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sequinsmile-x · 5 months

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Overture

It’s only when they get level with the picnic tables Jack had told her about that morning, the Capitol building coming into view in the background, that it clicks, when the discomfort she’d felt since they arrived suddenly makes sense.

This was where she’d met with Ian.

-x-

Hi friends!

This is based on an anon I got asking for a fic where Emily has a panic attack/PTSD attack and Aaron comforts her. I immediately got an idea for this one, so here we are.

I hope you like this <3

-x-

Warnings: Anxiety, panic attack, PTSD

Words: 3.1k

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

Before Aaron and Jack, going to the park would never have been Emily’s ideal way of spending a Saturday.

If she was honest, it still wasn’t. It wasn’t the park that appealed to her, nor the heat of the midday sun beating down on her, but spending time with them. Her Hotchner boys who had helped pull her back together after she thought it was impossible to do so. Their matching smiles she couldn’t say no to and their unending kindness apparently all she’d needed to feel at home again in a place she’d been torn from, her life left in torn-up pieces around her, frayed edges she would have said, not long ago, were impossible to repair.

It was slow at the start. The ease she felt around them something she’d put down to chance at first. She’d bumped into them at the mall. She’d been there shopping, exposure therapy she was forcing herself through to get used to crowds again, and she’d found them buying shoes for Jack, the little boy going through a seemingly endless growth spurt. She’d found out since that Aaron had sensed her unease, that he’d seen through her carefully constructed facade and fake smile, and he asked her to stay with them, feigning ignorance on what shoes his son needed as he asked for her advice. It gradually became a regular thing. All of her spare time was spent with them, weekends and evenings that had once been full of nothing but anxiety and silence, her eyes fixed on her front door as if a ghost would burst through it and kill her, the smell of whiskey and cigar smoke never far away, now full of them.

Soccer games she’d watch intently just to see Jack attempt to score. Evening meals that she’d pretend to help with even though in reality she’d sit there with a glass of wine and gently make fun of Aaron. Low-stakes, gentle, family movies that she knows Aaron would pick for them as well as Jack, both of them at their limit for anything more serious once work was done for the day.

If she was asked, she’d never be able to explain what made her kiss him one evening, why all of a sudden not kissing him seemed impossible. The magnetic pull he’d had on her for longer than she’d care to admit so strong that she could no longer resist it. He hadn’t hesitated in kissing her back, not even a second of no response before he held her closer, as if he’d been waiting for her to make the first move.

With anyone else, she’s sure it would terrify her that they had moved so quickly. That she’d be struck with fear that she all but lived with Aaron and Jack only a few months since they officially got together, that the fact she’d told Aaron I love you on their first date, and that he’d repeated it back to her immediately, would fill her with anxiety. But it didn’t. It felt right. Like everything she’d been through, every awful thing she thought she wouldn’t survive, had been leading to this. To them.

So, even if her choice would have been to stay snuggled up in bed with her boyfriend, Jack tucked up in between them as they slept for a little longer, she dragged herself out of bed because it was what the little boy wanted. She’d slathered her boys in sunscreen, her eyes narrowed at Aaron as he made a joke that he’d never met someone who took sun protection so seriously, and let them pick the park they were going to spend the morning in.

Jack told her that he liked this one. That it had the best swings, and a picnic area with big round tables, a glint in his eyes that Aaron said hadn’t existed before when he mentioned the ice cream truck that was nearby.

She can’t explain it, but as they get closer to the park she starts to feel uneasy. A familiar tightness builds in her chest that she doesn’t understand as Aaron parks the car. Jack releases himself from his seat and is out of the car only seconds after Aaron turns off the engine. Aaron chuckles, shaking his head at his son as he opens his door.

“Jack, no running off,” he says sternly, and Jack nods, standing perfectly still as he waits for them. Aaron turns back to Emily and frowns, picking up on the tension rolling off his girlfriend like a bitter perfume, “Sweetheart,” he says, placing his hand on her knee, his concern only deepening when she jumps and looks at him, “Are you okay?”

She nods, because she doesn’t know why she isn’t, doesn’t know how to explain that she feels like her body is remembering something she doesn’t. She smiles and leans forward to press a kiss to his cheek.

“I’m fine,” she says, smiling as she pulls back, “Let’s go get your son before he explodes with excitement.”

Emily climbs out of the car and stands by Jack’s side, offering her hand to him and smiling as he immediately grabs it, his hand warm in hers. Aaron joins them, walking alongside them as Jack talks at her, reciting facts he’d told her a hundred times and that she’d happily listen to a hundred more.

This was where she’d met with Ian. Where he’d threatened the team, the man she’d one day love and his son who she loved as her own.

Suddenly, she can’t feel the warmth of the sun on her skin, or Jack’s clammy hand in hers. She’s cold, chilled to the bone as if winter was on the horizon and not several months away. She’s frozen on the spot, the pull of her arm as Jack continues to move forward barely registering as her eyes remain fixed on the metal round table in front of her, two abandoned to-go coffee cups staring back at her, almost mocking her in the way they tip over in the light summer breeze, as empty as her chest feels as she struggles to breathe. She isn’t aware of anything around her, her body numb as she feels like she’s freezing from the inside out, the phantom of the cold, hard plastic of her glock pressed into her skin, making her palm itch.

The faint smell of sunscreen that had lingered on Jack’s skin disappears, it’s replaced by whiskey and smoke, something that had long since meant danger and fear to her. She’s stuck there, reliving the moment when her life had changed forever again and again as she’s unable to pull herself out of it, her eyes still fixed on the empty coffee cups on the table where she’d once sat opposite the man who had killed her.

She’s snapped out of it. Her lungs immediately fill as she gasps, sucking in air as she feels a warm palm on her cheek, her body tense as her eyes lock with Aaron’s. She tries to breathe in again but can’t, her chest aching as she can’t exhale, her lungs so full she thinks they might burst.

“Emily, sweetheart,” he says, sounding much calmer than he feels, his other hand reaching for one of hers and placing it on his chest, purposely exaggerating his own breathing to try and encourage hers, “I’ve got you. Just try and breathe with me, okay?” He says and she nods, closing her eyes as she rests her forehead on his, “Good, don’t worry about anything else. It’s just you and me.”

She swallows thickly, the feeling painful and sharp as she tries to push down her fear but she can’t. Instead, she focuses on Aaron. On his hand wrapped tightly around hers as he holds her palm to his chest, the smell of him and his cologne. How warm his skin is even through his polo shirt. Balmy and comforting and safe. She slowly comes back to herself, the sound of the park filtering back in, children’s laughter as they play washing over her, a reminder from the universe that good things still exist. She grasps at Aaron’s polo shirt, fisting it in her palm as she pulls him closer, sinking into his embrace as he pulls her into a hug.

“I’ve got you,” he says, kissing the top of her head as he gathers her to his chest, “Do you want to go home?”

She pulls back to look at him, “Jack was excited about this,” she croaks out, her voice not sounding like her own, “He was looking forward to this.”

If she hadn’t just had a panic attack right in front of him, her entire body frozen in spot whilst she saw something he couldn’t, he’d laugh. Her constant need to put others ahead of herself one of the many things he loved about her.

“Sweetheart,” he says, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, “Jack understands,” he says, looking back at his son who steps closer and nods, a look of concern on his face that matches his father’s which makes her ache. Guild and love mixing in her belly to make her nauseous, “Right, buddy?”

Jack nods, “If you’re sick Emily we should go home.”

She grasps at Aaron again, wondering what she’d missed during her panic attack, what conversation between father and son that she hadn’t heard despite being right there. She looks back at the table for a second before she looks back at them, her present and her future so much more important than her past.

“Yeah,” she says, clearing her throat when her voice shakes, “I’d like to go home please.”

It didn’t occur to her until much later that home meant wherever the two of them were.

___

He gives her space.

It’s the last thing he wants to do, fighting against every instinct in his body as he sends her to bed alone, giving her the space he knows she needs. He tries not to think of how she goes without argument, a sure sign she wasn’t feeling herself, or how she’d shivered in the car all the way home despite the warm weather and the sweater of his he’d pulled from his go-bag in the trunk.

He spends time with Jack, and explains to him that something, although he didn’t know what, had scared Emily, telling him in terms that the young boy would understand what had happened. He compares it to how loud noises can sometimes still spook Jack, reminding him of what he’d heard as he lay quietly in the trunk in Aaron’s old office all those years ago.

Aaron swears his heart breaks as Jack gently asks if they can find out what had scared Emily to make sure they protected her from it in the future, his wide eyes concerned as he thought of the woman who was so often the place they found their strength.

Jessica picks Jack up early in the afternoon, a plan they’d had for weeks so Jack could spend the evening with her and Roy whilst Emily and Aaron had some time alone. Aaron convinces his son to go, assuring him that Emily will be fine, and that he’ll look after her, and he does a few chores once Jack is gone.

Eventually, he walks towards his bedroom, making sure his steps are slow and steady, announcing his arrival long before he knocks on the door.

“Sweetheart,” he says gently as he pushes the door open slightly and looks at his girlfriend, his heart aching as he sees her lying on the bed, her arms wrapped around his pillow, his sweater still hanging loose around her shoulders, “Do you need anything? I could cook whatever you want.”

She shakes her head and smiles at him, feeling the shake to it as she clears her throat, “No, thank you,” she says, the idea of eating anything turning her stomach. She sits up and she looks at him. His hand is tight on the door handle, his shoulders tense as he purposely holds himself back, and she untucks one of her arms from around his pillow, “Come sit with me for a bit?”

He doesn’t wait for her to change her mind or for her to ask again. He’s across the room in a second, joining her on the bed. He purposely gives her space, not getting too close to her, but she reaches out for him, linking her fingers through his as she squeezes his hand tightly.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” she says, “I…,” she drifts off again, unsure how to put it into words, how to explain to him what happened, so she settles on the thing she can make sense of, “I’m sorry Jack saw me like that.”

He wraps his arms around her, grateful that she sinks into him, and he presses a kiss to her forehead, “You have nothing to apologise for, baby,” he assures her, kissing her forehead again, “I spoke to him, he understands what happened.”

She chuckles bitterly as she pulls away, wiping at her cheeks as she pushes away tears that she’s furious at herself for slipping free.

“Does he?” she says, shaking her head, “Because I don’t,” she blows out a steady breath and presses her lips into a firm line, “We were at the park, we were meant to have fun and pretend we weren’t going to buy Jack ice cream before lunch,” she wipes away another tear, “But then I…I thought I was better.”

He knows the feeling, the disappointment that would weigh heavily on his chest when he felt like he had a setback. How a nightmare that would tear him from sleep after months of not having one would make him feel like he was right back where he started, his chest aching and barely held together, blood seeping from his freshly stitched wounds as despair filled his lungs. He’d feel like he’d made no progress, like he was still back in the hospital bed where he’d last seen Haley alive, right up until Emily reached for him. Half asleep and blearily reaching out for him as she pulled him into her embrace, offering him a safe space to come back to himself, to remind himself of what he had now.

He knew he did the same for her, that their pasts meant they could only truly understand each other.

“You are better,” he says firmly, his voice full of love as he encourages her to look at him, his hand on her cheek as he guides her back a little, “One day like this doesn’t undo everything else, okay?” He asks, and she nods even though she isn’t sure. He’d never lied to her, and she knows he won’t start now, so she trusts him even though right now she couldn’t trust herself. “Do you know what caused it?”

She swallows thickly as she nods, blowing out a slow breath as she closes her eyes, “You know I told you that I met with Ian before…before everything went to hell? And he threatened you and Jack and everyone else?”

Aaron nods, remembering the conversation they’d had back when they were kidding themselves that they were just friends, “Yeah, you met him in a park…”

She watches as it clicks in his head, his words fading as his jaw clenches, irritation at himself burning in his gut.

“Aaron-”

“I am so sorry, sweetheart,” he says, shaking his head at himself, his grip on her tightening, “I should have-”

“You should have what?” She asks, raking her fingers through his hair, smiling softly as it flops back into place, “Known what park I met him in even though I never told you? Scoped out every park to see if my terrorist ex was ever there?”

He hates that she’s trying to make light of it, as if seeing her frozen in place, so consumed by fear, terrified of a ghost he hadn’t been able to see, hadn’t broken him.

“Em.”

She smiles sadly and nods and she rests her forehead against his, “I mean it,” she says, softly stamping her lips against his, “You couldn’t have known.”

He sighs and runs his hand up and down her back, “We’ll never go back there.”

“You and Jack love that park,” she says, kissing his jaw before she pulls back, “You told me that this morning.”

He tucks some of her hair behind her ear, “We love you more,” he says, and she smiles in response, her first real one since before they’d left the apartment that morning. It fades as quickly as it blooms, the seeds of it not quite ready to plant or take root yet, the gloom of that morning still in the dark shadows of their eyes, “How can I help?”

She rests her head on his shoulder and encourages him to wrap his arms around her as tightly as he can.

“Just hold me,” she says, sinking into his embrace as far as she can, letting his warmth replace the chill she still could feel from earlier, “And maybe tell me a story?”

He chuckles lightly as he lays down and pulls her with him, pulling the covers over them even though he’s slightly too warm for it, “A story?”

“Distract me,” she says, pressing her face into his neck, “Tell me something good.”

He runs his hand up and down her arm, thinking for a moment before he smiles, “There was once a prince called Aaron, and a brave knight called Emily-”

She laughs and pulls back to look at him, her eyebrow raised at him, “Seriously?”

“My son is six,” he says, “Fairytales are the best I can do.”

She presses her lips together to suppress her smile and lays her head back down, “At least I’m the brave knight, I guess.”

“You could never be anything else,” he says, kissing her forehead, “Now are you going to listen or are you going to interrupt again?”

“I’m listening,” she promises, closing her eyes, and letting him take over all of her senses.

“Good,” he says, kissing her one more time, “There was once a prince called Aaron, and a brave knight called Emily…”

She listens as he tells a diluted version of their story. A version where the bad guys never win, not even for a moment, and the good guys always prevail no matter what.

She falls asleep, content and safe in his arms, happy in the knowledge that her story was nowhere near its end, but just at its beginning.

-x-

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mceproductions · 4 months

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MCE Best of 2023: Honorable Mention

Movies: Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

Our arrival on the last 72 hours of my annual countdown once again brings us to the honorable mention section.

Here we focus on a creative rebirth for Dreamworks Animation that unexpectedly began via the last character we assumed would get it going.

Puss in Boots, the feline outlaw who gained prominence with the Shrek sequels had many fans and admirers.

Although his origin story was enjoyable it ended up being forgotten via the subpar Shrek finale the year before.

So it’s oddly fitting 10 years and change later a return to that world with a different animation style and mindset would oddly give us the satisfaction of Puss in Boots in his true glory.

Having adventured through many lands, the antics of Puss begins to catch up with him as he loses the 8th of his 9 lives.

When faced with the wolf of the one thing he never saw coming, the life he had seemed too much as he quickly goes into seclusion living amongst cats and a therapy dog named Perrito.

Only his past comes for him in the form of his ex Kitty Southpaws, a bounty hunting Goldilocks and her ursine family, and a pie magnet named Jack who seek control of a fallen star to grant a wish for anyone who reaches it.

Unexpectedly this works very well, not only showing off new animations that make the little golden books seem tame in comparison, but gives heart with Puss who needs to seek out if he can balance his old lifestyle with new realities.

All this does is make everyone want to see the return of a certain layered green thing and right hand stallion. Cause this was a lot better than anyone saw coming.

