#parabathai

[alovetold]

@parabathai [ jem ] : you may hide here with me if you wish.

two halves of a whole. though imagining jem as anything but whole was something will frowned upon. something that hurt. knowing that one day there would be a world without his parabatai in it was not something he had accepted, nor was it something he would accept. a scrunch of his nose and a witty, even spiteful, comment whenever someone would bring it up. though william herondale did not consider james carstairs sick most of the time. he was strong, a great warrior - and he made himself a better fighter too. when they were together, fighting demons ? it truly was two halves of a whole.

though tonight it was not demons they fought. it was the clave, at an annual party for - some reason will had forgotten. maybe he had purposely forgone listening whenever jessamine had gone on about how important and exciting this was. something about dresses, probably. except now he escaped into the drawing room, only to find his better half with a book, seated in a chair. the same chair will immediately feels drawn to. perching himself on the armrest. ❝ it was as if something was pulling me to this room - now i understand why. it was you. ❞ a cheeky smile as he leans forward, planting a quick brush of his lips to the hairline of the other. ❝ what are you reading, jem ? and less importantly, who are you hiding from ? ❞

[philomelia]

sometimes, neil watches her. she gets it. or maybe she doesn't get it in the know - everything - about - him sort of way, but she watches him sometimes, too (he has a twitchy face somewhere between handsome and impatient: she'd try to set him up with one of her friends, if he'd ever expressed interest in anyone, but he seems fine just existing as neil josten-- and she doesn't hold onto friends long enough to start sacrificing them to the altar of dating malfunctions). as she hands him the controller, she watches @parabathai. there's purple prints beneath his eyes that speak of a certain tiredness. " you know, it's so soft back here that you can just take a nap whenever. " she used to think love was pushing until someone was okay, but she's learned that sometimes love is a gentle nudge. sometimes it's doing nothing at all. it's just not the sort of love your mother teaches you (suffocate, suffocate, suffocate).

she sweeps the coke into her hand and takes four long gulps. there's some twizzlers that she fishes out from under the pillows. a veritable feast, as long as you weren't too picky. there's cans of beers, too, but cassie's driving. besides, she hasn't seen neil drunk yet. that felt like a special sort of occasion-- best saved for some other time. " because a k is way more chic than a c. even if chic has two cs in it. listen, no one's ever stopped to question the logic behind a game so good. " she rips into the guts of the twizzlers, washing down the coke. " athena used to kick my ass at it. constantly. a nightly humiliation. they let me sit at the table, sure, but i wasn't allowed any hair clips 'til i bested athena. took me five years. by then, i'd totally grown out of hair clips. "

[neveraftersbye]

ANDREW MINYARD WAS A LOT OF THINGS. romantic was not one of them. but it was VALENTINE'S DAY. and nicky was with erik in germany. and aaron was with katelyn. and even kevin had betrayed him by making plans with thea. that left andrew. and neil. and the house in columbia that none of them were stupid enough to try to fight him for. that was as far as his planning went. except for the grocery shopping he did a few days ago to restock the pantry, and the colossal heart shaped box of chocolates andrew bought because he wanted a goddamn cavity and DEFINITELY NOT because he wanted to spoil his boyfriend . because that wasn't the type of boyfriend andrew was. until it was.

he parked the maserati in the driveway, but instead of leading the way inside, he waited for neil to go first. keys were tucked away into his back pocket in the same move that was pulling a pack of cigarettes out. he could have unlocked the front door himself, but he wanted @parabathai to remember that this place was his home too. so he could use his own damn key. "it's just the two of us this weekend," he pointed out, in case neil missed the otherwise empty car. the car ride was unusually silent, but that was the way andrew liked it.

[halothief]

- ̗̀  meme: soft prompts!  ̖́ -    ╱     not accepting.                           — 💇‍♀️hair playing feat. andrew + neil  

the afterglow is becoming less insufferable. bee warned him, told him good and proper that practice makes purgatory, and here he is. it’s 2am. the rain pelts against the window. it’s the perfect backing track for whatever the fuck this is. neil’s all hard joints and scarred skin pressed beneath the jut of andrew’s chin, as if andrew isn’t a drawer full of knives — as if andrew’s some kind of soft flame atop mount everest. 

the old andrew would burn his house down. the current neil would probably thank him for doing it.

he knows @parabathai​ wants to speak, can feel it in the way he tilts his head up. those ghostly blue eyes are peaking into the cookie jar before taking the prize. andrew can’t deal with that, so he shoves neil’s head back perpendicular, slams the lid shut, and presses a hand into his hair. 

it’s softer than he’s used to, but andrew’s starting to become okay with a little bit of softness. it’s a foreign thought he has no intention of processing, even as his fingers begin stroking through the messy mop neil passes for hair. 

