A follow-up to the original album's meme, this is a collection of sentence starters from the additional songs on the deluxe album. Again not including fifteen for the sake of being respectful. Please do not add to or claim this meme as your own. Feel free to change pronouns, slightly rephrase, combine, or shorten as needed. Some lyrics have been changed to better fit rp purposes.
tw: toxic relationships, very suggestive themes, trauma, drug mention (as a metaphor only), toxic relationships, and implications of past traumatic experiences.
CRYING AFTER SEX
hell hath no fury like a woman keeping score.
i'm still banging every night at your door.
if you let me in, i'll show you i've been practicing.
i'll take what i want.
i'll leave you with all the pain i've been harboring.
really, what's the harm in it?
if you don't believe i'm worth saving, i'll play a part in it.
i'll play a part in it
you call me a freak, but you know you like you're part in it.
every bit of me is desperate for attention.
i'm rewiring a connection.
i'm on my knees.
i'm just fucking for affection.
i'd do just about anything you mention.
i know i haunt you when it gets dark.
i fuck you like a porn star.
i'm such a good girl with my back arched.
don't know why i treat my tongue as a weapon.
i lap up your love, then i go into for seconds.
you only make it worse.
you got my spit between your teeth.
i never learned to use my words.
the devil's underneath.
i can't stomach the way she's tugging at the safety.
where's your backbone, baby?
won't you devastate me?
make it good.
make it last.
entertain me.
baby, what's the harm in it?
my body's marvelous.
now you'll never be apart from it.
ain't that marvelous?
look at how you made me.
yeah, you love your fucking part in it.
i'm begging you to pardon it.
every day i'm hardening sorrows into stones.
now i'll never get away from it.
ain't that dangerous?
don't have a say in it.
hold me to my sins, but i'm too busy paying his.
now i can't do relationships.
i'm lonely when you hold me.
don't know why i'm still explaining this.
i hate every game you play, and hate that i'm still playing it.
i wouldn't call this love, 'cause, baby, we ain't making it.
you won't ever say sorry.
look where it got me.
i hate how you caught me crying after sex.
i wish i were better to my body.
CONFIDENTIAL
you could've been a victim of boredom.
i was your saving grace.
it takes one to know one.
something about you felt like fate.
i knew it was reckless. i tried but couldn't care less.
it felt like you knew me in a past life or movie.
you don't have the right to look at me the way you do.
you're killing me in plain sight.
you move to me in crowded rooms.
keep it confidential.
you make me feel special.
it's a high price for one night.
i might choose you over what's right.
tell me you want me, and say it slow.
i'm intoxicated by the way your mouth moves.
you get off on watching me lose control.
you're a dirty liar, but you make it sound good.
you know how i like my women: unattainable and forbidden.
i know better, yet i still give in.
i think i'm in love with the agony.
how could you ever really blame me?
Deliah cleans up like a daydream.
maybe i was desperate for a certain connection.
i could've sworn you felt it like i felt it.
do you feel it, baby?
now that it's all said and done, you were never the one.
that's just shit my roommate said to help me get out of my bed.
i don't have the right to be wanting you the way i do.
i'm hiding here in plain sight.
i'm drawn to you in every room.
how could you blame me?
your love made me crazy.
how could you?
i'm at the mercy of the way your mouth moves.
you don't have the right to be wanting me the way you do.
i make you feel special.
it's a high price and you might choose me over what's right.
how could i blame you?
my love made you untrue.
how could i?
COCAINE
i made your eyes shine a little too bright.
i find you in every pretty thing i see.
you're stuck in my brain.
how did you do it?
i see right through it.
tighten the noose and find which of us is tied to it.
i made you bigger and better than ever before.
now you beg for more.
you made me smaller, and harder, and cold to the core.
what did you do that for?
i still paint you this picturesque beauty.
anyone would die to see you right through me.
you're oh so perfect to me.
i would swallow you whole if you let me.
you made it easy, lied through your teeth.
now i hold you to standards that you cannot reach.
what can i say? i'm so good at making you someone that i could love forever.
what can i do when i'm at the mercy of Midas' hands, the very ones that reach for you?
you wish i were older.
i wish you were half the world i made of you.
don't you sit there and grieve.
how could you do it?
what did i do that for?
why did i do that?