SUM 22: Puss in Boots gets the resurgence of Dreamworks going great with an adventure that blends old and new in a very contemporary setting.

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x-authorship-x · 7 months

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You know, weirdly, the JA books never actually bring up the attachment thing. That's something that's more in the movies, and perhaps not so weirdly only aimed at Anakin (which does suck for him, because he didn't really understand it and no one explained it in a way that made sense, leading to even more communication issues), but no in the books they like actively push Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to bond and whatnot. It's just that Qui-Gon has a lot of guilt/shame/trauma from Xanatos - which Obi-Wan purposefully triggered twice at one point, oy vey, but that book was it's own special brand of crazy - and Obi-Wan was burned by being sent to Bandomeer and was given some self-esteem issues as a result. He also has a hard time reading Qui-Gon sometimes, especially at first. So the emotional constipation is all their own lol. And it does get a lot better over the course of the books, too. They learn to read each other, but it's kind of a slow process.

A lot of Obi-Wan's rollercoaster childhood stuff was pretty beyond anyone's control too. He's such a danger magnet, I swear to god. You leave him alone for like five minutes and he's being kidnapped or joining a cult-like militia or getting attacked by people they thought were trustworthy. Qui-Gon at first does tend to leave him alone in some place they think is safe (or safer than where he's going at any rate), but after a few missions he's practically ready to attach a child leash to Obi-Wan just so he's always in grabbing range lol. Obi-Wan's also really stubborn, which is not always a great mix when people are like "please stay where it is safe, we're literally begging you", and he's like, "no :)" lol. This seems to follow him to adulthood too, in the movies, so I imagine Anakin's padawan-ship (and Cody's entire stint as his commander, r.i.p.) was pretty similar lol, just marginally safer because he's the one on rescue duty. Obi-Wan's saving grace a lot of the time is his ability to make friends really easily, and they often come to his rescue when a jedi can't. All of which is fun, because that means there's so much hurt/comfort potential!

Oh yes, they definitely need so much therapy. Like individually and as a pair. Even a dose of plot-convenient truth serum would do, frankly. So much could be cleared up so fast if they just talked to each other. But that's pretty much par for the course when it comes to most media featuring communication issues, I think. Thank god Inoichi is like, emotionally healthy and pushes Shisui to be too. You have no idea how relieved I was when like Inoichi took one look at Shisui in No Tomorrow and immediately knew he needed help and was ready to give it. It pretty much instantly sold me on their relationship, ngl

(Also, you're totally fine, I wasn't complaining I was just like, I need to make Torship knows, you know? Like at least 95% of fandom who write about Obi-Wan's childhood stuff haven't actually read the books they're talking about, they get what they know from other fanfics, so it tends to be a weird echo chamber that doesn't match up to canon. Which is a shame in this case, because those books are so fun and add so much to the characters, and would add a bit more variety to what I typically see. But you actually like parent-child bonding stuff so my very tired brain was convinced you Needed To Know and got excited to talk about it. Which is also why these have both been so long; I never get to talk about this stuff and am kinda infodumping at you, my bad 😅)

Hahaha your tired brain was right, this is super interesting! I'm gonna go hunt down found family qui-gon-obi-wan fics now...

Obi-wan is so willful and his luck is just comical 🤣🤦

("which obi purposefully triggered twice" oh for gods sake they all need rattled 🤦🤦🤦)

The whole reason I even picked Inoichi to mentor Shisui (just a name-drop back in 2019 for In The Eye of The Beholder) was because I asked myself 'who would they trust to monitor a ticking time bomb?' And the answer was immediately 'interrogation therapist'... Inoichi's decision to do that by gentle parenting was just natural lmao honestly one day I WILL write a inoichi and Shisui master-padawan fic just for the sheer comedy of Inoichi showing everyone else how it is DONE 🤌👏

Also I am... aware that I'm focusing on a fandom that 95% of my followers/readers probably aren't interested in so there's not a lot of activity on that front, plus I don't have any mutuals to talk about SW with so... info dump away, anon! This is nice :)

(I like reading info dumps anyway, haha, I'm the kinda person who tries to get people ranting about their interests on purpose :) )

Thanks for all this really cool insight, have a great day/night ✨

#torship #torship talks #ask #anon #star wars #qui gon jinn #qui gon and obi wan #obi wan #inoichi dad and Shisui son

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homeleader · 7 months

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2039 Yonge Street Condos

Introducing 2039 Yonge Street Condos

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briamichellewrites · 2 years

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Brad had finished rehab and was back with Jayde. He had worked through the underlying issues that led him to start drinking. Depression was only the tip of the iceberg. While visiting with Mike, he told them about his feelings about getting older and not wanting to be Brad Pitt, the movie star. He wanted to be William, the guy from Oklahoma who just happened to be an actor. There was a difference. Mike could understand that. He had the luxury of being able to separate his career from his personal life.

He and his wife agreed when he signed his contract that their lives would be private. They had seen what Hollywood could do. He wished he could do that. It wasn’t his job he hated. It was everything that came with it. Ever since his divorce, he had blamed everything on that. But it was just the beginning. He could understand that. Divorce was hard. He had watched his friends go through it.

Unfortunately, they were forced to work together because they were in the same band. It was a process. That was what he learned from them. One of them went into therapy because he was walking out of studio sessions. They both had a lot of anger toward each other. How were they now? They were great friends. He highly recommended talking to Brad and Rob about their experience with divorce because they could help him more than he could.

Brad and Brad sat down together. Brad told him about his divorce from Rob. What happened? They both cheated. After fighting, they agreed to work on their marriage for their son. He then discovered that he continued his affair behind his back. That led to their divorce. It was extremely difficult for him emotionally and mentally. He got to the point where he would have started drinking if it wasn’t for his religion.

What was his religion? Judaism. They didn’t believe in drinking alcohol. He had a lot of anger toward his ex-husband and he went into therapy because he would start crying, even during work. His band would watch as he walked out over and over. He was prescribed antidepressants. It took about a year before he was able to finally let go. It was a gradual process. How was their relationship now? He was his best friend. They were both dating other people and they had each other’s families over for dinner.

He advised him not to rush his recovery. Even though he didn’t have experience with addiction, he knew that rushing depression recovery only made it easier to relapse. Depression was one step forward, two steps back. He nodded and affirmed that was true. How was Jayde while he was gone? She had a lot of trouble.

How come? She had delusions that Jennifer was stalking her and it was because of her, he was in rehab. Was he serious? Yeah, he was.

“She hates her because, in her mind, her showing up pushed you over the edge.”

He laughed. “Nah, she had nothing to do with it. Well, she did a little but it wasn’t her showing up that pushed me over the edge. That just happened. I’ll talk to her later about it. Why did she think she was stalking her?”

“I have no idea. That’s just what Mike told us.”

He told him how much he meant to her. She meant a lot to him, too because she stayed by him and got him help. After his divorce, he wasn’t thinking about getting engaged again but she was making him feel differently. Was he planning on proposing? Yeah, in a year. He wanted to meet her daughter first and have her get comfortable with him being in her life.

Mike. Once Brad left to find Jayde, he told him about their conversation, while leaving out the personal details. Good for him for talking to him. Brad and Brad. He laughed. What did he think about him? He was a genuine guy and he felt like he was exhausted from his fame. They could both understand that.

“He wants to propose to Jayde next year.”

“No way! What did you tell him?”

“I told him to go ahead. Who knows what could happen in a year? They could be broken up”, he said quietly.

He laughed. “Oh my god. She’s beautiful, attractive, and magnetic. Yeah, let’s see what happens. He’s home for now. Did you tell him about her mental health while he was gone?”

“Yes, I did. He thought it was funny. He’s going to talk to her about it.”

Ava was beautiful with long blonde hair that went past her shoulders. He introduced himself to her, Behati and Adam. She told him hi shyly as she shook his hand. After meeting everyone, they went into the kitchen with the dogs immediately following them. The kitchen meant possibly getting food. Plus, they wanted to be with the humans. Ava picked up Bruno and kissed him. She missed him and Bear.

While eating dinner, the five of them talked. Since Brad had just come home from rehab, the dinner was alcohol-free. Instead, they had non-alcoholic beverages. Ava asked about the pillow. She would show them after dinner. What pillow? Jayde explained how her friend, Margot Robbie had bought her a pillow with Leo’s face on it. Has he seen it? Yeah, he came over one afternoon. He thought it was weird seeing a younger version of himself looking back at him.

They laughed. What movie was the picture from? Titanic.

“Oh, no! Did she buy it”, Adam asked.

“Yeah, she bought it and then sent it to me. I have it upstairs on my couch. I laughed my ass off when I first saw it.”

Ava reported she was on her high school’s swim team. Congratulations! Was Megan on it, too? No. She decided she wanted to try something different. That was fair. What kind of swimming was she doing? The butterfly. It was her favorite because she was the fastest with it. They had practice almost every day after school. Could they come to watch them? She could ask her coach. That would be cool if she was able to watch her.

They had to stretch before getting in the water and after swimming. It was about using her muscles to go as fast as she could. As Jayde continued talking with her daughter, she became more comfortable. She was genuinely interested in what she was doing and she was excited to tell her. What she was most excited about was getting her learner’s permit.

“Oh my god. Adam, what are we going to do?”

They laughed.

“She’s your daughter, Jayde.”

“I get road rage at Target. You don’t want me to teach you how to drive.”

“How do you get road rage at Target”, Behati asked her.

“People won’t move out of the fucking way! They park their carts in the middle of the aisle, so I have to go around the other side or awkwardly move their carts. Then, they glare at me. It’s like if they don’t want me to move their carts, don’t leave them in the middle of the aisle! Or they move so slowly and you can’t get around them. It’s a shit show.”

They laughed. It was probably the first genuine laugh Brad had in months. All because of her Target road rage. He needed to see that sometime. They could go the following day since she needed dog food. Ok, he could do that.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @jovichic-bonjovi4ever @borhap-au @beneathashadytree @duffs-shot-glass @geo-winchester @lokolokong-manunulat

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alsjeblieft-zeg · 2 years

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92 of 2022

1. Do your siblings dye their hair?

No, she has never done it, although she wanted to go purple at some point.

2. How long have you liked the person you’re into now?

Since 11 February. I remember it really well.

3. Do you still have any of your exes’ stuff?

I have a postcard from him. It’s hidden somewhere.

4. Who can you best relate to in the last book you read?

Everyone a little bit.

5. Are you indecisive?

No, I’m not.

6. What’s stressing you right now?

The fact that my rehabilitation is going to end one day.

7. Do you collect anything? What? .

Pens, pencils, botebooks, basically everything stationery. And postcards.

8. If you had to dye your hair right now, what color would you choose?

Red. I still have that hair dye prepared, just too lazy to do it now.

9. How old were you the first time you had alcohol? .

Like, 13 or something? We don’t have the legal drinking age in Belgium.

10. Do you remember what you were doing on New Years Eve 2006?

Man, I was 16. Probably being drunk and depressed.

11. What are you listening to?

Nothing at the moment.

12. Was the last movie you watched good?

Movies in general are a waste of time to me.

13. Are you tired?

Is there a time when I’m not tired?

14. What are you doing tomorrow?

Again, magnetic field therapy and ergotherapy. And picking up my package from the post point.

15. What was the last compliment someone gave you?

That I’m smart, nice and handsome. It was a woman, though :P

16. Does anyone like you right now?

My husband loves me for sure, so does my ex.

17. Do your best friends all like each other?

We’re in the came circle of friends, so.

18. What are your pets’ names?

Victoria and Suzanne.

19. What did your first best friend look like?

Quite tall, redhead, lots of freckles.

20. Did you have a role model growing up?

Not really.

21. Do you remember who you liked in grade seven?

I’m pretty sure we have a different education system than in United States, but I didn’t like anyone. I fell for someone in my 20s.

22. Have you ever read someone’s journal?

No. I don’t cross the lines.

23. If you could learn how to play one instrument, what would it be?

Violin.

24. Do you like your job?

I love my job.

25. Who’s the first person in your phone contacts?

My husband.

26. Is your best friend dating anyone? Do you like them?

Most of my friends are married.

27. How do you feel right now?

Alright, just waiting for food.

28. When were you last in the hospital?

Today.

29. Do you want to move?

No, I like where I live.

30. Do you think you would survive in a zombie apocalypse?

I’m not bothered.

31. Who is the most trustworthy of your friends?

My husband.

32. Are you hungry?

Slightly, just waiting for my food.

33. Do you have a big family?

I don’t even know 3/4 of them.

34. Do you want more or less siblings?

I’ve always wanted an older brother.

35. What size shoes do you wear?

42 in European or so.

#survey #random survey #q&a survey

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legosloth16 · 2 years

Text

In a alternate universe created by me there is another Big Hero 6 team, inspired by the Big Hero 6 movie and series is a alternate universe with a mix of oc and canon characters where great scientists join together as a team after a tragic accident.

Alternate universe movie summary: Robotics nerd Courage discovers an inflatable health care robot created in the past by her brother Leo. After a terrible life changing accident, Courage and Guidex team up with four other nerds to save their hometown San Fransokyo from an evil super villain trying to take over with Courage invention. Alternate universe tv series summary: After their first time saving the city teen genius Courage, Guidex the robot, and their friends defend the city of San Fransokyo as superheroes.

Alternate universe Characters include:

Courage Clark, the younger sister of the great scientist Leo Clark is a recently disabled deaf fourteen year old high school graduate and robotics genius living in San Fransokyo, one day Leo takes her to his research lab at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology to keep her out of underground robot fighting, after her brothers tragic death caused from him trying to save people from an exaplosion that happened at the lab, she decides to follow her brother’s legacy alongside Guidex built by her brother to help and protect the city, she has built nano tec that has given her increased super hearing. Leo Clark, the older brother of courage who is a great robotics engineer built, Guidex to help assist and comfort his younger sister with her disability and finally convinces his sister to join him in college until tragedy strikes. Guidex, an inflatable health care robot shaped cat who is built mainly for kids but also people as well with disabilities, a few of his abilities include being able to translate and do sign language, guide and also read, he also give therapy to comfort people, other abilities include fighting crime in his armoured suit that allows him to fly at great speed. Swift, a athlete and mechanical engineering genius who lives for speed and is openly willing to take on any challenges that may come his way, unlike his friends he prefers to be left alone while inventing and is very introverted, making up for his lack of conversation with irony and sarcasm, while also fighting crime with hir super quick magnetic wheels. Rose, coming from a rich family she doesn’t attend the college but can be seen around campus as a mascot encouraging other students, she is shown to be a huge crime novel and comic book fan, who always overly excited for anything. She indulges in reading a variety murder mystery books and superhero comics while also having a massive interest in monsters, she fights crime along side the team in a suit that gives her fiery abilities. Pepper, she may seem to be the toughest of the group but she is actually the most gentle member of the team, with her knowledge as physics student and interest in dangerously sharp objects she creates plasma based weapons that can cut through nearly anything. Candy apple, always upbeat and positive about everything is also a great chemistry expert creating all sorts of weird and deadly chemicals for any situation. Hiro Hamada, now older Is the dean of San Fransokyo Institute of Technology who is strict and stern but cares about his students and hopes for the best in everyone. He gladly takes in Courage as a student despite her age because of her level of genius, he also symphysis with her after the tragic accident since he himself has gone through a similar experience. Aunt Alice, the legal guardian of Leo and Courage, she runs the four leaf clover cafe and can be overly protective and strict but cares a lot for her nephews.

