#googles how to have a better back bone and not let everyone get to me

[that-was-anticlimactic]

i want to be a hero btw if you even care

[climbthemountain2020]

To Know That I'm With You - Chapter 9

Nessian | Ch. 9 | Ao3

Eternally, @popjunkie42 has the keys to my heart and my google docs. Okay, okay, friends I hear you. Originally, Cassian's only POVs were going to be the prologue and epilogue, but everyone's comments about being excited for his POV inspired me, lol. SO, I went back and did some writing. Now, you all get what I'm calling a few Cassian clips.

When Nesta awoke the next morning, she knew before she even moved that something was very, very wrong.

She tried to stand, worrying that perhaps her instincts were telling her that someone had infiltrated their cave despite the sigils. But she’d stumbled immediately, her leg not able to bear any weight at all. The wall of the cave was sharp against her skin, making her hiss. Stars bloomed behind her closed eyes, and she knew with great clarity that her leg was deeply infected. 

Cassian, of course, hadn’t missed a beat. He sprung up like he wasn’t injured at all as Nesta yelped and leaned heavily against the wall. 

“You’re injured?”

She waved him off, grumbling. “It was fine last night when I put the poultice on.”

“It’s clearly not fine now.” He helped her back to the ground. “Settle, I’m alright.”

“Your wing–”

“–is fine today.” He ruffled the wing behind him as though to show her that the injury felt better, but she scowled up at him. 

“You should be taking it easy. There’s no way it’s healed,” she snapped back, trying to ease, but more so collapsing, to the ground. 

“It isn’t healed, but it’s well enough that it doesn’t hurt. And I’ve slept for nearly a full day. I won’t be able to fly for a good while, but it doesn’t mean I can’t function.” He was already shuttling more wood towards the dying fire, his eyes not leaving her.

Fuck . It hurt like fire was seizing her leg, the panic clawing up her throat every second. She could barely walk, let alone travel or care for herself. The walls of the cave began to feel like they were growing closer.

“You don’t have to mother me.” She spit the words like venom, hated that she couldn’t just get up and leave.

“I’m not mothering,” he replied, his voice infuriatingly even. She closed her eyes, ignoring him and the feeling of his eyes back on her again as her head swam with the pain.

The ache was so bone deep it made her grit her teeth. She knew the telltale traits of infection from treating Feyre’s many injuries and overhearing the horror stories from the family guards, and she knew these weren’t good signs. She pulled the gauze to the side as she clamped her jaw tightly shut. The skin around the wound was angry and red, dark streaks spiraling out from it beneath her skin. The injury was not healing the way it had been before. 

Was it worth it for her to chew another entire root and knock out just to heal? It had healed her ankle before, but was she willing to be completely unconscious for hours around Cassian?

Absolutely not.

The thought of a stranger with her while she hallucinated was so overwhelming that she shut the thought down immediately. She didn’t care how badly off she was, she wasn’t risking it. 

He seems like a good man. He would take care of me.

She fought with her mind again, forcing it to shut up as it tried to convince her otherwise. Normally, Nesta felt she had a good head on her shoulders, a solid perspective and direction to move at each decision. But lately, it seemed like her mind had split in two, and each part of her wanted something very different. Especially when it came to Cassian. 

He wants to help.

She growled in irritation and pain. 

No.

She’d made it this far on her own. She could get through a measly infection.

“Gods, Nesta.” His shocked exclamation startled her from her own back and forth, and she went to cover her leg with her hands. But in a heartbeat, he was kneeling in front of her, wings spread wide behind him, the light of the fire dotting through the remaining unhealed openings. He was right– they were substantially fewer and farther between now. The sight spun a little in front of her, vision doubling then coming back to normal.

He had her wrists in his hands, prying them away from the cut with surprising gentleness. She hesitated, but he paused with her, his eyes meeting hers. Something in the way he waited, in the halting of his own movements…

He was a stranger. But, in this moment, he felt safe. 

She let him touch her, the size of his hands positively dwarfing her own. They were warm and calloused against the skin of her wrist, her pulse fluttering wildly beneath them. 

“Why didn’t you say how badly you were hurt?” His eyes found hers through a deeply furrowed brow, that scar flexing as they moved. 

“It wasn’t so bad when I fell asleep. I thought the poultice would heal it.” 

“You’ve been limping around on this?”

“I told you already, it didn’t hurt this badly yesterday,” she snapped back. The sharp movement made her yelp before she could stop it, and a look flashed over Cassian’s face so intensely that it stole her breath. 

“Where is everything you used on my wing? Tell me, and I’ll get it for you.”

“You don’t have to–”

“Nesta. I’m not asking.” She was taken aback by the sudden change in demeanor. It was far removed from the jovial teasing of the last day.

Nesta wasn’t used to it from him. She wasn’t used to it from anyone. 

“Alright, don’t get your pants in a twist. The bowls and cloths are next to my bag.” She pointed. “There should be a little water left. I was going to go out this morning and find a new water source.” She suddenly felt guilty for putting it off. 

“I can do it.”

“It isn’t far,” she offered as he busied himself, getting the fire roaring and the skin of water boiling over the flames.

“Can you describe to me where the water source is?” he asked. She remembered the map didn’t work for him, the ink enchanted only for her. 

“Fetch it out of the bag and let me see it.” He did so without protest, handing the ragged map back to her as she pinpointed the nearby stream she’d seen yesterday. “It’s a five minute walk east from here. Not the way we came.”

He leveled her with a stare. “I know what east means, Nesta.” 

She scoffed in response, ignoring him otherwise. “It looks like it’s a stream banked by two boulders right to the left of the path. One is shaped a bit like an egg.”

“That map must have decent markers.” The levity had returned to his voice. “I’ll go now while this heats. Don’t move.” 

“Yes, Mother,” she lobbed back, smirking sarcastically as he glowered at her. 

She followed his directions while he was gone. 

Mostly. 

She had painstakingly crawled over to her bag once she heard his footsteps fade, pulling it back with her to the bedroll with a shot of pain that had her holding back a groan. She needed to see if there were any attainable alternatives for medicinal plants that would help her heal. She was definitely well on her way to infection, if not already situated firmly within it, but there was no way she’d be comfortable taking the char root in a quantity large enough to help. She nibbled the tip of it just to take the edge off the pain and flipped through the book. There were plenty of poultice-type recipes, but nothing stronger than what she already had. 

You can trust him.

She gritted her teeth.

Can I? 

He hadn’t given her any reason not to. But still…

To be that vulnerable, that incapacitated in front of him. The thought was unbearable. Nesta knew how men were, what they wanted and how they took it. She’d met enough men like that to last her more than a lifetime. 

She stumbled outside to relieve herself before he returned, each step feeling like a roaring flame erupting around her leg. It was so unbearable that her vision began to white out as she staggered back into the cave after finishing. She all but threw herself down against the wall and into her bedroll, her breath coming in sharp pants.

Take the root. 

She couldn’t.

She’d simply need to clean it well and keep it well wrapped while she managed the pain and hoped it resolved on its own.

She had enough dried fruit and mushrooms to get them by for a few days, but without foraging, she’d run out before long. The jerky was entirely gone now. She put what was left of the food near the fire, then laid her head back against the cave wall and sighed, closing her eyes and waiting. 

Cassian was back in what felt like a blink, his shirt still off and the water skins full and heavy in his arms. 

“Good stream. Just about the distance you said.”

“Did you think I'd lie?” she asked with an eyebrow raised, but her labored breathing made her remarks come out hoarse. Cassian stalled with concern painted as clear as day across his face. He set the skins down, shuffling the boiling water off the open flame to cool and already getting to work arranging the items she’d need.

He worried over her like a mother hen. “Let me see it.” She shuffled a bit. 

“I can do it myself. Stop hovering.”

He leveled her with another glare. “I know a bit about injuries. You cared for mine when I couldn’t. Now let me help.”

She grit her teeth and all but growled at him. “I said , it’s fine.”

He rolled his eyes and Nesta’s defenses were up again. “You’re hurt. What was that you said about it would hurt less if you’d just let me help? ” He threw her own words back at her.

Nesta begrudgingly relented, choosing again to not correct him about the equalizing of their scales. He’d saved her life, he was going to stay on with her as she hiked to the Illyrian Mountains, now he was tending her wounds. The scales were tipping irreparably to one side already. But there was no room for argument. Cassian was already shifting so the light from the fire could fall on her leg as he inspected it. 

She sat restlessly beneath his watchful eyes, the soft press of his fingers near the wound causing her to inhale a sharp breath. If she was any more in her right mind, the indecency of the placement of his hands might have upset her more, but the char root had her feeling numbed, a pleasant buzzing in her ears as she let him take in the damage. 

“This is from the beast in the woods?” he asked, his hazel eyes lifting to meet hers. 

They were a dark, lush green. So deep that they looked like evergreen trees in the moonlight. From any other distance, they might be mistaken for a brown so dark it teetered on black, if not for the golden flecks in them. They rotated around the iris, almost red towards the center. She’d never seen any eyes like his, the colors in them melding like paints in a pool of fallen leaves on the forest floor.

“Nesta?”

She blinked, and her heart thumped. 

What had he asked?

“Is this from the monster?”

“Oh, yes. It got me just before you landed. A single claw, but it was enough.” 

He hummed thoughtfully, turning her leg in the flickering light. “I’m going to clean it. It’s showing signs of infection, and I worry that the poultice won’t be enough.”

Exactly what I thought, too.

The first touch of the warm cloth on her skin had her jumping, the sting of the wound nearly unbearable beneath his steady hands. 

“ Fuck, that hurts.” 

“I’m sorry.” And he sounded like he meant it. “Do you have any more of the char root you could take?”

Trust him.

Trust him.

No . 

“No, it’s gone. I took the last tiny bit of it while you were out.”

He looked at her apologetically. “I’ll be quick.” And he was. She could tell without looking that he’d done this before. She wanted to ask him about it–ask him to distract her with stories of the more gruesome injuries that he’d treated in his lifetime so she could think about anything but her own. 

But she couldn’t, her jaw clenched tightly as she tried not to scream. She should have eaten more of the root, taken a larger bite and damned the consequences. It hurt , and her mind was screaming as he cleaned the infected skin, dutifully making sure he missed nothing. 

After countless swipes with the cloth, Nesta felt near delusional with the effort of holding herself together. 

“...esta. Nesta?” Her thoughts swam back into focus as she blinked her eyes open, only to see Cassian’s own staring worriedly into hers. “I’m done. You still with me?”

She nodded feebly, wetting her cracked lips with her tongue. Her throat felt raw. Had she actually been screaming? Cassian looked so concerned as he crouched on the ground in front of her. 

“I reapplied the poultice and wrapped it. We’re done.” She looked down in surprise. She had missed him doing that in the cloud of relentless pain. 

“Thank you,” she rasped out, and he leaned over to grab her a water skin and place it in her hands. “How bad is it?”

He cringed. “It isn’t great.”

“But you’ve seen worse?” She tried to crack a joke, but the question just came out sounding desperate. Cassian hid another grimace badly. 

“Of course. I’ve lived through wars. I’ve seen much, much worse.” 

She nodded, then let her head fall back against the wall. She could hear the unsaid words. 

I’ve seen worse, and it ended how you might expect.

“There are still mushrooms and dried fruit by the fire,” she croaked pitifully. 

Cassian nodded, then busied himself in the cave, cleaning and putting the supplies near her bag. She’d have to do it all again tomorrow. The thought exhausted her. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, Cassian was asleep on the ground. Closer now than he had been before.

She must have fallen asleep. 

She blinked again and he was awake beside her, reading one of her books. When she stirred, he bent down and offering her some of the fruit. The thought turned her stomach. 

“Nesta, you need to eat.” The words echoed in and out, the sound reverberating as though bouncing around in her mind. She tried to shake her head, thought she might have, but the darkness was closing in again, the things in her vision catching and blurring. 

She had a final thought that this wasn’t normal. 

When Nesta woke again, the cave was quiet save for the crackling of the fire and Cassian’s steady breathing by her side. He was propped beside her against the wall of the cave. 

At first, she thought he might be asleep, but he opened his eyes and looked at her the moment she moved. His face swam in and out of her vision. 

His beautiful face.

Some emotion flickered across it and she wondered if she hadn’t spoken the words aloud. She thought she might be blushing, but her whole body felt hot. 

“Nesta, is there anything else in your bag that might help?” His voice was warped, the sound quiet and loud all at once. 

She wanted to answer, but the words wouldn’t come. Her mouth was so dry, her eyes hurt with the effort to keep them open as sharp fractals of firelight magnified and swam across her vision. She wanted to tell him to get the char root, but it was too late. Her mouth wouldn’t move with the words she wanted so badly for it to say. She could see plain as day the horror on his face as he watched her. 

Nesta would die here, not from some animal attack or a mythical beast, but from a simple infection and her own blasted stubbornness. 

She could feel his hand on her jaw, warm and large, nearly encompassing her entire face. 

“Please, Nesta. If there’s anything else…”

She opened her mouth. She wanted so badly to tell him. The thought hit her from the depths of her spinning consciousness. 

She didn’t want this to be the last time she saw him. 

She didn’t want to die in this cave. 

Her adventure wasn’t over. Her purpose not yet fulfilled. She hadn’t risked everything to die like this. 

“--ch–char.” She had no idea if she’d actually managed to say the words aloud until Cassian reacted.

He leaned in immediately. “What? Nesta, say it again.”

“Bag–root.” She tried to point but her hand barely moved. 

“There’s more char root in your bag?” It sounded like he was screaming the words as he moved, the air cold around her at his sudden absence. 

“ You stupid, stubborn woman… ”

She could have laughed at the words, but her consciousness was slipping again, the awareness like grains of sand in an hour glass, dropping through the hole one by one. Certainly, Cassian was not the only one who thought that about her.

She felt the gentle opening of her mouth, something wet and sticky and coarse dropping into it. 

“Chew it, Nesta. Chew and swallow.” She tried. 

Was she doing it? Was anything happening? 

She tried again. 

She could hear Cassian distantly cursing.

“Nesta, please… ”

The words drifted as she did, a pleasant feeling of rumbling nothing sweeping through her body. She tried, again and again, unsure if it was all in her mind or if anything was actually happening. Blissfully, the pain was ebbing, the reality of it all slipping away. There, in the firelight, she could only feel the warmth of a single bloodred wing embracing her. 

Am I already dreaming?

“Sleep, Nesta. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

+++

She could feel the strangling lace of the wedding dress beneath her fingers, the corset tight around her ribs and waist. She couldn’t see anything, the air around her opaque with something like a white, smoky haze.

It was hard to breathe, the strings pulling tighter and tighter as she fruitlessly tried to gulp lungfuls of air against the tugging on her chest. 

“Suck it in, Nesta.” The words rattled around in her mind. Not because of what they were, but because of who said them. She recognized that voice, though for years she’d only heard it in her nightmares. “Tomas won’t want a fat bride. Your chest doesn’t do you any favors.” 

Her mother tugged the corset tighter, tighter, until Nesta couldn’t breathe at all, the world spinning around her and the lace itching her skin raw. 

“Don’t. Please don’t make me do this.” She was crying, uncaring of who saw the break in her carefully curated walls. She would scream, cry, and beg on her knees if it got her out of this. “You know what he’s like, Momma. Please. Please.”

She felt the slap on her face, her skin burning up. 

“Pathetic.” The word echoed. 

Pathetic.

“You’re lucky he’s even still taking this deal.” Her mother’s voice hissed around her in the sightless gloom. “Feyre gone, the Archeron name sullied. Because of  you. You had a single job and you couldn’t do it. Pathetic.”

Pathetic. 

Unlovable. 

Couldn’t do it.

“You will serve him, Nesta. Whatever he wants.”

“No! Momma, please.” She went to turn but found she couldn’t, her hands dragging down as great chains bound her to the floor. “You know what he’s like. Don’t do this.”

Her chest heaved now with sobs. She grabbed for her mother’s dress in the haze like a child, casting her hands out into the void until she felt fabric.

“I’ll do anything. Anything. Please, Momma. He’ll break me, he’ll–”

“And it will be what you deserve.”

The air around her blustered, the fabric slipping from her hands and the smoke swirling. Her mother was gone.

It is what I deserve.

The words hung heavy. Her soul hung heavy. 

Someone grabbed her arms, the hands large and hot near her shoulders. For a moment, she wondered if it was Cassian, here to save her again when she didn’t deserve it. But the voice in her ear was not his. 

“It is what you deserve.” She flinched by reflex, Tomas’ low voice creeping around the nape of her neck and making her recoil. “ I am what you deserve.”

She tore at the chains, but it was no use. She could feel him behind her, pressed against her back. He was closing in, and there was nothing she could do. No one left here for her. 

“I don’t want this. I don’t want this…”

But the words meant nothing. They never had. 

Nesta was there to serve a purpose, to fill a role, no matter what she might have wanted. She wasn’t wanted for her, only her name, her position, her family, her breeding potential. Never her. 

She sobbed again in the quiet haze, the hopelessness of her situation sinking in.

But nothing happened. 

The silence stretched on and on, no more threats or horrid words. Then Nesta realized the weight at her wrists was gone, the hands on her arms, too. There was a caress across her skin, soft as a breeze around her hands. She blinked her eyes open to find the haze had been replaced with a soft, orange glow. She could hear a muted crackling, like the low burning of logs on an open flame.

Am I by the fire?

She looked down. Around her hands fluttered a rope–no, a ribbon. It was the same orangeish red hue, glowing brightly, flickering around her hands as though it wanted her to grab it. It was warm when she wrapped her hands around it, solid to the touch. It pulled her forward, and she followed.

She felt warmth all around her now instead of the desolate clammy mist that had covered her before. There was a sense of safety as she moved through the cloudy brightness with the ribbon in her hands. 

I am safe here.

Wherever here was. The ribbon stopped tugging, disappearing into the glow.

Some part of her recognized that red suffusion of light, the comfort of it easing her tension and fear and replacing it with exhaustion. 

Here, I can sleep. Here, I can rest.

+++

Cassian

In the low light, Cassian watched her sleep. 

It was the softest he’d seen her since he met her, the peace on her face making her look exactly as young as she was. Her body was finally still, the twitching stopping as her fever began to break, that frantic worry that had filled him starting to ease off. Her head still rested on his thigh where he’d put it to keep an eye on her while she slept. There was something strangely enchanting about her now—lying there, still, her chest rising and falling with the slow, rhythmic ease of someone who didn’t need to fight.

Her breath caught lightly on an inhale, the tiniest snore Cassian had ever heard, and her lips stayed parted as the flickering firelight cast shadows across her skin.

Nesta Archeron.

What were the fucking odds?

He’d spent much of the last two days wondering exactly this. Cassian wasn’t one to put much stock into fate, but he wasn’t an idiot either. There had been so many moments in his life where the timing had been something spectacular, something nearly unbelievable, but nothing quite so stark as this. If he hadn’t heard her scream, if he hadn’t been slowed by his wings and flying over at that exact moment, he’d have passed right by this place–right over her. He refused to think of what would have happened to her if he’d been only moments later.

She murmured something he couldn’t make out, her lips dry and cracked. The urge to dip his fingers into the water skin and run them over her lips almost possessed him, but he already knew she’d be uncomfortable with the way she slept–he wasn’t going to push it. 

It didn’t take much to understand that Nesta didn’t allow many, if any, people to see her this way. The memory Rhys had shared with him had told him that much, certainly. Feyre probably knew her own sister better than anyone else, and she’d outright told them how closed off she was–how many walls she had up to prevent people from being let in. Cassian brushed a light touch over Nesta’s brow as it furrowed in sleep. It was sticky with sweat but cooling now, her fever finally broken. He breathed a sigh of relief at that, at least. 

He’d been almost sure that they were too late. 

Stubborn, willful woman. 

His eyes studied her face again as they had at every opportunity since he’d met her. Stubborn, willful, beautiful woman. 

She’d refused the char root, lied about having it, all because she didn’t trust him. He understood–he’d probably have done the same in her situation. Strangely, she reminded him so much of Azriel that it had knocked the breath from him more than once. But still, the lack of trust stung more than he cared to admit. When he’d come back to the cave to find her looking like death, he’d panicked. He hadn’t smelled the infection on her, the cloying mint of the poultice covering the decay of gangrene in her skin. She’d been feeding him and caring for his injuries all this time, and he’d missed how badly she was hurt. 

She’d done a good enough job of covering it that Cassian didn’t doubt a word Feyre had shared about her. This was a woman used to hiding her own suffering through any and all means. And when she’d let him finally see the severity of it, he’d nearly passed out himself. 

How had a human been functioning on this leg? He’d fought wars with men that this injury would have incapacitated. He’d done what he could, taking great care to clean and dress it as well as possible while she grit her teeth in pain. He’d lost her a few times, the pain of it all slipping her off to somewhere else, compartmentalizing the agony in her mind. But the way she’d looked at him when she was lucid, her small hand gripping him for dear life…

It had done something to Cassian– changed something within him. 

The moment when he saw her resolve flutter, that ice-cold exterior cracking just enough to let him in, had nearly undone him. Now, as he stroked a hand lightly across her hair, smoothing it away from her face, he knew that was true. In the short time since he’d plummeted from the sky, he had become strangely attached to this fierce human woman–his High Lady’s sister. 

Even human, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Nesta reminded him of sharpened steel, the beautiful glint of a newly hewn sword or dagger. She reminded him of the tearing winds off Ramiel’s face, the glittering ice on the way up. She was jagged edges and unyielding determination and grit and ferocity. But there was something hidden and soft about her that kept drawing Cassian closer. 

“She is distant and cold because she knows if she isn’t, then she can be hurt.” How long had it been since Nesta could relax? Strangely, Cassian wanted to be the one to see her let her guard down, and he somehow knew he’d do anything for it. 

She murmured in her sleep again, and he let his hand smooth her hair down. Silver eyes flickered back and forth beneath shut lids, and she whimpered low in her throat. He couldn't help himself from brushing another sweaty lock of hair from her forehead and letting his hand linger on her cheek. He wanted to soothe the worry away–take whatever it was that was haunting her and do anything he could to help her find some peace.

She calmed again, her body relaxing against him and the hard stone of the floor as he tugged the blanket back up that she’d shrugged off. At least they were out of danger. He leaned his head back against the cave wall and closed his eyes. His wings rustled, trying to find a more comfortable position. He couldn’t believe the speed with which she’d mended them, no pause or hesitation in her methods. As a human, she’d likely never seen anything even remotely like his wings before–she probably hadn’t known for more than the weeks she’d spent in Prythian that creatures like him existed at all. Still, she’d stitched them together, holding him down with one arm while he’d writhed in the strangest combination of pain and overwhelming arousal that he’d ever experienced. Her fingers had been strong but delicate, the touch of them sending him into some mental space he’d never quite entered before. No one touched his wings but him. Even when he’d been injured in the past, he’d been knocked out while they were fixed. But he hadn’t stopped her. He didn’t regret it. 

And he couldn’t help but prod her when she’d understood what was happening–couldn’t resist teasing out that beautiful blush that crept up her neck to her high cheekbones. But the way she’d touched them, cared for them…it had felt intimate beyond belief. Instead of feeling vulnerable or snapping, Cassian had felt so oddly safe under the care of this prickly woman he’d only just met, even with her sharp-barbed words. 

He sighed, reaching out with his mind again in the silence of the cave to find only a foggy darkness. 

Rhys…

He’d been trying since the first night, only to be met with nothing but eerie, heavy quiet. It reminded him too much of the way things had been for the last five decades, and it made him so uncomfortable he itched. Either the distance or The Middle was interfering, but regardless, nothing was getting through. 

Would they come for him eventually? They had no way to know where he had landed, no way to know he hadn't made it to The Human Lands. They hadn’t even set up any check ins, assuming that he wouldn’t run into any difficulties. When would they start to wonder? Would they find them walking north to Illyria? Hopefully, by the time they reached a friendlier court, he could reach out to Rhys somehow and get help.

Abruptly, Nesta cried out, her body trying to curl in on itself so violently that Cassian lurched forward to keep her head from hitting the floor. 

“Please… Please! ” Her voice was anguished, the cries desperate as they fell from her mouth. 

“I’ll do anything. Anything.” She cried out again, and it was all Cassian could do to hook an arm around her shoulders to keep her still. He ran a thumb in circles over her shoulder, trying hard to be a soothing presence. He’d had his experiences with char root enough times to know that attempting to wake someone during the nightmares was a horrible idea. Still, he held her through it, hoping that the gentle rocking motion would soothe her rather than frighten her further.

“ Please, Momma. He’ll break me, he’ll–” The words echoed in the cave as she whimpered, her voice sounding so frail and unlike her. But it was the words themselves that made Cassian see red. 

Who had hurt her? Who had this fearsome woman of steel and stone so frightened that she ran from them in her worst nightmares? He’d seen the way she’d reacted when he’d lost his temper and slammed his fist into the cave floor–had seen the way she drew back into herself like she had to remember where she was. Nesta had been hurt by someone–likely a man–and the thought brought such wrath and fury to the surface of Cassian’s consciousness that he needed to force himself to take a breath.

Someone had hurt her, and the thought sent his feelings careening into a rage he’d rarely felt off the battlefield. Her nose and brow scrunched, almost as if in pain, and the glint of a single tear at the corner of her eye almost pushed him over the edge. 

He needed to rein it in for her. She was vulnerable. She didn’t need his wrath, she needed his comfort. He leaned down to whisper the words in her ear, brushing the tear away as it made a track down her temple.

“You’re safe, Nesta. You can rest.”

Though she didn’t wake, she seemed to calm at the words, a deep, shuddering exhale leaving her. 

“I’ll keep you safe.” The words left him without him even thinking about it, as though he hadn’t meant to say them at all. But he had the bone-deep knowledge immediately that he meant them. That he’d do anything to make sure that she wasn’t harmed. He’d come here for Rhys and Feyre, but there was no doubt in his mind that, now, he was here for Nesta.

Still asleep, her hand shot up to grab at his where it rested on her shoulder, her small fingers twisting to interlock with his like she needed the contact, the anchor. Her pulse beat against his fingers, the fluttering of it like the thumping of a wild rabbit in a trap. Slowly, it returned to normal, her breathing evening back out as whatever nightmare plagued her faded away. 

Once she was settled, he relaxed back against the wall again. Even though she was asleep, even though it meant nothing, she had trusted him. His heart pulsed strangely at the sentiment, a warmth that he wasn’t familiar with beating through his veins. Once she woke, her walls would rise again, as if nothing had changed–he wasn’t foolish enough to think otherwise. Her harshness would return, the distance between them would widen, and the woman who had let him care for her would be gone. But for now, in the firelight, she was beautiful beyond words—soft, unguarded, and safe enough that she’d let him care for her in a way she wouldn’t let anyone else.

It wasn’t long before he was falling asleep to the steady beat of her heartbeat against his skin. 

+++

Nesta’s eyelids felt like stone and dust as she blinked back into consciousness. 

Her head felt heavy and clouded, her tongue a useless weight in her mouth. 

How long have I been asleep?

She was immediately aware of what had occurred, remembering the char root that she’d taken by force at the last possible moment. 

Stupid, Nesta. So incredibly stupid. 

She was already more lucid than she had been before, painfully aware now of how close she’d come to irreparable damage for her pride. She took stock of her body as she blinked, trying to focus her eyes. Her body ached, her thigh tender, and her skin itched with the sensation of dried sweat. 

Lovely. 

Her fever must have broken in the night, the steady orange light of the fire the only thing illuminating the cave. As her vision returned, she realized that she was staring at the rocky ceiling, the stone jagged above her head as it caught the flickering shadows. Her head was on something soft and warm, her neck cradled on the material like a pillow. Then the pillow moved. 

She startled, her body jerking to attention as though she’d been shocked. She had been resting on Cassian’s lap, her head cradled on one of his thighs as she slept. 

Her body recoiled sharply, but everything spun madly around her and the arm she’d tried to use wasn’t supporting her weight. The nausea was so overwhelming that she thought she might vomit, might fall straight into it after, but two hands lightly gripped her shoulders. 

She remembered her dream. 

