#time lapse and OG under the cut !!

[valfeathers]

obsession

#light yagami #l lawliet #death note #time lapse and OG under the cut !! #2 posts in one day?? crazy #wanted to do smth a lil more experimental !! #death note fanart #i SAY light but like #its his eye #i wanted to break outta the comfort zone hehe #l death note #light death note #so into the funky colours in dn #v’s gallery

[yeyinde]

infinity in the palm of your hand (eternity in an hour) | reincarnation AU

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish (OG) x Reader | Johnny "Soap" MacTavish (Remake) x Reader

You're grieving for something, someone—a man with kind eyes and a soft smile like the valley in spring: fresh rain over the boscage in bloom—that you've never met before.

And then you find him.

MATURE | 18+ —TAGS: AU, canon divergence: reincarnation; fluff; tagging as fem!Reader due to usage of "bonnie" (not a name—Reader is not named), and mentions of a dress but no other descriptive imagery is used —WARNINGS: grief, loss, unhealthy coping mechanisms, existential crisis, allusions to smut; cosmic horror (but??? it's a romance????) —WORD COUNT: 11,9K —NOTES: I like the idea of fated pairs, soul mates, but I can't write this concept without somehow diving into the cosmic horror of something, someone, controlling you from behind the scenes. So. Um. Idk what to call this abomination. It leaks horror but is meant to be quite fluffy. It's romance. It's a love story. But it's also kinda eldritch. Oops.  This was also originally a request I got back in November (I'm so sorry!). I have since lost the request, but Reincarnation Anon, this is for you!!! 🖤

In Greek, there are two words for time: 

Kronos—chronological, the clock: fixed—measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. The world runs on Kronos. On its merciless rigidity, it's apathetic, unending trek forward. It is cruel, sometimes, but it cares little for you, or anyone else who exists inside its unforgiving realm. Time is linear. A steady March. 

And then there is Kairos. In its essence, and in utter simplicity: timelessness. 

It's often found in grief when the world around you shatters and implodes. When it lapses into pain and agony. Into how and why and—

Nothing makes sense. Nothing matters. 

You've never experienced any such loss. Gran, grandad, friends, family—all alive and well. And yet—

You're grieving for something, someone—a man with kind eyes and a soft smile like the valley in spring: fresh rain over the boscage in bloom—that you've never met before. 

And then you find him.

Or, rather, he finds you. 

(Over and over and over again—)

It starts in university. 

Start, of course, is an operative word. It's an incipient event: a slow burn in the back of your head that gets hotter and hotter, but you can't quite discern why. You just feel wrong. Shaken. The foundation in which you walk wobbles. Crumbles. 

There is an unseen precipice under your feet covered by cobblestone. You know it's there—are aware of the yawning chasm that wants to swallow you whole, but you don't know where it is. 

And then—

There is no phone call, no blunt condolences for any particular loss, just—

A knock on your door. It's just your flatmate, but the rhythm cuts through your head, right down the middle. 

Agony. The world around you flips, topples off its axis, and just keeps spinning, spinning, spinning—

It hits you with the force of a tsunami. A deluge of biblical proportions that uprooted everything you'd ever know, casting you out into a frothing abyss, ravaged by mountain-tall waves that left you asunder. Awash in a tumultuous sea.

It would make sense, you suppose, had you lost someone, but you haven't. 

The most you've lost was a pet. 

And yet—

You sob, scream, and claw at your chest until your skin is torn and shredded, trying futilely to get to where it hurts the most. It's agonising. Brutal. They sedate you—no choice is given when you're so frantic, so desperate. The world slips away. The pain abated. 

But it doesn't stop it. 

They call it grief, and you don't know why. You haven't lost anyone. Mum, dad, gran, grandad. All alive and well. All there, standing clustered around your hospital bed (admitted when you wouldn't stop screaming) looking quite bewildered by you. By the things you say—missing something, someone, gone, just gone—and the way you're acting. 

And it scares you just as much as it does them, but you can't just push it aside, let it go. There is a gaping hole in your chest, one punched straight through your sternum. It's gangrenous, and rotting; the stench makes you dizzy, makes your head spin. Your heart is necrotising between your ribs and spine, but no one knows why. No one understands the agony you feel because everyone is alive. 

They all say the same: we don't know. Depression, perhaps. You just need time. 

Time does nothing to heal the wound. You can't run from the hurt—it's never-ending—but you get better at hiding it, at dealing with pulpy remains of your still-beating heart that slugs on despite the mouldering wound ripped open in the centre. 

They tell you it's Thursday, now. 

Before you'd throw something, thrash, and scream yourself hoarse because what does it matter when your heart is dying, decaying inside of your chest. 

Now, you just nod. Thursday, is it? 

Time doesn't exist to you anymore. It's just an endless stream of days and nights that get easier to withstand as the foreign clock on the wall ticks down the seconds you don't feel. 

The world is a murky haze of confusion and pain. You move on only because you have to. 

Things—

Well. They don't get better, but they get bearable, and you suppose that's the same thing, isn't it? 

And then you dream. 

They come in flashes. Snippets. Little moments of a place and time that doesn't exist, that isn't real. This life was not one you lived. The taste of elderberry has never graced your lips, but you think of the sweet, tartness like it's an old comfort. 

It makes you ache. 

Simplicity bleeds into familiarity into love into—

—you should… you should sit for this—

Crushing heartache. It carries the flavour of gunpowder, and is soaked in charcoal; the soot stains the tips of your fingers when you reach out, curling them in the rough lapels of a gunmetal grey jacket still carrying the scent of ichor, and loss. 

—i… i can't promise you forever, but i can promise you now—

You dream of a man. Of hands on your body. Eyes gazing at you—an alluvial fan in hazel, green, and gold; the shadows cast in the shallow valleys make you yearn for something. 

Something, something—

You wake up, hand to your splitting chest as the agony rips it into pieces. Heartache, grief. It drapes itself over you like a storm cloud. Looming there, ever-present, and ready to chisel open a deluge of pain so visceral you weep. And weep. And—

Your pillow is wet. Nose stuffed, eyes gritty. You've been crying, sobbing, in your sleep again. 

It's a cycle. Memories flood your head until it's splitting apart at the seams, making room for that life it wants to force you to remember, acknowledge, and pretend exists, and one you're in now. 

It breaks something inside of you. Cracks the levee. In the midst of crumbling concrete, and a roaring deluge, you hear a voice. 

(You stare at the bottles lining the shelves in your vanity, and tell no one.)

—excuse me? You dropped this—

HERE

There is a tavern on High Street. 

It's nothing special on its own. Just a building, just a pub. You pass it twice a day on your commute to work, and it should be background noise. A blur of scenery and objects as you stroll through the streets. A melding of the world around you, an inconsequential smear of cobblestone and brick. 

And yet—

Your eyes keep finding it, seeking it out. It's involuntary. Automatic. You pass the grocer and the pharmacy, head angled down toward the grey stone below, and then, like an unignorable force, a gravitational pull, your head lifts. The fairy lights are strewn around the outside coruscate in the gloom. You nearly trip. 

It's strange. Odd. 

It's just a building. Just a tavern. 

—got some of the best brews in town—

But you remember it. Are familiar with it in a way that makes absolutely no sense. You've never gone inside, never heard anyone speak about it. It's a building on a street of many. Ordinary. Plain. Nothing about this place should stand out to you. It isn't eye-catching or garish. It's—

—cosy little spot—

It's an anomaly. Much like—

Well. Much like everything in your life. 

There is a gnawing in the pit of your stomach, one that's so achingly familiar that your head swims from deja vu that shouldn't exist. It fits inside like an augur. A portant. 

How can the unknown be a comfort to you? How can it blister your heart with such ferocity that you find yourself pawing at your face to stem the deluge of tears that cascade down your cheeks in rivets? 

Whatever it is, it's calamitous and entirely unignorable. 

Your life is asunder, in shambles because of it yet each hiss in your ear addles your thoughts until you become overwhelmed by it all. Until the echoes that tell you to wander down a random side street, sign a lease for an apartment you can't afford, to leave the safety of your home country, and—

On a whim, you packed your things up on the behest of that strange, Eldridge feeling eating you alive that made you cut ties with your old, peaceful life, and book the first plane ticket to Elgin. No plan, no money. 

(You'd call it an afflatus had it not been so drenched in the unknown.)

It's paradoxical: you cry when you see that stupid church in the distance, your feet drag you to places you've never been before, and now. 

Now: 

You can't stop staring at a nondescript pub in a sea of many. 

Ignore it. Leave it. You take another route, head down, hands shoved deep in the pockets of your jacket to keep them from trembling. It'll pass. It'll go away. 

It doesn't. 

It pools in the pit of your stomach, noxious and rotten, until you wake up drenched in sweat, hands grasping for a phantom who no longer exists—

—wanna come with me?—

You break on Saturday. 

—i like when you wear that dress—

You wear it, and hate yourself a little bit for it. It's stupid, and out of place, but you do it, anyway. 

—booth in the back is where i always sit, want to come join me—

The inside of the tavern is just the same as you remembered it—

No. No. 

You've never been here before. 

You smell malt in the air; the same amber that spumes in your veins. You dance in circles between the tables, giggling at the people who smear by in a haze of gold and red. 

A hand reaches, snags your waist. "Where are you going, pretty thing? Wanna come sit with us?"

It makes you laugh, and laugh, and—

"There a problem?" Heat against your bare back. Ironclad arms around your middle. His voice is a rumble. A thunderclap. "She's with me. Go on now. Get."

You pull away from him, smirking, and—

The air is punched from your lungs. Longing sits in your throat, heavy and thick. It aches. God, it aches. A phantom pain that never quite dissipates. A raw wound left to fester; exposed and open to the elements. It never heals. Never scabs. It oozes grief and headache into your bloodstream and makes you feel lost. Dazed. Confused. 

It's silly. 

Stupid. 

The warm blends of burnt umber and gold make you tremble. Everything inside is—familiar, in all the ways it shouldn't be. 

You can't be here. Can't—

Something quivers inside of you. The sting of a guitar being plunked by indelicate hands. It snaps, breaks. You turn, eyes wild, wide—

—hey, where are you—

"...goin'—?"

A chest. Warm. Familiar. 

Your neck aches when you jerk your chin up, hands beaded against the hard, firm flesh of a stranger who feels all too familiar, too—

Hazel. A boscage in spring. Warm milk—

"Honey…"

It's out before you can stop it. 

Green and golden widen until they're drowning in a sea of arsenic white. An island of bloom, spring, carved in the middle of a barren, icy land. Lids fall, lashes dust across the shadows of the valley smeared beneath the red seal of his lower lash line. 

Your breath catches when they slide open, a slow crawl over a varicoloured plume of witch elm and wheat. 

—dark eyes, a furrowed brow, long nose, a dusting of charcoal stubble along his cheeks and jaw, and full pink lips—

No. No. 

It's different. This isn't the man who haunts your dreams and whispers sweet nothings into your ear. This is not the cut of a man who once curled his fingers over your hips, lips glued to your pulse as he spent himself inside of you—

Heat sears your cheeks. 

His mouth opens, and closes. Opens again. No words spill out. His confusion is an oppressive silence. 

You swallow down the bitter tang of panic that pools on your tongue, nails digging into the soft fabric of his shirt. 

This isn't that man. 

He just—

"Sorry," you think you say, but it's all a blur. There was a blue ravine in his eyes, one with shallow shores, and crystalline waves that rippled with the breeze. You're sinking in those waters, now. Dragged down to the murky depths of blue, blue, blue that once made you see samsara with just the brush of his lips. Everything sounds distorted. Hollow. 

—you make me crazy. make me want things i shouldn't. Riley thinks i'm whipped. kinda agree with him, but i can't let you go. i can't get you outta my head, and i don't want to—

"Sorry—," you choke, the words a crumpled piece of paper lodged in your throat. Papier-mache seals over your trachea. 

You push away from him, stumbling out of this paroxysm. Flames lick at your heels, carrying you further from the laps of blue that flicker over beige. 

He chases after you. A warm hand around your wrist stops you on the corner outside of a pharmacy. The streets are dusted in white. It trickles from the sky in a thick hail of cosmic dust. 

His breath plumes in front of him when he breathes, pure white tendrils ghosting into the midnight blue silk that covers the town. 

"Hey, you alright? Can I—call someone for you, or—"

"No." You gasp, shaking your head so fast, you're nearly sick with it. 

"Hey, hey." His hand moves, perches itself against your cheek, eyes brimming in the flushed lamp overhead. His brow is drenched with concern. With confusion. And anger. Anger—why, why—

"Did someone drug you? Did you drink anythin'?" 

It rips a bark of laughter from your chest. "Drugs? No. I'm just—"

Spiralling. 

You make a vague motion with your wrist, and hope it's enough to convey the absolute travesty of your life. It meets the mark. 

The divot in his forehead softens, eyes creasing in the corners. Full pink lips knot to the side. Something passes his expression that looks a little too much like understanding to ever sit well in the pit of your stomach. 

You swallow down the acrid residuum of panic, and nod. Why—who knows. It just feels appropriate. 

"I need to go—"

"—I like your dress."

The words tumble over each other, barely coherent amid the amalgamated syllables, but ring with distinct clarity in your head. Your dress. Your brows knot, eyes dropping to the stupid little thing you'd picked out in a shop you had no business being inside. Led by the nose. A puppet on strings. 

You scoff. "I hate it."

You don't. You'd have picked it out yourself if you had that funny little thing called freewill; that precious little something you'd left behind in a dorm on a university campus you haven't thought of in years. 

"It's, ahh—," he rubs the back of his neck, eyes skirting toward the bar you fled from. "It's pretty."

Pretty. 

"Oh…," you say, quite intelligently. "You can have it if you want." 

It's only when his brows buoy to his hairline do you realise the innuendo within that. 

The fire inside dies. Doused with the waters of Acheron.