#first post #first fanfic #Big Hero 6 (AU fanfiction)#Luke’s fanfiction #alternate universe #Luke’s aesthetics

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finnyboywolfhard · 3 years

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Kiss It, Make It Better

Steve Harrington x Henderson!Reader

summary: Y/N craves smoking with someone new, so who better than Steve Harrington.

A/N: this is based solely on the ‘it’s only marijuana’ line in season three bc i am in love with stoner!Steve

warnings: drugs <3, cursing, fluff

word count: 2.4k

Y/N and Dustin had the routine since Y/N got her license, that once a month they would have a sibling drive, in which they would drive around with the sole intent of getting caught up with one another. Given all the shit they had been through over the past few years, it naturally became their own special form of therapy. The Events of Starcourt on the Fourth of July and the days prior were once again weighing heavily on the two during their first drive since.

“What was it like being drugged?” Dustin asked, his curiosity weaving its way into his voice.

“Weird. It kinda felt like everything was the best thing ever, but it also came at the worst time. It was also weird that it was with Steve Harrington and Robin.”

“Is it like weed?”

“Is it like what?” Y/N knew the answer, it was no, but she had no idea why her little brother was deciding to ask her that in that exact moment.

“When you guys were drugged, I kept asking Steve if he did drugs, and he said that he only did marijuana. I wanted to know if they were comparable. So, is it like weed?”

“First off Dusty, you don’t ‘do’ marijuana, you smoke it. And secondly, I’m not answering that question, you can save that query for Steve.” Steve. Y/N had a lot of thoughts about him, it was interesting to hear about him from the rumors in high school in comparison to how she saw him act regularly. And ever since she started smoking to calm herself down, she has craved smoking with someone other than Robin, maybe Steve was worth a shot.

“Speaking of Steve, he said he might be over a lot over the next few nights while his parents are away, just so you know.”

“Oh? Is he coming tonight?”

“No, not tonight. He isn’t off work till 9 and mom doesn’t want him coming an hour before my dumbass bedtime— I still don’t get why she just NOW gave me a bedtime while you don’t even have a curfew.” Her brother started rambling, but all she could pay attention to was that he was going to be home alone tonight. Would it be that crazy of her to show up after all the trauma they had been through over the past 3 years?

“It’s because I’m legally an adult, so she’s treating me as such, and you’re just going into high school, she wants you to be safe. But okay, guess we’ll just have to see him soon.” The two drove around for a while longer before returning home. As the hours in between past, Y/N glanced towards her bookshelf, in which held a hidden stash of weed. She could always tell her mom she was just going to Robin’s, she would never try to prevent Y/N from seeing Robin.

She walked toward the bookshelf with soft footing, and with a gentle touch she plucked the hard covered book from the shelf. Inside lay two pre rolled joints she bought from her dealer and some bud Murray had snuck her after Hopper’s memorial. She snapped the book closed and tossed the book gently onto her bed. She put on a zip up hoodie and packed a fake sleepover bag. The books spine crackled gently as the cover was opened just enough for her to grab the pre-rolls out and into her pocket.

With backpack slung over her shoulders and her hands tucked securely in her pockets, Y/N strolled casually into the living room where her mother sat, as the minutes ticked quicker and quicker past 9:30–he was definitely home by now.

“Hey mom! Inhope you don’t mind but I’m gonna head over to Robin’s.”

“Oh! Did she call? I didn’t even hear the phone!”

“Oh no! She didn’t!” Y/N let in a gulp, she didn’t think this through. “She asked me a few days ago to come over tonight if I wanted to, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go until a little bit ago.”

“Ah, sounds like you, Do you wanna call her before you head over?” Claudia stood from her seat and began moving and motioning towards the phone.

“No!’ Y/N shrieked at her mother, who turned confusedly towards her. “Her mom goes to bed early and I told her that if I was gonna come it would be between 9 and 10, she assumes I’m coming, but I do really gotta get going.” Y/N glanced nervously at the clock, it was getting later and later and there comes a time where it’s a little uncomfortable to show up. Claudia glanced to the clock as well.

“Okay Y/N/N, you better get going.”

“Bye mom—“

“—Drive safe, be careful, I love you.”

“I love you too mom.” Y/N said as she practically ran to her car. She turned her car on and began the drive towards his house, not even thinking twice about where she was going until the car came to a park in his driveway.

“Shit!” Y/N yelled at herself. She yelled at herself for being weird and for showing up unannounced. She calmed herself down by saying, “who wouldn’t want someone showing up with free weed? Don’t overthink it.” She pulled in a complete, deep breath and walked hesitantly to the door. Three knocks sounded off the door, her breath fluttering ever so slightly as she let her hand fall to her side. Footsteps could be heard from the opposite side of the door, stepping closer and closer by the second. The doorknob turned and Y/N’s attention snapped up to meet the gaze of the boy at large.

“Hey Y/N, what’re you doing here?” Steve asked delightfully surprised. Her hand reached inside her pocket to pull one of the two joints. She lifted it from her pockets to where he could see it.

“Got a light?” She asked with a smirk.

After finding a lighter, the two made their way to his backyard. They sat parallel to one another in their chaise chairs. Y/N flicked the lighter a few times before sparking up the first joint of the night. She pulled a large huff in and held it as she passed the joint to Steve. He took in a long drag, holding the joint in front of him to inspect it after he hit it. A few seconds after Y/N had released her hit, Steve started coughing a bunch.

“Jesus Y/N, where the hell did you get this?” Steve said through the gasps for air.

“Good shit, huh?” Y/N joked as she inhaled another hit. The two fell into a rhythm of passing it back and forth as conversation allowed itself to flood the air.

“So what made you come here Y/N?” Steve pondered towards the girl.

“Dusty started asking me about when we were drugged, and apparently you told him you smoked weed. And, as much as I love Robin, I need someone new to smoke with, and you’re not AWFUL to hang out with.” Y/N explained, with sarcasm dripping from the last sentence.

“Wow, I feel so touched. Truly, I feel like the luckiest man alive. THE Y/N Henderson chose ME to smoke with. Best day of my life.” Steve rambled on, matching the sarcastic tone Y/N started with. The two laughed for a bit together, before Y/N spoke through the giggles.

“I am sorry for just showing up, I just didn’t know how to ask.”

“What? Am I that scary?”

“You’re THE King Steve, you’re the coolest, hottest guy at Hawkins. I was so intimidated by your male wiles. I am begging at your feet Steve Harrington.” Y/N mocked other girls she had witnessed in Hawkins. “No you’re not scary, I just couldn’t bring myself to say ‘Hey Steve, want to do some drugs with me?’ on our family phone, it didn’t feel right.” Steve let out a chuckle and a ‘fair enough’. It fell silent for a moment as the joint had its final hits taken from it.

“Why haven’t we hung out before? I mean away from all the traumatizing shit.” Steve asked slowly as he let himself sink down into the chair.

“Different friend groups before it all and then after and during it all, I didn’t and don’t want to impede on you and Dustin’s time. Plus neither of us have asked each other anyway.”

“That’s not true, I invited you to the movies that one day you stopped into scoops alone.”

“Yeah after I had already told you I was babysitting that night, you didn’t even ask to reschedule.”

“Yes I absolutely—didn’t. I didn’t.” Steve said, confidence dissipating. Y/N couldn’t help but focus to each small feature of his face one by one. Sure, she had looked at him but she never looked at him. He really was beautiful.

Jokes and stories were told between the two, laughter and exaggerated stories filled the bubble they put themselves in. In those moments, there was no one else in the world but Steve and Y/N.

“And that’s how Mike Wheeler broke his finger in our backyard.” Y/N let out through a fit of giggles. Steve clutched his stomach as he let himself fall back into the chair from the gut busting laughter Y/N had sent him into. As he got more comfortable, he glanced down at his watch. His eyes bulged at the time.

“Holy shit.” He said flustered, eyes never leaving the watch face.

“What? What time is it?”

“It’s almost 2 A.M.”

“Oh damn…” Y/N said, a dangerously fun smile finding its way to her face. Her hand reached towards the second joint in her pocket. “So this would be of no interest to you?” Steve’s squinted eyes opened just a peep. He let out a long whine.

“I think I’m too high to even move…but that looks so good.” Y/N looked between him and the joint. She noticed space for her to sit on the edge of his chair, and placed herself there. She placed the joint between her lips and gave it a light, waiting for the rolling paper burn down to the weed. From between her lips, she pulled the joint between her fingers and held it gently up to his. He took in a pull, never once releasing eye contact. With each consecutive hit, the distance between them drew closer and closer, eventually leaving their faces merely inches apart. Her fingers were so far back on the joint, they grazed his lips as he took in one of the final hits. Her fingers tingled from his touch. She glanced towards his eyes, his meeting hers already. The air around them went still and quiet. Their eyes were locked on each other, contact never wavering as their bodies moved towards one another like a magnet. His eyes stayed put on hers as his voice fell in the air.

“Give me one more.” Her hand lifted lightly and placed itself at his lips once more. The joint glowed a bright red as he inhaled the smoke. Y/N was so enraptured by his beauty, she didn’t notice the joint burning down to a nub. She watched as a cloud of smoke was blown from his lips and into the sky, before the heat had finally reached her touch.

“Son of a bitch!” She exclaimed as she dropped the roach to the ground. She lifted her fingers to her mouth, attempting to ease the burning feeling. The burn wasn’t bad, just a little redness but it didn’t hurt any less.

“Hey, let me see it.” Steve’s tone was much gentler now as he lifted her hand into his own. He raised her gently by her wrist to examine the burnt fingers. He delicately placed the burnt fingers to his lips and gave them a tiny little kiss.

“Kiss it, make it better.” He whispered, just barely audible to her ears. That’s what was so shocking about Steve, his heart was so filled with love and care. He did his best to make everyone feel protected, even if his popular guy persona overshadowed it at times.

“How are you so perfect?” Her voice came out quietly. Slowly, he lifted his head to look at her once more and without much thought, he closed the distance. The kiss was gentle and loving, but clearly stoked by passion. His lips upturned into a smile. She leaned back and traced her fingers across her lips. Just to make sure she didn’t imagine it, she pulled the boy towards her by the collar and planted one more kiss on him—and she noted that he kissed back with the same fervor.

“I have a crush on you Steve Harrington.” She said, hiding her blushing face from the boy. He turned her face towards him as he confessed,

“I’ve had a crush on you for like 3 months.”

“You have?”

“Yeah.” He said, his thumb gently grazing her cheek.

“Why?”

“Dustin talks about you enough, and I—uh I remembered all the times you’ve kicked ass over the past few years and it just kinda…happened. Who wouldn’t want someone as smart, badass, and beautiful as you?” He rambled our haphazardly, a blush forming across his cheeks as well.

“Steve…”

“Oh god, that was embarrassing, am I blushing? I feel like I’m blushing. fuck me.” Steve started rambling.

“Hey! It’s not embarrassing, it’s cute.” Y/N explained, but it didn’t seem to help. An idea flashed in her mind. “Oh no! You are so embarrassing, I am embarrassed. Ew, guess I

I’ll just have to close my eyes! I hope that embarrassing Steve Harrington doesn’t kiss me!” The sarcastic tone from earlier returning once more. A chuckle bubbled past Steve’s lips. He once more laid one on her, this time—a little bit more passionate than the past.

Y/N nuzzled herself into Steve’s side on the small beach chair they were on. The air sat comfortably still in that moment, the two reeling from the overwhelming emotions they had just felt. Quiet giggles pierce the air as Y/N studies her fingers.

“It worked.” She said matter of factly.

“What worked?”

“After you kissed it, I haven’t thought about it since. You made it better.” Y/N spoke melodically. Steve planted a kiss to the top of her head and pulled her closer in to him.

“Kiss it, make it better.” He repeated once more.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x you #stranger things x reader #stranger things x y/n

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qiankunfics · 3 years

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Qian Kun Fics Alert / Updates

AO3

KunTen

1. Recalibration by NeoButterfly

Summary: Among all the stress, Kun and Ten are trying to piece together the family they've seemed to accidentally form with the help of their friends. Rating: General Status: On-Going

2. Me After You by senja

Summary: The life that Kun had experienced after meeting Ten Rating: General Status: One Shot

3. I'm not Jealous by jiseongieee (vroomsupercar)

Summary: Instances in which Ten gets jealous ;) Rating: General Status: One Shot

4. see me as a possibility

Summary: Ten has the brilliant idea to start a friends with benefits relationship with Kun. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

5. Fiendish Kisses (and a couple cuddles too) by StardustDreamMate

Summary: Vampire-Kun and dangerously-flirty Ten both come back from working the night away to kiss, banter, bicker, and cuddle. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

6. Chocolate and Therapy by Cydersyrup

Summary: Ten stares at the pan of brownies. They’re overbaked. Dry. Crumbly. Chock-full of walnuts and dried cherries. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

7. A Damn Good Feelin', Baby, I Can't Breathe In by ugly_little_sandcastles

Summary: "Fuck me hard, ge. Fuck me like you mean it, ge." Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

8. Healing (Will You Be Mine In The Meantime?) by Meow12251

Summary: It takes Ten breaking his wrist for him and Kun to finally get together. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot Trigger: Mention of Injury

9. My Cat Ate My Router [Not A Clickbait]! by doiemination (sweetmedusaaa)

Summary: A cat. A router. A vlogger. And a researcher casually enjoying his weekend. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

10. wrongs and right by evijuls

Summary: Ten wakes up with a feeling of familiar warm arms hugging him, and stays still for a couple more minutes, listening to Kun’s soft sleeping breaths. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot *A sequel to Unnatural (not by the same author)

11. Missing Spark by taetens

Summary: Sometimes even the tiniest things can bring people closer together after drifting miles apart. Rating: Teen Status: On-Going *There is JohnTen but end-game is KunTen

12. You Are a Keeper by jiaqins

Summary: The only thing on Kun's mind all the time is football. Until the star player of the rival team, Ten, makes a comeback after three years. Rating: Teen Status: On-Going

13. Spring rain and coffee by Clara_Jimmy

Summary: It´s raining and Ten rushes to offer sharing his umbrella with Kun. Rating: General Status: One-shot

14. Drop by drop by Do_you_wanna_know

Summary: And it's just fucking sick, and Ten isn't sure he knows why the excitement is rolling in so quickly and inevitably. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot Trigger: Blood Kink

15. 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐀𝐢𝐫 by TaroLuu

Summary: Ten stayed up all night sketching on his sketchbook as he waits for his boyfriend to come home from work Rating: General Status: One-Shot

16. Letting Go by weishen_gyul

Summary: But if there's something right about the movies, it's that letting go is something they both need. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

17. delusion, hallucination

Summary: At the tender age of twenty-five, Qian Kun was apparently married and co-parenting five kids and two cats with Ten. This was news to him. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

18. ouch! you pierced my heart by zhosungs

Summary: "hey, kun," ten says, "what do you think about getting your dick pierced?" Rating: Mature/Explicit Status: One-Shot

19. Even If Everyone Forgets by senja

Summary: Everyone forgets Ten, except Kun. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

20. slip into something invincible by lowkeyamen

Summary: Ten doesn't even bother knocking on Kun's bedroom door before entering because he's spent every night since they moved in his bed. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

21. Third time´s the charm by Clara_Jimmy

Summary: Two agents tasked with a very similar operation. What could possibly happen? Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

22. As You Howl In The dark Arched Marrow Of Me

Summary: He will have to die, he decides, after having given everything to stay alive. Rating: Mature Status: On-Going

23. L word by thequeenhimself

Summary: Where Ten skips a Friday night party because he's sick and Kun comes and helps him feel better. Mmmhmm. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