But these hands weren’t rough, weren’t hard on her skin. 

She thought she’d panic, but she didn’t feel trapped. The hands were large, warm, but they supported her. They didn’t drag her down, but eased her, turning her gently. She recognized his voice. 

“You’re okay, you’re safe. Take it easy.”

She could see his blurry face swim in her vision as she felt her body eased back to the cave floor. His eyes–beautiful eyes–looked so concerned, so relieved. It was a balm on her frenzied thoughts, a reprieve to the terror. 

It’s what you deserve.

The words were heavy and acidic, but they also felt hollow and far away as they were drowned out by “Just breathe, I’ve got you.”

She relaxed into her bedroll on the cave floor, her eyes still feeling swollen and her emotions raw. 

“You’re okay, Nesta. All healed.”

She tried to nod, his voice reassuring in the near dark.

I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.

She pulled at her wrists, and though they moved strangely, distantly, she could tell that they weren’t chained. She could feel the light linen of her top and not the stifling, tight lace of a dress and corset. 

Safe. 

She sighed. 

Cassian was quiet for a moment while she came back into her body before he asked, “Why didn’t you take the char root?” There was no accusation left in his voice, just genuine concern. 

She tried to open her mouth to speak, but it felt filled with ash and dirt. She cleared her throat and tried again, only to feel him pressing the mouth of the water skin to her lips. She drank, and it tasted better than anything she could remember. 

When she’d had her fill, she tried again. “It made me hallucinate before. I was unconscious for hours.”

“And you were scared.” It wasn’t a question.

“How long was it?”

“About ten hours.”

Ten hours. He’d sat with her for ten hours. 

“It’s healed?”

“You’ll have a nasty scar, but it’s healed.” He spoke the words tightly. There was no levity in his voice. “You didn’t trust me.” 

A statement. A fact. She tried to ignore what was plainly hurt in his voice, and she also ignored the way it made her feel empty in her chest, horrid. 

She didn’t answer for a while, her dream fresh in her mind. “You’re a stranger.”

He wasted no time in response. “I would never hurt you.”

She fought the urge to scoff, refusing to look at him. “You’re a man.”

“No, I'm a male.”

“What’s the difference?” The words were biting, but the interest was genuine, even as she faded between waking and dreaming.

“I am not mortal. We do not function the same ways as human men, and so we don’t call ourselves men.” He answered the question as though it were simple information everyone knew. She didn’t see the difference. All men, and likely all males, were the same. 

“Do males not feel entitled to take?” She shot the question with barbs, her hurt more evident that she wanted it to be, but it was out before she could stop it. 

Still, Cassian's words were soft when he answered. “Some might, but I do not. I would not.”

She didn’t expect the boundless bubble of emotion that emerged in her throat at the response. He said it so assuredly, so matter-of-factly. In his voice, she could hear the pity, and she hated it. She knew what it meant. 

She couldn’t respond, just shut her eyes, the exhaustion so bone deep that she thought she might actually cry. 

I would not.

After silence that stretched so long she worried he’d left, he spoke quietly but firmly. “You can trust me, you know.”

I know , she wanted to say–the reaction immediate. Against her better judgement, she did know it. Some deep layer of her felt it.

She wanted to believe it. She wanted it to be true.

Instead, she let her breaths even out. 

She wouldn’t acknowledge it aloud, wouldn’t tell him. Couldn’t tell him. But she would try to believe him, allowing herself the privilege of safety to drift back into a dreamless sleep.

[bomberqueen17]

how it's going

I am delighted so far by the responses to the post about signing up to beta/cheer-read the solarpunk tallship bisexuals novel I've decided to really give a go this year-- if you missed it, this is the post-- I have gone through and added everyone who signed up so far and it's a lovely mix of names I know and names I don't, not so many people it'd be hard to keep track and not so few that I'm worried about burning somebody out or totally winding up relying on one poor reader to keep my sanity going. I am also always pumped to get a lurker to de-lurk and say hi, not that there's anything wrong with lurking, I've got a few spaces where I lurk because that's what I need from that space. But it's always nice to be able to like, relate to somebody, y'know?

Not that you can really talk a lot in a google doc. I admit a lot of what's kept me going on Witcher has been having various little Discord threads where I can paste in whatever line I'm smug about, or that I'm stuck on for workshopping, and having a conversation about it, and not having that (I have a thread going in a Witcher discord but since it's off-topic it's kind of... well, low-traffic). I don't know if it's feasible to make a new Discord so I probably won't. But.

Anyway I will at some point turn that form off, but it seems to have worked pretty well so far as a method for adding people specifically to the doc, and I will leave it open and keep checking it for a little longer if any of y'all reading this were on the fence about signing up. I just can't rattle around alone in that doc and still keep my momentum. I'm only up to chapter three or so and the main plot hasn't even started but there's thusfar been at least one really confusing action sequence and I've realized that I've got a serious case of zero visual information being conveyed, so that's been helpful. Even with only a couple of readers-- ha, even the last couple of hours before I started adding people to the doc it had already done a lot of its job because I started proofreading with an audience in mind, which in my case tends to improve readability, which is what I want.

Listen, there's a noble purpose in telling stories for their own sake to yourself, but the idea of telling a story so that others can understand it is important to and I value it highly. So. That's what this is about.

So I've got a few people poking around in there with me and I feel much better about life and have some hopes I might make it over the hump into a real plot now, LOL.

But I think I'm gonna snippet post, which I haven't much with this work yet! (Have I? I forget. I started it in the fugue state of pre-holiday fuckery last year so who knows.)

bah i can't find a good snippet. well, here's a recently-composed one anyway.

As they approached the ship, Tom said, “You’ll tell the others, yeah? Simmons didn’t know. It ain’t his fault.” “I don’t know as it’ll help,” Keller said. “They’re mighty displeased about how you been treated. It reflects on them, y’know?” “It’s not so bad,” Tom said. “I’d rather be here than escorting the Barka convoy back to Subia in Jeanette all by my lonesome knowing damn well Righteous is waiting there for me with a bone in her teeth. No thank you, I’d rather not be set up on a suicide run like that. And you know if I got killed in a fourteen-gun sloop facing down a bloody-minded forty-gun privateer they’d tut-tut and say a proper Subian gentleman could’ve won.” “Oh sir,” Keller said. “You know they’d say that,” Tom said. “You know they would. No thank you, I will take my lumps and stick with Haines and I’ll thank you not to force me to defend poor Simmons the entire time. It weren’t none of his doing, Henry Keller, but that don’t mean I want to have to argue with the rest of you lot about him every blessed day of this commission.” “He’s also an ignorant sod,” Keller pointed out. “It don’t signify,” Tom said. “You know me and Yardley won’t let no harm come to the ship.” “Oh, Yardley,” Keller said. “I forgot he’s aboard. He’s been scarce.” Tom rolled his eyes. “He’s taking it well, too,” he said. He rummaged through the few parcels he’d brought back, and pulled out a bag and handed it over to Keller. “Share that out with your mess-mates,” he said. “And tell them-- it ain’t his fault, at all.” Keller took the bag with pleasure-- it was candy, Tom knew they’d have liked liquor better but he didn’t dare risk them being found with it and punished, with Simmons and not him in charge, so candy was safer. Keller looked back up at Tom, weatherbeaten face crinkled with a grin, and said, with a wry, grudging concession, “I’ll tell them.”

[writingbyshiloh]

Part 6

Parts 1-5

CW: Reader gets injured on the job!,(TBH it could be either hand as long as you have a weird handshake),Making out in a closet. Flashbacks to when Ressler walked in on R and Red having sex (part 2) and Liz and the earring (part 3)

WC: 2.3 (!!!!)

AN: Reader did work with a mob team, Flashback to when Ressler slept with Samar in season 4. I’ve never broken a bone so I tried to google as best as I could :) It ends a but abrutly, but I tried for an hour to work out a better ending and nada

Thank you to everyone who read the series, esp those who provided kind comments/feedback/let me bounce ideas off of them!! Whether you read just half of a chapter or all 6 I truly appreciate it. 7 months later we are done!!! 

“And how is the happy couple doing?” Reddington asks, sliding up next to you at the bar. 

“Oh, you know. Hopefully going to get into a huge argument in 10 minutes,” you reply. 

The task force was undercover at a cocktail party, to which a known member of the Blacklist was invited. Red and Liz are paired up, same with you and Ressler, while Samar and Aram are in the van, monitoring everyone. 

The first part of the plan was for Reddington and you to point out the mob member - Sonny Someone or other. Raymond knew them through business, while you knew him from trying to take him down while on a mob squad. 

Part two was you and your “husband” of the evening get into a fight, giving a reasonable excuse to not be mingling with others hoping to let Ressler bond with some of the other criminals. 

Currently, it's part three. You’re slinking around the halls of the event while not being outed as an FBI agent. Your bigger task is making sure you and Reddington are safe from any mob-connected individuals who may want him dead.

You’re both out of sight, being tucked into a storage room with your back uncomfortable against a shelf with a first aid kit next to you, while his hands gently squeeze your hips.

“We shouldn’t. Everyone here is suspicious!” you hiss, weakly protesting his advances, knowing you’re going to give in. He looks too good and you haven’t spent any time with him in the past two weeks outside of work.  

“Personally, I’ve always found the threat of death an aphrodisiac. Don’t you?” 

You rest your forehead on his shoulder, trying to hide your smile. What do you possibly say to that? You let out a small snort of laughter.

His lips dropped to your neck, kissing any exposed skin. You sigh, not daring to make a louder noise. Your arms, however, pulled him closer. 

Dipping your head, you tried to catch his lips with your own. He understands and brings his lips to yours, gently tugging your bottom lip with his teeth as a suggestion of you opening your mouth.

The squeaking of hurried dress shoes caused you to break apart, both leaning closer to the door to hear what's happening. 

You can hear Ressler's voice, strained as if he is jogging, saying, “They said they’re going down this hall, I just don’t see them!” 

On instinct, you flinch back, knocking the first aid kit off the shelf. You wince hearing the dull smack of the kit hitting the floor, then wince harder at the steps before the door. 

You barely hear the end of Donald's phone call, the opening of the door distracting you. Raymond positions his body in front of you, in case of the possibility that it's not Ressler on the other side of the door, but an attacker. 

“What the fuck.” is the only thing Donald can manage. 

You understand how bad the situation looks, Raymond Reddington looking flushed, and you standing behind. You see emotions flit across his face, not quite sure what to say. You squeeze past Reddington to go closer to Ressler. 

Your motion spurs Ressler into action. 

“Are you out of your mind? He's a criminal!” Ressler hisses at you, trying to keep his voice down. 

Reddington wants to correct him, pointing out that he is one of the most wanted criminals but the look you shoot at him makes him close his mouth. 

“It's not that bad!” you protest trying to save face. 

“It is!” 

“It's not!” 

“Does Cooper know?” Ressler lets out a small huff of a laugh “Does Liz know?”

“NO! You’re the first to know. But you can’t tell anyone. Please.” you beg.

“What's stopping me?” 

“I never told a soul about you sleeping with a subordinate! I planned to take that shit to the grave!” 

“A subordinate? I never knew you had it in you, Donald.” Reddington chimes in from behind.

A new voice around the corner makes you all freeze. You’re certain it's Sonny from listening to his voice through surveillance plans. 

Ressler’s comments and discovery have your nerves set ablaze but you still have enough sense to get your work weapon out and ready. You see Ressler do the same. 

Catching Reddington's eye, you jerk your head to the side, trying to get him to go behind you and Donald. He returns with a bewildered look as if you thought he’d willingly place you in danger. 

All three of you are pressed against the wall, trying to figure out what to do next. Ressler is in front of you, Reddington close behind. 

The voice is nearer, talking but no one is answering. Ressler uses his free hand to make the sign of a phone using his thumb and pinky. You nod in agreement. 

Your stress-addled brain tells you this is the best time to get your man. 

Rounding the l-shaped corner you smack into Sonny, trying to come across as a distracted and drunk partygoer, not an FBI agent on the verge of losing their job. 

“I’m sorry! I should watch where I’m going.” You apologize, trying to buy some time for Ressler and Reddington to understand your plan. 

“It is okay. Sonny.” He introduces himself. His hand is extended for a handshake but you would know him without the introduction. You spent months trying to get a lead on the racketeering he's done. 

You take his hand without thinking, glad he doesn’t recognize you. His left hand is on your right, patting your hand. You want to pull your arm away but can’t, wanting to stay in partygoer character. 

It's too fast for you to react until your index and middle fingers are bent back and you're gasping out in pain. 

Your surprise shouting alerts the two men behind you. With your half-baked plan ruined, they round the corner to come and find you and Sonny. 

With the mob member gone, you hold your hand in shock, telling Ressler to go after the mob guy. Instead of following your order, Ressler communicates with Samar and Aram in the van, telling them that Sonny ran towards the exit. 

The combined adrenaline of undercover, being found out, and having at least one finger broken is what keeps you from crying. Or at least what you tell yourself. 

 ----

Hospitals are never your favourite place, but it's exceptionally awkward now. Reddington is off doing something (he sent someone from his team to pay the leftover medical bills) to save some face. You have two broken fingers and want nothing more than to go home. 

Ressler is keeping you company (you suspect he's also the reason a nurse has checked in on you twice in the past 15 minutes). He only left briefly for Cooper to call you to say you’re not fired, but one out of the three weeks off (suggested by the doctor) was a suspension. Inappropriate relationship with a CI. But with the black site, nothing will stay on your file. 

Outside the room, you hear the voices from your team, most of them hushed, one angry. 

Aram being on the verge of tears is not what you expected to see when. You expected anger, or arguing, but not this level of upset from your close friend. Knowing Aram’s tendency to talk when nervous you’re sure he's going to tell you what's going on. 

“Why would you cheat on Dembe with Mr. Reddington?” The hurt in his voice is obvious. 

You can't control the way your jaw drops in shock or the way that your eyes widen. The doctor only gave you regular painkillers, but now you’re wondering if they’re making you loopy. You make eye contact with Ressler, who slowly shakes his head, not wanting to be part of this. 

“Cheat? On Dembe! What does Dembe have to do with this?” you can only hope that no one else can hear the conversation. 

“Dembe! Your boyfriend?” Aram fills you in.

“My who?”

“You’re dating Dembe. The evidence adds up.” Samar chips in. 

“What evidence do you even have?” 

“What about the earrings you left at the safe house? You and Dembe kept looking at each other and the earrings.” Liz supplies.

“Who remembers things like that?” Fucking profilers apparently. 

“What about how you light up when Dembe comes into the post office?” 

Okay. Maybe you’re not as subtle as you think you are. In your defence, however, that would be because he walks in with Raymond. 

“It's even more messed up that it’s with his boss!” 

You suppose it is a good thing your coworkers are so sharp, trying to tease information from your personal life to fit into their theory. 

“What if I told you I’m not actually dating Dembe. So your theory sucks.” 

Maybe you are getting a bit worked up. You watch the wheels spin in their head, trying to figure out. 

Aram is the first to put the pieces together “Mr. Reddington? He's like 60!” 

“That's why you dropped your coffee when Aram asked how things are with Mr. Right! You heard Mr. R and jumped to the conclusion. ” Liz supplies. It takes everything in you not to ask if this is the hospital where her ex-fiancé works. 

You meet Samar’s eye and she frowns in a way that says not too bad. You make a mental note to ask her what the fuck that means. 

“Does Cooper know?” 

“Do I know what?” The man himself asks, entering your hospital room, a bottle of juice from the vending machine for you tucked under his arm. 

If it didn't make you want to crawl into a hole, his timing would be comedic. His appearance still makes you pleased, he can't be that mad if he is visiting you, and bringing you a gift.

“Yes! Can we stop talking about it now?” you plead. 

Your idea is shot down to a chorus of “no!”s. 

“Hand me my drink, I will answer one question each. Choose wisely.” You say. Might as well get something out of this situation. 

---

“If you clench your jaw any harder we'll have to turn back.” you joke to Ressler, his knuckles white with how hard he is gripping the steering wheel. It was nice of him to drive you home, but his anger for you is coming and going in waves.

“You know, it's a shame how you never managed to catch Reddington before the task force started.” you notice his back stiffen at the mention of the FBI most wanted. You pretend to study your splint before continuing. “And do you remember when you wanted to drop off the files at my apartment? At literally the worst possible time?” 

For the first time since being in the car, he looks at you. 

“I bet you're the first FBI agent to walk in on the most wanted having s-” 

“Stop talking.”

---

It's a rarity to see Reddington unsure of himself. Even when you’re alone with him, he carries himself with confidence. Now he looks torn between making sure you’re okay and leaving you alone. 

“You can ask, you know,” you say, putting down your phone. The news about your fingers has spread to non-FBI friends, but typing with one hand is getting exhausting. 

“How did it go?” He’s sitting next to you, as close as he dared reading his newspaper. 

“Better than expected. No more broken limbs, everyone still talking to me, I’m still employed.” 

You shift the bag of frozen strawberries on your hand to get more of the cold. 

“Cooper called me on the way to the hospital, I was slapped with inappropriate relationships with a CI, much better than with a wanted criminal.” You smile, trying to lighten the mood. “Cooper also said he wouldn’t tell the team if he didn't want me to.” 

“But you did. Liz called, and let's just say your friends care about you.” 

Your chest feels warm at the idea of your friends fighting on your behalf. 

“I didn’t, they figured it out. I think all Ressler told them was he found us in a closet. It's whatever. I don’t think I could figure out another reason why it's so funny when he offs to beat up the mystery man.” 

“Yes, he always is a real go-getter, isn't he?” Raymond agrees. 

You press your lips together to hide your guilty expression. Reddington notices and his hand creeps up to the back of your neck, trying to be reassuring. You lean your body weight into him trying to get comfortable. 

“The next time you see Ressler one-on-one” at least you hope he respects you enough to not talk about your sex life with everyone “he's going to have some choice words.” 

You twist your head to look at Reddington's face, eyebrows raised slightly, tongue between his teeth as he tries to understand what you’re going to say. 

“I may have brought up how he, um, interrupted us one time,” you say. Now is not the time to bring up what other sexy details you shared with the team while he was unnamed. 

“Is that why he ran as soon as your door opened?” 

“Yeah, I think I traumatized him in the car.” 

 “He’s a strong man, he’ll live.” 

[vespaer77]

I'd like to tell you a story...

... about my first Tav, Shayla Moonsong.

She is a Zariel tiefling, and a College of Lore Bard, and while she wasn't my first Tav, she was the first one to finish the game. I had romanced Lae'zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion in early access, so I focused on her because I was anxious to try a new romance, Halsin. However, because she was created just after full release, her save file was horrifically bugged. I got the cut scenes for Halsin that allowed me to progress his companion quest and cure Moonhaven of the shadow curse, but after that I could get no further dialogue from him at all, even in camp. I was playing with a party limit mod by the time he joined my party, so I never needed to worry about dismissing him from my party, but I did occasionally have difficulty with him following the party. I had to run around controlling him a lot. The only scene I ever got with him once he joined me was specifically his sex scene, after I did the love test at the circus in Act 3. I knew literally nothing about him, lol, so I had to google the answers.

But that was the thing. I knew… nothing about this guy. He was just some hot elf my bard boned, I had zero investment in him other than that. And it became a head canon for me about her - she was a typical bard, slutting her way to the Gate. She slept with the Emperor, she had a foursome with the drow twins and Halsin, and she absolutely played Haarlep's game to get his pass code. And while I'd wished, at the time, I could have had the additional enrichment of a poignant, heartfelt romance, I did enjoy exploring a character that was more free with her sexuality. As a result, though, I'd ended up "saving myself" for Halsin, because I knew his romance would (or in my case should but didn't) open up very late in the game. And I'd shot down all of the other companions fairly quickly.

Including Gale.

Especially Gale.

He was still bugged at the time, and his… overly amorous nature, lol, was widely known to anyone who'd spent more than ten minutes on the internet. So I ignored a lot of opportunities to know him better. And at the time, he was honestly my least favorite character. Particularly because I truly didn't enjoy him in early access. I genuinely found him offputting and way too over the top, and subsequently much of his narrative flew straight over my head.

Like a Boeing 777.

But let's be honest. Because of the nature of his story, and the way he seems to compartmentalize his trauma as devotion, and because of the mask of charm and confidence he wears to convince your character of his usefulness, and the way he tempers his emotions so he doesn't upset the orb, all of these things… the complexity of his narrative is super duper subtle. Or at least to me it was. I was the complete dumb dumb that didn't pick it up from context like we were supposed to.

Until I played my bard, Shayla. The first one to get through Act 3.

I had saved the culmination of Gale's quest in Sorcerous Sundries til nearly the end. Just before all the stuff with the foundry and Gortash. At the time, he was still a checklist item, a box to mark off on my road to the final boss.

So I went into it feeling like this man was probably pretty fed up with me, lol. And then he read the Annals of Karsus and I realized right then just how much I'd taken this character for granted. Because everything about him, his entire personality, shifted right there, and he became… someone else. And everyone else in my party noticed it too. The choice of responses I was given was crafted in a way that made me feel like the writers very much wanted me to notice a change had taken place within Gale. And then I picked a response that was honestly a touch unkind. I don't remember what I said to him, but…

He yelled at me.

"She left me to die!" he said. I remember that part.

And when the camera panned back to me and the party, we were all wide eyed and reared away from him in shock and disbelief that this charming, confident, gregarious, and benign creature was suddenly so… dark. And it was at that moment that a light switch was flipped. The missing puzzle piece was found and snapped into place. Suddenly I understood everything I'd missed up to that point, and it was more than just an "ah hah!" moment. It was an, "Oh my god…" moment. He hadn't become someone else.

We were seeing who he truly was for the first time.

His mask had slipped. Cracked beneath strain. He'd been pushed to a breaking point.

Naturally, because he's Gale, he recovered quickly. But it was too late. I saw him. And then two things happened. I fell in love with him. Instantly. But then I also realized the game was almost over. His romance opportunity had come and gone, there wouldn't be a "confess your love at the last minute" option. And of course his fate at the end of the game was not so kind to my bard either.

I've had big feelings about it ever since.

And then the Hugs mod came out, which only served to further poke my great big ouchy feelings.

I've lived in head canon land for a while now when it comes to Shayla Moonsong. In my head canon, he did end up taking her advice, he did pick an outcome that didn't involve using the Crown of Karsus or the Karsite Orb, and in no way did he become a pulverized cloud of stardust. He ended the game living peacefully in Waterdeep, giving Tara belly rubs and ushering in the next generation of wizards without grooming them for a lifetime of suffering.

But that leaves Shayla herself and her big, unresolved feelings. Feelings that were never processed or acknowledged, as the time was never right between her relationship status with Halsin and the fate of the world resting on her shoulders.

So, what is a bard to do when she falls in love, but it's too late?

Nothing small, that's for sure. And it will probably involve singing.

(I'm planning on maybe two to three chapters for this story, in which she very much makes things worse before they get better, lol. She's still learning. But it's definitely gonna end with some light cunnilingus and good, heavy railing either on a kitchen counter or against a bookshelf. I haven't decided yet. I do hope, if you do decide to read this humble beginning, that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And also please excuse my ill attempts at self-effacing meta humor.)

Pairing: Gale / named fem!Tav bard Rating: Smut is imminent (once we get through the foreplay… er, mutual pining) Word count: 4790

Read the story HERE or under the cut

Chapter One: The Wizard, The Real One

"Is there a loan shark in the audience or something?" Jory asked.

"Hmm?" Nelsyn replied, but she didn't look up from her lines. He supposed that was fair. She was busy letting Sara fix the adhesive on the curly teal wig that sat between her horns, and Jory knew as well as anyone on cast that nothing good came from troubling the crew. He let his heavy bear pelt slip from his shoulders as he sat down in the empty chair next to her.

"She's been there all night," he told his friend as he nodded toward the entryway to stage right. "Boss lady. We've been touring this show for months. We could all do it in our sleep, she knows that. Never seen her hover like this."

And there was no reason for it. "The Fall of the Absolute" was a roaring success. The production was Shayla Moonsong's crowning achievement, a media darling, and the current obsession of a whole continent. She'd catalogued volumes of stellar, five-star reviews thus far, and was selling out box offices everywhere she went. The show was the hottest new thing since "Volo's Guide to Sex in the Elemental Planes."

But it wasn't her biggest accomplishment. It wasn't what she was truly known for.

She was the Hero of Baldur's Gate.

She faced the illithid Netherbrain herself, and won.

And the tale they were telling in front of all those people was her story.

Heavens knew the winsome bard had faced far greater perils than watching a chapter of her life play out on a stage.

And yet there she stood, on this most unremarkable of nights, leaning just inside the door frame where she could observe without obstructing. Where she could scan the audience like a scrying eye, searching for… something. Normally she'd be flitting about like a cloud of gnats directing the cast and crew, answering questions, giving orders, helping the caterer, filling water jugs, finding toilet paper, running errands, meeting VIPs. Trying not to go crazy. But not tonight. Tonight she stood very still, chewing her thumbnail and unconsciously flicking the tip of her tail over and over, hard to the left.

And Jory remembered what Nelsyn had said about what it meant when tieflings flicked their tail to the left.

She was clearly nervous about something.

"Well, we're about to do the big emotional number," Nelsyn finally told him, closing the cover of her script while Sara gave her wig a good yank to test the glue. "It's the one all the teenage girls are sobbing over their sketch pads for right now."

She stopped to take a sip of water when Sara bent to pick up her cosmetics case. The girl made a gesture to Jory to give up his seat, and he tripped over his own feet unfolding himself to stand up. Once again he was reminded why he was cast as the big druid, Halsin. Shayla had told him once that while he wasn't quite as tall as the real thing… he was close. He wondered how easily the boss lady's former lover would have fit into that chair.

"This is our first time in Waterdeep," Nelsyn continued, trying her best not to move her lips while Sara applied a fresh coat of pink stain. "She probably just wants to see how it gets received. She doesn't really get to just sit out there and watch, you know?"

"Yeah."

"Could be it," Sara told them both, bunching her eyebrows and concentrating on keeping her hand steady. "Part of it, anyway. That is her favorite character out there, singing his heart out about the bomb in his chest."

"Her favorite character? The wizard?"

"Someone else got a bomb?"

"Please. Everyone knows I'm her favorite character."

"Listen," she replied as she wiped the applicator clean with a kerchief, "you're a good looking kid, and no one hates watching you take your clothes off out there." Nelsyn snorted, but they both ignored her. "A healthy percentage of ticket sales is probably yours, no one's arguing that. But that's not enough for you to game the win."

"Game the w- what?" Jory laughed, his oiled obliques glistening as he pulled the bear pelt back over his shoulders. "Look, I'm not trying to make it a competition or anything, okay? You brought it up. But I literally play an archdruid who carves ducks, sings to squirrels, and adopts orphans. Plus? He looks like this." He swept his hands grandly over his abdomen, flexing muscles most people had only seen in paintings or medical textbooks. "And did I mention he's also her boyfriend?"

"Her ex-boyfriend," Sara corrected him, pointing at Nelsyn as she spoke. "Have you even listened to the song she's getting ready to sing? You know. The one about love? And sacrifice?" She shifted her weight as an intern sidled past her to tidy the table, refill their drinks, and bag up the trash. "And don't tell me you haven't looked at Erik with both of your eyeballs. We've all seen him. The man has eyelashes as long as your forearm. And the biggest, saddest, wettest brown eyes on the face of this planet. He's like a baby cow, okay? I'm just saying." She stood to let the intern past her again, and bent to drag her cosmetics case out of the way. "This is the man she cast to play the lead in the big romantic climax of the whole show. When the main character realizes she's in love and it's too late. She's managed to capture," she pinched her fingers in front of her face, "the very essence of what it means to have sad children mooning over this show for years to come, okay? The baby cow is a cash cow. And he is clearly her favorite character."

"I think the vampire is her favorite character," the intern said, unprompted, as she reached to help Nelsyn out of her seat. "He's everyone's favorite character."