SAVE THE BULLETS, BABY!
you say it's just beginning.
i'm tongue-tied.
you're tangled all around me.
i'm so tired, but i can't fall asleep.
there's a world and it swirls inside my mind.
i'm spinning faster than a ceiling fan.
how could anyone take me for the way i am?
save the bullets, baby.
you ain't gotta fight to get in my head.
you handle me so gentle.
if i push, will you pull a little tighter?
to you, i wanna be a little nicer.
shake me when the bad thoughts take me.
take me, 'cause i'm needing it lately.
you were holding my face in your hands on the train.
i was thinking that i could take your name, if i could learn to stay.
your love's a blessing—it's Armageddon.
i sent you away, set our forest on fire.
i said i didn't want you—i'm a goddamn liar.
i'm still yours.
don't let me look down.
i want you around.
i wanna stare up at you, so don't let me look down.
there's an oath in your eyes.
now i know that i'm bound.
i'm singing your name 'cause you like how it sounds coming out of my mouth.
you're all over my mouth.
won't you let me keep you?
i like how it sounds coming out of your mouth.
you're all over me now.
you got me no matter what lies ahead.
i always think the world is ending; you say it's just beginning.
Some cute cuddly wholesome Flipparoo AU content <3
(Concept/explanation below the cut)
As copy and pasted from the discord:
“Had a pretty cursed idea for the flipparoo au earlier
Okay so the idea is basically. Sun and Moon are used to fighting for every scrap of individual possessions they can get. They were basically stuck in a closet for years and the desire to have something of ‘their own’ activated the Cain Instinct every time one of them found something even minutely interesting
They got real tired of ‘sharing’ everything real fast and they Never Recovered
So when Reader first gets them each something of their own, like maybe Sun gets wrist ribbons and Moon gets slippers?, the first thing they do is A, try to viciously defend their given item and B, viciously attempt to snatch/look at what the other got
And reader is like HEY, HEY HEY! NO! STOP THAT! like a dog owner who just gave their dogs two separate bones that they’re already fighting over
And Reader is like “hey, calm down! I didn’t give these to you so you could bicker over them. These ribbons are for YOU, Sun, and those slippers are for YOU, Moon. You don’t fight over them. One is yours, and the other isn’t. And that’s okay”
And the two are like 👁👄👁
And reader is beginning to wonder if they can even understand the concept and they go “see, when something is Just Yours, you can say ‘it’s mine!’ And you don’t have to give it to anyone unless you want to! But when something is supposed to be shared, like,, these pillows, that’s ‘ours!’ And then you get to share them, but never FIGHT over them. Okay?? Those are YOURS, these are OURS”
And when Sun and Moon finally get functioning voice boxes the first thing they say is “ours, ours, ours” as they hug Reader so hard they can barely breathe lol
But also one of the first things they do is repeatedly say “not yours” to Eclipse as angrily as they can
Anyway Sun and Moon are Extremely Possessive in this au
To the point of physically dragging Reader away from Eclipse even when Reader WANTS to be with Eclipse
And the bad part abt them being robots designed to handle struggling children/people is that they are Surprisingly Strong and there is very little Reader can do to get them to stop for a second bc at a certain point they just Stop Listening to them shdhdjjdh
Reader lightly swats Sun on the shoulder one(1) time and the look of utter hurt and betrayal he gives is enough to make them Never want to do it again
So anyway Sun and Moon are a bit unhinged in this AU and reader is in over their head, more at 6”
your boyfriend kirishima who’s so much more protective— at least that’s what he calls it— than people would think. the way he keeps an arm around you in public at all times, deep red eyes meeting those of anyone who dares to look at you. how he makes sure your phone is fully charged before he leaves the house, wanting to be able to check your location should you decide to go any where without him. how he leaves any possible sign of himself in your flesh during the intimate moments; marks that’ll bloom later. marks you’re still unsure the purpose of—if they’re there to remind you, or anyone around you who you belong to.
plot ; full plot here. heather is a wedding planner who has become a little too infatuated with the bride.
please read my rules, check out my mw fc's
+ please do not like my starters ! i write with beta editor only. ♡
“i know you saw me. outside the window? that was quite a show you put on.” it had been days since the incident. heather had stopped being careful, and the bride-to-be had caught her. it could have been a terrible, embarrassing situation. instead, it only left heather more confused about her feelings than she was before. there was no way the anxious woman could continue her job without addressing it – and it was obvious that the bride would not be the first to mention it. “you can’t deny that there’s tension here. so what are we doing? playing a game?”