24. Come and Play by pinkfire

Summary: “This it?” Kun tests, pressing at the flat base of the buttplug with his index finger. “Just a toy in your tight little ass?” Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

25. Deluge by Dawnwritesit

Summary: Save water, shower together Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot *Part of Bond and Free collection (which seems to be KunTen/KunWoo/JaeWoo)

26. Library by thequeenhimself

Summary: Where Kun falls asleep in the Library and Ten sees him sleeping so beautifully he didn't bother to wake him up. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

27. you & me, what are we? by wayvee

Summary: Kun is hopelessly in love with Ten, and they have a lot of sex. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

28. Ramen Run by thequeenhimself

Summary: Where Kun and Ten go out to eat ramen at 11:30 at night and exchange Instagram accounts. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

29. Just a Little While Longer by nekowafers

Summary: Ten licked his lips and got onto his knees. Kun’s eyes darted around the alley. Still as dark and empty as before. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot *Part of fangs & flowers universe

30. BREAKING: Qian Kun bites cats! by bluemoon (putigirliane)

Summary: Qian Kun, WayV’s reliable leader and main vocalist, admired by many for being a model of the perfect man, can barely keep himself from biting Ten Lee at the most inconvenient times. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

JohnKun

31. Growing Together by imiss1Dbb

Summary: The story of Johnny and Kun and how their relationship came to be, mixed in with the arrival and discovery of their third love. Rating: Mature Status: On-Going

DoKun

32. to be with you by laehys

Summary: doyoung thinks that kinky sex might be the answer for his crisis but he really likes some vanilla lovemaking Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

KunCas / CasKun

33. fangbanger (affectionate & derogatory) by venvephe

Summary: Lucas's heart - and Lucas's dick - is immediately set on him. Tonight, he's gonna live up to his well-earned title of fangbanger. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

34. heartstrings by newlovecassette

Summary: Fingers wrapping around Yukhei’s wrist, Kun had pressed his thumb into Yukhei’s pulse. “You’d look so pretty tied up for me, Hei.” Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

Kunil / TaeKun

35. Never too Close by teirru

Summary: Kun finds himself in the hardest and dumbest position; keeping everything professional or pursuing his fellow band-mate, Taeil. Rating: General Status: On-Going

36. over the moon by sitrusberries

Summary: Kun falls in love with the moon, if the moon was a Coordinator with cute Pokémon and a golden voice. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

37. love notes by adiosnoninos

Summary: kun and taeil, through the eyes of others or themselves Rating: General Status: On-Going

Updates

KunTen

electric magnetic by miramiro

catch him if you can by blazingsirius

Welcome Home by DestinyHope

On Thin Ice by taetens

Countdown from Nine by MailOrderBride

The Home My Forefathers Built by jiaqins

Pierced! by HaloHalo

When the time is right by drawing_board

Wrong (Right) Ad by Alette

Baby. You worth millions hugs by Mywoojinie

Dreamscape by YHXLWTK

Has To Be Mine by rowx3yourships

*Not KunTen per se (its more threesome TenKunCas)(I promise I’ll get to multi-Kun soon) Salt and Sun by HaloHalo

#kunten #johnkun #kuncas #lukun #fics #new fics #updates #fics updates #kun #qian kun #Kunil #dokun #tenkun

25 notes · View notes

seancekitsch · 4 years

Text

Drew: Klaus Hargreeves x Reader Smut

Warning: canon talks of drugs/addiction, alcohol consumption, 80s movies, unprotected sex, two flawed people smangin

Little continuation of Prize Buck

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“But no— no! You never told me what you were like.” He almost laughs, or maybe he does. But it sounds more like a cough or a sob. That’s what drinking everclear will do to you. The liquor so strong it could tear the nail polish off both of your nails right now if you spilled it; the very bottle you were passing back and forth tonight. It was high time you bought one of these bottles of the strong shit. Klaus had been screaming in his sleep lately. You knew he had a good grasp on his abilities, even enough to conjure Ben long enough for you to see him half a minute. But sometimes in his sleep is when they got to him. Both of you had come to the conclusion if he got good and plastered he could probably sleep through the night without you waking up or having to soothe him and remind him to ground himself. Wine made him too handsy and he never actually got to sleep when he got his hands on you, beer made him feel full and sleepy before he was drunk enough to block them out. Liquor depended on the night, and if one of his siblings tried to stop by. Sometimes when they came by he could be tipsy and sleep without screaming; other times they seemed to exacerbate it without meaning to. So everclear was tonight’s test. It was like taking a razor to your esophagus, but he needed to find some way to control his abilities while he slept in his own way, in his own time.

You hadn’t really spoken about what life was like for you before meeting Klaus in the clinic. Sure, he knew the gist— disgraced anthropologist has a mental breakdown on amphetamines and ruins literal years of research for herself and six of her colleagues— but he didn’t know what your life was like. What you were like. For the past hour, you’ve been reminiscing on the circumstances in which your friendship formed. All the group therapy sessions you hadn’t taken seriously. The week where you were too sick and lethargic he spoon fed you soup and spilled most of it down your shirt. The good times.

“I guess I was cool. I- I don’t know. I really liked. Still like music. Got to touch a lot of old things. I only ended up in one magazine cover story.” Your fingers wrap around the bottle, grimacing at the smell before finishing, “Unlike you, Mr. Celebrity.”

You can hear the scoff come from beside you as glass comes to lips, warm liquor to tongue.

“Hey! Unfair. I was no Drew Barrymore. Plus, she never had to wear that mask in public.” He waits to continue until after you’ve swallowed and put it back down to continue talking, and runs his hand up your calf. You still had yet to buy any kitchen furniture, and Klaus kept swearing he would take some from the academy, so instead of the couch or mattress you sat on the counter, bare legs dangling against the lower cabinets while he leaned up next to you. The building had no air conditioning, and on a hot evening like this, the two of you had to clamber into the small kitchen to take in any of the breeze that the old and rusting window unit could provide. Hence, your bare legs. Shorts season struck early this year because even his family using time travel could not stop global warming.

“I bet you were one of the best. You’re smart, you’re always so modest” He says with an off handed flick of his wrist that ended with his fingertips catching on the neck of the bottle where yours also rested, “You know, you would have made a great Drew Barrymore.”

The shift in his tone tells you exactly what he’s thinking without even having to look in his eyes. Instead, your eyes had shifted to the neck of the bottle on the counter between you. It was amazing how even though you’d been carnal with your roommate, that he still sent shockwaves up your spine like you’d stuck a fork in a socket. It was hard not to focus and watch his hands as they traced patterns only he could see in the expanses of skin pulled taught around bone and muscle.

“You’re just saying that,” you chuckle.

“No, really,” his fingers travel up your own, reaching each knuckle and paying special attention to wiggle each ring on the way up, “ or at least we could have made a great Two Coreys. ‘Do all kinds of stuff, like fight vampire bikers to INXS, learn to drive a car, switch bodies with an elderly professor to impress the popular girl at school, go on a tropical vacation... doesn’t that all sound fun for us?”

“You forgot the one where they play brothers that swap partners at the organized crime ski lodge and there’s an alarming amount of horseback riding accidents,” you provide, challenging him and his pop culture knowledge. His eyes are sharp on you, gaze making you feel naked in his presence.

“Mmmmm, no. Just testing you,” Klaus hums, and the conversation dies in a way that’s comfortable. More the Notebook than Shakespeare, you note. But your roommate’s body doesn’t mimic the nonchalance of the words flowing away from you. He squeezes your knuckles before slipping the bottle from your loose grasp, taking it to the head as he shifts to turn himself more so that now his torso is pressed between your legs to face you. He is sweaty and shirtless, and you know your knees will peel off of him when you try to spread your legs further. Which, by the way he’s looking at you, they will be spreading further.

Everything about Klaus’ movements has this theatrical weight to it. Klaus is a big person, not in mass or size like his brother, but in the energy his movements cast. It’s like watching a production. His heart is no muscle, but the core of a planet drawing others into his orbit, compiling the cast of characters. His touch is magnetic and burning all at once, directing the action. As submissive as he can be, you’d be a marionette in his grasp if he asked of you. That being said, there’s beautiful choreography in the way he tilts the bottle back and gulps once, twice despite the burn. Commanding stage presence in the heavy fall of his arm followed by percussion when the glass bottle clangs on the counter just behind the curve of your ass. An unspoken monologue in his eyes as he leans down into you, snagging plump lips on your own.

He tastes fucking disgusting is your first thought, but that fades to more, more, more. You grab onto his shoulders, the sheen of sweat familiar and matching your own, and pull him in as close as you can. There’s a point when you get so close to a person you can pretend you’re one, but for now you’ll settle with scooting to the edge of the counter to press yourself up flush against him despite the heat. There’s a brief moment where he stops, but it’s only to help you out of your shirt. The damp thin material peels off of you and reveals your chest, then your skin reunites with his. His warm dog tags press into your chest, now their own form of a kiss, as your mouths meet again hungrier this time. His hands find purchase at your ass, glide all the way to the top of your denim shorts. It’s quick and easy the way his fingers slide to the front and up to cup your chest. The way he squeezes is rough, but not hard. He grasps at your skin like it was meant for him, and maybe it was. That wasn’t too far fetched to think with the way you responded to him. You moan in earnest into his mouth with each of his squeezes and the ministrations of his fingers.

Your hands travel from his biceps to his hair to his shoulder blades and repeat, tracing a route that makes his skin tingle despite the staleness of the room. He mumbles something against your teeth, something that sounds like ‘need you’ but you don’t need to understand what he said to know you and he both want your hands to travel south. Your fingertips kiss his chest, his nipples, his ribs, and then fall to the hem of his pants (your pants, some flimsy tie dyed things you bought at one of those woowoo stores that sold a lot of incense and wind chimes) before you pull your hands from him all together. His strangled whine all but dies in response when your hands fumble with his and move them down to the button on your shorts, effectively telling him to do away with them. You break the kiss again to lean your head back on the cupboard behind you, and lift your hips as best you can without sliding off the counter. He’s slow to remove them, both because of how they stick to you and because he’s vexing. Once they hit your calfs, you wiggle them off yourself before settling your bare ass back on the edge of the counter and sitting up straight again.

“Commando? You slut!” He exclaims with a devilish smile, and you have half a mind to hit him. But instead, you settle for returning the favor, much easier for you to give a strong yank and his (your) pants are also around his ankles.

“Commando? You slut too!” You echo, and you both laugh and you crane your neck smash your lips back onto his.

You’re both dizzy and laughing, and it makes it all that much easier for him to ease into you. Sliding slowly, Klaus is met with little resistance. You yourself are aroused and soaking, the norm for your body when Klaus is close to you like this. Your body easily reacts to him, and you like to think his body is equally as receptive to you. He stays like that for a beat, making sure you’re comfortable with the angle and everything, before ramming back into you as one of his hands hits the cupboard behind your head to stabilize himself. Your legs wrap around his waist and meet cross ankled at the small of his back, angling to help push him all that much deeper into you.

This is different, you think, than all the other times. Sure, Klaus is setting the pace for once instead of you, but that’s not it. Maybe it’s because of your talking even minimally about your past. Letting him peek over the wall you held near and dear. You viewed yourself before the clinic as someone who no longer exists. A dead relative that sits on your shoulders. Or maybe it just was the rocking motion and your ass catching the corner over and over sure to welt and melting pain into the pleasure. It’s like you’re lost at sea, and Klaus is both the life raft and the storm. He’s all hands and hips and whimpers against your neck.

He fucks the thoughts out of your head, and thus the words out of your mouth. You’re not used to him being in charge like this. This is easily the quietest you’ve ever been with him, but it’s not for lack of enjoyment. No, this is heavenly. Every whimper, every moan... because of what you— what your body does to him. Absolutely musical. A cacaphony only heightened by the tempo of your heaving chest, the tightness of your core already threatening to burst.

Your legs tighten around his back, pulling him so close that his thrusts hit deep, deep as they can go and he never fully pulls out of you. It’s more of a deep grind into your cunt, and each roll of his hips earns a high pitched whine from you and a low grunt from him. This feels good.

He slows down considerably, taking the time to savor feeling you squeeze him as he slowly works you both to and over the edge. He’s in no rush when it feels like this.

You, though, you’re teetering. On both the physical counter and the precipice of ecstasy. Any thrust now and you’ll be shaking and sobbing and drenching him, but you foolishly try to hang on because it’s unclear if Klaus is as close as you are or if he has any tricks up his sleeve.

A shuddering breathy moan against your jawline alerts you; no, he is as close as you are. You bear down, changing the angle just so, but in a way that hits the perfect spot, and you scream. You scream so unexpectedly you surprise yourself as you feel your body overcome and surrender to a shaking, intense orgasm.

The way you tighten and shiver against him triggers his own, and he stills inside you as deep as he can go, and shakes as well. A moan escapes past his lips in a strangled cry, and then he goes quiet. savoring this feeling.

Instead of pulling out, he stands there holding you. He reaches one of his hands down though, the same one that was against the cupboard near your head, to grasp your calf. He half assedly begins to knead his thumb and middle finger on each side of the muscle, easing any tension or stiffness that might have occurred while you were holding him so tightly against you. This is so tender. This is closeness. You lean forward towards him with your hands draped onto his shoulders, letting him catch you as post sex exhaustion begins to creep it’s way behind your eyes. But for Klaus it seems to come so naturally. It’s almost an absent afterthought of an action while he kisses your cheek, your jawline, your earlobe.

“You, dear Fraulien, have earned yourself a bed frame,” Klaus announces in a whisper against the shell of your ear. If you weren’t on the brink of slumber, you could have sworn he had a twinge of a German accent.

“What?”

“I’m going to buy you a bed frame,” he punctuates it with a kiss this time. You have to laugh. Shutting your eyes feels so good while laying in his arms.

“You’re going to buy it?”

“Well, there’s probably a good one somewhere at the Academy. One with a nice headboard. Only the best for my partner to handcuff me to.”

Partner.

You’re wide awake again.

Klaus sleeps peacefully tonight.

#my work #klaus hargreeves smut #klaus hargreeves imagine #klaus hargreeves x reader #klaus x reader #prize buck series

318 notes · View notes

weeklyfangirl · 4 years

Text

Frat Boy Pt. 21

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 (1), part 7 (2), part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13 , part 14, part 15, part 16, part 17, part 18, part 19 , part 20

HI LOVIES. Please enjoy a Friday update on the Frat Boy universe. This one is a bit of a breather after the TUMULTUOUS ANGST of the last chappie. Shorter than my usual, but it’s all the chapter needed. Tons more y/n and Harry interaction on the way in the next! Have a safe and happy day loves xx

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Things I want:

Live a life that helps others

Financial freedom

Experience a great love

Visit the the Pincio Gardens in Italy

To have more dreams and fewer nightmares

Doodle more

Acquire a first edition book, either because an old friendly man who owns an antique bookshop decides to give it to me in a bonding moment, or because I have accomplished #2 and I am celebrating being a Boss Bitch

To be happy

Please note: not necessarily in that order

It was taped above my desk, waiting for me to bring it in to the next session. I hesitated to write number 6. It was a dream I hardly entertained after committing my scholarly life to pursue medicine. I used to love to doodle. All the time. Since elementary school. I doodled so much my mom dedicated a wall in the house to my illustrations. She hung a sign above it that affectionately said “Y/N’s Doodles.” Seriously, you couldn’t get me to stop. Even if it was gross sappy sketches of my crush Billy who I would NEVER show on the playground at recess.

