the real Nat again, so he goes along with the joke.

“How could he not? Who’s gonna let a 90-pound asthmatic wear the pants?”

“So what’s wrong with your plumbing?” Nat peeks over the fridge door as she grabs some parmesan and a bottle of wine. Steve, under strict orders not to help, is watching from the kitchen table.

“It’s my shower, something happened the other day. The water turned hot while I was in the middle of showering, even though I had it turned cold.”

“Hm. Weird.”

Steve comes out here at least once a month, or as often as he can. He sees the way that Natasha would rather slip into her work, lose herself in the business of holding the pieces of the world together, let go of her own life. The pantry, open and visible from where he’s sitting, is stocked with the bare minimum dry goods and canned foods; the fridge isn’t much better. He’s seen her on missions, seen her at home in her mismatched socks; he knows that she’d barely feed herself, surviving on a sandwich a day, if the thought or the hunger struck her. So he comes and threatens to cook and she saves the compound from being burned down by making a meal for the two of them.

It’s a far cry from normal. From pizza nights with Sam and Wanda at the compound, the two of them taking turns introducing Steve to movies he missed - all the “classics” he hadn’t heard of. They were missing their monthly family dinners, too; Tony always made room in his schedule to attend, dragging Pepper along from the office, and Steve sat at the head of their long dining table watching this strange, funny little family he had share and eat and laugh with each other.

Now he sits across from Natasha at a table otherwise occupied by her scattered files and reports, a pair of pointe shoes laying in the chair next to her. He didn’t come often enough to expect her to clean for him. She had enough on her plate.

“You know, I was talking to Carol last week,” Nat says, twirling her pasta around her fork. “And she said she might make it to visit us next month. It’ll depend on that trafficking case she was working in the Pegasus galaxy.” She shrugs a little.

“That’s good.” Steve chews, sips his wine. “It would be nice to see her.”

They don’t talk much throughout their meal; there isn’t much new to share. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows along the wall of the compound, Steve watches the early sunset fall over the grounds, shadows reaching and reaching, as quiet as it was empty.

**********

Sometimes, sometimes, when he’s feeling more stupid than usual, he opens the drawer.

That drawer. The lower one in his bedside table. With her box inside.

The box isn’t really anything special - just plain black, with her name written on the top. He got it at the suggestion of the team’s - his - therapist, Dr. Rajan. She recommended that putting some things away, rather than leaving them around his room, might help him move on, realize that his life had changed. He thought about putting the compass in the box, too, but it felt wrong. She wouldn’t want that in there. Somehow it mostly ends up in his pocket, and he stares at it from time to time, at the picture inside, thinking about words like should have and what if.

He’s staring at the drawer now, remembering the night before, when he thought about getting the box after he shuffled in from support group. When he was halfway through his flask of that Asgardian shit he kept under the bed. Steve had shuffled out of his clothes and fallen asleep in his underwear instead, flask still clutched in his hand, just sober enough to turn down the bad idea.

So why was the drawer open?

**********

“Have you thought about getting back out there? Dating again?”

His laugh is humorless.

“Doc, come on. I think we both know I’m not the type.”

“All we know is that you’re a serial monogamist.” She smiles. “And a very eligible one.”

“Sure, but…” Steve pauses, rubbing his palms against his jeans. He looks around the office, trying to find something to focus on. “I feel lucky...really lucky, to have had the kind of love I got. I mean, I never really expected to have it, not after I woke up in this century. And then, with her, it just sort of happened so naturally...well, lightning never strikes twice, as the saying goes.”

“It seems like, for you at least, it did,” Dr. Rajan raises her brows. “Two great loves in one lifetime? More rare than lightning.”

He runs a hand through his hair, still long on the top.

“I-I guess so. But it won’t strike a third time.”

“Because you’re not going to give it a chance?”

“You know me too well, doc.” His smile is apologetic, kind.

**********

At night, he sweats through dreams of her. His legs tangle in sheets where they used to twist and curl around her. The pillows smell only of him, his blue generic soap, but in his mind, locked somewhere far and sweet, her scent fills the air. Fills him up until he tastes it.

He tastes her, too, in dreams; under him, around him, pressed close in that intimate haze only lovers can know. Her lips chase his and smile into his mouth, following the curve of his jaw as he tucks his own face into her neck. It’s in his veins now, her smell and taste, ripe and alive on his tongue and oh, he’s swimming in it. She sighs, blissful, and sinks her teeth into that spot at the base of his throat-

Bedsheets fly off him as he bolts upright in bed, chest heaving, the sweat rolling in little beads down his temple. The smell is fading, drifting away from the room even as he tries to hold on to it; she was here, right here, and it had all felt so real, having her in his arms again. But now he’s wading back to consciousness, unwillingly, the tide of his dream pulling away from the shore and tugging at his ankles, carrying her with it. He wants to drift out to sea on it, drown in it, never resurface in this half-empty world.

Always so dramatic, Rogers.

Something nags at the corner of his eye, and he turns to the bedside table. In the pre-dawn light of the window, he can see the second drawer open. Her box is pulled forward to the front of the drawer with its lid propped up, asking, begging to be seen. He feels himself almost chasing the tide, diving back in as he leans over the side of his bed…

He slams the drawer shut.

Steve blows a harsh breath past his lips and swings his legs out of bed, tugging the sheet from between his thighs. His bare feet brush the cold wood and he arches up on his toes, tight muscles protesting the stretch. Palms scrub at his heavy eyes, brushing away what he can of his sleep. He has no plans to go back to bed, not now. He’ll just get an early start on his run. Maybe put in a few extra miles. He runs a hand through his hair, fingernails scratching absently at his scalp.

Stumbling into the bathroom, he turns the cold water tap in the sink and splashes his face a few times, feeling the two-day stubble on his cheeks. The shave can wait until after his run, he thinks. He stands straighter and reaches for the towel next to the sink, patting his face dry - he leaves his eyes closed, buried in the cotton for a moment before meeting his own gaze in the mirror. Immediately his eyes are drawn down to - what the hell is that?

At the base of his neck, just where it meets his shoulder, is a small red mark. A love bite. He presses it with a finger and hisses at the tenderness of the skin. Unbidden, the wave of his dream crashes over him, rolling him under, and he can almost feel her lips again…

The hair on the back of his neck and arms is standing straight up, his body gone cold all over. He thinks, maybe, he should go back to bed after all. Somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he hears his own name. What if...what if she’s waiting for me? He almost turns around, almost looks at the rumpled bed, almost expects her to be in it, rolling over in that tangled mess and smiling past the curve of her shoulder…

He yanks on a hoodie and running pants, toeing into his sneakers without socks, and leaves the apartment unlocked. Hardly knowing it, he clocks 50 miles, the sun high overhead before he can force his legs to stop, even his enhanced muscles starting to twitch. His sweat is still cold.

**********

There’s a memorial. Lots of them, actually.

All the major cities have at least one, and New York has built theirs, unsurprisingly, in Memorial Park. It’s huge, a sprawling garden of sculpture installations covered overhead by a soft white canopy. A retaining wall, approximately 3 feet high, lines the garden beds and holds in the dark rubber mulch, its outer white brick etched with the names of the lost. Even Steve could admit that it was beautiful, and so different from the solemn obelisks and walls of names he had expected when the memorial was announced.

The city had commissioned a team of artists, led by the famous Chihuly, to create blown glass sculptures using...well, as much of the collected ashes of decimated people as they could. “Cremation glass” it was called. The concept was morbid; though symbolically beautiful, most hadn’t imagined a stunning art gallery, more suited to the Met than this mass grave of the unknown.

Steve was there when it was dedicated, as was Tony. He was asked to say a few words, and he did; he has no idea, now, what he read from those cards handed to him by the administrative team. A black suit stretched around his shoulders, no shield in sight, his tie more like a noose as he watched the somber faces of the attendees. Loved ones and friends of people he had failed. A living memorial. Tony stood next to him, year-old wedding band still shining as he crossed his hands in front of him and declined to speak.

There are a few locations he has memorized around the park, the Lost Garden, as it has been named. A blooming blue hydrangea bush, sculpted white flowers and leaves pressed between the green, with the name “James B. Barnes” carved a few inches below. Across from it, red and yellow globes hang from a white tree, the round shadows falling over “Samuel Wilson”. Two rows over, an exploding tower of tangled green and blue spirals, surrounded by bushes, guards the name “Wanda Maximoff”.

Hers is carved neatly - block letters, plain font - into the white brick near the entrance of the memorial. Above it, a cherry blossom tree blooms sweetly, the pink flowers joined by purple and pink glass stems sprouting up from the ground around the trunk of the tree. Soft green bushes hem in the sculpture, as though keeping the glass from growing too far. It’s whimsical, charming. Elegant.

He fucking hates it.

He hates how this is meant to honor her - the vibrancy of her memory, the slyness of her smile, the passion of her love, the ferocity of her anger. She was more solid and real and hard than the delicate stems of glass that stood for her now. It wasn’t even her ashes in there anyway - he knows that for certain. He knows because he felt her drift through his hands under a hot Wakandan sun. He had watched the dust float and settle and knew that all the parts of her he kissed and held were under his feet and in his mouth and Jesus God it made him want to scream.