"Sorry—"

"—'dunno if it'd look as good on me as it does you, bonnie."

Bonnie. Your veins crackle with ice. Bonnie. 

"What—what did you call me—?"

He blinks. "Oh, it's not—," his hand slides away from his neck, scrubbing over the stubble on his jaw. He looks bashful, almost. The man in your dreams is—

Reserved. Cool waters. A rock. 

"It's just a nickname, it's not—it's not anythin' weird, I promise."

A nickname. You should have known that, you suppose; but like many things, it slips, silken and liquid, through the cracks wrought by paradox. 

"Right." Your nails dig into your palms, cutting the flesh until your fingers puddle with something warm, wet. Tacky. The breath you suck in between clenched teeth is a sharp hiss. "I should go."

"Ah, yeah," his brows tighten again, jaw ticking. He looks uncomfortable, unsure. Concerned. His arms come up, folding over his broad chest. And that—

That is familiar. 

You swallow down mildew and honeysuckle. Heart lurching in your chest, a painful crescendo that echoes to the whispered beat of soft words in your head. 

—you should stay, bonnie. stay with me—

"Can I at least make sure you get home safe?"

You can't. You can't—

There is a tavern on High Street that you've been to before in a dream, where you are taken to by a man with a distance in the crook of his smile; a degree of separation that makes you yearn. It pulled you in, gravity and magnetism and that primal something that they often talk about in wordy biology papers you can't understand. 

Maybe it's the chemical slurry in your head—dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin—all mixing together, and polluting your rationale, but it made a shade of roseate fall over your eyes; veiled like a Magellanic cloud. Through the startling nebulae and cosmic radiation, he loomed. Your fingers reached out, latching on to him, and you pulled him into your orbit. 

The reservations slipped, dulled by the way you fit against him. A missing piece. A complimentary artefact. His edges softened until he looked at you with nothing but warmth, affection. 

And then—

Then:

Three knocks in halted succession. Military precision. Boom, boom, boom. 

A man stood before you, achingly familiar in his mutton chops and hat. The gleam of his metals—chest candy—caught in the setting sun. Ochre, gold. You think of him, and you smile. Was smiling when you peeled back the curtain to greet him. 

It wavers. Your heart aches for that person standing in the doorway; you from a dream. 

It drags in slow motion. He takes his hat off, and cups it on his chest. 

—look, i don't… i don't know how to tell you this—

Then—

"—don't." The word startles you as much as they do him. You baulk. "Just… no thank you."

Something rings in the cognitive dissonance that shrouds you. 

It's your turn to walk away.

And so, you do. 

(He doesn't follow. You don't know why you expected him to.)

—be patient with me, Bonnie. my job is my life. my everything, but you–you're my—

It doesn't rain—a rarity in Elgin—but the scent of wet soil, petrichor, clings to the air. 

It isn't raining, but it feels like it should.

You don't expect to see him again. 

And why would you? There are so many people in Elgin, so many men. The chances of finding him again—shaggy mohawk; kind, amber eyes—were nearly impossible. Infinitesimal, really. 

So, you push him to the far reaches of your mind, and try not to dwell on the stranger that smells so strongly of coumarin that your head still feels dizzy from the scent of golden wheat fields in the spring and sycamore when you breathe in some mornings.

Out of sight, out of mind. 

A familiar stranger in a foreign land.

But you should have known better than to expect anything in this strange purgatory you’ve slipped inside where dreams are sometimes a reality, and you can’t stop comparing a hazy figure in your mind, someone you might have loved in a distant life you have no memory of, to a stranger who slots himself into your path like he was meant to be there all along. 

It starts three days later. 

You tuck a book under your arm, and walk the unfamiliar path to a small cafe you’ve never dreamed of, have no lingering sense of recognition in the small building. 

Safe, you think. 

And then—

Blooming honeysuckle. The heady scent of coumarin. Salt, amber. 

He crashes into your life again, and again, always with the same expression of happy surprise when recognition bleeds into wheat-tinged eyes. 

He offers a wide smile, a little wave, and seems unbothered by a dizzying sense of unease that sweeps through each uncanny meeting, each strange divergence of paths always, always, leading to each other. 

In the produce section of the grocery store halfway across town, he holds an unripened apricot and grins at you over the yellow sign above (30% off!). The colourful anchor in Cooper Park, where he stands with his hands in his pockets, eyes listing toward the swans in the background, drifting idly over the dark water. At the counter in a Turkish restaurant, laughing at something the waiter says as he takes his bag of takeout. 

You turn down a random sidestreet, trying to navigate the tight, claustrophobic streets of Elgin, and he's there, suddenly, at the end. Legs thrown over the seat of a sleek motorcycle, fingers toying with the clasp of his helmet. Wander into a shop, and he's already sat at the table. Reach for a carton of eggs in Tesco's and his hand bumps against yours as he tries to grasp the same. 

You hear his voice crackling through the concrete. A whisper in the back of your head. The grit, the cadence, is so different from the man you dreamed about, the hazy spectre who haunts you, that you know, instantly, that it's him. The man whose only resemblance to the ghost latching onto you is his eyes, the hairstyle. The scent. The familiarity blooms in his proximity. Two strangers sharing the same essence of a soul. 

He drives past you on his motorcycle, wanders down the same alleyway, boards the same train, and gets off at the same station. 

A living phantom. 

It's always the same, too. His eyes always shift, somehow catching yours. Easily, effortlessly, finding you even in the midst of a crowded shop, a bustling park, or a loud eatery. 

Each time, you run. And keep running. 

And then once, you catch him. 

He leans with his forearm resting on the railing of a mezzanine at dusk. His wrist resting on the iron, fingers gripping the nozzle of a lagger that dangles over the edge. 

Behind him, music spills out from inside the flat. French doors spread wide open, leaking the whisper of a party into the warm air. 

No one joins him. He doesn't look back. 

His chin is pointed up toward the varicoloured sky streaked with lavender and pink and blood orange. Eyes glowing brightly in the darkness. A field of wheat against the midnight blue gloom of an approaching storm. 

It's mesmerising. 

Despite the urge to run, you stop. Can't help yourself, really. Not when your heart cracks at the expression on his face, eyes drawn tight, brows pinched. Full of—

Longing. 

Like a magnet, then, his gaze drops to the ground where you stand, clutching your book so hard, your joints ache. 

His hand lifts, fingers still curled in a loose fist, and he gives you a lazy wave from above, lips pulling back into that same wide, infectious, grin. Happy—for some inexplicable reason—to see you, his own little poltergeist. 

You hesitate for a moment, burning the image of him in your retinas where he'll stay, a permanent scar, in the black puddles for you to see again when you close your eyes, or look into a mirror. Another ghost. 

And then you turn. Run. 

(He doesn't try to stop you. He never does.)

It is almost clockwork.

The same soft hazel eyes creased lightly in the corners. Broad shoulders are hunched as he gazes down at his phone resting on the countertop. His brows are furrowed today. Irritation bleeds in the crevasse. 

Your fingers itch. You want to smooth it out. 

(It doesn't surprise you that you can feel the phantom warmth of his finger under your flesh.)

It's strange. All of this is. Paradoxical, really. 

You know him. You don't. You've never met him before. You know he'd taste of honeysuckle. 

There is a war in your mind. A long, drawn-out battle. 

(No victor in the carnage.)

You should walk away, leave, like all the times before when you'd spotted him, and ran, but:

Frozen. Paralysed. 

You can't move. Can't—

—maybe, you're just tired of running—

—maybe, i'm just waiting for you to catch up—

His head lifts, and he catches sight of you before you can run. Hazel flashes in recognition. Spotted, you think; but it doesn't matter, it doesn't. 

He isn't waiting for you—

His chin lifts, a smile crooking on the corner of his mouth. 

—you'll be waiting a long time, Bonnie—

You want to run, but you can't. Can't. All you can do is watch as he slides out of the booth, hands shoved into his pockets, and makes his way to you. Tucked into the corner near the counter, away from everyone, everything, but he still spotted you. Still noticed. Still—

"Hi," he greets, low and cautious, like he's trying his best not to startle you. His eyes crinkle. "Didn't expect t'see you again."

You shouldn't be here. "Yeah," you say, instead, huffing. "I, uh… life is pretty funny that way, isn't it?" 

His brow furrows together at your words, eyes darkening with something you can't place. An unknowable emotion, hidden from your prying eyes. You think of him, then, and see the similarities you tried so desperately to ignore each time you saw him. Each time you ran. 

"Aye, it does." 

You should leave him here. Turn around, flee. Forget this place, this microcosm that blooms, and spreads over parts of Elgin you know so intimately; sure, somehow, that you'll find your fingerprints smeared across the ruins despite never having been there before.

Little pieces of yourself. Shedded skin, hope, dismay, peace. Longing. Laughter. It echoes through the tight webs of cobblestone buildings, bouncing playfully off of the pilasters and balustrades, the wrought iron fences, the fanlights, forever embedded in the grout. 

If you go there now, in that beautiful divisional line between new Georgian and old Baronial, you'll hear it whispering through the alcoves, a tantalising sound that rents the air in two. 

But it shouldn't. Can't. 

You've never been there, or here, or anywhere else that wasn't the winding path from your rented flat to the tavern, and the place you eked out from stone to support the vagary of moving to a whole new place for a dream. A feeling. 

And yet—

You taste malt in the air. Smell the barley, the sickly sweet scent of wet dirt on the slick pavement. 

It's familiar in your olfactory senses. Petrichor. Loam. Humus. It congeals in the slick mortar, clinging to the moss that weaves over the old concrete. 

If you looked down, you'd find a little weed growing through a crack beneath your feet, and so, you fix your eyes up, ahead, and try not to weep when the swooping sense of deja vu nearly knocks you off your feet.

But the only thing ahead of you is him. Expectant, curious. He looks at you like he knows you, like he can peel back the skittish layers that cling to your skin until you're shiny and new again. 

It's too much. Intense. Hazel. 

Your gaze drops, fixed on the rounded points of your shoes. There is no pavement beneath your feet—just scuffed linoleum. 

"Do I, uh, know you from somewhere?" 

His voice carries that same heft, that same weight, as the look in his eyes. A strange approximation of wariness and steeled scepticism, blanketed together by intrigue. Curiosity. Concern. 

"No." 

It sounds uncertain. A white lie that crackles in the air between you, nestled amid the sound of chatter muted in the background, as if someone turned the radio on in a different room. Everything seems to contort, and shift around you when he's near. 

A little microcosm eked out inside a cafe you've never been to but know, innately, what you'd order, and what you would recommend. 

"Well," he dips his head like he's trying to catch your eye, and when you lift your chin, the flash of teeth nearly makes your knees buckle. He's softer when he smiles. "How 'bout lettin' me get t'know you then?" 

It's a bad idea etched into the cold marble of a headstone.  

Your mouth opens, but the word that chews through your teeth isn't no, but yes. 

And fuck—

Something in his gaze shifts. Noctilucent eyes widen, staring down at you like he somehow didn't expect a yes at all, and was bracing for the harsh impact of no. 

"Well—" he starts, but the words fall into ash when you duck your head to avoid the crevasse of hazel washed out in flushed gold. "What's your number? I'll call you when m'free next, and we can—"

"Sure," you cut in, hand sliding into your pocket. The cold metal of your phone burns the tips of your fingers when you pull it out. It feels a little bit like a mistake when you hand it over, but he says nothing about the way your hand shakes when he takes it from you. 

His brows draw together in a childish concentration as he taps away at the screen. The artificial light, dimmed as low as possible, brightens the craggy ravines that cut across an emerald tinged boscage; sunlight splitting a lush valley of yellow and green. His puckered lips, the flash of a deep red tongue swiping across his sun-chapped mouth, seems designed to appeal to your baser desires. The one that knows how he'd taste if you pressed you let your tongue grace the tip of his, and can feel the weight of his hands on your flesh. 

He'd hold your hips like he was anchoring you to the earth: tight, warm, and a little bit desperate as he devoured you whole. 

You shiver, and try to ignore the way his pupils bloom into pits of black eclipsing lightened hazel when his gaze settles, hot and heavy, at the brief brush of skin when you reach for your phone. 

"I'll call you," he says, low and strained, like he was choking on the words he wanted to say. "I'll call you as soon as I can, bonnie." 

You nod. It's all you can offer with your heart scrambling up your throat, pulsing furiously against your trachea. 

His nails scrape the skin of your palm when he curls his fingers into a fist, and pulls away. 

"I'll see you around." 

It's not a choice, you want to say. You nod instead. Choke out an equally strained, yeah, and fight the urge to follow him when he finally pulls away. 

"Are you ready to order?" 

The world bursts back into sound, colour. You blink rapidly against the light that seems harsher now than that it did when he was blocking out the sun. 

"Uh, yeah—"

The taste of freshly poured coffee blooms on your tastebuds. 

You order tea instead. 

(It tastes like defeat.)

You only stop running when you can't anymore. When the murmuration in your head turns into screams, and the white-hot agony of grief, of yearning, threatens to make your knees buckle and your bruised heart give. 

You stop, letting him finally catch up. 

(Somehow, somehow, you feel lost and found at the same time.)

His name is Johnny MacTavish. He tells you this over dinner at some upscale restaurant that feels out of place on the old side of Elgin where the walls bleed history, and stink of old bones, and funeral dirt. 

Over a steaming dish of shrimp scampi and burgundy wine that makes your head spin and belly churn, you wonder why it doesn't feel new to you when he murmurs it. 

(A bit late, you find, since you've been texting rather infrequently since you gave him your number three days ago.)

Names never mentioned. Somehow, they didn't have to be. Until now. Until there was emptiness at the end of his question when he posed it, hazel eyes bright and blooming under the hushed yellow glare of the coruscating chandelier hanging above your heads. 