My doodling stopped how these things normally do. Because life grew busier than anything else, and the sketchpad and easel my dad had bought for me at a garage sale became ignored, collecting dust in the corner of my room. At some point, it’d become a year since I’d drawn anything, and then it was two, and three, and by this point I’d realized I was the one who’d need to create her own stability in life and medicine was the more logical fit. It wasn’t that I didn’t see the value in drawing anymore, I just had other things take up my time. It became a comfort just knowing I used to draw. Paul had paved his way, and now I was on my way to do the same. At least with medicine, my soul felt fed. It was almost comfort enough.

“oH WE GOT A ROGUE ONE.”

A flying toenail hit my eye.

“WHAT THE-” I flailed my arms, as though there were a thousand more coming. Renny’s mouth opened in shock, her guilty body hunched over her bent leg. Clippers in hand.

“Sorry!!” Renny burst up laughing.

“oH MY GOSH CAN YOU DO THAT OVER A TRASH CAN OR SOMETHING?!”

“IT HAD A MIND OF ITS OWN!!” she screamed back.

I blinked rapidly, my left eye watering up and spilling painless tears. “Well I’m going to have conjunctivitis at the studio later. Or I’ll be stumbling in blind.” I wiped it away.

I heard another clip and she put up her hands with another giggle.

“All done. And you won’t stumble, I’m going to be there.” Renny extended her leg, her perfectly trimmed foot nearly touching the ceiling.

“You’re just going to solicit Zayn to be his next subject.”

“Maybe,” her grin grew devious. “But also because I want to see if he captured the angelic beauty and complex nymph nuances of my best friend.”

I put a hand to my chest, still aching from uncertainty. “Honored.”

“Want to watch another episode until it’s time to go?”

This whole lazy morning had been an OC Housewives bingefest. She’d seen it on my homepage and had a complete spazz, twitching whilst proclaiming but i’ve been trying to get you to watch this show for YEARS!! When she saw the old season I was on, though, she didn’t have to question why her pestering had miraculously worked. She didn’t mention him aloud besides giving me a pointed look. And so, we watched it, even though I wasn’t really in the mood to see anything about Harry right now. It’d hurt more than I thought to walk away from him last night, and to see how sad he looked when I did.

After last night, he hadn’t posted anything to social media. He’d called, twice, but I knew he was drunk, or worse, and I was tired, and whatever he would say he could tell me in the morning. Even though I knew he wouldn’t.

And he didn’t.

And therein lay the problem.

It hurt to see his family on my little box of a computer screen, weird to see his life and get glimpses of his childhood. I felt like a hacker spying on home videos. But then I reminded myself that thousands of people had already done the same. At this point, it was just… morbid curiosity.

“Nah, I don’t know if I can handle any more of that right now. Dr. Rhinecuff is going to yell at me if I don’t return these scanned copies to him by Monday.”

“Ew, he smells like meat.”

“RENNY!!”

“I’m just saying. That one time I went with you it smelled like pastrami in his office. He has a PhD, but isn’t with-it enough to buy air freshener.”

“He likes pastrami sandwiches, let him live.”

She scrolled on her phone, not bothering to respond, and my gaze turned to the window.

“Hey Renny?”

“Hm.”

A bird flew close to the glass, halting just before it hit it, then zooming off in the opposite direction. “What’d you do when your parents were fighting?”

“Ummm…” I knew the question registered in her mind when she stopped scrolling, suddenly concerned. “Are your parents okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, kind of.” I glossed over it, not caring to get into the bitter details. “I was just curious.”

“Uhh..” She plucked at the soft cotton of her cotton candy pajamas that were fraying at the knees. “I lost my virginity to Zach,” she half-laughed.

“Zach? Neighbor boy Zach?”

Renny nodded. She always sounded a little sad when she talked about him. Zach was the hot college boy who shared a backyard fence with Renny, the girl who may or may not have used her kitchen stool to peak over and see him workout on the grass every summer he came home. I’d known they’d slept together. I just didn’t think he was her first.

“I just tried to be out of the house as much as I could,” she said. “Found my true love Mary J.”

“Oh.”

“It was shitty, but I’m glad I got it over with.”

“The divorce or your virginity.”

“Both,” she chortled. “Why what’s up? Are you sad or something? I have a j in my drawer.”

“No, no, I’m fine.” Mostly I was just wondering what it must be like to feel so sexually liberated. In my house sex wasn’t talked about. At all. The inevitable sex scene in every other movie would result in my dad blaring out “WHAT KIND OF MOVIE IS THIS!” in an attempt to make it less awwkard, but having it backfire and only make it horrendously more awkward. I wasn’t saving my virginity for anyone in particular, but after all those romance novels, I wanted it to be… something. I wanted to feel something towards the person where it would justify something I’ve kept to myself for so long. I wanted it to be intense. I wanted it to be like the books. Like a Frank Sinatra song that swept up your heart and transported you back to a time of gentlemen and cigars and women in long evening gowns with fur coats and martinis.

“I wish I could just get it over with,” I confessed. One half of me screamed YOU’RE IN YOUR TWENTIES HAVE ALL THE SEX while the other half said YOU’VE WAITED THIS LONG DAMN IT HOLD OUT A LITTLE LONGER. I didn’t know which part of me was compromising more.

Renny leaned in, quick. “Would you do it with Harry?”

Like the flip of a switch, I remembered the sensuous heat of his body against mine, wrapping me up and pressing me against him where we just fit. And I couldn’t imagine how much better it’d feel to be even more connected to him.

“Maybeeee…?”

But then there was last night.

I cringed. No matter how with me he’d seemed… he couldn’t have been present after mixing whatever the hell he took and a handle of alcohol. Did I really want someone like that? Someone who could only give a shell of themselves?

“No, I wouldn’t. Or- ugh, I don’t know. I don’t know if it could ever mean as much to him.”

Renny nodded. “I mean, don’t let him pressure you, obviously. If he does, I’ll kick his baby maker smack into his prostate. Prostate. See, anatomy. You taught me that.”

“Haha, no, he’s not like that.” My brows stitched. I was confused why he wasn’t more like that, actually. We’d known each other for several months now and he hadn’t even put a finger in me. When I thought about it, it actually frustrated me. Don’t pressure me to do anything, but I wanted to be pushed to do something. I was never the bold one in areas like this.

Not that I should be so willing to do anything with him anymore anyways. Something shifted in me when I’d seen him last night. It wasn’t a shift I could easily describe, but it’d set me a foot apart from my heart. A bit of me was shocked that it had happened so suddenly.

But this shift was new, and my heart still wanted what it wanted. I knew that if I watched any more OC Housewives with Harry’s toddler curls and surfer tan, I’d be sucked right back into speculating about what our future kids could look like. And if I saw him?

You were right, Harry. You are fucked.

I cringed again. That was harsh. That was very very harsh.

I didn’t know if I’d have the courage to apologize. What if my pheromones went berserk and magnetized me to his side??

Renny was right.

I needed therapy.

The clippers were tossed back on my desk.

“Thanks,” she said. “Have you started on your DG Double P yet?”

DG Double P = Renny Speak for DG Pretty Please.

I groaned. “No. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, honestly. I have to-”

“NO!!! Don’t tell me. We’re not supposed to tell each other.” Her hand extended in panic.

“Fine. I can keep a secret.”

I was getting a little too good at that lately.

She moved onto her belly, splaying her arms out in a dramatic fashion, face squished against the comforter. “Isn’t it just killing you inside.” She was dead serious.

“Yeah, more than you know.”

And I was serious, too.

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I wasn’t expecting people to dress up as much as they did. Donned in my only pair of yoga pants and a chunky white sweater, I walked arm-in-arm with Renny past girls in cocktail dresses and guys in button-downs.

Something that sounded like a baby’s cry filled my ears, but it was gone as soon as we walked through the doors to the on-campus gallery. .

“Woah did you hear that?”

Renny nodded, tossing her head back. “There’s a baby somewhere.”

It reminded me of the bodiless screams in my nightmare. In my chunky sweater, I shivered undetectably.

The on-campus gallery rotated exhibits throughout the year, but this time, student sculptures were on pedestals, nightmarish portraits hung on the walls, and red and orange tapestries swooped down and across the ceiling in a cirque-du-soleil moment as if to secure us beneath fire. Some students had separate booths, but other pieces of work trailed seamlessly into the next.

A tree made from photographs and newspaper took up the center of the space. Zayn had been so adamant about his muse having life, I wondered if that was the focus of this exhibit - to capture natural life. But I suppose all art did.

“It’s the circle of life exhibit,” Renny stated, as if reading my thoughts.

“How’d you know that?”

She held up a pamphlet she must’ve grabbed from the entrance.

I quickly scanned the room, hoping to find Zayn quickly so I could skip out just as quick.

Several of my professors were here, including Dr. Rhinecuff. When he saw me, I raised my hand, but he raised his cup of red wine awkwardly and looked away.

My hand wavered.

Odd.

Zayn was standing by the tree, speaking with an older woman. Her skin was a rich brown, short hair hidden beneath a chic scarf. The man beside her looked around the same age with graying facial hair, a pocket hanky, and beaded bracelets. Art professors.

I caught his gaze, and he gestured me over.

“Y/N, these are my instructors. David and Ebony.”

Their eyes lit up in recognition. “He did you a great justice,” David said, gray moustache twitching with the words.

Ebony beamed. “Oh yes, a piece was already sold. He’s going to be the next big wig before he graduates,” she gushed. “Zayn, I’m sure you’ll be splitting the profits with the heart of the piece.”

She gestured to me and his smile widened, but my stomach sank faster.

“I didn’t know these pieces were going to be sold.”

Ebony sensed my concern. The wine in her glass swirled. “We thought allowing the pieces to be shown and auctioned was a good way to replicate what many of them should be doing once they graduate. The whole department gets involved, and these kids put in a lot of work, and the reputation of starving artists isn’t something we want to buy into here.”

I nodded. “I mean, that’s great. That’s… really amazing.”

Zayn couldn’t meet my eyes. He knew. He could sense my hesitance, too.

“Now he can finally afford a nice dinner to take you out!” David proclaimed.

We were all quiet for a minute. “You know, for a thank you dinner,” David covered up. Zayn’s brows scrunched and he shook his head a bit, not knowing where David’s comment came from.

“Do you do this regularly?” Ebony asked, steering the conversation away from an awkward moment.

My ears pricked up when I realized she was looking at me. “Excuse me?”

“Well I was just thinking…” a light laugh lifted as if her idea would be outrageous. “Would you mind sitting in for one of my classes on Monday? Our model had a sudden death-”

“My God,” David proclaimed.

Ebony waved her hand. “-in his family. I haven’t called to replace him yet.”

It quieted as they looked at me, waiting for a response. “Oh, I don’t… I don’t usually do this. At all. It was a chance thing.”

“Luck be the artist.” David raised his glass.

Ebony followed suit, looking at my empty hand. “You just going to let her stand there without a drink?”

“Yeah, Zayn. What kind of treatment is this?” I teased.

He did a slight bow. “Apologies. We’ll walk to drinks, immediately.” He pulled us away, leading us further into the showroom as his head dipped low to my ear. “Renny just passed us to meet Felix and them. They’re through here.”

We stepped under an archway that led into a darker-lit room, but his hand stopped me beneath the nook. “Did yeh notice anything?”

Yeah. I was noticing how close we were in this archway. He saw my eyes start to squint in thought and he turned me around to face the room we’d just left.

“Look closer.”

My eyes roamed the crowd, trying to find some sort of person, or pattern he could be referring to. With a brief seize of my heart, I expected to see somebody from the gang.

“Look at the artwork, Y/N.” His breath warmed my skin.

The paintings all seemed to be bright, though sticking to red, orange, blacks, and grays. Wait, forget a pallette pattern. The next painting had blue and purple, too. One sculpture looked like a writhing ghost, twisting and reaching for something above. Or maybe it was an unearthed tree root. Despite all the bold colors, there was something off-putting about how bright they all were. It wasn’t a soothing brightness. It was almost violent. The orange and red writhing tapestries warped the ceiling into something hot.

“Is it hell?” I chortled, but quickly quieted. I expected him to take offense, but his hand went lightly around my waist with a small smile.

“Could be. See-” his arm extended out to scan the perimeter “-all this art is supposed to represent death, but challenge the notion of it through color.”

“How so?”

“Yeh know it’s usually your blacks, and your grays, s’depressing shit. But we’re born from death. Before life, there was nothing, but something. It’s bold and necessary and there, and no one really knows whatever comes before. Or after.” He looked at the room, taking a sip of wine. I watched as he swallowed, and I imagined the wine running down. “What is death but an uncertain existence.” He said the thought almost happily, looking at me with a slight smirk. “Could be anythin’.”

He took a deep breath, letting his hand touch the top of the archway. It was then that I noticed it wasn’t just plain drywall. A collage of photographs ran all along the inside.

He wasn’t as tall as Harry, but his hand still reached the top, scuffing across a picture of an African landscape taped over a toddler eating fruity pebbles.

“They’re pictures. Everyone donated one,” he said.

A strand of words were painted over the collage, running from one end of the archway to the other, and I tilted my head back to read it. “Things... that…. make... m..e …...feel alive.”

“Everyone was able to design their space in order to control, to some extent, how their art was perceived. Everyone was a part of the transition space.”

“Very nice,” I noted, slightly put-off. I hadn’t been expecting this art show to be so… professional. “Zayn, this is amazing. Like, really, truly, professional-grade stuff is happening. The presentation, the pieces, everything.”

His smile grew wider, putting cool hands over my eyes. I flinched, but let him.

I felt him come closer.

“Listen now,” he urged.

I listened, but I wasn’t sure for what. There was the familiar busy rumble of people mingling, parents visiting their kids, and professors droning on about the talent of their students. But it was chatter. I couldn’t make out one conversation over another. I shrugged up against his other hand that was atop my shoulder.

“Sometimes you need to change where you’re planted to understand.”

I hoped he could see my cross expression because I couldn’t tell if he was bullshitting me right now. It’d been a day. It’d been a night. And I wasn’t in the mood for more philosophical ramblings - especially about death. “I don’t know what you mean,” I sighed.

“Meaning I have to move you closer to the speakers.” He let out a breathy laugh. “Jus’ keep your eyes closed, okay?”

I nodded. His hand moved, tilting my head to its side. Eyes still closed, I became self-conscious imagining people trying to move past me, and here I was, planted, eyes closed in the middle of the archway. My cheeks heated. It was unnerving knowing people could see me when I couldn’t see them. And anyway, I must’ve looked ridiculous.

“What do you hear?” he urged.

“I hear a lot of people talking,” I griped.

But right when I was about to open my eyes-

I heard a familiar chirping through the chatter.

“Birds?” I opened my eyes.

“Observance can be taught, sometimes.” Zayn leant back, looking mighty proud of himself.

“Why are there birds?”

“We’re entering life,” he smiled, backing into the space. I tipped my wine back, several long gulps lightening my step as I followed him. Immediately, I noticed much more natural, earthier tones. For being a room of life, it was surprisingly darker than the prior room.

Renny, Felix, and Andre were huddled in the center where a makeshift wall-on-wheels covered in vines divided the room in half.

My eyes widened, trying to adjust to the dimness. “It’s a lot darker in here.”

“All intentional. They decided to play with light in here. People usually think of life being bright ‘n that, but it’s also when we experience varying degrees of darkness. There’s a balance to things and the trouble is finding it.” Understanding laced his voice as his dark eyes bore into mine, almost completely black. One look from Zayn and I was reminded of all the weight I’d been carrying. I fidgeted, uncomfortable seeing myself in his eyes.