"You're all wrong," Nelsyn told them as she sloughed her way out of her robe with great theatrical flair. The intern caught it before it hit the floor, just as she'd done so many times before. Nelsyn stood with her hands on her hips and a gallant curve to her tail, casting her eyes toward the rafters and beaming a heavily pink-stained smile, resplendent in her artificially distressed leather armor blotted with thick fake blood.

"I'm her favorite character," she said, glowing with certainty. "And it should be obvious. I'm her! Now, stand back and watch while I go make a bunch of little girls cry!" And with that, she grinned devilishly and pranced toward the stage.

But once she was gone, the intern leaned forward and beckoned. Jory found himself instinctually drawn to listen.

"Well, you wanna know what I heard?" she whispered, and her eyes landed on Shayla for only just a moment. Jory nodded out of reflex. "I heard a rumor that someone in the orchestra pit overheard the boss lady telling someone in the box office that there was going to be a special guest tonight."

"What. Like, family?" Jory asked. "I thought she was an orphan."

"Could be anyone," Sara answered him from where she stood, combing through a wig hanging on the wall. "Philanthropist, politician. Who knows.

"Or," the intern hissed, leaning in even closer, "it could be one of them."

"One of who?"

"You know. Them. Thems what was with her, when all this went down."

"Like… like one of the actual…?"

"Don't you two have anything better to do than -"

"Wait. We're in Waterdeep," Jory breathed. He snatched up Nelsyn's script and started thumbing through it, fanning the pages and blowing a strand of hair across his nose. "Isn't… isn't the wizard…?"

Sara dropped her comb to her side and opened her mouth, but stopped and blinked at him instead. A thoughtful look crept across her face. She nodded her head in defeat.

"The wizard's from Waterdeep."

Then, as one, they all turned to look at Shayla where she stood at stage right, still as a statue.

And the music began to swell. The strings stirred the air with sounds as soft and sweet as sunset. The woodwinds sang a shrill crescendo as Erik began to make his famous climb.

And Nelsyn began to sing her famous song.

Before she disappeared beyond the narrow view from stage right, Jory watched her as she raised her arm to reach for him.

The wizard.

And her voice rang out so high and so clear, so heavy with every loss that Shayla Moonsong had ever suffered, with every plea that ever twisted her heart in bitter knots. With every word that ever fell from the mighty pen of their beloved playwright.

Who stood now with her hand at her throat. It bobbed once when she swallowed. Her lips parted and she drew a breath, and a hush fell over the crowd. She settled in to listen with the rest of them.

And her tail flicked once more to the left.

I know I've been unkind to you And I've pushed you way too far And I know in ignorance I forced you To reveal the man you are And I know I've left you with nothing to lose And even less to gain And though I know you owe me nothing Please don't give in to pain

Erik's silhouette was emblazoned across the long, velvet curtain hanging behind the hideously decorated staircase he was climbing. His movements were eery and real, despite their paltry attempts to pantomime a grisly memory that none of them had ever lived. Each step was measured and dreamlike and perfect, like a person caught in a trance or a dead man called home to his rest by a spectral light.

Or in this case, a massive papier mache facsimile of a netherbrain hung from a scaffold over the stage.

Please, Please don't do this I'm begging you not to go Please, Please don't do this There's something you need to know What can I do to make you wait Convince a goddess to change your fate Please tell me that it's not too late There's something I didn't say…

"It can't be him, though. Can it?" Jory asked. "Didn't he, like," he pointed a finger toward the stage, "explode?"

"Oh, no. It's just a story, mate," came a voice from behind them. It was Velanthyr, the elf who played Astarion. They rounded the table and perched themself on the corner, placing their white wig beside them as they took a bite from an apple. "She's embellished tons of stuff. For emotional impact. They all do it."

I should have loved you since I met you I should have loved you all along

"That bard she played? In the first act?"

"Yeah?"

"She ain't really dead either."

"Seriously?"

I should have told you that I love you Instead of hiding behind a song

"My cousin met her. Said he saw her play someplace they had dinner."

"No shit?"

"It's true. She teaches music in Baldur's Gate."

Is there nothing left that I can do But fall to my knees and pray

"So what's with her, anyway?" Velanthyr asked, pointing their apple at Shayla while they wiped the juice from their lips with their other hand.

The tip of her tail flicked again, and slowly she wrapped her arms around her middle.

To any god or any devil Who'd keep you from walking away

"She's been acting weird all night," they said.

"S'what we were just talking about."

Please, Please don't do this! Turn around! This isn't right!

"We think the wizard might be out there," the intern told them. "The real one."

"Oh no," the elf laughed.

Please, Please don't do this! Please, I'm begging you to fight!

"Hope he has a sense of humor. It's about to get weird!"

"Weird?!" Sara growled at them, flinging her comb about.

Forget your fickle god's desire I'd cross the oceans, I'd walk through fire I'd conquer all the Hells entire For you And yes, I know you're tired

"The man is getting ready to watch himself die! And I'm sure I don't need to remind you his death is self-inflicted! If there's a chance that any of this is real? That the trauma this man survived is on display? You all need to show a little respect." She shook her head and turned back to her wig. "Shut up and let her listen."

Sara's words may have stung him, but Jory knew she was right. So he obeyed her, and he listened. And for the first time he truly heard the fragile warble of desperate heartache that Nelsyn had worked so hard to craft through her voice.

Come back to me and take your rest Indulge one overdue caress I'll steal the sorrow from your chest And confess, I will confess

But he didn't just uncover a new appreciation for his friend and her level of skill. There was more to it than that. There was a depth to this scene that he'd been missing before now.

There was a meaning. One that wasn't meant for the whole world.

It was only meant for one man.

He could sense it in the vibrant tension bound between Shayla Moonsong's shoulder blades.

And then Nelsyn grew quiet. Everything got quiet. The music made a subtle shift to something low and dulcet, but tense, like a string pulled too tight without snapping. Jory found his feet had led him to stand at Shayla's shoulder. He could hear her breathing through her teeth and he felt compelled to reach out and take her hand.

She took hold of it like a lifeline.

You're everything to me and more You're all that I've been fighting for You're more than just an end to war…

Nelsyn paused after that last note. It was important to the narrative, it was the whole point behind the wizard's story. But her longing would go deliciously unrequited, and would inspire a veritable deluge of creativity from fandom communities everywhere.

Shayla squeezed Jory's hand, squeezed her eyelids firmly shut. She held her breath and Jory could see Erik had reached the top of the rise. There he stood, a straight, unyielding figure gazing off into the liminal distance, resolute.

And he would never turn around.

It wouldn't be long. Any moment.

Nelsyn sang her penultimate line.

And I would give my life for yours…

She held the word so long it nearly sank into Jory's skin. It sent a wave goosebumps to crest over every inch of his body. The orchestra wove their way through their final, sweeping refrain, and the conductor brought them to a close on a plaintive harmony between a flute and an oboe.

And then the light collapsed.

It shrank to a small, pale circle that drew its stark and shining focus on a razor-slim shadow cast against the curtain.

In the shape of a dagger.

Erik lifted it high and turned its point toward his heart.

"Gods preserve me," Shayla mumbled to herself. It was the only sound Jory could hear aside from the sniffs and sniffles of the audience. Collectively they teetered at the edges of their seats, enthralled by a beautiful, mournful man who was counting the final seconds of his life with undaunted stoicism and courage.

Nelsyn could've whispered her final line if she wanted to, but instead it burst from her as a scream.

"Don't do this!!!"

Jory felt it thrum like a shockwave within his own chest, and beside him Shayla flinched. She squeezed his hand even harder.

"Just tell me when it's over," she said to him. And then suddenly there was a flurry of activity.

He took a step back and yanked her away from the door when a small flock of technicians flew in to crowd the space they left behind.

Up high, far in the corner, Jory saw the dagger move against the curtain. And all of the good people of Waterdeep gasped when they watched the blade meet its mark.

"Fire in the hole," a technician murmured beside him, and the spotlight on the curtain went black.

Then a pair of spells were cast that bathed the audience in a blinding aurora. It blazed with ribbons of vivid blues and purples and greens, speckled with myriad glittering white stars.

And an arrow of roaring thunder was launched far overhead. It detonated with such a resounding boom that it shook everything, even the floor boards beneath Jory's feet. It rattled seats and drinking vessels, it toppled music stands, and it made Erik's staircase sway alarmingly as it was wheeled backstage, with him still riding precariously at its top.

Shayla Moonsong's face fell into her hands.

"Go on," Erik sang as he danced his way down the stairs. "Tell me how devastating I was. Don't hold back. Tell me everything."

"You were spectacular, my love!" Velanthyr assured him as they ran to greet him, cradling his face in their hands and kissing him sweetly. "You always are."

"Were they weeping?" he asked his lover, nuzzling their face with his own. "The lights are so bright, I can never see."

"They were drowning in their tears, darling. Drowning."

"Is everything alright?" Sara asked as she approached on her tiptoes, reaching for Shayla's arm. Velanthyr's wig drooped at her side, forgotten. "What can I do?"

"I can't even look," Shayla whimpered through the palms that smothered her face.

"Oh honey," Sara cooed as she pulled the woman closer. And in a blessed act of mercy, she asked the question that no one wanted to ask, but someone needed to. Long before now, before this critical point had been breached.

"He's out there, isn't he?"

"I think I've made a huge mistake." Shayla slid her fingertips down to press against her lips, unable to form any other words. She could only shake her head, her eyes as wide as dinner plates.

"Do you want us to look? See if we can see him?"

"I don't think I wanna know."

"Where is he seated?"

"E6."

"Oh." Sara briefly grimaced at Jory, but didn't stop rubbing circles across Shayla's back. "Front and center. Of course."

"Yep." The way her lips popped at the end of the word only served to emphasize how mortified she was. "Wouldn't want him to miss anything."

"Well, of course not. He's your guest," Sara replied, jerking her chin in a way that suggested Jory had been volunteered for reconnaissance.

"Oh gods!" Shayla raked her claws past her horns to twist them into her hair. "I even told him he could invite his mother!"

"Well that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, one would think."

Jory understood his assignment. He sauntered away but paused at the door frame. The show wasn't over yet. When the technicians finished collecting their gear, they scrambled off to safely stow their rockets and retrieve the set pieces for the final scenes. They were dragging the staircase away from the main thoroughfare when Corinne, the woman who played the narrator, whipped past them.

"Coming through," she chimed, racing out to center stage, taking her place before the curtains could rise once more. Her final soliloquy would lead them into the epilogue, and would give Jory the opportunity he needed to cast his eyes past the orchestra pit and across the section of seats that lie beyond.

Front and center.

He would only have a minute or two. Sara would need to replace Velanthyr's wig. Erik needed a drink and Nelsyn's makeup needed a touch up. Very soon they would be on stage, the lights burning holes through their retinas, leaving them blinded and oblivious to all but each other and the saga they would spin to its end. He reached up to buckle the clasp on the bear pelt that draped across his shoulders.

For now, it was the narrator's turn. But he was ready. And then the curtains rose.

He smashed his face against the door frame like a cat burglar. A shaft of light swung down upon the stage illuminating Corinne at its center, and Jory peered out into the darkness it left in its wake. He squinted until he found the end of the section behind the orchestra pit, and he started counting backwards from there.

But seat E6 was empty.

Certain he'd made a mistake, he counted back again to double check, to be extra sure.

But he was right the first time.

"It's empty," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

"What?" Shayla cried as she spun to face him.

"Yeah," he told her. "I counted twice to make sure I had the right seat, but no one's in it."

"Oh gods." She began to pace, wringing her hands. "What about the one next to it?"

"Which side?"

"Just tell me if you see an older woman."

"Umm, okay." At first he wasn't certain. There was a child on the right side, but on the left was a person who'd stood up, and was bent with their back toward him, like they were reaching for something. "I think… maybe. Yeah. I think so. It looks like she's getting up. She's picking up a bag or something. Is that a cat?"

"Tara?"

"Who brings a cat to a -"

"She's not a cat. She's a tressym."

"What the hell is a tress- holy shit, it's got wings! It just flew over - oh! Oh, I think I see him!"

"Where!"

The tressym sailed through the air to float beside a tall, slender man who was moving quickly up the aisle toward the exit. He wasn't running, out of proper respect for social decorum, but he had the energy of a man who wished he was. His shoulders were hitched up near his ears and he was stifling his mouth with the back of one hand.

And a shiver ran down Jory's spine.

This was the guy. The wizard. The real one.

Gale Dekarios, of Waterdeep.

In the flesh. Right there.

From what little Jory could see, the play had done him justice. He was a very handsome man, lithe and lean, long-legged with a powerful stride, and every bit as comely as Erik had depicted him to be.

Yet it was hard to imagine, through simple sight alone, that this was a man who had once been the Chosen of a god. Or that this was a man who had once vanquished the avatar of Death itself. A man who had put an end to the Cult of the Absolute.

A man who had once made his own decision about whether or not to plunge a dagger into his heart.

But it was easy to see why Shayla would want to stop him. This man clearly meant something to her.

He didn't know what providence deemed it necessary for him to ask. It certainly wasn't any of his business. But the question tumbled out of his mouth, unbidden. Perhaps the gods themselves just wanted to hear someone finally say it out loud.

"Does he know how you feel about him?"

Shayla slumped and let her hands fall limp to her sides. She pulled her lip into her mouth, and her eyes swam with visions of regret. "No," she whispered to him. "It was never the right time."

Oh, how irony could be so cruel.

"You should go after him, then," he told her. "Go quick. If you hurry, you can catch him before he gets to the front door."

"Shit!" she snarled and for a moment, Jory was afraid she'd scurry across the stage in the middle of Corinne's long and emotional speech. There was a wild streak in him that almost hoped she would. But instead, she bolted through the loading bay doors and flung herself outside, presumably to tear down the alley between the theater and the wine cellar to run around the building toward the front.

Nelsyn wandered over to them, sipping cold water from her mug and watching over her shoulder as the loading bay doors swung back and forth on their hinges.

"Jory," she stated flatly. "What did you do."

"What?!" he cried. Sara could only double over and laugh at him. "I didn't do anything!"

"Somebody did something," she said, eyeing the doors skeptically. "And it looks a lot like it was you."

"I'm serious! She asked if we could see him, and I told her yes. That's all."

"See who?"

"The wizard!"

"What wizard? You mean, like… Erik?"

"No!" He stuck out both hands and shook them. "The actual wizard! The real one, from Waterdeep! Yes, he's still alive! No, he didn't explode!"

"Well, everybody knows that…"

"She wanted to know where he was, so I told her, and then she ran out the door."

"Wait. So he was actually here tonight?"

"Jory," Sara accused him, still smiling pitifully at him as she crossed her arms over her chest. "That's not all you said to her."

"But I didn't -"

"You asked her a pretty personal question."

"Where was he sitting?" Nelsyn continued as she took another drink and leered at him over the rim over her mug.

"E6."

"Wow. Front and center."

"Yeah. She didn't want him to miss anything."

"So what did you ask her?"

Jory could only roll his eyes and sigh. None of them had time for this. He dropped his head and pinched his brow between his thumb and his forefinger but when he looked up, he found all eyes were on him. Even Erik and Velanthyr had paused their conversation long enough to turn around and stare. The technicians in the back tried to appear as if they weren't listening, but everyone knew they were. Suddenly, he could feel the heat that was trapped beneath the heavy mantle of his bear pelt.

"I asked her if he knew how she felt about him."

"What do you mean, how she felt…" And through the window of her eyes he could see her mentally calculating every single word she'd just sung. Right in front of the very man it was all intended for. Seated front and center, missing nothing. Her eyes flickered like golden flames.

"Holy shit," she breathed. "Like… feelings? Real ones? What did she say?"

He didn't get to answer. Just then, raucous applause erupted from behind them. The thunderous retort of clapping hands and cheers drowned all other sound, and signaled to them all that their time was up. Corinne came skipping backstage as the curtains fell behind her.

"And that's a wrap for me! Slam and a dunk! Go get 'em while they're - what's going on?"

"The wizard was here tonight," Nelsyn answered her without breaking her eye contact with Jory. "The real one. Shayla is in love with him. What did she sayyy?"

"No," he told her, holding very still while Sara dabbed a powder puff over his face. "She said no. He doesn't know."

"Are you serious?" Corinne gasped, pressing a hand to her heart.

"Well he does now," Sara chuckled, wriggling her eyebrows as she dropped the powder back into her cosmetics case. "I hope she caught him before he got away. He deserves an explanation."

And all around them, activity buzzed. Scenic backdrops rolled by, the intern fussed with Velanthyr's wig on her tiptoes, Sara dug frantically around searching for her lip stain, and the other actors began lining up to take their places. But in spite of the jubilant bustle of life happening all around them, Nelsyn could only stand with her mug in her hands, awestruck by the revelation they'd just been given.

"Sweet tapdancing Asmodeus," she laughed, shaking her head with her eyes transfixed on some far away place. "You mean to tell me that this whole time," she jostled the water in her mug when she bellowed, "THIS WHOLE TIME?! This whole play has been just a great big love letter to some… man?! For months?! And he only just heard it? Tonight? For the first time?"

"I think that about sums it up, yep," Sara told her, taking the mug from her hands.

"That's genius!" She shuffled to her place in line, utterly befuddled, her eyes glassy and glazed. "They're star-crossed, it's perfect! I wish this would've happened months ago! Just you wait, you'll see. When all the little fan fic authors out there find out about this? They are gonna go berserk! People everywhere will pay money for a vial of our sweat! The contents of our chamber pots - we'll be famous!

"Gods have mercy on us all. There might even be a sequel. We'll be touring this show til the day we die!"

************************************************************************

[novaauster]

HELLOOOOOOOOO im reading the narines fic and thought id live react here bc i just KNOW im gonna have THOUGHTS let's go!

"The prince--king--piece of shit-- is obsessed" off the bat i love your nate characterisation like his povs always have that snarky edge to them and u got that off the bat

"He’s in his dressing gown. White silk, tied with a wound-dark sash at his waist, open down the navel. His snake, Kidaro, is slung around his neck like a priest’s stole, warming itself on his skin." THIS FREAK RIGHT HERE HAS CAUSED EVERYONE ALL MANNER OF PROBLEMS TONIGHT. TOXIC YAOI WONT FIX HIM BUT IT WILL MAKE ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT IT ALL

"a fanatic to the hate that he inherited" LOVE this wording

THEY'RE SUCH CUNTS TO EACH OTHER I LOVE IT

IT'S THE KIND OF DARKNESS YOU PRAY TO HMMMM

the way the signs of respect and fear are overlapping ohhhh i love that

'“It is a small room in which nobles and officials debate policy decisions…” Herines launches into an automatic explanation before remembering who he’s talking to. “You’ll see, raven.”' actually laughed out loud at this bc it's SO HIM. herines is a nerd first tyrant second

THE FIREEEEEEEEEE OMG

"A clear-headed Herines is a dangerous Herines, one that looks at him, curious, like something to dissect, one that could figure out that Nate can heal himself but he can’t regrow an amputation. He can’t survive a decapitation, and Herines’ dagger is long enough to try it." your writing is so captivating im literally here like OMG WHAT NEXT at every sentence they're CRAZY crazy

"'I fucked your brother" THE WAY MY HANDS FLEW TO MY MOUTH. INSANEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE IM GOING INSANE

'declawed' is an excellent way of describing nate when he hits his exhaustion

NATE IS GETTING BATTERED RN OH MY GOD MY BOY GET UPPPP YOU'RE EMBARRASSING US 😭

also having nate repeatedly break his bones to escape his restraints is such a cool move bc it's SO something he would do

"What made you?" "You did." YOU'RE PAYING FOR MY THERAPY

THAT WAS A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. YEAH I BASHED HIS FACE IN WITH AN OIL LAMP AND HE KILLED ME WITH THE SASH OF MY OWN ROBE BUT WE ALSO FUCKED NASTY. WE EXIST

genuinely that was so so so good i literally had heart palpitations i was so excited i cant believe there's tbos fic on ao3 now im losing my MINDDDDDDDDDDDd i will reread this 5 more times tonight probably

omg tysm!!!!

nate's characterization is extremely fun, if there is one word i'd use to describe it's instigator. he's not stupid but he will always say the bitchiest thing possible at any possible moment and i love him for it. rin is also such a freak i can't fathom what is wrong with him. what mommy issues will do to an mf in charge of a country on the verge of civil war. i was extremely proud of the fanatic line

"it's the darkness you pray to" was also a fun one, yeah. nate's relationship with the gods that gave him his powers and then abandoned him. darkness, something that might be profound and beautiful, but still by definition hinders any human. the overlap between respect and fear as a result of nate's trauma as an oppressed wiser and a violent rebel

rin's nerdiness was just delightful. like yes he wants to dissect nate like a cow's eyeball and yes he uses his intelligence for evil. but that is by nurture, by nature he's just curious. and it was very intentional that the things that make him snap are the thought that nate might've hurt drako and then later that nate is hurting kidaro

"declawed" was definitely a choice of words, i was googling "synonyms for harmless" because harmless is not at all how i would describe him, and eventually it came to me. and yeah he's really getting battered. it's hard to balance or strike with your hands cuffed behind your back. F in the chat for my boy

"what made you" "you did" the drama. the intimacy. the way rin is searching in the wisers for an origin to the cracks in his family but his family made the cracks in the wisers instead. nate might be an instigator but rin is a tyrant and he sees that when he looks in the mirror. they're character foils your honor

again, thanks for the ask!! :-D

[jenroses]

Outstanding advice, all of it. Some additions (I've written quite a number of long works.)

Outlining can be:

An actual structured classic outline Bullet points A copy paste of a chat with your favorite enabler (thanks sis!)

A first rough draft where you just sort of spitball in casual style

Outlining does not have to be:

Complete Organized What the outline would look like if someone worked back from your end piece

You do not have to write the story in order

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WRITE THE STORY IN ORDER

You do not have to pick sides between pantsing and plotting.

Like, I have stories where I did a 10k outline ahead of writing the full story and it ended up 50k and I have stories that started out as 15k of notes that ended up being chucked and a final product of 180k and I have stories where the outline is the digital equivalent of "and then they fucked" on the back of a coffee-stained napkin that ended up at 250k. Some stories lend themselves better to seat-of-the-pants writing than others.

And it is ALWAYS good to leave some room for the story to evolve. No story is complete from the start, they all develop as they are written.

Often my writing starts out as bare bones dialogue. That's a "squeezed accordion." I pull it apart and fill in what is necessary to make it not two disembodied heads floating in an empty space. Then I pull it farther and fill in emotional color. Then I look at what I've written to see if everyone sounds like who they are (character voice is important.) Then I have other people read it to tell me if I've missed spots of pulling the accordion. Some stories get more "pull" than others--I have one story up that I honestly could have pulled from 50 to 200k but just didn't feel like navelgazing that much.

But writing comes much faster if you are not trying to create perfect paragraphs on the first go. Let the characters and the story in your head pull you along. Spend some time in the shower with the scene in your head, so you understand it, before you write it.

I've never had a word count goal in my life. In the past 26-ish years I've written about a million and a half words. This past year I didn't even start writing until like, two days ago, because I didn't have anything to say. But a story just itched at me until I had to start writing and the next thing I knew I had 3000 words, and it's just the beginning. I often have months go by where I write nothing, sometimes years, and sometimes I write 200k in six to eight weeks. And there are people who just write 500 words a day but do it all the time. The important thing is to find what works for you to write the amount of writing that you like doing.

Let's see....

There are a zillion ways to write, and I've written in notepad, in wordpad, in word, in open office, in google docs, and I'm now working in Scrivener and I puffy heart Scrivener because it keeps the brain weasels working together well and lets me do a funky side-by-side thing so that I can word vomit onto a page and then stick it next to the actual document and really write things out in an organized way. But my first works were done in notepad, mostly to keep me from getting bogged down in formatting. Now I have a personal style guide that keeps me from getting bogged down in formatting because I've already done it.

If you do not touch type, I cannot stress enough how important touch typing can be for writing output. Find a typing tutor program, or a typing game, and follow the basics, and most people can get competent within a matter of weeks with practice. One of the most prolific authors I know types at about 220 wpm. I type at about 70-90wpm depending on how much thinking I'm doing at a given moment. And there are still authors who work longhand on paper, and that's valid, I guess, but typing fast still saves a lot of drudgery in the long run, and it spares a lot of thought of the cognitive process of typing if you can do it pretty much by muscle memory. Even if you write longhand it's got to get into a word processor at some point, no? So touch type. I went from plodding to 40wpm in about 9 weeks when I was 15, only learning at school on a craptastic old fashioned typewriter, resenting it every step of the way because my mother made me learn typing rather than being in jazz choir, and while I'm still salty about jazz choir, she was right that I absolutely needed to be able to touch type. If you don't touch type, practicing 20 minutes a day is a hell of a lot more useful a goal than a specific word count of actual writing until you're a competent touch typist and it will give you uncountable dividends in the long run. Once you are good at touch typing you no longer have to think about the process of letters-to-computer. Like, forever. (this message brought to you by the number of people in my life who are avid computer users who do not touch type, to my endless frustration.)

Writing tips for long fics that helped me that no one asked for.

1.) Don't actually delete content from your WIP unless it is minor editing - instead cut it and put it in a secondary document. If you're omitting paragraphs of content, dialog, a whole scene you might find a better place for it later and having it readily available can really save time. Sometimes your idea was fantastic, but it just wasn't in the right spot.

2.) Stuck with wording the action? Just write the dialog then revisit it later.

3.) Stuck on the whole scene? Skip it and write the next one.

4.) Write on literally any other color than a white background. It just works. (I use black)

5.) If you have a beta, while they are beta-ing have them read your fic out loud. Yes, I know a lot of betas/writers do not have the luxury of face-timing or have the opportunity to do this due to time constraints etc but reading your fic out loud can catch some very awkward phrasing that otherwise might be missed. If you don't have a beta, you read it out loud to yourself. Throw some passion into your dialog, you might find a better way to word it if it sounds stuffy or weird.

6.) The moment you have an idea, write it down. If you don't have paper or a pen, EMAIL it to yourself or put it in a draft etc etc. I have sent myself dozens of ideas while laying down before sleep that I 10/10 forgot the next morning but had emailed them to myself and got to implement them.

7.) Remember - hits/likes/kudos/comments are not reflective of the quality of your fic or your ability to write. Most people just don't comment - even if they say they do, they don't, even if they preach all day about commenting, they don't, even if they are a very popular blog that passionately reminds people to comment - they don't comment (I know this personally). Even if your fic brought tears to their eyes and it haunted them for weeks and they printed it out and sent it to their friends they just don't comment. You just have to accept it. That being said - comment on the fic you're reading now, just do it, if you're 'shy' and that's why you don't comment the more you comment the better you'll get at it. Just do it.

8.) Remove unrealistic daily word count goals from your routine. I've seen people stress 1500 - 2000 words a day and if they don't reach that they feel like a failure and they get discouraged. This is ridiculous. Write when you can, but remove absurd goals. My average is 500 words a day in combination with a 40 hour a week job and I have written over 200k words from 2022-2023.

9.) There are dozens of ways to do an outline from precise analytical deconstruction that goes scene by scene to the minimalist bullet point list - it doesn't matter which one you use just have some sort of direction. A partial outline is better than no outline.

10.) Write for yourself, not for others. Write the fic you know no one is going to read. Write the fic that sounds ridiculous. You will be so happy you put it out in the world and there will be people who will be glad it exists.

[overcomingmentalhealth2024]

Almost 6 years ago one day in Feb I get on Facebook and the first post I see is bad news. Our friend that we graduated with died from a drug overdose. He had been suffering through grief that turned in to serious severe depression.

I couldn’t stop crying the pain in my heart after I had talked to my friend the only friend that calls me shawty. When he told me how our friend died and that he was suffering through depression using drugs to take the pain away I instantly started thinking what if I had known? Would he still be here today? What if I talked to him more instead every once in a blue moon would he still be here? I can’t change Gods will and now my grief from 6 years ago has been let go.