It feels a touch too late when you share your names over dinner despite already knowing he's in the military—opinions clenched between aching teeth and a strained smile that doesn't reach your eyes—and that he normally adorns a Mohawk when he's on missions, but grows it out, rather haphazardly, when he's home. 

Everything between you and him seems to happen in reverse: fears, wants, and worries are known before his given name; the touch of his skin on yours, the taste of his lips, the brush of his tongue, the weight of his palms holding your hips as he buries himself as deep as he can go in a haunting sequence of memories that bare their teeth at the starkness of reality holding them at bay. All of this before you've ever even touched him with your bare hands. 

There's a strange listlessness that envelopes you—a tangled web that spools around you, trapping you in this realm of hypnagogia. The lines between reality and dream blur until they're indistinguishable from each other. Knotted threads married together. Parallel. Concurrent. Where one begins and the other ends is as lost to you as the unfathomable uncertainty of the unknown universe. 

It's not meant to be this way, you think, watching as he feigns not knowing the name that slips between your numbed lips in the same manner you had only moments ago. Traps surprise in the tilt of his chin, but the display is largely done out of some unspoken agreement that this paradox does exist, and the emotion is fleeting. Temporal. He cloves it down the middle, and discards the excess as soon as you look away. 

(Your name fits in his mouth better than it ever did your own, like it was made for his mouth, preordained to play with the soft coil of his tongue.)

He knows more than he lets on, but you don't begrudge him his secrets—not when you have to turn your gaze back to the curled shrimp on your plate to avoid reminding him he prefers fish over crustaceans when he makes a face at the steamed scallops, and should have ordered the Maple Crusted Salmon instead. 

Like he didn't before, in a life you've never lived. In a place that mirrors this world. 

(It isn't something you should know, but you do. You do.)

You know more than that, too: whispers late at night when he couldn't sleep—internal clock still stuck halfway around the world—and urges you into playing a dangerous game of asking questions of each other when pieces of truth buoy in the dark like bobbing for poisoned apples in a barrel. 

You have to erase the words when you type them out, preemptively answering questions he'd never asked yet, and filling in the blanks to ones you posed yourself. 

Odd, you think. Strange, and weird, and macabre in that way that only deja vu gnarling between the broken crevasse of your grey matter can imbue. 

People don't just—

Know each other. 

And yet—

"They call me—"

"Soap." 

Your eyes snap up. A misstep. A grievous one. You've both been content to ignore this paradoxical magnetism that draws you together like eager poles, unable to stay away (not by choice or freewill, but some design that has no place in rigid structures of reality), and you broke it. Trampled over the unspoken rule left to linger in the foreground while you navigated around it like some misshapen elephant in the way. 

He tries to hide the suspicion, the surprise, but it falls between the empty space of his plate (food he only ordered because he's never been here before despite the familiarity that bleeds from the walls like condensation in June) and the ledge. A proverbial precipice that you leaped down; the steep incline filled with detritus and broken shale sharp enough to carve skin, muscles, from shattered bone. 

You want to swallow the words down, but they sit—innocuous and damning—between the salt and pepper shakers where his hand twitches, curls into a tight fist, knuckles bleaching under the strain of reeling himself in. Joints, cartilage, bulging through translucent skin. Reddened around the angry peaks of distrust and wariness; a summit you're not sure how to descend from now that you've crossed the arching tops. 

(Stuck, forever, at the peak.)

"How—" his voice is gravel, lavascape. Jagged rocks. Lakes of sulphuric acid. "How did you know that?" 

His accent thickens when he's angry. You wonder if he knows that. 

"I—" 

Excuses float like moots in front of you. You reach out, grasping for one, but it dances away in the turbulent wake you leave behind. You bite your tongue until it tastes of oxidised pennies, and then shrug. Nonchalant. Indifferent. Fear curls in your gut. Military, right. You wonder what you'll say if they arrest you for treachery. That you dreamed about him? Stupid. Stupid.  

"You told me," you murmur, eyes downcast and heavy, fixed on the bloody cup of wine you don't like, and trying to find solace in your downfall. "I think. I just remembered it from somewhere." 

It makes no sense, and the weak explanation would crumple like damp papier-mâché if he pressed, even just slightly, against it. A single touch, and the house of cards you built from the ground up on nonsensical lies will come crashing down around you. 

He shouldn't entertain it. Shouldn't let it go. 

"Yeah." But he does. "I must'a, huh?"

When you look up, you catch keen hazel eyes, sharp and pointed like the curved talons of a hawk. Johnny MacTavish is many things, you learn, but stupid, guileful, naïve is none of them. 

"Yeah," you echo hollowly, and give another shrug. "Guess so. It's, ah, an interesting nickname."

The clumsy barb seems to break the surmounting tension, and the pieces fall around you like poisoned raindrops, staining your skin. 

A reminder, then, when it crawls down your throat, that this balancing act can't last forever. That, eventually, your excuses will run dry. Empty. They'll be picked at and poked until they burst like a waterlogged, bloated corpse drifting aimlessly down the Nile. 

"Not the only thing that's interesting about me, bonnie," he says in a way that bleeds boyish charm, but his grin is wide, wild, and untamed. White teeth, sharp canines. You think of a wily fox on the prowl, and reach, reflexively, for the glass of wine, swallowing it down like a lifeline. "But I'm beginnin' t'think y'know that already, don't ye?"

It's a threat. A warning. 

You stare down in the half-empty glass of burgundy, the same colour red as the papercut on your index finger, and try to read the beads of crimson that run down the glass in a bloodied rivulet as if the answer could be found somewhere in the liquid. 

(Crystal Ball. Crystal glass. It's all the same, isn't it?)

"Not really," is what you eventually settle for, hedging through the murk that swims before you, an unsettling fen of unknowns and praeternatural happenings that you no longer than chalk up to happenstance. 

Kismet. 

Horror. 

Some cosmic merging of the two. 

It's all—

Absurd. 

And when you politely whisper to him that he should have gotten the salmon, you can't help but notice the ravines in his eyes widen slightly, the chasm growing and gaping, and taking on new shapes in the boscage that blooms like a familiar friend. 

(Kismet, indeed.)

He tries to pretend he doesn't know what the maple salmon tastes like, but slips up when the waiter passes by, and says it was good the last time. 

You fight the urge to chew on your glass like rock candies between your teeth. 

He stands with his hands in his pocket, rocking back and forth. The uncertainty in his brow is swallowed by the tendrils of pleased excitement that knot over his expression, unable to hide his glee when the hazel of his eyes glow brighter than the sun. 

Isn't this strange, you ache to say, words painted with the aftertaste of brine—sea, salt, and sand that are so uniquely him—but they, too, are swallowed down. 

The urge to lacerate the bubbles of complacency, feigned normalcy, are eclipsed by the raw shock of seeing him happy. Of wanting to make him happy. This stranger in a strange land. 

So, you offer some facsimile of a smile when he asks, words pushed out through a wide grin; infectious, if you had a good time. 

"Yeah," you say, and know that this word, this blase affirmative is quickly becoming your faultline through this mess. The thread keeping you sane, keeping you steady. 

It's at the curve of the word when everything else in the world is devoured by the shadow cast under his magnetic glow. The bright yawn of the sun in shades of white teeth catching on some ephemeral magic still dancing within the aether. Atoms spark. 

You try to run from it, ignore it, but your core teeters on the edge of instability. You think of neurons. Protons. Criticality. Something inside of you heats to almost half of the degree of the sun, sweltering and unrelenting. Pulsing, blue-hot. 

"That's good," he husks, eyes lidded and heavy. "I did, too. Whaddya think about doin' it again w'me?" 

It blooms. A great, scorching mushroom cloud plumes in midnight black in the milky white of your eyes.

You shuffle through the darkness, the artificial, comic night, and try to pat at the walls until you find something familiar in terror, the gnawing sense of loss that permeates through your pericardium, thrumming like a mourning toll. 

Sightless, you nod. "I'd love to."

And you mean it, too.

(Damn you. Damn you—)

Despite that tangled web that snakes around your jugular, twinning threads between the two of you, Johnny MacTavish is relentless in his pursuit. 

Where someone else might have shivered at the ghosts that brim in the tenebrous of your pupils, lurking in the untouched corners where your fingerprints stain the sediment, he lingers. Stays. Fixes himself in your path, and refuses to acquiesce to the whims of the world that keep stringing you along like reluctant puppets to some unseen, unknown marionette. 

It's almost charming in its own right, and really—when has a man fought so hard just to simply coexist in the space you deign yours? When has he torn nails from their beds, clawing at the walls that stand tall and proud, a protective tower of ashlar and dread around you until it starts to give. Until the stone crumbles away under his bloodied fingers. 

But as potent as his statement is, it gnarls inside your stomach like a poisoned seed. 

Bending to the demands of whatever this paradoxical realm goes against every fibre of your common sense that you recoil, almost, for just allowing him the scant space he occupies in your proximity. 

It's a deranged pantomime with some unseen force at the helm, conducting the madness with fingers drenched in whimsy and fate. Notched between its knuckles is the mockery of freewill and choice as it pulls you around a soundstage set in a place you've never been. It makes you dance. Amused god, eldritch horror. It takes pleasure in your discomfort, and glee in your fickle humanity. Weaving webs of tangled kismet until the silken threads are pulled taut and there is no more room, not a single atom, between your body and his. 

A nameless, faceless playwright with you as its shining star. 

Hapless leads stuck in an unending beat, a cantastoria, waiting for the shoe, the curtain, or anagnorisis to drop. 

You want to run again, but your feet are glued to the floor. Tangled in webs, threads of abstract concepts your mind threatens to come undone at the mere thought of. A cosmic sense of surrealism: crushing helplessness. 

This is horrific and terrific in equal measure, but the ache, the agony, of distance hurts more. And so, you stay. Watch as the curtain shudders over his eyes. As the etchings of complacency seem to gnarl in the tussock that line the expansive valley. He looks at you and doesn't see the awful truth nestled in the scant distance between your flesh, unable to be apart for too long. He sees you, somehow, and for him, that's enough. Enough. 

Johnny smiles at you, seemingly unbothered by the precariousness of this dance you're caught inside. In this strange equinox where you can answer questions he hasn't asked, and know things he hasn't said. Where you catch yourself leaning closer, starved for a touch you haven't forgotten despite never experiencing yourself. 

He's content, then, chasing the whims of a ghost, reaching for a fantastical dream in the head of another. 

But as content as he is, Johnny MacTavish is a hard man to catch, you think, noting the distance in his eyes, the arm's length of space he keeps between the version of him not haunted by the wants of ghosts, but such an easy man to love. To fall for. 

He balms the panic—that world-ending sense of uncertainty that nips at your heels—and makes you forget, sometimes, that there is more to him, and more to you, than anyone else could ever know. 

He's kind. Charming. 

A little space inside of your head is eked out just for him, and you find yourself hating that person for falling for some version of him first. Loathe them just a little bit more with each effortless grin he sends your way for tainting the experience of knowing him yourself. 

But you wonder, when he turns away, hiding the shadows in his eyes, and the pinch in his brow, if you really, truly know him. 

Or if the face he's wearing belongs to a phantom.

The dance continues. 

Your feet move to a soundless beat, steps preordained in a sequence lived world's ago. Nothing can feel surprising when you know a man so intimately without more than a touch, when you feel the burn of winter's chill in the middle of summer, and long so desperately for someone you just met. 

Nothing is new, and yet everything is novice. A paradox awakening with each gravitational pull to him, this man who looks only vaguely like the phantom who lives in your head, and tastes of longevity between your teeth. 

An arranged romance. Possession by ghosts who want to drive your bodies until they can live again, and love in tandem, vicariously through your living flesh. 

It makes sense to you, then, to call for an exorcism. 

(It just surprises you that Johnny does it first.)

Johnny has his secrets, just like you have yours. A small morsel of agency after autonomy has been stripped from the bone. 

You see the shadows of those hidden things etched in the topography of his valley-filled gaze, crevasses and canyons that pitch themselves in the tenebrous, uncrossable to even you. 

He reaches for you through the murk, fingers threading through your own, hands trembling with the shock, the electric current that sizzles through your blood at the brush of bare skin against quivering flesh. His hands are rough—worker's hands—and chock full of callouses and cuts, multitudes of scar tissue packed tight on top of each other, a thick layer of a life you will never know. Don't want to know. 

He seems settled when you touch, finally, thumb brushing your skittish pulse point as if he could somehow calm the acrid panic in your chest. 

(And damn him, damn this, he does. He does—)

Magnets fixed together, locked tight. You feel like a conduit to his frenzy, his hidden mania, and feed your own through the line, the red string that ensnares you both in a tangled web, until it's buzzing with shared panic and serenity and joy and helplessness. A feedback loop of emotions too extreme, too flighty, to catch. They run in droves along the lines, weaving into your skin, your chest, your head, and then pulling away to do the same to him. 

His eyes are heavier than steel when he gazes at you, expression caught between relief and longing and fear and—

Something, something. You can't pick it apart. Can't undo the tight knot until it spools, open and known, in the palm of your hands. Some unseen distance. It feels like standing at the highest peak of the valley and trying to make sense of the men in the tussock who look like mere ants from this high above. 

Is it happiness, you wonder. 

(Or maybe it's the same reluctance that wraps it's boney, gnarled fingers around your neck—)

It becomes too much. Too soon, too sudden. In the back of your head, you see images and flashes of a life not yet lived, a world still taking shape. You see him and you and a clock above some blue, broken bed. You see his smile, wide and elated, caught on the dawning sun spilling from the open curtains before it disappears under the covers, taking your laughter with it, stuck between his teeth. 

You see the past, the present. 

And your future. 

Cold. Barren. Three sharp knocks echo in the emptiness of your head. A man, a familiar stranger. You don't know him. You'd die for him. He rents the air in two. Your world in cloves. They fall to the ground, leaving you stranded and alone in the middle.

Future. There's no future. 