“Y/N, get over here!” Renny called. My shoulders visibly relaxed. My saving grace. “You didn’t tell me you did this,” she said lowly as soon as I got close enough, shocked excitement barely contained. Her giddy smile gave it away though. “Miss sexy secret keeper over here.”

“What do you mean?”

She playfully poked my sides, but Andre and Felix avoided my gaze. Something wasn’t right. And it stirred my stomach, my body already knowing, somehow.

I turned in slow motion, the charcoal drawings in my peripherals stopping me in place. Framed amidst the vines, my face was etched onto paper, scrunching and twisting in various expressions. But my body was attached and twisting, too. And it was bare, bent over, spread out, laying down… My eyes scanned over them a dozen times in a second.

I was naked.

In all of them.

One was titled “21st Century Love.” In this one, I faced the viewer, but looked past them, sorrowful eyes, brows furrowed, breasts I’d never shown on full display. A hickey or two on my neck. A painful sting gripped my chest. I looked sad. I looked so sad.

Tunnel vision, a blurred Renny rushed down to the floor, and a distant part of me registered something wet splatter on my feet.

The wine had dropped.

I’d dropped it.

I was trapped in a shell. My body was numb.

“Babes, you okay?” Renny asked, her voice somewhere far away. Somewhere outside the shell, her voice drowned in the busy rumbling, with the birds, with the watchers. People were watching me now. I was being watched. “Felix, grab some towels!” she barked.

I looked horrified, towards Zayn, but changed my mind just as fast. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t even breathe.

He didn’t know me at all. He could stare at me for a thousand sessions and paint every crevice, sunspot, blemish, and mole and still not see me. How was an artist this blind? How could he not know that this was the last thing I could ever want? How could he picture me so… intimately?

The paintings seemed to swirl into one before bouncing back out into their separate exposees.

Because that’s what it was.

An exposure.

A stranger could pay to have me in their home.

The floor spun, vision spotting.

My lungs tightened, tearing me away from Renny, from Felix, from Andre. From Zayn, the artist who painted a confused girl so unashamed. So honestly. Savagely and Unabashedly.

“I didn’t want this.”

And it was when I was halfway out the door that I realized the voice had come from me, a mantra pushing my shell all the way home.

part 22

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colourful-void · 4 years

Text

SHSL Hope’s Peak AU Labs

I spent hours on this please look at it

Because this is my AU and I do what I want, Hope’s Peak Academy has labs! However, due to number of students at Hope’s Peak, they have to share. Each student is assigned to a lab once they’re enrolled, and they spend most of their time there. Some labs (SHSL Zoology Lab) are open for everyone to see, and others (SHSL Fighters Lab) are not.

Some students (Himiko, Ryota) spend more time in other people’s labs than their own, or choose other labs as ‘theirs’ even though they’re technically assigned to a certain lab. The staff doesn’t really care as long as they’re developing their talents and stuff.

(I put the graduated class and teachers separately, at the bottom)

There are 12 main labs, as well as some assorted groups of people, and those who don’t have labs. These labs are:

- SHSL Technology Lab - SHSL Leadership Lab - SHSL Entertainers Lab - SHSL Fighters Lab - SHSL Zoology Lab - SHSL Athletic Lab - SHSL Costume Lab - SHSL Detective Lab - SHSL Magicks Lab - SHSL Luck Lab - SHSL Creativity Lab - SHSL Science Lab

Ive got lots of details on each lab, but its long, so ill put it under the cut. (names that are in brackets mean that the character is either not officially part of the lab, or doesn’t really spend time there despite being part of the lab)

Ultimate Technology Lab: Chihiro, Miu, Kiibo, Souda, Chiaki. (Ryota)

The room is very industrial, pipes in the ceiling, cement floor, grey brick walls, florescent lighting.

It's a huge mess.

Theres wires everywhere, all across the floor with basically no organization.

A big shelf of scrap parts, metal, oil, mainly stuff for Miu and Souda to work with.

One corner is semi closed off and has a dozen screens. Thats where Chiaki and Chihiro go. Chiaki has every game system in that corner.

The screen corner has a carpet, pillows and beanbags. Also a gaming chair that only Chiaki is allowed to sit in.

Kiibo likes to chat with Alter Ego.

They stuck a few cots in there because someone always ends up asleep while working on a program or invention or something, so they get tossed onto the bed.

Ryota isn’t part of this lab, but spends a surprising amount of time there with Chiaki and Chihiro, so they set up a table for him in the screen corner with a drawing tablet.

He cries when he finds out, and hangs around there much more often afterwords.

All together, everyone in the tech lab is really close to each other, they get along great, and sometimes work on big group projects.

Ultimate Leadership Lab: Kokichi, Sonia, Fuyuhiko, Byakuya. (Mondo, Taka, and Nekomaru)

The leaders lab is the most complicated

There are a total 7 students who were catagorized as leaders by hopes peak staff. They aren’t all comdapiable with each other, and they find that out pretty quick.

So they split up.

Mondo and Taka went together because they’re dating, and Nekomaru went to the Athletic Lab.

The lab isn’t really a lab, more of a meeting room. There’s a big table in the centre that everyone sits at.

One wall is a touch screen

One wall is a white board

One is a blackboard

And one is a corkboard

Sonia sits in front of the cork board, Kokichi sits in front of the white board, Fuyuhiko sits in front of the blackboard, and Byakuya gets the touch screen

They share the walls, but each of them mainly uses the one they sit in front of.

The room is used by the student council to plan meetings, but the main 4 who use the leaders lab pretty much *are* the student council.

Meetings with the entire student body are held in the entertainers lab since it has a stage and enough seating for everyone.

Cork board has pictures of everyone taken by Koizumi, schedule for the school, a few other things Sonia likes to hang there, like letters from her family. it’s lined with LED lights.

White board is 90% doodles by Kokichi, and whoever came in there. There’s also a few stray magnets.

Blackboard has notes on students, mainly to make sure ppl are turning in homework, or not getting bullied/being bullies.

The touchscreen is synced to Byakuya’s laptop. School files are kept on there.

Lighting is on a Slider so can be dim/low for the touch screen. Also Kokichi just likes the lighting darker.

Kokichi makes Sonia an honorary member of dice and Sonia is thrilled by this fact

Sonia is the most sociable so she handles most of the students problems, Byakuya schedules and talks to the staff, Fuyuhiko deals with the underground stuff and the general student body, Kokichi is comic relief and makes sure the actual council doesn’t keel over dead from overworking.

Sonia is always first to arrive, being 13 minutes early to every occasion.

They have meetings regularly.

Altogether, they get along well, not as well as the tech lab but pretty good! No one really expected them to get along as well at they do. Since they’re all focused on the common goal of leading the student body, they work together, and they balance each other out pretty nicely.

(Mondo and Taka)

They couldn’t convince the school to give them another lab

They hang out in Mondo’s dorm room.

They don’t do anything.

Taka however help Fuyuhiko with a lot of his policing, and spends a bunch of time in the halls helping people get to class and directing visitors and stuff.

Taka joins the student council for meetings sometimes, they have an extra chair for him.

He spends more time in the halls than planning so he doesn’t really need a lab.

Mondo and Taka are dating, so they get along great.

Ultimate Entertainers Lab: Sayaka, Ibuki, Kaede, Hiyoko, (Himiko)

Himiko was invited, but because she does real magic, she preferred to set up camp in the magick’s lab

The room is basically the music room from THH

There’s a decent amount of instruments and a grand piano on the stage.

How they move the piano back and forth no one knows.

They have a whiteboard with the number of days since Hiyoko has said something mean and gotten kicked out.

That number has never gone over 2

Microphones, a nice light system, very velvety curtains

Nice chairs to watch as well

Backstage is a mess of props and set.

School plays are put on in this lab, and meetings with the whole student body

they also have a projector and do movie nights during spring and winter break, or on weekends!

The entertainers get along pretty well, except Hiyoko. They like to show off their music to each other and play songs together. Sometime they watch Hiyoko dance if she’s being nice.

Ultimate Fighters Lab: Tenko, Peko, Maki, Sakura, Mukuro

Its a BIG room

Theres a whole rack of swords

A bunch of weights

A bunch of guns, locked in a glass case that only Maki and Mukuro have a key too

Knives cupboard, also behind lock and key

The entire room is under lock and key

Theres replica/training versions of each weapon

Luckily no one in the room would share their key, and stealing their key is a BAD idea

Theres a large mat area in the centre

Its got a circle in the middle

They have a first aid kit

Theres a lot of mats

You’d think things would go wrong, but everyone is really nice and loves each other and such

Sometimes they invite other people to work out and such

But its mainly just them

Maki and Mukuro spar together and bond over murder. Peko and Sakura spar together and bond over honour. Tenko vows to protect them all as her blood sisters, and all of them thank her for it despite not needing her help.

They all get along amazingly and are amazing and badass, I love them.

Ultimate Zoology Lab: Gonta, Gundham

Anyone can enter the room during visiting hours

When you enter, its a sitting room with lots of books and chairs and such.

All the animals and bugs are kept in a backroom with the food. Only Gundham and Gonta and whoever they allow are allowed back there.

Gundham doesn’t like to keep animals locked up because ‘wild beast spirits are weakened by the dangerous walls of this academy’

Lots of animal food, research on how to take care of animals, books and things

There are a few animals in there and some bugs, but theres more research then actual animals.

Bunnies, the deva’s stay there sometimes, but rarely cause Gundham gets sad without them, only when they get sick or something.

Theres a patch of grass in there for the animals that eat grass

Its a nice calming place

Lots of animals

Gundham has a therapy dog in there that students can go pet.

Lighting is on a cycle that follows the sun, since thats best for the animals

Gundam brings animals into the sitting room for people to pet (like the therapy dog)

Gonta and Gundham get along really good, they bond over people not understanding them sometimes, and their love of animals. It’s very sweet.

Ultimate Athletic Lab: Aoi, Leon, Hoshi, Akane, (Nekomaru)

Hopes Peak cycles out the equipment depending on the students there that year.

Aoi uses the swimming pool, so its just weights for her and other various training things.

Also a batting cage, mini tennis court, balance beam and rings.

Its a large room.

They also have mats like the fighters.

Altogether, they just do their own things, not really talking to each other.

Ultimate Costume Lab: Junko, Tsumugi, Imposter

Its a really big closet.

A third is replica clothing of other people, a third is costumes, and a third is high fashion

They have to mark things really carefully so Tsumugi doesn’t get mixed up with Imposters stuff

Hifumi hangs around to look at Tsumugi’s costumes. Junko kicks him out a lot.

Theres also a bunch of fabrics and matierials, and a big desk for sewing and such.

Floor length mirrors, one of those thats like 3 mirrors so you can see yourself from every angle.

They don’t really get along... Tsumugi admires Junko a bunch, and Junko doesn’t like anyone. Imposter uses it for storage, and doesn’t spend much time there.

Ultimate Detective Lab: Kyouko, Shuuichi

Literally just the lab from V3

But with the yearbooks for hopes peak

And a computer linked to the hope’s peak database.

Theres not a lot to add here.

But Kyouko and Shuuichi are very close, and help each other out and I must mention that.

Ultimate Magicks Lab: Hagakure, Himiko

Himiko left the entertainers lab and came here to do real magic.

No one is sure what happens in there

Theres props everywhere

And crystals, and various fourtune telling devices

They both have mini booths where they can perform magic and read the future, respectively.

dim lighting, likely string lights or something

They have a fog machine

They have broken it several times

Hagakure takes Himiko in as his little sister and its really sweet. They get along good.

Ultimate Luck Lab: Makoto, Komaeda, and Hajime

A glorified, bulletproof, fireproof, and bomb proof break room. Also a panic room.

Hajime isn’t a strictly a lucky student, but they had no where else to put em so they stuck him with the lucky students. He wanted to be there anyway.

They have a pool table.

None of them know how to play pool.

Well Hajime does, but he doesn’t want to.

They just kinda sit there a lot of the time.

Makoto walks in to see Komaeda and Hajime kissing on the couch and gets really flustered, but it just keeps happening and eventually he gets used to it.

Theres some school books and bean bags in there.

At one point they get a console from Chiaki and play some games.

Nagito’s luck breaks it.

Basically a classroom without any desks.

The three of them get along well! Nagito and Hajime are dating, so Makoto is a bit left out, but the they do some stuff together.

Ultimate Creativity Lab: Koizumi, Angie, Hifumi, Ryota, Touko

The most chaotic lab.

Koizumi uses it for storage and nothing else. There is a little side room she uses as a dark room, but beyond that she hates being in there.

Hifumi had some of his things in there but Koizumi made him take them out for ‘pubic decency’

Its just his drawing tablet now, with a strong password on it.

Ryota has his drawing tablet too

Sometimes they talk, but not for long because Hifumi makes Ryota nervous.

Angie uses the space the most, as she doesn’t fear death and doesn’t care what anyone else does so long as she can paint and things.

It loos basically like v3 but with what I described and mixed with the art room from 1.

Touko has a desk in the corner and she does not use it.

They really don't get along well. No one likes Hifumi, everyone dislikes Touko, Koizumi doesn’t wanna deal with anyone’s bull, Ryota is nervous all the times and these people make it worse so he goes to the tech labs since he’s friends with Chihiro.

Everyone really likes Angie though. Well not Touko, but Angie either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

Most of them work in their own rooms and are happy to use the room for storage and let Angie take the space.

Ultimate Sciences Lab: Kaito, Rantaro, Korekiyo

Its actually pretty organized.

Theres a globe, a large map, a travel book, a cork board for Rantaro.

A library full of books on anthropology

Star maps, space stuff

The ceiling is dark, but always has a projection of the night sky that reflects the current position of the stars from where they stand.

They have a bunch of nice comfy chairs

Kaito would spend more time in the gym or pool if he wanted to train, since this lab is more focused on research.

Low lighting, mainly candles.

There’s books for sciences that aren’t Kaito, Rantaro, or Korekiyo’s speciality, sometimes people use them for research.

The detectives come in for research sometimes.

The three of them get along pretty well actually, it’s very nice. They’re close to each other in a unique way, and talk to each other about their problems and things. Very nice.

People who don’t really have a lab:

Celeste: Hangs around the Rec Room. She smuggled in better things to gamble with.

Kirumi: Takes students requests and goes around the school to fulfill them.

Mikan: Works in the Nurse’s Office, taking care of students who get hurt.

Teruteru: Works in the Kitchen, making whatever food he wants and sometimes meals for students who come in asking for food.

Syo: Isn’t allowed a lab.

Graduated Classes:

Daisaku: was in the zoology lab with Gundham. they got along alright, though not as well as Gundham and Gonta.

Ruruka: was in the kitchen, with Teruteru. they did not get along.

Sonosuke: wasn’t really a lab kind of guy. assigned to the tech lab, but didn’t really mesh well with everyone else in there so just didn’t go in. he had a little place to do his smithing off campus.

Seiko: worked in the nurses office with Mikan. they were close, but quiet. Seiko kind of saw Mikan as a little sister.

Teachers and Staff:

None of the teachers have a lab, but they do supervise some.

Chisa teaches her class as normal

Munakata watches the student council

Sakakura watches the fighters and athletes

all of them are extremely proud of their students and would kill for them.

Elementary School Division:

The elementary school doesn’t have labs. However, I feel like this is a good time to mention that Hope’s Peak elementary does take volunteers, and Komaru spends most of her time volunteering at the elementary there.

And I think that covers everything!