@florietiae asked: ❝ 'i really did love you, if you can believe me.' / from jules. haha, ow :) ❞ ( more angst prompts )
"I don't." Leave it to William to make things difficult. He had, once, never questioned her love for him. Now, well on the other side of a divorce? He couldn't accept see any other explanation for her leaving him. ( Certainly not his absence or his moody temperaments or the responding gaslighting when she challenged him on any of the aforementioned subjects. ) They had been perfect on the exterior—what mattered, in the end—and then she had made a fool of him.
And perhaps broken his heart, if one ignored how much of that was his fault.
She was supposed to just drop off the kids and leave. Or, well, that was William's opinion while he stood nursing his coffee from a hefty mug he was fairly certain she had gifted him. Christmas? Birthday? He should toss it. ( He wouldn't. )
He half-sat against the edge of the counter, mug between hands. Steadying. The heat was burning his palms. Christ, he hated this. "I loved you, but that didn't bloody well matter, did it? We had something beautiful, and you walked away from it." While he had fought her in the hopes of avoiding divorced, sometimes yelling, sometimes pleading. Pathetic and embarrassing to look back on.
His words were sharp, bitterness he wondered if he'd ever move past festering between the words: "I mean, for fuck's sake, do I need to hear about your past feelings—you've moved on, after all. Haven't you?"
@trapton asked: ❝ i knew you wouldn't stay with me. / henry ❞ ( the sex was good until it wasn't. )
"What the hell do you expect me to do, Will?" His volume wasn't held back, regardless of the scene of this squabble—the parts and service room, not all too long after closing. Henry wasn't one to reach this level of visible stress. He had kept out of the public eye, but spent very little time behind his desk. Instead, he had kept his hands and mind busy, an attempt made in vain to direct his nerves toward broken arcade machines and failing parts rather than his life.
It had taken frighteningly little questioning on Will's part to get an answer, particularly regarding Henry's insistence on leaving the moment the workday was over. . . His long hours overtime with his business partner weren't going unnoticed. While she hadn't implicated Will—and thank god for that, if only for Henry's sake—his wife had made one thing perfectly clear: SHE KNEW.
( Probably thought Henry was leaving work and spending late nights with some mysterious woman. As bad as it was, it wasn't as dangerous as the truth. )
"It's over. I'm not imploding my life for you." It shouldn't have left him feeling so mixed, stomach heavy with the grief of ending something he should have never gotten involved with and the shame of knowing he would never really end it. This was all, in some way, for show. Proving to himself that he felt some level of guilt before he inevitably let Will pull him right back in. And then he would go home and lie right to his wife's face, and play saint just to top it off. I would never do something like that—the kind of claim he would have made sincerely in the past.
"I don't know what you expect from me. To end up like you?" He slammed his hand to the table, frustration finally beginning to burn down into pure exhaustion. He leaned down on both palms over the table, glasses slipped low on his nose. All this upset, and all he could wonder: was he really feeling guilty, or was he just never ready to face the consequences of his own actions?
the only living thing haunting the dead / self para
One-sided conversation with death;
By accident, this eulogy turned love letter.
.
He didn't open his eyes for the longest time. As if terrified that Colette had been lying, or that he was not going to show up by choice. As if expecting the memory of Rio to have yellowed and withered in only six months' worth of time. As if this mattered, as if Rio himself would be summoned from whatever corner of whatever hell he'd be reigning over, here, to be updated on how weak and pathetic and lonely all became synonyms for victory.
This was the only thing that wasn't real. Incidentally, it felt like the only thing that mattered. It had to be now, with everybody else glued to their screens, ready to welcome, with thunderous cheer, the newest victor. Carol couldn't care less about being pushed off whatever throne he never sat on to begin with. His heart rushed about this, and this alone. He couldn't keep his hands from trembling, so he clenched them into fists, eyes still closed -- waiting for something to break.
"Are you lonely?" Rio's voice was gruff but nonetheless amused, lounging in the chair in the corner. It'd taken quite a few seconds for him to speak up, for no other reason than that Carol just hadn't opened his eyes yet. But even ghosts got tired of waiting after a while. Carol’s heart skipped a beat. "You know, a sex hotline would be easier to call. You have a phone now, don't you? And two hands, still. Oddly perfect."