Your chest twists. You let go of his hand and find bloody crescent moons embedded in a ring along his flesh, knuckles whitening under your harsh grip. He said nothing about the pain. The flicker of worry across his face is genuine, you think. Real. Current. 

You smell funeral dirt in your nose. The mud is called under your nails. 

You pull away. He lets you go. 

"I, uh," he breaks off into a soft huff, injured hand lifting to scratch at the back of his shorn nape. His eyes slide away from yours, listing seaward. Avoidance undercuts the arch in his brow, the sheepishness in his mien. It's his turn to run, you realise. 

"Glad I met you," he says instead, and it's a confession and a curse. 

A bonfire burns in the river that runs through the valleys in his eyes. It's pitched on the sandy shore: an ochre flicker in the cobalt hue that saturates the land. You see the dark peaks of the rolling hills in the distance, black shapes in draped blue. 

The river is calm. The fire burns a smear of orange across the tranquil surface, meeting the milky white glow of the moon. 

It makes you think of those nights in the zenith of summer, the ones that feel neverending. Timeless. A piece of your history etched in balmy melancholy. Alone in the great expanse with nothing but the trill of cicadas, and the echoing chirp of the crickets hidden in the lush grass below. 

The sky shifts. His eyes plume with lavender-tinged stratocumulus. 

"I really like you, bonnie." It's whispered in your ear, and you wish, oh, how you wish, you couldn't hear it. That you could block the words, and the world, out so that it never reaches you again. 

Sweet longing. Beautiful agony. 

Your heart races, and you wonder how an empty space can beat at all. Can feel anything when it's just a hollow chasm. 

A heat blooms under your skin, desperate and aching. This, this, is everything you've been looking for since your heart split free from its fleshy prison, and ran away to find him, tucking itself in the boscage that glows in the flame on the shores. It's hidden somewhere. The palpitations sound like a song. You could follow it, you think, and find its lovelorn shell nestled amongst the grass that sways to its beat, and tuck it back into your empty chest where it belongs. 

(But it belongs to him, now.)

And you—

You hesitate. 

The words well on your tongue, but you think of fate, of choice, and swallow them down. 

The flames in the distance flicker, growing dimmer and darker as the moments stretch on, unbroken and barren until it's snuffed out. Gone. 

What can you say? What could you say? 

Instead, you say nothing at all. 

Johnny leaves a piece of himself on the table when he walks away. 

(You don't pick it up.)

Johnny doesn't say anything at all when he brings you home, when he stands outside of the archway to your flat, eyes lidded and pensive. A smile snakes across his face, but it's brittle and full of uncertainty, and your fingers ache to smooth the rugged lines in his brow, in the stress in his shoulders. You push it down. Smile for him instead. 

"I'll see you later," you say, and wish the ghosts wailing in your head would drop dead. 

The valley is drenched in ink when he nods, catching your gaze. 

All black, black, black. 

No sounds escape. 

"Sure, bonnie." 

You dream, and when you dream, it's of him. 

He stands at the top of a hill, and when he smiles it's full of starlight so bright it could eclipse the sun. 

In his hand, you see a pair of shears. Your mouth opens, but no sound escapes.  

He says just one word—your name—and then he lifts his hand, and cuts the rope. The sutures knit your bodies together, the string that holds him to this mortal plane, falls in swaths of golden thread to the ground where they're devoured by the earth, dissolved into nothing. Gone, forever. 

There's distance now, and separation. Nothing ties you to him except space. 

You wake up with the ghost of a scream on your lips, and the feeling of silken threads dragging over your flesh. You reach for them, and catch nothing but air. 

Palm pressed to your chest, you feel the rapid pulse under your fingertips, and know that it's back. Back where it belongs. 

Belongs, but doesn't want to be. 

You think of Johnny. 

And you weep. 

He sends a text message, and for the first time since you've met him, it surprises you. Nothing should shock you with him, anymore. You know everything, anything, about him. 

Gonna be away for a bit. Should talk when I get back. 

You reach for answers but they slide like mercury out of your hands. 

You don't dance, and you don't dream. 

You wander down the streets of Elgin, and for the first time since you woke up screaming in your bed with ghosts wailing in agony inside of your head, you get lost. 

Johnny comes back a week later, eyes heavier than you'd ever seen them, and shoulders drawn tight together as he asks you why—

"Why'd'ya keep runnin'?" He asks, words pitched and heavy with something lour and aching, a phantom pain you know all too well. There's desperation in his eyes, a low keen settling in the depth of his throat, echoing with the clamour of his despair. "If you don't want this—;" don't want me: "—then just say so, bonnie, 'cause I ain't forcin' ya t'be w'me, I ain't gonna make you stay. You wanna leave, you can just go—"

Can't. Can't. 

"Johnny—"

"No, none o'that, now. You make up your mind, 'cause I ain't makin' it for ya. I ain't makin' ya do somethin' you don't want to, and I ain't—"

He's pleading, you think. Begging—

For this, this strange thing. This awful, broken calamity, this abomination in the face of free will and autonomy. Despite the rage that hums in your veins at the idea of being controlled, manipulated, he finds something worth chasing. Worth running for. 

Why?

And what?

And—

It comes in flashes, snippets. Fragmented pieces of bright eyes—brighter, maybe, than the sun—and warmth, one hot enough to burn but it doesn't, it won't, it soothes instead. Eases coiled muscles, and absorbs the lactic acid that leaks from shredded, knotted fibres. Hands on your body, on your skin: the press of rough fingertips over prickling flesh. A whisper of curiosity, the slow descent into affection, adoration. Plush lips pillowing sharp teeth, too reverent to ever leave a mark behind—part in fear of marring fragile skin, and—

Letting the ghost of permanence fester, take root, inside his chest where his heart beats—

Jus' f'r you, bonnie. Jus' you.

For once, the phantom touching your body isn't a dream, a half-lived fantasy in another world where a man-made you whole and then ripped you into pieces, letting the scattered fragments blow with the sharp winds howling through the highlands. You know the touch, remember it. Felt it. New, and tangible. A touch that never lingered, too afraid of letting something, something, stick. 

For once—

The snaps flashing, blindingly, through your synapses are not made of dream dust and kismet. 

And—

All at once, it shatters.

—you know, i never thought i'd say this before, but i—

(You were lost in Elgin, but when you see his face, you feel found—)

THERE—

There is a lot to be said about Johnny MacTavish. 

Good things—kind, dedicated, driven—and bad things—bold, stoic, dogmatic—but one thing neither have in common is tardiness. Broken promises. 

So, when Johnny calls you in some distant land you've never heard of, and says: 

Things got bad. I might not—I might not be coming home.

You believe him. 

But the thing is: there's a difference between believing the words being said to you, and understanding their meaning. Your mind is not equipped to latch onto devastating blows with the same swiftness you do ignorant bliss. 

So, when you hear I might not be coming home, you think, instead, of tardiness. Of a missed anniversary dinner. 

(Of all the ones that came before it, and will come after it.)

And you smile. Smile into the receiver with your heart drifting down Lethe. 

"Okay, Johnny," you say, and those words will come back to haunt you three days from now, when John Price shows up at your goddamn door, stupid bucket hat tucked tight to his chest, and rips your heart into pieces. 

But for as much as you are blissfully ignorant, your mind still understands nuance. They used to call it foresight, a sixth sense; hindsight. 

You add, softer than you've ever said the words: "I love you." 

His breath stutters through the line in response. A brief pause. And then—

"If anything happens—" you hate him a little for even saying it; you really do: "just know that I love you, too. And that I hope—ah, Christ, bonnie, you got me all stupid, now—but, fuck, I hope we meet in another life."

It knocks something loose inside of you. Some primaeval thing that nestled in the safety of your ribs, moulting along your moon-white bones and glueing to the soft tissue that pulsed around it. It's shaken. Dislodged. 

It feels a little bit like your soul is being scraped off of bone. 

"Johnny—"

"—gotta go. We haven't heard from Roach or Riley in a while. I probably won't call tonight. So, don't wait for me, bonnie." 

The line clicks before the words I've been waiting for you forever fall from your wobbling lips.

You hate Johnny a little bit for this. For digging his roots deep into the soft chambers of your heart where it gnarled around your pericardium. A perfect little knot. A bow tied nice and pretty just for him. 

It makes it so much harder to bare when John fucking Price knocks on your door, stupid fucking bucket hat tucked tight against his chest, ghosts in his eyes, blood on his hands, and rips your heart into pieces until nothing but the rotten, dying roots remain. 

"I hate you so much right now," you hiss at the tombstone—the only thing you have left of him. "I hate you and I miss you and I wish you were here so I could—"

John finds you with your forehead pressed against the brass plaque, cheeks raw from the rivulets of tears that feel endless—a baptism in grief; in your tear ducts, Noah battles the biblical flood, and loses. 

Eyes that can't see past a shimmering hinterland of death and abject dismay are fixed, broken, against speckled granite. 

It's agony. The kind that makes it feel as if the marrow in your bones turned into a corrosive liquid, molten and devastating, and burst through brittle, hollow bone. 

Price, you've come to realise, seems to know things beyond what you tell him. Always picking up the shedded skin that falls from the people around him. Little pieces of them that he shoves in his pocket to ruminate on when he's trying to put together the puzzle of who they are. 

Words won't penetrate through the haze in your head. It filters in like water through a rhyne, back out to the open sea. 

(He knows this, of course, because you've been shedding pieces of yourself around him for years.)

It doesn't surprise you, then, when he says nothing. When he just falls to his aching knees in the soft humus, resting beside you as your world crumbles into ash and heartache. 

You sit in numbed silence until the sun is swallowed by the dusk that creeps across the sky. The moon itself seems to mourn along with you, hiding her eyes behind a nebulous veil of gunmetal. 

Price, without a word, helps you stand when the gravekeeper comes and ushers you out. He shepherds you into his Jeep and brings you back to the place that reeks of loneliness and dinners for one. A place that still carries the ghost of his presence around every corner, tucked away in each alcove and nook.

He might be gone, but his shadow still lives and breathes the dank, funeral air that clings to your sallow skin. A miasma of loss that tangles itself in every atom around you. 

Price seems hesitant to step inside, but you'd rather sleep on the patio with the chirping crickets and the weeping moon than be inside where the echo of his voice whispers through the halls, and he knows this, because he knows you, and so he brings you in before you can entomb yourself in grief, lost to the elements. He sets you down gingerly on the couch, body now more fragile than fine china, brushing your tangled hair from your forehead. It catches on his weathered hands. You barely feel the pull. 

He looks at you like you're a battle that can't be won. 

"Take care'a yourself, yeah? It's what—" he chokes, then, and you feel the hiccup like a white-hot knife to your gut. "It's what he would've wanted."

What he wanted is gone, and it's dead—just like him.

You don't say these words, but you wonder if he knows them, hears them, anyway. He must, you think, watching as the ashy, smoked cedar of his beard twitches. His mouth gnarls to the side in grief, uncertainty. 

He says your name. You know this because you know the shape it makes of his mouth, but don't you hear it. All it sounds like is a nail scraping over waterlogged, mossy wood. 

Price leaves.

A part of you goes with him.

You rest your forehead against his pillow, the one that smells of him still—warm milk, honeysuckle—and you wish so hard on broken promises, unfilled dreams, to see him again, to hold his face in the plinth of your palms, that your heart feels like it might burst—

—break. 

But it's already broken. There's nothing left to shatter. The pulpy mess he left behind beats not because you want it to, but because it has to. A biological failsafe that does not care about your human emotions even as it quivers and shakes at the loss that tipped your world upside down. A gaping hole sits in the middle in the shape of his smile, and your stubborn heart pulses around the wound. 

Sometimes you think it would be easier to feel nothing at all. To shed the agony like a rotting limb, cutting it as close to the bone as you can, and watching it fall, blackened with decay, and postulating with infectious spores that bud, devouring unblemished, unhurt, flesh until you're a pristine corpse. 

Grief twists you into the living dead. Breaks your head in two, cloved clean down the middle of unrelenting panic and anger—anguish so severe, you can easily convince yourself nothing at all is real. 

But it is. 

And then there is only denial and abject horror at that unimaginable nothingness that looms, blooming in your insides until they turn into a gaping, festering maw. One that makes you feel like you could swallow the whole world and still feel empty. 

No longer a human on the inside but a chasm. The person you were before died the moment his heart stopped beating. Irrevocably changed with three, stark knocks against the door he painted yellow because it reminded him of the way you looked standing in a field of sunflowers. Gone. Gone—

A barren void with its insides scraped out. Hollow. Wind rattles through your chilled bones. It sounds like his voice when it ghosts over your ribcage. 

You chase the sound. 

Running, running, running. Going so fast, it barely feels like your feet touch the ground. A wingless bird soaring across the valleys that gleaned in his hazel eyes. 

Running, running—

Your feet slide against marshy peat. A hidden bog gurgles beneath your soles. 

You don't scream when you sink. 

(The bubbles sound just like him—)

You smile.

—NOW

Eldritch machinations, some fanciful god playing a chaotic game of matchmaker, a dizzying sense of folie a deux—you haven't quite determined what the reason for this is, who or what might be behind it, but one thing you do know is this:

Something might be aligning your paths until all trails lead to him, but when you wander down those Wonderland roads, your heart beats for him. 

A second heart pulses under your skin. One slipped inside when you cupped his cheeks in your palm, and told him when you looked, you saw only him.

It might not be a choice you've made in this lifetime, but it's certainly one you can't bring yourself to regret. 

You run, but this time, it isn't away from him, but to him. 

He tastes of coumarin when you press your lips to his, a kiss met in the middle. 

You're lost, now, in the swell that gusts across the boscage. A breeze dances over your ears. A thousand starlings coo in the clear blue aether above. You feel the tickle of barley against your knees. Rasping tussock sedge curls over your ankle, weaving together until you're tied to the ground. Anchored against the stalks of wheat that shiver in the wind. 