I think I've missed a few people, and im not sure where to sort *anyone* from zero, seriously it is very confusing. If there’s anyone I missed you want me to put in lemme know. (also this took hours so please reblog)

and like, thank you to anyone who read through this monster of a post.

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mistressxfmagnetism · 3 years

Text

my heart is gold...

WHO: Lorna Dane and Julio Richter ( @rictorscales ) WHEN: 7 days before [redacted] WHERE: XFI HQ, NYC Docks WHAT: A grieving, angry Lorna seeks out Rictor to help her find something to break or fight. Rictor ignores the red flags, and Lorna’s distractions end in tragedy. WARNINGS: Violence, death, trauma, memory alteration, PTSD, bigotry, guns, suicide ideation

LORNA: It had been a week, or almost anyway. A week since she'd run from Genosha, from her father, from Jean. From her memories and her hurricane of emotions. But the only ones to follow her had been the last two, trying to tear her apart as they did. She hadn't slept in a week, far too wired, and had barely stopped moving either. When she stopped, the grief began to undo her (youkilledheryoukilledheryoukilled--). No, far easier to keep moving, to focus on the anger she felt towards Erik for the way he'd meddled with her mind. For hiding what she'd done. For making her witness what he'd done to her step father and then erasing his guilt with her memories.

She didn't know who could help her with any of this. But when it came to anger that threatened to burst out, and powers that could destroy when that burst happened, Lorna turned to Ric. Maybe he could help her ground herself, with that connection to the earth he seemed to understand better than others. Or maybe he'd let her be angry and not tell her enough for how furious and hurt she was with Erik. That was how Lorna found herself letting herself into XFI to find him, unlocking the door with barely a thought. It was like unlocking the memories had unlocked more of her powers too, it was too easy.

RICTOR: A few months ago, things were quieter. Rictor could feel vibrations in the back of his mind, like a movie soundtrack. It was there, but it wasn’t overpowering. You didn’t notice it until certain notes began to swell, didn’t hear it until it needed to be heard. It was different, since Genosha. He’d pulled an island from the sea and everything was louder now. He heard the lock moving without a key, heard the thump thump thump of a heart in a chest, felt the vibrations of a body moving. Everyone on Earth gave off a slightly different frequency of vibrations, and he recognized Lorna’s the moment she got close. A few months ago, that might have been all he recognized. But now…

Anger was an energy. In theory, Rictor had always known that. He had felt it surge in his chest, felt it overpower his heart, felt it burn him from the inside out. He’d never felt it in other people before, but right now? Lorna’s heart was vibrating at a frequency he knew so well. Anger was an energy, and Lorna Dane was a goddamn nuclear power plant, an instant away from an explosion. And Rictor knew how that felt. He understood that better than he’d ever understood anything else.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” He called from the couch as she walked in, twisting his position to face her. “Because I’m sure I deserve it, but Tabby’s gonna be pissed if you kill me. I told her I’d buy beer for the fridge.”

LORNA: She should've known he'd know from the second she walked in. But she was still surprised by it. "No, Ric. I'm not angry at you. I'm angry at Magneto." And Jean. And herself. But Erik bore the brunt of it.

Lorna’s head wouldn’t stop spinning, even now. Her mind kept replaying the events of that night. Of how her powers had manifested because of the argument, because she'd been so scared for her mother, so upset by the shouting. She'd crashed the plane and killed them. Only she’d not killed them both, had she? Erik had killed Arnold Dane. Those screams wouldn't leave her mind either. Even if it had not been her, was it not Lorna’s fault? Lorna had practically summoned Erik to the scene by causing such a disruption to the magnetic field with the pulse that crashed their plane in the first place.

The destruction of the block seemed to have destabilised Lorna more than she could've expected. Part of her life so fundamental to everything had been a lie, had been hidden. Her powers were on edge, all week things had been sparking and creaking around her. "He fucking--He erased my memory when I was a kid, Ric. He had some telepath put a block in my head and then left me."

RICTOR: Magneto. The way she said it caught him off guard, had him freezing in his seat because it wasn’t right. He’d never heard Lorna refer to her father as the title before, but up until now, it had been Erik. It had almost been dad, sometimes. It had never been Magneto. There was a question in his eyes as he studied her, a silent inquiry that felt too deep to say aloud. So he said something else instead. He kept his voice light, he deflected from the seriousness of her tone. “Well, if you’ve come to talk daddy issues, you picked the right guy.”

(It wasn’t the right thing to say. He knew that. But if Lorna wanted someone to say the right things, she wouldn’t have come to Rictor to begin with.)

He didn’t ask her to explain, but he knew she’d do it anyway. Rictor might not be a master detective, might not have ever really earned the P.I. title he boasted, but he knew Lorna well enough to know that she liked to offer explanation to her anger. It wasn’t something he did himself, but he understood the appeal. Giving a voice to your rage allowed it validity. Explaining why your hands shook could steady them sometimes. And Rictor had never much cared about the validity of his anger, but Lorna did. So he listened, and he let the fire in his own chest burn to match hers.

“What an asshole,” he said, and he meant it. When he was a kid and Cable had wanted inside his head, Rictor had left his team, his family behind to prevent it from happening. Erik hadn’t given Lorna the chance to do the same. He’d made a choice for her, the same way Rictor’s father had always made choices for him. He didn’t have to feign anger on Lorna’s behalf --- it was an easy thing to feel. “What are we doing about it? What do you want to do?” Erik had taken a choice away from her, and Rictor couldn’t change that. But he could offer her a new one. And that wasn’t enough, but it was something all the same.

LORNA: She caught the way Ric froze, the question in his eyes. But she didn't want to address it straight on, letting her anger speak for her choices instead. And Ric, proving exactly why she'd come to him now, didn't ask. Didn't pry. He made a quip and then waited for her to get out what she wanted to say. Despite herself, she snorted at his comment, rolling her eyes. Trust Ric.

Getting it out in the open didn't still the shaking, nor dampen the burning anger--or the lighten the crushing guilt that she was still hiding from him--but it did feel good to hear someone agree with her. Someone else call Erik an asshole, and not even try to defend him. It felt good to have someone on her side 100% in this. To assure herself that she wasn't overreacting, to quiet that little voice that said she was only angry to absolve herself of what those memories had revealed.

"I don't know. I just... Fuck, I want to break something." She wanted to fight Erik, but Jean wouldn't let her and Erik wouldn't fight back. So she had to find another avenue for it.

RICTOR: If Lorna wanted to talk things through, she wouldn’t have come to Rictor. She would have gone to Rahne, to Terry, maybe even to Monet if she was feeling particularly brave, but not Rictor. Rictor was a man so incompetent about conversations on feelings that his first - and last - attempt at therapy nearly ended in a fist fight. He was a man who’d climbed to the roof of a building and contemplated exit strategies more than once without ever making an effort to talk about any of them. If Lorna wanted to talk about what was bothering her, she wouldn’t be here.

So Rictor didn’t talk.

He studied her, waited for her to tell him why she was here, because there was some reason for it. She’d left the group chat, left Genosha, could have left him along with them and he wouldn’t have been angry. (Hurt, maybe. But for all the anger that made a home of him, he rarely felt any aimed towards Lorna Dane.) When she finally spoke, when she told him her reasons for coming to him, they made sense. She wanted to break something, and everyone knew he was good at that. So he nodded, pursing his lips and getting to his feet. “Okay,” he said, stretching his back, “so let’s break something.”

LORNA: She trusted Ric. Despite what even he would say, Lorna trusted him. She knew he wouldn't judge her, that he'd side with her, and he wouldn't run back to Erik to tell him everything. Lorna didn't want anything getting back to Erik until she was ready. Eventually she would be, she knew that already, but not yet. And Ric would understand her need to break shit. To be destructive until there was nothing left. Until even she was barely left. Until she wasn't haunted any more. If anyone wasn't going to talk her out of it, it was him.

"Great. Let's go." She waited for him to get anything he needed, heading back to the door, which opened before she even reached for it. And if her hand trembled as she caught the door handle, she wasn't going to mention it. Anger was easier than grief or guilt. "I don't care where. You pick. Just not Genosha. Preferably not too far either."

RICTOR: If there was one thing Rictor understood, it was the anger that came with grief. The first time he shook the world was when his father’s body hit the ground, when he leveled three city blocks and called it mourning. No one ever really warned you about that. They told you there were stages in grief. He’d heard that as a little kid trying to wrap his mind around the death of a mother he hardly knew, heard it in the whispers of the adults who wanted to comfort his father not because they were concerned for him but because Louis Richter was a man everyone wanted at their side. You have to let yourself go through it, one family friend had said. Let yourself go through the stages. And Rictor thought he understood that. He thought he comprehended it. He didn’t.

Grief wasn’t ticking boxes as you moved from one stage to the next. It wasn’t wrapping up denial with a pretty bow before moving on to anger. For Rictor, grief was anger. It was anger and anger and anger and nothing else. It was tearing the earth to pieces beneath him as if shaking it enough would keep his father’s body from making contact with the dirt, as if keeping the body upright kept the soul inside, as if you could do anything for someone after they’d had a bullet put through their head. It was nearly bringing a roof down on his team’s head after Rusty died, it was standing in the graveyard and feeling the still heart beneath the dirt, it was shaking the ground, the soil, the casket. Grief was anger. Rictor knew that.

And Lorna was angry.

He gave her a nod, grabbing his phone from the table and sticking it into his pocket. “I’ve got a lead on some anti-mutant pendejos nearby,” he offered. “Don’t know how many, but I’m sure there’s enough to keep us busy. And they’re nowhere near Genosha.”

LORNA: Lorna had thought she'd known grief. Grief in the black dress she'd been forced into for her parents' funeral, grief in the doctors they made her see, and the nights she cried for her mommy, not knowing why she couldn't come. But this was different. This unburied all the grief she had thought she'd grown out of, and mixed it with guilt, heavy and poisonous, until it seeped into her very being. She remembered so clearly now that feeling of strength when she'd torn the plane apart. How powerful she'd felt for a split second when her parents had stopped shouting, only to scream as her world dropped out from under her and she tumbled from the sky. She'd never gotten a chance to wrap her head around any of it. Fresh in her mind, like the memories had happened yesterday.

"Perfect. The more the merrier." Lorna was itching for a fight. And anti-mutant assholes were a fight she didn't even have to feel guilty about. She didn't have to think. Just antagonise and piss off some assholes who hated her. No complicated feelings, no conflicting emotions or thoughts. She could turn all that off. It was exactly what she wanted. "Lead the way."

RICTOR: When you were in tune with the Earth, when you were as familiar with the spin of it under your feet as you were with the beating of your own heart, you could feel certain things in the air. Rictor had learned that a long time ago, learned it with the faint hum that always emitted from Shatterstar or the heat that seemed to rise off Tabby. It wasn’t limited to things like that, of course, wasn’t limited to just the quiet additions of people’s powers shifting the air around them. There was more to it. There was always more.

You could feel grief, if you tried hard enough. You could feel trauma. The way someone’s heartbeat shifted just a little to make room for it, the way their breaths came out more hitched than they ought to. Grief wasn’t a feeling --- it was an environment. It was in the air around you, in the ground beneath your feet. And it was in Lorna now, and if Rictor were a better friend he might do something more than he did. He might make tea or cocoa or whatever liquid people used to put the world back together when they themselves weren’t held up with duct tape and chewing gum. He might have turned on a movie, might have grabbed her a blanket, might have gotten a box of tissues. He might have done a lot of things if he were anyone else, but he wasn’t. He was a man in tune with the Earth and angry all the same. He was a man who poured violence into the hole in his chest and called himself fulfilled.

He grabbed his coat.

“They’ve got a spot at the docks,” he said, already walking that way. “They’re getting organized now, you know? Probably better we take them out anyway. Nip it in the ass before it starts.” His tone was casual, easy. As if the world wasn’t closing around her, as if this were a normal day, as if grief wasn’t a weight tied to her ankle while she stood on an unstable boat. “I was gonna kill ‘em. That cool?”

LORNA: "Stop it before they hurt anyone," Lorna agreed, walking beside him. Stop them before they needed to avenge people. Ric spoke so casually, as if he noticed nothing wrong with her. She knew he was more aware than that, but smart enough not to mention it too. Not to mention the crackling storm that followed her.

But if there was ever a red flag that Lorna wasn't okay, it was the lack of reaction to Ric's proclamation of intent to kill. Only twice had she ever even attempted to kill those who attacked them for being mutants. The second had been the attack on the Underground from Enforcers. The first... she rarely spoke of. Another memory, buried where others wouldn't see it, only this one she buried herself. "Whatever. Fine." Most days she tried so hard not to kill. To only do what was necessary. Today, she didn't care.

As they approached, it wasn't hard to spot the small crowd gathering. Individually, they were all dressed in nondescript clothing, but together it made for a suspicious crowd. Too many people trying to get away unnoticed. Lorna suspected they didn't just plan to protest, but to hurt. And it fueled that spark of anger well, enough that the weight didn't hold her back. "Come on," she said, not bothering with anything like a plan. Her plan? She'd figure it out as it came.

RICTOR: She didn’t argue. Rictor voiced his plans, and Lorna didn’t argue. He knew that was a bad sign, knew it meant nothing good would come, knew it meant he ought to turn her around and march her back into XFI to settle onto the couch, but he didn’t. He didn’t do any of those things. (Rusty would have. The thought was like a knife between his ribs, settling for a beat before twisting itself up in his insides. Rusty would have made sure Lorna was okay, would have never suggested what Ric did in the first place, would have talked to her instead of this, whatever this was. Rusty would have done everything right. Sometimes, Rictor thought that was probably why he was dead.)

Rictor fell silent as they walked, afraid to speak, afraid to pop the bubble of tension between them. The walk was a silent one, the kind where their footsteps seemed to echo only for a moment before being cut off, the kind where the darkness swallowed up every noise they made. When he saw the crowd up ahead, he was relieved. This tension, this not-talking when they should have been talking, it was unfamiliar. It was a strange weight, an uncertain heaviness. But violence? A fight? Those things were etched into his bones, tucked within his marrow. This, at least, was something he knew how to do. This, at least, was something he was good at.

(It was, he thought, the only thing he was good at.)

When they got close, Rictor waited for Lorna to stop. He waited for her to come up with some plan, some battle strategy. That was never Rictor’s scene. For all the violence he’d known, none of it had ever been organized. Rictor’s brand of violence was chaotic. It was wild, limitless. It wouldn’t do well against a crowd of this size, but… Lorna didn’t have a plan. And it was another moment where he should have stopped, another beat where he should have turned them around, but he didn’t. (He’d hate himself for that later. He’d hate himself for so many things later.)

“All right,” he agreed with a shrug. “Let’s kick some ass.” The ground rumbled. Surprise, too, was not a thing Rictor did well.

LORNA: As they walked, it was like pushing everything down. Instead of tears, instead of guilt, she found strength and anger. The silence only helped. She didn't want to stop and think, knowing that if she did she'd only find reasons not to continue. Rictor wouldn't stop her unless she suggested it, it seemed, so she wasn't going to. Forget thinking; she'd spent a week overthinking everything.

The gathered humans looked up when the ground rumbled, destroying any hope of a surprise attack. Oh well, Lorna wasn't about to back down now. "I heard y'all are looking for mutants. Lucky you, you found them. Unluckily for you, you found us." She was far more used to keeping her balance as the ground shook than they were by the looks of things. But they recovered quickly, their shock turning to anger and anticipation. Perfect. Lorna smiled wryly, her hands glowing green as she hovered half a foot off the ground.