He doesn’t know whose ashes are here, in the glass above her name. But he wants to smash it. Put a fist through it. Hear that tinkling glass shatter on the ground the way she did. It would only be right.

As he stands there, staring at the falling cherry blossoms scattered around the sculpture, he feels the air go cold around him. His whole body breaks out in goosebumps and the little hairs on the back of his neck start prickling. He shudders, looking around, but no one else is nearby. It’s a late spring day, warm and getting warmer, with the sun beaming through scattered clouds. He shouldn’t be shivering.

The wind picks up, light breeze growing stronger, and the long stalks of glass begin to vibrate. A low hum builds as the wind carves its way between the sculptures, a plaintive, lonely noise that he feels low in his belly.

Steve…

He whips his head around, looking up and down the row, but he’s alone - no one else is here. That whisper, his name, it was so close…

Steeeeve

He’s turning a full circle, looking for a microphone or a drone or something tiny like Scott’s suit.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

Stevie …

A cloud of cherry blossoms billows into his face, making him jump back. The chill sinks through his skin, slips down his spine bone by bone with each breath. His heart is hammering hard and fast. That name, that voice - it’s been three years. They’re gone. It’s not possible. He closes his eyes as he feels a presence close beside him, right at his shoulder, and he knows, he knows if he turns his head she’ll be-

“Captain Rogers? You alright?”

He jumps again, startled, and looks over to see a policeman watching him, eyes wary and concerned. The officer was young, like all of them now - mass recruiting in public services has been going on for a couple of years, with things nearly falling into chaos after...everything. The military, the police, trying to swell their numbers enough with what was left of the population to keep the world in check. Not like the Avengers were doing a very good job.

“Captain?” The young officer asks again, inching a half-step towards Steve. His hand, unconsciously, twitches towards his radio.

“I’m fine - really,” Steve shakes his head and offers a smile. “Everything’s fine. Just...remembering someone.”

The kid nods; Steve wonders if he himself ever looked so young in a uniform.

“I understand.” He’s tugging at his uniform jacket. “My, uh, parents - they’re over there.” He points at a patch of lilies, not far from Wanda. “And my brother.”

“I’m so sorry.”

That’s all he ever says these days. I’m sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Everyone pretends that it’s enough.

He walks the kid - the officer - back to his patrol car, shakes his hand; the boy has to crane his head back to look up at him, and he stares up at Steve like there’s still hope in this world. Steve doesn’t have the heart to tell him.

**********

The chill follows him into the summer. Even with the sun high and New York sweltering with heat, Steve shivers in his apartment, cold biting at him until he aches with it. He cranks the heat on his thermostat, yet still finds a harsh breeze blowing through his apartment somehow. He allows the shower faucet to continue turning hot - blistering hot, the way she liked it - now that this chill won’t let him go.

Despite that, he finds himself staying in more than ever. He was never exactly a social butterfly - Bucky could testify to that. It tumbles him into memory: Bucky, slicked-back hair and spit-shined shoes, a rose tucked into the lapel of his jacket; Bucky, chin thrown back and ready to laugh at the world, an arm around Steve’s shoulders as he drags them on yet another double date. “Ya gotta get out more, Rogers,” he’d say, cigarette tucked behind his ear. “I’m a piss-poor excuse for real company.”

The only people he sees now are Dr. Rajan and the members of his support groups. Occasionally Nat, but she’s been traveling more lately, following the crumbs of Clint’s trail. Their emails are few and far between, containing only the bare bones.

It’s a Friday night - or maybe it’s Saturday, Sunday. He sits on the edge of his bed, turning the little thing over in his hands. The compass stays in his pocket most days. He flips it open, stares at the portrait inside, the one he’s had memorized since ‘43. He could draw it with his eyes closed, probably.

Suddenly, the compass snaps shut, unbidden, in his hand. It shakes, the mechanisms inside rattling violently, and grows hot to the touch. He yelps and it falls from his palm, dropping to the floor between his feet. The skin of his hands is red, scalded, and he flexes his fingers, watching the trinket warily. It lies on the floor, perfectly still.

Behind him, he hears the second drawer of his dresser roll open.

**********

More dreams come to him, sweet ones, and he sinks into them without protest. He falls into his bed at night happily, searching for the smell of her somewhere behind his eyes. She’s always there, always smiling for him, reaching and pulling him further down into their own special hiding place. She’s there in her uniform, in her sweatpants, in his t-shirt, in nothing at all.

“C’mere, Stevie baby,” she nuzzles his nose, and he’s close to tears but he doesn’t know why. Then she’s tugging at his own clothes and he’s not thinking about it at all.

The ache in his throat returns when he wakes empty-handed and alone. Beneath his jaw, a line of hickeys leads down his neck and across his shoulder. His breath puffs in small clouds as he pants and tries not to cry.

**********

“You don’t look so good, Steve.” Nat’s tone is worried, her voice tight. She watches him stare at the wall with a cup of coffee in his massive hands. “Have you been sleeping?”

He nearly chuckles at that.

“A little too much, I think.” He goes quiet then, mouth turning back down, carved sadness in that larger-than-life face.

“I think...God, Nat,” Steve slumps forward, elbows on his knees. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

“Join the club.” She sits down next to him, sliding a soft hand across his back. Her voice is just above a whisper. “We’re all still struggling. You know that. You’ve seen it. Sometimes it feels...it feels like...you’re just holding on by a thread.”

He’s shaking his head before she finishes.

“Have you - do you dream about them? Ever?”

“Of course.”

“No, I mean…” Steve rubs his eyes. “I mean...do the dreams feel...when you wake up, does it feel like it really happened.”

Nat frowns.

“I’m not following you, Steve.”

He sighs, heavy and resigned.

“No, I know. I’m not making any sense.” He leans into her embrace a little. He likes the contact of it. Hasn’t had that in a long time.

“Listen, Nat. I know S.H.I.E.L.D. used to keep a lot of records of...enhanced individuals…”

“Sure. Everyone that pinged on their radar,” she nods. “So, pretty much anyone with abilities.”

“I need to have a look at them.”

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

“Yes. But if I told you, you’d have me committed.”

“Yeah, that really makes me want to help you.” She leans her head against his shoulder, fingers squeezing his bicep. Her voice still soft and low. “Tell me what you need.”

**********

They meet in a public place. It’s not hard now, with the world half-dead, to go about their business as though they are two men with nothing to hide. A bright, hot July sun beats on their heads, and Steve adjusts his sunglasses as a bead of sweat slides down his neck. On the street, traffic grumbles along, bikers and street vendors and tourists darting between. The hard metal chair of the café presses into the soft underside of his knees, leaving little dents in his skin.

“It is nice to finally meet you, Captain,” the man across from him smiles. The white symbol on his forehead stands out starkly against his dark skin. “I understand we move in different circles.”

They’re sitting outside a small restaurant in Port-au-Prince, only coffee on the table in front of them. The heat is sweltering, oppressive, different from the New York heat that Steve knows. Part of him wishes they were near the beach, with the wind coming off the ocean. She would have begged him to go to the beach.

“That we do,” Steve raises his eyebrows. “Even with everything that’s happened, aliens, Thanos...things like magic are still...hard to believe.”

“Hm.” Jericho Drumm leans back in his chair, steeples his fingers. “I think you are here because...it’s not so hard anymore, yes?”

He grits his teeth. There are fingernail scratches on his back and they chafe against the sweaty cotton of his shirt.

“You’re a smart man, Jericho,” he sighs. “And I think you might be the only person who can help me.”

Jericho Drumm nods.

“Yes, I think so, too.”

According to the S.H.I.E.L.D. files Steve spent all his free time digging through, there were only a few enhanced individuals with supernatural abilities. And now half of them were gone. Some, like the sorcerer Tony told him about, had managed to stay under the radar for thousands of years. With precious little to go on besides an alias, Steve commandeered a quinjet and packed a bag for Haiti.

“What you are asking me...communication with the spirits…” Jericho shakes his head. “It’s not what you think. Or what it looks like in the movies.”

“Then tell me,” Steve presses, leaning his elbows on the table. His coffee is half full. He can see his reflection in the oily surface of it.

“I’ve served as a houngan for many years; I’ve served as Sorcerer Supreme. In fact, with Stephen Strange gone, they may ask me to serve again. But inviting spirits into this world is a dangerous practice - not white magic.”

“But it can be done?”

Jericho narrows his eyes. The white streak in his hair is bright in the noonday sun.

“When Thanos tore a rift in this world, in this universe,” he speaks slowly, choosing his words with careful consideration. “He tore through the other side as well. The things he’s done affect us all, the living and the dead. It is possible, the things you describe, are caused by this. A ripple effect, if you will. A door not closed.”

“A ripple.”

“Yes. However,” Drumm raises a finger, leaning forward to speak in a low voice. “I will say something else. I may have years of experience with the supernatural, but I studied psychology as well. My time in America was mostly in a university, studying the human mind, how it works…” He pauses for a moment, giving Steve a look that is on the suspicious side of apologetic. “Our minds are powerful. When a person wishes for things, even terrible things, the mind can give them what they seek.”