Carol’s feet sank, like brusquely tripping over a dream. That damned voice, kept nowhere but in his memory, made Carol cry on its own. Once again, Rio, well-known ashes by his nightstand, became the distinct figure in his mind, with his posture and indifferently curved lips, with the annoying crossed-legged pose, with his hair sliding on his cheek as if by accident. Carol legitimately wanted to reach for his face, his lips, his dumb hair, but he couldn't feel his own feet yet.
He blinked in astonishment instead, stuck between the too familiar and the no longer familiar. In between blinks, tears of surrender detached from his eyelids. He didn't even mind them. With his heart all in knots, he pulled his legs to his chest and, almost in mock, absurd embarrassment, hid his face away from Rio. Crying was counter-productive, he knew, and their time was limited. Rio wasn't even real. Carol sniffed away the tears, wiping them with the back of his hands, and dived in. You don't just forget how to swim.
"I was hoping you could dial the number for me. Glory made me spoiled rotten. Had I known, I would have let you, instead." Lie, lie, truth. It even felt different in his mouth.
"So fucking spoiled that you take drugs now?"
Cutting. Carol snorted, ready to choke his own imagination. "You know damn well I do not take drugs now," he countered with a scowl, outraged by the insinuation that he would, raising on his knees, still in bed, as if to fight louder.
“Right," Rio nodded, a mocking twist to his lips. "You don't take drugs. Not at all. And still... here I am. The guy you stabbed six months ago." He leaned back in his seat, a relaxed posture that mirrored the way he'd sat while alive.
”Shut up, let me have this,” Carol breathed out in frustration, not caring what name what they (he) were doing wore. “If exactly this means doing drugs, then yes, I’m once — once, okay? — doing drugs. I don’t give a fuck.” He couldn’t admit how important this was even to himself, even to his own Rio-shaped piece of mind.
Rio circled back, almost bored. The anticipation of disappoint was strangely relieving. Carol had nothing to prove anymore. "It looks like victory didn't only make you spoiled, but also fucking dumb. What's up with that, Eyre? Hm?"
"I'm not fucking dumb. I'm just unwell..." Even dead, he didn't want to admit any of that to Rio, but it slipped, sigh-like. "What can I do? How else am I supposed to reach you?" His shoulders fell, exhausted and disappointed and lame, but Carol wasn't paying any attention to himself, eyes pinned on Rio in the attempt to take as much away as possible, to keep the image alive. The glass shard sensation cutting its way through his chest didn't matter, wouldn't matter if he looked enough. The worst part? Rio had to know he was being looked at like a work of art, and Carol felt too weak to hide the gleam in his eyes.
"Not at all," came the cutting reply. "You're not supposed to reach me at all, dear. You're alive, and I'm not. Simple as that."
Suddenly, as his neck refused to turn towards that part of the room where Rio’s urn stood, Carol jumped on his feet. “I don’t give a fuck that I’m alive and that you’re not. Do you get that? Simple as that,” he retorted mockingly, as if not shouting at a mirror. The pathos was making it hard to breathe through. There it was, the best he could do in terms of declarations. And, again, to his own self.
Almost as if pacifying, unlike Rio himself, he lifted his hands. "Don't let me make you fight with your own mind," he darkly joked. "But tell me this; do you think that is the living you've always talked about? Did you forget about that? You said, you'll need a break from me after you kill me. You said, after you kill me, you're going to live. Aren't you starting to realize something?" Rio slowly rose from his chair, his head tilted to the side with the same undying, macabre curiosity. The hiss, wild and definitive, and not even delivered with cruelty.
"There is no after me."
The words echoed. There is no after me. And here Carol thought his mind's impression of Rio was getting weak, sinking into uncharacteristic encouragement. And here Carol froze, grotesque and familiar becoming one. It was the sort of realization that swallowed months of therapy. It was a verdict, handpicked heartbreak over and over. Even what he himself had made of Rio's image had a god complex so unyielding that it left him in awe. The words all fell tangled in his throat.