"Do your worst," she dared them. Half of them pulled weapons immediately, making Lorna laugh. So much metal. "Don't know know who I am? Or did you not expect someone like this?" In an instant, their weapons were pulled from their hands, turning towards them instead. But she hesitated before she could kill them. Because despite the lack of fight she'd put up against Ric's plan, she didn't want to. A flash of her mother's dead body rang in her mind before she tossed the weapons into the water.

RICTOR: There were more of them than he thought there’d be. That should have surprised him, but it didn’t. Rictor had learned a long time ago that there were numbers in hate, that nothing attracted a crowd faster than the promise of someone bleeding, that everyone preferred it when the person bleeding didn’t look like them. Genosha wasn’t a solution to the oppression mutants faced. It wasn’t a cure-all. It was a band-aid on a gaping wound, a quick patch-job on a mortal injury. Nothing drew people together quite like a common enemy, and no one made a better common enemy than a group of people not like you who lived on an island out of sight.

In place of surprise, perhaps he should have felt apprehension. There were more of them than he thought there’d be, and he didn’t have to be shocked by that but maybe he should have been hesitant. Maybe he should have taken a breath, taken a step back. He didn’t do that, either. They could handle it, he told himself, him and Lorna. They could handle it.

(He heard Guido’s voice in the back of his mind, low and gravelly and as close to gentle as Guido knew how to be. You ever hear of suicide by cop? The words echoed, bounced around in his head, and he wondered if there was a term for this, too. He wondered if there was a phrase that summed up his tendency to throw himself into death’s grip and be disappointed when he slipped through her fingers.)

The crowd noticed them quickly, but Rictor had known they would. He wasn’t subtle, and Lorna wasn’t in the right frame of mind to try to force him into that box. He didn’t flinch when the guns came out, didn’t look away, and the weapons were ripped from their hands in an instant. The weapons were gone, sinking into the ocean, swimming with the fishes, and Rictor snorted lightly. A few of the men charged forward, and he waved a hand. The ground rippled beneath their feet, rising up like an ocean wave. “She’s got the skies, I’ve got the ground. And you guys have jack shit.”

He could have told them to run, could have turned it into some kind of lesson. Stop being bigots, or picking on someone your own size means not picking on anyone bigger than you, either, maybe. It was what Scott or Jean would’ve done, what Rusty would’ve done, what Lorna would’ve done on any day but today. It wasn’t what Rictor did. It wasn’t who Rictor was. “So, do you guys like metal or rock? For, like, death. Not music.”

LORNA: They could handle it. Lorna knew they were outnumbered, and by a lot, but she didn't care. She could pull planes from the sky, tear them to pieces, at just three years old. These humans, these men--and they were almost all men--wouldn't touch her. Just off the ground as she was, Ric's powers didn't affect her as they did their attackers, leaving her to laugh as they were knocked off their feet.

But her laughter stopped quickly at Ric's comment. Metal or rock? For, like, death. Metal, like Arthur, pierced by the metal Erik controlled? Or rock like Suzanna, who hit the ground without a parachute? Or was Suzanna's death metal as well, the tearing of the plane under her feet? Lorna felt sick, blinking hard to push the images from her mind. Now was not the time. She couldn't afford to let it distract her, to consume her as it had threatened to do all week. Aside from one conversation with Scott, Lorna hadn't even begun to process it. But she couldn't allow that now.

She steeled her features, but her momentary distraction had allowed one opportunistic human to get closer than she intended. Lorna was quick to respond, beginning to summon a nearby discarded fixture to push the human back, but not quick enough. Before her projectile hit, he swung a wooden plank at her head. Lorna's feet hit the ground as she stumbled, her head spinning. She could feel blood there, but it wasn't enough to have her down and out yet. Pushing back to her feet, she scowled. The man who'd attacked her was down, having been hit half a second after he'd managed to hit her, but Lorna had plenty of others who seemed encouraged by the first blow.

RICTOR: Do you have to make everything a fight? It was something his cousin had asked him once, tired and irritated and disappointed, because those were the emotions Rictor had always been the best at drawing from the people around him. He couldn’t remember the specifics of the context now --- some argument with his father that had gone farther than he’d meant for it to, some petty disagreement that had become a war --- but he remembered those words. He remembered the way they drew a strangled laugh from his throat, the way he’d leaned back against the wall with his eyes closed, feigning indifference instead of heartache. Everything’s already a fight, he’d replied. I’m just the only guy smart enough to see it.

That was still true. Other people, people like the X-Men, they figured things could be solved with peaceful discussions and bloodless wars, but Rictor knew better. You couldn’t talk someone into seeing you as a person. You couldn’t convince someone to love you. Rictor knew now, just like he’d known as a kid in Mexico, that it was always a fight. You just had to be smart enough to throw the first punch.

So he did. He shook the ground, invited the men on it to come to him. And he lost himself, in the fight. There was one man, then two, then three. Enough to keep him focused. Enough to keep him entertained. Rictor was having fun. He usually did, when there was violence.

(And he didn’t see Lorna’s hesitation. He didn’t see the way she faltered on the battlefield. He didn’t see the enemy landing punches. There was a fight. There was always a fight. But Rictor had a bad habit of focusing on the wrong one.)

LORNA: Her head pounded more than her heart right now. If the man who'd hit her hadn't been hit hard enough to knock him out by the metal fixture, she would've hit him again. But as it was, she pushed the nausea--and the desire for revenge for that pain--aside to deal with the rest of them. You're still thinking small, though. Scrap is easy for your opponent to see, easy to predict... Erik's voice echoed in her mind, making her lip curl. But he was right. She was thinking small. You could tear a plane to pieces. There's metal all around you. Use it. The voice still sounded like Erik, mostly. But at the same time it sounded like her. She knew what he'd felt when he'd killed her step-father, that righteous, murderous anger. The knowledge that it'd be so easy, that she held the power in her fingers. Had she not felt that anger and want to do something powerful just minutes before that in the plane?

Lorna pushed it aside. Instead, she pulled a fence, using it to shove three men to the water, and wrap the next two who tried up tight. She didn't kill them--she couldn't bring herself to. Until she heard one of the hurl insults at her. Echoing words she'd heard so many times, pushing and pushing and pushing her closer towards the edge of that cliff she had always danced on. People so often saw her as a hero, as a leader, as good. They didn't know how close that edge was. How similar she could be to the worst sides of her father if she wanted. Or that she feared that she might not just become angry or cruel, she might just break.

She stalked towards the man, reveling in the way his confident anger turned to genuine fear. That satisfaction seemed to fuel her. Especially as she finally finally tapped into that power Erik kept trying to tell her to use. Metal could be whatever shape she wanted. And she wanted something sharp. Only when she held it to the man's chest, threatening to push it through him, she heard screams. Her own. Her step father's. Her mother's. Lorna hesitated again, stumbling as her breath caught in her throat. There was no time for this. No time for memories overwhelming her. But the memories didn't care. They'd waited twenty years to be heard, to be seen. They wouldn't leave her alone.

Lorna dropped the metal, closing her eyes for just a moment. All she could hear was those screams, and the salt of the water around them was replaced with smoke in her lungs. She gasped, trying to force it from her mind. But in those precious seconds, one human saw his chance. He still had a gun, one he hadn't pulled on Lorna initially and so hadn't ended up in the water. Lorna felt it when he fired, but too late. Half a second, quarter of a second, but too late nonetheless. As her eyes opened, it tore through her chest. Pain erupted as blood blossomed onto her shirt. The force of it pushed her back, knocking her from the docks. As she fell, her powers--trying in vain to stop the projectile that had already hit--pulsed outwards. A wave of electromagnetic energy shocked through their surroundings, rippling the water and destroying electronics in her range. Echoes of it spread far and wide to those who knew what to look for. Perhaps as far as Genosha. But none of it could stop what had already been done. Lorna gasped for air as she hit the water, aware only of the cold for a moment before everything went dark.

RICTOR: When he was a kid in Mexico, Rictor remembered playing in the streets with his cousins. He remembered the lot of them taking two fingers and a thumb, shaping them into guns and pointing them at one another amidst giggles and squeals. He remembered his father watching from the window, a furrow in his brow that Rictor hadn’t understood then, a concern he hadn’t recognized. He’d been so small, barely old enough to move from the title of baby to that of toddler, and his father hadn’t yet started putting the pressure to take over the family business on his shoulders. He’d had a few years yet, even if he hadn’t known it then. The memories were hazy, hard to grasp, coming in bits and pieces. Flashes of the laughter, flashes of his father’s face, and a conversation remembered only in fractions. ’It isn’t a game, Julio.’ His father’s voice, stern and serious as it had always been. ’These things aren’t a game.’

Rictor should have listened to him, back then. He should have taken those words to heart. Even if nothing else his father said was true, that still was. Violence wasn’t a game. War wasn’t a hobby. It was cold and it was bitter and it was unforgiving and Rictor was good at it, but there would always be someone better. No matter what.

But he got cocky. He got arrogant, got reckless. He was so in the fight, so in his own head, that he didn’t recognize anything outside of it until the vibrations changed. A gun firing was a distinctive thing. The way the trigger acted as a catalyst, the way the firing pin shot forward and set off an explosion so small that most people didn’t know it happened at all. The way the gunpowder ignited, the way the pressure changed to force the bullet out of its casing. Those things didn’t happen with two thumbs and a finger, but with the real deal? It all went very quickly. Everything happened at once.

It was close by, close enough that he knew it could only be coming from one place. A trigger released. The dominoes fell. Rictor was a kid in Mexico watching his father hit the ground. He was a directionless twentysomething seeing Rusty fall from across the battlefield. He was a hanged man turning just in time to see a muzzle flash and blood spreading across a shirt, splattering out onto the tips of green hair. It was all happening at once, and for a moment ---

For a moment, the world stopped, and all Rictor could think about was the stupid magic eight ball his uncle bought him when he was eight years old. He remembered his cousin, a few years older and already so deep within the family business that there was no hope of any way out, furiously jealous that Rictor got a toy that was not a gun, bitter that Rictor got something to play with that wasn’t designed to hurt anyone. He remembered the way he’d slammed the plastic ball against the wall hoping it might shatter, remembered his own relief when the ball seemed unharmed at first. It was only when he tried shaking it that he realized the dice inside had gotten stuck somehow, realized it wouldn’t move off the same side, realized it answered every question with the same reply. Ask again later. No matter how hard he shook it, the dice stayed where it was. Ask again later, ask again later, ask again later.

The world was frozen, but it wasn’t because he was moving it. The whole damn planet was shaking furious and desperate and looking for an answer and those three words were burned into the inside of his eyelids even now, impossible to get away from. What had happened? How had they gotten here? How had they gone from having it under control to this in such a short amount of time? Why did tragedy always happen all at once?

Ask again later, ask again later, ask again later, ask again later, ask again -

The world stilled all at once, and Rictor realized, belatedly, that he was the only one still moving. The protestors left standing were on the ground now, blood pouring from their eyes, their ears, their noses, and it occurred to him that it wasn’t just the world he was shaking, but them too. Their insides, their outsides, everything that made them them. None of them were breathing, none of their hearts were beating and ---

And neither was Lorna’s.

He felt sick at the realization, felt her in the water and understood that she’d already been in there too long. He should have jumped in immediately, should have stopped the gun from firing, should have saved his father, should have saved Rusty, should have saved her.

The distance between him and the edge of the dock disappeared before he knew he’d moved, and water rushed around his ears before it registered that he’d jumped in. ’You’re dissociating.’ That therapist’s voice in his head, just as smug now as it had been in the one session he’d sat through. ’Separating yourself from the trauma. Is that something you do often?’ He pushed it aside, eyes burning with salt water as he swam down, down, down. There was red in the water. There was green, too. Like traffic lights giving off opposing signals, signs telling him stop and go at the same time. His fingers found skin, and he gripped her tightly without knowing what he was holding, swam to the surface with all the strength he had in him. Later, he wouldn’t know how he’d pulled her back onto the dock. He didn’t think it mattered much.

They were out of the water, and her skin was still warm. That meant she hadn’t been in there long, he figured. But her heart was still in her chest, heavy like a stone, and Rictor fought to keep his mind here and not in the graveyard outside Xavier’s years ago, when he’d felt Rusty in his coffin, felt his heart unmoving in his chest, felt helpless in every way. His throat ached in that ‘about-to-cry’ kind of way, or maybe in the ‘already-crying’ kind. It was hard to tell, hard to concentrate on anything except for the fact that she wasn’t breathing and her heart wasn’t beating and ---

Another memory. Illyana -- no, Darkchylde, looming a few feet in front of him. I’ll pop your heart like a fucking balloon. Stopping a heart was easy. He’d just done it on the docks, done it to twenty odd men at once without even trying, without thinking.

Wasn’t starting one the same idea?

Rictor closed his eyes, clenched them shut so tightly it hurt a little, concentrated on that still, unmoving rock that was settled inside her chest. He concentrated on his own heart, racing and nervous but beating. He put a hand on her chest, and it wasn’t necessary but it was a comfort. A security blanket, a way of easing his mind. He focused on his heart beating, on hers laying still until ---

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sound was deafening. Rictor fell backwards, choked on a sob as he landed on his back in a puddle that might have been water or blood or both. He let himself go still for a moment, a quick, shared heartbeat, and then dragged himself to his feet again.

She was dying. She was still dying. He started her heart, but he couldn’t keep it going indefinitely. He couldn’t keep it beating if there was no blood for it to pump through her veins. And there was only one place to take her.

He could see the lights across the ocean, and there were no ferries this late. It wouldn’t have mattered if there were, wouldn’t have made a difference because Rictor carrying a bleeding, unconscious woman onto a boat would raise too many questions and waste too much time. Steeling himself, he scooped her up into his arms and walked towards the dock, stiff and uncertain. A foot hovered over the ocean, and he could feel the earth beneath the water. He called it up to meet him, and there was a stepping stone of dry land.

He put another foot forward, and there was another.

Closing his eyes, Rictor nodded to himself. He could do this. He could. It was just one foot in front of the other and a soundtrack of two beating hearts.

He ran.

LORNA: Her world went dark. But there was a few moments before it ended. Before her heart stopped, as water filled her lungs. As blood soaked her shirt as much as the water did. And those moments stretched into eternity. Anger, finally, bled away, leaving her only with grief and sorrow. Leaving her only with the pain she had tried to escape, that ached worse than the bullet that lodged itself in her chest. Regrets bubbled up with the final gasps of air escaping her lungs. Leaving as she had, refusing to return even for the holidays she had so looked forward to (their first on Genosha), holding so tight to her anger as her shield.

All she could feel was pain. And yet, she still heard screams. Still smelt smoke. Tasted metal in her mouth. Was that the plane she'd torn apart, or her blood? Were those whimpers of fear from her step-father or the men she'd towered over as she gained only satisfaction from their fear? Anger was easier than grief, than guilt, than tears. But it made her reckless. She'd always been prone to recklessness. Episodes of feeling untouchable. But it was just that; a feeling. The pain was fading now, and Lorna regretted that she had left her family on such an angry note. Now that the anger left her as her heart beat did, what was she left with?

She didn't expect to feel anything else. Did not expect the pain to come rushing back like she'd been shot again, as air forced water to spill from her lungs, from her mouth. (She should've expected more of Ric. People underestimated him, but he'd just saved her from her own destruction.) Light filled her world again, but only for a moment, before pain eclipsed it, pulling her back under with an echo of the first pulse, rippling out across the water as she sank back into darkness and oblivion.

#c:ric #violence tw #death tw #ptsd tw #memory alteration tw #trauma tw #bigotry tw #guns tw #suicide ideation tw

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