Steve closes his eyes, jaw tightening.

“Believe me, I know how I sound,” he sighs. “I know. My therapist says the same thing. But if anyone’s going to believe me, it’s you. This is not in my mind.” His fingers are shaking and he curls them into fists. “This is real. She’s...it’s real. It’s her.” Haunting me.

Dr. Drumm nods, sympathetic and quiet. He watches this captain, this legend, the age showing in his young man’s body. With the sunglasses propped up on his head, the dark circles beneath Steve’s puffy eyes are on full display. His shoulders curl in, posture defensive, small. His knee bounces under the table, and his jaw ticks every so often, teeth clicking in his mouth. There is a bruise visible at the base of his neck where the collar of his shirt has shifted to one side.

“Very well, Captain. I will do my best to help you.”

**********

He sits cross-legged on the tile floor of the bathroom, surveying the items in front of him. According to Dr. Drumm, he would need only a few candles, items that belonged to her, a circle of salt to protect himself. Incense, too, burning in the corner, the smell of sage and smoke floating around him. The lights are off, only the flickering candles illuminating the room.

He feels a little silly, setting all of this up. When he was a boy, vampires and werewolves and ghosts were all just stories - hiding under the covers with Bucky and scaring themselves silly. No real monsters hid under his bed. All of that came later.

Under his shirt, the amulet rests against his chest, growing warm with his own body heat.

“If you must do this alone as you insist,” Jericho had said, shaking his head. “Then wear this. Bene gris-gris. It is the best I can do to protect you from dark magic.” His steel grip closed around Steve’s arm. “And this may be a dark thing, Captain. Her coming back to you. It doesn’t feel like white magic.”

Steve had only nodded, his hand closing around the amulet. He was beyond light and dark now, beyond counting costs. He had chased ghosts for so long after he woke up. It’s only right for him to chase her, too.

Here, in the bathroom, toes pressed to cold tile, he digs two more items out of his pockets. Dr. Drumm said to bring something that would ground him to himself, something special. He turns the compass over in his hand, flicks it open, and sets it on the edge of the circle. From the other pocket, he fishes a black velvet box. His fingers twitch, feeling the soft fabric; he doesn’t want to open it. He hasn’t opened it, since he took the ring off their nightstand in Wakanda and put it back in the box. She hadn’t worn it - didn’t like wearing it on missions or in fights. Afraid of scratching it. She had wiggled it off her finger, smiling at him, leaving a kiss on his bearded jaw-

He leaves the box closed for now, and places it in the center next to the other tokens - a photo of her, a necklace with a small silver pendant she used to wear whenever they went on dinner dates, a little jar of seashells from a beach vacation she took in college. All the little things he had packed away in that nightstand drawer. Memories he had put into storage.

Safe inside his little circle, he reaches in his shirt and grabs the amulet tight in his fist. He closes his eyes. Breathes deep the incense and soft curling smoke from his candles.

He says her name softly in the dark.

In his mind, he shifts his awareness down the plane of his body, piece by piece. He learned meditation techniques during his therapy sessions; now he has another use for them. He says her name again.

“I want to speak to you.” He says, voice low, a lover’s intimacy. “I call on your spirit.”

Her name. Her name. Her name.

He’s not sure how long he stays there, curled on the floor, but the chant of her name lulls him into a trance. His eyes are half-open, the candles wavering in front of him, casting long shadows on the walls. He licks his lips, calls her name again.

One by one, the candles snuff out.

He goes quiet. Smoke curls up to his nose, but he can’t see - the only light is coming from underneath the bathroom door. That familiar chill trickles down the back of his neck, raising the hairs. His flesh is covered in goosebumps; his muscles tense up, coiled tight, ready to spring. His tongue lies dry and thick against his teeth.

“Hello?”

Steve?

He sighs her name. “Sweetheart, is that you?”

A cold breeze passes over his face, rumpling his shirt.

“Are you there?”

The compass flies up and smashes against the wall.

Steve…

Her voice is harsher. Sadder.

“Baby, please,” he’s begging now. He can feel how close she is, she’s in the room, he knows it like he knows his own body. Like he knew hers.

For the first 25 years of his life, he lived with asthma - any little trigger could set him aching for air, his lungs betraying their purpose and seizing up on him, his whole body trembling in relief when he managed to pull in oxygen. He feels that ache for her now - acute and sharp as it was the day he first lost her, a physical pain and its cure so close, so close, if she would only let him - let him breathe-

Oh, Steve.

“Honey, I’m here, I’m right here.” He stands in his little circle, spinning around, though he still sees nothing in the darkened bathroom. He feels the tip of his nose go numb in the frigid air, his body shivering slightly.

I’m here, too, Stevie.

“Where, baby? Where are you?” He’s desperate, so desperate. He’s going to cry if she doesn’t-

I’m here. Look.

He feels, thinks he feels, cold fingers brush down his cheek, and he turns. The mirror above the sink is frosted over, he can see it now that his eyes are adjusting to the pale dark, and he stumbles towards it. Pulls a sleeve down over his hand and wipes at the fog, the remains of his body heat melting it away in streaks.

“Oh...oh god.” He grips the edges of the sink.

Hi, baby.

There she is. There she is. Standing right behind him, over his shoulder. His eyes sweep over her face in the mirror, scanning the details he never forgot, not for a moment. Her lips quirk a sad little smile, tilting her head.

You don’t look so good, Rogers.

His laugh comes out as a sob, and he nods. Fingers curl tighter over the edge of the sink because it’s all that’s holding him up right now. In the reflection, he sees her take a step closer to him - feels her presence, her smell is right behind him and if he can just turn and take her in his arms then everything will be alright again…

NO DON’T!

The force of it is loud in his mind, sends him reeling forward against the sink. Her lips are trembling in a soft frown.

Don’t look behind you.

It sounds so soft. So sad. And he knows, knows in the marrow of his bones, that this is it, this is all they can have. This halfway, this inbetween, this ships in the night barely seen as they pass - it’s all he gets. All he has left.

He presses his hand to the cold glass of the mirror, tips of his fingers stroking the image of her face. His chin feels weak, jaw slack, his hip leaning against the sink. She’s crying, too, tears shining against her soft cheeks.

“Where are you? Do you know what’s happening?” He manages to ask. It’s the question, the question everyone would ask of their ghosts. She shakes her head a little.

I...I don’t really know. But I know I’m not with you.

He nods, tries to swallow around the thick lump in his throat.

Wherever I am, I’m not with you. And I miss you, Steve.

“I miss you - God, honey, I miss you so bad-” his breath hitches, and he wonders in the back of his mind if he’s going to have another asthma attack, his first in 70 years. “I-I need you, sweetheart. Jesus Christ, I miss you. I don’t know what I’m doing without you and-and-”

He’s hyperventilating, breaths stuttering in his chest. The hand that’s pressed to the mirror has gone numb with cold but he won’t move it, not if it’s the closest he comes to touching her face. He watches her come closer to him, behind him - her smell fills the room, no smoke, no incense, only her. His teeth are clattering in his mouth even as he tries to grit them together, lungs stuttering and he’s so so cold but he only half feels it; the muscles in his back jump and twitch as he feels her, really feels her, right behind him. And then-

I know, baby. I know.

Her forehead presses between his shaking shoulder blades. Icy hands creep up beneath his shirt, pressing right over his heart. Her arms lock around his ribs and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze - as if she could brand herself there. In the glass, Steve’s lips are blue and his sobbing breaths come out as little frozen clouds. The mirror is starting to frost over again; the goosebumps on his body won’t lie down. His eyes slip closed, tears chilling in their tracks on his cheeks, and he presses his hand over hers at his heart.

I’m right here.

The ache in his chest sharpens, then dulls, slow and familiar. Something he always carries. His breaths are slowing now, the trembling in his muscles calms a little. She traces a frozen circle over his heart.

I’m right here.

He sighs her name before he blacks out.

**********

Natasha watches Steve in his kitchen, her green eyes sharp and narrow. She hasn’t been to his apartment in a long time, but three days of no answered phone calls, texts, or emails and the Black Widow will investigate. He seems...fine. As fine as Steve has been since it all happened, when he went clean-shaven and cropped his hair, like girls do after a break-up. He smiles over his shoulder while stirring the pot in front of him.

“It’s the one thing my ma made sure I knew how to make for myself,” he says. “She knew I’d need this soup every time I got sick.”

“That’s sweet,” she says. And it is, though she’s never heard him mention it before.

They eat on barstools at the island, sharing little bits of conversation, small talk, mission updates. Sound bites of friendship. Still no explanation for his radio silence.

“Can I use your bathroom?” She sighs as he scoots back his stool, scooping up their bowls to take to the sink.

“Of course - you don’t have to ask, Nat.”

She slips down the hall. Doesn’t go to the bathroom - turns right instead.

On the floor of his bedroom, she sees the candles. The circle. The pictures. A little jar of seashells on his nightstand. While they were eating, she had seen something new - a little chain around his neck, the shape of something underneath, suspiciously like a ring.