Now I am on a healing journey I have committed and been reborn through Christ. I am able to show you the way to healing, so please take my hand I’ll be your friend. Listen to my words and let’s take this journey together. Those drugs and any thing that will harm you or me destroy it. Give it to someone who will make sure it won’t be in your sight ever again. Now I have to tell you this one piece of advice. You have to open the door to your heart, let the devil out. He’s going to run away and he’s going to run very fast. That does not matter and that’s what we want. So let him out… because the devil don’t want you to win. The Devil don’t want you to be somebody everyone else thinks your not. The Devil wants your soul he wants to use Your soul for all eternity you will never find happiness if you allow the Devil to take your soul.

So you see Jesus loves you and he will never forsake you. He will never lie to you. Jesus has made a place for you. He wants you to come to the place he has made for you. The way through healing of depression is through Jesus.

What happens when like David you have cried out in anxiety pleaded in prayer and sung in faith. What happens when you acknowledge your feelings as real feelings and put them under the authority of God’s word. What do you do then?

I’ll tell you what do you do then you go look up Granger Smith you read his book. You listen to his podcast. You listen to his sermons and that right there is the joyful feeling of your going to feel better in your heart the moment you hear that soothing voice through his music, his podcast, his book and his sermons the storm will stop the skies will clear the sun will come out and the blue skies in your heart will rain down covering your heart with pure happiness.

One day 2 years ago I was listening to the radio. I was working for Hardee’s for a store that I’ve been working at for a long time. I was listening to the Bobby bones show and I heard this sweet calming voice the moment he started speaking talking about his music the storm in my heart just calmed it soothed my soul and I started wondering am I in the wrong place who is Granger Smith? So I went home and I googled him oh boy oh boy he’s a radio host. The next day I went to work listening to after midnite with Granger Smith and my life changed!!!!!!!!! I became a fan started saying yee yee and became a yee yee nation Virginia girl. Yee yee nation has changed my life. When someone upset me I just say Yee yee and if I have to I just walk away Yee yee with my hands in the air and if I really have to I don’t look back. And I don’t let that one person ruin my life. Life isn’t promised and you have to take one step at a time and be granted that You woke up only bc GOD WOKE YOU UP THIS MORNING.

When God wants to bless you how does he do it? I’ll tell you how he blesses everyone. He sends people in to your life and there’s a purpose for everyone that loves you, there’s a purpose for everything in this world. God sends people in to our lives like for example your going through a rough patch so you go on to Facebook and flip through the reels. You see a funny guy telling jokes he made you laugh and you felt better. Do you know why he does that? To make you not feel alone you make you feel like you know who this guy is and you feel like he’s a friend. He may not know you but you know him. You know why? God put him on this earth he told him go out make people laugh.

There was times when I was alone and a few years ago I started following my creator influencers friends that I’ve always loved. They have always made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

Before I close this blog entry I would like for you to do something today. GO MAKE A FRIEND!!! Go laugh and put that laughter in to your heart. I can recommend a few friends for you to follow. When I thought I needed a counselor for mental health before I went on TikTok I realized that there’s creators that can give you the same connection but I’m going to say that they are not any mental health consultants of any kind but they can be a friend and they can take you on a journey and give you inspiration.

One friend to follow is GRANGER SMITH. They have the SMITHS vlog and much more.

Second friend to follow is newellboyce. Newellboyce he became a friend and he has really good inspiration and is a really good listener. Go see him on his live and he will make you feel like he’s a brother you never had. He’s funny, he sings plays music plays the guitar gives good advice has a showcase. And he makes you laugh and he also makes you have that feeling like your stuck in the live and you can’t leave bc you just don’t want to leave. Newellboyce he’s the type of friend that I hope to meet someday. He’s also been through a rough road and he tells his story and he tells it like no other.

I also recommend you follow manusia_selang. Newellboyce was talking about his live and he recommended that some go watch l his live. Well I listened to the voice that is a great inspiration to me and manusia_selang he just makes me happy to. Make sure you give him a cowboy hat he will pick up the heavy weight.

I’ve recommended 2 tiktoker creators for you to follow please tell them Angie sent you!!!!!

[esthersantos]

In these pictures you can see Dauris (my boyfriend), and me with the apron I wore at the retail store.

I have to say that 2020 was a year full of suffering for some, and a year full of blessings for others. It depends how you see it. When 2020 was just starting I never thought that this year was going to bring me so many challenges that in a way it was shaping a strong independent woman. That woman being me, Esther Santos. In February I was getting excited because I was planning to celebrate my birthday (march 12). I thought I had everything planned, but as I always say God has better plans even though we might not understand it at the moment. By the very beginning of march there were rumors spreading around about a lock down because of a virus that nobody had any idea of how it got created. March 10, we were dismissed from school and we were told that the next day we were going to have class through google classroom and zoom, after that class the principal told us that we were going to have online classes for two weeks. Then, the year ended online. For me it was so confusing because I was one of the students who did not have access to good wifi at home, so I had to move to the Bronx with my aunt, in which I had to sleep on the couch because there was no other space available. It was awful, I had to wait until everyone in that house went to bed in order for me to go to sleep, I cried every single day. I don’t know which one was worse, being stuck in the house all day or having to sleep on a couch. And I was living both. During march not everything was bad, I have to say that march of 2020 also gave me the love of my life, that was my #1 supporter and paNo de lagrimas during those hard times. Dauris, I am so thankful for you. When the school year ended, I started looking for jobs, I was desperate, I needed to give a change to my life. June 20, 2020. I found a job in Brooklyn as a cashier in a retail store. I have to say that it was not the type of job I had planned to get, but I was so desperate that I took whatever job was available at the moment. I moved back to Brooklyn, because I was working 45-50 hours a week which was horrible having to stand for 9 hours in a register, trying the hardest thing I've ever done, fake smiles (Only the people that have worked in customer service will understand), and on top of that, the 2 hour ride from Brooklyn to the Bronx.

After 3 months working at the retail store my mom got sick with Covid-19, (remember that my mom is in the Dominican Republic). My mom suffers an illness called sickle cell, she has the weakest bones and immune system in the world. That means that she can get the weakest virus and she is going to be real SICK. When she got Covid I have to say that I was really scared because I knew that my mom’s immune system was so poor and I was watching people die in the news everyday. The emergency rooms were crowded to the point that they were not accepting no more people inside, so I had to start sending my mom the small amount of money I had saved for the past 3 months because in DR everything revolved around money, if you have money you’ll get everything, if not, they will let you die. So I had to decide, keep the money or save my moms life. Of course my mom was more important. There was one point were I had to ask my dad to help me with my bills because I was just working to send my mom money so she could get medications (she had health insurance but the insurance was not covering any Covid-19’s medications or treatment), You literally had to pay out of pocket so a doctor could see you too. It was a hard momentum. After 5 weeks my mom was getting better, but she had to continue her treatment for 3 months. Eventually she got better and better, but after covid I feel like every single virus that is going around she is the first one to catch it. I pray to God that her immune system gets better with time before it is too late.

[rebelwrites]

Home Race And Heartbreak

Charles Leclerc x Reader

Summary: You and Charles kept your relationship a secret but you needed Charles after you crashed into the barrier and he didn’t care who saw.

Warnings: mentions of a crash (no description) French translated from google so don’t bite me if it’s wrong 😂

A/N: First time writing for Charles Leclerc and first time since I was 12 that I’ve written for someone that isn’t a fictional character so please be nice 🥺 Feedback is appreciated 🖤

Any excitement you had for your home race had been snuffed out. The corners of your lips tugged into a smile as Charles flew across the line qualifying in P1 for the British GP, but the smile was fake and didn't reach your eyes, it was all for the camera.

You hid your emotions well, wanting to be happy for your team mate and boyfriend. Not that anyone knew you and Leclerc were dating, it was something you both wanted to keep private, away from the cameras. But it was hard on days like this when you desperately craved the comfort of his arms.

“Great race, Charles. P1”

You purposely tuned out the hustle and bustle of the pits, letting out a loud heavy sigh as you pushed yourself off the stool, swiping your smokes off the counter as you moved. You needed a moment alone before the embarrassment continued with talks with the press.

The rumble of Charles’ F1-75 ran through your body as you leant against the wall of the pits, a lit cigarette hanging from between your lips. Watching as everyone buzzed around him as he climbed out of the car. To the world his smile was bright but you knew better, it didn’t quite reach his eyes and he hid the sadness well.

He knew how much this race meant to you with it being in your home country, so he knew that you would be distraught about the DNF, placing at the back of the grid for tomorrow's race.

You should have been up in P2 with him, you were one track for a good time but fate had other decisions for you. Squeezing your eyes closed, your brain flashed up with images of the crash. The feeling of slamming into the wall would be something you wouldn’t forget in a hurry, nor would the painful screams from your boyfriend after you heard the panic in his voice when listening back to the team radio.

Part of you was happy for your boyfriend getting pole position but it still didn’t numb the heartbreak you were feeling.

Tears threatened to spill over your lash line, you were trying your hardest not to break down trackside the last thing you wanted was to be caught on camera.

The moment you locked eyes with your Monégasque racer, a single tear rolled down your cheek as you flashed him a weak smile.

Nothing else mattered to Charles right now, he didn’t want to be making small talk with the pit crew, all he wanted to do was pull you into his arms.

Without thinking he jumped off his car, pushing through the crowd to get to his girl. Luckily the pair of you had plenty of experience with hugging after races making it look just like team mates.

Breaking eye contact with him you tossed the cigarette into the sand bucket, keeping your gaze trained on the floor. The feeling of Charles’ knuckles brushing against your cheek wiping away a stay tear made your resolve crumble.

“Mon amour, you scared me back there,” He hummed, not caring that the whole world was probably watching. “My heart practically stopped when I found out it was you that went into the wall. Are you sure you are okay?”

“Yeah,” you sighed heavily, “no broken bones, just a bruised ego.”

“Are you going to be okay with the interviews?” Concern shining in his eyes.

“Gotta be done, ain’t it. Can’t avoid it.” You sighed, fiddling with your race suit. “Just wanna go home now.”

Charles knew what you meant by home, it wasn’t the small flat you had in England but it was his home in Monaco.

He knew this would have majorly knocked your confidence and he hated that the sparkle from your eyes had disappeared.

The interviews were long and gruelling, everyone kept asking the same question.

“What went wrong out there?”

So by the time the question was asked the final time of the session you snapped.

“Bottled it didn’t I,” your mood had been drained to the point of not caring whether you snapped or not. “Binned it into the corner, rookie fucking move. I made a call and you know what it was the wrong fucking wrong.” Your British accent was thick as you spewed the words out, watching as the reporter took a step back, shocked at your outburst.

“Okay, I think Y/N/L has answered enough questions today.” Charles breathed, swooping in like a hero.

Silently you shot him a thankful look.

Without thinking he wrapped his arm around your shoulder, pressing a tender kiss to your temple.

“Allons manger et regarder des films de Disney.” He hummed against your skin, quickly glancing over his shoulder realising what he had done. The room was silent and all eyes were on the two of you.

A few of the other drivers were slyly smirking, they all knew something was going on between the two of you but this just confirmed it. Charles knew you would be all over the news, the budding romance between the two Ferrari drivers but he didn’t care, his girl needed him right now.

“Say that again Leclerc.” You said softly.

Charles smirked at the slight giggle in your voice. “I said, let’s go get some food and watch Disney films.

Shaking his head he quickly pressed another kiss to your forehead. “We really need to work on your French.”

“Bite me.” You hummed, leaning into his warmth.

“C'est une invitation, princesse? Is that an invite, Princess?” He smirked, eyes glistening in a playful manner. Your confused expression made him chuckle as you exited the room heading towards the Ferrari motor home.

[slothgiirl]

the medic (keith x reader)

17k. something weird’s going on with keith, like alien weird. as the team medic, you’re concerned.

“So he is avoiding me,” you muse aloud, grabbing one of the pink alien food biscuits that were Hank’s latest experiment. Though it had been hours since Voltron had taken out the Galra Empire’s presence on this Balmera, you’d only just seen the last of your patients. Altean medical equipment did wonders.

After a battle, you were hardly surprised to find Hank in the kitchen, grounding himself as he cooked. You were surprised to run into Keith.

“Yeah,” Hank nods, “Probably trying to avoid another dental exam.”

You flush bright red, “His teeth fell out! Sorry for being concerned.” Between you and Lance, you’d managed to get a look at Keith. A fist fight with some alien species that was cooperating with the Galra had not gone Keith’s way, knocking out two of his teeth.

Shiro, predictably, had waved it off and accepted Keith’s insane explanation that his teeth would grow back on their own without question: given his hand waving of the red paladin’s eyes glowing slightly in the dark, more than any human’s should (human eyes didn’t glow at all!). Hindsight was twenty twenty.

The yellow paladin shrugs as he mixes orange noodle-esque things in a bowl.

Team Voltron was full of strong personalities. Add in Lotor and his friends dropping in, there was always something going on.

Hank just wanted to unwind from spending the past few hours destroying heavy duty mining equipment without hurting the planet. “So how are the biscuits?”

You chew on one, still bothered by Keith. Maybe Hank was right and he was trying to hide something from your keen gaze. You hoped not. Knowing the red paladin, and after two years in space, you certainly did, he’d rather suffer in silence until there was no other option than get medical attention. Back on earth with needles and scalpels, you understood, but in the Castle of Lions…

“Kind of like a rice cracker,” you tell Hank helpfully. “In a good got snacks at H-Mart way, not the sad quaker oats rice snacks.”

“Oh H-Mart,” Hunk smiles, “they don’t have those in space. They do have salt though. Found that at the last market we went to.”

“As long as alien food doesn’t poison us,” you comment. It was lucky that hadn’t happened. It was alien food. But not one negative reaction which either made humans some of the most hardy species or you were just lucky.

“Yeah,” Hunk chuckles, “I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing what’s edible and not. I know Pidge said there’s some books, but my Altean is pretty bad.”

“Languages are hard.”

“Wish there was a space version of google translate.”

“Hunk-”

“Yeah.”

“That’s genius!” You look at the yellow paladin, wondering how a universe with speech translators never thought to do the same for written language.

“I know,” Hunk smiles while popping another tray into the oven.

—————

Lance finishes painting your toenails. It was a rare day when there were no space battles or rebel meetings. “Pidge,” the blue paladin whines, “let me paint your-”

“Don’t even think about it!”

“It’s supposed to be team bonding night,” Lance counters.

“Lance,” Allaura frowns from where she’s sitting with Shiro, “the castle’s night cycle has not started.”

“Well we can change it,” he counters, “there’s no up or down in space. OR day or night.”

“You can paint my nails,” Hunk offers. “Won’t last long though between the cooking and the vents I’ve been cleaning. This is a 10,000 year old castle. No offence,” he glances at Allura.

“No offence at all. The battles have taken their toll and I’m sure Coran appreciates the help. He is only one man.” She lets out a sigh. The only other remaining Altean was a bittersweet subject for her.

Hunk kicks off his shoes. “My pleasure. Literally. This Castle is so cool. The artificial gravity alone!”

You watch the paint dry on your toes. Only your big toes had actual drawings on them, strange alien creatures you’d all encountered over your time in space. The others were clear with green and blue swirls. “You’re a good artist Lance.”

The blue paladin winks, “I’m a regular old Michaelangelo.”

You laugh, “of course you are.”

“And I’m not just good with a brush,” he wiggles his eyebrows, more boyish flirting than anything serious.

You roll your eyes.

Pidge throws a cushion at Lance. “Oh please like you’ve got past the first date!”

“I have! Vivian Tran from Calculus.”

“Can you focus on my nails,” Hunk asks, but Lance is busy waving the thin brush in hand as he argues with Pidge.

“And Atticus from Cantonese.”

“Didn’t you drop that class,” Hank asks.

“Well, the hindi teacher was way nicer and didn’t hate me. I was good at drawing the characters though.”

“Can you speak hindi,” you ask, having taken French for your language fulfillment.

“Eh-” Lance shrugs.

“Can you flirt in Hindi is the real question,” you ask with a grin.

“He can’t even flirt in English,” Pidge points out scathingly.

“Hey!”

“My nails Lance,” Hunk grumbles.

“Right. Right,” Lance focuses back on his task, going with a yellow that matches Shay. “What language did you take Shiro?”

“English.”

“How many dialects does Earth have,” Allura asks.

“A lot,” Shiro tells the alien princess. “The Garrison pushes being multilingual in its program. Most cadets were already bilingual to start with, generally covering major languages.”

“Ah.”

“Got bored of the training room,” Pidge asks Keith as he walks in, flopping down on an empty sofa.

“It timed out.”

“Sure,” Lance immediately starts, a dog with a bone, “not like you couldn’t beat it or anything.”  

“You can’t even get past level 9!” Keith growls back, sitting up with a jolt, skin still slick from sweat and his cheeks were flushed with exertion.

Lance gets up, puffing out his chest. Oh boy, here they go again. The rivalry thing they had going on got old fast to everyone around them. While it did push them to be better paladins, it was annoying to hear. “Oh like you’re any better.”

Hunk takes the brush from Lance, finishing off his last toe on his own.

“I am,” Keith bites back, a growl still audible from his chest.

“Only because you cheat!”

“It’s not cheating!”

“How is it not-” Lance stops, furrows his brow, then grins. “You got a little something there.” And like a thirteen year old, Lance points and laughs.

Keith frowns, his hand coming up to his cheek.

Sure enough, Lance was right. Keith had a couple of angry red blemishes on his cheek.

“You have adult acne,” Lance giggles, immature as ever. He was always able to find an angle to everything. It was what made him such an excellent strategist.

“It’s not adult acne!” Keith scowls, scratching at the blemishes.

“Its been three years,” Lance retorts smugly.

You frown. “No. It’s been like two.” You look over at Pidge to confirm, “Right?” You were like ninety percent sure you were twenty.

“Two and a half,” Pidge answers.

“Ha! You’re twenty! Adult-”

“I don’t have adult acne!”

They’d fought over more meaningless things before.

If it was two and a half years, maybe you were twenty one? You frown. How old would you be before you ever saw your family again?

Stashing that depressing thought away, you focus on Keith and the red marks on his cheek like a line coming down to his jaw. “It could be a rash,” you utter thoughtfully. Pidge and you had already encountered a very itchy plant before. “Or space ringworm-ring line?”

For the first time in days, Keith looks at you, meeting your gaze. “It’s not a rash!”

You lift your hands up, “okay. Okay. Geez.” When it came to Keith, you didn’t push too hard. He was too stubborn for it to work.

Lance, however, “hey, it’s okay Keith-buddy, just use toothpaste.”

“Toothpaste makes it worse,” Hunk counters. “Not great for your skin either.”

“It always worked for me,” Lance counters. “Or a clay skin mask.”

“Clay? You mean that green mud,” Keith clarifies.

“It’s clay!”

“Clay would work,” you agree with Lance. “Hey it could be like a spa day!”

“I could go for a spa,” Hunk nods.

Pidge shakes her head, “right. I’m going to try and see if I can get a signal back home.”

Shiro looks over at you, “do you really think it could be something serious?”

You shrug. “No clue.”

Keith huffs, “Just drop it,” he states dramatically, headed for the door. He was over being the center of attention.

“So face masks?”

You nod, “want to try it Allura?”

“I would love to try the clay mask,” she smiles brightly.

——————

Te-Osh’s rebels had sent for Voltron, less fighting than rebuilding.

While you were no paladin, you had spent the majority of the day helping Allura take stock and synthesizing medicine, everything from serums to numbing gels. Just your luck the machine had overheated and given out on the last batch. It was a pretty large machine.

You stick your head inside, waving off the smoke. With your nails, you pry open the hutch and take stock. You were no Pidge or Hunk, still unsure how the thing even worked, but it was clear it needed a new regulator and starter. “Plenty of those lying around,” you utter, scrunching your face at the awful burnt hair smell. Your finger finds the ventilator button on your wrist controls, and there-the smell gets sucked out of the room.

“Is this a bad time,” Keith asks behind you.

Startled, you bang your head on the mental. “Keith,” flushing hotly when you look back and realize you were ass up in front of him.

He doesn’t even notice, grimacing, hand rubbing his nose bridge.

“What’s wrong?” You hurry to wash your hands.

Keith sits down at one of the medbay tables. “My skull feels like it’s being cracked open,” he explains flatly.

You look him over closely, standing right in front of him. “Where exactly,” you ask, frowning when you notice the blemishes had grown to a full blown rash, hot angry skin peeling and cracking like twin marks down his cheeks. You should have pressed. What if it was a parasite? Keith was half galra.

It was easily forgotten given how human he looked. Sure, the signs were there: his unhuman night vision, more strength than he should have, good ears and nose, nails that had torn through metal, but it all faded into the background.

“Does it itch,” you ask, raising your hand, fingertips hovering over the marks on his cheeks.

“Yes,” Keith nods, averting his eyes from your gaze, “mostly it’s hot. And my sinuses…all the way down to my neck. Hurt.”

“Hm,” you turn, reaching for the medical scanner. There was no way you could ever go back to being a medical officer at the galaxy garrison. Earth’s technology was ancient in comparison. “Hold still.”

“Alright,” he says seriously. Keith holds his breath.

You look up at him, in his violet eyes, and smile before laughing. “Keith!”

“You said to hold still,” he points out sincerely, before the corners of his lips turn up. Keith was an expressive guy, his smile lit up his entire being, a lightness in his eyes that made you smile wider.

“Let’s try this again,” you giggle, clicking the scanner and aiming right at his rash first. “Pew.”

He rolls his eyes, snorting. “You too?”

“Mine’s the only right one,” you wink, then look over the reading.

“Not even close.” He scratches at his cheek listlessly.

Whatever reason he had for avoiding you had worked itself out. You’d missed his company.

“Oh yeah,” you challenge, “then what’s the sound?” The readings came up clear. Keith was in perfect health. So not a parasite…space allergies? Those wouldn’t come up on the scanner.

“What is it,” Keith asks, noticing your pensive expression.

“How’s your sense of smell? Stuffy nose?”

He looks up, then takes a deep breath, “now that you mention it…I can’t smell your soap anymore.”

“What?” This was news to you. “You can smell my soap?”

“And whatever planet we’ve been on,” Keith fidgets, blushing as he ducks his head, bangs falling over his eyes, “the soil. It’s all different. But I can’t right now.”

That was worrying. But if the scanner said nothing was wrong…you had to wait and see. It might clear up on its own. You’d give it a day or two.

“Nothing came up on the scanner,” you tell him, “so it should go away on its own. It might just be allergic to something out here.”  

He nods, accepting your diagnosis.

“Let me get the medicine.”

“Mhm.”

You pass him a tube of gel and add that to the list of medication you need to synthesize once you fix the machine. Then grab a weekly supply of pain tabs. “Here.”

Keith pops one in immediately.

“Let me know if it doesn’t clear up in two days,” you tell him.

“Worried?”

“Eh, I can always set Lance on you again,” you snort. Shiro was a pushover when it came to Keith. He was no help.

Keith laughs, looking a little more himself. “I could take him.”

“You could,” you agree, “but don’t tell him I said that.”

He tilts his head, smiling. “Coming? Shay got food for us.”

“I’ve got to fix this machine first.”

“Need help?”

“Might ask Hunk or Coran,” you admit.

“I could-”

“No,” you cut him off, placing your hand on his shoulder, “go eat and rest. That’s an order.”

Keith leans into you. “Are you going to write me a doctor’s note too,” he asks, his delivery always so earnest you had to do a double take to figure out if he was joking or not.

“If I have too,” you stick your nose in the air. “I’ll even send one to Zarkon.”

Keith laughs easily. “Why didn’t Lotor think of that.”

You snort. “I’m going to check your lymph nodes,” you tell him, taking a step towards him again. “That okay?”

Keith tilts his head back, “Go for it.”

“Wow,” you chuckle, “who are you and what did you do with Keith Kogane.” You brush his hair out of his face.

“What?”

“Remember when you broke your arm,” you point out, gently pressing your fingers over the side of his throat, feeling the swelled bean shaped lymph nodes under his ears, behind his jaw. “And said nothing for like a week?” It had been your first year at the Galaxy Garrison.

“It was only a sprain,” Keith grumbles.

“Still!” You laugh, “I’m glad you asked for help.” Because this was still Keith and you didn’t want him to think you were laughing at him.

“Mm,” he closes his eyes as you trail your fingers lower, making sure it wasn’t too bad.

The fact they were inflamed at all worried you. You had no clue what was the space equivalent of antihistamines.

Keith’s breath tickles your shoulder, deepening and evening out like he’d finally relaxed. That was most of your patients once you gave them answers and they knew they’d be getting care and treatment. You liked helping people.

You pull your fingers back, ever the consummate professional. It was like the ghost of your garrison advisor was hovering over your shoulder. “They’re not too swollen if you can still eat. Can you still chew?”

“Hm?”

Keith opens his eyes. His expression is glazed and feverish.

“Keith,” you utter, worried.

“Yeah?” His gaze is heavy as it meets yours.

Your skin warms up because he wouldn’t stop looking at you like that.

“Any jaw pain,” you ask, focusing on the task at hand. You bring your hand up to his forehead. He was warm.

Keith leans into your touch, “no.”

“Good.” You bite your lip. Could it be some weird galra thing? Wouldn’t it have come up? You feel your own forehead. He was for sure warmer.

You were going to have to corner Coran about it.

Keith lets his eyes fall shut again and honest to god purrs, leaning into you.

Add cornering Lotor to your list.

You don’t pull away, figuring it was harmless. Lance, Hunk, and Allura were more prone to random hugs. You were more than happy to indulge Keith as well. He already wasn’t feeling well.

You wrap your arms around the red paladin’s shoulders, hugging him, “I’m looking forward to a break from Coran’s post mission food goo once I get done with the machine.”

“Mm.”

He was completely out of it.

His breath tickles your cheek.

“Though I’m not sure there’ll be any left if I don’t go there? Maybe I should grab a plate and then come back here,” you ramble. Keith had never sought you out for comfort. It was touching that he trusted you now. You’d been friends with the others before, with Keith and Shiro and the Alteans, you had skipped right over friendship and gone right to family.

“Oh.”

You look behind you.

Te-Osh takes a step back, “forgive my intrusion. I was unaware-”

Keith snaps out of whatever was going on with him. Bolting off the exam table. “It’s fine. We’re done here.” He hunches his shoulders and beelines for the door.

You frown, still processing.

“I can come back,” Te-Osh tells you, glancing between you and the door Keith had just escaped through.

You shrug. “No. I’ve got time. What do you need?”

“If you’re sure?”

Nodding, you smile, “yeah, what can I help you with?”

———————

“Here is where we will focus the blunt of the attack on. Keith, Lance, engage the fighters. Hunk,” Shiro explains, “you’ll be with me taking out the communications towers. We want to keep the damage to the minimum. The resistance leaders want the factory intact. Pidge-”

Pidge waves the Black Paladin off, “I’ve got the code written.”

“It really does come in handy,” Lance observes, “all those vents are Pidge size.”

The green paladin grumbles, “easy for you to say when you’re not the one crawling around in there. It’s not your knees getting banging up.”

“Well the galra are all like nine feet tall,” Hunk points out, “the vents probably aren’t that small from their perspective.”

Lance unsubtly glances over at Keith.

His rash had cleared up, but not before spreading. In its place were two purple slash marks running from his cheek to jaw, galra markings. No one had pressed…yet.

You were just glad it wasn’t some weird space parasite.

Her brother ruffles her hair, “Pidge sized! A micro pidge,” Matt jokes to himself.

She smacks his hand away, “five feet is a perfectly reasonable size.’

“She could still have a growth spurt,” you add, though it was highly unlikely.

“No,” Matt’s eyes go comically wide as he hugs his sister, “not my hobbit,” relishing in her embarrassment.

“Matt!”

“In summation,” Allura calls you all back to attention, “the paladins will take out Galra forces and Pidge will open the weapons factory up to Vexuin rebels to take over. I will be manning the Castle to ensure no fighters target the work camps and coordinating communications with the rebels.” She turns to look at you, “Matt and you will take down the sentries, freeing the people from the work camps.”

“No!”

Everyone looks over at Keith. The horror on his face is easy to read.

What had brought this on?

Shiro clears his throat.

Keith ducks his head, letting his bangs obscure his features.

“Why not,” Pidge asks grumpily, time was running out. You were all just ironing out the details, “your plans suck.”