First he spoke with his eyes, pleading for something out of this world. This was worse than actual conversations with Rio. This included his mind as a third party -- and suddenly he was exposed, all his worst secrets and weaknesses on the table for the ghost of this cruel boy to play in between his fingers. He had yearned for this -- for all of this, to the last atom of ash in that damned urn. He wanted it like this, Rio’s death included, and it still left him dissatisfied. He dryly swallowed through his punishment and reward.
And Rio simply gestured at Carol, a vague flick of his wrist. "Go on, tell me what you want." As if rushing.
This wasn’t even real, but his heart was beating up and down his chest hard enough for both of them. Carol knew he was being crazy, and he let it. “You don’t get it, do you? I want you,” he spoke, and his tone dissolved from sharp and condescending into a lame pout, and back into tears, precisely because Carol knew how pointless all of these words were. A show just for him. Himself lying to himself, hyper realistically. He held his hand out for Rio, barely standing, with his shaky knees. “I know it’s not real. I don’t know what I want that would even be possible. I don’t fucking know. Please, Rio, you know all this already. You know everything. Understand.”
The other quietly, tone laced with pity, chuckled at Carol, but still, he stepped forward and slowly lifted his hand, not quite touching Carol's outstretched one yet. "I'm in your head. If I don't get it, you don't get it either." A meaningful pause. "Is that what you want? The understanding version of me? You should've just said that, dear," he mockingly said, finally placing his imaginary hand into Carol's.
Rio's ghostly touch shadowed over Carol's hand, and surprisingly felt cold and real. Just like Carol’s skin knew it to be. He held onto it, sinking his nails with childish, last chance desperation, cupping it in both hands with a dose of endearment they were not used to. "I do not. I prefer this version," he admitted in a defeated mutter. If Rio had any kindness to show him, he did not want it, not really, especially as it was all an illusion. This felt more like home.
Carol, a third act Hamlet, sank to his knees, now coiled at Rio's feet on one transparent touch alone. He breathed in the touch, Rio's hand now placed on his cheek, Carol's head on Rio's lap. It was as pathetic as it was soothing, the back of his hand pressed to his face like distressed people falling to the floor at the feet of a religious prophet. He allowed it for himself, just once. "I think you're the only person in the world I ever cared about. I wonder if you knew that." What was madness, if not shouting questions into the void, and expecting the void to shout back answers?
There is no after me. Was he going to be chasing after this dead feeling forever? Was this his cage, final and of bars he made up himself?
“Get a grip, dear,” Rio muttered, almost gently. “Get a fucking grip. The only person you should care about now is yourself. And don’t tell me I am you because I’m in your head. You’re not always stupid, you get what I mean.”
Carol pressed harder against the bruise. He repeated. "I wonder if you knew that." This tone was not sweet, not gentle. It asked for its answers, artificial, but better than imagination. Rio's projection knew better than he did, even though his mind was writing both narratives. "Don't waste my time. I already know I'm chasing after ghosts. But stop running."
Rio took an unnecessary breath, unnecessary for a ghost, necessary for the illusion of the situation, the illusion of life. Rio let it out in a quiet, lingering sigh, like cigarette smoke. “I knew less than I wished for it. I knew less than I just made myself believe you owed me care for just looking at you, validating your existence with a glance. I… didn’t know as much as I wanted it.” It was either honesty or Carol’s own wishful thinking, the way he knew Rio better than Rio must’ve known himself.
Carol stood up, eyes not leaving the other's eyes. The restlessness shut up for just a moment. When he spoke, his voice grew deeper than usual: "Good." It wasn't a sob story he was seeking. That was what he was running away from. "Are you mad I stole your ashes? This one I know. I just need you to say it. Your family is mad."
“Mad?” the hallucination asked, dumbfounded. “You saved me from being buried in a stuffy family tomb, if anything, I should kiss your feet or some shit. I like that they’re mad, though. It’s nice to know that I can be dead and still inspire chaos.”
An accidental breath’s worth of a chuckle escaped Carol’s throat. He was confirming it to himself, nothing else, but it felt refreshing to hear it in Rio’s voice. “Dead,” Carol’s voice twisted into something small and taunting, almost disbelieving. The surprise of Rio’s last breath hadn’t quite washed off. In reality, Carol hasn’t expected to outlive him, not really. “How does it feel?” A knowing simper covered his lips. At this point he was hardly blinking anymore.