Natasha leaves without saying a word, maybe hugs him a little tighter at the door.

She won’t begrudge him this.

#steve x reader #steve rogers x reader #steve x y/n #steve x you #AYAOTDchallenge #steve rogers #steve rogers fic #steve rogers imagine

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misc-headcanons · 4 years

Text

Request: NSFW Alphabet (Yoruichi)

(A while back, there was an anon that requested NSFW headcanons for Soi Fon, Yoruichi, and Rukia. Since there was only one slot left at the time, I opted to just do Yoruichi and save the other two for another time!)

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Very cuddly, and she enjoys just lounging in bed with you after sex and playing with your hair, stroking you or tracing little shapes into your skin

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Yoruichi’s very confident in her body, but if she had to pick one part of herself she likes the most...probably her thighs/legs. The inside of her thighs are pretty sensitive, and thanks to centuries of training she’s got some strong-ass thighs (she can easily break open a watermelon with them). As for her partner, she likes their ass and she is not afraid to show it. Expect a lot of groping, playful spanking, and pinching.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

She’s a squirter, but only on occasion. Sometimes it happens when she cums, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s more likely to happen during oral sex, though.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

One night after drinking with Kisuke, she had a horrifying sex dream/nightmare about sleeping with a strange amalgamation of Soi Fon’s body...with Yamamoto’s head. She still has no idea where the fuck that came from.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

She’s one of the most sexually experienced characters in Bleach, with the only person more experienced probably being Shunsui and a few others.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

She likes any position where she can show off her flexibility. In her mind, if she’s got the talent to get into those positions then she might as well show it off! She prefers being on top, but no matter what position she’s in she’s going to either be dominant or the two of you will have equal control.

http://sexpositions.club/positions/248.html

http://sexpositions.club/positions/240.html

http://sexpositions.club/positions/311.html

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

She’s a mischevious little minx in and out of bed, and she tends to laugh/giggle during sex (especially during foreplay). If you two have been together for a long time, she’s more serious; for the most part though, she’s still more humorous.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

She keeps things fairly well-trimmed, but it’s not really high on her priority list. She’ll shave it on a whim, and sometimes she thinks about trimming it into a random shape just for fun (she once shaped it into a little lightning bolt just for the hell of it). Her hair’s the same shade as on her head.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

She’s very intimate and very intense. Rough kisses and gripping the sheets one second, and soft feather-light touches and nibbling on your ear the next. Sex is always an adventure with Yoruichi, and you never really know what to expect next.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

She does it pretty frequently, up to three times a week. Her sex drive is fairly high, so if her partner isn’t there she just takes care of it herself. She usually sticks to private places so nobody walks in, but if someone does she’s not flustered by it in the slightest.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Femdom

That thing where you’re covered in warm oil during sex (she’s fond of patchouli oil because of the scent, but she’s down for whatever her partner has)

Bondage (her or her partner) and shibari. How do you think she got so good at using that wire/string during the Blood War arc?

Threesomes/Group sex

Minor petplay. She likes wearing cat ears and a tail, but if anyone’s gonna wear a leash it’s you. She’s a wild kitty.

Seeing her partner get overstimulated (drooling, talking incoherently, doing that ahegao face~)

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

When she was captain of Squad 2, she was fond of having sex on that chair/throne in her barracks. She likes having sex in semi-public spaces; if you’re a Soul Reaper, she’s going to sleep with you in your Squad’s barracks. If you’re an officer, you can damn well bet that she’s gonna bend over that desk and ride you in your chair.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Seeing her partner get flustered

Sparring with her partner

If her partner is wearing something more revealing than usual, she can’t keep her hands off of them.

Like I said before, her thighs are very sensitive but that’s not the only place that will get her riled up if you touch her there. Her earlobes, her collarbone, and her hips are also very erogenous zones.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Watersports and scat. She wouldn’t do that to her partner, and she doesn’t want to be that submissive towards her partner in turn.

Consensual non-con and/or dub-con. She’s not going to relinquish control like that, even if it’s just pretend.

Anything like fisting. She knows her limits, and while she’s had some...larger partners, she doesn’t want to risk hurting herself. If you want to be fisted, she’d be reluctant and she would make sure you’re lubed up as much as possible before she’d even attempt it.

Electrostimulation. It makes her hair stand up for like, weeks afterwards and it’s really annoying.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

She likes both, but she thinks that there’s no better end to a long day that getting eaten out by her partner. She also likes to ride your face, too! She’s quite skilled with her tongue, and her record for making a partner cum is forty six seconds (though to be fair, she cheated a bit by using her Shunpo abilities to flick her tongue around at the speed of light towards the end)

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

She keeps a fairly quick pace, and since she has a high amount of stamina she can keep any pace her partner wants for as long as possible. She tends to overstimulate her partners because of how fast and rough she can get, so if she can see it’s getting to be too much for you she’ll slow down a bit.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

She likes quickies quite a bit. Like I said, she has a high sex drive; so if it’s the middle of the day and you’ve got work in an hour, she enjoys having a quick session to satisfy her urge without going for too long.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

As long as it’s not one of the kinks in her N/No section, she’s open to it. Even fisting, if she’s not the one receiving, she’ll try if you’re really into it.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

ENDLESS STAMINA. She can go for three rounds minimum before she starts to get even a little tired, and if she knows you’re not doing anything the next day she’ll make sure to fuck you so hard that you can’t leave bed for a while.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

She’s got a few vibrators that she uses when she’s masturbating, and if her partner is into it she’ll use them on them as well during sex. If she’s having sex with her partner, she’s usually so good at making you cum/overstimulating you that there’s no real need for a toy.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

VERY BIG TEASE. The only time she lets up is if you’re so overstimulated after a few rounds of sex that you’re crying and begging for some rest. If you’re not at that level, you’re going to get nipped/stroked/edged/mercilessly teased and you’re gonna love every second of it.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Gets louder and moans quite a bit when she cums, and after a few rounds she’ll start panting a bit with every thrust. She also enjoys dirty talk, whispering in your ear about how good you make her feel and moaning for what she wants you to do to her.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

She’s had a threesome with Tessai and Urahara. A few of them, in fact. They’ve got a chill thing going on, and if she got a partner she wouldn’t mind introducing them to their “get-togethers” if they were okay with it.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

Her labia and inner walls are a darker shade of brown compared to her skin, but her clitoris has a pinker undertone to it.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Quite high, as previously mentioned. Shunsui may have more experience, but Yoruichi has the highest sex drive of any Bleach character. Due to her catlike abilities, her sex drive gets even higher in the spring in a sort of “heat”. If she had it her way, you two would have 24-hour sex sessions in the spring. But she doesn’t want to kill you, so she uses her vibrators if she knows you can’t go another round.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

It depends on how many rounds she went through. If it was just one or two, she won’t be that tired but she’ll fall asleep if you cuddle her for a long while afterwards. If it’s four rounds or more, she falls asleep more quickly (within about ten minutes or so).

#bleach #bleach headcanon #bleach headcanons #yoruichi #yoruichi shihouin #ns.fw alphabet #ns.fw #mine #yoruichi shihoin

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archadianskies · 4 years

Note

“That was a workout.” Allen900 pls 👀

[Ch1 & Ch2; warning: explicit sexual content below]

→ on Ao3

Sleep is considered an indulgence for him, and even then he doesn’t tend to indulge any more than two hours at most. He is built to run for at least a week with minimal recharging, but it was his own brother who taught him that sometimes it’s pleasant to just lie down and tune out the rest of the world for a little while.

So he lies down, tuning out the world, and the body curved against his is warm and pliant and oh so alive in a way he isn’t.

Captain Allen’s phone shows there will be an alarm at 6:00am, and then another at 6:30am, followed by one at 7:00am and finishing with one at 7:30am. That means the man averages seven hours of sleep and rises early (6:00am) for a morning run (6:30am), and a yoga session (7:00am) before leaving for work (7:30am). He is a disciplined, orderly man which is reflected in both his conduct at work and here in his home life. Caleb likes that about him.

Without a mission furrowing his brow, David looks younger in his sleep, hair tousled instead of slicked back and expression lax instead of hardened with intense concentration. Carefully Caleb reaches out to smooth a few unruly locks away from his face, and his eyes pick up a few glints of silver threaded through the strands.

There’s something boyishly charming about him, something a little old fashioned in the way he treats Caleb, like a gentleman from a bygone era. Caleb likes that about him too.

When the human’s vitals reflect a deep REM cycle, the android quietly eases out of bed and retraces his steps to the front door, collecting their hastily discarded clothes along the way. He folds them neatly, placing them on the end of the bed ready for the morning.

The apartment is large and airy, decorated in sleek, dark, masculine decor. It is aesthetically pleasing but shows little life, unlike the way Lieutenant Anderson’s home seems lived in, worn in a way this isn’t. It tells him Captain Allen is rarely home long enough to make the space feel occupied.

The fridge and pantry are well stocked, and there are cooking utensils in the dish rack. Meals are stacked in containers labelled neatly with days of the week, ordered left to right in the fridge. A self-sufficient man, reliant on no one but himself.