     ‘ go to sleep. ’

[tombkept]

      YOU HAD SPENT YOUR JUVENILE YEARS SUNKEN IN THE POOLS OF CHILLY SHADOW.   wounds licked by salt water,   baptism by saline and hushed prayer mired by celestial transgression.   here,   she is a thousand of lightyears away from that meager trough of mineral.   here,  the solution around her tastes like tears even if it always carried the flavor of lament but she finally lets her own weeping surround her.   WHAT IS ALL ENCOMPASSING IS THE ARMS WHICH CRADLE WHEN THEY SHOULD ENTRAP.    they are a mass of sodden gauze and the filmy backless of cobweb veils set adrift  (   tangle me up in it,   wrap it around my throat   ━    do something!   be brave enough to finally raise your fist to me!   do not give me your mercy!   )   perhaps she would have screamed it if not for the weight of water pressing down upon them.   the anguish only finds its form in the violent uproar of bubbles escaping her mouth and retreating to the surface.   the cause is entirely helpless yet she fights against the tender hold around her   (   i do not know how to be touched,   i do not know how to be touched like this  )

        it is a gradual drifting upward,   the air depleting from her lungs and she invites the ache for oxygen.   a sick pleasure in the denial of a vital resource   ━   you were nothing if not a reflection of the ninth.   harrowhark nonagesimus was desolate land,  terrain where nothing could grow,   devoid of anything beautiful and petalled.   she is practically dragged from the depths and still she is a fixture flush against @parabathai​’s  shoulder.   not quite comprehending the response to her own admittance,   no amount of  forbearance could cease the reverend daughter's residual shame.  DO NOT CATCH ME WITH MY SKIN ON,   DO NOT MISTAKE ME FOR HUMAN.   she is so unused to being a creature of flesh   ━    in that sense,   she haunts her own bones.   the bareness of her face is profane,   disgraceful yet the desire to obscure the truth of her appearance is a selfish one   (   the unrealized innocence of nudity,   how the starkness of something can speak to its purity   )   the kiss is far from abrupt,   it is slowly incoming but the necromancer is still unable to fathom the reality of it.   it is only tangible when it results in an uncouth squeal harrow thought herself thoroughly incapable of up into now.   from the bridge of her nose blooms a thalergetic warmth that imbues her cheeks with a heavy flush.   the oaths they echo to one another are said in a haze of stupor   (   one flesh,   one end   )

       ❛   why did you…   why did you do that?   ❜   they have waded in the pool in a blanket silence,   gideon's palms framing the melted portrait of what was once a painted cranium.   the low burning coals of her eyes are casted downward,   staring into the mid-distance of the soft rippling waves breaking against the other girl's form.   though their shared gaze has been broken there is the slight repair of this contract found in the tentative cuff she has around the cavalier's wrist.   ❛   your vow alone would have sufficed.  ❜   her vow alone was already more than the bone adept could have anticipated,   much less hoped for as she hoped for little of anything. 

[grantslife]

@parabathai [ nyx or achilles ] sent : ' you were never raised to kneel or turn the other cheek. '

" and yet that's all it felt like i could do. " there was bitterness on zagreus' tongue as he spoke, when his jaw tight and his fists tighter. it all felt so unfair, he felt like ... a mortal, so human before the gods here. he felt so out of place and he was a god himself, or is he just some pity party ever since his birth? he wasn't even born ... he died then, too. weak from the very start and not even his father moved to do something about such a tragedy. it was she who moved to act, it was nyx and nyx alone who begged her daughters to save him despite knowing what may happen. " it felt like it was the only thing i could do to preserve my sanity in this house. " every waking moment it felt like a prison. so cold, so, so cold and lonely. zagreus did not feel like the prince everyone referred to him as, he felt so utterly useless, so invisible, so ... unwanted. " what could a child do when all they needed was love? "

[feyr4]

sc.   @parabathai​,  nesta.

    two hands come to close the book she had been holding for nearly two hours, words that she would scan over and over again -- mind elsewhere other then the focus on the book at hand. nesta. she had become: stone. feyre was always conscious of her moods (   lack thereof sometimes.   ) grey blue orbs drift towards her sister, taking a breath in. “let’s go shopping.”

[halothief]

the universe has a cosmic sense of humour, gifting him to the prim and proper. will’s a quarter-step away from being a colossal disappointment, yet here he is, tagging along to play happy house with another peanut gallery. for some reason, despite his constant yo-yoing in and out of the principal’s office, despite his frequenting of the local police station, despite his college status hanging by a thread on academic probation — they insist on living in denial. sure, will’s good at football, but that’s not exactly taking him anywhere, is it?

well, apparently it is. specifically, to the wedding of one nondescript upper-crust couple titled james-and-kelly. the forgiveness of the rich of other rich folks’ children truly knows no shame or disregard for decorum. that being said, he’s been delegated to a table far from the action. clearly james-and-kelly know a little more than the average nondescript upper-crust couple about william vermont and his black sheep status. they’ve read his warning labels start to finish. this makes him wonder why there’s some guy already sat at the table isolated to the far corner of the reception. another black sheep?

     ‘ so you’ve been assigned the kids table too, huh? ’     his grin is wicked as he looks at @parabathai​, worn a badge of honour as hands grasp the back of his chair. it feels firm beneath his fingers. they really didn’t cheap out at all, did they?     ‘ wonder if we’ll get colouring pages during dinner. that’d be sweet. ’