“Pidge,” Shiro chastises.

The green paladin was right.

Keith fought the same way you played video games, caring about nothing but reducing the enemies stats to zero. He’d gotten great at teamwork, but he was hardly a strategist.

“Keith,” Allura asks, “do you have any legitimate reasons why Matt should go on his own?” And when she phrased it like that…

The red paladin crosses his arms over his shoulders.

Pidge taps her foot on the floor.

“Okay then,” Shiro takes over, “let’s get to our lions.”

“Coms. Come in earthlings!,” Coran chimes in over the system, “remember this planet’s atmosphere is toxic to breath, too much sulfur in the air, not to mention the heat will give you all a taste of the slipperies. And worse! So keep those space suits on Vol-”

“-Tron,” Lance grins back, having taken a liking to having a kooky space alien uncle.

You lock your helmet in place as Matt pilots the pod towards the work camps. They were just as grim as the first time you’d seen them. It was the same all over in many of the Empire’s work planets. They were at the bottom of the totem pole. There were some planets where the native species and Galra coexisted more or less peacefully, this was not one of them.

“So what’s up with Keith,” Matt asks you.

You shrug. “No clue. I keep waiting for Lotor or one of the Blades to drop in so I can corner them but he’s a picture of perfect health so I’m not worried.”

“But the,” he takes a hand off the wheel, motioning to his face.

You frown, arching a brow. You’d never looked at Allura quite the same after the way she had treated Keith upon learning about his heritage. It’s not like he’d been a completely different person, she’d known him for over a year.

Matt might be Pidge’s brother, but you weren’t about to let anyone get away with giving someone you loved shit. Especially not Keith who would just silently take it.

It made your chest ache, thinking about how sweet he looked when he smiled. He didn’t deserve any of it.

“What about it?” You stare back at him cooly.

Matt focuses back on landing the pod just beyond the sentires line of sight. “Nothing. Pidge figured it was nothing, didn’t even seem curious. I figured you might know, you two are pretty close.” He glances over at you meaningfully.

“We’ve known eachother since the garrison,” though you hadn’t really been friends. Keith had been kind of a loner. You’d tried to include him, having shared a couple classes with him here and there, but he’d never taken you up on any offer.

“Right.” He doesn’t sound all that convinced. “Glad to hear it’s all good. I caught the sneazles while in the work camp,” Matt makes a face.

You laugh.

“It was horrible! But also like an episode of spongebob somehow?”

“Space is weird.” You had way bigger problems and had seen stranger things by now. For fucks sake, you were saving dragon looking aliens from the Galra right now. This planet was like a silent hill game!

Thick fog obscured the rocky landscape. Even from within your suit you could smell the stench of rotten eggs. Yet this was home to the Vexuin.

Shiro gives the signal.

You take the safety off the taser gun Pidge had built for you. Anything pilfered off the Galra was too large for your small stature, just a hair shorter than Keith. The gun packed a punch, with enough voltage to take out the robots.

Matt and you get to work.

“Almost got it,” Matt mutters as you take aim and shoot.

Stupid damn biolocks.

“Hurry the fuck up,” you tell him, dodging a shot from another sentry before frying it with your own weapon. One shot, one sentry. You needed to take them down before they got close. The robots were durable and strong. You knew better than to think you could go hand to hand with one, you were a medic not a fighter.

“I am, I am,” Matt insists. “Ah there,” he grabs a taser flash bomb out of his pocket and tosses inside the sentry outpost.

You shoot again, trying to keep your hands steady. It was easy when it was just programmed machines. Nothing to feel bad about.

Matt and you rush inside, stepping over more fried sentries. You take position at the entrance, gunning down anything that makes its way towards the two of you.

“You in,” you ask him.

“Patience my young apprentice,” Matt says, laughing at his own joke, “it’ll take a moment for my worm to work its way through the software and give me complete control.”

The ground shakes as the main part of the battle takes place outside, at a monsterous factory that’s gray, chimney shooting out smoke. You can only see hints of lions shooting and Galra fighter ships lighting up the sky.

The sulfuric fog coats everything.

You taste rotten eggs on your breath.

Inside your suit, sweat runs down your back.

“Okay,” Matt chimes into the coms, “I’ve hacked the camps. Ready to open the gates.”

The rolling low grutal voices of the Vexuin rebel leaders fill your coms, “Good.”

“Go ahead Matt,” Allura gives the order, “Voltron?”

Pidge answers, “dropping in, should override their” static, “ticks.” Then an explosion reverberates in your ear where the communications device is.

“Pidge,” Keith yells out.

“Keith cover Lance,” Shiro grunts out, blasts audible from here. “Pidge?”

Nothing.

Matt’s face goes ghostly white.

“Pidge, come in Pidge?” Allura asks. “Paladins? Are you able to reach Pidge?”

“Negative,” Shiro replies, “Hunk, take the main gate! Time to land.”

“On it.”

“Guys,” Lance yells, “the shield’s down. Pidge hacked them.”

“Keith,” Shiro yells, “wait!”

“Fine.”

You decide to hope for the best. There was nothing you could do for any of the paladins all the way from here. “Turn it off,” you tell Matt.

He steals himself. “Right.”

The lights of the compound go out. Sentries power down where they stand, puppets with their strings cut. Locks disengage, and for the first time in decades, the Vexuin are free to leave the barracks free from Galra supervision.

You and Matt go out to meet them.

“I could get used to this,”  Pidge calls out as everyone meets on the planet’s surface. Rebels come in from the forest slowly, making sure this is for real, before sniffing the air and calling out to their loved ones lingering around the liberated camp complex.  Their vision worked in the infrared, all the better to see on this planet. You’d need at least three showers to get the smell out of your hair.

Keith carries Pidge, careful not to jolt the youngest member of Voltron. She holds a leg stiffly, a sprain or fracture.

Matt rushes to his sister, “Katie!”

She waves him off, “I’m fine.” Then snaps her fingers, “Down.”

There’s a small smile on Keith’s mouth as he places her down on the ground gently.

Lance comes up behind Keith, ruffling his hair, and being every bit himself as he comments with a smirk, “good boy.”

The shorter paladin smacks Lance’s hand away, but it’s too late, Lance is already smothering Keith in a hug that turns into a competition, like always with those two. Keith shoves at Lance’s face while Lance tightens his grip on Keith.

Shiro clears his throat, “paladins.”

“A dobesh in the pod,” you ask Pidge as Matt gets his turn to fuss over her.

“Yeah. Landed right as an explosion went off,” Pidge frowns. “Not my best moment, but my program still did it’s job and,” she pats her bayard, “I took them out.”

“Can’t be that bad if you can stand,” you agree. Nothing serious but you’d be keeping an eye on her all the same. The faster she got into the pod and took weight off her injury the better. You didn’t want to exacerbate the sprain.

“The jet pack helped,” Pidge points out.

“Lucky you,” you grin.

Shiro and Allura are consummate professionals as they go over the last of the logistics with the Vexuin, “It would be wise to stay until your people have situated themselves in case the Galra Empire retaliates,” Allura states, ending her sentiment in a question, “but it is ultimately up to you.”

The Vexuin chatter among themselves for a moment before one speaks up, “we would not turn down Voltron’s help. A few quintants should be enough time.”

“Then we will make ourselves of service to you,” Shiro nods. “Please, let us know anything we can help with.”

A red scaled one smiles, showing off her many sharp and jagged teeth, “our people long to see the camp destroyed.”

Hunk offers, “I could help rig a controlled explosion.”

“Very good.”

“The system inside the weapons factory is down,” Pidge tells them, “but I can reprogram it to keep the Galra out so that you can decide what to do with the place.”

“Oh no you don’t,” you cut in, “Matt can take care of that. You’re going in a pod first.”

“Pod person,” Matt mutters under his breath with a snort.

“Then let us get to work,” Allura dismisses everyone.

Pidge tries to take a step, and almost falls over.

You grab her.

Her face goes crimson from the pain.

The adrenalin must have been keeping the bulk of the pain away.

Keith picks her up.

It’s not until you’ve loaded Pidge in for three vargas that you pull off your helmet, savoring the crisp clean air of the Castleship.

“I can still smell the sulfur,” you comment, wrinkling your nose.

Keith shakes his hair out.

You look at him thoughtfully, “must be worse for you though.”

“Why,” he asks, genuinely puzzled.

“Because your nose,” you point out, then frown, “your sinuses did clear up yeah?” He never said anything about it so you figured they had and he could smell fine again, but you weren’t sure.

“Oh. Yeah. They did.”

You smile fondly, “very convincing Keith,” you tell him, reaching out to him. He lets you run your fingers right under his ears, behind his jaw. Everything was in order.

A knot of anxiety dissolves in your chest.

“Well,” he asks, “satisfied?”

“Mhm.” You look at the purple markings on his skin.

Keith’s breath hitches. His gaze is trained on you, watching carefully.

“So if not rotten eggs,” you ask, slowly bringing your fingertips over the marks on the sides of his face, giving him every opportunity to pull away, “what do you smell?” You couldn’t help it. It was that scientific curiosity. Everyone at the garrison had ended up there because they were nerdy in some way: devoting themselves to some STEM field while other kids were watching cartoons. You’d had a stutter as a kid, self conscious about it too, so instead of trying to make friends you read your textbooks under your desk, racing ahead.

Keith’s eyes meet yours. There’s a level of vulnerability in his gaze that worms its way into your chest and all of a sudden you’re incredibly aware of how close you two are, the lack of space between your bodies, your fingers caressing his skin.

You look away, focusing on the marks. They were purple, which was obvious. His skin itself had grown purple, perfectly delineated.

“Like wet soil,” Keith explains finally, “when they just added fertilizer.” You wince, remembering the smell of the horticulture center wafting through the garrison’s campus during the spring. “And garlic.”

“I like garlic. I’d kill for some,” you tell him, sounding very much like Hank. You hadn’t expected to be homesick for food. “Best food they served at the cafeteria.”

“That’s not saying much,” Keith mutters, amused.

You chuckle, pulling your hands away from his face.

He leans forward, asking for physical comfort in a very Keith way: unsubtle and wordlessly, putting the onus on you to get the hint.

Pidge must have freaked him out more than he was willing to discuss.

You wrap your arms around his waist, hugging Keith. “Pidge’ll be fine.” Sure, she was younger and short, but she was more than capable of handling herself. “I’m more concerned about how she left the other guys,” you comment lightly resting your chin on Keith’s shoulder.

His shoulders shake as he laughs easily. “They asked to surrender to her personally.”

“That’s Pidge all right.” You glance over at the pod. She’d be back on her feet in no time.

Keith’s breath against your skin feels nice. Your heart flutters in your chest and you find yourself blushing and pulling away, thoughts racing as you realize just how much you liked this boy. You pull away, unsure what to do and suddenly finding it too awkward to be around him at all.

The start of a whine escapes his throat before he smothers it, looking away, as he lets his bangs fall over his eyes, effectively hiding his easy to read features.

“Let’s go help the others,” you say, fumbling to grab a med kit and click your helmet back in place, your face too warm and it must be obvious. You didn’t want to make things weird. You didn’t. But-

“I’m going to stay here until Pidge wakes up,” Keith tells you.

“Oh. Okay.” You nod. “That’s a great idea. It’s always confusing as hell to get out of the pods.” It was akin to waking up from a midday nap: completely confused and exhausted instead of rested.

Your skills would be more useful with the Vexuim than fussing over Pidge at the moment. And having something to do would keep your mind off Keith.

—————

“You know,” Lance comments, sliding up to you as you watch Lotor strut away from you after another failed attempt to talk to him. “If we bottled up whatever galra repellant you have going on, we could defeat Zarkon with perfume.”

You look over at Lance, trying to suppress a smile. “What would you call it?”

“Starlight.”

“That’s-that’s actually pretty great,” you tell Lance.

“I know,” he grins. Then the latino boy sobers up, “trying to find out what’s going on with mullet?”

You nod. “I even tried to corner Acxa,” you admit. For an eight foot tall purple alien, boy could she make herself scarce.

Lance’s eyes widened in delight, “like could and should peg me Acxa?”

You groan. “Lance, sometimes it’s okay to keep things to yourself.”

“I’m just saying,” he laughs, “the ship’s not that big…”

“It’s designed for six thousand people.” You’d learned that fun tidbit while practicing your Altean with Pidge.

“Like for real!”

“Yeah.”

“Ay dios mio,” Lance utters, “you’re screwed.”

You finally hit the motherlode.

Lotor and his generals are in a stately room that reminds you of the socratic lecture halls at the garrison, sofa arranged in a half circle, with Shiro and Allura. The former Prince had shown up for a reason beyond making a nuisance of himself. Allura looks at her wits end with him, as he smiles like a douche, her eye twitching.

She invites you in without hesitation, “take a seat next to me,” and effectively uses you as a human shield against Lotor.

Literally since you and Shiro were the only humans here.

“Everything has been thoroughly discussed,” Lotor comments dryly, snubbing you once more. Normally, you wouldn’t have cared but you were trying to get information out of the man. “Unless either of you have further questions?”

Shiro hums, rubbing his chin, “I know saddling you with a rebel ship or two will slow you down but I don’t see another way around it. A display of size on their part will go a long way to show it is an alliance and not the Galra Empire hy another name.”

Allura nods, a small smile on her lips as she looks over at Shiro, “The black paladin is right. It will be a steep hill to climb to show that you are not the Galra Empire. Their fears would be alleviated with the presence of the rebel alliance.”

Zethrid sucks in a sharp breath, “So that’s it then. We will always be scorned and merely tolerated.”

“Time,” Shiro sighs with a look of gentle understanding at the muscular woman, “they need time. You can’t erase 10,000 years of history. It is hard to extend trust after being imprisoned and enslaved.”

“The alliance has started coordinating with you and the Blade directly have they not,” Allura asks stiltedly. It was by the necessity of time that they had stopped going through Voltron first. Lotor might be too smug for his own good, but his team was effective at sabotaging warships and infiltrating Galra ranks to liberate prisons and cities, enough to turn the tide for the rebels.

Her feelings towards Lotor and the Blade were still tinged with suspicion, her treatment of them lukewarm at best.

Still, Lotor brushed it off and continued to help. “Well then, Princess, Shiro, we have a long journey ahead of us.”

Shiro nods.

They shake hands.

You stand up, ready to corner Lotor.

“But first a word Shiro, it is a private matter.”

“Yeah, sure,” Shiro leads Lotor away.

Your eye twitches.

That snake!

Zethrid and Narti walk purposefully away as Allura pushes in her chair, ignoring the last two of Lotor’s team. “Princess,” Acxa, tries. “Until next time.” She nods at you, “stay safe.”

Allura gives the woman a strained smile, hooking her arm with yours. Human shield.

“You too,” you tell her. She doesn’t wait, already halfway out the door. You sigh.

Ezor giggles, by far the friendliest and easiest to get along with of Lotor’s team. “Stashing food and water will cut down the embarrassment by half.”

“What?”

“Oh,” she shrugs, “I guess Lotor was right. Darn it! Now I owe him one hundred GAC.”

“Wait-”

But she scurries off.

“Ugh,” you kick the wall, tired of everyone being weird. The usual frustration with being caught up in a space war was just the salt on the wound.

Your toe throbs, “fuck,” you hiss.

“They are rather tiring to deal with,” Allura agrees, reading the situation wrong, “but it hardly calls for assaulting the Castle.”

“Sorry,” you flush red with embarrassment. “I just had a question for Lotor and he seems intent on never being in the same room as me.”

“Ah-,” Allura smiles easily, “Lance did mention that you were in possession of a Galra repellent.” The twinkle in her eyes lets you know she was in on the joke.

“Come, let us work our frustrations out with some introspection.” Which was just Altean for weird breathing exercises that supposedly helped you do alchemy. She had managed to rope you into practicing with her before.

“Anything to spare the wall,” you joke.

——————

You walk back from the library. It was a cozy room, especially when you dimmed the lights. The Castle was always so bright, designed with the Alteans sight needs in mind.

Sometimes you just needed some time away from everyone. You loved them, but spending years with the same people while floating through space…you had no clue how Shiro had managed it.

Getting a walk around the ship was also nice. It was easy to forget how big the Castle was when you mainly stayed on the same three floors. Just a couple months ago Coran had rediscovered the greenhouse. The plants were a little piece of Altea, and had quickly become one of Allura’s favorite spots.

The windows were wide portholes. It unnerved you still, looking out and not recognizing any star, any constellations.

A lump of homesickness lodges itself in your throat. It had been over two years, your siblings would have grown so much in that time. You certainly had. The last vestiges of childhood had gone from your face.

Acne cleared up even without Lance’s ten step routine.

You walk across the bridge, trying not to look down. The viewing platform was clear glass in space, you could lay on it. It freaked you out a little.

It was the only constantly dark place in the castle.

You still yelp when you spot Keith, his eyes luminous violet like a glow in the dark t-shirt. That should have tipped all of you off, but alien was not the first thing that came to mind when you previously believed aliens had never visited earth.

He whimpers, curling up further.

“Keith,” you gulp, focusing on him and not the glass separating you from the void of space. “What’s wrong?”

He looks up at you miserably, blinking sluggishly. “I have the worst migraine.”

“And you’re down here instead of getting painkillers?”

Keith shrugs. “It’s not as bad, quiet. Dark.”

You sit down next to him. “I can go get you something,” you offer, your cheeks warming up and it was ridiculous how you can’t even manage to act normal around him anymore.

“Coran already gave me a dose.”

“Oh.” You were hurt. You were supposed to be the medic. That was your role on Team Voltron.

You hug your knees to your chest, and look down at space. It was darker than the photographs back on earth. Not so purple and blue.

You weren’t Matt who was just as good as Pidge with technology or Allura who was the leader and a princess to boot, you’d just planned on having a late dinner with Hunk once he got over the motion sickness before Lance roped you into following Pidge. You weren’t a paladin.

Keith shuts his eyes. “You were with Allura. I didn’t want to bother you.”

“It’s no bother.” You swallow thickly, letting silence fall over you both.

You listen to Keith breathing, looking around the darkness of space for any familiar stars. You knew the space around Shay’s Balmerra, and Arus was at least a little familiar. But the universe was so vast and wide.

There were planets you’d only ever been to once, each with a different night sky. Some of them never even had a night, with multiple suns staving off a night cycle.

“Do you think Allura minds?”

“Mind what,” you ask.

Keith clenches his jaw, rubbing his temples. “That I look more Galra.”

Allura has always been harder on the Galra. For her, it had been such a short time since Zarkon had destroyed her world and her people. You didn’t agree, but you could understand where she was coming from, the pain still there as she continuously wore Altean mourning pink.

You look over at him, the outline of his body against the glass. “I think your marks look cool.”

“Bullshit.”

“I do,” you whisper gently, considerate of his migraine. Those were the worst. “They frame your face. You look nice,” you finish lamely, looking away. You look nice. Lance might say stupid things but at least he tried.

“What if I looked even more Galra?”

“Like completely purple and tall?” You couldn’t really wrap your head around it. It also seemed incredibly unlikely. Could his phenotype change so drastically? On earth the answer was no, but who knows how the Galra work. It was fascinating to see such a wide range of traits in one species.

He was also half human.

You worried if his body would even tolerate such a drastic change.

“Yes,” he says, not waiting for you as he rants in agitation, “the rebels hate the Blade and Allura doesn’t trust them at all and that’s not even mentioning Lotor.”

“That’s not true. Te-Osh likes Acza and Ezor. Lotor’s kind of annoying if we’re being honest, and I’m sure his being Zarkon’s son makes it a little hard to believe he’s on our side,” you try to reason. “And don’t write off the Galra who have changed sides or were in the camps right alongside other aliens.”

Keith says nothing in response, mouth a thin line as he thinks.

You wonder how long it’s been bugging him.

You want to reach out and hug him, but he isn’t Hunk. You’re not sure he’d want to if he’s not initiating the contact. So you don’t.

“Everyone knows how the last Galra paladin worked out.” A low growl in the back of his throat is enough to clue you in to how distressing this was for him.

Your heart hurts. “And everyone knows you’re not Zarkon,” you state evenly back. “We already know you’re Galra.”

Keith snorts humorlessly. You can’t see his eyes; they’re hidden by his bangs.

“The glowing eyes are not exactly subtle dude,” you point out, “not to mention your hair does the poof thing guinea pigs do when they’re eating, but not when you’re eating, more like when you get annoyed.”

“I-what!” His eyes go comically wide as he sits up. His dark hair does the thing, making him look like a character from those old Japanese kids movies.

You giggle, “you’re doing it.”

Keith tries to look at his reflection in the glass.

You blush, grateful that it’s too dark to see, and then realize that wasn’t true for him, so you look away, hoping he didn’t notice. “Yeah. I’m the medic, it’s my job to know these things. Like how Pidge has two webbed digits on her foot and Lance is allergic to flax seeds and bees.”

“That…makes sense.” Then he smiles, “still didn’t put two and two together.”

“Don’t be a smartass.” Reason number three thousand Iverson had it out for him back at the harrison. “And if anyone has a problem with you I’ll kick their ass.”

“You?” Keith snorts. “You wouldn’t even flip me during self defense.”

“You remember that?” You run a hand over your face, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” you always took forever to practice on your partner. And your weak arms didn’t help.

“That’s what the mats were for.”

“Still!”

Keith laughs at your expense.

You smile, taking delight in watching him smile and laugh and you wish it could always be like this and the war would just end.

Then you sober up. “You’re going to be okay, right?”

He doesn’t answer you right away.

“Keith-” you reach out, voice cracking. “You’re going to be okay, giant purple space cat or not, right?”

He takes your hand, squeezing it firmly. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

“Good,” you utter, but tears bead up in your eyes anyway. It was terrifying watching someone go through something unknown that you couldn’t help them through for all your medical training. You knew how to set bones and run a pod…not whatever this was.

You trusted Keith.

He knew himself better than anyone. After all, he’d been right about his teeth growing back.

“You really are worried,” he whispers in disbelief.

“Duh.”

“I can smell it on you,” then he seems to realize what he said, and pulls away, ducking his head. Like he hadn’t meant to say so much.

“Really?” Learning about anything alien biology was pretty cool, you had to admit. Allura had once described colours that you couldn’t perceive. It was a fun talk. And then she’d made you meditate for alchemy stuff or so she claimed. It might have just been payback. “Is that new?”

“Yeah,” Keith admits, still drawn into himself. “Can we not-I already feel like enough of a freak already without,” he waves aggressively at himself.

You bite your lip, nodding. You wanted to say something, to get it through his head how you saw him, incredibly kind and fiercely loyal (to the point of taking on Zarkon by himself) and an endearing smile you never got tired of seeing.

You liked him.

The universe was lucky to have him as a paladin.

But you don’t know how to say it in a way he’d accept. And he asked you to drop it, so you do. “Right, I’ll just go then.” He’d been here first, and the glass made you nervous.

Could it withstand a hit from a galra battleship?

Keith opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but he just nods, then winces, “Argh,” he groans as he curls up on his side, covering his ears with his hands.

You rush to his side, kneeling next to him, “Keith,” you utter softly, not wanting to make it worse.

His eyes are pressed close and for all your medical know-how, you’re at a loss.

So you running your fingers through his hair soothingly and wait for the pain to pass.

He shifts, laying his head in your lap as he whimpers.

You can’t stand to watch him and do nothing. You press your com, pinging Shiro and Coran. This was beyond you. He’d trust Shiro with whatever was going on and he’d gone to Coran. You respected that even if it did sting.

Your pride meant little so long as Keith felt comfortable and sought help.

“Shh, shh,” you whisper gently.

Sweat beads on his brow.

Whines escape his throat.

“Fuck,” he grunts, clenching his teeth.

He’s warm to your touch and that rouses another bout of worries. At this temperature it’s a fever, but he didn’t have the symptoms, the flushed cheeks and chills.

Keith curls up further, muscles stiff.

You’re helpless.

After what feels like ages, Shiro and Coran finally appear.

“Number four, Number five,” Coran claps his hands.

You hold out your hand, motioning them to shut the fuck up as Keith winces at the sound.

His hair is damp near his ears.

“Keith,” Shiro utters much more gently, kneeling down on his other side, “I’m here, I’ve got you.”

He raises his head, blinking groggily at Shiro, trying to concentrate through the pain, “Shiro,” he reaches for his brother who easily pulls him against his chest. Keith buries his head in the crook of Shiro’s neck.

You sit back, trying to get out of the way. Your hands are wet.

You look down and realize it’s blood. His ears-

Oh god.

“Number five,” Coran says gently, helping you up, “I’ll take great care of our Paladin. Why don’t you go get cleaned up.”

You don’t get any sleep that night.

——————

You were always struck with cognitive dissonance walking around colonized planets like Rahiri where the natives and Galra lived side by side. This was not a planet ravaged by the empire. The flora-like aliens in all shades of green with rootish limbs and leaves and petals for hair had assimilated into the Empire, achieving citizenship over generations. 10,000 years deca-phoebs was a long time. That was a huge source of tension in the Alliance, what to do with the world who neither wanted or wished to leave the Empire.

It was also a source of dark humor that no one spared the four of you a second glance despite two paladins of Voltron walking around.

Hunk holds Shay’s hand in front of you as they point and awe and drag their feet on the way to the space port.

“You could always stay with,” Hunk says hopefully, “we could just drop you off. Personal taxi service.”

Shay smiles back kindly, “that would be wonderful but I have been away from home for too long. I am, as you say, a homebody.”

“Aw, yeah,” Hunk chuckles, “I feel that. I like the ground. And dirt. Piloting is overrated.”

“Don’t let yellow here you say that,” Keith comments so dry, you think he’s serious for a second. Allura and Pidge had gone shopping for supplies. That was an advantage of a planet that had not seen war.

Hunk glances back, clearly having forgotten we had tagged along in case anything went down. “Yeah well, she’d like a small moon. Or an asteroid. There’s colonies on those.”

“Very true,” Shay laughs. “I think my balmerra is also like a moon. A beautiful creature. We have learned how to ask for crystals so we do not need to cut them.”

“That’s impressive. Did the books from Allura help,” Hunk asks.

As much as you liked getting to stretch your legs, seeing a different planet where the threat was not imminent, you didn’t like being a third wheel, or fourth wheel if you went according to Coran’s favorite numbering pattern. That inch difference between you and Keith mocked you.

You glance over at the red paladin.

His gaze kept flickering back and forth, around the street. The occasional loud noise of crates being unloaded made him jump.

“You good,” you ask Keith, cracking a joke so he’d know you weren’t judging him. “You see la llorona or Davy Jones?”

“Hm?”

“You know…a famous ghost? Do they have ghosts in space?”

Keith snorts, cottoning on. “They don’t even have ghosts on earth.”

You pull a face, “well that’s no fun. Seriously, you okay? Or have we been made?”

He shakes his head, glancing around again just to be sure. “So much for Zarkon’s finest.”

You laugh, following Hank and Shay into the space port. Shuttles were departing pretty consistently. Everything was in orderly fashion. You especially liked how no one was shooting at you.

“It takes some getting used to.”

“What does?” You watch as Keith shakes his head, making his hair fall back from his face.

Shay and Hunk go to the ticket counter, but you decide to find somewhere off to the side, wanting to give them privacy.

“Stuff.”

You roll your eyes at Keith, “you suck.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall, looking anywhere but at you. “Lotor explained it to me and Shiro…what’s happening.”

“Oh.” You swallow, looking at Hunk and Shay hugging and saying their goodbyes yet again. They’d said them last night at dinner, this morning in the pod, and again when you’d split from Allura and Pidge. It was cute. They were adorable.

“Sorry.”

“Hm,” you glance over at Keith, not sure why he would be sorry about anything. He was the one getting screwed over by half of his heritage.

“You’re hurt.”

“You can smell that too,” you ask him, holding his deep gaze. There was an intense commitment to everything Keith did; it was reflected in the depth of his violet gaze. He didn’t do things in halves.

“Now I can.” He looks at his shoes, red dusting his cheeks. The red didn’t tinge the purple marks on his skin.

“So this is all,” you’re not sure how to put it, “nothing to worry about?”