Caleb takes his time exploring the apartment, careful to keep noise at a minimum in order not to disturb the human slumbering in the bedroom. He lies down on the couch and connects to the obsolete MP3 player sitting in the dock, downloading the songs so he can listen to them. It passes the time in an enjoyable way, allowing more insight into the man’s tastes. At four in the morning, Connor requests to communicate with him, and he opens a channel for his brother.

[What are you doing now?]

‘I am making my way through Captain Allen’s music collection.’

[Does he have records like Hank?]

‘No but he has an obsolete MP3 player filled with songs from the mid 2000s to the late 2010s.’

[Will you stay over at his apartment often? Do you think it will lead to cohabitation?]

‘Perhaps.’ Caleb mulls on the thought, letting it turn in his mind and worm its way deep. ‘I am not sure. This is the first time we have been intimate. I am not sure what he wants to do next.’

[Curious.] Connor hums thoughtfully. [I have no such inclinations towards romantic or sexual relations.]

‘You take after our father that way.’ Caleb points out, and he thinks he can feel Connor’s smile even without seeing it.

He slides back beneath the covers after disconnecting from his brother’s conversation. David shifts a little at the movement, and Caleb eases him into his arms. Androids are not warm like this, soft like this. Human bodies have a certain give to them, since they are muscle and fat and sinew and skin layered over a skeleton frame.

He breathes him in, nose in his hair, able to analyze the chemical components of the shampoo he used in the shower earlier, and the natural oils of his scalp. His heartbeat is steady, his breathing relaxed and Caleb uses those sounds, the steady tempo, to lull him to sleep as he slowly shuts off his processes one by one, easing into stasis.

*~*

At 5:53, a full seven minutes before the first alarm, he feels David begin to stir awake. It’s a quickening of his heartbeat, a deeper inhale and exhale, a slight twitch in his fingertips and toes as his body prepares for more movement. He’s not quite conscious yet but he wriggles a little, as if chasing more warmth, more contact.

Caleb presses his lips to his bare shoulder, tongue darting out to taste his skin. David huffs, squirming away from his mouth and yet tightening his arms around him. There’s arousal present in his sweat, and Caleb can feel his already half hard cock thickening between them. He kisses the juncture where his jaw meets his ear, closing his lips over the jutt of his bone and sucking mildly. David groans hands clumsily pushing at his shoulders.

“Jesus Christ Caleb it’s barely six.” His voice is an octave deeper, scratchy with sleep still and Caleb commits it to memory as his nips along his jawline, tongue laving over the stubble dotted there. Tilting his head slightly, Caleb licks up along the column of his throat before pressing their lips together briefly. The early dawn light peeks through the slats, throwing warm yellows across them, catching in David’s green eyes when he finally opens them to regard him with exasperation.

“And you’re already hard.” Caleb teases, snaking a hand between them to palm his stiffening cock. David rolls his eyes, gritting his teeth as he gives him a squeeze.

“God you’re impossible.” He grumbles, rutting into his hand for more friction. It takes him four tries to open his inseam, limbs still heavy with sleep and dexterity still lacking as he gropes for his cock. “Fuck I’m not awake enough for this.”

“Parts of you are.” He quips, stealing another kiss as David coaxes him to hardness. The alarm goes off, heralding six in the morning and Caleb reaches out to swipe the off option and silence it. Thirty minutes until the scheduled morning run; plenty of time. Rolling over, he tugs David to curve against his back, pressing the cleft of his ass insistently against his cock. He’s already wet, his thighs slick with lubricant. “Please?”

“Only because you asked so nicely.” David nips the tip of his ear, voice still rough like gravel as he pushes inside him. Caleb arches in pleasure, mouth open in a silent cry as his body squeezes around the intrusion. He lets out a shaky sigh as David slides his hand up his abdomen, fingers rubbing over one nipple and pinching it just a little too hard.

They fuck and it’s a heady, lazy affair as they chase their pleasure. There isn’t any of last night’s urgency, no trace of that animalistic desperation. It’s a slow, simmering heat coiling in his system and he keens as David hooks his hand behind his knee, lifting his leg up so he can fuck into him harder, deeper, with the new angle. Teeth clamp into his shoulder as he bites him to muffle himself, and Caleb whines needily, reaching for his own cock. David growls, smacking his hand away.

“No, you started this, you don’t get to come first.” A gutteral rasp right into his ear and Caleb nearly mewls in protest, rutting against the sheets for any sort of friction.

“Please-!”

“Hands where I can see ‘em.” His captain commands, and Caleb grips the pillow instead. “Good.” It takes a little longer this time, because he’s still clouded with sleep but it’s no less sweet, no less exhilarating when Caleb feels him shudder, cock twitching inside him as he reaches release.

Reaching around, he finally, blessedly squeezes his neglected member and jerks him off in quick, sharp tugs. His thumb lingers on the head, and when he teases his slit with the tip of his nail Caleb arches like a taut bow and comes hard into his hand with a strained cry.

>System in cooldown

>>Minimise exertion

>>Seek fluid intake

Grinning to himself, he swats the notifications away and rolls back over to kiss his lover languidly. David’s hair is tousled, sweat dotting his brow as his chest heaves for breath. He’s looking at him with a mixture of irritation and fondness, and the sight alone makes Caleb kiss him again, soft and sweet.

“Well. That was a workout.” David bumps their brows together. “I don’t think I’m going for that morning run now.”

“I’ll change the beddings after we shower?” Caleb offers by means of an apology though he isn’t really sorry at all. “And I’ll get coffee from down the road while you do yoga?”

“Deal.” He sighs, acting put upon though the smile betrays his tone completely. One more kiss before they finally get out of bed. Suddenly David’s phone vibrates insistently on the bedside table just as Caleb receives an inbound call.

“Allen.” He answers curtly as Caleb presses two fingers to his LED.

“RK900, receiving.”

A mission. They scramble for their clothes, forgoing the shower in favour of wiping themselves down with a damp hand towel. The mellow mood vanishes in an instant, replaced with something grim. Caleb watches David withdraw into himself, step behind the veneer of the man who leads SWAT Unit 32. There he is: Captain Allen, ready to command.

“Alright rookie, let’s go.”

“Yessir.” He follows him obediently to the door and the man pauses, reaching to tweak the collar of Caleb’s jacket and for a moment he glimpses him again; David offers a brief, affectionate little smile and Caleb leans down swiftly to kiss it before it vanishes.

Onward.

#allen900 #captain allen #rk900 #detroit: become human #morning after #annie writes: dbh #oh anon #adventures in text posts

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vanessastudiess · 5 years

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Hello, friends!

It has been a long while since I have written a proper blog post, and I thought it would be helpful and somewhat therapeutic to write down all of the new year’s resolutions/goals that are floating around in my head. I hope by doing this that I will be more mindful of my choices, and that I will have some clear, constructive goals for myself to accomplish in 2019. For others reading, I think an important part of goal setting is being specific, which can be tricky. For example, I could say: “I want to make an A in my biology class.” Well, that is a good accomplishment to want, but the question is, how is that grade going to be earned? So while thinking of goals and other things I would like to accomplish, I like to consider the steps that I need to do in order to accomplish an overall bigger goal.

ACADEMIC GOALS:

1.) Study for my organic chemistry class for minimum one hour each day: Last semester, I did alright on most of my tests, and I usually studied like a madwoman 7-10 days before the exam. That sounds like a lot of time, and it is, but I determined that I think I would perform better on these exams if I did practice problems everyday, for this class consistency is key. Even if I did not have an intense study session, even reviewing reactions and doing a few Khan Academy videos for at least one hour would be of my benefit, and hopefully will ingrain the material into my head long-term. Overall if I do this, I hope to make a good grade in the class.

2.) Make Dean’s List: Dean’s List at my university requires a 3.5 GPA. I feel that this is very do-able, I am just nervous because organic is very tough for me and I feel that would be what prevents me to achieve this goal. I had a decent GPA last semester and would like to continue to see this upward trend.

3.) Get accepted to a REU/summer internship program: This goal isn’t as specific as the previous because the only “step” I have to take is to apply for programs. Most of these programs should be free to apply to, so I intend on applying for a bunch. My ideal timeline to have all of this done by would be before my first round of exams, before deadlines and also before the semester gets too stressful.

PERSONAL GOALS:

1.) Do more of what makes myself happy: This sounds really cheesy, trust me I know, but this is the #1 goal in my life I want to work on. I want to achieve this by first, saying no more often to doing things I do no want to do. I do not want to be overworked and exhausted all the time (part of the time I can deal with!). Secondly, I don’t want to hang out with people/do things I don’t want to do. Often I accept to do things with friends to appease them, and I don’t want to have to do that anymore.

I also really want to work on this because school has been very hard on my mental health. I have no clinical mental diagnoses, nor do I claim to, but I feel like I live two different lives when I am at school versus home. And I recognize that a lot of it is my fault because I do tend to be hard on myself, and I really struggle with that, even though I am self-aware of it. I want to enjoy the things I can enjoy being young and in college, because adulthood is ever approaching and I have realized I am not really my life to the fullest or happiest. I want to master being able to be healthily stressed while also being happy.