“Feels like nothing.” This ghost was oddly compliant, entirely unlike Rio, but he was dead and only a figment of imagination. He wasn’t playing after his own rules here. “Dear, trust me, there isn’t much room for grandiose feelings or revenge plans in a ten inch urn.” The dead man turned on his heels and made a show of soundlessly falling into the cushions of the bed, making it his own as though he’d always belonged there.
"Feels like nothing to me, too," Carol hummed, only an echo, proud wearer of a steady, unbothered, resigned sadness over his features. It wasn't that he was devoid of feeling altogether. It was that everything happened through a filter of blur, that the world no longer was as loud, as violent, as dynamic as he knew it to be. He stood up, eyes hovering over the urn. That was the last of what was real of Rio. Then, he turned to the talking, unreal Rio, lying lazily, like on any of the old summer days, on the bed. Carol took a more modest seat at half of a distance, still on the bed, legs crossed in lotus. Just then and just momentarily, he could pretend it was all back, all normal.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Would you be mad at me? Go with that answer.“
It was elucidating, better explanation than any other. Because Carol understood perfectly, no need for elaborations. Briefly put, yes, but no. No, but yes. It was, at the same time, the ultimate defeat and a little of a win. This wasn't a matter of being mad. Carol felt silly to have asked. You don't get mad if the sea drowns you. Either of them could have been sea. An eye roll later, he felt a little better. "You know, when we were little, and you told me that this isn't therapy, but prelude?" It was one of the things that stuck with him. He breathed out a distressed chuckle, even pointing at the air between them as this.
"I could have used the therapy part now. I mean, obviously I'll be fine. Eventually. But I just can't help but think of how fucking lonely it'll be for you, once I won't be seeking bits of you anymore. Because you stay here, like this and in a fucking urn. And I have to let you." It was both heartfelt and practical, both arrogant and concerned for Rio's memory.
Rio’s lips widened into a grin, arms folded behind the back of his head. "You're a liar. You're a liar and you're projecting." He leaned up a little, propped himself up on his elbows. "I'm not even me. You're worried about your own silly little head here. I'm over there in that urn, and it's like you're glued to the fucking thing."
Carol was caught astounded.
Rio let his head sink back into his neck, closing his eyes with a smirk still playing on his lips. "I won't be forgotten, dear. But I think you're scared you will be. Even though you're alive. You know why? Because you're not me.”
Carol rarely got angry anymore. He'd taken him out of him, at one point, replacing it with other dark emotions. Cruelty -- resigned, witty cruelty -- for one. Not this time. The blood flooded his brain into an eruption of his own, and he felt betrayed, and misread, and mistakenly offended that Rio would be saying that, even in his own head. It wasn't his mind anymore. Suddenly it was Rio, all real, all traitorous. Carol snapped off the bed, now standing, now not knowing where to put his hands, what to squeeze and punch.
"Don't fucking act like you know me, only to say this fucking bullshit. You have no idea. You don't know--" Carol wanted to bite into the wall, to break everything, as his chest struggled under a traitorous breathlessness.
A groan, cutting. Before he knew it, he knocked everything off the dressing table. Fuck them. Fuck everything. Now he was full-on raising his tone, rage pouring out of him. "Why the fuck-- How the fuck are you still so fucking smug and stupid still? You're fucking dead." A mean chuckle tripped over the statement.The spiteful realization didn't slow him down. On the contrary, it fueled him, one more reason to be angry at the whole world. One more reason to punch a hole into the wall, to tear the whole Tower apart. He gave the wardrobe in his brand-new room a kick that cracked the wood and spread pain over his foot. But the pain didn't matter. His anger ate pain for breakfast.
"You think I'm--. God! You think I'm afraid of anything in the world, you fucking cheap delusion? You think this is about your personality complex still? God!" He did not speak of divinity lightly, or at all, but these weren't words. They were all frustration, a second away from foaming at the mouth.
Rio, considerate, let him finish before he laughed. A loud cackle, much like during his last moments, but without the blood this time. This time, he only had cruel amusement, not rivers of crimson, at the corners of his mouth, as he downright giggled at the commotion. "Oh, dear, what are you getting so angry for? Did I strike a nerve? But do go on, I think you missed a spot over there." He vaguely pointed at the other desk in the room.