His hands are warm, solid, on your skin. One hand braced on the small of your back, keeping you pressed firmly against him. The other cups your chin like you're made of fine china, polished crystal full of precious gems and rare metals. He holds tight as if he's afraid you'll drift away when he lets go. 

Your head is blooming full of sunflowers. They germinate in your thoughts until the petals burst through, lifting high to the heavens where the sun burns half as hot as his body angling against yours. 

His atoms sing, calling to yours. A buzz, a hum. You feel them stretch, shifting from the prison of you until equilibrium is reached when they merge, tangling together. A new being, a new entity is born from the collision—a person made of two with lungs and hearts that breathe and beat in the same cadence as it's ghosts. Woven together with marionette strings. 

It feels like coming home and getting lost all at once. 

Etched in the delicate flesh of your heart sits a kairos moment. A brief period of nothing that runs as deadly and tumultuous as the Swillies. An upheaval. 

Time is tenuous. Broken. Fragmented. 

An arm stretches out, anchoring across your waist. His mouth presses a kiss to your bare shoulder, eyes glossy in the mid-morning sun. 

"Wha' time's it?" He slurs out, words thick with sleep. 

Your eyes cut to the alarm clock on the end table. A slow, languid smile curls across your kiss-bruised mouth. 

"Eleven-fifteen," you breathe, eyes fixed on the red lines. Your heart stutters when it flickers. "Eleven-sixteen."

"S'too early," he moans, lips rubbing over your flesh. "Stay in bed with me." 

You peel your gaze away from the clock ticking down the seconds (minutes, hours, days, months, years), and turn to him. Hazel in bloom. A boscage in spring. Your eyes mist a little from the morning dew. 

"I love you, Johnny." 

His breath ghosts over your skin. You hear the hitch in his voice when he speaks. 

"Been waitin' a long time t'hear you say that, bonnie."

"Sorry to keep you waiting." 

—don't wait for me, Bonnie. i'll come find you—

—THEN

"Excuse me? You dropped this."

It's raining. Pouring, really. The droplets are the size of pennies and pelt the top of your umbrella with an unforgiving force. It sounds like the clatter of a mourning bell, and drowns everything else out. 

But it catches. Clear. Low. 

You turn, blinking through the thick fog that congeals around High Street in a dense, white blanket. 

"Sorry?" 

A man. He's towering above you, cut off at the chest by the fine points of your umbrella. You lift it, and—

Your wallet is the first thing you see. Wet, covered in grit from the cobblestone. It's clenched between a thick thumb and forefinger, held delicately together. You baulk. 

"Oh, shit—," it's snatched out of his hand, and pulled into the sanctuary of cover. You can feel it already. The mess inside. Still. You hope—

The leather peels back. Mush. 

You groan. The meagre bills you'd pulled from the machine are now wet, sticking together in a papier-mache square. Useless. No one is going to accept sopping wet bills. 

"Alright?" 

"No, I—," you glance up at him, irritation cutting across your brow. No, you're not alright. You're shit out of luck, and stranded here, now. And—

And—

Hazel. It's the first thing you see. Mountains of brown slope into a lush green valley. A cool blue lake cuts through, splitting off into a ravine. 

Your breath catches. 

"Sorry, umm. Yes. I'm—"

Attractive is the first word that springs to your mind when you stare at him—dark eyes, furrowed brow, long nose, a dusting of charcoal stubble along his cheeks and jaw, and full pink lips. Kissable is the second one. 

And then—

Oh, God. 

"Sorry," you murmur again, cheeks heating despite the chill. "I'm fine. Thank you, I'm—"

"You're not," he says, and it's uttered so assuredly that you can't find it in yourself to lie. As if he is somehow able to chisel into your head, and rifle through your problems with ease. "It's all wet, isn't it? Were you heading home, or—?"

It's cliche. Stupid. Your belly rumbles.

Mortifying. Absolutely—

His lips quirk up. A soft, almost secretive smile. Reserved. "Well, I know this place around the back. I could use the company, if you wouldn't mind."

You should say no. No, thank you—because you were raised proper. But all you can think about is the deep, brassy tone that tickles your ears when he speaks. The distant, almost careful way he regards you, as if he's putting himself at arm's length so you aren't scared off by his brawn. 

Hazel is dusted in gold. You want to bask in his warmth for just a moment longer—

"I'll pay you back, I promise."

His brows raise. Hazel framed in white. A soft huff leaves his full mouth before his lips pull up in a slow, genuine smile. 

"Y'alright, bonnie. I'll hold you to it."

(And so, it begins.)

#john soap mactavish #soap x reader #Johnny MacTavish x reader #og soap x reader #og soap #john soap mctavish x reader #john soap mctavish x you #cod fanfic #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #this took me forever #idk why #i just?? expected more fluff but instead we get horror and grief and eventually fluff #kinda #like #sorta #idk #enjoy

[libraryofloveletters]

wait the raptors as ur current brain rot is so interesting to me (in a good way) cause as a fan of the team they’ve been on timeout in my mind after the way the season went & how it ended

I typed out a response but it spiralled so under the cut it goes lmao

the last game was so shit but honestly, not surprising. when the raps play at home, especially if they go into half with a lead, they lapse coming back. they get too comfortable and then relax on the defence, hence our loss.

its a hit or miss with them tbh, sometimes they play so well and sometimes it's shit. I find that when they have Sunday days (usually scheduled for 12-1pm) or weekday games (3-4pm) they play much better. if they're coming off a win, they're a little lapsed also and tend to lose the next game.

I love them but most of the players aren't consistent, they're so on and off - the only person in my opinion that gives consistent results is OG. Pascal is up there as is Gary and Scottie, I wish I could say Freddy too but he either has a really good game or a really bad one. If you put in Chris, he will always get you points - same with Malachi. Jak is so big and overestimates the shots which end with him missing good ones that would go in if he put a little less force behind them lmao - most of our bench players are super solid but unfortunately don't get enough time - again like Malachi, Christian or Joe, even Will. (still mourning the loss of Juancho so I haven't fully warmed up to Will even tho he's a solid player - yes I miss Juancho and his 3 point average)

but nonetheless, the season started out a bit shitty, went up and then just dropped down to the lowest of lows - I love the team but I need a better team next season.

[starglitterz]

cynosure. (vii)

─── chapter 7 ! ~ bubble tea

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summary; you and xiao are genmates under the famed streamer company genshin impact. the chemistry between the two of you is undeniable, and your fanbases absolutely love your collaborations. but when you both start meeting up offline more and more, your connection starts to deepen past just harmless flirting and playful banter. with these real feelings starting to affect both your job and reputation online, how will you two react when your relationship becomes the internet’s cynosure?

a/n: apologies for the ugly formatting i needed space for 10 images so i removed the banners LMAO,,, hehe i hope u all like this chapter bc i certainly do (it went kinda far from my og plan LOL) also i forgot to add this but reading order is; 1 2 3 4

warnings; hate comments

previous.┃masterlist.┃next.

please reblog ! it helps a lot :)

this chapter is dedicated to story !! (@/storytravelled) hehehe tysm for all the adorable tags u leave in the reblogs, they make me rlly happy and i love reading them!! ^_^ <3

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private messages !

groupchat 1 !

groupchat 2 !

twitter !

private messages !

facts !!

scaramouche is a famous tea channel, he starts informs people about drama in the youtube community. his sources are usually untrustworthy but everyone believes him because he's pretty. has been cancelled numerous times but still comes back every single time, much to the chagrin of the poor streamers whom he sets his eye on to make his next video about.

feiyun slope is is the northeastern area in liyue harbour. in-game, wanmin restaurant is actually in chihu rock, but for story purposes it's now at feiyun slope since that's usually where business occurs in the game.

hu tao and yanfei were on a ghost-hunting date, they had stopped to take a break after quite a long time without seeing any ghosts and that's when hu tao texted in the groupchat.

xiao's contact name is tiny because of a joke w his chinese name that i mentioned in a previous chapter. xiao’s chinese name is 魈, read as xiāo and meaning 'demon’, but the word for 'small’ in chinese is 小, read as xiăo. basically if you mispronounce xiao’s name the meaning will change, and so y/n nicknamed him tiny bc of the word 小.

while yanfei says the username is 'genshin-impact-updates', the actual poster is 'gi-updates'. just take this as yanfei having a rare lapse of memory, pretend it's not bc i realised twt usernames can't be that long <3

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a/n; YOOO SOME DRAMA??? LMFAOKMDKSD also i dont know how bubble tea works so i cut out a whole part i had planned for this but! genesussy helped me out when i was asking qs in the discord server hehe 😎 ty genesis btw!! <3 besides that im sorry for delaying this chapter for like 700 years T_T i didnt have any time to write it </3 fun fact i nearly cried editing parts of this on mobile bc it was so laggy omg,,, but now that it's out, i hope u all like it !! also send me theories abt what u think will happen next or perish /j ily all, im abt to go sleep now (i just realised i always finish cynosure chapters late at night HAHA) so goodnight my loves ! or good morning when u read this ! either way i hope you like this chapter and continue enjoying cynosure <333

taglist; @noirkkat @bookuya @ohmykazuha @glazelilyy @oreoz-unfortunately @tiny-aroace @xiaophobic @test-tube @jiinghe @storytravelled @mirikusashes @ben6ett @oliviasslut @bluexiao @lunachelly @aelatus @mimion @akiiyukii @angelhxneyy @give-xiao-almond-tofu @abyssheart @xuanya @normalisthenewnorm @viagiraffe @fuhuashandholder @astersg4rden @nachotrash @childe-support @cynokine @axerrri @ventirain @kait-is-always-late @hushyouu @celestair @rim0na @indecisivehusky @nurserinnn @ariesreii @saving-for-xiao @hellokittykuroo @auradragon199 @xiaoszn @liarchive @almondto-fu @berryqueue @chichikoi @yunaholics @yoimimi @http-mewchuu

usernames in bold could not be tagged :( pls do lmk if want to be added to/removed from the taglist by sending in an ask! taglist pt 2 is open, and will be tagged in a reblog of this chapter when i wake up!

fan accounts !

- @severedftaes

- @/berryqueue

general masterlist.

© starglitterz 2021. do not repost or modify in any way.

#xiao x reader #xiao fluff #xiao imagines #xiao drabbles #xiao genshin impact #genshin impact xiao #genshin xiao #genshin impact fluff #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin imagines #genshin impact writing #genshin impact drabbles #genshin impact #xiao #genshin impact smau #genshin smau #genshin modern au #xiao smau #genshin impact xiao smau #genshin au #genshin impact au #genshin fake texts #genshin impact fake texts #genshin impact series #genshin series #xiao scenarios #[📱] ━━━ cynosure !

[beastsars]

some cute morning sexy time with legoshi

at the first hint of sunlight, legoshi finds himself stirring. he never understood the newest trend of his body's desire to rouse earlier in the day. during his tenure at cherryton, he used to have a hard time motivating himself to traverse through enough mundane takes just to make it to his drama duties. now without that fixture in his life, he can recall a specific reason as to why he feels so inclined to wake before the sun properly can. 

cracking open his eyes, he notes that the room hasn’t completely lost its dim glow. splashes of calm blue still overcoming the encroaching warmth of yellows. huffing under his breath, he turns to bury his nose against the fur of your neck, hoping to drift back off for a few more hours. 

yet he finds the soft sighs that leave your lips with each exhale more distracting than the sun at his back. unable to resist peeking at the peaceful visage of your comfortable slumber. you fortunately, have no trouble missing the transition from night to day. the rhythm of your chest rising and falling not even hitching in the slightest until mid morning if you could help it. his borrowed shirt is still wrinkled from whatever restless bout that had overtaken you in the hours prior, the aftermath exposing the softness of your vulnerable belly. 

it surprises him how much effort it takes to resist disrupting the flow of hair there, knowing your sensitivity would react to the ticklish touch. a faint smile curls at the ends of his lips as he dares to drag a claw to a safer spot just above the curve of your hip. 

despite it being the first night together after a few days of separation, the two of you hadn’t fallen in bed together with the motivations of passion. he honestly couldn’t recall anything other than the warmth of you settling into the curve of his body and drifting off to the quiet rumble of your heartbeat. 

closing his eyes, he can’t help but imagine how it could have gone differently had the two of you had more energy to reserve. there had certainly been enough talk about it traded in the darkest hours of the night when it was impossible to resist the deepest thralls of imagination. the scenarios were plentiful and bookmarked with promises that he knew would be made good on. 

he comes to terms with his mistake too late as he finds his arousal trapped between the honey taste og you on his tongue and tightness of your aperture squeezing at his sex. his cock had already joined him this morning at half mast and was well on its way to fullness with each dip into the lucid fantasy. with a huff of his own he snuffless against the tuft of your ears. only to freeze at his flounder when it flickers in protest. 

“hmm, legoshi?”

his ears flatten in apology and he licks a firm stripe against the exposure of your neck as you roll over to face him. your eyes are still blurry and unfocused, teetering between consciousness as your body goes taut in a reflexive stretch. 

“wah time is it?” you slur and despite his faults, legoshi can’t help but chuckle at the cuteness. 

“early. sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.” he shifts gingerly, giving you more room to tuck into him. he completely forgets about kindling fire until the breach of your leg between his nudges against the tent. caught, he sheepishly tries to draw away.

“i ah- wasn’t being a pervert. just woke up like this.”

“so you aren’t happy to see me?”

the joke is fluid transition for you as more clarity filters into your voice. you have to press your lips together in a thin line to keep from laughing at the way he balks. in his lapse, you drag your hand through the covers to the sprawl of his fingers to thread them together. using the grip as an anchor, you fill the gap he tried to place with an eager roll of your hips, hoping to get your consent across without too much skepticism. 

unable to resist, your lover drops his head to the curve of your shoulder to hide his groan- or was that a moan? the task of trying to decipher the muffled words is lost to the distraction of the trail of open-mouthed kisses back up the length of your neck to the structure of your jaw. he ends with a chaste peck to the corner of your lips.