On a probably too personal note, I would also like to translate this into my dating/relationship life. I really don’t “put myself out there” and it kind of sucks?? I by no means need a relationship, but I haven’t dated in years, and I think it would be fun and perhaps even a small self-esteem boost. I haven’t gotten to enjoy that part of life yet, but it’s probably my fault because I’m not exactly the most brave when it comes to dating and relationships.

2.) SLEEP MORE: Yeah, I don’t sleep a lot during school. It’s bad. I get cranky. I cry. It makes life hard. I would ideally like to get 7-9 hours of a sleep each night. I love staying up late on the weekends, but I know should refrain staying up past midnight on weekends if at all possible. I need to take advantage of those hours as much as I can.

3.) Eat less fast food: LOL. I know this is funny but during my last two weeks of class I probably spent 50+ dollars each week on fast food which absolutely DISGUSTING! I cannot afford to do that and I have no reason I cannot bring prepared food to school. I felt like crap, gained a bunch of weight, and basically was a disaster.

Well, that’s all, folks. What are some of your new year’s resolutions or goals?! Comment below! Or feel free to give me any tips with mine (lol)

Best of luck to everyones endeavors in 2019!

Vanessa

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rangoatemybabynsfw · 5 years

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what do you think of shance marathon sex? bc that's the good shit

Fufufufufufufufufu >:3c I love this idea. Incoming stuff is hella dirty!

Lance is the one who suggests it. Shiro tries to warn him against it because ‘I don’t think you know what you’re asking for’. Like when he was with Adam it was something they did regularly, especially if they weren’t going to see each other for a week. And Shiro has a stamina that really can’t be beaten. Lance might end up regretting this ultimately.

Lance insists. He knows what he wants and he wants that dick in him for at minimum three hours, only stopping when Shiro needs to indulge in that refractory period to get ready again. Other than that, Shiro shouldn’t stop unless they need water or a ten-minute rest break. Even if Lance begs him to stop, to let him go, please, he’s not to stop. The only thing that should prompt a full stop is their safe word.

With the first hour, Shiro gets Lance off twice. The first time within fifteen minutes. The second time around the forty-five minute mark. His body shakes and shivers with the over stimulation. Shiro comes over his body at the end of that first hour. In the time he needs to recuperate he cleans Lance up and makes him drink water. Then he ties him down and finger fucks him until he’s ready to go again.

Hour two Shiro gets Lance to come twice again. After the third release, he’s squirming and panting and whining that he can’t do this. Everything is so intense and sensitive, please let him go. No safe word so Shiro keeps going, puts Lance on his knees and fucks him with his hands tied to the bedpost. Lance comes again when Shiro gives him the reach around while nailing his oversensitive prostate. Shiro’s second release at the end of the second hour fills Lance’s pretty ass.

Hour three starts with Shiro cleaning Lance up with his tongue. Still on his knees as Shiro laves a tongue over his creamed asshole. Lance shakes and shivers and squirms, as he tries to pull free from his bindings but to no avail. Once he’s cleaned up that’s more than enough time for Shiro to get hard again.

This time he ties Lance’s calves to thighs. His arms trussed behind him. Then Shiro picks him up and manuvers Lance onto his lap. Lance can do nothing as he lifts and drops him onto his cock, thrusting up hard to fill Lance again. Lance is panting, whimpering, and very much crying from overstimulation but no sign of a safeword. When Lance comes this time barely anything comes out. Before long he’ll be coming dry.

And Shiro, who was so opposed to this before, is now fucking with revelry into Lance. Hell he could go another two hours like this. Fucking Lance until he can’t even come anymore. His body arching and whining with each release. What a workout for both of them. For the last release of the session, Shiro unties him and instructs him to ride. Ride Shiro until he feels his ass fill with come again. Then we’ll stop for the day.

Through whimpers and pleasurable cries Lance drops himself onto Shiro, rocks onto his cock, begging Shiro to finish inside him. But with an impish smile Shiro holds out on him. It’s not until Lance’s legs are quivering with each rocking motion and Lance’s mouth drops agape with another release (with barely a drop of come) that Shiro finally gives him what he wants.

After that they rest and take a nice long hot bath in the massive tub Lance has. Lance doesn’t think he’ll be walking for the next two days which is fine by him. He’ll just nap and get pampered by Shiro who washes him up and chuckles in his ear.

“Same time tomorrow?” he asks and Lance snorts.

“Give me two weeks and I’ll be more than ready,” Lance answers.

Shiro holds him close with a kiss to his neck. “Sounds like a deal to me.”

#Rango answers #Shance

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hes-woman · 6 years

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With All My Heart

*At 2K+ words, this is the longest piece I think I’ve ever written, and possibly my favourite. I was going to hold off on posting until I had something else written, buuuut it’s the last show tonight, and this is based nearly a month ago. So, here’s a huge amount of fluff, from msg night one, which just so happened to also be their anniverary.*

Sat on the edge of the stage, legs dangling over the side as they swayed back and forth, Harry could see the whole of the stadium, from the pit a few feet away from his swinging feet to the seats at the very back. It was a stark contrast to the restricted view of the crowd he'd had less than two hours ago, the only evidence of there being people present past the first few rows being the loud cheers that bounced off the walls.

Looking around the stadium, he felt small. Without the company of his previous bandmates or that of his current band, the space surrounding him seemed so much larger and more intimidating. There wasn't much time to contemplate the size of the stadium when he was performing, too pumped on adrenaline to pay mind to the feeling of apprehension bubbling within him.

He felt a tad lonely, as well, although he was aware that he was partially to blame for that fact, if not fully. He'd denied your usual post-concert cuddles, that more often than not turned into a pretty heavy make out session. He'd denied the beer offered to him by Adam, along with the invitation of an evening in the bar a few streets away. He'd denied anyone the chance to properly congratulate him before he slipped back onto the stage. He'd denied himself the comfort of another person's company, with the motive of keeping to himself for a while, to clear his head and sit back in a moment of gratitude.

"Hey, mister, I was beginning to wonder where you'd got to," you called over to him from the side of the stage. You were clad in a merch shirt that was a few sizes too big and displaying ‘6/21 New York’ at the bottom, tucked into a pair of jeans, your hair in a bun and nothing but a pair of socks on your feet, the vans which you'd previously worn hanging off your fingertips.

His head snapped up to meet yours, a slightly solemn expression on his face until he noticed the way your features were lit up with a grin on your face. A small smile spread across his own face as he gestured for you to join him, laughing as you seemed to trip over everything in your path, which earned him a glare.

"I think everyone's headed back to the hotel now; well, the rest of the band and most of the crew, at least. I think your mum's nearly ready to go, as well. 'M feeling very awake tonight, though, so I was wondering if you fancied going out for a bite to eat?"

He nodded, leaning his head onto your thigh as you rested your hand on his head lightly to stop yourself toppling over from the added pressure. "I'm not surprised you're awake – tossed and turned all night and then slept in until past noon," he snorted, dodging your attempts to swat the back of his head, "But, yeah, I'm up for food. Saw you eyeing up those burgers in the diner across the road from the hotel earlier, s'that what you want?"

"That's a great shout, actually, sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself," you laughed, accepting the hand he offered to help you sit down next to him. You positioned yourself so you were facing him, legs crossed and fiddling with the laces on your feet. "You've been unusually quiet since you came offstage, something troubling you?" The shake of his head you received in response prompted you to continue further, "You don't have to be happy all the time, y'know? Just 'cause you're doing something you enjoy doesn't mean that you're not allowed to feel a bit down sometimes. And, I think you forget that I can see through your façade, H, you're not exactly a very quiet person, usually."

"Just feeling a little overwhelmed," he started, unable to dodge your gaze or questions, "Six years seems like a really long time, but I've experienced things in those six years that most people don't experience in their lifetime. Last time we were here, things were so different. We weren't together, you didn't even come to see me," he paused momentarily when you let out a little scoff of disapproval, "yes, I know, you came to support all of us, but now you're here just for me. And, you're my wife this time, pregnant with my baby, as well. It's strange being back here on my own."

"You've achieved so much in these past six years, and so much hard work has gone into that. Everyone here tonight came for you, you've earned the support of every single one of them. Out in the crowd tonight, the atmosphere was crazy, and I know I'm a little biased but I don't think I've ever been part of such a united group of people. I thought I was proud of you, but I'm no match for your mum, I don't think I've seen her cry so much until tonight," you told him, glad to see the grin had returned to his face, "And I couldn't think of a better way to spend our anniversary than watching you have the time of your life on the stage of probably the most famous arenas."

"I've been a bit of a shitty husband, haven't I? So consumed with nerves and adrenaline that I've barely even paid any attention to you," he frowned, an exaggerated pout on his lips as he pulled you onto his lap, adjusting your knees so they rested either side of his body, "Just been a bit of an idiot and come and sulked out here, when we should be out celebrating."

"Don't be silly, I don't need anything fancy. I'm happy just going out for burgers and milkshakes, and then having a nice long bath when we get back to the hotel."