"You. Did. Not." Carol's voice was crystal clear, in that sharp intermission between fury and exasperation. He was not calm. He felt as though he could never get calm again. Everything inside him was shaking. The discharge of feeling, the storm, was unbeatable and long overdue. This struck like everything at once. "You perfectly missed every point and proved me you're the stupidest, most ign--. This is why you're dead, Rio." Then, with present, lucid anger, he grabbed at the wood of the desk and dragged repeatedly before it shook, screws spilled. And he knocked it down with a dismissive gesture. "You're dead because you don't think. You're dead because you're a fucking moron."
He had to try his hardest to keep a straight face, to sober up a little when Carol didn't started laughing along with him. It was hard, though. Unnaturally hard. "Jeez," he muttered. "Low blow. You should've said that while I was dying. I'd have stayed alive out of spite."
Carol scoffed an irascible, thanks-for-nothing chuckle. He squeezed his shaking knuckles into his other hand, in an attempt to stop the tremor. Standing in awkwardness, as anger turned into powerlessness and then, in flashes, back to anger, he despised where he found himself. He hated the melancholy most of all, and how pointlessly it drove him. "I didn't want our last words to be in anger," he smiled poison, demonstratively. The realization was the worst, cruelest kind of soothing. It only brought more pain along.
Then, the Victor paused for a second, letting it sink in. Suddenly, he felt his wrists falling off, injured and weak. A step away from the desk, thrown on the floor and in pieces, and, with a groan, he recovered enough lucidity to be in control of his own anger, at least. "You're the worst thing that ever happened to me, Rio. You don't have any compassion, or brain, or fucking anything to offer other than a fuck, but now even that's gone. What the fuck did I do so wrong to get stuck with you as you are?" Even with Rio dead, Carol felt the weight of the cage, the trap hovering over his head. There was no way out. There is no after me.
"Did you already live so much pitiful life without me that you're forgetting everything? You didn't spend time with me because you wanted compassion or thought provoking conversations about how many fucking stars are in the sky or how much sand is at the beach. You couldn't let go because you liked the fucking pain of everything we did. Even now, with the urn. You're a masochistic dumbass and you can't even admit it to yourself.”
Now that Carol had stopped, that he had put a leash on his rage, everything struck as pathetic. His shoulders fell, melted across his body, blank and feeble, and he didn't dare look at Rio. Instead, he looked at the mess he'd made, eyes trailing where the pieces of furniture were supposed to be bleeding from, where the vase broke, the still water spilled, the flowers mixed with glass shards, where the decorative books fell open and wet, and where there was earth all over the carpet, from the plants. There were no knives, no real sharp angles, though. Not anymore.
"My therapist says I don't like pain. That you liked inflicting it, and that I let you." That realization was fucking sad. He was no victim, no target. They both had had knives in their hands.
Rio pushed out a faux exhausted sigh, all carelessness but feigned resignation, as though this had been a fight he hadn’t wanted. “You follow me into the games, you stab me, and suddenly you don’t like pain? Please. Tell that to your therapist,” he snorted.
"You would have died alone. You would have died away from me," Carol argued before even processing his own words.
"Or I would've won. Let's not assume the outcome without your divine intervention," Rio coldly muttered, a dry sort of amusement twisting his lips.
Carol shook his head with firmness. He’d thought this exact thought thousands of times. With him, he carried the last drop of certainty in the world. "You wouldn't have. It was Poppy who hurt you mortally. You just wouldn't have." New ways of calling Rio out on being rash and careless popped up in his mind, but he let go of them. "I think..." He never told anyone this before. He never even phrased it within himself, before. It'd just been there, all along, repressed and silly loyal.
"I think something in me was ready to die for you, instead of this. I was more prepared for death than for victory. Stop this shit. You failed both of us." It sounded like a scold. It was a scold.
A low hum sat in Rio’s throat, turned laughter. It was a downright joyous sound, a deep vibration all throughout his chest. Perhaps the fact that it sounded real and sincere was indication enough that it wasn't real. "Jeez, I'm sorry you have to be alive. Sucks to be you, I guess."
The laughter was another missed point, but he forgave Rio for it. He even countered it with a giggle of his own, in between tears. Self-aware enough to refuse to justify himself, instead just shrugging, Carol pointed out the obvious, what he'd always known. "People are dumb. It's always about what you can't have." And this would forever be one of those things. It felt like doom.
There is no after me.