“i’m always happy to see you, i just didn’t want you to-y’know assume anything.’’

when he’s this relaxed and pliant to your will, it doesn’t take much to encourage the wolf to move to his back as you crawl over him. most of your weight is on his thighs, purposefully directed away from where he craves it the most. 

“what? that you want me? did you think i forgot about all the pretty scenarios you put in my head?”

‘pretty’ what the impression he had in mind when he’d conjured them up. but your receptiveness was more important at the time. none of it having any place in his swarm of thoughts as he watched your fingers walk over the flat of his stomach down to the hem of his pants. it's a relief when you don’t utilize the opportunity to tease and he’s more than eager to lift his hips to help you draw the fabric down to his thighs. 

the sight of him standing tall is less embarrassing when it’s under the hungry heat of your gaze. in one of those stories, you had woken him up with the circle of your lips catching on the ridge at the head of his cock. but he wasn’t picky when you hand wrapped around the base of him. 

there's a throaty sound to his voice as his legs flex underneath you. “i had a lot of time to think about you.”

truly. every waking moment and opportunity was a welcomed one to tune out the roar of your absence. 

“ah shit.” with a grueling amount of effort, he was able to pry away your hand, silencing your complaint with a chaste kiss to your lips. “we can run down the list later. just let me have you like this first.”

curling his finger into his palm, he uses the bend of his second knuckle to draw your garments to the side and rub small circles against your apex. no matter how short he cuts his nails, he can’t dull them enough to angle them too deep. relying more on your wetness to ease the way. it’s the burden of a carnivore lover- or perhaps just the trials of being with him, but he does hit best to make up for what he feels are his thoughts.

legoshi is mindful of his teeth as he draws you into the first proper kiss of the day, tongue flickering out to tease the warmth of your orifice. the combination of the heat and taste of him help to kindle your fire as you rub needfully into the pressure of his digits. the absence of his touch evoking a a heightened sense of fondness that you grapple on to firmly. your vision goes hazy, different than the thick cloud of sleep as he hangs by a thread within the smog of the combined lust. 

his hands skim the curve of your waist, latching just above your hip bone to draw you close for his favorite parts. he eagerly swallows your soft exhale as he nudges the head between your folds, intoxicated by the stretch of your cunt. it's an archaic sense of relief that draws all tension from his muscles as he slides his cock further to the hilt. 

the passion of lovers is a tender moment, but the desperate unbridled needs for raw fucking crashes through the setting, shattering your resolve like glass. coaxed by your whimpered assent, he doubts a raw pace as he fucks into you fervently. the friction of and slick slide of overheated bodies muddling slurred speech and broken ‘i love yous’. 

the force of his snapping hips is more than enough to shake the frame of the bed, a full unleash of the beast that inherits every fiber of his being. the sun is more prompting now, bleeding through the blinds to light the place where he enters you. 

it’s too fast to promise anything too long, a blessing as you find yourself straddling the edge of your completion already. there’s a halting moment where his rhythm goes inconsistent as he resists the grip on your hips to encourage you to adopt his pace. it's a sloppy rendition and most of your efforts are focused on the down shift as you grind into his lap. 

when you meet him at the climax you both seem to cling to each other before toppling over the edge. the whirlwind of the descent of your capitulation drawing a shudder from your head to your toes. you melt into his chest, heart thumping at sporadic staccato against the answering beat of his. 

the harsh mixture of your pants doesn't seem like they will ever find an evening pace as it only seems to feed into the humidity of the room. legoshi’s muzzle nuzzles the side of your head as he settles into bone-deep satisfaction, the heavy aftertaste of sexual gratification filling the void of speech. 

sort of.

“so are we starting at the top of the list or the bottom?”

#legoshi x reader #beastars x reader #legoshi beastars

[starkerforlife6969]

To Be a Widow Part 2

starker, winter spider thanks again to the wonderful @wandering-night19 

Peter’s past three husbands have all died under suspicious circumstances. Detective Stark was convinced that pretty Peter had something to do with it, but more and more lately, Peter’s dangerously loyal butler Bucky has become his prime suspect..read the OG post here and my part 1 to this here 

The ropes binding him are impeccably knotted. No doubt, then, that Barnes has done this before.

It doesn’t stop him from testing them, from flexing his wrists and seeing if there’s any give at all, any sort of slack, any sign from God that he’s looking out for the loveable genius that is Detective Tony-

“Stark’s a liability.” Barnes hisses, voice tight and furious, even as his hands wrap bandaging over Peter’s wrist. Tony had barely even scratched him in his attempt to flee, but Bucky trails his fingers over Peter’s skin like he’s handling some precious gem, some delicate flower.

Peter sits on the edge of his bed, swinging his feet and humming. “I think we can reign him in.” 

Bucky kisses Peter’s now bandaged wrist, slipping down onto one knee like a knight before his King. “He hurt you.” He beseeches quietly, almost a whine, an attack dog, a wolf, desperate to avenge his master.

Peter strokes his fingers through Barnes’ hair, soothing, the same move he used on Tony. “James...”

“Just let me-” he cuts off, a shuddering whimper, and Tony frowns, straining to see and- ah. Peter’s slipper clad foot is pressed into Bucky’s groin. 

Tony feels hot under the collar, and he pulls hard on the restraints once more. Something creaks at the back of the chair and he freezes, but those honey eyes are on him. Peter smiles.

“James wants to hurt you, Tony,” Peter sighs, fingers tugging at Bucky’s hair, loving but firm. “He’s very protective of me, you know.”

“Yeah,” Tony pants, “I guessed as much.” There’s no getting out of his through brute force. Even if he managed to get out of the rope, Barnes has got a few feet on him, and Peter’s spry and nimble and surprisingly strong. “So,” if in doubt, talk it out, “you two are...”

“It’s not so much about us,” Peter drawls, “it’s much more about me. I’m trying to expand my business, Detective.”

“What business?”

“B Enterprises.”

“Never heard of them.”

Peter beams at that, getting to his feet, long silk robe of red trailing after him. He heads over to his desk, covered in important looking documents and lethal, heavy paper weights. He pours himself some scotch and toasts Tony. “Exactly. We operate in a...” Peter muses for a moment, “in a less than official capacity, I’ll admit. But we needed money. I got us some.”

“You’ve killed three people-”

“I haven’t killed anyone, Tony.” He hums sweetly. “But of course, all that aside, we do have a bit of problem now, don’t we?”

Tony swallows hard. “You gonna kill me?”

“Nonsense.” Peter waves him off, “I propose we all sleep on it. James?”

Tony barely has a second to register the grin on Bucky’s face, before he’s being hit by something blunt.

***

In the morning, sunlight trickles in.

It appears the cold spring has left then, and the beginning a of new summer threatens.

Tony blinks the black spots out of his vision, body aching. He’s still in Peter’s bedroom, still bound to a chair in the corner of the lavishly furnished master suite. Peter’s fast asleep, chest rising and falling, the height of comfort, no fear or concern creased into his angelic face.

Tony jerks when he realises Bucky is standing no less than two feet away from him: watching. 

“Jeez,” Tony mutters into the quiet, trying to slow his pulse, “do you not sleep?”

“I will rip you apart.” Bucky whispers, looking like a spring about to burst.

Okay, maybe another way out. Not brute force, but finding a groove and digging. He can do that. “Sure,” he nods, “except pretty boy won’t let you. Keeps that leash on pretty tight, huh?”

Bucky says nothing to that, but his eyes are ice blue. Piercing. 

Tony prods a little more. “You know, just because he didn’t have a physical hand in the killings doesn’t mean we can’t convict. We can still-”

He words are cut off suddenly when Bucky’s hand wraps around his throat, air immediately deprived, he starts to panic, can barely hear Bucky hissing into his ear. “You ever even dare hurt him I will rip you into pieces, I will-”

“Oh, James,” comes a sleepy sigh, and Tony’s dropped like he burns Bucky’s hands, gasping, choking for air, looking over to see Peter sitting up, curls a mess, adorable and defenceless. He looks like a kitten. “What did I say? I said: try not to kill our guest.”

Barnes looks like he wants to do nothing more than rip Tony’s head right off his shoulders. 

Peter holds out his arms, wiggling his fingers, and Bucky goes, led by a siren, into Peter’s warm embrace.

***

Breakfast is a very dignified affair.

Tony’s unbound, but Bucky stands in front of the only door, a gun at his waist.

Peter is in black satin, shoes like polished opals, lips cherry red. The table is laden with food: bright, vibrant pieces of fruit, pinks to oranges to ocean-blues, and Tony doesn’t dare move to serve himself, so sits with an empty plate, watching Peter place a few blueberries into his own bowl. 

“Please, Tony,” Peter purrs, “help yourself.” 

There’s no trembling now. Peter’s completely at ease. Certain. The frailness from yesterday is gone. He’s strong, nimble, elegant. Tony pokes at a piece of pear, but doesn’t eat it. 

“I’d hoped we could speak openly today, Detective. About a constructive way forward for all of us.”

Tony lifts his eyebrows. “I thought there was only one way out. You threaten to have your lackey over there kill me if I ever tell the truth.”

“Well, there’s no need for that,” Peter murmurs, popping a strawberry into his mouth. “You can tell anyone you like. Stories are just that, after all. From what I can tell, you haven’t a shred of evidence against me.”

“The books-”

“Gone now. An oversight. Thank you for alerting me.”

Tony smiles without humour. “Fine. So I have no proof. You’ll just let me go?”

“Well, I’d rather we left things on a more friendly note,” Peter pouts, long lashes batting oh-so-sweetly. “After all, Detective, I thought your desire for me was overwhelming you. A kind of madness, didn’t you call it?”

Tony can feel his cheeks heat, but he refuses to be ruffled. “A momentary lapse in judgement.”

“Really?” Peter sighs, reaching under the table, touching Tony’s knee. “That’s disappointing. I feel there’s a lot I could offer you.”

He refuses to get aroused. Refuses to react. “No, thank you.” He says curtly. “There’s nothing you have that I want.”

At that, Peter laughs. Melodic and triumphant. “Well now, I don’t think that’s quite true. I’m sure you’re used to being the smartest person in the room, Detective, but I’m afraid with me around, you might have to settle for second place. You can read people? As can I. You crave control. I can give you that- or, at least the allusion of it.”

He hates how he feels intrigued. Like a puppet with an invisible master. 

Peter’s voice drops into a whisper. “I could submit to you so sweetly. All yours for you to take whenever, however you want. In return....perhaps you don’t spread those nasty, baseless rumours about me. Perhaps you leave my tragic case alone. Along with any other tragedies that might befall me.”

Tony wants to laugh. Wants to mock Peter at using his body as his bargaining chip but he wants. He wants that. Wants to feel that body beneath him, he wants-

“I could play love with you, Detective,” Peter offers, more gentle, and he reaches out to take Tony’s hand, twining their fingers together. “I could be a widow, shaken, unsure if love is for me after all, but then you...you change that.” His honey eyes fill with tears. “Oh, Detective Stark. Thank you for keeping me safe, I’m so-so grateful.” Peter grins, and Tony realises he’s leaned in, holding hands tightly. “You could hold me. Play house with me, from time to time. I’ll make dinner, dance with you, I’m very good at playing pretend, Tony.”

Tony gapes, words stuck in his throat. The kid’s a master. An actor. Sliding into each role.

But he can feel danger along the back of his neck, and he turns to see Bucky, barely contained in his jealousy.

Peter takes Tony’s chin and guides his eyes back to him. “James won’t hurt you, Tony,” he promises, “he’s just protective, that’s all.”

“You play pretend with him too?”

Peter’s mouth lifts into a smile, and Tony hates the audible jealousy in his own voice. “No, Tony,” he murmurs, a beautiful lie, “I only play pretend with you.”

***

Bucky grits his teeth watching as Tony walks down the drive and gets into his car. As soon as he’s gone, he hurries upstairs to the master bedroom. 

Peter is stretched out on the bed like a pleased cat, naked, covered in red marks. 

Bucky wants to howl. He immediately gets a wash cloth and some warm water, cleaning Peter up. 

Peter spreads his lily-white thighs further apart, and Bucky groans at the sight. 

“He was rough with you.” Bucky whimpers, swiping in gentle strokes, fumbling to soothe any aches. 

“Only because I let him be,” Peter reminds, looking at Bucky over his shoulder, pink lips curving into a smile. “We can take him out whenever we like, sweetheart.”

“But you won’t.” Bucky mutters, two fingers sliding into Peter’s little hole. Gentle and soothing. “You like him.” It’s an accusation. 

Peter rolls his eyes. “I like being adored, James. That’s hardly a surprise, is it?”

“But...”

“Are you feeling left out?” Peter pouts, teasing. “You want to be the one to rule me, is that it? No,” he looks him up and down, and Bucky bares himself to the gaze. Wants to be seen. “No,” Peter nods again, “you want to wrap me up in cotton wool. Keep me safe, don’t you?”

Yes. Bucky thinks desperately, nodding hard. Yes, that’s what he wants. 

“He was so rough with me,” Peter hiccups, going pliant and soft into the bed sheets, slipping into Bucky’s favourite role. “Hurt me, Buck, he hurt me. Will you make it better?” He cants his hips up invitingly. “Please?”

Bucky leans down, eager, kissing down Peter’s spine, tongue finding-

“Oh!” Peter gasps, clutching at the bed sheets, “that feels-”

Yes. Bucky thinks, holding the boy’s hips, making him feel good. This is what he wants. This is what he’ll always want. 

And he’ll do anything to keep it. 

Tagging: @plueschpop @thestarkerisobvious @fogdog1738 @icandoakickflip @starker-stories @yeehawmyoatmeal @starker-prompt-dump @goldenmogar @everyonelovespetey @starkerintheparker @prettieststarker @itsrachael @silkystark @deliciousflapbanditfarm @prettyboy-parker @starkerrifics @angelstarker @firefandoming

#starker #winterspider #manipulative peter #widow peter #detective tony #butler bucky

[vendettacanons]

Did you like the ending to Little Hope?