"Now, that, I can do. Might have to stop in a shop somewhere and get some bubble bath and stuff. Feel like we should definitely be doing something more special for our five-year anniversary, though, or our first wedding anniversary, whichever way you want to see it."

"We can always go out tomorrow, or even the day after. Properly celebrate you performing here for two nights, as well as our anniversary. Then I'll have your full attention; can't be having you drifting off into your own thoughts every ten minutes," you teased, twirling the small curls at the nape of his neck in your fingers.

"I missed you tonight, y'know? I very much enjoyed our early afternoon cuddles, feel like I haven't seen you since, though," he grumbled, arms firmly wrapping around your back as he pulled you closer to him. He left minimum space in between the two of you, your chest, covered with a t-shirt presenting an enlarged picture of his face on it, pressed tightly to his.

"I'm not the one who disappeared for nearly an hour," you pointed out, peppering kisses along the expanse of his neck as you rested your cheek on his shoulder. You ignored the slight aftertaste of salt that came with it, evidence of the sweat that once beaded on his skin. "You took away my opportunity to appreciate these bell-bottoms of yours. Never thought I could find someone wearing such things so hot, but you always manage to surprise me."

A small smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth at your declaration; your fingers pulled at the bow hanging on his chest, diverting your gaze from his. He nuzzled his face in the crook of your neck, using his nose to nudge your face upwards as he nibbled playfully at your jaw. You turned to face him again, your scrunched nose acting as a silent reprimand of leaving marks in obvious places. Lifting your hand to push him away, you were met with his tongue licking a long stripe up the palm of your hand, your instincts kicking in and causing you to jerk your hand away, wiping the sticky residue on the shoulder of his shirt.

"Sorry, baby," he laughed, lips pressing to yours in a half-arsed attempt to stop you narrowing your eyes at him, ending in teeth bashing together due to his inability to stop laughing. He pulled at your jutted-out bottom lip with his thumb, simultaneously giving you the biggest grin possible, "Stop frowning at me. Can't have anyone be seeing that and thinking I make you angry on our anniversary."

"Stop licking me then," you protested, but let him wrap his arms back around you, "And I'm surprised you haven't given me a nosebleed with how hard you knocked into me, give me some warning next time, yeah?"

"What would be the fun in that?" He teased, thumbs sliding into the waistband of your jeans, "I'm really glad you're here with me; I get lonely when you're not. I had a whole speech planned out when I got home from the last leg, full of hundreds of reasons why you should join me on this one, must have rehearsed it in my head at least fifty times on the plane home. I think Jeffrey was beginning to get annoyed with me, kept going on about how I'd forced him to get on a plane he hadn't wanted to and then wouldn't speak to him. You have no idea how glad I was when you said you were coming with me – I don't know if I could've built up the courage to ask you to drop everything for me again, especially after the argument that followed the last time we had a conversation along those lines."

You stretched your arm out over his shoulder, leaning your head on the inside of your bicep and straightening your legs as you began to feel a gentle ache spreading in your limbs but not wanting to interrupt what he was saying. You were pretty content to just sit there and listen to the low tone of his voice, appreciative of the up-close angle you received. From where you were, you could clearly see the slight stubble present just above his cupid's bow, and the strands of hair which refused to co-operate with the rest. It amazed you how, even from this close, it was near impossible to pin-point any kind of flaw or imperfection.

His line of view met yours in an intense adoration, almost as if his gaze was burning into your own, implanting the thoughts and feelings currently circulating in his head into your mind. His eyes never left yours, yet he was oblivious to your not-so-subtle scope of his face.

"I think some of my favourite memories of us come from being in a foreign country. Exploring new places we've never seen before, getting lost more often than not; sitting in small restaurants on beachfronts and tasting local cuisine, always being sure to finish every last bite even if it's not to our personal taste; travelling from country to country with nothing but each other and a book or two to entertain ourselves. I couldn't think of anyone better to travel the world with than my best friend, wife, mother of my child, the face in the crowd I look for to keep me firmly placed on the ground, and that's just the beginning of a long list of titles you hold. I'm so excited for us to feel our way through the next chapter of our lives together, but I'm glad we've had this time with each other, along with the next month or so to come, away from our more structured life, to properly soak up the time we have left of just being us. Harry and Y/N. Husband and Wife. If I could, I'd get married to you all over again, without hesitation, 'cause our wedding day was by far the best day of my life to date. Not even performing in stadiums like these could even come close to taking that spot. Happy anniversary, I love you, with all my heart, and don't you ever forget that."

Tears welled in your eyes as you listened to the words he spoke, ones which held so much love and emotion that it was as if they sent out waves of infatuation and intimacy. Moisture gathered on your cheeks, which Harry was quick to brush away with the soft swipe of his thumb. The lump in your throat was too immense, and the tightening of your chest was too great, for you to muster up the courage to utter a response, lacking trust towards how coherent of a reply your mouth would produce, instead settling for attaching your lips to his in a desperate, breath-taking reciprocation of affection. You pulled back, foreheads connecting as you both attempted to regain composure over your breathing.

"You're too good with words, H. Makes my heart hurt."

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havegaysex · 3 years

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This is just a train of thought essay, I guess to get some feelings out so I can process them, because I don't have therapy this week and it's my first week off since starting treatment and I've been doing a lot of processing on my own but it's hard when I get stuck in loops because I don't remember what I just said, if you do for some reason decide to read this, trigger warnings for abuse and CSA and probably other stuff but I don't know

I use speech to text and sometimes mumble or talk too fast so there may be some weird wording but I don't want to proof this.

I really hope Tumblr cuts this off so there's a read more, I'm doing it from mobile and I don't know how to make that happen on the phone app

I started learning about dissociative identity disorder because I have a friend who has it, and before she told me about her diagnosis she sent me some YouTube videos and some reading on it I guess to kind of gauge my reaction before telling me, which is understandable,

and then my brain being what it is and having a huge special interest in psychology I hyper fixated on it for a bit,

and I started this research deep dive after I started therapy, and I started realizing that my therapist has been pointing out things that are symptoms of a dissociative disorder for a little bit now, which would explain a lot of things that I haven't been able to get explained with other physical or mental diagnoses

and she gave me a referral for "diagnostic clarity" and I'm just waiting for that to go through, and I'm not self-diagnosing but I feel like I relate way too much to DID and OSDD to be singlet (not system),

and I had no idea that any of this stuff wasn't normal because my whole life was just focused on survival and my brain did what it needed to so that I could survive the highly abusive and volatile environment I grew up in, and now that I am halfway out a lot of stuff is starting to surface that was suppressed or hidden before,

I used to be really high functioning towards the end of high school because it was avoidance, I spent 14 hours a day at school and completed over a year and a half's worth of classes in one semester to get caught up after failing, and then college started out rough but it started getting okay my second semester, and then covid hit which caused me to have to withdraw because I couldn't do online school, and now I'm taking a semester off to do intense mental health and physical health therapy,

and I don't know how to function,

I don't know how to function without being in a high pressure environment where I'm scared of verbal, emotional, and occasionally physical abuse,

Now that I'm existing in a space where I have privacy and I'm allowed to have feelings and thoughts of my own I don't know how to take care of myself,

At first I thought I was just depression and maybe for a little bit it was because I have a bit of seasonal effective disorder, and one of my friends went a few states away and he's going to be gone for almost a year, and I went through some other stuff that definitely should trigger depression

But after getting my physical pain under control again, and increasing and being better at taking my antidepressants regularly and realizing that it's so much more,

I was never allowed to become my own person and have a solid sense of identity, because self-expression was punished I became as my therapist says "fragmented" and I learned to suppress a lot of parts of myself,

I have huge gaps in my memory and people I know now who knew me back then have talked about things that I supposedly did and said and the person I supposedly was during some of those gaps and I just don't understand who they're talking about, I know to them that person and me are the same person but to me they're talking about someone that I don't know, I have no recollection of ever being that person,

At my last in-person therapy appointment she had me start telling her The narrative of my life and at first I thought I didn't have many memories from before 5 years old but it's like she had a switch in me and once I started I just kept going and I feel like I haven't fully been the same person since that session because it pulled something from deep within me that I haven't been able to put back in its box,

And it's been getting worse the farther I get from that visit

For the past week I've probably eaten two days worth of food and I've maybe had four days of water, because my body just can't handle eating and drinking as much as it should for being this size, I don't like feeling like my body is too big for me, I feel like I'm in a grown-up's body and I'm still a kid but I know that I'm an adult, I'm expected to do adult things even though I have no idea how to start doing that, because on top of abuse holding me back and mental health issues I have physical health issues that make it impossible for me to do a lot of minimum wage jobs,

I don't have fully realized different parts of myself the way it seems like a lot of people with dissociative identity disorder do, but I definitely feel like a different version of me is running the show sometimes and I don't understand the actions of my past self because that's something my current self would never ever do or think or feel or say,

And I've always had a kind of discomfort in my body because of dysphoria as well as being bullied for my appearance and having adults make comments on my body when I was way too young as well as being groomed by pedophiles and then having my mom threatened to kill herself over it instead of sitting down with me and having an actual conversation about how starting to have sexual feelings wasn't that horrible but it was the fact that I was talking to adults who were four times my age that was the problem,