“He said it was normal. But because I’m half there’s no way to know what to expect.” He looks away as he says it, stiff as he glances around.

The anxiety that had settled into your jaw since you’d had to wash his blood off your hands eases up. “Giant purple space cat,” you joke, nudging his side.

“Oh fuck no,” Keith grumbles. Even that furrowed expression that crossed his chiselled features made you feel all giddy inside.

Bad timing.

“I’m not hurt I-I just wish you trusted me,” you finally admit. It was silly. You felt selfish, so you tack on, “You know I’m here for you if you need me. We all are. I know Shiro’s your brother, but we’re your friends.”

“I know,” he sighs wistfully, “I do trust you…it’s just-it’s been hard. I don’t know how to feel about any of it and I’m not used to it either.”

“It’s fine,” you tell him, “I’m being silly, making this about me. As long as you know I’m here for you…I’m not trying to force you to tell me anything…” you cringe internally at yourself. The galaxy garrison had been made up of nerds, so it followed everyone was a character. It hadn’t helped anyone’s social skills.

You wish you could just go, I worry about you because I love you instead of stumbling through word vomit.

“Come on,” Keith brings you out of your thoughts, grabbing your hand and pushing through the crowd of people coming and going to different boarding gates, “I think Hunk’s going to need some comfort food.”

You glance around, finding Hunk’s form making it’s way to you both. He was wiping his eyes, bittersweet smile, making no move to really hide that he was crying.

“Let’s get back to Allura yeah,” he tells you both.

“Or,” you go with Keith’s idea, “we can get something to eat. Allura gave us a good hour or so.”

“Varga,” Keith supplies.

“Yeah, that.”

Hunk nods, “that sounds nice. It’s just,” he looks back at the departing shuttle, “it’s hard. It’s war and you never know when your going to see each other again but it’s not like she can just drop everything and I wouldn’t ask her too, if anything I’d like to retire there. Nice and quiet. Maybe open a restaurant…”

“Vrepit Sal two,” Keith offers.

“Could make it a chain,” you add with a smile. Hunk, like you, was not such a gung ho pilot. You had landed the flight simulation without crashing exactly once, for your final emergency protocol exam.

“Thanks guys,” Hunk grins, “but I think I’ll bring some earth out here. Give these people a taste of traditional earthlign cuisine.”

“So your menu’s going to be as long as Cheesecake Factory’s,” you ask with a silly grin.

“Maybe not that long. A burger, ramen, scratch that, pizza instead of a burger.” Hunk rubs his chin thoughtfully sniffing the air and following his nose to a food stand. You trusted him for food. He had a knack for combining goo and exotically colored food that screamed fake and poisonous into pretty great meals.

Keith was still holding your hand, not as a loose afterthought: every now and then he’d rub his thumb against the back of your hand and it sent a thrill down your spine.

You don’t pull away, wanting to savor the feel of his skin against yours even if it wasn’t that deep. You’d hugged and napped with everyone at least once, grabbing each other’s hands in the confusing crowded hovels of swamp malls (actual swamp malls and not places Coran thought of as a swamp mall).

You nab a table outside the stand.

Everything was in Galra which none of you could read. “Damn,” you mutter looking over.

Hunk glances at Keith without subtlety.

You were starting to think only Allura and Shiro could do subtly.

Keith raises a brow.

“Nothing,” Hunk looks down at his screen.

“Point and hope for the best it is,” you shrug.

“I love a good surprise,” Hunk nods, then looks down at his hands, “we’ll see each other again right? Shay…they’re pretty safe. And well…yellow’s got thick armour.” He sighs, resting his cheek against his fist, elbows on the table.

“Shay’s a badass,” you confort Hunk, “she figured out how to communicate with the Balmera and through the Balmera. She’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty freaking amazing,” Hunk blushes.

You order from an alien that somewhat resembles Ezor, all cotton candy color, and twiddle your thumbs, enjoying the rare moment of rest and relaxation.

“I could get used to this,” Hunk comments, savoring the strange dish he’d been served.

“Get a travel food show,” you tease, “I’d watch it.”

“It could be like this all the time,” Keith muses hopefully, “aren’t planets like this proof we could all get along.” He bites into the glowing blue lotus root shaped meal, and blinks widely.

“What,” you ask, looking over at him.

Keith grabs a napkin and spits out his food. “I think I just lost another tooth.”

“You think,” Hunk raises a brow, “how could you not notice a missing tooth?”

“Smile,” you nudge Keith sitting next to you.

He rolls his eyes, before fake smiling which was always so undeniably forced when he did it. You laugh, nodding, “yup, missing tooth.”

Keith frowns for a second, before continuing to eat.

“Oh,” Hunk utters, before he kicks your leg lightly.

You look up, meeting the yellow paladin’s searching gaze.

He looks at you with a knowing smile.

Heat rushes to your cheeks, the tip of your nose burning hotly, you look down, shoving a questionable sticky black slice into your mouth. It was easy to chew despite the sticky-ness, the flavor starchy and nutty.

There was no way this wouldn’t get back to everyone else in the Castle. No way.

They were all so nosy.

Oh fuck.

——————

“It sure is hot in here,” Lance says with a challenging smirk at Keith.

You roll your eyes.

Lance stretches, resting his arms against the back of the sofa, his hand tapping annoyingly against your shoulder.

Keith is unmoved. Or more accurately, Keith’s mouth twists as he tries hard to ignore Lance’s latest attempts to get him to remove his hat, a lime green thing that clashed perfectly as was his fashion sense, or lack of any fashion sense.

Pidge smacks her head, then peaks curiously at Keith: at Keith’s hat.

You flick Lance’s cheek. “Hey hot shot, don’t hug me when you’ve set the thermostat to ninety degrees.”

“Ninety five actually,” he winks, hugging you towards him. Ugh, you couldn’t do it. You’d already done away with your afghan coat, tied your lavender flannel around your waist, what more could you do. You didn’t have shorts in space. The skirts stored in the castle were breezy, but made you feel at risk of tripping over the hem with each step.

“Hm,” Keith voices, taking a seat, “reminds me of home.”

Hunk snorts, “really thought that through,” he tells Lance.

Lance is undeterred. “Could go higher.”

“I don’t think your cow would like that very much,” you point out.

The blue paladin sulks, looking down at you, “you’re just saying that because you like-”

You jab your elbow into his side.

“Ow! What ever happened to do no harm?”

“Technically,” you tell Lance, “I never graduated.”

“She’s got you there,” Pidge smirks from beside Keith. She was taking apart yet another radio. The signal had yet to reach earth.

“Thank you Pidge.”

She shrugs, “It’s true.” Then turns on Keith, “The hat, explain.”

He looks like he wishes he could merge with the sofa at that, slumping in his seat.

You decide to step in, “I’m going to turn the thermo down.”

Lance is quick to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you back onto the sofa, “come on, relax. Like mullet said, it’s homey.”

You throw him a dirty look.

“Keith?” Pidge side-eyes her fellow paladin. He’s sat up, gripping the sofa cushion so tightly he’s ripping hole into the ten thousand year upholstery.

“You okay there buddy,” Hunk asks.

“No.”

“Oh.”

Keith sucks in a breath, and with deliberate motion, pulls the hat from his head.

Oh.

Your eyes widen.

OH.

His ears had changed.

They weren’t nearly as alien as Allura’s, but no one would mistake their shape for human. Keith’s ears tapered up and out, portrudding, but it was more than just a pointed tip, the entire shape of his ears had transformed, resembling a butterfly’s wing. It was still human in color, but…

Hunk breaks the stunned silence first, “so are you going to like to end up purple?”

Keith ducks his head, wrapping his arms around himself.

No one else gets the chance to further interrogate Keith, or hear his own thoughts, because Allura calls everyone up to the bridge.

Lotor hailed the Castle of Lions. Everyone stands around the bridge while Shiro and Allura take the lead as usual. They might as well be twins given how well they got on, communicating differing ideas without undermining the other.

“There are nine warships in the system,” Lotor acknowledges, “I would be much indebted if you would do me the favor of sending Voltron for the aerial battle.”

“The Empire’s presence is still in its early stages,” Acza explains, “but their terraforming development for the planet will cause the destruction of the Talpidae living there.”

“Then we have no choice,” Allura clenches her fist, never one to sit back while there was something she could do about it, “we will provide air support. Sent me the coordinates so that I may Teleduv there.”

Lance is still obviously eyeing Keith’s latest development. It was readily visible, and you were fighting the urge to do the same.

But you weren’t also trying to flick his ears.

Keith growls lowly.

Lance sniggers.

Pidge offers Lance a piece of paper to make paper balls with.

Hunk sighs long sufferingly, having resigned himself to the more childish side of his two friends. They were terrors. Put Pidge and Lance together, and they were gremlins out of a horror movie made for elementary school teachers.

You slip your hand into Keith’s, squeezing reassuringly. It would take some getting used to like anytime someone got a new haircut, but you would. Like his atrocious boots, they’d become an endearing part of him.

Keith squeezes your hand back.

Shiro nods, agreeing with Allura, “have the Talpidae been contacted.”

“Very much so,” Ezor chimes in, “they’re funny little people. And their sensory-”

“The point Ezor,” Lotor sighs, rubbing his nose bridge.

“They sent for help to the rebels. We were closest to their system,” Exor elaborates with a shrug, “they do not have the background to fight head on, and will evacuate most of their people into bunkers, but they have been digging under the new construction and weakening the structural integrity of the Galra outposts.”

“Very well,” Shiro accepts, “Princess Allura and our chief medic will meet with the Talpidae as a show of goodwill.”

“Our only medic,” Hunk points out.

Keith growls, his hand squeezing yours hard.

You all look over at him.

“Red Paladin,” Allura says, trying to look as professional as possible in front of her least favorite of Voltron’s allies, “is something the matter.” She shares a look with Shiro, but otherwise looks unsurprised at Keith’s less than human ears.

Or maybe she’d make a great poker played.

“Can’t you meet with the Talpidae after the battle,” Keith utters harshly.

“They may need immediate tactical support,” Allura reasons, “we should be there in person to provide it.”

“It’ll be fine Keith,” Shiro adds.

Their words do little to calm Keith down. His dark silky hair puffs up. His grip on your hand tightens and you feel miffed. You’d been on the ground working triage before. You might not be a fighter or pilot but you could look after yourself.

You pull your hand out of his. “I really don’t see what the problem is,” you tell Keith pointedly.

“I’ll watch Allura’s back and she’ll have mine.”

Allura nods. “Our chief medic is correct-”

His ears twitch, “You’re not exactly a fighter.”

Shiro covers his face with a hand.

Your brows furrow. You’re livid. “So! I won’t be fighting. We’ll be in the bunkers with the Talpidae. It’ll be safe so it doesn’t even matter.”

“If it’s perfectly safe then you don’t need to be there,” Keith’s voice breaks, a whine escaping his chest but you don’t care, done with the conversation.

“Yikes,” is Ezor’s quiet whisper.

You’re not a paladin so you don’t care, you just stalk off the bridge ready to go scream into your pillow in frustration. Or better yet, go for a swim and scream underwater.

“Wait-” Keith follows you.

You ignore him.

“I just-,” he keeps trying as you stalk down the stairs, deciding your room was better after all if only because you could lock Keith out.

“Listen-,” he whines.

“I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t mean what,” you round on him, hands on your hips, pissed off and maybe some of its was from being stuck on this stupid ship all the damn time but like eighty percent was earned. You might not be taking on a squad of Galra soldiers, but you could take one on if it came to it.

Keith at least has the decency to look miserable, sad chirrups in his throat as he crosses his arms over his chest and looks at the ground.

“Well?” You tap your foot on the ground.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he finally manages. “Especially if you don’t need to be there.”

“But I do,” you counter, “There’ll be people running into those bunkers having escaped soldiers and sentries and the faster they get treated the better chance they have.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Keith repeats himself. “You-you can hold your own.” He looks up at you through his bangs, still hunched in on himself.

“Obviously.” There’s no heat, the anger having deflated already. It was just white hot ache in your chest, hurt at the idea that Keith thought you would get in the way, that you had nothing of value to add to the Alliance and Voltron.

You bite your lip.

Don’t cry, you think to yourself.

You were being dumb.

He was just being plain stupid.

“I mean it,” Keith repeats, “I’m sorry. I was just looking for an excuse to make sure you were safe.”

“Right, because Allura can handle herself but I can’t.” Your voice cracks.

“No,” Keith says in a rush, “it’s not the same.”

“Because I can’t fight?”

“That’s not,” Keith runs a hand through his hair, “It’s me okay. I’m-I’ve always jumped into things without thinking, but I decided to go for it, like breaking Shiro out but now I’m doing things before I even notice and it’s all these stupid Galra instincts!”

You swallow.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you once more. “I didn’t mean to and I’m sorry. No one thinks you can’t handle yourself. That’s why Shiro paired you up with Allura, because he knows you’re capable of watching her back.”

Your smile is fragile as you look over at him, “yeah?”

“Yeah.” Keith holds your gaze, looking as skittish as a stray dog. Another whine escapes his throat.

What the heck.

You hug him, “you’re such a dumbass.” You understood why he’d worry. This was war. Pidge was on a two man campaign with Shiro to get Matt to stay on the Castle, both scared witless that Matt might die on a mission with the rebels. Ulaz had died so everyone could get away.

You’d had patients in the last decaphoebs you could do nothing but ease their pain. You’d had patients that you couldn’t even administer anything for the pain because of how torn apart they were: guts spilling out, charred people shapes that you were surprised to still find breathing.

The images would never leave you as long as you lived.

“I’m sorry.” Keith buries his head in the crook of your neck, his breath tickling your skin sent shivers down your spine.

You hug him tightly, aware that every battle could be your last: the last time you saw him. “You’ve said that already,” you tease, memorizing the smell of him, stale sweat and something cloying that you had wanted to bottle up from the moment you’d met him and had never found on anyone else. As embarrassing as it was to admit to anyone other than yourself, Keith smelled good. Really good.

Most people smelled like nothing at all.

He stiffens.

“But it’s nice to hear again.”

Keith smothers a laugh.

You kiss his hair. Boys were so dumb.

He purrs.

You smile goofily, warmth building under your skin, and toes curling up in your shoes. You should say something. Right?

At some point?

Or maybe it shouldn’t be said under the looming threat of an upcoming battle.

Fuck.

You can’t decide, so you say nothing at all.

——————

Bombs still pelt the surface.

Your teeth chatter as the ground shakes even deep underground. Even more soil falls onto you. Your spacesuit was more oche than white at this point as you carry an injured Talpidae in your arms. It’s arm had been completely blown off. Sluggish blue blood oozed out.

Allura was last, tailing the group.

You reach the bunker.

The sentries had followed some of the feeling Talpidae into the tunnels, but they’d been sorted out.

The people here were strange, russet in fur colouring, with no discernable eye, just strange pink flagella protruding from their nose and large claws for digging. They stood at about Pidge’s height.

The bunker seals and you get to work.

Tourniquet here, pain patch there. There were so many of them banged up.

The fight continued on the surface.

The paladins had to form Voltron.

You and Allura work as a team, she takes the bruises and broken bones with no immediate risk of death. You triage the worst of the Talpidae, giving away your precious stash of painkillers to those you can’t save and are not in for a quick death, a Talpidae lies twitching, it’s nose blown off but alive. Another holds it’s hand, but shakes their head when they look at you. They weren’t going to make it.

Training kicks in and you focus on saving those you can.

Your hands stain blue from the blood.

Allura works alongside you.

You cauterize a Talpidae named Soedob’s hand, the claws on their right limb were gone, but most of it was spared.

“You smell Galra,” Soedob utters, blinking out of the pain induced haze as the painkiller kicked in.

You half hear, half don’t, so focused on the task at hand. It was easier to not stop until you were finished and could curl up and sleep and not think about blood and war and Zarkon.

“We have Galra allies,” Allura answers diplomatically, leaving the issue of the half Galra paladin alone.

It irked you.

“No, not them,” Soedob notes. “Those had a different aura.”

“Smell,” you guess, finishing off. You hoped the fighting ended soon. You supply was not unlimited. The castle had better facilities.

“Is that what you call it?”

“Our primary sense is sight,” Allura explains, giving you a long look.

You shrug. You hadn’t even seen any of Lotor and his team. There hadn’t been time. It had all been relayed over coms, over video.

“Another then?”

You swallow thickly, flushing with embarrassment because you both spent time around Keith but Soedob was only smelling him on you and it’s not like you had been doing anything intimate…well, it had felt intimate, hugging Keith, but it wasn’t anything like when cadets snuck into each others dorm room, shoving a sock on the door handle in the universal symbol of don’t bother us. “The red paladin is part Galra.” Mercifully, your voice doesn’t shake from the embarrassment, but you can’t look at Allura.

“Ah,” Soedob nods, neither outraged nor pleased.

Then there’s no more time, you have more Talpidaes waiting for medical aid. You give their own healers some of your supplies, freeing up Allura to find the clan leaders.

You can feel Allura’s questioning glance on you.

——————

“Team meeting in the mess hall,” Shiro calls over the coms system.

“Mess hall,” Pidge rolls her eyes, “it’s the dining room.”

You snort.

“I like to think of it as the dining room too,” Hunk offers. “I mean there’s only eight of us. It’s sort of like being home again.”

“Mess hall makes me think of the garrison,” you admit, falling into step besides them. “and the food.”

“Ugh,” Pidge groans. “That was the worst. Matt wasn’t kidding.”

“It does make the space packs easier to digest,” you muse, “maybe that was the point.” It took the garrison two years to get to Mars. It was funny, once you’d thought that was a long way from home.

“I liked the cheese garlic bread,” Hunk allows.

“Food goo,” Pidge grins, “or the garrison space food?”

“Food goo.” Hunk doesn’t even have to think.

“Food goo,” you agree. “Though not Coran’s paladin special.”

“You don’t even eat that,” Hunk huffs, half outraged half amused, “you’re always like well I’m not a paladin so…”

You laugh. “Seeing it is more than enough.”

The rest of the ship’s inhabitants are already there waiting for you. Lance is trying to teach Coran how to play slide, moving very slow as he claps their hands together.

Shiro and Allura are in easy conversation. Her mice scamper around her feet.

Keith looks absolutely miserable next to Shiro, folding himself into the smallest possible size, trying to disappear. It was hard to reconcile the Keith that was quiet with the Red Paladin that shot first and asked questions later.

You smile at him, excited to see him, but also figuring he could use some reassurance, whatever it was going through his head. Keith meets your gaze and the corners of his mouth turn up, before he ducks away.

You know better than to take it personally.

It was Keith.

Your toes curl inside your shoes and you bite back your smile, suddenly aware of how much you might be revealing and not wanting Lance of all people to start a meeting by commenting on it. For him, it might be all fun and games, but you weren’t sure what to do with these newfound warm and fuzzy feelings. You sure as fuck didn’t want to be called out on it.

You weren’t sure what to do about liking Keith so your current plan of action was: nothing.

“Thank you everyone for being here,” Shiro claps his hands together, his leader impression defaulted at awkward dad. He thought he always had to be on. Despite being the most trained out of us, he’d only just started his career during the Kerberos mission.

You wonder if he’d picked up his leadership style partly from Pidge’s dad.

“Where else would we be,” Pidge shrugs, never one to miss a shot.

“All the same,” the older man smiles.

“Yeah, no problem my dude, bro,” Lance flashes finger guns at Shiro.

You snort, taking a seat between him and Hunk.

“But seriously, what’s up,” Lance leans forward. “Or is this some lowkey way to keep us on our toes,” he winks at Allura who smiles indulgently.

“I await the news alongside you paladins,” Allura answers, hands resting in her lap. She looks over at Shiro.

The whole room turns to look at Shiro.

He had called the meeting.

Meetings tended to be informational in nature: updates about the expansive war, rebels hailing Voltron for intervention, the Blade passing on the rare bit of information, and the always popular distress signals. But Shiro and Allura both looked too calm for that.

Keith goes rigid, a spring wound up too tight.

Hm.

You wondered if the elephant in the room would finally be addressed.

Shiro puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder, smiling encouragingly the way a parent dropping their child off for their first day of school would, “go ahead Keith.”

The red paladin focuses his gaze on Shiro, his expression more sour than it’s been in a long time.

The past few years had done a lot to get him to open up to everyone on board, but right now, he looks exactly like the stubborn closed off cadet he had been back on Earth.

His ears twitch slightly. He manages to look even more taunt, and you wonder if he’s going to wave this off. Then, he lets out a breath.

His body is stiff, but Keith no longer pulls away from Shiro. He looks down at his hands pensively, nails cut to the quick. “Right.”

You can feel the nervous energy of the rest of the room, leaning in, waiting to see what Keith wants to say.

“Mhm, go on,” Lance says, chin in hand.

Hunk elbows him in the side.

“Hey!” Lance is about to start in on Hunk.

“Guys,” you snap, shoving Lance’s shoulder.

“Okay, okay,” Lance zips his mouth and throws away the key, “shutting up.”

“Looks like that didn’t work,” Pidge snarks.

“Paladins,” Allura’s clear commanding voice rings out. When everyone shuts up again, she nods at Keith, “you may continue.”

He looks up at everyone through his bangs, “I’m going through Galra settling.”

Hunk looks over at Allura, who was far more familiar with all this alien mumble jumble than anyone else.

Shiro squeezes Keith’s shoulder.

“And that is,” you prompt gently, before Keith hastily decided that was all he needed to say and left.

He meets your waiting gaze. Under the ship’s bright rooms, his eyes were obviously violet, heavy on the purple. He’s chewing his bottom lip like he isn’t sure he wants to go through with saying any of this and you wonder if he must be thinking of how weird things were between everyone when he learned of the alien part of his heritage.

Your mouth quirks up into a smile.

You were more than willing to stuff someone into a cryopod if they bothered Keith. He may be part of Voltron, tasked with defending the universe, but you’d make sure there was someone to defend him.

An embarrassing rush of heat bubbles under your skin. You look away, nervous.

“Shiro,” Keith asks.

Shiro nods, wrapping his arms fully around Keith’s shoulder. “Galra settling is when Galra,” he looked like he was trying to figure out exactly what he was talking about as he said it. Aliens were weird. “When Galra reach a certain age their appearance locks in.” Even Shiro looks a little puzzled. He was a pilot, not a biologist. You knew organisms back on earth who could manipulate their genotypes, generally sex changes with the right environmental conditions, but you weren’t sure there was anything comparable to whatever this was. “The Galra are apparently very adaptable in individuals. That’s why there’s such a range of them.”

Huh.

That explained the fur, range of tails, more reptilian looking once, and the eyes.

You wanted a Galra biology course, a full semester long one. What exactly caused such a plasticity in their phenotype? Did the trait have to be encoded in their genotype to appear or was there something freakier, Allura’s space magic, going on?

“-because he’s half human and we don’t go through anything like this it’s more painful than it would be. Lotor said the chameleonic abilities of Alteans helped him when he went through this,” Shiro finishes without a satisfying or thorough explanation.

At least Keith wasn’t dying.

Thank god.

Thank whatever freaky Altean magic existed in the universe.

“So,” Lance starts, “it’s Galra puberty.”

In a split second Keith loses any self consciousness about the situation, “it’s not Galra puberty!” His hair puffs up and you have to fight the urge to laugh, covering your face with your hands.

“There’s…” Shiro glances at Keith, before Lance and Keith could really get into it, “there’s more.”

Keith looks mullish, but ultimately gives Shiro the go ahead.

“Part of these..changes,” the black paladin explains, “have brought out some Galra instincts.” Clearly he was having as much trouble grappling with what this meant as Keith was. Your body suddenly deciding to change was no fun when you had no context for it. “Among them, the need to scent family…”

Pidge tilts her head, “is this like the most convoluted and emotionally constipated way of asking for a hug,” she asks Keith.

Keith smiles wryly, “pretty much.”

“Oh come here dude,” Hunk grins, engulfing Keith and Shiro in a hug.

“Ah number four,” Coran points up in the air, “I am now just recalling the galra that lived on Altea having explained this once, of course it didn’t occur to me because of the apparent dominance of your human genes.”

“So they’re actually co-dominant,” you muse as Lance drags Pidge along for a “group hug!”

“No.no,” Pidge makes a half-hearted effort to wiggle out, being a younger sibling herself, was used to being subjected to affection. She smiles even as she struggles.

“It would seem so,” Coran nods, “though not every gene.”

“Just these.” You wonder if there’s a space equivalent of the human genome project.

“Lance,” Keith yelps, “that’s my foot.”

“Buddy, I am not feeling the love here.”

“Is it working,” Hunk asks, peering at Keith, “are you going to turn purple now?”

“No one turns purple from hugs,” Keith replies, annoyed but makes no move to pull away.

“Thank you for trusting us with this Keith,” Allura smiles, her eyes crinkling.

“Get in on this too Princess,” Shiro motions over, before catching your gaze, “you too. Don’t think you can get out of this. You’re part of Voltron too.”

You snort, and join the group hug.

Pidge’s elbow is a bony thorn in your side and there’s the slight hum from Shiro’s prosthetic, but it’s a good mix of warmth and intimacy with the people you were closest to in the entire universe. Allura’s shoulder presses into you back and it’s sort of ballooned to ridiculous proportions, Keith somewhere in the center of it all, his hair barely visible to you.

“Add cuddling Keith to the chore wheel,” Pidge proposes.

Keith groans.

“How about we let Keith decide,” Shiro proposes.

You snort, knowing him too well. “Are you willing to take that risk? Died-from lack of hugs.”

Lance laughs.

Shiro looks convinced by your stellar argument.

“I’m not that bad,” Keith grumbles.

“You’re a terrible hugger,” Lance argues back. “You’re all stiff, like you’re enduring one of Iverson’s paradox sims. Not as bad as my abuelo but still.”

Keith lunges for Lance.

Someone topples over.

Everyone falls.

You laugh, smothered by limps and someone’s hair in your mouth…maybe Hunk’s? You don’t move, worried about kicking someone’s head.

From somewhere, Keith does that low rumbling chest noise that reminds you of a cat purring happily.

No one makes fun of him for it.

——————

“You should comb your hair before we take the pod down,” you tell Keith. You’d spent your free time before this alliance dinner scrolling through a datapad, trying to learn names, where they hailed from, species, things that may prove useful.

Half a varga ago, Keith had found you balled up on a sofa, and sat next to you, his way of asking for physical comfort. You’d obliged him readily, throwing an arm over his shoulders and spooning him as you both laid on the sofa. He was already in the paladin uniforms that Allura had dug out once the alliance became a reality instead of a loose string of rebel groups fighting the Galra empire.

You’re both short and slight, fitting together perfectly.

You squash any feelings you have, this wasn’t about you, it was about him. You’d done it a thousand times with Hunk or Lance, fallen asleep listening to Allura, why should Keith be any different? (You know why.)

He’s reading the screen with you.

“I doubt they’d notice,” he remarks as you scroll to a particularly vivid color alien race with sensory appendages sprouting from their heads.

“You have a point desert bum,” you tease, “I’d rather be a bum by a beach town. All surfer bro.”

“Can you even surf,” he asks flatly.

“No. Learned how to swim at the garrison,” you admit. “But tanning by the water has to be more appealing than roasting under the Texas sun.”

“I like the desert.”

“I know.” You were pretty sure everyone just liked their homes.

“It’s quiet,” he admits, “and watching how the sunlight transforms the landscape…”

“It’s too big and wide,” you admit, thinking of space. Flat land that went on forever…empty dark space that went on forever.

“Good for driving,” Keith smirks.

You laugh. Or course that’s where his mind went. “Sure, but it all looks the same, everywhere you turn.” It was disorienting. To be fair, you were a city girl. Your background noise was cars honking and people yelling even at four in the morning. The garrison had been a big adjustment.

“It’s really not. You just have to look.”

“I’ll trust my gps,” you counter, “not my sense of direction. I’d probably end up one of those cautionary tales about mirages and deserts.”

“You can’t really get a good signal,” Keith replies lazily, his body slack against yours, “out there. It’s best to mark a trail with chalk if you don’t know the area.”

“But you do, know it I mean?”