“Whatever. Keep going. There's too much still intact in this room. Wreck it. The bed... the TV... the urn."
"Don't be fucking stupid. I'm not gonna touch the urn." Why, if nothing mattered? The thought came sharply, with a headache. Another ceiling to fall over his head, breaking against his skull, felt inside and out. Carol wanted to throw up. Actually wanted to throw up. With weak knees, he sat on the bed, back turned towards Rio. The shaking was not going anywhere.
“All I’m saying is, you could. Who’d care? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, wouldn’t you say so? Isn’t that your thing?” Carol scoffed through the rest, too tired and sick of it to even address it. The glare admitted defeat better than words ever could.
"I'm..." On the verge of crying. Fucking pathetic. Utterly alone. Stuck. Tears clung to his eyelashes as he blinked. Carol shrugged, in between desperation and the same powerlessness he'd gotten too acquainted with lately, lips pursed aggressively together. Hands tied, in every way but the literal. "I'm done. Even my tantrums are pathetic. Congrats, you're way better. Too bad you're de-." And that's where crying choked Carol. He hid his face in his palms, exasperated by his own humanness.
For a moment, Rio merely sat behind him, unmoving and observing from a distance. Then, after several quiet seconds that passed by, he scooted forward, got to his knees behind Carol and snaked an arm around the front of his shoulders, right under his throat, half a threat, half a comfort. Both touches entirely transparent and empty but most likely indistinguishable to Carol’s mind on drugs.
“Go on, cry,” the ghost muttered. “Cry for me.”
Rio's touch was electroshock. Carol twisted like a sunflower, coiling necklace-like to his chest. A hand found illusionary rest at the back of his dead boyfriend's neck. Nothing. He was holding onto nothing, but he held tightly. Of course Rio would have liked this small victory better than the crown. "I hate you so much," he murmured, like buried into Rio's shirt. The words did not sound like themselves.
The ghost wasn't caught off guard by how quickly Carol turned in his arms, the lax hold turning into a cold embrace with death itself. "I know, I know, dear," Rio chuckled. "The world wouldn't be quite the same if you finally got a fucking grip."
A sniff, all human and fragile. "What is it good for? We always did like the chaos," Carol muttered, almost whiny and entirely nostalgic.
"There's no more we," Rio corrected him. "After this wears off, there's only you. Remember? You're all alone." He did love his catchphrases. For a moment, Carol smiled knowingly, until it all turned sad again.
"I know, dear. I know I'm all alone," he sighed softly, compliant and aware, coated in resignation and despair. It didn't matter. He pressed his cheek against Rio's, desperate for any inch of contact possible, arms tangling behind Rio's back. For as long as he could, he held onto that. It didn’t matter.
"Time's almost up," Rio downright gently remarked, had the reminder within itself on already been a gut punch. "Looks like it's the end again."
Something choked Carol, and he let it. He let the feeling in, and let go of Rio's shoulders, withdrawing himself enough to give him one last proper look. "It's never enough. When can I see you again?" It was an empty joke. He even shook his head -- pathetic, embarrassed smile on his lips -- to deny delusion, finally. Still, for a moment, from time to time, it felt healthy to pretend things were less than hopeless.
"You have pictures, look at those," Rio sternly replied. "If I catch you taking drugs again, you're fucking dead, Eyre." For as much as Rio Odair could muster up a genuine, warm smile, he did, not quite all the way to the eyes.
Carol sighed out -- oh, well -- dismissively, before placing his head on Rio's shoulder and closing his eyes. He didn't want to be witness to the disappearance. He wanted to keep it like this for a second longer.
when tattooed hearts is done and assuming y/n and iwa get together, itd be so good if you did a sequel for omi where he falls for a cute lil babie who comes into the studio. its so toxic but i froth for jealous, possessive, mean anime men. can just imagine him making her cry and then trying to make up for it 😫 omg now i got myself in the feels okie bye!
GDJDKDKDK PLEASE 😭😭😭🤚
if omi was actually toxic, he’d be jaded af, trying to find someone just like his yn - but he meets this cute girl who he thinks he could really be with, until she does things his yn didn’t do, and one time he makes the mistake of comparing them right to her face and she just breaks down and ignores him, and it takes him a few days to realise that she was perfect for him, so he does everything to do right by her - yn would probably be so sad too for him being like that hssjsksksksk