And on top of that I went through Catholic School as a girl who was realizing that she was into other girls

And my personal Catholic School experience told me that sex was wrong unless it was for the purpose of procreation and female sexual pleasure is always wrong and homosexuality is also always wrong and that I need to be thoroughly ashamed of being this way because I am having eternal damnation over this thing that I have no choice in,

Recently every time that I try to exist as a sexual human being I experienced the personalization and I stopped being able to look at any piece of my body and I have to avoid mirrors for my reflection because it makes me feel so mentally and physically uncomfortable because in my head that's not me and that's not my body, even though I know both of those are false it doesn't change the fact that I don't feel comfortable in my own skin,

It's so hard to do basic self-care things because in where I'm living right now I can't shower in the dark because I'm not familiar with the shower which means that either I shower in my clothes or I don't bathe at all, and because I can't drink the tap water here I've been getting dehydrated because sometimes I love tea especially green tea, but sometimes I can't stand the taste of it and I just want plain water which I don't have here,

Don't get me wrong this living situation is insane amount better than previous ones, and up until the past week and a half or so I was functioning adequately, but it's like pieces of me that I had to walk away are coming out now and they don't know how to function in any environment but especially in this one where we don't fear getting kicked out over something like not doing the dishes correctly, and I have more privacy than I've had in the past 10 years combined, and it's weird to me I think autonomy, when I go back to my abusive environment I don't have this kind of autonomy, it sucks because in one environment I feel like I have too much autonomy even though I have a very healthy amount of autonomy for my age, and in the other environment I don't have enough even though even theere I have more autonomy than I've ever had because I fought tooth and nail for it, but it's still way less than I should have

I don't know how to exist and feel comfortable anywhere, I don't know how to take care of myself anymore, and I know this won't last because none of my moods/thought patterns ever do, but it'll likely come back because they tend to come back,

I feel like I've been in a dissociative fog for the past few months and sometimes I'm highly functional and I get a lot of things done but sometimes I can't even brush my teeth or eat anything, because my mouth feels so different and I can't tolerate things being in my mouth,

Nothing that I do feels right, video games I used to enjoy, TV shows, movies, food, music, at best I just don't get the full enjoyment of it that I usually do, at worst it triggers a negative mood because I'm reminded of how much I don't feel like myself right now,

And the isolation of being in a global pandemic doesn't help, texting people is great but you can't get held while you cry over text,

It could be worse I suppose because at least I know that how I'm feeling and thinking right now won't last, in previous bad mental health episodes one of the fears I would have is that I would be stuck that way, and now I know better than to think that which definitely helps eliminate or at the very least minimize the feelings of hopelessness and despair

#dont reb/og #personal #trauma things

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lesfit101 · 4 years

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Why you gain strength before you gain muscle?💪

Weight training systems are designed to test your strength and endurance. As they work together, more muscles are recruited to lift heavier weights, resulting first in additional strength and then in size gains.

However, you must remember though that as a “beginner lifter” you must get through some variations of training before you start to see any muscle gain. In short, you must understand how to lift correctly first otherwise muscle size won’t happen.

Increased Muscle Mass

When you begin a weight training programme you will notice that the numbers on the scale will most likely start to increase and you might start to panic but, this is perfectly normal in fact this means that you have started to gain muscle mass in the world of weight training and that is a good sign. It means that you are making progress.

What you need to determine is how to tell the difference between gaining muscle and gaining fat. When you do weight training your body fat% should decrease while your muscle mass increases. The reason that this happens is muscle weighs more than fat and therefore it takes up more space.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FAT VS MUSCLE

To measure your progress is harder when you start a weight training programme as the increase in numbers might throw you off track. I would say it is not always advised weighing yourself daily. However, it is important to still measure your progress so that you can make sure that it is muscle you are gaining and not fat. Therefore, here are 3 ways to measure this more effectively.

Measure your waistline - Focus on losing cm rather than weight.

Look in the mirror - As apparent as this might sound it’s the best way to determine if you are gaining muscle. You will see visible changes in your body shape i.e. more tone and overall appearance will be a leaner look.

Another way to measure your body fat% vs muscle mass is with a Body Composition scale it can determine your body fat% vs muscle mass. These are for the most part quite accurate.

We must always keep in mind that the “switch” happens over months it's not a quick process. If your body fat percentage shows more muscle and less fat, then that is the change you are looking for. If your jeans are baggy or loose, or if you look in the mirror and a more muscular person is staring back at you, then your strength training efforts could be working.

Reasons why you might gain weight during weight training.

Water Weight

Water makes up around 60% of the average adult body the average human will not live for longer than 3- 4 days without consuming water while they can live without food for up to 2-3 weeks. Water changes our weight. We lose water every time we workout, sweat, or even cry.

What’s important to note here is that ultimately water weight can increase the number on the scale so it's important to weigh yourself at the same time everyday i.e. first thing in the morning to get a more accurate reading.

Ever notice how you weigh less first thing in the morning? That’s because you sweat while you sleep most of the time you even lose water while breathing. Your weight will fluctuate if you have some water retention this is perfectly normal but it’s extremely important to stay hydrated all day every day!

Diet, diet, diet

You probably thinking you already know where this is going but still, so many of us believe that if we workout regularly we can reward ourselves after, but most of us are not considering that the reward might contain more calories than you just burnt. The truth is if we are eating more calories than we are burning you will never see real results. I am a firm believer that it's really 100% dedication to consistency rather than an all-in all-out approach you just simply cannot expect to see long term results if you don’t stay consistent.

“Do not use workouts as your green light to eat whatever you want”

However, your body does need the right kind of fuel (especially when you train), but an intense workout is not a license to eat whatever and as much as you want. Eat clean and watch your portions—even when you are working out hard.

Types of training systems weightlifters use to build strength, overall resulting in gaining muscle mass.

1. One rep maximum

1RM in weight training is the maximum amount of weight one can lift in a single repetition for a given exercise. One repetitions maximum can be used for determining an individual’s maximum strength and can also be used as an upper limit, to determine the desired “load” for an exercise.

2. Pyramid sets

Are weight training sets in which the progression is from lighter weights to a greater number of repetitions in the first set, to heavier weights with fewer repetitions in the following sets. A reverse pyramid is an opposite in which the heavier weights are used at the beginning and progressively lightened.

3. Super sets

Are consecutive sets of dreams exercises designed to work opposing muscles. Or at least different muscles within a large body part region. Opposing muscle exercises could include biceps and triceps at the front and back of the arms, or quads and hamstrings at the front and back of the legs. The exercises are usually done with minimum rest between sets.

4. Giant sets

The Giant set, is a form of training that targets one muscle group (e.g. the triceps) with three or four separate sets of exercises performed in quick succession, often to failure and sometimes with the reduction of weight halfway through a set once muscle fatigue sets in.

5. Forced reps

Forced reps occur after momentary muscular failure. An assistant provides just enough help to get the weight trainer past the sticking point of the exercise and allow further repetitions to be completed. Weight trainers often do this when they are spotting their exercise partners.

6. Cheat reps

Cheating is a deliberate compromise of form to maximum reps. Cheating has the advantage that it can be done without a training partner, but compromises safety. A typical example of cheat reps occurs during biceps curls when, beginning with the load at the waist, the exerciser swings the barbell forward and up during the concentric phase utilizing momentum to assist his or her biceps muscles in moving the load to a shortened muscle position.

Guidelines for beginner weightlifters

Full-body workouts are more efficient and ideal for beginners. ... The upside is that when you work out the same muscle groups by doing the same or similar exercises multiple times each week, you improve your overall body strength, rather than just in one area.

This means you hit all the major muscle groups in one workout, Both strength-training approaches can help you increase muscle mass, burn calories, and look more toned.

Weight training tips for beginners

Warm-up. ...

Start with lighter weights. ...

Gradually increase weight. ...

Rest for at least 60 seconds in between sets. ...

Limit your workout to no longer than 45 minutes. ...

Gently stretch your muscles after your workout. ...

Rest a day or two in between workouts.

The Most Popular 5 Day Splits - Focused on certain muscle group/s per session.

Day 1: Legs/Abs.

Day 2: Chest.

Day 3: Back/Abs*

Day 4: Rest.

Day 5: Shoulder/Abs*

Day 6: Arms.

Day 7: Rest

The Most Popular full body workout – working all the larger muscles first and smaller muscles last.

Warm up

Shoulders

Legs

Back

Chest

Triceps

Biceps

Abs

Cool down stretch

In conclusion

I say that you should think of strength training as your long-term solution to weight loss instead of fearing that it will cause weight gain. Strength training offers many health benefits, including an increase in the number of calories burned. The more muscle you have in your body, the more calories you burn every single day. So, strength training is the best way to gain muscle mass and lose body fat.

“Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue, and building muscles costs a lot of energy. As you increase the amount of muscle you have, you will also increase your resting metabolic rate.” —American Council on Exercise.

For more healthy tips, workouts please visit my Instagram page @lesfit101

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