“Out past the Garrison? Mhm. All of it. We used to go hiking…before,” he trails off.

You press your lips to his hair lightly, before shifting, “my arms asleep.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t mind.” You sit up, “it’s nice. I used to put my sister to sleep this one year she had nightmares almost every night.”

“You miss her,” Keith states, sitting up, looking at you with his intense expression. Having someone focused one hundred percent on you was a new experience. He wasn’t thinking of a thousand other things, just you.

“I do. I miss everyone, but,” you shrug, “I’ll see them again. Meanwhile you’re stuck with me.” You smile fondly at Keith. “I’m going to change before we have to go to dinner.”

“I’d take fighting Zarkon anyday,” Keith mutters, cringing at the upcoming show of diplomacy. There was so much smiling and hand shaking. It was exhausting to be that extroverted with a roomful of strangers.

Even Lance zonked out after these things.

“Knock on wood,” you laugh.

_____________

Treaties have been signed. A wrecked Galra fleet floats in space above the planet your on today, but today’s battle is won.

One of Lotor’s General’s is here, Acza. She’s wary, and surprised at the warm reception she’d received. She might be Galra, but she’d been crucial in taking down the Galra base’s shields. Biolocks, Zarkon should really rethink those.

You sip at your thick drink, warm and flavored like cinnamon oatmeal, that chases off the chill of the night. The idea had been to sleep, your hands still ached from all the sutures and stitches you’d woven, but Allura refused to hear it, dragging you along. There would be time for sleep on the Castle, she’d claimed, joyous to have helped another besieged planet.

“My congratulations,” a Blade utters from behind their glowing mask.

You jump, not having known there was even a Blade here. They were allies, yet their anonymity that made them so useful in information gathering, created a gap between you. You had no way of knowing who this person was. Their suit obscuring any details, the mask a rank.

You couldn’t even see their eyes.

“For what,” you ask, puzzled. You hadn’t fought. Your skills made you most useful after the battle, trying to save lives and patch up wounds. It was important and emotional draining work, but you hardly won battles.

Because of the mask, you can’t get a read on their reaction. Blades. Spies. Maybe if you could see their eyes…

They nod, and walk off without explanation.

You watch them go, still confused until they disappear among the bodies loitering around, celebrating liberation.

It was a feat to disappear when you were eight feet tall.

First the Galra had avoided you like the plague, the black plague, now they were being cryptic as fuck.

You lean your head down, trying to sniff your armpits without making it too obvious. Was it the blood? Or the space bleach? That tended to linger.

You didn’t smell that bad. Certainly like bleach and rubbing alcohol…

You take another sip of your drink, looking around for a place to sit. You’d been on your feet for too long. You wanted to sleep.

Someone would find you.

You wander around. Smiling when someone notices you, and thanks you and you hurry to get away before they ask you a hundred questions. There were only eight humans in space. Well, seven and a half. You stood out.

They wanted Voltron, but you would do.

“There’s space here,” Acxa calls out.

“Thanks,” you plop down next to her, sagging into the seat. Oh, yeah, you were so freaking tired.

“Of course. You look dead.”

“Yeah,” you look around the rebel camp, “I’ve no clue how they have the energy.”

“It’s like that everywhere. This is their home,” Acza offers, “people fight hard for their homes.”

You nod, before looking over at the alien woman, “not avoiding me anymore then?”

She shrugs, not disputing the allegation. “No need anymore, now that you and Keith sorted yourselves out.” She’s so blunt about it. “Galra are so sensitive when settling. We didn’t want to cause any incidents.”

“Is this about the scenting?” You still hadn’t had time to read through the information you’d gotten your grubby little hands on.

She nods.

You put your drink down on the mossy ground. “Yeah, Keith explained it. Well, Shiro did, really. Lance is over the moon about having an excuse to bother Keith.” Now you really all were a family. You’d named it outloud.

Acxa’s brows furrow, “Lance?”

“I think he just misses his family a lot,” you offer. “We all do and while we’re family too, it’d be nice to see our family back on earth too.”

She frowns. “Keith and you are not,” she asks slowly.

“Me and Keith,” you flush, ducking away from her. “No-I, no. We’re not.” You should’ve gone back to the Castle the moment Allura turned her back. She would’ve never known.

Acxa’s frown becomes tinged with anger and worry, her hand grabs your wrist. “Galra have more than one type of scenting, between families, and between partners.”

“Oh.”

You try to connect the dots but your brain gets stuck between ideas. Scenting. Keith. You. You and Keith. It was right there but-

“Keith isn’t marking you as family,” she explains slowly, “he’s marking you as his partner.” Acxa waits until her words sink in before adding, “to do so without letting the other know…” She makes it clear what a social taboo that is.

But you’re one step behind her.

Did Keith like you?

You think back to all the times you’d been with him in the past few vargas, trying to pinpoint any hint: he’d smiled at you but he was happier now in general so it could be a coincidence…

“If you need,” Acxa offers, “I will help clarify the situation.” It’s an awfully kind gesture.

“No,” you say in a rush. “no. It’s-I think I need to go talk to Keith.” He’d known what he was doing…you could draw a thousand conclusions but nothing would be better than confronting him about it.

“If you’re sure.”

“I am,” you stand up, glancing around. During parties, Keith tended to find a quiet corner out of the way. He’d opened up, but he was still more of an introvert.

You find Keith lying stretched out in the shadow of a makeshift building, looking up at the stars. It’s his eyes that give him away, reflecting the light enough to be inhuman, nocturnal vision.

“We need to talk,” you wrap your arms around your body. You weren’t angry, just confused. Didn’t he know he could just come talk to you about it by now?  

Keith looks up, startled, then stands. “Alright.” He sounds resigned, a man sentenced to detention for a month which was janitorial duties at the garrison. It kept even the most smartass cadets humble.

You look around.

No one was really here. You could hear the music and people a bit further into the heart of the camp. Here was good enough.

“I talked to Acxa,” you start, “she said-” you look down at the trampled vegetation underfoot. It was embarrassing to your human preconceptions to even think, let alone say, which was why you were pretty sure Keith didn’t mean any harm. Scenting meant nothing on earth, where he’d grown up. “She said you’ve been scenting me, which like I know but not that way?” You look up at him as realization sets in and he ducks his head, looking away. “Is it true?”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “I-,” he takes a deep breath before ranting, the agitation and months of buried emotions flooding out, “I hate this. I hate that I can hear the conversation outside and smell which direction  Shiro’s in and how much my eyes hurt on the Castle from how bright it is but I don’t-I can’t say anything because I’m already enough of a freak. Before I was just the weird kid but now I’m just a fucking alien freak! There’s always so much going on and I don’t even know what’s next!”

You wait, wondering if there was more.

It was a lot of changes.

You couldn’t understand, there was nothing in your life comparable to your biology deciding to be a little more Galra after twenty years.

“And I tried not to-,” he admits, meeting your waiting gaze, “I tried to leave everyone alone so you wouldn’t,” Keith swallows, forcing himself to continue with an obvious disgust at himself, “you wouldn’t smell like me or whatever Lotor explained but I couldn’t-it was driving me crazy like this itch, this buzzing under my skull and seeing you guys with others-I thought I was going crazy until Lotor explained. And then when Lance would ruffle my hair or you would check that I wasn’t about to fall over and die and-,” he waves his hands in the air, “I would just zone out.”

“Oh,” you utter, recalling past events with a newfound understanding. Keith had been reaching out, all instinct even when he was trying not to be a bother. It broke your heart, how he always came from the perspective that he was an inconvenience.

“I did know,” he says in a small voice. “That-you…but I don’t know if it’s me or this, or all these things happening to me.”

Your expression wobbles. You bite your lower lip, trying to get a handle on it. How silly to worry about a crush when Keith was going through it.

“I like you, but I don’t know if I like you or if it’s just these stupid Galra instincts messing with my head.” Keith deflates, drawing into himself. “Everything

s…it’s been a lot.”

“I get it,” you utter, “maybe not the situation but I’m not mad. Though Acxa was ready to kick your ass and she totally could,” you try teasing.

But Keith flinches, looking away guiltily.

“I’m joking. I-I get why. It makes sense. It’s a lot to get used to.” You swallow, not sure what to do about anything either.

“Its a huge offence,” Keith utters, “that’s why she was pissed. Made worse because you can’t even tell…I-I couldn’t think straight and I…it took the edge off.”

“Scenting me?”

He nods.

You take a step towards him.

“I-,” Keith’s eyes meet yours, his attention entirely captivated by you. It sends a thrill down your spine. You’d seen how he could be when laser focused: on piloting, on training. “I know they say it’s wrong but you and Lance do stuff like that all the time. And I thought…I figured I could figure out how much of what I’m feeling is me and how much of it are these new instincts.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” you tell him. “I-you’re right, it’s whatever to me. Like, a Blade congratulated me earlier which was weird but fuck them you know? I can ‘smile and nod’,” you smile as fakely as possible to show what you mean, “through it so long as you’re okay.” He’d bled in your lap.

Keith looks a little unsteady, unsure what to do with your lack of anger. “You don’t-”

“So is it like galra marriage then?” You were curious as to what exactly the Blades were going to gossip about you and Keith.

He makes a choked sound. “Sort of. They bond. It can be broken but that generally means someone killed the other.”

“Let me guess,” you reply, “Zarkon fucked even that up.”

Keith nods.

“That guy’s the worst.” Your voice is light.

Keith snorts, smiling for a split second. “I won’t anymore. I’ll-”

“Keith,” your voice cracks as you out your hand on his arm to keep him from rubbing off, “if its really causing you all this additional confusion in too of everything…you can…” the words were too intimate to say, too charged with a sensuality that he clearly was figuring out. You were willing to wait. For him.

He was conflicted enough without you dumping your feelings on him.

“You don’t-”

You raise your hand, caressing the side of his face with the back of your hand, ghosting over the purple mark on his cheek, “I don’t mind.” Sure, you had a crush on him, you could admit that much, but more simply, you loved him.

This was a small ask.

Your gaze flickers to the tips of his ears.

You had washed his blood off your hands.

“Besides, shit’s hard enough. My arm falling asleep is a small price to pay if I can help you.”

Keith’s mouth quirks up in a smile.

You laugh, “come here.”

It finally sinks in that you weren’t just talking bs. You meant it, as you hug Keith, wrapping your arms around his middle. He smelled good in spite of the battle he’d been through earlier.

Without really thinking, you breathe in the scent of him.

Keith hugs you back, cuddling you against his chest, resting his chin on your shoulder.

You yawn. “want to sneak back into the castle?”

“Only if you tell Allura you’re the one who wanted to leave,” he deadpans dazedly.

You laugh.

——————

“Come,” Allura motions as you stand from one of the Castle’s weapons systems, “we must meet with the rebel leadership on planet.”

The planet was a farming camp.

The slaves were overworked and underfed and they had still revolted when they learned Voltron was near. Now, they were free.

“Princess,” Coran calls out, “it appears that number four is heading back to the ship.”

A pained expression crosses Allura’s broad features, her full mouth frowning, before she decides to pick her battles for the day. “I am sure Keith has a good reason for his actions.” She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself.

You don’t want to go down there either.

This entire last week had been spent synthesizing medicine and treating thousands of people made harder by the range of species. The garrison better give you that medical degree immediately.

“I’ll go check on him,” you say automatically, “he might need me to prep a pod.”

“Fantastic idea number five,” Coran believes your excuse.

“Let us know if anything happens,” Allura says, giving you a long look, before heading for the exit.

The central Galra soldiers had been taken out, but small bands of fighters were still fighting to their last breath. It’s why Voltron has remained on the planet.

The lions had roamed the landscape answering calls for aid and hunting down the last of Zarkon’s forces here.

You meet Keith in the red lion’s hanger.

He’s popping his helmet off, running a hand through his flattened hair. “I thought you were headed out with Allura?”

You shrug, suddenly feeling awkward. “I was, but I wanted to check on you first.” That was a normal thing to do for your friends. There was no reason to overthink things.

“I’m fine.”

He sets the helmet aside, working on undoing the armor off. There was dirt and dust but thankfully no blood to speak of, his or otherwise.

“Then I’ll see you there,” you ask.

Keith looks over, a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar, his smile slight when he replies, “I’m not heading there.” Blunt. Concise.

“It is depressing,” you admit. There was so much resource allocation and need planet-wide.

He raises a brow. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Keith?” Now you’re wondering what the real problem was. “What is it?”

“Does it matter. I don’t need to be there. Shiro and Allura can handle it.” He looks away, suddenly very interested in the wall. Unlike the rest of the ship, the red lion’s hanger was dim, in a permanent night cycle.

Pidge’s work.

“I think the people would like all of Voltron present.” Then you make a face, “oh god, I sound just like Allura don’t I?”

Keith laughs, “just a bit. As long as you don’t make us all meditate…”

“It’s so boring. I fall asleep.” You smile softly, “Seriously, go down for a moment. Then you can hide out here.”

“I-I’d rather not.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Four out of five is is fine.”

“I’m sure they’ll understand,” you agree.

“I’m sure they’ll be glad.”

“Keith-” you start, knowing he already felt hyper aware of how his appearance had changed. Before, it hadn’t really ever come up outside of the team. No one would tell and if Keith wasn’t vocal about it…now everyone in the entire universe probably knew.

There were rebel Galra, mostly in prisons and work camps. Feelings varied.

“That’s not true,” you say, not sure if it was true, “you helped free them.” You shift your weight onto your other foot, “there’s a few assholes everywhere.”

He gives you a long look. “The Galra enslaved all these people.”

“Pfft,” you wave off, “you look like one sixteenth Galra. And-”

“They stare.”

“Because you’re a paladin,” you reason. “Pidge is also cranky about the attention.”

Keith sighs.

The paladin armor lies in a discarded pile.

You step forward to him, “anyone would be lucky to have you as a pilot. And Voltron sort of lucked out when the red lion chose you.”

Keith’s eyes widen as he looks at you, pink dusting his cheeks.

In for a penny, in for a pound, you lean forward and kiss his cheek, ghosting over his skin, “face marks and all.” You can’t meet his gaze when you pull away, blushing fiercely.

Why did you do that!

God, you were so dumb-

He cups your cheeks and brushes his lips over yours.

Oh! Oh.

“Is-is this okay-,” Keith starts asking.

You feel giddy, smiling before kissing him. Yeah, it was okay.

[blackberrysummerblog]

WIP Folder Tag Game

Finally slinking back on here after I don’t know how long 😬 First of all, I want to thank everyone who’s been tagging me the past few weeks, I really do appreciate it! I just haven’t had a lot of energy left over to actually do much writing and/or posting, even though I still have a lot of “writing” happening in my head. (On a side note, that used to work out a lot better when I was younger—I could hold entire paragraphs verbatim in my mind for weeks at a time; now I’m lucky if I even remember roughly what direction I wanted a scene to take, lol).

And thank you so, so much to those who offered to let me bend their ear about my writing difficulties. I really do plan to take you up on it, but I’ve been procrastinating partly out of brutal shyness and partly because I’m not even sure where to begin, the reasons for which may become apparent from seeing the folders I’m about to share. I mean, yikes.

Anyway, I’m excited to play along and I’m happy to answer any asks I get! (Thanks @palimpsessed for tagging me to play!)

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how nondescriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! Then tag as many people as you have WIPS.

Shelter from the Storm (RWRB)

Runaway Train (Whyborne & Griffin)

The next group are Snowbaz WIPS, many of which were begun for COC22. Still hoping to get them finished! (Those that are numbered are out of order because I use google docs, so the list is in order of what’s been most recently opened)

Beginnings

Fluff, COCC Day 15

Devotion, COC22 Day 13

Devour, COC22 Day 12

EGF23 dead darlings

So, crap. The next grouping is my shame revealed, lol. I NEVER write like this, but this is what has happened: My crucible marriage AU is a complete and utter shambles of separate files, all individual scenes that I’ve been trusting my brain to knit together at some future point. And I still believe that it will, actually, but it’s something new to me. I’m more the kind of writer who envisions an entire story from start to finish—or at least the basic bones of it—and then I sit down and proceed in a chronological and orderly fashion. I have a couple of theories about why that hasn’t happened this time, and it largely boils down to self-indulgence. I’m enjoying myself, I don’t want to bring the story to an end, and I have been keeping the scenes separate so that rather than one big mess of a file, I have one big mess of a drive. Welcome to my cluttered mind! It can be a pretty fun place, if you watch where you step.

Too much

Kiss

Moles

Murder in My Heart

Fireside

Pool

Rolling

Heading Home After Crucible

First wings

Vera

Sick in love

Wings

Reception

Favorite

Fiona in kitchen

Simon at the start

Mordelia asks

Epilogue

Post-reception

Fiona reception

Winchester

Clothes shopping

Eyebrow

Lying on B

Good night

Tree carving

So much fun

Butter

Angel of the morning

LSE

Carry upstairs

Laughing

Escape

Before reception

Cold sleep

Annulment

Do you think

Signing the book

Reception garden

Coven

Alphabet

Love of my life

Spring equinox 2017

Arranged

Spring equinox

Simon before crucible

I want to say, these are not all going to be *chapters*. The fic is going to be long, but not as long as all that! I could say more but maybe I’ll wait and see if anyone is interested enough to ask, since this post is already way too rambling. I don’t think I could possibly tag as many people as there are files here, and I think everyone has already played anyway, so as usual I’m going to apologize ahead of tagging folks who have likely already done this. Sorry ❤️

@confused-bi-queer @onepintobean @sillyunicorn @facewithoutheart @basiltonbutliketheherb @asocialpessimist @ileadacharmedlife @bookish-bogwitch @aristocratic-otter @takenabackbytuesdays @martsonmars @nightimedreamersghost @ionlydrinkhotwater @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @shrekgogurt @raenestee @fatalfangirl @stitchyqueer @bazzybelle @fucking-gay-frogs @mostlymaudlin @sailorblossoms @yellowraincoat @ivelovedhimthroughworse @hushed-chorus @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @thehoneyedhufflepuff @anikamercat @aceumbrellaheroes @captain-aralias

[middleearthpixie]

Wanted Man ~ Chapter Fourteen

Summary: A price on his head, Loki of Asgard finds himself stranded on Earth and in need of one woman's help in order to free himself from the bounty and try to reclaim what he sees as his rightful throne in Asgard.

McKenna Carlin just wanted to put a horrible day behind her. She had no idea that things would get worse before they get better…

Pairings:  Loki Laufeyson x ofc McKenna Carlin

Characters: McKenna, Loki, Shannon, Thor, Coulson

Warnings: None

Rating: T

Word Count: 2.6k

Tag List: @fizzyxcustard @court-jobi @guardianofrivendell @piggledy-higgledy @evenstaredits

If you’d like to be added (or removed) to the tag list, please just let me know!

Previous chapters can be found here! 

Loki stood frozen, staring in wide-eyed fury as McKenna disappeared in a burst of colored light. At his feet lay two dead Chitauri and beside him, Shannon screamed, “What the fuck?” at the top of her lungs. Again.

“No. You come back here!” Loki shouted at the sky, firing jets of blue-white light from his hands to knock two more Chitauri from the sky. They slammed into their brethren, bones shattering, blood spattering, but it wasn’t enough. There were too many of them. 

One of the Chitauri must have survived the fall, for it lifted its head and its weapon, but Loki whipped about, and blasted the beast into oblivion. When he looked up, the Chitauri were gone.

McKenna was gone.

He dropped to his knees, barely feeling the jar rattling through him. He wanted to throw up. How could he be so stupid? How could he so foolishly risk putting her in danger?

Breakfast came up. Violently.

“Oh, God, that is rank,” Shannon choked behind him. “Here.”

He shoved away the bottle of Coke she held under his nose. “Get away from me.”

As he rose, he saw the other B&B patrons running out, saw the horror in their eyes when they realized the god Loki stood before them in his warrior’s clothing. He didn’t care. Nothing mattered now, but hunting the Chitauri down and killing them all.

“Someone call S.H.I.E.L.D.!” someone yelled.

Shannon whirled about. “Shut up! None of you are in any danger. Right, Loki?” She cast a glance at him and waited a beat. “Right?”

No. Everyone around him was in danger. He hadn’t felt a rage this powerful since the night of Frigga’s death. He’d failed to protect her. He’d failed to protect McKenna.

He failed.

McKenna’s phone lay on the ground, the screen cracked but otherwise intact. He swiped it up and glared at it as if it had personally insulted him. A flick of his fingers and the crack vanished, but he didn't know how to work it.

“What do I do to reach son of Coul?”

Her forehead furrowed. “Who?”

“Son of Coul. Little man. Always in a suit. He works for S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Son of Coul. Right.” She took the phone from him and swiped to bring up the keypad. “Uh… you wouldn’t happen to know his number off the top of your head, would you?”

His temper growing more difficult to quash, he clenched his jaw until it hurt and gritted, “Why would I have his number?”

“I—I don’t know. I’ll just… Google it. You can find anything with Google, right?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Her hands shook but she swiped across the screen and then began typing and a moment later, held out the phone. “I found it. It’s ringing.”

“Tell him to meet me here.”

He didn't wait for her to respond, but spun about to stalk across the parking lot, shoving several people out of his way as they snapped pictures of him with their phones. One guy shoved back, and Loki whirled around to snatch the phone from his grasp. As the guy sputtered with indignation, Loki crushed the phone right in front of him, letting the shattered pieces bounce across the parking lot before resuming his stride without saying a word.

He hit the beach, sand shifting beneath his feet, and as he walked, he shed his Asgardian clothing for his Midgardian ones, as leather was far too hot for the beach in the middle of summer. The sand was warm beneath him as he sank into it and stared out over the water. So calm. If only he could feel that calm again. Everything inside him churned like an angry sea. The Chitauri would pay for taking McKenna and there wasn’t a force on Earth or any other realm that would help them if they harmed her in any way. He would make certain of that.

“You wanted to talk, Loki?” Agent Coulson’s voice was at his right side and Loki twisted to see the man in the black suit sitting beside him. “I’m listening.”

“I need your help,” Loki replied, turning back to the water. “I need my brother.”

“And why should I help you?”

“Because McKenna Carlin is an innocent in all this.”

“I’m listening.”

Loki drew in a deep breath and turned back to Coulson. “I know you have no use for me and I understand that. At the moment, I have very little use for me as well. But know this, I had no intention of repeating my mistake. I made a bargain with a devil, and now McKenna is paying for my mistakes.”

“The Tesseract? Thor told us about your bargain with the Chitauri.”

Loki rubbed his forehead with one hand. His head pounded worse than it had after he’d tangled with the Hulk at the top of Stark Tower. He felt sick. Still, he drew in a deep breath and said, “They’ve upped the ante now and have taken McKenna. Without Thor’s help, I will not be able to get to her. If I call for Heimdall to open the Bifrost, Odin will see me in chains and imprisoned before I’d have the chance to blink.”

“She means something to you?”

Loki met his stare easily, nodding as Coulson removed his sunglasses and promptly squinted at the brightness. With a bob of his head, Loki replied, “She does, yes.”

Coulson’s eyes widened, despite the glare bouncing off the ocean. “Really? That wasn’t really what I expected you to say.”

“Nor did I expect it. But there you have it. She is. I will willingly trade my life for hers. Bring Thor here and I will surrender to him when this is over and McKenna is safely back here.”

“I will try to get a hold of him, but you know I can’t promise anything,” Coulson replied slowly, slipping his sunglasses back into place. “He may not be willing to help you.”

“He will. I helped him when he needed it. He owes me, if nothing else.”

“Very well. How can I reach you?”

Shannon knelt behind Loki, holding McKenna's cell phone. “I removed the lock off it. Kenna told me her passcode a long time ago.” She gave Coulson the number and handed the phone to Loki.

Coulson got to his feet. “I’ll call you when I hear. And Loki?”

Loki looked up. “Yes?”

“Don’t do anything foolish.”

“Of course.”

The sand squeaked as Coulson made his way back and Loki let out a low sigh, burying his face in his hands for a moment before he also stood. He felt as if he’d aged a thousand years. Pent-up nervous energy coursed through him, fury mingling with helplessness to create even more fury. “She said something didn’t seem right this morning.”

“She gets weird feelings all the time. No one really listens to her about them.” Shannon moved to stand beside him, looking out over the water. “You and I are pretty much the only ones.”

He glanced over at her. The left side of her face was bruised beneath her eye and there was a jagged cut along her jaw that was beginning to scab over. “What happened?” He gestured to his own jaw.

“I think I was too close to Kenna and one of those… things… got me.” Tears glimmered in her dark eyes as she looked up at him. “Please tell me she is going to be okay. Tell me they aren’t going to hurt her.”

“She will be. Thor will come. He won’t be happy about it, but he will. If nothing else, she is a Midgardian and this is his realm. And he does owe me. I wasn't lying about that.”

“This is your fault, you know.”

“I know. Trust me, I’m well aware that it is.”

Shannon punched him then. Hauled off and punched him in the jaw with enough force to knock his head back. “You did this and you better fix it. Because if you don’t, I’ll—”

This time, he caught her fist as she made to hit him again. “Because you’ll what? What are you doing to do to me?”

“She’s my best friend.” Her façade crumbled and the tears spilled down her cheeks. “And if something happens to her…”

He caught her as she collapsed into him. “She’ll be all right, Shannon. I promise.” 

He held her until she finished crying and as she pulled away, she swiped at her eyes. “She loves you, you know. She won’t say it, but she does. She loves too easily and usually the wrong guys so you better prove yourself worthy of that, because she’s not going to be hurt by you. Not like she was by Joe.”

“I know.”

“Good.” She punched him in the arm this time. “She’s a good person. She should be treated like a queen. And no one ever treats her that way.”

“If I promise you I’ll treat her like a queen, will you stop hitting me?”

“Yes.”

“Then I promise I will.”

The phone on the sand rang and Loki just stared at it while Shannon rolled her eyes and answered it. “Hello?”

She held the phone out. “It’s Coulson.”

Loki took the phone. “Yes?”

“It’s Agent Coulson. Your brother has agreed to a meeting, but won’t say whether or not he’ll help you.”

“Where?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. We’ve set up base down the boardwalk, next to where the local police operate. Think you can find it?”

Loki offered up a long look. “I think I can manage to, yes.”

“Good. Get here as soon as you can.”

Loki handed the phone to Shannon, who carefully switched it off and asked, “Well?”

“The stand where son of Coul blasted me. You remember how to get there?”

She nodded. “Come on.”

He followed her to the silver Jetta and folded himself into the passenger seat, which was uncomfortably close to the dashboard. With a sigh, Shannon leaned over and he initially stiffened up, but then she reached down and the seat slid back. 

“Thank you,” he said.

She smiled. “You’re welcome.”

The drive back to Point Pleasant seemed to take much longer than before, and by the time they were walking up to the small, unimposing construction trailer, Loki was ready to jump out of his skin.

Thunder rumbled overhead. Lightning split the sky. And for the first time in a long time, Loki didn’t jump at the sound.

“Damn,” Shannon whistled as Thor strode toward them, both his red cape and his golden hair flowing in the breeze.

Loki held his gaze as Thor approached, looking none too friendly. “I didn’t believe son of Coul when he told me. You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Can we discuss that later?” Loki asked, walking past his brother to the trailer. “I’ve more urgent matters in need of my attention.”

“He told me. A woman?” Thor grinned, much to Loki's irritation. “My brother? Worried over a woman? And a Midgardian woman, no less.” 

“I mean it, I’m not in a gaming mood.”

Thor followed him inside. “I’m shocked. What is she to you?”

Loki glared at him. “Everything, Thor. She is… she has… She is important.” 

That stopped Thor in his tracks and he arched one brow. “Important?”

But Loki didn’t pause. “Yes. And the more time you waste demanding an explanation, or to mock me, the lesser the chance of my finding her in time. If she dies, I take no responsibility for my fury.”

That took the rest of the wind from Thor's sails and he said, “You must be desperate, if you’re asking me for help.”

“It seems to me I said those same words not too long ago.” 

“I will help you, but then—” 

“I will not go back into the dungeons, Thor. Not now.”

“We will discuss it later—” Thor peered back at Shannon, who was following them down the hall. “Who is this?”