// This is an unpopular opinion apparently, but yeah! Overall, I think Little Hope was a massive massive improvement from Man of Medan. Granted, it still fell into some of the same flaws and holes as Man of Medan.

// Putting things under a cut bc SPOILERS, and also because I got super emotional and really in-depth with a psychoanalysis portion of this.

// The game felt more beautiful and polished than the first admittedly. I liked the environment and lighting improvements. Man of Medan was well done, but Little Hope goes it just felt much more natural and at home.

// As far as flaws— The characters from the first game were a bit more memorable in a sense (at least Conrad, Fliss, and Brad were in my opinion) but don’t get me wrong, that is a low bar. I haven’t found any characters from the games thus far particularly noteworthy, memorable, or in fact... likable in any way really. It feels like we just never get to know them enough to actually form an opinion on them. And the traits they’re given don’t really match up with the dialogue options. Which, in Man of Medan, there really isn’t an excuse for. In Little Hope, it’s better explained that they aren’t real— the people represent caricatures of traits the bus driver exhibits. They’re symbols more than anything.

// The game follows two intertwined storylines that are actually blended together quite nicely, which is impressive because that is something that is hard to do without feeling forced (Outlast 2 I’m looking at you). And yeah, it does have its cliches and its moments where things feel very rough or make little sense, I won’t ignore those. The game definitely has its lapses in logic. And yes, it is very frustrating how a character can survive the whole game and die at the end— I was PISSED when I saw that happen but once I saw the ending it made sense why. The death of the characters means an incomplete story arc— or certain traits of the bus driver that were never addressed and thus were not given proper closure.

// I know a lot of people seemed to dislike the ending for one reason or another. A lot of people felt it was a copout and I know more than a few did not like the idea of “oh it was mental illness all along :/”. But personally, I loved that. I’m not sure what mental illness in particular the bus driver was dealing with, but I believe it was schizophrenia. And honestly, the game handled it so well in my opinion. It didn’t glorify it or use it as a scapegoat or demonize it, it didn’t use it as a last minute explanation, the ending cutscenes with Vince literally show that it was the underlying cause of everything the entire time and we just never put it together. Which is exactly what the characters felt too. We were experiencing things from a first-person perspective, while trying to figure things out from a third-person perspective, and that really hit me because that is what it’s like to be schizophrenic. It is trying to rationalize what your mind is conjuring up, trying to understand that it isn’t real when it feels so, so convincingly tangible. And that’s another part of it the ending captured well. People with schizophrenia often don’t have any idea that what they’re seeing isn’t real, and so being snapped out of it can be just as jarring for them as it was for us when we realized the truth.

// A lot of people don’t think the game’s display of it was realistic for a lot of reasons, but the truth is, it’s surprisingly realistic in its portrayal. I liken it to ‘A Beautiful Mind’ a lot and I’ll explain why.

1) The town’s history includes witch trials like those mentioned in Salem. If you’ve ever seen or read the very popular Crucible, which features an interpretation of the witch trials the game is based off, then it explains why the flashbacks happen. Knowledge of certain events that one is familiar with tend to impact what kinds of hallucinations someone with schizophrenia may have.

2) The traumatic events at the beginning. We know the bus driver is the sole survivor of a fire that killed his entire family. He was falsely blamed for it even after he was cleared of charges and still holds guilt over not being able to save anyone from his family and is haunted by a result, which is why he has these hallucinations of friends that share the appearance of his family, and why he keeps seeing their faces everywhere— in flashbacks, in photos— everywhere. The idea of hallucinating entire people or having grand delusions, while not particularly common among most schizophrenics, is still very much something that many experience, especially if they’ve been traumatized or are untreated. He even acknowledges that it’s his family he’s seeing if he saves Mary and persecutes the priest in the last flashbacks.

3) The demons. A lot of people think it fell in line with the stereotype that schizophrenics “see monsters” and this disliked it. And again, while this is not always the case, there are many cases of this happening. In the worst cases, schizophrenics have reported seeing horrible disfigured people and creatures, and these are usually created by perceptions that are more or less the same as when you see a creepy-shaped shadow in your room in the dark. They can sometimes be based off of things seen in movies, in horror events, or culminated by other experiences, but the bottom line is that they can be conjured by the mind. And in the game, they serve as a symbol of guilt. They are the embodiment of “inner demons”, and they will kill whatever characters don’t finish their arc of progression it seems.

4) Repetitive cycles. Schizophrenics tend to see patterns. Not everyone of course, but noticing patterns and repeating them is a common trait. (Again, think ‘A Beautiful Mind’: the scenes where he looks for code patterns and keeps seeing Game Theory everywhere). The deaths of the characters and their Witch Trial doubles coincide with how the family died at the beginning: Daniel’s og died on the fence, his double died on a fence, he can die by being spreared by his demon, the father was crushed to death, the Witch Trial Version was crushed to death, John can have his neck snapped, etc. These “patterns of thought” are another common sign in schizophrenics. Seeing or doing things over and over again. His families faces is the big tie-in really.

5) Smaller note: Identity. As with everything else on this list, this doesn’t apply to all schizophrenics but many do hallucinate their own identities when they are deluding. Hence why the bus driver keeps seeing a younger version of himself. This is not so common as the other symptoms but it exists.

// Overall, Little Hope seemed like a massive improvement from Man of Medan, and while I normally don’t like the idea of mental illness being used as a giant plot hook, in Little Hope it was done tactfully and respectfully. It provided the blueprint for an engaging storyline and was addressed in a manner that was clearly very well-researched. It was not made light of in any sort of way, and it still managed to provide for a very entertaining game experience while also providing a very deep message: ‘we all have to confront our pasts and lay them to rest at some point. It’s never too late to forgive yourself.’ To me, Little Hope was amazing and I was genuinely brought to tears because of how close to home it hit, and how it told such a good story of someone with a mental illness I’m all too familiar with. Words can’t describe how much it meant to me to see a story being portrayed like that with such tact.

// And again, this is just my opinion on everything. These are just my interpretations of events that happen and connections I made while playing. I haven’t even addressed a lot of things in the game but if I did this post would be even longer so let me just leave it at: yes, I like Little Hope a lot. It has a special place in my heart, it made me cry, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good horror game experience. Also, if you haven’t, please go watch ‘A Beautiful Mind’. I don’t normally mention movies as a primary source, but that movie is based off of the true story of John Nash and was pulled from his biography. It’s very eye-opening and beautiful.

// And also as a disclaimer: I am not a professional psychologist or anything. My facts are based solely off of my own research, my own consultations with professionals, and first-hand experiences (with undifferentiated schizophrenia specifically). Pls don’t take what I say as fact, do your own research, talk to professionals for more insight, and take what I say with a grain of salt. Your Mileage May Vary and that’s okay. ❤️

#// v? crying on main? #// it’s more likely than you think #so this is what you meant : ask #i’m never changing who i am : anonymous #// ooc #// mun v #// mun v rambles #tw violence mention #tw death mention #tw fire mention #tw trauma mention #little hope #the dark pictures anthology #tdpa #the dark pictures #the dark pictures little hope

[jfbuckley]

Hi - as I travelled to watch the match on the big screen at the Vue Bolton, I pondered on whether the weekend victory against Totenham would serve to imbue United with confidence. They had played well and Ronaldo had been on fire, although Maguire’s own goal and other defensive lapses left me feeling more apprehensive than I should have been.

United started off by playing well, passing the ball well, and as in the first leg, they had most of the ball. However, as on any number of occasions recently, they looked like conceding every time the opponents moved into their half.

United were very unlucky when Elanga’s shot hit the goalie’s head as it rocketed towards goal. The goalie didn’t know anything about - was it a sign that it might be “one of those nights?”

However, I had been right to be apprehensive about the defence. United were quickly brought to earth when Atletico scored, only to be ruled marginally offside. You would have thought that United would have taken that as a warning, but not so.

Fred was fouled when United were moving forward, but the referee didn’t see it that way. On many other days it would have been given, and the fact that it wasn’t it visibly upset United. They spent too long protesting and did not get back into shape quickly enough. Atletico played a swift attacking movement which cut the dithering United defence to ribbons. Not for the first time this season Maguire found himself woefully out of position, Dallot found himself isolated as the player behind him had all the room in the world and slotted the ball in.

United didn’t give up though, and on the stroke of half time a flowing move ended with the goalie having to pull out the stops to deny a wavy long range shot from Fernandes.

That was half time. Apparently Atletico love being away from home and 1-0 up. They feel they are experts at defending such positions and soaking up pressure. This writer does not feel it is impossible that United can come back, but it will be a tough job.

It was not only a tough job, but as it turned out, an impossible one. United didn’t have the imagination to unlock the solid Atletico defence, and on the rare occasions that they did get through, Oblak provided the barrier that De Gea often does for us, including a brilliant save from Varanne.

Unfortunately for United, the longer the game went on, the more desperate we looked and the more hopeless we became. Ralf brought on all his attacking players, but Rashford was exceedingly poor and would have been better staying at home. The biggest cheer of the night came close to the end, when Maguire was substituted by Mata. Not only was there cheering at Old Trafford, but virtually everyone in the cinema was cheering. I have followed United since 1968 and I don’t think I have ever known a player fall so low in the fans estimation as Maguire has done this season. He is not just in bad form, but his mistakes are painfully obvious and are losing us matches. Even when we win, he will score an og just to remind us of his failings. He needs to be out of the side until the end of the season. We obviously need to recoup some of his extortionate transfer fee, but at the moment I don’t see that even a Championship side would want him.

And so United crumbled into the dust and are out of the Champions League. I fear that it will be a good two or three seasons until they are back, which begs the question of whether I will ever actually see them back. All clouds have a silver lining, so they say, and the silver lining of being knocked out is that we don’t have to worry about them getting torn to pieces by city, Liverpool or another top side.

As for the future. United now need to concentrate on finding the next manager. I have my preferences, but under no circumstances must they pick Simeone. The style of play that he has perfected with Atletico Madrid may well be successful, but it is reprehensible in every way and as far removed from the United tradition as it is possible to get. My football correspondent calls it “anti-football”.

In the shorter term, the players now have a bit of a holiday until they play Leicester on April 2nd. The rest of the season doesn’t really matter, as our chances of making fourth place are very remote. I would urge the manager to let Maguire and Rashford continue their holiday until the end of the season and then get rid.

Bye

—————————

POSTSCRIPT:

Atletico have been drawn against city in the next round. Just think, that could have been us. I am wondering how their wonderfully cynical defensive style will hold up against a team that knows how to play? I am expecting city to score at least four in the first leg and put the tie to bed.

[gnkit-blog]

if you didn’t already know or guess, this is my second muse here!!  you may know my first is none other than mr. moon sebin, and my name’s lex and i’m ready 2 party ( again )! hmu for some rad plotting with kit ( or sebin tbh ) so i can give you my discord or twitter ;D

so like a tl;dr for kit here will be found under the cut for your convenience

and i might post a random starter call later but i want to try to get in some plotting before it comes to that!!

so kit’s born and raised in bangkok thailand; like irl ten he’s sino thai and a polyglot. ya boi kit speaks thai ( most fluently, native language ), english ( fluent, most comfortable language after native language from years of studying in school ), mandarin ( conversational from his parents/grandparents, can’t read a goddamn character if he tried tho ), and korean ( conversational? he’s been immersed for 3 years but still lapses at times )

his og dream was to be a dancer and he was kinda livin’ the life in seoul as a dance instructor for an entertainment company, but life happens and an old injury started acting up again and he was forced to quit. rather than go home defeated, he moved to gaenari to recover and try to refocus his life.

he still teaches dance lessons! they’re not as hard on his knee since it’s a part time gig and it’s children’s classes, but much more than that would put him in quite a bit of pain. he just can’t be up and moving on his bum knee much in general these days; it’s really impacting his quality of life but he does at home physical therapy and regularly wears a brace in hopes of it getting better.

he’s also considering surgery for that bum knee, but he doesn’t quite have the funds for that ( nor the will to be down for the recovery time )

kit’s never lived outside of a big city before!! he’s probably going to be a little bored in gaenari, so i’m hoping some of you locals can show him how to have a good time even in a small town!! just be patient with him if he’s gotta rest his knee or go a little slow ; u ;

a p fun dude tbh, bright and happy despite his circumstances and really eager to learn and explore and stuff. he’s a little bit cautious with his physical limits, but emotionally and stuff he’s very open! a fun dude.. makes jokes, sorta a trickster-ish sense of humor...... i lov him

i p much imagine he Just moved to town, maybe finished settling in and finding a job to make ends meet for now. i wouldn’t say he’s been here for more than a month, so unless your muse is also from seoul he might not know anyone here yet!!

#.ooc

[artificialqueens]

Hi, I'm The Emotionally Repressed Girl Who Ran From Her Latent Homosexual Feelings for Ten Years, Trixie Mattel! (Trixya) - Iris

Hi, Hello, Good day, friends!

I… don’t know what the fUCK I’m doing. But that’s okay because I love Trixya, and I’m willing to do anything for them!

Well, okay, like I said it’s my first try at actually writing and publishing a fic, so I’m bearing my soul(my soul is comprised of Trixya obvi) and hoping y'all enjoy this as much as I do. Constructive criticism is very much appreciated! This is a pretty indulgent fic for me, and it’ll primarily focus on the nine years prior to the first chapter! Lots of soft!Trixya moments tbh. They perform Rocky Horror with all your favorite queens(including the OG Queen herself), and honestly, I’m just excited to write it for you lovely guys, gals, and nonbinary pals! I really hope you enjoy yourselves and don’t hate me for the angst that is to inevitably come!m Say hello to me at @wewouldbeheroes on Tumblr! I’d really appreciate the company!