“Shannon. She is McKenna's friend.”

“McKenna?” Thor looked at him and arched one golden brow.

“Don’t even tease me about her now, Thor. I’m in no mood.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know. The Chitauri took her.”

Thor whistled. “You’ve made powerful enemies, Loki.”

“I know. And you have no idea how much I wish otherwise.”

“Father believes you to be dead. I saw you die, on the plains of Svartalfheim. I held you as you died. How is it you’re here?”

“Because you saw what I wished you to see, not what was there. As you can see now, I’m here and alive and well. Now, can we?” They turned the corner into Coulson’s office. Loki turned to his brother. “If you don’t mind?”

“Of course. So, what did you have in mind?”

“I need to get to Asgard. Heimdall will be able to see her. Then, when I know where she is, I’ll go in and get her, and destroy them all.”

“Alone?”

Loki faced Thor. “I won’t need any help.”

“You will.” Thor leaned against Coulson’s desk. “But, how do we get into Asgard without the entire guard landing on us?”

“Because I will not be going as me.” Loki stood up, and with a twitch of his fingers, he said, “I can go as one of your new friends.”

Thor shook his head. “Tony Stark? Not a wise choice. You could never fool anyone into thinking you’re him.”

“Fine. How about this?”

“Hawkeye? No.” Thor grinned. “Why not the Hulk?”

A muscle in Loki's back twinged at the thought. “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”

“Sorry.”

“How about the Captain?” Loki waved his hand and then winced. “Still a bit tight, but I think I can manage.”

“And it has a mask.”

“I can change my appearance at will, remember.”

“I know. But Father knows you. Heimdall knows you. Wear the mask and take no chances.”

“I’m already not taking chances, Thor. I just want her back.”

Thor nodded, all traces of joking gone. “I’ve never seen this side of you, Loki. It baffles me a little. You’ve never lost your heart before.”

“I’ve never even risked it before,” Loki told him. “And now I know why. If something happens to her…”

“It won’t.” Thor assured him. “Come. I’ll have Heimdall open the Bifrost.”

“And what about me? Should I just wait here?” Shannon asked from the doorway.

“Go home and take care of Cinder,” Loki replied. At Thor's puzzled look, he explained, “McKenna's cat.”

“A cat?”

“Don’t laugh. It’s a nice cat.”

Shannon didn’t look happy about his suggestion, but said, “Will you let me know?”

“You can wait here, Miss Hathaway,” Coulson said as he strode into the room. “We will be in touch with you, Thor.”

Thor nodded. “I’ll be in touch.” He looked over at Coulson. “I’ll let you know if we need help.”

Loki drew himself up to his full height, which was about half a foot taller than Coulson. “I’ll need no help.”

“Just in case,” Coulson told him. “It can’t hurt.”

Loki just bobbed his head and continued on his way. He wasn’t interested in repairing destroyed bridges. Not right now. 

As they walked, Loki wiggled his fingers and became Captain America again. “We aren’t going to be bumping into him any time soon, are we? Because that might become a bit—ah—awkward.”

“No. We won’t. I don’t know where he is, but he won’t be seeking entry into Asgard.”

“Good. Although, I would like to know how he walks in this.” Loki gave a surreptitious tug at the inseam. “It pinches.”

“Enough. You’re going to have people staring at you.”

“Won’t they already? And does he honestly carry this shield everywhere?” 

“Loki.”

“Right, right. I’ll stop.” Loki's rising spirits dimmed as he refocused on his task. He had to find McKenna, had to make certain no harm came to her. 

But first, they had to get into Asgard.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

airLock anon:

its ready

Rancher Y/n HC’s but with them as the OG slimes :000

YANCY,  Crystal Slime 

Feels bad every time he pricks their hand with the crystal

Probably on the island then followed y/n home because he started feeling alone in the huge crystal cave home

Bby boy must be babied. Says he doesn’t need that, wants it and needs it direly

PSPSPSPSPSPSPSPS, here he comes-

All slimes respond to PSPSPSPSPS, it works best on him tho because he loves his rancher so much!!

Haha nobody dares try and take him from his rancher- haha

They died- crystals EVERYWHERE- 

You better give him a pat on the back and say good job 

Or I will 

I will either way <3

Wilford Warfsache PINK SLIME 

“you- pspsps at me??” “I pspsps at you >:)” 

Pspsps battles <3

Jumps in your arms as a slime and turns humanoid while your holding him because you told him you wouldn’t carry him as a human.

Actually one of the cleanest ones, doesn’t leave much slime around your house. 

Unless you scrub him- then you have to clean your bath too-

Cleans it with you! Even tho he just walks off mid way to eat something he’s not supposed too-

Has tried to eat both Yancy’s plorts and parts of Dark. Why? Pure pink instinct.

Squishy- in all forms. 

Like no bones, just squish. <3

He ate a squeaker and when y/n squished him they jumped so far they thought they hurt him :(

Dark the Tarr

humans? No,

Slimes? No

Humanoid Slimes? ABSOLUTELY NOT

He threw a chicken because it pecked your foot- 

Guard DogTM 

Y’know tug-o-war? 

Imagine that between Dark and Yancy and y/n’s being yanked around BAHAHAHAH

Please get him a ball. He says he doesn’t want one. 

He does. He’s jealous of your tabby slimes but won’t say anything 

Or else he’s just gonna start carrying y/n around

Murdock Hunter Slimes

pouncy boy 

He tackled you while Dark was off somewhere. 

Dark got back probably from arguing with Yancy- 

And he sees y/n scratching under his chin while he sits in their lap. 

Dark had a fit :(

Saw dark and bolted with y/n, like “AHH! TARR!” And y/n’s like “Tarr?! Wait no. THATS MY TARR!” 

Paused and was like. “You- you tamed a Tarr? AND LIVED?!” 

Yeah uh- everyone thinks he’s just a random Tarr till y/n screams “STOP! That’s MY Tarr!” 

Pls call him sweetheart. He’ll melt. 

Or baby, or honey, or sweet, or sugar or munchkin, or pumpkin, or flower, or- you get my point 

Actor Mosaic Slime.

dark hated the desert. 

Y/n loves it.

You found Actor surrounded by very mean rock slimes. And saved him! Much to dark’s complaining saying “WHY CAN’T YOU LEAVE SLIMES ALONE?!” 

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” Y/n always hummed back holding the poor mosaic slime

Dark hated Actor with or without WKM lore. He always took his rancher’s attention at the worst times!

About to snuggle? ACTOR BURSTS IN COMPLAINING

Talking? Actor has to cling to their leg.

Big baby TM

Sits in y/n’s lap especially to piss off the tarr that can’t hurt him with rancher right there. 

And he likes the attention

Google Glitch Slime

vic let you keep him since he was running towards y/n in spite of him 

Also uh yeah- he comes in a squad- haha 

Dark’s looking at y/n like “you serious?” While y/n’s covered in slimes that are terrified of him. 

“Yes” 

One of many but has and will hold y/n and curse out dark for “trying to eat their precious rancher” 

Dark only wanted a kiss :( ya’ll play nice 

No such thing as personal space. 

And very outspoken

Sass? He is the sass queen. Y/n hot him a crown with it saying “drama queen”

And boy does he wear it with pride

Host Phosphor Slime [or as I say PHEO SLIMES!!!!]

Dark was asleep. Y/n was bored 

Y/n was walking around and saw host trying to teach himself how to read human languages! 

Upside down-

So y/n just plopped themself down careful of the gooey wings and taught him how to read. As soon as the sun starting rising. 

Mistake no.1 

They handed him a parasol and walked off so he could be safe from the sun.

Mistake No. 2

He followed you home for STRIKE 3

You fed him squareberries, and offered a place to stay while the sun’s out. Woops 

Now you have a permanent guest 

The Porniplire Brothers A rock slime herd

None of y/n’s gooey bodyguards where there- [Yancy, Murdock, Dark, Host,- there’s a lot]

And the herd thought that y/n was pretty cute and or handsome for a human. 

So like in every manga with a inhuman herem- 

They turned humanoid and surrounded y/n-

They passed out, by they I mean y/n. 

Y/n couldn’t take it- and i quote. “Their so fine!” 

Y’know how doberman dogs are? Super scary looking but very cute and lovin? 

Them. All of them. Minus date, date is the only one who didn’t surround them and took them back to their ranch instead of the rock cavern 

His brothers call him the “Lame one.” 

Y/n thinks he’s charming!

I love these. Every. Single. One

For the P0rnipliers I now have a hc that y/n first met the Lifeguard (Larry) after they accidentally fell into the slime sea and he saved them as they fell unconscious.

Then they wake up and find all these rock slimes---only to pass out as they turn humanoid

[words-are-fireproof]

Bendice Las Estrellas (Ribbons Part I) - Marcus Moreno x OFC!Keilah

*gif by @pascalsky

Summary: Marcus' life couldn't get any more out of control...could it?

Rating: T

Content: fighting, mild cursing, mentions of aging, not so soft Marcus, also, super soft Marcus, mild mentions of death/dead spouse, really bad Google translate Spanish (I'm sure), umm... this is super duper mild? I'm not a smutty writer. 🫣

A/N: Let this be a warning: this has only been self edited. I do not have a beta. All errors will be eventually, and stealthily, fixed.

Word count: 2.9k

Masterlist || Part Two

------

“Again,” the trainer barked in the noisy gym at the Heroics headquarters. 

Again, again, again. 

Marcus Moreno hated the word. He hated how many times he’d heard it over the years, over and over and over until each utterance of the word grated on his nerves. Or maybe it grated on his nerves because everything else currently was as well. The sounds of the gym wormed their way into his ears, clawing and scraping there until he felt a dull, low throbbing pulse at the base of his skull. He palmed his neck but the pressure lingered, intensified even. He found the whole training nonsense pointless. The kids handled more and more missions ever since the “takeover,” but ever since that day, he trained harder and longer than ever. 

He blamed the idea that he was “getting old” and the young trainer seemed to echo that thought. He couldn’t blame the kid, though. He was older. Every day Missy reminded him of that fact, and not only Missy, but Guppy, Miracle Man–or Aaron as he asked people to start calling him–and other heroics who liked to point to his graying hair, softer features, and glasses and say “you’re not getting any younger.” Thanks for that, he always thought bitterly as they sauntered away from him to attend meetings and briefings and whatnot. Sometimes he even playfully volleyed those words to Missy, but never did so bitterly. It amused him when Missy said it. Everyone else, not so much. 

Maybe he needed to teach Missy a few more manners, but his wife had always been better at that. Not Marcus. Marcus befriended Missy. He didn’t parent Missy. She parented him which, yes, made him feel older than he cared to admit. It made him feel a lot of things, not all of them good. 

“Hey, Earth to Marcus,” a voice cut through the thoughts as he stood there, blades in his hand. 

He whipped around to face in the direction of the voice, his blade slicing through the air and stopping mere centimeters in front of Aaron’s jugular. The other man’s Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed thickly. 

“Hey, man. Good to see your reflexes still work.” 

Marcus grumbled, relaxing his stance and lowering his abilities so he could easily slip his katanas back into their sheathes at his back. 

Another thing he hated: training in his suit. 

“Don’t you know not to sneak up on me like that?” 

Aaron held up his hands in mock surrender. “Didn’t know you’d almost take off my head.” 

“If I wanted to take off your head, you wouldn’t be standing here.” 

“Touche.” 

A brief silence enveloped the pair. 

Talking to Aaron pushed him closer to the edge. It didn’t help as the trainer decided to start yelling things at him. He really needed to talk to the new head of headquarters about this guy. Marcus didn’t even know his name. He simply knew him as “the trainer.” Maybe that was his codename. Great. All he needed was another heroic annoying him. But this was more than annoying. This was…plain old petty, unnecessary meanness for the sake of getting a rise out of him. 

Kind of like the blonde watching him. 

He began sparring with the intention of ignoring Aaron–Missy would be so disappointed with him–but the supe had another plan. 

“So,” the other man crossed his arms over his chest. “Missy has you training, I see.” 

The statement felt like a jab. It landed like a jab at his age, at his skills, at everything. He really needed a day off. His bones ached with the heaviness of responsibility; he felt it in every move he made, every punch he threw. It made it hard to control his powers, his katanas rattling in their sheathes.  

“I have to train, unlike some of us.” 

He easily took down a holographic sentinel, the lights exploding into fake sparks as it disappeared and another took its place. This time, he took out his katanas–if only to stop them from rattling–the fake blade sparking as it met his real ones. 

“I train.” 

“You run your mouth,” Marcus snapped, driving his blade through the sentinel. Two more popped up. 

“Someone’s in a bad mood.” 

In one fell swoop, he took down the new sentinels with a well placed slice of his blades. He straightened. 

“And someone is making it worse.” 

“Good to know that we still don’t like each other.” 

“Yet somehow, we work well together.” 

“Shocking,” Aaron deadpanned dryly. 

His shoulders drooped with a heavy sigh, a palm running over his neck again. “What do you need, Aaron?” He asked tiredly. 

“I was just wondering if you’d seen the new analyst.” 

A Spanish curse flew from his lips before he could stop it. “You’re really over here talking to me about a new analyst? Don’t you have a girlfriend?” 

“I wouldn’t classify her as a girlfriend.” 

“Well, however you class it,” He began another sparring match as he spoke, his words coming out in staccato puffs of breath as he fought, “I’d rather not talk about it or the new person. People aren’t objects, Aaron.” 

Marcus grimaced, immediately picturing Aaron with a woman and doing all sorts of things with her. Not to say he hadn’t when Missy was at his mother’s house for the weekend, but at least those times were few and far between. Not only that, he didn’t brag about it. Maybe the woman who wasn’t his girlfriend liked the arrangement. He figured she did just because Aaron was famous. That wouldn’t be the first time and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. That reason alone was the reason he didn’t date much. 

“You just say that because you’ve never been the most popular heroic.” 

“No, and I like it that way. I was married. Let’s not complicate it.” 

He ignored Aaron again, or tried to, as he went another round, the sentinels coming slower, the trainer beginning to wind down their session. Gratitude flooded through Marcus when he realized it. He wanted to be done and finished and in his office, taking a shower, letting the warm water soothe away his aches and pains. 

“I’m just saying, it’s been eleven years. It’s time for you to go out and enjoy yourself.” 

He stood up and shot a glare over at Miracle Guy. “I enjoy myself.” 

A sentinel caught him unaware, clocking him in the jaw and making him stumble backward. He pulled his blades and finished off the exercise quickly and efficiently. When he finished, he stood there, katana’s pulled and ready to attack, glaring at the trainer, daring him to start another round. But the trainer shook his head, obviously a little scared of the swordsman in front of him. Deep down, Marcus hated the fear he saw in the trainer’s eyes, but he did nothing to rectify it. That was another story for another time. 

He sheathed his katanas again and grabbed his gym bag. “I enjoy myself,” he asserted. “I don’t need anyone to enjoy myself. I have Missy. She’s enough.” 

“I have Wheels, but I still have a girlfriend.” 

“And a mistress, if I’m hearing right.” 

Aaron’s blue eyes narrowed. “No, just a… girl who is a friend with benefits.” 

Marcus wrinkled his nose. “Again, I didn't need to know that.” 

“Hey, whatever man. We all have our vices.”

“Some more than others.” 

He stalked away from the other man, carding a hand through his sweat curled brown hair, finally able to remove himself from the situation. Gracias a las estrellas. He needed to leave, his emotions fraying at the seams and he couldn’t even pinpoint why. Sure, he could blame Miracle Guy, but he knew that wasn’t the full story. 

He just didn’t want to face it. 

He stepped halfway through the door of the gym, head down when he collided with a soft body in front of him. His eyes flicked up, heart hammering in his chest when his gaze locked on the woman before she stooped down to gather a couple of things she’d dropped on the floor. He hastily crouched down, in part to help, in part to get a better look at the woman. Marcus knew most everyone who worked at HQ, but not her. She must’ve been the new analyst Aaron had just talked to him about. 

“I’m sorry. I should’ve paid more attention to where I was going.” 

Her soft black hair fell in front of her face, eyes obscured by the dark strands as nimble fingers grabbed quickly at her things. He didn’t even have time to react, despite his reflexes–as Aaron commented on. For some reason, it surprised him. His mind immediately wandered. Was she a heroic? If she was, why wasn’t she on the team? How old was she? Did she know anybody in the office? Had Aaron sunk his perfectly white, capped teeth into her already? Hopefully not. 

Marcus didn’t know how long he crouched there in front of her until his mind caught up with and processed the situation. There were words supposed to be said, formalities to be made. A brief, bitter thought flitted through his mind: first Aaron now the new girl. Who else wants to bother me today? 

But the woman in front of him didn’t answer. Odd. He quickly spotted the earbuds in her ears and understood. Like him, she didn’t want to be bothered. Well, then. That could be arranged. He did manage to grab one final thing that had skittered farther than her reach, something metal which made him smile. He called to it, sending the object sliding quickly toward him. That must have piqued her interest, her dark eyes raising to lock with his. 

He swallowed thickly. Damn. 

She held out her hand to him in expectation of the object which he promptly handed over, their fingers bushing briefly. His breath caught in his chest. 

“I’m sorry,” he managed again. 

The woman’s brows furrowed and she shook her head, tucking a piece of that beautiful black hair behind her tanned ear. Don’t react. Don’t react. Dios Mio. She didn’t say a word. Instead, she shook her head and waved him off, standing once her items were secured. He quickly shot up, reaching for the door to open it for her. She smiled. He couldn’t breathe. But somehow, he smiled back as she disappeared wordlessly into the gym. 

Bendice las estrellas. 

***

Water ribboned down his warm, tawny skin, easing the pain from the sparring matches and overeager trainer; the aches gathered in puddles on the slick white tile floor. Drops of water dripped from the tip of his nose as he took a long breath, inhaling the steam, letting it fill his lungs before he expelled it with a heavy sigh. When did it all get so complicated? Life? Marcus knew it had never been easy, not with his parents being heroics. His childhood filled with the same anxiety he felt rising in his chest as the water began to cool. 

With a flick of his wrist, he turned the shower off, plunging him into the coolness of his office bathroom. He’d been upgraded after the events of the takeover. He fought vehemently against it. He didn’t deserve the promotion. If anything, the one who deserved the promotion was his daughter, but she was content running ops out of the old classroom, the same classroom she discovered her leadership skills in. It worked for her. Who was he to deny her that? 

He pressed his forehead against the tile, closing his eyes for a moment of peace, but peace never came. Instead, his mind filled with the image of the new analyst, her dark hair draped over her shoulders. Her eyes–the color of toffee, shining amber in the LED lights of the hallway–bore into his soul, picking him apart from the inside out. Ánimo, cabron. Another sigh issued from his lips. From the depths of his mind came a soft voice, the voice of his wife, jolting him to his senses, making the anxiety creep dangerously higher into his throat. His metal razor danced in his shower caddy. 

Marcus gingerly stepped from the shower, raking his hand through his wet hair before toweling it and his skin dry. He threw on his glasses, the world around him became sharper, but his brain still fought against the warring feelings and memories clawing to the surface. 

His heart pounded. 

He had just enough time to throw on some clothes–to hell with a tie today–before Missy came sauntering into his office, dressed in “leave me alone” and black tactical pants. He chuckled to himself when he caught sight of a pair of blue converse peeking out from those tactical pants. 

“Hey, Dad.” 

She draped herself over an armchair near his desk, her legs dangling off the arm of it. The thing almost swallowed her whole. He hated that chair. A misguided gift from Miracle Man and Wheels when they saw he’d been “promoted.” Missy was the only one who used the thing. For some inexplicable reason, she thought it the most comfortable thing in his office. He knew exactly where she got it from. 

“Hey, hija. Have you been busy today?” 

Laura. 

The name–just like her voice before–rises unbidden in his throat and his mind. 

He chokes on it; his brown eyes stinging with unshed tears he doesn’t dare spill today, especially in front of Missy. He can’t remember the last time he felt this raw. It rubs at him in all the wrong ways–the conversation with Aaron, the trainer, that new analyst. Even now, her beautiful red lips and dark hair fill his mind. The image almost–almost–drowns out the memories, but even as it tries, it feels all wrong. Bitterness taints it. He can taste it as he swallows, shaking his head a bit to banish all thought, focusing on Missy. 

“Not really. Unless you count wrangling Guppy as being busy.” 

That makes him laugh outloud, ignoring the way it sounded foreign as he did. “I’d say it counts.” 

“I’ll trade ya any day.” 

“But then you’d have to deal with Aaron.” 

She shrugged. “Aaron is easy compared to Guppy on a bad day.” 

“We all have bad days,” Marcus murmured gently. “Go easy on her. It’s hard for her when her parents are out on assignment.” 

A groan tore itself from her lips, her head falling back onto the plush arm of the chair. “When do they get back?” 

“Monday.” 

She sat back up. “Can you talk to her?” 

He shook his head. “I have enough to deal with. Besides, this is part of being the leader of the team. You have to learn when to push and when to pull back. She’ll cool down and training won’t be a disaster.” 

Her eyes narrowed, quiet for a moment, before she said, “Are you just saying this to get me out of the office?” 

The question feels like it comes out of left field, but he knows better. “What do you mean?” 

“You can’t fool me, Dad. I know you’re wanting to kick me out.” 

“I do not. What makes you say that?” 

“You seem distracted,” Missy said with a wrinkle of her nose, playful, but being entirely serious. “That and you usually jump at the chance to talk to Guppy. I know she’s your favorite,” she teased.

“My second favorite, hija. You’re my favorite.” 

She laughed, the sound loosening the tension in his shoulders. He felt like he could breathe again. He knew at the back of his mind, though, that the feeling wouldn’t last. She’d go back to the classroom to try to calm Guppy and the emotions would all come back to him. They’d find him like they always did. He couldn’t hide from them. Some days were easy. Others had him wanting to hide away, find a corner of the gym after everyone had gone home and beat his fists bloody on a punching bag. Maybe Missy wouldn’t mind going over to his mother’s that night. They’d been talking about going to the movies after work. Maybe she could stay the night, give him a chance to no longer hide. 

“Yeah, okay. I know I’m your favorite.” 

He forced a chuckle. Her eyes narrowed again, despite the silliness of their conversation. “Good. And don’t you forget it.” 

She held her hands up in surrender. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Dad.” Missy extricated herself from the oversized armchair and skipped behind his desk to wrap her arms around his neck from behind. “Love you.” She paused. “Are you sure you can’t come talk to Guppy for me?” 

He turned his head to kiss her cheek. “Nope. Not today. You need to figure it out yourself. I have total faith in you.” 

She huffed, sliding from him. “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He barely managed to hold back his relief at those words. “Are you going to the movies with mama?” 

“Yeah. There’s some superhero movie playing. You know, you’d think she’d be tired of the whole superhero thing, but she loves it.” 

“That’s your abuelita. She likes that stuff.” 

“She likes to point out what’s wrong with how they do things, too.” 

This time, the laugh that issued from his lips was genuine. “Yes, she does.” 

Missy kissed his cheek with a bright smile, and, without even saying goodbye, skipped through the door of his office and disappeared into the hallway. He leaned back in his office chair, skimming his hands over his cheeks and the patchy beard growing there. He wondered how many people would notice if he didn’t go home that night. Or how many people would notice him not coming in in the morning. Aaron, maybe. Anita, definitely. He blew out a long breath, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. 

He’d take his chances. 

----

Thank you, @radiowallet for expressing interest in this little fic. Hopefully it'll live up to your expectation.

[waitingforwinterwinds]

A Clash of Kings - 38 ARYA VIII (pages 494-502)

Arya continues to adapt to life at Harrenhal, touches base with Gendry, and gives Jaqen her second name.

-

Weese never imagined she could read, though, so he never bothered to seal the messages he gave her. (...) One was a demand for payment on a gambling debt, but the knight she gave it to couldn't read. (...) When she gave the horn to Weese, he told her that a smart Weasle like her deserved a reward.

I'm curious, does Weese know now that she can read, or did he assume the knight could read, and is assuming he basically told 'Weasle' what was in the note, or does he not care how it happened since he basically still got payment?

Arya's being smart though, getting on Weese's good side even if she does hate his guts.

"Last night Hot Pie asked me if I heard you yell Winterfell back at the holdfast, when we were all fighting on the wall." "I never did!" "Yes you did. I heard you too." "Everyone was yelling stuff," Arya said defensively. "Hot Pie yelled hot pie. He must have yelled it a hundred times." "It's what you yelled that matters. I told Hot Pie he should clean the wax out of his ears, that all you yelled was Go to hell! If he asks you, you better say the same."

Gendry's a good guy, a real decent wingman... when he's not getting everyone captured. Quick thinking though.

and good thing they have a concept of hell that's still called hell and not something like spabbiboobla. Though given they're in the south which is rife with the Faith iirc they typically say hells, as a plural... I wonder if the seven hells are basically Dante's inferno?

Maybe I'm not a water dancer yet, but I'm not a mouse either. A mouse couldn't use a sword but I can.

It's good to see her confidence rebuilding, as long as it doesn't over grow her caution and ability. There's a difference between confidence and arrogance, one of them gets you killed.

... oh good, she's thinking things through. That's the sucky but necessary part of planning, asking 'what can go wrong and how wrong can it go?'

OI! Don't slap Arya, you piece of trash! Ah darn, brownie points lost. I shouldn't have expected them to last, Weese is a canon fodder villain, fickle, shitty and useless.

Oh good, he's finally going to achieve his true final form... as fertilizer. All natural Blood & Bone~

- and a wing of the capon that Weese had spoken of that morning.

...Hang on, wing? lemme google something. Oooooohhhh, capon is a gelded rooster. I have literally never heard of that before, it sounded kinda like capers though, which look like peppercorns, so in my head I was expecting some kind of stuffed capsicum, (bell peppers) I think.

Whatever was going on upstairs I was not prepared for bird. XD

His charger wore a blanket of enameled crimson scales and gilded chinet and chanfron, -

Damn, I know people love to bedazzle their stuff and get insanely attached to their phone chargers but- horse! It's a type of horse! I knew that, I totally remembered that right away.

I'm so stupid, she thought. Weese did not matter, no more than Chiswyck had. These were the men who mattered, the ones she ought to have killed. Last night she could have whispered any of them dead, if only she hadn't been so mad at Weese for hitting her and lying about the capon. Lord Tywin, why didn't I say Lord Tywin?

Okay, let's stop and follow that train of thought for a second, because I know some members of the fandom have brought this very thing up as an "hey you had an easy win but fumbled the ball" kind of thing, so let's say Arya did name one of these men. Lord Tywin even.

... sorry, bit of a ramble, I 'tldr'd my opinion at the bottom.

And let's say Jaqen didn't wait until Tywin's army was out the gates and underway.

The Lord in charge of the entire army is killed within the walls of their stronghold.

Do you know what likely happens next? Regardless of whether or not it looks like an accident? The kind of investigation that involves flagrant disregard for people's rights and proves once again that Westeros doesn't even have a Geneva, because what are the chances that Lord Tywin dies by misadventure while they're at war? Sus AF.

So they're going to want to know who did it, and they aren't going to stop until they're satisfied, whether that's because they've found who they believe to be the culprit or they've quenched their blood thirst.

Arya could get away with Weese and Chiswyck because they "don't matter" no one with enough power to make someone pay for it is going to care about those two, but Tywin? They'd be lucky if anyone survived that given the kind of pro-torture-slaughter-and-rape attitude the army has, even without the chance to wrap that kind of depravity in the guise of justice.

and okay, maybe Jaqen does wait until Tywin has left. Maybe we get lucky and the army tears itself apart looking for answers, but Tywin has a replacement in Kevan to lead the army, and the Mountain and his ilk are happy to hare off and pillage the countryside. And there are a lot of his ilk. Jaqen owes her three.

He either kills three, and it doesn't change much, or he kills three and dozens scatter to the winds to harry the smallfolk as before but with no leash to call them off (not that there was much of one to begin with.)

TLDR: As much as it sucks, and as much as it looks like it should have been an easy cheat, GRRM likes terrible consequences, and I don't think anything that looks that easy and good, would have come without a terrible price. I think Arya made the best choice with her names that she could.