Chapter 1: Fishnet Stockings, High Boots, & Delicate Conversation in Present December

Snow danced in the mid-December air as Trixie urgently walked down the cultural district of Boston, her hands shoved in the pockets of the long-coat that she borrowed from her mom. She was shivering and trying to remind herself why she thought a damn dress was a good idea for this climate. The air whipped under her skirt, and her teeth clattered for the third time in the last ten minutes. She was already exhausted, and the cold wasn’t helping. Why she thought booking a red-eye from Milwaukee to Boston was a good idea, she’ll never fucking know. Saving money? Fuck money, she’ll take the sleep and decent food, thank you very much.

           One month ago, Trixie Mattel got a call she’d never expect in a million years. RuPaul Charles, her director from a cabaret in Boston she worked at, nearly ten years ago, had somehow found her number, despite having no contact in all this time. God knows how, but Trixie always said RuPaul works in mysterious ways. They reminisced on the phone for hours, about old performances, and old friends. Trixie enjoyed the conversation, despite the fact she hadn’t had much to contribute. While Ru was off being a newlywed with his husband Georges, Trixie was working back in small town Wisconsin, helping her mom with her siblings and taking a receptionist job at the local elementary school. She can’t say she particularly disliked her entire existence, or that Wisconsin was just a reminder of everything she ever hoped she would never be, but it wasn’t all bad, that’s for sure. She contemplated leaving, but she wanted to help her family. And as her step-father so lovingly put it: “It was her duty,”.

So, there she was, in a dead-end town. Most of the kids from school had married by now, she was twenty-eight after all, and her friendships had all but fallen apart after Trixie had left for Boston. Most of them had even popped out a child or two, and Trixie found it hard to relate and/or enjoy one second of their company. So, when RuPaul had asked Trixie to spend a week at the Cabaret for a reunion performance she was hosting, how could Trixie ever say no?

After confirming her attendance, Trixie threw herself in bed, fully panicking. Was everyone going to be there? What if she was the only one to show up? What if she decided not go, and was the only who didn’t? She did enough damage when she left last time. What if they all hated her? What if she saw Katya? Of course, she’ll see Katya, she was as much a part of that cast as anyone else. How would Katya react to seeing her? Things would be weird, of course. Would she be prepared to handle that? Maybe Katya would just ignore her the whole time? Which honestly sounded like a pretty good option.

Her family, naturally, tried to discourage the trip. And they almost succeeded, too, especially with thoughts of Katya running wild in her head (like maybe Katya would throw a drink on her when she first saw her??), but Trixie realized if she didn’t go now, she never, ever would. She would just have to cross the Russian bridge when she got to it. She packed her guitar, her harp, and her suitcase and left for the airport the next morning.

           Trixie’s last time in Boston was potentially one of the best and worst times of her life. That was when things were changing for her. For better or worse, Trixie still wasn’t sure. She was only nineteen at the time, and how much can a nineteen-year-old comprehend about life-long lessons and impact? She found parts of herself she didn’t even know existed. And she loved that. But she also found a Pandora’s Box worth of things she didn’t dare try and open. And it didn’t take much for her to plunge back into Wisconsin, after barely making a home on these busy city streets. She did like it here in Boston. She liked the diversity, the hustle and bustle of city life. There was always something to occupy yourself with here. It wasn’t like Wisconsin, and that, perhaps, was the best part.

           Trixie, desperate to relieve herself of the cold, cut through a few alleys to get to the Cabaret, it’s funny, how well she still knew the Boston streets. She walked into a shabby-looking building, with broken lights, chipped brick, and ripped, wet, paper signs just outside the door. It’s clear the place had seen it’s better years, but Trixie didn’t seem to notice as she retched open the doors to get out of the cold. Warmth flooded her body, and she silently praised Ru for always being a cold blood.

           Expectations were rather high, as Ru always kept his cabaret as elegant as possible. Nice furniture, the smell of incense and a bit of alcohol reminded her more of home than her actual home did. And, she wasn’t disappointed. Barstools were neatly pushed in where they weren’t being used. High dining tables scattered the house, with equally high chairs, padded with nice, velvet cushions. Even the stage had a fresh coat of black paint on it, and the curtains had been replaced in the last ten years, she noticed. This was home to her, she wondered why she left.

          “… Trixie?”

           Oh.

           In an instant, Trixie felt her stomach drop to the floor. Already? She thought. She faced the bar, and the voice that came from behind it.

           “Katya. Hey.” She said shortly. This was not good. Not good at all. She hadn’t mentally prepared herself for an encounter this early. She braced herself. She braced herself for the potential yelling, for a drink to be dumped on her head. Anything.

           But nothing came.

           “I didn’t think you’d come to the reunion. In fact, Ru didn’t even tell me you were invited.” Katya shifted her weight and cocked her hip out as she looked Trixie up and down.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Trixie, deciding it was probably okay to move towards Katya, inched her way over to the bar.

Katya shrugged. “Dunno. I’m just surprised you came.”

There was a pause and Trixie took their momentary lapse in conversation to give Katya the same scrutinizing eye. She was slim as ever, clad in a white and black checked dress. She couldn’t see her legs behind the bar, but Trixie would put money on those muscular thighs being clad in fishnets and high boots. Katya’s hair had grown, in fact, it looked like it hadn’t been cut in the last nine years. Long, blonde waves, darker at the roots that cascaded over her shoulders. It had lots of volume, and Trixie can’t remember a time Katya’s hair looked like it had so much effort put into it.

           “So,” Katya spoke up. “Can I get you a drink?” Trixie was pulled out of her daze, and back into the reality of her current situation. Her stomach flipped again.

           “Oh, uh, water would be nice.” Trixie sat down on one of the barstools and began to notice the place was practically empty. There were a few lowly looking men, scattered at tables, but that was it. Trixie’s brow creased, the place used to be packed. “So,” she began, watching Katya move about behind the counter. “How have you been?”

           “Fine.” Katya set the glass down firmly in front of Trixie and popped a straw in the top before going about cleaning up a little.

           “That’s good to hear.” Trixie nodded, fiddling with the straw and staring at it as if it was the most interesting thing in the room and not Katya.  

           Katya pursed her red-streaked lips. “You?”

           “No complaints.”

           “You still living in Wyoming?” Katya finally looked up from the impeccably clean shot glass she was wiping down.

           “Wisconsin.” Trixie corrected, finally deciding that her water deserved more than to just be played with and ogled at. She took a sip and cringed at the pink ring her lipstick left on the straw.

           “Mm.” Katya nodded slowly and tossed her rag beneath the counter, before folding her arms over her chest and gazing at Trixie coolly.

           Trixie shifted in her seat. “So, who’s all coming to this… thing? Our whole cast?”

           Katya looked down at her feet and back up again. “Uhm, Adore is flying in from Cali, I know. Violet still lives here and so does Kim.” Katya’s eyes roamed the room as she thought. “Plus, you, me, Bianca.” She paused. “We haven’t heard from Aja, yet. Oh, and Ginger is trying to get time off her rehearsals, so we’ll see.”

           “Alaska?”

           “No, I don’t think so. She hasn’t responded to anyone’s phone calls so…” Katya shrugged. “She’ll probably show up unannounced. She always like to make an entrance.”

           Trixie smiled at the thought. “Probably.”

           There was a beat of silence as the two ran out of things to say, yet again. Katya was fiddling with an end of her hair, and Trixie went back stirring her water.

           “How’s Ru? And Georges?” She knew perfectly well how they were.

           “Oh.” Katya smiled briefly, and Trixie got a glimpse at those perfect teeth. “They’re really good, still… really in love and… super gay.” Katya chuckled.

           “What about you? Still a lesbian?” Trixie regretted the words as soon as they passed her lips. Something passed over Katya’s face, an unidentifiable emotion and she crooked her lips and laughed.

           “Yeah, Trixie. I am.” Katya bit her lip. “Seeing anyone in Wyoming?”

           Trixie investigated her cup again. “Nah, no. Not a lot of pickings in Wisconsin.”

           “Not a lot of lesbians?” She mused.

           Trixie sucked in a breath and pretended she didn’t hear the question. “So why is Ru planning this little reunion performance?” She asked, her eyes elsewhere as she hoped Katya wouldn’t press the previous issue.

           Katya was silent for a moment. “A lot of us have moved on, Trix. We had good times, it’s been almost ten years and none of us even… text. Or follow each other on Instagram.” Katya shrugged. “You didn’t have to come, you know.”

           “I wanted to.”

           “…Well, I’m glad you did.” Katya pursed her lips again, giving Trixie a hard gaze. Almost a challenge. She didn’t respond, and, instead, rapped her nails against the bar counter. Trixie felt bad. What was she supposed to say to that? She knows Katya’s implications, and she wasn’t a lesbian. So why entertain the idea that they could ever be anything more than friends? Or even that? Katya was the soul reason it was so hard for her to come back here. She could face nearly everything else, she really, really could. She could face the girls scolding her for just disappearing almost ten years ago, she could face Ru, despite never calling like she promised. But facing Katya, was a whole can of worms she was so unwilling to open.

         “Trixie?”

          “Hm?”

“Let me take you on a tour, for old times sake?” Katya offered, coming out from behind the bar.

           “Don’t you have to work?”

           Katya surveyed the restaurant with haughty smirk. “Oh, yeah, customers are fighting for my attention.” Trixie glimpsed at the house again. The same lowly guys were minding themselves at their tables, doing God knows what.

           “Yeah, that’s true.” Trixie responded with a laugh. “Yeah, okay, a quick tour.”

           “Great, cunt, let’s start in the office.” Katya grinned softly in that Katya fashion, and came out from behind the bar, untying her apron as she did. And lo and behold:

           Fishnets and high boots.

#rpdr fanfiction #iris #emotionally repressed girl #lesbian au #cabaret au #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #rupaul #kim chi #chi chi devayne #pearl liaison #alaska thunderfuck #ginger minj #bianca del rio #adore delano #aja #trixya #slight biadore #slight vatya #romantic angst #angst #fluff #slow burn #hurt!katya #Repressed!Trixie #tw homophobic language #tw language

[laylainalaska]

I rewatched GotG Vol. 1 tonight and I’m so full of love for these a-holes right now. <3

I found myself thinking about the movie structurally this time and noticing that, as heist/grab-the-Maguffin movies go, it’s really well put together. There are solid in-movie reasons why the characters meet, why they want the orb, and why they stick together -- in particular, I liked that they all had good reasons for sticking around each other that had nothing to do with having any particular liking or trust for each other (e.g. Rocket and Groot protecting Peter in prison because they wanted the bounty on him; Peter swiping the orb so they couldn’t leave on the Milano without him). Basically, even knowing the plot pretty well by now, there aren’t any egregious lapses of plot logic that I noticed (except for one; see below). Everyone’s got good reasons for being where they are and doing what they do; everything that’s important later is established earlier in a seemingly casual way (e.g. Groot’s regenerative abilities are introduced very early, when Gamora cuts his arms off; Peter double-crossing Yondu is why there’s a bounty on him, which is why Rocket meets and sticks around him and also why the Ravagers are on Knowhere to rescue him from deep space; the Hadron Enforcer and its moon-exploding firepower are first introduced before Knowhere, then again when Rocket attacks Yondu’s ship, before being used in the climax; etc).

And it’s so fascinating, now, to see them in this movie with all of their Vol. 2 characterizations in mind.

I still think the Ronan and Thanos parts of the movie are somewhat flat and jarringly comic-booky compared to the rest of it, but I was even a little more engaged with those this time because Nebula is also in most of those scenes and I luff her. <3 

One bit that is never adequately explained in the movie is why Ronan can handle the Infinity Stone. I think that’s the only thing that really isn’t explained anywhere to the point that it feels like a lapse in plot logic. Apparently there is a bit of cut dialogue that explains him having Celestial ancestry. It’d be nice if that’d stayed in.

Other random thoughts/new things I noticed:

The opening lyrics of the song Peter is listening to in the first scene talk about not being loved. MY HEART. ;__;

Still amused/impressed at how everything Meredith says about Peter’s father applies to Yondu in some way, and yet is completely, plausibly not about Yondu (from Meredith’s point of view).

Pretty sure the dog that the kid is petting in the hologram on Morag is James Gunn’s dog. I know several of the kids in the movies are members of his family (the little girl with the flower on Knowhere and the pink plastic girl in Ego’s diorama are two of his nieces) so it wouldn’t surprise me if that kid is too.

I love how we get a feeling for the galaxy as a place where people live. That’s one thing you get a lot more of in the first movie, since the second movie is so tightly character-focused. The backgrounds of the on-planet crowd scenes are wonderfully rich and full of detail. These are very Star Wars-y feeling movies in that way. (Well, actually in a lot of ways.)

After making some Rocket gifs yesterday, I’m amazed and impressed at how well done his body language is. He’s never still; there’s always some part of him moving, whether it’s twitching his ears, moving his tail, shifting his weight, talking with his hands, etc. He’s just so fantastically expressive.

I didn’t remember that Drax says the names of his wife and daughter. I wasn’t sure if (like most of the OG Ravagers in the second movie) the wiki/fanfic is just getting their names from behind-the-scenes stuff. But no, they’re established in canon.

I love that bit in the prison where everyone else is fighting and then it cuts to Peter and he’s doing his bit of the escape plan by ... talking. And ultimately paying the guy rather than stealing from him. In general, I love that (while Peter can definitely fight) his skill set for the most part is a non-combat, thief/trickster/pilot/con artist set of skills, and he’s never quite lost that basic sweetness that goes along with being Meredith’s son, even if it’s buried under a few layers of space pirate by now.

“I look around and you know what I see? Losers. ...... I mean, folks that have lost stuff” will never fail to make me laugh. 

The ending of this movie is so delightfully upbeat -- the ship flying away and the cut to dancing baby Groot just makes me smile so hard. 

#guardians of the galaxy #gotg1 #reaction post